Not Me

"Who broke the wine glass in the kitchen sink?"
"Not me."
"Who left the toilet seat up?"
"Not me."
"Who's responsible for the mess the economy is in?"
"Not me."

Are you like me and have tuned out the noise about the election? Fingers point everywhere but at the speaker's own chest. It's always someone else's fault. I will grow old waiting for a politician to take responsibility.

Who's fault is the economy? Everyone's, with no small help from many different administrations. Government overspends. And spends on the wrong thing too many times.

TARP, set up by Bush II, had to be administered by Obama. Some of it worked; some of it didn't. I don't hear a calm voice looking at each million dollars spent, reporting back to the voters where it went, how much we were paid back, etc. I hear one candidate saying "he did everything wrong." I hear another saying "not me."

If we hadn't bailed out GM and Chrysler, how many jobs would have been lost? One candidate says the managed bankruptcy should have been supported through private equity, but I don't think a Bain Capital would have been willing to write a check. The managed bankruptcy was bailed out by the taxpayers. One candidate, who didn't like the bailout, now takes responsibility. "I always said GM should go into bankruptcy and I was right." Sorta.

The list is endless. I grow depressed thinking about it.

Do you have children? Were you a child once? Do you remember when your mother realized for the first time that you were growing up? Do you? What was the turning point?

For my mother and me, it was the first time I said, "I broke it" rather than "it got broke.

Isn't it time for our government officials to take the high road and grow up?

It's All About Values and Ethics

It's all about values. It's all about ethics. It's all about wanting something so badly you're willing to compromise both values and ethics to get it.

This happens all the time in politics. The dreadful term, flip-flopper, haunts politicians from John Kerry to Mitt Romney to Newt Gingrich to Rick Santorum. The term itself implies no one can learn, no one can change his mind following the input of new data. Scientists change their positions all the time. With new experiments, new photographs from space, new studies into how drugs work in the body -- all allow thinking people to learn, modify their positions, and publish new findings that expand knowledge.

Sports teams want to win. Now we learn that the New Orleans Saints wanted to win so badly they put bounties on opponents with the goal of knocking the players out of the game. Players kicked in money to pay the "winner" who injured an opponent. Coaches knew about the bounties and did nothing to stop the system. The head coach, Sean Payton, wanted a Super Bowl so badly he was willing to compromise his value and ethics to get the ring.

Or did he? Is Sean Payton one of those coaches who would literally do anything to win? It looks like it. This isn't over. More information will come forth during investigations. Will that expand our knowledge? Will it help us learn from Payton's mistakes? Will Payton learn from his mistakes? Or will he try to blame someone else rather than taking responsibility for his team's actions? Will he admit he compromised his values and ethics? Will he apologize to the team's fans? Will the fans accept they had a rogue coach? Or did the fans also want the ring so badly they will overlook a few bumps and bruises that could have been career-ending for those on whom the bounty rested?

Have we compromised our ethics and values for so long that few see Payton and his coaches' behavior as wrong? Have we?

Fakes, Shams and Exaggerators

Like most of my friends, I'm pretty fed up with fakes, shams and exaggerators. I don't think they are the same, but there is adequate room for overlap.

So the fakes first. I see them as people who have a job, take on a specific challenge and then back off from the challenge and don't do anything. Think about the super committee. These guys are fakes. They promised to write new legislation reducing our national debt and then rolled over and fell prey to the lobbyists and party muscle and did nothing. Oh, they met. They postured. They squabbled. But in the end, they didn't do the job they promised to do. Of course, they are members of Congress, as disfunctional group of elected officials as I've seen in a long time. Wouldn't it e great if We the People could lock them out, like the owners did the overpaid one-percenters who play pro basketball? Once again I have to remind Congress that you aren't doing the job of this "People."

Next are the shams. These people call us a dozen times a day trying to pry another dollar out of our pockets for some cause or other. Most of the causes may be valid, but so little of the funds donated by phone reach the cause. Those telephone beggars get paid, you know. I prefer to donate to a cause I can see face to face.

I realize that some of the shams believe they are doing good. There was a Catholic priest in New York City who ran Covenant House, a shelter for runaway and street teens. We donated to his cause for years. Then the newspapers broke the story that the priest molested several runaways. He got thousands off the streets but became a sham when he kept a few for his own purposes.

Let's look at the exaggerators. I just finished reading Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. I knew that Mortenson had been exposed for not keeping good records about the schools he built in Afghanistan. When CBS's Sixty Minutes sent a camera crew to many of the schools, they found many Mortenson claimed to have built never were constructed. Others were storage units for animal fodder. Millions poured into his Central Asia Institute, which is now under scrutiny. Great idea, good results when Mortenson was working small. But when he expanded, he lost control. His book is compelling. Too bad it's as much fiction as adoration. There must be facts there, but they are clouded by the facts.

I'll spare you my rant about politicians on this holiday eve. Oh, wait. Many fit all three categories. Especially when they are running for president. I may have to rethink sparing you the rant. That's material for another post on another day.