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It is depicted in this editorial cartoon below, which shows the purported leader of the free world not only bowing but actually kissing the shoe of the shylockian Chinese leader - as if Obama were just another hapless, Third-World leader (represented here by Bahamian PM Hubert Ingraham) showing due deference to the master of his country’s economic fate.

To be sure, the cartoon takes a little creative license.  But the essential point it conveys is undeniable: America cannot stand like a superpower with China squeezing its balls in a financial vice grip!

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Shut up about Obama bowing down before royalty

Here, for example, is how Reuters began its report:

Cuba’s Raul Castro has kept the system his brother Fidel used to repress critics, refusing to free scores of people imprisoned years ago and jailing others for ‘dangerousness’.

But predicting that it would still be thus today was as reliable as predicting that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow.  In fact, here’s the foreboding I sounded after Fidel ceded power to Raul in 2006:

Cuban Americans were dancing in the streets this week upon learning that critical surgery forced Fidel Castro to transfer power to his brother Raul. However, their celebration betrayed not only how naive they are about the implications of this transfer, but also how much emotion and resources they have vested in this man’s eventual death…

I predict that the pragmatic Raul will emulate his new Chinese patrons by pursuing liberal economic policies while imposing even stricter political and military controls in Cuba. Indeed, friendly nations like China and Venezuela are flushed with cash and seem eager to help him develop Cuba into a Caribbean economic tiger, if only to spite the US…

[Meanwhile] it is a testament to the conceit and arrogance of Miami Cubans that they firmly believe they’ll be able to return to Cuba after Fidel dies - to inherit the political power and social privileges their ancestors abdicated decades ago.

And they assume this prerogative without any regard for the Cubans who have been toiling at home, waiting for their opportunity to govern their country. But, at this rate, a well-indoctrinated Elian Gonzalez will be Cuban dictator before Miami Cubans are disabused of their antic pining for their paradise lost….

[Dancing on Fidel's grave is not only unseemly; it's premature, TIJ, August 2, 2006]

Enough said!

Except that I would be remiss not to reiterate my admonition for Obama to demonstrate some maturity in his foreign policy towards Cuba; i.e., by ending the US embargo instead of taking baby steps like easing restrictions on travel and remittances as gestures of political good faith.

After all, continuing this failed, 50-year policy makes a mockery of his presidential mandate to usher in an era of transformational change.

In the meantime, though, completely lifting restrictions on travel, which Congress is currently debating, would constitute a pretty grown-up step … but don’t hold your breath on that.

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Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response.

A year ago today, this was how President-elect Barack Obama dismissed any thought of compromising on the deadline to sign a binding global-warming treaty at next month’s climate summit in Copenhagen.

Yet at last weekend’s summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in Singapore, he and leaders of some of the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases conceded that the only thing they will accomplish in Copenhagen is, well, to emit more hot air.  Incidentally, the US is by far the biggest polluter, but China is growing into a formidable competitor.

Here’s the spin Michael Froman, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, put on this latest setback:

There was an assessment by the leaders that it was unrealistic to expect a full, internationally legally binding agreement to be negotiated between now and when Copenhagen starts in 22 days.

But, given that, you’d think awareness of the purported urgency of combating climate change began only last year (with Obama’s election) and that negotiations on this historic Copenhagen treaty began only last month.

Whereas, in fact, the Chicken-Little nature of the efforts to combat global warming is such that I felt moved to sound this cynical note 18 months ago:

Virtually none of the countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol (adopted in 1997) - with its legally binding emissions targets - is honoring promises made in this agreement. In many cases their emissions have actually risen….

I won’t even comment on the “emissions trading” scheme, which allows rich countries to pollute all they want provided they pay poor countries (that typically pollute far less) for the privilege: a scheme eerily reminiscent of papal indulgences….

[G8 Summit: emitting more hot air about global warming..., TIJ, July 9, 2009]

In fact, the only thing surprising about this latest episode of all talk and no action on global warming is the extent to which the great expectations Obama set are coming back to haunt him.  For here’s a sample of the extraordinary reaction amongst Europeans who hailed him as a black Moses for their liberal causes:

US President Barack Obama came to office promising hope and change… Now, should the climate summit in Copenhagen fail, the blame will lie squarely with Obama.

In his Berlin speech [summer of 2008], he was dishonest with Europe [when he claimed to be a citizen of the world]. Since then, Obama has neglected the single most important issue for an American president who likes to imagine himself as a world citizen, namely, his country’s addiction to fossil fuels and the risks of unchecked climate change.

(Spiegel 11/17/2009)

This is absurd of course.  But it illustrates the extent to which disillusionment is replacing the hope Obama once inspired … worldwide.

Meanwhile, I suspect the Chinese, whose participation in this cause is indispensable, have no more regard for environmental prophecies about global warming than atheist have for religious prophecies about Armageddon. This is why, even though they’ll talk about combating climate change, as Chinese President Hu Jintao did in Beijing at a joint press performance with Obama yesterday, they will never sign on to any binding global treaty.

With that, my sympathies go out to all of the true believers who must now fret about the world coming to an end in four years. After all, this is what no less a person than Al Gore warned, er, prophesied just days ago would be the case if world leaders fail to act.

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_____________________

I understand that Douglas Parnell, the newly elected leader of the PDM, is still pleading for a referendum to resolve the burgeoning crisis over the NHIP.  I respect his initiative; but I’m afraid it is hopelessly misguided.

First of all, through press releases as well as numerous acts of commission (and omission), our British caretakers (the FCO) and Interhealth Canada have already made it painfully clear that they intend to implement this NHIP … public opinion be damned!

Perhaps our friends who initiated online petitions to help resolve this crisis can explain to Mr Parnell how little public opinion matters to these folks.

Then, alas, there’s his logical fallacy of decrying the British for running a Cuban-style dictatorship on the one hand, whilst crying for them to hold a referendum to further his political initiative on the other. Indeed, you’d think Mr Parnell would be instructed by the fact that the Castro brothers have never held a single referendum against their declared interests during their 50-year rule.

Though, to be fair, his logical fallacy is actually surpassed by that being exhibited by Interhealth Canada. For its managers seem to think that the best way to foster corporate good will in TCI is to act as if they’ve been contracted to build an Iranian-style nuclear reactor instead of a Canadian-style healthcare system.

Frankly, given all of the above, it seems elementary that the national boycott I called for on Monday offers the only hope we have of forcing the FCO and Interhealth Canada to show any regard for our concerns. 

And there is a way that Mr Parnell and others - who are vying for the reins of power when the term of this Interim Government ends - can help: They can encourage local employers to appreciate that their long-term commercial and patriotic interests would be far better served by helping us execute this boycott (as delineated in my original commentary on Monday) than by doing the corporate bidding of Interhealth Canada.

That said, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge that some TCIslanders actually support the implementation of this NHIP. In fact, it is well documented that a few have a pecuniary interest in seeing it done. 

I understand that Robert Hall, the new (putative) leader of the PNP, is the most notable supporter. But I do not see how impugning the character and patriotism of those who do not support this NHIP advances his cause.

For example, I am reliably informed that Mr Hall used his radio programme on Monday to challenge my call for this boycott.  And I gather that the essence of fulminations can be summed up as follows:  Anthony should go fly a kite because he’s no real TCIslander and has no business even commenting on the NHIP.

Accordingly, I shall suffice only to note that Mr Hall seems to think the best way to emulate Michael Misick as premier is by parroting his political rhetoric, including his antic diatribes about the birthright of TCIslanders, like me, who do not reside in the TCI. 

But considering where that provincial he’s-not-one-of-us nonsense got our former (disgraced and soon to be indicted) premier, Mr Hall would be wise to change his campaign strategy.

In the meantime, I think he would serve his listeners far better by commenting on the things I say instead of propagating ignorant and unsustainable claims about my right to say them.

With that, I appeal to all of our political, economic, social and religious leaders of good faith to help us mobilize this boycott based on the categorical imperative that together we shall stand, but divided we shall surely fall.

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Now these “dittoheads” have the main stream media propagating their fulminations about the shame Obama supposedly caused the United States by “bowing down to the Japanese Emperor” during his visit to Japan a couple days ago. 

And to give credence to their jingoistic indignation, they’ve published a video of cynically edited still shots, which capture other world leaders greeting the emperor with an upright handshake but Obama doing so with a deep-waist bow.

Meanwhile, they all seem to have forgotten how Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, held hands with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and fawned all over him like a love-sick schoolgirl.

Frankly, to say this is much ado about nothing risks dignifying this criticism.

All the same, I believe it is important to reinforce the fact that it’s a sign of engaging strength for the most powerful man on the planet to show such respect for local protocol and customs wherever he travels. 

Unfortunately, this concept is hopelessly lost on these partisan idiots who would clearly prefer to see their American president strut all over the world like a conquering military general. Instead of criticizing Obama, they really should learn some manners….

That said, I just HOPE Obama’s handlers do not respond to criticisms about this bow before the Japanese emperor with the same, patently absurd spin they proffered in response to criticisms about his bow before the Saudi king earlier this year, which I commented on as follows:

His critics charge that Obama displayed a “shocking display of fealty to a foreign potentate” by bowing to Abdullah. But his press spokesman, Robert Gibbs, insisted yesterday that:

‘It wasn’t a bow … [the president] bent over and grasped his hands with both hands [as a gesture of respect], and he’s taller than King Abdullah.’

As disappointed as I am with his critics for making their patently absurd charge, I am even more disillusioned with Obama’s handlers for putting this Clintonian spin on such an egregious gaffe: He clearly bowed!

[Mr President, did you bend or did you bow, TIJ, April 10, 2009]

Enough said.

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That said, I have refrained from commenting on the conduct of the interim government of HE Governor Gordon Wetherell since it took over three months ago  (i.e., with the notable exception of a recent commentary on the belated dismissal of rape allegations against former Premier Michael Misick). I did so because I felt this new government deserved a transitional period free of presumptuous advice, gratuitous praise or overzealous criticism.

Over this period, however, I have watched in dismay as burgeoning public opposition to a new National Health Insurance Plan (NHIP) has rendered all other government initiatives practically irrelevant. 

Frankly, criticisms about the propriety, cost and provisions of this NHIP have become so defiant that one could be forgiven the impression that it is actually a Trojan Horse for the imposition of a British dictatorship.  Indeed, it’s a testament to this irrational distrust that the most influential members of both political parties in the TCI are now condemning Governor Wetherell as a (malevolent) dictator.

Of course nothing could be further from the truth.  Yet I fear that instructions the Governor is receiving from his bosses at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in London are feeding into patently contrived efforts to undermine this Interim Government.

Specifically, I have no doubt that the FCO has instructed the Governor to implement the NHIP, as is, despite untenable flaws.   And, as any sensible Governor in his position would, he is trying dutifully to comply.  (This, incidentally, makes the condemnation of Wetherell referenced above as uninformed as it is mean-spirited.)

Nevertheless, there’s no denying that the implementation of this NHIP has been marked by adhesive decrees, stupefying obfuscation, and brazen contradictions, all of which have made a mockery of the Governor’s pledge to run a transparent and accountable government.  Not to mention that material terms and provisions in the contract for this NHIP seem borne of either corrupt intent or rank incompetence.

But, alas, we should not be surprised.  After all, the Governor is being instructed by the same ilk of bureaucrats at the FCO whose salutary neglect enabled the Misick government to turn our country into the Zimbabwe of the Caribbean.

The only question now is:  What recourse do we have, short of calling for another British intervention, to compel the FCO to reconsider implementing this NHIP; especially given all of the prohibitive concerns informed people, including investigative journalists, medical practitioners, civil servants and citizen activists, have expressed?

Clearly, online petitions have not worked.  And individual, disparate threats to boycott the NHIP simply do not convey the critical mass of opposition that would compel not only the FCO but also the company contracted to implement this plan, Interhealth Canada, to take heed.

Therefore, I propose the following:

This Thursday, November 19, everyone employed in the TCI should hand deliver a cease-and-desist letter instructing his/her employer to refrain from deducting NHIP contributions to the National Insurance Board (NIB) from your paycheck. Self-employed individuals and unemployed permanent residents should deliver similar letters directly to the NIB on their own behalf.

For your information, this letter could read simply as follows:

November 19, 2009

Dear [Sir/Madam]

Please be advised that I have conscientious objections to being enlisted in the NHIP - as currently drafted and mandated. 

Therefore, I hereby instruct you to refrain from deducting any portion of my paycheck for NHIP contribution to the NIB until further notice.

Sincerely,

[Sign then print name]

In turn, I admonish all employers to be no less willing to help us execute this nonviolent civil boycott than you were to help the government impose this unconscionable plan upon us.

But, my fellow TCIslanders, please be mindful that if only a few people take this principled stand, the government could easily impose fines and dismiss us as uninformed and misguided troublemakers. If we all participate, however, the government and Interhealth Canada will have no choice but to modify the NHIP contract on terms that better serve our physical and financial well being: Together we stand, divided we fall….

If these actions are taken, I have no doubt that this crisis will be resolved with relatively little consequential or collateral damage.   And, trust me, not even a Misick government would countenance denying anyone healthcare services in retaliation for his/her participation in this boycott.

But who would’ve thought that the Governor’s attempt to implement healthcare reform in the TCI would precipitate a greater national crisis here than President Obama’s efforts to do the same in the US has precipitated there…?

At any rate, I find our current state of affairs particularly ominous because the defiance being expressed could have the collateral effect of so hardening public opinion against this Interim Government that attempts to implement far more contentious, but equally important, constitutional reforms in due course will prove virtually impossible.

Therefore, no matter the legal and purported financial consequences, it behooves the Governor to cite this national boycott as a veritable force majeure which necessitates immediate modification of this NHIP contract. If Interhealth Canada refuses to renegotiate, then he can seek judicial declaration that the contract is void as against public policy.

As a practicing attorney, I have an abiding regard for the sanctity of contracts. But I also know that it is a long-settled principle of English common law that contracts can be declared void on moral, equitable and practical grounds.

Meanwhile, it feels like “déjà vu all over again.” In fact, the FCO has allowed this one policy to cause such disillusionment with the Interim Government to fester that the BBC’s Mike Thompson began a report last week on the simmering crisis it has wrought as follows:

Looking out across the sparkling turquoise waters that lap these golden palm-treed sands all seems well in the beautiful Turks and Caicos Islands. But storm clouds have been gathering ever since the British government dissolved the local Parliament here and restored direct rule from London following claims of high level corruption and misrule.  And three months on, the smell of mutiny hangs heavily in the air.

Granted, Thompson may be guilty of “sexing up” his report for dramatic effect. But only an FCO bureaucrat - who comes to our shores only to plant his head firmly in our “palm-treed sand” - could fail to notice the restive national mood he depicts.

Accordingly, I shall end with this plea to the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) - upon whose members it finally fell to rescue us from the open and notorious reign of corruption and misrule that members of the FCO simply refused to see:

Please prevail upon the FCO to do whatever is necessary to empower Governor Wetherell to resolve this crisis without further delay. Because we are fast approaching a tipping point where public confidence in and support for this Interim Government will be irretrievably lost.

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And since I know that my 14 siblings - inspired by my big brother Christy - all feel the way I do, I pay this loving tribute on their behalf as well.

So here’s to Olive Caroline Louise Hall, who continues to be in death as she was in life - the primary motivation for all that I do, for all that I am and for all that I will ever be:

My Mummy died ten years ago,
Yet she lives like the winds that blow.

She is the sunrise that begins each new day,
She is the sunset that takes one’s breath away.

Like spring rain, she still nurtures me,
Like fall breeze, her spirit roams free.

She is the soothing wave that comes ashore,
She is the scolding voice that says, ‘no more!’

Like the stars, she still guides my feet,
Like the moon, her glow’s a real treat.

My Mummy may be dead and gone,
But so much of her still lives on.

[S]ince I was rooting for Brazil, my shock turned immediately to vindication because I knew that Chicago’s loss meant that Rio’s win was inevitable. 

[Olympic 2016..., TIJ, October 3, 2009]

But I thought it was ominous when 60 Minutes reported on Sunday that Brazil’s power grid is so susceptible to attack that hackers have plunged Rio and other cities into darkness with relative ease.  

After all, what better time to launch a terrorist attack than during an orchestrated blackout at the Olympic Games?  Indeed, the potential for carnage and terror under such circumstances would make what happened at the 1972 Munich Games seem like an ordinary drive-by shooting in LA.

Now come news reports that:

A massive power failure swept over Brazil’s two largest cities Tuesday night along with other parts of Latin America’s largest nation, leaving millions of people [60M] in the dark.

Frankly, whether by hackers or because of a reported breakdown at the country’s hydroelectric dam, the timing of these latest blackouts must be as troubling for IOC officials as it is embarrassing for Brazilian authorities.

More to the point, reports are that IOC members are now thinking that Madrid, the runner up for 2016, might be a more reliable host city…. 

But I’m sure cooler heads will prevail and that Brazilians will be given time to provide adequate assurances that they can keep their city electrified (in every sense) during the Olympic Games.  And it is fortuitous in this respect that hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2014 can now serve as a de facto dress rehearsal for 2016 (for Brazil, but for the terrorists too…).

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…if you’re thinkin’ about my baby, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white.

For it clearly mattered to him; just as it does to far too many blacks throughout the Americas and all over Africa who have used bleaching agents to make themselves look more white than black.

Now, “just like Mike,” former baseball superstar Sammy Sosa has become the poster boy for this insidious act of self-loathing.  Though, comparing a picture of him taken last year with one taken just last week, Sammy’s racial transmogrification appears even more dramatic.

And, by the way, it’s a whitewash to assert that the steroids he used during his career suddenly turned his skin white after he retired - when, conveniently, he’s no longer exposed to the summer sun on the baseball field that would frustrate the effects of his “skin rejuvenation.”  After all, if steroids were the cause, almost all black football players and most black baseball players would be sporting Mike’s synthetic white pigmentation.

Meanwhile, I’m sure Sammy and his enablers have an equally persuasive explanation for why he has suddenly begun wearing green contact lenses too.

Frankly, the only question is why, Sammy, why?

Of course, his answer to this question would undoubtedly be every bit as truthful and insightful as the answer Michael gave to the question about the paternity of his (white) children.  (He always insisted, as if in a terminal state of delusional fantasy, that he was their biological father.)

But anyone who understands why light-skinned slaves were assigned to the master’s house while dark-skinned ones were relegated to the fields will understand why blacks like Sammy still covet identification with and acceptance by their perceived racial betters.  And, alas, they probably consider the fact that the first black president of the United States is half white as validation of their racial abnegation.

Then of course there’s the fact that Sammy (pictured here with his wife Sonia)  hails from the Dominican Republic (DR) - where a de facto racial apartheid still exists between light-skinned blacks (aka mulatos) who comprise the ruling and social elite and dark-skinned blacks who mulatos looked down upon as little more than latter-day field slaves … from Haiti.

Perhaps you recall how Spike Lee satirized the slave mentality that still causes dark-skinned blacks to feel inferior to light-skinned ones (and light-skinned blacks to feel superior) in his movie School Daze (1988).  Sadly, Oprah and Tyler Perry perpetuate this mentality by casting darker blacks as the bad characters and lighter ones as the good characters in their recently released movie Precious….

Therefore, just imagine the inferiority complex little “Black Sambo” must have suffered  growing up in the DR….

I pity him.

Specifically, Rep. Anh Cao was the only Republican in the House who voted with Democrats to pass a historic bill to overhaul the health care system 220-215. Most notably, this bill will provide health coverage to over 35 million uninsured Americans; no doubt many of whom live in Cao’s district of New Orleans.

I’ve always been focusing on making the right decisions for the people of my district, whether or not it will cost me my political future.

(Cao on his daring vote)

But where Democrats were clearly surprised by his move, Republicans were positively incensed. After all, his vote, no matter how principled, is tantamount to political treason in Washington these days.  And it’s all the more stunning given that, as a first-term Congressman, everybody expected him to go along to get along with fellow Republicans.

But then again Cao is no ordinary Congressman. 

Interestingly enough, like Obama, he was a community organizer (in Louisiana’s Vietnamese community) before entering politics.  More to the point, though, he became the darling of the Republican Party a year ago by defeating William Jefferson, a nine-term, black, Democratic Congressman, in majority-black New Orleans.

Here, in part, is how I heralded his historic election:

… I lamented [after the terminally corrupt Jefferson's last victory] not only that predominantly black voters in his district of Louisiana had missed another opportunity to redeem themselves, but also that Jefferson would be defeated only when a cow flies over the moon. 

Therefore, it came as a pleasant surprise on Saturday when Republican Anh “Joseph” Cao, a little-known Vietnamese American, defeated Jefferson

That said, I don’t know how much of a future Cao has in American politics with a name that is pronounced “cow”. Although, having defeated someone with a presidential name like William Jefferson, he’s admittedly off to a good start….

[Corrupt Jefferson finally booted from office, TIJ, December 9, 2008]

Now, alas, it’s only a matter of time before the right-wing mullahs of the Republican Party issue a political fatwa to defeat him in the Republican primaries when he runs for re-election next year. These folks have no appreciation for life imitating art in this real-life version of Mr Smith Goes to Washington.

Nevertheless, to persevere what little HOPE Obama retains of restoring bipartisanship to Washington, I hope Cao fends off not only a doctrinaire Republican challenger but also a likely black Democratic challenger next year to retain his seat.

Not to mention that rewarding Cao’s profile in courage by re-electing him might inspire other members of Congress to vote according to their conscience and in the interest of their constituents instead of according to political orthodoxy and in the interest of their respective parties.

Meanwhile, pay no attention to any of the rhetoric about this bill “going nowhere [and being] dead on arrival in the Senate.” Because, notwithstanding partisan disagreement over key provisions (like the “public option plan”), or legitimate concerns about its trillion dollar price tag, the Senate will now go through its own sausage-making process and will pass a version of this health care bill in due course.

Then I have no doubt that Congress will present Obama a reconciled health care reform bill before the end of this year. This will give him the opportunity to sign, seal and deliver on his most important campaign promise, which will also be the most significant piece of Congressional legislation since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

For, as the late Sen. Ted Kennedy always insisted, health care is a right, not a privilege….

NOTE:  Members of the main stream media would go a long way towards reclaiming their journalistic integrity if they would spend half as much time reporting on Cao’s honorable stand as they’ve spent reporting on the dishonorable antics of other members of Congress - for whom hurling puerile insults at the president or at congressional adversaries is a profile in courage.  But don’t hold your breath.

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I explained my lamentation by noting that:

… far too few government officials and reporters are bothering to assure the public that this outbreak is no more deadly than the garden-variety flu that kills over 36,000 Americans every year.  And, even though it’s a new strain, the fact that over 99% of the people infected worldwide have recovered indicates that this swine flu is no more likely to grow into a pandemic than SARS or the Avian flu.

[Swine flu causing more panic than pandemic, TIJ, April 28, 2009]

In fact the death rate from Swine flu so far is no greater than that of the seasonal flu. Therefore, it seems foolhardy that governments, particularly throughout the developing world, are depleting emergency funds to combat this phantom pandemic. Especially when simply admonishing people to wash their hands would suffice.

New estimates suggest that the death rate compares to a moderate year of seasonal influenza… I think we can say we are in a category 1 pandemic [as opposed to the highest category 6, which the WHO declared earlier this year].

(Dr Marc Lipsitch of Harvard University at a meeting of flu experts being held by the US Institute of Medicine in September)

In any case, one could be forgiven for thinking that the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) would have ensured that there was a sufficient supply of the Swine flu vaccine available at this point to administer to all individuals duly panicked by the government’s dire warnings.

Yet the media are replete these days with stories about vaccine shortages. In fact, government officials concede that they have less than a quarter of the 160 million doses they promised in July would be available by now.

Not surprisingly, this has led to lines outside flu clinics and hospitals that resemble bread lines during the Depression. 

More to the point, there’s no denying that if George W. Bush were still president, he’d be suffering a torrent of criticisms for this CDC failure.  And the most charitable criticism would have been that he clearly did not learn a damn thing from FEMA’s spectacular failures during Hurricane Katrina.

So why not Obama…?

Especially given that frustration turned to moral outrage yesterday when it was reported that a Brownie-like official in his administration made the boneheaded decision that Wall Street bankers should join healthcare workers, pregnant women and young children on the priority list of those receiving rationed doses of this highly coveted vaccine.

What an incompetent, hysterical mess!

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Preliminary reports indicated that military police killed him at the scene.  But, even though shot, he’s evidently still alive and in custody. Two other soldiers who were arrested as suspects have since been released.

Fort Hood is the largest military base in the world.  It is home to over 50,000 personnel. In providing initial insights as to motive, military commentators focused on the role Fort Hood plays not only as the place of no return for soldiers heading off to war but also as a debriefing center for those returning from war.

On the one hand, they suggested that the anxieties of an 18-year-old soldier being deployed for his first tour of duty might have triggered this massacre; while on the other, they suggested that it could have been the post-traumatic stress of a seasoned soldier coping with multiple deployments.

But I imagine this will all change, even if subtly, now that the gunman has been named as Nidal Malik Hasan. For, even though none of them would dare say so, I suspect most commentators are thinking that this gunman must have been an al Qaeda operative/sympathizer or a garden-variety Muslim fanatic.

Never mind the complicating irony that Hassan (39) is a psychiatrist who specialized in treating combat stress disorder. Also, he reportedly harbored conscientious (Islamic) objections to being deployed to fight against fellow Muslims, which he was scheduled to do on November 28.

Whatever the case, there’s no denying that the shock of having a military officer perpetrate this massacre is compounded by the fear that this perfectly sane and rational soldier might have been inspired to act by al-Qaeda propaganda.  Not to mention that it now forces military brass to wonder whether there are any others like him, simmering with jihadist fervor and just waiting to attack: beware the anti-Muslim witch hunt / backlash….

It’s difficult enough when we lose these great Americans in battles overseas. It’s horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil.

(President Obama)

Frankly, I would like to think that this “horrific outburst of violence” will compel Obama to reconsider his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. But I fear it will have no such impact.

Meanwhile, whatever Hasan’s motive is determined to be, I’ve always marveled at the fact that the post-traumatic stress of fighting in two senseless wars does not drive more soldiers to go postal….

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those affected and to all members of the US military - all of whom must be thinking there but for the grace of God….

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No storyline in the soap opera ‘As the Yankees Turn’ provides more yearly fascination than watching Steinbrenner spend obscene amounts of money to lure the best players to New York only to have them play - during the critical October pennant race and World Series - as if they were bought with phony dollar bills (and were just giving him what he paid for…).

[Fall classic: the Yankees lose again...! TIJ, October 10, 2007]

This quote should indicate how much I have reveled in chronicling the Yankees’ failure since 2000 to win the World Series, which, understandably, they’ve been expected to win each year.

But I always knew that, sooner or later, the players on this best team  money could buy would finally play up to their potential.  And so they did last night - by defeating the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies 7-3 in game 6 at Yankee Stadium to win the 2009 World Series 4 games to 2.

No thanks to Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod), though, who struck out (again) with the bases loaded,  blowing an opportunity to seal this championship in the third inning.  Frankly, I don’t understand why this guy is the highest-paid player in the game … and by such an absurd margin, making 33 million this year, which is 12 million more than the second-highest paid, and far more productive Yankee, Derek Jeter.  

Not to mention lingering suspicions that Rodriguez has yet to come clean about his use of steroids….

The New York Yankees have now won 27 titles - the most of any team in baseball history.  Never mind that they’ve been on the losing side of 13 World Series - the most of any team….

But so ends this run of ‘As the Yankees Turn.’ 

Congratulations boys … Yankees redeemed!

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President Barack Obama’s political clout was on the line Tuesday as Virginia and New Jersey chose governors in contests that could serve as warning signs for Democrats about the public’s mood heading into an important mid-term election year.

(LIZ SIDOTI, AP National Political Writer)

This quote reflects the dire warning that political pundits of every stripe have been propagating in the run up to these off-year elections.  But it’s patent nonsense.

Frankly, it’s bad enough that these pundits hype mid-term elections, which are held midway through four-year presidential terms, as a referendum on an incumbent president’s re-election prospects. This, despite the fact that presidents have routinely defied the notion that devastating party losses in these elections portend their reelection doom - as Bill Clinton did in 1996.

Yet these talking heads have spent the last few weeks pontificating about what doom would follow for President Obama if his party’s (Democratic) candidates were to lose in the few, plainly inconsequential off-year elections that were held today - a mere year into his first term.

But - with all due respect to Virginia and New Jersey, where supposedly pivotal gubernatorial elections were held, and to New York, where one supposedly bell-weather congressional election was held - these off-year elections are no ”test of Obama’s clout” whatsoever.  

Actually, the politicians who won or lost are such bid players on the national stage that the only thing worth mentioning about today’s results is the fact that the billionaire mayor of New York City, Mike Bloomberg, spent over 100 million to be re-elected in a squeaker.  He must really love his job.

To be sure, though, the relative rout by Republican candidates is a bad omen for congressional Democrats in mid-term elections next year.

Of undeniable (local and national) significance, however, is the result of the referendum on gay marriage that was held in Maine.  Not least because similar referendums held on this issue in 30 other states have been defeated “by the people” - even in putatively liberal California.

Alas, now the people of Maine, who were presumed to be most sympathetic to gay marriages, have too.  In fact, they voted in rather decisive fashion to deny gays and lesbians the equal civil right to marry - a right the rest of us take for granted.

So much for keeping alive the HOPE Obama inspired….

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* This article was published originally last night at 10:01. I have updated it to correct initial reports that Maine had upheld the gay marriage law.

Why else would Benedict XVI, the most conservative and doctrinaire pope in modern times, implement liberal reforms just to make it easier to increase his flock of tithing worshipers….

Specifically, the Catholic Church seems hell-bent on exploiting the irreparable rift that developed in the Anglican Church a few years ago over the ordination of women priests and the consecration of gay bishops:

In a March 2005 column, I predicted that the battle within the Anglican Church over the role of women and gays would eventually blow its worldwide communion asunder. Back then, some of the most influential dioceses in the United States and overseas (especially in Latin America and Africa) threatened to secede… Because, they claimed, ordaining women as priests and consecrating gays as bishops (to say nothing of performing gay marriages) amounted to a “Satanic attack” on the Church.

[Internecine battle for the soul (and property) of the Anglican Church, TIJ, December 18, 2006]

Interestingly enough, a significant number of white Anglicans became so disaffected that they abandoned their white leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and joined a rival worldwide communion headed by a black leader, the Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola.

More to the point, though, the Catholic Church clearly saw this internecine battle within the Anglican Church as a divine recruiting opportunity.  And to make it easier for Anglicans to jump ship, the pope decreed on October 20 that even married Anglican priests would be welcome on board his ship of faith.

Never mind that this decree makes a mockery of the declaration the pope made in 2006, in which he:

… reaffirmed the value of the choice of priestly celibacy [insisting that] opening up the Church to a married priesthood is no cure for the sickness that is plaguing Catholicism in its historic birthplace of Western Europe.

[The Pope Lays Down the Law on Celibacy, TIME, November 16, 2006]

So much for the infallible pronouncements of the pope, eh….

But nothing will swell the ranks of his faithful quite like the pope’s decision to allow Anglicans:

to convert as individuals, parishes or even as whole dioceses.

In fact, Reuters reports that the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), which has some 400,000 members, has already joined the Catholic Church en masse.

Meanwhile, to add insult to this injurious poaching, the Vatican announced on Friday that it has invited the Archbishop of Canterbury to meet with the pope on November 21 to discuss worldwide Christian unification. 

But this cuckolded Archbishop must surely know that the Vatican envisions this unification taking place under the pastoral leadership of the pope and under the banner of the Roman Catholic Church.

Amen.

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