Notes on Ex-Governor Mitt Romney banging his head against the wall

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

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I suspect this is mild compared to what we will see in September and October.  It really feels like the longer he bobs and weaves around the issue of his tax returns, the more steamed up the opposition becomes.

Let's face it, even The Republican-Tea Party members are cringing and having second thoughts as the Democrats declare open season.

 

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In 2004, Mitt Romney had this to say about John Kerry’s tendency to change his mind.   He starts off telling the audience that it's "standard operating procedure" in campaigns to "look at your opponent's record, you find someplace where he or she has changed positions and you say they're a flip-flopper."  He goes on:

"For those who don’t understand how he can be so vacillating, it stems from the fact that he is very conflicted, that he is drawn in two different directions very powerfully. If he’s with an audience, he wants to identify with and satisfy that audience, and will say what he thinks they want to hear. And if that audience, for instance, is on one side of an issue he’ll follow that, on another, he’ll follow another."

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His numbers are sucking:

a) A recent Fox news poll (click on this link to see very detailed analysis of the poll) lists Obama pulling 49% of the vote and Romney 40%.  If the election were held today. Obama's lead in that poll comes from an 11% lead among independent voters.

b) Cnn:

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The Ex-Governor is running scared.  

While his band of surrogates keep hectoring BHO, Mitt himself sounds like he'd just like us to just drop it.  He doesn't want to talk about his record anymore.  Early in the campaign, he brought up Bain in every single speech and appearance.  But he would now prefer to not discuss his time with Bain 

Romney said on Friday that both campaigns would benefit if they agreed that “attacks based upon business or family or taxes or things of that nature — that this is just — this is diversion.” Instead, he said in an interview with NBC News, he would prefer a setting where he and BHO could talk about issues and differences in their positions. Really?  This wouldn't seem so disingenuous had Mittens not spent the last year trumpeting his success at Bain, and how he planned to implement the Bain model nationally.  And as for the tax mess--both his proposed taxing schemes, and his own shadowy personal tax record--the less Mitt talks about taxes, the better he will be.  By not releasing his own tax information, The Ex-Governor has almost given up the right to talk about taxes at all. 

Mitt Romney is still allowing "members" of his team like Donald Trump to hammer away on the birther and Muslim non-issues, continuing to imply that the President is not an actual U.S. citizen, and that even if he is, he is really a Muslim who will implement Sharia Law as soon the instant he is sworn in for his second term.

As Republican strategist David Gergen said recently:  "I think the Obama campaign is outmaneuvering the Romney campaign. They've kept him on the defensive on his taxes and on Bain, which is a key foundation for his campaign," Gergen said. "This rat-a-tat of advertising, this avalanche of advertising has taken a toll."

Finally, Gergen said "It's now clear that Romney can't win this election by default. It's not an apple that's going to fall into his lap because the economy is weak. He's got to take it away from (Obama)."

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Paul Ryan

Ex-Governor Mitt Romney was pretty much forced into selecting Paul Ryan has a running mate.  Paul Ryan will appeal to the "base" and even to the Tea-Party/Birther fringe.   But as to grabbing voters in the middle, or chiseling a few Dems into a Democrats For Romney movement?  Stillborn.  His choice for Vice President nets him nothing.  Nothing at all.  No votes, no momentum (a/k/a "The Big Mo"), and no gravitas. Romney's selection nets him zero votes--no one from the middle, and no one from the left.  And, as for the right/the base?  It leaves Mitt with a VP that most of his base would prefer was on top of the ticket

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World heritage site: India's Ellora Caves, Marathi, Maharashtra, India: The 34 Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain Carved Rock Caves At Ellora

By Jack Brummet, Travel Editor

Of the  962 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, I've been to 20 [1] so far.  I plan on hitting many more, but it will take a while.  So far, my favorite site has to be the caves at Ellora, in India.    

Ellora is the site of monumental, rock cut, cave temples representing Buddhist, Hindu and Jain religions, built in close proximity to each other to show the religious harmony in the area. The structures are multi-level buildings, carved directly from caves within the mountain face, and include monasteries, shrines and places of worship. Many of the buildings have vaulted ceilings and are all intricately carved, with most of the shrines containing large carved deities. During construction, 200,000 tons of rock were removed from the site by generations of workers. 

Some of the most interesting caves: the Buddhist shrine Vishvakarma, with a multi-storied entrance, a large hall with vaulted ceilings and a 15 foot tall carving of Buddha preaching; The Indra Sabha is a two level Jain cave with a monolithic shrine, like all of the Jain caves it once had richly painted ceilings, part of which are still visible. It also has carvings of lotus flowers, Yaksha Matanga on an elephant and Ambika sitting on a lion under a mango tree; Kailasanatha is the centerpiece of the Ellora complex, and resembles Mount Kailash, the home of lord Shiva.  It has intricate carvings, including sacred bulls and life-sized elephants supporting the shrines.

Claire with a Buddha

 

Monkeys at Ellora

Like most of the best archaeological sites we've seen around the world, the Caves of Ellora are a World Heritage Site. Marathi: (वेरूळ) is an about 20 miles from Aurangabad in the Maharashtra state (which also contains Mumbai). I'm not sure how far this is away from Mumbai, but the flight here was only about 35 minutes on a 737 (so it is within a couple hundred miles).

[Note: The photos are not great--you are not allowed to use flash in the caves...and remember these are caves!]

These fantastically sculpted caves are a mind-bending example of "cut from rock" architecture. Everything you see is cut from stone. The caves and sculpture were cut out with chisels and other hand tools from the face of solid stone in the Charanandri hills. The 34 caves were successively built by Buddhist, Hindu and Jain groups.

These caves (not the sort of caves we think of in the west) were temples and monasteries, carved out many years from around the 5th to 10th centuries (A.D.). There are 12 Buddhist (caves 1–12), 17 Hindu (13–29) and 5 Jain (caves 30–34) caves, built in a row over six centuries. Some of the caves took 200 years to complete...

Amazingly, each succeeding set of caves builds on the tradition of the previous ones--probably not surprising when you think of the amazing stew of hundreds of religions and sects that still exist (and influence each other) here. You find Buddhas in the Hindu caves; there are Ganeshes in the Jain caves. Some of the caves have two, three, or four floors. Not only did they carve out the caves themselves, but they also carved elaborate sculptures, friezes and the like on many of the walls. They also carved out elaborately decorated and sculpted columns--some of which remind me of Roman and Greek columns.

Restoration workers on bamboo scaffolding. Not only is it bamboo, but it is fastened together with what is little better than very thick jute twine!

[1]  World Heritage sites I've visited (as of August 2012):

Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing and Shenyang (China)

Summer Palace, an Imperial Garden in Beijing (China)

Acropolis, Athens (Greece)

Medieval City of Rhodes (Greece)

Old Town of Corfu (Greece)

Ellora Caves (India)

Historic Centre of Rome, the Properties of the Holy See in that City Enjoying Extraterritorial Rights and San Paolo Fuori le Mura (Italy/Vatican City)

Historic Centre of Florence (Italy)

Piazza del Duomo, Pisa  (Italy)

Historic Centre of Siena  (Italy)

Medina of Tétouan (formerly known as Titawin) Morocco

Alhambra, Generalife and Albayzín, Granada (Spain)

Historic City of Toledo (Spain)

Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia (Turkey)

Historic Areas of Istanbul (Turkey)

Westminster Palace, Westminster Abbey and Saint Margaret's Church (England)

Tower of London (England)

Yellowstone National Park (USA)

Everglades National Park (USA)

Redwood National and State Parks (USA)

Olympic National Park (USA)

Statue of Liberty (USA)

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Mitt Romney's Wimp Factor

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

Newsweek has really been on a roll this year.  Earlier, one of its covers  proclaimed President Obama the first gay president, for the repeal of don't ask/don't tell, and coming out for same sex marriage.  And now, they've come out with a cover that labels Mitt Romney a "wimp," or maybe just too insecure to be President.  

Michael Tomasky, wrote about Romney:  "He keeps saying these . . . things, these incredibly off-key things. Then he apologizes immediately — with all the sincerity of a hostage. Or maybe he doesn’t: sometimes he whines about the subsequent attacks on him. But the one thing he never does? Man up, double down, take his lumps."

Mitt's spokespeople, of course, dismissed the article.  “If I worried about what the media said I wouldn’t get much sleep,” said Romney. “And I'm able to sleep pretty well.”

Suddenly, the wimp label is starting to stick.  People were very disappointed that Mitt didn't get behind the Chick-fil-a President Dan Cathy, an issue conservatives peg to freedom of speech rather than about gay marriage.  As Newsweek reported, Romney s"aid the issue was not part of the campaign, leaving many to wonder if he was waiting for poll results before deciding which side to support."

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Drawing: the nighmare

by Jack Brummet

[analog drawing, digitized & 'shopped]

click to enlarge

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George Orwell on political-speak

"Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."  - George Orwell 

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The origin and back story of the smiley face

By Jack Brummet, Pop Culture Editor

A smiley face poster from the late 1960's

We mostly see it now as an "emoticon," a symbol used in computer messages, and sometimes tied to the phrase "have a nice day,"  but most often as a symbol for "like" or "I like this."

The smiley is the printable version of character 1 codepage 437 of the first IBM PC and all subsequent PC compatible computers.  Unicode smiley and sad face characters :

☺	U+263A or alt(+)1
☹	U+2639

In the 60's, this yellow circle with two eyes and a smile (usually), the smiley face, was everywhere—on buttons, posters, signs, t-shirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, and emblazoned on numerous trinkets.

Harvey Bell's original smiley face?

Although the counterculture, and, later, the mainstream absorbed it, the ubiquitous image we all came to know was created in 1963 as a motivational image for employees of the State Mutual Life Assurance Company by Harvey Bell, a commercial artist.  He created the design in ten minutes and was paid $45.

My version of the smiley

Even though Harvey Bell gets all the credit, the image was clearly in some use before 1963, like this advertisement for a movie from in 1953.

This work is in the public domain in that it was published in the 

United  States between 1923 and 1977 and without a copyright notice

Frownie

In 1967, Ball's smiley was used in an advertising campaign for Seattle's University Federal Savings & Loan. And the same design was later used when the Mad Man who launched that ad campaign, David Stern, ran for Mayor of Seattle in 1993 (he lost).

The smiley face made an appearance in the blockbuster movie, Forrest Gump. On one of his transcontinental runs, a shirt is given to Gump.  When he wipes his face, the dirt stained shirt reveals what seems to be eyes and a mouth and the smiley face is born. 







The overuse of the smiley face and"have a nice day" became annoying, and strayed far from its original meaning and intent.  By the '70s. the smiley face and the phrase "have a nice day" become a hollow sentiment, perfect for Nixon-era America.  Fifty years later,the unending smile, is still with us.    Recently Wal-Mart abandoned it's use of the smiley on their uniforms and on signage.  An interesting article on Wal-Mart's smiley can be found here.

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The return of Governor Chris Christie (he actually never left)

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor
[illustration by Jack Brummet]

The Drudge Report reported today that President Barack Obama told a top fundraiser that Romney wants to choose Gen. David Petraeus for the vice presidential slot.  That would be interesting.  But it also appeared in The Drudge Report, so the veracity of that rumor is immediately called into question. 

Politico today reported that  Tim Pawlenty, Rob Portman, Marco Rubio, Kelly Ayotte, Bob McDonnell, Paul Ryan and Bobby Jindal were out of the running, since they have all been assigned speaking slots at the Republican convention in three weeks.    I still think that Rubio and Ryan are in it, but I have nothing rational or factual to back that up.  Jeb Bush must have bigger plans for 2016 (assuming Romney survives his income tax problems and remains on the ticket).  The Condoleezza Rice VP-ship was always just a GOP opium pipe-dream.

What's also interesting is that, after being more or less out of the running the last couple of months, Chris Christie is either being considered as a possible VP, or his name is being conspicuously tossed around just to keep things interesting (anything to get people to quit talking about Mitt Romney's taxes, and his disastrous European Leadership Tour).  His loud, brash, blunt style would be an interesting, and most likely extremely-awkward, adjunct to Mitt Romney's near-total absence of charisma, charm, and, as we have seen the last few months, political intelligence, and a crippling inability to connect on any sort of retail level with the voters.  Christie on the ticket wouldn't be an actual personality transplant for Ex-Governor Romney, but it might not hurt.

No one is voting for Mitt Romney; they're voting against The President.  Mitt's big dilemma now is to figure out how to make people like him.  And that, friendos, is a Sysiphean rock to push up the hill. 

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Poem: The Reverse King Midas Touch

By Jack Brummet

Sending out feelers and then testing the ground, 

The right place was one place he could never be found.

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The R-rated wall outlet

Source/creator:  Unknown.

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Faces No. 306 - the accounts receivable team

By Jack Brummet

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Washington State residents: don't forget to vote (and give the nod to Jay Inslee for Governor)

By Jack Brummet, Pablo Fanque, and Mona Goldwater

Hey friendos - we just wanted to remind you that if you live in Washington State, remember to vote and mail in your ballot today.  That's the most important thing.  But, if you can find it in your heart to vote for Jay Inslee for Governor, please do it!  Jay has been Jack's congressman for a long time.  He's a good soul and will be a great governor.  In a very rare moment of solidarity, all three of the editors of All This Is That voted for him this weekend.

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Kindling?

I found it touching that this woodsman thought the word was "kendaling."  /jack

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