Obama on the Ropes

If President Obama loses this election, it will be for one reason: He did not heed my advice

Three years ago, I wrote a five page speech and sent it, along with a cover letter, by certified mail to the president at Pennsylvania Ave. In a nutshell, I told him to step out of his comfort zone - the urban areas, the college campuses - and go small town. The speech was entitled "Small-town, USA." It detailed a rural strategy that would weave this nation closer together and ensure his re-election in one fell swoop.

I went on to say:  "You have already won the cities and universities. They will not leave your side. Now go where the people do not know you; go where they do not expect you to come. And when you get there, give them the words they long to hear. Tell them:  "This nation needs you." For each small town you visit, a hundred will be touched.

He did not do it. Instead, President Obama consistently went for the cities, the campuses, and the fancy talk shows - The View, David Letterman, The Daily Show. If not there, you were likely to find him in New York or San Francisco at some swanky fundraiser. Why? Because it was easier for him in those places. They are like "Cheers." (Everybody knows his name.) Once there, all he needed to do was give them that smile, and "strut his stuff."

One person made aware of my speech said, "No president does the small towns anymore." All the more reason for Obama to have done it. Whether he promised it or not, this country - this electorate - imagined Obama to be a transcendent figure, one who would stand above the stale models that have stifled our enthusiasm for politics and left half of us too jaded to vote.

Add to that:  Mr. Obama has counted on the specter of fear to be his surrogate campaigner, to do the heavy lifting - to hover above the Hispanic and African-American communities, to haunt the gays, the unions, and female voters. He figured the thought of Romney and the Republicans would spur them in droves to storm the voting booths. All Obama would have to do is "look good", and his re-election would be assured. "Looking good" is easy. "Being good," is harder; it takes more work.

If Obama loses this election, he will have failed - not because he was a bad president; he was not - but because he did not try hard enough to be his best.

Halloween Sunset

There before your golden ember

I could easily remember

Ghoulish-faced trick-or-treaters dancing

Behind great bags and hopes a'prancing

On the eve of stark November.

Pumpkins sodden as they were

Original reasons now a blur

With faces carved in frightful laughter

Down from under the harvest gathered

To strew the way with garish mirth.

Yet there in Mama's kitchen stands 

A cook who's baking pies by hand

No trick could muscle such a treat

Of Golden brown and spicy sweet

She's made it known her pumpkin's plans.

And long October's night in walking

Toward a town were bravely stalking

Three autumn youth forsook the rest

In hopes their bounty would be the best

The fear of silence would stoke the talking.

Afar a howl is suddenly heard

Against the other's limbs they gird

A rustle, scratch, and frantic beat

That trips the other's toes to feet

It's just the owl - October's bird.

A raucous laughter surely followed

The afore-felt stomach swiftly swallowed

By visions of werewolves suddenly loosed

And fresh wolf bane and slashing tooth

Three tales of stardom now drilled hollow.

So, what? The booty's now in reach

The jack-o-lantern beckons each

You ring the bell, I'll knock instead

We'll gorge on cookies and ginger bread

And cider to quench the thirst we've breached.

Then wearily trudging home at last

Tomorrow's feast a school day's fast

And lunch will be an afterthought

Of jelly beans and juggernuts

And specters in the looking glass.

The kamikaze truckers wheel

At home the dealers freedom steal

Adrift in circa '86'

The bogeyman now needs a fix

Dear Halloween has gotten a chill.

The apple, once a student's lark

Its exciting crunch vitality's mark

Now cyanide and strychnine laced

Razors mar the waxen faee

A terrible hoax does grace the dark.

And children look about in fear

Unknown to them the witching year

For Easter eggs are now unsafe

And devilment has Christmas' place

An aging baby now appears.

And like a prodigal, lonesome member

Lost among the thickened timber

Days like dinosaurs ruined and buried

Tomorrow's goblin now miscarried

I'm drawn so to your dying ember.

The Afghan Elephant

For all of our efforts in Afghanistan - the monies spent, the young lives lost - in the end, we will have accomplished very little. Afghanistan careens toward its own inexorable destiny with or without us along for the ride. That is all we do, you know: we are being taken for a ride.

Every nation seeks its own destiny, consciously or unconsciously  We cannot change that about Afghanistan; we can only interfere. Certainly, we can influence the course of a nation - for better or for worse - but that influence is equivalent to how a drought, or a flood, or an epidemic might affect a nation's arc. It is temporary - perhaps tangential - but nonetheless, single element in the otherwise unpredictability of peoples. No nation knows where it will be 100 years from now, including the U.S.  Each nation will be affected by natural and man-made disasters, by great and terrible citizens of its own, by time. 

Afghanistan is like a large elephant; our soldiers are like fleas on its back. They will make little difference in that elephant's course. Many will be thrown and end up with broken arms and legs; many more will be crushed. 

In the end, America's politicians - the president, et al - will call our boys home. And they will begin a dangerous dismount, even as that elephant continues his jaunt across the Afghan plains. (He will not stop.) Still more young Americans will die while getting off. 

Afghanistan's elephant has been running for a thousand years. America's elephant has been running for half as long; it runs a lot faster. It could be that the Afghan elephant will run for another thousand years. He may be running even after America's elephant has died. 

Scared to Death

At 51 years of age, the actor, Michael Clark Duncan, cleared his refrigerator of $5,000 worth of meat and became a vegetarian. Three years later, he is dead at 54. Pass the ribs.

I do not mean to make light of Mr. Duncan's death. He was a good actor, and from all accounts, a good man. But only a joyful meat-eater would have had $5,000 worth of meat in his fridge. What or who could have scared him so that he would suddenly go cold turkey, and then go over the cliff?

We all die. But do we all live? Fear is not living, folks. Fear is hanging onto a life that you are afraid to live.

To have lived a long life does not mean you have lived a good life. In some cases, it only means that you have held on tighter; you didn't let go. But, it is that zeal to hold onto life that never allows us both hands to grab in life what truly matters.

Let go, man. Life does not love you; neither does death hate you. (They are both indifferent.) Embrace in life that which gets your juices flowing. Grab with both hands that which makes you feel alive.

Since MCD loved meat so, would it have been so bad to enjoy a morsel - a steak here, a hamburger there, a slice of bacon - in moderation? What does a long life profit a man when it is filled with fear and deprivation?

In this world, there is a doctor for, and against, everything. You like ribs? Somewhere, there is a doctor who will cheer you on. You like chocolates? I will be your doctor-for-a-day and order you to have a chocolate-covered cherry, now!

Mostly, I would say, "Be happy." It is no sin. Happiness is the gift of gifts. It is not meant to be had daily, and all day. But, at certain moments - when you've earned it - it is that thing that elicits a life-affirming "yes."

Simply Murder

Obama killed Osama. He assassinated pirates on the high seas. He killed the American terrorist, Anwar Al-Awlaki, with a precision strike in Yemen. Then, he killed the son, 21-year-old Al-Awlaki, Jr. He is bombing people in Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, (and God only knows what other sovereign nations.) He affirms his commander-in-chief bonifides on a regular basis, while building a firewall against any claims from the Republican right that he is weak on defense. He shows he knows how to kill.

Now the president has authorized clandestine military operations against Assad regime in Syria - so says CNN. (How do they announce the beginning of "clandestine operations" on national T.V.?) Well, those "operations" are not "clandestine" any longer.  

Add to that:  Israel has pushed Obama to the brink of war with the sovereign nation of Iran. Apparently, we are offended that Iran would dare to presume that it could have a couple of those (nuclear) weapons of which American, who has thousands, is so proud. For that Obama would start a war?

Memo to the president:  Mr. Obama, you can kill every bad guy on Earth and the Republicans will still vote against you in November. (They don't like you.) More importantly, though you have cowed the Democratic legislators, our Democratic base - women, college students, et al - are disillusioned. They do not like your killing ways; they just don't.

And you still haven't answered for those nine young boys you killed with a Hellfire missile as they gathered wood for their mothers on the outskirts of that Afghan village. That was simply murder.

The Americans who fired the missile - on your orders - say they though those children were militants. "Oops" is not an answer.

Don't Come Home Without Your Brother

Barack Obama wrote a book, "Dreams from My Father" (1995). It became a best seller. He went on to become president of the most powerful nation on Earth. Still, I wonder that his father, Barack Obama, Sr., might not be disappointed.

Besides a son that is living in the White House, Mr Obama, Sr. has a son, George, who lives in a thatched hut in Kenya. From all accounts, George has never been to the United States, much less visited his brother on Pennsylvania Avenue. This is as much a shortcoming on Michelle's as Barack's. After all, men have been know to lack in social graces. Where Barack has come up short, should not Michelle have said to him, "We need to have George over for dinner?"

When asked about this, George said, "My brother (Barack) has many responsibilities. He is trying to take care of the world. In that way, he is taking care of me, too." Sounds like a decent, well-spoken man to me. Who wouldn't invite such a brother into his home?

When we were young, my parents would issue this warning as we left out of the door:  "Don't come home without your brother."

I have not read "Dream from My Father", but I imagine Mr. Obama, Sr.'s dreams are similar to my father's. Those dreams start with the family - always - and that is where they return.

Barack Obama, for all his achievements seems to lose sight of the notion that the dreams of his father are likely the dreams of everyman:  That his children look out for one another; that his son be his brother's keeper.

Inviting Bad Karma onto the World Stage

"…never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." - John Donne

The U.S., in the person of President Obama, is urging nations worldwide to cease all trade with Iran, including the purchase of Iran oil, lest the U.S. punish those nations that persist.

Have we gone mad? There is a global epidemic of failing economies; everyone is at risk. (And we seek purposefully to reduce a nation of people to kindling and heap them upon that fire.)

The world of nations is one body - each member is a finger, an arm, a leg. We hope (out of self-preservation) that Greece survives. Though Greece is just a toe - a small tone, at that - an infection there could cause the entire body to become sick.

Iran, on the other hand, is bigger than a toe. Because it is a large country, and one of the top oil producers on Earth, it is more like half a foot. Yet, the U.S. would sever that part based upon this political imperative: Iran continues to enrich uranium.

It is a false imperative. The U.S. enriches uranium every day - so does Israel, China, Russia, and many others. Besides, according to the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty), Iran has a legal right to enrich uranium. It is a right Israel refuses to acknowledge, hence the falsity of the U.S. position The U.S., nonetheless, forges ahead in its twisted desire to wreck the Iranian economy. Apparently, it is reaping results.

Recently, a U.S. newspaper columnist - a Mr. Kristof - appeared on CNN's "Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer. He had previously spent weeks traveling in Iran. With a smile, he told Blitzer, "It looks like the sanctions are working. The Iranian people are struggling; factories are closing." Wolf Blitzer, too, appeared pleased.

What is wrong with us? How does an American journalist travel to a foreign land, speak about how kind the locals treated him - taking him into their homes, feeding him, serving him tea - and then return to the U.S. and gloat about the insidious affect our sanctions are having on their lives.

Ascendant nations are built upon trade. Even the most successful nation on Earth - the U.S. - is ever seeking new trade alliances. The loss of one trading partner can spell doom to distinct sectors of a nation's economy. That is why governors - beyond anything the U.S. Commerce Department does - seek out international trade agreements on their own to address local economies within their states.

We are all affected by trade; we should all be sensitive to the impact the severing of trade agreements can have on poor families around the world. For any nation - let alone, the self-proclaimed "Leader of the Free World" - to purposefully destroy the livelihoods of innocent men and women, and with that, all chance they have of feeding their children - and then gloat - is despicable.