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Khabab (Agenzia Fides) – “I can confirm that Father Antoine Boutros and his collaborator Said Al-Abdun, who have been missing since last Sunday, were actually stopped and seized by one of the several armed rebel groups that are in the area. Since their disappearance we have not received any news or demands from the kidnappers”.
This is what Mgr. Nicolas Antiba, Greek-Melkite Archbishop of Bosra and Hauran confirms to Agenzia Fides with regards to the hypothesis of the kidnapping, which circulated since the first hours after the disappearance of father Antoine and Said (see Fides 16/07/2015). The two, in a car, were traveling from the city of Shahba to Sama Hinadat, where father Antoine was supposed to celebrate Sunday mass.
Greek-Melkite priest Antoine Boutros, 50, married and father of a daughter, pastor of the Church of St. Philip the Apostle in the city of Shahba (50 miles south-east of Damascus), is also known for his charitable and humanitarian initiatives in the Syrian province of Suwayda, and for helping to maintain civil peace, committing himself in operations of mediation among the warring factions. “All twenty priests of the archdiocese are peacemakers, and always try to work for reconciliation and for the benefit of all, in the situation of suffering and pain experienced by the Syrian people”, says Archbishop Antiba to Fides.
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- CHINA Wenzhou: 90-year-old bishop and 26 priests protest against cross demolitions | {
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James Wolfe is one of those guys that really needs no introduction, but just in case you haven't kept up with the last nearly 20 years of Electro Bass history, we will give you the scoop on this fascinating Florida artist with years upon years of experience as a DJ, Producer, and Label Owner. As one of Florida's most renowned DJ's, "Kid Wonder" as some would call him, started out as a young and highly dedicated professional, DJ'ing at some of the most notorious festivals and events not just in the region, but all across the nation. Having spent many years as an employee of the legendary "DJ Store" in West Palm Beach, later going on to work at the equally legendary Dancetarium record store, he not only learned about the vast music catalog available; primarily coming out of Europe, but also essentially single-handedly helped to expose a generation to music that otherwise would have never made it over to the state.
Later being taken under the wing of iconic producer David Noller of Dynamix II, James Wolfe would learn the craft of producing classic Electro Bass, shortly after releasing his debut "Techtonic Plates E.P." on his new imprint Frajile Recordings. Since then, the label and artist have had a very prolific run, bringing us many classic 12" hits by artists like his own Resident Alien, Exzakt, Scratch-D, not to mention a wide selection of titles by himself, including his new pseudonym "F8".
This month, James Wolfe records his first-ever Technobass.net feature, bringing us many released and unreleased songs carefully selected, and in some cases exclusively made available to him specifically for this carefully produced set. Don't sleep on this one, as this is a rare appearance, and one that will go down in the books and one of our best yet!
- Anthony Nuzzo - Evil Directed You Here | Frajile Recordings
- JimiTheGenius - Our Style | Kuad Recordings
- F8 - Space Station | Frajile Recordings
- Korrupted Brothers - You Know The Business | Frajile Recordings
- Brice Kelly - Return From Darkness | Frajile Recordings
- Korrupted Brothers - Alien Seeds | Frajile Recordings
- James Wolfe - Electric Charge | Frajile Recordings
- Ashrock - Miami | Kuad Recordings
- UBM - Mystical Valley - (F8 Elektro Remix) | Unknown
- Carl Finlow - Sub Unit | Outside Recordings
- Amper Clap - Sands Of Time | Amper Clap Productions
- Debbie D – Supertweak - (James Wolfe’s 809 Re-Tweak) | Genuine Debbie D Records
- Dimes (JimiTheGenius Bass Edit) | Kuad Recordings
- Depeche Mode - Enjoy The Silence - (Wolfe’s Elektro Bass Rework) | Frajile Recordings
- BreaksJunky and Alekay - Get Em | Theoryon Records
- Anthony Nuzzo – Eraser | Frajile Recordings
- Evanescence - Bring Me To Life - (James Wolfe’s Elektro Bass Rework) | Frajile Recordings
- Cloak & Dagger - Darkfall | Frajile Recordings
Find out more about James Wolfe:
technobass.net...the online Electro magazine with a free with on the cover! | {
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Now onto its fourth year, Audi Star Creation is a fashion design competition organised by the Textile & Fashion Federation of Singapore that provides young, raw Asian talent a platform to launch their fashion careers. The event culminates each year with a showcase featuring entries from its top three, alongside the capsule collection debut of winners from its previous year.
AUDI STAR CREATION 2013 WINNERS CIRCLE
Fresh off their wins at the ‘InspirAsian’-themed Audi Star Creation 2013 on May 13th, Vietnam’s Vu Ta Linh, China’s Sun Yi Jin and Singapore’s Haziq Putra took their prized mini-capsules to the Audi Fashion Festival runway on Friday. The quick introduction celebrates the start of their one-year internship with FJ Benjamin, which will mentor their maiden capsule collections to launch at Audi Star Creation 2014.
VU TA LINH (VIETNAM)
26-year-old Vu Ta Linh won the judges over with ‘The Contour’, a womenswear collection that used stitching, weaving, embroidery and other traditional techniques to capture the curves and outlines of his native Vietnamese heritage icon – the Ruong Bac Thang rice terraces in Sapa. The relaxed draping and fit of the collection depicted a haunting andro-nomadic feel, as the layers of grey gave it depth and movement.
SUN YI JIN (CHINA)
At the tender age of 24, Sun Yi Jin’s womenswear collection proved wise beyond her years, drawing inspiration from traditional Chinese costumes and handcrafting techniques of 56 ethnic groups, some of which, have been lost over time. And yet, it came across as cutting edge and modern; each separate piece fit for the streets of any fashion capital across the globe. Rating high in aesthetic, craftsmanship, tailoring and marketability, Sun’s collection was a shoo-in.
HAZIQ PUTRA (SINGAPORE)
Barely legal, 21-year-old Haziq Putra has much to scream about. In addition to his SG$10,000 prize money, an internship with FJ Benjamin and the chance to launch his maiden capsule collection at Star Creation 2014, Haziq also won the Audi Young Designer Award and an additional SG$10,000 cash prize. Inspired by a trip to Kelantan, Haziq incorporated the wau bulan (a kite native to the Malaysian state) and the ikan pari (stingray) in progressive shapes and structure to his street menswear collection.
AUDI STAR CREATION 2012 WINNERS’ CAPSULE COLLECTION DEBUT
The second part of the Audi Star Creation showcase took us right where last year’s Star Creation winners left off – only this time, armed with a year’s experience under the mentorship of Douglas and Odile Benjamin.
KO YOUNGJI (SOUTH KOREA)
Having recently graduated from France’s l’Ecole Supérieure des Arts et Techniques de la Mode with a degree in fashion design and tailoring, Ko Youngji will launch her own label, Deuxy, this year, with plans for it to go global within five years. Ko’s collection is a reflection of her time spent in France, drawing inspiration from Parisian buildings and in particular, their doors. While I felt that the collection didn’t offer a strong enough perspective, there’s no denying Ko’s strength in lines and darting. ‘La Porte’ also debuts a new fabric Ko created – a mixture of silk, knits and polyester – especially for her collection.
RODERIC WONG (CHINA)
‘Inspiration’ sees Roderic Wong revisit and build upon the mini-capsule that also garnered his Audi Young Designer Award last year. Wong very ambitiously focused his collection on material manipulation, ranging from elegant lightweights like satin and silk to heavy fabrics such as wool, velvet and pashmina. While his lines, structure, detailing and re-texurisation were spot-on stunning, it was very obvious in which fabrics his strengths lie. Wong plans to release a ready-to-wear and bridal gown (designing his fiancée’s gown piqued an interest) collection later in November this year, in both Singapore and Shanghai.
SORAVIT KAEWKAMON (THAILAND)
24-year-old Soravit Kaewkamon left a lasting impression with us last year, with a four-piece menswear entry inspired by ‘Love and Friendship’, depicting high impact within polished details. ‘Beauty of Hornbill’, her capsule for 2013, takes her winning concept further – this time, in womenswear form. The result gives new meaning to the modern power lady, with finer digital prints, more intricate laser-cut detailing, and harsher structures. Kaewkamon plans to launch her own label, Por, in her native Thailand this year.
Image credit: Jonathan Liu | {
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Michelle Obama’s Birthday Photo Is An Adorable Thank You To Barack Obama
True love is real people, and the Obamas prove it. Today, Jan. 17, marks the day when Michelle Obama came to grace us with her existence. So, in celebration of her 54th year of being an absolute queen on this earth, Michelle Obama posted an adorable Instagram thanking her husband Barack Obama for her romantic birthday flowers. We're swooning.
The Instagram, which shows a bundle of beautiful flowers along with a note clearly addressed to "Michelle," proves that Michelle Obama can deliver a quality photo that rivals any Millennial's Instagram aesthetic.
However, it's really the caption that takes the cake, where she not only thanks her husband for the gifts, but also the entire public for wishing her a happy birthday. She writes,
Thank you @BarackObama for the beautiful flowers waiting for me in the office this morning. You’re my best friend, biggest fan, and getting notes and flowers from you will never get old. And to the many people from around the country who sent cards and posted on social media, you have no idea how much we love hearing from you. I know birthdays can sometimes be bittersweet (54!), but your messages of hope, generosity, and warmth have always reminded me how lucky and blessed we are.
From Barack Obama wishing Joe Biden a happy birthday with one of their famous bromance memes, or Michelle Obama posting a heartwarming #tbt birthday message to her husband, it's safe to say that the Obama's happy birthday game has always been on point.
Just. Look. At. This.
It's too much.
Would it be too much to petition that every day be an Obama birthday?
So how do the Obamas celebrate birthdays now that they're out of the White House? Apparently by enjoying some sunshine. On Jan. 16, photos surfaced from BET of Michelle Obama hitting the beaches of Miami along with daughters Sasha and Malia, all while rocking some matching swimsuits. Too adorable.
To celebrate the former FLOTUS's birthday today, there's been an overwhelming amount of messages from media outlets and loyal fans alike. The impact Michelle Obama has had on the world today is truly unparalleled, from her achievements in and out of the White House. Her 2010 "Let's Move" campaign shed light on the epidemic of childhood obesity, not only urging more children to get out and exercise, but also helping redesign school lunch programs as well as increase the access to healthier foods for all.
Despite "Let's Move" arguably being her most well-known initiative, Michelle Obama didn't stop there. In 2014 she introduced her "Reach Higher" Initiative, which was made to inspire the younger generation to take charge of their personal education by not only completing high school but go on to attend college and universities. Her 2015 "Let Girls Learn" project, which aimed at urging young girls to stay in school, soon followed after.
As if the Instagram wasn't enough to have us all in our feelings, a visit to Michelle Obama's biography on the WhiteHouse.gov site will certainly have you reminiscing on the good times. Her biography reads,
When people ask Michelle Obama to describe herself, she doesn’t hesitate to say that first and foremost, she is Malia and Sasha’s mom. But before she was a mother — or a wife, lawyer, or public servant — she was Fraser and Marian Robinson’s daughter.
I'm not crying. You're crying.
In addition to her countless achievements of being first lady, let's also never forget the times Michelle Obama totally broke it down on the dance floor, mom-style.
Happy birthday Michelle, and I hope you turnip for your 54th birthday. You deserve it. | {
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Day Two in Akyaka, Turkey was another complete day of freestyle action. Solid wind conditions throughout the day allowed for the completion of Round 2 for both the Men and Women and the first two heats of Round 3 for the Men.
For the Freestyle discipline, all riders get 7 trick attempts during their heat, with the top 4 scores counting. The riders are judged on a combination of height, power, technical difficulty, execution, and innovation. All the performed tricks are divided into different categories.
What is very clear at this event, is that there is no such thing as an easy heat. All riders have fought extremely hard right from the first round, the level has increased exponentially since last year, so each heat means the riders have to give it their all, or they will quickly be left behind.
Men’s Round 2 Heat 9 was the first of the day, picking up from yesterday, the heat was resumed from the 4th trick attempt. Posito Martinez from the Dominican Republic continued to build upon his good performance from yesterday, landing each trick attempt and securing his spot in Round 3. Joining him was Stefan Spiessberger from Austria, who remained focused and advanced together with Posito.
Heat 10 saw Belgian/Spanish rider Jerome Cloetens and Louka Pitot from France battle against Maxime Chabloz from Switzerland and Luis Alberto Cruz from the Dominican Republic for the top two spots. The points remained close throughout the heat, but it was eventually Luis Alberto who climbed to the top spot followed by Chabloz, both of whom will pass through to the next round.
For Heat 11, it was 17-year-old newcomer Nino Liboni from France who showed the determination necessary to finish in the top position. He rode a good heat and will be joined in the next round by fellow Frenchman Val Garat, who narrowly made his way through, despite injuring his leg and struggling to finish the heat.
Mexican rider Anthar Racca rode incredibly well for Heat 12, landing a big Slim7 scoring 8.27. He was incredibly happy to have improved on yesterday’s performance, and he passed through to the next round in 1st place. Joining him was Arthur Guillebert from France who just managed to snatch the spot from Paul Serin.
Round 2 of the women were next in sequence, starting with heat 5. Two local riders, Leila Kut and Gisel Ozen faced some tough competition, coming up against young Spaniard Claudia Leon, and Russian rider Kristina Belogorskaya. Leon was on fine form today once again and landed a nice Slim Chance scoring 7.1 points. She cleared the heat with confidence and passed to the next round. Bologorskaya was delighted to be joining her.
Therese Taabbel suffered a bad heat on Day One of the competition but was clearly on form today, putting on a great performance of powered riding like we are used to seeing from her. She rode solidly landing a great BS313. Paula Novotna was determined to show us what she is made of, finishing her round of tricks with a massive Heart Attack scoring 8.5 points and giving her the win. Taabbel and Novotna pass through to the next round, with Vera Klabbers from the Netherlands sadly not making it through.
Round 3 was next in sequence, as there was a struggle to complete the heat due to shifting wind conditions. After a short break, the heat was resumed after the wind shifted and came in from the opposite direction, stronger and gustier than we have seen in Akyaka so far. Maxime Chabloz, however, did not disappoint, and did a massive Heart Attack 7 scoring 8.3, just managing to keep control of his landing close to the beach. Chabloz maintained his consistent scores, finding the balance between going big and maintaining control, and cleared his way through to Round 4. Young Colombian Valentin Rodriguez gave it his all, fully overpowered, and it paid off as he joins Chabloz in the semi-finals, sadly knocking out big names Nicolas Delmas and Posito Martinez.
The gusty conditions continued for Heat 14 and the athletes struggled to perform their chosen tricks, the frustration evident on their faces after each attempt. Stefan Spiessberger managed to keep it together, and landed a good Backside 315 on his last attempt, it paid off and he passed through to the semi-finals. Set Teixeira also managed to cope exceptionally well, and climbed his way up to the 1st spot, joining Spiessberger in the next round. Gianmaria Coccoluto was so close but missed his chance, and was eliminated together with Luis Alberto Cruz.
Heat 15 was abandoned after the 3rd trick attempt but will be resumed tomorrow morning.
The WKC live stream was running all day, hosted by Bas Koole and Tom Court!
If you missed it, you can re-watch the event on our facebook page.
Please click here to see the ladders and scores from each heat.
The skipper’s meeting has been called for 10 am tomorrow, with the first possible start at 11 am. Be sure to tune in!
Do you enjoy reading IKSURFMAG, using our App and website? We now need your support to keep IKSURFMAG going. Support IKSURFMAG from as little as £2 and get FREE stickers plus many other benefits. Thank you!
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TEFL Lemon’s ESL Flashcard Games for Kindergarten
Teaching English at Kindergarten requires a set of very unique skills from the TEFL teacher and nearly all of them are either innate (a built in love of teaching young children) or learned the hard way on the job (usually a mixture of both!)! Certainly teaching English to Kindergarten children is one of the most rewarding jobs anywhere in the world!
Why use ESL flashcards to teach vocabulary in kindergarten?
As any good TEFL teacher teaching English to Kindergarten aged kids will tell you, using ESL flashcards in your kindergarten class is an invaluable way of teaching vocab to your little ones. Your kindergarten children will really respond well to the bright and colourful visual cues ESL flashcards will give them in your kindergarten class. This page is dedicated to showcasing some effective and easy to follow ESL flashcard games for kindergarten classes!
Making ESL flashcard games for kindergarten classes shorter and easy to follow
Because our kindergarten children are much younger and kindergarten children have much shorter attention spans, they will often find language games hard to understand and follow. It’s important that the ESL flashcard games for kindergarten you choose are easy for little children to understand and are shorter in length. Keep your ESL flashcard games for kindergarten fun, snappy and full of smiles!! Welcome to our flashcard games for kindergarten page! If you have any good ESL flashcard games for kindy yourself, then please message us your ESL games here.
One of the best aspects of teaching small children for me is the chance to be a little kid myself from time to time by becoming a scary monster! Having never really grown up, this ESL flashcard game for kids is great for me and will suit fun TEFL teachers, who enjoy playing around with kids in lessons.
In the ESL flashcard game ‘Angry Crab’, you'll be a real sideways-walking angry crab with angry pincers snip-snapping away at the kids! This is also a great ESL flashcard game for kindergarten, too.
This is a brilliant ESL flashcard game for kindergarten and primary ages. Perfect if you have a China-themed lesson, too!
Pre-teach and review your ESL flashcards with the young learner class as a whole until you feel that they are comfortable with the vocabulary. When you are ready, clear lots of space in your classroom and divide your class into teams of 3-4 kids.
Have each team sitting on the floor in a line as though they were sitting in a Dragon Boat! The closer they sit together as a team, the better!
This is a timeless ESL flashcard game for kindergarten and will be a winner each time for kids aged 3-6 years. Review your ESL flashcards with the kindergarten kids and then tell the class that the floor is lava from a Volcano and very, very hot!
Bend down and touch the floor and pretend to burn your fingers to show your kids and have your kindergarten kids rolling with laughter, really clown it up and get your kindergarten class ready for this ESL flashcard game for kindergarten.
Tell your students that they need to get from one side of the room to the other, but must not touch the floor. They need to step on the flashcards like stepping stones and say the word on the card. Give your kids lots of encouragement as they go in this kindergarten flashcard game
Through your Teaching Assistant or helper, tell the class that you are thinking about a flashcard and they must guess what the flashcard is. For every guess, award a point or a sticker to the guesser.
When the class guess which card you are thinking about correctly, you become a monster and chase them back to their seats! A solid ESL flashcard game for kindergarten ages
This ESL flashcard activity for kindergarten is pretty unusual but should yield some good results and your kindy students are going to like doing this a
Make a photocopy of all of your ESL flashcards you are currently teaching your kindergarten kids and cut them in half in a jaggedy pattern. Your kindergarten kids must match one half of their ESL flashcard with another half another child has. This ESL kindergarten flashcard game not only teaches vocab, but also shape awareness and working together.
A good ESL flashcard game for kindergarten children where kids need to memorise and recall words from 10-15 flashcards.
The teacher then nominates a word and starts cycling through the flashcards every few seconds. The kids then yell ‘STOP!’ when they see the flashcard the teacher has nominated. Keep going until all the flashcards have been covered. Job done and a quick, no-fuss way to review ESL flashcards with children.
This is an ESL flashcard game for kindergarten children which I have personally played many times in kindergarten English classes. It works very well and your kindergarten children should be able to produce the language at the end of the flashcard activity.
Kindergarten children choral drill six flashcards pinned on the board and, even though you hide cards one by one, your kindergarten kids will still know what the missing flashcard is in this cool flashcard game for kindergarten.
This ESL flashcard game for kindergarten is one such activity where the kids are reviewing the words you’ve taught them, but in a slow and calm manner.
Kindergarten kids sometimes can’t follow the rules of games, simply because they are too young, but this flashcard game is easy to follow for the kindergarten kids and they’ll review the words you taught them from the flashcards very well. Your kindergarten kids will enjoying playing ‘The Circle’ | {
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Outdoor amenities enhance your homestead
Outdoor living is a lot more fun than it used to be, with the abundant choices home builders offer to enhance properties, and vast range of things designers and contractors can do for your property when you want to add a feature.
With tranquil spaces that allow for fun and entertaining, it's a part of the home that is meant to be enjoyed, especially in a part of the country where there is so much warm/pleasant weather annually.
By using a little creativity, homeowners can have anything imaginable, including pools and spas, putting greens, walking paths, and basketball courts.
Homeowners may want to add a summer kitchen complete with prep area, built-in gas grill, small fridge and extensive comfortable seating on a gorgeous stone patio to bring the party outside. Next to the kitchen could be a large pool or seamless-edge pool, hot tub and changing cabanas, which have gained popularity.
Soothing water features with waterfalls and privacy landscaping also can enhance a "backyard oasis."
Making the experience complete could be a home theater with an outdoor big-screen television made to withstand the weather - or encase it in new all-weather cabinets. Complete the look with gas lanterns, a gas fireplace or fire pit for the cooler months, covered patio, garden fountain and exotic daybed.
According to probuilder.com, a few items making the list on its "50 Features Home Buyers Want Most" are blurred indoor/outdoor connections with glass walls, low-maintenance exterior products and water-conserving landscaping.
Also noted by probuilder.com is the focus on highly designed outdoor lighting and standout entries, with gorgeous front doors in larger sizes in a pop of color and glass accents.
In the community
Linda Houston with Land Tejas Development said that as the amenity development director manager for one of the major developers in the Houston area for the last several years, they have found that buyers are saying "more is more."
Houston said amenities are in high demand, especially for families with young children.
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Have you been struggling with how to talk to your tween about sex? Me, too. At what age did you have “the talk”? I mean we’ve talked about puberty. In fact, we’ve talked puberty to death. It’s old news. They both know so much about the inner workings of the female reproductive system that they could probably teach a class. But we’ve not quite made the leap to …you put the penis in the vagina and do that thang. I’ve been mulling this idea over for years, waiting for the right moment. I just haven’t been ready to see the innocence disappear from her eyes.
I told my tween that she and I would have “the talk” before she turns 12. In a culture where Teen Mom is a show that makes celebrities, I want my daughter to know babies are a lot or work and where those babies come from. She wants nothing to do with that conversation. Boys are not even on her radar yet. She is still pretty happy with unicorns, slumber parties and playing with dolls but I don’t want her getting misinformation about sex from other kids. I promised myself I’d talk to my tween about sex before she was 12 and now, I have less than a month, people.
Fool that I am, I made plans. The universe laughed at me and then life intervened. Now, I’m binge-reading all the articles on how to talk to your tween about sex because a teachable moment has arisen. No, before any of you have a stroke, it has nothing to do with her and sex. It’s more of a collateral damage situation.
But how to talk to your tween about sex is not an easy thing to figure out. It has to be the perfect balance of honesty, openness and availability.
The conversation has to be had with every child and no nervous giggling or embarrassment is allowed on the parents part. We have to be a source of information and comfort. They have to believe we know what we’re talking about and not be afraid to ask questions.
Last Tuesday was Valentine’s Day, I’m sure you know where this is going, and let’s just say the Big Guy and I were feeling particularly amorous. Him and all his damn romantic gestures. Anyways, apparently, we actually made some noise. We usually use our inside voices because, you know, KIDS! (TMI, I’m sorry.)
My 11-year-old had the misfortune of getting up to pee at the wrong time and now, we all need therapy. It’s all giving me flashbacks to the time when she was a toddler and she caught us “wrestling”. If these kids would JUST STAY IN THEIR BEDS. (Sidebar, just say no to co-sleeping this is what got us to where we are today. I jest, sorta.)
The thing is the tween is very mature in many ways but very immature in other ways. She’s at that age where she’s beginning to look like a young woman but her brain is not quite there yet. She’s caught somewhere between working her eye roll and still coming in for snuggles and mama cuddles on the regular.
Either way, you’ve got to figure out how to talk to your tween about sex sooner or later.
Anyways, to be clear, I was not howling at the moon or anything like that but when you are a kid and you hear anything coming from your parents’ bedroom other than snoring, you are instantly disgusted. We had no idea any of this took place until the following morning. We thought they were asleep.
All I know was that she got up on Wednesday morning particularly annoyed for no particular reason, as far as I was aware. I just took it for regular tween behavior. Honestly, one minute she’s being all tweeny and the next she is playing American Girl dolls with her little sister. I can’t keep up. She is a fantastic kid. She’s just a bit moody these days. I get it. I’ve been there. I am sympathetic.
But after school, I asked her point blank how her day was. Her answer was,
“It would have been fine if I had gotten more than 3 hours of sleep last night!”
I volleyed back with my standard,
“Well if you went to sleep at your bedtime instead of staying up messing around on your tablet or playing Barbies, you wouldn’t be so exhausted and grouchy.”
To which she responded,
“No, mom I only got 3-hours of sleep because of you and dad!”
And with that, her lip curled and I could see the disgust. Suddenly, I felt like I was in that commercial back in the 70’s where the kid does the really shitty behavior, I think it was drugs or something, and says, “I learned it from you, dad!” It was that bam! You are to blame.
My next question, the one I wish I had never asked, “What is that supposed to mean? How is this our fault?” I was a little annoyed because I am not, in fact, to blame for everything.
The answer I didn’t want to hear,
“Well, I had to pee and when I got up I heard your “weird noises” coming from the bedroom AND my sleep pillow and FIFI were held hostage in there! How am I supposed to sleep without them and after hearing THAT!!!!!”
There it was. Firstly, I was a little embarrassed that she heard anything so I did what any sane mom would do, I told her that it was her dad. My second thought was, “Oh no, we traumatized her!” I finally did it. I irrevocably damaged my kid. I have to start saving for the therapy.
Then, I thought to myself, this “tween” who pushes me and pulls me back so much on a daily basis that I don’t know if I’m coming or going had purposely left her snuggle pillow and lovey in my room so that she could sneak in there in the middle of the night to sleep. Oh yeah, she still does that occasionally. I’m not complaining but she does bear some responsibility in all of this.I’m not going to lie. I was pretty embarrassed. I don’t get embarrassed but we were both red in the face. Then I sucked it up and said,
“Hey, I know it was uncomfortable to hear whatever you heard but we’re married and we love each other. This is what people who are married and in love do to share physical intimacy. It’s completely natural!”
Then I decided to add, “Besides, isn’t it better to hear “that” than your father and I screaming how much we hate each other behind those doors?”
To which she agreed. Then she looked at her little sister, her voice went down near a whisper and she said,
“But I didn’t want to hear you DOING.IT!”
Then, I threw up in my mouth a little bit.
My response, “Firstly, we never saying “doing it” ever again. It’s called “making love.””
Because hearing my 11-year-old say “doing it” in reference to her father and I, skeeved me out. Of course, hearing myself say, “making love” out loud was nearly as creepy. So we decided to just agree that when the bedroom door is shut, we’re probably together not sleeping. I told her if it really bothered her, I could buy her ear plugs. She was mortified but swiftly answered,
Boundaries were set.
If the bedroom door is shut, stay out. I considered getting one of those old license plates that said, “If the bedroom’s a rockin, don’t bother knockin” and hanging it on our door but I thought it was probably still too soon for that joke.
We still have to have “the talk” but I’m pretty sure she knows what’s going on. I also feel like I need to add a disclaimer to our talk that when she has sex for the first time, what she heard will probably not be what will be happening because, you know, teenage boys are bumbling idiots.
But what am I going to do, tell her to sleep with older men if she wants it to be worth her time? Nope, I’ll just let her suffer through crappy first-time sex like the rest of us besides, after all that eye rolling shade she’s been throwing my way lately, an awkward first time when she’s at college is just what the doctor ordered. Shhh, don’t tell me otherwise. College is my story and I’m sticking to it.
Anyways, I’ve still got to have this talk but now, it feels super weird because I feel like she’s going to relate the entire thing to her father and me. And EWWWW! | {
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Meet Mentor Alton Ramsey, a Spiritual and Life Guide
I sat down over coffee with poet and personal mentor, Alton Ramsey, to talk about the art of being a spiritual and life guide to others.
Dorian: What’s your background?
Alton: Being born and raised in Columbus, Georgia, by a single parent provided a first-hand view of the ongoing struggle of life as an African American. It helped me to see the many different avenues and possibilities that can lead to success or failure as a Black man.
Dorian: How does it work? Does a mentor choose a mentee or vice versa?
Alton: Mentorship chooses you. It‚Äôs up to the individual whether he/she accepts the honour/ responsibility of helping another person to succeed. Success is usually brought about by sharing the ‚Äútruth‚ÄĚ about one‚Äôs experiences and knowledge. My belief is nothing happens by coincidence in God‚Äôs World. Many of us are not aware of the importance of mentorship because too often we think we can do it alone.
Dorian: You have taught me a lot with regards to intention, self-reflection, and spiritual discernment.
Alton: Additionally, I’d like to think you consider me as friend, stopper, and motivator. One of my mentors expressed the importance of having someone in your life (beyond family) who can stop you and have you pull over to the side of the road without question. Having someone you count on as a motivator in good and bad times is paramount these days, but to also call that person a friend nurtures the learning idea on both sides.
Dorian: Is mentorship for every one?
Alton: I believe everyone receives some form of mentorship (i.e. family member in passing, friend, teacher) but many struggle with the idea of mentoring because they think they’re not good enough, or they’re too consumed with their own paths.
Dorian: What made you take on the role of mentor?
Alton: As I said earlier, mentorship chose me. From an earlier age, I’ve always had the willingness to reach out to others, share or pass along the blessings that had been so freely given me.
Dorian: Have you yourself been mentored?
Alton: Yes! Many of my greatest blessings and lessons learned were handed down by mentors. The early years were a challenge because I struggled to see the big picture of things being served. But at some point the light bulb came on for me, as I noticed and paid more attention to the things that were happening to me and around me.
Dorian: Where do you see yourself five, ten years from now?
Alton: Had you asked me the same question five years ago, living in the Middle East would not be any part of my answer, and the fact that God granted us the greatest gift of Morgan Iman, my daughter, in the same place after many years of fervent prayer, has totally changed the way I look at the future. Having said that, my current vision is to become reunited with family and friends back home in Georgia where we want to continue the blessing of teaching.
Dorian: I love the priority you put on family! You are also a poet?
Alton: Poetry, is another one those avenues that chose me. I am friends and mentor to a pastor, Jamie Groover, in the USA who was a poet before assuming ministry on behalf of his father. Though I’ve never considered myself a poet until recently, it is something I believe in, and I hope that young people will someday take that torch forward. I like to write pieces that serve this ideal, and I also believe that laughter is good medicine.
Dorian: (Sees waiter approaching with check) On the note of pieces, I will bid you peace and blessings. Good speaking to you. I have to go.
Alton: (Blank stare) | {
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In this article, we will look at the eight key points of execution for wingers on breakout plays. Before working on this, it is important to have sound fundamentals in passing the the puck, receiving the puck and the fundamentals of puck protection.
Every hockey parent wants their son or daughter to be successful on the ice and there are so many factors involved that will determine how their future will play out.
In part 1 we looked at the 9 benefits of not comparing yourself to others. In this article, we will look at 9 things that you can do to STOP the temptation of comparing yourself to others.
How many of us spend time comparing ourselves to others? It almost seems that it is human nature to compare ourselves. No one is perfect, we all do it from time to time.
After a long season, it’s important for players to take some time off and let their body rest. During this down time, players should consider a regeneration phase by getting the necessary body care.
Scoring goals is a difficult skill to develop. The great majority of players need to develop a better tactical and technical awareness when developing sniping proficiency and success.
Hockey is in a state of constant evolution. From technological advancements to the shifting focus onto specific areas of the game, players, coaches and trainers alike have been finding new ways to adapt to the ever-changing environment, both on and off the ic
School is finally out, kids are excited and families are on their way to enjoying summer. Whether you’re up at the lake, cabin, or just chilling in the back yard, I know you’re wondering what your young hockey player can do to stay in shape.
We are early into the off season and you are working on fitness, getting some on ice training and playing spring games and tournaments. Have you planned for next season?
The key to a successful offence is the ability for defensemen to retrieve the puck, make the first pass to the forwards, begin the attack and then to get up ice as quickly as possible and join the attack.
The sun is shining, the weather warming up, pools are being open, and the shorts and sandals are being taken out of the closet. But before we dive into three months of swimming, golfing, cottage getaways, and beach vacations, young hockey players will find out what team they’ll be playing for come September.
There’s a reason why you hear everyone talking about how important core strength is. I have parents comment to me all the time that their player “needs core strength.”
1) JUNIOR B UPDATE: KIJHL’s Castlegar Rebels announce new coach and GM; Sharp calling the shots for HJHL’s Three Hills Thrashers
2) On Top of the World: CSSHL Keeps Gaining Traction in Canada’s Hockey Landscape
3) Around the WHL: Eleven WHL players help Canada win Hlinka Gretzky gold; Tigers deal White to ICE
4) Meet Matthew Savoie, the NAX Forward Taking the CSSHL by Storm
5) Meet The Winners Of The 2018 HockeyNow Minor Hockey Player Of The Year Award Powered By Hockeyshot | {
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These are the acupressure points for sore throat. Working on these points can help you get better faster. You do not have to use all of these points. Using just one or two of them whenever you have a free hand can be effective.
Acupressure Point LU11 — Shao Shang
Chinese Name: 少 商
Location: on the radial side of the thumb, posterior to the corner of the nail.
Benefits: cough, asthma, sore throat, laryngitis, nosebleed, mental fog, irritability, loss of consciousness.
Acupressure Point LI4 — Hoku
Chinese Name: 合 谷
Location: At the highest spot of the muscle on the back of the hand that protrudes when the thumb and index finger are brought close together. Midway between the thumb and index finger approximately one body inch above the web.
Benefits: Relieves pain and inflammation in the hand, wrist, elbow, shoulder, and neck. Headache, red eye, pain in the eye, nose bleed, toothache, sore throat, facial swelling, fever, abdominal pain, constipation, delayed menstrual cycles, absence of menstruation in fertile women without pregnancy, PMS, delayed labor, to balance the energy in the body, side effects of radiation and chemotherapy in cancer patients
Acupressure Point ST44 — Nei Ting
Chinese Name: 內 庭
Location: proximal to the web between the 2nd and 3rd toes, in the depression distal and lateral to the 2nd metatarso-digital joint.
Benefits: toothache, frontal headache, nasal congestion, dental anesthesia, laryngitis, pain during menstrual periods, nose bleed, abdominal pain, food retention, fever.
Acupressure Point K3 — Tai Xi
Chinese Name: 太溪
Location: in the depression between the medial malleolus and tendo-calcaneus, level withe tip of the medial malleolus.
Benefits: balancing point, sore throat, toothache, deafness, hemoptysis, asthma, insomnia, impotence, frequency of urination, lower backache, swollen gums, palpitations, fear, emotions, anxiety attacks, vomiting, cold sores. “ever young point” to remove the age lines, to reduce the sensation of excessive heat or cold, side effects of radiation and chemotherapy.
Acupressure Point LU7 — Lie Que
Chinese Name: 列 缺
Location: On the side of the arm, one thumb-width away from the wrist crest.
Benefits: headache, migraine, neck rigidity, cough, asthma, sore throat, facial paralysis, toothache, pain and weakness of the wrist.
Acupressure Point LI20 — Ying Xiang
Chinese Name: 迎 香
Location: at the level of the midpoint of the lateral border of the nostril. in the hollow just outside each nostril.
Benefits: blockages of the maxillary sinuses, sinus headaches, upper respiratory problems, common colds, nasal blockages, shortness of breath, face-lift point.
Acupressure Point LI11 — Qu Chi
Chinese Name: 曲池
Location: On the top, outer end of the elbow crease. bend your arm, press your thumb into the hollow located on the top, outer end of the elbow crease, directly above the elbow, between the elbow joint (below) and the muscle (above).
Benefits: food allergy, hives, vomiting, diarrhea, dysentery, fever, sore throat, pain in the elbow and arm, tennis elbow, to balance the energy in cancer patients. Relieves allergies, particularly inflamed skin disorders (such as hives and rashes), itching, and fevers.
Acupressure Point LV3 — Tai Chong
Chinese Name: 太沖
Location: in the depression distal to the junction of the 1st and 2nd metatarsal bones.
Benefits: balancing point, low energy, hypertension, uterine bleeding, PMS, retention of urine, abdominal distention, fever, diarrhea, headache, chemical toxicity, anger, epilepsy, bleeding from the stomach, bleeding from the eyes, mouth, mucus membrane, stroke, infantile convulsion, poor circulation.
It is important to drink plenty of warm water after the massage, to help clear away toxic substances in our body.
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Get to know Dr. Karen Bender, pediatric anesthesiologist at Arnold Palmer Hospital
Knowing that your child needs surgery can be difficult for any parent. One of the most frightening aspects for parents is knowing that your child will be under anesthesia. How will my child respond to the anesthesia? Will he or she recover well? Will you keep my child safe? These are just a few of the many questions that parents have as they prepare their child for surgery.
Our pediatric anesthesia team at Arnold Palmer Hospital is nothing short of extraordinary. Our team has a small window of time to assure patients and their families that they can be trusted, and that their child is in the best of hands. We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Karen Bender, chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children and Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies, to help our community get to know her better, and bring awareness to the life-saving work of Dr. Bender and her team.
Where did you grow up?I grew up just outside of Philadelphia in Camden, New Jersey, and then my family moved to Ft. Lauderdale when I was in high school.
Where did you go to medical school?I went to undergraduate and medical school at the University of Florida (Go Gators!).
What are your hobbies? What do you like to do when you aren’t in the hospital taking care of kids?I enjoy helping other people. I think of that as my life's work and my biggest hobby. I also am an avid reader and love learning. I have no athletic gifts – I’m pretty terrible at all sports, but I exercise regularly and love watching SEC football.
Over the years, I’ve taught myself Spanish. I once chaperoned a trip for high school students at a language school in Cuernavaca, Mexico where I had the opportunity to study the language for three weeks. Since I now no longer need a translator, I am able to better communicate with Spanish-speaking families who have a child in need of surgery at the hospital. I also like to educate myself on various cultural differences and backgrounds, which helps me to better understand and respond to each patient's unique healthcare needs.
I have raised three children - two are finished with college and in the workforce, and my youngest began college this year.
How do you help other people outside of Arnold Palmer Hospital?I’ve had the opportunity to provide medical care to people in other countries who have limited access to healthcare resources for over 22 years. Because I’m also a board-certified pediatrician, I donate of a lot of time caring for kids, mostly in Mexico.
I am also passionate about caring for women who come to the United States who are unable to speak English well, if at all. I teach English classes as a way to help give them a positive start in their new environment.
What would your dream vacation be?Well, I do love to travel. When I get time off, I love to travel because I love history. I think that when you understand the past, you can better understand the present. I love art and architecture. Most of my family roots are in Russia, where I was able to visit about six years ago. I’ve been to Egypt, South Africa, Argentina, and most of Western Europe as well as many wonderful places in the United States.
Out of all of the places you’ve been, where would you like to visit again?That’s a hard question for me to answer, because I love diversity. For example, when I was a kid and people asked what my favorite color was, I didn’t have a favorite. I just loved that when you look at the world, it’s full of color. I think of traveling like that. For me, I just want to go someplace new and experience something different.
If you could meet anyone who would it be?There have been so many great people in our world that have created, developed, grown, and helped. In modern times, it would have to be Nelson Mandela. I would also love to meet the many other people who were quietly courageous, never gave up, never lost hope, and fought through circumstances that were seemingly against all odds. You know, people who led the world to change.
Why did you choose Pediatric Anesthesiology?I love children. When I was in medical school, it was a time when there were not that many women in medicine. Because it was suggested that a woman going into the medical field would become a pediatrician or perhaps an obstetrician, I tried to stay away from those areas. I wanted to be different. But when I started my rotations, I realized it was just very natural to work with children. I like caring for the whole family and not just the disease, and I think pediatrics has that focus. It’s very rewarding, even through sad moments.
I also like fast-paced things and critical care. Combining pediatrics with anesthesiology allows me to do both of these things.
When a child comes in to pre-op, how do you treat them differently to preserve their childhood and ensure them that everything is going to be okay?I try to be sensitive to developmental stages. How is a child going to express anxiety? Fear? How is an adolescent going to react to the fears associated with surgery? Being aware of all of these things is what’s important. We often use smart phones and iPads to help distract the kids and make the experience more relaxing.
How long have you worked at Arnold Palmer Hospital?I have been here 24 years. I started working here six months after it opened, and I have never wanted to leave. It is the most fantastic place to work. The team we have here is amazing.
What do you enjoy the most about working here?I look forward to knowing that there is going to be a moment in every day where I know we have made a difference in someone else’s life. That is extremely rewarding.
Has there been a patient who has made an impact in your life?There is one boy in particular who is special to me, who I took care of when he was first born. He is in high school now. No one thought he would survive due to his many challenging problems that required multiple surgeries to correct. His mom sends me a letter every year with a picture to tell me how he’s doing. He is now volunteering to help other children with special needs. To see him grow into a wonderful young man and give back to others is so rewarding.
What is something that most patients and families wouldn’t know about you when they meet you?They probably have no idea how much I pay for hair services each year, given my hair is always under a cap!
On a more serious note, I want to be remembered for always putting my patients first.
Has being a mother yourself changed the way you care for kids?I think that when you parent children, you can walk in other people’s shoes and know what it feels like to be in a certain situation. My first child was born premature and had to have open-heart surgery, and ultimately had a lot of health problems. My daughter has a chronic autoimmune disease. Having gone through these things as a parent has helped me relate to families in a different way. It’s an emotional level experience that’s different.
What piece of advice would you give a family whose child is undergoing surgery for the first time, and they don’t know what to expect?I think the hardest thing for a family whose child is undergoing surgery is the fear that comes with it. But the child can sense a parent’s fear, and can become more fearful because of this. I think it’s important for parents to find the strength to put their own fears and anxiety behind a wall so that they can be there for their child. But it can be hard to do this; especially the more complicated the case is.
And also, don’t be afraid to ask questions! | {
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The exhibition will focus on Overstreet’s “Flight Patterns” series: suspended canvases made in the early 1970s. A select group of shaped canvas constructions from the late 1960s will also be on view. This is the first major survey of Overstreet’s early work in decades. With this exhibition, Eric Firestone Gallery announces the representation of artist Joe Overstreet.
The exhibition is an opportunity to revisit a radical body of work made nearly 50 years ago, and rarely seen today. In them, the language of geometric abstract painting is re-imagined into monumental installations that tell stories about the painful realities of African American history through innovative spatial structures.
Installed with ropes threaded through grommets and attached to the ceiling, wall, and floor, the work becomes architectural. The geometries are activated – referencing the dynamism of Free Jazz and the function of African art as ritual, and ceremonial objects. As Brockington states in his curatorial statement, “The complex geometry in these paintings provides compositional structure for the subsequent improvisational manipulation of texture, color, light and form on the surface.” The work is slightly different with each installation: complex formations that extend off the wall into space creating cubic geometries, dynamic angles, and pyramidal forms. The artist cedes control, allowing others to become partial authors of the work, like social sculpture.
Overstreet was born in 1933 in rural Mississippi – an area mostly populated by African Americans and Choctaw Native Americans. Like many African American families who were part of the Great Migration, Overstreet’s early life was nomadic, and his early exposure was to Black and Native American rural culture. His father, a mason seeking work, drove his family across the South to find work in Thunderbolt, Georgia and then New York City. Eventually, they joined seven other families traveling west in a caravan for protection, to Washington State and Oregon, before settling in Oakland, California. These experiences would become formative in Overstreet’s work.
In the 1950s, Overstreet studied at the California School of Fine Arts (San Francisco) and California College of Arts and Crafts (Oakland). He began his career in the Bay Area, and was a fixture of the Beat scene. His Grant Street studio was located near that of Sargent Johnson, a sculptor and painter who became a mentor. Johnson was an adherent of the philosophy of Alain Locke – the “father of the Harlem Renaissance,” who advocated that African-American artists look to their ancestral legacy for aesthetic sources and inspiration. By the mid- 1960s, Overstreet began breaking away from the rectangle of the stretcher and from the narrative of Western art history. Drawing inspiration from the art of North Africa, Islamic mosques, art from Mali and Native American Art, he used wooden dowels shaped with a jigsaw and hand tools to make intricate stretchers, painting in patterns drawn from Aztec, Benin, and Egyptian cultures.
While living on Jefferson Street in New York in the 1960s, Overstreet went to John Chamberlain’s studio where Chamberlain showed him a horrifying photograph of four Black men being lynched, surrounded by celebrating white men and women. Overstreet went home and began to make paintings referencing lynching, like Strange Fruit (1965), which included images of ropes. The “Flight Pattern” paintings resound with these ideas. The painting North Star (1968), a shaped canvas construction that is part of this exhibition, moved Overstreet to look toward and consider using the ceiling. In Spirituals, and along the Underground Railroad, escaped slaves were advised to follow the North Star. The North Star was also the title Frederick Douglass gave to his anti-slavery newspaper.
As Overstreet eliminated the stretcher bars for his “Flight Patterns,” he stated, “I began to make paintings that were tent-like. I was making nomadic art, and I could roll it up and travel… I felt like a nomad myself, with all the insensitivity in America.” Overstreet was interested in maintaining the most appealing feature of nomadic structures: “their tendency, like birds in flight, to take off, to lift up, rather than be held down.” Yet, his work also makes it impossible for us to ignore the implication of these same ropes as instruments of death in lynchings across North America.
The “Flight Pattern” paintings were exhibited in their time at the Dorsky Gallery, New York; the Berkeley Rotary Art Center, Berkeley; and the DeLuxe Black Art Center, an alternative space funded by the Menil Foundation as part of the Institute for the Arts at Rice University (Houston, Texas). Overstreet’s work was also central in watershed museum exhibitions of African American artists in the period, including “Afro-American Artists: New York and Boston,” (1973) organized jointly by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the National Center of Afro American Artists; and “New Black Artists,” (1970) organized by the Brooklyn Museum. Overstreet was the subject of museum exhibitions at the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY (1996), and the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ (1996).
A “Flight Pattern” painting is part of the current exhibition “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” organized by the Tate Modern, London; currently on view at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and traveling this fall to the Brooklyn Museum. “Power Flight” is also in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum. Overstreet’s painting “The New Jemima” (1964, 1971) can be found in the Menil Collection. The four-panel shaped canvas construction, “Justice, Faith, Hope, and Peace,” painted in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, is currently on view at the Mississippi Museum of Art where Overstreet was a recipient of the Governor’s Arts Award in February 2018.
Overstreet has been committed to social and political causes, rather than art world trends. He is recognized as a significant arts community organizer. In 1973, he and his partner Corrine Jennings established Kenkeleba House on East 2nd Street, a studio building and gallery that has presented innumerable exhibitions of work by artists of color and women, including young artists who later found acclaim like David Hammons and Keith Haring, and significant artists Norman Lewis, Edward Mitchell Bannister, and Mary Lovelace O’Neal.
Over the past several decades, Overstreet has been a relentless experimenter – investigating both the spatial and textural possibilities of painting, and also complex cultural histories. In revisiting this pioneering body of work by Overstreet, we begin to recognize the impact of his contribution and extent of his innovation.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog with essays by LeRonn Brooksand Barbara Rose. A series of public programs will take place during the exhibition including panels moderated by Eugenie Tsai and Kalia Brooks. | {
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We seem to be fixated on the year 1983. First came Stranger Things and now, the new film by Luca Guadagnino, Call Me By Your Name.
Left - Getting rave views - Call Me By Your Name - The new film by Luca Guadagnino, who also made I am Love & A Bigger Splash
A love story between Elio and Oliver, Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet, respectively, it is an Italian summer romance featuring the power brands of the decade.
Right - The film's wardrobe was very casual 80s brands such as Lacoste & Polo Ralph Lauren
From Polo Ralph Lauren shirts, clothing the arrogant and preppy Oliver, to the striped Lacoste polos on the young and loving Elio.
Mix it with a bit of 80s Italian disco and copious amounts of drawstring swim shorts and you have your next warm weather wardrobe sorted. A future classic, it’s a peach of a film!
Left - B.D. Baggies - Bradfort Oxford Butt Down-Pocket - £73
Below - Ray Ban - Original Wayfarer Classic - £127
Left - Lacoste - Men’s Lacoste Regular Fit Striped Pima Cotton Polo - £79
Below - Boardies - Overlay Shortie Swim Shorts - £50
Persol - Havana - £153 from Sunglasses-shop
Converse - Fastbreak ’83 Vintage - £70
Casio - Classic Digital Watch F-91W-1XY - £13 from ASOS
adidas - Originals Football Swim Short - £29.99 from Footasylum
See More Get The Look - The Assassination of Gianni Versace - here
Get The Look - Wild, Wild Country
BUY TheChicGeek's new book - FASHIONWANKERS - HERE | {
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Day 74: Training Your Mind
WHAT ARE WE FILLING OUR MINDS WITH?
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. -Philippians 4:8
For me it was nothing but pleasure, entertainment, and enjoyment. None of these things in and of themselves are sinful, but when they are all we can dwell on, we get into a self-centered mindset. Remember that lust is a refusal to trust - we look to fill our own desires rather than turning to God and others. We become focused on ourselves rather than God and others. And that’s exactly what sexual sin is, right? It’s our selfish fantasies and acts coming to fruition. What does the word of God teach about self-centeredness? Let's examine what Paul wrote to the churches in Philippi and Colossae:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves... -Philippians 2:3
In this letter to the Philippians, the person of Christ was being described. Philippians chapter 2 is all about molding ourselves as a body of believers into the person of Jesus.
Paul was writing to the church in Colossae instructing them to live as those who were made alive in Christ. Notice that to two different churches, Paul is instructing them to change what they dwell on regularly. Why? He recognized that what we fill our minds with is incredibly important and long lasting. The longer we dwell on sexual thoughts, the more ingrained they become and the more difficult it is to remove them from our minds.
I wish this was something that could be applied overnight, but the process can be difficult. Although this does take time, we need to start by taking every thought captive to Christ, not allowing the darkness to dwell in our minds. There are thoughts that still find their way into my mind from years ago. Things that I dwelt on with such intensity that I don't know if they'll ever fully escape me. We must be bigger than these thoughts, taking them captive to Christ, not allowing them to make captives of us.
GET YOUR MIND RIGHT
When tempted in this way we should be immediately replacing lustful thoughts with the word of God. This is the only way, and we have to act fast. Notice how quickly Joseph reacted when he was “sneak attacked” by temptation:
For myself, I learned the times when I was tempted the most and memorized specific scripture to combat those thoughts:
"I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman. -Job 31:1
Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. -2 Timothy 2:22
It’s been said, “Luck favors the prepared.” Although luck has little to do with it, there is a good point to be made nonetheless. When we prepare ourselves for what's to come, specifically regarding temptation, we are much better equipped to handle whatever comes our way. Runners don’t start a race without preparing, composers don’t perform a show without practicing, nor do soldiers go into battle without planning. Why are we any different? Have a plan and execute it when those times of temptation come.
Day 74 Application
What has your mind been filled with in the past when you’ve struggled with sin? Have you ever had a sinful thought, specifically regarding lust, and not been able to dwell on anything else?
How can we implement the truth shown in Genesis 39:12 with our thoughts? Will you commit to having a plan against common temptations? What does that plan look like for you.
As we help others who are struggling with sexual sin, what do we have to be prepared to handle for ourselves? What kind of boundaries do we need to set so that we do not fall into sin?
How would you handle it if you were helping someone struggling with sexual sin and found yourself somehow being tempted? What would you do if you could not resolve those temptations within the context of that relationship? | {
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Six years ago in 2014, Upstate South Carolina turned a dream turn into reality when Rob Young, Owner of Borderlands Comics and Games, created and successfully executed the very first […]
My wife and I attended that very first con and instantly fell in love with the atmosphere. I remember sort of being in shock after the show due to the realization that so many people in the area were into the same things as us.
In 2015 the show doubled in size, then again in 2016, and again in 2017 then once more in 2018.
When we attended the 2019 show this past Saturday (March 9th), things seemed tame upon our arrival around 10 AM, but by lunch time it was clear the con had done it again. The crowd had swelled in size and the sound of everyone speaking was a constant fluctuating hum while people joked, laughed and discussed their favorite pop culture icons. When we left, there were still two massive lines of people waiting to get in.
The show hosted several guests including Veronica Taylor (Pokémon’s Ash Ketchum), Charles Martinet (Super Mario’s Mario), Katrina Law (Arrow’s Nyssa al Ghul), Mick Foley (Professional Wrestler) and even the co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Kevin Eastman!
All attendees had the opportunity to meet the guests, attend informative panels and browse dozens of vendor and artist’s booths that littered the floor. There were so many that navigating the Greenville Convention Center felt more like walking through a city of pop culture, and it was awesome.
Besides the guests, vendors and artists, SC Comicon offered another source of enjoyment – the fans and cosplayers.
Apart from our first year in 2014, my wife, Sam, has taken up the challenge of cosplaying someone new for each con and this one was no different. She donned the look of the well-known thief (now turned goodie goodie thanks to Netflix) – Carmen Sandiego.
It’s a common courtesy to ask permission before snapping a shot of someone at SC Comicon, but in my six years of taking photos there I’ve never once been rejected. It’s quite easy to know when someone wants a picture with Sam by the sudden excited cry of her characters name (“Hidan!”, “Carmen!“, etc.) ringing out near us, which never fails to put a smile on her face.
SC Comicon has a strong sense of community that is hard to describe if you’ve never been. All social tension and anxiety seems to melt away when you find yourself in a massive room filled with people from all walks of life who appreciate the same things you do, and even more so when most of those people are wearing uniquely crafted costumes to represent their favorite characters.
It’s wonderful to see so many different people walking the floor and to witness how far some of them will go to step into the ‘role’ of their character, even if it is just for a few hours.
It’s a beautiful blend of creativity, passion and camaraderie among strangers that I’ve never seen anywhere else and while I’m not the best photographer, I feel like the gallery below does a good job of demonstrating what I mean when I say the show has a unique atmosphere that’s hard to find anywhere else.
Every year when we leave SC Comicon, we immediately find ourselves dreaming of the next one. On the car ride home we brainstorm potential cosplay ideas, fawn over other cosplayers (who we follow on social media to fawn over some more!), discuss the guests we got to meet, share pictures of the loot and art we picked up with friends and smile the whole way home.
SC Comicon is not something I ever expected to come to our area and it wouldn’t have been possible without Rob Young and his phenomenal team over at Borderlands Comics and Games.
I’ve shopped almost exclusively with them for my comic needs since 2011, and despite living a whopping 45 minutes away from the shop (soon to be just a little bit further when they upgrade to an even bigger location!), the amount of effort they put into customer service and ensuring you have the easiest experience is well worth the travel.
If you live in the area, be sure to stop by and give them some love for everything they’ve done for the community. If you don’t, you should consider booking a flight to Greenville, South Carolina around March 28th – 29th of 2020 when the 7th Annual SC Comicon will take place.
Until then, you can check out both SC Comicon and Borderlands at the links below!
- SC Comicon’s Website
- SC Comicon on Facebook
- SC Comicon on Twitter
- SC Comicon on Instagram
- Borderlands Comics and Games’ Website
- Borderlands on Facebook
- Borderlands on Twitter
- Borderlands on Instagram
Want more comic goodness? Check out my review of Wolverine: Weapon X! | {
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Due to the popularity of this page on my original blog, I’ve commenced a new blog called From Dorfprozelten to Australia. You can find it here: http://dorfprozeltenaus.wordpress.com/
In the future I will mostly be posting any key stories for the Dorfprozelten emigrants on the new blog. Although the focus is on the immigrants to Australia, I’d also welcome contact from any Dorfprozelten immigrants who settled in other countries. To contact me please email cassmob at yahoo dot com dot au. (please change to the usual format for emails) or please leave a comment at the end of one of the posts.
One of my broader research interests is learning more about the emigrants from Dorfprozelten in Bavaria to Australia. This interest originated with my own family history research as I tried to learn about my great-great-grandfather, Georg Mathias Kunkel, who emigrated in the mid-1850s. I have been unable to find him in any shipping records to Austalia: assisted; unassisted/unsponsored; crew lists which is why I tried to learn more about his fellow emigrants.
Family anecdotes consistently say the my George came to Australia in the goldrush era and jumped ship. Given that many of Dorfprozelten’s men worked on the River Main which runs through Dorfprozelten this is not an implausible story. However unlike many of his fellow emigrants he was unlikely to have left home because of economic necessity: his family ran one of the large inns in the Village “das Goldenes Fass” which was a lucrative business. Perhaps he had wanderlust or perhaps like other young Bavarian men he left to avoid the military draft (another common family tale). Unfortunately he doesn’t appear in the Australian records in any of the eastern states/colonies until he marries his young Irish wife, Mary O’Brien in Ipswich Queensland in 1857. At the time he was working as a servant though he later had many occupations: boarding house keeper, pork butcher (in Ipswich and in the northern NSW gold fields at Tooloom); railway worker and farmer. It is probable that he arrived somewhere in Australia two or three years before though after 20+ years of research this remains a mystery.
The migration story of his fellow emigrants is much clearer. Most of these migrants came as family groups under the colony of New South Wales’s (NSW’s) vinedresser bounty scheme.
In the cold winter days between December 1854 and January 1855, over 50 people left their home village of Dorfprozelten in Bavaria to migrate to Australia. They farewelled not only friends and family, but the traditions and environment familiar to them throughout their own lives, as well as to generations of their ancestors. Their departure represented the loss of 5% of the town’s population – an impact which would have rippled through their network of neighbours and family.[i] Although there were occasional single departures, this was the largest mass movement from Dorfprozelten to Australia.
The first known couple to come to Australia were Eugen Nebauer and his wife Caroline Nebauer who arrived in Sydney on 5 August 1852 on the Reiherstieg [ii] . It can only be assumed that their reports back to family and friends in Bavaria were positive and when the bounty conditions became more favourable for families the exodus to Australia commenced.
The first group of four families and two couples was scheduled to sail on the Commodore Perry, a brand new, state of the art clipper ship built for Baines’ Black Ball Line in Liverpool.[iii] This group arrived in Sydney on 26 April 1855.
Closer inspection of the Lists reveals an anomaly however. An annotation indicates that 14 of these German vinedresser families actually arrived on the Boomerang, another Black Ball Line clipper, via Melbourne.[iv] Only one Dorfprozelten family, the Josef Zöller family, travelled on the Boomerang though there were close links with another family from nearby Fechenbach, the family of Carl Diflo. The experiences of the German passengers on these two ships appears to have been quite different. The Commodore Perry passengers included a large number of Scottish emigrants travelling to Tasmania and the Bavarians’ comments on arrival reflect the first frustrations of living in a different culture. The Boomerang’s passengers however experienced the challenges of icebergs and severe storms before arriving safely in Melbourne where they were trans-shipped on the Yarra Yarra to Sydney, arriving there on 21 May 1855.
Meanwhile the third batch of Dorfprozelten families was also on the seas though their voyage was to be quite different again as they sailed on a German ship, the Peru, which left Hamburg on 17 January 1855. Among the 375 emigrants on board were seven Dorfprozelten families or couples (26 individuals). These emigrants had a shocking voyage under poor conditions. They arrived in Sydney on 23 May 1855 and were immediately placed in quarantine due to the presence of scurvy and fever on board. The Sydney Morning Herald of 24 May 1855 described it as being “in a very dirty and disgraceful state.” The sailing conditions on German ships were less stringent than on British emigrant ships of the time and the mortality rates reflected this. Among the 32 deaths reported in the Board Lists (36 per the newspaper) were three Dorfprozelten people, two children and one adult: Maria Kuhn, wife of Dominicus Kuhn, who left behind three young children; Clara Kaüflein aged 7 (daughter of Joseph and Anna Kaüflein) and Thomas Neubeck, the one-year-old son of Alois and Clara Neubeck.
Because the vinedresser scheme only applied to families, single people who wished to emigrate had to take private contracts. Among these men were Georg Günzer and Franz Dümig (later Dimmock/Dimmick). The young men were mostly recruited as shepherds to the properties in Moreton Bay district. Despite the intention that the families were sponsored to help develop a wine industry in the colony of NSW with their recruitment being based on prior experience of working in viticulture (sometimes a rather tenuous claim), many if not most of the Dorfprozelten immigrants were employed as shepherds or labourers, often in remote locations. The families probably had little idea of just how far away they’d be from each other but with about half the families being sent to the Moreton Bay district, they were remote not just from each other, but often from any other community. A huge and soul-searing experience for a group of people who had grown up in a familiar, tight-knit village where their families had lived for generations.
Only two of the immigrants had relatives already living in the colony: Eugen Nebauer, the founding Dorfprozelten emigrant to Australia was the cousin of brothers Josef and Vincenz Kaüflein. Two of the female immigrants were sisters: Clara Neubeck and Louisa Wörner. Two of the immigrants were brothers though they had different surnames: Georg Günzer and Dominicus Kuhn. Clara (aka Rosina) Hock was a cousin to these two men.
My presentation to the 2006 Genealogical Congress in Darwin expands on this research with particular reference to the Moreton Bay (Queensland) families. The paper’s title was They weren’t all Lutherans – A case study of a small group of German Catholics who emigrated to Australia from Dorfprozelten, Bavaria.
I am interested in hearing from anyone who is descended from these Dorfprozelten families. Surnames of their descendants include: Bilz, Coe, Morse; Diflo, Muhling, Ott, Erbacher; Diflo, Nevison; Gunzer, Ganzer, Volp, Hock, Gollogly, Bodman, O’Sullivan; Hennig, Henny, Courts, Robson, Paf, Middlebrook; Kaüflein, Kaufline, Afflick, Agnew, Engelmann, Foran, Goodwin, Lawless, Murrell, O’Keefe, Worland; Krebs, Wistof, Ambrosoli, Miller; Kuhn, Brigden, Rose, Miller; Kunkel, O’Brien, Paterson, Connors, Lee; Zöller, Schulmeier, Brannigan/Branniger, McQuillan, O’Brien.
For another description of Dorfprozelten have a look at this blog post from the Man from Mosel River.
[i] The population of Dorfprozelten in 1850 was 1084 people, of whom all except one were Roman Catholic. In the twenty years 1840 to 1860, the village’s population increased by only 92 people (births net of deaths). Veh, G. Dorfprozelten am Main,Benedict Press, 1995, pp50-51.
[ii] State Records New South Wales (SRNSW), Persons on Bounty ships to Sydney, Newcastle Moreton Bay, 1848-66, NSW Archives Kit, CGS 5317, microfilm 2463, 4/4927.
[iii] The Commodore Perry was launched in the American fall of 1854 in the Boston shipyards and is believed to have sailed to Liverpool in December. http://www.eraoftheclipperships.com/page56.html. The Sydney Morning Herald of 27 April 1855, page 4, also describes it as “one of the largest and finest vessels that has entered this harbour.” The ship’s cargo included 300 tons of coal and 2250 sacks of salt and was captained by Captain G Mundle who also had his family on board. By the time it arrived in Sydney it had 312 passengers in the steerage, ninety-five more than are listed on the Board’s List for the ship.
[iv] Public Records Office Victoria. For online access to unassisted immigration lists at the Public Records Office of Victoria, including the Boomerang’s passenger list, refer to: http://proarchives.imagineering.com.au/index_search.asp?searchid=23 | {
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Short breaks and respite
Our specialist short breaks offer nurse-led clinical care for babies; children and young people with highly complex, palliative care needs, providing care for a few hours or a longer period.
Each child and young person has a personal care plan that is tailored for their individual medical, emotional, cultural, religious and spiritual needs, which is delivered by an experienced and qualified multi-disciplinary team of professionals.
The hospice provides a fully accessible and specially equipped, home-from-home environment with specially decorated bedrooms for the children. Specialist facilities and equipment, including beds and sleeping systems, hoists and hydraulic baths; enable a child or young person’s stay to mirror, as far as possible, the routine and care provided at home.
Families can also stay at the hospice in family accommodation during their child's stay if required.
Short breaks offer the opportunity for children and young people with complex health needs to be fully cared for by trained professionals, allowing the whole family to be together and to be supported in the care of their child, or for Rainbows to care solely for the child or young person.
Since we are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, a member of staff is available to families at all times. | {
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Posted by Literary Titan
Banks and O’Neil are on a mission, and they have a defined target: Clint Holden. Obtaining access to one Clint Holden will not be the easiest of tasks, though. Making their way from their own world to Clint’s is the first obstacle. Finding him among the masses of country folk is their second. Standing, unknowingly, in their way is Jason Cooper, a washed-up police officer still biding his time on the force. Banks and O’Neil face some interesting obstacles as they search for Clint Holden and seek to accomplish their mission. If they can get past Cooper, finding Clint will be a breeze, or will it?
Requiem, Changing Times, by R.J. Parker, is an adventure of otherworldly proportions. Peppered with humor, steeped in suspense, and filled with everything fantasy fans seek, Parker’s novel delivers it all.
I enjoy humor in any fiction book I read. Some plots call for it more than others. Parker understands this better than anyone. Throughout this unique plot alternately set on Earth and beyond, Parker manages quite well to give lighthearted lines to his cast of characters. Their exchanges are welcome breaks to some of the more intensely focused exchanges.
One aspect of the book that did tend to interfere with the flow was the introduction of accents by some of the characters. Rather thick and intricate accents permeate much of the reading and require some rescanning of text to fully grasp the character’s intent. While I am all for accents and a true-to-life feel, these accents seemed to halt the flow somewhat.
Parker introduces Clint and Corbin as relatable characters readers will appreciate and find likable. Watching the entire adventure unfold with school-age boys as the key protagonists makes the story all the more relatable. Readers who want the feel of the adventure stories from their youth will find Requiem, Changing Times right up their alley. Complete with school drama and a teacher every reader will love to hate, Parker’s novel sets up a fantastic background for the two main characters, Clint and Corbin.
I highly recommend Requiem, Changing Times to any reader seeking a new science fiction fantasy. Those of us intrigued with stories of the extraterrestrial will find Clint and Corbin’s adventure a fast-paced quick read for its length. Memorable characters and a unique set of circumstances involving the two young boys make Requiem, Changing Times a must-read.
Pages: 450 | ASIN: B07XY439NX
Tags: action, adventure, author, book, book review, bookblogger, Changing Times, ebook, fantasy, fiction, goodreads, kindle, kobo, literature, mystery, nook, novel, read, reader, reading, requiem, RJ Parker, science fiction, story, suspense, thriller, writer, writing | {
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“I think banning TikTok is taking away a huge platform for young people to organize through; however, knowing our generation, it won’t hold us back."
Throughout quarantine, TikTok has been a diversion for young people to escape the realities of staying at home. Dancing, singing, and comedy Vine-esque videos created a community for young people to express themselves. However, in recent months, the political community on TikTok has been thrust into the spotlight, especially through the documentation of Black Lives Matter protests. Trump has now vowed to ban the app in America, leaving the estimated 100 million American TikTok users questioning, how exactly did we get here?
As protests have ripped through the nation in the wake of rampant police brutality, specifically the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, young people have used TikTok as a tool of education and a source for information mainstream news sources haven’t been covering. Sadhana Mandala, a young activist and organizer has only been using TikTok since March but recognizes the importance of the app in the current political landscape. “The TikTok political community consists of mainly teenagers and young adults on both sides of the isle posting 60-second videos advocating or raising awareness for political issues. Some popular trends include sexual assault awareness, voting, abortion rights, and most prominently documenting Black Lives Matter protests and the blatant violence and abuse of power by police on peaceful protestors,” she says. “[D]uring the Black Lives Matter protests in Boston, the train stations were shut down leaving protestors trapped with no way of getting home. The news channels did not cover this topic [but] many young students posted this information on TikTok alerting all the other protestors on [a] safe way to avoid police violence.”
The TikTok community is predominantly young people, with MarketingCharts TikTok data finding that over 50% of users are between 18-34 years old. Young people are an important voting block who, unfortunately, continue to fail in casting a ballot. According to the United States Elections Project, voter turnout for those aged 18-29 in 2016 was only 43%. In the coming election, establishment Democrats are looking to young people to show up and cast a vote. According to Mandala, “mobilizing young people is the way to win elections because we don’t follow the rules set forth for us, but instead we find new, creative ways to push for an ideal and organize for a better future.” An important tool for education among young people is social media like TikTok. But Trump’s recent attacks on the app have called into question whether young people will have access to TikTok in the coming weeks.
In late June, young people on TikTok, ironically prompted by a 51-year-old grandmother from Iowa named Mary Jo Laupp, were encouraged to register for Trump’s Tulsa rally and not show up. Teenagers all across America, specifically K-pop stans, ordered tickets for the event. Trump boasted about his presumed rally attendance, tweeting that “Almost One Million people requested tickets for the Saturday Night Rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma!” 100,000 were expected to attend, overflowing outside of the arena, but only 19,000 showed, additionally bring up such rallies as controversial during COVID-19.
This debacle calls into question Trump’s motives for his war on TikTok. Over the past month, Trump has expressed interest in banning the app with an executive order. Many are wondering whether Trump is actually worried about Chinese surveillance or if he is only interested in a political win against China. Recently, during an interview, Trump praised the arrests of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, indicating that perhaps he’s not as worried about surveillance as he claims. We would be remiss to ignore the criticisms of TikTok as a tool of censorship and surveillance in China, but banning the app is not the only route for government action. In 2019, the US government acquired dating app Grindr from Beijing Kulun Tech after it was deemed a security risk, which suggests a possible option for TikTok.
The ownership of TikTok is still a fraught issue. Microsoft has expressed interest in buying the app, but if Bytedance doesn’t make a deal and TikTok is banned (as it was in India) young people will have to find another platform for their creative and political expression. Mandala isn’t worried. “I think banning TikTok is taking away a huge platform for young people to organize through; however, knowing our generation, it won’t hold us back. We will continue to organize for political change regardless of the power structures that try to silence our voice because the young people in this country are motivated and have a clear goal in mind: Removing Donald Trump from the White House and revolutionizing politics to advocate for social change. Banning TikTok is just another hurdle we will have to jump through in our fight for progressive change.” ✸
Jocelin Dell is a 17 year-old writer who lives in Connecticut. Some of her favorite things are sushi, Little Women, rollerskating, angry girl music of the indie rock persuasion, going for long walks in the woods, her two dogs (Brady and Evie), and The Beatles. You can follow Jocelin on Instagram at @jocelindell. | {
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Ensuring a Future for Benjamin. 1* The men of Israel took an oath at Mizpah: “None of us will give his daughter in marriage to anyone from Benjamin.” 2So the people went to Bethel and remained there before God until evening, raising their voices in bitter weeping.a 3They said, “LORD, God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel that today one tribe of Israel should be lacking?” 4Early the next day the people built an altar there and offered burnt offerings and communion offerings. 5Then the Israelites asked, “Are there any among all the tribes of Israel who did not come up to the LORD for the assembly?” For there was a solemn oath that anyone who did not go up to the LORD at Mizpah should be put to death.b
6The Israelites were disconsolate over their brother Benjamin and said, “Today one tribe has been cut off from Israel. 7What can we do about wives for the survivors, since we have sworn by the LORD not to give them any of our daughters in marriage?” 8And when they asked, “Is there one among the tribes of Israel who did not come up to the LORD in Mizpah?” they found that none of the men of Jabesh-gilead had come to the encampment for the assembly. 9A roll call of the people was taken, and none of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gileadc was present. 10So the assembly sent twelve thousand warriors there with orders, “Go put the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead to the sword. 11This is what you are to do: Every male and every woman who has had relations with a male you shall put under the ban.”* d 12Finding among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgin women, who had not had relations with a man, they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, in the land of Canaan.e 13Then the whole assembly sent word to the Benjaminites at the crag of Rimmon,f offering them peace. 14* So Benjamin returned at that time, and they were given as wives the women of Jabesh-gilead who had been spared; but these proved to be not enough for them.
15The people had regrets about Benjamin because the LORD had made a breach among the tribes of Israel.g 16The elders of the assembly said, “What shall we do for wives for the survivors? For the women of Benjamin have been annihilated.”h 17They said, “There must be heirs for the survivors of Benjamin, so that a tribe will not be wiped out from Israel. 18Yet we cannot give them any of our daughters in marriage.” For the Israelites had taken an oath, “Cursed be he who gives a wife to Benjamin!” 19Then they thought of the yearly feast of the LORD at Shiloh,i north of Bethel, east of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah. 20And they instructed the Benjaminites, “Go and set an ambush in the vineyards. 21When you see the women of Shiloh come out to join in the dances, come out of the vineyards and catch a wife for each of you from the women of Shiloh; then go on to the land of Benjamin. 22When their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us, we shall say to them, ‘Release them to us as a kindness, since we did not take a woman for every man in battle. Nor did you yourselves give your daughters to them, thus incurring guilt.’”*
23The Benjaminites did this; they carried off wives for each of them from the dancers they had seized, and they went back each to his own heritage, where they rebuilt the cities and settled them. 24At that time the Israelites dispersed from there for their own tribes and clans; they set out from there each to his own heritage.
* [21:1–7] The victorious Israelites now become concerned about the survival of the tribe they have defeated. Despite the large number of Benjaminites killed in the final battle (20:46) and the general carnage that followed (20:48), there does not seem to be a shortage of men. The problem is rather a shortage of wives for the surviving men, the result of a previously unmentioned vow the Israelites took not to permit their daughters to marry Benjaminites.
* [21:11] Under the ban: see note on 1:17. In this case the sanction is imposed not because of the rules for the conquest of the promised land (cf. Dt 20:10–18) but because of the failure of the men of Jabesh-gilead to honor their oath and report for the assembly.
* [21:14] Very strong political ties existed between the people of Jabesh-gilead and the Benjaminites, especially those involving Saul, the Benjaminite king of Israel. See 1 Sm 11, where Saul rescues Jabesh from an Ammonite siege, and 1 Sm 31:11–13, where the people of Jabesh exert themselves to ensure that the bodies of Saul and his sons should receive honorable burial.
* [21:22] Release them…guilt: this verse is difficult. Evidently the elders intend to make two arguments in support of their request that the men of Shiloh release their claims on the abducted women. The first argument seems to be that an insufficient number of women were taken “in battle”—i.e., the raid on Jabesh-gilead—to provide “a woman for every man”—i.e., a wife for every Benjaminite. The second argument is that since the women have been kidnapped, the men of Shiloh will not be guilty of having violated the oath mentioned above in 21:1, 7, and 18.
* [21:25] See note on 17:6. This final editorial comment calls attention to the chaos that followed the Benjaminite civil war and the near anarchy that characterized the various efforts to meet the need for wives for the Benjaminites. | {
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In order to prevent the further spread of the New Coronavirus Infection, Reitaku University has decided not to hold its planned entrance ceremony on April 2, 2020. Not to celebrate the entry into university life by you, our new students, at such a ceremony was an extremely heartbreaking and therefore difficult decision to take. We fully understand the feelings that you and your family members must be experiencing as a result, and we deeply appreciate your understanding of the fact that this decision was made solely to prioritize your health and safety.
Chairman’s Congratulatory Address
My fellow new students, I offer you my warmest congratulations on entering Reitaku University, and celebrate this occasion in company with all the faculty and staff members of the university.
As a result of the current nation-wide spread of the new coronavirus (covid-19), Reitaku University regretfully had to take the decision not to hold its entrance ceremony this year out of concern for your health and safety, although the cherry trees seem to have waited until your matriculation to become fully laden with blossom. I greatly appreciate your understanding of this difficult situation.
Reitaku University has, since its foundation, aimed to produce young men and women equipped with great integrity and a sense of morality who can contribute to today’s international society. In 1935, our founder, Chikuro Hiroike, established “Moralogy College,” the forerunner of Reitaku University, in the spirit of the educational ideal of the “unity of knowledge and morality (virtue).” He understood that knowledge is truly meaningful only when infused with human integrity and moral sense, and so intended to “produce true internationally minded persons who can be trusted and respected in the world” by offering thorough English language and practical, business education based on the building of character.
Hiroike, who had created “moralogy (a moral science) as a new science” in his Treatise on Moral Science, published in 1928, endeavored to promote character education by launching the school and its social education shortly thereafter in 1935. Based on this founding spirit of the university, let me outline for you some characteristics of the education it offers in this message to you, our new students.
Firstly, it is extremely important for you to clarify your purpose in entering the university and the nature of your plan for your future goals, before then working hard to achieve them. I encourage each of you to learn to lead a moral way of life, with moral principles, while you are a student here, and to establish your own views of life and the world. For the next four years, you will enjoy the joys of youth through dedication to academic learning and extracurricular activities, but you must remember that you owe what you are today to your benefactors, including your grandparents and parents. If you do not feel these obligations and make return to your benefactors, you cannot be considered a truly independent, free person able to stand on your own feet. I hope you will spend the precious four years of your student life well, making full use of the opportunity given to you, so that you will have no regrets and will become an individual who can repay what you owe to your benefactors in the future.
Secondly, the basis of our university is “education based on the unity of knowledge and morality (virtue).” As our founder taught us, “True knowledge should be one with, or included in morality. True morality must be based on right knowledge.” I encourage you, in studying and acquiring advanced knowledge at a university, the highest seat of learning, to nurture your human integrity, moral character and personality in parallel with knowledge. In short, knowledge and culture become meaningful only when they are informed by a rich humanity and a high moral character; therefore, you cannot contribute to society in the true sense of the term unless your knowledge and virtue grow in balance.
Thirdly, there is “the education of surpassing one’s master,” an idea deriving from the line in the Chinese classic, Xunji, which reads: “Blue emerges from indigo and is bluer than indigo.” We have many excellent faculty members with notable achievements as educators and researchers. I encourage you actively to absorb knowledge from them, to experience the rigor and joy of learning from them, and to be influenced by their moral character. In this way you will grow as a human being and, I hope, become greater than your teachers in the future, so contributing to the development and progress of our society and nation. In the library of Reitaku University, there is a framed motto which reads, “Preach sutra with sutra” (Wang Ming-sheng), meaning that the best methods of learning is for students to engage with the original writings of the masters, not the commentaries; this is the teaching of our founder that also derives from the Chinese classics. I urge you to visit the library as often as possible and to read books not just in the area of your major but in other fields as well, so as to acquire a wide range of knowledge and understanding of cultures.
Fourthly, I encourage you to study hard, pursuing a great dream and ideal, and to become a truly globally minded person of high integrity and moral virtue. Reitaku University is blessed with ample educational resources and a rich environment, including excellent faculty members from within and outside Japan, a Global Dormitory where students enjoy daily global communication by living together with students from all over the world, and study abroad programs with our global partner universities. I encourage you to become a truly globally minded person by learning about Japanese history, traditions and culture, taking the wisdom of our predecessors as the base on which to build as you acquire practical language proficiency and knowledge about the academic field of your major, but also to learn about the traditions, culture and society of foreign countries. Then you will be able to go out to work in today’s international society as the worthy successors of our graduates from preceding generations who are flourishing in the world.
I would also like to welcome our international students from overseas. Just as the Japanese people learned from western countries in the past, there may be some international students who are here to learn about the real reasons behind Japan’s economic successes by studying its history, tradition and culture. I encourage you not only to work hard to make your precious study abroad opportunity truly meaningful for your future, but also to deepen your understanding of Japan’s society and people and to make many good friends. This will make your study abroad experience even more memorable.
I encourage all our Japanese students to extend a warm welcome to our international students and to be humble enough to learn from them. We faculty and staff members will deal with Japanese and international students alike on an equal footing.
Finally, our faculty and staff members will treat each one of you as a lady or a gentleman, in the expectation that you will behave as a responsible university student so as to have no regrets or embarrassment to look back on afterwards. Leading a responsible student life is a step towards becoming a responsible person in society in the future. I trust that you will make your university years―a period of time indispensable in establishing a firm foundation for your life―enjoyable and meaningful for the future, as you aspire to fulfill your lofty ideals and dreams and work hard in the spirit of “Don’t forget your beginning,” refreshed with new feelings every day.
Chairman of the Board of Directors
Hiroike Institute of Education
Allow me to extend my heart-felt congratulations to all those who are matriculating to enter Reitaku University, their family and guarantors.
Out of concern for your welfare, Reitaku University has made the very difficult decision not to hold its entrance ceremony. You, our new students, and your family or guarantors who have supported you, must have been eagerly looking forward to attending the ceremony, with the cherry trees in full blossom, to celebrate your entry into life as a university student. We, the faculty and staff members of the university, cannot help but express our deepest regret when we consider the feelings that you all must be experiencing. However, even if we do not physically hold an entrance ceremony, this does not diminish the celebratory spirit in which we offer you our heartfelt congratulations on your matriculation. Representing Reitaku University, I would like to express my sincere congratulations to you, our new students, your family members and guarantors.
The total number of those who are matriculating as new students in the undergraduate program of three faculties, the Faculty of Foreign Studies, the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration and the Faculty of Global Studies, is 677. The total number of new students in the graduate program of our three graduate schools, the Graduate School of Language Education, the Graduate School of Economics and Business Administration and the Graduate School of Primary and Secondary Education is 18. Representing Reitaku University I would like to welcome these students from abroad.
Please allow me, at this point, to talk briefly about an experience of my own that impressed itself so strongly on my memory that I recall it every time matriculation comes around. Approximately 32 years ago, when I was 36 years old, I had the opportunity to study abroad at the University of Pennsylvania in the USA, even though I was a faculty member of Reitaku University. My memories of the impressions of my first class after matriculation are something like this:
I was struck first by the diversity of students I saw: they were from countries including the United States of America, China, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and ranged in age from those in their 20s to those in their 60s. Next, I was very much impressed by the systematized curriculum that progressed from the basics of economics to more advanced material, by the thick textbooks used, and by the conscientiousness and zeal of the faculty members who taught us. Then there was the small size of the class, approximately 20 students only, which meant that, from day one of the course, the atmosphere was alive with questions and answers. There was no psychological wall between faculty members and students, creating an environment in which the faculty could grasp the individual character of each student and cater to their individual interests and needs. My strong impressions at the University of Pennsylvania resulted in the motto of “sticking to small size, sticking to internationalism” that still guides me
Now if we think of the present age, the revolutionary progress of information, communication, and means of transportation, together with the rise of mega Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) among other factors, means that many Japanese corporations have established a presence in Europe, the US and Asia etc., as the globalization of business has made further rapid progress. On the other hand, the world economy today has become more chaotic, with developments like the nationalistic “America First” policy, the outbreak of the US-China Trade War, and the world-wide spread of the new coronavirus (Covid-19), among many others. Domestically, Japan has become an aging society with fewer children, making it more difficult to predict the future. However, seen from a different angle, these perils may be taken as the harbingers of something new. We are now in an age that requires “global leaders equipped with the toughness and adaptability needed to convert and combine things of different qualities under any circumstances, and a mindset with which to cope effectively with change.”
Approximately 85 years ago, in 1934, when Japan was exposed to a series of perils like the Showa Depression and competition between rival bloc economies, among others, the founder of Reitaku University, Chikuro Hiroike, L.L.D., established Moralogy College in this place robed in green. Based on the idea of “the unity of knowledge and morality (virtue),” which means that knowledge and morality should be harmoniously united into one entity, it was the forerunner of our university, which has produced quite a few leaders. Hiroike’s educational ideals and methods were quite unique: firstly, the “unity of knowledge and morality (virtue)” and an education based on the idea of the “unity of morality and economy,” that is education founded on the “morality of benefiting three parties: I, you and the third party”; secondly, the introduction of practical English education using authentic English textbooks, and organizing lectures by inviting Japanese and foreign dignitaries; and, thirdly, the adoption of a dormitory system, in which all students live, as a place to practice the idea of “benefiting the three parties.” This spirit of self-discipline in students endures to the present in the “global dormitory,” the residential hall for international education.
Respect for English led on to the foundation of the Faculty of Foreign Languages in 1959. Currently the same faculty, renamed the Faculty of Foreign Studies, implements the educational principle of the “unity of knowledge and morality (virtue)” by offering courses featuring Active Leaning to encourage students’ spontaneous learning, as well as majors and study abroad programs in which students learn English, German, Chinese and other languages and cultures. Coupled with classroom and extracurricular activities in which Japanese students interact with international ones, all these majors and programs exist to equip students with the toughness and mindset needed to work successfully in multi-cultural and multi-lingual societies after graduation.
Moreover, the tradition of inviting dignitaries from inside and outside Japan to lecture here endures to the present. In recent years, Reitaku University has conferred honorary doctoral degrees on distinguished individuals who have also given special lectures. These include: the 77th descendant of Confucius, Mr. Kung Te-chen in 2001; Ms. Michiko Inukai who worked to help refugees in Asian, African and European countries, in 2007; Mr. Chang Yung-fa, the then president of the Evergreen Group, an international transport firm, in 2014; and His Reverence the 14th Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, in 2018. This year the same award and invitation is to be extended to Mr. Manlio Cadelo, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in Japan and Ambassador Plenipotentiary of Republic of San Marino to Japan.
The idea of the “unity of morality and the economy,” meaning that morality and the economy should be harmoniously united into a single entity, resulted in the establishment of the International School of Economics and Business Administration (now called Faculty of Economics and Business Administration). This Faculty, based on the idea of the “unity of morality and the economy,” aims to enhance the integrity and resourcefulness of its students by, on the one hand, nurturing their moral sense and autonomy while, on the other, developing their academic knowledge and skills in a diverse group of majors that include Economics, Regional Revitalization, Business Administration, Sports Business, AI Business, and Data Science, as well as offering AI courses across all the majors.
To add to this, we now have the newly established Faculty of Global Studies, which embraces the concept of “connecting” diverse cultures and values to give its students ample opportunities to learn by offering a group of subjects that will cultivate their ability to collaborate and coexist with people around the world and to “connect diverse things.” It is by no means easy to do this with people of different cultures, religions, ways of making decisions and expressing themselves. Global abilities, including the above-mentioned strengths, knowledge and skills, cannot be acquired through conventional large-classroom learning activities alone; but moving outside the university campus into the world and its regions, accumulating experience in working harder together, does make this possible. Reitaku University, small enough for its faculty members to remember students’ names, offers plenty of “devices to ignite students’ eagerness to study.” Faculty and staff members are collaborating in new ways to support students in their endeavors to make progress. One of these is the booklet, 100 Books to be read by Reitaku University students, containing works selected to broaden the perspectives and deepen the understanding of all those studying here. Please make full use of this booklet.
To conclude my address, allow me to recall to our minds the words of the university song: “Each day you must be born anew.” I hope that each and every one of you will take a fresh step forward from today and lead a fulfilling life here on campus.
Suminori TOKUNAGA, Ph. D.
President of Reitaku University | {
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Risk-assessment algorithms challenged in bail, sentencing and parole decisions
Eric Loomis, 35, was arrested in 2013 for his involvement in a drive-by shooting in La Crosse, Wisconsin. No one was hit, but Loomis faced prison time on a number of charges, including driving a stolen vehicle. He pleaded no contest, and the judge sentenced him to seven years, saying he was “high risk.” The judge based this analysis, in part, on the risk assessment score given by Compas, a secret and privately held algorithmic tool used routinely by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.
Michael Rosenberg, Loomis’ attorney for his trial and appeal, argued that Compas—which is short for Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions—violated Loomis’ right to due process because the proprietary nature of the algorithm made it impossible to test its scientific validity and because the tool improperly considers gender in determining risk.
Last July, the Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s decision that the risk assessment may be considered as one factor among many used in sentencing. The unanimous court also concluded that the tool did not violate Loomis’ due process right to not be sentenced on the basis of gender. Rosenberg declined an interview request.
The case of Wisconsin v. Loomis reflects an ongoing national debate about the use of algorithms in bail, sentencing and parole decisions. With increased adoption of these tools, defense attorneys raise due process concerns, policymakers struggle to provide meaningful oversight, and data scientists grapple with ethical questions regarding fairness and accuracy.
In 2014, Eric Holder, then the U.S. attorney general, articulated the uncertainty swirling around these tools in a speech given to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ 57th Annual Meeting. “Although these [risk assessment] measures were crafted with the best of intentions, I am concerned that they may inadvertently undermine our efforts to ensure individualized and equal justice,” he said. “They may exacerbate unwarranted and unjust disparities that are already far too common in our criminal justice system and in our society.”
Angel Ilarraza, director of consulting and business development at Northpointe Inc., the Michigan-based company that created Compas, thinks that this concern is ill-founded. “There’s no secret sauce to what we do; it’s just not clearly understood,” Ilarraza says.
ALGORITHMS AT WORK
Compas uses an algorithm, a term Ilarraza does not like because he thinks it is confusing, that assesses 137 questions answered by the charged person and supplemented by his or her criminal records. These inputs are plugged in to the algorithm, which is a set order of operations like a math equation. Based on this process, the person’s likelihood of committing a future crime (the output) is pegged on a scale of 1 (low risk) to 10 (high risk). Beyond Wisconsin, Compas also is used in California, Michigan and New York, among other jurisdictions.
The questionnaire covers the gamut of a person’s criminal history and personal background as a way to decipher risk. Questions include whether an alleged offender experienced his or her parent’s divorce or has a telephone at home, and whether the screener thinks the defendant is a suspected or admitted gang member.
Ilarraza, supporting the Wisconsin Supreme Court view, is quick to point out that the tool is meant to inform decision-making. “It facilitates the implementation of evidence-based practices,” he says.
Christine Remington, the Wisconsin assistant attorney general who argued Loomis for the state in the supreme court, agrees. “I don’t think there’s any question that [Compas] is a good thing,” she says. It allows the corrections department to “tailor limited resources in the best way possible.”
Compas recently came under scrutiny by ProPublica, an investigative journalism organization. Assessing the tool’s outputs in Broward County, Florida, ProPublica found that it was 61 percent predictive of rearrest, “somewhat more accurate than a coin flip.” The algorithm was likely to indicate black defendants as “future criminals” at almost twice the rate as white defendants.
Northpointe disputes ProPublica’s findings. The back-and-forth can be read in full on ProPublica’s website.
This clash illustrates a newfound popular interest in these tools. But using math to guide decision-making in the criminal justice system is not new. According to Richard Berk, a professor of criminology and statistics at the University of Pennsylvania, an Illinois parole board started to use algorithms in the 1920s.
“In the ‘20s, parole boards were worried about what parole boards are worried about today: If I release somebody, are they going to commit a horrible act?” Berk explains. Back then, the tools were simple mathematical tabulations that assessed risk by comparing people up for parole to those previously released.
Since then, the math behind these tools has improved accuracy, and technological advancement allows for statisticians to wrestle with bigger data sets through computers. However, the point remains: U.S. criminal justice systems have used math to guide decision-making for about a century.
Even with this history, how these tools affect equal protection and due process of defendants remains unresolved.
Sonja B. Starr, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, says it “is a matter of what factors go into these instruments” and not the instruments per se. For example, she argues that using gender as an input “counts against men to be men, and that is a pretty straightforward violation to Supreme Court precedent.”
Although the issue of gender was not an equal protection claim in Loomis, the court wrote of Compas: “If the inclusion of gender promotes accuracy, it serves the interests of institutions and defendants, rather than a discriminatory purpose.”
Starr says the U.S. Supreme Court “rejected that very reasoning” in the 1976 case Craig v. Boren. The court had reviewed an Oklahoma law that banned men younger than 21 from buying certain alcoholic beverages. The state supported this policy with statistical evidence that showed that young men were almost 10 times more likely than women to be arrested for drunken driving. The court ultimately found that “prior cases have consistently rejected the use of sex as a decision-making factor, even though the statutes in question certainly rested on far more predictive empirical relationships than this.”
Going further, Starr thinks other inputs raise issues for indigent defendants. She says providing equal opportunity under the law regardless of socio-economic status “is nothing less than the central goal of the criminal justice system.” However, some tools, including Compas, use factors such as how often people change addresses or whether they have trouble paying bills, which rely on statistical generalizations that underprivileged people are more likely to commit crimes. This, Starr argues, flies in the face of established law.
If defense attorneys wanted to make either of Starr’s arguments in court, they would have to know the algorithm’s factors and how they are weighed. Like the risk assessment in Loomis, some of the tools being used by government agencies are proprietary and “black boxed,” which means no capability or limited capability to review the math exists, and therefore they cannot be independently challenged. Being used in bail decisions and sentencing, these tools do not fall under the usual evidentiary rules of discovery.
“There’s never justification for secrecy of the algorithm” in the criminal justice system, says Frank Pasquale, a professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and author of The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms that Control Money and Information.
Remington, who argued for the state in Loomis, has a different view. “We don’t know what’s going on in a judge’s head; it’s a black box, too,” she says. She thinks, although the math is hidden, “Compas will help give a little more transparency.”
One risk assessment tool being used in bail decisions may avoid many of the critiques that Starr, Pasquale and Holder articulate. Developed by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, a Houston-based philanthropic organization, the Public Safety Assessment-Court tool is not black-boxed and does not rely on gender or socio-economic factors.
Currently in 30 jurisdictions, the PSA-Court tool considers nine factors related to a person’s criminal history without a questionnaire. It provides a risk assessment on how likely that person is to fail to appear for a court date and commit a new crime or a violent crime while on release.
Those factors include previous misdemeanor and felony convictions, prior failures to appear for a court date, and the defendant’s age at the time of arrest.
In discussing the choice to make the factors open to public scrutiny, Matt Alsdorf, the vice president of criminal justice at the Arnold Foundation, says that “it’s important from a fairness per-spective for all the parties to understand what goes into a risk assessment.”
The Arnold Foundation is funding studies to track the tool’s impact. Results from Lucas County, Ohio, which adopted the tool in January 2015, found that outcomes did not show a race or gender bias. The number of people being released without the need for bail increased from 14 percent to almost 28 percent. The percentage of pretrial defendants arrested for other crimes while out on release has been cut in half—from 20 percent to 10. The percentage of pretrial defendants arrested for violent crimes while out on release also has decreased—from 5 to 3 percent.
According to the foundation, the early successes in Ohio can be attributed to the tool’s capability to help judges make informed decisions that better allocate resources instead of judges being motivated by emergency-release rules to alleviate jail overcrowding.
Even while promoting the tool’s openness, Alsdorf, an attorney, is uncertain whether a legal imperative to open algorithms in the criminal justice system exists. However, he does say it is important for “a lot of researchers” to be “poking and prodding.”
This point of view conflicts with those who run businesses built around their protected intellectual property, which raises challenges for policymakers who try to strike a balance between private sector innovation and the rights of defendants.
“Right now, it’s the Wild West,” Berk says. “It’s a mess.” At the federal level, that mess does not show signs of improving and leaves numerous issues unresolved.
“There is a very real danger that these tools and the appeal of ‘objective risk scores’ will silently codify racial disparities in bail determinations under a veneer of scientific rigor,” says Scott Levy, director of the Fundamental Fairness Project at the Bronx Defenders, a legal aid organization. “It is essential that appropriate oversight and transparency mechanisms are in place.”
Although there is a lack of current law that tackles the issues Levy raises, attempts to regulate algorithms have been made. In 2012, President Barack Obama proposed the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights to allow people to correct information used by algorithms in a similar way to changing incorrect information in a credit report. The proposal never got congressional approval.
Pasquale thinks the former president’s proposed solution could fix “really basic errors.” But the role algorithms play in society are beyond this policy prescription. To inform domestic policy, he is monitoring the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, which takes effect in May 2018 and would create a legal right to challenge decisions made by algorithms, including in the criminal justice system.
Another potential solution, Berk says, could be modeled on the way the Food and Drug Administration regulates pharmaceuticals. In Berk’s proposal, an algorithm’s developer “would be required to submit the code and any data used to evaluate the code” to the new agency for testing, similar to how prescription drugs are tested. The agency’s process would strike a balance that permits public inspection of algorithms while protecting intellectual property.
While the merits of these proposals are debated, policymakers also have ethical questions to grapple with. Chief among them are the trade-offs between accuracy and fairness. However, “until the various parties expressing strong opinions about the merits of criminal justice risk assessments clarify what they mean by ‘fairness,’ no progress can possibly be made,” Berk says.
Furthermore, Berk says that “even if an algorithm is equally accurate for all, more blacks and males will be classified as high risk” because African-Americans and men are more likely to be arrested for a violent crime.
When Berk brings up these challenging ethical trade-offs with government officials who are interested in building a risk assessment tool, he sees “a lot of hand-wringing.” Wisconsin attorney Remington notes a similar stalemate: “This issue is not resolved.”
In October, Loomis’ attorney filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the state court’s decision, arguing that the use of Compas violated his 14th Amendment rights to due process.
Jason Tashea is a freelance writer based in Baltimore and the founder of Justice Codes, a criminal justice and technology consultancy. This article originally appeared in the March 2017 issue of the
Jason Tashea is a freelance writer based in Baltimore and the founder of Justice Codes, a criminal justice and technology consultancy.
This article originally appeared in the March 2017 issue of theABA Journal with this headline: "Calculating Crime: Attorneys are challenging the use of algorithms to help determine bail, sentencing and parole decisions." | {
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Carolina has gone from media darling and the “bunch of jerks” to arguably the favorite to hoist the Stanley Cup relatively quickly.
Nashville has gone from a Cup contender to on the fringe of being a playoff team at all with an aging or already departed core.
They are two teams heading into different eras entirely. The finale for Pekka Rinne in the regular season felt like an era ending already. Carolina, meanwhile, has seen the careers of their young players just begin to take off.
The Hurricanes are the favorites here. Nashville isn’t a bad team, and they’ve persevered all season to get to this point as it is. They won’t go down so easily.
HURRICANES VS PREDATORS – series livestream link
Monday, May 17: Predators at Hurricanes, 8 p.m. ET (CNBC)
Wednesday, May 19: Predators at Hurricanes, 8 p.m. ET (CNBC)
Friday, May 21: Hurricanes at Predators, 7 p.m. ET (USA Network)
Sunday, May 23: Hurricanes at Predators TBD
*Tuesday, May 25: Predators at Hurricanes TBD
*Thursday, May 27: Hurricanes at Predators TBD
*Saturday, May 29: Predators at Hurricanes TBD
Hurricanes – Predators: Stories to Watch
How dominant will the Hurricanes power play be?
Carolina has one of the best man-up units in the league. Nashville has one of the worst penalty kills, ranked at 29th in the league.
In the regular season, Carolina went 9 for 26 (34.6%) on the power play against the Predators.
Keep in mind, when the Hurricanes were swept by the Bruins in the 2019 Eastern Conference Final, their power play was more than disappointing. So, they have something to prove in the playoffs.
They were first in the league most of the season and have been slipping lately, finishing the regular season ranked second. Perhaps the Preds weak penalty kill is just what they need, though.
The Cinderella Preds
For a solid portion of the season it seemed like Nashville was going to in fact be sellers at the trade deadline. They really came out of nowhere, aided by a meek finish to the season for Dallas.
Goalie Juuse Saros is a big part of that, but the Predators have been playing what feels like playoff hockey for the entire season essentially. They were considered out of it and have responded by making the postseason.
Carolina is a clear, far and away favorite. But Nashville knows what it feels like to be counted out, and they know what it feels like to succeed anyways.
It’s Teuvo Teravainen‘s time
Since coming back from injury, Teravainen has played with a star. In the eight games he has been with Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov on the top line, they have outscored opponents at an 8-to-4 clip on 5-on-5.
Aho had 24 points in his last 19 games as well, but his dominance is almost expected at this point. If he’s not considered one of the top 15 forwards in the league at this point, well, that’s just wrong.
Teravainen might sneak up a bit more. He’s been playing solid hockey, perhaps he is a difference maker these playoffs.
The Brett Pesce factor
Jaccob Slavin is day-to-day but probably will be ready to go at least at some point in the series. If his injury lags, though, or even he’s not 100 percent upon his return, the Hurricanes are going to have some big asks of Pesce.
The 26-year-old is a shutdown defender on a team with tremendous defensive depth. He missed practice earlier last week, too, so perhaps someone else will have to step in for him even.
Their defensive depth will be tested one way or another, but Pesce could make a name for himself the way Slavin did the past two years if he’s ready to go these playoffs.
One big question for Nashville: Will Nashville finally perform against the Canes?
In six tries this season, the Predators were unable to top the Hurricanes. They went 0-5-1, their worst record against any team, before that seventh try, when they beat a Carolina team that no longer had anything to play for. They went a combined 6-16-1 against Carolina and the other two Central playoff teams, Florida and Tampa Bay.
Nashville’s strength is in net with Saros, but it’s not like the Predators are likely to puncture the Petr Mrazek and Alex Nedeljkovic duo with the Hurricanes. If they were facing a weaker defensive and goaltending team, they could have an advantage to exploit.
One big question for Carolina: When does the Hurricanes offense break out?
Carolina is a great offensive team but they’re so close to being the scariest in the league.
Some of it could be bad puck luck too; it happens. In the regular season, they had a 2.7 xG/60 at 5 on 5, but only 2.3 Goals/60 at 5 on 5. Something is going to give at some point, right?
They were 11th in the league in goals per game at 3.11. Given the Predators lack of penalty killing ability, the power play may carry them anyways. But imagine a Hurricanes team living up to its expected goals on 5 on 5. It’s terrifying.
Hurricanes vs Predators series prediction: Hurricanes in 5
It’s not a gimmie but, Carolina should win this. Nashville hasn’t matched up well all season, and the Hurricanes are storming (get it) into a new era as one of the best teams in the league.
This postseason really feels like the accumulation of excellent team building that spans the past few seasons. It feels like it’s their time, and the numbers agree. | {
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Twenty-eight years ago today I signed the mortgage on my home and got the keys, came back and stood on the front porch completely surprised it had actually happened.
Single women in their late 20s didn’t buy houses too often in the late 80s, especially not fixer-uppers. I was regularly asked where my husband was, what he thought and why I didn’t wait until I had one. I was also told, literally told, that I didn’t want a “house” because I was a girl and it would be so much easier to buy a condo because then there would be someone around to fix things and take care of the yardwork–I might not know what I was getting into and I should be careful.
I chose this house specifically because it was a fixer-upper, so I could turn it into what I wanted without having to pay for a bunch of things other people thought were improvements, like new wall-to-wall carpet and fresh paint. I never cared for wall-to-wall, and I can apply my own paint, thank you. And I’d been taking care of my parent’s house for years, inside and out, and rented a house for five years where I learned all the ways an old house needs love.
That house was due to be updated by the owners and I had to move out. Rent was so expensive in the late 80s and felt like a waste of money when a mortgage payment was less for more. I also had six rescued cats and wasn’t about to give up any of them for anyone’s lease. In fact, I wasn’t going to have anyone tell me how I was going to live. I’d paid my way through college, always worked full-time plus at least one part-time job, paid off my parents’ mortgage, paid to put my father in a nursing home, bought my mother a car, I didn’t feel I could continue with my master’s and any other degrees so I was at least going to have a house.
I had a savings and was easily approved for an FHA loan for no more than $30,000, and after looking for several months and finding a realtor who actually helped me look for the house I wanted instead of one more expensive because “you’ll be making more in a few years” or “you’ll get married and be able to sell”, I looked at just a few serious, good houses and found this one, and knew this was it. The house was small, but I walked into the back yard with all the trees around and the deck and felt right at home. The seller just didn’t know it yet, and still wanted $39,000.
A few weeks after I’d seen it I drove my mother to see it. As we drove up the street I saw fire trucks and people milling in the street. “I think that’s near the house,” I said. “In fact, it’s at the house!” The owners had moved out nearly a year before and the tile in the basement was picking up so the realtor had advised removing it and painting the floor because it looked bad and wasn’t going to stick anyway. The man attempted lifting up the glue with gasoline, with the hot water tank still lit. He survived with serious burns to his hands, and the house survived too. He quickly agreed to my offer. I spent some time with FHA issues like lead paint and leaks, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. The basement was professionally cleaned and repaired and there was a brand new coat of plain white paint on the walls for the smoke damage.
I spent my first year or so undoing some of his other good ideas, like the gray smoke warped and stained wallboard and amber light fixtures in the bathroom, and the metal casement windows that had been painted and sealed shut with homemade plexiglas storm windows that completely covered the window openings and bolted to the wall. Between that and the unkempt back yard, I knew these people seriously did not want the outdoors to come in. I tossed open all the windows and doors when I’d been working on the FHA compliance and let the air inside.
I have heard by anecdote and small bits of proof that this little place was originally a two-story addition to another house on the corner. My realtor had told me this, a few older neighbors, and a customer service rep a the electric company who had grown up across the fence from this house. He was very young when they built the foundation and took the two-story sunroom off the wood-sided mansard-roofed Victorian on the corner and set this house on it; there is a two-story porch there now that is exactly the size of my house. My house is 15 ft x 22 ft, the joists run the short way as if they had attached to a house, it was clearly two rooms up and down because the walls don’t match upstairs and downstairs, and the pipes go up to the bathroom in a square bump-out in the corner of the kitchen. The roof does not have a soffit and fascia. The back wall sags a bit, and I presume that was the side attached to the house.
It was intended to be a starter home, inexpensive, easy for me to do a few repairs myself to save money, then pay for a few updates then sell it for a larger house where I could stay and run my business and do my artwork. I guessed I’d be here about 10 years. But the stress on my hands from all the fixups I did early on worsened the tendonitis and other damage in my hands from setting type and working on computers, and I decided to turn toward my art career instead.
My mortgage was sold through three corrupt mortgage companies from 2003 to 2009 and it’s been difficult to keep up with their bizarre requirements. I’ve been involved in a class action suit as well as gone to court and had several modifications. Finally in 2014 I was moved to a very nice mortgage company who lowered my payment as soon as possible, then offered me a settlement after reviewing my history with the other companies, and I managed to pay it off two years go.
It’s my little place. It’s a little small for all the things I want to do, but some days the world is too small for all the things I want to do. I’m happy to celebrate. It’s one of my early accomplishments, and it’s an anniversary I always remember, just by enjoying my home. I took a hiatus from improvements when I decided to focus on starting my business, and that was extended by caring for my mother for a decade. Now it’s time to get back to business.
Here’s the first photo I saw, and what my house looked like the year before I bought it. We’ve come a long way.
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When I was a little girl, I was terrified of the Ku Klux Klan. My mother is Jewish, and while my father is not, and nor were we raised Jewish or affiliated in any overt way, I knew that by Jewish law, and in the eyes of the KKK, I was Jewish too.
Back in the mid-seventies, our community in Silver Spring was not notably diverse, as it is today; we were among a few (also fractional) Jews; our best friends, the Miller family, were the only African Americans in the neighborhood. In my deep-rooted fears – and something that I imagined well and often – white-cloaked Klansmen stormed our house with blazing torches held aloft. They would kill my mother, my brother and me, and then burn down the house. I worried most about what would become of Oliver, my dog. I wondered if they would show him mercy since he was a dachshund, as emblematic of the master race, if not as intimidating, as a German Shepherd. My father traveled frequently for work, and I always figured the KKK guys would not be so stupid as to attack when he was home. Then these robed monsters would move to the Miller’s house, across the street and four houses down at the end of the cul-de-sac, where there they would kill them too. I quite literally imagined my friends Kim and Karen – their lifeless bodies hanging from nooses on a tree.
As I grew older, this fear of the KKK never vanished, but it did, thankfully, subside. By the time I reached middle school, several other partial Jews, and more Black kids, and Vietnamese and Korean and El Salvadoran and Mexican immigrants – refugees, in fact, from all over the world – had added character and color to our school and the outlying community. It started to seem like there were more of us than them. And that we could take them on.
At the same time, I couldn’t shake a lingering concern that anti-Semites and bigots lurked silently among us. I developed what some might have called an obsession with the Holocaust. I was not an avid reader but what I did read veered toward true crime macabre and concentration camp memoirs. In typical childlike self-absorption, I became convinced that I was Anne Frank, reincarnated, a suspicion borne out in 1980 when my family visited the Amsterdam house where the Frank family had hidden for years in the attic; I felt quite certain that not only had I been there before, but had spent many nights sequestered in those cramped quarters, grappling with boredom and scribbling in my diary.
Back at home, I often occupied the few minutes before I fell asleep considering options for if-and-when the Nazis came to power in America. I was thankful for my last name, derived from my Irish Catholic father’s side. But I knew that would not be enough to save me. I thought about who among our neighbors would take us in. By that time, we’d moved to a new house, just one block away from our old one; I decided there was enough room in my friend and next-door-neighbor Michelle Baubé’s attic – not to mention plenty of clothes (for dress-up games and make believe) and stacks of her father’s Playboys! But maybe the Baubés would have to take in the Neri family on the other side of their house, because Mrs. Neri was Jewish too; would there be room for all of us? I decided the Kirwans were likely to take in the Neris. But what about my friends Sydney Dorfman and Pam Epstein who lived in another neighborhood altogether? Syd’s mother Mary was Catholic but I figured Syd was a goner on account of her last name alone. Pam’s mother had been a Holocaust survivor herself; she might know what to do. But how would I see them? What if we were sent to different camps?
Or would I manage – as I thought might be possible – to somehow escape? I thought of the labyrinth of underground man-sized tunnels that my more courageous friend Sarah McKelvie and I sometimes explored. And the woods behind the YMCA that I knew better than the Viet Cong did the jungles of Vietnam. And the non-Jewish relatives on my dad’s side who lived like hippies in the California desert – maybe I could make it out to them? And if I escaped, would I possess the courage and conviction to fight for the resistance; or would I just lay low?
Point being – while everybody said Never Again, I was quietly planning for Again.
As the years passed, the failure of the KKK to materialize with blazing torches on my lawn, or of the Nazis to make a comeback, emboldened me, and I grew into a young woman fairly unencumbered by fear. But my early professional life was spent in the Balkans and former Yugoslavia, where people of different religions and ethnicities who had lived peaceably side-by-side for decades, suddenly turned on each other. When the first photos emerged of starved Bosnian men behind barbed wire in Serbian-run concentration camps, and stories surfaced of mass rapes and executions, I knew that the fears of my youth had never been unfounded. “It” could happen again – anytime, anywhere.
When I married, I took my then husband’s last name – which I would never use professionally or personally – solely based on one fear: what if, after the next Holocaust, I need to be reunited with the children, who might not remember me? I will need some document proving that they are mine.
As a kid and adolescent doing a personal deep dive in the Holocaust and the rise of fascism in Germany that preceded it, I was attuned to those “moments” that seemed like turning points. I remember thinking to myself that I, or at least my family, would have seen the signs before it was too late. We would have refused to “register”; we would not have acquiesced to wearing yellow arm bands; we would have been long gone before Kristallnacht; for absolute sure, we would not have boarded those trains. I told myself all of this because – no matter evidence to suggest that America was different and that what befell Germany and Europe would never happen here – in my heart of hearts, I knew that it could.
Here are some “moments’ in our collective and all-too-recent American history:
- December 2015: Then presidential candidate Donald J. Trump calls for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.” He is applauded and heralded by conservatives across the land.
- November 2016: The Crusader, official newspaper of the Ku Klux Klan and self-branded “premier voice of the white resistance,” becomes one of the few newspapers to endorse Trump.
- November 8, 2016: Donald J. Trump – a notorious bigot who built a campaign upon fomenting fear, racism and xenophobia; bragged openly about assaulting women; and is known to have kept a bedside copy of Mein Kampf – is elected 45th President of the United States of America.
- January 2017: Newly-elected Trump makes one of his first acts in office Executive Order 13769, suspending the entry of anyone, including refugees and victims of war crimes, from seven “Muslim” countries. Hundreds of people – some American citizens or Green Card holders – are inexplicably and indefinitely detained. Hate crimes immediately rise.
- August 2017: After a white supremacist deliberately drives into a crowd of people peacefully protesting the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia – killing civil rights activist Heather Heyer and injuring more than 30 others – President Trump publicly defends the white nationalists, calling them “some very fine people.”
- April 2018: The Trump administration makes public its family separation policy (that in fact was quietly enacted a year prior) intended to deter illegal entry across the Mexican border. Under the policy, federal authorities separate children from their parents or guardians, with adults prosecuted and held in federal jails and children and infants as young as 4-months-old placed in unsanitary and unsafe detention centers. To date, at least seven children have died in immigration custody.
I could go on. But at the same time, I cannot. My fear and frustration are constantly close to combustion.
This blog was prompted by a bad dream. I recognize it’s tedious to endure other people’s accounts of their dreams so I’ll try to make it short:
I awake in my bed to find blood dripping from the ceiling, which for reasons I cannot explain, is made of those styrofoamy drop panels. The blood seeps through the tiles and lands on my bed, staining my white sheets. Drops of blood run in rivulets down my forehead as I move under the source to more closely examine. The ceiling, my sheets, are steeped in red. I decide it’s best to leave the house, and so I do; but outside, I am unsure where to go. And so I return. My father is there now; he agrees to remove one of the tiles to determine the source of the blood. When he does, poking the tile up and out with a long black umbrella he happens to have on hand, he peers into the crawlspace, and a torrent of thick blood washes down and across my face. Through my matted, bloody hair, I look to my father, who says, “Yes it’s as we expected; there’s somebody’s head up there. This is clearly the work of the Klan. They’re just sending you a warning.”
It was one of those dreams that was so realistic that upon waking, it took me several moments to realize it had only been a dream. With the room still dark, I felt the bed around me – no blood. The warm furry body of Brewster, our hound dog, snoring loudly next to me. Next to him, the straw-headed lump of my twelve-year-old son who still sometimes ends up in my bed. On the floor to my left, Scout, our “guard dog,” alert at his post. But still I could feel blood tracing its way down my cheek. I wiped it aside and checked my hand. The wetness was not red; it was not blood, just a tear.
I heaved a sigh of relief. I swung my feet to one side and planted them on the cold floor. I stood up, and told myself All is well with the world. It was just a bad dream.
But I also made a mental note; I have seen enough signs. It is time now. Never Again is and always was a fantasy. But for me, for my children, there will be no such thing as No Escape. I am shifting gears into survival mode. And that is never a pretty but always a necessary thing.
Donald J. Trump does not frighten me. He is a small, simpleminded stooge of a man. What does frighten me is the fact that – Russian interference or not – arguably half of America voted for him, implicitly embracing his (albeit inarticulate) platform of fear, anger and entitlement. When I force myself to watch, for however long I can stand it, pro-Trump rallies, what I see is a tidal wave, packed with the flotsam and jetsam of ignorance and hate, breaking over us, destroying everything in its path and all that we’ve accomplished and pushing this once great nation backward in time. | {
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We Built This Shirt
This adult unisex shirt features an image of a woman sharing a book with black children. The words "Check the Source" are written atop this vintage photograph that reminds us to seek knowledge and stay woke. The young man's facial expression is the highlight and the image appears on a shirt that is 100% cotton. Available in multiple sizes and several colors. It offers a retail fit with side seams that provide greater durability. Check the included measurement chart for just the right fit. An excellent reminder of our past and that black minds matter in the present. | {
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Killer Hustle Inc.- Red Killer Hustle × Young Wicked "Tha Row" Limited Edition T-Shirt
Killer Hustle Inc × Young Wicked "Tha Row Limited T-Shirt.
Grab it while its here. Very limited pressing of a Killer Hustle Young Wicked exclusive Tee.
Available in Black & Red T-Shirts
- 5.5 oz/yd2 | 9.1 oz/ly | 186 g/m2
- 100% soft spun cotton jersey; fiber content varies by color, see color list for exceptions
- Set-in rib collar with shoulder-to-shoulder taping
- Double-needle sleeve and bottom hem
- Preshrunk to minimize shrinkage
- Tear away label
- Wash in cold water and tumble dry inside out
- Sizes S–XL - 2XL & 3XL add $2 - 4XL $3 - 5XL $5
- Ships within 1-7 business days | {
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Free or pay what you can
Free or pay what you can
Longtime CU Boulder College of Music duo Margaret McDonald and Erika Eckert invite you to a special evening of sublime, quirky, lyrical and sometimes toe-tapping works for piano and viola. Spanning the globe from England, Holland and France to Australia, this wonderful collection of short pieces explores some of the many delightful facets of musical collaboration and conversation.
Renowned CU Boulder College of Music faculty artists perform with students and colleagues in chamber music recitals featuring world premieres and beloved classics. Free most Tuesdays August through March.
Performance date and time
Tuesday, Nov. 9, 7:30 p.m. MST
Trouble loading the live stream? Watch at vimeo.com
Join us for free or pay what you can
Whether it's $5 or $100, your gift will help the work of the College of Music continue to inspire artistry and discovery, together. Please pay what you can before or after enjoying this special presentation—or join us for free!
Keal: Ballade in F minor for viola and piano; Kats-Chernin: Still Life for viola and piano; Fleury-Roy: Fantaisie de Concert for viola and piano, Op. 18; Bosmans trans. Grinten: Nuit Calme from Trois Impressions for cello and piano; Boulanger: Trois Pièces pour violoncelle et pianoRead more
Ballade in F minor for viola and piano (1929)
Minna Keal (1909-1999)
Minna Keal (née Nerenstein) was born to Russian-Jewish immigrants in London’s East End. Only Yiddish was spoken in her house, and it was not until entering grade school that Keal learned English. Her family was not musically trained, yet there was always music in the house, especially in the form of her mother’s folk songs. Keal began to play piano and compose simple pieces while still in grade school. In 1928, she enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music to study composition with William Alwyn and piano with Thomas Knott. Her time at the Academy was quite prolific—during her first year she composed a piano sonata, Three Summer Sketches for piano, the Fantasy for String Quartet, and the Ballade in F minor. Keal’s time at school was cut short when family pressures required her to leave school to help run the family book business. Keal would not compose again for 46 years.
Keal’s fascinating life took many turns following her departure from composition. She became involved in politics, joined the Communist Party and formed an organization that rescued hundreds of children from Nazi Germany. She married three times, raised her family and held several secretarial jobs. Keal began to study piano again as she approached retirement and completed qualification to teach beginning piano herself. At the age of 64, one of Keal’s young pupils took an examination to qualify for a Grade 3 piano exam. The examiner happened to be a young composer named Justin Connoly, who learned that Keal had studied composition and persuaded her to share her music with him. The first piece she presented was the Ballade in F minor. Upon hearing the piece, Connoly encouraged Keal to return to composition. She subsequently returned to the Royal College of Music and went on to study with Oliver Knussen. Her works include a symphony that was performed by the BBC Symphony in 1987, a cello concerto, a mini violin concerto and several chamber works, including a cello quintet. It is not surprising that the Ballade made an impression on Connoly. The work demonstrated Keal’s great talent and makes wonderful use of the capabilities of both instruments. The late romantic style of the Ballade is reminiscent of Frank Bridge’s compositions, a composer Keal greatly admired. Lionel Tertis praised the Ballade, and Keal won a composition prize with the work as a first-year student.
—Program note by Hilary Herndon, La Viola: Music for Viola and Piano by Women Composers of the 20th Century, MSR Classics
Still Life for viola and piano (2001)
Elena Kats-Chernin (b. 1957)
Elena Kats-Chernin was born in the Uzbekistan capital of Tashkent. As a child, she received intensive training in both figure skating and music. At age fourteen she chose music as a career, leaving her home in the Volga riverside town of Yaroslavl to study at the Gnessin Musical College in Moscow. Four years later, she and her family emigrated from the Soviet Union to Australia. She entered the New South Wales Conservatory as a pianist and as a composition pupil of Richard Toop. Graduating in 1980, she received a DAAD Fellowship (a German academic exchange program) to study with Helmut Lachenmann in Hanover, West Germany. While in Europe she became active in theater and ballet, composing for state theaters in Berlin, Vienna, Hamburg and Bochum. Her music attracted the attention of the Ensemble Modern; in 1993 the group premiered Clocks which was an artistic breakthrough for the composer. Clocks has since been performed in Europe, Australia, and the USA. Kats-Chernin remained in Germany for 13 years, returning to Australia in 1994. Since her return, Kats-Chernin has become one of Australia’s leading young composers. Among her many commissions are works for the Sydney Alpha Ensemble, Ensemble Modern (Concertino), Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and also for the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games. Her music was featured at the Musica Nova Helsinki in March of 2001, and the 2002 Soundstreams Festival in Toronto. Her recent full length ballet, Wild Swans, with choreography by Meryl Tankard for the Australian Ballet, was an enormous critical and public success.
Still Life for viola and piano was written for Patricia Pollett with Australia Council support. It is in six movements and is based on intimate and self-contained cells. Each movement starts in D minor and mostly stays in that key. Still Life 1 is hypnotic in nature and sets the mood for the whole suite. It is slow and the piano’s high register is used extensively. Still Life 2 is based on an interval of a fifth and is reminiscent of cimbalom based folk music. It is probably the most virtuosic of the six movements. Still Life 3 lightens up the atmosphere somewhat, being a kind of a blues in a strange 3+3+2 meter. Still Life 4 is very still and quiet, underscored by a constant pizzicato figure in the viola. Still Life 5 is a movement with a repetitive tango element and is more forceful than the others. Still Life 6 is almost funereal in nature, it is the most archaic and simple in this suite and sees the return of the material of the first movement towards its end. —Program note by Elena Kats-Chernin, Still Life, Tall Poppies Records
Fantaisie de Concert for viola and piano, Op. 18 (1906)
Hélèna Fleury-Roy (1876-1957)
Hélène Fleury-Roy (1876-1957) studied composition at the Paris Conservatory with Henri Dallier, Marie Widor and André Gedalge. She was the first female French composer to enter and to win a prize in the Prix de Rome composition competition (1904). In 1928 she moved to Toulouse where she was professor at the conservatory teaching piano, harmony and composition until 1945. She taught students such as the future conductor Louis Auriacombe, violinist Pierre Doukan and composer Charles Chaynes.
Fleury-Roy wrote mainly for the piano, but left us also with a few songs, pieces for violin and cello as well as the Fantaisie for viola (or violin) op 18, composed in 1906, which was dedicated to Théophile Laforge and used in the same year as a pièce de concours, an exam composition for students enrolled at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris.
—Program note by Jutta Puchhammer-Sédillot
Nuit Calme from Trois Impressions for cello and piano (1926)
Henriëtte Bosmans (1895-1952)
trans. Tom van der Grinten
Henriette, an only child, was raised in a musical environment. Her father, Henri (1856-1896), had been principal solo cellist of the newly established Concertgebouw Orchestra. He died when she was just a baby. Her mother, a piano teacher at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, gave Henriette her first piano lessons. At seventeen she passed her final piano examination at the Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Toonkunst (Society for the Advancement of Music). She studied music theory and composition with Jan Willem Kersbergen, later followed by composition lessons with Willem Pijper, who happened to be her neighbor at the time.
In the 1930s Bosmans performed regularly with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. As a woman composer she found less recognition in the Netherlands, except from colleagues and friends. Cellist Marix Loevensohn frequently performed her Poème for cello and orchestra, while Louis Zimmermann, concertmaster of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, premiered the Concert Piece for Violin and Orchestra in 1935, conducted by Willem Mengelberg. Her international breakthrough began in 1938, when violinist Willem Noske played this work, full of “Oriental moods,” in Prague and Paris. In October 1941 it was also performed several times in the United States with Ruth Posselt as violinist. However, the prospect of further international engagements became blocked by the war.
The increasing interference by the Nazis in cultural life was evident early on. In 1933 the Maandblad voor Hedendaagsche Muziek (Monthly Magazine for Contemporary Music) published an article entitled “Terror in Germany.” By April 1939 newspapers reported that music by Jewish composers was banned in Italy. Paradoxically, Bosmans’ career as a pianist prospered, as many foreign soloists could not or dared not travel to the Netherlands. Bosmans considered exile to the United States, but at the last moment decided to stay; she didn’t want to leave her elderly mother behind.
If musicians wanted to pursue their profession, they were obliged to register as of April 1, 1941 at the Kultuurkamer, a regulatory cultural agency instated by the German occupying forces during World War II. Bosmans was half Jewish and was registered at the Kultuurkamer as a “Jewish Case.” At first, she continued giving concerts, but in June the Concertgebouw Orchestra was informed that Bosmans was undesirable as soloist because of her “partial Jewish origin.” In 1942 she could no longer perform in public. Over the next five months, Bosmans wrestled with a nerve inflammation in her leg. At the same time, she collected genealogical information about her family, trying to save her mother, one of the 140,000 Dutch Jews, from persecution by the Nazis. She was terribly worried, even though Sara Benedict Bosmans was registered in the category “mixed marriages,” because her husband had been a Roman Catholic. The Germans had no uniform policy for this category.
Meanwhile, Bosmans’ income had diminished. Bosmans earned some at the so-called “black evenings,” underground house concerts, which were often intense experiences for both artists and audience. Venues included “a countryside villa in Wassenaar, a surgeon’s home in Gouda, an Amsterdam mansion, and the home of a leather manufacturer in Waalwijk.” The Bosmans became victims of persecution in the spring of 1944, when mother Bosmans, at the age of 83, was arrested and deported to Westerbork. Henriette immediately pleaded her mother’s case with the authorities, and even went to the notorious Gestapo headquarters in the Euterpestraat in Amsterdam. As a last resort, she asked Willem Mengelberg to intervene, which resulted in her mother’s release along with other mixed-married Dutch Jews.
In the autumn of 1944 trains stopped operating and Bosmans could no longer perform outside Amsterdam. Mother and daughter scraped through the harsh winter months, with the western part of the Netherlands hit by famine. In these difficult circumstances she began composing, which she hadn’t done since the death in 1935 of her fiancé, violinist Francis Koene.
After the war, Bosmans welcomed a new creative period inspired by mezzo-soprano Noémie Perugia. Of the twenty-five songs she wrote, influenced among others by Debussy, Ravel and Poulenc, she dedicated eleven songs to Perugia. On June 16, 1951, Henriette Bosmans was knighted in the Royal Order of Orange Nassau. The following year, after her last recital with Noémie Perugia on April 30, 1952, she collapsed and died on July 2, 1952, at the age of 56, most likely of stomach cancer. Her considerable oeuvre includes orchestral works, chamber music and many songs. Nuit calme is one of the Trois Impressions from 1926 for cello and piano.
—Program note by Helen H Metzelaar, excerpts from article on the website Forbidden Music Regained
Trois Pièces pour violoncelle et piano (1911-13)
Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979)
trans. Alphonse Leduc Éditions Musicales
Descended from a long line of musicians, Nadia Boulanger very early on received plaudits from her father, composer Ernest Boulanger, Grand Prix de Rome, and from her teachers at the Conservatoire de Paris, Charles-Marie Widor and Gabriel Fauré. Her work as a composer, now being rediscovered, long remained hidden behind her gifts as a virtuoso at the piano and organ, her skill as a conductor (of vocal ensemble and orchestras) and most of all, her incredible charisma as a teacher. For close to sixty years, “Mademoiselle” made the most of her famous Wednesdays, bringing passion and high expectations to the training of several generations of musicians: among many others, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Igor Markevitch, Michel Legrand, Witold Lutoslawski, Astor Piazzolla, Quincy Jones and John-Eliot Gardiner have all kept unforgettable memories of these times. Boulanger became the director of the American Conservatoire in Fontainebleau after the war, and in the eyes of her contemporaries, personified music: Paul Valéry would immortalize her as “she who imposes enthusiasm and rigour”. Three Pieces, originally written for the cello, were composed just before World War I, before Boulanger decided to abandon composition and devote herself fully to teaching music. Her melodies happily take on nostalgic accents or explore the lively rhythms of Spanish dance. —Program note by Alphonse Leduc Éditions Musicales, Nadia Boulanger Three Pieces for viola and piano
Due to popular demand for Faculty Tuesdays concerts, we advise arriving early to secure a seat. These concerts are general admission on a first-come-first-served basis. House doors open 30 minutes before concert start.
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The University of Colorado is committed to providing equal access to individuals with disabilities. If you are planning to attend an event take some time to review our accessibility services.Accessibility - Accessibility Services | {
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Compassion is becoming a word so widely misused that it is rapidly losing its true meaning. Many people (and organisations) appear to profess ‘compassion’ in the same way that they support eliminating poverty and protecting the environment, that is, they’re in favour so long as they don’t have to do too much about it.
At first glance, this is a little disheartening….. However, true heart-felt compassion remains intrinsically human and easily stirred. Compassion is so deeply embedded in human nature that few people are incapable of experiencing it. That fact that we get angry when we see people behaving thoughtlessly, unfairly, or callously, is a testament to humanity’s intrinsically compassionate nature. We are angered by sexism, racism, and inequality precisely because we are caring compassionate creatures. If we were not, then we simply would not care about such things, let alone become angry about them. We even wage war out of the compassion we feel for others, however misguided that may prove to be. Compassion is human. And strange as it may seem, it is also good for us.
Dr Barbara Fredrickson, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and one of the world’s leading researchers on human emotion, says that cultivating positive emotions such as compassion helps to build the four key resources that progressively enhance success and overall happiness in life. Firstly, it helps to build cognitive resources, such as the ability to mindfully attend to the present moment. This, in turn, enhances concentration, creativity and focus. Secondly, it helps to build psychological resources, such as the ability to maintain a sense of mastery over life. This can help ward off anxiety, stress, depression and feelings of being trapped or exhausted. Thirdly, it builds social resources, such as the ability to give and receive emotional support. This helps to build and maintain family ties and friendships. And fourthly, it helps build physical resources by, for example, boosting the immune system so that you are healthier and more energised by life. Enhancing these four resources will help you to meet life’s challenges more effectively and to take advantage of its opportunities.
In short, says Dr Barbara Fredrickson: ‘When people open their hearts to positive emotions, they seed their own growth in ways that transform them for the better.’
Mindfulness is a highly effective way of enhancing such positive emotions. It does this on many levels simultaneously, but it primarily works by helping people reconnect with their previously suppressed emotions (there are also specific practices such as ‘Loving Kindness’ meditation that directly enhance compassion). It also helps people tease apart, and sense, the many different ‘flavours’ of their emotions so that they cease to be over-whelmed by the intensity of their feelings.
A good example is the way that people misunderstand (and feel) compassion and empathy. Empathy is the sharing of another person’s state of mind and their emotions whereas compassion actively seeks to relieve another’s suffering. Therein lies the crucial difference: compassion is active whereas empathy is passive. Empathy is, in some ways, a necessary precursor to compassion. It provides the motivational force to actually relieve another’s distress. But it can also be a ‘negative’ or even a coercive emotion because it is ethically neutral.
People often confuse compassion with empathy. A rather brutal analogy highlights the difference: A torturer will put a gun to your head. An empathic torturer will put the gun to your child’s head. A compassionate one will put the gun down…. Same situation. Same tools. Only the interpretation of the raw emotional data differs.
So empathy alone can be quite dangerous (and arguably a little self-indulgent). To my mind, empathy carries with it a slight tinge of entertainment or even voyeurism. It is stoked by the news media, who ironically, often have the best of intentions. Empathy in the Twenty-First century can also be highly damaging to mental health and well-being. We are all bombarded with disturbing images from war-torn parts of the world. Talented journalists, photographers and broadcasters all compete to get the most harrowing stories and images. Empathy then ensures that they eat their way into our soul and corrode our mental wellbeing.
Dark political and economic forces can also use our natural sense of empathy to drag us into interminable wars over which we can have no long term influence. It is one thing sending off young men and women to die if they can banish an evil dictator and bring peace. It is quite another to send them off to be blown apart because people have been manipulated into believing that ‘something must be done’. Quite simply, most western interventions over the past few decades have served only to enrich the arms industry, satisfy our desire ‘to do something’, and provide news channels with exciting footage. And to what end? Can we influence the course of a civil war? A more compassionate approach would be to accept that terrible things can happen, and that we have absolutely no control or influence over them. In such scenarios, the best course of action is to adopt the first principle of medicine. That is: ‘First, do no harm’. And that may mean doing nothing at all.
We can counteract the tendency to substitute empathy for compassion by actively cultivating the growth of positive emotions. Recent work has shown that it is possible to do this using a specific type of meditation known as Metta (or Loving Kindness). In a landmark study, Dr Fredrickson and her colleagues at the University of North Carolina found that practicing this meditation increased the pleasure and intensity of feelings as diverse as curiosity, amusement, hope, joy, awe, and love.[i] In turn, these positive emotions built the four key personal resources necessary for a happy and creative life, namely; cognitive, psychological, social and physical. This meant that those who practised the meditation found themselves with an increased purpose in life, had more friends, were happier and healthier, and were consequently more satisfied with their lives. And over time, such feelings lead to enhanced creativity, clarity of thought, cognitive flexibility and compassion. It’s a virtuous circle too; happiness leads to success – and success to greater happiness. These aren’t just welcome outcomes in themselves. Recent work has discovered that such positive moods also directly enhance divergent thinking, the type of thinking which underpins creativity.[ii]
Perhaps then, if we can collectively learn to think and act more creatively, we might just be able to deal with the world’s problems more effectively. We might learn to deal with them with intelligence and compassion, rather than risk making them worse with empathy.
Try these simple practices to enhance compassion and wellbeing
You can also try this simple Breathing Meditation to ground yourself in the present moment and clarify the mind.
You breathe 22,000 times every day. How many are you really aware of?
My latest book provides a concise guide to letting go and finding peace in a messy world, simply by taking the time to breathe. Known side effects: You will start to smile more. You will worry less. Life won’t bother you so much.
Dissolve anxiety, stress and unhappiness, enhance your mind and unleash your creativity with these simple exercises. And with each little moment of mindfulness, discover a happier, calmer you. It really is as easy as breathing…
‘A marvellously beautiful and sensitive book.’ Jon Kabat-Zinn
‘This book is inspiring. Against a backdrop of beautiful art, Danny Penman’s gentle words explain clearly how breathing, known since ancient times as the foundation for living mindfully, can become, for any of us, a way to reclaim our lives.’ Mark Williams, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Oxford.
[i] Fredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J. & Finkel, S. M. (2008), ‘Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, pp. 1045–62. See Barbara Fredrickson’s website at http://www.unc.edu/ peplab/home.html.
[ii] Lorenza S. Colzato & Ayca Szapora & Dominique Lippelt & Bernhard Hommel (2012). Prior Meditation Practice Modulates Performance and Strategy Use in Convergent- and Divergent-Thinking Problems. Mindfulness DOI 10.1007/s12671-014-0352-9. | {
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I gave my Nurturing Young Writers workshop to a small group of homeschoolers the other night. Part of the workshop is a quick exercise, which, judging from the reaction it gets, is effective. The following is a snippet from a book chapter I’m working on, explaining what I ask them to do.
Participants in my workshop this summer. I must have taken this photo during the second part of the exercise: I only see one lefty.
When I give workshops to homeschooling parents on nurturing their children’s writing, I often start with a writing exercise. I allay their anxieties right off, explaining that they won’t have to share what they write. And I entice them with an assignment both simple and intriguing: write a description of the room we’re sitting in. “Focus on whatever interests you: the people, the room itself, the chairs, the walls. Use your senses and describe what you hear out the open door, what you smell, the feel of the desk beneath your fingers. Take two minutes, and try not to think too much. Just write.”
And then, as they’re cracking their notebooks and picking up pens, I lay it on them: “Oh, but wait! I have a few constraints for you.”
Whereupon I ask them to place their pens or pencils in their non-dominant hands: lefties will write with their right hands, righties with their left. Also, they should write from right to left, rather than the traditional (in English anyway) left-to-right. Each letter should be a mirror image of its usual form. “And when it comes to vowels, I want you to think in alphabetical order: A-E-I-O-U. Each time you need to write a vowel, rather than writing the vowel you intend to, write the next vowel in A-E-I-O-U order: a‘s become e‘s; e‘s become i’s, and when you need a u, write an a instead.”
They look at me baffled, as if I’ve just asked them to remove their tongues, and I pick up my timer and smile. “Ready?”
It’s a fun two minutes. As they work, some giggle at their own ineptitude. Some groan. Others gasp in dismay.
When the timer goes off, they exhale with drama. They drop heads to desks. I ask how much they got down. Most finish a single sentence; a few manage part of a second. Without discussing much more, I reset the timer and ask them to repeat the assignment once more, but this time they can write as they usually do. “A description of the room. Focus on what you want to. Don’t think too much. Two minutes. Go!”
“How much did you get down this time?” I ask the participants, as the timer goes off a second time.
Most say they wrote at least five sentences. “I could have written more,” one woman points out, “but the sentences were more complex this time.”
“When you wrote the first time, what were you thinking as you wrote? Did you have a sense of where you were going, what you would write next?”
“I just focused on one word at a time,” says another woman. “I couldn’t keep track of what I was trying to say.” She shakes her head back and forth slowly, like a sad farmer appraising the damage after a storm. “Now I know how my five-year-old feels when she writes.”
Exactly. I want parents to remember how formidable it is to be a beginning writer.
Confusing as interchanging vowels might seem, it’s not nearly as difficult as spelling words is for a beginning writer, although the vowel-shuffling is my attempt to replicate that struggle somewhat.
Regardless, the task is challenging. I encourage you, especially if you have a young child at home, to take five minutes to try it yourself. Just reading about it won’t give you the tangible experience of doing it. Try both parts of the exercise–first describing whatever room you’re in with the above-mentioned constraints, and then without–to experience the difference between the two. The difference between being a fledgling writer and a fluent one.
Then maybe you’ll have a better sense of why I think taking dictation from young writers is so important. | {
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I attended the Bernie Sanders rally on Thursday. Below are some of the photos I got of Bernie and the people who stood for hours in the 96 degree heat to see him and hear what he had to say. What will the future be like for these young people, for all of us, if Bernie doesn’t get the Democratic nomination? If he gets nominated, I feel sure he’ll be our next president. Bernie isn’t giving up and neither should we. | {
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A poignant, classic masterpiece animation from acclaimed filmmaker Don Bluth and featuring the voice of Burt Reynolds. A stunning family film about the canine criminal underworld as we follow furry outcast, Charlie, who comes back to earth from heaven and befriends a young orphan who can speak to animals. As their friendship blossoms Charlie learns that friendship is the most heavenly gift of all.
New York Magazine's #1 show of 2010 is ready for its biggest year yet. The lovable misfits are back, and you never know what might happen in the exciting third season with great guest stars and more unique, unexpected plotlines. From looking ahead to new relationships and careers to dealing with their (occasionally) checkered pasts, everyone is spreading their wings in new, hilarious ways. But...
From Dan Harmon (<i>The Sarah Silverman Program</i>) and Emmy Award-winning directors Joe and Anthony Russo (Arrested Development) comes Community, a smart comedy series about a band of misfits who attend Greendale Community College. At the center of the group is Jeff Winger (Joel McHale, The Soup), a fast-talkin' lawyer whose degree has been revoked. With some help from his fellow classmates,...
This retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen classic fairy tale has the digit-sized heroine evading the clutches of various toads, moles, and beetles before she can proceed with her courtship with her dream lover, Prince Cornelius.
Community, a smart comedy series about a band of misfits who attend Greendale Community College. At the center of the group is Jeff Winger (Joel McHale, The Soup), a fast-talkin' lawyer whose degree has been revoked. With some help from his fellow classmates, Winger forms a study group who eventually learn more about themselves than their course work. Returning series stars who comprise the s...
Open up tot eh pearls of wisdom that organic movement has to offer. Welcome to Discover Tai Chi for Beginners. Enjoy soaring confidence, reduced stress and exhilarating movement as you explore the mysteries of the ancient martial art of Tai Chi.
Kelly, Hannah and Darbie are drawn into a whodunit mystery when Kelly’s backpack goes missing with the cookbook and spices in it. After discovering the culprit is a mysterious past protector from the 90s, Mama P’s spice cabinet is destroyed and one by one, everyone's memories of magic are being erased. The trio must race to identify the other two past protectors before magic is lost forever.
According to Body, Mind, Spirit Magazine, this film is by far the best film out on angels. Includes an unprecedented collection of interviews with researchers, experiencers and the best known, most credible authorities on this topic in the world today. Discover your Guardian Angel and become more receptive to the Angelic Realm in your daily life.
Cris Johnson (Nicolas Cage) earns his living in a seedy Las Vegas magic act, but his ability to see a few minutes into the future is authentic. Government agent Callie Ferris (Julianne Moore) knows this, and relentlessly recruits him to help thwart a terrorist group from detonating a nuclear bomb in the heart of Los Angeles. Will the reluctant hero join this desperate race against the clock?
From the majestic landscape of a frozen land comes a beloved animated adventure to warm everyone's heart. Featuring the incomparable songs of Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman, and the voice talents of Martin Short, James Belushi, Tim Curry and Annie Golden, this animated tale from the creator of The Secret of NIMH is a magical musical treat for all.
Good-Hearted troll falls from favor in troll land and is banished to new york city! there his green thumb helps to beautify central park and the lives of those around him, including two neglected children.
For over a decade, this extravaganza of comedy, song and dance defined entertainment for TV viewers. The Carol Burnett Show brought the actors and audience close together. Beloved for her signature audience Questions and Answers famous Tarzan yell, Burnett's brilliant troupe stars Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence and Lyle Waggoner. | {
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SLIDESHOW | Photography by Tommy Leonardi C’89
MERIT AWARDS | Photography by Stuart Watson
Candice Bergen CW’67 Hon’92 | Creative Spirit Award 2017
You have been a photojournalist, a critically acclaimed writer, an accomplished model, an award-winning actress, and more. Your many talents make you a true Creative Spirit.
You were born with an abundance of talent into a most unusual family. As the daughter of the radio star and ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, you reluctantly shared your Beverly Hills childhood with your father’s famous puppet, Charlie McCarthy, referred to as your “wooden brother” in your 1984 memoir Knock Wood. No doubt this unique circumstance helped hone both your comedic talents and delicious sense of the absurd.
From there it was on to Penn, which appealed to you, in part, you have said, for its lack of palm trees! We like to think that the time you spent here, studying literature and the arts, sowed the seeds of your professional life. As a Quaker, you soared from one creative pursuit to the next, starring in plays by Tennessee Williams and Jean Giraudoux with the Pennsylvania Players, and signing on as art and photography editor for Penn Comment.
Captivated by photojournalism, and especially the pioneering work of Margaret Bourke-White, you roamed Philadelphia, Pentax in hand. Fortuitously, you fell in step with another camera-toting student, the photographer Mary Ellen Mark FA’62 ASC’64 Hon’94, who became a friend and inspiration.
You left Penn to pursue what turned into a stellar career. It was not long before you posed for your first Vogue cover and made your film debut, at 19, in Mary McCarthy’s The Group, directed by Sidney Lumet. Subsequent roles led to critical acclaim; you were nominated for Oscar and Golden Globes awards for Starting Over (1979) and a BAFTA prize for the 1982 film Gandhi, in which, ironically enough, you played a young Bourke-White.
But television is where you have made your biggest splash. Back in the 1970s, you were the first female host on Saturday Night Live; 30 years later, you played lawyer Shirley Schmidt for five seasons on Boston Legal. Between the two, you ruled the airwaves from 1988 to 1998 as the feisty, endearing investigative reporter Murphy Brown in the sitcom of the same name. It was the perfect showcase for your offbeat humor—and the role, you have said, that you loved the most. The world did, too, bestowing upon you five Emmys and two Golden Globes for your performance. During the show’s run, you also became a role model; your portrayal of a professional woman at the top of her field—a rarity on television of that era—inspired a generation of young women who were entering a workplace far different from the one their mothers had known.
In 1992 your alma mater joined the world in recognizing your creative talents and many memorable performances with the “Golden Globe of the University of Pennsylvania”—the honorary Doctor of Laws degree.
Busy as you are, you maintain an active philanthropic life. You have served as a trustee at Central Park Conservancy, the Norton Simon Museum of Art, and the Starlight Children’s Foundation. Your Candice Bergen Malle Foundation, founded in 2005, supports the environment and other causes. At Penn, you have established both endowed and term scholarships in your name.
You keep charging forward, an unstoppable creative force. Your recent memoir, A Fine Romance, which touches on the death of your first husband, French film director Louis Malle, was warmly received by critics. More recently, a photo you posted on Instagram, of a designer bag you personalized for your daughter, Chloe Malle, led to the creation of a new enterprise, Bergenbags. Its startling motto, “From One Old Bag to Another,” sounds like pure Murphy Brown.
Whatever creative pursuits you take on, you do so with great gusto and charm! For thrilling us with your energy and talents, and for remaining true to the Red and Blue through your success, Penn Alumni is delighted to present you with the Creative Spirit Award for 2017.
Gilbert F. Casellas Esq. L’77 |Alumni Award of Merit 2017
You once explained to an audience at Penn that you had “volunteered for this university … from the moment I started law school.” The exceptional loyalty you have demonstrated since graduating from Penn Law prove your words are true.
It was your personal connection that brought Lin-Manuel Miranda to Penn as the speaker for the 2016 Commencement—certainly, a memorable contribution. But more enduring is how avidly and successfully you help advance Penn’s core values.
“Diversity is about representation,” you once said. “Inclusion is about making that mix work.” In that regard, you are a master chef, helping Penn find the right balance. You believe that diversity is integral to a university’s “special obligations to society” to impart knowledge, and you work tirelessly to ensure that Penn is meeting its responsibility. Indeed, President Gutmann has credited you with suggesting “Inclusion” as one of the three pillars of the Penn Compact 2020.
Since 2013, you have been cochair of the James Brister Society, which aims “to improve the quality of the campus experience for students, faculty, and administrators of color,” and were key to its revitalization. You helped the Society reaffirm its priorities, energize and expand its membership base, and ensure that the University is providing the resources and attentive support that help students and faculty excel. In addition, you were a founding member of the Association of Latino Alumni and focused on multicultural outreach as a member of the Penn Alumni Board of Directors. Thanks to your efforts, our campus is becoming more welcoming and inclusive every day.
As you ascended from a legal clerk to your current role as chair of the management consulting and investment firm OMNITRU, you undertook a wide array of leadership positions. Your service on diversity-related committees throughout the corporate world, your selection as chair of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under President Bill Clinton, and an appointment by President Barack Obama to the Military Leadership Diversity Commission speak to your own “special obligation to society.” These responsibilities make your vigorous participation in campus life all the more impressive.
A stalwart alumni volunteer since 1989, you ramped up your engagement by joining the Board of Overseers of the School of Social Policy & Practice, serving as its chair in 1996—the same year you were named a term trustee. You made your presence felt on the Trustees’ Executive, Academic Policy, and Budget and Finance Committees and chaired the Neighborhood Initiatives Committee.
You became an overseer for Penn Nursing in 2003, and three years later, you were named a charter trustee. In this role, you chaired the Ad Hoc Committee on Diversity while maintaining your role on several other committees, including Honorary Degrees & Awards and Student Life. Your extensive service earned your selection as an emeritus trustee in 2016.
In an impassioned speech to the Puerto Rican Undergraduate Students Association, you urged students to take an active role as alumni. There are few better models than you. Your gifts to Penn have been generous, strategically targeted, and personally meaningful—the ideal philanthropic combination—including support for financial aid, diversity initiatives, annual giving, and the Penn Nursing Center for Global Women’s Health.
From your days as a law student, to being a Penn parent as Marisa C’08 graced campus, and now as an exemplary alumni leader, your legacy is extensive. Yet, we know you are not nearly finished yet. For your steadfast dedication to reshaping our campus for the better, Penn Alumni is honored to award you the Alumni Award of Merit for 2017.
Kyle S. Kozloff W’90 | Alumni Award of Merit 2017
The Alumni Weekend Parade of Classes is a joyous affair in which Quakers of all ages—many carrying festive banners and flags—march down Locust Walk to the exultant strains of the Penn Band. For the past 14 years, their steps have been enhanced by your own witty commentary as emcee, which is sprinkled with fun facts about passing marchers and classes. Sporting a red and blue Penn blazer, with a smile on your face and a microphone in your hand, you have become almost as iconic as the event itself. “Many of us can’t imagine the parade without you,” President Amy Gutmann has pointed out. Indeed, we can’t.
While you came by your wit and exuberance naturally, it was surely honed further during your undergraduate years at Wharton, when you were an active member of Mask and Wig, Penn’s famously zany all-male comedy group. After graduating with a degree in strategic management, you soon deployed both wit and business acumen on behalf of your alma mater.
As president of the Class of 1990 for the past 17 years—and a notably charismatic and hardworking one—you have been particularly effective at drumming up excitement for reunions and keeping your class engaged in the years in between. You chaired the reunion committees for your class’s last three reunions. Two years ago, for your 25th, your witty and creative emails helped boost both attendance and giving—and contributed to the event’s ultimate success.
And success is indeed the word. In the parlance of the film industry in your hometown of Los Angeles, the gathering was a blockbuster. Nearly 800 classmates showed up, breaking attendance records for a 25th reunion and fundraising $4 million for the University, beating the average number for the previous eight years. In true Hollywood fashion, your class aced the awards season, walking away that year with both the David N. Tyre Award for Excellence in Class Communications and the Class of 1917 Award for the most successful reunion fundraising.
Your family has been a loyal Red and Blue presence since the 1930s, when your grandfather, William Kozloff, graduated from Wharton with the Class of 1938. Subsequently, some 35 members of your extended family, including your father, Dr. Stephen R. Kozloff C’62, and sister, Rebecca Kozloff Collins C’92, have earned Penn degrees.
Given the abundance of familial Red and Blue, it seems only natural that you are active in alumni causes. You served as the vice president for alumni programming for the Penn Alumni Board of Directors and chaired the committee of the same name. A longtime member of the Alumni Class Leadership Council (ACLC), you currently serve as cochair of special programs, overseeing both the Penn Reunion Leadership Conference (PRLC) and the events that bring your fellow class presidents together. You have also reached across classes, especially to your “shoulder” classes—those who shared your college years—to develop friendships and plan events that rekindle old ties, such as mini-reunions on Homecoming Weekend.
Your leadership extends well beyond campus to your home in Los Angeles, where you serve as the de facto “mayor” of the local Penn community. You happily welcome visiting Quakers into your home, interview prospective students, serve on host committees for University events in your hometown, and cochair the Southern California Regional Advisory Board (SCRAB), which offers programs that bring together the many members of the Penn community in the L.A. area.
Ideally, we would call out our appreciation for everything you do for the Red and Blue in a style that echoes your own—with a microphone in hand, as the entire Penn community passes by. Instead, we’ll do the next best thing by awarding you the Alumni Award of Merit for 2017, which comes with our warmest thanks for your dedicated service to your alma mater and your beloved Class of 1990, together with your inimitable contributions to one of Penn’s best-loved traditions, the Alumni Weekend Parade of Classes.
Egbert L. J. Perry CE’76 WG’78 GCE’79 | Alumni Award of Merit 2017
“Opportunity presents itself,” you once said, explaining that it is by “stepping into it” that one becomes a leader. We at Penn have witnessed these words in action firsthand. For more than 40 years, you have “stepped into” opportunities at the University, over and over again.
As cofounder, chairman, and CEO of The Integral Group, an Atlanta-based national real estate advisory, investment management, and community development firm, and as chairman and a director of the Federal National Mortgage Association, you bring an exceptional level of acumen and leadership to your work at Penn.
Appointed a University trustee in 1996, your extensive expertise in real estate and community development was a boon for us as you chaired the Facilities & Campus Planning Committee and participated on the External Affairs and Neighborhood Initiatives Committees. Additionally, your commitment to inclusion showed in your tenure on the trustees’ Ad Hoc Committee on Diversity, including a period as its chair. Named a charter trustee in 2006, you served on the board’s Executive and Nominating Committees; a decade later, in 2016, you were appointed to emeritus trustee, an honor befitting your steadfast commitment and contributions to the University.
Your tenure as a trustee tells only part of the story. You have also been active at Penn Engineering, serving on its board of overseers for a dozen years, beginning in 1996—six years after your induction to the School’s Gallery of Distinguished Alumni. And for more than a decade—and counting—you have deftly deployed your knowledge of urban communities and housing as chair of the Advisory Board of the Penn Institute for Urban Research (IUR). In fact, you were instrumental in shaping the Institute, which is now recognized as a model of how a Penn institute should function.
Of course, you found even more ways to “step into it.” You had a hand in shaping Penn’s future as a member of the committee that brought President Amy Gutmann to Penn in 2004. Your dedication to fostering diversity is evident in your work with Wharton’s AAMBA/Whitney M. Young Committee and, since 2002, with your support of the James Brister Society, which aims to improve the quality of campus life for students, faculty, and administrators of color. As members of the Penn Club of Atlanta, you and your wife, A. Renee Perry W’77, also host popular receptions for alumni in your area.
What is even more impressive is that you did all this while raising two future Quakers—Ashley Rian Smith Esq. C’05 and Aleria Perry WG’19—and leading a successful professional life.
In addition to your history of loyal service, in 2006, you and Renee established the Percival and Margaret Perry Endowed Scholarship at Penn Engineering—a wonderful honor to your parents and a testament to your commitment to increasing access to a Penn education. You also provide significant support for the IUR, advancing its mission of urban research, education, and civic engagement. And as a former gift chair and current member of the Class of 1976 Gift Committee, you encourage others to give back to Penn, enhancing the culture of giving within our community and expanding your personal impact many times over.
Time and time again, you demonstrate what a true leader looks like, and we are proud to call you one of our own. For exemplifying how opportunity and action add up to impact, and for “stepping into” leadership so effectively in service of the University, Penn Alumni is honored to award you the Alumni Award of Merit for 2017.
Alice Way Waddington Ed’49 | Alumni Award of Merit 2017
At the time you entered Penn, trolleys clanged down Woodland Avenue, while the popular automobiles of the day—Buicks, Lincoln Zephyrs, and Fords—cruised along Locust Walk. You joined Alpha Xi Delta, played clarinet and tenor sax in a dance band, and sang in the chorus under future Philadelphia Orchestra conductor Eugene Ormandy—all while pursuing your studies at the Illman-Carter Unit for Kindergarten-Primary Teachers, part of Penn’s School of Education.
If such images seem static, recalling sepia-toned vintage photographs, you are quite the opposite—fast-moving and firmly rooted in the present. As a longtime volunteer, for both the Alumni Class Leadership Council (ACLC) and the Class of ’49, you have become legendary for your energy and your spirited commitment to the school. As a fellow alumnus so aptly noted, you are “Pennergetic.”
You are also a gifted multitasker, an ability that served you well when, after college, you helped to run your family’s dairy distribution business while raising four children. You soon turned your attention to your alma mater, becoming an intrinsic part of University life in the process. With your positive attitude and wonderfully infectious smile, you have lit up countless Penn-related events, from scholarship celebrations to reunions, in the many years since.
Where some people’s efforts flag with the passing years, yours seem only to have grown. As class president, a position you have held for more than a decade, you became known for your thoughtful, inclusive leadership style. You have been a longtime member of the Class of 1949 Reunion Gift Committee. And as copresident (with George Wills) of both the 60th and 65th Reunion Committees for your class, you worked in partnership with Alumni Relations and Development staff to develop activities designed to appeal to your classmates, including a mural arts tour of the city. Your efforts helped deliver a stunning turnout for your 65th reunion.
At your last reunion luncheon, held, appropriately enough, in the Class of 1949 Auditorium in Houston Hall, Wharton Professor Christopher Maxwell spoke on the benefits of positive thinking. Not that you need any guidance on the subject—you seem always to be wonderfully, contagiously upbeat.
While you have long energized alumni of your generation, you have inspired younger alumni, too, providing guidance and mentorship. A model volunteer for the University as well as your class, you have served as a member of the Homecoming Host Committee, the Alumni Class Leadership Council, the Penn Alumni Council, and so much more.
In short, you are a living example of what a lifetime of engagement with your alma mater looks like. “The more you give of yourself and your time” to Penn, you once wrote, “the more you will get back.” It would be hard to imagine anyone who has given more. No wonder you have been described as a “quintessential alumna.”
With gratitude for your cheerful demeanor, dedicated service, and unfailing “Pennergy,” Penn Alumni is delighted to bestow upon you the Alumni Award of Merit for 2017.
Sue Dreier Wishnow C’86 | Alumni Award of Merit 2017
It was evident early on that you had a special place in your heart for Penn. As a student, you joined the Kite and Key Society, sharing your love for Penn exuberantly with visitors during walking tours of campus. That same energy, enthusiasm, and infectious Penn pride has persisted for 30 wonderful years and counting, both in the US and abroad.
You have a rare gift for communication, one you effectively use to connect with fellow alumni all over the world. As copresident of the Class of 1986 for the past 10 years, you have kept the University within arm’s reach for even the most far-flung classmates. When you and copresident David C. Blatte W’86 recognized the need to keep your classmates engaged all through the five-year reunion cycle, you acted quickly, decisively, and with phenomenal success.
Impressive showings at Alumni Weekend even in non-reunion years prove that there is no “off year” for the Class of 1986. With a fun, informative e-newsletter—In the Mix with ’86!—and an active Facebook group, you spur yearlong engagement among your fellow “86ers,” inviting them to Engaging Minds events, Mask and Wig shows, Penn Athletics games, and more.
The results speak for themselves. As cochair for the 25th reunion, outreach chair for the 30th reunion, and a longtime member of the Gift Committee, you led the way to record-breaking fundraising years, earning the Class Award of Merit—twice!—in the process. For your 30th reunion, the Class of 1986 earned the top spot for total giving to the University; raising $28.5 million for The Penn Fund, the class set the record for a 30th reunion and was the fourth largest for any reunion class.
You work for all alumni, too, assuming key roles on the Penn Alumni Council and the Alumni Class Leadership Council. As a member of the Penn Alumni Board of Directors for a decade, beginning in 2003, you were a part of several committees as well the Global Alumni Network International Advisory Board. The international emphasis is fitting; you served on the board of the Penn Club of the United Kingdom, and as a member of the Penn Alumni Interview Program, you interviewed prospective Quakers in both Toronto and London, where you chaired the program for six years.
When you relocated to the Garden State, you naturally kept up the momentum by becoming an active member of the Penn Club of Metro NJ. As vice president for membership, you developed a clever online system that made it easier than ever to be part of the club. And you expanded the club’s membership by promoting fun events, from a concert by the Penn Keynotes to a widely attended yPenn event featuring the charismatic professor Peter Decherney.
You lead by example in supporting The Penn Fund, and your shining influence raises the bar for excellence and alumni engagement. In gratitude for all you have done for Penn—locally, globally, and personally—and in anticipation of what you will accomplish next, Penn Alumni is delighted to award you the Alumni Award of Merit for 2017.
Louis Hornick III C’02 | Young Alumni Award 2017
You are a joyful steward of meaningful traditions. From the steins that hang from the walls of the Mask and Wig clubhouse to the songs of Irving Berlin to the red and blue flags of Homecoming, you take infectious delight in the cherished institutions that connect the generations. Your dedication is evident in all you do for your alma mater, for your century-old family business, and for the storied musical troupe whose mission you have made your own: “Justice to the stage; credit to the University.”
As an undergraduate you earned the 2002 Penn Alumni Student Award of Merit for your service to the Sphinx Senior Society; your fraternity, Phi Kappa Sigma; the Provost’s Alcohol Rapid Response Team; and, especially, to Mask and Wig as its secretary-treasurer. Mask and Wig—that creative, boisterous brotherhood on Quince Street—became your passion during your tenure at Penn, and your talents came alive on its stage. But your enthusiasm didn’t end there: after graduation, as the old chestnut goes, the song may have ended, but the melody has remained the same.
As a member of the Mask and Wig Board of Governors since 2003, you have demonstrated an extraordinary ability to build relationships between undergraduates and the club’s most senior alumni. Not even a distance of thousands of miles dimmed your commitment; when you lived in Los Angeles, you would fly cross-country so as not to miss a meeting. You have chaired both the House Committee and the Tour Committee, which brings the jubilant spectacle of Mask and Wig performances to regional clubs all over the country—a treat for both student cast members and alumni audiences, who delight in their shared bond.
Your dedication to Penn hasn’t stopped there. Currently you serve on the Executive Committee of the Alumni Class Leadership Council, but well before that you were the very first to hold the position of “young alumnus” on the Penn Alumni Board of Directors. You have contributed to the success of each of the reunions for the Class of 2002, chairing the record-breaking 15th reunion. You have also been a member of the Homecoming Host Committee and the Penn Alumni Council.
Your alma mater is never far from your mind. When you produced an Irving Berlin musical in Los Angeles, naturally you invited the local Penn Club to attend, and your theatrical production company is called, of course, Quince Street Productions. You have been a welcoming presence at just about every Penn gala, retreat, and conference from Philly to New York. You have also become a familiar face to legions of undergraduates and alumni alike, as well as to prospective students, for whom you serve as a Penn Alumni Interviewer.
Little wonder you see yourself as a link in an unbroken chain. You’re fourth-generation Penn on both your maternal and paternal sides, a proud lineage now immortalized on the Founder’s Gate of the Generational Bridge on Locust Walk. Your very nickname, Tripp, stands as a reminder of those who came before you—back to your great-grandfather who, in 1918, founded the textile company that has been run by your family ever since. Including, now, by you. Alongside your father, you’ve taken on the leadership of LHSC Inc. as its executive vice president. Under your watch the company opened a factory in South Carolina, bringing overseas jobs back to America’s grateful textile belt and ushering your great-grandfather’s legacy into a new era.
You recognize the value of connecting past, present, and future—and remain firmly committed to working together with your fellow Quakers to ensure that our own sacred institution will continue to flourish. For your unique ability to bridge generations of Penn alumni, and your tireless commitment to keeping Mask & Wig as vibrant and fresh as it has been since 1889, Penn Alumni is pleased to present you with the 2017 Young Alumni Award.
Rohit Singh C’02 W’02 | Young Alumni Award of Merit 2017
When you decided to become more active at Penn as an alumnus, you may have taken your inspiration from President John F. Kennedy: you asked not what your alma mater could do for you but what you could do for your alma mater. Since your graduation, your savvy and enthusiastic engagement have made you a valued friend to the University.
As a member of the Kite and Key Society and a Wharton Undergraduate Tour Guide, you forged ties to Penn that would eventually become a lifetime bond. You spent a memorable semester in Lyon, France, as part of the Huntsman Program in International Studies & Business and graduated summa cum laude in 2002, with degrees in economics and international studies.
From there, you began an impressive career, with an uncommon level of focus, acumen, and vision leading to rapid advancement at the world’s top financial services companies. Those same traits have been evident since you began increasing your involvement at Penn.
Always willing to lend your talents where Penn needed them most, you started by joining the Penn Alumni Interview Program, participating in a pilot program to offer Skype interviews to students from all over the world. This was only the beginning of your rise as one of Penn’s strongest champions, and like any good champion, you rallied your peers to join you. You encouraged their philanthropy as co-gift chair for the Class of 2002 Gift Committee, and as a member of host committees for School of Arts and Sciences and Engaging Minds events, you helped inspire the sort of personal involvement that reinforces lifelong bonds.
Your passions are always aligned with purposes that strengthen the University. As the first Huntsman alumnus to serve on the program’s advisory board, your valuable input and astute analysis of engagement numbers revealed a need to better connect with our Huntsman alumni. That’s when you saw another way to make an impact—you became the founding chair of the Huntsman Alumni Council, where your special insight helps us better reach this group of worldly Quakers. What’s more, the Singh Family Endowed Scholarship supports an international Huntsman student, increasing the diversity of our campus while also helping a student in need.
As the son of a university professor, you developed an affinity for libraries early in life, so becoming involved with the Penn Libraries was a natural fit. The Orrery Society Council was a perfect match, and your enthusiasm made your appointment as cochair an easy choice. By establishing the Singh Family Fund for South Asian Studies, you have helped the University acquire scholarly materials that strengthen research in this field—a testament to both your undergraduate membership in the South Asia Society and the significance of this area of study to your family. And as an ex-officio member of the board of overseers, you continue to stand among the Libraries’ most active and dedicated supporters.
On top of all this, you have proven yourself a trusted mentor and advisor for young alumni. Whether leading corporate on-campus recruiting efforts at Penn or sharing your views on impactful volunteerism, your indefatigable Penn pride is palpable in all you do.
Anyone who believes the adage “Youth is wasted on the young” surely is unaware of the energy, enthusiasm, and experience you have offered to Penn in such a short time. For making Penn’s priorities your own, and in anticipation of your bright future as a leader, Penn Alumni is delighted to award you the Young Alumni Award for 2017. | {
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Stephen King – If It Bleeds Audiobooktext
If It Bleeds has 4 novellas that differ in tone and structure, and every one is well worth analysis. A couple of spoiler-free ideas:
” Mr. Harrigan’s Phone”- King is a master of reflective tales, particularly those that start in childhood. Craig, this tale’s storyteller as well as protagonist, is exceptionally nice, and also his partnership with Mr. Harrigan, the titular personality, is very well-developed.
” The Life of Chuck”- I discovered this a little difficult to enter into, as initially it really felt a little as well familiar. King has created more than a couple of handles tragic occasions, and also while I have actually primarily enjoyed them, I had not been sure that this one was mosting likely to be one of the most effective. However, the story quickly introduced a fascinating enigma, and also right after I understood that this story was not at all what I ‘d thought. With an irregular structure as well as ideas that come to be extra interesting and meaningful with each web page, this ended up being my favorite of the four.
” If It Hemorrhages”- Followers of the Bill Hodges Trilogy and The Outsider will be pleased, as I was, at the return of Holly Gibney. If It Bleeds Audiobook Free. The story has all the aspects that made those stories great, as well as actually creates Holly’s character along with her examination. If you have not review those books, you could not enjoy it as a lot, although King made a solid effort to offer context. It additionally has some looters for the previous publications, especially The Outsider.
” Rat”- King has done a lot of blogging about composing, yet that doesn’t imply there’s nothing left to say. Once again, he takes us inside the mind as well as experiences of an author, and also once again it results in a strong character as well as an intriguing story. I didn’t like this one rather as long as the various other 3, and would have suched as to see a bit even more plot growth, yet I still thoroughly taken pleasure in the story. Stephen King has actually done it once again. This is a great book for our times. During this Covid19 pandemic we require something to take us away, to re-learn to laugh, to having fun, and also to encounter our demons.
Investigator Holly Gibney is my favored Stephen King characters. She is that rare type, a completely nice person, that enters dreadful messes. As a King follower, I am not right into the sci-fi up yonder guys.
In Stephen Kings brand-new publication, If It Bleeds, we have 4 novellas. A novella is an extremely brief book, or a long short story. Mr Harrigan’s Phone is an enjoyable theme concerning the technical field. It informs the tale of a young boy Craig as well as Mr John Harrington. Craig did tasks for Mr Harrington, as well as Mr Harrington liked having him about. Stephen King – If It Bleeds Audio Book Online. Craig received lotto cards from Mr Harrington, and also won Some money. In return he provided Mr Harrington an apple iphone, and we see the outcomes. The Life of Chuck is written in 3 acts, as well as informs the story of Chuck in reverse. It is funny at times, as well as will maintain us entertained. Rat is the dark side of the novellas. It fixates a writer, Drew Larson that can’t appear to finish a novel, and then the problems really begin.The fourth novella
Is If It Bleeds. This is my favorite novella, featuring Detective Holly Gibney, and also she is finding a monster that few think she can take on.
Stephen King rarely disappoints, and also this book makes a hit for me. It is foolish to claim he is a wonderful writer due to the fact that we all agree. His way with words, the personalities he conjures in his creative imagination, using novellas to satisfy his demands as an author gives us the penultimate read. Initially, I must clarify that I bought this in OCTOBER 2019, but Amazon.com’s out of stock, as well as never ever delivered it. So I needed to drive to K-Mart to purchase a duplicate. Makes me question what’s the point in advance-ordering a publication from Amazon.com and also they don’t order sufficient to fill orders. Are they loading them in the order in which they get them? Considering that this was a breakthrough order, it seems to me that they should know specifically the amount of books to purchase, but obviously not: I’ll be going to the neighborhood Kmart to obtain books I need. | {
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by khristian méndez //
Bright eyed and still a little weary from a charged first day, the First National Congress on Climate Change carried on today in Guatemala City. As I wrote yesterday, there’s quite a spectrum of political actors and stakeholders regarding climate change. Today, the voices began to show stronger colors, some in stark contrast of each other, characterizing the different sectors of our Guatemalan society as the day ticked away and adaptation is becoming critical.
The day began with a plenary session on Climate Change and Rural Development featuring a representative from the Private Sector,* a representative from the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, as well as an FAO Emergencies Officer. For an audience that was energetically addressed by quite a few indigenous and farmer leaders the afternoon before, it was painfully obvious who were missing in this panel. The first panelist, standing high on his pale gray suit and tie, spoke shortly –hurried by an iron-rodded moderator– about the needs in rural areas: infrastructure, health, education, economic growth. It was until the participants asked him to elaborate on what can the private sector do (and what it is doing) to help in these areas. His response: they are ‘helping produce tax revenue for the government to do its job.’ It almost felt silly to have woken up at 6am in the morning not to miss this guy two and a half hours later. I missed this guys’ full name, but I will add it here tomorrow (once the information from the Congress is up.) The government representative had little new to add: the government is making new plans, and is looking for places to get funding from to implement the new development plans (more on this below). The FAO rep spoke about how climate change threatens agriculture: droughts, floods and highly irregular climate patterns. He had a very striking statistic: in order for the average Guatemalan agricultural worker to pay for a month’s worth of food and services (Q5,411 – or a little under USD700) she would have to earn 3.3 times as much (Q1,620 – or USD207 dollars.) And let us not forget: climate change stands to threaten the stability of this tiny income.
*Guatemala’s economy has a solid agricultural foundation, with sugar, coffee, bananas, corn and cotton being its major exports.
After a deep sigh, I sat through the next session on Adaptation for the Agricultural Sector as two-thirds of the plenary hall disbanded for the parallel sessions. I will have to apologize to the readers, since the speakers began to blend in with each other in the flurry of information presented, and most of their presentations were a little faded in color. The main highlights of this session:
– ‘Land Use Change and Forestry’ (which most speakers have explained really means deforestation in the national context) is one of the highest -if not the highest- emitter of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) in Guatemala.
– Indigenous seeds and indigenous traditional knowledge is resilient and able to adapt to climate change much better than conventional agriculture
– All agricultural businesses who sell abroad have to find ways to mitigate and adapt to climate change if they wish to remain competitive.
It was now 10am, and my stomach pleaded food, so I followed everybody else for coffee break, and decided to shake things up and go to a plenary session I thought I was (for the most part) less familiar with: Adaptation in Industry, Transport, Waste Management and Agri-Business.
It was probably the paper presented on Guatemala City’s Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS) called Transmetro, which began to paint the picture with more detail. Architect Alessandra Losseau, who works at the local Municipality, presented this on project. The long and short of it: the new BRTS system introduced 7 years ago –and which is still growing– reduced GHG emissions by 500% from the traditional red buses used in the city. This was further colored by the sheer inequality of road space in the city: only 32% of all commuters in Guatemala city stay away from public transport, yet they take up 76% of all road space. The local government is trying to implement more sustainable forms of transport along with the BRTS, such as bikeways and public bicycles, which reportedly have growing success (against a backdrop of violence in Guatemala city). For those of us who once thought Climate Change was mostly a matter of science, this is a living example it’s not. The BRTS also generated carbon credits for Guatemala, but this isn’t super helpful, as carbon markets are not very lively these days.
A scientist who works for Agribusiness and an engineer who works with Industry presented on CO2 emission reductions through sugar, cement and cement bags lifecycles, which have put big Guatemalan corporations ahead in the international markets. They are taking measures such as creating roads between the sugar plants to speed up delivery and reduce transport emissions, the use of new fertilizers, use of organic and solid non-organic waste for incineration. I asked a question on the social impacts of these industries’ new measures since these two scientists numbers seem to vow for the economic and environmental impacts, but it was not among the chosen ones for a response at the end of the session.
Finally, another Architect who spoke on Waste, presented on our colossal dumpster as it produces a heavy dose of methane emissions. (Methane, though not as abundant in the atmosphere as Carbon Dioxide, is a contributor that is 21-24 stronger than CO2 in its greenhouse factor.) She elaborated on the importance of a properly managed landfill, which would capture 100% of the methane emissions. Guatemalans’ annual waste stands at 1kg per person per day.
The lady who spoke about Waste, indirectly contradicted what the earlier engineer had said about burning solid waste to generate energy. This –she explained– released toxic substances into the atmosphere that are potentially more polluting than the solid waste itself. Moreover, the presentation on the sugar industry, and his claim that they only grow sugar on 2.5% of all land in Guatemala (a country where land tenure is not an easy dinner table conversation topic, to say the least) was welcomed with raised eyebrows by several civil society and indigenous folks among the audience. Somethings always seems to smell fishy to someone in the audience: be they in a suit, a t-shirt, or a güipil.
The following session on Climate Change and Disasters contrasted the previous’ day presentations like orange and blue: two scientists advocated for the all-encompassing importance of the scientific concepts of Climate Variability and (fairly expensive) Early Warning Systems, whilst the other scientist recognized –a British researcher who stumbled in Spanish– not only the ‘traditional knowledge’ that communities have and how it may just outshine what we call science under the pressure of a changing climate. They were followed by the CARE International lady, who had the only example of Community Based Adaptation: a measure that seems even more sensible to me after hearing scientists, politicians and indigenous peoples talk about the myriad ecosystems and microclimates we are lucky to have within these borders.
Towards the end of the day, we were all brought back to the plenary hall (there had been simultaneous sessions all day) to hear about the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources’ plan for low-carbon development. It’s called K’atun 2032 and it is the product of two years of work that began in 2012. It is a product of hundreds of national consultations, as well as cross-sectoral analyses, and prioritization. It contains 16 main areas of work and hundreds of indicators, goals, and guidelines to conduct this work. Hearing the government representative speak about this plan and how things are ‘mainstreamed’ (addressed across more than one element of the agenda) almost made me giggle at the huge resemblance this bears to the Sustainable Development Goals’ process I was in a month ago.
Thereon two more government officials spoke about low-carbon development (with mostly business as usual ideas). However, afterwards we heard a lady representing a Public-Private Partnership called PRONACOM (National Program for Competitivity, in Spanish). Her language was easy to follow, and she clearly had gotten out of her office and desk much more than plenty of the other speakers in this congress so far. She asked the audience: ‘what are we going to say to a campesino that has a tiny piece of land, no formal education, and no money if they lose their crops due to climate change? who is going to speak to him, in the first place?’ PRONACOM has a plan to keep Guatemalans competitive in the global market, but this plan is not employing an imposing mode of development. They want to use what farmers already know: ‘that farmer already has ancestral knowledge, and we must build on to that, give him tools, but also learn from him’.
As the time came for me to leave the building to catch my only ride back home, the last presentation unfolded: the potential for renewable energy in Guatemala. Until now, climate change had only been referred to as a negative thing –with good reason– but a young Masters student had a different take. First, he asked us all to consider that we are part of nature, and that what’s driving this planet into madness and destruction are our minds that are not healthy. He asked the people in the room (less than half, at this stage of the day) to stand up and renew our commitment to the planet if they felt like they wanted to. As I walked out the door, he had a stunning statistic to share: Germany reportedly is capturing more solar energy than it can use, and they receive 3 kilowatts per square meter per day. In Guatemala, we receive about twice that amount.
Integrating diverse sources of knowledge is hard, but doing it so in a country that still has deep civil war bruises, and staggering inequality, is even harder. And the burning son of this rainy season’s dog days might be making it harder to really listen what others have to say. The dog days are staying much longer than most of us in the country can bear, but they serve as a reminder that climate change is not coming, it’s here. The truth still stands: in contrasting colors or harmonious hues, Guatemalans will still have to adapt. | {
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HPV Causes Cancer Scare
I am a healthy mother of two nine-year old twin girls, and I have been married for 15 years.
Two and a half years ago, after a routine pap smear test, I learned I had pre-cancerous dysplasia caused by human papillomavirus (HPV), which, if not treated, could lead to cervical cancer. My doctor explained that I probably contracted HPV years ago.
The cancerous cells were successfully removed during an outpatient procedure called a cone biopsy, but the experience scared me. How could something so serious and potentially deadly be lingering in my body for so many years? I had always considered myself a cautious and careful person, so it was difficult to grasp that I might have done something to put my health at risk. I felt a stigma attached to this because the virus is transmitted sexually; however I am fully aware that anyone can unknowingly get HPV, even people in long-term, committed relationships.
During a checkup following the procedure, I asked my gynecologist what she thought about the HPV vaccine recommended for adolescent girls that was headlining the news. She shared that she also had a young daughter and was weighing a decision about vaccination. She felt we were both lucky because we could wait several years to see how the vaccine did before making the decision for our daughters.
Now that my girls are nine, I know I need to consider the implications of my experience for my daughters. My decision to vaccinate them is just a few years away. Thinking about HPV in relation to my children sheds quite a different light on my experience and how I can protect them.
While my twin girls have received all the recommended vaccines available, deciding about the HPV vaccine seems to involve a separate set of considerations. As with anything that is relatively new, I want to know about potential medical risk factors, if any. And then there’s the fact that I would be vaccinating my kids to help prevent an infectious disease that is transmitted sexually—not your typical parental vaccine decision like the chickenpox vaccine. But all things taken into consideration, I know protecting my kids, if I have the ability to do so, is the most important thing.
Please note: This mother has chosen to remain anonymous. | {
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The Taliban have severely tightened restrictions on women’s freedom in Afghanistan, requiring them to wear full veils in public on Saturday, preferably the burqa, an announcement heavily criticized by feminist activists.
In a decree issued during a ceremony in Kabul, the supreme leader of the Taliban and Afghanistan, Hibatullah Akhundzada, ordered women to completely cover their bodies and faces in public, stating that the burqa, the blue veil at the eye height is the best option for that.
Women should wear “a tchadri (another name for the burqa), because it is traditional and respectful,” indicates this decree.
“Women who are neither too young nor too old should veil their faces, except their eyes, according to Sharia recommendations, to avoid any provocation when they meet a man” who is not a close member of their family, she adds.
And if they have no reason to go out, they better “stay home”.
This decree also lists the penalties to which heads of families who do not impose the use of the full veil are exposed. The first two offenses will be sanctioned with a simple warning. The third will be sentenced to three days in prison and the fourth will be brought to justice.
Additionally, any government employee who does not wear the full veil will be fired immediately.
“Islam has never recommended chadri,” a women’s rights activist who remained in Afghanistan, on condition of anonymity, reacted to the AFP.
“The Taliban, instead of being progressive, are going backwards. They are behaving as in their first regime, they are the same as 20 years ago,” he added.
– Denied promises –
“We are a broken nation, forced to endure assaults we cannot understand. As a people we are crushed,” tweeted Muska Dastageer, a former professor at the American University of Afghanistan, now based in Afghanistan.
Since the Taliban returned to power in mid-August, the feared ministry for the promotion of virtues and the prevention of vice had issued several recommendations on how women should dress. But this is the first edict on the matter promulgated at the national level.
The Taliban previously asked women to wear at least the hijab, a scarf that covered the head but revealed the face. But they strongly recommended wearing the burqa, which they made mandatory when they first came to power between 1996 and 2001.
Under their first regime, they had deprived women of nearly all rights, according to their ultra-strict interpretation of Sharia law, Islamic law.
Agents of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice whipped anyone caught without a burqa.
After their return to power, after 20 years of occupation by the United States and its allies, which had ousted them in 2001, the Taliban had promised to be more flexible this time around.
But they soon reneged on their promises, constantly eroding rights again and wiping out 20 years of women’s freedom.
Women are now largely barred from government jobs and prohibited from traveling overseas or long distances within the country unless accompanied by a male family member.
– Complicated international recognition –
In March, the Taliban brought high schools and colleges closer to girls, hours after their long-announced reopening. This unexpected turnaround, which was not justified except to say that the education of girls must be done according to sharia law, has scandalized the international community.
The Taliban also imposed the separation of women and men in Kabul’s public parks, with designated visiting days for each gender.
The decree issued on Saturday could further complicate the Taliban’s request for international recognition, which the international community has directly linked to respect for women’s rights.
“This is an unexpected step back, which will not help the Taliban gain international recognition. Such moves will only intensify the opposition,” Pakistani analyst Imtiaz Gul told AFP.
Over the past two decades, Afghan women have gained new freedoms, either by returning to school or applying for jobs in all sectors of activity, even as the country has remained socially conservative.
Women tried to assert their rights by demonstrating for the first time in Kabul and major cities after the Taliban returned to power.
But they fiercely repressed the movement, arresting many activists and holding some, sometimes for several weeks.
The burqa is a traditional Afghan piece of clothing, widely worn in the more remote and conservative parts of the country. Even before the Taliban returned to power, the vast majority of Afghan women were veiled, if only with a loose veil.
© 2022 AFP. All reproduction and representation rights reserved. All information reproduced in this section (dispatches, photos, logos) are protected by the intellectual property rights held by AFP. Consequently, none of this information may be reproduced, modified, redistributed, translated, commercially exploited or reused in any way without AFP’s prior written consent. | {
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The theme for this week’s blog is a little esoteric.The Liberal Party of Canada and the Bloc Quebecois have just project managed themselves into obscurity. Both parties will be invisible for the next four – five years.
The lessons that they should have learned:
- Vision is Crucial to Success. The Liberal party platform was too detailed for success. When you write the new one, remember you must tell me “What I Will Have When I Vote For You”. Make the vision one that resonates. Make it short. There is nothing like a good tag line.
- Legacy ideas aren’t de rigueur. The political landscape has changed a lot in the last 20 years. Platforms that used to get out the vote just don’t work anymore. The average voter isn’t interested in the history of the party but ”what it can do for me today”. From my perspective, it had better be about reducing the deficit and taxes. If you reduce my taxes, I could pay for the things that you now give grants for. I don’t need my government to be my babysitter and caretaker.
- The Status Quo is dead. We won’t settle for leaders and platforms anymore. Ask me what three things keep me up at night. There is an
old Native American saying “never judge a person unless you have walked a 1000 steps in their moccasins”. Stop telling me what is good for me and listen when I tell you what I want. Don’t polish it into a platform that I can’t
in all good conscious support.
- Grow the Party with Innovative Ideas. If you want new members, stop recycling leaders, interim leaders and those groomed by the establishment. Stop picking policies that are a flash in the pan. Just in case you wondered, it is time for a National Action Committee on the Status of People. As politically incorrect as that statement is, discrimination knows no gender, race, creed or orientation. It is finally time for all people to be equal.
One of my favourite cartoon characters is Marvin the Martian. He has many things that would make a good leader such as tenacity, a thick skin, focus and the ability to exclude reality from any situation. But, he is also the densest character when it comes to observing the situation around him and learning from previous experience. In a very real sense, the Liberal party machine did everything right and everything wrong at the same time. But like Marvin the Martian, they continue to follow a plan that isn’t working. For Marvin, the Earth was the objective only the workflow needed improvement. With the Liberal Party, we had Canada as the objective but the program need serious balance.
We are Canadians and what works in one part of the country won’t work in another. Stop picking programs intended to cater to special interest groups and get back to being the party of all Canadians.
Mr. Harper and Mr. Layton don’t get comfortable. Your turn is coming again. The Pirate Party of Canada will start looking better to young Canadians as Jack Sparrow continues to fill the movie screens of the world. | {
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Whenever the artist Deana Lawson sees someone she wants to photograph, she feels as though time stops. It has happened to her when traveling through Brooklyn on the A Train, on road trips through the American South, in taxi lines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and outside of the home of a healer in Moore Town, Jamaica. In a conversation with artist Arthur Jafa that appears in Lawson’s Aperture monograph, she describes the significance of these cinematic time ruptures: “I’ve learned that these moments must be linked to my intuition. And I listen to it.”
These encounters have resulted in works like “Eternity” (2017), where Lawson’s fellow subway rider stands in front of a lavender interior with a giant metal radiator, in a pose that echoes Vermeer’s “Girl With the Pearl Earring”; “The Garden” (2015), whose title references Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” where two naked strangers become stand-ins for Adam and Eve in a lush, Congolese Eden; and “Cowboys” (2014), when two men from Georgia emerge on horseback from a deep, dark background, in a photographic take on chiaroscuro that brings to mind Caravaggio.
Many of these large-scale, elaborately staged, and painstakingly posed photographs that star Lawson’s muses are on view in Lawson’s first museum survey at MoMa PS1, which runs until September. Although these works often do not show evidence of their geographic location, they are not placeless. They exist in an artistically constructed and interconnected universe that centers on the divinity of the Black experience. Here, people of the diaspora become, in Lawson’s words, “godlike beings,” who are no longer defined by forced displacement or voluntary distance from Africa—but rather, by their sacred and unshakeable connection to it, and to each other.
The poetry of this connection plays out in recurring details—closed blinds, colored weaves, artificial nails, plastic couch covers, hues of gold, red, and deep brown—and in her subjects’s piercing gaze. In describing her 15-year practice, which is commemorated in a chronological narrative at MoMa PS1, Lawson stated her aim: “I want to capture something that represents the majesty of Black life, a nuanced Black life, one that is by far more complex, deep, beautiful, celebratory, tragic, weird, strange.”
In the span of her career, Lawson has honed a photographic style that already feels as distinct and recognizable as those of the artists she cites as major inspirations, such as Diane Arbus and Carrie Mae Weems. She has also earned substantial accolades from the fine art world; in 2013, she won a Guggenheim Fellowship, and 7 years later, became the first artist working in the medium of photography to receive the Hugo Boss Prize. An astute observer, crafter, and documentarian of 21st-century Black identity, her work has inevitably permeated popular culture. For fans of the musician Blood Orange, Lawson’s unforgettable photograph of a couple embracing in a bedroom, “Binky and Tony Forever” (2009), simulates synesthesia by conjuring the voice of frontman Dev Hynes, who chose Lawson’s artwork as the cover of his 2016 album, Freetown Sound. The curator and author of The New Black Vanguard, Antwaun Sargent, wrote about the image’s impact for Vice in 2017. The photograph’s power, he said, lay in its radical depiction of “Black love, so infrequently represented, as young, feminine, and free.”
Given her family history, Lawson believes she was destined to become “an artist with a camera.” She was born and raised in Rochester, New York—where her grandmother cleaned the home of George Eastman, the founder of the Kodak Company, which would later employ Lawson’s mother as an administrative assistant for nearly 30 years. The importance of documenting the intimacies of family life was instilled within her by her father, a hobbyist whose photo albums would later form the foundation of her own practice, which also incorporates personal and found imagery. Lawson additionally credits her aunt, Dr. Patricia Bath, in shaping her artistic vision and ambition. Drawing inspiration from her siblings, who were born legally blind, Bath became a pioneering ophthalmologist, who was among the first in the country to perform cornea transplants—allowing her to give the gift of sight to patients as young as two weeks old.
When experiencing Lawson’s exhibition at MoMa PS1, visitors will feel something adjacent to the time-stopping sensation Lawson described to Jafa, when they suddenly find themselves thrust into suspension in her world—which writer Zadie Smith says is “a portal between the everyday and the sacred...that leads us back to ourselves.” The artworks are exhibited in galleries that are warmed by wall-to-wall, burgundy carpet, connecting viewers to the interiors Lawson creates, and the works to one another. Crystals have been placed in the corners of the galleries, which is part of Lawson’s own ritual in setting an intention for her artwork and the way it is received. In examining the narrative arc of Lawson’s own artistic development, the photographs become both bigger in size and more theatrical in their presentation. Peter Eleey, who co-curated Lawson’s museum survey with Eva Respini, drew attention to her use of gold frames—which allude to both the jewelry worn by many of her subjects and the history of the gold trade in West African kingdoms—and spoke about her increasing use of reflective surfaces and materials. Lawson’s various “inventions,” Eleey says, help facilitate one of her overarching aims: “to create a space in which we see ourselves seeing.”
A look inside Deana Lawson’s exhibition at MoMA PS1. Images courtesy MoMA PS1. Photographs by Steven Paneccasio.
These meta feedback loops, which loom in conjunction with Lawson’s refusal to explain which elements of her artworks are staged, call into question our problematic association of photography with fact, and the very nature of what we “know”—or assume—to be true. Lawson’s use of the medium subverts the long-standing role the camera has played in propagating white supremacist ideology, both historically and in the present. In creating works that highlight our active consumption of her images in the exhibition space, Lawson beckons us to dismantle the distorted framework of our own vantage points.
“Her work invites us into a range of considerations about our own relation to these subjects and Black life, and to contend with what we bring to the picture that is being shown to us,” Eleey says. The crucial question to ask in experiencing Lawson’s work is not only “What is real?” versus “What is constructed?,” but also “What does it mean to decolonize a gaze?” In facilitating these reflections, Lawson reveals herself to be rather like her aunt. Lawson, too, has the power to make things that are typically unseen—such as beauty, bias, and beyond—visible to the blind. | {
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quincy bowling alley not closing
It appears we have some people who didn’t read last week’s front page story about Dollar General carefully enough. The company is opening two stores here — one in Chester and one in Quincy — but the owners of La Sierra Lanes in Quincy, Jeannie and Richard Dykes, have been getting calls asking if it’s true they were closing and when.
So, here it is again just as the story read:
The company that operates Dollar General Stores bought the building where Almanor Bowling Center is located and will open its Chester location there. That bowling alley will be closing.
The Quincy store will be located in what is now an empty building on the corner of Mill Creek Road and Highway 70 in East Quincy. It’s next to Sav-Mor Foods and was once home to American Valley Hardware.
Dick and Jeannie want us to assure you: La Sierra Lanes is not closing.
plumas business summit
Schedule time in your calendar to attend the second annual Plumas Business Summit on March 22 at Nakoma Resort. In addition to the keynote speakers, breakout sessions will cover advertising and budgeting, social media, websites, business financing and more. One of the highlights attendees noted from last year’s first-ever event was the networking opportunities they had with business and professional people throughout the county. Early registration (by Feb. 22) is $60; after that up until March 19 it’s $65, which includes breakfast, lunch and beverages. Seating is limited to the first 100 registrants. For more information call the Eastern Plumas Chamber of Commerce at 836-6811.
artists’ reception friday
Books & Beyond owners Susan Bryner and Dawn Gray welcome two new artists into the Back Room Art Gallery with a reception at the Chester gallery Friday, Feb. 8, from 4 to 7 p.m. Valerie Payne, a well-known Chico artist, has also been active in the Almanor area’s art events for a number of years. She does both abstract and representational collages, acrylics, pastels and watercolors. Deb Lewis is a ceramicist who just loves to play with clay.Deb and her husband, Scott, moved to the Almanor area in 2011, after visiting for years. Recent works include hand-built sculptures, both large and small.
Their work will be on display through March 31.
Jeff Hahn, owner of Plumas Gen Tech, is marking his first anniversary with that business. He is a Generac certified generator service technician providing sales, installation and repairs of home and office generators throughout Plumas and Lassen counties. We should also note that this past year Jeff also opened Wolf Creek Wood Stoves in Greenville and is also the new owner of Mac’s Chimney Sweeping.
live music valentine’s day
As part of their Valentine’s Day sweetheart dinner special at Pizza at the Branch in Hamilton Branch, managers Karen and Randy Helmick have arranged live music by RichardKing and Smokey Denna, from 5 to 8 p.m., for their patrons to enjoy. This recently opened restaurant features an extensive menu of pizzas, sandwiches, salads from the salad bar, desserts and an array of beverages for young and old alike with casual dining that is family-friendly. | {
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The clock has turned to Daylight Saving Time and the sun is shining brightly this morning. Crocus and snowdrops are sprouting up everywhere.
Helleborus suddenly appeared.
(Thanks to the projo garden blog; I, for the first time, wanted to know more about it and to share what I learned ). According to helleborus.org, Helleborus have grown in popularity in North America in the past decade and Helleborus x hybridus was named the 2005 ‘Perennial Plant of the Year’ by the Perennial Plant Association. Extracts from Helleborus have been used in homeopathy and traditional medicine.
Helleborus belongs in the genus Helleborus of the family Ranunculaceae (buttercup). It is often called a Lenten rose, because it slightly resembles a single rose and blooms around the Lent season.
Hellebore – Wikipedia listed several legends involving Helleborus in witchcraft, tied to summoning demons. Helleborus niger is commonly called the Christmas rose, due to an old legend that it sprouted in the snow from the tears of a young girl who had no gift to give the Christ child in Bethlehem.
In Greek mythology, Melampus of Pylos used hellebore to save the daughters of the king of Argos from a madness, induced by Dionysus, that caused them to run naked through the city, crying, weeping, and screaming.”
Helleborus require very little care and attention. Mine are single flowers. I hope to acquire double flower type which also come in many colors ( white, cream, green, purple and pink ). | {
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Not finally... Subjective views on matters journalistic 5
Irfan Ashraf, Mihir Bose, Andrew Gimson, Joy Johnson
Kevin Marsh - Why the BBC’s boss had to go 19
Phil Harding - It’s time to take ethics seriously 29
Tim Luckhurst - A sordid era, but the future’s bright 35
Jerome Taylor, Mark Neary and Romana Canneti - Opening up closed doors of justice 42
Andrew Gray - Military reporting needs new fronts 51
Graham Lord - Life with a Fleet Street monster 57
Arthur MacMillan - The sad decline of The Scotsman 64
BOOK REVIEWSAnn Leslie on Ryszard Kapuscinski 70
John Kampfner on Brian Winston 73
Damien McCrystal on Tim Burt 75
Donald Trelford on Miriam Gross 77
Bill Hagerty on Ian Mackay 79
Quotes of the Quarter – 18
Twitter Watch - 40
Leveson Blogs - 50
How did a spiked Newsnight report lead to all this? asks a former BBC editor. And will the Corporation ever regain trust?
It became a BBC crisis like no other. Its flagship programme, Newsnight, at the centre and a director general, George Entwistle … well, in theory at the centre but in reality always somewhat more distant. And now he’s paid the price. It’s not hard to see why. Egregiously incurious, first about the spiked Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile’s child abuse in the late autumn of 2011. And then, when the words “Newsnight” and “child abuse” collided again in the late autumn of 2012 and implicated the former Conservative Party treasurer, Lord McAlpine, in allegations of child abuse and cover-up at the notorious Bryn Estyn children’s home.
We can be sure of two things.
First, George Entwistle had no option but to go.
Second, that trust still matters to the BBC and while the polls don’t tell the full story, the one they do tell is grim. Over 70 per cent of us, apparently, no longer trust BBC executives to tell the truth; about the same percentage suspects a cover-up over Savile — two-thirds think the shelved Newsnight investigation was part of that; and two-thirds trust the BBC less than before. For the first time ever, fewer trust the BBC than don’t. Trust hasn’t been shaken; according to one pollster, it’s been “shattered”.
How did it happen? It’s easy to draw the conclusion that Newsnight landed the BBC in the Lord McAlpine fiasco as some form of expiation for the shelved Jimmy Savile investigation. Too cautious on the first, too incautious on the second.
But that’s too simplistic. The McAlpine fiasco was bad journalism from beginning to end and nothing excuses it. What might, in part, explain it was the nudge Entwistle gave to BBC editors and executives when he appeared before the Culture Select Committee and condemned unequivocally the decision of Newsnight editor Peter Rippon to spike his Savile investigation.
No BBC editor or executive watching that performance could have been confident that shelving the testimony of another child abuse victim would have enhanced their career.
The McAlpine crisis grew out of the Savile crisis — or, more accurately, George Entwistle’s and the BBC’s mishandling of the Savile crisis. And, in particular, how that mishandling ensured that the row over the Newsnight Savile investigation that should have been peripheral to the exposure of the biggest serial paedophile in British history, took centre stage in the media firestorm for three damaging weeks.
The Newsnight investigation
Newsnight editor Peter Rippon’s decision in December 2011 to shelve his programme’s investigation into Savile’s abuse of young girls had no realworld resonance. Savile was dead and would never be called to account. Nor was any young girl now at risk. The decision wasn’t Rippon’s finest editorial moment, but it mattered outside the Newsnight offices only because of allegations that it was part of a cover-up. As the Daily Mail put it:
“The BBC shelved a Newsnight investigation into allegations that Sir Jimmy Savile sexually abused teenage girls at its studios .. attempting to cover up the allegations in an effort to protect its own reputation.”
There was no evidence whatever of a cover-up, though there were well-informed leaks from within the BBC levelling the charge. No-one, the reasoning went, could have spiked a story as good as this. The only possible explanation was corporate conspiracy. To save planned TV tributes to Savile over Christmas 2011, perhaps even to cover-up the BBC’s decades-long tolerance of its star’s criminality.
For all the intense, near theological analysis the shelved Newsnight investigation subsequently attracted, it was, in essence, little different from the hundreds of other investigations the BBC starts and then either scraps or broadcasts every year.
Two days after Savile died, at the end of October 2011, Newsnight producer Meirion Jones pitched the idea of exposing the late BBC DJ and presenter as a paedophile. Like most people working in the media, Jones had heard the many rumours that had circulated for years. But he believed he could establish something more certain and, now that Savile was dead, could do so with no risk of libel.
His aunt, Margaret Jones, now in her 90s, had been headmistress at Duncroft School, the Approved School in the Home Counties that Savile often visited in the 1970s, sometimes staying overnight or taking girls on outings in his Rolls Royce. Jones was sure that, through his connection with Duncroft, he could persuade at least one of Savile’s victims to give her testimony on camera.
Rippon agreed that Jones and reporter Liz MacKean, who’d worked together on Newsnight’s award-winning Trafigura exclusives, should start trying to gather evidence. Things began well; they managed to persuade one of Savile’s victims, Karin Ward, to break some 40 years of silence and go on camera; and they made contact with some of Savile’s other victims at Duncroft who’d kept contact with each other through a social networking site. None was keen, initially, to go on camera but all seemed to corroborate Karin Ward’s and one another’s testimony.
Rippon was clear that Savile’s paedophilia was at the heart of the investigation. He was less clear, though, what the focus would be of any eventual film. As he explained later, he was never comfortable with the idea of reporting nothing more than decades- old allegations against a dead celebrity who was, self-evidently, unable to offer a defence. An exceptionally cautious approach, even by BBC standards but not editorially invalid.
There were good reasons to be cautious. Rippon recalls that Jones seemed much less confident about the strength and reliability of Karin Ward’s testimony than MacKean; he recalls, too, that he was unhappy that the corroborating witnesses and victims had been in contact with one another for many years previously; nor was he happy about the way they’d been questioned. And there was, as yet, no third-party evidence.
Then, Jones and MacKean heard from one of their interviewees that Surrey police had investigated complaints against Savile back in 2007. One of his victims claimed to have a letter from the force explaining that they’d dropped that inquiry because he was too old and frail. It was the kind of thing that Rippon needed. It didn’t satisfy all his concerns, but it gave the investigation a potentially sharp focus – an institutional failure, Newsnight’s bread and butter — as well as third party testimony.
It was go.
Jones and MacKean started pulling their material together, editing, writing draft scripts and gathering the other interviews they needed to make a complete film. They were still some way from that, but the BBC press office was tipped off to prepare for a story in which there’d be “a huge amount of interest”. All that Rippon needed now was sight of that letter or confirmation from Surrey police that they’d dropped their investigation because of Savile’s age. Jones and MacKean were reassuring but, after repeated attempts, couldn’t produce what was, in their editor’s mind, the make-or-break piece of evidence. When The Mail on Sunday finally got their hands on the letter — almost a year later — they declared it a “fake”.
As his team were pulling their film together, Rippon was talking to his bosses — conversations that were both routine and informal, not designed to flag up any concerns about the Savile investigations. In one, they did talk about the investigation, and the head of news, Helen Boaden, suggested that he should treat Savile as if he were still alive. In other words, the fact that the BBC couldn’t be sued for libel wasn’t enough on its own to put on air very serious allegations that no other media outlet seemed prepared to make.
Investigation came to a full stop
By the end of November, Rippon felt the investigation had hit a brick wall. Surrey police had told the programme they’d dropped their inquiry on the advice of the Crown Prosecution Service for lack of evidence. Without the letter, he couldn’t credibly challenge their version of events. His other doubts about his team’s evidence, his own caution and the fact that he had to achieve an exceptionally high standard of proof left him, he believed, with no alternative. The investigation was over.
Rippon’s editorial focus was narrow. Too narrow. Even so, it should only have meant a pause in the investigation. Instead, it came to a full stop even though there were many options to keep it alive; resuming after the Newsnight Christmas break, collecting more evidence; handing the material Jones and MacKean had collected to another programme – a fairly common way in the BBC of continuing an investigation that looks like eating time and resources; or even involving the central BBC Newsgathering department. None of that happened — which, in due course, added to the suspicion of a cover-up.
The biggest puzzle of all, though, is why Jones didn’t take his and MacKean’s investigation to Panorama. On the day he’d pitched his idea to his own editor, he’d also sent a short email to Tom Giles, the Panorama editor, telling him about the idea. Jones later denied this was a formal pitch. It was, he said, “to keep his options open”. He’d met Giles earlier in 2011 to talk generally about working on long-form investigations for Panorama and they were to meet again. It’s difficult to understand why, if he and MacKean felt as strongly as they claimed to have done that Savile’s victims should have been heard, they didn’t exercise the Panorama option that Jones had so carefully created.
The other side of the BBC’s Jimmy Savile crisis
That failure to continue or find another home for the Savile investigation was a ticking time-bomb. A former detective, Mark Williams-Thomas, had acted as an advisor to the Newsnight investigation. After that was shelved, he teamed up with a freelance TV producer and over the spring and summer of 2012, they pulled together for ITV the documentary Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile. Four weeks before transmission, at the end of the first week of September, the programme makers emailed the BBC press office and the director general with their main allegations, among them that Savile had abused young girls in Television Centre.
If any alarm bells rang inside the BBC, it wasn’t loudly. Those middle weeks of September were, in effect, the handover between the outgoing DG, Mark Thompson, and new man, George Entwistle. Whatever else was on executives’ minds, the gravity of the ITV allegations doesn’t appear to have been high amongst them. Their first response, when it came, was dismissive; a thorough search of the files, the BBC said, revealed an “absence of evidence of any kind” that there’d been abuse on BBC premises. And, for good measure, they added that any allegation they’d withheld evidence from the police was “damaging and false”.
It was the first of many BBC positions that didn’t last. Twenty-four hours before the ITV documentary went out, they seemed less sure about that “absence of evidence”. Or perhaps someone had realised that their dismissive first response was a hostage to fortune. Now, they said, they stood ready to help the police with any inquiries.
The pre-transmission publicity for Exposure generated a squall of press comment. In the middle of it were renewed allegations of a cover-up involving that shelved Newsnight investigation. Rippon was urged to set out a “once and for all” rebuttal. It backfired spectacularly.
On October 2, Rippon posted to the BBC Editors’ Blog what he intended to be a transparent, frank, authoritative account of the “editorial reasons” for halting the investigation – though without setting out in detail his concerns about the evidence. And while he made it clear that the collapse of the Surrey police angle was his main trigger for shelving the inquiry, he didn’t claim that angle was the reason it had begun: “I decided we should pursue the story because of the nature of the allegations …” The Surrey police angle kicked in later: “… and because the key witness told us the police had investigated the claims but the case had been dropped on the grounds he was too old”.
How and why the Newsnight investigation began should have been of little interest to anyone outside the programme’s production offices. Instead, it became a major battleground between BBC executives and Jones and MacKean, feeding rather than quashing those suspicions of a cover-up.
One reason was the interview that David Jordan, the director of editorial policy and standards, gave to the BBC Radio 4’s Media Show on the afternoon of the ITV broadcast. The Newsnight investigation “never started out as an investigation into Jimmy Savile himself; it started off as an investigation into whether the Surrey Police had dropped allegations”, he said. That, rather than Rippon’s more careful formulation in his blog, became the corporate currency. Later, the BBC Chairman Lord Patten insisted that “(the investigation) was largely directed at the behaviour of the police … they originally thought that the story was the dropping of the police investigation”.
It was needless. And it was self-inflicted.
It looked like evasion or worse
But there were real problems with the rest of Rippon’s blog. He tried to rebut other allegations that were in the air – his mistake was to rely on his recollection of what Jones and MacKean had told him 11 months earlier. The programme, he wrote, “had no evidence that anyone from the Duncroft home could or should have known about the allegations … we had no evidence against the BBC … we are confident that all the women we spoke to had contacted the police independently already. We also had no new evidence against any other person that would have helped the police.”
Whether Rippon’s recollection was at fault, whether Jones’s and MacKean’s account was incomplete at the time or whether that account had changed in the interim was irrelevant. The statements were not true. And what had been intended to clear the decks instead looked like evasion or worse.
Jones and MacKean knew Rippon’s blog wouldn’t stand any kind of scrutiny. They told both Rippon and his immediate boss that it needed to be changed but nothing was done immediately. Nor was the opportunity taken to drill down to what exactly had happened or find an account that everyone agreed on and get that out as soon as possible. It would have meant an embarrassing correction – but it must have been clear that one would be necessary at some stage and that earlier was better.
When the Savile Exposure programme went on air, it raised the crisis at the BBC to a new level. Audiences had now seen for themselves the kind of testimony that Newsnight had spiked. And, inevitably, hindsight began to do its work. As more victims broke their silence, the question was: “How could anyone not believe these women?” The BBC now felt that it had to take care to say nothing that implied it disbelieved or dismissed any of Savile’s victims. The big charge overshadowing all else was that dismissing victims was exactly what BBC bosses had done for four decades.
Two days after the ITV documentary, Entwistle sent out an “all staff ” email in which he appeared to repeat the corporate line that Surrey police were the Newsnight team’s initial focus, though his actual words didn’t quite do that: “Newsnight… investigated Surrey police’s inquiry into Jimmy Savile towards the end of 2011”. But Jones read it differently and dashed off an email directly to the DG:
“The investigation was into whether Jimmy Savile was a paedophile — I know because it was my investigation. We didn’t know that Surrey police had investigated Jimmy Savile — no one did — that was what we found when we investigated and interviewed his victims.”
Once again, if alarm bells rang, they rang quietly. Jones had over-interpreted what Entwistle had written, but there was clearly a “lack of clarity” or “difference of perspective” that was going to have to be resolved publicly at some stage. But once again, there was no decisive corporate action and that seems to have left Jones increasingly determined that, if anyone was going to write the script telling the story of his shelved investigation, it would be him and MacKean.
For the remaining two weeks of the media firestorm, the BBC drew its lines in shifting sand. Entwistle appeared on Radio 4’s Today and seemed to rule out any BBC inquiry until the police had finished theirs – that would change. He gave his support to Rippon saying: “On the basis of what he knew at the time, I totally support his judgement. You can’t use hindsight.” That would change, too.
One line didn’t change, though: Entwistle’s account of how little he knew or had wanted to know about the Newsnight investigation. It rang true to BBC insiders, but to the outside world seemed incurious at best, incompetent at worst: “I didn’t know what discoveries, if any, had been made.” Eyebrows raised at breakfast tables across the land: “Did you really not ask?” the Radio 4 homeland muttered into its toast.
Ten days after Rippon’s blog, ten days too late, the BBC announced an “informal” process to try to resolve the “differences of perspective” — it seemed a respectable way of settling what most people now recognised as an internal row and not evidence of a cover-up. But it lasted barely 48 hours. At the end of that week, Entwistle announced that the BBC wasn’t going to wait for the police investigations after all. It was to launch two inquiries of its own; one, into the “culture and practices” of the BBC in the Savile years; the other into “the … management of the Newsnight investigation” during which, he insisted, Rippon would stay in post. That inquiry was to be led by the former Sky News executive, Nick Pollard.
The corporate BBC was now chasing events. Entwistle had been invited by the Culture Select Committee to appear before it and Panorama was rushing together a Savile special which would include the discarded Newsnight testimony. Rippon released Jones to work on the programme, resigned to the inevitability that it would also present the case for the prosecution against him and that the BBC would put up little defence.
Too late in the day
Everyone at the top of the BBC could see they were now in a mess. Almost three weeks into the media firestorm, the BBC chairman, Lord Patten, finally “insisted” Entwistle clear away any inaccuracies and obfuscations in the BBC account, including Rippon’s blog — again, the right thing to do, again too late in the day, especially since it would now mean some spectacular tergiversations.
Rippon’s blog was “corrected”; his “perspective” was now officially “incorrect” or “incomplete” — though without any further explanation, it seemed yet more evidence of a failed cover-up. And, in another about-turn, the Newsnight editor no longer had the DG’s support and was asked to “step aside” while the Pollard review did its work.
No correction was made, though, to the line that the BBC Chairman and senior executives had taken — though not Rippon — that the investigation’s initial focus had been on Surrey police and not Savile himself. That had to be cleared away and was finally and quietly conceded in a statement to Panorama that “the Newsnight investigation did not start out as an investigation into the Surrey police’s handling of the case against Mr Savile”. It failed to explain, though, how and why that had ever become the corporate line.
Entwistle’s appearance before the select committee the following day was an unmitigated disaster, raising rather than lowering the temperature, portraying his management style as hands-off in the extreme and handing those who wanted to bash the BBC more brickbats than they could ever have wished for — the conversation about his Christmas schedules and Newsnight with the head of news, Helen Boaden, that lasted “less than ten seconds”; the assumption that if there was anything he needed to know in the Newsnight investigation someone would tell him; the apparent failure to show any curiosity at all about the investigation. His intention was to show MPs the Chinese wall that stood between him and the BBC’s journalism and which made any pressure from him implausible. Instead, he gave them a detailed picture of the incuriosity that meant he never asked even the most obvious questions of his fellow executives.
But it was his assault on the Newsnight editor that startled and dismayed journalists in every BBC newsroom I visited that day. He told MPs he was “surprised” at Rippon’s decision to shelve the investigation and even speculated on his state of mind at the time. The “investigation ... should have been allowed to continue … further investigation would have been appropriate”. Most dismaying of all, he laid the blame for corporate confusion at Rippon’s door: “I would expect to get a full and complete picture from the editor,” he said, but gave no explanation of why the corporate line and Rippon’s hadn’t matched.
Pollard’s investigation hadn’t even begun, but as far as BBC journalists and editors were concerned, this undermined and pre-judged it. It was hard to see how Pollard could, when he’d looked at all the facts, contradict the DG — or, if he did, how Entwistle could survive.
And it ends …?
It was inevitable that any second crisis on Entwistle’s watch would be catastrophic. That it came so soon, once again involved Newsnight and allegations of child abuse and was based on a piece of extraordinarily shoddy journalism meant it was bound to be fatal.
Entwistle’s honourable and swift resignation didn’t draw a line under the whole affair, though – and it seems likely that trust in the BBC will never return to previous levels, though acting DG Tim Davie has certainly made a robust and determined start, showing the kind of grip that is a precondition to rebuilding any level of public confidence. Perhaps more importantly, though, for BBC journalists this could be the end of hard-hitting investigative journalism on programmes like Newsnight, Today and The World at One.
Once the dust has settled, there’ll be more compliance forms, more compulsory referrals, more systems to ensure anything contentious is signed off at the highest possible level. And more caution. Just as likely, though, given the continuing money pressures on the BBC, is that investigation will be centralised just as newsgathering was many years ago. A “centre of excellence” as it will probably be called, where resources and editorial oversight can be concentrated to produce films and reports to be “reversioned” across BBC programmes and platforms.
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A former pop music critic recalls an encounter on a tour bus in 1977 with the country music star.April 26, 2013
John Freeman, the American-born editor of the London-based literary quarterly Granta , has announced that he is departing the magazine, effective July 15. Mr. Freeman, 38, became Granta’s American editor in 2008 and assumed the top post in 2009. He most recently oversaw the publication of the decennial “Best of Young British Novelists” issue , with 20 writers 40 years of age or younger, which has become the magazine’s global calling card. “I lo...April 26, 2013, Friday
John Freeman, the American-born editor of the British literary quarterly, is leaving after five years.April 25, 2013
“Xul Solar and Jorge Luis Borges: The Art of Friendship,” at the Americas Society, examines the influence the Argentine painter Xul Solar had on the writer Jorge Luis Borges.April 19, 2013, Friday
A majority of writers on Granta magazine’s list were born outside Britain or are the children of immigrants, and 12 of the 20 are women.April 16, 2013, Tuesday
The film “Kon-Tiki” comes in two linguistic flavors, with the cast shuttling between English and Norwegian to shoot two versions of the movie at the same time.April 14, 2013, Sunday
“The Prince,” the 1972 novel of magic realism by R. M. Koster, was shaped in part by the author’s experience in Panama, where he still lives.April 6, 2013, Saturday
Seven members of the National Ballet of Cuba have defected during a Mexican tour and made their way to the United States.April 5, 2013, Friday
Actors like Viggo Mortensen, who is fluent in Spanish, are joining Kristin Scott Thomas in working in films performed in a foreign language.March 31, 2013, Sunday
On the eve of a European tour, the members of a Hawk and a Hacksaw discuss their Eastern European influences and their new album, inspired by a 1960s Soviet film.March 30, 2013, Saturday
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Politics postsTuesday May 21, 2013
If I were the I.R.S., I would be investigating Tea Party claims, too. From Jeffrey Toobin's post, “The Real I.R.S. Scandal,” on the New Yorker site:
It’s important to review why the Tea Party groups were petitioning the I.R.S. anyway. They were seeking approval to operate under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. This would require them to be “social welfare,” not political, operations. There are significant advantages to being a 501(c)(4). These groups don’t pay taxes; they don’t have to disclose their donors—unlike traditional political organizations, such as political-action committees. In return for the tax advantage and the secrecy, the 501(c)(4) organizations must refrain from traditional partisan political activity, like endorsing candidates.
I don't get why this isn't the story.
On the other hand, this may be a boon: a call to visit your local Tea Party office if you're ever in need of social welfare. I'm sure, as a social welfare organization, they'd be willing to help.
White House Correspondents Dinner: Obama with an Edge
I'm generally not a fan of this thing, at least not since Stephen Colbert skewered both George W. Bush and the press corps back in ... was it 2006? ... but Pres. Obama rocked it tonight with an edge. My favorite line:
I know Republicans are still sorting out what happened in 2012, but one thing they all agree on is they need to do a better job reaching out to minorities. And look, call me self-centered, but I can think of one minority they could start with. (Laughter.) Hello? Think of me as a trial run, you know? See how it goes.
My second-favorite came after this joke about the edifice Obama is building next to the George W. Bush Presidential Library:
That's good. But this is the one that stuck in it in there. It's not the easy joke. It's the sharp joke that follows the easy joke:
I'm also hard at work on plans for the Obama Library. And some have suggested that we put it in my birthplace but I'd rather keep it in the United States. (Laughter.) Did anybody not see that joke coming? Show of hands? Only Gallup? Maybe Dick Morris?
I wish they'd cut to Nate Silver at that point. If he was there.
I haven't even gotten into the whole Daniel Day-Lewis starring in Steven Spielberg's “Obama,” or the beautifully serious way with which he ended it, but the whole thing made me think, once again, I'm glad I'm living in a country where Barack Hussein Obama is my president.
Here's the whole deal:
Remaining Stationary is the New Freedom
Did you see this story the other day?
With the Senate set to debate gun control this month, a National Rifle Association task force released a 225-page report on Tuesday that called for armed police officers, security guards or staff members in every American school, and urged states to loosen gun restrictions to allow trained teachers and administrators to carry weapons.
The report is fodder for Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert. But the second graf became fodder for me:
Asa Hutchinson, a former Republican congressman from Arkansas who led the task force, unveiled the report at a packed news conference with unusually heavy security, including a bomb-sniffing yellow Labrador retriever. A dozen officers in plain clothes and uniforms stood watch as he spoke; one warned photographers to “remain stationary” during the event. (Italics mine.)
It immediately sparked this idea for a Tom Toles-like editorial cartoon:
- Panel 1: Show the news conference, use Hutchison's quote, and have one of the armed security officers telling the photographers: “Remain stationary.” Include: “*Actual quote.” Photogs look scared.
- Panel 2: Similar scene in our new, NRA-approved schools, where an armed guard tells students: “Remain stationary.” Students and teacher look scared.
- Panel 3: Similar scene at mall. Armed guards telling shoppers, “Remain stationary.” Shoppers look scared.
- Panel 4: Then in Congress during arm-control legislation debate. NRA to Congress: “Remain stationary.”
- Panel 5: Then in front of the thousands who have died because of gun violence since Newtown. NRA to the dead: “Remain stationary.”
- Denouement: Little Oliphant or Toles figure at bottom with hands raised before NRA guard. Oliphant figure says: “Remaining stationary is the new freedom.”
Guns guns guns.
Henny Penny, When the Sky Fell: 'No End in Sight' and the 10th Anniversary of the Iraq Invasion
Yesterday, the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, pissed me off more than I'd anticipated.
I think what set me off was this piece by Alex Pareene on Joe Scarborough, and the realization that the bastards got away with it, got away with calling us names, too, and now blame us for flag-waving our way into war when I was sickened by it all. Pareene dissects Scarborough well but you almost want a body blow. I remember seeing MSNBC at the time, and the American flag waving behind triumphant music and the Bush administration's chosen phrase, OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM, up front, and thinking, “This is a cable news show?” I was naive at the time. I'm so much older than that now.
I remember a few years later, in 2005 or '06, arguing with a conservative friend about Iraq, and he trotted out the usual right-wing line about whether I would put Saddam back in place if I could. I gave him a look. I said:
Would I put him back in place? Does that mean we get back all of the American soldiers killed and wounded in Iraq, and all of the Iraqis killed and wounded in Iraq? We get back the money we spent, and the prestige we lost, and the focus we lost, and we're able to spend that money and put that focus elsewhere? On our more immediate concerns and enemies? Is that what you're asking me? Would I make that trade? In a fucking second.
How did you celebrate the 10th? I got drunk and watched “No End in Sight,” Charles Ferguson's 2007 documentary, which is the best thing I've seen on our early involvement there. It's about all of the fuckups that led to present-day Iraq, which we no longer pay attention to.
What gets me each time I watch this? It's not the lies and misrepresentations that led us into war. It's not the fact that we spent a few months, rather than years, prepping for a post-war Iraq. It's not that we didn't send the troop levels the miltary wanted but sent the troop levels Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld thought we needed (SPOILER ALERT: he was wrong), and it's not the fact that ORHA, the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the organization designed to stabilize Iraq, reported to Rumsfeld and not, say, Secretary of State Colin Powell. We could have gotten away with all of those fuckups. But then the Bushies disbanded Jay Garner's ORHA and replaced it, and him, with L. Paul Bremer's CPA, the Coalition Provisional Authority, and Bremer ordered de-Ba'athification and the disbanding of the Iraqi military. And that was that.
A few quotes from last night's viewing, which I subsequently drunk-tweeted (see what you're missing by not following me on Twitter?):
- “We're a platoon of Marines. We could certainly stop looting if that's our assigned task.” — Lt. Seth Moulton.
- “It was just henny penny the sky is falling.” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on media reports about the postwar looting in Baghdad.
- “My goodness, were there that many vases?” --Donald Rumsfield, implying that U.S. media reports on looting were greatly exaggerated; followed by laughter from the press corp.
- “Whether you were Sunni or Shiite, you were outraged about the looting.” --Nir Rosen, Iraqui journalist.
- “And what followed was this pervasive sense of lawlessness that Iraq never recovered from. Guys with guns took over.”
- “The Iraqi army was essentially standing there, waiting. They were waiting for an overture. ... No one did that.”
- “I thought we had just created a problem. We had a lot of out-of-work soldiers.”
- “I don't do quagmires.” --Donald Rumsfeld.
If you're looking for a gift for Rumsfeld, Cheney, etc., 10th anniversaries are traditionally associated with tin.
Bremer (left), taking over from Garner (right).
Email to Jake: March 9, 2003
I sent this email to a group of friends on March 9, 2003:
Anyone been reading about the celebrity commercial wars? Martin Sheen & Co.? Liberal media articles mocking liberals. “Those know-nothing celebrities know nothing” is the gist. I've yet to hear much about the conservative response, led by former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, who, in his commerical (which I haven't seen), says the following in support of a possible war with Iraq:
When people ask, “What has Saddam done to us?” I ask, “What had the 9-11 hijackers done to us before 9-11?”
So true! We're all guilty until proven invaded.
Jake responded. Same day:
The conservatives, whose recent ascendance was led by a B-movie actor turned president, have no business complaining about “know nothing celebrities.” Same for the liberal media complaining about fellow liberals. The reason the actors are making such noise about the war has a lot to do with the shameful absence of noise coming from the democrats in Congress. My senator Hillary Clinton, for her part, went out of her way last week to reaffirm her support of Bush's war plans.
And the fact that the media themselves accept the myth of the liberal media only tilts their coverage further to the right. According to polls, a majority of Americans believe Saddam was a 9/11 co-conspirator. No evidence has been produced, but who needs evidence when a steady barrage of slanted coverage will do?
Apologies that we were all so, so right, and the others were all so, so wrong.
Email to Elin: March 2003
I sent this to my friend Elin in 2003....
How goes the war on your front? Here it's the same. The majority still favor Pres. Bush but Americans tend to rally round the president, any president, in times like these - even when we create times like these. Things will change if the war goes on too long, we create too many enemies (as we're doing), and the U.S. economy stagnates. Came across an appropriate JFK quote this morning from 1961: “The United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient... We are only six percent of the world's population; we can't impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind.” Meanwhile the latest New Yorker magazine brings articles on our television coverage of the war (bordering on propaganda), W.'s lack of humility in his person or rhetoric, how the U.S. diplomatic community is viewing the war (scary line from a moderate on what's wrong with Europe: “What they're doing is listening to their public opinion, rather than leading it.”), and an article on the documents relating to Iraq's supposed nuclear program which helped pave the way for this war - even though, it turns out, they were forged. Not good. Most of my friends are against the war but then they're my friends.
Sarah Palin, Big Gulp, and Freedom in America
Apparently Sarah Palin showed up at CPAC today and talked guns and gun racks, and took swipes at both Mitt Romney and Pres. Obama, and then, for the coup de grace, and displaying all of her wit, brought out a Big Gulp and took a sip.
The use of right-wing food props immediately reminded me of Greg Stillson, the politician on a road to the presidency (and nuclear destruction) in Stephen King's 1979 novel, “The Dead Zone,” who, with a U.S. decal on his hard hat, threw hot dogs to the enthusastic crowds at his rallies:
“Hot dogs for every man, woman and child in America! And when you put Greg Stillson in the House of Representatives, you gonna say HOT DOG! SOMEONE GIVES A RIP AT LAST!”
I'm not the first to make the Palin/Stillson connection, either. “Around my house,” Mr. King told Salon.com in 2008, “we kinda laugh when Sarah Palin comes on TV, and we say, 'That's Greg Stillson as a woman.'”
The 32-oz. Big Gulp, in case you missed it, is a swipe at NYC's Mayor Bloomberg, who has attempted to limit, in restaurants and theaters, and for health reasons, the size of sugary drinks to 16 ounces or less. Jon Stewart among others has objected. I believe Stewart used the same prop as Palin. Is this the first thing the two have ever agreed on? Expect a mash-up.
Besides, didn't a judge strike down the Mayor's initiative earlier this week? But Palin wasn't going to give up a good prop when she had one.
Here's the bigger point. Yesterday, before a movie at Regal Cinemas in downtown Seattle, I got unaccountably thirsty and went to the refreshment stand to buy a soda. I just wanted a little, not much.
Me: What's the smallest soda you have?
Underpaid Regal employee: 32 ounces.
That's the small. But the employee was nice enough to sell me the kids' size, which is a mere 16 ounces. Which is still about twice what I wanted.
But that's freedom in America. You have the freedom to buy whatever the corporation is selling—for whatever reason it wants to sell it that way—without interference from the government.
Moynihan's 1967 Warning to Democrats Now Applies to Republicans
I've long contended that the radicalism of the left during the 1960s is now the province of the radical right. Whereas the left used to attack the judicial system (as unfair) and the education system (as creating “citizens” rather than “individuals”), the right now attacks both for different reasons. Judges are activists, teachers are de-incentivized unionized members. To give two examples.
I thought of this shift again while reading Rick Perlstein's “Nixonland” yesterday afternoon. On pg. 395, Perlstein quotes Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat but beloved by Nixon and the right, in a speech that became known as “The Politics of Stability.” This is what Moynihan said in 1967:
Liberals [must] see more clearly that their interest is in the stability of the social order, and that given the threats to that stability, it is necessary to make more effective alliances with politcal conservatives who share that concern, and who recognize that unyielding rigidity is just as much a threat to the continuity of things as is an anarchic desire for change.
All you have to do is underline these words:
Liberals [must] see more clearly that their interest is in the stability of the social order, and that given the threats to that stability, it is necessary to make more effective alliances with politcal conservatives who share that concern, and who recognize that unyielding rigidity is just as much a threat to the continuity of things as is an anarchic desire for change.
The far right [must] see more clearly that their interest is in the stability of the social order, and that given the threats to that stability, it is necessary to make more effective alliances with politcal moderates who share that concern, and who recognize that unyielding rigidity is just as much a threat to the continuity of things as is an anarchic desire for change.
See: Fiscal Cliff, Sequestration, Obamacare, pretty much anything that's been debated in Congress since Jan. 2009.
Eric Cantor and the Tea Party practice the politics of instability.
America Held Hostage
I seem to get my best reading done now at 2 AM when I wake up and can't get back to sleep. That's my silver linings playbook.
Last night, this morning, I read the following in Rick Perlstein's “Nixonland.” It's about the gathering of power and paranoia by both Nixon and Kissinger during the first 100 days of their time in the White House in 1969:
Senator McGovern, with a former college professor's faith in the power of reason and dialogue, had gone to the White House to meet Henry Kissinger and suggest a plan [to end the war in Vietnam]: since our involvement was a disaster and a mistake, couldn't Nixon just say that his predecessors Kennedy and Johnson had comitted troops in good faith, but events had shown that commitment was no longer consistent with the national interest? Kissinger allowed that the war was a mistake. But he said America couldn't pull out because the right wing would go crazy: “We couldn't govern the country.”
And that, America, is why you can't have nice things. Because the right wing would go crazy.
When Romney was the Most Honest Man in the Race
I'm in the middle of Rick Perlstein's epic tome, “Nixonland,” about how the U.S. went from a Democratic landslide in 1964 to a Republican landslide in 1972. Think race riots, open housing, left-wing idiots and right-wing wish-fulfillment fantasies.
I don't agree with everything here. I think Perlstein's a bit harsh on RFK. He includes some odd asides, such as declaring the song “She's Leaving Home,” from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the album's “most beautiful moment.” Overall, the book merely strengthens, rather than challenges, my opinion of what went wrong with politics in this country in my lifetime. But it's giving me ammunition.
Some of the most eye-opening moments, particularly when compared with the recent 2012 election, contrast George Romney, the Republican governor of Michigan and a media darling, with Richard Nixon, a media joke and a stealth campaigner, who would, of course, trounce Romney before the '68 race even began. Romney's fault, according to Perlstein?
He was too damned forthright, too earnest—especially about Vietnam. He grappled with it honestly. Which would make what he said sound absurd, since everyone else was in denial or lying.
[Romney's] forthright honesty was his calling card, his contrast with the wheeler-dealer LBJ and the used-car salesman Nixon, what made him, along with that strong, square chin and silvering hair and popularity with Democrats, look like a contender. But honesty was a dull blade to take into a knife fight with Richard Nixon—who was simply willing to lie.
It doesn't take a genius to realize the lesson young Mitt took from this.
Quote of the Day
“Last year's [58% voter] turnout was right in the middle of the 17 elections presented in this chart—better than eight, but worse than eight. ... The friendly and civic-minded people of Minnesota always have the nation's highest turnout, and this year an admirable 75.7 percent of them came to the polls. At the other end, four states came in below 50 percent: Texas, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Hawaii, bringing up the rear at 44 percent.”
-- Paul Waldman, “Voter Turnout in 2012: Meh,” on The American Prospect site.
Yay Minnesota! Of the four states who don't show up, meanwhile, three are deep red and one is deep blue (Hawaii). Waldman explores, or at least links to, an explanation for HI. Apparently we know the explanation in TX, OK and WV.
Obama on the 'Us vs. Them' of Immgration Reform: 'A lot of folks forget that most of us used to be them'
Pres. Obama on immigration reform:
What My $3,000 Helped Buy
“We have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands of today's world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we'll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.”
“For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it. We believe that America's prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class.”
“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm.”
Not to mention the freedom to roll your eyes.
The Way the Right-Wing Has Always Supported Martin Luther King, Jr.
Here are a few lines from Rick Perlstein's book, “Nixonland,” which I read yesterday, and which are particularly appropriate today—both MLK Day and the second inauguration of Barack Obama. They're reminders of how much, and how little, things have changed:
“It is my firm belief, and of all my neighbors, that King should be taken into custody ... Today, the insufferable arrogance of this character places him on a pedestal as a dark-skinned Hiter.”
“When greedy Mr. Hitler started taking over other countries, people at first thought 'give him a little more, then he will be satisfied' ... Give greedy Mr. King a little more freedom then he will stop. Isn't that what we are told today?”
--Constituent letters to U.S. Senator Paul Douglas (D-IL), during the battle for opening house in the summer of 1966; from “Nixonland,” pp. 122 and 123
These days, of course, everyone evokes Dr. King for their own cause, even, absurdly, the NRA. That's how things have changed. At the same time, every prominent black leader, particularly those known for non-violence and compromise, are still being compared to Hitler. That's the way we're hearing the same damned shit.
Back in the day, Steve Kaplan, editor-in-chief at “Minnesota Law & Politics,” used to include a section in the year-end “Turkeys” issue called “Who's Being Compared to Hitler This Year?” It's the comparison that's always absurd and never goes out of style.
Martin Luther King, Jr. after his march for open housing in Chicago was disrupted by violence. He said he'd never seen hatred—not in Alabama or Mississippi—like the hatred he saw in Chicago.
How Grover Norquist is like Abbie Hoffman
I'm reading Rick Perlstein's “Nixonland,” the second volume of his three(?)-volume history on the rise and ascendancy of the far right in the United States and the unmaking of the American consensus. I'm at the summer of 1966. Chicago. Daley and King.
In its broadest sense, America fractured, and remains fractured, over the role of, and our faith in, government. But it's not an either/or proposition. Both sides have their contradictions.
The left believes government can do well domestically (social safety net) but fucks up internationally (Vietnam, Iraq).
The right believes government can do well internationally (Cold War, nation building) but fucks up domestically (welfare state).
All of this is fairly obvious but I didn't really see it with any kind of clarity until this morning. I grew up in the '60s and '70s with the left distrustful of government and came of age with the right distrustful of government, and I thought it was the same thing. It's not. It's really about where you want to spend the money. It's also about which side gets extreme and when. In the 1960s, it was the left, and its embodiments included Abbie Hoffman. Today it's the right, and its emodiments include Grover Norquist.
Again, all fairly obvious. I apologize for even bringing it up.
Idiot of the Day, Month, Year: Wayne La Pierre
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
--The NRA's Wayne La Pierre during a press conference, his first since Newtown, in which he suggested we prevent future school massacres by employing armed guards at every school in the country. A transcript, and a video of his talk, is available here.
Rebuttal from Andrew Sullivan's readers, including a reminder that Columbine had armed guards, not to mention the cost of what La Pierre is suggesting, is available here.
My thoughts? La Pierre is bad for the NRA, which is bad for America. So are all the fools ascribing cultural factors, such as violence in movies and violence in video games, to the various massacres in this country. Because aren't such movies and video games sold and watched and played all over the world? So why the problems here? Is it in our nature? Is America unexceptional? As for the supposed lack of God in our culture, isn't Europe more Godless? Isn't that what these same folks say? So why so much murder here? Why not there?
Let's face it: we have a bit of a gun problem. It's fucking obvious.
Do we blame the 2nd amendment? I was in a discussion about this on Facebook the other day, with people who supported the invidual rights interpretation of the amendment (“the right of the people to keep and bear arms”) rather than the collectivist rights interpretation (“A well regulated militia,” etc.).
Here's the version of the amendment as passed by Congress:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Here's the version as ratified by the States:
We lost two commas and a capital “A,” but both versions contain 27 words. Thirteen of those tend to be ignored by Wayne La Pierre and the NRA. But why ignore them? Seriously. What is the above really saying? It's saying, “Because X, therefore Y.” But X is no longer true. We have a regular army and a National Guard. A well regulated militia is no longer necessary for the security of a free state. And if X is no longer true, Y is no longer therefore.
I know. The U.S. Supreme Court doesn't agree with me. But it used to. For most of its history.
As for La Pierre's quote above about good guys and bad guys with guns? It's the product of Hollywood stupidity. Stupid liberal Hollywood.
Wayne La Pierre of the NRA gave a post-Newtown press conference today (top), which was interrupted by a different message than the one he was bringing (bottom).
Our Country, Our Song
In November 2004 my sister wrote a page-one story for The Wall Street Journal about a group of motorcyclists that lobbied state legislatures to turn back helmet laws. They wanted the wind in their hair when they rode, and they rode around the country, lobbying state legislatures, to make it so. Among other things, they argued that helmets were actually less safe in low-impact crashes, but their evidence on this was suspect and anecdotal. Scientific studies proved the opposite.
No matter. They were successful. By the time of the article, several legislatures had already rescinded their state's mandatory motorcycle helmet laws.
In the back-and-forth email exchange with my sister, I wrote the following:
I just like the unspoken critique of our system in your article: if one side lobbies and the other doesn't, then the first side wins. Even if they're lobbying about something that's kind of insane.
I first heard about the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the same way I first heard about the massacre at the movie theater in Aurora, Col., last July: through a posting on Facebook. Same person, I think. Same story, really. I think her post on Aurora even referenced the sameness of it all. Oh crap, this again. Her post yesterday was more charged and horrified. Because it was children in an elementary school. Kids who would never get older than 5 or 6 or 8. Parents who were told their kids were never coming back from school that day.
In the middle of your workday, doing this thing that seems important but isn't, that doesn't matter in the long run—which describes the workday of almost everyone in the world except teachers—you try to touch some aspect of that horrible reality so you don't feel like such an uncaring asshole. It's hard, though. It's impossible, really. There are screens in the way. We're experiencing this through computer screens and TV screens, and some part of us can't get through these screens and some part of us doesn't want to. It's safer where we are, in unreality, sympathizing and empathizing, rather than where they are, where the awful thing has happened. This week's awful thing. So instead we simply feel stunned, numb, guilty, angry. Certainly angry. This is our country, this is our song. We're singing it again. Why?
That's what we eventually get to, after all the lit candles and consoling quotes and angry tweets. Why?
We know why. It's in the above. If one side lobbies and the other doesn't, then the first side wins. Even if they're lobbying about something that's kind of insane.
I'm complicit. I cared about gun control enough that in the 1990s I read Osha Gray Davidon's book “Under Fire: The Nra and the Battle for Gun Control,” which detailed the history of the NRA, and its dramatic shift from a gun-safety group (since the 19th century) to a gun-lobbying organization (beginning in 1978). I read Jill Lepore's article, “Battleground America,” in the New Yorker last year and recommended it to everybody. I saw Michael Moore's documentary. But politics is triage and gun control kept slipping down my list of important issues of the day. We first had to fight George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Karl Rove and al Qaeda and Grover Norquist and the Koch brothers before we got to Wayne LaPierre. We've got to push back against the idiotic thing that Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly or Richard Mourdock or Todd Akin said that day—and if not them someone else. In the modern age, in the 24-hour news cycle, there's always an idiot flapping their gums and being filmed and broadcast and going viral. You could say that is the essence of the 24-hour news cycle. That's what keeps it going. And keeps us distracted.
This election cycle I actually said the following to a friend: “I don't really care much about gun control right now.” And I didn't. Not with everything else going on. Not if taking that stand prevented everything else that needed to happen from happening.
But if one side lobbies and the other doesn't, the first side wins.
That's all it comes down to. We need to have more people who care passionately about this issue, who are willing to put up money and time, than the other side. It's like same-sex marriage: you fight and you fight and you fight and then suddenly the wave crests with you, not against you. Maybe that will happen with gun control someday. Maybe that's beginning to happen now.
I like what Adam Gopnik wrote on the New Yorker site last night. The whole thing is good but this part in particular:
So let’s state the plain facts one more time, so that they can’t be mistaken: Gun massacres have happened many times in many countries, and in every other country, gun laws have been tightened to reflect the tragedy and the tragic knowledge of its citizens afterward. In every other country, gun massacres have subsequently become rare. In America alone, gun massacres, most often of children, happen with hideous regularity, and they happen with hideous regularity because guns are hideously and regularly available.
The people who fight and lobby and legislate to make guns regularly available are complicit in the murder of those children. They have made a clear moral choice: that the comfort and emotional reassurance they take from the possession of guns, placed in the balance even against the routine murder of innocent children, is of supreme value. Whatever satisfaction gun owners take from their guns—we know for certain that there is no prudential value in them—is more important than children’s lives. Give them credit: life is making moral choices, and that’s a moral choice, clearly made.
FURTHER READING. Feel free to suggest your own in the comments field. I'll add to it periodically:
- “Battleground America: One Nation, Under the Gun” by Jill Lepore in the New Yorker, April 23, 2012
- “Newtown and the Madness of Guns” by Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker, December 14, 2012
- Pres. Obama's statement, December 14, 2012
- “In Public Conversation on Guns, a Rhetorical Shift” by Nate Silver in The New York Times, December 14, 2012
- “Nancy Lanza's Guns” by Ben Stocking on the Obamanator site, December 16, 2012
- “How Popular is Gun Control?” by Andrew Sullivan on the Daily Dish, December 17, 2012
- “Obama in Newtown: Ready to Act on Guns?” by Amy Davidson in the New Yorker, December 17, 2012
What Does the GOP Stand For?
The other day I went to Five Spot at the top of Queen Anne for lunch with a friend. I hadn't been there in a while but I always liked their various themes: Caribbean food this month, Portlandia food the next. For November? There was, of course, an election theme, with super-pork sandwiches and Super Pac entrees, and various election-themed artwork around the restaurant, including, my personal favorite, this painting of a to-do list (“MARRIAGE EQUALITY: HA HA HA HA”) and a list of “To Actually Do” (“Cry, Obstruct, Pander, Cry”), from the desk of John Boehner:
I also noticed we were sitting beneath the Republican elephant, which is, in a sense, where all of us have been sitting for the past 30 years.
The Republican elephant never forgets and the Democrat donkey is stubborn. Old metaphors.
Republicans have recently been worrying about the growing minority population in the U.S., since they can no longer win presidential elections by demonizing minorities, but their concerns should go deeper. The GOP used to be good at, or at least known for, the following:
- fiscal responsibility
- a strong military
They're no longer accountable since they live in their own world; they balloon deficits via tax cuts for the rich while Dems are more likely to balance the budget; and they start unnecessary wars with false information and are unable to capture or kill our enemies, the people who truly attack us, leaving that mess for the Dems to clean up. Then they disparage the way the Dems clean it up.
What does the GOP currently stand for besides tax cuts for the rich and various petty hatreds of the weak and vulnerable?
My view vis a vis the GOP: 1981-present.
Bill O'Reilly's Real Nightmare
This came my way via Facebook, which is apparently still good for things beside copyright hoaxes. Every panel I was like, “Yes .. Yes ... YES!” Ruben Bolling has turned me into Molly Bloom.
Pundit Shaming: Laura Ingraham
I came across this the other day. I think I started on YouTube with Louis CK and somehow wound up with Christopher Hitchens (R.I.P.) in 2008 defending then-candidate Barack Obama against Laura Ingraham on FOX-News. Here's the exchange that pricked up my ears:
Hitchens: The losers in this are not me, it's the MoveOn.org types. They're campaigning for someone who says if necessary he'll go straight across the border into Pakistan to root these guys out. And McCain has attacked Obama, saying, “How can you be so militant?”
Ingraham: That's bravado. That's campaign bravado, though.
The “bravado” she's talking about is Obama's militant stance toward Pakistan, which she favors, rather than McCain's objection to said stance. Later, when Hitchens says Obama is evolving toward his position, Ingraham interrupts again:
He's in a campaign. That's a big bet, though, is it not? That's a big bet on the War on Terror you're making.
A bet that paid off. Then she goes on to defend Sarah Palin. Fun!
The above starts at 2:00:
Any correction from Ms. Ingraham after the killing of Osama bin Laden? Any mea culpa? A sense of humility somewhere? Someone alert the pundit-shaming tumblr, which should be the busiest site on the Web.
Why Obama Won; Why Romney Lost
Why Did Obama win?
- “...the truth is that there are reasons why Obama is a phenomenon, and one of them is that his political intelligence is so keen that he knows when unreality best serves his ends.” — Adam Gopnik, “Obama's Political Intelligence,” in The New Yorker
- “...the country is changing. And this may be the last election in which anyone but a fool tries to play — on a national level, at least — the cards of racial exclusion, of immigrant fear, of the patronization of women and hegemony over their bodies, of self-righteous discrimination against homosexuals. ... Ronald Reagan won his mandate in an America in which 89 percent of the voters were white. That number is down to 72 percent and falling.” — David Simon, “Barack Obama and the Death of Normal” on “The Audacity of Despair.”
- “The president’s victory was a triumph of vision, not of demographics. He won because he articulated a set of values that define an America that the majority of us wish to live in: A nation that makes the investments we need to strengthen and grow the middle class. A nation with a fair tax system, and affordable and excellent education for all its citizens. A nation that believes that we’re most prosperous when we recognize that we are all in it together.” — Joel Benenson, “Obama Won on Values, Not Demographics,” in The New York Times.
Why Did Romney lose?
- “In the final analysis, Mitt Romney lost simply because he ran a campaign that insulted large swaths of the American people.” --Kyle Curtis, “Mitt Romney Lost Because He Ran an Insulting Campaign,” on Blue Oregon.
- “The GOP's most reliable supporters remain white, married couples who identify themselves as Christians , a group that continues its sharp decline in numbers.” — Joshua Holland, “What Propelled Obama to Victory?” on AlterNet.
- “Mitt Romney lost because of the Republican brand and Republican policies. There are other reasons, of course, like Mitt being unlovable to anyone not named Ann Romney, but nothing trumps the idea that 2/3rds of America thinks the other 1/3 is a frightening conglomerate of Bible-thumpers, xenophobes, and vaginophobes. (Not a word, but should be.)” --Bill Mahr, “Why the Republicans Lost,” on HBO.com.
- “Mitt Romney says he is a numbers guy, but in the end he got the numbers wrong. His campaign was adamant that public polls in the swing states were mistaken. They claimed the pollsters were over-estimating the number of Democrats who would turn out on Election Day. Romney’s campaign was certain that minorities would not show up for Obama in 2012 the way they did in 2008.” --John Dickerson, “Why Romney Never Saw It Coming,” on Slate.
- “There is an attitude of contempt, derision and disrespect that permeates Republican politics and Republican and conservative media. There are attitudes that permeate Republican politics and Republican media that are outside of traditional Republicanism and outside of American discourse. Democrats are demonized and liberals are hated and alternate opinion is often treated as though it does not exist, and even worse, treated as though it is unpatriotic.” — Brent Budowski, “Why Obama Won,” on The Hill.
Who still doesn't get it? At all?
- “A political narcissistic sociopath leveraged fear and ignorance with a campaign marked by mendacity and malice rather than a mandate for resurgence and reform. Instead of using his high office to articulate a vision for our future, Obama used it as a vehicle for character assassination, replete with unrelenting and destructive distortion, derision, and division.” --Mary Matalin, “Mendacity and Malice Won,” on the National Review site.
Mary Matalin is just one of many, of course, who still don't get it. Look for their comments, past and future, on the new, crowd-pleasing (or at least Erik-pleasing) pundit-shaming tumblr.
Obama addresses campaign supporters in Chicago.
My Election Day: November 6, 2012
For the past three weekends, whenever I was helping with Pres. Obama's Get Out the Vote (GOTV) efforts in Seattle and Washington state, either by knocking on doors or making phone calls, I'd write the following on my script:
This isn't about you.
It was just a reminder in case an irate or harried or impatient person got me down. You're not doing this for you, Erik. This isn't about you. Let it go.
It's also an echo of something Pres. Obama has himself said over and over again: “This is not about me; this is about you.” He said it at his 2008 convention speech and in his 2012 convention speech. He said it while stumping for a jobs bill in Raleigh, N.C., in 2011. He said it while trying to unblock judicial nominees in 2012 and during the health case battles of 2009. “This is not about me; this is about you.”
According to his memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” it was his college friend Regina who first said it. And she said it to him:
“Let me tell you something, Mr. Obama. It’s not just about you. It’s never just about you. It’s about people who need your help. Children who are depending on you. They’re not interested in your irony or your sophistication or your ego getting bruised. And neither am I.”
It's a helpful thing, not having it be about you. It allows you to do things you wouldn't normally do. It's a freeing message.
For example, in mid-October, when the election seemed to be slipping away from us, and again yesterday, when it felt better, I went door-to-door in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, in the Pike-Pine corridor, getting out the vote. I'm not an extrovert. I don't gain energy from interactions. But you do it anyway. Because it's not about you.
Most of the residences I was assigned were security buildings with intercoms, often old, so there was little face-to-face contact. One building was an assisted living and Alzheimer's facility, at which I didn't stay long. The people I talked to were too confused. It felt wrong. At a security building on Pike, the intercom was waist high, so I got down on one knee, then both knees, as I buzzed the voters on my sheet. It felt like I was literally begging for votes. Please, come out and vote. I was on my knees on the dirty Pike sidewalk. But it wasn't about me.
Building managers were helpful. They wouldn't let me roam their buildings but at least they told me who had moved. The last manager I spoke with ran an apartment building across from Sitka and Spruce, and we talked a good 10 minutes, about the same-sex marraige amendment, Referendum 74, and about how she had supported Hillary in 2008, and hadn't even voted for Obama back then because she was still pissed that Hillary didn't win. Not this time. This time it was Barack all the way. She's got her fingers crossed for Hillary in 2016.
Afterwards I walked past all the thin, fashionable ladies shopping at the ritzy downtown department stores at noon on a weekday, returned my sheets to the Democratic Headquarters on 2nd and Cherry, then returned home to get ready for a party. I was nervous but not too nervous. I had Nate Silver on my side.
Ward was the first guest to arrive. Throughout the night, he kept urging us to change the channel to FOX. He wanted to see the bastards squirm. We did once or twice but missed their biggest meltdowns: Karl Rove arguing over Ohio; Megyn Kelly fact-checking her own stats people.
It was over quickly. Not as quickly as in 2008, it seemed, but all of a sudden. MSNBC just declared. We didn't even see the graphic for Obama winning Ohio; just ”Barack Obama re-elected 44th President of the United States.“ Which state did they declare for him? we wondered. They weren't saying. So we did math: 18 meant Ohio. So it was Ohio. So it was over.
Except on FOX-News and in the Romney camp, which waited a bit. Rove wanted a replay of 2000 and Florida. I'm sure the thinking went: Surely we've suppressed enough votes in Ohio to make a difference; to screw up the exit polls. Surely, if there's a God in heaven, we did that. The nice thing? It wouldn't have mattered anyway. It turned out that Obama got Ohio but didn't need it. He got Virginia but didn't need it. It looks like he'll get Florida but doesn't need it. All the pundits today, so wrong yesterday, are wrong again today. They're saying that in the end the auto bailout won the day; that Obama saved Detroit and so Detroit saved Obama back. Maybe. But he would've won Michigan anyway and he didn't need Ohio. Because he got Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Colorado. And that was enough. We knew that going in.
If the popular vote holds, and it looks like it will, Barack Obama will be only the third Democrat to win the U.S. presidency twice with clear majorities. The others? FDR (four times) and Andrew Jackson (twice). That's it. Clinton never did it (third-party candidates), Carter once, LBJ once, JFK never, Truman never, Wilson never. Just: Obama, FDR and Andrew Jackson. That's the company he now keeps.
This was my first Twitter election, my first Facebook election, and, smartphones in hand, we kept trading comments and information from our Twitter feeds. We drank a lot, ate too much, laughed a lot. It wasn't just the Obama victory. It was same-sex marriage referendums in Maine and Maryland and Washington state that passed. It was pot legalizaton initiatives in Colorado and Washington state that passed. It felt like, at long last, after 30+ years, the world, or at least the United States, was finally turning our way.
On Facebook I wrote something intelligent like, ”YES!!!!!!!!!!!!" Everyone knew what that meant. One friend, who had been hugely involved in GOTV efforts in 2008, and who knew of my donations and GOTV efforts this year, wrote:
I raise my beer to you Erik for all your hard work and donations. You helped make it happen.
It was a nice thought but felt so beside the point. Because it wasn't about me. Not even a little bit.
Our friend Erika's view of our TV, election night.
James Baldwin's Message to Bill O'Reilly
Fifty years ago, at the end of his book-length essay “The Fire Next Time,” which became a best-seller the year I was born, James Baldwin wrote the following:
“The time has come to realize that the interracial drama acted out on the American continent has not only created a new black man, it has created a new white man, too. . . . It is precisely this black-white experience which may prove of indispensable value to us in the world we face today. This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.”
Bill O'Reilly and FOX-News still haven't gotten the message:
Have there been more veiled, racist comments in a 60-second span? Let's count them off:
- “It's a changing country and it's not a traditional America anymore.”
- “There is 50 percent of the voting public who want stuff. Who want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama. He knows it and he ran on it. ”
- “The white establishment is now the minority.”
- “You're going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama. Overwhelming black vote for President Obama. And women will probably break President Obama's way. People feel they are entitled to things, and which candidate between the two is going to give them things.
As always with FOX-News, this stuff is full of half-truths.
It is a changing country but it always is. It's not a traditional America but what does that mean? Are we losing core values or surface values? O'Reilly is implying the former but I know the latter. Because in a certain sense, no president is more traditionally American in his rhetoric and in his beliefs than Pres. Obama. He just doesn't look like the other 43.
Fifty percent of the people want things. (Like health insurance. We're greedy that way.) Then O'Reilly ties this 50 percent to Hispanics, blacks and women. It's the welfare argument all over again. It's Reagan's politics of resentment all over again. There are welfare queens (read: minorities) who want stuff (read: your tax dollars). Meanwhile, hard-working white people do things the honorable way: by selling insurance on bundled sercurities that were created from subprime mortgage loans, which poor and working-class owners were guaranteed to default on.
It's interesting that O'Reilly calls it ”the white establishment,“ that he owns up to it. ”White“ certainly isn't a minority, so he must be talking ”white“ and ”conservative“ and maybe ”rich.“ In which case: yes, yes, and yes. And thank God.
There are so many lessons you can draw from yesterday's election. For example: ”Continually mentioning rape in a positive way tends to be a losing strategy.“ You can go to literature, too, with this paraphrase of e.e. cummings' Olaf, glad and big, whose warmest heart recoiled at war: ”There is some shit we will not eat.“
Then there's Baldwin, above, paraphrased:
America is white no longer, and it will never be again.
To O'Reilly, this spells America's doom. To the rest of us, the opposite. It's the very reason our country is exceptional.
”It is precisely this black-white experience which may prove of indispensable value to us in the world we face today." --James Baldwin, 1963
Status Updates from the 2012 Election
- “Does anybody else spend a silly amount of time trying to fill in the ovals perfectly? I have an irrational fear that that any white speck will discount my vote.” --Ross P., Minneapolis
- “I almost got into a fist fight with a Republican poll watcher who's trying to intimidate minority voters.” --Ben S., Seattle, getting out the vote in Newton, Florida
- “'If Romney wins, I worry less about any policies his administration may enact (although I worry a lot about those, too) than I do about the long-term implications of the fact that it will have been proven that you can just straight-up fucking lie your way to the Presidency. That's not good for anyone.' Seen on metafilter. Totally agree.” --Roger L., Clinton, WA
- “Barack is going to take every single swing state, with the possible exception of North Carolina.” --Ben S., Seattle
- “Mitt and his minions waged a dirty, dishonest campaign — perhaps the most dishonest in history — and now the proverbial chickens have come home to roost.” --Ben, S., Seattle
- “YES!!!!! 4 more years!!!!” — Karen T., Minneapolis
- “Oh. Thank. God.” — David G., Seattle
- “This was to be the Republicans’ night. They had the most money—more than a billion dollars. The anemic economy was an albatross around Obama’s neck. The public hated Obamacare. The President fumbled the first debate. Romney was surging. Benghazi proved that Obama’s foreign policy was unraveling. The Democrats were defending the vast majority of the open Senate seats. The spectre of gay marriage was rousing the religious right. The jockeying for positions in the Romney cabinet had begun. ... Then we had an election.” — Kim F., Seattle
- “When I was living with my ex- in Virginia from 1990-1995, we went to a wedding in the chambers of Chief Judge Abner Mikva. We talked with him about gay rights, and he said 'The bigots know that they are fighting a battle that they will lose, and we have to remember that we are fighting a battle that we will win. Don't lose hope. It may not happen in my lifetime, but it inevitably will in yours because this is America, and we're better than hatred.'” --Chris N., Seattle
- “Thanks, America.” — Andy E., Nanoi, Viet Nam
THE MORNING AFTER
- “In Minnesota the Republicans took the State House and Senate for the first time in ages in 2010. Result? A state shutdown, a Senate leader demoted for conduct unbecoming, her bulldog of an illicit paramour threatening to sue the state about his subsequent firing (another white male filing for gender discrimination), an ill-advised Governor's race recount request, and a financial bankrupting of their party. And cynically put voter ID and anti-gay referenda on the ballot to increase turnout. Well, that worked, but it turned out the wrong people. Referenda defeated; House and Senate back in Dem hands. Don't let the Capitol door slam you in the ass on your way out. Doorknobs.” — Joe G., Minneapolis
- “election's over. time to unblock a bunch of fb friends.” --Brenda B., Seattle
270 to Win: Vote
I leaned heavily on Nate Silver this past month. While the right-wing had their narratives of 'Mittmentum,' and Gallup was claiming a national six-point Romney advantage, Silver gave Romney, on Oct. 12, only a 38.9% chance of winning the electoral college. And that was his best showing. Since then, downhill. This morning's numbers give Romney a 9.1% chance of winning the electoral college. But that's still a chance. At some point, maybe this evening, all the possibilities and probabilities will be reality. We want that reality to be good. So get out there and vote.
Why do I follow Silver? Why do I believe him? Because he got every state right in the 2008 election except for Indiana, which went for Obama. He also predicted the correct outcome of every Senate race that year. In 2010, he predicted 34 of the 36 Senate races correctly, missing only Colorado and Nevada, both of which went Democrat. So: 1) he's usually right, and 2) hardly leans left in his prediction model. Plus he's a sabremetrician. He's a Jamesian. He's a baseball guy. If he were a football guy, no chance.
According to both Silver and this great interactive feature on the NY Times site, there are nine potential swing states, with 95 electoral votes: New Hampshire (4), Nevada (6), Iowa (6), Colorado (9), Wisconsin (10), Virginia (13) North Carolina (15), Ohio (18), and Florida (29).
With the states Obama's presumed to win, including Pennsylvania, he starts with 236 electoral votes.
These are Silver's probabilities for each of these states (sans North Carolina, which I didn't bother to track) over the last week and a half:
|Oct 26||Oct 28||Oct 29||Oct 30||Oct 31||Nov. 1||Nov. 4||Nov. 6|
And here are Obama's electoral college chances. It's 270 to win, kids:
|Oct 26||Oct 28||Oct 29||Oct 30||Oct 31||Nov. 1||Nov. 4||Nov. 6|
A lot of it falls upon Ohio again. There's a kind of “As goes Ohio, so goes the nation” tendency even as the state has shed electoral votes as it's shed population. No Republican has ever been elected president without winning Ohio, and, since 1900, only two Democrats have: FDR (once) and JFK (in 1960).
But Obama can still win without winning Ohio. He can still win without winning Ohio and Florida. And Virginia. He just needs Wisconsin, Nevada, Iowa, Colorado and New Hampshire.
I'm nervous, of course. But I'm less nervous than I was a week ago; and a week ago I was less nervous than I was two weeks ago. Back to that first debate.
I'm expending my nervous energy by helping get out the vote in First Hill, Seattle. My neighborhood. Washington state is a mail-in only state now, which is a bit of a bummer. I like the community act of voting. I like the civic-ness of it. I like talking to the old ladies at the church or school. I like talking to people in line.
But at this point it's GOTV. Gotta be postmarked today, kids. So if you haven't mailed it in yet, bring it to the post office. Watch them postmark it. Or bring it to a drop box. Here's a list of ballot drop boxes in King County.
Final thought. For the longest time I've heard from right-wing blabbermouths about how Obama's supporters are less enthusiastic than they once were. How he's got an enthusiasm gap, whlie all the right-wingers are crazy, yes crazy, for Mitt. Here. Here's how I've demonstated my lack of enthusiasm: I've given him $3,000 and the last three weekends of my life in GOTV efforts. Plus this morning.
Let's do this.
Hans von Spakovsky and the Voter-Fraud Myth
“You are hereby notified that your right to vote has been challenged by a qualified elector. The Hamilton County Board of Elections has scheduled a hearing regarding your right to vote on Monday, September 10th, 2012, at 8:30 A.M. . . . You have the right to appear and testify, call witnesses and be represented by counsel.”
--Notice that Teresa Sharp, 53, received from The Hamilton County Board of Elections, as recounted in the article ”The Voter-Fraud Myth: The man who has stoked fear about imposters at the polls“ by Jane Mayer, in the Oct. 29 issue of The New Yorker.
Mayer's piece is scary and worth reading. The Voter ID laws are the new Jim Crow. They target African-Americans and the elderly without saying they target African-Americans and elderly. Meanwhile, the man behind this targeting, Republican lawyer Hans von Spakovsky of Atlanta, Ga., can't cite much evidence of voter fraud given his almost preternatural interest in the subject.
A recent study by the Pew Center found that more than 1.8 million dead people were registered to vote, and 2.5 million people were registered to vote in more than one state (I might be one of those, since I voted in Minnesota in 2006 and in Washington state since 2008), but von Spakovsky has no idea how many of these cases led to actual voter fraud. He cites a 2000 investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in which, in the previous two decades, 5400 dead people were recorded as voting; but he doesn't cite the limp follow-up in which the Georgia Secretary of State's office indicated that most of these were clerical errors. ”Upon closer inspection, the paper admitted, its only specific example of a deceased voter casting a ballot didn’t hold up. The ballot of a living voter had been attributed to a dead man whose name was nearly identical,“ Mayer writes.
So from 1.8 million potential cases of voter fraud to 5400 actual cases of voter fraud in Georgia to ... zero actual cases of voter fraud in Georgia.
Later von Spakovsky gives Mayer the names of two experts who would confirm the peril of voter fraud: Robert Pastor, the director of the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University, and Larry Sabato, a political-science professor at the University of Virginia. Neither did. The opposite. “I don’t think that voter-impersonation fraud is a serious problem,” Pastor said.
Yet since 2011, pushed by von Spakovsky and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate-sponsored, right-wing organization, 37 states have enacted or proposed some form of voter ID law.
Other quotes from the piece:
- “This is not rocket science. They are trying to make the 2012 electorate look more like the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate.” — Pres. Bill Clinton
- “[Von Spakovsky] is trying to create a cure where there is no sickness.” — Rep. John Lewis, (D-GA)
- “You can't steal an election one person at a time. You can by stuffing ballot boxes—but voter I.D. won't stop that.” — Robert Brandon, president of the Fair Elections Legal Network
- “It makes no sense for individual voters to impersonate someone. It's like committing a felony at the police station, with virtually no chance of affecting the election outcome.” — Lorraine Minnite, Rutgers professor and author of “The Myth of Voter Fraud”
- “I think they are trying to stop as many black people as they can from voting. I won't even know until Election Day if I got the right to vote. But if they tell me I can't vote—it is over. They are going to have to call the police.” — Teresa Sharp, citizen, Ohio
Endorsement of the Day: Susan Eisenhower Endorses Barack Obama for Re-Election
Four years ago, I left the Republican Party of which I was a lifelong member and became an independent. Not long after, I supported Barack Obama in the 2008 election for president. ... Like many other voters who crossed party lines to vote for Barack Obama in the last election, I have watched the 2012 campaign carefully and listened closely to what the candidates have said.
I believe that President Obama should be re-elected.
Four years ago, Obama, a relatively inexperienced public servant, became the 44th President of the United States during one of the most difficult times our country has faced. The nation’s economy was on the brink of collapse. Our image overseas was tarnished, and our military was bogged down in two unpopular wars. I supported Obama then because I thought that he was unflappable. I saw him as a man with a keen intellect and a cool analytical head. ...
In the last four years, and despite the global downturn, America has come back from the brink. ... According to the International Monetary Fund, today the United States is poised for 3 percent growth, which would make our economy the strongest of the other richest economies, including Canada and Germany. Other influential studies, cited in a recent column by Fareed Zakaria, show that debt in the U.S. financial sector, relative to GDP, has declined to levels not seen since before the 2000 bubble. And consumer confidence is now at its highest levels since September 2007. The housing market is also slowly coming back. ...
[Obama] ended the war in Iraq, was the first Democratic president to ratify an arms control treaty with the Russian Federation, and rallied global leaders to put nuclear security at the top of the international agenda. The Obama Administration has also been responsible for decimating the top leadership of al-Qaeda and introducing biting sanctions on Iran. ...
I am more confused than ever about what Mitt Romney stands for. I know little of his core beliefs, if he even has any. ... Given Romney’s shifting positions, he can only be judged by the people with whom he surrounds himself. Many of them espouse yesterday’s thinking on national defense and security, female/family reproductive rights, and the interplay of government and independent private enterprise.
In this context, Barack Obama represents the future, not that past. His emphasis on education is an example of the importance he places on preparing rising generations to assume their places as innovators and entrepreneurs, workers and doers, and responsible citizens and leaders. He recognizes, as many of us do, that access to opportunities must be open to every American ...
As I said in 2008 and will say again: “Unless we squarely face our challenges as Americans—together– we risk losing the priceless heritage bestowed on us by the sweat and the sacrifice of our forbearers. If we do not pull together, we could lose the America that has been an inspiration to the world.”
Endorsement of the Day: The Stranger
“This endorsement might seem like a no-brainer, but this shit is important, so let's go over it one more time. Electing Barack Obama to a second term goes beyond the standard Democratic boilerplate about how a Democratic president will nominate Democratic judges to the US Supreme Court—though that is vitally important, and is the reason we don't at all regret voting for John Fucking Kerry in 2004.
”The thing that's easy to forget in the middle of all this bullshit is that Obama has been a very good president. He saved us from a second Great Depression; he passed health care reform that future Democrats can utilize as a first step to a national health care system; he's made investments in science, transportation, and green energy that will pay off for decades; he supported gay marriage at just the right moment; and he's made dozens of advancements for equality and dignity (Lilly Ledbetter, DADT repeal, executive orders for humane immigration reform) that have changed millions of people's lives for the better.
“Sure, there are issues—with presidents, there are always issues—where he's dropped the ball (drones, Gitmo, drones). Those are serious issues. But right now, President Obama needs our help. After all he's done for us, we owe him the opportunity to transform from a very good president into a truly great one in his second term.”
--The Stranger Election Board, in its “Endorsements for the Nov. 6, 2012 General Election”
Endorsement of the Day: The Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune was founded in 1847 and has endorsed a Democrat for president only twice: Barack Obama in 2008 and Barack Obama in 2012. From the endorsement that went out this week:
Obama ... has been careful about projecting military power overseas. At home he has initiated, or agreed to, tax cuts to promote growth: investment tax credits, payroll tax cuts and extension of all the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. He proposes to reduce a corporate tax rate that everyone this side of far left agrees is a globally unfair hindrance for U.S. businesses.
On questions of economics and limited government, the Chicago Tribune has forged principles that put us closer to the challenger in this race, Republican Mitt Romney. ... [Romney] has, though, been astonishingly willing to bend his views to the politics of the moment: on abortion, on immigration, on gun laws and, most famously, on health care.
As a governor, his signature issue was the deal he cut with Democrats to extend health care — and a health insurance mandate — to all citizens. Romneycare was the Massachusetts model on which key elements of Obamacare were modeled. Yet Romney won’t acknowledge he is, in effect, the godfather of the national health care plan he vows to repeal.
His proposals to achieve a balanced budget, and to begin reducing taxpayers’ huge debts, rest on questionable math and rosy assumptions. ...
Romney’s fix on tax cuts, plus his guarantee to protect defense spending that genuinely could constrict, leaves him precious little room to maneuver [on the federal debt]. Remember, the next president needs to reach deals that slash debt by many trillions — without bankrupting Washington in the process. ...
If a European debt meltdown doesn’t stoke another, pardon our repetition, global financial crisis, Obama’s next term would open to less economic tumult: Friday morning’s GDP reading confirms anew that U.S. economic growth has a fluttering heartbeat. Home prices are stabilizing, the stock market and consumer confidence have risen, and job growth has been steady if unspectacular.
Bolstered by his steadiness in office, cognizant of the vast unfinished business before him, we endorse the re-election of Barack Obama.
Getting Out the Vote
I'll be helping with the get out of the vote campaign for Pres. Obama today and tomorrow, 3-6 pm, at Washington Democratic Headquarters in downtown Seattle. I've contributed money, now time. I urge you to do the same. Give what you can.
We can't let bullshit win.
Right now, despite Gallup, it's not. Obama's winning. Let's keep it so. Read your Nate Silver. In 2008 he got every state correct except for Indiana, which went for Obama. He also got every Senate race correct. In the 2010 midterms, he got 34 of the 36 Senate races correct. The ones he missed went Democrat. So his misses have favored Republicans. And he's got Pres. Obama winning both the popular and electoral vote.
Endorsement of the Day: Colin Powell Signs on for 'Long Patrol with Pres. Obama'
“When he took over, the country was in very very difficult straits. We were in the one of the worst recessions we had seen in recent times, close to a depression. The fiscal system was collapsing. Wall Street was in chaos, we had 800,000 jobs lost in that first month of the Obama administration and unemployment peaked a few months later at 10 percent. So we were in real trouble. The auto industry was collapsing, the housing was start[ing] to collapse and we were in very difficult straits. And I saw over the next several years, stabilization come back in the financial community, housing is now starting to pick up after four years, it's starting to pick up. Consumer confidence is rising. ...
”The president got us of one war, [is starting] to get us out of a second war and did not get us into any new wars. And finally I think that the actions he has taken with respect to protecting us from terrorism have been very very solid. And so, I think we ought to keep on the track that we are on.
I've signed on for a long patrol with President Obama.“
--Gen. Colin Powell on why he's endorsing Pres. Barack Obama for a second term as President of the United States.
”The governor who was saying things at the debate on Monday night ... was saying things that were quite different from what he said earlier. I'm not quite sure which Gov. Romney we would be getting with respect to foreign policy.
“One day he has a certain strong view about staying in Afghanistan but then on Monday night he agrees with the withdrawal. Same thing in Iraq. On almost every issue that was discussed on Monday night, Governor Romney agreed with the President with some nuances. But this is quite a different set of foreign policy views than he had earlier in the campaign. My concern ... is that sometimes I don't sense that he has thought through these issues as thoroughly as he should have.”
--Gen Colin Powell on why he's not endorsing Gov. Mitt Romney for POTUS.
Former Mossad Chief for Obama, Warns Romney's Rhetoric Against U.S. Interests
“What Romney is doing is mortally destroying any chance of a resolution without war. ... Obama does think there is still room for negotiations. It’s a very courageous thing to say in this atmosphere. In the end, this is what I think: Making foreign policy on Iran a serious issue in the US elections. What Romney has done, in itself, is a heavy blow to the ultimate interests of the United States and Israel.”
'One of the Most Successful Foreign Policies of Any Administration'
From Robert Reich:
I thought the third and last presidential debate was a clear win for the President. He displayed the authority of the nation’s Commander-in-Chief – calm, dignified, and confident. He was assertive without being shrill, clear without being condescending. He explained to a clueless Mitt Romney the way the world actually works. ...
I kept wishing Obama would take more credit for one of the most successful foreign policies of any administration in decades: not only finding and killing Osama bin Laden but also ridding the world of Libya’s Gaddafi without getting drawn into a war, imposing extraordinary economic hardship on Iran, isolating Syria, and navigating the treacherous waters of Arab Spring.
Obama pointed to these achievements, but I thought he could have knitted them together into an overall approach to world affairs that has been in sharp contrast to the swaggering, bombastic foreign policies of his predecessor.
Like George W. Bush, Mitt Romney has a pronounced tendency to rush to judgment – to assert America’s military power too quickly, and to assume that we’ll be viewed as weak if we use diplomacy and seek the cooperation of other nations (including Russia and China) before making our moves.
President Obama won tonight’s debate not only because he knows more about foreign policy than does Mitt Romney, but because Obama understands how to wield the soft as well as the hard power of America. He came off as more subtle and convincing than Romney – more authoritative – because, in reality, he is.
Although tonight’s topic was foreign policy, I hope Americans understand it was also about every other major challenge we face. Mitt Romney is not only a cold warrior; he’s also a class warrior. And the two are closely related. Romney tries to disguise both within an amenable demeanor. But in both capacities, he’s a bully.
Quote of the Day
The choice is clear. The Romney-Ryan ticket represents a constricted and backward-looking vision of America: the privatization of the public good. In contrast, the sort of public investment championed by Obama—and exemplified by both the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Affordable Care Act—takes to heart the old civil-rights motto “Lifting as we climb.” That effort cannot, by itself, reverse the rise of inequality that has been under way for at least three decades. But we’ve already seen the future that Romney represents, and it doesn’t work.
The reëlection of Barack Obama is a matter of great urgency. Not only are we in broad agreement with his policy directions; we also see in him what is absent in Mitt Romney—a first-rate political temperament and a deep sense of fairness and integrity. A two-term Obama Administration will leave an enduringly positive imprint on political life. It will bolster the ideal of good governance and a social vision that tempers individualism with a concern for community. Every Presidential election involves a contest over the idea of America. Obama’s America—one that progresses, however falteringly, toward social justice, tolerance, and equality—represents the future that this country deserves.
I'd Like to Apologize to All Women on Behalf of All Men
Not for the usual reasons, either. From Nate Silver at the FiveThirtyEight blog:
If only women voted, President Obama would be on track for a landslide re-election... If only men voted, Mr. Obama would be biding his time until a crushing defeat at the hands of Mitt Romney...
The biggest gender gap to date in the exit polls came in 2000, when Al Gore won by 11 points among women, but George W. Bush won by 9 points among men — a 20-point difference. The numbers this year look very close to that.
I thought the polls would improve more after the second debate but they're not. Enough. Or they're just too volatile. Gallup, which is assuming 80% of the votes will come from whites, isn't helping.
I participated in GOTV efforts for Obama on Capitol Hill (Seattle) on Saturday and there were fewer people participating than in 2008. Not surprising, but ... Do the rest really want Pres. Romney? I know I don't. You've got to fight these motherfuckers.
The 2000 election map.
Gaffes, Blunders, Walkbacks and Lies: A Week-by-Week Retrospective of the Year in Mitt
It's been such a long year, for both Mitt Romney and us, that it's tough to remember all his gaffes, blunders, walkbacks and lies. Apparently he's having trouble remembering himself. Apparently so have many voters, those glorious undecideds, who gave him a 6-point boost after the first debate, where he repudiated much of what he'd said during the GOP primaries. He shook the Etch a Sketch and it worked. In 2004, John Kerry changed his position on one matter, the Iraq War, and was condemned for an entire election season, and beyond, for it. Mitt Romney flip-flops on everything and he's awarded the governorship of Massachusetts, the Republican nomination for president, and... ?
So I used Google's “custom range” tool to search, week by week, for the various top stories on Mitt Romney, and came up with the compendium below. Caveat: “Dog on roof,” and “Corporations are people, my friend,” two favorites, are from 2011.
Enjoy. Or grimace.
- January 1-8: “Gingrich: Mitt Romney is a Liar” on CBS News.
- January 8-14: “Where's Romney's tax return?” on FOX Business.
- January 15-21: “Romney's Taxes: the offshore controversy” on CNN Money.
- January 22-28: “Mitt Romney Made Nearly $22 Million in 2010, Paid Less Than 14% in Taxes” on ABC News.
- January 29-February 4: “Mitt Romney: 'I'm Not Concerned with the Very Poor'” on Huffington Post
- February 5-11: “Mitt Romney tells CPAC he was 'severely conservative governor'” in The Washington Post
- February 12-18: “Romney: 'Michigan trees are the right height'” on YouTube:
- February 19-25: “Another Romney Clunker? 'Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs actually'” on the Christian Science Monitor site.
- February 26-March 3: “Romney: Limbaugh's 'Slut' line is 'not the language I'd use'” on The Hill.
- March 4-10: “Romney in the South: 'I like grits, y'all'” on YouTube.
- March 11-17: “Mitt Romney on Planned Parenthood: 'We're going to get rid of that'” on KSDK.com.
- March 18-24: “Mitt Romney Platform 'Like an Etch a Sketch,' Top Spokesman Says” on Huffington Post.
- March 25-31: “Can Romney Recover from Etch-a-Sketch Moment?” by National Journal Staff.
- April 1-7: “The Facts vs. Mitt Romney” on the Washington Post site.
- April 8-14: “Mitt Romney at NRA: Beware of Obama 'Unrestrained by the Demands of Re-Election'” on Huffington Post.
- April 15-21: “Mitt Romney's years at Bain represent everything you hate about capitalism,” in the Village Voice.
- April 22-28: “Mitt Romney Tells Otterbein University Students to Borrow Money from Their Parents to Start Business” on Huffington Post.
- April 29-May5: “FOX News' Shep Smith reacts to Mitt Romney reacting to Newt Gingrich quitting” on YouTube.
- May 6-12: “How Mitt Romney Bullied a Gay Student at Cranbook” on The New Yorker site.
- May 13-19: “Mitt Romney: 'I stand by what I said, whatever it was” on YouTube highlight reel.
- May 20-26: “Right-Wing Billionaires Behind Mitt Romney” in Rolling Stone.
- May 27-June 2: “Romney to officially clinch Republican nomination Tuesday” in The Washington Post.
- June 3-June 9: “Romney Mocks Obama for Wanting More Firemen, Policemen, Teachers” on Huffington Post.
- June 10-16: “The Root of Mitt Romney's Comfort with Lying” in Time magazine.
- June 17-23: “A Case of Romnesia: Mitt Romney's long history of misremembering his past” in Mother Jones.
- June 24-30: “I Will Repeal Obamacare” on MittRomney.com.
- July 1-7: “The Mystery of Romney's Exit from Bain” in Mother Jones.
- July 8-14: “Romney stayed at Bain three years longer than he stated” in the Boston Globe.
- July 15-21: “What Might Be Hiding in Romney's Tax Returns?” in US News and World Report.
- July 22-28: “Mitt Romney Makes 'Disconcerting' Olympic Gaffe in London” in International Business Times
- July 29-August 4: “Mitt Romney Palestinian comments 'racist and out of touch'” in the Daily Telegraph.
- August 5-11: “Mitt Romney Would Pay 0.82 Percent in Taxes Under Paul Ryan's Plan” on The Atlantic site.
- August 12-18: “Mitt Romney says he pays 13 percent in taxes. How low is that?” on the Christian Science Monitor site.
- August 19-25: “Romney birth certificate joke sets off firestorm” on CBS News.
- August 26-September 1: “Romney: 'Now is the Time to Restore the Promise of America'” on C-Span.
- September 2-8: “Clint Eastwood bests Mitt Romney as RNC highlight: Poll” by Reuters.
- September 9-15: “Mitt Romney's Response to Libya Murders was Un-American” on US News.com.
- September 16-22: “Deciphering Mitt Romney's '47 Percent' Blunder” on Politico.
- September 23-29: “Mitt Romney Lowers Debate Expectations” on ABC News.
- September 30-October 6: “Mitt Romney is the Smartest Guy in the Room” on FOX News.
- October 7-13: “Mitt Romney still mum on specifics of tax plan” in the LA Times.
- October 14-20: “'Binders Full of Women': Mitt Romney's claim not even accurate” in the Boston Globe.
You could almost sing a version of Billy Joel's “We Didn't Start the Fire” to Mitt's year:
NASCAR owners, Cadillacs,
He pays what in income tax
Kid Rock, Y'all and grits, Michigan trees.
Severely conservative governor
Not concerned with the poor
Bain exit, Paul Ryan, Benghazi.
Etch a sketch, Eastwood's chair,
You can't take him anywhere
Brit Olympics disconcerting
Homosexual student hurting
Mitt keeps starting fires
And he keeps them burning
Instead of learning...
Feel free to add your own stanza. I didn't even touch “47 percent” or “binders full of women.”
“I stand by what I said, whatever it was.”
Absent Fathers, Powerful Fathers
Our two most recent Democratic presidents never knew their fathers. Clinton's father died before he was born while Obama met his father for one extended two-week meeting when he was 10. That was it. Both men were raised by single mothers, grandparents, and stepfathers. Neither came from wealth or power but they raised themselves up to positions of wealth and power. They represent the Horatio Alger aspects of the American dream, which, for most Americans, is just that (a dream), but which they, as leaders, have tried to keep open for as many as possible.
Our most recent Republican president and the current Republican nominee are the scions of wealthy, powerful men. George Romney was the CEO of General Motors, the governor of Michigan and a presidential candidate; George H.W. Bush was a U.S. Representative, director of the CIA, ambassador to China, Vice President of the United States, and then the 41st President of the United States. Both scions had/have father issues. W. probably resented his father too much and Romney probably loved his father too much. Both tried to do what their fathers couldn't or didn't: topple Saddam; become president of the United States.
In other words, the rhetoric that the right tends to use about success in America, bootstraps and all, is best represented by Democrats. The reality, that money and connections help immensely, is best represented by Republicans.
I suppose Obama and Clinton, bootstraps guys, never bought bootstraps rhetoric because, in part, they saw the inequities of the world and knew the pain of absent fathers. That's why they are men of the people. Mitt Romney is a man of the LDS Church and the boardroom. He knew the pain of being the son of a man who might not be reelected governor of Michigan. From Nicholas Lemann's profile in the Oct. 1 New Yorker:
[Romney] recalled watching his father on Election Night in 1964, when George was running for reëlection as governor of Michigan. Lyndon Johnson had won the Presidency by a landslide. “The numbers had come in, and in Michigan Johnson was way ahead of what our pollster, Walter DeVries, had estimated. And Walter DeVries came in. Our family was in a hotel room. He said, ‘George, you probably can’t win. Most likely you’ve lost tonight.’ And I, as a seventeen-year-old, was thinking about how embarrassing it would be to go to school and have your dad having lost as governor...
Wow. Wow wow wow.
Additional reading: Ta-Nehisi Coates on “The Burden of a Black President,” in which he compares Obama's first debate to Joe Louis' first fight with Max Schmeling.
Lies, Damned Lies and Mitt Romney
The Convention failed to move the needle, but some time in late September, a rise began, perhaps as Republicans came home and just decided they could like the guy. But then the big turning point is Romney's first debate, when he effectively undid in one night almost everything the Obama campaign had thrown at him since the spring. It was a new market; he had a new sales pitch; a new set of policies; a personality implant. And for many low-information voters, and others, that was enough.
He worries what this will mean on election day, as do I. But more, I worry what this means about democracy, and whether we can have it.
If you can win the presidency by repudiating many of your past positions in order to appeal to a rabid base, then repudiate those repudiations in order to appeal to the uninformed, undecided, middle-of-the-road voter, and you can prosper in this, what does that say about representative government? What does that say about success and who gets it? And how does that conform with typical right-wing rhetoric about success?
None of this is exactly news to me. But for the past year I've assumed that most people were at least smart enough to sense the inauthenticity in Mitt Romney. Unfortunately, he had a good 90 minutes, Obama had a bad 90 minutes, and apparently that was enough for some of them. We'll see how the second debate numbers shake out. We'll see if enough people can see, as almost every conservative leader says in this video, what a pathetic and pathological liar Mitt Romney is.
Not What We Do
I first saw this on Andrew Sullivan's site (hello again, Sully!) but I remember the power of the moment during the debate last night. Romney's about to step into it in a manner described well by Paul Krugman:
A large part of Romney’s campaign has been based on the false claim that Obama “apologized for America”. This supposed verbal weakness is supposed to trump the reality that Obama, you know, actually did get bin Laden.
So naturally Romney tried to go after Obama [on the Benghazi issue] not for what he did or didn’t do, but for his supposed failure to talk tough enough.
But then how did Romney get it so wrong? And if you read the transcript, by the way, Obama was clearly enjoying this — it seems as if he knew what was coming:
MR. ROMNEY: I think it’s interesting the president just said something--which is that on the day after the attack, he went in the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror. You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror. It was not a spontaneous demonstration.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Please proceed.
MR. ROMNEY: Is that what you’re saying?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Please proceed, Governor.
MR. ROMNEY: I — I — I want to make sure we get that for the record, because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Get the transcript.
MS. CROWLEY: It — he did in fact, sir.
MR. ROMNEY: So let me — let me call it an act of terrorism —
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Can you say that a little louder, Candy? (Laughter, applause.)
MS. CROWLEY: He did call it an act of terror.
Which left Romney looking stunned and angry ... and small.
But even before that moment, which is all about Obama letting Romney hang himself in the politest manner possible (“Please proceed, Governor”), we got this moment, which is all about Obama's strength of character:
I love the way he faces Romney. I love the look in his eye. I love his insistence on respect and seriousness in the disrespectful realm of political gamesmanship that Romney is playing. “That's not what we do” has an unasked follow-up: “So why are you doing it?” Obama makes Romney seem like a petulant child here.
Man of the People, Mitt of the Sons
Hey, candidates. You've just spent 90 minutes debating each other over the future of the country. Who do you hang with?
Pres. Obama talked with and mingled with voters:
Romney immediately surrounded himself with his sons, who seemed to close him off from the rest of the world:
Via The Atlantic and their debate recap.
The Second Debate: Romney Creates a Meme
OK, I can read Andrew Sullivan again.
I missed the first debate, stuck at work, but followed it via Sullivan's blog and Twitter, and, well, barely got any work done for all the panic I felt.
I watched the VEEP debate and thought Joe stuck it and Paul Ryan was smooth and without answers to tough questions, which is the GOP way. Increase defense + cut taxes doesn't equal balanced budget, as they claim. It equals bullshit. It has for 30 years.
I watched the second presidential debate and thought Romney did a good job for someone impersonating someone running for president. He doesn't seem as inauthentic as he did during the GOP debates, when he was awful, but he began to crumble near the end. He seemed a little sweatier, his voice a little reedier. He complained too much over little things. Obama was calm when he needed to be, forceful when he needed to be. He seemed presidential.
I think Romney began to go off the rails with the answer to the question about women making 72% of what men in the same positions make:
Obama's answer: I signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in January 2009.
Romney's answer: I hired a woman once.
Not even that. He tells a story about filling cabinet positions as governor of Massachusetts in which all the applicants were men.
And I went to my staff and said, 'How come the people for all of these jobs are men? and they said, 'Well, these are the people who have the qualifications.' And I said, well, gosh, can’t we—can’t we find some—some women that are also qualified?
That's some condenscending crap. Let's break it down to see what he's saying.
- He only knows men.
- The only qualified job applicants for his administration were men.
- He decided to look for qualified women, because they were not anywhere around him.
- Plus: He's not really answering the question.
This leads to his already infamous “binders full of women” line:
I brought us whole binders full of—of women.
That meme went viral faster than anything I've ever seen. By the time the debate was over, it was all over the Internet. It's already a tumblr site. It's already a Facebook page with a quarter of a million 'likes.' My favorite so far:
But in some ways, the meme actually misses the point. The bigger problem with his answer, which doesn't even answer the question, is that it implies that he, Mitt Romney, was a business leader for two decades, helped organize the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, ran for governor of Massachusetts and won, and yet through all of these endeavors knew no women who would work well in positions of power. He had to search for them. Because apparently they're so passive, being women, and he's such a good guy, being Mitt.
It implies a very cloistered and closed-off existence.
Guess what? This horrible answer is actually a lie. A woman's group actually presented him with qualified candidates. They were proactive. He was passive.
According to Think Progress' fact-check, this was just one of 31 times that Romney lied during the debate.
We still have a long way to go. There's one more debate. Obama needs to do it again. He needs to kick ass again. We all need to help. I contributed $500 to his campaign last night, bringing me up to $2,000. Other than a car and a home, I don't think I've spent $2,000 on anything in my life.
But at least I can breathe again. I can read Andrew Sullivan again. It was good seeing my president again.
Why Obama Now
Yes, I wish he'd said more of this during the debate. Doesn't mean I'm not voting for him. Seriously, America. Dude takes it on the chin—for you—for four years, and because he doesn't call out a blatant liar during a 90-minute debate, a guy who rewrites everything he fucking believes in, that means you're voting for the blatant liar? What are you—a woman in a Sam Peckinpah movie?
I know. Obscure. But brutal.
Facts Don't Speak for Themselves: Obama's Worrisome Conciliatory Nature
This is worrisome. From David Remnick's piece, “Obama's Old Friends React to the Debate.”
When Barack Obama was a student at Harvard Law School, he was never known as a particularly good debater. In class, if he thought that a fellow student had said something foolish, he showed no forensic bloodlust. He did not go out of his way to defeat someone in argument; instead he tried, always with a certain decorous courtesy, to try to persuade, to reframe his interlocutor’s view, to signal his understanding while disagreeing.
Here's Laurence H. Tribe, a leading constitutional-law scholar and Obama’s mentor at Harvard:
Barack Obama’s instincts and talents have never included going for an opponent’s jugular. That’s just not who he is or ever has been.
And here's Will Burns, a Chicago alderman, who worked for Obama in '96 and 2000:
The President has always been someone who takes the truth seriously and has a great faith in the American people and their ability to handle big ideas. He doesn’t patronize them. He uses the campaign as an educative process. He wants to win but also wants to be clear about his ideas.
Finally Burns again:
Romney stood there, with his hair and his jaw and his terrific angles—and he lied! About taxes, about Medicare. Obama pushed back on the five-trillion-dollar tax cut or the way Romney’s version of Medicare would destroy Medicare as we know it. And Romney just tilted his head and said, Oh, no, it won’t. At some point, you have to believe that the facts speak for themselves.
That's the sad thing about facts: they don't speak for themselves. You have to speak for them. In a way that people will hear.
The sadder fact about the electorate is that they don't want facts; they want wish fulfillment. You say you'll cut my taxes and the deficit won't grow? Yay! You say we can take down Saddam, who caused 9/11, with no cost to ourselves? Double yay! You say you'll give me a loan for this house I can't afford? Triple yay!
At some point, the bill arrives.
We respond to emotion: fear and reassurance. The GOP knows this. Everyone including me thought Obama's 2008 victory was about hope and change but it was really about fear and reassurance: our fear that an idiot president was destroying our economy. Huge institutions like Bear Stearns and Lehman Bros. were crumbling to the ground like the twin towers on 9/11. What do we do? Hey, this guy seems smart and calm. Let's vote for him instead of the crazy old man, with the dippy girl, neither of whom is reassuring me at all. He's what? He's black? Whatever. He seems smart and calm. Obama '08!
But for Obama to win this time, he needs to be more than calm and smart. He needs to call a liar a liar. For the good of the country. He can't be Ali holding back his punch as Foreman goes down, because, now, Romney isn't going down. He's going up. And if he goes up, we go down.
Obama needs to do it. In the next debates. Every day on the campaign trail. He can even frame it within the context of who he is. “I'm not the type of person who...” “People who know me know I try to be diplomatic whenever possible...” Then add the “but.” Then throw the fucking punch already.
Because Mitt Romney, rich bastard, dissembler and liar, hider of taxes and firer of people, needs to be decked with the truth.
And brother? Make it sting.
My Overwhelming Conviction about Pres. Obama's DNC Speech
I disagreed with many people who were immediately disappointed with Pres. Obama's acceptance speech before the Democratic National Convention Thursday night. I loved it. I thought it was straightforward and honest and at times uplifting. It was uplifting enough that it lifted me up from my couch and over to my computer where I donated another $500 to the Obama campaign.
But the line of the speech wasn't an uplifting one—except in the sense that it was beautiful. It wasn't even Obama's. It came from Abraham Lincoln.
Here's what Pres. Obama said:
While I’m proud of what we’ve achieved together, I’m far more mindful of my own failings, knowing exactly what Lincoln meant when he said, 'I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go.'
God, that's beautiful. You don't even have to believe in God to know the feeling. We've all felt it. We can only imagine how a president in a time of crisis must feel it.
The quote comes from Noah Brooks writing in Harper's Weekly three months after Lincoln's assassination. Brooks was a journalist for the Sacramento Union, and, particularly because he didn't indicate the circumstances under which Lincoln said the line, some doubt whether Lincoln said it at all. If he didn't then Brooks is less hack than great writer, because it's a great line worthy of repeating.
It's one of our most fundamental and human images, isn't it? Man on his knees in times of crisis and despair. As soon as Pres. Obama said it, as soon as I began to play it over in my mind, I thought of two similar lines, one humorous, one spiritual.
This is the humorous version. It's from Saul Bellow's “Herzog”:
On the knees of your soul? Might as well be useful. Scrub the floor.
The other, more spiritual line, comes from U2's “Mysterious Ways”:
To touch is to heal - to hurt is to steal
If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel
We are driven down by the weight of the world; but in accepting our failings we are raised up. It's the low place we go to find hope.
Pres. Obama greeting tourists at the Lincoln Memorial in 2011. White House Photo.
Quote of the Day
“Now, the fact that a lot of Americans are still opposed not simply to the presidency of Barack Obama but to the idea of the presidency of Barack Obama is not something that Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, or in fact any Democratic speechmaker will talk about at the convention. But it's indisputable, and it accounts for the almost fantastic nature of what many Americans think of both the president and the First Lady. To be sure, they're politically vulnerable on merit; but they're also vulnerable because even, after their four years in office, a weirdly unvarying percentage of America does not accept them as Americans. It is prejudice, pure and simple, and it manifests itself less in polling results than it does in a political discourse warped by whispers and suspicions kept sub rosa.
”And so it was hard to say what Michelle Obama had to do on Tuesday night, because so much of what she had to do tonight was something outside the realm of polite speech. Republican commentators spoke almost winsomely of Ann Romney's need to humanize Mitt Romney; but no Democratic commentator could speak of the necessity of 'Americanizing' Barack Obama without indulging the worst instincts of the American electorate. So what Michelle Obama did, quite simply, was engage the best. I sat with the Ohio delegation as she spoke, and I watched from close up as she went from one thing — a woman of glamor and poise, in a dress the color of sherbet and matching heels — to quite another, in the course of a single speech. She never sounded embattled on Tuesday, but she was clearly responding to something, and it was this aspect of her speech that lent it a special force...
“Tuesday night's speech had an almost lonely power, because it wasn't only about him but about them — about a couple that has changed the world, only to be misperceived. And it addressed those misperceptions not by naming them but by rising above them, and inviting the rest of America to rise above them, too.”
--Tom Junod, “The Lonely Power of Michelle and the Idea of Barack,” on THE POLITICS BLOG at esquire.com
David Denby's Defense of Clint Eastwood—Annotated
David Denby, film critic for The New Yorker, took the road less traveled last week and wound up defending Clint Eastwood's speech at the Republican National Convention. I'm a fan of the “In Defense of...” article—I've done a few of them myself—but, as I began the piece, I couldn't imagine what defense Denby could conjure. Here it is:
For the record, I didn’t think Clint Eastwood’s chair dialogue was “sad and pathetic” as Roger Ebert put it, or the weird mutterings of a senescent citizen, as Rachel Maddow and other liberal commentators thought, or quite as incoherent as Amy Davidson said. John Cassidy admitted that the speech was “refreshing,” which was closer to my response. It’s amusing that so many commentators complain about the wooden or pre-fabricated nature of convention speeches and then carry on as if some unspeakable disaster had taken place when someone tries something off-beat and a little strange. That's actually not a bad defense, particularly from a film critic. 'In a world of Hollywood gloss, Eastwood has given us mumblecore.'
Rachel Maddow, whom I generally admire, teases Republican squareness with shrugs and grins in every broadcast. Every broadcast, Gracie? I think I've seen, at most, a half-hour of her show total. But then I don't watch TV news. But last night, with a larger than usual national audience watching, she relied on some presumed proper standard of behavior to judge Eastwood, using that assumption as an opportunistic sarcastic tool. Last night, Maddow came off as the square.
I deplore most of Clint’s politics, yet this speech was not a disaster but an act of cunning, like many of his public appearances. I looked at it as an act of “One-take Clint.” Here's Arnie Hammer on Eastwood's directing style: “At one point he was like, 'OK, cut, print.' And I was like, 'Whoa, whoa, Clint, I had my sides in my hands, I thought we were just rehearsing that.'” That's how Eastwood does it and he probably thought he could get away with it at the RNC, too. He couldn't.
He eschewed rhetoric and “rousing” pro-Romney remarks. Apparently most of the speakers did without rousing pro-Romney remarks. They weren't there to nominate Romney; they were there to nominate against Obama.
I could have done without his reprisal of “Make my day,” but, in general, he was folksy, Will Rogersish, eccentric, maybe, but less doddering than mock-doddering. Look at it again: there’s a kind of logic to what he said. As always, his focus was on his idea of integrity—a man should do what he promises to do. Like give a good speech at a national convention?
That led him into a tangle on Obama’s not closing Gitmo, but he started out by saying that it was a broken promise. That matters to him much more than ideology. Then why is he stumping for Romney--a man who's repudiated everything he ever did as governor of Massachusetts? Does Eastwood like the fact that Romney's making no promises other than the generic and jingoistic? That's he's making the usual Republican promises to increase defense, cut taxes on the rich and yet somehow balance the budget? That he's promising us voodoo economics all over again? Does Eastwood like how the GOP's attack on Obama is an attack on a strawman? Does he like Romney's line about “voting for the American” as if Obama isn't?
He’s always been more of a libertarian than an orthodox Republican, and is actually quite liberal in his social views. Exactly. So why was he there?
His remark that we should have consulted the Russians before going into Afghanistan was startling and very far from stupid. No, it was stupid. Particularly if it was an attack on Obama. Or was it an attack on Bush 43? Or was it attack on our post-9/11 response? Dirty Harry was telling us we shouldn't have attacked those who attacked us? That we should have read al Qaeda its rights? Funny.
His assertion that Obama should bring the troops home tomorrow morning was even more startling. How many people at the convention reject our military efforts in Afghanistan and want to end them tomorrow? Besides Eastwood and the Ron Paulites? I'm guessing ... none.
Eccentric, maybe, but not a disaster, and it will be remembered fondly as the one humanly interesting moment of the convention. Nice try, David. The mere fact that Eastwood was there was a bad call, given his politics; but it was his lack of rehearsal, his thought he could do this in one take, that hurt him. Sometimes, Clint, a man's gotta know his limitations.
Eastwood said Hollywood has conservatives; they just don't “hot-dog it” like Hollywood liberals. And where did he say this? Before a national audience at the RNC.
Chris Rock Rules
Mitt Romney Drives I-5 to Chehalis
My friend Ben (“The Obamanator”) has a cousin who helped create this video for the Obama campaign. “He built it,” as Ben says. It focuses on the lack of specifics in Mitt Romney's speech at the GOP convention last week:
I didn't watch that speech or much of the convention. I had a busy week at work building things and didn't need the extra aggravation of all the GOP lies. But what stands out in this video is less Romney's generic fluff than this line from his acceptance speech:
When the world needs someone to do the really big stuff, you need an American.
Lousy sentence construction anyway (“the world”...“you”) but worse in its implication. Romney = an American. Obama = not an American. You know. It's a sentiment straight out of I-5, Chehalis. Mitt Romney: What a fucker.
Great Moments in Right-Wing Paranoia: Swinging Sixties Edition
The following examples of right-wing paranoia are all from the late 1950s and early 1960s as seen in the book, “Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Dream,” by Rick Perlstein. It's a good reminder that right-wing paranoia isn't new. It's been around a while. It's almost always wrong.
- “A private outfit, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, bankrolled by the conversative Richardson Foundation, was being retained by military bases worldwide... Among their teachings was that Defense Secretary McMamara's project to replace bombers with missiles as the centerpiece of American nuclear strategy was in fact a deliberate, covert plan for unilateral disarmament.” (pg. 146)
- “In Pensacola....the chief of naval air training set up a series of mandatory, weeklong seminars for officers that taught that the progressive income tax, the Federal Reserve, and increased business regulations were, just as Robert Welch believed, part of the Soviet takeover of the United States.” (pg. 147)
- “Day after day, fanatics pressed into [Nixon's] hand yet another copy of that damned little blue pamphlet with the United Nations insignia on the cover, Department of State Publication 7277, which they claimed was proof that the government was about to sign over America's armed forces to a Soviet colonel. (Actually it was a woolly UN report setting a course for atomic disarmament over something like a century...) (pg. 167)
- ”On May 10 , the same day as the Birmingham settlement-cum-riot, the far right returned to the news when Tom Kuchel stood up in the Senate to declare that 10 percent of the letters coming into his office—six thousand a month—were 'fright mail,' mostly centering on two astonishing, and astonishingly widespread, rumors: that Chinese commandos were training in Mexico for an invasion of the United States through San Diego; and that 100,000 UN troops—16,000 of them 'African Negro Troops, who are cannibals' [sic]—were secretly rehearsing in the Georgia swamps under the command of a Russian colonel for a UN martial-law takeover of the United States.“ (pg. 210)
- ”[TV host Steve Allen] decided to get Goldwater's reaction to a far-right hotline, 'Let Freedom Ring.' ... The nation heard a frantic voice say: ... 'The pattern in this country is very closely following the events which took place during the internal takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1946. ... Keep yourself well-informed. Do not trust newspapers, radio, TV and newsmagazines for your information. These are the main weapons the enemy has to use against us.'“
- ”In Mississippi, vigilantes were setting upon black churches, tearing them apart for 'weapons' they assumed were being stockpiled as a prelude to the Communist takeover, then burning them to the ground at the rate of one a week when no weapons could be found.“ (pg. 363)
- ”Goldwater delegates were at the top of Nob Hill at the city's WPA-style Masonic Temple screamng their heads off when Michael Goldwater explained how his father had taught his children to 'be wary of any man who tries to take our land away from us or our God away from us,' and that Johnson's self-professed Great Society 'can only result in dictatorship.'“ (pg. 380)
The book contains some left-wing paranoia, too, such as this letter sent to John F. Kennedy's press secretary, Pierre Salinger, on Nov. 19, 1963:
- ”Don't let the President come down here. I'm worried about him. I think something terrible will happen to him.“ (pg. 241)
Salinger tried to quiet the woman's fears: ”I appreciate your concern for the president,“ he wrote back, ”but it would be a sad day for this country if there were any city in the United States he could not visit without fear of violence. I am confident the people of Dallas will greet him warmly."
That Right-Wing, Uncle Sam Billboard near Chehalis, Wash.
P and I, with our friend Ward, went to a friend's place along the Columbia river on Friday, stayed over, hiked, drove back Saturday.
On the way down, on I-5 near Chehalis, Wash., we saw a tattered Uncle Sam sign with these words spelled out:
VOTE FOR THE AMERICAN
Do they mean ...? I wondered. Of course they do.
On the way back it read:
WHY IS OBAMA SUPPRESSING THE MILITARY VOTE?
It's a well-known billboard, started by a farmer named Alfred Hamilton, who died in 2004. The messages keep going up even as they eminate from an image that grows ever-more faded. They're the usual loony paranoid crap. They're the usual, accuse-the-Dems-of-what-the-GOP-is-doing crap. Because voter suppression? Ain't nothing but a GOP thang.
Of course, now Romney is doing his version of the first sign mentioned above. It's his 1,001st sign of desperation.
Stay classy, America.
A Legitimate Choice
Until last weekend, whenever I heard the word 'legititmate' I thought of Kenneth Branagh doing Edmund's soliloquy in a Renaissance Theater Company recording of “King Lear”, which I listened to while schlepping in the University Book Store warehouse in the mid-1990s:
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate: fine word: legitimate!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper:
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
Now, thanks to Todd Akin, U.S. Rep from Missouri, current Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, and professional douchebag, my association is somewhat more ... base:
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
You see where it comes from. If you're pro-life, the tough question is “What about in instances of rape and incest? Do you demand that the woman, or girl, carry the fetus to term?” This is the wish-fulfillment answer. Oh, women don't get pregnant when they're REALLY raped. That's science. It's what I understand from doctors.
Or misunderstand from doctors.
I like that word: legitimate. I'd like to talk to the GOP about that word. Because in my lifetime, in U.S. elections, they've rarely given me a legitimate choice.
I shouldn't be that hard to win over. I have conservative elements in me. The mewing and whining of the left often bothers me. The political correctness of the left often bothers me. But in almost every election, increasingly so as I age, it's not even a contest. The choice is between the conservative, which is the Democrat, and the reactionary, who is the Republican. It's between those who want to hold the line and those who want to dismantle what we have, those who want to repair the social safety net and those who want to hack it to pieces, those who think government has a role and those who think it has virtually none.
In my lifetime, the GOP appeals to fear and retribution, paranoia and selfishness. Its candidates are chest-thumpingly stupid, and proudly so. They invoke God against the Constitution and the founding fathers as if they were gods. They are expert propagandists who spread their bullshit uniformly across the country. They accuse others of wanting to take what we have, then take what we have. Anyone who doesn't agree with their platform is a Socialist or a Communist or a Fascist—or all three. They are adept at the Big Lie. They accuse the opposition of being what they themselves are—again and again and again. They demonize the powerless and hold up the powerful as victims. They are always on the wrong side of history when it comes to the rights of others, and then, when it's convenient, they rewrite that history. They like to rewrite history. In this way, they are absolutists in rhetoric but relativists in strategy, relying on the relativity of truth to obfuscate that which doesn't favor them, which is most things. They undermine democracy by not giving me a legitimate choice.
I'd like one, one day.
'Sikh, Arab, What's the Difference?' The Sikh Temple Killings and Spike Lee's 'Inside Man'
When I first heard of the Sikh Temple shooting in Oak Creek, Wis., last Sunday, and the identity, such as it is, of the neo-Nazi shooter, my thoughts turned to filmmaker Spike Lee—specifically his 2006 action-film “Inside Man.”
The movie is about hostages and a bank heist, in the manner of “Dog Day Afternoon,” and there's a scene halfway through where a Sikh hostage is released by the robbers only to be ordered by New York cops, with itchy, post-9/11 trigger fingers, onto the ground. They call him an Arab and take away his turban.
Here's a later scene where the cops (Denzel Washingon, Willem Dafoe and Chiwetel Ejiofor) question the Sikh, Vikram, about the hostage situation, while he questions them about his turban situation:
“I bet you can get a cab, though,” is a good line, but it's a shame Vikram didn't get the last word. He deserved it.
I also thought of Anthony Lane, the great critic for The New Yorker, and his review of “Inside Man,” and the way he contrasted Spike Lee's vision of the world with that of Jean Renior in “The Grand Illusion”:
“Inside Man” needs to be seen. The more it sags as a thriller, the more it jabs and jangles as a study of racial abrasion. A hostage is released, and an armed cop shouts, “He’s an Arab!” The hostage replies, “I’m a Sikh,” and you can hear the weariness at the edges of his fear. Another hostage is quizzed by Frazier about his name: “Is that Albanian?” “It’s Armenian,” the man explains. “What’s the difference?” Frazier asks, not that he cares either way. It is these small, peppery incidents of strife—far more than the stridency of recent Lee projects like “Bamboozled” and “She Hate Me”—that show the director at his least abashed and most tuned to current anxieties, and that mark him out, for all the fluency of his camera, as the anti-Renoir of our time. “Grand Illusion” offered the ennobling suggestion that national divisions were delusory, and that our common humanity can throw bridges across any social gulf. To which Lee would reply, Nice idea. Go tell it to the guy who just had his turban pulled off by the cops.
Or to the folks who lost loved ones in south Milwaukee last Sunday.
The Gettysburg Address, Out of Context
I remember visiting the Lincoln Memorial with my friend Dean in 1989, looking up at the words of the Gettysburg Address engraved on the wall, and asking him, with the news-junkie question of the day: Where's the sound bite? What portion of this speech would modern news organizations focus on? I think we decided on this:
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
Today's question is actually worse. Today's question is: What portion of the speech would Lincoln's opponents take out of context? What would they focus on, and mangle, in the tradition of FOX-News, in order to demonize Lincoln?
My thoughts in bold:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
[1.] Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, [2.] can long endure. We are met on [1.] a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
[3.] But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that [4.] government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
The talking points would be:
- Lincoln thinks the civil war is great. He thinks the battle of Gettysburg was great. Try telling that to the mothers and fathers of the young men who died, Mr. President!
- He doesn't believe this nation can endure.
- He refuses to give a blessing to the battlefield!
- Government of the people, by the people, for the people? Socialist! Abraham Lincoln hates America!
This post results, of course, from a recent speech by Pres. Obama, which was taken out of context by the usual suspects. Let it be noted--but not long remembered--that I agree with everything Pres. Obama said. Pres. Lincoln, too.
Remember when Abraham Lincoln refused to bless the Gettysburg battlefield? He hates America!
Why a Patriotic WWII Film Starring Frank Sinatra Would Get Booed by Modern Republicans
I was going to include “The House I Live In,” a short, cornball, patriotic film starring Frank Sinatra and made in the middle of World War II, in my earlier post about what Seattle means to me. Then I watched it and realized it was a post of its own.
The first thing you notice about the film is that Sinatra looked good. You finally understand what all those bobbysoxers were screaming about. Plus I love his jacket.
Then in the middle of the film (4:22), he delivers a lesson on religious tolerance to tough neighborhood kids who've been beating up on another boy of another religion. He tells them this:
Listen, fellas. Religion makes no difference--except maybe to a Nazi or somebody who's stupid. Why, people all over the world worship God in many different ways. God created everybody. He didn't create one people better than another. Your blood's the same as mine, mine's the same as his. Do you know what this wonderful country is made of? It's made of a hundred different kinds of people, and a hundred different ways of talking, and a hundred different ways of going to church. But they're all American ways.
It's kind of stunning to hear in 2012, and it's indicative of how reactionary the far-right in this country has become. A cornball patriotic film, with Frank Sinatra, made nearly 70 years ago, in the middle of World War II, is a bastion of tolerance compared with their rhetoric. If someone said the above at a Tea Party rally, they'd probably get booed off the stage.
So I guess the question Tea Party folks have to ask themselves is: Are you a Nazi, or are you stupid? Frank is waiting for your answer.
Here's the film:
The Annotated David Brooks
The following appeared on the New York Times op-ed page on Friday. Without annotations.
Democrats frequently ask me why the Republicans have become so extreme. As they describe the situation, they usually fall back on some sort of illness metaphor. Republicans have a mania. President Obama has said that Republicans have a “fever” that he hopes will break if he is re-elected. He's kind. I hope it kills them.
“We have a sense that the economic order we knew in the second half of the 20th century may not be coming back at all — that we have entered a new era for which we have not been well prepared. ... We are, rather, on the cusp of the fiscal and institutional collapse of our welfare state, which threatens not only the future of government finances but also the future of American capitalism.”
So what do you mean by “welfare state”? Social security? Medicare? Highways? Policemen? Speak up, David.
To Republican eyes, the first phase of that collapse is playing out right now in Greece, Spain and Italy — cosseted economies, unmanageable debt, rising unemployment, falling living standards. And Sweden? And Germany? Why are Greece, Spain and Italy seen as harbingers of the U.S.? Doesn't Germany, 'to Republican eyes,' have a bloated health care system? Are Republican eyes paranoid eyes? Can I look through them?
America’s economic stagnation is just more gradual. In the decades after World War II, the U.S. economy grew by well over 3 percent a year, on average. But, since then, it has failed to keep pace with changing realities. The average growth was a paltry 1.7 percent annually between 2000 and 2009. Highlighting stagnant years, which were led by a conservative administration intent on ending the so-called welfare state, isn't exactly a strong argument for ending the so-called welfare state. (And by 'welfare state' you mean... what exactly? Social security? Medicare? Highways? Policemen? Speak up, David.)
It averaged 0.6 percent growth between 2009 and 2011. Well, it does take a while to climb out of a Republican-dug shithole. (P.S. Thanks for the shit.)
Wages have failed to keep up with productivity. Yeah, thanks for that, too, fuckers.
Family net worth is back at the same level it was at 20 years ago. Ditto. Fuckers.
In America as in Europe, Republicans argue, the welfare state is failing to provide either security or dynamism. The safety net is so expensive it won’t be there for future generations. Or we could tax the rich at levels we taxed them at during most of the Reagan administration.
Meanwhile, the current model shifts resources away from the innovative sectors of the economy and into the bloated state-supported ones, like health care and education. Bloated like babies in Africa. Numbers would be nice here. Or anywhere.
Successive presidents have layered on regulations and loopholes, creating a form of state capitalism in which big businesses thrive because they have political connections and small businesses struggle. I actually agree with this. The secret to your success, David: one good thought out of 20. You're the .050 hitter in the Major Leagues.
The welfare model favors security over risk, comfort over effort, stability over innovation. Money that could go to schools and innovation must now go to pensions and health care. I thought schools were bloated? Two sentences back. Numbers would be nice here. Or anywhere. And when did we stop innovating anyway? The 1930s? The 1960s? Last year?
This model, which once offered insurance from the disasters inherent in capitalism, has now become a giant machine for redistributing money from the future to the elderly. This is beginning to sound like a euthanasia column, David.
This is the source of Republican extremism: the conviction that the governing model is obsolete. Psst. That is extreme.
It needs replacing. Or you could tax the wealthy at a higher rate. A thought.
Mitt Romney hasn’t put it this way. Of course not.
He wants to keep the focus on President Obama. But this worldview is implied in his (extremely vague) proposals. As are yours, David. As are yours.
He would structurally reform the health care system, moving toward a more market-based system. Pardon me, sir, but the free hand of the market needs to examine your prostate.
He would simplify the tax code. He would reverse 30 years of education policy, decentralizing power and increasing parental choice. I thought we already spent 30 years decentralizing power and increasing parental choice. Oh, right. That was centralizing corporate power and increasing corporate choice. My bad.
The intention is the same, to create a model that will spark an efficiency explosion, laying the groundwork for an economic revival. The level of wish fulfillment in this sentence outdoes the level of wish fulfillment in any Hollywood blockbuster. I wanted a bucket of popcorn after reading it. I wanted to see it acted by Bruce Willis.
Democrats have had trouble grasping the Republican diagnosis because they don’t have the same sense that the current model is collapsing around them. Or because Republicans aren't upfront about what their proposal entails. Killing social security? Medicare? Highways? Policemen? Speak up, David.
In his speech in Cleveland on Thursday, President Obama offered an entirely different account of where we are. In the Obama version, the welfare-state model was serving America well until it was distorted a decade ago by a Republican Party intent on serving the rich and shortchanging the middle class. Don't be modest. Republicans began distorting our system three decades ago.
In his speech, Obama didn’t vow to reform the current governing model but to rebalance it. The rich would pay a little more and everyone else would get a little more. I'd have the rich pay A LOT more. Erik 2016!
He’d “double down” on clean energy, revive the Grand Bargain from last summer’s budget talks, invest in infrastructure, job training and basic research. Obama championed targeted subsidies and tax credits. Republicans, meanwhile, envision comprehensive systemic change. The G.O.P. vision is of an entirely different magnitude: replace the tax code, replace the health care system and transform entitlements. With what... with what ... to what?
This is what this election is about: Vagueness?
Is the 20th-century model obsolete, or does it just need rebalancing? Is Obama oblivious to this historical moment or are Republicans overly radical, risky and impractical? Are there national issues that require national solutions? Should the wealthiest people pay a smaller percentage in taxes than you and me? Do we want to return to the economic policies of 2001-2009? How about 1801-1809? What percentage of U.S. voters are now part of the reality-based community?
Republicans and Democrats have different perceptions about how much change is needed. I suspect the likely collapse of the European project will profoundly influence which perception the country buys this November. David, because of your column, I got off the schneid. I just donated $500 to Obama for America. Thank you.
The Myth of Job Creators
Confession. I often imagine myself on cable news shows wrangling out the issues of the day. Probably because that's where we often see the issues of the day being wrangled out.
The dialogue I've had in my head for the past year goes something like this:
FOX News Blowhard: BLAH BLAH BLAH 1%. BLACK BLAH BLAH job creators.
Me: Excuse me? What did you just call them?
FNB: Job creators. That's what they--
Me: What's the goal of a CEO or corporation?
FNB: To create jobs.
Me: It's to create profit. You know that. So does everyone out there. That's what capitalism is all about. That's Business 101, isn't it? I ask because I've never taken Business 101.
FNB: Yes, but when you create profit, you create jobs. Pinhead.
Me: Not necessarily. If to create profit, a CEO has to elminate jobs, or ship them overseas, he'll do that. In a heartbeat. That's part of what's been going on for the last 30 years. So why do you call them job creators?
FNB: BLAH BLAH socialism BLAH BLAH Obama BLAH BLAH Jimmy Carter.
Me: You call them 'job creators' because it's politically expedient to do so in a time of high unemployment. But it's a lie. You know it's a lie. And so does everyone watching.
I know. For some reason in my fantasy appearance on FOX News I sound like Bob Dole.
It's sad that this is still a talking point for all the blowhards out there. It's such a talking point that when venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, Seattle's own, gave one of those TED talks on the myth of job creators, the people behind TED felt it too divisive, too immediately political, to actually post on their site. They didn't feel it was worthy of all of the other TED talks about BLAH BLAH BLAH. And in this manner they stumbled right into controversy.
Hanauer's talk has since been uploaded to YouTube. Here it is:
He takes the businessman's stance on the matter, which is deeper and infiinitely more knowledgable than mine. He argues that the way things are is the opposite of the way they've been presented.
They've been presented this way: If taxes on the wealthy go up, job creation goes down.
He argues that job creation actually stems from consumer demand; and consumer demand stems from a rising middle class; and for the past 30 years our middle class has been falling—in part because tax policies favor the wealthy and place a greater burden on what was once our proud middle class.
This may be the talk that TED didn't want, but it's the talk the US needs.
I know it's not “Sovereignty means it's sovereign; you're a — you've been given sovereignty,” but it'll do if you want some smart, straight, teleprompter-less talk.
Endorsement of the Day
I posted the above this morning before work, and before I knew Pres. Obama would be speaking today about marriage equality, and before he came out in favor of same-sex marriage. Now it's even more true. Now it's a great day.
I've seen a lot of good messages, good comments, good thoughts out there in the social media landscape, but the one below is my favorite. From someone named Erin on Twitter:
My parents don't approve of the fact that I'm gay. It's sort of nice to know that my president does.
Stat of the Day
“Today the United States economy is producing even more goods and services than it did when the recession officially began in December 2007, but with about five million fewer workers.”
--from “U.S. Added Only 115,000 Jobs in April; Rate Is 8.1%” by Catherine Rampell in The New York Times. Reheadlined “Why You May Be Exhausted” on Andrew Sullivan's site.
Compare to an interview I did two years ago with labor lawyer Thomas Geohegan. Quote:
It defies the laws of economic gravity. Under everything you understand about labor economics—if you take Economics 10 or Labor Economics 101—productivity goes up, wages go up. That’s the gold standard. That’s what raises the standard of living. Hasn’t happened here. Productivity has shot up a lot; the real median hourly wage has gone down.
So we're working more, producing more, getting less.
'I Don't Want Government in My Bank...'
Why Mitt and Ann Romney are Just Like You: Scrimping By with a Seven-Bedroom Colonial and a 5,000-Foot Lakefront Vacation Home
Now that Ann [Romney] is using the details of her domestic life for political purposes, journalists and Obama supporters are sure to focus on parts of that existence that might reflect less well on her and her husband. For example, she has said that when Mitt was in college, the two of them were so financially strapped that they had to liquidate some of their stock portfolio to get by. At the time Mrs. Romney said that she was engaged in a “struggle” to bring up her children, the family was living in a seven bedroom, six-and-a-half-bathroom mock-Colonial mansion in Belmont, Massachusetts, while spending summers at their five-thousand-square-foot vacation home, which sits on eleven lakefront acres in New Hampshire.
It'll be interesting to see if the GOP, working with the mainstream media, who love to turn a mouse into a lion (because reporting what we already know is so boring), can turn Mitt and Ann Romney, rich beyond our wildest dreams, into ordinary Americans. There's no amount of BS we can't lap up.
And it is BS. It's all beside the point. The point is the economy, and what to do, and what each candidate's plan is.
New Yorker Magazine Paints Ted Nugent as Funny and Unfiltered
Here's what Ted Nugent said at an NRA convention last week:
If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year.
Here's what Reeves Wiedeman writes on the New Yorker site today:
This second-act version of Ted Nugent may seem manic, but on inspection it’s clearly more rehearsed. I doubt anything Nugent said to me was something he had never said before. His answers are so print-ready (and, let’s be honest, often pretty funny), that it seems unlikely he’s freestyling. I suspect Nugent’s comments this weekend were not off the cuff, but meant squarely for the audience he was addressing. Whether this is simply ignorant and depressing, or actually dangerous, depends on your view of the power of rhetoric. (If the President can’t convince people of something, can Ted Nugent?)
Not only is Nugent's comment dumb and dangeorous, so is New Yorker's commentary. Obama is trying to convince a majority, or a supermajority, of people. Ted Nugent needs to convince only one.
Guns Guns Guns: An Overview of Jill Lepore's BATTLEGROUND AMERICA Article
Have you read Jill Lepore's article, “Battleground America: One Nation, Under the Gun,” in the latest New Yorker? You should. It's necessary reading. It details one way our country has gone insane since the 1970s. We keep bowing to the wrong people: Grover Norquist, Rush Llimbaugh, the NRA. They're ruining our country. We're letting them.
Lepore visits a firing range, the American Firearms School, near Providence, R.I. She visits the biggest gun show in New England, in West Springfield, Mass. She delves into the history: how state after state in the 19th century adopted laws against concealed weapons. She quotes the Governor of Texas in 1893: The “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder,“ he said. ”To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.” Yes: Texas.
She reminds us that the NRA was once a gun club. It was about firearms safety. Then there was a coup in the late 1970s in Cincinnati and it became what it became: a loud, angry, lobbying organization that fueled paranoia among its members. She reminds us how the Second Amendment was once interpretted by the U.S. Supreme Court: How, in 1939, in U.S. v. Miller, FDR’s solicitor general, Robert H. Jackson, “argued that the Second Amendment is 'restricted to the keeping and bearing of arms by the people collectively for their common defense and security.' Furthermore, Jackson said, the language of the amendment makes clear that the right 'is not one which may be utilized for private purposes but only one which exists where the arms are borne in the militia or some other military organization provided for by law and intended for the protection of the state.' The Court agreed, unanimously.” Those were the days.
Some facts worth noting:
The United States is the country with the highest rate of civilian gun ownership in the world. (The second highest is Yemen, where the rate is nevertheless only half that of the U.S.) No civilian population is more powerfully armed. Most Americans do not, however, own guns, because three-quarters of people with guns own two or more. According to the General Social Survey, conducted by the National Policy Opinion Center at the University of Chicago, the prevalence of gun ownership has declined steadily in the past few decades. In 1973, there were guns in roughly one in two households in the United States; in 2010, one in three. In 1980, nearly one in three Americans owned a gun; in 2010, that figure had dropped to one in five. ...
Gun ownership is higher among whites than among blacks, higher in the country than in the city, and higher among older people than among younger people. One reason that gun ownership is declining, nationwide, might be that high-school shooting clubs and rifle ranges at summer camps are no longer common.
Because the NRA is too busy lobbying.
A positive: NRA members appear to be less nuts than its leadership:
Gun owners may be more supportive of gun-safety regulations than is the leadership of the N.R.A. According to a 2009 Luntz poll, for instance, requiring mandatory background checks on all purchasers at gun shows is favored not only by eighty-five per cent of gun owners who are not members of the N.R.A. but also by sixty-nine per cent of gun owners who are.
Its history is also more tempered than we've been led to believe:
The National Rifle Association was founded in 1871 by two men, a lawyer and a former reporter from the New York Times. For most of its history, the N.R.A. was chiefly a sporting and hunting association. To the extent that the N.R.A. had a political arm, it opposed some gun-control measures and supported many others, lobbying for new state laws in the nineteen-twenties and thirties, which introduced waiting periods for handgun buyers and required permits for anyone wishing to carry a concealed weapon. It also supported the 1934 National Firearms Act—the first major federal gun-control legislation—and the 1938 Federal Firearms Act, which together created a licensing system for dealers and prohibitively taxed the private ownership of automatic weapons (“machine guns”). ... In 1957, when the N.R.A. moved into new headquarters, its motto, at the building’s entrance, read, “Firearms Safety Education, Marksmanship Training, Shooting for Recreation.” It didn’t say anything about freedom, or self-defense, or rights.
Then in the 1960s our leaders were killed. JFK. MLK. RFK. Gun control became a common conversation. Here's a nice irony:
Gun-rights arguments have their origins not in eighteenth-century Anti-Federalism but in twentieth-century liberalism. They are the product of what the Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet has called the “rights revolution,” the pursuit of rights, especially civil rights, through the courts. In the nineteen-sixties, gun ownership as a constitutional right was less the agenda of the N.R.A. than of black nationalists. In a 1964 speech, Malcolm X said, “Article number two of the constitutional amendments provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun.” Establishing a constitutional right to carry a gun for the purpose of self-defense was part of the mission of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which was founded in 1966.
The NRA picked up on the Black Power rhetoric:
In the nineteen-seventies, the N.R.A. began advancing the argument that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to carry a gun, rather than the people’s right to form armed militias to provide for the common defense. Fights over rights are effective at getting out the vote. Describing gun-safety legislation as an attack on a constitutional right gave conservatives a power at the polls that, at the time, the movement lacked. Opposing gun control was also consistent with a larger anti-regulation, libertarian, and anti-government conservative agenda. In 1975, the N.R.A. created a lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, headed by Harlon Bronson Carter, an award-winning marksman and a former chief of the U.S. Border Control. But then the N.R.A.’s leadership decided to back out of politics and move the organization’s headquarters to Colorado Springs, where a new recreational-shooting facility was to be built. Eighty members of the N.R.A.’s staff, including Carter, were ousted. In 1977, the N.R.A.’s annual meeting, usually held in Washington, was moved to Cincinnati, in protest of the city’s recent gun-control laws. Conservatives within the organization, led by Carter, staged what has come to be called the Cincinnati Revolt. The bylaws were rewritten and the old guard was pushed out. Instead of moving to Colorado, the N.R.A. stayed in D.C., where a new motto was displayed: “The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed.”
Ronald Reagan was the first NRA president and he was shot two months after he took the Oath of Office. The irony was lost on everyone. The act of John Hinckley seemed to make the NRA stronger:
In 1986, the N.R.A.’s interpretation of the Second Amendment achieved new legal authority with the passage of the Firearms Owners Protection Act, which repealed parts of the 1968 Gun Control Act by invoking “the rights of citizens . . . to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment.” This interpretation was supported by a growing body of scholarship, much of it funded by the N.R.A. According to the constitutional-law scholar Carl Bogus, at least sixteen of the twenty-seven law-review articles published between 1970 and 1989 that were favorable to the N.R.A.’s interpretation of the Second Amendment were “written by lawyers who had been directly employed by or represented the N.R.A. or other gun-rights organizations.” In an interview, former Chief Justice Warren Burger said that the new interpretation of the Second Amendment was “one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud,’ on the American public by special-interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”
Between 1968 and 2012, the idea that owning and carrying a gun is both a fundamental American freedom and an act of citizenship gained wide acceptance and, along with it, the principle that this right is absolute and cannot be compromised; gun-control legislation was diluted, defeated, overturned, or allowed to expire; the right to carry a concealed handgun became nearly ubiquitous; Stand Your Ground legislation passed in half the states; and, in 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court ruled, in a 5–4 decision, that the District’s 1975 Firearms Control Regulations Act was unconstitutional. Justice Scalia wrote, “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia.” Two years later, in another 5–4 ruling, McDonald v. Chicago, the Court extended Heller to the states.
All of these victories mean nothing. The NRA remains a paranoid organization. They're paranoid about Pres. Obama. “If this President gets a second term, he will appoint one to three Supreme Court justices,” says David Keene, 66, the N.R.A.’s current president. “If he does, he could reverse Heller and McDonald, which is unlikely, but, more likely, they will restrict those decisions.” Keene is worried about losing any ground. He's standing his ground. Actually he's moving forward. He's advancing on us. Yes, Lepore also writes about Trayvon Martin, and Chardon High School outside Cleveland. She doesn't write about Ted Nugent seeming to threaten the life of the president of the United States, for which he refuses to apologize. He's standing his ground, too. No, he's advancing on us. Mouth flapping. Waving something.
Keene and Nugent are paranoid about the wrong things. They see enemies where there are none. Their true enemy is themselves. The dwindling number of Americans who own and use guns is their fault. The NRA used to be a gun club, about gun safety, but they decided to spend all their time lobbying instead. So now we have what we have: laxer gun laws than at any time since the early 19th century, and fewer and fewer people utilizing them. Crazy people get to carry concealed weapons.
Lepore is right. We're a nation under the gun. Our society is sick. It doesn't know how sick:
One in three Americans knows someone who has been shot. As long as a candid discussion of guns is impossible, unfettered debate about the causes of violence is unimaginable. Gun-control advocates say the answer to gun violence is fewer guns. Gun-rights advocates say that the answer is more guns: things would have gone better, they suggest, if the faculty at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Chardon High School had been armed. That is the logic of the concealed-carry movement; that is how armed citizens have come to be patrolling the streets. That is not how civilians live. When carrying a concealed weapon for self-defense is understood not as a failure of civil society, to be mourned, but as an act of citizenship, to be vaunted, there is little civilian life left.
A gun show in Houston, which are, like classified ads for gun sales, unregulated.
The Symbiotic Relationship between the GOP and the Mainstream Media
It's pretty simple.
The mainstream media is interested in news, i.e., what's new, or, a la Slate.com, what's contrary to what we currently believe.
The GOP, particularly since the ascension of Karl Rove, has no scruples in discrediting its opponents.
So the GOP presents contrary images of Democrats, over which the mainstream media has a feeding frenzy.
Pres. Obama is somehow involved in a war on women, John Kerry's decorated Vietnam War record is suspect, Al Gore makes huge mistakes. Al Gore's mistakes are actually tiny, George W. Bush's are huge, but we all know Bush isn't that smart so that's not news. But Gore: He should know better.
Democrats attack Republicans for what they are, which isn't news. Republicans attack Democrats for what they are not, which is. It's the only way the GOP, with its platform (supporting the rich few against the many), can thrive.
Indeed, the GOP attacks Dems for what it, the GOP, is actually guilty of: being anti-women, avoiding service, fudging economic numbers. As I've stated elsewhere, this is the ultimate in propaganda.
Supporting the troops: In the 2004 election, the record of John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, was questioned, while George W. Bush, who sat out the war in Texas and Alabama, mostly received a bye.
Bullshit of the Week: the Hilary Rosen Fiasco
I hate having to do this. I hate having to write this. I hate having to wade through the bullshit of the week because other people aren't doing their jobs.
The bullshit of this week is that somehow the Obama camp is against women, or housewives, because Hilary Rosen, a Democratic strategist, who is not part of the Obama campaign, said that Ann Romney, Mitt Romney's wife, who is apparently advising her husband on economic matters, “never worked a day in her life.”
So the GOP is doing what it can to connect “Never worked a day in her life” with the idea that “Democrats look down on housewives” with the idea that “Obama looks down on housewives.”
Let's clear away the bullshit for a moment.
The initial discussion on CNN was about how the Romney camp was pegging Obama as “anti-women” because the economy still isn't going gangbusters, and women, more than men, are out of work.
If Rosen had simply said “Ann Romney hasn't had to look for a job since she got married” we wouldn't be here. We would be some other stupid place, just not this stupid place.
Here's the transcript of what Rosen said. The key line is in the second paragraph. The video is below:
With respect to economic issues, I think actually that Mitt Romney is right, that ultimately women care more about the economic well-being of their families and the like. But he doesn't connect on that issue either. What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, 'Well, you know my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues and when I listen to my wife that's what I'm hearing.'
Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school and why do we worry about their future.
So I think that, yes, it's about these positions and yes, I think there will be a war of words about the positions. But there's something much more fundamental about Mitt Romney. He just seems so old-fashioned when it comes to women and I think that comes across and I think that that's going to hurt him over the long term. He just doesn't really see us as equal.
The GOP focuses on the second graf, second sentence. Rosen's true meaning is in second graf, third sentence:
She's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school and why do we worry about their future.
The Romneys are rich. You and I are not.
I don't know about Ann, but Mitt Romney has never been poor and unconnected. He doesn't know what that's like. Just as most of us don't know what it's like to be as rich and connected as Mitt Romney has been all of his life.
I don't know about Ann, but Mitt Romney doesn't know what it's like to scour the Want Ads and see nothing that says “you,” nothing that says “hope,” nothing that says “possibility” or “I have a chance.”
Everything else about this discussion is bullshit. The mainstream media is always looking for a different story and the GOP is always ready to give it to them to distract everyone from the real story.
It's 3 A.M.: Do You Know Where Your Affordable Care Act Is?
I awoke in the middle of the night thinking of the Affordable Care Act. Such are the times we live in.
No matter what the U.S. Supreme Court decides in the next few weeks, I'm still of the mind that the health insurance industry should not be a for-profit industry. It's not just the amorality or immorality of making a profit off of people's health. It's the shaky capitalism of it all. The goal of the insurance industry is to sell to whose who don't need its product and reject those who do. Its market efficiency leads to this vast product inefficiency. It wants to sell us something we'll never use. If there's a chance we'll use it? It doesn't want to sell it to us.
Are there other products or services like this? Not broccoli, certainly.
That Sound You're Hearing is the Rich Getting Richer
Some cheery economic news from Steven Rattner, a longtime Wall Street executive, in a New York Times Op-Ed. His data comes from French economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, who worked from U.S. tax returns:
In 2010, as the nation continued to recover from the recession, a dizzying 93 percent of the additional income created in the country — $288 billion — went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers, those with at least $352,000 in income. That delivered an average single-year pay increase of 11.6 percent to each of these households...
The bottom 99 percent received a microscopic $80 increase in pay per person in 2010, after adjusting for inflation...
Government has ... played a role, particularly the George W. Bush tax cuts, which, among other things, gave the wealthy a 15 percent tax on capital gains and dividends. That’s the provision that caused Warren E. Buffett’s secretary to have a higher tax rate than he does.
As a result, the top 1 percent has done progressively better in each economic recovery of the past two decades. In the Clinton era expansion, 45 percent of the total income gains went to the top 1 percent; in the Bush recovery, the figure was 65 percent; now it is 93 percent...
The only way to redress the income imbalance is by implementing policies that are oriented toward reversing the forces that caused it. That means letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the wealthy and adding money to some of the programs that House Republicans seek to cut. Allowing this disparity to continue is both bad economic policy and bad social policy. We owe those at the bottom a fairer shot at moving up.
Why Democratic Veeps Run for President; Why Republican Veeps Don't
Apparently Joe Biden is thinking of running for president in 2016. He should. Yes, he'll be 74, and, no, I don't know if he'd make a good president. But it's the way of Democratic vice-presidents. As opposed to Republican ones.
Since 1972, when more open primary rules were first enacted, three Democrats have been elected president: Carter, Clinton and Obama. In the case of the first two, in the election after their last election, the nomination went to their vice president: Mondale in '84 and Gore in '00. Neither won.
This was true for Reagan's veep as well: George H.W. Bush ran and won in '88.
Since then? Bush's veep, Quayle, sputtered in '96 and never got out of the starting gate. He was considered a lightweight with no shot. Still is. W's veep, Cheney, never ran. He was considered a horrible heavyweight with no shot. Still is. Darth Cheney, who chose himself veep. The lightweight was the president.
There's always a lightweight on the Republican ticket, isn't there: a “folksy” someone, generally, who isn't that smart. Each election you think it can't get worse and then it does. It can't get worse than Reagan, you think, and then they choose Quayle. It can't get worse than Quayle, you think, and then they choose W. OK, W's gotta be the bottom, right? Hello, Sarah Palin.
Dems are always a little more serious about who might be a heartbeat away. Or who might be the heartbeat.
So I can see Biden in 2016, although I'm more intrigued by Hillary.
As for the Republicans in 2012? This certainly wouldn't break the trend:
Ben Volunteers for Obama
My friend Ben recently moved to Seattle after eight years in Hanoi. I like introducing him as “the former AP bureau chief in Hanoi,” which he was. I don't know of a more romantic phrase in the English language than “AP bureau chief in Hanoi.”
Like most true journalists I know, Ben's an opinionated S.O.B. It probably goes with the territory. You spend 30 years objectively reporting the world until you want to grab the world by the lapels and shout in its face about what it doesn't get from your objective reporting.
Ben is now doing some shouting, about politics and volunteering for the Obama campaign, over at The Obamanator blog. Much, much recommended. Some samples:
- “...the Republicans made the mess and are campaigning to restore the very policies that created it... from ”Flying High at Boeing“
- ”We called someone who thought that Tiger Woods was the African-American running for president...“ from ”Another Phone Bank, Another Moron“
- Newt Gingrich is so full of baloney, he’s going to explode. Perhaps this accounts for his remarkable girth...” from “Excuse Me While I Rant for a Moment.”
I think my favorite is this juxtaposition: “I Used to Be an Objective Journalist” on March 16th, followed by “Only a Twisted, Deranged, Hard-Hearted Creep Would Try to Repeal the Affordable Care Act” a day later.
Stay tuned. I will.
The 400 Highest Earners in the U.S. Pay Only 18.1 Percent in Taxes
Do you subscribe to The New Yorker yet? Why not? Come on.
James B. Stewart has a must-read piece in the March 19th issue entitled “TAX ME IF YOU CAN: The things rich people do to avoid paying up.” Money (cough) quote:
The Internal Revenue Service discloses detailed statistics for the four hundred highest-earning taxpayers in the country. In 2008, the most recent year available, those taxpayers had an average adjusted gross income of two hundred and seventy million dollars each. Thirty of them paid less than ten per cent in federal taxes, and a hundred and one paid between ten and fifteen per cent. On average, the group paid 18.1 per cent.
President Obama has seized on that fact, making tax fairness a central issue in his reëlection bid. The President has called for comprehensive tax reform and for specific proposals for a “Buffett Rule,” which would raise tax rates on taxpayers earning more than a million dollars a year. Romney has called for a twenty-per-cent across-the-board tax cut, while limiting some deductions. ...
None of the proposals address the fact that rich people aren’t taxed on certain income, either because it is exempt, as with interest on municipal bonds, or because they claim to be living outside the jurisdiction that is levying the tax. Relatively scant media attention has been paid to residency requirements, even though enormous revenue is at stake.
So that's what Stewart does: he pays attention to the residency requirements and how the rich can afford to skirt them.
A thumbnail of the piece is available here. It's also on newsstands. You can also borrow my copy if you promise to bring it back. And subscribe.
The U.S. Right-Wing: Sharing Conspiracy Theories with the Middle East
John Lee Anderson's reporting, or “letter,” from Syria (in New Yorker parlance), entitled “The Implosion: On the front lines of a burgeoning civil war,” which is now a few weeks old, is one of those articles you really need to read if you're at all interested in fathoming what's going on in that country. To a degree, of course. If before I understood bupkis, I now understand bupkis +1. But it's an improvement. Check it out.
I'm nearly 50 now and not surprised by much these days, but this part just threw me:
Skepticism about the rebels was common among Assad’s supporters. One influential businessman, Nabil Toumeh, informed me that what was taking place in Syria was the result of a plan—dreamed up years before by Zbigniew Brzezinski, and supported by Israel—to help the Muslim Brotherhood take over the Middle East. “After fifty years of persecution, they are being given power, and this will bring the Arab world to a state of backwardness,” he said. Assad’s friend told me, “This is not the Arab Spring. It’s the awakening of the extremes of Islam.” The Brotherhood was trying to seize power in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, but it would not happen in Syria. “There is no reasoning with these people; with them, it is only God.”
But in Zabadani one of the protesters, a Sunni, told me, “There’s no Muslim Brotherhood here. The people are Muslims, yes. But the Brotherhood doesn’t have any real plan for them. What we want is freedom, to be able to protest in peace without being fired upon.”
We'll never get away from these insane conspiracy theories, will we? It's one thing, I suppose, that right-wing nutjobs in the U.S. have in common with some folks in the Middle East: they both think the Obama administration favors the Muslim Brotherhood.
The right-wing nutjobs think he favors the Brotherhood because he is Muslim. (Or because he's Obama and he's black and he's all foreign-y and they just don't like him.) The Syrian nutjobs think the Obama administration favors the Muslim Brotherhood—and before him the Bush and Clinton and Bush and Reagan administrations—in order to better foment radical Islam and keep Arab countries backward.
I.e., the very thing the U.S. doesn't want in the Middle East is the very thing some Middle Easterners think the U.S. has plotted for decades to unleash.
I throw up my hands.
Read the article.
Will that lake's name change anytime soon?
Quote of the Day
“It seems to me that a Democratic president who gets us health care reform and tough new financial protection for consumers, who guides the economy through its roughest period in 80 years with moderate success (who could do better?), who ends our long war in Iraq and avenges the worst insult to our sovereignty since Pearl Harbor (as his Republican predecessor manifestly failed to do, despite a lot of noise and promises); a president who faced an opposition of really spectacular intransigence and downright meanness; a president who has the self-knowledge and wisdom about Washington to write the passage quoted above, and the courage to publish it: that president deserves a bit more credit from the left than [Thomas] Frank is willing to give him.”
--Michael Kinsley in his review of “Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right,” by Thomas Frank, which is as critical of Pres. Obama as Frank's previous book, “What's the Matter with Kansas?,” was critical of Kansas.
Conservatives Disrespecting Authority
Jonathan Chait's New York Magazine piece, “When Did Liberals Become So Unreasonable?” is necessary reading for anyone concerned with the 2012 election--particularly those on the left. I tend to agree with Chait. Obama has disappointed me a few times but he's by far the best president I've had in my lifetime. More power to him. Four more years to him--hopefully, with a Tea Party-less Congress. Hell, if folks on the left spent as much time working to get rid of these bastards as they do bitching about the imperfection of Obama, we might be getting somewhere.
So bravo to Chait. Even so, there's a line in his piece that made me squint my eyes in disagreement.
Conservatives, compared with liberals, have higher levels of respect for and obedience to authority and prefer order over chaos and continuity over change.
Generally and historically true. Yet they've spent the last three years besmirching, demonizing and undermining the ultimate authority figure in the country--the president of the United States--in a way that has never been done before. Democrats may have considered George W. Bush illegitimate because he only became president through a very shaky ruling by a very conservative U.S. Supreme Court; but Republicans and Tea Partiers argue that Pres. Obama's very presence in this country is illegitimate. They say he's not a U.S. citizen, he's not Christian, he's a socialist, he's Hitler. It's ugly stuff.
More importantly, beyond Obama, conservatives have shown massive disrespect for traditional authority figures for a long, long time:
- Judges (“activist”)
- Lawyers (“frivolous”)
- Teachers (“incompetent”)
- Cops (how can they be against armor-piercing bullets?)
It astounds me sometimes. The law-and-order folks that the left disrespected in the 1960s--pillars of the community--now get pilloried daily by Republicans and the usual loudmouths on FOX-News.
Chait's thoughts on conservatives, in this regard, need some correction.
From the Archives: A Review of Muammar Qaddafi's “Escape to Hell and other stories”
In 1999 I reviewed several novels written by politicians, including Newt Gingrich's “1945” and Ed Koch's “Murder on Broadway” for a slightly humorous piece in Washington Law & Politics magazine. One of the other books was Muammar Qaddafi's “Escape to Hell and other stories.” The review is below. Take note, in bold, of the main character in the title story and his fear of the masses, and his obsession with Mussolini's fate...
The first section of Qaddafi's book, “Novels”, is essentially polemic intermingled with parable; the second section, “Essays”, is mostly polemic. Why the division? And why use the word “novels” when these things are, at best, essays?
I suppose ours is not to question the mind of Qaddafi. Yet here I go.
At one point he sounds like a New Age chick: “Truly, the earth is your mother; she gave birth to you from her insides. She is the one who nursed you and fed you. Do not be disobedient to your mother--and do not shear her hair, cut off her limbs, rip her flesh, or wound her body.” In another chapter, he's G. Gordon Liddy, extolling, he says, “the fact that a person's will can overcome death...”
Near the end of the book, he talks up the virtues of “the people” like a good politician should, but earlier, in the titular story, the masses are dreadful, inspiring an almost Kafka-esque paranoia. “People snap at me whenever they see me,” he writes. He chronicles the rise and fall of other leaders: “...the masses dragged Mussolini's corpse through the streets, and spat in Nixon's face as he departed the White House for good, having applauded his entrance years before.”
Spat in his face? When did this happen? And why wasn't I allowed my turn?
Muammar has his moments. He does up western culture pretty well, for example. “Entertainment,” he writes, “takes on the meaning of wasting time and being absorbed; culture becomes superficial, telling and exchanging jokes takes the place of good literary work and criticism.”
Overall, though, Escape to Hell is boring as hell.
Quote of the Day
“To rid the world of Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki and Moammar Qaddafi within six months: if Obama were a Republican, he'd be on Mount Rushmore by now.”
--Andrew Sullivan, “A Tale of Two Presidents”
Also worth reading: Sullivan's post, “The Untold Story of the Actual Obama Record.”
Why I'm Behind Occupy Wall Street 99%
In 2009 I interviewed Chicago labor lawyer and author Thomas Geoghegan, who, that year, 1) argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court (he won); 2) ran for Rahm Emanuel's congressional seat in Chicago (he lost); and 3) wrote a cover story for Atlantic magazine (“Infinite Debt: How unlimited interest rates destroyed the economy”). May we all have such successful and far-ranging years.
At one point in our Q&A, we had the following exchange about the depressed state of labor and the rise of the Tea Party:
Does it surprise you that angry populism seems to exist on the right rather than the left?
I think the left is pretty beaten down in this country. The non-electoral checks that I think a republic needs—and here I’m thinking about labor movements, works councils, co-determination—they just don’t exist here. So you would think, given the unemployment, given the debt, given the poverty in this country, and how wealthy it is, you’d think people would be really angry. In fact, I think they are.
And so they are. And so angry populism is existing, in public, on the left again.
I'm truly grateful for the Occupy Wall Street crowd. I'm behind them 99 percent. My generation, born in the early-to-mid-sixties, and coming of age in the early years of the Reagan administration, dropped the ball completely. We helped create the world as it is. Hopefully these kids will help create the world as it should be. Or closer to that ideal.
It'll get messy. It'll be disorganized. What can I say? It's the left and it's human beings and many will talk over their heads and/or demand what they can't get or what the majority of protesters don't even want. Plus you'll get your anarchists and nutjobs, and the mainstream media will focus on them, as will the right, and they'll try to discredit the movement any way they can. They'll say: It's just spoiled college kids. They'll say: Get a job! Leave the poor Wall Street brokers alone! They'll talk up the individual responsibility of the protesters, as if the lives of others, and the lives of powerful others, have no bearing on our own. As if the Global Financial Meltdown just kinda—oops—happened.
Others will parse, and have parsed, that 99% number. Isn't it more like 90%? Or 75%? They'll shake their heads and think the kids have already blown it. But they don't know a good slogan when they hear one. “Shouldn't it be, We WILL overcome?”
Others will conflate, and have conflated, the Occupy Wall Street crowd with the Tea Party:
Andrew Sullivan keeps doing this. He loves this chart. He thinks it's meaningful. I don't. Look at the point of intersection between the two movements. It says: “Large corporations lobby for government to have more power, and in return the government enacts laws and regulations favorable to corporations.” Question: In this scenario, what is the government doing? It's enacting laws and regulations. Which is its job. The problem isn't what the government is doing; the problem is who the government is listening to (corporations/CEOs/lobbyists) and who it isn't listening to (the 99%). That's what we need to fix. That's why the Occupy Wall Street crowd makes sense and the Tea Party never did.
I admit it: I hated the Tea Party from the get-go. It was the wrong people marching about the wrong things at the wrong time. It was historical movement as farce. If Tea Partiers were truly worried about the national debt, as they said they were, where were they when the national debt doubled from $5 trillion to $10 trillion during the Bush years? Why wait for the first few months of the Obama administration before taking to the streets? And if they were worried about taxes, as they said they were, why protest at all? Aren't taxes at historic lows? And if they were worried about both, well, how to reconcile the two? Lowering taxes raises the debt. You can say you want lower taxes and a lower debt, but, as the saying goes, people in hell want ice water. That kind of wish fulfillment, which has been going on for more than 30 years now, is why we're in this mess in the first place.
Others will conflate the movements in this manner:
Bigger version here.
Andrew Sullivan keeps doing this, too. He thinks this kind of thing is meaningful. I think it's ludicrous. The folks on the right want to cut taxes, or, absurdly, cut them to zero, when surrounded by all the necessities their taxes create. That's hypocrisy. The folks on the left may or may not think corporations are evil (none of their signs indicate that), but even if they did, the fact that they use the products of these corporations (and, again, the “razors by Gillette” indicators are mostly guesses) is not a sign of hypocrisy. It's evidence of just how pervasive corporations are in our lives. As consumers, we can't escape corporations. As employees, we may not be able to, either. So we better make sure they do the right thing. We better make sure that we, as both consumers and employees, are protected from the natural corporate drive to create profit at our expense.
Besides, this isn't what the movement is really about. What's it about? That 99% number is a clue. It's about the growing American oligarchy. It's about how the many have less, the few have most, and the government seems to be listening to the few with most rather than the many, the 99%, with less. Which isn't democracy as we were taught it.
Quote of the Day
“Though I have some respect for 'The Virtue of Selfishness,' her collection of essays ... I don't think there's a need to have essays advocating selfishness among human beings. I don't know what your impression has been, but some things require no further reinforcement.”
--Christopher Hitchens on Ayn Rand, from the Q&A portion of his lecture, “The Moral Necessity of Atheism,” given on February 23, 2004 at Sewanee University
How great is it to be as stupid as Maureen Dowd?
In her latest column, “Eggheads and Blockheads,” Maureen Dowd chastises the Republican party as the “How great is it to be stupid?” party, which it is, by comparing its current front-runner for president, Rick Perry, to ... wait for it ... John Wayne.
So she attempts to trash a man by comparing him to one of the most iconic heroes of American cinema? How great is it to be as stupid as Maureen Dowd?
Dowd uses John Ford's “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” as her prism for the upcoming presidential race. She casts Barack Obama as Ransom Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart), the thin lawyer from the east who is often bullied by the likes of Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), whom, in a final showdown, he shoots and kills. From this he gains acclaim, becoming an ambassador to England and U.S. Senator. But it's all a lie. Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), from behind a corner store, was the real man who shot Liberty Valance. Stoddard's shot missed high and wide.
What's the connection between Ford's film and our current reality? None. The comparison is facile. The connective tissue is barely there. She merely sees Obama as an egghead (forgetting Stoddard's rage), Perry as a blockhead (forgetting Doniphan's heroism), and the rest of us as the townsfolk caught in the middle (forgetting that most were stereotypical Scandinavians, a favorite Ford trope.)
As she puts it:
So we’re choosing between the overintellectualized professor and blockheads boasting about their vacuity?
What's awful about Dowd is not just her myopic dichotomies, not just her clumsy Hollywood analogies, but the fact that she misses the bigger picture. Because what's fascinating about modern Republicans, who continually trash Hollywood, is how their candidates fit so easily into Hollywood western and action-adventure archetypes. This is intentional. The party that trashes Hollywood is the party that apes Hollywood. Both the GOP and Hollywood create wish-fulfillment fantasies in good vs. evil battles because that's what we, the public, wish to see. Until reality intrudes. Which makes us wish to see it even more.
It's not an insult, in other words, to compare Rick Perry to John Wayne. It is, in fact, the whole point to his awful, awful career.
Idiots, the Bush Administration, and 9/11
At an outdoor dinner party last night, overlooking Puget Sound, the subject got around to freedom vs. safety, and I mentioned how most people would give up the former for an imagined version of the latter (not a very original thought), and that our reaction to 9/11 was indicative of this (another not very original thought). One of the other guests disagreed. We went back and forth in a genial enough manner. He felt we hadn't given up any freedoms post-9/11. Then he talked about how 9/11 was foreseeable to anyone who was paying attention. We had the following exchange:
He: Anyone who didn't see 9/11 coming was an idiot.
Me: Or in the Bush administration.
He: Don't go there.
At this point I was warned away from the conversation by the hostess. I later found out that the guy I'd been talking to was, like the hostess, a Republican and a Bush supporter. If only I'd known. I would've totally gone there.
Conversation of the Day
I've had some good conversations today, long ones, too, but this short, awful conversation stands out. I was leaving Metropolitan Market on Mercer with some red peppers for Patricia, who's recovering nicely from arthroscopic surgery, thank you, when a clean-cut, 20-ish dude, a young man really, waved his hands at me to get my attention. I looked down at his table, on which there was a poster of Pres. Obama with a Hitler moustache and the words “Dump Obama.” He smiled at me. I shook my head at him and kept going. He called after me.
He: Are you ready to end the madness?
And kept going.
Obama, the GOP and Terrence Malick's “The Tree of Life”
Early in Terrence Malick's “The Tree of Life,” the following existential dichotomy is set up in voiceover narration from the mother (Jessica Chastain):
The nuns taught us there were two ways through life: the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow.
The she explains what she means by each one:
Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries.
Nature only wants to please itself. Gets others to please it, too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things.
The movie focuses on a young boy in Waco, Texas in the 1950s, Jack (Hunter McCracken), who aspires to the way of grace, like his mother, but who succumbs to the way of nature, like his father (Brad Pitt).
It struck me, as I was writing my review last weekend, around the time of the Ames, Iowa straw poll, that our current political struggles, and the upcoming 2012 election, can be seen through this same prism.
Obama is the way of grace. He's been more insulted than any sitting president, and his response has been to work with those who keep insulting him. People on his side often fault him for that. I'm often one of them.
The GOP, which claims to have God on its side, and which claims a kind of Godlessness for Obama, is the way of nature. It wants to please itself. It's about more for me and less for you (or us). It's about lording it over people. You see this attitude, which can be bullying or swaggering, in Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann and the pundits on FOX-News. There's a killer instinct there. Sometimes this instinct exhibits itself in actual calls for violence.
It is, at the least, a stark contrast. The question remains whether this country sees any value in the way of grace, or if we, like young Jack in the film, and like most of us in our lives, will succumb to the way of nature.
Images from Terrence Malick's “The Tree of Life” (2011)
Your Liberal Media at Work
The above screenshot is from The New York Times. Their lede? Perry drowned out a heckler with a Texas college football reference. Now you know who to vote for.
So let's see if we can't get away from the Times front page for a little perspective.
Over at Salon.com, Joan Walsh puts the Texan on the grill:
Perry's Texas leads the nation in minimum-wage jobs, uninsured children, high school dropouts and pollution. He balanced the state's budget with stimulus money he railed against. His record won't back up his bragging.
The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed is hardly enthusiastic:
The questions about Mr. Perry concern how well his Lone Star swagger will sell in the suburbs of Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where the election is likely to be decided. He can sound more Texas than Jerry Jones, George W. Bush and Sam Houston combined, and his muscular religiosity also may not play well at a time when the economy has eclipsed culture as the main voter concern.
Meanwhile, Paul Krugman, the Times Op-Ed columnist, is perhaps sharpest on the matter. How is Perry's Texas doing so well economically? In “The Texas Unmiracle” he gives two reasons: Big Oil and surprisingly strong mortgage regulations--the kind Republicans are usually against. Plus they're not necessarily doing well:
From mid-2008 onward unemployment soared in Texas, just as it did almost everywhere else.
In June 2011, the Texas unemployment rate was 8.2 percent. That was less than unemployment in collapsed-bubble states like California and Florida, but it was slightly higher than the unemployment rate in New York, and significantly higher than the rate in Massachusetts. By the way, one in four Texans lacks health insurance, the highest proportion in the nation, thanks largely to the state’s small-government approach.
So what about all those jobs Perry claims he added in Texas? The result of population growth more than anything:
Many of the people moving to Texas — retirees in search of warm winters, middle-class Mexicans in search of a safer life — bring purchasing power that leads to greater local employment. At the same time, the rapid growth in the Texas work force keeps wages low — almost 10 percent of Texan workers earn the minimum wage or less, well above the national average — and these low wages give corporations an incentive to move production to the Lone Star State.
So Texas tends, in good years and bad, to have higher job growth than the rest of America. But it needs lots of new jobs just to keep up with its rising population — and as those unemployment comparisons show, recent employment growth has fallen well short of what’s needed.
Quote of the Day
“This Shariah law business is crap. It’s just crazy, and I’m tired of dealing with the crazies. It’s just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background.”
--Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, responding to questions about the campaign to villify his judicial appointee to the Superior Court in Passaic County, Sohail Mohammed.
I've been on this story for awhile. Six years ago, the publication I work for featured Mohammed in the profile “First Call for Freedom.”
Mohammed, despite the crazies, wound up being confirmed. He's now the second Muslim judge in New Jersey. Jeffrey Goldberg, writing for Bloomberg News, applauds Christie here.
And here's the full Christie. Enjoy:
Lessons in Headline-Making
Here's the headline in today's Seattle Times:
Dissent stalls GOP debt plan
Here's what it should have read:
Dissent among GOP stalls GOP debt plan
Is that partisan? Of course not. It's factual.
Does it matter what the headline reads? Of course it does. Most people, if they even see the headlines, don't get past the headlines. The current headline makes it seem Republicans and Democrats are in disagreement. That's a problem but it's not this problem. Not nearly. Folks glancing at the headline need to know what the real problem is.
The real problem is a GOP problem. They have people in government who don't believe in government, who want to bring down government, who want to shrink it and (their words) kill it in the cradle. It's their final solution after 30 years of Reaganesque anti-government pronouncements. We're already here.
Welcome to the jungle. Welcome to hard times.
Quote of the Day
“In modern American politics, being the right kind of ignorant and entertainingly crazy is like having a big right hand in boxing; you've always got a puncher's chance. And [Michele] Bachmann is exactly the right kind of completely batshit crazy. Not medically crazy, not talking-to-herself-on-the-subway crazy, but grandiose crazy, late-stage Kim Jong-Il crazy — crazy in the sense that she's living completely inside her own mind, frenetically pacing the hallways of a vast sand castle she's built in there, unable to meaningfully communicate with the human beings on the other side of the moat, who are all presumed to be enemies.”
--Matt Taibbi, “Michele Bachmann's Holy War,” in the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine
Al Qaeda's New Leader
“In [Ayman al-]Zawahiri's hands, al-Jihad had splintered into angry and homeless gangs. ... His disillusioned followers often reflected on the pronouncement, made during the prison years by the man Zawahiri betrayed, Major Essam al-Qamari, that some vital quality was missing in Zawahiri. Qamari was the one who had told him, 'If you are the member of any group, you cannot be the leader.' that now sounded like a prophecy.”
—from page 246 of Lawrence Wright's much-recommended book, “The Looming Tower,” on one of the low points for Ayman al-Zawahri, the former leader of al-Jihad, and current leader of al-Qaeda. The Christian Science Monitor agrees about his lack of charisma.
This Wright paragraph, by the way, follows a horrific story of Egyptian intelligence drugging and sodomizing the thirteen-year-old son of a senior member of al-Jihad, then blackmailing him to spy on his father, then recruiting another boy, a friend, for the same purpose. When the two boys were discovered, Zawahiri convened a Sharia court, forced the boys to strip to determine if they had attained puberty, and, since they had, and so were officially men, had them convicted of sodomy, treason and attempted murder. “Zawahiri had the boys shot,” Wright writes. “To make sure he got his point across, he videotaped their confessions and their executions, and distributed the tapes as an example to others who might betray the organization.”
Quote of the Day
“You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn't black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing.
”You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, fuck it, I don't care what you think. I'm trying to do the right thing.
“I'm tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I'm trying to do the right thing, and that's where I'm going with this.”
--State Sen. Roy McDonald (R-Saratoga), in The New York Daily News, on why he'll vote to legalize gay marriage in New York.
Bumper Stickers Seen Driving From Seattle, Wa. to Bodega, Ca.
WHY IS THERE ALWAYS MONEY FOR WAR BUT NOT FOR EDUCATION?
FOLLOW ME TO DRIVE-THRU FEED
GOD DANCED THE DAY YOU WERE BORN
MY OTHER CAR IS A DRAGON BOAT
LAND OF THE FREE/ BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE
ARNOLD DON'T SURF
Patricia, Dairy Queen, and Hwy 101 during a rare sunny moment on our trip.
Humphrey, at 100, is Still the Man; Nixon Still Goes in the Garbage Can
There's a nice Op-Ed in the New York Times by Rick Perlstein, author of “Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America,” on the forgotten liberal, Hubert H. Humphrey, former Mayor of Minneapolis, Senator from the great state of Minnesota, and a man for whom a downtown stadium was named. It's now called Mall of America Field. So it goes.
Humphrey was born 100 years ago today and Perlstein reminds those who need reminding that he helped turn the Democratic Party toward civil rights in a 1948 speech at the Democratic Convention. Humphrey said:
To those who say this civil rights program is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.
A friend on Facebook also gave us this HHH quote:
It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
One of his friends added this comment, which made me smile:
I was at a dinner once when the speaker said, “We can't just throw money at problems.” Unfortunately for him, Hubert was in the audience. He stood up and said, “What, then, is money for, if not to throw at problems?” I miss him.
He was abused by LBJ, but we know that. Is that LBJ's greatest legacy? Not the Vietnam War, not the Great Society, but abusing his vice-president so much that it paved the way for Nixon and dirty tricks.
Not in our household in south Minneapolis, by the way. My father, a fierce Democrat, once recounted in a letter to his father, a Danish immigrant who voted Republican, some ditty my brother and I had picked up in the schoolyard and recited at the dinner table back home:
He's our man!
In the garbage can!
My political awakening. I was 5. And not wrong.
The Humphrey statue outside the Hennepin County Government Center in downtown Minneapolis. Life-sized, like the man himself.
Quote of the Day
“This spring, Obama officials often expressed impatience with questions about theory or about the elusive quest for an Obama doctrine. One senior Administration official reminded me what the former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan said when asked what was likely to set the course of his government: 'Events, dear boy, events.'”
-- from “The Consequentialist: How the Arab Spring remade Obama's foreign policy” by Ryan Lizza in the May 2, 2011 New Yorker. Amusingly, Lizza's last graf begins thus: “Nonetheless, Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine.” Oh, Ryan. Read the whole thing here.
Osama + Arnold
Michiko Kakutani, New York Times, surveying the books about Osama bin Laden:
As for the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, most of these books agree that it was a terrible misstep that played into Bin Laden’s hands, fueling Qaeda recruitment efforts and diverting critical military and intelligence resources away from Afghanistan, which in turn led to the resurgence there of the Taliban. Peter L. Bergen’s new book, “The Longest War,” provides a devastating indictment of the Bush administration on many levels, from its failure to heed warnings about a terrorist threat, to its determination to conduct the war in Afghanistan on the cheap, to its costly, unnecessary and inept occupation of Iraq.
Both “The Longest War” and Lawrence Wright’s “Looming Tower” give readers a visceral sense of what day-to-day life was like in Qaeda training camps. Mr. Wright, noting that Bin Laden was not opposed to the United States because of its culture or ideas but because of its political and military actions in the Islamic world, observes that Qaeda trainees often watched Hollywood thrillers at night ( Arnold Schwarzenegger movies were particular favorites) in an effort to gather tactical tips.
My History of the U-S-A Chant: With a Benediction from Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld
I'm not much of a fan of chants. On the left we have this old chestnut: “What do we want? X! When do we want it? NOW!”
On the right there's “USA! USA!”
It didn't used to belong to the right. In the winter of 1980 it belonged to all of us, all of the new hockey fans around the country watching a team of college kids beat the best players in the world, a Soviet machine who had dominated everybody, including U.S. professionals. The Olympics were imbalanced back then, restricted, as they were, to amateurs, to non-professionals, when non-capitalist societies had nothing but. Their players were state-sponsored non-professionals, trained since infancy, drilled daily, while ours were college kids: Mike from Minneapolis and Mark from Madison and Mike again from Wintrop, Mass., and Neal from northern Minnesota. Guys. As in: Hey, why don't you guys get together and play some games?
I'd followed their run through the Winter Games peripherally but was assuming the worst when, flipping channels one Friday night (literally: hand on the knob, kids), I came across a newsbrief informing us that the U.S. hockey team had beaten the Russians. Immediately I flipped back to the Olympics, to the tape-delayed game, just in time to see Mark Johnson (from Madison) slide between two defenders and flip it in the goal with one second left in the first period to tie it, 2-2. Holy crap! We win this? I watched the rest of the game on tenterhooks even though I knew its outcome, then went out into the night pumped beyond belief. It was an odd sensation. I'd grown up in unpatriotic times, when patriotism was the last refuge of squares rather than scoundrels. I'd watched the country fall apart militarily (Vietnam), politically (Watergate), economically (OPEC, stagflation). We had gas lines and hostages. Now we had this. What was this? It felt good. USA! USA!
Four years later the chant was already the province of louts. In the interim “USA Today” had been published, full of its dull news and patriotic charts, and capitalizing on the acronym “USA” as much as possible. Then we heard it all the time during the '84 Summer Games in Los Angeles, which the Soviet bloc, responding to our boycott of the 1980 Summer games in Moscow, boycotted. So we weren't going up against the eastern bloc's professional non-professionals; we were going up against ... Trinidad and Tobago. We weren't underdogs anymore, we were overdogs, beating our chests and reveling in our expected triumphs. Why chant for that? You'd hear it on the campaign trail, too. Ronald Reagan would reference the Olympics and get the chant going. Eventually the chant became his. And theirs. It turned my stomach.
I thought Homer Simpson killed it in 1993. I really did. There was an episode of “The Simpsons” in which Homer and Marge, driving to a parent-teacher conference, argue over who gets Lisa's teacher (an easy gig) and who gets Bart's (trouble). Homer, who had Lisa's teacher the previous year, whines and wheedles his way into getting Lisa's teacher again, and when Marge finally capitulates he does this:
Brilliant, I thought. That's that. They'll never be able to use it again.
Wrong. Too many scoundrels in this country. Too many louts. Now we use it to cheer on death rather than college kids.
I don't know if there is a proper response to bin Laden's death. Mine is, as I wrote yesterday, muted. I'm glad he's gone, glad he was killed in the way he was killed, applaud the men who did it; but I assume someone somewhere will take his place.
I suppose the response closest to mine comes, ironically, from the website of David Frum, the right-wing originator of the phrase “Axis of Evil,” written by Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, a man of God 11 years my junior, in a piece entitled “Is it Wrong to Feel Joy at Bin Laden's Death?” Rabbi Herzfeld writes:
First there is recognition that even when our enemy falls, this does not signal an end to all our troubles. Just because one enemy or one army or one threat has been removed does not mean we are entirely safe.
Second, we must acknowledge that the destruction of the enemy did not necessarily arise from our own merits. We are perhaps not worthy of the good fortune that we have received and so we do not want to tempt God, as it were, or remind the Angel of Death of our own defects.
At the same time, I can't admonish those who have the impulse to chant “USA! USA!” for the death of the man who perpetrated this. Herzfeld again:
The Talmud tells us that “God does not rejoice with the fall of the wicked.” As the rabbinic teaching goes, as the Children of Israel were crossing the sea and the army of Pharaoh was drowning, God rebuked the angels for showing excessive joy.
The chanters are in good company. It's the impulse even of the angels.
Osama's Death Certificate
In June 1989 I was 26 years old, recently returned from a year in Taiwan, and driving around at night with some friends in an unfamiliar warehouse district north of downtown Minneapolis when the news came on the radio: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Supreme Leader of Iran, was dead at the age of 86. We were a fairly liberal group in a very liberal city but a spontaneous cheer went up in that car. Khomeini had been a thorn in our country's side for 10 years, we'd been hearing about him for 10 years, and it was nice to know we wouldn't be hearing about him much anymore. A minute later we sobered up. It felt classless, cheering for death.
Last night Patricia and I had some friends over for Sunday Movie Night. We used to do this fairly often but got off course this winter; but some of our members, who've been through hellacious springs, needed it again, so we gathered in our living room for homemade pasta and wine and salad, to watch Martin Scorsese's “Goodfellas.” Afterwards, before going to bed, I checked my email and received one from Ward, the man who made the homemade pasta:
FW: BREAKING NEWS: An AP source says Osama bin Laden is dead
See what we miss watching movies?
I immediately went to the New York Times site for confirmation, then Andrew Sullivan to read his thoughts, then Salon to read their headlines (which were already aftermath headlines; “And now what?” headlines). I looked up Abbottabad on Google maps. Finally I went to Facebook. “Oh right, Facebook,” I thought. I scrolled backwards to see who posted the news first. It was a friend from Delaware who referenced, obliquely, how happy Wolfie B. had made her with “those five words.” Two people had already posted this photo, which made me smile, since it encapsulated the seriousness of one side of our political debate versus the decided lack of seriousness on the other:
Someone wrote “The world feels better tonight.” Another: “I wish I had some fireworks to set off,” to which her friend, our mutual friend, replied, “I just heard one go off in my neighborhood.” People were gathering at the White House, and in Times Square, to cheer. A local journalist admonished his readers: “I hope people (esp. liberals) don't overthink this. Bin Laden dead is a good thing.” A movie critic wrote, “If you're in Times Square in a Navy uniform tonight and don't kiss a nurse, you have no sense of history. And no game.”
There were also the usual status updates about weekend trips, Sunday concerts, and funny things the child said.
Despite the wine, I stayed sober. I didn't disagree with the local journalist—“Bin Laden dead is a good thing”—I just knew the world wasn't much of a changed thing. Bin Laden has been a thorn in our country's side for 10 years, and it was nice to know he was gone, but there will be others, because there are always others. I simply hope he was the worst of it. In this way, and perhaps only this way, Osama bin Laden and I were in accord. He wished to be the western world's greatest enemy for the 21st century, and I sincerely hope, when the century's history is written, he's gotten that wish.
- Today's front pages via Newseum
- David Remnick on Obama vs. Osama
- Also from the New Yorker: What did Pakistan know and when did they know it?
- Via NPR: The Pakistani who tweeted the news without realizing it
- David Weigel on the gathering outside the White House
- ABC News footage of the bin Laden compound
- One more time: Andrew Sullivan liveblogs the news of the death of Osama bin Laden
Thomas Geoghegan: Future Supreme Court Nominee?
“Memo to President Obama: How about appointing [labor lawyer Thomas] Geoghegan (whom you surely know, or know of, from his quiet heroics on behalf of working folk in Chicago) to the federal bench, preferably the Supreme Court? He’s eminently qualified. He writes prose that can be read for pleasure. He thinks clearly and creatively. He even ran for dogcatcher once. Admittedly, he’s not one of your chronically cautious “centrists,” but isn’t it about time the Court had a serious (and funny) counterweight to the charmless right-wing dittoheads who now dominate it and who are so politically and morally insensible that they cannot distinguish between a Fortune 500 corporation and a human being?”
--Hendrik Hertzberg in “Mr. Justice Geoghegan, Dissenting,” on The New Yorker Web site.
I'm not smart enough to say who does or doesn't belong on the USSC, but I interviewed Mr. Geoghegan for Illinois Super Lawyers a few years back—about running for U.S. Congress, about why the left seems so beaten down in this country, about why productivity goes up and real wages don't—and he's impressive. Put it this way: I'd certainly like to hear his voice, his point of view, more often in national discussions than, as Hertzberg says above, the usual charmless dittoheads. I asked him, for example, what stayed with him about his campaign for Rahm Emanuel's seat and he said: “I met a lot of elderly people living alone who don’t have enough to live on.” Please send that sentence to Paul Ryan and John Boehner, symptomatic of the unsympathetic right.
Quote of the Day
“With this budget deal, America's brief flirtation with milquetoast progressivism comes to an end.”
Quote of the Day
“I'm not saying that our debt problem isn't serious and that adjustments to entitlements shouldn't be part of of the solution. But the hard question that Paul Ryan's hucksterism avoids is this: what is government's role in caring for its most vulnerable citizens?”
Quote of the Day
“If it had been my call, I wouldn't have gone into Libya. But the reason I voted for Obama in 2008 is because I trust his judgment. And not in any merely abstract way, either: I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I'd literally trust his judgment over my own. I think he's smarter than me, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted. I voted for him because I trust him, and I still do.
”For now, anyway. But I wouldn't have intervened in Libya and he did. I sure hope his judgment really does turn out to have been better than mine.“
—Kevin Drum, ”Obama, Libya and Me," in Mother Jones
Quote of the Day
“Well, now there are two Minnesotans in the 2012 race, despite the fact that the Constitution strictly states that no Minnesotan will ever reach office higher than vice president. Michele Bachmann, three-term congresswoman with no accomplishments beyond an ability to enrage Chris Matthews, will form an exploratory committee, according to CNN.”
--Alex Pareene, “Michele Bachmann is running for president now, sigh,” on Salon.com
Plus Ca Change...
I was reminded of the JFK “Wanted for Treason” poster, popular in Texas in the early 1960s, while watching the documentary “Oswald's Ghost” the other night, then easily found the Obama poster, one of the milder anti-Obama propaganda pieces out there, via Google. I've said it before: In 50 years, the extreme right in this country has managed to change exactly one letter. They've gone from Birchers to Birthers.
The content of the above posters may be the same but the form of each bears scrutiny. In the early '60s, it was enough to convict Pres. Kennedy through a modern, FBI prism. Maybe the extreme right now views the FBI, a government organization, as equally suspect, so they have to delve even deeper into American history and mythology to make their case. They need to see themselves as cowboys, not knowing the derivation of cowboys. They're forced to rely on Hollywood mythmaking, even as they despise Hollywood. They think they're protecting America when they represent the worst of America.
Movie Review: “Oswald's Ghost” (2007)
WARNING: MAGIC SPOILERS
Norman Mailer gives us the title. “Oswald is the ghost that lays over American life,” he says, with his usual twinkle, near the end of this well-made documentary. “What is abominable and maddening about ghosts is you never know the answer. Is it this or is it that? You can’t know because the ghost isn’t telling you.”
Yet “Oswald’s Ghost” tells us plenty—because it’s less conspiracy theory, or conspiracy debunker, than conspiracy history. It takes us chronologically, and cleanly, through events, and delves into why we began to believe there was a cover-up, and what it means that we now believe there was a cover-up, and how we now act as a result. It sees the Kennedy assassination as the great dividing point of the American century, the break from which we never recovered. John F. Kennedy began his administration with the pro-government rhetoric of his inaugural—“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”—and yet the mystery surrounding his assassination, along with the lies of Vietnam and Watergate, set the stage for the anti-government rhetoric of Ronald Reagan and all of his acolytes, from which we still haven’t recovered.
Is there a story of the last 50 years that’s been told more often than the Kennedy assassination? Yet filmmaker Robert Stone, working for PBS and “The American Experience,” finds footage, and photos, I’ve never seen before. Here’s Oswald in the Dallas police station professing his innocence so matter-of-factly that I began to believe him:
Oswald (in glare of TV lights): I'd like some legal representation, but these police officers have not allowed me to have any. I don't know what this is all about.
Reporter: Did you kill the president?
Oswald: No, sir, I didn't. People keep asking me that. ... They are taking me in because of the fact that I lived in the Soviet Union. I'm just a patsy.
One suddenly wonders: Hey, how did they trace him to the murder of Officer Tippit? How did they find him in that Dallas movie theater? How did they make him the focal point of the worst American murder of the 20th century?
Newsman: Was this the man that you believed killed President Kennedy?
Dallas police: I think we have the right man.
Dan Rather: Confusion reigned inside the Dallas police station.
Abraham Zapruder didn’t help. Instead of showing his film to the American people, he hired a lawyer and sold the rights to Life magazine, which printed individual frames. The film itself wouldn’t be shown on television until 1975.
Oswald’s mother didn’t help. She said her son was being framed, which one expects, but she also said her son was a government agent, which raised spectres.
Jack Ruby certainly didn’t help.
Did Mark Lane? The New York lawyer became the first man to openly question whether Oswald acted alone, in a December 1963 article in The National Guardian entitled “Lane’s defense brief for Oswald.”
Did the Warren Commission? Shouldn’t its hearings have been public? Shouldn’t we have taken our time with the matter instead of rushing out a verdict before the 1964 elections?
Yet, at the time, most Americans accepted the lone-gunman theory. That would quickly change as conspiracy books began appearing, then proliferating, two and three years later: First Lane’s “Rush to Judgment,” then Edward Jay Epstein’s “Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth.” Then it was off to the races.
Initially outsiders were blamed. It was Castro or the KGB. It was the South Vietnamese government, responding to the Diem assassination. Eventually we began blaming ourselves. It was some rogue CIA element. It was some right-wing element that wanted to stay in Vietnam just as JFK was getting ready to pull us out. “And like all those theories,” Mailer says, “it had a certainly plausibility and a depressing lack of proof.”
That didn’t stop New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison, wild-eyed and bug-eyed, and the worst of the conpiratorialists, who went after Clay Shaw, a prominent, closeted businessman. Stone (Robert, not Oliver) includes a fascinating 1967 news report critical of Garrison:
Garrison’s investigation has seemed to concentrate on homosexuals. That of course is an old police trick, and homosexuals have been a particular target of Garrison’s over the years. Even members of his staff have been privately critical of his emphasis on men whose deviation makes them vulnerable.
1968 didn’t help. Both MLK and RFK were assassinated by “lone gunmen.” Both were progressives. How could it not be conspiracy? (But did it have to lead to the inaninities of “The Parallax View”?)
Post-Watergate, the Church Committee detailed all of those early 1960s CIA assassinations of foreign leaders. Was Malcolm X more right than he knew? Was the JFK assassination a case of the chickens coming home to roost?
It’s the Ruby factor that’s always bugged me. He had mob ties. He was a strip-club owner. Yet he killed Oswald, effectively silencing him, out of respect for Jackie? Out of sudden anger? Tie that with the difficulty of Oswald's shot, of squeezing three bullets out of the 6.5 mm Carcano rifle in the time allotted, and of the whole back-and-to-the-left thing, with that final shot, the kill shot, looking, in the Zapruder film, like it’s blasting him from the front, well, you know, maybe there was something to it.
It's Jack Ruby's dog who pushes us back from the brink. Oswald was scheduled to be moved at 10:00 a.m. that Sunday morning. Here’s Hugh Aynesworth, a Dallas reporter:
Ruby slept 'til probably 9:30 or 9:20 something of that sort, and then he drives with his dog down to the Western Union and sent a telegram at 11:17 that morning. Came out and he looked one block up and he saw the crowd there at the police department. Jack Ruby was always on the scene of action, whether it be a fire, whether it be a raid, whether it be a parade, whatever. He had to be there. And he knew some of those cops. The fact that he left the dog in the car indicates to me that he thought he was going down to send a telegram and go back home. He took that little dog everywhere with him.
Few have assumed conspiracy longer and more vocally than Norman Mailer—yet even he comes around. “The internal evidence just wasn't there,” he says. “There were too many odd moments that just didn't add up.” Instead he focuses on Oswald’s mindset:
I think what Oswald saw was that if he committed the crime, if he assassinated Kennedy and he got away with it, then he would have an inner power that no one could ever come near. And, if he was caught, well then, he was quite articulate, he would have one of the greatest trials in America's history, if not the greatest, and he would explain all of his political ideas. He would become world famous and might have an immense effect upon history ...
When he shot Tippit, I think at that point he knew he was doomed because he could no longer make the great speech. If you shoot a policeman forget it, you're a punk. And so after he was caught he did nothing but protest his innocence and say, “I'm a patsy.”
“If you shoot a policeman, forget it, you're a punk.”
“This is not a whodunnit,” says Stone (Robert, not Oliver) in a DVD special features interview. “This is what a whodunnit has done to us.” He adds: “Conspiracy theory is part of the human condition; and it always will be.” Think of the doc as one Stone to correct another.
Is conspiracy the new American religion? The notion that we exist as small nothings for a short span of time in a cosmic eternity is unbearable, and thus we construct meaning out of it. The notion that this small nothing brought down the most powerful, glamorous man in the world is unbearable, and thus we construct meaning out of it. It was our enemies—foreign or domestic. It was the left or right. It was anything—please, God, let it be anything—other than little Lee Harvey Oswald.
“[George] Washington was a very good President, and an unhappy one. Distraught by growing factionalism within and outside his Administration, especially by the squabbling of Hamilton and Jefferson and the rise of a Jeffersonian opposition, he served another term only reluctantly. His second Inaugural Address was just a hundred and thirty-five words long; he said, more or less, Please, I’m doing my best. In 1796, in his enduringly eloquent Farewell Address (written by Madison and Hamilton), he cautioned the American people about party rancor: 'The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.' And then he went back to Mount Vernon. He freed his slaves in his will, possibly hoping that this, too, would set a precedent. It did not.”
--Jill Lepore in her article, “His Highness: George Washington scales new heights” in The New Yorker. Much recommended.
The Non-Partisan President
I first heard Barack Obama speak in April 2006 at the annual Democratic Farm Labor Party convention in downtown Minneapolis. At the time I was working for Minnesota Law & Politics, which was part of Key Pro Media, which was owned by Vance Opperman, and since Opperman was a major donor to the DFL we had a pretty good table for the show. An embarrassingly good table. During appetizers, I looked around and saw famous faces. Hey, there's Mayor Ryback. Behind me. Hey, there's Walter Mondale. Behind me. Apologies, Mr. Vice-President. Hope I'm not obscuring your view.
The speech Sen. Obama gave that night was the speech he gave often in 2006, and which became the prologue to his second book, “The Audacity of Hope.” Here's a sample:
You don't need a poll to know that the vast majority of Americans—Republican, Democrat, and independent—are weary of the dead zone that politics has become, in which narrow interests vie for advantage and ideological minorities seek to impose their own versions of absolute truth. Whether we're from red states or blue states, we feel in our gut the lack of honesty, rigor and common sense in our policy debates, and dislike what appears to be a contentious menu of false or cramped choices.
The guy was talking my language. He was articulating the great unsaid in American politics. He was offering a third way.
Now to the present. I have some friends on the left who are outraged, outraged by the tax deal cut earlier this month, which basically boils down to: We'll extend the Bush tax cuts even for the richest 2% and you give us extended unemployment benefits. They see it as a gigantic betrayal. They fill their status updates on Facebook with invective.
Now I'm someone who thinks the wealthiest people in this country should be be taxed at a 50% rate (as they were for most of the Reagan years), or maybe at a 70% rate (as in the '70s). Tea Partiers seem to idolize the stability of the 1950s ... when the tax rate for the richest people in the country was more than 90%. I wouldn't go that far but wouldn't mind scaring some people with it.
Even so, I don't see the deal as a great betrayal. The opposite. I know this is who Pres. Obama is. I know this is the reason he appealed to me in the first place. But I am amused as the cries of the left recede and the cries of the right crescendo. I'm with Andrew Sullivan here:
I think of Frank Rich and Paul Krugman as brilliant men, but profoundly resistant to the core rationale of the Obama presidency (and the underlying dynamic of its accumulating success). That rationale is an attempt to move past the paradigms of the boomer years to a pragmatic, liberal reformism that takes America as it is, while trying to make it more of what it can be. Now, there's little doubt that in contrast to recent decades, Obama has nudged the direction leftward - re-regulating Wall Street after the catastrophe, setting up universal health insurance through the private sector, recalibrating America's role in the world from preachy bully to hegemonic facilitator. But throughout he has tried, as his partisan critics have complained, not to be a partisan president, to recall, as he put it in that recent press conference, that this is a diverse country, that is is time we had a president who does not repel or disparage or ignore those who voted against him or those who have grown to despise him. ... He really is trying to be what he promised: president of the red states as well as the blue states. And a president who gets shit done.
The results after two years: universal health insurance, the rescue of Detroit, the avoidance of a Second Great Depression, big gains in private sector growth and productivity, three stimulus packages (if you count QE2), big public investments in transport and green infrastructure, the near-complete isolation of Iran, the very public exposure of Israeli intransigence and extremism, a reset with Russia (plus a new START), big drops in illegal immigration and major gains in enforcement, a South Korea free trade pact, the end of torture, and a debt commission that has put fiscal reform squarely back on the national agenda. Oh, and of yesterday, the signature civil rights achievement of ending the military's ban on openly gay servicemembers.
In some ways, and despite his famous press conference, I think the least surprised person by all the anguish and disappointment on the left is Pres. Obama himself, since, in “The Audacity of Hope,” he anticipated it:
Undoubtedly, some of these views will get me in trouble. I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views. As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them.
How's that hopey-changey thing working out for us? Slow and steady.
Packer on W.
In the latest issue of The New Yorker, George Packer, who spent all that time in Iraq thanks to George W. Bush, goes over W.'s memoir and comes up with a telling but not surprising question: Why does a book called “Decision Points” tell us so little about how the author's decisions were made? But of course this tells us almost everything we need to know about George W. Bush (but knew already).
Some excerpts from Packer's review:
- There are hardly any decision points at all. The path to each decision is so short and irresistible, more like an electric pulse than like a weighing of options, that the reader is hard-pressed to explain what happened. Suddenly, it’s over, and there’s no looking back.
- Here is another feature of the non-decision: once his own belief became known to him, Bush immediately caricatured opposing views and impugned the motives of those who held them.
- For Bush, making decisions is an identity question: Who am I? The answer turns Presidential decisions into foregone conclusions: I am someone who believes in the dignity of life, I am the protector of the American people, I am a loyal boss, I am a good man who cares about other people, I am the calcium in the backbone. This sense of conviction made Bush a better candidate than the two Democrats he was fortunate to have as opponents in his Presidential campaigns. But real decisions, which demand the weighing of compelling contrary arguments and often present a choice between bad options, were psychologically intolerable to the Decider. They confused the identity question.
- For him, the [Iraq] war remains “eternally right,” a success with unfortunate footnotes. His decisions, he still believes, made America safer, gave Iraqis hope, and changed the future of the Middle East for the better. Of these three claims, only one is true—the second—and it’s a truth steeped in tragedy.
Then there's this devastating close:
- Bush ends “Decision Points” with the sanguine thought that history’s verdict on his Presidency will come only after his death. During his years in office, two wars turned into needless disasters, and the freedom agenda created such deep cynicism around the world that the word itself was spoiled. In America, the gap between the rich few and the vast majority widened dramatically, contributing to a historic financial crisis and an ongoing recession; the poisoning of the atmosphere continued unabated; and the Constitution had less and less say over the exercise of executive power. Whatever the judgments of historians, these will remain foregone conclusions.
FOX News: Accusing Others of Its Own Crimes
What must it be like to be Roger Ailes? To conduct the national discussion as if it were a symphony? To get people to talk about what you want them to talk about. To get them to question what you want them to question (Pres. Obama, NPR, ACORN, “the ground-zero mosque,” Woodrow Wilson) and get them to accept what you want them to accept (Pres. Bush, WMD, Sarah Palin, the Bush tax cuts).
That’s a lot of power.
But apparently the FOX-News channel isn't enough of a bully pulpit for him. So he spouted off yesterday to The Daily Beast about NPR, saying the following:
“They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view.”
He’s since apologized. “Apologized.” He apologized to the Anti-Defamation League, with whom he now has a bit of a relationship, ever since one of his more popular stars, Glenn Beck, earlier this month, spun George Soros' attempts to pass as a gentile in Nazi-occupied Europe as if they were Nazi war crimes. But he didn't apologize to NPR. In fact, he continued to attack NPR in his apology:
“I’m writing this just to let you know some background but also to apologize for using ‘Nazi’ when in my now considered opinion, ‘nasty, inflexible bigot’ would have worked better.“
Ailes is a fascinating man. If he weren't upending democracy and ruining this country, he might be amusing.
Look again at what he says about NPR:
These guys don’t want any other point of view.
Or in the apology:
Nasty, inflexibile bigot.
Who does this remind you of?
There’s a documentary out now called “A Film Unfinished,” which is one of the best movies of the year. Is it playing somewhere near you? Can you stream it? PPV it? Do so.
The background: At the end of World War II, a 60-minute, silent documentary was found in the German archives on Jewish life in the Warsaw ghetto in the months before the ghetto was liquidated and its inhabitants shipped off to the extermination camps of Treblinka. The question arise: Why document what you're about to destroy? And why stage scenes of better-off Jews going about their day? A woman puts on lipstick in her vanity mirror, another buys goods at the butcher, couples dine out. Initially one thinks the Nazis are showcasing comfortable people to refute claims of horrible conditions. Except they also showcase the horrible conditions. We see emaciated people with shaved heads. We see children in rags. We see a corpse every 100 meters. The Nazis filmed it all. Why?
The answer is juxtaposition. Here’s take 1, take 2, take 3 of a well-off woman buying meat at the butcher while children in rags starve outside. Here’s take 1, take 2, take 3 of sated couples leaving a restaurant and ignoring the emaciated woman in rags begging for a handout. This juxtaposition is justification. The Nazis are attempting to showcase a race of people so indifferent to the suffering of others that they didn’t deserve to live. They are documenting an excuse for extermination.
Once one realizes this one finally understands the true meaning of propaganda. It is the powerful blaming the powerless for the crimes of the powerful. The Nazis herded 600,000 Jews into a single zone of Warsaw. They gave them no way to live. They let them starve. They let them die by the hundreds of thousands. Then they staged scenes of Jewish indifference to the suffering of others.
There is, of course, no modern equivalent of the Nazis. But there is modern propaganda. There is even modern propaganda is this most virulent form: the powerful blaming the powerless for the crimes of the powerful.
Example: class warfare.
You hear that phrase all the time on FOX. It may be the only place you hear it. And you hear it lately for the following reason: the Bush tax cuts are set to expire on Jan. 1, 2011. Pres. Obama wants to preserve the middle-class portion of the tax cut and allow the tax cut for the wealthiest one percent to expire. The tax rate for the wealthiest Americans will zoom from 35% all the way up to 39%. On FOX-News, this is considered class warfare. Here's an example of that language. Here's another. OK, here's a bunch of them.
But who's really conducting class warfare? I would argue it's the rich, the powerful, who are accusing the poor and middle class, or the powerless, of what the rich are in fact doing. Because the rich can't deal with a 39-percent tax rate.
Question: What was the top tax rate during most of the Reagan years? 50 percent.
Question: What was the top tax rate during the Eisenhower years? 91 percent.
It's all here.
So the question shouldn't be: ”Should we roll back the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans to a 39-percent rate?“ The question should be: ”Should we tax the richest Americans at a 50 percent rate?"
The right, and FOX-News, keep doing this. It's not always powerful/powerless—Pres. Obama isn't powerless, for example, and the Democratic party shouldn't be powerless—but FOX's attacks almost always have that vibe. It's FOX-News accusing others of its own crimes.
These guys don’t want any other point of view.
Here he is on Jon Stewart:
“He loves polarization. He depends on it. If liberals and conservatives are all getting along, how good would that show be? It’d be a bomb.”
He's describing himself and his own network. Again and again and again.
Pay attention. That's all. Just pay fucking attention.
Hertzberg on the Midterms
Hendrik Hertzberg's column in the latest New Yorker, about the midterms, is a must-read.
He alludes to why the Republicans should be angry with, rather than beholden to, the Tea Party:
The Democrats retained their Senate majority, now much reduced, only by the grace of the Tea Party, which, in Colorado, Delaware, and Nevada, saddled Republicans with nominees so weighted with extremism and general bizarreness that they sank beneath the wave so many others rode.
In 2008, when 130 million people cast votes in the Presidential election, 120 million took the trouble to vote for a representative in Congress. In 2010, 75 million did so—45 million fewer, a huge drop-off. The members of this year’s truncated electorate were also whiter, markedly older, and more habitually Republican: if the franchise had been limited to them two years ago, last week’s exit polls suggest, John McCain would be President today.
He comes up with a better metaphor (big surprise) than the Dems' “they drove it in the ditch/we're pushing it out”:
By the time the flames [from the economic firestorm] reached their height, the arsonists had slunk off, and only the firemen were left for people to take out their ire on.
Best, there's this graf, on the “cognitive dissonance” of the election—or, in layman's terms, the reason why it was so fucking annoying:
Frightened by joblessness, “the American people” rewarded the party that not only opposed the stimulus but also blocked the extension of unemployment benefits. Alarmed by a ballooning national debt, they rewarded the party that not only transformed budget surpluses into budget deficits but also proposes to inflate the debt by hundreds of billions with a permanent tax cut for the least needy two per cent. Frustrated by what they see as inaction, they rewarded the party that not only fought every effort to mitigate the crisis but also forced the watering down of whatever it couldn’t block.
But the scariest graf is the penultimate graf, on the problems the Dems had this election: proving a negative (things woulda been worse without the stimulus), delayed gratification (the health-care bill doesn't fully enact until 2014), good-for-the-goose, not-for-the-gander logic (citizens tighten belts while government goes on a spree). Then he gets into what he calls “public ignorance”:
An illuminating Bloomberg poll, taken the week before the election, found that some two-thirds of likely voters believed that, under Obama and the Democrats, middle-class taxes have gone up, the economy has shrunk, and the billions lent to banks under the Troubled Asset Relief Program are gone, never to be recovered. One might add to that list the public’s apparent conviction that illegal immigration is skyrocketing and that the health-care law will drive the deficit higher. Reality tells a different story.
He goes on to show that each of these things is not true, and, in the final graf, blames the Dems for not beating their chests enough. I agree, but also fault Hertzberg (and everyone) for not stating what this “public ignorance” truly is: the triumph of FOX-News, the Koch brothers, and a propaganda machine that went into 24/7 mode as soon as Barack Obama took the oath of office in January 2009, telling us it was time to “get to work.” The propagandists listened. They cared not a lick for the act of governing; they weren't interested in sorting through proposals to see which were the best means of extracting us from the mess we were in; they were only interested in confusing the issues and demonizing opponents—often by accusing those opponents of the very things that the propagandists themselves were guilty of.
We need to call this what it is: propaganda. You don't need totalitarian control of the government, or the media, to effectively propagandize. You just need money, and a forum, and a message that appeals to our worst instincts.
The American people have been effectively propagandized. It can happen here. It has.
Why The Tea Party Hates George Washington
Here's the long view, courtesy of Joseph J. Ellis' Pulitzer-Prize-winning “Founding Brothers,” published in 2000:
There are two long-established ways to tell the story [of the founding of the republic in 1787]...
Mercy Otis Warren's History of the American Revolution (1805) defined the “pure republicanism” interpretation, which was also the version embraced by the Republican party and therefore later called “the Jeffersonian interpretation.” It depicts the American Revolution as a liberation movement, a clean break not just from English domination but also from the historic corruptions of European monarchy and aristocracy. The ascendance of the Federalists to power in the 1790s thus becomes a hostile takeover of the Revolution by corrupt courtiers and moneymen (Hamilton is the chief culprit), which is eventually defeated and the true spirit of the Revolution recovered by the triumph of the Republicans in the elections of 1800. The core revolutionary principle according to this interpretive tradition is individual liberty. It has radical and, in modern terms, libertarian implications, because it regards any accommodation of personal freedom to governmental discipline as dangerous. In its more extreme forms it is a recipe for anarchy, and its attitude toward any energetic expression of centralized political power can assume paranoid proportions.
The alternative interpretation was first given its fullest articulation by John Marshall in his massive five-volume The Life of George Washington (1804-18O7). It sees the American Revolution as an incipient national movement with deep, if latent, origins in the colonial era. The constitutional settlement of 1787-1788 thus becomes the natural fulfillment of the Revolution and the leaders of the Federalist party in the 1790s—Adams, Hamilton, and, most significantly, Washington—as the true heirs of the revolutionary legacy. (Jefferson is the chief culprit.) The core revolutionary principle in this view is collectivistic rather than individualistic, for it sees the true spirit of '76 as the virtuous surrender of personal, state, and sectional interests to the larger purpose: of American nationhood, first embodied in the Continental Army and later in the newly established federal government. It has conservative but also protosocialistic implications, because it does not regard the individual as the sovereign unit in the political equation and is more comfortable with governmental discipline as a focusing and channeling device for national development. In its more extreme forms it relegates personal rights and liberties to the higher authority of the state, which is “us” and not “them,” and it therefore has both communal and despotic implications.
It is truly humbling, perhaps even dispiriting, to realize that the historical debate over the revolutionary era and the early republic merely recapitulates the ideological debate conducted at the time, that historians have essentially been fighting the same battles, over and over again, that the members of the revolutionary generation fought originally among themselves.
When looked at through this prism, we get a sense of how fucked-up the current generation is.
The Jeffersonians in this equation are obviously the tea partiers, who are in the midst of an extreme, and paranoid, period. They view Pres. Obama, for example, who talks the language of cooperation, as a despot.
But the original Jeffersonians fought moneyed interests while the current Jeffersonians, the tea partiers, are bankrolled by those interests: The Koch brothers, the Citizens United decision, etc.
Moreover, if, in the 1790s, the debate was individual liberties (Jefferson) vs. American nationhood (Washington), the rhetoric on the right now equates individual liberties with American nationhood. At the least, the current Washingtonians, the Democrats, don't use the rhetoric of “America” as well as the current Jeffersonians, the Republicans. They haven't for some time.
Thus we have imbalance. The rhetoric and the money have gone over to the Republican side. It's a wonder the Democrats ever win at all. Or to quote a cinematic version of FDR:
“I often think of something Woodrow Wilson said to me. 'It is only once in a generation that people can be lifted above material things. That is why conservative government is in the saddle for two-thirds of the time.'”
Bush Offers Mea Culpa
- WTF has Pres. Obama done so far? Click here.
- My favorite sign from the Jon Stewart rally: “I support reasonable conclusions based on supported facts.”
- St. Louis Park's own Tommy Friedman, that old Iraq War supporter, worries about a know-nothing future.
- Bob Herbert on what has happened to the middle class? Not in the last two years, kids. In the last 30.
- Nate Silver, the 538 guy, predicts a divided Congress...but it could all go Republican.
- A practical definition of propaganda could be: “accusing others of your own crimes.” For more than a year the right has called the left “Fascists.” But I don't remember anyone on the left literally stomping heads.
- Imagine any Republican, any, being as articulate and open as Pres. Obama is with this “It gets better” message.
- No link here, but yesterday I kept seeing banner ads from “Freedom Club State PAC of Minnesota,” who apparently don't know I haven't lived there in three years, urging me to vote against Mark Dayton, and trotting out their favorite Republican candidate: Ronald Reagan. Love the new ideas they have. Love their new candidates.
- And who is the Freedom Club State PAC of Minnesota? White suburban businessmen. The kind who give “white,” “suburban” and “businessmen” bad names.
- Two years ago on election day, Michael Sokolove visited his hometown of Levittown, Penn., and found people both anxious for change and patient. Here's one former Vietnam Vet: “How long did it take Bush to get us into this mess? It’s a lot easier to screw things up than to make them better.” A shame this isn't the voice we're hearing these days.
- Again no link, just a promise. No depression. Tomorrow I'll either be relieved or ... really pissed off.
- Vote. Democrat.
Jon Stewart's Funny, But...
I finally saw the interview with Pres. Obama on “The Daily Show” the other night and thought the president continued to do what I want him to do. He explained, articulately, about the slow business of governing. I was happy at the end. I thought he came off well.
I should say “read,” in quotes, because I can only get so far into these things. Their assumptions are not my assumptions. Neither is Jon Stewart's, for that matter. He's had a lot of fun these past two years juxatposing the high rhetoric of politicking with the slow process of governing, but in doing so he comes off as a spoiled shit. He wants it, and he wants it his way, now. I'm a little tired of that attitude. Which increasingly seems to be the American attitude.
“The Daily Show” has it both ways. When the Obama administration plays politics, Stewart calls them on it—as he should. But when they don't play politics, when they tell uncomfortable truths, Stewart calls them on that, too. (E.g., “Dude, that's not the way you play the game.”) So “The Daily Show” wins either way. No matter what the Obama administration does, Stewart can make comedy out of it.
Listen to Milbank on the appearance:
Stewart, who struggled to suppress a laugh as Obama defended [Larry] Summers, turned out to be an able inquisitor on behalf of aggrieved liberals. He spoke for the millions who had been led to believe that Obama was some sort of a messianic figure. Obama has only himself to blame for their letdown. By raising expectations impossibly high, playing the transformational figure to Hillary Clinton's status-quo drone, he gave his followers an unrealistic hope.
A messianic figure? Who are these people? It's not me. Is it Milbank? Is it Stewart?
Again: Obama is doing what I want him to do. And he's doing it in the face of the strongest internal propaganda campaign a sitting president has had to endure (from the right), and dopey liberals, or at least the perception of dopey liberals, who wonder why he hasn't made all the bad things go away (from the left).
Here's more from the Post:
President Barack Obama barely cracked any jokes during an appearance Wednesday on “The Daily Show” despite host Jon Stewart's attempts to draw out the president's humorous side.
Is that criticism?
Look, I'm happy that Stewart is holding his rally to restore sanity and/or madness today. I think we need it. I think too many people are buying into too much right-wing propaganda. Plus, who doesn't need a laugh?
I'm just tired of Obama being criticized for being the only adult in the room at a time when we desperately need adults in the room. Not spoiled shits.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the “Just a Bunch of Guys” Theory of Al Qaeda
I've said it before: If you're going to pay for any magazine in this freebie-content world, particularly a general interest magazine, get The New Yorker. Their Sept. 13th issue is a case in point. Writer Terry McDermott give us a startlingly good, startlingly detailed profile of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the so-called mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, and the cause of much fear, in the U.S. press if not in the U.S., because of talk he would get his day in court in New York City. If McDermott's article isn't part of the conversation yet it's because it's not online, or it's only online in an abstract, which means it can't be copied and then disposed of. It also means you have to go get the magazine your own damn self.
The takeaway: We tend to think our enemies as united but they're not, any more than a Bush administration of Dick Cheney and Colin Powell was united, any more than the United States of America is united. We tend to think of Al Qaeda as an international terrorist organization when it may just be “a bunch of guys.” This, too: After nine years, we still don't know who our enemies are.
Insofar as we know Mohammed, we see him as a brilliant behind-the-scenes tactician and a resolute idealogue. As it turns out, he is earthy, slick in a way, but naive, and seemingly motivated as much by pathology as ideology. [Al Jazeera reporter Yosri] Fouda describes Mohammed's Arabic as crude and colloquial and his knowledge of Islamic texts as almost nonexistent. A journalist who observed Mohammed's apparearance at one of the Guantanamo hearings likened his voluble performance to that of a Pakistani Jackie Mason. A college classmate said that he was an eager participant in impromptu skits and plays. A man who knew him from a mosque in Doha talked about his quick wit and chatty, glad-handing style. He was an operator...
Mohammed's parents moved to Kuwait from Pakistan in the 1950s....[where he] was born on April 14, 1965... He and his nephews attended Fahaheel Secondary School... [He] was a superior student... He was also rebellious; he told interrogators that he and his nephew Abdul Basit Abdul Karim (later internationally known as Ramzi Yousef, the man behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center) once tore down the Kuwaiti flag from atop their schoolhouse...
In January 1984, Mohammed, travelling on a Pakistani passport, arrived in tiny, remote Murfreesboro, North Carolina, to attend Chowan College, a two-year school that was advertised abroad by Baptist missionaries... Arab students who were there at the time said they were the butt of jokes and harassment, in the anti Muslim era that followed the Iranian takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, in 1979. The local boys called them Abbie Dhabies... They were required, along with all the other students, to attend a weekly Christian chapel service... Mohammed developed a dislike for the U.S. in his time here. He told investigators that he had little contact with Americans in college, but found them to be debauched and racist...
[In] 1986, both he and his nephew graduated with engineering degrees. Mohammed returned home to Kuwait... unable to find work...
[During the Afghanistan War against the Soviet Union], Mohammed and his brother Abed went to work for Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, the leader of Ittihad e-Islami, one of the Afghan-refugee political parties headquartered in Peshawar [Pakistan]...
In 1991, [Mohammed's nephew] Basit got in touch with Abdul Hakim Murad, a fellow-Baluchi and a boyhood friend from Kuwait, who was then in the U.S., training as a pilot. Basit told him that he wanted to attack Israel, but thought it too difficult. He would attack America instead. He asked Murad to suggest potential Jewish targets in the United States... “I told him the World Trade Center,” Murad later told investigators...
In Karachi [Pakistan], Basit had introduced his pilot friend, Murad, to Mohammed... Mohammed interrogated Murad about flying. Murad, the licensed pilot, at one point suggested to Basit dive-bombing a plane into C.I.A. headquarters...
The National Security Council staff in the Clinton White House wanted to pursue Mohammed... The C.I.A. was noncommital. The Pentagon objected vigorously... Instead, the State Department tried to negotiate with the Qataris... By the time the team arrived, Mohammed was gone; someone had apparently warned him that the Americans were coming...
[Mohammed] didn't want to join Al Qaeda, he later told his interrogators, but merely sought resources to fund a spectacular attack against the United States....
Mohammed's initial proposal was to hijack a single airplane and crash it, as Abdul Murad had suggested, into C.I.A. headquarters. Bin Laden dismissed this target as inconsequential. So Mohammed proposed hijacking ten airlines in the United States, some on each coast. The plotters would crash nine of them, and Mohammed would triumphantly land the tenth, disembark, and give a speech explaining what he had done and why. Bin Laden thought that the plan was too complicated. It was not until late 1999 that he approved a somewhat less ambitious proposal: the 9/11 plan....
A Pakistani Jackie Mason
Three Winston Churchill Quotes to Use Against Conservatives Who Quote Winston Churchill
From Adam Gopnik's excellent essay, "Finest Hours: The making of Winston Churchill," in the August 30th issue of The New Yorker:
- The word ‘appeasement’ is not popular, but appeasement has its place in all policy, he said in 1950. “Make sure you put it in the right place. Appease the weak, defy the strong.” He argued that “appeasement from strength is magnanimous and noble and might be the surest and perhaps the only path to world peace.”
- This faith in government as the essential caretaker led him later to support the creation of a national health service, “in order to ensure that everybody in the country, irrespective of means, age, sex, or occupation, shall have equal opportunities to benefit from the best and most up-to-date medical and allied services available.”
- This habit of thinking about peoples and their fate in collective historical cycles, however archaic it might seem, gave him special insight into Hitler, who, in a Black Mass distortion, pictured the world in the same way. Both Churchill and Hitler were nineteenth-century Romantics, who believed in race and nation—in the Volksgeist, the folk spirit—as the guiding principle of history, filtered through the destinies of great men. ...Of course, Churchill and Hitler were, in the most vital respects, opposites. Churchill was, as Lukacs insists, a patriot, imbued with a love of place and people, while Hitler was a nationalist, infuriated by a hatred of aliens and imaginary enemies. But Churchill knew where Hitler was insecure and where he was strong, and knew how to goad him, too.
Democracy is Dead. Discuss.
Nothing v. All
"There's gotta be some kind of rebellion between the people that have nothing and the people that got it all. I don't understand. There's no in-between no more. There's the peple that got it all and the people that have nothing."
—Peoria, Ill., man, in 2009, about to be put out of his home, in Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story."
I have some sympathy for this guy but I still wonder about his voting patterns. Did he vote, for example, for Ronald Reagan for president? Once? Twice? When Reagan came into office in 1981, the tax rate for the wealthiest one percent of the country was 69%. When he left office? 28%. The rich got richer under Reagan and the unions got screwed. And that's just the beginning. Moore's doc is best in that short segment on the Reagan years but in the end he winds up flailing all over the place, and pulling the usual stunts about not getting into places he'd never get into. Most egregiously, he makes the initial bailout, the TARP bailout in September 2008, seem like a Bush plot when it was actually a repudiation of everything Bush believed in and stood for. It was a caving in. It was a mea culpa without the mea culpa.
But the Peoria man's question is the right question. How did we lose our middle class? For me, the answer starts with Reagan and those tax rates.
So the question for today isn't whether or not to roll back the Bush tax cuts from 35% to 39%. The question is why stop there? And why stop at the "top one percent," which supposedly includes families making $250,000 a year? Why not divide this group further? The top .5 percent. The top .1 percent. Tax those making $1 million at a higher rate, and tax those making $10 million at a higher rate, and those making $100 million at a higher rate, etc., etc., until maybe we have something like a middle class again.
How I'm Like Dick Cheney
This morning I had an epiphany: I realized I was like Dick Cheney. Not a pleasant thing for a lifelong Democrat and fervent Obama supporter to realize. But helpful nonetheless.
I realized I was like Dick Cheney when I was making a sandwich before work. Patricia has been sick for four days now, and I’m a bit of a germaphobe, and so for four days I’ve been extra careful about touching things around the house, and washing my hands after I touch things around the house, particularly if I’m going to make something that goes in my mouth—like a sandwich before work. But it’s been four days now, and Patricia is feeling better, and I’m hoping that the cold germs have passed through our home like a bad wind.
Even so, as I was making that sandwich, I thought, vis a vis the cold germs that might be lingering: They only need to succeed once.
And that’s when I realized I was like Dick Cheney. Because that was his attitude after 9/11. Terrorists were germs, they only needed to succeed once, and once they infiltrated our body they would make us sick.
It helped me better understand Cheney. Yes, “understand,” a word that the extreme right likes to sneer at, because they feel they already understand it all, and anyway understanding often leads to sympathy and they want none of that. To them, sympathy and understanding make us weak. And in a way they do. My epiphany this morning about Dick Cheney, for example, weakened some of my hatred for Dick Cheney. I saw him in a new light. “Oh. So Dick Cheney’s like me when Patricia’s sick.”
Here’s the key. I don’t like myself when Patricia’s sick. I don’t like being super paranoid about everything I touch. It’s no way to live. I’ve said this often. I try to change. Paranoia gets in the way of living my life. It upends my life. My fear of getting sick actually sickens me—not physically so much as mentally and spiritually. We’re scared enough already, but to be that scared? That’s really no way to live.
And that’s Dick Cheney. The left sees him as a monster, and in a way he is, but at the same time it must be awful to be Dick Cheney. To be so fearful and paranoid all the time. It must warp your mind and sicken your soul. Cold germs, after all, pass.
Review: “The Tillman Story” (2010)
WARNING: REDACTED SPOILERS
As someone who just lived through the 2000s I can honestly say that W.H. Auden didn’t know from low dishonest decades.
Auden used the phrase in his poem, “September 1, 1939,” about the 1930s:
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade...
His low dishonest decade ended with war, ours began with it. The dishonesty of his decade was the enemy’s, masterminded by Nazi Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebels, which played on our hopes for peace. The dishonesty of our decade was our own, the Bush administration’s, masterminded by Karl Rove, which played on our fears, as well as our corresponding need for heroes. The administration that couldn’t stop attacking Hollywood kept using the tropes of Hollywood to gather power and silence opposition.
Pat Tillman was a minor figure in all of this, a pawn in the Bush administration’s game, and “The Tillman Story,” a documentary written by Mark Monroe and directed by Amir Bar-Lev, is his family’s attempt to set the record straight.
Most of us are familiar with some part of the story. On Sept. 10, 2001, Pat Tillman was a an All-Pro safety with the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League, happily married and making millions of dollars. Eight months later he joined the U.S. Army Rangers. He served a tour in Iraq in 2003. In his second tour, in Afghanistan, on April 22, 2004, he was killed. He was posthumously promoted to corporal and awarded the Silver Star, the Army’s third-highest award for combat valor, because of “gallantry on the battlefield for leading his Army Rangers unit to the rescue of comrades caught in an ambush,” according to the New York Times. A memorial service was held in San Jose, Cal., and Tillman was eulogized by the Pentagon, by politicians, and throughout the media as a patriotic hero-soldier who died selflessly for his country and for his fellow soldiers.
Except it was a lie. During an ambush by enemy forces near the village of Sperah, close to the Pakistan border, yes, Tillman led several men to higher ground; but they were subsequently mistaken for the enemy and fired upon by their own troops. Tillman and a member of the Afghanistan Military Police were killed by friendly fire.
Everyone on the ground knew this. There was no mistaking it. But the lie got out quickly.
Reading the first, heroic press accounts, with details provided by the Pentagon, is to be steeped in Bush-era bullshit. From USA Today:
When the rear section of their convoy became pinned down in rough terrain, Tillman ordered his team out of its vehicles “to take the fight to the enemy forces” on the higher ground.
As Tillman and other soldiers neared the hill's crest, he directed his team into firing positions, the Army said. As he sprayed the enemy positions with fire from his automatic rifle, he was shot and killed. The Army said his actions helped the trapped soldiers maneuver to safety “without taking a single casualty”...
A month later, the truth seeped out, but it wasn’t well-covered. As the saying goes: the mistake is always on page 1, the retraction on page 14. From the May 30th New York Times:
Ex-Player's Death Reviewed
Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals football player, was probably killed by allied fire as he led his team of Army Rangers up a hill during a firefight in Afghanistan last month, the Army said.
Sometimes there’s no retraction at all. The following is every USA Today news headline about Tillman from 2004. Notice how they fed on him until they didn't:
- Tillman killed in Afghanistan (April 23, 2004)
- Moment of silence at NFL draft (April 24, 2004)
- Tillman's legacy of virtue (April 25, 2004)
- Body returns to U.S. (April 26, 2004)
- Army promotes Tillman to corporal (April 29, 2004)
- Tillman posthumously awarded Silver Star (April 30, 2004)
- Items related to Tillman sold on E-bay (May 2, 2004)
- Tillman mourned by hometown (May 2, 2004)
- Tillman memorial service held in San Jose (May 3, 2004)
- Arizona salutes Tillman (May 8, 2004)
- Report details Tillman's last minutes (Dec. 5, 2004)
Not only did Tillman not die the way they said, he didn’t live the way they said, either. “He didn’t really fit into that box they would’ve liked,” Tillman’s mother, Mary, mentions in the doc.
He joined the Rangers to fight al Qaeda but wound up in Iraq and wasn’t happy. “This war is so fucking illegal,” one of his brothers quotes him saying. He had an open curious mind at odds with the incurious absolutism of the time. There’s hilarious footage of Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity refusing to believe that Tillman read linguist and conservative bete noire Noam Chomsky. (Because it didn’t fit into their notions of a football player? A soldier? A conservative hero? All of the above?) Fellow Ranger Bryan O’Neal, a Mormon, talks about coming across Tillman, a religious skeptic, possibly an atheist, reading “The Book of Mormon.” He wanted to see what was what.
He swore like a truck driver and loved risking his life. He jumped from high places and climbed to higher places. He was that rare tough guy who didn’t need to show how tough he was. He never hazed recruits. He didn’t yell and get into the face of men who screwed up—as is the Army way. O’Neal recounts how, when he screwed up, Tillman took him aside and told him how disappointed he was. That was it. According to O’Neal, that was enough.
This is straight out of his father’s vocabulary, by the way. In the doc, Patrick Tillman says he’s “disappointed” in Pfc. Russell Baer, Tillman’s fellow Ranger, who was the first to lie to the family about the incident. He tells the Army in 2005 that he’s “disappointed” in them, too. The mother is lauded in the doc but the father dominates it. Thinner than his son, with the same lantern jaw, he seethes with rage. Still. He wants the answer to a simple question: Who lied about his son’s death? Eventually he tells the Army, in writing, “fuck you,” and this—and a Washington Post editorial—got their attention. In August 2005, the Pentagon launched an internal investigation into the incorrect reports of Tillman’s death. In March 2007, the report pinned the blame on a lieutenant general who had already retired. They took away one of his stars. There were some congressional hearings, and joint chiefs and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied knowledge of blah blah blah, and had no recollection of yadda yadda. It all petered out.
“The Tillman Story” is a sad story but it’s not a great doc. It focuses too much attention on the Tillman family rather than on Tillman himself. Like the family, it can’t accept the military’s non-answer, and, panning up the command flowchart to Pres. George W. Bush, spends too much time insinuating who might’ve ordered the falsification of Tillman’s death. At the same time, it’s so vague in describing Tillman’s actual death that a friend, who saw the doc the same time I did, assumed Tillman had been “fragged” rather than killed by friendly fire.
For all the attempts to release Tillman from his box, too, its portrait isn’t as complete as in Jon Krakauer’s book “Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman.” In particular it ignores an incident during his senior year of high school, when Tillman, thinking he was defending a friend from an ass-whooping, put an innocent kid into the hospital. His life was nearly derailed by this—he served jail time and came close to losing his scholarship to Arizona State—but he came out of it, according to Krakauer, more contemplative and slower to temper. He came out closer to the man he would become. The doc would’ve benefited from this story.
But it’s a good reminder. Just six years ago we were all living through this: Jessica Lynch, WMDs, smoking gun/mushroom cloud, Video News Releases (VNRs), fake White House correspondents, the firing of U.S. attorneys, the outing of Valerie Plame, “greeted with flowers,” “Mission Accomplished,” “a few bad apples,” “last throes.” And Pat Tillman. What company to keep. If I were his family, I’d be enraged, too.
Off By That Much
"At headquarters, the agency kept advising Truman that China would not enter the [Korean] war on any significant scale. On October 18, as MacArthur's troops surged north toward the Yalu River and the Chinese border, the CIA reported that 'The Soviet Korean venture has ended in failure.' On October 20, the CIA said that Chinese forces detected at the Yalu were there to protect hydro-electric power plants. On October 28, it told the White House that those Chinese troops were scattered volunteers. On October 30, after American troops had been attacked, taking heavy casualties, the CIA reaffirmed that a major Chinese intervention was unlikely. A few days later, Chinese-speaking CIA officers interrogated several prisoners taken during the encounter and determined that they were Mao's soldiers. Yet CIA headquarters asserted one last time that China would not invade in force. Two days later 300,000 Chinese troops struck with an attack so brutal that it nearly pushed the Americans into the sea."
—from Tim Weiner's "Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA," pp. 58-59, beginning, or continuing, a tradition of faulty intelligence that invariably missed the biggest foreign policy events of the 20th century and beyond.
Quote of the Day
“Politically, these issues are poisonous. That’s what Rahm Emanuel is looking at. [But] you can’t finesse it, and you can’t spin it. The President just has to lead the American people away from fear.”
—Elisa Massimino, the president of Human Rights First, on civilian trials vs. military tribunals, Guantanamo, and what kind of war is the War on Terror, in Jane Mayer's New Yorker article, "The Trial: Eric Holder and the battle over Khalid Sheikh Mohammed."
- The New York Times gives equal weight to all sides by letting five lawyers, including Andrew McCarthy, who led the prosecution in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and is now legal affairs editor of The National Review, have their say.
- Jon Stewart spars with conservative columnist and former Bush administration speechwriter Marc Thiessen on "The Daily Show."
- Scott Horton is less kind to Thiessen in this Harper's column.
- A letter from conservative lawyers, such as Ken Starr, coming to the defense of Dept. of Justice lawyers against the attacks of Liz Cheney's organization "Keep America Safe."
From PC to Protests: How the Right became everything it despised in the Left
A week ago Friday I was walking through downtown Seattle on my way to work when I noticed, from 6th and Olive, a small group of protesters standing with signs over on 6th and Stewart. I wasn’t wearing my glasses so I couldn’t tell what exactly they were protesting, and gave a momentary thought to checking them out, but kept going my usual way. At 5th I saw two of the protesters talking to some folks. One of the them held a sign I could now read:
Lord, I thought.
So: Engage them? Ask them where they’ve been during the last eight years—when our national debt more than doubled from $5 trillion to over $10 trillion? Ask them if they voted for George W. Bush, whose policies and lack of foresight and accountability brought us to this place? Did they double-down in 2004? Instead I continued on 5th Avenue, where, under the monorail, I saw a few cops, then a few more, then a larger contingent. They were there to protect the protest, or the march, or whatever it was—I didn't see any reports on it. Then I noticed how much traffic was backed up. I thought of the time lost and the tax dollars and oil wasted for these 50 or so protesters. And I thought this of members of the tea party:
“Get a job.”
Has the right-wing become everything it used to despise? They’re all whiners and protesters now. They attack authority—judges, Congress, Democratic presidents. They’re politcally correct, scouring media and movies for signs of the slightest offense. (Some even objected to “The Blind Side,” a positive story about a white southern Christian family, because there's a quick W. joke in the middle of it.) The recent Conservative Political Action Conference called itself "Woodstock" for conservatives. Remember “Easy Rider”—the hippie-biker film from 1969? Its tagline: “A man went looking for America. And couldn’t find it anywhere." That’s how these guys feel. They keep wondering where their America went. They keep talking about getting it back.
But they’re repeating history as farce. The marches of the civil rights movement were borne because a group of people had no voice in government and second-class status everywhere. The tea party protests—at least the wing of it most concerned with fiscal responsibility—seem to have been borne because the voice they had in government led to a place they didn’t want to be: with the country overwhelmingly in debt and foundering on the brink of economic disaster. In this way they could be like anti-war protesters of the 1960s, who most likely voted for LBJ over that nuke-loving extremist Barry Goldwater and wound up in a place they didn’t want to be: in a full-fledged war in Vietnam. The difference? These folks protested LBJ. They took to the streets in ’66, ’67, ’68. They didn’t wait for Nixon to get into office. The Tea Partiers were silent for eight years while their guy wrecked the country, then took to the streets as soon as he left.
Last week before going to bed I read Ben McGrath’s piece on the tea partiers in the Feb. 1st New Yorker and got so angry I couldn’t fall asleep until after 1 a.m. I guess I was mostly angry at McGrath and The New Yorker for giving deluded, potentially dangerous people a prominent place to air their views. Fanning the flames in the piece was U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis, 4th district, Kentucky, who says cap-and-trade legislation would be “an economic colonization of the hard-working states that produce the energy, the food, and the manufactured goods of the heartland, to take that and pay for social programs in the large coastal states.”
Jesus. Can we have a discussion in this country? Can we have a back-and-forth? The above is like Reagan’s welfare mother with her Cadillac: an urban myth that won't go away. Time and again, statitistics show that the states who get more tax dollars back than they put in tend to be the quote-unquote heartland states. For the last year available, 2005, Davis’ Kentucky is at no. 9 on this list. Kentuckians got back $1.51 for every $1.00 they put in. For which they're complaining. Or Davis is. Here are the big winners in the federal tax game, as per the conservative, anti-tax Tax Foundation:
1. New Mexico
5. West Virginia
6. North Dakota
8. South Dakota
Meanwhile the states that get the least bang for their tax buck? The ones who get screwed in this game? Those awful coastal and liberal Midwest states:
42. New York
47. New Hampshire
50. New Jersey
The tea-partiers actually have a legitimate gripe—about the power of corporations and government—but they're not griping legitimately. Some of them are just plain nuts. They’re “we didn’t land on the moon” nuts. John McCain is a communist. All political parties bow down before George Soros. And many believe in Edgar Cayce? Really? So the tea partiers are full of discontented New Agers? Who were, what, discontent hippies? No wonder they seem like hippies.
This is even nuttier. From McGrath:
An online video game, designed recently by libertarians in Brooklyn, called “2011: Obama’s Coup Fails” imagines a scenario in which the Democrats lose seventeen of nineteen seats in the Senate and a hundred and seventy-eight in the House during the midterm elections, prompting the President to dissolve the Constitution and implement an emergency North American People’s Union, with help from Mexico’s Felipe Calderón, Canada’s Stephen Harper, and various civilian defense troops with names like the Black Tigers, the International Service Union Empire, and CORNY, or the Congress of Rejected and Neglected Youth. Lou Dobbs has gone missing, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh turn up dead at a FEMA concentration camp, and you, a lone militiaman in a police state where private gun ownership has been outlawed, are charged with defeating the enemies of patriotism, one county at a time.
The final straw for the left was domestic terrorism, the Weather Underground, etc., which pretty much destroyed any progressive movement in this country for decades. Is that where the right is now? Anti-tax proponents emulate al Qaeda by flying planes into federal buildings, killing innocent people. Their actions are sympathized with by Republican congressmen. Republicans running for president condone such violence.
I don’t want this. I really don’t. I want a strong, smart opposition, and the right is becoming a dumb, dangerous farce. And all the while our country suffers.
Miss Me Yet? - II
“As Steve Coll wrote in The New Yorker in April 2006, Saddam [Hussein] could not bring himself to admit that there were no weapons of mass destruction, 'because he feared a loss of prestige, and, in particular, that Iran might take advantage of his weakness—a conclusion also sketched earlier by the C.I.A.-supervised Iraq Survey Group. He did not tell even his most senior generals that he had no W.M.D. until just before the invasion. They were appalled, and some thought he might be lying, because, they later told their interrogators, the American government insisted that Iraq did have such weapons. Saddam ”found it impossible to abandon the illusion of having W.M.D.,“ the study says. The Bush war cabinet, of course, clung to the same illusion, and a kind of mutually reinforcing trance took hold between the two leaderships as the invasion neared...'
”A Gallup poll conducted in May 2003 indicated that 79 percent of Americans believed the Iraq war was 'justified.'“
—from Jon Krakauer's ”Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman," pp. 214-15
Miss Me Yet?
"Jessica Lynch dominated the news for weeks. The details of the incident provided by military public affairs officers made for an absolutely riveting story that television, radio and print journalists found irresistible: a petite blond supply clerk from a flea-speck burg in West Virginia is ambushed in Iraq and fearlessly mows down masked Fedayeen terrorists with her M16 until she runs out of ammo, whereupon she is shot, stabbed, captured, tortured, and raped before finally being snatched from her barbaric Iraqi captors during a daring raid by American commandos...
"Subsequent reporting by investigative journalists revealed that most of the details of Lynch's ordeal were extravagantly embellished, and much of the rest was invented out of whole cloth. Because her rifle had jammed, she hadn't fired a single round. Although her injuries had indeed been life threatening, they were exclusively the result of her Humvee smashing into Hernandez's tractor trailer; she was never shot, stabbed, tortured, or raped. After she had been transferred to Saddam Hussein General Hospital, her captors treated her with kindness and special care. And when the American commandos arrived at the hospital to rescue Lynch, they met no significiant resistance.
"The spurious particulars did not come from Private Lynch. The bogus story was based on information fed to gullible reporters by anonymous military sources. The government official who arranged for reporters to interview these sources—the guy who deserves top biling for creating the myth of Jessica Lynch, in other words—was a White House appparatchik named Jim Wilkinson. Although his official job description was director of strategic communcations for General Tommy Franks... actually Wilkinson served as the Bush administration's top 'perception manager' for the Iraq War."
—from Jon Krakauer's "Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman," pp. 180-81
Picture making the rounds on conservative blogs.
Quote of the Other Day — Republican Incoherence and You
“On every single major issue of the day, [the Republicans] are incoherent. They have no workable plans to insure the uninsured and no practical way to contain healthcare costs; most deny climate change even exists; most seek to prolong wars because ... er, we have to be tough; their response to the massive debt is to defend Medicare and call for tax cuts; their position on civil rights is that gay people need to go to Jesus; their position on terror suspects is to detain them and torture them, violating domestic and international law; their position on immigration is to round up millions and force them to go home.
”My worry, however, is that there are enough Americans perfectly happy to live with this nihilism indefinitely, and to perpetuate the policies of spend-and-borrow and invade-and-occupy that any serious attempt to address our problems is impossible. And their response to that will be to blame all those problems on a Democratic president, if there is one; and if there's a Republican president, to simply deny that any of the problems exist at all.
—Andrew Sullivan, “Tactics Over Strategy”
Who's Controlling the News? Not Auletta
"You missed it."
I kept thinking of that line from “All the President’s Men” while reading Ken Auletta’s Jan. 25th New Yorker piece, “Non-Stop News: Who’s Controlling White House Coverage?” Auletta missed the story. Shame. I normally like Auletta.
The story for me doesn’t begin until the fifth of 11 sections, the one beginning “Like other American workers, journalists these days are crunched, working harder with less support and holding tight to their jobs” and ending with a quote from Chuck Todd, who, this section tells us, is not only NBC’s White House correspondent and political director, but is busy from dusk 'til dawn with appearances on “Today,” “Morning Joe,” his own (aptly named) “The Daily Rundown,” along with the usual blogging and tweeting from and to various sites. The news cycle is now a cycle in the way that time is a cycle. It never stops. As a result, Todd, and other journalists, have no time for in-depth coverage or even deep thought or analysis. “We’re all wire-service reporters now,” Todd says.
The sixth section is also about how technology has transformed media matters but this time from a White House perspective. “The biggest White House press frustration is that nothing can drive a news cycle anymore,” Republican political advisor Mark McKinnon says. Auletta then goes on to criticize the Obama White House for being too slow and reactive. He criticizes Press Secretary Robert Gibbs because “he rarely asserts control from the podium, to steer the press onto the news that Obama wants to make.” I.e., He’s not telling the newsmen what the news is. One could argue he’s treating them like adults.
So if we’re all wire-service reporters now, and the Obama White House isn’t steering these reporters towards the news, who is? That’s where it gets scary. Auletta writes: “What the press is paying attention to, [former Obama White House Communications Director] Anita Dunn says, is cable and blog attacks on the Obama Administration.” And who’s steering those? Guess.
That’s the story: In an increasingly fragmented, perpetual news-cycle world, who or what is steering the news? That’s even the story in Auletta’s headline, isn’t it? And he still misses the story.
Because much of Auletta’s piece is old news. Has the mainstream media been pro-Obama? Is Pres. Obama too prickly with the media now that the honeymoon is over? Should he be lecturing the media on its faults the way he does? About how the media focuses on the most extreme elements on both sides? About how they’re only interested in conflict?
Early on, Auletta quotes from a PEW Research Report on Obama’s early glowing press coverage:
The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, a nonpartisan media-research group concurred; tracking campaign coverage, it found that McCain was the subject of negative stories twice as frequently as Obama. (The study says that the press was influenced by Obama’s commanding lead in the polls—the kind of ‘Who won today?’ journalism he now decries.)
Allow me a sports metaphor. Do we assume that Albert Pujols gets more positive press coverage than, say, Yuniesky Betancourt? Of course he does. He’s a better ballplayer. Our eyes see it, the stats prove it. Unfortunately, politics has no such stats beyond poll numbers and votes. I’m not suggesting that Barack Obama is Albert Pujols; I’m merely suggesting that, in dealing with two political figures, we’re not dealing with two interchangeable blocks of wood. I’m suggesting that the mainstream press cannot pretend that the Yuniesky Betancourts of the political, legal or business realms are equal to the Albert Pujolses of same, without losing as much credibility as they would if they misreported facts. Objectivity is not stupidity. Let me add, not being a journalist, that I have no idea how you work this out within the constraints of objective journalism. But make no mistake: This is an issue for objective journalism. If objective journalism is to survive.
Perhaps more importantly, does the Pew Research Center Project include FOX News and conservative radio in their study of mainstream media? If not, why not? The notion that “the media” is limited to The New York Times goes against what should be the brunt of this article. We’re in the middle of a whole new ballgame.
Auletta quotes ABC’s Jake Tapper on the matter. “This President has been forced to deal with more downright falsehoods than any President I can think of,” Tapper says. Auletta then lists off some examples: “Obama was brought up a Muslim; he was not born in the U.S.; he studied at a madrassa in Indonesia.” How about: Obama is Hitler? He wants to kill your grandmother? He’s destroying the foundation of American society? That’s daily fodder in these venues, and it keeps seeping out, and it becomes the story. Even when it becomes the joke story, on “The Daily Show,” or “The Colbert Report,” it’s still the story. In addressing these falsehoods in an objective matter, or a jokey matter, how are you not perpetuating these falsehoods? That’s the issue. This was the issue in the summer of 2008 and in the fall of 2009. And today. And for 10 pages of prime New Yorker real estate, Auletta misses it.
Steve Tesich Quote of the Day
As an immigrant to the United States, Mr. Tesich says, he was for a long time very positive and very optimistic about this country. That optimism, he says, has changed, and the change started with Vietnam.
"I didn't just love America," he says. "I was in love with America. I honestly believed that it was going to be one of those nations that would take care of everybody, that would try to make its rewards available to all. And now I feel there is absolutely no agenda for helping those on the bottom in this country. Nobody is really interested in them. And I don't know what the country stands for."
The word I'd use to sum up the decade. I'm bushed, you're bushed, we've all been Bushed—the country and the world. We need a new starting line. Hey, here comes one now.
Quote of the Day
“What delight and joy in reading the Auburn Plainsman's Ben Bartley, some red-white-and-blue type guy from Texas who's fuming that such an anti-corporate, anti-arrogant, anti-Bush legacy, pro-eco, pro-nativist pantheist tract is raking it in big-time and spreading the myth everywhere, and there's nothing this guy can do about it. Hah! Eat shit, Christian asshole!”
Lancelot Links (Wants to Deck Someone)
- John Perr's blog, "Crooks and Liars," takes Sarah Palin apart for her massive ignorance of the history of our country, but equally important, not to mention related, is the accompanying graph (below) on the recent tax rate of our lowest and highest income brackets. During World War II, which Palin insists, in a Washington Post Op-Ed of all places, was paid for by war bonds (volunteerism), the top income bracket was taxed at 94%. Ninety-four percent! So much for voluteerism. Now they're taxed at 35 percent. Me, I'd raise it back to at least 50 percent —at least—as it was from 1982 to 1986. Reagan years, people. Everyone in this bracket is making tons of money off of a system they were born into and it's time they showed their appreciation to that system, and the long-term stability of that system, by, yes, "volunteering" to give back. Read the whole piece, it's worth it:
- My man! Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) takes down Sen. John Thune (R-SD) on the health care bill. Franken, by way of Pat Moynihan, has given us a mantra for this age of disinformation: "You're entitled to your own opinion, you're not entitled to your own facts." I particularly like how frustrated and angry Franken gets by the end. You can tell he's fed up. These people keep lying.
- It's actually worse. These people make careers out of accusing the opposition of doing what they do. It's the absolutist right, not the relativist left, that's as close to a fascistic organization as this country has ever had. The Nazis, remember, started out as a vocal minority, an absolutist, bullying, hateful group that wheedled its way into power and then shut out all opposition. That's the absolutist right in this country. And their latest alley-oop accusation? Via the Daily Show: Global-warming debunkers are now accusing global-warming proponents (i.e., the scientific community) of believing what they believe...for money! The idea being that global warming is big business so it doesn't matter if it's true or not. Nice. Because we all know it's the opposite of that. Global warming continues because of big business, because of the money that's made pumping what we pump into the air. The whole thing is so awful it makes you want to retch. It makes you want to deck somebody.
- A voice of reason in this wretched political world? Hendrik Hertzberg. Again.
- And another. It's worth watching Pres. Obama interviewed by Steve Kroft on "60 Minutes." He's a serious man in serious times surrounded by the unserious and the moronic. By people who are dicking around. And not just the absolutist right and not just the mainstream media but you and me. We create all of this. Every second, with every decision, we create our world.
- And even this serious interview gets an idiotic response from Dana Perino, whose 15 minutes, in a normal world, that is a non-cable, non-fragmented world, would be up. Yet she keeps talking. She says that President Obama's suggestion that President Bush "was too triumphant in his rhetoric when talking about war...is demonstrably false." The obvious follow-up? "Can you demonstrate it?" But she was on FOX News so they didn't ask the obvious follow-up. Here. Here are the three words that demonstrate the truth of what Pres. Obama implied about Pres. Bush: "Bring 'em on." Do we need more? Do we need to recall the swagger and the smirk? The aircraft carrier and flight suit? The "Mission Accomplished" banners? The talk of good and evil? The covering up of America's war dead? Damn, people, it wasn't even 10 years ago.
- But apparently some people can't even remember January 19, 2009.
- First, The Daily Show helped expose Glenn Beck's inciting panic/encouraging gold-buying and repping for Goldline. Now it's The Colbert Report's turn. "'Pray on it.' Like we're preying on you." Brilliant. Here's an in-depth look from the L.A. Times. The question that needs to be asked—and I mean this—is: Why is Glenn Beck trying to destroy this country?
- To end on an up note, here's Pres. Obama's speech after winning the Nobel Prize. It's a serious speech by a serious man in serious times. Read the whole thing. An excerpt:
- We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak -- nothing passive -- nothing naïve -- in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.
But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.
- We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
- It feels like Richard Brody is a bit too kind to Wes Anderson in his Nov. 2nd, New Yorker profile on the director, "Wild, Wild Wes." Or maybe he's simply too kind to Anderson's 2003 film, "The Life Aquatic," which came on the heels of his biggest hit ("The Royal Tenenbaums"), which came on the heels of his most critically acclaimed film ("Rushmore"). After detailing several critic complaints about "Aquatic," Brody writes:
"In fact, 'The Life Aquatic" does tell a story, but it's one that sprawls with an epic ambition and a picaresqe wonder. Anderson's playfully unstrung storytelling was both purposeful and meaningful: life in the wild, the film suggests, doesn't follow the neat contours of dramatic suspense but is filled with surprises, accidents, and sudden lurches off course. ... 'The Life Aquatic' was proof of Anderson's maturation as an artist..."
- Come again? Here's my 2007 take on Anderson and his ouevre. I actually like Anderson, within limits, which I hope my article makes clear, but I'm not a fan of "Aquatic," for reasons stated, none of which has to do with its lack of storytelling. The short version of Brody's article is here, but you have to buy, or borrow from your local library, the Nov. 2nd New Yorker to read it in full. Or subscribe. I recommend subscribing already.
- The Washington Post focuses on a quiet but powerful contingent that is being ignored in the same-sex marriage debate: the ex-spouses of now-out-of-the-closet gay men and women. This section in particular packs a whallop:
Many of these former spouses -- from those who still feel raw resentment toward their exes to those who have reached a mutual understanding -- see the legalization of same-sex marriage as a step toward protecting not only homosexuals but also heterosexuals. If homosexuality was more accepted, they say, they might have been spared doomed marriages followed by years of self-doubt.
"It's like you hit a brick wall when they come out," Brooks said. "You think everything is fine and then, boom!"
Carolyn Sega Lowengart calls it "retroactive humiliation." It's that embarrassment that washes over her when she looks back at photographs or is struck by a memory and wonders what, if anything, from that time was real. Did he ever love her?
"I'm 61 years old," said Lowengart, who lives in Chevy Chase. "Will I ever know what it's like to be loved passionately? Probably not."
- I'm going to have to permanently link to Joe Posnanski below but in the meantime here's his early Hall of Fame arguments and they warm the cockles of my cold, cold Seattle heart. Actually his argument is: Who is the best eligible hitter not in the Hall of Fame? He then goes through the usual suspects. Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe and Barry Bonds are not eligible so he eliminates them. Mark McGwire? Impressive, certainly. A homer ever 8 at-bats, "but we knew how he did it," and anyway there's that lifetime .263 batting average. Dick Allen? Don Mattingly? Minnie Monoso? Babe Herman? I'll cut to the chase—particularly since the photo at right is a giveaway. Posnanski suggests Edgar Martinez. He talks about why he's a great hitter, all of which should be familiar to Seattle fans (lifetime: .300/.400/.500), and why he won't make it anyway, which will also be familiar to Seattle fans. Edgar's got the percentage numbers, but he played the majority of his career as a DH and he didn't play long enough to accumulate the gross numbers: the 3,000 hits, etc., because the Mariners (idiots!) didn't bring him up until he was 27. If he'd played his entire career at third, I think he would've made it. If he'd been a DH but had the cumulative numbers, I think he would've made it. It's the two together that put the kibosh on him. Of course I'd vote for him in a second but I'm obviously biased. At the same time, here's my non-bias: How many career .300/.400.500 guys, with as many at-bats as Edgar, aren't in the Hall of Fame? Extra credit. We've just been talking lately about what a great pitcher Mariano Rivera is. So how did Edgar do against Rivera? 16 at-bats, 10 hits, 3 doubles, 2 homeruns, 6 RBIs. A .625 batting average and a 1.888 OPS. Don't know if anyone with double-digit at-bats against Rivera has ever done better. Obviously that's not an argument in favor of the Hall but it is fun.
Michelle Malkin's Journey from A to A
There's an odd piece on the Crosscut Web site called "Michelle Malkin's Journey from Ideas to Tribes," by Ross Anderson, a former Seattle Times political writer whose office was next to Malkin's when she was a columnist at the paper from 1996 to 1999. I remember those days and those columns. I remember thinking what a lousy writer she was. I remember wondering if she got the gig because of her race and gender. According to Anderson? Yes:
The Times had been looking for a new voice, preferably a minority and a woman. That she turned out to be both of the above, plus a young libertarian was a bonus.
Anderson is wondering what happened to the person he knew back then. "I didn’t always agree [with her]," Anderson writes, "but I always enjoyed chatting at our office doors." Now, he says, she's guility of tribalism, a kind of "my people vs. your people" attitude. "Missing are those ideas we exchanged at our office doors," he says.
Fine. So what ideas did they exchange at their office doors? "She never asked what I thought," Anderson admits, but he told her anyway. Afterwards, he writes, "Michelle said nothing, resisting an impulse to roll her eyeballs."
This is exchanging ideas at office doors? Anderson's description refutes his own premise. Malkin hasn't journeyed anywhere. She didn't care what you thought back then; she doesn't now.
"You" being not just Ross Anderson but you.
The More Republicans Change: Anger, Paranoia, and Visions of Apocalypse at the 1976 Republican Convention
When my girlfriend, Patricia, moved to New York in 1975, she worked as an editorial assistant at New Times, a short-lived but impressive feature news magazine that included Richard Corliss, Frank Rich, Robert Sam Anson and Bob Shrum among its writers. She still has some bound copies. I was leafing through these the other day when I came across a piece by Nora Sayre on the 1976 Republican convention. It's startling how familiar the language is. In the wake of Watergate, in the face of an almost-certain Jimmy Carter victory, these Republicans offer nothing but complaints, paranoia, conspiracy theories and visions of apocalypse. Some samples:
That entire shower of joy—the celebration of a happy and healthy America [at the '72 Republican convention]—was a spectral memory in Kansas City in 1976. Never has our social fabric seemed so fragile; today, imperiled by demonic forces that may shatter it from outside or from within, the mere "survival of the nation" is at stake—along with its safety...
Ford himself seemed to have forgotten that he had actually been in office, while Goldwater talked as though Carter had been elected eight years ago...
[This female delegate's] sense of an America in shreds was echoed by both Ford and Reagan delegates, and reinforced by the speakers, who emphasized that we're in a race with the clock. Goldwater warned that we must "save the last stronghold of freedom on earth," since this "may be the last time" that we'll be able to "defend ourselves against our suicidal slide toward socialism"...
A Texan screamed at the nearby New York delegation, "If we fought the Civil War today, we'd win!" His friends broke into a Rebel Yell...
On the final night, Reagan caught the mood of his party to perfection when he mused on the letter that he'd been asked to compose for a time capsule that will be unsealed in Los Angeles a hundred years hence. He wondered if "the erosion of freedom that has taken place under Democrat rule" would have prevailed by the Tricentennial, and if "horrible missiles of destruction" would have eliminated "the civilized world we live in." His readers of the next century "might not even get to to read the letter at all" if the Republicans should fail to preserve the liberties that their enemies yearn to demolish. Ecstasy greeted his bleak message, and his followers cheered on having their fears confirmed...
Glenn Beck's shit is old...
- Here's a good piece by my friend Jessica Thompson, who's lived in India for a year now, on the sexual harassment—called "Eve teasing"—there: "Eve teasing is to sexual harassment what Delhi Belly is to projectile vomiting and diarrhea: both are really ugly things hidden behind a cute name."
- Jeff Wells begins the end-of-decade ceremonies with his top 37 (37?) films of 2000-2009. It's a fun list—particularly his no. 1 choice. Have only vaguely thought about my top list, but it would include "The Pianist" (his no. 9) and "United 93" (his no. 5). What else would I have? "Yi Yi"? "Spider-Man 2"? "Munich"? "Brokeback Mountain," definitely. That movie just gets better with age. What about you? What movies in this decade stand out in your mind?
- Is "web" really the proper metaphor for this thing? It works, although not with the verb. You crawl a web while we claim to surf this one—and surfing is much cooler than what we do here. The metaphor that comes to my mind is pinball. I bounce from spot to spot. I careen the Pinball. The other day I visited Jeff Wells again, and he bounced me to this James Rocchi piece on MSN about press junkets in general and "Couples Retreat"'s in particular, and after reading one sentence I sought more of Rocchi and bounced all over the place. Found this MSN review on "Transformers 2," which definitely echoes my feelings about that abomination: "Where the first film was desperate, this one is desperate and sad. Where the first film sent mixed messages about ethnic and racial groups and women, this one is overtly racist and sexist. Where the first 'Transformers' was clumsy, 'Revenge of the Fallen' is paralyzed with its own stupidity." Rocchi's own site is here.
- Some good lines from Anthony Lane on "The Invention of Lying": "...as for the soundtrack, it’s like being haunted by the ghost of Easy Listening Past. Supertramp and the Electric Light Orchestra are one thing, but Donovan: there’s no excuse. And what really galls is not the songs themselves but the greasy way in which they are wrapped around crucial passages of action, to muffle any awkward transitions; thus, once Mark has armed himself with white lies, he strolls off to reassure all the other miserable folk we have encountered so far—old-timers, bums on the street, a bickering couple—with a smile and a word in their ears. But what word? We can’t tell, because Elvis Costello is busy belting out “Sitting” by the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens."
- The New York Times' business column is becoming more of a must-read every day, particularly David Carr's on Monday and David Leonhardt's on Wednesday. This week, Carr wrote a sober, infuriating piece on the $66 million in bonuses delivered to Tribune Co. managers who mostly axed reporters to increase profits...which mostly went to them. Funny how that works. Leonhardt, on Wednesday, wrote of the excesses of left and right economic thinking, and who on the right (Bruce Bartlett) is finally going beyond "cut taxes" as a means to economic stimulus. We'll see how it plays. A smart voice on the right would be a nice change.
- Not all these links are worth clicking on, by the way. This is one. I'm sure you heard about it: The First Lady has white, slave-owning ancestors. That's the big story. A bigger story for me is that Mrs. Obama's great-great-grandfather, Dolphus T. Shields, the first child born to Melvina Shields, who was born into slavery, co-founded the First Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., which was pivotal in the civil rights movement. It's amazing, on the one hand, how carefully the Times tells its story, and, on the other, how carelessly. "While [Melvina] was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of time." That's in the second graf. I would definitely lose "under circumstances lost in the passage of time," which is, given the circumstances, so romantic a phrase as to be close cousin to "under circumstances now...gone with the wind!" Plus the quotes from Edward Ball, "a historian who discovered that he had black relatives, the descendants of his white slave-owning ancestors," are embarrassing: "We are not separate tribes," he says. "We've all mingled, and we've done so for generations." Nice verb: mingled.
- Finally a must-read by another friend, Jim Walsh, in Southwest Journal in Minneapolis, on the funeral of the father of a friend. Jim's the real deal. Not just as a writer.
Quote of the Day
“I got a note from a good friend yesterday expressing shock, and anger, about Drudge and Malkin's usage of that alleged racial beat-down on a school-bus. On some level, I wonder if something's wrong with me. I'm neither shocked, nor angry. This is exactly how I expected these fools to respond to a black president.
”If anything, I'm a little giddy. For black people, the clear benefit of Obama is that he is quietly exposing an ancient hatred that has simmered in this country for decades. Rightly or wrongly, a lot of us grew tired of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, mostly because they presented easy foils for Limbaugh-land. ... Obama, bourgeois in every way that bourgeois is right and just, will not dance. He tells kids to study--and they seethe. He accepts an apology for an immature act of rudeness--and they go hysterical. He takes his wife out for a date--and their veins bulge. His humanity, his ordinary blackness, is killing them."
Flash: Rush Limbaugh Has No Genitalia!
Frank Rich has a piece in this morning's New York Times on Obama's squandered summer. It's a good piece. He talks up Obama's m.o.: Let everyone else rachet up the rhetoric until it becomes intolerable, and then come in, cool and calm, and direct things like an adult. He did it during the campaign—to both Hilary and McCain—and he's done it now with the health care debate.
Rich wonders if it's worth it. Couldn't he have made that speech in June? Why did he let the inmates take over the asylum all summer? Rich says that m.o. is good for winning elections but bad for making policy. It's a particularly bad method when your party dominates the executive and legislative branches of government. Get involved. Now. Don't stay above the fray. Be yourself but direct things daily, rather than seasonally.
I tend to agree. There's a stink from the idiocy of this summer that may never wash out. You elect a president, in part, because his is the voice you want to hear every day for the next four years, and I haven't heard enough from Pres. Obama. The voices that seep through tend to be the crazy conservatives, elected or not: Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dick Cheney, the LaRouche-ites. Joe Wilson.
Here's a question for Frank Rich, though:
To what extent is the media responsible? To what extent are we responsible?
This isn't happening in a vaccum. Every day each news organization puts out its material. Every day each person picks up, or at, the material he wants.
What material are they picking? What material are we choosing?
I've used this example many times before but one more time won't hurt. Say I'm a nationally known media figure in the political realm. Say I've got my own show. And then I say the following:
Rush Limbaugh has no genitalia. Literally. He just has a ball of fluff between his legs.
Is that news?
Not in a serious country. But in this country?
Here's the beauty of the accusation: Not only is it sensationalistic, not only is it "sexy"—since it deals with sex, or the lack of it—but it can never be proven without Limbaugh demeaning himself greatly. So it stays out there. Does he or doesn't he? Well, his wife says he does but should we believe her? Can't we hear from an objective source? Is there an objective source? And is that why he smokes those big fat cigars—as compensation? Why can't we get a definitive answer on this! It's the shouted whisper campaign.
And it's no more absurd than half the stuff I've heard this summer.
Look at Tobin Harshaw's "Opinionator: A Gathering of Opinion from Around the Web" in Friday's Times. It's all about Joe Wilson shouting "You lie!" during the president's speech on Wednesday.
Harshaw begins by taking "The Hill," a Capitol Hill liberal newspaper, to task, for its weak response. Then he writes this:
So what’s the point, exactly? For conservatives, it’s that another reflexively liberal publication is trying to tarnish a new straight-talker.
Straight talker? Why is Harshaw allowing conservatives to frame the debate this way? He even quotes from FOX News:
Indeed, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service study found that the House health care bill does not restrict illegal immigrants from receiving health care coverage.
You know what else it doesn't restrict? Rush Limbaugh from getting a faux-penis to cover up his lack of genitalia.
Just because something isn't restricted doesn't mean it's allowed. Shouldn't Harshaw mention that? But he doesn't. He blabs on. He's got this important platform and he talks about everything that doesn't matter: the conseratives who condemn Wilson; the liberals who support him. Then he ends it with such a facile close I'd edit it out of one of my publications, which is a trade publication, and not The New York Times.
We used to live in an echo chamber. We now live in an outragegous chamber. The more outrageous the behavior the more likely it is to get covered. And the feces go flying.
I tend to agree with Frank Rich in his column today. It just seems bad form to complain that Pres. Obama—the custodian-in-chief—is cleaning things up seasonally, rather than daily, when most of Rich's colleagues are doing everything they can to keep the feces flying.
We are lucky lucky lucky lucky lucky lucky lucky to have Barack Obama as the president of the United States of America.
Here's Andrew Sullivan's live blogging of the president's speech before Congress on health care reform. I agree with almost everything Sullivan says. Pres. Obama, too.
How Texas Executed an Innocent Man
In a 2006 case before the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld the death penalty, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that there has not been “a single case—not one—in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent’s name would be shouted from the rooftops.”
First, Justice Scalia seems to be employing horse-and-barn-door logic. In order to prevent this horrible thing from happening, we must first let it happen.
Second, guilt and innocence are tricky matters, requiring an entire court system to sort out. The assumption that the sorting has been done correctly, 100 percent of the time, for the entire life of our nation and maybe all nations, seems a trifle naive.
Third: Cameron Todd Willingham.
Does Scalia read The New Yorker—from which the above quote was taken? The Sept. 7 issue has a good long article (“Trial By Fire”) by David Grann on Cameron Todd Willingham, who, in Dec. 1991, watched in horror as his three children were burned to death in their home. A month later he was arrested for arson and manslaughter. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. In Feb. 2004 he was executed by the state of Texas.
Grann employs a Rashomon-style type of reporting. But rather than giving us different people’s perspectives of the same event, he gives us different “general perceptions” of the same event.
The event is the burning to the ground of a one-story wood-frame house, in Corsicana, Texas, on Dec. 23, 1991. Three children died.
The first “general perception” is the immediate one. The wife is away. The father is out front, and frantic, and has to be restrained from trying to re-enter the building, which is erupting in flames. The fire department arrives, too late, and the girls die. It’s a tragedy.
The second “general perception” is the one started by the fire investigator, whose maxims include “Fire does not destroy evidence—it creates it," and “The fire tells the story. I am just the interpreter.” The investigator finds the evidence and interprets the story, and in this interpretation Willingham is found wanting and monstrous. Based upon the evidence, he could not have done the said the things he did...unless he started the thing. As a result, neighbors and ministers begin to change their stories. Maybe Willingham wasn’t as distraught as he seemed. Maybe he didn’t try to get back in the house until there were people there to restrain him. Maybe he protested too much. This is the story of a monster who rightfully winds up on death row.
The third “general perception” begins in 1999 when a woman named Elizabeth Gilbert volunteers to become a pen pal to someone on death row, and winds up with Cameron Todd Willingham. She listens to his story and doesn’t believe him. Then she begins to research the case. She wonders why neighbors and ministers changed their tune. She questions the mental state of the cellmate who claimed Willingham confessed the crime to him. She doubts Willingham received a fair trial. The case against him is still based upon strong evidence from the fire investigator but it’s beginning to unravel. This is a story full of ambiguity and doubt, which is where most of us live most of the time. What happened again in that one-story wood-frame house? What was the event?
The fourth and final “general perception” occurs when Dr. Gerald Hurst, a national fire investigator, looks at the evidence in the case and disagrees vehemently with the local fire investigator, whose interpretations, he says, are all wrong. Fire, after all, is a foreign language. It’s as if the original fire investigator, interpreting Mandarin Chinese, says “Szi means ‘death,’ and that’s why he’s guilty,” and then another interpreter comes along and says, “Wait. Don’t you know szi also means ‘four’? It’s completely innocuous. He’s not guilty at all.” But even though the evidence is found in time, and backed by other, prominent fire investigators, and presented to the powers-that-be in Texas, including Gov. Perry, Willingham is still executed by lethal injection in Feb. 2004. Our story is back to being a tragedy, but now it’s a double tragedy. The girls are killed by fire; the father is killed by us.
Cameron Todd Willingham, Justice Scalia. Cameron Todd Willingham.
No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.
Last night P and I and Courtney and Eva checked out the town hall madness at Meany Hall on the UW campus. U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott hosted. He was a gracious host. Some in the audience were not gracious guests.
It didn’t get as bad as health care town halls I’ve seen on television. The naysayers, who mostly seemed of the Lyndon Larouche camp, simply tried to disrupt things. They shouted comments while Rep. McDermott was mid-sentence. Initially the rest of the folks in the audience turned toward the noise, curiously, but when it continued, when the guy in question wouldn’t shut up, they shouted him down. There was an adamance to this that was refreshing. The best shoutdown, a quiet but poignant shoutdown, came from Rep. McDermott himself. He was talking about a particular universal health-care-coverage proposal and then asked rhetorically, “Where did this idea come from?” One of the rabble-rousers yelled “Communists!” McDermott cocked his head, put his hands on the lectern, and enunciated distinctly: “Richard M. Nixon.” Laughter and applause.
There was a lot of applause last night. There were a lot of questions. A lot of people’s concerns were my concerns. This is Seattle so most in the audience wanted the public option if not a complete single-payer system like in Canada. They’re worried they won’t get the public option. They’re worried the Dems will fold. They asked: “What can we do to make sure the public option, or public choice, gets through?” McDermott mentioned showing up, as we were showing up, and letting our voices be heard. He said show up at the rally at Westlake Thursday evening. He said write your Senators. Let them know how you feel.
For Washington-ites, you can e-mail Sen. Patty Murray here.
You can e-mail Sen. Maria Cantwell here.
It’s Google time people. It’s easy to contact these folks.
Here are some other resources. T.R. Reid, a foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, and the author of The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, hosted a Frontline special last summer, that you can watch here, at the end of this Q&A. (It’s worth it.)
Reid also has a good Op-Ed in The Washington Post: “Five Myths About Health Care Around the World."
It continues to startle me how xenophobic this country remains, and how much our xenophobia is used against our better interests. “Communist!” when someone isn’t, “Terrorist!” when they’re not. “Kenyan!” when someone’s American, “Socialist Medicine!” when it’s generally not. And even if it is a socialist system, like Great Britain’s, well, it’s socialist in the sense that our education system and police force and firefighters are socialist. What do these things have in common? They’re essential to our well-being. Isnt health care?
Other countries’ health care systems are always used to stifle debate in this country—it’s gotten to the point where merely mentioning it is disparaging it—but who’s happy with our system? We’re locked into our employer’s heath care package (and thus fear getting fired or changing jobs), we waste everyone’s time with “gatekeepers” (and thus have to go through general practitioners to get to specialists), and 20-22% of our heard-earned money goes toward administrative costs rather than, you know, actual medical costs. This compares with 6-10% in other countries. And the nutjobs say we have the best health care in the world? We may spend the most, in terms of GDP, but the World Health Organization ranks the U.S. system 37th.
Time to get better.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to write my Senators.
Worst Wedding Day Ever
I guess I wasn't paying enough attention watching the second episode of "Mad Men," but it took a while for the other shoe to drop. Maybe I was distracted by all the tension involved in the wedding plans. Last season Roger Sterling left his wife for a young thing and now his daughter didn't want the golddigger at her wedding—why should she?—and Roger was drinking too much, and the wife, the original wife, was calm and coy, and so the date of the wedding skipped by me. It wasn't until the episode was two-thirds over that the tumblers fell into place. Odd how the mind works. Appropos of what exactly I suddenly woke up.
"Wait a minute," I asked Patricia. "They didn't say the wedding was November 23rd, did they?"
"November 23rd. 1963."
"The day after Kennedy was assassinated."
"They've just given this poor girl one of the saddest days in American history to have her wedding."
That's part of the sad fun of "Mad Men." Waiting for history to catch up with its characters. To overwhelm them.
ADDENDUM: I wrote the above without realizing that history, or time, had caught up with the final Kennedy brother. Godspeed, Senator.
The Reverse Debate Idea
The [Bush] aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
—from Ron Suskind's New York Times Magazine article, "Without a Doubt," October 2004
So it goes. So it continues. We thought this was a Bush administration thing but it's obviously a Republican thing. One can see their entire strategy in the above quote. They lie about one thing until it gains traction in the mainstream media, until it becomes a talking point, until it begins to get refuted by responsible sources ... and then they'll lie about something else. The bigger the lie the better. Repeat the lie often enough and people believe it. The point isn't to debate, it's to distract. It's to misread and mislead. It's to accuse the oppositon of being like yourself so the opposition has trouble responding. Democrats are the ones who are fascistic, bullying, and fomenting a civil war? Maybe Dems should accuse Republicans of being vacillating and overly compromising. Maybe that way we can at least have a reverse debate.
Truly, there's such awfulness here, such mind-numbing goo, that anyone with a heart can't help but turn away in disgust. Which is also part of the gameplan.
The more I think about it, the more I like the reverse debate idea. The point of accusing someone of what they aren't is to make them more of what they are. To a fault. So you accuse compromising Dems of being fascists and Nazis, which makes them even more compromising. So you accuse uncompromising Republicans of being wishy-washy and vacillating—of being hippies, say—in order to make them even more uncompromising. It won't help us get anything done but at least it'll stick them through the looking glass for a while. For a change.
Gun Nuts and the People Who Support Them
Frank Rich's Sunday column in The New York Times is called "The Guns of August," which was the title of Barbara Tuchman's 1962 account of the beginnings of World War I, which was a favorite book of Pres. Kennedy. He gave copies to the prime minister of England and the U.S. ambassador to France, among others.
Rich's column is less about the long and intricate European windings to war than about the same homegrown violence—the culture of it and the cultivation of it—that led to Pres. Kennedy's assassination in November 1963. It's about American gun nuts and the people who support them. Not just the bigmouths of Fox News and far-right radio but elected officials such as Sen. Tom Coburn (R, Ok.), who, when asked if he was troubled by the rising threats against the U.S. government, blamed the government:
“Well, I’m troubled any time when we stop having confidence in our government,” the senator said, “but we’ve earned it.”
Rich reminds us that Coburn did the same thing in supporting the Barr amendment to the Comprehensive Anti-Terrorism Act of 1995. He said people in this country were worried more about their own government than terrorism:
Terrorism in this country obviously poses a serious threat to us as a free society. It generates fear. But there is a far greater fear that is present in this country, and that is fear of our own Government. We should not further that fear. We should not do anything to promote further lack of confidence in our own Government. Public officials must recognize that our citizens fear not only terrorism, but our Government as well.
Then there was Rep. Phil Gingrey (R, Ga.) who told Chris Matthews on MSNBC that he saw no reason to discourage citizens from carrying unconcealed weapson to public debates about health insurance. In fact, he seemed to encourage it. He seemed to revel in it.
Rich is worried and so am I. He's worried that Pres. Obama is compromising too much with forces that don't compromise and so am I. But mostly he's worried about the rise in the rhetoric of violence and so am I.
I wish I could say something insightful about all of this but I've got nothing. Thoughts are welcome.
Quote of the Day
"Conservatives love to pretend they're the disability community's knights in shining armor when it suits their political purposes. In years past, they tried to co-opt us in the abortion debate by making both subtle and explicit claims that every gimp would be snuffed out in the womb were it not for them staying the liberals' murderous hand. The right has now adapted the tactic to the health care debate, portraying themselves as the defenders and protectors of us meek and vulnerable cripples who dwell in the shadow of a tyrannical and cruel government.
"I won't win any Pulitzers for this sentence, but they can take their false magnanimity and go fuck themselves...
"The only reason I'm able to live a life with any measure of dignity or independence is because of a government health plan. ... We need health care reform. I need it. Trig needs it. Kids and adults with every kind of disability need it.
"What we don't need is a bunch of screeching ideologues attempting to cynically exploit us for purposes of maintaining the status quo."
—Mark Siegel, the 19th Floor.
Read the whole post and pass it along.
The Most Banned Movies Ever! ... Maybe
A few days ago The Independent ran a short piece on the most controversial films in...history? Or just 10 banned films? If the former then “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974) is the most banned film ever (11 countries), while Singapore, no surprise, is the banningest of all countries, preventing seven of the ten listed films from arriving on their chewing-gum-less shores. A bigger surprise, at least for me, is the second banningest country, Ireland, which refused “Chainsaw,” A Clockwork Orange,” “Life of Brian,” “Freaks” and “The Evil Dead.” And who’s Italy to ban “Last Tango in Paris”? Have they seen some of their own films?
I’m also curious what constitutes a ban. Not every film is distributed abroad, so... Do distributors have to begin inquiries before the ban is announced, or are some governments more proactive in their banning? Refusing before it’s offered, as it were.
This list includes two best picture nominees (“A Clockwork Orange” and “The Exorcist”) and one best picture winner (“All Quiet on the Western Front”), and it was this last one that intrigued. Which country, you might ask, banned the peace-loving, war-hating “All Quiet”? Why Germany, of course, after the Nazis took power. In fact, according to The Independent...
During its brief run in German cinemas in 1930, the Nazis disrupted the viewings by releasing rats in the theatres.
Another reminder of what democracy isn’t. Disruption—whether with actual rats or with the kind Rachel Maddow talks about here.
Krugman: "Government involvement is the only reason our [health care] system works at all"
Please don't buy the various anti-government scare tactics. It's b.s. You probably know it's b.s. Listen to Krugman:
Private markets for health insurance, left to their own devices, work very badly: insurers deny as many claims as possible, and they also try to avoid covering people who are likely to need care. Horror stories are legion...
Most Americans do have health insurance, and are reasonably satisfied with it. How is that possible, when insurance markets work so badly? The answer is government intervention.
Most obviously, the government directly provides insurance via Medicare and other programs. Before Medicare was established, more than 40 percent of elderly Americans lacked any kind of health insurance...
The vast majority [of Americans under 65], however, don’t buy private insurance directly: they get it through their employers. There’s a big tax advantage to doing it that way, since employer contributions to health care aren’t considered taxable income. But to get that tax advantage employers have to follow a number of rules; roughly speaking, they can’t discriminate based on pre-existing medical conditions or restrict benefits to highly paid employees.
And it’s thanks to these rules that employment-based insurance more or less works...
So here’s the bottom line: if you currently have decent health insurance, thank the government...
Wearing Wool Caps in 100 Degree Weather
It hit 100 degrees in Seattle today. It’s been over 90 degrees for, what, four days in a row now? Five? That’s a lot of heat for a city without much air-conditioning, and where people tend to complain when it hits 78. Seattleites like their weather, like their politicians, temperate.
Despite this, biking through downtown this morning, I saw a few people wearing wool caps. Yesterday, when it was already around 75 degrees, I saw a guy wearing a thick coat, a stocking cap, and a determined look of crazy. You avert eyes at that point. You just keep biking.
I thought of these folks when I visited Oliver Willis’ site and watched the clip of Orly Taitz on “The Colbert Report.” Stephen was having fun with this lawyer/dentist/realtor and professional debunker of Pres. Obama’s birthplace, but the interview ceased to be funny after a while. The woman is under the mistaken impression that because Pres. Obama’s father was not a citizen of this country, then Pres. Obama cannot be a citizen of this country, and therefore he cannot be president. If her first fact is so wrong, so grossly wrong, why is anyone giving her a forum?
But then how does Michelle Malkin get a forum on the "Today" show? How about these folks on “The O’Reilly Factor,” slamming Amsterdam with words meant to evoke ‘60s liberalism (naïve, social tolerance, free love), while ultimately revealing how clueless they are?
More and more of the prominent voices on television, on the Internet, and particularly within the Republican party, remind me of folks wearing wool caps in 100 degree weather. I avert my eyes.
P.S. Visit Amsterdam.
Overreacting with Color Coding: 1975
"The biggest bomb at the Pentagon recently was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's Christmas party for the department's 22,000 employees. The recently appointed secretary decided to introduce himself by throwing a handshaking party. Expecting one of the largest reception lines in history, Rumsfeld had aides devise a three-party, color-coded pass system to prevent congestion and delay. ... There were few takers. Rumsfeld set aside three hours and was prepared to stay longer. Only 200-odd employees showed up, however, and by 4:00 a bewildered Rumsfeld was standing virtually alone with his deputy defense secretary, William Clements."
—New Times magazine, January 23, 1976
What I Would've Said If I'd Been with the Cambridge Police Dept. and Seen Henry Louis Gates Breaking Into His Own Home
"I really liked 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man.' Good book. Needs an update, though, don't you think? Hey, what are the chances of my nephews getting into Harvard? Ha ha. Just kidding. Well, duty calls. Sorry about the door, sir. You should have somebody look at that."
Tax the Rich Already
Hed and subhed in today's New York Times:
Obama Pushing, But Early Vote on Health Fades
Tax on rich is at issue
My question: At issue? For whom?
Prescient Quote of the Day
"She may decide that she does not need office in order to have great influence—any more than Rush Limbaugh does."
—Todd S. Purdam in his August 2009 Vanity Fair article on Sarah Palin, "It Came from Wasilla," published before her July 3rd resignation announcement.
Rich, Noonan, Palin
Many greeted Sarah Palin’s sudden, July 3rd resignation from the Alaska governorship with a Nelsonesque “HAW-HAW” but Frank Rich, last Sunday, argues both why she’s dangerous (“The essence of Palinism is emotional, not ideological. ... The real wave she’s riding is a loud, resonant surge of resentment and victimization that’s larger than issues like abortion and gay civil rights.”), and why she might be back (“No one thought Richard Nixon—a far less personable commodity than Palin—would come back either after his sour-grapes ‘last press conference’ of 1962.”)
For me, I doubt 1012 could be 1968, just as I doubt BHO could be LBJ. But the whole column is worth reading.
Then I found myself actually agreeing with Peggy Noonan (that Reagan shoe fetishist) in her July 11th column on same. She’s of the good-riddance school, and says what I’ve often said: It’s time for the Republican party to get smarter, not dumber. Then she adds this:
Here are a few examples of what we may face in the next 10 years: a profound and prolonged American crash, with the admission of bankruptcy and the spread of deep social unrest; one or more American cities getting hit with weapons of mass destruction from an unknown source; faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate.
All of us, certainly, have fears of a prolonged American crash and an American city getting hit. But secession? Is that a concern serious enough for the pages of the WSJ? It's certainly more politics of resentment. It also reminds me of a child throwing away a toy that he himself has broken. He's not even waiting around to see if the nearest grownup can fix it.
Minnesota Corrects a Low-Rent Mistake
Garrison Keillor is known for his supercalm demeanor on “Prairie Home Companion,” and he used it to good, skewering effect in this 2002 article on Norm Coleman, the former Democratic St. Paul mayor who switched sides, went deep for the Bush camp, and was rewarded, in the absence of Paul Wellstone, with a U.S. Senate seat in 2002. Now, finally, thankfully, about-freakinly-time, we've taken it away from him. Godspeed, Al Franken. Good riddance, Norm Coleman. Good work, Mr. Keillor.
Empty victory for a hollow man
How Norm Coleman sold his soul for a Senate seat
By Garrison Keillor
Nov. 7, 2002 | Norm Coleman won Minnesota because he was well-financed and well-packaged. Norm is a slick retail campaigner, the grabbiest and touchingest and feelingest politician in Minnesota history, a hugger and baby-kisser, and he's a genuine boomer candidate who reinvents himself at will. The guy is a Brooklyn boy who became a left-wing student radical at Hofstra University with hair down to his shoulders, organized antiwar marches, said vile things about Richard Nixon, etc. Then he came west, went to law school, changed his look, went to work in the attorney general's office in Minnesota. Was elected mayor of St. Paul as a moderate Democrat, then swung comfortably over to the Republican side. There was no dazzling light on the road to Damascus, no soul-searching: Norm switched parties as you'd change sport coats.
Norm is glib. I once organized a dinner at the Minnesota Club to celebrate F. Scott Fitzgerald's birthday and Norm came, at the suggestion of his office, and spoke, at some length and with quite some fervor, about how much Fitzgerald means to all of us in St. Paul, and it was soon clear to anyone who has ever graded 9th grade book reports that the mayor had never read Fitzgerald. Nonetheless, he spoke at great length, with great feeling. Last month, when Bush came to sprinkle water on his campaign, Norm introduced him by saying, “God bless America is a prayer, and I believe that this man is God's answer to that prayer.” Same guy.
(Jesse Ventura, of course, wouldn't have been caught dead blathering at an F. Scott Fitzgerald dinner about how proud we are of the Great Whoever-He-Was and his vision and his dream blah-blah-blah, and that was the refreshing thing about Jesse. The sort of unctuous hooey that comes naturally and easily to Norm Coleman Jesse would be ashamed to utter in public. Give the man his due. He spoke English. He didn't open his mouth and emit soap bubbles. He was no suck up. He had more dignity than to kiss the president's shoe.)
Norm got a free ride from the press. St. Paul is a small town and anybody who hangs around the St. Paul Grill knows about Norm's habits. Everyone knows that his family situation is, shall we say, very interesting, but nobody bothered to ask about it, least of all the religious people in the Republican Party. They made their peace with hypocrisy long ago. So this false knight made his way as an all-purpose feel-good candidate, standing for vaguely Republican values, supporting the president.
He was 9 points down to Wellstone when the senator's plane went down. But the tide was swinging toward the president in those last 10 days. And Norm rode the tide. Mondale took a little while to get a campaign going. And Norm finessed Wellstone's death beautifully. The Democrats stood up in raw grief and yelled and shook their fists and offended people. Norm played his violin. He sorrowed well in public, he was expertly nuanced. The mostly negative campaign he ran against Wellstone was forgotten immediately. He backpedalled in the one debate, cruised home a victor. It was a dreadful low moment for the Minnesota voters. To choose Coleman over Walter Mondale is one of those dumb low-rent mistakes, like going to a great steakhouse and ordering the tuna sandwich. But I don't envy someone who's sold his soul. He's condemned to a life of small arrangements. There will be no passion, no joy, no heroism, for him. He is a hollow man. The next six years are not going to be kind to Norm.
...And he's only 54
“In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, [John] Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff. Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party.”
—Jeffrey Toobin in his New Yorker article “No More Mr. Nice Guy.” Worth reading in its entirety. I was a little perplexed that we got this now, rather than at the end of June when the decisions in the more controversial Supreme Court cases are announced. And the end of the piece is a little weak, particularly for Toobin, who's such a good writer. But worth reading, and considering, as the more vocal part of the conservative nation picks-a-little, talks-a-little about Pres. Obama's recent U.S. Supreme Court nominee.
Is this another example of a journalist trying too hard to be objective? Or is it merely poor writing?
Read the entire piece (it’s short) by Janie Lorber, under the headline “Cheney’s Model Republican: More Limbaugh, Less Powell,” in The New York Times. Two observations, both by Lorber, stick out. Here’s the first:
The [Powell] endorsement, in a carefully timed and deliberate statement after Mr. McCain chose Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate in a move to fire up the party’s conservative base, helped solidify Mr. Obama’s campaign.
Yes, it did help Obama’s campaign but…doesn’t this graf make it sound that the Powelll endorsement came shortly after the Palin selection? But McCain chose Palin on August 30, while Powell endorsed Obama on October 19. That’s more than a month and a half difference. And a month and a half thick with campaigning. How was that “carefully timed and deliberate”? And deliberate? What does that mean anyway? As opposed to carelessly timed and accidental?
Here’s the second:
Mr. Cheney has been a particularly fierce critic of the Obama administration and a defiant defender against critics of the Bush administration, including President Obama. While his remarks have been striking, they are not unusually outspoken by comparison, for example, to former Vice President Al Gore’s condemnations of the Bush administration when it held office.
True. But Al Gore didn’t criticize the Bush administration immediately, the way that Cheney is doing with the Obama administration. After the 2000 election, Gore disappeared, remember? Then returned with a beard that everyone made fun of. Then 9/11 happened and no one criticized the Bush administration. Gore really didn’t criticize Pres. Bush, et al., until the Bush adminstration began gearing up for war with Iraq in the fall of ’02. And, yes, he was one of the first to do so. To his credit.
I guess all I’m saying, with both points, is: chronology matters.
Quote of the Day
In case the moral argument against torture isn't swaying you:
Imagine if an American operative out of uniform were captured by the Iranians tomorrow. Imagine he were put into a coffin for hours with no light and barely enough air to breathe, imagine if he were then removed and smashed against a plywood wall by a towel tied around his neck thirty times, imagine if he were then kept awake for eleven days in a row, then kept in a cell frozen to hypothermia levels, and then waterboarded multiple times, after which he confessed to being a spy trying to sabotage Iran's nuclear program. Would you believe that intelligence? Would Krauthammer? Would you believe both that he wasn't tortured and that the information he gave was reliable?
—Andrew Sullivan, taking on Charles Krauthammer, here.
The Journalistic Mission of Bill O'Reilly
You don’t need to read any more.
Quick: What’s goal no. 1 for any journalist? To get the story first. To scoop the other bastards.
What’s goal no. 2? To be as objective as possible in doing this.
Journalistic mission? These villains? Does he know he's sticking his foot in, if not his own mouth, then his producer's mouth?
And what villains? Murderers? Torturers? Bernie Madoff types?
Not exactly. The ambushees include Mike Hoyt, executive editor of The Columbia Journalism Review, who assigned a story on right-wing media to a writer with a supposed liberal background. There’s Hendrik Hertzberg, my man from The New Yorker, who, the Times writes, “was confronted for what Mr. O’Reilly described as taking a ‘Factor’ segment out of context.” (No word from the Times on how Mr. Hertzberg described the incident.) There’s also Amanda Terkel of thinkprogress.org, who organized a protest against O’Reilly.
These are the villains. People who disagreed with Bill O’Reilly.
From what I remember of those “60 Minutes” segments, Wallace and his producers would use the ambush technique, when they used it, to confront either legitimately powerful people and/or crooks. It was a technique unmotivated by politics or personal vendettas.
Michael Moore, when he uses the ambush technique (which is often), uses it to confront legitimately powerful people: U.S. congressmen and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. His ambushes are, more often than not, motivated by politics but unmotivated by personal vendettas.
Both are examples of the journalistic mission, the journalistic mission, to speak truth to power.
Most of O’Reilly’s targets are less powerful than he is. Thus these ambushes simply seem another bullying aspect of his show. It’s less speaking truth to power than power picking on (often) truth.
Journalistic mission? These villains?
Presidential Quote of the Day
“We seek broader engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect. We will listen carefully, we will bridge misunderstandings, and we will seek common ground. We will be respectful, even when we do not agree. We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world — including in my own country. The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country. I know, because I am one of them.”
— Pres. Barack Obama in a speech before the Turkish parliament.
I read this in The New York Times (newspaper version) while sitting at the Kerry Park overlook on this sunny Seattle day, eating my lunch and listening to Teddy Thompson's “In My Arms.” I was pretty happy for that half hour. Tomorrow it's supposed to rain. Tomorrow things may get worse economically. But for now it's sunny and more people realize we're at least heading in the direction we should. Amen.
ED HENRY, CNN (asking a follow-up question): So on AIG, why did you wait — why did you wait days to come out and express that outrage?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I --
ED HENRY: It seems like the action is coming out of New York in the attorney general's office. It took you days to come public with Secretary Geithner and say, look, we're outraged. Why did it take so long?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, it took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak.
There are also good takes on the press conference from Andrew Sullivan (love his line about the White House press corps' job being “polite assholes”) and Eric Alterman's Daily Beast piece, which posits the short-term thinking of those polite assholes versus Pres. Obama's long-term thinking.
Toles and Jelly
Seriously, is there a better editorial cartoonist in the country? Is there a better editorial anything in the country? Most cartoonists are inevitably reductive but Toles merely simplifies a point to its essence. The issue seems larger in his hands rather than smaller.
God, I Love This Guy
“Going forward,“ Mr. Obama said, ”each and every time we’ve got an initiative, I’m going to go to both Democrats and Republicans and I’m going to say, ‘Here’s my best argument for why we need to do this. I want to listen to your counterarguments. If you’ve got better ideas, present them. We will incorporate them into any plans that we make, and we are willing to compromise on certain issues that are important to one side or the other in order to get stuff done.’” ...
When asked about the sharp drop in the stock markets after Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced an expanded bank bailout plan last week, Mr. Obama replied:
“I am not planning based on a one-day market reaction. In fact, you can argue that a lot of the problems we’re in have to do with everybody planning based on one-day market reactions, or three-month market reactions, and as a consequence nobody was taking the long view.
“My job is to help the country take the long view — to make sure that not only are we getting out of this immediate fix, but we’re not repeating the same cycle of bubble and bust over and over again; that we’re not having the same energy conversation 30 years from now that we had 30 years ago; that we’re not talking about the state of our schools in the exact same ways we were talking about them in the 1980s; and that at some point we say, ‘You know what? If we’re spending more money per-capita on health care than any nation on earth, then you’d think everybody would have coverage and we would see lower costs for average consumers, and we’d have better outcomes.’”
— from Bob Herbert's column, “Obama Riding the Wave,” from The New York Times, February 17, 2009
We Are Not a Serious Nation
I checked out YouTube for the first time in a long time this morning, saw the shit that passed for shit there, and thought of Gore Vidal: We are not a serious nation. I read a friend’s account of how even at a pizza gathering half the kids were texting other kids rather than talking with the kids present, and thought: We are not a serious nation. I read Paul Krugman’s column in this morning’s New York Times, about how serious our economic crisis is, and how lame the response in Congress has been, particularly from the Republicans in Congress, and thought: We are not a serious nation.
I look at this site and think the same. You do what you do. I try to write about movies seriously but to what end? We’ll see where this goes. Both versions of “this.”
In November I wrote a spirited defense of how “The Daily Show” would fare in an Obama administration but I’m having my doubts now. It’s the economic crisis more than Pres. Obama. Every joke about it, from a guy making millions, and I think: “That shit ain’t funny.” Comedy is, what, tragedy plus time? They’re ignoring time. We’re just wasting it.
I apologize for this post but a blog is about what’s on your mind and this is what’s on my mind. Probably yours, too.
The economy shed 598,000 jobs in January. I knew of three of them.
Ponzi and the Happy Days (Are Here Again) Gang
My friend Dave McLean, currently living in Presov, Slovakia, alerted me to this piece by Dan Roberts in the Guardian, which, with the aid of some cheery graphics, explains, in layman's terms (or as layman as he can get), the extent of the less-than-cheery global financial crisis, and why the infusion of hundreds of billions of dollars from the federal government isn't likely to stabilize the beast. Just how much is the world in debt? Or overvalued? Some stats: from small to large numbers:
- $845 billion: The amount of gold reserves in central banks — held as a buffer against financial instability.
- $3.9 trillion: All global notes and coins in circulation, plus reserves, in Oct. 2008.
- $39 trillion: The assets (or loans due to be paid back) at the world's big financial banks.
- $62 trillion: The peak amount of credit derivatives, which, from my limited understanding, is a financial instrument whose value is derived from the value of something else, such as an asset or index. All part of the shadow banking system, which I also don't understand.
- $290 trillion: Peak of the total asset value of all developed economies.
Roberts says that it resembles, if anything, a Ponzi scheme. I get it...but still don't understand it.
Meanwhile Wall Street bankers gave themselves $20 billion in bonuses for 2008. That, unfortunately, I understand.
Barack Obama Quote of the Day
“Because of you, John. Barack Obama.”
—How Pres. Obama autographed a photo for U.S. Rep. (and civil rights legend) John Lewis after the inauguration on Jan. 20th. From David Remnick's must-read “Talk of the Town” piece in this week's New Yorker.
Paul Krugman has a great piece today on — basically — arguments against Republican arguments against Obama's stimulus package. Among them:
- First, there’s the bogus talking point that the Obama plan will cost $275,000 per job created. Why is it bogus? Because it involves taking the cost of a plan that will extend over several years, creating millions of jobs each year, and dividing it by the jobs created in just one of those years. It’s as if an opponent of the school lunch program were to take an estimate of the cost of that program over the next five years, then divide it by the number of lunches provided in just one of those years, and assert that the program was hugely wasteful, because it cost $13 per lunch. (The actual cost of a free school lunch, by the way, is $2.57.)
- Next, write off anyone who asserts that it’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money. Here’s how to think about this argument: it implies that we should shut down the air traffic control system. After all, that system is paid for with fees on air tickets — and surely it would be better to let the flying public keep its money rather than hand it over to government bureaucrats. If that would mean lots of midair collisions, hey, stuff happens.
- Finally, ignore anyone who tries to make something of the fact that the new administration’s chief economic adviser has in the past favored monetary policy over fiscal policy as a response to recessions.It’s true that the normal response to recessions is interest-rate cuts from the Fed, not government spending. And that might be the best option right now, if it were available. But it isn’t, because we’re in a situation not seen since the 1930s: the interest rates the Fed controls are already effectively at zero. That’s why we’re talking about large-scale fiscal stimulus: it’s what’s left in the policy arsenal now that the Fed has shot its bolt.
Rome is burning and the Republicans are fiddling, but it's nice to have a Nobel-Prize-winning economist on your side.
“There's Work to be Done”
Here's a great site, via Andrew Sullivan, that collects the newspaper headlines of the day. Yesterday was the day for it. Interesting to see what different editors chose to highlight or headline. There's almost poetry in it:
“A New Era,” “A New Day,” “A New Beginning,” “A New Start,” “A New Hope.”
“Hope Over Fear,” “Hope Meets History,” “History Made Today,” “History in the Making,” “Remaking America.”
“Hello, Mr. President,” “Mr. President,” “The President,” “The 44th President,” “The 44th and the First.”
“President Obama,” “Obama Ovation,” “Obama's Promise,” “Let's GObama,” “The Obama Era Begins.”
“Change,” “Change Has Come,” “The Time Has Come.”
“Face of a Nation”? “Yes, He Is.”
“Mark This Day”: “We Are Ready to Lead.”
There was also this:
It struck a chord and it took me a minute before I remembered why. It's similar to a line in “TimeQuake,” Kurt Vonnegut's last novel. I reviewed it for The Seattle Times in 1997. Back then I wrote:
Just as Billy Pilgrim could get unstuck in time (in “Slaughterhouse-Five”) and gravity could become variable (“Slapstick”), so Kilgore Trout and the world discover in “Timequake” that the universe isn't always expanding. In the year 2001, the universe has second thoughts and contracts, or hiccups, sending everyone back to what they were doing 10 years before.
It's a perverse form of eternal recurrence. Everyone has knowledge of the next decade but is unable to alter it in any fashion. They essentially become prisoners within their own bodies.
Thus, when the universe gets going again, people are unprepared — asleep at the wheel, as it were — and disasters occur. They don't realize that once again they have to drive their cars or fly their airplanes or concentrate on walking straight. So cars crash, planes plummet, people wobble and fall over.
Trout, one of the first to realize what has happened, tries to wake people out of their stupor by shouting, “You have free will!” When this doesn't work, he tells them, “You were sick, but now you are well, and there's work to do!”
It's January 21, 2009. You were sick. But now you are well. And there's work to be done.
Sam Cooke Quote of the Day
There’ve been times that I thought
I couldn’t last for long
Now I think I’m able
To carry on
It’s been a long
A long time coming
But I know
Change gonna come
Oh, yes it will
ADDENDUM: The New York Times editorial on the inaugural speech.
Since last February I’ve seen bumper stickers, and sometimes signs and t-shirts, celebrating my upcoming birthday. “1-20-09,” they read. Sometimes they added: “End of an Error,” which I thought a bit much. The first 45 years of my life have had their share of bumps but I wouldn’t say they were an “error.” That’s a tough decision from the official scorer.
OK, jokes aside, you and I and the world have been waiting for this day. It’s not just because the most incompetent guy is leaving. It’s because the most competent guy is arriving. For the past year I’ve littered this blog with the overall thought that the wrong guy — the guy obsessed with numbers rather than people, with getting ahead rather than helping others get ahead — is invariably put in charge. That’s certainly the lesson of “The Wire.” It’s even the lesson of that recent article on Tim Palen and marketing. We’ve become a nation that sells the insubstantial so well we’ve convinced ourselves it’s substantial. Maybe that’s the error we’re tryng to end.
It’s been a helluva ride. I first heard him speak at the annual Minnesota Democratic-Farm-Labor dinner in downtown Minneapolis in the spring of '06 and he cut through my cynicism right away. “Jesus,” I thought, “this guy could do it.” He was my guy from the get-go, even as the press 1) dismissed him too soon, then 2) annointed him too soon, then 3) invariably missed the point. But I still had my doubts. Sure, the Democrats might vote for him. But the nation? When idiocies flared up, when Palen and that circus arrived, when community organizers were dismissed out-of-hand as somehow undeserving, he stayed calmer than I did. I went to him to get calm. He gave us this, and this, and this. We gave him this.
I’m 46 today and the most competent guy is arriving. It's the best birthday present I ever got.
Now let’s get this party started.
Quote of the Effin' Year
"A gangly Illinois politician whom 'the base' would today label a RINO—a Republican in Name Only—once pointed out that you can fool some of the people all of the time. We now know how many 'some' is: twenty-seven per cent. That’s the proportion of Americans who, according to CNN, cling to the belief that George W. Bush has done a good job.
"The wonder is that this number is still in the double digits, given his comprehensively disastrous record. During the eight years of the second President Bush, the unemployment rate went from 4.2 per cent to 7.2 per cent and climbing; consumer confidence dropped to an all-time low; a budget surplus of two hundred billion dollars became a deficit of that plus a trillion; more than a million families fell into poverty; the ranks of those without health insurance rose by six million; and the fruits of the nation’s economic growth went almost entirely to the rich, while family incomes in the middle and below declined. What role the Bush Administration’s downgrading of terrorism as a foreign-policy priority played in the success of the 9/11 attacks cannot be known, but there is no doubting its responsibility for the launching and mismanagement of the unprovoked war in Iraq, with all its attendant suffering; for allowing the justified war in Afghanistan to slide to the edge of defeat; and for the vertiginous worldwide decline of America’s influence, prestige, power, and moral standing."
— Hendrik Hertzberg, "Talk of the Town," New Yorker, Jan. 19, 2009
The Tyranny of the Short Term
The best article I've read on the financial crisis was the second-most e-mailed article on the NY Times Web site yesterday. Today's it's the most e-mailed. It's by Michael Lewis and David Einhorn and it should be read by everybody. It explains the crisis in ways that even laypeople, of which I am hopelessly one, can understand. Some highlights:
Obviously the greater the market pressure to excel in the short term, the greater the need for pressure from outside the market to consider the longer term. But that’s the problem: there is no longer any serious pressure from outside the market. The tyranny of the short term has extended itself with frightening ease into the entities that were meant to, one way or another, discipline Wall Street, and force it to consider its enlightened self-interest...
Over the last 20 years American financial institutions have taken on more and more risk, with the blessing of regulators, with hardly a word from the rating agencies, which, incidentally, are paid by the issuers of the bonds they rate...
These oligopolies, which are actually sanctioned by the S.E.C., didn’t merely do their jobs badly. They didn’t simply miss a few calls here and there. In pursuit of their own short-term earnings, they did exactly the opposite of what they were meant to do: rather than expose financial risk they systematically disguised it...
The instinct to avoid short-term political heat is part of the problem; anything the S.E.C. does to roil the markets, or reduce the share price of any given company, also roils the careers of the people who run the S.E.C. Thus it seldom penalizes serious corporate and management malfeasance — out of some misguided notion that to do so would cause stock prices to fall, shareholders to suffer and confidence to be undermined. Preserving confidence, even when that confidence is false, has been near the top of the S.E.C.’s agenda...
Read the whole thing. You get a sense that the people who are running our world are not the people who should be running our world. "The tyranny of the short term" is a phrase that could be used to describe almost every aspect of American life.
Worse: The things we did to wind up in this hole are the very things we're now doing to get us out of this hole. We're relying on the same people. We're relying on the same institutions. We're trying to preserve confidence even when the confidence is false.
Read the whole thing.
Seriously, Did That Guy Get Anything Right?
In our annual Christmas letter (I know), which went out yesterday (apologies), I wrote the following: "We gave up trying to sell Patricia’s condo in May but once we did it rented like that to a very nice woman — one of 30 people who desperately wanted it. Apparently it’s a renting market. As opposed to an ownership society. Seriously, did that guy get anything right?"
Even as I wrote it I began to wonder about that old Bush line, another catchphrase gone horribly awry, and why no one had done an in-depth piece on specifics of the Bush administration's culpability in our current housing — and thus economic — crisis.
The New York Times to the rescue. In today's paper, Jo Becker, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Stephen Labaton have a great in-depth piece on the political push for an ownership society that led to our current renting market. It's easy to see in hindsight. Basically the administration was pushing for more ownership and less regulation at a time when housing prices were soaring and salaries were flatlining. How to fit more people into more expensive homes at a time when they had less real money and fewer people were watching? Yeah:
So Mr. Bush had to, in his words, “use the mighty muscle of the federal government” to meet his goal. He proposed affordable housing tax incentives. He insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meet ambitious new goals for low-income lending.
Concerned that down payments were a barrier, Mr. Bush persuaded Congress to spend up to $200 million a year to help first-time buyers with down payments and closing costs.
And he pushed to allow first-time buyers to qualify for federally insured mortgages with no money down. Republican Congressional leaders and some housing advocates balked, arguing that homeowners with no stake in their investments would be more prone to walk away, as Mr. West did. Many economic experts, including some in the White House, now share that view.
This administration made decisions that allowed the free market to operate as a barroom brawl instead of a prize fight,” said L. William Seidman, who advised Republican presidents and led the savings and loan bailout in the 1990s. “To make the market work well, you have to have a lot of rules.”
But Mr. Bush populated the financial system’s alphabet soup of oversight agencies with people who, like him, wanted fewer rules, not more.
It gets worse. One of the top 10 donors to the Republican party in 2004, Roland Arnall, founded Ameriquest, one of the largest lenders in the subprime market. In 2005, White House aides discussed Ameriquest's troubles — including setting aside $325 million to settle with 30 states which claimed Ameriquest preyed on borrowers — but not in terms of the economy. They discussed Ameriquest because Pres. Bush had just nominated Arnall to be ambassador to the Netherlands.
Gov. Blagojovitch looks like a piker in comparison.
Read the entire article. It's worth it. Conservatives accuse liberals of being naive about the poor — that the poor are poor because they deserve it — and so helping them is pointless. But conservatives are just as naive, if not moreso, about the rich. They think the rich are rich because they deserve it — because they're talented, not because they're, say, predatory or ruthless — and so regulating them is unnecessary and just gets in the way of their talent.
My French teacher, Nathalie, spent a week in Sayulita, Mexico last month and took this picture of the Mexican version of Shepard Fairey's famous series of Obama posters. Cambio. Change.
The people there told her about the spontaneous celebrations that erupted the night Obama got elected. As here in Seattle. As all over the world.
I'm sure there are similar posters from different countries and in different languages. If you know of any, or, better, if you have images of any, please send them my way.
Give the People What They Want
One of the top 12 videos on YouTube this morning is a thing called "Betty Cakes," in which, in the static "cover" image (is there a term for this?), you see an attractive woman's limbs and some cupcakes where breasts might be. Its three-star rating implies a come-on that goes nowhere.
The 11 remaining most-seen videos show the same thing: an Iraqi journalist throwing a shoe at President Bush. All have five-star ratings.
I've never seen such domination of the charts since the Beatles had all top 5 U.S. singles in April 1964.
That said, a friend of mine mentioned yesterday that he was more impressed by Pres. Bush's handling of the shoe-throwing incident than anything he's done during his presidency. He ducks but keeps the journalist in his line of sight. Made my friend think he's had shoes thrown at him before. One conjecture was Laura. Another was Condi. Feel free to make your guess below.
Overall, footage of the shoe-throwing incident occupies 62 of the top 100 videos on YouTube.
The Obama Non-Stories
Idiocies of the week.
First this one. Here's AP's headline: “Many Insisting That Obama Is Not Black.” Suggested headline: “A Few Idiots Insisting Obama Is Not Black.” It's beyond annoying, beside-the-point, and could only be spouted by people who hadn't read “Dreams From My Father,” or who hadn't thought one inch into our cross-country racial history. Serously: STFU.
Eric Boehlert of Media Matters has smartly raised the other: the non-story of Obama's non-involvement in the Gov. Blagojevich scandal, which I've been bitching about it all week, particularly in connection with the New York Times coverage. Liberal press, my ass. Boehlert flags (and emphasizes within) this NYT graf:
Although prosecutors said Mr. Obama was not implicated in their investigation, the accusations of naked greed and brazen influence-peddling have raised questions from some about the political culture in which the President-elect began his career.
At least the Times used “some” here, rather than the AP's “many,” but even their “some” still turned out to be “some Republican operatives.”
Meanwhile, what's Obama been up to? Nominating Nobel laureates to his cabinet. At least someone's taking their job seriously.
“The Most Vicious Smear Campaign Ever Mounted Against an American Politician”
Since the election, there's been a lot of talk about how the media favored Obama during the campaign. Hell, there's was noise about this before the election. Such talk seems to imply that all coverage should be equal no matter who the candidates are or what they say, but someday, when I have time, I might drill down to see if anything was unnecessarily positive or negative about either candidate, or if it was merely a matter of, say, Albert Pujols generating more positive media coverage than Willie Bloomquist because he’s the better ballplayer.
To what extent, in other words, can you remove a candidate’s performance from the equation? Baseball’s a little different, of course, in that you have quantifiable statistics rather than qualitative remarks or actions. At the same time, as I often say, objectivity is not stupidity. Journalists can’t, or shouldn’t, pretend things aren’t as they are. Put another way: I had my own problems, from a pro-Obama point-of-view, with the media’s coverage of this campaign. Here, here and here. And here and here. And here.
Besides, Michael Massing reminds us, in his excellent article in The New York Times Review of Books, “Obama: In the Divided Heartland,“ that a whole lotta media wasn't exactly backing Obama:
For months, [Rush] Limbaugh had been hammering away at [Obama]—for abetting terrorists, hating Israel, being corrupt, supporting socialism. Today, oddly, he was faulting him for his lack of passion. ”He's like a Stepford husband,“ he said. ”He's cold enough to consort with terrorists. Cold enough to dismiss small-town America as 'bitter clingers.' Cold enough to take our guns away. Cold enough to take our money away.“
Such charges were standard fare on the toxic, overheated combine of right-wing talk radio, cable television programs, and Internet blogs that has so multiplied and festered in recent years. Americans who do not regularly tune in have little idea how nasty and venomous a campaign was waged there against Barack Obama. Day after day, night after night, a steady stream of poison was directed at him not only by Limbaugh but also by Sean Hannity, on his daily radio show and nightly Fox broadcast; by Bill O'Reilly, on Fox, the radio, and the Internet; by Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, and a legion of other ranting radio hosts; by Hugh Hewitt, Michelle Malkin, Monica Crowley, and their fellow pike-bearers in the blogosphere; by columnists like Jonah Goldberg, Charles Krauthammer, Mark Steyn, Michael Barone (”The Coming Obama Thugocracy“), and Ann Coulter (”Obama's Dimestore 'Mein Kampf'"), all joining together to produce firestorms of manufactured rage about Obama's purported ties to Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, ACORN, Castro, Chávez, Ahmadinejad, and Karl Marx...
These outbursts were supplemented by a noxious barrage of e-mails, mass mailings, and robocalls claiming that Obama was pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, unpatriotic, a Muslim, a madrasa graduate, a black racist—even the Antichrist. Amounting to a six-month-long exercise in Swift Boating, these attacks, taken together, constituted perhaps the most vicious smear campaign ever mounted against an American politician.
That's the question I'd ask anyone pushing one of these studies. Is talk radio included? And if not, why not?
Didion, Clad in her Armor
Last night, the cover of the latest New York Review of Books — VICTORY!, with a cartoon of Obama in the center, and promises of articles by Joan Didion, Darryl Pinckney and others — made me happy for a moment... until I began reading Didion’s article. Then I went: Oh yeah. This.
Didion was an established writer by the time I began to read serious literature, well-known for her essays, and I enjoyed White Album and others in my twenties but began feeling disappointment in my thirties when I read Salvador. I thought: “Does she only have irony? Is that her sole tool?” After reading all of Norman Mailer’s messy attempts to be engaged with the world, Didion’s ironic distance felt dry and useless.
In the Review she writes about how, in the Obama era, irony is supposedly out. Her essay proves otherwise. She casts an ironic eye less on Obama than on the support he engenders:
Irony was now out.
Naiveté, translated into “hope,” was now in.
Innocence, even when it looked like ignorance, was now prized.
Partisanship could now be appropriately expressed by consumerism.
I couldn't count the number of snapshots I got e-mailed showing people's babies dressed in Obama gear.
Was innocence ever prized in this campaign? Youth, yes, but innocence? As for the consumerism and snapshots, well, maybe she needs new friends. I received no snapshots of babies in Obama gear during this election season. My friends were too busy, among other things, campaigning for Obama. Being engaged.
She goes on:
I couldn't count the number of times I heard the words “transformational” or “inspirational,” or heard the 1960s evoked by people with no apparent memory that what drove the social revolution of the 1960s was not babies in cute T-shirts but the kind of resistance to that decade's war that in the case of our current wars, unmotivated by a draft, we have yet to see.
Must be tough to be one of Didion’s friends — to hear your words later mocked in her essays. Yet wasn’t Obama, certainly on the most basic of levels, transformational? Wasn’t he inspirational? It feels so small, her objections. She stands back, like in the famous David Levine caricature, holding her cigarette aloft, clad in her irony, while the world celebrates. It’s an easy stance because the world is full of fools and she quotes some of them. A commentator who said other nations now “want to be with us.” That’s how she ends her essay:
Imagining in 2008 that all the world's people wanted to be with us did not seem entirely different in kind from imagining in 2003 that we would be greeted with flowers when we invaded Iraq, but in the irony-free zone that the nation had chosen to become, this was not the preferred way of looking at it.
Maybe this was not the preferred way of looking at it because “wanting to be with us” came from a commentator after someone else’s election, while “greeted with flowers” came from the highest officials in the Bush administration before their own invasion. The first, though clumsily phrased, was based upon evidence we could actually see: people around the world celebrating Obama’s victory. The second was based upon evidence the Bush administration didn’t let us see and which they wanted to see: Their policy dictating their evidence, rather than vice-versa. Maybe that’s part of why Didion's way is not the preferred way of looking at it.
Irony isn’t out; it’s simply, as always, an easy way out.
Torture to Watch
“Dark Side” uses the incarceration and subsequent death of an innocent Afghani taxi driver while in U.S. military custody as the starting point to examine our entire post-9/11 system of torture and humiliation — specifically at Bagram, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. It’s a good overview of what will surely be one of the blackest marks of the many black marks on the Bush administration. For some, of course, the mark isn’t even black, but this doc should give pause to proponents of torture, as well as to regular viewers of “24” — where the efficacy of torture in extracting accurate information is regularly dramatized.
Morris’ film is more focused and creepier. He trains his eye on Abu Ghraib, on what was done there, on the photos that were taken there, on what they say or don’t say and how they lie or don’t lie. He interviews, almost exclusively, the various “bad apples” who forced Iraqi prisoners to debase themselves. It’s beautifully shot, but claustrophobic and so sad about human nature. What people can convince themselves to do — particularly when ordered to do so. What they can convince themselves of afterwards. A few small apples were scapegoated for our unethical system, and their main defense is the Nuremberg defense: I didn’t know any bettre; I was just following orders. They also blame the photographs. They blame the evidence rather than the crime. It’s as if being scapegoated for the crime is keeping them from examining their role in the crime.
I’m not sure what happens when we stare into those faces as they justify their actions, but it’s definitely uncomfortable. Would we have done the same in their situation? Are they us? The tawdriness of the enterprise is overwhelming. Maybe it says something that the talking head who is least culpable — who was not even a guard at Abu Ghraib, but who wound up in the background of some photographs and was prosecuted based on that evidence — blames himself the most. Maybe that’s something the rest of us could begin to emulate.
DFMF Quote of the Day
"So, Barry. What have you brought me from America?"
I reached into my bag and pulled out one of the portable cassette players that I had bought for him [Abo] and Bernard. He turned it over in his hands with a thinly disguised look of disappointment.
"This brand is not Sony, is it?" he said. Then, looking up, he quickly recovered himself and slapped me on the back. "That's okay, Barry. Thank you! Thank you."
I nodded at him, trying not to get angry. He was standing beside Bernard and their resemblance was striking: the same height, the same slender frame, the same smooth, even features. Just shave off Abo's moustache, I thought to myself, and they could almost pass as twins. Except for...what? The look in Abo's eyes. That was it. Not just the telltale redness of some sort of high but something deeper, something that reminded me of young men back in Chicago. An element of guardedness, perhaps, and calculation. The look of someone who realizes early in life that he has been wronged.
—Barack Obama, visiting Kendu Bay in Kenya in the 1980s, in Dreams From My Father, pg. 384
New Yorker Quote of the Day
"At a Clinton event in Hampton, New Hampshire, a seventy-one-year-old woman named Ruth Keene told me that 'the Republicans would chew Obama up.'
"They tried like hell. They called him an élitist, a radical, a socialist, a Marxist, a Muslim, an Arab, an appeaser, a danger to the republic, a threat to small children, a friend of terrorists, an enemy of Israel, a vote thief, a non-citizen, an anti-American, and a celebrity."
—George Packer in his article "The New Liberalism: How the economic crisis can help Obama and redefine the Democrats."
Quote of the Day
“The Rush Limbaugh attacks and other attacks from the far right generate a lot of heat but not much light.”
—Colin Powell, in “The Joshua Generation: Race and the Campaign of Barack Obama” by David Remnick, in the latest New Yorker
David Grann on Why McCain Lost
But as I read, I began to sense in John McCain (again) a tragic figure out of Shakespeare: The honorable man who once lost honorably (in 2000), yet who betrays that honor in order to try to win (in 2008). Worse, he betrays it with the same men who had dishonored him during his defeat. Worse, despite all he gives up, all he pretends to be in order to win, he loses. Badly. The dishonorable and divisive methods used to defeat him, are, when employed by him, part of the reason for his defeat. To get what he desires he becomes his enemy, but by becoming his enemy he is kept from getting what he desires.
Somewhere in Grann's piece I not only began to feel sorry for McCain but identify with him. Most of us lose in life more than we win, and, despite being a U.S. senator, McCain lost big. Twice. He knew 2008 was his last chance and he gave up everything for it.
In the process, because of all that he gave up and all that he pretended to be, long-time allies turned against him. William G. Milkien, former Republican governor of Michigan, who endorsed him in 2000 and again during the 2008 primaries, said in October, “McCain keeps asking, ‘Who is the real Barack Obama?,’ but what I want to know is who is the real John McCain?” Frank Schaeffer, son of the man credited with starting the religious right, who backed McCain in 2000, and for whose 2006 book “AWOL,” McCain offered a blurb, said the following, again in October, in an open letter to the candidate:
“If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as ‘not one of us,’ I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence. ... You are unleashing the monster of American hatred and prejudice, to the peril of all of us. You are doing this in wartime. You are doing this as our economy collapses. You are doing this in a country with a history of assassinations.”I’ve written about what McCain said about John Lewis during the final debate, and Lord knows I was pissed off then, but my anger softened when I read this:
Though McCain publicly called [Lewis’] accusations “shocking and beyond the pale,” a campaign aide told me that when McCain first heard Lewis’s remarks he sat in silence inside the campaign’s official bus.So I was feeling a little sympathetic for John McCain. Then Mark Salter opened his piehole.
Salter still doesn’t understand any of the criticisms of McCain and the way that he and Steve Schmidt (his Iago) ran his campaign. He accuses the press of a double standard that favored Obama. He fobs it all off on the “liberal media.” He brings up the few positives McCain did (his poverty tour, his town-hall suggestion) and all he didn’t do (playing the Rev. Wright card), and thinks that’s enough to demonstrate his candidate’s positive side — not bothering to explain away the reactions of Milkien and Schaeffer, let alone McCain’s own brother, Joe, who pleaded with the campaign to let McCain be McCain. “Everybody kept saying, ‘Where’s the old happy warrior?’ It was fucking crazy,” Salter says.
The best response to Salter is Grann’s next graf:
But many who hoped that McCain could modify his policies without sacrificing his identity felt that he had crossed the line. He surrounded himself with conservative economic advisers, such as Phil Gramm, a fanatical proponent of deregulation, and Jack Kemp, the apostle of supply-side economics. He called for making Bush’s tax cuts permanent. He declared that the estate tax, which he, like Teddy Roosevelt, had championed, was now “one of the most unfair tax laws on the books.” ... [He] reversed his position on offshore drilling and endorsed the teaching of “intelligent design.” He disowned his own bill on immigration reform. Whereas he had once decried the use of torture under any circumstances, he now voted against banning the same techniques of “enhanced interrogation” that had been practiced against him in Vietnam.This election won’t truly be over until the side that lost realizes why it lost. Yes, it was the economy. But it was also who was the stronger candidate, and who was the weaker. In Ryan Lizza’s piece on Obama’s campaign, in which Obama comes off as a tougher Chicago pol than people give him credit for, the “crucial moment” for many aides came way back in July 2007 when, during the YouTube debate, Obama said he would meet world leaders without preconditions. Hilary pounced. The aides worried. They were thinking about backing off, changing the subject, bobbing and weaving, when Obama, overhearing, spoke up:
“This is ridiculous. We met with Stalin. We met with Mao. The idea that we can’t meet with Ahmadinejad is ridiculous. This is a bunch of Washington-insider conventional wisdom that makes no sense. We should not run from this debate. We should have it.”In Grann’s piece on McCain, here’s the key moment:
Just before the Republican Convention, McCain, who often seemed miserable in his new right-wing guise, tried to resurrect his former identity. He decided to choose as his running mate Joe Lieberman—a pro-choice Democrat who shared McCain’s views on foreign policy. The choice would have signalled both McCain’s independence and his return to a more bipartisan agenda. “He wanted Lieberman badly,” a McCain confidant said. But when leaders of the base threatened to challenge him at the Convention, McCain did the one thing that he believed a great politician never did. As the confidant put it, “John capitulated.One candidate stood up to his aides, one didn’t. One candidate ran his show, the other let it run him. One won, the other lost — not just the campaign but himself. It’s tragic, yes, Shakespearean even, but only for the candidate, not for us. By losing, in fact, you could say John McCain finally lived up to his campaign’s motto: He put country first.
Baffling Republican Quote of the Day
More than halfway through David Grann's must-read piece in the post-election issue of The New Yorker, "The Fall," about John McCain and his disastrous campaign, Grann paraphrases McCain speechwriter and close aide Mark Salter:
In a recent conversation, Salter told me that at one moment the press was criticizing McCain for lacking a central message and the next was castigating him for not being spontaneous.
First, the media is not monolithic. More importantly, those two criticisms are not mutually exclusive — as the sentence seems to imply. One can have a central message and be spontaneous. Just look at Barack Obama. Unfortunately, McCain didn't have (a central message) and wasn't (spontaneous). The worst of both worlds.
Dan Savage Opens a Can of Whup-Ass
TDS: RIP? — Addendum
So the argument — jumpstarted, post-election, by Dan Kois — is that “The Daily Show” will have trouble with an Obama presidency because Jon Stewart and his writers are basically Dems who will have trouble mocking a Dem president. Certainly Bush provided a wider target than Obama, or anyone, will, but I've argued that Stewart's main target isn't really politicians anyway but the mainstream media and the effed-up way it portrays our world.
As for the whole Dem thing, I suddenly realized — today — that the funniest thing I've seen on TDS in months, maybe ever, was the show's reaction to John Kerry's attempt to explain a “Depends” joke he made at the expense of John McCain. They spun it into its own mini-segment: “John Kerry Ruins Your Favorite Jokes.”
Patricia can back me up. When we were watching this, I could barely breathe I was laughing so hard. The good stuff starts at 3:30 in.
When Bush Met Obama — 2004
Jan Schakowsky told me about a recent visit she had made to the White House with a congressional delegation. On her way out, she said, President Bush noticed her “OBAMA” button. “He jumped back, almost literally,” she said. “And I knew what he was thinking. So I reassured him it was Obama, with a ‘b.’ And I explained who he was. The President said, ‘Well, I don’t know him.’ So I just said, ‘You will.’ ”
— from William Finnegan's article, “The Candidate: How the son of a Kenyan Economist became an Illinois Everyman,” in the May 31, 2004 issue of The New Yorker. Recommended reading.
Hertzberg on McCain: 9/13/04
From the same column:
McCain—who in 2008 will be three years older than Reagan was in 1980—faces a different problem [than the moderate Republicans]. Though wobbly on gays, he is solidly anti-abortion and firmly in favor of the Iraq war. But it’s hard to see how he can ever win back the trust of the hard core.
As hard to see as Russia from Sarah Palin's backyard.
Hertzberg on Obama: 9/13/04
From a “Talk of the Town” piece:
When Barack Obama spoke at the Democratic Convention in Boston, a lot of people thought—and hoped—that they were seeing the future. Half Kansas and half Kenyan, half black and half white, yet all-American in a novel and exhilarating way that seemed to transcend the usual categories, Obama, who on November 2nd will be elected to the United States Senate from Illinois, embodied and expressed a fresh synthesis of the American civic religion —one that fused not only black and white, and immigrant and native-born, but also self-reliance and social solidarity. “He represents the future of the party,” Stephanie Cutter, the communications director for John Kerry’s campaign, said by way of explaining why Obama had been chosen to deliver the keynote speech. And it is not hard to imagine circumstances under which, a decade or two hence, he might represent the future of the country as well.
So NY Times reporter Michael Sokolove returned to his hometown of Levittown, Pa., on Election Day to find out how and why people were voting. Great piece. Read it in full.
Some might wonder how this differs from what Maureen Dowd does. The biggest difference is in the question itself: “Why are you doing what you're doing” vs. “How do you feel?” The latter is a lousy question even when it comes from a reporter and is directed at a championship-winning athlete, and it's positively abyssmal when it comes from two citizens partcipating in the same democratic process. It implies a separation (as between reporter and athlete) when there should be none. It also assumes that people within a generalized group (that is, African-Americans) fit the generalization (that is, support Obama), and Dowd's black bartender, a Libertarian, was one of 4 percent nationwide who did not fit this generalization. Oops.
Sokolove asks a real reporter's question (or a reporter's real question?) and gets great results. Why did this area, which went overwhelmingly for Hilary during the primaries, now go for Obama?
- “McCain pointed a lot of fingers instead of giving answers,” Steve O’Connor, a plumber, told me.
- “I don’t want a clone of George Bush,” Mark Maxwell, 47, a corporate chef, said. “With McCain, that’s exactly what we’d get.”
- Said Lisa Winslow, a 20-year-old college student: “I’m not rich. I can’t afford to vote for McCain.”
- Levittown is filled with a great many veterans of the Vietnam War, not all of whom served happily. “I didn’t want to be there when I was told to go,” said Frank Carr, 62, who recently retired from his shipping job in a corrugated box factory. “I know how the boys feel. I believe Obama is a man of his word.” When Mr. Obama says he is going to bring home the troops, “I believe him,” Mr. Carr said.
Sokolove then concludes smartly:
The people I met in Levittown were not on Mr. Obama’s e-mail list or among his donors, but they may be more likely than his younger supporters and more affluent ones to give him what he most desperately needs: time and patience. Like characters from the songs of one of Mr. Obama’s celebrity endorsers, Bruce Springsteen, many Levittowners have been weathered by life. They haven’t benefited from a lot of quick fixes. Others of his supporters say they’ll be patient, but I sensed these people really mean it. They were harder to sell, but they could end up being pretty loyal.
“How long did it take Bush to get us into this mess?” Mr. Carr, the Vietnam veteran, asked. “It’s a lot easier to screw things up than to make them better.”
Maureen Dowd Sucks (Again)
As the posts below indicate, I've been waiting for the Sunday Times since Tuesday evening around 8 PM (PST). Wasn't the first thing on my mind, certainly, but at some point I did want to hear how Frank Rich and the others reacted to the Obama victory.
Rich's main point is that we're a better country than we (and the Rovian Republicans) think we are. Thomas Friedman wants foreign leaders, giddy over an Obama victory, to remember to back Obama when things get tough: when we try to extricate ourselves from Iraq without collapsing the entire structure, or when we have to put pressure on Iran to keep them from developing nuclear weapons. Nicholas Kristof, echoing what I've long felt, wonders if Obama's victory is as much a victory for another embattled minority group, intellectuals, as it is for African-Americans.
And Maureen Dowd? She begins her column not poorly:
I grew up in the nation’s capital, but I’ve never seen blacks and whites here intermingling as they have this week.
That made me want to read on. Until the very next sentence:
Everywhere I go, some white person is asking some black person how they feel.
Really? I thought. Surely not everywhere you go. Surely there are white people in D.C. who realize how condescending that is. Surely there are white people in D.C. who are happy enough to bask in their own joy without probing into the joy of perfect strangers — as if an Obama victory went beyond their ability to understand or experience. As if it wasn't for them as well.
But Ms. Dowd finds them. Or at least writes about them. A white customer quizzing his black waitress. White women quizzing their black bartender. A white-haired white woman and a UPS delivery guy. Dowd herself and her mailman. Each instance involves a black service-person and a white customer. Nice. Where does she live again? Maybe she needs to get out more. Or further.
And the point of her column? It comes in the second-to-last graf:
But is it time now for whites to stop polling blacks on their feelings?
Jesus. So Maureen Dowd writes a column in which a group of people act in a suspect manner to impart the lesson that this group of people probably shouldn't act in this suspect manner.
Can someone please put Maureen Dowd out of her (and our) misery? Please?
Karim Sadjadpour Quote of the Day
“If you’re a hard-liner in Tehran, a U.S. president who wants to talk to you presents more of a quandary than a U.S. president who wants to confront you,” remarked Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment. “How are you going to implore crowds to chant ‘Death to Barack Hussein Obama’?"
—from Thomas Friedman's column "Show Me the Money."
Frank Rich Quote of the Day
I recommend everyone read the entire column, but here (to me) are the highlights. It explains why we all felt so good Wednesday morning:
On the morning after a black man won the White House, America’s tears of catharsis gave way to unadulterated joy. Our nation was still in the same ditch it had been the day before, but the atmosphere was giddy. We felt good not only because we had breached a racial barrier as old as the Republic...
For eight years, we’ve been told by those in power that we are small, bigoted and stupid — easily divided and easily frightened. This was the toxic catechism of Bush-Rove politics. It was the soiled banner picked up by the sad McCain campaign, and it was often abetted by an amen corner in the dominant news media. We heard this slander of America so often that we all started to believe it, liberals most certainly included. If I had a dollar for every Democrat who told me there was no way that Americans would ever turn against the war in Iraq or definitively reject Bush governance or elect a black man named Barack Hussein Obama president, I could almost start to recoup my 401(k)...
...Even the North Carolina county where Palin expressed her delight at being in the “real America” went for Obama by more than 18 percentage points.
The actual real America is everywhere. It is the America that has been in shell shock since the aftermath of 9/11, when our government wielded a brutal attack by terrorists as a club to ratchet up our fears, betray our deepest constitutional values and turn Americans against one another in the name of “patriotism.” What we started to remember the morning after Election Day was what we had forgotten over the past eight years, as our abusive relationship with the Bush administration and its press enablers dragged on: That’s not who we are.So even as we celebrated our first black president, we looked around and rediscovered the nation that had elected him. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” Obama said in February, and indeed millions of such Americans were here all along, waiting for a leader. This was the week that they reclaimed their country.
Obama Quote of the Day - for Patricia
From the president-elect's first press conference earlier today. The economy, jobs, Iran, were all dealt with. Then this.
With respect to the dog, this is a major issue. I think it's generated more interest on our Web site than just about anything.
We have — we have two criteria that have to be reconciled. One is that Malia is allergic, so it has to be hypoallergenic. There are a number of breeds that are hypoallergenic.
On the other hand, our preference would be to get a shelter dog, but, obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me. So — so whether we're going to be able to balance those two things I think is a pressing issue on the Obama household.
The “mutts like me” line. Jesus, I love this man.
Sullivan Hammers Krauthammer
I had this argument, even at the time, with people who were nominally paying attention to events, both political and financial, but who weren't obsesssing as much on the polls as I was. I remember when Obama was down to 220+ electoral votes on fivethirtyeight.com, the panic I felt, the relief I felt when his numbers began to go up before the Lehman Bros. collapse. Those who weren't obsessing didn't get this. They attributed Obama's surge to the economic collapse when it began before — around the time the shine began to wear off of Gov. Palin.
Lord knows Lehman didn't help McCain, but then McCain didn't help himself, either. Despite Krauthammer, an argument can be made that with a better VP choice, with better debate performances, and with a steady campaign that seemed to anticipate events rather than reacting wildly to them, McCain, at the least, would've had a better shot. But to pull that off (particularly the “anticipating events” part), both he and Steve Schmidt would have had to be completely different people.
Anonymous Quote of the Day
One other thing: this is a country whose President-elect's middle name is Hussein. That is a fact to be celebrated. I received an email from a young friend, an entrepreneur in Kabul, this morning. He said, "We are all smiling now," and he attached a Pakistani press clipping--the Taliban greeted the new President and said they were ready to commence talks.
Patricia Quote of the Day
In an e-mail to Jeff and Sullivan...
"I have a slight headache but I can't think of anytime I've been happier. There were tears and cheers at our place. Andy, who had gone door-to-door in Ohio for Obama, was in tears. And Laurion's parents came up from the Bahamas just for the election. His dad. who's black, said to me as he left, 'I'm so proud of your country. This is very special day.'"
Quote of the Day at Arnellia's
"Our community, we're used to the legal system letting us down," he said. "I'm used to [things] going wrong. I distrust the system so much, but this is the first time I've seen the system work in my life, and I'm 40 years old. That's harsh, but it's true. It's a relief. It's a relief to say, 'Finally. Something right happened.' But not right just for me, for everybody."
— David Hall, 39, in Jim Walsh's MNPost piece "Jubiliation at Arnellia's."
Quote of the Day
It amazes me how commentators, especially conservative commentators, can argue that (a) Obama is a socialistic avatar and a radical redistributionist and yet (b) that his election doesn't mean that the voters have been pulled to the left or bestowed a liberal mandate—that the U.S. is still (this week's reigning buzzphrase) "a center-right country."
My Election Day
One day I'll live blog one of these things (World Series, unprecedented presidential elections), but here's the retroactive version:
5:30: Woke up, showered, coffee, etc. Read Andrew Sullivan. Wrote a bit.
6:30: Left our place and walked in the rain to the T.T. Minor Elementary School to vote. My first time voting there. Usually my polling location is within five or six blocks of my home but this was over a mile away. Seems a bit screwy but Seattle often seems a bit screwy. Got wet despite the umbrella. Rain forecast for the entire day, with thunderstorms in the afternoon.
7:05: Arrived at the school to find a line of about 100 people. Again: new. Usually it's just me and the old ladies in the basement of the church. The school is a sweet elementary school (Andy's daughter goes there) and has kids' names on all of the lockers. The woman in front of me commented on what great names the kids had — not the dull Marys and Davids of our childhood — and I pointed out one name and said, “Yeah, when I was growing up, 'Isis' was just a heroine on a Saturday morning TV show.” She then surprised me by repeating the whole “zephyr winds” line and we got to talking about “Shazam” and “H.R. Puffenstuff” and how the creators of the latter must've been high while making it (a magic talking flute?), and how the star of the show, Jack Wild, had played the Artful Dodger in the 1968 musical Oliver! and may have been the best thing in the movie. I was pretty sure he'd been nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor. He also sang the film's most memorable song: “Consider Yourself.” This woman then began to sing the song to herself. Consider yourself...one of the family.
7:45: Voted. (Psst. Barack.)
7:55: Walked to Broadway on Capitol Hill. The rains had stopped. Passed a garage on John Street between 12th and 13th where the owner had painted the famous “Barack Hope” poster on the door. Painted it well, I should add.
8:05: Arrived at Starbucks ahead of the precinct captain, Stuart. Phoned him. He said he was still at campaign headquarters on Pine — that there were tons of people there — but he had our packet and would meet me in about 10 minutes.
8:05-8:15: Sat in the back of Starbucks on a couch. Starbucks was giving away free coffee to anyone who voted and the woman at the table in front of me, overhearing the barrista talking about it, said to her friend, who was sitting on the couch next to me, “Oh, is it election day?” I thought: “And that's why we have a GOTV effort. Some people just don't know.” Then the woman asked the man who was gonna win:
He: Well, Obama's ahead nationally but the electoral college is close. It might come down to Hawaii.
Me (butting in): If it comes down to Hawaii, Barack wins. Hawaii always goes Democrat and he's from there. No way he's losing Hawaii.
He: No, I'm just saying it might be close.
Me: Uh huh.
She: I've heard he might have trouble anyway. Because he's against the second amendment and all.
Me: He's not against the second amendment.
She: (Exchanges meaningful glance with the man as if to say, “Lookee here who's been brainwashed.”)
She (to He): So how long have you been hypnotizing people?
He: Oh, about 45 years.
They then went on to have a serious talk about hypnosis.
8:15: Stuart arrives. Hallelujah.
8:15-9:15: Stuart and I walk the precinct that he's walked four times in the last month, usually alone, getting out the vote. We only had about 20 names left on his list, and a couple were his neighbors with whom he'd just spoken. They'd voted. Off the list. Getting down to the bare nub. The goal.
Stuart was from Chicago, had lived in Seattle for...8 years or so? I'd met him the night before and given him shit about his Chicago Cubs cap. “You know, Barack's a White Sox fan,” I said. He smiled and said, “Well, I think we have room in the party for both Cubs and White Sox fans.”`Some part of me was actually worried about that Cubs cap: That it might transmit its losing ways into the campaign. I wondered who the Steve Bartman of the Barack campaign might be.
9:15: Stuart and I finished the packet, we said our goodbyes, and I walked the packet over to Obama's Capitol Hill headquarters on Pine. It was getting chillier but the rain wasn't coming back. In fact, the sky was beginning to clear. Nice.
Campaign headquarters was packed. I'd arrived planning to phone-bank into the early afternoon but looked at the second floor, where phone-banking was supposed to take place, and thought it made more sense to split. They had more volunteers than they knew what to do with. Again: Nice. On the walk home, ran into our neighbor, Laura, who was on her way to vote.
10:00-4:00: Got our place ready for what I continually called a “gathering.” Didn't want to jinx us with the word “party.”
4:00: First results. McCain leads in the electoral college 8-3: Kentucky vs. Vermont. Damn!
4:15: Andy and his girls arrive. Mathilda, the youngest, wears wings. I ask her if that was her Halloween costume but she says, No, she went as Dora.
4:30 and on: More people arrive. Jeff and Sullivan, with two kids. Chasing games ensue throughout the condo. Charges of “schnookering” are made. Balloons are blown up. Balloons are played with. All evening.
Around 25-30 people show up. At some point we order Indian food. I drink: beer and saki and red wine and champagne. By which time the gathering has become a party. I began to use the word: party.
You know the rest. I was worried about Virginia, initially, but when Pennsylvania broke early and clean for Obama, I thought: Good sign. By the tme Ohio broke, giving Obama 207 electoral votes, Jim and I did the math. The three western states, California, Oregon and Washington, would give him 280. It was all over but the shouting. Then came the shouting.
Today: A new day. Welcome.
GOTV in America
GOTV in Pennsylvania
Spent a good part of yesterday at home making phonecalls for Barack Obama as part of his campaign's Get Out The Vote effort. Their online set up is pretty smart, and allows a volunteer to choose which (leaning, toss-up) state to call. I chose Pennsylvania, for obvious reasons, and it mostly went OK, although at least 90 percent of my calls resulted in 1) leaving messages, 2) wrong numbers, or 3) nobody home, which is different than 1) in that there was no answering machine or service to leave a message on or with. The phone just rang and rang and rang. A throwback to the '70s.
The most interesting person I talked to was an 80-something year-old woman who was voting for Obama, and who complained about all of the mail and robocalls she was getting from the McCain camp. “I'm not a Republican!” she kept saying indignantly. She also implied that FDR helped her father get a job during the Depression. Apparently he told his kids, and he had 12 of them, before he died, “If any of you vote Republican I'll roll over in my grave.” She was proud of that.
The most interesting polling location? “Prison Training Academy” in Philadelphia.
My friend Andy, who was doing the same all weekend, got me on board yesterday and probably immediately regretted it, since I called him about five times with various questons. During one of those calls we got to talking about McCain's robocalls and what a nuissance they were. Andy said that whenever he left a message he always used the voter's name so they'd know it wasn't a robocall. That's when it hit me. Why McCain uses robocalls. Because he doesn't have people like us.
Yet another difference between the two campaigns. McCain uses a dehumanizing technique to dehumanize his opponent. Obama uses actual volunteers from around the country to make sure everyone gets out and votes.
My First Blog Post
Eight years ago, either the night before or a few nights before the 2000 election, I read Hendrik Hertzberg’s “Talk of the Town” column in The New Yorker before going to bed and panicked. I couldn’t sleep.
I hadn’t gotten involved in the campaign much — I was a freelance writer, struggling to keep my head above water during a time of great prosperity and opportunity — but I was definitely for Gore, and not simply because I was a Democrat, but for all the reasons Hertzberg laid out in his column. What I didn’t know, what Hertzberg began to let me in on, was how bad it had gotten, and how culpable the media was in making it bad, which is to say close. Too close to call. We had to wait until the U.S. Supreme Court decided for us, by a 5-4 vote, on December 12, 2000: a date which will live in infamy. (For more on this, please read Boies v. Bush v. Gore, about Gore’s lawyer David Boies, which I edited for New York Super Lawyers magazine this fall.)
That evening, instead of sleeping, I got up, turned my computer back on, searched online for the Hertzberg article (futilely, for this was 2000), and then proceeded to type the whole damn thing up and send it to everyone I knew. I suppose it was my first blog post. READ this, I told everyone. SEND IT to everyone you know.
We've come a long way baby since then, and mostly, like the old Springsteen song says, down down down down. It's amazing to consider the country Bush inherited and the country he leaves behind. Only the most blinkered Republican fuckstick would consider the last eight years anything less than an unmitigated disaster.
We can't re-do that choice but we can do this one right. My god, what would it be like to have a smart man, a really smart man, in the White House?
Here's the Hertzberg column I sent out eight years ago. Read it and weep. Read it and hope:
After the polls close next week, we will learn what Presidential politics in the year 2000 has been “about.” Specifically, we will learn whether it has been about “issues” or “personality.”
If the campaign turns out to have been about “issues,” then the Democratic nominee, Al Gore, will be elected, because he is the superior candidate in point of both command and positions...
Vice President Gore has shown himself to be, in comparison with the Republican candidate, George W. Bush, more fiscally responsible (because he proposes to spend somewhat less of the chimerical surplus than does Governor Bush), more socially responsible (because he proposes to spend more of that surplus on social needs such as education and health care and divert less of it to individual consumption), and more egalitarian (because his plans for changing the tax code, combined with his spending plans, would ameliorate inequalities of wealth and income while Bush’s would exacerbate them).
Gore’s foreign policy would be more energetic in its promotion of democratic values than Bush’s, and probably more so than President Clinton’s. Bush has offered few clues to what his foreign policy might be, except to say that he would build a missile-defense system whether or not it was technically workable or strategically advantageous, and that he opposes the American military presence in Haiti (where, at last count, we had 29 soldiers) and in the Balkans, where a unilateral withdrawal would have the effect of weakening the Western alliance and America’s role within it.
As for the superiority of Gore’s command of the issues, this is not a matter of opinion — or, if it is, everyone’s opinion is the same, even (to judge from his defensive jokes) Bush’s: Gore knows more, understands more, and has thought more, and more coherently, about virtually every aspect of public policy, domestic and foreign, than Bush has...
Bush’s point of superiority, then, is in the matter of “personality,” and it is striking how narrowly that word seems to have been defined for electoral purposes. Personality apparently excludes, if not intelligence itself, then such manifestations of it as intellectual curiosity, analytic ability, and a capacity for original thought, all of which Gore has in abundance and Bush not only lacks but scorns. Personality apparently excludes courage: Gore put himself in harm’s way during the Vietnam War; Bush did not.
Gore’s tendency to embellish anecdotes, especially about himself, is real and undeniable. Even so, some of his alleged lies have turned out to be strongly rooted in factuality. He did not “create” the Internet, obviously, but he was one of a tiny handful of politicians who grasped its significance when it was in its infancy, and he did take the lead in writing legislation to spur its development.
In the debates, Bush uttered inaccuracies that, unlike Gore’s, falsify the underlying essence of his point — as, for example, when he said that Gore was outspending him in the campaign (when the reverse is true, to the tune of $50 million), and that he fought to get a patient’s bill of rights passed in Texas (when he actually vetoed one such bill and allowed another to become law without his signature), and that his health-care proposal would “have prescription drugs as an integral part of Medicare” (when this is precisely what Gore’s plan would do, while Bush’s would dismantle Medicare as we know it in favor of a system of subsidized private insurance).
Still, there’s no denying that a large number of people find Gore irritating; to prove it, there are polls, to say nothing of the panels of “undecided voters” — that is, clueless, ill-informed citizens who even at this late date cannot summon the mental energy to make up their minds — assembled by the television networks into on-camera focus groups. Gore can be awkward and tone-deaf, and he sometimes has trouble modulating his presentation of himself, and he plainly lacks the instinctive political exuberance of a Bill Clinton or even the slightly twitchy easygoingness of a George W. Bush.
Gore is aggressive, assertive, and intensely energetic, qualities once counted as desirable in a potential President but now evidently seen by many as disturbing. At a time of domestic prosperity and tranquility, much of the public seems to have developed a thirst for passivity, a thirst that Bush is eager to slake.
This may explain the paradox that while Gore was widely judged the substantive winner of all three of the televised debates, he lost the battle in the post-debate media echo chambers, and perhaps partly as a result, in the opinion polls. In the final debate, Gore stretched the rules, while Bush complained and turned beseechingly to the moderator for help. To caricature them both, Gore was a smart bully, Bush a hapless tattletale. Neither attribute is attractive, but it may turn out that fear of the first will outweigh contempt for the second. In that case, “personality” will definitely have triumphed over “issues,” and the transformation of the Presidency of the United States into the presidency of the student council will be complete.
— Hendrik Hertzberg
All Hail Hendrik Hertzberg!
Still, these guys are so good they often come through. Loved Rich’s piece last week and particularly loved Hertzberg’s latest “Talk of the Town.” Everything you wanted to know about socialism but were afraid to ask. “You” being you. Or possibly Joe the Plumber.
It’s more than John McCain’s comment to the daughter of a doctor who, during the 2000 campaign, complained we were getting too close to socialism in this country (“...when you reach a certain level of comfort,” he told her, “there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more”), or the fact that Sarah Palin’s Alaska, which has no sales or income tax, funds itself with huge levies to oil companies and then gives what’s left back to (or just “to”) its citizens. Talk about spreading the wealth. And these two are basing their entire presidential campaign (this week) on attacking Barack Obama for similar economic plans? Their hypocrisy is overwhelming. One wonders, for the thousandth time, how they sleep.
Hertzberg fires this:
The Republican argument of the moment seems to be that the difference between capitalism and socialism corresponds to the difference between a top marginal income-tax rate of 35 per cent and a top marginal income-tax rate of 39.6 per cent. The latter is what it would be under Obama’s proposal, what it was under President Clinton, and, for that matter, what it will be after 2010 if President Bush’s tax cuts expire on schedule.More comprehensively, he gives us this, which has always been my argument:
Of course, all taxes are redistributive, in that they redistribute private resources for public purposes. But the federal income tax is (downwardly) redistributive as a matter of principle: however slightly, it softens the inequalities that are inevitable in a market economy, and it reflects the belief that the wealthy have a proportionately greater stake in the material aspects of the social order and, therefore, should give that order proportionately more material support.Ex-mothereffin-actly!
On HuffPost, Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, of all people, who supported Hilary Clinton earlier this year and is now supporting John McCain, has an anti-Obama post in which she raises the same stupid fears. I’m not sure what her game is — is she really that greedy or does she merely want McCain to win in ’08 so Hilary can win in ’12? — but she trots out that familiar Republican talking point against higher taxes for the wealthy:
Today, the top 1% of earners contributes 40% of the nation's $2.6 trillion tax intake and the bottom 50% pay 2.9% of our nation's total needs.I can’t think of a better argument for a more steeply progressive tax system than this. If the top 1 percent, paying at a rate similar to mine, already pay 40 percent of our taxes, think how much money they’re making. If these people are lucky enough to have the skills that allows them to prosper in the kind of system we currently have, then they should be paying even more to keep that system running smoothly. And they haven’t. It’s time the bastards paid up.
“Idiot Wind” is a startlingly good song for the way the McCain camp has attacked Obama this fall. Line after line hits home:
Someone's got it in for me, they're planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they'd cut it out but when they will I can only guess...
I haven't known peace and quiet for so long I can't remember what it's like...
I noticed at the ceremony, your corrupt ways had finally made you blind
I can't remember your face anymore, your mouth has changed, your eyes
don't look into mine...
The awful thing about the attacks is that you don't need to know anything about Obama, or about McCain, to know they're bullshit. You just have to know something about the world. A communist...and a Muslim? How is that possible? A secret socialist, who wants to make government all-powerful...and a secret terrorist, who wants to destroy government from within? How is that possible? The inanity (Sean or otherwise) is overwhelming.
Unafraid to Listen
An editorial in The Washington Post today condemns the latest guilt-by-association attack by John McCain and his campaign. The latest version involves an Arab-American scholar and Columbia professor, Raschid Kalidi, who holds, the Post says, complex views of the Middle East situation, and who was the subject of a toast at a dinner party by Barack Obama in 2003. Barack apparently said that Mr. Kalidi “offers constant reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases.”
By the end of the editorial, the Post quotes Mr. Kalidi saying he's waiting for this latest McCain-inspired “idiot wind” to blow over, and the Post agrees. But first they write this:
It's fair to question why Mr. Obama felt as comfortable as he apparently did during his Chicago days in the company of men whose views diverge sharply from what the presidential candidate espouses. Our sense is that Mr. Obama is a man of considerable intellectual curiosity who can hear out a smart, if militant, advocate for the Palestinians without compromising his own position.
I'm not a fan of “Duh” but... Duh! Seriously are we that pathetic? Are our own points of view so fragile that they can't bear the scrutiny that listening to someone else's views requires? I'm reminding of something James Baldwin said about living in France and Turkey: “Whenever you live in another civilization you are foced to examine your own.” This examination is good and necessary if you are ever to improve your own society. The people who do not engage in it — fellow non-travelers like George Bush and Sarah Palin — have limited, absolutist world views that are not only dispiriting, but, in world leaders, positively dangerous. Both Palin and Bush don't have the intellect, or intellectual curiosity, or humility about one's intellect that true intellectual curiosity fosters, to be world leaders. We've already seen what happens when they get into positions of power. John McCain isn't much better. Plus he's got a dangerous temperament. Plus he's obviously sold his soul to the devil with this campaign. He's leaving behind a stink that we may never get out. And that's if he loses. If he wins, every campaign, at every level, will be flinging the same shit. We'll be covered in it.
Here's my point. This latest McCain-inspired controversy is actually one of the best reasons to vote for Barack Obama.
John McCain, like Sarah Palin and George Bush, is rarely the smartest person in any room he walks into — and he doesn't need to hear what you have to say.
Barack Obama is almost always the smartest person in any room he walks into — and he still wants to hear what you have to say. My god. How refreshing.
Good Talking Points Memo feature here on the number of conservatives who have dismissed McCain and/or endorsed Obama, and the number of newspapers who have done the same, specifically because of McCain's VP pick. You have a favorite? Mine's still Colin Powell, although I give Chris Hitchens props.
The Six Narratives of John McCain
Interesting piece by Robert Draper in yesterday's NY Times Magazine on the various narratives of the McCain campaign. The subhed says it all: “When a campaign can't settle on a central narrative, does it imperil its protagonist?”
In this way it's easy to blame McCain's chief campaign strategist, Steve Schmidt, who encouraged John McCain to get away from “straight talk” in favor of “talking points,” and who encouraged him to use (or exploit) his P.O.W. status, and who favored picking Sarah Palin for VEEP and who pushed for suspending the campaign on Wednesday, Sept. 24 in the wake of the financial crisis, and who was, after all, the author of all of these various narratives, in which they tried to remake Obama as a “celebrity” or a “non-partisan pretender” or “a Washington insider” and then suffered the misfortune of not having Obama play along. So, yes, it's easy to blame Schmidt. But of course the bigger fault lies with John McCain. In the parlance of this low, dishonest decade, he's the decider, and he decided to take this path, or these paths, and so he is where he is. I believe conservatives used to call this kind of thing “accountability.”
Reading, in fact, my main thought was this: Who wants a president of the United States who can be pushed around by the likes of Steve Schmidt?
New Yorker Quote of the Day - I
"Kristol was out there shaking the pom-poms."
—from Jane Mayer's article on how John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate in the Oct. 27th New Yorker.
More precise, it's a piece on how she wound up on everyone's radar. Blame those National Review/Weekly Standard luxury cruises that stopped off in Juneau in 2007. "The Governor was more than happy to meet with these guys," her aide said, and they were more than happy to meet with her. Starbursts followed. William Kristol was particularly smitten, to the point where, in a Fox News discussion on possible VEEPs this June, Chris Wallace told Kristol, "Can we please get off Sarah Palin?" Others beat the drums, and some beat those drums right next to John McCain. I suppose the real money quote is near the end: "By the time he announced her as his choice, the next day, he had spent less than three hours in her company." Yikes.
McCain Endorses Obama?
More Obama stuff. Nicholas Kristof writes what everyone who thinks two feet beyond their face has known from the start (but it’s still nice to read) and The New York Times endorses Obama for president. They’ve also included this nifty little gadget on every Times presidential endorsement since Lincoln. From Lincoln to Obama. Talk about framing the issue.
The Times’ endorsement is hardly a surprise — they haven’t endorsed a Republican since Ike in ’56, and this hardly seems the year to break tradition. Tradition's breaking the other way: Not just Colin Powell but former Republican governors Arne Carlson and William Weld and former Bush press spokesperson Scott McClellan. Not to mention National Review scion Christopher Buckley and 40 newspapers that backed Bush and all of these people. Not sure how Rush Limbaugh bloviates against these.
Despite the polls, I’m assuming nothing. I know the Republicans will be throwing everything they can at Obama and hope something sticks. In recent weeks, the two biggest charges against him are that he’s a) a terrorist, and b) a socialist. We know why these words are chosen — both are pejorative in the minds of Americans — but they are, in the sense that the McCain camp uses them, mutually exclusive. In general, I suppose, one can be a terrorist-socialist (tearing down to build up?), but the McCain camp is implying that Obama will both destroy our government from within (leaving it in ashes) and build it up from within (leaving it stronger than ever). Jesus, dudes, pick one. You can’t have both.
Oh. My. God.
I don't know why I'm voting for this man. He keeps making me cry.
I’d also recommend this Ron Howard video. I grew up on “Andy Griffith” and “Happy Days” so appreciate what he went through to go back there. I await the sequel, in which he re-sings "Gary, Indiana" and gets us all to eat his dust.
Jim Walsh and the Wellstone World Music Weekend
The following column was written by my friend Jim Walsh a year after the death of Sen. Paul Wellstone in Oct. 2002. It was a bad time. Our country gave into fear, it gave into lies, it set us on the path we're currently on. How does that path feel now? In two weeks, we may be able to begin to get off this path. We may be able to elect a leader who offers smarts,and hope, and unity; a leader who can make friends out of our enemies rather than enemies out of our friends. But it's still two weeks away. The McCain camp is stirring up old fears, promulgating new fears, disseminating misrepresentations and outright lies. They're throwing whatever shit they can against the wall and hoping some of it sticks.
Here's to not giving into fear and lies. Here's to hope, and smarts, and unity. And here's to Joe Henry, Vic Chesnutt, Dan Wilson, the Tropicals, Prince, Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, Green Day, Jenny Owen Young, Leonard Cohen, Guns N' Roses, Nirvana, Joan Armatrading, Randy Newman, Loudon Wainwright, Rufus Wainwright, Jonathan Richman, Teddy Thompson, Antony, Iron & Wine, R.E.M., The Beatles, Paul Simon, A3 and Nina Simone. And here's to the Mad Ripple.
An E-Proposal From Me to You
By Jim Walsh
I am standing in the northwest corner of Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, in front of a silver monument that looks like a heart, a broken heart really, and I am thinking about how wrong the world has gone, how Minnesota Mean it all feels. I’m thinking about how much everyone I know misses the man I’ve come to visit, how sick I am of sitting around waiting for change, and about what might happen if I ask you to do something, which is what I’ll do in a minute.
Like most Minnesotans, I met Paul Wellstone once. It was at the Loring Playhouse after the opening night of a friend’s play. He and Sheila were there, offering encouragement to the show’s director, Casey Stangl, and quietly validating the post-production festivities with his presence: The Junior Senator from Minnesota and his wife are here; we must be doing something right.
The year before (1990), I’d written a column for City Pages encouraging all local musicians and local music fans to go vote for this mad professor the following Tuesday. He won, and, as many have said since, for the first time in my life I felt like we were part of something that had roots in Stuff The Suits Don’t Give A Shit About. That is, we felt like we had a voice, like were getting somewhere, or like Janeane Garofalo’s villain-whupping character in “Mystery Men,” who memorably proclaimed, “I would like to dedicate my victory to the supporters of local music and those who seek out independent films.”
After the election, Wellstone’s aide Bill Hillsman told me he believed my column had reached a segment of the voting populace that they were having trouble reaching, and that it may have helped put him over the top. I put aside my bullshit detector for the moment and chose to believe him, just as I choose at this moment to believe that music and the written word can still help change the world.
When I introduced myself to Wellstone that night as “Jim Walsh from City Pages,” he broke into that sexy gap-toothed grin, clasped my hand and forearm and said, with a warm laugh, “Jiiiiim,” like we were a couple of thieves getting together for the first time since the big haul. I can still feel his hand squeezing my forearm. I can still feel his fighter’s strength.
For those of you who never had the pleasure, that is what Paul Wellstone was--a fighter—despite the fact that the first president Bush said upon their first encounter, “who is this chickenshit?” He fought corporate America, the FCC, injustice, his own government. He fought for the voiceless, the homeless, the poor, the little guy—in this country and beyond. He was a politician but not a robot; an idealist, but not a sap, and if his legacy has already morphed into myth, it’s because there were/are so few like him. He was passionate, and compassionate. He had a huge heart, a rigorous mind, a steely soul and conscience, and now he is dead and buried in a plot that looks out over the joggers, bikers, rollerbladers, and motorists who parade around Lake Calhoun daily.
Paul and Sheila Wellstone and six others, including their daughter Marcia, were killed in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. I remember where I was that day, just as you do, and I don’t want to forget it, but what I want to remember even more is October 25, 2003. So here’s what we’re going to do.
We’re going to start something right here, right now, and we’re going to call it Paul and Sheila Wellstone World Music Day. It will happen on Saturday, Oct. 25th. On that day, every piece of music, from orchestras to shower singers, superstars to buskers, will be an expression of that loss and a celebration of that life. It will be one day, where music—which, to my way of thinking, is still the best way to fill in the gray areas that the blacks and whites of everyday life leave us with—rises up in all sorts of clubs, cars, concerts, and living rooms, all in the name of peace and love and joy and all that good stuff that gets snickered at by Them.
Now. This is no corporate flim-flam or media boondoggle. This is me talking to you, and you and I deciding to do something about the place we live in when it feels like all the exits are blocked. So: First of all, clip or forward this to anyone you know who still cares about grass roots, community, music, reading, writing, love, the world, and how the world sees America. If you’ve got a blog or web site, post it.
If you’re a musician, book a gig now for Oct. 25th. Tell them you want it to be advertised as part of Paul and Sheila Wellstone World Music Day. If you’re a shower singer, lift your voice that day and tell yourself the same thing. If you’re a club owner, promoter, or scene fiend, put together a multi-act benefit for Wellstone Action! <http://www.wellstone.org> . If you’re a newspaper person, tell your readers. If you’re a radio person, tell your listeners. Everybody talk about what you remember about Wellstone, what he tried to do, what you plan to do for Wellstone World Music Day. Then tell me at the email address below, and I’ll write another column like this the week of Oct. 25th, with your and others’ comments and plans.
This isn’t exactly an original idea. Earlier this year, I sat in a room at Stanford University with Judea and Michelle Pearl, the father and daughter of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered by members of a radical Islamic group in Pakistan in February of last year. After much talk about their son and brother’s life and murder, I asked them about Danny’s love of music. He was a big music fan, and an accomplished violinist who played with all sorts of bands all over the world. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Pearl was also a member of the Atlanta band the Ottoman Empire, and his fiddle levitates one of my all-time favorite Irish jigs, “This Is It,” which I found myself singing one night last fall in a Sonoma Valley bar with a bunch of journalists from Paraguay, Texas, Mexico, Jerusalem, Italy, and Korea.
The Pearls talked with amazement about the first Daniel Pearl World Music Day <http://www.danielpearl.org> , the second of which happens this October 10th, which would have been Pearl’s 40th birthday. I told them about attending one of the first Daniel Pearl World Music Day activities at Stanford Memorial Church, where a lone violinist silently strolled away from her chamber group at the end, signaling to me and my gathered colleagues that we were to remember that moment and continue to ask questions, continue to push for the dialogue that their son and brother lived for. I vowed that day to tell anybody within earshot about Daniel Pearl World Music Day, and later figured he wouldn’t mind a similar elegy for Wellstone, who shared Pearl’s battle against hate and cynicism.
Wellstone didn’t lead any bands, but he led as musical a life as they come. He lived to bring people together, to mend fences: Music. When he died, musicians and artists were some of the most devastated, as Leslie Ball’s crest-fallen-but-somehow-still-beaming face on CSPAN from Williams Arena illustrated. Everyone from Mason Jennings to Larry Long wrote Wellstone tribute songs in the aftermath, and everyone had a story, including the one Wendy Lewis told me about the genuine exuberance with which Wellstone once introduced her band, Rhea Valentine, to a crowd at the Lyn-Lake Festival. Imagine that, today.
So ignore this or do whatever you do when your “We Are The World” hackles go up. I’d be disappointed, and I suppose I wouldn’t blame you; in these times of terror alerts and media celebrity, I’m suspicious of everything, too. But I freely admit that the idea of a Wellstone World Music Day is selfish. That day was beyond dark, and to have another like it, a litany of hang-dog tributes and rehashes of The Partisan Speech and How It All Went Wrong, would be painful, not to mention disrespectful to everything those lives stood for and against.
No, I don’t want anyone telling me what to think or feel that day, or any day, anymore. I want music that day. I want to wake up hearing it, go to bed singing it. I want banners, church choirs, live feeds, hip-hop, headlines, punk rock, field reports, arias, laughter. I want to remember October 25, 2002 as the day the music died, and October 25, 2003 as the day when people who’ve spent their lives attending anti-war rallies and teaching kids and championing local music and independent films got together via the great big antennae of music and took another shot.
I am standing in the northwest corner of Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. In front of the silver broken heart, three workers stab the fresh sod with shovels and fumble with a tape measurer. Flowers dot the dirt surrounding the statue base. I pick up a rock and put it in my pocket.
The sprinklers are on, hissing impatiently at the still-stunned-by-last-autumn citizens who work and hope and wait and watch beyond the cemetery gates. The sprinklers shoot horizontal water geysers this way and that. They are replenishing patches of grass that have been browned by the sun. They are telling every burned-out blade to keep growing, and trying to coax life out of death.
The Final Debate — Who Disappointed
A day late and a couple of billion dollars short, but here’s my thoughts on who disappointed during that final debate and why:
Bob Schieffer. Particularly the moral equivalency implicit in this question:
“Both of you pledged to take the high road in this campaign yet it has turned very nasty. Senator Obama, your campaign has used words like ‘erratic,’ ‘out of touch,’ ‘lie,’ ‘angry,’ ‘losing his bearings’ to describe Senator McCain. Senator McCain, your commercials have included words like ‘disrespectful,’ ‘dangerous,’ ‘dishonorable,’ ‘he lied.’ Your running mate said he ‘palled around with terrorists’...”
Please. Barack Obama’s negative ads focus on what’s wrong with John McCain’s proposed policies, and are mostly truthful. John McCain’s negative ads (and stump speeches) focus on what's wrong with Barack Obama, and they are mostly outright lies and innuendo. There is no equivalency. Everyone with an open mind knows who’s muddying the waters. McCain’s camp has even admitted that that’s their strategy. Why should journalists pretend otherwise?
I’ve said it time and again: Objectivity is not stupidity. This should be a journalistic mantra. Wake the fuck up.
The answers to the “running mate” question. Overall, of course, Barack's my guy, the smartest, most inspiring presidential candidate I’ve seen during my lifetime. And I know he’s preternaturally calm, and that’s part of the reason he is where he is. But when Schieffer lobbed that softball to him about running mates, and why his was better than the other, he should’ve smacked it out of the park. I mean out of the park. Instead, he turned even more factual, more logical. Drove me crazy. I mean, c’mon. At least bring up the fact that Sarah Palin doesn’t even do press conferences, that we’re in the unprecedented situation of possibly electing someone to the second-highest office in the land who hasn’t talked to the press yet. He doesn’t have to say it’s fascist, which it is. He just has to say it’s undemocratic, which it is.
I was also a little disappointed that he didn’t take John McCain more to task for McCain’s response to Schieffer’s above question. Which brings me to...
John McCain. Yep. After everything we’ve seen from his campaign, how could he disappoint me more? Yet he managed to do it. Kudos. The first time was here:
One of [those negative attacks] happened just the other day, when a man I admire and respect — I've written about him — Congressman John Lewis, an American hero, made allegations that Sarah Palin and I were somehow associated with the worst chapter in American history, segregation, deaths of children in church bombings, George Wallace. That, to me, was so hurtful.... I hope that Senator Obama will repudiate those remarks that were made by Congressman John Lewis, very unfair and totally inappropriate.
OK. McCain’s campaign implies that Barack Obama is a Muslim, a terrorist, “evil,” and when John Lewis calls him on it, McCain has the nerve to be affronted?
But it’s more. If you’d asked me five years, 10 years ago, to name someone who was a hero to me, someone alive and whom I didn’t know personally, I would’ve named John Lewis. He grew up poor in Mississippi. He wanted to be a minister and used to preach to the chickens as he was feeding them in the morning. He wound up going to college in Nashville and became one of the leaders of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, which was the first protracted, organized effort at direct action — confronting an unjust law rather than simply ignoring it — of the civil rights movement. He was one of the leaders of the Freedom Rides, and was among those attacked in Montgomery, Ala., by a white mob who objected to the integrated Greyhound bus in their midst. (There’s a famous photo of him, with Jim Zwerg, a white student from, I believe, Wisconsin: Zwerg has his bloody fingers in his mouth (checking his teeth?), while Lewis looks, well, preternaturally calm, despite the blood splattered on his suit and tie.) He was the first president of SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and he was among the speakers during the March on Washington in August 1963. If memory serves, he even argued with the March’s founders because he wanted to use the term “black” rather than “Negro” but the founder’s thought that too radical. For the past 30 years, he’s represented his district in Georgia in the U.S. Congress.
So when John McCain began dragging John Lewis’ name through the mud on national television, I had to restrain myself from battering my own television in anger.
Sen. McCain: There’s a reason John Lewis has equated you with some of the worst aspects of the civil rights movement. Look to yourself.
Then there was that moment, near the end, during the abortion back-and-forth, when McCain used air quotes around “health of the mother.” I’m not a woman but even I was offended. Can’t imagine how women felt.
The mainstream (corporate, idiotic) media. To me the debate was no contest. One guy was cranky, the other was calm. One guy was petty, the other guy had a largeness of spirit. One guy tried to keep us divided, the other tried to bring us together. (Check out, for example, Barack’s answer to the abortion question.) Even on a superficial level: One guy was red-eyed, blinking, with an unnatural smile, the other guy was handsome, cool, with a natural smile. No contest.
The polls afterwards indicated it was no contest. Voters preferred Barack Obama overwhelmingly, by the biggest margins in any of their three debates.
And yet the pundits. Ah, the pundits.
Are they in some kind of vacuum of stupidity? Are they straining for objectivity? Do they want to make more of a contest out of this presidential race? Do they want to give one to poor John McCain? Because they didn’t see it. Either they missed it, or they pretended reality was something other than what it was.
So much of the press, even a day later, was about how John McCain “went on the attack,” and “made the debate about...” blah blah blah. They couldn’t get enough of “Joe the Plumber,” yet another ignoramus John McCain has dragged onto the national stage. Here’s a guy, not even a licensed plumber, who owes back taxes, and who, in every interview I’ve heard, reiterates Republican talking points. He almost feels like a plant. He complains that Barack Obama’s tax plan would raise his taxes. It won’t. In fact, he’ll probably get a tax break. And yet “Joe” still won’t admit it. He says Barack tap-danced around the issue “almost as good as Sammy Davis, Jr.” He said this to Katie Couric when she called him Thursday morning. He said it on national TV. People at CBS laughed when he said it.
Jesus Christ. How much more stupid can we get?
But for all that disappointment, it was still the debate I wanted. Barack looked good, McCain looked bad, and we’ve got less than three weeks to go.
U.S. Presidents on Film
I’ve got a piece up on MSNBC today about portrayals of U.S. presidents on film — to coincide with the release of Oliver Stone’s W. Here’s a quick synopsis of some of the films I had to watch for the piece.
Worth the time:
1. Thirteen Days (2000): Focuses on the Cuban Missile Crisis through the eyes of Kenny O’Donnell (Kevin Costner), special assistant to the president, whose biggest worry, at the story begins, is his son’s report card and Jackie’s party list. Then the world nearly ends. Watch the film and you can count the ways it nearly ends: If JFK had listened to the Joint Chiefs or if he had listened to Dean Acheson or if Bob McNamara hadn’t come up with the quarantine alternative or if General LeMay had gotten his way (“The big red dog is diggin’ in our backyard and we are justified in shooting him!”) or if the Russian ships hadn’t turned back or if the administration hadn’t come up with the plan to ignore Khrushchev’s second letter in favor of his first…well, then you might not be reading this. These days, almost everyone on the right, and a few on the left, invoke Neville Chamberlain as the diplomatic bogeyman. Get bullied and World War II results. JFK and his team repeatedly invoke The Guns of August: the book about how misunderstandings between countries led to WWI. Presidents reading. Imagine that.
2. Path to War (2002): John Frankenheimer’s last film, about how, step by step, LBJ got us involved in Vietnam. What’s intriguing about this version of history is how early the designers of the Vietnam War, particularly Robert McNamara (Alec Baldwin, shining), realized a victory wasn’t a sure thing. There’s a powerful scene, just after McNamara talks with his aides about how many losses we’ll probably sustain for such-and-such a period, when a Quaker, Norman Morrison, sets himself on fire outside McNamara’s Pentagon office to remind everyone what a loss of a life is. Ultimately the film is a semi-sympathetic portrayal of Johnson. He listened to the wrong advice, probably against his gut instinct, and stuck us there for 10 years and lost his (and our) Great Society along with 50,000 American lives. It’s another example of the U.S., the most powerful country in the world, getting involved where they shouldn’t, and against their own better instincts, because of a combination of hubris and the fear of appearing weak. Helluva cast: Baldwin, Michael Gambon (as LBJ), Donald Sutherland, Philip Baker Hall (who played Nixon in Secret Honor), Frederic Forrest and one of my favorite character actors, Bruce McGill, who plays CIA Chief George Tenet in W.
3. The Day Reagan was Shot (2001): A surprisingly good Showtime film from the early 2000s. Actors who have to play well-known figures should study Richard Crenna here. He merely suggests Reagan, he doesn’t imitate him. The film is sympathetic to Haig, too, who is played by Richard Dreyfuss, who would go on to play Dick Cheney in W. What I learned: Reagan came close to dying that day in 1981; and the federal government was more or less in chaos; and the White House was unable to even secure outside lines when they needed to. The usual bureaucratic pissing matches are fun to watch: FBI vs. Treasury; Haig vs. Weinberger. The film is both comic and scary. At one point, for example, the “football,” or the briefcase with the nuclear launch codes, goes missing.
4. Secret Honor (1984): I first saw this when it came out, or at least when it came to the University of Minnesota in January 1985, and I wondered if it would hold up. Does. It’s a one-man show, all Phillip Baker Hall, bless him. Nixon, drinking in exile, lurches between defending himself and attacking, vituperatively, profanely, his many enemies. “I was just an unindicted co-conspirator like everyone else in the United State of America,” he rails at one point. As for that secret honor? According to Altman’s Nixon, the people that put him in charge, the Committee of 100, wanted him to continue the Vietnam War, to nab a third term, and to use China against the Soviets and then “carve up the markets of the rest of the goddamned world.” Nixon fell on his sword rather than let this to happen. So Altman’s take was similar to Stone’s later take. Both imply that while Nixon may have been a bastard, the people behind him? Man, you don’t want to go there.
5. Nixon (1995): I got stuck with the director’s cut. Interestingly, the reinstated scenes on an HDTV show up blurry, or blurrier, so let you know exactly what was cut. And why. Because most of these scenes focus on that Oliver Stone paranoia of “the system” being like a “beast.” They deserved the cutting room floor. That said, the theatrical version is quite good and fairly sympathetic to Nixon. So interesting. Hollywood gives us sympathetic Nixons and LBJs but coldhearted Thomas Jeffersons. Love Anthony Hopkins in the title role, but Joan Allen (sorry, darling) is way too sexy to play Pat Nixon. Money quote: “People vote not out of love but fear.”
6. The Crossing (1999): An A&E film. A little slow but a fascinating look at the low point of the American Revolution. It’s the moment when, out of desperation, we went on the attack, the surprise attack, and salvaged our last chance at independence.
1. Truman (1995): Gary Sinese is great but it’s a dull, conventional film (from HBO) about the man who, we’re told time and again, was “as stubborn as a Missouri mule.” Sample line from a speech during his 1948 whistle-stop tour. “I am for the people and against the special interests.” Hey, me too! In the end, too much life to be portrayed in too little time. And, sorry Gore Vidal, but no mention of the creation of the National Security State in 1947. Yeah, big shock.
2. Jefferson in Paris (1995): One gets the feeling the filmmakers wanted to suggest the leisurely pace of 18th century society, as Stanley Kubrick did with Barry Lyndon, but here it just comes off as dull. Nolte’s Thomas Jefferson, meanwhile, is a remarkably cold and hypocritical man.
3. Wilson (1944): Another reluctant president. Another pure man. The only presidential biopic to be nominated for best picture. Also helped kill the presidential biopic since it bombed at the box office.
4. The Reagans (2003): Before Josh Brolin played W., his father, James Brolin, played Reagan. All in the family. Good quote from Republican operatives in 1964 talking amongst themselves: “His lack of political knowledge, c’mon fellas, just makes him seem more a man of the people!” Republicans have been following that script ever since: Reagan, Quayle, W., Palin...
5. Sunrise at Campobello (1960): Former Navy secretary and vice-presidential nominee FDR contracts polio but makes his political comeback at the 1924 Democratic Convention. From a popular play, but onscreen (sorry) it just sits there.
6. Abraham Lincoln (1930): D.W. Griffith’s last film. Ponderous, folksy, monumental, dusty. Like Truman in Truman, Lincoln is portrayed as a man without ambition. Here’s an idea of what the film is like: At one point, late at night, Lincoln (Walter Huston) paces in the White House only to stop and proclaim: “I’ve got it, Mary! I’ve found the man to win the war! And his name is…GRANT!” And that, kids, is how presidential decisions are made.
7. DC 9/11: Time of Crisis (2003): The worst.
Two Minute Review: W. (2008)
Oliver Stone’s W. is like our 43rd president’s greatest hits. Here he is chug-a-lugging at Yale and here he is finding Jesus and here he is failing at oil rigs, and oil drilling, and running for Congress. Here he is choking on a pretzel.
Stone intercuts these familiar incidents with the familiar arguments, dramatized over presidential lunches and Oval Office meetings and cabinet meetings, that led us into Iraq. It’s straightforward storytelling — particularly for Stone. Hell, it’s almost breezy. The two hours go by like that, and Josh Brolin, in the lead, is amazing. He gives us a complex portrait of a very simple man.
It’s a father-son film. “You disappoint me, Junior,” Herbert Walker tells him early on. “Deeply disappoint me.” He tells him, “You only get one bite at the apple,” but W. keeps biting and missing. He drinks, carouses, goes after girls. He can’t find himself. Even after he finds Laura, and Jesus, and helps his father get elected the 41st president of the United States, he’s disappointed. Greatness escapes him. Hell, mediocrity escapes him. You go in wondering if Stone’s portrait of W. will be different from our own image of W. and it isn’t. What you see is what you get. Yes, he’s that thick, that muddled, and yet that certain. The film implies that certain Machiavellian types (Rove, Cheney) manipulate W. into going where he already wants to go (into politics, into Iraq), and it feels true, but it’s not like we’re learning anything here. I learned, or re-learned (did I ever know it?) that W. speaks Spanish but that’s the only time I remember being surprised by the title character.
Since so much of the story is familiar, since, like the subject, there’s not much there there, we might have to wait years before we figure out if the movie is any good. It really is too close to us to gauge. It’s a tragedy, certainly, and the tragedy is that in trying to win his father’s love, or outdo what his father did, or make up for his father’s great loss, W. — yes, aided and abetted by a motley crew — put us on a calamitous national and international path... and yet still can’t think of one thing he did wrong. That lack of introspection is his tragedy. The rest of it is ours.
Canvassing for Obama in Youngstown, OH
My friend Andy Engelson, a father of two, an editor in Seattle, and one of the nicest people I know, spent the first weekend in October canvassing for Obama in Ohio. Here’s what he found…
After flying into Columbus and driving three hours east, I arrived in Youngstown in the early evening. This is a former steel town, and enormous empty steel mills fill the Mahoning River Valley. Most of the city is perched on the hills above the valley, and evidence of a broken economy is everywhere: boarded-up businesses, crumbling homes, a nearly empty downtown.
But the campaign office was a hub of activity—filled with local volunteers with union T-shirts, OSU Buckeye sweatshirts and Obama buttons. The volunteer coordinator (who works long, long hours) was a bubbly college student from Long Island. She quickly put me to work calling volunteers to set up door-to-door canvassing over the weekend.
You may have heard about the strength of Obama’s “ground game”—a vast grassroots network of volunteers. It is truly impressive. Both in Philadelphia (where I canvassed for Obama in April), and in Youngstown, everyone who volunteers is quickly trained, put to work and effusively thanked. Every person we call who is voting for Obama is asked to volunteer, and those who say yes get a follow-up call.
During the next afternoon, I headed out to the local Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Target and other big-box stores to register voters. I had done this in Seattle, and in Youngstown I succeeded in signing up about a dozen new voters. Unfortunately, after a while, a cranky middle manager came out of Wal-Mart and told me “You can’t gather signatures here!” I told her I was simply registering voters but she wasn’t sympathetic. Too bad these companies, which profit so much from working people, don’t want them to exercise their right to vote.
The next day, it was into the neighborhoods to canvass. I was paired up with Beverly, a woman from Buffalo, who, like me, had arrived for the weekend to volunteer. She told me she has a 26-year old son, also named Andy, once ran for city council as a Republican, but is an avid supporter of Obama. She was particularly impressed with his leadership and speaking skills, and felt the need to convince others. She’d lost her own election, but it had given her experience going to door-to-door and talking to voters. A number of years ago, she was a Buffalo Bills cheerleader, and there’s still a bit of that spirit in her as we went door to door in Youngstown urging people to vote for Obama.
Youngstown is definitely in hard times. In many neighborhoods we visited, it seemed as if every other home was abandoned: broken windows, vines growing up the sides of the house or trees fallen in the yard from Hurricane Ike. There are still some jobs in Youngstown—GM has a plant not far from town—and you will find pockets of nice homes. But often, just across the street, you’ll see the burned-out shell of a school or a group of men sitting on a doorstep drinking beer from 20-ounce cans in paper sacks.
In Ohio, voters can go to any Board of Elections building and vote anytime between now and Nov. 4. The campaign was pushing this hard in order to get everyone eligible out to vote and reduce lines on election day. You may remember the news from 2004, when in parts of Ohio there were eight-hour lines at polling places.
What I enjoy most about canvassing is talking to undecided voters. The conversations we had were positive, instructive and encouraging. Generally, these undecided voters are white, working class and over 60. One woman and I talked a good 10 minutes about the economy, about people not getting medical care because they don’t have insurance, about the situation in Youngstown. People here are amazingly upbeat and friendly despite the circumstances.
Occasionally, I’d meet less-than-friendly people. I also had one very negative confrontation.
It was late in the day, and I knocked at the second-to-last house on my list. I heard a gruff “WHO IS IT?” from behind the door. I said I was a volunteer with the Obama campaign and inquired about a young voter on my list who lived there. Silence. So I said goodbye and left some campaign literature at the door. As I was walking back to the sidewalk, the man burst out a side door and literally came running at me, red in the face. A young black man was running up behind him, but unable to hold this guy back. Just inches from me, the man, a white man with a beard and shirt with a motorcycle logo, shouted “Who the HELL are you?” He was shaking with rage. I told him again who I was and after a brief pause he yelled at me,“Just keep walking! NOW!” I did just that, moving slowly away. I met up with Beverly, who’d been working another street, and we drove back to the campaign office in the fading light.
It was scary to say the least. Had I flinched I think the guy would have struck me. What may have triggered the outburst was an incident in the neighborhood several days before. Two young African American men had posed as campaign workers just up the street, then robbed the home at gunpoint. So frustrating. Two stupid kids had hurt our efforts and inflamed racial tensions in this hard-hit town. Afterwards, we reported the encounter to the campaign office, and they agreed to stop canvassing in that immediate neighborhood.
But nothing was going to stop me from going out the next day.
On Sunday, I was invited by my hosts to attend a prayer breakfast at their church—the oldest African American church in Youngstown. Everyone was dressed in their finest, and the program featured members of churches talking about what had happened over the past year. There were presentations on what the church was doing in the community for children, for the elderly, and for those who were sick or homebound. A guest speaker joked about being riveted to CNN, and then talked about how many people in the community were worried about the future but were finding solace in the community of the church. There was plenty of singing, clapping, and a huge breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon, biscuits, and grits. Afterwards, my host, Goldia, introduced me to the pastor, and, he shook my hand for at least a full minute. I was humbled to be so welcomed.
Then back to the neighborhoods. We visited 200 or more homes over the course of the weekend. We talked to many undecideds, most of whom were worried about the economy. Youngstown is already dealing with a recession, they’re already “ahead” of the country in that regard. In fact, many, of the voters on our lists had already moved away. Either they’d been unable to make payments or they’d left Youngstown for good.
It’s clear Youngstown’s problems will not be fixed overnight. Perhaps there’s not even much Obama can do outright. But I do think a fairer tax policy, some efforts to boost new energy industries, and getting more folks covered by health care is a start. The last eight years have not been good to this town. It reminded me how much is riding on this election.
After a day knocking on doors in brilliant sunshine, Beverly returned to Buffalo and I spent the evening training a new volunteer, Ann, who had driven to Ohio from Los Angeles and would be volunteering in Youngstown until election day. If only I had the time to do that! I can’t say enough about how people respond to one-on-one contact with volunteers. People are appreciative and want to talk about the issues and hear about your personal reasons for supporting Obama.
Even Republicans supporting McCain were appreciative. I talked to an older man named Jim while I was registering voters outside Walgreens. We had a friendly conversation. Even though he supported McCain, he thanked me for coming out from Seattle. It was those sorts of conversations that make me realize we are not as divided as the media portrays us. One of the things that draws me to Obama is that “agree to disagree” philosophy that has been missing from the national discourse for some time.
And there’s a real satisfaction when you make a connection. That happened back in Philadelphia, when an older woman took me into her home and confessed that she would vote for Obama (rather than Clinton) but didn’t want her neighbors to know. She told me how, as a recently widowed woman, she was struggling to make ends meet. In tears, she told me how heating oil had cost her dearly the previous winter, and how she’d had to keep the thermostat below 60 to afford it. She’d voted for Reagan but was now more excited about the Obama campaign than any since Bobby Kennedy’s in ’68. She felt Obama actually gave a damn about people like her and was excited to see so many young people inspired by the campaign. And she was thankful, I think, that someone had taken the time to listen to her story.
More than anything, though, this campaign has helped me. Helped me see what people are going through in places less fortunate than my own. Helped me see what issues are truly important to people. It has shown me that even in difficult times, people maintain a sense of humor and a friendliness that is truly inspiring.
It also helped me meet people like Frank and his wife Mary. They are in their late 60s and have lived in Youngstown most of their lives. Frank suffered a stroke a few years ago so Mary asked if Beverly and I would come in and briefly talk to him: “It would mean so much to him. He can understand everything you say, but he can’t say anything.” We came into the home, and Mary introduced us as two volunteers working for the Obama campaign. “Frank, they’ve come here to visit you and ask if you’re going to support Obama. What do you think of Obama, Frank?”
Sitting at the kitchen table in a wheelchair with his head cocked to one side, he eyed us for a long moment. Then he slowly raised his hand and formed his shaking fingers into an OK sign.
Norman Mailer and the 1964 Republican Convention
The excerpts of Norman Mailer’s letters in The New Yorker led me back to his piece, “In the Red Light: A History of the Republican Convention in 1964,” from Cannibals and Christians, which I first read over a decade ago. I remember I didn’t particularly like it. Norman went off on too many tangents, he reduced too many groups — “Goldwater girls ran to two varieties,” etc. Sometimes this stuff felt close to truth and sometimes it just felt hollow and mean. Parts of it still feel hollow and mean but most of the article feels shockingly contemporary. It makes the 1964 election feel like the first half of a bookend whose second half we may be fashioning.
So an Arizona senator is running for president by appealing to the worst elements of his party. The Midwestern and western elements of that party viciously attack the eastern establishment, the media, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. “Indeed there was a general agreement that the basic war was between Main Street and Wall Street,” Norman writes. There’s a down-home folksiness in the candidate’s voice: “I think we’re going to give the Democrats a heck of a surprise,” he says. There’s a callback to Christianity: “The thing to remember is that America is a spiritual country, we’re founded on belief in God, we may wander a little as a country but we never get too far away,” he says.
At the convention, at the Cow Palace in San Francisco of all places, a senator from Colorado, Dominick, gives a speech in which he quotes a New York Times editorial from 1765 which rebuked Patrick Henry for his extreme ideas. Norman writes:
Delegates and gallery whooped it up. Next day Dominick confessed. He was only “spoofing.” He had known: there was no New York Times in 1765. Nor was there any editorial. An old debater’s trick. If there are no good facts, make them up. Be quick to write your own statistics. There was some umbilical tie between the Right Wing and the psychopathic liar.
Even so, for a time Norman considers voting for Goldwater. There are elements of LBJ and the Democratic party he can’t abide — its modern, clinical quality — and he thinks it may be worse to die a slow, suffocating death than to go out with Goldwater in a blaze of glory. But then:
One could not vote for a man who made a career by crying Communist—that was too easy: half the pigs, bullies and cowards of the twentieth century had made their fortune on that fear. I had a moment of rage at the swindle.
Cuba comes up, and Norman writes:
One could live with a country which was mad, one could even come to love her (for there was agony beneath the madness), but you could not share your life with a nation which was powerful, a coward, and righteously pleased because a foe one-hundredth our size had been destroyed.
Again and again, from a distance of 44 years, Norman hits you upside the head with the truth.
Goldwater lost that election, he lost big, but in later years even the much-hated media would see that convention, and that loss, as the birth of the modern Republican party; they’d bend to Goldwater and see him through orange-colored glasses. Read this, though, and there’s no doubt about the elements he was stirring up.
So it feels like a bookend. Two Arizona senators. The first attacking the Civil Rights Act, the second attacking what may be the culmination of that Act. A friend of mine once said, “When I was a teenager I realized that you could either be successful or you could be right,” and in the early 1960s the Democratic party decided to be right, finally right, on the issue of civil rights and on the promise of the Declaration of Independence, and since then the Republican party has been successful largely on the back of that decision. But maybe not now. Maybe this period, in which I’ve lived my entire life, can finally be bookended. Ended. Maybe.
Musical Quote of the Day
Swimming like there's no tomorrow
Living like there's no regret
Looked up and saw the sorrow
Too far out
Too far out
This is what they said would happen
We were warned
We were warned
We were too far out
—from the song "Too Far Out" by The Tropicals
The VEEP Debate: America's Cocktail Waitress
I'm glad people watched. 69.9 million viewers. I wish she'd done worse. I want her off the national stage. She doesn't belong there. She doesn't belong there even if everything is going right, and it sure as hell ain't. We're in the middle of a perfect storm of crises — Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, banking crisis, mortgage crisis, unemployment. Our national debt is surging past $10 trillion, which is twice the amount it was when George Bush took office. Remember that healthy surplus he inherited that he promptly gave away in Santy-Claus checks and tax breaks for the wealthy? $10 trillion! And that's before the bailout. And there's still 40-plus percent who think Sarah Palin should be vice president and possibly president of the United States? To add what? To offer what? A platitude while you lose your job? A wink and a smile while you lose your home? You listened to her hold onto her talking points for dear life and thought, "What kind of ego does it take to be so blinded to your complete lack of qualifications for a job? And not just any job but the job of leading our country through the greatest crises it's faced since the Great Depression and WW II? How dare she? How dare he?" I'll never forgive John McCain for putting her on that stage.
Here's what I don't get. Most of us have to suffer through unqualified bosses — the world is rife with them — and yet, given the chance, the American people keep electing unqualified bosses, someone who obviously isn't smart enough for the job. The Republicans keep giving us these people: Reagan, Quayle, W., now Palin. Just when you think it can't get worse, it does. Enough. Enough.
Remember when The National Review was run by smart people? Here's what its current editor, Rich Lowry, said about Palin's performance Thursday night:
I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America.
I can think of no better response than what one of Andrew Sullivan's readers wrote:
In reaction to Rich Lowry, I'm sure I'm not the only woman who, upon reading his words, sat up a little straighter and said, "Is he kidding? Is he goddamn kidding me?" Is this the kind of reaction the women in this country should want men to have to the possible first female Vice Presidential candidate in history? Holy hell.
I thought Palin's performance at the debate was downright embarrassing and on top of that I have to read this clown's blog, stating more or less that Palin gave him an erection? Little starbursts my ass. Here's what I thought when Palin "dropped" that first wink at us: "Did she just wink at us like she was America's cocktail waitress?" Rich Lowry is on the verge of slapping Sarah Palin on the ass and asking her for another of those fantastic whiskey sours.
Please. Please. Please. Get her off the stage. Now. People are watching.
P.S. Joe Biden kicked ass.
The Real Joe Sixpack
I first saw this on Andrew Sullivan's site and teared up — particularly at the beginning when everyone starts standing. Oliver Willis calls Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO delivering the speech, his hero for the day. He is, and more. In facing up to our great national horror we may be finally overcoming it.
Literary Quote of the Day
"George F. Will writes: 'Bush's terseness is Ernest Hemingway seasoned with John Wesley.'
"Well, one is hardly familiar with John Wesley's sermons, but I do know that to put George W. Bush's prose next to Hemingway's is equal to saying that Jackie Susann is right up there with Jane Austen. Did a sense of shame ever reside in our Republican toadies? You can't stop people who are never embarrassed by themselves."
—Norman Mailer, in a letter to The Boston Globe, March 13, 2002, and reprinted in a section of the Oct. 6 New Yorker. The last sentence in particular made me wonder what Norman would've made of Sarah Palin.
We had a good debate party here on First Hill last night, lots of folks, drinks, kids running around and chasing the cat, poor Jellybean, who hid most of the evening but responded well in the quiet afterwards. No ill effects at basically being the tiny Paul McCartney being chased by grasping and clomping Jellybeaniacs everywhere.
As for the debate itself, I thought both sides did well, but my guy — Barack, in case you haven’t been paying attention — did better. He was smart, articulate, tough but civil. He looked presidential. John McCain was rude and crotchety and refused to even look at his opponent. And while he demonstrated extensive foreign policy expertise, nothing he said, either about foreign affairs or the economy, indicated any change in the direction we’ve been going in, disastrously, for the last eight years.
So basically: Barack refuted the concerns that undecideds had about him (that he wasn’t up to the task) while McCain exacerbated the concerns that undecideds had about him (that, in terms of policy, he was an older and more crotchety version of Bush, and will offer nothing in terms of change).
- Andrew Sullivan’s live blogging of the debate
- Footage of a Fox News(!) focus group of independents that gave the debate to Barack
- An article on why and where Barack won. By a 62-32 margin, voters felt he was more in touch with their needs and concerns. But here’s the bigger number: “The CBS poll of undecideds has more confirmatory detail. Obama went from a +18 on “understanding your needs and problems” before the debate to a +56 (!) afterward. And he went from a -9 on “prepared to be president” to a +21.”
- Finally, Michael Seitzman over at HuffPost has a great post about what exactly it is that Barack is bringing that is so appealing and that we haven’t seen in national politics, or even national life, for so long: Grace.
NY Times Offers Lack of Leadership
Christ, the NY Times editorial did the exact same thing Gail Collins just did. They started off with a good, deserved swipe at Pres. Bush:
It took President Bush until Wednesday night to address the American people about the nation’s financial crisis, and pretty much all he had to offer was fear itself.
But then they say this about our absent leadership:
Given Mr. Bush’s shockingly weak performance, the only ones who could provide that are the two men battling to succeed him. So far, neither John McCain nor Barack Obama is offering that leadership.
Really? Both? Obama isn't offering leadership? So you keep reading and discover that the brunt of the article is about how badly McCain has handled things:
First, he claimed that the economy was strong, ignoring the deep distress of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have already lost their homes. Then he called for a 9/11-style commission to study the causes of the crisis, as if there were a mystery to be solved. Over the last few days he has become a born-again populist, a stance entirely at odds with the career, as he often says, started as “a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution.”
After daily pivoting, Mr. McCain now says that the bailout being debated in Congress has to protect taxpayers, that all the money has to be spent in public and that a bipartisan board should “provide oversight.” But he offered not the slightest clue about how he would ensure that taxpayers would ever “recover” the bailout money.
Mr. McCain proposed capping executives’ pay at firms that get bailout money, a nicely punitive idea but one that does nothing to mitigate the crisis. And that is about as far as his new populism went.
What is most important is that Mr. McCain hasn’t said a word about strengthening regulation or budged one inch from his insistence on maintaining Mr. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.
Their complaints about Obama, meanwhile, are hardly complaints:
Mr. Obama has been clearer on the magnitude and causes of the financial crisis. He has long called for robust regulation of the financial industry, and he said early on that a bailout must protect taxpayers. Mr. Obama also recognizes that the wealthy must pay more taxes or this country will never dig out of its deep financial hole. But as he does too often, Mr. Obama walked up to the edge of offering full prescriptions and stopped there.
In other words, McCain is running around with his head cut off, flip-flopping and flop-sweating all over the country, while Obama offers exactly what we need but somehow doesn't go far enough, and this, in the NY Times' mind, equals a lack of leadership from both?
Somebody get me rewrite. Please.
Bush and the Hail Mary Candidate
Gail Collins has a great graf on Bush's speech last night:
There is, in a way, a kind of talent required to tell the nation that it’s teetering on the brink of disaster in a way that makes the viewers’ attention wander. Bush’s explanation about how the rescue bill would unclog the lines of credit made the whole thing sound less important than a Liquid-Plumr commercial.
Unfortunately, she then goes off and condemns both presidential candidates — as if Barack's level-headed response to this crisis somehow equalled McCain's frenetic and sometimes desperate (and now "hail mary") response. Not sure why she does this. Is she straining for objectivity? She's a columnist; she doesn't have to be objective. Besides, as I've said often and I'll keep saying until the MSM gets it, objectivity doesn't mean stupidity. It also doesn't mean that if one side is constantly and glaringly wrong that you search for some piddly little thing the other side got wrong to balance the report. Sometimes the report is unbalanced. Sometimes, so too is the candidate.
Movie Quote of the Day
"It would be the easiest thing for me as president to ask for a declaration of war. A man on a horseback is always a hero. But I wouldn't have to do the fighting. Some poor farmer's boy, or the son of some great family would have to do the fighting — and the dying. When I ask them to do that, I want to be very sure that what they're dying for is worthwhile."
— Pres. Woodrow Wilson (Alexander Knox) after the sinking of the Lusitania in Wilson (1944)
Movie Quote of the Day
"I often think of something Woodrow Wilson said to me. 'It is only once in a generation that people can be lifted above material things. That is why conservative government is in the saddle for two-thirds of the time.'"
—Franklin (Ralph Bellamy) to Eleanor Roosevelt (Greer Garson), in Sunrise at Campbello (1960)
Mark Antony in Oxford Town
Good, sad post byJoseph Romm on what people want to hear during the presidential debates and why the Dems always screw it up. It goes back to Mark Antony in the Roman Forum: "I am no orator, as Brutus is/ But — as you know me all — a plain blunt man."
Gourevitch on Palin
I assume Philip Gourevitch went to Alaska in July to write a piece about Ted Stevens' indictment and attempted comeback — a piece that was subsequently disrupted by the imbecilic vetting from the McCain vice-presidential selection committee. The result, which appears in the Sept. 22 New Yorker, is mostly about Sarah Palin.
On the plus side, Gourevitch interviewed Palin before she entered (and then, like a skittish animal, was shielded from) the national spotlight, so he's got quotes that didn't have to be run by or through or into Rick Davis. Palin is surprisingly up front about earmarks, for example, the bete noir (except for You-Know-Who) of the McCain campaign:
“The federal budget, in its various manifestations, is incredibly important to us, and congressional earmarks are one aspect of this relationship. ... There isn’t a need to aspire to live without any earmarks. The writing on the wall, though, is that times are changing. Presidential candidates have promised earmark reform, so we gotta deal with it, we gotta live with it, understanding that our senior senator, especially—he’s eighty-four years old, he is not gonna be able to serve in the Senate forever."
Palin's Access: Beyond Disgraceful
Andrew Sullivan on the Republican vice-presidential candidate and the press:
The press is beginning to resist the incredibly sexist handling of Palin by the McCain campaign. There is a simple point here: any candidate for president should be as available to press inquiries as humanly possible. Barring a press conference for three weeks, preventing any questions apart from two television interviews, one by manic partisan Sean Hannity, devising less onerous debate rules for a female candidate, and then trying to turn the press into an infomercial for the GOP is beyond disgraceful.
Fight back, you hacks! Demand access. Demand accountability! It's our duty. If we cannot ask questions of a total newbie six weeks before an election in which she could become president of the country, then the First Amendment is pointless. Grow some!
The Big Red Dog is Wanted Dead or Alive
Two days later, for the same article, I watched Thirteen Days, the 2000 account of the Cuban Missile Crisis starring Kevin Costner as Kenny O'Donnell, JFK's special assistant, and Bruce Greenwood in an understated and suggestive turn as our first telegenic president. (I should add that, for all the faults of the film, Timothy Bottoms did a fine job as Bush in DC 9/11.)
So it's early in the crisis and the joint chiefs are recommending bombing Cuba back to the stone age. Even former Secretary of State Dean Acheson is recommending same with a foreknowledge of consquences that is truly frightening: We warn, we strike, they strike back in Berlin, NATO kicks in. "Hopefully," he says, "cooler heads prevail." On the third day, General Curtis Le May gets into the act with this rationale:
"The big red dog is diggin' in our backyard and we are justified in shooting him..."
Afterwards, JFK and his advisors, who are looking for the alternative, which, of course, turns out to be the quarantine or blockade of Cuba, joke about the general's language — the reduction to homey metaphor of an act that might end the world — and I realized, for the zillionth time, that for the last eight years we've had the General Le Mays not only running things but giving rationales for our actions: "Wanted: Dead or Alive," etc. We've had no real leadership. We've had no one demanding more evidence and looking for alternatives. We've had no cooler heads. We've rushed in where angels fear to tread. Hell, the General Le Mays of the Bush administration have been the cooler heads.
So, as bad as things are, and they're pretty bad, thank God we didn't have Bush and his team in place in October 1962.
Why 'DC: 9/11' is the New 'Reefer Madness'
I thought of this while watching, DC 9/11: Time of Crisis, a Showtime movie from 2003, written and produced by British-born Hollywood conservative Lionel Chetwynd, which first aired, amid controversy, in September 2003.
I know. Life’s short, why waste two hours? Unfortunately I’m writing an article about presidents on film to coincide with the release of Oliver Stone’s W., and DC 9/11 is part of the price you pay.
But I quickly began to see the humor. SNL came to mind when Pres. Bush, on Air Force One, switches to commander-in-chief mode and starts barking orders at Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: “Hike military alert status to Delta! That's the military, the C.I.A., foreign, domestic, everything! And if you haven't gone to Defcon 3, you oughtta.” He barks orders at a submissive Cheney. He tells everyone, over and over, that Osama bin Laden will pay:
- “We’re gonna hunt down and find those folks who committed this.”
- “Whoever did this isn’t going to like me as president.”
- “We’re going to kick the hell out of whoever did this. No slap on the wrist this time.”
But it wasn’t until Rumsfeld raises the specter of Saddam Hussein that I saw the true brilliance of DC 9/11. This is a movie that actually glorifies the worst foreign policy decisions we’ve ever made. It’s like finding a 1964 film celebrating the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. It’s like, dare I say, something by Leni Riefenstahl. Just not, you know, artistic.
Here’s the dialogue from the Sept. 13 cabinet meeting after Rumsfeld raises the question of Iraq:
Powell: The mission is the destruction of al Qaeda. Hussein isn’t your man.There are more meetings. Bush becomes more certain, more messianic. Rendition and domestic spying are implied. You’re either with us or with the terrorists. In the Sept. 15 meeting, Powell warns Bush that if we go after someone besides al Qaeda our allies may fall away and leave us isolated. Bush replies:
Rumsfeld: He is if we’re talking about terrorism in the broadest sense. We know he never stopped developing weapons of mass destruction...
Cheney: Al Qaeda lacks weapons. That’s why they used our own aircraft. You put Hussein and bin Laden together...?
Bush: Is that an immediate threat?
Cheney: The enemy is clearly more than UBL [bin Laden] and the Taliban. If we’re including people who support terrorists, that does open the door to Iraq. But unlike bin Laden, we know where to find them.
“At some point, we may be the only ones left standing. And that will have to be OK. That’s why we’re America.”Powell says bin Laden attacked us, not Saddam, and Wolfowitz replies:
“Only because he was unable. But he’s got the arms. He’s been developing everything from nuclear weapons to smallpox to anthrax. A whole range of weapons of mass destruction. ... All he’s lacked is the means to deliver those weapons to our shores. Well, UBL has shown him he’s got a system of delivery.”
Here’s what’s awful. The reason our foreign policy mistakes were disastrous are there in the script for anyone to see — and they were visible back then. 9/11 did require a new playbook. We were attacked by a loose organization that could hide, rather than a nation-state that couldn’t. Yet our ultimate response was to attack a nation-state because, in Cheney’s words, “We know where to find them.”
Which is the very reason we shouldn’t have attacked them. That was the old playbook. It’s still the old playbook. And we still don’t get it.
DC 9/11 is either so funny it’s sad or so sad it’s funny. It should become a cult classic like Reefer Madness: a propaganda film that, through its over-the-top idiocy, proves its opposite. It’s also a good reminder of what once constituted conservative spin. Remember Bush as action hero? As cowboy? “[Saddam] is surely developing WMDs,” Bush says. “Wanted: Dead or Alive,” Bush says. We’re going to “rid the world of evil,” Bush says. “This will decidedly not be another Vietnam,” Bush says.
"You want to see a REAL liberal media, Otis?"
Nicholas Kristof's column this morning on how well the Republican slime machine is working — 13 percent of registered voters think Barack Obama is Muslim, while the "End Times" people literally think he's the anti-Christ — brought back that New Yorker cover controversy from two months ago. I'd argue my post back then wasn't prescient but historical; anyone who paid attention in '04 knew it would happen. Since then the New Yorker has given us their anti-John McCain cover: He's rich, playing Monopoly; his wife carries a glass of wine. So in one cover they dress up Barack and Michelle Obama as what they aren't (America's enemies) and in the other they dress up John and Cindy McCain as what they are (rich bastards) and call it even. Barack becomes who Americans want to kill, McCain who Americans want to be. Thank you, liberal media.
Seriously, everytime I hear that phrase, "liberal media," I want to deck somebody. I think of Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor in the original Superman, talking to Ned Beatty's dimwitted Otis: "You want to see a liberal media, Otis? You want to see a REAL liberal media, Otis?" Imagine that. The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, the network news, CNN, all as politically motivated as FOX News and Rush Limbaugh.
As it is, this media, the corporate kind, is still being played by the Republicans, who slime the entire process until you just want to retch. But hold onto these facts:
- Republican stupidity and arrogance got us into Iraq.
- Republican greed and mania for deregulation got us into our current fiscal crisis.
- The Republican slime-machine is destroying our political process.
Hold onto these facts and please wake the @#$%&!!!! up.
Tom Toles is Genius
He's got a good one today on the 180-degree flip-flops of the McCain campaign, but it's the editorial cartoon yesterday, particularly the coda, that got me. Brilliant. Our country in a nutshell:
Things to Read Before the Next Great Depression
A few bits and pieces collected from the Web:
- Chris Kelly has another so-funny-it's-sad piece about the current level of our political debate: specifically, John McCain, who implies the other guy thinks he's messianic, saying he will put an end to both evil (War on Terror) and now greed (banking crisis, uncapitalized thus far). "John McCain will not only take on special interests and Washington insiders, he'll fundamentally alter human nature. ... Or maybe he's just a desperate shell of a man, babbling glorp."
- Please read Bob Cesca's piece on why, given the collapse of our foreign policy, our economy, our status in the world, this race is still close. Before I read Cesca, I would've assumed the race was still close becaue of race, but he's got a better point. There's a lot of noise in the right-wing media that never reaches my ears, but that noise is constant and overwhelming and unaccountable. It says what it wants. And right now it's saying some pretty nasty shit. Also known as lies. Often about race.
- David Brauer has a piece on MinnPost about my hometown newspaper, and the paper my father worked at for 30 years, that's sad but indicative of the current state of newspapers. Strib editor Nancy Barnes sent staff an e-mail about political coverage, a warning to remain objective, but then added this: "If you are involved in a political story, please look at it from several different perspectives and ask yourself: 'If I were running, would I find this fair and balanced?'" Brauer rightly adds, "I doubt the last thing Ben Bradlee said to Woodward and Bernstein was, 'Ask yourself:"'If I were president, would I find our Watergate coverage fair and balanced?''" Exactly. Being objective doesn't mean being stupid.
My Name is Erik Lundegaard and I Approve of This MessageMonday September 15, 2008
Who is Barack Obama? Atticus Finch
For most of the year, Republicans have tried to negatively define Barack Obama. They compare him to the most empty aspects of our own society and the most violent aspects of global society. They twist everything, and lie about anything, and in doing so reveal exactly who and how desperate they are.
In the face of these attacks, Barack has remained calm, articulate, resolute. His anger, when it comes, is not the anger of a man with a hair-trigger temper, like John McCain, but the righteous anger of someone who knows that not only he, but our entire system, is being wronged.
And it got me thinking about who this reminds me of.
We know how John McCain defines himself — as a maverick — but anyone who’s been paying attention knows how empty that slogan is. He’s a follower at this point. He’s following the lead of Steve Schmidt, his campaign manager, who once followed the lead of Karl Rove. Whatever smear works, whatever lie works, no matter how sleazy, that’s what they’ll do. So regardless of what John McCain once was, he has now been reduced to the role of a not very bright man surrounded by extremely malicious people. The same malicious people, I should add, who have surrounded another not very bright man, George W. Bush, for the last eight years.
But they keep pumping out the myth. The chest-thumping, Paul Fistinyourface myth of the stupidly aggressive American. In a magazine interview, John McCain even compared himself to TV hero Jack Bauer of “24,” until he was reminded that Bauer’s main (and suspect) means of gathering information — torture — is what John McCain suffered under for five years. But I guess torture is good as long as we’re the torturers. I guess bullying is good as long as we’re the bullies. That’s what half the country seems to think anyway.
Barack, it’s true, is no bully. Here he is after the Republicans mocked him for his community service:
And here’s his response after Gov. Palin suggested that habeas corpus and the U.S. Constitution don’t matter:
Barack Obama is tough but ethical. He’s someone who can make friends out of our enemies rather than — as the Republicans keep doing — enemies out of our friends.
So who does Barack remind me of? He’s a civil rights lawyer who taught Constitutional law and is bringing up two girls the right way. When bullies gather, he stands up for what’s right, he stands up for the rule of law, he stands up. He’s an honorable man running an honorable campaign.
You’ve already read the headline so you already know my answer. Barack Obama reminds me of Atticus Finch, the hero of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and, according to the American Film Institute, the greatest hero in American movie history.
Here’s Scout on Atticus: “There just didn't seem to be anyone or anything Atticus couldn't explain.” Here’s Atticus to Scout: “If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.”
This is the very lesson that chest-thumping Republicans have mocked for the last seven years. And where has it gotten us? Wasting billions pursuing the wrong people in the wrong places.
Republicans aren’t interested in understanding. They’re not even interested in talking. You can almost imagine this bit of dialogue between Atticus and Scout taking place between Obama and a certain Republican vice-presidential candidate:
Atticus: Scout, do you know what a compromise is?
Scout: Bending the law?
Atticus: Um, no. It’s an agreement reached by mutual consent.
We’re still in this midst of our own mythic internal struggle, aren’t we, between the violent and often lawless aspects that John McCain represents, and the tough but ethical rule of law that Barack Obama represents. I would’ve thought this battle was over by now. I would’ve thought rule of law triumphed long ago. Apparently not.
Even Atticus, that great hero, lost his case. He proved his case but the trial was rigged from the start by our own overwhelming prejudices, by our need to see things as they are not, by our need to buy into the lie.
Are we a better country now? Or do we still need to see things as they are not? Do we still need to buy into the lie?
Up to you.
OK, Everyone Read Andrew Sullivan
Everyone. The full piece is here. This is merely the overture:
For the past two weeks serious commentators and columnists have been asked to take the candidacy of Sarah Palin for the vice-presidency of the United States seriously.
Formerly sane people have written of the McCain campaign’s selection of this running mate as if it represents a new face for Republicanism, an emblem of can-do western spirit, a brilliant ploy to win over Clinton voters, a new feminism, a reformist revolution, and a genius appeal to the religious right.
I’m afraid I cannot join in. In fact I cannot say anything about this candidacy that takes it in any way seriously. It is a farce. It is absurd. It is an insult to all intelligent people. It is a sign of a candidate who has lost his mind. There is no way to take the nomination of Palin to be vice-president of the world’s sole superpower - except to treat it as a massive, unforgivable, inexplicable decision by someone who has either gone insane or is managerially unfit to be president of the United States. When, at some point, the hysteria dies down, even her supporters will realise that, by this decision, McCain has rendered himself unfit to run a branch of Starbucks, let alone the White House.
Movie Quote of the Day
"His lack of political knowledge, c'mon fellas, just makes him seem more a man of the people."
Palin: Worse than We Thought
Perhaps restoring my faith in the mainstream media, The NY Times has a front-page story today on the style of politics Sarah Palin has practiced both as mayor of Wasilla and governor of Alaska. It ain't pretty. It's actually worse than we thought. She fires professional people for personal reasons and hires unqualified friends in their place. Her cronyism makes George W. Bush look like a stern judge of character. Examples:
- When there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency. Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.
Ms. Palin chose Talis Colberg, a borough assemblyman from the Matanuska valley, as her attorney general, provoking a bewildered question from the legal community: “Who?” Mr. Colberg, who did not return calls, moved from a one-room building in the valley to one of the most powerful offices in the state, supervising some 500 people. “I called him and asked, ‘Do you know how to supervise people?’ ” said a family friend, Kathy Wells. “He said, ‘No, but I think I’ll get some help.’ " The Wasilla High School yearbook archive now doubles as a veritable directory of state government.
Last summer State Representative John Harris, the Republican speaker of the House, picked up his phone and heard Mr. Palin’s voice. The governor’s husband sounded edgy. He said he was unhappy that Mr. Harris had hired John Bitney as his chief of staff, the speaker recalled. Mr. Bitney was a high school classmate of the Palins and had worked for Ms. Palin. But she fired Mr. Bitney after learning that he had fallen in love with another longtime friend. “I understood from the call that Todd wasn’t happy with me hiring John and he’d like to see him not there,” Mr. Harris said.
The mayor quickly fired the town’s museum director, John Cooper. Later, she sent an aide to the museum to talk to the three remaining employees. “He told us they only wanted two,” recalled Esther West, one of the three, “and we had to pick who was going to be laid off.” The three quit as one.
In 1997, Ms. Palin fired the longtime city attorney, Richard Deuser, after he issued the stop-work order on a home being built by Don Showers, another of her campaign supporters.
And this doesn't even get into the firing of Wasilla's Police Chief, Irl Stambaugh, because he intimidated her, nor the 'Troopergate' scandal currently being investigated in Alaska, in which Palin and her husband allegedly pressured state officials into firing a state trooper who was divorcing her sister.
Some woman of the people.
More bad news. She "puts a premium on secrecy and loyalty" and "is overly reliant on a small inner circle that leaves her isolated" and unavailable. Again, she's out-Bushing Bush here:
- Rick Steiner, a University of Alaska professor, sought the e-mail messages of state scientists who had examined the effect of global warming on polar bears. (Ms. Palin said the scientists had found no ill effects, and she has sued the federal government to block the listing of the bears as endangered.) An administration official told Mr. Steiner that his request would cost $468,784 to process. When Mr. Steiner finally obtained the e-mail messages — through a federal records request — he discovered that state scientists had in fact agreed that the bears were in danger, records show.
And this is the woman John McCain thinks is good enough to be a heartbeat away from the most important job in the world?? At a time when we need the smartest, most open and most diplomatic person possible to steer us through the various crises, both domestic and international, the Bush administration is leaving us??? You talk about bad judgment.
Let's hope the American electorate's judgment is better.
Fallows on the Toxic Traits of Palin/Bush
Here's a great post by James Fallows on why Gov. Palin's ignorance abou the Bush Doctrine could have dire consequences for this country. Highlights:
Sarah Palin did not know this issue, or any part of it. The view she actually expressed — an endorsement of "preemptive" action — was fine on its own merits. But it is not the stated doctrine of the Bush Administration, it is not the policy her running mate has endorsed, and it is not the concept under which her own son is going off to Iraq.
How could she not know this? For the same reason I don't know anything about European football/soccer standings, player trades, or intrigue. I am not interested enough. And she evidently has not been interested enough even to follow the news of foreign affairs during the Bush era.
A further point. The truly toxic combination of traits GW Bush brought to decision making was:
2) Lack of curiosity
That is, he was not broadly informed to begin with (point 1). He did not seek out new information (#2); but he nonetheless prided himself (#3) on making broad, bold decisions quickly, and then sticking to them to show resoluteness.
We don't know for sure about #2 for Palin yet -- she could be a sponge-like absorber of information. But we know about #1 and we can guess, from her demeanor about #3. Most of all we know something about the person who put her in this untenable role.
Lies, Damn Lies and John McCain
Like the Best Show Ever
My friend Craig, below and in the New York Times, discusses how most Americans reacted to 9/11 as if it were just something that happened on TV, which, for most of them, is exactly what it was. We seem to be reacting to the presidential election in the same way. As if it’s just a show. As if there’s no connection between us and these characters except in how they entertain us.
The Biden pick? So boring. We saw that coming. Yeah, six terms in the U.S. Senate. Yeah, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But he talks too much, doesn’t he? That’s kind of funny. Let’s make a joke about that. Otherwise get him off stage.
The Palin pick? How exciting! Boy, did that jazz things up! Did you see how everyone was against her, and saying shit about her experience and all, and then she gave that speech and showed them? Wow, that was great! Such twists and turns in the storyline. It’s like “Lost,” you know? I gotta keep watching to find out what happens. And her family? Who knows what’s going on there? We can talk about them forever.
That great line she had about selling the plane on e-Bay? What do you mean it was a lie?
And how she fought the Bridge to Nowhere? What do you mean she supported it?
Wow, this woman will say anything to stay on! I gotta keep watching.
And now this interview thingee with Charlie Gibson. Yeah, she didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine is. Who does? Yeah, when she sent her son off to war, she said 9/11 was responsible for Iraq or whatever. But how cool was that when she started talking about a war with Russia! Like, a real war! Take those commies, man. I mean, Obama’s all blah-blah-blah about the Constitution and shit, but she kicks ass!
Seriously, I thought they were gonna kick her off the show weeks ago, and now she might even win it? This is like the best show ever.
John McCain and Steve Schmidt are going to burn in hell for all eternity
Did you read this?
Did you see the new McCain ad?
It's called “Education” and it slams Barack Obama for not doing enough about education; then it delivers the whopper. In the real world, in Illinois, Barack Obama supported legislation to educate kids about pedophiles. The McCain ad calls this “sex education for kindergartners.”
From Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton:
“It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls — a position that his friend Mitt Romney also holds. Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn't define what honor was. Now we know why.”
Begala and Willis to Media: Just State the Facts, Jack
Paul Begala on the media's he said/she said problem. When it comes to facts, demonstrable facts — i.e., Gov. Palin supported the bridge to nowhere, she was up to her ears in earmarks as mayor — it's part of the media's job to state these facts. It's not a matter of partisan debate.
Or, if you want, we can go back to the John McCain-has-no-genitalia discussion. That was a fun one.
Obama to Palin: “Don't Mock the Constitution”
I’m the editor of several Super Lawyers publications around the country, including those in Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, Wisconsin, Illinois, Washington, D.C., and New York — and in the New York issue, which comes out later this month, we’ve written profiles of three of the big civil liberties lawyers in the city: Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Arthur Eisenberg of the NYCLU and Manuel Vargas of the Immigrant Defense Project. The piece, written by Jessica Centers, mostly focuses on their work post-9/11. The various attacks on civil liberties that they’ve fought. The attacks that they keep fighting. So I’ve been immersed in this stuff, at an editorial remove, for a few months now.
Which is why Sarah Palin’s line in her acceptance speech about how Barack wants to “read terrorists their rights” really pissed me off.
At first I didn’t get it. What was she talking about? Then it hit me. Oh my god, she’s talking about the Guantanamo Bay detainees. She’s talking about how the Bush administration, and apparently Gov. Palin herself, or at least her (former Bush) speechwriters, feel it’s OK, and in fact demand, that the U.S. military have the right to grab any foreign national, in any place, put them in military prison, and deny them the right to meet their accusers: To know why they’ve been grabbed. To know why their life has been reduced to a life inside a small box.
In a perfect world this wouldn’t matter, because everything would be perfect: The suspects would be the right suspects, the military would make no mistakes, everything would be fine, And America would be safer.
But it’s not a perfect world, and this entire fiasco is making America less safe.
Today Sen. Obama struck back, as eloquently as ever. First he said that to read terrorists their rights, you have to catch them first, and the Republicans haven’t been very good at that.
Then he launched into a defense of habeas corpus, which has been around at least since the Magna Carta. From the Washington Post:
Calling it “the foundation of Anglo-American law,” he said the principle “says very simply: If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, 'Why was I grabbed?' And say, 'Maybe you've got the wrong person.'”
The safeguard is essential, Obama continued, “because we don't always have the right person.”
“We don't always catch the right person,” he said. “We may think it's Mohammed the terrorist, but it might be Mohammed the cab driver. You might think it's Barack the bomb-thrower, but it might be Barack the guy running for president.”
”The reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism. It's because that's who we are. That's what we're protecting,“ Obama said, his voice growing louder and the crowd rising to its feet to cheer. ”Don't mock the Constitution. Don't make fun of it. Don't suggest that it's not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It's worked pretty well for over 200 years."
God, I love this man.
McCain: Reckless, Nutty, Irresponsible
Check out Andrew Sullivan's piece for the Times online. Highlights:
There is one reason the job of vice-president exists. In a system with a single executive, you need someone to fill in if the president is incapacitated or dies. ...The pick is also the first presidential-level decision a candidate has to make. You learn a lot about the candidate...
In Joe Biden, Obama revealed his core temperamental conservatism. It was a safe choice of someone deeply versed in foreign policy, and with roots that connected to the working class white ethnics he needed. It wasn't flashy; and was even a little underwhelming; but it was highly professional.
What we have learned about John McCain from his selection of Sarah Palin is that he is as impulsive and reckless a decision-maker as George W. Bush. We know this not because of what we have learned about this Pentecostalist populist since she exploded on the scene last Friday morning (and God knows we have learned more than we ever wanted). We know it because of how McCain made the decision. He wanted his best friend, Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice-presidential candidate for Al Gore. That pick would have been remarkable for its bipartisan nature, would have impressed independents, and signaled a centrist presidency centered on foreign policy. It would have been bold while not being rash.
But McCain is in charge of a party that is now, at its core, religiously motivated. Joe Lieberman, for all his political talents, is Jewish, pro-choice on abortion, gay-inclusive, and domestically liberal. McCain faced an insurrection in his party base if he picked him. Without the evangelical base, he wasn't going to win.
So last week, McCain picked someone he had only met once before. I repeat: he picked someone he had only met once before. His vetting chief sat Palin down for a face-to-face interview the Wednesday before last. It's very hard to overstate how nutty and irresponsible this is. Would any corporate chieftain pick a number two on those grounds and not be dismissed by his board for recklessness?
The Easily Intimidated Sarah Palin
But the brunt of the article is her clash with Wasilla’s Chief of Police, Irl Stambaugh, who created Wasilla’s police department a few years earlier. Stambaugh was in favor of two things that got him into trouble with Palin:
- He backed an ordinance requiring Wasilla to close their bars at 2:30 a.m. (weekdays) and 3 a.m. (weekends), instead of the usual 5 a.m., because folks in nearby Anchorage, where the bars closed at the earlier hours, often drove to Wasilla to keep their buzz on, and drinking and driving, as we know, don’t mix. The Wasilla City Council rejected the ordinance by a 3-2 vote. Palin, then with the Council, voted with the majority.
- Stambaugh opposed an NRA-backed state legislative proposal that would allow concealed weapons in banks and bars. He called the proposal (which was vetoed by then-Gov. Tony Knowles) ridiculous. “Bars, guns and booze don’t mix,” he said.
So did Palin fire Stambaugh at the bidding of the NRA? Probably not. The article implies that she fired him for a more troubling reason: He intimidated her. He’s 6’2”, 240. He always tried to sit, and use a soothing voice, when talking with her, but when he finally got canned, this was part of her official rationale:
“When I met with you in private, instead of engaging in interactive conversation with me, you gave me short, uncommunicative answers and then you would sit there and stare at me in silence with a very stern look, like you were trying to intimidate me.”I hope voters realize that if she feels intimidated by Putin, or Ahmadinejad, or new Pakistani President Zardari, all of whom won't try to use a soothing voice around her, firing them won’t be an option.
McCain: Rash and Not Bright. Sound Familiar?
As always, Frank Rich is worth reading and today he focuses on the haste with which John McCain makes his decisions and declarations. Here’s the money graph in easy-to-read list form:
- In October 2001, he speculated that Saddam Hussein might have been behind the anthrax attacks in America.
- That same month he out-Cheneyed Cheney in his repeated public insistence that Iraq had a role in 9/11 — even after both American and foreign intelligence services found that unlikely.
- He was similarly rash in his reading of the supposed evidence of Saddam’s W.M.D. and in his estimate of the number of troops needed to occupy Iraq. (McCain told MSNBC in late 2001 that we could do with fewer than 100,000.) It wasn’t until months after “Mission Accomplished” that he called for more American forces to be tossed into the bloodbath. The whole fiasco might have been prevented had he listened to those like Gen. Eric Shinseki who faulted the Rumsfeld war plan from the start.
“Often my haste is a mistake,” McCain conceded in his 2002 memoir, “but I live with the consequences without complaint.”
Rich then asks, as if it needed asking, "Well, maybe it’s fine if he wants to live with the consequences, but what about his country? Should the unexamined Palin prove unfit to serve at the pinnacle of American power, it will be too late for the rest of us to complain."
How Palin was for Obama before she was against him
Interesting piece by Philip Gourevitch on an interview Sarah Palin gave two weeks ago...back when her name had dropped off the list of potential veep candidates and she was freer to speak her mind.
Overall, her talk is less doctrinaire and more bipartisan than the speech (written by former Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully) she gave Thursday. She talks about how she's fine with the fact that Barack Obama was doing so well in Alaska, how his campaign themes echoed hers, and how she "always looked at Senator McCain just as a Joe Blow public member, looking from the outside in." She's still a hard-right Republican — pro-life even in the case of rape or incest — but she's somewhat open-minded on other issues.
Now a lot of people are saying that it doesn't matter that Gov. Palin didn't write her own acceptance speech — that that's how politics works, and has worked, for decades. But here's the difference. Professional speechwriters tend to tailor speeches to the tastes and beliefs of the politician they work for. The politician usually has a hand, sometimes a firm hand, in what's being said. One gets the feeling that didn't happen with Palin. All you have to do is compare her open-mindedness two weeks ago with the Rove-like nastiness in her acceptance speech to realize that, with the exception of her personal story, she was basically a broadcaster, broadcasting someone else's words, on Thursday night. It wasn't her.
It's almost a cliche now, particularly in political circles, but you gotta ask: Which is the real Sarah Palin?
Drill Now! Drill Now! Drill Now!
Here's a link to Andrew Sullivan's live-blogging of McCain's speech last night. It's good stuff. These entries in particular:
10.39 pm. His speech makes me feel a lot better as a depressed old-fashioned conservative. But it's striking how all the things that make me feel good seems to go down flat with this crowd.
10.46 pm. Drilling for oil gets the biggest applause. This is why I can't feel at home in this party. I mean: I'm actually open to this policy and agree with McCain on the all-of-the-above approach, including nuclear — but this obsession with more domestic oil just seems weird to me. I guess I'm a cosmopolitan.
I'm also reminded of their flat reaction to McCain's comment near the end about how, knowing war, he hated war. They seemed disappointed. For all their supposed hatred of Hollywood (huglely misplaced), they wanted the Hollywood ending. Good guy triumphing amid blood and guts. Instead he handed the audience a flower. What a downer.
The Shakers (Hopefully Not the Movers)
Sen. McBush/Gov. Earmark
First, R.J. Eskow has a good piece on "The 15 Counterpunches" to the various lies and hypocrisy of the RNC. The key elements:
2. She's Pork Barrel Palin. She's always been an expert in draining earmark money off the hardworking taxpayer. She submitted $197 million in earmarks — more per person than any other state — in her current budget. And the citizens of her little town got fifty times as much federal pork as the average American! How'd she do it? She hired a DC lobbyist. That's right: A K Street shark to fill her Main Street coffers — and advance her career in the bargain. ... If you don't like the way Washington does business, you don't like her. What's the difference between Sarah Palin and an old-style GOP crony? Lipstick.
5. McCain's economy will be more of the same. If you like the economy we've got, vote McCain. Every time a Republican runs for office he pretends he'll do things differently. Bush said the same things in 2000. Look at McCain's voting record. Wonder what McCainonomics would look like? In the words of the old ad, you're soaking in it right now.
I also like John Seery's piece, same site, about Sarah Palin's speech. The key thought:
What I saw on that stage was the personification of small-minded smugness, an utter lack of humility, a kind of self-righteous entitlement based on little more than puffed-up narrowness. She struck me not as plucky but, rather, as stunningly immodest — to the point of arrogance...
Finally, from Oliver Willis' excellent site, there's this reader comment regarding Barack's response (see below) to the various right-wing attacks on his "community organizer" background. It really hits the nail on the effin' head:
All smart responses to dumb attacks. And we need to return Smart to the White House.
The Community Organizer
This is great. This is exactly what he should be saying. Comments came during a speech to factory workers in York, Pa.:
"You wouldn't know that this is such a critical election by watching the convention last night. I know we had our week, and the Republicans deserve theirs, but it's been amazing to me to watch over the last two nights.
"You're hearing a lot about John McCain, and he's got a compelling biography as a prisoner of war. You're hearing an awful lot about me, most of which is not true. What you're not hearing is a lot about you.
"The thing that I'm insisting on in this election is we can't keep playing the same political games we always play where we attack each other and we call each other names. They've had a lot of speakers. And if they had a bunch of ideas, you'd think they would have put 'em out there by now. And so the question is, what's their agenda? What's their plan?"
Things to read and watch while the culture wars start up again
If you need to laugh at the hypocrisy of the Republican party, The Daily Show is there for you.
Also Gail Collins has a good column on Palin's speech.
And just came across this guy: Oliver Willis. Here's his 10 Things You Need to Know about John McCain. No. 7 is particularly scary:
Many of McCain’s fellow Republican senators say he’s too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He’s erratic. He’s hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”
Meanwhile, a reminder of Barack's original rationale for opposing the Iraq War in 2002, and why we need smart back in the White House:
“I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.” – Barack Obama, 2002
Talkin' RNC Blues
Sounds like a great show last night at the Parkway Theater near Lake Nokomis in South Minneapolis. My friend Jim Walsh hosting Billy Bragg, Tom Morello, Ike Reilly, others. David Carr taking notes. Read about it here. I'll post Carr's stuff when it arrives.
UPDATE: As promised, Dave Carr's piece.
Who's Whining Now?
So the McCain camp says that criticisms of Sarah Palin are sexist. Here.
So John McCain pulls out of a CNN interview with Larry King because earlier CNN anchorwoman Campbell Brown asked McCain spokesperson Tucker Bounds about Palin's command experience, and kept pressing when he didn't answer, and McCain felt this was "over the line." Here.
Quick question: When did the GOP begin to exhibit all the traits they've publicly deplored over the last three decades?
Talk about a nation of whiners.
The Smart Candidate
Here's the bad news: the experts agree that you can’t patrol it all. They live in fear of the nightmare scenario, “The Armageddon Test,” for which the second part of the book is named: Terrorists exploding a nuke in a large western city. The Brits have their experts trying to prevent this, the U.S. has theirs. One gets the feeling that an undue burden has been placed on these men while the rest of us dick around. Never have so few done so much for so many watching “American Idol.”
At one point, Suskind interviews Saad al-Faqih, a surgeon from Saudi Arabia, who is on the U.S.’s list of those who have provided material support to al Qaeda, and who says that the goal of 9/11 was “always to create deep polarization between America and the Muslim world,” and that 9/11 mastermind Ayman Zawahiri “understood precisely the cowboy passions of the American establishment.” Another money graph:
Of course, not everything went as planned. The swift fall of the Taliban and the elimination of nearly 80 percent of al Qaeda’s manpower in Afghanistan surprised both bin Laden and Zawahiri, who expected America to fall into a quagmire as the Russians had in the 1980s. By the middle of 2002, they were both dispirited, on the run, living in caves, with their top lieutenants scattered. “Which is why Iraq was the greatest gift,” Saad says. “It proved to the world that it was, in fact, always America’s mission to get Muslims, especially when your stated reasons for that invasion were shown to be hollow.”As for the future? Al Qaeda’s goals include what Zawahiri calls “the pacification stage,” where the U.S., disconsolate, withdraws from the world. Suskind doesn’t really buy the possibility of this, although the U.S. has always had its isolationist elements; then he asks himself this key question: “I wonder what bin Laden and Zawahiri are hoping the United States won’t do?”
Exactly. What is the smart response? So far, our response hasn’t been smart at all.
Which leads me to the “60 Minutes” broadcast last night. Steve Kroft interviewed Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Kroft came at them, and specifically at Barack, with a lot of frivolous questions — beer and bowling — and then he came at him with some frivolous but volatile questions. Was he tough enough for the job? Why didn’t he mention that he was black during his acceptance speech? Shouldn’t he be further ahead in the polls than he is? For this last, Obama said:
This is gonna be a rough, tough battle. The Republicans don't govern very well but they know how to campaign. And, you know, what I would expect is that it's gonna take-mid-October before a whole lot of people start making up their minds. And there's nothing wrong with that. This notion that somehow this should be a cakewalk and I should just walk into the election with a 10, 15 point lead, I think doesn't give the American people enough credit. They wanna get this thing right.To the black question:
Yeah, I think people noticed that.As for tough enough?:
The fact that I don't go out of my way to call people names, or try to take cheap shots, and that I try not to throw the first punch, but to see if I can find a way to work together with people, sometimes leads people to underestimate what I've got. I think it's fair to say that if I couldn't not only take a punch, but occasionally throw one, I wouldn't be sitting here.And I came away thinking: This man is so smart. No matter what Steve Kroft threw at him, he turned it into a smart response. Which is exactly what we need. During the next four years, when the worst elements of the world throw what they can at us, we need the smart response, instead of the response, full of cowboy passions, that plays right into al Qaeda’s hands.
"F**k it. We're going in."
The cover story in this morning’s New York Times Magazine, by Peter Baker, presumably an excerpt from his upcoming book, concerns Bush’s final days in office, and the beginning of the article focuses on the McCain campaign’s attempt to distance itself from this most unpopular president. At the end of the first section, Mark Salter, McCain’s campaign advisor, says this about the President: “You feel bad for the guy if you think about it.” This leads to the first line of the second section:
George Bush does not want anyone feeling bad for him.
Allow me to back up for a second. Yesterday I came across the money portion of Ron Suskind’s The Way of the World. Suskind is writing about all the end-arounds the Bush administration performed in the lead-up to the Iraq war: ignoring George Tenet and the CIA to get the 16 words into the State of the Union address; using the CIA chief of station for Germany to muzzle German fears about the unreliability of Rafid Ahmed, or “Curveball,” who was feeding the administration misinformation about Saddam’s biological weapons operation; and, finally, not just ignoring but actually reversing the findings of the CIA Paris chief, who was told, in a clandestine meeting with Naji Sabri, Saddam’s last foreign minister, that Saddam didn’t possess WMD.
Then Suskind gets to the big one. In a casual conversation with an American intelligence officer in a Washington restaurant, and subsequently confirmed in face-to-face meetings with the former director and current assistant director of MI6, Suskind discovers that the Bush administration knew Saddam didn’t possess WMD before they went to war. They didn’t suspect. They knew.
In the months before the war, it seems a British agent, Michael Shipster, met with the head of Iraqi intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush, who confirmed everything we subsequently found to be true: Not just that Saddam didn’t have WMD but why he was unwilling to say so publicly. And it all made sense. Here’s Suskind talking with the unnamed American intelligence officer:
I ask if the intelligence was passed to CIA and the White House.
“Of course. Passed instantly, at the very highest levels.”
“And what did we say,” I ask. “Or, I guess, what did Bush say?”
“He said, Fuck it. We’re going in.”
Don’t know if that’s a direct quote or not. Either way, it’s probably a good thing George Bush doesn’t want anyone feeling bad for him.
38.4 Million Obama Fans Can't Be Wrong
Meanwhile, Barack’s acceptance speech, before 38.4 million people Thursday night, was about nothing but the serious business of getting us out of the serious mess we’re in. I had friends call me from California and Minnesota to talk about the speech. They were pumped.
Here’s the part that got me:
We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.Amazing. He talked about bridging our divisions and then gave concrete examples. And not just any concrete examples. He gave examples involving four of the most volatile issues in our country: abortion, gun control, same-sex marriage and immigration. And I agreed with every one, every comment. This is a serious, common-sense response to the absolutism that has infected our country, not just over the last eight years, but over the past several decades.
The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than they are for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.
I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in a hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.
You know, passions may fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.
For my brother-in-law, Eric, who is deeply involved in community projects, this was the big moment:
What the naysayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me; it's about you. It's about you. ... You have shown what history teaches us, that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington.Both excerpts hearken back to why Obama originally (and immediately) appealed to me. Unlike 99.9 percent of the politicians out there, including John McCain, he’s not saying, “Here’s what I’ll do for you.” He’s saying, “Here’s what we can do together.” I think that’s hugely appealing. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want their life to have more meaning, and Barack is offering a path to that. He’s all about unity, no matter how divisive the issue. He’s all about what we can do when we work together. He’s a serious man for a serious time.
John McCain? I’m sorry, but he feels like a clown in comparison. Trotting out the same old divisive B.S. Sputtering the same old catchphrases. Injecting the same old fears. Focusing on everything that doesn’t matter: Britney, Paris, Sarah.
There’s no doubt who’s taking this presidency business seriously. The big question is: How serious are the rest of us?
If It's "Thrusday," McCain Must Be Speaking
My colleague, Garth, pointed out this error on the Republican Web site. I'm sure it'll be fixed soon, if not already, and obviously it doesn't have much to do with McCain himself since he barely knows about the Internet let alone how to write for it. But if there's a perception out there that you're the "dumb" candidate, and "dumb" isn't as heartwarming as it was in, say, 2000, before we saw the kinds of shit "dumb" could get us in, then this isn't the kind of error you want to make. As Garth says, maybe he opted for "Thrusday" because Thursday is the start of football season and he knew his acceptance speech couldn't compete.
UPDATE: Saturday, 8:00 a.m.: Still not fixed.
UPDATE: Sunday, 9:00 a.m.: Still not fixed.
UPDATE: Monday, 7:20 a.m. Still not fixed. Is no one going to the GOP site? Can't anyone in the GOP spell? I don't think William F. Buckley is rolling over in his grave over this, but he's definitely rolling his eyes.
UPDATE: Monday, 10:21 a.m.: Fixed! And it only took 72 hours since Garth first noticed it. It's this kind of attention to detail, this kind of speedy, tech-savvy recovery, that makes the GOP the party that it is.
"We're Amazingly Incompetent or We Lied"
Related to the post below, here's a quote I read over lunch from Ron Suskind's The Way of the World. The speaker is an FBI man and a conservative Republican. He's talking to the author in June 2007:
"People don't realize in America how little underlying credibility the United States now has in the world, espcially on this matter of WMD, which, of course, has been driving everything. We went to war—the most important thing a country does—based on WMD, and we were wrong. That means either we're amazingly incompetent or we lied. Take your pick. Now, I think we lied, most people do, because no one could be that incompetent. But until we come clean—and here we are years later and we don't even care enough as a country to figure out what really happened—we're sunk."
Pages 169-70. We get to the lying later.
The Power of Our Example
But, I admit, I’ve been blown away by both Bill and Hillary Clinton at the DNC this week. Listening to her, I thought, “If she’d been this good during the campaign, she might’ve been the nominee.” Listening to him, I thought, “I’d vote for him again in a second.”
Her speech was good, but this bit put her over the top:
This is the story of America. Of women and men who defy the odds and never give up. How do we give this country back to them?The electricity that infused the convention center at that moment was overwhelming. I could feel it through the TV set and into my home in Seattle. I got shivers. My friend, Jim, another Obama supporter, called it “Obamaesque.”
By following the example of a brave New Yorker, a woman who risked her life to shepherd slaves along the Underground Railroad. And on that path to freedom, Harriett Tubman had one piece of advice.
If you hear the dogs, keep going.
If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.
If they're shouting after you, keep going.
Don't ever stop. Keep going.
If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.
Even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to keep going.
Bill, meanwhile, did what every good writer, and every good lawyer, does: He boiled his case down to the specifics and presented them with charm. But, from all that, this was the line. Whoever came up with it deserves a raise:
Barack Obama knows that America cannot be strong abroad unless we are strong at home. People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.That’s it, isn’t it? The U.S. has spent most of its history, from “Shining City on a Hill” through the Marshall Plan and the Peace Corps, relying on the power of our example. There’s a lot of grime beneath that myth but it’s a myth worth adhering to. We do what we do; if others follow, that’s up to them. Since 9/11 we've acted the opposite, and those seven years have shown us the limits of our power. We’re exhausted, deeply entrenched, trapped. We’ve made more enemies than ever before. The more we use the example of our power, the more we have to use it. And the world’s a big place.
The power of our example? That’s an unlimited power source.
Why you can't take toothpaste on an airplane
The day is July 27, 2006, when, in a move calculated to win some iota of support from African-Americans for the upcoming mid-term elections, Pres. Bush signs the Voting Rights Act reauthorization a year early in a ceremony on the White House lawn. It’s also the day Khosa is taken into custody by the Secret Service for fiddling with his iPod while waiting for a car to pass through the White House gates. He’s dragged into an interrogation room inside the White House, made to give up the names of friends and acquaintances, then let go with warnings. His friends and acquaintances will all be checked out. So will he. “We know everything about you and where to find you,” one Secret Service agent tells him. His crime? Fiddling with his iPod while Pakistani.
But the bigger issue, in the first two chapters, involves the backstory to the British government’s capture of a major terror cell in the suburbs of London, which was plotting to hijack airplanes and head for the U.S. East Coast. “The second wave,” Bush and Cheney had been warning us about.
MI-6 was cautious. Suskind writes: “The Brits, after their experience in Northern Ireland, were starting to believe that the key was to treat this not as a titanic ideological struggle, but rather as a law enforcement issue. This required being patient enough to get the actual evidence —usually once a plot had matured — with which to build a viable case in open court.”
Bush? Not so open. Not so cautious. Suskind implies that when Tony Blair refused to speed up arrests to suit Bush’s timetable — that is, the August before midterms — Bush nodded to Cheney, who dispatched the fourth-ranking CIA officer to Pakistan to alert the authorities there to Rashid Rauf, the Pakistani contact for the terror cell. Once Rauf was arrested, the terror cell panicked, and the Brits, who were apoplectic that their carefully constructed strategy had been knocked over, had no choice but to round them up... before they had enough evidence to put them away forever. And The White House got to say how they had been right all along “about everything.”
Suskind gets us into the heads of both Bush and Cheney, which is a little odd, you wonder which sources could possibly get us there. But these early chapters make you realize both a) how real the terrorist threat is, and b) how politically motivated and short-sighted the Bush administration response has been. It’s a scary world, but all the scarier for who we elected to protect us.
"Bush II" by William Shakespeare
That’s not the main reason I bought his book, though. I bought it because Ron Suskind is the guy who wrote the 2004 New York Times Magazine article that, through a smug Bush aide, introduced the phrase “the reality-based community” to the world. I remember how the article stunned me. I remember how it made me better aware of what we were up against. That certain Republicans were willing to overthrow centuries of rational thinking to keep winning elections. The money quote:
The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” ... “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Gotta be Rove, right?
I’ve only read the prologue of The Way of the World but I’m already glad I bought it. In the first pages Suskind gives a better reading of the presidential failures of George W. Bush than I’ve read anywhere else. And I’ve read a lot about the presidential failures of George W. Bush.
Bush came to power, Suskind says, relying on his gut, his instinct. “What he does,” Suskind writes, “is size up people, swiftly — he trusts his eyes, his ears, his touch — and acts… Once he landed in the Oval Office, however, he discovered that every relationship is altered, corrupted by the gravitational incongruities between the leader of the free world and everyone else.”
Other presidents have fought against this corruption, this alteration. Ford arranged Oval Office arguments between top aides. Nixon ordered subordinates to tell him something their superiors didn’t want him to hear. There was good old-fashioned eavesdropping and wire-tapping and polling. But W. continued to rely on his instinct, making him, to Suskind, a tragic figure worthy of Shakespeare: “A man who trusts only what he can touch placed in a realm where nothing he touches is authentic.” Or more brusquely: “...you can’t run the world on instinct from inside a bubble.”
"Dear Fellow Republican"
The Republican National Committee sent me a census the other day addressed to a “fellow Republican.”
I know. I assume they sent it to as many people as possible. Maybe they even want people to fulminate against the enclosed “Republican Party Census Document” and its leading questions. It’s not a census, after all, but a push poll, so the goal is to get the words repeated, to get them out there, so they can reside in the brains of unsuspecting passersby.
Here’s my version. Has the same basic gist with half the calories:
HOMELAND SECURITY ISSUES
1. Should Republicans do everything in their power to make you so scared of the world that you’re willing to give up your most basic rights?
2. Do you support the use of force against any country chickenhawk Republicans say shit about? Shit to include: WMDs, smoking guns, underage gymnasts.
3. Should guffawing Republicans continue to make you scared of Mexicans? And Negroes? And the Irish?
1. Should greedy Republicans continue to use the phrase “massive tax hikes” when referring to taxes on the wealthiest of the wealthy (i.e., Republicans)?
2. President Bush’s idiotic tax cuts for rich bastards (known as the “Idiotic Tax Cuts for Rich Bastards” law) is set to expire. Should we make it permanent? Should we put in the Constitution? Should we make it the 11th Commandment?
3. Shouldn’t we balance the budget already? And by “we” I mean “your great great grand-children.” Ha!
1. Are you still scared of Mexicans? Good!
2. Do you still hate trial lawyers? Yes!
3. Red tape? The other side likes it! You and I know better. Here’s a beer.
1. Homos? The worst!
2. What if we implied the other guys wanted to serve partial-birth aborted fetuses in government-run school lunch programs? Would it make you rent Soylent Green again?
3. You know what those other guys want to do? Ban God. But look at this muscle. Me stop them.
1. Hey, isn’t that a Mexican right outside your house? Vote now!
2. The United Nations? Losers!
3. The seeds of democracy? Yum!
4. Yes or no: All countries not the U.S. are alike. (Answer: Who gives a shit?)
1. Look at this penis. Should we pass a law that says it's the best one ever?
2. I can run faster than you. Yes, I can. I already ran around the world, you just didn’t see me.
3. Would you join the Republican National Committee by making a contribution today? Like, a zillion dollars. OK, $35. OK, Other.
4. Look at this muscle. No, wait. No, look from this side.
The questionnaire includes a business reply envelope with the following printed on the outside: “By using your own first class stamp to return this envelope, you will be helping us save much needed funds.”
So if you get one of these, do what I did. Mail it back. Without the stamp. Empty.
Reagan v. Founding Fathers
Another good observation from Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter:
As John Patrick Diggins, a Reagan biographer, astutely observes, the Founding Fathers believed that "The people are the problem and the government the solution" while Reagan convinced us that the people are virtuous and that government's the problem. "It worked," Diggins notes. "Reagan never lost an election."
G.O.P.: The Party of Stupid
Everyone needs to read Paul Krugman's column today, particularly this graf:
What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratificatio | {
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June 2009 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Scotty Lago Sign’s New Contract with Flow Snowboarding
SAN CLEMENTE, CA – June 29th, 2009
FLOW SNOWBOARDING is pleased to announce that Twenty One year old FRENDS Crew Member Scotty Lago from Seabrook, New Hampshire has signed a new contract with FLOW SNOWBOARDING. We are very happy that Scotty will continue his loyalty to the Board, Boot, Binding brand of FLOW SNOWBOARDING.
Scotty has been snowboarding since 1996, and has been part of the Flow Family since 2003. He is mainly known for his amazing performances in several world wide events and videos. In the winter of 2008-2009 at The Winter X-Games 13, Scotty placed Second in Slope-style and First Place in the Quarter-pipe category at the US Open in Stratton Vermont. In addition to his outstanding performances and amazing video appearances, Lago is involved in raising money for charities. The most outstanding efforts include his work with The Floating Hospital for Children in Boston and donating proceeds of sales from his 2008-2009 Signature Series Pro Model (FLOW Quantum Snowboard) to the Action Sports Environmental Coalition, also known as A.S.E.C. Lago was also honored at the 2007, “30 Under 30 Awards”, which recognizes 30 outstanding young leaders from Film, Fashion, Music, Politics and Sports.
Beverly Hills, CA; Scotty Lago & Grammy winning artist Chamillionaire
Snowboarding, Traveling, Charity Donations, Guest Appearances and even a MTV/FRENDS Reality TV show in the works; Scotty’s future appears to look bright and FLOW SNOWBOARDING is glad to continue supporting him along the way.
While many snowboarding companies have spent a lifetime trying to fit-in, FLOW has spent its time standing out. Born from originality, FLOW is defiant against the norm of tradition. The world has witnessed how this one time “binding” company has progressed into the leader of innovative products featuring a complete line of “speed entry” bindings, performance proven boots and award winning snowboards. The future is here and the future is FLOW.
For More Information Please Contact
FLOW SPORTS: Marketing Dept. | {
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SURF BETTY CAMP 2006, Oct. 7th-8th! 11102006
The 2windy.com sponsor .SrfSnoSk8. are organizing a Surf Betty Camp October 7th to 8th, 2006 at Borestrand south of Stavanger. This is party of the ".SrfSnoSk8.Endless Summer Weekend" on the West Coast of Norway with the National Championship in Windsurfing Wave and Freestyle. Also demo of 2007 windsurfing equipement from NorthSails, Fanatic, Mistral and F2. On Saturday night everyone are invited to a party. The head instructor of the camp are the best female Surfer in Norway and .SrfSnoSk8. teamrider, Inger-Elin Knappskog.Organizer of the Camp is Lill Bente Hollstedt of 2windy.com and .SrfSnoSk8. The Surf Betty Camp is open to all girls. Link til story og bilder...
SUMMER CAMP 2006 - WE ARE READY! 05052006
We have put together a really nice program for this years WindSurf Summer Camp 24th - 25th of June. This years location is just 15 km south of Oslo, in Tonsberg. We also want to invite all Swedish and Danish girls that would like to meet the most smiling girls in windsurfing. This years sponsors and partners are extraordinary and the girls will be treated like the princesses they all are... more...
END OF SUMMER WEEKEND 2005! 24092005
16 girls from "WindSrf Girls Norway" visited Varberg, Sweden for a windsurfing weekend! Lots of sunshine, lots of laughs, new friends, lots of time on water… in a little to little wind. But nothing can stop such a happy crowed from making the most out of a windsurfing weekend. more...
WHAT DID YOU DO THIS SUMMER? 13092004
out the window it tells me (Lill) that
fall is arriving again to us unfortunate enough to
live far away from anything remotely tropic. But up here in Norway the
Diva-girls are keeping it going for a little while longer
into the (always to small)
winter suits to welcome the heavy
storms in the weeks to come... A message
arrived into my mailbox from our
world champion Dorota asking for girls to come to Sylt, and promised no
racing in heavy shorebreak! Our dear friend Amara (picture) from
Thailand keeps "terrorising" my mailbox with pictures like this one. She is
lucky enough to be a Starboard importer and a couple of weeks ago got to try out
all the 2005 boards! For those who don't already know, she runs a nice
windsurfing operation in Pattaya (link).
Myself I have been working with windsurfing all summer and finally(!) got some
sailing last week... tuning my FW equipment(!), consisting of one board,
one sail, one bom, one mast and the perfect fin... this is
embarrassing, but true. But don't be to hard on me. I
have worked very hard with the young sailors and actually had 22 kids
from 8-15 year
attending a Rookie-Camp in August and is the "official aunt" of the
Norwegian FE juniors... It would be
just great to hear what Lucy, Amy, Dorota,
Gina, Margit, Christine, Katarina, Shelly, Karen, Marliess
have been up to this summer!
Carrie I know has been out on the water a bit lately,
and rumours has it she found it to be a good date-activity...
and she also is doing downhill mountain biking! Why don't
you send a few words and/or some
pictures and we can
share some cool moments, even
breath some life into the women-windsurfing again - I
think we look pretty dead at the moment!
DIVA WINDSURF NORWAY SPRING CAMP 2004
We are happy to announce
DIVA WINDSURF NORWAY SPRING CAMP 2004, May 22nd – 23rd. We got GREAT
sponsors and lots of things ready! Last year was a big success and inspiration!
Our network is growing fast and we are really looking forward to this year!
THE NORWEGIAN DIVAS CHALLANGING WINTER... 22022004
Norwegian winter always feels much to long for the 55 girls in the Norwegian
east-coast windsurfing network. But the girls are finding suitable challanges
during wintertime. You will be sure to meet one or more blasting downhill or in
the fun-park of any ski hill at any time. And most important they are keeping in
touch! And we are happy to report that on February 21st one of our most active
girls Solveig Larsen joined the Saab Salomon crossmax series and took home a
respectable 3rd place and 120 Euros. Congratulation!
INVITATION TO THE PAN AMERICAN FE EVENT MARCH 18-20TH
Rodriguez is full speed ahead for the 2004 season. She now invites all raceloving girls
to her island for the Pan American Formula Experience event March 18-20th. She
promises nice wind and plenty of sunhine for everyone. Charterboards are
available for those wanting to travel light or don’t own a Formula Experience
board. For more info on the event look at the website
www.caribbeanformula.com or send a mail
NEWSLETTER #1 2004 09012004
first 2004 newletter for "Diva Windsurfing Norway" has been mailed out.
It is in Norwegian
(sorry). If you didn´t recive it, it just means that your e-mail is not
in our file. If you want to recive future news on mail, please let us know. more...
THE STORY FROM "LADIES CHALLANGE", PATTAYA, THAILAND
sea, nice wind and hard working organizers welcomed the 8 girls from 4
nations that in the end made it to the Ladies Challenge in Pattaya, Thailand.
The Formula Experience Charter boards already waiting on the beach made traveling
a breeze. more...
READY FOR THE "LADIES CHALLANGE" DECEMBER 5-9TH, PATTAYA, THAILAND
the days before the event there will be a training camp at the Amara Sailing
Center. Then on Dec 5th in the afternoon the racing will start. In the days
following the women-event is the Formula Experience Asian Championship. Lill
are looking forward to leave the cold winter behind and enjoy the beach and wind!
Follow the event on the StarBoard site. more...
RANKING FOR WOMEN CUP 2003 PUBLISHED 20112003
second season of the Formula Windsurfing Woman Cup shows an incredible 53 names
on the ranking. The 2003 season has been a big step in the right direction for
the girls taking the big jump into international racing. The organizers have
treated the fleet with respect. What we dreamt of just last year, like having
our fleet alone on the water, moving the racing out of Europe, and more have
come true! The level of racing has increased and the challenges on the water for
the girls in the top and the rest of the fleet has been great. See the
comments from the girls on the official
Women Cup page. In our eyes not only
the winner Dorota, but all the girls on the ranking are winners -
116 PICTURES FROM THE CANADA EVENT… 02112003
slides Lill brought home from Canada are now scanned. Have a look!
WOMEN´S WORLD FORMULA CUP JULY 23-27 2003, SQUAMISH, CANADA
the time to bring the Women Cup out of Europe is here and we are looking forward
to showing even more of the world what great fun women windsurfing is. Latest
news is that everything is ready in Squamish and the girls have started to
arrive. You can follow the girls on the official event-page
and hopefully also on
will try and post reports on our page during the event. Or in worst case lots of
stories and pictures will be published right after and final reports when Lill
goes back to Norway.
DOROTA GOT A NEW CAR…
just shows how attractive women windsurfers can be for the sponsors…
Congratulation Dorota and we all just love the décor! And drive safe!
Dorota is sailing the Polish Open Nationals in Jurata before flying to Canada.
Follow this event with 9 girls attending on:
WOMEN CUP MIEDZYZDROJE JULY 9-13
Follow the event with the largest numbers of girls this season
on the official Women Cup page! Both Carrie and Lill was ther last year and the
event was great fun and amazing racing for all the girls. We know it will be
just the same this year. Follow the event on
update women cup in canada
Carrie has an update for the girls that are coming to the Women
Cup in Vancover, Canada, July 23rd-27th. This event will be a fantastic and
we hope YOU have booked your ticket!
100% SUCCESS FOR THE DIVA CAMP 2003
Nielsen again did a fantastic job, with the support and help from
sponsors StarBoard and NeilPryde, coaches Brian Røghild and Nikolaj Kruppa, she
managed to gather 23 girls from 9 countries at Lake Garda.
CONGRATULATION from the 2windy.com girls on a job well done, and
the inspiration this gives girls all over the world! Read the story!
THE 2003 WOMEN FORMULA CUP IS “ROCKING”… 03052003
Tune into the official Formula Women Page and
keep up with what is happening!
LADIES CHALLANGE PATTAYA, THAILAND. THE RACE WE ARE NOT GOING TO MISS...
4th - 7th 2003. Imagine: A women's only event on the warm waters of the
South China Sea. Competing in a very relaxed atmosphere (it is Thailand after
all) with a mild steady breeze, tropical sun, 30 degrees. Wet suits not
WONDERING WHAT FORMULA IS ALL ABOUT?
The CNWA.CA site has published a really cool video. Take
THE OFFICAL WOMEN FORMULA PAGE IS BACK 18032003
News, events, ranking, photos, gossip...
Minimum 10 women needed to make
a fleet in 2003 EuroCup
More information can be found under "General
www.euro-cup.org. The girls have started a
string on the StarBoard Women Forum to find out who is planning to do what
events this year. Please let us know YOUR plans for 2003.
Preliminary Notice of Race
2003 Trident Canadian National Windsurfing
Championships North American West Coast Series Event
and Formula Windsurfing (IFWC) Women’s Cup.
2003 WOMEN CUP CALENDAR 01032003
IFWC approved new calendar of 2003 Women Cup
and it is here officially published.
The 2003 Canadian National Windsurfing Championships June 24th - 27th in
Squamish, British Columbia 25022003
Canada, Trident Performance Boards and Roberts High Performance Sailboards
invite windsurfers to the Canadians, the national windsurfing championships,
which will crown the top Canadian Man and Woman sailors in combined Formula,
Slalom and Freestyle. The Canadians is also the Canadian qualifier for the IFCA
World Championships in Hyeres, France in October. The Canadians also
qualifies as a Women's Cup event which means some of the world's best women
sailors will be testing the wind at the national in Squamish. The results
obtained by current USW members in the NRT Classes will count toward the USW
Back again - the Diva Camp 2003
Neil Pryde/Starboard Women’s International Formula Windsurfing Camp 2003.
2006 CAMP - READ ALL ABOUT IT... 31012007
38 girls in perfect contitions was the headline from the 2006 Windsurf Girls Camp in Norway... Read the story and look at the great prictures! more...
33 girls, ready, set, go..! 11062006
33 girl have signed up for the 2windy.com Windsurf Camp 2006. So far this season the number of girls on the beaches around the "Oslofjord" have been higher than in many many years... The organizers have been down at the location of the camp for a final inspection and are just "stoooked" to see how good everything looks. And if no wind... (will not happen) our sponsor have in store about 10 tonns of water toys, wakeaboard, waterskies etc. Maximum numbers of participants will be 40 girls! So we have extended the deadline.. out this week! HURRY if you want a spot...
18 girls, ready, set, go..!
18 girls have signed up for the 2windy.com WindSrf Girls Norway
trip September 9-11. Destination is Varberg, Sweden. A great place for
wavesailing south of Goteborg. Small cottages has been rented right on the beach
and the girls are ready to rock... We are looking forward to present
prictures and more when we come back! Hopefully we will also meet up with some
local "windsurfing sisters"...
DIVA WINDSURFING NORWAY WEEKEND
2004 – LOTS OF WIND! 30082004
Lots of wind welcomed
the girls that found their way to Torkildstranda, Drøbak, 30 minutes south of
Oslo. During the two days the girls spent as much time on the water as possible
and on Saturday they had a fun relay race to win some great prizes…
DIVA WINDSURF NORWAY weekend aug 28-29 25082004
of our Diva Girls in Norway are asking about a little help to learn more
advanced techniques like waterstart, jibing etc. At Torkildstranda in Drøbak,
30 minutes south of Oslo on Saturday and Sunday between 12.00 and 16.00 there
will be instructors to teach the girls some secrets. Everyone that are on
the board and can sail back and know the absolute basics will have something to
learn. There will be no official program in the evening, but if the weather is
nice bring your BBQ and we will enjoy the sunset. For those who want to stay
the night in Drøbak, there is several hotels. First of all the focus of the
weekend will be on sailing together and T.OW (time on water)! To spice up the weekend the
leading junior Formula Experience sailors are also invited. These young boys
will show how much it is possible to learn in a short time!
The weekend is hosted by 2windy.com in collaboration with SeaSport!
DIVA WINDSURF NORWAY SPRING CAMP
2004 – A HUGE SUCCESS! 08062004
many girls that had taken the trip to Larkollen, a bit more than one hour south
of Oslo had a fantastic time. 2 days with good
and sunshine. Theory on land and instruction on the water, competition, nice
lunch, dinner and a really nice party on Saturday night… We are impressed!
thanks to everyone for all the help and participation!
NORWAGIAN WINDSURFING GIRLS IN
FULL FORCE FOR THE DIVA-CAMP 17052004
With still 5 days left to the start of the second
windsurfing spring camp in Norway just for women there is an amazingly 44
girls signed up. This is nothing less than impressive. A small country of
just 4 ½ million people and most of the girls are from the capital Oslo and
surrounding areas. At last years camp 28 women attended. This year for two full
days girls on all levels will have fun on water and land. It will be instruction,
party, BBQ and also a fun-race with three divisions. All the girls are looking
forward to the camp!
THINGS ARE HAPPENING IN THE
We have published 2 new clips from the 2windy.com
adventure 2003. From Vancouver Island and The Gorge. Plug in
your high speed modem and enjoy! more...
55 NORWEGIAN DIVAS… 20112003
calendar shows November and Lill has to tell the world that the
“Diva Windsurf Norway” mailing list now contains the names of 55 girls!
And this just from Oslo and the surrounding areas. Throughout the season the
feedback from the stores, beaches and the girls themselves has been incredible!
The ones that stepped on the board for the first time in spring are flying,
several girls nailed their first jibes, water starts and JUMPS! And 3 more girls
are now ready to challenge Formula racing and even more are looking into the
WE HAVE OPNED OUR TUTORIAL
Our articles are aimed towards the girls who
are transferring from short board and are recreational sailors who want to get
involved in racing. We are not world champions but in total Carrie & Lill have
windsurfed for more than 30 years (shocking…!)
and believe we have some good not to technical advice to get you a bit on your
way. PS: If you have any
comments, we hope you drop us a mail!
WHAT AN ADVENTURE WE HAD…
Lill have crash-landed back in Oslo after 4 weeks “over there” and Carrie just
reported in that she has put on the suit to start her new job! Lill can’t blame
the slow progress on this page behind a jet-lag anymore and has started to write
on the story - just because we want to tell everyone else what a great time we
had this summer! Who knows how long she will use to get the words down, but
there is so much to say and so many pictures to show! There was so much wind,
super locations, amazing hospitality, exiting
racing, so many girls (and cute boys) and King Louis… We felt like we
where 24 again… Just please show a little patient and
LILLS FLYING TO CANADA TO MEET
UP WITH CARRIE 16072003
It is finally time to start this year
2windy.com girl’s adventure. First we do the Women Cup in Squamish, then August
2-4 WIRED (Formula, Slalom & Freestyle)/USW N.R.T. event, Nitinat Lake,
Vancouver Island, B.C. And if we have any energy left we will drive down to The
Gorge, to do an 2 day event and also test our the 3.5 sails and really small
boards. Reports and pictures and later even some film will be published on this
page. Have a good summer everyone!
Please drop us an e-mail if you want to tell us something.
SOME PICTURES FROM WOMEN CUP
MIEDZYZDROJE JULY 9-13 16072003
flue hit Lill in Poland and sent her straight to bed looking at the ceiling of
the room for most of the event. The event was perfect,
with lots girls on the water, well organized, proper attention for the sailors
by TV, media, audience etc. Lill have published some pictures from the event.
And also sends out a hello to all the new girls joining the Women Cup! PS:
Hope to see all the Danish girls at the Nordic Championship in fall!
THE GIRLS ARE GETTING READY FOR
THIS YEARS ADVENTURE… 04072003
Carrie took a well deserved long weekend to get some good
sailing down in The Gorge. Last weekend she also got the chance to take a
fresh look at the race-site for the up-coming Women Cup in Squamish. She
reported home about good conditions and also is amazed about the SB 147s
downwind speed! Lill are packing it up for Poland and the Women Cup in
Miedzyzdroje She is complaining loudly about little sailing lately. Feeling
totally out of shape already. There just has not been any wind! She is leaving
for Poland on Monday July 7th. Happy that she got all her equipment in order
after a long wait. We will be back with a reports
from The Gorge and Poland before the girls finally meet up in Vancouver July
NIGHT” JUNE 17th 17062003
10 girls and a dog named Smith, showed up at
the sailing spot
Torkildstranda in Drøbak. A small town 30 kilometer south of Oslo, Norway.
It was a windy
DIVA WINDSURF NORWAY-
THE CAMp story 09062003
A fantastic 28 girls turned up to the first ever "Diva Windsurf
Norway. It was a packed weekend with lots of sailing, sun and wind. The report
is still only in Norwegain but we urge everyone to take a look at the 100
pictures of some fantastic girls!
DIVA GIRLS ON THE FRONTPAGE OF OSLOS
LARGEST EVENING NEWSPAPER! 05062003
In front of the “Diva Windsurf Norway” Spring Camp 2003 Lill got the
opertunity to demonstrate to
a journalist what girls do best! Together with her windsurfing friend Eli they
inspired the text that resulted in front-page and also 2 pages inside.
If you don’t know Norwegian, then just check out the pictures and
click on all the links!
DIVA WINDSURF NORWAY...
har lagt ut program og pressemelding for campen på Ringshaugstranda i Tønsberg
7-8 juni 2003. Rundt 20 jenter er påmeldt og vi vet at helgen blir supermoro!
THE WAY A 2WINDY.COM GIRL LIKE IT…
On her short trip to Rønbjerg in Denmark, Lill had lots of wind and
sailed everything from 11m2 Formula down to an overpowered 4.0m2
wavesail. The sport-center she stayed at
www.danparcs.dk offered everything an active person could
possible desire. But most important: After a hard day sailing
on the water you could sit down and relax in the newly opened SPA.
Lill is going back there and will let these two small pictures tell the
rest…(until she gets the rest of the picutres developed)!
She also broke her last FS 6000 490 mast and have since returning home
been holding the 9.8 in way to much wind, also tried out 510 North Viper
with a pretty bad result! Hopefully the wait for the new Gaastra
Ingniton 490 mast will not be to long! Braking equipment is just NO
fun when the 9.0 is what saves a small girl on a windy day! | {
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Uncertainty remains, but Boston should improve
The Red Sox were the best team in baseball back on Sept. 1, 2011, when summer turned into a bleak fall after the 7-20 collapse and final-day elimination. That spun out into stories of clubhouse ignominy, the firing of manager Terry Francona, the exile of general manager Theo Epstein and a last-place season in 2012 bookended by the hiring and firing of manager Bobby Valentine, who now knows how presidential candidate George McGovern felt in November 1972, as Valentine's ravaged September roster lost its final eight games and finished with 93 losses.
With the deal for reliever Joel Hanrahan completed -- and if and when the Mike Napoli signing is cleared medically and legally -- the Red Sox have added eight and maybe even nine players. They have brought former pitching coach John Farrell back to manage with some new, energetic coaches. They get John Lackey back after a missed season because of Tommy John surgery, David Ortiz back after missing half a year due to an Achilles injury, near-2011 American League MVP Award winner Jacoby Ellsbury back after missing 88 games due to a shoulder injury and Dustin Pedroia healthy after playing through a myriad of injuries, including broken fingers on each hand near the end of 2012.
But because the media perceives there to be a lack of things to talk and write about, the Boston offseason has created all the excitement of the changeover in the toll-taking system on the Mass Pike. One columnist constantly reminds everyone that this is still a last-place team. Another suggested the Red Sox should have given Josh Hamilton $150 million because at least he was someone to write and talk about.
Yet everyone in New England should remember that the Red Sox are two years removed from "The Winter of Buzz," when they expended nearly $300 million and three players for Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, who have since been traded to the Dodgers in what was a make-good deal with the bonus factor of two outstanding pitching prospects. That remembered, no one really knows what the 2013 Red Sox will be.
All the players acquired thus far will be 30 by Opening Day. Three of them -- Hanrahan (2011, '12), Shane Victorino (2009, '11) and Ryan Dempster (2000, '08) -- have been All-Stars. All, especially David Ross and Dempster, are considered chemistry upgrades.
The thinking of other teams active on the Hot Stove seems clear. The Blue Jays are trying to seize the moment in the lessened AL East, make a run at October and return the franchise to its status in the early 1990s, when Toronto was World Series champions and had the highest payroll in the game. The Royals cannot spend $100 million on the likes of a James Shields on the free-agent market, so they used a young player as currency to get a front-piece veteran starter in Shields and a sleeper mid-rotation starter in Wade Davis, who, incidentally, knows what it is to pitch in the postseason.
Angels GM Jerry Dipoto, when he couldn't re-sign Zack Greinke, got the firepower in Hamilton, then built his pitching from the back to Jered Weaver at the top. The Halos have five deep in the bullpen and Weaver, C.J. Wilson, Jason Vargas, Tommy Hanson and Joe Blanton, who last year made 158 starts and averaged 194 innings apiece, in the rotation.
But the Red Sox?
First, the players the team signed are on short-term deals that carries Boston from mercenary territory to its next generation of self-developed players like Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley, Bryce Brentz, Jose Iglesias, Christian Vazquez, Rubby De La Rosa, Allen Webster, Matt Barnes, et al.
Second, it's all about pitching, and where the Red Sox land in 2013 starts with Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz in their primes returning to their '10 promise with Farrell. Where their starters were near the bottom in innings, ERA and quality starts in '12, they need Lester and Buchholz to be the All-Stars they have been. They need Felix Doubront to continue to grow into a mid-rotation power lefty, and they need 360-400 innings out of Lackey and Dempster. This year, they seemingly have starting depth with Franklin Morales and knuckleballer Stephen Wright; last year their depth was Daisuke Matsuzaka, Aaron Cook and Zach Stewart, who made 31 starts and were 5-20 with a 7.13 ERA, which further tapped the bullpen.
Hanrahan will be the Red Sox's closer; they see easily fixed mechanical issues that upped his walk rate last season. Many think Junichi Tazawa showed in September he can close. They thought Andrew Bailey, healthy, could do so. They have Koji Uehara, Craig Breslow, Morales, Andrew Miller, Daniel Bard, Chris Carpenter and Alex Wilson.
"We might be able to make a trade out of our bullpen in January," said one Boston official, and indeed Melancon was a part of the 4-for-2 trade with the Pirates for Hanrahan. "Or we could work from a pitching staff with a lot of depth."
The impact of Farrell and pitching coach Juan Nieves -- who is highly intelligent, was tutored by the esteemed Don Cooper with the White Sox and because of his bullpen experience understands the value of handling relievers as Buck Showalter did in Baltimore in 2012 -- is extremely important to the Red Sox if they are going to be able to at least restore themselves as factors in the wide-open AL East.
The Red Sox also hope that bringing Jonny Gomes, Dempster, Ross and Victorino to a clubhouse with Pedroia and Ortiz will rekindle the positives of "the idiots" of 2003-04. That doesn't mean they have to ride motorcycles around Boston at 2:30 a.m. or sip Jack Daniels before postseason games, but the brash, devilish crew of Kevin Millar, Johnny Damon, Ortiz, et al were never intimidated by the tensions of Fenway. They cared, they offered no excuses. There is no analytic that can estimate what Millar meant to that team or calculate what Damon's toughness brought them.
There are some of us who believe that the fall of the Red Sox began after the 2010 season when the decision was made to let Adrian Beltre walk and to expend the players and money on Gonzalez and Crawford. There may be no more intrepid player in the game today than Beltre, whose energy and force impacts everyone around him, as does his power and his Hall of Fame defense at third base.
General manager Ben Cherington clearly hopes that gradually improving the defense will play a hand in the restoration of the pitching. But this winter has seen the Red Sox remember that what made them so good -- especially in 2003-04 -- was the quality of at-bats up and down those batting orders, sometimes with Bill Mueller batting ninth and getting huge July and October hits off Mariano Rivera.
"Like the one- and two-pitch at-bats?" laughed now-departed hitting coach Dave Magadan during the season. He was kidding; he was also frustrated. One of the reasons Red Sox-Yankees games played like telethons was the quality of at-bats from both teams. From 2003-09, the Red Sox were either first or second in the AL in on-base percentage; in 2012, they were 10th, at a pitiful .315. And if Ortiz hadn't played in half the games, they probably would have been last.
In 2003 and '04, the Red Sox were first in runs, on-base percentage, slugging and OPS, and second to the Yankees in walks. In 2012, they were fifth in runs, 10th in OBP, seventh in slugging, sixth in OPS and 13th in walks. Thirteenth.
Granted, Pedroia was playing through a myriad of injuries. Granted, Ellsbury went from a .376 OBP, .928 OPS and 83 extra-base hits in 2011 to a .313 OBP, .682 OPS and 22 extra-base hits in '12.
But they clearly were not going to give three years to free agent Cody Ross with his .326 OBP (.308 vs. RHP), despite how hard he played for Boston in 2012. They may well back away from Jarrod Saltalamacchia and his .288 OBP. Remember, Ortiz and Daniel Nava were 1-2 on the team in that critical stat in 2012.
No one really knows what the 2013 version of the Red Sox will be, but it can't be worse. If they rebuild the front-end pitching, they can come close to winning as many games as they did in '11, and if this winter's signings change the clubhouse and offensive cultures and transition to the next generation, the bridge will be a road well taken.
"Was there a 'wow factor' when Theo signed Millar, Mueller, Ortiz and guys like that?" asked one front-office official. "This isn't a headliner game. It's all about consistency and pitching, and we have to get back to that."
Peter Gammons is a columnist for MLB.com and an analyst for MLB Network. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. | {
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Alice Fordham checks in with the staff at Iraq's most intriguing boarding house. Captain Rogers, an American cavalry officer in Baghdad, has a problem to address. One of his men has stopped folding napkins into ruffled cones and is inquiring whether he should seat four people on each side of the table, with one setting at the head for an unconfirmed ninth guest. Rogers considers. "Set it for 10," he decides - four on each side and one at each end. "It will give a nice, balanced presentation." That settled, Rogers turns away from the glass-topped table and gold chairs, strides across the marble floor, and takes a seat in the armchair in which Saddam Hussein gave his last interview, in February 2003.
This is the US Army's Joint Visitors' Bureau. Once the guesthouse of the Al Faw palace complex on the outskirts of Baghdad - used by Saddam and his family as a retreat - today it plays host to defence officials, US congressional delegations, Hollywood stars come to cheer up the troops, and the occasional embedded journalist. A vaulted vision of glitzy light fixtures and plush furniture, it is run by dozens of American soldiers who walk the corridors in combat uniforms and sand-coloured boots, their images reflected in vast mirrors, chatting about ping-pong matches and whose turn it is to drive the convoy tomorrow. The foyer is lit by a crystal globe surrounded by blue glass rings, beneath which soldiers slump on pink and gold sofas, do the crossword, and watch sport. An arched, stained glass window casts light onto a pile of flak jackets and helmets.
One small room, its ceiling covered with intricate geometric designs and dotted with chandeliers, has been converted into a dining facility, where the troops eat mass-produced meatloaf off plastic plates, glancing up at the baseball on TV. They work out in an improvised gym set up outside, between the scrolled and fluted columns on the deck, which looks out onto a man-made lake of water diverted from the Tigris. Fishing rods are available, as are golf clubs. A retired marine, now a contractor here on business, wallops balls into the water. A taped-up sign warns: "Don't hit your golf balls at the Al Faw palace."
A young cook from Oregon explains that when he deployed, he anticipated being a gunner in a Humvee. To wake up every morning and plan menus for dignitaries is, he says, "a blessing". Occasionally, some hard-bitten men who joined the military to see "some action" express the view that hotel management isn't what they signed up for. But most agree that meeting Angelina Jolie is in many ways better than sweltering tents and mortal danger.
Rogers shows me a vase given by Saddam to one of his aides with covert details of a tryst between the ruler and one of his mistresses written on its base. He is hopeful that the palace complex will be preserved for history. In America, he says, you can visit George Washington's old house, with everything mocked up as if the great man still lived there. One day they should do that with this place. If they ever do, however, a few details might have to be fudged: a single locked bookcase is all that remains of Saddam's library; a story still circulates that a first edition of Huckleberry Finn was found among the dictator's books, then filched by an unknown soldier.
I ask the Marine-turned-contractor what Saddam might think if he could see his old playground now. "I like to think futuristically," he said - not about the past. Distancing one's daily work from the bigger Iraqi picture is, in my experience, a fact of military life here. The comedian Stephen Colbert played a series of shows this year in the vast foyer of the Al Faw palace. A young lieutenant joined him to sing The Star Spangled Banner to a rapt audience. Afterwards, when I asked her what Saddam might have thought, she just twinkled: "He might have thought: great acoustics!"
In many ways, soldiers' lives here are the same as those of their brothers- and sisters-in-arms on the big, dusty, purpose-built bases that now dot Iraq. Meals and assignments are timetabled and regimented, even if those assignments include mopping marble floors and carrying celebrities' luggage. Most things that are not compulsory are forbidden. The focus is on the job to be done and the months until the end of the mission. There are America flags everywhere. Baskin Robbins ice cream is served. Visiting generals get apple pie for dessert. Soldiers frequently refer to "here" as if they were still in America as in, "It'll be a long time before soccer gets more popular than real football over here." On a recent Sunday afternoon, an acoustic guitar duo flown in from America to entertain the troops played on the deck, and their performance was broadcast by radio across the base. A crowd of soldiers gathered around, the duo took requests, and country classics drifted across the water.
Already, minds here are on the next likely backdrop: Afghanistan. In Iraq, violent deaths have fallen since American troops withdrew from the cities a month ago. There is time to spend making a hotel pleasant for visitors, and it rather feels like the end of the war. In Afghanistan, coalition troops are losing an escalating battle, and there will be enough action for the most energetic soldier. The cook from Oregon explains that, in addition to his chef's certificate, he has a house clearance qualification ("it's kicking in doors"). Does he think he'll be cooking in Afghanistan? A derisory snort. "No, ma'am," he says, eyeing a stack of plates with Saddam's crest. "This posting, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience."
Alice Fordham is a freelance journalist who writes about current affairs and culture from all over the Middle East. | {
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On July 22, 2011 the social democratic regime in Oslo was struck by violence so spectacular it took us all by surprise. The ruling class of a country has never, as far as I know, been so systematically and viciously assaulted by a single individual. The bombing of government offices was impressive enough, but the shooting spree which followed was mind-bogglingly effective, literally decimating the crème de la crème of aspiring young politicians for the ruling Labor Party. The ethics of shooting defenseless teenagers at summer camp can be questioned, to say the least, but it sure was a brilliant way to strike at the core of the Norwegian political elite. These are the next generation of political leaders, and what better way to terrorize the parents – the current top holders of political office – than going after their kids? As Glenn Beck has observed, the AUF youth at Utøya are reminiscent of Hitler-Jugend. Utøya is where leftist kids come to be indoctrinated every summer, steeping themselves in liberal propaganda and listening to inspirational speeches by current and former social democratic leaders such as Gro Harlem Brundtland. In retrospect, it was extremely thoughtless by the ruling class not to post a single armed guard at this event. Politics is serious business after all, and such a hotbed of recruitment concentrated on an island with no easy escape is an obvious target for political enemies, if you think about it. I guess they were still under the illusion that Norway is an idyllic place which somehow does not foster violent malcontents no matter how downtrodden we get.
Indeed, the perpetrators of the evils against men I've chronicled on my blog are the direct maleficiaries of Breivik's aggression. While I am as prone to feeling sympathy for innocent-looking kids as the next guy, and I too feel this atrocity was a bit excessive, then the ugly face of the scumbag Knut Storberget keeps appearing in the news to remind me that this was not an attack against the innocent. Storberget is the main poster boy for feminist corruption of justice, and there is no fucking way his presence can evoke anything but hatred. The corrupt nature of the Norwegian justice system hits home also when, as Breivik appeared at the hearing Monday, the court closed its doors and conducted its business in complete secrecy, admitting neither the public nor the press. They shamelessly did this by request of the cops in order to prevent Breivik from addressing the public. And Storberget is already starting to exploit the situation by agitating for a stronger police state.
Fortunately, Breivik was able to release a manifesto which is now so widely disseminated that they have no hope of censoring it. It could be better, marred by plagiarism as well as lack of proofreading (for obvious reasons, this could not be outsourced), but overall, 2083 – A European Declaration of Independence is fairly decent and contains much truth. While I cannot get behind Breivik’s entire program (for one thing, as a libertarian, I strongly support freedom of religion, though I acknowledge the problems associated with Islam gaining influence in Europe), he does, at least, understand sexual politics:
Females have a significantly higher proportion of erotic capital than males due to biological differences (men have significantly more prevalent sexual urges than females and are thus easily manipulated). The female manipulation of males has been institutionalised during the last decades and is a partial cause of the feminisation of men in Europe. This highly underestimated factor has contributed to the creation and rise of the matriarchal systems which are now dominating Western European countries. European women, in light of the feminist revolution, are now considerably more influential than men due to the sum of all forms of capital. (p. 1180)From this follows also the fact that rape is equality, as I have pointed out, though it is unclear if Breivik has yet to grasp this point. He seems lamentably politically correct in some ways and at times spouts feminist drivel of the worst kind, such as, “Ethical dilemmas which involve sex can often appear in situations where there is a significant power difference or where there is a pre-existing professional relationship between the participants, or where consent is partial or uncertain” (p. 1173). This is the kind of feminist tripe used to legitimize the worst sex laws against men, and sadly he appears to have internalized it.
Nonetheless, Breivik was sufficiently angered by the Norwegian feminist/Marxist regime to attack it with the utmost vengeance. As was I before I got a girlfriend; the difference being my relative lack of conscientiousness and restraint in expressing my views. As a very public MRA already on the radar for intending violence, there would be no way I could purchase the ingredients to make a bomb without arousing suspicion; and even if I could, I would be unlikely to have the patience and diligence to complete a clandestine project on such a scale. But I would still be able to make a bloody nuisance of myself.
Breivik is being called insane right now for fancying himself at war with the establishment, and apparently regarding some newly founded incarnation of the Knights Templar as the legitimate authority in Europe. While that does seem a bit grandiose and perhaps fictitious, we must not forget that his perspective spans more than 60 years. By 2083, it is entirely possible, I think, that we may go through a civil war in Europe, the outcome of which is uncertain. I will not be surprised if Breivik turns out to be a greater hero in the long run to more people than the Marxist “traitors” he executed. Now he will surely gain a bevy of female admirers, as well.
Being born just one year apart, we grew up under similar circumstances. Norway today is a society sick to the core. It is a place which breeds monsters out of the betas and omegas in a sexual market increasingly skewed against males. I am not sure Breivik is properly considered just another beta going on a rampage out of sexual frustration (Breivik seems to me so idealistic his actions transcend sexuality, but then again it is usually a mistake to think men do anything at all for any reason other than to get laid), as fellow Roissysphere blogger Whiskey contends, but I know how close I was to such a rampage myself, and undoubtedly we will see increasing violence if feminist sexual politics is allowed to continue. I don’t particularly have a dog in the Christian vs. Islam fight (maybe this shows bad character, but I would not be averse to convert to Islam if that was the way to get laid), and now that I have a girlfriend I am not out in the front lines attacking feminists, either, but I remain politically aware, and recent events have been a step in the right direction insofar as they demonstrate a willingness among conservative men to revolt against the heretofore completely dominant left. | {
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Twenty-one years ago, the Red Sox traded Jeff Bagwell for Larry Andersen. I know this because you can't write about lopsided MLB trades without writing the words "Jeff Bagwell for Larry Andersen." Andersen threw 22 innings of middle relief for Boston before leaving as a free agent. (In his defense, they were 22 really good innings.) Bagwell, once the voting members of the BBWAA realize that Justice Potter Stewart's definition of pornography does not work for pinpointing steroid users, will be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Bagwell was a 22-year-old in Double-A at the time of the trade, which is to say no one but the most hardcore prospect fiends knew his name. He was in the minors during the era just before the Internet and 24-hour sports saturation elevated baseball prospects into the national consciousness; it was a time when teams could trade potential stars without fear of immediate revolt from their fan base.
And they did. Eight months before the Sox traded Bagwell, the Baltimore Orioles traded three young players to Houston for 30-year-old slugging first baseman Glenn Davis. (Davis was often injured and rarely effective in his three years with the O's, playing in 185 games and hitting .247/.312/.400.) In return, the Astros received Steve Finley (who spent 19 years in the majors and finished with more than 2,500 hits) and Pete Harnisch (who made the All-Star team in his first year with Houston, pitched for 14 years, and won 111 games in his career.) The trade would have been even more lopsided had the Astros not turned around a year later and traded the third player in the deal to Philadelphia for middle reliever Jason Grimsley. Only after three teams had given up on him1 did Curt Schilling become a star.
Teams much preferred the bird in the hand to the bird in the bush leagues, and a savvy GM could obtain a top prospect for less than top-shelf talent. In 1988, the Yankees gave up Jay Buhner, who had 307 home runs left in his bat, for DH Ken Phelps, who had 18 homers left in his. The trade gave Larry David plenty of material to work with on Seinfeld; it gave other Yankee fans heartburn.
In 1993, the Royals gave up prospect Jon Lieber (131 career wins) for Stan Belinda (76 innings and a 4.83 ERA in Kansas City). And in 1997, the Mariners were so desperate for a reliever at the trade deadline that to acquire Heathcliff Slocumb — who had a 5.79 ERA at the time of the trade! — they gave Boston both Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe.
This ignores those trades in which a team gave up a future Hall of Famer but at least acquired an impact player, like the Tigers' surrendering John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander, or the Expos' trading Randy Johnson for Mark Langston. Bagwell, Buhner, and the others were traded for established players who were either washed up or never that good in the first place.
Front offices in baseball today are far more savvy than they were a generation ago, making it much more difficult to plunder a team of top talent. It still happens every now and then, but there are usually extenuating circumstances. The Expos gave up Brandon Phillips, Cliff Lee, and Grady Sizemore for Bartolo Colon in 2002, but GM Omar Minaya was (quite reasonably) concerned that the Expos might not exist for much longer, and he decided to go all in.
And besides, Colon wasn't exactly chopped liver. In 21st-century baseball, when teams do overpay in prospects, it's usually for stars. Most famously, in 2007 the Braves gave up Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, Matt Harrison, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia (who started to find himself this season after a trade to Boston) — but at least they traded for Mark Teixeira, an acknowledged superstar.
The blowback from the Teixeira trade seems to have made teams even more conservative about trading prospects, even for elite major league talent. As a result, for perhaps the first time in baseball history, minor league prospects seem to be overvalued by MLB front offices.
Consider two trades that were made earlier this month. Start with the Toronto Blue Jays, who sent pitching prospect Nestor Molina to the Chicago White Sox for closer Sergio Santos.
Molina is a well-regarded player, although not as good as his numbers would have you believe. Molina, who turns 23 next month, has a career 2.21 ERA in the minors, and has six times as many strikeouts as walks in his career. His success is the result of exceptional command of average stuff; most scouts see him as a no. 3 starter in the majors if everything works out for him. (A year ago, Baseball America didn't even list him in their Prospect Handbook, which includes 30 prospects for every organization.) Even after a terrific 2011 season in the minors, Molina is a borderline candidate, at best, to be ranked as one of the top 100 prospects in baseball.
Yet White Sox GM Kenny Williams accepted Molina as sole compensation for Santos. Santos has a fascinating background; he was a first-round draft pick by the Diamondbacks out of high school in 2002, and struggled at shortstop for seven seasons to reach Triple-A. In 2009, he finally abandoned the batter's box for the mound, signing with the White Sox as a reliever. He threw 29 innings and had an ERA over eight in the minors that year, but he had such electric stuff — a fastball that touches the upper 90s and a terrific slider — that the White Sox added him to their 40-man roster that winter rather than risk losing him in the Rule 5 draft.
Their faith in Santos was justified when he surprised everyone by making the team in spring training — and then started his career by allowing just one run in the first two months of the season. Santos finished 2010 with a 2.96 ERA and more than a strikeout an inning. This season, Santos took over the closer's job on the South Side and finished with 30 saves. While his ERA increased to 3.55, his peripheral numbers all improved. Most notably, he struck out 92 batters in just 63 innings. Given his lack of experience on the mound, Santos' performance has been remarkable.
At the end of the season, Santos signed a contract with the Sox that guaranteed him $8.25 million over the next three years and gave the Sox three club options at favorable salaries for 2015, 2016, and 2017. It's not hard to understand why Santos would sign the deal — less than three years ago his baseball career appeared to be over, and now he has financial security for life. But it gave the White Sox the best of both worlds: They had their closer under contract for six seasons, and they were on the hook for only $8.25 million in guaranteed salary.
Barely two months later, Williams decided it was finally time for the White Sox to rebuild, and so he traded Santos, an excellent reliever who (owing to his inexperience) still had growth potential, and who was signed to a club-friendly contract, for a single prospect. And not even a can't-miss prospect — a guy whose best-case scenario is to be a league-average starting pitcher.
Prospects are tremendously valuable commodities. But there is nothing more valuable in baseball than a star player who is signed to a long-term contract before he reaches arbitration eligibility. The White Sox traded the latter for the former. The Blue Jays, who were desperate for a closer, acquired a good one for a pitcher whose absence they'll hardly miss.
Three days later, the Oakland A's, who are in a holding pattern while they wait for major league baseball to allow the franchise to move to San Jose, continued their rebuilding process by trading starter Trevor Cahill to Arizona for three prospects.
Two of the prospects are fringe players. Collin Cowgill hit .354/.430/.554 in Triple-A this season, but he played in the thin air of Reno. He has never hit remotely that well before, and he turns 26 in May. Out of 20 guys like this, one might turn into Andre Ethier; the other 19 are lucky if they stick in the majors for a few years as a fourth outfielder. Ryan Cook, the third player in the deal, is a failed minor league starter who adapted well to the bullpen this season and might make it as a middle reliever. Neither has significant value on the trade market. The A's also threw in Craig Breslow; in six major league seasons as a left-handed reliever, Breslow has a 3.06 ERA. Breslow by himself was worth Cowgill and Cook — we'll call this part of the deal a wash.
That leaves the meat of the trade: Cahill for Jarrod Parker, the Diamondbacks' first-round pick in 2007 and their no. 1 prospect coming into this season.
Parker, unlike Molina, has top-of-the-rotation stuff — his upside is so high that he ranked as the Diamondbacks' top prospect even after he had Tommy John surgery and sat out the entire 2010 season. His fastball sits in the mid-90s, and it's not as good as his slider. His changeup has the makings of a third quality pitch. In 2011, he returned to Double-A and recorded as many strikeouts as hits allowed. The Diamondbacks brought him up to make his major league debut in the next-to-last game of the season, and were so impressed by his performance — he went six innings without allowing a run — that they added him to their playoff roster.
That said, the notion that he's as valuable as Trevor Cahill is nuts.
Cahill made the A's rotation on Opening Day in 2009, when he was 21 years old, and has missed only four starts in the past three seasons. He doesn't throw nearly as hard as Parker, but his fastball has tremendous sink, allowing him to get ground balls on roughly 56 percent of the balls in play against him. Cahill ranked among the six most extreme ground-ball starters in the majors each of the past two years.
Thanks to some good luck on balls in play, in 2010 Cahill finished with a 2.97 ERA and made the All-Star team. So, superficially, his 2011 performance looks like a step back — his ERA jumped to 4.16, which is slightly below league average when you factor in that Oakland plays in a pitchers' park. But in reality, Cahill took a step forward — for the second straight season, his strikeout rate jumped a full point, from 4.5 K's per 9 innings as a rookie to 5.4 K's in his second season, to 6.4 K's this season. The combination of an escalating strikeout rate from an established ground-ball pitcher is highly unusual, and it suggests that Cahill's best seasons are ahead of him.
And, like Santos, Cahill has already signed a long-term contract. His deal guarantees him $29 million over the next four seasons, which is good for a starter who can give you 200 innings a season. His contract includes a pair of club options for a fifth and sixth season, both at $13 million a year — if Cahill continues to improve and becomes a dependable no. 2 starter, by 2016 that price should be a bargain.
The A's had Cahill under club control for as many seasons (six) as they'll have Parker. Cahill has already established himself as an above-average starter in the majors; Parker hasn't. Cahill has been durable throughout his career; Parker has already had Tommy John surgery. While Cahill has proven capable of throwing 200 innings a year, some scouts are worried that Parker might be relegated to the bullpen if he can't master a third pitch. Parker can't even claim to have youth on his side — both pitchers are 23.
Parker will probably rank somewhere around no. 30 when the Top Prospect lists are unveiled next spring. It will mark the fifth straight season that Parker ranked in the top 50 on Baseball America's list, which is itself a dubious distinction. But here's the thing — in 2009, Cahill ranked no. 11. Cahill was judged to be a better prospect in his time than Parker is now, and Cahill has spent the last three seasons living up to expectations. How is it, then, that the A's were willing to trade six years of Trevor Cahill for six years of Jarrod Parker?
It's true that Parker's ceiling is higher than Cahill's, but if Parker were guaranteed to reach his ceiling, he wouldn't be a prospect — he'd be a major league pitcher, probably an All-Star. Increasingly, teams have decided that they'd rather bet on that ceiling than take the guaranteed return.
To put this in terms that Billy Beane can understand: We've reached a point where trading away prospects is the new market inefficiency.
These two trades are hardly an isolated trend. Consider:
February 2, 2008: The Minnesota Twins trade Johan Santana, perhaps the best pitcher in baseball, to the New York Mets. As part of the deal, the Mets are allowed to work out a six-year contract extension with Santana. In return, the Twins receive Carlos Gomez, Philip Humber, Kevin Mulvey, and Deolis Guerra. None of them were regarded as can't-miss prospects, and none of them ever made much of a contribution with the Twins.
December 16, 2009: The Philadelphia Phillies, who had traded for Cliff Lee during the previous season and were rewarded with five fantastic starts during that year's playoffs, were nonetheless so worried about losing Lee to free agency the following year that they traded him to Seattle for J.C. Ramirez, Phillippe Aumont, and Tyson Gillies. It looked like a laughably light haul for Lee, and time has done nothing to change that perception. Aumont is a future setup man, and the other two may never reach the major leagues.
A year later, the Phillies were so desperate to get Lee back that they signed him to a five-year, $120 million contract.
July 25, 2010: Dan Haren had made the All-Star team in 2007, 2008, and 2009, and he was known as one of the best starting pitchers in baseball. But he was having an off year in 2010 (although his Fielding Independent Pitching stats were as good as ever, including a strikeout-to-walk ratio of nearly five), so the rebuilding Diamondbacks decided to sell him off. Haren was under contract through 2012 with a club option for 2013; he should have commanded a mighty haul on the trade market.
Instead, the Diamondbacks traded Haren to the Los Angeles Angels for an inferior replacement in Joe Saunders, a pair of minor pitching prospects in Pat Corbin and Rafael Rodriguez, and one blue-chip talent in Tyler Skaggs. While Skaggs had a fantastic season in the minors and is now one of the best lefty pitching prospects around, he's really all the Diamondbacks got. Saunders finessed his way to a 3.69 ERA for Arizona this year, and the D-backs were so unimpressed that they declined his option for 2012. Meanwhile, Haren returned to form the minute he got off the plane in California. He had a 2.87 ERA for the Angels in 2010, and this season he finished seventh in the AL Cy Young vote while leading his league in strikeout-to-walk ratio for the third time in four years.
These are not trades that have been cherry-picked to find the ones in which the prospects didn't pan out. In each of these examples, it appeared at the time of the deal that the prospects involved were not worthy of the stars they were traded for.
Certainly, not every trade of veterans for prospects is lopsided. On Saturday, the San Diego Padres traded Mat Latos to the Reds for Edinson Volquez, Yonder Alonso, Yasmani Grandal, and Brad Boxberger. Volquez was once traded for Josh Hamilton — which only serves as a reminder of how bad that trade was — but has been mostly hurt and ineffective over the past three years. Boxberger is a future middle reliever. But Alonso is a decent prospect, a major league first baseman who might be a decent hitter for the position. And Grandal is the prize — a switch-hitter who might be one of the best hitting catchers in baseball in three years if he can improve his defense enough to stay behind the plate.
That's a lot of talent to give up, but frankly, Latos is worth it. Latos has ranked in the top 20 in the majors in both ERA and strikeouts over the past two years, and he just turned 24. The Reds have him under control for the next four years. Potential no. 1 starters don't hit the trade market very often, and when they do, this is the kind of return they ought to bring.
In recent years, however, they usually haven't. For that reason, an ambitious team with a deep farm system — the Royals, for instance, or the Nationals — should take advantage of MLB general managers' prospect fetish to cash in some of their lottery tickets for established players who might help them win in 2012.
It's no coincidence that the Blue Jays, who possess a ton of minor league talent and realistic playoff hopes for next season, turned Nestor Molina into Sergio Santos. No GM in baseball has done a better job over the past 18 months than the Blue Jays' Alex Anthopoulos, and it appears he has once again read the market correctly. Prospects have never been trendier than they are right now. Which means that now is the perfect time to cash out.
Rany Jazayerli runs the Rany on the Royals website and co-hosts The Baseball Show with Rany and Joe podcast. He is one of the original founders of Baseball Prospectus, and works as a dermatologist in suburban Chicago.
Previously from Rany Jazayerli:
Can the Texas Rangers Bounce Back and Win the World Series? History Says No.
Why the Cardinals will win in 7
Can Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder carry the Brewers to the World Series?
The Astros hit rock bottom
Philadelphia Phillies: The End is Nigh
On the Arizona Diamondbacks' 2011 turnaround
To comment on this story through Facebook, click here. | {
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Meraklis the Viking
Our friend Meraklis is a young and avaricious Viking who lives in a remote island somewhere in the Northern Seas. He's a plump, stubborn and very strong guy who works in the town's tavern (Mc Harry's) as a cook. His friends and the villagers love his burgers. Especially the triple mc-beefer!!
For the majority of the Vikings, Meraklis is an excellent cook but not an ideal Viking warrior...
He's chubby and plump and he has never been in a real battle. This in fact is something that Meraklis wants to change. He must do something heroic in order to stand out and prove his braveness.
One day, monsters attacked his village and the neighboring areas. He couldn't stand still and do nothing. So, he took his shield and his flaming axe and began to cleanse the island of monsters and discover who is behind this attack and revenge.
If you want to lead him on an adventure full of action, mighty enemies, obstacles and pitfalls then do not delay! Just download the game.
The game is designed to play on the landscape orientation. The controls, the gameplay, the graphics and generally the whole game strongly resembles the old handheld platformed-games of the era of 8bit back in the 90s.
The game features over 20 levels to play (some of them secret) that go along a funny story with many bosses and one final supreme evil that surely will be hard to beat.
Also the game is associated with the Apple Game Center so you can earn achievements and compare your score with your friends.
* MAJOR UPDATE *
- universal version! for both iphone and ipad!!!
- all the graphics & sounds of the game are enhanced
- new menus
- all the levels are redesigned
- more enemies, smarter and stronger
- orientation changed; landscape mode
- game controls re-callibrated
- many bugs and glitches are fixed
Share with Others
- Last changed:
- 4 days ago
- DAMIANOS CHRISTODOULOU
- Average Rating:
- 3.00 (2)
- 18.7 MB | {
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Archive for the ‘Celebrity Fake Nudes’ Category
Can’t find any sexy naked stuff featuring your favorite star? Get the hottest and the most realistic exclusive fake nudes exposing the raunchiest Hollywood babes naked and grinding on huge hard cocks and pussys!
Here is Jessica Simpson getting fucked from behind, but you can also see her getting titty fucked and sucking cock among other things I saw her and it`s just amazing stuff. So I gotta say, get your dick in hand and get ready to get off.
Everyone loves Love. She`s fucking hot as hell, sexy and sweet. She`s the girl next door and she`s the slut in my bed. With a rack sent from heaven and a cunt she`s had layered with gemstones so “it shines like a disco ball”, she`s just begging to get fucked hard and fast. Luckily, this guy is prepared with a hard cock to stick it to her!
I must admit that I was not at all sad to see this image of Catherine Zeta Jones using a strap on to fuck some juicy pink pussy. It is the stuff of fantasy and if you like celebrity fake nudes, this one is one of the best. With tons of realistic drawings and images, I love it here.
Eliza Dushku is that one hot mysterious cheerleader you always wanted to bang in high school but she was totally out of your league so you settled for beating your meat to imaginary naked pictures of her. Well imagine no more because these celebrity fake nudes of the lovely Eliza are all you need to aid you as you spank the crap out of your monkey. In real life, this hot actress is much too modest and cautious to let nude images of herself leak online but if she did, we imagine they would look hotter than these but the conclusion would be the same – she looks amazing with a dick snuggled tightly in between her pussy lips. Because she is flexible as hell, getting nailed in various positions would be no issue for her. She would get boned in the girl on top position before giving her pussy up in the doggystyle position and the jackhammer position would definitely be a piece of cake for this athletic cutie. Given her dating history, Eliza would be more than delighted to have dark meat shoved into her and double penetration would bring a smile to her face as would anal.
This is no school of Hogwarts here. Sweet little Emma Watson is about to undergo some classes in getting gangbanged! Check out her celebrity nude fakes, but you won’t be able to tell. They’re incredibly realistic! This sweet young babe is barely plucked and ready to fuck.
Amazing Jennifer Aniston is topples on these fake celeb photos, and she has the most perfect boobs you’ve ever seen. They are really big and bounce while she’s jerking off some hot guy’s penis. Her round butt is spankable, and she’s dying for a rough guy to teach her a lesson. Jenny has a seductive smile and her perfect body is what horny boys dream about day and night.
This luscious diva has the hottest fake celeb photos around and she knows how to please a guy. Everyone would love to know how she looks like with a huge rod inside of her wet mouth, and how deep can she receive a fat schlong. This sex bomb is ready to spread her long legs until someone gives her the best time of her life. | {
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Health care reform passes the House
Added on November 13, 2009
A few more remarks on US health
care reform: Why should employers provide health care for their employees?
That is an individual decision. In Germany, you can see that it can become a
problem when rising health care costs and wages are coupled, especially in
an aging population. - Medicare and Medicaid are already entitlement
programs. You cannot touch them without making voters angry. Will a public
option increase competition and lower prices? Anything public is taxpayer
funded or it is not public. Have you never heard of Medicare and Medicaid,
of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in short: of black holes? - According to the
House Bill, small businesses with annual payrolls less than $500,000 would
be exempt from providing health care to their employees. Employers with
payrolls between $500,000 and $750,000 would have to pay a 2%-6% tax,
employers with a payroll above $750,000 would have to pay an 8% insurance
tax for their employees. Not very promising for them. - The insurance-market
reform goes in the right direction. What we need around the globe are real
markets for drugs, insurances, doctors and hospitals, not micromanagement as
proposed in the 1990-page bill, which would backfire if implemented. - The
current system has to be reformed. The GOP's main objective seems to be to
sabotage the reform without coming forward with a substantial
counterproposal. The welfare state is not the solution. Inaction either. The
new German coalition is currently trying to reform its health care system
too by introducing more market elements. Who will come up with the better
Article added on November 8, 2009
Late on Saturday November 7, the United States House of
Representatives, the lower house of the bicameral U.S. Congress, has passed the
most important health care reform since the
creation of Medicare insurance program for the elderly in 1965. 220 members
of the House voted for the bill, 215 against it.
However, the House has just passed its version of the 1990-pages bill. The Senate will have its say too.
In the end, both houses of Congress will have to agree on the final version.
Save your cheers or boos for later.
Affordable Health Care for America Act
another bureaucratic monster like the
“Stimulus Bill”. Among us, if Obama wants another “stimulus”, he should turn
to Michelle. And no, we don't want to know any details about it.
According to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, the
Affordable Health Care for America Act in the form passed by the House would
enlarge health insurance to about 96% of legal residents in the United
States, up from only 83% now. Some additional 36 million Americans would be
covered. The bill also covers
The health care overhaul is unfortunately not only a step in the right
direction. Private insurers would have to compete with public insurance
plans. Another subsidized option will not make health care cheaper. The
additional cost is estimated at about $1 trillion over a decade. Of course,
no one knows how much it will really cost. Republicans are right that it is
a step towards a European welfare state.
At the same time, the Affordable Health Care for America Act calls for
several hundred billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare. The cuts are aimed
at eliminating Medicare's wasteful spending. It could end up eliminating
Obama's support by the elderly who are worried that their health care
coverage is in danger. What is certainly in danger is the aim of a balanced
The Affordable Health Care for America Act levies a 5.4% tax on individuals
earning more than $500.000 a year as well as couples earning over $1 million
a year. All but the smallest employers would be forced to provide health
insurance to their employees and pay for most of the premium, otherwise they
could be fined up to 8% of their payroll.
Health care coverage to everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions is
surely a must in any decent society. However, anything socialized is not
working. You have to push the private companies to compete with each other.
The present bill does not avoid public options; incidentally, Medicare for
the elderly and Medicaid the poor are already at least partly public
The new bill does not tackle the malpractice system, the problem of lawsuit
abuse which pushes health care costs up. Trial and injury lawyers perverted
consumer protection. Doctors try to protect themselves by ordering costly
and time consuming additional tests before helping patients.
Charles Krauthammer argued in a Spiegel interview:
“It is absolutely crazy that in America employees receive
health insurance from their employers -- and at the same
time a tax break for this from the federal government.
It's a $250 billion a year loophole in the government's
budget. If you taxed healthcare benefits, you would have
enough revenue for the government to give back to the
individual to purchase their own insurance. If you did
those two reforms alone, you would have the basis for
affordable health insurance in America.”
Maybe something to consider.
The Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi scored a victory by passing her
president's health care overhaul. But she had to compromise. Last but not
least, an anti-abortion amendment was passed. It was primarily sponsored by
her fellow Democrat Representative Bart Stupak from Michigan, who lead a
group of 40 anti-abortion Democrats who could not be ignored.
Sheet music: The Great American Songbook.
The sole dissenting - yes voting - Republican Anh
“Joseph” Cao from Louisiana
The Republican House Minority Whip Eric Cantor had promised at a
“Tea Party” on November 5 that no Republican would vote for the health care
bill. It turned out differently. There was one dissenting voice: Anh
“Joseph” Cao from Louisiana voted for the bill.
The Vietnamese-born Republican who came to the U.S. at the age of eight is a
freshman who won a special election in December 2008 in a 60% black and 60%
Democratic district against an incumbent Democrat who had been found guilty
in August 2008 of 11 out of 16 criminal counts including bribery, money
laundering and racketeering. Rep. William J. Jefferson had also hidden
$90,000 in cash in his freezer.
On November 8, before the health care vote, Anh
“Joseph” Cao, a former Catholic seminarian and ethics teacher, had supported a
successfully passed health care amendment from Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak
prohibiting federal money from funding abortion. For the Catholic Cao, the
adoption of this important amendment was good enough an improvement of the
health care bill for him to vote for it.
Cao posted the following statement on his website:
“My vote tonight was based on my priority of ding what is best for my
constituents.” In fact, Cao represents a largely poor district with plenty
of people who would profit from the new bill.
With or without the yes by Cao, the bill would have past the House, despite
the 39 Democrats who refused to support the
Affordable Health Care for America Act. Is Cao's vote
the end of the rise of his young star or on the contrary enhances his voter
Today's deals at Amazon.com. -
Special offers on new releases from Amazon.co.uk.
The health care overhaul as another nail in the budget coffin
“Stimulus Bill” so far has mostly stimulated and satisfied the Democrats
appetite for their pet projects, but not the economy. As presidential
candidate and as president, Barack Obama has repeatedly stressed that job
creation was his priority. On November 6, the Bureau of Labor Statistics
released the official unemployment figures for October 2009: 10.2%. In
October 2008, the rate was only 6.5% [2008 number corrected on November 8,
2009 at 16:30 German time]. In October 2009, the underemployment rate - including
part-time worker looking for full-time jobs as well as those who have
stopped looking for a job - has even reached 17.5%. Mission not
accomplished, Mister President! Anyway, it is not up to the president to
create jobs. He just has to set the general framework (Rahmenbedingungen).
However, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as Citigroup and Bank of
America have not been broken up into smaller entities. They remain too big
to fail and are still losing money. In Iraq and
the United States are still losing both, soldiers and money. Bold action is
required. More soldiers and money in the short term in order to turn it
definitively around within one to two years, requiring substantially less
subsequently. What America got in the first year of the Obama presidency was
definitely not “change you can believe in”.
Now Congress is about to add another financial liability to the neck of
(mainly future) American taxpayers, the health care reform. Let's hope that
together with the Senate, the House of Representatives will rethink its
health care overhaul and make it better and less expensive thanks to a real
health care market including doctors, hospitals, drug and insurance
companies competing for customers. State intervention and subsidies are not the solution. Skip the public option, but make
health care universal without repeating Europe's mistakes.
President Obama visited his Democratic House lawmakers before the vote and
told them according to Teddy Davis of ABC News:
“Do any of you expect the Republicans not to go after you if you vote against
this bill?” He forgot to mention that the problem are not the fellow
Republican lawmakers, but the voters the Democrats will have to face one
day. The bill in its present version does not tackle the problem of soaring
health care costs. It is one additional nail in the U.S. budget coffin.
Obama may have won a Pyrrhic victory. The President, the Senate and the
House still have time to fix it.
Hotel Reservations with Travelnow.
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1-800-869-1190 toll free in the U.S. | {
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As they walk along, Mr. Snagsby observes, as a novelty, that however quick their pace may be, his companion still seems in some undefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever he is going to turn to the right or left, he pretends to have a fixed purpose in his mind of going straight ahead, and wheels off, sharply, at the very last moment. Now and then, when they pass a police-constable on his beat, Mr. Snagsby notices that both the constable and his guide fall into a deep abstraction as they come towards each other, and appear entirely to overlook each other, and to gaze into space. In a few instances, Mr. Bucket, coming behind some under-sized young man with a shining hat on, and his sleek hair twisted into one flat curl on each side of his head, almost without glancing at him touches him with his stick, upon which the young man, looking round, instantly evaporates. For the most part Mr. Bucket notices things in general, with a face as unchanging as the great mourning ring on his little finger or the brooch, composed of not much diamond and a good deal of setting, which he wears in his shirt.
When they come at last to Tom-all-Alone's, Mr. Bucket stops for a moment at the corner and takes a lighted bull's-eye from the constable on duty there, who then accompanies him with his own particular bull's-eye at his waist. Between his two conductors, Mr. Snagsby passes along the middle of a villainous street, undrained, unventilated, deep in black mud and corrupt water-- though the roads are dry elsewhere--and reeking with such smells and sights that he, who has lived in London all his life, can scarce believe his senses. Branching from this street and its heaps of ruins are other streets and courts so infamous that Mr. Snagsby sickens in body and mind and feels as if he were going every moment deeper down into the infernal gulf.
"Draw off a bit here, Mr. Snagsby," says Bucket as a kind of shabby palanquin is borne towards them, surrounded by a noisy crowd. "Here's the fever coming up the street!"
As the unseen wretch goes by, the crowd, leaving that object of attraction, hovers round the three visitors like a dream of horrible faces and fades away up alleys and into ruins and behind walls, and with occasional cries and shrill whistles of warning, thenceforth flits about them until they leave the place.
"Are those the fever-houses, Darby?" Mr. Bucket coolly asks as he turns his bull's-eye on a line of stinking ruins.
Darby replies that "all them are," and further that in all, for months and months, the people "have been down by dozens" and have been carried out dead and dying "like sheep with the rot." Bucket observing to Mr. Snagsby as they go on again that he looks a little poorly, Mr. Snagsby answers that he feels as if he couldn't breathe the dreadful air.
There is inquiry made at various houses for a boy named Jo. As few people are known in Tom-all-Alone's by any Christian sign, there is much reference to Mr. Snagsby whether he means Carrots, or the Colonel, or Gallows, or Young Chisel, or Terrier Tip, or Lanky, or the Brick. Mr. Snagsby describes over and over again. There are conflicting opinions respecting the original of his picture. Some think it must be Carrots, some say the Brick. The Colonel is produced, but is not at all near the thing. Whenever Mr. Snagsby and his conductors are stationary, the crowd flows round, and from its squalid depths obsequious advice heaves up to Mr. Bucket. Whenever they move, and the angry bull's-eyes glare, it fades away and flits about them up the alleys, and in the ruins, and behind the walls, as before.
At last there is a lair found out where Toughy, or the Tough Subject, lays him down at night; and it is thought that the Tough Subject may be Jo. Comparison of notes between Mr. Snagsby and the proprietress of the house--a drunken face tied up in a black bundle, and flaring out of a heap of rags on the floor of a dog- hutch which is her private apartment--leads to the establishment of this conclusion. Toughy has gone to the doctor's to get a bottle of stuff for a sick woman but will be here anon.
"And who have we got here to-night?" says Mr. Bucket, opening another door and glaring in with his bull's-eye. "Two drunken men, eh? And two women? The men are sound enough," turning back each sleeper's arm from his face to look at him. "Are these your good men, my dears?"
"Yes, sir," returns one of the women. "They are our husbands."
"What are you doing here? You don't belong to London."
"No, sir. We belong to Hertfordshire."
"Whereabouts in Hertfordshire?"
"Come up on the tramp?"
"We walked up yesterday. There's no work down with us at present, but we have done no good by coming here, and shall do none, I expect."
"That's not the way to do much good," says Mr. Bucket, turning his head in the direction of the unconscious figures on the ground.
"It an't indeed," replies the woman with a sigh. "Jenny and me knows it full well."
The room, though two or three feet higher than the door, is so low that the head of the tallest of the visitors would touch the blackened ceiling if he stood upright. It is offensive to every sense; even the gross candle burns pale and sickly in the polluted air. There are a couple of benches and a higher bench by way of table. The men lie asleep where they stumbled down, but the women sit by the candle. Lying in the arms of the woman who has spoken is a very young child.
"Why, what age do you call that little creature?" says Bucket. "It looks as if it was born yesterday." He is not at all rough about it; and as he turns his light gently on the infant, Mr. Snagsby is strangely reminded of another infant, encircled with light, that he has seen in pictures.
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Bleak House -- by Charles Dickens | {
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Zyban®, a non-nicotine alternative to help people stop smoking, was approved in 1996 by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Offered to smokers who want to quit, Zyban (Bupropion HCI), in pill form, has been shown to alter mood transmitters in the brain that are linked to addiction. Zyban must be prescribed by a physician and may not be appropriate for everyone. Consult your physician for more information.
There is another new smoking cessation medication approved by the FDA called Chantix® (varenicline) that has been available in the US as of 2006. This medication works differently than any of the other nicotine replacement products or Zyban. Chantix affects the nicotine receptors in the brain, decreasing nicotine cravings and withdrawal symptoms, and making smoking less pleasurable. It is available only by prescription. In early studies, Chantix appears to be even more effective than Zyban in helping people stay smoke-free. Talk to your physician for more information.
Healthy Woman - Smoking and Respiratory Diseases
Facts about smoking and respiratory diseases:
Diseases caused by smoking kill more than 438,000 people in the US each year. In fact, smoking is directly responsible for the majority of lung cancer cases (87 percent), emphysema cases, and chronic bronchitis cases. Even with anti-smoking campaigns and medical health disclaimers in place, many people continue to smoke or start to smoke every year. Over 1,100 teenagers younger than age 17 become regular smokers each day.
What are the risks associated with smoking?
Smokers not only increase their risk of lung disease, including lung cancer, but they also increase their risk of other illnesses, including heart disease, stroke, and oral cancer. Risks from smoking, as they relate to lung disease, may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- chronic bronchitis
Chronic bronchitis, a long-term inflammation of the bronchi (large airways), is characterized by coughing productively over a long period of time.
Emphysema, a chronic lung condition that affects the air sacs in the lungs (alveoli), is characterized by shortness of breath, coughing, fatigue, sleep and heart problems, weight loss, and depression.
- lung cancer
Lung cancer, an abnormal, continual multiplying of cells that can result in lumps, masses, or tumors, can begin in the lining of the bronchi (large airways), or other areas of the respiratory system. Lung cancer may cause a cough as the tumor grows. Other symptoms may include constant chest pain, shortness of pain, wheezing, recurring lung infections, bloody or rust-colored sputum, hoarseness, swelling of the neck and face, pain and weakness in the shoulder, arm, or hand, and unexplained fever. Smoking, including secondhand smoke, is the leading cause of lung cancer.
The symptoms of smoking-related lung diseases may resemble other lung conditions or medical problems. Always consult your physician for a diagnosis.
How dangerous is secondhand smoke?
Secondhand smoke, smoke that is exhaled by smokers and smoke emitted from the burning end of a lit cigarette, cigar, or pipe, causes about 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in persons who do not smoke themselves. Also called involuntary or passive smoking, secondhand smoke can also lead to heart disease. The following are some of the most common symptoms associated with exposure to secondhand smoke. However, each individual may experience symptoms differently. Symptoms may include:
- irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat
- excessive phlegm (mucus in the airways)
- chest discomfort or pain
Children and infants exposed to tobacco smoke are more likely to experience ear infections, and asthma, and are at a higher risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) than children and infants without the same exposure.
The symptoms of secondhand smoke may resemble other medical conditions and problems. Always consult your physician for a diagnosis.
What are the benefits of quitting smoking?
People who quit smoking can actually reverse some of the damage that has been done to their lungs over an extended period of time. Other benefits of quitting smoking may include the following:
- decreased risk of lung disease
- decreased risk of heart disease
- decreased risk of cancer
- reduced cigarette stains on fingers and teeth
- reduced occurrence of a hacking cough
- elimination of stale cigarettes smell on clothing and hair
- improved smell and taste
How does cigar smoking affect a person's risk of lung cancer and other types of cancer?
Cigars became a trend in the 1990s, attracting the young and the old. Perceived as less detrimental to one's health, cigars actually pose the same, if not greater, risk as cigarettes for oral cancer. Although many cigar smokers do not inhale, their risk for oral, throat, and esophageal cancers is the same as for cigarette smokers. Consider these facts:
- Compared with nonsmokers, cigar smokers who inhale are more likely to develop oral cancer, esophageal cancer, and laryngeal cancer.
- Cigar smokers who inhale and smoke five cigars a day may have a lung cancer risk similar to one-pack-a-day cigarette smokers.
- Secondhand smoke from cigars contains toxins and cancer-causing agents (carcinogens) similar to secondhand cigarette smoke, but in higher concentrations.
Quitting smoking is both a mental and a physical undertaking. Mentally, you should be ready and relatively stress-free. Physically, you need to commit to exercising daily and getting plenty of sleep. A person trying to quit must overcome two obstacles: a physical addiction to nicotine and a habit. The American Academy of Otolaryngology and the American Lung Association offer the following tips to help users quit using tobacco products:
- Think about why you want to quit.
- Pick a stress-free time to quit.
- Ask for support and encouragement from family, friends, and colleagues.
- Begin a daily exercise or activity to relieve stress and improve your health.
- Get plenty of rest.
- Eat a balanced diet.
- Join a smoking cessation program, or other support group.
In some cases, smokers benefit from nicotine replacement products to help break their smoking habit. Nicotine replacement products continue to give the smoker nicotine, although in smaller quantities than a cigarette, to meet their nicotine craving. However, the benefit of nicotine replacement products is the elimination of tars and poisonous gases that cigarettes emit. Pregnant or nursing women, and people with other medical conditions, should consult with their physician before using any nicotine replacement products. Some examples of nicotine replacement products include:
- nicotine chewing gum or lozenges - these over-the-counter products release small amounts of nicotine to help reduce nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
- nicotine patch - an over-the-counter patch applied to the upper body once a day that releases a steady dosage of nicotine to help reduce the urge to smoke.
- nicotine inhaler or nasal spray - prescription nicotine replacement products that release nicotine to help reduce withdrawal symptoms (require a physician's approval before use).
Click here to view the
Online Resources of Women's Center
Disclaimer - This content is reviewed periodically and is subject to change as new health information becomes available. The information provided is intended to be informative and educational and is not a replacement for professional evaluation, advice, diagnosis or treatment by a healthcare professional. © 2009 Staywell Custom Communications. | {
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Sat Feb 16, 2013 11:04 pm
Well the kids and I got the old VAC out of the shop on 4 new tires yesterday. I drove it around for about 15 mins before I let the kids go for a spin and eveything seemed to work ok. The kids drove it around for about 30 mins and I would let them take it out of 3rd gear do to safety concerns with them. I jumped on it again and took it for a spin and so after a while the tractor seemed as if it just wanted to stall, so I got off and checked the carb and loosened the needle jet screw a bit and things cleared up. I took it about a half mile and it just all the sudden shut down. Don't know why? It had gas, but it started back up and we drove it another 20 mins and it quit again. I am thinking the carb still has some dirt or rust it. We are using a plastic lawn mower tank now for our pony tank so no rust in the tank issues.
Anyway, when the kids got off, their first words were, "that was a lot of fun, but now I'm really cold," Yes it was about 30 degrees when they took it for a spin. But the big thing is that now they get to see, hear, and test out all the hard work they have been doing since october. It just gives me the chills every time someone asks how our project is going or when the kids comment how much fun they are really having. Who knew it would catch on the way it has.
Things are about to take a big turn as Sandblasting is schedualed the 1st of March after FFA week is over. I have kids waiting to give paining a try, but a real pro is going to do the hood and side panels.
Pics next week when we get it out again.
Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:43 am
You go man. That is a wonderful feeling of accomplishment for you and the kids to go through a project and enjoy the results. My hat is off to you.
Sun Feb 17, 2013 8:33 am
Check the vent in the gas cap. If it dies. If you loosen the cap and the problem goes away, it's clogged vent.
Sounds like you've got a good thing going there.
Sun Feb 17, 2013 4:25 pm
Yeah what Ricky says and check the carb jet for dirt if that doesn't do it.
Sun Feb 17, 2013 5:18 pm
Another thought, low fuel flow to carburetor. Possible causes; small fuel outlet on pony tank, air bubble in fuel line, obstruction in fuel line, in line fuel filter.
Tue Feb 26, 2013 10:27 pm
Took the tractor out for a spin tonight in the snow. The thing sure does run nice and the kids had fun also.
I have up to date pics of our progress at my photo bucket site linked below.http://s18.beta.photobucket.com/user/jmmacki/library/#/user/jmmacki/library/CASE%20VAC?&_suid=1361933928811022485534145453234
It will be off to blast next week and a local Auto body shop has offered to do the paint and body work for us at no charge, awesome!! I never thought I would come out of this project with few if any bills to pay. I will post pics of the painting process.
Tue Feb 26, 2013 10:48 pm
Neat project, good to see young folks involved!
Thanks for the update,
Wed Feb 27, 2013 1:39 pm
If you eliminate a fuel issue , next I woul suspect an Ignition coil.
Wed Feb 27, 2013 8:28 pm
What a great way to get youngun's interested in tractors. By the looks on their faces - they are having a blast. It must be a great feeling to watch them grow
Mon Jan 13, 2014 9:52 pm
We got back to work on our VAC project tractor before break and over break I was able to get it painted up. I didn't want the kids to paint as I do not have respirators for them to wear. I wear a expensive one when painting a still feel a little sick the next day so that is why I wanted to keep them away.
Anyway, I have been able to prime and paint about all parts and now we will be reassembling over the next few weeks. I still need to do a little body work on the fenders and I noticed a few mounting tabs are missing so that will be the main issues. I will be making a wire harness myself with the kids and so it will be something more they will learn. Can't wait to get it driving again.
A before and now.
Enjoy and thanks
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The 23-year-old right-back, who currently plays for Ukrainian side Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, is seeking a move away from eastern Europe, after falling out of favour under manager Juande Ramos.
Inkoom will be available to secure a transfer this month, as he is not playing for Ghana at the Africa Cup of Nations, and his agent Christian Emile, has revealed that his client hopes a deal can be completed at the earliest opportunity.
"Samuel is definitely not happy with his situation in Dnipro, which is not acceptable for a player of his calibre," he told Sky Sports. "We are talking about a very talented young player who has already represented Ghana over 30 times.
"It is clear that the only solution for Samuel now is to move to a European club where he will play an important role and achieve success."
West Brom are believed to be monitoring Inkoom's situation, and could rival both Liverpool and Chelsea for his signature, with Reds boss Brendan Rodgers and Blues interim manager Rafa Benitez unlikely to be able to guarantee the player the regular first-team football he will more likely get under Steve Clarke at the Baggies.
Hamburg are also keen on Inkoom, though, with Thorsten Fink a big admirer of the African having worked with him during his time at Basel, while Portuguese side Sporting Lisbon are another potential suitor.
However, a move to the Premier League would probably be most favourable for the full-back - who can also operate as a winger - but it remains to be seen whether it will be Anfield, Stamford Bridge, or The Hawthorns where Inkoom will be plying his trade in the future. | {
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Oct 13, 2011, 3:01 PM EDT
US Presswire photo
Mike Rizzo has made plenty of roster alterations since taking over as GM in 2009.
Underneath all the hoopla surrounding Theo Epstein's move from the front office at Fenway Park to the front office at Wrigley Field lies one important caveat: No general manager can step into a new situation and completely overhaul a club's roster overnight.
As talented and respected as Epstein is, and as successful as he was in Boston, anyone who believes he can turn the Cubs into winners overnight doesn't appreciate just how monumental a task that is.
It would be one thing if Epstein was taking over a Chicago roster loaded with talent and a farm system overflowing with prospects. But he's not. The Cubs have one young position player to build around: Starlin Castro. They've got a couple of decent young pitchers in Matt Garza and Randy Wells. And they've got tons of dead money owed to under-performing veterans who are stuck on the roster for years to come. (Can you believe Alfonso Soriano still has three years and $54 million remaining on his contract?)
Overhauling a franchise, plain and simple, takes time. Just ask Mike Rizzo, who has been GM of the Nationals for three full seasons nowRead more »
COUNTDOWN TO OPENING DAY
ON THE RADIO
As ESPN-980 AM's Nats Insider, Mark makes daily appearances on the station's various shows. Here's the 2015 schedule (subject to change)...
MON: 12:45 p.m.
TUE: 2:30 p.m.
WED: 4:30 p.m.
THU: 2:30 p.m.
FRI: 5:30 p.m.
SAT: 10:30 a.m.
*All times Eastern. You can also listen to the station on 94.3 FM, 92.7 FM and online at ESPN980.com. Click here for past audio clips.
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- Former Nats pitcher earns rotation spot with Texas Rangers
- Ian Desmond ranks highly among shortstops, according to ESPN
- Gio Gonzalez faces Mets in Viera
- Harper sidelined as Nats' injuries continue to mount
- Who should Nats' tab as Rendon's fill-in?
- Podcast: 'Baseball in the District' - Mark Zuckerman & Marc Carig
- Scherzer dominates Cardinals' "A" lineup
- Harper on criticism, hopes for 2015: 'I want to do damage'
- Marlins pitcher part of sports betting investigation
- Scherzer on mound as Nats face Cards | {
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The piece, entitled “Out of the Woods and On To the Stage” details the evolution of Rowe’s intertwining passions for nature and music in anticipation of his new album The Salesman and the Shark which arrives in stores this August 28th via Anti-Records.
The paper writes, “Mr. Rowe, 37 years old, still lives in Troy and goes out into the woods regularly to write about foraging and nature for Albany's Times-Union newspaper.…. But his music career has taken off in the last few years. He's toured Europe five times and is building a reputation here in America thanks to his 2011 album, Magic, on Anti- records (home to modern masters like Tom Waits, Nick Cave and others)… Mr. Rowe's ringing baritone is as timeless as his approach, recalling the aforementioned label-mates as well as the ecstatic intensity of late-'60s Van Morrison and stark subtlety of late-era Johnny Cash.”
You can read the entire piece by going here.
The Salesman and the Shark was recorded at historic Vox Recording Studios in Los Angeles utilizing the very same mixing board used to make timeless classics such as The Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main Street, T-Rex’s Electric Warrior, The Beach Boy’s Smile and seminal works by Tom Waits, Neil Young and more.
Appropriately, the soulful and evocative sounds on Rowe’s latest are a perfect blend of the warmly familiar and astonishingly new. The album is both ambitious and moving, a collection of songs that would feel perfectly at home on a cherished classic album, or as just what they are, a riveting tour de force by an important new talent named Sean Rowe.
Preview the new Sean Rowe song “Horses” care of NPR, by going here.
SEAN ROWE plays 92 Y Tribeca in NYC on August 2. | {
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[Sandy Garossino had been invited by e-mail to be heard as part of this series. Her office indicated she would respond to our questions. While we await that response, here are excerpts from an interview she did with Andrew Wit and Sean Antrim in The Mainlander, 5 Nov 2011. The whole interview is a ‘must-read’ for those interested in the issues. Thanks to readers who alerted us to this interview. -ed.]
Andrew Witt: … I think that everyone recognizes that there is an affordability crisis in the city. In 2008, Vision Vancouver was elected on a platform that would address housing, homelessness and the affordability crisis, but we all know they have done little to tackle the problem. How will you address this issue, and what distinguishes your platform from that of Vision Vancouver?
Sandy Garossino: Almost everyone that I have heard discuss this sees the affordability issue. I’m talking here about broadening this beyond homelessness and subsidized housing, but also market housing for the average working person. Almost everyone who talks about this, talks about it in the simple supply and demand equation, and their point is to increase supply. Because I deal with Asia, I understand capital markets in Asia, and I have dealings there, this seems to me to completely miss the true nature of the issue and the challenge that we confront. Just to give you a little bit of a background, our median income levels in Metro Vancouver place 20 out of 28 urban regions in Canada. Our median income levels for 2010 were below Sudbury, Windsor and St. John’s Newfoundland. We have the highest real estate prices in Canada, relative to median income. We have almost the highest real estate in the world. Relative to median income, we are 56% higher than New York City and 31% higher than London, so there’s clearly a serious distortion in the market. One of the first challenges we have is we don’t have the data. We don’t have information that can pin-point exactly what is going on and the extent to which capital is entering, and the extent to which that capital is non-resident, and how much that is affecting the market. We need to know a lot more than we do. But based on anecdotal information, which is turning out to be corroborated in news reports, it looks like global capital is having a massive impact.
I don’t know if you saw the CBC report, where on Cambie Street bungalows were sold for an average of $3.4 million to a mainland Chinese buyer. So, this is a non-residential purchase, we know there is a flight of global capital. What most people, even many people in land development and even many people in government are not perhaps cognizant of, is the extent to which rules in other parts of the world are creating a funnel effect that is driving global capital here. The challenge is not that there’s inflow of global capital because in some ways it could be quite beneficial and benign, the problem is that it is pooling in a single asset class, residential real-estate, where there is a compelling public interest. We’ve got median income levels at Sudbury levels, and we’ve got average real estate prices that are twice the average of Canadian real-estate prices. When people are feeling that they are choking, it is because they are. It is not only choking individuals, it is choking small businesses, because there is no disposable income. Businesses can’t recruit people, they can’t recruit talent, and universities can’t recruit talent. It is corroding the entire local economy, which is primarily a small medium enterprise economy. So what to do?
Sean Antrim: Bob Rennie, when he was recently speaking to the UDI, argued that it is not money coming from around the world. He looked at all of the property taxes were going out, and found that only single digit percentages of them were going to mainland China, or even just out of the country.
Sandy Garossino: I was quite struck by that analysis, because if you or I own property in a foreign country, you would have a property manager in that local environment, and that property manager would take care of all of those things. It is completely irrelevant where property taxes were mailed to. We need better evidence. Anybody who lives on the West Side, as I do, knows how false that is. There are people in my community who describe that they are the only occupied house on their block. There are houses sitting empty. We have a situation where in the marketplace, we have excess housing. We’ve got residences, thousands of them, both single-family homes and condominiums sitting empty. Well, we’ve got a rental crisis. We need to start looking at the levers. And what can be done? I don’t have the answers because this is a really complex question, but obviously we don’t want to shock the market, because that would take a bad situation and make it infinitely worse. So my approach is to ask what are the surgical tools you could start to use. So on rezonings, if we are going to be doing spot-rezonings which at least in the short-term foreseeable future we will continue to do, those rezonings should perhaps be made conditional on all the units being occupied, regardless of who the owner is. Because off-shore owners frequently do rent out their property, and often when they do they rent it below market value, that can be useful. There’s no reason in the world that we should be rezoning properties to build towers that are not going to be fully occupied. Everything should be fully occupied.
Secondly we should be looking at some of the solutions that other countries and cities have looked at like Singapore, which creates zones. Some zones are totally open for the international market, and some zones you can’t buy in unless you are a resident.
Sandy Garossino: ” … let’s look at the low-hanging fruit. Empty condominiums, and empty residents are investment properties, they should be taxed. If it is the case that business subsidizes residential housing, it should be subsidizing residential housing, not investment units. Investments should be taxed at the business rate. I would be looking for those kinds of mechanisms. We should be looking much more closely at the nature of capital that is coming in. It can be perceived as a threat because it is operating in a negative way, that has pooled so much. It is also an opportunity – one of the real interesting features of this capital is that, generally speaking, I think it is individuals, and they also have a tolerance for lower rate of return on income, lower return on investment, than the local developers. One of the challenges of STIR is that local developers actually want a decent return, or a lot of return, on their investment. That is really difficult when you have really high bank costs, but actually the non-resident investors are prepared to live with empty-units. Return on investment is not their primary objective, they are looking for something else. We should be looking to channel that investment into rental housing, channel it into financing some of these more innovative situations.”
Sean Antrim: “Bob Rennie has talked about “social housing condos” as people buy them as investments, I’m not sure if that is what you are talking about?”
Sandy Garossino: “I am thinking in concept. I think we actually need all of the players at the table, we need developers, they do understand planning costs, and we need everybody at the table, rolling-up their sleeves and really saying “OK, we are going to crack the code on this,” and we’re going to find solutions that are not going to destroy the equity that recent young buyers, the last thing they want is anybody who is actually able to shoehorn themselves into a property and for them to lose their house because we have a crash. We can’t have that.”
Andrew Witt: “You have served on a number of different art-institutions Boards. In Vancouver there are a lot of art spaces that are under erasure, especially under the threat of real estate speculation. … What is your strategy to fund these projects as well as maintain Vancouver’s dynamic artist-run culture so that it is not displaced entirely.”
Sandy Garossino: “I see this in the broader context, in cultural context. The real cause of the problem, is that real-estate prices are off the charts. Being able to fund small boxes and little spots here and there is not how you instill energy and dynamism in a cultural community. My daughter is an artist living and working in Montreal. She is in the music scene, she is rising. Things are happening there. Why? It is not because of her space, it is because she is around other exciting artists and musicians. They have a a whole scene there. It is not a typical postal-stamp place that is affordable. It is about having an environment which is artist-friendly, where it is possible to be an artist where other artists want to be.”
Sean Antrim: “Why should people vote for Sandy Garossino on November 19th?”
Sandy Garossino: “Because we do need to get new voices in and, in particular, if you look at the development issue, there’s just a huge amount of money being poured into the parties and we need to have much more wide-open ability for interesting people to come forward. The other reason is that I will attack this affordability issue, and I’m going to get right to the heart of it, and not tinker around the edges and say there, we’re done. We’re not done until people can afford to live in this city.”
[This post is not to be seen as a VREAA endorsement of any of the above positions. See ‘Policies On Housing’ – The Positions Of Local Entities On The Challenges Facing Vancouver Housing‘ for an introduction/rationale for this series.] | {
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Last week I was lucky enough to attend the Wines from Santorini tasting. The wines of 10 different producers were present, along with some of the wine makers. Amazing timing, as it was only a week ago when my first Santori Assyrtiko kind of blew my mind. This was a great opportunity to taste more of the wines, to build a bit of context, so see which of the wines I would be interested in seeking out on my own.
A few general things - as tasty as the wines can be when very young, these are wines that show dramatic improvement with only a few years of bottle age. It seemed as though the young wines showed a bit of sulfur on the nose, and a few years in the bottle seems to be sufficient for this to dissipate. But the wine itself also takes on whole new layers of complexity. Also, there are some producers who clearly know how to use oak. I drank some delicious wines that were fermented in stainless steel, but my favorite wines of the tasting were fermented in or matured in oak.
And lastly, all of my favorite wines shared this pure salty seawater character that formed the foundation of the wine. But it's not seawater like you might get in Chablis - not a briny tidal pool kind of thing. It's more like sea spray, like the salty mist that happens when a wave crashes.
Here are some of my favorites from the tasting and a few notes:
2009 Domaine Sigalas Santorini Barrel Fermented Assyrtiko - this was too young for me to understand, and there was still a bit of sulfur on the nose, but the wine is creamy and deep with great balance and energy. If the next two wines are any indication, this will develop beautifully.
2007 Domaine Sigalas Santorini Barrel Fermented Assyrtiko - All told, this was my favorite wine of the tasting. Highly perfumed and heady with lemon and vanilla, smoke and salt water. A beautiful nose that forced me to return to this wine at least three or four times during the tasting. Balanced, bright, great depth, and wonderful intensity and lightness. Great wine. And I stood with the wine maker Paris Sigalas tasting these wines and asked him which of the recent vintages were best. He said 2006 and 2009. Those seem great too, but at the tasting it was the graceful elegance of the 2007 that really moved me.
2006 Domaine Sigalas Santorini Barrel Fermented Assyrtiko - Riper and richer than the others, smokey, and something almost chalky (but there is no chalk) on the nose. The "soil" in Santorini contains a lot of porous pumice - maybe this is what I was smelling. Broad and round on the palate with rich and saline influenced flavors, and something like peas or red lentils in there. That could be because I read Peter Liem's description of the wines in general, and he used red lentils. I did smell them though. I suppose had he said "rhinoceros" I might have smelled that too.
Sigalas' stainless wines were great too, and he was an absolutely lovely guy. Serious but smiling. Dressed nicely and very classy, but obviously a get dirty outdoors of guy. Sigalas wines are imported by Diamond Imports.
I also loved the wines of Hatzidakis. Across the board they were simply excellent. The 2008 Hatzidakis Aidani seemed rather weird at first, but that's probably because until that point I had consumed nothing other than wines made from the fiercely acidic Assyrtiko grape. This one was more gentle and round, more floral, and it grew on me. I liked the menthol and tea on the finish - very interesting wine, and I'd love to have it with dinner. Call me crazy, but I'm thinking Szechuan tea smoked duck.
2008 Hatzidakis Santorini Assyrtiko was beautiful wine, salty and savory with deep flavors of herbal honey and smoke, and of course, seawater. This is fermented and matured in stainless steel. The 2008 Hatzidakis Nykteri, a barrel matured wine, was rich and deep with great balance, very energetic. The flavors seem a bit constrained still, but they are pure and nutty, smokey and salty. Compelling indeed. Hatzidakis wines are imported by Trireme Imports.
I couldn't understand the 2008 Gaia Thalassitis - it just seemed mute to me, too young. I'm curious about this wine and I hope to taste it in a few years. But the 2009 Gaia Assyrtiko Wild Ferment was open and absolutely lovely, very expressive and perfumed, sheer and delicate. The aromas are more floral, although there is still a bed of sea spray. Gaia wines are imported by Athenee Imports.
There were other good wines too, but I found these to be most compelling. What bothers me, is that I cannot find a place in NYC to buy most of these wines. I hope that changes soon.
I enjoyed these wines so much that I was inspired over the weekend to open one of the few bottles of Santorini wine that I have in my "cellar", the 2007 Hatzidakis Santorini, $22, Trireme Imports. This is a blend of Assyrtiko, Aidani, and Athiri. It is deep gold in color and seems like it's been around for a while. But it's just slow to unwind, and when it does it's fresh and vibrant and full of sea foam. There are savory lentil notes, something like eucalyptus, and a bit of honey trying to push its way out of the rock. This went beautifully with our dinner of roast black fish and braised turnip greens.
I need to drink more of these wines at home with dinner. And at these prices, I can actually afford to. | {
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Silvio Berlusconi contacted a teenage belly dancer at the centre of his sex trial 53 times in three months, it has been claimed.
According to leaked prosecution papers, the 74-year-old Italian leader and Karima El Mahroug, known as Ruby the Heart Stealer, exchanged text messages and calls between February and May of 2010.
During that period, it is alleged the 17-year-old was paid to have sex with him – when the legal age for prostitution in Italy is 18.
She was said to be a regular at his ‘bunga bunga’ parties where guests at his villa allegedly enjoyed sex games.
The details emerged on Wednesday as the prime minister skipped the opening of the court case.
Riot police ringed the court building in Milan for the hearing with opponents of Mr Berlusconi on one side of the street and supporters on the other.
The opening session lasted just ten minutes before it was adjourned to May 31.
Mr Berlusconi’s lawyer, Giorgio Perroni, told the court his client, who refutes the allegations, was absent ‘because he is tied up with meetings about the Libyan situation’.
The media tycoon is also accused of abusing his position of power by calling police and asking for Miss El Mahroug, now 18, to be freed when she was arrested on suspicion of stealing money last May.
Miss El Mahroug’s lawyer, Paola Boccardi, told the court her client had ‘suffered enough’ and would not be claiming damages.
‘She has been portrayed as a prostitute. She is just a young girl and every time she walks down the street she gets 50-year-old men coming up to her and asking her if she wants to bunga bunga with them,’ she said.
Watch a video report on the opening of the sex trial below | {
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Michael Anderson Elementary students gathered Thursday to pay tribute to their school's namesake in a special assembly a day before the 10th anniversary of his death aboard the shuttle Columbia in 2003.
The Columbia, on its 28th flight, disintegrated during re-entry in the skies over Texas on Feb. 1, 2003. All seven crewmembers aboard were killed, including a Cheney High School graduate, Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Anderson, who was serving as the payload commander for STS-107.
Many of the kids at the school named for him weren't alive when he died 10 years ago, but that doesn't mean the students don't know who he is.
Among those in attendance at the assembly was a special guest: Barbara Anderson, Michael's mom.
"Thinking about this time of year, you know it's not easy, but when I see something like this, it brings joy because I know he would be very pleased to know this is happening because of him," she said.
Anderson spent much of his childhood in this area and considered Spokane his hometown. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1981 and was commissioned in the Air Force. He went on to flight school and learned to fly the KC-135 tanker. Selected by NASA as an astronaut in December 1994, he reported for training in March 1995.
Three years later, Anderson flew his first space mission, STS-89, aboard Endeavour, as a mission specialist. STS-107 was his second flight into space. In what turned out to be one of the last times he was seen alive, he did an interview with KXLY while on orbit aboard Columbia, talking about reaching for the stars like he did.
"I would like to tell him that if you are living in Spokane and in the Cheney area, you got some very good schools, very good programs around there, and just apply yourself, then just work hard and be persistent and don't give up, you can achieve anything you want to achieve," Anderson said.
Anderson's message rings true today for the young students at the school named after him, who work to keep his legacy alive, for which his mom was appreciative after attending the assembly in her son's honor.
"It was great, it was great and it was a beautiful service, I think … I didn't expect that much but it was nice," she said. | {
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Every spring, young people called WWOOFers flock to Homer to work in our greenhouses and high tunnels, gardens and homesteads. Whether you call it Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or Willing Workers on Organic Farms, WWOOFing is a worldwide movement. For the cost of fare to Alaska and some gear, enterprising young people offer their labor on farms and homesteads in return for food and shelter. Alaska WWOOFers are lucky; they often fish and kayak, hike and ski with their hosts. WWOOF hosts share wisdom; WWOOFers share time, energy and youthful enthusiasm.
On WWOOF websites, WWOOF hosts describe their farm, current projects, duties expected of WWOOFers and philosophy. Potential WWOOFers post their profile, picture, references from WWOOF hosts and skills. The website we use is www.wwoofusa.org.
When a WWOOFer inquires, “Is there a WWOOF position open at your farm?” a successful WWOOF host qualifies potential WWOOFers carefully by e-mailing a list of questions: How is your work ethic? What physical skills and farm experience do you have? What is your education? Are you strong? Can you use a shovel? What are your principles? Do you get along with your family and friends? Do you drink or use drugs? Why are you interested in our farm? How do you plan to get here?
Some outstanding WWOOFers have answered such questions satisfactorily and come to Homer. There is a sizable movement to Homer every summer of energetic, diligent young people. Some WWOOFers have chosen to find work and stay. This movement could offset Homer’s sizable retired population, contribute to Homer’s economy and Homer’s food security.
Homeranians might devote some thought to what young folks see and experience when they land in Homer. Like all young folk, they wonder: Is this place good and beautiful and healthy? Is this where I want to settle down and raise a family? As Mako Haggerty pointed out, Homer used to have young people coming up for the fishing industry. They stayed and contributed valuable energy to Homer. Every community needs an immigrant class to stay vital and healthy. WWOOFers are our new immigrant class. | {
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All students who anticipate graduating at the end of the semester must register online through MyUB or in person at the Office of the University Registrar. If you register after February 6, 2015, there is a late fee. Once your registration is successfully completed, you will receive a notification by mail or through your UB email account. Please review the information immediately and notify the Office of the University Registrar at 410.837.4825 or at [email protected] if any information is incorrect. The absolute deadline to register to graduate and still be able to participate in the spring 2015 ceremony is Wednesday, April 1; if you do not register by this date you will not be able to participate in the ceremony.
Come by this one-stop shop for all your graduation needs:
Graduates are responsible for purchasing their own commencement garb, which will be available during the graduation fair and online. Individual pieces are not able to be ordered online, only full regalia packages. The deadline to purchase your garb package online is 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, April 22, 2015.
A limited number of bachelor’s and master’s garb sets will be available for purchase the week before the ceremony at the Barnes & Noble at the University of Baltimore. These purchases will incur an additional $20 late fee. Because doctoral robes must be pre-ordered, they will not be available the week before the ceremony. You may also purchase individual pieces such as caps, hoods and tassels at this time.
All students are guaranteed the same number of tickets for the commencement ceremony, which is determined by the number of graduates and the number of seats available in the venue. All guests entering the venue will need to have a ticket, including babies and young children. Graduates will receive a separate ticket.
While we encourage those who do not need all of their tickets to share extras with fellow graduates, under no circumstances should a student sell or purchase tickets.
Spring 2015 graduates will each receive five tickets to their commencement ceremony at the Patricia and Arthur Model Performing Arts Center at The Lyric. Extras may be available. If so, all graduates will be notified.
There are three ways to obtain tickets:
You must have an active Bee Card and have registered to graduate at least 24 hours prior to picking up your tickets. Unfortunately, we are not able to allow anyone else to pick up tickets on your behalf.
Students who register for graduation after the final deadline (April 1) are not eligible to participate in commencement and cannot receive tickets.
Be sure to look your best when you walk across the stage; professional photographers and videographers will be at the commencement ceremony to snap photos as you receive your diploma and to take cap-and-gown portraits. These photos are taken free of charge and with no obligation to order.
UB wants to make sure everyone can see you shine. Family and friends who are unable to attend the ceremony can watch you walk across the stage live online, and the University is happy to make disability seating accommodations. For more information, see Commencement Day Services. | {
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To the horror of parents and the delight of just about everyone else, the TV drama Skins blew the lid off what untamed teenagers get up to when let off the leash. With the second series due, Cassandra Jardine went behind the scenes to meet the show's surprisingly sensible cast and its frighteningly young writers. If you don't want to know the score, look away now…
The average age for losing virginity is 13. That's what my 18-year-old son's friends make out. Gulp, I thought, when he told me, looking at my daughter of that age. And I had been worrying about her spending too much time plucking her eyebrows.
Boasting and exaggeration apart, teenagers have always got up to much more than parents know about and, mostly, ignorance is bliss. It prevents us being either shocked or consumed by envy. But, for the past year, there has been no excuse for innocence, not since Skins was broadcast - a series with the unique claim to authenticity of being written, and acted, by teenagers.
The opening shot set an eyebrow-raising tone: it showed a teenage boy in bed with a naked man and woman - his bedmates were only printed on his duvet cover, but it took a while for that realisation to dawn. From then on, through nine episodes, this bunch of middle-class Year 12s at a Bristol sixth-form college could be seen masturbating, trashing houses, throwing up (either because of drink or eating disorders), having it off with teachers, and getting into revenge dramas with drug dealers.
This was neither the gleaming-teeth sanitised version of teenagerdom conveyed by American prime-time shows such as The OC, nor the downbeat documentary view that suggests all teenagers are gun-carrying crack addicts living on rundown estates. Skins was a new idea for young people who don't like to be treated like kids: an f-word-laden comedy drama shown after the watershed when its target audience of under-18s is supposedly in bed, with a book rather than (as in Skins) the psychology teacher. Ironically, the cast - led by About a Boy star Nicholas Hoult - were mostly too young to attend the cast parties without chaperones, yet they could portray on screen acts that made watching with mother a red-faced affair.
Predictably, there was outrage. 'The characters are so drug-addled, sex-obsessed and vacuous that most parents would consider them a parody of modern youth,' harrumphed one reviewer, while advocates of grittiness questioned why some of the 'OK, yah, totally' characters sounded posher than Prince William. Yet despite/because of the criticism Skins took off. The first episode was watched by 1.6 million, then a record audience for Channel 4's fledgling offshoot E4.
Seventy-five thousand signed up as 'friends' of Skins on MySpace; extra shorts were eagerly watched on the internet; thousands applied online to attend a Skins party and, last Easter, some unlucky parents in Durham were landed with a bill for £20,000 worth of damage after their house became the venue for an unofficial Skins party. Their daughter said someone hacked into her MySpace account.
More surprisingly, the series found an audience outside its teenage target. The adults in the show are an unattractive, libidinous, grumpy bunch - Harry Enfield makes a devastating control-freak dad - but it became a weekly must-see for parents seeking insights. I was among them. Curiosity became addiction when Skins turned out not to be a mindless shockfest, but funny, clever and often moving. It conveyed how complicated, not to say agonising, it is being a teenager, but also what fun.
As such, it also found favour with twenty- and thirtysomethings who enjoyed a reminder of their not-so-distant past. There was someone for everybody to identify with or cringe over among the group of friends, led by alpha-male Tony (Hoult): Sid, his shy beanie-wearing sidekick; Chris, the party animal; Michelle, Tony's alpha-female girlfriend; Jal, the clarinet-playing swot; Cassie, the angel-faced anorexic; Maxxie, the gay dancer; and Anwar, the second-generation Muslim. Now this engaging but troubled crew are back for a second series, and aficionados will soon learn whether the good-looking but arrogant Tony survived the car crash that concluded the last episode.
Some things must remain secret, but Hoult looks thoroughly alive when I visit the Bristol warehouse where filming takes place. The lanky, owl-browed 18-year-old, who already has a long list of credits to his name - recently the films Kidulthood and Wah-Wah - is lying on a bed, having a nightmare for one of the mini-episodes made for the Skins website. (The idea is not just to reflect teens but to address them through their favourite medium.)
It's early December, the last day of filming after a six-month stint and the mood is one of heightened emotion. With the exception of Hoult and two others, casting was done by audition at local schools and colleges, whereas teens in other dramas are often played by babyfaced twentysomethings with more acting experience. The green room they hang out in certainly has the air of a sixth-form common room, with table football, darts, jokily captioned pictures, and a half-read copy of a Philip Pullman book.
As the actors enter, singly or in groups, their good manners are striking. Each one shakes hands and, unlike their counterparts in Skins, they utter not a single swearword. When I throw one into the conversation, they react with shock. They relate to their characters, they say, but they seem considerably less wild. Hoult, Dev Patel (Anwar), 17, and Joe Dempsie (Chris), 20, who don't come from Bristol, have been staying in the local Marriott: while their Skins personas would have drained the mini-bar, seduced the waitresses and been evicted for taking drugs, this lot seem scarcely to have ordered a soft drink. 'We're too tired to do anything much after 12-hour days,' Hoult says.
The programme's non-moralistic take on teenage problems and dilemmas is a source of pride. 'Soaps can't deal with issues properly because they are daytime TV,' says 19-year-old Mike Bailey, who plays Sid. 'I don't know anyone who has stolen a car and crashed into a canal, but I have aspects of Sid in me, everyone has aspects of Sid. He has a good family but he's misunderstood by his dad, and he's so self-conscious that he can't go out without his best friend Tony.'
Other characters appear equally grounded in truth. They may be shy or show-offs, but that's how teenagers are, driven by anxieties about their bodies and their image. They are foolish and reckless, but also scared. They fight against their parents - annoying authority figures - yet love them really. And as they explore themselves and the world, falling in and out of love and trouble, they gradually discover who they are and what they want to do. Some of the scenes are heightened, even over-the-top - this is television after all - but it works because Skins offers an underlying reality.
There has been plenty of drama, less of the essential sensibleness of most teenagers. Adults might expect that if you threw a dozen attractive teenagers together sex would raise its alluring head, but there appear to have been no cast romances. 'None at all,' they say one after another, apparently surprised by the suggestion. When they aren't filming most have been studying for their A-levels. Hannah Murray (Cassie), 18, who is unworldly to the point of not knowing how to use an iPod, managed three As and has just got into Cambridge to read English. Hoult is relatively unusual in having given up the academic chase - he has been filming Coming Down the Mountain, Mark Haddon's story about two brothers, one with Down's syndrome.
Perhaps they are putting up a time-honoured smokescreen of demure behaviour because they are talking to someone of a parental generation, but I don't think so. It's not that they aren't normal teenagers who get drunk and silly, angry and sad, but that this subset of the breed is in the unusual position of having jobs to do. If they perform well, they could be set up for life, so why blow it?
Such is their fledging professionalism that they have pulled off some acutely embarrassing scenes. Bailey, as Sid, was shown masturbating over an Asian Babes magazine, about which his grandmother remarked, mildly, 'From now on you will go to bed wearing boxing gloves.' Dempsie, as Chris, has to run naked through town after a hard night. 'I thought it would be an empty street,' he says, 'but it was the high street, in the rush hour.' Whether they are filmed having sex with umpteen partners or high as kites, they don't blanch.
Mitch Hewer (Maxxie) is straight but he has to play gay snogging scenes. He says it doesn't bother him: 'You've got to be open-minded.' April Pearson (Michelle) laughed when she saw a huge poster next to her school gates that showed her sitting on the loo with her pants and tights around her ankles: 'And I'm the head girl,' she marvels.
The first series has sold to 30 countries and several others are contemplating licensed versions adapted to their own culture. No one is more surprised than the producer/writer Bryan Elsley who, from long experience in television and theatre, says he expected Skins 'to be watched by 250,000 and disappear without trace after one series'.
As he puts together the third series, he reflects that, 'The nice thing is that we've tempted kids back to TV from the internet and computer games. They watch because we tell stories that speak to their lives and that are not moralistic. Most savvy 16-year-olds are beyond a discussion about whether or not to have sex, take drugs or drink. These days kids are subtle in their understanding of family, even when it's dysfunctional, because they have the time and money to reflect on relationships. They don't want drama with a helpline tag at the end of it.'
If he got it more right than he dared hope, it is because he brought together a team of writers with an average age of 22 - and they weren't there only to adjudicate on whether cannabis should be called 'spliff' or 'weed'. Elsley wrote five of the nine episodes in the first series but, as the team grew more experienced, he has increasingly stepped back, providing just three of 10 episodes in series two.
His role is to set the rules and, despite its eagerness to shock, Skins is essentially very old-fashioned. 'My belief is that TV drama has been nervous of boring people so directors create a spurious level of excitement through shaky cameras, flashbacks and zooms. This is a traditional drama. We avoid tricks. We follow a character through sequentially. Writers can only include scenes without the main character if he is just joining or has just left. Beyond those rules, anything goes.'
In the basement of Company Pictures' offices in London, summaries of the plots for series two are scribbled on a white board: 'James and Maxxie meet at a bike-shed', etc. This is the writers' den. But for the bowl of fruit on the table, it could be a student seminar room. This week's essay topic for the four assembled young writers: Does Skins give an accurate picture of teenage life?
Curled up on the sofa is Daniel Kaluuya, 18, who is retaking his A-levels, having turned down drama school to work on Skins, both as writer and actor. He describes himself as coming from a 'normal African background' while his teachers described him as 'a waste of space', although he was writing from the age of nine. Skins is too middle class for his set - 'My boys are not really abiding by the law' - but when given the episode about Jal, the black girl, to write he was keen to avoid cliches. Jal loves music, but it's Mozart that she plays, not soul, and her family are rich. 'Black kids don't sit around talking about being black - that's boring,' he says. 'I introduced her family making pancakes.'
To his right in short dress and hoop earrings is Lucy Kirkwood, 24, from east London. She wrote her first play, Grady Hot Potato, while studying English at Edinburgh. It caught the eye of an agent and her work has now been produced on both sides of the Atlantic. She wasn't a 'massive fan' of the first episode of series one that set the outrageous tone - 'I wish my drug dealer would give me weed on tick… only joking,' - but she knows introductions are hard to get right; also, because Hoult was the only known name, he was assumed to be the hero, not a flawed character. Drafted in for the second series, her mission is to beef up the girls' parts. 'I've been giving them real friendships, like those between the boys.'
Next to her, long legs clutched under his chin, is Jack Thorne who, in between bites of banana, apologises for his advanced age and thinning hair. He's 29, and started writing, he says, as an antidote to the nervousness that leaves his speech littered with 'y'knows': 'I wanted to rewrite the conversations I had during the day and win them.' Already his sensitive portrayals of young people have attracted notice from theatre and television producers and his first feature film, The Scouting Book for Boys, is being shot this year. When he unveiled a lurid drug-and-sex nightmare for his episode about Tony's younger sister Effy (played by Kaya Scodelario, 15) in the first series there was alarm, but it topped the popularity ratings. 'I have a tendency to write dark stuff,' he says.
Jamie Brittain is a commanding presence. He's 22 but he talks about scriptwriting like an old hand, as well he might since the boss figure he refers to as 'Bryan' is his father. 'Bryan asked me what programmes he should be pitching and I told him that I had these characters that I'd been writing about since I was 16. Sid and Tony are the two sides of my character: Sid is the nervous anxious virgin, Tony the nasty scary clever side of me. With Sid, I thought I'd put a version of myself on TV that everyone would love - and then they would love me.'
That grounding in the writers' own fantasies and emotions shows through in the more powerful scenes, such as the devastating rows between Sid and his father, played by Peter Capaldi. 'Don't tell Dad, but it's about our relationship,' Jamie confided to Jack; soon after, Jack was taken aside by Bryan who whispered, 'Don't tell Jamie, but it's about him and me.'
Vulnerable and impulsive, but essentially good and loyal, these are loveable characters - but after this series we won't be seeing much more of them. Skins may be a British rival to Friends but the drama is set in a sixth-form college, so when this lot leave at the end of this year, the focus will switch to the new intake, led by Effy. Soon it's goodbye to Sid, Jal, Maxxie et al. The actors must now go their separate ways. All now have agents. Dev Patel has the lead role in Danny Boyle's Slum Boy Millionaire, but for the rest it's an agonising time of waiting and hoping. Adventures don't always turn out as well in real life as they do in Skins, but emotionally literate, worldly wise contemporary teenagers know that.
Wherever they go next the class of 2008 will look back knowing that they were involved in a groundbreaking experiment. Programme makers have discovered that teenagers will watch television if they are portrayed as rounded human beings. Parents are a little wiser, too. And over coming years, I suspect, Skins will turn out to have been the launchpad for a whole generation of young actors and writers.
- 'Skins' returns to E4 on February 11 (and on Channel 4 on February 14)
- The official Skins website is www.e4.com/skins | {
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The Twenty-Third National African American Read-In
Sponsored by the Black Caucus of NCTE and NCTE
In February 2012, you may hold an African American
Read-In event any day of the month
Wednesday, February 1-Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Schools, churches, libraries, bookstores, community and professional organizations, and interested citizens are urged to make literacy a significant part of Black History Month by hosting and coordinating Read-Ins in their communities. Hosting a Read-In can be as simple as bringing together friends to share a book, or as elaborate as arranging public readings and media presentations that feature professional African American writers.
To be counted as participants, simply:
Select books authored by African Americans;
Hold your event during the month of February; and
Report your results by submitting the 2012 African American Read-In Report Card.
The Read-In has been endorsed by the International Reading Association. Over a million readers of all ethnic groups from the United States, the District of Columbia, the West Indies, African countries, and more have participated. The goal is to make the celebration of African American literacy a traditional part of Black History Month activities.
Download an African American Read-In Packet
You can print the PDF version of the African American Read-In packet by clicking the link below. It includes a News Release, Host Invitation, and information on how to submit the Report Card.
African American Read-In Packet
If you are not sure where to start looking for books authored by African Americans, check out the booklists below:
Supplemental List for Young Adults and Adults
Supplemental List for Young Children
The Farrell J. Chiles Collection
For any questions on the African American Read-In, contact:
Administrative Liaison Specialist
800-369-6283, ext. 3632
Founder & National Director
Dr. Jerrie Cobb Scott
University of Memphis
College of Education
Memphis, TN 38152 | {
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Chair and Professor: J. Ruud (PhD), 450-3674
Professors: P. Anderson (PhD), J. Fowler (PhD), R. Frontain (PhD), J. Glenn (PhD), M. Lee (PhD), H. Rogers (PhD), M. Schaefer (PhD), C. Shumaker (PhD), W. Stengel (PhD)
Associate Professors: R. Gaughan (PhD), M. Marotte (PhD)
Assistant Professors: B. Chen (PhD), D. Coleman (PhD), S. Fritz (PhD), E. Harper (PhD), L. Leavell (PhD), P. Reynolds (PhD)
The fourfold objective of the Department of English is (1) to improve the abilities of students in understanding, writing, and speaking the English language; (2) to increase students' pleasure in and knowledge of literature as an art form; (3) to enable our students to find meaning in large amounts of information and to give them the skills of synthesis to evaluate, interpret, and use this information to solve problems; and (4) to endow students of literature and language with the ability to work with sympathetic imagination with people from backgrounds and cultures different from their own--that is, to give the English major an understanding of globalization and its implications for the world of work in the twenty-first century.
Courses in literature are varied in such a fashion that general overall views of world literature, British literature, and American literature are presented in addition to period courses, "figure" courses, and genre courses which allow greater in-depth study. Increasingly, our world literature classes and our introduction to fiction, drama, and poetry are taking a global perspective which demonstrates to students the nature of and relationships among cultures across national boundaries. By understanding literary expression as a product of social, historical, and artistic processes, our students see parallels and connections among citizens and artists in societies around the globe.
English majors will have had a strong foundation, both in studies in the English language and in several areas of literature, even though they may have a variety of choices within given categories. Traditionally the English major may qualify to enter graduate school in English or to teach on the secondary level. Increasingly, however, our students pursue careers in foreign service, law, technical communication, advertising, public relations, business management, sales, and higher education/administration.
A number or courses, particularly those on the sophomore level, are specifically designed as general education courses and are intended primarily to acquaint students who major in other fields with such literature as will broaden understanding of the human experience and the potential of their role in an increasingly more interconnected 21st-century world.
The Undergraduate Scholars Program in English
As early as the sophomore year, and no later than the first semester of the junior year, an English major may be invited to participate in the undergraduate scholars program in English. To graduate with honors the following conditions must be met:
- Consent of the chair of the Department of English.
- Maintenance of a minimum overall 3.25 grade point average and a 3.50 grade point average in the major.
- Successful completion of ENGL 4300, the examination for which will be oral and conducted by three members of the English faculty.
- An acceptable essay based upon reading done in ENGL 4300 and submitted in the senior year to the professor who directed the reading program.
Baccalaureate Degrees
[3.1] Bachelor of Arts
The degree of Bachelor of Arts, with a major in English, requires successful completion of at least 120 hours, including (1) the UCA Core: complete 38 hours to meet lower-division UCA Core requirements (see the UCA Core requirements) and complete upper-division UCA Core requirements using designation major, minor, or elective courses; (2) degree requirements; (3) major requirements; and (4) a minor.
UD = Upper Division
D = Diversity
I = Critical Inquiry
Z = Capstone Experience
[3.1.1] Major in English (37 hours)
Thirty-seven hours of English of which at least 21 must be upper-division. Required courses are as follows:
ENGL 2312 American Literature I
ENGL 2313 American Literature II
ENGL 2316 English Literature I
ENGL 2317 English Literature II
ENGL 2318 English Literature III
ENGL 3105 Research Methods Workshop
ENGL 4335 Senior Seminar [ UCA Core: Z ]
In addition, students must take a genre course, a period course, an author course, and 6 hours of upper-division English electives, from the following lists of courses:
Courses Fulfilling the Period Requirement
ENGL 4301 The Renaissance
ENGL 4305 Medieval English Literature
ENGL 4311 The Neo-Classical Period
ENGL 4312 American Provincial Literature [ UCA Core: D ]
ENGL 4313 American Romanticism & Realism [ UCA Core: D ]
ENGL 4320 The Romantic Period
ENGL 4321 The Victorian Period
ENGL 4342 The Seventeenth Century
ENGL 4354 Modernism [ UCA Core: D ]
ENGL 4355 Postmodernism [ UCA Core: D ]
Courses Fulfilling the Author Requirement
ENGL 4330 Shakespeare I
ENGL 4331 Shakespeare II
ENGL 4340 Chaucer
ENGL 4341 Milton
Courses Fulfilling the Genre Requirement
ENGL 4314 American Fiction since 1900 [ UCA Core: I, D ]
ENGL 4315 Twentieth-Century American Poetry [ UCA Core: I, D ]
ENGL 4335 Senior Seminar (depending on topic) [ UCA Core: Z ]
ENGL 4343 Tudor-Stuart Drama [ UCA Core: I ]
ENGL 4345 Twentieth-Century English Drama [ UCA Core: I ]
ENGL 4346 Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama [ UCA Core: I ]
ENGL 4347 Twentieth-Century American Drama [ UCA Core: I, D ]
ENGL 4371 American Novel to 1900 [ UCA Core: I ]
ENGL 4372 English Novel: Eighteenth Century [ UCA Core: I ]
ENGL 4373 English Novel: Nineteenth Century [ UCA Core: I ]
ENGL 4374 English Novel: Twentieth Century [ UCA Core: I ]
ENGL 4375 English Poetry: Twentieth Century [ UCA Core: I ]
Courses Fulfilling the Language Requirement
ENGL 3312 Modern Grammars [ UCA Core C ]
ENGL 3335 Language and Grammar Studies (Satisfies language requirement only for those seeking teaching licensure) [ UCA Core C ]
ENGL 4360 History and Structure of the English Language [ UCA Core C ]
Electives may be chosen from this list or from any of the above courses
ENGL 3315 Gender and Language [ UCA Core C, D ]
ENGL 3325 Advanced Readings in World Literature [ UCA Core D ]
ENGL 3375 Internship in English
ENGL 4300 Readings for Honors Degree
ENGL 4304 Advanced Readings in English and American Literature
ENGL 4361 Literature for Adolescents [ UCA Core D ]
ENGL 4362 Southern Literature and Folklore [ UCA Core D ]
ENGL 4364 Special Topics in Children’s and Young Adult Literature
ENGL 4366 Literary Theory and Criticism
ENGL 4370 Women’s Literature [ UCA Core D ]
ENGL 4380 African and African American Literature [ UCA Core D ]
ENGL 4381Major African/African American Writers [ UCA Core D ]
ENGL 4382 Race in American Literature [ UCA Core D ]
ENGL 4385/4685 Travel Seminar in Literature [ UCA Core D ]
With the approval of their advisor and the department chair, candidates may present one of the following as an upper-division elective:
WRTG 3320 Forms of Scriptwriting
WRTG 3325 Forms of Poetry
WRTG 3330 Forms of Creative Nonfiction
WRTG 3335 Forms of Fiction
Designated English major courses are used to satisfy the upper-division UCA Core requirements in Diversity, Critical Inquiry, Responsible Living, and Effective Communication. Students will take English 4335, Senior Seminar, as the required UCA Core capstone.
[3.1.2] Minor in English (25 hours)
Twenty-five hours of English of which at least 12 must be upper-division. Required: ENGL 2312, 2313, 2316, 2317, 2318, 3105; one upper-division language course; two upper-division English electives (6 hours - see list above). Designated English minor courses are used to satisfy the upper-division UCA Core requirements in Diversity, Critical Inquiry, Responsible Living, and Effective Communication.
* Note: With the approval of their advisor and the department chair, BA candidates or English minors may present one of the following courses as an upper-division elective: WRTG 3320 (Forms of Scriptwriting), WRTG 3325 (Forms of Poetry), WRTG 3330 (Forms of Creative Nonfiction), WRTG 3335 (Forms of Fiction). No more than one language course may be presented for degree credit in addition to the one used to fulfill the Language Course requirement.
[3.2] Bachelor of Arts with Licensure
Thirty-seven hours of English of which at least 21 must be upper division. Required: ENGL 2312, 2313, 2316, 2317, 2318, 3105, 4335, 4360, 4361, a genre course, a period course, an author course, and a second upper-division language course (ENGL 3312 or 3335). (See list of appropriate courses above).
Licensure candidates must also take ENGL 1355 (Film and Literature) and ENGL 2305 or ENGL 2306 (World Literature I or II) as part of their fulfillment of UCA Core requirements. Like all BA students, they are required to take the Foreign Language requirement (FREN 2310, SPAN 2310, GERM 2310, CHIN 2310 or JAPN 2310).
BA students seeking licensure in English must apply to the Office of Candidate Services and meet established criteria for admission to the teacher education program. Once admitted, students must take the following courses (use these links for courses in EDUC and MSIT):
ENGL 4350 English Education Internship I
ENGL 4358 Methods of Teaching English and Composition
ENGL 4680 English Education Internship II
ENGL 4681 English Education Internship II
MSIT 3310 Learning and Development
MSIT 4305 Classroom Management
EDUC 3309 Families, Schools, and Community Partners
EDUC 3321 Introductory Strategies for Students with Diverse Learning Needs: Middle/Secondary
Master's Degree
See Graduate Bulletin.
Courses in English (ENGL)
Follow this link for ENGL course descriptions: course link. | {
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A Bell Gardens High School 1990 graduate has been promoted to Master Sergeant, a rank near the top of Army’s command structure.
Read this story IN SPANISH: Oriundo de Bell Gardens Sube las Filas del Ejército
Jose Jimenez grew up on Fostoria Street in Bell Gardens after his family immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico City when he was just five-years-old. His parents, Alfonso and Natalie Jimenez, still reside in the city, though he is stationed at Fort Bliss located near El Paso, Texas.
Growing up he would listen to the stories told by members of his family about being in the Mexican Army, and they inspired him to become a soldier, he told EGP.
Jimenez enlisted as an armor crewman and was sent to Germany shortly after receiving his high school diploma. During his nearly 21 years in the Army, he has been assigned to Fort Lewis, Wash. and Fort Hood, Texas, and his overseas service includes three deployments to Korea and Iraq in 2005, 2006 and 2009.
He currently serves as the G3 Operations Non-Commissioned Officer with the Brigade Modernization Command. The brigade’s commander, Brig. Gen. Randal A. Dragon, performed the promotion ceremony, pinning on his new rank on Aug. 31.
His wife Maria V. Ortiz, also from Bell Gardens, participated in the ceremony. The couple has four children: Silvia, 21, who is married; Ricardo, 20, who attends college; Leonor, 12; and Natalie, 10.
Reaching the rank of master sergeant is a big achievement, according to Annie Gammell, Public Affairs Officer of the Army’s Brigade Modernization Command.
“The Army’s enlisted rank structure has 9 steps, and master sergeant is at step 8,” Gammell said. “Generally, the responsibilities of a master sergeant are to serve as the principal non-commissioned officer at the battalion level or higher, expected to dispatch leadership and other duties with professionalism.”
Bell Gardens Mayor Jennifer Rodriguez told EGP she is extremely proud of Jimenez and the honor he has brought to his family and to Bell Gardens.
“We have many young men and women on active duty from Bell Gardens and a simple thank you seems so inadequate when these special individuals and their families unselfishly sacrifice so much for the protection of our great country,” Rodriguez said in a written statement.
“Liberty is a precious gift whose benefits we all enjoy every day, but too often we give little thought to the price paid for it. It is not in our nature to seek out wars and conflicts. But whenever they have come, when adversaries have left us no alternative, it is individuals like Jose Jimenez who answered the call to duty and who have stood ready to take the risks and pay the ultimate price. For that, I say thank you,” Rodriguez said.
Jimenez didn’t intend to stay in the Army so long, but it grew into a career, he said. Looking back at the past 20-plus years, Jimenez told EGP he is pleased to be “giving back to the country that has given a lot to me. It has given us a lot of opportunities,” he said.
Nonetheless, he hopes to retire in another five years, finish his education in Business Administration, and eventually start his own business. | {
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Continuing the series on optimizing your iPad for various rooms in the house, today I’m going to take a look at preparing the iPad for what can be the least likely place to find it: the bedroom. Whether it’s getting your iPad ready for some hot love with your significant other or it’s relaxing before turning in for the night, I’ve got you covered.
Let’s dive in and get this show on the road.
So, if you read last week’s instalment, you know how to get started with the iPad as a living room machine. Moving through the house our next stop is the kitchen, and how we might use Apple’s iconic tablet to help with cooking, planning, and other kitchenly activities.
The iPad practically becomes whatever application it happens to be running at a time. With so many different applications available in the App Store, this means that the iPad can be a fundamentally different device based on who is using it, where they’re using it, and what they’re using it for.
Over the course of a few articles I’m going to provide some different use-cases for the iPad around the house (and, later, abroad) and how you can optimize the iPad for each room that you occupy. Today I’m going to take a look at how the iPad can become an integral part of your living room.
I’ve spoken before about how the iPad can be used to increase productivity, and today I want to go a step beyond that and outline two different ways that the iPad can become essential to anyone’s workflow.
One way is fairly common, and the other might be something that you haven’t heard of before. Hopefully you’ll learn something either way and will find the iPad becoming less (or more) of a toy. Let’s get cracking.
This is the third installment in our Buyer’s Guide series, in which we try to lay out what kinds of things you should buy for your iPad; or, in spirit of the season, what you can get for the person who already owns the most-wanted gift of the year!
This week we’re going to look at some of the most interesting accessories you can get for your iPad. They may not fit easily into categories but are definitely worth a look! Read on for your own personalized gift guide.
Many consider the iPad to be a content-consumption device, with little to no possibility of creating something with the large screen and limited hardware capabilities. I’d like to say that, with all fairness, those people are out of their minds! The iPad makes it easy to do many things, and can replace laptops for a fair number of people.
Aside from the computer-illiterate, the iPad may be best for writers. How can you turn your iPad into the ultimate writing machine? Read on to find out.
“When you go out and about with just an iPad, you’re sending a message that you’re not going to contribute. You’re just there to consume.” – Paul Thurrott (October 6, 2010)
“That’s what we keep hearing about the iPad as the justification for all its purposeful limitations: it’s meant for consumption, we’re told, not creation….all of us comment on content, whether through email or across a Denny’s table. At one level or another, we all spread, react, remix, or create. Just not on the iPad.” – Jeff Jarvis (April 4, 2010)
“Today’s iPad, the one that I just bought, is just a demo of something that could be very nice and useful at some point in the future. Today it’s something to play with, not something to use. That’s the kind way to say it. The direct way: It’s a toy.” – Dave Winer (April 3, 2010)
Those are three big names in the world of tech pundits. You’ve probably heard of all of them. And that’s what they thought of the iPad when it was first introduced. You’ve probably heard similar things from colleagues and friends, on Twitter and in chat rooms. People seem polarized over this idea of “content creation”, and whether the iPad is capable of it. Is this an active piece of technology, or just a passive one?
I contend that it’s an active one, in fact I would say it’s revolutionary in the way content can be created on it. I think the issue is with the definition of content. Let me explain.
With GarageBand installed, an iPad is a powerful and portable tool for musicians. However, just like its desktop version, GarageBand for iPad can also be employed by non-musicians too, as I’ll highlight with a step by step guide to making a podcast on your iPad, complete with accompanying music.
This How-To will be aimed towards those who have a basic understanding of GarageBand, or at least the principles behind music software in general, but I will endeavour to keep each step as beginner friendly as possible. If you have any questions or problems, please let us know in the comments and I’ll attempt to help you through it.
Photography is a form of art especially close to my heart. It’s something I enjoy immensely, and something that I’ve always thought would be perfectly suited to the iPad. There has always been a vibrant community surrounding iPhone photography, and some truly great apps have appeared to help with editing and organizing your photos.
But what about where the iPad’s concerned? The iPad 2 has a camera, but it isn’t of the same quality as the iPhone’s. There’s the optional Camera Connector Kit, to import photos from your camera via an SD card or a USB cable too. That’s really what we’re going to be focusing on today.
Unlike the iPhone, where it’s both the photo capture and photo editing device, the iPad really only excels at the one aspect: photo editing. I mean seriously, are you going to be waving a 10″ tablet device around, taking snapshots on vacation? No, didn’t think so.
Let’s dig into what the options are for editing and organizing photos on the iPad, and where iOS developers still have room to grow and improve.
Ok, let’s be honest, right up front. While we all love our families, and can agree that children are truly wonderful gifts, no one wants to go on an extended road trip with a backseat full of little ones. If they’re especially young — let’s say newborn to 3 or 4 years old — the suggestions that follow may not work for you. I know I’d hesitate to hand over my $500 device to someone under 4 years old.
But for anyone older than that — how about we say the 5 and up crowd — the iPad could truly be a tired parent’s dream-come-true. There is an absolute wealth of kid-focused apps for the iPad. From honest games that’ll kill time and keep them occupied, to more educationally stimulating offerings, the App Store has you covered. Let’s dive in, and I’ll show you some of the best of the best. | {
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Teen Porn Sex Pics is just where you want to be! You’ve entered this site looking for tight teen cunt and mind, and you’re welcome to the galleries full of it! We have unique Skinny Teen pics, exposing all types of nasty young teens featuring their darkest desires impersonated in wild sex! Beautiful, inexperienced and wet, those sexy teen girls do everything you may ever want to see! The special feature of our website allows you enjoying the most beautiful and delicate nude teens porn photos, handpicked by the professionals. Only the best naked teens sluts, the most explicit horny girls xxx galleries and the most alluring porn actions are available here! Bookmark our website as soon as possible to stay in touch with the largest free hot teen sex pictures storage! | {
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5/1 Caridad update & the 'pen
Rookie Esmailin Caridad was to throw one inning in Mesa, Ariz., on Saturday, and if all goes well, the right-hander could join Triple-A Iowa on Tuesday for a couple rehab appearances. Caridad is on the disabled list with a strained right forearm and has been rehabbing in Mesa at the Cubs’ Spring Training complex.
“I would think if everything is right, he could be joining us by next weekend in Cincinnati,” Lou Piniella said Saturday. “That’s the plan if everything goes right.”
Caridad was projected as the Cubs’ primary set-up pitcher but with his injury, the team moved Carlos Zambrano into that role. That will remain unchanged when Caridad returns.
“I think it’ll make us a little deeper from the right side,” Piniella said of the bullpen makeup when Caridad comes back. “We haven’t discussed what we’re going to do, assuming he’s there next weekend. It’s still too far away. But it’ll be one of the young pitchers he’ll be replacing.”
Which would mean one of the young right-handers — Justin Berg or Jeff Gray — could be re-assigned.
— Carrie Muskat | {
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However, as the No. 1 overall seed at the U.S. Open, Federer won't have to face the young Brit until the semifinals, which puts him on an inside track to win Grand Slam title No. 18.
In a story by Leo Schlink of the Herald Sun, Federer elaborated on how he couldn't recover from lackluster focus against Murray in London nearly three weeks ago:
On top of that, when you play another fellow top four guy who likes to be in the lead, like myself, Murray, Rafa (Nadal), (Novak) Djokovic, it becomes that much harder.
The fine line in professional tennis between the elite players and the up-and-comers makes Federer's sustained level of greatness in his 14th year on the ATP Tour that much more staggering. Even though he is nearing the end of his career, Federer has proven he still has something left in the tank.
It looked like Rafael Nadal would overtake Federer at No. 1 in the world for good, but injuries have been his undoing. He won't be healthy enough to compete at Flushing Meadows.
Novak Djokovic seemed to be the best player in the world for much of the past year, but Federer has methodically plugged away and passed him by as well.
Although he hasn't won the U.S. Open since a remarkable five-year romp of successive championships from 2004 to 2008, Federer's recent stellar form is also a means of generating positive momentum.
Will Roger Federer win the 2012 U.S. Open?
After settling for silver at the Games, Federer bounced back to win the ATP Masters event in Cincinnati, capping it off by smashing Djokovic in the final 6-0, 7-6 (9-7).
Entering the U.S. Open in such fine form is an advantage for Federer, as is the delayed encounter with Murray and the absence of Nadal.
Outside of sixth seed Tomas Berdych, with whom he has split his past six matches, Federer doesn't have a lot to worry about in New York until his potential encounter with Murray.
Murray making it to the semis isn't even a lock, because Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is likely to stand in his way in the quarterfinals. Tsonga will be seeking to avenge his semifinal loss to Murray at Wimbledon earlier this year.
The last time Federer fell short of the semifinals at the U.S. Open was 2003, before he had rounded into form as, arguably, the best player ever.
In that context, I would go out on a limb to say that Federer is a mortal lock for the semifinals. As long as that is the case, he will have extra incentive to pound Murray based on their last encounter.
His potential opponent in the final would be Djokovic, the world No. 2 he just dismantled on the hardcourt this past weekend.
The window has to be closing on Federer, but then again, that's what many thought was happening over the past couple of years.
It's hard to believe Federer hasn't won his second-best Grand Slam event in nearly four years.
Considering the favorable draw, the absence of his most vicious rival in Nadal and added motivation to focus on his most difficult hurdle ahead of the final in Murray, it seems that the Fed is due to cash in. | {
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Last week, during a session with a Gaelic Parent and Toddler group, I had the good fortune and privilege to observe learning in its purest and most distilled form. What never ceases to fascinate me about this process is that the exact same procedure is followed by all learners, be they babies, primates or Nobel-Prize scientists.
In this case, the young scientist was a six month old boy who sat beside his mum surrounded by objects from a treasure basket. He had at his disposal a toothbrush, a shaving brush, a black enamel mug with a plastic ball inside it, a rubber plug with a length of chain, a small basket, a small teddy and a funnel.
He was initially attracted by the feel of the soft, chewy plug and began waving it about in a delighted manner. Eventually, the length of chain on its other end came into contact with the enamel mug and produced a wonderful, loud, brash and yet nuanced clanging sound which drew the little boy inexorably to the path of scientific discovery, using Accepted Standard Scientific Methodology.
- Observe a Natural Phenomenon and Be Intrigued by it
“Whoa! What was that?! All my senses are in uproar! What a noise!”
- Discern an Apparent Pattern
“Ho! There it goes again! That’s the same sensation we had a minute ago!”
- Look More Closely and begin to Formulate a Hypothesis
“Huh. Seems to me it might be something to do with this thing I’m waving about. Am I causing this noise? How am I doing it?? You know, I think it might be something to do with that cup… so, is it the two of them together that are producing this thrill?”
- Investigate and Experiment to Prove or Disprove Said Hypothesis
“Ok now, let’s see. Wave the plug chain beside my left leg – yep, nothing. Wave it over here, near the cup – yes, yes, there it is, that wonderful noise. Try again. Over here – nothing; over there – bingo! Here – nothing. There – hurray! I think I’m right! Oh, look at that sunlight. What a lovely brightness. Now, where were we? Ah yes. Shake it all about and – yes! The cup makes the noise! I’m still right!”
5. Apply the Seemingly Correct Hypothesis under Different Lab Conditions, Changing One or More Variables to Extend Scientific Understanding
“Let’s pick up the toothbrush. Tricky job but – grunt – I’ve got it. Taste it first, lovely, bristly and chewy, beyond doubt a genuine scientific appliance. Now, if I’m right, this should also produce some kind of effect when combined with the cup in the correct way. Oooh, interesting… not exactly the same sound, but just as pleasing. Try it again. Lovely. And again. You know, I like it so much I could listen to this all day. Shaving brush? Not as good. But just as tasty. Teddy bear? Forget it. Throw that away. Let’s get back to that lovely plug chain for a bit. Now get the toothbrush back. Oh. Wait. Hold on now. What’s this you’re giving me? A drum??? Now, this is exciting. I’m holding my breath. Is it just the cup that thrills me so with its magical sound properties or could there be others??? Oho! What a bang! I love it! So, the rule is this…many objects (though not all), when combined with selected other objects in the right way and with the appropriate amount of force, produce thrilling, audible stimuli!”
6. Stand Back with Pride and Satisfaction and be Congratulated by Your Peers (or Your Mummy)
“Wow. I did some really great work today. I’ve really pushed the boundaries of human understanding. I’ve opened up whole new continents of scientific discovery. You like that, eh? You’re smiling. Yes, I must say I’m pretty pleased with myself.”
7. Write Up Your Findings and Submit to Royal Society
“Ok, maybe I’ll wait with this one. Maybe till I can write. Or hold a pencil. There’s no rush… my time will come, of that I’m sure.”
We may don white lab-coats and an air of superiority but underneath the veneer we are all, big and small, wide-eyed creatures fascinated by our environment, trying to make sense of it and to apply it in ways that benefit and delight us.
Lisa MacDonald, CALA Gaelic Parent & Toddler Development Worker
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Runaway and Homeless Youth Act Reauthorization
The final version of S. 2982 was passed by the U.S. on September 25, 2008. The House passed the Senate version of the bill on September 26th under unanimous consent. The President signed the legislation and it became Public Law on October 8, 2008.
The original version of the House bill, H.R. 5524,the Reconnecting Homeless Youth Act of 2008, was introduced on March 4, 2008, by Representative John Yarmuth (D-KY) joined by Representative Judy Biggert (R-IL) and 26 other co-sponsors. On May 6, 2008, Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) introduced S. 2982, the Runaway and Homeless Youth Protection Act of 2008, which was later changed to the title in the original House bill.
Summary of Legislation
- Reauthorizes and increases authorization levels for Runaway and Homeless Youth Act programs. The runaway and homeless youth consolidated account would be increased from the current $105 million to $140 million in FY 2009 and “such sums as may be necessary” in each of FY 2010 through FY 2013. The runaway prevention account would be authorized at the $25 million level in FY 2009 through FY 2013.
- Increases the RHYA Basic Center Program allotments for small states and for territories. The minimum BCP allotment for states with small youth populations would be increased from the current $100,000 to $200,000. The maximum BCP allotment for U.S. territories would be increased from the current $45,000 to $70,000.
- Permits HHS to redistribute unexpended funds to other BCP applicants for a one-year grant period, after which time the amount should be returned to the BCP general pool for re-allocation.
RHYA Project Admission and Length of Stay Criteria
- Limits basic centers to providing shelter services to individuals who are less than 18 years of age.
- Allows extensions in length of stay in basic centers from 15 days to up to 21 days and in transitional living projects from 18 months to 21 months, due to exceptional circumstances.
RHYA Applicant Eligibility, Use of Funds, and Funding Conditions
- Adds public entities as eligible applicants for Street Outreach Program funds.
- Clarifies that RHYA funds are to be distributed to organizations and not directly to program participants.
- Requires basic centers and transitional living projects to have in place written emergency management and crisis response plans as a condition for receiving federal RHYA awards.
- Allows Transitional Living Programs to serve youth up until their 22nd birthday.
Federal Program Management
- Requires HHS to develop performance standards for RHYA direct service grantees. The Secretary shall provide an opportunity for public comment on the performance standards.
- Requires the GAO to assess the effectiveness of the grant-making process for runaway and homeless youth programs within 1 year of enactment of the law. The assessment will focus on content and structure of grant announcements, the grant review process, the selection of grant reviewers, the oversight of the grant review process, the timeframe and process for communicating to applicants about funding, and plans for the implementation of the technical assistance and training programs and how this effects the grant application process.
- Adds a finding on the applicability of positive youth development to the organization and delivery of services to unaccompanied youth.
- Adds a statutory definition of “runaway youth” identical to the definition of such term in the Code of Federal Regulations.
- Includes educational and workforce development programs that reconnect youth to school, college, and labor under grants for research evaluation, demonstration and service projects.
- Includes innovative programs that assist youth in obtaining and maintaining safe and stable housing under grants for research evaluation, demonstration and service projects.
- Requires HHS to develop every fifth year, directly or via contract, a national estimate of the prevalence of unaccompanied situations among youth and young adults.
- Requires HHS to establish research, evaluation, and demonstration priorities every two years and to provide an opportunity for public comment on such priorities.
Why this Matters
RHYA is the Sole Federal Law Targeted to Unaccompanied Youth. Congress first enacted the RHYA in 1974 and has regularly reauthorized it to ensure a basic level of support for unaccompanied youth regardless of their state of origin or residence. Few states have established funding streams targeted to unaccompanied youth.
RHYA Projects are Facing Overwhelming Unmet Need. The basic living needs of too many of our nation’s unaccompanied youth are not being met. In 2007, the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act programs served over 740,000 homeless youth, yet only seven percent of those unaccompanied homeless youth were provided shelter or transitional housing through Basic Center and Transitional Living Programs.
RHYA Projects are Cost Effective Alternatives to Custodial Care and Arrest. The average federal cost of serving a youth in a basic center of $1,282 and in a transitional living project of $14,726 are far below the minimum cost of serving youth through the child welfare or juvenile justice systems, with annual costs ranging from $25,000 – $55,000 per youth. Law enforcement officials are the referral source for 20 percent of youth entering basic centers.
RHYA Projects Use Federal Funds to Leverage Community Resources.RHYA projects succeed due to partnerships created among families, schools, community-based organizations, faith communities, law enforcement agencies, businesses, and volunteers.
RHYA Projects Raise the Achievement Level of Unaccompanied Youth. The last federally-funded evaluations of the Basic Center Program and the Transitional Living Program found that they produced positive outcomes for participating youth in the following areas:
- Basic center youth reported lessened rates of family conflict and parental physical abuse.
- Transitional living youth reported that the program helped them better manage communication and maintain positive relationships with their families.
- School participation among basic center youth doubled after basic center services commenced, compared to the participation rate 30 days prior to accessing a basic center.
- The proportion of youth in transitional living projects attending college was three times that of homeless youth who were not in a TLP.
- Employment rates of youth in basic centers increased by 24 percent.
- 60 percent of transitional living youth were employed part-time or full-time, compared to 41 percent of homeless youth not participating in a TLP.
Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) programs have the purposes of preventing victimization and ensuring basic safety of unaccompanied children and youth and ensuring youths’ access to family reunification, housing, education, employment training, health care, and other social services.
The RHYA Basic Center Program provides grants to community-based, faith-based, and public organizations to support family strengthening efforts, including counseling, home-based services for families with children at risk of separation from the family, and emergency and respite shelter (no greater than 21 days) for youth under the age of 18. The average age of children entering a basic center is 15 years. In FY 2006 328 BCP grantees supported 37,648 children and youth at an average cost of $1,282 in federal funds per young person.
The RHYA Transitional Living Program provides grants to community-based, faith-based, and public organizations to support longer-term residential services (up to 21 months) and life skill supports to youth ages 16 through 21 who are unable to return home safely. TLPs assist youth in successfully transitioning into responsible adulthood and self-sufficiency and connecting them to education, workforce, and other supports. The average age of youth entering a transitional living project is 18 years, eight months. In FY 2006 207 TLP grantees supported 2,683 youth at an average cost of $14,726 in federal funds per youth. This program includes maternity group homes, which are residential arrangements for pregnant and parenting youth who are fleeing from abusive homes. Maternity group homes assist these youth in accessing housing, prenatal care, parenting classes, child care, and educational services.
The RHYA Street Outreach Program provides grants to community-based and faith-based organizations to support street-based outreach and education to homeless children and youth who have been sexually abused or who are at risk of commercial sexual exploitation. In FY 2006 140 SOP grantees reached 402,207 youth at an average cost of $37 in federal funds per contact.
The Runaway and Homeless Youth Act also authorizes funds for the National Runaway Switchboard, a national communications system for runaway youth and their families; training and technical assistance for grantees; an information clearinghouse; a management information system; research and evaluation; and peer monitoring of grantees.
Congress first enacted the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act in 1974 as Title III of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.
Watch videos of media coverage on our media page | {
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Strapped And Stretched, Non-Profits Struggle To Defend Immigrant Minors
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
While the president figures out his next move on immigration, the administration says the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the Southwest border is declining. For the tens of thousands who've already crossed, their deportation hearings have been accelerated. And as NPR's Richard Gonzales reports, that's posing another challenge. There's a shortage of pro bono lawyers to handle their cases.
RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: Outside the immigration court in San Francisco, a group of young volunteer attorneys prepare to go inside to meet with dozens of migrant kids at their first deportation hearing.
CLAIRE FAWCETT: There's no one to represent these people. In immigration proceedings, you have a right to an attorney, but you have to pay for your attorney. So most of the minors that are coming are living with family members here, but they're very low income.
GONZALES: Claire Fawcett is an attorney with the Oakland-based Centro Legal de la Raza. She and her colleagues will offer the minors and their families free, on the spot advice about their rights in court.
FAWCETT: We're trying to give them as much help as we can up front and then trying to refer their cases to organizations that can help them.
GONZALES: Inside the court, the volunteer attorneys advise one man who's there with his 16 old son. After a few minutes, the judge, Carol A. King, greets him and several other families in Spanish. She reassures them they will get a fair hearing. The man nods with appreciation. Although recording in court is not allowed, afterward the man tells me that his son fled El Salvador in June after gangsters made him this offer - join us or die. Still, he is relieved because the judge told him he must return for another hearing in October, which might buy him time to find a lawyer. But that's the tricky part. Immigration is a specialized legal field and with the unprecedented number of asylum-seekers, it's getting harder to find an attorney. Bianca Sierra Wolff is the executive director of Centro Legal de la Raza. She says nonprofit legal groups like hers are seeing their caseloads double overnight.
BIANCA SIERRA WOLFF: And it's flabbergasting. The people who are providing the services are your nonprofits. We're already strapped. We're not getting funding from the government. And yet we are the ones who are really at the forefront responding to this crisis.
GONZALES: Compounding the problem is the pace at which these hearings are held. Typically, asylum claims can take up to a year to get to court. Now, immigration judges are instructed to hold deportation hearings within 21 days. Critics call it fast-tracking.
DANA LEIGH MARKS: We know of the political reality that is putting pressure on the administration to hear these cases quickly.
GONZALES: Dana Leigh Marks is the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. Last week, she urged the administration to stop fast-tracking deportation hearing. Marks says when attorneys represent noncitizens, asylum claims are better prepared and researched and the process moves more quickly. Although the minors have a right to an attorney, they must hire their own. And government data shows without a lawyer, nine out of 10 unrepresented minors were deported or left voluntarily over the past 10 years. The White House recognizes the lawyer shortage problem. Last week, Vice President Joe Biden told an audience of constitutional scholars and immigration activists that he hopes some private law firms will step up and offer more pro bono help.
VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: We need lawyers. We need trained lawyers to determine whether or not these kids meet the criteria for refugee status.
GONZALES: The White House has proposed hiring more judges and funding direct legal services, but there's no consensus in Congress how to move forward. Richard Gonzales, NPR News, San Francisco. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | {
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NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — The New York Police Department has secretly labeled entire mosques as terrorism organizations, a designation that allows police to use informants to record sermons and spy on imams, often without specific evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
Designating an entire mosque as a terrorism enterprise means that anyone who attends prayer services there is a potential subject of an investigation and fair game for surveillance.
Since the 9/11 attacks, the NYPD has opened at least a dozen “terrorism enterprise investigations” into mosques, according to interviews and confidential police documents. The TEI, as it is known, is a police tool intended to help investigate terrorist cells and the like.
Many TEIs stretch for years, allowing surveillance to continue even though the NYPD has never criminally charged a mosque or Islamic organization with operating as a terrorism enterprise.
The documents show in detail how, in its hunt for terrorists, the NYPD investigated countless innocent New York Muslims and put information about them in secret police files. As a tactic, opening an enterprise investigation on a mosque is so potentially invasive that while the NYPD conducted at least a dozen, the FBI never did one, according to interviews with federal law enforcement officials.
The strategy has allowed the NYPD to send undercover officers into mosques and attempt to plant informants on the boards of mosques and at least one prominent Arab-American group in Brooklyn, whose executive director has worked with city officials, including Bill de Blasio, a front-runner for mayor.
The revelations about the NYPD’s massive spying operations are in documents recently obtained by The Associated Press and part of a new book, “Enemies Within: Inside the NYPD’s Secret Spying Unit and bin Laden’s Final Plot Against America.” The book by AP reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman is based on hundreds of previously unpublished police files and interviews with current and former NYPD, CIA and FBI officials.
“This is unprecedented in American law enforcement to target a house of worship as a criminal enterprise,” Goldman told WCBS 880’s Marla Diamond. “What they did is they would establish something called a terrorism enterprise investigation and we’ve actually seen the predicate for some of these investigations, which are very slim. Some of it’s just guilt by association.”
The disclosures come as the NYPD is fighting off lawsuits accusing it of engaging in racial profiling while combating crime. Earlier this month, a judge ruled that the department’s use of the stop-and-frisk tactic was unconstitutional.
The American Civil Liberties Union and two other groups have sued, saying the Muslim spying programs are unconstitutional and make Muslims afraid to practice their faith without police scrutiny.
Both Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly have denied those accusations. They say police do not unfairly target people; they only follow leads.
The NYPD released a statement to that effect Wednesday evening, defending its policies and emphasizing individuals are the focus of terrorism investigations.
“‘Terrorism Enterprise Investigation’ is a term used in the Federal Court-ordered Handschu Guidelines as a category of investigative activity. We strictly follow those guidelines, and we follow leads wherever they take us – including, at times, into a facility,” the statement said. “Our investigative focus, though, is and always has been on individuals – not institutions – who have engaged in, are engaged in, or are planning to engage in unlawful conduct. Our investigations are supervised, ethical and constitutional. We have kept New York City safe from terrorism for over a decade, and have a responsibility to continue to do so.”
And in a television appearance on Wednesday, Kelly blasted the book.
“A fair amount of fiction. It’ll be half-truths, it’ll be lot of quotes from unnamed sources,” the police commissioner said.
He said the intelligence gathering in the wake of 9/11 has kept the city safe from another terror attack, adding that confidential informants do not enter a mosque unless they are following up on a lead.
“We don’t investigate locations,” Kelly said. “We investigate people.”
An NYPD spokesman declined to comment.
“We try to keep this city safe,” Bloomberg said Wednesday. The practice is “totally consistent with what the laws require.”
USE OF INFORMANTS
The NYPD did not limit its operations to collecting information on those who attended the mosques or led prayers. The department sought also to put people on the boards of New York’s Islamic institutions to fill intelligence gaps.
One confidential NYPD document shows police wanted to put informants in leadership positions at mosques and other organizations, including the Arab American Association of New York in Brooklyn, a secular social-service organization.
Linda Sarsour, the executive director, said her group helps new immigrants adjust to life in the U.S. It was not clear whether the department was successful in its plans.
The document, which appears to have been created around 2009, was prepared for Kelly and distributed to the NYPD’s debriefing unit, which helped identify possible informants.
Around that time, Kelly was handing out medals to the Arab American Association’s soccer team, Brooklyn United, smiling and congratulating its players for winning the NYPD’s soccer league.
Sarsour, a Muslim who has met with Kelly many times, said she felt betrayed.
Sarsour attended a rally Wednesday outside NYPD headquarters in Manhattan, where Muslims called for the Department of Justice to investigate what they believe is unwarranted surveillance of their community, WCBS 880′s Marla Diamond reported.
THE HANDSCHU CASE
Before the NYPD could target mosques as terrorist groups, it had to persuade a federal judge to rewrite rules governing how police can monitor speech protected by the First Amendment.
The rules stemmed from the the Handschu case mentioned in the NYPD statement — a 1971 lawsuit filed by lead plaintiff Barbara Handschu, over how the NYPD spied on protesters and liberals during the Vietnam War era.
David Cohen, a former CIA executive who became NYPD’s deputy commissioner for intelligence in 2002, said the old rules didn’t apply to fighting against terrorism.
Cohen told the judge that mosques could be used “to shield the work of terrorists from law enforcement scrutiny by taking advantage of restrictions on the investigation of First Amendment activity.”
NYPD lawyers proposed a new tactic, the TEI, that allowed officers to monitor political or religious speech whenever the “facts or circumstances reasonably indicate” that groups of two or more people were involved in plotting terrorism or other violent crime.
The judge rewrote the Handschu rules in 2003. In the first eight months under the new rules, the NYPD’s Intelligence Division opened at least 15 secret terrorism enterprise investigations, documents show. At least 10 targeted mosques.
Doing so allowed police, in effect, to treat anyone who attends prayer services as a potential suspect. Sermons, ordinarily protected by the First Amendment, could be monitored and recorded.
Among the mosques targeted as early as 2003 was the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge.
“I have never felt free in the United States. The documents tell me I am right,” Zein Rimawi, one of the Bay Ridge mosque’s leaders, said after reviewing an NYPD document describing his mosque as a terrorist enterprise.
Rimawi, 59, came to the U.S. decades ago from Israel’s West Bank.
“Ray Kelly, shame on him,” he said. “I am American.”
SURVEILLANCE OF MASJID AL-FAROOQ
The NYPD believed the tactics were necessary to keep the city safe, a view that sometimes put it at odds with the FBI.
In August 2003, Cohen asked the FBI to install eavesdropping equipment inside a mosque called Masjid al-Farooq, including its prayer room.
Al-Farooq had a long history of radical ties. Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian sheik who was convicted of plotting to blow up New York City landmarks, once preached briefly at Al-Farooq. Invited preachers raged against Israel, the United States and the Bush administration’s war on terror.
One of Cohen’s informants said an imam from another mosque had delivered $30,000 to an al-Farooq leader, and the NYPD suspected the money was for terrorism.
But Amy Jo Lyons, the FBI assistant special agent in charge for counterterrorism, refused to bug the mosque. She said the federal law wouldn’t permit it.
The NYPD made other arrangements. Cohen’s informants began to carry recording devices into mosques under investigation. They hid microphones in wristwatches and the electronic key fobs used to unlock car doors.
Even under a TEI, a prosecutor and a judge would have to approve bugging a mosque. But the informant taping was legal because New York law allows any party to record a conversation, even without consent from the others. Like the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, the NYPD never demonstrated in court that al-Farooq was a terrorist enterprise but that didn’t stop the police from spying on the mosques for years.
And under the new Handschu guidelines, no one outside the NYPD could question the secret practice.
Martin Stolar, one of the lawyers in the Handschu case, said it’s clear the NYPD used enterprise investigations to justify open-ended surveillance. The NYPD should only tape conversations about building bombs or plotting attacks, he said.
“Every Muslim is a potential terrorist? It is completely unacceptable,” he said. “It really tarnishes all of us and tarnishes our system of values.”
Al-Ansar Center, a windowless Sunni mosque, opened in Brooklyn several years ago, attracting young Arabs and South Asians. NYPD officers feared the mosque was a breeding ground for terrorists, so informants kept tabs on it.
One NYPD report noted that members were fixing up the basement, turning it into a gym.
“They also want to start Jiujitsu classes,” it said.
The NYPD was particularly alarmed about Mohammad Elshinawy, 26, an Islamic teacher at several New York mosques, including Al-Ansar. Elshinawy was a Salafist — a follower of a puritanical Islamic movement — whose father was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, according to NYPD documents.
The FBI also investigated whether Elshinawy recruited people to wage violent jihad overseas. But the two agencies investigated him very differently.
The FBI closed the case after many months without any charges. Federal investigators never infiltrated Al-Ansar.
“Nobody had any information the mosque was engaged in terrorism activities,” a former federal law enforcement official recalled, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the investigation.
The NYPD wasn’t convinced. A 2008 surveillance document described Elshinawy as “a young spiritual leader (who) lectures and gives speeches at dozens of venues” and noted, “He has orchestrated camping trips and paintball trips.”
The NYPD deemed him a threat in part because “he is so highly regarded by so many young and impressionable individuals.”
No part of Elshinawy’s life was out of bounds. His mosque was the target of a TEI. The NYPD conducted surveillance at his wedding. An informant recorded the wedding and police videotaped everyone who came and went.
“We have nothing on the lucky bride at this time but hopefully will learn about her at the service,” one lieutenant wrote.
Four years later, the NYPD was still watching Elshinawy without charging him. He is now a plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit against the NYPD.
“These new NYPD spying disclosures confirm the experiences and worst fears of New York’s Muslims,” ACLU lawyer Hina Shamsi said. “From houses of worship to a wedding, there’s no area of New York Muslim religious or personal life that the NYPD has not invaded through its bias-based surveillance policy.”
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(TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.) | {
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In the parish of old Rockaway were resident many years before and after the Revolution prominent families in the history of Morris County by the name of Conger. Were it not for the "resurrecting Angels," as local genealogists have been frequently called, and names on the monuments, and old church records, the present and future generations, would not know that the name existed, for, as far as I know, the name is now extinct in the parish of Rockaway.
"Three generations and off" an old adage frequently applied to land holders, may not strictly be applied to this family. There are many old Conger houses, I attach the name "old," as but few are still standing in the old parish of Rockaway. The most prominent, is the old Conger Tavern, built many years before the Revolution by Zenas Conger, carpenter, located and known at present as the Colwell house. It was a palatial mansion in its day, and it is related that Washington and his staff took dinner there when on a visit to Gen. William Winds who lived near by.
Another small house at Rockaway on Franklin avenue, was known as a Conger house, and has a date 1768 cut upon the stone chimney, now covered with siding of a modern date. Another occupied the spot where the harness store of C. Kropaczeroski is now located, but the original building, the "house of David" and of Elder Thomas, has been long since torn down. No effort has been made to preserve the old land marks, and as they become dilapidated by old age, they become an eye sore to the community and were torn down, to give place for a more modern structure. There is something in the style of these Colonial buildings, that does not seem to be appreciated by modern architects.
For many years I have been collecting Conger data, and by the aid of many who bear the Conger name, or are related, and have spent many years, perhaps a life-time, in collecting family history need not be told, I am enabled to present to the readers of the Rockaway Record, some of the data relating to Morris County history, and of the Rockaway parish.
To make this interesting by a shadow of mystery. I will only hint of the usual three brothers tradition who came to America, and that one of the members of a Morris County family removed, and in his later years become immensely wealthy, and without heirs, and that a large fortune awaits the nearest of kin, or that in a research in Canada finds relatives claiming descent from Morris County families that exhibited Royal opinions at some time. That would be just like Rockaway in the Revolution to exile any member of a community that ever expressed a non-patriotic opinion, where every man and every woman were intensely patriotic, and no family living here at that time but had its representative in the Cause of Freedom. This line of ardent patriotism extended to the Civil war, when it has been said, fully one third of the whole adult population, capable of bearing arms, enlisted in the service, and of these one of every three never returned alive.
The Conger's claimed no exemption here in Revolutionary days, as the long list of those who served show. This is only a matter of history, genealogy will prove it true.
The Koniger's were French Huguenots from the province of Alsace, who, persecuted fro religious opinions, tradition has that they emigrated to Holland, and from thence to England, near the borderland of Wales, and from thence the original John, his wife Mary, and one son Enos, emigrated to America, and finally settled at Woodbridge, Middlesex Co. N.J. in the later part of 1667. His land grant for 170 acres dated Nov. 18, 1669. He and his wife Mary became members of the Presbyterian church at Woodbridge May 12, 1709. His will dated Jan. 11, 1710, and was probated Oct. 7, 1712, died probably, Sept. 1712.
Children—Enos, born in England about 1666, died Nov. 21, 1689; Sarah, born at Woodbridge, Jan, 1668; Joannah born, Aug. 1670; John, born May 24, 1674, came to Hanover Township, Morris Co. had wife Hannah or Sarah Tuttle, will dated 1768, Elizabeth, born Jan. 1, 1678; Lediah, born, Jan. 1, 1679; Jonathan, born Nov. 29, 1683, died May 8, 1733; Gershom, born about 1685; Joseph, born May 17, 1692; Job, born June 9, 1694, located at Rahway, N.J. will 1758; Rachel born, May 12, 1696; :Lydia, born Apr. 28, 1698.
Children of John who came to Morris Co. Joseph, was member of Committee of Safety 1776, and member of Rockaway church 1779, had children James and Rhoda. John; Stephen, member of Rockaway church 1781; Zenas, member of Rockaway Church 1775, was member of Capt. Josiah Hall's Company at Denville, Thomas; David; James; Sarah and Phebe.
Children of Zenas; David, born Sept. 7, 1760, married Elizabeth Ayres, daughter of Robert and Anna (Jackson) Ayres. He was Minute-man and Captain of Militia, died Jan. 20, 1807, was church member 1793. Stephen; Thomas, married Lydia, daughter of David Beaman, was Elder of church, died Dec. 31, 1831. He was blacksmith and silversmith, and maker of edged tools at Rockaway. Abijah, tradition is he went South. There were probably other children of this family.
Children of Capt. David—Stephen, born, Oct. 14, 1783, married (1) Mary Halsey daughter of David F. Halsey, Jan. 18, 1806, (2) Phebe Dayton. He was Justice of Court, lived at the house of his grandfather, Zenas, died there Apr. 4, 1853. John born Jan. 29, 1785 went to New York City when a young man, was an edged tool maker died Feb. 10, 1862. David, removed in 1808; Anna, born Aug. 23, 1788, married George Stickle Jr. of Rockaway, died Feb. 10, 1877. Abijah, born about 1790, was teacher, carpenter and distiller at Franklin, removed to Tennessee. Delia, born June 1803, married John B. Kelsey, went with Abijah to Tenn., returned to Rockaway and died Oct. 1, 1880. Elizabeth, married Abijah Abbott, and had sons John, Stephen, Ira and others. Removed. There may be other children of this family.
Children of Judge Stephen, Elvira born Nov. 20, 1808, died Nov. 5, 1811; Anson, born Nov. 3, 1810, died Sept. 28, 1811; Phebe Halsey, born Jan. 16, 1813, married Edward L. Dayton Oct. 17, 1833; Eliza, born May 14, 1815, died June 27, 1834; Henry Halsey, born Aug. 11, 1817 married Jane I. DeCamp, daughter of Chillion F. Mary Frost, born Sept. 12, 1819, married Luther F. Stowell, June 20, 1839, died Jan. 29, 1854; John Frost, born Jan. 28, 1822, married Bye Hall, May 18, 1858, died June 5, 1873; Clarissa Halsey, born Nov. 13, 1824, married Thomas J. Organ, Sept. 22, 1848, died May 17, 1863. Ann Elizabeth, born Jan. 16, 1829, died Apr. 2, 1833; Samuel L. S. born 1821, died in Cal.
A tribe of Benjamin Conger, settled at or near Morristown, N.J. who was, in the Samuel H. Congar notes of the Newark families, a son of the original John, the Morristown records have the same origin, Woodbridge records do not have this Benjamin. The genealogical question, whose son was he? He had children, Daniel, Enoch, Simeon, Benjamin, Elizabeth, Noah, David and Lydia. Many of the sons served in the Revolution.
The path of the genealogist is like that of the Indian tradition in the Spirit Land, filled with briers and brambles and now and then a lion or some savage beast to confront him, to those interested, and have data, please write me and remove the many obstacles that the path may be clear to the journey's end.
This page was last modified on: 01 January, 2014
Copyright ©1999-2014 by Brianne Kelly-Bly, all rights reserved. | {
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Teach your young academic about counting and clocks with a tasty treat! Part lesson, part recipe, these yummy cookies are a delicious way to talk about Roman numerals, telling time and using measurements.
What You Need:
- ½ pound butter, softened
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tablespoon corn starch
- ½ cup sugar
- Food processor
- Non-stick cookie sheet
- Colored sugar crystals
- Roman numerals worksheet
What You Do:
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- While the oven heats, show your young helper the worksheet about Roman Numerals.
- Help your child place the butter, flour, sugar and corn starch in the bowl of the food processor.
- Let him pulse the food processor until the mixture is well blended. It will look crumbly unlike bread dough which forms into a ball.
- Dump the mixture out on the baking stone or cookie sheet.
- Encourage your child to pat it into a large circle approximately 3/4 inch thick.
- Now use the fork to prick the Roman Numerals into the dough. Shortbread is traditionally pricked with a fork before baking; this time it is simply being done in a set pattern. Don’t forget to add the hands on the clock.
- Let your child sprinkle colored sugar into the holes left by the fork.
- Bake the shortbread in a preheated oven for 30 minutes or until it begins to lightly brown around the edges.
- Once cooled, shortbread can be cut or simply broken apart to be shared with family and friends who have gathered together to celebrate the luck of a New Year. | {
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Get ready for the biggest platform game ever made in flash!
- 4 unique worlds spread over 12 levels
- Exclusive composed orchestrated music
- 5 cool super powers!
- An impressive final boss battle like you never played it before in flash!
Please let me know the things you would like to see improved in the sequel?
What kind of new super powers do you want to use?
It's kind of arcade-ish and reminds me of (pac-man world and) Super mario bros 3 for GBA. Feedback and ideas for the next one 1. the game is not animated. How about animating the walking,jumping and stuf like that. 2. you should beable to double jump looking.Like sonic when he jumps. 3.you shoud have combo moves in the game like in crash of the titans (crash bandicoot game lol). 4. the plot is to dumb they should try killing everybody. 5. it should have blood. 6 the last level should take place in space. 7. you can choose the coler of his: cape,his nose and that thing on his chest when you start the game. 8. you don't need powers to attack. 9. the first level should be a training level. 10. the game is for kids like 6 and 5 i'm nine so I can tell try makeing it less baby-ish. Ps.that game was weird.
First off, great job to whoever made the music for the game. The music reminded me of old epic games like Mystic Quest and the like.
Now for the game itself: Very reminiscent of Mario, which is not necessarily a bad thing as that has been one of the best formulas ever created (other then beer lol). The super power mechanic was a nice touch as sending kitties flying is great fun. Now the colours were probably the weakest part of the movie because they were to bright and vibrant, it acted as too much of a distraction to the main game.
Suggestions for next time:
Dull the colours - Not too bright and not to dark, just the right balance
Keep the composer - Seriously why doesn't he have an award
Lasers - A laser eye superpower pl0x? Fried Kitty anyone lol
So cute I almost puked!!!
This game was so frikin cute that it almost hurt my eyes. It is very slow paced and not for me. But.......this game is perfect for young children and if that is your target audience than, three cheers for a perrrrrfect game!!!!
this game kind of sucks
graphics were to cute for me and the time limit on the powers sucks
i liked it
it was pretty shweet!
Shoot swords, teleport and don't mess with the turtles
Join Marko Sharko on his first detective case!
Jump through a bustling cat city collecting fish for points.
newgrounds.com — Your #1 online entertainment & artist community! All your base are belong to us. | {
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Jack Gantos has won the 2012 Newbery Medal for Dead End in Norvelt (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), his semiautobiographical tale of a boy growing up in a Pennsylvania town created during the Great Depression; the book was edited by Wesley Adams. Chris Raschka has won the 2012 Randolph Caldecott Medal for A Ball for Daisy (Random/Schwartz & Wade), a wordless story of an emotive dog’s busy day with a beloved red ball; it was edited by Lee Wade. And John Corey Whaley has won the 2011 Michael L. Printz Award for Where Things Come Back (S&S/Atheneum), edited by Namrata Tripathi. The awards, which are the country's most prestigious awards for children's books, were announced Monday morning at the American Library Association’s midwinter conference in Dallas.
It was the first Newbery Award for Gantos; he had previously won a Newbery Honor for Joey Pigza Loses Control and a Printz Honor for Hole in My Life. Raschka previously won the 2006 Caldecott Medal for The Hello, Goodbye Window, written by Norton Juster; he also won a 1994 Caldecott Honor for Yo! Yes? And Where Things Come Back is John Corey Whaley’s first novel; he also won this year's 2012 William C. Morris Debut YA Novel Award.
Two Newbery Honor Books were named: Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai (HarperCollins); and Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin (Henry Holt).
There were three Caldecott Honor Books: Blackout by John Rocco (Disney-Hyperion); Grandpa Green by Lane Smith (Roaring Brook); and Me... Jane, by Patrick McDonnell (Little, Brown).
Four Printz Honors were given: Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler, illustrated by Maira Kalman (Little, Brown); The Returning by Christine Hinwood (Dial); Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey (Knopf); and The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic Press).
The Robert F. Sibert Award for the most distinguished informational book for children went to Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet (Houghton Mifflin). There were four Sibert Honors: Black & White: The Confrontation Between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor by Larry Dane Brimner(Boyds Mills/Calkins Creek); Drawing from Memory by Allen Say (Scholastic Press); The Elephant Scientist by Caitlin O’Connell and Donna M. Jackson, photographs by Caitlin O’Connell and Timothy Rodwell (Houghton Mifflin); and Witches!: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem by Rosalyn Schanzer (National Geographic).
The YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults went to The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery by Steve Sheinkin (Roaring Brook/Flash Point).
The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for beginning reader books went to Tales for Very Picky Eaters by Josh Schneider (Clarion). There were three Geisel Honor Books: I Broke My Trunk by Mo Willems (Hyperion); I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen (Candlewick); and See Me Run by Paul Meisel (Holiday House).
The 2012 Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime contribution in writing for young adults was given to Susan Cooper, and Michael Morpurgo was chosen to deliver the 2012 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture.
Author, illustrator, and storyteller Ashley Bryan won the Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Kadir Nelson won the Coretta Scott King Author award for Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray), and Shane W. Evans won the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for Underground: Finding the Light to Freedom (Roarding Brook/Neal Porter).
Two King Author Honor Books were selected: The Great Migration: Journey to the North by Eloise Greenfield, illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist (HarperCollins/Amistad); and Never Forgotten by Patricia C. McKissack, illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon (Random/Schwartz & Wade).
The Mildred L. Batchelder Award for best work of translation went to Soldier Bear by Bibi Dumon Tak, illustrated by Philip Hopman, translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson (Eerdmans). There was one Batchelder Honor book: The Lily Pond by Annika Thor, translated from the Swedish by Linda Schenck (Delacorte).
The 2011 Stonewall Children's and Young Adult Literature Award, for English-language children's and young adult books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered experience, went to Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy by Bil Wright (Simon & Schuster). Four Honor Books were chosen: a + e 4ever by Ilike Merey ( Lethe Press); Money Boy by Paul Yee (Groundwood); Pink by Lili Wilkinson (HarperTeen); and with or without you by Brian Farrey (Simon Pulse).
The Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production went to Listening Library, producer of Rotters by Daniel Kraus, narrated by Kirby Heyborne.
Four Odyssey Honor audiobooks were chosen: Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri, narrated by JD Jackson (Brilliance Audio); Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt, narrated by Lincoln Hoppe (Listening Library); The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, narrated by Steve Westand Fiona Hardingham (Scholastic Audiobooks);and Young Fredle by Cynthia Voigt, narrated by Wendy Carter (Listening Library).
The Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in children’s video went to Paul R. Gagne and Melissa Reilly Ellard of Weston Woods, producers of Children Make Terrible Pets, based on the book by Peter Brown, narrated by Emily Eiden, with music by Jack Sundrud and Rusty Young, and animation by Soup2Nuts. Weston’s Woods’ production of Peter Brown’s The Curious Garden won last year’s Carnegie Medal.
The Schneider Family Book Award winners, for books that embody an artistic expression of the disability experience, are: Close to Famous by Joan Bauer (Viking) for best middle school book; and Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick (Scholastic Press) for best teen book. The jury chose not to award a book in the children’s category.
Duncan Tonatiuh, author and illustrator of Diego Rivera: His World and Ours (Abrams) won the Pura Belpré Illustrator Award, honoring a Latino llustrator whose children’s books best portray, affirm and celebrate the Latino cultural experience. Guadalupe Garcia McCall, author of Under the Mesquite (Lee & Low), won the Pura Belpré Author Award, for a Latino writer whose children’s books best portray, affirm and celebrate the Latino cultural experience.
There were two Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor Books: The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred, illustrated by Rafael López, written by Samantha R. Vamos (Charlesbridge); and Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match/Marisol McDonald no combina, illustrated by Sara Palacios, written by Monica Brown (Children’s Book Press).
Two Pura Belpré Author Honor books were named: Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck by Margarita Engle (Henry Holt); and Maximilian and the Mystery of the Guardian Angel: A Bilingual Lucha Libre Thriller by Xavier Garza (Cinco Puntos Press).
For interviews with Jack Gantos, Chris Raschka, and John Corey Whaley, on where they were when they got "the call," click here. | {
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By Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
Mao Zedong once famously chided a group of young loyalists, saying, “You say you want to make a revolution, but you don’t know where the bourgeoisie is! The bourgeoisie is in the party!” Similarly, I have long wanted to see an “anti-systemic” movement and struggle (to use my old professor, the iconic Immanuel Wallerstein’s concept) but have not known where the most “anti-systemic” element is, in this country. That is until now. But I have changed.
I have had an epiphany. It has dawned on me that the most radical political leader in the country is not Kumara Gunaratnam or KD Lal Kantha, but Ranil Wickremesinghe, and the most dangerously radical political party is not the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) or the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) but the United National Party (UNP). Is green the new red?
There isn’t a single thing that the three divided streams of the once united JVP propose—and I refer to Anura Kumara’s JVP, Kumar Gunaratnam’s FSP and Wimal Weerawansa’s NFF—that comes even close to wreaking the havoc that the UNP’s present political practices and policy postures are about to inflict upon stability and the System. I’m not joking.
As the song went, “what’s it all about, Alfie?” It’s about retro chic, really. It’s like miniskirts are back in fashion. The UNP’s old behaviour is back on display.
The rhetoric and practices of the UNP leadership show that it is preparing for a showdown with the student movement and the trade union movement led variously by the Frontline Socialists and the JVP.
This preparation for confrontation all around the compass takes place in a context rather different from the 1980s, though—and it is the context that renders the outcome more inevitably incendiary than in the 1980s. At that time the economy was growing fast, all factions of the ruling elite (JR, Lalith, Gamini, Premadasa) had developmental ideas and initiatives, employment was rapidly generated, the place was generally prosperous though war-torn, and political stability assured by the new, presidential Constitution. Today, none of those plus factors are present, while their opposites are.
In an incredible imitation of the past, the PM and his UNP are reviving student radicalism on a mass scale. In the first years of the Jayewardene administration, Wijeweera, the JVP and the university student movement under the latter’s control were quite well-behaved. The trouble started in Kelaniya when UNP goons attacked students, the latter hit back; a goon died and the present PM was at the time a UNP chieftain in Kelaniya.
Then in 1980 Ranil followed up in his capacity of Minister of Education, with a typically bright idea: the White Paper on Education. The student movement rose out of the universities on to the streets, and the repression –including abductions to Sirikotha, baton charging by mounted Police and lethal shooting in 1984—turned the student movement into something like Daenerys’ dragons in ‘Game of Thrones’. Now Mr. Wickremesinghe is back, the UNP is back postponing scheduled elections and it’s “déjà vu all over again”.
As for the stability necessary for a propitious climate of investment, foreign and domestic, nothing is quite as tricky as removing your existing Constitution and replacing it with a whole new one which requires a referendum, and you don’t have a two thirds majority of your own while your own coalition partners are fighting a rear guard action against the entire idea!
The UNP’s present foreign policy is also a throwback to its grand follies of the 1980s which were savagely criticized at the time by Mervyn de Silva. Reading his words, one finds oneself on a time machine, except that the time is now and the “grand illusions” (as he called them) of yesteryear are those which govern our external relations today.
“… The elite presented other bizarre exhibitions of helplessness, bewilderment and naiveté that were soon to be imitated by the middle class intelligentsia. Various theories were put forward like “the Pakistanis are sure to help us…”, “the Marines will come…”, “for God’s sake give them Trinco”, and finally, “the Chinese are bound to come…”
…The island’s nodal position in the Indian ocean and of course Trincomalee, nourished the comforting conviction that Sri Lanka was the hub of the universe, and we ourselves a coveted prize that major external powers (external to the region) with their substantial global and regional interests, will only be too eager to pacify even at the risk of their demonstrably larger interests.
Trinco, the Indian Ocean, the Indo-Soviet Treaty, the Afghanistan crisis, the Gulf War—chanted our middle class intelligentsia. Their innermost thoughts of security, their confident and cherished assumptions of timely rescue and ultimate salvation, voiced with a rowdy exhibitionism by the new exponents of “real” foreign policy and new look nonalignment a la Kirkpatrick, have now been revealed as naive assumptions. These were yesterday’s grand illusions.” (Mervyn de Silva, Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Problem, Center for Society and Religion, October 1984)
As PM in 2001-2004, Mr. Wickremesinghe’s policies of appeasement were the cause and catalyst of a huge Sinhala nationalist backlash which drove the SLFP, JVP and JHU together and carried Mahinda Rajapaksa to the top. I have little doubt that, come the elections of 2019-2020, Mr. Wickremesinghe’s present stint will have resulted in yet another grateful Rajapaksa beneficiary, albeit one who is more ‘Putinist’ than his illustrious predecessor and elder sibling. | {
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Voluminous correspondence reflects every aspect of Carr's career with particular concentrations centered around farm and business interests, the Farmers' Alliance, and political activities. Early correspondence (1838-1842) from Carr's parents details family information and Carr's youth. Pre- and post-Civil War correspondence (1860-1888) is devoted almost exclusively to matters surrounding cotton production and sales, property control, dairying, and textile manufacturing. Late nineteenth century correspondence (1888-1898) reveals an increasingly prominent interest in farm organizations and Democratic Party political interests.
Early correspondence (1838-1842) is mostly from Elizabeth Jane Hilliard Carr to her sister, Tempy M. Williams, relaying weather, health, and family concerns. A letter from Jonas Johnston Carr hints at young Elias' life and the bilious fever that nearly claimed him.
Correspondence for 1860 through 1888 is primarily concerned with farm and business interests. The bulk of this material centers around Carr's cotton production and sales. Voluminous correspondence with various cotton merchants of the period reflects the depressed cotton market conditions; orders; drafts on account; charges for insurance, handling, and storage; the depressed European and Liverpool market; speculation demands and failures; bagging questions; closing of mills; and failure of some large houses. The merchants also request instructions, offer advice on sales, and forward possible advances and declines. Many of these letters contain financial statements, bills and receipts, and printed cotton market reports. The majority of the transactions are with A. T. Bruce and Co. of New York and later with Parker and Carr (W. C. Y. Parker and W. K. Carr, of Norfolk, Virginia). Carr was also involved in establishing a shipping company, The Tar River Navigation Company, to reduce shipping costs (1874).
Civil War era correspondence (1864-1865) concerns Carr and agricultural duties for the Confederate States. Private Elias Carr was exempt from military duty in 1864 as an agriculturalist. To fulfill his duty, Carr supplied agricultural products for the army. Correspondence with the Quarter Master and Subsistence Department concerns obligations and purchases of corn, oats, fodder, and meats.
Early post-Civil War correspondence concerns land purchases (1868); efforts to sell Carr's saw mill (1867); requests for loans; debt collections; problems with farm workers; a request for action by the Freedman's Bureau (1867); comments on farm production and the hard times for farmers; accounts of dairying and butter sales; supervision of the Swain plantation for David L. Swain and later for Swain's descendants, Smith D. Atkins and his daughters (1865-1887); and, politics and the "colored" voter (1868).
Personal correspondence for the period involves letters from family members primarily to Mrs. Elias Carr and requests for Carr genealogical material, including letters from Kemp P. Battle (1888). Correspondence from friends in the West contains comments on Missouri's growth, emigrants, railroad building, business and investment activities, and politics (1867-1868). Other letters comment on life in Arkansas (1879).
Late nineteenth century correspondence (1888-1898) increasingly concerns the workings of farm organizations and politics. Topics discussed for 1888-1889 concern Carr's activities with the Farmers' Association and as chairman of the Executive Committee of the N.C. State Farmers' Alliance. Early letters comment on opposition to the merging of the Farmers'Association and the Farmers' Alliance (1888), financial questions and constitutional rulings by Carr as chairman of the Executive Committee of the Alliance, the loss of labor in North Carolina to the West, and the need for the Executive Committee to meet after the legislature passes the Farmers' Alliance charter. More detailed discussions concern the work of the Farmers' Alliance and the founding of the State Business Agency. Correspondence on the Business Agency involves a proposed canvass directed by William A. Graham for the Business Agency Fund, the duties of the State Business Agent, the beginning of the agency, fears that the agency may fail, and the progress of the canvass and the Business Agency Fund. Numerous letters for the period also comment on the jute trust and the need for the Farmers' Alliance to select a substitute bagging for cotton. Carr became president of the N.C. State Farmers' Alliance in August, 1889, and voluminous correspondence after 1889 concerns constitutional rulings on cases of Sub and County Alliances, eligibility of prospective or present members, financial questions, requests for organizers and speakers, local disputes and cases within and between Sub and County Alliances, financial conditions, and general comments on the problems of the farmer and the role of the Alliance. Other letters comment on L. L. Polk's duties as president of the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union (1889), state Thomas J. Jarvis's view on the need for N.C. to work with the "black" laborer, and reflect the non-partisan role of the Farmers' Alliance.
The bulk of the 1890 correspondence concerns the N.C. Alliance and its activities under Carr's presidency. Letters comment on the unconstitutional tax on members by Sub and County Alliances to support local business agents, opposition to the Conger bill, and encouragement for "colored" and Cherokee Indian alliances. The Alliance was also involved in the political campaign of 1890, and correspondence deals with the congressional elections, Alliance support for candidates, opposition to Zebulon B. Vance for Senator due to his opposition to the Sub Treasury Plan, and the progress of Alliance candidates. Numerous letters comment on the conflict between the Farmers' Alliance and the Democratic Party and opposition to Third Party efforts in N.C. Carr was chairman of the State Democratic convention and worked in the campaign for the Democrats. He favored all candidates in and out of the Alliance who supported the farmer. After the election, correspondence discusses instructions for Vance and plans for an Alliance caucus in the state legislature.
Correspondence for 1890 also concerns the National Alliance under L. L. Polk. Letters comment on the national work, the growth of the Alliance, the need for organizers, and financial problems. Other correspondence comments on the need to collect dues to finance national work, the meeting of cotton states to favor cotton bagging, conflict over the Sub-Treasury Plan, the need for a national Alliance newspaper with local branches, and the conflict between Polk and Rittenhouse and between Rittenhouse and C. W. Macune in the national offices.
State and National Alliance issues continued to dominate the correspondence in 1891. State Alliance topics include the fight against Josephus Daniels for State Printer by anti-Alliance factions, appointments to the Railroad Commission, plans to consolidate all State Agencies and Alliance stores in a National Union Plan, the loss of subscribers and support for the
Progressive Farmer, work among the "colored" Alliances and their role within the Alliance, and the selection of Carr as delegate to the National Farmers' Congress in Missouri. State political topics deal with the growing dissatisfaction with Senator Vance and his instructions; the continuing conflict between the Alliance, the Democratic Party, and the Third Party effort; and the request for Carr to run for governor. One significant letter (May 22, 1891) by Carr reflects his view that the Alliance is not a political body, but is political in a higher sense by keeping the two parties in line with Alliance demands and reforms, an effort that is impossible with a Third Party.
National Farmers' Alliance topics for 1891 deal with the conflicts in the national office between Polk, C. W. Macune, and D. H. Rittenhouse; the work of the National Legislative Council for national financial reforms; the plans for an Alliance canvass in every congressional district and mass Alliance meetings in each state; and the need for a meeting of all farmers organizations. Political issues refer to the building strength of a Third Party effort, criticism of Polk for devoting too much interest to a Third Party, and Polk's threat of "an independent political action."
Democratic Party politics are of primary concern in the correspondence for 1892. Carr and other Alliancemen express opposition to the St. Louis platform of the Alliance. Resulting letters criticize Carr for his position, comment on the efforts of the
Progressive Farmer to read Carr out of the Alliance, and request Polk to explain why the tariff was left out of the platform. Democratic Party matters deal with the nomination of Carr as the Democratic Party candidate for N.C. governor and his reluctance to accept; Carr's stand on the Ocala platform; the conduct of the campaign; expressions of congratulations and support; the offer of services by Josephus Daniels; advice to Carr in the campaign; fears of a strong Third Party; and confusion over the intentions of Polk and the N.C. Alliance President, Marion Butler. Other letters comment on criticism of the
Progressive Farmer and the decline of support for that publication, charges against Marion Butler for violation of the Alliance, the appointment of a chairman of the State Democratic Party, and comments on the loss of prestige for the Alliance as a non-partisan organization.
With the beginning of Carr's term as governor (1893), North Carolina governmental affairs dominate the correspondence. Of major concern is the N.C. Shellfish Commission. Letters refer to criticism of the commissioners and their abuse of power, the importance of the oyster investment, and the detrimental oyster laws. Other matters deal with the reform bill for the N.C. penal system and its funds, the Railroad Commission, and plans for the transfer of the Virginia Dare statue to North Carolina. Correspondence also expresses apprehension for the future of the Democratic Party in N.C. and comments on the completion of the James Sprunt series on N.C. history, including studies on Civil War blockade runners.
Correspondence for 1894 deals primarily with political discussions and issues. Letters concern Thomas J. Jarvis's fears that he may be forced "to hide away" because of state conditions, efforts to save the N.C. Railroad from the income tax, criticism of Senator Ransom, and political issues such as a state bank and the tariff. One topic of interest is the conflict between Senator Vance and F. M. Simmons over Simmons's appointment and confirmation as Collector of the Eastern District of N.C. Other correspondence concerns Thomas J. Jarvis's appointment to the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of Vance. Letters from Jarvis report on the tariff, political problems, and the campaign of 1894. Letters also reflect the family conflict over Vance's burial site and N.C.'s efforts for a Vance Memorial. Numerous letters deal with the campaign of 1894 in N.C. Campaign topics include an offer by William J. Bryan to circulate his Omaha speech, reports on local tickets and campaigns, comments on the need for the legislature to decide on Vance's successor and end the Republican and Populist alliance, and comments on the Republican victory in 1894. Miscellaneous letters include discussions of the railroad issue, the state treasurer's report for 1893 and estimates for 1895 and 1896, copies of letters from Helen Keller, Carr's appointment as a delegate to the Sons of the Revolution meeting, and Walter Clark's proposal for completing the Colonial Records series started by Col. W. S. Saunders.
Smaller portions of the collection between 1888 and 1894 deal with numerous topics. Agricultural interest continues to be of great concern; and letters concern information on silo building (1889), a fertilizer dispute with Royster and Strudwick (1889-1890), tobacco production (1890), cotton seed production (1891), business affairs with commission merchants, cotton sales and the depressed cotton market (1889-1894), and peanut sales. Numerous letters involve the operation of Bracebridge Hall by Elias Carr, Jr., during Carr's administration (1892-1894). Agricultural correspondence for this period also concerns the management of the Swain plantation by Elias Carr and Elias Carr, Jr. (1888-1894) for Smith D. Atkins. Agricultural letters are further concerned with debt collections by Jacob Parker and W. C. Y. Parker for Elias Carr (1888-1894). In addition, discussions are given on the N.C. Experimental Station and its activities (1888-1890); the N.C. Geological Survey under J. A. Holmes (1891-1894); the work of the World's Columbian Exposition (1890-1891); and genealogical information on the Carr family by Walter Carr, Julian S. Carr, and T. W. Carr (1890-1891). Financial matters of the Rocky Mount Mills and its director are also given (1889-1894).
A significant portion of the correspondence for 1889-1894 concerns the political, financial, and social comments of Carr's son, W. K. Carr, in Washington, D.C. W. K. Carr comments on the Sub-Treasury Plan fight in Congress and Senator Vance's role(1890), the money scare in Washington, D.C. (1890), and national financial reform (1890-1894). W. K. Carr advised Elias Carr in his administration and wrote numerous speeches for his father (1892-1894). He also comments on the silver issue, the efforts of the Populist Party, and the appointment of Thomas J. Jarvis as Senator from N.C. (1892-1894).
The bulk of correspondence between 1895 and 1898 deals primarily with Democratic Party issues, and reflects concerns over N.C. railroads and the threat from the Republican Populist fusion. On the national level the 1896 Presidential election and the debate over free silver are the main topics of concern.
Conflicts over leasing the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad and the North Carolina Railroad Company dominate much of the 1895-1896 correspondence. Letters comment on the need to have leases signed in order to remove the railroads from politics, the term of years each lease should be, state interests in the N.C. Railroad Co., reluctance of out-of-state stockholders to agree to a lease, and questions over the legality of the lease made with the Atlantic and N.C. Railroad. Additional topics include prospective buyers for the Atlantic & N.C. Railroad (1896), the N.C. Railroad vs. Southern Railway Case (1898), and accusations against Governor Carr. Other items deal with various business interests, reports to the stockholders, appointing new directors, the selection of railroad commissioners, the original charter of the N.C. Railroad Co., and the desire of private stockholders to maintain the railroad's tax exempt status.
Democratic Party political topics discussed in the 1895-1898 correspondence include the death of Secretary of State Octavius Coke (1895) and his replacement, requests for appointments in several counties, and the Atlanta Exposition. Political correspondence deals primarily with problems within the Democratic Party and the threat of Republican rule. Letters refer to displeasure with the party, the Raleigh Silver Convention of September, 1895, debates over the Free Silver Issues, and criticism of Democrats "trading" over the Railroad commission (1898). Partisan attitudes are reflected in such items as a poem sent to Governor Carr entitled "A Satire on Fusion" (Dec., 1895), discussion of fusionist lack of thrift, a suit brought against the N.C. Railroad Co. by Republican Populist elements, Democratic complaints of losing their jobs, criticism of Governor Russell using illegal tactics, and comments concerning the need to draw up impeachment articles against Governor Russell (March, 1899).
Other N.C. governmental correspondence between 1895 and 1898 deals primarily with state institutions, education, and municipal improvements. Topics discussed include extending the electric lighting system in Raleigh; paving the streets near the Capitol (1895); appointing A. Leazar Superintendent of the Convict Farm; Governor Carr's support for state Normal and Industrial schools; and suggestions for a mutual aid program between the Penitentiary, Convict Farm and the Institution for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind to make them more self-supporting. Also of interest is a discussion of who should head the black A & M School in Greensboro (May 24, 1896) and comments on Baptist objections to state aid for the Oxford Orphan Asylum run by a Masonic Lodge (March, 1896).
A smaller portion of correspondence deals with National Politics. Various letters refer to the Democratic Presidential Convention; prospects of war with England (1895-1896); the scarcity of money (1897); the silver controversy; William Jennings Bryan's campaign; and opposition to Bryan's running mate (Aug., 1896).
Of particular note are W. K. Carr's commentaries and analysis of the silver issue. Between 1895-1896 several letters contain in-depth discussions of the economic arguments on both the silver and sound money sides of the issue. He refutes sound money arguments while sending a pamphlet which supported the gold standard.
From January to April 1896 the bulk of the correspondence deals with raising money for the Vance Memorial Fund. Innumerable letters pertain to details of Polk Miller's concert tour through North Carolina including the tour route, public relations, schedules, minutes of a meeting of the Vance Memorial Association, transportation, and arrangements for local managers in each town. Topics of particular interest pertain to Miller's performance and certain problems in the tour schedule such as competition by an evangelist, performing during Lent, and fears of small crowds on Saturday nights. One item of note is Sally Southall Cotten's letter (Feb. 26, 1896) in which she requests the use of the Governor's Mansion to read a poem on Virginia Dare.
Correspondence pertaining to agricultural problems and the Alliance deals with the plight of the farmer; low value placed on their crops; high costs and overproduction; distrust of business; and the ineffectiveness of the Alliance (1895-1896). Carr is asked to warn farmers about the Fertilizer Trust and its sway over the state chemist (June, 1897). Other topics include a charge against the Alliance of misusing funds (Sept., 1896) and the labor shortage in North Carolina. Also noted is the lack of reliable tenants; their destruction of farm land; and a preference for Scotch tenants, including an 1890 circular "North Carolina as a Home for Immigrants" (Jan. 11, 1899).
After Governor Carr moved back to Old Sparta in 1897, agricultural matters began to dominate the later correspondence. Agricultural interests relate to the continuing low prices for cotton and tobacco. Commentaries concern the advisability of growing peanuts; the public demand for certain crops (Jan., 1898); artesian well systems in Tarboro and Wilmington (April, 1899); and problems collecting rents.
Items of personal correspondence between 1895 and 1899 pertain to family genealogy, personal investments, and family matters.
Miscellaneous correspondence concerns a variety of topics, including Walter Clark's request for Carr to write a brief history of his Civil War regiment (April, 1895), a request for Carr's public endorsement of a mass rally on Freedom for Cuba, the indexing of the Colonial Records of North Carolina, and a detailed plan for colonizing westerners in the eastern part of North Carolina (Sept., 1895).
Correspondence (1899) is concerned mainly with farm matters, indicating the difficulty in getting white laborers, the disorder of the Bracebridge books and the dry humid weather. Of particular interest is a letter by J. Bryan Grimes (Jan. 11, 1899) related to the attraction of immigrants to eastern North Carolina, and a letter from State Geologist Joseph A. Holmes (April 13, 1899) on the feasibility of developing artesian wells near Tarboro, with comments on the troubles of the Clarendon Water Works of Wilmington. A more political letter from James W. Wilson (March 19, 1899) relates to the 1898 state congressional elections and contains commentary on Ben Aycock and the Goldsboro ring and the Russell-Mott-Daniels coalitions. Correspondence of a more personal nature reveals Carr's declining health, relations with his tenants, and his offer of a post on the Board of Education.
The correspondence (1900-1910) is primarily related to the proposed Carr-Battle lumber concern, including material on operations in Florida, the scarcity of cedar, shipping prices, and size specifications. Information on agricultural market conditions reflect cotton and tobacco prices (1902-1906). There is also commentary on the enthusiasm among Democrats in D.C. for the 1900 election, expressions of sympathy on the death of Carr, the genealogical information on the Carr and Blount families.
Undated correspondence is concerned with various topics, notably the Farmers' Alliance and the railroad leasing question. Material on the Alliance concerns proposals to reduce tobacco acreage and standardize warehouse charges, questions about dues and bonds, and reference to heavy opposition in the Winston-Salem area. Letters related to the railroad matter include one from James W. Wilson expressing fear of the results of leasing, and a telegram from A. B. Andrews warning Carr that the Russell crowd had filed an affidavit charging fraud in the leasing agreement.
Also of interest is an undated letter from Marion Butler claiming his election opponents were using railroad money and the Negro vote against him. Various letters reflect the fund drive of the Vance Memorial Association, particularly the series of Polk Miller benefits. A letter, written by Carr evidently in 1876, tells of his plans to take a steamboat to Philadelphia to celebrate the centennial. There are also religious observations by W. K. Carr, a description of a journey from Gordonsville to Luray, Va., and additional genealogical material on the Carr family.
Numerous photographs (1866-1913) offer images of Carr's later life and administration, including pictures of the Carr family, Bracebridge Hall, the State Hospital in Morganton, N.C., and the governor's mansion in Raleigh, N.C. Later photographs include images of Elias Carr, Jr., during his term as Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture (1909-1913). Undated images portray the Eiffel Tower and views of Paris, France, along with unidentified places, people, and a horse.
A library catalogue, record book, several diaries, and a letterpress book offer more insight into the personal lives and views of the Carr family (1872-1910). The Catalogue of Bracebridge Hall Library lists all the books held by the family (1875-1888), while the record book contains political musings and significant dates for the Battle and Carr families. One diary, from an undetermined source chronicles most of the first fifteen days in 1910 at Bracebridge Hall.
The second diary, a photocopy of an original belonging to Carr's wife, Eleanor Kearny Carr, covers the day to day life of Bracebridge Hall for a period of two years (1872-1873). An astute observer of the weather, Eleanor Carr gives a day to day forecast of the environment and significant happenings of Bracebridge Hall and the surrounding area from January of 1872 to December of 1873, complete with the births and deaths of livestock, the frequent landings of river boats, and the comings and goings of friends and relatives.
The letterpress book contains copies of Gov. Carr's outgoing correspondence (1893-1897). These letters contain expressions of his opinions on the railroad leasing question, the matter of railroad companies being exempt from taxation, and the increasing political role of the Farmers' Alliance. Carr comments on the generally depressed state of agriculture, poor cotton prices, and the failure of small landholders to increase proportionately with the population in North Carolina. He also makes observations on the role of the newspaper in party politics, the shameful dispute among the Vance family over the senator's burial site, peoples' approval of Vance's successor in Washington, Thomas J. Jarvis, and the late senator's opposition to F. M. Simmons.
The letterpress book also contains material on the Board of Penitentiary Directors, the renting of land along the Roanoke River for state prison farms, out-of-state ownership of North Carolina mineral property, the Virginia Dare statue, and Carr's political troubles with the Oxford Orphanage and the state Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Institute. Carr expresses his determination not to interfere in the Foust case and other questions of pardon, his dislike for President Cleveland, and his concern over the importance of clean drinking water and the swampland image as a hindrance to immigration to the state. In addition, there is material on the settlement of state attorney fees in the
N.C. case, Populist legislation against the Alliance Business Agency Fund stock, the effort of the N.C. Labor Bureau to avoid excess interference, and the experiments of the Geological Board with artesian wells in Eastern N.C.
Personal correspondence in the letterpress book reveals reflections by the governor on his youth in Warrenton and Raleigh, and as an orphan at boarding school. There is genealogical data on the Carr and Boddie families, material on tenant relations, and a congratulatory letter to the Democratic presidential nominee, William Jennings Bryan.
The collection of Carr's speeches spans both his term as president of the North Carolina Farmers' Alliance and as governor of North Carolina. Pre-1894 speeches include Carr's inaugural address (1893) and Gov. Holt's final message to the General Assembly (1893). Two speeches by Carr to the Farmers' Alliance describe the history of the state organization and note the need for legislation, education, unity among members, and for rotation and diversification of crops. Two undelivered speeches are included, one to have been given to the State Guard and the other on the 1892 Democratic victories. Contained in a student notebook is a sketch of Carr's life, in which he gives his views on national and state politics (including the St. Louis platform), and his preference for the farm over politics. Other items include an address by W. K. Carr on the progress of science and general intelligence in the latter nineteenth century, and a speech delivered by S. D. McCormick to the 1890 convention of the Butchers'National Protective Association, reviewing the cattle industry and noting the spoilation of the cattle pool.
Speeches (1894-1897) include Gov. Carr's biennial messages to the General Assembly (1895, 1897). A variety of topics are covered in other addresses, such as the farmers' need for good roads, the N.C. oyster industry, the dangers inherent in proposed state banks of issue, and the decline of American agriculture as a result of economic politics. In an 1894 speech, Carr discusses his campaign promises, compares recent administrations in N.C., and questions the rationale for the Populist desertion in the state. In an address on immigration, Carr advocates the continuance of the policy of attracting American settlers instead of foreigners because of an outbreak of Asiatic cholera. Also included is a speech by D. T. Caldwell on the railroad leasing question, charging Democratic lawyers with receiving bribes from railroad interests.
Among the special addresses are ones delivered at agricultural fairs in Concord and New Bern, concerning the evolution of fairs in America and the importance of New Bern as a fish market, with remarks on the necessity of scientific management of oyster beds. Several speeches pertaining to state educational institutions are included here, which relate the history of U.N.C.-Chapel Hill on its centennial celebration (1895), the state program for deaf mutes, the role of Gov. Vance in education, and the observation that N.C. public education facilities had kept abreast of the times. Also contained in this file are Carr's introductory remarks to a speech by Samuel A. Ashe on the cruiser
RALEIGH, and an address delivered at the unveiling of the Holt Monument on the Guilford Courthouse Battleground, in which Carr describes David Schenk's recent history of North Carolina as part of a growing awareness of history in the state.
Financial papers (1856-1910) reflect Carr's personal finances and, for the years he was governor, those of the state institutions as well. Receipts and other materials reflect the prices of food, meat, crops (cotton and peanuts), clothes, education, transportation and freight rates, and services. Personal papers include bank statements, records of private debts and loans, taxes, hotel bills, the expenses of his three wards, and mortgages and indentures entered into (1877-1885). Individual items of note are the Governor's Mansion accounts (1893-1897), a statement of Carr's account with his cotton factors (1894), and an order for the purchase of Bracebridge produce by command of the retreating Gen. Joseph E. Johnston (April 10, 1865).
Among the institutional financial records are the statements of the N.C. Penitentiary Farm (1893); state appropriations for Negro institutions; a report on the finances of the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad (1893); and other railroad-related papers concerning stock, construction bonds, and the state lease. Other reports include those of the Wilmington and Wadesboro branches of the Bank of New Hanover (1893),the state treasurer on the conditions of N.C. banks (1896), the assets and liabilities of Rocky Mount Mills (1885-1910), and the Farmers' Oil Mills of Tarboro (1893). The file also contains the financial statement of the National Farmers Alliance (1890), fiscal reports of the series of Polk Miller recitals (1896) and other contributions to the Vance Memorial Fund, and a cotton market report (1894).
A large collection of checks and bankbooks (1866-1912) offer more financial insight into Carr's life. Among the numerous checkbooks and bankbooks to note are a bankbook (1891-1893) once owned by Gov. Holt, passed on with the office to Gov. Carr, and a Howell & Carr Bankbook, which includes deposit slips, a check, and letter indicating the need to balance the book among other financial concerns (1911-1912).
Farm records reflect day-to-day operations of Bracebridge farm and dairy, and include payroll books and account ledgers. Cotton-pickers records (1868-1916) detail amounts picked by and wages paid to individual hands, and the farm total as well as notations on cotton baled (1900-1907) and records of the Bracebridge ginhouse (1883, 1895, and 1905-1908).
Records of the dairy operations contain rotations of butter sales and total per cow yield (1888-1895). The farm journal (1883-1901) includes data on yearly dairy production and sales, rainfall and other weather conditions, horses, the genealogy of the Williams family of Pitt County, and accounts of trips taken by Carr to the Farmers' Congress in St. Paul (1886), to the Red River Valley, and to various Alliance meetings.
Time books consist of loose sheets of payroll records (1897-1909) and bound ledgers (1874-1917). There are also two small ledger books recording cash paid out on the plantation. Account ledgers (1876-1908) are indexed by name, and contain the balances of numerous hands and kinsmen to whom Carr paid and loaned money. There is also a book of wage earnings in peas and peanuts (1884-1891) along with a steam mill record book (1888-1889).
Records of dairy operations contain notations of butter sales and total per cow yield (1888-1895). The farm journal (1883-1901) includes data on yearly dairy production and sales, rainfall and other weather conditions, horses, the genealogy of the Williams family of Pitt County, and accounts of trips taken by Carr to the Farmers' Congress in St. Paul (1886), to the Red River Valley, and to various Alliance meetings.
The agricultural subject file includes agreements made between Carr and various individuals (1856-1894), such as land sales, leasing arrangements, contracts for cutting timber and building a kiln at Bracebridge, and the renting of the Swain plantation to J. J. Hearn (1894). Cotton market reports of several New York firms and issues of the "New York Cotton Exchange Market Report" (1875) and the "New York Price Current" (1867) reflect prices, exports, and production for 1867-1875.
Material on the N.C. Agricultural Experiment Station includes a pamphlet describing the general work of the station and a form letter from the director asking Alliance members how the station can best serve their needs (1890). There are also bulletins issued by the Kentucky station on corn experiments (1891) and the Illinois station on milk tests (1890). Miscellaneous items include a long dissertation on the importance of American cotton to the world market and the plantation as the Negro's realm of natural advantage, notes on different fertilizers used by croppers, and the program of the Tarboro Farmers' Institute (1907).
Clippings in this subject file relate to a variety of agricultural topics, such as the economic plight of the farmer, crop rotation, British scientific farming methods, the causes and cures of abortion in cattle, the use of cottonseed for fertilizer, and the importance of cultivating grasses. Included are specifications for building inexpensive silos, a history of the South Carolina cotton culture, the seizure by the state inspector of tobacco fertilizer, and a sketch of Hiram Smith of the Wisconsin Dairymen's Association.
Printed material in the agricultural file includes several bulletins by state experimental stations. Those of the North Carolina station (1891-1892) are concerned with fertilizer analysis and control, and the use of cottonseed hulls for beef cattle meal. Two bulletins of the Texas station contain general information on its program and describe experiments in the application of cottonseed meal in dairy rations (1891). Also included is a bulletin of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture (Jan., 1894) and an issue of
The Jersey Bulletin (Nov., 1887).
Several almanacs are contained in this file, such as
Landreths' Rural Register and Almanac (1867, 1869),
Buists' Almanac and Garden Manual (1871),
North Carolina Agricultural Almanac (1869), and
Turner's North Carolina Almanac (1886). There are also catalogues and price lists of various firms, whose products include farm implements, fertilizer, seeds, and fruit trees. Miscellaneous printed material consists of the pamphlet of the first annual fair of the Cape Fear Agricultural Association (1870), the regulations and schedule of premiums for the 1878 exposition of the N.C. Agricultural Society, and a daily record of tobacco curing operations kept by T. B. Blalock of Oxford (1890).
Material in the Farmers' Alliance subject file includes official letters from President L. L. Polk concerning the need for loyalty and cooperation of members and urging attendance at a tobacco growers meeting in Henderson (1891), a bulletin on the organization of state and county branches, and an 1891 address by Polk entitled "The Protest of the Farmer." Items concerning national farmer organizations consist of a general circular by Ben Terrell urging the confederation of all producer associations, the declaration of principles adopted by the National Farmers Alliance at St. Louis (1889), the program of the Inter-State Farmers Association meeting in Montgomery (1889), a manifesto on principles of political economy adopted by the Morrow County, Ohio, alliance (1890), and the proceedings of the Virginia Legislative Council (1891). Protests against the Conger Lard Bill include a report of the New York Chamber of Commerce and the proceedings of the National Alliance meeting at Ocala, Florida (1890).
Other material on the N.C. Farmers' State Alliance consists of the quarterly reports of various county alliances with data on finance and membership (1887-1889); Alliance by-laws and sections from the charter, and the resolutions adopted at the 1889 convention in Fayetteville. Items concerning the Alliance Business Agency Fund include an appeal to members, the contract with trustee W. A. Graham, a letter from President S. B. Alexander (1888), and a share certificate.
Miscellaneous materials in the file include an article from
The Progressive Farmer (1889) concerning Mississippi A & M College, a card of alliance demands to be given to candidates for public office, notices to members offering special rates on
The Progressive Farmer and stock in the Norfolk Alliance Exchange, price quotations on butter, eggs, livestock, grain and poultry by the District of Columbia Farmers Alliance Agency (1890), mutual insurance for Alliance members, and articles on various trusts, such as jute and pine straw.
Newspaper clippings in the Alliance file relate to the organization's history and principles, the platform of the Independent People's Party (1892), the National Farmers Congress in Chicago (1887), the sub-treasury question, opposition to the fertilizer tax, and various trusts. There are also commentaries on speeches by Carr and Tom Dix (at Weldon), and on a letter from President Harrison to the chairman of the Kansas City Commercial Convention of 1891.
Printed material on the Alliance includes the proceedings of the annual sessions of the N.C. Farmers' State Alliance in Fayetteville (1889), Morehead City (1891), and Greensboro (1892); the constitution as adopted (1887) and as amended (1888-1892); and the act incorporating the state organization as ratified by the General Assembly in 1889. Proceedings of several conventions of farmer organizations are included, such as the sessions of the Inter-State Farmers Association in Raleigh (1888) and Montgomery (1889), the National Farmers Congress in St. Paul (1886), the 1890 meeting of the Supreme Council of the National Farmers' Alliance at Ocala, and the fourth annual meeting of the Virginia State Farmers' Alliance in Richmond (1891). Other items in the file consist of the constitution and statutory laws of the National Farmers' Alliance at St. Louis (1889), a booklet on Alliance ritual (1891), pamphlets on Alliance songs and the Stone-Hearn libel suit, the receipt book of the state organization's Business Agency Fund (1890-1891), and an 1891 address by Ben Terrell on the Alliance.
The subject file on economic issues contains newspaper clippings and printed materials touching upon various subjects. The clippings (1890-1895, n.d.) include articles on the tariff and silver issues, the income tax question, a new mortgage bill, the tax on state banks, the contraction of money, sectionalism in the U.S. financial system, the problem of getting the Southern cotton supply down to the level of demand, and a pro-silver address by W. K. Carr.
There is a battery of clippings (Oct.-Nov., 1892) from around the country concentrating on the 1892 presidential election. Most are concerned with the McKinleytariff and comments on European reaction to high American tariffs. Speeches of various politicians and economists are discussed, as well as the debate in Massachusetts between the New England Tariff Reform League and the Boston Home Market Club. Other election topics discussed include the silver issue, the Force Bill, the Democratic plank favoring wildcat banks and the repeal of the tax on them, charges of Republicans buying the election, the mass conversion of prominent Republicans to the Democratic ranks, and the Republican stand on the current prosperity of business, with statistics highlighting increases in industrial wages.
Printed material in the economic subject file includes several pamphlets on the tariff and silver issues. The file also contains the 1892 House report on the effects of the tariff upon agriculture, the constitution of the New York Tariff Reform Club (1889), an address by the Englishman A. J. Balfour on bimetallism (1893), and four issues of
Tariff Reform (1888-1891).
The subject file on the North Carolina Railroad contains the charter, amendments, by-laws and revisions, mortgage, and lease of the N.C.R.R. (1887), a report of the expenditures of the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad Co. (1892-1895), the proceedings of stockholders meetings with committee reports (1893, 1895), and lists of the State Directors (1892-1893) and members of various committees (1893). Other items include an address by the directors defending their right to lease the railroad to the Southern Railway Company (1895), a memorandum by Carr concerning the charter provisions for election of directors, propositions for the state leasing of the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad (1896), a resolution for tax exemption for railroad companies, and
Cram's Township and Railroad Map of North and South Carolina.
Material on the N.C. General Assembly includes copies of various statutes--those creating county circuit courts (1895), appropriating funds to the Deaf and Dumb Institution (1895), providing for the election of Justices of the Peace (1895), reducing the expenses of the State Guard (1895), and establishing the Bureau of Labor Statistics (1887). There are also bills concerning the State Penitentiary, colonial records, and the restoration of local and self-government. Chapters 52-90 of the "Acts of the General Assembly" (1895), a pamphlet of the Conger Lard Bill, and the report of the tellers in the election of penitentiary directors (n.d.) are also included.
Printed items in the political subject file consist of publications of the State Democratic Committee, including the history of the General Assembly (1895) and the party handbook (1894); and the Democratic congressional campaign book (1894), which contains tariff schedules and statistics on immigration, commerce, silver, and income tax. There are also pamphlets on the Force Bill and the tariff issue (1890). Clippings from state newspapers (1892-1896) discuss such topics as the failure of fusion in 1892, the Force and Land Bills, the defeat of legislation repealing the tax on state banks, and a report on the direct land tax. Various incidents of Carr's administration are reflected, such as the Winslow affair, the Harris pardon, and Sen. Vance's opposition to District Collector Elias. There are also commentaries on Carr's inaugural address, Bryan's speech in the House on free coinage of silver, the results of the 1896 election, and the Negro question. Other articles are concerned with attracting Western immigrants to the South and the need for a good public roads system, including the scheme of Gen. Roy Stone of New York for a federally funded interstate network.
The file on the World's Columbian Exposition, to which Carr was appointed an alternate delegate, contains material concerning the World's Columbian Commission, including the official directory (1890); lists of commissioners, alternates, and standing committees; minutes of its first, fourth, and fifth sessions (1890-1891); and committee reports on permanent organizations, rights and duties of the commission, rules of order and procedure, on grounds and buildings, and defining the powers of the Board of Lady Managers. Other material reflecting the labors of the Board of Women consists of the minutes of their meetings (1890), rulings by the Board of Control as to its status, and the brief of the secretary of the board (1891). There are also items concerned with preparatory activities of Chicago women, state appropriations, foreign displays, the problems of housing and transportation, rules for displayers and vendors, and the effort to attract European notice to the exposition.
Other documents in the Exposition file include the federal committee report and the joint Congressional resolution providing for the exposition, Carr's voucher of expenses, the proceedings of various interest groups concerning the Chicago fair, and a printed copy of a widely circulated letter by Patrick Walsh (1896) calling the Chicago and Southern States Exposition a golden opportunity for the South. The file also contains two issues of
World's Fair Notes (1893) and one of
World's Columbian Exposition Illustrated (April, 1891); a copy of Public Law 81, which provided for the official celebration of the quadro-centennial of Columbus's discovery; minutes of the joint conference of the Board of Control and the state and territorial boards (1891); and the rules and classification standards of the Mines and Mining exhibition.
The subject file on the oyster controversy contains the annual report of the state shellfish commissioner (1893), copies of the 1895 Oyster Law, petitions favoring the reappointment of W. H. Lucas as shellfish commissioner, and a pamphlet on the needs of the North Carolina oyster industry.
Material related to the Vance Memorial Association consists of lists of members of various committees and district vice presidents, and records of the series of Polk Miller recitals (1896), including the agreement between Carr and Miller's manager.
The publications files offer a large variety of material on various subjects throughout the later half of the nineteenth century (1864-1898) and is mostly comprised of governmental or historical publications. This material is primarily separated into two files; being North Carolina and U.S. related subjects, and the sections therein grouped, in turn, by general subject. There is also a section of collected catalogues (1866-1928) for a host of later nineteenth and early twentieth century items.
The North Carolina subject file consists of governmental, educational, environmental, and historical publications including briefs in the cases of Egerton v. Carr (1886), the report of the Adjutant General (1892), and biographical sketches of state officers and General Assembly members (1893). Educational publications deal with the Revenue Act of 1895, amendments (1889-1893) to the N.C. Public School Law, the report of the N.C. Board of Education (1890), and a copy of the essay
How Far Should the State Educate? by Prof. B. Puryear, LL. D (n.d.), as well as catalogues from several institutions, including the first catalogue from North Carolina A & M (1890), two from U.N.C. Chapel Hill (1863, 1894)and one (1895) for Georgetown Academy of the Visitation Convent. Environmental material includes information on North Carolina's natural resources and tourist spots, including reports of the iron ore deposits and swamp lands in the state (1893) and
Catawba Valley and Highlands by W. C. Ervin (1896).
North Carolina history publications (1874-1896) cover a variety of significant events in the history of the state. Topics of note include; the Mecklenburg Delcaration of Independence, The Continental Line of North Carolina and the Society of the Cincinnati, the history of Macon County, and the role of Chatham County in the revolution, and an issue of
Our Living and Our Dead (1874). There are also several biographies on popular N.C. figures, including Col. Lawrence M. Adam (1894), Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock (1880), Prof. Washington Caruthers Kerr (1887), John Bailey Beckwith, M. D. and the Beckwith family of Smithfield (1893), Gen. Daniel Morgan (1895), and colonial Governor George Burrington (1896).
The U.S. topic publications (1870-1898) section covers a wide area of topics. Beginning with historical tracts such as
Arbitration vs. War, The Example and Influence of America (1894),
History and Condition of The Catawba Indians of South Carolina (1896), and Washington's Farewell Address, the section then leads into a selection of national historical society reports and by-laws including, among others, the 1898 membership register with the charter and by-laws of the N.C. Society of the Sons of the Revolution, and an 1896 Southern Historical Association brochure. World events take up a small section of the file, dealing with Central and South American postal and cable communication proposals and the Haitian question (1891). There is a brief U.S. religious and medical sections containing a sermon on lynch laws and rape by Rev. E. K. Love, a tract on baptism, and brochures for treatment of various diseases. A wide range of product catalogues and advertisements (1869-1928) such as the 1889
Illustrated Catalog of Photographic Equipment and Materials by E. & H. T. Anthony & Co. of New York offers insight into popular agricultural and non-agricultural items with an emphasis on buggies in particular.
In the periodical file are issues of various Southern agricultural journals, including
The Southern Cultivator and Dixie Farmer (1882-1892),
The Farmer's Register (1834),
American Stock Journal (1869),
The Jersey Bulletin (1887),
The Maryland Farmer (1868-1886),
The Carolina Farmer (1869),
The Reconstructed Farmer (1871),
Wood's Household Magazine (1873),
The Southern States (1893),
The Rural Magazine (1896),
The Review of Reviews (1892). Several old editions of books are also in this file, including
Silas Marner (1887), Sir Walter Scott's
Rob Roy (1873), Ethan Allen's
Washington, or The Revolution (1895), and
Wanda, Countess von Szalias (n.d.) by Ouida.
The Carr family material file includes two autobiographical sketches by Carr; genealogical data on the Carr, Kearny, and Williams families; letters of guardianship; a Johnston/Carr family tree (1752-1843); agreements concerning land in Warrenton; and two songs by Mrs. C. P. Spencer on the University of North Carolina: "The Song of the Old Alumni," and "University Centennial Song," (1895). The obituaries of Elias Carr, John B. Carr, W. K. Carr, Elias Carr, Jr., and Mrs. Mary Hinton are included as is a
Rocky Mount Telegram article about Bracebridge Hall. There are many miscellaneous clippings that reflect the personalities, humor, poetry, and wise sayings of the age, and touch on such matters as the lynch law, the Force Bill, North Carolina mineral deposits, and emigration. Other items of interest include a collection of calling cards, railroad and other passes; a book of newspaper clippings (mostly undated) from the late 1870's discussing social ways, everyday work chores, the issues of the day and clippings of poems and humorous anecdotes; a Memorial Day speech by Gen. Evans (1895); Raleigh (N.C.) Water Company Quarterly Rates with Rules and Regulations (1887); and a report by H. B. Battle of the N.C. Agricultural Experiment Station on the chemical examination of drinking water (1895). Also found here are copies of a scandalous correspondence (1814) between John Randolph of Roanoke and his cousin Annie Randolph (Mrs. Gouverneur Morris) with intimations of infanticide and husband poisoning; an appeal by Mayor T. W. Patton of Asheville for child-labor laws (n.d.); the program of the Raleigh ceremony honoring the late Jefferson Davis (1893); a petition to Congress urging the passage of the Tonnage Bill; an 1894 North Carolina A & M commencement program; an 1897 report card for Eleanor Carr from Georgetown Academy of the Visitation Convent; student notebooks of John B. Carr on math, pathology, and Latin, and a well-worn copy of
Thompson's Pocket Speller (1892); and fashion clippings (1870-1876).
An oversized atlas (1814) belonging to Jonas Johnston Carr offers a unique look at the regional boundaries of the world in the early nineteenth century. Although the title page is missing, the volume appears to be
Carey's General Atlas, Improved and Enlarged; Being a Collection of Maps of the World and Quarters. . .. As a part of extensive preservation work done on the volume, items such as receipts (1867-1868) for purchases and pages containing music excerpts from
Godey's Ladies Book which had previously been glued onto some blank pages of the atlas were removed and are filed separately now.
Oversize folders contain over-large documents and newspapers (1873-1900). Overlarge documents include the pardon for Elias Carr from taking part in the rebellion with [stamped] signature of Andrew Johnson (1865); document designating Winfield Chadwick a director of the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad Company, signed by N.C. Governor Alfred M. Scales (1886); documents designating Elias Carr delegate to represent North Carolina in the Farmers National Congress, signed by N.C. Governors Alfred M. Scales, David G. Fowle, and Thomas H. Holt (1886, 1890-1892); documents designating Elias Carr a trustee of the North Carolina College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, signed by N.C. Governors Alfred M. Scales and Daniel G. Fowle (1887, 1889); Approval of Appointment of Mr. Benj. Rice Lacy as Commissioner of Labor Statistics by Governor Elias Carr (1893); certificate of membership to the North Carolina Monumental Association for Gov. Elias Carr (1893); Certificate of life membership to the Albany Burgesses Corps. for Governor Elias Carr (1894); Home Insurance Company Premium No. 406 for Gov. Elias Carr (1892); World's Columbian Exposition Illustrated title page of April Issue (1892); a poster advertisement for Polk Miller and Leo Wheat; and a map of Bracebridge acres (1872) as well as maps of North Carolina by State Geologist W. C. Kerr (1882) and Rand, McNally & Co. (1892), and a map of Florida printed by Tropical Trunk Line (1890).
Oversize newspapers represent the many events and opinions from various regions of North Carolina (1873-1900), such as Asheville, Charlotte, Fayetteville, Goldsboro, Greenville, Hickory, Lenoir, Lumberton, New Bern, Raleigh, Salisbury, Tarboro, Wilmington, Wilson, and many other cities. Out-of-state newspapers are from Washington, D.C., Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. | {
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Comfort Film Presents:
2016 Chicago Paranormal Film Festival
2016 Festival Schedule
(You are free to enter in and out of screenings throughout the day.)
10:00AM DOORS OPEN 30min
10:30AM BLOCK A 90min
CAUSE OF MY DEATH 80min
"Paranormal Activity" meets "Quarantine". Two girlfriends, one hunted condominium complex, zero normal people.
Girls are trapped in building with no exit, no chance to escape.
After few hours of total mess, one of the girl disappears and become crazy just like other tenants.
12:00PM INTERMISSION 15min
12:15PM BLOCK B 90min
ANGEL BACK 7min
Two young people, Alex and Marina, feel in love and discover they can’t live with one another. A strong connection is developed between them and they decide to marry. Alex dies in an accident while abroad and Marina struggles with the loss of her boyfriend even as she grows old, trying to get in touch with his spirit.
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE WOODS 7min
A man's obsession drives him into the heart of the forest to confront the beast that dwells within.
HUMAN RESOURCES 75min
In this ghost story for the 99%, a young woman who lands a new job discovers that the skyscraper she works in is haunted by victims of the corporation's cutthroat pursuit of profit. Unable to ignore injustices embodied by the disembodied, she sets out to reveal the truth and stop her bosses before their seemingly benign business operations kill again.
01:45PM INTERMISSION 15min
02:00PM BLOCK C 90min
WILD MEN 90min
The inept cast and crew of a surprise hit reality-tv show travel deep into the Adirondack mountains for their second season to find proof that Bigfoot exists. Any remaining skepticism they have is ripped to pieces.
03:30PM INTERMISSION 15min
03:45PM BLOCK D 90min
SHELF ELF 9min
Hang your stockings. Say your prayers. This is Shelf Elf. A home invasion horror/comedy based on that little creep that floods your Facebook and Twitter feeds every December. This Christmas, all will be shelved!
BLACK WIDOW 2min
A Passionate Kiss with fatal end
WHAT GOES UP 6min
When a man wakes up in a mysterious place, he is forced to face his demons.
HEART OF DUST 6min
A former psychiatric patient returns to the now abandoned and decaying asylum to reflect upon his memories as a patient, struggling to free himself from feelings of institutionalization. He recalls a female patient who would play the piano, lifting the spirits of the other residents. Based on true stories.
After being buried alive as a heretic in the 17th century, Carmilla awakens from her grave in northern Iowa and begins her conquest of a small town.
05:15PM INTERMISSION 15min
05:30PM BLOCK E 90min
THEIR DREAMS OF LISBON 25min
Douglas Runnicles is struggling to come to terms with the death of his wife Fiona and his gay son Neil in a car accident. One day, he sees a young gay man, Simon, at Portobello Beach who looks strikingly like his dead son. Douglas becomes obsessed with the young man.
A GHOST STORY 24min
Follow Carl, a tenacious opportunist and self-proclaimed ghost-hunter, through his heart-stopping venture in this dark comedy.
Ghost tours deliver scary stories, and that’s about it. However, if the tour happens to bill itself as a special engagement involving the year 1954, then you can expect an experience that exceeds expectations, including those for survival.
THE HALLOWEEN GIRL 19min
Ten years after her tragic death on Halloween night, Charlotte begins to reappear to her mother, Marie, in a series of nightmares - or are they? Only adding to her distress is the news that her young son, Luke, now has a mysterious teenage friend he calls ‘The Halloween Girl’ - and her name is Charlotte. Has Charlotte really returned - and is Marie’s dark secret now in danger of being revealed…?
07:00PM INTERMISSION 15min
07:15PM BLOCK F 90min
INTO THE OTHER SIDE 16min
A man and his paranormal group try to uncover what is lurking at a haunted manor in Indiana.
SUPER DOG 15min
A sweet movie about a young boy with post traumatic stress disorder who struggles to let his imaginary dog go. A unique twist reveals what caused his disorder while intertwining supernatural and spiritual influences. Recently awarded "Best of Show" at the Tupelo Film Festival" and stars the famous boy who wrote the viral White Boy Privilege.
SILENTLY WITHIN YOUR SHADOW 14min
As their relationship grows, Lucette's obsession for ventriloquism and her dummy Hugo starts to strain her relationship with Jace. To Luctette Hugo is more than just a dummy, he’s her best friend and represents her ambition as an artist, to her, he’s very much real.
But to Jace Hugo is just a puppet, or is he?
ghost-hunter, through his heart-stopping venture in this dark comedy.
THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT 14min
A man on the run takes cover as a taxi driver on the midnight shift. Soon he discovers that things are not what they seem when he picks up a mysterious figure as a client...
DEMONIC ATTACHMENT 13min
Jennifer Ryan is sick. After seeing countless doctors and specialists without getting any answers, she turns to her last resort. But what she finds out may haunt her forever...
In the art exhibition, a southern woman designer Juan Zeng(cast：Yao Zhang) won the first prize by a Yulan flower endshield which is entitled "the life beyond" . As the leading character in the story suddenly died, the truth behind the endshield and the change under the bodhi tree during the last 50 years both became unveiled with Juan Zeng's way back home.
A young Irish mobster struggles with the harsh realities of his brutal profession.
08:45PM INTERMISSION 15M
09:00PM AWARDS 60M
10:00PM END OF EVENT
The Chicago Paranormal Film Festival is an annual event featuring all independent films of the supernatural / paranormal genre including reality documentaries. The event also features special guest speakers, workshops and vendors relating to the paranormal! chicagoparacon.com
You are free to enter in and out of screenings throughout the day.
Film screenings happen every Wednesday at 8pm
Outdoor Film screenings are at dusk (sundown) out on the Comfort Station lawn.
Music performances happen every Thursday at 7pm
Art openings happen the first Saturday of every month, and are displayed for the entirety of the month
All other events happen intermittently
Comfort Film Presents: | {
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George Osborne is the most dangerous chancellor Britain has ever had. He tells us the economy is on the mend, but on the mend from what? On the mend from his austerity policy which he deliberately inflicted on the economy slamming it into reverse at a time when it was already gently recovering from the worse global financial crisis for over 80 years?
Osborne chose to take this country down a blind alley in 2010, telling people if we didn't go where he wanted to lead us we would end up like "basket case Greece"! The only basket cases here was George Osborne and David Cameron - liars too! Thanks to Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, who managed to retain the country's triple A credit status throughout the financial crisis, the UK was in an exceptionally strong position to borrow cheaply. The average maturity of the UK's debt was 14 years not 14 weeks, so Osborne's cynical lies about the comparison of the UK to Greece were risible and politically motivated. The UK was never anywhere near Greece, it was like comparing olives to a stone!
Osborne knew what he was doing, and he cynically exploited peoples fears at that time for his own political aims. Trying to fool people into thinking that this country's fiscal position was out of control by inferring that the previous Labour government had borrowed too much and overspent was not only deceitful, it was dangerous and purely political spin, untruths deliberately out out by Osborne's mates in the right wing press. In fact the national debt was lower in 2008 before the crisis hit than when Labour took office and the economy over from the Tories in 1997 and when Osborne took over the economy in 2010, borrowing was actually falling.
He took a reckless gamble with our economy and despite what he says now about a moving from 'recession into recovery', he lost that gamble and he is now furiously trying to cover his tracks. The US who took the baton from Gordon Brown and continued with Brown's plan, has a strong recovery in place, although they know that they will face some tough decisions in the future they will be better placed to withstand the shock.
The UK is in a dire position, because Osborne took the wrongs decisions and despite this so-called "recovery" that this dangerous chancellor say is in place, the UK is in such a weak position that the slightest headwind will derail us! The only reason that exports and manufacturing has picked up slightly is that the Eurozone has settled a little and Europe (who also took the wrong road) is slightly recovered. It only needs another slight judder in the world and in Europe before we find ourselves back to square one and because of George Osborne's dangerous meddling in the housing market and his foot on the pump helping to over inflate the credit bubble, the true number of unemployed, high inflation and because of Osborne losing us our triple A credit rating, the country is teetering on the brink of another financial recession.
It all comes down to supply and demand and the brutal truth is that demand for British goods worldwide and within Europe despite a tiny blip is nowhere near enough and even that is in danger in another slight downturn. Despite what China tells the rest of the world, they cannot sell to us if no one is buying and the only reason they say their economy continues to grow is because they make cheap goods to export (we cannot complete) and even then China has massive Chinese ghost towns, newly built shopping malls and apartments that no one rents, yet still the building is continuing, and still China's gargantuan credit bubble is inflating and it is not if it goes pop, it's when - what then? India's economy is already slowing as attracting new investment will be tougher as the US prepares to rein in its stimulus. if the US slows slightly and India the great consumer continues to slow, this is going to affect the British economy. George Osborne knows this, so why is he still insisting on dangerously meddling with our housing market and allowing the credit bubble to over inflate again?
What happens if the UK starts bombing Syria and completely destabilises the Middle East disrupting fuel supplies and causing problems with Russia and China? We depend on trading with China to export many of our high end goods, we buy a lot of our gas from Russia (thanks to Thatcher). This country is in danger from this reckless politically motivated Tory chancellor.
For all those people who believe the hype that we have some kind of sudden economic revival and recovery underway, ask yourselves this one question; if Osborne was not now dangerously meddling with the housing market, underwriting deposits and mortgages for people who cannot afford them, and for buy-to-let landlords and blatantly using taxpayers money to do it, where would the economy be this very day? Would the minor upturn in manufacturing and the construction industry have produced the small 0.7% upward movement of GDP? It is a sobering thought because of course the answer to this is they wouldn't, in reality we would have been lucky to get any upward revision at all.
In fact if Osborne had not meddled with the housing market then construction most likely would not have moved. George Osborne's dodgy economic recovery is based on the service sector and the housing market but can this country and our rising population really be sustained on low paid service sector jobs alone and a rapidly over inflating housing bubble? Short answer to that is of course - no! It is simply unsustainable! The reality is that our growth is still a full 2% LESS than where it was in 2010 when Labour handed growth of 2.7% over to George Osborne. The harsh reality is that Osborne;s austerity measures strangled our growth and put the country back into recession, we would have had a treble dip, if it were not for Labour winning and organising the Olympic Games. (One again Labour save the government, even though they are no longer in office!)
Since when has the housing market rising at its fastest rate for SEVEN years been considered a good thing especially in an economy that needs to re-balance its house prices and bring them down to affordable levels? Rising house prices is seriously bad news. Each time house prices rise homes are being put further and further out of the reach of first time buyers and the whole housing market's success depends upon first time buyers, so if the the first rung on the housing ladder is broke, how can we continue? By taking out a government underwritten loan for a deposit under the Help to Buy and Funding for Lending schemes and trying to step over the first rung?
The majority of mortgages are now being granted to buy-to-let investors! They were granted their highest number of loans since 2008 in the second quarter of this year as lower rates driven by cheap money from Osborne's Funding for Lending scheme were snapped up by landlords.
By the end of June, buy-to-let mortgages accounted for 13.3% of total lending in the UK, this was up from 13.1% in the preceding quarter and 12.9% a year earlier and it means that currently more than one in eight mortgages granted is now for buy-to-let!
It compares to just 9.4 per cent in the second quarter of 2007, fewer than one in ten, immediately prior to the credit crunch and start of the financial crisis.
Historic CML data shows the startling rise in the size of the buy-to-let sector during the credit boom. In 1999 there were just 73,200 buy-to-let mortgages outstanding, accounting for a tiny 0.7 per cent of total home loans.
The sector has grown in every year since and last year there were 1,445,300 buy-to-let loans outstanding, accounting for 12.8 per cent of total mortgages.
Figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders showed 40,000 buy-to-let mortgages worth £5.1 billion were issued between April and July - the highest number, and value of loans since the third quarter of 2008.
Why should the taxpayer, the squeezed middle, the disabled, the unemployed and those unfortunate enough to be forced to live on benefits see their standard of living deliberately driven down by this government as well as be forced to fund private sector landlords business opportunities? People are not only being forced to subsidise private landlords businesses through their taxes, stealth taxes and cuts to benefits like child tax credits etc, but those that are forced to rent their home from these private landlords are paying through nose to rent back a property they are already indirectly being forced to subsidise. It is absolute madness! Further, how long can this insanity last before the whole situation implodes?
Just as Margaret Thatcher created the mass housing shortage we see today which is underpinning the huge problems we have in our economy by selling off council houses under her "Right to Buy" scheme, so George Osborne is creating catastrophic problems for the future with his own insane housing schemes.
Mark Carney at the Bank of England has tried to steady the market by saying they will not raise interest rates until unemployment has fallen to 7% and below, but it has left itself leeway to raise rates if inflation rises. It's precariously balanced to say the very least. The annual rate of inflation fell marginally from 2.9% to 2.8% in June to July, but the only reason it fell was because of cheap airfares and summer recreation, this offset the rise in fuel and diesel. How many real people benefited from cheap airfares? Many couldn't even afford take one holiday this year (unlike the PM who took four!) and dearer fuel would have made this even harder and squeezed living standards still further! Inflation still remains well above the 2% target rate! While inflation remains this high people's living standards will continue to be squeezed. Inflation actually rose the month before, what happens if it rises again? How long will it be before the Governor of the BoE is forced to raise interest rates?
Mr Carney has said that unemployment must fall to 7% before he will raise interest rates, but anyone with half a brain cell knows that the government are fiddling the unemployment figures and the real number of unemployed is over 4 million. Even by the government's fiddled standards unemployment is still higher now than it was in May 2010!
The government are falsifying the figures and bringing them artificially low by over use of zero hour contracts; government workfare schemes; low paid part-time work, self employed and public sector workers being reclassified as private sector workers. At the current rate in which this government are fiddling the unemployment stats Carney's figure if 7% will son be reached, much faster than most envisage too! So if Carney raises interest rates on the back of fiddled statistics this is going to have a devastating effect in the British economy! How will the true number of people unemployed live? What will happen to the British economy then?
If we carry on like this we are heading for a catastrophic crash and all because George Osborne is trying to buck the housing market by over inflating the housing bubble and the credit bubble in the hope that people will overlook his abysmal mismanagement of the economy and vote for them again. In effect what Osborne is doing is using public money to buy votes for the Tory party.
Where is this country heading under this Conservative-led coalition? As far as I can see there isn't even a medium term plan let alone a long term plan. All I see under this supposed economic recovery is more problems being created and older problems being swept under the carpet.
Nowhere in his plans does the Tory chancellor have anything new, all he has done is dust down Margaret Thatcher's failed monetarist policies give them a new name and reimpose them on our already fragile economy and is now helping us tip towards economic Armageddon.
Assuming our young people can get a decent job paying a decent wage (which is highly debatable) where in this government's plans for the future generations of this country are the policies that will enable our grandchildren to be able to buy their own houses? If they cannot do this, where is the provisions being laid right now that will ensure they stand a chance of living in decent accommodation and paying a decent fair rent? Where is the thousands of social housing homes being built that this country desperately needs? Where are the plans for the future of this country?
We know now, in fact we have known for some time that we just cannot carry on with the same MO, the same capitalist system, the same people running the same banks, now taking the same huge bonuses as they were before the crash, yet this government and particularly Osborne and Cameron have no answers. They are too afraid of upsetting their party funders the bankers, shadow bankers and big business to do the things that need to be done.
Ed Miliband is the only party leader who has the gumption to stand up and point out to where we went wrong and where we are going wrong again, to point to the bankers and big business to tell them we have to change as a country. He is the only one who seems to understand, if we do not change now, then we are heading for the worst kind of disaster yet again.
Only this time our young will face a lifetime of austerity, but with no state education and no NHS and a private police service and this is thanks to the Tories who are privatising everything and selling everything off, just like Thatcher did and look how much we are now forced to pay for rail fares, gas, electricity and water. How will people manage on poor standards of living and low wages?
Unless we want our children to work in cafes, bars, McDonalds Tescos and pay through the nose for everything in a country where the rich get richer and the poor are getting poorer, we had better listen to Ed Miliband, at least give our future generations a decent chance.
Carrying on with George Osborne as chancellor fills me with dread, what he is doing to this country is criminally insane! | {
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The Disconnected Generation: Saving Our Youth From Self Destruction - (Paperback)
By Josh McDowell
The real battle is not in the amoral and immoral influences of our culture, but in the hearts of our young people, says author and speaker Josh McDowell in "The Disconnected Generation." And our young people are losing hope because they feel isolated and alienated from their parents. They are the disconnected generation. This book shows parents and youth workers how to understand and close the isolation gap to form nurturing, enduring relationships that can withstand cultural influences. As a companion to "The Disconnected Generation," the video curriculum resources provide five video sessions from Josh McDowell offering practical steps that all adults can take to close the emotional gap between themselves and their children.
NOTE: Purchasing "The Disconnected Generation: Saving Our Youth From Self-Destruction" from WND's online store also qualifies you to receive three FREE issues of WND’s acclaimed monthly print magazine, Whistleblower. Watch for the FREE offer during checkout. | {
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A towering T-Rex and a singing orangutan will be coming to life on the silver screen this summer with open-air cinema at Whipsnade Zoo.
For the first time ever, ZSL Whipsnade Zoo is launching a Silent Cinema weekend, with an exciting line-up of big-screen blockbuster classics which audiences can marvel at within the wild and beautiful setting of the 600-acre Zoo.
On Friday August 26, guests will be able to tour the zoo’s huge, walk-through Zoorassic Park experience, coming face-to face with the gentle brachiosaurus and toothy T-Rex, before buckling up for the rollercoaster action-adventure Jurassic Park, as it roars onto the big screen, in the shadow of the life-size, moving dinosaurs themselves.
The adventure gets animated on Saturday August 27 as Disney’s musical classic and family favourite, The Jungle Book, delights young and old once again. Families can join King of the Swingers, Louie the orangutang and loveable bear Baloo for the Bare Necessities, as they sit right in the middle of the zoo at twilight, surrounded by its 2,000 animals.
Before the screenings begin, film-lovers will be treated to a magical Birds of the World display on both nights, as well as having a chance to explore the zoo’s special summer dinosaur experience, Zoorassic Park.
To ensure the zoo’s animals don’t have to stay up past their bedtimes if they don’t want to, movie-goers will wear headphones for the screening, and are invited to bring a blanket to sit on. A range of food and drink will be available.
Only 600 places per night are available.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture has lifted limitations on what kids can eat at schools -- the caloric intake of grains, starches and protein in the school lunch program.Limitations were installed this school year, aimed to stem the rising tide of childhood obesity. They were fostered by First Lady Michelle Obama, but they raised the anger of parents who said their children weren’t getting enough to eat.
Under Obama's “Let’s Move” program, limits were placed on the number of lunch servings per student, and more emphasis was placed on vegetables and fruits.
During the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled, and today, nearly one in three children in America are overweight or obese, according to the USDA.
But one size of regulations do not fit everywhere. The USDA regulations shorted some students, especially fast-growing young athletes, and created burdensome paperwork.
The new revisions will lend more flexibility to schools and students, especially such athletes. Schools in Nebraska and across the country will receive official notice in a few days of the changes, which will be in place for the 2012-2013 school year, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack has said.
The Bulletin reported complaints about Michelle Obama's school lunch initiative soon after school began in September.
Officials in Arnold and Stapleton said obesity is not a big concern in their schools compared to urban schools, because rural students tend to be much more active.
“These laws don’t always fit our rural areas,” Arnold Principal Dawn Lewis told Bulletin Correspondent Karen Hough. “Our children are active from elementary through high school. Most of the elementary students participate in Pee Wee or junior high volleyball or football and some go to gymnastics or dance. High school students who lift weights arrive at 6 a.m. and are here until after practice at 6 p.m.”
Officials in Hershey and North Platte said the lunch requirements didn’t really change, but the paperwork increased. They said cooks and lunch clerks spent hours filling out mandatory paper work.
“It’s tough to get used to,” Young said in September. “Lots of schools around the country were giving away seconds… but the state said ‘no, you can’t do that.’”
When seconds were served, they had to be recorded and students had to pay extra for them, under the first set of rules. And unlike the cost of the main meal, second helpings were not subsidized for low-income families, so costs kept some students from eating as much as they needed.
Rep. Adrian Smith, who met with students throughout Nebraska in October, said the newly revised rules are a good step, but he’s not sure they go far enough.
“I appreciate the Department of Agriculture’s decision to allow for more grains and meat in school meals,” Smith said. “These changes are a step in the right direction and should be made permanent.”
But Smith also said local officials should get more flexibility to implement school food guidelines.
“The legislation failed to adequately consider budget limitations faced by school lunch providers and provided no credit to schools already taking steps to offer students healthier choices,” he said. | {
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Greetings! We are OKSANA and PATRICK.
ABOUT US: We are a loving and joyful couple, successful parents of two independent young adult sons, avid dog lovers, and planet Earth aficionados.
Oksana is Ukrainian, relocated to US in 1993, had a successful antique and art gallery in Charlottesville, VA. She is a skilled property manager and professional organizer, practitioner of energy healing arts, an artist, arts/antiques dealer/restorer.
Patrick is a skilled property manager, computer wiz, video and sound engineer, author, and a former private high school teacher.
WE ARE SEEKING A LIVE-IN PROPERTY CARETAKER/MANAGER/INNKEEPER/CAREGIVER POSITION IN PORTLAND, OR, SURROUNDING AREA AND ALONG THE WEST COAST OF OREGON.
With us as managers, you will have experienced, responsible and committed professionals making maximum efforts to serve your needs and provide you with a peace of mind and security. We are non-smokers, non-drinkers, very healthy and fit, love animals – our mature German Shepherd Ruby will be coming with us. We will maintain our personal assets, including household furniture, art and personal transportation. We will lovingly take care of your elders, property or dogs while you’re traveling out of the country for a long time.
SKILLS: As a team, we can run a country, move an army and build a school. In other words, we will safely care for your beloved animals, home, villa, lodge, ranch or an estate; our combined life experiences had given us expertise in a vast range of abilities critical to managing a property: top notch housekeeping, maintenance and administration, staff supervision (both employed and contracted), landscaping and grounds keeping in all seasons, organic and bio-dynamic gardening, security of the premises, dog care, care of fine arts, antiques, rugs and valuables.
QUALITIES: Creative and intuitive problem solvers. Honest and friendly, offering a solid work ethic based on a mature sense of responsibility, loyalty, and trust. Some of our valuable strengths: versatile, resourceful, self-motivated and discreet, able to quickly learn new skills and handle new responsibilities, excellent time and space management. If we don’t know how to do something we learn very quickly, and we also know how to choose and hire a professional – even on a weekend and holiday!
COMBINED MAINTENANCE SKILLS:
Plumbing: faucet repair, fixture repair, drain maintenance, shower-head maintenance, caulk repair
Wall maintenance: hole repair, priming, and painting
Window maintenance: inspection and basic repair
Floor maintenance: carpet, wood, tile and linoleum cleaning and basic repair
Roof maintenance: gutter cleaning and basic repair
Moving and basic installations of appliances, furniture, light fixtures and window fixtures
Locks, hinges, rods, door knobs repair and installation
Landscaping: digging, planting, leaf and snow clearing, weed and brush trimming, tree and grounds maintenance (Oksana is an organic and bio-dynamic gardener)
Energy clearing for home, business and land
Excellent computer maintenance, operation, networking, marketing and social media skills
Excellent organizing and de-cluttering skills (Oksana is a professional organizer)
PREFERENCES: We are seeking a long-term position in Oregon. Separate housing/income position preferred, however, we will consider all proposals.
Please email with description to [email protected] or call/text to 434.466.8270, and we will respond in a timely manner. Available immediately. Strong references and résumés are available upon request. | {
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The very best restaurant in Kefalos, we started with a drink in the front lounge area with a fantastic view, then retired to the reserved table for dinner.
We had Sirloin Steak, vegetable spring rolls, tzatziki main with pitta, and chicken kebab, all was stunningly...More
Stayed here for a week for a friends wedding. The owners Mariantha and Mike are absolute darlings - they couldn't do enough for the couple who were getting married or for the entire wedding party.
The rooms are modern with comfortable beds and enough space...More
Wonderful meat here. We had homemade cheese burger, chicken kebab and beef stir fry. We all tried each others and they were all top notch! We were even treated to some really good live music. Great toilets too!!!
This beautiful holiday destination was only made better by this wonderful and welcoming venue. With two young children we were so impressed with how family friendly and accommodating Mike, Marianthi and all the Sydney Bar staff were, going out of their way to make us...More
Just returned today and visited here many times over the years.food is always spot on whatever you choose and reasonably priced only problems I could see was actually getting a drink,No table service whatsoever so when you went to the bar and asked the order...More
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TripAdvisor is proud to partner with TripOnline SA so you can book your Sydney Bar reservations with confidence. We help millions of travellers each month to find the perfect hotel for both holiday and business trips, always with the best discounts and special offers. | {
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Woman pulls a gun on motorcycle riders who attack her friend
- Group of riders were filmed tussling with a motorist in road rage incident
- Row began after car almost swerved into one of the motorcycle riders
- When car stopped motorcyclists confronted the driver before attacking him
- A female passenger then got out of the car and pulled a gun on the group
This is the shocking moment a woman pulled a gun on a group of motorcyclists who are attacking her friend.
The footage, filmed by one of the riders, opens with the motorcyclists riding along an unnamed highway in Florida.
The road rage incident began after the driver of a red BMW appeared to swerve in the road - nearly taking out one of the riders.
After the car pulled up at a traffic stop, the group of three motorcyclists were seen tussling with the motorist who attempted to stand in front of the bikes to prevent them riding away.
The row quickly escalated until the men were filmed punching the driver to the floor.
They seemed to be about to get back on their bikes to ride away, when a female passenger got out of the car and pulled a gun on the group who swiftly fled.
The video, which was recency posted by Dankwheelie, has already been viewed almost 500,000 times.
This is the shocking moment a woman pulls a gun on a group of motorcyclists who are attacking her friend
After the car pulls up at a traffic stop, the group of three motorcyclists are seen tussling with the motorist who attempts to stand in front of the bikes to prevent them riding away
The row quickly escalates until the men are filmed punching the driver who falls to the floor
They seem to be about to get back on their bikes to ride away, when a female passengers gets out of the car and pulls a gun on the group who swiftly flee
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Despite Gerry Mulligan's success with it, the pianoless, guitarless jazz combo has remained a rare entity. The reason is clear; few musicians are comfortable with the idea of being without the explicit harmonic support of chords, of having no place to hide. Kenny Dorham, being one of the most harmonically enriched of jazzmen, had no such worry when he made this album in 1957. Nor did his companion, the brilliant young alto saxophonist Ernie Henry, who died not long after this session. Each hornman, in fact, inspired the other, with the result that 2 Horns/2 Rhythm has some of their best recorded solos, which stand out in bold relief because of the simplicity of the setting. Dorham went on to many more years of productive work, but this remains one of his finest albums.
with Ernie Henry, Eddie Mathias, Wilbur Ware, G.T. Hogan | {
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The 2014 Olympics begin on February 7th with the opening ceremonies in Sochi, Russia. The men’s tournament will begin the next day with two games. The deadline for countries to finalize their Olympic rosters is January 4th, 2014. In the mean time, we get to have some fun with predictions. Here are the participating countries. The U.S. have already finalized their roster and the rest are yet to be revealed. Stats are as of January 2nd, 2014.
Russia: Assuming the Russians go with three NHL goaltenders (which I doubt they will), the best three in my opinion would be:
- Semyon Varlamov (COL)
- Sergei Bobrovsky (CLB)
- Evgeni Nabokov (NYI)
Varlamov would be the ideal guy to get the starting role. With a respectable 2.33 GAA, Semyon will get the nod to start. As for spots two and three, these could go to guys like Vasily Koshechkin (21-9 1.92 GAA) or Alexander Yeremenko (21-4 1.84 GAA) both in the KHL. Nabokov beats out Ilya Bryzgalov in my books because of the uncertainty of Bryz and the fact that he’s only played a handful of games this year.
Slovakia: My predictions for the Slovaks are the exact same as the 2010 roster, only in a different order:
- Jaroslav Halak (STL)
- Peter Budaj (MTL)
- Rastislav Stana (KHL)
Budaj got the start for Slovakia in 2010, but since then Halak and Budaj have switched teams and Halak became a starting goalie in Montreal. Halak is (17-6) this year and despite having some injury issues this year, he will most likely get the start. Stana (10-10 2.33 GAA) in the KHL will battle Jaroslav Janus (12-11 2.95 GAA) also in the KHL for the final spot.
U.S.A: Goalies already announced:
- Jonathan Quick (LAK)
- Ryan Miller (BUF)
- Jimmy Howard (DET)
The only debate the rose with this announcement was whether it should be Howard or Cory Schneider who gets the third position. I would replace Miller with Schneider as Miller has proven this year, he has lost most of his touch.
Slovenia: There is not too much info surrounding the Slovenian team. The projected goalies in my eyes would likely be the goalies that were on the team when Slovenia qualified for the Olympics.
- Andrej Hočevar (Elite.A)
- Robert Kristen (KHL)
- Luka Gračnar (Austria)
No one is expecting much from the Slovenians. All the best to them in the tournament.
Finland: This year’s Finnish squad is looking at a whole new crop of goalies thanks to the retirement of Miikka Kiprusoff and Antero Nittymaki.
- Tuukka Rask (BOS)
- Antti Niemi (SJS)
- Kari Lehtonen (DAL)
The Hardest choice for Finland will be deciding to start either the statistically better Tuukka Rask (20-9 1.99 GAA) or the more experienced Antti Niemi (22-8 2.39 GAA). I would let them split the round robin games and make a decision for when the quarter finals come around. By then a true #1 will emerge, and hey, maybe it will be good ol’ Kari Lehtonen.
Canada: Canada has the most options in net this year. So if anyone goes down with an injury they will have 10+ goalies waiting in line. I’m guessing Martin Brodeur won’t be making another appearance although he continues to defy odds in the NHL.
- Roberto Luongo (VAN)
- Carey Price (MTL)
- Corey Crawford (CHI)
The 2nd and 3rd spots could easily be switched at any moment. With so many options, these guys will need to be on top of their game to get a look at. Mike Smith (15-9 2.86 GAA) may be swapped in for Corey Crawford (17-6 2.49 GAA). I still can’t understand why Marc-Andre Fleury (22-10 2.15 GAA) doesn’t get any attention. Just because he had a few slip-ups in recent playoffs, he is completely overlooked despite leading the league in wins.
Norway: There’s only one active Norwegian in the NHL and that is right-winger Mats Zuccarello. As for goaltending, Norway doesn’t have much to choose from.
- Lars Haugen (KHL)
- Ruben Smith (GET-ligaen)
- André Lysenstøen (Mestis League)
Not that I know much about these guys, but one of the 2010 Olympic goalies Pal Grotnes is aging and may be pushed aside thanks to the young guys like 26-year-old Lars Haugen (5-12 2.67 GAA) in the KHL.
Austria: These guys didn’t participate in the 2010 Olympics but this year they could play spoiler for some teams. There isn’t too many options for Austria in net but here is who I think should start thanks to some help from the web.
- Bernhrd Starkbaum (SHL)
- Mathias Lange (DEL )
- Rene Swette (EBHL)
All three of these guys could contend to be the starting goalie… as far as I’m concerned.
Czech Republic: A classic Czech roster containing Tomas Vokoun and Jaromir Jagr will most likely await us in February.
- Ondrej Pavelec (WPG)
- Michal Neuvirth (WSH)
- Tomas Vokoun (PIT)
Michal Neuvirth (2-3 2.83 GAA) makes a jump onto the roster this year. Although he backs up Braden Holtby currently in Washington, he has proven to us he can play well enough to earn a spot. I will be amazed if Czech republic decides to go with Alexander Salak in the KHL instead of giving Neuvirth the experience.
Sweden: The Swedes are always hungry for a gold medal and this year is no different. With a rise in young Swedish NHL goalies this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if all three tenders belong to an NHL club and not a KHL one.
- Henrik Lundqvist (NYR)
- Jonas Gustavsson (DET)
- Viktor Fasth (ANA)
Lundqvist is a shoo-in to get a spot but Gustavsson (11-3 2.39 GAA) has definitely deserved his spot on the roster after appearing in 17 games so far thanks to Jimmy Howard’s injuries in Detroit. As for Viktor Fasth, the Ducks goalie could have some competition, among them being Eddie Lack, Anders Lindback and Jhonas Enroth.
Switzerland: No matter who they play, they always seem to play a strong sixty minutes. That wouldn’t be possible without goaltending and Jonas Hiller always delivers for the Swiss in tournaments.
- Jonas Hiller (ANA)
- Reto Berra (CGY)
- Tobias Stephan (Swiss League A)
If Hiller plays like he normally does, than there will be no need for the other two goalies. Reto Berra (5-11 2.92) doesn’t have outstanding stats thanks to playing for Calgary, but may get the nod to back up Hiller. Tobias Stephan was on the 2010 roster and has NHL experience in Dallas.
Latvia: There isn’t one NHL or KHL goalie born in Latvia, meaning they will have to look at the 2010 goalies. Too bad Edgars Masaļskis is a 33-year-old free agent and Sergejs Naumovs is 44-years-old and retired.
- Ervins Mustukovs (SHL)
- Edgars Masalkis (FA)
- Kristers Gudlevskis (AHL-Syracuse Crunch)
I’m placing my bets that Masalkis plays for Latvia despite being a free agent. Gudleyskis is currently with the Tampa Bay Lightning affiliate Syracuse Crunch of the American Hockey League. | {
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The lede from the Dallas newspaper:
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick again called for the resignation of the Fort Worth school superintendent on Tuesday, protesting his implementation of a bathroom policy for transgendered students. But he was greeted with boos and several area figures told him to butt out.
Fort Worth became ground zero in Texas’ political fight over transgender rights after Patrick demanded the resignation of Superintendent Kent Scribner, saying he implemented a district policy to support transgender students without properly consulting parents.
Hundreds showed up to get into the district’s regular Tuesday board meeting as the line wrapped around the building and down the block. Some held signs reading “Trans Rights Matter” while others simply had one word: Repeal.
A majority of the 20 speakers who had a chance to address trustees spoke in favor of the transgender policy. Those who opposed it had dozens of supporters in the room, too.
I read both stories in a hurry and am still digesting the intricacies of the Fort Worth debate as well as the news coverage.
Quick impression: Both stories quote sources on both sides and seem to do an adequate job of explaining the arguments involved.
However -- and maybe I'm totally wrong -- the Star-Telegram report seems less than impartial. Tell me if I'm off-base here.
The Fort Worth newspaper's lede:
FORT WORTH -- Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has declared restroom regulation to be a priority for the next legislative session, brought his campaign to Fort Worth on Tuesday, repeating his call for the resignation of school Superintendent Kent Scribner and denouncing the district’s policy on accommodating transgender students.
In a news conference before the meeting, Patrick said that the district’s policy is an example of “social engineering” in public schools, and called for its repeal.
“This policy does nothing … to help students” prepare for their careers, he said.
As the board meeting began, Scribner walked in to a round of applause.
Scribner told the packed house that “this is not a bathroom issue.”
“Our children’s health and safety is the district’s top priority,” he said. “I, too, am the parent of a young lady in a Fort Worth ISD school.”
The district’s restroom policy was not on the board’s agenda, so no action was taken. But public comments were allowed and the meeting grew raucous at times, with one person being ejected.
Contrast the opening sentence's description of Patrick as one "who has declared bathroom regulation to be a priority for the next legislature session" with how the Star-Telegram portrays a supporter of the district's policy:
In a separate news conference outside the school administration building before the meeting, former Fort Worth City Council member Joel Burns said Patrick was “out of bounds” for “picking a fight” with the Fort Worth school district.
Burns, a nationally recognized anti-bullying advocate, called Patrick “a bully” and accused him of “coming here to cause” problems after calling on Scribner to resign on Monday.
So Patrick wants to regulate bathroom policies while Burns wants to protect children from bullies? Is there any chance the issue is more complicated than that?
Do the newspaper's descriptions strike you as simply factual or subtly editorial in nature? I ask in all sincerity.
The other thing I noticed about the Star-Telegram story -- in my quick reading -- was that the only two religious voices quoted support the superintendent's action.
First one here:
The Rev. David Wynn of Agape Community Church in Fort Worth urged compassion.
“Our trans students are the most vulnerable in our culture. They are the target of bullying, shaming and violence. …They are our neighbors, and they are our children,” he said.
Second one here:
The Rev. J. Scott Mayer, provisional bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, criticized Patrick for interfering with the school district.
“I urge the Fort Worth school board and its superintendent to remain strong in the face of this fear-mongering as they work for the welfare of all our children,” Mayer said in a statement.
Are there no religious people on the other side? Perhaps even one or two who oppose the new policy and voice compassion for bullied children? Maybe someone in a religious institution who is concerned about parental rights on this topic, since school leaders are instructed that they can, even should, hide the gender decisions of students from their parents? | {
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Greetings, friends! I'm proud to announce my first line of specialty stamps available here in the post-apocalypse! It's a set of drawings of refrigerators, light bulbs, fast food, air conditioners, toilet paper and the like. I call it the "Shit We Really, Really Miss" collection. Now onto your letters!
This Town Needs an Enema
Do you really think the 1989 Batman movie is better than Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, or The Dark Knight Rises? Are you an idiot?
I'm very possibly an idiot, but I do recognize you're referring to the comments I made in this article, and I think the implied question here is "Why do you think the 1989 Batman movie is the best live-action Batman movie?" So let me try to answer that instead.
The 1989 Batman movie was the first comic book movie that got comic books right. It had the right tone, the right balance — it felt fun and new and was everything I wanted from the movie. Sure, it had its flaws — Keaton couldn't move well in the suit, the Prince soundtrack was bizarre, it certainly had its plot holes — but it took itself seriously without being dour, it was fun without being silly or dumb, it was realistic enough to feel real while still embracing the scope and wildness of the comics.
I'll fully admit that I was 12 when Batman came out, and thus I was exactly the right age to have my mind completely blown by the movie. And maybe it's just nostalgia that drives my modern love for the movie. But I'd still rather watch it than Batman Returns (which is less a Batman movie than a Tim Burton movie that Batman happens to stop by), the two ludicrous Schumacher films, or the three dour Dark Knight films from Chris Nolan (although I'd argue The Dark Knight is the best of those because Heath Ledger's Joker makes the film fun and entertaining, even if Batman is still kind of a drag).
I understand Nolan's Bat-movies are "realistic" and "gritty," but if I wanted realistic and gritty I wouldn't be watching a movie about a man dressed up as a bat fighting crime. So yeah, I'll take the 1989 Batmobile over the Tumbler, I'll take the Joker's impromptu parade with counterfeit money and balloons filled with Smilex over a nuclear bomb, and I'll take Keaton's stylish badass over Bale's tortured, angry soul, even if Keaton's Batman can't turn his neck.
Make Love Not Thor
Dear Mr. Postman,
I need to know if I'm in the minority here due to my (very) minor disappointment in the Thor movies. Let me be clear - I love that Marvel brought Thor and Co. to life and the casting has ranged from pretty darn good (Hemsworth, Hopkins, Warriors Three) to fantastic (Hiddleston, Elba) in my opinion. But am I the only one who was disappointed that we got the glitzy, glam Asgard and the shiny gold armor for everyone instead of the earth-toney, Viking-esque, castle-like Asgard? I was totally stoked to see Elba rocking the Viking helmet and horns with an animal skin cape (see Marvel's Siege miniseries) and instead he gets put in that ridiculous Academy Award knockoff. And then The Dark World just complicates things because at one point you have what amounts to a starship battle complete with invisibility cloaks, directed energy weapons, and energy shields and the next they're crashing through stone castle walls. I know I need to just let this go because the movies are good and I still enjoy watching them, but do I also need to let it go because no one else on the planet agrees with me? Thanks!
Well, yeah, you should probably let it go. Not necessarily because no one agrees with you, but because the movies are pretty good and because being enraged about the overall design of the Thor movies is really not worth losing sleep at night. But since I lose sleep over the same sort of nonsense, I can't really blame you here.
But maybe I can make you feel better. While Marvel's Thor has dabbled with a certain amount of Norse authenticity, the default Marvel Thor is always going to be the original tone Jack Kirby set for the series, and then Walt Simonson's terrific run in the '80s. For most of the Thor comics' 40-year history, it's been that weird magic/scifi/the gods-are-extra-dimensional-beings-whose-technology-we-don't-understand-even-slightly stuff. I think the Thor movies nailed this, and I think the flying longboats are a perfect example — they're just Norse-ish enough to seem plausible, while reminding people these "gods" are actually extra-dimensional beings so no one has to freak out about Marvel being anti-Christian or some nonsense.
So even if you aren't a fan, using this style is keeping Marvel out of a major shitstorm that could have theoretically derailed Thor and even to a certain extent the Avengers. Consider the laser beams the price Marvel paid to get Thor on-screen. Feel better?
Dear Mr. Postman,
Today I was musing on that old cinematic turkey "Howard the Duck." Part of what made it bad, I felt, was that the special effects of the period weren't up to snuff. The idea of having a cynical talking cigar-smoking duck interacting with human beings is a great idea. Back then, the best that could be done was to literally have a short guy in a duck suit. Now, with computer animation technology advanced enough to make you believe you're seeing cities get trashed by giant monsters, making Howard plausible on the big screen should be a snap.
My question to you, Mr. Postman, is this: Which science fiction/fantasy/horror film that got hit by the great ideas/lousy special effects curse deserves a cinematic second chance with current SFX technology?
From an effects standpoint, I'd love to see a big-budget remake of Big Trouble in Little China, but there's literally no way anyone could possible match the original movie's charm and weirdness, let alone Kurt Russell's performance. Same with Army of Darkness — it'd be awesome to see that movie with modern effects, but no one's going to replicate Bruce Campbell, so there's no need.
I'm excited by the new Godzilla movie, because Godzilla is about spectacle, and modern effects will definitely bring something there. I really want another Tron movie, and I think a lot more could be done with the effects (and I would prefer a little more computer in my computerized world, as opposed to an all-black Apple Store). I also wouldn't mind a shot-fot-shot remake of Zardoz with modern special effects, but I understand this legally makes me insane.
I'm going to open this one up to the floor: What movies do you think modern special effects could actually justify a remake?
Nice work with keeping the postal department alive in the future. My question is simply this,
Why is it so hard for people to understand that films made by Marvel Studios fall in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and have NOTHING to do with the Marvel licensed films made by Sony or Fox?
I mean every other day I am reading a comment by someone who asks where were X-Men during the battle of New York or saying that Marvel Studios have a bad record with Wolverine movies? Why isn't the concept of mutual exclusion between studios yet completely understood by the masses?
Well, to be fair, all of these are Marvel movies, but only the Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and Hulk ones are Marvel Studios movies. It's easy for me to know the difference, but I'm a professional nerd paid to keep up with this sort of thing — I don't know how much normal people are invested in or keep up with what studios put out which movies, and thus I don't know if it's generally accepted knowledge that different studios own different Marvel properties and just a few people haven't gotten the memo, or no one knows the studio thing other than smart, well-informed, attractive io9-readers and the like.
What bugs me is when people know Sony has Spider-Man and Fox has the X-Men, but think that since Marvel owns the characters, they somehow have any input on the movies. These people seem to think that Marvel has graciously let these studios make movies about their characters and thus have some sort of control over them, as opposed to reality, in which Marvel sold these rights in a desperate attempt to keep the company from imploding (because Marvel was literally bankrupt less than 20 years ago). I don't really know why this irritates me, because this is just more knowledge I know as a professional nerd. I guess I figure if you care enough to pay attention to which studios make which movies, you should probably also know that the studios are the ones in charge. Which is partially why Marvel Studios came into existence in the first place.
Remember the Titans
The article on Donna Troy got me thinking about how DC's New52 has destroyed the legacy of the Teen Titans. For those unfamiliar with the Titans history, here's a link.
At first, the New52 said the Titans existed, but quickly retconed that away. In the crossover with Legion Lost, the Legionaries said the Teen Titans should not exist yet, but then the Legion itself was retconed as being from Earth 2. Right now I don't think they even know what is going on in their own books. Let's see the damage:
Wonder Girl (Donna Troy): No longer exists
Kid Flash (Wally West): No longer exists
Aqualad: No longer exists, but there was a reference to a "purple-eyed boy" in Aquaman
Robin/Nightwing (Dick Grayson): Exists but just how long was he Robin? Was he ever a Titan?
Speedy/Arsenal: Exists and remembered the Titans in early issues, then the Titans was retconed away
Lilith: Exists, but as a Eyes-sewed shut villain
Hawk & Dove: Exists, but were never Titans
Mal Duncan: No longer exists
Bumblebee: No longer exists
New Teen Titans;
Cyborg: Exists but is now Apocalyptic tech and was never a Titan
Beast Boy; Exists, but is now red and angry instead of green and happy-go-lucky
Starfire: Exists, but was changed into a living blow-up doll and was never a Titan
Raven: Exists, but as a servant of her father Trigon
Thunder & Lighting: Exists in name only, new characters
Terra: Exists, but a different character
Jericho: Exists, but as a villain hunting his father, never a titan
Pantha, Red Star, Wildebeast, Phantasm; All no longer exist
Rose Wilson: Exists, but now a villain, never a Titan
Jesse Quick: No longer exists but if she does appear, it will probably be on Earth 2
Team Titans: No longer exist
Titans West: No longer exist
Atom's Teen Titans: No longer exist
The New Teen Titans had some of the best comics ever made, especially those written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by George Perez; The Judas Contract, Deathstroke, The HIVE, Trigon, Who is Donna Troy?. All of that erased from continuity and I have to ask why? Who in the New52 wanted to destroy all of this? Did someone have a problem with Wolfman and/or Perez?
Let me clue you in to a little secret: DC's decision to relaunch its entire universe with the New 52 was pretty much a snap decision. It could have been perfect if they'd taken some time and planned out everything —what should stay, what should be jettisoned, what was retconned, and so forth. But instead there just was a mandate to put out a bunch of #1 issues as quickly as possible, and DC decided superheroes have only been around for five years, and ever since then they're still figuring out what is and isn't canon. That's why the Teen Titans, Donna Troy and Aquaman's marriage were all erased months after the launch. (Fun fact: No one working on the Superman comic had any idea of what had happened in Superman's past to the point that no one knew if Ma or Pa Kent were even alive — because DC decided Grant Morrison could make it up as he went along in Action Comics).
There's no grand conspiracy to destroy the Titans; they're just the unfortunate victims of a great many things. First, there's DC's "everything has only been around for five years", which wiped out a lot of sidekicks because they want their main characters to be young and fresh. Meanwhile all the Batman continuity stayed, because Batman sold well, which means Nightwing is too old for the Titans. Then there's Geoff Johns' love of the Silver Age, which is why Barry Allen is back, and why there's no need for Wally West and Bart Allen. I've previously mentioned why Donna Troy is a disaster than DC has simply avoided, which wasn't a terrible idea. Cyborg got promoted to the Justice League for gender diversity. Admittedly I have no clue what the hell happened with Starfire — I think because so many former teen characters had become adults over the years, when relaunching their universe DC just decided to keep some of them that age. And I assume Starfire was one of them because boobs.
When the New 52 rejiggered things, something was going to have to give, and the Titans just ended up with the brunt of it. I never really noticed how badly, though, until you pointed it out with that list. Yeesh.
As a resident of the post apocalyptic future, can you tell us if there are any long-term side effects from admiring Stephen Amell's abs?
No negative side effects, at least. Indeed, there's been many a night in the cold, lonely post-apocalyptic would where men and women alike have nothing to warm themselves but the thought of Stephen Amell's glistening abs. Better than mittens, that's for fucking sure.
Do you have questions about anything scifi, fantasy, superhero, or nerd-related? Email the [email protected]! No question too difficult, no question too dumb! Obviously! | {
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I grew up in Minnesota with my mother's side of the family, all Norwegian, going back for ever. We lived in Minneapolis, the big city, but some weekends, every holiday, and often in the summer we'd pile into the family sedan and drive a couple of hours southeast, down along the Mississippi River to Winona, an old river town, where my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, and a whole slew of cousins lived. Come Christmas we'd have a rather large horde at my grandparents house for Christmas Eve dinner, our big celebration, the adults all gathered round a huge dining room table, the young adults in the next room at two or three card tables pulled together, and the younger kids in the basement running amock.
And we always had the same meal, the special meal eaten by Norwegian immigrants in the 19th century when they came to the prairies. Here it is:
· herring and flat bread crackers with Rullepolse (a type of spiced meat roll)
Fruktsuppe (fruit soup), made from pearl tapioca, cinnamon sticks, water, and dried fruit, mostly prunes and raisins and served hot, Norwegian style
· Lutefisk (in Minnesota Cod is used)
· boiled potatoes
· drawn butter (for the potatoes and Lutefisk)
· Lefse (potato flatbread, not unlike a tortilla) with butter. (No brown sugar on your lefse at this meal, that was only for fun times in the summer)
· Flatbread (Flatbrod)
· steamed cranberry pudding with hard sauce (but not with liquor in it)
· Romegrod, rice pudding with brown sugar and real cream (I remember eating it for Christmas Eve diner, my sister doesn't)
And, the cookies:
· Sprutbakkels (Spritz) made in shape of the letter S for the family name, "Stenehjem"
Coffee, always coffee
Now lutefisk was the center of this meal, the crowning glory. It is not the kind of thing that one eats easily, however. You pretty much have to be born into eating it.
Lutefisk is reconstituted dried cod that was brought on the long voyage over by Norske immigrants and not forgotten once more edible fair such as pork became plentiful. Smelly and gelatinous when wrongly cooked, it is smelly and lightly flakey at it's best. It is always served with drawn butter, but the Danes seem to think that it is best eaten with a mustard sauce. Which, of course, is sacrilege where I come from.
My grandparents got the lye dried cod and then soaked it for days in the washtubs in the basement. My sister and I don’t remember the actual process (the lye, the rinsing of the fish, etc), but we do remember watching them go downstairs twice a day to change the water. We were young and didn't realize we were watching a form of culinary alchemy, something that we would need to pass on to future generations.
And, of course, the nice thing about making Lutefisk in Minnesota at Christmas is that after dinner you could put it in a kettle and put the kettle in the garage where it would stay perfectly cold, even frozen. That way it didn’t smell up the refrigerator.
To speak to the popularity of this fish delicacy, I am 61 years old and I have only found one person younger than I that will eat the stuff. And he is 54.
Lutefisk recipe: Go to a store that carries the freshest of fish and seafood. They probably won't have it. Ideally, you would get the Lutefisk that they pull out of a barrel like in the old days. But more likely you will find Lutefisk skinless and "trimmed" and packaged in a plastic and possibly in the frozen fish section. If you can't find your lutefisk nearby try this spot on the internet:
Purchase the Lutefisk a day before you want to serve it. You wont be finding it dried and in a barrel anymore. Rather it will be in the cooler or freezer of a grocer. Take it out of the plastic bag (it's usually in plastic these days, for fear of the smell), put it in a large bowl, and cover with ice water. Change this water two to three times and keep in the refrigerator (if your family will let you). This firms up the fish.
How to cook Lutefisk:
Put the Lutefisk in a glass baking dish and season with salt. Cover it with aluminum foil. Put in a preheated oven at 375 degrees F. for 25 to 30 minutes. The fish is done when it flakes easily with a fork. Do not overcook it or it will look like whitish slimy Jello! It will be not brown.
In Minnesota, we figure a good pound of lutefisk per person, served with hot melted butter.
Douglas Padilla, artist, curator, arts activist, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
(with assistance from my sister Doreen Padilla Hyde, Austin, Texas, USA)
(© Douglas Padilla) | {
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You may be thinking that Japan is the land of rickshaws and ninjas but that’s only in the tourist areas.
A rickshaw passes as the ninja watches from above. Asakusa is tourist central in Tokyo!
Out here in the suburbs life is quite different.
I am on a two month Asialink artist’s residency in suburban Tokyo. That means I get to make art, whatever art I like, and go to exhibitions, lots of them, in one of the most interesting cities in the world. My partner is also here and we are ready to explore the city!
I’ll just do a little introduction to our part of town. We are in Suginami-ku, a city in it’s own right, which has been swallowed up by greater Tokyo. Suginami-ku is 15 minutes by train from Shibuya, you know the place with the busiest pedestrian crossing in Tokyo, the one that you see in all the movies.
Out here the pace is slower and there’s not much by way of highrise buildings. At the corner of our street is a small shrine with a number of jizu statues. Jizu is a (Buddhist) being who chose to help people on the earth after attaining enlightenment. He is considered to be the protector of many people including travellers, pregnant mothers and, in particular, very young children who have died prematurely. As one of the most popular Buddhist ‘saints’ statues of him are found all over Japan.
Jizu statues on the corner
Ours is a pretty normal street. Quite narrow by Australian standards with a narrow footpath indicated by the white line painted along the side of the road.
The powerpoles are masterpieces of contemporary installation art, draped with wires and additions sprouting from every direction.
The powerpole outside our window
Our building was in a former life, a sanatarium for tuberculosis patients. It has now been repurposed as an arts residency that houses artists from Japan and around the world in a number of studios. There are another two adjoining buildings in the complex housing two more studios. On the ground floor of this building is another space which currently houses two young Japanese artists.
My studio and our living space occupies the entire top floor of this building. There is plenty of light and space in the studio. the living section is more compact, but not bad compared to other places we’ve stayed in Japan.
The biggest difference we are finding here is in the amount of noise and light. Our place back home is on a quiet street so while our the studio looks like it’s on a back street this actually a main route to a nearby station. The traffic is busy! Plus we have a large primary school next door. Yesterday I realised I was hearing the school assembly, which sounded just as long and boring as any I sat through as a schoolkid. The single light pole outside our house has been replaced by 5 or so as this building sits near two intersections and apart from the living space the studio has virtually no window coverings (the glass is frosted). These aren’t complaints rather it just shows what we take for normal until shown otherwise.
Nearby are restaurants, quite a good supa (supermarket) an electronics and a hardware store. There’s even more interesting shops a short bus ride away. It’s quite a dense landscape compared to an Australian suburb, but the locals are friendly! | {
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