Rick Raw: Wicked Sexy Witch of Alaska Flies Solo into the Unknown–Sarah Palin is Off the Reservation

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

"I hate Sarah Palin, but I’d fuck her!" said lesbian comic, Margaret Cho in her HBO stand up special.

Cho’s ironic comedic line poignantly states what many men and women think.–Palin is sexy and strangely charismatic. In her cover shot for this week’s edition of Time Magazine, Palin posed in tight corduroy jeans and a black long-sleeve blouse with her hands stuck halfway into her pockets.

It’s a woman-of-the-people shot that identifies Palin with all the conservative moms struggling to raise their kids. It’s a pose that makes men (and some women) want to have sex with her and soccer-moms identify with her every-women look.

Suddenly, without warning, Palin quit her job as Governor of Alaska–a move that dumbfounded her supporters and critics alike. In her rambling resignation speech, she hovered on the brink of hysteria.

Indeed, something has happened to this woman that she is keeping to herself. "Only dead fish go with the flow," she said. With such hokey remarks, Palin flies off the reservation and into the unknown. Every political talking head was baffled by her capricious move. Why would she give up her governorship in mid-term? It made her look like a quitter.

But wait. In the long run, Palin could emerge as a pioneering independent thinker who uses her time off to write a book and go on the lucrative lecture circuit. Clearly, she needs the money. A series of ethics investigations has put Palin in debt to the tune of $500,000 in legal bills. But, her off the wall remarks justifying her leaving the governorship only enforced the criticism that Palin is a nut job.

Palin’s rhetoric during her VP campaign with John McCain was scripted by McCain’s staff. They dreaded her making off the cuff remarks that would reveal her shocking lack of intellectual prowess. Her dumb bloopers during TV interviews came back to bite her on the ass. " I can see Russia..." And, not knowing that Africa was a continent not a country became fodder for late night comedians.

Nevertheless, Palin has millions of fans who see her as the great white hope for ultra-conservative movement. By quitting the governorship, Palin is free to travel the lower 48 states on speaking engagements to define her goals and vision for America.

Many political pundits agree that when Palin quit, she forfeited any credibility she had gained during the McCain for President campaign. Still, Palin gained celebrity status as a new American feminist model, a desperate conservative housewife who grabbed the reins of power and flew with it.

Palin pandered to the ultra-conservative middle class who were looking for a symbol of their beliefs. Catholic moms with 5 or more kids see her as a modern archetype for their movement. Her shocking move may make Palin a hero of the right, without a political machine calling her shots. She’s Joan of Arc in a minivan on a mission to save America.

Laura Chase, who managed Palin’s first campaign for Mayor of Wasilla, wrote, "She’s like a bloodhound–once she gets the scent, she’s never going to let go." Her other close confidants all say that Palin wants to be President of the United States. Besides, she has the power of household name recognition and good looks, which will take her far. If she fails to win the Republican nomination for president, Palin will be in demand as a political player and consultant.

As much as I loathe Palin, I’m reminded of Huey Long who went a long way with his charisma, preaching to the common man, despite the fact that everyone knew he was a crook. Like Long, Palin has captured the imagination of every-day folks.

One should never underestimate Sarah Palin. She’s a wicked sexy witch who can cast a spell over a crowd. Like a coiled cobra, she’ll be out there waiting to strike just when everyone has written her off.

Rick Raw: Dummy Whisperer–Exposing the Dummy in All of Us

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

In the course of my life, I discovered a hidden talent–exposing the dummy in everyone, including myself. Unlike those books such as Mathematics for Dummies, I don’t need a book to know a dummy when I see one.

To wit: I knew the woman at the DMV was a dummy when I was the last person in line, and I finally advanced to her window and she said, "It’s time for my break," and left. So I had to get in the back of another line. I sensed that she would do that because I am the Dummy Whisperer.

Unlike the Ghost Whisperer, I operate in the real world, not that twaddle on TV. In contrast, like the Dog Whisperer’s, Cesar Millan, I understand the psychology of dummies. Why? Because I am one.

While driving, I know when the person in front of me will do something dumb. I detect their body language which is picked up through their car. I anticipate when that person will not use their turn signal and just suddenly turn. In other words, I read dummy radar.

Women are reckless drivers. I watch them like a hawk. One never knows what peaks or valleys their biological cycle is registering. Mostly, women are always pissed off about something–their husband, boyfriend, or kids, and they drive with angry radar. I pick up that signal, and avoid them if at all possible. Women need anger management before they get behind the wheel. They whip their minivans around like race cars. Good God, it’s the crazy bitches tear-assing through the streets–stay out of their way.

Once I was shopping at the Regency Square Mall and I went into J.C. Penny’s. While inside the store, I got disorientated and when I left out the entrance and into the parking lot, I couldn’t find my car. So I assumed it had been stolen. I called the police who showed up. They were dumbfounded.

Then I looked around and suddenly realized I was in the parking lot on the opposite side of the mall to where I parked my car. At that moment, I felt like the dumbest person in the world. The cops thought I was suffering from Alzheimer’s and patronized me like a person whose mind had gone.

Dummies are everywhere. While walking on the sidewalk and I pass a gaggle of young people, I know they will not yield to me, so I’m forced to go over on the grass. It’s a blatant expression of ageism and or youthful arrogance.

Yielding would require them to show a modicum of respect to their elders. Today’s youth think older people show die or disappear. Of course, before they know it, they will be old and facing the same prejudices from their generation of young people.

Dumbness is in all of us as we go about our daily routine. In the workplace, dumbness reigns supreme. People have a hard time concentrating on the job, because they are thinking about trivial matters. Every day, many hours of production is lost by employees who are thinking about everything but their jobs.

Now that companies have laid off thousands of workers, the ones that are left have to work much harder. But, then one has to factor in their dumbness and lack of interest in what they are doing, and production goes down exponentially.

Employees who are left to pick up the slack, are justifiably resentful and don’t feel like giving 100% because they could be laid off any minute. So, the companies get what they deserve. Therefore, the management is dummer than the employees.

Yes, it’s a great big dumb world full of dummies. And I am the Dummy Whisperer. I root out the dummies and expose their dumbness. And, I revel in my own dumbness. Then it’s a question of degree–who is dumber than thou.

Rick Raw: Wrong People Make the Most Money–Sports Stars Versus Scientists

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

Recently Sports Illustrated published a list of the highest paid sports stars. In this fractured economy, it’s hard to justify these filthy rich athletes’ overblown compensation compared to the scientists, who contribute much more to our quality of life than pampered sports celebrities.

Of course, this can be easily explained by supply and demand. Sports is infinitely more popular than what our most brilliant scientists are doing. However, it still doesn’t make it right.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are the top one and two earning sports stars. Years ago, professional golfers would have never dreamed of that kind of money. But, times change! The lucrative TV contracts and using high profile sports celebrities as pitchmen put the golf celebrities in the big time money earnings.

Woods makes over $7 million on the tour and $ 92 million on endorsements. Mickelson makes over $6 million on the tour and over $46 million in endorsements. Coming in third is NBA star LeBron James who earns over $14 million on the court and $28 million in endorsements.
Generally, NBA basketball stars make more than football players or baseball’s heavy hitters.

Lately, though, those steroid taking thugs in baseball are getting huge contracts to deliver hits and home-runs. Sure, we know they cheated by taking performance enhancing drugs, but fans don’t seem to care.

Years ago, I followed baseball when Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle were in the game. But since the steroid scandals and the obscene amounts of money these hulks of bulked-up louts are getting, I deemed the game a sham. Alex Rodriguez’s (makes a total of $39 million) sex life has become fodder for late night comedians. Indeed, baseball itself is a joke.

Likewise, I used to like football, but since the rookies are getting huge signing bonuses before they even prove themselves, and then go out and break the law, I’ve become disillusioned, disgusted, and denounced the game as a farce.

The entire sports world has been corrupted by big money interests. Yet, the fans still pay rising prices for tickets to see the games in person or on television. These televised games are highly rated, bringing in big advertising bucks.

The sad truth is: The popularity of sports heroes trumps scientists any day. In fact, most people couldn’t tell you who invented the two most important scientific discoveries in this modern era–the integrated circuit and the Internet.

The integrated circuit was invented by two scientists working independently of each other–Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor. Kilby demonstrated his initial ideas on the first working integrated circuit on Sept. 12, 1958.

In 2000, Kilby won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his part of the invention. Robert Noyce came up with his idea a half a year later than Kilby’s, in 1959. However, Noyce’s chip had solved the many practical problems that Kilby had overlooked. Noyce’s chip was made of silicon that proved to be the material of choice. Kilby’s chip was made of germanium.

Of course, both inventors had signed away their patent rights prior to working for Texas Instruments and Fairchild corporations. They should have become billionaires. Their respective companies were generous to them and gave them research jobs for life. But nothing on the scale of Tiger Woods for playing golf.

Noyce’s chip became the model for miniaturization. From 1963 on, it became a game of how many transistors can a scientist put on a microchip. This paved the way for cell phones, laptops, PCs, smart phones, and all the other electronic wonders to come in the 1980s-1990s.

The next big invention of our modern era was the Internet. Interestingly, it was spurred by the USSR’s launch of Sputnik, that sent our government into overdrive to catch up. In 1958, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was established to process information and sent it country-wide so scientists could communicate on advanced projects.

J.C.R. Licklider was selected to head the new Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO).

At MIT, Licklider served on the committee that established the Lincoln Laboratory. This evolved into the project to make a viable network to connect university science labs long before viable PCs became available.

This model went through various incarnations until the opening of the network to commercial interests in 1988, using the first TCP/IP based protocol invented by David L Mills. This led to the Telenet which was privately funded.

The ability for TCP/IP to work over virtually any preexisting communication networks allowed for growth. Bang zoom–dial up gave way to Broadband at fast speeds in the 1990s. Now, it’s a vast matrix of infinite information services and E-mail, Twitter, Face Book, et al skyrocketed. Keeping the Internet free and open has been one of this Century’s greatest achievements.

The integrated circuit and the Internet inventors should be stars, not some young thug that just got a $10 million signing bonus before he’s played a game in the NFL. Ah, but way back we got our priorities screwed up. Golf trumps science. That’s the world we live in.

Rick Raw: Dumbing of America Reaches Crisis Level– Anti-intellectualism is Rampant

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

"It’s a confederacy of dunces," John Kennedy Toole

They’re out there in droves–the dumb acting fools. They include the bad drivers, philandering politicians, incompetent service workers, and red necks. Also included are the hordes of people who abuse fertility services by having 5 to 8 to 14 kids. Most doltish are college students who clearly haven’t been learning anything in their years of higher education except drinking beer and having sex.

It’s a full blown crisis of anti-intellectualism. Jay Leno’s popular segment "Jaywalking," which exposes blatant stupidity from mostly college students, is just a microcosm of the big picture.

Yes, the dumbing of America is epidemic and soon we’ll have an entire population of nitwits. In contrast, other countries are now surpassing the United States in intellectualism and educational achievement.

Generally, Americans go about their daily duties oblivious to anything but their narrow little world. For many citizens, learning stopped after college or high school. More shockingly, many Americans have let themselves go by avoiding exercise and becoming obese. Many people, including me, are TV addicts, spending many hours rotting their brains watching television. I compensate by hours of writing and learning.

Of course, now we have many other mind numbing distractions including smart phones, iPods, laptops, desktops, the Internet, and the availability of paid for downloadable music. We twitter, E-mail, write messages on our Face book pages, and talk endlessly on our cell phones. There’s too much mindless chatter going through the air.

All these communication devices have a positive side. Anyone can research anything via the Internet or wirelessly through the air on our smart phones and laptops. Infinite information is at our fingertips, but many people choose to seek out useless data, such as Paris Hilton’s latest exploits.

Yes, I’m guilty of occasionally watching TruTv’s "The World’s Dumbest" with the D-list celebrities making humorous commentary. In an odd way, this only substantiates my case that mindlessness is viral in America. It’s like a dumb bomb of invisible stupid gas has fallen on our country.

So, am I exaggerating the problem? No, I don’t think so. Every day I see drivers on the roads do the stupidest things. I see people driving while texting, or reading with the text on the steering wheel. Everyone is talking on cell hones while driving (I’m guilty of this one, although I try to pull over in a safe place to talk). I see drivers suddenly make a turn without using their turn signals, and I see drivers traveling way too slow or way too fast for the road conditions.

More annoyingly, my pet peeve is drivers who race up to the intersection like their not going to stop and then they suddenly slam on their brakes, but inch ahead. Idiots! Frankly, I think most people take their driving skills for granted until they get in a serious accident.

If one has been driving for many years, then it’s a good idea to take a defensive driving course, especially for seniors. Yes, that applies to me at 68. And yes, I did take a defensive driving course some years ago. But I try to remind myself to drive carefully and defensively. But, like so many people, I occasionally let my mind wander while driving. One moment of the loss of concentration can be disastrous.

It’s a given that politicians can’t be trusted or relied upon to do their jobs as our representatives. However, the rash of philandering politicians has recently reached ridiculous proportions. The rogues gallery of loutish, lying, cheating lawmakers include Newt Gingrich, Senator and former Presidential Candidate John Edwards, Senator Ensign, N.J. Governor McGreevey, N.Y.Governor Spitzer, and most recently S.C. Governor Sanford. And the king of the philanders is, of course, ex-president Bill Clinton.

Clinton created a new class of cheaters. For twelve years as Governor of Arkansas, Clinton carried on a sordid affair with Jennifer Flowers. His audacity was legendary when he fooled around with intern Monica Lewinski in the White House. However, Clinton survived the scandal because he was smart and was doing a great job as president. "I did not have sex with that woman," is fall-down funny in the glare of history.

Philanderers like Eliot Spitzer was not only a liar and cheated on his wife with a series of expensive call girls, but he was a hypocrite by busting the same call girl services he was using in NYC. His level of betrayal rightly caused him to lose everything.

Newt Gingrich was carrying on an affair while his wife was fighting cancer in the hospital, which made his betrayal that much more egregious. The latest rogue to be caught is Governor Sanford who went AWOL from his job, flew to Argentina to have sex with his mistress, and told everyone he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Right.

All the advances in electronic technology are a double edged sword. They open up the world of knowledge to our fingertips. These devices can be a great learning tool. However, they can be a major distraction to the continuation of learning after our formal education.

My humble advice for my fellow Americans (and myself) is to wake up to the bigger world beyond their daily life. Read the Internet news sites and pay attention to current events. Continue learning new things about science and history. After all, life itself is a learning experience. Sure, we live–we die–who cares? It’s what happens in between that matters.

Rick Raw: Iranian Uprising–Will of the People will Eventually Reign Supreme

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

The present unrest in Iran is no longer a protest against the election results. The protests have mushroomed into an uprising against the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenie. He has absolute power and is the commander and chief of the Iranian military, militia, and Revolutionary Guard. Shockingly, the people are chanting "Death to the dictator."

This is an unprecedented breaking of a long standing taboo to question the supreme leader’s wisdom. If the people are dedicated to forcing change and willing to risk their life for a new style of government, then the will of the people will eventually reign supreme.

In America, in the mid-1700s, the Colonists were willing to take up arms against Britain. More seriously, the Colonists were willing to shed blood to become an independent nation. The die was cast. If the passion for change is strong enough, the will of the people will always prevail. They have to be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. Live free or die!

The breaking of the taboo against the supreme leader expresses the deep seeded level of the people’s discontent with the government. Since two-thirds of the population is under thirty and well educated, the youthful proletariat want more freedom and a bigger voice in the domestic decisions handed down by the president. Ahmadinejad has bungled the economy of the country. The people are furious, knowing the election was rigged.

Indeed, much of this discontent is being driven by young women who are tired of the strict Islamic moral rules of female behavior. They are smart, resourceful, and they want equal rights with men. A well known female Iranian author said that to find out what the modern Iranian wants, follow the activism of Iranian women.

The present Iranian system of government was set up after the 1979 Iranian Islamic extremist revolution which voted in the new constitution. This document gave the supreme leader absolute power to govern as he saw fit.

The new 1979 government constitution also installed the Guardian Council who vote in the presidential candidate every four years for a maximum of two terms. Essentially, the president is subservient to the supreme leader. The president does have leeway in his decisions regarding the economy and domestic issues. If the president does something of which the Guardian Council doesn’t approve, he could be forced out.

Elections in Iran have long been suspected of being fixed and just a sham. Ahmadinejad was declared winner only two hours after the polls closed. How could they count all those ballots in that short a time. Of course, it was fixed!

In other words, the Guardian Council protects the fundamentalist Islamic law which is highly restrictive of people’s civil rights and freedom. When the 1979 revolution ousted the Shah of Iran, it was like the country was sent back to the dark ages. These fanatical old men are religious zealots and frame all human behavior in the rules as set forth in the Qur’an. Of course, their interpretation is extremely bias to their viewpoints.

It would be like the Pope was the supreme leader of the United States and the president would have to do his bidding. Sin would be in, and confessing sin would get everyone off the hook. We have separation of church and state for very logical reasons.

Could the people of Iran pull off a full blown revolution? Not without the support of the military and or the Revolutionary Guard, who are fiercely loyal to the supreme leader and the concept of Islamic fundamentalism. In the end, Khamenei has the power to crush the uprising.

As long as Khamenei has the support of the military, then, unless the people had help from a foreign army, they are doomed to eventually comply. They could strike and shutdown the infrastructure of the country. That would be effective and could cause dissension in the Guardian Council forcing change. But the hard liners are definitely in charge.

Nonetheless, something important has happened to the Iranian Zeitgeist. There has been a shift in the power paradigm. In the hearts and minds of the people, the uprising has fomented the idea of a democratic revolution.

The people now have demonstrated they will not lay down to comply with the supreme leader or put up with fixed elections. This seed of revolution will grow into a people’s power base working behind the scenes to bring in visionary leaders.

Still, the heart beat of the Islamic fundamentalist revolution is strong and powerful. Ultimately, the will of the people is stronger than a fundamentalist religion. The question is: How dedicated are the democratic revolutionaries? Time will tell.