Sound of Silence, Broken

Six days. Betcha didn’t think I’d be able to stay silent six days without a word about politics. I could’ve lasted longer, but the pursuit of the Latino vote by Mitt Romney and Barack Obama left me with little resolve to remain mum. 

I’m not surprised Mitt wouldn’t give specifics about his immigration reform policy should he become president. Though his tone might have been softer than what he conveyed during the primaries, Romney cannot promise relief to illegal immigrants and the Latino community for a simple reason—the right wing of his party would not stand for it. Not that they’d vote for Obama, but they could become less supportive if he espoused a softer line. If elected, Romney will have no more success mustering Tea Party members behind a more progressive immigration policy than House Speaker John Boehner has had trying to herd these cats into compromise budget positions. 

The lesson to be learned: voting for Mitt will be like buying a pig in a poke. You won’t know what you are getting despite his lofty rhetoric.

Here’s what passes for political reporting these days. Last week WCBS 880 news radio aired a clip of Romney saying he would win Wisconsin and Michigan on his way to the White House. What a surprise! Real news would have been Romney conceding he wouldn’t carry a state, but then that would mean getting Mitt to say something honest.

Over the weekend Romney hosted hundreds of fat cat supporters at a retreat in Utah. The monied set got to mingle with the candidate and his advisors, giving them a piece of what’s on their minds. I wonder, how many advocated for improving the lot of workers? How many lobbied for more aid to families under financial stress? How many suggested that providing affordable health care for all citizens should be a priority? How many sought more food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, aid for dependent children? How many volunteered that perhaps their success living the American Dream brought them to the realization that the super-rich could afford to pay more taxes to help those less fortunate? D’ya think any of them pressed for greater scrutiny of the financial sector? Of pharmaceuticals? Of food and product safety? How many of them figured out that cuts in police, fire, teachers and other municipal workers put everyone’s quality of life and safety at risk?

I’m not holding my breath that any of them asked for anything more than lower income taxes, lower capital gains taxes, lower estate taxes and the elimination of regulations that protect the public. I’m also confident Romney was all ears. He was, after all, rubbing elbows with his type of people. 

Radio Daze

One of the news items on the radio this morning made my head swivel. AIG, the massive financial services company that a few years ago earned the tag as the worst company in America is now selling reputation insurance.

Talk about chutzpah!

In 2008, AIG received $68 billion from the federal bailout program. Now it is pushing ReputationGuard, designed, according to the Associated Press, to “help companies protect their reputation in the event of major corporate crises such as executive scandals, product recalls, data breaches and other ‘reputational threats.’"

The idea of reputation insurance is catching on, what with viral Internet campaigns maligning companies and individuals, often without their immediate knowledge. But the thought of AIG benefiting from this form of insurance is truly hard to swallow.


WFAN sports radio hosts Evan Roberts and Joe Benigno were talking football quarterbacks in the midday hour, mostly criticizing NY Jets QB Mark Sanchez. They bemoaned that most young quarterbacks don’t get the opportunity to spend a few years backing up a star, learning from him, as Aaron Rodgers did for the Green Bay Packers, understudying Brett Favre for four years.

Yeah, said Roberts, he learned not to throw the “killer pick” or take the “killer pic,” references to Favre’s tendency to kill offensive drives by throwing an interception (a “pick” for those not familiar with football parlance) and also for Favre’s infamous offensive picture texting of his body parts.


Though I’m not a Jets fan I couldn’t help but be amused by one listener’s call-in to WFAN about the fortunes of the team. Instead of the team’s slogan being “ground and pound,” he said, a more apt description would be “grunt and punt.”


Online gambling was reported the other day by WCBS 880 News to be under consideration by the U.S. House of Representatives as a revenue-generating scheme. Now, I’m not against legalized gambling, but it seems peculiar to me that the Republican-controlled House would favor such a move as many of its core constituents are Christian conservatives who oppose such activity.

Still, illegal gambling is estimated to be a $6 billion industry, and Uncle Sam would love to get a piece of the action. It’s impossible to control gambling, much the same way Prohibition was impossible to police effectively. At least when Prohibition was repealed the government started collecting excise taxes again on the liquid refreshment. It’s the same argument the gambling advocates push, as do those who want to legalize marijuana and other drugs.

A revenue source or a source of deprivation? You choose.


Last week the NY Times ran a picture of Sandy Amoros catching Yogi Berra’s curling fly ball in the last game of the 1955 World Series, a catch credited with helping secure the first and only championship for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Here’s a link to the picture: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/10/06/sports/Y-JP-VECSEY.html?scp=2&sq=sandy%20amoros&st=cse

Several interesting points about the picture and what it says about baseball 56 years ago, and I’m not referring to the fact that it was a day game: Well, it was a day game, and left field was the sun field at the old Yankee Stadium. Yet few fans wore sunglasses. Amoros was playing in short sleeves; most of the fans were men wearing suits and ties. A sizable number wore hats, not baseball caps, but real old men’s hats, fedoras. Though I’m sure most in the picture were younger than my 62 years, they sure look older than I am. Few women and almost no child can be seen. The fans in the front row mostly stayed in their seats; almost none ventured to catch a Yankee souvenir before Amoros could reach it.