If everything seems under control,
you're not going fast enough
Mario Andretti
A Worthy Masters' Champion
I have not been one to lecture Tiger Woods on his extramarital indiscretions and his failure to live up to his until then sterling reputation on the course, drawing up to $100M per year for making a living most Americans can only dream of, paying for the privilege for play on weekends or vacation. I think I've only played a round or two since I took a beginners class back in junior high. The last time I played was with a brother and some brothers-in-law. (One of my brothers-in-law had to duck one of my shots. Obviously he wasn't wearing a flag stick cap, or I would have missed him by a mile... I don't recall my score, but I don't think my nephews at the time could count that high yet.) My position on Tiger's affairs is clear: my Christian faith does not allow for sex outside of marriage. Tiger's Buddhist faith is more ambivalent on the issue. I'm sure I've worked with married men whom have cheated on their wives. But I tend to judge people on my own interactions with them, not gossip about their sex lives. I'm sure that many young people, who grew up idolizing him, are disappointed in Tiger's off-the-golf-course behavior. But he hasn't been living his life as a Buddhist monk. I hope for the sake of his wife and children, Tiger is sincere and all this treatment isn't just an elaborate public relations ploy. But I'm going to judge him by primarily how he conducts himself on the golf course.
Unfortunately, Tiger's performance on the course didn't live up to the Buddhist ideals of inner peace and serenity, reportedly frustrated with his performance and occasionally using profane language. (I myself set high personal standards and have a perfectionist streak. But I move on; I play the next shot. For instance, I once submitted an article with almost 500 references. The editor agreed to publish the paper but only if I reduced the number of references in half. I am scrupulous over acknowledging the work of others and did not like the fact that I had to now decide whom to leave out, but the decision was not mine.)
Phil Mickelson stands in sharp contrast. Over the past year, two of the dearest women in his life, wife Amy and then (7 weeks later) mother Mary, were diagnosed with breast cancer. Phil suspended his golf schedule to be with his wife. Amy, who is still undergoing treatment, mostly stayed off the course during the tournament with their 3 children, but came to celebrate his win, and his long, loving embraces of Amy and the kids were heart-warming. His come-from-behind victory, something that Tiger himself has rarely, if ever done, is the stuff of golf legend. Tiger, often aloof during his tournament rounds (he allegedly once told a youngster seeking his autograph, "Not now: I'm working"), contrasted sharply with Phil, whom easily mingled with the galleries and sometimes addressed his golf ball as "honey". Phil came across as a great ambassador for the sport, playing for the sheer love of the game, not unlike the major league baseball player Chicago Cub Ernie Banks, famous for saying "Let's play two (games)!" No one can ever take away Tiger's amazing ability and accomplishments on the golf course, but I know whom I would rather play with if I ever played another round of golf...
Progressive Attempts to Marginalize the Tea Party Movement
The progressives just don't get it. The clarion call for the Tea Party Movement was Rick Santelli's widely replayed rant over the straw that broke the camel's back--the federal government, courtesy of progressives, deciding to pay the mortgages of a chosen few at the expense of taxpayers--taxpayers whom, in a tough economy, struggle to make their own mortgage payments.
Why are the Tea Party participants angry? What do you say about an arrogant Democratic President and Congress which have deliberately avoided to negotiate with Republicans and rammed tax-and-spend legislation and a new health care entitlement without a single Republican vote just weeks after the bluest state in the nation elected its first Republican senator in 40 years, based on stopping the very same health care proposal that the President later signed into law, legislation repeatedly unpopular (and continues to be unpopular) in national polls? The American people are angry; they are being ignored. The Democrats, in the middle of a fragile recovery, are continuing to tax and spend their way into structural trillion dollar deficits, unprecedented meddling in the private sector, and an unsustainable federal government at the expense of future generations, no matter what the townhalls or polls say.
The liberals think their distress is misdirected--they should be after "greedy" bankers, Wall Street, whatever. How many times do we need to rerun Obama's disingenuous promises? 95% of workers will get a tax "cut"--when almost half of workers don't pay income taxes. Never mind the top rate of 35% compares to 28% under Reagan; never mind that the same rich may pay up to 10% more for state and many an additional percentage for local or county. Plus another hit for other people's health care. And then Obama wants to cut exclusions from income.
Let face it--people will move to lower-tax states (e.g., Texas and Florida) or tax havens. OVER 20 COUNTRIES, INCLUDING IRAQ AND RUSSIA, OFFER FLAT TAXES, NOT PROGRESSIVE. In more than 40 other countries, including key European countries, the top income rate has been slashed during the past 30 years.
Hauser famously notes that higher tax rates reduce the tax base (less work, production, savings, or investment; more hiding, shifting, deferring, or underreporting of income), and despite high tax rates ranging from 28 to 92%, government revenues have remained fairly stable at about 19.5% of GDP. Then why do we worry about raising the rates? Because the GDP does not respond well to marginal tax hikes.
Progressives don't quite grasp the notion (like WalMart did decades ago) that lower margins increase cumulative revenues. Instead, as soon as you describe a VAT, flat or fair tax, progressives howl at "regressive taxes". Now let's get this straight: it's okay for lower-income people to go for the market rate of bread, milk, eggs, rent, gasoline for their cars, etc., but heaven forbid they should pay a penny for any "free" products or services from the government. If the government is going to reward me with goods and services for not training for a more lucrative job or for failing to save the money I made, what's my incentive for bettering myself? This is part of what motivated Rick Santelli's rant.
We see a couple of leftist organizational approaches presenting alternative means to marginalize the Tea Party movement: infiltrate or spoof the Tea Party or co-opt it, variations of rules established, e.g., by Saul Alinsky. In the former approach, we could see progressive radicals attempt to discredit the movement by deliberately engaging in politically damaging activities, e.g., racist or anti-gay rhetoric, provocative or misspelled posters, Nazi salutes, threatening phone calls to progressive politicians, making over-the-top claims to media, or cause the movement's principals to distrust each other, e.g., by leaks, false rumors, etc. The Coffee Party, on the other hand, attempts to exploit "common enemies"--e.g., blaming George W. Bush and Republicans for deficit spending, attacking the use of public funds to bail out AIG and the banks, or venting about sky-high health insurance rate hikes by greedy insurers.
Political Cartoon
IBD cartoonist Michael Ramirez is implicitly referencing the current liberal mass media, attempting to link Pope Benedict XVI to dated pedophilia scandals. I debunked a biased story published by the New York Times in a recent post; the story focuses on whether then Archbishop/Cardinal Ratzinger in 1980 had read a carbon-copied document which restored a pedophile German priest to pastoral duty or whether he had attempted to quash a Church trial in the 1990's against a Wisconsin priest, Father Murphy (actually, Murphy was dying and Ratzinger's deputy was urging more expedited process to defrock him). There was a more recent story noting Ratzinger's signature found on a late 1985 document cautioning for full due process in the defrocking of another American priest (Kiesle) without more recent incidents. There seems to have been a concern about the scandal raised from defrocking a relatively young priest. (Kiesle was defrocked in early 1987.) There is no basis in any of this to indicate the pope at the time covered up or excused morally reprehensible acts. The mainstream media are engaging in a professionally unethical witch-hunt/smear campaign with a presentist bias against the Holy Father.
The Vatican today issued an idiot's guide for bishops online on how to handle sex abuse allegations. It starts off as follows:
The local diocese investigates every allegation of sexual abuse of a minor by a cleric.
If the allegation has a semblance of truth the case is referred to the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, i.e., the Church hierarchy). The local bishop transmits all the necessary information to the CDF and expresses his opinion on the procedures to be followed and the measures to be adopted in the short and long term.
Civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed.
Musical Interlude: "Dream" Songs
Air Supply, "Sweet Dreams"
Gary Wright, "Dream Weaver"
Susan Boyle, "I Dreamed a Dream"
Mama Cass Elliot, "Dream a Little Dream of Me"
