Since You Asked, Mr. Chief Justice. . . .

By MORT PERSKY

News Item, 3/09/2010: U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts complained in an address to University of Alabama law students yesterday about the role his justices play in attending the President's State of the Union address, but without referring to Mr. Obama's rebuke of the court's recent Citizens United decision, a rebuke memorably resented by his confrere, Justice Samuel Alito.  Roberts said in Tuscaloosa that he's "not sure why the justices are there" for the speech, and claims that while he has no problem with having the court's decisions criticized, there is also the issue of "setting, circumstances and decorum" to be considered. 

Oh, why not? Why don't we give Mr. Roberts some reasons (which he will almost certainly reject) for why his injustice-prone justices should be on hand for the President's State of the Union speech? Present only in part, that is, since three of his nine did not condescend to attend the event, which he says has "degenerated into a political pep rally."  In other words, one-third of his court prefigured his complaint by treating this acknowledgment of their government's other two segments as beneath their dignity. 

One reason, Mr. Roberts, for your attendance at the State of the Union is simply to absorb -- as reluctantly as Mr. Alito, if necessary -- the same sweet stuff you spend so much time dishing out during the rest of the year. A second is that during the months you and your colleagues spend unconfronted by the rest of your government or the public, you are allowed to appear more august and unreachable than ought to be the case, and a corrective now appears to be in the national interest. 

And yet another reason, Mr. Roberts (let us tell him), is that this appears to be the only moment the year affords for you and your justices to be held semi-accountable for even one of your numerous and (why kid ourselves?) never-to-be-acknowledged injustices. 

Aside from that, what exactly do you mean when you cite "an issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum" as a possible reason members of the court should perhaps not bother to be there? Does your "setting-circumstances-decorum" lament amount to more than snobbery about sharing one of our most important national rituals with mere mortals, despite the degree of honor with which it is regarded by most other attendees and millions of your fellow citizens watching it on television?  

Is it, in short, your idea that members of The Supreme Court need never descend to a place where its paragons of dignity, judgment and learning sully themselves by sitting with other Americans not devoting themselves to full-time demonstrations of respect for your distinguished presence --  as may be required of them in your own halls of occasional justice, occasionally based on interpretations of the U.S. Constitution mixed with just-as-occasional gut feelings about the original intentions of the Founding Fathers, now wholly un-consultable due to their long-undisputed demise?  

Mr. Roberts, if I hear your complaints in Tuscaloosa correctly, you and your robed colleagues are in dire need of being brought closer to the earth where your and their judgments eventually sprout good and bad fruit, where the legal decisions you make have real results in circumstances and venues that bear little resemblance to the hallowed halls where they are made.

For all their shortcomings, the President and Congress understand that their roles in governing by alleged consent of the governed makes them amply eligible for criticism, and yet your colleague Mr. Alito took umbrage at being criticized for a decision in which consent of the governed was all but ripped out of our government's heart  -- a place where it has long lain bleeding. It's high time you and your court turned to more germane concerns about human dignity than your own relationship to the "setting, circumstances and decorum" of the State of the Union address. Being there nine strong, however, would be a good start on a project that badly needs starting.

The Video You Won't See on TV

Every day I drive past a big steel building called an "event center" -- a big enclosed space where you can stage almost anything.  Dances, exhibits, auction sales, celebrations, whatever.  They once held a political rally there featuring Laura Bush, who pouted that it was an affront to host a First Lady in "a big barn."

For our kind of southwestern town, though, it's a right suitable place for public events.

As I approach the event center, I like to guess what's going on there.  The number of vehicles parked in the adjoining lot and sometimes spilling over to other nearby parking areas (legal and otherwise) is the best clue.  Time of year can be telling, too: holiday festivals, farm equipment exhibits, etc., are seasonal.

But there's one kind of event I don't have to guess about: a gun show.  These things draw the biggest crowds, so that if you see people walking toward the center from illegally-parked vehicles half a mile or more away, you know they're going to a gun show.

Our state, New Mexico, has some of the weakest gun laws on the planet and its citizens seem to like it that way.  Virtually anyone can own and carry a gun of virtually any type.  Virtually the only restraints are that employers may legally prohibit firearms in the workplace or its parking areas, and colleges  may legally prohibit firearms on their campuses. Guns are banned in some other public places, like schools and churches, as well.

Many of the public lands around my town are posted with polite requests that shooters restrain their trigger fingers except on the big, municipally-maintained shooting range west of town. There you can blast away with the weapon of your choice -- from bows to bazookas -- on a variety of ranges, with or without  targets.  Our very own war zone.

Yet one day when I set out to walk a popular hiking trail, there were three macho tontos blasting away with handguns at the trail head.  "Excuse me," I said politely, "but we'd like to walk the trail."  After what seemed like a very long pause, one of them shrugged and said, "OK."  We walked with very tight sphincters until we were out of their range.

Evidence of trigger-happy binge shooting litters our desert public lands.  In one particularly lovely piece of mesa-and-canyon wilderness, you can see from a mile or more away what looks like a pool of silver and gold glittering in the mid-day sun.  Walk toward it and you begin to see that it's a huge pile of broken glass and metal shell casings.  This less than 4 miles from the public shooting range.

As the third anniversary nears of the killings by a crazed shooter at Virginia Tech, a survivor of the massacre is conducting a one-man campaign against the kind of gun show that is so popular where I live.  His name is Colin Goddard and he suffered four gunshot wounds at Virginia Tech.

Now he campaigns for sane gun-control laws, especially to curb the utterly unconstrained sales of weapons at gun shows. Funded by the Brady Campaign, he took concealed cameras on the road, visiting gunshows in eight cities in five states, seeking to demonstrate how easy it is for anyone to get  any kind of lethal weapon.

Fox Fiction made a folk hero of another secret camera toting kid a while back.  But you can bet the Foxies won't tell you about Colin Goddard's video.

If you want to see it, click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baPgr_tw79Q&feature=channel

Update

SANTA FE, N.M., Mar. 10  -- (AP) --  People licensed for concealed handguns can take their weapons into restaurants serving beer and wine under a new state law.

Gov. Bill Richardson signed the measure on Wednesday. It takes effect in July. Even with the change, it will remain illegal to take a concealed weapons into a bar or a restaurant with a full liquor license. Richardson ordered the Department of Public Safety to change its licensing regulations for concealed handguns to prohibit people from drinking alcohol while carrying their concealed weapon. The governor wants the Legislature to make that part of state law.

Song of the Last Liberal

The Last Liberal labored down The Road, braced against the nuclear winter, his boy at his side.

In his gun were bullets made of soap; his empty cart held only hope, to reach the warmth before he died.

Softly, he sang:

A long, long time ago. . .
I can still remember
How those ideals could make me smile.
And I knew that if we had a chance
Folks would dance a progressive dance
And, maybe, they'd be happy for a while.

The year 2000 made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep.
I couldn't take one more step.

I well remember how we cried
When we read about his widowed bride.
And something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.

So bye bye Miss Liberal Pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys was drinkin' whiskey and rye
Singin', "this'll be the day that I die.
"This'll be the day that I die."

Did you write the book of love?
Did you keep your baseball glove?
Can you hear the trumpet blow?
Do you believe in human rights,
Your liberties and peaceful nights,
And can you teach me how to dance real slow?

Well I know that we all loved him,
And thought his torch would never dim,
And saw the hole in his hand-made shoes.
Man, we dug those ryhthm and blues.

You might have been a broncin' buck
With a pink carnation and a pick-up truck.
Still you knew you was out of luck
The day the music died.

So we started singin',
"bye bye Miss Liberal Pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys was drinkin' whiskey and rye
Singin', "this'll be the day that I die.
"This'll be the day that I die."

Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While Democrats played a marching tune.
We all got up to dance,
Oh, but we never got the chance!
`cause the players tried to take the field;
The right-wing band refused to yield.
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?

We started singing,
"bye bye Miss Liberal Pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys was drinkin' whiskey and rye
Singin', "this'll be the day that I die.
"This'll be the day that I die."

I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news,
But she just smiled and turned away.
I went down to the sacred store
Where I'd heard the music years before,
But the man there said the music wouldn't play.

And in the streets the jobless screamed,
The hungry cried, and the schemers schemed.
But not a word was spoken;
The church bells all were broken.
And the three men I admire most,
Dennis, Al and Teddy's ghost,
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.

And they were singin',
"bye bye Miss Liberal Pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys was drinkin' whiskey and rye
Singin', "this'll be the day that I die.
"This'll be the day that I die."

--With thanks and apologies to Don McLean.

Faithless to Our Fathers: R.I.P. Their Republic

According to legend, Benjamin Franklin was spotted emerging from the Continental Congress and a citizen asked, "Doctor, what have we got?" and Franklin replied, "A Republic if you can keep it."

We have failed to  keep it. We have evolved into government in stasis yet heading toward anarchy en route to fascism.  Two party government as it exists in the United States fails to meet James Madison's test for a republic: a representative democracy in which  supreme power is held by the people through elected representatives of the whole population, and which has an elected president rather than a monarch.

Today, millions of Americans hold strong beliefs about social and political issues that are utterly unrepresented by either party.  The Republicans have become a party of the far right, fraught with more dementia than typifies the far right parties in other attempts at democracy around the world.  The Democratic party has become a center-right party, with a weak and spineless centrist core and a powerful right-wing minority that is closer to the Republican right than to its own center.

Progressive Democrats and independents voted for Barack Obama in either the belief or the hope that he would in fact lead a changing nation.  When he used the internet in an unprecedented solicitation of citizen input into his new administration, those voters overwhelmingly told him they wanted single-payer health care, an end to Bush's wars, saner environmental policies, restoration of civil liberties and the rule of law, an end to corporate welfare and more effective government regulation of businesses that work against the public interest.

He ignored us.  Instead of single-payer health care, he gave us a lame "public option" that he never fought for, and he began his "reform" by selling his soul to the pharmaceutical industry.  Instead of ending the wars he extended them.  Instead of strong legislation to stop climate-changing carbon emissions, water and air pollution and abuse of public lands, while creating clean energy jobs, he bargained away the enforcement powers of the original Clean Air Act. His party members in Congress were as complicit as Republicans in give-aways to dirty coal and Big Oil.  Even his weak-tea legislation is being savaged by the right wing of his own party in vile alliance with the Republicans.  In the latest betrayal of the principles he misled us into thinking he stood for, he has reversed positions and is said to be ready to resume the Bush policy of military kangaroo courts to try detainees long held illegally and immorally without charge or counsel, many of them having been repeatedly tortured as well.  The list is endless.

It is time for us to learn from Europe.  Multi-party democracy thrives there because it enables representation of people across a broad and often subtle spectrum of interests and needs.  Hence England, for example, has room for parties dedicated solely to the interests of independence for Scotland, Wales and North Ireland;  parties in shades of green, degrees of left-lean, conservators of traditional values, differing angles of rightward tilt, and a  fluid center.  There are, in short, real, functioning political parties to represent all the people. 

Millions of Americans believe that progressivism, whether personified by Republican or Democratic leaders, has served this nation well.  Progressives, after all, gave us suffrage, fair trade, anti-trust laws, the income tax, the Fair Deal, the New Deal, regulation of financial markets, Social Security, liberation of the political process from control by bosses and corrupt machines, labor unions, institutions dedicated to peace and human rights, Medicare, national parks and  a vast, once-prosperous middle class.

The inheritors of such ideas have been effectively disenfranchised.  Many of them voted for Obama simply because he was not Bush or McCain.  Unless their interests are re-empowered by new parties, their polar opposites will take the country into fascism unopposed. 

What's happening in Washington today is a travesty of democratic republicanism.  We have not kept the priceless treasure we were given by Franklin, Madison and the other founders.  

We desperately need ethical, economic, political and social reforms -- and we can't even pass health care reform.

A Letter to Sen. Bunning, Hall of Famer

Hey, there, Jimbo, how's things?  It's your old buddy, Chilly Stantz here.  Remember me? Utility infielder for the Richmond, Indiana, Tigers back before you became rich and famous and I went back to pumping gas in Okemah, OK.

You was makin' maybe $150 a month, big money for class D back then, because you was a startin' pitcher.  Me?  I got the minor league minimum -- 75 lousy bucks -- because I was just a reserve infielder and occasional pinch-runner.  You and a coupla other "prospects" -- that's what they called you back then, "prospects," cuz the scouts for the Big Club thought there was a "prospect" that you could make the big leagues -- you "prospects" had an attytood.  Specially you, Jimbo.

There you'd be, on that rattly old bus, in the best seats, right behind The Skipper, and the rest of us, the non-prospects, we were just dirt.  Remember, Jimbo?  You didn't even know the first baseman's name, that quiet, bow-legged Pennsylvania Dutch boy  from Reading, PA.  "Hey you," you'd say, and ast him to fetch you a Coke, and you'd flip him two bits, and say, git one for yesself and keep the change, which was all of a nickel.

You moved on up the minor league ladder.  I got released and went back to pumpin' gas. I had a bunch of jobs after that, and picked up a few extra dollars playin' semi-pro on the sandlots around Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle till I got too old.  Only thing I ever had was good wheels and when I blew out a knee, nobody wanted me.

And y'all finally made the big show, with Dee-troit, and you pitched a perfect game one time, and you struck out three men in one inning on nine pitches -- now that there was really somethin'.  An' you made the Hall of Fame, by gum, and gotcherself elected to Congress and all.  You are one big deal.

So I gotta ask you, Jimbo, why you doin' this?  Why you cuttin' off the unemployment checks and the Medicare payments?  Why you doin' that, Jim?  We ain't done nuthin' to you, us poor folks out here in what they useta call th' Dust Bowl.

My boy, he got laid off last year and when the unemployment ran out, he had to move in with me.  I got a little old shack on a patch of ground outside of Arapaho, livin' on the Social Security.  It's tough feedin' two people on the Social Security.  And I got me a medical condition -- remember when "medical condition" jist meant a bad case of th' R.A.? Anyway the doc says he can't afford to treat me no more cuz they cut back the Medicare payments.

Why ya doin' this Jim?  Why?

Yer ol' minor league teammate, Chilly.

* * *

James Paul David Bunning made $96,513,000 playing major league baseball between 1955 and 1971.  That does not include money from endorsements, personal appearances, baseball cards or memorabilia. 

* * *

From the Lexington Herald-Leader, Dec. 18, 2008: The non-profit Jim Bunning Foundation, which collects the money the former pitcher gets from autographing baseball memorabilia, has taken in more than $504,000, Senate and tax records show. Of that, Bunning has earned $180,000 in salary for working a reported one hour a week. By contrast, the foundation has given $136,435, or about one-fourth of its income, to churches and charitable groups around Northern Kentucky. The largest sums went to local Catholic churches Bunning has attended. Records show that Bunning is the foundation's sole employee and the only person to draw a paycheck from it.

Earthquakes, Marsupials and Man

The Common Scold came by the other day to have coffee with The Better Half.  I shuffled into the kitchen for a second cuppa and she spotted me.

"Why are you writing about silly animals," she Scolded, "when there is so much human tragedy in the world?  Earthquakes in Haiti and Chile!  Tsunamis. . ."

You know how it is when you haven't had your second cuppa.  You ought to have a rejoinder, but there's nothing upstairs except the mental image of a big, steaming, heavenly-scented cuppa.

"Thanks for your concern," I think I mumbled and went off to sulk.  Three or four glorious sips later, the fog began to lift.

Earthquakes are terrible, I imagined myself saying, but they are natural.  Man did not create the Nazca tectonic plate, whose scraping against the South American tectonic plate 22 miles under the Pacific Ocean floor is what caused the Chilean quake.  The plates have been down there a long time.  They caused an even more powerful earthquake in Chile in 1960 that killed thousands. Nothing man knows how to do will prevent those plates from causing more tremors.

But as the planet's very climate changes around us, man is the cause.  As the very air we breathe and water we drink does harm to living things, man is the cause.  As species disappear from the planet we share with them, man is the cause.  And so when I learn what's happening to the koala, and now the kangaroo, I ask myself over and over:

When will we ever learn?

We tend to think of Australia as one vast outback, unsullied by man, home to happy marsupials romping against the backdrop of Ayers Rock.  Yet even there, the koala is dying off  because its habitat is vanishing and an AIDS-like disease is infecting the population. (See previous post).

Now an Australian publication, The Age, reports that kangaroos are being euthanized because of "debilitating deformities caused by toxic emissions from nearby factories."

One recent day nearly 50 of the iconic animals had to be killed in the vicinity of Portland, Victoria because they were suffering from extremely painful bone and tooth deformities.  Autopsies determined that the ailments were the direct result of breathing and ingesting fluoride emissions from nearby smelting operations.

For years, Australia's environmental protection agency had poo-poo'd concerns about the smelters by assuring everyone that the fluoride levels in the air and water were within "tolerance."

When will we ever learn?

Oufitting for a National Parks Vacation

If you're planning a National Park vacation this year, here are some things you ought to know:

Body armor

Most police departments use protective clothing made of aramind fabric, first and foremost among which is DuPont's Kevlar.  Kevlar vests can be made to custom sizes and usually cost between $390 and $700. Specially engineered women's vests cost $430 to $630 and are not available in the ultra-light, ultra-thin but extremely effective version of Kevlar called GoldFlex, made by Honeywell.  Aramind protective clothing called Twaron, made by a Japanese firm, is popular in Europe and priced about the same.  Very tall or very large people may have to pay $1,000 or more for proper coverage.

Automobile touring 

Steel armor plating has been used for years to bullet-proof cars, trucks and limos.  But steel is soooo yesterday. Check out "Microtruss." a vehicle armoring material that is "lightweight, strong and environmentally rugged," according to its manufacturer.  This is billed as  a periodic cellular material offering protection "without compromising vehicle weight."  For prices, contact: http://www.cellularmaterials.com/applications/armor.asp?gclid=CLnUv-_QlaACFQP7agodY2yHO

International Armoring Corp. claims to have invented the "lightest armoring in the industry" back in 1993, a synthetic fiber laminate called "Armormax."  IAC also sells "a revolutionary all curved 1" to 3" thick rebated transparent ballistic glass" and a material called Elitus, whose curved overlap function "provides even greater passenger protection." For prices: http://www.iacarmormax.com/

Or you might want to consider ceramic protection.  A company called CoorsTek produces "ceramic armor components used as the ballistic armor strikeface of lightweight composite armor systems."  The company advertises that its "CeraShield" ceramics, with "an appropriate backing system, can defeat various threats including armor-piercing rounds and IEDs."  Ceramic armor is said to be half the weight of comparable steel systems.  Pricing: http://www.coorstek.com/products/ceramic-armor.asp?gclid=CILSlvTRlaACFSYaawodlmDQdg

Camping

Check the above manufacturers to find out if their armor is suitable for travel trailers and RVs, and for cost estimates.  You might also consider rigid, bullet-resistant fiberglass panels.  It comes in three levels of protection, ranging in weight from 2.6 to 4.9 pounds per square foot.  It can be cut to size.  It's about the thickness of plywood -- 1/4" to 7/16".  Pricing: http://www.pacificbulletproof.com/get-pricing/


Tent campers don't have many options.  Working with the military, Zumro Inc. of Hatboro, PA, came up with a thing consisting of an inner and outer Kevlar tent, which can be placed over an explosive device.  When the device detonates, the two-tent gizmo prevents shrapnel and gas from escaping into the atmosphere.  To find out if the material could be used for ballistic protection in recreational tents, contact Zumro at 401 Jacksonville Rd, Hatboro, PA, 19040-4605. Phone: (215) 957-6502 .  Or perhaps you could build a cubicle of bullet resistant fiberglass over your tent. 

The federal law that allows loaded guns, of any type, in national parks took effect Feb. 22.  In the House, 105 Democrats and 174 Republicans voted for passage.  In the Senate,  27 Democrats joined 39 Republicans voting "aye."

God Bless America.

'Good Enough' for Whom?

When I was a little boy, I loved the sports books of John R. Tunis.  There were villains in his books, of course, but nobody remembered them; they remembered his straight-arrow athletes, pure of heart, fleet of foot, nimble of mind, who could conquer whatever Fate threw at them and emerge on the winner's podium at the Olympics, triumphant in the World Series, champions of the Rose Bowl.

But in one book that I was particularly fond of, no sports were played.  There was a sports hero: the local high school basketball coach who, in a previous book, had to suspend the star player for breaking rules, but managed to win the state championship anyway.  He had decided to resign from the faculty and run for mayor because crooks had taken over city hall.  Underfunded, opposed by the Power Structure, he urged the people to join him in making "a city good enough for Lincoln."  That was the book's title: "A City for Lincoln."  Of course he was elected, and he took the oath of office pledging to form a "government of the people, by the people and for the people."

Back then we believed that the pure of heart who played clean always won; that we had the kind of democracy that put its best and its brightest into office to form  a government "good enough for Lincoln"

And then we grew up and went out into the real world and we learned that life ain't like that.

I wonder what Honest Abe would have said if he'd still been President yesterday when the Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said that if we passed health care reform, “for millions of Americans, premiums will go up.” This is every bit as much a lie as the "death panels" the Republicans conjured when the first health bill went to the House floor.

The Republicans had ample time to finally craft some solid proposals for meeting the expressed wants and needs of the American people: affordable health care for every American.  What they offered at the White House summit was the same arrogance, ritualistic slogans, lies, distortions, playground bullying and childish nonsense that they have been feeding the American public for nearly a year now.

"Good enough for Lincoln?"  What they gave us yesterday was an x-rated performance, an obscene parody of government.  Tunis's straight-arrow basketball coach would have thrown every one of them off the team.

After reviewing the Republicans' history of lies and obstruction on behalf of profiteering insurance companies, Nancy Pelosi gave us a sports metaphor worthy of Mr. Tunis: "We have lived on their playing field all this time," she said. "It's time for the insurance companies to exist on the playing field of the American people."

Or else what we'll have is a government "good enough for Lincoln National Insurance."

Epic? What's This Epic Crap?

You heard it, too, didn't you, about 14 months ago?

The president, the treasury secretary, the talking heads on TV, all telling us the only way to save our economy -- hell, the economy of the whole world! -- was to send trainloads of money to the Wall Street banks.  So much money we had to print more just to fill the box cars.  We had to do this because then the big banks would start lending money again and businesses would start hiring people and things would get better.

"Better" sounded good.  We'd lost 43% of our life savings in 2008.  Or we'd lost our jobs and used up our savings just trying to eat.  Or we were living on food stamps.  Or in a big empty box under an overpass.

For most of us the retirement accounts have recovered some of their losses.  But precious few of those who lost their jobs are back at work.  Businesses are still laying people off in the hope that Wall Street banks will notice and stock prices will go up. Rush and Glenn and the Tea Cup Dingbats are railing against the folks on food stamps and the boxes under the underpass are getting crowded.

A year after the congress approved the boxcars of cash for the big banks, the President declared "Mission Accomplished" even though a few of us were having trouble making ends meet because we were still out of work.  Say, 10 or 12 million of us.

The bankers paid themselves 19 billion or so of the boxcar dollars in bonuses for their good work.

But wait a second.  Wasn't there something else?  Oh, yes, the banks were going to start lending again, remember?  And when the banks started lending again, businesses would get healthy and when businesses got healthy money would trickle down and pretty soon we'd all be back in the land of milk and honey.

That's what they told us, remember?

So what's with this headline at the top of the front page of the Wall Street Journal the other day?  LENDING FALLS AT EPIC PACE, it read.  Epic pace!   The sharpest decline in bank lending since 1942.

How can this be?  Mr. President, Mr. Treasury Secretary, Mr. Congressman, Mr. Talking Head -- HOW CAN THIS BE?

If Wishes Were Horses, All Could Ride

Big day today for hopes and dreams.

Marchers arrive in Washington today to rally for real health care reform.  Many of them marched more than a hundred miles in memory of a progressive activist who died of breast cancer while still fighting an insurance company for benefits.  Others are armed with personal stories from around the country of victims of the industrialized world's worst health care system.

On the other coast,  Bloom Energy will unveil its much-hyped fuel cell, known as the Bloom Box, at eBay headquarters in California. The company calls it an off-grid source of cheap electric energy -- from a cell the size of a loaf of bread.

The health marchers are sincere, but not likely to succeed.  Dr. Kidglove has already given us the "reform" he will talk about tomorrow at the over-hyped bipartisan gathering of the congressional clan at the White House. No public option; hence, no real reform.  Twenty-some Senators have signed a proposal to pass a public option using budget reconciliation rules -- a process that circumvents Republican filibustering and needs only 51 votes for passage.  But the Republicans are solidly against anything, and the Milquetoasts with (D) after their name are afraid of all the papier mache ogres the Republicans have built to do battle against reconciliation.

The Bloom Box has been developed in more secrecy than Dick Cheney's energy plan. Not even a sign on the secret location headquarters.  Bloom has dropped enough hints about the technology to attract $400 million in venture capital and the support of Colin Powell.  "I have seen the technology and it works," said the general and former Secretary of State.  He is on Bloom Energy's board of directors.

Of course, Gen. Powell also told the United Nations, "What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence" about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  You be the judge.

Bloom energy has provided tantalizing little peeks at its gizmos to Atlantic magazine and the CBS TV show "60 Minutes." Who would not share in the hope that this will be what 60 Minutes called "the holy grail" of clean energy?

But anyone who would bet the farm on it should join those marchers in Washington who believe, really believe, that the corporatized wimps who hold office there will give us something  resembling real health care reform.

 Dreams die hard.  Hope dies last.

Canine Therapy

A lawyer friend used to suffer from terribly painful gout.  His most reliable source of relief was to stroke, and be "kissed" by, his dog, Boots.  Never mind the cynics who say painful gout is a just God's retribution for being a lawyer.  Noah was a good guy and he was onto something.

Dogs are good for lots of human ailments.  I speak from experience, with dogs and with ailments.

When I was recovering from lung cancer surgery, the pain ebbed if Sandy, the cocker spaniel, napped in my lap. His big, brown eyes and jaunty way of cocking his head were more effective than pain pills. Taking him for walks provided the exercise the doctors said I needed when the pain subsided.  Jogging in the woods with him helped improve my lung capacity.  Like Lord Byron's Boatswain, Sandy was "in life the firmest friend, the first to welcome, foremost to defend," and when he died I could not imagine any other animal replacing him.

But then one day I visited the animal shelter where my wife intended to adopt a cat.  Someone else had adopted the animal she wanted, but I strolled past a cage that housed a litter of puppies.  One of them shouldered aside his siblings and stepped forward to perform for me.  It was an unforgettable series of dances, smiles, squeals and tumbles.  Saxon the Rottweagle went home with us that very day.

When I took him for his second veterinary appointment for vaccinations, an attendant spotted us coming in the door and called out, "Hey, Everyone!  The happy puppy is back!"


Today, at 14, he's still the same happy puppy, willing to dance on arthritic legs, light up a greying muzzle with the same big smile, charm ladies and beguile gentlemen.

Saxon and I have shared a thousand adventures,  walked a thousand miles together, up mountains and across deserts, chased a thousand critters from deer and rabbits to lizards and roadrunners.  We have soothed one another's pain, bluffed away one another's enemies, played stick and chase-me and dodge 'em and other, nameless games he invented and taught me. 

We have exchanged profound thoughts; he, by reading my tone of voice if not my words, and my gestures; I, by reading his posture, facial expressions, nods, moods and gaits. 

These days, we help one another to cope with the infirmities of our aging.  I assist his getting up into the car; he slows his pace for the desert walks, and settles for short paths of level ground, rather than the canyons and mesas we used to explore, because he knows I can't go there any more.  Perhaps, if pressed, he could even identify the anatomical part  that's at fault: the lumbar region of my back.  All sorts of bad stuff in there.

Other treatments having failed, I'm hopeful that a spinal surgeon can restore some mobility.  Perhaps that will involve "open back" surgery, which I've experienced once and didn't want to go through again.  But now if it's the last resort, let's go for it.

Whatever the outcome, however difficult the rehab might be, however long it takes, I've got the best therapist in the world: Saxon the Rottweagle.

Quicksand

The American Civil Liberties Union betrayed its base when it filed an amicus  brief  in what became the infamous Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court.

On the ground that the First Amendment protects free speech even by bad guys, it supported opening the door for corporate control of our elections and elected officials.

The decision essentially held that, because corporations are legal persons,  imposing political contribution limits on them violates their first amendment right to free speech.

The First Amendment doesn't say anything about persons, except that "the people" have a right to peaceable assembly. Congress, it says, shall make no law abridging free speech.

The Fourteenth (civil rights) Amendment says:  "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The idea that corporations are "persons" within the sense of this amendment seems to go back to an 1886 Supreme Court case called Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific.  There's not much in the decision itself to get riled up about; it's a boring tax case and the court ruled on behalf of the railroad without addressing the corporate personhood business.

However, before oral arguments began, Chief Justice Morrison Waite admonished the lawyers for both sides that "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution,  which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does."

This extraordinary statement was used by the court reporter, J.C. Bancroft  Davis, in the headnote for the case in the United States Reports.  Before he did so, however, he wrote the following to Chief Justice Waite:

"I have a memorandum in the California Cases Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific &c As follows. In opening the Court stated that it did not wish to hear argument on the question whether the Fourteenth Amendment applies to such corporations as are parties in these suits. All the Judges were of the opinion that it does."

The Chief Justice wrote in reply:

"I think your mem. in the California Railroad Tax cases expresses with sufficient accuracy what was said before the argument began. I leave it with you to determine whether anything need be said about it in the report inasmuch as we avoided meeting the constitutional question in the decision."

Headnotes for United States Reports, written by the court reporter, are intended to be summaries for lawyers of the decision and the main facts and arguments in a case.  In a 1905 case, U.S. v. Detroit Timber and Lumber,  the Court itself said headnotes are "not the work of the Court, but are simply the work of the Reporter, giving his understanding of the decision, prepared for the convenience of the profession."

I'm no lawyer, but I can read.  The Tinker to Evers to Chance basis for the 5-4 Citizens United decision is about as firm as quicksand. And that doesn't even take into account the bigger legal question: does money constitute "speech?"

I received my renewal notice yesterday for membership in the ACLU, along with a request for an additional donation to support its "important work." I told 'em to go pound quicksand.