The West's Revenge!

Imagine! Washington D.C. is up to it's keester in snow. Have you ever heard such weeping and wailing from the media? Washington D.C.. Government. The people who are trying to reshape our car culture into one of teeny weenie green machines that can't even be charged up for a whole day's worth of driving, much less pull through snow covered streets.

We Westerners chuckle at all this. Who's fault is it that they aren't prepared? New York City has a plan for it. You'd think D.C. would too since when it does snow the entire government shuts down. That's not bad mind you. They can't do any harm when they're closed down!

They won't learn from this experience because they tend not to learn from any experience, but they should note that their little vehicles aren't worth squat in the white stuff. The people in upstate New York know it. We bought our first SUV when we moved from Seattle to Rochester, New York several years ago. It was needed and well used. Lake effect snow does pile up!

Then there is all of us in the Midwest and West. We are no stranger to wind and snow and blizzard conditions pushing up drifts as high as the house. Fallen trees. Collapsed roofs. Community spirit when it comes to digging everyone out. Dig out parties sponsored by the local TV stations where anyone with a snow blower or a shovel is asked to pitch in. And, boy, they do!

Last year we had around 160 inches, the year before around 180. Getting around in that took some doing. It took big, heavy vehicles like our cherished rigs - pick ups and SUVs. Our beloved gas guzzlers. I wouldn't live west of the Mississippi, out in the country, without one.

So listen up you government types. Here's your shovel ready project. How many of you are actually going to do the labor? Or are you going to hire it out and count it as "job creation"?

As for getting around,a few politically incorrect types are brazen enough to drive SUVs. It's a good thing, too. One such person able to slip and slide around town in the ultimate of offensive vehicles, a Hummer, got his just reward. He pulled a police car out of a snowbank.

Those eastern elitists who like to claim there is no intelligent life west of the Mississippi have that wrong as well as everything else. The direction might need to be reversed!

Pork Fat Rules

Remember hearing that from Emeril as he would be cooking up some gastronomic delight that was bound to get your heart rate and cholesterol levels soaring?

Food. Good, tasty food. If you're not careful it can make you fat. Or worse, obese. Whose responsibility is it to prevent that from happening to you and your kids? The government? Or you?

I appreciate the fact that childhood obesity is becoming a problem. As first lady and a mother I suppose having it as a cause is a worthwhile undertaking for Michelle Obama. To use her kids as examples of the horrors of microwaved meals, or worse, seems a stretch when you look at them.

Even more of a stretch is Mrs. Obama's suggestion that childhood obesity is a threat to national security! “A recent study put the health care cost of obesity-related diseases at $147 billion a year," Mrs. Obama said. "This epidemic also impacts the nation’s security, as obesity is now one of the most common disqualifiers for military service.”

Do statements like that really have any impact other than sounding totally ridiculous? She goes on to say that we already know what the problem is and how to fix it. If that's true why does the government have to get involved?

Over the next decade she wants to spend $10 billion to overhaul the Childhood Nutrition Act! $10 billion! For what? One reason is funding food for 31 million school children. Thirty one million?

I've a few thoughts. How about getting Mr. Obama to loosen the bank regulations he has imposed on banks so they can loan money to small businesses. Then they can start hiring again. Then parents will have the money to buy groceries for their families. The better the salary the better the food. The fattening food is the most inexpensive and when you're unemployed that's what you end up eating.

Then too, there is something called parental responsibility. Letting kids eat nothing but fast food is not something the government needs to tell you is unhealthy. If parents can't figure that out without government programs maybe they shouldn't have kids in the first place!

As for obesity disqualifying people for military service, I wonder how many are actually turned away because of their weight. If we're short of troops I'd guess it's because a lot of young people would rather not get killed in a war. With two going on their odds aren't the greatest.

Then again, looking at the 10 billion figure, we'd probably get it from the Chinese. Maybe we should eat more like they do. You rarely see an obese Oriental and their cuisine is a healthy one.

To me this is indeed another form of pork. Rather than a Congressman getting it for a pet project in his state or district, it's the administration putting it into a pet project of Mrs. Obamas.

If parents weren't so stressed by their financial worries maybe they'd spend more time getting their kids away from their PlayStation's and television and back outdoors.

Government programs are iffy at best. Take the requirement for restaurants to put nutritional information on their menus for every item. If I want a Big Mac with it's 540 calories, 26 grams of fat and 75 milligrams of cholesterol, seeing the count on the menu isn't going to stop me. Nor many others I would think.

The cost to the restaurants to implement this program is huge. Unless the government chipped in to offset the cost of this mandate.

Right. Like I'll skip the fries.

Not Another Book!

I thought Jenny Sanford, soon to be former wife of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, might be different than other political wives caught up in their husbands indiscretions.

I applauded when she absented herself from his admission of sins press conference. I've always wondered why wives subject themselves to the humiliation they need not share.

Now, however, she has written a tell all book which has made her no better than the others. I've yet to read one that makes the woman look good. In most cases it makes them look weak and foolish rather than merely wronged. Why do they do it? I'm puzzled.

They must know they have to make the round of talk shows to promote the book. I saw Jenny being interviewed by Babara Walters, then she was on The View, later on Larry King. I think Jon Stewart comes tonight.

The woman I thought to be strong and a possible role model on how to deal with men such as her husband came across as a somewhat disheveled middle aged woman defending herself for staying with a man who was questionable from the start.

Had Hub told me he had trouble with the fidelity issue, as Mark told Jenny, it would have been full stop for me. Knowing the thought was in his mind would have meant his heart didn't belong to me, that he was still searching. Marriage would have been put on hold and probably would never have happened.

How do you forgive a man who wouldn't accompany you to the funeral of a family member or considered attending a Lamaze class with you a waste of time? The fact he had the Argentinian mistress should have come as no surprise. The fact he declared her, not you, his soul mate was just one more slap in the face.

She revealed more than I cared to hear in those interviews. She revealed not the strong, principled woman I had expected, instead one who has low self esteem that seems compelled to explain away her husband's boorish behavior after describing it in detail.

Why? Oh, why.

Republicans Beware

In learning that the President is summoning both sides of Congress to a televised discussion of his health care initiative, I suspect the Republicans are being set up.

One, the people have spoken. They don't want the reform that is now on the back burner. Yet the President will not start with a clean and more simple slate. Yesterday, when I wrote of the Palin appeal, this is an example of why she has it. She doesn't give the impression that she thinks she knows it all and that the rest of us are just too stupid to "get it". The President gives exactly that impression.

The Republicans do have some good suggestions as do some Democrats that their own party ignored. That's the worrisome part. Nancy Pelosi has her mind set and no amount of political theater is going to change it. Obama can prod and cajole to his heart's content but it's Pelosi who gloves the iron fist!

The Republicans need to lay out their ideas as clearly, concisely and thoroughly as possible. They also need to have the fortitude to point out the weaknesses in the current plan as they see them and doable alternatives - along with how they intend to pay for everything.

The Democrats are going to fight tort reform because they are in the pocket of the lawyers. They will fight pre-existing conditions and selling across state lines because of the insurance industry. There is a lot more that needs to happen, like addressing medicare reimbursements. When the Mayo Clinic says no more medicare patients we seniors all need to worry.

So. The only way for the Republicans to avoid being accused of having no ideas or being no more than obstructionists is to shift it to the Democrats on live television.

I'd like to think Pelosi and her pals would clean up their act on television but, frankly, I don't see that happening. It isn't that they haven't heard us. If their media enablers can make fun of Palin for having notes scribbled on her hand, you know nothing is missed. Not even the irony of Obama using teleprompters in front of a sixth grade class!

They just don't care.

The Evolution Of Sarah Palin

Having watched Sarah Palin's speech to the Tea Party gathering in Nashville and some of the follow up interviews, I thought I'd stick my neck out and report my take on it. It will be interesting, if only to myself, to see how often I change my tune over the months preceding the 2012 election cycle!

I'm beginning to understand Palin's immense popularity. I see a woman who is just enough politician to be canny. I see a woman who has taken her lumps and has come to realize she isn't quite where she needs to be to have the credibility to run for the highest of offices. She certainly is smart enough to be in the House or Senate when compared to many already there. I see a woman enjoying her fame and new found stature. I see a woman still determining where she wants it to take her.

Back to her popularity. She speaks in sharp, witty sound bites. She stumbles over her notes. She speaks the language, by golly, of everyman. I do believe that's why the average man and woman on the street love her. There was a lot she said with which I disagree and just as much that I agreed with whole heartedly. For instance, why preach non-partisanism if you really don't intend to practice it!

I don't quite agree with her idea of what the Tea Party movement is all about. I think she thinks it will be folded into the Republicanism of old. If she means that which became before the Christian right movement took over, she could be right. If she means a return to the narrow vision of anti-gay, anti-abortion litmus test I think she's wrong. The Republicans should know that they cannot win on those issues but I've yet to see evidence that they do.

This is where I see the Tea Party movement differently. It may lean heavily Republican but I think it's more inclusive than that. I think it embraces a good many centrist Democrats and lot of Independents that aren't quite ready to join the Republican fold. It's ability to be a force depends on those Independents.

Ms. Palin has plenty of time to study the tea leaves and see what they tell her. I expect to see her testing the waters in many ways. She'll endorse candidates to determine if her endorsements are effective or detrimental. I expect to see her on air performances become more polished and substantive.

At this point in time I don't expect her to announce a candidacy for President. I would expect her name to placed in nomination with or without her blessing and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see an attempt to draft her.

In the meantime she is probably the most intriguing political personality of the times. She needs to grow. She has the time. For now, she provides a rallying point for every disillusioned, frustrated voter out there because of her ability to connect with them.

She has a "gift" much as Obama had. He rallied the people with his eloquence, well rehearsed and in front of him on teleprompters. Palin's gift is her very ordinariness. Agree with her or not, she speaks from the heart. That resonates!