The Limbo.  The Charleston and the Jitterbug.  Dips and swirls, pirouettes and tangos.  Oh...I never tire of it, entertainment as pure as honey.  Wait...I may have confused you.  You're probably thinking of that popular dancing show.  Celebrities and the occasional politician-gone-awry...think Tom Delay in tight red pants, displaying their dance floor prowess.  In that case, you would have to chain me to my LazyBoy and anchor my feet in concrete.  I don't even channel-surf near those waters.
 
I'm talking about the other dancers.  The liberal intelligentsia dancing around those dreaded words while trying to discuss the tragic event at Ft. Hood in Texas.  Most of us know the characters and scenario by heart now, nonetheless, an Army psychiatrist, Nidal Hasan, opened fire on unarmed comrades killing just over a dozen, many more still critical, and within hours of the massacre we learn that the good doctor had a long paper and electronic trail of red flags.  A long record of hostile remarks to fellow servicemen and women, efforts to contact Al Quada, constant complaining about the United States.  Even witnesses who report he chanted "Allah!" as he opened fire.
 
Still, even our own President could not bring himself to call the act what it so clearly was.  Terrorism.  Muslim terrorism...Radical Islamist Terrorism.  Take your pick.  It is what it is.  The conversation, given the obvious shortcomings of the response by Army brass who clearly knew this guy was imbalanced, at least, should be revolving around the new game of Politically Correct Roulette which is sweeping the nation.  Really, folks...how long are we going to ride this train?  Are we going over the cliff like Thelma and Louise, or might we seize this moment as the bucket of ice water over the head that it should be?
 
Indeed, President Obama, selective in his use of ethics as he has always been, urged us not to "rush to judgment".  We should use the same measured approach he used in, say...the Cambridge Police incident.  You remember...Sgt. James Crowley responded to a report of a burglary, approached a man who had been seen rifling the door, who turned out to be the elite Harvard Professor Henry Gates.  Henry got mouthy, out came the cuffs, and the rest is, literally, history.  We all remember the caution Obama used in that situation, saying the Cambridge Police Department had "acted stupidly".  This, from the man who would "bring us together" with "hope and change".
 
Yet, the Holy Grail of dance steps came last Wednesday night when Bill O'Reilly questioned his guest, Sally Quinn, famed Washington Post columnist, about her take on the Ft. Hood slayings.  O'Reilly walked her through it, Hasan's history of open disdain for this country, in spite of our military having provided him with an education and career.  His attempts to contact Al Quada, his writings, speeches, a litany of facts leading any sane person to one conclusion.  This guy is a terrorist and the act itself was clearly terrorism, rooted in the Islamic belief that we are infidels and that causing our death is a ticket to the Great Beyond.  It took O'Reilly a full six minutes to get Sally to put those words together..."Muslim Terrorist".  You could almost see her physically gagging on the words, the poor thing.
 
I found myself laughing, and even O'Reilly and Quinn herself ended with a smile, each knowing the lunacy of what just happened, and everyone knowing that Sally didn't really mean it.  I'll bet dollars-to-donuts she was in a rest room washing her mouth out with soap as soon as she got her microphone and wire untangled.
 
But the episode said it all.  Sally was, for six minutes, the liberal poster-child of political correctness, head-in-the-sand analysis, and demonstrated in stark terms how very divided this country is.  You know, you just can't argue with someone who refuses to stay on the logic trail.  It's impossible.  I was laughing, watching O'Reilly become increasingly amazed at Sally's tenacity.  It really was a stunning few moments.  It was also frightening in its own way.  These are the people "leading" the country.  These are the people who will be hijacking our health care system, and...gulp...managing it.
 
Mr. Bojangles would have been proud of Sally, and I would sooner have Mr. Bojangles in the White House right now.  Sally did have, as the liberal, elevated thinkers all do, that rather dismissive tone with O'Reilly.   Look...they're smarter than all of us "regular folks", us Tea Party crazies and Town Hall rednecks.  They love making fun of us, it's sport now.  All of us wackos who think a guy who is screaming "Allah" while he guns down unarmed Americans is somehow an Islamic Terrorist.
 
On the other hand, all of us idiots have managed to pay the bills and fight the wars for this country for the last 200 years or so, and we'll probably be doing it for the next 200 as well.  No wonder we're too tired to dance.

It's a bit of conspicuous statement.  Follow the leader.  It implies that anyone with a following is a leader, or that anyone you're following is a leader.  Lemmings prove this to be a falsehood, as do party-loyalists who refuse to think on their own even in the face of the most damning evidence that one's philosophy is flawed.  This is not a phenomenon unique to democrats, both sides of the aisle have their sycophants.  Blind allegiance is certainly more pronounced now than it has been in a long time, though.

President Obama is tireless in the pursuit of his pet legislative projects.  The campaign to pass government-run health care has been stunning in its breadth and magnitude.  Indecisive on matters military, seemingly oblivious to our worsening economy, completely silent on cultural issues such as the demise of the traditional family structure, rampant violence, and a child pornography business that yields tens of billions of dollars a year in business, Obama is myopic, focused on the passage of a massive health care reform bill that half of the country does not want.

Indeed, the Queen of Vapidity herself, the reptilian Nancy Pelosi, scheduled a Congressional vote for, of all days, Saturday.  I imagine the shades will be drawn and all of the lights will be out, too.  In a perfect world, they could vote it in without informing the public at all.  Yes, that would be the same public that will be paying for this 1.2 trillion dollar, 2,000 page, disaster.

I wish I had a buck for every time I have heard the President and his Jonestown-like followers lament the awful stain on America, that not every single person, citizen or not, has health insurance.  I think our wanton disregard for the treatment of children in this country is a much bigger black-eye, as well as our increasingly violent youth.  Even Europe...yes, Europe, agrees with that.  Somehow, though, those issues get left on the bench, game after game after game.

Then again, to pause and reconsider, or to decide that the country can't afford this right now, or to insist that our elected leaders who will vote on this historically expensive legislation actually...gulp...read the bill, well...that kind  of bold decision would require leadership.  Anyone paying attention would have noticed long ago, and many of us did, Obama's inordinate number of "present" votes during his brief tenure in the Senate.  This, more than anything else, made me question his leadership abilities early on.  Frankly, I can't imagine why there is even a "present" button to be pressed.  I would think two buttons, a "yes" and a "no", would suffice.

Leadership is like parenting, in many ways, and imagine parenting your kids this way.  "Dad, someone offered me a cigarette at school today."  "Well, son, let's just say I'm 'present' "  Our President has issues, and one of them is an almost paralyzing fear of making any decision that would offend his "base", or a past donor, or an old friend from Chicago.  Could there be any other reason for his waffling on the Afghanistan decision?   Haven't we learned to let the Generals dictate strategy?  Can he not imagine the agony of our military, waiting for support, or absent support, to come home and end that war?  It is insulting that a Saturday vote is scheduled, not for an important military decision, but for a health care bill that practically nobody wants, absolutely nobody can explain or understand, and I haven't met anyone yet who wants to pay for it, or their kids and grandkids to pay for it.

And you know, it's no wonder we don't recognize leadership anymore, there is so little of it.  We barely seem to miss it, in fact, or perhaps have given up on the notion of great leaders inhabiting the Oval Office.  Just a few years ago we saw true leadership in action, when Senator McCain, to the horror of most of his republican counterparts, demanded that the troop surge be implemented in Iraq.  Republicans ran in the other direction, mortified, that while the entire country had simply had it with the Iraq war,  McCain would call for increasing troops.  He called Rumsfeld the worst Secretary of Defense in the history of the country.  And yet, that is leadership.  He put his political career on the train tracks, because it was more important to do what was best for the country, in his opinion, at that time.  I always smirk at political hacks who only go after corruption on the other side of the aisle.  McCain, like Palin, is an equal-opportunity reformer.  This is as it should be, and it lends credibility to their resume.

I believe fully, as well, had the country not made the inexplicable choice, in the 2000 election, of George Bush over John McCain, that we would not have gone to war in Iraq.  McCain has seen the spoils of war, up close and personal.  I don't believe he would have engaged Iraq with an under-equipped military and a half-hearted effort with no exit-strategy.  He may have engaged, but I believe it would have been a much different action, much more swift and effective, and most importantly, shorter.  We spent four years there treading water, at an incalculable cost in blood and treasure.  Now, we are repeating that history, as we pontificate over the suggestions of the Generals charged with winning the battle.  Either give it everything we've got, give these brave young men and women everything they need, and more, or get out.

Again, leadership is required here.  I am astonished at the tunnel-vision that this administration incorporates.  Much more interested in social engineering and income re-distribution than in making any difficult decisions, especially those that rock the base boat, this President seems increasingly in over his head.  Change?  I never thought I would say it, but that actually seems like a good idea...now.

Increasingly I am reading reports that seem to be trying to give us the "easy let-down" regarding our economic recovery.  Not surprising to many of us pragmatists who have noticed that there really isn't anything going on in this country that would inspire an economic recovery.  A trillion dollar bail out didn't seem to help...well...help middle-class Americans, I mean.  It helped repay lobbyists and their businesses that helped elect our President, but it never seeped down below that top layer, did it?  We are losing our edge in every market, foreclosures continue to mount, so there is no rebound for the construction industry, the tech industry is stagnant, and I can't imagine what it is that is supposed to be the watering can that sprouts the seeds of economic growth.

Republicans were nearly as effective at over-spending under President Bush, but he did have the wild card of 9/11 that carried a price tag that we will never be able to tally accurately.  That dreadful day carried a heavy fiscal price tag, though, and Bush can't be blamed for that.  Still, in recent history, it has become the primary function of both parties in the federal government to spend like loons, and pass the cost on to whichever generation has any money left to pay for it.

What is unique to our current administration is their inimitable expertise with word play, their obsession with, and belief in, their own intellect, and an undying belief that the rest of us can be fooled as simply as the old tap on the left shoulder from the right side of your prank victim.  Nowhere is this more evident than with the new phrase being bandied about in a variety of print stories bracing us for the cold reality that many of us have known is coming.

"The jobs are not coming back as quickly as we thought they would.  In fact, many of the jobs will not be back at all.  What used to be middle-class will become poverty-level.  People will have to make lifestyle changes..."  Like what?  A second husband so we can have three-income families?  What's best is the description that has been applied to this forthcoming "lifestyle adjustment" that working Americans can expect.  It's being called, the "new normal".

Golly.  How come I never thought of this?  Kind of a universal lowering of the bar.  When you can't fix it, just adjust what is "normal".  It's as brilliant as it is perverse.  "Sorry about backing into your car.  That's not a dent, though, its just the new normal."  I'm thinking of the countless times in my life when I unnecessarily held myself accountable for mistakes or poor performance, or any other transgression for that matter.  "It's not that I'm late for work every day, sir, it's just the new normal."  Sure, you worked hard, sacrificed, watched your money, and other people's mistakes are now your responsibility.  You were so good at holding yourself accountable for your own mistakes, and paying for them, that we thought you'd like to do it for everyone else, too.  Citizen or not, by the way.  We feel its important for everyone to have health care, whether or not they work, are citizens, spend their money on drugs and alcohol...whatever.  You need to give more of your paycheck to them.  Don't worry...you'll get used to your "new normal".

And what happens to the "old normal" when we get a new one?  Who gets it, or does it go to the "old normal" junkyard?  Also, isn't adjusting "normal" kind of a Catch-22?  I mean...it's not normal anymore if you change it, right?  The word itself indicates a benchmark.  You can't just move the benchmark, because...well...because it's a benchmark, stupid.  "Normal" is where we measure from, not to.  If we place "normal" on a sliding scale, then, in reality, there is no normal.

These are questions sure to cause headaches, but they are worth asking.  Afterall, it is increasingly clear that our "progressive" administration, the ones who put the "czar" in bizarre, are all about changing "normal".  Indeed, mocking and disparaging "normal" Americans is one of their favorite past times.  They don't like "normal"...it's not progressive enough.

I will close by asking all of you who plan on getting rid of your current "normal" and getting the "new normal", to please keep the old one in your garage for a while.  I have a feeling, it's going to appreciate in value and that there will soon be many people pining for the old normal and willing to pay dearly for it.  Not only is the old normal going to appreciate, we're going to miss appreciating it.

Lions and tigers and bears...oh my!  Even Burt Lahr with his furry hind quarter and over-active tail showed more courage protecting Dorothy from the flying monkeys, than our own President has been able to show protecting himself from...gulp...Fox News.

The missive from the White House last week, distributed via the usual venue...the Sunday morning talk-show circuit, was that other news outlets "should not follow Fox News" and that Fox was not "a real news organization".  Not a real news organization?  That's not what the ratings say.  In yet another stunning display of Obama's incredibly thin skin, the attack on Fox is unsettling in many other ways, not the least of which is the underlying message to other media outlets..."don't get on our enemies list."

First, it is another chorus of whining from a White House, that as Chris Wallace said, is inhabited by the biggest bunch of babies he has ever seen.  It is as American as apple pie to question and be wary of our government.  Certainly, many were cynical during the Bush administration.  What is this child-like aversion to disagreement and complaint?  Particularly from a candidate, and now President, who has had and continues to have nothing short of adulation from nearly every other media outlet.  Chris Mathews' famous "chill" up his leg, and Keith Olberman who is...what...a news man?  You've got to be kidding.  Didn't he recently describe Michelle Bachman as a "bag of meat"?  Yes...he's a regular Walter Cronkite.

And how about the mainstream media's treatment of Sarah Palin?  Serious news people, I suppose.  Fair reporting.

There is no doubt that a few Fox News anchors are decidedly rabid when it comes to Barack Obama, but then again, so is about half of the population.  To paint an entire organization with that brush, however, is ridiculous.  Fox, and Roger Ailes, have built a first-class operation.  Sheppard Smith presents world news with aplomb, Greta Van Sustern is as harmless as they come.  Hannity and Beck are known quantities, but still...enough that the President should try to sway people away from them?  Don't follow them, don't pay any attention.  It reeks of the kind of information control that we might expect from Russia, North Korea or Iran, but not America.

And how about O'Reilly, who gave Obama a very fair interview during the final stages of the campaign and who has been very fair with Obama since he was elected.  How about the stellar work that O'Reilly did with his Jessica's Law campaign, the first time in history that a major news anchor has used his position to try and institute legislative action in every state.  He was tenacious and effective, and we'll never know how many young children were spared a violent nightmare because of his efforts.  There isn't a single politician who committed such time and energy to protecting children.  Yes...that "evil" Fox News.

O'Reilly even managed to get Pepsi to pull an advertisement featuring the vile rap-star Ludicrous who is best known for his lyrics espousing the joys of women as sex toys, killing cops, and putting a "cap" in this, that and the other thing.  Our own President would do himself and the country well to busy himself with such things.  There has been no mention from this administration about the outrageous violence in this country or any of our other myriad social ills.  Indeed, while they fine tune their strategy against Fox News, our own servicemen and women in Afghanistan continue to wait for a decision from him on whether or not they will get the additional troops they so desperately need.  Obama should have been the first one to announce the lunacy of anyone in his administration worrying about a news outlet while so many critical decisions remain in flux.

"Change".  Be careful what you wish for.  Increasingly, it is a shame how this man continues to spend his once significant political capital on pet projects like health care and Guantanamo Bay, while the economy and our culture continue to unspool, states, cities and towns running out of money, schools churning out under-educated and ill-equipped young people, a decaying national infrastructure, and so on and so on.  He has kept one promise, though.  It's not politics as usual.  It's worse.

Sugar and spice and everything nice.  Everything nice, and...taxable.  The not-so-distant rumble from state and federal governments is yet another tax freight train rounding the bend.  We are on the cusp of being taxed for soft drinks and cheeseburgers, under the guise of early  compensation for the anticipated damage they will do to their consumers.  The tax collectors, ever vigilant for new and improved ways to abscond with more of our income, are now targeting our eating habits as the source of their next cash cow, no pun intended.

It's funny, we don't even talk about "slippery slopes" anymore.  It's as though the taxed-to-death public is punch drunk, staggering around the ring, bleeding from the nostrils, seeing double 1040 forms.  It must be that the ever increasing tax on cigarettes is reaching the point where even politicians know that asking for more will soon be laughable.  A perfect example of the blurred line between "concern for public safety" and not wanting to rock the boat of a veritable money machine.  Afterall, if it was really about public safety, the health of the masses, curbing the public appetite for "bad" things, then we wouldn't even allow the manufacture of cigarettes, would we?  We complain about smokers and the tobacco industry, but every state coffer benefits immensely from those tax dollars.

And now...Pepsi and cheeseburgers?  Really, is there a point where reasonable people can agree that maybe...just maybe...government is getting a little big for its britches?  Is this truly what most Americans want, a nanny government slapping our hand when we reach for the cookie jar or a Twinkie?  The specter of "Food Police" breaking the door down and dusting for Cheeto residue or cakes with cream filling, all under the pretense of protecting people who overeat or eat poorly, should be a tough sell.  Instead, it seems lost in the cacophony of looney proposed government policies, and the public seems to shrug it off as no big deal.

It is a big deal, though.  It's a big deal because it ignores so many other greater problems in our culture, like 10% unemployment, the demise of the traditional family, rampant violence against children, rampant violence against adults, a generation of youngsters that have been raised by a tv screen or computer monitor, and on and on.

It's a big deal because it's just a money-grab from the people who can least afford it.  Cheeseburgers?  How many times can that little beef pattie be taxed before it reaches my stomach?  Let's start with the farmer who raises the cow.  He makes a small profit and is taxed by the government.  The guy he buys grain from is taxed on the profits from his grain business.  The land which comprises the farm is subject to property tax.

The truck that delivers the beef to McDonalds pays a diesel fuel tax, registration fees and a federal tax.  The trucker pays income tax and the trucking company pays taxes on their profits, assuming they have any.  The trucker needs insurance to carry that hamburger and the insurance company pays taxes on their income...well...if they have any profit after distributing bonuses to CEO's.

Finally, McDonalds cooks the hamburger, passes it to the consumer by way of an employee who also pays income tax, and then the consumer pays his cheeseburger tax, because he is a bad person and must be punished.  Hopefully, eventually, nobody will want, or be able to afford, a cheeseburger or a sweet drink or pastry, and the guy who raises the cow can just go out of business and get a job at Wal-Mart like the rest of us.

Or, maybe, we let people make their own choices and pay the consequences that nature deems fit.  It's not a slippery slope at all, really, it's a swan dive into the Grand Canyon.  How ridiculous it's all become.  The notion that someone's repeated calls to Pakistan might be monitored by the NSA brought a media-frenzy and the usual chorus of "Big Brother" naysayers.  Why then, when that same government, under a different President, suggests something ten times more invasive, and with no link to national security, is the silence so deafening?  We should remember the old adage...if you criminalize cheeseburgers, only criminals will have cheeseburgers.

Hello?  New Hampshire?  America?  You've got mail, and it's not good news.  It is time to read it, though, rhetorically speaking, indeed it is late in the game to be reading it.

As a second-generation Milford native, like everyone around me, I am still stunned, shocked, and deeply saddened by the horrific murder in Mont Vernon, NH last Sunday morning.  Less than a mile from where my widowed mother resides, at the end of a long, private driveway.  I have worried about her, in this changing town, but have always been able to comfort myself with the knowledge that we live in an inordinately safe place.  I have grown up here never locking a door, smirking at the thought of home security systems, and generally not concerned with those types of "city" considerations to personal safety.

That's been changing, though, over the last several years, and last Sunday, the pendulum not only swung fully in the other direction, it left the clock completely and is now in a low orbit somewhere over the Atlantic.

Last Sunday, roughly around 4:00 a.m., 42 year-old Kim Cates, a mother, wife, nurse at local hospitals, and beloved member of her community, was violently slashed to death in her bed.  Her daughter, 11 year old Jaime, was beaten, stabbed, and her throat slashed and left for dead.  She didn't die, though, she survived.  She survived in body, at least, but what the future holds for this young girl remains to be seen.

Kim's husband, who works for BAE, an aerospace firm, was travelling on business.  He returned after being informed of the event, and as of this writing has not left his daughter's bedside at Children's Hospital in Boston.  I try to imagine that plane ride.  The other passengers... trying to be composed... minutes passing like dreadful hours from an endless pile.  What an awful nightmare...what an exercise for anyone's brain to try and begin to comprehend what happened...and why.

In a community like ours, rumors travel fast, and by Sunday evening word was out, but without names or details of the circumstances.  The location itself made the story untenable, yet there it was.  As more news came out, that it was Kim Cates, and that her daughter had been found outside, left for dead, the task of comprehension became increasingly difficult.

By Monday most of the details were out, and, incredibly, by late Monday arrests had been made.

Relief, surely, that there was not a maniac on the loose, soon turned to utter disbelief when it was announced that four local teens had been charged.  Steven Spader. 17, of Brookline, Christopher Gribble, 19 of Brookline, William Marks, 18, of Amherst and Quinn Glover, 17, also of Amherst.  How could this be?  What motive could there possibly be?  What connection between these unlikely parties?  Anyone who knew the Cates' at all knew that drugs, or some kind of love-triangle, or any of the few things that jump to mind in this kind of event...were not a possibility.  So what was it...what could have possibly inspired the explosive rage that one would expect to be the catalyst in such a brutal crime?  Well...as it turns out, it was just a fun night out for this group.

And this is why "we've got mail".  As a town, a state, a country, a culture, we need finally to seriously address where this comes from.  I have written before that I believe it is primarily born from our media and entertainment.  I grew up watching a talking horse and some kid named "Beaver".  I see stuff on early evening children's programming now that would make an adult blush.  I hear lyrics in music that are the most vile, hateful prose I have ever heard, espousing the joys of killing cops and of misogyny.  Video games that celebrate killing ,violence and death.  Combine these influences with the general decline in parenting skills that the last few decades have seen, and I don't believe you need a doctorate to do the math.

Could anyone argue, that when four young men, most of whom showed no outward signs of this kind of extreme personality disorder, are able to execute a plan like this, to hack, with a machete and knives, a young woman and an 11 year-old child, and then return home with the demeanor of someone who had just been out for pizza...that we have a social fabric unwinding faster than a ball of yarn in a Texas twister.

One really has to stop and imagine the act.  Pure evil.  There is no denying it or sugar-coating it.  Our community ripped at and shredded, a family destroyed, ripples emanate from this act like a grand piano had been dropped into a lake.  It will always be here.  For locals, any ride past that road will forever reignite this memory.  It leaves a permanent stain on everyone's psyche.

What are we to do, as a society?  Even trying to pass legislation to protect our children from sexual predators is like pulling teeth.  Imagine tackling the entertainment industry, parents, schools, trying to bring national attention and a movement to this cause?  Boycotting violent video games, music and movies?  Ostracizing offenders, naming names, shaming entertainment moguls?  This is what it will take.  But I am not optimistic.

It took America falling trillions of dollars into debt and a litany of corruption scandals to bring Americans into the street to say "enough!"  It will probably take many more home-invasions and murders and children left on lawns before we take seriously the erosion in our moral culture that has left us with this raw, exposed wound...our disenfranchised youth with a thoroughly mixed up idea of what it means to "be a man".  And long after this story disappears from the front pages, a father and daughter will have to return to their Mt. Vernon home.  He will have to visit that room, where he once lay with his wife, and he will have to pack her things in boxes.  His home will not feel like home anymore, indeed, no place may ever feel like home.  He will struggle with insurmountable pain, grief, and irreconcilable loss.  Loss for no reason at all.

Last week, I entertained at a benefit for Word War II veterans.  Many of them were just 17 or 18 years old when they shipped off to war, to see horrors they could never have imagined.  Many never returned, and those who did certainly had something to be angry about.  But they didn't come home to be angry, they came home to build a life.  Having been deprived of every comfort, of having to skirt death, they still embraced their future with bravado.