paying-attention

When in Rome....?

2011-08-01T09:14:00.000-07:00

ROME TOUR

by Eduardo Galeano
translated from Spanish by Mark Fried

Manual labor was for slaves.
Though not enslaved, day laborers and artisans practiced "vile occupations." Cicero, who practiced the noble occupation of usury, defined the labor hierarchy:
"The least honorable are all that serve gluttony, like sausage-makers, chicken and fishmongers, cooks...."
The most respectable Romans were warlords, who rarely went into battle, and landowners, who rarely set foot on their land.
To be poor was an unpardonable crime. To dissemble their disgrace, the formerly wealthy went into debt and, if lucky, pursued successful careers in politics, which they undertook in the service of their creditors.
The sale of sexual favors was a reliable source of wealth. So was the sale of political or bureaucratic favors. These activities shared a single name. Pimps and lobbyists were both called proxenetas.

from MIRRORS: Stories of Almost Everyone, published by Nation Books, 2009

Eduardo Galeano is a Uruguayan essayist, journalist and historian. His works transcend orthodox genres, and combine documentary, fiction, journalism, political analysis, and history. The author himself has denied that he is a historian: "I'm a writer obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past of America above all and above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to amnesia."

Born in Montevideo (1940) into a middle-class Catholic family of Welsh, German, Spanish and Italian ancestry, he was educated in Uruguay until the age of 16. "I never learned in school," he once said. "I didn't like it."

In adolescence Galeano worked in odd jobs – he was a factory worker, a bill collector, a sign painter, a messenger, a typist, and a bank teller. His first article was published in 1954.

After living in exile in Argentina and Spain, he returned to Uruguay in 1985.

(information from http://kirjasto.sci.fi/galeano.htm)

Welcome to Tantrumville

2009-11-16T09:12:00.000-08:00

The following is from a column that ran today in the Boston Globe. Guest columnist Steve Almond compares our economic system to a children's playground.

"The one challenging thing about the playground," he writes, "is that you have to do a lot of resource management. Because there’s always some moment when my daughter and another child decide, more or less simultaneously, that they want to ride the last open swing.

Which means I have to launch into The Speech, the one that begins, 'OK, honey: there’s just one swing left and this nice little girl wants to play on it now. So we’re going to have to share. I know it’s hard to share, but we can do something else fun for a few minutes, and then we’ll get a turn.'

Does this work?

Sometimes.

The rest of the time, you wind up in Tantrumville.

But that’s part of growing up. It doesn’t mean you stop giving The Speech. Because we all want our children to learn how to share. We all know that there are a limited number of swings in the world at large, and our children are eventually going to have to learn how to defer their own desires for the sake of the common good.

In fact, most parents are mortified when their children refuse to share on the playground, when they hoard toys, when they decide it is their right to smash a sand castle they played no part in building.

These basic rules of the playground are sometimes given a more sophisticated, adult name: socialism. Which makes all us good parents de facto socialists.

Welcome, comrades!"

Tantrumville seems like a good name for some current behavior on the playground that is Washington, D.C. Almond's analogy also got me to thinking: Is Obama a socialist? It is obvious that he is not, but would it be so bad if he was?

A recent issue of The Nation featured the story of the Berlin Wall coming down from the point of view of the people who were once behind it. In that issue, Ronald Grigor Suny writes,

"The events of 1989 are most often depicted as the failure of socialism. It's a powerful interpretation that has served to discredit alternatives to the capitalist system, which is said to have triumphed, and to bestow upon capitalism an aura of legitimacy based not only on a reading of recent history but also on assumptions about the natural order, not least human nature. Capitalism, it is proposed, is the normal state of human traffic in what people make and value and need; socialism is the deviation. Capitalism responds to the nature of 'man'--acquisitiveness, competition, egoism and the insatiable need for more. Socialism stands in the way of initiative, creativity and competition. Going by its nom de guerre, communism, it proposes radical equality in a world of unequals. Therefore, it can be maintained only by the coercive power of an entrenched elite and a repressive state."

Suny is a college professor, so his writing style isn't as much fun as Almond's is to read, but he is on to something. Is a playground without parents, or a society without a strong central government, destined to be a replay of "Lord of the Flies"? I'm no socialist (at least not anymore) but that version of capitalism seems to call for more, not less government.

By the way....

2009-10-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

Libby Gruner, who writes the "Mama Ph.D." column for Inside Higher Ed, had a perceptive take on the Lipman column:

--Joanne Lipman notes in the New York Times that women's advances in the work force seem to have stalled since 9/11/2001, despite the fact that women make up half the work force, and "mothers are the major breadwinners in 40 percent of families." As one of those major breadwinners, I could wish that Lipman had followed through on her analysis of the reasons for women's lack of progress in the work force. Instead, the article ends with advice that sounds like it came from a women's magazine, not the "paper of record: she advises women to be self-confident, have a sense of humor, and "don’t be afraid to be a girl." It's not quite clear how following this advice would have kept reporters from making fun of Hillary Clinton's "cankles," however, let alone how it would help women achieve pay equity.

Words from two wise men

2009-10-27T08:33:00.000-07:00

This is from a Boston Globe editorial. The subject was high school dropouts.

Two luminaries of education passed away last week...

Theodore Sizer, who was 77, was involved in education from the ivory tower of Harvard to founding a coalition of small schools that includes several Boston public pilot schools. He likely would have said the retention is possible only if teachers have the chance to make a connection. In 1996, he said to the Christian Science Monitor, “Is there a teacher who knows my youngster well enough to write a good college reference? The answer in a lot of schools is no.’’

In expressing how it was possible to adopt the assumption that all students can succeed against a fatalistic acceptance at the outset of the school year that a certain percentage will fail, he recalled to USA Today in 1996 about the time that he was called upon as a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the Army to train new soldiers how to fire weapons.

“Nobody said, ‘Well, some of them don’t test well,’ ’’ Sizer said. “There wasn’t an assumption that some can’t learn. It was: ‘Lieutenant, I give you an order.’ I watched semiliterate dropouts whose home language wasn’t English take off like rockets and become superb people.’’

....Gerald Bracey, who was 69, probably would have complemented Sizer’s passion for classroom intimacy with a call to stop teaching to the test. The longtime policy critic and former analyst for the National Education Association said of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind, “If 2000 was the year that testing went crazy, 2001 was the year it went stark raving mad . . . What say we take a moment to consider a few of the personal qualities that standardized tests do not measure: creativity, critical thinking, resilience, motivation, persistence, humor, reliability, enthusiasm, civic-mindedness, self-awareness, self-discipline, empathy, leadership, and compassion.’’

Bracey was also well known in education circles for bipartisan skewering of politicians, including President Obama, and media coverage for painting public schools as so bad that no one wants to actually help them. In one of his last contributions in September to the education policy magazine Phi Delta Kappan, Bracey said, “Americans never hear anything positive about the nation’s schools and haven’t since the years before Sputnik in 1957.’’

In 1996, Sizer told The Boston Globe that it should be no surprise that students drop out of “big, standardized, mechanized’’ schools. The surprise will be when we stop delivering such schools to the students.

I have a son and a daughter. My daughter went to a small high school where everybody knew each other's business. She flourished under the ability to shine and excel in a smaller fish tank. My son went to one of the larger public high schools in the state. He enjoyed the relative anonymity and the opportunity that provided for concentrating on what interested him. Both were good students who got into good colleges: She went to a smallish college in the mountains and he is currently at a big city university.

What the two of them taught me is that one size does not fit all. In a majoritarian republic, we sometimes forget that.

The more things change.....

2009-10-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

I just saw this Joanne Lipman column in the New York Times, about the lack of progress in women's happiness since the 1980s. Here is a sample:

Even the positive numbers we’ve heard about during the recession are misleading — the ones that seem to indicate that women have suffered fewer job losses than men. The reason? Women are still concentrated in lower-paying fields, rather than the high-paying industries like finance and real estate that were hardest hit....
...I don’t think it’s a coincidence that exactly at this moment [9-11], women began losing ground — and not just in measurable ways, like how many women make partner or get jobs as chief executives. I’m referring to how we are perceived. The conversation online about women, as about so many other topics, degenerated from silly and snarky to just plain ugly — and it seeped into the mainstream. Recently, before a TV appearance, I did an Internet search on one of the interviewers so I could learn more about her — and got a full page of results about her breasts...

I would have like some more specifics and concrete suggestions about how to change all this, like exactly why 9-11 changed things. If you ask me, Lipman is one of the privileged 1% and not very representative of the women I know. Her point about perception being the problem is right on, though.

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a column about how couples who both do more housework have sex more often. The writer (a woman) took it as a given that the wives were doing almost twice as much housework as the husbands and that women worked only 19 hours a week outside the home. Not sure where she got her sample. The comments on the WSJ website were pretty revealing as well, with lots of references to men "helping" with the housework, as if it were the wife's natural duty and he was putting himself out purely to please her. Sort of like some of my friends who used to say their husbands were "babysitting" while they went to book club meetings. Excuse me? (I used to say.) Do you babysit when he works late or stops off for a beer? Is he not the kids' other parent?

I am very uncomfortable with the kind of feminism that argues that women are in some way "better" than men, because it is the kind of thinking that feeds into the notion that we should each stay in our own sphere. Anybody who has followed the careers of Hillary Clinton or Tzipi Livni -- not to mention Margaret Thatcher and Madeleine Albright -- should be disabused of the illusion that a woman-led world would be more peaceful than the present state of affairs. How about this: We let each individual person spend his or her time doing what they love and excel at? Then we might see a better world and lot less wasted effort.

Oh, and our sex lives would probably be pretty awesome as well.

Is this love -- or possession?

2009-10-23T10:02:00.000-07:00

I am amazed that there is not any outcry about a story, The Snatchback, that is running in the November Atlantic. I only know what is in the article, but that documents a disturbing instance of cultural and economic imperialism.

The Atlantic promo copy reads "If your ex-spouse has run off and taken your children abroad, and the international legal system is failing to bring them back, what are you to do? One option is to call Gus Zamora, a former Army ranger who will, for a hefty fee, get your children back. Operating in a moral gray area beyond the reach of any clear-cut legal jurisdiction, Zamora claims to have returned 54 children to left-behind parents. Here’s the story of number 55."

In the story, an aggrieved Florida man with no clear legal standing in the child's life hires a mercenary to kidnap his ex-wife's child from the boy's birth father.

Unless there are circumstances that did not appear in the Atlantic article, this is a clear-cut case of a rich American trying to buy himself a son. He goes down to Costa Rica, meets a young (and it turns out, not so stable) pregnant woman and brings her to the states with a translator to teach her English. She ends up divorcing him and going back to Costa Rica, but he wants to keep her child even though the birth father has custody according to Costa Rican law. The rich American says the kid is his because he has spent money on his medical bills and upbringing, and because he claims the Costa Rican courts are corrupt. Maybe their legal system is not all it should be but they appear to have made the right choice in this case. The kid says he wants to go back to his rich stepfather instead of staying with his not-rich father. No surprise there. If this guy Todd really loves the boy he should have left Andres with his biological family and set up a bank account for his education. As the story is explained in the Atlantic, it is all about control and entitlement, nothing to do with love. This stepfather says he loves his son. Any legal standing he has in the child's life was obtained after the custody issue arose.

Here are some comments from the bringseanhome.org website, written by people who have some familiarity with the heartbreak of international custody battles.
Tea wrote:

"The father did NOT kidnap his child. The father said he agreed to let his son live with her in the US and apparently was fine with the idea of only temporarily having his son stay with him until he found out the truth about her. He went to court in Costa Rica where the mother and the son were, when he found out about her habit, and fought her for custody. He won custody and she had visitation. During one of her visitations she and the stepfather kidnapped the child. How can you just take the child out of the country when you have lost custody and only have visitation rights? You can't that's why they had to sneak over the border....
Reverse the situation. What if the father was the recovering addict having just lost custody, had just showed up at the kid's school in FL and taken him off the street like she did? Would anyone even be asking if that was okay? Would it matter if he had a custody order from Costa Rica saying he had custody but no one had ever challenged it in Costa Rica, but in a United States court he had lost custody and everyone involved was currently in the United States. Which order would stand?"

Someone with the screen name LDJVR weighed in with this:

"The mother took the child to Costa Rica and handed him to his father instead of leaving him with the stepfather. Send the child to his father! Stepfather is not in the picture here.
The father should not need a lawyer. No legal birth parent should need to spend thousands in legal fees. All legal birth parents should need to do is report the child missing. The abducting parents or grandparents should pay all cost to have the child returned (IMMEDIATELY) and should be responsible for any legal cost. This child has been kidnapped from his father and his homeland! Does Secretary of State Clinton know about this?!?!? What an embarrassment to our country!"

A couple of the posters compared this to the Elian Gonzalez case, although in this case it is the US side that possesses the asymmetrical resources. I wonder what the Atlantic meant in publishing such an account. The reporter went with the US kidnappers and even interviewed the birth father while knowing there was a plot to break up his family. Doesn't that make her a co-conspirator?

The police work for us.

2009-07-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

I'm a public servant. I work for the county, and although I mostly deal with students I am paid with tax money and therefore I am the employee of everyone who lives in the county. There are one or two people at my workplace who seem to feel that it is the public's job to make them feel good and to be nice to them.

They are wrong.

Professor Gates:
Tired and offended, but not a criminal

The public is made up of individuals. In our case they are
individuals who need information or services from us. Most of the individuals are pleasant, gracious people who are appreciative of our efforts. A few of the individuals are just plain jerks. In between are people who may be having a bad day. We may be the ninth or tenth person that they have encountered in a short time with an answer or a policy that disappoints them. It does not hurt us any to try and be understanding, even with the jerks. We will not always succeed in making the individual feel better. We very frequently are unable to solve their problems, but it is part of our job to attempt to treat everyone with respect.

We may occasionally have to call for backup from a supervisor, or even from the sheriff's department, when someone's behavior is threatening or disruptive. Sometimes we need to find someone -- preferably a co-worker but even a bystander can help -- to translate for the individual. It does not help to treat a Spanish or Tewa speaking member of the community with contempt.

I thought about all this when I read about the encounter between Professor Henry Louis Gates (I don't know the guy, so I'm not comfortable calling him Skip) and three Cambridge, Massachusetts, police officers. Police are supposed to be trained to stay cool under pressure. It emerges that Gates may have been verbally abusive and therefore the officer was under pressure. He was obviously not in fear for his life or safety, only his ego and sense of authority were in jeopardy.

It does not sound like this police officer is a racist, but I would like to know what was in the call that the neighbor made to the police department. The root of this is with the neighbor, who was worried about something that caused three officers to show up for what should have been a simple ID check. They were there to serve and protect. They may have forgotten that Gates and his driver were entitled to service and protection as well.

The police appear to have overreacted to the excited and insulted behavior of a tired, sensitive man who has been subjected to racism throughout his life. That is not their job. They are his employees, just as much as they are the employees of the neighbor who called them. Gates should not have to pretend that his behavior was perfect in order to prove that the police behaved inappropriately.

They owe him an apology.

Sergeant James Crowley:
Unprofessional, maybe, but not a racist

George W. Bush Spoke at Notre Dame

2009-05-18T09:23:00.000-07:00

-- Before 9-11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Waterboarding and Signing Statements, but After He'd Presided Over a Record Number of Executions as Texas Governor.

He made the most of the opportunity to push his political agenda, and to equate privatization with charity. Bush didn’t get a totally resounding welcome at Notre Dame. When he delivered the commencement speech in 2001, many students wore armbands protesting his support of capital punishment. Here is what he said:

Text of President Bush's commencement address at Notre Dame University on May 20, 2001 in Notre Dame, Indiana

Thank you all. Thank you very much. Thank you. Please be seated.

Thank you, Father Malloy (ph), and thank you all for that warm welcome, Chairman McArtin (ph), Father Scully (ph), Dr. (Nathan) Hatch, Notre Dame trustees, members of the class of 2001.

I have spoken on this campus before. It was in 1980, the year my dad ran for vice president with Ronald Reagan. I think I really won over the crowd that day.

In fact, I'm sure of it because all six of them walked me to my car.

That was back when Father Hesburg (ph) was the president of this university during a tenure that in many ways defined the reputation and values of Notre Dame. And it's a real honor to be here with Father Hesburg (ph) and with Father Joyce (ph). Between them, these two good priests have given nearly a century of service to Notre Dame. I'm told that Father Hesburg (ph) now holds 146 honorary degrees.

That's pretty darn impressive, Father, but I'm gaining on you. As of today, I'm only a 140 behind.

Let me congratulate all the members of the class of 2001. You made it, and we're all proud of you on this big day.

I also congratulate the parents who after these years are happy, proud and broke.

I commend this fine faculty for the years of work and instruction that produced this outstanding class.

And I'm pleased to join my fellow honorees as well. I'm in incredibly distinguished company with authors, executives, educators, church officials and eminent scientists.

We're sharing a memorable day and a great honor, and I congratulate you all.

Notre Dame, as a Catholic university, carries forward a great tradition of social teaching. It calls on all of us, Catholic and non-Catholic, to honor family, to protect life in all its stages, to serve and uplift the poor.

This university is more than a community of scholars. It is a community of conscience and an ideal place to report on our nation's commitment to the poor and how we're keeping it.

In 1964, the year I started college, another president from Texas delivered a commencement address talking about this national commitment. In that speech, President Lyndon Johnson issued a challenge. He said: This is a time for decision. You are the generation which must decide. Will you decide to leave the future a society where a man is condemned to hopelessness because he was born poor? Or will you join to wipe out poverty in this land?

In that speech, Lyndon Johnson advocated a war on poverty which had noble intentions and some enduring successes. Poor families got basic health care. Disadvantaged children were given a head start in life.

Yet, there were also some consequences that no one wanted or intended. The welfare entitlement became an enemy of personal effort and responsibility, turning many recipients into dependents.

The war on poverty also turned too many citizens into bystanders convinced that compassion had become the work of government alone.

In 1996, welfare reform confronted the first of these problems with a five-year time limit on benefits and a work requirement to receive them. Instead of a way of life, welfare became an offer of temporary help, not an entitlement but a transition. Thanks in large part to this change, welfare rolls have been cut in half. Work and self respect have been returned to many lives. This is a tribute to Democrats and Republicans who agreed on reform and to the president who signed it, President Bill Clinton.

Our nation has confronted welfare dependency, but our work is only half done. Now we must confront the second problem -- to revive the spirit of citizenship, to marshal the compassion of our people to meet the continuing needs of our nation. This is a challenge to my administration and each one of you.

We must meet that challenge because it is right and because it is urgent.

Welfare as we knew it has ended but poverty has not. When over 12 million children live below the poverty line, we are not a post- poverty America. Most states are seeing the first wave of welfare recipients who have reached the law's five-year time limit. The easy cases have already left the welfare roles.

The hardest problems remain: People with far fewer skills and greater barriers to work. People with complex human problems like illiteracy and addiction, abuse and mental illness. We do not yet know what will happen to these men and women or to their children. But we cannot sit and watch, leaving them to their own struggles and their own fate.

This is a great deal at stake. In our attitudes and our actions we are determining the character of our country. When poverty is considered hopeless, America is condemned to permanent social division, becoming a nation of caste and class, divided by fences and gates and guards.

Our task is clear, and it's difficult. We must build our country's unity by extending our country's blessings. We make that commitment because we're Americans. Aspiration is the essence of our country. We believe in social mobility, not social Darwinism. We are the country of the second chance where failure is never final. And that dream has sometimes been deferred. It must never be abandoned.

We are committed to compassion for practical reasons. When men and women are lost to themselves, they are also lost to our nation. When millions are hopeless, all of us are diminished by the loss of their gifts.

And we're committed to compassion for moral reasons. Jewish prophets and Catholic teaching both speak of God's special concern for the poor. This is perhaps the most radical teaching of faith that the value of life is not contingent on wealth or strength or skill, that value is a reflection of God's image.

Much of today's poverty has more to do with troubled lives than a troubled economy. And often when a life is broken, it can only be restored by another caring, concerned human being.

The answer for an abandoned child is not a job requirement, it is the loving presence of a mentor. The answer to addiction is not a demand for self sufficiency, it is the personal support on the hard road to recovery.

The hope we seek is found in safe havens for battered women and children in homeless shelters and crisis pregnancy centers, in programs that tutor and conduct job training and help young people who may happen to be on parole.

All these efforts provide not just the benefit but attention and kindness, a touch of courtesy, a dose of grace.

Mother Teresa said that what the poor often need, even more than shelter and food, though these are desperately needed as well, is to be wanted. And that sense of belonging is within the power of each of us to provide.

Many in this community have shown what compassion can accomplish. Notre Dame's own Lou Nanny (ph) is the former director of South Bend Center for the Homeless, an institution founded by two Notre Dame professors. It provides guests with everything from drug treatment to mental health services to classes in the great books to pre-school for young children.

Discipline is tough. Faith is encouraged, not required. Student volunteers are committed and consistent and central to its mission.

Lou Nanny (ph) describes its mission as repairing the fabric of society by letting people see the inherent worth and dignity and God-given potential of every human being.

Compassion often works best on a small and human scale. It is generally better when a call for help is local, not long distance. Here at this university you've heard that call and responded. It is part of what makes Notre Dame a great university.

This is my message today. There is no great society which is not a caring society, and any effective war on poverty must deploy what Dorothy Day called the weapons of spirit. There's only one problem with groups like South Bend Center for the Homeless: They're aren't enough of them.

It's not sufficient to praise charities and community groups. We must support them, and this is both a public obligation and a personal responsibility.

The war on poverty established a federal commitment to the poor. The welfare reform legislation of 1996 made that commitment more effective. For the task ahead, we must move to the third stage of combating poverty in America. Our society must enlist, equip and empower idealistic Americans in the works of compassion that only they can provide.

Government has an important role. We will never be replaced by charities. My administration increases funding for major social welfare and poverty programs by 8 percent. Yet government must also do more to take the side of charities and community healers and support their work.

We've had enough of the stale debate between big government and indifferent government.

Government must be active enough to fund services for the poor and humble enough to let good people in local communities provide those services.

So, I've created a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Through that office we are working to ensure that local community helpers and healers receive more federal dollars, greater private support and face fewer bureaucratic barriers. We have proposed a compassion capital fund that will match private giving with federal dollars.

We have proposed allowing all taxpayers to deduct their charitable contributions, including non-itemizers.

This could encourage almost $15 billion a year in new charitable giving.

My attitude is, everyone in America, whether they are well off or not, should have the same incentive and reward for giving.

And we're in the process of implementing and expanding charitable choice, the principle already established in federal law that faith- based organizations should not suffer discrimination when they compete for contracts to provide social services.

Government should never fund the teaching of faith, but it should support the good works of the faithful.

Some critics of this approach object to the idea of government funding going to any group motivated by faith. But they should take a look around them. Public money already goes to groups like The Center for the Homeless and, on a larger scale, to Catholic Charities. Do the critics really want to cut them off? Medicaid and Medicare money currently goes to religious hospitals. Should this practice be ended? Child care vouchers for low-income families are redeemed every day at houses of worship across America. Should this be prevented? Government loans send countless students to religious colleges. Should this be banned? Of course not.

America has a long tradition of accommodating and encouraging religious institutions when they pursue public goals.

My administration did not create that tradition, but we will expand it to confront some urgent problems.

Today I'm adding two initiates to our agenda in the areas of housing and drug treatment. Owning a home is a source of dignity for families and stability for communities. And organizations like Habitat for Humanity make that dream possible for many low-income Americans.

Groups of this type currently receive some funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The budget I submit to Congress next year will propose a three-fold increase in this funding, which will expand home ownership and the hope and pride that come with it.

And nothing is more likely to perpetuate poverty than a life enslaved to drugs. So we propose $1.6 billion in new funds to close what I call the treatment gap -- the gap between the 5 million Americans who need drug treatment and the 2 million who currently receive it.

We will also propose that all these funds, all of them, be open to equal competition from faith-based and community groups.

The federal government should do all these things, but others have responsibilities as well, including corporate America. Many corporations in America do good work and good causes, but if we hope to substantially reduce poverty and suffering in our country, corporate America needs to give more and to give better.

Faith-based organizations receive only a tiny percentage of overall corporate giving. Currently six of the 10 largest corporate givers in America explicitly rule out or restrict donations to faith- based groups regardless of their effectiveness.

The federal government will not discriminate against faith-based organizations and neither should corporate America.

In the same spirit, I hope America's foundations consider ways they may devote more of their money to our nation's neighborhood and their helpers and their healers. I will convene a summit this fall asking corporate and philanthropic leaders throughout America to join me at the White House to discuss ways they can provide more support to community organizations, both secular and religious.

Ultimately, your country is counting on each of you. Knute Rockne once said, "I have found that prayers work best when you have big players."

We can pray for the justice of our country, but you're the big players we need to achieve it. Government can promote compassion. Corporations and foundations can fund it, but the citizens -- it's the citizens who provide it.

A determined assault on poverty will require both an active government and active citizens. There's more to citizenship than voting, though I urge you to do it. There's more to citizenship than paying your taxes, though I'd strongly advise you pay them.

Citizenship is empty without concern for our fellow citizens, without the ties that bind us to one another and build a common good. If you already realize this and you're acting on it, I thank you.

If you haven't thought about it, I leave you with this challenge: Serve a neighbor in need, because a life of service is a life of significance.

Because materialism ultimately is boring, and consumerism can build a prison of loss. Because a person who is not responsible for others is a person who is truly alone. Because there are few better ways to express our love for America than to care for other Americans. And because the same God who endows us with individual rights also calls us to social obligations.

So let me return to Lyndon Johnson's charge: You're the generation that must decide. Will you ratify poverty and division with your apathy? Or will you build a common good with your idealism? Will you be a spectator in the renewal of your country, or a citizen?

The methods of the past may have been flawed, but the idealism of the past was not an illusion. Your calling is not easy, because you must do the acting and the caring. But there is fulfillment in that sacrifice which creates hope for the rest of us. Every life you help proves that every life might be helped. The actual proves the possible, and hope is always the beginning of change.

Thank you for having me, and God bless.

As was his wont, Bush gave lip service to Catholic teachings. This was not the case with some other Notre Dame Commencement speakers, who have included Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Condeleeza Rice.

Apparently many Catholic leaders would prefer to be shined on by hypocrites rather than engage in the kind of social outreach that might genuinely reduce the number of abortions.

Mary Ann Glendon wrote an excellent book years ago, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law. In it she made a very good argument for laws that are more woman, child and family friendly -- including but not limited to prohibiting elective abortions. Her book provided several examples to support the argument that outlawing the procedure is not, by itself, the most effective way to end the practice. She cited countries with restrictive laws and poor safety nets, where illegal abortions are common, as well as countries where abortion is allowed but rarely practiced because women do not see pregnancy as a life tragedy.

Don't get me wrong. Professor Glendon is profoundly pro-life, and even declined personally to attend the Notre Dame ceremony this year. As a scholar and law professor, though, she has always been able to recognize the power of context.

I am one of the people who feels that Obama is capable of changing the context enough to vastly reduce the demand for abortions in this country. That is not pro-death. As a Catholic I am embarrassed that my church leaders are so determined to make our faith community a subsidiary of the religious right -- and thus of the Republican Party. I would hate for my own parish to lose its tax exempt status, but with all this politicking it is harder and harder to justify.

On the Power of Names

2009-05-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh, I just found out that the power company in Boston is called "Unitil." Doesn't anybody there speak Spanish? Why would they choose a name that is such a close anagram for inutil - meaning useless?

It isn't really about religion.

2009-04-20T00:10:00.000-07:00

Last week the New York Times ran a column by Judith Warner about the warm feelings she gets from different aspects of the Passover and Easter season. Warner wrote,

"...I am Jewish. But for nine years, from age 5 to 13, I attended an Episcopal school, went to chapel, sang in the choir. To this day, in good moods, my mind fills with hymns, and on a certain kind of spring day, a day that’s full of promise and hope, I see sunshine streaming in through stained glass windows, graceful specks suspended in the light over highly polished wood pews.

I would never call myself a Christian. But if you begin the Lord’s Prayer, I will join in, with feeling.

'It is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressible, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason,' Charles Darwin wrote in 'The Descent of Man.'

My heart sings to the organ chords of the Doxology.

It is an instinctual, not altogether reasonable, sort of thing..."

I found her column true, although I did not identify with everything she said. How could I? It was about personal memories, and my memories are completely different than hers. Well, maybe not completely different -- my heart also sings to the organ chords of the Doxology. It is one of the reasons that I am so impatient with the music at my current church. I don't think it is as good as the music at the church I grew up in, but the main point is that it is different.

That's the problem with growing up and moving away and changing religions. One of the main reasons that I started singing in the bilingual choir at my church is that I didn't have to contend with my own expectations. All the Spanish music is new to me, and I happily take the other choir members' word for it if a song is considered an "old favorite."

But it isn't just religion and music that follows Darwin's rule. For the last few weeks my daughter and I have been exchanging complaints about the horrible spring weather where we live. I grew up in the Midwest, so to me great spring weather is a little (or a lot) overcast and rainy, with a continued chilly breeze. Spring means you're emerging from the cold and ice of winter, but it is gradual, and days that start out cool stay that way -- and will continue to do so for at least another month.

My daughter goes to school in Chicago. She is a New Mexico native, and she expects spring weather to be warm and sunny. Maybe it will rain, but the clouds will last twelve hours at a time or less. Days that start out cold and windy will probably stay windy, but the sun will come out and by afternoon you will probably be able to get rid of the jacket you wore in the morning. To me this is a form of torture. Bright sunlight gives me a headache, and I can't stand getting into a hot car that has been sitting in the desert sun.

On the other hand, she is impatient and depressed with the continued cold. At first I thought it was just her personality, but now I realize it is her upbringing. Midwestern stuff will always be the norm for me, even though I haven't lived there in years and have no intention of moving back. But she has different expectations.

Wherever she goes, my daughter will always judge climates by the standard of a 5000-foot altitude, zero humidity and reliable sunshine. Chicago doesn't have a chance.

His Day

2009-03-18T10:22:00.001-07:00

I saw this just this morning on the American Papist blog. Even though it's a day late, Happy St. Patrick's Day!

He's not my favorite religious figure -- his holiday owes more to Dionysus than to Jesus -- but I do like the graphic.

St Patrick's Day here was unseasonably warm, not so positive for me but the local weather geeks treated it as good news. I'm not sure why people in a desert climate should be averse to some free water (i.e. rain) once in a while....

What happened to common sense?

2009-03-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

I really think I need to go back to school and take some economics classes. Maybe we all do. I'm having trouble understanding why AIG needs to pay "retention bonuses" to people who bankrupted the company. I understand the idea of fulfilling a legal obligation to avoid a more expensive lawsuit, but I would link the payouts to some quasi-voluntary resignations. If a particular teacher scares off all the students, resulting in no tuition payments and bankruptcy for the school, doesn't it make sense to get rid of that teacher?

In a related story,
The mainstream media isn't always wrong. Sometimes those who are up to no good -- whether in the political, the financial, or any other realm -- use the public's distrust of big media to protect themselves. Because media credibility is so badly damaged (and why that is would be a-whole-nother subject) most of the time they get away with it. This case in point is from the Financial Times' "Alphaville" blog:

Point counter point: AIG, Goldman and the NYT

Posted by Sam Jones on Mar 16 12:17.

Does anyone care to remember this story on AIG, from the New York Times, back in September? More to the point, does anyone remember the trouble it caused?

It was one of a series of articles that appeared in the mainstream press contemporaneous to AIG’s bailout that dissected just what the insurer had been doing that made it so risky, and so systemically important.

We cite the NYT article in particular though, for this paragraph:

Although it was not widely known, Goldman, a Wall Street stalwart that had seemed immune to its rivals’ woes, was A.I.G.’s largest trading partner, according to six people close to the insurer who requested anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. A collapse of the insurer threatened to leave a hole of as much as $20 billion in Goldman’s side, several of these people said.

… which caused something of a furore.

Goldman strenuously and very publicly denied the gist of the allegation. So aggressive was their rebuttal, in fact, that the wires even wrote up seperate stories on it. Here’s Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc rejected as “seriously misleading” a published report on Sunday that said the Wall Street bank had as much as $20 billion of exposure to the troubled insurance giant American International Group Inc.

Lucas van Praag, a Goldman spokesman, on Sunday said the Times article was wrong to suggest that Goldman had reason to be concerned about AIG’s problems.

“Although we have said many times on the record that our exposure to AIG was, and is, not material, the reporter chose to pursue a story line which suggests, by innuendo, that is not the case,” he said in an e-mailed statement.

“For the avoidance of doubt, our exposure to AIG is offset by collateral and hedges and is not material to Goldman Sachs in any way,” he continued. “The conclusions about our interests that readers of the New York Times article are invited to reach are seriously misleading.”

Now, of course, we have AIG’s counterparty list. And guess who tops it?

Goldman Sachs.

Goldman is the proud recipient of $12.9bn in payments from AIG and AIGFP. (Specifically, $2.5bn from CDS collateral postings, $5.6bn from Maiden Lane III payments for CDS positions, and $4.8bn in payments related to securities lending. The Maiden Lane III portfolio was, of course, created in December specifically help reduce the burden of CDS collateral postings facing AIGFP proper - it bought the underlying CDO tranches from the CDS counterparties)

For the record then, it certainly was not the NYT that was “seriously misleading”.

We wonder whether things might yet get uncomfortable for Goldman. After all, they’re in rather an awkward position: on the one hand, according to their above PR line, they didn’t need AIG’s money at all (it was, to paraphrase, immaterial whether AIG went under or not). And yet, on the other hand Goldman is - gosh - the largest recipient, via AIG, of taxpayers’ money.

more covers

2009-02-18T09:50:00.000-08:00

As a follow-up to my previous post, I recommend a "Time" photo essay on Chip Kidd.

It also includes his comments about each piece. My one disappointment was that among the best covers in the essay is a book by Augustin Burroughs -- in my opinion an even bigger fraud than Jane Smiley.

What a waste of design talent.

You can tell these books by their covers.

2009-02-16T17:27:00.000-08:00

Over on the Abe Books newsletter, Beth Carswell writes about the 30 Novels Worth Buying for the Cover Alone. She notes:
Let's hear it for the book designers. For every Milan Kundera, Jeffrey Eugenides and Aldous Huxley, there is a Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich, a Leah Carlson-Stanisic and a Gregg Kulick – all designers of memorable cover art. They give a visual perspective to somebody else's written art, find balance in color and shape, simplicity and uniqueness. A book must stand out on the bookstore bookshelf yet cover designers rarely receive the recognition that authors do. In appreciation of these unsung artists, here are 30 of my favorite fiction covers – all worth buying for the cover alone.

What a great concept! Here are some of the examples: Arkansas, by John Brandon, cover design by Keith Shore; Rant, by Chuck Palahniuk, cover design by Michael Collica; The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera, cover design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich; Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, cover design by Gregg Kulick; My Mistress' Sparrow is Dead, by Jeffrey Eugenides, cover design by Leah Carlson-Stanisic; and 25 others.

All available new or used, I am sure, from Abe Books.

Is it just for Catholics?

2009-02-12T19:17:00.000-08:00

There is some controversy going on over Boston College's decision to put crucifixes and other Christian artwork in each of its 151 classrooms. BC is a Catholic institution that, like DePaul, has a strong presence in the secular community. What do I mean by that? I mean that the schools are affiliated with the Catholic Church, both historically and in real life, but they are famous for lots of other things as well.

The newsletter "Inside Higher Ed" ran a story on the Boston College reaction. “I think it’s in an identity crisis,” [IHE quoted] Dwayne Eugène Carpenter, chair of the romance languages and literatures department of Boston College. “At the same time that it wants to proclaim its Catholic identity, it also wants to recruit the best. You can’t recruit the best by placing crucifixes in every classroom. You’re simply going to limit the number of people who will come here. And I’ve already heard of several faculty who have said, ‘You know, this is not a welcoming place, this is not the place that hired me, and I’ll be looking for a job elsewhere.’ ”

The Boston Globe notes a different point of view: "Personally, I'm glad that the university decided to increase the number of crucifixes in classrooms on campus," [they quote BC student Patrick Fouhy.] "Boston College welcomes students, faculty, and staff of all religious persuasions, but at the end of the day it is a Jesuit, Catholic institution and the crucifixes are a nice reminder of that."

And Elissa Klein, director of Jewish life at Boston College, said: "I spoke to several Jewish undergraduates tonight, who were all apathetic about the new religious art. It seems that many failed to notice it entirely. Others found it a minor change."

As a DePaul parent, I find the university's Catholic identity encouraging but not overpowering. Then again, I am Catholic. My son is not required to take any courses in specifically Catholic topics, but he does tell me he'll have to take some kind of ethics. He's looking forward to it. My son has not attended mass regularly since middle school, and I don't think he has gone at all for a couple of years. We did get him to go to my mother's (Presbyterian) church for Christmas Eve last year, but there's a definite gap between making Grammie happy and living his own life.

I would love for DePaul to make my kid feel more connected to the church he grew up in. I would welcome the presence of religious symbols in the classrooms. I think there is a difference between acknowledging Catholic identity and proselytizing, and I think as an institution DePaul knows where to draw the line. It isn't just about going to mass or hanging up crucifixes, anyway. The Vincentian tradition is one of service to the community, helping those in need whether they are Catholic or not. Correct me if I'm wrong, but unlike some Evangelical Christian charities, the Society of St. Vincent DePaul does not require aid recipients to attend a sermon or religious service as a condition of aid. If my son is any example, Depaul students take pride in their connection with "Vinnie."

I heard this joke when I was volunteering in a Catholic school: There was a kid who drove his mother and teachers crazy with his terrible behavior. His parents sent him to public schools, charter schools, independent schools and even a Presbyterian school. He was expelled from each and every one. Finally his parents, hearing that the Catholic were strong in discipline, enrolled him at "Our Lady of Fatima." So that their son could start with a clean slate, they decided not to tell the principal, Sr. Mary Tranquila, about his previous difficulties.

After his first week his mother went in, with some trepidation, check how he was doing. "Oh, he's a delightful child, " Tranquila told her. "We're thrilled to have him." The mom checked back again in a month: Same answer. This kept happening. Finally, she just had to ask her son, "What is so special about that school? Is it the teaching methods? The other kids?" Johnny shook his head to all her suggestions.

"They're serious about rules there, Ma," he said. "They nailed one kid to the wall!"

For information on Vincentian and Catholic art on Depaul's campus, go to their website.

Viva futbol Americano!

2009-02-02T10:38:00.000-08:00

I had a great Super Bowl Sunday. First I went out to lunch with my husband, and we ignored the annoying pre-game show that was playing above the bar in favor of conversing with each other. Topics: our old neighborhoods, winter in Chicago, and what ingredients make the best casseroles. Then we went home and I watched a couple of old TV programs on DVD. In between episodes, I checked NBC but never caught any football action, just a lot of boring talk and a couple of good commercials (as well as some lame promos for NBC shows.) When I finished the Torchwood disc, I watched a profile of Obama on CBS. Sometime before or after the profile, I switched to the game and watched the Cardinals thrillingly pull ahead in the last few minutes of play, then saw the Steelers win. Also thrilling, but disappointing.

This morning I watched the rest of the Super Bowl commercials on the Advertising Age online newsletter.

Now that's the way to watch football. My biggest problem with televised sports (and with baseball in general) is that they spend so much time not playing. Old-fashioned commentators complain that ice hockey and soccer are ill-suited to television viewing because they don't pause often enough for commercials. That's a bad thing? I watch Mexican soccer on Univision and Telemundo, and it is both exciting and heavily sponsored. They've figured out how to run commercials at the bottom and sides of the screen while the game is going on. I'm sure it is also an advantage that my Spanish is not good enough to understand the -- probably vapid -- announcers' comments.

On the difference between homelessness and having to sell one of your four large mansions:

2009-01-30T10:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday President Obama was reduced to the role of schoolmarm or country pastor when he scolded Wall Street operatives for their irresponsible bonuses.

Steve Goodman knew about it:

I saw the boss come walking down along that factory line,
Saying "We all have to tighten up our belts."
But he didn't look any thinner than he had a year ago
And I wondered just how hungry that man felt.

That's because it ain't hard to get along with somebody else's troubles;
They don't make you lose any sleep at night.
Just as long is God is out there busting somebody else's bubble,
Everything's gonna be all right.

Tell me, did you ever have to pay for something that you didn't do,
And did you ever figure out the reason why?
When the doctor says "This is gonna hurt me a lot more than it hurts you,"
Did you ever figure out that it's a lie?

He knows it ain't hard to get along with somebody else's troubles;
They don't make you lose any sleep at night.
Just as long is God is out there busting somebody else's bubble,
Everything's gonna be all right.

Still no pitchforks?

I Knew It!

2009-01-25T22:15:00.000-08:00

According to The New York Times,

"Drinking coffee may do more than just keep you awake. A new study suggests an intriguing potential link to mental health later in life, as well.

A team of Swedish and Danish researchers tracked coffee consumption in a group of 1,409 middle-age men and women for an average of 21 years. During that time, 61 participants developed dementia, 48 with Alzheimer's disease.

After controlling for numerous socioeconomic and health factors, including high cholesterol and high blood pressure, the scientists found that the subjects who had reported drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed dementia, compared with those who drank two cups or less...."

What's so terrible about a cheese sandwich?

2009-01-25T19:11:00.000-08:00

Lately there has been a big dispute in the local public school board about how to deal with parents who fail to pay their children's lunch bills in a timely manner. Until recently, the board focused on getting those who might be eligible (under federal guidelines) for free or reduced cafeteria services to actually apply. The board seems to be in a quandary about how to approach those whose income does not qualify them for subsidized meals.

I had my own experiences with this process when my son and daughter were in grade school. Although the meal charges were never more than I could afford, I often forgot to pay them. I can't remember whether they mailed me a bill or gave it to one of the kids to take home, but the bills got to me. I just didn't always take care of them. Once, when I went in to pay a late bill, I remember apologizing to the cafeteria lady and thanking her for letting my kids charge so many lunches. "We don't let students go hungry," she told me. "Even if you totally forgot to pay it, we'd give your child a peanut butter or cheese sandwich."

I found her attitude reassuring. I have also seen school cafeteria workers pay for kids themselves when they know that the family is having financial problems and may be too proud or afraid to fill out the paperwork for a free lunch. All this is an introduction to why I was so disgusted by this recent story in the Albuquerque Journal:

APS Seeks Sandwich Alternative

Anti-Hunger Group Would Raise Funds to Pay Off Debt

BY ANDREA SCHOELLKOPF
Saturday, January 24, 2009

Albuquerque school district officials said Friday they may be willing to stop giving cold cheese sandwiches to children with delinquent lunch accounts if the community can pay most of the $100,000 debt.

However, school board member Jon Barela said he fears that rescinding the policy will push the debt up, as deadbeats and others return to charging meals without penalty.

"We don't want to be bailing people out of their responsibility because they know the community is going to step up and pay this bill," Barela said.

Students receive a cheese sandwich in lieu of a hot meal if they have exceeded a set amount of charged meals, ranging from two at high schools to 10 at elementaries. The district has already collected $40,000 of the initial $140,000 debt in the three weeks the policy has been in effect.

District officials met with anti-hunger advocates on Friday to work on an agreement that could be presented to the school board during a special meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the Albuquerque Public Schools City Centre.

Randy Royster, Albuquerque Community Foundation executive director, said within a 90-day period, his organization is willing to raise money for the $50,000 debt incurred by children who have since qualified for the federal free and reduced price lunches.

However, the anti-hunger officials said they would not accept a policy that still includes an alternative meal because it stigmatizes children. They said APS should use collection agencies and other enforcement to go after deadbeat parents.

At one high-poverty school, five families that owed $100 or more per child were rejected for the free lunch program after showing incomes of $100,000 or more, food services director Mary Swift said.

Here is another memory: A few years ago I had the opportunity to know a couple from Albuquerque who worked as missionaries in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. I was impressed by a lot of the things they did, operating on a shoestring through prayer and contributions, to help out people who had real needs. In the morning they drove their unassuming, much-repaired van across the border bridge from El Paso, Texas. It was their habit to prepare a big stack of cheese sandwiches that they handed out on the bridge, along with water bottles, to the many vendors who crisscrossed through the slow-moving traffic on the Mexico side of the bridge. These genuinely hungry people were thrilled to see them, and crowded around the van.

Water and sandwiches weren't the only things they brought, of course. They also exchanged prayers, stories and companionship, and treated both Mexican and U.S. allies with respect. Maybe that's one of the reasons that I have a hard time seeing the offer of a cheese sandwich as an embarrassment.

As a parent, and a taxpayer, I find the cheese sandwich solution much preferable to the expense and real public relations nightmare of setting bill collectors on parents.

Item: I'd like to know who are these "anti-hunger advocates" the Albuquerque Journal keeps quoting. Do they wear masks, like Zorro? Since when does a decent reporter use this kind of vague attribution?

Item: There is a pointed and entertaining take on this issue (from a teacher, no less) on the "'Burque Babble" site.

an excerpt:

Forwarded Email: it can be toxic.

2009-01-19T10:18:00.000-08:00

I have several different people who forward emails to me. One is a Mexican-American co-worker who sends out very funny, but often offensive, jokes about the battle between the sexes and about his ethnic group. Other well-meaning friends send me cute photos and blessings that include instructions to pass them on to five hundred people within five seconds or suffer a run of bad luck. Occasionally I receive a warning about a product, phishing scheme or computer virus -- the first easily verified or discredited on snopes.com, the latter two by a quick email or call to my ISP.

Then there are the political screeds. I have a bunch of people who send me original and forwarded jokes about and criticisms of George W. Bush (and Republicans in general) and a couple others who supply me with a reliable "right-wing wacko" viewpoint. I am less likely to read the political stuff. But when I do, here is a warning: Don't send me anything inflammatory if you aren't prepared for me to light it up.

Email is so much different from ordinary conversation. In a conversation, even a disagreement, you can see the other person's face and hear their tone of voice. If they choose to repeat a story they heard, they'll unavoidably infuse it with their own voice and attitude. Forwarded emails do not have this advantage: they aren't personal, and they are usually designed for the maximum emotional response. That's why jokes and visual gags tend to work well in this medium.

Some of the people who forward stuff to me obviously do not read all of it before they send it. That's all right. I don't read it all either.

Recently someone who I like and respect, and generally think of as a friend, forwarded an email to me with a headline that offended me deeply. I didn't read the rest of the letter. I was hurt that she thought I would want to. She is someone who puts thought into what she passes on and to whom. I have always known that there were certain issues that I view differently than she does, but we've been able to exchange ideas respectfully in the past. As far as I can tell, here is what went wrong:

The message she sent did not reach me in her voice. The part she thought was important was apparently somewhere farther down in the missive, in the part I deleted. When I reacted angrily, she replied defensively. My reply pretty much gave her no choice. Factually, she and I are pretty close on the issue she raised. But our points of view differ dramatically. In person, that would have been immediately obvious.

We have to be careful of the global community that we've all joined here online. It means we are able to interact with people who are far away, and whose experiences and prejudices are quite diverse. That's a good thing. Even if it sometimes leaves us angry with our friends.

Ice storm in New England

2008-12-13T13:58:00.000-08:00

Every summer, we have about a week of uncomfortably warm weather, warm enough for my house to stay hot all night. I bitch and moan about the heat, which does make it hard to sleep. I'm saving this photo -- taken by Boston Globe reader Brian Watts -- to remind myself that as far as climate is concerned there are way worse places to live than New Mexico.

From the Globe story:

As much as 4 inches of rain fell over the region from late Tuesday night through yesterday morning, as a low-pressure system from the south and a cold front from the north stalled over New England. But the Boston area, which had only torrential rain, did not experience the icing that areas outside Interstate 495 and along the New Hampshire border did, where the rain froze on contact with the ground and everything else it touched.

"Nobody expected that the impact of this storm to be quite so devastating," said Mayor Konstantina Lukes of Worcester. "Trees are falling on cars, they are falling on houses, and they are trapping people in their homes."

Ice is beautiful, but I'm realizing (after trekking through Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado in a car with no heat) that I prefer it at a distance.

Still no thoughts of my own...

2008-12-12T08:33:00.000-08:00

A correspondent from the Commonweal discussion group had this to say about the use of a certain euphemism in the description of Rod Blagojevich's conversations:

We have the at-the-moment Illinois Governor to thank for this development, and, believe me, I DO thank him for the 'bleeping' substitute. It avoids what is a mere anglo-saxonism for coitus, another evasive term stolen from our bleeping Romans who somehow made ITS expletive for - uhm - coitus somehow half-respectable. This substitute will play havoc with the nine-year olds (and in my neighborhood, the eight year olds) who will now have to find something, anything, to try and get arise out of the grown ups and jealous respect from the seven year olds). I wonder what all this will do to the bleeping Democratic Party, indeed ALL politics, the military services, team sports, ghetto teens, ghetto adults, ghetto celebraties, ghetto grandmas, and university faculty organizations.

Now what is needed is a substitute for 'as the Church has always said'. Right?

Robert C. Rhodes

An interesting suggestion from a non-expert

2008-12-08T09:58:00.001-08:00

During my recent sojourn in Iowa and Nebraska, I had a chance to observe the kind people who make, use and fix Caterpillar, Toro and John Deere products. They seemed to be extraordinarily trustworthy. A Washington Post reader who posts as "Wood3" makes the following suggestion in reference to the proposed loan program for GM, Ford and Chrysler:

"The Obama administration has an opportunity to solve two problems at once.

First of all, the ill advised Iraq war has exposed weaknesses in the types of heavy vehicles our armed forces use. The Humvee proved totally unsatisfactory to the 21 century missions and the M-1A Bradley is just too heavy to be rapidly deployed.

Fortunately, by taking the pre-WWII lessons, the Obama administration can craft a reorganization of the the Big 3 to put their gas guzzler and surplus heavy truck plants to work reequiping the active military, reserves and National Guard with new, lighter, vehicles that will be needed for our next military intervention.

With this giant government contract, require increased CAFE standards and other efficiencies as part of the bidding process to determine who gets the biggest piece of the pie.

The Illinois based Caterpillar Company and John Deere have already faced foreign competition and learned how to stand up to it. I would suspect that their management can provide critical knowledge in any turn around."

I'm driving a Chrysler rental (a PT Cruiser) while my car is being fixed. It's a nice vehicle, with good visibility -- a big issue with me since I live in the land of the supercab pickup -- and a wheelbase small enough to be easy to park. I like it, and it'd be a shame to lose the option.

What do the poor deserve?

2008-11-21T00:53:00.001-08:00

Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Phillippines, was famous for her vast collection of shoes. When a reporter from the United States asked her about her shoes, and the other luxury items she had collected, Marcos seemed a little puzzled. "You Americans like nice things," she answered. "I watch Dallas, I've seen how you live." I don't think Imelda Marcos ever got over feeling that she was entitled to the things that political corruption bought her, or feeling that Americans, who have it so good, were judging her unfairly.

I think of her when I see parents going without health insurance or reliable cars in order to buy stylish clothing and trips to Disneyland for themselves or their children. Part of what they are doing is being "good Americans." Good Americans aspire to the world portrayed in television shows, popular music and mass marketed movies. Good Americans spend money to make sure that they, and their children, fit in to the majority culture.

A woman I know, a single mother who struggles financially, had her name chosen for a program that donates Christmas gifts for needy families. She was asked to fill out a wish list, and she wrote down the items her children had been asking for. One of the items was rather expensive, an Xbox 360. It was probably unrealistic for her to ask for it, but it was something that she, if she'd had the money to pick out her children's gifts, would have tried to get them.

Someone from the agency that put this family into the program told me, "I didn't leave that on the list. They shouldn't be asking for big ticket things like that, when they need warm coats and food." I thought that was a pretty smug attitude. What she seemed to be saying was: These are poor people, unsuccessful in navigating our society. Poor children have no right to ask for the same ridiculous, extravagant gifts that the rest of us might want.

I think attitudes like that from the "haves" are part of the reason that we get people like Imelda Marcos in this world. A lot of really bad situations, in politics and in personal life, arise from envy. When you decide a disadvantaged family isn't even allowed to want anything frivolous, how do do expect them to feel?

Electronics and information: apples and oranges?

2008-11-17T23:08:00.000-08:00

In yesterday's "Media Equation" column, The New York Times' David Carr shares some recent history:

In March 2007, Circuit City came up with a plan to confront softening sales and competition from online and offline retailers: fire the most talented, experienced employees.

Of course, those workers were the retail chain’s single most important point of difference from the legion of Internet retailers and general merchandisers, but in a single stroke, Philip J. Schoonover, the chief executive of Circuit City, wiped out that future.

As a pal of mine used to say when I described a particularly boneheaded course of action I had pursued, “How’d that work out for you, buddy?”

For Circuit City, not so great. The “wage management initiative” erased morale, both for employees and the folks who shopped there. Sales sank after the one-time gain from the layoffs. And last week, the company sought bankruptcy protection.....

....In the digital age, we’re told, the critical difference between success and failure is human capital — those heartbeats and fast hands that can make a good business great. So are newspapers reacting to their downturn as Circuit City did?

My question for Mr. Carr is, Where have you been for the last thirty years? Many of the grizzled fonts of wisdom who are leaving the business in these current rough times got their start during the seventies and eighties. They were the bright-eyed young interns and low-paid recent graduates who were hired to replace the previous generation of highly-paid experts.

Journalism pioneered the strategy of hiring cheaper help to keep overhead down. Of course, in those days the substitutions were engineered through buyouts and attractive early retirement packages, not straightforward layoffs. As a result there were still a few veterans around to show the newbies how it is done. What newspapers are doing now is partly cyclical. There are fewer jobs in traditional newsrooms for the current crop of young guns, but many nowadays are bypassing the traditional outlets.

Carr is exactly right about Circuit City, and that company's fate is a cautionary tale for any business or agency that thinks workers are interchangeable pegs to be plugged into any opening. But what is really needed in a healthy enterprise is a combination -- of employees who have been around long enough to know what they're doing and those who are open to new ideas.

To Sasha, he's still just "Daddy."

2008-11-09T00:33:00.000-08:00

I switched this over from Nuanced Faith because I felt I was getting a little too political (over there) and a little too negative (over here.) It is still my favorite Obama photo so far.

more sleazy, self-serving behavior from the financial sector

2008-11-08T11:26:00.000-08:00

Today's New York Times offers an opinion on executive pay, in an editorial titled "Money Really is Fungible." An excerpt:

Just weeks after the Treasury Department gave nine of the nation’s top banks $125 billion in taxpayer dollars to save them from unprecedented calamity, bank executives are salting money away in billionaire bonus pools to reward themselves for their performance.

Outraged? The bankers (who didn’t anticipate the subprime crisis) were ready for that. So they are assuring everyone that this self-directed largess won’t be paid with the same dollars they got from taxpayers. They’ll use other ones.

What we want to know is will they be marking the bills so they can be sure which is which?

Unfortunately, the legislation that created the $700 billion rescue fund barely touched on the problem of executive compensation — limiting bonuses only when they are found to have been based on inaccurate statements of earnings or when they are deemed to encourage bankers to take “unnecessary and excessive risks.” The new Congress should impose tighter limits on executive pay at banks taking taxpayer money.

So lemme get this straight: It's okay to raid employee pension funds and shareholder dividends to pay off debts and keep the company afloat, but the executive bonus pool is sacrosanct? Get your pitchforks, it's time for an angry mob!

There is a reason that public employees tend to make less than their counterparts in private industry. It is because taxpayers are stingier with a dime than private board members can afford to be. Maybe it hasn't dawned on these people yet that their jobs are currently dependent on public financing.

Merriam-Webster online says that the adjective fungible comes from the New Latin fungibilis, from Latin fungi, to perform. It has the same root as the word function. Their definition: being of such a nature that one part or quantity may be replaced by another equal part or quantity in the satisfaction of an obligation; example "oil, wheat, and lumber are fungible commodities."

Sorry, but I'm not willing for my tax dollar to replace the function of money that was lost in bad business deals.

The whole reason for the ridiculous compensation levels was that the bank officials were willing to personally share the risks that they lead their companies into. If we taxpayers are assuming the risk for their decisions, then the bonus is for...what? Looking good in an expensive suit?

Did Bella Abzug Predict Sarah Palin?

2008-11-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

I like Sarah Palin, although I am relieved that she is not going to be vice president. This isn't because she is overly religious, or not well-read, or speaks with an annoying accent. I think her biggest mistake -- and it is a common one -- is her unwillingness to admit it when she doesn't know the answer to a question.

McCain didn't pick her as a policy expert, but as a charming outsider. Instead of claiming that Alaska's proximity to Russian indicated foreign policy know-how, or hemming and hawing when asked her reading preferences, she should have said, to the first, "I don't know, but I'd find out before I made any rash decisions." To the second, "I have five kids and a full-time job. I only wish I had time to read magazines!" In both cases she could have followed up with a pledge to surround herself with well-informed professionals and take heed of their briefings.

This week MSNBC offered an alternative take on the significance of her run for vice president. Perhaps we can take comfort in the fact that a woman just as underqualified as Dan Quayle or Spiro Agnew can earn serious consideration from voters. An excerpt:

"...the governor may become, in some ways, a landmark figure for future female candidates, said Astrid Henry, a visiting professor of gender and women’s studies at Grinnell College in Iowa.

First, Henry said, Palin may well be an example of feminist Bella Abzug’s observance: 'Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel.'

'This is a good example of that, that someone has been put out there, grilled and found wanting,' Henry said...."

Thanks for the clarification.

2008-11-04T09:58:00.000-08:00

I belong to a lot of different interest groups. I'm Catholic, and I subscribe to a few (mostly but not all liberal) Catholic magazines, newsletters and listserves. Then again, I subscribe to some Jewish news sources, partly for the joy of Torah study. I am registered a Republican, so my party sends me information about the dastardly doings of the Democrats. Then again, I've volunteered for and donated money to Democratic and Green candidates, so I'm on their mailing list as well.

I receive literacy activities from various education sources, and science activities from NOAA. I think it is my New Yorker subscription that gets me the pitches for expensive watches and luxury vacations. Years ago, I had a friend who put a different middle initial on all his subscriptions just to see which ones were associated with what additional mail. And then there are the catalogues....

All this goes part of the way toward explaining two emails I received today and yesterday.

On November 3rd, the day before election day, I received this message from the Republican Jewish Coalition, via the Haaretz mailing list.

"Concerned about Barack Obama? You should be.

Many Americans have questions about Barack Obama and whether his views are good for the United States and Israel. And for good reason.

Most concerning is Sen. Barack Obama's naive grasp of the threats against the United States and Israel.

Obama has surrounded himself with anti-Israel advisors like General Tony McPeak, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Robert Malley and Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Sen. Obama told a Jewish group he supports an undivided Jerusalem, only to flip-flop the very next day. Another time, Obama called his support for an undivided Jerusalem a "poor phrasing" of words.

From his opposition to legislation labeling Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization to his willingness to meet with Iranian President Ahmadinejad without any preconditions, Sen. Barack Obama has raised real questions about his judgment and experience.

Barack Obama has not shown the commitment to stand up to the people who would do us harm."

There were some videos and graphics, and a very small tagline:

Paid for by the Republican Jewish Coalition. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

Today, November 4th, is election day. This was in my inbox:

"Dear Haaretz subscribers,

You received an email earlier today from Haaretz.com about Barack Obama, on behalf of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

This email was issued by the commercial department and is not Haaretz editorial content.

Yours,

Haaretz.com"

Haaretz is an Israeli publication that is (like much of Israeli society) loyally critical of their own government -- particularly over the treatment of Palestinians and Arab Israeli citizens. Their coverage of the Obama campaign, and his visit to Israel, was quite positive.

I'd like to think people in the United States do not vote on the basis of what Haaretz recommends, and that anyone who might, could see clearly that the Monday piece was a political ad. Still, I hope no one ran out and voted in response to the first email before receiving the second one.

People in the Middle

2008-10-30T00:12:00.001-07:00

Who is dragging down whom?

2008-10-28T10:48:00.000-07:00

In a column on her website today, Arianna Huffington notes that 'Republicans are increasingly worried that McCain is losing in a way that "threatens to take the entire Republican Party down with him."'

I'm a fan of Huffington, although she is well to my left politically. And even if she doesn't say so, I think she understands that John McCain is not the problem. In fact, the original independent-minded McCain was probably the Republican who would have had the best shot at keeping the White House out of Democratic hands. No, it is the maverick McCain who has been dragged down by the knee-jerk, business-as-usual GOP establishment. You know, that guy who rejected all forms of torture and disagreed with tax cuts for the wealthy. Remember him?

If Obama wins, as everyone expects, the fear-mongering, negativity and dirty politics that have been so successful for George W. Bush will have defeated John McCain once again. The sad part is, McCain went along with it this time.

By the way, Democrats need to take a break from chicken-counting and take better care of the eggs. This is not yet a done deal, and premature triumphalism is a good way to let it all out of the bag. (There, did I mix enough metaphors to be considered a pundit?)

Whose GOP is it, anyway?

2008-10-24T10:57:00.001-07:00

This week the Huffington Post has dueling op-eds from the Goldwater family. First, granddaughter CC Goldwater weighed in with why her grandfather, an old-fashioned libertarian-style conservative, would be unlikely to vote for Republican John McCain this year.

Then, today, Barry Goldwater, Jr. (CC's uncle) had his say in a piece titled "Why Barry Goldwater Couldn't Support Obama." I was going to post a comment on the Huffington Post site, but they keep losing my login. So here is what I think, based on the two Goldwater columns:

If Barry Goldwater, Sr., was alive today, I would like to think that he would be among the people who had been keeping the GOP from becoming the hyper-partisan, religious right, borrow and spend smear machine that it has become in the past twenty years. I would like to think that the small government ideals espoused by Ron Paul would still get respect from the mainstream of the party. I would like to think that John McCain would have been elected president eight years ago, retaining his own deeply held views on personal freedom and national defense, instead of being forced into this total sell-out that he has gone through in the last four years.

Goldwater, Jr. with John McCain

This year it has been tough to remember, but I started out as a Republican myself. Actually, my first registration was as a Socialist Worker but that was because there were some really attractive men in the SWP. We all have sins to answer for in our youth.

I was never a Democrat, and I'm still not. As far as I know, being a Republican does not mean I'm required to vote for whatever people or policies that the current party bigwigs choose to impose. I think that was what CC Goldwater was trying to say. If I order a green shirt on the internet and they send me a black one, I'll send it back for a refund. That doesn't mean I'm rejecting the color green. If I am in favor of small government and personal privacy and my GOP government sends me bedroom monitors and the Patriot Act, I'm not picking up that tab either.

I was interested to see what CC's uncle had to say about the current GOP candidates and why we should choose them over Obama and Biden. As far as I could tell, he was telling me to wear the black shirt in support of party unity. Party unity? They threw people like me out years ago. Meanwhile, the Democratic store over there is selling some pretty nice green clothes.

Conservative Icon Barry Goldwater, Sr.

I'm sorry. What I mean to say is, I feel terrible about what happened even though it had nothing to do with me.

2008-10-19T22:33:00.000-07:00

Why does saying I'm sorry mean you are accepting blame and responsibility? How do you say "I'm sorry," to mean just I'm sorry as in I'm sympathetic to your situation. I always say I'm sorry when someone tells me their tale of woe; death, loss of job, leaky roof etc and then the response is often, it's not your fault. I never thought it was my fault-but I'm still sorry. Just wondering...

I work with kids. Fairly often, they make each other cry. As adults on playground duty or whatever our role happens to be, we almost always make the other child apologize to the one who is crying. Most of the time the child who has to offer the apology has not done anything deliberately to hurt the other.

The conversation usually goes something like this:

"The ball you threw hit Marika in the arm. Tell her you are sorry," or "Eli thinks you were laughing at him. Tell him you are sorry"

"But I didn't mean to hit Marika with the ball," or "I wasn't laughing at Eli."

"Are you happy that Marika (or Eli) is so sad? No? Then say you're sorry and maybe she'll (or he'll) feel better."

Sometimes they point out some factual extenuation, like "I didn't throw it, Laura did!" or "He's a big baby who cries about everything!" The fact is, though, children don't really have a problem saying they are sorry as long as it doesn't mean they are in trouble for doing something to the other child.

A lot of the apologizing that we require these days has nothing to do with assuming blame for anything. If we are sad that somebody feels badly, it should be okay to say so without implying that it is our fault.

There is a difference between expressing sympathy for another's distress, and admitting that you caused that distress. Adults often have trouble telling the difference. It is adults, after all, who have perfected the mean-spirited, insult-to-injury apology. You know it: "I'm sorry that you are such a thin-skinned, humorless jerk who can't take a joke," or "I'm sorry that you stood directly in my path like an idiot so I ran into you."

Unless they learn it from an adult, kids don't have the impulse to try and make someone feel worse. That impulse can be learned, especially by children who are used to being blamed and punished for things that really are accidents.

This is not to say that, as adults or as voters, we want to put people in a position to hurt others even inadvertently. I'm not going to hand a knife to a child who has shown a lack of self-control with a whiffle ball. There are issues of competence at stake, but I've found that most people really don't want to make the other kids feel badly.

Sometimes the words "It's not your fault" are necessary. Sometimes it's just a way of accepting the expression of sympathy. At times, it implies "It's not your fault but just wait until I catch the person whose fault it is!"

Last week there was a story out of Omaha about a man who was trying to sue God. Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers "had sued God in September 2007, seeking a permanent injunction to prevent God from committing acts of violence such as earthquakes and tornadoes."

There's a certain logic to Chambers' actions. At the very least, we all deserve an apology.

At least they're not boring.

2008-10-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

Bill O'Reilly: The end of civilization as we know it? Really?

Ed Siegel has a good column in today's Boston Globe. It is called Watching Fox News: Don't Have a Cow, Man. Here is a sample of what Siegel has to say:

"....What do all these [Fox Entertainment & FX] shows have in common with Fox News? One word - attitude.

Fox heroes and antiheroes all exist outside of the establishment, repulsed by conformity, cover-ups, and cowering. Fox News casts itself in the same light with its stable of commentators. And just as Fox Entertainment often shoots various television shows more imaginatively than the networks, Fox News is formalistically different from the rest of the pack, with more energetic graphics, starker close-ups, etc.

And I have to admit that I get a kick out of Bill O'Reilly. I always enjoyed jousting with him when I was a television critic and he was host of a Channel 7 afternoon series, a Channel 5 commentator, and host of "Inside Edition," a syndicated tabloid show. In the Boston days, his former colleagues at Channel 5 laughed at him for his hubris. They would chortle - and I along with them - about his boasting that he would someday replace Chet Curtis as anchor at Channel 5 and, later, Peter Jennings after ABC hired him.

Tom Brokaw: Not as much fun as O'Reilly.

Who's laughing now? Well, I am, the same way I laugh at the Labrador puppy who just relentlessly comes at my 2-year-old dog until she gives up and starts wrestling with him. It's a little bit like watching O'Reilly call Barney Frank a coward until Frank starts to "play" by calling him boorish and saying, "This is why your stupidity gets in the way of a rational discussion."

Great political discourse? No. Entertaining? Very.

Plus, why not have someone who treats politics differently than Tom Brokaw, Jim Lehrer, et al? Without O'Reilly, would Keith Olbermann and Stephen Colbert have their shows?..."

Ed Siegel: The man has a point.

Do these people never learn?

2008-10-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

On the day the news was announcing the failure of Washington Mutual, I got a "pre-approved" credit application from them in the mail. Then I went out of town for a couple of days.

On Saturday, October 4th, we received a highly misleading offer to refinance our mortgage. It was worded like it came from our present mortgage holder, with the disclaimer in tiny print at the bottom; it was worded to make us think we would lose our loan if we didn't refi with them. We've probably gotten these before but usually I throw them out without opening them. I was curious this time because of the timing.This one was dated September 30th.

On another (related) subject, Jon Greer writes an insightful column on BNET.com for public relations professionals:

Ding-Dong! NYSE Needs Bell Ringers

By Jon Greer

October 3rd, 2008 @ 10:35 am

The New York Stock Exchange has long stood as the ultimate symbol of American capitalism. So the act of ringing the bell on the platform above the floor has long been a cherished PR photo op for CEOs, visiting dignitaries, celebrities, and other attention-seekers. The unmistakable message these bell ringers were sending: I’m a big fan of American capitalism!

So, in another symbolic sign of the times, the Big Board is having a bit harder time recruiting bell ringers, reports the New York Times:

“Right now, it can be a little bit like being asked to blow the foghorn on the Titanic,” said Jim Haggerty, chief executive of the PR Consulting Group, which advises companies on communications strategies.

For its part, the NYSE denies that it’s having a problem finding ringers:

“There is huge demand to ring the N.Y.S.E. opening and closing bells, and those people and organizations who participate are respectful of both the global recognition in doing so and prevailing market conditions,” said Richard Adamonis, a spokesman for the exchange.

Nevertheless, even the fact that this story is being reported is proof-positive of the mood change that is rocketing through society, with major repercussions on PR and marketing messaging and strategies.

In fact, I’ve been surprised to see continued financial services ads on TV touting the same message as before The Meltdown. I doubt that these messages are having much of an effect, beyond sending the “pulse” message (we still have a pulse). Over time, I expect these messages and strategies to change, though how, I’m not sure, since this crisis is far from over.

A Non-Expert Opinion

2008-09-27T10:48:00.000-07:00

Somebody with the screen name "commishiv250" posted the following comment on the Washington Post site:

Like so many others I am sick to death of the political thievery underway in D.C. Has anyone thought of bailing out the American People? So many crazy ideas and plots in the capitol, how about another? I'm against the $85 BILLION bailout recently approved for AIG. If it isn't too late, a friend of mine came up with the following solution:

Instead giving it to AIG, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a "We Deserve It" dividend.

To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bona fide U.S. citizens, aged 18+. Our population is about 301 million counting every man, woman and child. so, 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up. Now, divide 200 million, 18+ adults into $85 billion - that equals $425,000.00 each!

Yes, my plan is to give that $425,000 to every adult as a "We Deserve It" dividend.

Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So, let's assume a tax rate of 30%. Everyone would pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25.5 billion right back to Uncle Sam! It also means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket. A husband and wife would have $595 ,000.00!

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00?

· Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved
· Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads
· Put away money for college - it'll really be there
· Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs
· Buy a new car - create jobs
· Invest in the market - capital drives growth
· Pay for your parent's medical insurance - health care improves
· Enable Deadbeat Parents to come clean - or else

Remember this is for every adult U.S. citizen, 18 and older (including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehmann Brothers and every other company that is cutting back) and of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces. If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out every adult U.S. citizen!!

As for AIG - liquidate it.

· Sell off its parts.
· Let American General go back to being American General.
· Sell off the real estate.
· Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

We deserve the money and AIG doesn't. Sure it's a crazy idea, but can you imagine the coast-to-coast block party?!

How do you spell Economic Boom? W-e D-e-s-e-r-v-e I-t D-i-v-i-d-e-n-d!

I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion "We Deserve It" dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington, D.C.. And remember, The plan only really costs $59.5 billion because $25.5 billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

Any nuttier than the ones presently being seriously considered?

--commishiv250
9/27/2008 11:57:00 AM

They used to call it dystopia.

2008-09-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

Science fiction readers may recall a book from 1952,
"The Space Merchants" by Frederick Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth. The book provided a humorous view of the future, where political governance and national boundaries are replaced by the interests of giant monopolistic capitalist entities.

Fast forward to 2008. The following is from The Albuquerque Journal, business section, Wednesday, September 24.

"Ups and Downs

A look at some factors playing into the changes in financial markets

...BIG VS. SMALL

The government's recent interventions are separating companies into too big to fail, and others too small to bother rescuing. The big have the potential to get even stronger because the perception that the government stands behind their debts can make it possible for them to borrow money more cheaply.

"If there is a group of financial institutions in the United States that are immortal and others -- thousands and thousands -- are too small to save, then the immortals clearly have a leg up," said Kenneth A. Guenther, former president of Independent Community Bankers of America.

The result is likely to be a shakeout leading to greater concentration of power, less competition and higher prices, some industry watchers say...."

Read "The Space Merchants" again. It may not seem so funny anymore.

It's not my fault!

2008-09-23T09:11:00.000-07:00

OK, here's the problem with partisan politics. It is based on placing blame, the notion that everything bad that happens in government is the fault of the other party.

Somehow, fans of talk radio and other doctrinaire Republicans have managed to conclude that this $700 billion dollar mortgage bailout is the fault of the Democratic congress. In the bizarro world of right-wing commentary, the greed-based actions of capitalists running amok were caused by a liberal mindset in Washington.

GMAFB.

Here are my uninformed citizen suggestions:

Require any politician who votes for this deal to contribute an additional $2,300 from his or her own money.

Require the executives of any institution that receives or will receive federal bailout funding to pony up the personal profits -- pay, options, benefits, whatever -- from their last two years of business.

Set up some kind of government authority to help homeowners whose houses are too big and expensive for their budgets find and trade down to smaller dwellings or rental properties. While we Americans do not want to put anybody out on the street, we are not willing to subsidize those whose eyes were larger than their wallets. These people may be victims of unscrupulous mortgage lenders, but now they can use a dose of reality. It may not be necessary to set up a whole new bureaucracy, just to increase funding and support to local housing services.

We are generous people. Just don't ask us to eat beans so we can afford the bill for someone else's steak.

And stop babbling about whose fault this is. Years ago, a very smart person (my mother) gave me the following analogy:

A bunch of people -- probably a family -- is sitting at the table eating dinner. Somehow, and no one really sees how it happened, a glass of milk gets knocked over and milk starts running all over the table, into the serving dishes, and on to the floor. How do you react? Do you (1) engage in a big argument and discussion about whose fault it is that the milk spilled, in order to ascertain who should have to clean it up, while that spilled milk spreads? Or do you (2) quietly and quickly work together to clean up the mess and then finish eating?

In option one, everybody's dinner is ruined and you may or may not find out who accidentally tipped over the milk. But choose in option two, and everybody gets to complete their pleasant meal.

So how about we just wipe up the milk.

How about some honesty and humility from both sides?

2008-09-21T01:02:00.000-07:00

The other day I got into a heated exchange with a well-meaning Republican friend about the way this election is going. Someone on a site I read had been writing about the people she encountered who still thought Barack Obama was a Muslim, that he insisted on being sworn in to the Senate on a Quran, that his wife went around calling people whitey. "If Obama loses because people really don't approve of his plans to govern," I tried to say, "that will be something I can accept. But if most voters are basing their decision on flat-out lies, I might have to move to New Zealand."

My friend wasn't interested in having this particular conversation. (I'm pretty sure it's because he knows in his heart that lies are the only way McCain can win.) I know people who will never vote for a Democrat because they honestly believe that all Democrats want to do is throw our tax money at every problem in the universe, or that Democrats are setting up a nanny state that wants to make all our decisions for us, or because they cannot stomach the platform's blithe dismissal of pro-life arguments.

I sympathize. I stopped voting for Republicans for similar reasons. I never changed my registration, though, because philosophically I still consider myself a Lincoln Republican. Maybe that's why I don't find it helpful for us to be as snotty, smug and dismissive as Ann Coulter at her worst. I've never won an argument by saying "Oh you're too stupid to understand. " I just wish Obama's supporters would stop talking to each other about how dumb the voters are, and go back to making a real case.

Lady de Rothschild strikes again.

2008-09-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I wrote about three of Hillary Clinton's financial backers. They seemed to feel entitled to control the decisions of U.S. voters, and I called for them to be ignored. At the time I also claimed that the three of them "meant well."

Pictured: Lynn Forester and husband Evelyn de Rothschild.
At the time of their marriage, Forbes Magazine noted: "Forester now heads the Luxembourg-based wireless broadband venture FirstMark Communications Europe. The startup launched in 1998 with great fanfare, raising $1 billion in funding and landing former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Washington consigliere Vernon Jordan as board members. But with losses piling up and a public offering pulled, investors are now disgruntled. Not to worry--there's no better backup plan than the Rothschild name."

Now we know better. You see, one of these three committed Democratic activists has just endorsed John McCain. Turns out she's not so comfortable with a Democrat in the White House if that Democrat is not also a personal friend who owes her numerous favors.

The donor in question is a certain Lynn Forester, also known as Lady de Rothschild. I cited this description of her from the Oct 5, 2007, Conde Nast Portfolio:

"When 67-year-old British banking scion Sir Evelyn Rothschild first set eyes on 44-year-old Lynn Forester at the 1998 Bilderburg conference—the matchmaker was none other than Henry Kissinger—she was already a woman of major means.

A corporate lawyer and telecommunications entrepreneur, the sparkly blond ex-wife of former New York politician Andrew Stein had made more than $100 million from the sale of cleverly acquired wireless broadband licenses. She was also sexy, charming, and dazzlingly well connected. Two years later, after the smitten Sir Evelyn divorced his second wife, Victoria Schott, the mother of his three children, Forester became the third Lady Rothschild. After marrying in November 2000 at a London synagogue, they honeymooned at the White House, guests of Lynn's good friends Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Today the New Jersey-born Lady de Rothschild—the flashiest hostess in London—is mates with Tony and Cherie Blair, among other topflight Britons. She's also mistress of the former John Singer Sargent home in Chelsea and of Ascott House, the 3,200-acre Rothschild family estate in Buckinghamshire, and the chief executive of E.L. Rothschild, the holding company that she owns with her third husband to manage investments in the Economist and various enterprises in India. Those include Fieldfresh, a startup that will grow and export Indian fruits and vegetables for markets in Europe and Asia, and a soon-to-be-announced retail venture aimed at the exploding Indian middle class."

The Conde Nast article gets much worse -- and much more revealing. Lady Forester de Rothschild also offered these tidbits:

"First of all, Hillary will be good for America. And so if we care about our country —which all of my fellow capitalists do —we'll be very pleased that she's president. And second of all, if we look at what is best for the economy, remember, she is a Clinton, and our economy under Clinton was strong, dynamic, productive, exciting. And the same kinds of people who advised Bill Clinton will be around Hillary Clinton. And she understands the importance of the business community, and it's not going to be about raising taxes or doing any one specific thing. It's going to be, What is in the best interest of all Americans? And I think if history is our guide, we've had stronger economies, more wealth creation, under Democratic presidents than we have under Republican presidents. So I don't understand why all my capitalist friends aren't Democrats...

They're all going to take whatever questions we have. She's going to listen; they're going to listen. She can't be there the whole day, but it's so quintessentially Hillary. Politics is so boring, where they ask for your money, you get a glass of cheap wine and a biscuit, and then when you say, "You know, I have an idea about health care or I have an idea about inheritance tax," nobody wants to listen to you, because what they really want is your money. Hillary is the opposite. Obviously there aren't enough hours in the day to listen to every idea, but she is listening, and she is responding."

Translation: She will let me and my rich friends steer her economic policies.

To be fair, I don't think Hillary Clinton was ever going to be as easy to control as Lady de Rothschild expected. The quote reveals very little about Clinton's plans, and a whole lot about the assumptions of her so-called friends.

By the way, how did Lynn Forester de Rothschild make her first few million? She acquired assets for free from the U.S. federal government, and then sold them at an enormous profit.

"I realized that frequencies were a limited resource and that there would be a big business at some time around that, and so I was the first person to apply in the United States for wireless-broadband licenses. And yeah, I sold them for a lot of money."

Forester de Rothschild sold her interest in that company a couple months before the economic crash of 2000, and left her investors holding the bag. Anybody who takes investment or political advice from this character seriously needs psychiatric care.

Watch closely next time you see John McCain or Sarah Palin out in public. Are they scratching? It just seems like they've been lying down with so many dogs lately, they've just got to have fleas by now.

This guy gets it.

2008-09-11T11:44:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of Craig Ferguson anyway -- love that Scots accent -- but last night he hit it out of the ballpark. Ferguson is a recently naturalized citizen of the United States, and he used his monologue last night to urge us all to vote. "If you don't, you're a moron."

Full coverage is available on the Kansas City Star's television blog, which also includes video of the monologue and Craig's later comments. Here's a sample:

Half of the people who didn't register to vote were asked why and said, "I'm not interested in the election," or "I'm not interested in politics." How could you be not interested in politics? You have to have an opinion about something! "I'm not interested in politics" - do you live anywhere? Do you shop anywhere? Do you drive a car? Do you put on pants? Do you leave your house at any point? Do you own your house? Do you rent the house? Do you ever hope that the police will save you from something that may or may not be illegal? Of course you are involved in politics! If you are alive you are involved in politics!!

Drinking age isn't the problem.

2008-09-06T12:10:00.000-07:00

This is from a letter to the editor in today's Wall Street Journal. I couldn't paraphrase it as effectively as the writer put it to start with.

"...We learn to drink not from those who love us but in someone's basement, where the focus is speed and avoiding authority. Instead of tasting alcohol out in the open--at dinner, a club or a restaurant, as do minors overseas--we learn to drink secretly and sometimes alone, where a bottle is the sole source of entertainment.

Teach us to drink responsibly; teach us that a glass of wine at dinner isn't such a big deal, that alcohol should enhance an evening, not constitute its total attraction.

Give us clubs and venues where we can learn it's no fun to be incredibly intoxicated and where we'll choose to stick to one or two drinks. And give us a ride or a means of public transportation so we can get home safely.

Or leave us vomiting in someone's basement, getting rushed to the hospital because we had to teach ourselves to drink and we guessed wrong."

Simone Foxman
New York

Aren't there other issues at stake?

2008-09-01T12:06:00.000-07:00

I don't think there is much more to be said about Sarah Palin. Is she a bad mother? Not as far as I can tell. Is her son Trig really her grandson? None of our business.

Sarah Palin is a likeable, camera-friendly evangelical woman and committed lifestyle conservative. That means that philosophically she has no problem making it illegal -- or at least legally uncomfortable -- to be different than she is. It is no surprise to see a candidate with these views on the Republican ticket. She is a smart choice for McCain if only because her judgmental take on many issues of personal choice is infinitely more palatable coming from a young attractive woman instead of a dour middle-aged man.

So let us move on or, in this case, go back to a previous issue. Why is it that women who call themselves feminists are so hung up on legalized abortion? There is a whole spectrum of opinions about whether Roe v. Wade is a good thing for women. Even if you subscribe to the Clinton formulation that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare," you can be unhappy about the absolutist implications of the so-called right to privacy. The fetus is human, and is alive. The only dispute is about whether, or at what point, it is a separate entity with rights apart from those of its mother.

Before any of us had heard of Sarah Palin, i.e. a couple of days ago, I was still curious about whether the die-hard Hillary Clinton supporters were going to join the push to elect Obama, or at the very least shut up. It troubled me that so many professionals and citizen commentators kept falling back on the Emily's List mantra of "You can't vote for McCain because he might be pro-life." There are many other reasons that a supporter of either Clinton would be crazy to vote for any Republican, but that one seemed to trump all other arguments in the hearts and pens of the Democratic Party faithful.

The thing is, and I'm sure I'm repeating myself here, many Americans are ambivalent about the right to choose. We aren't comfortable criminalizing it, but we'd really rather address the issue of unwanted pregnancy at a different point. Maybe there should be better access to birth control. Maybe young women should be raised to value themselves beyond their sexual desirability. Maybe boys as well as girls should be taught to take responsibility for their behavior. Maybe fathers as well as mothers should be encouraged to take time out to raise children. Maybe we should stop treating young parents as social failures.

There are lots of maybes that could reduce the interest in abortion on demand. If the "war on drugs" has taught us anything, it is that making something difficult or illegal doesn't make it go away. The first thing we need to agree on is that abortion, even as a choice, is usually a bad one. I know it is boring and long-term and might make people have to talk to and associate with those they don't currently respect. Maybe the answer is in the gray areas.

Maybe it does take a village.

2008-08-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

The Los Angeles Jewish Journal posts the following terms of service for its message board. I think they're on to something. Several sites I used to frequent, including Jerusalem.com and the Washington Post's "On Faith," would benefit from similar standards.

Our Rules: Tolerance and Respect

Mostly it's about community, discussing political, ethical, social and moral questions, articles published on JewishJournal.com, Los Angeles news, events here and in Israel, and plain old schmoozing.
If you are new to message boards, this link has a good introduction to the 'netiquette' of message boards.
Prosyletizing is unacceptable. Please exercise tolerance and respect toward other participants whose views may differ from your own, and please remain courteous at all times.
If you are here to "educate" us about how the Shoah did not happen, Jesus is the Moshiach, Israel has no right to exist, or that Zionism is racism, etc., no thanks. You are not welcome. Go away.
Make the subject line as descriptive as possible about the message content.
We are here to discuss subjects pertinent to American Jews; off-topic posts will be deleted.
This is not an advertising service. We do not allow posts containing any form of advertisement.
Copyrighted material is not allowed.
Profanity is not acceptable. Ad-hominem arguments and name-calling are not welcome. We dislike lashon hara.

Hey, we're doing our best.

2008-08-19T10:43:00.000-07:00

Last Friday -- August 15th -- was the feast of the Assumption. A small group of us from various music ministries in the parish put together a choir for the 9:15 a.m. mass. It was a case of whoever can make it on a workday, but we did all right. Most of the songs we sang were familiar enough that the congregation sang along. (When I say the congregation in this context I mean the roughly half the attendees who actually participate in anything besides rote recitation and communion.)

Not all the music we sang was my favorite, to put it mildly, but I sang loudly when I was sure of the tune and more tentatively when I wasn't. A choir put together that quickly doesn't get a lot of rehearsal time, and we were a capella, since both the regular accompanists had to work.

A few days later I happened to be early to Sunday mass and allowed myself to be roped into singing with the choir. It wasn't my usual group, I hadn't rehearsed and I didn't know all the music. I lip-synched to the parts I didn't know and helped out when I could. In both cases, the mass was much improved by having live music. Some of the people involved (not me necessarily) had put a lot of effort into providing a service to the congregation at the cost of their own time, energy and talent.

I don't remember now whether it was on Friday or Sunday, but a woman came up to our songleader at the end of the mass and launched into a lecture on how we had sung one of the songs wrong. The woman demonstrated on the piano her version of how the song should sound. "You need to sing it the way it's written," she told us. As far as I could tell, we had sung it the way it was written. Her point had something to do with triplets, which she played very fast like incidental notes, but which we had sung pretty much even tempo.

I'm not a well-trained musician -- to say I even read music is an exaggeration -- and for all I know the lady was right. Nevertheless, I had two conflicting reactions to her criticism. First, I sympathized with her apparent impatience with the ad hoc quality of our church's musical offerings. I wish our choirs were bigger, more skilled and just plain louder. There are some structural reasons why I think my parish often misses the boat on congregational singing. For me this is often exemplified by the congregation's habit of applauding after we finish singing the recessional. Excuse me, we are not performers. If it is enough just to sit silently and listen to us then we're not doing our job.

Which brings me to my other reaction to the woman with the fast triplets. If she's such a skilled musician, why isn't she in the choir? It is easy to criticize from the pews, harder to stand up there in the front or the church and try to add to the liturgy. She was trying to be helpful, but she would have been a bigger help going over the music at the rehearsal before mass, and maybe even exerting herself enough to participate on a weekly or even monthly basis. We were surprised and a little hurt, so none of us showed the presence of mind to provide her with contact information or rehearsal schedules for our choirs, which always need new people.

The lesson here is obvious: If you think you can do something better than those currently doing it, then you should be involved.

...And it's really wide, too.

2008-08-05T19:32:00.001-07:00

photograph (from National Geographic) by Peter Miller/Getty Images

By what process did Montana receive the name "Big Sky State"? I only ask because I can't imagine anywhere in the world having a bigger sky than western Nebraska. Montana is a beautiful place, but much of its sky is obscured by mountains. If you want to see stars without using a telescope, or spot the approach of a change in weather just by gazing toward the horizon, the choice has got to be Nebraska.

Speaking of bears....

2008-07-26T14:06:00.000-07:00

Why are bears thought of as kindly, but dumb, friends to humans? Is it because they walk upright, and have slightly human-looking hands and faces? Further, why do we consider most of our fellow primates to be slightly silly, like human children?

I think the key might be in the way we anthropomorphize them. You can't judge a cat's appearance by human standards, as the absurd costuming of the musical "Cats" made all too clear. (The only quasi-theatrical attempt at blending human and feline standards of appearance that ever worked was the Cat character on "Red Dwarf." He was also, of course, not meant to be taken seriously.) Try looking at your cat's face, or your dog's, or your iguana's. If you try to picture them as human faces, they range from mildly misshapen to frightening.

A chimp, on the other hand, bears a strong physical resemblance to a confused or ridiculous human. As a result, we see them in relation to ourselves, while a cat's completely non-human demeanor comes across as mysterious and wise. The fact is, your cat is not as "smart" as the average primate, bear or even pig. Dogs, while smarter than cats, rely on pack instincts to make decisions that would be no challenge to an orangutan.

This all may be philosophical. On the practical side, wolves and coyotes are not your pet german shepherd; that cuddly-seeming bear is a fierce and crafty omnivore who will eat you if he's hungry; and we learn every day how little separates us from the other primates. Treat them all with the respect and fear that they deserve.

Every couple of years we hear a story about a child or small animal falling into the polar bear enclosure and being eaten. Should we really be blaming that on the bears?

The "McSame" label just doesn't cut it.

2008-07-21T08:08:00.001-07:00

This year's presidential election will not be decided by negative campaigning. For the first time in years, Americans have a choice of two positives. If McCain wins, it will be because people trust him and want the kind of governance he stands for. If Obama wins, it will be because people trust him and want the kind of governance he stands for.

The McCain campaign and the Republicans in general have plenty of material -- much of it spurious -- to aim against Obama. I hope they realize that this year that isn't the path to victory. (As an Obama supporter I'm not hoping too hard.)

The Democrats, even in the Obama campaign, seem to be relying on an even more dangerous mantra: "A vote for McCain is a vote for a third Bush term." Really? They really can't see the difference between McCain and Bush? No matter how energetically McCain panders to the so-called Republican base, he will never resemble George W. Bush.

The New Republic's Jonathan Chait is on to the problem. He writes,

" ....even though Democrats are extremely enthusiastic about Barack Obama, that life-and-death quality is absent. I think the reason is that a lot of liberals kind of like John McCain. I know I do.

Eight years ago, I was a hard-core liberal McCainiac. Here was a Republican saying things no other Republican would say and fighting, Teddy Roosevelt-style, to wrest his party from the hands of the plutocrats who controlled it. And, in the years immediately following that run, McCain established himself as perhaps the country's foremost progressive champion. He was an opponent, on moral and fiscal grounds, of tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the rich. He was also a fierce opponent of the extreme elements of the religious right. He was a proponent of global-warming legislation, the Law of the Sea Treaty, a moderate immigration bill, expanded public financing of elections, a tobacco tax, and many other liberal reforms....

....Where Bush is peevish, entitled, and insecure, McCain's charming, ironic, and self-deprecating. Bush's path to public life was trading on his father's name to run a series of business ventures into the ground before being handed a baseball team. McCain's was an episode of awe-inspiring perseverance...."

We should celebrate the fact that each party seems to have chosen its most original thinker, and best listener, as its candidate for president. Whichever way this election goes -- and I'm confident that Obama is our next president -- Bush will be history.

I subscribe to the New Yorker.

2008-07-19T16:21:00.000-07:00

I received my copy of the July 21, 2008, New Yorker the day after the outrage broke. I had seen the cover cartoon on several websites, sometimes accompanied by a brief synopsis of the article in question. It didn't make sense to comment until I had seen the magazine. It still might not make sense, but that has never stopped me before....

As usual, the New Yorker's political coverage was the weakest part of the magazine. The Obama profile looked to be a basic rehash of stories familiar to any Chicagoan or regular reader of the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times. I say "looked to be" because I fell asleep before I finished reading the article.

The July 21 issue did have some good pieces. My standard is that if information or quotations from a book or article spring to mind repeatedly when I am supposed to be doing other things -- and not purely because of ridiculousness of subject or egregious grammatical errors -- then the item in question was worth reading. I've waited a couple of days to see what passes the test.

I loved Jill Lepore's story about E. B. White and how the librarian from the New York Public Library tried to have "Stuart Little" blacklisted. The short fiction was a little dull but excusably so since the theme seemed to be dullness. Elizabeth Kolbert's review of a book about grass lawns left me with some ideas about dealing with my own front yard. I agree with Hendrik Hertzberg about Obama's so-called flip flops, so his column pleased me. Neither of the poems and none of the cartoons stuck in my mind. David Denby's review made me want to see the children's film "WALL-E."

Like most periodicals it isn't something I read from cover to cover unless I feel ill and it is the only reading material at hand. I am always happy to see a New Yorker in my mailbox, so that must make me a satisfied reader.

The cover, titled "The Politics of Fear"? Even with all the hoopla, it was forgettable. Don't take my word for it, though. I've never been a fan of Barry Blitt's drawing style, or of caricatures in general.

Saving the world, for real.

2008-07-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

I thought Hillary Clinton's campaign was over. I was gearing up for the fight to get enough Democrats into the executive and legislative branches so that she could coast through the confirmation process in her next assignment, justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. For that job, Clinton has it all; a sharp legal mind, an admirable work ethic and a record of service. And as an appointment for life, it will allow her to put aside the constant political posturing that elected office requires, and concentrate on real questions.

Now I read that Susie Tompkins Buell, Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild and Jill Iscol are refusing to raise money for Obama's campaign unless he offers her the vice presidential slot. They have every right to use their money for whatever purpose they want, but I do wish the chattering classes would stop asking them for their opinions. Putting aside the question of where Clinton could be most effective for the longest time, I have to ask, is this democracy? Need I remind Democrats that the GOP's listening to the clubbish preferences of big financial backers eight years ago gave us President George W. Bush?

Each of these three moneyed socialites has some worthwhile causes to her credit. Iscol's money presumably comes from her marriage to the owner of Cellular One, but she had a long career in education and has been actively working for years to improve the prospects and opportunities of America's public schoolchildren. That effort has more recently extended worldwide.

Her son Zachary Iscol, an officer in the U.S. Marines, has been an advocate far at least one Iraqi family left in danger because of service to U.S. forces. The New York Sun noted:

"Of the 2 million Iraqis who have taken refuge from the war in neighboring countries, about 900 have received visas in the last year to come to America.

Khalid Abood received his largely through the efforts of a Marine Corps captain, Zachary Iscol, whom Mr. Abood served under in 2004. Mr. Abood's departure to Jordan prompted Captain Iscol to travel to Capitol Hill and tell legislators of the plight of his former interpreter...

...In addition to investigative work, [Abood's] new job will involve interpreting for Arabic-speaking crime victims and suspects. Mr. Abood first came to [Manhattan District Attorney Robert] Morgenthau's attention through Captain Iscol's father, a family friend...."

As for Lynn Forester, she is also known as Lady de Rothschild. This is from the Oct 5, 2007, Conde Nast Portfolio:

"When 67-year-old British banking scion Sir Evelyn Rothschild first set eyes on 44-year-old Lynn Forester at the 1998 Bilderburg conference—the matchmaker was none other than Henry Kissinger—she was already a woman of major means.

A corporate lawyer and telecommunications entrepreneur, the sparkly blond ex-wife of former New York politician Andrew Stein had made more than $100 million from the sale of cleverly acquired wireless broadband licenses. She was also sexy, charming, and dazzlingly well connected. Two years later, after the smitten Sir Evelyn divorced his second wife, Victoria Schott, the mother of his three children, Forester became the third Lady Rothschild. After marrying in November 2000 at a London synagogue, they honeymooned at the White House, guests of Lynn's good friends Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Today the New Jersey-born Lady de Rothschild—the flashiest hostess in London—is mates with Tony and Cherie Blair, among other topflight Britons. She's also mistress of the former John Singer Sargent home in Chelsea and of Ascott House, the 3,200-acre Rothschild family estate in Buckinghamshire, and the chief executive of E.L. Rothschild, the holding company that she owns with her third husband to manage investments in the Economist and various enterprises in India. Those include Fieldfresh, a startup that will grow and export Indian fruits and vegetables for markets in Europe and Asia, and a soon-to-be-announced retail venture aimed at the exploding Indian middle class."

The Point Reyes Light, a community newspaper on the California coast, included this in a 2006 profile of Buell:

"Susie Tomkins Buell perched on a chartreuse bouclé armchair in her Bolinas living room Monday afternoon, her legs comfortably tucked beneath her. She reflected on the role that has increasingly occupied her attention since leaving Esprit de Corps and setting up the Susie Tompkins Buell Foundation in 1996 — that of a philanthropist. Nowadays, she and her husband, Mark Buell, spend their time deciding to whom and when to give money to best advance their political agenda: saving the world.

The Buells want Democrats in office. They want global warming addressed and thwarted. Most of all, they want women in power...."

All three of these women mean well. Politics, though, is apparently not their strength. Iscol, of "How Dare You" fame, seems to have a psychological need to be heard -- and heard, and heard. Forester de Rothschild may be uncomfortable with a first lady like Michelle Obama, a woman with working class roots who has been known to make more money than her husband makes. Buell may feel that the world is better saved by another Republican in office than by a man who treats his wife and daughters with respect. All three just might feel that they have been insufficiently kowtowed to so far by the Obama campaign. When you are used to buying for your friends the outcomes you want with your social and financial connections, it might be hard to realize that you are no longer calling the shots.

It may not have dawned on Susie Tompkins Buell, Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild and Jill Schaefer Iscol that America might not wish to have its leadership dictated by a trio of well-groomed elitists, or that what we like about Obama is that he feels like one of us, not one of them.

Apparently the piece of paper does not make you smarter.

2008-07-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting item in today's "Inside Higher Ed" about a retired professor misquoting someone in a column he wrote.

Edward Bernard Glick's column in The American Thinker, titled something like "How our Marxist faculties got that way" included the following remark, in quotation marks and attributed to the head of the psychology department at Duke: "No. We don’t hire Republicans because they are stupid and we are not. Why should we knowingly hire stupid professors?" Although the remark turned out to be apocryphal at best, it captures the way we all suspect that many educated people, especially toilers in the higher education trenches, think. The assumption is that (1) conservative Republicans are stupid, and (2) people with Ph.D.s are more intelligent and open minded than the population as a whole.

These statements only hold up to the most biased and cursory scrutiny. Many people with graduate degrees are highly intelligent, thoughtful people. Another group of them (smaller than the first, I hope) is composed of those who had the time, money and endurance to become extremely well-informed in one narrow area of expertise, or who were able to jump through the requisite set of higher education hoops, but whose natural inclination or habits of thought have become narrow as well. This second group tends to be over-impressed with their own accomplishments and thoroughly convinced that it makes them better than people with less formal education.

As for the assumption about conservative Republicans, it may seem hard to refute. Suffice it to say that George W. Bush, James Dobson and Lou Dobbs do not constitute the entire universe of Republican and conservative thought. Just as an example, most of us do not think that the problem with Richard Cheney or Karl Rove is their lack of cleverness, intelligence or cunning. I could digress further here on the absolute necessity for all social, economic and educational levels to employ their own critical thinking to truisms from both left and right, but you must catch my drift.

By the way, the real quote that Glick heard third or fourth-hand from a report on National Public Radio (a treasure trove of "progressive" attitudes) was this, from former chair of the Duke philosophy department Robert Brandon: “I don’t know the political affiliation of all of my colleagues in philosophy, nor do I care,” Brandon had told the [Duke] student paper. “Our last hire was in the history of modern philosophy. We hired an expert in Kant and Newton. Politics never came up in the interview.” Brandon had gone on to say “We try to hire the best, smartest people available. If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire. Mill’s analysis may go some way towards explaining the power of the Republican party in our society and the relative scarcity of Republicans in academia. Players in the NBA tend to be taller than average. There is a good reason for this. Members of academia tend to be a bit smarter than average. There is a good reason for this too.”

Judge for yourself whether that means what Glick's misquote implied.

How do we administer the freedom we have?

2008-07-09T21:27:00.000-07:00

Rabbi Yonason Goldson offers a useful commentary on the subject of free will in his "Ethics of the Fathers" column last week on the aish.com Jewish learning website. In it Goldson addresses the gap between God's omniscience and omnipotence, on one side, and humanity's ability to make choices, on the other. For example:

"...On the one hand, God has created malachim - heavenly angels of pure spirituality that can do nothing other than perform His will; on the other hand, He has created animals, creatures that are purely physical and unable to follow any course of action other than their natural impulses. Only human beings possess a spiritual soul clothed in a physical body; only human beings possess the potential to transcend the physical and cling to the spiritual by an act of free will...."

"...[T]he Almighty knows when the ultimate redemption will come. But we do not. Neither do we know whether we are meant to struggle with poverty or with wealth, with conflict or with comfort, with success or with failure. Whatever our lot in life, it is the struggle that matters. We will be judged not for our successes or our failures, but according the effort we exert to choose wisely and rightly in accordance with the divine will..."

July 6, 2008

So now it's a sin to be open-minded?

2008-06-29T12:57:00.000-07:00

Two more shows this weekend where "knowledgeable" commentators decry Obama's shifting position on various issues -- this time it was the 2nd Amendment -- and call him a flip-flopper. Is that a bad thing? George W. Bush rarely changes his mind in response to facts and events. Is that a good thing?

Very few members of the media and political establishment show any understanding of the reasons Barack Obama is so popular. Sure, he's an inspiring speaker. Yeah, we like his family. Of course, it's nice to see an African American go so far. All of those make up just a small part of why people like him. Here's the reason that we don't get the vapors when he revises a position he has held in the past:

It means he is listening. It means that, as a member of the reality-based community out here west of Washington, D.C., and east of Hollywood, he allows facts to sway him. It means that he is unlikely to formulate a plan without having the information he needs to make it work, and it means that if he comes up with a solution that solves nothing he might be willing to try something else.

The story from the 1990s on health care, for instance, is that the Clintons came in with a plan and refused to listen to objections or adaptations from those outside their inner circle. Some of the criticism of how that was handled is undoubtedly unfair, coming from people with 20-20 hindsight. One thing is certain, though, the problem was not flexibility.

I'm not even going to go into the Rumsfeld doctrine and Iraq.

Another criticism of Obama is that his record is too short for the know-it-alls in New York and Washington to be able to predict what he will do in unknown circumstances. But we do know. We know that he will remain calm. We know that he will gather facts. We know that he will handle situations with unreliable variables in ways that address those variables. None of us can predict that he will do exactly what we want him to do when he is president, but we trust his judgment. We trust him because his views and reactions are not written in stone, because he knows that every constitutional case and every diplomatic situation is unique.

Obama's ideology may be weak, but his intellect and compassion seem reliable. That is a virtue, and voters see it even if the political professionals do not.

Watch those dates: Americans are smarter than we look

2008-06-22T17:49:00.000-07:00

Here is my take on the ABC - Washington Post opinion poll that just came out. Notice the dates on these figures.

Topic: George W. Bush approval ratings

As of 6/15/08 (recent poll) 29% of Americans polled approved of the job George W. Bush is doing. In the same poll 68% disapproved of his performance, and 3% had no opinion. That's now. On 5/23/04, his rating first dipped below 50%, hitting 47% approval around the time of the Abu Ghraib revelations. That's down from 71% approval 4/30/03 when the Bush government was declaring Iraq operations complete. Before the Iraq action - 2/9/03 - he had been approved of by 64% of respondents. Bush polled highest on 9/13/01 (just after the 9/11 bombings) at 86%, up from 55% on 9/9/01.

Topic: Is the country on the right track?

The current figures are 14% for yes, 84% no, and only 2% not sure. The last time it was so low -- 14% yes, 83% no, and 3% not sure -- was 6/7/92, the year Bill Clinton was elected after 12 years of Republican rule.

Topic: Is the Iraq war worth it?

Again, events are reflected in the opinions. This poll shows 34% for the affirmative and 63% feeling negative. The one taken 9/8/04, at the time of the Fallujah offensive, was a little closer at 51% yes and 45% no, while optimism reigned on 4/30/03, at the time we were supposed to have completed Iraq operations, with 70% yes answers and 27% answering no.

No clever title available here.

2008-06-21T21:36:00.001-07:00

Recently, these graffiti were scrawled on the family home of Mikey Weinstein, whose Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been in the forefront of the fight against aggressive proselytizing of our uniformed troops. It has been the foundation's mission to combat the social trends and official policies that seek to make evangelical Christianity an exclusive part of the definition of American citizenship and patriotism.

As a Christian, and as an American, it saddens me to see these two symbols linked in any circumstances.

Celebrate the Pangea Day Concept

2008-06-21T15:46:00.000-07:00

The Pangea Day website has posted 51 of the 250+ videos that were submitted to their recent contest. The films are PSA length -- about 5 minutes or shorter -- and come from all over the world. Some are funny, some poignant, and others cover the range of moods in between. They address different subjects related to community values and sustainability.

This year's Pangea Day was in May, but the issues addressed are continuous.

The young energy pioneer William Kamkwamba, from Malawi, is featured in one of the spots, "Moving Windmills." Check out that film and the others for some free entertainment, information and insight into the world where we live.

Serdar Ferit's short film, "Elevator Music," is
a light but pointed take on noise pollution.

Here is a cross-post on education and politics...

2008-06-15T13:18:00.000-07:00

Nuanced Faith: Are we really that dumb?

And where has toughness gotten us?

2008-06-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

Susan Faludi advances an interesting theory in today's New York Times.

"...[A] Barack Obama versus John McCain match-up still has the makings of an epic American gender showdown.

The reason is a gender ethic that has guided American politics since the age of Andrew Jackson. The sentiment was succinctly expressed in a massive marble statue that stood on the steps of the United States Capitol from 1853 to 1958. Named “The Rescue,” but more commonly known as “Daniel Boone Protects His Family,” the monument featured a gigantic white pioneer in a buckskin coat holding a nearly naked Indian in a death’s grip, while off to the side a frail white woman crouched over her infant.

The question asked by this American Sphinx to all who dared enter the halls of leadership was, “Are you man enough?” This year, Senator Obama has notably refused to give the traditional answer...."

So, like Bill Clinton was the first black president, is Obama going to be the first woman? Does this kind of labeling do us any good? I used to have a neighbor who was prissy and whiny and, frankly, annoying. I described him to people with the phrase "He's such a woman." Leaving aside the question of whether I, an avowed feminist, should have been using such an expression at all, is this perception going to hurt Obama? Like Faludi, I tend to think it will not. The reason is that Americans have had enough of bullies and chicken hawks. If McCain is smart, he'll let his sensitive side show.

I still call myself a Republican, but...

2008-06-13T21:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've done it. I'm still not willing to change my registration from Republican to Democrat, but I've officially signed up to work on Tom Udall's campaign for the U.S. Senate. I'm just working a couple of hours a week in the office; they tell me that there is a good-sized "Republicans for Udall" contingent but I have to admit that I don't get along too well with most other Republicans.

I do wonder whether Steve Pearce's office allows people to bring four different dogs in to work with them. Are Democrats just free-spirited animal lovers, or is this a reflection of Udall's outdoorsman/environmentalist leanings? Oh well, they seem like nice dogs; they get along with each other and with the staff and they don't slobber unnecessarily.

Oh my goodness, I hope not.

2008-06-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

I saw this in the Boston Globe's "Quotes of Note."

"This was to women what Indiana Jones and 'Star Wars,' let's say, are to men."-- PAUL DERGARABEDIAN, president of box office tracker Media By Numbers, on the $55.7 million earned by "Sex and the City"

So men dream of saving planets from destruction, and we women dream of -- what? New shoes?

Pardon my math, but Obama looks like a winner.

2008-05-31T21:39:00.000-07:00

Based on the rough totals that I've been tracking in this primary, Barack Obama has gotten 17,505,420 votes so far if you count Michigan's uncommitted Democrats for him. I frankly don't see how you can count them any other way, since they are Democrats who voted against Hillary Clinton. Even without Michigan, Obama has about 17,267,658 votes.

John McCain's numbers have been lower, partly because the GOP primaries were a done deal much sooner. I suspect that this is also because the Republican Party is demoralized by the Bush presidency. Anyway, my count for McCain is 8,105,439. Let's multiply that by 1.5 just to be realistic, and give him 12,158,158.

Then we'll take Hillary Clinton's supporters at their word and assume that half of them dislike Obama so intensely that they will vote for a Republican. I think they call that cutting off your nose to spite your face, except in this case they're asking lots of other Democrats and progressive-minded Independents to sacrifice their noses as well. Half of Clinton's total -- including Florida and Michigan -- is 8,714,890 votes. If we add that many to Obama's no-Michigan total we get 25,982,548. With Michigan it is 26,220,310. Add the 8,714,890 disgruntled Clintonites to McCain's total and we get 20,873,048.

Obama would win by 5,109,500 votes, or 11 percentage points.

My point is, even using the relatively pessimistic evidence of primary and caucus votes, November looks like a safe win for the Democrats. In case it isn't obvious, I'm no statistician. What I am is the mother of an eighteen year old who I would rather see in college the next couple of years than possibly drafted into combat. I totally understand how Barbara Bush and Cheney's mama felt about sending their boys to war.

By the way, as bad as my math is, it wouldn't work at all if Hillary Clinton were the nominee. Obama supporters are less likely to switch parties if their guy gets the rug pulled out from under him, but they could definitely stay home. The real difference will be on the McCain side. Demoralized or not, the Republicans will turn out in droves to keep Mrs. Clinton out of the White House. I don't much like or approve of the reasons they'll do this, but I can face facts. That scenario is beyond my fertile imagination to estimate.

Note: I've updated the numbers since June 1st, 2008.

Geraldine Ferraro is not an idiot.

2008-05-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

Geraldine Ferraro is an Italian-American politician and ex-officeholder who understands identity politics. Like many Americans she comes from a background and belief that governance is the ultimate zero-sum game. In this context it is as impossible for Barack Obama to care about white people as it is for Bill Richardson to consider the needs of Anglo-Americans -- or, by the same logic, for Hillary Clinton to represent males. In Ferraro's universe of racial and ethnic interest groups and tightly controlled machine politics, the name of the game is patronage. There is only so much pork to be handed out, and if anything at all goes to a previously ignored or devalued group of people, it is at the expense of the group who used to be on top.

In today's Boston Globe, she writes "As for Reagan Democrats, how Clinton was treated is not their issue. They are more concerned with how they have been treated........ It's not racism that is driving them, it's racial resentment." I'm not sure how this qualifies as "not racism," but everyone likes to believe that as bad as their lives get, there is always someone beneath them on the stairway to success. Like Ferraro, the voters she claims to represent are not interested in a flood that lifts all boats. They think they know from previous experience that any change that comes from Washington will be to their detriment. Why should they think otherwise? Every politician runs on a message of improving life for some group or other, and the lives of high school educated working people stay the same or get worse. It must be that dark-skinned guy's fault, or maybe them people who don't speak English so good.

Ferraro writes: "Hope, change, and inspiration don't do it." Really? Are we just crabs in a bucket, or are we the most imaginative species ever put on the planet?

DOES SOMEBODY ACTUALLY BELIEVE THIS STUFF??

2008-05-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

I received the following email this week. It is the second or third time different friends have sent it to me. I'm pretty sure they were just passing in on out of habit and couldn't have read it themselves, let alone put any credence into it. I did clean up many of the typos, repetitions and mis-spelled words.

The Bible warns us of Barack Obama!

The Bible has warned us that 'A man will come from the East that will be charismatic in nature and have proposed solutions for all our problems and his rhetoric will attract many supporters!'

When will our pathetic Nation quit turning their back on God and understand that this man is 'A Muslim'....First, Last and always....and we are AT WAR with the Muslim Nation, whether our bleeding-heart, secular, Liberal friends believe it or not. This man fits every description from the Bible of the 'Anti-Christ'!

I'm just glad to know that there are others that are frightened by this man!

Who is Barack Obama?

Very interesting and something that should be considered in your choice.

If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all your contacts...this is very scary to think of what lies ahead of us here in our own United States...better heed this and pray about it and share it.

snopes.com ... confirms this is factual. Check for yourself.
[Note: If you do check "Snopes" you will see this email reproduced word-for-word and labeled false. Snopes also includes specific citations on many of the claims here and documentation that they are lies.]

Who is Barack Obama?

Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHEIST from Wichita, Kansas.

Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii.

When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya. His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia .

When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta. He also spent two years in a Catholic school.

Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, 'He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school.'

Obama's political handlers are a attempting to make it appear that that he is not a radical.

Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son's education.

Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahhabi school in Jakarta.

Wahhabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States , Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background. ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran.

Barack Hussein Obama will NOT recite the Pledge of Allegiance nor will he show any reverence for our flag. While others place their hands over their hearts, Obama turns his back to the flag and slouches. Do you want someone like this as your PRESIDENT? Our problems and his rhetoric will attract many supporters!'

Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy.

The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States, one of their own!

Freedom, comfort and utility

2008-05-11T16:06:00.000-07:00

Many years ago when I lived in Chicago, I used to frequent the downtown Chicago Public Library. I would go there mostly to read the newspaper or to get some peace and quiet on my way to work or in between college classes. Quite frequently I would have to move from where I was sitting because of the smell coming from a fellow library patron. In those days we called them bums, and they were generally harmless but not always pleasant to have too close.

Now I work part-time at a community center that is right down the street from the largest homeless shelter in this part of the state. The residents are not allowed in the sleeping quarters during the day; I'm not sure why, but it may be part of the director's emphasis on helping people to help themselves by looking for jobs and purposeful activities, or simply not wanting them to wallow in their misfortune. Whatever the reason, many of them end up wandering around the neighborhood for the day. The people from this particular shelter tend to be clean and well-behaved. Many are parents with children, who bring the children to play in our center's park and playground. We have drinking fountains and bathrooms, and even bus schedules for the line that stops on our corner.

Every once in a while someone -- often but not always from the shelter -- will come in and ask to see our facility and want to know what services we provide, whether they can use the pool table, whatever. The other day it was very windy outside and a man stopped in with the usual questions. The manager on duty was rather unfriendly with him and told him we were closed during the day -- which is to a large extent true. After he left she told me "I know how I sounded but we don't want to have all of them coming over here and hanging around all day when we have kids here and programs going on."

She had a point. We are responsible for the safety of children in our care, and we need to be available for the programs we have scheduled and advertised. It would be inhospitable to the (taxpaying) neighborhood residents if we became a refuge for just anyone with noplace better to go. This all makes sense, but still it makes me uncomfortable to turn people in the community away from a community center....

Dear B.J. Novak

2008-05-07T23:57:00.000-07:00

You cannot get orange juice from poking a straw into a fresh orange. You can, however, drink orange juice out of a fresh orange through a candy stick. It is a delightful treat we learned in Girl Scouts.

Books for Soldiers -- What a great concept!

2008-05-03T14:16:00.001-07:00

The "Books for Soldiers" organization is currently making a big push for donations and participation. They provide reading material as requested by member of the military currently deployed in areas away from the usual libraries and bookstores. Many of their usual funding sources are stretched thin at the moment, so they can use any help they can get. They have no paid staff, but they provide a valuable service.

Please help if you can!

I heard this somewhere...

2008-04-30T23:52:00.001-07:00

Why are Unitarians such lousy hymn singers? They are reading ahead to see if they agree with the next line.

Some people are just scum

2008-04-12T21:11:00.000-07:00

The Boston Globe has a story today about a house fire in which two children were killed. The story is sad on many levels. Then again, there is sad, and there is outrageous.

"[A relative] said people had rummaged through the home, robbing the family of figurines, electronics, and jewelry.

"She's traumatized, really stressed out," Chimelis said as he pounded nails into wood boards. "And now this? People robbing the place? It's crazy. A lot of things look like they're missing."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/04/12/brother_and_sister_die_in_holyoke_blaze/

Shame on you, Mayor Marty

2008-03-26T20:16:00.000-07:00

I am delighted that Bill Richardson managed to make his endorsement of Barack Obama significant. It would probably have been easier to stay out, or to stay on the Clintons' road to nowhere, but the governor's statements and his timing have deserved at least as much attention as he has gotten.

I'm not so delighted with the position of Martin Chavez, mayor of Albuquerque. I had always heard that Chavez was the consummate machine politician, but I thought he was a guy who understood perceptions. And here's the perception that he is currently emitting like a whiff of garbage in the sweet spring air: Politics is not about honesty, or governing, or competence, or who can do the best job under unforseen circumstances. No, Martin Chavez has made it clear that politics is all about who owes favors to whom, and which voters belong in which pockets.

Don't get me wrong. Chavez has every right to choose his own candidate and to defend that choice in whatever manner he pleases. In addition, we all know that the "scratch my back" strategy is common in politics and always has been. But I am sad to see him behave and speak with so little dignity.

Shades of Natalee Holloway

2008-03-07T05:29:00.000-08:00

Last night I watched the local ten-o'clock news. Now I remember why I don't usually do that. It's not -- or not only -- because I prefer the "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" reruns on My-50 TV.

The NBC affiliate here, KOB-TV, has good, intelligent-sounding anchorpeople, and they do a reasonable job most of the time covering local news. But with all the national and international news available, they think what will interest us most are stories about two missing white girls from Georgia?

The stories, which KOB did as a single item, seem to have only a superficial relation to each other. The police in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Auburn, Alabama, have released little information and have given no reason to link the two events.

The story is uninteresting to start with, and raises a serious question. Have there been no murders, mysteries or disappearances in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona or Utah? Do we really have to go all the way to Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina to find crimes worth reporting on? I realize both of these victims are pretty white college girls, but does that make them more interesting than people with tragedies closer to home?

All I can say is, somebody with pretty weird judgment must be calling the shots at KOB.

Clinton-Obama? Obama-Clinton? I don't think so.

2008-03-05T09:44:00.000-08:00

I still believe Barack Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee. There aren't many people left in these United States who can be convinced that he is both a Muslim and a member of a Black-power Christian church. I'm also willing to admit that I don't have a clue what makes most voters -- especially Democrats -- choose the way they do.

There is one thing that would really upset me, if the Democrats didn't nominate Obama. That would be for him to accept the role of vice president to Hillary Clinton or any other candidate. If the professional politicians haven't grasped this yet, I'm here to remind them: Vice president is a dead end job, and its main requirement is a career killer.

The requirement I'm talking about is the necessity to put aside one's own methods, values and ideals and adopt those of the person at the top of the ticket. Once a politician has done that, it's over. Ask George H.W. Bush, who once upon a time called Reagan's economic plan "Voodoo economics." Ask Al Gore, who was unable to inherit the discredited presidency from his egotistical predecessor. By the way, I don't fault Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton for wanting to do things their own way. That's part of what it means to be president. You have to have a robust ego to get through an election, let alone to govern this huge and almost unmanageable polity.

I seem to remember, years ago before I was old enough to vote, that vice president was the job used to prepare the next president. It isn't like that any more. The vice president has to swallow so much of his (or her) own good sense, has to be such an extreme team player, that they effectively disappear as a separate option. It isn't as if Bill Clinton -- or Michelle Obama or Cindy McCain, for that matter -- is planning to back off and let the president take advice from an outsider, a former political opponent. If Hillary Clinton has accomplished nothing else, she has strengthened the advisory role of the first spouse.

Mike Huckabee could be vice president. He has said himself that he has nothing better to do. Mitt Romney might have the time. But for anyone who has a good job already, whether Governor of New Mexico or senator from Delaware, Illinois or New York, I would say don't do it. If you still long for a role in the executive branch of the federal government, hold out for a cabinet post.

Pictures make a difference

2008-02-26T11:18:00.002-08:00

I offer the picture on the far right (whoever would have put her there!) from the Politico site to show that there is at least one flattering photograph of Hillary Clinton circulating out there somewhere. Wouldn't you rather vote for this candidate than for the one we keep seeing on the evening news?

....And I offer on the left this version of the Somali-outfit pictures (I got it off The Scotsman website) to show that a picture of Barack Obama can be unflattering. It's not the clothes he's wearing, by the way, that make him look foolish here. It's the goofy grin on his face. At least when Obama gets visually skewered he still seems likable, if not particularly authoritative.

By the way, and this is no great insight, Clinton is most likable when she is least authoritative.

Richardson's Endorsement: Who Cares?

2008-02-26T10:54:00.000-08:00

One of the web sites -- Huffington Post or Politico, I think -- is reporting that Bill Richardson will be announcing his endorsement in the Democratic primary by this Friday.

Maybe.

Does anybody care any more? Back when Richardson first dropped out of the race, Hillary Clinton was ahead, John Edwards was still viable and Barack Obama was gaining fast. How fast he was gaining was not yet obvious. There were a couple of weeks there when everyone really wanted to know which candidate Richardson would back.

Some people saw him as a valuable spokesman for the Latino voting bloc. Latinos -- Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran, Argentine, Dominican and Spanish-Americans among others too numerous to list -- don't actually vote as a bloc. But that's another story. Some people saw him as a significant bellwether for influential former Clintonites. Lots of people cared what he might be thinking.

Bill Richardson wasted that time. He watched the Super Bowl with Bill Clinton. He grew a beard and renewed his devotion to his pet causes here in New Mexico, where he is still governor. It looked then and continues to look like he is trying to stay friendly with all the candidates, in order to preserve his shot at a cabinet appointment from the eventual nominee.

In my case, since I had contributed a couple of bucks to his campaign, I was still on the email list. One missive carried the tagline "Richardson poised to make endorsement." I opened the letter. It was a request for more money to help retire his campaign debt.

I was suddenly receiving emails from Lt. Governor Diane Denish, who was endorsing and aggressively supporting Hillary Clinton. Gee, I'm registered as a Republican, so how could they possibly have gotten my name? Maybe from the Richardson campaign?

It makes a lot of sense that Denish would support Clinton for her own reasons; they are both women, they share many political views and Clinton is popular among New Mexico Democrats. To me, though, it looked like part of Denish's support was as a stand-in for Bill Richardson. After all, she'd been doing his work as acting governor while he was off campaigning for president. They have long made an effective team working together.

The only evidence I have is my sudden appearance on the mailing list. That's not persuasive, because my support of Richardson got my name on many Democratic lists. I guess I really need to be more careful to whom I give my email address.

I am delighted at the possibility of having two great nominees -- McCain or Obama -- to choose from in the general election. Richardson was my original choice, but I don't care who he endorses any more. Does anybody?

What is so feminist about Hillary Clinton?

2008-02-19T12:24:00.000-08:00

Okay, here is my obligatory disclaimer. I don't dislike, let alone hate, Hillary Clinton. I didn't vote for her husband, but that was because I preferred the men he ran against. I am after all a moderate-to-liberal Republican. Yes, Ann and Rush don't want you to know this, but we exist. Although I never went out of my way to watch or listen to her either as first lady, senator from a state I don't live in, or presidential candidate, I found her intelligent, sympathetic and dryly funny, if somewhat unimaginative.

Her background is similar to my own, although she followed most of the rules that I did not, like doing her homework and graduating from college in four years instead of staying up late drinking, and attending a prestigious law school instead of working at a series of poorly paid jobs. Then again, she has to borrow anecdotes about employment and housing insecurity from others, while I have got plenty of good stories of my own. I'm not saying she doesn't know how it feels to be poor, but I bet she never had to decide whether to buy groceries, put gas in her car or pay for her daughter's school field trip.

Whether I like her or not, though, isn't the point. What I want to know is, how did Hillary Clinton become the standard-bearer for feminists? I'm sorry, but that is sort of like saying the two doubting Thomases -- Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas -- are the natural heroes of civil rights. After all, they are black. Excuse me, African-American.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a woman, and she may well espouse a genuinely feminist view of life. If so, she hasn't acted on that view. There is no point in her biography where she gave anything up in order to be true to her feminist ideals. Quite the contrary. She made the choice years ago to put her own aspirations on hold in order to marry a man she really loved and help him attain his hopes. There was nothing wrong with that choice. Feminists who came before her helped clear the way for it. Her husband's successes, in which she was clearly and closely involved, enabled her to pursue a career of her own. She never had to put a roof over her head or quit a job to be there for her daughter. That's all fine.

Clinton may well be qualified to be president of the United States. I'm not sure she is any better qualified than my congresswoman, Heather Wilson, who served as an Air Force officer and held positions of authority in state government before being elected to congress as a moderate Republican. Wilson's career has certainly never depended on her husband; I'm not even sure what his name is or what he does for a living. I have never heard her call herself a feminist, and she faces a tough fight every other year to be re-elected in a state and a district that is by no means solidly Republican. In other words, she'd use it if she thought it would help.

To be fair, I've never heard Clinton call herself a feminist either. That's left to people like Gloria Steinem and Erica Jong, who have now used up any shred of credibility they had to argue -- what? That women who vote for Obama, or God forbid McCain, have no self respect? That those who choose to vote differently want to hold back all members of our gender? Give me a break. I know plenty of women who voted for Clinton in the primary because they agreed with her positions on the issues. I'm sure some if not all of them were also influenced by her being a woman. Sure, it's a factor, but only one factor.

I don't agree with her positions on the issues, and I don't think she has the mental and emotional flexibility to be a good president. There are woman out there who do possess the flexibility and imagination to be leaders of the free world, like Patricia Schroeder and Janet Napolitano, and there are men who do not, most notably George W. Bush. That's my choice; it's an informed choice and it has nothing to do with gender. I know all about painful choices, having voted for Al Gore in 2000, enthusiastically, and for John Kerry in 2004, reluctantly. Others are free to choose differently, and I will not accuse them of betraying any group they belong to by birth or by background.

One more thing. If Hillary Clinton's campaign had been based on a true and honest assessment of her life story, she might have lost the votes of the knee-jerk identity mongers. But we will never know how many eventual Obama supporters she could have won over if she'd said the following: "I stood to the side for years while ideologues and other unreasonable men made decisions that weren't good for the country. It's my turn now, and I'm finally getting the opportunity to implement the real solutions that the men never had the courage to try." Instead, she ran as a version of the woman-behind-the-man, on unverifiable stories of her experience as co-governor and co-president with her husband.

Where is the feminism in that story?

Tomorrow is election day and

2006-11-06T09:45:00.000-08:00

here are some of the people who have called me in the past week:
Laura Bush, John McCain, Pete Dominici, Heather Wilson, Bill Richardson and Martin Chavez. They are all calling to get me to vote for their candidate in the 1st NM district to the U.S. Congress. Heather Wilson made a recording for herself but I have not heard personally from Patricia Madrid. I already voted last week at an early voting site. The wait was two hours but I'm relieved to be done with it.
It will be interesting to see whether those of us who stood in line last week outsmarted ourselves: We were assuming the wait would be even longer tomorrow, but it will be funny if the polling places get everyone in and out more quickly. A good joke on us.

The question I am on is:

2006-11-02T10:12:00.000-08:00

If you think people who believe in a different religion are definitely going to Hell, shouldn't you try to save them?

I've been following a recurring debate between a couple of lay Christians and a Jewish scholar on an Israeli website. A lot of it is pretty dull, and the two Christians don't seem to trust that any of us have Bibles to look at because they include the text of all their scriptural references. What it boils down to is a list of New Testament references from one side proving that the Messiah has already been here, and references from the Old and New Testaments in reply, chosen to prove that he has not.
One point that seems obvious to me is that converting non-Christians by citing the New Testament is like converting non-Muslims by quoting the Qur'an. You have to be able to understand where the other side is coming from, and this brand of Christian has trouble with that.
I admit that I have read only a little of what either side has posted. Based on that little bit, though, I think the Jews have won this particular argument. This has nothing to do with what either faith actually believes, and everything to do with the way these individuals present their case. According to the one who the others all call the "Rabbi," G-d wants us to keep studying, doing good and watching for the mashiach who is still to come. The other side presents the whole deal as being settled, with the standard "Jesus died for our sins" and all that is required is to believe in him.
It's the settled part that bothers me. Which prescription seems more hopeful, the one that says we have the responsibility of improving ourselves and the world around us, or the one that says it has already been done and all we can do is indulge in passive faith? I don't accept this description of what it means to be a Christian, and I certainly don't think faith should be passive. That's not faith anyway, it is fatalism. It seems to me that those who try to provide a "light to the nations" by boring everyone with long repetitive harangues about Jesus are the ones that are missing the point. They need to throw down their fatalism and provide a light through their actions.
Ultimately, what religious discussions require from both sides is personal humility. I hear that was a biggie for Jesus, too.

Ethical Challenges

2006-11-01T10:49:00.000-08:00

Just recently I've been having four different conversations, from four different perspectives, about what constitutes "right" and "wrong." The basic question is really "Who does it hurt?"

First perspective

If you a have a good representative in congress, but you are sick of her political party and its agenda, do you vote her out even if the alternative is not so great?

There is a hotly-contested political contest for the U.S. congress here in Albuquerque between incumbent Republican Heather Wilson and Democrat Patricia Madrid. Madrid is bit of a political hack, and like many politicians who come up through a well-established and dominent party system, she's been involved in numerous ethically questionable situations. Her campaign has been noticably short on concrete suggestions for change, relying mostly on complaints and criticisms of the present national government.
Wilson is a well-liked and trusted Republican in a strongly Democratic district. She is not particularly close to Bush and his administration, but with a few key exceptions she hasn't really repudiated them or their policies either. (The best-known exceptions have been domestic spying and stem-cell research.) She is a graduate of the Air Force Academy and a Rhodes Scholar with a reputation for honesty and integrity.
Neither of them is a great public speaker: Wilson is stiff and soft-spoken and Madrid gets confused if she has to depart from her prepared remarks. In any other year, in fact, she would sound unreliable and lame, but right now dissatisfaction with the status quo is a huge factor. I've already made my decision to vote for Heather Wilson, because I think she is able to do more for the district. But she is a little more conservative than I am, and the Iraq war is the elephant in the room.
I am happy to say that, even as a registered Republican, I have never voted for George W. Bush for any office, including dogcatcher. It was easy in 2000, when the Democrats offered up the capable and politically moderate Al Gore. John Kerry made it a little harder, but I was determined not to give any vote of confidence to an inept and possibly dishonest chief executive. So I understand why, this year, some voters here in the First District are planning to vote for anyone who isn't a Republican. I hope they don't end up cutting off all of our noses to spite Rumsfeld's face.

Second perspective

If you think people who believe in a different religion are definitely going to Hell, shouldn't you try to save them?

This one comes down to respect. I don't just mean respect for other religions, although that is part of it, but you also have to respect God and have some faith that He know what He is doing. Surprising as this might be to the smug and truly arrogant, God may have plans that He hasn't discussed with you.

Gotta go. I'll continue with this one later.

We've all got something to say...

2006-10-22T19:02:00.000-07:00

I read several different newspapers online when I have time. Two of my favorites are "The Scotsman" (which does come from Scotland) and "The New Mexican" out of Santa Fe.
Yeah, I also read The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune. All of them are more world-weary and comprehensive than the Scotsman and New Mexican. But that's exactly the point.

I live in New Mexico - although not Santa Fe - so the state and regional issues in that paper are of interest to me. New Mexico has more in common with Scotland than anyone here might guess. Both are comparatively rural areas with histories and ethnicities markedly divergent from their countries' federal power centers. Their populations seem to be seen either romantically or dismissively by the majority in London, New York or Washington, and it seems to make them (us?) feel put upon. At the same time both regions benefit from tourism, so you could say they are able to capitalize on their foreignness.

Both newspapers are fairly small and focused on similar issues -- education, the decline and improvement of society's values, the silly or portentious utterances of local politicians -- and both are compact and easy to navigate. All of that helps me enjoy reading them, but none of it is the reason I am so loyal. The reason I look forward to these two publications, along with "Inside Higher Ed" and (until recently) "Jerusalem Online," is because of the reader comments. Unlike the "letters to the editor" that appear in print editions, online comments are subject to immediate response both from the reporter and - even more - from other readers. The monitoring on these two sites is minimal, just enough to avoid libel and profanity. They are so free-wheeling that recently the New Mexican had to suspend comments temporarily because of reader remarks that went too far too quickly.

The New Mexican has a web editor who occasionally edits a post or breaks in with a clarification. The Scotsman probably has something similar, but the volume of comments from time zones all over the globe must be hard to keep up with. A heavily remarked upon item in Santa Fe might have as many as 50 comments, many from repeat posters. Contrast this with a recent report on the Glasgow city council's attempt to ban sexist language: The last time I checked, there were more than 300 posts on the subject. At the bottom of each comment box is a line reading "Report as unsuitable." I know someone must be doing so because I've seen some of the more offensive arguments disappear from one refresh to the next. One of the more narrow minded regulars claims to be from Texas, USA, and I'm still trying to detect whether he is for real or just using a believeable source location for his comments.

Other good sites for reader comments are InsideHigherEd.com, the New Republic (but I think you have to be a paid subscriber there) and Chicago Tribune television critic Maureen Ryan's blog. JerusalemOnline.com used to have a good "talk-back" feature with people talking about events in Israel and the Islamic middle east, but it has always been visually hard to navigate and lately it has been completely taken over by millennial Christians quoting large blocks of scripture in anticipation of Armageddon.

I'll let Scotsman reader "Ailsa Craig - near Arran" sum it up.
I see "The Scotsman" web-site as being an enjoyable forum for intelligent debate - potentially. But many of the contributors today seem to be hiding behind their pseudonyms and venting their cowardly and pathetic dirty-mindedness. That is totally inappropriate here!

Who would you rather live near?

2006-10-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

Read this story from the Chicago Tribune, and tell me who is the bigger menace to society. Is it the Mexican immigrants -- we don't know if they're "legal" or not -- innocently driving along the expressway? Or could it be the heedless, self-centered Anglo in the oversized vehicle?

Cell phone blamed in fatal Dan Ryan crash
By Jeremy Gorner
Tribune staff reporter
Published October 5, 2006, 9:51 AM CDT

A motorist talking on his cell phone was blamed by state police for a fatal crash on the Dan Ryan Expressway this morning that killed a 66-year-old man and injured five others, including an infant.

The driver, Joseph Burks, 30, of Chicago, lost control of his sport-utility vehicle and rolled it over another vehicle, Illinois State Police said. The crash shut down a portion of the southbound expressway (Interstate Highway 94) for nearly an hour.

The accident occurred around 1:30 a.m. near 63rd Street on Chicago's South Side.

Guadalupe Gonzalez, 66, as well as the infant and three other surviving victims, was riding in the vehicle hit by the SUV, state police said.

Gonzalez, whose address is listed in Mexico, was pronounced dead at 2:40 a.m. at St. Bernard Hospital and Health Care Center, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

None of the other occuapants in Gonzalez's vehicle suffered life-threatening injuries, police said. Three of the injured remained hospitalized this morning at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, while the fourth was treated and released from St. Bernard.

Burks, who was lone occupant of the SUV, suffered minor injuries and refused medical attention, police said. He was issued several traffic citations. Drugs or alcohol do not appear to be a factor in the crash.

Tribune staff reporter Jason Meisner contributed.

Party Politics Make Me Sick

2006-10-04T09:31:00.000-07:00

A pox on both their houses! I have my own version of Zalski's "I Hate Democrats" which is somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
Please tell me that it is not anachronistic to be a John Stuart Mill liberal in the Republican Party.
Here I highlight one of the key paragraphs I stole from Dennis's column.
(The original will be available soon on www.Zalski.blogspot.com -- I hope.)
They forced good candidates out of presidential primaries in favor of a rich kid who is inept at public speaking and a zero as a communicator, and they gave us a war that they never figured out how to win.

Should I Hate Republicans? (I am one)

2006-10-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

I hate Republicans and neoconservatives. They seem to hate the American people, want to gleefully act as vilely as our enemies, crush the middle class with taxes, tell us what we can think and how we should live, mangle our free-speech rights, overwhelm the nation with illegal immigrants, make us distrust our own government, destroy small businesses in favor of their rich cronies, regulate our bedrooms and turn us into a bunch of Malthusian victims, human cows to be bred, held captive and milked solely for the benefit of big business.

And that’s why I now despise Democrats even more. Because of their incompetence, greed, corruption, arrogance, blind loyalty, their inability to defend themselves and communicate with the American people—because of their total bumbling—in the past several years, there is a chance that Democrats will blow the chance to take control of both houses of Congress in November.

If that happens, we’re screwed. You’ll see the greatest war against the American people—against our free-speech rights, against our financial freedom, against our freedom to eat what we want, against our security and military—there has ever been. A party that is controlled by extreme right-wingers and religious zealots will try to impose its version of a government-mandated utopia on us all, and it’ll be frightening.

And we’ll have the Democrats to blame for it.

Americans revolted in 1994 when they threw the Democrats out of Congress and gave Republicans control of both houses. They were disgusted with the corrupt, arrogant, The-Government-Knows-What-Is-Best-For-You Democrats.

They were convinced that the Democrats were the cause of ever-climbing taxes that punished ingenuity, ambition, talent and hard work. They blamed Democrats for speech codes that told us we could no longer speak our minds and that we no longer had freedom of speech. Gingrich and his friends portrayed a Democratic party that hated and waged war against the military and the young men and women to defend us and keep us free. Democrats, they decided, held America in contempt and blamed it for everything wrong in the world. The suspected a party that, in the waning years of the Cold War, seemed to prefer stability over freedom, to keep the people of Eastern Europe enslaved by the Soviets.

The American people felt abused and tormented, and they elected Republicans to rescue them from their perceived tormentors and enslavers.

With that election, with that electoral revolt, Republicans had one of the greatest opportunities to do good for a nation and its people that history has ever presented to a group of people in power. They had the opportunity to truly set people free. They had the chance to put government back into its cage and slam the door locked and shut for a long, long time. They had the chance to bring dignity, honor, honesty and a real concern for freedom, American and its people to Washington.

They had the opportunity, and they blew it.

Now it is the Democrats' turn, and they're blowing it their own way.

As a result, we stand to be returned to the control of our tormentors. And if we are, it’ll be awful.

Squandering a golden opportunity, destroying trust that people have put in you—stabbing their hope in the heart with elitist visions, greed, corruption, incompetence and the blind worship of ideological purity—is the worst crime of all.

Republicans slimed themselves up with tubby Newt Gingrich; puffy, money grubbing, Jack Abramoff; the crook, Duke Cunningham of California, slimy; plastic-haired Tom Delay; hypocrite Trent Lott; and now, I Want To Kiss Teenage Boys, Mark Foley of Florida.

They got in bed with power and greed.

Those term limit pledges in the Contract with America were deleted pretty quickly—probably after Republicans got wind of how many teenage pages there are in Washington.

They forced good candidates out of presidential primaries in favor of a rich kid who is inept at public speaking and a zero as a communicator, and they gave us a war that they never figured out how to win.

We asked for respect, decency, honor and competence in Washington, and we got arrogance, corruption, incompetence and contempt. We asked that they represent us, as freedom-loving, hard-working Americans who just wanted a chance to get ahead and keep more of the money we earn. Instead, they represented giant corporations.

We asked for true representation in Washington, and instead, we got professional politicians.

Democrats aren't Republicans. But at this point, what's the difference?

To see the original version of this column, go to http://www.zalski.blogspot.com

Viva Italia

2006-07-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

It has always amazed me that a population that can stay awake during a baseball game claims to find soccer and ice hockey boring. The problem seems to be that these sports require you to watch all the time, not just during intermittent set pieces.

During the World Cup football tournament (or Copa Mundial, as it was called on the only stations that carried all the games live) readers where I live were subjected to the usual clueless and idiotic commentary in the newspapers. I don't know if local columnists in the daily newspapers of Albuquerque, New Mexico, can be described as "mainstream American media." I mean, just geographically they're already pretty far away from the main flow of opinion. Maybe informed opinion here is as far out-of-date as the fashions New Mexicans wear. I can only hope.

A columnist called Jim Belshaw, who apparently makes a living being an even bigger idiot on paper than his fans are in real life, promised to watch the games while reading a book. His reasoning? Since they show instant replays of all the key moments, it is easier to listen for the crowd and announcer getting excited and then watch what they are so thrilled about in the replay. By this logic, it would be a waste of time to watch any sporting event at all when you can just catch the highlights on the ten o'clock news.

Then there is the moron who calls himself "The Linz." (Please let that appellation be tongue-in- cheek.) This guy deigns to recognize soccer as maybe being as interesting to watch as the local college basketball league. Athleticism, team spirit and national loyalty are beside the point. Having just realized that world class football involves different teams, athletes and coaches following markedly different styles of play, he notices that some teams seem to be able to partially manipulate the decisions of referees. In his eyes this makes the World Cup competition almost as interesting as a home basketball game.

Here's some news for the babblers and scribblers of the United States media circus. The game the rest of the world calls football doesn't need you. Recently I saw a British actor on television talking about the various degrees of athleticism required in different sports. Referring to the players on the various national football teams, he commented "Those guys have to be in great shape."

Leno asked, "Do you watch American football?"

The actor looked a little embarrassed. "Well, I guess they're in good shape, too. They seem to stop all the time."

choose your words carefully

2006-07-08T21:45:00.000-07:00

I just read something that bugged me. I'll get back to the seven deadly sins later. Lately I've been kind of busy practicing them.

Bill Moyers has a new show coming out. That's not particularly newsworthy (although I'll probably watch it) but it is the occasion for me to complain. Writing for the Associated Press, someone named Frazier Moore commends Moyers for allegedly bridging the gap "between absolutists taking their isolated refuge in the silos of spiritualism and secularism."

Let's leave aside the question of whether an interviewer with Moyers' solid history of defending secularism is even capable of bridging such a gap. My problem is with Frazier Moore's choice of the word "spiritualism" for the worldview of the God camp. Does he mean "spirituality"? If so, why doesn't he say so?

According to my computer's Babylon translator (English to English) spiritualism is a "belief in the existence of spirits and the ability to establish contact with the dead through a medium" or a "philosophical viewpoint maintaining that spirit is the prime element of reality." Wikipedia goes on to tell me that "Spiritualism is a religious movement, prominent from the 1840s to the 1920s, found primarily in English-speaking countries. The movement's distinguishing feature is the belief that the spirits of the dead can be contacted by adepts. These spirits are believed to lie on a higher spiritual plane than humans, and are therefore capable of providing guidance in both worldly and spiritual matters."

Babylon says spirituality is the "quality of being spiritual; involvement in spiritual matters; spiritual aspect of a person." In Wikipedia, "Spirituality is, in a narrow sense, a concern with matters of the spirit. The spiritual, concerning as it does eternal verities regarding Man's ultimate nature, is often contrasted with the temporal or the worldly. It may include belief in supernatural powers, as in religion, but the emphasis is on personal experience. It may be an expression for life perceived as higher, more complex or more integrated with one's worldview, as contrasted with the merely sensual."

I realize this guy is only a television critic. From what I've seen before, he's a pretty good television critic. As an example, I seem to recall he called "Friends" the most overrated sitcom of all time. That's good criticism. The problem is, as a media critic he has to use the tools of his trade. The main tool of any writer's trade is the English language.

Especially when talking about how people with different worldviews have trouble communicating, it's important to, well, communicate. I just don't see much dialogue being advanced between those to whom religion and spirituality are key elements of their discourse and the mainstream media, if the mainstreamers don't even know the difference between religion and spiritualism.

Sins and Virtues, part one

2006-06-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

I just read a column -- I think it was in the Boston Globe -- about Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and the concept of noblesse oblige. This writer suggests that it may be better for humanity, or at least for the pursuit of individual charity, for young people to spend the first part of their careers amassing money. That way, when they get the urge later on to help mankind, they have the resources to really make a difference. After all, a significant minority of the richest people in the world really do use their money to try and help others. The column cited the Rockefellers and their impressive record in the field of education and literacy.
Christians are taught the parable of the "widow's mite." Remember? The rich man comes in with great ostentation and ritual correctness to make sure everyone in the congregation knows how much he gave. Then the poor widow brings in her hard-earned penny. The point is what is in their hearts: The rich man gives what he won't really miss and the poor widow gives her last piece of cash.
It's a good story and a worthwhile lesson, but anyone who has ever celebrated a birthday knows that, to the recipient, it isn't just the thought that counts. I could sell everything I own and donate the proceeds to reduce AIDS in Africa, but it's not going to make a big difference, because I don't own much. That's the point of the column. To put it in religious terms, who else does it benefit if I get into heaven through my selfless acts?
When I first joined the Catholic Church, I took great pride in being able to kneel for long periods of time. I scorned the padded "kneelers" that were at the fronts of the pews and knelt directly on the stone floor. At some point I realized that it was contradictory, maybe even hypocritical, to take such pride in my own gesture of humility. We sometimes forget that pride and envy are listed as sins right up there before avarice, lust and gluttony.
The other two are anger and luxury. More on those two later.

Only one law?

2006-05-25T22:37:00.000-07:00

The city I live in just passed an ordinance requiring all pets be embedded with an identifying microchip. Yeah, that's going to happen. The people who keep their dogs on two-foot chains without water are going to be lining up to comply. Me, I'm just glad of the chance to torture my cat for no reason at all.
A less developed section of the city is mobilizing to keep Wal-Mart from building a big store near some expensive houses. One resident even alluded to his desire to keep out the "trashy people and vandals" the store might draw to the area. Meanwhile, out in a non-incorporated section of the county, neighborhood residents are testifying and picketing to keep a cement plant from being built across the street from a children's park.
I'll stipulate the following:
1. Many city parks are almost unusable because of all the dog feces on the ground. People do need to have more regard for the neighbors and for the animals themselves.
2. I live near a big shopping mall, and it does indeed attract a bad element from outside the neighborhood.
3. Residents say that the county passed up an opportunity to buy the land (now threatened with the cement plant) for open space.
I was trying to follow an exchange elsewhere about -- I think -- the emotional reactions inherent in certain philosophies.
I'm not strong on philosophy in general (for that you need my mother or my daughter) but one comment stuck in my mind. The speaker mentioned liberals as being the descendents of John Stuart Mill. I thought Mill was in favor of smaller government. I only read "On Liberty" and it was a long time ago, but the way I recall it is as a defense of personal responsibility as a way to secure individual rights. The sense of responsibility is what seems to be missing in the current local controversies.
I subscribe to the theory that we really have only one law: Don't be a jerk. Most of the attempts to micromanage other people's lives have been overly detailed efforts to define what it means to be a jerk. Here's a thought: Jerks aren't just the people who spray-paint their initials on buildings and play their radios too loud. Jerks can also sit in nice offices and make it against the law to act, dress or speak differently than they do.
Most of us know a jerk when we meet one. I'm not sure that sense can be taught.

Is this about oil prices, land use, or neighborhood aesthetics?

2006-05-13T22:41:00.000-07:00

May 12, 2006
The following was from a comment thread originally responding to an editorial in The New Republic. (They advocated raising taxes on SUVs.)

The pro-smart growth people aren't calling for central planning (other than from cities, which can and should plan their development). When you talk about "forcing" people into smart growth development, you've got the idea backwards.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I own land inside the UGB, I am limited by the high-density zoning laws. I can't build a house on a one acre plot. And similarly , outside the UGB, I can't build a house at all, no matter what size the plot. That sounds like forcing people into hubs to me.

Contemporary development in suburbs and exurbs subsidizes irresponsible growth (developers don't pay for new infrastructure, for example, which is a subsidy for horizontal growth).

I alluded to that in another active thread, most areas are reluctant to zone because schools cost money. The same is also true for roads and sewage. But interestingly enough, you are not allowed to put a septic tank in your land by the same zoning laws! Nor are private companies allowed to get into the sewage and water business. The towns use these as their way to retain control over your property.

If we had stronger property rights that vastly curtailed the power of land use boards to dictate what you can build, then I suspect that the market would take care of things. For example, even in our current environment homeowners' associations are thriving. Developers would buy land, install the necessary roads and services, create the initial charter for the HOA, and then sell lots.

Instead, rent-seeking town magnets know that they can practically print money by getting zoning variances, and pay local politicians handsomely for the privilege.
-jibaholic

I wanted to mention earlier, but didn't, my experience in New Mexico a couple of years ago. The state has, as jibaholic likes to put it, "property rights," meaning virtually no zoning laws outside of the cities. The result was people with scrap heaps all over their yards - a really terrible visual nuisance. Unless you want to live next to people who want to put waste dumps in their yards, you should be careful about how strenuously you advocate property rights.
--aaron_berger

The presence of the auto wrecker to the right of me means that the recent immigrants to the left of me can afford to live in a house with a yard and send their children to the same schools my children attend. The same schools as the children across the street whose ancestors lived here before Europeans arrived. Come to think of it, almost all the houses in this area (including the auto wreckers') have kids growing up in diversity you easterners can only daydream about. So as they grow up, my kids have the advantage of knowing people whose backgrounds are different from theirs. If they become politicians or lawyers or sociologists, they'll be able to see others as more than numbers on a chart.

None of which really has anything to do with gas prices, but neither did your comment.
--(me)

It's funny that you assume I'm a protected easterner. Actually, I grew up in the Minneapolis area and just finished college in Des Moines, Iowa. I live in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Des Moines, although it is beginning to become gentrified. I share a community garden with neighbors who use it to grow food because they need to save money on their groceries. I bet we have a lot more in common in terms of socioeconomic diversity than you think.

All I know is that when I went to New Mexico, I saw a lot of the most severe poverty I've ever seen in the United States. When I saw junk yards in peoples' yards, I'm not talking about auto wreckers. I'm sure you know more about New Mexico than I do, since it sounds like you live there, but I saw scrap heaps in almost every yard in a small town out by Chaco Canyon. That is the result of no zoning laws. I bet people like jibaholic don't exactly have that in mind when they advocate unlimited property rights.
--aaron_berger

Aaron Berger graduated from Drake University last week. Not surprisingly, he is on MySpace and has a personal blog as well. He really has a thoughtful side, so I don't mean to single him out for ridicule.
If I were to continue this exchange, I would have to point out that from a New Mexico perspective the east starts at around the Colorado-Nebraska border. This far west, front-yard scrap heaps are a socially acceptable expression of individual property rights. I don't know about "jibaholic," but a true western civil libertarian doesn't look to interfere with his or her neighbor's aesthetic decisions.
Yes, the appearance of the yards in the rural four corners area does indicate poverty. It also indicates a set of priorities that is bound to seem outlandish to an eastern or midwestern sensibility. To get back to the original context, the scrap heaps also mark the presence of cheap land. Sort of like in the upper midwest, where farmers used to put up a brand new barn or silo right next to the old decrepit structure they were replacing -- often without bothering to tear down the old one. The difference here is that they are more likely to patch and reuse the old building.
To me, and I differ from A.B. in generation as well as locale, the trashy yards in New Mexico are an issue more of social control (we practice less) than of land use.

Do they practice what they preach?

2006-05-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

This is from today's Washington Post: "Basics, Not Luxuries, Blamed for High Debt."

Here is my highly selective quotation:

(A new study) was conducted by the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank that describes itself as progressive and is run by former Clinton White House chief of staff John D. Podesta. "Very little can be explained by frivolous consumer spending," says Christian E. Weller, author of the report and a senior economist at the center. His views were echoed in a news conference by Elizabeth Warren, a law professor at Harvard University who analyzed the sources of debt that emerge in bankruptcy filings and reviewed the results of Weller's study.

Many families, particularly middle-income households, aren't acknowledging that declining incomes mean they must radically adjust their standards of living, according to Weller and Warren. Warren suggested that families that can no longer realistically afford their single-family houses should move to condominiums, consider limiting their families to a single automobile, get second jobs to pay off debt, or move to less expensive school districts that may not have the highest test scores but where children perform acceptably well.

I basically agree with what the article says (here's the link if you want the whole thing) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051101779.html?referrer=email&referrer=email
but it still bothers me that a couple of high-priced academics feel entitled to tell ordinary Americans how to live. Do Christian Weller and Elizabeth Warren live in condominiums themselves? Do they own cars? Do they have children who go to less well-regarded public schools?

We know from their credentials that they live in large cities with well developed public transit systems. How many of the citizens they are scolding have the same options?

I appreciate studies like this that help explain how it is that a small elite can hold on to lifestyle benefits that many Americans can no longer afford. And I totally agree with their point about choosing a school district. As a matter of fact, I am coming to believe more and more that the struggling schools can provide a better education for most individual students than the richer, more complacent schools with the higher rankings.

Still and all, I resent the judgmental tone.

Give the cats a break

2006-04-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a neighborhood where almost everyone kept their lawns mowed, trees trimmed and driveways free of extra vehicles -- running or not. Children walked to school and back twice a day, because we went home for lunch, and didn't worry about being threatened by stray dogs or by homeless people asking for money. For a child it was a version of paradise, although it must have been unexciting for adults. Most of my friends and I were eager to escape as soon as we got the chance. Many of us have landed in similar neighborhoods as parents and old married people, but we'd like to think the differences are important.

I live in what is variously called the mountain west or the high desert southwest and the differences go way beyond weather. One of my favorites is the live-and-let-live attitude. A relative of mine in Illinois once said "I'd never want to live next to you guys because you would never mow your lawn." She was right. We don't mow our grass. We don't even have grass. In this climate, it doesn't rain enough for grass to grow in the first place unless you water it like crazy all during the spring. With water neither free nor plentiful, what the midwest might call a slob just looks like a committed conservationist.

Recently a member of our city council proposed an ordinance to encourage more residents to spay and neuter their pets and to monitor breeding activities to get rid of puppy mills. These are good motives on their own, although not necessarily a good fit for municipal government. Then another councilwoman -- who represents my neighborhood -- got hold of the concept and went hog wild. Except hogs, of course, are illegal inside the city limits.

Abusive dog owners are going to ignore the new ordinance, or move to a smaller town or unincorporated area where the neighbors still mind their own business. Those areas will become worse places to live.

Every pet in the city will need not only a registration but also an embedded microchip. Who will pay for it? Pet owners of course. The rest of us will pay higher fees so that the city can subsidize the vet fees of those who are able to prove they can't afford it. Can everyone say extensive and intrusive documentation? It will now be illegal not to keep your animals properly groomed (whatever that means) and they've finally done it. It will be a crime to let your cat or parakeet stray into your neighbor's yard.

Even back in suburban Illinois we didn't try to keep cats in the yard. This ordinance is billed as a blow for citizen safety and animal rights, but it's really all about control. My councilwoman and her cronies aren't interested in my quality of life. They certainly aren't interested in my cat Henry's quality of life. They are interested in control, in forcing the rest of the city into their smug little suburban habits. I hope they like mice, because without the cats they will have to control them some other way.

No. I really mean that.

2006-04-22T21:41:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine says she thinks that those of us who are not on the "Do not call" registry are getting more junk calls than ever because we are in a smaller pool now. I can't really tell. I seem to be getting a lot of calls from just a few vendors. I don't see what could possibly be the percentage in calling the same person over and over pushing the same offer that they turned down already.

When they first came out with the "Do not call" registry, I know people who rushed to sign up. I did not, for two reasons. First, the registry exempts political groups and any company with whom you've done business before, so I wasn't sure how much difference it would make. Plus, it seemed a little rude.

I've had caller i.d. on my phone for a couple of years, so for a while I just screened calls from numbers I didn't recognize. The problem with that was that I'd come home from work in the evening and see a whole bunch of messages lit up on the machine. Nine out of ten of them were hang-ups (apparently dialed by a computer or something) and I'd have to wade through them to hear any of my actual messages. I also have a couple of people who call me using calling cards with numbers I wouldn't necessarily recognize.

Most of the time now, I just answer the phone and as politely as I can tell the person I'm not interested. Later, sometimes in the same day, a different voice calls and tries to sell me the exact same resort vacation, credit card or satellite television service. When I inform them that they are the fifth or fifteenth person calling me, some of them offer to put me on their company's "Do not call" list.

Why should this be necessary? Can't the first caller just note that I said "No, thanks" the first time? Do they think they are wearing down my resistance with all these calls? They're just making me mad. If I ever did want any of the crap they are pushing, I would now make a point of finding it somewhere else, not to buy it from them.

about that forsythia

2006-04-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

Here are my responses to some items that ran in newspapers and newsletters that I read regularly. By the way, I recommend all these sources.

"Inside Higher Ed" writes about a law professor suing an administrator at his university for failing to rein in secondhand smoke around campus doorways. Here's the link: http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/14/smoke
My take on this is that the anti-smoking activists went too far when they wrote laws prohibiting all indoor smoking. Public buildings like stores, hospitals and schools used to have smoking lounges. Visitors and employees could go into the smoking lounge, close the door and puff away to their hearts' content. They had a place to practice their vile but still legal addiction while keeping the stench to themselves. The only non-smokers who had to smell it were those unlucky enough to be walking past when the door opened to take in or disgorge a desperate addict on the way to or from a fix. I say, bring back the smoking lounge and get the cloud out of the doorway.

"The Scotsman" covers the sentencing to a two-year prison term of a woman who accidentally crashed a car full of un-seatbelted 13-year-olds, killing the other driver and a couple of the kids.
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?=552332006
A sad and tragic story. Sounds like this mom got caught in a bind with having promised to take her son and his friends somewhere and not having anyone to help with the driving. The boys were apparently acting up in the back seat and she made the wrong decision -- instead of disappointing them or pulling over and calling for help once they got unmanageable, it looks like she just tried to get there faster and have it over with....

And at the Commonweal discussion group -- commonweal@yahoogroups.com -- they were recently talking about the Boston Archdiocese's decision to stop providing adoption services rather than place children with gay couples. Not the majority, but a couple of people there still seem to be suggesting that any married heterosexual couple makes better parents than the most stellar single or same-sex household. Things like "Girls need Mommy to teach them to be feminine and boys need Daddy to teach them to be real men."
As a working (I won't say professional) woman with two mostly-grown children who so far have turned out OK, I am a bit perturbed by the comments on gender roles in parenting. It is a point of pride with me that I raised my daughter not to be a "girly" girl and she seems to be a more successful young woman as a result. Would it be better to be raised by a mother who teaches her daughter that physical attractiveness is her only potential gift to the world (as many girls are taught) and a father who teaches his son that confrontation and violence are the most manly reactions to disagreement? Is this common and quite legal situation healthier for children than the example of a single parent or same sex couple?
To me as a Catholic, the problem is that same sex couples aren't legally married, so any physical relationship they have is, by definition, extramarital. Of course the solution would be to let them marry like all of us heterosexual perverts.

Finally, spending time communing with the forsythia or walking in the bosque is indeed something more valuable than national, church or office politics. That's why I wish the bosses would really take charge and leave me to my laundry.

Just who is responsible -- for anything?

2006-04-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

Lately a couple of columnists have complained about Katie Couric being too much of a lightweight to make it as a major network anchorperson. Who are they kidding? When is the last time an anchorperson, or a celebrity of any professional stripe, did any real reporting? Network news anchors are part of the same aristocracy (it has nothing to do with merit) that stands most visibly at the head of any modern enterprise. Anchorpeople don't do their own work, any more than national politicians do.

It used to be -- or people like me used to think -- that higher pay, shorter hours and more support staff came with a corresponding increase in personal and official responsibility. Those of us with harder, lower paying jobs were satisfied with our part in the arrangement because we didn't have to answer for other people's actions and variable results. Now we come to discover that the people "in charge" are not responsible for anything. In fact, they spend most of their energy finding underlings to take the blame when things don't go according to plan.

So remind me why it is they make more money to do less work....

spare me the cheese

2006-04-05T22:39:00.000-07:00

Warning:
This post isn't about politics, religion, or anything of any consequence.

American cheese tastes terrible. No, let me be fair. It has no taste. Not only that, it covers up the flavor of any food served with it.

The other day I stopped at McDonald's and ordered the "two-cheeseburger meal with hamburgers instead of cheeseburgers." Usually this is an easy variation. I've gotten used to the way the package the sandwiches: rather than just putting two hamburgers in the bag (white wrappers) they put in two cheeseburgers (yellow wrappers) with little stickers that say "no cheese" on them. Usually that means they really do have no cheese.

This time they had "no cheese" stickers but the burgers had cheese. I have to be in a certain mood to like the distinctive grease-salt-stale onion taste of the McDonald's hamburger. When I am in that mood, I really don't need the flavor to be muffled by thick plastic-tasting cheese. Normally I would have taken the offending food items back and exchanged them, but I was already halfway to work when I discovered the mistake.

I don't do drive-throughs because I don't really like having to dig in my wallet and drive. I've also had two experiences that confirmed my already negative view. Once I got stuck at a bank drive-through line behind a man who was trying to pass a bad check. He wouldn't proceed and I could have walked in, made my deposit and gone for coffee and doughnuts in the time I sat in my hot car. Another time, I ordered Dr. Pepper on a hot day and they gave me Diet Coke -- not a pleasant substition for a thirsty driver. As I recall I took a big gulp of the drink and spat it out in shock. (I'm not really sure why fast food places even carry diet drinks.)

It'll be a while before I'm in the mood for McDonald's again. I hope by that time I remember to check under the yellow wrappers before I drive off.

Sometimes I'm proud to be Catholic

2006-03-27T09:27:00.000-08:00

Just an update to last week's comments. First, in my discussions with people who are alarmed by immigration figures, I've noticed a couple of assumptions that don't seem to follow. Are we talking about legal vs. illegal immigration, European vs. Latin American immigration, or just the annoyance of having to deal with someone who speaks with an accent?

I used to help college students with their writing skill, some foreign students and some born and raised in the United States. The American-born students were by far the worst to work with. Some of them didn't know the difference between common words with dramatically different meanings. This went way beyond substituting "antidote" for "anecdote" or "flaunt" for "flout." (Note to Hillary Clinton: The president has been flouting his own intelligence regulations, not flaunting them.) The difference between two groups? The native speakers thought they already knew English. I'm here to tell you, their written efforts were far more incomprehensible than the ones from the foreign students.

Yesterday during mass, the priest made reference to the Abdul Rahman case in Afghanistan. Our pastor asked us not to feel smug about having been born into a Christian society, and into a land of economic and social liberties. He pointed out what should be obvious, that our favored status includes responsibilities -- to take our faith seriously and practice it sincerely, and to participate in the political life of our democracy.
His emphasis was really on the practicing our faith part. Instead of thinking the accident of our birth made us better and entitled us to oppress others, he said, we should try to be an example of Christian attitudes. Here's an example of Christian attitudes that father didn't mention: Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles has been sticking his neck out all over the place in the defense of the human rights of immigrants.

Here is an anecdote that may or may not be pertinent.
A couple of years ago, I was sitting in an eighth-grade classroom listening to a couple of the boys rag at each other on various topics. A "white" Euro-American kid started complaining about a court decision giving land and water rights to a group of Spanish-American land grant families. The decision invalidated land titles held by more recent purchasers, some of whom were now being asked to repurchase the land under their houses or pay a rental fee to the land grant group for the use of the land -- or just to tear down the houses.
Billy White -- It's not fair. It's our land. We paid for it fair and square.
Guillermo Blanco -- It was ours first, ese. Just give us our due.
Billy and Guillermo (obviously not their real names) argue and curse each other in a friendly manner for a while.
Meanwhile their friend, a quiet kid from the local Indian pueblo, is sitting there listening, smiling and about to laugh. Just as the bell rings, he says to both of them, It's not either of your land. It's mine.

Here in New Mexico, they call the kind of debate that is going on about immigration the "pull up the ladder behind me" argument. Do I need to explain that?

I'm having trouble getting to the point here, but to me it seems obvious.

Maybe we should deport some of the crackpots

2006-03-21T22:13:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been too busy to have articulate opinions. Yesterday Emily Messner of the Washington Post ran some comments about what she called "The Paranoid Fringe of the Immigration Debate." All the lunatics that she forgot to mention wrote comments to her post.
I really don't know how to say this, but sometimes my fellow Americans make me sick.
I grew up with loving parents and economic opportunities and for heaven's sake enough to eat every day. How does that make me inherently better than someone who didn't?
Here's what I observe in people who were born in other countries: They want more. They aren't complacent about the behavior of their local politicians or the performance of their children's schools. They make their kids do their homework.
The only time I've seen a Spanish-speaking parent upset and dissatisfied with a teacher is when a Mexican-American mom I know thought her daughter's homework might be a waste of time because it was too easy. Even then, she made her daughter stay caught up with her schoolwork while she looked into getting her into a harder class.
I think some of the foreign-born parents overemphasize having their kids learn English, at the expense of maybe losing some proficiency in their native language. Knowledge of a second language -- real writing, speaking and reading knowledge -- is a valuable skill in today's world. Can't think of any other serious criticisms.

spring break misbehavior

2006-03-09T09:48:00.000-08:00

I just read about this survey somewhere, I think in the Chicago Tribune. Here is an excerpt from the AMA website:

"Sex and intoxication among women more common on spring break according to AMA poll"

"Survey shows female college students drink more and often on spring break trips"

"Key findings of the poll include:

* A majority (74 percent) of respondents said women use drinking as an excuse for outrageous behavior.*

* More than half of women (57 percent) agree being promiscuous is a way to fit in.

* An overwhelming majority (83 percent) of women had friends who drank the majority of the nights while on spring break.

* More than half (59 percent) know friends who were sexually active with more than one partner.

* Nearly three out of five women know friends who had unprotected sex during spring break.

* One in five respondents regretted the sexual activity they engaged in during spring break, and 12 percent felt forced or pressured into sex.

* An overwhelming majority (84 percent) of respondents thought images of college girls partying during spring break may contribute to an increase in females' reckless behavior.*

* An even higher percentage (86 percent) agreed these images may contribute to dangerous behaviors by males toward women.

* Almost all (92 percent) said it was easy to get alcohol while on spring break.

* Two out of five women agreed access to free or cheap alcohol or a drinking age under age 21 were important factors in their decision to go on a spring break trip.

* These questions were left to the interpretation of the respondent. Based on the wording of other questions in the poll, the AMA assumes reckless behavior is associated with sex and binge drinking. The AMA assumes outrageous behavior is associated with public nudity, dancing on tables/bars and participating in drinking contests."

The American Medical Association opines that this behavior could be unhealthy for women. This doesn't sound like new information. I'm confused about something here. Does the AMA think that drunkenness, outrageous or aggressive behavior and sexual promiscuity are healthy for men?

happy holidays

2006-02-11T12:42:00.000-08:00

When my daughter Ruth was little, she had a friend whose parents were Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were very nice people, God-fearing of course but also very caring and pleasant in their dealings with others.

It was understood that their daughter could not attend birthday parties or various holiday events. Instead, when the mom was out shopping and saw something that she thought Ruth might like, she’d just get it for her.

This year’s Valentine’s Day hype has gotten me thinking. Maybe the Jehovah’s Witnesses have a point. Do we really need to be assigned a certain date to show that we appreciate others? Is Thanksgiving the only time we give thanks, or eat a big meal with our families? Is my husband only special to me on February 14^th and chopped liver the rest of the year?

I don’t like doing things in crowds. It’s annoying, expensive and often depressing to celebrate the same way everyone does at the same time everyone alse does. I’m thinking about either ignoring holidays altogether, or marking them on a different date. For instance, maybe I’ll add six months to each date. Then Valentine’s Day would be August 14^th, Christmas would fall on June 25^th and so on.

Or maybe I’ll just celebrate when I feel like it.

Christian nation indeed

2006-01-28T10:41:00.000-08:00

I don't watch "American Idol." In fact the only reality shows I can stand, besides the judge shows, are the ones about family life like "Wife Swap" and "Nanny 911". I have a problem with any scenario deliberately set up to harm or humiliate people. My reaction can be extreme -- when I was a kid I used to cry when Lucille Ball made a fool of herself on TV because I felt badly for her. I'm not claiming that I never find humor in inappropriate situations. Being inappropriate is usually what humor is all about. This is something beyond inappropriate, though. This is just plain mean-spirited.
I'm not the first or the only person to notice that it is a lot easier to sit back and make fun of those who try something and fail than it is to take a chance yourself. Maybe that's what motivates this particular strain of entertainment. It reassures those who have failed through never trying that their choice was one of wisdom rather than laziness. That may also be what is behind this Master P fiasco on the show "Dancing With the Stars". Obviously the man was just looking for some free publicity without putting in any effort. Instead of seeing if he really might have some talent for dance and footwork, he has decided to make a fool of himself and his fans. I mean, this guy is supposed to be a musician of some kind?
But I digress. The point is not whether a washed-up rapper can dance. The point is that the same segment of the population that largely claims to have found the "Truth" through "Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior" is giving into some of the most un-Christlike impulses ever stirred in mankind. I saw a woman dressed ridiculously at a restaurant last night and I did draw my companion's attention to the outfit. It's fun to judge others. It's just not Christian.
I'm using my own faith as an example because it is dominant here, and because there are those in politics and entertainment who who claim to speak for what they call Christian values. Many of those self-appointed spokespeople are themselves guilty of the traditional sin of pride. It is hubristic to speak for God. Pride is right up there -- ahead of gluttony, luxury and lust -- in the list of big no-nos.
So do we want to be known as a righteous nation, or a self-righteous one?

cats are killers too

2006-01-22T21:00:00.001-08:00

I'm not really an animal person but since I live with three other people, a dog and a cat don't provide too much additional aggravation. The cat stays pretty well within his assigned parameters, doesn't require a litter box and keeps the garage free of mice.
The dog used to be a good watchdog -- sometimes overly ferocious acting although he always disliked most of the same people I did -- but he's gotten old, deaf and ineffective lately. Pets are a responsibility. The dog smells bad, has trouble getting around and has increasingly bad manners, but he's not near death or anything, so we just have to be nice to him.
The last cat we had lived to be about 22 years old (that's in people years) but didn't really like coming in the house. We were delighted to associate with her when she was in the mood. She didn't like the kids or the dog and she tended to drive the mouse population into the house, but she wasn't very demanding. In her youth she had been affectionate in the style of a dog. She was raised by a mother dog and growled at other cats until learning rather late in life to hiss like a cat. When we lived in a second story apartment she would lean out the window and make chirping noises at the birds.
After she died, the mouse problem got worse in the house, the yard and the garage. The dog was good at keeping salespeople from the front door but in some ways he seemed to be in league with the mice. One of his favorite habits was to steal pizza crust, bread slices and stale tortillas from the trash and hide them under furniture in the bedrooms.
This current cat, Henry, is affectionate but noisy and presumptious. We got him as an adolescent a couple of years ago from a woman who lived in an apartment and got tired of his loud meowing, following her around and knocking things over. At our house he found his true calling as an efficient killer of mice and birds. He is usually afraid of other cats.
Just lately, we've seen the little cat from next door following him around and imitating him. It appears that Henry has a student. The other cat will wait in the front yard until he comes out and then they will stare at each other for a while before heading down into the gangway and across the back yards. At different times one or the other of them will come running back across the front yard with a mouse in his mouth.
I know a couple of people who disapprove of the cat's (not just my cat, I think, but probably cats in general) predatory habits. Having lived with mice in my house, I am inclined not only to tolerate but to approve of the cat's activities. I do think it's a funny contrast to see furry, purring cat lying on the couch or in someone's lap while being aware of how deadly the cat is to creatures smaller than itself.

clinging to outdated attitudes

2006-01-21T21:58:00.000-08:00

The Catholic archdiocese in Boston is fighting tooth and nail to prevent passage of a state law requiring financial and administrative disclosure from large religious organization. Archbishop O'Malley is complaining that the law targets the Catholic church. Yuh think?
This weekend he sent a letter urging parishioners to fight the law. I'm not sure that ordinary laypeople have anything to gain from continued secrecy. This isn't medieval Europe. The church has already learned to adapt to a society where citizens feel intitled to information that has bearing on their lives.

A few years ago our local church found itself with big settlements to pay off as a result of misconduct, secrecy and mismanagement. One pastor was lauded in the official church press for giving up the money that his parish had collected for a new roof to their sanctuary and turning the money over to the lawsuit fund.
I think that I would have been pretty upset if I'd given money for a specific practical project and it had been used for something else. Here's one way O'Malley could fight the law: He could voluntarily release the his diocese's financial records. If the church has nothing to hide, there is no reason for secrecy.

There are Catholics all over the country -- maybe all over the world -- whose trust was so shaken by the abuse revelations and subsequent settlements that they have reduced or discontinued their financial contributions. Maybe it would make them give again if they felt treated as members of the body rather than ignorant voiceless cash cows.

2006-01-12T08:19:00.000-08:00

I keep reading and hearing about the "war powers" that the Bush administration claims for the executive branch. As an old fashioned John Stuart Mill liberal -- read "libertarian" in this day and age -- I feel very nervous about all this.
It's easy for those who have never trusted George Bush to see what is wrong with giving him authority over the personal rights and privacy of Americans. It's also easy for those who have always trusted George Bush to see nothing wrong with giving him authority over those personal rights and privacies. There were a lot of people (at the time) who approved of the FBI spying on anti-war groups in the Vietnam era.
I'd like to propose a little game for those who think unchecked executive branch powers make us safer. Imagine that the sitting president is a wild-eyed left winger, perhaps a pacifist, an atheist, or an environmental activist. This duly elected president wants detailed personal information about all the gun owners in the country.
Would you still feel safe and comfortable with unlimited executive power?