Chan Lowe

Gov. Charlie's shine starts to tarnish

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:18:17 -0500

Of all the office walls in all the world, Gov. Charlie's fifteen chummy photos have to show up on Scott Rothstein's. Even our notoriously Teflon-coated governor may have a hard time slithering out of this one, although one of my editorial board colleagues insists that there is virtually nothing that will keep him out of the U.S. Senate seat currently being warmed for him. Still, the double-talking will be fun to watch. While Charlie is probably too dim to be that crooked--and just got burned like everybody else who allegedly fell under Rothstein's spell--photos like these (and this cartoon is based on a real one--Charlie's birthday party) are a potent reinforcement of the kind of simplistic connections that resonate with the average voter. Let's sit back with our popcorn and watch what Marco Rubio makes of all this.

Chan Lowe: No presidential slack

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:27:35 -0500

One thing Mr. Obama has learned about being president is that nobody ever cuts you an inch of slack. When he went to Denmark to argue Chicago's case for the Olympics, he was criticized for using up all that aviation fuel and coming home empty-handed. Had he not gone, he would have been accused of not doing all he could to help out a great American city. Another example: Now the gay rights movement is upset at him for not going up to Maine and making the pitch against repeal of that state's gay marriage law. They feel that it's just one more in a long string of Obama disappointments related to their cause. They might want to remember that Obama always said he was against gay marriage. He prefers civil unions with all the rights pertaining thereto, to use the dry legalistic phrase. Gays have plenty to be disgruntled about--it looks like "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is still in place despite his assurances to the contrary--but Obama's silence on gay marriage should come as no surprise. With so many other irons in the fire, Obama has had to perform some painful triage in order to get his top priorities accomplished. It's hard, understandably, for interest groups to accept that their top priorities may not be his. Maybe this is one of the reasons presidents serve four-year terms, to force a restless public to be patient. If Obama still hasn't delivered by 2012, then those with a grievance have a remedy. I wish them the best of luck with the Republican To Be Named Later. So does Barack Obama, which is probably why he made the political calculation he did. It's cruel, but that's politics.

Chan Lowe: World's fastest land creatures

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:19:18 -0500

Politicians’ never-ending grovel for campaign funds can be a treacherous business. You never know when those bucks might suddenly turn radioactive, and give you a nasty burn on the butt. One of the more interesting--yet unsurprising--aspects of the Scott Rothstein affair is how liberally he salted all sides of the political spectrum. Since pols sell themselves relatively cheaply, it’s money well spent to simply stuff some in every available pocket. It’s win-win for the donor, and any losses are but a miniscule cost of doing business. Now the voters are treated to protestations from our all-too-accommodating public servants that he’s so unfamiliar they wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a one-man police lineup, and that they’d return every cent he ever gave them if they just knew who the legitimate recipient might be. With friends like those, he would have been better off staying in Casablanca.

The Age of Ponzi

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:44:49 -0500

To quote Sonny Corleone out of context, "It's time to go to the mattresses!" As in: to stuff one's money in, since it doesn't seem like you can trust anybody to invest it for you without ripping you off. Evidently, there are financial investment scams going on all the time, but as long as the economy is strong, the scammers can keep attracting new investors to pay off the old ones. One wag-- I think it was Warren Buffett--said, "It's when the tide is going out that you find out who isn't wearing a bathing suit." As someone whose idea of a wise investment is buying a used car that is less than ten years old, I have to admit to some schadenfreude when I hear of wealthy players who are lured into a scheme with promises of impossible returns in a short period of time. "Invest four million today, and in a year, it'll be worth FIVE! Absolutely no risk! A sure bet!" Maybe it's just that some of us don't have a lot of loose change to go risking it on a venture, no matter how ironclad the guarantees. We're too busy spending it on things like food and electricity. So when somebody takes a massive hit at the hands of a crook, we say that maybe it's some karmic force's way of leveling the playing field when it has gotten too far out of whack.

Chinese drywall to take out?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:53:58 -0500

Even for Florida, where shoddy workmanship is the hallmark of excellence, this is egregious. You move into your beautiful new tract home and discover that the walls make you and your kids sick, tarnish your jewelry, and probably most important of all, screw up the air conditioner. You go to the developer who sold you this elephant, and he's oh so sorry, but to gut the house would cost him $100,000 or more, and to fix all the homes he's built would put him out of business. You hear that Obama will be talking to the Chinese next month about making good on their cheesy product, but you realize that he isn't going to get anywhere with them because for manufacturers to back up their goods, they have to actually care about their reputation for quality. They know as well as you do that you only buy their junk because it's cheap. The feds say maybe they'll free up some HUD money to compensate, but you have to be poor to qualify. A nice Catch-22, because no poor person could have afforded your house. The insurance people say it's a manufacturing defect, not an act of God, so not only isn't it covered, they're going to cancel your sorry a-- for even asking about it. Your only recourse is my nifty little kit, shown here. Get your neighbors to buy one too, and make it a block party. Kids'll love it, and it's great for building neighborhood cohesion.

Chan Lowe: Obama and the Afghan whirlpool

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:06:27 -0500

This is one of those times when you wonder why anybody would want to be president, much less spend years of his or her life running for the job. I remember the 2000 campaign, and drawing a cartoon commenting on how Al Gore had been preparing all his life to be president. He would probably not take a loss well. Bush, on the other hand, looked like somebody who'd been drafted because his brother was defeated when running for governor of his state, which happened to be the case. After losing, he would probably shrug and say, "I tried, Daddy!" and happily go back to running his baseball team. To him, being President was all about the cool plane and getting to wear that nifty windbreaker with the presidential seal on the chest. The rest--sadly--is history. There is no upside to the Afghan war. We won't know when we've won, but we may well know if we've lost. Like Vietnam, it could go on and on, ensnared in the tentacles of geo- and domestic politics. Not something you'd want to be commander-in-chief for in your worst nightmares.

Chan Lowe: Corruption's long tentacle

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:38:43 -0500

Ah, yes...if you have friends, you are a wealthy person indeed. Until the Federal Corruption Task Force comes a-knockin' at your door, and you find out they've all turned into witnesses for the prosecution.

Chan Lowe: White-knuckle flying

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:34:58 -0500

I had a friend who was an emergency room doctor. Along with the horrifying stories, he told me of the jokes--many of them extremely disrespectful of those placed in their care--that the staff shared in order to maintain their sanity in the face of such carnage and weirdness. They kept a running list on the wall of bizarre objects that had been found inside patients. The point is that no matter how critical or dangerous one’s job may be, it eventually becomes routine over time, and it is a constant battle to keep from dropping one’s vigil. Astronauts are trained and re-trained so that no matter what may occur, they reflexively follow procedure. Of course, they gear up for one big spaceflight at a time, so their alert systems are dialed up to the max. If you’re an airline pilot, or a heart surgeon going in to crack just another chest, it can get monotonous. Distraction is the tempting demon lurking in the wings. When we fly, we pay to put our lives in the hands of other human beings, and in return assume a certain amount of professionalism from them. It’s an article of faith, which is why this story about the breaching of that faith so quickly dominated the national consciousness. Maybe these guys would respond in a clinch with the same heroism as Capt. Sullenberger did over the Hudson when both his engines failed—that is, if they didn’t fly into a mountain first. But we’ll never know. Yanking their licenses was the least the feds could do.

Chan Lowe: selling the public option

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:11:09 -0500

It's all very clear-cut, really. Since it seems that we are to be eternally cursed with health insurance companies, polls show that most Americans like the idea of a public option--a non-profit health insurer administered by the government--to act as real competition to keep their prices in line. After all, since insurance companies are exempt from antitrust laws, and some have a virtual monopoly on their business in many states, they shouldn't have it both ways, should they? Critics complain that the public option is a Trojan horse that will eventually usher in the dreaded single-payer government health plan, and be the death of private insurers. I'm not sure where the threat lies here: it's like saying that introducing penicillin will mean the death of venereal disease. Anyway, it should please states-rights conservatives that the Democratic leadership is offering a state opt-out as a sweetener. This way, blue states can have their public option, and red states can--on principle--reject its subversive, godless, socialistic philosophical underpinnings if they want to. Of course, if the red-staters begin to notice that the blue-staters' premiums are falling precipitously, there may be a reapportionment of legislators in the next statewide elections. Money always talks, and...well, you know the rest of the expression.

Chan Lowe: Ted Deutch gets the ultimate endorsement

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:29:56 -0500

It's all over but the voting. For that matter, why don't we just install Ted Deutch as Robert Wexler's replacement by acclamation? It would save the taxpayers special election money when it could be better used elsewhere. I have nothing against Ted Deutch. He's my state senator, and hasn't done anything embarrassing, so he'd probably represent me in Washington as well as Robert Wexler--maybe better, since he actually lives in the district. The fact that Deutch has already been hand-picked by Wexler as his successor and endorsed by such local luminaries as Reps. Alcee Hastings, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Ron Klein--who all say they look forward to working with him in congress--leaves me feeling a little like an illegal alien in my own district. I live there, but I have no say in my representation. If I bother to vote, and I always do because I still naively believe in the power of voting, I may just vote for KoKo the Klown or whatever straw man (or woman) the Republicans draft to be their sacrificial lamb in the special election. If enough people share my philosophy, it will keep Deutch looking over his shoulder knowing that his mandate wasn't unanimous. This is a healthy activity for any member of congress.

Chan Lowe: NASA on the ropes

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:50:22 -0500

I was a kid when President Kennedy gave his stirring speech declaring we would go to the Moon within the decade. My friends and I could recite the names of the Mercury Seven astronauts off the tops of our heads. As Tom Wolfe observed in his book, The Right Stuff, they were like the single combat warriors of old--the very best our side could put forward to vanquish the foe. Their suits even looked like modern armor. We were out to prove that the American Way of Life could produce better technology and finer young men than the godless Rooskies and their evil system. Even though our great success in the spacefaring field was born out of warlike competition, there is something to be said that both sides decided duke it out in a peaceful endeavor. The first rockets those intrepid astronauts rode to the heavens were just modified ICBMs, an updated version of beating swords into plowshares. At least we weren't using them to kill each other. I recently took a tour of Cape Canaveral. The tour touted the space shuttle program, but the focus was on the Saturn moon rocket, which last flew in missions over 30 years ago. I wanted to see the original pad that launched the Redstone rockets carrying the Mercury astronauts aloft in the 1960s, but they didn't even include it on the tour. Evidently, there is nothing to see now but cracked concrete and weeds. Most people just don't care anymore, someone told me.

Chan Lowe: Tone-deafness on Wall Street

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:06:30 -0500

"Tone deaf" doesn't begin to describe it. The Masters of the Universe screwed up so badly in their pursuit of lucre that they had to be rescued by the very groundlings they so despise. And what's the first thing they do with other people's money? The same thing they've always done--reward themselves for just being who and where they are. They like to say that they create wealth. This is the great justification for being the middlemen who siphon off their cut for passing money along the pipeline. Real wealth is created by the factory workers who claw minerals from the earth, who smelt steel, who build things, and who deliver them to market. Without their sweat, there is no surplus to manipulate. The financial people say that they should be rewarded for taking risks. You know what risk is? Risk is getting laid off and gambling that your kids won't get catastrophically ill or hurt during the time you're not covered by health insurance you can no longer afford. Sure, investment is a risky business. But when investors lose something, it's symbolic. Chances are they can still go home to a hot meal in their lovely home in Greenwich. They haven't lost their livelihood, or their health. Their children don't go hungry. They've taken a hit, that's all. Tomorrow they'll recoup. But having the courage to take that risk is worth tens, maybe hundreds of millions. Why is this? Just ask them.

Chan Lowe cartoon: Karzai brings in the heavy artillery

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:41:29 -0500

Katherine Harris is surely one of the top five gifts to editorial cartoonists in the last ten years, two of the others being Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. Any excuse I can come up with to bring this one-of-a-kind individual out of mothballs makes for a red-letter work day. Katherine, I miss you so... 'Nuff said.

Chan Lowe cartoon: Local corruption

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:42:36 -0500

Corruption in South Florida is a lot like cosmetic surgery. Look around here and there's no shortage of face-lifts. Many--to be charitable--are simply obvious. Some are horrendous, others are flat-out botched. Ever visited New York City? There are probably as many face-lifts per capita up there as there are in South Florida, only you don't notice them as much because the quality of the work is so much better. Up in the Big Apple, it's commonly understood that many of the plastic surgeons who aren't good enough to succeed there or in Southern California head to Florida, where there's plenty of demand but the standards are lower (this is not to impugn the good ones who have chosen to call our little Garden of Eden home). Like cosmetic surgery, corruption is an art form. In New York, they practice corruption with subtlety and nuance. They create gossamer layers of obscurity that befuddle the most discerning law enforcement operatives. A public official who skillfully conceals his or her "understandings" can go years, even decades, without a whiff of suspicion. Here in Florida, you scratch the surface and you find unsophisticated, easy-to-expose, ugly relationships, like spouses of public servants being retained by contractors doing business with the same public entities. They're hanging out there in all their hideous glory, like the blonde whirling around in the supermarket aisle whose drumhead-taut countenance causes you to gasp in horror. This kind of sloppy workmanship would never pass muster up north. But this is Florida, where--as they say--the standards are lower.

Chan Lowe cartoon: Child exploitation

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:47:59 -0500

While we're all tut-tutting about what a lowlife slimeball Richard Heene is for allegedly concocting a hoax involving his six-year-old son ("Falcon"...it's as though he'd been planning this thing from the kid's birth) in order to enrich himself, let's remember the circumstances that even made the scheme possible. "Reality" shows succeed or fail based upon whether they are able to adequately satisfy our inner voyeur. We watch Jon & Kate, Wife Swap and Supernanny because (a) our lives are so dull that we hungrily substitute someone else's experiences for our own, and/or (b) it makes us feel superior to watch people whose lives are relatively out of control when ours are not. Or maybe it's (c) something else. I'm sure an irate fan of the genre will enlighten me. Anyway, there's money to be made if you can just come up with the right gimmick. You have to admit Heene was on to something, if only it hadn't fallen apart when the !@#$%^ kid broke from the script and admitted the whole thing was being done for the show. Since fame and infamy are equally valid currency in the bank of public interest these days, the Heene family is not necessarily out of the money. The important thing is that we all know who they are now, and we find them fascinating. Ironically, the uncovering of the hoax might even give them clout to demand a bigger piece of the action. For all we know, the kid was coached to admit the "truth." A hoax within a hoax. Bra-VO!