JoePa, Part 2

Doug and Charlie are wearing me down; Paterno definitely should have done more. (See Charlie’s excellent piece on his blog, Temporary Knucksline.) What I'm still upset about is how institutions mete out justice today, in the interest of a politically correct vision of "fairness."

Right now there are five principals on the radar: Sandusky, Curley, Schultz, Paterno, and McQuery. (Fired President Spanier doesn't really enter into this part of the discussion.) Let’s see how things shake out with each of them.

At the risk of offending those who believe everyone is innocent until proven guilty, Sandusky is a piece of shit. Assuming he’s found guilty, put him in gen pop, make sure the rest of the cons know who he is, and let nature take its course.

McQuery was the only other person who could have done anything material. He not only failed to do so, he had to ask Daddy what he should do. I was willing to give him a pass because of his age at the time, until I remembered my own oft-spoken scorn for such arguments. We have men and women of the age McQuery was then making life and death decisions under fire on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a quarterback, he was trained in leadership skills. They didn’t take.

Paterno was summarily fired after 62 years of service that put Penn State on the map. This is not such a huge story if it happens at Coastal Carolina or Guilford. It’s a national sensation because it happened at Penn State, and Penn State is such a big deal because it’s one of the most successful programs in the country and graduates over 80% of its football players, with nary a hint of a recruiting violation. Why are all those things true? Joe Paterno. Penn State fired him for making the school look bad, when no one outside of State College would have cared about the school looking bad had not Paterno put it on the map in the first place.

Curley and Schultz had the same information as Paterno, and are under indictment for perjuring themselves before a grand jury that had no issue with Paterno’s testimony. Schultz was allowed to retire; Curley is on administrative leave while he defends himself against the charges. Should we assume he will get his old job back if he is found innocent? Let’s hope not. In that case, why not fire him now?

The reason that will rise immediately to the top is that you shouldn’t fire someone who has not been proven guilty. This is a bogus argument. Penn State has made it clear being under indictment is not a firing offense. Curley should be fired for the same reason Paterno was, for not doing more to stop Sandusky. His perjury is but a piece of that.

Now that I’ve had time to think about this, Paterno had to go. This happened on his watch. He as much as acknowledged that when he announced his retirement, effective at the end of the season. What still bothers me is how none of the good he’s done over the past 62 years seems to matter anymore.

Announcing his retirement after the season may have been a tactical error. He should have consulted with the Trustees first. Come to an agreement. At least then they would almost have to have had some kind of joint announcement of how and when he’d go. As it was, since he had already announced he’d leave, they were in a position where they had to show the media and PC Police they took this seriously. (Finally.) The result was a “don’t let the door hit you on the ass” firing.

Curley and Schultz—and even Sandusky—will get their days in court. Paterno—whose offense is not that he did too much wrong but not enough right—gets to fall on his sword. No one cares about his side of the story anymore. It is not a defense of child abuse to say that he deserves better.

JoePa

Joe Paterno’s sixty-plus years at Penn State have come to an end. Like so many long tenures, it ended badly. Paterno, who has long resisted all attempts to retire him, announced he would leave at the end of this season and was not even allowed that, fired by the Board of Trustees last night.

Let us begin with what should be obvious: nothing that has happened, or will happen, to Paterno is in any way comparable to the damage that has been done to the young men molested by former assistant Jerry Sandusky. Assuming he is, in fact, guilty, there is no court with the authority to punish him severely enough. Athletic Director Tim Curley and University Vice President Gary Schultz have also earned their doses of infamy.

The preponderance of public invective has fallen on Paterno. Maybe that is as it should be; he is the leading public figure in this scandal. Still, the level of vitriol is surprising. Is it deserved? Unlike the vast majority of those who have heaped their scorn upon him via the internet today, I have actually read the grand jury report. I know using actual evidence violates the spirit of the web, but let’s give it a try.

Then graduate assistant (now assistant coach) Mike McQuery was in the Lasch Center (which houses the football offices) on a Friday evening to put new sneakers in his locker and pick up tapes for an upcoming game when he heard suspicious sounds coming from the shower. He took a look and saw former defensive coordinator Sandusky sodomizing a boy about ten years old. They saw each other, and everyone left.

McQuery, distraught, calls his father, then goes to his home, where his father tells him he has to tell Paterno. The next morning, McQuery goes to Paterno’s home and does so. Paterno said in his testimony McQuery was visibly upset. Paterno found his story credible enough to call Curley to his home Sunday morning and tell him what McQuery had seen. It also seems clear the language Paterno used was somewhat toned down from the description McQuery had given, though he definitely said Sandusky had been seen doing something of a sexual nature with a young boy. (Paterno at the time was in his mid-seventies. It is not surprising his language would not be as strong.)

Curley then contacted Schultz, under whose authority resided the university police force. They waited a week-and-a-half to speak to McQuery; Paterno was not present. Afterward they notified the police, but were apparently less than forthcoming. The grand jury summary says McQuery was “extremely credible.” Curley and Schultz were both described as “not credible.”

Could Paterno have done more? Absolutely. Should he have done more? Probably. Let’s look at what he did, and not what we’d all like to think we’d do in a similar situation.

McQuery played quarterback at Penn State, and obviously made enough of an impression on Paterno to be offered a graduate assistantship. He is entitled to a certain amount of credence. One Saturday morning, out of the blue, he tells Paterno he saw a man Paterno has worked closely with for over 30 years sodomizing a young boy. If I were Paterno, my first thought would be, “Kid, you’d better be pretty goddamned sure.” Paterno saw the McQuery was visibly upset, so he escalated it to his boss the next day. The grand jury finds no fault with this action.

The leading meme today has been, “Why didn’t Paterno call the police?” Let’s say he does. What does he tell them? “I have a grad student here who says he saw Jerry Sandusky buggering a small child.”

COP: Did you see anything?

JP: No.

COP: Send over the grad student.

They’re done with him. They need eyewitness testimony, and Paterno doesn’t have any.

The next argument I saw on a couple of comment threads was that Paterno should not only have gone to the police, he should have kept after them. These people watch too much television. I’ve made child abuse complaints twice, once when a woman shopping in a store where I worked refused to take her son for a free hospital exam after a nasty fall; the other occurred when child pornography appeared in my email. The police took my statement, got my contact information, and went on their way. They were clear that they’d call me if they needed me, but my role had ended. That’s what would have happened here. Police do not discuss open investigations with civilians. Period.

Another argument against insisting Paterno should have become a crusader for light and right is that State College PA is a small town. Its current population is listed at 39,898. Joe Paterno’s number is in the book. (Probably not anymore, but before this week it had always been.) Someone overhears on the police scanner that JoePa has called for cops, and what is still at that point an unsubstantiated claim is now public knowledge. He’s known Sandusky for a long time. He’s not likely to take the chance of ruining the guy’s life on one other person’s say so. What if it’s nothing? We know it wasn’t now, but Paterno wasn’t there when it happened; he didn’t see anything. He moved it up the chain, as he should have.

Put yourself in his position. You hear a similar story of a friend of thirty years. (For those who aren’t that old, think of a favorite uncle or mentor.) Is calling the police the first thing you do? Hasn’t that kind of relationship has earned the benefit of the doubt? Sure, you do something. Me, I’d urge the person who came to me to go to the police; he actually has evidence for them. If he’s afraid, then, yes, maybe I wander into the police station and make a statement. But maybe not, if I’m so high profile my appearance there–or the appearance of the police at my house–lets the toothpaste out of the tube.

I was then swatted with another argument, that the above statement only helps the guilty. We should go to the police with every such allegation we here. The presumption of innocence will protect against unfounded charges. Does anyone here remember Richard Jewell and the Atlanta Olympics? The Tawana Brawley case? McMartin pre-school? The toothpaste never quite gets put back into the tube, does it?

Maybe the worst thing I read today came from John Scalzi, a science fiction writer for whom I have had great respect. In the comment threads to his post demonizing Paterno, after a commenter said this:


“Meanwhile, all the rage at JoePa has taken the focus off the real monster.”

Scalzi’s reply:


“Alleged monster,” please. We should continue to remember that the alleged monster has yet to have his day in court.

Apparently for Paterno to get a fair hearing in the court of public opinion, he had not sinned enough; he needed to get himself indicted. Then a presumption of innocence would apply.

We all grieve for these children, and for Curley and Schultz to delay in their follow-up and then lie to the authorities is beneath contempt. What is disturbing is the levels of vitriol directed at someone who was not himself directly involved. It is true that all that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing; that does not make them evil themselves, or cowards. It makes them human. Let’s please just tone down this casting of first stones.

The most valuable thing I learned today? How glad I am the readers of John Scalzi’s blog are not my friends.

Game 6 Postponed

Brace yourselves. I'm about to say something nice about baseball commissioner Bud "Bud" Selig.Those who know me will appreciate this is not unlike me nominating Harry Reid for the Nobel Prize in Political Science, but fair is fair. (And I have said nice things about Reid, as well. Not too damned often, but I have.)

Selig has presided over many things I don't like about baseball: interleague play; second-place teams in the post-season and the resulting additional tier of playoffs; widening disparity in team payrolls; the Steroid Era, during which he placed his head in the sand deep enough to strike oil until the public and political outcry became so great he had to don his Crusader robe and take credit for both the outbreak of offense and stopping it; ever-lengthening games; a tied All-Star game, then changing the rules to make it "count." For a relative purist such as myself, who understands baseball is a business, but, Jesus Christ, enough already, Selig has been a train wreck looking for a crossing with a school bus of disabled kids on it.

Tonight Buddy gets his due. Game 6 of the World Series has been postponed well in advance. This was true of another playoff game in an earlier round, as well, even though the weather report for that game was incorrect and things cleared up nicely in time for the game. It was still the right thing to do, and the decision was made easier by another decision Selig made a few years ago: all post-season games will be played to their conclusion. If a game must be halted due to bad weather, it will resume from the place where it left off. Regular season rules concerning shortened or suspended games do not apply.

This is as it should be. I'm old enough to remember a 1978 National League Championship Series game between the Phillies and the Dodgers played in rain so heavy it was hard to see the pitched ball from the center field camera. Those conditions not only endanger the players, they risk making a travesty of the most important games of the season.

Trying to sneak the game in despite the forecast would have been a horrible idea for a potentially series-ending game, killing much of the sense of drama a Game 6 entails. Call the game now, tell FOX to calm the fuck down and reschedule their ads for the X Factor, and do it right.

For one day at least, this Bud's for all baseball fans.

How Can You Believe Anything These Guys Say?

From today's Washington Post:

It was a notable political misstep for Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain: in a CNN interview, he remarked that abortion ought to be “a choice that the family or mother has to make.” Those comments forced Cain to spend last week attempting to shore up his anti-abortion credentials—an effort that included endorsing a Constitutional amendment to ban abortion.


A week ago he believed abortion was a "choice that the family or mother has to make." A little blowback and he wants a Constitutional amendment to ban it outright. It doesn't matter what your views are on abortion; this guy will say anything.That fact that this tendency doesn't make him special among the contenders, on either side is what is so disturbing

My Complaint to Management

I sent this note to the White House today. There's not a soul in that building who gives a tenth of a shit what I think, but I did what I could. Maybe if enough of us do, it will matter.


I see by today's Washington Post online that the administration will stop implementing the CLASS Act, and that the Prevention and Public Health Fund may be in a tenuous position. Abandoning key provision of the ACA so quickly while extracting so little from its opponents in return doesn't say much for the administration's commitment to its own legislative "high points."

I was fooled in 2008; I'll not be fooled again next year.

Government Should Be Run More Like a Business

Why the hell would anyone want that?

Hey, Ron Paul

How’s that whole gold standard idea looking right now?

The Underpants School of Economics

The Beloved Spouse has reminded me of one of our favorite South Park episodes. In it, the boys’ friend Tweak is unable to sleep at night because of the Underpants Gnomes, who creep into his drawers and steal his, well, drawers.

Stan and Kyle and Cartman follow the Underpants Gnomes to their secret lair. (I forget whether Kenny was dead yet.) After a brief discussion, the head gnome shares his plan for wealth with the boys:

1. Underpants

2. ???

3. Profit

This is eerily like how the Republicans want to get the economy running again:

1. Austerity

2. ???

3. Prosperity (at least for some)

The Beloved Spouse wondered what George Carlin would think of this. (What other blog delivers such a wealth of cultural references?) She thinks it might go something like this:

Scenario:

The Worker

Out-of-work man.

Unskilled, no formal training. Construction. Warehouse work.

Married. Four kids. Wife works at low end department store.

Does odd jobs to keep the family afloat.

Rents a house.

Our Government

Is in charge of big projects that benefit the entire country.

Has lots of infrastructure that needs repair or replacement.

Has lots of new projects that need doing.

The Idea

Government hires this man to work on a project.

Government pays him a decent wage.

The man now has money to pay his bills, and  can now afford to buy more things for his family.

The family can go to the dentist, buy new shoes, have a vacation, buy a better car, buy a washing machine and dryer, go to the movies, etc.

Every time a dollar goes into this man's pocket, he probably spends all of it.

Every dollar that he spends goes to buy stuff or services.

That creates demand for stuff and services

Manufacturers make more stuff when there's demand for more stuff.

Service industries expand their services when there's more demand for services.

That means more jobs for folks in manufacturing, sales, services, etc.

Bonus! Our country now has safer roads, bridges, schools, etc.

The Outcome

Profit

This is such an elegant and obvious solution it’s hard to see how it can be argued with, except on the grounds of intellectual dishonesty (Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor) or severe mental impairment (Rick Perry, Michele Bachman). Trickle-Down economics hasn’t worked, and it’s not going to. Reagan’s economic Rasputin, David Stockman, knew it wouldn’t work when he implemented it, and admitted as much after he was safely out of government service. Trickle-Down economics is like standing a pyramid on its head; inherently unstable and unreliable.

What we need is Percolate Up economics. Give the above construction worker with four kids some money and he’ll spend it right now, on food or housing or car repairs. Give that money to someone in the highest earning one percent and he’ll either bank it, or, if he does buy something like a car, it will be a BMW. I’m all for free trade, but Germans have their economy better under control than we do. They’ll be fine.

Instead of giving a few people a lot of money through tax cuts, give a little money to each of a lot of people. Every dollar you give them will bring between 1.5 and two dollars back as it works its way through the economy after he buys a washing machine that allows Sears to order more, which allows whoever makes Kenmores (it’s not Sears, you know) to hire more washing machine builders n who can then fix their leaky roofs and basements, thus putting some construction guys to work. And on and on.

As for the alleged deficit hawks who think only government spending adds to the debt and tax cuts are somehow revenue neutral, look at your own finances. A dollar spent is no more damaging to the bottom line than a dollar not taken in.

I’ll talk about job creators another day.

 

The Home Office Hath No Fury…

The Beloved Spouse was an early Obama adopter. Got on the bandwagon early and stuck with him through the first two years of his alleged presidency. So it was no surprise when she received a email from him yesterday.

Friend --
I'm writing to invite you to dinner.

Personally, I only invite people whose names I know to dinner, but this is politics. Maybe it’s different.

If that sounds familiar, it's because we've done this before. I've asked the campaign to organize small, five-person dinners with supporters like you as a regular thing.
These dinners are important to me. Not just because they help me stay connected to supporters like you who are doing the hard work of building this campaign, but because they set us apart.
No matter what our opponents do over the next 14 months, we have chosen to put people at the heart of our campaign -- and we're focused on building it one grassroots donation at a time.
I'm asking you to make one today.

Now I understand. He’s inviting her to buy dinner. If that’s not a politician, I don’t know what is.

Our focus on everyday Americans and their stories has always made our organization more than just a political campaign.
From the very beginning, we've set out to practice a different kind of politics -- proving that we don't need checks from Washington lobbyists or unlimited special-interest money to win an election.

He keeps talking about a different brand of politics. I never realized “different” is a synonym for “ineffective.”

This is all pretty lame, Barry doing his Audacity of Hope bit for Democrats who haven’t been paying attention. Well, The Beloved Spouse has been paying attention to him since before he won his first primary. Here is her reply (Used with her permission, of course):

NOPE.

I might donate later, after I see how long this fire in your belly for the American Jobs Act lasts. You're back on the campaign trail, so you're all fired up and ready to go. Where the heck have you been?

You, Barack, have disappointed me beyond words. You have shown no leadership, no spine, no determination, and no flippin' insight into what you are up against. You have underestimated your opponents time and time again. I am not a very happy Democrat at the moment.

You are going to get my vote. I'm pretty much resigned to that. But, honestly, if there was a viable Democratic challenger, I'd have to at least look at a choice.

Choice. Change. Pffft. Words.

Get serious, Barack. I don't want to live in the kind of world invisioned by Perry, Paul, Bachmann and Cain. I might be able to tolerate Romney or Huntsman, but only because they seem as weak-willed and spineless as you turned out to be.

Sorry. I had such high hopes for you, too.

Catch me later.

The Democrats had better get a handle on who their friends are damn quick. If they’ve lost TBS, they’re in big trouble.

There He Goes Again

Barack Obama hit the campaign trail last week. He convened a joint session of Congress for an alleged speech about a jobs creation bill and used it as his kick-off speech. Symbolically, he gave it on the night the NFL season kicked off as well, though even his handlers knew he lacked the juice to compete with the game and moved an supposedly critical speech out of prime time to avoid getting trounced. (Green Bay beat New Orleans 42-34.)

Then Barry hit the campaign trail with a vengeance, traveling to three states (including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s home district) to taunt Republicans with his newly-discovered populist message. “Pass this bill!” is the sound bite. It will be about as effective as “Whip Inflation Now,” and “Just Say No,” but it sure did get the crowds fired up.

Where was this level of presidential involvement and emotion during the health care debate, when Tea Party savants taunted congressional town hall meetings with shouts of death squads? Barry spent most of that debate hunkered into the White House like Hitler in the Fuhrerbunker, making token appearances so people would know he was still alive. Same with financial reform. Pick any program he’d pledged to support and he was nowhere to be found.

Until now. Is it because people are hurting and jobs are still hard to come by? People were hurting and jobs were hard to come by during the stimulus debate, too. You didn’t see Air Force One zipping around the country so Barry could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with people who could no longer make their mortgage payments.

The difference now has no more to do with unemployment or foreclosures than the fact unemployed and foreclosed people vote, and the Republican debates are grabbing all the political headlines. He also needs to look presidential enough to forestall any primary challenges from his left. He’s running for office again, which is the only job he appears to be suited for, since his record after winning elections is sparse.

It will probably work. The Republican candidates are racing to see who can stake out the most untenable positions for the general election, with the exception of Mitt Romney, who doesn’t believe in anything except that he wants Mitt Romney to be president. The 2012 campaign is shaping up early as the epitome of a South Park election: a choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. Our political race to the bottom will be complete.

The Perfect End to the Perfect Week

The holiday was nice. I extended my weekend into Tuesday. That was nice.

Remember it. It won’t happen again.

Wednesday we had fourteen hours of more or less continuous violent thunderstorms. The power went out at 2:30 in the afternoon. Water started coming accumulating in the basement as 2:45. Your correspondent tried to hold back the tide with a sponge mop until I noticed whitecaps in the water. I gave up and waited for the power to come back on so the wet-vac would work.

At 7:30 our utility’s service line said our power would be restored by 9:00. By 9:15 the message had been changed to, “as soon as possible.” I dozed in a chair, ready to spring into action the instant the power came back on. At 12:15 I moved to the couch. The lights came on at 2:30. (Note the classical symmetry.)

By 2:32 I had the wet-vac humming. Done at 5:15, the only chore remaining to set up a floor fan that is usually kept upstairs to blow air across the mop-dry floor. Took off my Crocs (yes, I’m a 55-year-old man who wears Crocs in water-related emergencies) so I wouldn’t track wet footprints through the house. Slipped as I reached the bottom and drove my left big toe into a rack of shelves. Stomped around the basement doing my impersonation of George Carlin’s cat. (You get that joke or you don’t. ) Dragged the bloody stump upstairs to find the nail hanging on by individual atoms. All thoughts of a nap before work dead because, no matter how tired I was with ten functioning phalanges, I’m wide fucking awake with nine, so I signed in to work at 6:00. Worked until 4:30, when one of the broken toothpicks I’d been using to prop open my eyes slipped and embedded itself in my cheek. (This is the only exaggeration in the entire story. Swear to God.) Got something to eat and crashed on the couch until 8:00 this morning.

Today. Friday. Time to mellow out and ease into a weekend. A night of rest and elevation makes the toe look like it belongs to a human being, though not necessarily the human being it is attached to. Time for a little treat. I don’t drink worth mentioning. Don’t do drugs. Yo quiero Taco Bell.

One problem: they have a strict no zapatas, no camisa, no servicio policy. I slide a sock over the toe. Not too bad. Loosen the shoelaces as far as I can and it fits into a sneaker. Not happily, but it fits. I’m out the door.

I never realized how much your big toe is involved in working the clutch. (Note to aging people who remain clumsy: automatic transmissions are the way to go.) I coast through stop signs and never go above second gear all the way to the parking lot, where the pinnacle of my week awaits.

Taco Bell is on fire.

I shit you not. Nothing too dramatic. No flames shooting out of windows and telescoping ladders. At first all I saw was the emergency rescue vehicle and thought, “It’s Taco Bell. Maybe someone just got sick. No reason not to go in myself. The lines are probably non-existent.” Then I saw the five fire trucks from various jurisdictions, and people wearing Taco Bell jerseys walking away and figured maybe I should eat elsewhere.

Saturday can’t come soon enough.

The Relative Value of Labor

Here’s a quote the Party of Lincoln might want to consider, since it was Lincoln who said it:
"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
(Credit to E.J. Dionne, via Carola Dunn.)

The Patriot Act: Keeping America Safe From Terrorism

There's an interesting chart in New York Magazine that shows what the Patriot Act is used for.

Delayed-notice search warrants issued under the expanded powers of the Patriot Act, 2006–2009:
For drugs: 1,618
For fraud: 122
For Terrorism: 15

(Thanks to Peter Moskos’s excellent blog, Cop in the Hood.)

A Peek Behind the Republican Curtain

This is a tad long, but Mike Lofgren, who worked as a Republican congressional staffer for thirty years, steps outside the tent and gives the inside scoop on Republican goals, motives, and strategy better than any fifty blog posts that could be written from the outside. Well worth the read.

(Thanks to Jon Loomis for pointing this out on Facebook.)

The Death of the Honest Businessman | Articles | Bill James Online

Bill James made his bones as a pioneer in the field of sabremetrics, the analysis of baseball statistics that threatens to drown us all. James's gift was not in his analysis of the stats--which was, and is, formidable--but in how he wrote up the analysis. Always entertaining, James broke ground where no one has really followed, detailed analysis described by exceptional writing. Those who may be better number crunchers can't write half as well; those who can write at his level can't handle the level of statistical detail.

He has his own website now, full of baseball analysis, but with other stuff, too. He's written a true crime book that focuses on crimes that caught popular attention, that has been well received. (Full disclosure: I haven't got to it yet, but I will.) He also goes off on tangents, sometimes political, that are always worth reading. Today he posted an article on "The Death of the Honest Businessman" that shows the same logic that makes his baseball analysis worth reading.

The article also touches on a few political hot buttons, notably red light camera and closing small post office. All can be read at the link below, but what interests me most here is his juxtaposition of common rhetoric versus what actually happens.

James writes:

Also as many of you know, I’m prone to rant about red-light cameras. Here’s a link to an extremely good article on the subject:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/rolling-back-nanny-state_577297.html?nopager=1

Having endorsed the article enthusiastically—I think this may be the first time I have used this platform to link to somebody else’s article—I now need to back away from it a little bit in several directions. The article says that "governments initially justified them under the rubric of public safety—the cameras were supposed to make intersections safer. . .but the fig leaf of safety frittered away as study after study showed that the cameras made little difference and in some cases actually made intersections less safe. Drivers, knowing cameras were watching, tended to jam on their brakes suddenly at yellow lights, causing accidents." I would prefer to believe that that’s true, and intuitively I have known from the first moment I heard of a red light camera that businessmen would promote them by doing specious studies that heroically overstated the safety value of their product, but by the same rough skepticism, I know that people who write polemics very often say things like "study after study has shown" no matter how muddled the evidence actually is.

The more serious issue is that parts of the article are stated in right-wing cant that is likely to drive a wedge between Red-Light camera opponents and those who should be our strongest allies. The article talks about Red Light cameras as a further intrusion of the Nanny State into our daily lives, which is code to portray Red-Light cameras as being foisted on the population from the left. The reality is that it isbusinessmen who are selling these things, in league with avaricious local politicians. In the 1980s, when businesses got a toehold running private prisons on contract from the government, who was it that took the lead in opposing that? It was, of course, the left.

Well, this is the same thing, isn’t it? It’s turning over a police function to private business—and it should be opposed on those grounds; police powers cannot be delegated to people who could misuse them to generate income. There is too much opportunity for abuse, and businessmen are not universally ethical. The real problem with Red Light cameras is not that they don’t promote safety—for all I actually know, they may promote safety—it is that they create a profound confusion between the goals of public safety and the pursuit of wealth.

Also in the 1980s, there was a period in which it was a popular idea that police should seize items used in a crime and sell them to raise money for police departments. A more terrifying concept would be difficult to come up with—and who was it that took the lead in opposing this? It was, again, the left—and these policies were in due course prohibited by the courts as a threat to civil liberties.

Well, this is the same thing, isn’t it? It creates the same terrifying confusion between what is being done in the broad interests of the public and what is being done in the financial interests of the state, thus allowing the government to shake money out of your pockets on the pretense that they are legitimately punishing you for violating laws that you never had the slightest intention of violating.

Governments should be fanatically careful as to when they punish and who they punish. A wise father does not indiscriminately punish his children. Educated and sophisticated people know that punishments backfire frequently and at a high cost. This is careless and indiscriminate punishment. It is both stupid and immoral, and we need to put a definite stop to it.

Read the entire article here, or by using the link below. It's worth your time, no matter which side of the political fence you're on.

The Death of the Honest Businessman | Articles | Bill James Online

Deferring to my Betters

I was going to write about Obama’s latest disappointment, but Paul Krugman has done it better that I could in his NYT Blog:

I’ve actually been avoiding thinking about the latest Obama cave-in, on ozone regulation; these repeated retreats are getting painful to watch. For what it’s worth, I think it’s bad politics. The Obama political people seem to think that their route to victory is to avoid doing anything that the GOP might attack — but the GOP will call Obama a socialist job-killer no matter what they do. Meanwhile, they just keep reinforcing the perception of mush from the wimp, of a president who doesn’t stand for anything.

Class Warfare. Again.

Republicans have their kickers in knots because noted Socialist Warren Buffet has advocated raising taxes on the super-rich. “Class warfare!” is the rallying cry from Fox News and its ilk. (Is there any way for “ilk” to sound complimentary? Certainly not when used in conjunction with “Fox News” or “Tea Party” or “child molester.” Not saying Fox news and the Tea Party are child molesters. I just tried to think of the worst thing I could call someone, since “Fascist” lost all meaning when Obama was declared one by Lyndon Larouche’s acolytes.)

Apparently the Right believes class warfare can only happen by pitting one class against the rich. This is not true, though that is traditionally how it has been done, primarily because the poor do not have anything anyone else wants. Ah, but this is the Twenty-First Century, where Brave New World is as passé as “See Dick run” and Ayn Rand has replaced Thomas Jefferson as the paragon of rational political thought. Conservatives have found one thing the poor have that’s worth taking.

Money.

Taking money from people who don’t have any is not just hard to do, it’s hard to advocate. We’re not quite ready for the Al Swearengen approach of “hit them over the head, take their money, and throw their bodies in the creek,” though we’re headed down that slippery slope. No, for this we have to resort to a tried and true conservative meme: these people are screwing you, and we’re your only friend.

Conservatives have a revered tradition with this approach. For years blacks were the enemy, taking white jobs, sleeping with white women, and looking better with shaved heads than any white man. Immigrants had their day, but vilifying them has lost its sheen since the economy became so bad even Mexicans don’t want to come here anymore. Now it’s the poor’s turn, except no one can say “let’s take money from the poor” without invoking Dickensian images even from those who think a Dickensian is someone whose work pants aren’t Levis or Wranglers.

“How can we take money from the poor and get the middle class to think it’s a good idea?” Oh, how this must have tortured many a conservative soul late into many sleepless nights. Then some 60-watt bulb noticed that almost half of all Americans don’t pay income tax, and boom! Inspiration.

All real Americans hate freeloaders, and in tough times everyone (except the rich) are expected to contribute. Never mind that most of those non-taxpaying goldbricks are seniors living on Social Security who don’t draw enough benefits to pay tax. Most of the others either make so little money the standard deductions wipe out their Gross Adjusted Income, or programs like the Earned Income Credit or Child Tax Credit bring them under the line. (Note: Republicans repeatedly vote for these programs, and have expressed no interest in undoing them.)

While the poor don’t always pay income tax, they do pay Social Security and Medicare taxes. (If they’re lucky enough to have jobs.) These are regressive taxes, especially Social Security, thanks to the cap, which means there are poor people in this country who pay no income tax, yet still pay a higher percentage of their wages in overall taxes than do the rich.

Conservatives have no sense of irony. They fail to realize a flaw that is implicit in their argument: we now live in a country where almost half the people don’t make enough money to pay income tax.

Does that bother anyone but me? Of course, I’m one of those who still thinks the banks and financial institutions were responsible for the current mess, and refuses to blame the public workers and unions because it was their unreasonable salary demands and lack of work ethic that caused mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps to lose their (perceived) value and become exposed for the Ponzi schemes they always were, thus precipitating the Great Recession of 2008. Silly me.

Top Ten Things That Were True the Last Time I Didn’t Have to Wear Glasses

10. The Pirates played in Forbes Field.

9. The Steelers had never made the playoffs.

8. The only penguins in Pittsburgh were in the zoo.

7. John Boehner had human-colored skin.

6. The Beatles had never been to America.

5. Elvis was thin.

4. We only had “advisors” in Vietnam.

3. Mitch McConnell had a chin.

2. There was no such thing as Gatorade.

1. The United States could only put one man in space at a time. (Now we can’t put any.)

A Matched Set

The cataract in my right eye was removed on Wednesday, with The Sole Heir once again in attendance. (No photo this time; just hold the previous one up to a mirror.) This nurse anesthetist was a little more heavy-handed than his predecessor, so I slept through most of this one, including snoring, much to the amusement of the doctor and TSH.

The first thing I noticed when I finished my three-hour afternoon nap was that my glasses, without which I had been lost for almost fifty years, were no longer of use to me. I couldn’t see anything through them. Yesterday’s follow-up exam showed my right eye better than my left—as expected—with my overall vision when using both eyes at 20.25. I only need glasses to read. (I’ve hung nothing off my ears or nose to type this.)

Having good vision after a lifetime of Magoo Syndrome requires some changes. I bought a cheap pair of readers and keep pushing them up my nose when I look up from making a note, only to realize I can’t read the screen through them; I have to look over.  I ran a couple of errands yesterday with the vague feeling I was forgetting something, and was regularly surprised when I’d reach up to scratch my face and could do so unimpeded.

The best was last night. As I went to turn out the bathroom light on my way to bed I passed the dresser where I have always kept my glasses for easy retrieval first thing in the morning. Without thinking, my hand went up to remove my glasses. I laughed out loud.

To me, seeing well meant I had my glasses on. That was the only way it could happen. I was never vain about glasses. I’m not sure whether I look better with or without them, partly because my self-image is so closely associated with “with.” To me, it’s not how I look; it’s how I see.

It’s a liberating feeling. The Beloved Spouse found a crack in her glasses a couple of weeks ago, and had to resort to a pair of loaners while her progressive lenses were re-ground. Had I broken my glasses a month ago, I would not have been able to drive to Hour Eyes for a replacement. I break the readers, I just get my dead ass off the chair and go to Giant or CVS or Target and buy another pair.

What I notice most are things that never occurred to me when I thought about it before having the bionics implanted. An ability to shift focus without having to move my head to look through the proper area of the progressive lens. My peripheral vision is no wider, but there’s no blurry edge where my eye scans beyond the edge of my glasses. My vision is clear all day. No smudges or dust gets on the lens.

In a small way I almost feel disloyal. I’ve not been able to leave the house without glasses for as long as I can remember. Now they’re not only not helpful, they’re counterproductive. I couldn’t wear them if I wanted to, as my “corrected” vision is much worse than it ever was uncorrected.

I’ll get over it. Outdoor activities will be easier . I’m going to get myself to a batting cage in a couple of weeks to see how that goes, and might consider looking for a 55-and-over softball league next spring. Looking out the window, it’s startling to see the backyard in three dimensions, how far the limbs of the pine tree reach away from its trunk.

My most sincere thanks to Dr. John Grundy and everyone connected with his practice and with the Snowden River Surgery Center, where the procedures took place. As life-altering experiences go, only the birth of the Sole Heir and meeting The Beloved Spouse surpass the work these folks have done.

Another Example of American Exceptionalism

Ezra Klein's blog refers to a new report from Building America’s Future, “Falling Apart and Falling Behind,” which details the sorry state of America's transportation infrastructure. Here is a salient point for those who still think America is the world leader in everything.

The United States, the report notes, now has the worst air-traffic congestion on the planet, with one-quarter of flights arriving more than 15 minutes late. One reason is that U.S. air-traffic control still relies on 1950s-era ground radar technology, even as the rest of the world has been shifting to satellite tracking (the FAA has begun the transition to a satellite-based system, though it’s moving slowly and future funding is a big question). According to recent World Economic Forum rankings, even Malaysia and Panama now boast better air infrastructure.

American exceptionalism used to refer to this country's willingness to do everything better. Now too many people think it means everything here is best just because it's American. 

As anyone who has been paying attention already knows, this is a recipe for disaster.

Still on Silent Running

Last night I tried to explain to a friend why I haven't been posting here much lately, except for fuzzy bunny cataract stories. (Eye Two gets done a week from today, after which I will likely be totally and irreversibly insufferable.)

The explanation I offered to my friend was, alas, unsuitably erudite for this forum. Fortunately for me (and you), John Scalzi has covered this exact topic in his excellent blog, Whatever.

The Doctor Will Soon Be In

As if all this new seeing wasn’t good enough, another enjoyable aspect of cataract surgery was having The Sole Heir with me throughout. She’s a pre-med student, and Dr. Grundy and his staff were good enough to let her don scrubs and follow me all the way in and back.

I found out afterward she’d watched my vital signs on the electronic monitors and received a running commentary of what was happening from Brian, the nurse anesthetist, as they watched on the monitor. She said later she was less nervous than she would have been sitting alone in the waiting room. I know I was less nervous during the pre-surgical down time, as talking with her was a lot more entertaining than wondering what happens if the doctor sneezes at an inopportune moment.

The staff fell all over themselves making her (and me) feel comfortable, and I think she learned a lot about what’s involved in minor surgery. She had a knee scoped a few years ago, but I’m sure the focus is different when you can step back and watch instead of being the guest of honor.

She drove me home and we ate lunch and watched baseball and she was at least as much of a Nazi as The Beloved Spouse about enforcing the doctor’s “don’t do anything today” edict. Most people think of surgery as cutting something apart, but it should also tie things together.

Eyesight to the Blind

I knew the eyesight in my left eye was bad. Had been for years. My right eye carried the load as best it could. I rarely noticed my left eye wasn’t stepping up until something would come between them—say, a beverage cup—and half the world became as out of focus as the Tea Party’s deficit plans.

I knew the top letter on eye chart was E because I’d seen it before; looking at it with just my left eye, I couldn’t tell which way it pointed. I learned last month the left lens in my eyeglasses was clear, as there is only so much difference in prescription your brain can handle before it goes permanently off-center and your sense of balance is destroyed so badly you can only walk in circles that gradually veer to the right. (All right. I made that last part up. It’s still bad.)

Last Wednesday I had surgery to remove a cataract in my left eye, which was, apparently, 90% occluded.

Holy shit.

I’ve spent most of the past week going around looking at stuff. Taking my glasses off, covering my right eye, which is now the weaker of the two. I can watch television, see clocks from across the room, almost drive. I’d guess my vision is about 20/40 without correction now.

There’s a whole world out there to my left I’d been missing. Seeing all those overtaking vehicles over there makes me wonder how I got to be this old. My left arm does not suffer from an undiagnosed necrotic disease that sometimes makes it difficult to tell where it ends. Things that are closer to me actually look closer, as in three-dimensional. Who knew?

The whole procedure took about five minutes. I was awake and on the most excellent drugs so I was not at all disturbed by the fact a relative stranger was slicing a hole in my eye, sucking out the lens, and sticking a hunk of plastic in there. Fine, whatever. Put a picture window into my brain while you’re up there. It’s all good with me.

Now I can hardly wait until August 17, when Dr. Grundy will fix the right eye. That won’t be as pronounced a difference, but it will be nice to have a matched set for the first time since—oh, I don’t know—ever. Then I can get glasses to even up that whole nearsighted/farsighted thing, and I’ll be one  sighted motherfucker.

Better eyesight isn’t all cold beer and juicy steaks. I don’t know who lets that fat, unkempt asshole into my bathroom every morning, but it can stop any time now.

The Return of the Fox Follies

I watch as little baseball on Fox as possible. Listening to Joe Buck slip ever deeper into his mind-numbing monotone as Tim McCarver’s brainless banalities suck the life from everything within a fifty-foot radius like some black hole for lucid comment is too painful. They’ve become so bad I sometimes wonder if MLB keeps the Fox contract just to drive people to the MLB.tv and Extra Innings packages, where you can watch just about any game you want.

Last night’s All-Star game was my first tentative step in Fox’s den of baseball iniquity, and the Mid-Summer Classic found them in mid-season form. I came late, not settling into the Official Recliner of The Home Office until the top of the fourth inning, as Boston’s Adrian Gonzalez stepped in to hit. Buck droned on about how the left-handed Gonzalez shortens his stroke with two strikes and hits the ball to left. In the next breath he commented about how Gonzalez, a career .290 hitter, is hitting over .330 this year, and how it showed how much easier it was to hit with the protection of the Boston lineup around him.

Baseball analysts have studied the concept of one hitter protecting another for years. To my knowledge they have found no evidence it’s true. What Buck left out of his expert commentary was the fact that Gonzalez has moved from the worst hitter’s park in baseball (Petco Field in San Diego) into one of the best (Fenway), and that Fenway’s unique configuration makes him virtually impossible to pitch to, given the close left field wall and Gonzalez’s already described penchant for hitting the ball to left field.

That might have been enough to get me to turn off a regular season game, or at least to mute the sound on a World Series game. Given the constant line-up changes in the All-Star Game, I took my chances and left it on last night, in the masochistic hope that McCarver, the Einstein of Inanity, would say something that met his usual standard of insipidness. The Memphis Moron did not disappoint.

After a passed ball by Baltimore catcher Matt Weiters, McCarver, a former catcher himself (clearly from the days before catchers wore helmets behind the plate) excused Weiters with this: “You have to remember, catchers are more used to hitting pitchers than catching them.”

I think I know what he meant, but that’s not real close to what he said. Maybe it bothers me more than it should because I’m still in shock over the worst in-game interview in history, between Mark Grace and Justin Timberlake. (Decorum and my blood pressure prohibit exploring that topic in more detail.)

At least I won’t have to watch a Fox game until well into the playoffs. It’s a sad day for a man who grew up listening to the likes of Bob Prince and Jack Buck when Chip Caray and Joe Simpson are the announcers of choice. To paraphrase the late, great, Lewis Grizzard, Skip Caray is dead, and I don’t feel so good, either.

Beat ‘em, Bucs.

Another Inconvenient Truth

A little-quoted writing from Thomas Jefferson that seems to have slipped beneath the notice of those who claim to speak for what the Founding Fathers intended, especially along the lines of religious freedom:

"Whereas the preamble [of Virginia's Act for Establishing Religious Freedom] declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the words `Jesus Christ,' so that it should read, `a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;' the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination."

(Lifted from Peter Rozovsky’s award-winning blog, Detectives Beyond Borders.)

So let’s knock off this “Christian nation” shit, okay?

A Family Resemblance

Exxon has to be not just the worst oil company in the world, but the lousiest corporate citizen. It’s not enough they pay no taxes and despoil the environment (their two most egregious examples being the Exxon Valdez in Alaska and the current disgrace on the Yellowstone River), it turns out that at least some of their “independent dealers” are just as much miserable low-lifes as the mother company.

The Beloved Spouse and I are firmly convinced the finest fast-food sandwich made is the Blimpie Best. Unfortunately, there are no Blimpies along our normal routes of traverse. Today I decided to take advantage of having extended my July Fourth weekend to make a sojourn north of town to an Exxon station that has a Blimpies sign attached to it.

I drove to North Laurel Exxon at 15151 Sweitzer Lane and went inside, where I found no evidence of any Blimpies products. I asked the man behind the counter who I could see about a sandwich. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Who do I see about a sandwich?

He: We don’t sell those anymore. Look in the case. we make some already.

Me: Maybe you ought to take down the sign.

He: Yes, we should probably do that.

I realize you cannot hear his tone from this description, but I have serious doubts about his sincerity, or his intentions to do so.

I went elsewhere for our sandwiches. (Another Blimpies, farther away; it was worth it.) I also notified Mr. Blimpie in Arizona, and have called the Maryland Attorney General’s Consumer Complaint Hotline. I don’t get past there much, but when I do, I’m going to check the sign. When I se it has come down, I’m going to walk in and ask if they caught any hell from either Blimpie or the state, then I’m going to point to myself and say, “I did that, motherfucker.”

Don’t screw with my sandwiches.

Thank You, Sir. May I Have Another?

The following letter appeared on the web site of the Gratiot (MI) County Herald on May 12, 2011 (Thanks to the Low Brass Correspondent for pointing it out to me):

Dear Governor Snyder,

In these tough economic times, schools are hurting. And yes, everyone in Michigan is hurting right now financially, but why aren’t we protecting schools? Schools are the one place on Earth that people look to to “fix” what is wrong with society by educating our youth and preparing them to take on the issues that society has created.

One solution I believe we must do is take a look at our corrections system in Michigan. We rank nationally at the top in the number of people we incarcerate. We also spend the most money per prisoner annually than any other state in the union. Now, I like to be at the top of lists, but this is one ranking that I don’t believe Michigan wants to be on top of.

Consider the life of a Michigan prisoner. They get three square meals a day. Access to free health care. Internet. Cable television. Access to a library. A weight room. Computer lab. They can earn a degree. A roof over their heads. Clothing. Everything we just listed we DO NOT provide to our school children.

This is why I’m proposing to make my school a prison. The State of Michigan spends annually somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student. I guess we need to treat our students like they are prisoners, with equal funding. Please give my students three meals a day. Please give my children access to free health care. Please provide my school district Internet access and computers. Please put books in my library. Please give my students a weight room so we can be big and strong. We provide all of these things to prisoners because they have constitutional rights. What about the rights of youth, our future?!

Please provide for my students in my school district the same way we provide for a prisoner. It’s the least we can do to prepare our students for the future...by giving our schools the resources necessary to keep our students OUT of prison.

Respectfully submitted,
Nathan Bootz
Superintendent
Ithaca Public School

This is as well as I have seen the argument for education done, though I hesitated to post it, because I know some asshole is going to miss the point and say it’s a plea to make prisons harsher.
I will be happy to engage in that argument.

Adventures in Headline Writing

From the Associated Press:

Acrobat, mom, reenact fatal Puerto Rico wire walk.

I’m assuming it was originally fatal for someone else.

Oops

Sure was embarrassing to have the President talk over “God Save the Queen” at the state dinner the other night. While it’s easy to say it’s an honest mistake, there are a lot of people in this country who’d consider declaring war if someone stepped on “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Sensitivity to other nations’ customs and patriotic symbols should one of the easier parts of his job. True, it wasn’t his fault the orchestra started playing when he was still talking, but he’s supposed to know—as anyone else would be expected to—that when the national anthem starts, that’s your cue to shut the fuck up. (Then again, when has any politician observed a cue to STFU?)

Embarrassing and (inadvertently) disrespectful, but at least he didn’t throw up on her, as did George H.W. Bush with the Prime Minister of Japan. Thinking of Forty-One barfing on the guy puts me in mind of what would have happened had the most recent Bush president had committed the same gaffe as Obama.

“Hey,” he’d say, “it wasn’t my fault the band started playing ‘My Country Tis of Thee’ right in the middle of my toast.”

A Good night at Castle Schadenfreude

I watched the Pirates lose 4-2 to the Natinals tonight, but it wasn’t a total waste of time. Washington Capitals coach Bruce “Porky Pig” Boudreau was observed in the crowd behind home plate. I wondered what he was doing there, then realized he has time on his hands, now that the Caps have been swept four games to none by Tampa, eliminating them from the Stanley Cup playoffs in the second round.

At first I could find no connection between the Porkster and the Nats, but a after a little thought it was obvious:neither team has ever won a Stanley Cup.

Porky was not observed after the seventh inning, but that was not unexpected. It’s spring, and he thinks it only natural to pack it in while teams are still playing.

(Editor’s Note: “Natinals” is not a typo. A couple of years ago the team actually took the field for a game with two players wearing uniforms with the team name spelled that way. Washington DC, the Sports Capital of the Apocalypse.)

Can Someone Explain This to Me?

Suppose a man—let’s call him a Republican so as not to defame anyone—has spent much of his life doing his level best to see to it that people who need help don’t get it. Wants to cut the WIC program and Head Start, argues tirelessly against Medicare, Medicaid, and health insurance of any kind. Anyone willing to work doesn’t need unemployment benefits for more then thirteen weeks.

Now he gets laid off. He’s a hard worker, he’ll be back in harness again soon, which is good, because those COBRA payments are killers when you’re not working. Good thing the family can do without insurance for a few weeks while he finds a new job.

Then he finds out that pain in his kid’s gut is a tumor, and I look at this prick and I smile.

I wish the kid no ill will. It’s not his fault his father is a selfish, insensitive douche bag. This hypothetical tumor isn’t fatal. Hell, I don’t want it to be painful.

Just expensive.

I like the idea of Dad laying awake a few nights wondering how he’s going to pay for this. Can he pay the kid’s bills and still afford a house for him to live in? At what point will they cut him off, making what should be a scary inconvenience into a life-threatening drama?

To most people, this makes me a bastard, far worse than the fictional father described above. He’s willing to deny children a healthy diet, decent medical care to entire families, and a safety net over uncertain times to literally millions of people. All I want is for him to walk a mile in their shoes and have a few of the countless sleepless nights he’d inflict on others.

Yet I’d bet most people would say that makes me the lesser person of the two of us, and I just don’t see it.

Say Hey!

Willie Mays is eighty years old.

Holy shit.

A Win for the Good Guys

I meant to write this last week before the Osama bin Laden news overwhelmed the Internet, but I have a life, too, so it slipped. (Editor’s Note: No bin Laden comments will be forthcoming, either about his death, what comes next, or the celebrations that erupted when the news broke. These have already been overdone by people who weren’t right about 9/11/01 or any analysis or predictions since. He’s dead, it’s a victory, move on. It’s not like Sunday was VE or VJ Day; not much is going to change.)

Sometimes it seems there’s no good news. Allegedly responsible representatives are threatening a default by the federal government. (Most of these are people who would throw you out of your house for missing even a single mortgage payment. Et tu, assholes?) The economy refuses to pick up and there are rumblings that we may have to get used to a new definition of “full employment” that has twice as many people off work as the old.

In the midst of all this misery, comes a beacon of light from, of all places, Mississippi, where the Anti-Christian Spawn of Hell Westboro Baptist Church was finally foiled in an attempt to ruin a military funeral. Beating the snot out of one of their number while everyone in the vicinity saw nothing was nice; the local government’s response in blocking their vehicles into their motel parking lot was priceless. We must be careful not to encourage too much of government’s behavior, as its potential for abuse is too great. Here it was just right.

As for the unwitnessed beat down, you want to push the law and the Constitution to the breaking point, you invite others to do the same. I only hope I would have the courage to flatten some tires if offered the same opportunity. There are things that go so far beyond decency that decency in return is nothing more than enabling behavior. Maybe the next step should be harassing their church services, especially funerals. See how well that shoe fits.

Perseverance in the 21st Century

Slate’s Jurisprudence page is the only part of the online magazine I keep on my site aggregator, and that’s so I can read dahlia Lithwick’s columns. Only NPR’s Nina Totenberg can breath life into descriptions of legal arguments as well as Ms. Lithwick, who consistently treads the fine line between objectivity and showing her political inclinations. (The Beloved Spouse has called her my intellectual mistress, and we refer to her by her first name around the house.) I stand second to no man in my admiration of her gifts and insight. (Her husband excluded, hopefully.)

She sure blew it today, though.

The question is not whether the Defense of Marriage Act deserves adequate and enthusiastic representation in court. of course it does, no matter how reprehensible I may find it. Flawed as it is, ardent advocacy is the best hope we have for our judicial system, be it for individuals, corporations, or laws like DOMA. (It would be nice if judges refrained from some of the advocacy, having supposedly left that behind when they ascended to the bench, but that’s a different post.)
The issue here is who’s at fault for King & Spalding’s refusal to provide that advocacy after agreeing to do so, after scathing attacks by a gay rights group. Ms. Lithwick blames the gay rights folks for going too far and placing King & Spalding in a position where keeping on with the DOMA case would cost them clients and money.

The gay rights group may have gone too far; that’s a different argument, too. The villains here are still King & Spalding, who folded under pressure. It’s not hard to see what kind of advocacy anyone could expect from them. They’ll support you so long as your fees bring in more money than they lose on those who disagree. Then you’re on your own. Quite the idealistic image for law students to aspire to.

I don’t suppose you’ll see many pictures of Thurgood Marshall or Morris Dees in those offices. You know, lawyers who’d take on a client and stand up for him, whether the firm agreed with his position or not.

I doubt the ACLU will be hiring these guys for anything in the near future. Kudos to Paul Clement for resigning.

My Fantasy

No, it doesn’t involve Elle MacPherson.

My middle-aged adult male fantasy is to win the lottery.

Not for the money.

Well, yeah, for the money, but because the money would allow me to act on this fantasy. (It still doesn’t involve Elle MacPherson.)

I want to win enough money so I can write a check for a million dollars. (Picture Dr. Evil saying it. “One millllion dollars.”) Make it out to the Democratic National Committee. Get DNC Chairman Tim Kaine on the phone. (Damn right he’ll take that call.) I’ll ask for a meeting with him, Bob Menendez (Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman), and Chris Van Hollen (House Campaign Committee Chairman). They can name the time and place. They’re busy men, and I’ll be retired by then. (You think I’d work with a million dollars to throw around? Really?)

So the four of us are in the room and I take out the check. Show it to them. Certified check, the bank vouches for it. Lay it on the table between us and tell them they can leave with it, spend it how they want, on one condition:

Tell me why the fuck they deserve it. How they’re Democrats, not Republican Lite. And who they plan on running for president. If I don’t like the answers, the I’ll tear the check up and give the money to the likeliest primary challenger to Barack Obama, aka The Mole.

See Glenn Greenwald’s piece in Salon for detailed reasons.

Okay, Elle can come if she wants.

But They Probably Know Dick Cheney’s Undisclosed Location

Fox News has a hard-earned reputation for faulty research and negligible fact checking. Now it appears their virtually invisible standards have moved into the sports department.

During Saturday’s Yankees-Tigers game, Tim McCarver—who needs no help from researchers to say something stupid—noted that Derek Jeter was close to becoming only the seventh player to get 3,000 hits for the same team. That didn’t sound right to me, so I did one Google search (3,000 hits same team) and took the first hit that came up.

Here’s the actual list:

Paul Waner,  Honus Wagner, Roberto Clemente, Stan Musial, Carl Yastrzemski, Cal Ripken, Jr., George Brett, Robin Yount, Tony Gwynn, Al Kaline.

For those of you scoring at home, that’s ten.

(Note three Pirates on the list. Yes, Virginia, there was a time when Pittsburgh did baseball right.)

America in Microcosm

The economic and political problems confronting this country are well summed up in this tale of two friends.

The State of the Nation

Thanks to the Beloved Spouse for providing this link on income distribution, taxes, and trends in America. The comment section is available for any Tea partiers and "cut taxes but not any spending that will make a difference" conservatives.

I'm not counting on much of a response from those quarters.

Energy Policy

Daylight Saving Time started over the weekend for most of the United States. For years it began the first weekend of April and ended at the end of October. Then the half-asses in Washington decided we needed an energy conservation policy, so they extended it a couple of weeks on either end, like that makes the sun shine longer each day. All it really accomplished is setting my wake-up time back into what looks like the middle of the night. It also sums up Congress’s efforts to create a sustainable energy policy, just in case you thought they were too busy bickering to get any serious business done.

They Made Me Do It

I have a policy of not contributing to out-of-state political campaigns. I have a state to be politically active in, and I don’t much like others coming in from outside and telling us how to run things. If things are going to be screwed up in Maryland, they should be our screw-ups.

I’m going to make an exception for Wisconsin. Don’t misunderstand me. The ultimate blame for what’s going on there rests with the voters. They elected these bastards; a large part of me says they can live with them.

The problem is, Wisconsin’s Republicans are the tip of the spear. They get away with this here, their peers will be emboldened in Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey, and probably Pennsylvania. Down this road lies the status of a second-rate nation, one that can’t—or won’t—care for those who can’t take care of themselves and is incapable of educating its population to do more than what they’re told.

Imagine a Japan-esque disaster in this country with Mike brown in charge of FEMA. We have continued to elect politicians who campaign on the platform that government is the problem, then make every effort to ensure government will be the problem once they’re in power. We then express astonishment and dismay when they do what anyone who looked closely at their record should have known they’d do.

The Republican response to “tax and spend” Democrats is to dismantle government, except for the pieces that directly benefit them. A line has to be drawn somewhere to show liberals aren’t, in the words of Peter Moskos, “cheese-eating surrender monkeys.” Wisconsin is as good a place as any to start.

The check goes in the mail today to help to recall the Republican senators and governor. Enough is enough.

Circling the Drain

I have reached the age where thinking about the end game of life is more than an abstract concept. My health is fine, and I fully expect to be around at least another twenty-five years, but what were casual thoughts in my thirties are now concrete obstacles that must either be dealt with or maneuvered around. I’m hoping to get to retirement before the current political climate makes the working economy unendurable, with the idea that Social Security and Medicare will remain relatively intact for a while longer, as the ability of Republicans and the Tea Party to play groups against each other there is minimal. No  one wants old people living under bridges, scrounging meals from Dumpsters. I hope.

What is most discouraging is that I see no way not to leave my daughter and grandchildren a worse country than I inherited. I have no delusions, there; the country I inherited had plenty of issues. I was born before meaningful civil rights legislation, during the Cold War (though, thankfully, no wars of the shooting variety), not too long after Joe McCarthy’s self-serving inquisition. It was also a time when working people could join the middle class and not have to live from paycheck to paycheck and could reasonably expect their children to go to college and improve themselves, attitudes that only increased in the Sixties.

What will I leave? A country where “every man for himself” has more significant meaning than any time since the Oklahoma land rush. No fiscal responsibility in government or the population that elects it. Fiscal responsibility? Hell, there’s no fiscal sanity. Political “leaders’ tell us we have to cut the deficit by trimming only programs that make up about 12% of the government; Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are off-limits. Tax increases, even for those who have most benefitted by the frenzy of tax reduction in upper income strata, is unmentionable in civil discourse.

So cuts to “discretionary” spending it must be. You know what constitutes “discretionary” spending? Food safety inspections. Occupational safety. Prescription drug testing. Highways and infrastructure. Education. People in Pennsylvania can light their tap water with a match due to gases released from a coal-mining technique known as fracking, and the governor is working to make the regulations less stringent.

The salient purposes of government are to protect the population, to provide what individuals cannot provide for themselves, and to level the playing field at least enough to prevent the advantaged running roughshod over those with less power. Not here. Not anymore. Now it’s to pad the lives of those who can best afford to take advantage of the system. Corporations have more rights than people.

I hope my time doesn’t come for a while yet. There are things I want to do, and people I want to spend time with. But when it does come, I’m not going to miss this shit one bit. I’ll just feel badly I wasn’t able to think of anything productive to do about it.

Still Pretending He’s the Cavalry

From today’s Wonkbook summary, by the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein:

With the stopgap funding bill safely through Congress and the federal government given a two-week reprieve, the White House has decided to get in the game more directly: They've invited congressional leaders to sit down with Vice President Joe Biden, Chief of Staff William Daley, and budget director Jack Lew to hammer out a deal.

You could imagine a great beer commercial coming out of this: The wonks and legislators are deadlocked until someone brings in an ice-cold case of Miller Lite. Suddenly, it's all backslapping and "of course revenue should be on the table" and "you're right that government needs to spend less" and "sorry about that whole Planned Parenthood thing." And I haven't even mentioned the disco ball.

But can you imagine a great budget deal coming out of this? This is the same play the White House ran to resolve the tax debate: they waited till the last minute, when inaction was about to force unwelcome consequences, and then they gathered the players in a room with Tim Geithner and Jack Lew and had Joe Biden act as shuttle envoy to Mitch McConnell. Despite the skepticism of people like, well, me, it worked. Maybe it'll work again. But the downside here, much like the downside there, is that the White House has taken ownership over the process, and they will get much of the credit or much of th blame for whether it works and what it produces.

This is the same thing President Comfortable Shoes has done since Day One: wait until a situation hits crisis mode, then come in late, thus taking credit for what results. Health insurance reform, financial overhaul, taxes, and now this.

It’s not leadership’ it’s opportunism. Granted, he doesn’t have a lot of political capital to spend right now, having pissed much of it away doing what was described in the previous paragraph. Still, he thinks this is the way to go, consequences to the 99.9% of people who just want to get along with their lives be damned.

March 1

March 1 is a special day at The Home Office. Because of March 1, the grass is greener and the sky is bluer. I am more often happy, and, when I'm not, the unhappiness is not as deep, nor does it last as long.

Thanks to March 1, I find humor in ordinary things. I am more patient, and less likely to assume malicious intent when things don't go my way. My health is better. Honest to God. I am a better friend and a better son and generally a better person to be around.

The Beloved Spouse and The Sole Heir both drew their first breaths on March 1.

Happy birthday, ladies.

Today’s Lesson

The current politico-economic situation of the United States is clearly and accurately described in the following story, provided by the Show Tunes Correspondent.

A CEO, a union worker, and a Tea Party member are sitting around a table  with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO takes 11 cookies, then turns to the Tea Party member and says,"Watch out for that union guy. He wants to take some of your cookie."

Paul Krugman can’t do it any better than that.

The Crux of the Problem

This colorful little graphic shows what is the core of most of the trouble in the United States today.

The gist of what it means is simple. The top 20% of Americans control over 80% of the wealth. Most Americans don’t know this. They think—as the second graph shows—the top 20% controls almost 60% of the wealth, and they’re not real happy about that, as the third graph shows they think the top 20% should control about 30%. I’m not even going to discuss what the bottom 20% get. This is depressing enough. (For a set of graphs that explores this in more detail, see the article in Mother Jones.)

The rich have always controlled a disproportionate amount of the economy. That’s what makes them rich. There was a time when they had the smarts—or class—to keep it to themselves. Flaunting it in everyone else’s faces was considered to be poor form. We’ve all heard stories of families who had money during The Depression keeping their shades drawn much of the time so those less fortunate wouldn’t see the disparity. That could be hubris or sensitivity, depending on the family, but it’s not happening now.

People making $400,000 are distraught because they don’t make $600,000. They see their income figures and think they should be rich—and they are—then look at the guy across the way who makes a couple of million and feel deprived. Few look in the other direction and feel grateful for what they have.

And it’s still not enough. Tax cuts are proposed for the rich, though their rates have plummeted since the Eisenhower years. (See Mother Jones.) Union busting activity is worse than it’s ever been. True, there are armed confrontations, but now the government is actively against the unions. Witness Scott Walker’s power grab in Wisconsin, where he doesn’t just want to be the governor who busted the unions, he wants to be king. How else can you describe a governor who has promoted a bill that will allow him to sell off state property without soliciting bids, to whomever an official appointed by him deems worthy?

Public sector workers are being demonized to out of work private sector workers, when the people who are really hosing them make more in a year than any of them will make in their lives. The true enemy of an employed worker is not an employed government worker; it’s any unemployed worker, who is now competition for the job he needs.

This is bad, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get better soon. Both parties share in the blame. Republicans for their ruthlessness, and Democrats for their fecklessness in ceding the battlefield. The real problem now is that, even if the pendulum swings back, it will take years to undo the damage that was done in a couple of elections, and there don’t appear to be enough people on the horizon willing to do much more than talk about it.

Unions

A lot of people would have you believe the current financial crises many states find themselves in are the fault of unions. Wisconsin and New Jersey have been the most aggressive in taking action, but anecdotal evidence abounds of men in the street blaming unions for everything from deficits to health care reform.


They forget that states operated under the same union contracts three to five years ago as they do now, and were rolling in money. It’s the financial crisis that put the states’ budgets in jeopardy; the unions are in the process of being scapegoated into picking up much of the tab.


Make no mistake: unions have brought much of this on themselves. They too often devote their energies protecting the least deserving. It can be virtually impossible to fire some people, as union contracts can make every employee’s faults the employer’s responsibility: drugs, alcohol, or sometimes just plain laziness. (It can also be pointed out here that employers signed none of these contracts at gunpoint.)
Unions also have traditionally taken too much of an adversarial position. When common sense argued for creating partnerships with management so that risks and rewards could be more equitably shared, too many unions chose to suck every dime out of a contract. Times changed, and now they find themselves in situations where management careers and fortunes can be made by firing workers, and it’s too late to strike the kinds of deals that could have prevented it.


In the midst of all this bashing, let’s not forget why we have unions in the first place. Do a little research into what working conditions were like a hundred years ago. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire happened exactly one hundred years ago on March 25. One hundred forty-seven garment workers died in a few minutes because the company locked the doors to the sweatshop and they couldn’t get out.


I’m 55 years old and remember a lot of men my grandfather’s age—including my paternal grandfather—who were missing fingers, many of them from industrial accidents. That doesn’t happen so much anymore. We’re all shocked at the safety violations that were ignored in West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine last April, but I’ll bet miners before the time of the Molly Maguires would have thought they’d won the lottery to work in such conditions. Skyscrapers and bridges used to have “expected casualties” built into the plans and budgets. No more. We expect no one will die building something today.


Unions helped to make that so, along with stopping many arbitrary firing practices that could deny a worker the pensions he’d earned just before he was able to collect it.


Of course, most pensions are gone; we have 401 ( k ) plans and companies can’t understand why employees show so little loyalty. Break the unions now, and the chances for unskilled and semi-skilled labor to retain company-provided health insurance drop to nothing. In times of high unemployment and a potentially interchangeable work force, why provide any more benefits than necessary beyond the lowest wage you can get away with?

Unions are easy targets, but they’re straw men. No surer way exists to cripple the melding of the middle and working classes that made this country the force it became in the middle part of the 20th Century than to break them. Let’s not forget, the American Exceptionalism conservatives so loudly proclaim was not ordained by God. It was the by-product of hard work and the coming together of historic forces. We undue them at at our own risk.

The Hobgoblin of Small Minds

Judgment and discretion are essential elements in any activity. Arbitrary limits and “zero tolerance” policies don’t accomplish anything except to give their perpetrators the appearance of toughness. Rarely is any good accomplished. rather, these policies are more often counterproductive.

Case in point: The King’s Speech and its R Rating by the Motion Picture Association of America for “some language.”

The language in question is the word “fuck,” as it almost always is. Part of the king’s therapy is to break down the reservations that cause his stammer, leading to an outburst of several “fucks” in a row, in two separate scenes. The effect is pitch perfect: the first instance shows Lionel Logue’s methods; the second shows the king’s gradual acceptance of them. That’s as racy or violent as the movie gets.

This is from the MPAA’s web site:

More than one such expletive requires an R rating, as must even one of those words used in a sexual context. The Rating Board nevertheless may rate such a motion picture PG-13 if, based on a special vote by a two-thirds majority, the Raters feel that most American parents would believe that a PG-13 rating is appropriate because of the context or manner in which the words are used or because the use of those words in the motion picture is inconspicuous.

Jesus Fucking Christ. Not only should children under the age of 13 not be discouraged from seeing the film, they should bring it into speech therapy classes for kids who stammer. It’s A Beautiful Mind for stammerers. Here, kids. Don’t be intimidated by your speech impediment. Even a king can stammer, and look how he overcame it. It’s not part of you; you can get past it.

The ever-vigilant MPAA doesn’t see it that way. In their zeal to protect these delicate psyches from the undue influence of dirty words, they have ensured that the kids who most need to see it will be barred. Enlightened parents will take these fucking outbursts in context, weigh their value, and take the kid, anyway. The children of less open-minded parents will not get the opportunity to hear such smut. They may be chided over their impediment as a way to toughen them up, which works approximately never.

Thanks to the MPAA, guardians of all that is decent and good, in their zeal to protect impressionable minds from “piss, shit, cunt, fuck, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.” Violence, cruelty, and dark content pass PG-13 muster (Spartacus, The Dark Knight, X-Men, Quantum of Solace, for examples), as well as the considerations involved in assisted suicide (Million Dollar Baby). They have no problem with unescorted minors in any of those movies.

Don’t cross the fuck threshold, though.

The Onion Rules

I got your fair and balanced right here.