Lose Angeles

With apologies to Karl Marx, sports, not religion, is the real opiate
of the masses, an escape from the tensions of travails of everyday
life.

Except in this town.

Here, the gods of sports mock us. Consider:

The Lakers are fading like a distant memory. It’s Kobe Bryant and a
bunch of other guys who will never see their jerseys hanging from the
rafters unless it’s at the hands of an angry mob.

Then Kobe gets his nose smashed and his bell rung in an all-star
game. An all star game? Nobody gets hurt in an all-star game.
But our guy does. My advice: don’t refinance to buy playoff tickets.

The Clippers? They have risen from the ashes. But one key injury or
some other bizarre twist of fate and they’re beloved losers again. We
wish them success, however, if for no other reason than to see those
cheesy ads that Donald Sterling buys in the Times saluting himself as
a great humanitarian.

College basketball in this town is a disaster. USC is painfully inept
and UCLA is dysfunctional. The Bruins are lucky they played all their
game at the Sports Arena this year because nobody saw them.

Hockey is your game? The Kings are crashing faster than space junk.
That’s what happens when you average one goal a month. But be
patient. It’s only been 45 years. They’ll start their Stanley Cup
drive any day now.

The Ducks? Who cares? They’re from Orange County. Besides, how can
you get behind a team that shares a name with Daffy.

Wait, it gets worse.

Football in Los Angeles is personified by USC. Last year, they were
an exciting and powerful team. The problem with the Trojans is that
they rack up NCAA infractions as quickly as they score touchdowns.
Even their women’s tennis team was recently sanctioned.

Now they’re facing serious football scholarship limitations because
of their misdeeds. It could prove damaging. Why don’t they just turn
pro and avoid all these hassles?

UCLA plays football, too. But mostly they spend their time acquiring
bad coaches. Their latest hire has no college coaching experience.
This is either innovation or insanity.

Professional football seems tantalizingly close at times. Both Ed
Roski and Phillip Anschutz stand ready to build billion dollar
stadiums.

There’s just one stumbling block: NFL Commissioner Roger
Goodell says there hasn't been any discussion about adding to the
league's 32 teams and he's not interested in shifting a franchise.

It almost makes you wish the Raiders were back in town.

Which brings us to baseball.

I don’t have to remind you of what has befallen our beloved Dodgers.
Under the direction of owner Frank McCourt, they have achieved the
difficult but dubious distinction of failure on the field and in the
front office.

The good news: McCourt is being forced to sell his bankrupt team. The
bad news: he wants to hold on to the parking lots.

McCourt is like a bad flu bug. Just when you think you’ve got it
licked, it comes back to make you miserable again.

His parking lot gambit is either a device to jack up the selling
price or --- our worst nightmare --- an indication that we’ll have to
tolerate him for years to come.

There will be plenty of good seats available at Dodger Stadium this
year.

Then there’s the Angels, a team so insecure they’ve taken to calling
themselves the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

They don’t represent Los Angeles. They’re from Orange County, dammit.
And no matter how many expensive free agents they sign, no matter how
many games they win, they will always be the other team in town.

Besides, how can you root for a team with a waterfall in center field?

ESPN once characterized Atlanta as the worst sports town in America.
But that was because of a lack of fan support.

In our case, it’s as though the country titled to the west and all
the bad karma rolled into Los Angeles County.

So do good deeds. Love your neighbor. Be kind to dogs and kids.
Maybe it will bring us a few winners.

Hollywood in Black and White

A hush will fall over this teeming megalopolis this afternoon, traffic will cease, streets will empty.

It's Oscar day and no matter where you live, on this day you live in Hollywood.

And when Hollywood struts its stuff, we all watch.

I'm betting the ratings will be unaffected by the recent disclosure in the Los Angeles Times that the majority of Academy voters are 94 percent Caucasian and 77 percent male with a median age of 62.

In other words, old white guys.

It was a nice bit of reporting by the Times. The Academy is more secretive than the Tournament of Roses which is more secretive that the CIA. It took a major effort to unearth that data.

But the revelation is hardly shocking. Just look at the best movie nominations this year: "Moneyball," "The Artist," "The Descendants," "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," "War Horse," "Hugo," "Midnight in Paris," "The Tree of Life." All movies that deal with lives and loves of white folks.

Only "The Help," nominated for Best Picture contains much in the way of ethnic diversity.

Consider the top grossing films of 2011.

"Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows," "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," "The Twilight Saga," "The Hangover Part II," "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides." You can fill out the list with a bunch of animated features.

Again, hardly a diverse selection unless you count cartoon characters
as minorities.

And again, hardly breaking news. The Times article pointed out that Jesse Jackson protested the lack of diversity in the Academy some 16 years ago.

Progress? Last year there wasn't one black presenter.

Hollywood has historically been run by white males, for the most part. So is the American auto industry but film shapes people's perceptions and attitudes a lot more than SUVs do.

Which is why we should care.

The industry has paid lip service to diversification for years, but ultimately it amounts to very little.

Sydney Poitier is not the only black actor in town anymore and a woman actually won a Best Director Oscar last year. Those are baby steps in an industry that should be making giant strides.

Indeed, the most successful minority in the movie business is Tyler Perry, whose film and television productions have earned more than $500 million worldwide.

He did it on his own, running his own studios in Atlanta. He personally made $130 million last year, according to Forbes magazine.

That's a lot of money for Hollywood to ignore.

Diversification is made even more problematic because Hollywood is a closed society.

Want a job as a carpenter, or grip, or lighting technician? You had better know someone who knows someone if you want work.

Want to succeed as an actor or director? You have a better chance of winning the lottery.

Still, changes are necessary if movies are to truly reflect the society in which we live.

Blacks are about 2 percent of the Academy, and Latinos are less than 2 percent.

That's just wrong.

The High Price of Grandiosity

The rich are not like you and me, F. Scott Fitzgerald once opined,
and he should know. He spent a fair amount of time observing and
writing about the foibles and the follies of the monied set.

And while I’d like to have a vault full of cash to assure the comfort
of my family now and for a few generations forward, I’m glad I’m not
subject to the narcissistic instincts that afflict the wealthy.

Example A is David Siegel, a time share tycoon who runs his company,
Westgate Resorts, out of Orlando, Fla. Fitzgerald would have loved
him.

Mr. Siegel and his wife several years ago thought it would be swell
to build the biggest house in the United States. So they embarked on
an ostentatious monstrosity they called “Versailles” after the royal
chateau outside of Paris that was once housed the kings of France.

This Americanized version is located in Windermere, a gated enclave
for the well-to-do that had managed to escape notoriety until a
couple of residents, Mr. and Mrs. Tiger Woods by name, had a very
loud and public spat several years ago.

The Siegel’s dream home is a tidy 90,000 square feet. It features 13
bedrooms, 23 full bathrooms, a 6,000-square-foot master suite (with
plans for a bed on a rotating platform), a banquet kitchen plus 10
satellite kitchens, a 20-car garage, three pools, a two-story wine
cellar and a grand hall with a 30-foot stained glass dome and a
ballroom that will accommodate 1,000.

That’s just the basics. It also features a boat house, formal
gardens, a baseball field, two tennis courts and a rock grotto with a
waterfall, a fitness center, a two-lane bowling alley, a roller rink,
a video arcade and a theater.

And I thought I had trouble finding my glasses and keys in my
2,500-square-foot corner of the world.

The cost: In the neighborhood of $100 million which is not bad
considering the Brazilian mahogany French doors cost $4 million alone.

The good news, especially if you’re a billionaire Russian arms dealer
or a member of the House of Saud, is that it’s for sale.
Asking price is $75 million, a real steal.

By comparison, the mansion once owned by Aaron Spelling in Holmby
Hills recently sold for $85 million and it’s only 56,500 square feet,
larger than the White House but a mere tract home compared to
Versailles.

The difference is that the Siegel pad isn’t finished. Seems like the
recession kicked Mr. Siegel right in his assets and it was au revoir
Versailles.

Completing it will set you back another $25 million, assuming you
want to follow Siegel’s plans. If you want changes --- say, another
10 or 15 bathrooms for instance ---- well, that will up the price.

And you have to live in Florida which is no bargain at all.

In the meantime, Siegel will have to make do with his current
26,000-square-foot home where he and his wife were recently profiled
in a documentary entitled “The Queen of Versailles” which was shown
at the Sundance Festival.

The Siegels didn’t much care for the film. They’re suing for
defamation.

While Siegel sits, brooding, he is probably discovering that this
grandiosity game is tough to win.

For example, the real Versaille in France checks in at 721,206 square
feet. So Siegel’s dream, had he completed it, was in reality a faux
Versailles, a pretend version kind of like the Matterhorn at
Disneyland. Nobody takes it seriously.

And when it comes to sheer unmitigated spending, Segal would have
been hard pressed to top the 27-story floor personal home of
businessman Mukesh Ambani, the billionaire chairman of Reliance
Industries.

It takes a staff of 600 to maintain the residence,located in Mumbai,
India, which was built to accommodate Ambani, wife Nita, their three
children and Ambani's mother.

It features 400,000 square feet of living space, parking space for
168 cars, nine elevators in the lobby, three helipads and an air
traffic control facility.

Also included is a health spa, yoga studio, small theater with a
seating capacity for 50 on the eighth floor, a swimming pool, three
floors of hanging gardens, a ballroom and an ice room infused with
man-made snow flurries.

Forbes Magazine estimated the cost of the residence at nearly $2
billion.

It remains empty, however, because the owner believes it would be bad
luck to move in, according to the Daily Mail.

Maybe he and Siegel can find a nice condo somewhere.

Be My Valentine

Gentlemen, don’t be this guy:

She: “It’s Valentine’s Day. You forgot.”

He: (stammering) “ Well, I can explain. I did a little research on
the holiday and this is what I found.

“Valentine’s Day honors a couple of Christian martyrs named, what
else, Valentine. One was put to death for attempting to convert a
Roman emperor to Christianity.

“The other was a priest who refused a law attributed to Roman Emperor
Claudius II, allegedly ordering that young men remain single. The
Emperor supposedly did this to grow his army, believing that married
men did not make for good soldiers. The priest, however, secretly
performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out
about this, he had Valentine arrested and jailed.

“He fell in love with the jailer’s daughter and on the day of his
execution, Feb.14, sent her a love letter signed, ‘Your Valentine.’

“Nice stories, both. But they are legends with little or no
historical evidence to support them. The celebration most likely was
an attempt by the Catholic Church to Christianize a Roman fertility
festival held in mid-February.

“In fact, the Catholic Church deleted Valentine’s Day as an official
feast day in 1969 apparently believing that neither of these
gentlemen had anything to do with love and courtship.

“So I didn’t forget. I just decided not to celebrate a holiday that
has no basis in fact.”

She: Icy stare. Silent treatment for at least a week, maybe longer.

And so our protagonist learns the hard way that it’s easier to buy
candy or dinner or flowers than to apply steely eyed logic to affairs
of the heart.

The fact is, we’ve been celebrating Valentine’s Day for a very long
time.

Doing a bit of research from such diverse Internet sites as CNN, the
Census Bureau, the History Channel and Wikipedia we discover the
following:

The first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love
is in “Parlement of Foules” (1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer
wrote: "For this was Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh
there to choose his mate."

It seems odd that birds would be mating in February but let’s allow
old Geoffrey a little literary license.

Doing it as only the French can do, a “High Court of Love” was
established in Paris on Valentine's Day in 1400. The court dealt with
love contracts, betrayals, and violence against women. Judges were
selected by women on the basis of a poetry reading.

Also in the Middle Ages, legend has it that young men and women drew
names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would
wear these names on their sleeves for one week. Now, to wear your
heart on your sleeve means being transparent with your affections.

Today, Valentine’s Day continues to be a big deal. According to the
Greeting Card Association, an estimated 1 billion Valentine’s Day
cards are sent each year, making Valentine's Day the second largest
card-sending holiday of the year. (An estimated 2.6 billion cards are
sent for Christmas.)

Not surprisingly, women buy 85 per cent of all Valentines. On the
other hand, men spend almost twice as much on Valentine’s Day as
women do.

Candy sales account for $448 million the week before Feb. 14 and $8.6
million is spent on sparkling wine.

Other Valentine facts:

More than one-third of men would prefer not receiving a gift. Less
than 20 percent of women feel the same way.

Fifteen per cent of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine’s
Day.

More than 9 million pet owners will buy gifts for their pets.
More at-home pregnancy tests are sold in March than in any other
month.

Finally, the most used (and abused) poem in recent history began life
as a bit of Valentine’s Day doggerel first noted in a 1784 collection
of English nursery rhymes:

The rose is red, the violet's blue,
The honey's sweet, and so are you.
Thou are my love and I am thine;
I drew thee to my Valentine:
The lot was cast and then I drew,
And Fortune said it shou'd be you.

The Crooner-in-Chief

Americans in the past have chosen their presidents based on party, on
stature, on appearance, on rhetoric, on popularity, even on critical
issues from time to time.

But this may be the first presidential race decided on singing
ability. Call it “Campaign 2012” meets “American Idol.”

This all started when President Obama, appearing at a recent
fund-raiser at the Apollo Theater in New York, crooned a couple of
bars from “Let’s Stay Together,” a hit a few years back by renown
R&B/gospel singer Al Green.

And while it’s hard to judge talent on a couple of bars of music, his
performance, in falsetto no less, sounded pretty good. So good, in
fact, it went viral on You Tube (more than 4 million views) and
became available as a smart phone ringtone.

While the President may be struggling to right the economic Ship of
State, he certainly did right by Mr. Green.

Sales of the song rose 490 per cent after Obama’s rendition,
according the Hollywood Reporter.

With than kind of juice, Obama could record an album and pay down the
national debt with the proceeds.

Not to be outdone, Mitt Romney launched into an entire chorus of
“America the Beautiful” at a recent campaign stop in Florida.

The song was surely selected to warm the hearts of conservatives
everywhere. I mean, you couldn’t have Romney singing “Jumpin’ Jack
Flash’’ to a crowd of people who thought the last great American
songwriter was Stephen Foster.

It was the worst idea since Dukakis drove a tank. To put it kindly,
it was soul-less and embarrassing.

Historians may look back and declare Romney was revealed on that day
to be tone deaf both musically and politically.

Yet, some found both performances inspiring. A former colleague
suggested we incorporate singing into a new kind of presidential
contest.

Rather than just debating, candidates would compete in singing,
dancing, cooking (have them de-bone a chicken or bake a soufflé),
bartending (have them produce a mai-tai from scratch), free-throw
shooting, a round of golf and a few hands of Texas hold-em.

That would tell us something about their character.

Obama is not the first president or potential president to make music
a part of his persona.

Richard Nixon played “God Bless America” on the piano at one point
during his administration and accompanied Pearl Baily in the East
Room during a social function.

Bill Clinton, before he was president, showed up on the Arsinio Hall
show on night with his saxophone and dark glasses in tow and launched
into a version of “Heartbreak Hotel.” After becoming president,
Clinton jammed with E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons at an
inaugural ball.

Other presidents played although not publicly. John Quincy Adams
played the flute, Chester Arthur the banjo, Woodrow Wilson the
violin. Franklin Roosevelt liked to sing. And John Tyler organized
his 15 children in a White House minstrel band, according to
historical accounts.

But perhaps the most famous of all was Harry Truman who never met a
piano he didn’t like.

Truman once conducted a nationally televised tour of the renovated
White House and played on a 1938 Steinway. The building was
condemned, one account says, when a leg of a piano played by his
daughter Margaret crashed through the floor of the decrepit mansion.

Truman once famously said: "My choice early in life was either to be
a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the
truth, there's hardly any difference."

What So Proudly We Screeched

Ah, yes. Super Bowl week. That seven-day period when the hype reaches
warp speed, when the media swarm descends on everyone from tackles
and tailbacks to towel boys, ankle tapers and under assistant
equipment managers.

It’s the only time when you’ll hear the complete life story of the
back-up long snapper. Everybody’s fair game during Super Bowl week.

The steady drumbeat of analysis and adulation is followed by a game
which, more often than not, becomes a yawn inducing play-not-to-lose
contest.

Go easy on the beer and bean dip. You might sleep through the whole
thing.

For me, the real edge-of-seat excitement comes during the singing of
the national anthem. Will it be a moving tribute to the land of the
free or an embarrassing flop by a performer whose marquee value
exceeds his or her talent?

Just this past week, for example, we saw both extremes.

Before the Baltimore-New England Game, the anthem was attempted by
Steven Tyler, the legendary rock singer who fronted Aerosmith. He
sounded like a screech owl in heat.

Meaning no disrespect. Mr. Tyler made his name singing the likes of
“Dude Looks Like a Lady” and “Janie’s Got a Gun.” Nobody every
mistook him for Pavarotti. Asking him to tackle the National Anthem,
a work that could bring an Irish tenor to tears, is an invitation to
disaster. Which is exactly what we got.

For a guy who judges talent on “American Idol,” he should know better
and offer to recite the Pledge of Allegiance instead. Judge not lest
ye be judged, as the good book says.

On the other side of the country, actress and Broadway performer
Kristin Chenoweth offered a stirring and heartfelt version of the
National Anthem before the 49ers-Giants game while singing in the
pouring rain. It was grace under pressure.

The next person or persons who hire Steven Tyler to sing the anthem
should be arrested on charges of felony bad taste. Because this is
not his first foray into failure.

He famously butchered it in 2001 at the Indy 500, first by kicking it
off with a blues harmonica solo, then forgetting some of the lyrics
and concluding by changing “home of the brave” to “home of the
Indianapolis 500.” I’m surprised he got out of town alive.

Later, an Indiana state legislator proposed a bill that would set
specific "performance standards" for singing and playing “The
Star-Spangled Banner” and fine those who fail to meet the standards.

So who started this whole free-form interpretation of the anthem? Why
are subjected to versions that sound like they were conceived in a
blues bar at 2 a.m.?

Do a little research on the Internet and the blame seems to fall
squarely at the feet of popular singer/guitarist Jose Feliciano. His
version before Game 5 of the 1968 World Series between Detroit and
St. Louis shocked the crowd. Worse, it started a trend.

It was the 60s, after all, not a good time for traditionalism.

That begat Jimi Hendrix who did an instrumental version in 1968 that
actually got air play. Which begat Marvin Gaye whose soul version
before the 1983 NBA All-Star game became popular.

Then, there were the lowlights. Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis in
1993 performed a version that was so bad, he apologized in the middle
of the song. Christina Aguilera’s version at a Super Bowl was
pretentious and bizarre ("What so proudly we watched at the
twilight's last reaming." ) Michael Bolton forgot the lyrics half way
through his version even though he had them written on his hand. Kat
DeLuna got booed out of Texas stadium after her rendition.

But the hands-down worst version ever was by Roseanne Barr before a
San Diego Padres baseball game. After screeching and grunting through
the song, she finished by grabbing her crotch and spitting as the
boos rained down on her. Who in the world thought this would be a
good idea?

(For the record, I listened and watched each and every one of these
performances on You Tube. It was a four aspirin experience).

The gold standard is Whitney Houston’s flawless and mostly
traditional anthem before a Super Bowl game in 1991 that became so
popular it was released as a single and made the Billboard Top 100.
Once you’ve heard it, you’ll want to enlist.

Next Sunday, the anthem will be sung by Kelly Clarkson, an “American
Idol” winner who had a recent hit entitled “My Life Would Suck
Without You.”

Stay tuned.

A Captain Not So Courageous

It was a bad week for the travel industry.

First, Captain Francesco Schettino steered his massive cruise ship,
Costa Concordia, on to the rocks just off the Italian coast, creating
a near Titanic-like disaster. As of this writing, 11 people have died
and 21 are still missing.

To make matters worse, the Captain was one of the first to abandon
ship, ahead of most of the 4,000 passengers and crew, defying
maritime tradition that the master is the last to leave.

He later explained he “tripped” and fell into a lifeboat.

With that, Capt. Schettino instantly did three things: He did for
cruises what “Jaws” did for summers at the beach; he came up with the
worst excuse since “the dog ate my homework;” he perpetuated the myth
of Italian cowardice that was had its roots in World War II (“Did you
hear about the new Italian tank? It has six gears: one forward and
five reverse.”)

On points one and two, there is no debate. As to the last point, one
vain and spineless idiot does not represent an entire country and its
people. For every Capt. Schettino, there were hundreds of brave and
dedicated rescue workers who risked their lives to save passengers.

Most historians agree that in World War II, the Italians lacked
weapons, leadership and a desire to die for Benito Mussolini, an
inept egomaniac who made Hitler look brilliant. So they surrendered.
You want to talk Italians and military prowess? Make sure you make
the Roman legions part of the discussion.

In the meantime, the crew of a British Airlines passenger jet flying
35,000 feet over the Atlantic accidentally played a recording over the
intercom announcing the plane was about to make a crash landing in
the ocean.

Then, according to one passenger, “"About 30 seconds later, one of
the cabin crew told us to ignore the announcement. ... Imagining
yourself plunging towards a cold, watery grave in the middle of the
Atlantic is a pretty horrific thought, but they seemed very blasé
about it."

One wonders if the announcement was preceded by, “This is Captain
Schettino speaking…”

One also wonders what other recordings they have cued up on the
flight deck. “Due to a mechanical problem, we will return to the gate
where you will sit on the tarmac for seven hours. Thank you for your
patience.” “Your luggage is mistakenly on its way to New Zealand.”
“We will be charging an exit fee for you to depart the airplane.”
“Please remain calm….we forgot to fill the plane’s liquor cabinet.”
Better yet, how about a recording accompanied by cheery music that
says, “Please disregard the previous recording that said we are all
about to die.”

The airline has apologized for the miscue. One hopes they passed out
clean underwear for the passengers upon landing.

It’s also been a bad week for Republicans. The South Carolina
Republican primary has morphed from a frank but cordial exchange of
views into biker bar brawl. This isn’t a campaign; it’s hand-to-hand
combat.

There’s already been one fatality. Rick Perry has announced he is
saddling up and riding back to Texas after performing so bad in the
debates, he must have been channeling former Perot running mate
Admiral Stockdale.

Then, 16 days after the fact, Rick Santorum was declared the winner
of the Iowa caucuses, beating Mitt Romney by 34 votes.

This would normally not be a game changer. As one observer said of
the archaic way Iowa votes, “It should be a Swiss watch. Instead it’s
a sundial.”

But for Romney, loosing to Santorum anywhere at anything can’t be a
good thing.

While this was going on, Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife said in an interview
he was giving speeches on family values at the same time he was
advocating an “open marriage” for the couple.

Finally, a Pew Research Center poll found that 53 percent of those
surveyed Dec. 7-11 said Republicans were more extreme than Democrats
and 51 percent said Democrats were more willing to compromise.

Here’s to competent captains, less pre-recorded messages and an
absence of mud in Republican politics.

True Blue

Good news, Dodgers fans. In an attempt to lift the dark clouds that
have recently enveloped the franchise I have a plan that will bring about a new golden age for the storied team.

I intend to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers.

I reached this decision after noting that almost everyone but me wants to own the team which is currently for sale. Being no dummy, I decided if a whole bunch of really rich people think it’s a good idea to own the Dodgers, maybe I should join
the fun.

I have a plan.

I promise an end to cold hot dogs and warm beer. I promise to reduce the number of advertisements that currently tattoo every inch of the stadium. I will also eliminate kiss cams, dance cams and obnoxious kid cams. This is a ball game, not You Tube.

I will build enough concession stands and hire enough people to run
them so that fans won’t miss three innings of a game trying to get an
order of nachos.

I won’t charge more for parking than your car is worth.

I will obtain a third baseman, a left fielder, a catcher and relief
pitchers, none of whom are at the beginning or end of their careers.

I will build a statue of Vin Scully at the entrance to the stadium.

This I swear. But first, there are several obstacles I need to
overcome.

First, I'm a bit short on experience. Actually, my only experience is
managing a T-ball team for 6-year-olds and playing in a few softball
leagues . But, hey, a hit is a hit and a run is a run. How complicated can it be?

In addition, I understand that a Dodger owner is the curator of a
civic treasure which immediately lifts me head and shoulders above the
buffoons who have mishandled the franchise since 1998 when Peter
O'Malley cashed out.

Second, it appears that I will need somewhere in the vicinity of a
billion dollars. First I thought I might ask for donations from my
readers. But that would probably fall short of the price for a Happy
Meal.

Then it occurred to me: You don't need a billion dollars to buy a
franchise. In fact, you don't need any money at all. The only
requirement is cunning and guile. And maybe a little larceny in your
heart.

Frank McCourt's purchase of the Dodgers was mostly a no-money down
transaction, financed with debt. An IOU if you will. After running
the franchise into the ground by using its assets to gild his personal lily, he
filed for bankruptcy. Major League Baseball accused McCourt of “looting” the team of $189 million.

Now, he has the team up for sale for north of a billion dollars. Most
people think he’ll get it.

Even after paying off his loans, his ex-wife and a few hundred
lawyers, he'll pocket a nice chunk of change. And you were worried
that Frank would be reduced to be selling bags of oranges on freeway
offramps.

Third, I’ll have to overcome the competition.

There are some noble and good men involved in the bidding: Peter
O’Malley, Fred Claire, Magic Johnson, Joe Torre. All would restore
the good name of the Dodgers.

There are a few sketchy ones as well.

For example, Mark Cuban, whose boorish behavior as an NBA franchise
owner, has cost him hundreds of thousands in fines. I can’t wait to
see the first time he comes charging out of the stands to argue a
third-strike call with the umps. It would be like having Milton
Bradley in charge. Let’s go for an owner with a little dignity for a
change.

Then there’s Thomas J. Barrack, a billionaire real estate investor
and founder of Colony Capital, located in Santa Monica. There are a
few things on his resume that set off alarm bells. He once worked
for Herbert W. Kalmbach, President Richard Nixon's personal lawyer
(ring!). He also once worked for Saudi princes and helped open
diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Haiti, then ruled by
Jean-Claude Duvalier (ring!). He owns the Neverland Ranch (ring!).
In the summer, he lives in a castle in the South of France. (ring!).

Bill Burke, a businessman who founded the L.A. Marathon, allegedly offered McCourt $1.2 billion last August. According to a story in the L.A. Times, the bid was largely bankrolled by Chinese investors. The Dodgers in the hands of Communists? Really?

Also bidding is Steven Cohen, a hedge fund billionaire who in an act
of supreme confidence, has already hired an architect to redesign
Dodger Stadium. The Securities and Exchange Commission is
investigating his firm, SAC Capital Advisors, as part of the
government’s broad crackdown on insider trading. Although Cohen
himself has not been targeted, Major League Baseball remains leery of
Wall Street after Bernie Madoff fleeced the owners of the Mets.

Somewhere in between are the likes of:

Orel Hershiser and Steve Garvey, two former Dodger stars;

A group headed by former agent and current Chicago White Sox special
assistant Dennis Gilbert, talk show host Larry King and Jason Reese
of Imperial Capital;

The family of the late Roy Disney partnered with Stanley Gold, who
runs the family investment firm.

Probably a dozen other potential buyers who are keeping it quiet.

As for me, I’ll approach the Dodger sweepstakes as though I was
buying a used car. I’ll walk around a bit, kick the tires then make
a low-ball offer.

If I succeed, you’re all invited to sit in the owner’s box with me.
If not, see you in the bleachers.

For the Record

As is the habit of this column at this time of year, we pause to take
a look back, not at world events or notable deaths or achievement in
sport, but at newspaper corrections.

It’s certainly not an attempt to mock the field of journalism. After
all, the profession has kept a roof over the head and food on the
table of this column’s author for a good many years.

Rather, it’s a reminder that in the act of producing hundreds of
millions of words each year, sometimes an error slips through. It
keeps us vigilant but humble.

More importantly, it’s often downright funny.

What follows, then, are the coveted Mea Culpa Awards for 2011, based
on data culled from Internet sources and our own personal collection.

You Say Obama, I Say Osama

It was natural that when troops commanded by Barack Obama killed
Osama bin Laden, confusion would result. But the Sacramento Bee
managed to mangle the names twice. Their correction: “A Washington
Post story on Page A12 on May 2 and a McClatchy Newspapers Washington
Bureau story on Page A13 on May 6 mistakenly used the name Obama
instead of Osama in references to Osama bin Laden.”

Food for Thought

A recipe for honey nut banana muffins included a comment that “you
may want to add a little fried fruit to the mix … to make the flavor
more interesting”. Dried fruit, that should be. The Guardian, U.K.

In a recipe for courgette risotto, one ingredient was “200ml white
wine vinegar”. The result was not ideal. It should have been white
wine. The Guardian.

Chile's Supreme Court has ordered a newspaper to pay $125,000 to 13
people who suffered burns while trying out a published recipe for
churros, a popular Latin American snack of dough fried in hot oil.
Judges determined that the newspaper failed to fully test it before
publication, and that if readers followed the recipe exactly, the
churros had a good chance of exploding once the oil reached the
suggested temperature.

On a page of news briefs, a small photo purported to show “Lady Gaga,
wearing a jewel-encrusted lobster on her head”. A reader notes: “She
is wearing a crayfish.” Of course. The Guardian.


Words, Words, Words

A clue in yesterday’s Quick crossword was “small mollusk”. The answer
sought was shrimp, which is not a mollusk but a crustacean. The
Guardian.

An item in the Extra Bases baseball notebook last Sunday
misidentified, in some editions, the origin of the name Orcrist the
Goblin Cleaver, which Mets pitcher R. A. Dickey gave one of his bats.
Orcrist was not, as Dickey had said, the name of the sword used by
Bilbo Baggins in the Misty Mountains in “The Hobbit”; Orcrist was the
sword used by the dwarf Thorin Oakenshield in the book. (Bilbo
Baggins’s sword was called Sting.) New York Times

Camper Killed By Fumes was corrected because the original referred to
Ysbyty Gwynedd hospital. This is tautologous; “Ysbyty” means hospital
in Welsh. The Guardian.

Confusion Reigns

Last week’s column revealed that I was the third born of the four
Abraham children, which was news to my brothers and sister. For the
record, I was the second born. Eastern Courrier.

Quotations in a story about the Istrouma High School-Broadmoor High
School football game that appeared in The Advocate on Saturday, Oct.
29, were wrongly attributed to Broadmoor coach Rusty Price. The
reporter who wrote the story thought he was interviewing coach Price
after the game. Because the interview subject was not Price, the
reporter is unsure whom he spoke with. Baton Rouge Advocate.

In yesterday’s Western Daily Press we carried a photograph with a
caption referring to the Welsh mezzo-soprano Katharine Jenkins.
Unfortunately a technical error failed to update the picture on the
page before it was printed. We would like to apologize to Miss
Jenkins for any embarrassment caused. The printed picture showed
Conservative MP for Hendon Matthew Offord and his dog Maximus taking
part in the Westminster Dog of the Year event at Victoria. Western
Daily Press, Australia.

Bad Ideas, Badly Executed

A story in Saturday’s Real Deal section suggested that a fun thing to
do for Halloween is to write “poison” on a plastic jar or bottle and
fill it with candy for the kids to eat. A picture that accompanied
the story showed a skull and crossbones image similar to the symbol
used to indicate something is poisonous. The Citizen understands the
need to train children not to touch and never to eat or drink from
bottles or jars with that symbol on it, and it was a lapse in
judgment for us to have suggested otherwise. Ottawa Citizen.

The Skeney Says column in Saturday’s Townsville Bulletin described
her state after receiving surgery at a dental practice on Kings Road.
The line “my cotton-wool-stuffed face squished against the window,
eyes rolled back at them and slack jaw drooling blood down my chin”
was an exaggeration for the purpose of humor and was not intended to
reflect on the services of the surgery. On the contrary, Skene was
treated exceptionally well by the practice through the whole process,
and is sorry for any misunderstanding her piece may have caused.
Townsville Bulletin.

No Typos, Just Bad Reporting

A Comment piece about voting rights for prisoners said that even if
all the inmates of Durham prison turned out and voted in the same way
they could not put a dent in MP Pat Glass’s majority. Indeed they
could not: the prison is not in Glass’s North West Durham
constituency. The Guardian.

On Aug. 3 this year the Daily Mirror published an article regarding
the death of Miss Catherine Zaks, aged 21, in Krakow, Poland. The
article contained claims that Miss Zaks, from Robertsbridge, East
Sussex, abused drugs and had engaged in casual sex following the
break-up of a long-term relationship. Miss Zaks’ parents have pointed
out that these claims are entirely false and that their daughter was
much loved, and of good character. We are happy to set the record
straight and apologize for any distress caused. Daily Mirror, U.K.

An item published in The Australian on Nov.15 (Strewth, “Losing the
threads”, page 13) referred to a report in The Zimbabwe Guardian that
Jacqueline Zwambila, the Zimbabwean ambassador to Australia, stripped
to her underwear in front of three male embassy officials. Ms.
Zwambila denies the allegations, and a governmental investigation in
Zimbabwe has cleared her of any misconduct charges. The Australian
apologizes to Ms Zwambila. The Australian.

There was an error printed in the story titled “Pigs Float Down the
Dawson”…The story, by reporter Daniel Burdon, said “more than 30,000
pigs were floating down the Dawson River.” What…piggery owner Sid
Everingham actually said was “30 sows and pigs,” not “30,000 pigs.
The Morning Bulletin, Australia.

In an article published on The Sun website we incorrectly stated that
Julian Brooker, 23, of Brighton, was blown 15ft into the air after
accidentally touching a live railway line. His parents have asked us
to make clear he was not turned into a fireball, was not obsessed
with the number 23 and didn’t go drinking on that date every month.
Julian’s mother did not say, during or after the inquest, her son
often got on all fours creeping around their house pretending to be
Gollum. The Sun, U.K.

…And This Column’s Personal Favorites

Our panel listing the expected highlights at Glastonbury this summer
catapulted into the festival’s headliners a band not so much obscure
as unknown, even to those expert in Judaic contributions to rock. The
group Frightened Rabbi should have been the Scottish band Frightened
Rabbit. The Guardian.

Otherwise Occupied

Responding to a plan by the Occupy movement to demonstrate at the
Rose Parade on Jan. 2, the local Tea Party folks decided to join in
the fun, setting up a riveting contest to determine which fringe
group could be the most obnoxious.

It looks, however, that we’ll be spared this ideological pillow fight
on Colorado Boulevard. The Tea Party has opted out.

Maybe they realized that when the other guy looks stupid, there’s
nothing to be gained in looking stupid as well.

Look, I’m in sympathy with some of the aims of the Occupy crowd.
For whatever else they have done, they have made income inequality,
the widening gap between the haves and have-nots and the corrupting
influence of money on politics a part of the national dialogue.

They have made it clear that this nation’s inability to create jobs,
to prevent the wholesale evictions of economic victims from their
homes, to protect citizens from predatory corporate practices is
intolerable.

And they are willing to risk a face full of pepper spray and arrest
to protest it.

Unfortunately, they have failed to move their arguments beyond the
street. And many of their good intentions have been hijacked by
anarchists, aged hippies, druggies, off-the-beaten-path religious
zealots and other assorted chest beaters. The result is a message so
muddled that it has become unclear.

They are at risk of becoming irrelevant. The absolute wrong way to
regroup, however, is to attempt to politicize a hundred thousand
people who show up once a year to smell the roses, listen to the
bands, root for their football teams and enjoy a slice of Americana.

It would be like teaching the catechism to the Taliban.

The plan as of now is to have the Occupy protestors march behind the
rest of the parade as it winds its way through Pasadena. That will
put them smack dab behind a phalanx of police and a line of
mechanized street sweepers whose job it is to clear the streets of
refuse.

The Occupy forces, if history repeats itself, will be joined by a
gaggle of Jesus freaks, Hare Krishnas, animal rights activists,
anti-war protestors and other rebels with a cause who have
traditionally followed the parade, much to the interest of
practically no one.

Oh, sure, the Occupy people will be waving signs along the parade
route. But their main thrust is to carry a “Octupy Octopus,” a puppet
crafted from recycled plastic bags and bamboo that takes 40 people to
operate. According to organizers, it represents Wall Street’s
stranglehold on American politics.

I saw a picture of it on their web site. It looks like a third-grade
art project.

Is this any way to win hearts and minds? It isn’t.

I suspect they are hoping for some TV exposure but I doubt they will
get much unless some militant faction decides to storm the parade
route. And that’s not the kind of exposure this movement needs.

The Occupy movement must define who they are, join with labor unions
and other sympathizers throughout the country to raise money and
support candidates that believe in their values.

It’s called working within the system and it often works. The Tea
Party did it. So can they.

But that can’t do it from a tent on some street corner. And they
can’t do it by embracing disruption as a political tool.

On Turning 70

"When I was One I had just begun.

When I was Two I was nearly new.

When I was Three I was hardly me.

When I was Four I was not much more.

When I was Five I was just alive.

But now I am Six I'm as clever as clever,

So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever."



- A.A. Milne, "Now We Are Six"



WHEN I was a child, my bedtime literature of choice was anything by A.A. Milne. I enjoyed the adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin but for reasons lost in the mists of memory, his "Now We Are Six" was my favorite.

I suspect I was impatient to reach that magical age, when you left babyhood behind and began to venture out into the world on voyages of discovery and adventure.

And being 6 was wonderful. It would be another five years before television made an appearance in our house so we spent our waking hours playing outdoors and building elaborate dream worlds. Without TV to render us physically and intellectually immobile, we traveled as far and wide as our imaginations would carry us.

Sure, there were skinned knees and hurt feelings from time to time but we were sheltered by our innocence from the harsh realities of life.

I mention all this because in one more week, I reach another milestone. I will be 70. I am frankly astounded. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was 6 and playing cowboys with the boy down the street. The important things in my life were bikes, baseball gloves and comic books.

I don't feel 70. Friends say I don't look 70. If they did, of course, they would no longer be my friends.

Come to think of it, however, I seem to have a lot more doctor appointments than I used to. I have lost a good 10 yards off my tee shot, gained a few inches around my waist and seemed to forget where I put my keys. So it must be true.

There are no books called "Now We Are 70" that romanticize the path that lies ahead, and no one to read them to you at bedtime. No one wants to remain 70 for ever and ever.

At this age, you try to live each day to its fullest and look back on the journey, trying to make some sense of it all.

On reflection, it's been a wonderful trip.

I was born 18 days after Pearl Harbor. I often wonder how my parents must have felt about bringing a child into a word engaged in a massive war. Were they worried? Were they scared? I never heard them speak of it. But they were made of stern stuff. My mother was abandoned in an orphanage at age 2. My dad never knew his real father. They were married just as the Depression hit.

My life wasn't nearly as tough. My world was living the lyrics of a Beach Boy's song. We surfed, hung out at Bob's Big Boy and took our girlfriends to proms. We were true to our school.

The worst thing that happened to me in high school was flunking out of geometry. Since it was mid-term, I had to find a course to finish out the year. I chose journalism. The rest is history.

Going to college was a slap in the face. I came to realize I had lived my life in a place that kept the rest of the world at arm's length. It wasn't until college that I made friends who were African American or Jewish or Hispanic.

I learned about injustice. I was exposed to cynicism, much of it directed at the middle class from which I came.

It made for a quick transition. Two years after I had been surfing in Newport Beach, I was arrested in a civil rights demonstration on Market Street in San Francisco.

Indeed, to be 70 is to be a part of a generation that fought to bring about the end to racial segregation in this country. It's difficult to imagine now but it wasn't long ago that many American citizens were relegated to second class status, and worse, by law and social attitudes.

Putting those impediments to equality to rest was an epic moment in this country's history. Those of us who took part did so because, simply, it was the right thing to do.

My generation was the first to embrace rock `n' roll. Whatever else you might think about it, rock was exciting and liberating, the pulsating background music to an era of change in this country. Nobody was going to march for justice to the sounds of Bing Crosby.

We weren't the greatest generation, not by a long shot. But we can look back and see that we made a difference.

So here we stand poised on the banks of the River Jordan or the River Styx, depending on how things work out. The sun is still above the horizon but not by much.

But I'm not ready to say goodbye quite yet. Like a 6 year old, I'm still searching for worlds to explore and adventures to be had.

After all, as George Bernard Shaw said, "We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing."

The Primary Problem

I’m not sure what the Republican National Committee is up to these
days.

But I’m betting that if they don’t get their game face on fairly
soon, they will be on the outside looking in on Election Day, 2012.

So far, the Republican presidential primary looks like it was
scripted by Mel Brooks. Take this week for example.

Newt Gingrich, suddenly breathing the rarefied air of a contender,
does what any serious presidential candidate would do: He travels to
New York to kiss the ring of Donald Trump and seek his blessings.

Are you kidding me? Donald Trump, a political kingmaker? The snarling
billionaire with the bad comb over who stars in really awful reality
shows? Yeah, that’s the guy.

It would be funny except for the scary fact that he may somehow
influence the choice of the next leader of the free world, should
that person be a Republican.

Newt’s not the first candidate to make the pilgrimage to Trump Tower.

Michele Bachmann made an appearance, so did Mitt Romney (although he
refused to be photographed). Herman Cain dropped by as did Rick
Perry. Remember them?

But the wily Donald is withholding his endorsement for the time
being. In fact, he says if he doesn’t see a winner in this bunch he
will run for the presidency himself as an independent.

This is so much hot air, of course. It’s important to remember that
when Trump starts making noises about being president, he usually has
a TV program debuting or a new book out. In this case, his tome,
“Time to Get Tough,” is hitting the stores. Self-promotion is his thing.

Ultimately, this is all about money. Trump has it, the others want
it. Besides, Trump is going to orchestrate a candidate debate at the
end of the month. It would be wise to stay on the good side of a guy
who enjoys yelling, “You’re fired!”

Newt, in the meantime, is having a bad endorsement week. Trump came
down with lockjaw. Cain who has literally and figuratively kissed his
chances goodbye, was going to throw his support to Gingrich but
pulled back at the last moment. Gingrich has had to settle for the
support of Dan Quayle, the former vice president best known as the
man who couldn’t speak straight.

All of this raises some disturbing questions:

Why would Newt want the backing of Cain, an alleged serial womanizer?
Gingrich doesn’t need voters to remember that, in an act of unbridled
hypocrisy, he once carried on an admitted extra-marital affair with a
young staffer while decrying Bill Clinton’s moral shortcomings.

Why would Newt allow Bob Livingston, who resigned as Speaker of the
House when his marital infidelities were exposed, to throw a
fund-raiser for him in Washington, D.C. this week?

What kind of message is the Gingrich-Cain-Livingston team sending to
the country? How about “lock up your wives and daughters.”

Why would Newt want the backing of Trump? As a candidate in the
spring, the Donald experienced one of the quickest falls in recent
political history when he dropped from leading the Republican field
with 26% to 8% in the space of four weeks.

If that’s not enough, a new poll from NBC and Marist College shows
more voters in Iowa and New Hampshire would be turned off by a Trump
endorsement than positively influenced by one.

A story in the Washington Post explains a lot. “Gingrich is
struggling to get out from under a mountain of debt from luxury jets
and other pricey expenses racked up in the early weeks of his
campaign. Creditors say Gingrich has begun paying back nearly $1.2
million in bills he owed at the end of September, and his spokesman
says most will be taken care of by the end of the year...”

In the meantime, Romney has raised $32.6 million while Gingrich has
accumulated $4 milllion. Donald can you spare a dime?

And what about this debate that Trump is staging in Iowa? So far,
four candidates, Romney, Ron Paul, Perry and Jon Huntsman, have sent
their regrets, probably figuring that this particular forum will end
up being A Salute to Donald Trump’s Ego.

So far the participants consist of Newt and Rick Santorum.

Even Republican strategist Karl Rove is appalled. “We've got a guy
who is not only saying 'I'm going to make a decision about who I'm
gonna endorse shortly after this debate and I'm already leaning
someway -- and I may run myself,' and we expect him to be the
impartial moderator of the debate?" he said on Fox News.

All of this has a good chance of being the biggest bust since Geraldo
Rivera opened Al Capone’s vault.

The RNC had better bring order to this chaos if they want their
candidate to have a fighting chance.

A Thorn in the Side of the Rose Bowl

Peace has returned to the Arroyo Seco. Songbirds are singing, their
voices carried on breezes wafting through the giant oaks, the sun
beams down on happy upturned faces while serenity abounds.

Yes, folks, football season is almost over and the Rose Bowl is
returning to its somnambulant state.

It’s been a great season for the nearby residents of the bowl. The
UCLA Bruins, principal occupants of the stadium, have been so bad
that attendance is dropping by the tens of thousands.

This is just fine with the homeowners who rarely emerge during
football season for fear of being struck by falling property values.

Football games draw crowds and crowds make them unhappy. Many would
be pleased if football was prohibited and the Rose Bowl was turned
into a museum.

Oh sure, they tolerate the Rose Bowl game on New Years. It’s all pomp
and pageantry and princesses, the kind of thing that makes you proud
to be a Pasadenan.

Beyond that? Couldn’t they just go and play somewhere else?

I guess these good people didn’t notice the 100,000-seat stadium when
they moved into the neighborhood.

But all is not happy in Arroyoland. The Rose Bowl, as it has for
years, needs money. They need it for maintenance of a nearly
90-year-old facility, they need it to modernize and stay competitive,
they need it because the stadium actually operates at a loss.

They need money because the stadium by ordinance is limited to 12
events a year that would attract more than 20,000 attendees. And that
impacts the stadium’s revenue stream.

Now, the National Football League is being wooed by Los Angeles city
officials and if the NFL decides to locate a team here, it would need
a place to play while a new stadium is being built to house the pro
team.

Rose Bowl officials would like to see their stadium as that temporary
home. The money such an arrangement would generate could help pay off
a $16 million revenue shortfall in a $150 million renovation project
currently underway.

The neighbors are, predictably, upset despite the fact that the NFL
in L.A. is a long way from reality. This paper reported that the
Linda Vista/Annandale Association's 18-member board "voted
unanimously to oppose any occupancy of the Rose Bowl stadium by the
NFL," citing crowds and the negative impact on the Arroyo’s
recreational activities.

The city sees it a bit differently. “There obviously will be
potential impacts associated with the neighborhood; there will also
be significant economic impacts to the businesses in the community,
to the city's General Fund and to the stadium," City Manager Michael
Beck told this paper. "We have to take into consideration all of
those."

This particular flap highlights the hurdles the Rose Bowl faces to
remain viable.

I did some freelance work for the Rose Bowl several years ago,
writing press releases and consulting as stadium officials launched a
fundraising drive for their renovation project.

That experience left me with two impressions:

(1) Rose Bowl officials bend over backwards to be good neighbors.
Despite the bluster from local homeowners associations, complaints
from residents are taken very seriously and steps are taken to
resolve them to the satisfaction of all concerned. When the
renovation project was launched, Rose Bowl officials reached out to
residents to make them part of the planning process.
(2) Money is always an issue. People think the stadium is rolling in money. It
isn’t. Rose Bowl officials rely on revenue from the Brookside golf
courses to help pay the bills.

Is this any way to treat an icon? If any institution in Pasadena
deserves some love, the Rose Bowl is it.

The stadium’s importance to Pasadena can’t be overstated. The New
Years game itself contributes $58.6 million to the city’s economy,
according to a study by the USC Marshall School of Business.

The Rose Bowl is one of the most recognizable sports facilities in
the world. It’s very existence has elevated Pasadena from just
another Los Angeles suburb to the special status it enjoys now.

Homeowners have every right to protect their property. But there’s a
thin line between self-interest and obstructionism.

If local homeowners fear the NFL, they should help in the
fund-raising efforts to complete the renovation project. Supporting
the Rose Bowl will pay enormous dividends to the city they call home.
And peace will reign in the Arroyo.

The Impossible Dream

LAST spring, in an attempt to be prophetic and pundit-like, I boldly stated that Republican presidential wanna-be Newt Gingrich had stepped on a political banana peel and fallen flat on his aspirations.

He had, I wrote, "struck out" with the voters.

Why? He kicked off his campaign by apologizing to the religious right for his dubious personal life. He followed that up by denouncing a plan offered by House GOP budget guru Paul Ryan of Wisconsin that would reduce the deficit by $4.4 trillion over 10 years by repealing the Democrat's health care bill and reforming entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid.

Republicans embraced the plan as holy writ. Gingrich called it "right-wing social engineering."

He then engaged in a number of verbal blunders and other assorted personal embarrassments, all within a couple of weeks of his announced candidacy.

He was, it seemed to me, toast.

Now, to my astonishment, I find that a new USA Today/Gallup Poll shows Newt leading the pack of Republican presidential aspirants.

I guess I should retire to the Home for Bewildered Columnists. Except for this:

It's not exactly a runaway. Gingrich is the favorite of 22 percent of the Republicans while Mitt Romney nips at his heels with 21 percent. Herman Cain is still on the leader board with 16 percent. Rick Perry polls at 8 percent.

His numbers appear to be fueled by a large infusion of cash. According to CNN, Gingrich raised more than $3 million since Oct. 1, with most of the money coming from online donations.

That's more than three times the amount Gingrich raised in the entire third fundraising quarter of 2011, when he pulled in just over $800,000. But it's pocket change compared to Romney's war chest of $32 million.

Nonetheless, I'll admit it's quite a comeback.

And what has Newt done to celebrate his return to celebrity status?

At a recent event at Harvard University, Gingrich offered a unique plan to fight poverty: fire school janitors (at least those who belong to a union) and hire children to clean the schools. He then proceeded to explain that child labor laws are "truly stupid" and blamed "the core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization" for "crippling" children. He did not announce a plan to reemploy the fired janitors.

This past week he advocated allowing younger workers still decades away from retirement to bypass Social Security and instead choose private investment accounts. His announcement came on a day the stock market plunged nearly 250 points.

He characterized the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan entity that provides Congress with information on budgets and the impact that legislation will have on government finances, as a "reactionary socialist institution." Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former CBO director and Republican, called the Gingrich allegation "ludicrous."

And just this past week, Gingrich said he thinks the collapse of the Congressional super committee "is good for America," and that the country's debt problem can be solved through the regular work of Congress.

He was apparently unaware of a new Quinnipiac University poll that found voters would blame the Republicans more than the Democrats for the committee impasse.

So Newt is doing it again, shooting himself in the foot with goofy political talk. But don't do what I did. Don't write him off quite so fast.

Gingrich could very well find himself as the Republican who challenges President Obama next year simply because his opponents are proving themselves unworthy and falling like so many autumn leaves.

Michele Bachman, Rick Perry and Herman Cain, at one time darlings of the GOP, are fast becoming yesterday's news. Newt, with his congressional experience and tenure as speaker of the House, appears downright statesmanlike compared to the rest of the GOP contenders, who sound like a pack of angry birds.

It's still too early to declare a winner in the GOP selection process.

But if Gingrich can crank up the cash machine and cool the inflammatory and often bizarre rhetoric, he could make the improbable come true.

2011, A Sex Oddity

Don’t look now, but 2011 is rapidly coming to a close.

Historians will remember it as a year of economic chaos, of tragic
natural disasters worldwide, of the violent deaths of Islamic
terrorist leaders, of revolution for better for worse in the Middle
East, of the passings of Andy Rooney, Al Davis, Steve Jobs, Betty
Ford, Sidney Lumet, Elizabeth Taylor.

It will be recalled as the year of grassroots political muscle,
witness the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements.

It was the year wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords showed the
world the meaning of courage and tenacity. And the year that the rest
of our elected officials showed a lack of same.

But above all else, 2011 was the Year of Sexual Scandal. Consider:

--- Penn State, whose football program under Joe Paterno has been a
bedrock of integrity for some 46 years, appears to have had a dirty
little secret. Jerry Sandusky, the team’s defensive coordinator for
40 years, is arrested and charged with 40 counts of sexual abuse of
young boys over a period of 15 years and the school is accused of
covering up the alleged crimes. In the wake of the scandal, Paterno,
who has more wins than any other coach in history, and college
president Graham Spanier are fired. Athletic director Tim Curley and
school vice president Gary Schultz are charged with failing to report
suspected child-sexual abuse by Sandusky and committing perjury in
their related grand jury testimony.

---Herman Cain, a leading candidate for the Republican presidential
nomination, is accused by several women of sexual harassment while he
was president of the National Restaurant Association, charges that he
denies. But damage has been done and the accusations appear to have
hurt his candidacy, according to polls.

---Arnold Schwarzenegger, bodybuilder turned actor turned governor,
admits to fathering a child with the family housekeeper. He thus
becomes termed out as governor and husband in the same year.

---Anthony Weiner, a New York congressman, is exposed, so to speak,
for sending a a sexually suggestive photograph of himself via his
public Twitter account to an adult woman. After denying he had posted
the image, Weiner admits he had "exchanged messages and photos of an
explicit nature with about six women over the last three years". He
then resigns from Congress.

---David Wu, an Oregon Congressman, resigns his office following
allegations he engaged in “aggressive and unwanted” sexual behavior
with a young woman who is the daughter of a longtime friend and
campaign donor.

---Chris Lee, a New York congressman, is forced to resign his office
when it was disclosed that he has been soliciting at least one
male-to-female transsexual on Craigslist. Claiming to be a
39-year-old divorced lobbyist but using his real name, he uses a
Google Gmail account to send her a shirtless photo taken with his
BlackBerry phone.

---Allison Meyers, who headed a group called the Young Eagles, a GOP
program aimed at cultivating major donors under the age of 45, is
fired by the Republican National Committee for authorizing a $2,000
payment for a night out at the Voyeur, a West Hollywood club that
featured female dancers wearing bondage gear and simulating sex acts.

Throw in the cases of Domonique Straus-Kahn, managing director of the
International Monetary Fund, accused of sexually assaulting a hotel
maid (the case was later dropped) and Italian Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi, charged with paying for sex with a 17-year-old belly
dancer called “Ruby the Heart Stealer,” and it seems like a week
didn’t pass without some sort of tawdry revelation.

This has to be some sort of record, although I’m not sure anyone
keeps records on this sort of thing. There must have been something
in the water supply.

Two things we know for sure: (1) This kind of behavior is certainly
nothing new but (2) there’s a lot more “media” out there now with the
advent of cable news, bloggers and so-called citizen journalists.
They all have an insatiable appetite for gossip. And our politicians
and jocks and actors are serial transgressors and thus easy targets.

As a result, we’ve heard a lot this year about high-profile
narcissists who believe the rules don’t apply to them. When they get
caught with their pants down, the story is front page news. People
love to see the mighty take a tumble.

The downside of all this is that with each story, the shock value
diminishes. We have already forgiven President Clinton for the most
egregious sexual scandal in U.S. political history. He is now one of
the most popular people on earth.

Sure, people were stunned by the Penn State scandal, but not because
a coach was accused of molesting children. It was primarily because
Joe Paterno had reached deity status in the sports world.

We may grow weary of scandal. But we must not become immune to it. It
is troubling and it should remain so. We are and should remain angry
and disgusted.

All the people mentioned above left their jobs in disgrace. Let’s see
if our would-be philanderers get the message in 2012.

Job Gibberish

I used to think the aerospace industry was the repository for exotic
and mystifying job titles.

Entities such as NASA were frequently looking for a few good men (and
women) to work as biocomputation engineers, cognizant engineers,
hazardous robotics specialists, space farming experts, stuff like
that.

Little did I know that my own profession would soon be creating jobs
whose titles defy understanding.

It used to be when you went to work in print journalism you had three
options: reporter, photographer or editor. Or some hybrid thereof.

As an editor I used to jokingly try to humble byline-hungry reporters
by referring to them as “news gathering units.” Little did I know
that description might become reality in the 21st century.

The newsbiz now features positions such as “vice president for
audience,” an “experience editor,” an editor in charge of
“collaboration, transparency and crowdsourcing” and a “video
curator,” according to several journalism trade publications.
Not to mention “headline optimizers” and “story scientists.”
Welcome to the new newsroom.

I’m not sure what these people do. I suspect they hold meetings.
Afterwards, they issue a memo.

Of course, this isn’t the exclusive domain of one profession or
another.

Title hyping is a trend that has been ongoing for some time. Nobody
wants a one-word job any more so employers think up elaborate
descriptions. More often than not, they take the place of a raise.

Thus, lifeguards become “wet leisure assistants” and cooks become
“food expediters.”

My personal favorite is the title used by cemetery
plot salespeople: “Prior need specialists.”

In corporate American, title enhancement runs the gamut from clever
to silly. Receptionists are now “Directors of First Impressions.” The
person in charge of customer relations is now “Chief Excellence
Officer.”

One CEO now calls himself “Founder and Difference Maker.” Another
calls herself “Chief Troublemaker” because “she stirs the pot and
asks if we can do better.”

The spokesperson for Yahoo is titled “Yahoo! Evangelist.” The person
who organizes the annual meeting for Berkshire Hathaway is called
“Director of Chaos.”

According to an article in The Economist, “paper boys are ‘media
distribution officers,’ lavatory cleaners are ‘sanitation
consultants,’ sandwich-makers at Subway have the phrase ‘sandwich
artist’ emblazoned on their lapels.

“Even the normally linguistically pure French have got in on the act:
cleaning ladies are becoming ‘techniciennes de surface’ (surface
technicians).”

Some titles won’t even fit on a business card. The BBC has a “vision
controller of multiplatform and portfolio” while the American Cancer
Society features a “manager of futuring and innovation-based
strategies.”
Get high enough up on the food chain and titles follow you from
birth.

Great Britain’s recently married Prince William is His Royal Highness
Prince William Arthur Philip Louis, Duke of Cambridge, Earl of
Strathearn, Baron Carrickfergus and Royal Knight Companion of the
Most Noble Order of the Garter. His wife, the former Kate Middleton, is now simply Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge.

When it comes to titles, nobody can top North Korea’s Kim Jong-iL. We
may know him as a member in good standing of the Axis of Evil.
But back home in Pyongyang, he is known as Supreme Commander at the
Forefront of the Struggle Against Imperialism and the United States,
Greatest Saint Who Rules with Extensive Magnanimity, Lode Star of the
Twenty-First Century, Perfect Picture of Wisdom and Boldness, Eternal
Bosom of Hot Love, Master of Literature, Arts, and Architecture,
Humankind’s Greatest Musical Genius, Guardian Deity of the Planet,
Heaven-Sent Hero and the Greatest Man Who Ever Lived. Among other
things.

I can’t match that. I’m just a Written Word Crafting Engineer.

Adios, Rick

You're the governor of a large state and you badly want to become president. In fact, you believe God has called upon you to pursue the office.

The incumbent president is on his heels, facing approval ratings of only 41 percent.

The opposition for your party's nomination looks weak. An ex-pizza salesman who has never held office; an aging libertarian; a former Massachusetts governor who's about as exciting as, well, a Mormon; a Minnesota congresswoman whose sanity has been questioned; a former House speaker whose time has long ago come and gone.

It looks like clear sailing. You've got money and you've got the national spotlight focused squarely on you.

And if you're Texas Gov. Rick Perry, you blow it. You fumble on the goal line. You dribble the ball off your foot.

You call Social Security a "Ponzi scheme," accuse Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke of treason, call global warming a hoax and question President Obama's patriotism while expressing sympathy with Texans who want to secede from the Union.

Your immigration policies don't set well with conservatives who also are horrified that you signed legislation that would require vaccination among Texas schoolgirls for HPV.

Moderates question your position criticizing the federal government's right to collect income taxes and support for amending the Constitution to set a nationwide policy on social issues by prohibiting abortion and same-sex marriage.

And faster than you can say "adios, Rick," you find yourself in fifth place among Republican presidential candidates after leading the pack a month ago.

It's time to cowboy up.

So you decide to unveil your economic plan. And what is it? Why, the old flat tax saw that has been largely discredited as unworkable since the Reagan administration. But, hey, it's the basis for Herman Cain's goofy 9-9-9 plan so why not give it a try?

Your plan would set a flat rate of 20 per cent and eliminate estate and investment taxes, which should please the monied set. It also would restrict the federal budget to no more than 18 per cent of the gross domestic product, forcing drastic cuts in government spending at every level.

Your vision was analyzed by Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, who told the New York Times: "There are two things we can say with certainty: It will lower revenue and be a great benefit to the wealthy."

It puts cuts to Medicare and Social Security into play, even though that will be a tough sell to an aging voter base.

And worse, every lobbyist from the Pacific to the Potomac would descend upon Washington to make sure the loopholes, dodges and favored treatment their clients receive under the current tax code would remain in place.

On the other hand, you have secured the blessings of Steve Forbes who thinks the flat tax is the answer to all our prayers. You remember Forbes. He ran for the Republican presidential nomination on the flat tax ticket in 1996 and 2000 and failed miserably. It might be an endorsement you want to forget.

Then, just as you're unveiling your economic plan, you tell an interviewer that there just might be something to this "birther" argument, the theory that President Obama was actually born in Africa and therefore is not an American citizen and ineligible to be president.

It's been dismissed as the delusional fantasy of the political lunatic fringe but, after conferring with your buddy Donald Trump, you decide to trot out the issue again.

Which caused GOP strategist Karl Rove to take you to the woodshed:

"You associate yourself with a nutty view like that, and you damage yourself. And I know he went and he's trying to cultivate -- as all of them are -- Donald Trump, in order to get his endorsement, but this is not the way to go about doing it, because it starts to marginalize you in the minds of some of the people whom you need in order to get the election," he said. "There's a simple answer. Yes, he was born in the United States, yes, he is eligible to serve, and don't associate yourself with sort of this nutty fringe group."

Unfortunately for you, Rick, that horse has already left the barn.

If your idea of revitalizing your campaign is to saddle up with Steve Forbes and Donald Trump, well then Gov. Perry, happy trails to you.

We won't be seeing you next fall.

Dead Man Walking

Halloween is right around the corner and it’s time to think seriously
about this year’s costume.

Who can I impersonate? Charlie Sheen? Rupert Murdoch? Prince William?
Anthony Weiner? Frank McCourt?

How about an iPhone? A drone? A Chevy Volt?

Personally, I will forgo all these flavor-of-the-month choices and
instead dress as an icon so ingrained in our national culture that it
has at once fascinated and terrified young and old alike.

No, I don’t mean Rush Limbaugh.

I speak of another nightmare-inducing character, the Zombie.
The lurching, brain-eating, flesh-deprived living dead have been
around for a long time, a gift to the world from Haitian voodoo
practices.

But they emerged into pop culture status sometime around the end of
the 20th Century.

Many attribute (or blamed) the appearance of zombies in prime time to
George Romero’s classic 1968 cult movie “Night of the Living Dead.”
Made for a scant $114,000 and dismissed by critics as so much trash,
it went on to gross more than $30 million and spawned a number of
sequels.

That opened the floodgates. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video gave
the zombie community a big boost as did the movies “I Am Legend” and
“28 Days Later.”

In 2006, renown horror novelist Stephen King published “ Cell,”
described as a tale about a young artist on a trek from Boston to
Maine in hopes of saving his family from a worldwide zombie outbreak
created by "The Pulse", a global electromagnetic phenomenon that
turns the world's cellular phone users into bloodthirsty, zombie-like
maniacs.

There’s a storyline that works on so many levels.

A book called “The Zombie Survival Guide” made the New York Times
best seller list recently and today we have two TV series, “Death
Valley” on MTV and “Walking Dead” on AMC, that are g-rated (for
ghoul). There are at least 20 zombie movies reportedly in production
this year.

It’s clearly a great time to be undead.

So why are we so fascinated with zombies? Vampires, at least
recently, are portrayed as darkly handsome, even swashbuckling and
sexy.

Zombies are basically disgusting, shambling about in various stages
of decay. When I think of zombies I think of people in line at a DMV
office. Or myself before I have coffee in the morning.

One explanation is that many books and films cast zombies as the
unwitting victims of science run amok, a rogue virus or experiment
gone wrong, leading to our destruction. It’s not an unfounded fear.

Then there’s this: “The construct of the zombie — the mindless
stumbling about — feels increasingly like our world,” said Steven
Schlozman, of Harvard Medical School and author of a zombie novel.
“...What we increasingly characterize as modernity is increasingly
disconnected and disembodied. It feels zombie-like.”

That’s all well and good but the fact of the matter is we all love a
good scare and zombies fill the bill.

They come in droves and although they can be killed with a shot to
the head, the fallen are replaced by dozens more, stumbling toward
you, arms outstretched, mindless. How many dead are there? Billions?
I don’t like the odds.

As blogger Ben Croshaw wrote, “ To our ‘us’ they are eternally
‘them.’ No redeeming qualities, no moral ambiguity.”

What makes them particularly scary is that, except for some cosmetic
difficulties, they look much like us. Just a bunch of friends and
neighbors and relatives who want to dine on our brains. Not a
pleasant way to go.

As for me, my time as a zombie will be short-lived. Too many people
take this stuff seriously.

Politics, Bought and Paid For

The president's job bill, introduced with great fanfare at a joint meeting session of Congress last month, went down to defeat with a resounding thud this past week. Much to no one's surprise.

Democrats say it's because the GOP opposed the bill for political reasons: they wanted the economy to remain in bad shape.

Republicans, in an opinion voiced by Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, said that "Democrats have designed this bill to fail - they've designed their own bill to fail - in the hope that anyone who votes against it will look bad."

Instead of leadership, we get what sounds like a playground spat.

So goes the spirit of compromise and concern for the greater good as the nation teeters on the precipice of an economic emergency.

Looking on are 14 million unemployed Americans who must feel as though they are engaged in a game of chess with Death. There's no way they can win.

It is no wonder that protests are erupting on all sides of the political spectrum while respect for our leaders has fallen to an alarming low.

Can President Obama or Mitt Romney or Herman Cain or Ron Paul stem the tide of anger in this country? Do they stand for real change? The skepticism is palpable.

And how have the grass-roots movements that have emerged recently approached this problem?

The tea party activists claim their members support reduced government spending, opposition to taxation in varying degrees, reduction of the national debt and federal budget deficit and adherence to an originalist interpretation of the United States Constitution.

All well and good, but it's hard to understand how this philosophy will undo the real problem facing the country: The corrupting influence of money in our political process in which our elected representatives are beholden to big-time donors and influence-peddling lobbyists.

This isn't checks and balances. It's gridlock. Don't expect common sense and compromise when both parties are errand boys for special interests.

And don't ask the tea party. They remain silent on the issue.

The message of the Occupy Wall Street protesters gets lost in the gaggle of causes that dot the movement: everything from the jobless and the truly concerned about that to anti-war activists, anarchists and Marxists.

But one point worth noting, as articulated by blogger Glenn Grenwald: "Does anyone really not know what the basic message is of this protest: that Wall Street is oozing corruption and criminality and its unrestrained political power - in the form of crony capitalism and ownership of political institutions - is destroying financial security for everyone else?"

If the Occupy Wall Street forces accomplish nothing else, they have struck a chord that resonates with the American public.

Public animosity toward the country's major financial institutions is on par with the deep negativity aimed at Washington, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Public distrust of the federal government is growing, and well documented. In the new poll, more than two-thirds of Americans say they view Washington unfavorably, including nearly half who hold "strongly" unfavorable impressions, the poll said.

But there's just as much negativity directed at Wall Street financial institutions. Fully 70 percent of those polled view such firms unfavorably, with strongly unfavorable mentions outnumbering strongly favorable ones by 8 to 1.

So much for the view that the Wall Street protesters are a bunch of unkempt hippies looking for a handout. Or "law-breaking troublemakers," in the words of tea party activists, who apparently forgot their organization was named after an incident that had its fair share of property destruction and civil disobedience.

Where will this all end? I remember watching anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in the early '60s that consisted of a couple of dozen placard-waving students. It seemed sincere but innocent.

That movement soon grew to one that by 1967 attracted 100,000 protesters at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and was responsible for the most divisive political drama of the late 20th century.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is as real and potentially game-changing as the anti-war activism of the '60s and '70s.

History could repeat itself if our elected representatives don't understand that their political gamesmanship and allegiance to those who have the financial means to buy it must end.

Post Mortems

Questions we were asking ourselves this week:

Does anyone really care about Hank Williams Jr.'s redneck political views? Is Chris Christie too fat to ever be president? How soon until Amanda Knox appears on "Dancing With the Stars"? How many shopping days until Christmas?

Weighty issues all, and ones this column chooses to ignore, at least for now.

Instead, we offer a little humor courtesy of the Washington Post, a paper not usually known for levity. After all, the federal government is its neighborhood beat and it's hard to laugh through clenched teeth.

It seems the Post has an ongoing feature called the Style Invitational. It all started in 1993, when editors asked readers to come up with a less offensive name for the Washington Redskins. The winner suggested Baltimore Redskins.

The Invitational recently included a contest in which readers were invited to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting or changing one letter and supply a new definition.

The results are both clever in their execution and descriptively accurate. Consider:

Cashtration: The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

Intaxicaton: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.

Decafalon: The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Glibido: All talk and no action.

Caterpallor: The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

But wait, there's more.

Coffee: The person upon whom one coughs.

Flabbergasted: Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

Esplanade: To attempt an explanation while drunk.

Willy-nilly: Impotent.

Negligent: Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

Rectitude: The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

Pokemon: A Rastafarian proctologist.

Oyster: A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

Circumvent: An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Another contest asked readers to make up a word that has three consecutive letters in alphabetical order.

Among the entries:

Coughin: A small enclosure designed especially for smokers.

Mno: The kind of response that makes you want to ask her again.

Noplow: Washington, D.C.'s, snow emergency plan.

In other forms of humor, a contest challenged readers to add novel similes to the "men are like...," "women are like..." genre.

The top winners:

Women are like flashlights: Ones with two D's aren't always the brightest, but they'll do when the lights go out.

Men are like Swiss army knives: No matter how useful they appear, they mostly just pick teeth and open beer bottles.

Teenagers are like a freshly bottled wine: They might be palatable seven years from now.

Men are like the TV yule log: They're easy to turn on, but you're not going to get much warmth out of them.

Who knew there was such humor in Washington?

Coffee Talk

I've never been a big Starbucks fan, first and foremost because I'm not a coffee addict.

If I do crave a jolt of java, I want a plain old Cup of Joe, not a soy hazelnut vanilla cinnamon white mocha frappe topped with espresso shots and made from beans grown by monks on a small volcanic atoll in the Pacific.

Besides, if they don't give you a free refill, I'm not interested.

Then there's my adverse reaction to massive chain operations that plunk down a store on each and every street corner. I'm told that in downtown Los Angeles, in a rectangle formed by Figueroa, 3rd, Olive, and 5th, an area less than a third of a mile on its long side and less than a quarter mile on its short side, there are nine Starbucks. I believe it.

The company was audacious enough to open a store in Beijing's 587-year-old Forbidden City several years ago until protests by the citizenry concerned with preserving their culture closed it down.

It would be like selling lattes in the Lincoln Memorial.

But I've recently become a convert to Starbucks and it happened without one drop of their product touching my lips.

My conversion came courtesy of Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who like many of us, is angry with the political gridlock in Washington and the effect it is having on the American people and the economy.

Writing in a recent issue of Newsweek, Schultz outlined a plan of action to shake things up in language that is both bold and refreshing for a corporate leader.

"I've recently persuaded more than 100 top executives to sign a two-part pledge," Schultz said. "First, they'll make no political donations until there's a courageous, long-term, bipartisan debt and financial security plan that addresses both entitlements and revenues; second, they'll commit to continue making investments that accelerate job growth.

"Why would I turn to activism?" he wrote. "Because, like so many Americans, I'm outraged. Four billion dollars was spent during the 2008 election cycle, and an estimated $5.5 billion will be spent for 2012. Meanwhile, people are out of work, the economy continues to founder and nothing is getting done in Washington.

"This is no longer a crisis of leadership. It's an emergency. The lack of cooperation and irresponsibility among elected officials today, as they have put partisan agendas before the people's agenda, is stunning and outrageous.

"Just think about what all that campaign money could do for the education system, for the social services that our politicians are poised to cut.

"Just think about how the petty bickering in the halls of Congress has degraded the brand reputation of America around the world," Schultz wrote. "This might be the kind of leadership we have come to expect, but it's not what we deserve.

"...I've heard from thousands of Americans I've never met, expressing support and gratitude. Like-minded business leaders have committed to doing what we can to ignite job creation, regardless of what's taking place in Washington.

"At the very least, we can work to inspire confidence to counteract the damage our ostensible leaders are doing inside the Beltway. In other words, we need to unleash an upward spiral of confidence that reverses the cycle of fear and uncertainty plaguing our country."

I suggested in a column last week that our elected representatives should have their pay and benefits cut unless they pass meaningful legislation dealing with jobs and the economy, admittedly a real longshot since they would have to vote to punish themselves.

Schultz scores a bull's-eye by attacking contributions, a mainstay of political survival. And as a longtime contributor to the Democratic Party, he's putting his money where his mouth is: no donations to President Obama who he has financially supported in the past.

Joining him in this effort are some notable giants of industry including Tim Armstrong, chairman and CEO of AOL; Millard Drexler, chairman and CEO of the J. Crew Group; Warren Bennis, founding chairman of the Leadership Institute at USC; Dan DiMicco, chairman and CEO of Nucor Corp.; Bob Greifeld, CEO of NASDAQ; Kevin Johnson, CEO of Juniper Networks; Duncan Niederauer, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange; Walter Robb, CEO of Whole Foods; Myron Ullman, CEO of JC Penney and Co. and many others.

So far, 22,269 people who agree have taken the pledge to withhold campaign contributions, according to Schultz's website, Upward Spiral2011.

That's not a tidal wave. Yet. But with another six months of congressional ineptitude, it might become

The Case for a Congressional Pay Cut

While the rhetoric in Washington is making the transition from subdued to spit-in-your-face, the bare-knuckled saloon brawl that passes for our country's legislative process is in full swing again.

And once again it promises to disgust people of every political stripe who dare to watch.

Welcome to another season of take-no-prisoners ideological combat.

You would think the White House and Congress, faced with approval ratings that rank only slightly above cancer and terrorism, would make some sort of magnanimous gesture to assure the American people that they share the pain caused by our faltering economy. And that this is the time for deeds, not words.

But we get none of that.

So I propose a plan that could prod our elected officials into doing something meaningful: When they speak of downsizing government, slashing spending and bold action to reduce the deficit, they can begin by looking into the mirror.

The plan I have in mind would end the disconnect between our representatives and their unemployed, foreclosed on, barely-making-ends-meet constituents by cutting congressional pay and benefits.

Such a proposal would probably fall short of eliminating gridlock in Washington but it just might spur Congress to action if members share in the consequences of the prolonged economic downturn that they apparently are incapable of resolving.

The jobless rate rises? The national debt grows? The issue is treated as
nothing more than a political football? Hit them in the pocketbook. And keep hitting them until the problem is resolved.

A few brave congressional souls agree.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, for example, introduced the Shared Retirement Sacrifice Act of 2011, which would require lawmakers to wait until the age of 66 to collect their pensions. Currently, lawmakers can retire as early as 50 with a full pension depending on how long they served.

"The reason I introduced my bill ... on this shared sacrifice in terms of retirement age is I hear lots of members of Congress ... say we should raise the retirement age for Social Security," Brown told CNN.

Brown points to the fact that a member of Congress who gets elected at 35 and retires at 55 can draw a pretty good pension then while other Americans can't draw Social Security benefits until they reach 66.

"So, my thought there was that members of Congress should not be able to get their pension, no matter how many years of service they had; they should get no pension until any earlier than a Social Security beneficiary should get theirs," he said.

Brown pointed out that it's important that lawmakers "sort of align as much as possible their lives with the people who we represent, so we understand things better and, you know, we still make more money than most people, of course."

Others are fighting this good fight with mixed results.

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., has found it difficult to drum up interest in her bill to cut the pay of members, the president and the vice president by 10 percent. The measure has just one co-sponsor.

"It's more uphill than I expected," she was quoted as saying. "To me it seemed like a no-brainer idea."

Reps. H. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., and Mike Coffman, R-Colo., also have measures that would cut lawmakers' pay by 10 percent beginning in 2013. And Coffman's bill would implement a massive furlough program, requiring most executive-branch workers to take two weeks of mandatory unpaid leave in 2012.

Then there are the bills that would tie lawmakers' pay to whether they do their job. According to the Washington Post, Rep. Randy Hultgren's, R-Ill., legislation would mandate that if Congress has not completed all of its appropriations bills by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1, then members' paychecks would be held in escrow until they finish their work.

While this may make it appear that the fresh breeze of common sense is wafting through the halls of Congress, similar legislation has been introduced 25 times since 1973 by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, but only once has such a proposal made it out of committee, according to published reports. That bill, introduced by Sen. Don Nickles, R-Ok., never got a floor vote.

Apparently, sharing in sacrifice is an alien concept in Washington.

Putting a cap on congressional pay and perks is not a new idea. Ben Franklin suggested at the Constitutional Convention that members serve without pay. The idea was rejected by the Founder Fathers and although congressional service was part-time in the nation's first 100 years, it has been a full-time job since.

Not everybody, however, believes cutting congressional perks is a good idea.

Wrote author Robert J. Spitzer: "Every member of Congress has a hand on the tiller of our ship of state. It is as important a job as one can envision, and their pay should not be the whipping boy for our frustrations with the inherent difficulty of their jobs and the intractability of our problems ... we must admit that at least some of the contempt citizens hold for Congress is in truth a reflection of ourselves."

Noble words but it ignores the fact that most major corporations and businesses of every size in this country reward employees on the quantity and quality of work performed.

Why not hold our elected representatives to the same standard? Can't you just see the headlines now? "Congressional pay slashed because of legislative ineptitude."

We can dream, can't we?

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