Tina Dupuy

The problem with the pro-life movement is their concerns for “life” end at birth.

While writing a story about the famed Octomom (who living up to her comic book villain moniker managed to incense both pro-life and pro-choice groups), one of the pro-life advocates I interviewed explained they were concerned with “life that needs to be protected and children’s welfare.” Then realizing the slip, she quickly corrected, “We don’t agree with welfare though.”

So in their view every pregnancy MUST be brought to term – but after that it’s hands off and there’s “freedom” from intervention. Then you should have your rights to privacy. Then you should make your own decisions.

The wedge issue of abortion is a red herring. It’s a giant distraction – a shiny thing we all focus on and a drain on resources which could actually be going to making “life” better for American children.

The easiest example is how the House GOP, riding on a wave of fiscal outrage with the promise of jobs, has spent their precious little time in session trying to criminalize a procedure for which only a minority of Americans are even eligible. Plus, numbers of abortions per year don’t change even with changing legality or availability of abortions. This means no matter how much money is thrown at making abortion not exist, according to data, the same amount of abortions still take place.

So no amount of activism or mouth foam has made the numbers of abortions fewer. But it still eats up plenty of legislative time around the country.

South Dakota tabled a law allowing certain people related to a fetus to be able to kill an abortion provider. Nebraska then doubled down and introduced a bill to de-criminalize all murders if the victims are abortion providers. How pro-life is that?

What we lack in this country is a pro-quality-of-life movement. You know what’s killing children more than abortion? Obesity. Lack of health care. Poverty.

I don’t understand how the Christian religion can be used as grounds to take a hard line on abortion, while simultaneously giving widespread poverty a pass because it’s a “personal responsibility” issue. The poor have no more famous an advocate than Jesus Christ. However, there’s a big swath of Christians who are like die hard Michael Jackson fans who have never heard his music: They admire the man but are missing what he was all about.

I don’t understand how people who are so revved up over what a woman does in the privacy of her doctor’s office can just sit back and watch an entire generation of American children be doomed to a shorter lifespan than their parents. Obesity is more than a big health issue – it’s a big death issue. Condemning women’s right to choose an abortion while letting “choice” be the permission for an epidemic of overweight kids is like being a school administrator who’s really only concerned with chalk.

I don’t understand how the title of “pro-life” can be claimed for any movement which does not march on the Capitol in support of better health care for post-partum kids.

“Life” has to mean more than just treating women like public incubators. Truth be told a big factor in the one out of every five pregnancies ending in abortion is – unemployment. Lack of money. Lack of resources. Being pro-life is short-sighted when it comes to living. If the goal of pro-lifers is eliminating all abortions, they should start by eliminating the reasons for abortions. Unwanted pregnancy is number one, so they should be for birth control. The second is financial. So they should be for what the right-wing likes to refer to despairingly as “socialism.”

What would a pro-quality-of-life movement support? A living wage for people who work for a living. A viable middle-class. An economy which lifts all people, not just the uber-rich. Honest, transparent and accountable corporations and elected officials. Infrastructure. Education. Health care for all. Healthy kids.

Instead, those who call themselves pro-life can’t see the forest through their abortion clinic picket signs.

Last week the Tea Party proved itself once and for all to be anti-populist.

Now, I know their press says Tea Partiers are just regular Joe the Unlicensed Plumbers, angry about government fill-in-the-blank. That’s been the story ever since they first rallied against people who found themselves on the wrong end of an adjustable rate. “How many of you want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgages who has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?”, queried CNBC’s Rick Santelli in February of 2009. It was the rant that brewed the Tea.

Yeah, can’t pay your bills? It’s not the conspiracy of Wall Street’s semi-legal la cosa nostra. It’s that you’re a degenerate!

Thus the battle hymn of the Tea Party was born: Wealth rewards the virtuous; poverty punishes the failures. Someday we’ll all be virtuous enough to be affluent.

This idea has been packaged and sold as “free market” – bought by people in tri-corner hats: There are winners and losers. Losers are broke. Root for the winners.

“Populism” – traditionally defined as average people against the elite – was attached to the Tea Party by default.  Tea Party isn’t a youth movement. They’re not labor.  They’re not anti-war. So for lack of a better vocabulary word the Tea Party – basically the GOP on caffeine, fueled by corporate interests – got labeled “populist.”

But they’re far from it. Tea Partiers see destitution as a leprosy to be cured by forceful finger wagging.

Shame on you! Pay your bills!

But what the Tea Party really hates is government. They don’t trust the government. They hate all regulations unless its policies make life miserable for anyone who looks Mexican – then we’re a country of laws. Government is always too big and too cumbersome unless it’s the military – then it’s patriotic. Government workers are flesh-eating bacteria with parasitic benefits unless they’re soldiers – then they’re heroes.

Privatize everything. Let the sleek, optimized, profit-driven business sector make more money off everything. “Capitalism!” Put that on a sign – you’re the Tea Party. You’re shaking your fists at the government!

So it was a little surprising when in Wisconsin last week, the Tea Party marched in favor of the government. Wisconsin had a budget surplus last year which was given away as tax breaks to Governor Scott Walker’s supporters. Now faced with a deficit, Walker’s “Budget Fix Bill” calls for drastic cuts to working people and the public unions’ rights. After a weeklong standoff, the Tea Party then showed up with some misspelled signs (see they’re not elite…just marching for the interests of elites) in support of government overreach. Opposite of their rep, the Tea Party is anti-populist at their core, so they had to show up in solidarity with the big guys.

The Tea Party will tell you it’s not the government’s job to make life better for the middle class. Ok, fine. Then whose job is it? Oh, the unions. Which the Tea Party is also apparently against…because the Tea Party is anti-populist.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 1983, 20% of the workforce was in a labor union. Now it’s just under 12%. The states with the highest percentage of union workers are the richest states: California, Washington and New York. The states with the fewest – Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas – are the poorest.

The existence of workers’ unions make non-unionized jobs better for workers. If an employer wants their workers not to unionize, the employer makes conditions comparable to the union places. This is the soft power of organized labor.

With the decline of the unions, the middle class has also declined. We just endured the Bush Lost Decade. The richest in this country saw their fortunes increase during the last 10 years. The middle class saw their wages flatten.

Several factors contribute to the flat line, but an important one we overlook is the decline of workers’ collectively negotiating with employers. The right to earn a decent wage for a decent job…has been browbeaten, bloodied and in some cases bypassed.

A real populist movement is made up of regular people. In their protests the Wisconsin union supporters have been chanting, “This is what democracy looks like.”

They’re also what an actual populist movement looks like.

The GOP wants to paint itself as fiscally conservative. In the face of all evidence to the contrary (i.e. George W. Bush skyrocketing the size of government and the unpaid tax cuts bearing his name being championed by his party), they want to pretend they’re the “grownups” on budgetary matters. Yes, conservatives are prudent and sound when it comes to spending.

And jobs? They’re mono-minded and singularly focused…according to their tweets.

Then naturally this means the majority of their time in session is spent on – abortion. Yes, they want to make abortion illegal, but they stand a better chance of just making it prohibitively expensive. And when anything is intentionally made to be too expensive to access – it makes being poor punitive.

The 112^th Congress, at least the House has used their fiscally conservative “mandate” to stick it to the marginalized. How focused are they on jobs? They’ve introduced a total of 18 bills so far, according to a simple Library of Congress search, dealing with abortion.

Eighteen bills just to make sure people who can’t afford children are also unable to afford family planning.

And yes, defunding Planned Parenthood specifically is a goal. Planned Parenthood was recently the target of Live Action, a group claiming they’re against sex trafficking so they set up a sting of a health care provider. Which is like being against kidnapping so you aim to discredit van sellers. Their real goal is to “ACORN” the health centers so they will no longer provide health care to those in need.

The smear campaign has bordered on the ridiculous. One published letter to the editor in the Ventura County Star claimed, “Planned Parenthood makes billions of dollars every year on abortions…and pays absolutely no taxes.” They can either profit from being a low-cost clinic or be a nonprofit. Not both. It’s also been oft repeated by detractors, Planned Parenthood is given a whopping $362 million a year by the government.

Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit organization. Their IRS forms are available online. In 2008 their entire operating budget was $105 million – $30 million from grants.*

Their finances are impressive; overhead low, services high. They operate hundreds of health centers around the country providing millions of Americans with cancer screenings, HIV testing and other health services. And yes, in some cases, abortions. Abortion is still legal. Why? Because the Supreme Court ruled there’s a right to privacy in the Constitution (you know that document the GOP talks about almost as much as they do jobs). Roe v. Wade means someone else’s abortion is none of your business…unless you’re the 112^th Congress and then it’s the only thing you present to committees.

What Planned Parenthood really does is keep poor people out of emergency rooms. The clinics treat people with or without insurance for ranges of health issues. Yes, low-cost community clinics save taxpayers’ money. Lots.

“Funding family planning saves the government over three dollars for every one dollar spent on health care and welfare programs,” Gloria Feldt, author and former President of Planned Parenthood wrote me. “So eliminating family planning programs is the least conservative, most fiscally irresponsible thing they could do.”

But why can’t we have clinics to save money but don’t offer abortions?

Clean, safe and legal abortions, thanks to the Hyde Amendment, cost taxpayers nothing. Botched illegal ones, however, are pricey.

So cutting funding to Planned Parenthood, as H.R. 217, the “Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act” wants to do will end up costing more money than it cuts from the budget. Title X Family Planning already specifies its $317 million in funds can’t be used if the birth control is abortion. The money is currently going to low-income patient’s cancer screenings, STD treatment and birth control. H.R. 217 wants to cut funds to any facility providing an abortion anywhere on the premises. Which means Planned Parenthood would lose some of their funding. Other clinics and their communities would lose much more.

If something moves out of the light, it by definition has to go into the shadows and in the case of clinic care – to the E.R.

Which raises the question: does being a fiscal conservative still mean being conservative fiscally? If it does then those who claim the title should be happy with the cost efficiency of Planned Parenthood. They should support the organization absolutely. That’s if they really mean what they say.

Clarification: The $105 million number is the total operating budget of Planned Parenthood’s office. The operating budget plus assets of all the region offices and their affiliates is $1.1 billion. Their full accounting is available online. We regret any confusion on this heated topic.

This year the 40^th President of the United States’ 100^th birthday was on February 6^th. There was a weeklong celebration of adoring tributes to Ronald Wilson Reagan. The Grand Old Party went all out – using the occasion to give a platform to their party’s 2012 presidential hopefuls. Every potential GOP candidate from the obscure Senator John Thune to the reality show mainstay Sarah Palin spoke at the Illinois Republican Party celebration. Plus there were festivities at the Reagan Ranch Center in Santa Barbara and the Reagan Library in Simi Valley.

It was a parade of current conservatives claiming everything they are for, Reagan would naturally cosign. According to them, the man who gave amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants is now against it. He raised taxes nearly a dozen times but he’d now be against it. He, of course, increased the national deficit when he was in office, but now he’d be against that too. Everything conservatives agree with, Reagan now is. It was a jellybean induced sugar coma of neo-con sweet nothings. Much like a movie based on a true story, it was nicely polished for viewing pleasure.

Reagan is conservative sacrosanct. Even Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich who’ve disagreed with Reagan in obscure YouTube clips have never disagreed with him now.

There was notably a lack of veneration and participation from the most recent Republican president, one George W. Bush. Who knew that a president who spent 499 days of his tenure clearing brush would ALSO do so little after leaving office.

Yes, the current GOP doesn’t mention his name. To them Bush is a four-letter word, unless you’re talking about Jeb. Then maybe only when you hit your thumb with a hammer.

When recently asked what he plans to do in the future Bush said, “Being out of the press…is somewhat liberating, frankly.” The GOP doesn’t hate him for his freedoms.

This omission was strategic – a great idea on the part of the GOP. The week the Great Communicator turned 100, was the same week the Decider giving the go ahead to torture detainees turned nine.

Now that Bush is in our rearview, he’s also nestled into our blind spot. While Americans no longer discuss the far-reaching implications of “enhanced interrogation techniques” the rest of the world still does. Mr. Bush announced he had to cancel his first trip to Europe since he published his memoir and admitted to authorizing waterboarding. There were calls for large protests and threats of investigations, so Mr. Bush opted (as always) to stay in Texas.

So, we ignore him. The GOP doesn’t mention him. And the rest of the world wants to lob a giant shoe at him.

To make this all worse, the only person who seems to be toeing the line for Bush is…Barack Obama. Yes, Obama who within hours of being sworn in signed an order to close the black eye of a legal grey area, Guantanamo Bay. One of his first acts as President was to try and stop this blight on our human rights rep. But so far, the strict no torture policy of the Obama Administration, has been by some accounts not adhered to. And Guantanamo Bay, the prison camp with indefinite detention of suspects without trials, is still open and operational.

This week, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s lawyers used Guantanamo as an argument against their client being extradited. We used to be a leader in human rights…now we have a gulag.

Why hasn’t this changed with a new administration? There was an attempt. The right wing had a circus freak field day claiming Obama was a peacenik terrorist appeaser. In that way the GOP won the battle to normalize what used to be called war crimes.

So as long as Obama continues quietly with Bush’s War on Terror policies, the GOP can quietly never mention the existence of another Republican president besides Reagan, Eisenhower and Lincoln.

Now that is a shellacking.

Christians were not always opposed to evolution – mainly because Christianity has progressed and made slow, significant changes over time.

Darwin’s theory of evolution is 160 years old. Christianity has been thriving for more than 1700 years.

So, evolution denial is a new modification for the religion.

Has the church ever been against science before? Yes. Pope Urban VIII condemned the Father of Science, Galileo. But by the time of the Internet in 2008, the church decided to erect a statue of the former heretic in the Vatican. A natural selection.

There are many variations of Christians today. They all have a common ancestry but are split off into distinct groups and sub-groups: Different continents and environments have forced different adjustments.

For example, in Peru the Inca had an ancestor ceremony in which at certain times of the year they paraded mummies of their dead relatives through the town square. After the Conquistadors, the same ceremony was re-interpreted. Now they parade statues of deceased Catholic saints instead of the deceased revered locals. The Cathedral de Cusco hangs a painting of the Last Supper showing the Twelve Apostles eating cuy (a Peruvian delicacy of roasted Guinea pig). This is notably a behavior adaptation that isn’t found in other Christ-based events.

Christianity has had its own evolutionary dead ends, too. The 19th century had the Shakers – a subset who believed in the second coming of Christ, spin dancing and absolute celibacy. The lack of procreation proved to be a real hurdle in the advancement of their kind. Thus they’re extinct.

There are also mutations of Christianity who survived because of their fitness. Islam has its common descent with Christianity – a different branch of the same religious tree, with an acknowledgement of Jesus as a prophet in the Quran. Migration and isolation spurred other mutations. Mormonism and Christian Science are native to North America.

Even the Christian Bible, the basic text of Christianity, has evolved. Bart Ehrman’s 2005 book “Misquoting Jesus” masterfully documents modifications made over the millennia. In the Bible’s first 1300 years changes were made as it was copied by hand. After the invention of the printing press, the tome was subjected to translations into new languages spawned from other languages; e.g., modern English.

The point is: Christ wasn’t against Darwin’s theory of evolution, but some Christians clutching to alleged originalism have opted to be. It’s a relatively new characteristic.

And like the furry little ferret cousin, the skunk – it’s also a distinctly American mutation. Other developed nations don’t deny biological evolution on the basis of religion.

The next thing you’ll say is, “Americans are more religious than those other countries.”

Not true.

Many studies have found Americans are not more religious in practice than people in other nations. We just lie to pollsters as to what we’re doing on Sundays. Philip Brenner at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research did a paper looking at “500 studies over four decades, involving nearly a million respondents.” The findings were summed up by Slate’s Shankar Vedantam, “Brenner found that the United States and Canada were outliers—not in religious attendance, but in overreporting religious attendance. Americans attended services about as often as Italians and Slovenians and slightly more than Brits and Germans.” So really we attend church as much as other countries – even European countries. Americans and apparently Canadians just lie about it…in astonishingly un-Christ-like numbers.

Those same godless European countries are ALSO outranking us in science proficiency. Depending on which damning study you read, the U.S. ranks 17^th to 29^th worldwide in science.

Last week on Bill Maher’s Real Time, Congressman Jack Kingston (GA-R) admitted he doesn’t think he came from a monkey. Other public figures hold fast to the same conviction. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, likely candidate for president again, in the face of all evidence still denies evolution.

They deny all missing links, yet they are straddled between medieval mysticism and medical science. Technology can grow a human ear on the back of a rat (whether members of Congress believe in it or not). Science deniers are starting to look like America’s transitional fossils.

American Christianity eventually evolved to oppose evolution, but it’s not getting more Americans to church or helping us in science literacy. Then like the other profound questions in evolution – male nipples comes to mind – what is the purpose?

Did you know the government can’t create jobs? Nearly two years ago on CNN, former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said, “Not in the history of mankind has the government ever created jobs.” And then, “Trust me.”

When Steele said those words, he was widely panned. It was dismissed on the right as a gaffe and debunked on the left as grossly inaccurate.

It was laughable…when Steele said it.

Cut to: Meet the Press last Sunday. Erin Burnett CNBC’s Squawk on the Street host said, “Government can’t create jobs.” It was left unchallenged by any of the other panelists and host David Gregory.

Karen Hughes who worked in the Bush administration, her government j-o-b added, “Well…the president seems to have had a revelation that it’s actually business that creates jobs.”

Then to top it all off the Democratic Congressman James Clyburn – agreed. “No, we can’t create jobs, and we shouldn’t.  We want them created in the private sector. “

Over 16.5% of Americans are employed by the government, about 22 million of the 135 million payroll jobs. And they’re not just pencil-pushing, useless cushy benefit collectors – but scientists. There are no private sector astronauts. None. Firefighters are government employees as are police. “More cops on the streets” means more government trained and compensated people in your community. The district attorneys, judges and bailiffs draw an Uncle Sam signed paycheck. The government? Law and order.

The second largest employer in the country is the United States Postal Service. Try telling the lady raising her family by delivering your overdue notices that the government can’t create jobs.

According to the Department of Labor, the private sector has been steadily adding jobs and the PUBLIC sector has been cutting jobs at the fastest rate in 30 years. Especially local government jobs: teachers, sanitation workers and librarians.

So the government does, in fact, create jobs. It also slashes them. Cities and states have been balancing their budgets by cutting back on everything. Most infamously Camden, New Jersey is eliminating half of their police force.

To those who work for a living, a job is a job. To those who sloganeer for a living, cutting jobs means magically creating them.

It seems government workers are the new illegal immigrants. They are the new group who are treated like parasites on the system; their jobs are illegitimate and disposable. Lawmakers gleefully talk about eliminating government employees’ livelihoods. The rhetoric would have us believe those aren’t even jobs.

It’s not the banksters and hucksters on Wall Street who wrecked our economy. No, now they’re the only ones who can save us! It’s not a general revenue slow down tied to a collapse after the Saturnalia of liar loans and real estate cheats. It’s those comfortable public servants who are bleeding us dry!

We’re told we’re bankrupt because of well-paid government employees with “Cadillac health insurance plans.” Yes, we still refer to posh things as an American made car from a company, GM, which the U.S. government saved and made profitable again.

So everyone who makes an actual Cadillac can thank the government for their job.

Out of our $3.5 trillion annual budget we dole out around $1.5 trillions on “defense” spending. It really should be considered “offense” spending these days, but I digress. There are some accounting tricks with mandatory and discretionary spending. But added up: it’s $1.5 trillion.

What is the military? Jobs. Careers too. Plus a retirement plan and socialized medicine. It’s a jobs program the government created. It’s also a big wasteful unaccountable sieve for tax dollars. If the GOP-controlled House is really looking to weed out pork (which they arguably are not) they would check out the bacon haven we call the Pentagon.

But, better to stick with the empty and symbolic than tackle the difficult.

Last Saturday morning 20 people were shot in a Tucson Safeway parking lot by a 22-year-old who stated on YouTube he “won’t pay debt with a currency that’s not backed by gold and silver.” Fifteen minutes after the news broke, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin tweeted, “The price of gold today is at $1,368.90 an ounce.”

Coincidence?

Yes.

None of us want to live in a society where hyperbole, exaggeration, satire, bad taste and horrible timing are subjective.  Stupidity is legal. So are bad jokes. Ditto for calls for revolution. As are declarations using violent imagery. Pornography, too.

So Sarah Palin has a right to display images on her sites SarahPAC, Facebook and TakeDownthe20.com. On those sites she had riflescope icons over the districts of Democratic congresspersons who voted in favor of health care reform. She stated in bold red letters: “We’ve diagnosed the problem. Help us prescribe the solution.”

In March, shortly after TakeDownthe20.com was launched the window of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ Tucson office was shot out with a pellet gun. Giffords said in an interview, “The rhetoric and firing people up….we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list. But the thing is that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gunsight over our district.  And when people do that, they’ve got to realize there’s consequences to that action.”

There were reports of Tea Party protesters outside her office with signs like, “It’s time to reload” and “One way or another, you’re gone.”

Why? Because people listened to Sarah Palin. They listened to her debunked baloney that reforming health care would kill your grandmother. According to Palin, Giffords was trying to kill everyone’s favorite elderly relative. Therefore, there was a target on her.

There is no evidence any of those people who listened to Palin shot the member of congress in the head with a semi-auto Glock. Besides being steeped in revolution, a cockeyed view of The Constitution and anti-government rhetoric, the shooter has no connection to Palin.

However, minutes after the former governor tweeted about gold, I reported her website was scrubbed of the now infamous crosshairs graphic. It was gone. Then there was a note on her Facebook page: “On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.”

So in a moment of national peril – when a political “enemy” who was on a hit list had been “taken down” – the FIRST thing Palin does is act in her own interests?

In a word: yes.

This is the most cowardly thing I’ve ever witnessed. If you are going to say outrageous things, then you are going to have to stand by outrageous things.

By law Palin has the right to hurl verbal grenades. But free speech doesn’t mean you’re not accountable for the things you say. It means the government can’t pass laws to make saying them a crime. It doesn’t mean you can beat the drum of rebellion, sell a couple books, delete a graphic, embrace the Bill of Rights and you are magically not a selfish weasel.

Sarah Palin has the courage to delete her convictions and saunter away whistling like nothing happened. All of it is legal. I agree, and I will fight for that: Sarah Palin has the right to be spineless.

Here’s the thing: Palin had an opportunity to have a “bullhorn moment.” She had the opportunity to rise to the occasion and prove all her critics wrong. She could have proven she truly is a leader. That she’s not just a capitalizing catty mean girl who can’t tell the difference between an opponent and an enemy. That she is worthy of all this presidential buzz and not just skating by on some mushy conservative platitudes and good looks. She could have come out strong and expressed regret for demonizing a member of Congress who was shot in the head with a 9mm.

But instead…she cowered. Pitiful.

To be clear, I’m not blaming Sarah Palin for 20 people being shot – six of them dying from their injuries. I’m blaming Sarah Palin for taking down her “take down” map sans comment. I’m not blaming her for throwing bombs. I am blaming her for not uttering remorse when they explode.

Palin wants her followers to “stand up?”

Her first.

The latest numbers show only 40% of Americans actually make New Year’s resolutions.

Sure, I did it once – five years ago this week I reluctantly quit smoking. If you listen to anecdotes about people who quit smoking, they always “smoked three packs a day.” I only smoked two. Two packs. Everyday since junior high. I was thin, grey and phlegmy. I’d get winded playing Scrabble.

But I liked smoking. I had romanticized smoking. A cigarette was my steady companion. I didn’t see smoking as a vice – I saw it as an extension of my personality. If you knew me, you knew a cloud of tobacco exhaust was my wingman.

People come and go. Pets die. Cars die. Years go by. But smoking cigarettes was my constant. Besides, I was so precocious when it came to nicotine, I had been a smoker the majority of my life. I couldn’t imagine anything different.

The end came shortly after I drove cross-country. At a truck stop in Arizona I wasn’t allowed to smoke inside the restaurant. Yes, truckers, who as part of their vocation are known to urinate in soda bottles and toss them onto the side of America’s highways, were collectively stating, “Smoking offends us.” Government ordinance after ballot initiative interrupted my smoking pleasure. Being a smoker these days is agreeing to be quarantined from the general smelling population. My “friend” was making me a pariah.

So five years ago for New Years…I quit. How did I quit? Arctic turkey. I simply didn’t smoke. I watched the clock and eventually it added up to time away from nicotine. People who have never smoked think this is the moment of triumph: time without smoking. But I can’t even remember my first three months of not smoking. I know afterwards I had fewer friends. I know I started a dark anonymous blog about every neurotic incongruous fear which popped up. (One was being afraid I’d start to like neutral colors. Another was being afraid I’d become a “morning person.”) I do remember I couldn’t sleep and drank bedtime tea all day long.

A side effect I didn’t expect was a yearning for schmaltz. I had a sudden appetite for all things “inspirational.” I’d secretly read websites about life transformations. The more maudlin the better. I’d watch shows like BBC’s You Are What You Eat and NBC’s Biggest Loser to get some joy out of seeing others struggle, too. And I’d cry. I went from heavy smoking to heavy sobbing. 

It was horrible.

Before I quit smoking I had never been inside a gym. I never had a reason to go. But now I had to DO something. So I went to a gym with a guest pass and then swiftly fell off the treadmill. I stopped walking. The treadmill didn’t. Treadmill won. I was on the floor. I got up. Got back on. Stayed on. I ran my first marathon when I was 13 months off-cigarettes.

People warned me about lung cancer, emphysema and my teeth falling out, but no one cautioned me that quitting would turn me into a sap-craving below-average athlete. By my second marathon I discovered I do my best work in the morning and had acquired a beige couch. Pretty much all my fears manifested.

On the plus side, all the money I spent on cigarettes was just enough to purchase health insurance -which has come in handy for all my new sports injuries.

There were plenty of lowlights in 2010, but I would like to relay a high point: Rescued Chilean miner, Edison Peña participated in the 2010 New York Marathon. After the cave in, while trapped half a mile underground Peña ran up to six miles every day in the dark in 90 degree heat.

When asked why he did such a thing he said, “I wanted god to see that I really wanted to live.”

Which is the definitive mantra for personal resolve. But really, it’s perhaps the most articulate thing ever said about self-imposed exercise.

People understand comedy like they understand electricity. They utilize it, enjoy it, know it comes from somewhere – but fundamentally don’t know much about it. And judging by the reaction to The Daily Show host Jon Stewart’s championing the Zadroga 9/11 responders bill to a successful passage during the lame duck session – most of the media doesn’t understand comedy either.

On Fox News Channel, Fox and Friends’ reflective co-host Gretchen Carlson commented, “Stewart decided to have a serious show about it – that’s like mixing apples and oranges.” No, that’s like mixing your simile.

Even the far more reputable Brian Williams, anchor of NBC Nightly News, told the New York Times this week, “His audience gets to decide if they like the serious Jon as much as they do the satirical Jon.”

“Serious” is not the opposite of “satire.” Satire is especially serious to the satirist. Ask anyone who pokes fun at power for a living if they’re serious (that’s if you can stomach the moroseness), and they’ll tell you what they do is solemn.  They will describe their plight in life like others describe their Type 2 diabetes. “It’s not as bad as it seems, I’ve found a way to live with it.”

People who are not satirists hear “comedy” and think of Jackass 3D. They think vaudeville. They think rubber chickens. They think light. They think whimsy. They think goofy. They hear “comedy” and think “clown.”

So what is satire? Satire is a kissing cousin of comedy. Yes, they’re related, but not one and the same. Comedy is the more familiar cousin who the press will automatically bring up to demean the satirist. Especially when, like Gretchen Carlson, they themselves have been easy prey for satirists.

For example: Satirists won’t distract bulls at a rodeo, but they will point out how the event has tons of bull crap. Zing.

And just being funny doesn’t make you a satirist. Stewart, during an interview with the cute and quirky Rachel Maddow, tried to explain, “I feel more kinship to Jerry Seinfeld than I do to, you know, what you guys do…in that he is able to comedically articulate an intangible for people.” Maddow didn’t understand how her using humor to tell a story is different than what they do on The Daily Show.

The difference between reporting and satire? Bad reporting is still reporting, while there’s no such thing as bad satire. If it’s not true – if it doesn’t work – it’s not satire.

Satire is much more delicate than telling a story.

Stewart also pointed out in that same interview the legacy of the satirist – he referred to it as “the box.”

“You know, there‘s been a form of me around forever, a comedian who, with political and social concepts, criticizes them from a haughty yet ultimately feckless perch, throwing things, like, that – the box that I‘m in has always existed,” relayed Stewart.

The court jester is an often-used example: the only guy who could tell the King the truth and keep his head. The Babylonian Talmud says Elijah the Prophet told a man named Rabbi Beroka of all the people in a marketplace, comedians are the only ones who are God’s servants.

And if you think NASCAR crashes are tragic – try watching one of God’s Servants bomb on Friday second show. Eep.

Reporters compile the first draft of history. They’re supposed to be shortsighted – focused on the small picture. It’s their job: what happened today. Commentators create the second draft. Historians after that. Satirists catch folly whenever it occurs. All are important – but all are not the same.

Jon Stewart had on his show four 9/11 first responders who are all sick with cancer. The Zadroga (paid-for) Bill could help them not bankrupt their children with their medical bills. It was being filibustered by a party who likes to use 9/11 for punctuation. Stewart’s role is to point out silliness. Sometimes silliness surrounds a New York Firefighter with inoperable Stage 4 throat cancer.

What Stewart did was both satire and serious. Congress ended the joke when they did the right thing.

Ever been stuck in holiday traffic fighting to be stuck in a holiday cashier’s line so you can purchase low-priced presents on your high-balance Visa listening to high-volume holiday music and think, “Why am I doing this to myself?! I don’t even really LIKE Christmas. It’s just a scheme to get me to gain more weight AND gain more debt.”

When you’re broke, there’s nothing like Christmas to make you feel bad about yourself.

Nothing shatters one’s contentment more quickly than that ever-looping commercial in which a guy buys his wife a bow-wrapped $100K Lexus as a “surprise.” Every time it airs I think to myself, “My husband would have to put just that bow on layaway, and I’d still KNOW.”

But if you confess this deepest of secrets – this latent loathing of holiday “cheer” and the futile materialism of these now six weeks out of the year  - someone inevitably hurls the accusation: What are you…a Scrooge?

Yes, Englishman Charles Dickens penned an American Classic. His A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, is now a staple of the season. It’s been re-made, re-hashed and re-imagined more times than John McCain’s political convictions. In the story a stingy old man hates Christmas until ghosts scare him into being generous. He ends up loving the holiday and all the trimmings.

However, Dickens unknowingly created a character who is now used as propaganda to quash all voices of Christmas Present dissent.

The dreaded: You are a Scrooge.

To which I say: No, I am not. If you read the tale, Scrooge is – wait for it – rich.

This is a widespread yuletide misnomer. It must be stopped now. I’m not even going to comment on Christ never envisioning his birthday plagued by obligatory tchotchke acquisitions; senseless seasonal slaughter of Douglas Firs; or the pointless battle about Wal-Mart greeters muttering “Happy Holidays” (a contraction of holy days) versus the more allegedly pious “Merry Christmas” to an indifferent public. Charles Dickens, an advocate for the poor, certainly never meant for Ebenezer Scrooge’s name to be applied to those with a paycheck the size of Bob Cratchit’s.

Bob Cratchit – Scrooge’s underpaid underling – is nice to people all year round even though he’s paid hardly anything. You know, Tiny Tim’s dad. That’s who 98% of Americans are.

We’re a nation of Bob Cratchits who are terrified of being Scrooges.

Yes, the difference between a venerable philanthropist and a charitable person – is a charitable person works for a living.

But we want the picture-perfect holiday gift-buying guidebook Christmas. So we fret, agonize and figure out a way. We create for ourselves unnecessary annual stress. And then it all goes on a credit card with interest paid perennially. All because we don’t want to be seen as a miser. We have to do Christmas, or we haven’t done something right.

Not giving on Christmas is a moral shortcoming. Or so we’re told. Not having money? A sin.

In a Dickensian reality, if we haven’t made enough money to fall in a certain tax bracket the Ghost of Christmas Past won’t even waste his time with us. Any apparitions 98% of us see are from the 90-proof in our eggnog. Holiday ghosts and specters – we’ll call them executive bonuses.

From Cratchit’s point of view he just worked hard, enjoyed his family and was pleasantly surprised when his boss had a change of heart.

The U.S. poverty rate is now at 14.3%. Our current unemployment is 9.3%. Our once robust middle-class is looking a little anemic. The vast majority of us are stretched thin. My point is: It’s time to lighten up…mainly on ourselves.

We are not Scrooges. We do, however, work for some (author’s note: except MY editor, of course).

Pastor Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church congregation – also known as the “God Hates Fags” picketers – have no place in a polite society. But we don’t live in a polite society. We live in this one. And in this one we are guaranteed the freedom of speech.

If you’re for free speech, which I am, you’re proclaiming you can be offended and be reasonably okay with it. Freedom of speech isn’t just saying what you want to say, it’s also letting other people say heinous and indefensible things and accepting the government’s inaction on the issue.

The Bill of Rights deals with the relationship you have between you and your government. It doesn’t mean that I can’t tell you to shut up. It also doesn’t mean that people like “n-word” aficionado Dr. Laura Schlessinger is “losing her First Amendment rights” by being boycotted. It means she is so distasteful that corporations don’t want to endorse her speech by giving her advertising money. She still has the right to say it – it’s the wide broadcast and corporate sponsorship she mistakenly thinks is her constitutional right. It’s the reason she quit her job as a syndicated radio host to go to Sirius XM…to be a satellite radio host. Makes sense.

The Westboro Baptist Church came on the national scene by picketing Matthew Shepard’s funeral. Shepard was a 21-year-old student in Wyoming, who in 1998 was tortured and beaten to death because he was gay. The church showed up to point out the victim was a “sinner.” At the time it reminded me of the bloodthirsty demonstrators outside prisons during an execution, but this wasn’t a convict – Shepard’s only “crime” was being a gay kid in small town.

After that, capitalizing on a tragedy to make a religious point became a theme for Pastor Phelps and his small church.

Soon they started picketing soldiers’ funerals, claiming our men and women in uniform die because our country tolerates homosexuality. The church sees this as their mission: tell us we’re going to hell. And to thwart any labeling by the media – the description they provide their website reads, “Site of anti-homosexual propagandist Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kansas.”

What they do is hideous. But lots of hideous things are done in the name of religion: sheltering child rapists; advocating violence against women; not helping the poor. And becoming wealthy by preaching the gospel of an insolvent prophet is…well, not exactly practicing what He preached.

Every time I hear blowhards claim this is a Christian nation – I just point out the poverty rate is 14.3%. Christian nation? No, we’re not.

Anyway, in 2007 Louis Theroux of the BBC made the documentary, “The Most Hated Family in America.” He followed the Phelps congregation, which is mostly his own large family. It’s a fascinating look inside this icon of intolerance, daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper explained that what they scream on the street corner is done out of love. Informing people they’re going to hell for their sins and for tolerating others’ sins is…loving. That’s how they see what they do. They think they’re spreading the word and all of us are over-sensitive and in denial about our impending perpetuity in hell.

It’s almost street theater the way our sacred cows are made into creamed chipped beef casserole right in front of us. Anything we as a country deem sacrosanct and beyond controversy – there’s Westboro Baptist protest signs reading “Thank God for AIDS.”

Which is why last week the group showed up at Elizabeth Edwards’ funeral. Why? I’ll paraphrase: It was because she didn’t repent enough.

There are plenty who think they are against political correctness until faced with a Fred Phelps God Hates Parade at the gravesite of a marine who died from an IED. Then there’s a PC pause.

Yes, it angers us. What they do is disgusting. Which is why the Supreme Court is going to decide a case brought against the church by a family of a soldier who died in combat.

But popular speech doesn’t need protection. Nor does popular religious belief. Seeing the Westboro Baptist Church protesting is (at the very, very least) a sign of our freedom.

Americans are now in a global economy. We’re citizens of the world. We’re engaged in delicate diplomacy made all too apparent by Wikileaks. Our markets are complex. Foreign markets are complex. Economics are complex. Communications are complex.

In the last century we went from the horse and buggy to the Y2K buggy.

Over 300 million people live in this country. A collection of recent and not-so-recent immigrants (and some native peoples) with many different ideas brought together in a participatory government – a relatively new experiment in human history – a democracy.  The financial meltdown of 2008 made us all aware of how vulnerable and intricate our economy is. People making nothing were shockingly still earning tons of money. Morality aside – there are some serious issues with the fact that such a thing is even possible.

The only difference between a pirate and a buccaneer is a note from the King. The financial crisis is so involved we don’t even know who was wearing a white hat and who was wearing a black one. Who to hate and who to cheer? Who knows?

It’s complicated. Very.

My mechanic is, for all intents and purposes, a computer programmer in coveralls. So why can’t politicians stop hawking only “simple solutions?”

“I have a fundamental problem with any 1,000-page bills,” said Senator David Vitter last year during the health care debate.

China is about to pass us as the world’s largest economy, they already beat us in student test scores but the main thing to be concerned about is that bills have too many pages? There’s some misplaced skepticism.

I understand how anything “simple” seems better than having a conversation about insurance hedging for exotic derivatives and how that made your neighborhood dry cleaner go out of business. But it’s condescension when politicians can’t have a reasonable discussion about real issues without bleating out some melba toast bromides.

This week on Face this Nation, Senator Jon Kyl was asked about his holding up of the START Treaty with Russia. This treaty not only reduces the number of nuclear warheads in our arsenal (and the cost of maintaining said warheads), but also allows us to keep an eye out for “loose nukes.” When asked if he were against the ratification of the treaty, instead of answering yes or no, the Senate Minority Whip dodged the question with, “I’ll make my views clear about whether I support or oppose the treaty.” And then he winked.

Yes, when faced with the fragile issue of our post-Cold War relationship with Russia, Senator Kyl – who’s holding up our ability to “verify” our former enemy’s arsenal – was coy and then…winked.

But Kyl was very clear about wanting the Bush Tax Cuts to be renewed.

See? Complex issue? Dodge. Call for tax cuts.

Yes, it’s simple. Just cut taxes.  Calling for tax cuts to balance the budget is like shaving your legs because you need a haircut. Not all problems are simple. But all our solutions have to be monosyllabic: wink.

So the question is: Does Kyl understand the issues we face as a country? Or does he just not concern himself with them?

Whatever the case, it’s putrid to draw a paycheck, take an oath and still not do your job.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has a simple solution for that: Make congress a part-time job. In a recent op-ed Jindal wrote about the founding of the nation, “Back then, farmers would literally leave their fields and go to legislate in our nation’s capital.”

Hold on – Congress, the most shallow, petty, bickering body of ineffective air-suckers is – wait for it – too professional?! Jindal also celebrates the “do-nothing” Congress of the storied Harry Truman era while not bothering to mention the “do-even-less” 109th Congress – in 2006. Yes, be like them. Do nothing, like the founders intended, and then go home to your farms fueled by slaves somewhere in one of the 13 colonies. Simple!

Farming is even too complex these days to ever be a part-time profession. Let alone making laws.

There’s another word for “simple solution.”

It’s “gimmick.”

The template for the perpetual Sarah Palin feud was set last Valentine’s Day. The animated series Family Guy aired an episode in which a character with Down Syndrome said her mother was the former Governor of Alaska. From her platform as a paid Fox News contributor, Palin pounced on the moment to condemn Seth MacFarlane. “Cruel and cold-hearted people who would do such a thing,” she said on Bill O’Reilly’s The Factor. She also used the occasion to demand then-Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel step down for using the word “retard.” When asked, Palin said Rush Limbaugh – who constantly uses the r-word – is “using satire.”

Following Palin’s determination of what satire is, the actress Andrea Fay Friedman who played the character with Down Syndrome – who also fittingly has Down Syndrome – made a statement to the press: “I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor…My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.”

So the mold of Sarah Palin’s taking to the airwaves to blast someone using incorrect facts solidified. If she had just done a little Google research, when asked about the episode she could have graciously said, “I would be proud for such an accomplished actress like Miss Friedman to be my daughter.” Instead Palin appeared volatile, insulting and ignorant.

During the same appearance in which she slammed MacFarlane, Palin also pronounced to O’Reilly, “Let’s not call each other names because it invalidates what our arguments are all about.”

Uh huh.

This is the same woman who refers to her critics as “jerks.” Palin called CBS-affiliates “corrupt bastards” in the same week she called reporters “impotent and limp and gutless.” She called the McCain campaign’s Steve Schmidt a liar and in her book said he was “rotund.” She called journalist Joe McGinniss a “pervert” and implied he was a peeping tom. She labeled feminists as a “cackle of rads.” She blasted Alaska bloggers as “bored, anonymous and pathetic.” She deemed David Letterman “sexually perverted” after accusing him of making a rape joke about her then 14-year-old daughter. And don’t forget when she accused her opponent/enemy of “palling around with terrorists” and still refers to him as “Barack Hussein.”

How’s that not name-y because it invalidates your argument thingy working out for ya?

In fact, Palin is now our nation’s only full-time professional duelist. She fights with everyone. Her entire post-quitting career is centered on flame wars, most of which she starts. They are often petty, sanctimonious, trumped-up jabs which do nothing but make the media talk about her more. And she’s monetized the drama. She’s gone pro. Yes, she’s found the formula Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian pioneered: shameless and shallow sells. I’m inexplicably addicted to the show Jerseylicious, and if it weren’t for conflict it would just be a bunch of frosted-lipped spandex-clad women cutting hair. Instead it’s World War III in a rhinestone-studded turnpike-adjacent strip mall. That’s what makes it a show.

The media loves conflict. It’s easy to cover verbal battles. And so we do.

Palin has dueled with McCain staffer Nicolle Wallace; father of her grandson Levi Johnston; Ashley Judd; Karl Rove; Politico; Alaska teacher Kathleen Gustafson; Arnold Schwarzenegger; columnists Maureen Dowd, Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker; Reality TV mom Kate Gosselin; Ben Bernanke; Katie Couric; Senator Lisa Murkowski; Congressman Spencer Bachus; Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Gawker; and, Barbara Bush — just to name a few.

The common denominator in all these feuds? Sarah Palin.

Besides viciously accusing men with whom she disagrees as somehow being sex perverts, while at the same time granting a pass for indiscretions to men with whom she agrees (Limbaugh), Palin’s main accusation is that people are lying. They are “making stuff up.” Yes, according to the trumpeter of the “death panel” canard, everyone else is a liar. It’s just a coincidence everyone Palin encounters isn’t truthful. Poor, Barracuda.

Palin has gotten a couple of number-one hits with the same old song. That’s why it’s all starting to sound alike.

I’ve watched enough nature shows to know that if a real Mama Grizzly fought this much of the time – we’d have to assume the beast was rabid.

A tally of Sarah Palin feuds can be found here.

CORRECTION: The original post mistakenly said Levi Johnston was the father of Palin’s granddaughter instead of grandson. The text was changed to fix the error.

Imagine an entire 24-hour cable news network devoted to political causes. Many of their employees are future and former candidates for president, giving them a national platform to reach potential voters. Entire “movements” of political discourse are not only showcased – they’re even started on this news channel. Fundraising, the toughest part of running for political office, is made easier, streamlined by the on-air hosts of the news channel telling viewers to donate money to certain candidates. World events shaping our culture are put into perspective by the personalities. The production value is as sharp as the agenda. Poignant scripts are followed religiously. Everyone at the network – from the top anchor to the fill-in weekend guest – plays ball. It’s a machine: Well-oiled. Well-funded. For-profit. High-rated. Caffeinated. Influential.

Now imagine it’s liberal.

Why doesn’t the Left have a Fox News? Why isn’t there a liberal version of political organizing on television? There are currently nine 24-hour news stations, so why isn’t there one that’s outright for progressives?

Progressives will say, “Because we’re better than that.” It’s against journalistic ethics to be a news organization and endorse and fundraise for candidates. They point out how promoting talking points in lieu of actual reporting is propaganda. Liberals, they’ll tell you, don’t like propaganda – they prefer nuance.

Conservatives will tell you all channels are liberal, and Fox News is “balance.” They’ll say it’s not unethical for Fox News to prop up issues and candidates because they’re told on Fox News the Left does the same thing. On Fox News (and only on Fox News) they and their viewers are the underdog. Their narrative is how they’re so outnumbered by all the richie-rich powerful clandestine liberals that journalistic codes of conduct are beside the point. They’re in war, and in war things like habeas corpus and ethics have to be sacrificed in order to win. Or really, survive – in their version it’s always a life and death struggle.

Over at MSNBC, Keith Olbermann was suspended for donating money without management permission to candidates he had on his show. Yes, the “liberal media” does stuff like that. A former president of MSNBC is reported to have said that he did not want MSNBC to be a “liberal answer to Fox News.” During Olbermann’s brief suspension without pay, his colleague Rachel Maddow went on air and said, “Let this incident lay to rest forever the facile, never-true-anyway, bull-pucky, lazy conflation of Fox News and what the rest of us do for a living,” she said. “They run as a political operation; we’re not.”

Okay, fine. MSNBC isn’t the liberal equivalent of Fox News. Why isn’t there one?

The only thing unethical about Fox News is the calling themselves “news.” Fox News is based on right-wing talk radio and no one ever calls that “news.” It’s like if the Christian Broadcasting Network kept their same programming but switched their name from “Network” to “News.” They would suddenly be very objectionable from a journalistic integrity perspective. But as it is now, the CBN raises money and endorses causes, and no one bats an eye.

Other than the “news” moniker, Fox News is fine. They’re for their side, compelling to their side and benefitting their side. Plus, they give the people what they want: entertainment.

So what is wrong with liberals doing the same thing? What’s wrong with progressives having a channel based on the events of the day that is informative and amusing to other progressives?

The Left is always saying their main problem is with messaging – not the lack of ideas, but the selling of ideas. The framing of the debate eludes the Left. Candidate Barack Obama was able to message and sell his ideas to the American public; therefore, he got elected. Then he started doing the job he ran for instead of still campaigning for the job he ran for. The “perpetual campaign” is the bane of modern American presidents. You’d think liberals and progressives now with a Democratic president in office would at least consider replicating a communication model that has proven to work.

Yes, I’m saying it: Liberals should mimic Fox News…in some ways. Be engaging, have a point of view, and tout progressive causes.

Just don’t call it “news.”