When I first heard that President-elect Obama invited Rev. Warren to give the invocation for the Inauguration, I was saddened. There are so many other pastors to whom he could have turned, Rev. Jim Wallis, Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Catholic bishop, or a Rabbi. Why the pastor who rigged the debate between the two nominees for President? Why the pastor who supported California Prop 8 and verbally beats up on some folks he disagrees with? At least, the pastor giving the benediction, Rev. Joseph Lowrey, is going to get the last word.
Then I saw an article about Rev. Warren which explains some good things about the man. I was much impressed with how he gives 90% of his income to help the poor. Somehow he looks like he is doing very well on the 10% that's left but, still, he has few peers in the generosity department.
I sent the article to my liberal friends and got a response which reflected how I originally felt but quite a bit more angry.
So I tried to figure out why the choice of Rev. Warren might make sense.
The main reason, of course, is what the President-elect said, that Rev. Warren had invited him to speak at Saddleback Church early in his campaign, knowing they disagreed. Sen. Obama reaches out . . . . And he is willing to take the heat from constituents who disagree with him.
My friend said he really shot himself in the foot. Of course, the promises Sen. Obama has made about changing law and policy in ways supportive of the GLBT community are yet to be actualized, but we will be surprised if he does not follow through.
Then I realized that by giving the invocation on Jan, 20, Rev. Warren may not be as effective in furthering the anti-GLBT agenda he has led. Further, even all this negative publicity and controversy puts the subject on the front pages. As they say in the entertainment business, even negative publicity is better than no publicity.
But more moving to me is that Sen. Obama may be forgiving Rev. Warren for the stunts related to the Saddleback debate.
So how will the modern day Billy Graham respond? Will he even look at the forgiveness angle? Will he presume he deserves the attention? Will he actually begin listening to those he has condemned?
Cynics don't like to take a chance on giving an inch to their enemies, certain they will take a mile. Jesus was willing . . . and got crucified. But He changed things.
Who knows? Sen. Obama, a "sermon-soaked pew squatter" for twenty years, may actually be trying to do the Word, and not just be a hearer only.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
The "War" on Christmas
The American version of Christmas is pretty complex. While it centers on the birth of Jesus, and while many of the icons and much of the music refers to Him, other figures like Santa Claus, Christmas trees, and presents have become very important.
As early as mid-summer, stores have sales based on the Christmas theme. Around Labor Day, sections in some stores are decked out in reds and greens in anticipation of Christmas, usually containing toys and home decorations for the holidays. Gradually, over the weeks between Hallowe’en and Thanksgiving, nearly all the stores get serious about displays and setting up their holiday merchandising. The day after Thanksgiving has traditionally been the biggest shopping day of the year.
That same day is often when lights and decorations put up between Hallowe’en and Thanksgiving in the business sections of town or on private homes are lit at night. In addition, some radio stations begin to play Christmas music 24/7.
Most churches join in with the pre-holiday festivities. Many add a life-size scene on their grounds including a barn-like setting, a feed trough for cattle, a mother and father, a baby, some farm animals, sometimes some shepherds, and sometimes some oriental wisemen, They may be plastic statues or they may be live.
Therefore, during the late fall and early winter, America prepares for the celebration of Christmas. For more than a month, folks have around them the sights and symbols and sounds of the season.
In the late 1950s, a movement started to counter the commercialism surrounding the holiday. The first thing challenged was the use of X in an abbreviated form of the word Christmas (Xmas). The X is the Greek Letter “Chi,” and was used in ancient manuscripts as shorthand for the word “Christ.” But since most people do not know that, the movement succeeded in eliminating that usage.
Now it is common this time of year to see “Put Christ back into Christmas.” The intent is to refocus people to be sure that “Jesus is the reason for the season.”
In the 1960s, satirists also took a shot at the practice of businesses using the music and icons of Christmas in advertising. Some of the more gross ads showing Santa smoking cigarettes have not appeared in magazines or on TV since then, though Americans tolerate nearly everything else.
The wedding of commerce and the celebration of the birth of Christ has not ended in divorce like it did in the Puritan eras in Massachusetts Bay Colony or in Cromwell’s England during the 1600s.
However, that does not mean that there haven’t been controversies related to the holidays in recent years.
With cable news channels running all day every day, some commentators have become famous for raising the specter that atheists are trying to eliminate the celebration of Christmas altogether. They point to situations where public schools are challenged for changing their annual seasonal music programs to drop direct references to Jesus. They are also angered when atheists are allowed to put up displays on public property along side Christian displays.
The personalities making the biggest fuss call such events “battlegrounds of the war on Christmas.”
And once in awhile it does appear that some of the decisions to change Christmas into a more generic “holiday” do not make sense. Removing absolutely everything related to the Christian religion from public buildings and schools seems like a little over much.
The problem public officials face is that America is not just Christian but is also Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and any number of other faiths. America has always had diverse religious groups. Many times, because the major religious tradition has been Christian, its celebration has been enforced to the extent that failure to participate in the Christmas music programs in school affected the grades of those who for reasons of religious conscience could not participate.
The Constitution of the United States calls for the free expression of religion with the state not being allowed to support any one faith. That was made fundamental law for America to prevent forcing non-Christians into performing Christian acts. The early leaders in America had seen how such disrespect for other traditions actually violated Christianity’s own teachings of “doing unto others what we would have them do unto us.”
But the struggle against disrespect of non-Christian traditions and people has been on-going and unevenly applied. Human beings have the tendency to want to think their own way is superior to others. So Americans will probably always have this problem.
But this is not a “war” against Christmas. It is the attempt of Christians to live respectfully with their neighbors.
There is at least one neat thing about Christmas as we celebrate it with all its secular commercialism and saturation of our life during the fall and early winter. No matter who fusses, big name radio or TV or political person, he or she is pretty much drowned out in the joy and excitement the color and light bring during these long nights and often dreary days.
As early as mid-summer, stores have sales based on the Christmas theme. Around Labor Day, sections in some stores are decked out in reds and greens in anticipation of Christmas, usually containing toys and home decorations for the holidays. Gradually, over the weeks between Hallowe’en and Thanksgiving, nearly all the stores get serious about displays and setting up their holiday merchandising. The day after Thanksgiving has traditionally been the biggest shopping day of the year.
That same day is often when lights and decorations put up between Hallowe’en and Thanksgiving in the business sections of town or on private homes are lit at night. In addition, some radio stations begin to play Christmas music 24/7.
Most churches join in with the pre-holiday festivities. Many add a life-size scene on their grounds including a barn-like setting, a feed trough for cattle, a mother and father, a baby, some farm animals, sometimes some shepherds, and sometimes some oriental wisemen, They may be plastic statues or they may be live.
Therefore, during the late fall and early winter, America prepares for the celebration of Christmas. For more than a month, folks have around them the sights and symbols and sounds of the season.
In the late 1950s, a movement started to counter the commercialism surrounding the holiday. The first thing challenged was the use of X in an abbreviated form of the word Christmas (Xmas). The X is the Greek Letter “Chi,” and was used in ancient manuscripts as shorthand for the word “Christ.” But since most people do not know that, the movement succeeded in eliminating that usage.
Now it is common this time of year to see “Put Christ back into Christmas.” The intent is to refocus people to be sure that “Jesus is the reason for the season.”
In the 1960s, satirists also took a shot at the practice of businesses using the music and icons of Christmas in advertising. Some of the more gross ads showing Santa smoking cigarettes have not appeared in magazines or on TV since then, though Americans tolerate nearly everything else.
The wedding of commerce and the celebration of the birth of Christ has not ended in divorce like it did in the Puritan eras in Massachusetts Bay Colony or in Cromwell’s England during the 1600s.
However, that does not mean that there haven’t been controversies related to the holidays in recent years.
With cable news channels running all day every day, some commentators have become famous for raising the specter that atheists are trying to eliminate the celebration of Christmas altogether. They point to situations where public schools are challenged for changing their annual seasonal music programs to drop direct references to Jesus. They are also angered when atheists are allowed to put up displays on public property along side Christian displays.
The personalities making the biggest fuss call such events “battlegrounds of the war on Christmas.”
And once in awhile it does appear that some of the decisions to change Christmas into a more generic “holiday” do not make sense. Removing absolutely everything related to the Christian religion from public buildings and schools seems like a little over much.
The problem public officials face is that America is not just Christian but is also Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and any number of other faiths. America has always had diverse religious groups. Many times, because the major religious tradition has been Christian, its celebration has been enforced to the extent that failure to participate in the Christmas music programs in school affected the grades of those who for reasons of religious conscience could not participate.
The Constitution of the United States calls for the free expression of religion with the state not being allowed to support any one faith. That was made fundamental law for America to prevent forcing non-Christians into performing Christian acts. The early leaders in America had seen how such disrespect for other traditions actually violated Christianity’s own teachings of “doing unto others what we would have them do unto us.”
But the struggle against disrespect of non-Christian traditions and people has been on-going and unevenly applied. Human beings have the tendency to want to think their own way is superior to others. So Americans will probably always have this problem.
But this is not a “war” against Christmas. It is the attempt of Christians to live respectfully with their neighbors.
There is at least one neat thing about Christmas as we celebrate it with all its secular commercialism and saturation of our life during the fall and early winter. No matter who fusses, big name radio or TV or political person, he or she is pretty much drowned out in the joy and excitement the color and light bring during these long nights and often dreary days.
Monday, December 8, 2008
The Green Bay Packers
When the Houston Texan field goal kicker, who had been terrible all day, kicked that 40 yard field goal in the closing seconds to beat the Packers, I felt awful.
Like many Packer backers who live out of state, away from the likelihood of getting to see our team on TV this year, following the scruffy play-by-play on NFL.com, I still was caught up in the ebb and flow of the game.
Collins injured? Oh no, that guy's a walking ambulance passenger. Tausch is out with a wrecked knee? There goes the right side of the offensive line. Hawk hasn't made a tackle all game? That groin injury really messed him up. Bigby can hardly move? No big hits from him for months.
And middle linebacker Barnett and DT Cullen Jenkins are on IR? Who's left to play defense?
But somehow, the Packers were still in it till the very end. . . for the fifth time to lose by less than four points.
There are many (including some of my favorite sportswriters) who are saying the Packers have lost it and aren't going anywhere because of this coach or that misplay or the general manager or even the club president.
But let's remind ourselves of a few things.
One, the Packers had one of the easiest schedules last year because they were playing teams with terrible records from the year before.
Two, they knew they lucked out in some of their games because they played some of the better teams when those teams were down because of injuries.
Three, they got some calls and breaks that helped keep them in the game.
Four, they won several games by less than four points.
Five, Brett Favre and Rob Davis's mature years were still not enough to keep the Pack from being one of the very youngest (and least experienced) teams in the league.
It was an incredible season topped off by playing even up into overtime with the team which went on the win the Super Bowl. That feat, though a losing effort, really validated their right to their record, even though it was obtained with no small amount of luck.
That the general manager and head coach were able to provide what the team needed in that sterling season cannot be overlooked.
Major league sports are games of inches and seconds, of speed and power, of injuries and luck.
This year, playing against a much tougher schedule which included many teams on the rise like Tennessee and Carolina who pulled out tight wins against this still immature team, it is amazing to realize that with a little bit of luck, maybe this bunch could have been 10 and 3 instead of 5 and 8.
We fans live and die emotionally with our team. We put a lot of ourselves into hoping and, well, physically pushing and squirming in our chairs as we watch.
Calling forth that kind of involvement from us takes its toll when our guys lose. It is a little harder to watch in that circumstance. But we come back next time and hope and squirm some more on the chance that we will see a victory.
That's entertainment!
As Jim Irwin, longtime sportscaster at WTMJ Milwaukee who called many Packer seasons, used to remind everyone: Hey, it's a game.
We get to watch grown men play a boy's game for entertainment. If we were not in it for the entertainment value, there would be no explanation for how come there are still Cub fans!
I look forward to Packer games. Win or lose, they give me a few hours of distraction. Having been a fan for over 65 years, I understand how sports franchises often survive recessions because they are so successful at giving us something else to think about.
I'm really feeling good about this year's team and its coaches and management. The games are entertaining, keeping me on edge and hopeful for a good result, right down to the end. Even the blow-out in New Orleans was a treat because I did get to see one of the finest exhibitions of passing I've ever seen, even if it was against my favorite team.
This is a good year, despite the losing record, for my Green Bay Packers. So, despite the negative press and comments from disgruntled fans, next Sunday can't come soon enough. I know the team will give its best effort. Maybe the breaks, the calls, the luck will go for us this time. And maybe all the rookie mistakes will be behind us. And maybe we'll finally get off the snide and our guys will come home with a victory.
Even if that doesn't happen this time, there are still two more games to anticipate.
Like many Packer backers who live out of state, away from the likelihood of getting to see our team on TV this year, following the scruffy play-by-play on NFL.com, I still was caught up in the ebb and flow of the game.
Collins injured? Oh no, that guy's a walking ambulance passenger. Tausch is out with a wrecked knee? There goes the right side of the offensive line. Hawk hasn't made a tackle all game? That groin injury really messed him up. Bigby can hardly move? No big hits from him for months.
And middle linebacker Barnett and DT Cullen Jenkins are on IR? Who's left to play defense?
But somehow, the Packers were still in it till the very end. . . for the fifth time to lose by less than four points.
There are many (including some of my favorite sportswriters) who are saying the Packers have lost it and aren't going anywhere because of this coach or that misplay or the general manager or even the club president.
But let's remind ourselves of a few things.
One, the Packers had one of the easiest schedules last year because they were playing teams with terrible records from the year before.
Two, they knew they lucked out in some of their games because they played some of the better teams when those teams were down because of injuries.
Three, they got some calls and breaks that helped keep them in the game.
Four, they won several games by less than four points.
Five, Brett Favre and Rob Davis's mature years were still not enough to keep the Pack from being one of the very youngest (and least experienced) teams in the league.
It was an incredible season topped off by playing even up into overtime with the team which went on the win the Super Bowl. That feat, though a losing effort, really validated their right to their record, even though it was obtained with no small amount of luck.
That the general manager and head coach were able to provide what the team needed in that sterling season cannot be overlooked.
Major league sports are games of inches and seconds, of speed and power, of injuries and luck.
This year, playing against a much tougher schedule which included many teams on the rise like Tennessee and Carolina who pulled out tight wins against this still immature team, it is amazing to realize that with a little bit of luck, maybe this bunch could have been 10 and 3 instead of 5 and 8.
We fans live and die emotionally with our team. We put a lot of ourselves into hoping and, well, physically pushing and squirming in our chairs as we watch.
Calling forth that kind of involvement from us takes its toll when our guys lose. It is a little harder to watch in that circumstance. But we come back next time and hope and squirm some more on the chance that we will see a victory.
That's entertainment!
As Jim Irwin, longtime sportscaster at WTMJ Milwaukee who called many Packer seasons, used to remind everyone: Hey, it's a game.
We get to watch grown men play a boy's game for entertainment. If we were not in it for the entertainment value, there would be no explanation for how come there are still Cub fans!
I look forward to Packer games. Win or lose, they give me a few hours of distraction. Having been a fan for over 65 years, I understand how sports franchises often survive recessions because they are so successful at giving us something else to think about.
I'm really feeling good about this year's team and its coaches and management. The games are entertaining, keeping me on edge and hopeful for a good result, right down to the end. Even the blow-out in New Orleans was a treat because I did get to see one of the finest exhibitions of passing I've ever seen, even if it was against my favorite team.
This is a good year, despite the losing record, for my Green Bay Packers. So, despite the negative press and comments from disgruntled fans, next Sunday can't come soon enough. I know the team will give its best effort. Maybe the breaks, the calls, the luck will go for us this time. And maybe all the rookie mistakes will be behind us. And maybe we'll finally get off the snide and our guys will come home with a victory.
Even if that doesn't happen this time, there are still two more games to anticipate.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
OJ's finally going to jail
The judge just couldn't insist enough that she was not punishing OJ to make up for what so many think should have happened to him years ago. How many times did she insist? Enough to think she maybe "doth protest too much."
Ann and I looked at each other when we heard the news and asked, "What do ordinary people get for doing something stupid like that?"
Yah right, they get hit with a fifteen to thirty three years sentence.
How about six months in jail with time already served counting against that total? And maybe a year of community service.
Good grief. No one was hurt. No property damage occurred.
A badly handled misunderstanding does not deserve such a sentence.
-----
Would someone please look into who is bankrolling Fred Goldman so he can devote full time to harassing OJ?
Ann and I looked at each other when we heard the news and asked, "What do ordinary people get for doing something stupid like that?"
Yah right, they get hit with a fifteen to thirty three years sentence.
How about six months in jail with time already served counting against that total? And maybe a year of community service.
Good grief. No one was hurt. No property damage occurred.
A badly handled misunderstanding does not deserve such a sentence.
-----
Would someone please look into who is bankrolling Fred Goldman so he can devote full time to harassing OJ?
Recession: Our Great Opportunity
Ann and I enjoyed a visit in Den Haag, Netherlands, where our son works and where his family recently took up residence.
I was struck by how few old cars and trucks there were. Despite being an "old" nation, Holland is sparkling and mostly fresh-faced. Same with Belgium where we visited Brugge over the week-end.
Our son works for one of the major banks there so we talked economics a lot.
One of the things he made clear is that there is a load of money on the sidelines. Trillions have been lost on the stock markets of the world but major stake holders pulled out their money early on and will jump back in when they see things headed up.
Another thing is that although millions of people are struggling, millions more are not. Everyone is being frugal right now until everything settles down.
So there is a lot of corporate money and a lot of personal money squirreled away waiting to be spent.
What will "settle everything down?" A vision of what changes can be made to improve everyone's lot.
In our country, our infrastructure desperately needs attention. Our cars need to be replaced with fuel-efficient ones and with mass transit systems. What a time for a renaissance!
Having mostly gone backwards over the past eight years because of inattention to so many problems, our country really has no place to go but up.
In ten years, I don't think anyone will be thanking President Bush for letting everything go to pot so bad that we almost had to start all over again. But now seems like a good time for freshening up our own face, not just with cosmetic changes, but with serious restructuring. Now is the time to let our creative juices flow so that the future that we dreamed of as kids can come closer to being a reality instead of just an extension of the way things used to be.
Rather than getting more specific, I'll let you begin to fill in the opportunities that lie ahead. We will inevitably drag along some old ways, because new things are not always better.
But we are on the verge of something that can renew us. Enjoy the ride! With your seat belt on. . . .
I was struck by how few old cars and trucks there were. Despite being an "old" nation, Holland is sparkling and mostly fresh-faced. Same with Belgium where we visited Brugge over the week-end.
Our son works for one of the major banks there so we talked economics a lot.
One of the things he made clear is that there is a load of money on the sidelines. Trillions have been lost on the stock markets of the world but major stake holders pulled out their money early on and will jump back in when they see things headed up.
Another thing is that although millions of people are struggling, millions more are not. Everyone is being frugal right now until everything settles down.
So there is a lot of corporate money and a lot of personal money squirreled away waiting to be spent.
What will "settle everything down?" A vision of what changes can be made to improve everyone's lot.
In our country, our infrastructure desperately needs attention. Our cars need to be replaced with fuel-efficient ones and with mass transit systems. What a time for a renaissance!
Having mostly gone backwards over the past eight years because of inattention to so many problems, our country really has no place to go but up.
In ten years, I don't think anyone will be thanking President Bush for letting everything go to pot so bad that we almost had to start all over again. But now seems like a good time for freshening up our own face, not just with cosmetic changes, but with serious restructuring. Now is the time to let our creative juices flow so that the future that we dreamed of as kids can come closer to being a reality instead of just an extension of the way things used to be.
Rather than getting more specific, I'll let you begin to fill in the opportunities that lie ahead. We will inevitably drag along some old ways, because new things are not always better.
But we are on the verge of something that can renew us. Enjoy the ride! With your seat belt on. . . .
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Casting a ballot in Florida
A few weeks after the Republican Convention, I got a letter from the McCain Campaign asking for a donation. Once I saw that, I put the letter and its enclosures into the recycling pile. A couple weeks later, I heard someone else got the same letter. He took the time, even though he was a Democrat, to look through the papers and discovered the letter informed him he was a registered Republican, including an elections' office registration number. A call to the office cleared up the matter quickly but it was confusing for him for awhile.
That was not a nice passage through which to go to get to vote.
To vote in Florida, you may be automatically registered when you get a driver's license. -- I'm not positive because there is also the requirement that registration must be at least 29 days before the election. --
That's the easy part, presuming you can afford to drive a car regularly.
Finding the polling place may be a project. Sites are changed for many reasons and can be changed any time. Our poll is in its third home in three years. In addition, the addresses used to identify the polling places come from phone directories and lists that were made up before Hurricane Charlie four years ago.
At the polling site, upon getting to the first table, the voter need only present a driver's license. Those that have none may bring their passport or something like a credit card with the voter's picture and signature on it. Without something with a pic and signature, the person may do a provisional ballot which is not counted until the ID has been checked. We encourage that voter then to contact the supervisor of elections office frequently over the next two days until that is resolved. The office is supposed to handle provisional ballots within 48 hours.
Even in our small precinct with adequate booths and two counting machines, we frequently had someone sitting on the side filling out something or waiting while the clerk was on the phone. Other voters could see the disruption the person was involved in.
The voters with the needed pic and signature is next asked to confirm their address. It should be the same in the book we have and on the license. If it is, then the voter signs the book, fills in a small oval like the one on the ballot, and then signs a signature slip (about 2" x 8-1/2").
If the addresses differ, the voter is given a change of address form and is sent to the clerk to verify with the elections office the change of address. The office checks to see if that address exists and is the same as their most recent address information. That usually clears the matter and the voter then proceeds.
We had a case where a brand new house in a section previously undeveloped was not anywhere in the records at the office. That man got a provisional ballot until his location could be verified with another county office.
The voter then goes to the "next" table. There, the white signature slip is taken and a tag torn off the bottom of the ballot which includes the ballot number. That tag is then stapled to the signature slip and kept to verify the count (and could be used to trace the ballot if someone wanted to know how that person voted).
The ballot is then given to the voter with basic instructions about filling in the ovals next to the ones they are voting for.
The voter then goes to the next open booth to fill out the ballot using pens provided in each booth.
Besides filling in ovals for candidates for the various national, state, and local offices, the voters face "yes or no" votes on a half dozen sitting judges' effectiveness in office.
The hardest part of the ballot is the constitutional amendments everyone is asked to vote on. The ballot print is small, the light by which to read them is 25 watts about two feet from the ballot, and the amendment is summarized. This time there were seven. Six were obsurely worded about property and tax policies the legislature wanted the voters to decide about and one which glorified marriage as possible only between a man and a woman without saying it would abrogate rights already in Florida law for other kinds of partners (not just homosexual).
Many people had studied on the amendments and came with sample ballots from the newspapers to aid them in their filling out the ballot. Those who had not prepared but wanted to try to be conscientious took the time to try to figure out what those amendments meant. Those folks took up to a half hour.
Once a ballot was completed, it was taken to the poll workers who showed how to insert the ballots into the counting machines. It was no problem for most to go through (we only had two clog but clear after only a couple minutes of unlocking and opening various gates to the innards of the machine). The voters were then given a sticker saying they had voted and were sent on their way with thanks for coming.
Those with stickers could go to several fast food places to get a sandwich or drink or other benefit offered to encourage voting.
If I wanted to discourage people from voting, the first thing I would do would be to put at least a half dozen obscurely worded amendments to the constitution on issues that most people had no notion about. Being expected to sort that all out before comng to the polls is bad enough. Having to wait for others who had not prepared is really bad! While the tactic looks legitimate, it is really discouraging.
Another tactic is to make sure that the equipment is barely adequate so that things like poor lighting or paper clogging can happen easily without looking like a set up.
The third tactic I'd use would be to change the poll sites frequently in those precincts I wanted to discourage. I would say it was to use free facilities even if those facilities were built for elementary school children with few if any adult-sized chairs and tables. Hopefully, the new site would be a long walk inside a large building. That would seem like good use of county-owned resources even though it would be uncomfortable for many people, especially the differently-abled and elderly.
Then I'd make sure the addresses were not right. That would look like incompetence but not intentional voter suppression.
I'd then make sure that the person coming to vote could not use the voter registration card sent out a month or so before the election but had to use something the voter might not have. Not many poor people have passports or credit cards with their pictures on them. Not all of them have driver's licenses.
Then I'd have everyone have to sign twice and go find another table to get a ballot.
This kind of thing is Katherine Harris' dream-come-true.
And it is how we operate here in Charlotte County, Florida.
That was not a nice passage through which to go to get to vote.
To vote in Florida, you may be automatically registered when you get a driver's license. -- I'm not positive because there is also the requirement that registration must be at least 29 days before the election. --
That's the easy part, presuming you can afford to drive a car regularly.
Finding the polling place may be a project. Sites are changed for many reasons and can be changed any time. Our poll is in its third home in three years. In addition, the addresses used to identify the polling places come from phone directories and lists that were made up before Hurricane Charlie four years ago.
At the polling site, upon getting to the first table, the voter need only present a driver's license. Those that have none may bring their passport or something like a credit card with the voter's picture and signature on it. Without something with a pic and signature, the person may do a provisional ballot which is not counted until the ID has been checked. We encourage that voter then to contact the supervisor of elections office frequently over the next two days until that is resolved. The office is supposed to handle provisional ballots within 48 hours.
Even in our small precinct with adequate booths and two counting machines, we frequently had someone sitting on the side filling out something or waiting while the clerk was on the phone. Other voters could see the disruption the person was involved in.
The voters with the needed pic and signature is next asked to confirm their address. It should be the same in the book we have and on the license. If it is, then the voter signs the book, fills in a small oval like the one on the ballot, and then signs a signature slip (about 2" x 8-1/2").
If the addresses differ, the voter is given a change of address form and is sent to the clerk to verify with the elections office the change of address. The office checks to see if that address exists and is the same as their most recent address information. That usually clears the matter and the voter then proceeds.
We had a case where a brand new house in a section previously undeveloped was not anywhere in the records at the office. That man got a provisional ballot until his location could be verified with another county office.
The voter then goes to the "next" table. There, the white signature slip is taken and a tag torn off the bottom of the ballot which includes the ballot number. That tag is then stapled to the signature slip and kept to verify the count (and could be used to trace the ballot if someone wanted to know how that person voted).
The ballot is then given to the voter with basic instructions about filling in the ovals next to the ones they are voting for.
The voter then goes to the next open booth to fill out the ballot using pens provided in each booth.
Besides filling in ovals for candidates for the various national, state, and local offices, the voters face "yes or no" votes on a half dozen sitting judges' effectiveness in office.
The hardest part of the ballot is the constitutional amendments everyone is asked to vote on. The ballot print is small, the light by which to read them is 25 watts about two feet from the ballot, and the amendment is summarized. This time there were seven. Six were obsurely worded about property and tax policies the legislature wanted the voters to decide about and one which glorified marriage as possible only between a man and a woman without saying it would abrogate rights already in Florida law for other kinds of partners (not just homosexual).
Many people had studied on the amendments and came with sample ballots from the newspapers to aid them in their filling out the ballot. Those who had not prepared but wanted to try to be conscientious took the time to try to figure out what those amendments meant. Those folks took up to a half hour.
Once a ballot was completed, it was taken to the poll workers who showed how to insert the ballots into the counting machines. It was no problem for most to go through (we only had two clog but clear after only a couple minutes of unlocking and opening various gates to the innards of the machine). The voters were then given a sticker saying they had voted and were sent on their way with thanks for coming.
Those with stickers could go to several fast food places to get a sandwich or drink or other benefit offered to encourage voting.
If I wanted to discourage people from voting, the first thing I would do would be to put at least a half dozen obscurely worded amendments to the constitution on issues that most people had no notion about. Being expected to sort that all out before comng to the polls is bad enough. Having to wait for others who had not prepared is really bad! While the tactic looks legitimate, it is really discouraging.
Another tactic is to make sure that the equipment is barely adequate so that things like poor lighting or paper clogging can happen easily without looking like a set up.
The third tactic I'd use would be to change the poll sites frequently in those precincts I wanted to discourage. I would say it was to use free facilities even if those facilities were built for elementary school children with few if any adult-sized chairs and tables. Hopefully, the new site would be a long walk inside a large building. That would seem like good use of county-owned resources even though it would be uncomfortable for many people, especially the differently-abled and elderly.
Then I'd make sure the addresses were not right. That would look like incompetence but not intentional voter suppression.
I'd then make sure that the person coming to vote could not use the voter registration card sent out a month or so before the election but had to use something the voter might not have. Not many poor people have passports or credit cards with their pictures on them. Not all of them have driver's licenses.
Then I'd have everyone have to sign twice and go find another table to get a ballot.
This kind of thing is Katherine Harris' dream-come-true.
And it is how we operate here in Charlotte County, Florida.
Voting in Florida
Charlotte County Office of Elections hires and trains folks to be the poll workers for elections. I signed up two and a half years ago and have worked five elections, including this general election.
Sometimes it has been real fun. As I've posted in the past, working the polls is almost more like attending a family reunion because many workers and voters are old friends and neighbors. The workers often bring food so that we have a continuous "buffet" (more like a snack bar). And I hear some stuff that's pretty funny.
Valerie, who sat with me at the ballot table, told me that next week, there will be people in the streets, the government and all the banks will be closed down, there will be armed soldiers marching in the major cities, there would be demonstrations . . . or whatever else people do on Veterans day. - She had me worried for a moment there!
She had a tiny bit of history that I had not heard before. Margaret Truman got fed up with hearing her father, President Harry Truman, constantly using the phrase "cow manure" in his speeches about the politics of the day. Her mother Bess responded, "You don't begin to realize how hard it was for me to get him to say that instead of what he wanted to say!"
We had fun with a very simple thing. There were two people checking the voters in. They were at the first table. Valerie and I were at the next table to hand out the ballots as each voter brought us a "signature slip." The ones checking the voters in said, "Take this to the next table." However, our two tables had one long table cloth covering both so the voters invariably were looking for the "next" table somewhere else in the room. We had to wave our hands or yell we were the next table as they wandered by. That usually brought a smile because of the silliness of how we were handling it. It didn't hold anyone up, really, and it seemed to add a cheery note to what was going on.
Sometimes I was awed. In our precinct which still had about 400 eligible voters (we had about that many who already voted early or by absentee ballot), we had five people on crutches and two who obviously limped and should have been on crutches who came in to vote. We had some very elderly who barely tottered on their own who came to vote. We had whole families (one had six children on tow) there. We had people who had changes of address or anomolies in the registrar of voters records who patiently waited for as much as an hour while the precinct clerk sat on the phone trying to clear up the snags. Somehow, we seemed able to reconcile the problems and only one person left in a huff out of the 250 who passed our way.
Tom was awesome. In his seventies, he took the voters with their ballots to the booths with a friendly word or two. But he often took it upon himself to talk to the children who were waiting while their parents voted. Because one parent took a lot of time to read the amendments carefully before voting on them, Tom ended up staying engaged with two grade school boys for twenty five minutes. That was amazing!
Sometimes I was scared. This was the third location in three years for our precinct's poll. On top of that, the address given for this site is for a different building on the corner and a security fence keeps people from getting to our poll from that side of the school where we are located. Next time, I am planning to have a friend stand at that corner to give folks directions to our polling place.
In addition, we have no idea what is on the chips in the machines which counted the paper ballots. A ten percent flipping of votes built into the main chip could not be subjected to legal challenge since that chip's makeup is considered by the courts to be "proprietary." It happens that the totals of our vote gave the precinct to Sen. McCain by ten percent. From personal experience, I know the current supervisor of elections is a nice man who trains us to help voters have a good experience, though I do not know if he is partisan enough to be willing to go along with rigged machines. And now a new supervisor from the same party has been elected and I know nothing about him.
My experiennce, as you can see, is that there are so many points of interest in developing a voting process and then carrying it out, I am glad to be a small part of it.
But I will be even gladder when Congress revises election processes to remove the legal impediments to finding out if the critical computer chips are skewed and to remove the elections offices from partisan hands.
-----
Update: Just for the record, when I compare the voting patterns in our precinct from pevious elections, we had many more Hispanics (I'd guess about ten times as many) as before. All of them looked professional and were bilingual. We had fewer African Americans than any previous election even though we had more than twice the turn out (we had maybe eight or so at previous elections but only about five this time - I'm told the precinct has practically no African Americans in it). We had 121 voters in the September primary and 247 voters Tuesday. We had ten privacy booths for voters to use to fill out their ballots and two scanners to count their votes. We had only two ballots clog in one machine but which cleared easily once we found how to get at them. There were no lines that lasted more than a few minutes except when we opened at 7 am. They were all through by about 7:20. Voting was pretty steady all day. We were able to take breaks for rest stops and snacks and stretching legs without holding up any voters.
In another post I will talk about the specifics of voting and some miscellaneous stuff that doesn't quite fit in this essay
Sometimes it has been real fun. As I've posted in the past, working the polls is almost more like attending a family reunion because many workers and voters are old friends and neighbors. The workers often bring food so that we have a continuous "buffet" (more like a snack bar). And I hear some stuff that's pretty funny.
Valerie, who sat with me at the ballot table, told me that next week, there will be people in the streets, the government and all the banks will be closed down, there will be armed soldiers marching in the major cities, there would be demonstrations . . . or whatever else people do on Veterans day. - She had me worried for a moment there!
She had a tiny bit of history that I had not heard before. Margaret Truman got fed up with hearing her father, President Harry Truman, constantly using the phrase "cow manure" in his speeches about the politics of the day. Her mother Bess responded, "You don't begin to realize how hard it was for me to get him to say that instead of what he wanted to say!"
We had fun with a very simple thing. There were two people checking the voters in. They were at the first table. Valerie and I were at the next table to hand out the ballots as each voter brought us a "signature slip." The ones checking the voters in said, "Take this to the next table." However, our two tables had one long table cloth covering both so the voters invariably were looking for the "next" table somewhere else in the room. We had to wave our hands or yell we were the next table as they wandered by. That usually brought a smile because of the silliness of how we were handling it. It didn't hold anyone up, really, and it seemed to add a cheery note to what was going on.
Sometimes I was awed. In our precinct which still had about 400 eligible voters (we had about that many who already voted early or by absentee ballot), we had five people on crutches and two who obviously limped and should have been on crutches who came in to vote. We had some very elderly who barely tottered on their own who came to vote. We had whole families (one had six children on tow) there. We had people who had changes of address or anomolies in the registrar of voters records who patiently waited for as much as an hour while the precinct clerk sat on the phone trying to clear up the snags. Somehow, we seemed able to reconcile the problems and only one person left in a huff out of the 250 who passed our way.
Tom was awesome. In his seventies, he took the voters with their ballots to the booths with a friendly word or two. But he often took it upon himself to talk to the children who were waiting while their parents voted. Because one parent took a lot of time to read the amendments carefully before voting on them, Tom ended up staying engaged with two grade school boys for twenty five minutes. That was amazing!
Sometimes I was scared. This was the third location in three years for our precinct's poll. On top of that, the address given for this site is for a different building on the corner and a security fence keeps people from getting to our poll from that side of the school where we are located. Next time, I am planning to have a friend stand at that corner to give folks directions to our polling place.
In addition, we have no idea what is on the chips in the machines which counted the paper ballots. A ten percent flipping of votes built into the main chip could not be subjected to legal challenge since that chip's makeup is considered by the courts to be "proprietary." It happens that the totals of our vote gave the precinct to Sen. McCain by ten percent. From personal experience, I know the current supervisor of elections is a nice man who trains us to help voters have a good experience, though I do not know if he is partisan enough to be willing to go along with rigged machines. And now a new supervisor from the same party has been elected and I know nothing about him.
My experiennce, as you can see, is that there are so many points of interest in developing a voting process and then carrying it out, I am glad to be a small part of it.
But I will be even gladder when Congress revises election processes to remove the legal impediments to finding out if the critical computer chips are skewed and to remove the elections offices from partisan hands.
-----
Update: Just for the record, when I compare the voting patterns in our precinct from pevious elections, we had many more Hispanics (I'd guess about ten times as many) as before. All of them looked professional and were bilingual. We had fewer African Americans than any previous election even though we had more than twice the turn out (we had maybe eight or so at previous elections but only about five this time - I'm told the precinct has practically no African Americans in it). We had 121 voters in the September primary and 247 voters Tuesday. We had ten privacy booths for voters to use to fill out their ballots and two scanners to count their votes. We had only two ballots clog in one machine but which cleared easily once we found how to get at them. There were no lines that lasted more than a few minutes except when we opened at 7 am. They were all through by about 7:20. Voting was pretty steady all day. We were able to take breaks for rest stops and snacks and stretching legs without holding up any voters.
In another post I will talk about the specifics of voting and some miscellaneous stuff that doesn't quite fit in this essay
We Won!
Today Ann and I finally were able to celebrate the election of Sen. Obama. Yesterday I was recuperating from working at the polls on Tuesday. (More on that in another posting.)
We went out for breakfast where I splurged and had corned beef hash and eggs while Ann went for the scrapple.
We know how to kick the lid off!
It is hard to conceive that the American people voted for someone who represented "promoting the general welfare" phrase from the Constitution rather than for someone who represented the life of wealth and privilege to which we all aspire.
It is welcome news that the majority of Americans now are willing to look past the tactics of fear and vote with hope.
Hope does not include for me that all the promises made by President-elect Obama will come out in the forms he stressed during the campaign. The Obama I voted for is the consultative, collaborative, collegial-style leader, the "Jean Luc Picard" who gathers his top experts to consult together before falling back on his roll as the "decider."
That means the only promise I expect Obama to keep is that he will listen to all sides before taking action and will work with all parties-at-interest on developing legislation and policies.
If the Clintons had done that, they would have been far more effective.
I want to see the tax cuts for the middle class but I will be happy if more comprehensive tax policies are developed which are even better for everyone. That would come out of a bigger "committee" of concerned people from all perspectives.
I would be delighted to have the status of forces agreement with Iraq include an extension only for the purpose of safe withdrawal of our troops and provision for the safety (allowing emigration to the US) for those who have been specifically protected by us. But if a better plan with the same long range results was developed, I would be happy even if it meant troops staying there a little longer.
I think that the President-elect really cares about finding what is best for all of us in the US, not just the ones "at the top" of our society. I think he really cares about folks all across the globe. I think he has the intellectual curiosity so lacking these past eight years that he can understand consequences so much better than his predecessor.
Imagine! Someone smarter than me will be President! Someone smarter than you too!
For all those reasons, we won.
We went out for breakfast where I splurged and had corned beef hash and eggs while Ann went for the scrapple.
We know how to kick the lid off!
It is hard to conceive that the American people voted for someone who represented "promoting the general welfare" phrase from the Constitution rather than for someone who represented the life of wealth and privilege to which we all aspire.
It is welcome news that the majority of Americans now are willing to look past the tactics of fear and vote with hope.
Hope does not include for me that all the promises made by President-elect Obama will come out in the forms he stressed during the campaign. The Obama I voted for is the consultative, collaborative, collegial-style leader, the "Jean Luc Picard" who gathers his top experts to consult together before falling back on his roll as the "decider."
That means the only promise I expect Obama to keep is that he will listen to all sides before taking action and will work with all parties-at-interest on developing legislation and policies.
If the Clintons had done that, they would have been far more effective.
I want to see the tax cuts for the middle class but I will be happy if more comprehensive tax policies are developed which are even better for everyone. That would come out of a bigger "committee" of concerned people from all perspectives.
I would be delighted to have the status of forces agreement with Iraq include an extension only for the purpose of safe withdrawal of our troops and provision for the safety (allowing emigration to the US) for those who have been specifically protected by us. But if a better plan with the same long range results was developed, I would be happy even if it meant troops staying there a little longer.
I think that the President-elect really cares about finding what is best for all of us in the US, not just the ones "at the top" of our society. I think he really cares about folks all across the globe. I think he has the intellectual curiosity so lacking these past eight years that he can understand consequences so much better than his predecessor.
Imagine! Someone smarter than me will be President! Someone smarter than you too!
For all those reasons, we won.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
A Friend's Response to the Election
A pastor friend from Alabama wrote the following letter to some of us to share his reaction to the Obama election. His father, also a pastor, had been very active in civil rights as had his sister, and he in his own right:
Dearest Ones,
One of the memories seared into my soul from my childhood is the presence of the black people who worked for us in and around our home. We, like so many other white families, employed black domestics on a regular basis for years in Montgomery and Mobile. I was a child at home in Montgomery, not yet in school, and later in Mobile, I was the elementary school boy with more time spent on the homefront than my teen-age sister. So, I got really close to our “help.”
When I would talk to them, which I did at length on lazy old sunny days, I would listen to their stories and their reports on the status of things in their families (not always good) and feel so big. I thought I was their confidant, which I kind of was. It was not unusual in the South of that day for little white children to be the only creatures a black person would dare to reveal more than perfunctory details of life to. They were wise. They knew children would not run off and tell everything to white grown-ups, because a child seriously values being talked to without condescension and reveres the one who shares so intimately. In the child’s eye, it is all a huge, mysterious, sacred secret between the conversing parties, and the “spell” is broken if anything is leaked to those on the outside.
So, I would spend hours with Katie and JoJo and Fax Oliver and Silvie, soaking up the treasures of heart-to-heart exchanges, but mostly just listening to them and being exposed to a rich vein of human experience and insight. The thing I most remember about them physically was how natural their facial expressions were and how easily they made eye contact as our gabfest unfolded.
Mother and I would go shopping downtown in Montgomery and Mobile. As we passed black men and women on the open streets, there was no conversation, barely even an acknowledgment that they were there. Gone was the conviviality of the backporch chats I had with my buddies at the house. Most memorably, the faces of these people were blank, unreadable. And their eyes were downcast, their heads lowered. I did not know then what to call it, but I saw it. Later, I would learn that you label such a thing subservience.
This morning, I went into a fast-food place for a cup of coffee. While seated fixing my brew, a black man about my age stopped near my table to rearrange his sack of breakfast goodies before going back outside to his car. I was reading the morning paper—the election edition of the Montgomery Advertiser—and looked up at him. I said, “That was quite a night last night, wasn’t it?” He replied at once, with gusto: “I mean to tell you it was!! I only wish my mama and papa were alive to see this day. Has there ever been a more beautiful day than today? I told my son this morning, ‘Boy, you take this day off from your job and just sit and contemplate what has happened! Your grandparents laid the foundation for it and you owe them homage!’ “ Then, he smiled as big as Satchmo, and wheeled around to go. As he departed I called out, “I wish my folks were around for this, too!” He turned back to me at the door and nodded his head, departing with these words. “Mine and yours are aware of it, I just feel it.”
Two things stayed with me long after he left. One was that it seemed I was back in my boyhood and had just finished one of those cherished dialogues. The other was that this time there was no secrecy assumed or needed. Oh, and one other thing. We were very much in public but he never once erased the true emotion from his face or lowered his head to me. He just said his piece and walked out into the sun with confident eyes wide open and head erect.
One measure to me of the extent of the meaning of last night’s victory by President-elect Obama is the distance between expressions of real humanity by blacks during my childhood, which only emerged when I was alone with them and otherwise stayed hidden when they were in plain view of The Man, and the joyful exclamations of my restaurant friend given right out front without hesitation or apology. He could do it now, though his forebears could not, for many reasons all of us who know our country’s history could recite. But the newest reason is that The Man is no longer of my tribe, but is personified in a black man from Illinois.
I know. He had a white mother. Race isn’t the only barrier that needs to be taken down. He represents lots of intersecting human realities, but he is only one person and exclusiveness is a disease curable only when all are accepted for who and what they are. This venture we are about to embark upon could become embittering if he proves to be less than meets the eye. Only fools place their hopes on one leader. And so on. But I for one will return to all that in due time. It all contains much truth and will always be there to work on. Just not today, please!
I am reminded of Jesus’ last week on this side of the grave when he was trying to rest at a friend’s house in Bethany. Some woman broke a jar of expensive ointment and poured it over his feet and bathed them in it. The crowd around him took her to task, saying the stuff had been wasted, that it could have been sold and the money used for the needy. But Jesus shut them up and said that what they had missed, and what the woman understood, was that on this day in this place Jesus was alive, available, a presence worth celebrating and honoring. It would not always be so, he said. There would always be more justice work to do, a society to perfect, etc (the poor are always with you). But at that precise moment, it was time to appreciate the man of the hour, to prepare him for his near-at-hand ordeal, show solidarity with him, and pay beautiful tribute to his impact.
Of course, I am not equating President-elect Obama with the fellow from Galilee. I do have a few parameters left that I observe! But all I am saying is that those of us who recognize what has just happened for the singular thing that it is need to stop and thank God we are alive on this day. Of the future, we know not. But today, a bugle has blown. A harmonious chorus is out performing a discordant one. A link has been forged between an ignominious past and a redemptive present. Break a jar of something expensive. Let it flow. Savor this time without reservation or skepticism. Our homeland has done a good thing. It has done a great thing.
“I only wish my mama and papa were alive to see this day.”
“I wish my folks were around for this, too.”
“Mine and yours are aware of it, I just feel it.”
Spencer Turnipseed
Dearest Ones,
One of the memories seared into my soul from my childhood is the presence of the black people who worked for us in and around our home. We, like so many other white families, employed black domestics on a regular basis for years in Montgomery and Mobile. I was a child at home in Montgomery, not yet in school, and later in Mobile, I was the elementary school boy with more time spent on the homefront than my teen-age sister. So, I got really close to our “help.”
When I would talk to them, which I did at length on lazy old sunny days, I would listen to their stories and their reports on the status of things in their families (not always good) and feel so big. I thought I was their confidant, which I kind of was. It was not unusual in the South of that day for little white children to be the only creatures a black person would dare to reveal more than perfunctory details of life to. They were wise. They knew children would not run off and tell everything to white grown-ups, because a child seriously values being talked to without condescension and reveres the one who shares so intimately. In the child’s eye, it is all a huge, mysterious, sacred secret between the conversing parties, and the “spell” is broken if anything is leaked to those on the outside.
So, I would spend hours with Katie and JoJo and Fax Oliver and Silvie, soaking up the treasures of heart-to-heart exchanges, but mostly just listening to them and being exposed to a rich vein of human experience and insight. The thing I most remember about them physically was how natural their facial expressions were and how easily they made eye contact as our gabfest unfolded.
Mother and I would go shopping downtown in Montgomery and Mobile. As we passed black men and women on the open streets, there was no conversation, barely even an acknowledgment that they were there. Gone was the conviviality of the backporch chats I had with my buddies at the house. Most memorably, the faces of these people were blank, unreadable. And their eyes were downcast, their heads lowered. I did not know then what to call it, but I saw it. Later, I would learn that you label such a thing subservience.
This morning, I went into a fast-food place for a cup of coffee. While seated fixing my brew, a black man about my age stopped near my table to rearrange his sack of breakfast goodies before going back outside to his car. I was reading the morning paper—the election edition of the Montgomery Advertiser—and looked up at him. I said, “That was quite a night last night, wasn’t it?” He replied at once, with gusto: “I mean to tell you it was!! I only wish my mama and papa were alive to see this day. Has there ever been a more beautiful day than today? I told my son this morning, ‘Boy, you take this day off from your job and just sit and contemplate what has happened! Your grandparents laid the foundation for it and you owe them homage!’ “ Then, he smiled as big as Satchmo, and wheeled around to go. As he departed I called out, “I wish my folks were around for this, too!” He turned back to me at the door and nodded his head, departing with these words. “Mine and yours are aware of it, I just feel it.”
Two things stayed with me long after he left. One was that it seemed I was back in my boyhood and had just finished one of those cherished dialogues. The other was that this time there was no secrecy assumed or needed. Oh, and one other thing. We were very much in public but he never once erased the true emotion from his face or lowered his head to me. He just said his piece and walked out into the sun with confident eyes wide open and head erect.
One measure to me of the extent of the meaning of last night’s victory by President-elect Obama is the distance between expressions of real humanity by blacks during my childhood, which only emerged when I was alone with them and otherwise stayed hidden when they were in plain view of The Man, and the joyful exclamations of my restaurant friend given right out front without hesitation or apology. He could do it now, though his forebears could not, for many reasons all of us who know our country’s history could recite. But the newest reason is that The Man is no longer of my tribe, but is personified in a black man from Illinois.
I know. He had a white mother. Race isn’t the only barrier that needs to be taken down. He represents lots of intersecting human realities, but he is only one person and exclusiveness is a disease curable only when all are accepted for who and what they are. This venture we are about to embark upon could become embittering if he proves to be less than meets the eye. Only fools place their hopes on one leader. And so on. But I for one will return to all that in due time. It all contains much truth and will always be there to work on. Just not today, please!
I am reminded of Jesus’ last week on this side of the grave when he was trying to rest at a friend’s house in Bethany. Some woman broke a jar of expensive ointment and poured it over his feet and bathed them in it. The crowd around him took her to task, saying the stuff had been wasted, that it could have been sold and the money used for the needy. But Jesus shut them up and said that what they had missed, and what the woman understood, was that on this day in this place Jesus was alive, available, a presence worth celebrating and honoring. It would not always be so, he said. There would always be more justice work to do, a society to perfect, etc (the poor are always with you). But at that precise moment, it was time to appreciate the man of the hour, to prepare him for his near-at-hand ordeal, show solidarity with him, and pay beautiful tribute to his impact.
Of course, I am not equating President-elect Obama with the fellow from Galilee. I do have a few parameters left that I observe! But all I am saying is that those of us who recognize what has just happened for the singular thing that it is need to stop and thank God we are alive on this day. Of the future, we know not. But today, a bugle has blown. A harmonious chorus is out performing a discordant one. A link has been forged between an ignominious past and a redemptive present. Break a jar of something expensive. Let it flow. Savor this time without reservation or skepticism. Our homeland has done a good thing. It has done a great thing.
“I only wish my mama and papa were alive to see this day.”
“I wish my folks were around for this, too.”
“Mine and yours are aware of it, I just feel it.”
Spencer Turnipseed
Monday, October 20, 2008
Favre and Rodgers
Most of us Packer fans have kept an eye on Brett over these opening games of this NFL season. We hated that he left the way he did. We felt bad about it and were not very happy with what appeared to be his presumptuousness.
How would a prime athlete hold up with little or no active conditioning program during the off-season?
How would a declining talent be rejuvenated?
How would the drag of all the in-season preparations feel once the newness of being with a new team wears off?
How would the cold weather affect those older joints in his hands and knees?
By the end of October, the answer to those questions should begin to be defined.
With Aaron, the questions are also still not fully answered.
While he has proved he can play with great pain, has he proved he can hold up for a whole season?
As some of the better teams prepare for the Packers, will they now have enough of a body of Rodger's work to be better prepared for him and thus be able to make him look like the first year QB he is?
Will his smaller hands make it harder for him to function in the colder weather he will encounter after the bye?
Let's hope both do well during the rest of the season. It will be interesting to watch.
How would a prime athlete hold up with little or no active conditioning program during the off-season?
How would a declining talent be rejuvenated?
How would the drag of all the in-season preparations feel once the newness of being with a new team wears off?
How would the cold weather affect those older joints in his hands and knees?
By the end of October, the answer to those questions should begin to be defined.
With Aaron, the questions are also still not fully answered.
While he has proved he can play with great pain, has he proved he can hold up for a whole season?
As some of the better teams prepare for the Packers, will they now have enough of a body of Rodger's work to be better prepared for him and thus be able to make him look like the first year QB he is?
Will his smaller hands make it harder for him to function in the colder weather he will encounter after the bye?
Let's hope both do well during the rest of the season. It will be interesting to watch.
Friday, October 10, 2008
The Last Debate: A Fantasy
As I heard replayed several times, Sen. McCain finally has come to his senses and realized his campaign has been so negative that it may be approaching being dangerous to the life and health of his colleague, Sen. Obama, as well as to the destruction of his own ambition to be President.
His running mate will now be seen as just another politician scraping by after unethical behaviors of her own, which added to his makes his election unlikely.
Should he withdraw from the race and concede? Probably, but what would the Republicans do then? They'd figure out something because, after all, Sen. McCain at his age is vulnerable to a demise of more natural sorts. There is probably a contingency plan in place should the unthinkable happen.
But what does a man bound by duty and honor do, especially in the coming debate next Wednesday, short of leaving his party in the lurch?
Here's my fantasy:
After sitting at the table with Sen. Obama and Bob Schieffer, Sen. McCain says, "It's time to put down the boxing gloves and the campaign hats and try something that might be worth everyone's time. I propose that we spend as much of the hour and a half that we have conducting the bipartisan discussion that needs to be going on now. Our Congressional colleagues are doing it in Washington. We should show to the world what we mean by 'reaching across the aisle.' Besides, we need to be doing this after Inauguratiuon Day whichever of us wins."
Having broached the idea with the other two men and gotten their assent before coming out on stage, Bob Schieffer should announce they had agreed before the debate to do just that and then turn to Sen. Obama and ask, "What do your advisors say are the critical problems in this economic crisis? Then we'll turn to Sen. McCain to tell us what his are saying. Then we'll see how far we can go toward identifying the problem and go from there with your respective solutions. Sen. Obama?"
Imagine, if you will, two strong thoughtful people trying to make sense of a complex issue and seeking to understand it so they can begin considering how their own best ideas would contribute toward a solution both could live with.
Would an hour and a half be enough time to come up with a clear direction? Of course not. But just think of how Wall Street and the American people and those folks struggling in Congress to be bi-partisan would feel to see the example the two Presidential candidates were setting.
There is enough time for the two candidates to discuss this fantasy.
What is your best fantasy in this situation?
His running mate will now be seen as just another politician scraping by after unethical behaviors of her own, which added to his makes his election unlikely.
Should he withdraw from the race and concede? Probably, but what would the Republicans do then? They'd figure out something because, after all, Sen. McCain at his age is vulnerable to a demise of more natural sorts. There is probably a contingency plan in place should the unthinkable happen.
But what does a man bound by duty and honor do, especially in the coming debate next Wednesday, short of leaving his party in the lurch?
Here's my fantasy:
After sitting at the table with Sen. Obama and Bob Schieffer, Sen. McCain says, "It's time to put down the boxing gloves and the campaign hats and try something that might be worth everyone's time. I propose that we spend as much of the hour and a half that we have conducting the bipartisan discussion that needs to be going on now. Our Congressional colleagues are doing it in Washington. We should show to the world what we mean by 'reaching across the aisle.' Besides, we need to be doing this after Inauguratiuon Day whichever of us wins."
Having broached the idea with the other two men and gotten their assent before coming out on stage, Bob Schieffer should announce they had agreed before the debate to do just that and then turn to Sen. Obama and ask, "What do your advisors say are the critical problems in this economic crisis? Then we'll turn to Sen. McCain to tell us what his are saying. Then we'll see how far we can go toward identifying the problem and go from there with your respective solutions. Sen. Obama?"
Imagine, if you will, two strong thoughtful people trying to make sense of a complex issue and seeking to understand it so they can begin considering how their own best ideas would contribute toward a solution both could live with.
Would an hour and a half be enough time to come up with a clear direction? Of course not. But just think of how Wall Street and the American people and those folks struggling in Congress to be bi-partisan would feel to see the example the two Presidential candidates were setting.
There is enough time for the two candidates to discuss this fantasy.
What is your best fantasy in this situation?
Thursday, October 9, 2008
The MOMENT
In many of the Presidential races through which I've lived, there is a moment when you realize one side or the other has lost. It is usually an obscure moment. And many may miss it or not agree.
One obvious one for me was the moment when Jimmy Carter failed in his effort to show how serious nuclear proliferation was by quoting his daughter, whereupon Ronald Reagan jumped all over him for turning to a family member for nuclear policy advice.
Another obvious moment was Howard Dean's excited scream after winning in New Hampshire's primary.
Less obvious was George H. W. Bush's curiosity at a supermarket scanner. How out of touch could he be?
When George W. Bush used the ad where he hugged the 13 year old girl who had lost a parent in 9/11, I knew he'd win. And that was on top of the "I voted for it before I voted against it" problem John Kerry never was able to answer.
I think Al Gore lost the moment he gave in on the issue of tax cuts as a way of dealing with the budget surpluses from the Clinton Administration. I always thought they should have gone to cut the national debt.
But maybe the strangest moment happened the day after the Palin-Biden debate. John McCain was so proud of the job she did. "Heh?" He repeated his statement of pride and followed with another "Heh?" Then a third, "Heh?" It was as grating a sound as has ever been recorded. As one commentator suggested, "How would you like to listen to that for four years?"
There are many other major factors in any candidate's winning or losing the Presidency, but I still think there is a moment when a candidate does something innocuous and everyone finally knows it's over.
One obvious one for me was the moment when Jimmy Carter failed in his effort to show how serious nuclear proliferation was by quoting his daughter, whereupon Ronald Reagan jumped all over him for turning to a family member for nuclear policy advice.
Another obvious moment was Howard Dean's excited scream after winning in New Hampshire's primary.
Less obvious was George H. W. Bush's curiosity at a supermarket scanner. How out of touch could he be?
When George W. Bush used the ad where he hugged the 13 year old girl who had lost a parent in 9/11, I knew he'd win. And that was on top of the "I voted for it before I voted against it" problem John Kerry never was able to answer.
I think Al Gore lost the moment he gave in on the issue of tax cuts as a way of dealing with the budget surpluses from the Clinton Administration. I always thought they should have gone to cut the national debt.
But maybe the strangest moment happened the day after the Palin-Biden debate. John McCain was so proud of the job she did. "Heh?" He repeated his statement of pride and followed with another "Heh?" Then a third, "Heh?" It was as grating a sound as has ever been recorded. As one commentator suggested, "How would you like to listen to that for four years?"
There are many other major factors in any candidate's winning or losing the Presidency, but I still think there is a moment when a candidate does something innocuous and everyone finally knows it's over.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
The Presidential Debates
When Senator McCain and Senator Obama meet to debate this week, it looks like they will have to set the rules and enforce them themselves.
Most of us expected to see Gwen Ifill stand up to Governor Palin when she announced she was going to say what she wanted no matter what the moderator or media expected.
Who is supposed to enforce the rules of the debate, if not the moderator?
Based on what she said in response to Tom Brokaw this morning on “Meet the Press,” she figured neither was going to answer the questions but say what they wanted.
I agree that Sen. Biden pointed out when he could the ties between Sen. McCain and President Bush but he at least responded to the questions. But Governor Palin made hardly any such efforts, especially after she “blew off” Ms. Ifill.
Now that the debates are back where there can be no challenges about “victimizing” Gov. Palin, it looks like Sen. Obama is going to have to be sure what the rules are, who if anyone is to enforce them, and then carry on whatever the style of “discourse” has been defined.
That may be harder on the “town hall” format which is supposed to happen Tuesday night, and may be a little easier to get defined when Bob Schieffer moderates the discussion while sitting at the same table with the two candidates next week.
Sen. Obama may have to do that at the outset of each broadcast while on the air in public view so those of us watching will know the rules too.
PS If I remember this correctly from seminary, those from any university should answer the questions asked, those from Yale should then discuss what lay behind those questions. Those from Harvard must then also answer the questions that should have been asked!
Most of us expected to see Gwen Ifill stand up to Governor Palin when she announced she was going to say what she wanted no matter what the moderator or media expected.
Who is supposed to enforce the rules of the debate, if not the moderator?
Based on what she said in response to Tom Brokaw this morning on “Meet the Press,” she figured neither was going to answer the questions but say what they wanted.
I agree that Sen. Biden pointed out when he could the ties between Sen. McCain and President Bush but he at least responded to the questions. But Governor Palin made hardly any such efforts, especially after she “blew off” Ms. Ifill.
Now that the debates are back where there can be no challenges about “victimizing” Gov. Palin, it looks like Sen. Obama is going to have to be sure what the rules are, who if anyone is to enforce them, and then carry on whatever the style of “discourse” has been defined.
That may be harder on the “town hall” format which is supposed to happen Tuesday night, and may be a little easier to get defined when Bob Schieffer moderates the discussion while sitting at the same table with the two candidates next week.
Sen. Obama may have to do that at the outset of each broadcast while on the air in public view so those of us watching will know the rules too.
PS If I remember this correctly from seminary, those from any university should answer the questions asked, those from Yale should then discuss what lay behind those questions. Those from Harvard must then also answer the questions that should have been asked!
Conviction of OJ Simpson
He didn’t do it.
I’m not sure what the facts are in the current conviction of OJ Simpson over the memorabilia. My guess is that he was probably caught in the middle of a situation where a friend brought the gun and the DA would ordinarily have charged him with a misdemeanor . . . if it had been anyone but OJ.
For some reason (my opinion is that it is deep-seated racial prejudice), sane, intelligent people want to punish OJ for his ex-wife’s death even though a jury (mixed racial) found him innocent. They (including some dear friends and relatives) were glad when the civil trial (with an all white jury) awarded millions of dollars to the Browns and the Goldmans. And when he was able to protect enough of his wealth to be able to support his family (another civil court going on at the same time as the suit by the Browns and Goldmans awarded OJ custody of his kids, which a lot of folks do not pay attention to), the public seems to delight in scrapes he has gotten into and hope the judge in this memorabilia case put him into jail for life.
I read more on the original case than I wanted. But the most convincing pieces of evidence are the autopsies of the two victims.
There were two major factors which people seem to want to disregard.
One, there were bruises on the bodies, mainly on Ms. Simpson’s head and Mr. Goldman’s hands which show they both inflicted damage on the attacker(s). The hand bruises show significant injury was inflicted and the head bruise is where it would be if she had head-butted an assailant who was behind her holding her, possibly breaking his nose.
Both victims were athletic and had training in karate.
Careful examination of OJ at the time he voluntarily went in to talk with the police showed no bruises or injuries. If he had been the attacker, there is no way in those close quarters of the murder scene that he would have come out with only two small breaks in his skin of one finger.
Two, the autopsies indicated stab wounds from FOUR different knives from multiple angles which could only have been inflicted by multiple attackers.
The autopsies are printed in more than one book on the case and can probably be found on the internet. I saw them in the book KILLING TIME by David Freed and John Briggs.
I also wrote a novel which goes into the timeline and the blood evidence and hypothesizes who the real murderers were. If you are interested, I can send you a copy electronically.
OJ did not commit those murders most of America want to believe he did. And now we wait to see if the judge puts him away for life or is willing to face the howling masses if he does anything less.
I’m not sure what the facts are in the current conviction of OJ Simpson over the memorabilia. My guess is that he was probably caught in the middle of a situation where a friend brought the gun and the DA would ordinarily have charged him with a misdemeanor . . . if it had been anyone but OJ.
For some reason (my opinion is that it is deep-seated racial prejudice), sane, intelligent people want to punish OJ for his ex-wife’s death even though a jury (mixed racial) found him innocent. They (including some dear friends and relatives) were glad when the civil trial (with an all white jury) awarded millions of dollars to the Browns and the Goldmans. And when he was able to protect enough of his wealth to be able to support his family (another civil court going on at the same time as the suit by the Browns and Goldmans awarded OJ custody of his kids, which a lot of folks do not pay attention to), the public seems to delight in scrapes he has gotten into and hope the judge in this memorabilia case put him into jail for life.
I read more on the original case than I wanted. But the most convincing pieces of evidence are the autopsies of the two victims.
There were two major factors which people seem to want to disregard.
One, there were bruises on the bodies, mainly on Ms. Simpson’s head and Mr. Goldman’s hands which show they both inflicted damage on the attacker(s). The hand bruises show significant injury was inflicted and the head bruise is where it would be if she had head-butted an assailant who was behind her holding her, possibly breaking his nose.
Both victims were athletic and had training in karate.
Careful examination of OJ at the time he voluntarily went in to talk with the police showed no bruises or injuries. If he had been the attacker, there is no way in those close quarters of the murder scene that he would have come out with only two small breaks in his skin of one finger.
Two, the autopsies indicated stab wounds from FOUR different knives from multiple angles which could only have been inflicted by multiple attackers.
The autopsies are printed in more than one book on the case and can probably be found on the internet. I saw them in the book KILLING TIME by David Freed and John Briggs.
I also wrote a novel which goes into the timeline and the blood evidence and hypothesizes who the real murderers were. If you are interested, I can send you a copy electronically.
OJ did not commit those murders most of America want to believe he did. And now we wait to see if the judge puts him away for life or is willing to face the howling masses if he does anything less.
Friday, September 26, 2008
It was a trap
Rovian? Machiavellian? Bushist?
Politics at its worst . . . .
The goal: Make the Democrats look like the bad guys so that the Republicans could pull out a win in November and win even better in 2010.
The tactic: get the Dems to pass the bail out only to have it structured to fail.
The strategy: Set up the bill to look bi-partisan by sending it from the White House and encouraging the moderate Republicans in Congress to work with the Democrats.
The sting: leave two poison pills in the bill (no oversite and putting the Secretary of the Treasury in charge). Then leave the key Republican leadership out of the discussions so they could claim no responsibility for the bill.
The set up: with some deft trades by wealthy Republicans, encourage market swings on Wall Street so that the Dow becomes the bellwether of the backdrop which appears to show the positive and negative responses to various news about work on the bill.
Serendipity: Disrupting the first presidential nominee debate can become an excuse to change the subject of the latest news pattern. It could make it appear that the President wanted to listen to "both sides" with Sens. McCain and Obama at his photo-op table with a handful of Congressional leaders but give cover to Sen. McCain's distance from the Senate of the past two years. And if the Democrats pass the bill, it could be voted against by Sen. McCain who could claim to have tried to save the country from a legislative failure. And the disruption to the debates could mean the dropping of the vice-presidential debate or even one or more of the presidential debates.
Results: If the President's bill is passed, the Dems take the fall for its failure.
If the Dems change the bill, the Dems take the fall for being "partisan."
If it takes awhile for the bill to be shaped, the Dems are held up from campaigning which helps the Repubs who are facing defeat but would now have something to use against the Dems.
If the Dems stop work on the bill because of having insufficient time to do it right, they can then be castigated for not staying in Washington to finish the job. And McCain might gain points in a close race by running against a "do-nothing Congress." Congress does, after all, have a rating lower in the eyes of the public than President Bush!
If the market does collapse (free market Repubs would call it a "market correction" even if it was a Depression!), that would also be laid at the Dems feet.
IT'S A TRAP, BABY!
Is there a way out?
If Congressional Democrats work to prepare a bill that strengthens the credit markets based on models that have worked in the past in Sweden, Japan, and the US, and sell it to the people through Sen. Obama and Sen. Chris Dodd as well as other leadership, and don't panic (the President used some "panic" terms in his statement to the country the other night), they will do better no matter how it is framed by the Republicans.
It will help if Former President Bill Clinton is campaigning all over the country and giving the Congressional Dems a chance to finish the bill, along with ads saying where the Democratic Party Congressmen and women are (the Repubs will tend to feel, as a minority anyway, that they aren't needed in Washington so they can go campaign).
Senators Obama, Dodd, et al, CALL THE BLUFF!
Take your time and do it right.
Including doing all the debates, with or without the Repubs.
Politics at its worst . . . .
The goal: Make the Democrats look like the bad guys so that the Republicans could pull out a win in November and win even better in 2010.
The tactic: get the Dems to pass the bail out only to have it structured to fail.
The strategy: Set up the bill to look bi-partisan by sending it from the White House and encouraging the moderate Republicans in Congress to work with the Democrats.
The sting: leave two poison pills in the bill (no oversite and putting the Secretary of the Treasury in charge). Then leave the key Republican leadership out of the discussions so they could claim no responsibility for the bill.
The set up: with some deft trades by wealthy Republicans, encourage market swings on Wall Street so that the Dow becomes the bellwether of the backdrop which appears to show the positive and negative responses to various news about work on the bill.
Serendipity: Disrupting the first presidential nominee debate can become an excuse to change the subject of the latest news pattern. It could make it appear that the President wanted to listen to "both sides" with Sens. McCain and Obama at his photo-op table with a handful of Congressional leaders but give cover to Sen. McCain's distance from the Senate of the past two years. And if the Democrats pass the bill, it could be voted against by Sen. McCain who could claim to have tried to save the country from a legislative failure. And the disruption to the debates could mean the dropping of the vice-presidential debate or even one or more of the presidential debates.
Results: If the President's bill is passed, the Dems take the fall for its failure.
If the Dems change the bill, the Dems take the fall for being "partisan."
If it takes awhile for the bill to be shaped, the Dems are held up from campaigning which helps the Repubs who are facing defeat but would now have something to use against the Dems.
If the Dems stop work on the bill because of having insufficient time to do it right, they can then be castigated for not staying in Washington to finish the job. And McCain might gain points in a close race by running against a "do-nothing Congress." Congress does, after all, have a rating lower in the eyes of the public than President Bush!
If the market does collapse (free market Repubs would call it a "market correction" even if it was a Depression!), that would also be laid at the Dems feet.
IT'S A TRAP, BABY!
Is there a way out?
If Congressional Democrats work to prepare a bill that strengthens the credit markets based on models that have worked in the past in Sweden, Japan, and the US, and sell it to the people through Sen. Obama and Sen. Chris Dodd as well as other leadership, and don't panic (the President used some "panic" terms in his statement to the country the other night), they will do better no matter how it is framed by the Republicans.
It will help if Former President Bill Clinton is campaigning all over the country and giving the Congressional Dems a chance to finish the bill, along with ads saying where the Democratic Party Congressmen and women are (the Repubs will tend to feel, as a minority anyway, that they aren't needed in Washington so they can go campaign).
Senators Obama, Dodd, et al, CALL THE BLUFF!
Take your time and do it right.
Including doing all the debates, with or without the Repubs.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Bail Out
On my way to the Y, I saw a bumper sticker which said, "Friends do not let friends vote Republican."
On Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show Tuesday night, she reported that a Bush spokesperson said that the bail out bill the President brought out last week-end had been prepared and was sitting on his desk for a couple months. The spokesperson said they were waiting for a propitious time . . . like right before Congress would adjourn for the elections. When asked if that wasn't cutting it a little too close, the spokesperson said, "They can get it done in a few days."
That is one very good reason not to vote Republican! They pulled the same stunt to get the Congressional support for the Iraq war out of which the President not only took authority to pre-emptively strike Iraq but also trashed the Constitution with the first Patriot Act, which was also trotted out in a similar time-limited manner.
One Congressman was infuriated at the two and a half page bill from the President which gives the Secretary of the Treasury unchecked authority to spend $700 billion dollars. "That is one of the biggest power grabs I've ever seen!" he said.
Past interventions by governments to help a credit crisis in their banking system usually included an independent board with checks and balances to play that role. The acquisitions of bad assets in the most successful interventions included ownership, as we did with the AIG bail out where the taxpayers have an 80% stake in that company now. That way, if the assets ever return to value, the profits are shared with the taxpayers. Some interventions paid off with a profit for the tax payers as happened in Sweden some years ago.
The S & L crisis which involved Neil Bush and the Keating five (including Sen. McCain) was resolved with a board which was not fully supervised, resulting in an $85 million dollar loss to tax payers.
When a country goes into credit crisis as we have, people hang on to their money, if they have any. That goes for the rich as well and corporations and banks . . . .
So money is being hoarded and not let out for credit. However, because banks and financial institutions and other businesses end up in bankruptcy, someone with money can buy the valuable portions of those businesses for bargain basement prices. Bear Stearns became part of a growing J. P. Morgan financial empire that way. Merrill-Lynch was bought out by Bank of America. So there are very wealthy individual and companies that are making out like bandits accumulating assets.
This bail out lets the American people become the "white knight" that can step in and help companies survive the credit crunch and avoid bankruptcy. . . if it is structured correctly.
The President's proposal gives all the power to Secretary Paulson. Secretary Paulson was head of Goldman Sachs which has somehow stayed out of the limelight. I'm sure Sec. Paulson had opinions of his competitors on Wall Street. Is there a chance he didn't like Lehmann Brothers for some reason? That's the one corporation that didn't get help so far. When one individual has so much power, personal motives can come into play.
I can see him and his Wall Street friends having a great time if he ends up in charge of this bailout even with having to report what he's done . . . after it has happened and can hardly be reversed, as of the latest I heard about accountability in variations of the bail out bill.
I hope financial historians were at the meeting today with the President and the two nominees and Congressional members. They need to slow down the drive for sticking with the President's terms. Otherwise, it looks like the President will have brought off the biggest financial coup for his real base, the corporate barons who financed his run for the White House in 2000 and 2004.
No, my friends, I must warn you not to vote Republican!
On Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show Tuesday night, she reported that a Bush spokesperson said that the bail out bill the President brought out last week-end had been prepared and was sitting on his desk for a couple months. The spokesperson said they were waiting for a propitious time . . . like right before Congress would adjourn for the elections. When asked if that wasn't cutting it a little too close, the spokesperson said, "They can get it done in a few days."
That is one very good reason not to vote Republican! They pulled the same stunt to get the Congressional support for the Iraq war out of which the President not only took authority to pre-emptively strike Iraq but also trashed the Constitution with the first Patriot Act, which was also trotted out in a similar time-limited manner.
One Congressman was infuriated at the two and a half page bill from the President which gives the Secretary of the Treasury unchecked authority to spend $700 billion dollars. "That is one of the biggest power grabs I've ever seen!" he said.
Past interventions by governments to help a credit crisis in their banking system usually included an independent board with checks and balances to play that role. The acquisitions of bad assets in the most successful interventions included ownership, as we did with the AIG bail out where the taxpayers have an 80% stake in that company now. That way, if the assets ever return to value, the profits are shared with the taxpayers. Some interventions paid off with a profit for the tax payers as happened in Sweden some years ago.
The S & L crisis which involved Neil Bush and the Keating five (including Sen. McCain) was resolved with a board which was not fully supervised, resulting in an $85 million dollar loss to tax payers.
When a country goes into credit crisis as we have, people hang on to their money, if they have any. That goes for the rich as well and corporations and banks . . . .
So money is being hoarded and not let out for credit. However, because banks and financial institutions and other businesses end up in bankruptcy, someone with money can buy the valuable portions of those businesses for bargain basement prices. Bear Stearns became part of a growing J. P. Morgan financial empire that way. Merrill-Lynch was bought out by Bank of America. So there are very wealthy individual and companies that are making out like bandits accumulating assets.
This bail out lets the American people become the "white knight" that can step in and help companies survive the credit crunch and avoid bankruptcy. . . if it is structured correctly.
The President's proposal gives all the power to Secretary Paulson. Secretary Paulson was head of Goldman Sachs which has somehow stayed out of the limelight. I'm sure Sec. Paulson had opinions of his competitors on Wall Street. Is there a chance he didn't like Lehmann Brothers for some reason? That's the one corporation that didn't get help so far. When one individual has so much power, personal motives can come into play.
I can see him and his Wall Street friends having a great time if he ends up in charge of this bailout even with having to report what he's done . . . after it has happened and can hardly be reversed, as of the latest I heard about accountability in variations of the bail out bill.
I hope financial historians were at the meeting today with the President and the two nominees and Congressional members. They need to slow down the drive for sticking with the President's terms. Otherwise, it looks like the President will have brought off the biggest financial coup for his real base, the corporate barons who financed his run for the White House in 2000 and 2004.
No, my friends, I must warn you not to vote Republican!
Thursday, September 11, 2008
A Republican Friend
All of us have friends from the other party. With some, we avoid discussion about politics. Maybe even with most. After all, religion and politics are usually not the subjects of conversation if those friends take them seriously.
But once in awhile, a friend is willing to engage me. And he is quite good at it.
We grew up in the same Sunday school. We were in classes from seventh grade through graduation. We were in a Young Republicans Club in high school together during the McCarthy era. We took the same civics classes. Our political milieu was Wisconsin Progressivism of the Bob LaFollette variety (combining politics and university research applied for the common good).
I hadn't see this friend until our fiftieth high school reunion five years ago. He retired to a red state and I retired to whatever color Florida is!
We have exchanged materials and observations on politics for the last couple years. Recently, he sent me one that had incredible racism in it. I was absolutely flabbergasted! I responded that I couldn't believe he'd actually think that way! I wrote back and gave all kinds of historical background and anthropological information to say just how far off the mark that stuff was.
He never responded.
He and I still do some exchanging, me more than him lately. But he has given me some interesting websites to go to. More on that in a minute.
That racist article was so out of bounds that it has taken me awhile to see what he may have been doing.
You almost have to be from Wisconsin to follow my logic at this point. Maybe other parts of the country may do what we sometimes do for fun.
You may be able to tell I take my opinions pretty seriously. I also take my facts seriously. I don't really think of myself as a wonk. But as I look back at how my brother and brother-in-law could rile me, I wonder if I come across sort of dorky.
Jack and Lynn have laid out awful partisan lines. When I jumped all over them, they'd just laugh! "Gotcha!"
I think my Republican friend may have been playing "Gotcha!" with me. I know he is extremely bright (as Lynn and Jack have always been). I think he has been playing with me.
Okay, Pal, you got me!
I do expect he will vote Republican because he has offered me some real challenges, not just the wild kind.
And he has given me two websites to explore which have proven to be interesting. I have not found them to be fully truthful because they carry a number of ideas and assertions that have proved to be false.
But they also have carried stuff I haven't seen at my favorite websites. And I haven't seen that stuff corroborated or challenged on FactCheck.org or any similar sites.
The sites my Republican friend gave me are worth checking out. They are www.hotair.com/ and www.theobamafile.com/.
Both have the sense of honesty about their intentions which I find in the liberal/progressive websites that are my favorites.
But what is stunning about them is that they paint such a different picture of reality that I am persuaded they live in a different universe . . . just like their readers probably would think I am not of this world!
That's a little shaking.
If America is ever going to get back together over the partisan divide, we are going to have to find some common ground of information that we both trust.
I like to think that sites like FactCheck.org would be that kind of place.
I hope my Republican friend would too.
I'm not optimistic. After spending time on the sites my friend suggested, I am convinced he would not think of those fact-checking sites as helpful.
I hope he would not be put off by them. I hope he is willing to realize Stephen Colbert's observation about the current political atmosphere is true, that "Reality has a liberal bent."
But once in awhile, a friend is willing to engage me. And he is quite good at it.
We grew up in the same Sunday school. We were in classes from seventh grade through graduation. We were in a Young Republicans Club in high school together during the McCarthy era. We took the same civics classes. Our political milieu was Wisconsin Progressivism of the Bob LaFollette variety (combining politics and university research applied for the common good).
I hadn't see this friend until our fiftieth high school reunion five years ago. He retired to a red state and I retired to whatever color Florida is!
We have exchanged materials and observations on politics for the last couple years. Recently, he sent me one that had incredible racism in it. I was absolutely flabbergasted! I responded that I couldn't believe he'd actually think that way! I wrote back and gave all kinds of historical background and anthropological information to say just how far off the mark that stuff was.
He never responded.
He and I still do some exchanging, me more than him lately. But he has given me some interesting websites to go to. More on that in a minute.
That racist article was so out of bounds that it has taken me awhile to see what he may have been doing.
You almost have to be from Wisconsin to follow my logic at this point. Maybe other parts of the country may do what we sometimes do for fun.
You may be able to tell I take my opinions pretty seriously. I also take my facts seriously. I don't really think of myself as a wonk. But as I look back at how my brother and brother-in-law could rile me, I wonder if I come across sort of dorky.
Jack and Lynn have laid out awful partisan lines. When I jumped all over them, they'd just laugh! "Gotcha!"
I think my Republican friend may have been playing "Gotcha!" with me. I know he is extremely bright (as Lynn and Jack have always been). I think he has been playing with me.
Okay, Pal, you got me!
I do expect he will vote Republican because he has offered me some real challenges, not just the wild kind.
And he has given me two websites to explore which have proven to be interesting. I have not found them to be fully truthful because they carry a number of ideas and assertions that have proved to be false.
But they also have carried stuff I haven't seen at my favorite websites. And I haven't seen that stuff corroborated or challenged on FactCheck.org or any similar sites.
The sites my Republican friend gave me are worth checking out. They are www.hotair.com/ and www.theobamafile.com/.
Both have the sense of honesty about their intentions which I find in the liberal/progressive websites that are my favorites.
But what is stunning about them is that they paint such a different picture of reality that I am persuaded they live in a different universe . . . just like their readers probably would think I am not of this world!
That's a little shaking.
If America is ever going to get back together over the partisan divide, we are going to have to find some common ground of information that we both trust.
I like to think that sites like FactCheck.org would be that kind of place.
I hope my Republican friend would too.
I'm not optimistic. After spending time on the sites my friend suggested, I am convinced he would not think of those fact-checking sites as helpful.
I hope he would not be put off by them. I hope he is willing to realize Stephen Colbert's observation about the current political atmosphere is true, that "Reality has a liberal bent."
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Political ads
In one of the blogs I was reading today in www.crooksandliars.com, the writer bemoaned how pedestrian the Obama ads are. I have some ideas about what should be used in their stead, permission being granted by the original writers or speakers of course:
From Gov. Palin's speech - "You don't say one thing . . . and another in San Francisco . . . ." followed by former House Speaker Gail Phillips of Alaska after quoting Gov. Palin about the bridge to nowhere and a quote from her supporting that bridge from 2006, "You don't tell a group of Alaskans you support something and then go to someplace else and say you oppose it."
From The Daily Show - John Stewart's juxtaposing the acceptance speeches of George Bush from 2000 and Sen. McCain's from 2008 - almost identical wording!
From The Colbert Report - Stephen's quote about the Hindenburg from his appearence at the Correspondents' Dinner from 2006.
These are just a few possibilities. Nearly every night during Keith Olberman's, Rachel Maddow's, and Comedy Central's news and satire, there are some great lines that should get wider hearing.
He might even use some of his own lines from a speech of his today:
From Gov. Palin's speech - "You don't say one thing . . . and another in San Francisco . . . ." followed by former House Speaker Gail Phillips of Alaska after quoting Gov. Palin about the bridge to nowhere and a quote from her supporting that bridge from 2006, "You don't tell a group of Alaskans you support something and then go to someplace else and say you oppose it."
From The Daily Show - John Stewart's juxtaposing the acceptance speeches of George Bush from 2000 and Sen. McCain's from 2008 - almost identical wording!
From The Colbert Report - Stephen's quote about the Hindenburg from his appearence at the Correspondents' Dinner from 2006.
These are just a few possibilities. Nearly every night during Keith Olberman's, Rachel Maddow's, and Comedy Central's news and satire, there are some great lines that should get wider hearing.
He might even use some of his own lines from a speech of his today:
“Suddenly [McCain’s] the change agent!” Obama laughed. “He says, “I’m going to tell those lobbyists that their days of running Washington are over.” Who’s he going to tell? Is he going to tell his campaign chairman who’s one of the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington? Is he going to tell his campaign manager who was one of the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington? Is he going to tell all the folks who are running his campaign who are the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington?”
“Who is it that he’s going to tell that change is coming?” he added, “I mean come on, they must think you’re stupid!”
Friday, September 5, 2008
Oops?
There was a line in Sen. McCain's POW story as told by him at the RNC last night that caught my attention. "I was feeling terrible after one interrogation. They had broken me and I was as low as I had ever been."
He then told of how another prisoner reassured him by means of taps through the wall that he would come out of his depression and was okay.
"They had broken me," Sen. McCain said.
In the context of statements by another POW that McCain became an advocate for normalization when he returned from Vietnam, that little phrase leaves me wondering: what did McCain give up to the Vietnamese in that incident? What did he promise? What did he gain by breaking? What happened that depressed him so much as he returned to his cell?
In one sense, I do not care what actually happened because under the circumstances, I cannot say I would have done anything differently. I can imagine being tougher but no one who knows me would believe it.
But in another sense, I would really like for Sen. McCain to explain what actually happened that particular time and any other times he has not acknowledged during which he may have given in to his captors.
Why? Because then maybe we'd have a better idea what has motivated him all these years.
If I understand Sen. McCain's history correctly, he did not start out fighting corruption when he entered Congress. He was a "loyal footsoldier" for President Reagan. He did not get interested in fighting corruption until after he was caught in the middle of the Keating Five scandal. Was it just good cover to become outspoken against the very thing he had been caught doing?
Is it just good cover to play the POW card all the time for every challenge because Sen. McCain has been some kind of "Manchurian Candidate" since he returned from Vietnam?
I wish Sen. McCain would tell the story behind his being "broken." Up till now, I had the impression that he had never been. Did I miss something?
He then told of how another prisoner reassured him by means of taps through the wall that he would come out of his depression and was okay.
"They had broken me," Sen. McCain said.
In the context of statements by another POW that McCain became an advocate for normalization when he returned from Vietnam, that little phrase leaves me wondering: what did McCain give up to the Vietnamese in that incident? What did he promise? What did he gain by breaking? What happened that depressed him so much as he returned to his cell?
In one sense, I do not care what actually happened because under the circumstances, I cannot say I would have done anything differently. I can imagine being tougher but no one who knows me would believe it.
But in another sense, I would really like for Sen. McCain to explain what actually happened that particular time and any other times he has not acknowledged during which he may have given in to his captors.
Why? Because then maybe we'd have a better idea what has motivated him all these years.
If I understand Sen. McCain's history correctly, he did not start out fighting corruption when he entered Congress. He was a "loyal footsoldier" for President Reagan. He did not get interested in fighting corruption until after he was caught in the middle of the Keating Five scandal. Was it just good cover to become outspoken against the very thing he had been caught doing?
Is it just good cover to play the POW card all the time for every challenge because Sen. McCain has been some kind of "Manchurian Candidate" since he returned from Vietnam?
I wish Sen. McCain would tell the story behind his being "broken." Up till now, I had the impression that he had never been. Did I miss something?
Thursday, September 4, 2008
What is that all about?
There are some puzzling things going on that I hear from the internet but not from the mainstream media.
In Denver, three men with a large camera hollowed out to contain a gun, high-powered rifles and ammunition, and stating they were planning to kill Sen. Obama during the convention, were arrested. They were caught with a little meth. The federal attorney, an old colleague of Karl Rove, chose not to charge the men with anything serious. "They are 'meth heads' and weren't ever a serious threat." That got about twenty seconds on one of the nightly news programs.
Meanwhile in St. Paul, armed police and sheriff department squads of two to three dozen men surrounded and disrupted peace groups who had rented homes in the Twin Cities. Pictures showed up on the internet but not on TV.
Thousands of protesters paraded peacefully in St. Paul but I never heard a word about them in the news. Thousands? No notice to the rest of the world on the public media. . . .
At another demonstration that started peacefully, the police moved in sweeping up everyone "that was in their way." Two of those people were wearing press credentials and were preparing to video the gathering when the police moved in. Those two, one with a Hispanic name and one with a Middle Eastern name, were being physically hassled when Amy Goodman who is a well known journalist (also wearing press credentials) came up to the officer who injured her staff only to herself be arrested. The video is on YouTube . . . but not on television.
One of the guys involved in the "Swift Boating" of Sen. John Kerry, Ted Sampley, is quoted as saying that John McCain has never fully disclosed the "extent to which he cooperated with the Vietnamese." Sampley is also angry with how McCain actively advocated for normalization with Vietnam after the war, an action which essentially ended efforts to return POW/MIAs, despite "credible evidence" that there were Americans still alive there.
The Manchester GUARDIAN printed an interview with Sen. Joe Biden who reaffirmed that in an Obama administration, the Attorney General would research what is already known to see if any of the things done by the Bush Administration were criminal, such as torture, rendition, etc. Too bad Manchester is in England! This hasn't been reported here.
Did you know that Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who still has delegates ready to vote for him instead of Sen. McCain, held rallies in Minneapolis that brought more people than the Republican National Convention? The rallies were planned after the planning committee for the RNC offered no place on the program for Rep. Paul. If it hadn't been for the internet, I wouldn't have known it either!
A new ad involving a former Vietnam POW mentions that not long after Sen. McCain was captured, Ho Chi Min died. The new government was not nearly as cruel in their treatment of POWs as Ho had been.
I've only seen these bits online myself. But I don't have the resources to research the issues and background which the media have to check out the meaning of these bits.
Maybe I'm getting old and incompetent but when I run into things like the above that seem to be newsworthy, but are not noted in the press or network news, I really have no idea what that is about.
In Denver, three men with a large camera hollowed out to contain a gun, high-powered rifles and ammunition, and stating they were planning to kill Sen. Obama during the convention, were arrested. They were caught with a little meth. The federal attorney, an old colleague of Karl Rove, chose not to charge the men with anything serious. "They are 'meth heads' and weren't ever a serious threat." That got about twenty seconds on one of the nightly news programs.
Meanwhile in St. Paul, armed police and sheriff department squads of two to three dozen men surrounded and disrupted peace groups who had rented homes in the Twin Cities. Pictures showed up on the internet but not on TV.
Thousands of protesters paraded peacefully in St. Paul but I never heard a word about them in the news. Thousands? No notice to the rest of the world on the public media. . . .
At another demonstration that started peacefully, the police moved in sweeping up everyone "that was in their way." Two of those people were wearing press credentials and were preparing to video the gathering when the police moved in. Those two, one with a Hispanic name and one with a Middle Eastern name, were being physically hassled when Amy Goodman who is a well known journalist (also wearing press credentials) came up to the officer who injured her staff only to herself be arrested. The video is on YouTube . . . but not on television.
One of the guys involved in the "Swift Boating" of Sen. John Kerry, Ted Sampley, is quoted as saying that John McCain has never fully disclosed the "extent to which he cooperated with the Vietnamese." Sampley is also angry with how McCain actively advocated for normalization with Vietnam after the war, an action which essentially ended efforts to return POW/MIAs, despite "credible evidence" that there were Americans still alive there.
The Manchester GUARDIAN printed an interview with Sen. Joe Biden who reaffirmed that in an Obama administration, the Attorney General would research what is already known to see if any of the things done by the Bush Administration were criminal, such as torture, rendition, etc. Too bad Manchester is in England! This hasn't been reported here.
Did you know that Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who still has delegates ready to vote for him instead of Sen. McCain, held rallies in Minneapolis that brought more people than the Republican National Convention? The rallies were planned after the planning committee for the RNC offered no place on the program for Rep. Paul. If it hadn't been for the internet, I wouldn't have known it either!
A new ad involving a former Vietnam POW mentions that not long after Sen. McCain was captured, Ho Chi Min died. The new government was not nearly as cruel in their treatment of POWs as Ho had been.
I've only seen these bits online myself. But I don't have the resources to research the issues and background which the media have to check out the meaning of these bits.
Maybe I'm getting old and incompetent but when I run into things like the above that seem to be newsworthy, but are not noted in the press or network news, I really have no idea what that is about.
Gov. Palin
The Alaskan Governor is a very good public speaker. She delivers a speech, while written by others, in a way that shows she can put her own voice into it. In other words, she owned it. And the Republicans at the convention loved it.
She learned from the Obama acceptance speech to look into the camera nearly full time. That may have been a wiser choice of camera location than for Sen. Obama. So she may have connected better with the TV audience.
She also learned a lot of international politics in a hurry because she traversed the pronunciations and ideas in the most complex part of the speech. What she actually knows may not be relevant because she can present it with a little background and practice, something most politicians have to be able to do since the world is so complex.
She is not to be underestimated . . . even if she says "noocular" like President Bush. She is a formidable opponent for the Democrats as far as stage presence and cleverness is concerned.
-"Cleverness" is to be distinguished from "intelligence" in my use today in this way: intelligence includes a vast amount of information at the disposal of the clever mind. Spin doctors like Dan Bartlett are clever too. It takes intelligence to realize what the spin is and to counter it.* -
She will be effective in the debates. One of her opponents in the governor's race failed to get her to be more specific in her responses to questions. She is very capable of presenting generalities which are hard to disagree with and can stay among them despite pressure to give more content. In her speech last night, she was given specifics to counter that critique. But she will probably be capable of sounding good in the debates without them.
She is a popular governor. Alaskans voted for her because she promised to involve them in the profits of the energy companies. She negotiated a different deal than her predecessor and as a result, during her first year in office, every Alaskan man, woman, and child, received around $1,600. That would give any governor an 80 per cent approval rating.
She is a clever person. She has spun that negotiation into "standing up to the oil companies" without having to say she is also fully supporting their expanded exploration and exploitation of Alaska's energy.
Will she draw the disenchanted "Hillary voters" to the Republicans?
That is the major gamble of her selection by Sen. McCain.
That is hard to say.
If the Republican women had come to Sen. Clinton's aid when she was concerned about sexism against her, there is a good chance the Clintonites might vote Republican this time. Instead, she was called a "whiner" by Republicans (including Gov. Palin!) and their women remained silent.
If Gov. Palin was pro-choice, there would be a chance of cross-over voting.
Most likely, the followers of Sen. Clinton who refuse to vote for Obama will just pass on that vote but vote for Democratic Congressional candidates. That will be terribly important in final results of the Nov. 4 elections.
In the meantime, what I will be most interested in watching is how soon Gov. Palin takes the spotlight away from Sen. McCain and how he will react to it. We may see as soon as Sen. McCain's acceptance speech tonight . . . .
-----
*Update: There are many words related to the intellectual capabilities of a person. My little statement about "clever" and "intelligent" doesn't come close to adequately assessing Gov. Palin's astuteness.
She is a very sharp person. As a colleague said of her, "She's a quick study." That was apparent to me as I noted above.
Wise? Intellectual? Scholarly? Reasonable? I am not ready to use those words to describe Gov. Palin. But she has as potent a set of "smarts" as any of the major politicians today and I hope the Democrats will not learn that the hard way.
She learned from the Obama acceptance speech to look into the camera nearly full time. That may have been a wiser choice of camera location than for Sen. Obama. So she may have connected better with the TV audience.
She also learned a lot of international politics in a hurry because she traversed the pronunciations and ideas in the most complex part of the speech. What she actually knows may not be relevant because she can present it with a little background and practice, something most politicians have to be able to do since the world is so complex.
She is not to be underestimated . . . even if she says "noocular" like President Bush. She is a formidable opponent for the Democrats as far as stage presence and cleverness is concerned.
-"Cleverness" is to be distinguished from "intelligence" in my use today in this way: intelligence includes a vast amount of information at the disposal of the clever mind. Spin doctors like Dan Bartlett are clever too. It takes intelligence to realize what the spin is and to counter it.* -
She will be effective in the debates. One of her opponents in the governor's race failed to get her to be more specific in her responses to questions. She is very capable of presenting generalities which are hard to disagree with and can stay among them despite pressure to give more content. In her speech last night, she was given specifics to counter that critique. But she will probably be capable of sounding good in the debates without them.
She is a popular governor. Alaskans voted for her because she promised to involve them in the profits of the energy companies. She negotiated a different deal than her predecessor and as a result, during her first year in office, every Alaskan man, woman, and child, received around $1,600. That would give any governor an 80 per cent approval rating.
She is a clever person. She has spun that negotiation into "standing up to the oil companies" without having to say she is also fully supporting their expanded exploration and exploitation of Alaska's energy.
Will she draw the disenchanted "Hillary voters" to the Republicans?
That is the major gamble of her selection by Sen. McCain.
That is hard to say.
If the Republican women had come to Sen. Clinton's aid when she was concerned about sexism against her, there is a good chance the Clintonites might vote Republican this time. Instead, she was called a "whiner" by Republicans (including Gov. Palin!) and their women remained silent.
If Gov. Palin was pro-choice, there would be a chance of cross-over voting.
Most likely, the followers of Sen. Clinton who refuse to vote for Obama will just pass on that vote but vote for Democratic Congressional candidates. That will be terribly important in final results of the Nov. 4 elections.
In the meantime, what I will be most interested in watching is how soon Gov. Palin takes the spotlight away from Sen. McCain and how he will react to it. We may see as soon as Sen. McCain's acceptance speech tonight . . . .
-----
*Update: There are many words related to the intellectual capabilities of a person. My little statement about "clever" and "intelligent" doesn't come close to adequately assessing Gov. Palin's astuteness.
She is a very sharp person. As a colleague said of her, "She's a quick study." That was apparent to me as I noted above.
Wise? Intellectual? Scholarly? Reasonable? I am not ready to use those words to describe Gov. Palin. But she has as potent a set of "smarts" as any of the major politicians today and I hope the Democrats will not learn that the hard way.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Politics, A-r-r-g-h!
Let me add my voice to the ones pointing out how the hurricane is being politicized!
I am most disturbed by the way Sen. McCain and President Bush feel they have to be present among the people who are working on preparations for and recovery from the hurricane.
When a major political figure shows up in such places, the disruption is incredible. Each of those men has with him Secret Service who have to disrupt what is going on to assure security. In addition, all the staff each brings take up space which emergency activities need to be left open. On top of them, are the press who will not only take up space but be asking questions of emergency personnel for their stories.
Maybe worse is that all transportation around the visit has to stop for the reason of security along all travel routes of the two politicians and around where they are.
Every stop the President and the Republican nominee makes along the route of the storm increases the disturbance to the efforts!
Sen. Obama has been wise to stay away even if that does not seem as "Presidential." It is just a lot smarter. He (and the President and Sen. McCain) should stay at a place where communications are excellent to keep up with what is going on and from which they can "call in" their concern and support during the storm itself without causing logistical nightmares for the people on the ground.
The disruption of the people who are trying to organize relief and response to the storm just to get photo ops for political reasons is an absolutely unnecessary stress.
I am most disturbed by the way Sen. McCain and President Bush feel they have to be present among the people who are working on preparations for and recovery from the hurricane.
When a major political figure shows up in such places, the disruption is incredible. Each of those men has with him Secret Service who have to disrupt what is going on to assure security. In addition, all the staff each brings take up space which emergency activities need to be left open. On top of them, are the press who will not only take up space but be asking questions of emergency personnel for their stories.
Maybe worse is that all transportation around the visit has to stop for the reason of security along all travel routes of the two politicians and around where they are.
Every stop the President and the Republican nominee makes along the route of the storm increases the disturbance to the efforts!
Sen. Obama has been wise to stay away even if that does not seem as "Presidential." It is just a lot smarter. He (and the President and Sen. McCain) should stay at a place where communications are excellent to keep up with what is going on and from which they can "call in" their concern and support during the storm itself without causing logistical nightmares for the people on the ground.
The disruption of the people who are trying to organize relief and response to the storm just to get photo ops for political reasons is an absolutely unnecessary stress.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Dems in Charlotte Count,y FL
John Hackworth, a reporter for the Sun-Herald newspaper in Port Charlotte, reported three incidents which illustrate what sometimes happens to Democrats where we live.
On Election Day, a Democratic Party member found a nice downtown corner in Punta Gorda to put up some signs for Democratic candidates. It was nowhere near a polling place. But police said she was violating some local ordinance or other.
Another Democratic Party member handed out materials outside a polling place in Punta Gorda only to be confronted by a poll worker who charged up to her and demanded she leave and take her handouts with her. She told him to go call the police because she knew she was in the right. This time, there were no police. Other poll workers apparently reminded the aggressive one that the line was 100 feet from a polling place beyond which politicking is legal.
The city council of Punta Gordsa did a thoughtful thing. They allowed the Republicans who won the primary to leave their signs up until November. They did not happen to also allow Dems to put up their signs sooner than 45 days before the election, which is the usual requirement.
A couple years ago, a Dem took a sign into the local county-supported cultural center where Governor Jeb Bush was speaking. The lone man stood quietly against the wall opposite the entrance to the meeting room. His sign was critical of the Iraq war. The county sheriff himself arrested the man for disturbing the peace, handcuffed him, and escorted him to a deputy who drove him to the court house where he was released.
As my friend Garrett said, "Some folks want to have a police state, as long as they can be the police!"
I must add that the sheriff took a lot of heat for his actions.
At the polling places where I've worked, you really can't tell which workers are one party or the other or neither. Each polling place has to have at least one of each. Usually, the atmosphere has been like an "Old Home Week."
I really haven't heard of others given the unfair treatment I listed above.
But as I reported in my previous blog, several things are either incompetently done or are intentionally done to discourage voters.
The first time I worked in the precinct was also a primary. The precinct had just changed the voting site, giving an address that put people on the wrong street. Further, the people at the former voting site did not know where the new site was. Sounds familiar! Even so, 152 people made it for that election.
We had 121 this time.
We had ethnic families vote that year and in the Presidential Primary last January. No ethnic families came this time even though school was out. White mothers with kids came this time in numbers I don't remember from before.
Another problem was the various ID numbers we had to record before we started and reconcile after closing the polls on sheets that were not always clear about what they wanted. In fact, one key sheet was on the very bottom of the main materials bag, something we did not find until after the poll had to open.
There are always glitches when a new system is tried. It will be interesting to see if those same glitches plague us in November. . . .
On Election Day, a Democratic Party member found a nice downtown corner in Punta Gorda to put up some signs for Democratic candidates. It was nowhere near a polling place. But police said she was violating some local ordinance or other.
Another Democratic Party member handed out materials outside a polling place in Punta Gorda only to be confronted by a poll worker who charged up to her and demanded she leave and take her handouts with her. She told him to go call the police because she knew she was in the right. This time, there were no police. Other poll workers apparently reminded the aggressive one that the line was 100 feet from a polling place beyond which politicking is legal.
The city council of Punta Gordsa did a thoughtful thing. They allowed the Republicans who won the primary to leave their signs up until November. They did not happen to also allow Dems to put up their signs sooner than 45 days before the election, which is the usual requirement.
A couple years ago, a Dem took a sign into the local county-supported cultural center where Governor Jeb Bush was speaking. The lone man stood quietly against the wall opposite the entrance to the meeting room. His sign was critical of the Iraq war. The county sheriff himself arrested the man for disturbing the peace, handcuffed him, and escorted him to a deputy who drove him to the court house where he was released.
As my friend Garrett said, "Some folks want to have a police state, as long as they can be the police!"
I must add that the sheriff took a lot of heat for his actions.
At the polling places where I've worked, you really can't tell which workers are one party or the other or neither. Each polling place has to have at least one of each. Usually, the atmosphere has been like an "Old Home Week."
I really haven't heard of others given the unfair treatment I listed above.
But as I reported in my previous blog, several things are either incompetently done or are intentionally done to discourage voters.
The first time I worked in the precinct was also a primary. The precinct had just changed the voting site, giving an address that put people on the wrong street. Further, the people at the former voting site did not know where the new site was. Sounds familiar! Even so, 152 people made it for that election.
We had 121 this time.
We had ethnic families vote that year and in the Presidential Primary last January. No ethnic families came this time even though school was out. White mothers with kids came this time in numbers I don't remember from before.
Another problem was the various ID numbers we had to record before we started and reconcile after closing the polls on sheets that were not always clear about what they wanted. In fact, one key sheet was on the very bottom of the main materials bag, something we did not find until after the poll had to open.
There are always glitches when a new system is tried. It will be interesting to see if those same glitches plague us in November. . . .
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Prospects for the Two Parties in November
Let me try to sort out some of the major factors that will work in favor of each party in their congressional races and the Presidential race. This is not a fully informed analysis but contains some things I think are significant and need to be taken into account.
For the Democrats, the Congressional prospects are quite good. Republicans have been in charge from 1996 to 2006 and, except for the Clinton legacy of a budget surplus, much of what has happened since belongs to the Republicans, most of it because of the rubber-stamping of the Bush administration’s policies and failure to investigate serious violations like the torture issue.
Because many of the Republican congressional leaders have retired in order to get cushy jobs as lobbyists, something the main stream media (MSM) has reported, and because so many have been convicted of sex or corruption charges, also reported widely in the MSM, Democrats in most states and districts have an excellent chance of winning those House and Senate seats.
Since those are mostly “local” elections, that is, are usually matters of which candidate will represent the mood of that district or state re: their particular needs and views, those races will not be overshadowed by foreign or even many domestic issues that may flare up between now and November.
Not everyone is savvy to how obstructionist the Republicans (both in Congress and in the Administration) have been since the Democratic takeover in 2006, the rest of the problems facing the Republicans will overcome that ignorance. The Democrats will win enough Senate seats to override a filibuster (more than 60). And the House majority will be strong enough to override a veto. That will put most Republicans into the situation where they will want to collaborate
Will progressives be the major power in the Democratic take-over? That will depend on their success in the primaries. Those that become the candidates will have a good chance of winning because they will reflect the mood of their constituencies. But many “blue dog” candidates from conservative states will win and Congress will end up having to work across the benches as well as across the aisle.
A partisan problem will not be eliminated by the likely Democratic congressional victory because districts will still tend to be gerrymandered so that whoever is elected will tend to operate on behalf of the base that elected them from their districts.
Only an Administration that is intent on collaboration and bringing everyone to the table can reset the mode of operation in Washington to work past that. It will be a tough sell.
If the new Administration blinks, it will be Washington as usual, only the fights will be between the progressives and moderates with the Republicans being spoilers.
It appears the prospects are excellent for the Democrats in both houses of Congress.
Prospects for the Presidency for the Democrats are better than for years.
Senator Obama has mobilized more people into his organization so that not only will Democrats be campaigning actively in all fifty states which helps the local Democratic Party as well as the national ticket, that mobilization has already out-raised and outspent the Republican Party. One significant recent report shows that military contributors back Sen. Obama over Sen. McCain by a margin of 6-1.
The strengths of the Obama campaign are that they have reached out to every group in the country, not just the traditional core groups of the Democratic Party. They have engaged young people way beyond anyone’s expectations. They have engaged all of the minorities far more successfully than the Republicans have. Since minorities are becoming majority in many parts of the country, that is a major plus for the Democrats.
Use of the internet has been incredibly effective so far and will continue to be through November, far more effective than what the Republicans have done in terms of quality, organization, and immediacy.
Sen. Obama himself is a far more winsome candidate and far more thoughtful and articulate candidate than Sen. McCain. Sen. McCain’s moral lapse in divorcing his first wife and the pettiness and ignorance of the rich guys campaigning for Sen. McCain will encourage a lot of moderate folks to vote against Sen. McCain and for Sen. Obama.
I think that Sen. McCain will drive off pro-Sen. Clinton supporters and will send them into Sen. Obama’s camp where they will vote. Things will be so bad on the Republican side that even the staunchest Clinton supporters will have to vote against McCain some way.
But will all of that be enough to provide a Democratic victory for Sen. Obama?
The first observation that needs to be made is that the American electorate tends to vote one way for Congress and the other way for President. They tend to not want to put all the political power into one basket.
That has not been true between 1992 and 2006, though in some districts it was clearly so.
--Note: I cannot document the above statements nor most of my other assertions, so take these as hypotheses which I think have been documented by others. You will hear them from others and maybe someone will show some of mine are not correct!--
My second observation is that the electoral processes all across the country have some real problems. While Ohio and Florida are the best examples of conflict of interest where Republicans and the computer voting machines of Republicans, even with the paper back-up, can leave a dark cloud of suspicion over the results.
Here are some of the problems in a little more detail. The county elections offices control the voting processes. Often, they are backed up by the state election officials (office of the Secretary of State). Decisions made by those local officials are crucial and often are potentially partisan.
The clearest example was the 2000 Florida Presidential election. Control of the kinds of ballots used, the format of those ballots, and the poor security around recounts all fell back upon Republican operatives.
That conflict of interest has not been addressed in Florida as yet.
Nor has it been addressed in Ohio, to my knowledge, where Diebold who makes many of the nation’s voting machines, is run by a Republican who was on President Bush’s state election committee in 2000 and 2004.
All it would take in most districts is a chip in the computers used for voting to switch 3% of a vote to make it possible for a candidate to “win” without raising a challenge. Since voting machines and their respective chips are considered by the courts as business secrets and cannot be checked, there is no way to know if the computers have been tampered with.
I still think something was fishy when in the 2000 and 2004 elections, exit polling and election results differed. To my knowledge, that had not been so in all previous elections.
--This is one more of my hypotheses based on my recollection of decades of watching elections.—
The Republicans still hold this edge and it could make a difference in who ends up being our next President.
Another problem where Republicans are in control of the election processes is that they determine whether or not someone may vote. In the last two elections a Texas company gathered all the names of felons and distributed them to election officials across the country. The lists were so long that there was little checking of the accuracy of the lists. Consequently, people with the same name, especially if they were ethnic (read that African-American), were turned down at the poles even if there was information which would have ordinarily qualified them to vote (like never being convicted anywhere, let alone of a felony).
I do not believe that possibility has been eliminated as we head into the 2008 elections.
News reports indicate that some election officials are not recognizing the voter registration of groups working with college students, minorities, and the elderly. If those folks show up at the polls and are turned away without having been warned that they were not yet registered, that will be horribly discouraging to potential voters.
I do not believe that issue has been addressed. It is likely to take law suits that are costly and time-consuming to resolve, so those voters will be disenfranchised for this election.
In Florida, voters must present a driver’s license. In Missouri, that is illegal because courts have ruled that it discriminates against the elderly and ethnic and student voters who do not drive nor have the resources to go to an obscure office to get some other kind of comparable ID. Despite that, election workers in Missouri were trained to turn down voters without a driver’s license!
For years, all I had to show was my voter registration card. Now it is no longer enough. There needs to be a national policy that is enforced across partisan lines and meets constitutional tests.
There are subtle ways that voters can be discouraged. I am a poll worker here in Florida. There are many things that bother me.
One, our precinct has been moved for the third time in three years with no notice of change being posted at the previous sites.
Two, we have an elderly population but the polling place has been moved to an elementary school which has long halls, too few staff to give direction and assistance in those long halls, small chairs and restroom facilities, obscure restrooms, an incorrect address, and a small amount of space for two precincts to function. We have informed the county elections office and do not see most of these problems being resolved. The school is free for the use of the election office.
Three, the new ballot system does include a paper ballot on which voters are to fill in small circles with a pencil that is then read by a computer which has its “proprietary” chips. It will take a fair amount of time to fill out. I can foresee our older voters pondering and penciling for more than a few minutes. I foresee the long lines in November. The Republican officers in charge of this election loved the touch screen computer voting machines and are choosing a paper program that is clearly more time-consuming even though there are other machines which print out the results of a touch screen system which is as fast as clerks use at McDonalds.
Back on the national stage, the MSM (mainstream media) seems to continue to slant its news about the candidates so that they will appear to stay close. They also may be very much more interested in protecting the business interests of the corporations that own them. I think that will be hard to overcome. The internet can do only so much.
The Republicans have no problem with telling the truth. For them, under Richard Viguery and Karl Rove, they will say anything they think someone will believe even if it is not true. They are already sending out e-mails which are well-designed and cleverly written but which are not signed. And they intend to play on the fears and prejudices of Americans. That may backfire as people become skeptical of these attacks . . . but maybe not.
Finally, the deep-seated prejudices in many individuals and communities and neighborhoods will operate in many folks’ hearts when they are in the voting booths. They want to believe all the bad stuff they hear about Sen. Obama so they can justify keeping their racial prejudice but have an excuse that doesn’t sound racist..
How many of them are there? A lot more than we want to think. Enough of them to make a major difference in this election? Possibly not just by themselves. But with all the other factors to the advantage of Sen. McCain, the Republican candidate won’t turn these votes down.
A frightening problem is that the lies and fear-mongering will persuade someone to try to assassinate Sen. Obama. The Secret Service is very competent but there have already been complaints about them not providing tight security in some contexts.
The chances are very good that they will see to it Sen. Obama will be safe for the rest of his life.
MY CONCLUSION
Based on this set of observations, I believe that more Americans will vote for Sen. Obama than will vote for Sen. McCain. Despite all the tricks, electoral process advantages, and lies of the McCain supporters, Sen. Obama will maintain his lead and will win more states and more electoral votes than Sen. McCain.
Sen. Obama will have a Congress with which he can work his collegial style. America has a chance to come out of its funk.
For the Democrats, the Congressional prospects are quite good. Republicans have been in charge from 1996 to 2006 and, except for the Clinton legacy of a budget surplus, much of what has happened since belongs to the Republicans, most of it because of the rubber-stamping of the Bush administration’s policies and failure to investigate serious violations like the torture issue.
Because many of the Republican congressional leaders have retired in order to get cushy jobs as lobbyists, something the main stream media (MSM) has reported, and because so many have been convicted of sex or corruption charges, also reported widely in the MSM, Democrats in most states and districts have an excellent chance of winning those House and Senate seats.
Since those are mostly “local” elections, that is, are usually matters of which candidate will represent the mood of that district or state re: their particular needs and views, those races will not be overshadowed by foreign or even many domestic issues that may flare up between now and November.
Not everyone is savvy to how obstructionist the Republicans (both in Congress and in the Administration) have been since the Democratic takeover in 2006, the rest of the problems facing the Republicans will overcome that ignorance. The Democrats will win enough Senate seats to override a filibuster (more than 60). And the House majority will be strong enough to override a veto. That will put most Republicans into the situation where they will want to collaborate
Will progressives be the major power in the Democratic take-over? That will depend on their success in the primaries. Those that become the candidates will have a good chance of winning because they will reflect the mood of their constituencies. But many “blue dog” candidates from conservative states will win and Congress will end up having to work across the benches as well as across the aisle.
A partisan problem will not be eliminated by the likely Democratic congressional victory because districts will still tend to be gerrymandered so that whoever is elected will tend to operate on behalf of the base that elected them from their districts.
Only an Administration that is intent on collaboration and bringing everyone to the table can reset the mode of operation in Washington to work past that. It will be a tough sell.
If the new Administration blinks, it will be Washington as usual, only the fights will be between the progressives and moderates with the Republicans being spoilers.
It appears the prospects are excellent for the Democrats in both houses of Congress.
Prospects for the Presidency for the Democrats are better than for years.
Senator Obama has mobilized more people into his organization so that not only will Democrats be campaigning actively in all fifty states which helps the local Democratic Party as well as the national ticket, that mobilization has already out-raised and outspent the Republican Party. One significant recent report shows that military contributors back Sen. Obama over Sen. McCain by a margin of 6-1.
The strengths of the Obama campaign are that they have reached out to every group in the country, not just the traditional core groups of the Democratic Party. They have engaged young people way beyond anyone’s expectations. They have engaged all of the minorities far more successfully than the Republicans have. Since minorities are becoming majority in many parts of the country, that is a major plus for the Democrats.
Use of the internet has been incredibly effective so far and will continue to be through November, far more effective than what the Republicans have done in terms of quality, organization, and immediacy.
Sen. Obama himself is a far more winsome candidate and far more thoughtful and articulate candidate than Sen. McCain. Sen. McCain’s moral lapse in divorcing his first wife and the pettiness and ignorance of the rich guys campaigning for Sen. McCain will encourage a lot of moderate folks to vote against Sen. McCain and for Sen. Obama.
I think that Sen. McCain will drive off pro-Sen. Clinton supporters and will send them into Sen. Obama’s camp where they will vote. Things will be so bad on the Republican side that even the staunchest Clinton supporters will have to vote against McCain some way.
But will all of that be enough to provide a Democratic victory for Sen. Obama?
The first observation that needs to be made is that the American electorate tends to vote one way for Congress and the other way for President. They tend to not want to put all the political power into one basket.
That has not been true between 1992 and 2006, though in some districts it was clearly so.
--Note: I cannot document the above statements nor most of my other assertions, so take these as hypotheses which I think have been documented by others. You will hear them from others and maybe someone will show some of mine are not correct!--
My second observation is that the electoral processes all across the country have some real problems. While Ohio and Florida are the best examples of conflict of interest where Republicans and the computer voting machines of Republicans, even with the paper back-up, can leave a dark cloud of suspicion over the results.
Here are some of the problems in a little more detail. The county elections offices control the voting processes. Often, they are backed up by the state election officials (office of the Secretary of State). Decisions made by those local officials are crucial and often are potentially partisan.
The clearest example was the 2000 Florida Presidential election. Control of the kinds of ballots used, the format of those ballots, and the poor security around recounts all fell back upon Republican operatives.
That conflict of interest has not been addressed in Florida as yet.
Nor has it been addressed in Ohio, to my knowledge, where Diebold who makes many of the nation’s voting machines, is run by a Republican who was on President Bush’s state election committee in 2000 and 2004.
All it would take in most districts is a chip in the computers used for voting to switch 3% of a vote to make it possible for a candidate to “win” without raising a challenge. Since voting machines and their respective chips are considered by the courts as business secrets and cannot be checked, there is no way to know if the computers have been tampered with.
I still think something was fishy when in the 2000 and 2004 elections, exit polling and election results differed. To my knowledge, that had not been so in all previous elections.
--This is one more of my hypotheses based on my recollection of decades of watching elections.—
The Republicans still hold this edge and it could make a difference in who ends up being our next President.
Another problem where Republicans are in control of the election processes is that they determine whether or not someone may vote. In the last two elections a Texas company gathered all the names of felons and distributed them to election officials across the country. The lists were so long that there was little checking of the accuracy of the lists. Consequently, people with the same name, especially if they were ethnic (read that African-American), were turned down at the poles even if there was information which would have ordinarily qualified them to vote (like never being convicted anywhere, let alone of a felony).
I do not believe that possibility has been eliminated as we head into the 2008 elections.
News reports indicate that some election officials are not recognizing the voter registration of groups working with college students, minorities, and the elderly. If those folks show up at the polls and are turned away without having been warned that they were not yet registered, that will be horribly discouraging to potential voters.
I do not believe that issue has been addressed. It is likely to take law suits that are costly and time-consuming to resolve, so those voters will be disenfranchised for this election.
In Florida, voters must present a driver’s license. In Missouri, that is illegal because courts have ruled that it discriminates against the elderly and ethnic and student voters who do not drive nor have the resources to go to an obscure office to get some other kind of comparable ID. Despite that, election workers in Missouri were trained to turn down voters without a driver’s license!
For years, all I had to show was my voter registration card. Now it is no longer enough. There needs to be a national policy that is enforced across partisan lines and meets constitutional tests.
There are subtle ways that voters can be discouraged. I am a poll worker here in Florida. There are many things that bother me.
One, our precinct has been moved for the third time in three years with no notice of change being posted at the previous sites.
Two, we have an elderly population but the polling place has been moved to an elementary school which has long halls, too few staff to give direction and assistance in those long halls, small chairs and restroom facilities, obscure restrooms, an incorrect address, and a small amount of space for two precincts to function. We have informed the county elections office and do not see most of these problems being resolved. The school is free for the use of the election office.
Three, the new ballot system does include a paper ballot on which voters are to fill in small circles with a pencil that is then read by a computer which has its “proprietary” chips. It will take a fair amount of time to fill out. I can foresee our older voters pondering and penciling for more than a few minutes. I foresee the long lines in November. The Republican officers in charge of this election loved the touch screen computer voting machines and are choosing a paper program that is clearly more time-consuming even though there are other machines which print out the results of a touch screen system which is as fast as clerks use at McDonalds.
Back on the national stage, the MSM (mainstream media) seems to continue to slant its news about the candidates so that they will appear to stay close. They also may be very much more interested in protecting the business interests of the corporations that own them. I think that will be hard to overcome. The internet can do only so much.
The Republicans have no problem with telling the truth. For them, under Richard Viguery and Karl Rove, they will say anything they think someone will believe even if it is not true. They are already sending out e-mails which are well-designed and cleverly written but which are not signed. And they intend to play on the fears and prejudices of Americans. That may backfire as people become skeptical of these attacks . . . but maybe not.
Finally, the deep-seated prejudices in many individuals and communities and neighborhoods will operate in many folks’ hearts when they are in the voting booths. They want to believe all the bad stuff they hear about Sen. Obama so they can justify keeping their racial prejudice but have an excuse that doesn’t sound racist..
How many of them are there? A lot more than we want to think. Enough of them to make a major difference in this election? Possibly not just by themselves. But with all the other factors to the advantage of Sen. McCain, the Republican candidate won’t turn these votes down.
A frightening problem is that the lies and fear-mongering will persuade someone to try to assassinate Sen. Obama. The Secret Service is very competent but there have already been complaints about them not providing tight security in some contexts.
The chances are very good that they will see to it Sen. Obama will be safe for the rest of his life.
MY CONCLUSION
Based on this set of observations, I believe that more Americans will vote for Sen. Obama than will vote for Sen. McCain. Despite all the tricks, electoral process advantages, and lies of the McCain supporters, Sen. Obama will maintain his lead and will win more states and more electoral votes than Sen. McCain.
Sen. Obama will have a Congress with which he can work his collegial style. America has a chance to come out of its funk.
Tire pressure and Newt Gingrich
I understand from a variety if sources that Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told a national audience via FOX new that Sen. Obama's tire pressure talking point really benefited Big Oil because air pressure pumps at gas stations were not free and the profit went to Big Oil.
How silly can such an allegedly intelligent man get? Quite silly, as a matter of fact.
Remember how George H. W. Bush lost a lot of credibility when he went into a grocery store and had no idea what the scanner was where the clerk checked out the customers. Silly.
The wealthy have no idea what is going on in the world where people buy food and gas and clothing every day.
Soon after our current President was elected, George W. Bush said he'd talk to his friends if gas prices went up. He was asked more recently to do that and he said, "I tried." Silly!
Sen. McCain owns ten multi-million dollar homes so he will not be able to really understand what the foreclosure situation is. I expect he will say something silly soon. I may already have missed it!
And here is Speaker Gingrich too rich to know better telling us something stupid. Big Oil has its name on local stations but the local stations are independently owned and operated by local business people. By the time the local dealer finishing paying for gasoline off the tank trucks, Big Oil has already got every penny it is going to get. Actually, every dollar! The dealer gets pennies by how much s/he marks up the price to cover the business expenses.
If s/he decides to put in an air pump, that is a business expense to that dealer. The air that is pumped is free. Big Oil has not got its hands on that yet. So the profit, if any, for pumping air into tires goes to the dealer and not Big Oil.
I love it when some of these rich politicians say silly things. Folks in the backwaters of the country, in the slums, in the small towns, in the neighborhoods, even in most suburbs, know dealers and how their costs work. We learned when we fussed with them about the rise in prices two years ago when gas went to TWO dollars a gallon.
Rich folks don't even buy their own gas so they never notice.
Sen. Obama knows these common kinds of things. Properly inflated tires cut into Big Oil profits.
Maybe the best ones to help Sen. Obama in his campaign for President are the rich politicians trying to run him down. Their own ignorance will sound silly to everyone else.
How silly can such an allegedly intelligent man get? Quite silly, as a matter of fact.
Remember how George H. W. Bush lost a lot of credibility when he went into a grocery store and had no idea what the scanner was where the clerk checked out the customers. Silly.
The wealthy have no idea what is going on in the world where people buy food and gas and clothing every day.
Soon after our current President was elected, George W. Bush said he'd talk to his friends if gas prices went up. He was asked more recently to do that and he said, "I tried." Silly!
Sen. McCain owns ten multi-million dollar homes so he will not be able to really understand what the foreclosure situation is. I expect he will say something silly soon. I may already have missed it!
And here is Speaker Gingrich too rich to know better telling us something stupid. Big Oil has its name on local stations but the local stations are independently owned and operated by local business people. By the time the local dealer finishing paying for gasoline off the tank trucks, Big Oil has already got every penny it is going to get. Actually, every dollar! The dealer gets pennies by how much s/he marks up the price to cover the business expenses.
If s/he decides to put in an air pump, that is a business expense to that dealer. The air that is pumped is free. Big Oil has not got its hands on that yet. So the profit, if any, for pumping air into tires goes to the dealer and not Big Oil.
I love it when some of these rich politicians say silly things. Folks in the backwaters of the country, in the slums, in the small towns, in the neighborhoods, even in most suburbs, know dealers and how their costs work. We learned when we fussed with them about the rise in prices two years ago when gas went to TWO dollars a gallon.
Rich folks don't even buy their own gas so they never notice.
Sen. Obama knows these common kinds of things. Properly inflated tires cut into Big Oil profits.
Maybe the best ones to help Sen. Obama in his campaign for President are the rich politicians trying to run him down. Their own ignorance will sound silly to everyone else.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Saturday Debate, Part II
From Salon.com, I've borrowed the following quote from Dan Gilgoff of Beliefnet.
Dan Gilgoff: Some Obama supporters are claiming that McCain saw the questions before the forum began, giving him a leg up on Obama.
Rick Warren: They're dead wrong. That's just sour grapes. They both did fantastically well. The only question he knew, I gave them the first question and I was changing the questions within an hour [before the forum began]. I talked to both of them a week before the debate and told them all the themes. I talked personally to John McCain and I talked personally to Barack Obama. I said, 'We'll talk about leadership, talk about the roles of government,' I said I'd probably have a question about climate change, probably a question on the courts. I didn't say, 'I'm going to ask which Supreme Court justice would you not [nominate]. They were clearly not prepared for that.
D.G.: A source at the debate tells me that McCain had access to some communications devices in the few minutes before he went on stage with you and that there was a monitor in his green room, in violation of the debate rules.
R.W.: That's absolutely a lie, absolutely a lie. That room was totally free, with no monitors -- a flat out lie.
Hmmm. . . . I was right that Rev. Warren did some pre-debate discussing of the questions with both candidates. If I had been him, I would have done the same thing to reassure both candidates that it was a legitimate event. The difficulty is that if he as moderator has a preference between the two, he may say a little more to one than to the other. The moderator's credibility is on the line since it is his opportunity to gain national stature. Who knows how honest he was in his pre-debate discussions?
Well, Rev. Warren's honesty was put to the test because while he told the audience that Sen. McCain was in a room where he couldn't hear what was going on onstage, Sen. McCain's staff reported that he was still in his motorcade on the way to the event. For someone who had so much at stake to put on a responsible effort with a national audience, Rev. Warren had to either know of Sen. McCain's actual whereabouts or presumed too much. He certainly had not accompanied Sen.McCain to the room as a matter of hospitality, which would have been what I'd have done.
Rev. Warren failed that test.
How much of the debate Sen. McCain heard is not clear from this snippet. But other reports say there was a monitor in the green room where Sen. McCain was supposed to have waited and that it was turned off (disabled?). But Rev. Warren offers a different response. There was no monitor!
Is this a big deal?
Is truth telling a big deal? Was it the Packer offensive line whose names Sen. McCain used when he was asked for names of his unit as he wrote in a book about his POW experience or was it the Steelers' defensive line as he told a Pittsburgh crowd this year?
Somehow those who do not worry about the truth in little things do not worry about it in the big things.
Update: You may have noticed that I removed the reference to the "cross in the dirt" vignette that McCain uses and some have said was borrowed by McCain from Alexander Solzhenitsyn. I still have my doubts but researchers at FactCheck.org have found that the story could have happened but no one will ever know. The alleged borrowing is unlikely because of the differences in the details, the likelihood of numerous such communications among the many Christians under persecution, and the ambiguity about Solzhenitsyn's actual use of the story. - I've tried to find the blogs where I originally got information related to the vignette and I can't find them now. . . .
Monday, August 18, 2008
Saturday Night's "Debate" in the California Church
We got the impression that the questions for each candidate would be the same, would be given to each fresh (Sen. McCain was assigned a seat in the "cone of silence" so he would not hear the questions and Sen. Obama's answers), and thus each would be spontaneous and unrehearsed.
But I had the impression that both candidates may have seen copies of the questions ahead of time. Both candidates, as I saw them interact with Rev. Warren, seemed to be aware of the questions and responded not as much with spontaneity as with their typical way of answering.
Despite Rev. Warren's intent, it appears the questions fit better into Sen. McCain's talking points than with Sen. Obama's.
In fact, there seemed to be a sense that Sen. McCain had his answers ready and pounced on most of the questions.
Some bloggers and the Obama campaign committee now claim they think that McCain actually did hear some if not all of the questions and Sen. Obama's answers.
There was one moment about 19 minutes into Sen. McCain's time for which I reran a recording to see if I heard him right.
On my way there, I heard Sen. McCain open with a response to Rev. Warren's concern about his comfort in the "cone of silence." "I was trying to hear through the walls." Motive was there, but not enough to be decisive. At the nineteen minute mark, Rev. Warren asked the question about abortion to which Sen. McCain responded he would be the "Pro-Life President" if elected. Then he asked, "Are we going to get back to the importance of Supreme Court justices?"
When I heard it Saturday night, my impression was that he was referring back to when Sen. Obama talked about the justices that he would not have nominated.
As I watched the rerun, I was not far from keeping that interpretation. But the actual words do not provide any clear alternative to his simply wanting to discuss Supreme Court nominations as part of the abortion issue.
But I still feel that McCain had time to prepare his answers and that Obama may have.
There is no question that McCain knew what he wanted to give that friendly audience.
I was not happy with his failure to answer some of the questions but inserted his talking points instead.
And I think he may have really lost the women's vote by proclaiming he is the pro-life candidate.
But it is hard to say whether or not he cheated and was not in the cone of silence.
Update: Criticism of the "debate" Saturday includes the possibility that McCain came late to the site and therefore had an opportunity to listen to the broadcast in his car as he was driven in. While he apparently went to the green room, which Rev. Warren jokingly called the "cone of silence," where the monitor in there was turned off (Rev. Warren asserted), he may have heard enough of the broadcast to have time to anticipate his own responses.
I recall that in the lead up to the broadcast, Rev. Warren said the two candidates would meet briefly at the beginning of the broadcast and then not be on stage together at any other time. It was smoother to have the two meet after Sen. Obama had concluded his turn. But if that was not the original plan, then Sen. McCain could have had a major advantage.
I hope there is a careful review of what happened.
Further update: The McCain people stated that Sen. McCain was still in his motorcade on the way to the site when the broadcast was going on.
But I had the impression that both candidates may have seen copies of the questions ahead of time. Both candidates, as I saw them interact with Rev. Warren, seemed to be aware of the questions and responded not as much with spontaneity as with their typical way of answering.
Despite Rev. Warren's intent, it appears the questions fit better into Sen. McCain's talking points than with Sen. Obama's.
In fact, there seemed to be a sense that Sen. McCain had his answers ready and pounced on most of the questions.
Some bloggers and the Obama campaign committee now claim they think that McCain actually did hear some if not all of the questions and Sen. Obama's answers.
There was one moment about 19 minutes into Sen. McCain's time for which I reran a recording to see if I heard him right.
On my way there, I heard Sen. McCain open with a response to Rev. Warren's concern about his comfort in the "cone of silence." "I was trying to hear through the walls." Motive was there, but not enough to be decisive. At the nineteen minute mark, Rev. Warren asked the question about abortion to which Sen. McCain responded he would be the "Pro-Life President" if elected. Then he asked, "Are we going to get back to the importance of Supreme Court justices?"
When I heard it Saturday night, my impression was that he was referring back to when Sen. Obama talked about the justices that he would not have nominated.
As I watched the rerun, I was not far from keeping that interpretation. But the actual words do not provide any clear alternative to his simply wanting to discuss Supreme Court nominations as part of the abortion issue.
But I still feel that McCain had time to prepare his answers and that Obama may have.
There is no question that McCain knew what he wanted to give that friendly audience.
I was not happy with his failure to answer some of the questions but inserted his talking points instead.
And I think he may have really lost the women's vote by proclaiming he is the pro-life candidate.
But it is hard to say whether or not he cheated and was not in the cone of silence.
Update: Criticism of the "debate" Saturday includes the possibility that McCain came late to the site and therefore had an opportunity to listen to the broadcast in his car as he was driven in. While he apparently went to the green room, which Rev. Warren jokingly called the "cone of silence," where the monitor in there was turned off (Rev. Warren asserted), he may have heard enough of the broadcast to have time to anticipate his own responses.
I recall that in the lead up to the broadcast, Rev. Warren said the two candidates would meet briefly at the beginning of the broadcast and then not be on stage together at any other time. It was smoother to have the two meet after Sen. Obama had concluded his turn. But if that was not the original plan, then Sen. McCain could have had a major advantage.
I hope there is a careful review of what happened.
Further update: The McCain people stated that Sen. McCain was still in his motorcade on the way to the site when the broadcast was going on.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
News Media Priorities
David Gregory heads up the NBC election coverage team. White House correspondent for many years, sometimes pressing good questions, Gregory also attained the respect of (was co-opted by?) the White House who had him on stage, dancing with Karl Rove, at a recent correspondents' dinner in Washington.
Gregory, showing his earnestness to cover the election scene, jumped all over the story of John Edwards' admission of an affair, and asked the question, "How will this affect the Democratic candidate's chances?"
Let's see. Former Senator Edwards admits to a brief affair. Senator McCain refuses to talk about his relationship with a young blond woman who traveled alone with him several times this past year and somehow the press has not really had an interview with her?
Well, that's not the same thing . . . .
Neither is the way the Republican members of the Senate applauded when their colleague David Vitter was welcomed back after admitting to buying the services of Washington prostitutes. . . .
No, you see, Elizabeth gained some public attention with her fight against cancer. That means the philandering of Vitter and possibly McCain are minor deals. Their consorts were not in the public eye. That changes the media's priorities.
A cardinal rule of what makes news is that it is about a significant person. Elizabeth is a significant person. David Vitter's wife and prostitutes are not. Neither was that McCain assistant.
This priority is not new.
When we lived in Louisiana, we noticed that President H. W. Bush frequently flew into New Orleans, fouling up traffic in order for his car cavalcade to make its way from the airport into the city and then later, usually the same day, back to the airport. Whomever he visited was not an important enough person for the media to report. His frequent trips were not noted in the national news.
Coincidentally, a high end house of prostitution in the Garden District was closed down. That closing made those prostitutes news. But of course, former President Bush did not visit New Orleans after that so there was no media attention.
During this flap over the Edwardses, Harriet Myers and Josh Bolton want to have a judge (a Bush appointee) postpone their appearance before Congress where like other Bush appointees, they will not remember, or will claim executive privilege, or offer some other excuse for not answering questions. Somehow they are no longer significant persons so the media hardly notices.
The Republican members of the House are trying to call the Democrats back from Congress' summer break because they say the House should pass a bill allowing off-shore drilling. They do not seem to be significant people either because their ploy is largely ignored by the media.
That's probably good because they are now claiming credit for the drop in gasoline prices which happened at the same time. Everyone knows that prices dropped because of people suddenly got serious about conserving gasoline by driving less, keeping their tires properly inflated, and buying cars that use less gasoline. And the oil companies are trying to backtrack a little after being able to brag they had after another record high profit quarter.
But then, we aren't significant persons and the oil companies are not seen by the media as significant persons so all those stories disappear behind the glare of what the media sees as news about a significant person, Elizabeth Edwards, who happens to be married to former Senator John Edwards and that spills over, in their minds, onto the Democrats' prospects in the fall election.
I guess the media's brief flirtation with reporting the truth last week was an anomoly.
Gregory, showing his earnestness to cover the election scene, jumped all over the story of John Edwards' admission of an affair, and asked the question, "How will this affect the Democratic candidate's chances?"
Let's see. Former Senator Edwards admits to a brief affair. Senator McCain refuses to talk about his relationship with a young blond woman who traveled alone with him several times this past year and somehow the press has not really had an interview with her?
Well, that's not the same thing . . . .
Neither is the way the Republican members of the Senate applauded when their colleague David Vitter was welcomed back after admitting to buying the services of Washington prostitutes. . . .
No, you see, Elizabeth gained some public attention with her fight against cancer. That means the philandering of Vitter and possibly McCain are minor deals. Their consorts were not in the public eye. That changes the media's priorities.
A cardinal rule of what makes news is that it is about a significant person. Elizabeth is a significant person. David Vitter's wife and prostitutes are not. Neither was that McCain assistant.
This priority is not new.
When we lived in Louisiana, we noticed that President H. W. Bush frequently flew into New Orleans, fouling up traffic in order for his car cavalcade to make its way from the airport into the city and then later, usually the same day, back to the airport. Whomever he visited was not an important enough person for the media to report. His frequent trips were not noted in the national news.
Coincidentally, a high end house of prostitution in the Garden District was closed down. That closing made those prostitutes news. But of course, former President Bush did not visit New Orleans after that so there was no media attention.
During this flap over the Edwardses, Harriet Myers and Josh Bolton want to have a judge (a Bush appointee) postpone their appearance before Congress where like other Bush appointees, they will not remember, or will claim executive privilege, or offer some other excuse for not answering questions. Somehow they are no longer significant persons so the media hardly notices.
The Republican members of the House are trying to call the Democrats back from Congress' summer break because they say the House should pass a bill allowing off-shore drilling. They do not seem to be significant people either because their ploy is largely ignored by the media.
That's probably good because they are now claiming credit for the drop in gasoline prices which happened at the same time. Everyone knows that prices dropped because of people suddenly got serious about conserving gasoline by driving less, keeping their tires properly inflated, and buying cars that use less gasoline. And the oil companies are trying to backtrack a little after being able to brag they had after another record high profit quarter.
But then, we aren't significant persons and the oil companies are not seen by the media as significant persons so all those stories disappear behind the glare of what the media sees as news about a significant person, Elizabeth Edwards, who happens to be married to former Senator John Edwards and that spills over, in their minds, onto the Democrats' prospects in the fall election.
I guess the media's brief flirtation with reporting the truth last week was an anomoly.
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