Tina Dupuy

Imagine a handsome young family complete with kids living in a stylish two-story home in a quiet neighborhood. The parents work normal middle-class jobs. The dad is a city bus driver, mom is a secretary. Their house is brimming with consumer goods: a couple of mammoth-sized televisions, a drum set for the kids and high-end furniture. The mother’s closet is bursting with her ample wardrobe. Dad has a motorcycle. Combined they make just under $90,000 a year.

They are being featured on a show running on CNBC, now in its eighth season called Til Debt Do We Part. And like most people on television shows, they have a problem and they need to go on television to fix it. Apparently Mom and Dad have been heavy-handed with their credit cards. They owe $60,000. The matronly host Gail Vaz-Oxlade gently lays down the law: They have to live within their means. Pay down credit cards. Pay into a savings account. Save for their children’s education. The message this self-proclaimed Dollar Diva has for the couple is they are drifting apart and debt is the culprit.

Gail puts up on the screen the family’s budget. What they spend on whatnot a month. Their housing expenses for their posh suburban home are a reasonable sum. Their transportation costs are relatively low. Dad has to sell the motorcycle. Mom has to spend less on clothes. The parents need to spend more time with each other. All problems are then solved.

While watching this program I was amazed at the lack of grit for a reality show. This is no Hoarders airing dirty laundry and years’ worth of neglect and filth. This is a couple with a standard of living far better than any I’ve ever seen for what they do for a living. It’s like they’re Alice and I’m the one Through the Looking Glass. Then Gail handed the couple a wad of bills to illustrate they were going to be paying for things in cash from now on. The money? Canadian. These are Canadians. Their budget is manageable for one because they’ve chosen to not buy supplemental insurance and rely on the government to provide all of their health care.

This couple and most of the couples on the show don’t pay for health care out of their family budgets. The average family in America spends around $15,000 a year or around 22% of their income on health care. That amount will apparently pay most of a mortgage on an enviable home in the greater Toronto area.

Most notable, the show doesn’t delve into any sob stories about getting diseases and therefore having debt. There are no staples of the only-in-America saga of losing your health, then your health care then your house. The debt is all from spending money on things they want. Simply because they want them. Which makes these spendthrift Canadians seem more American than Americans.

It’s the way Americans want to see ourselves; careless, reckless, Wild West, rogue spenders buying everything because we can. Yeah we pull ourselves by our bootstraps and it’s that kind of personal responsibility that cratered the economy. Of course we’re more along the lines of Wal-Mart sharecroppers, completely at the mercy of colossal businesses with fewer choices and even less power muttering to ourselves that at least we aren’t slaves. It’s the land of the free. Someone told us so.

Are Canadians living the American Dream?

When did Canadians out Norman Rockwell us? From the perspective of my couch they seem to be living very well with the evils of socialism. Canada consistently outranks us in quality of care and that impacts our quality of life. Plus, call me paranoid, but I think they’re looking down on us.

UPDATE: Today Sarah Palin, a thinker so compelling we must all bask in her sound bites, was asked about Canada’s health care system. “In fact Canada needs to reform its health care system and let the private sector take over some of what the government has absorbed.” Thanks but no thanks to that bridge to nowhere.

Originally posted on True/Slant

In the wake of the epic doomsday disaster film 2012 reaping in a cataclysmic $225 million globally opening weekend, it’s pretty clear doom is a boom.

Doomsday prophesy is an art, that’s why the purveyors make the big bucks.

But don’t worry, doomsday prophets are notorious for dying of old age. It’s a little known fact people who focus only on the end of days have an incredibly long life expectancy. It’s a solid career choice for the right individual. For one, you can be wrong about the world coming to an end. So far no one’s ever gotten it right.

You know, since we’re still here…and stuff.

I was born in a doomsday cult, The Children of God and I have studied the issue at length. So now I can help you, help yourself:

There is a long and distinguished history of dooming. There has been preaching about the end of time since the beginning of time. The Apocalypse. The Rapture. End Times. Armageddon.  Y2K. 2012. The possibilities are endless!

In order to be a doomsday prophet, you can’t afford to be discouraged by anything. Especially not evidence.

Just treat every day like a close-out going out of business sale. Yes, this is your business as usual. It’s a deadline! It’s now or never! Everything marked down! Everything must go! Combat short attention spans with shorter timelines.

Oh sure, there have been some like Jim Jones and Heaven’s Gate who have killed themselves and their flock, but you’re not about discouragement. True doomsday prophets are tax-free and facts-free zones of stay-tuned-or-you’ll-miss-something-ness. Doomsday prophecy is a riveting and exciting career where you learn to dodge and duck accountability with your charisma.  You’re like a charming, tax-exempt whack-a-mole.

When it comes to belief – hope floats but doom sells. Pastor John Hagee, a supporter of Senator John McCain for President, once told his megachurch, ”You could get raptured out of this building before I get finished preaching.” On the tape, you can hear the crowd cheer.  “Yay!” This is the kind of message that separates the megachurches from the meager churches.

The other character trait necessary– is not caring that you’re wrong. If being accurate is important to you, program calculators for a living. If being proved to be a fraud fills you with anxiety and make you want cower into a fetal position and hide from public life forever, then doomsday prophesy is not your bag.  Either yarn rhetorically or go home.

The cult leader my parents followed, Moses David predicted the world/America would end in the early 1970’s. After it didn’t happen, he used the general prophesy of “it can’t be long now!” to cover any doubt about what was around the corner.

The Christian Coalition’s Pat Robertson annually makes predictions about the coming year. In 2007 he said, “The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that.” Wow, was that wrong. Did he retire? Hell, no. Why would he need to? Now he has the disclaimer, ”If there’s a mistake it’s not His fault, it’s mine.” As for 2009? He predicted America would embrace socialism under Obama. Subtle. Learn from the master, folks.

But people will want to believe you if you seem to believe it enough yourself and they like you. What’s a couple of outright failed prophesies among friends, huh? People of faith tend to have faith in people. So  if you don’t have any hesitation exploiting that. You’re so there.

Interesting side note: My mother, who has spent the past 35 years convinced the world could end at any minute, has maintained a perfect credit score. Lesson here for doomers: Don’t ever sell short the short sell.

And lastly, you should not just assume as a doomsday prophet that you are going to be stuck at church or on CBN for eternity. You guys are not just screaming incoherencies on the street corner anymore. There are many career opportunities for you on basic cable. If there’s any place where inaccurate hyperbole is not only celebrated but encouraged – it’s at Fox News. Glenn Beck knows how to doom. But note Jim Cramer is not on Fox so don’t feel limited. Remember Geraldo Rivera started out at ABC sniffing out the Satanic cult conspiracies before he graduated to Fox where he could give away troop positions.

To sum up: fear and impending doom can equal bread and butter. But you have to hurry. It could all end soon.

 This piece originally appeared on True/Slant.

Senator Joe Lieberman was on Fox News Sunday this week speaking on the Ft. Hood tragedy proclaiming his committee was going to “investigate” what he believes is “the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11.” So, instead of what would usually and regretfully be called a “fragging” or “friendly fire” or some other euphemism, Lieberman used the Republican Party line to define our two wars as Holy Wars. Any act by a Muslim is a terrorist act. We are in a crusade against evil.  Therefore Muslims are evil. We’re good, they’re bad.

Then the Senator from the great state of Connecticut is asked about the Health Care Reform bill. Lieberman brushes up against yet another GOP talking point and says, “The public option plan is unnecessary. It has been put forward, I’m convinced, by people who really want the government to take over all of health insurance.” Government takeover of health care. Raise taxes. More debt. You lie.

As I was watching the interview, I thought to myself, ”Wow this schmuck came dangerously close to being one heartbeat away from the presidency.”

Then it occurred to me: Joe Lieberman is the Left’s Sarah Palin.

Now stay with me here. No need to think of Joe in high-heeled boots with a prop baby on his hip. These two folks share roles in their respective parties, not wardrobes.

Both personalities are failed veep candidates and now both have this swarm of melodrama around them as much as possible. Neither can be taken on their word: Palin has a track record of not showing up to events that have advertised her as a speaker, Lieberman has a track record of saying he’s a Democrat.

Sarah goes “mavericky.” Joe goes “GOPy.”

Sarah has an uncanny ability to make it all about her. Who knows why we’re still talking about her. She can’t even get it together enough to get her own website built so the nation flutters over her Facebook status. Joe has an uncanny ability to make it all about him. When the Democrats won the White House, and bigger House and Senate majorities in ‘08 somehow he became the story. Apparently campaigning against your own party is noteworthy to the press.

Do the Republicans like Sarah Palin? Well, sure some of them do. They like the fact that other people like her. She’s more popular because she’s popular. Which is the same assessment I give for American Idol’s ratings. But really, conservative intellectuals agree she does more harm than good to their cause.

Do Democrats like Joe Lieberman? Well he’s been a senator for 20 years, so unlike Sarah Palin, he’s actually been re-elected. He has run for president a couple of times. Someone had to have donated money to keep up the “Joementum.” Joe is liked most now because he’s the super majority. He’s the 60th senator who sometimes says he’s a Democrat and sometimes an “independent” (code for Republican in New England). He’s needed. And when he’s needed he acts out. Goes on Fox News Channel. And “goes rogue” boasting about his conscience.

When Sarah Palin was needed by her party, she doesn’t have a party. Her most recent act of gratitude to her GOP supporters was to support the Conservative candidate in New York’s 23rd District special election. And the result was the Republican Party losing yet another seat in the House.

So the Democrats are waiting on what Joe will do or say next. The Republicans are wondering if a Sarah Palin endorsement isn’t magic to the opposition. But what it really means is that both major parties are being held hostage by their least predictable (think unstable) minorities.

Which is not democratic. It’s dramacratic.

 This piece originally appeared on True/Slant.