While stalled during my Oct. 25 commute by a rare full Metro Rail passenger car, the weekday morning talk show host on black station KAZI-FM pitilessly mocked Obama and Obamacare.[1] So did his callers. Soon, they began to wonder what Obama’s actually done for them the last five years.[2]

They’ve caught up in understanding with those who knew him at the beginning of his political career. Here’s Steven Rogers, one of Obama’s earliest Chicago backers:

After he got elected, my students tried to contact him. He wouldn’t answer their calls. So I called and said, “Listen, Senator, I’d like you to come.” And he said, “Listen, Steve, I can’t come. I’m just inundated with requests. I have governors calling me. I have Warren Buffet calling me.” I said, “What about that money I gave you?” And he said, “Come on, man, you should know better when politicians make promises.”

I was furious, and I said, “You’re a dirty, rotten motherfucker. What kind of shit are you trying to pull? Fuck you, you big-eared motherfucker. You said you’d bring the Kellogg students to Washington, and all I’m asking is that you come speak to your constituents.”

A year later, he finally showed up. He gave a powerful speech. He took pictures with my wife and me. And I haven’t spoken to him since. What you have with Barack Obama is a lack of character.[3]

In just a few weeks, his central accomplishment appears to be not his mandatory medical insurance scheme, but in uniting Americans – against him – because of it. For Obama, being caught on video lying about his scheme’s impact on policyholders is just one of many humiliations for him and his administration. The cancelation of existing policies,[4] health care providers’ aversion,[5] and the Obamacare Web site’s myriad technical defects[6] have screwed over even the program’s supporters.[7]

This big, obvious Soviet shoe factory level of incompetence,[8] committed by the “right sort,”[9] is something the rest of us can use to shout down pinkos and mush heads for years to come when they propose something.[10] We might even repeal Obamacare.[11]

But likely not before that scheme hits me financially. To avoid potential hassles with the IRS, particularly for a year where I earned more in financial investments than in wages, this month I had to buy a compliant policy that costs 10 times what I paid for my earlier policy.

To the extent I’ve advanced in life, I’ve done so by not paying top dollar for things, including software and cars.[12] There’s a big difference between paying $326 yearly for hospital income coverage, and $3,386.52 yearly for the cheapest health insurance policy possible under Obamacare.[13] Regardless of the terminology and legal distinctions, both these policies are essentially the same in wording and intention. If anything, the latter is slightly worse for my health, because my blood pressure increases when I think about it.

Furthermore, if insurance coverage meant cheaper medical care, I wouldn’t have taken up medical professionals’ routine offers of cash discounts all these years. Everybody in the field knows the insurance companies hate reimbursing for anything, because it’s more profitable for them to invest my payments to them in the stock market.[14] Instead, I could be earning profits of 20 to 35 percent on the extra money I was obliged to spend on health insurance.[15] Bad enough banks earn more money than me off my deposits.[16] Also, medical expenses have been tax deductible.[17]

In fact, the new insurance bill amounts to more than I spent in the last four years on anything medicine- and health-related, including toothbrushes, bottles of omega-3 capsules,[18] and even the several hundred dollars I contributed toward defeating Obamacare in Congress. But my objections then were abstract. Now they’re personal.

Tentacles of Empire

In other sectors of the corporatist, managerial-therapeutic warfare-welfare state, the Wall Street Journal reports the Army Corps of Engineers and civilian contractors are odds over the exact electrical system design flaw at the National Security Agency’s data storage center in Utah that keeps causing explosions and fires.[19] The New York Times reports a non-governmental organization is suing the United Nations for gross negligence. Seems the UN’s Nepalese peacekeepers brought cholera with them to Haiti – as if that country doesn’t have enough problems.[20]

Election Roundup

Speaking of problems, U.S. citizens opted to accelerate their dispossession on the Nov. 5 off-year elections.

Virginia, once a bastion of liberty exemplified by the likes of Thomas Jefferson,[21] Patrick Henry,[22] John Randolph of Roanoke,[23] and the Byrd political machine,[24] is now the plaything of a Clintonista apparatchik who somehow escaped indictment.[25]

In a switch on the stock story, a Virginian conservative Web site concludes Libertarian gubernatorial nominee Robert Sarvis nearly cost Terry McAuliffe the election by cutting into the Democrat’s support. Moreover, the Republican nominee’s anti-Sarvis attacks backfired – while the Republican establishment backstabbed him with lack of support.[26] Also, funding from a rich Texas Democrat who knows Wes Benedict and Art DiBianca benefitted Sarvis.[27] Unfortunately, that’s likely a one-time-only trick: Expect snitful Democrats to pressure the benefactor, a la Ralph Nader, against doing that again.[28]

Sarvis and his campaign staff appear to have mastered the technical or mechanical aspects of politics, the best-known practices that apply to any office-seeker who wants to turn his opinions into public policy. However, on the ideological aspects, Sarvis may have forfeited several more percentage points on Election Day by downplaying libertarianism or misemphasizing social issues at odds with the views and interests of most Virginia voters.[29] A generational contemporary,[30] Sarvis is young enough to know better, but perhaps he’s spent too long immersed in sectors of the corporatist state.[31] As is, his understanding of the “older generation of libertarians” sounds as misinformed as some of the election commentary about him.[32] Or to put it more bluntly, Roger MacBride he ain’t.[33]

Chris Christie, superficially blunt-sounding yet squishy country club Republican, slid to reelection as New Jersey governor like the pizza toppings in a delivery truck rounding the corner. Unfortunately, his victory means he can think about running for president.[34]

Bill de Blasio, not even a furtive commie like Obama, but an unrepentant red the likes of which I haven’t spotted in about 20 years, received a landslide victory in the New York City mayor’s race.[35] Post-election commentaries consistently anticipate his leadership means a return to the Big Apple’s wormy days of anarcho-tyranny, when the denizens were robbed by muggers and government officials both.[36]

At least that election gives me some schadenfreude about a childhood friend who lives there. I can’t mention his name here or even cite him in the archived version because two years ago, he threatened legal action if I quoted him, or words to that effect. All because a previous issue’s offhand crack about homosexuals, milder than anything uttered by Alec Baldwin, provoked a finger-wagging lecture straight from the Thought Police.[37] So you’ll have to take my word that this anonymous asshole really exists, and has for years been acting smug just for living on the Upper East Side, where he’s had to pay three sets of income taxes and a sales tax, and parrot the fashionable idiocies of his neighbors and colleagues who can deprive him of his precarious media job he clings to in lieu of being expelled back to flyover country. In the process, he’s lost his independent gumption that made him a good reporter years ago. Moreover, the job takes up so much of his time he can't fully enjoy living in New York City. And that was as good as it’ll get for him. Now, instead of deluding himself that he’s been living in the world’s vital center, instead of an Omaha with worse parking, he’ll get to live in the violent hellhole of his youthful imagination, when he was aghast that I could say anything favorable about the place.

Democrats also scored mayoral victories in other major cities with people you wouldn’t trust to park your car. Houston voters re-elected an open lezbo, without even the looks to appear in a hyped French art house flick.[38] A union goon and ex-alkie swept in the Boston mayor’s office.[39] Diamond Joe Quimby was unavailable for comment.[40] A white will run Detroit for the first time in 40 years.[41] Unfortunately, it’s still Detroit, which works like a 1979 Chrysler LeBaron station wagon, or maybe a ’74 Pinto.[42]

By 2-1, Colorado voters imposed a 25 percent tax on the marijuana they just legalized.[43] I wonder if this means the Colorado government will be encouraging children to smoke so it can collect a new source of revenue.

Austin Death Watch

The Nov. 15 Chronicle reports the biggest outcry of the City Council redistricting plans have been from the “traditional (ingrained) geographic seats of city power, which were fractured….”[44] Doubtless, their representatives’ll try to inflict as much damage on the rest of us before the redistricting takes effect.

For example, at its Nov. 21 meeting, the Council considered further restrictions on urban farms, but nixed the idea of banning fast food joints near areas children frequent.[45] Of course, the Council shouldn’t’ve considered either of these issues, nor should residents have considered imposing upon their neighbors like that. 

Expect further rumblings among the ruling power elite, as the Travis County commissioners endorsed extension of the State Highway 45 toll road over Barton Springs.[46] In a further slap to Austin’s outdoorsy image, the City Council banned tubing and swimming in the Colorado River from the Longhorn Dam to Montopolis Bridge.[47]

Mayor Lee Leffingwell declared Austin a disaster Nov. 4. No, he hasn’t been reading my critiques and wised up. Instead, heavy rains the week before flooded South Austin neighborhoods.[48] Still, no acknowledgment from its supporters that the policies imposed by the local power elite exacerbate the cost of housing, and they like that it drives the riffraff out.[49]

Speaking of which, the Nov. 18 Daily Texan reports the Council is considering restricting the number of non-related people who can live in a single-family house. The restriction is aimed at students north of the University of Texas campus, according to the story, but I wonder if it has a covert dual purpose against Asians and Mexicans with similar living arrangements.[50] If so, an ordinance might invite a civil rights lawsuit.

Stripped of its verbiage, the real story in a Nov. 15 Chronicle article is that the weekly frets even its powerful political allies are drilling wells on their West Austin properties, thereby tapping into the Edwards Aquifer, and worse, discovering the advantages of secure private property rights, thereby undermining watermelon efforts to weaken said rights as yet another means of pushing people around.[51]

The Travis County Libertarian Party might once have been able to exploit the discontent the local power elite generates in its application of the corporatist regimen. But the county affiliate is riddled with members of the Libertarian Reform Caucus that crippled the party at Portland and kept it crippled since, thereby sabotaging its ability to present a viable alternative to the statist quo, and thus its motivation to do so. Pre-Portland, the TCLP could present such an alternative, and increasingly did so through a motivated cadre that generated coverage even from unsympathetic media outlets.[52] Nowadays, about the only thing the TCLP does is hold social events. I only know that because I still receive the affiliate’s electronic newsletter.

The Oct. 7 issue was particularly, if unintentionally, funny about upcoming events. First, the Libertarian Leadership Conference, held Oct. 19 in midtown, included a mock convention. Since the LP’s national conventions since Portland, including its past two presidential tickets and most of its national officers, have been mockeries, it’s fitting the conference trains new activists to conduct themselves as cravenly and ineptly as possible, and thereby make a mockery of libertarianism, which I half suspect the fake faction secretly mocks anyway.

Following the mock convention, $100 to $175 got you dinner at the Saltgrass Steak House, with its ever-shrinking steaks, where the Libertarian Party of Texas begged for more cash. Moreover, the state party thought national chairman Geoff Neale’s presence was an inducement to open wallets. The drawback to the plan was Neale. Beyond his disdain for libertarianism, or even libertarians other than his wife, Neale is temperamentally unsuited for anything involving interaction with other people. I’ve dined with him in the past, for considerably less than a Benjamin, and heard him loudly declare if he wants to commit suicide – physically, not politically – he’ll do it regardless of what his family says. That party delegates elected him chairman – twice – speaks ill of their acumen and discernment.

Had he offed himself in the restaurant that evening, the fundraiser would at least have been memorable, although the funds raised would’ve been offset by the cost of cleaning the bloodstains from the table linen.

The sophomore jinx must’ve hit the recent Formula One races.[53] Fans were stuck in congested traffic near the track.[54] When they finally arrived they suffered heat exhaustion.[55]

Some Monster Hits and the Rest

My first bout with the flu in more than a year kept me home Halloween. Nevertheless, still in the seasonal spirit, thanks to the Internet, I provided friends with about 160 films upon which they could feast. And I’m not that fond of the horror genre.[56] My holiday selection broadly included speculative fiction, supernatural tropes, comprehensive depictions of Hell on Earth, and humans at their scummiest. However, I omitted, as independent features, any movies used as grist for the TV version of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” – which I also recommended.[57]

Pop artist Ed Ruscha sold his archives to the University of Texas’ Ransom Center for $2 million.[58]  I also know Ruscha for his foray into acting, as the radio station manager in "Choose Me," my favorite movie.[59]

The tartan plaid sport coat is back, according to the latest Paul Frederick catalog. Meanwhile, the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog offers a “genuine” Turkish bathrobe, perfect attire for sodomizing a foreign traveler awaiting trial on drug smuggling charges.[60]

Blogger “Agnostic” speculates Sandra Bullock, entertainer and Austin restaurateur, is a male-to-female transsexual.[61] The Nov. 22 Daily Texan claims Brussels sprouts are making a “comeback in the foodie world.” I didn’t know they’d been in decline.[62]

On the way to a business meeting Nov. 21, I noted Christmas decorations prominently displayed already on Loop 360 north of the Pennybacker Bridge.

Neighborhood News

A woman with a hyphenated surname drove her car southbound in the northbound lanes of MoPac Expressway before she crashed into another driver going the right way near Duval Road in the early morning hours of Oct. 23. Both drivers died.[63] On Oct. 28, a malfunctioning railroad crossing guard at Gracy Farms Lane snarled morning rush-hour traffic. That’s not the first such malfunction at that crossing.

IBM opened a design studio on its campus Nov. 6 to much fanfare and corporatespeak. The studio layout is supposed have a “startup feel,” but from the photos I saw, it resembles every other new office of the last 20 years. Not that I disapprove of the style, but it doesn’t convey “innovation” to me.[64] If IBM really wants that, it could start by paying competitive market rates for workers.[65]

A new restaurant replaces Cool River Café.[66] A toy store opened at The Domain. A salon/spa opened at the Arbor Walk shopping plaza.[67]

NOTES