Elizabeth: The Re-emergence of GM

I am a Saturn girl and my dad is a Saab man, so we were both a little worried when General Motors was looking to shed both brands. I am on my second Saturn—I purchased my adorable 3-door Astra just last year. My father has two Saabs in his garage and should receive commision as he has been responsible for several sales simply from his enthusiastic reviews of said vehicles. Point being, we wondered what would happen to our beloved brands if no one stepped up to the plate. It seemed a shame that GM couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to keep procuring more and more car companies that eventually became unsustainable.

Relief came to us in the form of a sale of Saturn to Penske Automotive and Saab to a company called Koenigsegg. Good to know that someone saw the value in maintaining the intergrity of those brands. (Apparently the Chinese have absorbed the burden of the Hummer brand as their role in the auto industry grows.)

So, it seems, as of today, that all of GM’s fast footwork has (for now) saved the company. I say ‘for now’ because it remains to be seen if they learned anything from this debacle. “It is the smaller, leaner, tougher, better cost-focused GM,” said George Magliano, an automotive analyst, “but they still have to deal with the problems that they faced longer-term.”

It is expected that later today, GM (also considering changing its name) will make a show of newer, more efficient models including rechargeable electric cars, but their current model line-up will remain unchanged for now. It is great that they were able to break a record for a company of their size to emerge from bankruptcy, but at what cost? It is sad that this ‘new dawn’ includes cutting another 4,000 jobs (as well as 450 top execs to balance it out.)

Even with all of their losses, CEO Fritz Henderson believes they can “be profitable again even if the U.S. auto market stays at a depressed level of 10 million vehicles sold.” Mr. Henderson must have a magic wand hidden up his sleeve or maybe he is just that good. As Toyota remains ranked as the top global automaker (ousting GM from that spot in 2008), General Motors is going to have to work at warp speed to convince consumers that they are, indeed, a different company; one focused on building cars that will at least equal if not outlast Toyotas and Hondas.

As nice as it would be to see an American car company back on top, I’m afraid we all might be driving hovercrafts before that happens again.

Boycott Charleston?

The carriage industry in Charleston has been nothing if not contentious since the early 1980s. In the interest of transparency (what a concept!), I should note that I am one of the original carriage drivers for both Palmetto Carriage Works and Old Towne.
Things were pretty rough and tumble when I first wielded a whip at the foot of Meeting Street in 1978. The late Keith Marshall and I used to have “bourbon days.” One of us would stop at the Tavern liquor store and get a quart of bourbon which we would sip all day. The ratio of liquor to water was about 10 to one so we never got drunk, but that last tour was a doozy.
I mention that simply because the statute of limitations has long since passed.
One early evening in October that year, I was down on the Battery with another driver who is today president of one of the largest carriage companies. He challenged me to race back to the barn on State Street. We took off from Meeting, and shades of Ben Hur, raced neck and neck up the street. I recall taking a short cut the wrong way down St. Michael’s Alley.
I don’t remember who won. I do know that were we to pull that stunt today, there would be a SWAT team waiting for us.
I mention all of this simply because I have mucked more than one stall, I have driven a carriage in a tornado, I have seen tourists do all measure of things that I can’t mention in this space.
There are a number of different sides to this issue.
Yesterday, Elizabeth sent me a piece on the carriages. When I posted it, I didn’t make it clear that it was her work. My bad. I am intrigued by the different responses we got, though.
A resident of Charleston since the Proprietors ruled, Priestley Coker wrote:
“As a lifelong resident (67 years) of the historic district I have watched the horse carriages go from an occasional anachronism to widespread nusiance. It would not be so bad if the drivers would pull over but now they practically refuse. Recently I had to follow one from Broad and Meeting westward on Broad and watch while the driver refused to pull over in two empty parking spaces in front of the court house only to block traffic longer while turning south at Broad and King. I hollered to a cop across the street to do something about it and he told me that the driver was ‘just doing his job’.

“Compounding the problem is the city and general court system. To file an action one has to drop what he is doing and spend untold hours going to court to testify against them. But the carriage operators have learned the system by getting attorneys who know to pick West Ashley jurors who for the most part hate the historic district and refuse to convict the carriage drivers of anything.

“To compound it further I know of two downtown people who did exactly this 3 or 4 years ago only to lose the case and then have the carriage company attorney sue them personally for the legal fees. Talk about a stacked system! What is worse Mayor Riley is on the carriage operators side in these matters. No wonder so many of the real Charlestonians are fleeing downtown only to be replaced by rich people from off who do not live there. Talk about a dead historic district at times of the year like July and January and many other months.”
This goes back to the community v. commodity argument on which I keep harping. Charleston has morphed into Rileyworld. The carriage industry is one of the most heavily taxed sectors of the local economy. As long as that’s the case, rest assured that the gentle clop of hoof beats will echo through the streets pungent with the stringent smell of boiled horse urine (ahhh… August in Charleston).
I actually have stumbled onto a perfect solution, one that enrages everyone. If a carriage is blocking you, simply turn on Rush Limbaugh full blast, roll your windows down and follow the carriage as closely as you can. It works. Really.
Kwadjo Campbell’s reaction to those who complain about the treatment of the animals and indeed, the very presence of carriages was “Give me a break. Yes the horses should be treated fairly, but the carriages are legitimate and here to stay. If you don’t like it, move to West Ashley, or James Island.”
Don responds: ”Kwadjo, what happened to your revulsion for Joe’s “Disneyfication”? Hoppin John (John Martin Taylor) eloquently recalls (as does David) recalls the legitimately historical horse drawn carts vending “swimpees” and vegetables from John’s Island that have been purged from Charleston and made a yuppie outing on Saturday mornings on Marion Square… (Almost forgot the idea was nabbed from John Wesley United Methodist in Wes’ Ashcan providing space for a few black John’s Island farmers to market their crops).
“Yes the horses are another licentious bit of Charleston and a tax, er… revenue source is difficult to excise and is, perhaps South of Broad’s cross to bear for financing the sinking peninsula… soaking Daniel, James and John’s islands and West Ashley will only go so far and yuppies cajoled into regentrification efforts on the East Side (and I expect that Starbucks is coming) need to get their feet on the ground while the displaced don’t have it spend on property taxes.”
As for the treatment of the animals, one would have to be an absolute idiot to mistreat the very beings upon which he or she garners their source of revenue. That’s not to say there aren’t any for obviously there are. I will say that in some deep background conversations I had with those in the carriage industry that there were no surprises in the report that came out.
That said, to coin a phrase, it would be ridiculous to close the barn door, etc. The city government has made so much money off the tour tax of 50 cents a head that they have hired a full time police officer (with a gun and everything… See here, Farrow, drop that crepe myrtle or I’ll shoot) to enforce the tax ordinance.
As an aside, I am mortified at the absolute crap people are being fed by guides who have absolutely no idea of what they are talking about. I had occasion to speak with a couple from Philadelphia (now Atlanta) who had taken a ghost tour the night before.
I started the first regularly scheduled ghost tour almost 20 years ago. I did it pretty much by myself for about five years. When I got out in 1999, there were 17 ghost tours. I have no idea how many there are now.
Talk about seagulls fighting over a mullet.
The three of us were standing by the Congregational Church on Meeting. The woman told me that they had taken the Bulldog tour who was led by a girl from Ohio. The story they got was that there was a plague in the late 1600s. Over a thousand people died and they were buried in a mass grave on which the church sits today. It is the tortured souls that haunt the area today.
What an absolute load of gibberish.
Some tour guides are priceless; others are worthless just like everything else.
Some carriage companies are better than others in their treatment of their animals. I would argue that it is they who are more successful.
One other response to Elizabeth’s piece was from Lu-Lu-Lu who I suspect was from New York. Said she, “A change is coming … for NYC, Rome, Charleston and who know where else. Electric cars will take the place of horse-drawn carriages, which are soooooo last century … besides being inhumane and just plain gross as the investigative report stated.
“Mayor Riley better line up his ducks all in a row. If he wants to be in office for another 30 years (please god no) he needs to start hanging out with a different crowd. Until then – BOYCOTT CHARLESTON! Go someplace where they do not have carriage horses. [To Elizabeth] I am sorry you work in the hospitality industry but maybe you need to develop a way to suggest to tourists that they do something else. You have a golden opportunity.”
I don’t know Lu-Lu, you live in country where 17 networks covered the Michael Jackson funeral.
I might ask what do you have against the Amish, Lu? So we are not to go gawk at them as they hitch their wagons to go to market.
Good luck with that boycott thing. It worked like a charm for the NAACP.

Elizabeth: Outta My Way

(Editor’s note: I know we have carriage drivers in our audience. I’d love your response.)
I wish the horse-drawn carriages would go away. I work in the hospitality industry and the majority of our guests ask first-off how to “get on one of those carriages.” I cringe. Of course, I politely explain to them where to go to be herded onto one, but I am screaming on the inside, “WHY?” I mean, it’s really one of the most unoriginal experiences they can have and I am quick to offer other suggestions (“Oh, I know a wonderful walking tour you must take—you will get the true flavor of Charleston with this guy!”) Alas, to no avail. Off they go, down to Market Street, to be accosted by the first carriage company that spots them. I hear the parade of hoof beats throughout my day—a nice sound, mind you, but just in the wrong context.

I curse them as I try to make my way to Harris Teeter and back. “Why can’t they pull over now?” (Yes, I am a bit of a high-strung driver, but who among you has this not irritated?) Worse than my inconvenience or the tourist’s lack of imagination, though, is the potential for terrible accidents and the unfortunate treatment of animals who, given the choice, I’m certain, would rather be grazing in a nice field somewhere.

I witnessed an accident on the corner of South Battery and Meeting Street last year. A horse was spooked as it was making the turn, and wound up jack-knifing the carriage as it spilled its twenty or so riders onto the street. The horse got loose and took off down Meeting—it was really agitated now. We ran to help people out from under the weighty carriage and seat them safely on the sidewalk. It was hot that day. The riders were shaking, bleeding and some even crying, but all sweating. This was, obviously, neither the first nor the last accident, either. I fear it is just a matter of time before an equine or human loses their life.

There was an article in The Post and Courier last week concerning the inspections of all the carriage companies. The list of offenses made me sad. No matter your opinion, no one can argue that it is inhumane not to feed the animals sufficient amounts of hay or to make them stand in wet stalls that are too small for the horses to even turn around in.

Could it be time for a change in our fair city? I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to pass legislation to finally outlaw the carriages. I realize it is a highly unlikely outcome, as the horse and carriage has become a charming symbol that is, seemingly, inextricably tied to Charleston. As a community, though, it is time to admit that it is a question of responsibility. Well, at the very least, it would be hip and progressive of us to ban the antiquated tradition of carriage tours—what a great headline.

For God’s Sake, Can’t We Say Goodbye?

Am I the only one that finds this whole Michael Jackson business creepy?
What else, maybe a tad more important is happening?
How’s that stimulus coming along?
“The U.S. should consider drafting a second stimulus package focusing on infrastructure projects because the $787 billion approved in February was “a bit too small,” said Laura Tyson, an outside adviser to President Barack Obama.”
Could man-made disasters be in our future?
“Last week, German authorities discovered that groups of terrorists may have been dispatched from training bases in Pakistan to launch crippling attacks.”
I feel safe that we are speaking with one voice in our support of Israel.
“Israel has a sovereign right to decide what is in its best interest in dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions whether the United States agrees or not, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview on Sunday.”
“US President Barack Obama on Tuesday strongly denied that the United States had given Israel an approval to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Asked by CNN whether Washington had given Israel a green light for such an attack, Obama answered: ‘Absolutely not.’”
I left the house when the Michael Jackson funeral started. It is now 2:45 and Brooke Shields is bemoaning the loss of her buddy.
Look, I liked Jackson’s music. I thought “Black and White” was the last good thing he did, though. When was that… early ‘90s?
Then the child stuff started. I thought that the whole Neverland thing was just grotesque. The final straw was the interview in which he thought sleeping naked with a pre-pubescent boy was perfectly natural.
Yet the world doesn’t share my disdain. Indeed better folks than I, including Larry King and Wesley Snipes (is he out already?) are among dozens of B-list celebrities basking in the light of the gold casket behind them, their slide toward obscurity halted by the worldwide exposure of this funeral.
I don’t know. The King of Pop with all of his extreme weirdness is being canonized while our soldiers die for our freedom, children die for incomprehensible reasons.
Michael Jackson was tortured. God rest his soul.
The whole world is enthralled by the funeral of a man with a totally tragic life. At three hours later, Sheila Jackson Lee is preaching.
Michael had a remarkable life. He died young. It’s heartrending. In the end, though, he was a talented, twisted man. He might be worthy of adoration, but not four hours of non-stop coverage on every “news” channel.
It all boils down to the Onion headline in October of 2001: “A Mournful Nation Yearns to Care about Useless Bull…, Again.”
At a time when “…a minimum of 12 al-Qaida operatives who were trained in the tribal region of Pakistan have left the training camps and are headed back to their home countries. Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Egypt are just some of those countries,” Geraldo just told us we just can’t say goodbye to the King of Pop.
Well, let’s give it a try. So Long, Farewell, auf Weidersen, Good-Bye.

Only Dead Fish Go With the Flow

Well, first things first. My friend Elizabeth wrote the first piece on Sarah Palin.
One thing I noticed when Governor Palin resigned on Friday was that she spoke not of the Republican Party, but her philosophy.
In an interview in this week’s Time Magazine she stated, “President Obama is growing government outrageously, and it’s immoral and it’s uneconomic, his plan that he tries to sell America. His plan to “put America on the right track” economically, incurring the debt that our nation is incurring, trillions of dollars that we’re passing on to our kids, expecting them to pay off for us, is immoral and doesn’t even make economic sense. So, his growth of government agenda needs to be ratcheted back, and it’s going to take good people who have the guts to stand up to him, stand up to him and debate policy, not personalities, not partisan politics, but policy to effect the change that we need there. And allow free enterprise and the industrious Americans who run our small businesses and want to raise a family, allowing our families to grow and prosper and thrive, Americans who still believe in those ideals to get in there and effect change. I want to work for people who believe in that.”
Did you see a thing about the Republican Party?
I think that the Republican Party is a morally bankrupt institution that no longer responsive to the people it claims to represent. I think that’s one reason for the defeat last November. I did not vote for John McCain, I voted for Sarah.
I don’t think the Alaskan governor has her sights on the Presidency in 2010. I think what you are going to see is a new party. The Republicans have become a caricature. They talk a good game, but they seem to be just going through the motions.
There are some in Congress standing up to the insanity gripping our nation, Bohner for one, but so many are proposing Democrat Lite.
I think what Mrs. Palin is doing is birthing a new party.
By no longer being a Republican, she takes the partisanship out of the equation. People think the folks at the tea parties are right-wing nuts, but they are not. They are folks who are scared at the trajectory this country is on.
If Sarah Palin can change that, then I don’t care if she’s an Atlantean or an Amazon. Someone has to grab the spotlight and shout for all they are worth.
If resigning from her position in Alaska accomplishes this, so be it. Stay tuned.

Elizabeth: Say it ain’t so, Sarah!

Just when I finally got that insipid voice out of my head, here she comes again…Sarah Palin resigning from her role as Governor. Now, it would be okay if she were leaving the whole world of politics behind her to join the family fishery business, but I don’t think we’re going to get off that easily. She has claimed her stepping aside is because she doesn’t want to, “accept that lame duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck and ‘milk it’” as, she says, some governors do.

Palin believes that she can still be an effective agent of change for the state saying, “I nor anyone else needs a title to do this—to make a difference…to help people.”

I agree that any one of us may make a difference, but wouldn’t the ability to easily reach (and influence) many thousands of people make it just a little bit more effective in the end?

I’m not buying it, Sarah. If things are going so well in your great state, if you have engendered so much progress, then wouldn’t it be considerably more disruptive to pass the baton mid-race than to complete your term? By stepping down, Ms. Palin believes she is battling one of the problems in our country: apathy. “It would be apathetic to just hunker down and go with the flow. Nah, only dead fish ‘go with the flow,’” she says.

Oh, wonderful, we have a new ‘Palin-ism’ involving dead fish (maybe a fish good ol’ ‘Joe Six Pack’ threw back after the ‘lipstick was put on the pit bull.’)

It scares me to think this resignation is an indication that Palin is on to bigger and better things—like the Presidential race in 2012. She didn’t say as much in her public address, but on her Twitter account, the truth seemed to peek out. She apparently Twittered to the effect that, “she would take on a larger, national role, citing a ‘higher calling’ to unite the country along conservative lines” according to the Associated Press.

The Associated Press also reports that Palin has “laid the groundwork for a possible presidential run, establishing a political action committee.”

Oh, the horror. Does this mean we will be subjected to the torture of more interviews like the train wreck with Katie Couric? Remember, if you will, when Couric asked Palin what periodicals she read to stay informed and the answer was, “I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.”

When asked what specific titles, “Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.”

And finally if she could name any of them, “I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.Alaska isn’t a foreign country, where, it’s kind of suggested and it seems like, ‘Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C. may be thinking and doing when you live up there in Alaska?’ Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.” Huh?

I understand that she may have been nervous or felt ‘taken aback’ by the questions, but in the end, Palin blamed her ‘media coach,’ former CBS news analyst Nicolle Wallace for her floundering responses. This was just the tip of the iceburg. Her superficial knowledge of foreign policy was frightening. It began to appear that unless she had been specifically coached on an issue, the resulting response would be a rambling diatribe of nonsense. This was hard enough to swallow coming from a Vice Presidential candidate—she couldn’t possibly be considering trying out for Commander in Chief. Could she?

A book deal has been signed so, perhaps, the extra time off will be devoted to the writing of her memoir. A girl can hope. I mean, I would love to watch more Tina Fey renditions of Palin, but I’m not sure I could stand four years of it.

The Circle Remains Unbroken

A source with access to word on the street and the police investigation spoke to me under the confidence of remaining anonymous Saturday about the tragic death of 15-year old Jermel Brown on Huger Street last week.
Brown, a model student at The Daniel Jenkins Academy, lived with his mother and siblings in a public housing complex on the East Side on America Street called Cooper River Courts.
According to the source witnesses saw the student get into a car near his home. His body was found under the overpass not long after.
“He was killed at the scene, not in the car,” the official said.
The young man was a cheerful boy with an engaging smile and a favorite with the mentoring program at his school.
The community is shattered, asking why, how.
The street knows.
According to another source, Brown has an identical twin who was just released from juvenile prison. The story is that there was a gang posse looking for the brother who was the intended victim.
“Can you imagine the shock the thugs felt when they learned that they’d killed the wrong kid?” my source (who is black) told me. “The dirty secret is that is that had the right brother been killed it would have been a one-day wonder. It would be just another drug killing. Apparently, this is truly a case of the evil twin. “
He said that reports are that the family is in protective custody. We agreed that it might be a bit awkward what with the felonious twin sharing space with his family. We wondered how much remorse the boy felt knowing that it was his actions who got his brother viciously murdered. He has to be shaken knowing that he was the intended victim.
One can hear the disgust and frustration in my friend’s voice as he asserts, “The majority of crime in this area is black on black. These kids keep killing each other. “
He told me of a plan to put cameras up and down America, Hanover and Nassau streets.
“It might not deter them, but at least we’ll know who did it,’ he stated grimly.
The underlying theme in the conversation was that now the police know the motive for Brown’s slaughter, it’s just a matter of rounding up the perpetrator. My source thinks it all be over by Tuesday.
One can only hope so.
The official bemoans the fact that so many young, black adults are serving time. His core complaint is that they aren’t serving enough time.
“Our so-called ‘leaders’ always complain that an inordinate percentage of the prison population is young black men. There’s a reason for that…” he pauses.
“It is they who are committing the crimes. These kids are openly selling crack and heroin on Reid or Amherst Street at 11 in the morning. These guys aren’t affiliated with national gangs, but they sure have their own territories. They think they are bulletproof. They have the arrogance of youth combined with the stupidity of drugs. That’s a very dangerous permutation.
“The same groups of kids keep killing each other. The young man killed on Francis Street a few months back had shot somebody else who shot somebody else. It’s a feud that has unfolded all over. It started about five years ago in North Charleston and has since spread to Mount Pleasant to shootings all over the East Side.”
The man with whom I spoke is a successful businessman who grew up on the East Side. Murder is bad for business, although my source believes that in the end reason will out.
For now, he is shocked and saddened about the mistaken identity.
“It’s almost Biblical, isn’t it? That child died for his brother’s sins.”
Whether any of this pans out remains to be seen, but I live in Wagener Terrace. This murder and the bizarre circumstances are on everyone’s lips. From Food Lion to the corner store, old black ladies are shaking their heads and expressing disbelief and sadness.
I overheard one lady in line for lottery tickets tell her friend, “De bes’ find the Lord for true, for’n he be too late.”
It might be already. Surely, if this story is true, you can bet the farm that somebody in the murder car has a bull’s eye on his back.
And so the circle remains unbroken, bye and bye.

We Are Americans

We are Americans.
Ben Johnson once said that nothing focuses the mind more than the prospect of being hung in the morning. We are being led up the scaffolding.
I say that because I hear despair in a lot of corners that we are powerless against the behemoth; the most oppresive crushing economic and political devastation the country has ever seen.
I am a conservative libertarian — Never in the modern epoch have times been so perilous and our potential leaders so stunningly unprepared.
We carp about global warming, we fear it. It is a chimera, a monster under the bed that disappears when the light turns on. Yet, it is accepted as gospel despite so much evidence to the contrary.
We are going to transform and empower the federal government to unheard of degrees based on a lie. We wonder about Mark Sanford’s peccadilloes while our way of life is about to be transformed.
This happy morning while we carouse at parades, drink beer in the sun, wander around the new Mount Pleasant Park sated with hot dogs — remember this.
We are Americans.
We are a strong self-reliant people. If things get bad, we’ll figure it out despite our differences. I suspect one of the first things to go will be a tolerance for an intrusive government.
Every generation has been tested in this country. It has been my generation’s privilege and downfall that we have not undergone severe hardship. Yes, ‘Nam sucked, so did the gas lines – for that matter so did disco. Still, compared to the Great Depression and World War II collectively our time has been a perfect August afternoon in Maine. As our generation and the ones below us face up to what’s coming, I suspect we will be up to the task in spite of ourselves.
We are Americans.
Ben Franklin once said along the lines of we either hang together or hang separately.
We have been manipulated, divided. We have been led to believe that we are separate enclaves fighting among ourselves while the government has grown in size and shape sucking the life blood out of our nation. We are not.
We accept this because we have weakened ourselves, dumbed ourselves down to the point that we no longer recognize the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We must begin anew with a different party, a new party that will be as transformative as the Republicans were to the Whigs.
A party, to coin a phrase, that stands for the right to fail for it is only when threatened with failure that we cherish the right to succeed. All of the sensory overload has obfuscated this.
Right after the inauguration earlier this year, a young woman from the White House spoke of Americans with all different color passports. Our passports are but one color.
Both political parties are bankrupt with incumbency and corruption. It’s time to throw them all out. Every last one of them.
You might be a Cherokee or black. You might be gay or straight. You might be liberal, conservative, green or a Whig, for that matter.
You are an American.
You see, we really are all equal. We all face the aforementioned failure. We all face a government that wants to dictate who wins. Say no. Say it loudly.
Get off your behind. Together, we will figure it out.
The alternative is too scary to contemplate.

Elizabeth: The reason for the season.

So, here we are, on the cusp of another 4th of July.
My husband is a (legal!) immigrant from England and he has a theory.
He believes that a great deal of the time, folks who immigrate to this country feel more patriotism than those who were born and raised here. He is certainly a case in point. That boy is a die-hard, flag waving, U.S. loving, patriot. He even served this country in the Coast Guard and felt tremendously honored to be able to do so.

July 4th is a big deal to him. We always have an American flag flying from our home, but the ante is upped for the 4th. Everyone on our street ends up congregated on our driveway listening to songs celebrating our country as an incredible display of fireworks is launched. It is quite a scene, man. He is full of pride for this country of ours. He has lived in several places–Brazil, Mexico,Wales–and he has seen, firsthand, just how incredibly fortunate we are to have this amazing gift called the United States.

He may be on to something. I talk to friends and family and everyone is happy to have an extra day off, a pool party to attend or a fireworks display to watch, but it seems no one stops to really reflect on what this day in July means for all of us and our freedom.

We have become such a divisive nation. It’s kind of sad, really. We all have our own opinions, which is fine, but where did this undercurrent of anger come from? Has it always been this bad? It is hard these days for people to simply discuss differing points of view without the conversation escalating into an argument. Is it just that we feel so passionate about ‘our side’ that we must so vehemently defend it?

I think it may be a case of too much information. We know too much about what is going on now—be that bad or good, I am not sure. The media never stops—the information comes to us from every angle. We have more to be divisive about, I suppose.

This weekend, all of those arguments should be put aside. We need to join together as Americans, not Republicans or Democrats or liberals or conservatives—just Americans.
Let us all celebrate as my husband, Simon does. Take a few moments to be thankful for all we have here—regardless of who is in charge. We are all in this together, and I can’t think of a place we would rather be tomorrow than in the best damn country in the world.

Hot dogs. Reaaallly Hot Dogs! Happy Fourth, Y’all

William Bachman of the Campabello Bachmans stood with his wife, Cynthia, the ambassador to Ratonia, in the unbearable heat and humidity shaking hands with Ratonoian royalty at the entrance to the embassy.
The country was poor, ruled by an oligarchy that sucked life blood from the people.
Indeed, since the new cap and trade rules went into effect, the country had become wealthy beyond a caliph’s dream. A little known statute in the stimulus bill was triggered by the passage of the cap and trade bill making clean renewable energy for generations to come. A corporation that was full steam ahead into bringing good things to life announced that chicken dung would solve all of the world’s energy problems by 2030 (by then, they hoped to have the clean part licked).
It turned out that Ratonia possessed more chicken dung than anyone else and chicken dung futures soared bringing enough revenue to enrich every man, woman and child in the people’s republic. Not that it did. The Supreme Council used it to buy a Caribbean island.
Bachman was a man with old money, real money. Years before he met a stripper in Columbia. They had a wild romp that ended in scandal, divorce and a child. Cindy Aynor moved back to Campabello with her new husband.
Money agreed with her. Overnight, she began to dress like a successful business woman. No slouch, she, Cindy Aynor was a West Columbia girl who used her husband’s money to gain an education and erase a reputation.
She also used his money for the Democrat Party. William didn’t mind. He had plenty of it, and he quickly learned that if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. However when Cindy was happy…
She soon became Cynthia, her past obfuscated by her work with the national Democrat party. Through her unflagging commitment to spending William’s money, she was rewarded by the new president with an ambassadorship.
So William dressed in Bermuda shorts and some happy-crap Hawaiian shirt was standing in the brutal heat next to his perfect wife shaking hands with men whose teeth had been filed down.
William didn’t want to be judgmental, but this was a wretched place, and the Ratonians were an unpleasant lot. He suspected that they stunk, but it didn’t matter, the whole damn place smelled like a chicken coop.
Still, it was the 4th of July. The embassy staff was up early making preparations for the festive event. Their activities: Thawing the hot dogs, making sure that the hamburger they were grilling was not cat meat, were mirrored all over the world as the sun covered one time zone after another.
All of the embassies were on a special alert. The Iranians had been invited to have hot dogs in every Americans embassy in the world. Although every effort was made to accommodate Sharia law just in case, one had to remember that this State Department was not big on protocol.
Sure each legate was to make sure that local dishes were prepared in honor of the local population. In France and Germany, the food was exquisite, in China, it was monkey brains. Many goats were being grilled this fine day next to the salmon.
Ratonians were problematic. They ate dogs. They liked to point out that they were free range dogs, but Bachman’s stomach turned as the thought of the dog ranches that dotted the countryside came full force in his head.
Indeed, as he made nice with the Viscount of the nation, a particularly vile fellow with teeth sharpened razor-thin, a gray pallor and a permanent sneer pasted on his face, the man’s eyes darted with lust as William’s golden retriever , Rusty, bounded across the brown grass.
The Viscount meanwhile praised his country for storing chicken dung to such an extent capacity. He did not mention the call to Congressman Charles Ricks (D-Cal), his brother-in-law’s sister’s husband, to warn that his country was all but drowning in chicken dung.
Adherents to a little known religion unpronounceable in English (it’s roman alphabet spelling would be roughly xczvbst), the Ratonians were told by their God that they could not kill chickens and had to revere them. Colonel Sanders would have found himself in 7th Heaven.
The Congressman slipped a chicken dung proviso into the stimulus bill well knowing that no one would ever read it. Later, during cap and trade, he slipped another arcane proviso specifically mentioning the xczvbstist religion. Anyone who accidently read it while desperately seeking a cure for insomnia would have thought it was a typo.
Even though there was no scientific proof that chicken dung would have served the green revolution any better than say, cow or horse dung, the fix was in. The multi-national corporation had its world headquarters (fitted, it should be noted, with the finest air purification system money could buy) devoted solely to the research on chicken dung right outside the Ratonian capital, Lice.
The Viscount smiled wistfully at the ambassador’s husband, “ Lice, went berserk — many a Boykin Spaniel was tossed on the barbie that night, let me tell you!”
Surprisingly, there were many Iranian engineers in the cosmopolitan chicken dung capital of the world. The official reason for the influx was, “We are here to learn the peaceful uses of chicken dung.”
That was regarded with some palatable suspicion throughout the world as many were caught unawares that there were actually bellicose reasons for possessing chicken dung. Indeed, one rarely — if ever– heard of someone in any corner of the world being charged with possession of chicken dung with intent to kill. Who knew?
There were great discussions of the menu in Lice that fine American Holiday. Even as the Marine bands in every embassy were playing John Phillip Sousa like Dire Straits, it was agreed that dog might not be appropriate to serve at the Bachmans’ this year.
The cell service in Lice was knocked out by a tragic pantyhose accident just as the message was being texted to the ambassador. Thus it was that ambassador Cynthia Bachman was stalling the religious leader of Ratonia, a rodent-faced spiteful little man with a Chihuahua-skull necklace around his neck.
His breath alone made the beautifully coiffed woman wish she were still giving lap dances. Her eyes widened as she saw two men dressed in leisure suits looking like they were trapped in a 1970s John Travolta film.
The Iranains!
The two men stood in the reception line chatting in Farsi:
“These Ratonians are a very unpleasant people, no?’
“They are dogs (an animal as unclean to Moslems of all stripes as pigs)!”
Ambassador Bachman watched with some trepidation as the Iranians glared with intense disapproval at Rusty frolicking across the lawn. Cynthia glowered at William. In a language known only to husbands and wives she demanded that he go get his damned dog.
What happened next became a You-Tube moment for the rest of time what little there was of it.
Thinking that the American was going to get a free lunch, the Viscount chased the lumbering middle aged man across the perfectly manicured lawn. Being small and wiry, the Viscount grew up as a dogboy on his father’s ranch. He snuck under Bachman, grabbed good-ole Rusty and darted for the back of the house where the grill had been fired up.
Everybody in the reception line heard the sizzle and yelp. The Iranians who already had stern countenances of disapproval began jabbering, “Death to the Great Satan.”
What no one had foreseen was that there actually were hostile uses for chicken dung.
The results were tragic, devastating and toxic. The entire American consulate was covered in it.
The world was never the same.
The moral of the story?
The idea of inviting Iranians for hot dogs could backfire leaving us covered in chicken… dung.