Thursday, March 31, 2011

WHERE ARE YOU, HEDONIST JIVE?

Well, believe it or not I'm in Rome, Italy for the first time in my life on a family vacation. It's 11pm here and I'm futzing with the iPad we brought. I figured that since it had been a while since I weighed in with any political commentary that I'd throw a few pithy statements out there about recent events that have been keeping my anger stoked and my brain humming.

Namely:

1. I'm appalled by the "war" in Libya. As if this country hadn't wasted enough blood and treasure as the nation collapses under its own weight. The notion of using the American military and US taxpayer dollars for actual "defense" has been degraded for many years, but this might be the most obscene example yet, to say nothing of the other hopeless, endless war we continue to fight.

2. The Wisconsin pension battle was great political theater, and a huge step in the right direction. For once the monolithic public employee unions, so long used to being portrayed as the valiant "little guys", lost one. In the process, at least one state has a chance to salvage a future for real public services and real growth, as opposed to paying down what could end up being an unpayable debt. In case you missed it, folks, we are broke and are running out of money. This fight was a drop in the bucket compared to what's coming.

3. The revolutions in the Middle East deserve our hearty support - from a distance. I was very moved by the events in Egypt and spent a lot of time refreshing my browser those last few days. I'm ready to see the fall of the House of Saud, a people-driven revolution in Yemen, and best of all, a raging people power party in the streets in Iran. I'll pay a few extra bucks in gas to watch it all happen.

Then there was the earthquake and tsunami in Japan - I'm against it - the continuing implosion of my Great State of California - that's what you get when you elect union-owned imbeciles for the last decade - and crazy Silvio Berlesconi, so beloved by Italians and unfortunately representative of the worst stereotypes of them. It has been a most interesting few months out there.

When I return from Italy in a few days there's a lot I wanna tell you about. I explored the Italian craft beer scene. Hell, I have like 20 non-Italian beers I need to catch ya up on. I have some new CDs I want to review. I saw a handful of films I need to discuss. I may have even finished 4 books by the time we fly home on Saturday - books by Kevin Myers, Patti Smith, Daniel Okrent and Victor Davis Hanson. You're going to want to come back to this space again soon, OK?