Who's The Security Risk?-Part 2

(EDIT 1/20/2010-See below)

This article ("Another Reason America Is At War") from the Chicago Sun-Times pretty much says it all. It's consistent with the notion that the only reason why the U.S. hasn't suffered a catastrophic terrorist attack since 2001 is because al Qaeda keeps sending incompetent mopes to attack us (i.e., Richard Reid and the latest chuckle-head).

For some years after 9/11, passengers were forbidden to get up to use the lavatory on the Washington-New York shuttle. Zero tolerance! I suppose it must eventually have occurred to somebody that this ban would not deter a person who was willing to die, so the rule was scrapped. But now the principle has been revisited for international flights, and fresh idiocies are in store. Nothing in your lap during final approach. Do you feel safer? If you were a suicide-killer, would you feel thwarted or deterred?


Why do we fail to detect or defeat the guilty, and why do we do so well at collective punishment of the innocent? The answer to the first question is: Because we can't -- or won't. The answer to the second question is: Because we can. The fault here is not just with our endlessly incompetent security services, who give the benefit of the doubt to people who should have been arrested long ago or at least had their visas and travel rights revoked. It is also with a public opinion that sheepishly bleats to be made to ''feel safe.'' The demand to satisfy that sad illusion can be met with relative ease if you pay enough people to stand around and stare significantly at the citizens' toothpaste.

The full column can be found here.

Edit 1/20/2010:   Steve Dahl's 1/13/10 column in the Chicago Tribune, Feeling naked and alone in the security line, repeats the question: are our reactive security measures making us more secure?

Who's The Security Risk?

So another dim bulb supposedly sent by al Qaeda has tried to blow up an American jet preparing to land in Detroit. Predictably, Homeland Security has "tightened" security rules in the aftermath. So far, we don't know much beyond the flight started in Nigeria, flew to Amsterdam, and then to Detroit. How this mope managed to get explosive materials on the flight remains to be seen, but the new rules we're likely to see will mostly make travel for the rest of us more difficult.

Am I missing something, or should we be doing things to make life difficult for al Qaeda and its hangers-on, rather than the vast majority of travelers? Some reports indicate this guy smuggled his explosives in his underwear from Nigeria. Now, everyone flying is going to be restricted to their seats for the last hour of their flight and won't be allowed to have anything on their laps during that time (including laptops and pillows). Presumably this would be to prevent the rest of us from setting fire to our pants (as this clown apparently did) while hidden by a blanket (or a laptop?). Wouldn't it make more sense to ensure that these jerks can't carry on explosives in their pants while the rest of us are carrying on laptops?

There's already been a report that U.S. officials were aware for two years that this particular Nigerian "could have terrorist ties." Despite that, he wasn't on any lists preventing him from taking commercial flights into the U.S. What's the point in knowing of potential terrorists if you don't think it's worth keeping them out of the U.S.?

What's wrong with this picture? If the Nigerian airport is unable or unwilling to adequately screen passengers leaving the country, wouldn't it make sense to prohibit flights originating there to land here? And if the passengers on this flight were also screened at the Amsterdam airport (which supposedly has a "good reputation for security"), what on earth happened?

In the meantime, the rest of the traveling public will be subject to more ineffective inconvenience and discomfort while flying. Bring on high speed rail service.

EDIT (12/29/09): As usual, Andy Borowitz gets to the heart of the matter with his "Department of Homeland Security Issues Terrorist ID Cards" article.

Anti-rape Amendment Signed Into Law

Back in October, I wrote about Jon Stewart's lampooning of Republican Senators who had voted against a Defense Dept. bill to ban contractors from restricting employee rights to go to court over workplace discrimination, including workplace rape.

Well, the legislation introduced by freshman Senator Al Franken was eventually passed and has now been signed into law by the President. You can read about it at ThinkProgress.org. There are also links to articles about how the Republicans were startled that Americans were unhappy with their votes against the measure.

Go figure.

Welcome To The New Dark Age

Two newspaper articles this week highlight a growing problem: lots of people with opinions, but not necessarily much information. One is a local story and the other is a global one. And underlying this issue is the fact that a growing number of organizations, both mass media outlets (newspapers, television, and their web presences) and what I'll call non-media (everything else), feel compelled to give voice to every "Tom, Dick, and Harry" out there. And some are way out there.

The AP article starts by talking about the shouting going on at the climate change conference in Denmark this week. The author points out that there is little of traditional debate left in the mix, with both sides largely shouting at each other, beating each other with opinions. Facts, and science, are left in the dust. "And public debate shifts from the provable and the empirical toward the spectacle of argument."

There has long been a bias on the part of the public against intellectuals and science, and some feel this was because the public simply didn't trust intellectuals and scientists. This carries over to public perception of intelligence in general, and spawned those bumper stickers that read "My kid can beat up your honor role student." The pursuit of mediocrity at best.

The spawn of the Internet has made things even worse. Our electronic communications encourage the expression of opinions, whether or not the opinions are based even a little bit on fact. Facts and information are kicked to the curb in favor of "beliefs" and judgments, and truth is irrelevant.

"What you have is the (presumption) of expertise by ordinary people who feel their opinions are as valuable as anybody else's. And at the same time, you have experts behaving like gods beyond what they know," says Frank Furedi, a sociologist at the University of Kent and author of "Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?"

The second article is a story about a library in the Chicago suburbs that implemented a new online catalog of its holdings. Part of the new software provided for patrons to "tag" books "with terms they think other readers might find useful." All patrons have to do is sign up with a user name and email address and they can tag to their heart's content. The "news" in this case is that someone tagged the library's collection of Anne Coulter's books with the term "hate speech." This in turn, made another patron very upset. The upset patron felt that the library was letting people make "political statements" on the library's site and felt that was wrong. The library doesn't closely monitor the tagging and will only remove tags that are "explicit materials or racial slurs."

My question is why does the library feel it's a good idea to have patron tagging of books in their online catalog? Just because the new software enables this, what point is served? Does the library really thing it's a good idea for patrons to peruse one or two word "tags" in order to decide if they want to read a particular book? Not only is this not encouraging critical thinking skills, it's pandering to the lowest denominator. Other libraries allow tagging, but require the submitter to also provide a book review, which might at least be an indication the commenter actually read the book.

What makes a patron qualified to recommend or criticize a book or author with word tags? What makes a newspaper article reader qualified to expound about why the article is all wrong? What qualifications do either bring to the table?

My 11/22/09 post also dealt with this issue of ignorant opinions and news outlets.

The ignorant comments of the public after news articles (about ignorant comments of politicians) are even more worrisome than the politicians' statements. The anonymous public vitriol tends to discourage rational discussion, and is little more than online bullying. For an excellent post on what's wrong with the public comment sections of news related web sites, read Steve Dahl's excellent 11/11/09 article "Everybody is a know-it-all these days."

This issue is not going away and I remain convinced that society needs to find a way back to the process of debate based on facts. We need to abandon our apparently growing penchant for encouraging ignorant shouting by people unconcerned with knowing anything about the topic at hand. I'm not very hopeful.

Greil Marcus, an American cultural historian and co-author of "A New Literary History of America," remembers watching TV in the 1950s, "when there were all these TV dramas about science vs. religion." And, he says, "science always won."

No more, Marcus says. Instead, cacophony now prevails and the right to be heard trumps what is being said. "Welcome to the new Dark Ages," he says.

Climate Change Links

Added some new links to climate change articles. One is from the BBC and consists of a slideshow on how residents are adapting to climate changes (flooding) in Vietnam. Another is an article from Discover Magazine investigating whether the core of the Antarctic icepack is melting.

Montana? Who Knew?

Who knew that there once was a fairly large Jewish population in Montana? In the 19th century, Helena had a synagogue that seated 500 people. This article is about the fact that today there are three Rabbis in Montana. The story deals with a problem with the Helena police department's Israeli trained police dog, named named Miky:

Miky, pronounced Mikey, is in a Diaspora of his own. He was born in an animal shelter in Holland and shipped as a puppy to Israel, where he was trained by the Israeli Defense Forces to sniff out explosives. Then one day, Miky got a plane ticket to America. Rather than spend the standard $20,000 on a bomb dog, the Helena Police Department had shopped around and discovered that it could import a surplus bomb dog from the Israeli forces for the price of the flight. So Miky came to his new home in Helena, to join the police force.

The problem, the officer explained, was that Miky had been trained entirely in Hebrew.

You can read the rest of the story and learn how one of the state's three Rabbis is helping out with Miky and teaching his handler how to correctly pronounce the pooch's commands.

Thoughts for the Day

My friend Pat sent me these and I thought they were both insightful and hilarious! Hope you enjoy.

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.
3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.
4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.
5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
6. Was learning cursive really necessary?
7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.
10. Bad decisions make good stories.
11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.
12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.
13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.
14. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this thing I have-- ever.
15. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Damn it!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?
16. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
17. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
18. My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?
19. I think the freezer deserves a light as well..
20. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet, on any given Friday or Saturday night, more kisses begin with Bud Light than with a Kay jeweler product.

Climate Change Links

I have run into an annoying number of people lately who still don't "believe" that global warming is happening, or that humans are largely responsible for it. I doubt that there's any way to convince them to read the research, since they've apparently already passed up that opportunity numerous times. The information is out there; for some reason, some people would rather dismiss it as some sort of "liberal conspiracy" or a disguised attack on "our liberties."

Regardless of whether you accept that the human dependency on fossil fuels since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution is the culprit, it seems to me that denying that there is a problem is just plain nonsense. Whatever is causing the temperature increase, it's effecting us and our world, and in some very scary ways. Doing nothing would not seem to be an option. Science tells us that there have been at least 5 major extinctions in the past. The difference now is that humans are aware (allegedly) of their surroundings, their impact on the environment, and have some ability to change how they interact with the environment. The dinosaurs weren't and didn't.

I've decided to start collecting links to various online resources that cover the subject of global warming, climate change, or whatever other label may apply. I'm putting the links in a section at the bottom of the blog titled "Links About Climate Change - Especially For Those Who Don't "Believe" In Global Warming." Hopefully, it may be useful to those who are interested enough to read up on the topic. I don't plan to include any technical articles, because they tend to be pretty obtuse and hard to follow. I'd welcome comments as well as other links you may come across.

The first few links are from some Marketplace.org radio broadcasts and Discover Magazine. They present specific examples of how fossil fuels have raised temperatures with unexpected results and how CO2 (from fossil fuels) may be damaging our oceans more than anyone foresaw.

The World May Be Ending

It's entirely possible that the world is coming to an end. Not because of anything the Religious Right has foreseen, or Glenn Beck, or even Sarah Palin. No, the universe may be verging on imploding because Harriet Carter, the online version of the decades old catalog purveyor of gadgets and trinkets none of us ever knew we actually needed, is on Twitter.

Harriet Carter has been selling stuff from a catalog since about 1958, items including the doggy "Potty Patch" (so your pooch can take a dump inside and not ruin your carpet), the "Fanny Bank" (a plastic coin bank that looks like a bare butt; you can see where the coins go), a heated ice cream scoop, the "Marshmallow Popper" (a kids' toy gun that rapid-fires mini-marshmallows), and "The Solitaire Board" (which allows you to "play your favorite card games anywhere, even if you don't have a table!"). Does anyone actually use cards to play solitaire anymore?

A lot of the items Harriet Carter sells remind me of the kind of chachkas you used to be able to buy at "five and dime stores," like JJ Newberry, Woolworth, WT Grant, or Ben Franklin. They've almost all gone to retailer heaven and most Americans don't remember they even existed or that Kresge became K-Mart. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Harriet is still there ready to supply us.

Anyway, Harriet Carter apparently has decided that this social networking thing is here to stay, so she wants you Twits to "follow" her on Twitter. This company is just one of many that has decided that there's money to be made via Twitter, and it's leading me to conclude that while I thought Twitter was a goofy concept to begin with, the prospect of corporations sending tweets about products I should seriously purchase makes it even less attractive.

I'll do without hearing about what celebrities had for lunch today, or what Harriet Carter thinks I absolutely must have. If the world is ending anyway, I won't have anyplace to store more "stuff."

Politics and Global Warming

I'm not sure what to make of the fact that there seems to be a vocal minority in the US that still doesn't believe than humans created the world's pollution levels and that the pollution has caused global temperatures to rise over the years and that this temperature rise is a threat to us. If you use the commentary section on newspaper web sites as an indicator, it would appear that there are an awful lot of these folks out there; more on that later.

In a recent news report on the current Governor's race in Illinois, the Daily Herald reported that five of the seven candidates for the Republican nomination don't "believe" that humans have caused global warming. One candidate allowed that humans "contribute" to global warming, but wasn't sure how much. The seventh candidate hedged his bets and stated he believes global warming research is "still evolving." I'm surprised he was brave enough to use the word "evolve."

The question was raised to elicit comment from the candidates on their views of "cap and trade" legislation at the Federal level. As such, it's really of small importance to the potential Governor of Illinois, but these candidates felt the need to explain their opposition to cap and trade. Rather than simply stating that they felt that a cap and trade approach to reducing pollution would have an unacceptable detrimental impact on business and employment (presumably because they think cap and trade will add costs to doing business), these politicians felt that they needed to attack the very notion that humans caused the climate changes scientists are observing. The public comments these people made are positively stunning in the depth of ignorance they displayed:

"I don't accept the premise that man is the cause of global warming, if global warming even exists," Kirk Dillard, a state senator from Hinsdale, said at a candidate forum last week.

"Global warming is not created by man and anybody who says that, it's just bad science. It's not true," said Bob Schillerstrom, chairman of the DuPage County Board.

Dan Proft, a Chicago-area public relations consultant, said Al Gore and other global warming activists are "kind of enviro-terrorists."

The State of Illinois is staggering under huge budget deficits, a regressive state income tax that hasn't been changed in a generation, more corrupt politicians than you can shake a stick at, and a public education system that is going bankrupt due to its reliance on property taxes. One could argue that the position of a potential Illinois Governor on global warming, climate change, and whether humans or polar bears caused these problems is of little relevance to the Chief Executive of the State. One would probably be mostly correct.

On the other hand, the fact that five candidates for statewide office had no compunction making such patently ridiculous statements in a public forum is disturbing for another reason. These politicians are so busy pandering to the "GOP base," that they can't accept what every middle school student knows is true; there's no explanation for global warming and its impact on climate besides humans and the pollution we have generated.

Now back to the online comments made by newspaper readers. This article generated the same kind of vitriolic and ignorant rants that cause me to generally avoid reading such commentary. Virtually all of these comments are posted by people using pseudonyms and their anonymity empowers them to make broad assertions as if they were facts. While they lambaste other commenters for making unsubstantiated or false "liberal" or "left-wing" statements about global warming, these posters make just as unsubstantiated claims masquerading as fact. Some of them make simple blanket statements about how well wildlife is faring in the Arctic, as if to settle the fallacy of global warming for everyone.

The ignorant comments of the public after news articles (about ignorant comments of politicians) are even more worrisome than the politicians' statements. The anonymous public vitriol tends to discourage rational discussion, and is little more than online bullying. For an excellent post on what's wrong with the public comment sections of news related web sites, read Steve Dahl's excellent 11/11/09 article "Everybody is a know-it-all these days."

In the end, it's impossible to debate with these folks and expect that they will ever be able to modify their viewpoint. If they don't "believe" in global warming by now, they never will.

Nothing To Do? Fake A Kidnapping?

This post may be about the goofiest story for the month: the wife of a Florida health care executive faked being kidnapped by a mechanic and tried to extort ransom money from her wealthy husband. The Associated Press account can be found here.

I thought one of the strangest aspects of the story are the names of the principals. The wife's name is Quinn Gray, the husband's name is Reid Gray, and the mechanic's name is Jasmin Osmanovic. It's too bad the husband and wife aren't lawyers, because they've got a built-in name for their firm: Quinn, Reid, and Gray. The names alone are enough to begin a script for the Lifetime Channel. The story line is also silly enough for an episode of Psych. It includes a note from the wife that she'd been kidnapped for ransom, phone calls in which she gave instructions for dropping off the ransom, and a bunch of college kids stumbling across the ransom delivery and panicking because they thought they'd gotten in the middle of some sort of drug transaction. Finally, the story includes Mr. Gray's decision not to divorce his apparently loony-tune wife, who was taken into custody and told FBI agents that "her kidnapper worked for a loan shark who wanted her husband to pay up."

Made for TV.

Gay Rights As Civil Rights

There's been a lot of coverage this past week over the recent vote in Maine repealing gay marriage in that State. I know that much, if not most, of the funding on both sides of the issue came from outside Maine, and that fact bothers me. I don't like the idea of "outside" money being used to sway "local" opinions on a referendum. I get lots of emails soliciting financial support for lobbying efforts around the country, and I generally don't participate, unless it's for something that is on my ballot. I don't want people in other States telling me what I should do, and I don't want to tell them what they should do. That said, I do support the right of gay couples to marry.

Those that oppose it seem to focus on the "sanctity" of marriage, but that argument seems to be fallacious when one considers that the majority of heterosexual marriages in this country end in divorce. If marriage is sacred, why have we made it so easy to dissolve one?

At any rate, it's hard to rationally counter the shouting of the religious right on this topic, unless you're comfortable with debating the finer points of biblical texts. Burt Constable's column "Don't remember the Maine vote, just keep eyes on gay prize," does a good job of it with a discussion of Rev. Gilbert H. Caldwell, a retired, black, heterosexual, Methodist minister who is a new member of the Board of Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).

This week's vote in Maine against gay rights was disappointing, but Caldwell calls it another example of "letting the majority determine the rights of the minority." If not for court decisions upholding the rights of the minority, some states still might vote to ban interracial marriage or integrated schools, Caldwell notes.

You might expect a retired minister to be fluent with biblical texts, and Rev. Caldwell, who was an active participant in the fight for civil rights in the early 1960s with Martin Luther King, does not disappoint.

People who use the Bible to deny rights to gays, "use the Bible to sustain their bias," Caldwell says. "And that, to me, does great damage to the sacred book for those of us who are Christian. I say we've done damage to the depth and breath of scripture when we have used the Bible as a book to bash people."

There is a certain calming influence to Rev. Caldwell's words. He urges us to be steadfast and not be discouraged and to continue to seek equality for everyone. He paraphrases a Martin Luther King quote "Today we know with certainty that segregation is dead. The only question remaining is how costly will be the funeral":

Caldwell says the days when civil rights belong only to the heterosexual population are dying. "We're in the funeral-making with heterosexualism," Caldwell says, employing a word he lumps in with racism and sexism. "We just have to figure out how long that will be."

Ban For-Profit Health Insurance Companies?

Here's a thought: why can't we have not-for-profit health insurance companies? Why are we forever stuck with companies whose primary objective is to make a profit? And since they are for-profit entities (in the USA), should it really be any surprise that their executives make millions and millions of dollars each year? Why would a for-profit health insurance company behave any differently than, say, a oil corporation or telecommunications company?

It wouldn't, and that's the root of our current problem with health care, IMHO. In any for-profit insurance company, the business model is 1) you bet the company you're going to die, get sick, or have a housefire and 2) the company bets you that you're going to live, be fine, and be careful with those matches. So the goal is that the company will minimize their risk by limiting what behaviors you may choose. No using a charcoal grill in your living room. No smoking or your life insurance rates will go much higher.

The difference between life or house insurance and health insurance is that you can, theoretically at least, live without life or house insurance. Let's forget for a moment that your bank will insist you buy homeowner's insurance if you want a mortgage loan. Health insurance is something different. Most people, at some point, will get sick or injured and require medical treatment. And in most cases, you can't accurately predict when you're going to get sick or injured. And in most cases, a serious illness or injury will cost big bucks. Furthermore, in many parts of the USA, you can't see a doctor without insurance. So if you don't have health insurance or suitcases of cash, many people in the USA can't get even basic health care.

That's a huge difference between health insurance and other types of insurance. And that's why the debate that seems to be missing in our current health care shouting match is for-profit insurance companies. I don't see how we reform any aspect of the completely out of control health care costs in this country without doing what much of the rest of the world has already done: outlawed for-profit health insurance for basic coverage. I referred to this Washington Post article by T.R. Reid in my 9/3/09 post:

Foreign health insurance companies, in contrast, must accept all applicants, and they can't cancel as long as you pay your premiums. The plans are required to pay any claim submitted by a doctor or hospital (or health spa), usually within tight time limits. The big Swiss insurer Groupe Mutuel promises to pay all claims within five days. "Our customers love it," the group's chief executive told me. The corollary is that everyone is mandated to buy insurance, to give the plans an adequate pool of rate-payers.

The key difference is that foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.

The current argument over whether we should have a "public option" is little more than a meaningless distraction. To really effect change in the way Americans get access to decent health care, we should be pursuing the establishment of a universal, not-for-profit health insurance system.

As long as we continue the fiction that we can have a for-profit health insurance system that will act in citizen's best interests, we're doomed to continue the mess we're now in.

Jon Stewart Lambastes 30 Republican Senators Who Voted to Sanction Rape

I know why a lot of the younger generation get most of their news from Comedy Central; that's where Jon Stewart lives. I don't know why the "mainstream" media didn't find time or space to blast this story all over the country, but fortunately Jon Stewart did.

Seems that Senator Al Franken introduced legislation that would ban the Pentagon from contracting with any company that forces women employees to sign waivers to not sue the company if they are raped as a result of their employment. Why on earth would we need a law like that? Because one of the biggest military contractors on the face of the earth, Halliburton, has a subsidiary (KBR) that does exactly that. And asserted that one of its employees, a 19 year old woman, couldn't sue KBR because of the waiver, after she was gang-raped by fellow employees and temporarily held captive in Iraq.

You need to watch the clip of Jon Stewart and listen to various Republican Senators explaining on the floor of the Senate why they voted against the amendment. Most of these same Republicans just recently were so outraged by Acorn's bumbling that it was their patriotic duty to ensure that group didn't receive "one penny more of government funds." Banning companies from government contracts if they cover up rape? Not the Senate's business in their view.

Fortunately, 68 other Senators who still had brains voted for the bill. Here's a link to the broadcast ** from The Daily Show. Here's a link to Buzzflash posting of the episode. And it's one sorry episode indeed.

** the link to the Daily Show may not work, and I don't know why... :-(

Feeling Safer In PA?

Back in August I posted twice about gun control (once about gun nuts protesting President Obama in Arizona and a follow-up about Travel Guru Arthur Frommer recommending tourists avoid Arizona because of their lack of gun control). There was no actual violence mentioned in either post, just the potential.

Unfortunately, this article is all about violence. It seems that Melanie Hain was a major gun proponent, and once made her point by carrying a loaded gun to her daughter's soccer game. And Melanie Hain is now dead, apparently at her husband's hand.

A soccer mom who gained national attention when she openly carried a loaded gun to her 5-year-old daughter's game was shot dead Wednesday along with her husband in what appeared to be a murder-suicide, police said.

So this 31 year old mother of three was having "marital trouble" for about a week and things spiraled out of control. It seems to me that a week or two of marital problems shouldn't end up with two coffins and three orphaned children.

Oh right, except for those guns the couple loudly insisted on having in their lives. They proved to be a convenient and effective way to end the "marital trouble." Permanently.

Everybody's Got An Opinion

So President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 and it seems like an awful lot of people have their underwear in knots over it. I was as surprised as anyone else when I heard the announcement, but I don't understand much of the reaction as presented by the major media outlets. Everyone seems to have opinions that they have no problem sharing with the rest of us. It's not really surprising. People in this country have opinions on just about everything, and most are not reluctant to "educate" everyone else about it.

There have been "man on the street" interviews with people, talking heads on commentary programs, etc. The loudest of the opinions seems to come down to a perception that the Prez hasn't done "enough" to warrant such an award. Like those folks on the street get a vote for Nobel Prizes. We are a society of critics and most of the critics think their opinions are much more valid than the next critic's view. I call it "the center of the universe" complex.

I can't argue that Obama has had a string of successes in the realm of peace in the past 9 or so months. I have no idea what factors the Nobel people consider in making the Peace Prize award. I can think of one possible reason for their decision. Comparison to the prior President, who made no effort to foment peace anywhere in his eight years. The satirical comedian Andy Borowitz made the point elegantly:

"(today)... NASA bombed the moon, saying it was the one spot President Bush missed."

As is often the case with satire, he's not far enough off the mark for it to be funny, per se.

The point is, perhaps President Obama has won this prize not for what he's accomplished so far, but because he's redirected this country's role in the world. Instead of dealing with international problems with landing craft and missiles, he's attempted to resurrect American diplomacy. Instead of unilateral actions, he's invited other nations to join with us to develop responses to world problems. Obama thinks about issues before opening his mouth, unlike his predecessor. The Prez is trying to talk with the Iranian and North Korean governments while the world had come to expect the leader of the most powerful country in the world to strap on his six shooter and rattle some sabers.

It's possible that the Nobel folks in Sweden feel greatly encouraged by that. Maybe it's the differences from the recent past that count most in awarding the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

Rooting for Rio

It's perfectly curmudgeonly for me to wish Rio well in the race to be "awarded" the 2016 Olympic Games. I live in Chicagoland, and Mayor Daley wants the Olympics so badly he can undoubtedly taste it. I have been indifferent about it, but I've come to the conclusion that we'd be better off if the International Olympic Committee (IOC) selects Rio or Madrid or anywhere but Chicago. I just don't see the benefits to the metro area.

Much of the planned development for Chicago's Olympics appears to be temporary structures, so the long-term benefit to the City and region escape me. It's unclear how many low income Chicago residents will be displaced by The Games. What it seems to come down to is "bragging rights" and "civic pride." Neither of which mean much to a region that is already drowning in municipal red ink and regressive taxes. It would certainly be a better legacy for the current Mayor Daley than the 1968 Democratic Convention was for his father.

If the final decision by the IOC can be massively influenced by the involvement of President Obama and his wife, that also makes me wonder what on earth is going on. Initially, the President wasn't traveling to Denmark and was sending his wife to "represent" him. He was criticized by some for not being sufficiently supportive of Chicago's effort. He subsequently decided he would join his wife in Denmark for the IOC meeting, and he was criticized by others for focusing on the Olympics rather than our health care and financial systems mess. What can the Head of State and the First Lady possibly say in one on one conversations with the IOC members that would seal the deal for Chicago? Beyond "we have a Great Lake" (Lake Michigan), what does the President have to say about running an Olympic venue? I'm guessing not much beyond his obvious star power. If that's the case, the entire selection process seems to be just another sham of smoke and mirrors.

The biggest reason I'm rooting for Rio is that based on the media coverage of Chicago's efforts to this point, if Chicago is selected, it will be absolutely miserable place to be between now and 2016. This week we were subjected to hanging a ceremonial Olympic medal around the neck of the Picasso monkey in Daley Center. Several protestors were arrested for trying to disrupt the medal installation. The local "news" outlets (and I use the term "news" very lightly) positively gushed over the "cute" image of the statue with the medal. They're running "countdown" clocks to the IOC vote. Cripes.

There's no telling how obnoxious and ridiculous the media coverage can get over the course of the next seven years. If Chicago gets The Games, it can only get worse.

Edit 10/1/09: It's good to know that Tribune columnist John Kass agrees with at least some of my concerns: his 9/30/09 column.

Sportsmanship

This post is about a series of Daily Herald stories about the sportsmanship lesson that a couple of local high school football coaches delivered this week. The Elgin (IL) High School junior varsity team includes an autistic senior who doesn't get much time on the field.

Lake Park coach Nana Agyeman .... talked to Elgin's head coach, Dave Bierman, about it. He learned the player, Winfred Cooper, has severe autism.

"Well," Agyeman told Bierman, "if you want to throw him the ball, just let us know."

The result was truly amazing. With the game tied, Elgin called a specially concocted play (The Driver Driver, named for Green Bay Packer's wide receiver Donald Driver) and threw the ball to "Coop." He caught the ball and ran 67 yards for a touchdown and the memory of a lifetime. Both teams joined in cheering him on.

Coop caught the ball, and even though the plan had been to push Coop gently out of bounds, the Lake Park players called an audible: Instead, they flailed away in trying to tackle him, while Coop scampered 67 yards for the score. Both sides erupted in cheers.

Both coaches and teams should be very proud of themselves for the display of sportsmanship that, sadly, too often is absent from athletics. The lesson delivered by the coaches was not lost on the members of the two football teams. Kudos to all of them.

This is a link to the initial article in the Daily Herald. This link is a follow-up article involving contacts with the Packers. Finally, here's a link to the editor's explanation of how the story made it to the front page.

It's enough to bring a tear to your eye.

HGTV vs. The View

My wife is a huge fan of HGTV (Home and Garden TV). It's an addiction of some sort, I suspect. One of the few things we ever argue about is how often the TV is tuned to that cable network. In my opinion, it has a huge assortment of idiotic programs, many of which involve people doing ridiculous remodeling of their homes in the hope that they'll be able to sell them. There's another show in which an "expert" takes items that a pack rat (putting it charitably) homeowner has accumulated and then auctions the hidden "treasures." One of my biggest objections to some of the remodeling programs is that no matter how intricate the painting (they love to paint patterns on walls), floor installation, or whatever, the team's final product never looks like something an actual person could produce. I'm pretty handy with tools, but in the real world, walls are never plumb, corners are never right angles, and nothing turns out looking perfect (except on HGTV). The show is just unrealistic nonsense.

Something happened recently that is worth noting. You know how people sometimes will preface a statement with "I never thought I'd say this, but...."? I heard myself saying something a couple days ago that really startled me. My wife was jumping back and forth between a couple of channels one morning and landed on one of those HGTV programs. The next thing I knew, I opened my mouth and said "I never thought I'd say this, but please put on The View."

"The View" is a daytime talk show with a group of women "hosts," including Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters (she owns the show but doesn't appear all the time), Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, and the token conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Long ago, I found I was unable to make heads or tails out of the program, in which all of the participants seem to voice their opinions simultaneously and vociferously. I had no patience for the show, regardless of how pithy or timely their topic of the day might be, because they seemed to all be hollering at each other at the same time and I couldn't follow anyone's position. I've never been in a position to observe a group of women discussing anything amongst themselves; does everyone talk over or through everyone else? "The View" has been on the air since 1997, so the format must work for women viewers. Maybe it's a "guy thing?"

At any rate, I nearly clapped my hand over my mouth with astonishment when I asked my wife to put "The View" on. It certainly isn't that I like the show (although I do enjoy Whoopi Goldberg beating up Hasselbeck periodically). I don't have as negative reaction to it as I used to, but it's not on my Top 100 TV programs I have to watch. What it does demonstrate is how much I dislike HGTV. Even the Food Network doesn't annoy me as much.

Hmm. Maybe I can somehow set up parental controls on our cable to block HGTV? No, I'm not that stupid; that's one of those battles best left unpicked...

Ibuprofen Is My Friend?

As I wandered through the kitchen this morning, I noticed something on the kitchen table that was mildly disturbing. It was a bottle of ibuprofen, the all purpose, non-prescription, pain killer and anti-inflammatory drug. It's not unusual to find all sorts of rubble on the kitchen table because it's kind of a magnet and collects the detritus of daily life with alarming regularity. However, it occurred to me that the reason the ibuprofen was sitting out there on the table, instead of in the drawer where it "belonged," was because it's used so frequently that we just don't bother putting it away.

You know you've reached a depressing stage in your life when your bottle of ibuprofen lives on the kitchen table... :-)

Is Growth Limitless?

One of the many things I don't understand about economics and our national economy, is the notion of "growth." It seems as though everything in our economy is based on this concept, whether it's how many retail outlets a business has, how much market share a bank has, the value of a specific stock, consumerism in general, or or just plain old sales figures. If you don't have growth, you're in trouble.

One symptom of this growth focus is our institutionalized expectation that a corporation's prime responsibility to shareholders is to grow the share value (i.e., the stock price must go up). The company is not expected to focus on making a profit to share with shareholders (dividend distribution) or even to produce something useful (products or services someone wants to buy). IMO, this has made the stock markets more akin to riverboat gambling than financial analysis.

The problem for me is that economic growth doesn't seem to have unlimited potential in the broadest sense. There are a lot of other societal factors that are also tied into growth, such as population growth. Continuous growth in our economy seems to require continuous growth in other areas, such as population. If you base your economic model on growth, it seems like you are also dependent on unlimited population growth, unlimited ability to grow food, unlimited ability to provide health care, etc. Back in the 18th, 19th, or even the first half of the 20th centuries, a continuous growth model might actually have made sense, but I question that it makes sense in the 21st century.

Back in the 1960s, there was a lot of talk about ZPG, or Zero Population Growth, and how our planet had finite resources and was not able to support an unlimited number of humans. There was even a movie made in 1972 called ZPG. Somewhere in the passage of time, the ZPG message was left along the wayside (remember them?) and seems to be no longer a major concern for most folks. But I think the way our economy has been structured for many, many years, it depends on unlimited population growth to provide new consumers and new people to use "stuff." I don't think this model is sustainable, and I'm wondering if there are mainstream economists out there who have discussed economic models that don't depend on permanent growth.

A recent interview (9/9/09) on Marketplace.org with Michael Mandel of Business Week, touches on some of this. In a recent blog and the interview, Mandel points out that the American notion of the "consumer economy" is badly distorted. A common "given" is that 70% of our economy is composed of consumer spending, and with the financial health of our nation dependent on so much consuming, how can we change anything? If consumers are convinced we shouldn't use up stuff so much, our economy will continue to deteriorate rather than recover, etc. If we continue to use up stuff as in the past, the world's resources will be depleted, with horrendous results.

Mandel studied the numbers and concluded that the US Commerce Department, Bureau of Economic Analysis, came up with the 70% Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figure based on some curious assumptions. A lot of expenditures most of us don't consider consumer spending are included, and a lot of expenditures you might think are consumer spending aren't. Medical spending is an interesting example: while you might think Medicare spending is government spending, the BEA counts it as consumer spending. Mandel's calculations conclude that maybe about 40% of our economy is consumer spending. And since that's a hugely smaller number than the 70% that's bandied about, it's very significant. It means, in Mandel's view, that we don't have to be a consumer driven economy.

And that means that we as citizens could actually have more control over our environment and lives in general, if we were not just one of millions of consumers. We could redirect our national resources away from unlimited consumption and toward a more sustainable economic model. Whatever that might be.

Mandel's interview skirts around the edges of the growth question when he stated that "we don't have to be a consumer-driven economy." What would be an alternative to a consumer-driven economy? Think about that for a bit.

A Good Argument for Tort Reform

I still have an old AOL email address and recently received this notice about a proposed settlement of a class action lawsuit. It seems that another group of California lawyers have found themselves a $250K gravy train.

This lawsuit is about the fact that AOL tacked advertisements at the bottom of emails (footers) that AOL subscribers sent out. Seems to have been a fairly common occurrence with free email accounts from a lot of providers for many years, so it's beyond me as to why this "class" of AOL subscribers has anything to complain about. If approved, the settlement will result in AOL telling users they can "opt out" of the promotional footers, about $100K in donations to some "charities," and $250K for the lawyers. What's wrong with this picture?

We seem to have too many lawyers that don't have enough productive work to keep them occupied.

Maria Bartiromo Going Down In Flames?

If you haven't watched CNBC's Maria Bartiromo displaying her ignorance about our health system on camera, you ought to check the Youtube video or here. It's just fascinating how some public people are so supremely self-confident they can make such utter fools of themselves and keep smiling. I wonder if any little tiny alarm bells were ringing in her head as she made fun of the 44 year old Congressman for not "using" Medicare. Probably not, just like they still aren't ringing for former Governor Blago, who's still blaming everyone else for his downfall.

Maybe Maria's angling for a job with Fox?

Consensus? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Consensus

There comes a time, after much effort to reach a consensus decision, when a group may conclude that consensus is not possible, because one of the parties to the "discussion" clearly is not interested in the objective and not willing to compromise or modify it's position in a meaningful way. This happens in all aspects of life. The conclusion in such a case is that consensus is not possible. The question becomes "what now?"

In the case of reform of the American health insurance system, the objective for many of us remains to provide all Americans with health insurance so they can obtain necessary health care. The Democratic Party has clear majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Republican Party has made it clear that it is more interested in protecting the monied interests in the insurance industry and is not interested in a consensus decision.

The answer for me to the "what now?" question, is move forward. No reform of our insurance system is possible without a real public option. This country is the only industrialized nation that even allows for-profit health insurance companies. (For more info about how other nations provide health care, listen to the "Fresh Air" interview of TR Reid or read it.) A public option is the only way to break the strangle-hold that private insurance has on our health care system. It's wrong for the President to back off a public option and we should all tell him that, loudly and clearly. You can do that by clicking here and signing a petition to the President.

The Democrats control the House and Senate and should stop wasting time and energy trying to reach a "consensus" plan with the GOP. The House and Senate should draft a true reform bill and vote on it before the end of September, 2009. As Froma Harrop says, what voters will remember in November 2010 is whether the Democrats passed reform, or did not:

Democrats: Don't worry about November 2010 at the moment. Voters gave you the White House and commanding majorities in Congress to fix America's long-festering problems. Let Republicans go to their corner and holler, afraid that Democrats might get credit.

Democrats have the power to reform health care now and to do it right. They should use it.

It's time for President Obama and the Democratic Party to tell the GOP to take their fear elsewhere and pass health insurance reform with a government option now, without the GOP.

More US Jobs Moving To Mexico

Refrigerator maker Whirlpool has decided to close a plant in Evansville, Indiana and move the operation to Mexico, eliminating 1,100 (US) jobs in the move. The plant produced top freezer models, which are apparently not as popular as in past years. The action was taken to "reduce costs" and the company pointed out it was no reflection on worker quality (which will be absolutely no consolation to the 1,100 workers):

Whirlpool spokeswoman Jill Saletta ..... said the plant closing had nothing to do with worker performance.

"This decision is around cost," she said. "We had to take a look at which plant we could get the best cost position in, and because top-mount refrigerators are not in the demand that they used to be and they're more of a commodity item, Mexico offers us the best cost platform to continue to produce (them)."

I don't have a clue how a top mount freezer is a "commodity item," and a bottom mount or side by side model is not a "commodity." What is it? I thought all appliances were commodities.

Buried within this decision is the clear implication that despite their "not bad" performance, the employees in Evansville are the root cause of the loss of their jobs: if it wasn't cheaper to produce these appliances in Mexico, the jobs might remain in Evansville, and the primary reason Mexico is cheaper is the employee pay.

Since Whirpool is technically an American company (based in Michigan), it's difficult to understand how they can justify moving jobs to Mexico (please don't tell me we're in a "global economy"-that terminology was a corporate creation for the benefit of corporations). I can understand that they wish to consolidate manufacturing and make better use of their larger plants (Evansville was a small factory by Whirlpool standards), but I just can't understand this decision.

I'd like to suggest that people looking for refrigerators look at Whirpool's competitors, but I have no idea if any of them are made in the US anymore. If anyone does know, leave a comment.

If I say that "we're all in this together" I mean that if your neighbor loses his or her job, it has an impact on you, whether or not you're prepared to acknowledge or recognize that fact. If you want to preserve US jobs, consumers have to start reading labels to find out where a product comes from and make decisions based on more than just price. We need to break out of the Wal-Mart mold.

Footnote: Feeling Safer?

Just days after I wrote about the Phoenix, AZ "protest" involving people carrying firearms, including an assault rifle, outside a visit by President Obama, a prominent travel advisor noticed it as well. It seems that the author of numerous travel guides, Arthur Frommer, has announced he won't be spending any travel money or time in Arizona, since that State's "laws allow people he described as "thugs" and "extremists" to openly carry firearms."

I'm sure that everyone carrying firearms in Arizona under this law is not a "thug" or "extremist." That said, it seems that any "thugs" or "extremists" who choose to carry guns around in Arizona apparently are free to do so. And that doesn't sound particularly safe or reassuring to me. A friend recently told me that "gun nuts" and "nuts with guns" are not the same, but I'm still waiting for him to explain the difference.

I'm with you Arthur.

Footnote: On Shopping Carts

If you were interested in my 7/10/09 post, Red Lights and Shopping Carts, you might be interested in Michael Josephson's take on why you should return shopping carts to their corrals. It's not to impress anyone:

People of character do the right thing even if no one else does, not because they think it will change the world but because they refuse to be changed by the world.

Read Josephson's article here.

Feeling Safer?

Well, it's legal to carry around loaded guns, including assault rifles, in Arizona, even at an appearance of President Obama. Sigh. I don't get how more people carrying firearms makes us safer. The main problem for me is that I think that as our population has risen, so too has the number of mentally unbalanced and irrational among us. Even in states that don't allow "concealed carry," the number of people whipping out guns to "settle" disputes is staggering. There was a recent news article in which a few guys got into a fight over cutting in line at a roadside food cart in Tampa, FL. After one punch was thrown, one pulled out a gun, shot the other guy in the dispute, and also shot a bystander, who later died.

I just don't get how adding more guns, and concealed ones at that, makes any of us safer. It sure doesn't feel safer. Doesn't the Secret Service have enough to do without also having to watch people marching around the perimeter of a Presidential rally with firearms? How many more school kids in Chicago are going to die in gun violence before Americans get fed up with the National Rifle Association and its unbridled and well-funded campaign to put guns in everyone's hand?

The reality in which we live in 2009 is vastly different than the America of the late 18th century when the Constitution (including the Second Amendment) was adopted. Even if the Founding Fathers really believed everyone should have the right to own a firearm back then, I sincerely doubt they anticipated the largely non-agricultural and densely populated nation we've become. Furthermore, they certainly wouldn't have anticipated the changes in the weapons themselves. I might not object to everyone having a musket to carry around, as opposed to an AK47 assault rifle. The musket took a long time to load, long enough for the others in line for the food cart to get out of the way. Or to beat the crap out of the musket carrier as he was reloading...

Is The GOP Marching Off Another Cliff?

There apparently is some hope for those of us who are dismayed by the screaming and yelling from the Right and disruption of town hall meetings about health care reform. Froma Harrop has some observations on why this is just another example of the GOP's penchant for "red faced crusades":

The right wing has launched another of its red-faced crusades. When that happens, the loser is ultimately the Republican Party. Sure, obnoxious behavior gets a lot of attention. So do car wrecks.

Harrop goes on to recite a litany of examples starting in 1998 with the GOP attempts to remove Bill Clinton from office and up to 2005 when "Republicans tried to make hay out of the Terri Schiavo tragedy." In each case, she goes on to highlight how out of touch the GOP was with voters and how that translated into losses in the House of Representatives and US Senate.

Read her column and take heart. One can only hope the GOP's influence in Congress is further diminished.

Banks Are Not Your Friend

Anyone who is interested in hearing about how Big Banks are only interested in making money, not in benefiting customers or society, may want to listen/read to this article on Marketplace last week (8/6/09).

Up front, I want to say that it seems like a lot of people who have mortgage problems right now have no one to blame but themselves. Some never read contracts. Some should never have tried to buy any house, based on their income and past credit status. Some should never have bought houses that were far beyond their means. That said, some were mislead by bankers, brokers, and realtors.

The Marketplace story deals with the Federal government's attempts to get the banking industry to modify the mortgages of people who are struggling to hang on to homes in this recession. The Obama Administration recently released some statistics on how the mortgage modification efforts are going, and while some Big Banks are having some successes, some others are not. So if you're looking for another Big Bank to despise, you might want to add Wells Fargo to your list.

It seems that one of the obstacles to modifying mortgages is the same thing that some say started the entire mortgage meltdown and Big Recession: mortgage backed securities. These were loans that were bundled together with other mortgages and sold to investors. Unfortunately, many of these bundles contained less than stellar loans, and when people began defaulting, well, the rest is history. Since many of these Big Banks didn't retain the loans they made, but sold them off as fast as possible, some might say that they had relatively less incentive to make solid loans from the outset.

When the banks bundled these loans together and sold them off to investors, some banks, like Wells Fargo, remained as the loan "servicer." So while the homeowner sends his/her check off to Wells Fargo each month, the bank technically doesn't own the mortgage any more.

"...Wells Fargo sold the loan to Goldman Sachs. Goldman then bundled it with nearly 3,000 other loans, and sold off that package of loans to investors as a mortgage-backed security. It kept Wells Fargo on to collect payments from homeowners."

You may recall Goldman Sachs. Those are the investment bankers that reported record earnings for the second quarter of 2009.

At any rate, when homeowners now ask for lenders to modify their mortgages so they can keep their heads above water and keep their homes, some are being told they can't modify them because the "investors" won't allow it. In one particular case covered in this article, the reporter investigated the contract covering the mortgage bundle to the investors and it contained no restriction at all on the loan servicer's (Wells Fargo) ability to change virtually any aspect of the mortgage.

The situation seems to be such that once again, the bankers and their lawyers are mostly covering their backsides. If a contract is even slightly vague about what the loan servicer can do, the Big Bank will do nothing in order to avoid getting sued. The homeowner is left holding the bag.

However, in the case that's highlighted in the article, the reporter examined the contract sold the mortgage in question to investors, and it contains no limitations on Wells Fargo's right to modify the mortgages. In essence, this means that if it wanted to help the homeowner, it could. What was Wells Fargo willing to do? They offered to reduce the interest rate from over 12% to a little more than 4% (this mortgage had started out at about 7.5%). That sounds promising, but they also insisted on adding about $80,000 to the amount of the loan. The extra was an accumulation of unpaid fees, accrued interest, late fees, and what the reporter called "numerous other fees." That's $80,000 added to a $235,000 mortgage. The reporter also said that the contract did not require adding the "overdue debt" to modified mortgages. Predictably, Wells Fargo refused to answer the reporter's questions and insisted the new monthly payment offer was "reasonable." So we are free to reach our own conclusions and mine is that if Wells Fargo wanted to help these homeowners, it could. However, it appears that it is more interested in maximizing its own profit. This isn't a big surprise; after all, "the business of business is business." However, in the midst of the Biggest Recession since the Great Depression, wouldn't it be patriotic and symbolic if Big Banks acted like they cared? They don't have to actually care, just the appearance of caring would be nice.

So remember, Big Banks are not your friend and the only thing that they're interested in is separating you from your money. If a Big Bank (or any other Big Corporation for that matter) says they have your interest at heart, grab your wallet and head for the door as fast as you can. Perhaps it would also be reasonable to patronize a bank other than Wells Fargo for your banking needs.

I think my next post might be about why we need to bring back usury laws.... :-)

Teach Your Children

Have I mentioned that I bike ride most every day (weather permitting)? It's the only form of exercise that I actually enjoy, and I try to get out every morning to do about a 6 1/2 mile course. Much of my route is in a local park, which has really nice walking/biking paths. The pavement is divided like a road with a yellow line down the center and there are mileposts marking distances throughout.

I normally ride in the morning and that generally means there are only a few people using the park, walking dogs, jogging, or just walking. It's pretty nice and everyone stays out of everyone else's way. Some days, my ride is delayed for one reason or another, and I don't get out for my ride until afternoon or early evening. Often, those rides are not so much fun.

Later in the day, when many more people are using the park, I'm finding many more people who don't have a clue how to use public spaces. It can be mothers with strollers, walking down the middle of the path, nearly blocking the way for joggers and bikers. Even worse, I often see two people pushing strollers down the path, side by side, completely blocking the path. Dog walkers with what seem to be 50 foot long leashes, with the walker on one side of the path and the dog about 25 feet off the path on the opposite side. With the leash blocking the path. That's not the dog's fault, it's the owners fault.

My biggest complaint about the clueless way people use public space (like parks) relates to children and they way they aren't getting much, if any, supervision or instruction. It's probably not surprising; if the parents are truly clueless about such things, why would anyone expect them to teach their children?

Today, there were hordes of small children on bikes and roller skates in the park. I'm talking mostly about kids in the 4-8 range on small two wheel bikes. They ride with their heads down, oblivious to what's in front of them, and wander back and forth across the path, not staying to one side or the other. My preference would be the general rules of the road which would suggest (in the U.S.) that you walk/ride on the right and pass on the left. I observed groups of 4-6 young kids scattered around the path, with no visible adult supervision. What supervision there was often was what appeared to be older siblings maybe a quarter mile behind the kids (which is to say there was no supervision).

More disturbingly, there was no education taking place (what President Obama calls "teachable moments"). No one appeared to be taking the time to explain to these young kids how to use the public space, how to share it with others, how to do it safely. It's sad to see this aspect of our community network failing so badly; it's not the schools' responsibility to do this, it's the family that should be teaching these behaviors.

Retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter just the other day gave a speech in which he lamented how little Americans understand about their government. One example is how few people can actually name the three branches of the Federal government. He attributes much of this to the lack of old-fashioned Civics classes in school. Perhaps what I've observed in the park is just a different aspect of what Justice Souter saw in court. Americans don't seem to have even a rudimentary grasp of what's going on around them and how people should interact with others in a socially acceptable and respectful way.

I suppose that if parents are clueless about yielding part of the park path to others, it's no surprise that many of them seem to drive cars the same way. This is just another aspect of what I already wrote about previously, but now it involves the cluelessness of the parents being passed on to their children. It's frustrating. Stephen Josephson talks about the need to "teach your children well," but again, if the parents are clueless, who can expect them to "model" the desired behaviors?

Once again, I have to return to that Ashleigh Brilliant quote: "I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem."

When Space Exploration Was Cool

The space shuttle Endeavor docked with the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday and it set a record. It was a small reminder of how excited Americans used to get about accomplishments in space travel and exploration. This time, the record was for the most humans on the same spacecraft at the same time: 13. The shuttle's crew of 7 joined the 6 people on the ISS to break the old record of 10. There have been 13 people in space at the same time in the past, but they were on several spacecraft. This record was set just days before the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing (7/20/1969).

Back in the day, Americans followed our space exploration efforts pretty closely, watching the launches of the various Mercury Gemini, and Apollo spacecraft, the moon landings, and the early space shuttle launches. We would sit glued to radios and televisions, listening or watching launches of sub-orbital flights, the first flights around the earth, and the first tentative efforts to reach the moon. It was exciting stuff, never knowing if the spacecraft and astronauts were going to succeed, but always expecting that American ingenuity would manage to overcome all the obstacles. There were mishaps and missteps, but for the most part, the NASA efforts held our attention and captured our imagination.

After the moon landings, something changed, and not for the better. Our famous short national attention span, I think, got in the way and we were no longer as engaged with the process. We lost focus as did NASA, and there was no clear new objective after the moon landing. The space exploration that continued became routine, and not nearly as exciting. The shuttle disasters briefly recaptured our attention, but it wasn't long before our attention wandered again.

I think it's no small thing to have 13 humans on a single spacecraft. And that group is truly international, representing all five member organizations for the ISS: NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, and the European Space Agency).

It's no Federation or Deep Space 9 certainly, but I think it's a big deal that this record has been set. We should all get excited for a few moments.

Loose Cannon On Campus?

A local story here involves a now former school board member who had been arrested for battery involving a group of students outside their high school. The full story is here. In brief, when he saw a group of students attempting to enter the school through a "restricted" door, he "ordered" them to follow him to the Dean's office. Along the way, he grabbed another student by the arm and ordered him to come along also. That student refused and filed a battery complaint against the school board member. Prosecutors eventually dropped the charge and the board member resigned from the board because he moved out of the district. He also took the opportunity to declare he'd done nothing wrong and that his actions made him a "hero."

The story is troubling for several reasons. My first concern is that comments on the newspaper story clearly indicate that many people have no clue what school board members are or what their job is. Many commenters lauded him for "doing the job he was hired for" and wondered why the prosecutors filed charges against him for "doing his job." He is not a "staff member." He was a school board member which is an elective office, not an employee of the District. He was totally out of line to attempt to herd a bunch of students to "the office."

Another issue is that school board members as individuals have no particular authority over students or even staff members of a school, or to enforce rules on campus. In fact, in Illinois, the oath of office for school board members states "...a Board member has no legal authority as an individual and that decisions can be made only by a majority vote at a public Board meeting." One school board member equals one citizen, nothing more, nothing less.

This guy is not a hero (since when do people get to declare themselves heroes?). If he thought the students were "behaving suspiciously," he should have called police, not intervene personally. His wife, who was with him in the car, and is a teacher at the high school, might have legitimately gotten involved. His claim that he was concerned about security at the high school rings hollow and sounds more like someone searching for a campaign slogan.

He is nothing more than a bully and the District is better off that he's now resigned. He clearly had no clue what the role of a school board member is and apparently didn't care very much about that small detail. For those who are petrified about students bringing guns or bombs to school, it can happen, but it doesn't get prevented by a board member who happens to be sitting in his car. It's prevented by adoption of procedures and rules by school boards and administrators, not by loose cannons on campus.

Obama's Books Damage National Security?

In what is surely the goofiest story of the month, Federal Prison authorities have denied access to two books authored by President Obama to al-Qaida member Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who is serving a 30-year sentence at the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colo. The Associated Press report is here. Apparently, the prisoner requested access to the books last year, and based on FBI "advice," prison officials recently denied the access, because "passages in both books contain information that could damage national security." The prison system referred inquiries to the FBI, which was "looking into" the situation Thursday (7/9/09).

This is the kind of thing that gives bureaucrats a bad name. I wonder if this means that anyone who reads the President's books could damage national security, or if it's just convicted terrorists that are causing concern? It seems that if prison officials simply wanted to make the prisoner realize he's in the "supermax" federal prison and should not be enjoying reading books, citing national security was serious overkill.

Red Lights and Shopping Carts

When I drive in the Chicago suburbs, I invariably encounter people who don't really seem to understand they're piloting a couple of tons of steel around the streets and highways. They frequently seem to be preoccupied with other activities, often involving a cell phone, and to be blithely unaware of the existence of other vehicles. I think it's just too easy to get a driver's license.

As a bike rider, I pay close attention to other traffic on the streets, and it's appalling how many people think stop signs are just advisory, and roll on by.

Right turns on red, are another cause of concern for pedestrians, bicyclists, and other vehicles. A ridiculous number of drivers don't recognize that right turns on red are supposed to only be made after stopping not instead of stopping: "drivers must come to a complete stop and yield the right-of-way to oncoming traffic and pedestrians before turning" ). Because so many people don't seem to feel the need to stop before turning, or pull out without yielding to oncoming traffic, I think the right turn on red rules are among the worst rules enacted during my adulthood. I can't remember when the rules were changed to allow turning red at stop lights, but I'm pretty sure it was after I took driver training in high school back in the Pleistocene. I suppose it's too much to expect that people who don't stop at stop lights will stop at stop signs...

Too many people seem to think the rules only apply to others and that they are too important to have to slow down, stop, or otherwise change their course.

Those are probably the same folks who can't be bothered to put their shopping carts into the "corrals" in store parking lots, and prefer to just abandon them in parking spots. Recently I noticed two large lumber carts left in parking spots at a local home supply store lot, when a storage area was about one space away. Who are these people? Why are they in such a hurry? Why do they not care about anyone else's car getting dented or scratched because they abandoned the cart?

Anyone out there remember the concept of a "social contract?" I think the contract is broken.

Sara in Wonderland

Clarence Page, in his Chicago Tribune opinion column on 7/8/09, seems to share at least part of my confusion about what on earth she's talking about most of the time. He quotes from her recent speech and Facebook postings in which she claims that "countless others" have left their positions for a "higher calling" without finishing a term without the criticism leveled at her. He observes:

"Countless others?" Like who? "Higher calling?" Like what? "Different standard?" Like how? So many questions, so few answers. Yet, when her coverage implies that she might not be ready for prime time on the national stage, Palin calls the media sexist, elitist and too dense to understand "it's about country."

No, governor, it's about you.

Mr. Page goes on to discuss Palin's remarks during the Presidential campaign in which she advised Senator Clinton to avoid "whining" about media bias, and he asks

Why doesn't Sarah Palin take Sarah Palin's advice?

Because you can gain a lot more mileage these days as a victim, even if you have to inflate your victimization.

Page speculates we haven't seen the last of Governor Palin on the national political scene, and I suspect he may be right. He mentions her huge popularity among conservative Republicans and white Evangelical Republicans, and her undeniable "star power."

Who else could knock the run-up to Michael Jackson's funeral off cable TV news as easily as Palin's resignation announcement did?

Indeed. Check out this timely political cartoon by Mike Luckavich.

It's Called Quitting

OK, so the only apparent Republican on the national scene under age 60 quit her job as Governor of Alaska the other day. There's a lot of commentary and opinion flying around now about what it means and why she did it. I generally can't understand 90% of whatever Governor Palin says because it sounds like some sort of encrypted code most of the time.

"Many just accept that lame-duck status, and they hit that road," Palin said. "They draw a paycheck. They kind of milk it. And I'm not going to put Alaskans through that."

Barely half-way into her first term as Governor, she decided to walk away from her job and tried to paint it as a patriotic and high-minded act. Lame-duck status? They hit that road? They kind of milk it? What on earth is she talking about? Palin asserts she's not a "quitter," but that's exactly what she did. It's called quitting in the middle of your term. So the former Republican candidate for Vice-President who had hardly any credentials to begin with, now has less. Unless, of course, you count her responding to some sort of "higher calling." I'm afraid to even hazard a guess as to what that means.

I never had any use for Palin as a candidate, so I'm hoping she'll just go away now. We should be so lucky.

A "Marketplace" Home Run

These days, I find myself getting more of my news from the American Public Media program Marketplace, on National Public Radio, than from anywhere else. The show is self-described as "a program which looks at the entire world through the lenses of business, economics and finance." It's not just about money. I pride myself for being a liberal arts major, and I think I managed to take just a single economics course in college way back when. Marketplace puts all those "business" topics into easily understood terms, even for liberal arts majors.

IMO, Marketplace hit a home run on Monday 6/29/09. The entire program was filled with worthwhile, and in some cases, uplifting stories. Even if you don't normally listen to this program, if you have any interest in history or what's going on around us these days, I urge you to either download the podcast or read the text of the stories for 6/29; it will be a half hour well-spent. The link for the show is here. The stories include:

• Victims of Madoff react to his sentence of 150 years in prison
• Toxic assets are still looming in the murk (and some banks don't want to sell them per the Fed plan)
• Fee hikes rise for debit cards
• Nigerian oil production disruptions due to rebel attacks (and why they're not affecting our gas prices very much)
  
• Fireworks shows and how many communities can't afford them this year (this is the uplifting one)
• Michael Lewis on the fall of Wall Street (the author mentions that government watchdogs still haven't actually spoken with the people at AIG who caused much of the chaos)
• Debt wasn't always the enemy (how the GI bill after WWII helped expand the middle class and home ownership in the US)

The article about fee hikes might cause some people to complain once again about those damn banks, but this one is a little different. Seems some folks over the years have treated debit cards less like checkbooks and more like credit cards. Since debit cards are linked directly to your checking account, you're not supposed to use it if you don't have the cash to cover it, and banks weren't supposed to let you use it if you lacked the cash. Seems the rules changed several years ago, and many banks now let you use the debit card even if you don't have the bucks to back up the transaction. Who woulda thunk?! Now, with looming limits on credit card interest, banks are imposing higher fees on those "overdraft" debit transactions. First thought: if you're nuts enough to not keep track of how much cash you have in your checking account, you deserve whatever fees the bank may impose on the privilege of overdrafting with a debit card. I don't have the same kind of sympathy for these people as I do for those being charged 20-30% interest on credit card debt.

The interview with Michael Lewis and what's still wrong with Wall Street includes the assertion that we still have not actually dealt with much of the underlying problem, and that there will be a "greater reckoning down the road" (i.e., more economic collapse before we're done with the Depression/Recession). One of Lewis' main observations is that when he went to interview people, like at AIG (the people who "actually know what happened") he's the first person they've talked to. That is, no one from Treasury or the NYS insurance regulators had "showed." He calls that amazing, I call it nonfeasance at best, and malfeasance at worst.

The 6/29/09 program is here. You can read the segments or listen to the podcast. Either way, these stories are eye-openers.

Enough Already

Is there no end in sight of the King of Pop Mania? We don't seem to be anywhere near the end on news and entertainment programs, but everyone I know that has an opinion is very tired of the hype and hoopla concerning Jackson's death. Lately, there's been relatively little news coverage of things like multiple American States teetering on bankruptcy, the Iraq and Iran situations, and any number of other more important matters. Susan Estrich pretty much sums it up in her column from July 1. Let the man rest in peace and let's the rest of us get on with life.

Golfing With Jesus, Moses, and...

Today, a good joke! Thanks to Pat!

Moses, Jesus, and an old, bearded man were out playing golf one day. Moses pulled up to the tee and drove a long one. It landed in the fairway but rolled directly toward a water trap. Quickly Moses raised His club, the water parted and it rolled to the other side safe and sound.

Next, Jesus strolls up to the tee and hits a nice long one directly toward the same water trap. It landed directly in the center of the pond and kind of hovered over the water. Jesus casually walked out on the pond and chipped it up onto the green.

The third guy gets up and sort of randomly whacks the ball. It heads out over the fence and into oncoming traffic on a nearby street. It bounces off a truck and hits a nearby tree. From there it bounces onto the roof of a nearby shack and rolls down into the gutter, down the downspout, out onto the fairway and right toward the aforementioned pond. On the way to the pond, it hits a little stone and bounces out over the water and onto a lily pad where it rested quietly. Suddenly, a very large bullfrog jumped up on the lily pad and snatched the ball into his mouth. Just then, an eagle swooped down and grabbed the frog and flew away. As they passed over the green, the frog squealed with fright and dropped the ball which bounced right into the hole for a beautiful hole in one.

Moses then turned to Jesus and said, "I hate playing with your Dad."