Now, of course, were they all to perish in the same plane crash, I would mourn, but it would be for the other passengers who had to spend their last precious moments of their existence in the presence of these morons. I'd show up at their funerals with wooden stakes and Glocks loaded with silver bullets in case I needed to finish the job. They should have been drowned at birth. Am I making myself clear here? Good.

But while these nattering nabobs of neoreactionism spew their bile, along come the good old Democrats trying to reinstate the so-called “Fairness Doctrine.” You
remember that, where media outlets which press a particular political philosophy are required to give the opposing viewpoint equal time. This was wisely ruled as unconstitutional, and now the liberals – not this one – are trying to bring it back.

Balderdash, I say, though I have no idea what a balder is or what it supposedly dashes. It's kind of like the word whippersnappers. I was once called a whippersnapper, and I have never snapped a whipper in my life. OK, getting off message here...

Other than the fact that trying to reenact the Fairness Doctrine makes the Left look like a bunch of pussies who want the government to fight their battles for them –
imagine that – the very idea that such a thing can be enforced smacks of totalitarianism. Where does it stop? Right-wing radio? Cable news? Newspapers? How much farther down the chain does it go?

Talk about your slippery slopes, here's an example. KROK-AM is a small radio station somewhere in Smalltown, USA, and serves a mostly small-town rural market. Skillet-Licker Slim, the Farmer's Friend and KROK morning man, is hosting the daily
“KROK Swap Shop”, where local folks can advertise their old and/or unwanted items. Let's listen in:

SKILLET-LICKER SLIM: “Hidy folks, and welcome to the KROK Swap Shop! Let's get right to our first caller, Millicent over in Hog Fork. Lovely place, Hog Fork, been there many times frog-giggin'. What you got, Millicent?”

MILLICENT FROM HOG FORK: “Hidy Slim, I got me a crib I want to sell. It's done good fer me, 16 kids and it's only collapsed 3 or 4 times. I'm askin' five bucks fer it, but I'll settle fer three if'n it's a good fambly...”

SKILLET-LICKER SLIM: “Awright, a crib for five clams, sounds like a good deal to me. However, Millicent, in keeping with the guidelines of the Fairness Doctrine, here's Herb Culver of Culver's Quality Used Furniture with an opposing viewpoint. Herb?”

HERB: “Well, now, nothing against Millicent, but do you folks out there really wanna lay down yer newborn bundle o'joy in a crib that's had 16 previous occupants? You can come on down to Culver's and I can put you in a quality crib that's only nestled 1 or 2 babes and still has most of the original parts and ain't held together by duct
tape and deck screws – no offense, Millicent – and only for fifteen ninety-five. I realize that's a bit more than Millicent's askin', but don't yore flesh an' blood deserve the best? We got it here at Culver's!”

SKILLET-LICKER SLIM: “OK, there you go folks, let the people decide! Next we got us Otis from Whiteburg.They still got that great Friday Fish Fry at Gus and Leah's there in Whiteburg, Otis?”

OTIS: “Naw, it's a whorehouse now.”

SKILLET-LICKER SLIM: “Damn shame. I tell ya folks, that was some GREAT fish. Good slaw, too. Whattya got for us, Otis?”

OTIS: “Got me some shoe-mendin' tools, Slim. Everthin' fer any would-be hobby cobblers out there, got leather awls, needles, thread, glue, what have you. Ma boy's decided cobblin' ain't fer him, wants to be one o' them mixed-martial arts fighters. Ten bucks fer the whole kaboodle, an' I don't mind tellin' ya, I'm takin' a beatin' here.”

SKILLET-LICKER SLIM: “Well, that sure sounds like a great deal to me, Otis, but in keepin' with our Fairness Doctrine policy, let's hear from Earlene down at the Chinese
Prison Labor Running Shoe Outlet. Earlene?”

EARLENE: “Slim, we got in a shipment o' cross-trainers from the work farm in Chintuk and we be sellin' them TWO PAIR for ten bucks! Guaranteed to last until you get 'em home, providin' o' course you don't wear 'em 'til you get there. Sorry, Otis! Capitalism, baby!”

OTIS: “Your voice sounds familiar. You ever work in a whorehouse?”

SKILLET-LICKER SLIM: “Afraid that's all the time we got folks! Thanks to the Fairness Doctrine, we cain't sell near as much stuff as we used to. Take Ol' Skillet-Licker Slim's advice: Wanna sell somethin', have a yard sale! We'll be back after these messages...and their rebuttals.”

What to make of the current economic mess, along with the partisan mess of an attempt to clean it up?

Both sides blame the other. I blame both sides, or should I say all three sides: The Republicans, the Democrats, and the Bush administration.

And believe me, there is plenty of blame to go around, but let's start with the top, as in Dubya and Fiends, er, Friends. The 700 billion no-oversight bailout proposed by the administration is nothing more than a ploy to take advantage of national panic. Let's not forget what Bushy and the Boys did after the last national panic, a little thing I – well, OK, and a few others as well – like to call 9/11.

With the nation looking to leadership and clamoring for answers, the administration gave us the Patriot Act and Operation Iraqi Liberty (my name for it, if for no other reason than the acronym explains it all). Still want to trust them? First they capitalize on the publics fear by taking a weed-whacker to the Constitution, then take it one step further by using it to help justify a war that has cost us the lives of 4000 Americans and countless more Iraqi civilians.

Now they grab a bailout number of 700 billion out of thin air, with no oversight, regulation or even so much as a call for the investigation of those responsible. It's sort of the equivalent of Bank of America awarding me for defaulting on my credit card by raising my credit limit.

Do I believe the government needs to step in during this crisis? Of course. But a blank check is not the answer, and that is what the Bush administration wants to give them.

Then there is Republican John McCain doing his best Andy Kaufman as Mighty Mouse impression, lip-syncing "Here I Come to Save the Day" and suspending his campaign to "put his country first." OK, it looks like a gimmick, and it probably is. But to a certain extent, I think McCain actually believed he could bring both sides together. But this is the economy we are talking about, admittedly not his strong suit, and he was out of his depth. Did you see him at the White House round table? The spittoon made a bigger contribution.

On the other hand, it did distract people from Sarah Palin making a fool out of herself on the "CBS Evening News."

But don't think I have forgotten the Democrats in this. Harold Reid and Nancy Pelosi's shameless politicizing at a time of national economic crisis was shameful...can something shameless be shameful? Yo, need an English major here!

Anyway, Reid and Pelosi's snubbing and criticism of McCain – no matter what his motives may have been – cast the Democratic leadership in the worst light. By their actions, Reid and Pelosi proved beyond the shadow of a doubt where their priorities lie. They should be ashamed of themselves, and the Democrats should take immediate steps to oust the both of them once the smoke clears.

If Obama was party to the shenanigans of Pelosi and Reid – and I have yet to see any evidence that he was – then he should be chastised as well. But that can wait.

If I may use an analogy that I must credit to my wife, the house is burning to the ground while everybody is busy beating up the arsonist. There is plenty of blame to go around. We know what caused the mess. Quit pointing fingers and fix it already!

Anybody happen to catch that celebrity-laden music video for Sen. Barack Obama (A Selection of the Oprah Candidate Club)?

I watched it a couple of times myself. I'm sure you have, too. A vast menagerie of ex-athletes, rock stars, actors and other various and sundry celebrities of whose specialties I am unsure, all speaking, singing or playing along to an inspirational Obama speech set to music.

Can we say cloying?

Can we say manipulative?

Yes we can!

But oddly inspiring nonetheless.

I don't blame Obama or his campaign staff for this little ditty. I don't blame his supporters and I don't even blame the celebrities. This is the kind of stuff that sells these days. It's not just politics anymore, it's product.

And it's not like it's anything new. Madison Avenue has been doing this stuff for years, and it was only a matter of time before the rest of the media caught up with it.

It used to be the purpose of television news – much like its counterparts in newspapers and magazines – was to inform. Then they decided that it wasn't enough. They needed to make people think. Which was soon followed by telling you how to think…

Now they want to make you feel.

Ah, you say (hopefully after first giving your mouth a refreshing spritz of Benaca). But nobody can tell me how to feel. Everything affects people in different ways. Feelings are personal, based on emotions. Nobody can dictate that.

Wrong again!

Take CNN…please. Remember the Sago, West Virginia, mine disaster back in 2006? With the endless shots of the worried families waiting for news of their loved ones trapped in the mines? How could anyone's heart not go out to the people affected by this terrible tragedy? Millions watched, hoped and prayed with families of Sago.

But was that enough for CNN? Nooooooooo. Not only did they keep pouring on the
shots of the grieving widows and children, they added a soundtrack!

That's right! You weren't sad enough America! You weren't feeling enough! So we are just going to show you all the footage again, but this time we've added appropriate mournful music so that you can truly grasp the sadness and devastation of this tragedy!

If I didn't know Michael Landon was dead - he is, isn't he? Just checking - I would have sworn he'd been named managing editor at CNN. I can remember episodes of Highway to Heaven or Touched by an Angel that didn't attempt such smarmy tactics. And this was a news network!

I'm wondering if Fox News tried something similar during the last national election when the Republicans lost control of both houses. I wouldn't put it past them, though I doubt it would have the same effect. It's a timing thing.

So no, I don't blame Obama, any more than I blame other politicians of both major parties who try to cater to and manipulate the emotions of the electorate. It's tried and true. It works. But only if you let it.

 
Anyway, that's how I feel. You should feel that way, too. Perhaps if I played some appropriate music…

I'm back! Did you miss me?

I thought not.

I am under no delusions that my blogs have mass readership. I would venture to guess that nobody reads these things except my wife and mother, except that my wife is often "too busy" and Mom doesn't have a computer.

The latter is just as well. If she read any of this stuff she would probably cut me out of the will and I had my heart set on those canning jars. But that is another story…

Anyway, since my access to MySpace had been cut off for a considerable length of time, I was forced to take my blogging elsewhere. Rather than re-post all the diatribes that smoked from my witty keyboard (sure Bill, blame the keyboard) during the interim, I will just point you to where they are so you can go read them at your leisure:

http://billkleinonline.blogspot.com

I'm sure there are thousands scurrying over their now, so don't delay! Act now!

Please?

Greetings from Paso Robles, California, quite possibly one of the most insignificant American cities this side of Lyndon Station, Wisconsin. My wife, Pamela, and I are here for an Al Khamsa convention.

No, we did not switch sides and join up with a terrorist cell; Al Khamsa is an organization for enthusiasts of horses of Middle Eastern origin. As owners/breeders of Davenport Arabian horses, we are part of the group and Pamela is on the Board of Directors. I will have no such part, as I hate meetings and have enough of them when I am at work. Besides, they didn't ask.

We flew into San Francisco on Wednesday, met up with Laura Beeman, a social worker from Connecticut and fellow Davenport enthusiast, rented a car, then drove South on I-280 into redwood country, up a couple of narrow winding roads to the residence of Chris Cooper, yet another fellow Davenport owner, who took the three of us to dinner and put us up for the night.

The next morning, Laura, Pamela and I piled into our rented Saturn and headed down the Pacific Coast Highway. As neither Pamela nor I have ever been in California proper before (I've had layovers at LAX and spent a day and a half at Travis AFB outprocessing from my Air Force stint), we took time to stop and check out the ocean activity. Lots of humongous waves crashing in the surf, washed up kelp large enough to use for a clothesline, flocks of pelicans gathered on the rocks, and even a lighthouse.

We made it as far as Santa Cruz, where we stopped at a Mexican joint for lunch, then crossed the street to check out a pottery shop. The real deal, stuff made right on the premises. The man who crafted the coffee mugs we eventually purchased then notified us that if we stayed on the PC Highway, there was no way in hell that we were going to get to Paso Robles in time for Pamela and Laura to make their BoD meeting. He directed us to head towards San Jose on Route 17, then catch US 101 South.

This took us a lot farther north than we would have preferred, almost wiping out the fifty miles of progress we had made driving down from San Fran. I was just about convinced that our ceramic-dusted would-be travel guide had been partaking of the kind of pot one doesn't sculpt from clay – if you get my meaning – and had gotten us hopelessly turned around when finally we came upon US 101.

As it happened, we only ended up being about twenty minutes or so late, which became moot as the BoD didn't even have a quorum yet as they were still waiting for other members to show...which didn't surprise me in the least. When do these things ever start on time?

Anyway, we are staying at a Holiday Inn Express, not the best hotel I have ever stayed in, but clean and comfortable enough, unlike Hunter's Inn in Guam, where I tried to save my company a few bucks some weeks back and discovered to my chagrin that you get what you pay for...if you're lucky, which I wasn't, but that's all I have to say about that.

So, we will be here until Sunday, then head back to SF to catch an evening flight back to Raleigh-Durham and our car for the 3-hour drive back to Appomattox. I'm already looking forward to home.

Don't get me wrong, I love traveling and I love airports. It's the planes themselves I have problems with.

It's not so much that I fear flying or consider it unnatural to stuff a couple of hundred people into a tube and shoot it across the country, it's more that I find planes stuffy and confining, a bus that you can't get off and step out for a breath of fresh air...well, I suppose you could, technically, but the results would more than likely be fatal.

I have never had the pleasure of flying First Class or even Business. My company is much too cheap to do that, and that cheapness extends to my salary, which makes purchasing so-called "preferred" class tickets out of the question. So I fly coach, the Third World of air travel, where you kind of feel like one of those kids from the "Feed the Children" adds, except without the sympathy.

First Class passengers are waited on hand and foot by two smiling female flight attendants who look like supermodels and cater to the fortunate fliers' every whim.

Meanwhile, we unfortunate souls in coach are attended to by harried slaves who wear expressions that practically shout out loud that they'd rather be anywhere but where they are at that moment and don't even hang around to bid you farewell when you deplane, mainly because by the time we land they tend to look like they have been through a double-shift at Sam 'N Ella's Truck Stop on Route 10 on a Friday before a three-day weekend.

Folks in First Class are generally seated first, and depending on the layout of the plane, coach passengers are often paraded past them. The rule of thumb is that the First Class passengers never make eye contact, as if casting a glance on the unwashed masses will strike them blind with some sort of flesh-eating coach pox or something.

To make matters worse, Pamela and I were booked into middle seats in separate rows. This may have had to do with the fact that she uses her maiden name as well as her married name (Pamela Matlack Klein), and her ticket came out as MATLACKKLEIN as opposed to KLEIN, like mine was...

Wonder if Hillary Rodham Clinton has ever had that problem? For some reason I find it hard to picture her in a middle seat in coach sandwiched between two ejected contestants from The Biggest Loser. It's fun to think about, though.

--> -->Author's Note: Here is a piece I wrote several years back that was originally posted at www.TheApeSheet.com. I'm still waiting to hear back from the networks - BK

Just saw the Nielsen ratings for this past week. I can't believe that they are still considered relevant, what with the rise of digital video recorders (DVRs) and satellite and cable systems with something like 23, 674 channels (and nothing on).

What I found even harder to believe was that 3 of the Top Ten shows for the week were installments of Dancing With The Stars.

Pardon me if I puke? Not here? Oops! Sorry! Hope that's Stainmaster.

Ol' P.T. Barnum always said that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. He was so right. I cringe at the thought of the season premiere of American Idol. I become physically nauseous to think of the next gang of grub-eating bush-yuppies let loose on Survivor.

Not to mention the newest horde of hippos lining up outside the studios to become The Biggest Loser. Which network has that show anyway? Seems that would be a good place to put a Krispy Kremes franchise. Heck, that one day would take care of your whole year.

But those shows were all syndicated, produced on the cheap for quick sale and maximum profit.

Syndicators can be forgiven for their desperation. These were the guys who milked an extra fifteen years or so of Hee-Haw after CBS has seemingly killed the beast. These folks would put anything on the air.

It was only a matter of time before the networks, hemorrhaging money due to decreased audiences and advertising revenue, followed suit. That's why you no longer have Hill Street Blues or LA Laws, but you have Deal or No Deal and 1vs100. No more St Elsewheres or NYPD Blues, but you have Big Brother and The Bachelor. And who needs Cosby or Roots when you've got The Flavor of Love?

Do yourselves a favor. In the immortal words of the mortal John Prine, "Blow up your TV."

Read a book. And I'm not talking about that Simon Cowell autobiography either, ya freakin' illiterates.

Let's call this one "The Tale of The Missing Blog Post." Not very imaginative to be sure, but apt.

I have been back on the small Virginia horse farm I share with my better Dragon, Pamela, since Sept 18, which I think was Monday, or perhaps Tuesday? Yeah, Tuesday. Come to think of it, what the hell day is it today? When you been back and forth across the International Dateline, you may become – as they say in the Far East, or at least leaving it – disoriented. I flew out of Guam on 18^th, landed in Honolulu on the 17h, then – after extending greetings from the future to the confused Wahines and assuring them that all was well – traveled on to Houston and my final airline destination of Washington, DC, on the 18^th again.

So, while sitting through a 4-plus hour layover in Houston, I posted a blog entitled 'Adventures in Travel – Redux" or something like that. I can't say for sure. Because during the time I posted it and came back home to Virginia to check on the stats, it had disappeared. Nowhere to be found. As if it never existed.

So let this be a lesson to all of you:Do not trust your brilliant thoughts and insights to the technology at hand. Save your work, even if – like mine – it was probably better off just to let it die.

The ether is endless, and it is the best shot at immortality for the mediocre, even better than "American Idol" or Jerry Springer. Let's tread carefully out there.

Tried to watch some of the Republican Presidential Debate this morning (I'm still in Saipan, remember), but it was an ordeal. Other than the always entertaining Ron Paul and the integrity of John McCain, I wouldn't cast a vote for any of those other bozos for dogcatcher.

The likes of Rudy Guiliani, Mitt Romney, Sam Brownback and Tom Tancredo manage to piss me off so much with their Bush-like fear-mongering it was all I could do to keep from picking up my television and shaking it, trying to knock some sense into their fool heads.

How long are they going to spout this security-over-liberty bullshit? It doesn't work! It's not what people want! All that happens when governments emphasize security over liberty is that people are no longer afraid of outside sources...they're too damned busy being scared of their own government!

I'm sure the people of Communist Russia didn't have time to fear outsiders, not with their own leader, Joseph Stalin, slaughtering Russian citizens by the millions out of sheer paranoia. I'm sure the subjects of Idi Amin didn't worry about invaders, they were too busy trying to avoid being on Dada's dinner menu.

You're never going to completely eliminate terrorism. There will always be some looney, or group of looneys, who will get their hands on automatic weapons or homemade bombs and stir up some serious jihad shit. But the way to battle that problem is not hiding behind closed doors and snitching on our neighbors who may be partaking in a little pot or gay sex. Pull the shades if you don't want to see.

Franklin Roosevelt said that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. What he meant was what unreasonable fear does to people: paranoia, mob mentality, letting ourselves be stressed out by events beyond our control and committing acts no straight-thinking person would attempt on their own.

The sort of mass hysteria being pushed by the majority of the Republican candidates would be laughable if it weren't so contemptible.

Remember, Patrick Henry didn't say "Give me security or give me death." The rest of us shouldn't be saying it either.

Here's one vote for liberty.