Tag: the rant

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: Ivonne Wierink | dreamstime.com

Wow. Ground Control finally got through to

Major Tim, and I have come down a little bit from the feeling of being

on a different planet since the election. That one was something else. I don’t remember

ever just beginning to sob in the middle of a non-sobbing sentence over a presidential win. But I did it. America, I

apologize for most of the bad things I’ve said about you and for not having 100 percent faith that we would pull this off. I guess I was too scared to think that we would finally do something right after all these long, long years of having Thing in office. And I haven’t analyzed one iota of any of it. No state-by-state looking back. No questioning President Obama’s cabinet selections. (Editors: Please don’t change that to “President-elect.” Just let me start saying it now.) No wondering whether Hillary will be a good secretary of state. No wondering why most of his picks are Beltway veterans. I don’t care. He got elected. A black man in the United States got elected to the office of the presidency. And he didn’t get elected because he is black — or at least that’s my opinion. He got elected because he is smart and likable. That certainly changes the course of history for the country.

But President Obama (there, I wrote it again; I’m going to love this), as everyone knows, also inherited one of the biggest messes in American history, and it’s now up to all of us to do what we can to make things better. So I have a few tips on the economy that I hope will be helpful. It’s an outsider’s perspective, since I don’t even know how the stock market works other than it goes up and down faster than Paris Hilton on that “leaked” video.

1) Shut down the credit card companies altogether. These companies are the most evil, greedy part of the American corporate world. They will do anything to see to it that you have a credit card, and then they will do anything to see to it that you are permanently screwed for having it. Start by making it a law that no one under 30 can have a credit card and that everyone over 50 gets a statement in really big type so they can read the little line that says if you are one day late on a payment your interest rate jumps by 30 percent and the late charge is roughly half of your monthly salary. In fact, you might want to imprison the CEOs of these companies and have stacks of credit card offers delivered to their cell every day. Then they would know how half of the people in the country feel in their own homes.

2) Allow gay marriage. For heaven’s sake, let these people spend some money on a wedding and help stimulate the economy. For whatever reason, gay people (especially lesbians!) know how to make and save money. Just walk into a gay man’s house and look around. There’s expensive shit in there. Throw pillows that cost a fortune. Sculptures and stuff like that. Don’t you think that if they were allowed to get married their weddings would fuel the economy like wildfire? Think of the Champagne industry. Think of the extra jobs that would be created in the catering businesses.

3) Give me a million dollars. I swear, if the government gave me a million dollars, I would donate at least a quarter of it to charity (because I would have to offset the taxes I would owe!) and I would live for the rest of my life on the rest. I am not greedy. I don’t need the $40 million package the average bank CEO gets when he or she finally bankrupts their company. Just a measly million. A third pair of pants would be nice. I could replace the missing window in my middle bedroom where the tree is now growing inside, and I could find out what’s been vibrating so loudly in my car engine since June 2006.

4) Manufacture and sell Sarah Palin dartboards for the masses. Round up all the homeless people in the country, get them in some housing, and set up an assembly line to make these dartboards bearing the image of the moose murderer and sell them at a reasonable profit. Yes, make Sarah Palin useful but please don’t let Google know about it. For a while there, the Google news page had her name as one of its hot topics on that little list every single day. Now it’s finally started to go away.

So there. That’s just a few simple things to help get us out of the financial black hole President Bush and company got us into. Oh, I know it wasn’t just him and his cronies. And yes, he will be back at the ranch soon, doddering around and asking Laura if he can get a tattoo of a beagle chasing a rabbit up his ass now that he’s retired. But, President Obama, if you need any help with any of this, you let me know. I’m a wiz when it comes to finances.

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

In Florida, awhile back, Senator John McCain said, “I’m sorry to tell you, my friends, but there will be other wars.”

Who’s supposed to fight in these wars? Not our current military, which is stretched to the limit. Not me or my generation; we’re still busy fighting over the Vietnam War and the domestic cultural shifts that arose because of that bloody conflict. We’ve been doing that for 40 years now, partly because of the disrespect directed toward the soldiers who were sacrificed by the “Greatest Generation” for dubious causes and because of the fight over what determines “patriotism” when you find your country is engaged in an immoral conflict. American participation in Vietnam ended in 1973 but not before 58,000 men, average age 19, perished.

The terrible costs of Vietnam were never resolved at home. We decided it was better not to talk about such unpleasantness and went on a decade-long disco and cocaine bender instead.

I swore that when I grew older, I would never say, “When I was your age …” to a young person. But I will anyway. When I was your age, we were at war. A despised president put us there. Then an attractive candidate emerged who was adored by the young. He was a champion of the destitute and the downtrodden. Bobby Kennedy promised to end the war and bring our soldiers home in order to concentrate on the growing domestic unrest exploding in every major city. The similarities between 1968 and 2008 are striking, with two exceptions: 1) The draft was feeding my peers who weren’t able to take refuge in college into a meat grinder; 2) the voting age was 21. Despite being only 20, I had been drafted and was emotionally invested in Kennedy’s candidacy. You can imagine how crushed we were when he was murdered in Los Angeles.

Deeply dispirited, my generation chose to withdraw from politics, ensuring the election of Richard Nixon, five more years of war, and 20,000 more dead American soldiers.

There are a lot of “what ifs” in this life. Young people voting in large numbers then could have literally saved lives. My generation, which once believed we were going to transform the world, blew it — big-time. Nixon’s bag of “dirty tricks” soon turned people cynical about their government, and “wedge politics” were used for the first time — and they worked. We have been divided ever since. You can help change that now, if you remember two things: Assume nothing — this race is far from over — and do not discount the importance of your actions. Go to the polls as if your single vote were going to determine the outcome and bring a friend with you.

You’ve seen the best and the worst of my generation. We gave you Bill Clinton, a brilliant policy thinker and communicator who couldn’t keep his pecker in his pants. Then we gave you George W. Bush, a moral absolutist and former drunk who took this country to war because his Nixon-worshipping neocon staff convinced him that it was the Lord’s will. To paraphrase JFK, it’s time to pass the damn torch already. We have lived too long with prejudices that the young have never had to experience, and it clouds our thinking. Can you imagine that I never sat in a classroom with a non-white person until college? We desperately need to alter our nation’s course, but I wonder if the young are aware of the potential political clout that they possess. Being too young to vote in 1968 — when my ass was personally on the line — changed me. I am one of the laziest men walking (it took me 28 years to complete my bachelor’s degree), but I have never missed voting in a single election since. Now, it’s your future that’s at stake.

It’s this simple: If young people come out in numbers and vote, Obama will win. If they don’t, he won’t. And history is not on your side. Young people might have saved us from a second Bush term, but registering on campus is not the same as going to the voting booth. In every election since Nixon, young voters have disappointed those candidates who depended on them. Just ask Al Gore. If you don’t know where your polling place is, you can call or Google your local Election Commission. Don’t wear your campaign gear or some zealot will make you turn your T-shirt inside out. And bring an ID and prepare to do battle with those who would challenge your rights. You have the power to decide this election, and if we do it right this time, you also have the ability to recapture a lot of forgotten dreams. If I could, I would come and beg each of you individually — please vote.

Randy Haspel writes a blog, “Born Again Hippies,” where this column first appeared.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

I am going to file a complaint against myself. I’m not

sure how or why or to whom, but I’m going to file one. For some

reason, Sarah “Betchabygollywow” Palin has done this in her home state of Alaska and it’s working fairly well so far at keeping her from having to answer questions in the investigation she is trying to stall

into whether or not she abused her power as governor when she fired public safety commissioner Walt Monegan for not firing her sister’s ex-husband, Alaska state trooper Mike Wooten.

I’ll admit I don’t really understand it completely. Apparently, it has something to do with a legislative investigation versus a state personnel board investigation, and now it appears that Palin might have tampered with her ex-brother-in-law’s worker’s compensation (which was denied after he was in an accident while on duty and hurt his back). A Freedom of Information Act request from the legislative investigators for e-mails from Palin’s personal Yahoo account (which she apparently misused to conduct state business, thereby keeping her actions secret, or so she hoped) was met with an answer from her office: something to the tune of yes, we’ll turn over the e-mails, but it’s going to cost you $88,000 for the paper documents.

Hmmm. What are they using in their printer? Hand-crafted parchment made from near-extinct sheep? Probably. Any action to endanger living things seems to be fine with the Palins. Look at their house. There are more heads on the walls than a wig warehouse. I wonder if they used the same taxidermist for all those animals as they used to stuff John McCain. He looks so lifelike, until he opens his mouth. It’s then obvious that he is really dead and there’s a tape machine installed in him that channels Ronald Reagan.

But I digress and fall into smear tactics. We wouldn’t want that to happen now, would we? I think it’s great that Sarah Pail is trying to deflect her ailin’ and flailin’ about her probably illegal e-mailin’ by assailin’ Barack Obama about something that happened when he was 8 years old and studying reading, writing, and arithmetic without failin’, which I guess is why he is now “elite,” instead of dumbed down like Palin. And the way she prides herself on this knowledge of his “terrorist ties” by reading about it in “my copy of The New York Times” as a way of trying to rebound from her idiotic remark to Katie Couric that reflected the fact that she doesn’t read newspapers is priceless. It’s so contrived and desperate and humiliating, it’s almost charming in a very, very weird way.

But then, everything about her is weird. Just before sitting down to write this, I watched her give a speech in Clearwater, Florida, which has my brain so scrambled that I might be making much less sense here than even Palin does when she non-answers a question. I was not really paying attention to her or what she was saying because I just can’t listen to that voice (I mean, I’m not making fun here; I really can’t hear it without scouring around searching for pills of some sort), but I was mesmerized by her crowd of supporters. If there was one black person in that entire crowd of people, he or she was hiding and doing a great job of it. I mean it. See if any of it is on YouTube yet. Or see if any of her speeches are on there and see if there is one black person anywhere in sight. Do we really want another Great White Hope for any reason in the United States in this century? Of course, it may be that she has very few African-American supporters. Imagine that. Oh. Wait. I forgot. Race is not an issue in this election. Please excuse me. I’d best file an ethics complaint against myself to keep from having to answer any gosh darn questions about that one, ya know? But that is going to take some more research into the trailer-park saga of Sarah Palin’s attack on her ex-brother-in-law. Unless, of course, all of that comes out when her aides and her husband stop breaking the law this week and abide by the subpoenas that were issued to them to comply by answering questions in the investigation. It could be an interesting showdown, but then again, it could have the same outcome as all of the investigations into the administration of their buddy, George W. Bush: more of the same old game of getting away with anything they want. I just hope no polar bears or wolves get killed in the process.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

IOKIYAR.

In Internet circles, that’s the acronym for “It’s OK if you’re a

Republican,” the recurring phenomenon in which Republicans get a pass for

behavior that would doom Democrats.

In the past couple of weeks, there’s been no shortage of IOKIYAR incidents.

Once upon a time, teen pregnancy was bad. “Bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child’s parents, and society,” wrote right-wing leader James Dobson. But that was before one of their own was involved.

With unwed 17-year-old Bristol Palin’s pregnancy suddenly in the news, what had previously been a societal ill became the most wonderful thing in the world. Bristol had “chosen life!” All other teen mothers also “chose life,” of course, but they don’t have the good fortune of being born to the Republican vice-presidential nominee.

Even conservative writer Byron York of the National Review, struck by this blatant example of IOKIYAR, observed, “If the Obamas had a 17-year-old daughter who was unmarried and pregnant by a tough-talking black kid, my guess is that if they all appeared onstage at a Democratic convention and the delegates were cheering wildly, a number of conservatives might be discussing the issue of dysfunctional black families.”

Asked to comment on the situation, the McCain camp responded: “The bottom line is no, we’re not concerned about it. [Bristol] chose life when it came down to it.” Sarah and Todd Palin’s Bristol statement declared, “We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby.”

It was surprising to see Republicans talk the language of “choice,” given they’ve fought so long to deny that choice to other women. Then again, IOKIYAR.

As is community organizing. Ironically, a theme of the recent Republican convention was “service.” In George H.W. Bush’s inaugural speech in 1989, he said, “I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the nation, doing good. We will work hand in hand, encouraging, sometimes leading, sometimes being led, rewarding.”

But apparently, community organizing is okay only if you are a Republican, since convention speeches by Rudy Giuliani, Palin, and others mocked Barack Obama’s work as a community organizer.

Remember, IOKIYAR. Like using sexism as a shield to hide from legitimate political criticism. When Hillary Clinton complained about media sexism during her primary campaign earlier this year, none other than Sarah Palin said, “When I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate, with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism or, you know, maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think that doesn’t do us any good, women in politics, women in general wanting to progress this country.”

“Perceived whining”? IOKIYAR. “The Republican Party will not stand by while Governor Palin is subjected to sexist attacks,” said top GOP surrogate Carly Fiona, in an effort to shield Palin from legitimate criticism of her shocking lack of qualifications for high office.

And what about those qualifications for the office of vice president? When Virginia governor (and former Richmond mayor) Tim Kaine’s name was floated as a potential Democratic vice-presidential pick this summer, top GOP strategist Karl Rove mocked his experience on Face the Nation: “He was mayor of the 105th-largest city in America. … It’s smaller than Chula Vista, California, Aurora, Colorado, Mesa or Gilbert, Arizona, North Las Vegas, or Henderson, Nevada. It’s not a big town.”

Richmond has a population of 200,123. Wasilla, Alaska, had a population of 6,000 during Palin’s mayoral term. Not exactly a big town. But IOKIYAR.

Finally, how many flag pins did McCain and Palin wear during their convention speeches?

None. IOKIYAR.

Markos Moulitsas is founder and publisher of Daily Kos and a columnist at The Hill.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: Bruce Parrott | dreamstime.com

Please bear with me until the large-animal tranquilizer I just took kicks in. It had better hurry up and take effect because if I look at one more newspaper, see one more television news broadcast, or visit one more Web page that chronicles the condition of George W. Bush’s colon, I think I am going to have a nervous breakdown. Yep, it seems like every time I look up I am looking down his, well, uh, I guess there’s no other way to put it, butt. This is even worse than when Dick Cheney had some sort of foot surgery a couple of years ago and the news kept reporting on it and showing his big white flabby feet. Must all of this be a matter of public record? Can the man not have a colonoscopy in private without the world having to know about it? I know that White House “probes” are often controversial, but really, can’t we be spared this one? Surely, there is more to report on than this, like the newly enhanced interrogation program on which Bush just signed off, which probably includes making suspected terrorists read about his colon. (I know if I had to put up with it much longer I would tell all.) I guess it had to make the news because he gave up his presidential power during the roughly (ha ha, I said “roughly”) half-hour surgery. And I’m not sure which is scarier: being barraged with stories about W’s colon or the fact that Dick Cheney had complete control of the country for that length of time. At least, much like the president usually is, Cheney was relaxing at his vacation home during the operation. And, apparently, Bush had a pretty good time during all this as well. Every account reports that he was “in good humor” right after having the tube inserted into his colon, and that shortly afterward he put on a pair of jeans, had breakfast with another man, and then went for a walk with his dog and the man. Sounds like an average day on Fire Island to me. And funny, isn’t it, that his wife Laura wasn’t around for this? She was conveniently away visiting her mother for her birthday. Wife gone, anus probed, breakfast and walk with another man? Wearing jeans and probably his cowboy boots? Dick in charge and relaxing at the beach? Is this the early 1980s all over again? Does this give “Camp” David a whole new meaning? And that genius of geniuses Ann Coulter has the nerve to make remarks about John Edwards? At least he got his wife pregnant more than once. But enough of this. I am just displaying tunnel vision (ha ha, I said “tunnel”). But it does give me hope. If someone was able to get George W. Bush loosened up enough for this, maybe someone can convince him that he needs to resign from his job, take his shingle down from the Oval Office, and head back to his ranch for good and just play cowboy — or play with the cowboys. And for heaven’s sake, start drinking again.

Maybe if someone would give him a DVD of Blazing Saddles and make him watch the scene where all the characters are sitting around the campfire drinking and eating beans and passing gas he would take the idea and run with it. He would be so good at that, and I think people would actually like him. And he needs to be good at something, because he has proven that he’s not so great at what he is doing now. Maybe there would be a different kind of light at the end of the tunnel. But keep the colon healthy, George. Even if it is just for 31 minutes, we do not want the Dick in charge. No ifs, ands, or butts.

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: dreamstime.com | Alexandr Labetskiy

Okay, it is the first Monday morning of this thing called Daylight Savings Time, which means I just lost an hour

of precious sleeping time, and I can’t help but think this has corporate greed writ-ten all over it. I’m not sure exactly how, but I know it must. Why on earth else would it be happening? Somehow,
I get the feeling that people in Texas are responsible for this, and that makes it even worse. To think that my life is being controlled by Texas sends shivers up my spine. Or worse yet, it could be Florida. Well, I am revolting (save it, save it). Or at least I would like to revolt. Whatever happened to the spirit of people revolting? Isn’t that how this country was formed, despite the way it has turned out? Wasn’t that what the American Revolution and the Boston Tea Party were all about? What has happened to everyone? I’m not talking about rioting or burning buildings or any other kind of violence, but why should we sit back and take marching orders from people just because they issue them? I was going to stay out of the Memphis Light, Gas and Water fray, just because it seems like such a mundane thing to complain about at this point and just writing or saying something would do no good, but now it is to the point of either paying my house note or having hot water and lights. Yep, I live on the “edge” of a very nice neighborhood, so, of course, I am being totally screwed like so many other people. So my question is, what would happen if everyone who owes MLGW money just simply didn’t pay it for a couple of months? Would they cut off the power of everyone in the city, save for the chosen few on their list of people not to cut off? Do they have the manpower to cancel the utilities of 800,000 people or thereabouts at one time? At least if they did, we would all be in the dark together and they might rethink their billing process. Oh, and speaking of which, have you noticed how they change the monthly billing date at their leisure? For years, mine was during the third week of the month, after the 15th of the month paycheck. Now it comes before that so they can collect a late fee if it’s not paid until after the 15th. I assume this is the case for some of the rest of you. I, for one, would be willing to join in a citywide revolt and not pay and just let them see what happens. Short of that, I want MLGW to call me and let me know when the meter reader will be on site so I can be there to witness it. I want to know how a 1,500-square-foot house with no dishwasher, one resident who is home only at night, and a thermostat that has never once been set over 62 degrees all winter could possibly generate $500 in power in one month. Are my cats turning on the lights during the daytime while I’m at work? (Well, that wouldn’t really surprise me, since they managed to open a window and tear the screen off of it just to sit three feet away from it wondering how to get back in.) I want an explanation, and I want it now. And while we are at it, the ol’ income tax filing time is right around the corner again. I have never been one of those people who thinks taxes are evil in every way, but if the government is going to take money out of my hard-earned income, why shouldn’t I have some say in how it is spent, like when a donor specifies to which charity his or her money goes and how it is allocated. Is one penny of my income tax going to pay the salary of Dick Cheney? Is it helping pay for all of the FEMA trailers to sit unused while people are still living on the Gulf Coast in tents? Does my income tax help make it possible for Condoleezza Rice to have her helmet hair styled? Does it help fund the debate about whether or not our soldiers must be trained and provided with necessary equipment before being sent into battle in a dangerous war that no one evens knows why we’re in? (I almost fell off of the sofa when I heard that there was actual argument about the proper training and equipment.) Because if the portion of my income Uncle Sam is taking from me is actually helping pay for any of that, then I am going to sue someone. I might just be the first person in the United States to hire a lawyer and sue George Bush and Dick Cheney on the grounds of causing me undue emotional stress for being forced against my will to fund the murder of people. Not to mention Condi’s hair. Talk about a crime against humanity.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: (AP Photo/Don Ryan)

Okay. I have had it with the climbers. They are eating away a piece of my soul. I saw the other day that yet another group of people made the brilliant decision to make the difficult trek up Mount Hood in Oregon in a blinding snowstorm. Maybe it wasn’t snowing when they started their climb. And maybe the

snow wasn’t even predicted. I don’t know. But, damn it, it is WINTER, and it snows in winter, and when you get on that mountain, as we’ve seen in recent months, it can snow, and if you are climbing, you are screwed. But no. This other group made the climb, one of them fell off a cliff, the others got banged up, they almost froze to death, and rescue teams had to spend who knows how much money and manpower to rescue them. Well, they are idiots. And instead of being told that by the media, they were heralded as heroes for surviving, and they spent a great amount of time on television being interviewed about what it was like to be stranded on the mountain in the snow. I wish I had been the one interviewing them so I could have asked them why they were stupid enough to climb the mountain in the snow and why they couldn’t just spend their time sitting in a bar and smoking like normal people. I almost said that to someone from Los Angeles visiting Memphis recently. She asked the age-old obnoxious out-of-towner question in that really whiny, horrible tone of voice: “Where are all the people in Memphis? Why aren’t people out walking everywhere?” I was having to be nice, so I bit my tongue. I really wanted to say, “Shut up! They’re all in bars smoking and eating cheeseburgers like real people. Put your freaking BlackBerry down, get off of your cellphone, and shut up about people not being on the street walking! And they’re not out climbing a mountain in a freaking zero-visibility blizzard! They’re probably at home watching American Idol and wondering why Paula Abdul looks like she spent the show’s season break somewhere in a jungle subsisting on nothing more than plants whose makeup includes some incredibly hallucinogenic properties that haven’t worn off yet. Her inexplicably bad facial work does not really help, either, not to mention that appearance on a television news broadcast out of Seattle during which she appeared to have robbed a pharmacy. Oh, how I wish I had been with her, because she was obviously feeling no pain whatsoever. If so, those bangs of hers would be killing her face. People here are not out walking because they are at home drinking and smoking and watching the latest news on Anna Nicole Smith, so just shut up!” Speaking of which, I have not been following that saga, but I do wonder if they have buried her body yet. And I swear I did look up at the television the other morning and saw a judge-turned-news-analyst and I KNEW HER. Ah, the six degrees of separation or Kevin Bacon — or whatever it is. I hope she doesn’t know George Bush or Dick Cheney, because that would mean I know someone who knows them and that would make me queasy. Is George Bush still even the president? I think, other than mentioning him here, and I don’t know why I am doing that, I have pretty much successfully forgotten all about him. I did catch part of a press conference a few weeks ago, and I do believe that his eyes have gotten even more close together and monkey-like than they were the last time I saw him. And he still crosses them when someone asks him a question he doesn’t want to answer, either because he doesn’t understand it or have an answer or because it’s a question with only one answer and it’s one that’s going to make him appear to be even more stupid than he usually appears. If that is even possible at this point. But who cares anymore? He’s probably on vacation anyway. Maybe he will get off that mountain bike and go climb Mount Hood in a blizzard. One can only dream. In the meantime, I have to go catch the latest on Anna Nicole because I am actually the father of her baby.

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: (AP Photo/Terry Renna, File)

Believe me, I certainly know that sometimes you just have to do what you have to do to get through a situation, even if it’s just making it through a normal day without having a nervous breakdown. I can’t drive over interstate overpasses going certain directions. If I try to drive over the Madison Avenue/I-240 overpass in Midtown heading west, my entire body turns to ice. If I drive over it heading east, I can pretty much make it without massive physiological panic setting in. On certain streets, I have to drive in the left lane. On others, I have to drive in the right lane. For a full year when I started working at Soulsville, U.S.A. and had to drive down Bellevue to get there (Southern Avenue slopes up a little too high at Lamar), I had to call someone on my cell phone — or sometimes just pretend to — to be able to drive under the railroad trestle there, only when heading south. It helped take away the thoughts of the trestle caving in just as my car got underneath it. I watched a video on the news this morning taken from the camera that was attached to the skydiver whose parachute didn’t open. He fell two miles while constantly spinning, and I almost threw up. So I know that people have to do what they have to do to get by, no matter how idiosyncratic. But someone does need to stop beating around the bush and ask the question: What if she had pooped in her pants? Yes, I’m referring Lisa Nowak, the astronaut who drove 900 miles from Houston to Orlando to confront a love rival, wearing an adult diaper to keep her from having to stop for bathroom breaks. I know, I know. Everyone and his sister’s cousin’s babysitter’s uncle has begun to chime in and speculate about what made Nowak (maybe it should be Yes-wack) take such a dramatic measure, but the thing about the diaper really needs to be more fully addressed. Sure, it has been reported that astronauts routinely wear adult diapers during takeoff and landing, something I think we could all have gone without knowing and continued to live full, enriched lives. But I want to know what her thought process really was when she actually made the decision to wear one for this 900-mile trip. Surely, she knew she would have to stop for gasoline on a trip this long. Would a quick bathroom break at Citgo have been such a big deal? I want to know if she really thought this through, because, frankly, this is much weirder than anything Anna Nicole Smith ever did. And I hate to be grotesque, but really: What if she had had to, well, you know, evacuate in her diaper? Would she still have gotten on board that other woman’s plane and pepper-sprayed her, if indeed that was the case? Can you imagine how uncomfortable that would have been? Not only for her but for others on the plane, especially if it had happened, say, 100 or so miles into the trip? And what would her answer have been if someone had asked her why she smelled a little funny? “Oh, depends”? First she is in a rocket circling the continents and now she is driving like a mad woman across several states wearing a protective garment for the incontinent? Again, Anna Nicole, move over. Your life had nothing on this. You have to feel sorry for her kids, forever knowing that Mommy might have needed changing the way they do. Which also begs the question: Did she take extra diapers or just rush out of the house and to Florida with only the one she was wearing? Now, I have never worn an adult diaper (at least, not yet), so I’m not so sure how this all works and how absorbent they are and all of the other sticky (I did NOT write that) details of what happens when you really need one, but at least I feel a tiny bit better about not being able to drive over the Madison Avenue/interstate overpass when driving west. Like I said: Sometimes you just have to “do” what you have to “do” to get by.

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Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

The holiday parties are over, and my liver is taking a much-needed break. As I get older, the parties get more and more formal and the cops are called less and less. I guess we’re growing up. Unfortunately, I am a painfully punctual person. When someone is perpetually late, I interpret it as an attempt to imply that he is more important than me. That’s silly, if you think about it. Time is a finite thing: 7 p.m. is a real, quantifiable thing, not a concept or a theory. And getting there on time is good business.

But promptness is not good for parties. When I get there on time I often catch my friends pouring the cheap $15 vodka into empty $45 Gray Goose bottles. I have no problem with that. If the pretentious snobs who feel they need to drink expensive liquor cannot immediately tell a difference when they are served house brands, then they deserve what they get.

But parties are not just a great way to get rid of your cheap booze; you also get to be with friends. Or at least it used to be that way. Today, it seems, folks are having parties with an agenda. Unfortunately, the more muckety-muck the party, the more showy, well-mannered, and boring it is.

One article of faith among the blue-blooded, done-nothing class is that they will do anything to avoid the truth in polite cocktail conversation. The reason is that the truth is upsetting. It reminds them of the reality that they are so desperately trying to avoid by drinking only with folks like themselves. As an alternative, flattery always seems to work, no matter how obsequious. I was talking to a rich yet homely heiress on New Year’s Eve. You know the type: When you have to look at her, there is no safe place to rest your eyes. A social climber rescued me by coming up and saying how pretty she looked. I used the diversion to excuse myself to the bar.

Which leads to another pointer: If you attend a cocktail party, always have a drink in your hand. On the surface it seems counterintuitive, but if you do not drink at a party, then it is assumed that you must be an alcoholic. So just to quell the rumors that you are a drunk, you really must drink publicly.

Another interesting trend I have noticed as I get older is the escalating number of gay men escorting good-looking, rich, married women to parties and other social occasions. Shades of Will & Grace, absent the laugh lines, unfortunately. But such relationships make all the sense in the world, if you think about it. After 20 years of marriage, most couples have little left to say to each other. The men do not want to discuss hair styles, Brad Pitt, Oprah, gossip, or anything remotely to do with fabrics. If only we husbands could have a gay guy do our cuddling and shopping for us, it would be perfect. Also, from the husband’s point of view, a gay male friend for his wife buys him precious male-bonding time — fishing, hunting, golfing, and drinking — drinking being the common thread that makes all of these activities appealing.

This new dynamic may be one where everyone wins. My wife is always saying that I don’t listen to her, or something like that. (I think she said that, but I am not really sure.) On the other hand, the gay men escorting these women seem to be great listeners. So this is a splendid arrangement: The gay guy gets to dress up and go to nice parties; the woman has a doting friend who actually listens to her and gets genuinely excited about her dress; and the husbands can go do the mindless dumb things that they do, unencumbered by guilt. Win, win, win! The trifecta of an easy transition into the latter years of marriage.

It has gotten so hard to be married that it now often takes three or four interested parties to make it work. But considering the collateral damage that divorce leaves in its wake, we should do whatever it takes.

Ron Hart worked for Goldman Sachs and was appointed to the Tennessee Board of Regents by Lamar Alexander. His e-mail:RevRon10@aol.com.