Mitt Tries To Change The Subject

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So, let's get everyone's mind off the 47% comment:

That's right. Mitt Romney has had such a bad week—again—that he's now trying to change the subject to his taxes. You know, those taxes that "you people" don't need to know about. That's how bad things are for Romney now.

By next week, he'll be trying to change the subject to that one time he strapped his dog Seamus on the roof of the car ...

Exasperation With The GOP

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There is so much good writing coming out now about the problems of the GOP it will take librarians to sort through it all.

First, there is this article, talking about all the things that should be happening, but aren't:

So broken are the information outlets Tea Partiers in particular use to assess reality that for months they took Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich seriously as potential or actual presidential contenders. They had every opportunity to see the respective character flaws of these figures; they were mostly self-evident, and persuasively described in great detail by the political press. Ah, but that's the liberal media talking. With that phrase, any huckster can short-circuit the Tea Party reality-assessing apparatus for months. And while movement conservatism has failed for decades to shrink government, it has succeeded spectacularly in creating jobs for hucksters in the private sector.

...On the right today, they are so numerous, prominent and shameless, their pathologies so ingrained in right-wing media and politics, their wealth so corrupting to young talent, and their pathologies so seldom challenged by those who know better, that Republicans are operating at a persistent information disadvantage. (Too many believe even their own bullshit.) The Bush Administration showed that it's possible to win at the ballot box anyway -- but that the victory isn't worth much, save an ill-conceived war in the desert, exploding deficits, and a financial crisis.

Then this article notes something new in this year's campaign, and maybe even hopeful about the future (if not mismanaged, like it was in the 1930's, and almost certainly will be this time too):

McCain, speaking on his 76th birthday, all but apologized for bringing up the subject in the first place: “It is said that this election will turn on domestic and economic issues. But what Mitt Romney knows, and what we know, is, is”—he stumbled over the words, nervous, like he knew he was entering the lion’s den—“that our success at home also depends on our leadership in the world.” The crowd’s tepid response suggested they did not know that at all.

Soaring rhetoric about “our willingness to shape world events,” leading “shoulder to shoulder with steadfast friends and allies,” “giving voice to the voiceless, insisting that every human life has dignity,” got little reaction; McCain only coaxed real noise out of the crowd through references to the sacrifices of the troops, gratuitous slams on Obama and mentions of the glories of supporting Israel. His call to “renew the foundations of our power and leadership in the world” sounded like an applause line—but it got no applause. Likewise, “By committing to withdraw from Afghanistan before peace can be achieved and sustained, our president has discouraged our friends and emboldened our enemies.” By the time he got to “In other times, when other courageous people fought for their freedom against sworn enemies of the United States, American presidents, both Republicans and Democrats, have acted to help them prevail,” I felt like the crowd thought this old man would ramble on forever. McCain seemed to sense it, too. “An American president always, always, always stands up for the rights, and freedoms, and justice, of all people,” he said. You only repeat a word three times when you fear people aren’t going to hear it.

...So what happened? The Republicans used to love their wars so lustily! Don’t call the change “moderation”: given that the crowd’s indifference was in response to calls to mitigate human suffering, it better resembled the morally indifferent isolationism of the late 1930s and early ’40s, when the right opposed rearming the nation to fight Hitler.

And maybe the GOP doesn't even have the will to rule:

So even if he’s sputtering out now, Mitt nevertheless has the best of both worlds: he has vindicated his father before the people who count, and he wouldn’t have to actually govern. He can avoid the years of “gaffes” and words “not elegantly stated” and “you people” prying into his finances that his presidency would surely entail. And as Michelle Obama said: the office doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are.

Anyway, Romney’s nomination has already done something very real for one of the few American institutions he truly seems to care about: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He helped to finally establish Mormonism as a legitimate part of the Republican Party hierarchy, not to mention American political history. Maybe he won’t be invited to speak at the 2016 GOP convention, but he did get Christians to at least nominally accept his once-persecuted faith.

Healing The Earth

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Valer Austin, a Manhattan society girl living on acres of desiccated, left-for-dead earth in the Southwest rolls up her sleeves and does the miraculous.
This story is amazing, and it shows what just a few people can do to really make the world a better place:

"See the water there?" Valer and I are driving through El Coronado, the first ranch that she and Josiah bought, on a lark, 31 years ago. We climb out of her truck to look at a meandering stream. Cottonwood, white-barked sycamore, and juniper line the banks. As we drive on, we see fields of native grasses, a sunshiny yellow now in midwinter. "None of this was here when we first came," Valer says, her voice as light and emphatic as a girl's. The face she turns to me is small and delicate, almost pixieish; her eyes are brightly lit. "There was no water. None!" But that was before she and her husband took on the immense project of bringing water back to these desecrated landscapes.

...When Valer first saw El Coronado, she asked Josiah, "What do the cows eat, rocks?" The land had been grazed so relentlessly that the grasses were depleted, the creeks were dry most of the year and deeply eroded, the soil powdery and parched. The two had come down to Arizona on a vacation. A friend suggested they make an offer on this mountain ranch. They bid low because they weren't really serious, but the owner accepted and suddenly they were in possession of a 1,920-acre spread in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona.

...She knew nothing about science or biology, not a whit about water tables or soil composition, when she and Josiah arrived at El Coronado. "I came from New York. I knew cement!" she exclaims. "You don't even know when it's raining in New York, really. You can't get a taxi—that's it!"

..."We did thousands of these dams! We stopped counting at 20,000," Valer says. She pauses for a moment, her eyes fixed brightly on mine, to let that fact sink in. "You know like a little ant does something? We just kept on doing it." They planted willows and cottonwoods, though many of these trees came back on their own. They seeded native grass and the grass reseeded itself.

Today, in the middle of an ongoing drought across the Southwest, West Turkey Creek is flowing. Scientists come from all over to study the flora and fauna on El Coronado. A group of researchers from the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory are staying at the ranch while they count birds. A 20-plus-year study on Sonoran mud turtles is being conducted here. Every spring the Austins host a hummingbird banding project.

...All the Austin properties lie within the Madrean Archipelago, one of the most biologically diverse places in the world. This is where the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Madre, the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts meet. The temperate zone flows into the subtropical, and flora and fauna from mountains, grassland, and desert mingle. The Madrean Archipelago harbors over half the bird species of North America, more mammals than any other place in the United States, and over 3,000 species of plants, some found nowhere else on Earth. And yet that biodiversity is under siege. At least 70 percent of the vegetation has already disappeared and many of the animals found here, including the jaguar, the ocelot, and the Mexican spotted owl, are threatened or endangered.

...When the Horseshoe Two fire swept the Chiricahuas in the spring and early summer of last year, burning 223,000 acres, the animals made their way down the mountain flanks to El Coronado. "It was like Noah's ark here!" Valer exclaims. She rode the ranch on horseback, leaving bags of dog food for the bears. An injured bobcat slunk into their doghouse to die. Valer put water and mounds of cat food outside. Eventually, the big cat healed and took off.

"The animals came down because we had water," Valer says. "We had places where there were ponds. The only green that didn't burn was right along the river. I'll take you up there and show you that spot. We'll walk around here. How much do you walk? We can go up into the hills...."

The Lack Of Campaign Discipline

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I'm a bit baffled by the proliferation of these news stories about conservatives dumping all over Mitt Romney's campaign:

But Republicans remain nervous about the Romney campaign’s strategy, and are urging him to change course instead of being defensive about his approach.

“Again, the biggest concern is the attitude in Mitt Romney’s head right now,” former Republican congressman and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said on “Meet the Press.” “When he says that they don’t need to turn the campaign around, when you have Stuart Stevens and others basically saying, “Full steam ahead,” that’s a serious problem.”

Just about any campaign is a pretty sorry beast, and you can criticize the beast all day long. One thing I admired about Ronald Reagan's campaigns was the way the senior staff went to extraordinary lengths to stop the carping and the sniping. The role of the party and the partisans is to unite behind the candidate, and, basically, shut up and do the candidate's bidding. Reagan and his staff understood the importance of remaining disciplined. You can open up and talk about the problems at the victory party afterwards!

The fact that the modern GOP is having so much trouble doing this one, should-be-easy-to-do, utterly-essential thing shows a lack of discipline. I can't blame Ann Romney for saying "Stop it. This is hard!"

The Romneys have done their part. It's now time for the GOP to do its part. And they can start by shutting up.

2012 Elly Awards

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I have a pretty-dark view of the SARTA and the Elly Awards, in general, these days, so it's a good thing I didn't go to Sunday evening's award ceremony. Nevertheless, I knew some DMTC folks were nominated, and thus were going.

Indeed, heading east back across the Yolo Causeway Sunday evening, after the Sunday-afternoon performance of "City of Angels", a vehicle next to mine on the freeway honked. I looked up to see (who I believe was) DMTC's Petra F. sitting in the passenger seat, looking cool in her shades, zooming Sac-wards with others for the festivities. It was going to be a party! And why not? I was pretty-sure DMTC would win something, no matter what.

First, congratulations to Steve Isaacson, John Ewing, and the highly-skilled cast of "Chicago", for Musical Direction and Overall Production Elly Awards. A well-deserved win!

Friends at other theaters won awards too. In particular, Darryl Strohl, Amy Jacques-Jones, Lillian Baxter, and the Lack family at Runaway Stage Productions.

Nevertheless, in my view, SARTA rarely awards Ellys just on merit. I'm still flabbergasted that DMTC's 2008 "A Secret Garden" did not win any 2009 Elly nominations, much less awards. Because that show deserved to win too!

No, Ellys are awarded as much because of politics as merit.

In 2009, SARTA was still catching up to the large expansion of community theater in the Sacramento area in the previous twenty years. SARTA's priority then was distributing awards to all the theaters new to SARTA (with a bias towards theaters using professional talent on the sly to enhance production values), and that meant no awards for DMTC, regardless of the value of DMTC's productions.

By 2012, the economic hurricane of the last four years had swept away a number of the new theaters, and even some of the old theaters too. Looking for shelter amid the wreckage, SARTA simply needs DMTC more today than in the past, which means that, after a decade of neglect, they were finally inclined to give DMTC something, given a good excuse.

Times had changed.

But since SARTA doesn't change much, that likely means someone else got the shaft this year instead. Sorry about that. It's just the ever-turning SARTA Wheel of Injustice making its merry rounds.

Renovated Homes, First Come First serve. Ideal for Potential Buyers with small budgets. Downpayment assistance possible!

Campaign begins 1/31/2011.
First Come First Serve

In 15 Metro Detroit areas:

"The 15 municipalities in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties are offering down payment assistance from as little as $5,000 up to as much as 50 percent of the purchase price of the home. The 15 municipalities partnering in the coalition include: Eastpointe, Ecorse, Ferndale, Hazel Park, Holly, Inkster, Keego Harbor, Lake Orion, Oak Park, Ortonville, Pontiac, Redford, River Rouge, Royal Oak Township and Westland." according to press release from MAR

"To qualify for this program, buyers must have a minimum income of at least $1,200 per month (minimum income can include employment, social security, alimony and child support.) For qualified buyers, down payment assistance and credit counseling are available through several government programs." according to Michigan Assn. of Realtors

“These foreclosed houses are ideal for potential buyers with small budgets..."

If interested call 1-313-274-3141

Image above is not one of the sample homes(used for posting only)

Foreclosure Fallout: You'd rather Rent...It's not so easy anymore

Do you know the most common reason people don't want to buy a home? They'd rather rent. Do you rent? You will definitely want to follow me on this post.

Renting is easy? right? you just fill out the application, hand over the deposit, view the apartment, pay a little extra for a credit check. Done. Over. You got the keys. Much easier than buying a home.

As you know when you buy a home you've got to: get inspections(if you're wise) review lots of legal documents(will probably need an attorney, if you're wise), get all your bills and personal documents together over at least the last 6 months, fill out papers about every aspect of your life(your employment, credit history, residential history, auto, children, bills, assets, liabilities).

Well guess what? the same process has now arrived in the Rental world. We can look to a recent article in the New York Times. So look for this in your area soon if not already.

The lesson: If you're going to rent why not considering buying? The process is the same. Something to think about...
Click here to read the New York Times Article.