Legendary "Guy's Guy" Steve McQueen in Recent Ford Ad

If Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today…

How many times will we read that clause today to support one viewpoint or another?

There seems to be a growing acceptance of putting words in the mouths of famous dead people – more than words.

Legendary guy’s guy Steve McQueen (1930-1980)  has crossed back over to appear in Ford ads.  Gandhi (1869-1948), Einstein (1879-1955), Elvis (1935-1977) and Lou Gehrig (1903-1941) are all pitching products well after their expiration dates.  Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) is coming out with her own line of cosmetics.  That’s a neat trick.

The advertising worlds explains that it’s all okay – it’s on the up-and-up and legal. And besides, they explain, it’s smart.  Dead celebrities can’t get into any more trouble than they did while living, so it’s a safe investment.

But it’s creepy and it’s wrong.  You know it in your gut, no matter how Madison Avenue rationalizes it.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prolific writer and speaker.  He left plenty of his own words around for us to parse.  We don’t need anyone adlibbing for him.

One thing we can say for sure today is happy birthday, Dr. King (1929-1968).  If he were alive today, he would be 82 years old. RIP.

“Please refrain from cigar smoking.”

I was shocked when I first read those words.  It was 1984.  I was working at a chichi restaurant in Westchester County as a busboy, and the manager ordered me – ordered me – to drop tent cards on each table with those five words sprawled across them.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

The message was so rude.

This was a fancy joint.  An expensive joint.  With famous people eating there. How could we impose rules on customers?

In the years to come, those tent cards proliferated and abbreviated:  “Please refrain from cigar smoking” became “No cigars please” which became “No cigars” which became “Go screw yourself.”

Today, we read in the New York Post of a lawsuit filed against a cigar smoker at 200 East 79^th Street in Manhattan.  His next-door neighbors are suing him for $2 million for smoking cigars in his own home ($500,000 for every man, woman, and child living in their apartment.)

The bottom line of the lawsuit: Cigars stink.

Well, cigars have always stunk.  They were stinking up the planet a thousand years before Columbus brought them back from the New World to the Spanish Court, where he promptly stunk things up.

Which, let’s face it, has always made cigar smokers a little rude themselves.

But a lawsuit? For being inconsiderate?

As much as I sympathize for the smoked out family on East 79^th Street, I really hope the judge doesn’t ban cigar smoking in one’s own home.  Because if he does, I’ll have to take up the stinky habit. And I hate cigars.

Would you trade places with someone in China?

I wouldn’t. Not with a peasant farmer. Not with an industrial worker. Not with a factory owner. Not with the Premier.

Not in a million years.

I bet most Americans would agree.

It’s important to keep that in mind, I think, when listening to the endless hyper-ventilation in this country about China’s emerging pre-eminence.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is the latest scribe — a big one no less — to caution America to be on its best behavior with the all-powerful People’s Republic of China, lest they perceive something – anything – we do as sign of disrespect. His piece in The Washington Post today warns of risking “cold war” with the Middle Kingdom if we don’t capitulate to more Chinese demands.

Here’s how the good doctor put it: “The aim should be to create a tradition of respect and cooperation so that the successors of leaders meeting now continue to see it in their interest to build an emerging world order as a joint enterprise.”

In other words: Ignore China’s human rights abuses and carve up the globe between us. (Kissinger always was a big thinker.)

How quickly things change.

When I was a kid, China was the faraway land cited to make my brothers and sisters and me eat peas: “Think of the children starving in China,” I would be admonished, a forkful of green mush pressed against my lips.  And rightly so.  An estimated 20-40 million people starved to death in China between 1958 and 1961 because of inane government policies.

China has come a long way since then, but let’s not convince ourselves that it has manifest destiny or some ancient Asian wisdom on how to conquer history. That cocktail party cliché — “we think about tomorrow; the Chinese think 1,000 years ahead”– is just plain hogwash.

When Americans were building interstate highways, public universities, and sprawling, model neighborhoods, the Chinese were burning books, smashing violins, and exterminating Shar Peis in the streets (their Western stench was too much.) Had history stopped then, the culmination of thousands of years of Chinese culture would have been death squads and chaos.

And let’s not pretend that was all part of a long-term plan. One of Mao’s many mottos of the Cultural Revolution, stamped onto millions of Chinese cigarette packs:  “Support agriculture on a great scale.”

Clearly he was onto China’s industrial success to come. Clever bastard.

There are many reasons to be wary of China’s advances, not the least of which is its growing naval power.  The Chinese just developed surface to ship missiles and are reportedly working on their first aircraft carrier, which could one day challenge U.S. dominance on the high seas in the Pacific.

But more worrisome than that – even more than the amount of U.S. debt it holds – is its diplomatic attitude. China’s deliberate snubs of President Obama in the past two years, beginning at the climate summit in Copenhagen in December 2009, when China’s Premier Wen Jiabao twice stood up the U.S. President at meetings, raised eyebrows across the globe.

Its growing navy is that snub weaponized. They smell our weakness and are probing our resolve, which is exactly why we can’t coddle them as Dr. Kissinger advises today.

China is in a good negotiating position, but it will face internal problems of its own.  It may be an ancient culture, but it’s way new at free market capitalism.  And as the Chinese middle class grows, and freedom and expectations begin to take hold,  it will be interesting to see how the authoritarians make out.

Or maybe Mao planned for that, too.

In the meantime, we shouldn’t let them psyche us out on the world stage. Because who’s shoes would you rather be in, theirs or ours? I’d take ours every day, even with the cracks in our soles.

An outstanding idea out of Colorado Democrat Mark Udall. The two-term senator is proposing that Republicans and Democrats sit together at this year’s State of the Union Address (Jan. 25^th. ) Not side-by-side together, but intermingled – all mixed up as one.

Kumbaya appeal aside, this could be the greatest advancement for State-of-the-Union viewing since The Clapper.

Let’s face it, the President’s annual address has become torturous to watch – a mix between the Academy Awards and a tennis match, with Eliot Engel starring as Where’s Waldo? thrown in at the end (he and Rep. Sheila Jackson are landmarks on the autograph line.)

Imagine how quickly it could all go, and how genuinely interesting it could be, if we could watch the President deliver his speech uninterrupted by four or five dozen standing ovations and wide shots of Charlie Rangel sleeping and John Boehner crying.

Interspersed or not, though, the standing ovations will likely continue, regardless of where our elected representatives sit.  But it’s still worth trying.

Maybe The President could utter six simple words at outset:

“Please hold your applause ‘til the end.”

Now that would be something.

I only saw about 12 seconds of the President’s speech last night.  But by all written accounts, he did a commendable job.

I would have stopped to watch it – my wife had it on in our house – but in that single glance I felt I had seen the speech 100 times.  There was the President; there were the eloquent applause queues, and there was the wildly cheering audience.

John Podhoretz had a very good piece in the New York Post today well-articulating this train of thought.

Podhoretz wonders if an audience speech may not have been the best venue for this type of message.  I find him right on that – and think back to another President’s response to the nation in pain, penned 25 years ago by Peggy Noonan and delivered by Ronald Reagan. (Reagan’s Challenger speech is posted here for those who have never seen it.)

No one I’ve seen, with the exception of Martin Luther King, can bring audiences to the heights candidate Obama did, but no one could deliver solemnity like the Gipper.

Nonetheless, from all I can gather, President Obama set just the right tone last night.  He did the nation proud.

Venezuelan autocrat Hugo Chávez is playing nice these days.  The hot-headed quasi Marxist has had a sudden change of heart about welcoming a U.S. ambassador back into Caracas.  His huggy photo-op in Brazil last week with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirms the strategy.

But why?

Why is the Venezuelan blowhard – a man who just finished touring Iran and Syria and who is purchasing short range missiles and T-72 tanks from Vladimir Putin – talking nicely to the U.S. now?

After all, this is a guy who has had choice words about America and its leaders.  A few for kicks:

“We have to do everything possible so that in the coming years the US empire falls.”

“You are ignoramus, you are a burro, Mr. Danger…or to say it to you in my bad English: You are a donkey, Mr. Danger. You are a donkey, Mr. George W. Bush.”

“[President Obama] goes and accuses me of exporting terrorism: the least I can say is that he’s a poor ignoramus; he should read and study a little to understand reality.”

“Obama, take charge of your own and I will take charge of mine here, compadre. Do not mess with me, Mr. Obama.”

That’s the polite stuff.  I mercifully omitted ones about President Obama’s backside and  sulfuric odors emanating from President G. W. Bush.

The answer to Chávez’s change of heart is simple. It’s for the same reason all inspiring dictators change their tune every now and then: He needs to play nice because he’s vulnerable at home. Chávez is facing his toughest re-election challenge ever in 2012 (despite his ardent wishes, Venezuela is still a democracy).  And his re-elect numbers stink, as they should.  Chavez has systematically disassembled, and destroyed, Venezuela’s economy in the name of the “people.” His embarrassing anti-American antics have also grown stale at home.

The U.S. government has a choice.  It can embrace Mr. Chávez’s newfound magnanimity, or it can press the advantage.  It should do the latter, but will likely pursue the former, judging by President Obama’s approach to world affairs over the past 25 months.

By giving Chávez the public relations victories at home he needs, though, the Obama Administration will only be propping up the world troublemaker for re-election.  We should be doing everything possible to take him out next year – electorally.

But the American people have a wonderful tool at their disposal.  They can help pry Chávez from his world perch all on their own.

Americans can boycott Venezuelan-owned CITGO stations.  The wholly-owned subsidiary of Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) has gas pumps down the street from millions of us.   We don’t have to fill up there.

I’ve been boycotting CITGO stations for four years, and I have survived. I’ve even paid a couple of pennies extra per gallon at pumps down the road from Citgo’s a few times and it didn’t kill me.  Total investment for feeling better about myself: probably around 10 bucks.

The convenience chain 7/11 dumped Citgo as its gas retailer a few years back, to its credit.  And I’m not alone in bypassing Citgo stations with a low tank. But Chávez’s  government continues to be propped up by unsuspecting American drivers. And remember, local Citgo owners – everyday Americans like us – don’t have to remain Citgo owners.  They are free to re-open their stations as Texaco’s or Exxon’s or Mobile’s or even BP’s.

Other than Sean Penn — don’t get me started – does anyone believe Hugo Chávez is a anything other than a tyrant to his own people and a dangerous player on the world stage?

I can’t think of a rational one.

So why not help get rid of him if we can?

Next time you pass a CITGO station, keep driving.

Et tu, Pete King?

It looks like the Long Island Republican has succumbed to cheap attention-grabbing antics  — like so many others – in the wake of last weekend’s terrible shooting in Arizona.

King’s contrived solution to a lunatic’s shooting spree?  Make carrying a firearm within 1,000 feet of a congressman a federal crime.

Really?

How on earth would that be enforceable?  Mobile metal detectors and measuring tape?

What if a congressman was campaigning door-to-door; would legal gun owners in homes he passes spontaneously become felons by his very presence?  That’s a lot of power.

And even if it were possible to enforce such a preposterous law, what about the rest of us?  What about former members of congress? Or town alderman? Or tax collectors? Or sheriffs?  Or dog catchers? Or just plain, regular people like moi?  Don’t we deserve protection?  Geez. First it’s congressional health insurance, and now you’re leaving us defenseless against them?

Pete King might want to walk this one back.  It’s beneath a chairman of the Homeland Security Committee who has serious matters to tackle.

The police state cometh.

New York City just announced its intention to install speed cameras on Gotham streets. The fixed cameras would record the speeds of vehicles throughout the city and mail the owners of offending vehicles a summons.

New York City has been issuing tickets to vehicles that pass through red lights since 1989 — The Soviets were among the first to do it incidentally — but speed cameras are a whole other animal.

If this gets approved by the New York State Legislature, you just know what is next — speed traps between highway toll plazas statewide, and, eventually, nationwide, save, perhaps, in the Granite State where natives still maintain a healthy disdain for government. (New Hampshire motorcyclists remain free to go helmet-less, as foolish as that may be, God bless ’em.)

I’m sure it’s occurred to just about everyone who drives that speed traps between fixed points would be simple to implement, especially since the advent of EZ Pass systems. If a vehicle passes toll plaza “A” at 8 A.M, for example, and the speed limit is 55 MPH, that vehicle should reach toll plaza “B”, 55 miles down the pike, no earlier than 9 A.M.

If it does, it’s the clink for sure.

One wonders how appealing such a lucrative government torture scheme could become to cash-strapped states. It would provide lots of revenue — at least initially — reduce the number of state troopers needed, and, in short order, subdue an entire population into driving like Miss Daisy.

But just because government has the technology to strictly enforce speed laws, should it?

If you ask me, highway speeding is part of the American spirit. Taking away that small thrill of risk and disobedience would be like breaking a wild Mustang (of the Equine kind.) Stripping away our freedom to gun it a little every now and then is tantamount to national castration.

New York City’s request for authorizing legislation from Albany is reportedly falling on deaf ears. But so did early requests for approval of red light camera legislation (I did press on it at the time for a state senator.) But eventually, as the relentless government hearings droned on, that request seemed less and less Big Brotherish and it was approved. And then expanded. And then expanded again. And then again.

We don’t have to watch out for speed traps yet, but beware the precursor arguments:

“Safety Zones” will:

Increase road safety:

Reduce traffic fatalities;

Lower gas consumption;

Reduce the number of troopers needed and save taxpayers money;

Reverse global warning, and

Cure constipation and insomnia if taken as properly directed.

We should have rioted over the the seat belt laws…

As the New York City Council launches the first in a series of, say, 100,000 hearings on the recent blizzard in New York, Saturday Night Lives gives us some welcome perspective.

I understand some council members are considering legislation banning snow in the five boroughs, with the full support of the trial lawyers of course.