The Counterculture Criteria

Halloween foreverThe spooks will haunt them like flies haunt feces

JUSTIN A. HINKLEY

Lawmakers in Lansing are facing a very long Halloween season this year. Today, as kiddies everywhere started vibrating with anticipation over the candy and the costumes tonight, legislators were putting the finishing touches on a month-late budget deal that will make everybody angry.

With a $1.75 billion hole to fill, senators and congressmen had to make several cuts ($433 million worth) to things like prisons and privatized things like foster care and adoption, making Democrats upset. They also raised the income tax and expanded the 6 percent sales tax to include services, upsetting Republicans. The deal was only hours old when the protesters came knocking — loudly.

A coalition of anti-tax businesses has already been formed, petitions are being drawn up and it is a long way to 2008, when several legislators' seats will be at risk. People are talking about recalls and repeals. It will be an interesting November next year.

Who knows if this was really the best thing for the state? Nobody seems to think so. Even as lawmakers from Detroit and Novi babble to reporters about the valiance of collaboration, cooperation and compromise, inside they're fuming about the whole stupid thing. Which makes you wonder how the mess got pushed through. What kind of weird state do we live in where elected representatives cast votes for things they don't really believe in?

Of course, maybe there was no other way. All of the smart minds say this deal was about the only way we could keep the state of Michigan open for business.

Of course, while some 500 people working for Mike Cox were given an extra 3 days of mandatory unpaid vacation, none of the lawmakers took the knife to their own salaries, despite Lorence Wenke's pressing.

And that, as people empty their wallets at the gas pump and to their health insurers and to every other black hole that's opened up the last 10 years or so, when they start to realize that Michigan's trying to pull out several extra pennies, they'll start foaming at the mouth and go howling into the night like werewolves. Most of them will scurry into random acts of violence, like rabid and impotent dogs. They'll scowl at their children and cheat on their wives, but go nowhere near Lansing, because they are ignorant and dumb.

But there will be enough, like the Coalition to Ax the Tax, who will know where to go, what numbers to dial, which letters to write, and which doors to knock over, that it will make life difficult for Lansing for some time.

The lawmakers will be fearful to leave their offices, the House and Senate chambers will always be empty, and the streets around the Capitol will be empty. Every time they close their eyes, they will see ghouls and goblins and wicked vampires, all with the faces of the Michiganders who feel opposed.

Whether this right or wrong is a moot point, because it is hard to even have a bowel movement when you  spend your personal and professional life living in one constant Halloween fear factory.

Death to the wicked, but save the weirdDeath penalties may be put on hold around the country

JUSTIN A. HINKLEY

Monday was a busy day in the criminal justice system, both in Michigan and around the country.

In Lansing, lawmakers were forced to consider whether more than 1,000 prisoners who are 19 and younger should be moved to different facilities to better aid rehabilitation.

Then, in Washington, the American Bar Association recommended that all death penalties across the nation be halted until a thorough investigation of America's capital punishment system could be done.

Criminal justice is always a touchy subject for people. How do we deal with deviants? Who should really decide how much of a deviant a person is? What sort of deviancy requires death? Eye for an eye, or forgiveness?

We live now under the rule and law of a man who believed he was sent to the presidency by God himself, which, if you ask me, can really bungle things up in crime and punishment. After all, the Bible preaches forgiveness, and 'let he who has not sinned cast the first stone' and all that. But that old proverb of righteous justice "an eye for an eye" also came from the Bible. Which do we follow when?

 I am normally a very forgiving man when it comes to the wicked and weird. Teens, for example, are so full of pornographic lust and rage and so susceptible to influence that I think more often than not, they probably should be in a rehab facility of some sort rather than a maximum security prison. Even in cases of violent crimes, it could be something as pitiful as peer pressure that drove the adolescent to squeeze the trigger, and giving the brute a chance to mature might cure him or her of his or her sins.

And I fully understand the worries of the ABA. They cited a study of death penalty operations in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee that found things like poor evidence collection, eyewitness error and false confessions were putting innocent people in the chair and under the needle. This sort of thing happens more often than any lawyer, judge, juror or politician would like to admit. And it raises serious questions about whether or not we should be putting anyone to death, because we never know for absolute sure if we've got the right bad guy.

But, for all of my beliefs in civil liberties, I support the death penalty when you have the right bad guy. I think about my wife, my mother, my brother, my father... If anything were to ever happen to them and I knew for sure who was to blame, my vengeance would be swift and fierce. I would come down on the perpetrator like a ravenous wolf with a serious blood-lust, and the slimy scumbag who brought harm to someone I loved would wish they'd never laid eyes on me. My grandfather fought dirty; he would use any makeshift weapon within his reach to pummel his opponents into a mulch of bone splinters and skin fragments. I learned that from him.

But if I were to let loose my wrath on the wrong person... I don't know that I could live with myself, and I don't know how any judge or executioner could, either.

The Boss for the BossIt's my party and I'll cry if I want to

JUSTIN A. HINKLEY

I hereby formally announce the formation of the U.S. Draft Bruce Springsteen Coalition.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2008, I will start filing the right paperwork and taking the necessary legal steps to form a nonprofit organization with the intention of putting Bruce Springsteen on the ballot in at least 13 states for the 2012 presidential elections. I will have the coalition's headquarters here in Battle Creek, but there will be chapters in Houston, San Diego, Cincinnati, New York, Hoboken and anywhere else I can rummage up the support.

Springsteen is the perfect candidate: An All-American with 20 years of career campaign slogans already written and copyrighted by the artist himself. His bus could roll into town after town blasting "Born in the U.S.A.," "The Rising," "Glory Days" and any other theme song the man writes between now and August 2011.

He's got more charisma in his left hand than that helpless tree hugger Al Gore has in his entire body, and I think a well-organized effort could elect The Boss whether he wanted it or not.

Springsteen could be the first true candidate of The People since George Washington was elected on a wave of popularity, even though he never really wanted to be president. The people demanded it, and, being the true patriot he was, Washington reluctantly but valiantly led. Springsteen would be the same way.

The Boss speaks to all people, knows the power of heartache and the promise of revival. He wants peace, he wants equality, he wants civil rights. And any man that can manage a 20-year career can manage the finances of the nation, with the help of his trusted advisers.

A well-organized effort that got the ball rolling four years in advance could easily shake the sweaty, sedentary youth vote out of its slumber. And Springsteen's mass appeal would organize the soccer moms, the bar flies, the blue collar and white collar/closet drunkard voting blocks into action.

We'd put Gwen Stefani on as his running mate, the necessary catalyst to rally the female vote. We could enlist Ellen Degeneres as the coalition's spokeswoman. Then, once Springsteen was on the ballot, make Ellen his chief campaign adviser, cinching the gay vote and also any stray soccer moms and/or feminists who weren't yet on board.

In the mean time, I need to do some grassroots organizing. Any man, woman or child interesting in helping this effort, write to:

Justin A. Hinkley, Chair,
U.S. Draft Bruce Springsteen Coalition
C/O A.A. World Services, Inc.
P.O. Box 459
New York, NY, 10163

Send a check, if you can.

satire: (sat-ahy-r), n., 1. The use of sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.

-- from Dictionary.com.

NOTE: Photo of The Boss courtesy of Wikipedia.org.

"...and Al Gore as Himself"

ANDY FITZPATRICK

Count Al Gore as one more Democrat who won't be campaigning for president in Michigan. Of course, this time, it's because the Democrat in question isn't actually running for office...yet. The Michigan Draft Gore group failed to accumulate the needed 12,396 signatures to put Gore's name on the ballot. They only came up with about 3,000.

What would have happened if the group had managed to get the needed amount of signatures and Gore still had not entered the race? Would we have been faced with a candidate who isn't running? What then? Would he feel compelled to run? All good questions. Firstly, if they did get the signatures, Gore would still have to willingly enter the race. He couldn't be placed on the ballot unless he himself signed the appropriate paperwork, meaning that he couldn't be elected to an office against his wishes. The entire premise of the Michigan Draft Gore group was based on the wishful thinking that Gore would be so moved by the...um...movement, that he would be inspired to run for president.

Secondly, Gore doesn't want to be president, even if he doesn't know it. He's got a good thing going right now: an Oscar, a Nobel Peace Prize, highly successful books; why upset that apple cart? I'm pretty sure it's a pay cut, too. No, he's swinging, and he's swinging Vegas-style. His real power would come in the form of some kind of advisor to a Democratic president. If Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama or John Edwards (for example) were to get the Oval Office, I envision Gore dropping by like some kind of special guest star on a 1950's sitcom, stopping briefly to acknowledge the audience as they clap and cheer for their boy. Then he drops a few green pearls of wisdom ("Tax subsidies for car manufacturers to start making electric cars immediately: go!") and he's off to his next millionaire playboy adventure.

Really, that's what Gore is now: a star. President of the United States? That's for ex-lawyers, governors and failed, war-hungry oil men. Gore may have lost the presidency, but he's winning in the long run. The things he wants to accomplish for the environment and society in general have gone from "hopeful" to "maybe next week," and it's because of his rock star status.  That should be what his supporters care about now.

Halloween Michigana:It's time to get weird; Michigan's own fright-fest

JUSTIN A. HINKLEY

I'm getting antsy now, because the holiday season is right around the corner.

For me, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all roll into one long season and an excuse to get weird and euphoric. I dress up for Halloween. I eat until I burst on Thanksgiving Day. And on Christmas, I am full of merriment and joy and I give as much as I am able.

This year, Halloween will have a very special meaning for Michiganders, and i intend to take it as seriously as I ever have.

Oct. 31, Halloween, is the deadline for Lansing to file a new, permanent budget. For 17 days, Michigan was on edge as lawmakers argued, scolded and tortured and maimed each other over whether to raise taxes or cut programs in order to cover a fat deficit. The state government actually shut down for five hours on Oct. 1 before they passed a temporary budget, which expires on Halloween.

The holiday, the reason we all dress up and run through the streets trying to make crying flesh-balls of each other, is an old Pagan tradition that was meant to scare away evil spirits and demons. Michigan certainly has her fair share of those, as every city, school, government entity and underprivileged person in the state wonders whether they'll have money for this Christmas.

I say we resort to the old tradition. What kind of freakish reaction would Lansing have if millions of Michigan residents swarmed the Capitol in full Halloween costumes? Millions of ghosts, ghouls, goblins, vampires and beasts all pouring into the Senate and Congress chambers, demanding settlement, fairness, and resolution.

The lawmakers would soil their pants and cower in the corner, clutching Bibles and muttering for their own peace. They would know the citizenry's fear, and they would solve the problems, for fear their immortal souls be lost to some black abyss.

Those pagans were on to something.

Political talk, mean meandering, the safety of the U.S. Constitution

JUSTIN A. HINKLEY

"My yellow brick road just came short of the White House this time."

— Sam Brownback, on ending his presidential run

Sam Brownback bowed out Friday, meaning the Constitution is a little safer than it was before.

Brownback would have shredded that sacred document the first chance he got if we put him in the White House.   The Kansas senator was an extremist, a radical Christian with no sense of decency, justice or what I have always understood to be The American Way.

I never understood the phrase "Christian conservative," because the word conservative connotates a distrust of change. But the GOP senators and congressmen who go by that name are the ones who want to do away with the past 240 years of civil liberties and make America a fundamentalist state. That's stranger still because my brothers and sisters bloodletting in Iraq is supposed to do away with fundamentalist states.

Over his long life in public service, Brownback has sponsored bills, sought investigations and chaired committees that sought to end freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of privacy in your own bedroom... He was huge supporter of the Constitution Restoration Act, which would have ended the Supreme Court's ability to decide constitutionality of state and/or local governments' positions on religion. Had the bill passed, an entire state could declare itself a Christian state and ban other religions, and the persecuted would have a hard time fighting back.

This is not a liberal or conservative debate, it is a Constitutional debate. That piece of paper has, for the most part, withstood nearly two and a half centuries of technological and attitude evolution. Any changes to it (there have only been sixteen since 1792) have all expanded the freedom of Americans, with the exception of the prohibition amendment, which was quickly repealed. Brownback and a lot of his comrades' efforts have always been to shrink our personal freedoms.

Being a Christian is a wonderful thing. But the beauty of America and her laws is that Christians do not have the right to make it hard for people to believe in other things. That is conservative thinking, that one person's rights end where another's begins.

So the extremely crowded presidential ring is smaller by one. Brownback says he'll not seek his senate seat, but may be after the Kansas governorship in 2010. I don't know enough about Kansas politics to say whether or not he has a good shot at that position, or what impact it might have on the state.

I doubt Brownback had much of an impact on the remaining contenders, despite Rolling Stone Magazine's predictions. The Christian Conservative base lost a lot of pull in 2006, and they're struggling to clean up. The GOP candidates are making a play to them every now and then, and Rudy Giuliani lost some of my respect for changing his stance on social issues to play to a voting base that's struggling to survive.

Still, the GOP is the side to watch. If I were a gambling man, which I am on nights when the mood is weird, I be willing to bet at 5-1 odds that either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama (and likely Clinton) will win the Democratic nomination in a clean sweep, knocking out the other candidates within a few primaries. However, despite what any kind of early research poll might say, neither Clinton nor Obama can win the general election. In a nation where zealots like Brownback can win senate seats, we are not likely to elect a female or a black president.

Which leaves us looking at the Republicans for the next four years, where Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney have strong showings. I'm not sure who has the best shot there, but it will probably not be McCain. Voters tend to give preference to new faces and new ideas, and McCain's been out there too many times before. This is Giuliani and Romney's first bid for the White House.

I have to wonder about what America will look like by the end of 2009. We can look at the candidates' positions on issues, but that is rarely a reliable way to decipher what actions they might take. Besides that, there are several senate and congress seats that will be decided behind the presidents, and the overwhelming number of voters that rushed the Dems into power in 2006 are feeling more and more disillusioned, meaning that some people may have went back to Republicans or will stay home from the polls, a sure sign that GOP will take over.

Hope flows like firewater in the veins of America during presidential election years. People get drunk when they think their guy (or gal) will take office and change the world in a way that better suits their means. Democracy — though it's a process meant for the betterment of the People as a whole — is really a selfish act. People pick the people who will serve them best, not who will serve the nation best, and everyone is guilty of it.

But hope, like any other drug, can warp the brain. No matter who wins, this race will be close and decided in the wee hours of Wednesday, and there is no telling what America will be come Thursday.

NOTE: Photo courtesy of The Associated Press.

Carnage everywhere:How the happy hath fallen, why the mighty die away

JUSTIN A. HINKLEY

Total carnage everywhere now. Droughts in the south, floods in the north, and 136 dead, 248 injured in a bomb that was really only meant to kill one person.

Hours after Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's controversial former Prime Minister, returned to her homeland from eight years in exile, a fireball ripped through the streets, murdering and scarring hundreds.

Bhutto was unharmed in the blaze, but 384 people's lives were either ended or changed forever.

World peace is a dream meant only for Miss America pageants and hippie communes. Our leaders in Washington and around the world are buried in a heap of their own excrement. But they've evolved now, developing gills they hide in their loins that make it so they can breathe through the feces. They can't survive without it, as a matter of fact, totally dependent on recycling the same old bull that spews from their mouths, their anuses and it's even starting to come out of their eyes.

Darwin was an evil skunk of a human being for making us see this. If he'd had the good taste to keep his mouth shut, we might still have someone to look up to in this country.

Instead, no one but old patriots and young zealots have the favorable will to see with their eyes closed. That old proverb about ignorance being bliss was right on the money, and the motto should be carved deep into the walls of the Oval Office, so that every time we see a picture of a president hard at work on some piece of legislation, we will be reminded to look away.

I've given up that luxury long ago, because I am a journalist. I can't afford the pleasures of ignorance, because it is my duty to better inform the rest of the people out there whose eyes were peeled open either in Watergate, in the Iran-Contra Affair, in Monica Lewinsky, or in the Iraq War. It is not always a happy mission, but it is one I take as seriously as death.

Now, I have no choice but to live by the proverb that KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. We saw that with Nixon, and there have been 100s of reporters since then who've tried to relive and deliver to the Public that same regal air that comes with knowing that the Administration is full of crippled crooks. You start to smell the crap when that happens.

And I live by the creed that there is a giant Diaper Genie out there somewhere, where the informed will someday scoop up all of the refuse and dump it all way in some archive museum that helps stifle the smell. Then the clean can take over the world...

Of course, the kind of saturating ego-charge that comes with representing a nation starts to make you believe that you're the people's ruler, rather than their servant. And then the reporters will go back to find out why, and the informed will become angry again. And the half-informed radicals will blow up another 400 people or maybe 1,000, and the new leaders will develop those gills and the lust that comes with it that makes them salivate for the Big Button that will wipe this planet off the star maps.

Thompson strikes a blow for banality

ANDY FITZPATRICK

On Monday, GOP Presidential candidate Fred Thompson tackled a high-profile target: nuance. The former Senator threw some mud at fellow Republican would-be President Rudy Giuliani. Say what you will about the alleged "America's mayor," he is not your standard right-wing soldier. His positions have included pro-choice and pro-gay rights stances. That is the very reason he was the target of Thompson's ire this week.

As Thompson stumps around the campaign trail, he more and more comes off as a tired, hollow shell of your standard party lineman. He was touted by conservative radio hosts as possibly the next Reagan, a Gipper-in-waiting ready to take on the Evil Empire of the 21st Century, whatever that may be. He was to be a champion of deregulation and small government, riding his white horse into the cave of the Dragon of Federal Programs, lance at the ready.

The result has been somewhat less than all of that. It is still early, but his first foray into the Republican debates was rather underwhelming. He travels from speech to speech, delivering the standard flow of right-wing talking points and folksy, down-home sayings ("We’ve got to learn to skip and chew gum at the same time").

Giuliani, on the other hand, seems to represent a side of the party that Thompson and those who think like him apparently do not want to acknowledge exists: the side of compromise. As Thompson said, "This is not a time for philosophical flexibility, it is a time to stand up for what we believe in."

Well. It certainly doesn't get any clearer than that, does it? Giuliani is someone who doesn't toe the line as well as he should, and he is to be called out on it. There will be no compromise, no giving in, no debate. Unfortunately, it seems to be working. Giuliani, with each appearance, seems to be listing more and more to the extreme. He is starting to come around to the way the party works, I think, and is changing tactics appropriately.

Area voters should have a sense that they have seen all of this before. It stirs echoes of the Walberg/Schwarz affair. I guess the main difference is that Giuliani is not an incumbent. And, whereas Schwarz remained consistent in the beliefs he always had, Giuliani is shifting around to conform to what voters will want. While he may be a front runner in the GOP primary season, he may find the real test is in the Big Game. If he gets the party nomination, will he revert to some of his more reasonable positions to court centrists, or will he be too far gone to find any support except amongst the extreme right?

The pleasures of obscenityOne person's trash is another's... trash

JUSTIN A. HINKLEY

I am a big fan of obscenities. Swear words just say it better sometimes. I've had many an English or writing teacher tell me that only a fool with a low vocabulary would resort to curses. But I believe in passion, and, to me, there is far more passion in screaming one little f-word than in trying to roll together some eloquent euphemisms.

Now, a Scranton, Pa. woman faces 90 days and $300 for swearing at a backed-up toilet. She was in her house, cursing over the overflow, and her neighbor heard it through an open window. Her neighbor is a Scranton cop, and asked the woman to stop cursing. When the woman kept on with the foul language, the neighbor called police and a few words turned into a few hundred  dollars.

I never know where to go with these kinds of things... While I am advocate for Free Speech and even an advocate for obscenities, I don't think it's necessary for me to continue cursing after I've been asked to stop. While I in no way need or desire to be liked or respected by everyone, I just don't see the need in unnecessarily insulting someone else.

Of course, when you're upset, some of those choice words could have kept slipping out...

So, I could see why the police officer might be upset. But should the woman be fined and jailed over it? I think not. The cop wasn't injured. The woman was in her home. As far as The Associated Press reported it, nobody else (i.e., kids) were involved. I would tend to agree with the ACLU lawyer on this, who said:

"You can't prosecute somebody for swearing at a cop or a toilet."

Kid-nation:The role of youth in civics, politics

JUSTIN A. HINKLEY

I'll step lightly around this one... Today, I was at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for the introductions to a HomeTown Competitiveness seminar. I'll have a story about this in Thursday's paper, so I'll leave out any opinions I may have on the seminar, which trains local rural community leaders how to use current assets to spark economic growth.

One of the four pillars of the HTC guidelines is to create positions in both local government and local entrepreneurship where young people — that is, 25-year-olds all the way down to elementary students — can find ways to become leaders.

That's an idea I've been pondering for some time, and I've heard it mentioned in various conversations by various people, but no action has ever really been taken on it.

With a few exceptions (and those exceptions have rarely made big splashes in the direction of this city), there is no group or organization that gives young people the chance to have input on the cuts or increases to city spending, the implementation of city ordinances, or the laws they're held responsible to.

I'll tell you what I'd like to see: An official organization, recognized by the City Commission, comprised entirely of people 16 to 24. It should be called the Battle Creek Youth Ward and it should have a voting voice on the Battle Creek City Commission.

There should be one member from each of the city's schools, including one from Kellogg Community College. The KCC student would have to be a Battle Creek resident.

The members should be elected from within their schools, by majority vote of the student populous.

The Youth Ward would meet twice a month besides the City Commission meetings, to formulate proposals to bring to the commission for consideration of adoption.

The Youth Ward would be five members strong, which would be a massive influence on our nine-member commission. And, many would argue, people younger than 18 cannot vote, anyway, so why should they have a voice on the commission?

Being the kind of practical person I am, I've come up with a solution for this, too: The Youth Ward would have only one vote towards any decision the commission makes. All five members would vote yes or no, and whichever vote got the majority, the Youth Ward would enter one vote in that way to count towards the commission decision.

This would make a total of 10 voting voices on the commission, leaving us open to that awful possibility of a tie. Being fair to federal voting laws, in the event of a 5-5 tie, the Youth Ward's vote would not count, and whatever the majority of the other commissioners was, that vote would go through.

I'm not sure what sort of legal hurtles would have to be cleared to make this a reality, but it would be well worth any effort made. Young people in this city should have a voice, an ability to make some small impact on what kind of city they're left with.

If they did have that voice, maybe they'd consider staying in the city they helped create.