By The River

You may have missed this story, but it shows vividly the mean spirit and contempt for average Americans of George W. Bush.

The Great Leader on Wednesday ordered that Federal government employees living in the more expensive areas of the nation--New York City and Washington, D.C., among them--get only a 0.5 percent "bump" for their added living costs, not the 12.5 percent they were due under a formula written into the law to allow for higher living costs and what comparable private-sector employees are paid.

Just in time for the holidays. Work for the Federal government and live in an area where you have to pay $400,000 for a "starter" home in an iffy neighborhood? Too bad.

So how can Bush override the law? Here's where it really gets good. "National security." He says that if Federal employees got all they were due under the law, it would exceed his budget by $12.7 billion next year. This from a man who stands to pour nearly a trillion dollars down the rathole of Iraq. But rather than, say, cut payouts to Halliburton or Blackwater, Bush will take it out on hard-working Federal employees.

To do otherwise, he said, "would unacceptably interfere with our nation's ability to secure the homeland and pursue the war on terrorism."

I'll leave it at that.

Posted by David at 08:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Who cares about the Hollywood writer's strike when there's sparkling entertainment available like the CNN-YouTube Republican Debate?

They were all up on stage in Florida last night--former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former Sen. Fred Thompson, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Congressman Ron Paul, Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, Sen. John McCain, Congressman Duncan Hunter, and Congressman Tom Tancredo--fighting to be the candidate to lose to Hillary Clinton or whichever Democrat wins the nomination. The questions were sent in by average folks across the country and definitely outside the Beltway.

You just never knew what was coming. My favorite moment was when Giuliani was asked if he believes every word in "this Bible" (it was a King James Version) to be literally true. As a Catholic, he's going to say no, and he did, but then Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, jumped in and said how it's more important to focus on the big stuff in the Bible. He started into the "Thou shalts" and I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see if he would say, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." He didn't, but probably made his point anyway, especially on a day when Giuliani was trying to explain away spending New York City taxpayer dollars to bring his security detachment along when he went to see his mistress, Judith Nathan, on Long Island. And then tried to hide the expenditures. Only French presidents can get away with that.

There was little respect for the sainted President Reagan's 11th commandment about not speaking ill of fellow Republicans.

Giuliani and Romney clashed early on over immigration. Romney accused Giuliani of operating New York as a so-called "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants when he was mayor. Giuliani shot back that Romney had allowed six "sanctuary cities" in Massachusetts and a "sanctuary mansion," meaning he had employed illegal aliens at the Governor's mansion. Romney retorted that you don't demand to see someone's papers just because they're "speaking in a funny accent." Thompson ran an ad attacking Romney for flip-flopping on abortion and Huckabee for pushing for tax increases as governor of Arkansas. At least Huckabee can be glad Thompson didn't bring up the furniture Big Mike allegedly tried to "steal" from his own governor's mansion, another issue kicking around.

Ron Paul, an OB-GYN, and probably the wackiest major candidate to come along in a generation, even more than Ross Perot in 1992, managed to mention nutritional supplements at least once. Asked if he believes that sinister forces are pushing for a union of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico, Paul gave a dodgy answer but allowed as how he does believe there is a plan for a "NAFTA superhighway" from Mexico through the U.S. to Canada. Like Perot, Paul says enough attractive things--he is the only Republican calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq--to keep attention away from what he says about nutritional supplements, evil U.N. agencies, and various other non-mainstream issues. The president of Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, from which Paul graduated, was probably praying he wouldn't mention that.

On the scary side, Fred Thompson said he wants to substitute individual retirement accounts for Social Security, only Ron Paul gave anything close to a defense of woman's right to choose an abortion, and none of the candidates would allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. A retired former Special Forces general who is now openly gay posed the question, and was also in the audience at the debate. On the good side, Romney, after much uncomfortable stammering, condemned the Confederate battle flag as a "divisive symbol." McCain gave an outright condemnation of waterboarding as torture, which other candidates, notably Romney, were not willing to do.

Posted by David at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been reading Ted Anthony's enjoyable new book from Simon & Schuster, "Chasing the Rising Sun," which is a travel book of sorts about the author's quest to find the origin of the song 'House of the Rising Sun.' The best-known version of the song was recorded by The Animals in 1964, but dozens if not hundreds of other artists have recorded their own versions. I wondered how an entire book could be written about a single song, but there is enough interesting history here to more than merit the treatment he gives it.

I know Anthony and worked with him at the Harrisburg (PA) Patriot-News. He started as an intern out of Penn State University in 1990 and worked into a regular reporting job. From here, he went to Associated Press in 1992. His goal was to be a foreign correspondent in China and cover the British handover of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China. He did both and much more, serving as an AP foreign correspondent in China from 2001-2004 and news editor in Beijing for the last two years he was there.

Anthony devoted more than five years to off-and-on research for this book, his first, and manages to incorporate even China (hilariously) into his quest. But most of his research takes place in the United States, and not just in New Orleans, the locale celebrated (or not) in the song. He traces the modern version of the song to one collected by Library of Congress folk song researcher Alan Lomax in 1937. Lomax recorded 16-year-old Georgia Turner singing "our song" in Middlesboro, Ky. While versions of 'House of the Rising Sun' date back as far as the beginning of the 20th century, it is Turner's version that evolved into New York folk singer Dave Van Ronk's version, which became Bob Dylan's version, which, in 1964, classicly and hauntingly, was recorded by Eric Burdon and the Animals, a band from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.

Anthony wasn't able to interview Van Ronk or Dylan, but did talk to Burdon at length in New Orleans, where he was staying for a time. Burdon and most of the other band members never got any publishing royalties from the song because it was credited to "Trad: Arr. A. Price." Alan Price was the organist for the Animals, and his playing is heard prominently in the song. He profited handsomely, but Burdon and the others never saw a dime. That hasn't stopped Burdon from performing the song at every concert he gives, and then some. Anthony tells a story about how Burdon wandered into a non-descript and nearly empty Seattle karaoke bar one night and, unannounced and unrecognized, went up and did his song.

The bartender commended Burdon for his performance, offering him a free margarita. "Chasing the Rising Sun" is full of good stories like this, enlivened by Anthony's wry humor and obvious devotion to American pop culture. The danger in reading it is that you won't be able to get the song out of your head.

Posted by David at 05:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The next time you eat a Burger King Whopper, think about the effort your local Burger King's corporate owners are putting into destroying an effort by a small Florida farm workers union to be paid one penny more per pound for the tomatoes they pick.

CIW, or the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, will march on Burger King's corporate headquarters in Miami this Friday to demand that the fast-food giant agree to stop fighting the modest piece-rate increases already approved by McDonald's and Taco Bell, which is part of Yum Brands. Burger King's unhappiness with the union effort has led the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange to threaten fines of $100,000 to any grower who sells tomatoes to Taco Bell or McDonald's under the agreement.

Anti-trust violation? The law is complex, but some legal minds think so. While the CIW represents only a fraction of Florida tomato pickers, the agreements are expected to affect many unorganized pickers as well. While a penny per pound sounds like nothing, it would raise picker wages from about $10,000 to $11,000 per year--that's below the poverty line--to about $19,000. It seems the least that Burger King can do.

And not eating at Burger King again until they do seems the least I can do.

Posted by David at 07:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Pennsylvania Turnpike was at its worst yesterday when we were driving back 635 miles from Holland, Michigan, to Harrisburg, PA. I don't know why I was surprised--this happens nearly every year on the Sunday after Thanksgiving--but the mess this year seemed especially bad.

Traffic crawled along at 15-20 mph or slower on the stretch of the Turnpike between Pittsburgh and Breezewood, where large numbers of drivers returning from the Midwest and western Pennsylvania get off on I-70 to head down to Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia. We were moving in a pack with the same vehicles for much of that stretch. There was plenty of time, for example, to read all the bumper stickers on the back of the Talmudic Academy van, or the ads for a Wisconsin bed-and-breakfast on the mud flaps of a tractor-trailer. Very clever that!

I will give credit to the Turnpike Commission or PennDOT, whichever was in charge, for having moving electronic signs alerting drivers to upcoming "congestion," which was putting it mildly. There are also AM 1610 radio broadcasts at key points. Although they sound like they were recorded in a roomful of kids, they do provide a modicum of information about the traffic nightmare you're about to face.

The Turnpike badly needs a third lane on both the eastbound and westbound sides between the New Stanton and Fort Littleton exits--congestion approaching Breezewood was bad on the westbound side as well. There are third lanes in a few places, but most of that stretch is two-lane. I suppose the powers-that-be will argue that it isn't worth all that expense (possibly including new tunnels as well) to handle the traffic on one or two days of the year. But I have to think that having third lanes would also help when accidents occur at any time of the year, making it more likely that traffic can continue moving around an accident scene.

We decided to take a dinner break from the slow-moving traffic at Bedford. The eastbound exit lane is a single lane, and it was backed up nearly to the Turnpike. There are no EZ Pass-only lanes at Bedford, so motorists like us with EZ Pass have to wait in line behind people paying cash tolls, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of EZ Pass.

Rest areas also need attention. There was no excuse for overflowing waste cans and empty towel dispensers in the restrooms. On a busy travel day, you put on more maintenance people. Harder to solve are the tiny food service areas at some of the rest areas, and the poorly-designed traffic flows to the gas pumps. Charging $3.17 per gallon for regular at the Somerset rest area, by the way, verged on price gouging to take advantage of all those travelers.

All in all, we were quite happy to pull into Shipoke. It turned out that our neighbors, Gene and Carol Gangwish, had gotten caught in the same Turnpike traffic mess we had. We unpacked, watched the Eagles valiantly fight the Patriots, and then fell asleep.

Posted by David at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been having fun going through albums of old family photos while visiting my parents in my hometown of Holland, Michigan. The one at the top of this post, probably dating from about 1931, shows my very young mother at left, her younger sister, and their mother, my grandmother, next to a late 1920s car in the countryside. Is it broken down? Are they in Wisconsin (likely) or Iowa? My grandfather was probably the photographer, using a Kodak box camera popular at the time. My grandparents are long gone, but I remember seeing the camera in their house.

One of the albums is full of snapshots like this, mostly black & white but a few in color. Most of the Kodak color photographs have faded to a horrible yellow, but a few--made with a different company's film, perhaps?--have survived. They have faint splashes of real color on black & white, almost as if it was dabbed on later. I carry a portable Canon flatbed scanner, the best $50 I ever spent, when I visit the homes of relatives. If they are willing, and they usually are, I take it out of the suitcase and make digital copies onto my Apple laptop. The software often noticeably improves the black-and-white photos, taking away the effects of time. It can't, I found out, bring back the colors of a faded color photograph. I would need the negative to do that, and they are also long gone.

Albums of old photos are like time machines, taking you back to when your parents were children and your grandparents were vibrant young adults. They are full of "old" cars, farming scenes from another era, and hopeful and smiling school classes and young brides. I see my incredibly thin father in the Navy after World War II and during the Korean War (he was called back). I see him on the streets of Shanghai before the Communist takeover. And I see both of them as students at Hope College, where I also went. He and my mother are 80 now, worrying about whether they will be able to sell their house into Michigan's real estate depression if they need to move into an assisted living center.

Holland is beautiful this Thanksgiving. There hasn't been much snow--none is on the ground now--and many of the trees still have their colorful leaves because of the warm autumn. I asked my mother if there was much talk here about Erik Prince, scion of the prominent local Prince family, and his controversial Blackwater security firm. No, she said. Just the stories in the paper. That's typical Holland. The uncomfortable topics don't get talked about. Life goes on.

Posted by David at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

And finally we come to Iraq, perhaps the greatest and most devastating foreign policy blunder in the history of the United States.

We have lost more than 3,500 American lives, seen tens of thousands of more wounded, and watched a trillion of our tax dollars flow from Washington to Baghdad like the raging Susquehanna River during one of its floods. And then there are the 650,000 Iraqi casualties, mostly civilian, since George W. Bush decided to avenge Saddam's supposed assassination attempt against the first President Bush in 1993 on a visit to Kuwait after he had been defeated by Bill Clinton. Perhaps we'll never know if that was the only reason or one of several. What we can be sure of now is that Bush led us into war on false pretenses. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no uranium. There was no tie between Saddam and 9/11, or to Islamic terrorists in general.

Which of the candidates will lead us out? Which would keep is in Iraq indefinitely? Instead of grouping the candidates and their positions by party, as I have for issues one through four, for this last issue I will group the candidates under "Bring Them Home" and "Stay the Course."

Bring Them Home:

John Edwards (D) - Former Sen. Edwards supports an immediate return of 40,000 to 50,000 U.S. troops from Iraq to America. He would bring home the rest within nine to 10 months after taking office, and would not establish permanent bases in Iraq. He would station a Quick Reaction Force in Kuwait or another friendly country to maintain regional stability. Edwards says George W. Bush long ago exceeded whatever authority to start a war he got from the Iraq Resolution, and says the next President must ask Congress for specific authority to manage the withdrawal.

Barack Obama (D) - Sen. Obama would immediately begin withdrawing combat troops at a pace of one or two brigades every month. A U.S. Army brigade is 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers. He would complete the withdrawal by the end of one year.

Dennis Kucinich (D) - Congressman Kucinich voted against the Iraq resolution and all subsequent bills to fund the war. He would have the U.S. announce it will end the occupation of Iraq, close military bases, and withdraw. He does not give a specific time for this, but suggests it would be 3-5 months. He would end the work in Iraq of U.S. contractors like Blackwater. U.S. troops would be replaced by a U.N. peacekeeping force, of which half would be from Muslim nations.

Ron Paul (R) - Congressman Paul, who is running as a Republican but is more of a Libertarian, wants to bring all the troops home soon within six months. Like Kucinich, he voted against the original Iraq authorization and against every subsequent Iraq funding bill.

Stay the Course

Hillary Clinton (D) - Sen. Clinton voted to authorize the Iraq war and has played dodgeball on committing to a quick end to U.S. involvement. The only timetable on her issues page is directing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, within 60 days of her taking office, to draw up a plan for bringing the troops home. When that might occur isn't spelled out. Sen. Clinton, if she becomes President, will face intense pressure from the Democratic Congress to get the war over with quickly, so my hope is that no matter what she says--or doesn't say--now, her actual plan will veer much closer to that of Obama, Edwards, or Kucinich.

Rudolph Giuliani (R) -To understand where former Mayor Giuliani is coming from on Iraq, you need only look to the Iraq policy of the Great Leader himself. In a campaign appearance in Merrimack, N.H., in August, Giuliani went out of his way to ridicule a woman who said the U.S. didn't seem to be accomplishing anything in Iraq (you can see the video on his website). Her sincere and frustrated question was immediately transmogrified into an attack on "our troops." But he didn't stop there. Giuliani claimed, against all evidence, that taking out Saddam removed "a major pillar of Islamic terrorism." He also claimed the Iraq War led to the "surrender" of Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi and "prevented further attacks" on U.S. soil. He blamed media coverage for the perception the U.S. is losing the Iraq War, and said "we just may win there." Giuliani concluded by telling the woman, "I haven't found one soldier who believes like you." Thank God she didn't ask him about ferrets.

Mitt Romney (R) - You'll look long and hard on the Internet to find former Gov. Romney's position on the Iraq War. I found a story from nearly a year ago in which Romney supported Bush's plan for the surge and said victory in Iraq was in "America's national security interest." I could find only one instance of the WORD Iraq in his current campaign website. Obviously it's an issue he is trying to studiously avoid, perhaps to avoid being brainwashed on Iraq as his father, Michigan Gov. George Romney, claimed to have been on Vietnam. But seriously, any candidate who devotes almost no attention to Iraq as an issue is primed for being led by neo-cons and rightwing generals to More of the Same.

Mike Huckabee (R) - If anything, even more Bush than Bush. "Iraq is a battle in our generational, ideological war on terror," Huckabee says. "Setting a timetable for withdrawal is a mistake. This nation has never declated war until 'a week from Wednesday,' we have always declared war until victory. Yes, but sometimes we accept a draw (War of 1812, Korea) or leave after being substantially defeated (Vietnam). Huckabee sees Al Qaeda terrorists behind every bush in Iraq, and asserts they are seeking permanent "bases" there. He accuses Democrats of "delusional" thinking, but acts like he has found his own Battle of Armageddon.

Fred Thompson (R) - Thompson's position on Iraq seems, like every other issue in his campaign, to have been written by a recently-hired and none-too-talented public relations intern. "We must defeat the terrorists abroad, and that begins in Iraq and Afghanistan--the central fronts in this global war. We must show the world we have the will to fight and win...We must persevere." Until when? When we run out of National Guard units to call up, or until every last government program to help people has been sacrificed to get more money to pay for this insane war?

John McCain (R) - The hawk's hawk, and he has made no bones about it. McCain wants to send even more U.S. troops to Iraq. He appears to be channeling General Westmoreland and the bright boys who thought up the Vietnam War. "Building a capable Iraqi Army" sounds a lot like Vietnamization. He says it will be "incumbent upon Iraqi leaders to take significant steps on their own." Don't get me wrong. McCain is a man of integrity who has served his country long and well. But he's refighting Vietnam here and we don't want another President with an ax to grind.

Posted by David at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I thought the candidates for the Democratic and Republican nominations for President in 2008 hadn't said much about China.

The issue almost never comes up in debates or speeches on the campaign trail. Which is odd, given the fact that it seems like everything we buy these days is made in China, and about half of it seems contaminated with lead paint. American corporations continue to close factories in the U.S. so they can have their products made more cheaply in China. If you dig deep enough on the Internet, however, you can find the positions on China of the candidates from both parties.

So continuing my coverage of the five big issues of 2008, here is what the various candidates have said about the threat and promise of the world's most populous nation.

Democrats:

Hillary Clinton: Sen. Clinton has made the China threat a central part of her campaign message, even if it hasn't gotten a lot of attention. She said on CNBC last spring that America was undergoing "a slow erosion of our own economic sovreignty because we have become too dependent on the cheap factory floors of China. The U.S. has a huge trade deficit with China, which uses its dollars to buy up the U.S. national debt, which has skyrocketed because of the Bush Administration's tax cuts for the wealthy and the expense of the Iraq war.

Barack Obama: Says China is rising, and is neither a friend or foe, but rather "a competitor." He has critiized the U.S. Treasury for passivity in the face of China's manipulation of its own currency to keep it weak in relation to the U.S. dollar. Sen. Obama has co-sponsored a bill to pressure China to revalue its currency upward. He has also expresse concern about China graduating four times the number of engineers that America is graduating, and what that might mean for the U.S. economy.

John Edwards: Former Sen. Edwards appeared before the Asia Society in October 2006 to talk about China, but had little to say about China's threat to U.S. workers and the national economy. He talked mostly about Chinese support for the Sudanese government and other issues of China out in the world. That had changed by the time he appeared in the AFL-CIO Democratic Forum this past August. Like Obama, he spoke of China as a "competitor," not a friend or foe. Edwards acknowledged there were "major human rights abuses" in China, but spoke mostly of the dangerous toys issue and the need for tougher country-of-origin labeling.

Edwards voted in 2000 to expand China trade and made the comment, "It does no good to pretend that these remedies are perfect and that people will not be hurt."

Dennis Kucinich: Congressman Kucinich says the 2000 China trade agreement has resulted in the loss of 973,000 manufacturing jobs and 1.2 million jobs overall. He has criticized Edwards for his Senate vote in favor of the treaty. Kucinich received a 93 percent rating from Public Citizen, the highest of any candidate, for his support of fair trade measures.

Republicans

Fred Thompson: Sen. Thompson speaks of China as a potential military threat to both the U.S. but especially to Taiwan. He says if China attacked Taiwan, the United States would be obligated to go to war to defend Taiwan. Thompson has little to say about China as an economic threat beyond quick and vague pronouncements that they "potentially have such a tremendous economy."

Rudolph Giuliani: He says China is a "great challenge" to the U.S., but wants to continue the Bush Administration's policy of engagement with China. Like many of the Republican candidates, he seems less concerned about China's impact on U.S. workers than on potential military threats. Former Mayor Giuliani even called for increasing the size of the U.S. military to meet a potential threat from China.

Mitt Romney: Former Gov. Romney wants to stop intellectual piracy of U.S. products in China, a major problem for U.S. corporations like Microsoft, but says little about the China jobs issue. In general, he wants to make sure economic competition between the U.S. and China is "fair and legal."

John McCain: Here's what Sen. McCain told Foreign Affairs magazine this month: "Dealing with a rising China will be a central challenge for the next American president. Recent prosperity in China has brought more people out of poverty faster than during any other time in human history. China's newfound power implies responsibilities. It raises legitimate expectations that internationally China will behave as a responsible economic partner by developing a transparent code of conduct for its corporations, assuring the safety of its exports, developing a market approach to currency valuation, pursuing sustainable environmental policies, and abandoning its go-it-alone approach to world energy supplies."

For the rest of his comments on China plus a whole lot more, read the article for yourself in Foreign Affairs. Whether you support him or not, at least he's on the record.

Posted by David at 05:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm taking a break from politics today to write about my hometown of Holland, Michigan, and some of the changes that have taken place there since I left 32 years ago.

I was inspired by this article in the Holland Sentinel about the local police testifying in the state capital about Holland's gang problem. And we aren't talking about roving bands of Christian Reformed toughs rumbling with Reformed Church youth gangs over who are the more pious.

Yes, my hometown is a weird place. Settled in 1847 by Dutch religious dissidents--they were dissenting from the Dutch king's grant of religious freedom to Catholics and Jews--Holland for nearly a century was one of the more homogeneous outposts of old Europe you could find on the North American continent. The Holland telephone directory was nearly indistinguishable from that of Amsterdam, except for the ads in English.

Tall blonds and blondes are everywhere in Holland, bearing family names like VanEenanaam, Ver Hage, VanSlooten or VanderWoude. Not to mention, DeKok, DeLeeuw, DeHaan, and DenHerder. Holland for the past three-quarters of a century has celebrated an annual Tulip Festival in which the inhabitants put on 18th century Dutch costumes and parade down 8th Street like a VerMeer or Rembrandt painting come to life. Politicians marched, too. I've seen a picture of young Mitt Romney with his father, Michigan Gov. George Romney, in which both are in Dutch costumes. Some of the marchers even wore wooden shoes.

But in the early 1950s, names like Ramirez, Ramos, Rodriguez and Rios started appearing in the Holland telephone directory. Mexican migrant laborers, some brought in to pick cucumbers by the giant H.J. Heinz pickle factory on 16th Street, and others coming on their own to work in the many fruit farms that surround the city, began changing the complexion of Holland. Some of them liked what they found here, got jobs in the factories, and put down roots.

By the time I entered Montello Park Elementary School on 22nd Street it was common to have one or two Mexican kids in the class, but rarely more. They made up a small minority of Holland residents, adding a welcome dash of black-haired Latin Catholic spice to an overwhelmingly white, bland, Dutch Protestant culture. The Mexican kids taught us forbidden Spanish swear words, and even put on Dutch costumes to march in the Tulip Time parade with the rest of us. I maintain to this day that most of the Dutch and most of the Mexicans got along fine. I remember no incidents, but then I was just a kid. Even in high school, things seemed to be fine.

Beginning in the 1990s, according to Holland Police chief John Kruithof, things changed. He told state officials the city has had 35 gangs since then, although he believes only about half a dozen are active now. Some are Mexican, but I've also heard of Laotian gangs, an ethnic group that didn't exist in Holland when I lived there. They have names like the Latin Kings, Tiny Rascal Gangsters, and the Vice Lords. They aren't just social clubs, either. There have been shootings, and this past week someone threw a firebomb at a house on 22nd Street a few blocks down from my old school.

That area was always a tough, depressing area of tiny houses and unkempt yards. There was almost nothing attractive about it, so it drew people on the fringes of society as inhabitants. It would be a good area for a redevelopment project, something the city of Holland is normally pretty good at. Gangs can do that to a neighborhood, and only good police work--and economic opportunity--can root them out.

Posted by David at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I don't know much about the game of bridge other than it is played with a deck of cards and seems to be a passionate pursuit for some bridge players.

Too passionate, as it turns out. The United States Bridge Federation has come down hard on members of the U.S. Bridge Team who held up a sign saying "We did not vote for Bush" at a ceremony in China recently. Screams of "treason" and "sedition" have been hurled by the right. Jan Martel, who apparently channels the late Avery Brundage of the U.S. Olympic Committee in her boorish cluelessness, has threatened heavy sanctions against the players for daring to criticize the Great Leader.

The players say they are frequently questioned by foreign bridge players about the policies of President Bush. As an American who has traveled abroad a few time in the past seven years, I can tell you this happens all the time. I went to a family wedding in Germany in the spring of 2003, not long after Bush invaded Iraq, and I got the puzzled questions from my German relatives about why America had voted to make this man their President. I assured them that I hadn't voted for Bush and in no way supported his policies.

This all harks back, of course, to the comment Natalie Manes of the Dixie Chicks made at a London concert in 2003 saying she and the band were ashamed that Bush came from Texas. They endured death threats and commercial retaliation from large radio networks for daring to criticize the Great Leader at the height of his fleeting popularity.

I went out and bought my first Dixie Chicks album to show my support for the band (liked it, too). There isn't much I can do that way to support the bridge players other than to say I'm ashamed George W. Bush is an American.

Posted by David at 06:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I find it hard to write about the various positions of the Democratic and Republican candidates on global warming without giving a hat tip to the non-candidate, former Vice President Al Gore. Gore, through his lectures and documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," did much to raise world attention to the dangers of global warming. He did the job that George W. Bush should have been doing, but we all know that story. Gore richly deserved his Nobel Peace Prize.

So here we go:

3. Global warming. This is really a subset of No. 2. Like it or not, nuclear energy needs to be considered again. But only if the plants are run on a non-profit basis, preferably by government, so the incentive isn't there to cut corners to increase the bottom line. There are many reasons to be against nuclear power, but they are damned good at producing vast amounts of electricity without contributing to global warming. We have to--and can--find a way to do it safely and find safe storage for nuclear waste.

This post is going to be weighted toward the Democrats, because the Republicans really don't have much to say. It is a toxic issue for them, anathema to their most conservative religious supporters and to their Big Oil financiers. Even if it's killing the rest of us.

Barack Obama: Obama seems to have channeled the best of Al Gore. "Global warming is real, is happening now, and is the result of human activities. The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years. Glaciers are melting faster; the polar ice caps are shrinking; trees are blooming earlier; oceans are becoming more acidic, threatening marine life; people are dying in heat waves; species are migrating, and eventually many will become extinct."

Obama favors an 80 percent reduction in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, which he would accomplish in part through a market-based cap-and-trade program. He would require all emission rights to be auctioned off, not given away.

John Edwards: He would also require carbon dioxide emissions to be reduced 80 percent by 2050 using a cap-and-trade program. He would renegotiate the Kyoto Treaty so developing nations are also required to reduce their pollution. In return, he would offer technology and trade incentives to developing nations to win their cooperation. Edwards would repeal tax subsidies for big oil companies, a perennial issue of the left.

Dennis Kucinich: He would have the U.S. ratify the Kyoto Treaty and implement its recommendations. Kucinich is concerned that the world, nearing 8 billion in population, may reach a sustainability crisis. He is a strong opponent of nuclear power, in part because of years of dealing with the problematic Davis-Besse nuclear plant in or near his Ohio district. Unfortunately, nuclear, for all its risks and problems, is the best way to produce large amounts of electricity without adding to global warming.

Hillary Clinton: Not as detailed a plan as Obama's, but thankfully without his promotion of ethanol as a serious alternative fuel. Ethanol production is giving Iowa farmers the best years of their lives, according to one of my Iowa relatives, but it's also driving food prices through the roof. Sen. Clinton also favors a cap-and-trade program to reduce emissions, with the same requirement for all credits to be auctioned that Obama and Edwards would impose. She adopts the same reduction goal of 80 percent by 2050. A welcome plan, as she's still the most likely candidate to get the Democratic nomination and become our next President.

The Republicans:

Ron Paul: Not a word.

Mike Huckabee: Not a word.

Rudolph Giuliani: Not a word.

Fred Thompson: Doesn't mention global warming, but calls for reductions in carbon dioxide emissions "without harming our economy." The only reason to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, if it's necessary to say this, is to reduce global warming. He favors more research into technologies "that improve the environment, especially the reduction of CO2 emissions."

John McCain: McCain, in what is probably a coded message to fundamentalist Christians, speaks of "an obligation to be proper caretakers of creation." He says he has been "a leader on the issue of global warming with the courage to call the nation to action on an issue we can no longer afford to ignore" and "has offered common sense approaches to limit carbon emissions by harnessing market forces that will bring advanced technologies, such as nuclear energy, to the market faster, reduce our dependence on foreign supplies of energy, and see to it that America leads in a way that ensures all nations do their rightful share." No wonder the right hates him.

Other than McCain, the differences between Democrats and Republicans, between left and right don't get much more stark than on the issue of global warming.

Posted by David at 09:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I watched Nova's very intelligent, two-hour show on the Dover, Pa., intelligent design trial last night. It is worth watching if your local public television station ever broadcasts it again. You will come to realize what a stunning defeat for the religious right this was.

Parents sued the Dover Area School Board after the school board majority attempted to introduce a religious alternative to Darwin's Theory of Evolution, known as Intelligent Design, into high school biology classes. Intelligent Design, as the trial proved, was thinly-disguised creationism, a concept ginned up after the U.S. Supreme Court banned the teaching of Genesis creationism in public schools in 1987. It posits that some living things are so complex that an "Intelligent Designer," i.e., God, must have put them together in his workshop. It was a clear and classic violation of the U.S. Constitution's mandated separation of church and state, but this took place around the high-water mark of the Bush Administration and the fundamentalist Christian right was feeling its oats.

The trial was held in U.S. District Court, Harrisburg, in the fall of 2005. Judge John Jones III, a moderate Republican, handed down a ruling in December of that year ordering the Dover Area School Board not to teach "Intelligent Design" in its schools. Scientific testimony at the trial demolished the critics of evolution, while other testimony revealed the subterfuge behind the school board's scheme. Sick and tired of lies and evasions by the I.D. advocates on the Dover board, Jones slammed the "breathtaking inanity" of their transparent effort to introduce conservative Christian beliefs into the public school curriculum.

My overall reaction to "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial," was wonderment about some of the people who get elected to run our schools. Bill Buckingham and Alan Bonsell, the chief architects of the Intelligent Design fiasco at Dover, are about as qualified to run a public school district as advocates of using bleeding and leaches in medical treatment would be to run the Penn State School of Medicine at Hershey.

There isn't any intelligence test required to be a school director. District Justices in Pennsylvania aren't required to be lawyers but must still complete and pass a course of instruction after they are elected. Not so for school directors. Any idiot who gets more votes than the next guy can serve. The Intelligent Design fiasco cost the taxpayers of Dover a million dollars in legal fees.

My other reaction from watching the show was that the science teachers at Dover Area High School were true heroes. They fought the school board's effort to fundamentalize the biology classes at more than a little risk to their jobs. This wasn't just passive resistance; they put their strong objections into a firmly-worded letter to the school board and made it public. If they have not been given formal honors by their profession for their courage, they ought to be.

Many of the trial participants and observers were interviewed for the Nova production, including Judge Jones, former York Daily Record reporter Lauri Lebo, whose own book on the trial comes out next year, and Buckingham and Bonsell. Michael Behe, the Lehigh University scientist whose writings are a linchpin of the Intelligent Design movement, and who has been disavowed by his Lehigh colleagues, declined to be interviewed.

Posted by David at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

And now to my second issue for 2008.

2. Rising energy prices. Americans from the middle class on down are already struggling with paying their heating, light, and gasoline bills. In a few years, it's going to get much, much worse. Billionaires will be able to afford all the heating and cooling and light and gasoline they want. You won't. Candidates for President need to convince voters that they will appoint a competent energy czar, not a political hack. They need to put serious money behind energy research, whether it hurts the oil companies or not. And finally, they have to make sure energy companies don't gouge us.

Energy supply gets attention from most, though not all of the presidential candidates. Many of the Republicans, perhaps because of the perception by some voters that the G.O.P. is the oil party, seem to want to avoid this issue. The skyrocketing price of energy is truly addressed by only one candidate, a Democrat. And that is (drum roll) Congressman Dennis Kucinich. So let's lead off with him this time.

Dennis Kucinich: Adopting the position of the Progressive Caucus, he says that escalating energy prices "have almost no correlation" with supply and demand. Deregulated energy companies "are creating an artificial shortage and reaping tremendous profits while doing so." Kucinich and the Progressive Caucus argue for a return to cost-based rates for electricity, natural gas, and oil, with rates returned to 1999 and 2000 levels, or in other words, just prior to the Enron scandals. Customers who have been gouged by the energy companies should get refunds. Kucinich is very anti-nuclear.

Hillary Clinton: She advocates much higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, noting that transportation accounts for 70 percent of U.S. oil consumption. She would increase the mileage standard to 55 miles per gallon by 2030, but give automakers $20 billion in "Green Vehicle Bonds" to retool their factories. She would support early development of plug-in hybrid vehicles running mainly on electricity. Doesn't say much of anything on reviving nuclear power.

Barack Obama: He would stress energy efficiency in an effort to reduce the "energy intensity" of the U.S. economy by 50 percent by 2030. More than any other candidate, he is an advocate of developing a U.S. biofuels industry, which of course would be mainly ethanol. He says little about the impact of increased ethanol production on food prices. Wants many more flex-fuel vehicles that can burn gasoline with a higher percentage of ethanol. Obama is cautiously pro-nuclear, but says it must be done carefully and with sensitivity to public concerns.

John Edwards: He doesn't say much about energy except to advocate for meeting demand for more electricity through energy efficiency for the next decade. In other words, not by building new power plants.

And now the Republicans.

Mike Huckabee: Probably the best overall energy position paper of any candidate from either party. He is highly critical of "energy independence" efforts to date. "The truth is, we are so pathetically behind the curve right now that federal spending for energy research and development is only 40 percent of what it was in 1979. Our efforts are haphazard and often pointless: today we have six million flex-fuel vehicles built to run on biodiesel or on E85, which is 85 percent ethanol, but only 2,000 pumps for those fuels in a country with 170,000 gas stations." All very true. Nevertheless, Huckabee promises U.S. energy independence by the end of his second term.

Rudolph Giuliani: basicly the Bush-Cheney energy plan of more oil drilling, clean coal, nuclear power, and renewable energy. Like Obama, he is a big fan of ethanol and bio-diesel, saying the bio-fuels industry "can revitalize" rural America.

John McCain: He says almost nothing on energy, but does argue for building more nuclear plants more quickly.

Fred Thompson: Thompson's positions on just about any issue sound like platitudes hastily slapped together by a committee of second-rate consultants. To wit: "The energy challenges our nation faces today are real and significant. Our dependence on foreign sources of oil threatens our national security and puts our economic prosperity at risk. America must rise to the challenge and take the steps necessary to become more energy independent before this becomes a crisis." But he never really says what those steps ought to be.

Maybe Congresman Kucinich can be both the healthcare and energy czars in the next Democratic administration? Getting elected officials to address energy pricing issues is difficult, because it basicly is rocket science. The dilemma they face is to either address the looming crisis now, when there is still a chance to head off the big price increases, or after constituents start screaming at them and voting them out of office.

Posted by David at 07:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Each day this week, I plan to look at one of the key issues for America in the 2008 election and tell you what the leading or most interesting candidates have said about it. So here goes

1. National health insurance. America needs a single-payer system like that of France, funded by general tax revenues. It will cover everyone, working or unemployed, and you can never lose it. Yes, taxes will have to rise, but since neither you nor your employer will be forking over suitcases of cash to private insurance companies, you may not even notice it. Private health insurance companies must disappear. Call this the "peace of mind" plan.

Democrats:

Hillary Clinton: Best known for the failed Clinton health plan in 1992, which had it been enacted into law might have solved many of the nation's healthcare problems. She and her advisers over-reached and got sandbagged by the insurance industry. Her plan today would have private insurance plans competing with an expanded Medicare plan available to all citizens. If you like your current insurance, you can stay with it--assuming your employer doesn't discontinue the plan. Tax credits to "working Americans" to help buy coverage. No denials allowed for pre-existing conditions. Tax credits to help individuals and small businesses purchase health insurance. Most likely plan to be adopted by a Democratic Congress. Vague on employer participation.

Barack Obama: Modified Hillary plan. Would expand the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan into a national plan available to all. Would require businesses to make a "meaningful" contribution to health insurance for their employees.

John Edwards: Modified Hillary plan, although his plan is actually said to be the model for that of Clinton and Obama.

Dennis Kucinich: Only candidate to support a single-payer national health insurance system. Kucinich believes elimination of the administrative overhead spending of health insurance companies would free up enough money to create an American national health insurance plan without much of a tax increase. Administrative expenses are a huge amount, as much as 31 percent of the healthcare dollar. If I was voting on this issue alone, Kucinich would get my vote. Hopefully he'll end up in an important cabinet position in the next Democratic administration.

Republicans:

Rudolph Guiliani: Guiliani got burned recently when he tried to argue that prostate cancer outcomes under single-payer national health insurance plans were significantly worse than under the American system. People who actually understand this issue quickly set him straight, but he refuses to retract his statement. In general, Guiliani is opposed to "socialized" medicine. Otherwise, his plan is basicly Hillary Lite, but very vague on how much help working Americans would receive. Would end "frivolous" medical liability lawsuits, something no one has ever been able to define, let alone accomplish.

John McCain: like several of the candidates, McCain advocates allowing families to "be in charge of their health care dollars and have more control over their care." These are code words for ending the system of employer-paid health insurance, a major goal of movement conservatives. You want health insurance? Go buy it yourself. No word on whether employers would get to pocket the money they now spend on behalf of employees to buy health insurance, which by rights belongs entirely to the employee. It's part of your compensation.

Mitt Romney: As governor of Massachusetts, signed the first state-level health insurance plan, which basicly requires companies to offer insurance to employees or pay a fee to the state if they don't. Individuals are required to buy insurance. Romney says individuals have a responsibility for their own health care and touts "insurance for everyone without a tax increase." Watch your wallet on this one.

Fred Thompson: "Americans have the best health care in the world." Actually, they don't. Most any industrialized nation with national health insurance, i.e., everyone but us, has better outcomes. Thompson is against a "one size fits all, Washington-controlled program." He vows to improve access to affordable health care without imposing new mandates or raising taxes. Good luck with that.

Mike Huckabee: Big advocate of moving from employer-paid health insurance to consumer-paid health insurance. He is against "socialized medicine" but speaks approvingly of European countries which spend 10 percent of their gross domestic product on their "socialized" health care compared to the 17 percent we spend in America. Message to Mike: they get to that 10 percent level by not having hundreds of private insurance companies.

Ron Paul: Paul is a doctor, a libertarian, a Republican, and a congressman from Texas. He supports an odd mix of free market and government solutions to the nation's health care crisis. He doesn't like insurance, especially Medicare and Medicaid. Needless to say, he opposes requiring employers to provide insurance for their employees. Voted against the Medicare prescription drug benefit, but voted in favor of requiring the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare Part D with the pharmaceutical industry.

Posted by David at 09:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Okay, show of hands. Who thinks stopping gay marriage and eliminating the "death" tax are the critical issues facing America in 2008?

Actually, most Republicans don't think they are, either. No surprise here that "illegal immigration," the issue ginned up two years ago when gay marriage was losing its punch among the Bush faithful, ranks number one. Republicans finally figured out that some of them are gay, too--what with Larry Craig and all, it's getting harder and harder to vote a straight Republican ticket--but damn it, they're citizens of the good old U.S. of A. and none of their relatives are illegal. As far as they know.

All kidding aside, here are my core issues for 2008. These are the things that need to be fixed in America by a good "big government" to help non-billionaires like me deal with the scary economic threats of the 21st century.

1. National health insurance. No surprise here. America needs a single-payer system like that of France, funded by general tax revenues. It will cover everyone, working or unemployed, and you can never lose it. Yes, taxes will have to rise, but since neither you nor your employer will be forking over suitcases of cash to private insurance companies, you may not even notice it. Private insurance companies must disappear. No, they aren't all bad. But if you allow any of them to remain, you'll always have obscenities like Health Net, Inc., in California, which gave executives bonuses for finding ways to drop coverage of people who got sick.

Think government will screw it up? Government is us, folks, not space aliens. Just as Social Security manages to get checks to tens of millions of elderly Americans every month, a national health care system will make sure you get the quality treatment you need. Americans can do it. Think of the weight off your mind.

2. Rising energy prices. Americans from the middle class on down are already struggling with paying their heating and gasoline bills. In a few years, it's going to get much, much worse. Billionaires will be able to afford all the heating and cooling and gasoline they want. You won't. Candidates for President need to assure Americans that they will appoint a competent energy czar, not a political hack. They need to commit to putting serious money behind energy research, whether it hurts the oil companies or not. And finally, they have to make sure energy companies don't gouge us.

3. Global warming. This is really a subset of No. 2. Like it or not, nuclear energy needs to be considered again. But only if the plants are run on a non-profit basis, preferably by government, so the incentive isn't there to cut corners to increase the bottom line. There are many reasons to be against nuclear power, but they are damned good at producing vast amounts of electricity without contributing to global warming. We have to--and can--find a way to do it safely. Solar power can play a much bigger role than it does now, even in cold states. Look at Germany's record in that regard, in a nation where a "shorts day" is rare enough to draw comment. Plug-in electric cars, which would cover 80 percent of the transportation needs of most Americans, need to be put on the fast track.

4. China. China is both an economic and military threat to the United States and its interests. Do we really want everything we use to be made there? Let's worry less about illegal immigration and more about U.S. corporations destroying American communities and workers in the name of higher profits. It's time to give U.S. corporations some serious carrot-and-stick treatment to get them to make things here again. Or the next poisonous toy may end up in your child's playroom. We have a right to do what is right for our own country and economy, even if it gives conservative economists fits.

5. Iraq. End George W. Bush's war now. Bring the troops home within six months of Inauguration Day. It can be done, and things won't turn out significantly different than they would if we stayed another 20 years. Let your slogan be, Not one more day!

On Tuesday and Wednesday I will offer some thoughts on which candidates might do the best--or worst--in addressing these issues.

Posted by David at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I think Americans are ready for a different kind of President.

Let's face it: George W. Bush, aka, the Worst President in History, has at least succeeded in one thing: thoroughly discrediting so-called "movement" conservatism. We won't have another rightwing, conservative, liberal-hating President like him for a long time. Former House Speaker and movement conservative firebrand Newt Gingrich, who thought about running for President next year, wisely figured that out and decided he needed to spend more time with his current wife.

I really think Americans are ready for a good "big government" president. And not a big government that is incompetent and devoted mainly to undoing the achievements of liberal democracy and transferring the nation's wealth to the rich and powerful. That is to say, George W. Bush's version of big government. No, an FDR/Lyndon Johnson type of President who will create programs like Social Security and Medicare to help Americans deal with the scary economic threats of the 21st century.

Next week I plan to look at some of the current candidates for President in both parties and offer up my thoughts on who would and wouldn't give Americans the good big government they so desperately need.

Posted by David at 08:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you want to understand the state of the U.S. economy and our place in the world, follow the money.

Over the last five years--roughly the period of George W. Bush's ill-fated Iraq adventure--the U.S. dollar has declined 30 percent against the western European euro. Heather Emery, one of my Shipoke neighbors, said dollars "were like pesos" on a recent trip she and her husband made to the Netherlands. Against the Czech koruna--important if you're planning that dream trip to Prague--the dollar has declined 48 percent. And the Canadian dollar, better known as the loonie, has gone from being worth about 66 cents in our money five years ago to $1.07. Canadians are loving it. The American dollar's decline has accelerated this year, with no end in sight.

Not many Americans travel outside the country. To some, even Canada is a foreign place. One of my neighbors, who hails from Toronto, was quite amused at the recent Shipoke Halloween picnic when another neighbor mentioned she was going to Canada, but couldn't recall the place. "Oh, up there somewhere," she said. It is true that if you don't travel anywhere the U.S. dollar isn't used, you may think you are immune to the effects of a plummeting dollar.

But if gasoline in the U.S. goes to $4.00 or $5.00 a gallon, you may not be traveling very far in the good old U.S. of A either. If OPEC were to price oil in euros instead of U.S. dollars, as it does now, any American driver would quickly feel the pain of a weak currency. You can't live in a fool's paradise forever.

Posted by David at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The image above would be classic anti-Semitic propaganda, if only Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed, the puppetmaster with the demonic face, were Jewish.

He isn't, but his opponents mailed this to voters in Pennsylvania's capital city last week. Reed had been pushing hard to defeat two foes on City Council, Gloria Martin Roberts and Susan Brown Wilson. They won, but Reed increased his bloc on Council to three out of seven with the victory of Brad Koplinski, a white guy.

The politics of Harrisburg are increasingly racial. Some blacks, like Roberts and Wilson, are frustrated-- to the point of running offensive ads like this--that the city has had a white mayor for so long. This has been going on for at least 10 or more years. When Reed ran against a black woman a couple of elections ago, you even heard "it's our turn," as if white kids were hogging the playground equipment.

But Harrisburg isn't South Africa or Zimbabwe. Whites, Asians, and other non-blacks are in the minority, yes, but it's a sizeable minority. In the 2000 census here, there were 26,841 blacks, 15,527 whites, and 4,766 other non-blacks, probably mainly Hispanics.

Reed has stayed in power since 1982 because, by and large, he is a good and progressive mayor. I'll get to his problems later. Most whites, with some notable exceptions like businessman Jason Smith and former Patriot-News reporter Wendi Taylor, support him and turn out to vote for him in large numbers. Many of them are frankly scared to death of the idea of someone like black councilwoman Linda Thompson becoming mayor. They don't want Harrisburg, in which they have invested their lives, becoming Zimbabwe-on-the-Susquehanna.

The anti-Reed blacks have been unable to field a mayoral candidate with the ability to move beyond racial identity politics to pull away enough white votes to defeat Reed. They obviously can't even get all the votes of Harrisburg blacks. In the end, they just don't put up credible candidates. Even white voters disturbed with Reed ask themselves, if not Reed, who?

Reed is on the ropes of late because of the Harrisburg incinerator financial crisis, a nearly intractable problem. I suspect it will be dealt with, and the city will move on, painfully. Does anyone really think Linda Thompson would have dealt with it more competently than Reed? The mayor is also criticized for trying to turn his own interest in the American West into a city museum here. But I look at the photographs in the Patriot-News of some of the artifacts going up for auction soon at council's demand and regret that I'll never be able to see them in a museum as good as Reed's Civil War museum.

Reed tries things, he does things, and some things work out while others don't. He is not a mayor who throws up his hands and moans about his situation, or works only to keep taxes low. Harrisburg is better off for having had Reed as mayor since 1982 by almost any fair calculation.

Again the question: if not Reed, who?

Posted by David at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I swear I heard the phrase "rock-throwing lawyers" on NPR this morning.

Hard to believe, but legions of grey-suited lawyers in Pakistan have taken to the streets to protest President Pervez Musharraf's assumption of dictatorial powers, which of course means an end to the rule of law and the Pakistani constitution. Their lawyers are bit more, how shall we say it, aggressive than American lawyers are. Instead of hurling writs, they use stones.

The only thing of late that has gotten lawyers and judges worked up in Harrisburg, Pa., is the possibility that the Federal courthouse will be moved out of the downtown to Sixth and Reilly streets. They're pushing for the demolition of perfectly good, taxable buildings in the downtown rather than have to drive a few blocks to the new courthouse, or, in the case of the judges, be too far away from their favorite downtown restaurants and nail salons. The identity of the judge who moaned about the lack of a nail salon at Sixth & Reilly remains as closely guarded as Dick Cheney's "secret location."

What you'll never see is Brooks Brothers-clad lawyers in the streets of Harrisburg or anywhere protesting the endless detention of captured enemy soldiers at Guantanamo, denied a fair trial or even access to the American legal system. You won't see them parading in front of the White House demanding an end to water-boarding or other forms of torture currently allowed by the Bush Administration.

But no nail salon? To the barricades, my comrades!

We Americans really aren't much for protests in the street, despite a few big marches in the late 1960s and early 1970s to protest the Vietnam War, and others demanding civil rights for blacks. A French friend asked me the other day if there would be demonstrations to protest PPL Electric shutting off the power to a family in Steelton (PPL says it followed the rules). A fire linked to a candle being used for light killed two children in the family and critically injured the mother and another child. For my friend, it was a logical question. That would happen in France. As an American, I was caught off guard and e-mailed back that I doubted it.

We may rant, we may rave, but we don't do it in the streets for the most part.

Posted by David at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It would be odd, yet quintessentially American, if the death penalty in the United States faded away for cost reasons rather than moral.

The New York Times reports today that increasing numbers of judges are refusing to let prosecutors seek the death penalty unless they are facing a real defense, meaning one with good (which tends to mean well-paid) lawyers and enough money to hire private investigators, expert witnesses, and pay laboratory fees. An even playing field, so to speak, although an obviously guilty man is still likely to become a convicted guilty man even if he does have a vigorous defense. It's the many cases where guilt isn't a slam-dunk conclusion, perhaps because of police misconduct, that has judges worried.

Death is different. It can't be undone like a life sentence can if new evidence is found. But more to the point, not every murderer is sentenced to death. Many are not, and not only in states like Michigan that never had the death penalty. Americans have always been of two minds about the death penalty, and have never been willing to mindlessly apply it to all convicted murderers. I remember a lawyer telling me once that the worst experience of his professional life was trying to persuade a Pennsylvania jury not to sentence his client to death. It didn't, but the pressure on him was enormous. You can't have a bad day.

Death is also costly. Legal costs go up--or should go up--exponentially when a death sentence is a possibility. It is far cheaper for a state to put someone in prison for life than to execute them. Strange but true.

So with the Supreme Court having put in effect a de facto moratorium on executions while it deliberates whether the risk of intense pain is too much of a risk in lethal injections, and other judges demanding fairness in death trials, we could be heading for a quiet end to executions in America. Europe, which had enough of killing in World War II, is way ahead of us in this regard.

I mentioned Michigan earlier because a jury in my hometown of Holland, Michigan, convicted four men last week 28 years after they raped and murdered Janet Chandler, a Hope College student. Two other defendants, including Laurie Swank of Nescopeck, Pa., copped pleas earlier. The four convicted last week will spend the rest of their lives in prison. Since they couldn't be sentenced to death, there won't be multiple and costly appeal hearings for the next 20 years.

They'll just rot away quietly behind the walls of the state penitentiary at Jackson. Which is as it should be.

Posted by David at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As emotionally satisfying as the verdict was in the civil lawsuit against the Westboro Baptist Church, I don't think it will stand and probably ought not to stand.

Westboro Baptist Church, the charming "God hates fags" folks, were hit with $10.9 million in mostly punitive damages by a Federal Court jury in Baltimore. They had picketed the funeral of Marine Cpl. Matthew Snyder of Westminster, Md., who died in Iraq in March 2006. I wasn't there, but the Westboro morons typically wave signs saying that (insert name) died because God is punishing America for its tolerance of homosexuality. This church, as it were, is mainly Rev. Fred Phelps, a disbarred lawyer from Kansas, and 10 of his 13 children, many of whom are also lawyers.

Like the columnist Ann Coulter, they say and do outrageous and abhorrent things in the certain knowledge that at least some in the media will give them publicity. In my opinion, anyway--have to put in that disclaimer as the Westboro folks love to sue. They even announce on their website which military funerals they plan to picket next. Their protests, I would emphasize, have nothing to do with the Iraq war and everything to do with the rightwing, fundamentalist hatred of gay people.

So, nice to see them sued into the ground, right? Wrong. As offensive as this group is, the concept of having to pay millions of dollars in damages because your protest caused someone emotional distress is a scary one. The church members were standing 1,000 feet from the church where the funeral was held. The father, Albert Snyder of York, says he didn't see them on the day of the funeral but was deeply affected after reading news coverage of the protest and subsequent postings on the church website. I don't doubt for an instant that he WAS upset.

But I can imagine a situation where protestors against, say, the Iraq War, would end up getting sued by the wife of a soldier in Iraq on emotional distress grounds because she happened to be driving by and saw the signs. Or more pointedly, if protesters gathered on the sidewalk outside the home of a soldier or headquarters of a unit accused of war crimes in Iraq. That's not far-fetched. Indeed, we have a President who is so thin-skinned about protest that groups protesting his policy are forced by police to stay far out of his sight, and anyone who enters one of his speeches or rallies and even appears to maybe be a protester is forcibly removed.

Yesterday I called for a ban on displays of the Southern "battle flag," a well-known symbol of racism and the oppression of blacks. I did that because you can't argue or debate with a flag. It just sits there on the bumper sticker on the pick-up truck proclaiming its ugly message. The message of the Westboro Baptist Church is just as offensive, but at least you can go up and argue with them. Or punch them in the face if you want to risk an assault charge and lawsuit. If you punch a bumper sticker, you're just going to get a broken hand.

If the judgment against Westboro Baptist Church is allowed to stand, it will likely be because the court decides that Albert Snyder is not a public figure and is entitled to more protection than, say, Jerry Falwell was when Hustler magazine parodied him. Courts define a public figure as someone who "invites" news coverage because of his position or notoriety. Snyder meets neither test. He was a grieving parent of a dead Marine. If the court fashions its ruling on those narrow grounds, I could live with it.

Speaking of the First Amendment, the Harrisburg Patriot-News' sister newspaper, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, is in a bit of hot water today over the firing of a liberal political blogger, Jeff Coryell. Coryell says Congressman Steve LaTourette, a Republican, complained to the Plain-Dealer after he started blogging for them and that was why he was fired. The P-D says it was because Coryell gave a hundred dollars to LaTourette's Democratic opponent.

Bloggers, especially outside bloggers, can pose difficulties for newspapers. After all, they're hired for their opinions. Coryell is a liberal. Is it any surprise he might give a modest contribution to a Democrat but still write about the Republican incumbent and call for his defeat? Unlike a reporter, no one expects a political blogger to be down-the-line objective. Not sure where the problem is, but newspapers are having a lot of trouble these days figuring out which end is up.

Posted by David at 07:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In Germany, it is illegal to own, let alone display, a Nazi flag or any other symbols of the murderous Third Reich. In America, it is quite legal to own and often to display a Confederate "battle flag," even though that flag represents a period in history and a mentality that ought to be as repugnant to Americans as Hitler is to today's Germans.

You know the "battle flag" I'm talking about. The so-called Stars and Bars, the X-flag, the flag that has come to represent the Southern "cause" in the American Civil War. That cause, no matter what anybody tries to tell you, was defense of black slavery. Southern troops fought for the right to hold auctions in which screaming black children were separated for all time from their parents, for the right to whip black slaves to keep them picking cotton in the hot sun, for the right to track them with dogs and kill them if they tried to escape. That is the "Southern heritage" the Confederate battle flag represents.

Trample that flag in the dirt. Burn it. But do not allow students at Dauphin County Technical School in suburban Harrisburg or any other school display it on their cars or persons.

America often suffers from historical amnesia. We find it easier to pay lip service to the idea of "free expression" than to confront dark periods in our past that still color the present. Germany had the good sense after World War II to understand that wiping out Nazism would be far more difficult than simply changing the government. Even utter defeat in war was not enough to kill the virus. Nazis had to be removed from government, from schools, from courts, from businesses, from all aspects of the nation's life. And were, by and large, although it took years. The German student movement in the 1960s and 1970s completed the work.

We didn't do that in the South after the Civil War. The Reconstruction was as badly mismanaged then as the occupation of Iraq is today. The leaders of the South who lit the fire that led to four years of bloody civil war largely got off scot-free. The Ku Klux Klan terrorized free blacks and their white supporters.

Americans are understandably reluctant to ban even the most offensive of political speech. The students who display the battle flag are often merely ill-educated, dumb if you will. They are more likely looking for a way to proclaim their independence than to proclaim support for the demonic evil of the Confederacy. But the symbol is offensive to blacks and most whites alike. If we ever want to have a hope of wiping out that moral stain, the battle flag needs to go.

Posted by David at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)