That familiar smelling purpose

History will cast a shameful light on the GOP’s coast-to-coast effort to suppress the vote in 2012. After the books are published that will document who exactly launched the campaign, who financed it and under whose auspices it was coordinated, the low-road strategy’s chief sponsors will be appreciated in the historical context they deserve.

Among other things they are the racist Dixiecrats of today, trying to suppress the voting of ethnic groups they know their white constituents fear and despise. The ghost of flinty Strom Thurmond walks in our midst.

Beyond that level of skullduggery, today’s rank and file Republicans, who are parroting rightwing talking points about preventing widespread voter fraud -- a phenomenon that plainly doesn’t exist -- will find themselves being compared to their counterparts in the Jim Crow Era, too.

• The white folks who took picnic lunches to a public lynching.
• The white citizens who watched approvingly from Southern sidewalks, as white cops bludgeoned and fire-hosed black civil rights demonstrators in the streets. 
• The white parents all over the commonwealth who yanked their children out of public schools, when Gov. J. Lindsay Almond couldn’t deliver on his campaign promise to prevent desegregation from being imposed on public education on Virginia. 

Make no mistake about it, since there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud today, the only reason for this sudden push from the right to clean up elections in so many states is to suppress voting in targeted groups. It’s the old poll tax scam in a new suit of clothes.

Same as it ever was: It’s still about race and class.

Its familiar smelling purpose is to hold onto power in a country that is changing too fast to please today‘s throwbacks, who happily turn their deaf ears to the better angels of our times. 

Gaffes, Lies and Expectations

The year started with high expectations for Republicans. After their gains in 2010, they expected 2012 would be another good a year for GOP candidates. Emboldened by the continuing gloomy forecasts about the economy, they expected to capture both the U.S. Senate and the White House.

Then came the cold weather primaries with too many debates. Every other week Mitt Romney, the frontrunner, was assailed by his opponents. Although Romney survived the primary process, owing greatly to his war chest, as spring bloomed it became clear that he was not the first choice for at least two-thirds of his own party.

After crushing each of his fellow clown-car occupants, one by one, then came Romney’s summertime campaign, with him driving said car. That became a slow motion disaster, based largely on torturing the truth, and marked repeatedly by gaffes.

To finish off the season, the GOP staged its convention in Tampa. That confab will be remembered mostly for having a theme based on yet another out-of-context prevarication -- We Built It -- and the Eastwood empty chair skit, which was so strange it created a whole new category of campaign blundering.

What happened to the Republicans' sure thing in 2012?

Could it be that the public has noticed that when it comes to politics, the shape-shifting Romney seems to have no scruples or core beliefs? Could it be that voters in several states have noticed that their Republican-controlled legislatures have been pursuing a coordinated war on women, unions, seniors, students, gays, immigrants and the environment?

With a little over five weeks until Election Day, Romney’s campaign appears to be in the early wide turns of a death spiral. This trend seems to be affecting the races in the states, too.

Although it is still possible for something to come along and change that momentum, because in politics almost anything is possible, at this writing it’s an understatement to say that Republicans have stepped on their own dangling hubris and inflicted injuries upon themselves.

Speaking of expectations, could it be that in 2012 dark money can’t necessarily buy a presidency?    

Diradour vs. Samuels: About Arts and Entertainment

One of the liveliest contests in local politics this fall is playing out in Richmond’s Second District councilmanic race. The district includes most of the Fan District, all of Scott’s Addition, some near-in aspects of Northside and most of the artsy blocks of the official Arts and Cultural District.

The incumbent is Charles Samuels, 36, an attorney. The challenger is Charlie Diradour, 48, a real estate developer/landlord.

Both men are members of the Democratic Party. Both have been active in the Fan District Association. Both have had a lot to say about Richmond’s arts and entertainment scene. Both have raised enough money to conduct serious campaigns, no one should be surprised if the race stays close all the way.

In August, via telephone and email, the two busy candidates agreed to answer questions about local government’s interaction with arts and entertainment.

Question: Are you happy or unhappy with the City of Richmond’s current laws that seek to control noise emanating from entertainment venues, restaurants, happenings at art galleries, etc.? Please explain what you plan to do about this issue, if anything, should you be elected.

Diradour: The noise ordinance is a great concept. The ordinance, however was poorly written. In fact the first ordinance as passed by Council was deemed unconstitutional. For a city as alive as RVA, we need to consider that noise is part of life in an active social community.

If I am elected, I will bring business owners, residents, The Richmond Police Department, and attorneys together to craft a new ordinance that better reflects the needs of our community. Noise pollution is one thing, but stifling arts and entertainment is quite another.

Samuels: As the member of Council who drafted and introduced the measure to limit noise, I feel it is about the best that we could do in terms of balancing the quality of life rights of all parties, specifically the right to have fun and the right to the peaceful enjoyment of your home.

Noise emanating from commercial and business establishments are not governed by the current noise ordinance (unless they are heard inside multi-unit dwellings or on residential single unit dwellings). However, there have been zoning laws on the books for decades that regulate noise from businesses in some zones. As we learned during the drafting process of the current sound control ordinance, there are always ways to improve ordinances like this, but I’m proud that community leaders, stakeholders and residents came together to make it work in the end. I am certainly open to tweaking it if it can be improved.

Analysis: Diradour seems to get it when he says “noise is part of life” in the city. How he might get “business owners, residents,” etc., to all agree on where to draw the line on what’s acceptable in the way of noise is another matter. No doubt, Samuels was trying to do something along those lines, but then it got complicated…

There are many quiet neighborhoods in Richmond. Others less so. Most Fan District residents, who’ve lived with its shops, offices, schools, busy sidewalks and streets, and its bars, have grown accustomed to what noise routinely exists in their neighborhood. Trying to make the Fan or the Arts and Cultural District as quiet as Windsor Farms won’t improve Richmond.

Noise has to be judged in context. A city cop ought to be able to determine whether an offensive noise constitutes disorderly conduct within the moment’s context. A noise patrol searching for bad decibels isn’t going to make Richmond a better city, either.

Question: Are you in favor of abolishing Richmond’s seven percent admissions tax? If “yes,” what is wrong with the tax? If, “no,” why should it remain on the books? If elected, what, if anything, do you plan to do about this issue next year?

Diradour: The 7% admissions tax is punitive in it's nature, in that it keeps small businesses from opening and, in fact, may indeed be a reason for some to have closed. Often, one hears the argument that the tax is borne by those who come from outside RVA's boundaries and is therefore a tax that doesn't effect city dwellers. I would make the argument, that lost revenue due to what amounts to a doubling down of the gross receipts tax is weighing down our arts and entertainment communities. I would vote to abolish it.

Samuels: Yes, but local government revenues are down substantially due to significant cutbacks in state funding and declining real estate revenues. I am not convinced we can afford to cut one source of revenues without replacing those dollars from another source. The admissions tax is much like the City’s meals tax. Only customers of entertainment venues pay it. Yes, it adds to the total cost of the experience, but it is not paid by the host or promoter, it is part of the ticket cost paid by guests. Interestingly, the City may provide a lower rate for non-government owned civic centers, stadiums or amphitheaters, but there is no authority regarding movie theaters, theaters or other venues. I am also considering returning to the General Assembly to lobby to address this issue.

How much does it actually account for? The admissions tax city wide accounts for .4% of tax revenue for 16 cities. Richmond is below the median and collects approximately 1.2 – 2 million from this tax. The median admissions tax rate for cities in Virginia is 7.5% with a maximum of 10% in 7 of those cities.

Analysis: Diradour says he will vote to abolish the admissions tax. Yet, while he seems to know it should go, it’s less clear by his answer why he thinks so.

When Samuels says the admissions tax is “much like the meals tax,” he reveals a lack of understanding of how those two very different taxes work. As it actually plays out, in effect, the hosts and promoters do pay the tax.

The public is mostly unaware that an admissions tax has been included in the price of a ticket. With the meals tax the customers can see the tax on their checks, it isn’t built into the price listed on the menu.

Taxes on meals are collected in all jurisdictions, the percentage varies. Samuels doesn’t mention that the surrounding counties, Chesterfield and Henrico, don’t have an admissions tax, which puts their theaters at a marked advantage over theaters in the city.

If a theater in Henrico and one in Richmond take in the same amount on a day’s gross receipts at the box office -- where the ticket price was the same -- the venue in the city yields seven percent less to its owner and the movie’s distributor.

Charlottesville doesn’t have such an admissions tax, either. Which is a significant reason why that particular city’s live music scene is thriving.

Note: In conversations prior to receiving this set of questions, Diradour seemed much more interested in finding a way to get rid of the admissions tax than did Samuels. The incumbent was less impressed with the notion that doing away with that one tax would spawn new streams of revenue for the City, to more than make up for what is now being collected on ticket sales.

Question: Beyond what’s already been covered, what do you think City Hall ought to do to help those who work in Richmond’s entertainment industry to make a better living? And, what measures can the next council take to encourage more privately-financed show biz venues to open in this city, initiatives that you will support?

Diradour: If anything, The City needs to support artists by creating tax incentivized live/work spaces in The Arts District. The creative class will help bring RVA back. According to Richard Florida, Author of The Rise Of The Creative Class, 40 million Americans create for a living. Creativity is found in the sciences, arts, trades, and a broad spectrum of other financial endeavors. The creative class has an immense impact on cities, as they choose to live and work in an environment that fosters their best opportunity for success.

Samuels: I was active in lobbying the General Assembly to win approval for localities to create more than one Arts & Culture Districts and I wrote the City’s initial Arts & Culture District ordinance. I am pleased that the expanded district that was ultimately approved includes my original boundaries as its core, with increased incentives to encourage private sector initiatives and development.

Aside from reducing City government waste, I want to focus on ways the City can encourage job creation. We have the ability to create additional Arts & Culture District and to use that a template to create Tourism District(s). I also want to pursue exempting new qualifying businesses from the BPOL taxes in revenue neutral way. That would certainly benefit newcomers to our entertainment industry and all industries. Job creation is key.

But in addition to the Art and Culture ordinance I drafted, I also wrote and introduced the nightclub licensing paper that was approved by my colleagues last year.

Admittedly, Council got some push-back on this issue, but after a string of violent crimes and deaths near clubs in our City, something had to be done. The deaths of young people that just went out to have a good time is not an appealing part of a nightclub area – it actually discourages many from going there. I’m not opposed to nightlife. I’m trying to stop night death.

And this ordinance has worked. Violent crime is down around these previously dangerous areas in the Bottom, and I am further convinced that this measure has forced nightclubs to take better responsibility for their patrons as they leave their premises. Having safer streets and better accountability can only further enhance the entertainment industry in Richmond.

Analysis: Both guys see the need for crafting a better noise ordinance, while they may disagree on where to draw the line for too loud.

Samuels seems more interested in having the local government closely monitoring the nightlife scene than does Diradour. One has to wonder whether “nightclub licensing” will really have the long-term positive effect on Richmond’s crime rate that Samuels suggests it has, to date. What such oversight could do to address any of the violence embedded in today’s culture isn’t clear.

Samuels wants to wait for the economy to improve before trying to do away with the admissions tax. But in good times, over the last 40 years, nobody in City Hall has talked much about getting rid of that tax.

Samuels shrugs off what show business insiders say about how more shows of all kinds would come to Richmond without that tax in place. They say Richmond needs to wise up to what cities like Nashville and Austin already know -- admission taxes are bad business, because they stifle the growth of an entertainment scene. Those insiders aren’t saying all taxes are bad, or too high; their complaint is just about one bad tax.

Diradour’s mention of Dr. Richard Florida will please some of the people who have had a direct hand in establishing Richmond’s Arts and Cultural District -- the pioneers/the creative class.

Samuels’ mention of lobbying the General Assembly to help the Arts and Cultural District will be seen in a favorable light by the developers who are investing in the area’s future -- the second wave/the money.

To be located at Belvidere and Broad Sts., VCU’s new Institute for Contemporary Art will surely have a positive ripple effect on the surrounding neighborhood, especially the Arts and Cultural District to the east. Adding to what’s already going on in that area, the new galleries, shops, theaters and restaurants currently in various planning stages will eventually open to bring more tourists into the middle of the city.

Now City Hall is on the arts and entertainment bandwagon and next year either Diradour or Samuels will be trying to speak on behalf of the best hopes for the Arts and Cultural District’s future.

The winner of their contest will have a lot to say about whether the new bandwagon stays on the road to brighter days for Downtown Richmond, or it breaks an axle on a familiar pothole.

-- 30 --

Yesterday’s Certitudes

Using yesterday’s certitudes, too many Democrats and Republicans are still talking about who has been right all along about boilerplate issues. Neither side of such tedious arguments appears to be able to acknowledge the mistakes their own side made over the last quarter century. Mistakes that wasted opportunities and cost money and lives.

Consequently, today, too few voters seem to care about which candidates have learned something worthwhile from those mistakes.

Sorry folks, no matter how far you turn up the volume, merely restating outdated liberal or conservative hokum is not about solving problems. It's not about making a brighter future.

 Image by Doug Dobey.

Conventions aren't irrelevant, they’re theater

Other than providing honest work for those who build the sets and semi-honest work for those who produce the lavish infomercials, what good are political conventions? Do they still matter?

Political conventions are different things to different people. Primarily, I see them as theater. On a Broadway stage or a Hollywood movie set none of the props are there by accident. Everything was put there for a purpose. The same goes for what the public sees of a national political convention.

You see, dear reader, I’ve been watching the political conventions since 1964, when I was a 16-year-old juvenile delinquent/would-be boy-wonder. I can vividly remember staring at a black-and-white TV and taking notes in a Spiral notebook, as I watched the Republican convention in San Francisco.

That convention took place in the days when such affairs were more fluid, much less scripted than what they‘ve become. Which meant that plenty of the best action in the hall took place in the wee hours. Eventually, Arizona’s Barry Goldwater won the nomination. His slogan was: “In your heart, you know he's right.”

My answer to the question above is, yes, conventions still matter. Beyond the predictable, meticulous polishing of the luster of the ticket, conventions still offer us a look at what both parties would like to believe are their best ideas, their most trustworthy leaders and their up-and-coming stars.

Those who watched the conventions saw what may have been Bill Clinton’s last great speech, perhaps his best ever. And, we surely saw what will be Clint Eastwood’s last appearance at a political convention. And, like all props, the now famous chair was put there for a purpose. We should expect to see the chair's encore on Saturday Night Live.

In one word descriptions, one might say the Republicans elected to present kitsch; the Democrats chose to present boilerplate.

In Tampa there was a list of Republicans who were quite conspicuous by their absence. Neither George W. Bush or Dick Cheney were there. Nor were significant players from the party’s recent past, such as Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell or even Sarah Palin (depicted above), which had to disappoint SNL's writers.

What you did have was a series of state governors who all had a personal story to tell about how they, themselves, built their own success; they had all risen up from difficult circumstances. What I took away from that collection of similar stories was that the convention’s theme -- We Built It -- was being reinforced by hungry politicians who, when given the chance, were all happy to brag about themselves.

Curiously, not much was said about Mitt Romney during this aspect of the programming, and the governors' success stories hardly rubbed off on Romney.

What did seem to be in the air was a collective sense of yearning for recapturing what was good about a previous time, certainly before Barack Obama became president. What was less clear is what period of time the Tampa Republicans actually had in mind. Clearly, it was not a call to return to the Bush presidency.

Skipping to the chase, I have to say the Republicans in Tampa were yearning to take the country back to something that never existed. What they seem to want is Ronald Reagan acting as president, but perhaps serving in the time before the start of World War I, when everyone knew their place -- including women -- and people didn't bellyache all the time about their lot in life. 

Take-the-country-back Republicans seem to have left Tampa, still dwelling on a gaudy nostalgia that represents mostly imaginary stuff. They’re still pining away for a lost world of dungeons and wizards and flying monkeys, or maybe "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."

To me, this all suggests one word -- “kitsch.”

Moving on to Charlotte, viewers looking for a bold new vision for the future needed to change channels. What they got from the second convention was a thousand little ways in which Democrats are trying to solve real problems ... even if trying is about all they can do. For what it's worth, their slogan this year is "Forward."

What saved the convention for Team Donkey, and probably provided the lift in the polls Obama has received since then, was one huge factor -- the Clinton speech.

Take Clinton’s wonky but lyrical speech out of the middle of the Democratic convention and the main story coming out of Charlotte would have been about a missed opportunity. Without Clinton's words, defining what it is to be a modern Democrat, nothing said from the podium the following night would have saved the convention from being branded as a fizzler.

Still, on live television, anything can happen. So, the symbol of all the Republicans staged for primetime consumption will always be Eastwood’s empty chair. Whereas, the Democrats confab will be remembered for a flight of soaring rhetoric from a party elder.

Between now and November 6th, no amount of dark dollar TV ads can rewrite those snippets of political convention history. Too many viewers saw them unfold, so there isn't time for that much of a rewrite. Moreover, neither of those happenings would have mattered so much had they not taken place live, on stage, at the conventions.

The dignity of labor and the lack thereof

In spite of what the Mitt Romey’s of the world might like us to believe, simply providing work doesn’t necessarily make the providing entity a glorious benefactor to society. Context matters. Dignity matters.

After all, in our nation’s past, Southern plantation owners provided jobs ... with some rather harsh conditions. In the early 1900’s the sweat shops that worked children all day were not only paying those kids, something -- not much! -- they were making sure those little workers couldn’t get an education, to one day maybe get a better job.

Whenever a job is so time-consuming and low-paying that it literally traps the poverty stricken worker into a brutal treadmill life -- without hope of improvement -- then that job is also a powerful instrument of social control. For some of today’s industries to have a steady supply of the kind of cheap labor they want, it calls for them to make sure there is a permanent starving underclass.

That’s part of what some gigantic corporations are still up to. The largest mining industry and agribusiness corporations come to mind, right away. Dignity for their workers hurts the bottom line.

What could be more at odds with the American Dream than deliberately stifling social mobility, by starving families into accepting that treadmill life? Among other considerations, this recession we're experiencing is about keeping the cost of labor down.

Who built what?

 We built it.

Memo to Tampa

Yes, we did build it.

We built libraries and courthouses. We built schools and roads. We built bridges and dams. We built water works and mass transit systems. We built armed services to protect you from harm. We built national parks to protect nature from you.

We, the people, have done all that to help you build businesses, or have jobs, and pursue the interests that make you happy. Seems like the least you folks could do is say, “thanks.”

Instead, you brag that you did it all by yourselves.

Instead, you flaunt a loathing for the government that facilitated the building of all that infrastructure. The same government that stands ready to extinguish a fire burning up one of your homes, while y'all are away in Tampa, wearing funny hats and celebrating the awesome power of your collective greed and anger.

Sorry, wrong number.

Both my art and writing have been appearing in print for 40 years. In that time, most of the people who have bothered to speak to me about my work have meant well. The vast majority of the time I enjoyed their comments, even when they disagreed with what I had written or the point of a cartoon.

Then, every now and then, it gets too weird. Such was the case when a man called me on a Saturday night in the early 1990s. We had never met. He’d read an issue of SLANT and said he had to talk with me, right then, because I was such a good writer. Naturally, the man was calling from a bar.

Well, I was watching a movie with my then-girlfriend, so I didn’t want to have a long conversation. It was late and the more this strange-sounding character talked, the less comfortable I felt about having anything to do with him. He said he had a story he had to tell me, a scandal I had to write about.

Then he started babbling about religion. Uh, oh...

So, I told him I didn’t want to meet with him that night, as he had been suggesting. Still, I thanked him for the compliment and told him to call back during business hours, should he want to talk any more. I don’t remember his name, now, but I did when I told the story of his odd phone call to some friends a couple of days later at Happy Hour.

One of them promptly recognized his name. “You remember him,” he said, “that was the crazy guy they found on the Huguenot Bridge, maybe in February, about a year ago. He was bleeding to death.”

My friend said that according to the story in the newspaper, my Saturday night fan had apparently bought into one of those old-world axioms. It was something like -- if thy right arm offends thee, cut it off.

My fan, obviously a religious man, went down to the wooded area north of the bridge. The account said he put his offending arm into the canal water to numb it. Then he chunked his arm into a fork in a small tree’s limbs, took out his hacksaw, and he sawed that bad arm off … just below the elbow.

Everyone at the bar, except me, chuckled.

It wasn’t funny to me, because I was busy wondering why such a madman would want to talk to me about anything? What had I written that had set him off? Would he call back?

It was hardly the first time I’d been approached by a creepy reader, but this one -- he sawed his arm off! -- was especially disturbing.

Blogging and Facebook open the door to all sorts of possibilities. While I am happy to discuss reactions to my posts, there has to be a limit to what I will put up with. The story above is just one of the reasons I won’t suffer fools of a particular stripe but for so long. I won’t put up with bullies at all.

So, I’ve unfriended some people on Facebook, and I’ve even blocked a few. At SLANTblog I've banned about a half-dozen obnoxious people from commenting at SLANTblog (I delete their comments ASAP). 

Furthermore, I urge others to be careful how much you engage unreasonable people who don’t really mean well at all. Some will try your patience, and a few of them may be out of control in a dark way you don’t want to know about.

Oxymoron: Republican civility

Taking their cue from Rush Limbaugh, some Republicans assume they're standing on the moral high ground, as they continue to excoriate pro-choice activist Sandra Fluke as a slut/nymphomaniac/prostitute.

Of course, they will also say it’s silly for anyone to suggest it's all part of part of their War on Women, while out of the other side of their mouths they claim rapes don’t cause pregnancies ... which, of course, means they're saying women are lying about having been raped, if they get pregnant.

Apparently, anything goes when you're on a crusade -- taking your orders from God -- but I say you've got to drink a lot of goddamned Kool-Aid to believe such vulgar attacks on Ms. Fluke, and countless rape victims, are anything more than lowbrow trash talk.

At long last, have these crusaders no decency?  

Romney as a frat-house bully

Friday's birth certificate quip by Mitt Romney probably doesn't mean he's become a card-carrying birther. What it surely does mean is that he, like so many squirrelly Republicans, thinks any garbage that seems to annoy Democrats is well worth lobbing at them, over and over. It solidifies the base.

So, I expect we will see plenty more of the same tactic as the awkward putative GOP nominee continues to try to energize the hate-wing of his party.

What some Democrats may not fully appreciate is how much some Republicans love it when Romney swells up and acts like a frat-house bully. And, everybody knows bullies don't feel compelled to tell the truth. In this instance, the audience for birther jokes likes Romney's aggressiveness just for the sake of style.

-- Words and art by F.T. Rea

Time-Warping in Tampa: Romney’s Step to the Right

 …And then a step to the right
With your hands on your hips
You bring your knees in tight
But it's the pelvic thrust that really drives you insane,
Let's do the Time Warp again!

-- From “The Time Warp” by Richard O’Brien
 

With the Cold War moving from front pages into history books, it was during Bill Clinton’s stint in the White House that ideology began to go out of style in the national dialogue. Clinton was such an unapologetic capitalist and so many people were making money, it was useless to call him a "pinko."

Most of the time Clinton's two-term presidency was rather loosely tethered to what had been traditional liberal thinking in the USA. Likewise, the compassionate conservatives and neoconservatives of George W. Bush's eight years in the White House hardly fit the mold of what conservatism had generally meant during the previous half-century. And, in spite of what some partisans like to pretend, Pres. Barack Obama didn’t really campaign as a dyed-in-the-wool lefty, New Deal/Great Society Democrat in 2008.

But as soon as Obama was elected, along came the Tea Party bandwagon, fueled by raw anger at government and a rabid disliking for the new president. The new wave conservative momentum established by the bandwagon took a couple of years to be assimilated by the Grand Old Party.

Now the eager leadership of 2012’s remodeled Republican Party wants to round us all up and schlep us back across the bridge to yesteryear. Back to before Medicare. Before Roe vs. Wade. Before the Voting Rights Act. Before Social Security.

So, for the first time since the 1980s, ideology for its own sake is back in the forefront of what’s being argued over in a national election. In tapping Rep. Paul Ryan from Wisconsin as his running mate, Mitt Romney -- the former governor of Massachusetts -- took his party's image yet another step to the right on the crooked road to its jamboree in Tampa ... fade out.

 *

...Fade in: As you picture the putative presidential nominee at the upcoming Republican convention the tune in the hall is familiar. Under his perfect hairdo, Romney is in front of a chorus row of superdelegates on a huge stage, all festooned in red, white and blue. Wearing shades and tuxes they are performing a number straight out of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Hands on hips, they're singing, “Let’s do the Time Warp again!”

OK, in all likelihood, the GOP probably won’t use “The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975) for its theme in Tampa. Still, it says here that if the Republicans were all outfitted in costumes inspired by that cult movie the convention's TV ratings would be boffo.

Meanwhile, the Republican wish to recapture the commonly shared happiness of the Gilded Age actually has something in common with this musical from the midnight show vault of classics. In part, both are about a longing for a total fantasy -- a world of faux nostalgia that never existed in the first place.

With his pivot to the right Romney’s campaign strategists are saying they believe there are more uncommitted voters for Republicans to win over out on the Flat-Earth fringe than what votes might be found languishing in the indifferent center. The Romney camp must also be hoping the right-face turn will help seal off their candidate's well-documented moderate past in Massachusetts, to retroactively paint Willard Mitt Romney as a lifelong conservative.

Consequently, this fall Republican talking heads will be selling a lot of warmed-over ideology. We’re going to hear plenty about the intrinsic evils of socialism and trade unions. The manly strut of the GOP’s 1964 candidate, Barry Goldwater, will be lauded. Once again, Ronald Reagan will be hailed as a saint.

Speaking of nostalgia, even Ayn Rand‘s ideas are being dusted off.

And, speaking of juvenile pop philosophy, over his long career as a public person, Romney’s flip-flopping, wannabe hunger to have it all his way -- all ways -- brings to mind the unquenchable lust of Dr. Frank-N-Furter in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Frank-N-Furter’s approach to dealing with reality was: “Don’t dream it, be it.”

Which is a twist on what conservatives believed when Goldwater was their nominee in 1964. In that high-contrast era Republicans consistently painted themselves as hard-edged realists and problem-solvers. The Democrats were depicted as fuzzy-thinking dreamers ... fade out.

*

…Fade in: Now it’s the pragmatic Democrats who seem much more concerned with solving real-world problems than anyone on the other side of the aisle. You don’t have to like Obamacare to see that it was an attempt to solve a very real problem. Solving society’s most vexing real problems doesn’t seem to be important to today’s power-coveting conservatives.

Instead, they invent a problem to solve, as they have with voter fraud legislation in several states. Their answer to global climate change is, “Drill, baby, drill!" Their solution for the economic meltdown that put millions out of their jobs is to unshackle Wall Street's bankers from pesky regulations.

Famously, Romney’s 2008 advice about the automobile industry was, “Let Detroit go bankrupt.”

From today’s GOP, instead of a fresh vision for America's future, we’re just getting more political kitsch. Ayn Rand, indeed!

Yes, it’s the same old song and dance -- let’s do the Time Warp forever.

-- 30 --

The Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand connection

"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, 

if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand." 

-- Rep. Paul Ryan

After years of touting writer Ayn Rand's considerable influence on him, it seems that in recent months Paul Ryan has been trying to distance himself from her. We can only guess at what brought about this change of heart in Ryan. And, I have to doubt such a flip-flop bothered Mitt Romney much.

If anyone has to be tolerant of such maneuvers it's Romney, who has twisted himself into a virtual pretzel, distancing himself from various inconvenient aspects of his past.

And, I'm already seeing conservatives vehemently denying the connection between Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand. Now I've got a hunch we're going to see a lot more of that down the road. So here's another link with more background.

No regional cooperation means no baseball stadium

Baseball in the Bottom is back in the news. The zombie of two failed campaigns to build a baseball stadium in Shockoe Bottom walks again. No doubt, there will be much said about that zombie in coming months.

A commentary piece supporting the concept of building a downtown baseball stadium appeared in Sunday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Absent regional partners, it is time for the city to grab the reins and move the ballpark project forward on its own, in partnership with the business community and the Squirrels. Freed from the prerequisite that the stadium be on the Boulevard, the city should do what is in the best interests of the city, the region and the Squirrels. That means choosing a site that is downtown.

Click here to read the entire piece.

Meanwhile, just because people keep bragging about what a perfect economic driver baseball will be if you put it here, or there, doesn’t make any of it true.

Using minor league baseball to fix the perceived problems of a blighted neighborhood probably won’t work and saying it has worked that way in several other markets isn’t true. Comparing what has happened in minor league cities with Major League Baseball's history is a reach.

Even though some dreamers (who usually are not baseball fans) think having a downtown baseball stadium would be so cool, that’s just not a good enough reason to ask the city’s taxpayers to help with the financing of a far-flung development -- financing designed mostly to reduce the risk for a few land barons and developers.

Let’s face it, as long as the City of Richmond won’t allow Henrico County and Chesterfield County fair representation on the Richmond Metropolitan Authority's board, any talk about regional cooperation to build ANYTHING under its auspices is a waste of time.

As long as people keep chattering about building something that isn't really going to be built, the controversy always kicks up more dust to distract us voters from demanding that City Hall do more to fix the underlying problem -- lack of cooperation with the surrounding counties. The RMA’s board has 11 members. One is a state appointee. Six members represent Richmond. Two represent Chesterfield; two represent Henrico.

The sparsely populated counties went along with this configuration 50 years ago. Now times have changed and Richmond’s refusal to recognize reality and share power more evenly has caused the spirit of regional cooperation to seize up. Mayor Jones would like you to not notice this, so we get more distractions, instead of solutions.

Richmond's next baseball stadium should be built where it will best serve baseball fans, without imposing unduly on neighbors who could care less about baseball. So far, the Diamond's location on the Boulevard seems to work. It may not be the best possible location, if we could literally build its replacement wherever we like. But we can't do that; zombies notwithstanding, we must choose from what's available.

And, like it or not, a good number of the Flying Squirrels fans won't follow them to the Bottom. How will the ball club replace those lost fans? By moving across town can the Squirrels create new fans who will go to games regularly?

Maybe, but without enough baseball fans going to the 70-some home games the Squirrels play every season the team will leave Richmond, no matter what part of town a new stadium calls home.

Then the merchants nestled up to an empty stadium, those that had blithely hopped on the build-it-and-they-will-come baseball bandwagon, will have big problem and so will the chumps stuck with paying off all the money that was borrowed to build it.

Out of sight, out of mind?

President George W. Bush in happier times 

Beyond the burgeoning problem his hidden tax returns are causing him today, a significant sign that Mitt Romney won’t win in November is that he doesn’t want George W. Bush or Dick Cheney at the GOP’s upcoming convention. Remember how denial of Bill Clinton worked out for Al Gore in 2000?

Yet when you look at Romney’s 2012 policy positions it seems he means to return the Bush administration’s ways to the White House. That would be largely the same blind arrogance and set of billionaire-enriching policies that launched a war over a convenient mirage, then drove America’s economy into the deepest ravine since the 1930s.

So, it appears that Romney’s strategy this election year is two-pronged:

No. 1 is to dupe the non-billionaire voters into forgetting the horrible mess Bush and Cheney left for Barack Obama to clean up, by keeping those two inconvenient Republicans in undisclosed locations, nowhere near the convention hall in Tampa.

No. 2 is to invoke misty-eyed memories of Ronald Reagan's "shining city on a hill" every time anyone asks about previous Republican administrations.

The obvious head-on-a-pole solution

If I could show you how to cure some of the worst problems we face today -- including the snowballing national debt -- and not cost the taxpayers a cent, would you be interested?

My plan would call for just one public execution a year. Its purpose would be to cure diseases, educate the poor, prevent wars AND to erase America's red ink problem. To do all that just one richly deserving person would die each year.

Although I'm ordinarily opposed to capital punishment, here's how it would work:

First we would make a list of all the billionaires who live in, or do most of their business in, the USA. Their names would then be put on a ballot. The ballots and ballot boxes would be put in convenience stores all over the country. The same ballots would be available online, as would virtual ballot boxes. Each person over 17 years old would get to vote for the bad billionaire they choose. All year long everyone would be eligible to vote once a month, regardless of their immigration status.

The billionaire who gets the most votes for being the worst billionaire would be arrested by a SWAT team and executed by guillotine on last second of Dec. 31st.

America's cities would bid to have the execution, like the Olympics, with the money going into the Social Security trust fund. The execution and the mammoth party that would surround it would be carried live on television from the city that wins the bid. Big budget commercials would bring in more dough.

Afterward, the billionaire's head will be put on a tall pole for all to see, where it would stay for one year. Then, for the next new year the new head would go up. Out of respect for the dead, the old head would be turned over to the billionaire's family after its year on a pole is over.

Meanwhile, the rest of the billionaires everywhere would take note, no doubt. They would basically have a couple of choices to keep their head from being selected to be the next one to sit atop the pole:

1: Turn enough money over to the federal government to escape the list of billionaires. That money could go to public education and building a fast train national railway system.

2: If they want to remain a billionaire, then they need to use their money to do good works and curry favor with voters who hang around convenience stores, or those stay online all day.

So, if you are a billionaire, let’s say you’ve got $50 billion, you could choose to give away $49.1 billion, to get off the hook. Or, you could take a chance on spending a few billion on curing cancer, or AIDS. Or, you could throw some large money at feeding orphans, or on bringing peace to the Mideast.

Maybe you’d pick a particular line of work, say all the musicians in a state, and pay their rent for one year.

Busy billionaires would naturally buy lots of ads in magazines and newspapers, to promote what good deeds they’re doing, in order to increase their chances of keeping their heads on their respective shoulders. So, this deal could save our favorite inky wretches from extinction, too.

Accordingly, crime rates would drop. The research for new green-friendly technologies would be fully funded. Better recreational drugs with no hangovers ought to be developed. Every kid who wants a new puppy would get one. And, publishers would have enough money to pay freelance writers a decent fee for their work.

Each year would start out with a visible symbol on top of a that special pole, a martyr of a sort, showing us all why we should be good to one another. Problem solved.

-- Art and satirical words by F.T. Rea

The sky is falling on Chick-Fil-A

At VCU basketball games I've covered, a couple of times Chick-Fil-A sandwiches were offered to the working press. Yes, on top of the free seat on press row, or in the press box, colleges feed meals to the credentialed media reps for covering their games, IF you get there early enough. The same is true at conference tournaments.

So I know what a Chick-Fil-A standard chicken sandwich tastes like and I can easily live without another one, even if it's free.

But as the story of political chicken sandwiches flaps in the breeze of popular culture lots of folks who ordinarily ignore political news are noticing it. While lovers of the sandwich, or those who want to support anything that bashes the citizens they hate, show their support for Chick-Fil-A, VCU is noticing this brouhaha, too.

So are all the other universities. So are many organizations that care about their images.

The more Chick-Fil-A is depicted by rightwingers as a victim in this game, the more Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Days there are, the longer this story’s legs get.

The more culture war supporters of Chick-Fil-A begin to resemble sign-carrying members of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church the less any organization with any sense of reality in 2012 will want to be identified with the views of Dan Cathy, who apparently speaks for his father’s Atlanta-based company. And, he speaks for turning back the hands of time.

Yes, the enthusiastic supporters of Chick-Fil-A are going to buy a lot of sandwiches today -- cha-ching! -- but by doing so they are enlarging the ugly story, which in the long run isn’t going to help Chick-Fil-A at all.

What's the sound of a cash register not being used?

Forget about the ads depicting parachuting Chick-Fil-A cows dropping into a football stadium. Now Chick-Fil-A is dropping the public relations equivalent of cow pies, instead.

The sky itself is falling on Chick-Fil-A's future at its 1,615 stores in 39 states. It’s going to be way too easy for VCU and the athletic departments at many other schools to order pizzas for the guys on press row.