Low Expectations

Going back 150 years or so to Charles Dickens, the term Great Expectations had significance. Why not have expectations of success in life that were great or at least pretty good?

But of course Dickens was writing before the modern presidential campaign. On the eve of the first debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney we have generally been treated to a plethora of low expectations, with each camp's surrogates pooh-poohing their candidates debating abilities while complimenting the other (an exception has been Chris Christie who may have his own 2016 agenda).

The obvious reason for such ludicrous and even dishonest pronouncements--if the respective candidates don't trip on their shoelaces (or tongues) and don't emit any strange noises their side can (and you can bet will) claim victory. The low expectations will have been exceeded--how could they not?

So who falls for this nonsense? There are just so many truly undecided voters and they apparently don't really matter if they're not from one of the 7 or 8 swing states. At this point, you might be asking yourself why bother with the debates at all? In addition to making for riveting live television, there's always the chance for a major slipup--Richard Nixon  with his five o'clock shadow, Michael Dukakis fumbling a question on his response if his wife had been  raped and murdered. [Talk about low--questions concerning a candidate's fitness to be President shouldn't have to sink to that level].

Wouldn't it be a bit unusual if say product advertising dealt in low rather than high expectations? Imagine an ad for an automobile that promises minimum efficiency, mediocre gas mileage and has homely rather than handsome people portrayed as buyers? Would you buy that car with such extremely low expectations? Or would you "ask your doctor" about some rather frightening new medicine that only promises to possibly help you? Nowhere else but in presidential debates are  low expectations so attractive.

TNB will watch anyway. His expectation--nothing much will change.

Know When to Fold 'Em

Remember Kenny Rogers' famous song "The Gambler"? The classic line was "You gotta know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em" referring  of course to a poker hand. TNB recalled the line this week as a result of the bizarre performance by Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood at the Republican National Convention when to the dismay of the convention producers (and the candidates) old Dirty Harry had an imaginary conversation with an empty chair supposedly representing President Obama. This invisible Obama  "conveyed"  a message for Clint to relay to Mitt Romney to "go .... himself " [an anatomical impossibility].

Thus, another beloved personality has obviously overstayed his welcome in the spotlight, because he
didn't "know when to fold 'em" i.e, gracefully step back before diminishing and humiliating himself.

Think in sports Willie Mays, Muhammad Ali and even recently Brett Favre, among others, all of whom are unfortunately remembered not only for their massive accomplishments but alas for hanging on way past their primes, not only for ego reasons but certainly for financial  rewards. And in the entertainment world how many embarrassing "farewell tours" have there  been where the performer was way over the hill, one example being Frank Sinatra, probably (for most of his career) the greatest pop singer of all time.

After all the great movies, as an actor and director, that have starred Clint Eastwood, will  this 12 minute long disgrace be his  lasting legacy?   Interesting that Clint has a new movie "Trouble with the Curve" coming out soon (was this maybe a promo??). Will the public shun him as they have an even badder boy, Mel Gibson? Or are there enough people who, like the delegates who applauded him wildly, believe this crap because it was uttered by a "celebrity"?

After all, these were the same people who lapped up  a pack of lies so blatant that even Fox News blanched at some of the falsehoods, especially Paul Ryan's. Clint fit right in.

Idiot's Delight

After a month or more of summer doldrums, the political season has really picked up. First there was Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate thus doubling the number of boring white guys on the GOP ticket. Ryan is a perfect fit because like Romney he only cares about making the rich richer. Anyone who believes their spiel  about how they're better for the middle class is, sorry to say, an idiot.

Then we had the fascinating revelation that in August 2011 a large group of freshman GOP congressmen who were in Israel on a euphemistically named "fact-finding  mission" paid for by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) went swimming in the Sea of Galilee while either clothed or in the case of Rep. Kevin Yoder of Kansas stark naked. Of course the Sea of Galilee is a holy site to Christians because it is the alleged site where Jesus walked on water. No word on whether any of these idiots attempted that feat. Anyway, the next morning, House majority leader Eric Cantor (probably the only Jew among the congressmen) who had not gone swimming purportedly severely reprimanded the group for, well, behaving like idiots. He probably told them to stay away from any mikvas.

Then in Illinois we have one of the top idiots--freshman Republican Joe Walsh who has been making increasingly stupid statements for two years. The latest was his dismissing his opponent , Tammy Duckworth, as a false hero although she lost both legs in a military helicopter incident while she was serving in Iraq (Walsh of course has no military experience).

But the top of the idiocy chart was reached over the weekend by Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican candidate for Senate in Missouri. He told a TV interviewer that women who are victims of what he termed "legitimate rape"(!!!!) have biological ways to "shut the whole thing down" or avoid pregnancy. Thus in his idiotic brain, there is no need to permit abortions in case of rape. Of course, when the inevitable fallout occurred, Akin's damage control spin included the classic "I misspoke". With national Republicans pressuring him to drop out (he has until tomorrow afternoon) watch for him to decide that he needs to spend more time with his family. As President Obama pointedly stated, male politicians (read: Republicans) should not be making health care decisions (birth control, abortion) for women. For that matter, why would any women who are not idiots vote Republican?

OMG-- we still have the Republican convention next week. TNB will be back soon.

Summer Headlines

Where to Turn First?

• BATMAN BECOMES REAL  Dressed up in his faux Batman or monster gear and armed to the teeth James Holmes was quite the macho dude while shooting 70 people in of all sacred places (to TNB) a movie theater! [See the inspiration for this blog, the Normal Theater]. But in court today he didn't look very imposing, with his weird dyed hair, glassy stare, etc. Possibly over the weekend, the almost certain death penalty he will receive may have begun to register in his warped brain. BTW-- the futile argument over gun control (see the NRA) just surfaced again. When at least one right-wing gun nut Congressman suggested that if "law-abiding citizens" carrying weapons were only present in the theater, the carnage would have been stopped, TNB wanted to scream.Imagine after tear gas had been sprayed in a darkened theater and several "law-abiding citizens" had all started shooting at once, what the death toll would have amounted to!
  
• PENN STATE PUNISHED Speaking, sadly, of death penalties the university escaped having its football program shut down, which in the short run would financially penalize opponents whose games would be cancelled (not to mention anger the TV networks and their sponsors). While a $60 million fine will have to be paid over the next five years and bowl revenue and scholarships were severely curtailed, the biggest penalty occurred posthumously  (sort of a post-death penalty) against the reputation and record of the late Joe Paterno. Joe Pa is now 8th instead of first on the all-time wins list, with all Penn State victories over the last 13 years retroactively wiped out. This action also in TNB's opinion unfairly penalizes all the players during that period. Couldn't Paterno's now removed statue just have been melted down instead? However, if it's OK (?) for Mitt Romney to retroactively retire from Bain Capital, apparently just about any actions or outcomes can be reversed--and many years later at that.
• MORE FINANCIAL SCANDALS The auditor in TNB never ceases to be amazed at the never-ending financial scandals. Let's see--there's the Barclay's LIBOR rate cheating, the HSBC terrorist money laundering,  the $53 million apparently stolen by the controller of tiny Dixon, Illinos, Ronald Reagan's hometown, the apparent $200 million embezzlement by its  CEO from Peregrine Financial (confessed to in a note left with a failed suicide attempt--this guy couldn't do anything right!) etc. etc. Interesting that about 10 years ago at the height of the Enron/World Com scandals, TNB predicted to his students in an auditing class he was then teaching at DePaul University that no matter what new controls were put in, these scandals would continue unabated (this was 6 years before the uncovering of Bernie Madoff). Easy to predict--human nature being what is is. Alas, not many of the students were paying close attention.

Cant anyone hear spel

Today's online edition of The Chicago Tribune, in reporting a story of a legal dispute between actors Kevin Costner and Stephen Baldwin, misspelled the name "Costner" as "Coster" in the headline and in a picture caption and also used "degended" for "defended". A later edition still had the picture caption spelled incorrectly.

Unfortunately, poor proofreading is not unusual.How often do you see egregious misspellings of names and places in the graphics on TV news programs? These shows are of course primarily aimed at seniors (who should know better)as evidenced by the plethora of pharmaceutical commercials for scary new medicines with frightening side effects ranging from bed wetting to erections lasting four hours to thoughts of suicide ("just ask your doctor").

Obviously a major cause of our national inability to spell correctly is the Internet. While proper grammar and spelling has more or less been shunted aside in the E-Mail world, the rising use of texting has been ruinous especially to young people.[Even TNB has been affected--in his occasional text to a family member, he might use "how r u"].

Also, the justifiable emphasis on math and science today has relegated the study of English to a secondary position. Back in the day, when TNB and his peers were learning how to spell, the teachers were largely tough, unmarried Irish women--who if it were Catholic instead of public school would likely have been tough, unmarried Irish nuns.
No raps on the knuckles though.

All may not be lost--TNB is familiar with an 8 year old sports fan who routinely catches errors in the spelling of athletes names.

How Not to Own a Sports Team

Probably few readers of The Normal Blog (or anything else currently published) have been Cubs fans longer than TNB who remembers as a young boy when his team was last in the World Series (that's right 1945). For sheer futility there has certainly never been a team in any sport that could equal the Cubs. But yet the true fan carries on--hoping beyond all reason that something good will happen "soon".


When the wealthy Ricketts family that had made its fortune by developing the online broker TD Ameritrade bought the Cubs from Tribune Co. in 2009, there was a glimmer of hope (for no real reason)that things might get better, which has hardly happened yet. But patience, patience!



All this hope and patience came crashing down last week when it was revealed that the family patriarch, Joe Ricketts, had apparently commited $10 million to help a SuperPac finance a vicious attack on President Obama --including dredging up Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the birther issue and other long discredited lies. Free speech, if this where Joe wants to throw away his money you say?


Not so fast. Joe's son Tom, the nominal Cubs president, was in the midst of delicate negotiations with the City of Chicago and State of Illinois trying to get public funds to renovate ancient Wrigley Field. Upon hearing the news Mayor Rahm Emanuel, formerly Obama chief of staff, became livid and future City of Chicago financial aid to the Ricketts family looks as likely as the Cubs winning one-third of their games in 2012.


For which TNB says bravo! Let Wrigley fall apart--after all, the iconic stadium has been the main attraction for a long time as opposed to the team itself.



If Joe has an extra $10 million he probably has an extra $100 million that should be used for rehabbing the old ballpark, rather than the family hypocritically asking for public money from politicians they despise. Joe could start by replacing the troughs in the men's rooms, which come to think of it would be an appropriate place for him.

All Good Causes

One of the annoying realities of modern life is the barrage of solicitations received almost daily from various charitable entities.



Certainly most of these charities represent good causes but TNB (who contributes a significant amount of his income to the good causes of his own choosing) is really becoming impatient with the quantity and intrusiveness of the solicitations.

It's bad enough to have to throw away unopened up to 10 such letters in a given day and not sometimes feel a little guilty because of the obviously worthwhile nature of at least some of the senders. But then the CPA in TNB computes that even at a modest $20 per potential donee additional donations running several thousand dollars a year could easily be made. And of course the more donations that are made the more organizations solicit you--not by accident.


A sure way to increase the volume of solicitations is to donate in memory of a friend or loved one to an organization you've never heard of (as requested by the family).These organizations will no longer be obscure--you'll hear from them repeatedly.


One wonders how the sheer volume and cost of mass or even targeted solicitations can provide net revenues to the fundraising entities. Yet they continue on unabated--often with a nickel or dime enclosed or the favorite inducement--return mailing labels for the recipients. Then we also have robocalls and sometimes even live people interrupting your day, some of whom are offended by you being offended by their call!


TNB's only advice is to continue to support the good causes you want to and don't feel at all guilty about say not donating $3 per day to feed some unfortunate children (unless of course this is your desire).


Actually TNB resents even more the constant deluge he receives soliciting him for retirement homes and the like. No need for a reminder that we're all aging.