The Occupy Wall Street protest continues. So far, its staying power has surprised and enthused a large swath of America, and surprised and bemused much of the media. Solidarity "Occupy" protests have sprung up all across the land, for those without the means to travel to the main one in New York. This is all very encouraging, to say the least.

Lest I be misinterpreted, allow me to state up front that I have not participated in Occupy Wall Street, and therefore have no real right to make any sort of suggestion to the protesters. They have already been inundated with suggestions about what they should focus their protest on, by people who (like me) haven't been to Zuccotti Park. And I can certainly understand why the people camping out would get a little resentful at such outside interference in their protest aims. Also, allow me to state that I am not trying to co-opt their energy in any way at all (there have been plenty of others trying to do so, I realize).

But, having said all of that, I'm going to make a suggestion anyway, on one particular facet of the movement: its name. Because I truly think that if the protest wants to grow and expand into a forceful movement for change, it should consider a bit of rebranding.

My suggestion is actually a mild and unoriginal one: start calling yourselves "99 Percenters." Use this term constantly when addressing the media, and they will soon catch on and start using it as well. This will help facilitate exponential growth of the movement, and the continuation of the cause beyond one demonstration in lower Manhattan.

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[Program Note: Because Mormonism is in the news again, due to a Rick Perry supporter calling it a "cult," I thought it was high time to re-run the following column. Four years ago, Mitt Romney was running for president and gave a speech on religion. Immediately after, I wrote a column titled "The Separation Of Church And State" which is admittedly a bit long-winded, just to warn you. Four days later, I ran the following column (which is why "revisited" is in the title). Later in the campaign, after Romney had been defeated by McCain on the Republican side, Barack Obama had to give his own speech on religion, for different reasons. I revisited the subject again with an article titled "Religion And Politics" which I only mention now because it imagines an alternate situation where Mitt Romney was the nominee -- which now seems possible, once again. In any case, I now have two historical factoids to add to this article -- the first is that the Daughters of the American Revolution were so fervent on the issue that they tried (for 15 years) to get an anti-polygamy constitutional amendment passed. They obviously failed in this endeavor. The other is a quote, from Senator Bois Penrose of Pennsylvania, while the Smoot hearings were happening. It's a good quote, pointing out the hypocrisy of Congress being the nation's moral police (even back then, members of Congress were far from perfect in the marriage department). He's referring to Smoot, who was never proven a polygamist because he, quite simply, was not a polygamist and only had one wife. I'll leave you with the quote, and then you can read the whole article for context: "I think the Senate should prefer a polygamist who doesn't 'polyg' to a monogamist who doesn't 'monog'."]

[Originally published 12/10/07]

It always amuses me when Americans are told that the political climate today is "poisonously partisan" or "divided" and that this is "the worst partisanship Washington has ever seen." While pundits in the mainstream media love to whip this non-story into a frenzy every election year, it only goes to prove their utter ignorance of American history.

Take just one example: the church and state debate. Much ink was spilled over Mitt Romney's speech last week about his Mormon faith. Very little attention was paid to America's dark history of anti-Mormonism. Americans, as a whole, are not taught these things in their basic history classes in school, because we naturally shy away from the uglier episodes in our country's past.

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It's been two whole months since last we took a look over the landscape of the Republican presidential field, so we thought it was about time to do so again. A lot has happened in the past months of the race for the Republican nomination, to put it mildly.

The last time we wrote, Rick Perry had just jumped in the race. Since then, nobody else has gotten in, while two prominent names decided to sit this one out. Several candidates caught fire, and several also burned out (at least, poll-wise). So it goes, on the campaign merry-go-round.

Unlike the last time we took a look, there has been notable movement within our rankings. In the "Frontrunners" category, we had four names two months ago: Bachmann, Palin, Perry, and Romney. Two of these are gone, and one has risen to take their place, leaving us with three frontrunners (at least, for now).

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The idea behind that title is: "When the People lead, the leaders will follow." I read this on a bumpersticker a few decades ago, although I must admit I haven't bothered to research the phrase's origins. Wherever it came from, the idea is a simple (and amusing) one: when the so-called "leaders" aren't leading, then the People will step in and do it for them. Eventually, the "leaders" will wake up to what is going on and get on board themselves, pretending to have led the movement all along.

The Occupy Wall Street movement raises a lot of various questions, but one of the most interesting is going to be: which leaders -- of which political parties -- decide to get on the bandwagon? Of course, the storyline right now swirls around Democrats, since the media persists in seeing the movement as a Lefty version of the Tea Party. But this analysis is too facile, for two reasons.

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Like many other Americans, I thoroughly enjoyed watching historical documentarian Ken Burns' recent Prohibition series, on PBS. But I was disappointed by its abrupt end. Burns took the easy way out and didn't point out that right around the same time the legal federal prohibition on alcohol ended, the prohibition of marijuana was ramping up in a big way. And, while the alcohol-targeted Prohibition ended, this prohibition remains. In, fact, it is getting worse, as the Obama administration is continuing a crackdown on anyone who is approaching the problem in any sort of sane or rational manner -- including local and state government officials.

The most enjoyable thing about watching a Burns series is learning historical information that you weren't previously aware of, while being entertained at the same time. This combination of education and entertainment is a tough sell to America, and Burns never seems to disappoint. For instance, I learned that all during Prohibition, there was a medical loophole. You could go to your doctor and get a prescription for "medicinal" alcohol, and then legally buy some whiskey or brandy or whatever else you fancied. Also, there was a "home brew" exception for making your own wine at home. The other interesting things were the details on the lengths which both the federal law enforcers and the bootleggers themselves were willing to go through in their years-long game of cat and mouse.

Fast-forward to today. The Obama administration came into office promising a "science-based" drug policy. Within months, the Justice Department put out a memo which seemed to interject some common sense into the war on marijuana. The feds (said this memo, now known as "the Ogden Memo") wouldn't waste a whole lot of time or money going after people who were following their state's laws when it came to the subject of "medicinal marijuana" (or "medical marijuana").

This, while signifying a big step in the right direction, fell far short of a "science-based drug policy." Or even, for that matter, a "fact-based drug policy." As of this writing, 16 states and the District of Columbia have legalized (in some form or another) medicinal marijuana. That is 17 out of a possible 51 jurisdictions -- precisely one-third of the country, to put it another way. One-third of our governments have decided that sick people are allowed to use marijuana. In other words, that marijuana has a valid medical use. If Attorney General Eric Holder were following any sort of science-based (or even fact-based) drug policy, he would admit this reality. He refuses to, in a fundamental way that (if addressed) could solve the entire federal/state legal problem.

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[Note: Today's column is seriously disjointed. If you're already sick of hearing what a wonderful guy Steve Jobs was, then I strongly advise you to just skip the first section and move right along to the awards, instead. At the end, our talking points are all straight from President Obama this week, from his press conference. Like I said, a disjointed column. Don't say you weren't warned.]

A corporate leader passed away this week, and millions mourned his passing and celebrated his life.

If you just stop and think about that sentence, it is pretty astounding, on its own. While crowds of people are decrying corporations on Wall Street right now, other crowds of people paused this week to remember a man who ran a corporation.

To put it another way: Steve Jobs is dead. Long live Steve Jobs.

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Slowing the slide

[Before we get started here, a quick program note is in order. Today's column is both late, and shorter than usual. We apologize for both, but it's been both a busy week and a busy day here. That's not much of an excuse, but it'll have to do for now.]

Barack Obama's poll numbers in September were not good. In fact, they were pretty bad. Obama fans looking for good news will have to be content with the fact that at least Obama seems to be slowing the trend of his dropping numbers somewhat. This isn't exactly a turnaround for him, but September was a lot less of a drastic change than the three months which preceded it.

Let's get right to the chart, to see what I'm talking about here:

[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]

September, 2011

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The protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement have been getting criticized for not being focused enough, or not providing a list of demands, or not having leaders, or any number of other things by the media. But this can be forgiven, because the media are now at least paying attention, rather than just completely ignoring the protest. What surprises me is that the media (at least so far) haven't realized the frustration the protesters feel is the real story here. Call it free-floating rage, if you will. Or, even better, call it an updated Howard Beale moment.

Beale was a character in a movie called Network, which was about the news media itself. While somewhat dated, it still has a lot of good points to make about the industry's idiocies which are undoubtedly still true today. But that's not what the movie is remembered for. It is remembered for one soliloquy by Howard Beale. Or, more accurately, one rant. From the Internet Movie DataBase, we get the full quote:

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Chris Christie stood up in front of the media today, pulled out a plastic dry-cleaning bag, and wrapped it around his head. He tightly knotted it, before anyone realized what he was up to, and then toppled over on the stage, gasping for breath. Within moments, he was dead, having suffocated himself before anyone could rush to his aid.

Well, no. That's not what happened. That whole previous paragraph is actually fiction. It was inspired, of course, by Christie's own words. He replied, to the ten-millionth time he got the question "Are you running for president?" from a bored and jaded media, with: "What do I have to do to convince you I'm not running? Commit suicide?!?" Or words to that effect (read: I am too lazy to look up this exact quote, but that's pretty close to it).

The media, of course, likely won't believe Christie -- at least until he says "No" several more times. Last week he gave a speech that created a media frenzy, and in the question-and-answer period responded to the twenty-millionth time he was asked exactly the same question that there was a "mashup" video available online of him saying "No" over and freakin' over again, and anyone who was interested in the answer should just go review this video. The media forgot to report this, and instead focused on what they decided was a more ambivalent answer to being asked the same question for the twenty-million-and-one-th time. "Christie Might Run!" was the headline they decided to go with. They were bored, quite obviously, and attacked with the ferocity of a shark pack with chum in the water. The fact that there actually was no actual chum didn't even seem to faze them.

To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld; you go into an election with the media you have, not the media you'd like to have.

Sigh.

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Forty-four years ago, Abbie Hoffman and a few friends made a statement on Wall Street. His merry band of pranksters took a tour of the New York Stock Exchange on August 24, 1967. The tour ended at a gallery overlooking the actual trading floor. Hoffman and his friends rushed to the railing, and began throwing money onto the heads of the traders below. The stock ticker (at the time, the sacred heartbeat of the American financial system) was halted for six minutes, while the crowd grubbed for the money on the floor. Hoffman's group was then escorted out, where they spoke to a crowd of reporters.

Hoffman wasn't protesting any one thing in particular. His group didn't have a list of demands. It's not even correct to call his action a "protest" or "media event" -- it was more properly "street theater" or "guerrilla theater."

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