Happy Fathers Day

I'm three for three kids! As more people learn about the Pinter play known locally as the CHCA board of Directors, they back away, like passers-by viewing an epileptic seizure on a busy sidewalk. Metaphor mania!

Dysfunctional? Undisciplined? Ruthless? But effective, right? Guess again Bunky. Because my winning streak coincides with the boards' losing one. Not surprising, since they concern the same events.

Let's go to the video tape.

First up, the long awaited PA Attorney General's Report, finding the local zoo inmates in violation of state fund raising laws, fining them, and putting them an official watch list. All out of an investigation that I participated in, after which I badgered the other investigators to call in the sheriff. The CHCA wiggled and squirmed, but they got hooked anyway. Ballard Spahr's star Jeanne Hemphill couldn't fix it. Look out Lower Merion School District. B.S. is representing them too.

Next up, the Good Food Market. All I wanted there was a defeat of the CHCA and their "all business-all the time" attitude regarding the 'hood. The letter of support the board sent to the Zoning board, all the influence they thought they needed to produce, was not enough, as near neighbors, and the Chestnut Hill Residents Association actually showed up at the hearing, and defeated the one aspect of the GFM's business plan that they objected to, one that the CHCA could not concern itself with. Not pro-business, you see.
Crybabies that they are, they cried foul about the near neighbors being helped by some local pols, including Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, always a reasonably priced ally." Not fair " cried Greg Welch and others.

But Greggie and Walter and the rest of the Caucasian Talk Circle must have had a miraculous change of heart about such unfair tactics, because this time, concerning near neighbors v, Fresenius, a dialysis center,-like the GFM, a business on a residential street-the CHCA came loaded for bear. And holding a political Ace that they said was cheating when used by their opponents.
More than a half dozen board members showed up. And this time, they had a letter of support from the same D.R. Miller. President Walter Sullivan even came to lend his smoke machine prose to the applicants' cause. But this rare show of force outside the friendly confines of their clubhouse didn't mean shit.

The near neighbors presented their case, again a small objection concerning hours of operations, specifically the option to increase those hours in the future. The CHCA Laissez Faire Society couldn't be bothered with compromising with such business haters. The rubber stamp had already been inked up and used.

But they lost again. After hearing near neighbors, and from a Chestnut Hill Residents Association Member, the City Zoning Board made its decision. Leave the hours as is. Victory-Near Neighbors. Defeat CHCA-Again.

If that wasn't embarrassing enough to the CHCA, who came with a lawyer, Rob "Muscles" Remus, Bob "Young Republican" Rossman and others, dig this.

After a mouthpiece named Pincus-I'm talkin' like John Garfield here-tried to compare the proposed biz to the CVS-which is ON the Avenue, and got nowhere- he attempted to introduce President Foghorn Himself, the Voice of God, who would Save the Day for the Representatives of Hill Business and their fans-the dozen or so Hillers who haven't read the Wikipedia entry recounting all I have already told you about these clowns.

But poor Walter never got to speak. The Zoning Chairwoman stopped him before he wound up his seven day clock of ambulance chaser bullshit.

"I don't need to hear any more" she said, stopping Mister President in his torpid tracks.

There is no truth to the rumor that I had e-mailed her some of Walters' You Tube Marathon Soliloquies I have recorded for your amusement. The reason they always ask me if I have any recording devices on me when I come to meetings now.-Too bad- It's a public meeting, I can record it if I want to.

But I did call the near neighbors after the last, eye-opening-for-them-board meeting,and put them in touch with the Residents Association-for the support of an organization not in the pocket of anyone with something bright to dangle. Like a silver dollar.

Yeah, I worked behind the scenes again, as I have been doing for some time-Thwarting the Mediocrities at every turn, all in my spare time. Its really not hard.

Most of my advice boils down to a very simple bit of advice:
Just stand up to them. They have nothing on their side except the acquiescence of those whom they profess to represent.

But that's all changing-Isn't it?

Ed (Who's Your Daddy?)Feldman

Making Converts, One at a Time.

If I had a nickel for every time I said, "If had a nickel...".
I got two more nickels in this weeks' Chestnut Hill Local. Or maybe I got 72 more nickels. Because every time someone attends Nurse Ratched's Thursday Evening Therapy Group, otherwise known as the Chestnut Hill Community Association Board of Directors Meeting for the first time, they realize that my little stories aren't figments of imagination.
The shell-shocked, following their inaugural exposure to the Hill's peculiar brand of Democracy, and a shower, often respond with" I didn't believe it 'til I saw it with my own eyes", when I ask them about their experience.
The latest group to have their eyes pried open, like Alex in A Clockwork Orange Therapy Session, wrote about it in the Local, one in a letter, and one in an Op-Ed piece.
They eloquently and specifically stated their objections to a single aspect of a new Hill business seeking a zoning variance .
Unlike the near neighbors in the Good Food Market case, these neighbors do not hide, or leave their objections open to interpretation by the opposition, although that has already happened.
Big Surprise.
The neighbors request:
That the business in question agree to keep their hours of operation, in the future, the same as on opening day, specifically 6 til 9 Mon-Wed-Fri and 6 til 6 Tue-Thurs-Sat
That's it-Nothing else.
The business wants the option to extend evening hours til 9 on Tues, Thurs, and Sat, in the future.
CHCA board members have characterized those who sought this compromise- this promise to keep present operating hours, future operating hours; as enemies of business, and of the sick, and of the indigent, as racist, and they voted to oppose any such compromise.
The African-Americans on the board did not accuse the near neighbors of racism.
There are no African-Americans on the board.
The business owners want their options open. Here's where it gets murky, as dealing with businesses often gets.
The hours of operation upon opening must be enough to satisfy their bottom line, or why wouldn't they push for those longer hour to start?
Yet they say the denial of the longer-hour option in the future would be a deal breaker.
My conclusion is this:
They always wanted the longer hours. They want them now. But they thought that opposition would be too strong if they tried for them at present.
So they thought it would be easier, and sound more reasonable to ask for the option, if in the future it became necessary.
Putting it in a little at a time has always been a successful application of will, I've used it myself.
It's a compromise with yourself, one you can always change, and always improve upon.
And it works with those easily convinced of your good intentions , like undergrads of yore in my case, or the CHCA board in the present circumstance.
Those who are still waiting for Snowden to rent something, anything, after he bought the board, will believe anything anyone with a bulge in his pocket tells them.
Later, when the bulge turns out to be something anatomical rather then monetary, they swallow bravely and move on, on their knees- to the next bulge, hoping for a different outcome.
CHCA president Walter Sullivan swallowed. He said the business would have to come back to the board if they wanted to increase the hours.
Can anyone guess how that meeting will go? Any different outcome than this last one?
Right-More Swallowing.
Will I show up at the Zoning Meeting?- Will I bring friends? Will the CHCA board get beat again, just like the whuppin' they took over the Good Food Market?
Will the only people who accept their authority be those on the board itself, and the business owners it now serves?
Fined, punished by the State, ignored by the eighty percent of the neighborhood who refuse to join, ridiculed and reviled by more and more-who all owe me a nickel apiece.
Keep your money-I'm having too much fun.

Ed (I've got friends downtown too) Feldman
Morning Feed- Gtownradio.com-Mon-Fri 9-10AM Eastern



_

Heard on the Avenue: Weaver's Way & Their Week-Old Food

The Chestnut Hill location of Weaver's Way Co-Op is set to open today moving the opening of Monday, May 17th two days earlier. I think, and hope, it will be a much needed and appreciated addition to Germantown Avenue.

But be wary of their prepared foods.

According to one of the people who is preparing the prepared foods some items will be almost a week old when they open their doors. My source was making food on Monday, May 10th and was told it was for the opening of the store on May 17th. This person has worked in the food industry for 10 years and when they questioned the timeline those in charge shrugged it off with the explanation, "Oh it will be fine."

Now I have spent some time in and around food and most things are discarded after 5 days. I confirmed this at a restaurant a friend owns (Tavern on the Hill) and also at Top of the Hill Market. Selling food a week after it's made is a huge mistake. Understand that the fact they are now opening today is a good thing, as their meatballs are fresher than they would be on Monday, but if you take any home: eat now or forever hold your stomach.

Some Folks Never Learn-Because They're Stupid

It's been awhile, but it's time once again to remind everyone how corrupt the Chestnut hill Community association is, and, without the helpful editing of the Local, what lengths its president Walter Sullivan will go to in order to retain the only position, of what he mistakenly believes is power, that he has ever "achieved".

In his last editorial in the Local, a privilege he subjects us to so very often, Editor Pete lets Walt bullshit his way through another extolling of a group that can't get a quarter of the people in its' neighborhood to join.

It can't get enough people to have a competitive election. Eight board spots, eight folks who want to fill them, but Walt still calls it an election. And he says the Hill has never been apathetic.

But he still finds space, and Pete lets him, to blame three people for all the Associations' problems. Okay, maybe four people.

Yes, those "few letter writers" who seek to undermine "your" CHCA.
Tell me Walt, how did I stop eighty percent of hill residents to avoid your small time power tripping circle jerk like the plague?

How did I, an admitted socialist, convince the Republican Attorney General of the state to fine your organization, even with Jeanne "the fixer" Hemphill all but dragging her dead father into meetings trying to make the biggest embarrassment ever brought to Avalon-on-the-Mount go away?

The top gun from Ballard Spahr couldn't fix it. She travels the country, getting corporate killers off scott-free and she couldn't quash this investigation.

To anyone with an ounce of knowledge concerning her culture, the conclusion is obvious.

If this was the best she could do, then the real findings were so much worse, that the efforts of a less connected defender of your coven would have resulted in a CHCA version of Jennifer Zogas' Grocery Empire. No more CHCA, no more fund, jail time for some, and of course some outraged letter blaming me.

Go ahead Walt, blame me, and Ron, and Jim. It's good for my ego. If I can get no one to join "your" CHCA, as you seem compelled, or commanded, to call it, to make eighty percent of the Hill not give a shit, imagine how powerful I am. I'm goin' after the IMF next, the bastids.

Maybe I can get people to continue to avoid "your" CHCA some more by telling them, again, that Richard Snowden, who has leased land his family owns in West Virginia to Massey Energy, whose criminal safety record has now resulted in deaths of dozens of miners, now controls "your" board.

Look it up, sheep. This is your new leader. He hasn't rented a single building, like he promised. But he is complicit in West Virginia Mining Disasters. Makes you feel all warm inside, don't it? When you feel like that in Mingo County, where his other business is , it's Black Lung Disease.

He scammed "your" board into paying for a rental consultant to train someone else so you could then pay that person to rent any of his properties that he feels like losing the tax write-offs for. Hold you breath. The "trainer" has worked for Richie before. She's gonna get more for the training than the person doing the outreach. Couldn't you just find an already trained outreach person? Not Richies' idea, you see.

"Your" CHCA is all waiting for Opie-hair to save you. To eat his table scraps, the menopausal petulant child that vomited racist signs all over "your" avenue when he didn't get his way, is given committee chairs, any variances he wants, while the Jenks principal thanks him for plowing a parking lot he had to plow anyway, and for letting art hang in his derelict buildings, making them seem less derelict without paying a cent.

He's "your" savior, and it's only costing you what, thirty-five thousand dollars?

The reason he got to take over, is that my doing too? Or is it because the exit of so many long time board members, some who were implicated in the investigation, like Stewart Graham, or others who got tired of being ashamed, created a power vacuum that Coal-boy entered, with help from his employees and renters. Richies' non-tax dollars at work.

Anyone examining Richards' past actions knows that, without his wealth, and "your" fear, someone of his psych profile would be sitting in a day-room waiting for pudding and meds.

Yes, this is "your" CHCA. Now run for his benefit. Everything else is gravy. Walts' self worth. His wife's embarrassing place at the table. Those patiently waiting for something to fall off of Richies' plate. Some resume building for the hungry young ones, formerly idealistic, who no longer speak to me.

That's okay, wide eyed successors to Jeremy and Tia. There's no afterlife, you can relax about the soul thing. Money and promotions and Ambien and Zoloft can solve everything else.

As my great-grandfather Tevye said, in a musical about his family, "There is no other Hand"

If you can't get twenty percent of the people in your neighborhood to join "your" CHCA, and you couldn't get twenty percent of those who did join to vote in the last election, when there WERE more candidates then board openings, just who DO you represent? Who is the "your" you keep modifying CHCA with?

A four-percent "non-apathetic" electorate. Nice "discovery" councilor, no wonder this is your only gig.

Did I do all this to you, you dumb fucks? Or did you do it to yourselves? Dumb fucks usually don't need help screwing themselves, that is why they are called dumb fucks. They can't even figure out how fucking works.

No, I'll go with the former. I did this to you. Feldman the all-powerful. I have told the truth without fear, and the people, apparent from their actions, and the State, apparent from theirs, believed me. And I did it, as iIhave told you before, all in my spare time.

Tune into Morning Feed, 9-10 AM Eastern on Gtownradio.com for more. Even though "your" CHCA is mentioned in only one show out of twenty, Mr. Good Food Market still found time to refer to me as a "Roxborough Radio jock" in singling me out as his adversary. I like the sound of that, it makes me sound tough.

Since I made the people not shop at your market dude, so can I please get a letter to that effect so I can show my advertisers what kind of power I have?

Ed (King of all overpriced Grocery Stores on non-commercial side streets opened in a depressed neighborhhood in the middle of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression by someone who had never done this before) Feldman

Next Time -A Really Great Jeanne Hemphill Story

word on the street: another store closing

With all the troubles Good Food Market has had in the last six months (and probably even longer, I just hadn't noticed) I was happy to read in the most recent issue of the Chestnut Hill Local that their problems with L & I were solved within twenty-four hours of proper applications. This makes the news I was just told a little harder to swallow.

Word on the street:

The Good Food Market will be closing their doors forever at the end of the month. At the end of what month? I am assuming April since March's end is so close and no mention was made of this in the Local article last week. Sources also said that some kind of 50% off sale would come next.

Since no official announcement has been made, the person who told me said their spouse discovered the market's closing on his own, I cannot swear that there is any truth at all to this rumor. I will say that the source is reliable: a long-time local business owner and CHBA member.

The Local article also mentioned that their most recent set of trouble with L & I were caused by anonymous complainants, who are still unknown. I say that complaints without a face should not be acknowledged. Everyone has a right to face their accuser! Who knows?... it could end up being love at first spite.

A Night of a Thousand Scars

I'd like to thank the Academy.

Triumph is not too strong a word to use, regarding the outcome of the Pennsylvania Attorney Generals' investigation into that group of naughty children known as the Chestnut Hill Community Association Board of Directors.
The board will spin the "violations" (the AGs' words) alleged and the fines levied, as a slap on the wrist.
I couldn't agree more.
A slap is what this crowd deserves. Or maybe a spanking.

I have watched as the board committed fraud, paid off friends, whited-out incriminating documents, rigged elections and destroyed the ballots, and, when found out, gaveled down those who produced the proof at meetings-me- and threatened to call the police for the dangerous act of....asking embarrassing questions at public meetings. They have threatened me with police five different times. I haven't seen any yet. I'm waiting.

Their threats started when I pointed out their violations at meetings five years ago. But when I got elected to the board, along with some other reformers, we formed an oversight committee, chartered by the board for a three year term. Two lawyers and a former bank executive were on the committee. They did the hard work, and I played the trumpet and wrote about it.

When we reached our conclusions, we presented our findings to the board, but it was too late.
Some of the folks who had broken board rules, and state laws, had fled, but others had run for the board again and gained back the majority.

It was to this, new-old-dirty board, that the oversight committee presented its findings, and recommended remedies. Like give back the money used in violation of the state grant, and most importantly, have a forensic audit to find out where all the money actually went. And find out what kind of legal entity the board was. It had no idea. It raised hundreds of thousands and wasn't registered with the state, therefore avoiding official scrutiny.

The new board responded by rejecting every finding, and disbanding the oversight committee, more than a year before its term was up.

I told my associates that it was time for US to call the cops. They were more reasonable, and thought the board would be too. The found a donor to pay for the audit, as the board, with more than a million dollars in the bank, was pleading poverty. The board rejected the offer.
I said call the cops.

Pleas were made. The board was given every chance to reform, or at least find out what had happened. Nothing.
We called the cops.
We got the PA Attorney General to investigate. We gave them our report. I gave testimony. I curled their hair.
Now the report is out, and it turns out that we were right. The CHCA owes fines, and has to start keeping minutes of Trustees meetings, which it has previously avoided, and finally register their activities with the State. And they will be, from this moment forward, watched. I don't have to do it anymore, because the State will. It's all in the report.

I went to the board meeting on March 25, 2010 to finally read the AG's report which would be discussed and to have my fun.
Can anyone guess what happened?

Their spin has already begun. But more telling than the "official story' are the actions of the players themselves.
That the AGs' report would be a subject of the meeting was well known.

Imagine my surprise when less than half of the board members showed up, barely a quorum.
The long tables, for board members only, were set in their customary square configuration, an interior design metaphor used to marginalize the public at a public meeting.

But something was different this time. The table at the "head' of this arrangement, had always been filled with the officers of the board, all whispering to each other during meetings regarding how to deal with, well- me usually. Remember-direct questions?
This ten person table, was now empty. Only Walter Sullivan, President of the board, sat there.

All his friends avoided the meeting. The board has a rule you see, or more accurately, the absence of a rule, about directors attending meetings. They never have to attend meetings. Never.
The ones that came, literally, kept their distance.

It looked like The Last Supper,but with all the Apostles out at the Pool Hall, trying to divide the thirty pieces between them. Walter should be pissed at them, not me.

Those who would have been most embarrassed by the report chose to attend to other matters, including one the masterminds of so many of the offenses, Dina Hitchcock.

But I was there.

First, a presentation from a Green Initiative group, about making Chestnut Hill environmentally responsible, during which I never mentioned that the largest developer of Hill commercial real estate, Richard Snowden, derives his operating capital from the leasing of West Virginia land for the strip mining of coal. Richard, board member, not having any pet projects waiting for the rubber stamp from a board he now controls, was not present. I didn't mention him.
See, I was on my Best Behavior.

Then the four and a half page Compliance document was distributed, and time was given for it to be read. The person giving them out refused my request for one, but another board member gave me hers. I don't know her name, but I thank her.

Jeanne Hemphill, Head trustee for the Chestnut Hill Fund, in charge of over a million dollars in contributions, joined Walter. I didn't see any other Trustees. including Bill McGuckin, who once almost had a stroke over my behavior.
I guess criminals don't return to the scene of the crime. Unless they have to put a lovely pink bow on a smoking gun.
Jeanne tried her best. After all, one her specialties, listed on the website of her law firm, Ballard-Spahr, is the defense of corporations and organizations involved in government investigations.

She claimed that some of the issues raised in the investigation had come as surprises to her, and to the accountants that the board had hired, halfway through the Oversight Committees' investigation, to try and clean up a fiscal mess created by a board that felt it proper to conduct audits every OTHER year.

I can vouch for the accountants' surprise, but not Jeannes'. When the head of the Oversight committee told those accountants about some of the things we had found, they were surprised too. The board hadn't told them everything, you see.

Jeanne finished her presentation. She did not seem comfortable explaining all this in public. She had, before her explanation, recommended that the issue be discussed in executive session, excluding the public (me), and repeating the rationale for secrecy, even after President Walter repeated that the discussion should proceed in public. I had to tell her to stop, that the ruling had been made.

The president opened the floor for questions. The board was silent, except for two minor and forgettable questions.

Frankly, most of the board members present were ill equipped to ask anything. Most of the guilty ones were elsewhere. Those who were present remained silent.

After Walter asked three times if any board member had anything to add, he just had to open the floor to the public.

I was the only taker.

He warned me that I must confine myself only to issues contained in the document at hand. Remember, this is a public meeting, in a democracy, and Walter even claims to be a democrat.

I agreed, cause I live for moments like these.

SO I sez to her I sez: Jeanne, you cannot claim surprise about anything contained in this document. Everything the Attorney General alleges, everything they have discovered, was first discovered by the Oversight Committee, and told to you in this room, at these meetings over and over. You were given the chance to do something about it and clean it up yourself. You refused. You disbanded the Committee instead. You brought these sanctions, and these fines on yourself, through your denials and refusal to self enforce.

At that point a lot of things happened at once. Walters' gavel started striking at ramming speed cadence. Jeanne started re-explaining her "ignorance defense".

And Tolis Vardakis, past president of the CHCA, involved in much of the cover up, made a motion with his hand. I followed the direction of his gaze and found its subject.

It was Rob Remus, board member, real estate agent, who has in the past; told employees at the Chestnut Hill Local newspaper, owned by the CHCA, how to do their job, without the benefit of any experience in that vocation, used homophobic hate speech towards a Local employee, who was then fired as a result of the incident, threatened a lawsuit against the CHCA, that he volunteers on ,for defamation, and received a four figure settlement from the organization for not bringing the suit.

Rob is large, stupid, and a coward. But because of the first two attributes, Tolis apparently thought that he could be used as "muscle" against the latest dangerous attempt by your humble narrator to commit freedom of speech in public. Rob turned to me and told me to be quiet.

I responded by refusing , adding that if he laid on a hand on me, I would put him in the hospital. I have been waiting for these tough guys to try and be tough with me for six years. They're all talk.

The woman next to him, Countess de Peroxide-Wedgewood I believe, became the latest in the long and distinguished line of board members to brandish her cel phone at me with that tired police threat. I told her the number, and told her I would wait for them, and her explanation to them for the call, and the resulting laughter. She's new, she didn't know I'd seen this play before.

She left the room, either to make the call and be laughed at in private, or to make believe she was making the call. We'll never know.

Things calmed down. Jeanne explained some more. Walter said one of the allegations was "piddling" and he would love to fight it in court. But he also urged that the board sign the Compliance agreement and pay the fines, so I guess he doesn't really want to fight it in court.

The motion to sign and pay the fines was passed, unanimously, save for one vote. No one said anything else about the matter.

Except for me.

After everyone was ready, in the words used by the perpetrators of so many lies, crimes, misdemeanors, cover ups, to "Move On", I had one last comment to the silent, sullen, room.

"GUILTY AS CHARGED" And then I left

I saw Lady of the Plates in the lobby and I told her I would wait as long as I could for the police to arrive, but as the business in the meeting that concerned me had concluded, that time was finite.

Actually, had the police arrived, I, as the first one to see them, in the lobby, had intended to tell them that The Duchess had exposed her genitals at the meeting and that was the reason for their summoning. I waited as long as I could. I guess the Flash Mobs are a police priority.

Too bad. I had tweeted the Mobs to come to the meeting. I wanted them to see how the white people committed crimes. Nothing like learning from the Pros.

The entire AG report will be linked to as soon as I get someone to do it.

Thanks to the PA AG, and to the Oversight Committee. They did all the work-I had all the fun.

They never did call the cops on me, because they had no case and no guts. We did call the cops because we had both. And now I have an ending to my book.

I want to share this Award with my Agent, my Manager and my Lifemate. Don't buy fur , and please spay or neuter the CHCA board of Directors. Oh, I guess I took care of that last one already.

Ed(Best Actor in a Leading Role) Feldman

Meeting Tonight

There will be a meeting tonight at the Hill House to discuss the future of Germantown Ave. Here is the information from the invite that was e-mailed around:

PLEASE, DON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER

A discussion of Chestnut Hill Politics, Culture & the future of the Avenue.

Peter Mazzacaro (editor of the Chestnut Hill Local)

Annie Hart (motivational speaker and author of op-ed "Retail Consultand Can't Change Hill Culture)

Wednesday, Feb 17th
5:30pm @ the Hill House Lobby
201 West Evergreen Ave

RSVP: chriss@connaughtinc.com

Two Plugs are Better Than One

I have missed reading new and exciting posts. It's been over a month so I figured I would start the ball rolling.

Just got done making a debut on G-Town Radio on Ed Feldman's show. I gotta say: Classy, classy act. I will be back on the air soon if Ed will have me.

I was on the show for the same two reasons I am writing this now. I am plugging two things.

The first is the release of my Live in Chestnut Hill album recorded last September as part of Chestnut Hill's Beatle-Mania weekend.



Now that that is out of the way it's time for the important stuff.

The second is a benefit for my wife's medical bills. It is tomorrow nite at the Venetian Club in the third floor ballroom. Food is being donated by Drake's Gourmet Foods, Tavern on the Hill, Campbell's Place, Bacchus Market & Paul Roller. Beer is free! And there will music, music, music. Member's of Roger Learnard's Dodge City Junkies, Melissa Martin, Jim Fogerty, Jason Fifield, myself and other will be jamming out to each other.

Tickets are $35 in advance and $40 at the door. There will also be a silent auction with great items including tickets to a Broadway show, an oil painting by local artist Christine Donahower, items from Hideaway Music, Boccelli's, and more that I haven't been told about. Tickets and donations can be made at Artisans on the Ave or by PayPal using the address Clairegolden@yahoo.com

Not Hard to Figure

You would think that it would get harder to come up with an angle on The News, what with eleventy thousand Networks and Websites, or maybe its just that I haven't been able to find the explanation for President Barrys' Afghanistan Surge-o-Rama anywhere that satisfies my particular World View. Or maybe I haven't looked hard enough.

Or maybe it's because my riff is not based on a World View, but on the nature of ambition, a motive based on that ambition, and the secret that every Politician tries to keep from the Electorate.

That secret is that they are politicians. Not Public servants, or Statesmen/women, or Defenders of the Flame. They're Politicians. It's the only lawful profession, other than stripper, that will never be admitted to by those who practice it.

Strippers always refer to themselves as dancers. But even they won't use stripper as an epithet when referring to their enemies. Yet when politicians want to insult the opposition, what do they call them? Politicians. What do they accuse them of "playing"? Politics. They insult them by calling them politicians, which is what they are, what they both are. They ask for your vote by claiming not to be "carreer politicians. "

This all explains the higher poll numbers for strippers than for politicians.

Now that I have revealed the real profession of our president, let us remember what a politicians' first job is. It is to get elected. Or re-elected. Before the policies and the State Dinners, and the Dog and the Helicopter, comes the election and the strategy for its' success.

Barrys' team has shown an aptitude for election success in the past. It was its' reason for being. Why should its' motive change now? That includes A-Stan.

Can you present a plausible alternative? Let's try.

1. Nation Building in Afghanistan. A pile of rock, ruled in increments of a few thousand square miles for millennia by tribes with no history for building any cohesive organizations other than the ones used to repel outside invaders. Barry knows this history as well as I. That can't be it.

2. Resource Plunder. (See Halliburton/Iraq.) No Oil in A-Stan- just Poppies for Heroin, and we say we want to eradicate that. And the CIA already established the pipeline from Southeast Asia thirty years ago, their reward from Viet Nam. (And Barry said their were no similarities.) Hashish? Afghanny was great, but Europe smokes it all up and none of it has gotten over here for twenty years, take it from one who knows. So that can't be it.
PS: I Love Amsterdam!

3. Oh the terrorism- the 9-11 thing. That smoking gun of a twenty second film of some guys on monkey bars, reputed to be shot in Afghanistan. Because to make a bomb, and to plan an attack, you need to all be in the same country at the same time so you can be caught more easily. And be good on the monkey bars.

Like those guys who planned 9-11 in Ramada Inns and Titty Bars and over the Internet and on cel phones from Germany and Palm Beach. The guys we now get to kill on grainy TV by unmanned drones controlled by Art of War Grads from another part of Florida.

Or the guys arrested in hotel rooms by European Interpol types who all cooperate with each other and the CIA to trace them 21st century style, with technology and paid informants. The agents of governments who don't want to help us "on the ground" in you-know-where. Terrorists are criminals and criminals are caught be clever police, not by Armies.
Who was the last terrorist caught by a tank? So that's not it either.

4. That we give a shit about broke ass Third Worlders who, without our help, would fall under the tyranical rule of woman hating fundimentalist power freaks.
See Somalia, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, and Mississippi. Check.

Afghanistan will get back to being exactly what it was going to be before we got there, right after we leave. We all know that and we don't care.

Just like we, with the Medias' help, have already forgotten about Iraq. Remember Iraq? Do people still get blown up over there on their way to the store? Is the Government stable? Do Sunnis and Shia still control their own neighborhoods and towns and provinces and no one goes into the "other place" without getting killed?
Remember when it was important to care about that shit? It was just six months ago.

Now that it's not on the Front Page, we don't .

Barry knows all this too. I always give politicians the benefit of the doubt regarding their grasp of the situation. It makes them look so much worse when they feed us some other line of horseshit.

He knows that as soon as we leave Afghanistan and replace its' space on the Front Page with something else, all is forgotten. We just replaced Iraq with Afghanistan, just like Cheyney replaced Afghanistan with Iraq seven years ago.

So why don't we leave now? And why is the withdrawal date July, 2011? Think hard, you'll get it. Think about what Barry does for a living.

On a wall, in a room we never see, is a Pie Chart with Three Slices. One Slice is labeled, "The people who will never vote for you, no matter what you do." The folks who made the Chart never mention this Slice

Another Slice is labeled" People who will always vote for you, no matter what you do " They never discuss this slice either.

And then there's the Slice in the Middle.That one is labled,"The Slice you need Fifty-One Percent of."

Millions of dollars go to pay people and to create slogans and ads and tactics and lies to get that Fifty-One.
The calculations have been made. That Fifty-One Percent of the Middle, it has been determined, can be persuaded by the Republicans that if Barry pulls out now, he will be a Chardonnay Drinkin' Frenchified Coward of Kerry-like proportions, and not fit to be at the helm of a big powerful country with the job of protecting us and leading the Free World, blah, blah, blah.

It's bullshit as old as the Hills, but there are people who still believe it. They believe Infomercials too.

So Barry will get on his Horse and ride the Range, for Two Years. The Generals will be told to keep casualties to a minimum, and Barry will greet the returning Soldiers.

Then, in July 2011, he will announce Great Advances in whatever Standards of Success his people have already figured they could achieve, and then leave.

Afghanistan will return to what it was, and we'll forget about it, because the Media will stop covering it. Their attention will turn Elsewhere. To what, you may ask? Thanks for asking. I will tell you.

The Summer of 2011 is when the 2012 Presidential Campaign begins. Fresh from declared success in Afghanistan, and fresh from an economy which will have recovered enough for us to forget how really good it used to be, Barry beats Mitt, or some hillbilly.

And you thought that speech was about a military campaign. Military campaign are militarys' job. Getting elected is Barrys' job. And he's good at it. I don't dislike him because I expected this.

The real idiots are the Michael Moores of the Left who didn't see this coming and now feel betrayed. But they'll all vote for Barry come 2012. Who they gonna get? Somebody cooler? Clooney already has a better job. Somebody whiter? Then they're racists. Somebody blacker? Then they'll lose. Barry was their perfect candidate. They could be hip, tolerant, and safe, all at the same time. Barry figured all this too.

Their childish naivete is the reason they'll never be in power. It's not a game for children.
When the Real Left grows some balls and spits in the eyes of those who call them Stalin, then they'll win, get Single Payer, and re-establish a 50% bracket for those who fucked our economy, took the bonuses and hid the money offshore. Barry don't play that. He played you.

Until then, they'll put their faith in Centrist, Corporate, angle-players like Barry, Bill, and Hill, and then feel used. Poor Babies. No revolution for you Michael, you backed a Politician.

Oh Well, I Guess I'll Write about Her Too-by Ed( No,it's not about you, Richard) Feldman

I feel dirty writing this, and not in a good way. But since everyone else seems to have already written about her, and since it's so easy, and since I haven't read the thoughts that I will share with you now (although I wouldn't be surprised if they had been written already), I guess, well, here goes. But my heart isn't in it. But I won't mention Her Name, and that will make me feel less like a Bandwagoneer.

Yes, Her, why is she popular at all? Is it because she's everything that Obama is not? She is that. She's a woman, she's white, she speaks without thinking, she lives without thinking, and she works the media like Carrie Prejean works her..... See, I told you that my heart wasn't in it. I didn't even try to come up with an amusing euphemism for clitoris.

To compare the Divine One with Miss "Jesus says my implants are okay-and so are my fingers and this zuchini" is already a tired metaphor. They both are famous for the way people get famous these days, which is confusing to those who remember the old way.

Not for excellence, but for getting on the fame merry-go-round through a series of embarassing failures, then not succumbing to the natural inclination to hide in the rec room til everyone forgets, but rather figuring out ways of not falling off. That is a talent in itself, albeit one that is practiced, for a shorter time periods, by the Fulbright Candidates who reveal their man-tits on the Jerry Springer Show.

So to get minutes over your fifteen, the outrageous ways one must continue to present oneself in order to keep the cameras from finding other subjects, may just reveal a Savant-ish talent in our Gemini-like former beauty queens.

Because if either of them suddenly started acting reasonable; if Miss California Pussy Fingers suddenly went on a Church Mission to teach less advantaged Third World Women to be proficient in activities that would keep their hands occupied during the extended periods of time the male villagers were out hunting game (and keep her away from the TMZ Paps), or if the Rogueish One were to lock herself away in a room and begin to read all those books and newspapers she once claimed knowledge of, long enough to emerge with the ability to anwer a question involving a fact, well then, where would the entertainment value be in that?

No, our culture has had it with fame having anything to do with excellence or achievement or hard work. We like our celebrities to be train wrecks. It's so much more interesting, you know, ugly but you can't turn away. We like 'em big and stupid. Better for our self esteem too.

Look on the positive side. The fact that clown shows like these occupy our news time signals a return to pre-911 America, when it was all about OJ, Oval Office BJ's and Shark Attacks. Remember? We all had money then.

Even the attacks on Obama for bowing, or not bowing, or being a Commie, or a Nazi, have the elements of farce that we haven't experienced since a they tried to impeach that guy because of a dry cleaning issue.

Until someone takes a shot at him, of course. Anybody got the over-under on that one?

Fame is some weird shit. And staying famous is so much easier when you don't have to waste valuable time practicing a talent or craft or reading and studying. Then all you have to do is to work on staying famous.

Paris Hilton is more famous than any Hollywood Actress, and the only skill I've seen her demonstrate would only rate a B+ on my scale. Tilt your head back Hon, you'll be able to go deeper.

It may be against the law to shout "Fire" in a crowded theater, but it sure gets everyone to notice you. Just ask me.

But there is a substantive similarity between the Killa from Wasilla and Miss Born-Again-Porn-Again.

They occupy a position vital to the continued self delusion that is a cornerstone of the ethos of "social conservatives". The reason for that name is because the Media that coined it did not want to alienate potential customers by calling them what I do.

White Trash. Bohunks. Munyaks. Sky Jockeys. Renaissance Deniers. The folks who think the End is Near because the Democrats and Jews and Queers and Niggers have all gotten together to loose the plagues of Sodom on the Greatest Country the Giant White Man who lives in the Sky ever Created.

All the Evils of Society have been created by the Liberalism that made beating your kids illegal and all the other Commie-Based Nanny-State interferences that killed John Wayne and replaced him with Ryan Seacrest.

Yet all the while they Lament the moral slide to Perdition that they assume started with Alan Alda, this same John Hagy-watching demographic; squeezes out bastard children by the carload, produces all of our nations' methamphetimine, supplies every single actress in Porn (have you ever listened to them talk?-They ain't from the Upper West Side) and takes care of those in need of help in the States they control with the indifference that would drown them in the Tears of Their Savior, if He existed.

Denial is Mothers Milk to these Good People. Without it, they would have to admit what us Godless Liberals take for granted. That what you call Sin is fun, that we like it and it won't doom us. That it predates you belief system, and only became a problem when some power trippers needed a reason to market that system to help them get a handle on controlling some of your ancestors, the gullible of yore, and make a few bucks.

It worked, just like Ring-Around-the-Collar started getting people to pay for extra for Wisk, a powdered detergent mixed with the magic ingredient of water.

It takes someone with Balls of Iron to sell nonsense like that. It takes someone who can deny the truth when everyone can see it on the JumboTron.

It takes the kind of person who can accuse Her opponents of moral laxity while Her knocked-up, unmarried, teenage daughter stands right behind her.

It takes someone who vetted her future son-in-law with the same diligence as She was and now blames him for making a living, just as She is, off the national Joke you both played on all of us. At least he didn't use a body double for his cash-in. I know, writing the book yourself would have taken away important "twitter-time".

It takes someone with "social conservative" version of Denial that the Neo-Cons use when extolling that fact that there hasn't been an attack since, uh, you know, uh, 2001.
Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the Play?

The best defense is more of everything that got you famous already. Meaning is meaningless when the lights are all on you. Work it Girl!

Lil' Eddie

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