Millennial Righteousness

February 14, 2012 by JamieB in Politics

RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives declare 2012 as the "Year of the Bible" in Pennsylvania in recognition of both the formative influence of the Bible on our Commonwealth and nation and our national need to study and apply the teachings of the holy scriptures. Adopted by the Pennsylvania House, January 24th by a vote of 193-0. 2012

Rep. and former Speaker DeWeese (D) is convicted of conspiracy, conflict of interest and theft.
Former Rep. Freese (R) gets 4 to 12 years for corruption.

2011

Former Speaker Perzel (R) pleads guilty to conflict of interest, theft and conspiracy.

2010

Rep. Veon (D) is convicted of illegal fundraising.

2009

Sen. Fumo (D) is convicted on 137 counts of corruption.

2007

Rep. Habay (R) is convicted of harassment, perjury solicitation and intimidation.

2005

Legislators vote themselves a pay raise at 2 a.m. without public knowledge – and with an authorization to receive the money as "unvouchered expenses,” thereby evading the Constitutional prohibition against taking salary increases in the term they are passed. Gov. Rendell (D) signs the bill. Public outrage forces repeal of the raise – and 17 legislators and a Supreme Court justice are tossed out in the next election.

2000

Sen. Loeper (R) pleads guilty to hiding $330,000 in income from consulting firm.
Rep. Gigliotti (D) is convicted of extortion, mail fraud and tax evasion.
Sen. Slocum (R) pleads guilty to discharging 3.5 million gallons of raw sewage into Brokenstraw Creek as plant manager in Youngsville.
Rep. Druce (R) is convicted of hit-and-run death.
Rep. Bebko-Jones (D) pleads guilty to forging nominating petition signatures.
Rep. LaGrotta (D) pleads guilty to ghost employment of family members.

Stumble of (last) Week

February 13, 2012 by JamieB in Journalism

For some reason, this did not go out on Friday. This Week’s Winner: The Press. In response to Wednesday’s post on “the luxury of candidates” to define the world so they can stay always on message, an old friend wrote: “I couldn't agree more. It's also the responsibility of journalists to ask the right questions.” The writer is a former journalist, who watched with resigned sadness the evisceration of the daily newspaper his grandfather had founded and his family had run for more than a century. A public conglomerate with no particular interest in the public trust role of journalism had bought the paper, slashed the editorial budget and ultimately killed the paper. That happened – and continues to happen – all across America, as corporate owners in search of a quick buck cut the heart out of newspapers.

The result is fewer reporters who even know how to ask the right questions, and few publishers who care. And because theirs is a profession that requires skill, courage and the time to dig deep, investigative reporters are an endangered species.

It is a profession that we desperately need – and it is one dangerous job. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 898 journalists have been killed since 1992 – 634 of those have been murdered. In many parts of the world, if you ask the right questions you end up dead or behind bars. The trivialization of the profession from both within and without insults those who still try to ask those questions, encourages those who would silence them, and deprives all of us of a vital window to the truth.

Tea Party

February 11, 2012 by JamieB in Environment, Politics

Last week, at a program I moderated on environmental justice, I had my first direct encounter with a follower of the Tea Party movement. While it’s unfair to generalize from a sample of one, this guy lived up to the stereotype – intransigent, belligerent, misinformed (no, Henry Waxman is not a senator from Wisconsin), and completely uninterested in dialogue. He was also oddly likable.

I also read an article about Tea Party activists showing up at local planning meetings across the country to protest environmental – and even cost-saving – proposals, ranging from bike lanes to high-speed rail lines, from smart meters on home appliances to smart growth to limit sprawl. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/us/activists-fight-green-projects-seeing-un-plot.html?scp=1&sq=Activists%20Fight%20Green%20Projects,%20Seeing%20U.N.%20Plot&st=cse

On Saturday a note from an old friend raised concerns about a movement that seemed increasingly able to impose its views on local governments. “I think this is as battle worth fighting,” he wrote, and suggested a counter-offensive as a focus of this blog.

The public object of the protesters’ anger is something called Agenda 21, a non-binding resolution from the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio that called on all nations to practice sustainable development and conserve natural resources. The apparently Orwellian name, the UN imprimatur and the link to the “global warming hoax” have made Agenda 21 a bull’s eye for Tea Partiers and talk show hosts. The Republican National Committee recently condemned its “destructive and insidious nature”– although it didn’t explain how it had overlooked this “dangerous” threat for 20 years.

The dangerous threat is from zealots seeking to impose their know-nothing views on the country – and working harder than the rest of us to do so. This is a battle worth fighting.

Komen Out

February 09, 2012 by JamieB in Politics

An idiosyncratic guide to Mitt Romney’s recent primary woes: July 20, 2010. Karen Handel finishes first in the Republican primary for governor of Georgia, defeating Congressman Nathan Deal by more than 10 percentage points. In her campaign she calls for abolishing government funding to Planned Parenthood.

Aug. 10, 2010. Despite endorsements from Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney, Handel is narrowly beaten by Deal in a run-off, during which Deal had accused Handel of being a card-carrying member of the Log Cabin Republicans, the ever-shrinking GOP organization that supports gay rights. Handel responded to this McCarthy-like tactic by . . . denying membership in the organization. Unfortunately, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found evidence not only of her membership, but of her support for domestic partnership benefits.

April 2011. The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation hires Ms. Handel as senior vice president for policy.

Nov. 29, 2011. The Komen board adopts a policy that would effectively defund Planned Parenthood.

Jan. 24, 2012. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives unanimously passes H.R. 535, a non-binding resolution declaring 2012 the "Year of the Bible."

Jan. 31, 2012. Komen ends its annual $700,000 contribution to Planned Parenthood.

Feb. 3, 2012. Komen reverses itself.

Feb. 7, 2012. Handel resigns.

Feb. 7, 2012. The US Court of Appeals strikes down California’s Proposition 8 and affirms gay marriage . . . at least for now.

Feb. 7, 2012. Rick Santorum wins the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses and the non-binding primary in Missouri.

The Luxury of Candidates

February 07, 2012 by JamieB in Politics

China is reportedly teaching the Iranians how to build intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach the U.S., while Iran is simultaneously expanding the uranium enrichment activity that Israel is threatening to bomb. Meanwhile, the United States has recalled its ambassador and all diplomatic personnel from Syria, whose government has escalated the killing of its people, and Egypt has announced it will put on trial 19 Americans who work for non-governmental organizations in the country. Russians are protesting Vladimir Putin in the freezing temperatures that have killed hundreds in Europe, and Greece, on the edge of economic collapse, is building a wall topped with razor wire to keep out illegal immigrants from Turkey. The list goes on. No, it is not just the economy, stupid.

And yet presidential candidates of all persuasions stick to the poll-driven narrative that the upcoming elections are about jobs, jobs and only jobs. A lot of people are still hurting badly in America, domestic economic issues continue to be a source of enormous concern, and this country’s social and economic divisions must be addressed. But America does not exist in a bubble cushioned from the rest of the world. Candidates, whether incumbents or not, get to define the issues in short-term insular ways that allow them to stay on message and play to their audiences. Those responsible for making actual decisions must contend with a much more complex and uncertain world.

Stumble of the Week

February 03, 2012 by JamieB in Stumbling

3^rd Runner-Up: Mitt Romney stumbled over the poor . . . but his donors have forgiven him. 2^nd Runner-Up: Newt Gingrich watched Romney seize the coveted Trump endorsement and Rick Santorum land Tom Tancredo . . . which left Newt only half the wacko ex-candidates: Herman Cain and Rick Perry. No word yet on Michelle Bachmann.

1st Runner-Up: The current Mrs. Gingrich was reportedly spotted in public with a hair out of place and an expression on her face . . . information as yet unconfirmed, so probably just a rumor.

This Week’s Winner: Me. I went to move my car yesterday, and it wasn’t there. Unlike the incident with my computer (“Aging”), I did not lose my car. I knew exactly where I had left it . . . although I did frantically search a 10-block radius just to make sure. It turns out I had some minor confusion about the day of the week, and the car had been towed the day before I thought I’d parked it.

So I walked 70 blocks to Pier 76, where they tow misparked cars, following New York’s wonderful westside park system that seeks to reconnect city dwellers with their river. At Pier 76 I didn’t feel so alone or dumb, as I joined in line:

a sign painter who had been waiting for five hours because they couldn’t find his truck;
a contractor on a job in midtown whose truck had been towed from exactly the same spot for the second day in a row; and
a UPS guy in his brown suit, whose truck loaded with packages had been towed . . . while he was making a delivery.

When I was finally escorted to my car, there was a parking ticket on the windshield.

Safety Net

February 02, 2012 by JamieB in Politics, Social Commentary

Several of you reminded me that some people sleep on the subway because that is the only place they can sleep. Last evening a man on a packed uptown train emitted a stench that literally cleared the back third of the car.

And Mitt Romney said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.”

I know there is a connection here.

But I don’t think it’s the obvious one that everybody pounced on. Mitt Romney doesn’t seem any more out of touch with the world of struggling people than any of the other candidates who ride around in big buses, insulated by aides, and speak in platitudes to hand-picked crowds. Maybe they would have developed more empathy for the dispossessed if they had done a stint as community organizers.

Still, no amount of backpedaling, clarifications and “you-took-me-out-of-contexts” can justify Romney’s remark because:

The “safety net” is the essence of the welfare state that is under assault by all the GOP candidates. To use its current existence to dismiss the plight of the very poor is hypocrisy.
The idea that the safety net is adequate (in fairness, Romney said he’d fix it) seems a little callous. As the stinking man made clear, the subway provides sleeping places, not bathing facilities . . . which may explain why the reaction to him was startlingly sympathetic.
Polls show that most Americans are incensed at the rich and the poor. But the notion that politicians should divide the country into those they care about and those they don’t – whether it’s Romney’s 90-95% or Rove’s 50% +1 – contradicts the duty of a president to bring us all together.

Back to the Future?

January 30, 2012 by JamieB in Politics, Social Commentary

While I know little about China, the press it has received over the last few weeks has fascinated me. There seem to be three Chinas:

China, the model to emulate
China, the competitor to fear
China, the human and environmental tragedy

Clearly, the three Chinas are interconnected, since they are all the same country. The question for me is: how dependent are the first two on the foundation of the third?

Document3

Photos by Lu Guang

The descriptions of China remind me of 19^th-century America, when the nation underwent enormous growth based on technological and financial innovation, the exploitation of natural resources and the abuse of human labor. It was a time characterized by the creation of massive wealth, with unprecedented chasms between rich and poor, and with almost no regulatory protection for workers, consumers, children or the environment. The period experienced harsh labor violence from Homestead to Cripple Creek. In 1886 the U.S. Supreme Court implicitly recognized the personhood of corporations in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, and a decade later in Plessy v Ferguson, the court endorsed the Jim Crow South. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in Manhattan burned 146 young seamstresses to death.

Our economic prosperity is also built on the foundation of that era, but it is hard to imagine returning to such unregulated times – as some of our aspiring leaders are urging us to do.

Stumble of the Week

January 26, 2012 by JamieB in Stumbling

January 27, 2012 Stumble of the Week Last week we focused on the stumbler. This week we look at the stumbling block:

4^th Runner-Up: Switzerland: Its banks just can’t keep secrets any more, as Mitt Romney, whose omission of the account from his financial disclosure form was called a “minor technical” issue by his staff, was outed on his tax returns.

3^rd Runner-Up: Margaritas: It turns out that the reason Pat Sajak seemed to stumble through entire episodes of “Wheel of Fortune” was that he and Vanna White had had “two or three or six” of those guys during the break. Consequently, they had “trouble recognizing the alphabet.”

2^nd Runner-Up: Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have become the clubs with which Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney beat each other up. “You tooted their horn.” “You own their stocks.” “You do too.” Lost in the campaign narcissism are the millions of homeowners and investors who continue to suffer deeply over the actions of the mortgage twins.

1^st Runner-Up: Milk: Not only did the president’s sophisticated joke go right over the heads of Congress (particularly the two men sitting behind him with glazed eyes), but it enraged members of the environmental community who pointed out that spilled milk is no joke. These days everything is a serious matter, so perhaps we need to lighten up a little.

This Week’s Winner: The Moon: Apparently when Alan Shepard hit golf balls there 40 years ago, it awakened in a young Newt Gingrich the possibility that the moon could become, not just a gated colony of 13,000 Americans, but our 51^st state. He’s aiming for 2020, the year scientists believe global warming will become irreversible down here (see Jan. 17 blog, “2020”).

Anger and Hope

January 26, 2012 by JamieB in Faith, Politics

In the fall of 2008 I, and a lot of other people, volunteered for the Obama campaign. I spent many evenings in Philadelphia going door to door in both white neighborhoods and black (for in Philadelphia, as in every city in America, those distinctions still define most neighborhoods). In the latter, some of which I would have feared to enter in other times, I was welcomed with jubilation; in the former, there was less joy but the work seemed more important – for after seven years of a needless and failed war, the collapse of the housing and financial markets, and the worst recession in 70 years, what was driving this campaign was hope – people joining together across racial, ethnic, economic and political boundaries to rebuild America. But there remains a lot of anger in this country – much of it legitimate – and the politics of anger has too often proved stronger than the politics of hope. It enabled the Know Nothing party to take every state office in Massachusetts in 1854; it was the foundation of Nixon’s southern strategy in 1972; and it delivered South Carolina to Newt Gingrich last week. There is a great deal of pressure on Barack Obama to play to that anger, but to do so would betray those he brought together four years ago. Hope is not a sign of weakness, nor anger a sign of strength, and no one can play the anger card like the current group in Congress. If this election is about anger, they win. If it is about hope, we do.

State of the Union

January 25, 2012 by JamieB in Environment, Politics

As an army veteran (European front), I get nervous when someone uses the military as the beacon for us to follow. So when the president said last night that “this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world,” I thought, he needs to get out more. Leading off his speech with military and foreign affairs, however, was a brilliant tactical maneuver, for it caught the “it’s-the-economy-stupid” people by off guard and went virtually unnoticed by the pundits. And it allowed Obama to frame the state of the union around his most spectacular moment – the killing of Bin Laden – and to play to the country’s infatuation with the military. Other institutions have let us down, he said, let’s follow the military’s example. Not, I hope, of paying $640 for a toilet seat or urinating on dead Afghans. With his paean to the Hoover Dam, praise of fracking, and insistence that “we don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy,” Obama stepped firmly into the past at a time when we desperately need a new vision of environmental justice. And his efforts for social justice brought tepid applause for tax fairness and none for a millionaire’s tax.

Then came Mitch Daniels. Aside from making Bobby Jindal’s 2011 performance look animated, his pedestrian rebuttal contained startling Republican praise for “these proud programs” of social security and Medicare, the usual Europe bashing, and such soaring rhetoric as: “the problems are simply mathematical, and the answers purely practical.”

Good enough for William Kristol, who is leading the “Draft Daniels” movement with an enthusiasm he hasn’t shown since the invasion of Iraq.

President Palin

January 23, 2012 by JamieB in Politics

One thing seems clear from Saturday’s South Carolina primary: Republican voters don’t like any of their candidates very much. It’s hard to disagree. In the last few months, not one of the current candidates has offered a new idea or an original thought. Oh, some have shifted position slightly to pick up ever-angrier and more conservative voters, but mostly they have shouted louder, spent more, and double-downed on meanness. This is now all about them, not us. But don’t we know enough about them already? Rick Santorum has staked out his turf as the most rigid social conservative since Torquemada. But since he also lost his Pennsylvania senate seat by a 2-1 margin, electability would seem to be an issue. For months Mitt Romney has moved painfully to the right on social issues – only to get beaten up for being a successful businessman with an aversion to paying taxes. Isn’t that the very model of a modern-day Republican? Newt Gingrich is just shameless. Battered by Romney’s superPAC in Iowa, he came back with one of his own in South Carolina and headed straight for the gutter . . . where he thrived. Ron Paul, it seems to me, has been the most thoughtful candidate, his positions the most interesting. They are also nutty.

The process itself has become repellent. It has stripped people who are vying to become our next president of every shred of their dignity. How low can we go? Enter Sarah Palin.

Stumble of the Week

January 20, 2012 by JamieB in Stumbling

4^th Runner-Up: Big Oil, although almost everyone seems to think Obama’s veto of the Keystone pipeline killed only the location, not the plan. 3^rd Runner-Up: Newt Gingrich, whose former wife, Marianne, called him morally unfit to be president (although that seems to have sent him surging in the South Carolina polls).

2^nd Runner-Up: Rick Perry, who stumbled from front-runner to dropout in near-record time. Only Herman Cain got there quicker, and he hadn’t fallen nearly as far or fast as Perry, who had 2% of the South Carolina vote when he quit. Will he get a cabinet offer? Since Cain dropped out first and dibsied Defense, Perry may have to settle for the Department of . . . um . . . you know.

1^st Runner-Up: Mitt Romney, who did not have a good week. First there were the comparisons with his father who released 12 years of tax returns in 1968. Then there was the tax rate itself, which was “probably closer to the 15% rate than anything.” I am not sure what that means, except it is undoubtedly closer to 15% than my rate. Then came the Cayman Islands. And finally, it turns out he lost Iowa. But I like how he counts: his initial six-vote victory over Rick Santorum was a landslide; his 34-vote loss “a virtual tie.”

This Week’s Winner: Francesco Schettino, who after running the Costa Concordia aground off the Tuscan coast, claims that he “tripped” . . . directly into a lifeboat, where he was stuck for an hour and unable to get back aboard his sinking ship. He faces potential charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship.

The Bet

January 18, 2012 by JamieB in Faith

They say there are no atheists in foxholes, and the next time I’m in one perhaps I’ll convert. In the meantime, though, I do wonder about these proselytizing efforts that are based on Pascal’s Wager. Since we can’t know if God exists, Pascal wrote, we have to bet one way or the other . . . but you can make that bet a sure thing: if God doesn’t exist and you bet on Him, you lose nothing; if He does and you bet against Him, you will be paying for a long, long time. “Wager, then, without hesitation that He is” . . . whether you really believe it or not. Heads you win, tails you don’t lose. I’m betting that if God exists, he can see through that. But I also know that eternity lasts forever, which is a frightening thought. Still, as I look at a world in which God does not seem to be paying much attention or perhaps he just doesn’t care, I don’t want to be diverted by what may happen next. All I know is that I am here, now, and I want to make some small contribution.

We are all seeking something . . .a god that will shed meaning not just on our own lives, but on life itself. The god I am looking for is one who would make a world in which the only beings living in foxholes are foxes. I think the only god that can do that is us.

Correction: Yesterday’s entry inadvertently turned ex-candidate Huntsman into a four-letter word. His first name is Jon. The h is absent, not silent. I apologize for the error.

2020

January 17, 2012 by JamieB in Environment, Family

Notwithstanding the fact that he was only the second-best looking Mormon in the race and was trailing even Stephen Colbert in the South Carolina polls, Jon Huntsman’s decision to drop out of the Republican primary is largely due to the reaction to his August tweet: "I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy." The second sentence makes clear that he knew what was coming, and that perhaps it was crazy to go public with such bizarre beliefs. But do we really want a president who does not believe in evolution and maintains that global warming is a hoax? So, what does the probable candidate say on the matter? Virtually nothing. Only three issues appear on Mitt Romney’s website: Jobs, Healthcare and Foreign Policy. But scroll down under Jobs, and you come to this: “Amend Clean Air Act to exclude carbon dioxide from its purview.” Short-term economic growth once again trumps long-term environmental health.

An old friend of mine, a businessman who has been deeply involved in the issue, told me recently that the scientific consensus is zeroing in on 2020 as the critical year in global climate efforts. “After 2020,” he said, “it’s game over.”

In 2020 my granddaughter, Calliope, will be 10 years old.

King

January 16, 2012 by JamieB in Education, History

In the winter of 1963, at a small boarding school for boys in rural Massachusetts, a visitor came for the weekend. He gave a talk on Friday evening, spent Saturday in class and at meals with the students, and preached on Sunday in the majestic stone chapel that dominates the campus. He started slowly, almost quietly, before falling into the rhythms and phrasing of his own Baptist tradition. He ignored whatever notes he had and became a vessel for his rich stentorian voice, which reverberated off the chapel walls and summoned the 200 boys to help build a just society. His name was Martin Luther King, Jr., and I had never heard anything like that sermon. There had been a handful of black students at the school since the early 1950s, which was unusual in itself, for most of us had grown up in a world in which Stepin Fetchit and Rastus were not so much vicious stereotypes as insidiously benign jokes. They were how we were taught to view a people about whose lives we knew nothing. A lot happened in 1963. King led the March on Washington that summer. President Kennedy was assassinated in November. Some say that marked the end of the dream. But I don’t think so. You can tell a lot about where people stand today by how they remember the 1960s. To me it was a time of hope and courage, of stirring calls to join hands across deep divides. A lot of people have tried to kill the dream and those who espouse it. They may yet succeed. But I believe that King’s vision, which calls us back to Lincoln’s vision at Gettysburg and Jefferson’s in Philadelphia, is the American Dream we must revive.