. . . and finally

I am too young to have met Johnny Carson at his best, but I heard he was funny. But I saw Jay Leno over the years on the Tonight Show and I am not surprised that he’s been around that long. Tonight, will be his last on the Tonight Show after 17 years. Late night television host is not exactly as fickle as a hip-hop artist’s career but any gig in entertainment is not exactly guaranteed for another day. The point is, you have to ‘bring your A-game’ every day in show business, and for the most part, Jay leno brought it.
I never paid too much attention to Jay Leno until recently when one of his faithfuls wooed me into watching Tonight Show every now and then. Funny guy Conan O’Brien takes over, and although I’m a Conan fan, no one really knows how this engagement will fare. Like any new relationship, it takes time to know the person, be familiar with his jokes and most importantly, be happy with their performance.
For now, Jay Leno exits the center stage, and leaves behind an audience who appreciates the people who make us laugh and find humor in even the most devastating news stories. Myesha will have to find another reason to stay up late into the night, but I am sure Jay Leno gave her a reason (just as he did for millions of people around the country) to laugh through life’s many challenges. For those of you who said Johnny Carson was the master at ‘late night funny’, well I never met him so I can’t argue that assertion. What I know is that once upon a time, NBC had a guy who made fun of just about anything and managed to save all of us the corny punch lines. Tonight is the last we will see of Jay Leno on the Tonight Show, but I have a sneaky suspicion that an HBO special is in the works, already.
So long Jay, I’ll be looking out for you at an Improv soon.

A Bronx Tale

No relation to Robert De Niro’s 1993 Hollywood movie, - close enough nonetheless. I knew we were living in the most fascinating time in history, and with everyday, something else turns the drama a couple of notches higher. Barack Obama somehow becomes the odd guy in the presidential photo book and he is shaking the foundations from all corners. Well, no one can say Obama didn’t promise “change” in his campaign speeches. So here we go with a nominee for the nation’s highest court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Her story, much like Barack obama’s story, and has a lot of resemblance to the quintessential rags to riches, be-all-you-can-be, American dream stories your mother told you. Whether or not the confirmation process goes through smoothly is an entirely different ball game.
For now, it’s tricky line on all political fronts. Hispanics are galvanizing in support of Sonia Sotomayor, who they see as the most eligible person to inadvertently represent them on the grand stage. This appointment officially seals the deal for many Hispanics who remain unsure if their story, culture and language will ever find itself into the American mainstream.
On the same side of the street, Democrats are banking on her nomination to solidify their mandate with the Hispanic voting bloc. Needless to say that there are a lot of pieces in this one puzzle, and I am not naïve enough to assume that President Obama didn’t have all those factors running through his mind last week. Assuming there is no political strategy involved here, Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic justice, and only the third woman justice in the history of the nation’s highest court. Now if you didn’t think that was a big deal, welcome to reality.
As if the Republican Party doesn’t have enough problems of their own, they now have to walk a very fine line between appropriately vetting Sonia Sotomayor, and being branded racists forever. Now that is a tight rope for anyone to tread. I have seen the videos surfacing on FOX News and CNN that potentially labels her as liberal and the other which suggest that Sotomayor believes that real policy emanates from the state level.
Either way you look at it, any one of us will be hard-pressed to find one person who can tell you which way she Sotomayor leans, from Roe V wade down to Proposition 8. Generally speaking, that is a sign of an impartial judge who leaves his or her personal beliefs at home and deals with the fact of any case, as defined by the constitution. Of course, that’s all nice in theory.

Rush Limbaugh didn’t waste no time at all in throwing in his two cents, calling Sotomayor a “reverse racist” and “an affirmative action case extraordinaire”. Who am I to say that is not a nice thing to say about someone who didn’t just jump out of a tree last night, and can barely spell her name? Trust me, if anyone could be Supreme Court judge, this conversation would have ended a long time ago. If anyone is paying attention, Rush Limbaugh is digging a tricky hole for his Republican buddies to cover up, and this may very well be another chapter in that story. This will certainly be a fun process to watch; words will be twisted, meanings will be subjective and all the hard line Republicans will be watching their gestures to avoid sounding demeaning and racist.

Blah blah blah, Judge Sonia Sotomayor believes her story is the quintessential American story, coming from no where and making something out of the very little she had. Sounds nice, sounds like a Lifetime movie script, but this is a country where a black man could be President, a Latina woman could become a Supreme Court Judge, and no one truly knows what’s wrong with Michael Jackson.
I knew Barack Obama was clever, but with this nomination he just wrote a sequel to the Bronx Tale, the kind that no Hollywood producer could have pulled off in a million years. . .

Random Wisdom

Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field, frozen with snow.

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.


- Langston Huges

The Truth about Nancy

America: I, Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi
Pelosi: I, Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi
America: Do solemnly swear
Pelosi: Do solemnly swear
America: To tell the whole truth
Pelosi: To tell the who- whole trrrr. . .
(Awkward silence)
America: Madam Speaker. . .
Pelosi: Wait a minute! Truth about what?
(. . . and CUT!)
If this was a Hollywood sitcom, this is exactly where we pause for commercial break, and give the rest of us time to catch up with what just happened. I particularly don’t care who knew what and who told who what. All politicians lie, and occasionally get busted in the process. There is absolutely nothing novel about this recent denial (allegedly) or allegation that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew all the fine prints of the water boarding fiasco and didn’t do anything about it. Even worse, when she was asked what she did know, she went ‘amnesia’ on the rest of us.
The whole drama is circling around what Pelosi learned in classified intelligence briefings she received on ‘harsh interrogations’. The argument about the effectiveness and legality of the methods used to extract information from alleged al-Qaeda operatives seeks to suggest that whoever was involved was both incompetent and shortsighted. Those are the two attributes that Nancy Pelosi will do just about anything to avoid been slapped with.
I know that the Republican Party is in desperate mode to find anything they can hang their hats on and so far nothing has worked. The attention to the Obama’s stimulus plan among others faded away and that probably has something to do with the fact that the plan may have worked (or at least showing signs thereof).
The next line of reasonable allegations then is the woman in charge of the decision making process for the whole country and that is a big part of why the ’truth’ has been a big deal in Washington in the past few days. Any other day, no one cares about anything that resembles the truth.

Pelosi has insisted that she was not “directly” briefed by Bush administration officials that the practice was being actively employed. Keyword here is directly, and that is the only reason why I don’t buy it. Normally, water boarding an Abu Zubaida is a no-issue, except that in the days of the Obama ‘clean up campaign’, most politicians (except Dick Cheney) are doing everything possible to be on the righteous side.
My best guess is that Nancy Pelosi would love to spell out the truth about what she knew, and end this entire he said-she said circus, but it’s a little too late now to apologize without political backlash.
How will this fiasco end? Your guess as good as mine, but honestly I don’t care.

Crossroads: Illusion of Security

Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we have finally arrived at the ultimate humiliation crossroad in the aviation and travel business. Ever since 9/11, there have been plenty of ideas to ensure our safety, and that started with stashing every airline with federal marshals. That lasted for a weekend, and then we figured out that it costs way too much to keep actual human beings on joy rides, technology took over.
Metal detectors couldn’t tell belt buckles from bombs, and the TSA guy patting me down looked a little too happy on the job, so we had to find a better alternative. Enhanced scanning devise, fingerprinting, laser detection, blah blah blah, just about anything you can imagine.
The last time I was on a plane, half of the passengers showed up in flip-flops in anticipation of them having to take off their shoes. I did the same. All that, and we were still not safe?
The new gadget is the whole-body imaging machines at airports that performs a “virtual strip” search and produces “naked” pictures of passengers. Now that is what I call freaky. Apparently these high tech scanners have been in airports since 2007, and just the thought of some creepy dude sitting inside a small room watching images of women and children is nothing short of appalling. Of course I am not suggesting that airport officials are perverts but you cannot convince me that there is no pervert I the bunch. The counter argument is that the person who does the screening will not get to see the scanned image, so the fact that some potentially nasty dude is checking out my girlfriend’s butt shouldn’t be too annoying. Next time I’m at the airport, I’ll remember to strike a pose for Uncle Joe in the secret booth just in case he needs some excitement in his government authorized peep show.
Very soon all of us will have to show up at the airport completely naked, that way the TSA officials can guarantee that we are not in possession of any deadly weapons. I have no problem with a stranger digging through my neatly arranged luggage, and talking to me as if he paid my rent for the past year.

More than once in my travels, I have seen people pinching themselves to be sure they didn’t die and unsuspectingly come back as Osama Bin Laden. Airport security guards have the right to treat anyone like crap, no questions asked. We happily subject ourselves to the humiliation and discomfort, all in the name of security and safety, but how far is too far? Could it be that we have come to the end of pragmatic options and the seemingly remaining alternatives are nothing but an illusion of protection, and a useless intrusion of privacy? Now I see what the Republicans mean when they talk about wasteful government spending.
When it comes to airline security, I think we crossed the line the moment names of two year old kids started showing up on the list of suspected terrorists. Something is seriously wrong with our system, and if you ask me, sci-fi scanners and quasi porn intrusive devices won’t make too much of a difference.

But this is just my random thought, what do I know?

A Con-Vick forever a Vick-tim

If NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell was Pope Benedict, I can understand the argument that Michael Vick’s NFL career was done. Even if the NFL owners were anything close to saints and monks, I will guess no one will be willing to put his life on the line for Michael Vick. BUT neither of them is true, and the NFL is nowhere close to the Vatican.
Michael Vick is a convicted felon. Big deal. All the PR hoopla aside, this is not a child daycare gig that he is applying for, where the mere mention of prison time sends your application straight to the file under the table. Football is as barbaric and inhumane as any sports can get, so nothing at all, Michael Vick has proved that he belongs to the sport. He has the heart to inflict pain fellow humans (and on dogs as well) and that is a perfect combo for anyone willing to pursue a career in the NFL. If this was Bimbo Slice vying for a spot in any team, I will be first in line to push him off the ledge, but any honest person knows that Vick can still play.
Pardon me if I don’t automatically assume that the NFL should ostracize Michael Vick. This will be another case of a troubled young man, a prodigal son if you would. I know that a ‘crime is a crime’, but a 23-month federal sentence on dog fighting charges is a lot different from manslaughter and aggravated assault, at least in my book.
I know my RSPCA buddies will pounce on me any minute, but let’s get real for a second. Michael Vick went to jail for cruel treatment to dogs, fine. When was the last time you saw Congress going after boxing and the UFC for the cruel punishment intentionally inflicted onto fellow humans. That is arguably as barbaric as entertainment can get. Maybe Vick should have produced his gruesome events on HBO, and he would have been a rock star right about now. As the most judgmental homosapiens to have walked the earth, how backward can our priorities be? Never mind, that was intended to be a rhetoric question.
As long as Pacman Jones still plays in the NFL, there is no reason Michael Vick is ineligible.
Lest we forget that not too long ago, Ray Lewis’ fate hung on the ropes between life imprisonment and a long time in jail, but all he had to do was win a Super Bowl for Baltimore Ravens and all his sins are washed as white as snow. I am not insinuating that we have short memories in America, rather that no one cares (honestly) when you are winning. Mike Tyson went Conan the Barbarian on Evander Holyfield’s ear, and even the Iron man got a second chance. He lived to fight again. I guess I have to put that in perspective;- eating human flesh is not that brutal, plus what happened in Vegas was supposed to have stayed in Vegas.
The Michael Vick story is more than just dollars and cents here (sense too). All 32 teams want to win now and want to win badly. Anyone will take a chance on a quarterback who can at least stay in the pocket when necessary and take off if needed. Michael Vick was superman 3 years ago, and I can imagine that this stint in prison would make him a tougher player but very humble too. Second chances are there for people who screwed up the first one.
The even more fascinating twist to this story is the trendy and tricky strategies set to revolutionarize football. As a reminder, the Miami Dolphins showed up in Foxboro last and trampled over my New England Patriots with an offense they called the ‘Wildcat’. Ever since that shocking Sunday afternoon, the ‘wildcat spread offense’ has caught so much steam that every other team is attempting it (even the Patriots, although horribly executed on many occasions). And??? Well, Michael Vick was born to run, arguably one of the fastest legs on the football field who doesn’t fit the quintessential NFL quarterback stand-and-deliver mantra. Vick breathes and bleed (no pun intended) the ‘wildcat’, and you can bet NFL owners are not sitting around aloof to be punked by animal rights activists.

Trust me, I perfectly understand why you will think I’m some immoral idiot who will rather see Vick in the NFL, supposedly condoning his behavior. The problem however is that those are the same hogwash and archaic mindsets that keep people from contributing to society simply because of their past. He may have killed a dog or two, no denying that. He bankrolled a gruesome hobby, and that is deplorable to say the least. Find me one morally upright unblemished person anywhere in America (Utah included) and I will show you a hypocrite who deserves a 23-month jail sentence.

I certainly have no problem watching the Vick make more money than most of us, and we have lived by the book all our lives. You can bet that if I could survive been squashed my 400-pound men every Sunday, I will be happily playing football too. Commissioner Roger Goddell has a choice to make, and using the same benchmarks he used for the long list of NFL prodigal sons, I will be hard-pressed to find a good reason why he will deny Vick a second chance. So where will he land? Patriots? No way Jose. Steelers, Dolphins, Seahawks? Not likely. There are some teams who don’t need a quarterback, some who don’t know they need a quarterback and a couple who don’t care if they win or lose. There are still the Carolinas and the Jacksonvilles who may find a Vick addition very enticing. Don’t forget to call me a genius when Michael Vick ends up in Tampa Bay Buccaneers with a bunch of young players eager to make their mark in the NFL. But if all else fails, you can count on the almighty, all-forgiving, and unpredictable Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders to scoop Vick up in a blink of an eye.
For goodness sake, this is America we are talking about. I can understand a much complicated moral dialogue if we lived in Turkmenistan, Iran or the Philippines. The NFL needs Michael Vick just as Michael Vick needs a paycheck.
Michael Vick has been vick-timized for far too long, and it is time the rest of us swallowed our hypocrisy and condemnatory attitudes and let the man do the one thing he does best; run around like a dog on Sunday afternoons.

Just a random thought anyway.

2.29 and Rising

Just in case you haven’t been paying attention, which I know for certain that not too many people are, gas prices are on the rise again. Of course this time it’s much slower and the rest of us equate that to the rising cost of living owing to the recession. Furthermore, it’s been so long since we actually had to cringe at the gas pumps so we easily forget our pains in October 2008.
The point of my story? Don’t say I never gave you heads up. According to sources that actually follow this kind of stuff for a living(I do it our of sheer boredom), a 12% surge in 3 weeks is not really a cause for concern, but sure is time to start rethinking our gas guzzlers. Most people I know don’t even know that the ‘premium’ brand still exist, but unfortunately for some of us we see that every week. So whiles you are paying $2.29 a gallon, I just got through screaming at Exxon Mobil for a $1 more per gallon. Mind you, this has absolutely nothing to do with fuel efficiency.

A gallon of regular gasoline rises 0.9 cents a day, almost too insignificant for anyone one of us to notice, but you can bet that the upward movement didn’t just start overnight. The key reason why no one is panicking now or blaming Obama yet, is that we are nowhere near last year's all-time high of $4.114 a gallon.
The price of crude oil has been on the rise in recent months(I actually know this, thanks to MSNBC), and by all indications Hugo Chavez’s newfound love for America hasn’t changed anything on the oil supply front.
Last year was brutal; even the mere thought of gas prices a year ago makes me reconsider getting a scooter. The good news however is that this year we have $787 billion worth of free money hanging around (legally referred to as Economic Recovery Fund), or less simply ‘bailout money’. The banks got a cut, auto industry got a slice, the farmers, teachers, and just about anyone willing to face public ridicule and pointless congressional scrutiny. My reasoning is that no one will turn you and me down when we show up riding on ‘empty’.
Back to my main argument. Rising gas prices is not the issue here, rather the speed of the upswing and the almost sinister nature of its effects on all of us that bothers me, just a bit. Mark my words, next month by this time the rest of America will be bleeding cash at the pumps. Then we will all wonder why we abandoned the Ethanol conversation, ignored John McCain’s offshore drilling agenda, and just about any logical proposition on the board.
BUT just like any other time in human history, we would have successfully made it back to square one.

My Problem with the ACLU

Stephen Colbert pokes fun at the ACLU on Comedy Central just about every night; once in a while he is on to something. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is one of those groups that I dislike standing on opposite sides against, and my only reason is that you really never know when you will need them to fight on your behalf. Throughout America’s legal history the ACLU have repeatedly been at the forefront on many controversial issues; from gay rights, civil rights, animal rights to just about any rights you can imagine.
The ACLU lives and breathes justice, depending on who you ask anyway. Occasionally however, such ‘hardcore’ quest for justice steps outside the boundaries of logical reasoning, and that is where our paths diverge.
The ACLU among other ‘pro-transparency’ advocates are bugging the President to release the torture files and all the photos that show United States military forces abusing detainees in Guantanamo Bay. Leading up to his presidency, Obama was adamant that he would mark his stark contrast to the Bush White House by making everything public to whoever cares to see. The ACLU had no problem with that, neither did I. This week however, President Obama says he doesn’t want to (and will not) release alleged prison abuse photos because it could affect the safety of U.S. troops overseas and “inflame anti-American opinion.” Why do I think that is not a bad idea? Common sense dude!
What will the pictures prove?
A better question to ask is, what will the images portray that the previously released Abu Ghraib photos(all thousand of them) haven’t already shown? Just for the sake of reminders, the last time the United States government released any such photos, the violence that erupted throughout the world and the Middle East in particular pointed to the fact that there are millions of people hanging out in street corners ready to jump out into the streets to burn American flags for fun. I really don’t care so much about such opportunist and foreign policy rascals, what matters the most is the safety of all of us. The point in releasing the photos is so that we will all condemn the Bush administration’s interrogation tactics. I think it had been condemned enough.

Of course it is fair to assert that President Obama is looking out for himself considering the fact that he is scheduled to be in Egypt and address the Muslim world sometime next month. Talk about a PR disaster. Who in his right frame of mind wouldn’t look out for himself? Common sense dude! In a little over a hundred days Obama has done so much to rectify (in lieu of a precise diction) America’s image, and showing photos on naked prisoners with their head stuck into a barrel full of orange juice won’t do any of us any good. The same rascals on the street corners of Yemen and Iran will jump back into the streets and burn the two remaining American flags they found under their beds, and call it anti-Americanism.
Don’t get me wrong, the ACLU has a dog in this fight, and it is privacy, transparency and government accountability. I get all that. I am of the strong opinion that at some point, commonsense has to kick in and let some sleeping dogs lie in peace. There is absolutely no value in reopening the wounds of detainee abuse, and you can’t convince me that President Obama’s decision is anything short of logical leadership.
People who know what they are talking about, like Jim Jones (not the rapper), General Petreas and Secretary Bob Gates did plead with the president to not put the troops in any more danger than they are currently in, and unless anyone of the ACLU release-the-photo advocates can show me pictures from their stint in Afghanistan or Iraq, it’s time to shut up. It is convenient to sit a California or New York office and yell ‘transparency’ but what good is transparency when the net result is ‘stifled diplomacy’?

Believe me, I am all for disclosure, but not some irresponsible exposé that politicians can hang their pointless ideological hats on, under the guise of protecting democracy.
Another random thought, of course.

Re-branding Africa

The peaceful transition of power in South Africa is not the top story here, after all many African countries have managed to pull off the Democratic agenda without plucking each others eyes out. For instance, Ghana is one such country, albeit stuck in one of the relatively unstable regions on the African continent.
On Saturday night, thanks to CSPAN and CNN International, I listened to newly sworn-in South African President Jacob Zuma take the oath of office, in a very civil ceremony and Nelson Mandela looking on from a seemingly fragile seat. Of course, it would be presumptuous for any one to take Jacob Zuma’s promises to heart, but equally pessimistic to decry that as propaganda talk with no intent to carry out any item in his manifesto(I hadn’t heard that word in years). I was particularly impressed (and I am seldom impressed by politicians in general) by his respectful tribute to arch-rival Thabo Mbeki, the ANC, and the political factions that would rather see him dead than lead the country.
For the record, Jacob Zuma is not Nelson Mandela, and I am not referring to his self-proclaimed polygamist stance. He will not have the same international credibility and unconditional support that Mandela enjoyed, and that makes him ‘just another president’ in Africa, rather than the larger than life figure he would have hoped to elicit. The African agenda is a tough sell, and a ‘superstar’ leader would have gone a long way, at least to pitch the sale.
When you talk of South Africa, corruption and mismanagement are just two of the leading charges for the government, Mandela’s included. It is fair to ascertain then, that if South Africa is an accurate microcosm of the state of African politics, the continent as a whole has a long way to go. Of course, Africa have had its fair share of the bashing and ridicule amidst the famines in Chad and Ethiopia, civil wars In Liberia, Sierra Leone and Rwanda, the Darfur crisis, Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and even Somali Pirates. The list is obviously much longer, but you get the point.
Jacob Zuma takes office from a dignified and reconciliatory stance, and I know I am jumping the gun here, but I applaud anyone for avoiding the divisive remarks and in-your-face speeches.
I am not too sure what he meant by the “values” of the Mandela era, but it is somewhat refreshing to see an African politician somewhat genuinely acknowledging the work of his predecessor. Jacob Zuma is no Barack Obama. He is a star in South Africa, but I will easily mistake him for my Geico Insurance agent any day in Wal-Mart. He won’t have the luxury of a world cheering him on, and his images on every website or T-Shirt, but his task is no less important in reshaping South Africa and the African continent.

Who cares about South Africa politics? Well everyone should. Ask the Chinese, and they will tell you a thing or two about natural resources and oil oozing out of Africa. Darfur is still in the conversation, so are the many unstable regions that require endless supplies of foreign aid. The Africa Union is still unsure of its role, and the spotlight forever remains on people like Gaddafi, Mugabe and the status-quo that has kept Africa out of the globalization limelight. On the fuzzier side, next Summer, all of us will be heading to South Africa for the first ever World Cup on African soil. The point is, South African politics and progress is crucial to the African agenda in more ways that one.
The last time I saw Jacob Zuma, he was singing his trademark anthem ‘Umshini Wam’ which translates into ‘Bring me my machine gun’ and we can only hope that his revolutionary days are behind him. I am one of the few social and political observers who assert that South Africa is still an accurate barometer to measuring African development.
If Jacob Zuma’s rise to presidency (with all his colorful background) is any indication of the progress on the continent, I have to give credit where credit is due. Sure, he is not the only one responsible for fixing Africa’s mess, but he is solely responsible for re-branding his portion of the continent, - from the South that is.
Optimism runs through my veins, just as blood run through yours, - and certainly hope that Jacob Zuma knows that one of the hallmarks of Nelson Mandela was “people first”, not stashing bank accounts, luxury yachts, and golden mansions.

Just my random thought.

Happy Mother's Day

Constitutional Drama

Since when did we count on beauty pageants to argue constitutional precedents? In all fairness, Perez Hilton pushed the controversial button at the Miss America pageant, and contestant Carrie Prejean took the bait, so here we go. That is all it took for a constitutional showdown, with the issue of gay rights front and center.
Behind all the fluff, there are two powerful factions working their agenda. Both the Gay Rights activists (of which I am a part of) and the Anti-Gay Rights (of which I am also a part of) are the key players in this legal tug of war. Who cares what I think or which side I am on?
There are two possible scenarios in all of this. First, it is entirely possible that Miss California vanishes amidst her semi-nude photos controversy and we never hear of the gay rights/ marriage debate again until 2011. Second, which is also possible, is that the key players will hide behind the Prejean and Perez curtains, to run their agenda to the ground. Maybe they are doing us a big favor at the frontlines of a contentious and socially polarizing issue that none of us want to talk about, or in my case, too busy with my life to worry about.
A year ago, if anyone had told me that these were the two people who would be pushing the political agenda on gay rights in America, I would call that person a clueless numb-nut. Sounds like I would have been the idiot.
A part of me wants to say that Carrie Prejean has become a scapegoat for people like Perez Hilton and all the gay rights folks who prayed for someone to be the sacrificial spokesperson against their freedom to do whatever they want. But there is the other part of me that will be quick to quote the legendary reggae star Peter Tosh, “if you live in a glasshouse, don’t throw stones.”
Miss California never said she was a saint. So what if she appeared partially nude at age 17? I contend that all of us have been partially nude at some point in our lives; the only difference is that our pictures never showed up online or on Facebook. I am not asking you to get off your high horse here, but all of us at one point or another showed up at a beach or by a pool partially nude. Of course that is a bogus analogy; - none of us are not on stage telling the rest of America how we deserve a coronation as the most beautiful person alive.
Back to main argument, Perez Hilton was out of line in the first place asking Carrie Prejean about such a controversial issue. Is it any more ridiculous than asking about Gun Rights, Stimulus Bills, Truman Doctrines and Iranian Nuclear ambitions on the next Miss USA competition? All beauty queens ought to concern themselves with is beauty, and let the nerds worry about public policy.
If Perez Hilton wasn’t an openly gay (activist wannabe) with hi sown agenda, Carrie Prejean would have been Miss USA, and her answer would have been no different from any of the other worthless remarks we have heard over the years, as was the case with Miss South Carolina a year ago.
The flip side of the story is that Prejean is fighting hard to defend traditional marriage, whereas the evangelical supporters she earned a couple of weeks ago want no part to play in her nude photo affair. Sad, but such is the life in political activism. If you publicly take a stand on an issue, you better dot your I’s and cross your T’s, because you can guarantee TMZ will be busy digging up some dirt on you.
The gay rights drama and constitutional circus will continue for another week or two, but if I have any advice to both Democrats and Republicans, it will be that Carrie Prejean and Perez Hilton are not the two people you want leading your agenda.

Stress Test Distress

19 of the biggest banks in America will learn of their fate tomorrow. This is the product of something called the "stress tests", where financial institutions will have prove to the powers-that-be that they can in fact raise the necessary capital and remain viable. The real significance of the quasi-litmus paper testing will be to evaluate the financial stamina should the recession deepen (Bernanke said we are on our way up), or the financial meltdown take another unexpected turn.
I don’t want to be the idiot who suggested that Warren Buffet is wrong, but I think this evaluation is not completely inane. After pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into the financial institutions, it was only fair to question who gets what, why and most importantly, for how long? My bank, Bank of America is $34billion short. Wells Fargo needs $15billion in new capital, so this won’t be a bad idea to sign up for a checking account, the kind that comes with a free $100 deposit from the bank.
What I know (from my morning briefings from MSNBC and Investor Business Daily) is that if the test found that a bank's reserves would fall below a minimum level, that bank would have to raise more capital beyond what's now required. Somewhere in the fine print however is the fact that none of the banks will be allowed to fail, and that begs the question, what then is the use of the stress test in the first place?
At the end of the day, banks will have to get back to the business of lending, and allow the Obama agenda of unfreezing the credit market to work its natural course. The catch 22 however is how any institution drowned in bad assets and shortage of investor cash be willing to dish out more money is a recession economy. There is also the issue of ‘useless’ bank assets that can’t find a buyer even if you dump them in a 99Cents Store in El Paso. Construction loans, home mortgages and all kinds of debts are tied into this, and maybe when Secretary Timothy Geithner came up with his financial stability plan in February, he was actually talking about the ‘stress test’. Smart guy.

The next 48 hours will be interesting for several reasons. Until banks can return to normal lending, it will be hard for businesses to expand or survive a downturn. So will the negative findings for those banks that fail the ‘stress test’ trigger a downward spiral of stocks and destabilize the markets? Probably not.
So we will all feel the pinch of the ‘stress test’, a little distress even. Lehman Brothers went down the drain when it was too costly to save, but I have a feeling that even the most fragile banks will get another lifeline because any further collapses will suggest that we (including the Wall Street wise guys) are not smart enough to clean up pour own mess. Now that would be un-American.

Just my random thought.

1 Down, 3 to Go

If the regular season match up is any indication of how NBA playoffs turn out, the Houston Rockets showing up Los Angeles should have been a no-contest. After all, this is a team that could barely match the Lakers’ intensity and skill in all four regular season games, and even when it looked like they could win, the Rockets found ways to revert to their old self, - ‘chokesters’.
Not anymore. Certainly not after the Game 1 display of fortitude and mental stamina. Rockets won 100-92, but there is more to the story than what the ESPN statisticians pile up. No one expected the Rockets to make it past the first round against a surging Portland Trailblazer team, which they did.
No one expected them to walk into LA, and roll out with at least one win in the Staples Center. Over Kobe Bryant’s dead body. Well, Kobe is still alive, and the Rockets won, and this is probably when the tide begins to turn from ‘choke city’ back to the beloved ‘clutch city’.
I know it’s too early to celebrate, and three more wins against Kobe Bryant alone will be an exploit, let alone a Lakers team with Phil Jackson working voodoo from the sidelines. The headlines on Sportscenter may not show Yao Ming’s collision with Kobe, a scary moment for the Rockets, but Yao pulled off a Willis Reed-esque moment, by limping back from the tunnel onto the court to finish the game.
I am not sold on Ron Artest’s designer haircut, but anyone who sticks 21 points to the Lakers is excused from weird hairdos and corny post game interviews. This is the first time the Rockets are showing up in the second round of the NBA playoffs since 1997, and just in case you are wondering why the city of Houston is buzzing after a ‘mere’ Game 1 win, that is your answer. Plus all this excitement without Tracy McGrady, maybe we have seen the last of McGrady in Rockets uniform.

Of course come Wednesday, the Lakers will come out swinging from the opening tip of Game 2, and you can believe that Rockets won’t just roll over and die. Winning a playoff game (especially in Houston’s case) is a huge confidence booster, which in turn translates into momentum. Los Angeles will show up in desperation mode, and any other day that would be a bad place to be, unless you have No. 24. Bryant scored 32 points, and 22 of the Lakers’ final 42 points, so you can’t say it was an off-night for him. On the whole, the Lakers counted on some last minute heroics, business as usual, except that the Rockets were a little too resilient to fall for the same old panic attacks. Choke four times to the same team, and soon you figure out a winning formula.
No one expected the Rockets to shock L.A., nothing at all, this series has become a lot more fascinating than most people imagined it. Rockets won Game 1 but you can bet the Lakers are still the favorite in most people’s brackets, as the basketball world awaits a Kobe –Lebron showdown.
Until then, a lovely day to see the Houston Rockets make noise in the NBA playoffs, long overdue and hopefully closer to another championship as it was in the good ol’ days.

It's All in the Name

Don’t take my words out of context, I have no problem with people wearing masks in Mexico City, but when everybody in a Houston Airport is dressed like ninjas, you are forced to wonder if the Swine Flu crisis is really that bad? Frankly, that is a question I don’t want to find the answer to.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is asking that we don’t say ‘Swine Flu” any more. The official name is H1N1 Virus. The assertion is that a wrong label will trigger a series of unwarranted fears, and a potential domino effect in other areas of our lives. I get it, but something about H1N1 is not as scary as ‘Swine Flu’. Too late anyway.
Who am I to suggest that the 24/7 media coverage of this potential epidemic is blowing the crisis out of proportion. I still maintain that a little fear is necessary, so in a bid to alleviate fear from the general public, changing the name might not be the best option here. From Texas to New York, there are schools shutting down as precautionary measures, and for the sake of children’s safety I think that is not a bad idea.
Every politician and city official don’t want to be stuck with the blame when they can easily send the children home to save their own careers. So that adds to the tense climate and the pandemonium. It will be interesting to know how many times schools will shut down the rest of the year because of a child’s cough, or a ninja-looking kid who claims to have flu-like symptoms.
The WHO raised the global alert to a Level 5, but that has more to do with precautionary measures for countries that are ill prepared in case of any outbreaks. Yes there are more cases of deaths showing up across the planet, 257 cases of swine flu worldwide. Even in the alleged ‘Swine Flu central’, Mexico that is, 97 cases with seven deaths in a population of more than 300 million people is nothing near scary. The cause of the panic however, is that no one of the 300 million people want to end up in the 97 group. Same story here in the United States, almost 150 cases with 1 death, but changing the name from ‘Swine Flu’ to H1N1 won’t fool anyone.
Inasmuch as I want to say that the ninja looking people in Wal-Mart are taking the ‘Swine Flu’ stuff a couple notches too far, it is better to be safe than sorry. Yesterday, one of the most important people in my life had to travel on a plane, and just before I suggested that she gets a couple of masks, I thought to myself I could be overreacting.
What if this H1N1 Virus is nothing but a new strain of the flu that we see every year? I will take a wild guess that the ‘regular’ flu is just as deadly but it is something most of us have grown accustomed to. The name ‘Swine Flu’ sounds dangerous, so going back to my earlier point, don’t blame the pandemonium on the public, blame the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the WHO, they should have known.
Another random thought anyway.

Suze Says . . .

I saw an article on MSN this morning, the title couldn’t have been any more on point; “Stop Listening to Suze Orman”. Quite frankly I have nothing against Suze, but out of sheer curiosity I thought to read the entire article so I can see what this anti-Suze Orman propaganda was all about. Halfway through the article, I was beside myself with laughter because I found out that I hadn’t been delirious all this time.
I have watched Suze’s countless appearances on CNN and Larry King especially, and with every time she seemed to know the answers to every financial problem.
That’s all peaches, but deep down, I had the same problem with her as I had with Miss Cleo; gurus whose advice occasionally doesn’t quite add up. Of course Suze Orman is always selling something, mutual funds, stocks, books, even calendars. When it comes to savings, budgeting, financial planning and retirement (anything to do with money, Suze Orman knows the answer) but I have always been wary of experts who cant predict anything but can analyze everything. People flock to her infinite wisdom, but the article on MSN pokes a discerning mind to wonder how gurus like Suze Orman, for example, never saw the impending financial meltdown.
A few years ago I stumbled onto one of her shows on MSNBC (one of Myesha’s favorites besides ‘Amazing Race’) and one of her super-simple psychological explanations for all money problems didn’t quite sit well with me, but I thought maybe I was delirious.
This MSN article is a lot more biased than objective but even in my naivety, I know that financial success has a lot more to do with emotional psychology than Suze seems to suggest. You don’t just feel your way to riches, and honestly that had been the crux of my apprehension to the Orman magic.
I don’t want to insinuate that she has become a financial version of a televangelist selling pictures of Jesus Christ, but whenever you find people who seemingly know it all, only time shows what they are really made of. Her product sells, no question about that, but that could very well be because this is America, where everyone is looking for a magic pill or quickest way to the top, and at least Suze Orman seems to have figured that out. From Oprah, QVC, PBS, down to the "Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan" she offers ‘pragmatic financial ideas’ for the most part, but half of what she says is what you and I already know. Trust me, any idiot on two feet knows that you don’t refinance your home to buy a Ferrari and take a vacation with the remainder. But coming from Suze Orman that same commonsense thought has divine merit I guess.

The point of the story, Suze Orman’s apparent disregard for statistics and hard facts makes it a little difficult to take her advice to the bank; no wonder hard-line economic students don’t listen to her insights like the rest of us do. I won’t be doing the article justice by trying to reiterate the argument, but if you have read this far, I am sure you can manage a click to MSN. My personal opinion,- the author James Scurloc may very well have some personal ‘beef’ with Suze Orman, so take from it what you want.
I still don’t think Suze Orman is a quack by any stretch, not at all, but when I thought that some of her advice ignored the diverse cultural sensitivities and intricate human aspects of life I had my doubts. When I heard her tell someone to avoid her mother’s debts and struggle to be sure her credit score is perfect, I paused for a moment. Of course no one is suggesting that you follow your mother to a financial abyss, but when your poor mother worked 4 jobs to clothe you, pay for your college and sacrificed her own life to give you 3 square meals, you don’t tout your credit score in her face, because Suze Orman told you to do so.
Life is not that cut and dry, and even in a perfect life, all you need is one major illness, divorce, bankruptcy, or mega mishap, and most people are back to square one. This is America I respect the woman’s ‘hustle’, some are her own gut reactions to financial trends, and others loaded with information that redirects you to products she is connected with (like TD Ameritrade).
There is a part of me that have come to terms with the fact that this is America, where all you need is one endorsement, and the rest of us will follow like clockwork. No wonder the only person who beat Suze Orman in TV appearances is Barack Obama. You may read the article on MSN if you want, BUT please don’t stop listening to Suze Orman on my account. It is just nice to know that I haven’t been delirious all this while.
A random thought.


http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/RetirementandWills/CreateaPlan/stop-listening-to-suze-orman.aspx?page=1