Rick Santorum is a zealot.
He believes, like Taliban and radical Muslims believe about Islam, that he gets to define who is a Christian.
This humorless, hypocritical scold believes he has the right to pass moral judgements on the rest of us. To force the rest of us to accept his moral and religious superiority.
Like mullahs in Iran. Like priests of Santorum's religious forebears in the inquisition.
If Santorum wants to take a dead fetus home for his other children to welcome, that's his business. Personally, I find it a twisting of grief and potentially harmful to his other kids, and damn little to do with the Christianity. But I respect his right to this kind of behavior.
I do not think he should be able to determine or judge who has sex for what reason. To compare being gay to bestiality. To suggest a woman should hold an aspirin between her knees as birth control (his largest supporter said it, Santorum believes it). To oppose amniocentesis based on his religious views. To say Obama is not a Christian. These are markers of this dangerous man's soul.
Santorum may believe the earth was created to serve man, that man is the objective of life, but that outlook has created crisis after crisis and Santorum's style of arrogance and self-righteousness are part of that pathology. That he believes everyone who does not agree with him has a "phoney theology" puts him at odds with many Americans and most of the world.
Santorum does not get to accuse Obama or me or anyone else who does not buy into his white-male dominated rural Catholic world view that we are not Christian. It is time for him to go back to the shadowy dealing for the health care industry from which he has made millions.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
A bad bargain
Republicans and Democrats have agreed to sell spectrum and use the proceeds to pay for payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits. Sounds like a good deal all the way around, right?
No.
To begin with, spectrum is a limited resource. Once it is sold, it is gone. Payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits are long-term recurring needs which should not be supported even in the short run by one-off sales.
It's a little like chopping up the piano for firewood — in the Spring.
Secondly, far more jobs would be created over the long term if we (we as in us, as in U.S.) held our spectrum back, or made it available for free, to anyone.
How can that be, with the auction expected to raise $25 billion?
Because innovation would follow such a major lowering of "barriers to entry" into wireless markets. Not selling spectrum to fat and entrenched oligopolies, but allowing general access to hungry and smart entrepreneurs would encourage new companies to spring up and new industries to flourish. Tremendous growth and more tax revenues in the long run would actually pay for programs that proceeds from this one time auction may offset temporarily.
But no, the fix is in. AT&T and Verizon will buy up most of the spectrum and Americans will be stuck with extortionist policies as powerful corporate "persons" profit by limiting our choice of phones, dictating usage through lawyered-up sleight-of-hand, and bundling unwanted services.
How badly does this reek? First clue is support by Oregon's Rep. Greg Walden, AT&T's main man in Washington. That right there smells like a used fish barrel.
In "The National Journal:"
The provision in the House spectrum bill is aimed at ensuring the FCC can't keep the nation's two biggest wireless providers ,Verizon Wireless and AT&T, from participating in future spectrum auctions. Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., who drafted the House spectrum legislation, said last month that he doesn't think it's good public policy to exclude any market players from participating in spectrum auctions.
The second clue that this is not a good deal is the standard-issue fiscal recklessness of those on the left who continue the magical thinking of getting something for nothing. "Win-win," chortles the threadbare Democrat while AT&T and its shill Verizon buy from him an apple with money they just picked from his pocket. How sad.
It's a bad bargain between the worst inclinations of both major parties.
No.
To begin with, spectrum is a limited resource. Once it is sold, it is gone. Payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits are long-term recurring needs which should not be supported even in the short run by one-off sales.
It's a little like chopping up the piano for firewood — in the Spring.
Secondly, far more jobs would be created over the long term if we (we as in us, as in U.S.) held our spectrum back, or made it available for free, to anyone.
How can that be, with the auction expected to raise $25 billion?
Because innovation would follow such a major lowering of "barriers to entry" into wireless markets. Not selling spectrum to fat and entrenched oligopolies, but allowing general access to hungry and smart entrepreneurs would encourage new companies to spring up and new industries to flourish. Tremendous growth and more tax revenues in the long run would actually pay for programs that proceeds from this one time auction may offset temporarily.
But no, the fix is in. AT&T and Verizon will buy up most of the spectrum and Americans will be stuck with extortionist policies as powerful corporate "persons" profit by limiting our choice of phones, dictating usage through lawyered-up sleight-of-hand, and bundling unwanted services.
How badly does this reek? First clue is support by Oregon's Rep. Greg Walden, AT&T's main man in Washington. That right there smells like a used fish barrel.
In "The National Journal:"
The provision in the House spectrum bill is aimed at ensuring the FCC can't keep the nation's two biggest wireless providers ,Verizon Wireless and AT&T, from participating in future spectrum auctions. Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., who drafted the House spectrum legislation, said last month that he doesn't think it's good public policy to exclude any market players from participating in spectrum auctions.
AT&T has echoed Walden's view on the issue. "Auctions should be open, not closed. Any qualified carrier, including those on today's letter, should have a chance to bid on any spectrum available in an auction," AT&T Senior Executive Vice President Jim Cicconi said in a statement. "This group, however, wants the FCC to stack the deck in its favor. Congress is right to resist this notion." –
The second clue that this is not a good deal is the standard-issue fiscal recklessness of those on the left who continue the magical thinking of getting something for nothing. "Win-win," chortles the threadbare Democrat while AT&T and its shill Verizon buy from him an apple with money they just picked from his pocket. How sad.
It's a bad bargain between the worst inclinations of both major parties.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Life blood of freedom
Have you been on the internet in the last day or two?
A trick question, right, given that you are reading this on the internet right now? But that's my point, really: "the internet." I think it needs to be capitalized. "The Internet."
Not "AT&T's Internet." Not the "Official Internet," or "NYT Internet," or "Internet by Fox." This is critically important, and under severe threat. The true power of The Internet lies in the fact that it is universal and not subject to the goals of any corporation or government.
This is about access to information. Access to the good and bad, truth and lies, accurate and false, valuable and worthless. Access that does not belong to anyone, and needs to stay that way or we lose something more valuable than can be calculated.
Threats come from Verizon, and AT&T. How? Because they own your mobile access point to the internet and want control. You can't just buy a phone and use it as you want. You must buy their phone, and they have disabled certain functions and added others you know nothing about. You can't change those functions, either, you don't have the freedom to do so.
Cable companies, too. They have limited who sees what at what speed.
The day is coming when these companies will only display search results from companies that pay a fee. Better yet, from companies they own or control. They will display news only from their favored political party.
Thomas Jefferson advocated for freedom of the press even as he was being savaged by the merciless press of his time. That is why we have the First Amendment. In our electronic age, that freedom is threatened both by governments and corporations, by those who would limit our access to information as if in an earlier age they wished to control which newspapers could be published, which books would be read, who spoke to whom.
Access needs champions, in Congress and in the streets, Republican and Democrat, willing to advocate for freedom, freedom of information, internet freedom and freedom of access.
If "The Internet" is fragmented into Verizon's Internet, Comcast's Internet, Democrats Internet, or access is controlled, there is less hope for emergence of "truth." This is the weapon of dictators and oligarchs around the world and has been long before the days of Nazi and Communist propaganda machines.
Who controls "truth?" Almost by definition, no one, truth must fight falsehood everywhere. That is how it should be. But if the battlefield is fragmented, it takes truth much longer to win.
That is why there must be "The Internet," and equal access must be guaranteed. Then information will fulfill the powerful role Jefferson envisioned, his "market place of ideas" will eventually reveal truth, bad ideas will fade (to be replaced by others), good ideas will endure. It is crucial for democracy as well as a free market economy.
This is not about providing a certain service, it is about inalienable rights. This is not about buying ice cream, it is about finding water. There is a role for government in protecting rights, and this is one of the most fundamental of rights. It is the well-spring of our freedoms.
Threats to the internet are threats to our internet, broadcast over our spectrum, by companies under supervision by our government.
Don't tread on me.
A trick question, right, given that you are reading this on the internet right now? But that's my point, really: "the internet." I think it needs to be capitalized. "The Internet."
Not "AT&T's Internet." Not the "Official Internet," or "NYT Internet," or "Internet by Fox." This is critically important, and under severe threat. The true power of The Internet lies in the fact that it is universal and not subject to the goals of any corporation or government.
This is about access to information. Access to the good and bad, truth and lies, accurate and false, valuable and worthless. Access that does not belong to anyone, and needs to stay that way or we lose something more valuable than can be calculated.
Threats come from Verizon, and AT&T. How? Because they own your mobile access point to the internet and want control. You can't just buy a phone and use it as you want. You must buy their phone, and they have disabled certain functions and added others you know nothing about. You can't change those functions, either, you don't have the freedom to do so.
Cable companies, too. They have limited who sees what at what speed.
The day is coming when these companies will only display search results from companies that pay a fee. Better yet, from companies they own or control. They will display news only from their favored political party.
Thomas Jefferson advocated for freedom of the press even as he was being savaged by the merciless press of his time. That is why we have the First Amendment. In our electronic age, that freedom is threatened both by governments and corporations, by those who would limit our access to information as if in an earlier age they wished to control which newspapers could be published, which books would be read, who spoke to whom.
Access needs champions, in Congress and in the streets, Republican and Democrat, willing to advocate for freedom, freedom of information, internet freedom and freedom of access.
If "The Internet" is fragmented into Verizon's Internet, Comcast's Internet, Democrats Internet, or access is controlled, there is less hope for emergence of "truth." This is the weapon of dictators and oligarchs around the world and has been long before the days of Nazi and Communist propaganda machines.
Who controls "truth?" Almost by definition, no one, truth must fight falsehood everywhere. That is how it should be. But if the battlefield is fragmented, it takes truth much longer to win.
That is why there must be "The Internet," and equal access must be guaranteed. Then information will fulfill the powerful role Jefferson envisioned, his "market place of ideas" will eventually reveal truth, bad ideas will fade (to be replaced by others), good ideas will endure. It is crucial for democracy as well as a free market economy.
This is not about providing a certain service, it is about inalienable rights. This is not about buying ice cream, it is about finding water. There is a role for government in protecting rights, and this is one of the most fundamental of rights. It is the well-spring of our freedoms.
Threats to the internet are threats to our internet, broadcast over our spectrum, by companies under supervision by our government.
Don't tread on me.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
The politics of humiliation
Writing for the New York Times on Tuesday, January 23, 2012, Thomas L. Friedman cautioned Russian leadership:
Humiliation is the single most underestimated force in politics. People will absorb hardship, hunger and pain. They will be grateful for jobs, cars and benefits. But if you force people to live indefinitely inside a rigged game that is flaunted in their face or make them feel like cattle that can be passed by one leader to his son or one politician to another, eventually they’ll explode. These are the emotions that sparked the uprisings in Cairo and Moscow…
I can't be the only reader struck deeply by the irony of Friedman's words. Russia? He was writing about the United States of America!
That's what the Occupy Movement was about. That's what the Tea Party is about. It's about humiliation. It's about the existence of special classes of people in America who get to live by different rules, who have to obey fewer laws, who do not have to face consequences for their actions.
Friedman writes: "…nothing spurred the protests (in Russia) more than the daily experience of Muscovites having to sit in traffic while a car with a flashing blue light carrying some Putin crony behind tinted glass speeds past. 'It is all about dignity,' said (Aleksei) Navalny. 'Who are these people? Why don’t they care about our rights? It doesn’t matter at all how good a career you build. You will stand in this traffic, and these people and their sons will drive past you with their blue lights.' ”
Who are these people in America who get to profit from manipulating our mortgages, get bailed out with our tax dollars and take a small bit of their huge bonuses to buy a Mercedes that cost more than the houses repossessed by my local bank?
Who are these people who lie to Congress while flaunting the so-called free market with monopolies on medications or cell phones, who corrupt congressman from Oregon, who write obscure state laws taking away the rights of the average man and spend millions of their obscene wealth buying state legislators to pass them?
The Koch brothers want us to breathe the foul pollution of their profit and go without health care when it starts to kill us. Goldman Sachs wants the keys to our bank and for us to admire them when they run off with our money. Rupert Murdoch and his Wall Street Journal want us to consume the crap they charade as news so we will be unable to vote as the informed citizens idealized by Thomas Jefferson.
Murdoch has broken privacy laws and he is free. Executives at Goldman lied to Congress and they are free. The Koch brothers should be jailed for crimes against democracy, and they are free!
It's humiliating. The privileged of America have their laws and impose a different set on us. The "Bush Dynasty." The very concept is nauseating. Since when did America succumb to adulation of royalty? I don't care if it is a Bush or a Kennedy: when did the name grow to mean more than accomplishment?
The right wing has successfully portrayed poor black Americans, Latinos and illegal immigrants as special classes who don't have to live by the rules. Those who believe these groups are privileged need to trade places with someone living in the ghetto or barrio whose children live a far harsher life than many can even imagine.
The left wing has fumbled the ball every time they point at the "one percent" and then get hit with the charge of "class warfare." Get over it, Liberals. Yes, it may be class warfare, but it wasn't the lower classes who started it. It was bankers flouting a system they own to rake in hundreds of millions while many of us can't afford to see a doctor.
The poor white guy driving a pick-up with a gun rack to one unemployment line after another is as tired of the humiliation as the poor black mother unable to buy a car to get to a job. They are on the same side. The wrong side. The humiliation side.
My pet phrase has been that unless you give people opportunity, they will take it with either a ballot or a bullet. Clever, but inadequate. Friedman puts his finger on it exactly. Humiliation is the most underestimated force in politics.
It's long past time to bring that message home.
Humiliation is the single most underestimated force in politics. People will absorb hardship, hunger and pain. They will be grateful for jobs, cars and benefits. But if you force people to live indefinitely inside a rigged game that is flaunted in their face or make them feel like cattle that can be passed by one leader to his son or one politician to another, eventually they’ll explode. These are the emotions that sparked the uprisings in Cairo and Moscow…
I can't be the only reader struck deeply by the irony of Friedman's words. Russia? He was writing about the United States of America!
That's what the Occupy Movement was about. That's what the Tea Party is about. It's about humiliation. It's about the existence of special classes of people in America who get to live by different rules, who have to obey fewer laws, who do not have to face consequences for their actions.
Friedman writes: "…nothing spurred the protests (in Russia) more than the daily experience of Muscovites having to sit in traffic while a car with a flashing blue light carrying some Putin crony behind tinted glass speeds past. 'It is all about dignity,' said (Aleksei) Navalny. 'Who are these people? Why don’t they care about our rights? It doesn’t matter at all how good a career you build. You will stand in this traffic, and these people and their sons will drive past you with their blue lights.' ”
Who are these people in America who get to profit from manipulating our mortgages, get bailed out with our tax dollars and take a small bit of their huge bonuses to buy a Mercedes that cost more than the houses repossessed by my local bank?
Who are these people who lie to Congress while flaunting the so-called free market with monopolies on medications or cell phones, who corrupt congressman from Oregon, who write obscure state laws taking away the rights of the average man and spend millions of their obscene wealth buying state legislators to pass them?
The Koch brothers want us to breathe the foul pollution of their profit and go without health care when it starts to kill us. Goldman Sachs wants the keys to our bank and for us to admire them when they run off with our money. Rupert Murdoch and his Wall Street Journal want us to consume the crap they charade as news so we will be unable to vote as the informed citizens idealized by Thomas Jefferson.
Murdoch has broken privacy laws and he is free. Executives at Goldman lied to Congress and they are free. The Koch brothers should be jailed for crimes against democracy, and they are free!
It's humiliating. The privileged of America have their laws and impose a different set on us. The "Bush Dynasty." The very concept is nauseating. Since when did America succumb to adulation of royalty? I don't care if it is a Bush or a Kennedy: when did the name grow to mean more than accomplishment?
The right wing has successfully portrayed poor black Americans, Latinos and illegal immigrants as special classes who don't have to live by the rules. Those who believe these groups are privileged need to trade places with someone living in the ghetto or barrio whose children live a far harsher life than many can even imagine.
The left wing has fumbled the ball every time they point at the "one percent" and then get hit with the charge of "class warfare." Get over it, Liberals. Yes, it may be class warfare, but it wasn't the lower classes who started it. It was bankers flouting a system they own to rake in hundreds of millions while many of us can't afford to see a doctor.
The poor white guy driving a pick-up with a gun rack to one unemployment line after another is as tired of the humiliation as the poor black mother unable to buy a car to get to a job. They are on the same side. The wrong side. The humiliation side.
My pet phrase has been that unless you give people opportunity, they will take it with either a ballot or a bullet. Clever, but inadequate. Friedman puts his finger on it exactly. Humiliation is the most underestimated force in politics.
It's long past time to bring that message home.
Trump endorses a winner!
In an amazing display of narcissistic self-aggrandizement, Donald Trump (a rare triple redundancy) supported the likely winner of the GOP nomination process.
"I will be making a major announcement tomorrow (Thursday, February 2) at 12:30 pm at Trump International Hotel & Tower, Las Vegas, Nevada," Trump the gasbag tweeted on Wednesday, February 1.
Of course Trump endorsed Romney. And in a week or a month, Trump will say that it was his endorsement that gave Romney the nomination. Trump would also like to point out that the Mississippi flows into the Gulf of Mexico, in which Trump has dipped a toe, so of course the river seeks that direction.
Nobody cares, Donald, you dweeb. It doesn't matter to any of us what you do, what you think, who you endorse. The comb-over is still ridiculous, the narcissism boring. Go away, now, you sad clown of a man.
"I will be making a major announcement tomorrow (Thursday, February 2) at 12:30 pm at Trump International Hotel & Tower, Las Vegas, Nevada," Trump the gasbag tweeted on Wednesday, February 1.
Of course Trump endorsed Romney. And in a week or a month, Trump will say that it was his endorsement that gave Romney the nomination. Trump would also like to point out that the Mississippi flows into the Gulf of Mexico, in which Trump has dipped a toe, so of course the river seeks that direction.
Nobody cares, Donald, you dweeb. It doesn't matter to any of us what you do, what you think, who you endorse. The comb-over is still ridiculous, the narcissism boring. Go away, now, you sad clown of a man.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Protect the free market! Block AT&T!
The government is soon going to authorize the sale of some more of our mobile phone spectrum.
Should the goal of the auction be:
(1) Get as much as possible from that auction, regardless of who buys the spectrum?
(2) Manage the sale for the long term good of consumers?
(3) Get government off the back of god-fearing, job-creating businessmen?
Okay, okay, you're right. It was a trick question.
Next month, bills will be introduced in Congress that may include language that allows the FCC to structure who can bid on the spectrum. The "Government is bad! Always bad!" crowd will of course scream "Freedom! Let capitalism work!"
Except we know that market capitalism can harm market capitalism. Where limited resources are concerned, like oil or railroads or tobacco in the 19th century when the Sherman Anti-trust act was enforced, sometimes the government has to protect market capitalism from itself.
In the 1890s, the Rockefellers crushed many companies and put many people out of work with their money. The same threat exists today. We need competition in the mobile phone industry and there is national interest in seeing that competition can flourish.
Fighting monopoly is fighting for free market. Fighting concentration of power is fighting for small businesses and is pro-business.
This is even more true of the mobile industry than it was with oil. This is our spectrum. And if We, The People decide to foster competition and protect free markets by selling that spectrum to competitors of AT&T and Verizon, that is advocating for the free market, it is not "socialism," despite what the fear mongers on the right, the pro-monopolists and their lackeys like Rep. Greg Walden, would have you believe.
Promoting free enterprise in this case means potentially limiting who can bid on the spectrum and potentially taking a loss in the short run so that competition can, in the long run, keep prices competitive.
(By the way, I almost included the Boston Tea Party as an example. I'll submit, just for the joy of it, that the East India Company was in collusion with the British Crown. It was their tea! That's the history of influence of business on government. If the "Tea Party" wanted to be true to its namesake, it would join the Occupy Wall Street folks and demand that corporate scofflaws go to jail.
Big pharma, Goldman Sachs, the insurers, those are the East India Company of today. Don't tread on me!
At some point, some smart grad student at Berkeley or Stanford or the University of Chicago or Wharton will do a study on the minimum number of competitors required for a market to remain healthy, and how barriers to entry into that market affect that number.
My theory is that markets with higher barriers to entry require more existing competitors to be healthy, because companies outside a market that see the attractive profits will find it more difficult get in.
I will join the right wing in saying the Supreme Court has failed America. The overturning of campaign finance laws was to allow the East India Company to marry into the royal family. Talk about protecting an institution from incest! )
Should the goal of the auction be:
(1) Get as much as possible from that auction, regardless of who buys the spectrum?
(2) Manage the sale for the long term good of consumers?
(3) Get government off the back of god-fearing, job-creating businessmen?
Okay, okay, you're right. It was a trick question.
Next month, bills will be introduced in Congress that may include language that allows the FCC to structure who can bid on the spectrum. The "Government is bad! Always bad!" crowd will of course scream "Freedom! Let capitalism work!"
Except we know that market capitalism can harm market capitalism. Where limited resources are concerned, like oil or railroads or tobacco in the 19th century when the Sherman Anti-trust act was enforced, sometimes the government has to protect market capitalism from itself.
In the 1890s, the Rockefellers crushed many companies and put many people out of work with their money. The same threat exists today. We need competition in the mobile phone industry and there is national interest in seeing that competition can flourish.
Fighting monopoly is fighting for free market. Fighting concentration of power is fighting for small businesses and is pro-business.
This is even more true of the mobile industry than it was with oil. This is our spectrum. And if We, The People decide to foster competition and protect free markets by selling that spectrum to competitors of AT&T and Verizon, that is advocating for the free market, it is not "socialism," despite what the fear mongers on the right, the pro-monopolists and their lackeys like Rep. Greg Walden, would have you believe.
Promoting free enterprise in this case means potentially limiting who can bid on the spectrum and potentially taking a loss in the short run so that competition can, in the long run, keep prices competitive.
(By the way, I almost included the Boston Tea Party as an example. I'll submit, just for the joy of it, that the East India Company was in collusion with the British Crown. It was their tea! That's the history of influence of business on government. If the "Tea Party" wanted to be true to its namesake, it would join the Occupy Wall Street folks and demand that corporate scofflaws go to jail.
Big pharma, Goldman Sachs, the insurers, those are the East India Company of today. Don't tread on me!
At some point, some smart grad student at Berkeley or Stanford or the University of Chicago or Wharton will do a study on the minimum number of competitors required for a market to remain healthy, and how barriers to entry into that market affect that number.
My theory is that markets with higher barriers to entry require more existing competitors to be healthy, because companies outside a market that see the attractive profits will find it more difficult get in.
I will join the right wing in saying the Supreme Court has failed America. The overturning of campaign finance laws was to allow the East India Company to marry into the royal family. Talk about protecting an institution from incest! )
Monday, January 16, 2012
The Conservative within
The schizoid ideology of the left and right leave me confused. The right believes in individual responsibility, but wants keys to my bedroom door. The left believes in personal freedom but wants to mitigate consequences for every bad decision I make.
Unfortunately for the left, without consequences there are no rational incentives. Even worse for the left, they will have to watch as a few generations are wasted, because it takes that long for consequences to take root and modify behavior.
Unfortunately for the right, bad things happen to good people. Even worse for the right, there is benefit for the entire society if together we provide opportunity for individuals, and not doing so guarantees decline for the very society that provides for their wealth.
I ran across three articles in rapid succession today in the New York Times. The first was a mild little piece on free will. The second was a Krugman opinion on opportunity. The third was about what the right gets right ("That ought to be a short one," snort my snotty leftist friends).
That they snort is part of the problem. Because the right snorts back, the argument becomes one of finger pointing and probing for vulnerability. If neither side is willing to listen, we have a shout down, no progress and everybody goes to bed angry.
One place where idealogues might find common ground, albeit a long way from where each sits, is around the concept of opportunity: America has some, used to have more, and needs as much as she can get.
Opportunity is the life force, opportunity is the dream that creates the energy, opportunity is the engine that pulls the train to a higher standard of living.
I believe the left and the right have a vested interest in creating opportunity. This starts with education in America, which has fallen to an abysmal state. The right blames the left for polluting the classroom with polemic and letting it become a sinecure for mediocrity. The left blames the right, for shunting education onto a side street in pursuit of the perfect consumer.
To fix this, the left has to quit trying to be everything for everybody and accept that there are consequences, often nasty ones, for certain behaviors, including failure by students as well as teachers in the classroom.
The right has to give up the idea that they have no stake in what happens to others, accept that a world of gated communities of the spirit will ruin the environment for everybody. We have to fund more than just police and fire departments.
I don't want to talk about income inequality in and of itself. I don't find inequality by itself to be a sin, nor do I hate other people's money as so many on the left seem to do. But if inequality perpetuates itself through an inheritocracy, it damages opportunity. We need to do what we need to do so that a farm boy in Idaho can share the same dream as a street kid in Buffalo. Then we might see a reversal of America's decline.
We spend more per capita on education than any other nation and we do so poorly. We spend more than any nation on health care and it is pretty lousy. So money, by itself, is not the answer here, and everyone has to accept there are limits to what we can spend.
But it is unAmerican to accept that this is the best we can do, and accept the status quo. If we continue this path, and if "We the People" do not believe there is opportunity, if not for themselves but for their children, they will get angry and will want to take it back, by ballot or by bullet.
Unfortunately for the left, without consequences there are no rational incentives. Even worse for the left, they will have to watch as a few generations are wasted, because it takes that long for consequences to take root and modify behavior.
Unfortunately for the right, bad things happen to good people. Even worse for the right, there is benefit for the entire society if together we provide opportunity for individuals, and not doing so guarantees decline for the very society that provides for their wealth.
I ran across three articles in rapid succession today in the New York Times. The first was a mild little piece on free will. The second was a Krugman opinion on opportunity. The third was about what the right gets right ("That ought to be a short one," snort my snotty leftist friends).
That they snort is part of the problem. Because the right snorts back, the argument becomes one of finger pointing and probing for vulnerability. If neither side is willing to listen, we have a shout down, no progress and everybody goes to bed angry.
One place where idealogues might find common ground, albeit a long way from where each sits, is around the concept of opportunity: America has some, used to have more, and needs as much as she can get.
Opportunity is the life force, opportunity is the dream that creates the energy, opportunity is the engine that pulls the train to a higher standard of living.
I believe the left and the right have a vested interest in creating opportunity. This starts with education in America, which has fallen to an abysmal state. The right blames the left for polluting the classroom with polemic and letting it become a sinecure for mediocrity. The left blames the right, for shunting education onto a side street in pursuit of the perfect consumer.
To fix this, the left has to quit trying to be everything for everybody and accept that there are consequences, often nasty ones, for certain behaviors, including failure by students as well as teachers in the classroom.
The right has to give up the idea that they have no stake in what happens to others, accept that a world of gated communities of the spirit will ruin the environment for everybody. We have to fund more than just police and fire departments.
I don't want to talk about income inequality in and of itself. I don't find inequality by itself to be a sin, nor do I hate other people's money as so many on the left seem to do. But if inequality perpetuates itself through an inheritocracy, it damages opportunity. We need to do what we need to do so that a farm boy in Idaho can share the same dream as a street kid in Buffalo. Then we might see a reversal of America's decline.
We spend more per capita on education than any other nation and we do so poorly. We spend more than any nation on health care and it is pretty lousy. So money, by itself, is not the answer here, and everyone has to accept there are limits to what we can spend.
But it is unAmerican to accept that this is the best we can do, and accept the status quo. If we continue this path, and if "We the People" do not believe there is opportunity, if not for themselves but for their children, they will get angry and will want to take it back, by ballot or by bullet.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Graceless in Oregon City's cemetery
Last month, I was with a remarkable family as they said goodbye to their cherished mother and grandmother, a woman who had given and received great love. Church services were thoughtful and warm, the motorcade from Sellwood to Oregon City ushered smoothly by police.
Before the casket was lowered into the ground at Mt. View Cemetery, it was odd how the funeral director went to great pains to state, more than once, that services were over. That his responsibility was over. Family may stay, but he would not. He had nothing to do with anything that came next.
It didn't take long to figure it out.
Apparently concrete vaults are now required now to hold a coffin before it goes in the ground. These vaults are heavy. This vault was suspended by rods that extended from one side of the burial pit to the other. After the funeral director left, an Oregon City crew standing 40 yards away with a back hoe came forward without much organization.
With the casket in the vault, there was only one winch strap to lower the vault into the ground. Which meant rather than lower the vault evenly, they had to drop one end in first. As the first end went to the bottom of the hole, gallons of water gushed out of the vault into the grave. It had been raining and the vault had accumulated water. Then we heard everything inside the vault slide to one end as the box poked out of the ground at an angle.
The workers struggled to move the strap from one end of the vault to the other. The unfamiliar winch jammed. Putting the lid on the vault was nearly as awkward, the chain holding the lid too short to allow adequate movement.
As they struggled, workers walked on top of grave stones with absolutely no thought that this showed disrespect and with total disregard for the damage mud encrusted boots might do to the marble. It was if the crew was laying water pipe.
There were still more than 30 people present. The man on the back hoe offered us the opportunity to use the shovel stuck in a pile of dirt to put our symbolic closure to the grave, which a number of us were waiting to do. After that, we filed back to our vehicles and departed, leaving them to their work of filling the grave.
While it is tempting to blame workers for this farce, it is not their fault. These men were working within the expectations of those who employ them and the limitations of their equipment. But not only was the burial insensitive, it put civil incompetence on display for all to see. Workers were willing, but their work was poorly guided and unpracticed.
This desecration belongs to the cemetery manager of Oregon City, who has either never been to one of these services or has no concept of how internment should be handled. Depending on the job description and expectations of the city council, that individual should be fired, transferred to another department, at the very least relieved of all duties relating to burials.
Here's a short list of recommendations.
There needs to be an immediate upgrade to training and adequate equipment on site and used at every burial. There should be a plan in place prior to the actual burial of who will be where and doing what, and some practice for those involved.
If possible, vaults should be in the ground before the casket and mourners arrive on site. Vaults should be covered with a tarp prior to use, water not allowed to accumulate. A lowering device should be available to allow pall bearers or trained personnel to lower the casket into the vault.
At a minimum, the vault should be gently and evenly lowered into the ground. The lid, closure if you will, should be placed smoothly. It should be anticipated that mourners will want to place dirt.
Employees should be instructed to walk around, not on grave stones.
If Oregon City cannot afford to show some decency at this moment, they should develop standards and put the work out to bid.
Before the casket was lowered into the ground at Mt. View Cemetery, it was odd how the funeral director went to great pains to state, more than once, that services were over. That his responsibility was over. Family may stay, but he would not. He had nothing to do with anything that came next.
It didn't take long to figure it out.
Apparently concrete vaults are now required now to hold a coffin before it goes in the ground. These vaults are heavy. This vault was suspended by rods that extended from one side of the burial pit to the other. After the funeral director left, an Oregon City crew standing 40 yards away with a back hoe came forward without much organization.
With the casket in the vault, there was only one winch strap to lower the vault into the ground. Which meant rather than lower the vault evenly, they had to drop one end in first. As the first end went to the bottom of the hole, gallons of water gushed out of the vault into the grave. It had been raining and the vault had accumulated water. Then we heard everything inside the vault slide to one end as the box poked out of the ground at an angle.
The workers struggled to move the strap from one end of the vault to the other. The unfamiliar winch jammed. Putting the lid on the vault was nearly as awkward, the chain holding the lid too short to allow adequate movement.
As they struggled, workers walked on top of grave stones with absolutely no thought that this showed disrespect and with total disregard for the damage mud encrusted boots might do to the marble. It was if the crew was laying water pipe.
There were still more than 30 people present. The man on the back hoe offered us the opportunity to use the shovel stuck in a pile of dirt to put our symbolic closure to the grave, which a number of us were waiting to do. After that, we filed back to our vehicles and departed, leaving them to their work of filling the grave.
While it is tempting to blame workers for this farce, it is not their fault. These men were working within the expectations of those who employ them and the limitations of their equipment. But not only was the burial insensitive, it put civil incompetence on display for all to see. Workers were willing, but their work was poorly guided and unpracticed.
This desecration belongs to the cemetery manager of Oregon City, who has either never been to one of these services or has no concept of how internment should be handled. Depending on the job description and expectations of the city council, that individual should be fired, transferred to another department, at the very least relieved of all duties relating to burials.
Here's a short list of recommendations.
There needs to be an immediate upgrade to training and adequate equipment on site and used at every burial. There should be a plan in place prior to the actual burial of who will be where and doing what, and some practice for those involved.
If possible, vaults should be in the ground before the casket and mourners arrive on site. Vaults should be covered with a tarp prior to use, water not allowed to accumulate. A lowering device should be available to allow pall bearers or trained personnel to lower the casket into the vault.
At a minimum, the vault should be gently and evenly lowered into the ground. The lid, closure if you will, should be placed smoothly. It should be anticipated that mourners will want to place dirt.
Employees should be instructed to walk around, not on grave stones.
If Oregon City cannot afford to show some decency at this moment, they should develop standards and put the work out to bid.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
It's not a "free market"
It is stunning how many Republicans claim to defend "free markets," without seeming to know what they are talking about.
To begin with, there is no such thing as a "free market" in America, unless you are talking about selling used furniture on Craigs List. Maybe.
Effective markets require rules. Here's an obvious one: you have to own what you sell. Selling something you know to be stolen is a crime.
There are others. We don't want someone selling slug bait as cat food. We want to know what's in our hamburger (actually no, we don't). We don't want wheels to fall off our cars. We don't want a 50/50 chance that the light bulb we put in the socket is going to electrocute our children or burn the house down.
Each of these is a restriction on the "free market." So please, Republicans, stop asserting that any restriction at all on any business is unAmerican.
Secondly, money begets power begets money begets power. The very MARKETS that the Republicans claim to be defending REQUIRE PROTECTION from government.
Profits are good. And the left needs to lose the attitude that everybody else's money is tainted. The first responsibility of a business is to make money for owners. It has been shown that, in a "competitive environment," the best way of making money for owners is taking care of customers.
But without someone to enforce rules, the big dogs eat everyone else, grow into monopolists and soon customers are forced to transfer income in excess of "reasonable" profit, taking money from other sectors of the economy if the need is critical. We pay $200 for a loaf of bread, $50 for a gallon of milk, 5$ for a gallon of gas. Ooops.
What's reasonable? Dunno. Let's let a competitive market decide that. A market where there is real and vigorous competition, the lowest possible barriers to entry to encourage new players, and a fair and level playing field. I have no interest in assigning a percentage.
And that's the rub. In the effort to make money, it is obvious that every business wants to reduce competition, so it has to spend fewer resources "taking care" of customers and can make more money for owners. That is why government is necessary to protect the markets. to ensure competition.
I don't care if Romney fired people while at Bain. I do care if ATT gobbles up T-Mobile.
And bankers who broke the law need to go to jail, along with any other CEO or VP who lies under oath or engages in activity which is a crime. Letting a company settle for a pittance and letting perps collect a bonus is to guarantee a repeat of behavior that has a high reward to risk ratio.
That is what Occupy Wall street was really about, and the fact that those same CEO's who broke the back of our economy for the last five years are putting people in Congress to reduce competition turn the rest of us into serfs living on the edge of their wealth.
End corporate welfare. End corporate control of our government, and the resulting abuse of our economy. Recognize that corporate tyranny enslaves as wrongly as any government tyrant.
To begin with, there is no such thing as a "free market" in America, unless you are talking about selling used furniture on Craigs List. Maybe.
Effective markets require rules. Here's an obvious one: you have to own what you sell. Selling something you know to be stolen is a crime.
There are others. We don't want someone selling slug bait as cat food. We want to know what's in our hamburger (actually no, we don't). We don't want wheels to fall off our cars. We don't want a 50/50 chance that the light bulb we put in the socket is going to electrocute our children or burn the house down.
Each of these is a restriction on the "free market." So please, Republicans, stop asserting that any restriction at all on any business is unAmerican.
Secondly, money begets power begets money begets power. The very MARKETS that the Republicans claim to be defending REQUIRE PROTECTION from government.
Profits are good. And the left needs to lose the attitude that everybody else's money is tainted. The first responsibility of a business is to make money for owners. It has been shown that, in a "competitive environment," the best way of making money for owners is taking care of customers.
But without someone to enforce rules, the big dogs eat everyone else, grow into monopolists and soon customers are forced to transfer income in excess of "reasonable" profit, taking money from other sectors of the economy if the need is critical. We pay $200 for a loaf of bread, $50 for a gallon of milk, 5$ for a gallon of gas. Ooops.
What's reasonable? Dunno. Let's let a competitive market decide that. A market where there is real and vigorous competition, the lowest possible barriers to entry to encourage new players, and a fair and level playing field. I have no interest in assigning a percentage.
And that's the rub. In the effort to make money, it is obvious that every business wants to reduce competition, so it has to spend fewer resources "taking care" of customers and can make more money for owners. That is why government is necessary to protect the markets. to ensure competition.
I don't care if Romney fired people while at Bain. I do care if ATT gobbles up T-Mobile.
And bankers who broke the law need to go to jail, along with any other CEO or VP who lies under oath or engages in activity which is a crime. Letting a company settle for a pittance and letting perps collect a bonus is to guarantee a repeat of behavior that has a high reward to risk ratio.
That is what Occupy Wall street was really about, and the fact that those same CEO's who broke the back of our economy for the last five years are putting people in Congress to reduce competition turn the rest of us into serfs living on the edge of their wealth.
End corporate welfare. End corporate control of our government, and the resulting abuse of our economy. Recognize that corporate tyranny enslaves as wrongly as any government tyrant.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Bad movie, great film, Ricks the fascists.
It's been a week up here on Raptor Ridge, what with trying to train the magpies, watching movies in town and being frightened by the news.
The problem is, magpies are so damn smart. The other day there was an article about pigeons doing higher math. If pigeons do math, magpies do quantum mechanics. Magpies make pigeons look like bird brains. These clever feathered foragers in their bold black and white communicate complicated ideas verbally to each other and I think they've got a side deal going with the crows, too.
Last night I went to see "Real Steel." If I had paid more than $3 I would have walked out. Maybe I should have walked out because I only paid $3. Great price, horrible film. Formulaic, derivative, manipulative.
Oh, wait. Here is where I have to give a moment's consideration to those who question my audacity in judging a movie...
There. That ought to do it.
"Real Steel" featured Hugh Jackman's biceps, Evangeline Lilly's weepy smile, and Dakota Goyo's ability to show 'tude. There was no acting. For storyline I think the writers got loaded and slurred out "Rocky meets Iron Man!" In spots you can overhear the director demand of the key grip, "get camera on tears of joy, here, now."
Though I did really like their truck.
But tonight, the hangover from that awful movie was washed away by "The Wall." This film was written by Pink Floyd's Roger Waters, and with no dialogue is a tale of abandonment, self absorption, loss... the seeds of fascism ... yeah, ambitious. But the movie has held up rather well over the decades.
And I didn't even get a flashback from the music.
Oh. Speaking of fascism: The Ricks.
Rick Perry wants to attack Iraq again, and take their oil. I know. It must be something in the water down there in Texas. Bush was dumb enough, but Perry is just stupid. We just go the troops home after spending a hair less than a trillion dollars on George W's war in Iraq. I don't know how much we spent on George H.W.'s war in Iraq, but wars haven't been cheap in quite some time.
Now Perry wants to go back and fight both Iraq and Iran!
Somebody please tell him to shut up and go back to giving great health care to the children of Texas.
It is not a good sign for America that manufactured political packages like Perry or Bush (and yes, it started with movie actor Reagan) can be created and presented as if they were real people with real ideas. Manchurian candidates, Chauncey Gardiner, I don't know, my mind must be on movies.
And that brings this bramble ramble to the other Rick, Santorum. He is more dangerous than Perry, because he is twice as smart. Where the men coincide is that each is a zealot. Perry is a zealot for cowboyism, which is opposed to communism and capitalism, but we won't go into that here.
Santorum is a religious zealot, and as we see with extremist Muslims, that is the most worrisome kind, because they believe God blesses all that they do. It isn't just their opinion, it is God's, and whatever they do is justified, by definition.
Which gives Santorum the right to say gay people are godless. To say gay people should not love children, or can't, I am not sure, but in any case, if gay then remain marriageless, childless. To equate being gay to bigamy, as if it were all about sex.
It is interesting that in speaking of marriage, Santorum does not speak of love. But, maybe that's because love transcends the laws of man. Or sex is to be only in the service of God, as his church maintains.
I accept that Santorum and his wife slept with a dead fetus and then took it home so their other children would welcome it into their family. That would not have been my choice on many levels, I accept that it was theirs. But Santorum, like other religious zealots, thinks his values should be mine, and I don't want to live his life.
And unless the government is giving handouts to health industry corporations that paid Santorum millions of dollar to lobby for them, he's not much for public healthcare, either. Your church will provide, your neighbors, and that will be good for America. So his zealotry is mixed with hypocrisy, too, and maybe with a bit of bigotry thrown in.
Santorum wants to bring Catholic extremism to America. Like Sharia law in Saudi Arabia, and maybe soon in a few other places we wish were a little more ... secular.
Yes, there is a boiling and often irrational (on both sides) disagreement in America over individual freedoms, individual responsibilities and the role of government in society. But this needs to remain a philosophical and political discussion, not a moral or religious one. Or we are in trouble, because religious wars are always bitter and never settled.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ..."
In one of the last scenes in "The Wall," jack-booted soldiers use their moral certitude to condemn, pillage and destroy. We fight that when it is Muslim extremism (and not in our self interest, when we tolerate it). But we need to be vigilant, here, too.
The Ricks are bad men. They do not care about the lives of others. The American People have embraced zealotry before, but rejected it when our common good was in danger. That time is now. We don't have the luxury of giving the Ricks more stage.
Please pass the popcorn.
The problem is, magpies are so damn smart. The other day there was an article about pigeons doing higher math. If pigeons do math, magpies do quantum mechanics. Magpies make pigeons look like bird brains. These clever feathered foragers in their bold black and white communicate complicated ideas verbally to each other and I think they've got a side deal going with the crows, too.
Last night I went to see "Real Steel." If I had paid more than $3 I would have walked out. Maybe I should have walked out because I only paid $3. Great price, horrible film. Formulaic, derivative, manipulative.
Oh, wait. Here is where I have to give a moment's consideration to those who question my audacity in judging a movie...
There. That ought to do it.
"Real Steel" featured Hugh Jackman's biceps, Evangeline Lilly's weepy smile, and Dakota Goyo's ability to show 'tude. There was no acting. For storyline I think the writers got loaded and slurred out "Rocky meets Iron Man!" In spots you can overhear the director demand of the key grip, "get camera on tears of joy, here, now."
Though I did really like their truck.
But tonight, the hangover from that awful movie was washed away by "The Wall." This film was written by Pink Floyd's Roger Waters, and with no dialogue is a tale of abandonment, self absorption, loss... the seeds of fascism ... yeah, ambitious. But the movie has held up rather well over the decades.
And I didn't even get a flashback from the music.
Oh. Speaking of fascism: The Ricks.
Rick Perry wants to attack Iraq again, and take their oil. I know. It must be something in the water down there in Texas. Bush was dumb enough, but Perry is just stupid. We just go the troops home after spending a hair less than a trillion dollars on George W's war in Iraq. I don't know how much we spent on George H.W.'s war in Iraq, but wars haven't been cheap in quite some time.
Now Perry wants to go back and fight both Iraq and Iran!
Somebody please tell him to shut up and go back to giving great health care to the children of Texas.
It is not a good sign for America that manufactured political packages like Perry or Bush (and yes, it started with movie actor Reagan) can be created and presented as if they were real people with real ideas. Manchurian candidates, Chauncey Gardiner, I don't know, my mind must be on movies.
And that brings this bramble ramble to the other Rick, Santorum. He is more dangerous than Perry, because he is twice as smart. Where the men coincide is that each is a zealot. Perry is a zealot for cowboyism, which is opposed to communism and capitalism, but we won't go into that here.
Santorum is a religious zealot, and as we see with extremist Muslims, that is the most worrisome kind, because they believe God blesses all that they do. It isn't just their opinion, it is God's, and whatever they do is justified, by definition.
Which gives Santorum the right to say gay people are godless. To say gay people should not love children, or can't, I am not sure, but in any case, if gay then remain marriageless, childless. To equate being gay to bigamy, as if it were all about sex.
It is interesting that in speaking of marriage, Santorum does not speak of love. But, maybe that's because love transcends the laws of man. Or sex is to be only in the service of God, as his church maintains.
I accept that Santorum and his wife slept with a dead fetus and then took it home so their other children would welcome it into their family. That would not have been my choice on many levels, I accept that it was theirs. But Santorum, like other religious zealots, thinks his values should be mine, and I don't want to live his life.
And unless the government is giving handouts to health industry corporations that paid Santorum millions of dollar to lobby for them, he's not much for public healthcare, either. Your church will provide, your neighbors, and that will be good for America. So his zealotry is mixed with hypocrisy, too, and maybe with a bit of bigotry thrown in.
Santorum wants to bring Catholic extremism to America. Like Sharia law in Saudi Arabia, and maybe soon in a few other places we wish were a little more ... secular.
Yes, there is a boiling and often irrational (on both sides) disagreement in America over individual freedoms, individual responsibilities and the role of government in society. But this needs to remain a philosophical and political discussion, not a moral or religious one. Or we are in trouble, because religious wars are always bitter and never settled.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ..."
In one of the last scenes in "The Wall," jack-booted soldiers use their moral certitude to condemn, pillage and destroy. We fight that when it is Muslim extremism (and not in our self interest, when we tolerate it). But we need to be vigilant, here, too.
The Ricks are bad men. They do not care about the lives of others. The American People have embraced zealotry before, but rejected it when our common good was in danger. That time is now. We don't have the luxury of giving the Ricks more stage.
Please pass the popcorn.
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