The Worm Turns

Listening tonight to Talk Radio KFBK's Mark Williams, I was surprised to learn that the the wingnuts seem to be rebelling against Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold's crime? Being even more of a special-interest money hog than Gray Davis! Why now? This problem was evident even during the Recall campaign. Whatever the reason, I like it: Republicans at each other's throat! Here's the Web Site to watch the evolution of this particular tempest in a tea cup: ArnoldWatch.

A "Progressive" Solution for Social Security

In today's Wall Street Journal, Robert C. Pozen offers an interesting approach to easing America into personal retirement accounts. One of the big political dilemmas conservatives have is finding a way to minimize the Social-Security 'carve-out': the amount of money diverted from Social Security into personal accounts. The bigger the carve-out, of course, the more money has to be borrowed to continue paying current benefits and the greater the trouble Social Security has of remaining solvent. Pozen's idea is called 'progressive indexing':

Under the current Social Security system, the annualized career earnings of all workers are increased by the amount wages in the whole U.S. economy have risen over their careers. Under progressive indexing, by contrast, the average career earnings of all workers with over $113,000 per year would be increased by the amount that prices have generally risen over their careers.

In recent years, on average, wage increases have tended to exceed price increases, by about 1% per year. Under progressive indexing, high-earners would feel a strong push out of traditional Social Security, and into private accounts, since their benefits would increase only as rapidly as prices. Medium and small earners wouldn't feel that pressure, however, since their benefits would increase as rapidly as wages do, which would tend to minimize the carve-out.

Of course, if the U.S. ever hit a period of stagflation, wage increases could lag price increases. The pressure would then be in the opposite direction: people in personal accounts would clamor to be let back into traditional Social Security (like they are doing today in societies that have such a dual system: e.g., Chile and Britain).

But people couldn't get back into traditional Social Security: Pozen's idea is a one-way ratchet: skim the rich out of the current system, not only to weaken the current system but also in order to be free to label Social Security as a welfare program, weakening it yet more by removing public support, and leave the rich to their own devices when the market goes bad.

Perhaps Pozen's idea would merit consideration if people were free to move back and forth between Social Security and private accounts. That would certainly be more in harmony with Bush's slogan of an 'ownership society:' competition between government and the private sector over retirees' money, and free choices for all! But it's all a moot point anyway. Pozen's idea, as well as all other options suggested by conservatives, have only one one real aim: damage, and ultimately destroy, traditional Social Security!

Until conservatives get serious with the ideas they suggest for national consideration, there will be no negotiation: liberals have nothing to offer except contempt for such offerings.

Sour Grapes

David Brooks presumptive obituary for Social Security Reform made me laugh! The only way to get through to these rock-headed ideological Republicans is with a baseball bat, it seems. But at least the Democratic message is beginning to filter through: Strengthen, don't "reform," Social Security!

Having skimmed decades of private-account proposals, Republicans did not appreciate how unfamiliar this idea would seem to many people. They didn't appreciate how beloved Social Security is, and how much they would have to show they love it, too, before voters would trust them to reform it. In their efforts to create a risk-taking, dynamic society, they didn't appreciate how many people, including conservatives, value security and safety.

If you wanted to see a real risk-taking, dynamic society, Gilded-Age America (1867 - 1901) was that very society: formaldehyde in canned meat, industrial accidents, bank panics, industrial monopolies, trade wars - name the hazard, we had it in abundance! People don't want to go back to all that! But I digress.....

Furthermore, Republicans didn't really have a strategy to get their proposals through Congress. They seemed to think that if the president held enough town hall meetings around the country, they could somehow bulldoze the Democrats.

Bulldozing worked for the Iraqi war, where so much of the critical information was secret, but it can't here, where the critical information is widely-available. Republicans will HAVE to negotiate, in good faith, with real-live Democrats, some of them LIBERAL Democrats, to accomplish anything. This is the high-water mark of bulldozing!

But Republican leaders have never really developed the skills required for cross-party horse-trading. Today's Republicans emerged in response to the ideological politics of the 1960's and were forged in the anti-political populism of the 1994 revolution. These anti-political creatures of conviction find sticking to orthodoxy easier than the art of compromise.

No shit!

The Democrats are still traumatized by their own losses. They are focused on past defeats, not future opportunities, and interested in revenge, not governing and accomplishment.

Not traumatized, just smarter. Democrats have decided to stop playing Charlie Brown, to stop believing Lucy's repeated story about letting us kick the football for once, and stomp on her instead.

When Social Security reform was broached, the party leaders went to the F.D.R. Memorial, as if the glory days of the 1930's were the guideposts for the 21st century.

If times change, Democrats will change with them. Regarding Social Security, times haven't changed. So we won't!

Meanwhile, the party base has grown militant with rage. The Howard Dean hotheads declare that they hate the evil Republicans, making compromise seem like collaborating with Satan. The militants, bloggers and polemicists have waged a relentless pressure campaign on any moderates who might even be thinking of offering constructive ideas.

The party base has good reason to get militant with rage. We are tired of being sold down river by some of our erstwhile friends (Lieberman, Lieberman, Lieberman!) As Truman used to say, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!

Sensing the inadequacy of the first Bush approach, many Republicans have floated brave concessions. Several leading Republicans proposed a big payroll tax increase for the upper class and upper-middle class. Senator Robert Bennett suggested progressively indexing benefits to protect the poor and working class from cost-saving steps.

Oh so brave, these "concessions!" Remember, FDR bomb-proofed Social Security by removing ANY aspect of means-testing for Social Security. Means-testing would weaken the program, because then it could be characterized as a WELFARE program (no doubt favored by drug-addicted, ghetto-livin', mulatto drag-queens in Cadillacs), and open it to further conservative attack. FDR wasn't going to have any of it. Thank God!

These offers are more progressive than any Republicans have made before or are likely to make again. But the Democrats played the Yasir Arafat role at Camp David. They made no counteroffers. They offered no plan. They just said no.

Applaud the progressive Republicans! But remember, Democrats don't HAVE to offer a plan! AT ALL! The ADMINISTRATION is in charge! It is THEIR RESPONSIBILITY to offer a plan! Which they have yet to do!

Instead, many made demagogic speeches about Republican benefit cuts, as if it is possible to fix the system without benefit cuts. Many ginned up the familiar scare tactics designed to frighten the elderly.

Modest tax increases, even decades from now, will be adequate to safeguard the program. And there is no sign the elderly are frightened. They are taking at face value Bush's vow that their benefits will be unaffected. They are worried about their kids, though, and their benefits, and that's why they are increasingly fighting Bush's proposals.

If Social Security reform fails - and obviously I hope this obit becomes obsolete - it will be many years before any sort of big entitlement reform will come up again. The parties will keep playing chicken, and we will soon find ourselves catastrophically buried under our own debt.

Big entitlement reform will come up again and again in the years ahead, because Medicare and Medicaid are in major crisis (unlike Social Security), and those problems, at a minimum, will have to be addressed. But why place the responsibility for society's debt at the feet of Social Security alone? There were those big Bush tax cuts for zillionaires, after all!

Oh, yes, there's one more group to be criticized: the American voters. For the past 30 years, Americans have wanted high entitlement spending and low taxes. From the looks of things today, they - or more precisely their children - are going to live with the consequences.

Losers always blame the voters! But, hell, it's their government, after all! That's what a democracy is all about!

The long-range consequences are that if Social Security can't be cut (like Greenspan is counting on), something else will have to be cut (or taxes will have to be raised, preferably on those feckless zillionaires). Or else we'll have a currency crisis. Or perhaps all three (you can almost feel laconic Greenspan beginning to panic, just about now!) But through whatever chaos ensues, Social Security will be the Rock of Gibraltar, just as FDR designed it, for those supposedly-oh-so-obsolete 1930's!

Snow in NM

A ton of weather - they even closed UNM in Albuquerque? Wow! That brings back fond memories of the winter of 1977/1978, when an ice glaze coated the streets of Albuquerque, paralyzing the town, and forcing my college dorm roommate at UNM, Wilbur W., to drive his VW Bug on the sidewalks just to get around!

And another memory, of travelling to NM through a storm for Christmas, 1993, with my dog Stella, and how ice glazed Interstate-40 over around Grants, and how, as an idiot Californian, I nevertheless persevered through a wilderness of jackknifed tractor-trailer rigs (no one told me they closed the freeway) until I reached Albuquerque, late, but unscathed.

Wish I was there now!

Salutary Head-Banging

Green Day's "American Idiot" album awakens boy in coma.

"Annie" (3)

Another weekend of "Annie" finished. Sunday's show seemed like the best so far, even though Kaylynn was sniffling a little bit (allergies, bane of the Central Valley in springtime).

On Friday, we shifted standard procedure so as to start moving the Christmas Tree in the blackout following the Cabinet scene. On Friday and Sunday the move went fine, but on Saturday, the artificial tree came apart when we attempted to move it, and chaos ensued. Fortunately, other than a longer-than-usual blackout, and an awkward move behind the traveller curtain after the blackout, everything turned out OK.

It's interesting how each show seems to have a distinct personality, partly because of the day on which it falls. The Friday audience is usually quiet (people are generally tired after the work week). The Saturday audience has a partying edge to it (but not so much this week, for some reason - maybe we are pulling more of a family demographic than we did with "Evita"). The large Sunday audience is generally quiet but attentive (the post-church and senior-citizen crowd).

The Saturday show this week was like a "Show Boat" reunion: Amber and Laurent (with baby Juliette) were there, as was Tev & Erin and J.D. Diefenbacher.

Meanwhile, at Woodland Dance Academy, we are gearing up to redo "Coppelia" this May, which we last did in 1996. At that time, we had Rome Saladino from Sacramento Ballet play 'Franz.' Rome was a wonderful dancer with a fine spirit attuned to spirit of community ballet theater. This time, though, we will have to make do with my efforts, plus those of J.P. Villa. One nice perk is dancing with Leah Miller (CDF firefighter): Leah is just the best! Looking forward to it!

MoveOn.org's Limitations

Some progressives are unhappy that MoveOn is taking a timid role in opposition to the Bush occupation policy in Iraq:

With a network of more than 3 million "online activists," the MoveOn leadership has decided against opposing the American occupation of Iraq. During the recent bloody months, none of MoveOn's action alerts have addressed what Americans can do to help get the U.S. military out of that country. ...A movement serious about ending U.S. military activities in Iraq could use the resolution as a way to cut through political tap dances and pressure members of Congress to take a stand. Down the road, generating grassroots support for a get-out-of-Iraq resolution has potential to clear a congressional pathway for measures cutting off funds for the war.

MoveOn is principally a liberal/progressive campaign vehicle geared to electing candidates and pressing broadly-acceptable positions. In some ways, it's like a nascent political party. Taking controversial stands is the responsibility of candidates and other leaders, not MoveOn as a whole.

Anti-war Democrats cannot yet unify regarding Iraq because it's unclear whether it would be worse to try to stabilize Iraq first before leaving, or simply leave. MoveOn isn't abdicating its role, it's just there is no broad consensus. If other leaders and organizations want to take harder stands, the more power to them, but they may be weakened as a consequence of abandoning broad consensus. Another year of Bush screwups, however, and that broad consensus may well emerge.

Mercury Rising

Hey, this really worked last night!

Space Weather News for March 11, 2005

SUNSET MERCURY: If you would like to see the planet Mercury, normally hidden by the sun, this weekend is the best time of the year to do it. When the sun sets on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Mercury will shine like a bright star through the rosy glow of the western horizon. Pay special attention on Friday, March 11th, when Mercury appears beautifully close to the slender crescent Moon.

As I drove across the Yolo Causeway last night, to Davis from Sacramento to appear in DMTC's "Annie," I didn't pay much attention to the traffic. Instead, I scanned the heavens, and found dim but distinct Planet Mercury in the sky! Sweet! Only the second time (the first was last spring) I've ever seen Sun-loving Mercury! I grooved on the planets and forgot the traffic!

The show last night was OK. Almost forgot the lyrics to "Tomorrow." As the cop, almost said "This is Lieutenant Precinct of the 17th Ward," instead of vice-versa (would have been a nice Mormon touch). Kaylynn's friends all came to see the show. John Hancock was there, as was Juan Ramos. Callie Gregg was there as well!

This morning, listening to NPR's Car Talk, was that Eadie O. who called in? She was asking about buying a purple car, vintage 2000, to celebrate her new life. I've seen some purple PT Cruisers, but she was leaning towards a Mazda Miata! Click and Clack, the Tappet Bros., were egging her on.....

Time to Put TNR Out of its Misery

David Sirota's outrage regarding The New Republic's conservative direction is crystallizing my own discomfort with the publication, and pushing me to a difficult decision. I hate to cancel my subscription: I've been a subscriber since 1980 and was mostly happy with the magazine and its storied past.

I lasted through the neo-conservative heterodoxies of the 80's and 90's, because at least the neo-cons thought things through, and they had a plan. Now, with Iraq, we know how stupid and divisive their plan was, and will be again and again with Iran and Syria and the rest of the Middle East. Still, it wasn't until Peter Beinart became Chief Editor, and stabbed us all in the back with this misleading analogy between Henry Wallace (FDR's 2nd Vice-President) and filmmaker Michael Moore that my outrage began boiling:

When liberals talk about America's new era, the discussion is largely negative--against the Iraq war, against restrictions on civil liberties, against America's worsening reputation in the world. In sharp contrast to the first years of the cold war, post-September 11 liberalism has produced leaders and institutions--most notably Michael Moore and MoveOn--that do not put the struggle against America's new totalitarian foe at the center of their hopes for a better world. As a result, the Democratic Party boasts a fairly hawkish foreign policy establishment and a cadre of politicians and strategists eager to look tough. But, below this small elite sits a Wallacite grassroots that views America's new struggle as a distraction, if not a mirage. Two elections, and two defeats, into the September 11 era, American liberalism still has not had its meeting at the Willard Hotel. And the hour is getting late.

(Note to Beinart: Michael Moore is a critic, not a leader, like Wallace once was. And MoveOn is a campaign vehicle - a nascent political party - and really not an 'institution' at all.)

In addition, Martin Peretz, former principle owner and Chief Editor of TNR, is still consumed by pathetic losers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, at a time when real-life fascists are loose in the land. Peretz's grim focus on the PC-circus at Harvard has descended into simple crankery. There are bigger issues, after all!

Times have changed. Elitism in the Democratic Party has its place, but not when the elite seeks to use lazy deceit to help expel the majority of its membership.

TNR's delusions have become unendurable. It's time to cancel my subscription, or at least let it run out. If Peretz, Beinart et al. have such contempt for us, their readers, their liberal constituency, why should we reciprocate with our time and attention? After 9/11, I'm still a little mad with The Nation, however, and will have to go hunting for an appropriate home.

Second Avenue

Via Broad at Bat, life with Cloudy:


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

The Dollar

Has resumed its downward direction.

Having slumped to multi-month lows against its major counterparts on Wednesday, the dollar suffered another blow on Thursday after Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told parliament that, generally speaking, diversity in foreign exchange reserves was a good thing.

Meanwhile, Greenspan tried to change the subject:

"The resolution of our current account deficit and household debt burdens does not strike me as overly worrisome, but that is certainly not the case for our fiscal deficit," Greenspan said in prepared remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

From Yahoo Finance, a graph of Dollar vs. Euro:

Connectivity

Surewest Communications is in my neighborhood these days, providing high-speed Internet connections to people's houses, whether they need it or not.

The absence of such connections nationwide may have helped break the dot-com boom in the late 90's. Fiber optic cable was laid everywhere, but the demand wasn't there for more than a fraction of the capacity. The demand could have been generated, but only by hooking people up en masse. Government could have done that, and I'm sure Al Gore even made that part of this platform in 2000, using the New Deal's rural electrification program as a model, but the 90's were the time of microinitiatives in government, Gore didn't take office, and nothing was done. Private business, focused as ever on the bottom line, didn't step forward in time. The result - collapse!

So now the connection will be there, should I ever need it. Maybe I will, maybe I won't.

Maybe Cloudy the bunny will sharpen her teeth on the new Internet connection. In any event, I should try to get Cloudy over to the vet sometime. They are nice with rabbits over there at Midtown Animal Clinic (behind the Dairy Queen) in Davis:


"Barry was well known to ask for all sorts of extras", by Alexr, over at B3ta.com

Social Security Privatization - a No-Brainer for Democrats

Nevertheless, our disgraceful latter-day triangulators need to come up to speed (e.g. Lieberman, Lieberman, Lieberman):

The consensus among the capital's chattering classes holds that the Social Security debate primarily concerns the program's solvency. Therefore, the questions center around political courage, and the greatest threat is that the parties will not agree on a solution. This consensus is wrong in every particular. In truth, the debate is fundamentally ideological. It does not lend itself to compromise.

To the Washington establishment, the suggestion that conservatives essentially want to do away with Social Security is something close to a lunatic conspiracy theory. When a guest on "Meet the Press" suggested as much, Tim Russert replied incredulously, "So you're suggesting that private personal accounts are a secret plan to get rid of Social Security?"

In fact, the plan hasn't been secret very long. Conservatives always saw the program as an indefensible infringement upon freedom....And so conservatives hit upon the tactic of phasing out the program by transforming it into a system of private accounts.

...Privatizers portray Social Security as a kind of low-performing 401(k) plan. But the program was never intended as a personal retirement plan. It's a form of social insurance, designed to spread risks throughout the population. One such risk is that you get sick or hurt and can't work anymore; 11.5 percent of Social Security benefits go to disabled workers (which is another reason why retirees get a lower rate of return).

...Because workers face higher risk in the economy today, social insurance that eliminates risk makes more sense, not less. Privatized Social Security might have made some sense 40 years ago for workers who stayed at one company their whole career and retired to a guaranteed pension. Why not let them take some risks with their public pension? But it utterly fails to meet the needs of the present day.... If workers are going to take on greater risk in a more dynamic economy, a risk-free bedrock of social insurance offers the perfect complement.

To this, Bush's allies would no doubt reply that they only intend to privatize the system in part. They would leave a minimum guaranteed benefit in place, along with survivors' benefits. What they rarely acknowledge is that partial privatization is designed to lead to full privatization.

How will this work? Conservatives believe, not without reason, that private accounts will offer an invidious comparison to traditional Social Security. Workers will note that the taxes they send off to the traditional program disappear, while the money in their own accounts grows before their eyes. The private accounts will, in most cases, also appear to provide a higher rate of return. ... But the comparison will create a constituency clamoring for expansion. Conservatives once proclaimed this unabashedly. The 1983 Cato Journal paper, which advocated what it called a "Leninist Strategy" for undermining Social Security, argued, "This mechanism for demonstrating the individual gains and losses that occur under Social Security is a key step in weakening public support for our present system."

Today's privatizers offer assurances that private accounts will be strictly limited and regulated. But those promises can't easily be reconciled with one of their key selling points--namely that workers would own them....

As conservatives well understand, once a group of voters has been given a property right by Washington, they will never allow it to be taken away. The individual rights will be a ratchet, one that can be expanded but never contracted. The pressure for expansion would be especially strong during extended bull market runs.... This is why conservatives are so insistent upon establishing individual accounts. They have uncharacteristically volunteered compromises--even offering to violate their theological opposition to tax hikes--in order to insert their opening wedge. Privatizers understand full well that any concessions they make can be legislated away in the future, while private accounts cannot.

In light of all this, it should be clear how critical it is to block private accounts. And it's curious, if not outright bizarre, that so many of those who do not share the privatizers' basic hostility to Social Security nonetheless urge the Democrats to compromise with them.

Why, then, is privatizing Social Security widely seen not as a contest of diametrical philosophies but as fertile ground for compromise? (As Joe Lieberman said on CNN last Sunday, "So, at some point, we've got to stop criticizing each other and sit at the table and work out this problem.") One reason is that the culture of Washington celebrates consensus....The press has proved receptive to this line of attack. "So the Democratic position," PBS anchorman Jim Lehrer asked Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid last month, "is that there is no crisis and nothing needs to be done at all to the Social Security program right now?"

Given that his own supposed solution will make it harder to shore up Social Security, Bush's claims to be motivated by a desire to save the program are patently disingenuous. ...The only way to make sense of Bush's behavior is to understand that his professed concern for Social Security's solvency is a pretext. He wants to use this moment of maximal Republican power to put his ideological imprint on any change to the system.

Bush has tried to pressure Democrats by accusing them of putting their heads in the sand by not putting forth a detailed plan to save Social Security. Amazingly, mainstream pundits have endlessly repeated this vacuous talking point, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Bush has no detailed plan, either.

...The fear peddled by the administration that fiscal calamity will ensue if we do nothing is also groundless. What's so bad about waiting until the last minute? In 1983, Congress waited until the very eve of insolvency to act, and a very responsible bipartisan solution emerged. If we do nothing until 2042, and insolvency actually does loom then, the same thing would no doubt happen again.

...Some moderates have suggested cutting a Social Security deal that includes a tax hike. But balancing the general operating budget and saving Medicare and Medicaid will probably require tax hikes, too. These twin problems--the deficit and health care--dwarf Social Security's future insolvency.

...The key point Democrats should understand is that, while it may be tactically useful to favor an alternative to privatization, no decent alternative is going to be signed into law under this president. ...In the meantime, the crown jewel of the New Deal faces an existential threat. Defeating that threat is the task to which we must presently address ourselves.

Loitering

Hanging around outside a convenience store at night, you learn things. I was struck by the popularity of "Swishers," the little cigarillos whose sales are burning up cash registers at night all over Sacramento. Turns out it's the Swisher paper that's popular: it's great as rolling paper for pot. Look in the trash can and you see where the Swisher tobacco goes.

Drug paraphernalia sales are also hot - brillo pads, aluminum foil, and something else I can't remember - but how these "dual use" items get used is beyond my shallow experience. Sales are episodic however, and depend on the arrival of 'shipments' from out-of-town.

Learn something new every day!

More Tales of Sacramento at Night

The homeless lady walked up to the convenience store shortly after midnight. Normally she brings windshield-cleaning materials with her, but her bicycle and materials had been stolen, so she was hoping instead for simple handouts. The older you get, the harder the streets: she had been out-of-action for a few days due to an ear infection.

The cops rolled up in their patrol car and told her to go home. They said that if she didn't go home, they would arrest her. So she left (but not before I managed to slip her a couple of dollars in change).

The cops probably knew more about her than I did. Nevertheless, why do the pleasant panhandlers face instant grief, while no one seems to mess with the crazies and lunatics?

The DLC Sells Its Credibility To The Credit Card Companies

What seems to be the problem? Everybody's in on the action, so it's OK, right? Everybody keeps their mouth shut, everybody gets paid! What is it about getting paid that you don't understand, you Sista-Souljah-defending liberal?

(No honor among these thieves!)

Indian Tribe Survival

There is a wonderful story on the front page of today's Wall Street Journal describing the reappearance of the Apalachee tribe - formerly of Florida and now of Louisiana - and once so formidable that mapmakers named the Appalachian Mountains after them, but completely decimated by many determined enemies over the centuries - American settlers, plantation masters, the Klan, Jim Crow laws - to the point where the tribe decided to embrace an underground existence and all-but vanish from the face of the Earth. They maintained their Catholicism, genealogies, and traditions as best they could, however, and are now trying to gain federal recognition. Their story is harrowing, however, and the once-huge tribe was almost completely destroyed over the years.

A lot of other tribes embraced secrecy to survive and thrive. Early archaeologists on the Colorado Plateau of the American Southwest speculated on the religious practices and symbolism of the Anasazi Indians, whose ancient pueblos (e.g., Chaco Canyon) they excavated. Pueblo Indians, descendants of the Anasazis, still used some of the symbolism, however. It must be frustrating to be a Southwestern archaeologist, because no matter how much you speculate, and how learned one's credentials, there are people around who know what the symbols mean - and they aren't talking!

My limited experience with Pueblo Indians in New Mexico suggests that, aside from secrecy, they have found many other ways to accomodate American society. I remember talking with several people from Acoma Pueblo (west of Albuquerque, NM) about their determination to secure economic development for themselves and their families, and I was struck by their gritty resolve. The pueblo's casino along Interstate Highway 40 embodies some of their aspirations (and if others lose as badly there as I once did, they will succeed.)

On two occasions, I went to Acoma's traditional "Sky City" for tribal dance celebrations. The impressive mesa-top village has been continuously inhabited since the 1200's at least, longer than any other site in the U.S.: the place was old even before the Spanish conquistadors arrived. I was struck at just how relaxed everything was. The young kids were learning the dances, the adults were teaching them, and everyone was enjoying themselves. There was no sense of artificial pride or of trying to preserve a threatened past - rather the atmosphere was like 'this is who we are and this is what we do.'

Survival of culture depends on moments of selfless joy in tradition. It is no surprise that the Apalachees went underground: otherwise, how could they continue with their traditions? The history of the Pueblo Indians was kinder than that of the tribes of the east, but they too have to be careful.

Best of luck to the Apalachees, and all the other tribes trying to cope with American society!

Where There's Fire, There's Smoke

The Clear Skies bill is apparently deadlocked, but the legislators seem unusually vexed about it:

The 9-9 vote on Bush's "Clear Skies" plan -- a name that Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., described as "akin to calling Frankenstein Tom Cruise" -- was expected and fell largely along party lines.

Barbara Boxer is a lot more outspoken (and funnier) these days, which is a good thing!

[The panel's chairman, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla. said] "This bill has been killed by the environmental extremists who care more about continuing the litigation-friendly status quo and making a political statement on CO2 than they do about reducing air pollution."

Siding with seven Democrats against the bill were Sens. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., and James Jeffords, I-Vt., who complained it would weaken the 1970 Clean Air Act, last amended in 1990. They also wanted limits put on carbon dioxide, the "greenhouse" gas scientists blame for global warming, which Bush opposes regulating. "It's a shame that the U.S. Congress is the last bastion of denial on climate change," Chafee said.

Not just Congress - the American people - and for that matter, almost all the people on Earth, are in denial as well.

[Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana] suggested starting from scratch for another compromise later this year, since "sometimes things have to be torn apart before they can be put back together again."

Or maybe abandoned?

Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., said the bill was needed because "it's a sin to burn natural gas. We might want to consider a sin tax on those utilities that burn natural gas."

What the heck is Kit Bond talking about - it's a "sin" to burn clean, abundant natural gas? More like a misdemeanor - burning dirty coal is closer to a "sin" than clean natural gas. Legislators sure get hyperbolic when they are mad!

Among the most impassioned about the defeat were Sens. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and Thomas Carper, D-Del., who led most of the committee's negotiations.

Voinovich said that that bill was about nothing less than keeping coal -- "our most abundant and cheapest energy source -- part of our energy future." But Carper said the bill's opponents had been stonewalled by the White House and EPA when requesting more information about it. "That's got to end," he said, raising his voice.

Coal miners vs. downwinders here. Irreconcilable foes!

To refute such charges, Inhofe had arranged six cardboard boxes piled high before him with what he said were 10,000 pages of paper -- a spectacle that Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., called "that mini-Superfund site in front of your desk."

Lautenberg funny! Republicans mad, Democrats funny! They way I like them best!

Daily Weirdness

The Daily Rotten outdoes itself today:

"A Tacoma woman put a handgun to a firefighter's head and pulled the trigger several times yesterday as he tried to rescue her from a fire she'd set in her own home, authorities said. But the gun was empty because the woman had apparently already used the bullets to shoot her boyfriend to death, Tacoma police said."

"Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe said he may have been a target of an al Qaeda kidnap plot in early 2001, part of a bid by the militant network to 'culturally destabilize' the United States.

"The family of Belfast murder victim Robert McCartney have rejected an IRA offer to shoot his killers. The IRA offered to shoot those directly involved in the 33-year-old's death after a row in a bar on 30 January, and has given the family their names... Both these men have been expelled by the IRA."

"Turkey has said it is changing the names of three animals found on its territory to remove references to Kurdistan or Armenia. The environment ministry says the Latin names of the red fox, the wild sheep and the roe deer will be altered. The red fox for instance, known as Vulpes Vulpes Kurdistanica, will now be known as Vulpes Vulpes... The ministry said the old names were contrary to Turkish unity."

"As Hispanic teens shed the language of their native countries and immerse themselves in American culture, they become dramatically more sexually active, a new study shows... The study... adds evidence to the so-called healthy immigrant paradox, that Hispanics coming to the United States are healthier than second- and third-generation U.S. residents from the same countries.

What To Do With the Varsity

Beth Curda's front-page article on March 6th in the Davis Enterprise ("City solicits ideas for using Varsity") seemed a bit premature. The Varsity Theater doesn't sit hollow and empty - at least, not yet. On the other hand, there is a lot of potential to have the Varsity become a true white elephant, dark and empty and right smack in the middle of downtown Davis' business district.

The City of Davis apparently still wants the Varsity to serve as the linchpin of an active downtown culture, in accordance with the vision of the Davis City Council in the early 90's:

The city is inviting proposals for developing and managing/operating the theater "as a high-quality arts and entertainment venue," a news release stated.

...The city wants to retain the Varsity "as a unique component" of the downtown area....

What hurts is that we at DMTC felt we had fulfilled that vision for use of the Varsity Theater. What apparently troubled the City was that we weren't pulling in enough money to make the Varsity self-sustaining, particularly with its pricey lease. As the article states:

But city leaders have said for a few years the downtown building is underutilized and they are looking for new ideas.

The City now owns the Varsity, and they haven't identified a group or business able to bring in enough money to fulfill their expectations. Nevertheless proposals for new uses are due by March 31st at the City Parks and Community Services Department.

As it always has, the City needs better marketing for the Varsity, particularly post-DMTC. The City may find that no particular demand for such a facility exists, at least at the prices clients might want to pay. But they'll never know unless they try! Soliciting proposals probably isn't going to be adequate by itself. The City has to MAKE it happen, by becoming even more active in soliciting businesses, and that means committing people and resources towards that goal.

Yesterday's Congressional Election Results

Well, it looks like Chuck Pineda didn't do that good. My vote, by itself, wasn't enough to put him over the top. Guess I should have run too! Maybe next time....the campaign is the key!

Interesting how more people voted absentee than showed up at the polls, or by mail (37,333; 35,967; and 315, respectively).

Riled Newlyweds

The gay couple pictured in the recent anti-AARP ad campaign? They didn't give permission to have their likenesses used in an anti-gay political campaign and they are suing!

Connecting the Dots

OK, the U.S. has a balance of trade problem. On one hand, the minimum wage will stay the same at its current low level, but bankruptcy laws are to be tightened significantly. That means consumption is to be penalized. Not only that, Greenspan wants to tax consumption, cut Social Security benefits, and make the Bush tax cuts permanent.

So, it sounds like the way we are to solve the U.S.'s balance of trade problem is for the American middle class to stop consuming so much. Yet it's the same American middle class that is the engine for prosperity in the world. It's a chicken-and-egg dilemma, and we are going to find out what breaks first: the trade deficit, or prosperity.

Sounds like a recession - a planned recession - is coming!

Hans Bethe, RIP

Oh, this is sad. The greatest physicist of the 20th Century has passed away:

Hans Bethe, the nuclear physicist whose elegant calculations explained how stars shine and laid the foundation for development of both the atomic and hydrogen bombs, has died. He was 98. Bethe, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967, died Sunday at his home in Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University announced Monday.

A reluctant but crucial participant in the World War II effort to develop nuclear weapons, Bethe subsequently became one of the country's most passionate and persuasive proponents of disarmament. He argued that the use of such weapons would cost not only countless lives, but "liberties and human values as well."

...Bethe (pronounced Bay-ta) was the lone survivor of the remarkable group of mostly German physicists of the early 20th Century — a group that included Einstein, Dirac, Fermi and Heisenberg — that deciphered the fundamental laws of matter and energy and set the stage for the remarkable technological developments of the last half of the century."

... Given the known temperature of the core of the sun — about 20,000,000 degrees Celsius — and the proportions of carbon, hydrogen and other elements in its interior, he deduced which nuclear reactions could be responsible for its radioactive fire.

He ultimately developed a six-step cycle in which carbon and nitrogen atoms act as catalysts for the conversion of four hydrogen nuclei (protons) into one helium nucleus. The very slight mass lost in the process is converted into large amounts of energy according to Albert Einstein's famous equation, E = mc2.

Bethe later remarked with typical modesty that he found the answer by "looking through the periodic table [of elements] step by step. So you see, this was a discovery by persistence, not by brains."

One oft-told story about Bethe recounts the evening after he discovered the secrets of starlight. During a late-night stroll, his fiance, Rose — daughter of theoretical physicist Paul Ewald — remarked on how beautiful the stars looked. He responded: "Yes, darling, and I'm the only one on Earth who knows how they do it."

Bethe and his Cornell colleagues then verified five of the six steps in the laboratory; the sixth was reproduced by researchers at Cambridge University. The entire six-step cycle takes 5.4 million years to complete.

With the coming of World War II and by then a naturalized citizen, Bethe joined the war effort, first at MIT's Radiation Laboratory and later as the chief theoretical physicist for the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, N.M., even though he felt development of the bomb was morally wrong, and that the United States — and the world — would be far more secure without it."

...Bethe's solid, plow-through-the-problem approach earned him the nickname The Battleship; in contrast, his close colleague and office-mate physicist Richard Feynman became known as the Mosquito Boat because he skittered around a problem from all sides at once.Together, they were a formidable pair; the formula for calculating the efficiency of nuclear weapons became known as the Bethe-Feynman formula

...Despite his moral qualms about the bomb, Bethe considered it a necessary evil. He felt that its use in Japan was justified because many more Japanese and American lives would have been lost in an invasion of the island nation.

After the war, he became a prominent spokesman against proliferation — arguing without success that atomic bombs should be placed under strict international controls. He made countless public speeches throughout the country arguing his case.

He initially opposed Edward Teller's plans to build the hydrogen bomb, arguing that it was unnecessary. "We had enough A-bombs to kill the world," he said later. "Why add an H-bomb and kill the other half? So I said no to Teller.... I would not join him at Los Alamos."He became the spokesman for 12 physicists who opposed the project, a group which later developed the idea that the United States should publicly declare that it would not be the first to use the H-bomb "since it was not a weapon of war but a means of exterminating entire populations."

Bethe initially thought the point was moot because none of Teller's ideas for producing the bomb seemed likely to work. But in 1951, physicist Stanislaw Ulam conceived a new way to make fission bombs and Teller saw how this could be used to make a fusion bomb — using an A-bomb to trigger the H-bomb.Bethe recognized that the bomb could be built and could undoubtedly be built by the Russians as well. "If I didn't work on the bomb, somebody else would — and I had the thought that if I were around Los Alamos, I might still be a force for disarmament," he later said.

...Interestingly, after the H-bomb was made, reporters started to call Teller the father of the H-bomb," he said. "For the sake of history, I think it is more precise to say that Ulam is the father, because he provided the seed, and Teller is the mother, because he remained with the child. As for me, I guess I am the midwife."

While Bethe did not achieve many of his arms reduction goals, he believed that all scientists should take an active role in influencing public policy."Whether or not their governments respond to their advice, scientists have an obligation to speak out publicly when they feel there are dangers ahead," he wrote.

Bethe was an advisor to presidents from Truman to Clinton, and served on dozens of advisory committees When the idea of anti-ballistic missile systems became popular under President Johnson in 1967, Bethe and Garwin published an article in Scientific American arguing that such systems would add to the insecurity of the U.S. as well as the world — a position he held until his death.

Even with the best system, he wrote, there would be too many incoming targets to stop, and it would be too easy for an enemy to avoid our missiles and destroy our satellites. "Even quite feeble blows against orbiting battle stations ... could render them useless."

On Aug. 6, 1995, the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Bethe called on scientists all over the world to stop working on all weapons of mass destruction, and appealed to all nuclear powers to slash arsenals to less than 100 bombs each. That way, he argued, even if political leaders went crazy, (he used Hitler as an example), at least they couldn't destroy all of civilization.

Bethe also worried that the U.S. would be seen as hypocritical for urging nuclear nonproliferation while continuing to design and build bombs, and argued that funds should go instead for improved stewardship of the weapons we already have.

Throughout his life and despite the potential distractions of his forays into the politics of arms control, Bethe continued to produce first-rate physics in an unusually wide range of disciplines. He worked on theories of metals, developed important insights into such exotica as neutron stars, and speculated how neutrinos that appeared to be missing from the sun's nuclear output could be eluding detectors because they were changing into different forms en route to Earth."

...In the 1970s, Bethe returned to his first love: astrophysics. While his earlier work explained how stars lived, he turned after his retirement to the fireworks produced when they die.

When massive stars run out of fuel, they eventually collapse under their own gravitation weight, then explode in colossal fireworks. Physicists knew most of the energy was carried away by wispy neutrinos, but the mechanism was a mystery.

Bethe's insights helped cut through complexities that had stumped much younger minds."Other people were cranking out large computer codes and reams of output, but they weren't cranking out understanding," Kolb said. "Hans came in with a pencil and paper and made more sense of what was coming out of the computer than the people who wrote the code."

His style of working never changed. "It was wonderful to watch him write a scientific paper," said Morrison. "He would write steadily, sentence after sentence, without looking anything up. When he got to a place that was hard, he'd go very slowly, but he wouldn't stop. Then he'd give those pages to a typist, and they'd be published as a book. Without any correction whatsoever. Hans didn't know about mistakes."

After his retirement in 1975, Bethe became a strong advocate for the development of peaceful nuclear power — along with drastic conservation efforts — as the only realistic short-term alternative to fossil fuels. "The country has to realize that the energy problem is terribly serious and is likely to be permanent," he wrote.

But he never lost his interest in science. At the age of 83, he apprenticed himself to Gerald E. Brown of the State University of New York at Stony Brook to learn lattice gauge theory, which predicts how nuclear matter is transformed at extremely high temperatures into a plasma of particles called quarks and gluons. "I'm interested in learning new things," Bethe explained.

Bolton for U.N. Ambassador?

What's the point of this act of contempt? Bolton hates the U.N. and the folks there hate him too. You can't persuade people whom you openly revile.

Punish Lieberman

How to deal with a traitor? Joe "Enron" Lieberman's triangulation is an old problem - Lieberman doesn't understand politics that doesn't feature triangulation of some sort. He must be disciplined. It's not a matter of centrism. Harry Reid is more centrist than Lieberman, but Reid knows when he has room for maneuver and when he doesn't. Joe doesn't, and he thinks he does.

Tomorrow is Election Day!

Before I forget, Chuck Pineda for Congress!

Disco Inferno

Schadenfreude in the Austin, Texas police department. I can see how a burdened police department might respond this way, but after the 'Great White' tragedy a couple of years ago in Rhode Island, or the recent Argentine nightclub fire in Buenos Aires, I think the police department should at least be verbally chastised. Nothing fun about incineration.

Staying in Touch

My phone service failed at the beginning of the year, and my reaction was, "what a blessed relief from the modern world and its impertinences!" It wasn't for nothing that - how does the story go? - French Impressionist painter Gauguin, on a visit back from the South Pacific, made fun of Cezanne because Cezanne jumped like a lackey when his (at the time brand-new device of the) telephone rang. My phone failed partly because they replaced the "box" down the street, and my phone was not properly wired up. Nevertheless, today it's all fixed! Hooray! And the first call I received, after two months of losing touch, was a bill collector! All hail progress!

World's Dumbest Website?

Walt has a candidate for this dubious honor:

You remember the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, don't you? It was the place whose overthrow by that insolent brigand Garibaldi led to the so-called "unification of Italy" in 1861. Fortunately and by the Grace of God, the House of Bourbon still lives to promote the rightfulness of its claims.

What did my French History professor at UNM (Steen) say in regard to the French House of Bourbon, when they came back into power after Napoleon?: "They learned nothing and they forgot nothing."

DMTC "Annie" Review

The Davis Enterprise doesn't seem in a hurry to post this review on the Web, so I may as well (save and zoom for readability).

In the dozens of shows I've done, this is the first time I'm mentioned by name (dance people and spearcarriers like myself almost never get recognition by name, since we aren't leading characters). Davis Enterprise reviewer Bev Sykes notes:

Mark Valdez, seen early in the show as the police officer, appears later as Franklin Roosevelt and gives a believable imitation of the president.

That's praise, since the most important hurdle in recreating an easily-recognized historical figure is creating a 'believable imitation.' The reviewer's harshest comment ("could use some additional coaching") fell upon unfortunate Midas, the Golden Retriever who plays Annie's dog, Sandy. Thank goodness Midas didn't also have to create a 'believable imitation!'

Making a Statement

An unexpected shot from the Davis Enterprise of Varsity Theater City Tech James Henderson:


IN SOLIDARITY: James Henderson raises his fist in the air during a speech Thursday at lunchtime on the Davis High School Quad. Several hundred students participated in the rally, then marched from the school to Central Park in protest of this week's racist vandalism. Greg Rihl/Enterprise photo

Kim Simons Condon Memorial

On Saturday afternoon March 5th, a memorial observance was held at the B Street Theatre for designer and theatrical costumer Kim Condon. Many of Sacramento's leading theatrical personalities were on hand for the observance.

Marcus Crowder was chosen by Kim's husband Frank to host the event. Crowder spoke of the surpassing strangeness and irony of being chosen for the role. Crowder, of course, is a theatrical critic for the Sacramento Bee, and here he was, alone, on stage, in front of an audience filled with actors and actresses. It was a jiu-jitsu role reversal that Kim Condon would have relished.

After beautiful music (I missed the names of the talented duo who played), Kim's friends and family spoke movingly of her life. I had only just met her, so I didn't have a good fix on her personality, but after a while, a picture emerged of someone who loved transformations; someone who could take ordinary everday materials and create magic from them. It's no wonder that someone with such a love would end up in costume design.

There were references to interesting costumes - the 'Lobster'; the 'Dalmatian.' Martha Omiyo Kight spoke warmly of a purple taffeta dress. Kim apparently carried an Land of Lakes Indian maiden emblem with her at all times, to show the uninitiated what a few folds in the emblem could accomplish in the way of transformation. Basically, Kim was a warm, funny, high-spirited theatrical artist. At the end of the testimonials, and in honor of her life, the audience of her friends and peers offered the warmest accolade a theater person can earn: a standing ovation!

Donations can be sent to the Kim Simons Condon Memorial Costume Program scholarship fund at Cosumnes River College, 8401 Center Parkway, Sacramento, CA 95823.

Woodland Dance Academy

A compendium of the various shows I've performed with them, since 1993:

Dr. Faustus



This is the last weekend for Dr. Faustus at American River College. See it if you can!

Last night was my only chance to see Dr. Faustus, but because I was listening to Eric the DJ (I hope...at least that's what I understood) spinning turntables on Leetradio's Urban Chaos show, I *forgot* and missed it. So sorry!

Old Magazines

As FDR background for "Annie," Steve handed me a "Look" Magazine from 1940 to read. "Look" was the striving second-sister to "Life": both magazines of course are chock-full of wonderful Americana from mid-century. Besides a rundown of FDR's 1940 worries (including starkly-opinionated political commentary), this issue of "Look" (January 16, 1940) included new Sonja Henie ice fashions, promos for Walt Disney's "Gulliver's Travels," how women can reel in men like fish, how skinny girls can gain weight, a picture-biography of Stalin, protests against rigged boxing matches, and an analysis of Lou Gehrig's mysterious disease.

What I liked most was a four-page picture preview of Darryl Zanuck's new motion picture version of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," starring Henry Fonda. What a good promotional device! Then I began thinking how we don't see these magazine previews anymore. Not only are the variety magazines largely gone, but today's magazines focus on the star, not the film. I guess the assumption is that everyone gets most of their information through TV these days, but we still have a need - a largely unmet need! - to learn about new motion pictures, and this simple promotional device is still a good idea.

Gay-Bashing in Santa Fe

And an excellent dancer too:

Court records indicate that the beating of James Maestas, 21, was motivated by his sexual orientation and that the three defendants who are charged in his and a friend's beating were shouting, "Let's (mess) these faggots up" at the time of the attack in the La Quinta Inn parking lot on Cerrillos Road.

The Sonoran Desert

Death by a thousand blades.

The Fed Emperor Has No Clothes

About time someone punched Alan Greenspan for his partisan hackery:

Asked Thursday his reaction to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's insistence this week that Social Security must be transformed, preferably along lines urged by Bush, Reid replied:

"I'm not a big Greenspan fan. ... I voted against him two times. I think he's one of the biggest political hacks we have in Washington," Reid said on CNN's "Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics."

Reid complained that Greenspan had decried budget deficits when Bill Clinton was president but he doesn't criticize Bush for turning a federal budget surplus he inherited from Clinton into trillions of new debt.

I didn't know Harry Reid is from Searchlight, NV (SSE of Las Vegas). About time we had more southwestern legislators in charge of things!

The federal government virtually created the entire economy of Nevada and the Mojave Desert. Having someone like Reid in charge will help keep the Republicans from ruining that economy out of sheer hubris.

Having pro-life, Mormon Reid as Senate leader instantly made the Democrats less shrill on abortion (closer to mainstream equivocation) and more forgiving of religious difference. It's good for the party!

U.N. Finally Responds

With violence. Sometimes that is what it takes!

U.N. peacekeeping troops backed by an attack helicopter responded after being fired on and killed up to 60 militants accused of terrorizing villagers and killing nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers, officials said Wednesday. It was the largest number killed by a U.N. force since the Congo mission was created in 1999.

W(h)ine

I'm so easily provoked. I thought this was about Old Europe striking back:

New World's big brands 'taste no better than many cheaper wines'

But it turns out it's just about getting out of your rut:

Susy Atkins, the report's editor, urged big-brand devotees to change their habits. "People need to get out of a rut if they are not feeling inspired and taste something different...."

For wines costing between £5-£7 Ms Atkins recommended labels from Chile, South Africa, Languedoc in the south of France and southern Italy. Many of these countries and regions had made "enormous progress" in the past 15 years and their warm climates produced "reliable, ripe, fruity and modern" flavours she said.

More Tales of Sacramento at Night

Drunken customers at the AM/PM usually don't use language that well, but once in a while you hear interesting turns-of-phrase. Last night, one customer turned to his friend and levelled an accusation:

Your like a f*****n' salmon going to Capistrano!

I have no idea what he meant, but I like the pastoral image of migrating schools of plentiful, ocean-going fish, braving every obstacle (including a lack of water) to nest in the rafters of the old Spanish Mission.

Soot Over The Indian Ocean

Over the years, I've seen a lot of disturbing information in the professional journals on just how bad airborne soot is in South Asia, to the extent that climate is affected, not just there, but over all the northern Indian Ocean as well. This just adds to what we already know, but sometimes fail to appreciate:

The burning of wood, agricultural waste and animal manure for cooking is the largest source of black carbon in the air in that region, according to the team led by C. Venkataraman of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

"We therefore suggest that the control of these emissions through cleaner cooking technologies, in addition to reducing health risks to several hundred million users, could be of crucial importance to climate change mitigation in south Asia," the researchers wrote in a paper appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

The effect of soot in the air over the Indian Ocean is some 10 times that of the so-called greenhouse gases, according to the researchers. The pollution causes the air to absorb more sunlight, warming the atmosphere and cooling the surface beneath.

Kill The Goose

The one that actually lays our golden egg of prosperity:

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on Thursday embraced the notion of overhauling the nation's tax system and said that some form of a consumption tax - such as a national sales tax - could spur greater economic growth.

The Intellectual, and His Prey

Watch the plodding academic size up his nimble and fleet prey on the Serengeti Plains of public discourse, the one who gets the all the attention, the accolades, (the money), the girls, (the money). Watch the intellectual thrash uncomfortably in his sheepskin as he stealthily approaches the watchful foe. Wait! The foe knew he was there the entire time!

The realms of advertising and of public relations, and the nowadays closely related realm of politics, are replete with instances of bullshit so unmitigated that they can serve among the most indisputable and classic paradigms of the concept. And in these realms there are exquisitely sophisticated craftsmen who — with the help of advanced and demanding techniques of market research, of public opinion polling, of psychological testing, and so forth — dedicate themselves tirelessly to getting every word and image they produce exactly right.

Mickey Kaus...

He be funny!:

The comments of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), made as GOP lawmakers returned from a week of trying to sell the Bush plan to voters, underscored the challenge facing the White House.

Frist supports the president's proposal for creating personal investment accounts but acknowledged to reporters that the plan is in trouble. "We are never, ever going to do this," Frist said. "But I wouldn't take it off the table yet," he added, noting that when he was a medical student "cadavers would often lie around on top of desks for weeks."

I sense a skit for "Saturday Night, Live" in all this:

(Knock at Door)
Who's there?
(Muffled response)
AARP?
(Nothing)
Bill Frist?
(Muffled response)
SSA Lock Box?
("flowers")
Flowers? Your no florist, you're George Bush with Social Security Reform, aren't you?
("candy?")
(Opens Door)AARRGGHHH! Land Shark!

So True!

From mjshep:

From the forthcoming book "Dem Strategy for Dummies":

• If Repubs say we're making a mistake, we're on the right track.
• If repubs say we're being reasonable, we're making a mistake.
• If repubs snicker at a candidate (think Dean) they are afraid of him.
• If repubs praise a candidate (think Lieberman) he's a loser and/or a spineless wimp.

Fighting Hollywood Values

Uruguayan singer Jorge Drexler, whose song "Al Otro Lado del Río" (To the Other Side of the River) from "The Motorcycle Diaries" won him an Oscar, was not permitted to sing his song at the Academy Awards celebration, even though he sang the song in the movie. Drexler was not a big enough star - the honor of singing his song at the celebration was extended to Antonio Banderas instead. Drexler nevertheless used his acceptance speech to sing his song a cappella, in his own little protest against the Empire of Hollywood:

ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

Clavo mi remo en el agua
Llevo tu remo en el mío
Creo que he visto una luz
al otro lado del río

El día le irá pudiendo
poco a poco al frío
Creo que he visto una luz
al otro lado del río Ciao!

Thank you! Gracias!

As The Wall Street Journal reported today:

That simple act has become an emblem of (Uruguayan) national pride. ...Newspapers praised his a cappella performance as an "act of revenge" and a "bofetada sin mano," an expression that translates literally "a slap without a hand."

Henry Segura (performing arts editor of El Pais, the country's largest-circulation newspaper), was quoted:

It's "the most significant thing to happen in Uruguay in many years,".... "It was a triumph of dignity."

The little guys of the world win one!

Sensible Reactionary

Is this the same Arnaud de Borchgrave: so conservative he makes paint peel? The refugee from the halcyon days of Henry Luce's "Time" magazine? Apparently so, although he must be pretty creaky by now. And why does he sound...well, sensible? I guess he stood still and the Bolsheviks of the Bush Administration ran past and outflanked him on the right. He sounds practically liberal in today's environment:

The House recently voted 411-3 to warn the EU if it lifts the arms embargo on China, the U.S. will halt technology transfers to Europe. The Senate will follow suit shortly. The Europeans are now drawing up a list of American "civilian" technology transfers they say have added muscle to China's military girth. Score one for rapprochement between the EU and China.

It is yet to dawn on U.S. gatekeepers that 6.7 percent of Chinese defense imports come from the United States and only 2.7 percent from Europe. Humvees are mass-produced in China for the People's Liberation Army. Rolls Royce engines are in some Chinese fighter-bombers. Russia gets most of China's $15 billion defense market.

Bad Reception

Columnist George Will has taken aim at the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB), and I'm peeved.

First, Will starts his complaint with the establishment of CPB in 1967, and ignores the prior history of public television altogether. Public TV was a saving grace of the 'vast wasteland' of the 50's and early 60's television, well before CPB was established. I remember!

Disdainful Will asks:

Why should government subsidize the production and distribution of entertainment, and even worse, journalism?

That's easy to answer, Mr. Will. Being ubiquitous, the air waves are a public resource. To prevent their abuse (another 'tragedy of the commons') use of this public resource (like many others, such as water) should be licensed by the government, and the government has an interest in their proper use. The government can and should require producers of entertainment and news to use their skills for the broad betterment of the country, or to produce such goods itself, should it choose. Hell, even Herbert Hoover recognized that government had a role to play! Why can't Will?

This is true even if Cable (carried by wire, and hence not technically carried in the ether) is part of the media mix. Cable relies, after all, on satellite transmission for part of its delivery.

In a sense, the public's attention is the real resource, and it's dangerous to let a single agency, or group of agencies, whether public or private or both, to dominate that resource. "Tragedy of the Commons" can apply to how we use the fruits of entertainment, as well as how those fruits are transmitted.

George Will proceeds to bite the hand that feeds him in this laughable quote:

Furthermore, journalism and imitations of it have become social smog. Even in airport concourses you are bombarded by televised human volcanoes verbally assaulting each other about the "news," broadly - very broadly - defined to include Kobe Bryant's presence on Michael Jackson's witness list.

It is exactly this degradation of the news that Public Television is best able to combat (e.g., The News Hour on PBS). The unfortunate effect of the systematic crippling of Public Television with budget cuts over the last 25 years, however, is that some of the best, most informative news available anywhere on Cable TV today comes from Jon Stewart's Daily Show: a freakin' SATIRE of talking heads JUST LIKE YOU, Mr. Will, as well as the rest of the volcanoes in the 'Ring of Fire' of human boob-tube mouthpieces! Even in 'airport concourses' (one of the few places I'm sure where Mr. Will might find himself mingling with unwashed common folk and other hoi-polloi), can't he sense the seething contempt directed to opinion-floggers like himself? Is Will that insulated from reality? Doesn't the question practically answer itself?

Public Television still fulfills its basic function even in the Cable Multiverse we have today. Where else can you see shows featuring, say, Broadway songs, on Basic Cable? Nowhere else. Same with popular shows from Britain. "Austin City Limits:" there are many other examples.

Public Television is not 'vestigial,' as Will would have us believe, but rather beleaguered. Public Television is having a harder time of late, but that is because it has so many powerful, Republican enemies, and because media interests have an interest in killing it off.

Strange Creatures

The Cuban almiqui.

So Why Just Active-Duty Military?

Puzzling that Republicans want the exemption so narrowly drawn.

The Senate voted Tuesday to exempt active-duty military and some veterans from key provisions of pending legislation that would make it harder for millions of Americans to erase their debts by filing for bankruptcy protection.

...Democrats pressed Tuesday to protect members of the military from the bill's new provisions, saying that some service members called to duty in Iraq and Afghanistan had lost small businesses or been forced into bankruptcy by other financial hardship.

"Many men and women in the military are making extraordinary sacrifices," Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said. "It's unfair that they should come home to face this new harsh bankruptcy law."

But Republicans defeated on a straight party-line vote, 58 to 38, an amendment sponsored by Durbin that would have created a broad exemption from the means test for members of the armed forces. Instead, the Senate approved a more narrow provision, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), to exempt active-duty military, low-income veterans and those with serious medical problems.

Eight Democrats, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), crossed party lines to vote for the amendment, which passed 63 to 32. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) opposed it.

...Durbin and other Democrats who oppose the bill said it unfairly benefits credit card companies, which make billions in profits by enticing consumers into accepting credit they cannot afford.

"This bill is all about creditors winding up with more money at the end of bankruptcy," Durbin said.

Ain't Seen Nothing...

Ever eaten over at Hometown Buffet? Chucky Cheese pales in comparison! This story was carried by Drudge, of course, which means: Be very, very afraid!

AURORA, Colo. -- Aurora police have reviewed a weekend incident in which a man accused of stealing salad from a Chuck E. Cheese salad bar was hit with a stun gun twice by officers and said that proper procedures were followed.

Hooray for Stella Liebeck!

Never accept conservative baloney about the U.S. needing tort reform. The Daily Rotten commemorates Feb. 27, 1992 and the tribulations of (Albuquerque's own) Stella Liebeck!

Trying to get the lid off her McDonald's coffee to add cream and sugar, 79-year-old Stella Liebeck accidentally splashes the 180-degree liquid on herself, causing third-degree burns to the thighs, genitals, and buttocks. After skin graft surgery and weeks of recuperation, Liebeck asks McDonald's to turn down the temperature of their coffee and pay $20,000 to defray her hospital bills. McDonald's tells the old lady to fuck off, as they had done for a decade of similar burn claims. Ultimately, a jury awards Liebeck $2.9 million in the resulting lawsuit, which immediately triggers a renewed call for legislative tort reform.

When it Comes to the White House....

When will the press get off its knees?

"Annie" in the Press

The Woodland Daily Democrat's 'Goodlife' preview.

Riding the Wave

The death of Hunter S. Thompson put Publius in a reflective funk:

As I get older, I’m beginning to fear that my generation has been cursed to live an age of no progressive victories – of waves rolling back.

...And then I read people like Hunter S. Thompson writing about the brief flash in history when they got to win, when they got the ride the wave. And then I wonder if I’ll ever get to do the same. I wonder if our generation will ever live to see its collective energy coming together for some higher progressive purpose – like the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. I have no doubt that progressivism will come back - all historical movements ebb and flow. But I’m increasingly afraid I may be an old man when it does – or worse.

I certainly understand Publius' frustration, especially after last year's election. What helps me at the instant is playing FDR in DMTC's version of the musical "Annie," especially in the Cabinet scene:

FDR: Harold Ickes, stand up.
Ickes: What?
FDR: You heard me, stand up!
(Ickes slowly stands)
FDR: Now Harold, sing!
Ickes: Sing?
FDR: Yes, sing. Like Annie. I've just decided that if my administration is going to be anything, it's going to be optimistic about the future of this country. Now Harold, sing!

Even better, though, is looking back in history. Many years ago, in a used book store, I picked up a battered copy of "What We Are About To Receive," written by Jay Franklin, an observer of contemporary events, and popular writer. Jay Franklin was the pseudonym for John Franklin Carter (1897-1967), Diplomat.

"What We Are About To Receive" was published in 1932 and serves as a snapshot of what an intelligent observer regarded as the signal issues of the day during that watershed electoral year. The New Deal was a veritable tsunami of Progressivism. But what did the American political scene look like just before the wave hit?

Regarding Progressive hero FDR, Carter writes:

If he gets into the White House, it will be as a blank cheque. Nobody has the slightest idea of whether he is "another Roosevelt" or just another Democratic candidate. No one knows whether he is a statesman or just another name. There is much to be said for the novel idea of putting a politician in the White House, after our depressing experiences with an engineer, a college professor and a judge in that august residence, but politicians can degenerate into wire-pullers, and a weak politician can do almost as much harm as a well-meaning plumber in national politics. If Roosevelt becomes President we will have to take him pretty much on faith.

So, Carter feels a nervousness about Roosevelt, despite his pioneering efforts in New York with old-age pensions and other Progressive reforms. Roosevelt, ever eager to please, had promised every faction at least a little bit, and as far as anybody knew, might be quite unprincipled:

On every other issue-tariff, farm relief, disarmament, foreign policy, banking policy, social unrest - (Roosevelt) is as hard to pin down as a live eel on a sheet of oilcloth."

Carter surveys the political landscape: stolid Herbert Hoover, divisive "Happy Warrior" Al Smith, William Borah, Charles Curtis, Hiram Johnson, Dwight Morrow - all the has-beens and wannabes, particularly the Democratic rising star I've never heard of, Newton D. Baker of Ohio. Looking to the past for inspiration, and at the Democratic platform fight to come, Carter observes:

Grover Cleveland stood for uncompromising honesty in public life - he was not a clever man, but he was a fighter. Woodrow Wilson stood for uncompromising intelligence in public life - he was not a good party leader, or even a nationalist, but he was a fighter. Both men won the nomination against stubborn opposition and carried the country because the American people like fighters and prefer a fight to coolly scientific statesmanship or to honest party leadership.

On that account, we don't worry much about the platform or the principles of our minority party, except as a political scarecrow. We know perfectly well that the Democrats can't control Washington long enough to execute a radically new national policy. So it happens that the Democratic platform fight will be a side show, designed at most to enable the party leaders to remain in good humor. Win or lose, the Democratic Party won't need a platform in 1932. Their experience in 1928 has convinced them that people vote against one candidate rather than for his opponent. For the Democrats, the platform will consist of two words: "Herbert Hoover."

Half-right, half-wrong Carter was! Even keen observers like Carter didn't have perfect powers of perception. Carter didn't forsee the New Deal. Carter was right about the slogan "Herbert Hoover," though. I distinctly remember, as an eight-year-old child, still hearing Hoover's baneful name being used in LBJ's presidential campaign of 1964, thirty-two years after 1932 (just as we are likely to hear Republicans use Jimmy Carter's name, in a less-effective way, even until 2012). But it's true, Americans like fighters. Think Howard Dean, who even today ruffled feathers, and for whom the Republicans feign shock:

And concluding his backyard speech with a litany of Democratic values, (Dean) added: "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good."

When told of Dean's remarks, Derrick Sontag -- executive director of the Kansas Republican Party -- said he was "shocked."

"My immediate reaction to that whole dialogue is, it's full of hatred," Sontag said. "The Democratic Party has elected a leader that's full of hatred."

Myself, I think the "evil" angle has legs for the Democrats, especially given Abu Ghraib. But I digress - back to Carter.

We are in a different era now - we are spendthrifts, when people of his era were misers - but just as some things change, some things stay the same:

The real reason for the depression was bad leadership, both political and business leadership, for generations. The leadership which produced the Great War - for which we are still paying - also produced the Great Panic. We are still, in the fourth decade of the twentieth century, being ruled by a group of men whose ideas were formed by the horse and buggy era. The underlying cause of this bad leadership, and of the disasters which it produced, was greed - simple, human greed, naked and unashamed.

Despite a new-fangled academic superstructure and publicity apparatus, and despite well-funded think tanks, conservative ideology still drinks at the disreputable trickle-down fountain. Greed rules today, and Democrats need to produce a fighting alternative, so that the fruits of labor reach the people who produce them!

We'll get that thrill of riding the wave soon enough, when we've dealt the electoral TKO, and not a moment before.

Casino Wages

A very telling statistic about the clout of the service workers union in Las Vegas:

"The unionization here has reduced the poverty rate; it reduces inequality," said C. Jeffrey Waddoups, an economist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

...Overall, Las Vegas casino wages are about 40 percent higher than in nonunion Reno, according to Waddoups, the UNLV economist. He attributed that solely to the union's bargaining power.

Chaotic Haiti

Aristide is gone, but no help comes for desperate Haiti, either from the American Right, who oversaw the coup d'etat, or from anyone else. The closer the country approximates a Malthusian nightmare, the less people care:

At times, Haiti's violence appears to be utterly out of control. Fights between rival gangs with political backing in the slums, or raids by the police who are accused of carrying out summary executions, result in corpses being left in the streets, gnawed at by dogs and pigs until someone comes to remove them.

Late last year, there were so many corpses arriving at the unrefrigerated morgue attached to the city's main hospital, where they lay in piles and were rapidly devoured by maggots, that the authorities refused journalists permission to visit out of concern about the bad image that would be portrayed. Since September, more than 250 people have been killed in political violence in Port-au-Prince.

Health Care and the Failure of Markets

Arnold Relman points out the weaknesses of markets in controlling the explosion of health care costs:

In 1963, a seminal analysis of the medical care system as a market was published in the American Economic Review by the distinguished economist Kenneth J. Arrow. He argued that the medical care system was set apart from other markets by several special characteristics, including these: a demand for service that was irregular and unpredictable, and was often associated with what he called an "assault on personal integrity" (because it tended to arise from serious illness or injury); a supply of services that did not simply respond to the desires of buyers, but was mainly shaped by the professional judgment of physicians about the medical needs of patients (Arrow pointed out that doctors differ from vendors of most other services because they are expected to place a primary concern for the patient's welfare above considerations of profit); a limitation on the entry of providers into the market, resulting from the high costs, the restrictions, and the exacting standards of medical education and professional licensure; a relative insensitivity to prices; and a near absence of price competition.

But perhaps the most important of Arrow's insights was the recognition of what he called the "uncertainty" inherent in medical services. By this he meant the great asymmetry of information between provider and buyer concerning the need for, and the probable consequences of, a medical service or a course of medical action. Since patients usually know little about the technical aspects of medicine and are often sick and frightened, they cannot independently choose their own medical services the way that consumers choose most services in the usual market. As a result, patients must trust physicians to choose what services they need, not just to provide the services. To protect the interests of patients in such circumstances, Arrow contended, society has had to rely on non-market mechanisms (such as professional educational requirements and state licensure) rather than on the discipline of the market and the choices of informed buyers.

Halle Berry, Mensch

For showing up to accept her 'Razzie':

"I want to thank Warner Brothers for casting me in this piece of shit," she said as she dragged her agent on stage and warned him "next time read the script first."

Organisms From Icebox Not Ancient Life

Contrary to press speculation, recently-discovered novel bacteria were not in suspended animation from the last Ice Age, but rather came with last month's take-home from Joe's Crab Shack in Old Sacramento:

The bacteria resembled a group of microbes called carnobacteria that can tolerate cold and are often isolated from refrigerated food. The NASA researchers established that the microbes belonged to a new species, which they have named Carnobacterium pleistocenium in honor of its age. The bacterium is not poisonous, Dr. Hoover said, although some of its close relatives cause disease in fish. The researchers are reporting their finding in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

Dr. Hoover said he believed the bacteria were not able to divide during the eons spent locked in the ice, so the specimens he thawed out would have been 32,000 years old....

The bacteria weren't able to divide because I kept opening and closing the icebox looking for snacks. A watched pot never boils (or something to that effect!)

Chuck Pineda for Congress

The March 8th election is approaching. Sacramento-area Democrats will choose a successor for U.S. Congressman Robert Matsui. Despite widow Doris Matsui's favored position in the election, I nevertheless support Charles (Chuck) Pineda, Jr. for the post. Why? Chuck was one of the 135 gubernatorial candidates in the 2003 Recall Election, and I got to meet him. Nice guy. Pineda is very concerned about keeping youths away from gang activity - he himself had faced similar pressures growing up in East Los Angeles.

An unfortunate consequence of any campaign is that candidates tend to define themselves and others in harsh terms. Pineda's anti-gay-marriage position has proved difficult:

Charles Pineda Jr. had to defend his Democratic credentials after Julie Padilla told him he ought to rethink his party registration when he said he opposes gay marriage. Pineda insisted later that many Democrats agree with him.

I've always believed that liberals need to concerned primarily with economic matters, not life-style matters. Pineda may be 'conservative' regarding gay marriage, but on economic matters, he is a solid liberal. Gay marriage is a godsend of a wedge issue that Republicans use to split Democrats apart. We should ignore Republican wedge issues and focus on what keeps liberal Democrats together. Gay marriage is inappropriate as a wedge issue, particularly when Social Security needs to be saved from the 'piratizers.'

Vote Pineda on March 8th!

Condon Memorial on Saturday

There will be a memorial at the B Street Theatre on March 5th for designer and theatrical costumer Kim Condon. Kim's husband Frank is artistic director at River Stage, and their daughter Chloe is one of the Orphans in DMTC's "Annie"):

Friends and family are invited to a memorial celebration at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Main Stage of B Street Theatre, 2711 B St., Sacramento. Donations can be sent to the Kim Simons Condon Memorial Costume Program scholarship fund at Cosumnes River College, 8401 Center Parkway, Sacramento, CA 95823.

"Annie" Opening Weekend

Well, we're open! Small houses so far, but things seem OK. Last night, Miss Hannigan's necklace broke at the very end of "Little Girls," and beads rolled all over the stage. Since the mansion scene was next, with the servants making last-minute preparations for Daddy Warbuck's arrival, it seemed only natural to have the mansion staff chasing beads all across the stage. We managed to get most of the beads off the stage before the scene started.

In this afternoon's show, I muffed a critical line. As President Roosevelt, I inform Annie that her parents have died. Instead of the normal dialogue:

Roosevelt: "Annie, your mother and father passed away. A long time ago."
Annie: "You mean they're dead?"

there was this dialogue:

Roosevelt: "Annie, your mother and father died. A long time ago."
Annie: "You mean they're dead?"

I felt like striking my forehead with my palm and saying: "Stoopid! Stoopid! Stoopid," but of course, being out-of-character for FDR, that wouldn't have helped anything.

Well, now we have the week off. I hope everyone has a happy, healthy, restful week, in anticipation of next weekend's performances! "Man of La Mancha" auditions are this week - starting tonight, in fact!

"Annie" Opens!

We opened "Annie" last night at DMTC! By and large, it was a real smooth opening. Fortunately, the show doesn't have high-wire, split-second timing issues, such as many of the quick costume changes that other shows have, so we were able to focus on the task at hand.

The audience was small, but filled with enthusiastic supporters. Annie and the Orphans won great waves of applause.

I had a few problems myself, such as messing up lyrics on some songs and bumping into a few people. My biggest problem of the night occurred in the Cabinet scene, over which I preside as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But first, a little background...

Any theater company has a standard corps of people that can be relied upon to fill standard roles you might typically find in musicals - cops, musclemen, landladies, etc. Because of her dancing skills, general good looks, and stage presence, DMTC regular Dian Hoel has often filled the 'sexpot' role in DMTC shows. In the Cabinet scene of this show, however, partly because of our lack of men, Dian is taking the role of Louis Howe, Roosevelt's campaign advisor (she's been redubbed as Lois Howe).

When I introduce Annie to the Cabinet, I'm supposed to say, "and this is Lois Howe, my friend and aide." Instead, what I said last night was "and this is Lois Howe, my friend and companion." A true Freudian slip! I spent the rest of the show on the verge of giggles as a result of my blunder!

I'm pretty tired today. I bet the others are too: last night, little Leona said she wasn't going to eat any opening-night chocolate cake because she was so tired. But we perform again tonight, so once again, we will summon our energies and sally forth. It's a Hard-Knock Life!

Juggle nihilist

A few - very few - of the spam E-Mail messages I get have interesting, post-modern-sounding subject lines. Here are a few cryptic subject lines from the last month or so....

• You are made active
• Transcendental jolla
• Vanished, vanished were the
• Beck tease
• Careen idiomatic
• Juggle nihilist
• Nasser's god's project
• Never take a fail!
• Treasonous assiduous
• Hello where
• Fishmonger amaze
• Functional textile
• I am part of

A Fun Game

Via heatherdavis and friends (slightly revised by myself):

1. Grab the nearest book;
2. Open the book to page 123;
3. Find the fifth sentence;
4. Post the text of the sentence in the comments section of this blog, as well as in your own blog, along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

Dictionary of American Biography entry for (not Jefferson but) Jeff Davis, 1862-1913, Governor and U.S. Senator from Arkansas:

"He rarely wore black, his favorite suit being a Prince Albert of Confederate Gray."