Lean forward

States Rights v. Corporate convenience - no contest

2006-06-08T06:02:00.000-07:00

Perhaps a lot more on this in the future, but for now, Richard Burr our anesthitizingly fair haired Senator, has proposed a bill that would pre-empt state regulation of food labeling. There is an ambiguous claim that this would make us safer, but the gist of Burr's thinking, and much of the GOP's view on all consumer protections is in this quote.

"It makes absolutely no sense," he said, "to suggest to any business that in the future they may have to market their product in 50 different configurations in 50 different states."

I've been reading the Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan's enlightening new book on the American Food chain and how it has been radically changed largely to accomodate large food processing companies, to the detriment of the autonomy of the farmer and the health of the consumer, albeit while finding a way to greatly reduce the cost (though increasing the unhealthiness) of the common calorie for Americans. And I don't doubt that companies like ADM and General Mills would very much favor ending nettlesome state regulation of their industries.

And, gosh, it sure seems like common sense to give business one market, one set of regulations, and one set of regulators with which to deal.

But unfortunately for the GOP, it is only further proof of how expediently they view their principals. It used to be that the Republicans supported the idea of a "Republic", a configuration of states which held most of the legislative power but which for a certain limited set of government perogatives - mainly national defense - deferred to the National legislature. But that was when the 14th Amendment was being used to bring obsteperous bigotry to heel or when the national legislature was acting to create a floor of consumer and civil rights protections upon which State legislatures could enact further protections.

Now, with control of both Houses and the Presidency, the right-wing sees the notion of an extremely limited Federal government as quaint, and more importantly, hostile to Corporate profits. So, Burr and other Republicans are busy proposing the pre-emption of state regulations, in food labeling and in consumer lending protections.

Now, I should say, I don't think what they are proposing is unconstitutional; I think the commerce clause gives Congress the kind of power they seek to use, and were a court to look at such pre-emptive regulations, it would have to give strong deference to the determination of the legislative body that they fell within the Commerce Clause's scope. But I do think the GOP is hypocritical as all hell when having objected to Federal attempts to protect the rights of minorities and protect the air we breathe as breaches of the Founding Fathers' original intent, as, I believe Bill Frist might call it, judicial tyranny, or as George Wallace might have labeled it, Northern agression, suddenly turn into Alexander Hamilton's wet dream running roughshod over all manner of state perogatives. This is after all the same Senate that has 48 members, all Republican, who support a vaguely worded Constitutional Amendment that would strip states' legislatures of the right to change the definition of marriage, an institution almost universally the domain of states.

The aim of these bills is simple. Create a ceiling on regulations, above which a state cannot reach, or at least has to ask permission to do so. Thereby create one regulator, a regulator like the FDA which has little hope of ever having the manpower to replace the state regulators and Attorneys General, and which can be reigned in by reduction in enforcement budget, as the GOP has done to the IRS and other agencies.

In the face of Corporate convenience, the GOP can not find its stomach to protect the local democracies which it once thought should be left to their own decisions on school busing and desegregation. What the Federalist papers might be interpreted to mean, a limited federal government granting most power to local democracies is not their aim. The stomping out of government, and therefore the subjugation of the people's will (the bill is thought to be aimed at direct democracy proposition passed by Californians) is what they aim to achieve.

Of course, putting this much power in the hands of the federal government has a risk. Should the political tide turns, and it would only take one election, a national legislature filled with more activist government supporters could rain down government regulations much stricter than the Corporate benefactors would want.

UPDATE - For a report, timely sent to me just after I wrote the above, about Congress's proclivity to usurp the state's rights it ran for election supporting, go here.

Yeah Mr. Chairman, I think Christ would give it a shot

2006-06-08T04:49:00.000-07:00

At the NC Republican convention in New Bern (darn I miss the place!), head honcho Ferrell Blount got a bit of questioning (scroll down, 2nd item) from an ally of Richard Morgan - one of the three GOP incumbents targetted by the corporate right-wing dollars of Variety Stores owner, former legislator Art Pope. The incumbents "crime" was being too cozy with the Democrats, and apparently, Pope - who founded the John Locke Foundation and several other right-wing alleged "think" tanks - doesn't read David Broder's columns, and therefore doesn't appreciate bi-partisanship. So Pope spent a bunch of his corporations money on Republican for a Legislative Majority, a 527 non-profit which then poured that money in the form of mass mailings into Moore County and two other districts. They worked, but, perhaps wondering why an organization called Republicans for a Legislative Majority spent the spring taking out GOP incumbents, Moore County party chairman John Owens had some questions about why the GOP wasn't playing the full field.

Moore County Republican chairman John Owens asked GOP Chairman Ferrell Blount why there were 32 Democratic House members running unopposed.

Owens, a Morgan ally, had criticized the party for spending money and energy to defeat Morgan rather than recruiting candidates to challenge Democrats.

Blount said only about 10 House districts were swing seats and the rest were either solidly Democratic or solidly Republican.

"There are certain seats, my friend, not to be sacrilegious, that Jesus Christ could not win some of those seats if he was a Republican," Blount said.

Owens responded: "Thank you Mr. Chairman. I do believe he would have tried."

So, Chairman Blount, are you saying Jesus Christ can't hit a curve ball!

PS - Of course, the other implication of Blount's comments is that largely-Democratic districts wouldn't vote for Christ. I'll leave that little slander to be dealt with by higher powers.

Hot & Now - Really, Now, I mean it.

2006-05-23T17:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, so for a while there it looked like my grand plans to start posting exciting hot off the press opportunities to be your very own progressive patriot were all part of an oafish scheme to commemorate Scott Mclellan's departure as White House Spokeperson by having this post become "inoperative."

Well, think again you darned cynic you. Here's your creme-filled, chocolate frosting activism. And thanks Lance for explaining the mishap with BlueNC, and not dropping a boatload of smackdown on me for not acting sooner.

Help Mother Earth, God's Creation or those natural areas that hide what you do when you don't want your mother or God watching:

NC Conservation Network: Quick, run little children, go help lobby for Clean Water - tomorrow. Sorry, that's piss poor, NC Conservation Network was on this a while back, and I should have moved a lot quicker. But I'll make it up to nature, because one way or the other, nature is going to even things up for us.

Why should you care about water, well, for one thing, not having enough clean public water supply is going to decimate our planet's supply of plastic. And I don't think I need to point out that there are some pretty bad side-effects to using up your plastic. And not just making that line in The Graduate seem even more dated. Where, pray tell, do you think most bottles end up. (Hint, Tony Soprano gets his health insurance from the proprieter.)

In addition to promoting clean pulbic water, you also should help promote safe well-water. As someone who deals with low-income housing issues, I can say from experience, this is a major health and financial issue for North Carolina's rural poor.

We also need smart energy . That's why Brian Busby's NC Conservation Network's executive director, says we need:

* Greater investment in renewable and efficient sources of energy.
* Encouragement of alternative fuels and hybrid vehicles with tax exemptions and credits.
* A commitment to using state-of-the-art energy efficiency techniques before building costly and polluting new power plants.
* More funding for education and other programs that help North Carolinians make smart energy choices.

So, donate your ducats over to NC Conservation Newtork. Or take action, and push for North Carolina to provide incentives for energy efficiency.

Because, we've tried plenty of Dumb Energy here in the Bush-Cheney era, we need Smart Energy.

Also, check out Bike-to-Work week, see if there's a Starbucks near you offering free lattes for skipping the caily grind of traffic. The weather's nice, you're nice, you both should be together more.

More action coming to you soon. But I've got to roll some dough to put the sign back on.

Hmm, wonder if the Journal's reporters read the N&O?

2006-05-23T17:06:00.000-07:00

Not shortly before she claimed here that she didn't think in partisan terms, Virginia said this.

"It is a travesty that North Carolina is controlled by the Democrats," said U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from Banner Elk, at a breakfast Saturday at the N.C. Conservative Leadership Conference.

Well, gosh, all of us folks who criticized her for using taxpayer funds to bring a little corner of the GOP echo chamber down here to Winston-Salem, guess we missed the boat there.

The Right-wing Congress delegation from North Carolina - re-defining the term Bush League every day.

Vernon Robinson, please! (NOT) Lead US the WAY

2006-05-05T14:26:00.000-07:00

I've given it a great deal of thought, perhaps at least 15-20 minutes. And I have come to a conclusion the logic of which is flawless. No matter the multitude of ins-and-outs I see before me, there is one irrevocable conviction I now hold.

It is Vernon Robinson who must not lead us, because it is HE who has shown by his powerful of not leading how we can rid ourselves of the tyranny of government. Vernon is the the principaled siren call of a generation asking for all governing to cease. And thus, Vernon Robinson is the future.

Vernon. The Future.

He is no product of the temperal- that mealy-mouthed, poll-tested candidate of today. Vernon is eternal and never-changing. Some candidates spend their entire careers flip-flopping, prevaricating and vacillating. Not Vernon. The man is a rock. In fact, that wasn't a 1-ton granite monument to the 10 commandments Vernon put in front of the Winston-Salem City Hall in the middle of the night a few yea, that was Vernon himself. (Care to guess where the Don't Covet commandment was written?).

Vernon has not only not wavered in the way he views the world, he's never wavered in the way he sees the opponents he faces. No matter who that opponent is and what seat is being sought.

From Republican primary opponent to non-partisan city counsel representative to democratic incumbent; from Superintendent of Public Schools to Ward Representative to Congress Member, Vernon always sees a "gay-loving, tax-and-spending, gun-hating, god-descrating liberal."

Some say Vernon is a hater, I say no. Vernon doesn't hate. He sees the common in all of us. Admittedly, Vernon sees that common man as a slimy liberal, baby-killing pagan, but nonetheless, he sees a unified America of slimly, liberal, baby-killing pagans. For Vernon, there is no black, no white, no male, no female.

Just immigrant loving commies.

Sure, he's a bit of a utopian, but it's just Vernon's way of saying, "Some see the world as it is, and ask 'why?' I see the world as it never was, and ask "why don't I run a campaign attacking the things that never were and the people who have never been."

I will admit, occasionally Vernon's campaign tactics can illicit fear and mistrust. For instance - in 2004, when he compared Republican state representative Virginia Foxx's voting record to that of NY Senator Hillary Clinton, I was terrified.

First I thought,

I know Majority Leader Dr. Bill Frist is terrible at running the Senate, but I HAD NO IDEA that he was bringing up legislation meant for the North Carolina State House....

Why, I can imagine Minority Leader Tom Daschle saying 'Umm, Point of Order, would the majority leader care to explain why we're voting on a local bill from Cawtawba County? In fact, where the heck is Catawba County. And what's this next bill about allowing Lottery Advertisements in Smart Start textbooks?

Then, even more terrifed, I thought,

Oh my god!

They actually let Virginia Foxx serve in Washington!!!

Winston-Salem and North Carolina will be a laughing stock!

But then I realized, once you ignore that one wants to create sustainable energy alternatives and the other wants to park an oil rig in the shallow water of the coast of Cape Hatteras, that one wants to privatize social security and the other wants universal health care, MY GOD, IT'S ALMOST LIKE YOU ARE SEEING DOUBLE!!!!!!

Nobody ever gives Vernon credit for being the prophet he truly is.

Well, there are those out-of-state contributors feting him on his marry way as he goes from one campaign to the next. (Vernon, there is a 6th grade Class Secretary race that needs your voice and message badly, call me.)

Still, Vernon must face the taunts from folks regarding his penchant for spending so much money on so few votes. They don't understand that it is the true heir to Jesse Helms that can spend $1000s of other people's money per vote and remain fiscally conservative. Because his critics don't consider that Vernon could attempt to run a campaign that spent money on winning enough votes to actually be elected to office - but that would be pure liberal excess.

Some, so-called "conservatives act as though they are anti-government. But it is next to the shining example of Vernon Robinson that their weak, pro-government inadequacies come in stark contrast. Vernon is the true anti-government candidate - he refuses to be electable, and by doing so refuses to govern.

Even when Vernon was elected to the Winston-Salem City Council, as part of a liberal plot to force Vernon to govern, Vernon was one step faster. He fooled them by meticulously avoiding his so-called obligations as a public servant. They scheduled City Council meetings, hoping to foil his non-governing plans. But Vernon, like James Bond escapes their overly-intricate plot for world-domination.

No, no amount of liberal deviousness will force Vernon to govern, instead he will hold press conferences and explicate to the masses just how un-governing his actions are, he will raise funds promising to sing the virtues of not governing to Americans from sea-to-shining-sea. Vernon, my friends is the future. In a world populated by Vernons, us slimy, baby-killing liberals will learn how not to govern, by first learning how not to win elections (Vernon is a God at not winning, he's not won 7 times! George Bush tried to lose in 2000, but failed, and Vernon thus thinks little of George Bush's non-governing ability. Though he agrees, Iraq is a much better effort.)

Ultimately through Vernon's (lack of) guidance, we will remove the shackles of government itself so that we may all be free to be the slimy, baby-killing liberals we yearn to be!

Well, at least after we send the black-booted thugs to break down the doors of all people with hispanic surnames, load them flown to an undisclosed location in expensive apache helicopters, each one flown by Vernon himself - the man is Sir to you, you slimly liberal baby-killer.

Anybody know a good Mariachi band, Vernon's got a fundraiser to do. No North Carolina Donors necesary.

The Ghost of Lauch Faircloth - Virginia Foxx

2006-04-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

Back in 1998, on his way to getting run out of the Senate by John Edwards, Lauch Faircloth held "hearings" back here in North Carolina, on the IRS-menace that would have probably made the Founding Fathers move back to London and swear fealty to King George had they seen it. Faircloth had been elected to the Senate in 1992, in large part because he portrayed himself as being ideologically identical with Jesse Helms. That had been helpful, because despite a lifetime handling political money, Faircloth seemed to lack any ideas of his own.

Well, Virginia Foxx has strapped me into the way-back machine with this "hearing" (login, but no $ required). Like Faircloth, Foxx has decided to come back to her district, during an election year and hold a hearing attacking a trendy scapegoat. And she pulled out some Helmsesque demoagoguery to boot, saying, "Every dollar spent on an illegal immigrant is a dollar that was diverted away from a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen." (Because you know, dollars spent on all other people, the tax-paying citizen gets to keep.)

Like Faircloth, she didn't wanted to make sure there wasn't anybody around to disagree:

Of the five witnesses testifying yesterday, three hold elected positions: Folwell, Conrad-Shrader and Keith. All are Republicans running for re-election, which drew criticism from Sandra Hoyle, an organizer of Monday's rally downtown that drew more than 1,500 people in favor of legalizing immigrants here illegally.

Counting Mark Souder (the Republican Chairman of the House Subcommittee Foxx abused to claim this was an "official" hearing) there was County Commissioner, a District Attorney and a State Representative. What, no Register of Deeds or Clerk of Court candidate available to discuss the impact of Hispanic surnames on copying costs?

In response to the claim of one-sided panelists, Foxx cited her reknowned independence - "It had nothing to do with liberal and conservative," she said. "I don't think in those terms."

Actually, the evidence is that Foxx rarely thinks for herself. She votes almost every time with the GOP leadership - not surprising, because the House GOP leadership are some of her biggest campaign contributors. Like Faircloth, Foxx is an empty vessel for right-wing lunacy. If she's got any ideas of her own, like perhaps voting against helping Katrina Victims, they aren't really worth much.

I think one thing all members of Congress should consider before holding these flim-flam hearings, is that "every dollar spent on a needless campaign commercial of an insult to the deliberative democratic process is a dollar diverted away from tax-paying citizens." The right-wing likes to say they believe in small government. If it really believes that, it wouldn't waste even small amounts on these tax-payer funded antiquated ideas road shows.

Yes, That's Right The "Hot & Now Sign" Is On, Get Your Activism HERE!

2006-04-06T04:28:00.000-07:00

I like BlueNC. I think it adds a vital source of electoral-political information. But as I learned last week, it is apparently frustrated with progressive organizations not begging it for help in advertising their campaigns. I attempted to suggest that perhaps, the several posters who make up BlueNC should take advantage of the mailing lists to which these organizations send out alerts and then spread the word. I can't say I expected this:

I have no doubt that the NC Justice center does good work, but so does ACORN, Self-Help, the Nature Conservancy, Neuse River Foundation, etc. And there is no way that I can find the listserve information for all these groups, sign-up, and filter through my inbox for relevant information. These organizations should not place the burden on getting information on their events on individuals.

I tried, after, ohh, about ten minutes of web-searching, to help BlueNC out by sending them links to the subscription pages for the organizations they claimed weren't doing enough to make BlueNC the single source for progressives looking to get involved. And I'll admit, I'd basically dared them to take the information I provided them, and to serve as a conduit for progressives. They didn't post my comment. .....

I'll let that hang out there a moment, during which while you lie on your sleepmat at rest time, little chidren, you can consider that here was someone trying to save those heavily burdened individuals the time it would take to find a list serv. And Blue NC didn't think that was appropriate material.

But, guess what, this single individual feels no burden is too great when progress is the cause! I have gotten myself on the list serves BlueNC can't seem to find the time to sort out. And from now on you folks will be getting the inside scoop from HERE!

I want to thank BlueNC.com. I really appreciate their commentary on electoral politics and they are connected with the Democratic party, as far as this unconnected blogger can tell. But, I can also say with some certainty that being connected to the party, doesn't always mean much as far as being connected with changing the lives of working people in NC. So I want to provide the sort of clearing house which BlueNC for some reason can't do itself.

So watch here, we'll be coming to you with updates about what's going on in NC and beyond. I'll be passing along what I glean from the group's emails and what I can find on the web, and perhaps, as I know a few little birdies in the group, provide even greater detail into the services they provide and the battles they are fighting.

Editor's Note: This post was removed from its initial state, as I initially was so flabbergasted-annoyed at BlueNC's prima donna whining that profanity spewed forth like, well, not quite like Vesuvius, but more than I would like. (Well, at least for this blog. The profanity laced version may be coming to another blog near you.) So I cleaned it up, looks purdy, don't it?

And it still says something

2006-03-31T08:05:00.000-08:00

It seems that the the book Crunchy Con's written by Rod Dreher (whom I already noted here has had to deal with some friendly fire for being a conservative that tries loving mother earth) is getting him the Trotsky treatment from the Right.

The book sounds like it might be an interesting read!

In praise of unprofessional conduct - basketball wise.

2006-03-30T18:14:00.000-08:00

Matt Yglesias (whom I normally find is saying it better than I could have) is unfortunately flailing at the value of college basketball again. (Equally talented Jason Zengerle disagrees.) I'm not sure why the Prospect would let Yglesias damage his credibility by putting the meme in a full article, but oh hell, I can't resist. First, I believeYglesias is a New Yorker who went to Harvard. From that perspective, he is performing a feat of incredible physical dexterity to suggest that the current Knicks and Celtics play a better game than do college players. (If in fact a Knicks fan, Matt may not even remember what a pass looks like, but I'm sure Larry Brown will resurrect that as soon as Isaiah ditches Stephon Marbury. Though again, Yglesias would seem to disagree.)

Yglesias claims that the College game suffers from early departures, stating that the most promising talent has bypassed college for the pros or leaves after too short a stay. This is a point that is overblown - while some great talent heads to the pros early, we are talking about 10 or 15 at the most out of 180 or so players spread through division one. But it's not just overblown, it's not backed up by one thing, NBA performance. If the college game were really suffering because of NBA-talent drain, then the best young NBA players would either have never played college ball or played so briefly (I'd say only one year) as to have not been great impacted or had a great impact themselves.

So among this year's rookie class, whose the top scorer with one year or no college experience? Marvin Williams formerly of Carolina. As a Tarheel fan, Marvin, I miss you, but I don't feel like my enjoyment was hurt by your early departure (I've got the Championship DVD to prove it). Marvin's gonna be a star, but right now he's only averaging 7.9 ppg on a very bad team. Sure, it'd be nice to have him in college still (George Mason would have lost to the Heels, in DC for a trip to the Final Four.), but somehow I think the college game has forged ahead (and even I have come to love George Mason).

Who's next among NBA rookies? Monta Ellis and Martell Webster. What, you haven't heard of them. Funny thing about these great talents the college game is missing - THEY often go missing when they get into the NBA (quick quiz, whose Jonathan Bender? Hint, he's retired at 25). Maybe one day they'll be great, but all these guys are clearly behind Chris Paul, Charlie Villanueva, Channing Frye, Raymond Felton, Deron Williams, Salim Stoudamire, Andrew Bogut, Nate Robinson and Luther Head. I guess I got on a roll there, but for Yglesias's sake I didn't want to miss naming a player who played at least two years in college and excelled in the NCAA tournament, as that was what apparently has Yglesias climibing the walls. Maybe the fact that all these rookies excelling this year led their teams in the tournament while in College will awaken Matt to the value of the college game. Perhaps his assertion that the best young players are in the NBA needs a little re-evaluation.

Of course, a rookie season does not make an NBA player. And there some great no-college NBA players. Kobe Bryant, Lebron James and Kevin Garnett are obvious examples. There's also Carmelo Anthony who left after winning a National title at Syracuse after his freshman season. But guess what, they're freaks! Among the Top 40 scorers in the league this season, Zack Randolph and Al Harrington are the only others with similar lack of need for the college game. This has been going on for a while, the anti-college NBA route- did you really think that only 6 of the Top 40 scorers spent little or no time in college?

It's true that the college game would be better if at least the kids who weren't ready to go pro stayed in school, but a consequence of drafting players who aren't ready to play NBA ball is that the quality of the professional game has suffered. The average NBA team from the early 90s team would most likely shred the NBA's best today. Except for the aging Shaq, the Eastern Conference alone probably doesn't have a single player who would crack say the 1991 All-Star team's lineup. Guys can't shoot well, they don't even have a clue what a down screen looks like, they think (and apparently Yglesias does as well) that a 2 or 3rd pass is a sign of weakness. It's no wonder that a relatively unathletic team like the Pistons (featuring an all-college player starting lineup) has played in the last two NBA finals and dominated the league for much of this year.

Most of Yglesias's column seems driven by the same unrealistic yearning that a New Yorker faced with bagels in North Carolina might have. For him, "the college game bears only a faint resemblance to the real thing." He's so convinced he's had the best, that he doesn't even want to consider anything less. Of course the college game is played by athletes "younger, inexperienced, and physically under-developed" compared to the pros. That's why you have a professional league, but it doesn't mean that the step below is suddenly barely better than Church League.

Indeed, I wonder if even most NBA players might think Yglesias's laudits of their relative prowess as a little spooky.

To watch the world's best basketball teams -- the Miami Heat, the Phoenix Suns, the San Antonio Spurs, the Detroit Pistons, the Dallas Mavericks -- is to distinctly put oneself in the presence of greatness. The feats on display are not quite super-human -- Shaquille O'Neal and Shawn Marion and Tim Duncan are still members of our species at the end of the day -- but they certainly appear to be.

I don't know about Marion and O'Neal. But it's hard to imagine the mild-mannered Duncan confusing himself with Aqua Man. Even O'Neal only does that as part of his schtick. Personally, I'm fear what things Yglesias has to be ingesting to think the average March NBA contest could deserve this description:

The sheer speed and ferocity of the games is astounding -- even mentally you'd be overwhelmed, lost, driven to tears or insanity amidst the flying bodies, flailing limbs, and zipping ball.

Does he take esctasy during TNT's pre-game analysis? I mean, after a while, you get used to the rythm of ohh, about 65 pick'n'rolls spiced with the scattered isolation play. I realize NBA players are doing something I could never accomplish, but so are figure skaters, professional bowlers and bass fisherman. My own athletic limitations do not shape the paradigm in which I choose the worthiness of a spectator sport. Indeed, seeing as I couldn't make the Student-faculty basketball team in High School, I'm not really sure of the level of basketball to which I'd have to stoop to find athletes not doing something I can't imagine doing.

What I do enjoy watching is effort. And that, to me, is where the college game has the NBA out-classed hands-down. I'm not saying there isn't ever effort in the NBA, I love the NBA playoffs (more on that below). But the NBA season is so long that it punishes the kind of all-out intensity that the College game thrives off of. Let's face it, the only other group detained longer than NBA players without a trial are living on Guantanamo Bay. 82 games, and (not for the Knicks) a post season that runs two months - guys will take a night off. As for the fans, most are too busy talking to their agent to really cheer. Though I hear some of them, with enough beer in them, can toss a good drink now and then.

College is about bringing it every game, every minute - for fans and players alike. Does Yglesias seriously not find enjoyment and the endeavor of sport from watching a college game in January or February, in some loud gym like Cameron Indoor, University Hall, or games at places like Butler, Wichita St., Davidson or Montana; watching players tear along the baseline, the offensive player seeking out screens and defensive player bouncing around to avoid them only to have both meet at the end of a pass to the 3-point line; watching big men fight to step out and meet the ball handler, then slip back in, make three pump fakes all the while navigating flying bodies coming at them? As Zengerle points out

Maybe Yglesias played for a kick-ass JV team; otherwise, I don't know what he's talking about. While the talent level in college is obviously below the talent level in the pros, I don't think fans are so delusional as to think that college ball bears any resemblance, even a superficial one, to any games they themselves played in.

Yglesias also takes issue with the NCAA holding a single-game elimination tournament. Perhaps he likes hearing an underdog say before an NBA series, "if we can just get out of town with a split, and get back home, I think we'll win." And, yes, best-of does provide for a more pure champion. But here's a thought: take away single-game elimination, and maybe you don't have Texas Western, NC State (twice), Villanova or George Mason. Like much of American life, the NCAA is a dance with fate's twists. That's what makes it great. And it helps to make NCAA basketball champions legendary (Yglesias's criticism is odd in many ways, but not the least because his article implies that College Football is more tolerable. And that's a sport where the college folks can't figure out a way to remove the word "mythical" from its championship.)

Basketball is the most democratic sport. It demands full and varied participation, not delimited by inherent physical traits (big men shoot threes, six-foot guards post up and rebound, and every body in between does it all) , it seeks a simple utilitarian goal, the means of achieving which is in constant debate, always in motion, with the relevant factors ever-changing. It does not require one to read sub-paragraphs of rule books to know the rules. And occasionally, some little school from a small town, or small university, without the right pedigree will take out the clearly better team on a glorious spring afternoon. Thus, the "Rule of the people" is best demonstrated by March Madness.

I'm sorry that such a state of affairs appears to discomfort Yglesias's moral compass. Of course, I have my own qualms about the NBA. It does have too many teams (namely the Clippers and the Grizzlies), as Yglesias says, and its got GMs who draft every European and high school player more out of fear than out of knowledge. And this season alone the Knicks have worn their road blue on the sacred Madison Square Garden floor, which is only slightly mitigated by the fact that at least the Knicks were wearing their actual uniforms. I occasionally turn on TNT or ESPN and think I'm watching Real Madrid take on the Washington Generals, only to realize that it's another example of how the NBA is so overly marketing conscious that they are just trotting out a team's "full-moon-in-a-February-leap-year" jerseys. And, really is Mighty Mouse finished trying to make his shot in the slam dunk contest? I mean, I know the NBA's all about the Best-of, but letting a guy take 14 tries to get a dunk? Heck that wouldn't play at United Methodist.

Yes, but what about the hidden cost of BS?

2006-03-30T17:49:00.000-08:00

John Hood has apparently figured it out, he's on to the fact that Government spending involves, not simply people spending solely their own money on individual needs but collective pooling of community assets to provide community goods. With this newfound discovery, he bemoans those curve who "believe that if a politician promises them a "free" good, it won't cost them anything." He must be talking about tax cuts, isn't he? Those are "painless" right John. He bemoans the "interest free loan to the tax collector that paycheck withholding represents, because we all know if once every year the state and the Federal goverments had to go seeking the entirety of people's tax obligations, that would just go over real smoothly, like for instance, we could only fight our wars during the months of May and June, people depending on social security would get paid once a year.

This of course all goes to John's fabulous point that the real cost of government is hidden from people. Yes, John, the fact that pesky retail sales tax, which everytime someone purchases something increases the cost of their actual purchase price above the price tag they read when they picked it off the shelf conceals the cost of government. Would combining sales tax with a good swift kick in the rear delivered by a black-booted thug be sufficient, or will certain, umm, probes be necessary?

John also has a beef with poorer communities foisting their silly little needs, like water supply, sewer systems, roads, education on the "state government" and therefore imposing their spending needs on the more-fortunate denizens of Charlotte and Asheville and Wilmington. Regarding leandro funding concerns, John asks, "I've always wondered what this was supposed to mean in practice. Is there a category of North Carolina suburban counties whose residents can obviously afford to pay for their own schools as well as the schools of city and countryside?" Well, John, funny you should ask, how about those suburban counties surrounding, gee, I don't know, Charlotte, Asheville, and Wilmington which you so helfpully pointed out didn't have the same budgetary problems that other counties do. And since you no doubt have written columns commenting on how over-privileged, liberal and out-of-touch the well-heeled residents of Wake, Durham and Orange counties (how those high-falutin commies don't understand the struggles of salt-of-the-earth types both to the east and west) then let's go ahead and add those guys as well.

What the heck is the Old North State, a loose confederation of entreprenuerial enterprises beholden to no one other than their own parochial interest? Is the old saying "From Murphy to Manteo" being amended to "What happens in Murphy stays in Murphy, and Manteo can go to hell as far as Murphy is concerned"? Does John think that places like Charlotte, Asheville and Raleigh, beneficiaries of the presence of state-taxpayer-supported schools like UNCC, UNCA and State should hoard the results of this largess and ignore that the kids applying to those school also come from Hoke, Pamlico and Surry counties?

John sincerely, you want your wonderful world, fine, it's in Baghdad, let's buy you a ticket - so can live in a place where one region doesn't give a damn about the other. But if anything North Carolina needs to look after all its own better, not think of it as "other people's money" and start thinkin of it as our state's opportunity. Of course, if he wants it that way, then the state can stop spending my money on incarcerating non-violent criminals, executions and building senseless road projects. but that's not how a government works is it?

Don't be a Lotto fool

2006-03-30T08:34:00.000-08:00

Today I bought a lottery ticket. No, not that lottery ticket. I bought a ticket in my own personal Walter Bussy Lottery, I took $2 and put it into my savings account. I don't want to lecture on the immorality of state-supported gambling, regressive public revenue schemes and of course, the whole ineffectuality of using a lottery to try to increase education spending. I'd rather just point out that as far as getting wealthy, your best bet is saving and using that miracle - compound interest.

Why don't I like the lottery, not policy-wise but for me personally. Here's the problem. I'm not a big fan of somebody else getting rich at my expense. And playing the lottery is nothing more than ignoring the near certainty that your money will end up in someone else's hands while deluding yourself regarding the near-impossibility that that someone will be you. Don't believe me, ask the NC lottery commission. The best you can hope for is a 1 in 3.75 chances at winning. Basically, your up against 2.75 other people. Maybe Kobe Bryant doesn't end up passing up that shot, but arcbender shares the ball when the odds are that bad.

And it gets worse. If you win the lottery, which is supposed to help us pay for education without increasing taxes, guess what happens - YOU PAY TAXES on your winnings! So say you spend $2 a day buying lotto tickets over six months. Your looking at far worse than break even odds, and what little you get back, that's getting taxed too. Really people, this is spending money, to get back less than you spend, and be taxed to boot.

I know, I know - what about the thrill!?? It's the sport of it all that's attractive, right. It's the fact that you just might hit the big one. Sure you'd pay a nice chunk in taxes, but you have that chance of making it big.

To this I say, "you like the idea of funding government while taxing people who make it big? Great, let me explain how a progressive income tax works. It's called you work, you succeed and make it rich, you end up paying taxes, and afterwords, you're still rich." Sure, the rich complain about higher marginal rates, but no person has ever been seen jumping for joy, or relaxing by their personal indoor pool while they paid a sales tax (frequently the only acceptable tax for increasing).

But I said I wouldn't do that. Okay, back to the lottery ticket. It's paying for the education of that cute little braces-wearing girl on the Lottery Commission's website isn't it? (What they couldn't give her a puppy to hold?) Where does that dollar go? Well, try this break down (from the NC Public Schools Forum) of your lottery dollar on for size. The half going to winners, has got all the pepperoni on it, and guess what, you'll be lucky to get the crust. For the link challenged, here's the numbers with my $ figure calculations added.

$0.50 – someone else’s winnings ($607 M)
$0.15 – paying for Administrating a system that advertises to you to take your money so it can make other people rich ($182M)
$0.02 – making sure there’s enough money in a system that makes other people rich ($21.25M)
$0.13 – School construction ($161.5 M about 65% to counties based on enrollment, 35% to high-property tax counties)
$0.03 – To scholarships – (according to the Lottery commission’s numbers, this would be $40.3 M)
$0.17 – Class-size and More at-four – about $191.7 M

So, of the money your spending, 2/3rds are going to something beside Education. All told, about $394 M a year to education. A lot of money? well, according to the NC Justice Center's Budget and Tax Center's numbers for FY 2005-2006 (p.3 here) the overall state appropriations for k-12 and higher ed was around $9.5 B. In otherwords, the lottery would only be about 5 percent of our total stat education budget. Of course, we were told that the lottery would supplement, not supplant general fund money, right? Well, funny thing. That language magically disappeared, and, as this article shows. The lottery is pretty quickly going to be supplanting away.

With that knowledge, I can't really bring myself to pop-in to a Citgo, grab myself a pack of Nabs and drop the money on the lottery. I'm not sure a pack of cigarrettes aren't a better deal. And I don't much relish the idea of anybody getting rich this way. Sure, the lottery winner makes for a nice photo - the beaming face of the average guy or gal that just hit the big one. But frankly, I don't care much what background somebody who wants to win the lottery has - as far as I'm concerned, they just better get themselves a job and stop expecting me to buy a lottery ticket so they can cease their morning commute. I'm willing to help my brothers and sisters out, I just doin't want my intelligence insulted along the way.

So here's my plan, put $2 a day into savings rather than spending that amount on lottery tickets. To simplify, you can, like me, use a program like Quicken to "hide" the $2 every day in a "savings goal" so the money looks like it's gone from your checking account in Quicken, and at the end of the month put the $60/62 into your Savings account. Saving $60/month would mean twice a year you would have accrued $300. Suppose you could put that amount into a 6-month CD, which right now earns around 4%. Six months later do the same thing.

At the end of 5 years, the $3600 you saved would have earned about $285 in interest for a total of $3885. May not sound like much, but remember, this is investing the money in an extremely conservative, rather liquid asset - you could earn more. Though likely you might need to pony up a bit more than just $360 to get started (most CDs require at least $500), using the additional $2 a day to beef up your current savings (really, you weren't thinking about reducing savings to buy lottery tickets were you?) makes sense. And over 10-20 years, with longer-term investmentments it really makes sense. And even if doesn't make a whole lot of cents, its a heck of a lot better than flushing the toilet with your money in the lottery.

And no, I'm not hoping to "burn the damn thing down" on the lottery. I fully expect it to make money, not money for North Carolina schools, but money for the North Carolina politicians who want to put off an honest discussion about North Carolina's finances. Still, if I make a few folks choose, by their own work and thrift to make a certain just $285 richer (and did I mention you might not have to pay taxes on it?) rather than making a certain other person rich, I'll sleep (not dying yet!!) a happy man.

Update PS - How bout this? You're more likely to die on your way to buy the ticket than to win big from it.

Well, now doesn't that say something

2006-03-12T07:43:00.000-08:00

Former National Review writer Rod Dreher has a book out, which is either about him alone, or perhaps a larger segment of "conservatives" which he calls "crunchy cons" who share a love of organic food and the earth which provides with liberals. The book may be interesting, though I also think I could easily end up vomiting reading about how people who care about food quality and the environment can support the GOP. But what gets me is this bit from a review of the book:

"Ewww, that's so lefty," Dreher's editor at his old National Review job sneered when Dreher said he was picking up some locally grown organic produce.

So, it's not just liberal, but apparently irredeemably liberal, to be supporting the labor of one's farmer neighbors? Does something about the food's purity not being sullied by lustful, amoral chemicals so denigrate the toil of these otherwise paragons of the "backbone of America" that helping them to loosen themselves from the surly bonds of excessive taxation is no longer a valid conservative act, and in fact calls for derision? Do farmers have to get the Archer Daniels Midland seal of approval before Republicans consider their produce Kosher?

Nice to know where the right-wing's priorities lay.

Why is the Sky That Color, Again?

2005-12-30T09:57:00.000-08:00

For some reason I got to thinking about this, and thought I'd share it. The media likes to annoint Duke's basketball team as the greatest program on earth, eternally feared, always dominant and of course, (though J.J. Redick's poetry might lead to a reassessment), true student-athletes. As I've left the naivete of my younger years, I tend to dismiss the student-athlete part with a healthy dose of cynicism futher propelled by my feeling that long ago that claim became irrelevant in college sports (from the Ivy League to the SEC, there is always going to be a point where the student criteria gives way to the athlete - and I've heard too much about Duke and UNC players who proved the point to snark either way).

But while Duke has been the best team in the land from November through early March, and Carolina suffered much recently with a talent drop-off beginning in 1998 and not really being addressed until Roy Williams came to coach the new talent we had, this little nugget of info surprised, and delighted me:

Final Fours since 1996, post back "injury" years at Dook, and spanning Smith, Guthridge, Doherty and Williams years at Carolina, certainly the time when Duke should have dominated the Heels in all categories:

Duke - 1999, 2001, 2004
UNC - 1997, 1998, 2000, 2005

Michigan State is the only program to make it to late March/April as much as the Heels. And the Heels did it with key front court contributions from the likes of Serge Zwikker, Kris Lang and a borrowed Julius Peppers. In fact, until this year the only players from that stretch who have seen steady NBA careers are Brendan Haywood, Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison. Duke meanwhile staffs both the Clippers and the Bulls with former players, as well as Shane Floppier contributing to the Memphis Grizzlie

All of this isn't to say Duke sucks, they have absolutely dominated the ACC regular and tournament championships, though Carolina owned them in 97 and 98. And Duke has won thirteen of the last seventeen contests with the Heels. And hey, relationships matter, so I guess missing out on those Final Fours isn't the biggest thing in the world.

But, this was the worst Carolina has been in my lifetime. I'll take it. Someday, my now 4 year-old nephew will have to feel this sort of pain, four final fours and a national title along with some really bad teams. With my experience as a guide, I can show him (and likely his kids) the way to cope.

Long lost writing - George Bush And Faith

2005-12-20T19:21:00.000-08:00

checking through some old material that I had written, but never published, I came across the following. Surprised myself, to be honest, I like it a lot, but never got back to it. Luckily, George Bush makes this stuff never go out of style. Here it is,

Faith, the antithesis of proof – The case against George Bush

George Bush gets an overwhelming amount of his support from people who admire his faith (even though, it appears to not be clear what that faith really is). Large percentages of “regular church goers” support Mr. Bush. And his political brain, Karl Rove, clearly believes that reaching out to more “people of faith” is a key to winning the presidency again. Mr. Bush’s speech at the Republican National Convention in New York was aimed at those voters and more importantly was aimed at showing how much faith Mr. Bush has in America’s present course.

Soldiers in combat have to have faith as well, of various beliefs and practice. To enter into combat, and to put your life into the hands of their fellow soldiers, they must look within their own souls and hearts not simply for hope of a safe return but for acceptance of the falling of their comrades and possibly their own

However, for survival and success, soldiers must also carry an attitude and a competence embodied in the Marine saying “Adapt, Improvise and Overcome.” While we have the most capable, most well-equipped and best trained military in world history, missions do not go as planned.

And when they do, while faith may steel one’s nerves, without adapting and improvising, mere faith that they will overcome will not protect them or secure the mission. Faith is the antithesis of proof; and for success, it is necessary but not sufficient.

What has made George Bush dangerous as President, for soldiers, innocent Iraqi civilians and our younger generations, is that Mr. Bush sees faith as the only necessity for leadership. And that’s where this President has grossly failed this country. He believes Faith is all that is necessary, and to often is slow to adapt and incompetent at improvising. In the face of the many problems we have faced, Mr. Bush has shown a steely resilience, but he has not shown a willingness to adjust to objective reality.

Where George Bush seems to care, he has been dangerous, on taxes, in Iraq and on gay marriage. Where he doesn’t care, on education, medicare, the environment, and stem cell research, he uses his professed spiritual faith as a cover for the cravenness of his policies. What makes his one of the most dishonest administrations in history, is the cynical way in which he believes that his faith serves, not a spiritual need, but merely a rhetorical one. As he stood before the Republican National Convention and proposed a $1 trillion dollars in spending on programs which his party has had three years of near total control of government to enact, it was easy to see that in many ways, his campaign is aimed at overcoming only the imposition of objective reality into the debate.

Mr. Bush did not have to be this President. He had a mandate - from a deadlocked election - to govern from the center, and he had campaigned largely in the center. But time and again he has relied on his faith, to guide him to the right answers; and he has not wavered from his course, despite the clear failure of his policies.

When Mr. Bush came into office, it was clear that a tax-cut was possible, indeed, probably deserved. It would be easy to understand a conservative President passing a tax cut at a time when the budget was in surplus. However, Mr. Bush’s faith in putting money back in people’s hands overwhelmed the empirical support for cutting taxes. Even when it was clear that the tax cuts he proposed would cost trillions if permanent, he did not waver, or more appropriately, adapt. He simply made them “temporary” and declared success. Now, that our budget deficit is higher than at any time in the history of the Republic, Mr. Bush’s faith again has trumped adaptation and improvisation. He proposes that he made a mistake when he signed that temporary tax cut, and wants to make it permanent.

Bush has never shown any ability to overcome failure, merely the ability to toss away the offending problem. He made bad grades; he didn’t work harder but became an anti-intellectual. He struggled in business in general, but particularly so as oil executive; he slinked away, his family having bailed him out. He spent a decade partying and developing a chemical dependence; he then turned into an evangelical teetotaler. He ran for the Presidency and lost the popular vote; rather than reach out he has governed as if the 48 % he won in 2000 was sufficient support to be President again.

Mr. Bush has offered this country a government that is unresponsive, paralyzed by indecision in the face of new events and unwilling to improvise for fear of admitting mistakes. Infallibility and lack of earthly intervention are expected qualities in a deity, but those who pray to such must realize they may not aspire to the former and honor no god by the latter. Ronald Reagan once said of his own religiosity that he was “going forward with values that have never failed us when we lived up to them.” George Bush’s Presidency is the ultimate example of what happens when you don’t.

George Bush and his advisors failed to plan a war that forced the enemy to surrender; failed to plan for the occupation; failed to plan for the reconstruction of the country; failed to plan for the widespread and dangerous cultural divisions within Iraq; and has failed to provide for a timely and secure hand over of sovereignty to the Iraqi people. Despite all this, he expects us to trust his “plan” to create democracy in the Middle East.

There’s faith and there is insanity folks. The difference between the two is one’s exposing faith to reality and adjust, rather than repeat the same failure over and over again.

Outlook archive fun

2005-12-19T20:05:00.001-08:00

From my days before blogging, a tidbit of a quote from Bush:

"It can be a frustrating experience to pay attention to somebody's false opinion or somebody's characterization, which simply isn't true.”

Brother, you said it!

Outlook archive fun

2005-12-19T20:05:00.000-08:00

From my days before blogging, a tidbit of a quote from Bush:

"It can be a frustrating experience to pay attention to somebody's false opinion or somebody's characterization, which simply isn't true.”

Brother, you said it!

Dead between the horizontal and vertical axes.

2005-12-12T18:35:00.000-08:00

So, thanks to Ed cone. I learned here that I'm "officially" Gen X, despite my oldest brother's contentions that I don't deserve to be in his generation. (I always thought if it was good enough for Gregor Mendel, then it should have been good enough for him.) Though my place on the cusp is pretty evident from the identifiers.

You're a Gen Xer if ...

_ You were born between 1965 and roughly 1977. - Check, 1974. Interesting though that baby boomers got 19 years and we got 12. Is there anything those folks won't hoard for themselves?

_ You or your peers were ever called "slackers." - Dude, of course. Which Lebowski quote do you want?

_ You were coming of age when the Challenger Space shuttle exploded. - I'm not sure, in fact, what the hell does it mean to "come of age"? Was I supposed to have a hit single?

_ One of your first favorite movies was "Star Wars" or "E.T." - I get a little bit of old school credit - saw Star Wars in 1977-8. (Being three I hope you'll forgive my being imprecise.) Does this mean my brothers had to go nearly ten years to enjoy a movie? That explains a lot.

_ You wore parachute pants. - Admittedly, my older brother's parachute pants, but I wore those mothers.

_ Grunge was more than dirt to you. - If it weren't in article that quotes Rep. Patrick McHenry that would be the most cliched thing here. But, alas, they do quote the oldest thirty year-old in North Carolina.

_ George H.W. Bush or Bill Clinton was the first president you voted for or against (if you voted). - I guess they just assume those that could didn't vote in 1984. Slackers!

_ Kurt Cobain's suicide was a defining event for you or your friends. - Not sure about this "defining" me, but perhaps I came of age then. After all, it freed me from Grunge.

_ You've used floppy computer discs but consider them "old school." - If we're talking about the floppy floppy disks, then you bet. Some guy in Ed's comments refers to playing Pong in reference to their being a baby-boomer - a really immature baby boomer.

_ You cut your musical teeth on Madonna, Duran Duran and The Cure. Would I frikkin' admit to any of this if I did?

_ You like the sound of "40 is the new 30." - I like the sound of 30, period. And luckily, since I forget my age has as often as not, I hear 30 a lot.

___

You're a Gen Yer if ...

_ You're a young adult born roughly 1978 or after. - No but by association I have more than a few friends in this category.

_ Remote-control TVs, microwaves and telephones with keypads are a given to you. - "Telephones with keypads"? Oh, there talking about non-rotary phones. guess keypads were a given.

_ You vividly remember the World Trade Center attacks, but barely recall the fall of the Berlin Wall. - I'm supposed to come of age with the Challenger, but some other twelve year-old barely noticed the fall of communism? And who doesn't remember 9/11 better than what happened in a Jesus Jones song?

_ You consider '80s music to be oldies. - I consider it to be mostly crap, does that count?

_ Your Starbucks habit started before you got out of school. - Okay, lost a little Y-credibility there. Though, had I not been seeing someone in college, I might well have discovered coffee shops earlier.

_ You think it's silly to buy music on CDs. - Again, they delve in generalizations.

_ You have a cell phone but no land line. - Yup, that is something silly.

_ Your school loans and credit card debt total far more than your first year's salary. - And thanks for the reminder.

_ People have called you and your peers spoiled or "entitled." - Has any generation in American history not been labeled "entitled". We may be the first with a plausible argument that's not the case, but we've certainly been labeled it.

_ You are logged onto your computer 24 hours a day and think nothing of it. - that's just boring.

_ You chuckle when you see a "Vote for Pedro" T-shirt. - Maybe I'm just immature, but "Your mother went to college!"

Pot calls Kettle Black - probably because Pot can't dunk

2005-10-25T20:35:00.000-07:00

From that sentinel of outspoken, courageous, and passionate social advocacy (as long as its well, you know, not too liberal or too anti-establishment), the New Republic, a criticism of Michael Jordan. Apparently, Jordan isn't only a sinner against liberalism because of his "creepily pathological need to win." (Yeah, right around 1982 I got a sick sense about the damage that might do.) But he's also a sicky-poo because he didn't campaign against Jesse Helms or otherwise get very involved in politics, which you know, famous black people have to do...or else.

Here's a little mental experiment - go back to pre-1984, think about who the most marketable athletes are and who are considered the greatest clutch players of all time. Sure, maybe you get OJ Simpson as a marketable athlete (that worked out well) and Reggie Jackson as Mr. October, but you wouldn't find many black athlete's getting much respect from Madison Avenue and no black athlete since Bill Russell had been considered a consummate winner (White Men Can't Jump had America's perspective - "they'd rather lose pretty than win ugly").

Jordan changed all that, first by becoming the most marketable human being on the planet - the guy talks rich white guys out of $15,000 just to make them look stupid for a few hours at fantasy basketball camps. Then he won six NBA titles and, well, Tom Brady may try, but he ain't ever going to be such a mortal lock on championships. And Jordan's parlayed his success into being one of the most successful post-career athletes in America - its been over 7 years since he played his last playoff game, and he's still frequently seen on TV in ads, he may still be the most marketable athlete in the world.

This all may seem like trivial stuff, but it put a black face on success, while he was one of many, he's the most famous. He showed corporate America that white people would buy products being sold by someone who looked different. And I have little doubt, he changed the minds of some of those white folks in the process. In his footsteps, minority athlete's have been able to land marketing gigs that before Jordan weren't available.

I'm not the biggest fan of these ads, but to the extent the marketing contracts createwealth in America, Michael Jordan has had a significant impact on making sure that wealth is created in the black community. And ultimately, some of this wealth will go back into the black community, in the form of charitable donations from athletes.

Jordan was not Jackie Robinson. But for those who obviously haven't noticed, America in the 1990s was not America in the 1940s and 1950s. Jordan wasn't exactly being told to go to a different hotel from his white teammates on the road. There is a point at which the failure to speak out about injustice is not in fact a mortal test of one's character. And, though we've got lots to speak out about these days, I think it'd be nice if a magazine which is prone to advocating policies which do little about these injustices would use a little introspection before condemning silence.

And, in light of the tone which TNR sometimes takes in chastising those too "fuzzy-headed" liberals with whom it disagrees, its probably best not to snark at someone elses "often-sneering attitude towards rivals."

Ohh, and by the way, anyone who wants to call MJ for a shove on Byron Russell should spend a while watching Karl Malone's move to the hole, every damn time he posted up. One hand-check versus about 50 shoulder rolls - whose the dirty player? Is there something ethically pure about repeatedly running the other guy over and then shooting over his falling body?

Rosa Parks

2005-10-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

1913-2005.

God Bless You, and most of all Thank you. No words or efforts could ever deserve your love and courage.

You want ideas? Mister, I got your ideas right here.

2005-10-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

Over here, at Ed Cone's wonderful Greensboro blog, Ed's got a good piece up on the loss of Jefferson Pilot's headquarters and where G-funk needs to go from here. Someone suggested, (shockingly!!!) that voucher's are a great way to "foster innovation" and competition in town, and well, I got a little caffienated on him, see below for the formatted version of what I posted on Ed's site. (As an added bonus this week, I didn't curse!) Might be the beginnings of a platform, if anybody wants to figure out how to pay for it.

You must be channeling John Tierney - the answer to every question is not vouchers. And innovation for innovation's sake alone is not good policy.

The fact is vouchers have had a very mixed success in other places and most plans proposed provide far less money to recipients than would be necessary to provide widespread entrepreneurial competition, but rather allay the costs of religious organizations who wish to establish parochial schools. These plans have also been based on the idea., not of improving education funding, but of leaching money out of the public system - I give you credit, you are one of the few folks voucher proponents I've come across that is open about vouchers destroying the public school system. Finally, whether or not it is good from a policy standpoint, it's not clear that there would be feasible and sufficient profits from developing voucher funded private schools, which would be necessary to create the sort of innovation you seem to seek. Look to our pharmaceutical industry for an example of the limits of entrepreneurial innovation at providing public goods without profit motive. (Got Tamiflu?)

I also must add that I am a product of the Greensboro Public Schools, if more than a decade away from my days at Sternberger, Lindley, Kiser and Grimsley. I have great pride in the education the people of Greensboro gave me, which has allowed me to obtained a law degree (along with several other former Whirlies with whom I attended UNC) and serve the public as an attorney. Perhaps in the time that has past Guilford County schools have deteriorated, but I know for a fact that they can be great, and that a diploma from Grimsley high school circa 1992 was equally as valuable as one from the Day School, if not more so. And though it can't be measured, I feel I graduated with a greater sense that I owe the public back, a greater sense of who my fellow citizens were because I went to a tax-payer funded school which did not look at bank accounts, family background or race before accepting its students.

The public schools have done more to create commonalities within America's culture than nearly any other institution, save for the military during the World Wars. Its a dangerous risk to our nation's unity to eliminate it.

If there are problems with the education Guilford's children receive today, I think that is a matter to be addressed in a more serious way than a simple one-size fits all Markets-as-religion ideology. There are other ways to foster innovation in the public schools, without abandoning them as you wish. Greensboro can forecully advocate better state spending on education to help create the sound basic education our constitution requires, it can endeavor to make sure that teachers are paid well enough so that we draw from those who wish to do good and those who wish do well - a larger and better employee pool than to whicih schools currently have access. There are many more ideas and I claim no expertise, but I feel very confident that vouchers benefit more from their political pyrotechnics than their substantive thought in their lofty status in this debate.

And there are many ways to foster growth and innovation in Greensboro's economy, much more likely to be successful than gambling on education vouchers. The development downtown should continue aiming towards creating a vibrant dining and entertainment center that brings in visitors on weeknights and weekends, as well as bringing Greensboro's residents together all the time.

Create zoning incentives designed to encourage more mixed-income, mixed-use development in places with easy access - including live/work developments which cater to creative industries.
Affordable loans to entrepreneurial business that tend to feed back into the city's other businesses.
Utilization of Greensboro's university's to create business incubators in engineering, biotechnology, creative arts, and yes education - such could focus on re-training and employing those who lose work due to globalization.
Encouraging or mandating a living wage so that Greensboro's workers can vigorously participate in Greensboro's economy as shoppers, diners and homeowners.
Seeking new ways to expand preventive health care and health insurance to all Greensboro's residents.
Expanding public transportation opportunities to shorten the distance between neighbors, to reduce congestion and the cost of a low-income worker getting to their job in a city that for too long has been known as sprawling and segregated.

Create a society where job loss, health costs, inadequate education, poverty wages and residential isolation do not steal a citizen's opportunity to reach for the American dream, and as is all to often the case, to get back on one's feet to reach again, and I believe that Greensboro will do well by its citizens in the 21st century, as it did by me in the last.

No, of course this couldn't be jealosy

2005-09-07T10:36:00.000-07:00

Over at Dukebasketballreport.com, they think they've found a reason for Roy Williams to be glad last year's national champions are gone:

Nonetheless, the boneheads are gone, the headcases have left, and what's left is
a young, impressionable team which could be inspired to overcome their
collective limitations.

In an essay that proves perhaps it in fact is possible to type with the back of one's hand, DBR (which tends to spend a lot of time talking about anything but Duke basketball) again trumps out its claim that Rashad McCants is such a malcontent that UNC is glad he's gone. Of course, that wouldn't explain the pluralization used in the above-quote, I'm assuming Raymond Felton and Sean May aren't the boneheads, and Jackie Manuel's got a posse, so I hope DBR isn't tossing insults at him. They have been aided and abetted by a media that spent three years seeing the young, immature McCants and never once acknowledging his growth - the same media that talked about how the Heels "attitude" problems might stop them from winning it all.

Rashad caused a few more headaches than many a Tar Heel, but his growth over the course of his career was nothing short of remarkable. Perhaps Roy wouldn't have recruited him, and granted unlike J.J. Redick, ESPN hasn't devoted a thirty second spot for him to read his poetry (why am I grateful). But Rashad's improvement as a team player is something that would not have occurred at just about any other program; and I think he repaid in full. And his worth is shown by this never-ending bashing coming from over at UNC-New Jersey. To be hated by the Blue Devils in this petty fashion takes putting them through the hell of seeing Carolina Blue "Champions" shirts at every point. It of course would be rude to comment on how yet again a Dookie is villifying a black Carolina player - for the hardened criminal acts of a few quotes, some unrecovered loose balls, no less- so I won't. (Seeing the world through AP's glasses, my friends?)

This little piece doesn't quite illustrate the blind-hate the DBR has. For that you'd have to go back to an article after Carolina won the regular-season ACC title by beating Duke. With McCants unable to play because of a stomach virus, DBR hypothesized that had McCants and his 18-20 points a game been there, the Heels might have lost.

And how backhanded is the compliment that Roy should have fun this year. They think this years squad will lose to Clemson for the first time ever.

I guess they need to short for lower goals than Fair and Balanced, how bout just chemically-balanced?

American Shame

2005-09-01T22:53:00.000-07:00

Friends, we are witnessing a class tragedy - a failure of planning but also a work of prejudice, of skin color and of economic status. Thousands of impoverished Americans - Americans who spend every day of their lives struggling to maintain a tenuous grasp on opportunity's edge, dangling over the brink of economic and emotional disaster - are literally caught in a swallowing sea of chaos. And yet again, our country is failing to carry out it's moral burden to rescue and protect.

Here, you will find some up-close accounts of the horror that American citizens are facing, a devastation perhaps few thought would befall citizens of the greatest power ever known. You can read the accounts of Mississippians and Lousianans left behind by the rich whites who fled, some in thousand dollar limosines. There is the claim. uttered by no less than the Secretary of Homeland Security, that those people remaining had "chosen" to stay behind. This is a patently prejudiced assumption, one that belies a momumental ignorance which easily traverses into arrogance.

Some things to consider, about the "choice" made by the poor in abandoning their homes. In New Orleans there are 130,896 people living in poverty, or 27.9 % of its residents, Lousiana has over 800,000 living in poverty (19.6%), with many of those concentrated in the same area as New Orleans. Mississippi has 500,000 in poverty 19.9%. Though much of the poverty is on the eastern side of the state, away from the coast there are still very high concentrations of poverty in some areas leading up from the Gulf.

In New Orleans, Fair Market Rent for a two bedroom apartment is $676 a month. That means that a household of minimum wage workers must work 100 hours each week in order to have their rent be only 30% of their income. If you make minimum wage and work 50 hours a week, you make about $1000 a month before you pay taxes, though you may get an extra 50-100 through refundable tax credits, but you may as likely not, because your employer doesn't help you with getting this money through each paycheck forcing you to wait for a refund in the spring.

Rent comes due monthly, usually on the 1st. So, often, does the car payment, the light bill, the unpaid medical debts, the mortgage. Today's poor are increasingly saddled with debt, though in many ways they are often still far removed from modern banking assets which would allow them to (albeit slowly) accumulate savings. And if the regular bills don't hit, there are the unexpected expenses. And there are some expected but time-sensitive costs, such as many families experience in August buying school supplies.

So, when on the 29th you are faced with a choice of evacuating to another town, where you don't have family, where you may not have shelter, you must think, can I afford the gas, the food, the shelter. What will it cost to pick up your two kids and take them away from your home, your stove and put them into a car that may break down on the way? Or perhaps what will it cost to pay for a bus ride since you and your families leave. Actually, if you thought about the busride on the 29th, you were out of luck, because Greyhound had already stopped running.

And, somewhat perversely in the present context, for many of those who are disabled or elderly, and therefore the least able to leave on their own - their checks come on the 3rd. This means that by the 29th, they have eked out their last little bit of savings and have only a few dollars left until that precious date the 3rd. Perhaps they will have a credit card, perhaps they will get a short-term loan (both at exorbitant amounts). But for the working poor and the disabled, saved money is not something easily come by.

But even if you can work it out with your landlord, find the spare $100 of dollars, or find a ride, you must think some more. Your home and all your possessions will be left behind and if they are lost it will take literally years to accumulate them again. Many have loans which are secured by these very same household goods. And trust me, the loans don't wash away with the flood.

And of course there is family, the elderly and the young, who must be cared for. You may personally be able to go, but you may not be able to leave your sick mother who likely should not make the trip. You may not have a car which can carry you, your children and your other relatives out. Not having a car may seem unlikely, but vast numbers of the urban poor especially are unable to afford private transportation.

Finally, there is the concern of where you go. Considering that after five days its clear there is not enough emergency shelter for all who need it, it certainly makes clear how unlikely it was that a person leaving New Orleans, if all had headed Mr. Chertoff's belated suggestion, would have found it.

It is far too easy, and arrogant, for elected officials to claim to know how individuals faced with these decisions should react.

This is the greatest American Shame of my generation, to see Americans swallowed up and left for dead by a rising tide because with our wealth and our posturing, we were blinded to their needs. There are some who don't like comparing parts of our economy to the Third World, they call it unamerican. But this week, our Third World has come front in center, and we have betrayed their citizenship. No amount of violence on the streets of New Orleans will restle the scarlett blood stained stigma from our flag.

But, still, I pray, "Let America, be America Again"

An oldy, but still a goody

2005-09-01T22:47:00.000-07:00

From my Election debate blogging:

President Bush: "I don't know where to start" Yes, George we've figured that out.

Amazing how that works for so many things.

The Chronology of President Jackass and Me

2005-09-01T16:02:00.000-07:00

2001 - He makes me long for Clinton

2002 - He makes me long for Bob Dole

2003 - He makes me long for his Father

2004 - He makes me long for Reagan

Early 2005 - He makes me long for Gingrich

Hurricane Katrina - He makes me long for Nero

..............

I go back to what I said in 2000, "In 1980 America elected as President a man who had starred in movies with a chimp. Twenty years later we elected the Chimp."

James Dobson invites trouble

2005-08-10T16:54:00.000-07:00

Via Ezra, Via Tapped, Via Brad Plumer, it looks like James Dobson's newsletter has come up with a cure for being the "Gayest thing since Gay walked into Gaytown." Dobson's Focus on the Family likes to give tips to fathers on how to stop their kids from becoming Full-on Gay, so here, they provide some helpful tips on how to spot the Gayness and then how to root it out. As usual with the Family Right, the fearful signs are aimed at any deviancy from the Gender-roles Dobson likes best. But what is new to this reader is that Dobson would suggest the following solution:

Meanwhile, the boy's father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son's maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger.

It's hard to beat "pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard" what with the images that allows us to ponder. But seriously, are these folks so daft as to not realize the pandora's box they are suggesting opening. I mean what good could it possibly due for the kid to get introduced to same sex showers?

Four words, every Focus on the Family mother should know before following this, Repressed Homosexual Conservative Christian.

(Twisted) Memory Lane

2005-07-25T08:06:00.000-07:00

Anne Lamott of TPM Cafe is trying to talk about Scott Mclellan (and, btw, shouldn't that name now be synonymous with "retreat' by now?).

Unfortunately, after she opened with this, I wasn't really thinking much about Rovegate:

Remember when you were a kid, and one of your best friends would say, "You HAVE to pick: if murderers were either going to kill your mother or your father, who would you pick?" And you'd feel terrible, because you HAD to pick. So you'd think, Well, dad is a lot more fun, but if murderers killed him, then our whole family would die or end up at the Rescue Mission; and mom is freaked out all the time, but if she got killed, who would take care of us? Like, does dad even know who the VET is?

It always took awhile to remember that you didn't actually have to pick, that it was just a friend who hated her dad and wished he would die, but was worried that if she came right out and said that, it would make her seem a little angry.

WTF!!!!! Did she grow up with Ryan Klebold? Really, if she said this out loud a cocktail party, how long a silence do you think would hold before someone commented. I mean, its bad enough that her friends were playing game-theory with parental departure, but then the underlying current of actual child-alienation verging on homicidal thought just overwhelms me. Forgot Rove, I want to reclaim those halcyon days of my youth. And I'm damn worried that Anne didn't share them.

You see, I don't like to say this much, but I too believe that it really was better back in the day. Now I don't believe in the hysteria that the world's going to hell in a hand-basket, but I have long thought we had it pretty good. We had video games, but the damn technology didn't improve every day so our stuff was still cool for weeks, even months. We had Sesame Street and no Elmo. We had Pee Wee Herman, we didn't have to think about his Pee Wee. We had the distant unlikely prospect of nuclear anihilation, not parents that buy duct tape. We knew Milli Vanilli before it was a joke (well, before it was that joke). Come to think of it, we had OUR parents, who frankly seem a hell of a lot more fun than the schedule-driven, 2 hour commuting, DVD/CD/Video GAme explicit-lyric labeling, missing-white-girl-obsessed dunderheads who've taken over the industry now. Indeed, one reason I keep my views about the good ol' days quiet is the prospect of the dunderheads exploiting it.

But Anne's making me worry that's not the case. Luckily, my friends didn't engage in these sort of mental experiments, maybe it was because I didn't hang with the D&D crowd, I don't know. But if this was going on back when I was a kid maybe we've been stuck in this same ol' long hard slog from time immemorial. Very disturbing to learn such things about my fellow Gen X>Yers. It's like when I got out of high school and first learned of the rampant and frivolous sexual experimentation that had been going on while I spent years trying to meticulously planning one failed conquest after the next like they were Mt. Everest and I had vertigo, asthma, and a prostethis. (Was I the Wile E. Coyote of youthful sex?)

I have to ask the question, Are My Generation Disturbed?

O'Reilly's lucky they don't tell him to shut up

2005-05-24T15:03:00.000-07:00

Tired of the "integrity" and "rising above politics" of moderates who make the principled decision to not support the nuclear option which last week they were arguing was the constitutional option or who decided this week that the extreme right-wing judge they were willing to fillibuster until they have nothing left to read to the Senate but a guide to mobile homes occupied by famous west virginians, is now, as it turns out, just fine for the DC Circuit Court of appeals?

Well how bout reading about some straight up hypocrisy, from Ol' Faithful - Bill O'Reilly (who represents us Irish-Americans about as well as Sonny Corleone does the Italians). Turns out Bill thinks the Times spends WAY too much time covering the Abu Ghraib scandal, and is keeping track. Well, the Columbia Journalism Review Daily keeps track of coverage too, and it just so happens Bill seems to get his trigger button jammed on an issue or two every now and then. But when Bill does, its a matter of national importance, namely Ward Churchill. What, you don't know who world Churchill is my friends? Dread!! You slovenly manipulated dupes of the liberal media spend far too much time worrying about the utter lack of institutional accountability in the face of widespread human rights abuses which has caused yet more muslims to join a terrorist cause. After all, whats more important than an Ethnic Studies professor using terrible Nazi imagery to discuss the 9/11 victims?
Certainly not the religious humiliation of muslim prisoners. (Though this story does get points for the fact that some of these prisoners are innocent.) Certainly not the 35 deaths related to interrogation practices. (though, again there are those points previously mentioned.) Why, its not like anybody else ever would dare use Nazi analogy (except this guy - but he's a person of faith who someday, plans on reading the whole bible, so we won't talk about him; and except for his fellow Republicans and oh yeah, their lobbyists).

No Bill's got it dead on. He knows where the real story lies. But hey, he's just a poor guy from Long Island....., oh wait, that's not true either? Well, he did win that Peabody Award.....wahh? no kidding! Hey, though, he never tells anybody to shut up. .....What documentary?

Et tu Lexis?

2005-04-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

Apparently Tom Delay has just stumbled on to the real cause for judicial (in)activist tyranny/opposition-to-tyranny - THE INTERNETS! From Yahoo

"Absolutely. We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous," DeLay told Fox News Radio on Tuesday. "And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous."

There you have it folks, it's the internet that is corrupting our constitution, by, by of all things, allowing Supreme Court justices to quickly and efficiently research case law. Not only that, I heard Lexis is corrupting the Federal bench by with Amazon.com gift certificates, travel coffee mugs and key chains. The more cases the justices read, THE MORE FREE NIC-NACS THEY GET!!!! It's pure quid pro quo man!!! It's like them durn rectangular things with sheets of paper and wierdly arranged letters, only its not of this world, it's sexually digitized a lascivicious ethereal devil's work.

GOP - What you were saying.

2005-04-16T20:29:00.000-07:00

Well, it's amazing how quickly a right-winger can turn on a dime (though I'm sure that's not enough a donation to get movement). Just a week after screaming bloody murder (with qualifiers, and cowardly hypotheticals, but still murder) about the tyranny of judges, Bill Frist is ready to step up to the mic and tell some Christian right-wingers how terrible it is that Democrats might oppose their imposition of judicial tyranny by the filibuster.

Well, GOP, I say "What you were saying (minus the pissant death threats from Texas Senators)"

You want a perfectly good example of why a purported minority should have a say in deciding who judges are, consider the sense of disenchantment (right or wrong) expressed by those who opposed Terry Schiavo's passage into that good night. There is a reason why we establish safeguards in our multi-checked and balanced constitution to protect from an overwhelming by a majority. And while it is true that at times the filibuster has been used to deliberate bills which would have accomplished much in ensuring and expanding American freedom, it is also true that the filibuster serves a vital purpose in maintaining a broad consensus in favor of our union.

The purpose of the current threats of filibustering judges are an attempt to heel George Bush's efforts at radicalizing the federal bench, stacking the deck against liberal causes, from voting rights, workplace safety and anti-discrimination laws to the simple belief that some life and death decisions are so private the state should not intervene, no matter how laudable a presumption in favor of life may be.

The Schiavo jihadists are distinctly a minority, if we are to believe the sacrosanct 24 hour, 400 person poll results. Still, it would be a dangerous indifference for there to be no consideration of their views in selecting what is to be an independent judiciary charged with determining rights between individual litigants.

But that is exactly what the Right-wing wants - to ignore the concerns of a large minority, if not majority of Americans in placing judges on the court. While the phrase judicial tyranny has been in vogue on the right of late, it's important to remember that historically tyranny has often been the will imposed on a people by a monarch. Elevating the presidents perogative in making judicial nominations to the divine right of Kings is clearly a recipe for trouble.

Yet here comes infomerical Frist, to tell the half-unread-bible-thumpers that the Schiavo case shows how they are not represented in the judiciary and thus, they should support the imposition by ANY bare majority of its preferred judges on the rest of society.

Apparently, the religious right wing, the cheapest date in American politics, has its dancing shoes on, again.

have you called your doctor?

2005-03-24T20:53:00.000-08:00

A weekend full of Coach K commercials,surrounded by Cialis ads with the doctors warning about 72 hour erections.

Insert your penis joke here....

Conservatism is like Latin, it's dead language

2005-03-23T04:02:00.000-08:00

Alas, in the midst of the Schiavo mess, some on the Right have realized they may have, just a teensy-weensy bit, mortally wounded the principles of their ideology. From the Times:

"This is a clash between the social conservatives and the process conservatives, and I would count myself a process conservative," said David Davenport of the Hoover Institute, a conservative research organization. "When a case like this has been heard by 19 judges in six courts and it's been appealed to the Supreme Court three times, the process has worked - even if it hasn't given the result that the social conservatives want. For Congress to step in really is a violation of federalism."

Stephen Moore, a conservative advocate who is president of the Free Enterprise Fund, said: "I don't normally like to see the federal government intervening in a situation like this, which I think should be resolved ultimately by the family: I think states' rights should take precedence over federal intervention. A lot of conservatives are really struggling with this case."

Some more moderate Republicans are also uneasy. Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the sole Republican to oppose the Schiavo bill in a voice vote in the Senate, said: "This senator has learned from many years you've got to separate your own emotions from the duty to support the Constitution of this country. These are fundamental principles of federalism."

Too bad for those fellows, they didn't realize they were watching the disintegration of their cause. "Conservative" no longer has any meaning in political discussion anymore. Those who claim to be it, rarely adhere to a set of principles about the limits of government, at least not when those principles get in their way.

It's not surprising really, Ronald Reagan probably genuinely believed in conservative governance, as did Goldwater, but the conservatives they led into the GOP upon desegregation were never really about limited government. These were southern "conservatives" who believed in a generally lassiez faire government with the ability to inflict great hardship on those who opposed the majority. They didn't see anything run with Bull Connor's hoses, or shutting down public schools, or even creating a whole separate beauracracy to implement segregation.

Initially these folks were attracted to limited government, because the government being limited was representative of a larger body which did not hold their views in the majority. But now as time has worn on, and admittedly conservatism has abandoned its overtly-racist stance, the descendants of the southern "conservative" have sought to utilize government power whenever it suits their purpose. Whether that be putting up a 10 commandments monument on public property or continuing to push a case that has spent 7 years in the courts on "due process" grounds.

So, conservatism is dead, it should no longer be used reflexively to describe those on the right. A new word is necessary. I would say it's "Delayism" but that's probably not going to get past the media.

Why do I not Believe President Bush?

2005-03-23T03:49:00.000-08:00

From today's News & Record
"This isn't a political issue," Bush insisted, in New Mexico. "This isn't, you know, Democrats trying to get ahead of Republicans or Republicans trying to get ahead of Democrats. If that's the spirit in Washington, nothing's going to get done."

From the Washington Post March 20

An unsigned one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators, said the debate over Schiavo would appeal to the party's base, or core, supporters. The memo singled out Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is up for reelection next year and is potentially vulnerable in a state President Bush won last year.

Why your (newly) expensive house hurts our economy

2005-03-01T05:45:00.000-08:00

Michael Kinsley writes about the housing boom, and provides a plain-spoken analysis for how it is likely to end (sometime). He ends with an explanation of the difference in increases in price for labor, capital and housing.

Perusing the real estate ads like pornography and imagining what our houses are worth is the great American pastime. But a real estate crash, if it came, would have some advantages. The 19th-century American Henry George explained how rising real estate values harm the economy by operating as a tax on both labor and capital. Money for labor makes people work harder. Money for capital makes people save more. Both make the country richer. Money for land just makes the owner richer. There are all sorts of complications and qualifications, but the basic point is a good one.

People do foolish things under the impression that they are getting richer because their houses are worth more. They save less, they spend more. Egged on by television commercials, they "consolidate their debts" (i.e., buy a new boat) with a second mortgage. And who really gains from soaring house prices? First-time buyers don't. Nor does anyone who plans ever to trade up. The only beneficiaries are those who are selling their last house, after a lifetime of appreciation. The bigger the house, the bigger the windfall. This is yet another thank-you from
America to the so-called Greatest Generation. I'm not sure it's necessary.

I'd add to elements to this, first housing prices are rising at a time when affordable housing is out of reach for many Americans, a consequence of the federal contribution to housing dropping from $79 B to $29B in real dollars over the last 25-plus years. Second, a major boost to the housing market over the last 2-3 years has been interest-only loans and adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs). Both are dangerous lending devices, the interest-only loans eviscerate any gain for the homeowner through equity; the ARM is a time-bomb in light of the historically low level of interest rates and the weakness in the dollar (both of which indicate that the index on which the ARM's rate is based will shoot up). Alan Greenspan has been a big proponent of ARMs. Not sure if he's being paid by Ameriquest or Countrywide (two notorious predatory lenders) , but if he was, perhaps they'd let him know that many lenders base approval for an ARM on a borrower's ability to make the initial payment, disregarding his or her ability to afford the later, higher payments caused by rising interest rates.

Our housing bubble has been caused by multiple forces, many good. But in the end we have an over-priced market financed heavily by consumer debt. Worse, we have many borrowers who have traded unsecured debt for less equity in their home, which could shortly see a significant drop in its value - and thus put them in upside down mortgages (debt > secured property value). Thus when they try to get out of their much higher payments, they won't be able to find a lender willing to give them enough money to pay off their debt.

There will soon be hell to pay, it's just a matter of from whose hide the payments come.

Another Thompson Tribute - Freak

2005-02-25T04:46:00.000-08:00

Here's John Nichols on Thompson's Dem/GOP terrifying run for Sheriff in Aspen. A great illustration on Thompson's confronting and even thrashing with our political system. A brief quote:

He wanted to create a newer, better politics -- or, at the very least, to so screw up the current machinery that it would no longer work for the people who he referred to as "these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today."

Cheap, Greedy, Kills? Anybody seen someone like that around today? Does he have a nerdy, balding friend, with glasses who is as bad, if not worse than he looks like he'd be, another bald friend who looks like a Mr. Burns New Year's day float and claims to be VP, and daughters who give the "hook'em horns" sign? Yeah, I thought he did.

May God rest his soul, but will the lord ever get any rest now?

2005-02-24T17:17:00.000-08:00

Hunter Thompson - Rest In Peace

That page somes up Hunter Thompson. All I can add is what he meant to me. I didn't find out about him until well after I had seen Fear and Loathing (not a great introduction to him, much too cartoonish, even if Johnny Depp is his usual great fun excellence). It was actually through Timothy Krause's Boys on the Bus to which my friend was kind enough to turn me on. Getting a glimpse of Thompson's out of control, highly personalized style got me hooked. Not long after Boys, I found a copy of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign trail - which I consider a must read for any politico with the slightest sense of humor, and all liberals. Watching Thompson's insane approach to covering the routine idiocy of presidential campaigns, riding his roll of emotion about McGovern's campaign, you knew it wasn't "balanced" but as Hunter might say "fuck Balance, balance is for the unitiated fools getting their gourds sucked out in the lobby. Balance is for Broder, in other words. And those of us who live in the real world will just find ways to tolerate and despise him, in a balanced way of course."

Hunter was a ride, helped me to see the world through the haze created by drugs I'd never even think about trying myself, and his utterly personal, self-centered writing had the ability to illuminate something deeply personal about his subjects. And most illuminating was the Hunter was not afraid to go anywhere and not afraid to insult anyone. I ran through Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and later spent a glorious summer reading Hell's Angels. All three books remain some of my absolute favorites. The Proud Highway, a collection of his letters and writings before his fame, are a constant source of enjoyment.

Hunter was very often wrong, he was always a careening disaster waiting too happen. But he was a beautiful American, beautiful because of his independence and his belief in himself. Obviously I haven't lived nearly as daring a life as he had, but he did help me see the farce in our society, and when I was younger his writing was a form of venting anger that ultimately calmed my soul.

I'm fairly certain he's found a version of heaven - and I'll bet money it's a new one with him in it.

Thanks for the inspiration, thanks for the laughs. And thanks for getting it right at least most of the time, but doing it right all the time.

Because They Can

2005-02-24T16:42:00.000-08:00

Seems the GOP in Georgia isn't satisfied with their 7-6 lead in the Congressional Delegation and they want to re-redistrict a larger number of seats. In fact, they basically want to make it so that the only Democrats are those representing majority African-American districts.

While this obviously screams for redistricting reform, it also reminds me of the quandry of minority-majority districts. There is a desperate need in Congress to represent minorities who, as I'm sure later posts will discuss have been historically disempowered as political money contributors. However, the districts created to ensure minority representation suck Democratic voters out of other potentially winnable districts.

An illustration is my hometown Greensboro, NC. It's represented by three different congressman Howard Coble, Mel Watt and Brad Miller. Miller, whose white, was the architect of his own district, created while he was in the State legislature. It comes from Wake County and reaches in to grab just enough Greensboro Dems to give Miller, from Raleigh, a fairly safe seat. Unfortunately for those Greensboro Dems, they stand virtually no chance at winning a primary because most of the Democratic votes are in Miller's back yard. (There are two top ten college basketball programs between Miller and his triad voters.)

But of course, Miller isn't the main reason why it is likely no Greensboro Democrat will be elected to Congress until 2012, at the earliest. Mel Watt, who is African-American represents a district that starts in Charlotte and then runs up I-85 to Greensboro, pulling in African-American neighborhoods (and yours truly in Winston-Salem - there's only one top ten college basketball program between Watt and triad voters - well, at least one half a top ten program - Wake doesn't play defense). The result - Coble, a Republican, not from Greensboro, has barely been contested because his seat is so safe. By the time Miller came along in 2000, Coble's district was barely recognizable from the one in which ballots had to go missing for him to win in 1986.

Of course, there is a danger for republicans in blatantly redistricting "because they can" as the post points out. There are Dems in charge of other legislators. And when they redistrict, they won't have to worry about the Voting Rights Act preventing them from eliminating majority African-American seats held by Republicans.

New Blog - Left2Right - Social Security - It's insurance stupid

2005-02-24T16:17:00.000-08:00

Here's a great analysis from my new favorite, Elizabeth Anderson, on one of the critical points of analysis for determining the future of social security - the value of the benefit provided by a private retirement account. What's particularly helpful is that Anderson refocuses the discussion on the insurance aspect of social security and the inadequacy of comparing what it does with a retirement account. I'll let her do the talking....

Dick Cheney - inveterate tax-hike fiend

2004-10-15T16:17:00.000-07:00

So, GOP, let's play by your rules on tax-hike votes. Dick Cheney in the house voted 144 times to increase taxes. As Jon Chait says, according to George W. Bush's logic, this puts Dick somewhere in the neighborhood of Che Guevara on taxes.

You'd think with all those tax-hikes he supported, Dick would think the government had money to afford all those defense programs he wanted to cut, the same program's John Kerry's opposition is such a problem for the republicans.

Of course, you'd also think that having said "Thank you, .....Senator Edwards for being here." would be something the VP would remember having said (and thus remember having sat next to John Edwards at a 2001 prayer breakfast) before claiming never to have met John Edwards on any of the (decidedly fewer than every) Tuesdays he was at the Senate.

Or you can just vote to get this bloody farce of an administration out.

Poland shall not be forgotten

2004-10-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

Enough said.

Posting Comments Anonymously - How all your Internets can work for you.

2004-10-10T08:07:00.000-07:00

Several readers (first time I get to mention readers, yeahhoo!!!) have expressed their concern that they have been unable to make a comment without signing up on Blogger. Arcbender appreciates your concerns, and as someone who wishes to bend arcs towards justice, I wish to take action. Thus, here is a short guide to Posting Comments Anonymously.

Click on "Comments" link just beneath the post you wish to Comment on. This will take you to a page which shows the Full post
On this page, scroll down to the bottom, there will be a link to "Post a comment"

.....

Okay, hopefully everybody had a little time there to figure out that to comment, YOU CLICK ON THAT LINK(but just to give a little advice on my own personal experience, make sure you've read the full post before blasting it.).
The next page will prompt you to enter a username and password. This is for people who are users on Blogger, mostly other Bloggers like this guy (actually, he's not just some guy, he's my brother, his blogs been kind of comatose lately, but if you like what he writes - and unlike me, he's trained to do this - you should use your new found skills to demand he write more.)
So, what do you, you poor, poor souls that are not wasting your time throwing snark out into the multiple conflagrations of the INTERNETS, and thus are not a blogger user, DO?!?!!?!!?
Well, Read down the page and you will notice the "Or Post Anonymously" link just under the prompt to enter user and password info. Click on this.
There, you now have the privilege to post a comment, whatever you want.

Fire away. unlike Michael Stipe, I don't think "Silence means approval"

Debate thoughts

2004-10-08T21:39:00.000-07:00

Not quite live-blogging, and not quite complete, but here are my initial impressions of the debate, snarky and all.

Mr. President, September 11th changed things. Like, for instance, when discussing your efforts at protecting the homeland, shaking your head and shrugging your shoulders a couple of times IS A REALLY BLOODY INADEQUATE RESPONSE!!

"I don't know where to start" Yes, George, we've figured that out.

Pledge question - Pledges are for losers. Any voter that needs a pledge on tax policy to get their vote, should be given a pacifier in return for their registration. Kerry shouldn't have taken it, though a Democrat can get away with dropping that promise, to some extent.

President on Brownfields - this pause is so I can change the frequency on the ear piece.

Considering the names the Bush Administration puts on Environmental measures (Clear Skies, Health Forest) shouldn't the war have been called Operation Silk Sheets and Bed Mints for Saddam?

Okay Kerry's Red Sox reference...that was bad.

Wow, when voters actually ask the questions rather than reporters trying to ask a question they "just know" the voters might ask, you don't get many ridiculous, "character" questions do you?

Bush on judges - I oppose anyone who would have sided with the majority on Dred Scott? As Jon Stewart would say, WAAAAAH? Let's see, he's opposed to a judge who's too liberal, such as one who would follow the tenor of previous Supreme Court decisions and rule that "One nation under God" in fact probably means something about religious beliefs, and therefore teachers shouldn't be required to ask their kids to say it. On the other hand, a judge who's so conservative he thinks a black slave doesn't have the right to seek justice in our courts to remain in a free-soil state, he'd oppose that too. That's pretty middle of the road.

FINALLY, Kerry explains the $87 B vote.

Overall, I think it was a pretty close debate. Bush was clearly unhinged on the war. At one point I thought he might have a freak moment. His eyes looked like (if the president ever had actually done cocaine, which of course, I'd never say he did) they were having a coke-related relapse. But after the domestic questions came in he calmed down, and held his own. A weird thing has happened this year, Democrats sound more secure talking about the war than about Domestic issues. Kerry never hit Bush for continuing to act as if he has added jobs with the 1.9 M new jobs over the last 13 months. This amount is less than is necessary to keep up with the increase in the job-seeking population, and today's released figures for September were pathetic, much smaller than necessary. Kerry didn't take advantage of that.

Still, Bush's albatross is Iraq, and it only got nastier today. He might have held ground, but it is clearer than ever that Mr. Bush needs to gain ground in the next few weeks to win.

Boom, up in your face, Mr. Bush

2004-10-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to a speech on the House Floor today from Tim Ryan, a first-term Ohio Democrat. He replaced one of the most disgusting (unfortunately Democrat) representatives in our history, Jim Traficant who was removed from office by Congress after being convicted of federal crimes.

But what makes this worth checking out. This is one of the quickest, cleanest and powerful indictments of the Bush administration I have ever seen. Spontaneous applause arose on the Houes floor. Trust me, watch it, and your pulse will quicken. Traficant was a lunatic, and his diatribes were often patently self-interested. No doubt Ryan knows he's just bought a boatload of free publicity. But it's nice to see a powerful calling out of the President for his continuing deceptions regarding the war.

Well, not that about Poland.

2004-10-04T17:38:00.000-07:00

Was it something I said?

Poland is withdrawing from Iraq.

El Salvador, Madagascar, you're day as key allies is a comin'.

Cocooned away

2004-10-03T07:15:00.000-07:00

Another reason why Bush didn't look tolerant of Kerry's thoughts during the debate is because of the cocoon in which he operates. You not only have to be a Bush support to see him on the campaign trail, you have to be ready to volunteer for his campaign in many instances. This means, when Bush goes on the road, he's not seeing America, he's seeing his volunteers.

But in the debate, he had to be America's President again, not his supporters'. And in a country as diverse and individualistic as ours, that means putting up with dissent. Unfortunately, he rarely has made much effort to expose himself to America. Thursday, it showed.

Yeah, but what about Poland?!!

2004-10-03T06:31:00.000-07:00

I've been out in Colorado the last few days, unable to post. But luckily I did get the chance to watch a tape of the debate Thursday night.

So, it's official, David Brooks is essentially conceding it, the polls clearly show it - Kerry thoroughly beat Bush. And Bush may have a debater-acting-badly problem because he spent so much effort in making painful faces while Kerry was speaking. (This may be where the six-year-olds and the ball head, though I haven't had much time to watch TV to find out)

Truth is, I didn't notice Bush's faces so much (maybe I just wasn't surprised). But paying more attention to his words, my major question after the debate for Bush is, when the hell did Poland become a top-flight ally? I couldn't believe during the debate that he spent more time talking about Poland's support and Lybia's "disarmament" (which was no great feat) than he did talking about North Korea and Iran.

My overriding impression of the debate was that while Bush is certain, his certainty seems less secure than Kerry's "uncertainty". Bush believes he's right, but it's pretty clear he doesn't know why he's right. Kerry on the other hand, knows the facts on the ground, and while his answers are more nuanced, he knows why they need to be. Hopefully enough voters disagree with Brooks "he sounds like me, and I'm a dope, so it's okay he's a dope too" theory on electoral decision making and will realize that we have a choice - between a candidate who knows we made a mistake and wants to try to fix it, and one who won't admit we made a mistake and thus can't begin to fix it.

Overall, I thought Kerry's performance was solid, and became excellent, especially in comparison to Bush, as the night moved on. Kerry needs though to emphasize more that Bush just doesn't react well to reality.

Finally, the Bush campaign made a mistake holding an all-foreign policy debate. Foreign Policy is Bush's strong point, but it is because he gets to fly to aircraft carriers and made platitudes about sacrifice and character, not because he can defend his positions. During the beginning of his favorability decline, Bush went on Meet the Press and talked mostly about foreign policy and his ratings dropped, because he said mostly the same thing for an hour. Apparently the campaign thought Kerry would look worse than Bush, but why? Kerry has been in the Senate for over a decade, on several committees related to foreign relations and national security. Instead of an all-encompassing debate, where Bush would only have to repeat himself for several questions on foreign policy and other issues might become grist for the media mill, Bush had to stand toe-to-toe with a war veteran, son of a diplomat who has voted on every major foreign policy issue of the lat 20 years. I know they put everything into Kerry's being a flip-flopper, but they should have also realized that to the extent he flops, it's because he's constantly learning about the subjects he votes on.

Well, I've got a hike, so this is all you get for now.

The Presidential debate - Which way will the kids be chasing the ball?

2004-09-29T22:50:00.000-07:00

This post from Legal Fiction describes a analogy Jon Stewart used describing the media. Basically, Stewart compared the media to a 6-and-under soccer game. The ball goes one way, and every single kid goes chasing after it, forming a little meaningless heard. In fact, this is such a good analogy, I think the Washington press corps should have to recreate it once a year on the Mall, with everything, Gatorade, Orange slices and the sweatsuits underneathe the uniforms. Jack Germond should be brought out of retirement just to see what he looks like. David Broder looks like that slightly dorky full back we all knew.

That fun aside. I think what's critical about these debates is which way the ball goes afterwards, and if the media yet again goes 6-year-old on us. I remember the 2000 debates, I watched them alone in my apartment during law school at Chapel Hill(in what would become a series of incredible diversions from studying during my One-L year). I thought Gore killed Bush, who no more than he does now failed to make much of any sense. But later, talking to classmates, and not the hard-core Republicans mind you, I realized that many people had a different take, wildly varying takes in fact. The same thing has happened after political speeches I've watched. It's rare that I hear the same response from a person twice about some political event they've watched, even among my fellow traveler progressives.

The media however, are a different story. In 2000, they decided Bush won, and hammered away at that belief, ultimately adopting a few choice clips to demonstrate their point. The same has happened this year, perhaps worse than any other.

The gross example was the post-convention bounce story for Bush. Despite conflicting poll numbers, and a wildly different methodology in the Gallup poll showing Bush ahead by double digits, the press flew with the story that Kerry was in deep, deep trouble. This despite the fact, that historically, it didn't appear that Bush's bounce was any greater than normal. It's true Bush is ahead, by a couple a points or two, and with such narrow leads in a host of battleground states as to make this election look alot like 2000. However, the media decided to create a story based on the most "interesting" data, the outlier polls, and make that the ONLY story they have covered. (A more appropriate story, which was picked up by the Washington Post following the convention, was the $3 trillion in spending and tax cuts Bush proposed in his convention speech, which in fact he has no intention on spending, at least according to the White House's Office of Management and Budget's FY 2006 numbers.)

So the question is, will the media behave like sentient adults, or less-cute, less-excusable addled children?

The Senate debate, and an early call for Primary Challengers to Erskine Bowles, come 2010

2004-09-29T21:33:00.000-07:00

This is a tad bit premature. But despite Richard Burr's lackluster performance in Tuesday's Senatorial debate, and my clear support of Erskine Bowles in the upcoming election, I'm calling on a real Democrat to consider challenging Erskine should he consider a second term.

As for this year, Burr needed to hurt Bowles on Tuesday, and Bowles did more hurting. Now, Burr is dependent on Bush coattails, in a year where NC is as close to being a swing state as it has been since 1980. Burr, whom Winston-Salem Democrats generally acknowledge as usually articulate, seemed to be doing a Dubya impression (which James Fallows argues is artificial even when done by Dubya himself). He used "re-education" as a way of describing the need for displaced manufacturing and textile workers to learn new skills - which I'm sure sent chills down the GOPs more ardent anti-communist members. And, he paused and cleared his throat so many times that, let's just say, I never imagined my hearing Richard Burr's heavy breathing quite that much. Other than claiming that Bowles was lying about his lying, Burr didn't seem to draw any blood. I would say that Bowles will win, probably in a very close race, but he'll win. It's setting up to be another solid year for Democrats on the state ballot.

The debate was an odd thing. First off, there is a fertile field of examples of hypocrisy to plow when you get an NC Democrat and a NC Republican talking about free trade and it's effects. NC's tradition of pro-business politicians on both sides of the aisle has always clashed with the precarious situation of its low-skill, moderate-wage workforce. Bowles and Burr, both of whom supported NAFTA, and since have jumped on to pro-worker, protectionist bandwagons played gotcha, and fully revealed that there is no firm principle to which to cling on the issue of jobs lost due to globalization. The President, I'm sure will be dismayed, but somehow that seems about right.

Second, Burr showed just how bogus of an issue medical malpractice reform is. He mentioned it twice, both times quickly moving on. I think it's clear that this hit-and-run tactic was an effort to signal to medical community his support, while not having to explain it to anyone else. The truth is, the GOP doesn't want to have a debate on this issue, they just want the votes of Doctor's who otherwise might vote Democratic. The fact that Burr seems to think this is the only needed reform for health care costs other than an expensive, useless Medicare bill, is an indication of how little the GOP really has to say on the most important issue this side of terrorism. And if there was a debate on malpractice reform, the secret might slip out that the Democrats have a plan too, albeit not as draconian as the GOP's.

But finally, the most discouraging point in the debate came in the latter third. Within five minutes, Bowles expressed profound anti-gay marriage and anti-immigrant sentiments. I do not have the precise language, but he stopped just sort of supporting a constitutional amendment prohibiting state adoption of gay marriage, for now. Then, left open the door if necessary. This was a perfect example of the cowardice of soft bigotry. I understand the need to placate conservative Democrats, but wouldn't being an adult suffice? The amendment's ridiculous, the constitution isn't a child's play toy, and an issue on which the public is still rather evenly split is not one to play with. And, oh by the way, it's not Bowles and Burr's generation that will have to deal with the consequences, but mine, and we are opposed to an amendment. Are there not enough messes the baby boomers have left for us to clean up, without our gay friends being permanently barred from survivor's benefits?

As for immigration, Bowles did acknowledge the incredibly important benefit immigrants provide to our economy. However, he raised the specter of their "stealing jobs" from workers. I would acknowledge there is a sliver of truth to this point, but the way Bowles raised it easily appeared to be a play on racial prejudice and anymosity aimed at the largest growing segment of NC's population.

Bowles is a good man, and, there is no doubt that he will be a good Senator. However, he's spent a great deal of his political career in retreat and his stance on immigration and gay rights is an indication that a party which has Bowles at it's head is one that does not have a solid grip on the future. I understand the concern, that conservative Democrats, many of whom will vote for Bush in November will bolt if Bowles seems "liberal" on these issues. But this fear is in part based on an unwillingness to risk realigning the state in part by tapping into its changing demographics. With Mike Easley as our shadow-Governor, and John Edwards potentially tied up in Washington, the Democratic party needs a leader that can change the dynamic in this state away from one of continuing fear of a conservative Democrat backlash to a broad-coalition from low-wage working class families to the PhD bloc.

Moderation on these issues may make political sense, but taking an overly conservative stance limits the future energy of the party. In 10 years, gay marriage will probably be a majority issue in the state and the issue of "illegal" immigration may have also been dealt with, or if not, the exposure to the growing immigrant population will make racial demagoguery untenable. But it is very discouraging to have someone out there who not only isn't willing to stand up for the Democrats on issue where our position is gaining strength, but seems willing to parrot the fools on the other side. I hope Bowles wins this year, but if he chooses to run again, I hope a real Democrat challenges his leadership. For the most part, he has yet to really show any.

Honor, and 58 years

2004-09-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

For the last several months, I've been trying to put into words my emotions upon learning of another soldier's death in Iraq. But each time, I could not find clarity and elegance enough to meet the challenge of expressing my condolences and sorrow. Unfortunately, now the dying is continuing, and I have had time to reflect and though maybe this is not clear or elegant, I hope it is not too late.

My grandfather, Henry McKellar, won the Silver Star in World War II. One of the highest honors in our military, Henry received it as a medic, killed in the line of fire while trying to save the life of another soldier. And it is an honor to be his grandson, an honor to know how far his commitment to this country would take him.

I was lucky to have a grandmother who could bring him to life for me through her stories and her obvious love for him. As a result, I do feel like I know him, even though he died nearly 30 years before I was born.

Still, war, a decision made from above, whether just or not, takes a life with such immediacy and throws it's living victims into an abandoned new world of uncertainty. The cold, hard reality is that at one moment, Henry was braving fire to save a fallen comrade, and the next he was stricken by death's grip. In that moment, according to the social construct of "war", my grandfather entered the world of "honor" and "courage." But to us, grandaddy just left this world. He never held his wife or daughter again, he never reached down to take the hand of one his grandsons, nor did he set foot on his native soil of South Carolina.

And in his death's wake, were left my grandmother and my mother - then 3 years old. The sum total of the devastation that Henry's death caused my family can be summed up simply...58 years.

That's how many years my grandmother lived without the love of her life, that's how long she had to mourn. How long my mother had to live with a family no longer whole. Not a day went by that either didn't think about him. Both have given me much to love, but the truth is, I never knew the women they might have been, just as I never knew the man my grandfather would have been. "Honor", frankly, is a grossly inadequate substitute for the possibility of life's future. And the lost love that remains after a loved-one dies early, while strong, sears the heart as much as warms it.

My grandmother had the courage to live the life she had, she taught school for 30 years, she raised a very strong mother in her own right, she found ways to make the lives of others brighter by baking cookies, growing flowers, and demonstrating her wealthy appettite for living. But grammommy lived to her last day tragically apart from the life she had hoped to lead with Henry.

There are monuments to the war dead in almost every town in America, such is war's reach. It spreads, certainly not evenly, but thoroughly across the land. These monuments and salutes to the honor and courage of the fallen which are offered up, as they ought to be, as a salve to the bitter sting of short lives and tragic deaths.

However, we should not let our honoring cause us to leave unrecognized the sacrifice left behind. Leaders of every war have sought to bolster support for this carnage, by reminding us to pay homage to the fallen. However, the fallen are only part of war's lost.

The rest are symbolized, not by body counts, nor by monuments. Instead, they are living in a world that has been so completely, utterly and profoundly changed - a new struggling growth from a barren field of possibilities immolated by the stinging heat of loss.

In 58 years of mourning, my grandmother honored her husband, her love, and she did it with pride and grace.

But, make no mistake, it was a sentence. With each death abroad, comes imprisonment at home. Children never know their parents, parents never see their grandchildren, and the spouse faces the cruelest fate of war - making life work now that the person they had intended to make it with has been taken by decisions out of their control.

Fox photographed in hen house, and damn is it an ugly scene

2004-07-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

Check out here for a run down on some memos from Fox News chief John Moody giving orders to the troops as they fight the fair and balanced fight. The memos were released by the makers of Outfoxed a new movie (For objectivity sake, I no longer believe in documentaries that don't involve chimpanzees and long moments of silence.) about Fox News and how it bends the rules of journalism to arrive at it's Fair and Balanced state ("We confirm, you believe").

It reads like a set of stage directions splattered with the chummy rantings of a political cheerleader - the drill seargent's cadences in between browbeatings about preparation. If you read through them all, you won't find much trouble guessing who Moody is likely to vote for. Considering that most attacks by conservatives on the liberal media are based on the presumption that a media controlled by people of X party affiliation is likely to warp the news towards X-party's political perspective, I hope the right wing media critics will take note of Moody's perspective, as he is Fox's News Chief.

But this is almost over the top, like Will Farrel parodying Fox News's bias. At one point, while informing other Fox staff member's that a bomb went off at the hotel where Fox staff were staying in Baghdad and, very reasonably, asking for prayers for the Fox employee's safety, Moody chooses to do a parenthetical to stick it to the ACLU. Is somebody's mind just a tad bit of their professional focus? Colleagues in grave danger and its time to remind people the ACLU supports separation of Church and state? And from a legal stand point, if Moody thinks he's violating Title VII's protections against religious persecution in the workplace, I don't think bashing the ACLU is really a good idea. I don't think suggesting people pray "to whatever God you revere" even remotely creates a hostile environment, but mentioning a major civil rights organization and belittling them seems like a really dumb way to walk in to some trouble. Which is to say nothing about the fact that this is an employer of an actual news organization gratuitously bashing a major civil rights organization.

But there's more Kerry "is a flip-flopper", Bush's policies need to be noted as tactically smart, and of course, the French should be bashed. Read on, it's a really eye-opening collection of memos.

One thing this memo proves though. It's obvious why Outfoxed was able to get so much inside dirt on Fox. If it's this bad, sooner or later a journalist is going to put the story out, even a Fox journalist.

Uniting, not dividing?

2004-07-10T05:58:00.000-07:00

"You cannot be small business and pro-trial lawyer at the same time," the president said. "You have to choose. My opponent made his choice and he put him [John Edwards] on the ticket."

We have to choose, folks, and well, you know what happens to those folks who choose wrong. Could it possibly be this simple in President Bush's mind?

Of course, the irony is, most trial lawyer firms, are small businesses. Indeed, probably more than a few have taken advantage of the outrageous deduction for gigantic SUVs the President put in in his tax cuts.

So, maybe the President is really a uniter - a craven, politically callous and deceitful uniter, but a uniter nonetheless. Then again, there's the other alternative theory that the President knows next to nothing about the policies he implements.

I might add, talk of costly, socially damaging lawyers is a strange thing coming from the party of Ken Starr and John Ashcroft.

Tort Reform and the webs they weave

2004-07-08T05:56:00.000-07:00

I may be a lawyer, but I'm not beyond thinking there are many things wrong with our profession. Perhaps in a later post I'll hit those points. Suffice to say, there should be an ongoing debate about the American legal profession and how it serves our society. But, now that John Edwards is on the Democratic ticket, it's pretty clear we are about to be bombarded with calls against the "frivolous" lawsuits the media likes to discuss. That's unfortunate, because as the GOP tries to tag one very well-respected trial lawyer with personal attacks based on hysterical claims about abuse of the legal system, we'll miss a chance to really improve our justice system.

Why did I say hysterical? Well, here is a good rundown on many of those terrifying litigation stories you here. One thing to remember about stories about outrageous jury verdicts - juries do not have the final say in our court system, judges do, both the trial judge and later appellate panels. Outrageous verdicts can be dealt with, as in the case of the McDonald's "coffee verdict". (That verdict is not mentioned in the above link, but you can find it here, in a good story on Edwards and tort reform.)

And, often, the outrageous jury verdict is not nearly so outrageous when you learn all the facts. What strikes about the McDonald's case is not the skin graft the victim needed after being badly burned, not her time in the hospital, nor the hundreds of complaints about the boiling hot coffee McDonald's served which they had ignored before the incident. It's the fact that the plaintiff and her attorneys offered to settle for $10,000.

I have to say, as a lawyer, I'm ashamed, ashamed! I'm ashamed that whoever was representing McDonald's in that case is a member of my profession.

Edwards

2004-07-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

What to say?!! I guess the best way to sum my feelings up is this. During the primaries, early on, when Dean was the frontrunner and Joe Lieberman and the Republicans (is that a redundancy?) were coming down hard on Dean for his anti-war stance, I kept on thinking that Dean's strength and the democrats concerned about him were an illustration of what's great about the Democratic party - we have the anti-war and the pro-war all here, we debate and we fight, but we have people from all sides of the issues. My only concern, I wasn't sure there was a candidate who could bring all those different opinions together. Then I watched John Edwards, and while we didn't have the courage (foolish or not) to nominate the candidate that inspires us and brings us all together, we've got the second best thing. The nominee decided to nominate that candidate.

What do you say about the reach of a guy that starts of as one of the neoliberal Democratic Leadership Council's darlings and ends up cutting deals with Dennis Kucinich by the Iowa caucus - all while staying more committed to his original positions than any other candidate. I call it breathtaking, and I'm glad that Kerry decided riding a Harley is for candy-asses; real men choose more sexy men for their VP runningmates.

The media establishment's belief that no non-ivy-leaguer could possibly have intelligence AND character aside, Edwards is both mentally able and possessed of a rigid conscience. He's proven himself on the issues, and in the debates. And his defending his decision on the Iraq war (which I disagreed with but respect) while continuing to assess the results realistically indicate he takes his word more seriously than most of the Senate, and, frankly, than Kerry. And Edwards' hope and optimism is not just schtick either. He's had that hope and optimism since he entered politics. It was about 6 1/2 years ago that a no-name political novice told his supporters the "train is leaving the station." He never once stopped smiling and enjoying himself during the campaign, then, and his enthusiasm is not something chosen and learned - otherwise it would easily be simulated by others. And I also think that Edwards life has been tested in a way that makes comparison's to the "Breck Girl" unseemly and insulting. This man lost his son, his best friend when the child was only 16. His life was changed forever. And while it may not have been the impetus for his political aspirations, it certainly is what put him on the train. I see it guiding him now on the campaign trail.

This is a man for whom life has been a happy challenge, followed by a tragic moment, who has turned that moment into yet another happy challenge, this one guided by faith and a sense of duty. I'm a romantic when it comes to politics, a lover of the Wellstones, the Sanfords, the Bobby Kennedys of the world. But to me, one of the most redeeming features of being in this country is believing that Edwards' combination of optimism and challenge and the progress that is forged, both personally and societally from it, is what makes America great.

His policy positions reflect someone willing to not just learn the issues, but also put forward actual realistic and often unconventional ideas. His health care plan represent an understanding that fixing health care means addressing the problems of insurance-abuse, bad-medicine, and frivolous lawsuits with the patient, and most importantly, the uninsured in mind first. While the GOP hopes to take advantage of stereotypes of trial lawyers, Edwards is worried about the problems of real people, patients in rural areas and the doctors who serve them.

One of the most interesting proposals Edwards has made, narrowing the anti-trust exemptions that esssentially allows Medical Malpractice insurers to collude on premium rates. This is a big idea. Why aren't we talking about it? So is his idea to make lawyers bring MedMal cases swear that they have an expert willing to testify that real malpractice occured. But alas, "he's just a trial lawyer" is all CNN and the other lemmings can muster.

I say let them, because the more the GOP and the media come at Edwards with the lawyer=evil argument the more we're going to see the stories of who he represented. There's a lot of things wrong with MedMal cases, and the system is broke, there's no doubt. But in a political fight, I don't think this will be close. Because whatever you think about lawyers in general, John Edwards is probably the best poster boy we lawyers could have.

Which brings me to my final observation about Edwards. I know him. Not personally, but I know him from the perspective of someone that worked to defeat him in the 1998 Democratic primary for the NC Senate seat. And I know this, that there is hardly a person who has anything bad to say about John Edwards the man and the lawyer - basically the consensus was that he was simply ethical, brilliant and hard-working.

I fought like hell to see DG Martin beat him, like so many involved in politics, I left a chunk of my soul in that campaign. I believed I was right then to do so, and because DG would have made a great Senator, I'm proud of the work I did. In short, I've got plenty of reasons to oppose John Edwards. But today, having seen Edwards, and knowing what makes the Democratic party great, I can't think of a better person to be our President than John Edwards. And though I know a great many other consideratons must have come into play, I'm glad John Kerry seems to think so, too.

No, it makes perfect sense

2004-07-02T04:55:00.000-07:00

From time to time, I love to talk basketball, specifically the college game, and more specifically UNC basketball. Politics are not the only place where the battle between good and "evil" may be played out. (Just as conservatism is only "evil" in the sense that good - progressivism - needs an opposite, Duke is only "evil" in the sense that UNC needs an arch rival. Unlike certain public figures, I don't need such a dichotomy to stir my coffee.)

So expect to hear about college basketball here. But why in July? Well, stories are flying now that Duke head Coach Mike Krzyzewski has been offered a job with the Los Angeles Lakers. (This made NPR's "the-one-sports-story-we're-going-to-indulge-in" spot!) And, there is a pretty strong feeling, not surprisingly among college coaches and pundits, that K would be crazy to leave. I don't think so. And I make this suggestion as someone who appreciates Coach K's talents, even though I am not nearly as impressed with them as the media seems to be and, for obvious reasons, not a fan. Larry Brown, the UNC Alum and Dean Smith protege, has shown Coach K the way.

You see, I think that after all the recent changes to the college and pro games, Coach K's talents might be better used at the NBA level. What are those talents? Instilling defensive fundamentals and creating a very devastating perimeter oriented offense, then utilizing a cleared out paint area to cut and get dribble penetration to get to the line. This in short, seems very similar to the system that Larry Brown used to beat the Lakers senseless in the Finals. The Pistons' guards could all knock down open threes, as well as Rasheed Wallace. And the big men for the Piston's were undersized and athletic, something Coach K likes a great deal. It's not hard to imagine that K could, with the right players, create the same thing in LA.

And the Lakers may be dealing with the personnel issue. It looks like the Lakers are going to make a responsible decision and dump aging Shaquille O'Neal (possibly for the younger Dirk Nowistki) and keep Kobe (at least free Kobe) as well as lose Karl Malone to retirement. This is good, because Dirk is in the style of big man Coach K likes, and Coach K hasn't been happy with two solid post players since Jay Bilas and Danny Meagher helped him into his first NCAA Finals. The Lakers wouldn't want many big people around earning big salaries to sit in the "Greg Newton/Eric Meek/Casey Sanders chair".

The Lakers next year may be smaller, less dependent on a dominant post game, and able to take advantage of K's spread offensive sets. They will need some kind of inside defensive presence (like his native Germany, Dirk has a history as an offensive threat, not as a great defender) and they may need to pick up some three-point bombers, but after that K will just need to convince them to buy into his defensive concept. And the Lakers, of all teams, have the best reason to take his message to heart.

A lot of people will cite K's record as a "teacher" and the difficulty of "teaching" pro players as the best reason why he shouldn't leave, but I don't really buy this. K is a great basketball coach, and a great teacher, but he's not a teacher like a Dean Smith. K teaches teams, Smith taught players. Smith taught teams as well, but his focus was to instill team chemistry by proving to his players that he was focused on their individual development - the team became Coach Smith, and every player would die for Coach Smith, because he was teaching with more of an individual focus. Coach K, I believe, cares more about the team result rather than player development. It's not that I don't believe he cares about his players as individuals. But his coaching more often uses language such as, "you need to do this to make us a better team", whereas Coach Smith might say "this will make you a better player." As evidence, I'd cite that Carolina's great teams were much deeper than Coach K and Coach Smith was much quicker to use his full bench than Coach K seems to be, even though his great recruiting lands some pretty great bench warmers.

Of all the complaints about NBA players, and there are many, I think the greatest problem is that NBA teams are not really teams at all. They are focused on being players first. They don't need an individual teacher as much as college players do (college players don't know the fundamentals, NBA players ignore the fundamentals). Sure they need someone to sit them down or trade them if they aren't willing to things, as Larry Brown's calls it, "the right way." But what they need more than anything is someone that takes control, focuses the team, and gets every player clear about their role. That's what I think Coach K has done very well over the course of his career.

And what's left at the college level? I don't think much. It's not that K has proven he can conquer the highest mountain, but rather, that K isn't going to enjoy another 7 years like the last 7 years. Early NBA defections have crippled his last two recruiting classes. The ACC went against both Duke and UNC's strong objections to a football oriented expansion, which dilutes the strength of the ACC basketball schedule. And at the same time, the neighborhood is decided tougher than the ACC was from 1998-2004. Carolina and Wake Forest are done transitioning through coaching changes and are on very solid ground. NC State is also back as a nationally prominent program. Maryland is the most recent NCAA title holder in the conference, and may finally be a modern version of the UCLA of the East that Lefty Driesell once envisioned. Georgia Tech is a returning Final Four team with a great coach. And even Florida State is headed in the right direction. In short, Duke's first ACC final loss in 6 years this past March was less an aberration than it was a game of Russian Roullette that ended as it always would. Duke's starting lineup next year might not be in the top four in the conference, and recruiting isn't getting any easier.

Finally, if it's really about relationships, K's got to note that his college players (especially the best ones, the ones that reportedly he dotes on the most) are also the ones least likely to be bound to their scholarship commitments. In the NBA, you sign a guy to a four-year contract, he stays for four years unless you trade him, in college, that's not the case. The other problems K might have with pro players might very well pale in comparison with this problem with his college players.

He's now lost 3 players to the NBA or unconsummated recruitments - Luol Deng and Shaun Livingston will be Chicago Bulls next year, Chris Humphries decided last summer to bail on his commitement to Duke and go to Minnesota instead. As much as K loves players like Steve Wojokowski, he's got to see that the Christian Laettners and Grant Hills are a thing of the past. And even the Jason Williams are probably distant memories. K can definitely compete in this new atmosphere, he may even benefit from it. But it's pretty clear he doesn't like it.

The NBA may be a challenge, Coach K will be a college coach in the NBA, whereas Larry Brown has been a pro coach for a very long time and is probably one of the two or three most respected NBA coaches. It is quite simply impossible to quantify how much less Coach K's NBA players would respect (and fear) him than his college players do. But it was a challenge when he took over Duke, and Duke didn't have Kobe, Luke Walton, Gary Payton and possibly Dirk Nowistki.

What happens to Duke if K does leave....Well, it's too early to consider that. Though I admit it is fun (Karma, my Duke friends, is a very dangerous thing.)

Justifying Dick's Mouth

2004-06-30T18:52:00.000-07:00

1. Though it was on the Senate floor, Dick's comments weren't a violation of Senate rules, because they told Sen. Leahy to "Go" somewhere before doing it. That would be the Condi Rice version.

2. Well, at least they've learned that saying "Bring it on" doesn't work in a fight.

3. More brilliant misdirection. See instead of realizing that Dick's intent is for him to to F%&^ us all, Dick's got us thinking he wants the Demoocrats to F*#* themselves. We'll never figure that one out!

4. Seeing that last statement and judging from the hairdos at the Republican convention, if the GOP really does tell us Democrats to go F#&^ ourselves, should we really be offended? Does it really change our plans?

5. Ashcroft wasn't able to throw the veil over his mouth in time. Tom Ridge was not aware of any reason to need the veil.

6. Dick just wanted to see whether, if he said something like that, Con. Robin Hayes (R-NC) would suggest using Lysol spray to clean up afterwards.

7. This is a side effect of Viagra they don't mention in the ads.

8. Dick didn't realize that if Senators could do that, they, of all people, would never leave the bed.

10. It wasn't so bad, Dick did tell Leahy that if he wasn't sure how to perform the act, Colin Powell has the instructions down pat.

11. Well, if you're Dick Cheney, telling someone to go to Hell is kind of an ironic insult.

Andy Travis, we need you!

2004-06-30T15:11:00.000-07:00

NPR is running a story today about a new format on FM radio (neoRadio) that's gaining some popularity. The novel idea? They play more music! (And apparently be like college stations and public radio stations.)

It got me to thinking, in light of the histrionics about how divided this country is, that whether you believe civil war is about to start or not (I don't for later stated reasons) one thing that may be dividing us up more than anything is the lack of decent radio station to which we can all turn. We no longer really tune into radio, and if we do, it's usually to a single station that has a tiny playlist, or we listen to NPR all day or talk radio. As a result, the single most ubiquitous collective media in this country for the last 8 decades is more or less become an assortment of caves which many of us never enter and all of us come out angry at the other caves' dwellers. (there's a Plato reference here that a more erudite writer might nail, but not me. At least I wrote erudite!)

Now, I'm no radio historian, but it seems that 20 years ago radio stations were not nearly as specialized, and as a result it was more likely that people would be listening to the same one. More importantly, they were more likely to be trying to play the latest Springsteen song or Run DMC tune than hitting us with commercial after commercial. We even listened to AM stations for music on occasion, though mostly this was oldies.

But at some point, the radio dial became Balkanized, and now, music radio has become just plain bad. And when it became bad, when people got into their cars they went for something that wasn't so bad. Some folks, like my brother, turned to Talk Radio, others, like myself, turned to NPR. Now there comes a certain point when you just can't reconcile what you hear on NPR and Talk Radio. Somebody's lying (I'd say, look for the ones with actual real fact checkers to judge who's telling the truth. But that issue will be repeatedly and thoroughly addressed.) and the other side's got every reason not to believe a word the other guy says. Thus, we have Michael Moore and Bill O'Reilly going at it, it's no wonder we think we're so far apart.

So, why is radio becoming so Balkanized?

Of course radio was always somewhat specialized. In my hometown of Greensboro, there was Rock 92, playing classic rock, 102Jamz playing hip-hop and R&B, KissFM to play pop, WTQR playing country, etc, and in many ways they still occupy the same slightly more narrow genre. But nowadays Radio is in-your-face about being specialized, and more often than not, that specialization is not the result of a station's very own Andy Travis, Venus Flytrap and Dr. Fever coming up with their own unique playlists to fit within a wider genre. Rather it's the decision of market analysts and corporations running the stations from distant towns.

As a result of this, the rather particular tastes of the American music lover aren't usually satisfied by radio. The truth is, that while radio has become more intensely formatted, Americans have become much more diverse in their taste. I think this is the result of a several things. First, the introduction and ultimate adoption of Rap into the mainstream in the 80s and 90s linked that music with openly political white music. Thus, RunDMC gave birth to Mike D, while Chuck D gave birth to Rage against the Machine. And the introduction of Rap reintroduced Jazz which reintroduced retro, which allowed bluegrass to come back, which buoyed and was buoyed back by Alt. Country which means you see CD collections with Drive By Truckers, Tribe Called Quest, Wilco, Coletrane and Woody Guthrie, and Benfolds Five.

Second, Rock died, at least as an adult version of the sort of culture dominating music that today is only the domain for Pop bands. Stadium Rock is dead, and thus nobody is waiting around for Aerosmith tickets. Okay, that's not true, they are, but the fact that people are still waiting around for Aerosmith and Bruce Springsteen to sell out stadium concerts is pretty good evidence that Stadium Rock is dying.

There are other reasons about which I know too little to fully describe articulate - the effect of payola, the development of smaller, more independent labels able to introduce new sounds, etc. But the basic point is that where radio has zigged, the collective music taste of America zagged and disbanded, meaning radio can't gobble everybody up as easily.

And, yes, radio became banal and vapid, to use two adjectives I'm sure are not tossed around during morning drive time. There's a reason why folks like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura pass as intelligent on talk radio, just down the dial is Billy Bob and John Boy. The only worthwhile result of the FCC's otherwise craven attack on free speech is that it may force some of these fools out of the business or at least to pay some penance for the bad taste they have wrought upon the American public.

Finally, not too long ago, I was somewhere outside of the reach of public radio, and without mix tapes. I have at times (since I stopped moving the dial past 92 outside of searching for Carolina basketball and Football games) thought that maybe I'm being too much of a snob by totally ignoring commercial radio. But, after searching the dial, I was comforted by remembering why they call it commercial radio. 2-3 minutes of commercial breaks later, I realized it's not that I'm a music snob, it's that when I turn on the radio and leave the comforting voice of Bob Edwards, I like to hear actual music, not commercials. And that's why I left the mainstream, the mainstream is so intent on commercials it makes that self-indulgent, esoteric-as-a-raison-d'etre idiot of a college DJ's two minute tangents seem worthwhile to catch some Modest Mouse or a deep track from Otis Redding. Commercial radio plays the same songs day after day and gives us commercials that treat the listener like a mindless slave to bad taste and Car Dealer rebates.

The truth is, I sometimes catch myself listening to NPR and give myself a good adolescent brow-beating, thinking I should just go ahead and hook an IV of metamucil up, by a volvo and join AARP to get it all over with. At 29, that's a said path to take. I'd love to have a radio station that played music I liked, and even some I hadn't heard. And I'd like it even more if it were to bring Americans back to the higher side of the FM dial for music. WE NEED MORE MUSIC, LESS TALK. At least, if the talk is going to be Michael Moore against Bill O'Reilly.

Quotable? Bloody unbelievable!!!

2004-06-29T09:30:00.000-07:00

Go here and scroll down to "quotable" and just be stunned. Though I wonder where the ellipses in this quote lead, it appears that even Jesse Helms thinks Bush has taken tax cuts too far.

Okay, I'm not one to leave you in suspense, here's the quote:

"I would not have voted for [President Bush's] tax cut, based on what I know. . . . There is no doubt that the people at the top who need a tax break the least will get the most benefit. . . . Too often presidents do things that don't end up helping the people they should be helping, and their staffs won't tell them their actions stink on ice."

Needless to say, this isn't some little throwaway line to add to an otherwise totally unrelated Washington Post article about convention speakers. This is something to spend an entire editorial section on. As a North Carolinian, my jaw dropped. When did my former Senator become Teddy Kennedy? About a year ago, Jesse apologized for his opposition to AIDS research, now this?! What's next, support for affirmative-action?

What's interesting about Helms suddenly having religion (for real this time) on taxes, is that it's about as diametrically opposed to the current North Carolina GOP as you could possibly be. One Republican running for Richard Burr's 5th District Congressional seat proudly proclaims that she has never voted against a tax cut. Not that she merely opposes tax increases and additional government spending, but that she basically will agree to any tax cut, regardless of consequences. Granted, this is in the midst of the parallel universe that is a Republican primary (every candidate has subtly decided to not proclaim that end times are nigh, and the Lord is Risen in showing how much they support Christian values), but I'd hope even the most anti-tax conservatives can do the math to figure out that not every tax cut is a smart tax cut.

Apparently Jesse can. And I'm happy for him. In fact, in many ways North Carolina Democrats owe a debt to Jesse Helms, he's led the Republicans here towards the cliffs of political oblivion. And it looks like, while he was able to keep running like the roadrunner, the rest will follow Wile E. Coyote. Instead of opting for Elizabeth Dole's camouflaged as compassionate conservatism, the GOP continues to pursue GOD, GOD, GOD and more GOD, which means they scare the daylights out of moderate North Carolinians. A nasty little secret of this "red" state is that precious few GOP candidates besides Helms have been able to garner more than 52% of the vote in statewide elections. All but two of the current statewide offices are held by Democrats, and Helms clone Lauch Faircloth was dumped by a then relatively unknown John Edwards. While North Carolina voters gave Helms the benefit of the doubt, as attitudes shifted through the 1980s and 1990s, they haven't given the same to his conservative followers. (And this is not simply because of race. Incumbency is the biggest asset Helms has, and even the far right candidates running for the GOP are afraid to be as blatantly racial in their campaigns as Helms.)

Unfortunately, the GOP primary has become extraordinarily more focused on conservative bonafides such as opposition to abortion, gay marriage and tax cuts at any cost. There really has been no other Republican hero in this state besides Jesse Helms,
ever. So his strategy is the template for most GOP candidates and his endorsement is the greatest bounty in primaries. However, this makes the mistake of seeing North Carolina's political trajectory as headed towards the right side of the political spectrum, following more conservative states in the deep south and the rural west. In truth, the history of this state is one of rather stable balance in the middle of the spectrum, a state more concerned about economic progress than conservative piety. There's no reason to expect that history of moderation to change, especially as North Carolina becomes more dependent upon the sorts of industries that require highly educated workers and voters than places like Mississippi or Montana.

In gerrymandered districts (especially those stripped of Democratic votes because of majority-minority districts) Helms' conservatism can win the day. But statewide, a moderate Democrat is starting from a strong advantage over a GOP candidate either anointed in Pat Robertson/Franklin Graham sort of conservative beauty contest or mortally wounded as a moderate pragmatic choice in the same.

There are a lot of complaints I have about the current state of the North Carolina Democratic Party, and ways in which I think it could be more effective. This state still has elements which retard social progress. But thanks to Jesse Helms, this state is only Red in the imaginations of beltway pundits.

And we're worried about Iraqis losing people?

2004-06-17T04:24:00.000-07:00

Seven months later, however, the detainee - a reputed senior officer of Ansar al-Islam, a group the United States has linked to Al Qaeda and blames for some attacks in Iraq - is still languishing at the prison but has only been questioned once while in detention, in what government officials acknowledged was an extraordinary lapse.

"Once he was placed in military custody, people lost track of him, a senior intelligence official conceded Wednesday night. "The normal review processes that would keep track of him didn't."

Yep, "military custody" can be a black hole that way. That somewhat disturbing admission is found in this article in the Times on how

Rumsfeld and Tenet authorized the hiding of Iraqi detainees from the Red Cross. "Proud" to be an American is taking on an entirely different meaning these days. Isn't it.

Introducing Lean Forward

2004-06-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

Finally, no more long emails to my friends about news items they never even considered. (I'm sure those included in reply-all dialogues will breathe a sigh of relief.) No, after years of pontificating in the semi-private space of my own To list, I'm now officially publishing the diatribes. Probably not daily, but hopefully weekly. In the mean time I'll point out some news items that catch my eye. And just to make it interesting I'll be hitting a point or two about food, music, sports and culture every now and then.

The title is a reference to a chapter ending line from Jack Kerouac's On the Road: "But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneathe the skies." Not only does it symbolize the adventurous uninhibited experience of America that I think is healthy, (though perhaps less medicated than Cassidy) but it also embodies the general direction of society - not quite ready to take the next step, but always needing to move our feet to keep from falling on our own face.

So let the games begin...