A word of caution to my friends in El Paso and the other border towns of the Southwest: Don't schedule any weddings, wakes or family fiestas within 10 miles or so of the border.
The Feds will soon be flying two Predator drones along the border and, by the measure of our heroic actions in Pakistan, these things have an annoying habit of falling on civilian men, women and children attending weddings and other celebrations.
For each group of civilians the drones kill, at least five times as many new terrorists are created. This ratio -- which may be underestimated -- guarantees that Bush's so-called "war on terror" will blossom under Obama into the endless war that keeps our economy going. The real economy, the one for the super-rich; not the one you and I live in, where working Americans have their homes foreclosed and millions more have no jobs.
The military-industrial complex loves the Predator. The "pilot" can be thousands of miles away -- in Nebraska, perhaps, or Germany -- and is at no risk. The drones cost $4.5 million each, so there's plenty of profit for everyone. Wisconsin, for example, just got $8 million to build a new Predator base. Next in line for new drone-control facilities are Whitemnan AFB in Missouri, and Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota. The Rapid City Journal is ecstatic: "Ellsworth and its supporters in Congress have done South Dakota proud," it editorialized.
Tell it to the Pakistanis.
How great a folly is the decision to put Predators in the air over the U.S. Mexico border? All you need to know is this: It was suggested by Texas Gov. Rick Parry, the wing-nut who, in one of his saner moments, seriously proposed that Texas secede from the Union.
The Feds say these things will help the Border Patrol prevent drug-cartel violence from spilling across the border into the U.S. London bookies are taking bets on how long it will be before a drunken bodyguard of a Mexican drug lord shoots one down.
This nation desperately needs a new, humane, sane immigration policy.
Instead it's got unconstitutional racial profiling in Arizona, tea-pot crazies stirring up racial hatred everywhere, Republicans sowing fear wherever they can drum up an audience, and now, killer drones buzzing overhead.
Is this a wonderful country or what?
"Don't tell Momma I'm a journalist; say I play the piano in a whorehouse."
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
A Pox -- No, Worse! -- on ESPN
I have been outraged many times before by the contempt American mainstream TV channels have for tennis.
But my disgust with ESPN goes beyond outrage. In the fifth set of perhaps the most remarkable contest in the history of sport -- all sport, not just tennis -- ESPN relegated its Wimbledon broadcast to a remote backwater of its broadcast empire.
I subscribe to Comcast's premium sports package in my area, but I can't get ESPN-U (whatever that is) and so missed history being made by John Isner of the United States and Nicolas Mahut of France.
Each player had won two sets in their epic first round match when it was suspended because of darkness on Day One. On Day Two, they played the longest set in the history of tennis -- and it still isn't over. They had tied at 59-all when play was suspended -- again.
Over two days they were on court for 10 hours. The fifth set alone lasted 7 hours 6 minutes -- longer than the previous record for a complete match, 6 hours 33 minutes at the French Open.
The two men held serve for 118 consecutive games. Only a tennis player, I suppose, can appreciate just how remarkable a feat that is. And this took place at Wimbledon, the most prestigious tournament in tennis.
Imagine this: 59 consecutive successful goal-line stands in the Super Bowl.
Or 59 consecutive perfect 1-2-3 innings by a baseball pitcher -- in the World Series.
Or 59 consecutive 3-point field goals made -- in the championship series of the NBA.
Or 59 consecutive birdies by a golfer -- in the Masters.
Now consider TWO teams or players accomplishing any of the above -- in the same competition.
ESPN deemed the historic Isner-Mahut competition unworthy of being shown on either of its main channels, ESPN or ESPN2, so that it might achieve a respectable fraction of the audience it deserved.
Roger Federer, who owns a considerable piece of tennis history in his own right, said:"I have almost no words anymore watching this. It's beyond anything I've ever seen and could imagine. I don't know how their bodies must feel . . . This is incredible tennis."
And this incredible tennis will go on for a third day. "Nothing like this will ever happen again," Isner said after today's play. "Ever."
But don't expect to see it on ESPN's main channels. They'll be broadcasting the movie "Heidi." Or a taped fishing show. Or something.
But my disgust with ESPN goes beyond outrage. In the fifth set of perhaps the most remarkable contest in the history of sport -- all sport, not just tennis -- ESPN relegated its Wimbledon broadcast to a remote backwater of its broadcast empire.
I subscribe to Comcast's premium sports package in my area, but I can't get ESPN-U (whatever that is) and so missed history being made by John Isner of the United States and Nicolas Mahut of France.
Each player had won two sets in their epic first round match when it was suspended because of darkness on Day One. On Day Two, they played the longest set in the history of tennis -- and it still isn't over. They had tied at 59-all when play was suspended -- again.
Over two days they were on court for 10 hours. The fifth set alone lasted 7 hours 6 minutes -- longer than the previous record for a complete match, 6 hours 33 minutes at the French Open.
The two men held serve for 118 consecutive games. Only a tennis player, I suppose, can appreciate just how remarkable a feat that is. And this took place at Wimbledon, the most prestigious tournament in tennis.
Imagine this: 59 consecutive successful goal-line stands in the Super Bowl.
Or 59 consecutive perfect 1-2-3 innings by a baseball pitcher -- in the World Series.
Or 59 consecutive 3-point field goals made -- in the championship series of the NBA.
Or 59 consecutive birdies by a golfer -- in the Masters.
Now consider TWO teams or players accomplishing any of the above -- in the same competition.
ESPN deemed the historic Isner-Mahut competition unworthy of being shown on either of its main channels, ESPN or ESPN2, so that it might achieve a respectable fraction of the audience it deserved.
Roger Federer, who owns a considerable piece of tennis history in his own right, said:"I have almost no words anymore watching this. It's beyond anything I've ever seen and could imagine. I don't know how their bodies must feel . . . This is incredible tennis."
And this incredible tennis will go on for a third day. "Nothing like this will ever happen again," Isner said after today's play. "Ever."
But don't expect to see it on ESPN's main channels. They'll be broadcasting the movie "Heidi." Or a taped fishing show. Or something.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Death and Near Death in Sport
Rest in peace, Manute.
Manute Bol was 7 feet, 7 inches tall; the basket is only 10 feet above the court; the hoop is 18 inches in diameter and the ball only 9.39; but for most of his career including 10 seasons as an NBA professional, the league's tallest player had difficulty making the ball go through the hoop. He is the only player in NBA history who averaged more blocked shots per game (3.3) than points (2.6).
He tied the record for most blocks in a half (11) and twice set the record for blocks in a quarter (8).
Despite his reputation for futility as a shooter, he once made six of 12 three-point attempts in a single half.
But none of this is important in considering Manute Bol, who died at 47 last Saturday of acute kidney failure in a hospital in Charlottesville, VA.
This is what's important:
Born in Sudan, the son of a Dinka chief, Manute (it means "special blessing") spent virtually all of the small fortune he earned in the NBA building schools and financing efforts to end poverty and oppression in his homeland.
His goal was to build 164 schools. He was less than halfway there when he died.
The NBA should finish the job in his memory, as a tribute to a man whose humanitarianism towered far higher than 7 feet, 7 inches.
* * *
In the opening match at Wimbledon Monday, Falla won the first two sets against someone posing as the defending champion, Roger Federer. (No, silly, not the reincarnation of FDR's dog. FAH-ya, the Colombian left-hander who is ranked No. 60 in the world).
The scores were 7-5, 6-4. Falla, like Robin Soderling in the quarterfinals at Paris a few weeks ago, was eating Federer's second serve for lunch. Or was it the impostor's?
The real Federer began making a few token appearances in the third set, which Falla lost, 4-6. But the impostor returned to action in the fourth, with Falla serving for the match at 5-4. Then real Roger came back on court, forced a tiebreak, and won it easily.
There was no sign of the impostor in Set Five. Real Roger won, 6-0.
What doth this bode for Federer's quest to equal Pete Sampras's record of seven Wimbledon championships, and add yet another to his record set of 16 Grand Slam titles?
At 29, Roger seems to have lost something on a second serve that was once one of the strengths of his magnificent all-around game. And his backhand remains vulnerable against constant pounding. But the Roger Federer of incomparable grace and skill, the man with the most complete game in the history of tennis, refused to surrender his dignity to the number 60 player on the tour.
He acknowledged afterward that this was a match he probably should have lost. "But then," he added enigmatically, "I've lost some this year that I should have won."
It's a long fortnight, and neither Roger nor his principal adversary, the No. 1 player in the world, Rafael Nadal, has an easy road ahead.
But this is Wimbledon, the courts are grass and the real Roger is still here -- or was, at least, when he needed to be.
Manute Bol was 7 feet, 7 inches tall; the basket is only 10 feet above the court; the hoop is 18 inches in diameter and the ball only 9.39; but for most of his career including 10 seasons as an NBA professional, the league's tallest player had difficulty making the ball go through the hoop. He is the only player in NBA history who averaged more blocked shots per game (3.3) than points (2.6).
He tied the record for most blocks in a half (11) and twice set the record for blocks in a quarter (8).
Despite his reputation for futility as a shooter, he once made six of 12 three-point attempts in a single half.
But none of this is important in considering Manute Bol, who died at 47 last Saturday of acute kidney failure in a hospital in Charlottesville, VA.
This is what's important:
Born in Sudan, the son of a Dinka chief, Manute (it means "special blessing") spent virtually all of the small fortune he earned in the NBA building schools and financing efforts to end poverty and oppression in his homeland.
His goal was to build 164 schools. He was less than halfway there when he died.
The NBA should finish the job in his memory, as a tribute to a man whose humanitarianism towered far higher than 7 feet, 7 inches.
* * *
In the opening match at Wimbledon Monday, Falla won the first two sets against someone posing as the defending champion, Roger Federer. (No, silly, not the reincarnation of FDR's dog. FAH-ya, the Colombian left-hander who is ranked No. 60 in the world).
The scores were 7-5, 6-4. Falla, like Robin Soderling in the quarterfinals at Paris a few weeks ago, was eating Federer's second serve for lunch. Or was it the impostor's?
The real Federer began making a few token appearances in the third set, which Falla lost, 4-6. But the impostor returned to action in the fourth, with Falla serving for the match at 5-4. Then real Roger came back on court, forced a tiebreak, and won it easily.
There was no sign of the impostor in Set Five. Real Roger won, 6-0.
What doth this bode for Federer's quest to equal Pete Sampras's record of seven Wimbledon championships, and add yet another to his record set of 16 Grand Slam titles?
At 29, Roger seems to have lost something on a second serve that was once one of the strengths of his magnificent all-around game. And his backhand remains vulnerable against constant pounding. But the Roger Federer of incomparable grace and skill, the man with the most complete game in the history of tennis, refused to surrender his dignity to the number 60 player on the tour.
He acknowledged afterward that this was a match he probably should have lost. "But then," he added enigmatically, "I've lost some this year that I should have won."
It's a long fortnight, and neither Roger nor his principal adversary, the No. 1 player in the world, Rafael Nadal, has an easy road ahead.
But this is Wimbledon, the courts are grass and the real Roger is still here -- or was, at least, when he needed to be.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Beyond Bleak
"Stay upbeat!" the physical therapists keep telling me. That's why they took away my iPad. Constant monitoring of the news was so depressing me that my rehabilitation was lagging; the muscles that need to be re-educated to operate my new titanium hip were failing kindergarten.
Something like that.
The surgeon assures me I'll "be 100 per cent by November." Great. Just in time for the mid-term elections. Stay upbeat?
Rand Paul? Joe Barton? Sharron Angle? Stay upbeat?
You're risking death by commando attack if you board a ship to bring humanitarian relief to the suffering people of Gaza! Stay upbeat?
The raw petroleum gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, and the flood of toxic chemicals being used to disperse it, are lethal to every form of life in the sea, and the marshes that adjoin it. Nobody in government or the extraction industry -- comprising some of the fattest corporate fat cats in the history of money -- has the foggiest notion what to do about it. The top boss of BP, whose well is killing everything, appears before Congress playing the Billy Martin role in the old beer commercial: "I didn't punch that dogie." Then BP ships him off to its executive penal colony on a remote island -- which you can bet is somewhere in the Pacific. Stay upbeat?
Our greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression is met with great gifts of taxpayer cash to the very Too Big to Fail financial institutions whose idiocy caused the crisis. More and more Americans lose their jobs but the band aid of extended unemployment benefits is stricken by a corporate-owned Senate that can't bear to pay for public works by raising corporate taxes almost to the same level that is imposed on working Americans. More and more Americans lose their homes to foreclosure but we let financial industry lobbyists write the new "regulations" on lenders. Stay upbeat?
The insurance industry that has befouled health care in the United States, now among the worst in the industrialized world, writes the foundation of "health care reform" legislation with the result that the one part of the system that worked -- Medicare -- is at risk from the predations of the newly-empowered insurers. Stay upbeat?
Even as apocalypse envelopes the sea, the corporations that own Congress , now sanctified with Constitutional personhood by the Gang of Five on the Supreme Court, are pressing for more drilling, more mining, more mountaintop removal, more gouging, more criminal exploitation of public land, even if it defiles historical, aesthetic and cultural landmarks that can never be replaced or repaired. Stay upbeat?
Video made from a military helicopter shows criminal assassination of unarmed civilians by United States forces in Afghanistan. When it's made public by Wikileaks -- an online journal of truth that deserves a Nobel Prize -- the United States responds not with outrage about the crime, but by jailing the buck private who is alleged to have leaked the thing in an act of conscience. Stay upbeat?
A White House that promised transparency, reform and war on government by Beltway insiders has given us more secrecy, a worsening of the executive abuses of the previous administration, and endless war against people who are guilty only of hating us, with reason. Stay upbeat?
And the current occupant of the White House, Dr. Kidglove, gives us . . . words. There are words and there are words. Words that inspire action and determination (Lincoln, Churchill, King . . .). Words of deceit, denial, duplicity and compromise. Stay upbeat?
I wonder if that Utah firing squad moonlights for the terminally depressed.
Something like that.
The surgeon assures me I'll "be 100 per cent by November." Great. Just in time for the mid-term elections. Stay upbeat?
Rand Paul? Joe Barton? Sharron Angle? Stay upbeat?
You're risking death by commando attack if you board a ship to bring humanitarian relief to the suffering people of Gaza! Stay upbeat?
The raw petroleum gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, and the flood of toxic chemicals being used to disperse it, are lethal to every form of life in the sea, and the marshes that adjoin it. Nobody in government or the extraction industry -- comprising some of the fattest corporate fat cats in the history of money -- has the foggiest notion what to do about it. The top boss of BP, whose well is killing everything, appears before Congress playing the Billy Martin role in the old beer commercial: "I didn't punch that dogie." Then BP ships him off to its executive penal colony on a remote island -- which you can bet is somewhere in the Pacific. Stay upbeat?
Our greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression is met with great gifts of taxpayer cash to the very Too Big to Fail financial institutions whose idiocy caused the crisis. More and more Americans lose their jobs but the band aid of extended unemployment benefits is stricken by a corporate-owned Senate that can't bear to pay for public works by raising corporate taxes almost to the same level that is imposed on working Americans. More and more Americans lose their homes to foreclosure but we let financial industry lobbyists write the new "regulations" on lenders. Stay upbeat?
The insurance industry that has befouled health care in the United States, now among the worst in the industrialized world, writes the foundation of "health care reform" legislation with the result that the one part of the system that worked -- Medicare -- is at risk from the predations of the newly-empowered insurers. Stay upbeat?
Even as apocalypse envelopes the sea, the corporations that own Congress , now sanctified with Constitutional personhood by the Gang of Five on the Supreme Court, are pressing for more drilling, more mining, more mountaintop removal, more gouging, more criminal exploitation of public land, even if it defiles historical, aesthetic and cultural landmarks that can never be replaced or repaired. Stay upbeat?
Video made from a military helicopter shows criminal assassination of unarmed civilians by United States forces in Afghanistan. When it's made public by Wikileaks -- an online journal of truth that deserves a Nobel Prize -- the United States responds not with outrage about the crime, but by jailing the buck private who is alleged to have leaked the thing in an act of conscience. Stay upbeat?
A White House that promised transparency, reform and war on government by Beltway insiders has given us more secrecy, a worsening of the executive abuses of the previous administration, and endless war against people who are guilty only of hating us, with reason. Stay upbeat?
And the current occupant of the White House, Dr. Kidglove, gives us . . . words. There are words and there are words. Words that inspire action and determination (Lincoln, Churchill, King . . .). Words of deceit, denial, duplicity and compromise. Stay upbeat?
I wonder if that Utah firing squad moonlights for the terminally depressed.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Killing the Place Where Life Was Born
What kind of people are we?
Our heavily subsidized puppet ally in the Middle East makes war on civilians, commits piracy on the high seas and murders humanitarians bent on delivering aid to suffering people.
And we "regret" the loss of life.
Enormously rich corporations buy public office for their whores, corrupt the agencies that supposedly regulate them under watered-down laws and rape the environment in which we live.
Life on this planet began in the sea. Now the unregulated extraction industry is killing the place where life was born.
And we impose a "moratorium" on oil drilling in the sea.
The highest court in the land has decreed that corporations may use their enormous financial resources to buy control of our government at every level.
And we paste little flags on our trucks with slogans about our national greatness.
We elect a black man to our highest office -- and condemn even his modest efforts to reform a broken country. We heap unprecedented vitriol upon him, even upon his little children, and call ourselves "patriots."
Unsurpassed greed in the highest offices of the nation's greatest financial institutions drive millions of Americans out of their homes and into poverty, shrink lifelong savings of other millions into pittances and precipitate a global economic crisis.
And we say "tsk, tsk" and Congress passes new "regulations" that will ensure that the big banks continue the same practices that wrought disaster.
What kind of people are we?
Politically rotten and ethically dead.
Surrounding ourselves now with a dead sea.
Our heavily subsidized puppet ally in the Middle East makes war on civilians, commits piracy on the high seas and murders humanitarians bent on delivering aid to suffering people.
And we "regret" the loss of life.
Enormously rich corporations buy public office for their whores, corrupt the agencies that supposedly regulate them under watered-down laws and rape the environment in which we live.
Life on this planet began in the sea. Now the unregulated extraction industry is killing the place where life was born.
And we impose a "moratorium" on oil drilling in the sea.
The highest court in the land has decreed that corporations may use their enormous financial resources to buy control of our government at every level.
And we paste little flags on our trucks with slogans about our national greatness.
We elect a black man to our highest office -- and condemn even his modest efforts to reform a broken country. We heap unprecedented vitriol upon him, even upon his little children, and call ourselves "patriots."
Unsurpassed greed in the highest offices of the nation's greatest financial institutions drive millions of Americans out of their homes and into poverty, shrink lifelong savings of other millions into pittances and precipitate a global economic crisis.
And we say "tsk, tsk" and Congress passes new "regulations" that will ensure that the big banks continue the same practices that wrought disaster.
What kind of people are we?
Politically rotten and ethically dead.
Surrounding ourselves now with a dead sea.
Monday, May 10, 2010
A Bad Notion and a Bad Nominee
Many of us who voted for him expected more from the one-time teacher of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago.
But Barack Obama, expert on the Constitution, is the back story. President Obama is the here and now. For all of his expertise, his positions on important Constitutional matters are indistinguishable from those of the addle-pated fool who held the office before him.
Some Constitutional scholars, such as Glenn Greenwald, say he's even worse than Bush II. The conjunction of two recent events tends to support the Greenwald view.
Sunday, his Attorney General, Eric Holder, outlined the administration's view that the Miranda law should be loosened to allow more time for authorities to, er, question a terrorism suspect before the Miranda rights are read to him or her.
Today, the President disclosed that his nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy left by Justice John Paul Stevens's retirement is Solicitor General Elena Kagan.
Holder's view is one only John Ashbrook -- or Torquemada -- could applaud. The Kagan nomination is more analogous to Bush II's nomination of Harriet Miers than to, say, Dwight Eisenhower's of Earl Warren.
Administration apologists have spent the two days preceding the Kagan announcement assuring the American public that her opposition "on the left" --it's made to sound like a foreign country -- is 100 per cent wrong.
Never mind the transcripts of her arguments as Solicitor General before the Supreme Court, particularly in the infamous Citizens United case, which depicted an inept lawyer who merited only scorn from the questioning Justices.
Never mind her support for the Obama administration's attempts to further broaden the unconstitutional arrogations of power to the presidency that the Bush crowd asserted.
Never mind her lack of a written record of strong views on the Constitution, other than that, well, it's there.
As for Holder's attack on Miranda, it's just another step in the process begun with the passage of the despicable U.S.A. Patriot Act, a process of dismantling the Bill of Rights. Miranda simply spelled out the procedures law enforcement must follow to assure that all citizens, even those accused of the most serious crimes, will have the protection of the rights enshrined in the first ten Amendments. To weaken the procedures is to weaken the amendments.
The Obamans have already enshrined as legal precedent the Bush crowd's unconstitutional stance that a "terrorist" is anyone the President calls one. Now they want to put the Bill of Rights off limits to anyone subjected to such a whim.
Little by little, the rule of law in America is fading away. Soon all that will be left of the Bill of Rights will be a Cheshire cat's smile.
* * *
With this post, your Pianist shambles off into the wings to meet the surgeon who will replace what's left of his natural hip with a fine piece of titanium hardware. He will return to the bench when he is able to play again. He has been practicing the final movement to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and hopes to be able to play it again some day.
But Barack Obama, expert on the Constitution, is the back story. President Obama is the here and now. For all of his expertise, his positions on important Constitutional matters are indistinguishable from those of the addle-pated fool who held the office before him.
Some Constitutional scholars, such as Glenn Greenwald, say he's even worse than Bush II. The conjunction of two recent events tends to support the Greenwald view.
Sunday, his Attorney General, Eric Holder, outlined the administration's view that the Miranda law should be loosened to allow more time for authorities to, er, question a terrorism suspect before the Miranda rights are read to him or her.
Today, the President disclosed that his nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy left by Justice John Paul Stevens's retirement is Solicitor General Elena Kagan.
Holder's view is one only John Ashbrook -- or Torquemada -- could applaud. The Kagan nomination is more analogous to Bush II's nomination of Harriet Miers than to, say, Dwight Eisenhower's of Earl Warren.
Administration apologists have spent the two days preceding the Kagan announcement assuring the American public that her opposition "on the left" --it's made to sound like a foreign country -- is 100 per cent wrong.
Never mind the transcripts of her arguments as Solicitor General before the Supreme Court, particularly in the infamous Citizens United case, which depicted an inept lawyer who merited only scorn from the questioning Justices.
Never mind her support for the Obama administration's attempts to further broaden the unconstitutional arrogations of power to the presidency that the Bush crowd asserted.
Never mind her lack of a written record of strong views on the Constitution, other than that, well, it's there.
As for Holder's attack on Miranda, it's just another step in the process begun with the passage of the despicable U.S.A. Patriot Act, a process of dismantling the Bill of Rights. Miranda simply spelled out the procedures law enforcement must follow to assure that all citizens, even those accused of the most serious crimes, will have the protection of the rights enshrined in the first ten Amendments. To weaken the procedures is to weaken the amendments.
The Obamans have already enshrined as legal precedent the Bush crowd's unconstitutional stance that a "terrorist" is anyone the President calls one. Now they want to put the Bill of Rights off limits to anyone subjected to such a whim.
Little by little, the rule of law in America is fading away. Soon all that will be left of the Bill of Rights will be a Cheshire cat's smile.
* * *
With this post, your Pianist shambles off into the wings to meet the surgeon who will replace what's left of his natural hip with a fine piece of titanium hardware. He will return to the bench when he is able to play again. He has been practicing the final movement to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and hopes to be able to play it again some day.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Keep an Eye on the Brits, Washington
Maybe if we're lucky we'll get another lesson in government from the Mother Country.
Here's the deal:
No party in England's national election won enough seats in Parliament for a majority, which is required to form a government. David Cameron's Conservative Party won the most seats (and the most popular votes) but not enough to put a Tory in No. 10 Downing Street. The ruling Labour Party of Prime Minister Gordon Brown finished second in number of seats won and, by a narrow margin over the Liberal Democrats, in the popular vote. The Lib Dems were thought to be surging, but actually lost seats, yet nevertheless could emerge as kingmakers.
Their seats plus the Tory seats would be enough to form a coalition government. That, in fact, is what Cameron has proposed to the Liberal Democrats' charismatic leader, Nick Clegg. Cameron said his "big, open and comprehensive offer" would ensure stability for the British government and would include LibDem cabinet seats. Clegg seemed receptive, saying the party with the most seats should govern. (He also refers to Brown as a "squatter" on Downing Street.)
If this coalition happens, it would be somewhat like Mitch McConnell and Dennis Kucinich forming a coalition government here -- if we had more than two parties and a system that allowed for coalition governments.
Wouldn't work, would it?
Don't bet against the Brits. These, after all, are the people who defeated the Luftwaffe using only "blood, sweat , toil and tears." They know how to make things work, even if they suffer doing so.
And if they succeed, will we, too, learn how to make coalitions work for the betterment of the people?
In the U.S., the Democrats control the White House and a majority in both houses of Congress -- and haven't done a damned thing to fix the god-awful mess Dubyuh left behind. Took 'em a year to realize that even lacking 60 votes in the Senate, they could still pass some kind of health care bill. OK, it's a lousy bill. But it's something.
Meanwhile, getting control of the economy; providing jobs for millions who are out of work; restoring confidence in the marketplace; devising an intelligent and workable immigration policy, restoring Constitutional values, rule of law and the Bill of Rights; ending illegal, costly and demeaning wars; all of these and other pressing needs go unsolved, like the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Republicans simply vote "no" on everything and let the country flounder like oil-soaked pelicans in the bayou.
If Cameron's coalition comes to be, it will need true cooperation between the left-of-center Lib Dems and the Tory right in order to govern effectively. If our hapless, corporate-owned, sleazy, lying, cheating pols will watch and learn, perhaps we can still muddle our way to becoming a better country.
Then again, we got the very foundation of our legal system from the Brits, and look what a mess we've made of that! We've even given up Habeas Corpus.
What's next, politically? Hogamous, higamous, let's go polygamous. As the Mother Country may yet prove, it's better than what we've got.
Here's the deal:
No party in England's national election won enough seats in Parliament for a majority, which is required to form a government. David Cameron's Conservative Party won the most seats (and the most popular votes) but not enough to put a Tory in No. 10 Downing Street. The ruling Labour Party of Prime Minister Gordon Brown finished second in number of seats won and, by a narrow margin over the Liberal Democrats, in the popular vote. The Lib Dems were thought to be surging, but actually lost seats, yet nevertheless could emerge as kingmakers.
Their seats plus the Tory seats would be enough to form a coalition government. That, in fact, is what Cameron has proposed to the Liberal Democrats' charismatic leader, Nick Clegg. Cameron said his "big, open and comprehensive offer" would ensure stability for the British government and would include LibDem cabinet seats. Clegg seemed receptive, saying the party with the most seats should govern. (He also refers to Brown as a "squatter" on Downing Street.)
If this coalition happens, it would be somewhat like Mitch McConnell and Dennis Kucinich forming a coalition government here -- if we had more than two parties and a system that allowed for coalition governments.
Wouldn't work, would it?
Don't bet against the Brits. These, after all, are the people who defeated the Luftwaffe using only "blood, sweat , toil and tears." They know how to make things work, even if they suffer doing so.
And if they succeed, will we, too, learn how to make coalitions work for the betterment of the people?
In the U.S., the Democrats control the White House and a majority in both houses of Congress -- and haven't done a damned thing to fix the god-awful mess Dubyuh left behind. Took 'em a year to realize that even lacking 60 votes in the Senate, they could still pass some kind of health care bill. OK, it's a lousy bill. But it's something.
Meanwhile, getting control of the economy; providing jobs for millions who are out of work; restoring confidence in the marketplace; devising an intelligent and workable immigration policy, restoring Constitutional values, rule of law and the Bill of Rights; ending illegal, costly and demeaning wars; all of these and other pressing needs go unsolved, like the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Republicans simply vote "no" on everything and let the country flounder like oil-soaked pelicans in the bayou.
If Cameron's coalition comes to be, it will need true cooperation between the left-of-center Lib Dems and the Tory right in order to govern effectively. If our hapless, corporate-owned, sleazy, lying, cheating pols will watch and learn, perhaps we can still muddle our way to becoming a better country.
Then again, we got the very foundation of our legal system from the Brits, and look what a mess we've made of that! We've even given up Habeas Corpus.
What's next, politically? Hogamous, higamous, let's go polygamous. As the Mother Country may yet prove, it's better than what we've got.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Look Who's Not Coming to Dinner
In an age when newspapers are dying, good journalism is more rare than sightings of Yeti and millions of Americans base their political opinions on misinformation from jugglers and clowns, is it too much to ask for just a gesture of maturity on the part of Washington reporters?
End the high school musical fiasco called the White House Correspondents' Dinner. It could be the first step toward establishing a professional relationship between Washington journalists and Washington politicians. A respectfully adversarial relationship. One that would benefit not just consumers of news, but reporters of it and sources of it.
I don't expect this to happen overnight. The cozy, inside baseball, old school tie climate of Washington journalism has been evolving too long, is too deeply entrenched on both sides for instant reform.
But getting rid of the infantile correspondents' dinner would at least be a signal of better intentions. One of the great benefits of retirement from the newspaper business is not having reason to attend the silly things any more. They're boring, insipid, the food is mediocre and they demean newsmen who allow themselves to be stuffed into white tie and tails just to rub elbows with the highest and mightiest of people they're supposed to cover.
The thing should have ended several years ago, when Bush II sank to making a silly skit out of the non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Rather than walking out, as they should have, the so-called newsmen actually laughed at this. Here was the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces, making a joke out of the lie with which he bamboozled Congress and the public into supporting a war that is still going on; that has cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. Here were the men and women who are supposed to report the truth about our government, chuckling along with good ol' Dubyuh at the bloodiest sick inside joke of all time.
From what I hear, nothing quite as obscene happened at the 2010 White House Correspondents' Association dinner last week. Someone told me Jay Leno was a dud; that Obama dutifully poked lame fun at himself and the opposition; that Biden was the butt of lots of jokes about his talent for putting his foot in his mouth. High school pep-rally humor of the sort that would be cause for instant dismissal of a writer for the Stewart or Colbert shows.
How many examples must we have of supposed "news" reporters allowing themselves to be used as puppets of the politicians in power before some responsible editor or publisher declares, "Enough." He or she could immediately demonstrate bona fides by refusing to allow his or her journalists to participate in the anachronism of the correspondents' dinner.
No more puerile song parodies. No more wink-wink insider jokes. No more stenography. Just serious, hard questioning, slogging, dig for the truth, detached reporting of what our government is up to. It used to be called journalism.
It isn't done by sharing Gratinee de Coquilles St. Jacques and Domaine Gouron Chinon with Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and the rest of Barry's Bosom Buds at a fancy dinner while millions of Americans are still jobless and Washington has not taken a single action in nearly a decade to really fix what's wrong in this country.
The fat cats scarfing canapes last week don't even seem to realize that anything's wrong.
End the high school musical fiasco called the White House Correspondents' Dinner. It could be the first step toward establishing a professional relationship between Washington journalists and Washington politicians. A respectfully adversarial relationship. One that would benefit not just consumers of news, but reporters of it and sources of it.
I don't expect this to happen overnight. The cozy, inside baseball, old school tie climate of Washington journalism has been evolving too long, is too deeply entrenched on both sides for instant reform.
But getting rid of the infantile correspondents' dinner would at least be a signal of better intentions. One of the great benefits of retirement from the newspaper business is not having reason to attend the silly things any more. They're boring, insipid, the food is mediocre and they demean newsmen who allow themselves to be stuffed into white tie and tails just to rub elbows with the highest and mightiest of people they're supposed to cover.
The thing should have ended several years ago, when Bush II sank to making a silly skit out of the non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Rather than walking out, as they should have, the so-called newsmen actually laughed at this. Here was the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces, making a joke out of the lie with which he bamboozled Congress and the public into supporting a war that is still going on; that has cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. Here were the men and women who are supposed to report the truth about our government, chuckling along with good ol' Dubyuh at the bloodiest sick inside joke of all time.
From what I hear, nothing quite as obscene happened at the 2010 White House Correspondents' Association dinner last week. Someone told me Jay Leno was a dud; that Obama dutifully poked lame fun at himself and the opposition; that Biden was the butt of lots of jokes about his talent for putting his foot in his mouth. High school pep-rally humor of the sort that would be cause for instant dismissal of a writer for the Stewart or Colbert shows.
How many examples must we have of supposed "news" reporters allowing themselves to be used as puppets of the politicians in power before some responsible editor or publisher declares, "Enough." He or she could immediately demonstrate bona fides by refusing to allow his or her journalists to participate in the anachronism of the correspondents' dinner.
No more puerile song parodies. No more wink-wink insider jokes. No more stenography. Just serious, hard questioning, slogging, dig for the truth, detached reporting of what our government is up to. It used to be called journalism.
It isn't done by sharing Gratinee de Coquilles St. Jacques and Domaine Gouron Chinon with Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and the rest of Barry's Bosom Buds at a fancy dinner while millions of Americans are still jobless and Washington has not taken a single action in nearly a decade to really fix what's wrong in this country.
The fat cats scarfing canapes last week don't even seem to realize that anything's wrong.
Friday, April 30, 2010
This Was the Week That Was
Sing, it Dinah! Sing, "See the U.S.A. . . . ."
See the offshore drilling platform catch fire, blow up, sink, killing 11 workers and creating the worst oil spill we've ever had. See them call in the Navy, the Coast Guard, the robot subs, the shrimp boats; see them actually set the ocean afire. How's that make you feel about more offshore drilling on the Atlantic Coast, and up in Alaska? Swell idea, eh? Gotta keep those Hummers humming.
"America is asking you to call. . ."
Call on Arizona -- if your skin is very white, and you've got a passport, a driver's license and six other forms of picture ID to verify that you are, by God, a red white and blue-blooded citizen of the Yew-Nited-States of Murrica. If you look the slightest bit Mexican, Guatamalan, Haitian, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Chinese, West Indian or such -- maybe even if you look sort of like the President himself -- you'd better be ready for a set of pink drawers and some hard time in Shurf Joe Arpaio's canvas jail, where dawgs get better treatment than prisoners.
"See the U.S.A. . . ."
See the Goldman Sachs guys in the thousand-dollar suits try to explain why Wall Street's "heads I win, tails you lose" way of doing business is really just good old American free enterprise. See the Senate Republicans refuse to allow a vote on legislation that would regulate Goldman and the other banks that are too big to fail, because Republicans believe in free enterprise. See some of the country's richest men struggle to spell F-R-A-U-D.
See two even richer men -- Pete Peterson and Bob Rubin, both former financial policy-makers for the federal government -- tell pensioners that they have to learn to sacrifice more. Everybody's got to pitch in, you know, so the economy can recover from the mistakes of the financial policy-makers for the federal government. At your age, Mort, you don't really need three meals a day.
"America's the greatest land of all . . ."
Yes, the greatest -- if you're Exxon Mobil, the most profitable company in the history of profit, whose first quarter earnings were up 38 per cent over the year before. Drill, baby, drill!
The greatest -- unless you work in a coal mine. Thirty-one miners in West Virginia and Kentucky are dead in mines with long records of safety violations. Even Rush Limbaugh decried unsafe conditions. "Where was the union," he demanded after the West Virginia tragedy that killed 29. "Why didn't their union do something about those conditions?" But there was no union. Workers tried three times to get a certification election, but the mine owners managed to stiff them every time. Legally.
The greatest -- provided you speak English. Tim James, an Alabama gubernatorial candidate vows to put an end to driver’s license tests being conducted in any language but English. “This is Alabama. We speak English,” he tells voters in a campaign ad. (Have you ever tried to translate a pure Alabamian dialect into English?)
The greatest -- unless you're a woman in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Legislature this week overrode Gov. Brad Henry’s veto of two anti-choice bills, one of which gives doctors immunity from being sued if they conceal information about a fetus’s possible birth defects from a pregnant patient.
The greatest -- unless you're one of the six in every ten Americans who live in places where the air you breathe is dangerous to your health, according to new report from the American Lung Association.
All of this in a single week. Sing it again, Dinah!
"America's the greatest land of all . . ."
See the offshore drilling platform catch fire, blow up, sink, killing 11 workers and creating the worst oil spill we've ever had. See them call in the Navy, the Coast Guard, the robot subs, the shrimp boats; see them actually set the ocean afire. How's that make you feel about more offshore drilling on the Atlantic Coast, and up in Alaska? Swell idea, eh? Gotta keep those Hummers humming.
"America is asking you to call. . ."
Call on Arizona -- if your skin is very white, and you've got a passport, a driver's license and six other forms of picture ID to verify that you are, by God, a red white and blue-blooded citizen of the Yew-Nited-States of Murrica. If you look the slightest bit Mexican, Guatamalan, Haitian, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Chinese, West Indian or such -- maybe even if you look sort of like the President himself -- you'd better be ready for a set of pink drawers and some hard time in Shurf Joe Arpaio's canvas jail, where dawgs get better treatment than prisoners.
"See the U.S.A. . . ."
See the Goldman Sachs guys in the thousand-dollar suits try to explain why Wall Street's "heads I win, tails you lose" way of doing business is really just good old American free enterprise. See the Senate Republicans refuse to allow a vote on legislation that would regulate Goldman and the other banks that are too big to fail, because Republicans believe in free enterprise. See some of the country's richest men struggle to spell F-R-A-U-D.
See two even richer men -- Pete Peterson and Bob Rubin, both former financial policy-makers for the federal government -- tell pensioners that they have to learn to sacrifice more. Everybody's got to pitch in, you know, so the economy can recover from the mistakes of the financial policy-makers for the federal government. At your age, Mort, you don't really need three meals a day.
"America's the greatest land of all . . ."
Yes, the greatest -- if you're Exxon Mobil, the most profitable company in the history of profit, whose first quarter earnings were up 38 per cent over the year before. Drill, baby, drill!
The greatest -- unless you work in a coal mine. Thirty-one miners in West Virginia and Kentucky are dead in mines with long records of safety violations. Even Rush Limbaugh decried unsafe conditions. "Where was the union," he demanded after the West Virginia tragedy that killed 29. "Why didn't their union do something about those conditions?" But there was no union. Workers tried three times to get a certification election, but the mine owners managed to stiff them every time. Legally.
The greatest -- provided you speak English. Tim James, an Alabama gubernatorial candidate vows to put an end to driver’s license tests being conducted in any language but English. “This is Alabama. We speak English,” he tells voters in a campaign ad. (Have you ever tried to translate a pure Alabamian dialect into English?)
The greatest -- unless you're a woman in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Legislature this week overrode Gov. Brad Henry’s veto of two anti-choice bills, one of which gives doctors immunity from being sued if they conceal information about a fetus’s possible birth defects from a pregnant patient.
The greatest -- unless you're one of the six in every ten Americans who live in places where the air you breathe is dangerous to your health, according to new report from the American Lung Association.
All of this in a single week. Sing it again, Dinah!
"America's the greatest land of all . . ."
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Spare Me the Details
The Jack Kevorkian movie on HBO has triggered another spate of maudlin first-person stories about loved ones snatched from the jaws of doom who would have been dispatched to the hereafter if they'd fallen into the clutches of a Dr. Death.
Spare me.
I have first-person stories of my own, the sort that impelled me to send a modest contribution to Dr. Kevorkian's defense fund for the trial that put him in prison. I almost wish I hadn't, because rather than hiring a good lawyer he chose to defend himself, with predictable consequences.
I presume the people who are posting their macabre tales on internet sites are the same ones who prodded the political slime into making a public issue of the Schiavo family's very private grief a few years ago. The decision to terminate artificial life support for a loved one is difficult enough without the obscene circus those people created.
Their narratives can't even be left to speak for themselves. They've got to be tarted up with purple. Hence, in one recent post, the representative of The Hemlock Society was "an overweight man in a black suit and a bolo tie." (Boo, hiss.) He didn't speak, he "drawled," droppin' the final "g" of his gerunds, the way , y'know, villains talk. He "pulled out what looked like a dirty white headband" as he prepared to help Momma die.
Spare me.
I haven't seen "You Don't Know Jack," the HBO movie on Kevorkian, but I'm told that it treats him fairly, neither varnishing over his personal flaws nor tarring him as a heinous killer. His facial resemblance to Boris Karloff alone would have made him an easy target for hate.
All I ever knew about Dr. Kevorkian is what I read. Despite the undertones of moral outrage in the media coverage, I concluded that he was doing important work. The suffering of the terminally ill can be unspeakably cruel. Three states have passed more enlightened laws regarding assisted death since Jack came on the scene. That can't be entirely coincidental.
How striking is the difference between how we treat dying pets and dying humans! Our beloved cocker spaniel, Sandy, died with dignity and compassion in the care of a kindly animal doctor. My cancer-ridden mother suffered the torments of hell before she died.
What sort of society permits animals to die with dignity but requires people to endure agony before dying "naturally?"
Surely it is time to recognize that rational human beings have an absolute right to determine for themselves when their quality of life has become so dismal that extraordinary efforts to sustain it should be terminated.
The right, if you will, to be treated like dogs.
Spare me.
I have first-person stories of my own, the sort that impelled me to send a modest contribution to Dr. Kevorkian's defense fund for the trial that put him in prison. I almost wish I hadn't, because rather than hiring a good lawyer he chose to defend himself, with predictable consequences.
I presume the people who are posting their macabre tales on internet sites are the same ones who prodded the political slime into making a public issue of the Schiavo family's very private grief a few years ago. The decision to terminate artificial life support for a loved one is difficult enough without the obscene circus those people created.
Their narratives can't even be left to speak for themselves. They've got to be tarted up with purple. Hence, in one recent post, the representative of The Hemlock Society was "an overweight man in a black suit and a bolo tie." (Boo, hiss.) He didn't speak, he "drawled," droppin' the final "g" of his gerunds, the way , y'know, villains talk. He "pulled out what looked like a dirty white headband" as he prepared to help Momma die.
Spare me.
I haven't seen "You Don't Know Jack," the HBO movie on Kevorkian, but I'm told that it treats him fairly, neither varnishing over his personal flaws nor tarring him as a heinous killer. His facial resemblance to Boris Karloff alone would have made him an easy target for hate.
All I ever knew about Dr. Kevorkian is what I read. Despite the undertones of moral outrage in the media coverage, I concluded that he was doing important work. The suffering of the terminally ill can be unspeakably cruel. Three states have passed more enlightened laws regarding assisted death since Jack came on the scene. That can't be entirely coincidental.
How striking is the difference between how we treat dying pets and dying humans! Our beloved cocker spaniel, Sandy, died with dignity and compassion in the care of a kindly animal doctor. My cancer-ridden mother suffered the torments of hell before she died.
What sort of society permits animals to die with dignity but requires people to endure agony before dying "naturally?"
Surely it is time to recognize that rational human beings have an absolute right to determine for themselves when their quality of life has become so dismal that extraordinary efforts to sustain it should be terminated.
The right, if you will, to be treated like dogs.
Monday, April 26, 2010
How Now This Honorable Man?
McClatchey newspapers, in a series of articles beginning last November, exposed the machinations of Goldman Sachs in packaging worthless mortgages as investments which it sold to clients even while taking a short position on them -- that is, betting that they would fail.
Fail they did. But Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of the investment bank that almost caused the entire U.S. economy to collapse, insists he and his cohorts did nothing wrong.
And Lloyd Blankfein is an honorable man.
In e-mails exchanged among executives at Goldman Sachs, the bankers crowed over their financial successes from betting against the housing market.
But Lloyd Blankfein will testify to Congress tomorrow (according to reports today based on his prepared remarks) that, "We didn't have a massive short against the housing market, and we certainly did not bet against our clients. Rather, we believe that we managed our risk as our shareholders and our regulators would expect."
And Lloyd Blankfein is an honorable man.
Earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud case against Goldman, saying it misled investors about securities tied to home mortgages. Regardless of the outcome of the SEC's case, "Goldman Sachs has lost," said James Cox, a Duke University law professor and securities law expert. "It's lost in the arena of public opinion."
And Lloyd Blankfein is an honorable man.
Politicians in the U.K. and Germany are starting to call on their governments to cut ties with Goldman, which has long been one of the top financial advisers to European policy makers. In the United Kingdom, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who leads the opinion polls less than three weeks before national elections, said on Tuesday that Goldman "should now be suspended in its role as one of the advisers to the government until these allegations are properly looked into." His comments follow Prime Minister Gordon Brown's recent characterization of Goldman's alleged behavior as "morally bankrupt."
And Lloyd Blankfein is an honorable man.
In Rolling Stone magazine, mild-mannered reporter Matt Taibbi characterized Goldman Sachs as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."
And Lloyd Blankfein is an honorable man.
When he goes before the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations tomorrow, Blankfein will say that the young trader charged with securities fraud for failing to disclose alleged conflicts of interest when he sold a portfolio of toxic mortgages to investors “showed poor judgment,” but also that the company didn’t fire him because he did nothing illegal. The trader, Fabrice Tourre, is accused of misleading customers into buying a pool of collateralized debt obligations — complex mortgage bonds that many consider the root cause of the economy's great collapse — by not revealing that the pool was largely assembled by a short seller betting that the investment would decline in value.
But Lloyd Blankfein is an honorable man.
Would that some modern-day Caesar cry Havoc, and loose the dogs of war upon this honorable man, and his honorable friends at Citibank, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and WellsFargo.
Goldman and the four Big Banks have assets of $8.1 trillion, equal to 59.7% of our entire gross domestic product.
No wonder the bastards own Congress and the rest of government. The purchase price was chump change for them.
But Lloyd Blankfein is an honorable man.
Fail they did. But Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of the investment bank that almost caused the entire U.S. economy to collapse, insists he and his cohorts did nothing wrong.
And Lloyd Blankfein is an honorable man.
In e-mails exchanged among executives at Goldman Sachs, the bankers crowed over their financial successes from betting against the housing market.
But Lloyd Blankfein will testify to Congress tomorrow (according to reports today based on his prepared remarks) that, "We didn't have a massive short against the housing market, and we certainly did not bet against our clients. Rather, we believe that we managed our risk as our shareholders and our regulators would expect."
And Lloyd Blankfein is an honorable man.
Earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud case against Goldman, saying it misled investors about securities tied to home mortgages. Regardless of the outcome of the SEC's case, "Goldman Sachs has lost," said James Cox, a Duke University law professor and securities law expert. "It's lost in the arena of public opinion."
And Lloyd Blankfein is an honorable man.
Politicians in the U.K. and Germany are starting to call on their governments to cut ties with Goldman, which has long been one of the top financial advisers to European policy makers. In the United Kingdom, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who leads the opinion polls less than three weeks before national elections, said on Tuesday that Goldman "should now be suspended in its role as one of the advisers to the government until these allegations are properly looked into." His comments follow Prime Minister Gordon Brown's recent characterization of Goldman's alleged behavior as "morally bankrupt."
And Lloyd Blankfein is an honorable man.
In Rolling Stone magazine, mild-mannered reporter Matt Taibbi characterized Goldman Sachs as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."
And Lloyd Blankfein is an honorable man.
When he goes before the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations tomorrow, Blankfein will say that the young trader charged with securities fraud for failing to disclose alleged conflicts of interest when he sold a portfolio of toxic mortgages to investors “showed poor judgment,” but also that the company didn’t fire him because he did nothing illegal. The trader, Fabrice Tourre, is accused of misleading customers into buying a pool of collateralized debt obligations — complex mortgage bonds that many consider the root cause of the economy's great collapse — by not revealing that the pool was largely assembled by a short seller betting that the investment would decline in value.
But Lloyd Blankfein is an honorable man.
Would that some modern-day Caesar cry Havoc, and loose the dogs of war upon this honorable man, and his honorable friends at Citibank, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and WellsFargo.
Goldman and the four Big Banks have assets of $8.1 trillion, equal to 59.7% of our entire gross domestic product.
No wonder the bastards own Congress and the rest of government. The purchase price was chump change for them.
But Lloyd Blankfein is an honorable man.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
A Stroll Down Easy Street, USA
Wall Street? Main Street? No, Easy Street is the American Way. Americans prefer slogans to thinking. They want SUVs, air conditioners and golf courses; let future generations worry about environmental damage, fossil fuel dependency and potable drinking water. It's easier to paste a ribbon on the pickup truck than to actually think about whether what we've accomplished in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 8 years is worth a single young American's life -- let alone thousands. We have made a collective, national decision not to try to answer the hard questions that confront us.
As a people we have been brainwashed by the millions of dollars worth of propaganda corporate America rains down upon us. Every branch of government continues to cede more power to corporations, edging the American people farther and farther away from reality.
The global warming "debate" is an example. It isn't a debate and global warming is only part of a related series of hard questions we have to answer about the envelope of life around the planet on which we live. We have been carefully taught to ignore such hard questions. Corporate America, led by Exxon, the most profitable corporation in the history of man, has persuaded us to stroll down Easy Street shouting slogans and listening to the elevator music of phony science.
The debates we ought to be having haven't even started; the white noise of corporate bovine excrement has shut them down. Everyone gives lip service to "green energy" -- sort of like pasting those "support our troops" ribbons on the SUV -- but having blinded us to the real motivations for it, corporate America won't invest seriously in it.
The area in which I live in New Mexico could be an enormous source of renewable energy from wind and sun. But the extraction industries that hold political power here have coached the people in NIMBY.
Another potential treasure trove of renewable energy is the Mojave Desert in southeastern California. Not only does it have 360 days of sunshine a year, but it also has some fierce wind that could be harnessed. There's a small wind farm development not far from the city of Mojave; now, there's interest in developing solar power there as well.
The Mojave is also home to a great many rare plants and animals, a precious and fragile ecosystem that some environmentalists want to protect from development of any kind even as other environmentalists promote renewable energy development.
The hard question is:Shall we have clean energy if it destroys sand dunes, endangered animals and plants, ancient lava flows, fossil beds, cactus forests and the pictorial record of native American culture? The answer is not to be found on Easy Street, USA.
The feds at one point authorized solar energy development on a million-acre tract of Mojave desert land that was donated to Uncle Sam. "Whoa," said the donor, the Wildlands Conservancy, which gave the land to the feds for conservation. Sen. Diane Feinstein of California is moving to protect the area by having it designated a national monument. The solar developers have backed off.
The Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies hasn't given up.V. John White, its executive director, says the Mojave is a very big place that should have room for everybody. "There's 4.5 million acres set aside for the desert tortoise, there's 3.5 million acres for the military reservations, there's 1.5 million acres for state-protected species, and the monument will take another million acres off the table," White told NPR radio. "Right now we have more land available for off-road vehicle parks than we do for solar, and that's crazy."
Maybe it's not so crazy on Easy Street, USA, where the corporate wealth of the ATV industry speaks loud. "Public land is for everybody," is their slogan.
Don't bother thinking about it.
As a people we have been brainwashed by the millions of dollars worth of propaganda corporate America rains down upon us. Every branch of government continues to cede more power to corporations, edging the American people farther and farther away from reality.
The global warming "debate" is an example. It isn't a debate and global warming is only part of a related series of hard questions we have to answer about the envelope of life around the planet on which we live. We have been carefully taught to ignore such hard questions. Corporate America, led by Exxon, the most profitable corporation in the history of man, has persuaded us to stroll down Easy Street shouting slogans and listening to the elevator music of phony science.
The debates we ought to be having haven't even started; the white noise of corporate bovine excrement has shut them down. Everyone gives lip service to "green energy" -- sort of like pasting those "support our troops" ribbons on the SUV -- but having blinded us to the real motivations for it, corporate America won't invest seriously in it.
The area in which I live in New Mexico could be an enormous source of renewable energy from wind and sun. But the extraction industries that hold political power here have coached the people in NIMBY.
Another potential treasure trove of renewable energy is the Mojave Desert in southeastern California. Not only does it have 360 days of sunshine a year, but it also has some fierce wind that could be harnessed. There's a small wind farm development not far from the city of Mojave; now, there's interest in developing solar power there as well.
The Mojave is also home to a great many rare plants and animals, a precious and fragile ecosystem that some environmentalists want to protect from development of any kind even as other environmentalists promote renewable energy development.
The hard question is:Shall we have clean energy if it destroys sand dunes, endangered animals and plants, ancient lava flows, fossil beds, cactus forests and the pictorial record of native American culture? The answer is not to be found on Easy Street, USA.
The feds at one point authorized solar energy development on a million-acre tract of Mojave desert land that was donated to Uncle Sam. "Whoa," said the donor, the Wildlands Conservancy, which gave the land to the feds for conservation. Sen. Diane Feinstein of California is moving to protect the area by having it designated a national monument. The solar developers have backed off.
The Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies hasn't given up.V. John White, its executive director, says the Mojave is a very big place that should have room for everybody. "There's 4.5 million acres set aside for the desert tortoise, there's 3.5 million acres for the military reservations, there's 1.5 million acres for state-protected species, and the monument will take another million acres off the table," White told NPR radio. "Right now we have more land available for off-road vehicle parks than we do for solar, and that's crazy."
Maybe it's not so crazy on Easy Street, USA, where the corporate wealth of the ATV industry speaks loud. "Public land is for everybody," is their slogan.
Don't bother thinking about it.
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