President's brave stance on gay marriage

Photo courtesy www.whitehouse.gov

President Barack Obama today told the world he is now a supporter of gay marriage. My first reaction to the news was, Why did it take an apparent "gaffe" by Vice President Joe Biden to get the president off the fence on this issue?

Upon further examination, though, I can understand the president's hesitancy on gay marriage. A straight man coming out in favor of homosexual rights can be as difficult as a gay person coming out of the closet.

President Obama used to say he was against gay marriage, and later he said his position was "evolving." I don't think either of those statements are true. I believe Barack Obama has always been in favor of gay marriage. His hedging in the past was in part a political strategy to avoid taking an unpopular stand with voters, but it was also a technique used by straight men, consciously or not, who don't want to be painted as "gay-friendly." It's a macho thing, and I get it.

Obama's statements today could also be viewed as political (and of course those intentions can't be avoided during a campaign year). I can't quote chapter and verse, but I heard about a recent poll which stated the majority of Americans now favor gay marriage, a huge change from the past, and a hell of a good reason for a politician to change positions on an issue.

But politics were not the only factor. There's a difference between answering an anonymous question from a pollster and what President Obama did today. Think about it: the President of the United States told the world he supported the rights of homosexual couples to get married, a view that would have meant certain political death just a few short years ago. How amazing is that? Barack Obama's actions today may be the bravest thing I've ever seen a president do.

I don't think I've ever had occasion to say these words before, but I'm proud of my president.

A funny thing happened on the way to equality

I can't be the only one noticing this strange trend happening in America lately.

When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, the country came together in a way not seen since 9/11. Sure, those who voted for McCain didn't become Obama fans overnight, but except for the pure racists out there, everybody seemed to be proud to live in a country that could elect an African American president. On that beautiful election night, I was more proud of my country than I've ever been.

But now something weird is happening. Now it seems like the pure racists have taken over, and they're influencing a whole lot of good people for the worse.

A recent example would be Mitt Romney calling Obama the "Welfare President," a veiled effort to associate African Americans with welfare in the eyes of voters, but this has really been going on since the beginning of Obama's term. This article from an online magazine called "The Root" tells the full story. Here's an excerpt:

Yes, the country that likes to pretend that it is far removed from its racist past has engaged in the verbal equivalent of a throwback jersey. Some people have reached far back into that Reconstruction-era closet, pulled out that dingy jersey adorned with racial slurs, shaken it out and put it on proudly. Elected officials have reduced themselves to behaving like petulant children, storming in and out of meetings and running to the media to lob personal attacks at the president, then offering lame apologies shortly afterward.

Is this the postracial era that so many people theorized about following the election of the nation's first black president? Try post-Reconstruction, because the harmful slurs and images being tossed around the Internet and in public spaces hark back more to a racist past than to a racially ambiguous future.

President Obama, through no blame of his own, has not united the country. He has divided it by giving the racists a reason to be loud, and by making borderline or closet racists more comfortable to act racist.

I can only hope Chris Rock, who I quoted on this blog a year ago at the height of the ridiculous Tea Party movement, is right:

"Kids always act up the most before they go to sleep. And when I see the Tea Party and all this stuff, it actually feels like racism is almost over... This is the act-up before the sleep... and next think you know they're f**king knocked out. And that's what's going on in the country right now."

If you love baseball, play it; the commercial game is just a nasty cup of cold coffee, and the future is just a smoke screen for the losing present

Aggawwwaga!

Allow me to start with a Sunday morning warning.

If you are like me and not always cleaning up as you go, make a rule to do at least this: Rinse out your old coffee cups right after you decide the stuff is too cold to drink.

Otherwise, you may sit down to write, get engrossed in the thoughts swirling in your head, and reach for one of those old suckers from a week ago instead of your nice fresh cup of Cafe Verona. The cup with "No More Mr. Nice Guy" in big letters on the outside. The one with black oil and mold on the inside.

Let me tell you something... the mold that grows in week old coffee is nasty.

Be warned.

Now that I've recovered, on to the idea I promised a few posts ago. I know you've been waiting and thinking you've been hoodooed again. Not so.

I promised a big idea about baseball. Here it is and now that I've built it up it doesn't seem so big.

First, I'm talking about big time commercial baseball. The industry of baseball. Moneyball, but not exclusively in the Billy Beane sense of it. I'm not talking about playing baseball... or softball... for the joy of it. I'm not talking about The Game. This ain't no Annie Savoy soliloquy.

Pardon me while I make sure I have the right cup.

I'm talking about the game people watch, follow, subscribe to, pay to see, comment endlessly on, begin conversations with when the weather isn't interesting, call in to the radio about, write books about, write columns and blog posts about, buy uniform shirts complete with somebody else's name and number on the back because of. Oh yes, and write novels about. I know of only one adult baseball novel not about commercial baseball.

And commercial baseball has always been a reflection of the times in which it was played. This is a trait of commercial baseball that you can even find in the statistics. Look at world war time baseball statistics. Look at statistics in the industrial revolution. Look at statistics in an era when Americans felt thrifty or when they felt expansive.

But you see it as much in the cultural side of baseball. When Americans were enamored with gambling, with rags to riches schemes, you got the 1919 Black Sox. When moguls ruled the economic world -- when they owned the newspapers and the railroads and the oil companies -- they also ruled the baseball world. Look at a baseball card from the 1970s and tell me you don't see the 1960s. At the end and the beginning of the century, when the cult of personality came to rule politics and rock 'n roll, steroids flourished. And when the players were finally trapped, did they not behave just like Bill Clinton, who did not have sex with that woman? I see two lies there -- sex and woman -- Monica Lewinskiy was, in my book, somebody's little girl. And, of course, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and Roger Clemens did not take steroids.

So, what does baseball reflect in the teen years of the new century?

The power of big money. Followed by helplessness. Futility. And, finally, acquiescence. And the big hoodoo of the Tea Party and of the United States Congress. The shell game and the suckers.

If you see the economic and political world you live in as a big set up, then you know how baseball fans in many towns feel. If you see economics and politics as a Machiavellian mixture of guile and greed, you know how baseball fans feel. If you feel like you are the sucker born every minute, you understand how baseball fans feel when they see through the smoke screen of the local nine's rebuilding plan or the general manager's beloved "process."

Rebuilding and trickle-down economics are one and the same, in my opinion. Hoodoo. Ways to sell the otherwise unpopular idea that you need to help me get rich. You keep coming to the park and I'll keep filling it with a combination of minor league talent and just enough major league ballplayers to feed your hope for the future. Or, the more money I make and the less taxes I pay, the more likely I am to maybe offer you a minimum wage job in one of my enterprises.

The point, for most of the commercial teams, is to put just enough good players on the field to keep you coming back. To sell you on carnival rides and mustard races, and most of all, on the future down in the minor leagues. To get you talking about trades and firing the manager, and hating the owner, and buying into the process. It is only about winning and losing for teams and fans in a few cities. The rest of us are just there to fill out the schedule.

Coming soon, two months of playoffs. The better to sucker you in.

Just as the political world we live in is primarily smoke and mirrors, big time manipulation, slight of hand, public relations to the ninth degree, so is baseball. We are, in Neil Postman's seminal words, entertained to death. Does the score of yesterday's Kansas City Royals game really matter? Not if winning is how you measure a baseball game. Does the score of the Iowa Straw Poll really matter? Not if you care about the economy or the quality of life in this country. Barack Obama knew how to organize, how to win straw polls and primaries and even the White House. He didn't know shit about governing. And I'm one who voted for him.

Heck, I've voted for two mainstream candidates in my lifetime: Bill Clinton once and Barack Obama once. You can fool some of the people some of the time...

So, maybe that's why I've grown so cynical about commercial baseball and presidential politics. Both drink from the same cup. As I said at the top... be warned. Make sure you reach for the warm cup of fresh coffee on your table. The alternative is nasty.

I promise some lighter fare next time I hit the keyboard. Just needed to get this rant off my chest. Until two weeks ago I had been thinking happily about how much softball I could play when I retired. Now I'll have to work until I'm 90.

By the way, if it is baseball you like, my advice is simple. Quit watching and start playing. No matter what age you are. If you love the game, play it. You'll get that bad taste out of your mouth real quick if you do.

--Lofflin

BTW: That southpaw guarding the No More Mr. Nice Guy cup is my little Lucy. From the look in her eyes, she knows nasty when she smells it...

THE CRINGE FACTOR: How the debt crisis 'debate' sounds like Vietnam, how compromise has become a four letter word... again

Cringe! Cringe! Cringe!

That's what I'm doing this morning. These Tea Partiers sound so much like I did when I was nineteen it makes my teeth grind.

We, too, made liberal use of the Constitution. We took phrases from the Bible and turned them into slogans. We loved loud speakers -- and loudspeakers -- and cherished cries for revolution. And every invocation ended with the word 'now'.

We saw our movement in the frame of a 1950s cowboy movie. We were the good guys making a stand with honor and bravado, often at our personal Alamo. In fact, the Western movie in American culture exalted martyrdom the way we are told Islam exalts martyrdom.

But, most of all, we hated compromise.

To us, compromise was a four-letter word. OK, 10 letters, but who's counting when you're making a revolution.

I sat in meeting after meeting in dorm rooms and barrooms where those who dared suggest compromise were shouted down. I did some of the shouting. I won't deny that in some situations the impulse to shout down a compromise still crosses my mind... and lips. In those days, we judged the stakes too high and the art of compromise too slimy for what needed to be done. And those who suggested compromise somehow always seemed bound for a life in politics (an equally dirty word) or corporate public relations.

Does any of this sound cringingly familiar?

Now, the country is on the brink partly because the word compromise has become a four-letter word again.

This time it is the right wing who hate compromise, who promise never to compromise. Well, not entirely the right. I'm not sure where to place the libertarians. In a classic definition of conservative and liberal, they exhibit the tendencies of rather extreme liberals. No matter the political geography, compromise is no longer an art in politics; it's a sin.

As I studied politics in my 20s and 30s and began teaching about it in my 40s and 50s, I came to understand compromise better. Words matter, so let me cast this word in a more useful context. In politics, compromise is actually the art of consensus building. Consensus building is what artful politicians used to do. If they wanted to pass a law to pull in government spending, they built an overwhelming hunger for it among their constituents then found ways they could compromise with the other side to create legislation and policy. With consensus on their sides, legislation was easy to pass, generally accepted, and the political earth moved. The presidents who were good at building consensus, got stuff done. The presidents who dug in their heels, usually left office bitter and frustrated.

Take Lyndon Johnson as an example of both. He was a consensus builder of the highest order in the Senate. And in terms of domestic issues, he remained a consensus builder in the presidency. He could put his arms around your shoulders and bring you into the tent with all the skills of a new car salesman who survives late December.

If there is a fence around the junkyard in your neighborhood, you can thank Lyndon Johnson's consensus building skills. If you live in a rural community with a water treatment plant, thank Lyndon Johnson. If you think affirmative action helped tamp down the effects of racism, thank Lyndon Johnson. (Of course, you're free to disagree with the effects of affirmative action...) Lyndon Johnson presided over the last great outpouring of legislation from the American congress, though another compromise artist, Ronald Reagan got a bit done, himself.

But when it came to the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson, the great conciliator, dug in his heels like a pit bull. He said 'no' and 'hell no', made his mind up he wouldn't be the first American president to lose a war, paid way too much attention to the artful lies of his strategists, and left office with his proud head bowed. He refused to compromise and consensus went so strongly the other way, he was left alone on an island of power.

I'm not sure if consensus building is possible today unless you own a cable news outlet. What decision makers are left with is posing. Instead of striking a deal, they strike a pose. It works fine in overnight polls. And, it makes them feel like the cowboys they aren't but want to be. Their supporters -- dwindling it seems -- cheer them on. But the poll numbers are fleeting, especially when nothing happens and things get worse. By the time the next presidential election arrives the country will be so hungry for a conciliator, the current crop of candidates will look like antique gas guzzlers. And, ultimately, like Lyndon Johnson, they'll leave office bitter and bowed.

But, for now, the country suffers.

--Lofflin, just my twenty-cents worth

I'll trade you Schwarzeneggar and Gingrich for John Edwards on the All-Cad lying and cheating team

If the two political parties were baseball teams and 'Hypocritical Cad' was a valued position on the infield -- are you following me? -- and I was the Democrat team GM and you were the Republican GM -- still with me? -- I'd trade you our John Edwards this morning for your Newt Gingrich and Arnold Schwarzeneggar.

What? You want me to throw in Bill Clinton, too? He's redeemed, in other words, retired. How about a player to be named later whose lying cheating affair hasn't yet been made public?

Deal?

Deal.

Apparently we have lots of cat scratch fever to go around, as The Nuge reminded us recently on the Rev. Mike Huckabee's Fox show.

--Lofflin, reminding you that a man who will lie to his wife will lie straight up to the country.

Nuge album cover image courtesy Giantpanther.com

Why on earth did it take so long to track Osama bin Laden to such an obvious hiding place in the suburbs?

THIS IS NOT a conspiracy theory. Let's get that out of the way first.

It's just a head shaker. It's just one of those things when you think about it, you just can't really believe it's true.

Osama bin Laden was found -- after nearly 10 years -- hold up in a house with no telephone or Internet service in the suburbs behind a 10-foot concrete wall ? Are you kidding? And no one noticed?

No one noticed. You really have to just shake your head at the idea because this guy is more famous than the Beatles. If John Lennon was right, that makes him more famous than Jesus.

Could Paul McCartney hide out in such a place? Not likely.

And, when I say, 'no one noticed' I don't just mean just the neighbors. I don't even mean the paparazzi. I mean the most advanced intelligence service in the world.

Maybe we should have put the paparazzi on bin Laden instead of the CIA?

Are you telling me the CIA overlooked a compound they now say was obviously built to house Osama bin Laden? A house whose occupants burned their trash rather than taking it to the streets? A house with no outside connections? With barbed wire around the perimeter? In the suburbs?

This house was so close to its neighbors that one of them tweeted the whole raid looking out his back window, from the arrival of the helicopters to their landing, the apparent shooting down of one of the choppers, the firefight and the subsequent explosion.

This is strange. I'm just sayin...

BTW: You have to give Tony Botello credit for courage for his post on the touchdown dance we've been doing in our cities since last night. Very unbecoming. We're better than this.

A fine conspiracy: Make Hawaii a state so Obama can be elected American president... The Birthers finally unravel this mess we're in in 2011

Conspiracy theories interest me primarily because they reveal so much about human nature. They show our need to know what can’t be known, even if we have to invent what can’t be known. As a species we are so evolved, we have time to worry about parallel universes, heaven and hell, and, of course, President Barack Obama’s birthplace.

Meanwhile, Rome burns.

The Birther phenomenon is really no surprise. Obama is black.

A chunk of America woke up the morning after the election, opened the morning newspaper and said, “What the hell?” Everything they knew about the world had changed overnight. They wanted a Mulligan. They wanted to rewind the tape. They wanted it to be 1958 again.

Of course, there are reasons for white Americans to wish for peaceful, profitable, likeable 1958 . But they were stuck with 2008, a Black president, a sour and uncertain economy, two wars, three-dollar gas, bad cholesterol, and diminishing returns on everything. Yes, and the designated hitter.

I really prefer the grand conspiracies. The Tri-Lateral Commissions. The McCarthy lists. The Free Masons. The Vietnam War. By comparison, the Birther phenomenon seems petty, more a conspiracy for weenies. Think of it this way. If the McCarthy’s had been right, what would the result have been? Nothing less than massive infiltration of government and the arts by the nation’s major enemy, an enemy with nuclear weapons and a massive secret police. Now, if the Birthers are right, what is the outcome?

Yep. A black man in the White House.

In that context, the Birther phenomenon is a little more clear, isn’t it.

Or, in a more contemporary context, compare the Birther conspiracy to the conspiracy embraced by those who think the attack on the World Trade Center was an inside job, the Truthers. An Ohio University poll suggests one in three Americans believe the United States government was somehow complicit in the 911 attacks.

Truthers: Two-thousand seven-hundred fifty two dead.

Birthers: Black man in the White House.

The New York Times – I know, they’re part of the conspiracy, what do you expect? – did a fine piece on the psychological nature of the Birther phenomenon last week.

In their own poll, the Times found more Republicans believe Obama was not born in the United States than believe he was born in the United States. In fact, only one in three Republicans believe Obama was born in the United States. Give that notion a second to sink in. One of the Times contributors, James T. LaPlant, political scientist and associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences at Valdosta State, may have actually hit the nail on its ugly little head.

“I would also conclude that basic ignorance is at play. A poll of North Carolina voters in 2009 by Public Policy Polling found that 26 percent did not believe Obama was born in the U.S., and 20 percent were unsure. A question later in the poll asked if Hawaii was part of the United States.: 5 percent of respondents said no and 3 percent were unsure.”

Ah, the problem is simple. Hawaii isn’t one of the 50 states. Who knew?

But it is a state, you say. Ha. Fool. Think about it a minute. Why do you think THEY made Hawaii a state? Did we really need 50 states? No, we were fine with 48 or 49... whatever. Just use your imagination. The forces who wanted to put a Muslim in the White House to bring the United States of America to her knees in 2011, were simply thinking ahead. They’d have to build a plausible case for American sheep-thinkers to swallow to legitimize his election 49 years later. Think about it. SOMEBODY made Hawaii a state just three years before Obama was born. Do you think that's a coincidence?

Oh, and by the way, what kind of name is LaPlant, anyway? French? Spanish? Mexican?

I interviewed a guy once who was a conspiracy theorist way to the right of anybody on the political spectrum. He seemed like a nice man, an industrous small-business man in a struggling neighborhood, cordial, friendly, even a bit worried about me.

“John,” he said at the end of the interview, “if you really get into this stuff, be careful. It will take your mind.”

I don’t think he meant it quite like you’re reading it. He meant, I’m sure, it will come to dominate your view of the world and, ultimately, your life. But looking across the table at the fire in his eyes and the way his fingers fluttered over the pages of the pamphlets in front of him, I was struck more by his unintended meaning.

-- Lofflin

President Obama's certificate of live birth courtesy New York Times.

J-school flashback

Have you heard the personal stories about the victims of the Arizona shooting? They're heartbreaking. The little girl, born on Sept. 11, 2001, who wanted to do something important with her life by helping others. The judge who had just come from Mass.

The elderly man who died protecting his wife.

That last one gets me.

John's poignant piece of a few days ago should stand as a lesson to all journalism students, writers and broadcasters: You each have the power, granted by the Constitution, to say or write pretty much anything you damn well want.

But that doesn't mean you should.

Restraint can often be a journalist's most valuable tool.

On a similar note, I was speaking to a journalist friend today and I was reminded of another memory from my time under John's tutelage in the journalism program at Park University. This one's a little more light-hearted.

My friend was saying he was having difficulty reading his notes from an interview that he conducted a few days ago. It reminded me of a lesson, probably from the first journalism class I ever took with John: when you're done with an interview, always go home or go back to the office and type out your notes while the interview is still fresh in your mind.

I told my friend that after that lesson, I worked very hard to do exactly that - for a few days. Then I decided it took too much time, and I said, "Screw it! I don't need to do this anymore." Sorry, John.

My friend said almost the same thing happened to him.

But listen up, kids: I sure wish I would have kept typing up my notes. My articles would have been significantly better for it.

Tiahrt vs Moran; Kraus vs Pratt...GOP primaries FINALLY over today: Can I get an Amen?!?

The GOP primary commercials we see in Kansas City for the two hot races -- U.S. Senate and Missouri Senate 8th District -- have been, frankly, nauseating. After a couple of viewings, I've been using the clicker to keep the mud off the carpet. These geniuses should remember we watch their commercials at home in the living room not at a cattle auction or a wrestling match.

At best, they're little more than school yard taunts. "I'm more conservative than you are, na...na...na...na..."

More conservative doesn't quite capture it. More "tea party" is closer. Perhaps... "more against."

Reminds me of Marlon Brando in "The Wild One". "What are you rebelling against, Johnny?"

"Whaddaya got?"

At worst, they're mean spirited, viscous, condescending and silly. They're caricatures of the ideas they profess -- a local actress doing Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin in dinner theater. Politics meets Corky in a Christopher Guest movie.

They've provided an awful insight into the worst, most selfish, impulses of this moment in history. I've said it before; I'll say it again:

We are, as a people, better than this.

Way better.

--Lofflin

River Blindness: Limbaugh and Robertson set the standard for those lost in religion and politics to the exclusion of their human brothers...

...
Two of the most ridiculous statements to come along in the new century came from Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh yesterday, one attributing the earthquake in Haiti to the practice of voodoo in 1729 (suggesting the good news of the earthquake is a new beginning for a cursed people) and the other discouraging gifts to relief efforts because 1) you already gave through your tax dollars and 2) you will wind up on an Obama re-election campaign mailing list.

If you can think, and you can see, and you can feel, and you're human, then the devastation in Haiti will convince you of the total insensitivity of both pronouncements ... no matter what your politics or religion.

If you need more convincing, here is an excellent blog from the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof making the case. It is calm and reasoned. It also responds in a positive manner to the issue of how we could have allowed such poverty in our own sphere of influence in the first place.

auggghhhh! Sound the alarm, here comes a naive liberal moment on the devastation in Haiti

Coverage of the disaster in Haiti has driven one message into the collective consciousness. This was, at America's doorstep, an indefensibly poor country.

Hearing this over and over is like passing the guy on the median at the stoplight holding up the cardboard sign. Makes you feel bloated and pampered and makes you wish you could do something ... but you don't. Suddenly something on your dashboard needs attention. You look away. Then, thankfully, the light turns green.

So, here comes the naive liberal question: How could this filthy rich country allow such poverty to exist in its immediate sphere of influence?

We have, of course, spent half a century attempting to starve the Cubans into compliance and they have not bowed their heads. Military dictatorships are like that. So are the Cuban people.

But, we had a reason, albeit a stupidly wrong-headed reason, to starve Cuba. Why have we allowed Haiti to starve?

Of course, we will now thunder into Haiti with relief and supplies on a level only America can provide. It's too bad we had to wait for an earthquake to do it.

Sometimes the logic is inescapable. What friends could we have made in Haiti, or Cuba, or, for that matter, Yemen, Afghanistan or Iran, if we had spent what we have spent on military action on food, medicine, infrastructure and American expertise instead?

How many lives in Haiti could we have saved from this act of nature by helping the Haitians build a solid foundation -- literally -- for their people before the earth shook?

--Lofflin

There goes another one of our rights to the liberals in the Obama camp...

...
I love the reader comments under news stories on the Kansas City Star Website. Sometimes they give you a feel for how hard democracy really is. Political scientists and politicians, to say nothing of reporters, often lose track of the level of sophistication of the public they are trying to reach.

To be sure, advertisers and political consultants do not lose track of the level of sophistication of the public they are trying to reach.

So in the Star today I found a small odd story with almost no detail about a raid on a small church in Independence in a firearms investigation. More will doubtless be known about this later.

The point here is the response of one reader apparently disturbed by such a raid. Many folks believe the second amendment is the 11th Commandment handed down to Moses but lost because he couldn't find space on the tablet. You also get the feel in this one sentence response of all the folks who have swallowed hook, line and sinker the idea Obama is a communist or, at least, a socialist, and that universal health care means the loss of democracy as we know it .

His comment went something like this: There goes another one of our freedoms, the right to keep and bare arms.

In this weather you wouldn't think that would be an issue.
...

Canadian health care system? At least you could get a flu shot there...

Matt's bookmark story illustrates nicely one of the joys of reading. When I pick up old copies of the Henry Wiggen novels I often find airline tickets inside, bookmarks I used out of convenience when traveling. I look the ticket over and suddenly some little piece of the trip comes back to me. Depending on the airline, the ticket may even smell like chocolate chip cookies.

I've only been to Canada twice. I went to Winnipeg to do a story. I found it a lot like Fairfax. Not, Fairfax, Virginia. The Fairfax of Sunshine Bakery, Certain-T-ed, and Chevrolet. I went to a conference in Toronto. Toronto is so international, its international-ness seems completely natural.

I've been laughing all day about Wanda Sykes' monologue last night. She said she'd like to ask Obama a few questions. One: "Where's my universal health care?"

Well, I was listening to jazz on the computer -- a wonderful radio station in Toronto -- yesterday. I've been steaming ever since about a public service announcement they broadcast between tunes. It was from the much maligned Canadian health care system. If you believe Fox news, this is the worst health care system in the history of the world. The announcement: "Everyone in Ontairio can have an H1N1 vaccine now. Call this number to find the clinic nearest you."

Everyone! Hear that Mr. President. Hear that congress. Hear that Fox News.

And here in the states, in the health care system the Republicans would like for you to believe is the best in the world -- "please, Mr. President, don't touch it" -- you can't even get a regular flu shot. I'm going without now because I missed my opportunity two months ago, which turned out to be the only opportunity I'll have this winter.

Now, if I lived in Ontario...

--Lofflin