2009: The Year of Stupid

Everybody who voted for him thought that when President Obama took office in January, the country would get busy fixing all the problems left over from the Bush administration, like ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, improving the depressed economy, reforming health care, and doing something to slow global warming. We optimistically thought that Congress would want to cooperate to achieve these goals. We were wrong. Apparently, the Republicans were pretty satisfied with the status quo and willing to do everything in their power to obstruct progress. To people like me, this was the equivalent of asking your dinner mate to pass the mustard while the runaway train you're on is hurtling toward destruction. Stupid.

And as the year wore on, it just got stupider: "birthers," "deathers," "tea baggers," Sarah Palin and her book tour. It was bad enough that the Republicans in Congress had become the party of "No!", but it was intolerable to see fellow citizens latching on to every stupid idea that came out of the mouths of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and their ilk. Former Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on political talk shows to cement his image as Darth Vader, and Karl Rove refused to shut up despite his persistent irrelevance. At least former President Bush was largely absent from the public sphere, the one thing we could have hoped for that came true.

Stupidity wasn't limited only to politics. Every day the news brought us more: the hoopla over Michael Jackson's death, Carrie Prejean's ignorant sensitivity, Jon and Kate's ugly divorce, the Balloon Boy hoax, the clueless White House party crashers, and Tiger Woods's excessive horndogging. The many celebrities who died this year were lucky they weren't around to see how stupid it could get.

There was an expression in the '70s: "The IQ of the universe is a constant. The population is increasing." Let's hope it's not true.

Happy New Year!

Jazz Aspen Snowmass 2008

Nan and I used to attend the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day weekend music festival every year, but we have missed it the last two years in a row, partly because we live in Grand Junction now and partly because we didn't think the music line-ups have justified the trip.

This past Labor Day weekend, we decided we would attend at least one day of the four-day festival. For us, it was a choice between Bob Dylan and John Fogerty. I had seen Bob Dylan twice before, once with my friend Curt Haensel back in 1986 at Alpine Valley when Bob was touring with Tom Petty and once with Nan at Jazz Aspen Snowmass in 2002 when it was held at the base of Buttermilk Mountain. We had both seen John Fogerty once before when he performed at Jazz Aspen Snowmass in 2005. That was our last Jazz Aspen Snowmass show and it was so good that in the end we decided to see him again instead of Bob.

As we waited for the festival gates to open at 2:00, the clouds that had looked threatening earlier in the day began to drop a steady rain. That's always a potential problem with outdoor concerts, but we were prepared with rain jackets and a waterproof tarp. Our plan was to run to a spot next to the sound tent, close to the stage but not too close, spread the tarp, position our lawn chairs to hold it in place, and then head to the tent-covered bar to stay dry. Luck was with us though, and the rain stopped as soon as we got in.

The first act was Tift Merritt. We didn't know what to expect since we'd never heard of her, but she and her band were terrific. Her voice sounded like a combination of Joni Mitchell and Mary Chapin Carpenter, and she accompanied herself on piano, acoustic guitar and electric guitar. When her set ended, we wandered over to the merchandise tent where Tift was signing copies of her CDs. She was very friendly and chatted with us briefly about what an enthusiastic reception she was receiving in Colorado. We smiled and told her it was because she was so talented and her songs were so heartfelt. Her latest album, Another Country, is still in our car's CD player. Good stuff, especially "Morning Is My Destination" and the title track.

Dwight Yoakam was next. He is a little more cowboy-country than what we regularly listen to, but he played a bunch of classic Buck Owens songs from his new tribute album and put on a great show with his excellent backup band.

Our friends Robin and Dick joined us for John Fogerty's headline act with their son Alex and Dick's cousin, who was visiting from Sweden. I have been a John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival fan since the mid-1960s when my dad started buying their albums. I know all their songs by heart, but I wasn't the only one singing along to classics like "Who'll Stop The Rain?" and "Willie And The Poor Boys." The highlight of the show was a combination of songs off his latest album, Revival: "Long Dark Night" followed by "I Can't Take It No More." Together they form a harsh diatribe against the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. The crowd roared its approval. The show ended after two solid hours with fan favorites "Fortunate Son" and "Proud Mary."

It's always a blast to revisit the music of your youth, especially live in concert. If Jazz Aspen Snowmass keeps bringing in talent like John Fogerty, we'll keep coming back.

Going "Nucular" in Iran?

In a press conference today, President Bush responded to questions about the newly released National Intelligence Estimate on Iran with this: "Iran was dangerous. Iran is dangerous. And Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I think it is very important for the international community to recognize the fact that if Iran were to develop the knowledge that they could transfer to a clandestine program, it would create a danger to the world. And so, I view this report as a warning signal that they had the program, they halted the program. The reason why it's a warning signal is they could restart it."

Instead of letting out a big sigh of relief over the fact that Iran has abandoned its nuclear weapons program, indeed that it had done so more than four years ago, back in 2003, Bush attempted to turn the tables, essentially posturing that he was right all along about the threat from Iran. This is especially alarming given that his administration knew back in August that intelligence estimates on Iran were in the process of being re-evaluated. Still he continued to warn of a potential World War III if America did not maintain its aggressive foreign policy position, leading many Americans to expect that we would soon be bombing Iran.

Now it all seems to be just another of Bush's cheesy political ploys--a power play in the run-up to the 2008 election or a chance to bolster his legacy as the "War President"--remarkably and tragically similar to the fake intelligence that led us into the Iraq quagmire. Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us? I don't think so. This might have worked in the fictional world of George Orwell's 1984, where thanks to "newspeak," black was white, up was down, and left was right, but like the book's Winston character, after our brains stop flopping around in our heads, we realize that this latest gaff is so transparent that any shred of credibility left in this presidency is now completely gone. The legacy? How about "Worst President Ever."

The Descending Spiral

About fifteen years ago on a weekend evening, I was having a drink at the Mother Lode bar in Aspen and talking with an acquaintance who also happened to be sitting there. The conversation had moved in the direction of what people do to eke out an existence in Aspen, which is undoubtedly the most expensive place to live in the United States. For example, I was probably drinking an Absolut on the rocks at that moment, at a per drink cost of about $5.00--and remember that this was fifteen years ago. Tim Cooney, my drinking buddy, was a good example of what it took to survive: he was a ski patrolman on Aspen Mountain during the ski season and a freelance writer the rest of the time. And he lived in a funky adobe house at the top of Original Street, which helped to keep expenses down.

Anyway, it must have been around election time because we were both marveling at one of the local candidates for public office. This guy had moved to town about three years before and landed a job as a dishwasher at one of Aspen's many restaurants. In his spare time, he went through the real estate classes at Colorado Mountain College, our local community college, and became a real estate broker. Now he was running for city council or something. Such ambition was a rarity, we both agreed. Aspen has a reputation as a "meat grinder," a place that chews people up and spits them out at a furious rate. It was much more common to see people fail--sometimes spectacularly, with accompanying articles in the daily newspapers--than it was to see them succeed. For what it's worth, this striver went on to lose his election. Badly.

Now we're talking about the real estate profession and I remark that a friend of mine used to say, "Every yutz with ears has a real estate license." Tim agrees, saying, "Yeah, there are way too many 'dirt pimps' in town." And we start to wonder why that is, other than the obvious lure of ridiculously high commissions on overpriced properties. I propose that real estate is what people do in Aspen when the thing they came here to do originally doesn't work out. Tim embellishes the idea, saying that selling real estate is just another step down on the descending spiral. Ahead of what, I ask. With very little effort, we reach a consensus: ahead of the military, prison and death.

So when Sen. Kerry botched his political joke this week, the one where he wanted Bush's decision to invade Iraq to be the butt of what happens if you aren't smart enough to study hard and do well in school, and instead it came out that ending up serving with the military in Iraq is what happens if you screw up in school, I had to cringe. It's one of those things that everyone knows is true but that nobody ever says out loud. The righteous indignation from Bush and the Republicans was to be expected since they exhibit righteous indignation over everything, including Michael J. Fox's display of Parkinson's Disease symptoms in his political ads for candidates who support stem cell research.

If you had asked anybody from my high school graduation class of 1976 if they planned to pursue a career in the military, they would have laughed at you. Vietnam had just ended, and most of us were just happy to have survived the possibility of being drafted. The only guys who ended up in the military were the guys who didn't have any better options or those whose families had a tradition of military service. My brother Stuart bounced around a few different career paths before ending up in the US Navy in his mid-thirties, hoping to get the training necessary to enter into the intelligence field. Here's a guy with a master's degree who is also a world-class athlete in cross-country ski racing. You'd think the military would put him in officers school. Instead they put him through boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Academy with guys half his age. Now, twelve years later, he's with the Air Force Reserve and still largely underutilized and underappreciated. Stuart says most of the young men he has met in the military are "dead-enders," guys with nothing going for them who believe that going out in a blaze of glory in Iraq would at least give meaning to their lives and make their families proud.

I think it's tragic that a segment of our nation's young people believe death in Iraq is their best option. If that's not a step down on the descending spiral from what you or I would consider everyday life, then I don't know what is.

Victory against the terrorists?

In his speech today in El Paso, President Bush said:

"The whole objective is to achieve a victory against the terrorists. The terrorists have made it very clear that Iraq is the central front on the war on terror. See, they want us to leave before we have achieved our mission. You know why? Because they want a safe haven. They want to be able to plot and plan attacks. This country must never forget the lessons of September 11, 2001. And a victory in Iraq will, uh, deny the terrorists their stated goal."

Despite all intelligence to the contrary, Bush continues his efforts to tie the 9/11 terrorist attacks to Iraq. It's as though he believes that if he has the courage to proclaim it, then it must be true through the authority of his position as president. That might work for the true believers, but a growing majority clearly sees that "the emperor is naked."

Will establishing democracy in Iraq be a victory against the terrorists? I doubt the terrorists think so.

Is Iraq the central front in the war on terror? If it is, it is only because we have made it so by our prolonged occupation.

Would leaving Iraq create a safe haven from which terrorists will be able to plot and plan attacks? The terrorists seem to be capable of plotting and planning attacks, such as the ones since 9/11, in Bali, Spain and England, from whatever location is convenient to them.

The lessons of September 11, 2001 should include paying attention to intelligence in Presidential Daily Briefings indicating that a terrorist attack involving airliners colliding with skyscrapers on US soil is imminent.

Diverting attention away from the possibility of another terrorist attack in the United States, under the guise of fighting terrorism in Iraq, at a cost of over two thousand American lives so far, accomplishes nothing. The problem is not in Iraq, it is here at home.