A Flash Of Realization

     A fundamental difference between my outlook and that of most people around me is that I am of the opinion that government is fundamentally flawed, small-minded, mean-spirited, ignorant, lazy and generally a dirty, sloppy, dangerous business and that is as good as it ever gets.

     Politics is better than conking one another over the head -- way better, in fact; but it is inherently imperfect.  "It is better that ten men go free than one man be wrongly punished," remember?  Government isn't stamping out Improved Gizmos and a 10:1 reject rate is considered fine as long as harm to the undeserving is minimized.

     I blame the Progressives -- not the current crop but the people, from the less-bad Roosevelt through Wilson and beyond, who decided government ought to be an agent of moral uplift, who decided that if public drunkenness was a crime, we ought to be rid of drink (and so on and on and on, including the long list of Texas felonies involving lobsters) and who didn't content themselves with hectoring and haranguing from the bully pulpit of elected office but pushed for laws to push around folks who were harming no one or at worst only themselves, and who established the idea that it was somehow the job of government to make us hapless citizens better people.  It is an idea that has stuck far too well.

     While there are wise and good men and women holding office -- and an awful lot of hard-working minor functionaries making the wheels go 'round on meager pay and less respect, embedded with the time-servers, no-hopers and don't-carers who make bureaucracy a bother -- most of government is dominated by the same Eddie Haskell types, snobs, hollow suits and authority addicts who ran student government back in High School.  They are the lowest common denominator, and any sufficiently large enterprise will sink to just that.  They are supposed to be uplifting my morals and yours, too?  Really?

     When a new law comes along, I automatically don't trust it.  Especially if it purports to cover something that's already been addressed.  In that vein, I'll leave you with this:

Indiana Constitution

Article 1

[...]

Section 2. Right to worship
      All people shall be secured in the natural right to worship ALMIGHTY GOD, according to the dictates of their own consciences.

Section 3. Freedom of religious opinions
     No law shall, in any case whatever, control the free exercise and enjoyment of religious opinions, or interfere with the rights of conscience. 

Section 4. Freedom of religion
     No preference shall be given, by law, to any creed, religious society, or mode of worship; and no person shall be compelled to attend, erect, or support, any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry, against his consent. 

     Did it really need to be graffitied by the current legislative session?

Super-Secret Salad Dressing

     Except I'll let you in on it: Good, flavorful olive oil, balsamic vinegar, "Mediterranean" spice mix, some extra chives, fresh-ground black pepper, a pinch of sugar and nice zotz of lime juice.  Let set, shake, taste, add salt or adjust the oil/vinegar/lime balance as needed.  It's tasty!

     (The basic ratio is three parts oil to one part of the acidic liquids -- count the vinegar and lime juice together.  You can often wing this; I find myself using a bit more balasamic.)

     I had it over a mixed-veggie salad: radishes, grape tomatoes, carrots, Anaheim pepper, exactly two olives (one black, one green), a pickled mushroom and just a little mixed-herb greens.  And I'm planning on taking the same thing to work tomorrow, only with sections of blood orange added.

Torchlamp?

     I'm not much for decorative art and no big fan of the turn-things-into-lamps school, but I very nearly bought this when I saw it at an antique mall Saturday:

[click to embiggen]

     Given the temperamental and operator skill-dependent nature of a classic flamethrower, I can't imagine a better use.  The bulb is a flame-patterned neon glowlamp, and probably flickers. 

A Public-Relations Disaster

     See that sign?  RFRA with a red oh-hells-no symbol across it. They're popping up on the doors of businesses all around Broad Ripple and elsewhere in Indianapolis.

     Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  It must have sounded like a great idea when they were kicking it around the Statehouse.  It must have looked good to 'em on paper: a bill that held out a hand to Indiana's large number of religious conservatives while giving notice to the gay-marriage people that while they might've got themselves the right to get married, the Hoosier government wasn't going to let 'em push around any bakers or caterers (etc.) as had happened in other states -- and best of all, the language of the bill followed closely on a relatively uncontroversial Federal law from 21 years ago.*  They must have figured they couldn't lose!

     They figured wrong.  They lost, big, and they're dragging the rest of us along.  They didn't even understand where the real battlefield was located.  Neither do most of the people protesting and holding rallies, pro and con.

    
      Legislators, welcome to 2015, where states are jostling for business in a down economy and where perception is all it takes to alter a state's standing in the competition. Indiana is now seen as backward-looking -- which is always an easy sell to non-Hoosiers anyway.

     Forget about your and everyone else's sex life, or religion, or wedlockery or the extent to which they're willing to infuse a business transaction with religion and/or politics.  This state needs jobs.  J-O-B-S.  And what was conceived as, face it, a shout-out to the Republican base is backfiring on that whole "attract new and expanding employers to Indiana" front.  The massive Angie's List headquarters expansion project is on hold; they moved here from Ohio, in search of a better business climate, and they can move elsewhere; their business is mostly a massive database and communications support, just as easily run from Missouri or Inner Mongolia as Indianapolis.  The NCAA -- headquartered downtown along the Monon Canal -- is making noises about taking their Final Four business elsewhere.  And we're only a few days downwind of Indiana's RFRA.

     I keep hearing de jure readings from the Right pointing to the "strict scruntiny" requirements and how limited that makes this law; I'm getting plenty of de facto interpretations from the Left about how it's really a wink and a nod to kick LGBT folks outta the pool.  Both sides are invested in the issue. Lovely, really, but it doesn't matter.  That isn't what's at stake here. You can't put much in the collection plate if you don't have a job -- and you're darned unlikely to put together a big fancy wedding from the unemployment line.

     RFRA is a public-relations disaster.  In a Rust Belt state short on corporate HQs, competing with the other 49 states and the rest of the world for a shrinking pool of jobs, any edge you have matters -- and so does any edge you lose.  All the Legislature had to do was stay shut up and let Hoosiers work things out among themselves, while the state's generally pro-business laws and taxes did the heavy lifting.  They couldn't restrain themselves.

     Any time one party gets a firm hold on the Executive and Legislative wings of our triple-lobed gummints, foolhardy base-pandering is soon to follow.  In Indiana, it was GOP's turn and sure enough, nobody among them looked at the wider issues.

     The older I get, the more the phrase "legislative gridlock" appeals to me.  It's probably the best we can hope for.  We didn't get it this time 'round and look what happened.

     Indiana's RFRA is headed for the courts as soon as someone manages to establish standing.  The damage has already been done -- done to all Hoosiers, straight, gay, religious, secular, conservative and liberal alike. 

     ETA: Legal analysis here.
________________________________
* Relatively uncontroversial: in 1997, application of the Federal RFRA to the state and local governments was challenged and fought all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that this Federal law applied only to the Federales.  It's an interesting case.

Oh, Really?

     Out and about yesterday and it was snowing.  Overnight lows were in the teens.  --Okay, possibly this is lamb-like behavior compared to the roaring snowfalls earlier in March, but this is getting tiresome.

TV Ads

     Maybe I don't hear ads on the TV properly -- when the woman in the commercial says, "Now I enjoy smooth skin every day," I'm thinking it's good she found a meal she likes, but she really ought to get more variety in her diet.

     The auto dealer's jingle runs, "[Dealer name]'s got your truck, man !" and I wonder why he'd steal some guys truck.

     They claim, "Buy now and save," and I compare the supposed "savings" with not buying and find the balance coming up negative.  They tell me, "Thirty days same as cash," and I'm wondering if it works like a court  sentence -- "Thirty days or one thousand dollars."  Heck, I might take a month off to huckster furniture in exchange for a new living room suite!

Breakfast!

     No photo -- it's colorful, but either your mouth waters as the notion of a three-pepper omelet with red chile, yellow Hungarian wax and pale-green Anaheim peppers in it, or you'd just as soon not see it.  A strip of bacon (in a big, three-egg omelet for two) provides some umami and a dab of African peri-peri sauce provides the heat, since these early peppers are flavorful but have no fire.

     Still, if you like peppers, this is a pleasant treat.  

Broad Ripple Biting Tiger

     Sometimes.

Presidential Paragon

     In comments to yesterday's post, I was asked who I'd tap for the Chief Executive job, having rejected Senator Cruz?

      Good question.

     I'd want someone who was serious about the job.  And not so set on making his mark on History or The World or Progress.  We elect these smiling bastards on the premise that they're some kind of savior.  They run campaigns as Men On Horseback, promising to "usher in a new day."

     I don't want a "new day."  I don't much want the "old days" back, either.  I sure don't care to see any Great Leaders: when you get a large-enough crop of them at same time, they foul up the whole world.  I just want the President (and Congress, and the Supremes) to do their jobs in a way that doesn't have me (or any other honest person) looking over my shoulder, wondering if it's time to head for the hills.  I want 'em to do their jobs in a way that minimizes the opportunities for people to go for one another's throats.  When metaphorical fires break out, I want 'em to put metaphorical water on them, not gasoline.

     I want to see -- just once!  -- a competent Chief Executive, someone who appoints the various Directors and Cabinet members on the basis of ability, not on how much money they donated, how stalwart a partisan they are or even plain chumship.  I want a President who'll hold 'em to account and send them packing if they screw up.

     I don't care if he or she is any good at giving speeches.  I don't care if the rest of the world loves them or hates them.  I don't care about the President's age, ugliness, gender, ethnic background, marital status or religion. I'm hoping not for a hawk or a dove but for someone who is slow to anger and measured but decisive in action, who acts only when action is truly necessary.

     I'd like another Calvin Coolidge.

     I'm not gonna get one.

     Voting in Presidential elections is a thing I do with great reluctance and after much deliberation.  They're all pompous, ego-driven fools and I'm reduced to trying to do the least harm with my vote.  I can usually vote for the Libertarian Party candidate with a clear conscience.

No Thanks, Ted

     It feels redundant to put any text here.  I have seen the Ted Cruz announcement and he was almost fractally unlikeable by my lights.  Oh, he kinda talks a good fight on a very few things, but most of them are things the President hasn't got the power to do.

     Mr. Mencken still snickers.  

     If you are a religious conservative, he may be your man.  That's fine.  I'm not and he isn't.

     (Sidebar: Ted Cruz is caricature-ready, from the slicked-back hair to the slicked-back accent, and as a result, I predict he will be a media darling for several weeks while they work out the best angles for his skewering and figure out who on the SNL cast will play him.  It will be interesting to see how he takes it.)

Too Soon Old; Too Late Smart

     The curse of age: the older you get, the crazier politicians become.

      If you are lucky, it'll only be about half of them. If you're me, it'll be around 97 percent.

Tom Lehrer Welcomes Spring

     Not how I would do it, but around here crows are usually more of a problem.