By Ray McGovern
October 16, 2012 "Information Clearing House " - If you prefer charade to reality, inquisition to investigation, trees over forest — the House Government Oversight Committee hearing last Tuesday on “Security Failures of Benghazi” was the thing for you.

This is a warning to readers with heart conditions. You may not want to read any further if what I am about to say in the next paragraph is too much of a shock to your system.

After a Mike Doogan column 15 years ago this month, I had to do a mental u-turn.

Before he served in the state legislature, Doogan sparked lots of controversy for years with his column in this newspaper. But for me one stands out more than all the others. He remarked on the strange juxtaposition in the 1997 deaths of two prominent European women—Princess Diana and Mother Teresa. One, Doogan pointed out, lived in fabulous luxury without having work for any of it while the other toiled all her life with sharing the poverty of those she served.

Friends, we’re in big trouble.

A poll conducted in May but released only this month shows the American people’s approval rating is down to 53%. That means Mitt Romney approves of only 47% of us. If things get much worse, the unthinkable could happen. Mitt Romney might not vote for us in November.

Mitt Romney’s “47%” ad lib comments from May are drawing lots of attention from local and national pundits. The words “victims” and “entitled” stand out for me; they express much of the rancor and anger that characterizes the discourse nationally and locally.

One local letter writer said something that strikes me as odd: He or she is “entitled” to be free from phone messages inviting him or her to press one button for English and another one “para espanol.”

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away there lived a potentate named Sad Sam who ruled a land called Arock who warred with its neighbor, Ahardplace. The planet’s only superpower, the United Sions, after finding its foreign policy between Arock and Ahardplace, finally decided to back Arock in its eight-year war. So the US sent its secretary of death, Ronald Dumsfeld, to engage in a smoochothon with Sad Sam, who with lots of foreign military aid was able to gas his neighbors.

I don’t like sentences that start with “You have to understand,” “You must remember” or variations on that theme.

I realize such fashionable phrases have become trite, and as such, may be meaningless in such cases.

But someone started these expressions and I don’t like their implication.
Clarence Page said in Saturday’s paper that Middle Eastern Muslims must understand our tradition of allowing the freedom of expression of even the most disgusting and repugnant messages.

Some 20 years ago in Bethel, a local cop named John divided local reporters into two categories--as his friends or his enemie--based on how they covered cop stories. He expressed less interest in whether reporters got their facts straight than in whether their stories made him look good.

Not surprisingly, an Israeli court reportedly rejected a lawsuit filed by the parents of Rachel Corrie, the American killed by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003. The court ruled, in effect Corrie herself brought on the “accident” that killed her despite eyewitnesses’ statements that the attack was deliberate.

I can resist anything but temptation. The first letter to the editor in the hard copy of The Aug. 19 paper left me all but salivating and rubbing my palms together in glee.

My Alaska chauvinism is OD-ing.

When I began my Alaska residency on Aug. 8, 1967, I had no idea that:

Alaskans would play on both sides in a Super Bowl,

an Alaskan would play in the Pro Bowl and win three Super Bowl rings,

an Alaskan would put in a three-point shot to help win a national college basketball championship and then go on to help win an NBA championship

an Alaskan would help win two Stanley Cups and become the first Hispanic in the NHL

Alaskans would be named bowler of the year and senior bowler of the year.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a robo call asking me which presidential candidate I plan to vote for. After I pressed the button indicating my unfavorable opinion of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, the machine asked me which one I will vote for. I didn’t answer the question because it did not allow me to press a button saying neither. After hearing the same question for the third time, I simply hung up the phone.

I simply do not agree with the Republicans and Democrats that the candidates’ policies are significantly different enough for me to choose between them.

Olympicks

An ESPN talk show host asked listeners recently what sports they would like to see in the Olympics. One listener suggested surfing. I have more mundane suggestions:

Baseball. This used to be a demonstration sport. Since there are so many players from Latin America, the Orient, and Australia, I think this is enough of an international sport to merit an Olympic tournament. I’d suggest two divisions:
Group A- US, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Puerto Rico.
Group B—Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela.

Recent events remind me of a legendary anecdote from the 1919 Black Sox scandal in which Chicago baseball players were accused of throwing the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds to accept bribes from gamblers. A little boy, so the legend goes, confronted White Sox star Shoeless Joe Jackson with the plea, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”

I’m neither a lawyer, nor a real estate agent. The only expertise I claim in the Anchorage Baptist Temple property tax matter is in what I read in the paper, what I ask people and what I experience myself.

The other day I asked the St. Benedict’s staff members who attended daily mass about their property taxes. As far as I can tell, no employees at the church get any breaks from their property taxes. The principal at the parish school, Lumen Christi, rents his home and I did not get to ask teachers, since the school year hasn’t started yet.

A favorite buzzword today is “socialism.” The strict definition, as I remember had to do with government ownership of the means of production. Under socialism, the government would make shoes, baseballs, tanks, airplanes, automobiles, coffee cups, and condoms. In real life, people use the word more loosely. Folks usually use it to disparage some government activity they don’t like. So we hear about socialized medicine, socialized schools, socialized insurance, etc.

Am I the only one to detect a pattern here?

A year ago yesterday a Caucasian named Anders Behring Breivik allegedly murdered 77 Norwegians. Friday a Caucasian named James Holmes allegedly murdered 12 people at a Colorado movie theatre not far from a high school where two Caucasians allegedly murdered 13 people. Three years ago, a Caucasian allegedly murdered 13 people in a Texas military base. In March, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales allegedly murdered at least 17 Afghan citizens.

I should resist the temptation to use a couple of anecdotes to “prove” that Western Civilization is completely and irrevocably declining.

But maybe the fact that a couple of people are openly advocating what previously people tried to hide may say something about the decline of one of our traditional values.

When I was a kid, it was fashionable to tell people voting was their right and responsibility. We’d brag that voting was what separated from communist countries and signaled to the world we are a free country.

The All-Star break is as good a time as any to list my suggestions on changing major league baseball.

I prefer the old-style All Star games in which the starters got to play most, if not all, of the game. Ted Williams won a game in 1941 with a three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth. Fourteen years later Stan Musial won a game with a twelfth-inning home run. Pitchers would routinely go three innings unless lifted for pinch hitters. Sometimes pitchers would even bat. If the game went into extra innings, plenty of pitchers would be available.

This is the last day of the “Fortnight for Freedom” campaign of the US Catholic bishops. They are fighting the Obama administration’s mandate that private health insurance companies offer coverage for contraception. Apparently, the bishops believe that Catholic employers will be forced to buy insurance offering contraception even though Catholics consider artificial birth control sinful behavior.