The Sardonic Sideshow

Ruining the L.A. Marathon

Preachers pressured City Hall to change it. Now the race faces uncertainties

By Tina Dupuy

Published on June 16, 2009 at 9:15pm

The L.A. Marathon has never been world-class. The course is hilly and winds through the ugliest parts of the city, a festival of blights. It’s gone through three owners in six years, and the number of entrants is half of what Chicago and New York boast. It’s not a “runner’s marathon” but a very long parade of moisture-wicking wear.

And now it’s morphed into a flash point for religious leaders to browbeat City Hall, with probably more strife to come. Next year’s event is slipping toward turmoil, with officials at the L.A. Marathon failing to release or even hint at a date for next year.The unsettled situation regarding this decades-old, major-metropolis marathon is extremely unusual; it’s keeping sponsors and runners in limbo, and is an indicator of how the key political players in the drama, City Councilman Tom LaBonge and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, have failed to clean up the marathon mess.

As runner Shanna Moore wrote in an online petition calling for the marathon to return to its longtime date of a Sunday in March, “I proudly attend church on Sundays and often during the week, and I know firsthand that if someone wants to get to services, no once-a-year marathon is going to stop them. This is all ridiculous! Move the race back to a March Sunday or don’t have it at all. These ‘houses of worship’ should be ashamed of themselves!”

For years, the L.A. Marathon, like every other U.S. marathon (save the oldest, in Boston) has taken place on a Sunday. But the closed-off streets were, according to Father John S. Bakas of Pico-Union–based Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral, “an infringement on our access and ability to worship on the sabbath,” which tied up “the whole city until 2 p.m.”

In 2004, according to religious leaders, then–mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa had promised them he would move the race to a different day. “He promised me that,” says the Rev. Jeong Song of Mijoo Peace Church in Koreatown.

With religious leaders increasingly insistent, a curious math began to emerge: The numbers of avid churchgoers and others purportedly stymied by street closures during the one-day marathon blossomed to one-quarter of L.A.’s 4 million people. “Using the most conservative estimates, 921,000 people are directly affected,” states Save Our Sabbaths, a group that includes Bakas, on its Web site.

Song, who has opposed the Sunday race for more than 14 years, says, “I told them it was 100,000 people impacted [who] cannot attend church” — a more modest figure but also inflated. By some estimates, the turnout for runners, volunteers and supporters of the marathon is upward of 200,000.

Last fall, the L.A. Marathon, a corporation, was bought by Dodgers owner Frank McCourt. Seizing the moment, the religious community spearheaded by Bakas — the self-proclaimed “biggest mouth and the most passionate” — shook its collective fist and finally prevailed. The 2009 marathon was set to take place on a federal holiday, a Monday, not a Sunday.

In the contract being negotiated by the city of Los Angeles and the McCourt Group, President’s Day in February was the suggested date — as most cities with hot weather hold their marathons in winter to spare the runners from the heat. The contract with McCourt was easily ratified by the Los Angeles City Council, with Villaraigosa’s blessing.

Everyone seemed happy — until the first “pre-planning” meeting, at which police, fire and transportation officials met at Councilman LaBonge’s office. There, somebody thought to ask senior transportation engineer Aram Sahakian about the street logistics of holding the marathon on President’s Day, February 16.

Incredibly, nobody on the vast staff of the 15-member Los Angeles City Council, which employs 320 personal assistants at an annual cost of about $20 million, had bothered to fully review that date with the transportation engineers before the council approved the deal. Instead, Sahakian tells L.A. Weekly, “It was done verbally at a meeting.”

Sahakian informed the pre-planning group that so many people work on President’s Day that he couldn’t recommend a race then. He envisioned a huge commuter-traffic mess. Sahakian, who has worked on the minutiae of road closures and preparations for the marathon for 10 years, says that the query “was just thrown out at us, asking for a recommendation.”

The only other “federal-holiday Monday” in the first part of the year was Memorial Day, May 25. And to the chagrin of runners, fans and residents, the city’s 23-year tradition of holding its race in early March was suddenly being shunned in favor of a marathon date during a much hotter season.

Despite an uproar, religious leaders — insisting on their mythical estimation that 1 million church-going residents would face road closures — refused to back down, citing barriers to religious freedom. Bakas’ loudest battle cry has been “Honor the contract” — a contract whose date was rejected because it had not been fully explored and was unfeasible. He exclaimed to L.A. Weekly, “Why would we have to work it out? It’s already worked out. The City Council voted. We have a contract.”

The weather stayed cool on May 25, and the runners did not face horrific heat. But the unprecedented uncertainty and controversy kept runners and viewers away in droves. The L.A. Marathon does not disclose the number of its registered runners. But in the past 10 years, according to its Web site, the average number of those who finish the race in a given year is 18,000. This year, fewer than 14,200 completed the marathon.

“Their argument doesn’t hold water. It doesn’t make any sense,” says Peter Abraham, director of the L.A. Marathon, of Bakas’ claim that blocking some streets one day out of 365 harms the churches’ ability to thrive.

Now, the issue over the 2010 race sits before the Los Angeles City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee, headed by Councilman Bernard Parks. Parks tells the Weekly, “If the two groups [runners and church leaders] can come together and take care of it, that would be great.” He says it’s not up to the City Council to fix this, and that the McCourt Group is letting City Hall “take the blame.”

In fact, it is up to the City Council, which must now amend the contract it so badly botched, and settle on a date for next year’s marathon. And to make sure the council members ban the marathon on Sunday, Bakas and his Save Our Sabbaths posse have enlisted former mayor Richard Riordan, whom Bakas calls “just a private citizen who has been very helpful to us.” When asked if Riordan is lobbying the council, Bakas tells the Weekly, “I hope so.”

Notably, during the tenure of Riordan, a devout Catholic, the pragmatic mayor never stopped the race from taking place on a Sunday; Riordan was, in fact, a marathon enthusiast. The group’s other headliner lobbyist, Cardinal Roger Mahony, has written to council members, pushing them to ban a Sunday race.

LaBonge now argues that the race belongs on its original Sunday in March, saying, “I believe the best day of the week in L.A. is a Sunday morning.” He’s suggesting a “face-to-face dialogue” between the religious groups and the runners. After all, the runners are the ones forking over about $100 per person to participate, and in many cases they are traveling great distances to run the race here.The runners are also the ones McCourt must woo in order for his acquisition to turn a profit. Many runners and race supporters, 5,000 of whom signed a petition in recent months, favoring the traditional Sunday in March, are furious. But LaBonge insists, “We have to have agreement from everybody.”

Bakas, whom few Angelenos had heard of before the contretemps, is clearly relishing his bizarrely granted, outsize power over the city, its traditions and dwellers. In an e-mail to council members Janice Hahn, Bill Rosendahl and LaBonge, Bakas compares holding the race on a Sunday to biblical bloodletting: “In this matter we WILL NOT IMITATE JESUS by putting our heads down and be led like ‘sheep to the slaughter.’ ”

Now, the Pasadena Marathon, whose fall 2008 debut was postponed until last February due to wildfires, is again scheduled for February next year, close to the traditional March date of the L.A. Marathon. Who knew a nimby turf war would move the money out to the suburbs?

This piece originally ran in the LA Weekly.

When the photos of Private Lynndie England of the 372nd Military Police Company at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad, abusing and humiliating prisoners came to light in 2003, I gleefully and instantly used her name as a punchline. As a writer and a comedian, I did my part in securing her name in pop culture. I willingly vilified her as a caricature of a sadist - I wrote she was the Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now of Iraqi prison guards.

The horror, the horror…

I said that she even made smokers look bad.

I’ll admit it. I suspected that the rogue individual defense made by the Bush Administration and more specifically Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was baloney. But I eagerly made jokes and quips at the expense of England anyway. I hopped on the ‘lynching Lynndie’ bandwagon with no hesitation. I even considered registering mockedbylynndie.com - where it would showcase the iconic picture of the soldier, cigarette hanging from her mouth pointing at whatever contributors didn’t like at that moment.  Lynndie England: disgraced Iraq War soldier and sad internet meme.

‘A Monster-in-chief‘ is what she was called by The Guardian in 2004, ‘A Symbol of Shame‘ by CBS, ‘the face of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib’ in Marie Claire. The whole time, England, herself, in so many words said that she was a scapegoat, said that Rumsfeld knew, said that she was just following orders from her superiors. She said this on her way to prison after she was convicted of conspiracy, maltreating Iraqi detainees. She said this when her 20-30 year sentence was reduced. She held fast to this when she was finally released from prison in 2007.

In May of 2004 Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference, “We’re taking and will continue to take whatever steps are necessary to hold accountable those that may have violated the code of military conduct and betrayed the trust placed in them by the American people I have no doubt that we will take these charges and allegations most seriously.” He even went so far as to call the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib “totally unacceptable and un-American”.

England was locked up for 3 years and dishonorably discharged from the military.

President Barack Obama released what is now known as the Torture Memos - the legal opinions that justified water boarding, sleep deprivation, isolation, physical violence and reality show staples like bugs and public humiliation. Basically, what we saw in the pictures of England, were justified for the CIA by the legal jerry-rigging of lawyers John C. Yoo, Jay S. Bybee and Steven G. Bradbury.

A week later after these memos were released a report by the Senate Armed Services Committee drew the connection between the Torture Memos and the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

It’s proof that England was telling the truth. She was just following orders.

These memos skirted around and ensured acts otherwise known as torture somehow didn’t violate the Geneva Convention, the US Constitution or our common sense of human rights. Bybee, of course is now a judge in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which has rightfully caused some outrage…since his (ahem) judgment has now been called into question.

These practices have been called ‘harsh interrogation techniques’ by their supporters, namely kneejerk Obama oppos…and/or former vice president Dick Cheney.

Where were these ‘harsh interrogation technique’ peddlers when England was taking the fall? What were they saying then? Peddling the rogue individual defense, of course. The lone wolf. The bad apple: Lynndie England. Yes, they let - we let a woman that signed up for the military during war time when she was still in high school become a universal object of disdain.

Support our troops?

“We didn’t kill them. We didn’t cut their heads off.” England said in an interview. “We didn’t shoot them. We didn’t cut them and let them bleed to death. We just did what we were told to soften them up for interrogation, and we were told to do anything short of killing them.”

Sure when she says it - it’s grotesque. But when it’s in a legal memo - it’s up for debate.

Now that the cat is out of the proverbial bag, it’s becoming clear that she is less like Marlon Brando’s character and more like the Kamikazi pilots during WWII. She was sacrificed - her livelihood, her future in the line of duty - for the sake of a war effort. Her country and more specifically her government abandoned her for doing exactly as she (it appears now) was told.

She should be pardoned. Her record completely wiped clean.

I never thought I would say this - but Lynndie England is a symbol of embarrassment. Not because she posed in pictures following orders - but because our government let her take the fall. And we/I completely fell for it.

Sorry, Lynndie.

This piece also appears on Huffington Post.

Author’s Note: I was invited to submit my column to Pajamas Media. This piece was rejected by them because they disagreed with the idea that the acts at Abu Ghraib and the CIA Torture Memos are in anyway related. Ahem.

Babies & Bibles

At Glendale’s Avenues Pregnancy Clinic, women go in for a pregnancy test and come out fearing eternal damnation

By Tina Dupuy 04/16/2009

I’m sitting in a generic-looking clinic waiting room. The space is clean. Empty. Quiet. The all-purpose art on the walls matches the neutral-colored couches. A receptionist at the office window, a 30-something brunette clad in scrubs and a sensible cardigan, sits at a desk and appears busy.It looks like any doctor’s office. Totally normal.

I’m filling out a form. It’s only two pages long and doesn’t ask the usual personal and medical information. One page asks for my name, contact info, date of birth and date of my last period. The other is a disclosure form. It notifies me that the people I’m about to talk to do not have psychological degrees and have not gone to medical school. The volunteers, the form says, should not be considered a substitute for professional counseling. Oh, and the pregnancy test I’m about to take, the form tells me, should not be considered a clinical diagnosis.

I’m at Avenues in Glendale, which — despite all the above disclaimers — styles itself a “pregnancy clinic.”

I’ve come to Avenues Pregnancy Clinic, located on West Glenoaks Boulevard, to do some undercover investigating after hearing a bizarre story from a friend.

Maggie, as we’ll call her, is 23 years old. She’s what I call a yoga twinkie (not to her face): sweet, open-minded and sometimes naïve. Maggie just moved in with her new boyfriend. It’s the first time she’s lived with anyone. She’s elated, she’s in love, and now she’s late. Just by a couple of days, but she’s worried. Maggie is proudly paying her own way through college. There’s a sign in a medical office complex on the way home from her job touting “Free Pregnancy Test.”

So she goes. To her relief, her test comes back negative. To her surprise, she’s kept in what she describes as a backroom, where several women, dressed as nurses, want to speak with her about her life decisions. Maggie is far too polite to try to leave or question her detention.

The women talk to her about “living in sin.” They ask her if she believes in God. Yeah, sure, she tells them, she believes in God (and Allah and Buddha and the Master Cleanse). After two-and-a-half hours the nurses ask Maggie if she would like to give her life to Jesus Christ and pray with them. Maggie is blindsided. All she wanted was to know if she was pregnant.

She leaves with a Bible and an existential crisis. “They were so convincing; they said all this stuff,” Maggie tells me, in tears, after her ordeal. “I don’t know. Is it wrong that I’m living with Mike?”

Her voice seems earnestly stressed about the answer.

“Tina, do you think I’m going to hell?”

Avenues is a California primary clinic, fully licensed and accredited by the state. So exactly what kind of medical facility lures women with the promise of free pregnancy tests and leaves them fearing eternal damnation?

The mission statement on Avenues’ Web site reads, “Avenues Pregnancy Clinic is a Christ-centered ministry dedicated to affirming the value of life. Our mission is to provide a network of care to those experiencing pregnancy-related crisis and compassionately presenting Biblical truth resulting in changed lives to the glory of God.”

According to their site, Avenues has been “presenting Biblical truth” to women since 1988. And no, this is not Honduras. This is not even Arkansas. This is Los Angeles County.

A 2006 article in The New York Times says there are anywhere from 2,300 to 3,500 of these religious-themed clinics, often referred to as “crisis pregnancy centers,” nationwide, compared with around 1,800 abortion providers. Planned Parenthood has 15 clinics in the LA area. LifeCall.org, a pro-life resource Web site, mentions 25 or more centers in the same area.

Typically, as is the case with Avenues, the religious intentions of these clinics-in-name-only aren’t publicly displayed on their sign or even on their disclosure forms. They intentionally camouflage themselves to look like medical facilities, following the advice of Robert Pearson, who — after Hawaii decriminalized abortion in 1967 — started the first crisis pregnancy center in Honolulu to combat it. The Pearson Foundation Manual, “How to Start and Operate Your Own Pro-Life Outreach Crisis Pregnancy Center,” published in 1984, is still used today as a blueprint. Pearson writes, “Obviously, we’re fighting Satan. A killer, who in this case is the girl who wants to kill her baby, has no right to information that will help her kill her baby.”

The camouflage is still used, even today.

“I thought I was at a medical clinic,” recalls Judy, a gruff 43-year-old mother of one, who mistakenly went into Avenues because it’s adjacent to her general practitioner’s office. “I told them the same dialogue I was going to tell my doctor.”

Judy was pregnant. The volunteers at Avenues put her in the backroom and told her if she had an abortion she would have problems “getting into heaven.” Judy had already had an abortion 20 years ago. A recovering drug addict, Judy was afraid that if she had another child she could “revert back to addiction” as she did when her 9-year-old was born.

“I was vulnerable,” she says. “I was falling apart.”

Like Maggie, Judy was kept there for two hours. “I heard that I was going to hell and that I was fucked,” she remembers. They hooked her up to the ultrasound to “see the heartbeat,” a procedure that Chicago-based gynecologist and author Dr. Michael Applebaum describes as both unnecessary and even irresponsible. “It’s not an emergency to have an ultrasound immediately,” he says, adding that “medical tests shouldn’t be performed without a reason.”

Judy describes her visit to Avenues as a trip into “The Twilight Zone.” A week later she found an actual women’s clinic and terminated her pregnancy, a decision she says that she is happy with. But her detour to Avenues still haunts her.

“I don’t like what I went through,” she says. “Bizarre is putting it lightly. It’s like I slipped into hell for a minute.

[What they do in Avenues] just doesn’t go with the face of the physical place. It was a horrible experience — just manipulative. Deceptive! That’s what I feel — deceived.”

In the waiting room, I write my drag queen name (favorite pet plus street I grew up on), “Sasha Collins,” on the form. I’m/she is four days late.

A woman in scrubs calls out my name and leads me through the halls to the backroom that Maggie described. There’s a desk, more generic office artwork, some literature and a chair I plop down on. I appear to be the only client in the building that day.

A sturdy woman with shaggy blond hair who will later give me her card with the name Melissa Knox, RN, comes in. She sits down and shuffles through her official-looking paperwork.

“Have you given any thoughts to what you’re going to do if you’re pregnant?” she asks. I say I don’t know. I tell her I have no money, and my boyfriend I was living with just left me.

“Isn’t there, like, a pill or something I can take?” I ask.

“There is. It’s called RU486. But you can only take it if you are less than three weeks pregnant.”

From the information I gave her, I would be around three weeks pregnant, maybe less.

She grabs a chart and shows me. “Since your last period was on this date, if you’re pregnant, you’re at least five weeks along right now.”

“Really?” I ask, peering closer at the chart. “Oh my God!” I say, pretending to be shocked, but simultaneously actually shocked.

“Yeah, isn’t that weird how that works,” she offers.
Indeed.

“Plus,” she says matter-of-factly, “the FDA is under investigation for RU486. They’re going to be in a lot of trouble.”

“Wow! Really?” I play along. Just who investigates the FDA? I wonder, but never ask.

“OK, we’re going to give you a urine test to see if you’re pregnant. Now if you are …” she pauses dramatically, “we have to give you an ultrasound, kay? We do that, kay, to see if the fetus is viable. Thirty percent of all pregnancies end in miscarriages, so we need to know what’s going on, kay?”

She hands me another disclosure form, this one stating that the ultrasound is also not a clinical diagnosis. Basically contradicting what she just said.

Dr. Applebaum says that not as many pregnancies end in miscarriage as Melissa claimed. And RU486? It’s called Mifepristone in this country, and most guidelines state that a woman can take it up to two months after their last period.

I pee into a cup. In the room where I drop it off is the massive ultrasound machine. It is the only medical equipment in the place. I was expecting to see at least a tongue depressor.

A couple of minutes later Melissa enters the backroom I’m in. “OK, your pregnancy test came back negative.”

“Awesome!” I bleat. “What a relief!”

Melissa sits down at her desk and abruptly launches into her personal story. “I am a very sexual person,” she informs me, “but you know latex allows viruses to seep through.”

Latex? The same material surgical gloves are made out of? Viruses seeping through?!

Then Melissa announces she personally has forgone sex for the past eight years.

“My God! How do you do that?”

I ask.
“With God,” she responds. “I pray … a lot.”

Why not be candid? Why not give accurate medical facts? Why mask the religious intention? Why all the sneakiness? Isn’t this a classic bait and switch? Go in for a root canal and come out with fire insurance? Isn’t this fraud?

“I would be curious to know what kind of medical license allows a clinic to NOT offer health care,” says Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, D-NY.

In 2006, Maloney sponsored HR 5052, the Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women’s Services Act. “We have to protect the First Amendment,” she tells me by email. “We can’t clamp down on the honest opinions of those who disagree with those of us who are pro-choice. What we CAN do is what my bill does, which is clamp down on those who advertise with intent to deceive, and empower the [Federal Trade Commission] to enforce such a provision.”

The bill would have outlawed these fake clinics. It was co-sponsored by 46 members of Congress, including Rahm Emanuel, now President Obama’s chief of staff, and Hilda Solis, now the Secretary of Labor. However, the bill died in committee.

“Marketing should be 100 percent truthful,” says Dan Steiner, president of Avenues, when reached by phone.
Is Avenues 100 percent truthful? Says Steiner, “Absolutely.”

Mission Pre-Born (MP), is Steiner’s broad nonprofit. Its stewardship guidelines read, “Full disclosure [walking in the light] is our practice.” His “vision” is to bring more “fully disclosed” crisis pregnancy centers to LA County in what he likes to call the “Miracle Campaign.”

However, when asked about the cryptic forms that state that none of the tests should be considered a clinical diagnosis, Steiner responds, “I’m not aware of the form.”

Steiner, who could be entered in a Ross Perot look-alike contest, explains Avenues tactics and hopes for a new clinic in Hollywood on a fundraising video on the MP Web site: “This is the front door of Los Angeles City College. All the students come out here and if they have a suspicion that they have an unplanned pregnancy, day after day they will see our sign, ‘Free Pregnancy Test,’ right across the street. They’ll see it before they see Planned Parenthood; they’ll see it before they see the abortion clinic. Then they walk out and there it will be and BANG!” He slaps his hands together. “We’ve captured that woman before the abortionist does!”
Bang? We’ve captured that woman?

“Capture their attention,” Steiner attempts to clarify. Minutes later the video is taken down from the Web.

“Captured is a good word,” says Joyce Schorr, president and founder of Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, or WRRAP. “They have to capture you because what they do is not aboveboard.

“To not say who you really are is to have an illegal front,” continues Schorr. “[Avenues and clinics like it] continue to be effective because there is no public outcry, because people don’t care.”

But that’s not the only reason.

This common kind of deceit in women’s health care has its allies. Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D.

Antonovich, arguably one of the most powerful men in California, is listed on Avenues’ advisory board. He oddly omits the affiliation with the clinic from his bio on his Web site. When asked about this, Antonovich’s press secretary Tony Bell says curtly, “We certainly can add that.”

As to whether the supervisor is aware of the misleading practices done by an organization he’s advising, Bell simply states, “He supports the mission.”

In the backroom, Melissa tells me about all the reasons I should never have intercourse. “Every woman, when she has sex, gives away a little piece of her heart,” she says, then hands me a fistful of abstinence literature.

We chitchat a bit more before Melissa finally stands up, indicating I can go. She escorts me to the back door and hands me a flyer to see her band play the following week. I wonder why I didn’t get a Bible.

The receptionist in the office is there to see me off.

“We had another clinic in Hollywood,” she informs me on my way out. “We’re trying to get back there again because we’re so badly needed there.” I nod and walk out the door.

What could possibly be so badly needed? I just spent nearly two hours of my time to get an admittedly unreliable pregnancy test, erroneous medical information and find out more than I ever wanted to know about the life of a sexless 35-year-old bass player.

This is a licensed medical clinic.

It’s usually safe to assume that medical clinics provide medical care. But if you have the capacity to bear children, those rules apparently don’t apply. If a cancer clinic were run as a Christian Scientist front there would be anger.

There would be disgust. It would be shut down. But the distraught woman in dire circumstances — “a killer who in this case is the girl” — being routinely defrauded because she “has no right to information” has gone unnoticed by the general public.

As I walk down the street back to my car, I glance at one of the abstinence flyers Melissa gave me during her oversharing session.

“True love,” it says, “protects 100 percent of the time.”

This story originally appeared in Pasadena Weekly.

The ’silent majority’ has to shut up. No seriously, they do. In order to be a silent majority they have to first - wait for it - be silent about something. And the current group that claims this title while planning and touting a “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties” or Tax Day Tea Party, is far from quiet.

“Silent Majority No More”, reads the front page of the Tax Day Tea Party website. Fox News hosts are attending the gatherings around the country. Silent? Majority?

First, they have to be gentle. Stoic. But mainly, hushed. Then they have earned the right to call themselves the brilliant, Nixon coined ‘silent majority‘. He was referring to the people that weren’t protesting. Hint, hint. Yes, a perfect moniker for lovers of all things rhetorical. The phrase implies that if you don’t vocally disagree - you’re by default onboard. Genius.

So, Tax Day Tea Parties are planned for April 15 - tax day. Thousands of protesters (not all in the same place) are going to protest. Something. Obama probably. Government maybe; with politicians that hate government. Mostly Obama.

Their message is clear - they’re sick of not being heard. As one commenter put it on taxdayteaparty.com, “HI- TEA parties across America-A great idea! YES- We can have a voice in the direction of our country.” Yes. Say it. And another, “This administration has made the people that have been paying attention MAD AS HELL AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT. STAND UP STAND UP STAND UP.” Yes, stand up. You’ve been pushed around by Obama for too long - nearly 80 whole days. You poor long suffering muted people.

Wait, taxes? Are they angry about taxes? And there’s a tea party? Like a revolt? Like the precursor to the Revolutionary War?

The Boston Tea Party was standing up to tyranny after years of neglect. Not standing up to being mad that your candidate didn’t win. The tea was a symbol of the tone deafness and arrogance of King George. Everyone knew Englishmen (which the colonist were) could never live without tea, so British Parliament imposed a huge tax on it. So instead of Liptons being thrown into various bodies of water around this country - the symbolic equivalent would be cutting up your credit cards. Credit card companies are taxing Americans with no representation - but they know that Americans can’t live without them. So where’s that mutiny?

The Founding Fathers weren’t hotheads. They didn’t just ‘get mad’ and usurp a king’s authority. They had real grievances, real ideals, real leaders and a really brutal, bloody struggle. The Fox News Channel Tax Day Tea Parties wasting perfectly good tea to protest government spending is like Jeep Cherokee sponsoring a Trail of Tears 5K. Yeah. Yeesh.

But they’re mad! And they’re ‘teabaggin‘. And the ‘Mainstream Media’ is just ignoring this super important story except for Fox News who’s attached their name to the demonstration. Yeah. A mainstream media news channel part of a huge media conglomerate (whose charm to its loyal followers is that it’s ‘alternative’) is beating the drum for this protest.

Your grassroots movement can’t have corporate media sponsorship.

But heck, if you’re an ear piercing minority calling yourself a ’silent majority’ what’s a little fact fudging between friends. It’s a little archaic throw back to the Bush Misnomers (titles for things that don’t match what they actually do) - the Clean Sky Initiatives (that aided in pollution) - The Patriot Act (that squashed The Constitution) or my favorite The State of the Union Address (the wedge for the divide was more like it).

Conservatives are either high-profile kvetchers or the silent majority. Not both.

Republicans are either breaking filibuster records or the silent majority. Not both.

You guys are heard. Like Phil Donahue once said to Bill O’Reilly on his show, “Loud doesn’t mean right.” Actually, Phil, these days - it does.

I am a member of the actual current silent majority (all the polls have Obama’s job approval rating hovering over 60 percent, more than who voted for him). I want the stimulus bill to stimulate the economy. I want businesses and markets to be regulated just enough to ban legal pirates but not too much to make them dead in the water. And I hope that it works.

This piece also appears on the Huffington Post.

Octomom as Reproductive Lightning Rod

Do the prolife and prochoice sides in L.A. finally agree on something?

By Tina Dupuy

Published on April 01, 2009 at 7:03pm

This was taken in the Angeles Forest in Bear Canyon.  Cool trees, man.

Former President George W. Bush was in Calgary this week, in his first foreign visit as a former head of state. There, he announced the subject of the book he will be writing. It’s about the 12 toughest decisions he made in office.

Title suggestions? “I Was The Decider.” “War and Piece” or “If I Did It: The Bush Presidency”.

Here’s a cheat before the book is written. The 12 toughest decisions by George Bush:

1.    The blue tie or red tie?

2.    Should I defer to Rove or to Cheney?

3.    Should my vacation be a long stay at Crawford or longer stay at Crawford?

4.    Who to help, cronies or friends?

5.    Plural of child, “childrens” or “childs”?

6.    Pretzel, hard or soft?

7.    Pretzel, chew or inhale?

8.    Bill of Rights, annoying or stupid?

9.    Over easy or over medium?

10.    Katrina, wait or sit it out?

11.    Should I defer to Rove or to Cheney?

12.    The striped tie or the solid tie?

This was cross posted at Huffpo.

I have an essay published in the book, What Was I Thinking?. You can check it out on Amazon here.

I will be reading my essay this Sunday, the 15th of February at Border’s Books in Westwood at 3:30 PM.
Stop by and say hi!
Borders Books
1360 Westwood Boulevard
on the second floor
Sun. Feb 15, 2009

In June of 2006, nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh on his way back from the Dominican Republic, was caught with a prescription bottle (not in his name) filled with the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra. By fall, 2006 Details Magazine pronounced that ‘Limbaugh’ was the new slang for the drug. As in, “I just popped a Limbaugh. Now what do I do?”

So isn’t it now fitting that Limbaugh has become the de facto voice for an increasingly impotent Republican Party?Like Viagra, Limbaugh gets a temporary surge of controversy - a boost in rhetoric. Side effects include dizziness, irrational hatred of liberals and erratic knee jerks.

Here’s the thing, we’re in real trouble. As far as our economy goes – it’s bad. All the eggheads tell us so. Plus you can drive down the street and take stock of all the going out of business and foreclosure signs to draw your own independent conclusions.

We just endured eight years of Bush economics; cut taxes, dissolve regulation and increase spending to record levels. On January 30, 2009 Bloomberg News reported that the top 400 wealthiest people in the US paid a quarter less taxes than before and their wealth doubled under the Bush presidency. There’s supply-side economics. That’s trickle down.

It’s also simple physics – when things are too top heavy they topple. Just as they did the last year of the Bush Administration.But to hear it from Bush’s perspective it was all baddies on Wall Street that buckled the economy. “The SEC is also requiring certain investors to disclose their short selling, and has launched rigorous enforcement actions to detect fraud and manipulation in the market. Anyone engaging in illegal financial transactions will be caught and persecuted (sic).” Bush said at the White House last September.

This is not surprising because with Bush it was always rogue individuals at fault (Scooter Libby) and never those in charge (Karl Rove). Those vilified Wall Street people may have pillaged the world economy but it was mostly legal. Buccaneers had a note from the King – it didn’t make them any less of pirates. Their legality meant the King was palling around with…well Wall Street types.

Remember this is the manifestation of conservative ideals: free market capitalism. The free market – it sounds so liberated from those horrible killjoy laws and regulations. Free at last! Conservatives got their way and now we can see its aftermath all around us.

And Limbaugh wants to see President Obama fail? The guy that touted all of Bush’s policies and ‘ideas’ unequivocally for eight years? How many times do you let someone sell you a lemon before you stop buying from him? (author’s note: I was going to say ‘sell you bunk Oxycodone’, too cheap?)

Look, we already saw President Bush fail. His sweeping, unchecked, unprecedented follies have come to fruition.

The only idea that Republicans can come up with in this unparalleled crisis is to call for more tax cuts. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) on Meet the Press last Sunday declared she opposed the recovery plan that passed in the House because of the massive stimulative spending. “On the other hand, on tax cuts, I think tax cuts should be strong, I think they should be a lot and I think they should be something that will have an impact.” Offered Senator Hutchinson.

Impact? Eep.

More tax cuts?! To ‘trickle down’? To supply side? Really? We just got plundered by privateers and the only answer the Republicans can come up with is putting faith back into the private sector?! We lost 2.6 million jobs in this country last year and that’s all they can offer?

The original is a now tested, previously unimagined flop – how will the sequel be better?

Speaking of lame movie references, Limbaugh is the Benjamin Buttons of radio talk show hosts – the older he gets the more childish his ideas become. Now he just doesn’t want someone else to win. Next he’ll start picking on more Parkinson patients.

I don’t want the Democrats to be the only voice in the government. Right now that’s up to Republicans. Limbaugh will get a rise out of the GOP faithful (if it last longer than 4 hours…call your doctor). Then he wears off and leaves the party…well…deflated.

Cross posted at the Huffington Post.

I was a purple ticket holder. Yes you’ve heard about us. I wanted to be at the inauguration. I did everything I could think of to get there. Since I actually got to go - you won’t hear me complaining about it.

I wandered by the White House on Sunday before the swearing in and there was the moving van. Weird how the truck was also white and full of crap.

They gave out party hats and noise makers to use at midnight to mark the final day of the Bush Administration.

This is Huffpo editor Nico Pitney.

Here’s the highlight of the party for me - I met Nate Silver. I met him - made him take a picture with me and it was awesome. For all of those that said I would never amount to anything - suck it.

Let’s look into the future. Not the one with all the projected bread lines. Let’s look into the non-economic hysteria future - say five years from now. Maybe we’re in a second Obama term. Either way, we’ve had some time to reflect on Bush years. He’s quietly tucked away in his Dallas whites-only suburb - rarely heard from.

In the strategically chosen location of the 9th Ward - there’s a group of raucous young people having a celebration. Decorating the room are effigies, near beers and “mission accomplished” banners. Everyone sips super watered-down drinks called “Hurricane Katrinas”. The cocktail weenie hor’ derves are served with Bill of Rights napkins. Everyone brought bags of unwanted shoes to donate to charity (after they get thrown at the dummies). All the attendees are wearing name tags that read things like “Hello my name is Turd Blossom” and “Hi, I’m Ostrich Legs”. Later, they will announce their annual “C Student” scholarship for business majors. And then there will be the pretzel eating contest.

What is this group? It’s none other than the George W. Bush Society. Their yearly gala (that happens every six months…’fuzzy math’) is a riot!

The Dick Cheney look-a-like contest was cut after more than two people showed up as Darth Vader. “Ok, we get it. Ha. Ha.” The game Duck, Duck, Decider was also a dud. But really, it’s about the catchphrases: Members gleefully yell out gems like “Don’t forget Poland!”, “Yeah, so what?” and “I’ve been misunderestimated.” Its half satire, half street theater, half earnest send up (fuzzy math) - and it’s all Bush.

The Millard Fillmore Society started in the post-Watergate era of the 1970’s. It was a group that honored mediocrity to celebrate the otherwise unremarkable 13th president of the United States of America. They held an annual birthday party for the President, plus a national essay contest with the title “What would America be today if there had been no Millard Fillmore?”, and the publication of a magazine, “Milestones with Millard.”

No word on if they still meet. They don’t have a website. If they did, I bet it wouldn’t be very helpful…on purpose.

Is George W. Bush the worst president we’ve ever had?

Before Dubya came on the scene, most historians agreed the worst president in the history of the United States was number fifteen, James Buchanan. Apparently, they think that the Civil War could have been avoided if Buchanan wasn’t as impotent and he was incompetent. Touchy. Touchy. Buchanan said that ‘history will vindicate my memory’. Clearly not.

Bush has said of his presidency, “History is going to have to judge.” Which is often said by people who are wrong about most things; something else wrong about who will end up judging them.

Bush, like most presidents that are about to leave office, is concerned about his legacy. What will he be remembered for? How will he be remembered? What things will be named after him? A group in San Francisco wanted to name a sewage treatment facility after the 43rd president.

That would only be fitting if the plant worked in reverse.

Where will Bush’s memory thrive? Will there be a few loyalists who will quietly salute their president that dared to never live up to his potential for greatness? Those besides Barbara Bush? Maybe.

The majority of those that survived two Bush terms - his place for us is in camp. That’s right, his Halloween mask will live in sarcasm for eternity. His name will grace collapsed bridges, inappropriate backrubs and sentences to nowhere.

So, really, is Bush the worst president we’ve ever had? Well, he never let facts get in his way - why should we?

If hindsight is 20/20 - Americans will love Bush in their rearview.

Bush’s legacy will be etched forever in kitsch. His entire presidency will be one big Nixon Shaking Hands with Elvis picture. He will be the Diff’rent Strokes episode with Nancy Reagan. He will end up being the only president whose intellect is preserved for the ages in the medium of Bobblehead.   Just wait for it. Bush will be up there with ol’ Milly Fillmore…if he’s lucky. Which history has shown - he is.

Cross posted at the Huffington Post.

The inspiration for long-distance runners is the Greek messenger Pheidippides, who legend has it ran the 25 miles from the plains of Marathon to Athens in 490 BC to announce the Greeks’ victory over Persia, and then immediately dropped dead.

This is the model of my sport of choice. You think sky divers are twisted? Please.

For cities, marathons are a thing of pride. Just ask someone in Boston what they think of their super-exclusive marathon (the world’s oldest). The people of Chicago — even those who don’t own running shoes — will talk about how their marathon, with its quick flat course, sells out at 45,000 runners every year. In New York, the whole city gets together, and its marathon is like a six-hour-long parade.

Los Angeles holds a special place in modern marathon history, especially among women. It was in Los Angeles in 1984 that women were first allowed to officially compete in an Olympic marathon. Joan Benoit of the United States ran through the glass ceiling to the gold with a time of 2:24:52.

So what’s going on with L.A.’s marathon today? Since the first one in 1986, the route has changed a few times — and not always for the better. It has had three owners in just the last six years. One was Devine Racing Management, which paid some of its winners so late in 2006 that some elite runners boycotted the following year’s race.

Dodgers owner Frank McCourt and his company, LA Marathon, took it over last year. A local guy. A sports guy. Great. New owner, new ideas, better marathon, I figured. Right? Maybe not.

The race is usually run in late February, early March. With the sale to McCourt, the race was moved to Mondays, with next year’s on Feb. 16, Presidents’ Day. That was better for the race. The ideal temperature for a marathon is about 50 degrees; the hotter it is, the slower your time. Slower times mean fewer people coming to L.A. to participate.

But now LA Marathon has proposed moving the race to — wait for it — Memorial Day, the last Monday in May. A month that is on average about 10 degrees hotter than February.

Why? The decision to move the race to Mondays in February was in response to complaints from religious leaders that the road closures and congestion made it difficult for their congregations to attend services on Sunday. LA Marathon President Russ Pillar said the switch to May was because many employers don’t observe Presidents’ Day, so fewer runners and volunteers would have been able to participate.

But there’s a reason cities in hot climates have their races in the winter months. Honolulu and Las Vegas have theirs in December. Big-city races want to attract the broadest number of runners, and the best course with the best weather is the best bet.

Maybe McCourt is used to baseball fans being mad at him, yet runners aren’t as easily miffed. But suggesting moving the major race in the city by three months has sure done it.

“It’s not considered a ‘marathoner’s marathon,’ it’s an event,” said Long Beach podiatrist John Pagliano, who has run 111 marathons. (For the record: I’ve traded in cars that had less miles on them.) And a move to what in L.A. is essentially a summer day will not make it a layman’s marathon either.

This date change is like moving a minimally popular television to Friday night. It’s a death rattle. It’s about to be canceled for ratings.

A woman in my running group put it best when she heard that the race might be moving to May — with a line that can double as a first reaction and an epitaph: “Great. First we don’t have a football team, and now we don’t have a marathon.”

This annual experience, which has grown to more than 20,000 runners, is the only major sports event in Los Angeles where, for a small fee, anyone can compete. It’s the only non-natural disaster that brings us together as a city.

And right now it looks like it’s in trouble.

This article first appeared the the LA Times.