Thanksgiving

Every year, Thanksgiving is a time to be with family and, as the name suggests give thanks for those things that make your life better. This tradition is a great one, and I want to take nothing away from it. I would, however, like to expand in two directions.

First, I'd like to encourage you to express your gratitude to those people who may not know that they have had an impact on your life. Maybe there's someone you interacted with only briefly, but made a huge impact on your life. Or maybe you only got to know someone professionally, but even in that capacity the person made a big impact and doesn't know. These can often be the most rewarding messages of thanks to receive.

Second, it wouldn't be a Digression if it didn't include haughty derisive criticism, so I've compiled a Top 10 list of people and organizations which deserve our thanks in spite of all evidence to the contrary:

10) Jerry Sandusky - Not only did he bring down the best college football program in the FBS, he has managed to consume "news" headlines for practically an entire month. At least we got a little bit of entertainment out of his interview with Bob Costas. Raping little boys is also a big minus. We can, however, thank his case for bringing awareness to institutions that perpetuate systems of hierarchy and oppression.

9) UNESCO - UNESCO is - scratch that - WAS an important organization of the UN. That was before it decided to welcome Palestine as a member. Don't get me wrong, of course Palestine deserves statehood, but the only thing welcoming Palestine into UNESCO did was to cut their funding by 20% because the US was obligated to stop funding them. Now they're considering taking money from Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the dictator of Equatorial Guinea who has amassed a vast fortune exploiting the have-nots in one of the must unequal societies in the world. Why do we thank UNESCO - for showing how truly incompetent the current iteration of world governance can be.

8) Herman Cain - the man is accused of sexual assault by four women, seems to have no clue of whether Libya is a continent, a country, or the girl next door, and has an odd numerological fascination with the number 9. Cain is proof of just how insane the combination of a fanatic right-wing American public and a media willing to buy into the game show "Anyone But Romney" really is. If anyone ever wakes up and realizes, it will be because This is Herman Cain.

7) Congress - Failed Supercomittee, Passed a reaffirmation of a reaffirmation of the motto "In God We Trust" which was originally passed only 55 years ago, and reaffirmed unnecessarily for the first time 5 years ago. Thank you, for giving everyone else in the country a self-esteem boost. Now we all know that there are people who are even more stubborn, anti-social, and difficult to interact with than we are.

6) Kim Kardashian - You are famous because you are famous. You possess no skills, talents, particular beauty, or anything else that would otherwise distinguish you from most Americans other than your wealth. Nonetheless you have managed to parlay your wealth into fame and that fame into even more wealth. Thank you for epitomising the reproduction of capital. Also, you win an award for most fitting name anagram: Khaki Sin Drama. Yeah, that seems about right.

5) Police - I know, I know, you keep us safe. But you turn up with guns and pepper spray at non-violent Occupy rallies and don't even bother showing up for Tea Party gun rallies? Thank you, for revealing the ridiculousness of weaponry at a non-violent protest, with a special shoutout to the University of California police.

4, 3, 2, and 1) Sporting Bureaucracy. NCAA, FIFA, Bud Selig, Roger Goodell, take your pick. The NCAA, that upstanding body that protects the scholastic integretiy of our young student-athletes, has now decided it too wants a piece of the Jerry Sandusky pie. Thank you for reminding us not to be greedy at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Bud Selig decided his own team should play in the National League, so moved it there a decade ago, creating imbalanced leagues. Now everyone knows why because Major League Baseball paid off the new Houston Astros owner to move to the American League, when the team has always been in the National League. Thank you, for reminding us that conflict of interest ALWAYS results in bad decisions. Roger Goodell lays out indiscriminate and arbitrary fines for "unlawful" hits. Thank you for demonstrating how autocratic rule, even over people who aren't losing anything of value (what's $25,000 out of several million a year?), results in civil discontent. To the NBA Lockout, thank you for reminding us of the utility of collective bargaining, even if you are all greedy bastards. And finally, to FIFA (and Sepp Blatter), thank you for demonstrating the true incompetence of bloated bureaucracy and old age.

So in spite of their mishaps, let's give thanks for these abhorrent people and institutions. If we cannot learn from them, are we really any better than them?

Sexual Assault - Penn State and Herman Cain

After having read my 72nd article on the Herman Cain sexual assault allegations and my 57th article on the sexual abuse of minors by Jerry Sandusky, there no longer remained the possibility of staying silent.

Four women have made allegations of sexual harassment against Herman Cain. He has denied these allegations, blamed everyone from the leftist media to a former employee who now works for the Perry campaign, and used not-so-subtly-coded language to suggest that the whole thing is really about him being a successful black man. Nonetheless, there is still a whole swath of media that insists the same thing - that he's being treated unfairly by the rest of the media.

Now let's compare that to the media surrounding the sex scandal at Penn State. After the first day, when one or two articles featured material from the actual case and were primarily about Jerry Sandusky, the rest of the articles have been about Joe Paterno. The comparison should be between Herman Cain and Jerry Sandusky, but Jerry Sandusky's not a high profile enough figure for national media, so the media has instead focused on Paterno. Will he be forced out? When will he be forced out? When should he be forced out?

Amazingly, the criticisms of Joe Paterno have been more severe than those of Herman Cain. Nobody seems to want to assume anything about Herman Cain. Maybe he harassed and assaulted the women, maybe he didn't. We can't be sure. Everybody seems to want to assume everything about Paterno. He must have known exactly what happened, and he's been criticized for everything: waiting a day to report it up the hierarchy at Penn State; not trying to find out the identity of the child involved; not bringing the case to the police when nothing happened within the administration; not asking enough questions of McQueary. In short, he's been criticized for every action he did and didn't take in the wake of learning something of the incident in the locker room.

Nevertheless, the details of what he knew remain obscure. What Mike McQueary told Paterno remains unknown. There has been no trial of Sandusky, or of anyone else who was indicted for their involvement in the incident. In fact, the District Attorney already said Paterno fulfilled his legal obligation.

Furthermore, Paterno's response in the face of the media frenzy has been positively gracious. He has admitted to not doing enough; he has resigned from program in a way that doesn't totally undermine the football team, to which he has a commitment; and he has offered a very genuine response that indicates he is truly regretful about what has happened.

Compare this with the response of Herman Cain. He insists he doesn't remember the settlement, then later says that he does remember the settlement. He blames the liberal media, the Perry campaign, then the liberal media again. He denies ever having committed any of the acts which the women have claimed that he did. And, guess what? He's still the leading Republican candidate for president in the polls.

And the media seems okay with this - as long as we don't know for sure what happened. Until we do, we shouldn't be too quick to judge. That is the reaction to Cain, but to Paterno, it's entirely the opposite. The ignominious ending to the career of the greatest coach in college football history isn't ignominious enough. He shouldn't be allowed to coach another game, according to some mainstream pundits.

What message does this send about values in our society? Is the sexual assault of children more reprehensible than the sexual assault of women? These two actions are both abhorrent. If we assume guilt, then Herman Cain, the assaulter, should be completely vilified. He should be out of the presidential running entirely. Paterno should be condemned for not doing enough. He should have done more; no one doubts that. But the media's relative harshness towards Paterno is truly astonishing. The man has had a great career. He made a very big error of judgment. It's an error big enough to, rightly, cost him his job and his reputation as a great man. But why has Herman Cain not received the same treatment?

Republican Presidential Candidates Debate

I thought I'd offer some thoughts on tonight's Republican Presidential Candidates Debate. The candidates are Rick Santorum (RS), Michelle Bachmann (MB), Newt Gingrich (NG), Mitt Romney (MR), Tim Pawlenty (TP), Ron Paul (RP), Herman Cain (HC). I'll use those abbreviations to refer to them throughout.

It's impossible to win the nomination this far away from the primaries but it is possible to lose it. I think with that in mind, none of the candidates said anything too outlandish. There were no huge flubs, and despite HC's inexperience, NG's disastrous campaign thus far, and MB's penchant for firebrand rhetoric, everyone seemed to escape relatively unscathed. I think there's a general consensus that the night was pretty good for MR and MB, and that nobody really lost.

With the fact that the candidates did everything in their power to keep from distinguishing themselves from one another tonight, let's look at a few of the moments that stood out.

The question that produced the best responses by far was in regard to HC's comment that he would be uncomfortable with Muslims in his cabinet. He made a fascinating attempt to clarify his comments by stating that he was referencing the Muslims who are trying to kill us, not the loyal ones. Thanks HC, because I really thought that you were going to appoint some terrorists to your cabinet. But if HC's response was bad, Gingrich's was even worse. Gingrich alluded to Nazism and communism and talked about how loyalty tests had done a good job weeding these people out of government. Our country has certainly come a long way indeed if a presidential candidate can make veiled references in support of McCarthyism.

The questions about gay rights also elicited some interesting responses. RP and HC affirmed that decisions about gay rights should be left entirely to the states, with RP going so far as to say that issues of marriage should not have anything to do with the federal government whatsoever. The rest of the candidates were outspoken for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. The candidates did differ somewhat as to what to do about the repeal of DADT. HC and RP said they would leave the new Obama policy in tact, NG and MR said they would want to overturn it, RS said people should be punished for engaging in homosexual behavior in the military, and MB thought DADT was still in effect and said it should be continued.

Newt Gingrich's high point of the evening came when talking about illegal immigration. He argued that we've been sucked into a false either/or where we can either treat people humanely and grant amnesty to or deport the estimated 20 million illegal immigrants in the country. He said we can do some of both simultaneously. Gingrich's answer was all the more impressive given that it came on the heels of TP supporting SB1070, RP arguing that a 5 year-old illegal shouldn't receive care in an emergency room, and HC arguing that the children of illegal immigrants born here shouldn't become citizens. It was a generally a question that everyone else scampered to the right on while NG was willing to identify it as a more complex issue.

The real name of the game tonight seemed to be who can hit Obama the hardest. While I understand their desire to distance themselves from Obama's policy, some of the blows seemed to be especially harsh given that some of the candidates currently hold elected office in Congress and have to work with Obama. I wouldn't want to work with people who said things like that about me. It was more indicative of the partisanship in this country than it was of a serious intellectual debate on differing conservative ideas.

The best moment of the night by far came during the last commercial break, when there was an advertisement for medicine to help ease constipation - as if the product's marketing department knew that listening to seven Republicans blathering on about the horrible state of the economy and Obama's leadership for two hours would be enough to make anyone constipated.

Oh, and if you like trees... or flowers... or animals... or clean air... or clean water... don't vote for MB. She wants to dismantle the EPA entirely.