I have never seen a work by Laurie Anderson or any of the other practitioners of what is called "Performance Art." I'm told that Ms. Anderson's works usually involve gadgetry as well as spoken text, music and perhaps projections of images or videos.
Today I submit that the finest performance artist in the world is best known as an athlete. His name is Roger Federer and the only gadget he employs is a tennis racquet. He has won more so-called major or "grand slam" championships than any man who ever played the game -- 16.
There are four "Grand Slam" tournaments every year -- Wimbledon, the crown jewel of them all; and the national open championships of the United States, France and Australia. Federer has won all of them at least once, as he did just hours ago in Melbourne. One can recite an array of statistics -- record number of major tournament finals; record number of consecutive finals; record number of consecutive semifinals, record this, record that. Having done so, one would still be challenged by someone, somewhere, if one contended that Federer is the greatest player ever to wield a racquet.
But I don't think anyone would question the statement that Federer is the sport's finest performance artist, perhaps even the sporting world's finest performance artist. (Muhammad Ali comes to mind as a contender for the world championship.)
No player -- certainly no male player -- has ever been more balletic. Imagine a video tape of just the lower torso of Baryshnikov at the peak of his career. Watch the feet. Now picture a video of Federer from the same perspective. Watch the feet. If it weren't for the different shoes, you'd be hard pressed to tell who's the dancer and who's the tennis player.
With only the "thwack" of the tennis ball for rhythm and the grace of his movements as melody, he creates a kind of symphony on the tennis court. He might begin a point andante, with carefully placed shots of moderate pace. Then -- agitato! -- an arpeggio of deft slices, angles, volleys. When he plays ad libitum he is apt to create a shot that nobody has ever seen before -- not only getting to a ball that few other players in the world could reach, but returning it for a winner with his back to the net. His codas are masterly -- a service ace, a laser forehand, a topspin backhand that kisses a sideline. Each game he plays in his a capella sport is bel canto.
Tennis is a game of power, grace, speed, tactics, determination, endurance, strength, psychology and sheer mystery. In the entire history of the game, one or two players might be Federer's better in power, or in speed, or in tactics. None has ever equaled his total command of every element of the game. Only he, it seems, has solved the entire mystery.
There are more fine tennis players in the world today than ever before, thanks to improved equipment, coaching, diet and training methods. Some, like Andy Murray, who lost to Federer earlier today in the Australian championships, are capable of winning a grand slam even with Roger in the field. It's been done a few times.
And perhaps some day someone will surpass the record numbers he is running up. But it will be a long, long time before anyone wins so many tennis championships so artistically.
"Don't tell Momma I'm a journalist; say I play the piano in a whorehouse."
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Black Ops and Red Herrings
I was enraged when I learned that the jugglers, clowns and fact-twisters on Fox Fiction were referring to the punk with the camera phone as a "journalist." James O'Keefe is no more a journalist than Dan Quayle was John F. Kennedy. Applying the term to him is an insult to the craft I served, and to those professionals in places like the McClatchey Washington Bureau who pursue the truth with dedication and integrity.
It was O'Keefe who posed as a pimp to film a "sting" of the community organizing group called ACORN. His shoddy work made the Foxies giddy with ecstasy and sent the hypocrites in Congress scurrying to take away the organization's government aid. He was arrested last Monday in an apparent attempt to bug the phone system of a Louisiana senator. O'Keefe is just one more worm in a line that traces back to the Nixon administration.
Even before the infamous "plumbers" brought down his presidency in the Watergate scandal, Nixon's White House employed one Jack Caulfield, an ex-New York cop, to be a political spy. At various times Caulfield was commissioned to pose as a reporter to get dirt on Ted Kernnedy; to infiltrate the opposition and gather blackmail material on the Democratic National Committee chairman, Lawrence O'Brien, and to find candidates for the infamous "enemies list." From 1970 to 1973 the Republican Gestapo grew bolder and more ambitious. One plan, masterminded by a secret operative named Fred LaRue, proposed to kidnap ("surgically remove") antiwar and civil rights leaders by "drugging them and taking them 'across the border.'"
Over subsequent years, as extremists of the right took full control of the party, the propensity for black ops appears to have become part of the Republican DNA. Hence the punk with the camera phone (who could use a lesson in spycraft from G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent who was a key player in the Watergate crimes).
Concomitant with the evolution of Republican espionage is the increasing ugliness of the party's hate talk. Presumably media gassers like Limblow, Beck, O'Reilly and Coulter have inspired this contribution to public discourse.
The Nixonites at least confined their most hateful diatribes to deleted expletives in the privacy of the Oval and other White House offices. These days Congressmen and Supreme Court Justices publicly abandon 200 years of traditional decorum for presidential addresses to Congress. A Republican senator-to-be smiles approvingly when a supporter at a public meeting calls upon him to "shove a hot curling iron up her a--," in reference to his opponent. Gun-toting Obama-haters shout racist slogans, circulate racist jokes on the internet and make loathsome references to the First Lady and the two Obama daughters. For this they are hailed by Republican party officials as patriots and grassroots political heroes.
No one is surprised that the President's call for civility in public discourse at the Republican party retreat in Baltimore has brought only derision from the windbags of the right. It's in their political genes.
As for the O'Keefe kid, one might aptly paraphrase the voice-over on the jelly commercial on TV: "Call him anything, but don't call him a journalist."
It was O'Keefe who posed as a pimp to film a "sting" of the community organizing group called ACORN. His shoddy work made the Foxies giddy with ecstasy and sent the hypocrites in Congress scurrying to take away the organization's government aid. He was arrested last Monday in an apparent attempt to bug the phone system of a Louisiana senator. O'Keefe is just one more worm in a line that traces back to the Nixon administration.
Even before the infamous "plumbers" brought down his presidency in the Watergate scandal, Nixon's White House employed one Jack Caulfield, an ex-New York cop, to be a political spy. At various times Caulfield was commissioned to pose as a reporter to get dirt on Ted Kernnedy; to infiltrate the opposition and gather blackmail material on the Democratic National Committee chairman, Lawrence O'Brien, and to find candidates for the infamous "enemies list." From 1970 to 1973 the Republican Gestapo grew bolder and more ambitious. One plan, masterminded by a secret operative named Fred LaRue, proposed to kidnap ("surgically remove") antiwar and civil rights leaders by "drugging them and taking them 'across the border.'"
Over subsequent years, as extremists of the right took full control of the party, the propensity for black ops appears to have become part of the Republican DNA. Hence the punk with the camera phone (who could use a lesson in spycraft from G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent who was a key player in the Watergate crimes).
Concomitant with the evolution of Republican espionage is the increasing ugliness of the party's hate talk. Presumably media gassers like Limblow, Beck, O'Reilly and Coulter have inspired this contribution to public discourse.
The Nixonites at least confined their most hateful diatribes to deleted expletives in the privacy of the Oval and other White House offices. These days Congressmen and Supreme Court Justices publicly abandon 200 years of traditional decorum for presidential addresses to Congress. A Republican senator-to-be smiles approvingly when a supporter at a public meeting calls upon him to "shove a hot curling iron up her a--," in reference to his opponent. Gun-toting Obama-haters shout racist slogans, circulate racist jokes on the internet and make loathsome references to the First Lady and the two Obama daughters. For this they are hailed by Republican party officials as patriots and grassroots political heroes.
No one is surprised that the President's call for civility in public discourse at the Republican party retreat in Baltimore has brought only derision from the windbags of the right. It's in their political genes.
As for the O'Keefe kid, one might aptly paraphrase the voice-over on the jelly commercial on TV: "Call him anything, but don't call him a journalist."
Friday, January 29, 2010
2 Boys, 2 Books
The deaths within a day of one another of J.D. Salinger and Howard Zinn struck powerful chords in my memory.
Fittingly, it was my eldest son John who alerted me to Salinger's death. I remembered my own introduction to Mr. Salinger, whose most famous book had just come out as my generation was preparing to enter college. For years our favorite pejorative was "phony." But I particularly remembered when John was 15, flailing about in a turbulent and troubled adolescence, and was given a copy of "Catcher" to read. He devoured it, then the rest of Salinger's ouvre, and not only found a path past many of his personal demons, but became a true literatus. Today, himself a father, he is one of the best-read men of my acquaintance, and among the very most knowledgeable about fine literature and poetry. He is living evidence of the truth of Thoreau's remark that "many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book." Though we are miles apart, John and I conducted our own ritual to Mr. Salinger's memory by re-reading "A Perfect Day for Bananafish."
I met Daniel Ellsberg through my friend and New York Times colleague, Neil Sheehan, to whom Mr. Ellsburg entrusted his copy of a massive study of the Vietnam war that came to be known as "The Pentagon Papers," for which our newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize. But I never kew about Ellsberg's close friendship with Howard Zinn until I searched the internet to read Mr. Zinn's obituaries and found Ellsberg's own tribute to the popular historian, activist and teacher. It focused on their participation in social protests on behalf of peace and civil rights and I thought again how my late grandson, Logan, would have fit right in with them.
In his immediate post-adolescence Logan was adrift, seemingly without purpose to his life. He had, however, become an avid reader; he was seldom without a book in hand. One day the book in hand was Zinn's great "People's History of the United States" and another young man began a new era in his life. Logan became a prolific writer of poetry, polemics and essays on the very causes that Zinn espoused. He organized peace rallies, spoke to them and renewed his pursuit of a long-forgotten childhood ideal to become a history teacher himself. He became a magnet to troubled teen-agers on whom society had given up, and helped them to find new paths of their own. He organized a chapter of Food Not Bombs and prepared and carried meals to the homeless. He had a load of them in his little pick-up truck when he had the tragic fatal crash.
Hundreds of people of all ages gathered for his memorial service on the ocean shore. Many spoke about the ways in which an extraordinary young man had touched their lives for the better. One by one they pledged their assistance to the creation of the only memorial they deemed proper for him: a library. Its first volumes would be the collected works of Howard Zinn.
Fittingly, it was my eldest son John who alerted me to Salinger's death. I remembered my own introduction to Mr. Salinger, whose most famous book had just come out as my generation was preparing to enter college. For years our favorite pejorative was "phony." But I particularly remembered when John was 15, flailing about in a turbulent and troubled adolescence, and was given a copy of "Catcher" to read. He devoured it, then the rest of Salinger's ouvre, and not only found a path past many of his personal demons, but became a true literatus. Today, himself a father, he is one of the best-read men of my acquaintance, and among the very most knowledgeable about fine literature and poetry. He is living evidence of the truth of Thoreau's remark that "many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book." Though we are miles apart, John and I conducted our own ritual to Mr. Salinger's memory by re-reading "A Perfect Day for Bananafish."
I met Daniel Ellsberg through my friend and New York Times colleague, Neil Sheehan, to whom Mr. Ellsburg entrusted his copy of a massive study of the Vietnam war that came to be known as "The Pentagon Papers," for which our newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize. But I never kew about Ellsberg's close friendship with Howard Zinn until I searched the internet to read Mr. Zinn's obituaries and found Ellsberg's own tribute to the popular historian, activist and teacher. It focused on their participation in social protests on behalf of peace and civil rights and I thought again how my late grandson, Logan, would have fit right in with them.
In his immediate post-adolescence Logan was adrift, seemingly without purpose to his life. He had, however, become an avid reader; he was seldom without a book in hand. One day the book in hand was Zinn's great "People's History of the United States" and another young man began a new era in his life. Logan became a prolific writer of poetry, polemics and essays on the very causes that Zinn espoused. He organized peace rallies, spoke to them and renewed his pursuit of a long-forgotten childhood ideal to become a history teacher himself. He became a magnet to troubled teen-agers on whom society had given up, and helped them to find new paths of their own. He organized a chapter of Food Not Bombs and prepared and carried meals to the homeless. He had a load of them in his little pick-up truck when he had the tragic fatal crash.
Hundreds of people of all ages gathered for his memorial service on the ocean shore. Many spoke about the ways in which an extraordinary young man had touched their lives for the better. One by one they pledged their assistance to the creation of the only memorial they deemed proper for him: a library. Its first volumes would be the collected works of Howard Zinn.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
State of the Union (I)
President Obama's first State of the Union address made clear that his greatest asset is the same one that won him the Nobel Peace Prize -- that he is not George W. Bush.
At a time when the nation was strangling on his bad policies and worse actions, Mr. Bush couldn't think of a single mistake he'd ever made as President. Last night a sitting President told us, "I take my share of blame. . ."
Mr. Bush's state of the union preachments amounted to, "Trust me, I'm doing fine, I'm the decider, and God is with me. . ."
Mr. Obama offered no such Panglossian prevarication. He acknowledged the truth: that we managed to stave off financial devastation, but the economy still is far from healthy; that without government action our job losses might have been even greater but remained grievous; and above all that Americans are angry and hurting and greatly disappointed in their government -- with cause.
He was largely stern-faced, professorial and determined throughout his address and his few smiles were pasted-on grins, except when he acknowledged the First Lady and thanked her for her efforts to combat childhood obesity. That smile was genuine.
But when he attempted to mask with gentle humor his jibe at the Republicans for failing to respond to anything he said -- even things he thought they'd approve of -- both his smile and the attempt at humor were painfully artificial.
And although he continued to appeal for bipartisanship, even while acknowledging the profound differences between the parties, he projected genuine determination to keep fighting for solutions to the major issues confronting the nation.
He rearranged his priorities to put jobs and the economy first, but remained committed to health care reform for all the right reasons. He needs to tell us more about his job creation policies, but those he described last night are promising. Obviously he is not inclined toward the greater government financial role in job creation that many economists deem necessary, but at least he is deferring his cuts on government social programs until 2011 "when the economy has recovered more."
Overall, he struck me as a President determined to fight much harder for some of the country's most urgent needs than he did in this first year, when he made too many concessions to his racalcitrant opposition and received nothing in return. The surly determination of that opposition, and the personification of it, were evident when cameras panned the audience as he spoke. It was not just Republicans who pointedly refused to applaud any of his statements; not one of the people with all the brass and braid on their suits did so either. Nor, in fact, did a substantial number of Democrats, notably when he reminded them that they still held majorities in Congress and should not "run for the hills." When Mr. Obama rightly criticized the Supreme Court for playing politics in its decision granting corporations First Amendment license to buy elections, one of the crafters of the decision, Samuel Alito, was seen to sneeringly dismiss the President while mouthing "not true." The Joe Wilson of the Supreme Court.
Mr. Obama chose not to address those deplorable policies of his predecessor that remain in effect -- domestic spying; pleading national security to veil activities that reek of the probability of being illegal or unconstitutional; keeping secret the actions of senior government officials that led us into unwinnable and illegal wars. He did proclaim that we have "prohibited" torture but that dances around the continuing renditions of captives to lands that are known to condone and practice it.
What Mr. Obama gave us last night was a statement of precisely centrist goals. If Congress achieves them, the country will be a somewhat better place than it was when he took office a year ago. If Mr. Obama remains firm and uncompromising, and the Senate Republicans filibuster, so be it. Let the fault for failure than fall exactly where it belongs. Surely not even the American electorate is so blind as to let that pass unnoticed.
We heard last night from a President who is not George Bush, and that's good. Good enough, perhaps, to get these United States through one of its darkest times.
State of the Union (II)
OK, the truth. Just tell the truth!
I now have to come clean and admit that my President grabbed and squeezed me by the gut tonight. Thus there had to be times when I was helpless to remember what I really thought of his healthcare maneuvering, and whatever he was saying on my TV screen right now took precedence. It was quite a show.
Thus I mainly forgot my foregone conclusion that he was at least a Blue Dog Centrist. He papered over it so well that I considered holding his paste pot while he finished up. He came across as a man running on a straight common-sense ticket and I just couldn't resist the guy. I sat there, his helpless captive, for the whole 90 minutes.
We were back in a room with the same Obama we voted for a whole year and three months ago. Just like nothing had happened in-between. No Geithners, Summerses, Afghanistan surges, still-rendered detainees or threatened habeas corpuses, none of it. Here was a guy who sounded for all the world like he was determined to put my political philosophy to work, damn the Republicans and Blue Dogs! Although he kept smiling at 'em the whole time, he got in his licks
But did I choose to forget that one of the most noticeable things he did when entering that room was go over to Geithner and give him a special look, a special smile and handshake, maybe a little shoulder squeeze that nobody else got -- right in front of every one of us, including his new friend Paul Volcker? Sure I did.
Quite a while later, the same guy was shaming the seated members of the Roberts court, Roberts himself front and center, for their recent reenforcement of corporate personhood and a good company/citizen's right to buy elections in their entirety instead of piecemeal -- or however they do it now. The justices had to sit there in their privileged seats right under his nose and take it, though I heard later he had Alito muttering about it at the very least.
It even occurred to me to feel glad I'd sent him a few bucks prior to last November -- back before I knew Lloyd Blankfein was writing him a check that would trump Bam's entire "citizen's army." That's right --- I could barely remember there was such a thing as Goldman Sachs. That's how carried away I was. The guy gives a real Oscar performance with his back to the wall, and I salute him.
At a time when the nation was strangling on his bad policies and worse actions, Mr. Bush couldn't think of a single mistake he'd ever made as President. Last night a sitting President told us, "I take my share of blame. . ."
Mr. Bush's state of the union preachments amounted to, "Trust me, I'm doing fine, I'm the decider, and God is with me. . ."
Mr. Obama offered no such Panglossian prevarication. He acknowledged the truth: that we managed to stave off financial devastation, but the economy still is far from healthy; that without government action our job losses might have been even greater but remained grievous; and above all that Americans are angry and hurting and greatly disappointed in their government -- with cause.
He was largely stern-faced, professorial and determined throughout his address and his few smiles were pasted-on grins, except when he acknowledged the First Lady and thanked her for her efforts to combat childhood obesity. That smile was genuine.
But when he attempted to mask with gentle humor his jibe at the Republicans for failing to respond to anything he said -- even things he thought they'd approve of -- both his smile and the attempt at humor were painfully artificial.
And although he continued to appeal for bipartisanship, even while acknowledging the profound differences between the parties, he projected genuine determination to keep fighting for solutions to the major issues confronting the nation.
He rearranged his priorities to put jobs and the economy first, but remained committed to health care reform for all the right reasons. He needs to tell us more about his job creation policies, but those he described last night are promising. Obviously he is not inclined toward the greater government financial role in job creation that many economists deem necessary, but at least he is deferring his cuts on government social programs until 2011 "when the economy has recovered more."
Overall, he struck me as a President determined to fight much harder for some of the country's most urgent needs than he did in this first year, when he made too many concessions to his racalcitrant opposition and received nothing in return. The surly determination of that opposition, and the personification of it, were evident when cameras panned the audience as he spoke. It was not just Republicans who pointedly refused to applaud any of his statements; not one of the people with all the brass and braid on their suits did so either. Nor, in fact, did a substantial number of Democrats, notably when he reminded them that they still held majorities in Congress and should not "run for the hills." When Mr. Obama rightly criticized the Supreme Court for playing politics in its decision granting corporations First Amendment license to buy elections, one of the crafters of the decision, Samuel Alito, was seen to sneeringly dismiss the President while mouthing "not true." The Joe Wilson of the Supreme Court.
Mr. Obama chose not to address those deplorable policies of his predecessor that remain in effect -- domestic spying; pleading national security to veil activities that reek of the probability of being illegal or unconstitutional; keeping secret the actions of senior government officials that led us into unwinnable and illegal wars. He did proclaim that we have "prohibited" torture but that dances around the continuing renditions of captives to lands that are known to condone and practice it.
What Mr. Obama gave us last night was a statement of precisely centrist goals. If Congress achieves them, the country will be a somewhat better place than it was when he took office a year ago. If Mr. Obama remains firm and uncompromising, and the Senate Republicans filibuster, so be it. Let the fault for failure than fall exactly where it belongs. Surely not even the American electorate is so blind as to let that pass unnoticed.
We heard last night from a President who is not George Bush, and that's good. Good enough, perhaps, to get these United States through one of its darkest times.
State of the Union (II)
By Mort Persky
OK, the truth. Just tell the truth!
I now have to come clean and admit that my President grabbed and squeezed me by the gut tonight. Thus there had to be times when I was helpless to remember what I really thought of his healthcare maneuvering, and whatever he was saying on my TV screen right now took precedence. It was quite a show.
Thus I mainly forgot my foregone conclusion that he was at least a Blue Dog Centrist. He papered over it so well that I considered holding his paste pot while he finished up. He came across as a man running on a straight common-sense ticket and I just couldn't resist the guy. I sat there, his helpless captive, for the whole 90 minutes.
We were back in a room with the same Obama we voted for a whole year and three months ago. Just like nothing had happened in-between. No Geithners, Summerses, Afghanistan surges, still-rendered detainees or threatened habeas corpuses, none of it. Here was a guy who sounded for all the world like he was determined to put my political philosophy to work, damn the Republicans and Blue Dogs! Although he kept smiling at 'em the whole time, he got in his licks
But did I choose to forget that one of the most noticeable things he did when entering that room was go over to Geithner and give him a special look, a special smile and handshake, maybe a little shoulder squeeze that nobody else got -- right in front of every one of us, including his new friend Paul Volcker? Sure I did.
Quite a while later, the same guy was shaming the seated members of the Roberts court, Roberts himself front and center, for their recent reenforcement of corporate personhood and a good company/citizen's right to buy elections in their entirety instead of piecemeal -- or however they do it now. The justices had to sit there in their privileged seats right under his nose and take it, though I heard later he had Alito muttering about it at the very least.
It even occurred to me to feel glad I'd sent him a few bucks prior to last November -- back before I knew Lloyd Blankfein was writing him a check that would trump Bam's entire "citizen's army." That's right --- I could barely remember there was such a thing as Goldman Sachs. That's how carried away I was. The guy gives a real Oscar performance with his back to the wall, and I salute him.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
A Just God
For those dedicated Christian warriors determined to drive satanic atheists to cover there is today new evidence of the existence of God.
It comes from Louisiana, of all places -- the very Louisiana upon which God had to inflict the hurricane known as Katrina because of the late Madaline Murray O'Hair's atheism.
It is this (according to the New Orleans Times Picayune):
"Alleging a plot to wiretap Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group's credibility."
What will Fox Fiction make of this? Will Glenn Beck, who secretly helped fund O'Keefe's mischief against ACORN, take proper umbrage against this attempted crime? Will Bill O'Reilly play the tape of O'Keefe's arrest over and over? Will Congress pass a law?
The FBI alleges that two of O'Keefe's accomplices entered the federal building at 500 Poydras Street about 11 a.m. Monday, dressed as telephone company employees, wearing jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts, and hard hats. When they arrived at Landrieu's 10th floor office, O'Keefe was already in the office. He told the staffer they were there to fix phone problems. At that time, the staffer, referred to only as Witness 1 in the affidavit, observed O'Keefe positioning his cell phone in his hand to videotape the operation. O'Keefe later admitted to agents that he recorded the event.
Why did they want to bug Landrieu, a Blue Dog who votes with the right wing on virtually every issue? To keep her in line?
Never mind. It'll all come out sooner or later.
Meanwhile, thank you, God, for jailing this scoundrel.
It comes from Louisiana, of all places -- the very Louisiana upon which God had to inflict the hurricane known as Katrina because of the late Madaline Murray O'Hair's atheism.
It is this (according to the New Orleans Times Picayune):
"Alleging a plot to wiretap Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group's credibility."
What will Fox Fiction make of this? Will Glenn Beck, who secretly helped fund O'Keefe's mischief against ACORN, take proper umbrage against this attempted crime? Will Bill O'Reilly play the tape of O'Keefe's arrest over and over? Will Congress pass a law?
The FBI alleges that two of O'Keefe's accomplices entered the federal building at 500 Poydras Street about 11 a.m. Monday, dressed as telephone company employees, wearing jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts, and hard hats. When they arrived at Landrieu's 10th floor office, O'Keefe was already in the office. He told the staffer they were there to fix phone problems. At that time, the staffer, referred to only as Witness 1 in the affidavit, observed O'Keefe positioning his cell phone in his hand to videotape the operation. O'Keefe later admitted to agents that he recorded the event.
Why did they want to bug Landrieu, a Blue Dog who votes with the right wing on virtually every issue? To keep her in line?
Never mind. It'll all come out sooner or later.
Meanwhile, thank you, God, for jailing this scoundrel.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Air America, r.i.p.
Once in Philadelphia there was a 24-hour all-classical music station, and my hearing was still good enough to enjoy it wherever I drove, especially during the interminable traffic jams on a dreadful road called the Schuylkill Expressway.
Advertisers abandoned it because its audience shrank; older people, its largest listener segment, died off and younger ones preferred to listen to rock. Especially to listen to rock. Or to listen to Rush Limbaugh telling them what to think. WFLN went the way of the eight-track tape.
Why, I often wondered, when Limblow's shouts about feminazis and Bill Clinton's sexual proclivities could be heard through an adjoining motorist's open window, was there not a talk-show antidote to Rush and his right wing fellow air polluters?
And then one day there was. It was called Air America and it gave us such intelligent, witty and perceptive commentators as Al Franken and Rachel Maddow -- thinking people's talk radio. Some real and excellent journalism was committed on its wavelength.
Air America folded last week, for want of advertising revenue and other sources of funding.
I join the progressive punditry in lamenting its death, which many commentators with far more knowledge of radio than I possess have called a "suicide." Others say the death was inevitable because there is no audience for progressive talk radiio -- it is by nature too open to dissenting views, too willing to consider nuance and subtle differences in priorioty, to appeal to a mass audience. On the one hand this, and on the other hand that. What with cell phones, GPS and a steering wheel, today's motorist doesn't have enough hands for progressive talk radio.
A friend who is a prize-winning veteran of public and progressive radio, falls in the "suicide" group.
"Air America was atrociously run from the gitgo," she told me. "I’ve seen it previously in lefty radio start ups: terrible business model, no adults in the room, doomed. Most radio shows take decades to find an audience. In Rush’s early days, accommodation was made for such a build up. These days there’s practically no room for that anymore, and A.A. really tried to rush things. Besides, the right has so dominated the AM airwaves for so long that they pull all sorts of stunts to keep the lefties away, and AA wasn't wise to the stunts.
"But if it's done right, there really is a lib radio audience -- and some of the the shows have found their way onto the same networks as Limbaugh, and (infamously right-wing) Clear channel etc. Take Randi Rhodes, for example, or Tom Hartman, Stephanie Miller -- their shows are surviving. Hartman is the anti-Limbaugh, a self-infatuated pontificator of the left. Miller is very funny. Rhodes is actually a serious student of politics with a flair for realpolitik."
I note that she said they're "surviving." Limblow and his clones are thriving. A clever entertainer can do that in talk radio. Ken Hamblin, a onetime civil rights marcher and newspaper photographer, reinvented himself as a right-wing black radio personality and thrived in Denver for years. He became wealthy, the act palled and now he's retired and jet-setting around from San Francisco.
But someone else always comes along to take up the bleat and get rich doing so. There's a big, deep, angry pool of haters out there, ripe to hear the message. Makes 'em feel, y' know, powerful.
Advertisers abandoned it because its audience shrank; older people, its largest listener segment, died off and younger ones preferred to listen to rock. Especially to listen to rock. Or to listen to Rush Limbaugh telling them what to think. WFLN went the way of the eight-track tape.
Why, I often wondered, when Limblow's shouts about feminazis and Bill Clinton's sexual proclivities could be heard through an adjoining motorist's open window, was there not a talk-show antidote to Rush and his right wing fellow air polluters?
And then one day there was. It was called Air America and it gave us such intelligent, witty and perceptive commentators as Al Franken and Rachel Maddow -- thinking people's talk radio. Some real and excellent journalism was committed on its wavelength.
Air America folded last week, for want of advertising revenue and other sources of funding.
I join the progressive punditry in lamenting its death, which many commentators with far more knowledge of radio than I possess have called a "suicide." Others say the death was inevitable because there is no audience for progressive talk radiio -- it is by nature too open to dissenting views, too willing to consider nuance and subtle differences in priorioty, to appeal to a mass audience. On the one hand this, and on the other hand that. What with cell phones, GPS and a steering wheel, today's motorist doesn't have enough hands for progressive talk radio.
A friend who is a prize-winning veteran of public and progressive radio, falls in the "suicide" group.
"Air America was atrociously run from the gitgo," she told me. "I’ve seen it previously in lefty radio start ups: terrible business model, no adults in the room, doomed. Most radio shows take decades to find an audience. In Rush’s early days, accommodation was made for such a build up. These days there’s practically no room for that anymore, and A.A. really tried to rush things. Besides, the right has so dominated the AM airwaves for so long that they pull all sorts of stunts to keep the lefties away, and AA wasn't wise to the stunts.
"But if it's done right, there really is a lib radio audience -- and some of the the shows have found their way onto the same networks as Limbaugh, and (infamously right-wing) Clear channel etc. Take Randi Rhodes, for example, or Tom Hartman, Stephanie Miller -- their shows are surviving. Hartman is the anti-Limbaugh, a self-infatuated pontificator of the left. Miller is very funny. Rhodes is actually a serious student of politics with a flair for realpolitik."
I note that she said they're "surviving." Limblow and his clones are thriving. A clever entertainer can do that in talk radio. Ken Hamblin, a onetime civil rights marcher and newspaper photographer, reinvented himself as a right-wing black radio personality and thrived in Denver for years. He became wealthy, the act palled and now he's retired and jet-setting around from San Francisco.
But someone else always comes along to take up the bleat and get rich doing so. There's a big, deep, angry pool of haters out there, ripe to hear the message. Makes 'em feel, y' know, powerful.
Monday, January 25, 2010
The Razor's Edge
It is time for the administration to heed Occam's Razor and form new, simpler, more direct policies.
The efforts at bipartisanship in legislating health care reform led to a hopeless tangle of sops to competing interests. It should be abandoned.
Abiding by the principle that the simplest solution or strategy is usually the best, here are some ways for the Democrats in Congress and the executive branch to show some real leadership:
1. Millions of jobless Americans are in worse shape financially than Wall Street was when big government made the big bail-out. Solution: Commit just as much money as was given to the banks to creating a federal job bank. Whatever jobs need to be done that can be done through public works should be done, by putting jobless Americans on the federal payroll to do them. Find something in the public good to employ every jobless American. Don't fret the cost. As a number of top economists outside the administration have told us, this is no time to worry about federal debt. It is time to worry about citizen debt, citizen hunger, citizen discontent.
2. Get serious about ending war, closing military bases abroad and bringing troops home. The faster that can be made to happen, the faster the money wasted on killing abroad can be invested in saving and improving lives at home.
3. Craft a simple piece of legislation that applies Medicare to everyone. No strings. Mandate that every American of any age shall be covered by exactly the same program that now covers Americans 65 and over. Let the greedy damned insurance companies sell "gap" insurance as they do now -- but make them do it on a federally controlled exchange, with simple standards for comparison of costs and benefits.
4. One by one, regulate those aspects of private enterprise in which the state has a controlling interest under the constitution. Make the legislation simple and without loopholes. Start with carbon emissions; they make people sick. All cap, no trade.
5. Defeat the Supreme Court's edict that corporations are more important than people by legislating public funding of all federal elections. This can be financed simply: a small, mandatory surcharge on individual tax returns, and a substantial tax on the advertising budgets of corporations.
6. Put a word limit -- say 750 words -- on every new piece of legislation offered. End government by windbags. Keep it simple.
7. Start today, and define the goals in the State of the Union Address. Do it now. When the Corporate Congress takes over later this year no actions in the people's best interests will be possible.
The efforts at bipartisanship in legislating health care reform led to a hopeless tangle of sops to competing interests. It should be abandoned.
Abiding by the principle that the simplest solution or strategy is usually the best, here are some ways for the Democrats in Congress and the executive branch to show some real leadership:
1. Millions of jobless Americans are in worse shape financially than Wall Street was when big government made the big bail-out. Solution: Commit just as much money as was given to the banks to creating a federal job bank. Whatever jobs need to be done that can be done through public works should be done, by putting jobless Americans on the federal payroll to do them. Find something in the public good to employ every jobless American. Don't fret the cost. As a number of top economists outside the administration have told us, this is no time to worry about federal debt. It is time to worry about citizen debt, citizen hunger, citizen discontent.
2. Get serious about ending war, closing military bases abroad and bringing troops home. The faster that can be made to happen, the faster the money wasted on killing abroad can be invested in saving and improving lives at home.
3. Craft a simple piece of legislation that applies Medicare to everyone. No strings. Mandate that every American of any age shall be covered by exactly the same program that now covers Americans 65 and over. Let the greedy damned insurance companies sell "gap" insurance as they do now -- but make them do it on a federally controlled exchange, with simple standards for comparison of costs and benefits.
4. One by one, regulate those aspects of private enterprise in which the state has a controlling interest under the constitution. Make the legislation simple and without loopholes. Start with carbon emissions; they make people sick. All cap, no trade.
5. Defeat the Supreme Court's edict that corporations are more important than people by legislating public funding of all federal elections. This can be financed simply: a small, mandatory surcharge on individual tax returns, and a substantial tax on the advertising budgets of corporations.
6. Put a word limit -- say 750 words -- on every new piece of legislation offered. End government by windbags. Keep it simple.
7. Start today, and define the goals in the State of the Union Address. Do it now. When the Corporate Congress takes over later this year no actions in the people's best interests will be possible.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Catch 2010
It is organic to liberalism that its adherents argue amongst themselves as arduously as they do with their adversaries.
Thus the liberal blogger, lawyer, and expert on Constitutional law, Glenn Greenwald, sees the Supreme Court decision on corporate campaign spending in a somewhat different light than many other liberals.
Greenwald:
"Critics emphasize that the Court's ruling will produce very bad outcomes: primarily that it will severely exacerbate the problem of corporate influence in our democracy. Even if this is true, it's not really relevant. Either the First Amendment allows these speech restrictions or it doesn't. In general, a law that violates the Constitution can't be upheld because the law produces good outcomes (or because its invalidation would produce bad outcomes).
"Those who want to object to the Court's ruling need to do so on First Amendment grounds. Except to the extent that some constitutional rights give way to so-called 'compelling state interests,' that the Court's decision will produce 'bad results' is not really an argument.
"More specifically, it's often the case that banning certain kinds of speech would produce good outcomes, and conversely, allowing certain kinds of speech produces bad outcomes (that's true for, say, White Supremacist or neo-Nazi speech, or speech advocating violence against civilians). The First Amendment is not and never has been outcome-dependent. The Government is barred from restricting speech -- especially political speech -- no matter the good results that would result from the restrictions. That's the price we pay for having the liberty of free speech. And even on a utilitarian level, the long-term dangers of allowing the Government to restrict political speech invariably outweigh whatever benefits accrue from such restrictions.
"The reality is that our political institutions are already completely beholden to and controlled by large corporate interests (Dick Durbin: "banks own" the Congress). Corporations find endless ways to circumvent current restrictions -- their armies of PACs, lobbyists, media control, and revolving-door rewards flood Washington and currently ensure their stranglehold -- and while this decision will make things marginally worse, I can't imagine how it could worsen fundamentally. All of the hand-wringing sounds to me like someone expressing serious worry that a new law in North Korea will make the country more tyrannical. There's not much room for our corporatist political system to get more corporatist. Does anyone believe that the ability of corporations to influence our political process was meaningfully limited before yesterday's issuance of this ruling?"
I cede to Mr. Greenwald the First Amendment argument. I continue to disagree with him about the outcome of the court's ruling. Things will "worsen fundamentally." Here's why:
The solution to what the court has done is legislative. It behooves Congress to enact Constitutional laws that protect both the integrity of the election process and the right of free speech. But no-holds barred spending guarantees that corporate-controlled candidates will win still more seats in Congress. This militates against our ever achieving fair elections, that is, elections in which the "compelling state interest" in the health, welfare and liberties of "We the People of the United States" are protected against competing interests that have vastly more money to spend.
It's Catch 2010. Only a fairly-elected Congress can find a fair and democratic solution to the campaign finance dilemma. Now we never will have a fairly-elected Congress to do so.
Thus the liberal blogger, lawyer, and expert on Constitutional law, Glenn Greenwald, sees the Supreme Court decision on corporate campaign spending in a somewhat different light than many other liberals.
Greenwald:
"Critics emphasize that the Court's ruling will produce very bad outcomes: primarily that it will severely exacerbate the problem of corporate influence in our democracy. Even if this is true, it's not really relevant. Either the First Amendment allows these speech restrictions or it doesn't. In general, a law that violates the Constitution can't be upheld because the law produces good outcomes (or because its invalidation would produce bad outcomes).
"Those who want to object to the Court's ruling need to do so on First Amendment grounds. Except to the extent that some constitutional rights give way to so-called 'compelling state interests,' that the Court's decision will produce 'bad results' is not really an argument.
"More specifically, it's often the case that banning certain kinds of speech would produce good outcomes, and conversely, allowing certain kinds of speech produces bad outcomes (that's true for, say, White Supremacist or neo-Nazi speech, or speech advocating violence against civilians). The First Amendment is not and never has been outcome-dependent. The Government is barred from restricting speech -- especially political speech -- no matter the good results that would result from the restrictions. That's the price we pay for having the liberty of free speech. And even on a utilitarian level, the long-term dangers of allowing the Government to restrict political speech invariably outweigh whatever benefits accrue from such restrictions.
"The reality is that our political institutions are already completely beholden to and controlled by large corporate interests (Dick Durbin: "banks own" the Congress). Corporations find endless ways to circumvent current restrictions -- their armies of PACs, lobbyists, media control, and revolving-door rewards flood Washington and currently ensure their stranglehold -- and while this decision will make things marginally worse, I can't imagine how it could worsen fundamentally. All of the hand-wringing sounds to me like someone expressing serious worry that a new law in North Korea will make the country more tyrannical. There's not much room for our corporatist political system to get more corporatist. Does anyone believe that the ability of corporations to influence our political process was meaningfully limited before yesterday's issuance of this ruling?"
I cede to Mr. Greenwald the First Amendment argument. I continue to disagree with him about the outcome of the court's ruling. Things will "worsen fundamentally." Here's why:
The solution to what the court has done is legislative. It behooves Congress to enact Constitutional laws that protect both the integrity of the election process and the right of free speech. But no-holds barred spending guarantees that corporate-controlled candidates will win still more seats in Congress. This militates against our ever achieving fair elections, that is, elections in which the "compelling state interest" in the health, welfare and liberties of "We the People of the United States" are protected against competing interests that have vastly more money to spend.
It's Catch 2010. Only a fairly-elected Congress can find a fair and democratic solution to the campaign finance dilemma. Now we never will have a fairly-elected Congress to do so.
Friday, January 22, 2010
U.$.A., Inc.
Does anyone realize how close to the precipice American democracy is? Anyone, that is, with any kind of voice in government?
Corporate ownership of countless individuals in elected offices has been an open secret for decades. The awareness triggered the McCain-Feingold attempt at campaign contribution regulation, which the Supreme Court wiped out this week along with all other curbs on corporate spending to rig elections.
What this means is that after the 2010 congressional elections, corporations will have purchased virtually every seat in both houses of Congress. Through their lobbyists and trade associations, corporations already write most of the legislation that gets to the floor of either house.
Now, the same people who brought you a Bush presidency without bothering to count ballots have liberated corporate Amerca to take over your government entirely.
News accounts invariably say that the court's abominable decision removes restraints on corporations "and unions" to spend what they will to elect candidates favorable to their positions. The suggestion is that both these powers -- Business and Organized Labor -- wield equal might. What nonsense!
In 1953, about 36 percent of private sector workers in the United States were union members; today, fewer than 8 percent belong to unions. The number continues to decline; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership declined by almost a million from 2007 to 2008. Over the last two decades, corporations have successfully strong-armed worker attempts to hold union-certification elections, with the help of business-friendly legislators and federal regulators. This gave birth to legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it possible for workers to actually vote on whether to unionize. Corporate-owned Republicans appear to have the power to keep it off the floor until the big takeover later this year, when it will die.
From 1998 through 2005, according to the Government Accountability Office, 68 percent of United States corporations paid no federal income tax. Zero. None. Not one penny from two out of every three corporations doing business in your country. Pull out your old tax returns and compute how much you paid Uncle Same during those years. The GAO study was made in 2008, when Bush appointees still controlled the federal bureaucracies. It did not take into account three years of additional Bush tax breaks to American corporations after 2005. In 2006, a single U.S. corporation -- Exxon-Mobil -- had more profit -- nearly $37 billion -- than the total of union dues paid by all the unionized workers in the United States.
We have already seen how a single industry -- finance -- can dominate the actions of our government even when its most powerful institutions have driven themselves to insolvency. For months they operated on our money, thanks to bail-outs engineered by the most senior financial officials in this administration, every one of whom is an alumnus of Goldman Sachs or some other big investment bank.
We have already seen how another single industry -- insurance -- can buy enough influence in the federal government to prevent any meaningful improvement to the worst health care system in the developed world.
We have already seen how a single industry -- defense -- can impose upon this country a government policy of endless war, never mind the cost in dollars and lives.
But we ain't seen nothin' yet, folks.
Wait till the corporate overlords control everything. We won't have long to wait. It's only a matter of months.
Corporate ownership of countless individuals in elected offices has been an open secret for decades. The awareness triggered the McCain-Feingold attempt at campaign contribution regulation, which the Supreme Court wiped out this week along with all other curbs on corporate spending to rig elections.
What this means is that after the 2010 congressional elections, corporations will have purchased virtually every seat in both houses of Congress. Through their lobbyists and trade associations, corporations already write most of the legislation that gets to the floor of either house.
Now, the same people who brought you a Bush presidency without bothering to count ballots have liberated corporate Amerca to take over your government entirely.
News accounts invariably say that the court's abominable decision removes restraints on corporations "and unions" to spend what they will to elect candidates favorable to their positions. The suggestion is that both these powers -- Business and Organized Labor -- wield equal might. What nonsense!
In 1953, about 36 percent of private sector workers in the United States were union members; today, fewer than 8 percent belong to unions. The number continues to decline; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership declined by almost a million from 2007 to 2008. Over the last two decades, corporations have successfully strong-armed worker attempts to hold union-certification elections, with the help of business-friendly legislators and federal regulators. This gave birth to legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it possible for workers to actually vote on whether to unionize. Corporate-owned Republicans appear to have the power to keep it off the floor until the big takeover later this year, when it will die.
From 1998 through 2005, according to the Government Accountability Office, 68 percent of United States corporations paid no federal income tax. Zero. None. Not one penny from two out of every three corporations doing business in your country. Pull out your old tax returns and compute how much you paid Uncle Same during those years. The GAO study was made in 2008, when Bush appointees still controlled the federal bureaucracies. It did not take into account three years of additional Bush tax breaks to American corporations after 2005. In 2006, a single U.S. corporation -- Exxon-Mobil -- had more profit -- nearly $37 billion -- than the total of union dues paid by all the unionized workers in the United States.
We have already seen how a single industry -- finance -- can dominate the actions of our government even when its most powerful institutions have driven themselves to insolvency. For months they operated on our money, thanks to bail-outs engineered by the most senior financial officials in this administration, every one of whom is an alumnus of Goldman Sachs or some other big investment bank.
We have already seen how another single industry -- insurance -- can buy enough influence in the federal government to prevent any meaningful improvement to the worst health care system in the developed world.
We have already seen how a single industry -- defense -- can impose upon this country a government policy of endless war, never mind the cost in dollars and lives.
But we ain't seen nothin' yet, folks.
Wait till the corporate overlords control everything. We won't have long to wait. It's only a matter of months.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Kidglove Returns
We need Marshal Foch and we're getting Dr. Kidglove.
It was Foch, in the pitch of battle in World War I, who declared: "My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack."
Barack Obama bartered away his soul to the right and received nothing in return; has seen the center rebuff him in three recent elections; and doesn't seem to realize that the left, the base of his party, is his only hope. Rally them and attack.
The word from Washington today isn't promising.
The word is that Mr. Obama's inner Foch is nowhere to be heard; his inner Kidglove is urging him to sift out those elements of health care reform "which are popular" and seek to enact them piecemeal.
Oh, fine. We'll get criminal penalties if we fail to buy health policies from profiteering insurers who won't take you if you're already sick, put caps on what they'll pay if you're seriously sick and laugh all the way to the bank when you lose your house because you can't pay the medical bills. We'll get "health care" that doesn't provide reproductive health care for women. We'll get something much worse than what we've got now, and what we've got now is the worst kind of health care among the developed nations of the world.
Thank you, Dr. Kidglove.
Meanwhile, having heard "the message," our leader says he's going to get really, really tough on the big banks and Wall Street. Cup your ear, folks. That noise from the east is TARP-gorged bankers, giggling and calculating next year's bonuses. Forget about buying an expensive new lock for the open door, Barry; the barn is empty and the horses are running wild with our tax money.
The political arm of the White House word factory pledged today to renew efforts to create green jobs and clean energy and teach Mom to bake better applie pie. Something like that.
(Sigh.)
The Republican attack machine had one true and prescient thing to say amid its pack of lies, half-truths and distortions during the last presidential campaign. It was, essentially, that Dr. Kidglove could talk the talk oh, so well, but couldn't -- or wouldn't -- walk the walk.
Attack? He's going out under a white flag to poll the enemy.
It was Foch, in the pitch of battle in World War I, who declared: "My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack."
Barack Obama bartered away his soul to the right and received nothing in return; has seen the center rebuff him in three recent elections; and doesn't seem to realize that the left, the base of his party, is his only hope. Rally them and attack.
The word from Washington today isn't promising.
The word is that Mr. Obama's inner Foch is nowhere to be heard; his inner Kidglove is urging him to sift out those elements of health care reform "which are popular" and seek to enact them piecemeal.
Oh, fine. We'll get criminal penalties if we fail to buy health policies from profiteering insurers who won't take you if you're already sick, put caps on what they'll pay if you're seriously sick and laugh all the way to the bank when you lose your house because you can't pay the medical bills. We'll get "health care" that doesn't provide reproductive health care for women. We'll get something much worse than what we've got now, and what we've got now is the worst kind of health care among the developed nations of the world.
Thank you, Dr. Kidglove.
Meanwhile, having heard "the message," our leader says he's going to get really, really tough on the big banks and Wall Street. Cup your ear, folks. That noise from the east is TARP-gorged bankers, giggling and calculating next year's bonuses. Forget about buying an expensive new lock for the open door, Barry; the barn is empty and the horses are running wild with our tax money.
The political arm of the White House word factory pledged today to renew efforts to create green jobs and clean energy and teach Mom to bake better applie pie. Something like that.
(Sigh.)
The Republican attack machine had one true and prescient thing to say amid its pack of lies, half-truths and distortions during the last presidential campaign. It was, essentially, that Dr. Kidglove could talk the talk oh, so well, but couldn't -- or wouldn't -- walk the walk.
Attack? He's going out under a white flag to poll the enemy.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The Voters Speak
The punditry is atwitter today about the Republican's victory in the race for a Massachusetts senate seat the Democrats had held since Noah became a boatsman.
It's all inside baseball, as if it were a game. "Coakley should have come out swinging," Tim McCarver tells his sidekick. "Now the Democrats don't have enough players on the bench to beat back the Republicans' filibusters."
But it isn't a game. It's about whether our government reverts to the treasonous criminality of the Bush years or makes a genuine effort to right the wrongs of those years. It's about whether ours is a government of, by and for the Beltway, or the People.
The punditry correctly says the Massachusetts election was in fact a referendum on the Obama presidency. A heavily Democratic electorate repudiated the President and his party.
But the punditry vastly over-inflates the significance of the victory. So the Democrats lost their so-called 60-vote filibuster-proof majority. So what? What did they do for us when they had it? Nothing.
At least until the mid-term Congressional elections, Democrats still have majorities in both houses. A Democrat still sits in the Oval Office.
What the voters of Massachusetts have told them is, "Now govern, or suffer the same fate as Ms. Coakley."
Govern, Mr. President. Take the helm, House Speaker Pelosi. Get some spine, Senate Majority Leader Reid.
Go back to the drawing board, write legislation not just on health care but on climate change, clean energy, regulation of the financial hog trough, protection of the environment and creation of jobs. Never mind if aspects of these bills are "politically unpopular" or draw criticism from the punditry.
Do what's right and then, by Nettie Dingo, ram it through the Congress and sign it into law.
Impossible without 60 votes in the Senate? Bull excrement!
It has been done by previous presidents, most notably by Lyndon Johnson with Medicare and the Civil Rights Act.
He knew that the latter, especially, would politically doom his party in the South for decades to come. But he knew it was the right thing to do. And he had the courage, skill and will to get it done.
If this were indeed a game, We the People would be down a run with a man on base and two out in the last of the ninth. Time for Mr. Obama, despite his anemic batting average over the last year, to hit a home run.
It's all inside baseball, as if it were a game. "Coakley should have come out swinging," Tim McCarver tells his sidekick. "Now the Democrats don't have enough players on the bench to beat back the Republicans' filibusters."
But it isn't a game. It's about whether our government reverts to the treasonous criminality of the Bush years or makes a genuine effort to right the wrongs of those years. It's about whether ours is a government of, by and for the Beltway, or the People.
The punditry correctly says the Massachusetts election was in fact a referendum on the Obama presidency. A heavily Democratic electorate repudiated the President and his party.
But the punditry vastly over-inflates the significance of the victory. So the Democrats lost their so-called 60-vote filibuster-proof majority. So what? What did they do for us when they had it? Nothing.
At least until the mid-term Congressional elections, Democrats still have majorities in both houses. A Democrat still sits in the Oval Office.
What the voters of Massachusetts have told them is, "Now govern, or suffer the same fate as Ms. Coakley."
Govern, Mr. President. Take the helm, House Speaker Pelosi. Get some spine, Senate Majority Leader Reid.
Go back to the drawing board, write legislation not just on health care but on climate change, clean energy, regulation of the financial hog trough, protection of the environment and creation of jobs. Never mind if aspects of these bills are "politically unpopular" or draw criticism from the punditry.
Do what's right and then, by Nettie Dingo, ram it through the Congress and sign it into law.
Impossible without 60 votes in the Senate? Bull excrement!
It has been done by previous presidents, most notably by Lyndon Johnson with Medicare and the Civil Rights Act.
He knew that the latter, especially, would politically doom his party in the South for decades to come. But he knew it was the right thing to do. And he had the courage, skill and will to get it done.
If this were indeed a game, We the People would be down a run with a man on base and two out in the last of the ninth. Time for Mr. Obama, despite his anemic batting average over the last year, to hit a home run.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Science and Junk Science
Two academic experts in marketing, advertising and statistics are working on a paper which concludes that climate change has taken on more "the character of a political movement than that of a scientific controversy."
J. Scott Armstrong, of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and Kesten C. Green, of Graduate School of Business, University of South Australia, acknowledge that "Effects and outcomes of the global warming alarm: A forecasting project using the structured analogies method" is "a work in progress."
Their unfinished work flatly concludes that "the current global warming alarm is simply the latest example of a common social phenomenon: an alarm based on unscientific forecasts of a calamity . . . the global warming alarm will fade, but not before much additional harm is done by governments and individuals making inferior decisions on the basis of unscientific forecasts."
I suspect that their paper is simply the latest example of junk science muddying the waters of scientific discourse.
There is, first of all, the hubris of advertising experts questioning the peer-reviewed science of climatologists, biologists, meteorologists, astrophysicists, oceanographers and others with expertise in relevant and related disciplines. Picture an orthodontist questioning the science of Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein.
"Using structured analogies," they write, "we forecast that the global warming movement, like the previous alarmist movements that we were able to identify and analyze, will continue to produce poor forecasts and harm people. Resources will be used inefficiently, and most people will be worse off than they would have been had the alarm never been raised."
Armstrong and Green invented "structured analogies" and wrote the rules for using the technique to make forecasts. Not just marketing forecasts. Any kind of forecasts.
They fault the climate scientists for not playing by their rules. ("We found that they violated 72 of the 89 principles that were relevant. . .") I am reminded of the richest kid on the block where I lived as a boy in Cincinnati. He lived in a big house surrounded by lots of land on which Daddy Lottabucks had built his very own, groomed baseball field. The rest of the kids, avid baseball players who worshipped the Cincinnati Reds, yearned to be invited to play on that field -- but to do so, they had to play by the rich kid's rules. They bore little resemblance to the official rules of baseball.
Armstrong and Green argue that "the basic claim by those who promote alarming predictions of dangerous manmade global warming is that nearly all scientists agree that it will occur. . . .the claim that nearly all scientists agree has been shown to be false by surveys and by petitions signed by identified scientists with relevant qualifications (e.g., Bray and von Storch 2007; Robinson, Robinson and Soon 2007)."
Surely Armstrong and Green know the difference between "consensus" and "unanimity" and that even within a broad consensus there can be disagreement among scientists on the interpretation of discrete subsets of data. In the United States alone, the consensus of 18 leading U.S. scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Meteorological Society, states:
“Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. ... If we are to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change, emissions of greenhouse gases must be dramatically reduced.”
Hans von Storch, a German climate scientist cited by Armstrong and Green as having shown the claim of consensus to be false, has been quoted as saying, to the contrary, that "Based on the scientific evidence, I am convinced that we are facing anthropogenic climate change brought about by the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere." However, in an article for Der Spiegel, he did criticize "public figures (who) are overselling the issues to gain attention in a hotly contested market for newsworthy information."
Another scientist Armstrong and Green cite twice in their paper is Willie Soon, an astrophysicist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Soon is infamous for having co-authored a paper in Climate Research, concluding that "the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium." Immediately, 13 authors of papers cited by Soon disputed his interpretation of their work. Half of the editorial board of Climate Research resigned in protest against what they felt was a failure of the peer review process on the part of the journal, whose editor was removed -- and replaced by von Storch. The Soon research paper was largely funded by the American Petroleum Institute. Follow the money.
Armstrong-Green cite research by Idso and Singer of the Heartland Institute. Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso and their foundations -- Heartland Institute and the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change -- have been recipients of huge chunks of the nearly $23 million Exxon Mobil has given to fund junk science specifically intended to derogate legitimate climate science. The Idso coalition also receives major funding from the biggest western states lobbyist for the coal and oil industries. Follow the money.
Fred Singer, a scientist at the University of Virginia, helped to plan a $5 million campaign suggested by the API, Exxon and the Exxon-funded Marshall Institute "to convince the public that the science of global warming is riddled with controversy and uncertainty." He has been a paid consultant to Exxon, Shell and Sun Oil. Follow the money.
J. Scott Armstrong, of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and Kesten C. Green, of Graduate School of Business, University of South Australia, acknowledge that "Effects and outcomes of the global warming alarm: A forecasting project using the structured analogies method" is "a work in progress."
Their unfinished work flatly concludes that "the current global warming alarm is simply the latest example of a common social phenomenon: an alarm based on unscientific forecasts of a calamity . . . the global warming alarm will fade, but not before much additional harm is done by governments and individuals making inferior decisions on the basis of unscientific forecasts."
I suspect that their paper is simply the latest example of junk science muddying the waters of scientific discourse.
There is, first of all, the hubris of advertising experts questioning the peer-reviewed science of climatologists, biologists, meteorologists, astrophysicists, oceanographers and others with expertise in relevant and related disciplines. Picture an orthodontist questioning the science of Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein.
"Using structured analogies," they write, "we forecast that the global warming movement, like the previous alarmist movements that we were able to identify and analyze, will continue to produce poor forecasts and harm people. Resources will be used inefficiently, and most people will be worse off than they would have been had the alarm never been raised."
Armstrong and Green invented "structured analogies" and wrote the rules for using the technique to make forecasts. Not just marketing forecasts. Any kind of forecasts.
They fault the climate scientists for not playing by their rules. ("We found that they violated 72 of the 89 principles that were relevant. . .") I am reminded of the richest kid on the block where I lived as a boy in Cincinnati. He lived in a big house surrounded by lots of land on which Daddy Lottabucks had built his very own, groomed baseball field. The rest of the kids, avid baseball players who worshipped the Cincinnati Reds, yearned to be invited to play on that field -- but to do so, they had to play by the rich kid's rules. They bore little resemblance to the official rules of baseball.
Armstrong and Green argue that "the basic claim by those who promote alarming predictions of dangerous manmade global warming is that nearly all scientists agree that it will occur. . . .the claim that nearly all scientists agree has been shown to be false by surveys and by petitions signed by identified scientists with relevant qualifications (e.g., Bray and von Storch 2007; Robinson, Robinson and Soon 2007)."
Surely Armstrong and Green know the difference between "consensus" and "unanimity" and that even within a broad consensus there can be disagreement among scientists on the interpretation of discrete subsets of data. In the United States alone, the consensus of 18 leading U.S. scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Meteorological Society, states:
“Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. ... If we are to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change, emissions of greenhouse gases must be dramatically reduced.”
Hans von Storch, a German climate scientist cited by Armstrong and Green as having shown the claim of consensus to be false, has been quoted as saying, to the contrary, that "Based on the scientific evidence, I am convinced that we are facing anthropogenic climate change brought about by the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere." However, in an article for Der Spiegel, he did criticize "public figures (who) are overselling the issues to gain attention in a hotly contested market for newsworthy information."
Another scientist Armstrong and Green cite twice in their paper is Willie Soon, an astrophysicist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Soon is infamous for having co-authored a paper in Climate Research, concluding that "the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium." Immediately, 13 authors of papers cited by Soon disputed his interpretation of their work. Half of the editorial board of Climate Research resigned in protest against what they felt was a failure of the peer review process on the part of the journal, whose editor was removed -- and replaced by von Storch. The Soon research paper was largely funded by the American Petroleum Institute. Follow the money.
Armstrong-Green cite research by Idso and Singer of the Heartland Institute. Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso and their foundations -- Heartland Institute and the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change -- have been recipients of huge chunks of the nearly $23 million Exxon Mobil has given to fund junk science specifically intended to derogate legitimate climate science. The Idso coalition also receives major funding from the biggest western states lobbyist for the coal and oil industries. Follow the money.
Fred Singer, a scientist at the University of Virginia, helped to plan a $5 million campaign suggested by the API, Exxon and the Exxon-funded Marshall Institute "to convince the public that the science of global warming is riddled with controversy and uncertainty." He has been a paid consultant to Exxon, Shell and Sun Oil. Follow the money.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Safe from Devils
The ascendant characteristic of America's unholy alliance of the religious right and the political right is fear.
Pat Robertson is an expert with this tool. Never mind the compassion for which the Jesus he professes to follow was famous in history. Fire-breathing Pat said the horrible disaster visited upon Haiti this week was God's vengeance upon a people who made "a pact with the devil." What a humanitarian!
When Katrina devastated New Orleans, several followers of the TV evangelists assured me that the terrible damage was God's vengeance on the city for Madeline Murray O'Hair's atheism. Huh?
The vengeful Old Testament God of Pat Robertson keeps the faithful in line. Who wants to end up dying like a Haitian in an earthquake or a Louisianian in a hurricane?
The theologians of the political right -- Karl Rove, Frank Luntz, Newt Gingrich, et al -- invoke their own pantheon of vengeful gods.
Dare to question a war on an innocent people; dare to denounce the torture and detention without trial of anyone whose looks our government doesn't like; have the temerity to note that the American people are no more "special" than the French, the Angolans or the Iranians; suggest for a minute that "free enterprise capitalism" isn't free for working stiffs and rewards only the enterprise of oligarchs . . . Demons of color will invade your neighborhood, rape your women, enslave your children and leave you bloody and dying on the pavement while your house burns to the ground.
Improve the developed world's worst health care system? It'll kill grandma, deprive you of treatment by a good doctor and force you to risk gangrene at the hands of ill-trained butchers; it'll make you a pauper, turn you into a robot and give you acid reflux, erectile dysfunction or both.
Curb man-made climate change? "They" would take away your SUVs, your air-conditioners, your lovely green golf courses, your half-acre flat-screen TV screens, your jobs, your freedoms and your pride in being the richest, most powerful nation in the whole world.
As long as you're very, very afraid -- of something, anything -- you'll toe the line even as the fear-mongers destroy the economy, savage the Constitution, cancel the Bill of Rights and hold themselves exempt from the laws of decency and ethical behavior.
After all, it's what keeps you safe.
And We Like Being Afraid!
This from Ring of Fire (Robert F. Kennedy and Mike Papantonio): In America, sometimes fear is real entertainment. Not only for those people whose brains are made up of something more than mush but also for the people who love to be afraid.
In 2009, the truly terrified hysterics rushed out to buy guns of every description. There were many times you couldn’t buy 9mm or 40 caliber shells even for target practice because production couldn’t keep up with demand. What was everyone afraid of? Here is the short list: America elected a “Negro president.” Democrats were going to take everybody’s guns. The liberals were planning a “take over.” The immigrant hoards were going to rape and pillage. And there was the threat that some ill-defined world catastrophe was always knocking at our door in 2009. The world was surely ending and only a well-armed militia of trained gun owner with a concealed weapon permit would be ready. We made our love of being afraid into a widespread psychosis. If you don’t believe me, go to one of those tea party rallies and ask the question: Why are you here? At the heart of every response, you will hear vague hysterical fear and loathing of something or someone. It will usually begin and end with an “O.”
Pat Robertson is an expert with this tool. Never mind the compassion for which the Jesus he professes to follow was famous in history. Fire-breathing Pat said the horrible disaster visited upon Haiti this week was God's vengeance upon a people who made "a pact with the devil." What a humanitarian!
When Katrina devastated New Orleans, several followers of the TV evangelists assured me that the terrible damage was God's vengeance on the city for Madeline Murray O'Hair's atheism. Huh?
The vengeful Old Testament God of Pat Robertson keeps the faithful in line. Who wants to end up dying like a Haitian in an earthquake or a Louisianian in a hurricane?
The theologians of the political right -- Karl Rove, Frank Luntz, Newt Gingrich, et al -- invoke their own pantheon of vengeful gods.
Improve the developed world's worst health care system? It'll kill grandma, deprive you of treatment by a good doctor and force you to risk gangrene at the hands of ill-trained butchers; it'll make you a pauper, turn you into a robot and give you acid reflux, erectile dysfunction or both.
Curb man-made climate change? "They" would take away your SUVs, your air-conditioners, your lovely green golf courses, your half-acre flat-screen TV screens, your jobs, your freedoms and your pride in being the richest, most powerful nation in the whole world.
As long as you're very, very afraid -- of something, anything -- you'll toe the line even as the fear-mongers destroy the economy, savage the Constitution, cancel the Bill of Rights and hold themselves exempt from the laws of decency and ethical behavior.
After all, it's what keeps you safe.
And We Like Being Afraid!
This from Ring of Fire (Robert F. Kennedy and Mike Papantonio): In America, sometimes fear is real entertainment. Not only for those people whose brains are made up of something more than mush but also for the people who love to be afraid.
In 2009, the truly terrified hysterics rushed out to buy guns of every description. There were many times you couldn’t buy 9mm or 40 caliber shells even for target practice because production couldn’t keep up with demand. What was everyone afraid of? Here is the short list: America elected a “Negro president.” Democrats were going to take everybody’s guns. The liberals were planning a “take over.” The immigrant hoards were going to rape and pillage. And there was the threat that some ill-defined world catastrophe was always knocking at our door in 2009. The world was surely ending and only a well-armed militia of trained gun owner with a concealed weapon permit would be ready. We made our love of being afraid into a widespread psychosis. If you don’t believe me, go to one of those tea party rallies and ask the question: Why are you here? At the heart of every response, you will hear vague hysterical fear and loathing of something or someone. It will usually begin and end with an “O.”
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Ethics in Government
Not much good comes out of Alaska politics. Ted Stevens. Sarah Palin.
Now there's Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who wants to emasculate the EPA by cutting off its authority to prosecute industries that put poison into the air we breathe. Her first proposed amendment to the Clean Air Act, presumably written by her own staff, went down to ignominious defeat. Now she has turned to a couple of high-paid lobbyists for those very polluting industries to rewrite her amendment, which she is re-submitting.
This kind of sleaze is commonplace in Washington and both parties do it.
No thanks to the right-wing mainstream media, we recently learned that Jonathan Gruber, a health economist at M.I.T., has been paid a great deal of our tax money to shill for the so-called health care bill that has gone to conference in Congress.
Gruber has been depicted as an objective academic rendering expert judgment on the costs of legislation. He has written op-eds for the RWMM, including the New York Times, and has been widely quoted in so-called "news" reports, with no mention of his lucrative contracts to lobby for the bill. Those contracts -- which Gruber acknowledges -- paid him either $298,000 or $392,000 or $780,000 depending upon which published estimate you choose. Even a prestigious post at a respected institution is no guarantee that an academic doesn't indulge in a bit of political prostitution on the side.
Truly independent academics from institutions large and small, famous and not so, have been truthful in their evaluations of the health care legislation. Their consensus is that it will do little good for anyone except the private insurers and will not control the health care cost spiral. But they don't get invited on TV to render expert analyses or receive precious Op-Ed space in the New York Times.
Our system is corrupt. Neither party serves the public good. A health care bill that is neither healthy nor caring. A Clean Air Act that suggests rather than regulates. Our elected leaders boast about these things as accomplishments.
Why aren't more of us mad as hell?
Who Owns Lisa?
As a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural resources, Lisa Murkowski's corporate ownership is predictable.
By industry, Electric Utilities own $231,298 worth of Lovely Lisa; Oil and Gas companies own $157,650 worth; lobbyists (mainly from the same two industries), $114,110 (source: Center for Responsive Politics campaign contribution reports).
The top single corporate contributor was Vecco Corp., an Anchorage-based oil services design and construction firm. In 2007, two of its top executives pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges.
Others who have bought big stakes in Murkowski are Edison Chouest Offshsore ($35,250), Constellation Energy ($31,646) and Exxon-Mobil, specialists in massive oil spills caused by drunken sea captains.
Now there's Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who wants to emasculate the EPA by cutting off its authority to prosecute industries that put poison into the air we breathe. Her first proposed amendment to the Clean Air Act, presumably written by her own staff, went down to ignominious defeat. Now she has turned to a couple of high-paid lobbyists for those very polluting industries to rewrite her amendment, which she is re-submitting.
This kind of sleaze is commonplace in Washington and both parties do it.
No thanks to the right-wing mainstream media, we recently learned that Jonathan Gruber, a health economist at M.I.T., has been paid a great deal of our tax money to shill for the so-called health care bill that has gone to conference in Congress.
Gruber has been depicted as an objective academic rendering expert judgment on the costs of legislation. He has written op-eds for the RWMM, including the New York Times, and has been widely quoted in so-called "news" reports, with no mention of his lucrative contracts to lobby for the bill. Those contracts -- which Gruber acknowledges -- paid him either $298,000 or $392,000 or $780,000 depending upon which published estimate you choose. Even a prestigious post at a respected institution is no guarantee that an academic doesn't indulge in a bit of political prostitution on the side.
Truly independent academics from institutions large and small, famous and not so, have been truthful in their evaluations of the health care legislation. Their consensus is that it will do little good for anyone except the private insurers and will not control the health care cost spiral. But they don't get invited on TV to render expert analyses or receive precious Op-Ed space in the New York Times.
Our system is corrupt. Neither party serves the public good. A health care bill that is neither healthy nor caring. A Clean Air Act that suggests rather than regulates. Our elected leaders boast about these things as accomplishments.
Why aren't more of us mad as hell?
Who Owns Lisa?
As a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural resources, Lisa Murkowski's corporate ownership is predictable.
By industry, Electric Utilities own $231,298 worth of Lovely Lisa; Oil and Gas companies own $157,650 worth; lobbyists (mainly from the same two industries), $114,110 (source: Center for Responsive Politics campaign contribution reports).
The top single corporate contributor was Vecco Corp., an Anchorage-based oil services design and construction firm. In 2007, two of its top executives pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges.
Others who have bought big stakes in Murkowski are Edison Chouest Offshsore ($35,250), Constellation Energy ($31,646) and Exxon-Mobil, specialists in massive oil spills caused by drunken sea captains.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Cold Enough for You?
It's damned cold in a lot of places. Most of the USA. Much of Europe.
This of course generates a gush of hot air from places like Fox Fiction, whose prattlers love to show pictures of frozen snowplows outside of Fargo while rolling their eyes and chortling, "Where's the global warming? Ha ha ha."
Maybe they're just performing. But if they're serious, they are demonstrating profound ignorance, utterly failing to understand the distinction between "climate" and "weather."
That iced-in snowplow in Fargo and those mountains of snow in Buffalo are produced by "weather." This particular winter chill is caused by Arctic oscillation, in which opposing atmospheric pressure patterns at the top of the planet occasionally shift back and forth, affecting weather across most of the Northern Hemisphere. This year's high pressure pattern is more pronounced than any since 1950. It deflects the cold air of the jet stream farther south than usual.
Arctic oscillation has nothing to do with global warming; it affects weather, not climate. One of the prattlers, I'm told, pontificated about the "coldest year in history." In fact, last calendar year was the fifth-warmest on record since 1850. Even the first two weeks of January haven't been anything special historically, despite that record low of 28 one recent day in Melbourne, FL. In 1899 a great blizzard that swept down from the northeast forced temperatures below zero in parts of Florida.
The present cold spell isn't even global. The North Pole, for example, is having a relatively balmy winter. And in fact, many climate scientists are still predicting that 2010 could end up being the hottest year on record.
Climate change deniers point to the relatively moderate global temperatures since the record year of 1998, pooh-pooh the idea of global warming, and even insist that we're actually in a period of "global cooling." When people with the bully pulpits of television or other mass media propagate such misinformation, they're doing a great disservice to our planet and its inhabitants. The political result is that we get far less from events like the recent climate summit in Copenhagen than we need to solve the problems of a warming earth.
Chief among these problems is carbon dioxide, mainly from tailpipes and smokestacks. A great deal of CO2 goes into the atmosphere but some is absorbed into the ocean. A 64-foot yacht called Ocean Watch is circling the globe with a passel of scientists aboard, sampling the waters as they go. They're finding rising levels of acidification, especially in places like the Gulf of Alaska. The acid levels are a threat to many forms of ocean life, some of which already show signs of serious decline.
Ornithologists in Israel have documented a dramatic effect on bird behavior which they attribute to climate change. Breeding of many species is getting later and later in the year in Europe and North America. An opposite effect has been detected in Antarctic sea birds. As global warming continues, ornithologists say there will be some "winners" and some "losers" but over all, for every species that benefits, three others will suffer. Among the species found to be especially at risk are insectivorous birds whose diet of insect pests protects crops and human health.
The terrifying aspect of what's happening today goes beyond a changing atmosphere whose rising CO2 levels are already altering the planetary climate. That is just part of broader set of human-caused factors that imperil the entire biosphere -- the thin layer where life exists on our otherwise lifeless planet. Cumulative ecosystem destruction threatens our water supply, our forests, oceans, farmland and soils. Some scientists believe the collapse of the biosphere is inevitable.
But most scientists still believe actions can be taken now to mitigate ecological collapse, then renew the damaged Earth through ecosystem repair. It would be a long, complex, costly process requiring all of mankind to change the way we live.
It isn't made any easier by loudmouthed oafs who televise pictures of a blizzard and then sneer at climate change science.
This of course generates a gush of hot air from places like Fox Fiction, whose prattlers love to show pictures of frozen snowplows outside of Fargo while rolling their eyes and chortling, "Where's the global warming? Ha ha ha."
Maybe they're just performing. But if they're serious, they are demonstrating profound ignorance, utterly failing to understand the distinction between "climate" and "weather."
That iced-in snowplow in Fargo and those mountains of snow in Buffalo are produced by "weather." This particular winter chill is caused by Arctic oscillation, in which opposing atmospheric pressure patterns at the top of the planet occasionally shift back and forth, affecting weather across most of the Northern Hemisphere. This year's high pressure pattern is more pronounced than any since 1950. It deflects the cold air of the jet stream farther south than usual.
Arctic oscillation has nothing to do with global warming; it affects weather, not climate. One of the prattlers, I'm told, pontificated about the "coldest year in history." In fact, last calendar year was the fifth-warmest on record since 1850. Even the first two weeks of January haven't been anything special historically, despite that record low of 28 one recent day in Melbourne, FL. In 1899 a great blizzard that swept down from the northeast forced temperatures below zero in parts of Florida.
The present cold spell isn't even global. The North Pole, for example, is having a relatively balmy winter. And in fact, many climate scientists are still predicting that 2010 could end up being the hottest year on record.
Climate change deniers point to the relatively moderate global temperatures since the record year of 1998, pooh-pooh the idea of global warming, and even insist that we're actually in a period of "global cooling." When people with the bully pulpits of television or other mass media propagate such misinformation, they're doing a great disservice to our planet and its inhabitants. The political result is that we get far less from events like the recent climate summit in Copenhagen than we need to solve the problems of a warming earth.
Chief among these problems is carbon dioxide, mainly from tailpipes and smokestacks. A great deal of CO2 goes into the atmosphere but some is absorbed into the ocean. A 64-foot yacht called Ocean Watch is circling the globe with a passel of scientists aboard, sampling the waters as they go. They're finding rising levels of acidification, especially in places like the Gulf of Alaska. The acid levels are a threat to many forms of ocean life, some of which already show signs of serious decline.
Ornithologists in Israel have documented a dramatic effect on bird behavior which they attribute to climate change. Breeding of many species is getting later and later in the year in Europe and North America. An opposite effect has been detected in Antarctic sea birds. As global warming continues, ornithologists say there will be some "winners" and some "losers" but over all, for every species that benefits, three others will suffer. Among the species found to be especially at risk are insectivorous birds whose diet of insect pests protects crops and human health.
The terrifying aspect of what's happening today goes beyond a changing atmosphere whose rising CO2 levels are already altering the planetary climate. That is just part of broader set of human-caused factors that imperil the entire biosphere -- the thin layer where life exists on our otherwise lifeless planet. Cumulative ecosystem destruction threatens our water supply, our forests, oceans, farmland and soils. Some scientists believe the collapse of the biosphere is inevitable.
But most scientists still believe actions can be taken now to mitigate ecological collapse, then renew the damaged Earth through ecosystem repair. It would be a long, complex, costly process requiring all of mankind to change the way we live.
It isn't made any easier by loudmouthed oafs who televise pictures of a blizzard and then sneer at climate change science.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Why Am I So Scared?
The United States today has 7.3 million fewer jobs than it had in 25 months ago. It lost another 85,000 jobs last month. Forty-two percent of the total, over-16 American workforce is jobless.
Those are numbers. Steve J., of Reading, PA, is a person. He lost his job last year. His wife found a minimum wage job. His adult daughter, who is employed, moved back with her parents to help out. They're meeting the mortgage payments -- barely -- but they still owe more than the house is worth. "Christmas?" Steve told a reporter. "We couldn't afford gifts or a tree. We were lucky we could keep the house heated -- sort of, 62 degrees. " It was 18 degrees and snowing on Christmas Eve in Reading. Last night it was 11 degrees. Steve ran out of heating oil and can't afford to buy more. The emergency assistance number is constantly busy. "Maybe they took it off the hook," Steve said.
Matt M. of Tampa, FL, is a person. He was self-employed; ran a business that at its peak employed nine other workers. Did well for seven years. Had cash deposits and signed contracts for enough work to keep the wolf from the door when what he calls "the crash" hit. Or so he thought. One by one, then in clusters, people called to ask out of their contracts. They begged to have their deposits refunded. Legally, he didn't have to refund them. "I was determined to stay in business," he said, "and I didn't want to create ill will by playing Scrooge." He gave them their money back. His wife found a job working from home as a telemarketer, which enables her to continue to care for her cancer-stricken mother. Matt works odd jobs in the underground economy -- "anything people will pay cash for." On the second day of the new year his son's car was struck by a drunk driver running a red light at high speed. He survived the crash but will need long term medical care. The family has no health insurance. The car was the one Matt used to drive to his odd jobs.
Bob H. of Albuquerque, NM did have health insurance, a retirement benefit. After a long bout of breathing problems and other health issues, a specialist finally diagnosed his pulmonary hypertension. It was life-threatening. He ordered Bob to move immediately to a lower elevation -- as near sea level as possible. He prescribed costly, regular medication and told Bob to keep an auxiliary oxygen supply with him at all times. He and his wife sold their house for about 85% of what they had paid for it. After the mortgage was satisfied, they had about $12,000 cash. Between December of 2007 and November of 2009, the modest investments that supplemented their Social Security income went up in smoke. It cost them $4, 000 to move themselves and their belongings to a lower elevation. The small home they're renting costs about half their Social Security income. Most months they have to dip into their tiny cash reserve to cover essential living costs like food and utilities. And when that's gone? "Food stamps?" Bob wondered. "The lottery? I just don't know. I never thought it would come down to this."
Even the employed are squeezed. Small investors have quit investing. The Wall Street journal reports that wages are stagnant and likely to remain so. The huge pool of unemployed workers, the Journal said, "helps employers keep wages from rising even as productivity -- output per hour of work -- soars."
Goldman Sachs, the alma mater of the U.S. treasury secretary and most of the other government financial policy makers, received $12 billion in bailout funds when the crisis hit the economy. This year its pool of cash for executive bonuses is $20 billion.
Kappa Beta Phi, a secret and exclusive Wall Street club, inducted new members the other night at a posh banquet in the St. Regis hotel in Manhattan. They sang song parodies.
One, sung by a fat cat in a nun's costume to the tune of a "Sound of Music" number, was about the Goldman Sachs CEO and top bonus-earner:
"How do you solve a problem like Lloyd Blankfein?
"How do you cap a bonus and keep it down?. . ."
It cracked 'em up at the St. Regis. Steve, Matt and Bob aren't laughing.
Those are numbers. Steve J., of Reading, PA, is a person. He lost his job last year. His wife found a minimum wage job. His adult daughter, who is employed, moved back with her parents to help out. They're meeting the mortgage payments -- barely -- but they still owe more than the house is worth. "Christmas?" Steve told a reporter. "We couldn't afford gifts or a tree. We were lucky we could keep the house heated -- sort of, 62 degrees. " It was 18 degrees and snowing on Christmas Eve in Reading. Last night it was 11 degrees. Steve ran out of heating oil and can't afford to buy more. The emergency assistance number is constantly busy. "Maybe they took it off the hook," Steve said.
Matt M. of Tampa, FL, is a person. He was self-employed; ran a business that at its peak employed nine other workers. Did well for seven years. Had cash deposits and signed contracts for enough work to keep the wolf from the door when what he calls "the crash" hit. Or so he thought. One by one, then in clusters, people called to ask out of their contracts. They begged to have their deposits refunded. Legally, he didn't have to refund them. "I was determined to stay in business," he said, "and I didn't want to create ill will by playing Scrooge." He gave them their money back. His wife found a job working from home as a telemarketer, which enables her to continue to care for her cancer-stricken mother. Matt works odd jobs in the underground economy -- "anything people will pay cash for." On the second day of the new year his son's car was struck by a drunk driver running a red light at high speed. He survived the crash but will need long term medical care. The family has no health insurance. The car was the one Matt used to drive to his odd jobs.
Bob H. of Albuquerque, NM did have health insurance, a retirement benefit. After a long bout of breathing problems and other health issues, a specialist finally diagnosed his pulmonary hypertension. It was life-threatening. He ordered Bob to move immediately to a lower elevation -- as near sea level as possible. He prescribed costly, regular medication and told Bob to keep an auxiliary oxygen supply with him at all times. He and his wife sold their house for about 85% of what they had paid for it. After the mortgage was satisfied, they had about $12,000 cash. Between December of 2007 and November of 2009, the modest investments that supplemented their Social Security income went up in smoke. It cost them $4, 000 to move themselves and their belongings to a lower elevation. The small home they're renting costs about half their Social Security income. Most months they have to dip into their tiny cash reserve to cover essential living costs like food and utilities. And when that's gone? "Food stamps?" Bob wondered. "The lottery? I just don't know. I never thought it would come down to this."
Even the employed are squeezed. Small investors have quit investing. The Wall Street journal reports that wages are stagnant and likely to remain so. The huge pool of unemployed workers, the Journal said, "helps employers keep wages from rising even as productivity -- output per hour of work -- soars."
Goldman Sachs, the alma mater of the U.S. treasury secretary and most of the other government financial policy makers, received $12 billion in bailout funds when the crisis hit the economy. This year its pool of cash for executive bonuses is $20 billion.
Kappa Beta Phi, a secret and exclusive Wall Street club, inducted new members the other night at a posh banquet in the St. Regis hotel in Manhattan. They sang song parodies.
One, sung by a fat cat in a nun's costume to the tune of a "Sound of Music" number, was about the Goldman Sachs CEO and top bonus-earner:
"How do you solve a problem like Lloyd Blankfein?
"How do you cap a bonus and keep it down?. . ."
It cracked 'em up at the St. Regis. Steve, Matt and Bob aren't laughing.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Happy Danes Are Here Again
Three different data-based studies that rank nations according to the "happiness" of their people all agree that the two happiest nations in the world are Denmark and Costa Rica.
The studies take into account citizens' responses to poll questions evaluating their own happiness, as well as life expectancy; one study adds a third factor, environmental impact.
Obviously, climate is not a common denominator for these two sets of happy people.
But there are two very clear common denominators. One is universal government managed health care. The other is little or no spending on the military.
Costa Rica, which most often ranks first in the happiness surveys, has no military. Zero. Zilch. Its government made a decision to eliminate its standing army and divert the money it spent on the military to education.
Denmark maintains an army. navy, air force and Home Guard. This entire operation costs Denmark 1.5% of its GDP. The United States, in contrast, spends nearly four times as large a percentage of its vastly greater GDP on its war machine.
In the United States, where tea party loonies and birther crazies prattle about "socialized medicine" as if it were something bad, an allegedly "liberal" President didn't even ask the Congress his party controls to consider a single-payer, universal health care system. What he's willing to settle for is a mish-mash of regulations and wishfulness that guarantees enormously greater profits for the insurance industry and skyrocketing bonuses for its fat-cat executives. The actual quality of medical care will continue to decline, and the actual cost to sick people will continue to rise.
No data are available as to the precise number of Americans who go to Costa Rica each year to avail themselves of one of the best health care systems in the world today. The system is open not just to Ticos, but to any foreign resident or visitor. Doctors and pharmacists there all say they regularly serve a number of American patients. In 1991, a survey by economists from the University of Costa Rica documented that 14.25% of all foreign visitors came for the express purpose of receiving medical care of some type.
You don't need a prescriptions for most medications in Costa Rica, you can take up to a 90-day supply back to the U.S. with you and the cost of the medicine is about 20% of what you (and your for-profit insurer, if you have one) would pay in the United States. Foreigners can join the Costa Rican health care net (CCSS) by paying a small monthly fee, based on their income, or they can buy health insurance from the state monopoly for roughly 1/100th of the cost of comparable coverage in the United States.
In Denmark, anyone can go to a physician for no fee. Danish citizens may choose between two systems of primary health care: medical care provided free of charge by a doctor whom the individual chooses for a year and by those specialists to whom the doctor refers the patient; or complete freedom of choice of any physician or specialist at any time, with state reimbursement of about two-thirds of the cost for medical bills paid directly by the patient. Most Danes opt for the former. All patients receive subsidies on pharmaceuticals and vital drugs. Total health care expenditure is 8.4% of GDP.
Health care costs the United States just over 16% of GDP. A 2009 Harvard study published in the American Journal of Public Health found more than 44,800 preventable deaths annually in the United States among Americans lacking health insurance.
Rush Limblow to the contrary notwithstanding, the only large industrialized nations that come close to matching the health care in Denmark and Costa Rica are Japan and France. You know what the right wingnuts say about France!
The studies take into account citizens' responses to poll questions evaluating their own happiness, as well as life expectancy; one study adds a third factor, environmental impact.
Obviously, climate is not a common denominator for these two sets of happy people.
But there are two very clear common denominators. One is universal government managed health care. The other is little or no spending on the military.
Costa Rica, which most often ranks first in the happiness surveys, has no military. Zero. Zilch. Its government made a decision to eliminate its standing army and divert the money it spent on the military to education.
Denmark maintains an army. navy, air force and Home Guard. This entire operation costs Denmark 1.5% of its GDP. The United States, in contrast, spends nearly four times as large a percentage of its vastly greater GDP on its war machine.
In the United States, where tea party loonies and birther crazies prattle about "socialized medicine" as if it were something bad, an allegedly "liberal" President didn't even ask the Congress his party controls to consider a single-payer, universal health care system. What he's willing to settle for is a mish-mash of regulations and wishfulness that guarantees enormously greater profits for the insurance industry and skyrocketing bonuses for its fat-cat executives. The actual quality of medical care will continue to decline, and the actual cost to sick people will continue to rise.
No data are available as to the precise number of Americans who go to Costa Rica each year to avail themselves of one of the best health care systems in the world today. The system is open not just to Ticos, but to any foreign resident or visitor. Doctors and pharmacists there all say they regularly serve a number of American patients. In 1991, a survey by economists from the University of Costa Rica documented that 14.25% of all foreign visitors came for the express purpose of receiving medical care of some type.
You don't need a prescriptions for most medications in Costa Rica, you can take up to a 90-day supply back to the U.S. with you and the cost of the medicine is about 20% of what you (and your for-profit insurer, if you have one) would pay in the United States. Foreigners can join the Costa Rican health care net (CCSS) by paying a small monthly fee, based on their income, or they can buy health insurance from the state monopoly for roughly 1/100th of the cost of comparable coverage in the United States.
In Denmark, anyone can go to a physician for no fee. Danish citizens may choose between two systems of primary health care: medical care provided free of charge by a doctor whom the individual chooses for a year and by those specialists to whom the doctor refers the patient; or complete freedom of choice of any physician or specialist at any time, with state reimbursement of about two-thirds of the cost for medical bills paid directly by the patient. Most Danes opt for the former. All patients receive subsidies on pharmaceuticals and vital drugs. Total health care expenditure is 8.4% of GDP.
Health care costs the United States just over 16% of GDP. A 2009 Harvard study published in the American Journal of Public Health found more than 44,800 preventable deaths annually in the United States among Americans lacking health insurance.
Rush Limblow to the contrary notwithstanding, the only large industrialized nations that come close to matching the health care in Denmark and Costa Rica are Japan and France. You know what the right wingnuts say about France!
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
What's in Those "Tea Bags?"
There is one explanation for what happened last week at Alamogordo, NM: by every method of ranking education or "smartness," New Mexico is in the bottom five among the 50 states.
What did happen last week in Alamogordo? Walt Rubel, managing editor of the Las Cruces Sun News, wrote that a bunch of folks gathered there to "rail against all things Obama and revel in all things ballistic."
Rubel wrote:
"The Alamogordo Second Amendment Task Force joined with the Otero Tea Party Patriots, and, as a twist, invited folks to brings their guns, along with those clever signs portraying Obama with a Hitler mustache.
"'We want to put a positive light on gun ownership," said Dan Woodruff, founder of Alamogordo's Second Amendment Task Force.
"Yeah, that'll work. For those who have an intrinsic fear of guns and a deep-seated belief that tighter laws are needed to reduce gun violence, nothing will 'put a positive light on gun ownership' quite like inviting every yahoo with a weapon in southern New Mexico to gather at the busiest intersection in Alamogordo and wave their firearms at the passing traffic.
"And, just to keep things in a 'positive light,' organizers decided to hold the rally diagonally from the Tea Party protest, with all the positivity it engendered. And, just for good measure, they invited a bunch of bikers - the Sons of Liberty Riders - to join in the fun. Nothing puts peoples' minds at ease quite like well-armed bikers.
"Woodruff wants us to understand that his group isn't taking its responsibility lightly.'We are going to keep an eye on people at the protest to make sure they're not playing with their guns or anything like that,' he said.
"See? Now don't you feel reassured?"
David Brooks of the New York Times chimes in with sneering references to "the educated class" being out of touch with the feelings of real people such as the tea party nutcases.
"The tea party movement," he writes, with no discernible tongue in cheek, "is now more popular than either major party. According to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 41 percent of Americans have a positive view of the tea party movement. Only 35 percent of Americans have a positive view of the Democrats and only 28 percent have a positive view of the Republican Party.
"The movement is especially popular among independents. The Rasmussen organization asked independent voters whom they would support in a generic election between a Democrat, a Republican and a tea party candidate. The tea party candidate won, with 33 percent of independents. Undecided came in second with 30 percent. The Democrats came in third with 25 percent and the Republicans fourth with 12 percent."
The Rasmussen poll to which Brooks refers is based on a telephone survey of 1,000 people -- too small a sample to warrant his sweeping "is now more popular" assertion. Besides, the same poll, using the same methods one week earlier, came up with this breakdown: Democrat 36 percent, mythical Tea Party 23 percent, Republican 18 percent.
What to make of all this? Only that there are enough ignoramuses in the good old U.S. to work up a crowd toting guns and crazy signs, not just in under-educated New Mexico, but anywhere.
You don't have to be intelligent to be protected by the First Amendment.
Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity -- and I'm not sure about the universe. -- Albert Einstein.
What did happen last week in Alamogordo? Walt Rubel, managing editor of the Las Cruces Sun News, wrote that a bunch of folks gathered there to "rail against all things Obama and revel in all things ballistic."
Rubel wrote:
"The Alamogordo Second Amendment Task Force joined with the Otero Tea Party Patriots, and, as a twist, invited folks to brings their guns, along with those clever signs portraying Obama with a Hitler mustache.
"'We want to put a positive light on gun ownership," said Dan Woodruff, founder of Alamogordo's Second Amendment Task Force.
"Yeah, that'll work. For those who have an intrinsic fear of guns and a deep-seated belief that tighter laws are needed to reduce gun violence, nothing will 'put a positive light on gun ownership' quite like inviting every yahoo with a weapon in southern New Mexico to gather at the busiest intersection in Alamogordo and wave their firearms at the passing traffic.
"And, just to keep things in a 'positive light,' organizers decided to hold the rally diagonally from the Tea Party protest, with all the positivity it engendered. And, just for good measure, they invited a bunch of bikers - the Sons of Liberty Riders - to join in the fun. Nothing puts peoples' minds at ease quite like well-armed bikers.
"Woodruff wants us to understand that his group isn't taking its responsibility lightly.'We are going to keep an eye on people at the protest to make sure they're not playing with their guns or anything like that,' he said.
"See? Now don't you feel reassured?"
David Brooks of the New York Times chimes in with sneering references to "the educated class" being out of touch with the feelings of real people such as the tea party nutcases.
"The tea party movement," he writes, with no discernible tongue in cheek, "is now more popular than either major party. According to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 41 percent of Americans have a positive view of the tea party movement. Only 35 percent of Americans have a positive view of the Democrats and only 28 percent have a positive view of the Republican Party.
"The movement is especially popular among independents. The Rasmussen organization asked independent voters whom they would support in a generic election between a Democrat, a Republican and a tea party candidate. The tea party candidate won, with 33 percent of independents. Undecided came in second with 30 percent. The Democrats came in third with 25 percent and the Republicans fourth with 12 percent."
The Rasmussen poll to which Brooks refers is based on a telephone survey of 1,000 people -- too small a sample to warrant his sweeping "is now more popular" assertion. Besides, the same poll, using the same methods one week earlier, came up with this breakdown: Democrat 36 percent, mythical Tea Party 23 percent, Republican 18 percent.
What to make of all this? Only that there are enough ignoramuses in the good old U.S. to work up a crowd toting guns and crazy signs, not just in under-educated New Mexico, but anywhere.
You don't have to be intelligent to be protected by the First Amendment.
* * *
Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity -- and I'm not sure about the universe. -- Albert Einstein.
Monday, January 4, 2010
America the Beautiful
Oh, beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain. . ."
About six million Americans receiving food stamps have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the federal government audits, they described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid — no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and no pensions, child support or disability pay.
For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain. . .
Food stamp use is at a record high in the United states and surging by the day. In the western states alone, nearly 3 million families are receiving food stamps. That's a 37 percent increase since August of 2008. In more than 30 counties in Colorado, Idaho and Utah, food stamp use has increased by more than 70 percent since 2007. The average monthly benefit per person is $101.52. Food prices have risen about 2.5% since 2008. A greater increase is projected for this year.
America, America, God shed his grace on thee.
The number of Americans dependent upon food stamps as their only income began to rise with the massive reduction in welfare programs. According to the Times, the number has soared by 50 percent or more in the last two years. One in 50 Americans now lives in a household with an income that consists of nothing but food stamps.
Isabel Bermudez, a Florida mother of two who lost her job months ago and has no cash income, told the Times: "It's the one thing I can count on every month -- I know that the children are going to have food."
The Times reports: "The surge in this precarious way of life has been so swift that few policy makers have noticed. But it attests to the growing role of food stamps within the safety net. One in eight Americans now receives food stamps, including one in four children.
And crown they good with brotherhood. . .
President Obama threw a fund raiser for the Wall Street crowd late last year. Its chairman was Daniel Fass, a rich, rich New York Lawyer whose firm specializes in debt collection. He told the crowd of fat cats -- and the President and his top financial advisors:
"The investment community feels very put-upon. They feel there is no reason why they shouldn't earn $1 million to $200 million a year, and they don't want to be held responsible for the global financial meltdown."
From sea to shining sea!
About six million Americans receiving food stamps have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the federal government audits, they described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid — no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and no pensions, child support or disability pay.
For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain. . .
Food stamp use is at a record high in the United states and surging by the day. In the western states alone, nearly 3 million families are receiving food stamps. That's a 37 percent increase since August of 2008. In more than 30 counties in Colorado, Idaho and Utah, food stamp use has increased by more than 70 percent since 2007. The average monthly benefit per person is $101.52. Food prices have risen about 2.5% since 2008. A greater increase is projected for this year.
America, America, God shed his grace on thee.
The number of Americans dependent upon food stamps as their only income began to rise with the massive reduction in welfare programs. According to the Times, the number has soared by 50 percent or more in the last two years. One in 50 Americans now lives in a household with an income that consists of nothing but food stamps.
Isabel Bermudez, a Florida mother of two who lost her job months ago and has no cash income, told the Times: "It's the one thing I can count on every month -- I know that the children are going to have food."
The Times reports: "The surge in this precarious way of life has been so swift that few policy makers have noticed. But it attests to the growing role of food stamps within the safety net. One in eight Americans now receives food stamps, including one in four children.
And crown they good with brotherhood. . .
President Obama threw a fund raiser for the Wall Street crowd late last year. Its chairman was Daniel Fass, a rich, rich New York Lawyer whose firm specializes in debt collection. He told the crowd of fat cats -- and the President and his top financial advisors:
"The investment community feels very put-upon. They feel there is no reason why they shouldn't earn $1 million to $200 million a year, and they don't want to be held responsible for the global financial meltdown."
From sea to shining sea!
Friday, January 1, 2010
Jack v. Bible
Atheist Jack's battle with public school officials in Newton, MA, reminded me of my paternal grandfather, the wisest man I ever knew.
Pa -- his given name was Albert but everyone called him "Pa" -- always said that after Shakespeare's entire canon, the King James Bible contained some of the greatest literature in the English language. Pa knew his Shakespeare: he could quote from memory long passages of favorite works, adjusting the timbre of his voice for each character. He seldom quoted from the Bible; religion (he professed none) was to him a private matter and best left that way.
In a tenth-grade English class in Newton, the teacher instructed the students to read a passage from the Bible as literature, prepare for a quiz on the material, and write a paper about it -- as literature. Jack Summers, a professed atheist, refused the assignment, standing on his First Amendment rights. The flap that ensued made the front page of the local paper, which prompted many letters to the editor, including one from Jack's mother which oddly argued that it would be OK for Jack to read a summary of the contested passage -- a sort of Cliff Note version -- but not the actual text. Supreme Court decisions were invoked. Clergymen, historians and scholars were called upon to testify about degrees of separation of church and state. At length the school officials exempted Jack from the assignment. This of course triggered a whole new round of debate.
I had mixed emotions after reading accounts of Jack's Battle of the Bible in Newton. On the one hand, I could not question Pa's wisdom in deeming the King James Bible worthy of recognition as great literature, and thus worthy of serious study as such. (I don't know which version of the Bible Jack's class was required to read; perhaps it was one whose literary value would not meet Pa's high standards.) On the other hand, I stand with Jack on the First Amendment when it comes to requiring public school pupils to read religious tracts -- especially religious tracts that are held to be the very Word of God - even if they are presented not as religion but as "literature." A wiser path for that English teacher would have been to offer a non-religious alternative to this particular assignment.
Critics of the school's "cave-in" to Atheist Jack assert that the Bible's use of language and imagery, rhythm, poetic construction, character description, narrative power – the attributes of literature -- justify the assignment as literary study. I wonder how Pa would come down on this. His own deep scholarship into the King James Bible as literature was voluntary, a choice made in relative maturity.
Bear in mind that religionists have already forced the Biblical creation myth into some public school classes as "science." If you can also require kids to read the Bible as literature, what's wrong with requiring them to read it as , say, history, as well?
What's wrong is requiring them. The Wall of Separation took a terrible battering during the Bush II presidency. Forcing kids to read the Bible in public schools -- for any reason -- is no way to rebuild it.
Pa -- his given name was Albert but everyone called him "Pa" -- always said that after Shakespeare's entire canon, the King James Bible contained some of the greatest literature in the English language. Pa knew his Shakespeare: he could quote from memory long passages of favorite works, adjusting the timbre of his voice for each character. He seldom quoted from the Bible; religion (he professed none) was to him a private matter and best left that way.
In a tenth-grade English class in Newton, the teacher instructed the students to read a passage from the Bible as literature, prepare for a quiz on the material, and write a paper about it -- as literature. Jack Summers, a professed atheist, refused the assignment, standing on his First Amendment rights. The flap that ensued made the front page of the local paper, which prompted many letters to the editor, including one from Jack's mother which oddly argued that it would be OK for Jack to read a summary of the contested passage -- a sort of Cliff Note version -- but not the actual text. Supreme Court decisions were invoked. Clergymen, historians and scholars were called upon to testify about degrees of separation of church and state. At length the school officials exempted Jack from the assignment. This of course triggered a whole new round of debate.
I had mixed emotions after reading accounts of Jack's Battle of the Bible in Newton. On the one hand, I could not question Pa's wisdom in deeming the King James Bible worthy of recognition as great literature, and thus worthy of serious study as such. (I don't know which version of the Bible Jack's class was required to read; perhaps it was one whose literary value would not meet Pa's high standards.) On the other hand, I stand with Jack on the First Amendment when it comes to requiring public school pupils to read religious tracts -- especially religious tracts that are held to be the very Word of God - even if they are presented not as religion but as "literature." A wiser path for that English teacher would have been to offer a non-religious alternative to this particular assignment.
Critics of the school's "cave-in" to Atheist Jack assert that the Bible's use of language and imagery, rhythm, poetic construction, character description, narrative power – the attributes of literature -- justify the assignment as literary study. I wonder how Pa would come down on this. His own deep scholarship into the King James Bible as literature was voluntary, a choice made in relative maturity.
Bear in mind that religionists have already forced the Biblical creation myth into some public school classes as "science." If you can also require kids to read the Bible as literature, what's wrong with requiring them to read it as , say, history, as well?
What's wrong is requiring them. The Wall of Separation took a terrible battering during the Bush II presidency. Forcing kids to read the Bible in public schools -- for any reason -- is no way to rebuild it.
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