A real world Clive Cussler adventure, involving the CIA, the Soviets, Howard Hughes and nukes on the ocean floor northwest of Hawaii.  Annie Jacobsen’s story, “What Lies Beneath,” can be found in the October issue of the LA Time’s Magazine.

Here’s a taste-

 “Three years earlier, in March 1968, an undersea drama began when a Soviet K-129 submarine carrying three one-megaton thermonuclear warheads—enough firepower to flatten Los Angeles—sank in the Pacific Ocean 1,560 miles northwest of Hawaii. “The Soviets had no idea where their sub was, but we did,” Pendleton explains.”-LA Times Magazine

And so, the CIA, assisted by Howard Hughes, sets out to retrieve the Soviet sub.  Great read.

P.S. – The LA Times Magazine, is now a monthly publication, so don’t run out to your newsstand expecting to find it tucked away in the Sunday paper.  Unless it is the first Sunday of the month.  Here’s what the LA Times website has to say about who now receives the Magazine and when:  “The magazine, published on the first Sunday of each month, is delivered to targeted zips among Los Angeles Times subscribers.  Their median household income is $95,188, and 79% of them are college educated.” -Los Angeles Times Media Group

Guess I should be flattered it’s still being delivered to my door.  For those of us who do most of our reading online it can be a little confusing.  Meantime, Annie Jacobsen’s story can still be found online.

 Spotted in the rear window of a pickup truck in Los Angeles-

“Militant Agnostic:  I don’t know & you don’t either.”

A couple of interesting political notes-

One, comes from my former colleague at KTLA, Eric Spillman, who blogs about a guy who was fired from his job for wearing a Bush sweatshirt while working on a stage for the Obama rally.   Turns out the “Bush” emblem on the back of his shirt represented the aircraft carrier his son is serving on.   Still, it might have been a good idea to wear something else, being that he was heading out to an Obama rally…..

The other, from gawker.com, paints Meg Whitman’s two sons in a less than favorable light.

“Meg Whitman‘s sons, Griff and Will Harsh, have been kicked out of prep schools, an eating club, dormitories, and Princeton’s class of 2008, say people who know them. One incident involving the n-word is already internet famous.”-gawker.com

The election’s close.  Looks like the gloves are coming off.

 More “Wikileaks” documents are out, showing that as many as 15,000 civilian deaths went unreported during the “years of sectarian bloodletting and criminal violence unleashed by the American invasion in 2003.” -AP

Also unreported was a failure to follow up on credible evidence that Iraqi forces tortured or killed their captives.

I doubt that anyone who lived through the Vietnam experience is the least bit surprised.

Do you really want to give the House back to the Republican Party?   Do you even remember who took us into Iraq and why?  Mushroom clouds?  Remember?

Also from the leaky secrets file, comes a report that those automated Google “Street View” cars that were being driven around “accidentally” collected personal data on people, including email and passwords.   Several countries have opened investigations.   Apparently not the U.S. though.  Our people at homeland security are probably tripping over one another trying to buy as many Google spymobiles as they can to gather up as much info as possible on our civilian population.  I guarantee you, the thought has at least crossed their minds.

I keep wondering if we’re really better of with “Homeland Security.”  Back when we had just the good old CIA, the FBI, the INS and whatnot, we at least knew who was trying to do what out there.  Now there’s this vast and somewhat undefined network of both federal and private operators sneaking around spying on people.   Since we don’t know what’s going on, there’s really no way for us to know how well it is, or isn’t working.  Funny kind of system in a country where those at the top gain their power from the consent of the governed.

How is that possible, if we don’t know what we’re consenting to?

True, there have been no more terrorist attacks, but who’s to say there would have been any regardless of the creation of Homeland Security and it’s vast web of private contractors?   By one count, they have more private contractors on their (our) payroll than federal employees.

“The department estimates it employs 200,000 contractors and roughly 188,000 federal employees, a total that does not include uniformed members of the Coast Guard.” -Washington Post

With so many private companies making so much public money working on homeland “security,” one gets the uncomfortable feeling that things may be out of control.

Privatization, is not always a good thing.  It gave us a mercenary force in Afghanistan and Iraq, which permitted the Bush Administration to avoid reinstituting the draft, which might have led to a very different outcome – such as, no invasion of Iraq at all, and a shorter duration in Afghanistan.

It also would have meant keeping billions of tax dollars out of the hands of private contractors, which seems to be the goal of the Republican Party going back to the “Reagan Revolution” and the death of unionism in America  – privatizing everything they can to get their hands on as much public money as possible.  Transferring wealth from the many to the few.

Do you really want to give the House back to the Republicans?

 Denying various prophets of doom their day of darkness, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, made it from the airport to not one, but two engagements, and then back to another airport without causing any earthquakes, floods, fires or riots, in spite of dire warnings from the local media which made it sound as though Armageddon was on the way.  Apparently, there weren’t even any major traffic tie-ups, as was predicted by some on local tv, whose reportage bordered on the irrational.

Way to go, folks.  Hype it to the max to get those numbers up.

I’m reminded of a personally horrifying experience here in Los Angeles a few years ago.  My cameraman and I were standing by, about to do a live report on a political issue, when the following message bored itself into my brain via the telex in my ear:  “Ron, we’re in a book, so sex it up!”   The message was coming from a neophyte producer who shouldn’t have been allowed near a tv news operation without more supervision.  The “book” she was talking about, was a rating book.  We were in a rating period and I guess she wanted me to drop my pants and do a little dance?

Anything to get the numbers up.  American journalism – RIP.

 “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” – Dean Vernon Wormer,  Faber College

########

A couple of interesting headlines this AM.  One reads “Number of Diabetic Americans Could Triple by 2050.”   According to the story, the federal estimate is that one in three adults could have diabetes by 2050.

The fact that 63.1% of all Americans are either overweight or obese might have something to do with it.

The other reads, “AP/GfK Poll: Americans split on health care repeal.”  According to this one, Americans are split down the middle on the Republican call to repeal Mr. Obama’s health care reform.   Legislation that reformed a system that was bankrupting the nation.

This leads anyone with enough intellectual firepower to light a match, to several conclusions.

One, is that the Republicans won’t have an easy time repealing health care reform, even if they capture the House.  Another, is that as a nation our dietary habits are killing us, while making the pharmaceutical and agribusiness industries rich.  Further still, it appears obvious that as a nation we will need more and not less help with health care as we move into the future.  Repealing what little reform our bought and paid for Congress was willing to pass, will only make things worse, not better.  Health care as it was before reform, was unsustainable.   It was also (and continues to be), monopolistic.  A little problem we needed a public option to deal with.  Unfortunately, that idea went away as lobbyists for the health insurance industry hauled a few more loads of hot and heavy cash freshly pilfered from the American public over to the greedheads on Capitol Hill.

During this current year, the insurance and health care industries have contributed more than $358,000 to the campaign of House Minority Leader, John Boehner.  So far.  The year isn’t over yet.  And that’s Boehner, alone.  Suppose all that cash will influence his thinking?

I come from Minnesotans who were solidly Republican.  But that was the Republican Party of Ike Eisenhower, five-star General of the Army, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe.  A man who led a form of Republicanism that was abandoned long ago.   It has morphed into something which is, quite simply, an embarrassment, as contemporary Republicans continue to put party politics ahead of the nation’s well being.

I have to think that were General Eisenhower to suddenly reappear, his first move would be to kick John Boehner squarely in the ass.

In the last election, Eisenhower’s granddaughter, Susan, a “lifelong Republican,” switched sides and threw her support to Barack Obama.  Here is some of her rational for doing so, as reported in the Washington Post.

“Deep in America’s heart, I believe, is the nagging fear that our best years as a nation may be over. We are disliked overseas and feel insecure at home. We watch as our federal budget hemorrhages red ink and our civil liberties are eroded. Crises in energy, health care and education threaten our way of life and our ability to compete internationally. There are also the issues of a costly, unpopular war; a long-neglected infrastructure; and an aging and increasingly needy population. ” -Susan Eisenhower

At this point I can’t imagine why anyone would remain a member of the Republican Party.  Unless they have been (or are being) paid off.  For their part, the Democrats are only marginally better.  Nevertheless, the margin is there.

If all of this is more than you can bear, have a drink and forget about it.  It’s becoming increasingly easy to do.  ABC News reports that since 2002, 14 states have ended bans on Sunday alcohol sales.  In conservative Kansas,  16 counties have “gone wet.”

As for me, I remain, as always, a mostly sober independent.  Or, forgive me, they are now calling us “Decline-to-state” voters here in California.   It’s so much more politically correct.  And I really do hate it.

   Just watched the report on KABC TV.   Mr. Obama, will be arriving in L.A. tomorrow to appear with Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer at a fund raiser at the University of Southern California in South Los Angeles.   A few streets around USC will be closed from late morning to mid-afternoon.

God help us.

According to KABC, it’s gonna be bad.  Real bad. Men and women abandoning their cars and running through the streets, tearing their hair and wailing.  Mass prayer vigils, seeking divine intervention (or at least a little help from the auto club) are being planned to deliver us from the traffic evils of the demon Obama.   Earthquakes, hurricanes and the possibility of clouds of locusts blowing in from Pomona are in the forecast.  It’ll be so bad that you should probably just stay home.  And it’s all Mr. Obama’s fault.  If he would only stay away, none of this would be happening.  Like it did the last time he was in Los Angeles and he caused all this trouble.   He’s screwing up our traffic patterns and he’s a terrible person.  Waaaaa.  Waaaaa. Waaaaa.

I’m not sure why, but the KABC report left me with the impression that the whole west side will be impassible.  Or maybe impossible.  Or maybe both.  I never have gotten used to the little old ladies playing chicken in their S-Type Mercedes, or the drug-crazed housewives in their giant SUV’s running red lights as they make what appear to be emergency missions to the nearest Whole Foods market.

Mr. Obama’s got nothing on them.

Nowhere in the report, was it mentioned that tons of potential traffic trouble will be avoided, because the President may be taking a helicopter from the airport to the event.   The fact that Mr. Obama might be traveling by helicopter was mentioned, but nothing was said about things possibly being a whole lot worse, if he were traveling by motorcade–or about the efforts being made by the White House to avoid another traffic tie-up of the kind that occurred in August.  No context was provided.

This is what happens when the President of the United States visits, people.  We aren’t all that used to it anymore because George W. Bush, saw us as a big blue enemy camp.  He hated us, and so he stayed away.   He also screwed us, every chance he got.  Remember the energy crisis, when all the power generating plants in the state were shut down simultaneously for “routine maintenance,” leading to brownouts from the north to the south, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission  did absolutely nothing about it?  There were in fact, reports from D.C., that the FERC had been told by the White House to stand down and let the free market seek its own level. And so, the power plants went off line and whole sections of our major cities were in the dark.  A problem that hasn’t been repeated since the price of electricity went through the roof.  Remember those glorious days?

I do.  I remember asking one of the guys over at So. Cal Edison why the FERC wasn’t doing anything.  “That’s what we’d like to know” he replied.

And, duh, other presidents have been here too.  Duh.

Bubba Clinton used to traverse Los Angeles by motorcade, causing traffic tie-ups.  But he wasn’t subjected to the kind of media barrage Mr. Obama now faces.

Taking it back to July of 2009, I seem to recall sections of the 101 and 134 freeways being closed to traffic for Michael Jackson’s funeral procession.

We gave the Jackson family exclusive use of our freeway system for a funeral and now they’re melting down over the President of the United States coming to town?

Wonder who started this media “follow the leader let’s get Obama on the traffic issue” campaign?  Fox News, maybe?    Just a guess.

Is some traffic trouble two or three times a year all that much to put up with if it means keeping Los Angeles and California on the White House radar?  He’s the President of the United States and an election is only days away.  And he likes California, land of the terminally unemployed.  According to one report he’s taking a chopper from the airport to the event.  He’s the President.  Get over it.

   In France, protesters are filling the streets.   Flights are being canceled at Charles de Gaulle.  Gas stations are running out of gas.  At issue, is a move by the French government to raise the retirement age for a partial pension from 60 to 62 and a full pension, from 65 to 67.

The newscasters aren’t telling you that part of it.  They usually only talk about the 60-62 issue.  Taking it all the way up to 67 is a slightly different story, isn’t it?

Protests are also underway in England, where there are demonstrations over spending cuts, privatization, outsourcing and budget cuts that will crank up the retirement age to 66 by 2020.

The French are reportedly concerned their country is moving toward the same kind of capitalism that we have here in America.  You know, the government-supported monopoly-driven health insurance coverage no one can afford.  People being evicted even after the government used public funds for a massive bailout of the banking industry (more than two and one-half million homes are currently in foreclosure).  Credit card rates that continue to represent a government sanctioned criminal enterprise.   That kind of capitalism.  The stuff we’ve all come to love while the nation heads for its next huge economic meltdown.

But wait, if we were truly capitalists, the banks would have been allowed to fail.  There would have been no bailout.  We would have let the market deal with it.

Here in America then, we advocate capitalism, except when we don’t.  Socialism is a bad thing, except when the wealthy have gambled away their money and need public funding to be bailed out.  Then it’s suddenly okay.   But only for the very wealthy, not for the rest of us who need affordable health care.

So the French and English, who still have affordable health care, and don’t want their systems morphed into American capitalism,  are in the streets protesting.  While here in America, we do…..basically nothing.  Why?  Our Social Security program is climbing to 67 (even though most of us who spent our lives contributing to the system were promised we’d get our money at 65) while conservatives continue their move to kill it off altogether through privatization (worked real well for Wall Street, didn’t it?) as we continue paying through the nose for health insurance while we wait for our share of the TARP money to trickle down as bankers continue foreclosing on homeowners in record numbers.

How’s all that working for you?   You gonna be able to retire anytime soon?

Could it be that the French and British understand something Americans fail to grasp?  That there’s a wealthy elite in the world that goes untouched, or even profits by difficult economic times, while the wealth is redistributed from the  lower, middle and upper-middle class to those relatively few at the top?  Could it be the British and the French know about this scam, while Americans are simply unaware?

Watched an interesting lecture by an economics professor from U. Mass the other day.  He pointed out that over the past 20 years or so (thank you Ronald Reagan for your union bustin’ ways), wages for the vast majority in America have remained flat while prices and corporate profits have zoomed upwards.   It left many Americans in the middle and upper-middle class dependent on credit cards, causing a further erosion of their financial well being while they continued working 7/24 to support their increasingly difficult to maintain lifestyle.  That is to say, eating and paying a mortgage and such.  It’s burning out average Americans, caught in an impossible financial bind.   Seems to be working for the banks and the corporations though.   Unless they lose it again with their gambling addiction and need another bailout, which some are saying is exactly what will happen if adequate regulation isn’t restored.

Oh wait, we can’t do that.  Re-regulating the banks would be contrary to the rules of free-trade capitalism, and that’s what we’re all about.   Except when we’re not.

Could it be the Brits and the French understand something most Americans just don’t see?   Could it be that without a major course correction we might be headed for a two class “New World Order,”  with a very wealthy minority ruling class at the top and everybody else down at the bottom?

I’m sure Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell will figure it all out, come up with a plan to fix things and spread the word via broomstick across the land.  From sea to greedy sea.

It’s enough to turn you into a Yellow Dog Democrat, were it not for the fact that they too appear to have lost their cojones.

“4:20 p.m., police responded to
Washburne Avenue for a
report of a man screaming
and jumping up and down.
Upon arrival, the man was
identified, and police learned
that he was having an argument
with his sister on the
phone. No further action was
taken.”

Here in Los Angeles, jumping up and down and screaming while on the phone is pretty much normal behavior.

   It’s being reported that the proposed partnership between the Daily Beast and Newsweek Magazine has failed.  Here’s the memo from Beast Editor Tina Brown to her staff-

“Hi guys,

Tina”  

Partnering with the Beast looked like a smart move for the failing Newsweek.  Wonder what the magazine’s new owner Sidney Harman will come up with now?   Maybe he’ll buy the Daily Beast?

 “America:  The Best Democracy Corporate Lobbyists Can Buy”

    Is Journalism in its death throes, or just going through an agonizing realignment?  Whatever you might think, there’s a whole lot going on, it isn’t pretty, and nobody really knows how it’s eventually going to shake out.

So, at this point in time, why would anybody major in journalism?  Why pay all that money for a degree, possibly digging yourself into a deep financial hole, just to get into a dying industry?

Beats the hell outta me.  Dreamers and romantics?  I do know we’ll all be in deep trouble if professional journalism goes down for the count.  I don’t know if the economic powers that be care enough to save it.   Some are trying, with web operations like ProPublica and Truthout, but who knows what’ll be left when the shaking stops?

Meantime, why bother going to journalism school?  Because you hope some billionaire with pangs of social responsibility will feel the need to support a non-profit news operation on the web that might go away at the click of a mouse?

David Folkenflick, examines the issue on NPR.

 “At USC, undergraduate tuition alone reaches $40,000, and, when taken with fees, books, room, board and other charges, a year’s cost can exceed $55,000. These days journalism schools around the country are often challenged to justify a mission that trains students at such a high cost for a collapsing industry that doesn’t even require a degree.

After all, many newspaper companies have been forced to seek bankruptcy protection, including the owner of the nearby Los Angeles Times. ABC News just let go a quarter of its entire staff. And Newsweek and BusinessWeek magazines were in such tough shape their longtime owners sold them for $1 a piece.”-NPR

What future does the nation have without professional journalists?

   The WSJ is reporting that ten Facebook apps, including “Farmville,” are feeding user’s personal information to dozens of advertisters and Internet tracking companies.   Facebook has apparently taken action to disable the apps that violate their terms.  According to the Journal, most of the apps are made by third parties.

Most?  You mean Zuckerberg and company aren’t wealthy enough already?

I’m now wondering if I should delete my account, and if I did, whether all my personal info would still be stored somewhere on a Facebook (or other) file?

I had gotten in touch with some old friends through Facebook, and was really starting to like the thing.  This kinda throws a very large bucket of cold water on it….and raises an important question.   Even if they do put limits on the apps that have access to their system, to what degree will they be able to keep their user’s personal Facebook info away from marketers who want to mine their data base?

Hope you didn’t give them too much of your personal info.

 Here’s a new twist on that little red wagon you had as a kid.  The reporter is Christine Kim, from KTUU-TV in Anchorage.

   Here’s the problem.  The U.S. tax code rewards big business with tax credits for sending jobs overseas.  President Obama, is apparently pressing the Congress to change the law and eliminate some of the tax credits.

The Republicans and some Democrats, including  the honorable and good Max Baucus of Montana,  don’t want to do it.   They say they fear it would put U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage.  Nonsense.  Their real fear is that their corporate masters will cut off their campaign funding.

Baucus alone has received $887,919.00 from the securities and investment industry in 2010.   And the year isn’t over yet.

Let the good times roll!

Anyway, why create jobs here, when poor Communist Chinese and Vietnamese are willing to break their backs for less than $2 an hour?  By one account, some rural Communist Chinese are working for 45-cents an hour.  That being the case, how devastated will our middle class have to become, before Americans demand more equity in the way wealthy corporations share their profitability?  Contrary to capitalism?  Maybe, but it’s a question that needs to be answered before the American middle and upper-middle class are completely wiped out.

While we wait for our great thinkers in Washington to come up with an honorable solution that will preserve the wealth of our wealthiest 2% (God bless them and their trickle down thinking), we can only hope for a resurgence of interest in campaign finance reform.   I’m afraid Ralph Nader’s hope that the billionaires may save us won’t come to pass.  Gordon Gekko, really doesn’t give a damn.   The New World Order, trumpeted by George H.W. Bush is arriving, and it looks a whole lot more like a dragon than an eagle.   Consequently, it appears we’ll have to save ourselves, and public campaign financing appears to be the only way.   Which could mean we’re doomed.  Hope not.

Fact is though, most of these guys and gals in the Congress are bought and paid for.  They have no shame and they’re gonna dance with the one that brung um while they pretend to be working for the greater good.

I wish I could be more optimistic.  In the meantime, at least Mr. Obama’s trying to do something about American corporations gutting our middle and upper-middle class to increase their profitability.

Or maybe it’s all just for show?   Maybe they just want to make it appear as though something is being done, or at least an effort is being made to prevent a peasant uprising out in the hinterlands, beyond the sacred confines of the holy Washington Beltway?

This should be a key issue for every mid-term candidate.   Or those that can grasp the concept.