Um, Well, It Happened A Long Time Ago
Mon amie Emmanuelle Richard (@emmarichard) reread some of "Roman," Polanski's '84 autobio, and Tweeted, "After he flees the US, he boasts of sex with more minors in Europe. I'm done."
Emmanuelle gets it, but Hollywood and others' sympathy for this guy creeps me out.
Meanwhile, there's something I haven't seen in the pieces about this: What kind of mother lets her 13-year-old daughter go without her with a grown man to a photo shoot (or "photo shoot") at Jack Nicholson's house?
In the IHT, Geraldine Ferraro weighs in:
This is the definition of statutory rape. Notice, it doesn't talk about force and it doesn't talk about consent. Neither are needed. The statute is meant to protect children. A 13-year-old can't consent to intercourse with a man over 18, and definitely not with a man in his 30's.Polanski was convicted of a serious crime in the 70's. He chose to abscond to France and because he had money and connections, has lived a charmed life, unhindered by his obligations to society. The message is, rich guys can get away with anything ... or wait -- is it only rich guys with friends in Hollywood? The statute of limitations for rape does not toll simply because 31 years has passed. And victims cannot "forgive" the rapist. The criminal justice system is meant to protect all of us.
UPDATE: Here's the 13-year-old victim's grand jury testimony about what happened from The Smoking Gun.
Match Dot Yuck
Check out this match.com ad a reader sent me:
PregoNLookn
Pregnant is the new Sexy! Am I Right??! LOL31-year-old woman
Nebraska City, Nebraska, United States
seeking men 27-38
within 50 miles of Nebraska City, Nebraska, United States
Relationships: Never Married
Have kids: No
Want kids: Definitely
Ethnicity: White / CaucasianBody type: Big and beautiful
Height: 5'6" (168cms)
Religion: Spiritual but not religious
Smoke: No Way
Drink: Never
More of My Photos
In my own words for fun:
Now that I'm pregnant I no longer do the bar scene. Instead I like to stay up late watching movies or going to see movies, going out to dinner, and spending time with family.my job:
Before pregnancy I was a Microbiology Laboratory Technician at a meat packing plant. LOL. (Probably the only person against hunting and who doesn't eat animals at the facility!) But now, basically, I just drive a fork-lift! It's safer than in the Labmy ethnicity:
I'm white, but a minority at heart. LOL Therefore, I don't allow racism or homo-phobes in my life. There's no room in my world for hate and negativity like that.my education:
I actually have 2 Associate's degrees. One in Graphic Design and one in Veterinary Technology. I am wanting to get a third in Computer Programming.favorite things:
I love movies and rock/heavy metal music. I don't watch a whole lot of TV if it's not a movie but I do love The Office, Breaking Bad, Family Guy, and I do like to tune into Nancy Grace through the week to keep up on what's wrong with the world! LOLlast read:
My idea of reading is research on the Internet. Otherwise I mostly work and sleep! And that is why I'd love to meet someone to spend some quality time with.my pets:
I am a vegetarian and while I don't care if the guy I date eats meat, I am very against hunting and will not date a hunter. Also, my ideal match would need to like or better yet, love, cats as I have 4 of them! Until my baby comes, they are my life!
How Big An Ass Is Glenn Beck?
I've never watched him, but Overlawyered's Walter Olson Tweeted a link to this unbelievable rant, "Atheists To Blame For All Of America's Problems":
As Doug Mataconis writes on Below The Beltway: "Yea, it has nothing to do with all those religious people who've, you know, actually been in charge of the country all these years."
"All Women Are Bitches!"
No, that's not what the ladies said at crunchy granola grocery store in Knoxville. It was actually "All men are pigs!" Dr. Helen couldn't believe her ears:
I said to the younger woman, "All men are not pigs" to which she replied,"Well, they are pigs...but I guess not all are, some are okay." To which I replied, "I bet there is no way you would have stood here and said "All Women are Pigs! There is no way you would say that in public." Her response? "Well, we're all pigs." Great, so she thinks her customers are pigs too.I could tell the older cashier understood that they had made a mistake. But after all, they were in their comfort zone. A health food store where organic food spelled liberalism and an intolerance for those people male or conservative. Grocery bagger girl quickly changed the subject to "paper or plastic." I stared at her as I got my bags and she looked at me with a mixture of intimidation, confusion and perhaps, hatred. I left. But I hope that next time these women feel free to play out their male-bashing meme at work in front of the general public, they will remember that not all of their female customers agree with the good old girl network.
Like the woman from the other day who attacked my looks rather than being accountable for how she ended up raising two children without a daddy, people who talk like this would eat their children (and let's hope they don't have any) before they'll be accountable for whatever's causing them to demonize an entire gender.
It's Amateur Hour At 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Jennifer Rubin blogs at Commentary:
You know things are bad when Obama's squishiness as commander in chief is too much for Richard Cohen to bear: "Sooner or later it is going to occur to Barack Obama that he is the president of the United States. As of yet, though, he does not act that way, appearing promiscuously on television and granting interviews like the presidential candidate he no longer is. The election has been held, but the campaign goes on and on. The candidate has yet to become commander in chief."Marty Peretz has lost patience with Obama. On the "discovery" that Iran is out to acquire nuclear weapons and the pronouncement that closing Guantanamo is "more complicated" than the Obama team imagined: "The first of these revelations is especially significant. What does it say about the president's adventures in sympatico diplomacy? This is hard to say: but I believe it's an utter failure."
via Insty
The Cuddly Wuddly Approach To Skid Row
It just isn't working, writes Heather Mac Donald at City Journal:
For 25 years, Skid Row constituted a real-world experiment in the application of homeless-advocate ideology. The squalor that engulfed the 50-block district just east of downtown Los Angeles was the direct outgrowth of advocates' claims that the homeless should be exempt from the rules of ordinary society. The result was not a reign of peace and love among society's underdogs, but rather brutal predation and depravity. Occupants of the filthy tents and lean-tos that covered every inch of sidewalk in the area pimped each other out and stole from, stabbed, and occasionally killed one another. Gangs and pushers from South Central and East Los Angeles operated with impunity under cover of the chaos that reigned on the streets....In 2006, Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton announced a full-scale attack on Skid Row anarchy. His Safer City Initiative (SCI) would be a demonstration project, he said, for Broken Windows theory, which holds that tolerance for low-level forms of crime and disorder allows more serious crime to fester. When the police started enforcing jaywalking, public urination, and public camping laws, thousands of warrant absconders and violent parolees on the lam lost their refuge. Order gradually returned to the streets.
The homeless themselves were the Safer City Initiative's most immediate beneficiaries. As the lawlessness in the encampments was pushed back, deaths from drug overdoses, untreated disease, and other non-homicidal causes of mortality diminished as well, falling 36 percent in just three years. Skid Row's violent crime--the victims of which were almost always other vagrants--decreased 45 percent from the first nine months of 2006, before SCI began, to the first nine months of 2009. The lean-tos faded away as their inhabitants discovered that they could no longer smoke weed and crack in them all day without disturbance.
Skid Row's radical social-service providers and public-housing advocates declared war on the Safer City Initiative. They directed a nonstop barrage of propaganda and lawsuits against the LAPD, claiming that its officers were abusing the poor on behalf of would-be gentrifiers.
Yeah? Tell that to murdered 17-year-old Lily Burk, who was murdered by a drug-abusing transient named Charles Samuel with a history of violent crimes (including felony gun possession and a very similar kidnapping) who was released from state prison into rehab. More from Heather here:
Samuel was a good candidate for a third-strike sentence, thanks to an earlier attack that foreshadowed Burk's murder. In 1986, he walked up to an elderly man sitting on his porch in San Bernardino (in the so-called Inland Empire east of Los Angeles), grabbed the man's cane and beat him with it, then forced him inside his home and demanded money. When the old man could only come up with ten dollars, Samuel commandeered the man's car and drove the owner to an ATM. The terrified senior citizen was unable to withdraw any money, however, whereupon Samuel struck him with his cane again, punched him in the stomach, and threatened to kill him if he called the police, according to the Los Angeles Times. Samuel pled guilty in 1987 to robbery, residential burglary, and car theft and was sentenced to six years. He became eligible for a three-strikes sentence in 1997, following a conviction for another San Bernardino burglary (the 1986 robbery and burglary charges counted as his first two felonies). But his rap sheet failed to note that the 1986 burglary was a residential burglary, as opposed to a non-residential break-in. Only residential burglaries count as "serious" felonies for three-strikes purposes; breaking into a store, office building, or commercial space is regarded as "non-serious" and can be repeated indefinitely without triggering a three-strike step-up in sentencing. (So much for the idea that the three-strikes law is blindly draconian; in fact, it makes careful--perhaps overly careful--distinctions between felonies.)
Animals should be kept in cages, not be allowed to plea bargain and be paroled onto the streets.
Oh, and in case I haven't mentioned it recently -- criminals should be made to work to pay their room and board in prison and restitution for their victims...not that that'll replace a brutally murdered 17-year-old girl or give her parents their lives back.
Granny Goes To Jail
Did she rob a bank? Pistol-whip the neighbor? No, she bought two boxes of cold medicine in a single week, breaking the law in Indiana. And hey, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, ignorance of the numerous utterly asshatted laws is no fucking excuse. Radley Balko posts at reason:
Police came to Harpold's home, arrested and handcuffed her, and booked her in a Vermillion County jail. No one believes Harpold was making meth or aiding anyone who was. But local authorities aren't apologizing for her arrest....Harpold's photo was put on the front page of the local paper as part of an article about the arrest of 17 people in a "drug sweep." Alexander has generously allowed Harpold to enter a deferral program. If she commits no crimes in the next 30 days, her arrest will be wiped from her record. She'll still have to pay court costs and attorney fees.
via Overlawyered's Walter Olson's excellent tweets (@walterolson)
Have Kids, Then Plant Them In Front Of The TV
Americans, and American children, watch vastly more TV than adults and kids in other countries. Just look at the chart at the link -- the difference is pretty scary. It seems parents these days overprotect kids in every area, and then in this area, it's anything goes. Jeff Jacoby writes in the Boston Globe:
Just look at the dazed and vacant expression on the face of a youngster watching TV. Most parents would be calling 911 if their child drank something that caused such a reaction. Why doesn't the zoned-out oblivion induced by TV cause parents to panic? Is it because they're hooked on it too?"Television Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor,'' reported Scientific American a few years back, and the identity of the world's foremost TV junkies is no mystery. It's us. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, American households in 2007 watched an average of 8.2 hours of television per day, nearly twice as much as anyone else. And we are awash in television outside the home as well. In gyms, bars, and airport terminals, of course, but increasingly even in public elevators, taxicabs, and gas stations. Many airlines now provide live satellite TV on individual seatback television screens.
It's bad enough that American adults watch so much TV. That so many kids wallow in it veers on child abuse. Some parents speak confidently of "educational'' television, an oxymoron on the order of "diet ice cream'' and "congressional wisdom.'' Children don't become educated from watching TV, and the more TV they watch, the less educated they usually end up.
He notes "countless studies" that document how television watching is linked to negative outcomes in school, even the likelihood that kids won't go to college.
I wasn't allowed to watch TV as a child, save for Disney on Sunday and McMillan and Wife while my dad watched afterward if I stayed at the table and nobody shooed me away. I was also taken to the library all the time. I'd bring home a laundry basket full of books, and spent most of my childhood reading. I think it's why I'm a writer today.
What's with all this TV watching -- and by parents who'd otherwise be described as "helicopter"? Parents now are all hysteria and no discipline?
Oh, and for the record, I hate-hate-hate TVs in restaurants and bars. There's somebody sitting next to you. Talk to them. They might have something interesting to tell you. If you only meet boring people, go to a better bar.
Who's Gonna Pay For All This?
If much of America goes on the dole for health care and other stuff, how is it all going to get funded? Bleed the rich? Sorry, there just aren't enough rich people to make that work -- and who's going to work hard and build things if their earnings will get Hoovered up to pay for all the lazies and the people who don't build things?
From the WSJ, here's a piece on "Max's Mad Mandate," the Baucus health bill that will break 50 state budgets via Medicaid by permanently expanding the program:
Democrats want to use Medicaid to cover everyone up to at least 133% of the federal poverty level, or about $30,000 for a family of four. Starting in 2014, Mr. Baucus plans to spend $287 billion through 2019--or about one-third of ObamaCare's total spending--to add some 11 million new people to the Medicaid rolls.About 59 million people are on Medicaid today--which means that a decade from now about a quarter of the total population would be on a program originally sold as help for low-income women, children and the disabled. State budgets would explode--by $37 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office--because they would no longer be allowed to set eligibility in line with their own decisions about taxes and spending. This is the mother--and father and crazy uncle--of unfunded mandates.
This burden would arrive on the heels of an unprecedented state fiscal crisis. As of this month, some 48 states had shortfalls in their 2010 budgets totaling $168 billion--or 24% of total state budgets. The left-wing Center for Budget and Policy Priorities expects total state deficits in 2011 to rise to $180 billion. And this is counting the $87 billion Medicaid bailout in this year's stimulus bill.
While falling revenues are in part to blame, Medicaid is a main culprit, even before caseloads began to surge as joblessness rose. The National Association of State Budget Officers notes that Medicaid spending is on average the second largest component in state budgets at 20.7%--exceeded only slightly by K-12 education (20.9%) and blowing out state universities (10.3%), transportation (8.1%) and prisons (3.4%).
In some states it is far higher--39% in Ohio, 27% in Massachusetts, 25% in Michigan, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. Forcing states to spend more will crowd out other priorities or result in a wave of tax increases, or both, even as Congress also makes major tax hikes inevitable at the national level.
Meanwhile, New York's having some fun now with "millionaire flight." (Last one out, blow out the candles!)
Tom Clancy On Free Market Exchange
"I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy."
"Woman Hater"
That, apparently, would be me, for writing this column. I got a whole stream of e-mail over the past few days from a woman who put the above in the subject line. Here are the first few of our exchange:
In a message dated 9/24/09 12:57:47 PM, sharon.short@att.net writes:I am a single mom without benefit of Child Support because it is never enforced. How dare you compare a man at work with mom taking care of child and working. I work where many men "work" and joke and go to topless bars at lunch, meander around the office with nothing to do but avoid home!!! Women, especially single moms bear the brunt of these buffoons then rush home to take care of all teens crisis' that we can handle. Are you a lesbian by any chance, for you to even broach the subject of Man is victim, woman perpetrator is so back ass wards. Have a child and raise it on your own, we were left because daddy liked fun times better. Better yet, don't have a child, you would suck at it.
I wrote back:
Let's back up here. How did you BECOME a single mom? Non-intact families offer THE worst outcomes for children. You apparently had sex with some man -- perhaps you were married to him and perhaps not -- who doesn't even pay for his child. Unless he suddenly developed a serious mental illness during your pregnancy, after being an upstanding man you carefully vetted for years, you apparently didn't take your obligation to a child very seriously. Single mothers, except those who are widowed, bear great responsibility for what they've done to their children by leaving them fatherless by virtue of who they let knock them up.What I am not is a woman hater. What I am is somebody who realizes that children need daddies and women who cavalierly get pregnant with guys they haven't vetted or don't work that hard to keep a marriage together damage the children they've brought into this world.
I can't call you a child hater -- I wouldn't make an irrational, baseless assumption like you do about me in the subject line above and within your e-mail. Weird that you also ask if I'm a lesbian. (PS Lesbians are people who prefer women to men). Anything to avoid casting blame at yourself.
What I am is somebody who's read the data on children and broken homes. Also, men manage to stay at home with children -- like Glenn Sacks, who I mentioned in that column. He told me he considered it a privilege and a great luxury to stay home with his child. Of course, he was careful in his choice of spouse - she worked to support him staying home with their two young children when he was the stay-at-home parent. Now that his toddler is in school, he's working again as well.
Much easier to blame all men than look at yourself for choosing poorly and perhaps advising others to not make your mistake. Cavalier choices in shoes make for an ugly outfit. Cavalier choices in who you spread your legs for without birth control mess up a kid's life.
FYI, I have a number of kids who are friends, and I'm a committed friend to those children and a force for good in their lives. I'm not patient enough, interested enough, or willing to have a child. A pity so many people who are parents become that without considering whether they have what it takes to provide a child an intact loving home.
She writes back:
In a message dated 9/24/09 9:25:19 PM, sharon.short@att.net writes:Oh my holy one, your legs have not been spread apparently in years, good thing because you are very ugly. No man would touch you with a ten foot pole. Regardless, you are a big bag of hot air with no experience. Yes, you are a lesbian, one of the guys. Don't even deny it. You like the female gentitalia as much as men do. I mean really, who wants you??? Just because you defend men to the end does not make them like you, your still a chick and that's all that matters. Go get f'd by some chick, you loser. By the way my son is a better man than his man whore father. Your just plain UGLY, probably 190 lbs. and the only way you can get a mans attention is to blow him worship filled blogging. Beast!
I write back:
No, don't accept responsibility for your bad choices -- attack me for my looks. Priceless. We don't choose our looks, but we choose the men in our lives, whether to use birth control with them, and whether to bring children into the world with men who have shown no proof they'll be good fathers. The responsible thing to do, if you cannot provide an intact, healthy home for your child is to give your child to people who can, such as an infertile couple.Also, your response suggests you have much to learn yourself before you can teach a child wisdom. I recommend reading Krishnamurti's Freedom from the Known
for starters. -Amy Alkon
Before I can write back she sends another:
In a message dated 9/24/09 9:31:06 PM, sharon.short@att.net writes:Oh my God, I saw your picture, you look like a drag queen. Huge jaw, huge boned, it's a man baby!!!
I write back again:
Again, I didn't choose my looks, but I choose to use serious birth control because I'm not somebody who has what it takes to be a parent. Again, it's so much easier for you to attack my looks than to address what I wrote about your utterly cavalier approach to bringing a child into the world.
For the record, I like how I look, and I'm used to being attacked for my looks by the low-blow types. This woman later accused me of being "right wing." (Of course, I'm neither right nor left but fiscally conservative, socially libertarian, and a "personal responsibilitarian.")
A question: Is it mainly people on the left who do this attacking of women they disagree with for their looks (like the "progressives" who went after me that way before), or is it both sides?
Wait -- I almost forgot -- my favorite e-mail was this one (I guess she couldn't guess, with all the other assumptions that she made, that I grew up Jewish):
In a message dated 9/26/09 3:15:58 PM, sharon.short@att.net writes:You are so close to being a KKK member, with your comments. I have never ever come across someone as hateful as you. You are a Petri dish to examine. You have managed to get a whole lot of people to hate you. I know that is the Right winged nuts goal, hate equals attention. This is so sad, to want to be hated is perverse. Well, you have attained your goal, now shoo fly, you are a diseased mind that needs help.
I couldn't help myself -- the whole exchange was like watching a car crash take place. I wrote back:
KKK member? Um, because there's some indication I want to lynch blacks and Jews somewhere in what I wrote...about how children need daddies and women who are careless about who they spread their legs for are putting their children at risk?
Like The Baker Who Rails Against Eating Flour And Sugar
In between peddling donuts to school children. Yes, we're talking about Michael Moore, that man of the people (the Upper West side rich people), peddling his views on the horrors of capitalism.
It gets better. Via Overlawyered's Walter Olson, Goldman Sachs stars in Moore's attack on capitalism -- and also bankrolled his producers. From futureofcapitalism.com:
The funniest moments of all in the movie, though, may just be in the opening and closing credits. We see that the movie is presented by "Paramount Vantage" in association with the Weinstein Company. Bob and Harvey Weinstein are listed as executive producers. If Mr. Moore appreciates any of the irony here he sure doesn't share it with viewers, but for those members of the audience who are in on the secret it's all kind of amusing. Paramount Vantage, after all, is controlled by Viacom, on whose board sit none other than Sumner Redstone and former Bear Stearns executive Ace Greenberg, who aren't exactly socialists. The Weinstein Company announced it was funded with a $490 million private placement in which Goldman Sachs advised. The press release announcing the deal quoted a Goldman spokesman saying, "We are very pleased to be a part of this exciting new venture and look forward to an ongoing relationship with The Weinstein Company."Knowing that background puts the rest of the movie in a different context. Mr. Moore shows Rep. Dennis Kucinich asking rhetorically on the floor of the House of Representatives, "Is this the United States Congress or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs?" Later, Mr. Moore shows up at Goldman Sachs headquarters in Manhattan driving an armored Brinks trunk and announcing, "We're here to get the money back for the American people." Maybe Mr. Moore should look in his own pockets.
...He's even right that capitalism is imperfect. But Mr. Moore doesn't make a convincing case that any other system would be an improvement. He offers some tantalizing glimpses of worker-owned and managed cooperatives such as the Alvarado Street Bakery and Isthmus Engineering and Manufacturing, and he suggests that things would be better if there were a 90% top income tax rate, stronger labor unions (like in Germany), and a second bill of rights added to the Constitution guaranteeing a job at a living wage, health care, housing, and education. He also seemed buoyed by a recent poll that found 33% of young Americans favored socialism over capitalism.
I've read repeatedly how Michael Moore rakes in the bucks from his movies, sends his kids to seriously pricey Manhattan private school, luvvvvs them limos, and demands to be put up at The Ritz and other five-star hotels.
If he is such a big fan of socialism, why doesn't he set a good example for all of us capitalist pigs and put his money where his mouth is? All he has to do is spread his wealth out to people who need it, who are, say, working as baristas or who are unemployed. Yoohoo, Michael?
Whoops -- guess he's too busy sucking hard off the teat of capitalism to hear.
I Disliked Bush. I Dislike McCain. I Dislike Obama.
I was or am opposed to many of the policies of all of the above, and just spent eight years hating on George Bush. But only disliking Obama's policies makes me a suspected racist. Mark Steyn writes for Macleans:
I suppose it's possible that opposition to the federal government's annexation of one-sixth of the U.S. economy is being driven by nostalgia for segregated lunch counters. And no doubt, if you write for the New York Times or teach race and gender studies at American colleges for long enough, it seems entirely reasonable, listening to a patient profess satisfaction with her present health insurance arrangements, to respond, "You know, if you re-sewed the back of that hospital gown so your ass wasn't showing, your Klan sheet would be as good as new."Thus, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of African-American studies at Princeton, was invited on to National Public Radio to expound on the use of "racial code words" in "the current opposition to health care reform." For example, explained professor Harris-Lacewell, "language of personal responsibility is often a code language used against poor and minority communities."
"Personal responsibility" is racial code language? Phew, thank goodness America is belatedly joining Canada and Europe in all but abolishing the concept.
"Code language" is code language for "total bollocks." "Code word" is a code word for "I'm inventing what you really meant to say because the actual quote doesn't quite do the job for me." "Small government"? Racist code words! "Non-confiscatory taxes"? Likewise. "Individual liberty"? Don't even go there! To an incisive NPR racism analyst, the elderly gentleman telling his congressman "I'm very concerned by what I've heard about wait times for MRIs in Canada" is really saying "I'm unable to overcome my deep-seated racial anxieties about the sexual prowess of black males, especially now they're giving prime-time press conferences every night." With interpreters like professor Harris-Lacewell on the prowl, I'm confident 95 per cent of Webster's will eventually be ruled "code language."
My colleague at America's National Review, Jonah Goldberg, proposed a simple thought experiment: suppose Hillary Clinton had won the election and proposed the current health care reforms. Does anyone doubt that conservatives would be equally opposed to it? Would that, too, be "racist"? A reader wrote back: no, if they were opposing Hillary's health plan, they'd be sexist. Er, okay, how about John Edwards? Would opposing his health care reforms be oleaginous trial-lawyer creepy adulterer-phobic?
Count me in!
The people I'm most disturbed by? Those who have few complaints about our government and the pandering idiots we elect to run it.
Protecting The Poor From Keeping The Lights And Heat On
Katherine Mangu-Ward writes at reason about how regulating payday loan stores out of business actually hurts the poor:
As horrifying as 400 percent annual interest sounds, it doesn't reflect the experience of the typical borrower. No one keeps a payday loan for a year; that's not how these things function. Payday lenders charge about $15 per $100 on a seven- or 14-day loan, plus another $20 or so in fees. They check your paperwork and then give you $100 in cash. You leave a post-dated personal check as insurance and promise to come back in two weeks with $135. If you show up empty-handed, or not at all, they cash your check. If the check bounces, the firm sends debt collectors after you--not the knee-breaking kind, but the same guys who interrupt your dinner when you miss a couple of credit card payments. If you miss your deadline to repay, the lender refuses to deal with you again. Nine out of 10 customers pay on time.Extinction by Regulation
My first attempt at a payday loan came at ACE Cash Express in the gentrified Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Since it was in the middle of a cold snap, I was grateful I didn't have to travel far for my cash. But when I got inside, the elderly woman behind the counter told me the shop no longer offered payday loans, and as far as she knew, neither did anyone else in the city. "Not since they banned them here," she explained, with the air of someone who has answered the same question many times.
In fact, the District of Columbia didn't explicitly ban payday loans, but the city's Payday Loan Consumer Protection Amendment Act of 2008 did cap total costs of loans in the city at 24 percent, which amounted to the same thing. Major payday lenders promptly pulled out of D.C., citing a lack of profitability. Former mayor Marion Barry, now a city councilman, initially co-sponsored the bill but ended up casting the only vote against it. "We are putting this industry out of business," Barry warned. He was right.
At the Virginia lender, a group of women--two of whom were there to pay off loans and one of whom was picking up Chinese food next door--gossiped about the state of the industry. One woman, who kept her fur hat firmly in place while waiting, used to do her loan business downtown at a store near her office. But the interest cap ended that. "They only cash checks and do money orders there now, which doesn't do me a bit of good," she said.
Can't we be grownups for ourselves and learn (or suffer the consequences and maybe then learn) from our mistakes...or choose the best case scenario for ourselves at the time? Government does such a bad job of running things -- shouldn't it run as little as possible?
Struggling 20-Somethings Shouldn't Support The Rich Elderly
Kaus remembered Paul Kirk's proposition from a while back of "means-testing" Social Security benefits -- scaling them back for people who don't need them.
I've been for that for a long time. My maternal grandma, who wasn't super-rich, but was very well off by the time she got old, shouldn't have been subsidized by working people in their 20s.
Did I mention that I'm not for Social Security to begin with? In other words, I'm against yanking my earnings away without my consent -- supposedly with the notion that I'll get benefits when I'm an old bag. (Uh, with what money?)
Anyway, Kirk, who's just been named to Mary-Jo Kopechne's killer's seat, of course, disappoints. Kaus blogs:
Kirk's subsequent s**t-eating recantation was comically, almost self-defeatingly, transparent. By bedtime on the same day, he put out a statement declaring: "I was wrong. Our party ... is unalterably opposed to any cuts in Social Security benefits. I should not have mentioned the subject of a means test. I plan to undergo electroshock therapy to insure that this idea never again appears within my cerebral cortex without producing immediate nausea and revulsion." [E.A.]OK, he didn't say that last sentence. But he said the one before it. ...
The incident is reported in a 1985 L.A. Times story. ...
***-- A fine sentiment, until you go broke. ...
More from Mickey on this here. (Scroll all the way down.)
Fathers, Not Visitors
Glenn Sacks, Exec Director of Fathers & Families, blogs that they just had their Shared Parenting bill -- HB1400 -- heard by the Joint Commission on the Judiciary of the Massachusetts Legislature. It's about time for laws like this to be passed -- establing "a presumption of shared legal and shared physical custody following divorce, where a family court determines that both parents are fit to care for their children."
Some of the testimony before the Legislature:
Harris Allen, PHD described how he had gone from a work-at-home primary caretaker of his two children to a "visitor."Cheryl Quiambao described her experience as a child of divorce, and the feelings of sadness she has fought because of the loss of her father, together with the struggles of her current fiance to see his children.
Annie McQuilken portrayed the endless legal warfare the Massachusetts courts have incited between her husband and his ex-wife, compared to the peaceful resolution with shared parenting in her own previous divorce in shared parenting-friendly Colorado.
Norma Millett lamented how little she sees of her grandchildren as a result of the terrible injustices the courts have brought to her son in his divorce.
Shawn Gliklich, MD, an emergency room physician, first impressed the Committee by caring for a woman who collapsed in the hearing room, then spoke with deep emotion about the diminution of his role as a parent in the Massachusetts courts.
Note that it's almost always men who are shut out of their children's lives. I've heard heartbreaking stories about this from men who write me, including from Ohio's Tony Fantetti, who's commented here. Changing these laws is way overdue.
Why Should Pets Be Tax Deductible?
I choose to have a pet. Maybe you choose to have a boat. Why should I get to deduct the expenses for my dog from my taxes?
Somebody forwarded me this e-mail from the ASPCA. While it would be nice to have a few bucks off my taxes for my doggie expenses, it really doesn't seem fair:
Dear Animal Advocates,Introduced by Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, H.R. 3501--known as the Humanity and Pets Partnered Through the Years ("HAPPY") Act--is a federal bill that would reward responsible pet parents by allowing them to keep more money in their pockets come tax time.
We all want to give our animal companions the best care we possibly can, but it seems that pet care costs are always on the rise--and these days, it's harder than ever to stretch the family budget. That's why the ASPCA supports H.R. 3501, which would amend U.S. tax code to allow qualifying pet care expenses, including veterinary care, to be tax-deductible.
This means that when you prepare your income taxes, money you spent on pet care that year would count as non-taxable income--and you can deduct up to $3,500 per year!
Please help us support the HAPPY Act, H.R. 3501.
A Man And His Dad
Found on Twitter (@stevesilberman, @alaindebotton) extremely moving site about a guy's relationship with his ailing dad, dayswithmyfather.com, by Phillip Toledano.
(Click near the bottom of the photos to go to the next page.)
How Green Is Your White House?
In the WaPo, Dana Milbank chronicled a concerned "green" American mother's struggle to get a nice organic dinner on the table:
Let's say you're preparing dinner and you realize with dismay that you don't have any certified organic Tuscan kale. What to do?Here's how Michelle Obama handled this very predicament Thursday afternoon:
The Secret Service and the D.C. police brought in three dozen vehicles and shut down H Street, Vermont Avenue, two lanes of I Street and an entrance to the McPherson Square Metro station. They swept the area, in front of the Department of Veterans Affairs, with bomb-sniffing dogs and installed magnetometers in the middle of the street, put up barricades to keep pedestrians out, and took positions with binoculars atop trucks. Though the produce stand was only a block or so from the White House, the first lady hopped into her armored limousine and pulled into the market amid the wail of sirens.
Then, and only then, could Obama purchase her leafy greens. "Now it's time to buy some food," she told several hundred people who came to watch. "Let's shop!"
Cowbells were rung. Somebody put a lei of marigolds around Obama's neck. The first lady picked up a straw basket and headed for the "Farm at Sunnyside" tent, where she loaded up with organic Asian pears, cherry tomatoes, multicolored potatoes, free-range eggs and, yes, two bunches of Tuscan kale. She left the produce with an aide, who paid the cashier as Obama made her way back to the limousine.
There's nothing like the simple pleasures of a farm stand to return us to our agrarian roots.
The first lady had encouraged Freshfarm Markets, the group that runs popular farmers markets in Dupont Circle and elsewhere, to set up near the White House, and she helped get the approvals to shut down Vermont Avenue during rush hour on Thursdays. But the result was quite the opposite of a quaint farmers market. Considering all the logistics, each tomato she purchased had a carbon footprint of several tons.
I Don't think Milbank's quite right on the carbon footprint calculation, but going green this way sure isn't too green -- or too convenient for anybody who has to get anywhere in Washington. Couldn't she have just loaned some assistant a J. Crew sweater, given her a few $20s, and left the big black SUVs and all in the White House garage?
A Primitive Comes To New York
Gaddafi, who was visiting the U.N., pitched his tent in a ritzy suburb of the state -- and that's not just a metaphor. The Guardian's Paul Harris writes:
For the people of Bedford the problem was not so much getting Colonel Gaddafi off the UN podium - more about getting his tent off their lawn.The exclusive community, nestling in pretty wooded hills 30 miles north of Manhattan, is home to Hollywood actors, media moguls and ultra-wealthy bankers. But when the Libyan leader's Bedouin tent was pitched amid their mansions, horse stables and country lanes some residents took umbrage.
"I think it stinks. I know it is because he is at the UN, but that is another place he shouldn't be," fumed one shopper walking by Bedford's village green, who declined to give her name.
The town's leaders agreed. When news suddenly broke of a mysterious construction taking shape on land owned by Donald Trump, the local council swiftly tried to shut it down. Teams of workers, who spoke no English, were told to stop work. A criminal suit was threatened by Bedford attorney Joel Sachs, who called the tent an "illegal structure".
Local Democratic congressman John Hall condemned the idea of Gaddafi visiting his district. "This sponsor of terror is not welcome here," he said.
Trump appeared to suggest he had no idea that a rental deal he had struck with Arab businessmen was in fact for the tent. "The property was leased on a short-term basis to Middle Eastern partners who may or may not have a relationship to Mr Gaddafi. We are looking into the matter now," a Trump spokeswoman said.
Picture here. The terrorism-celebrating nutbag spoke Wednesday at the U.N. and the tent was dismantled.
More disturbing than this crackpot's visit and the platform given him by this now-useless and too often damaging body are some of the words by Obama at the U.N. For example, there's this naivete:
I have outlined a comprehensive agenda to seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. In Moscow, the United States and Russia announced that we would pursue substantial reductions in our strategic warheads and launchers. At the Conference on Disarmament, we agreed on a work plan to negotiate an end to the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons. And this week, my Secretary of State will become the first senior American representative to the annual Members Conference of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Loved this dis of America, too:
Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside. Each society must search for its own path, and no path is perfect. Each country will pursue a path rooted in the culture of its people, and - in the past - America has too often been selective in its promotion of democracy. But that does not weaken our commitment, it only reinforces it. There are basic principles that are universal; there are certain truths which are self evident - and the United States of America will never waiver in our efforts to stand up for the right of people everywhere to determine their own destiny.
More:
The United Nations does extraordinary good around the world in feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, and mending places that have been broken. But it also struggles to enforce its will, and to live up to the ideals of its founding.
Ya think?
The United Nations can either be a place where we bicker about outdated grievances, or forge common ground; a place where we focus on what drives us apart, or what brings us together; a place where we indulge tyranny, or a source of moral authority. In short, the United Nations can be an institution that is disconnected from what matters in the lives of our citizens, or it can be indispensable in advancing the interests of the people we serve.
And now, let's all join hands and sing Kumbaya.
Pompous Asses In News Biz On Why They Ignored ACORN Sting
Reason's Matt Welch has a great pictorial of the varied excusemaking by top news editors. Here's one of 'em:
Your mileage will vary, but for my money the most entertaining part of the ACORN undercover video sting-which, dollar for dollar, has been the most impactful piece of journalism this year (that I'm aware of anyway)-is watching Respectable News Outlets approach the controversy with radiation-resistant tongs. For instance, the New York Times' reliably pompous Dean Baquet:"For Glenn Beck to devote 45 minutes of his show to ACORN and Van Jones says more about his news judgment than mine," said Dean Baquet, Washington bureau chief of the New York Times."He's not a newsman and that's not a news show," Baquet continued. "He's not trying to cover the economy, two wars, health care, the aftermath from one administration to another, negotiations with Iran or North Korea."
Note what he's doing there: While reluctanctly acknowledging his own organization's slow response to a story, Baquet haughtily attacks the news values of the organizations that got it first. Accountability journalism!
At its finest. All the news that's fit to cover your eyes and ears and pretend doesn't exist.
Eat What I Say, Not What I Eat
Meet New York's mayor and food nanny Michael Bloomberg. Michael Barbaro writes for The New York Times:
HE dumps salt on almost everything, even saltine crackers. He devours burnt bacon and peanut butter sandwiches. He has a weakness for hot dogs, cheeseburgers, and fried chicken, washing them down with a glass of merlot.And his snack of choice? Cheez-Its.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has become New York City's nutritional nag, banning the use of trans fats, forcing chain restaurants to post calorie counts and exhorting diners to consume less salt. Now he is at it again, directing his wrath at sugary drinks in a new series of arresting advertisements that ask subway riders: "Are you pouring on the pounds?
...His food issues have become New York City's. Although he has described his battle against unhealthy foods as common-sense public policy that will shed pounds (and save lives), many of his targets overlap with his own cravings.
"I like a Big Mac like everybody else," he confessed the other day, explaining the city's warts-and-all approach to fast food. "I just want to know how many calories are in it."
You don't need to know. You just need to eat the burger and not the bun or sugar-filled condiments like catsup, and no shake, no fries, and no sugary drink. But, if you don't want them, don't tax them out of the hands of other people who do.
The real problem is that none of these nitwits know the science, and go by dietary "science" instead.
Gary Taubes lives right there in New York City, and wrote a most amazing book, Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health
Now, perhaps Eades will slap me for this, but I actually would just go straight to the meat portion of the diet to lose weight -- and I put a friend on my version of that (who lost 11 pounds in six days eating pretty much eggs, bacon, steak, steak, steak and no dairy, and no alcohol). He has to check all packages for carbs and eat no catsup or anything else. In two weeks time, he gets to incorporate dairy.
Oh, and did I mention that he lost this with ZERO exercise? Exercise makes you hungry; causing you to want more calories. And yes, that's what the science says. Taubes did a New York mag article about that a while back. And if you're about to scream something about cholesterol, look up his piece on how the chain of evidence for cholesterol causing heart disease just isn't there. Oh, here. And here's Mary Enig at WestonAPrice. And here's Taubes on salt.
And, yes: Everything you know and most doctors think they know about what to eat is...a big wheelbarrow full of bullshit.
How The Drug War Punishes Pain Patients
Ted Balaker writes at reasontv:
...Maybe the real epidemic is underdosing. Countless Americans suffer with severe chronic pain because doctors are afraid to treat them properly.
Does a doctor risk his career and maybe his freedom to help patients suffering serious pain? Would you?
The ACORN Doesn't Fall Far From The Teevee
Photo taken by Gregg Sutter near CBS Television City:
Atheists Lack Morals!
Especially when they aren't really atheists, but a pastor commenting on an atheist website (Unreasonable Faith) while pretending to be an atheist, and saying stuff like this:
What's wrong with killing babies? I see no problem with it. I have enough mouths to feed. I don't get the argument and I am an atheist. Since I don't believe in God, I don't believe in anything characterized as good, bad / right, wrong. So, what's the big deal?
Here's another coupla gooders:
If a man wants to make a women his b****, so be it? So what if you don't like it, what if I do?If I want to do something, and my conscience is cool with it, then I can do it. If it's feed a homeless person, so be it. If it's kill my neighbor, so be it. I am not bound to any morals.
And then -- love it! -- Unreasonable Faith writes:
After some more digging, I was able to figure out the commenter's identity: Pastor Chris Fox of Kendalls Baptist Church in New London, NC.
Whatddya know, the guy still has a job. Is that what they refer to as "Christian charity" or do they just not give a shit that their moral leader is a lying, deceiving, slandering anono-weenie?
"Not Proud To Be Gay"
Loved this take by my occasional drinking buddy, B. Daniel Blatt, aka Gay Patriot West:
Given the attempts by many on the left to discredit opponents of Obamacare by tarring them as racists, it does seem so many people are so fixated on race that they assume anyone objecting to the policies of a black politicians must needs be racist. And yet, as America moves away from the ugly legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, more and more of us have come to share the vision of Dr. King's great dream that we be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character.Still, however, all too many remain fixated not just on the color of our skin, but on any identifying characteristic which separates us from the "norm." And perhaps because that characteristic put us in a disfavored class, we reply by becoming proud of our difference.
With gay people, the pride replaces the shame previous generations thoughts about our difference. Perhaps, had I come of age a decade or so before I did, I might feel proud to be gay, but I don't. I'm not ashamed of it. It's just part of who I am. One characteristic among many.
I Can Sometimes Be Aggravating
Gregg, on the phone: "Will you just fucking relax?!...my love."
Serf Culture
These days, it's made up of parents -- servants to their devilspawns' every whim. Leah Ariniello writes in the NYT about "Family Meals With a Side of Stress" -- and you'll never guess what's causing all the uproar:
My husband coordinated his client calls to fall before 5 and after 8, and my kids pushed back their normal mealtime so we can all have a real family dinner. Just delightful.Or maybe not.
"I farted," says my 4-year-old daughter. There's really no need for the announcement since she's seated on a plastic booster seat that doubles as an amplifier. My 7-year-old son finds this new development absolutely hilarious. He laughs so hard that he falls off his chair taking a tomato-sauce-drenched ravioli with him. Splat and splat.
I admit that I laugh, too, for a minute, but it quickly spirals out of control. After my son carries on way too long, I tell him to get back in his seat and behave. Suddenly he claims the fall hurt him and it's his sister's fault. Is not, is too, is not, is too, is not, is too. Then the tears come.
I take a deep breath, but already my muscles have knotted. Stomach ache.
I've tried this whole shared meal business before and once again I feel defeated. And once again, I decide to go back to essentially having two dinners, one for my kids and then one with my husband when he gets home later in the evening. "What's so great about family dinners?" I mumble to my husband.
The fact is that I am well aware of what's so great about family dinners. I've heard about the research that suggests that frequent family meals are associated with children gaining better grades. Their risk of smoking, drinking, feeling depressed and having an eating disorder seems to lower.
But, never mind all that -- it's back to eating in shifts for her.
Why is it so few people these days seem up to the task of parenting?
The "parenting" so many people engage in is bringing up a generation of adult brats. I've previously had some of these brats work for me as assistants (though I've learned to hire better). I work out of my home, and not only pay my assistant but buy my assistant lunch. Yes, that's right -- free lunch, paid for by me. The kids raised by Ariniello and others' school of "go-right-ahead" mommying are the ones who thank me for that free lunch by leaving their dishes in the sink for me to wash.
Frankly, it's actually not such a big deal for me, washing a dish. In fact, I'll tell my current assistant to just leave the bowl from her oatmeal in the sink on my deadline days, and if she's in the middle of going through some text, and I'm making coffee, I'll wash it while I'm waiting to pour more hot water into the coffee thingie. What matters is that she isn't the type to leave a mess for other people to clean up...which seems more and more rare.
Obama Is Looking Out Of His Depth
The Economist's Edward Lucas writes in the Telegraph/UK what I've long felt about Barack Obama -- that being an eloquent, brainy and likeable man with a fascinating biography and not being George Bush is not qualification enough to be president -- and that's beginning to become apparent to all or many. Obama gives a great speech, and then, when the speechifying's done...there's really no there there:
Regimes in Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran simply pocket his concessions and carry on as before. The picture emerging from the White House is a disturbing one, of timidity, clumsiness and short-term calculation. Some say he is the weakest president since Jimmy Carter.The grizzled veterans of the Democratic leadership in Congress have found Mr Obama and his team of bright young advisers a pushover. That has gravely weakened his flagship domestic campaign, for health-care reform, which fails to address the greatest weakness of the American system: its inflated costs. His free trade credentials are increasingly tarnished too. His latest blunder is imposing tariffs on tyre imports from China, in the hope of gaining a little more union support for health care. But at a time when America's leadership in global economic matters has never been more vital, that is a dreadful move, hugely undermining its ability to stop other countries engaging in a ruinous spiral of protectionism.
...The President's domestic critics who accuse him of being the sinister wielder of a socialist master-plan are wide of the mark. The man who has run nothing more demanding than the Harvard Law Review is beginning to look out of his depth in the world's top job. His credibility is seeping away, and it will require concrete achievements rather than more soaring oratory to recover it.
Were you fooled? Did you want to believe in "hope for change"? Me? I hope for as little change as humanly possible. I also think Obama's inexperience was best shown in how he decided to rush-rush "reform" health care, and when the economy is such a mess, and should have been job one and then some.
Get Lost!
(With abandon.) Magellan Maestro 3100 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator
There Are Orthodox Jews; Why Not Orthodox Jedi?
Jews are supposed to do this and that because a bush supposedly kept burning or Red Sea supposedly formed a nice walking path and more. Supposedly. But, people don't howl with laughter or tell the men in the black hats and funny coats that they're overdressed for the grocery store. So...who are the grocery store guys to tell the Jedi -- yes, that's now actually a religion -- that they have to take off their hoods?
Helen Carter writes for the Guardian that Tesco told the 23-year-old founder of the 500,000-member Jedi church to take off his hood or leave one of its stores. He's accused them of religious discrimination:
But the grocery empire struck back, claiming that the three best known Jedi Knights in the Star Wars movies - Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker - all appeared in public without their hoods. Jones, from Holyhead, who is known by the Jedi name Morda Hehol, said his religion dictated that he should wear the hood in public places and is considering legal action against the chain."It states in our Jedi doctrination that I can wear headwear. It just covers the back of my head," he said.
"You have a choice of wearing headwear in your home or at work but you have to wear a cover for your head when you are in public."
...Tesco said: "He hasn't been banned. Jedis are very welcome to shop in our stores although we would ask them to remove their hoods.
Truth be told, I think you should be able to set whatever rules you want for your business, but if you're going to accommodate one groups Imaginary Friend-centered beliefs, why tell the other how it's going to be in your store?
I just love the underlying implication -- that there's more validity to really silly unproven stuff from a long, long time ago than much more recent really silly unproven stuff.
And Your Advice?
Read this story in The New York Times about a bunch of crystal-lickers making money from "coaching" people, and it occurs to me that I could dig myself out of the scary newspaper economy by offering private phone sessions with people -- or even in-person sessions (although I'd charge more for them). What do you think? If I did it, I could have a link on my blog "Private Session w/Amy," with a blurb explaining that people would have to pay first on PayPal. And if I did do this, how much do you think I should charge?
Dawkins Discounted
Not his ideas, but his latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
The Laws Need To Change
False accusations of rape would be far less likely if women (never heard of this from a man) would get the same amount of jail time for a false accusation that the falsely accused would if convicted for rape.
In the Hofstra case, she should have to do all the sentences all four men would have gotten. From CNN, the poor guys' ordeal only ended because somebody had a cell phone camera there, and it disputed her account:
Authorities dropped charges and freed the four men hours after their accuser changed her story about having been forcibly tied up and sexually assaulted in a dormitory bathroom."The woman admitted the encounters with each of the men were consensual," Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice told reporters at a news conference Thursday.
The woman recanted her story Wednesday after authorities told her that part of the incident was recorded on a cell phone video, Rice said.
"That was when she began to tell the truth," she said.
Authorities have not released the accuser's name.
Why the fuck not? We know the names of the accused. Why suddenly prissy about revealing the name of the actual criminal in this? One who decided to murder four men -- effectively take away their lives by sentencing them to prison.
Where The Right Goes Wrong
David Frum writes:
Glenn Beck is not the first to make a pleasant living for himself by reckless defamation. We have seen his kind before in American journalism and American politics, and the good news is that their careers never last long. But the bad news is that while their careers do last, such people do terrible damage...We conservatives are submitting our movement to some of the most unscrupulous people in American life. This submission disgraces conservatism, discredits Republicans, and damages the country. It's beyond time for conservatives who know better to join us at NewMajority in emancipating ourselves from leadership by the most stupid, the most cynical, and the most truthless.
Don't blame the left; thank the GOP, says blogger Sipsey Street Irregulars, first pointing out the difference between the original Tea Party and the more recent ones:
The original Boston Tea Party was a calculated act of law-breaking designed to send the British Empire a message it could not fail to comprehend. Making long-winded speeches, thumping impassioned chests and denouncing a government made up of people who have already written you off as unimportant, impotent and no threat to their plans is a waste of time, energy and oxygen....But let us not kid ourselves that standing around and listening to speeches that aren't worth the hot air they generate is an effective strategy for dealing with the hard-eyed, hard-nosed collectivist domestic enemies of the Founders' Republic in power today. Let us also not kid ourselves that the ill-named "Republican" Party, which has screwed up or sold out whatever "principles" they may have once had, deserves anything but our scorn. The Tea Party movement organized without them PRECISELY BECAUSE THE GOP FAILED, marched into the fray without their help, and now these same old tired political hacks are trying desperately to get back out in front of this genuine American popular movement and channel it into the same old discredited party politics where they claim to represent us before the election only to sell us out afterward. The Obamanoids, like the Clintonistas before them, are not scared of the GOP. They can handle them. What they ARE scared of is US -- We, the People.
I don't know about you, but I'm not seeing a whole lot of fear. I also don't see a party that serves people like me: for small government (and not the big government the GOP calls small government), fiscal conservativism and "personal responsibilitarianism" -- pay for yourself and pick up after your damn self, too.
Canada Worries About Offending The Communists
A bit windy, but some good stuff in there, too.
Or, if you prefer a printier version, here's one from Ken Libbin, in Canada's Nat Post:
Plans for a monument on Parliament Hill to honour the estimated 100 million or so innocent men, women and children killed at the hands of Communist regimes around the world, on the other hand, have hit a snag, with the NCC worried that a "Memorial to the Victims of Totalitarian Communism" risks giving offence to communists.At a public meeting last week in Ottawa, members of the NCC's board approved the plans for a monument "in principle," allowing that the submitted application for the memorial "largely meets" the commission's criteria for a public exhibit on capital land. But several members expressed concern the name was too provocative, and should be revised to eliminate any mention of communism.
"I was unsettled by this name, and other members of the committee agreed with me," Hélène Grand-Maître, one commission member, said at the public approval hearing. "We should make sure that we are politically correct in this designation.... I feel this name should be changed."
Board member Adel Ayad noted that people who identify as communists might "not like" the memorial. "It's not communism itself that we should be fighting here. It is rather totalitarianism we are against in any form."
One commissioner questioned whether Canadians could even legitimately point fingers at the brutality of Stalin or Pol Pot, given that our own federal government had put Japanese-Canadians in internment camps during the Second World War.
Um...would now be a good time to mention that Stalin murdered tens of millions?
Thanks, RobertW
Your Justice May Vary
Ron Radosh on Andrew Sullivan's pot bust and why it isn't going to affect his citizenship plans.
Worse Than Killing A Friend
That describes how some teens are punished for having consensual sex with a friend. It's really sick. Look at the photos of the "sex offenders" on Classically Liberal. Branded that for life:
Every so often he will be required to visit the police and report to them. They may show up at his home anytime they want and demand to inspect it. He could be banned from social networking websites, or from the Internet completely.If you child grows up to have a family, a normal relationship will be forbidden. He may well be banned from all activities at his children's school. They may be in a play; he won't be allowed to watch it. If the kids play on a sport's team, their father won't be allowed to attend. Ditto for Little League. Forget having friends over for a birthday party. Dad is a pariah until he dies and his children, and his wife, will be forced to endure the torture with him.
The lucky ones barely manage to hold on. Those who are not so lucky simply end their lives. Others have the option of suicide robbed from them by vigilantes. They quickly learn to give up ambitions and dreams. To excel in life is not possible. To merely survive is hard enough. And some, robbed of all normality, robbed of all hope, mentally and emotionally raped by the state, decide they may as well become the monsters that they are imagined to be.
It takes so little for this happen to a child. A girl in school has oral sex with a boy in school. She becomes a sex offender for the rest of her life. Streaking a school event, as a practical joke, becomes a sex crime in the new America. Two kids "moon" a passerby and are incarcerated in jail as sex offenders, where they may well learn a lesson or two about rape. A teenager, who takes a sexy of photo of him, or herself, is paraded around the community as a "child pornographer" for the rest of his or her life. Two kids in the back seat of a car have fumbling sex. The law says one is an offender because the other is a "victim." One week later, a birthday passes, and it is no longer a crime. One week's difference and a life is ruined. In other cases an act that is legal on Monday is illegal on Tuesday because the older of the two turned one year older. That becomes enough to qualify him, or her, as an offender.
A chart on the site showing who the sex offenders are is just horrifying. According to that chart, 14-year-olds across this country are "apparently the most sexually dangerous group." They're criminals -- for life -- because politicians have defined them that way. I've posted on this numerous times, and share the outrage of Classically Liberal, but this post over there is especially upsetting thanks to all the photos of the kids who now must go through life with the brand of criminal because they got a little horny and got down with some friend or girlfriend.
A comment from Justen on Classically Liberal:
A guy I knew from high school turned 18 and was thrown in jail for 6 months for having consensual sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend. Diminutive, once-glib, and somewhat effeminate, he used to have a loud if sometimes obnoxious personality, was friendly and well liked. When he came back from prison, he could not look people in the eye, did not speak unless he was spoken to, and when he did speak, he stuttered and shook. His confidence was gone, his life completely destroyed not just by sex offense laws but by whatever brutality was committed against him with the complicity of the state while in prison. I don't know what happened to him, he stopped showing up for work one day and I haven't heard a thing about him in years. All I know is a bright, likable kid was destroyed, as you said sacrificed, to political expedience and a braying mob. He wasn't even a personal friend, yet I'll hate every politician who dares open his mouth in support of this monstrosity as long as I live.
Note that the sex offender laws didn't protect Jaycee Dugard from Philip Garrido. They do, however, protect kids who had oral sex when their parents away from ever having normal lives.
via ifeminist
Meet A Birther
Her name's Camille Paglia. Via American Thinker, quoting from Paglia's appearance on NPR's "On Point":
"First of all, I reject the idea that the "birther" campaign is motivated by racism. There may be racism among it, but there are legitimate questions about the documentation of Obama's birth certificate. I'm sorry, I've been following this closely from the start. To assume that all those signs about the birth controversy were motivated by racism, that is simply wrong. "
Primitive Religious Beliefs?
Avoid communal living -- except maybe in a big tent in the Negev. Similar advice applies to others with silly, evidence-free beliefs, like people who believe stepping on a crack will break their mother's back, and any who believe they have to paint all the hallways in their building acid green to keep away the aliens.
An Orthodox Jewish couple in the U.K. are suing their neighbors for "imprisoning" them in their flat thanks to a light in the hallway triggered by a motion detector. (I'm reminded of France, where, in apartment hallways, the lights are off and you push a lit button to turn them on. Saves a lot of electricity, I'd imagine.) From the Daily Mail:
Dr Dena Coleman and husband Gordon claim they cannot leave their holiday flat on the Sabbath because when they do they automatically trigger the light in the communal hallway - contravening a religious ban on turning on electrical items from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday because it constitutes 'creating fire'.They say their human rights are being breached and are now suing the flats' management company - their neighbours - for failing to accommodate their religion.
The other 35 owners of the seaside flats are liable to pay court costs if the claim is successful.Dr Coleman, a 56-year-old headteacher at a Jewish orthodox school in London, has been visiting the £200,000 holiday flat in Bournemouth, Dorset, with her husband for six years.
The management company fitted the motion-sensing lights six months ago in a bid to save energy and money.
The Colemans have offered to pay for an override switch to disable the light sensors during the Sabbath.
But the Embassy Court Management Company - which represents all residents and whose three directors also live in the block - said this would set an 'unacceptable precedent'.
In a letter sent to occupants of all of the other 35 apartments in the block, the Colemans said: 'Faced with a situation where we could never again have full use of our flat, we were left with no alternative but to seek legal advice.'
Really? Here's my advice: Don't impose. Sell.
Thanks, luj
Muslim Girl Sentenced To Death By U.S. Court
Islam demands Muslims kill apostates -- but that's just so barbaric that many westerners refuse to believe it. Unfortunately, that could mean the death of a 17-year-old Muslim girl, Fathima Rifqa Bary, who left Islam for Christianity, and is now being sent back to her family against her will. Jamie Glazov interviews Dave Gaubatz, an FBI agent who gets it:
Gaubatz: I have visited over 200 Islamic Centers throughout America. The vast majority teach the worshippers 'Apostates should be killed' because it is a major sign of disrespect to Allah, the family of the Apostate is dishonored, and it may lead others to leave Islam.
FP: Tell us about some evidence you have of Islamic leaders in America advocating killing Muslims who leave Islam?
Gaubatz: I have never written or verbally stated anything pertaining to Islam that I do not have first-hand evidence to substantiate. This is why I always challenge any Islamic leader to come forward and not simply 'spout' off that Dave Gaubatz is wrong, but instead to indicate the issue I discussed in a sworn affidavit and say what I have said is inaccurate and they would be willing to again swear under oath in a U.S. court of law my statements are incorrect.
Specifically in regards to Apostasy, I request any Islamic scholar or Imam in America to provide a sworn statement under risk of perjury that Rifqa Bary has not committed a major sin and is subject to the death penalty. The scholar should also include in the sworn statement that Rifqa should not have any concerns about other relatives or friends of her father who will seek justice for the father because his daughter dishonored Allah and him. Lastly, I ask any Islamic leader to include in a sworn statement (again under oath and with the penalty of perjury) that they are not aware of any materials used in any U.S. mosques that call for the death of any Muslims who leave Islam.
Jamie, there will be no Islamic leader who will take me up on this offer. Why? Because they would be lying. Not that lying and deception is not conducted on a regular basis by CAIR and ISNA executives, but they will hesitate to do so under the risk of perjury and imprisonment. I will be preparing a sworn affidavit with several references I have obtained from numerous mosques across America (to include Ohio) that clearly state Rifqa and any Muslim who leaves Islam is subject to death.
He asks some great questions at the bottom. Here are two of them:
[1] Why are our elected officials not prosecuting Islamic leaders who advocate death in America for children who decide to change their religion? If a Christian minister were to distribute material calling for the death of an innocent child like Rifqa Bary for leaving Christianity, would not our authorities and liberal media be calling for the arrest and prosecution of the minister?
[2] When will non Muslims in America begin to understand Islamic Sharia law is violent and is a serious threat to innocent people and to our country? Note: Sharia law also covers 'physical Jihad' against our country.
What People Are Buying From Amazon
Sometimes I get some interesting stuff in my kickback reports from Amazon (and thanks to everybody who helps fund me in the downturn in newspapers through my Amy's Mall links or the Amazon search window there). Here's one from today, a book by Judith Sills, who wrote an excellent book, A Fine Romance
Racism Or Policy-ism?
Gwen Ifill talks to reason ed-in-chief Matt Welch, City Journal's John McWhorter, and a few others about Jimmy Carter's contention that animosity to Obama is largely due to his skin color:
MATT WELCH, Reason Magazine: Here's how I approach the problem. If this is true, if there's a significant percentage of people who are motivated by, let's say, racial anxiety, not outright racism, in their opposition to Obama, then what else would we see? How would we expect that to manifest itself?I would expect it to manifest itself at minimum with people expressing, whether it's in their signage or in their conversation, concerns about hot-button racial issues: affirmative action, immigration, welfare queens, and whatnot.
What I saw going out in the crowd and actually talking to people was almost none of that. We saw a lot of different signs out there, but the vast majority of people that I talked to and the displays that they were making was actually pretty coherent. They were against government overreach and spending in their lives and in the economy.
And I saw a precious little -- and I even tried to tease people out, like, "Ah, what do you think about that Obama character? Is he legitimate? Is he not?" A lot of people said, "Hey, I like the guy. I disagree with his policies."
So I have a hard time going to the next step and assuming that their motivation is something that is somehow sublimated that I can't measure.
...JOHN MCWHORTER, senior fellow, Manhattan Institute: Well, it's a difficult issue, and that's an inherent part of this, that we really can't know where to draw the line, because we don't have the psychological tools yet.
But I personally feel that, for example, Joe Wilson would not have yelled the way he did if the president in an alternate universe had become, say, John Edwards. It's just a -- but it's a gut feeling. We can't know.
And that's why I feel that, with all of this -- let's say that racism was a part of it; it's my gut feeling that it is -- we're at the point where the question is how significant it is. Whatever role racism is playing in all of these criticisms, it's not going to chase the man out of office. It's not going to make much of a difference in whether he does or doesn't get re-elected. And the racism itself is not going to derail health care or anything else.
So my question is not whether racism is involved -- I suspect that it is -- but exactly what are we talking about and why are we elevating it as if there's something alarmist about it, when maybe it's just a rather mundane fact?
I'm reminded of something from Kingsley Browne's terrific book on sexual harassment, Biology at Work: Rethinking Sexual Equality
Hazing is about going for somebody's Achilles heel. Browne has this interesting notion that some perceived sexual harassment actually isn't unequal but equal treatment -- guys playing the nines with women the same way they do with men. They just use sexual themes to tease them with because that's a sensitive spot with women.
And maybe the same goes for race. People go for cheap shots -- not necessarily because they have some deep and abiding hatred of blacks, Jews, or whomever. (And who knows, maybe they do.) But, maybe race or religion is just the quickest, easiest way to attack.
The Last Thing They Want Anybody Doing At East Georgia College
That would be thinking. Speaking one's mind is also apparently a big no-no. A professor there named Thomas Thibeault was fired by the college president after pointing out that the college's sexual harassment policy had no protection for the falsely accused. From FIRE:
Thibeault's ordeal started shortly after August 5, 2009 when, during a faculty training session regarding the college's sexual harassment policy, he presented a scenario regarding a different professor and asked, "what provision is there in the Sexual Harassment policy to protect the accused against complaints which are malicious or, in this case, ridiculous?" Vice President for Legal Affairs Mary Smith, who was conducting the session, replied that there was no such provision to protect the accused, so Thibeault responded that "the policy itself is flawed."Two days later, Thibeault was summoned to EGC President John Bryant Black's office. According to Thibeault's written account of the meeting, which was sent to Black and which Black has not disputed, Thibeault met with Black and Smith. Black told Thibeault that he "was a divisive force in the college at a time when the college needed unity" and that Thibeault must resign by 11:30 a.m. or be fired and have his "long history of sexual harassment ... made public." This unsubstantiated allegation took Thibeault by surprise. Black added that Thibeault would be escorted off campus by Police Chief Drew Durden and that Black had notified the local police that he was prepared to have Thibeault arrested for trespassing if he returned to campus. At no point was Thibeault presented with the charges against him or given any chance to present a defense. Refusing to resign, Thibeault understood that he was fired.
To take action:
Tell EGC to restore the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Georgia Board of Regents. Write a letter to EGC and the Board of Regents here.
CONTACT:
Adam Kissel, Director, Individual Rights Defense Program, FIRE: 215-717-3473, adam@thefire.org
John Bryant Black, President, East Georgia College: 478-289-2027, jblack@ega.edu
Erroll B. Davis Jr., Chancellor, University System of Georgia: 404-656-2202, chancellor@usg.edu
The Audi Dude
He was going way too fast through my neighborhood in his Audi sports car as I was getting into my car.
I made a "slow down" gesture, and he did, momentarily, right by me. He looked like an advertising creative dude, 40ish, with unruly shoulder-length brown hair.
I said something -- very politely, about kids and dogs in the vicinity. He claimed he was "only going 20." (Yeah? Try that plus another 30.)
"Hopeless cunt!" he snarled, and sped away...
...too fast to hear my reply: "I'm not hopeless!"
Let The Smart People In
America's like an exclusive club where the bouncers wave in the hoi polloi but keep all the hot young models lined up shivering outside.
We shouldn't be judging a peasant immigrant the same way we do those who have something more than their crop-picking or factory-working ability to bring to this country. Farhad Manjoo writes on Slate that America can't be the world's tech leader without immigration reform:
Andy Grove, Intel's former chairman and CEO, was born in Hungary in 1936 and immigrated to the United States in his 20s. Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo, was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and moved to San Jose, Calif., with his family as a child. Sergey Brin, who co-founded Google, came to the United States from his native Russia when he was 6. They aren't special cases: About one-quarter of American tech companies are founded in part or entirely by foreigners. The proportion in Silicon Valley is even higher--a recent survey (PDF) by Vivek Wadhwa, an engineering professor at Duke University, showed that more than 52 percent of Valley startups were founded or co-founded by people born outside of the United States. According to Wadhwa's research, immigrant-founded firms produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005.Paul Graham insists that those numbers could be much higher. Graham, a partner at Y Combinator, a venture-capital firm that provides early-stage funding to startups, calls the U.S. government's immigration restrictions "the biggest constraint on the number of new startups that get created in the U.S." In May, Graham, whose essays on business and science are popular in V.C. circles, floated a novel idea: He wants the government to create a new immigration class for founders of new firms. Every year, Graham's "Founder Visa" program would let in 10,000 immigrants who've shown a plan for starting a new company. These people would be barred from working at existing companies--in other words, they wouldn't be "taking American jobs." Instead, Graham argues, they'd be creating jobs: "If we assume four people per startup, which is probably an overestimate, that's 2,500 new companies. Each year," Graham writes. "They wouldn't all grow as big as Google, but out of 2,500 some would come close."
From Hourglass To Beer Keg
Meet the donuts and Doritos generation. Women's bodies sure have changed over the years, writes Victoria Lambert in The Daily Mail:
Sixty years ago the average British woman's figure was fairly trim: at a petite 5ft 2in, the scales rarely tipped 9st 10lb. Even her feet - size 31/2 - were small, and she fitted neatly into a size 12 dress.As for her vital statistics - 37-27-39 - she was the classic hour-glass, not far off Hollywood standards (America's most famous pin-up girl Betty Grable measured a curvy but slender 36-24-35).
Fast forward to 2009, and we have ballooned. Not only are we taller, we're also heavier and less curvaceous, according to the UK National Sizing Survey.
When compared with statistics from 1951, the last (and only other) time a national survey of women's figures was conducted, the difference is shocking.
We may be pleased to be taller (the average woman is now 5ft 4in), but our feet have splayed out to a size 6 and we're half a stone heavier. Meanwhile, our hour-glass has rolled into a barrel-like 38-34-40, and many would struggle to get into a size 14.
'We found that hips were an inch-and-a-half bigger, as were busts; then when we got to the waists and found sixanda-half inches difference, it was: "Wow - everyone, man and woman, has a belly now",' explains Philip Treleaven, professor of computing, from University College, London, who led the research.
What Does "Presidential" Mean These Days?
Was it unpresidential of Obama to call Kanye a jackass?
As for the notion of anything a president says in the presence of reporters being "off the record," this isn't 1787, when the only "tweets" were those birds made outside the Constitutional Convention, and the president knows that. If you don't want to tell the American people what you really think of the rapper, avoid saying so while an ABC reporter is poised before you, BlackBerry in hand.
Insurance Is A Business, Boys And Girls
Scott Harrington fact-checks the President's health care plan in the WSJ:
In his speech to Congress last week, President Barack Obama attempted to sell a reform agenda by demonizing the private health-insurance industry, which many people love to hate. He opened the attack by asserting: "More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won't pay the full cost of care. It happens every day."Clearly, this should never happen to anyone who is in good standing with his insurance company and has abided by the terms of the policy. But the president's examples of people "dropped" by their insurance companies involve the rescission of policies based on misrepresentation or concealment of information in applications for coverage. Private health insurance cannot function if people buy insurance only after they become seriously ill, or if they knowingly conceal health conditions that might affect their policy.
...Company representatives testified that less than one half of one percent of policies were rescinded (less than 0.1% for one of the companies).
If existing laws and litigation governing rescission are inadequate, there clearly are a variety of ways that the states or federal government could target abuses without adopting the president's agenda for federal control of health insurance, or the creation of a government health insurer.
I would say I'm a model health insurance consumer. Been paying Kaiser Permanente monthly since my 20s -- for about 20 years. I'm slim, healthy, rarely come down with so much as sniffles, and barely go to the doctor. I need health insurance in case something goes dramatically wrong -- but even if it does, Kaiser has gotten a monthly payment from me for so many years, and with me taking so little from the system, it's possible I still wouldn't end up on the loss column of a P&L statement.
What Obama is asking for, and what so many of the whiners are whining for, is something for nothing. At 45, when they come down with cancer or Crohn's, they suddenly want coverage. Oh yeah, and who pays? The rest of us. And there's no going back to repossess all the TVs and vacations and wonderful dinners these people bought with the money they might've spent on a health insurance plan.
Frankly, unless health insurance is "buy or die," it really isn't health insurance but health welfare, once they start giving it out to people who chose to gamble that they wouldn't get sick so they could put their money toward more fun stuff. And sure, there should be provisions for the very poor and the mentally ill, and children with pre-existing conditions, but I don't think that describes a good many of the people who really, really value health care, but not enough to actually pay for it out of their own pockets.
They Aren't Just Laying Their Lives On The Line
Robert Franklin asks a great question on GlennSacks.com, highlighting a terrible situation I hadn't known about -- divorced or separated military parents who return from their tour of duty and find that their parental rights have been eroded by their absence:
Should children lose their father because he's away on business or has to take a temporary job away from home? If children whose parents are employed by a branch of the military shouldn't, then why should children whose parents are employed by IBM or ExxonMobil?[Amy says: I think he meant that sentence just above the other way around...or are there instances of custody being revoked because a parent -- usually the dad -- has to travel on business...to support the kid or kids?]
The reasoning is obvious. Child custody arrangements shouldn't be about punishing parents for the work they do; they should be about maximizing parent-child contact.
Here's a story in the Stars and Stripes about those who've had their parental rights mucked up by their military service. That this should happen -- to people risking their lives on behalf of the rest of us -- is just obscene.
An organization fighting for the rights of deployed parents is here. Utah has passed a law to ensure that this will no longer happen to military parents from their state.
The One Time I Was Glad They Didn't Name Me Alexandra
Or something a little more sophisticated than "Amy." It was last week, when I was looking at the latest incarnation of my book cover, which is coming along. My editor discussed the spine with me. He said they sometimes just put a last name on it. Well, there are other Alkons in the world, including a Daniel, who I think does something shrinky. I told my editor, my name has just three letters; how 'bout we leave it on? And he agreed.
I was reminded of this when U read a piece in the Times of London about names; specifically, which ones mean trouble -- and low wages, and more. Melanie McDonagh writes about the assumptions teachers and others make about children (and people) based on their names alone:
The authors of the bestseller Freakonomics have compiled a list of the top 20 white girls' names associated with high and low-education parents. This being America, there are horrid names in both categories -- the top girls' names for the highly educated being Lucienne, Marie-Claire and Glynnis -- but the low-educated parents' girls' names make you want to cry. Calling a baby Angel, Heaven, Misty or Destiny is tantamount to wiping tens of thousands off the child's future annual income.Indeed, Alan Milburn, the government's social mobility czar, missed a trick here. In his report on social exclusion, he should have laid a good deal of emphasis on not handicapping lowincome children unfairly with problematic names. Anyone called Ryan, Kyle or Casey should probably be removed from their parents until they promise to call them Emma, Grace, Alexander or Benjamin.
It's Who You Nano
Thanks, somebody, whomever you are, for supporting this site (and my work) in the downturn in newspapers by buying the new video Nano -- Apple iPod nano 8 GB Silver (5th Generation) NEWEST MODEL
It's Always Racism
Rude Republicans and rude Democrats. There's rudeness, and there are insults and low blows on both sides of the aisle, and surely from the independents as well. But, regarding Joe Wilson's recent outburst during the President's speech to Congress, The NYT's Maureen Dowd can't help but leap right from partisan rudeness to partisan racism:
I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids -- from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.But Wilson's shocking disrespect for the office of the president -- no Democrat ever shouted "liar" at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq -- convinced me: Some people just can't believe a black man is president and will never accept it.
"A lot of these outbursts have to do with delegitimizing him as a president," said Congressman Jim Clyburn, a senior member of the South Carolina delegation. Clyburn, the man who called out Bill Clinton on his racially tinged attacks on Obama in the primary, pushed Pelosi to pursue a formal resolution chastising Wilson.
Of course they want to "delegitimize" him as a president. As did the left when George Bush (who I was no fan of, to say the least) was in power.
As for where Wilson went wrong; as a Congressman sitting in the House, when the President is giving a formal talk to the House and the nation, you just don't stand up and shout out that he's a liar. And, the House actually has pretty strict rules of decorum, because rude behavior by our elected, uh, apes has been a problem, and not just of late.
A Democracy is served by free speech, but there's a time to speak freely and of anyone, a Congressman can make his voice heard pretty easily -- in the national and international press, and in the House at an appropriate time.
The upshot: He was rude. He apologized. Can we move on?
Apparently not. Here's more from Dowd:
Rusty DePass, a G.O.P. activist, said that a gorilla that escaped from a zoo was "just one of Michelle's ancestors."
The left called George Bush a chimp. With regularity. This is somehow less insulting? They also seemed to find it hilarious when a guy in Iraq threw a shoe at him (a major insult there). And I just called our elected officials apes. And frankly, so many of them are.
Sure, there's still racism out there -- and I'm sure there are racist senators and congressmen (black and white) but it doesn't serve any of us to always leap to that as what must be behind any behavior, just because we have a president with black skin.
I'm reminded of the time, about a month or so ago, when these troglodytes who'd just left the bar were shouting outside my house at 2 a.m. They woke me up and I went outside to point out that they were four feet from a block of houses. I asked them to be more considerate. When the lead guy didn't apologize, and instead started arguing with me, I said, "Clearly you were badly raised."
Most amazingly, he responded, "Are you saying that because we're Asian?"
"No," I said. "Because you're loud, inconsiderate ASSHOLES!"
Sunday's Love Note
I got this reader e-mail on Sunday (along with a bunch of really nice ones). I've reproduced it as written, boldface and all:
Dear Amy,So far your negative and insulting advice to those seeking help is truly intolerable and so far has ruined my peaceful Sunday morning reading.
I have written 5 books so far in regards to "Emotional Intelligence."
In my 1997 (copyrighted) title: Timotheus, The First Dictionary of Emotions," I define the term:"Insensitive Jerk: 1) any male or female, professional or layperson who disregards, disrespects or overrides the needs, wants and desires of another human being and then insults them (demonizes) in the process: (TYPICAL) Advice Columnist or Psychologist who responds to one seeking help or advice as not only blatantly ignorant but uses one or many negative emotional invectives to injure, insult or belittle the person who is seeking such professional help. 2) a clinical professional term used to describe patients who exhibit no morals, no ethics, no manners, no socially accepted skills or the acceptance of behavior other than their own presets of intolerable attitudes. 3) (insensitive) decrees a having or showing a lack of concern for the feelings of others: tactless: cruel in intentions or acts. 4) a person who insults another person in any emotional negative term. 5) a person regarded as disagreeable, contemptible or as the result of foolish or mean behavior: to utter sharply (mean) and abruptly (curt): to twist or thrust with a sudden movement: curt or gruff in behavior or speech: jumping form topic to topic without proper transitions: jerky and disconnected: one who lacks wisdom and disciplines. 6) a person calling another person "an insensitive jerk" is one himself/herself. 7) a person who not only disagrees with your opinion but demonizes you for having an opinion that is not exactly like their opinion. 8) one lacking any emotional intelligence or is emotionally illiterate: any person who claims to have a certain wisdom but can show no proof of such higher knowledge: an intolerant attitude: prejudiced. 9) a person who believes that "RULES" do not apply to himself/herself: a person who believes that no other person (on the planet) could possibly know more than they do: a person who has to justify their aberrant behaviors by putting another person down in order to elevate themselves due to their own low self-esteem or baser values." (end)
I have been dealing with this issue for 32 years and have written about it for 24 years.
My Advice to you is: read the books: "Emotional Intelligence" By Daniel Goleman, "Emotional Alchemy" By: Tara Goleman,
"If the Buddha Dated", By: Charlotte Kasl, Ph D. or more importantly, "Webster's College Edition Dictionary", before you give out anymore cruel and misleading advice to those that really need helpful information, not "sledgehammer" rhetoric.
This kind of "advice" is the cause of suicide and homicide before suicide, (which I have either witnessed or have prevented far too many from words like the ones you impinge upon your readers minds.
Remember the Healers Code? "First, do no harm."
In my opinion and many other noted authors, all you are doing is more irreparable harm.
"Think" of the "Ripple in the Pond" effect. You're either the "problem" or are part of the cure.Best Regards,
Tim Gega
Gotta love the signature!
My response (after skimming his e-mail, not reading it -- life is too short):
Ironically, it seems you feel exercising your superiority is a way to invoke change. Stanton Peele tells me "Motivational Interviewing" is a much better technique. My column is a humor column. I write back to people at great length when I'm leading up to writing a column, and give them answers, references to turn to, etc. I also have spent years studying for what I do -- Albert Elliswas a mentor, and my column is based on research in anthropology and related fields, plus I use reason and apply ethical standards -- referring to ancient scholars, Adam Smith's "Theory of Moral Sentiments," and more modern works. Robert H. Frank's "Passions Within Reasons
" and "What Price the Moral High Ground?
" are a few of the numerous influences on me. People tell me they're helped by the fact that I'm one of the few people who will give it to them straight. You make a lot of assumptions about me below, yet really know little to nothing about me or how I live or behave. Interesting. You also seem to have a lot of rage at me. Well, hope you feel better. -Amy
It's The Anniversary Of The Bible!
No, not that bible -- The Flavor Bible
The Flavor Bible teaches readers to cook without recipes, inspired by tried-and-true compatible flavors. Authors Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg, a husband-and-wife team who have written a string of books chefs love, think of the book as "a thesaurus of flavors that work well together." The book explains, for instance, that tropical fruit goes with lime juice, lime zest and rum; quail is well-matched with thyme and vinegar; and that one of Swedish cuisine's main flavors is dill (and that you should avoid garlic and piquancy when making Swedish dishes). It's a smart, useful book that won a 2009 James Beard Award and has garnered praise from publications ranging from O to the Chicago Tribune to the popular food blog 101 Cookbooks. Little, Brown published The Flavor Bible a year ago this week--and went into its fourth printing this summer, marking 65,000 copies in print. Page says The Flavor Bible is hers and Dornenburg's fastest selling book ever.
The Stupidest Place In California
That would be the California Public Schools. I'm not a teacher and I don't have kids, but I've experienced the stupidity myself, in conjunction with a program I put together -- going to an inner city high school once a month and talking to the kids to demystify what it takes to "make it."
I had the idea a while ago, that inner city kids are actually being rational and sensible by not working very hard in school. After all, the adult world around them is people dealing drugs, going to jail and working at low-paying, bad jobs. If they believe that's all that's possible for them in life, school is just an annoying way to spend the time during the day, and something they have to do.
My program, WIT (What It Takes), is intended to be administered by Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and involves people from a variety of jobs and professions -- those that require college and those that don't. They go speak at inner city schools, laying out what it takes to do what they do.
A chef, for example, lets kids know that she didn't get her job by magic -- she had to lug garbage to the dumpster and peel potatoes and get her ass kicked by those above her until, over a number of years, she rose in the kitchen. The important thing is showing kids there's a step-by-step process for becoming somebody, and it takes hard work, some sense in choosing something you have an aptitude for, among other things.
All speakers, like me, speak entirely for free. The money for the program would go to have BGCA administer it across the country -- to make sure they get the right speakers (per the guidelines I figured out) and to make sure they know what to say and how to say it.
Included in each speaker's message is a bit about how getting pregnant or getting a girl pregnant before being married and settled removes the chances of all the exciting stuff they've heard, and continues the cycle of poverty...and is especially terrible for any kid because of the bad outcomes for children of single mothers. All they have to do is work hard in their 20s and make something of themselves, and then they can do that stuff right, and do right by any kid they have -- as an intact family.
Back to my experience talking at a local high school; I'd wanted to do this since I lived in New York, but it took me until I moved to L.A. and met this great teacher and bugged her to schedule me in to talk to the kids. It's pretty amazing -- I just tell them what I do for a living, and take apart how I got to where I am (emphasizing all the hard stuff and humiliations and how I got through them). I change what I'm talking about to suit the class at hand, and afterward, answer their questions...allay their fears, tell them about what they can expect, what to worry about and what not to. I can tell that most of them get a lot out of it. That's pretty exciting.
After I'd been doing this for a while, there was a "Career Day" at the school. The teacher had them bring me in for that. After I spoke to a couple classes, there was a lunch for all the speakers in the teachers' lounge. I had this idea -- instead of putting this teacher through the hassle of asking other teachers and scheduling me in and working out the logistics, I'd ask the Career Day administrator to do it.
And I did -- telling her that not only would I speak, that I'd asked people like successful writer/producer Rob Long, and a self-made black fashion designer who already takes inner city girls camping, and a guy from a poor family in Harlem who'd started his own company done well in real estate. I even tried to get Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple), who politely turned me down (he's already doing his own stuff in schools).
I waited for her to tell me when we could start. Well, she told me, it would take at least six months to propose it and at least year to get approval -- if she could even get approval. (And remember -- this is for really incredible people to come in and tell kids about what they do for a living and the steps they took to do it, and to motivate them...free of charge!)
Just nuts. I nodded, went for another piece of cheese, found the teacher on the other side of the room and asked her to schedule me into somebody's class for the next month.
Here's similar idiocy, chronicled by George Will, in the WaPo:
Becoming governor next year will be a daunting challenge for California's Republican insurance commissioner, but Steve Poizner has surmounted other obstacles, as when he volunteered to teach without pay in an East San Jose high school. After he sold, for $1 billion, one of the technology companies he founded after moving to California from Texas, and after serving as a White House fellow, he walked into San Jose's school district office, explained that he graduated No. 1 in his class at the University of Texas, earned a Stanford business degree and now wanted to teach American government to high school seniors. A functionary declared: "Nothing you have said qualifies you to be in the classroom."Undeterred, he placed calls to the district's 12 high school principals. Eleven did not return his calls. The 12th, whose students were mostly from working-class Hispanic families, gave Poizner the opportunity he describes as the hardest, and most rewarding, thing he has ever done.
On his first day it rained, the roof leaked and he probably violated union contracts by moving a trash can to catch the seepage. When some parents -- they were plumbers -- offered to fix a broken water fountain, they were spurned. The education code, by which state legislators micromanage California's thousands of schools at the behest of teachers unions, is, Poizner says, 2,000 pages "and growing rapidly." He is disgusted that more than half of the 600,000 employees in primary and secondary education are not in classrooms. The most "telling statistic," he says, is that in Los Angeles (where one in three school dollars goes to teachers' pensions) 25 percent of public school teachers send their children to private schools.
By the way, the grant I applied for (not for me, but for every cent to go to Boys & Girls Clubs of America, who are already plugged in in all the inner city schools) has been delayed and delayed and delayed. It's Google's Project 10^100. I'm hoping they'll finally get their act together this Fall. If they don't, in the next few months, I'll seek other financing. If somebody knows of an organization that would be interested in funding a program like this, I have a comprehensive writeup I can send.
Will link via RobertW
The Junk Of Love
Loved the wonderful "Modern Love" piece in The New York Times by my friend Susan Shapiro. (Back in the day, I was one of those attending the Tuesday night writing workshop, but at her old studio on 13th Street.)
Sue and I actually grew up about three miles from each other, in the Detroit suburbs, but only met years later in New York when the late Gael McCarthy, an editor at Parade, took me to a party at Sue's, telling me there was this "force of nature" I had to meet. And she was right.
One thing I really admire about Sue is how she's one of the most determined people I know -- as a writer and as a person. It shows in what she comes to in the end of this piece:
Back in the 1990s, when I heard that the curly-haired TV writer I was being fixed up with was in his 40s, had no children or previous wives and had never even cohabitated with a woman, I thought, "Great, no baggage."Luckily he waited until I was smitten before taking me to his apartment. He opened the door proudly, like he was a 24-year-old showing off his first solo abode. I was shocked by the dim, dusty, cramped hovel with shelves, cabinets and corners so claustrophobically overstuffed that I feared an imminent avalanche from above. A neat-freak thrower-outer like my Jewish mother in West Bloomfield, Mich., I was startled to realize that behind Charlie's tall, handsome exterior lurked a serious pack rat.
Every time I met single men who appeared too good to be true, I would jokingly ask: "What's wrong with you? Tell me now."
With Charlie, his apartment answered my question. I guessed this fortress of comics, cassettes and newspaper clippings was supposed to insulate him against whatever psychic trauma he had suffered in the past, as if his alter ego was Junk Man.
I had my own double identity. A misfit oldest child from a conservative suburban family, I reinvented myself as an urban tomboy in black clothes and cowboy boots, swearing with bravado. In my downtown studio, I smoked, drank and partied.
By 29, I was an almost-successful journalist who'd had my heart slaughtered a few times. So I recognized a mensch when I kissed one. Charlie had been sleeping on a ripped mattress on the floor. To prove that I wasn't an entitled princess and that I would cherish him for who he really was, I insisted we consummate our relationship right there, on that tattered bedding.
Sue's very funny new novel is Speed Shrinking
It's Not A Job...It's A Paid (And Paid-For) Vacation
Why serve the people when it's so easy to make them serve you -- margaritas on the beach in some exotic local? Sleazy Congressturd Loretta Sanchez loves to travel -- especially when the taxpayers are footing the bill. Richard Simon writes in the LA Times:
Reporting from Washington - At a time when congressional travel is coming under new scrutiny, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) has the distinction of taking more trips at taxpayer expense than anyone else in the California delegation.In the last 3 1/2 years, she visited the South Pole, snorkeled at Australia's Great Barrier Reef and joined world leaders at a security conference in Munich, Germany. She met with Darfur refugees in Sudan, attended a "legislators' dialogue" with European Parliament members in Slovenia, delivered a speech on transportation security in France and inspected anti-terrorism defenses in Genoa, Italy, and Mombasa, Kenya.
All told, she has made 20 overseas trips since the start of 2006, touching down on every continent. Last year, she went abroad seven times. Many times she used military flights, but one commercial flight from Australia to Britain cost $8,383.
Sanchez, a congresswoman since 1997, said the travel was important to her work as the ranking female lawmaker on the House Armed Services Committee and as vice chairwoman of the Homeland Security Committee.
"I am a much more effective legislator when I am better educated on the issues," she said.
The issue of what happens when your snorkeling gear isn't properly fitted is, I'm sure, an issue of great interest to those she "represents."
via @KateC
The High Cost Of Obesity
A court ruled that the employer of a 340-pound pizza chef has to pay for his weight loss surgery -- possibly to the tune of $25,000 -- which he needs before he can get back surgery for an injury he incurred at work when the freezer door hit him.
From an AP story by Charles Wilson:
His employers agreed to pay for the back surgery, but argued they were not obligated to pay for a weight-loss operation that could cost $20,000 to $25,000, because Childers already was obese before he was hurt.The board and the court, however, said the surgery -- and disability payments while Childers was unable to work -- were covered because his weight and the accident had combined to create a single injury. They said Boston's didn't present any evidence that his weight had been a medical problem before the accident.
Boston's needs new lawyers.
Quick Takes On The D.C. Protest
My pal Matt Welch, editor-in-chief of reason, bopped on down to the Mall (the national one, not the shopping one) to see what was what. An excerpt from his observations:
* Of the people I ended up talking to, the general vibe was that they were conservative, and then either Republican, formerly Republican, or independent. Every single one had unkind words to say about George W. Bush's spending and governing record, though none had protested him. None expressed trust in Republicans, and most preferred a "throw-all-the-bums-out" strategy. All but one did not care about Obama's birth certificate controversy, and those I asked thought it was foolish to bring guns to political gatherings.* People had traveled from North Carolina, Alabama, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, and Washington state.
* The view on Obama and his administration ranged from a "heading in the wrong direction" vibe to a "we're not gonna take it much longer" edge.
This is all, obviously, a partial and unscientific take, and not an attempt to encapsulate a huge event, but rather a faithful rendering of what I saw. With that caveat, I had a very hard time reconciling the human beings I talked to and observed with the caricatures described in pre-writes by the New York Times' Gail Collins ("The tea party movement activists range from geeky Ron Paulists who obsess about the money supply to conspiracy theorists who believe that Barack Obama is a noncitizen brought here by people who hate this country"), the L.A. Times' Tim Rutten ("the talk-show/tea-party right...if it has its way-will convert the GOP into an almost exclusively white, zealously religious, mostly Southern party"), and Gawker's Alex Pareene ("Glenn Beck is an actual terrorist, and the people attending his rally in DC tomorrow are al-Qaeda in America").
Like Matt, I think it's significant that, eight months into the Obama nation, there's such a huge groundswell of protest.
Rutten's Prediction
About the Republican party, from his LA Times column, "The Voices Behind Joe Wilson," who shouted "You lie!" during Obama's speech, when Obama claimed that illegal immigrants would not be entitled to taxpayer-funded health care under his plan:
For the moment, at least, the most effective opposition to the Obama administration comes not from the Republican Party establishment but from the talk-show/tea-party right, which -- if it has its way -- will convert the GOP into an almost exclusively white, zealously religious, mostly Southern party. For these people (including Southern Republicans such as Wilson) immigration is a red-meat issue.
Neither the Democratic nor the Republican party are for me (fiscal conservative, socially libertarian, "personal responsibilitarian"), but the Libertarians can't seem to present a candidate who's viable on a national basis -- i.e., with the charisma of an Obama or Sarah Palin, which they'll need to sell themselves and their ideas. Bob Barr? Right. Idiots.
McArdle's Good Idea
Writing as Jane Galt, she recommends:
Catastrophic federal insurance for those whose medical bills exceed 15-20% of gross income (phasing out for those whose incomes put them in, say, the top .1% of earners) and another means-tested benefit for those who genuinely cannot afford to spend 15% of gross income on health care benefits.
My Old Neighborhood, Post-Islam
I used to cut through there all the time.
My friend C's husband only missed dying in there because she had an early meeting, so he took their kids to school...making him just late enough to the office to miss being one of the mass-murdered.
Condolences to those who weren't so lucky, or whose loved ones weren't.
And, finally, for the uninitiated, Islam is not "a religion of peace," but totalitarianism masquerading as a religion, with a Quranic mandate to convert or kill the "infidel" (that would be the rest of us) and install "The New Caliphate." Just so we're all clear.
UPDATE: Via @katec, a very moving 9/11 story from a New York City cop.
Obama Thinks Medicare Is A Model For Reform
Meanwhile, many doctors won't take Medicare patients because payments are too low. Grace Marie Turner and Joseph R. Antos write in the WSJ about the realities of Medicare. A few excerpts:
1) Medicare is going bankrupt. The Medicare Trustees estimate that the program will run short of money starting in 2017. Medicare will drown in a sea of red ink, with spending over the next 75 years outpacing dedicated revenues by nearly $38 trillion.2) Private payers are bailing out Medicare. According to Milliman, an independent actuarial firm, Medicare--and to an even greater extent, Medicaid--underpays doctors and hospitals, shifting costs to private insurers. Milliman estimates that the average family in a private PPO health plan pays an additional $1,788 a year to compensate for underpayments by Medicare and Medicaid, representing a "hidden tax" on commercial payers totaling $89 billion a year.
Providers could not keep their doors open without the higher payments from private insurers. A recent letter to Congress from 13 leading health-care delivery organizations, including the Mayo Clinic, said "many providers suffer great financial losses associated with treating Medicare patients." They said that if these rates were expanded to patients who currently have private insurance, the result "will be unsustainable for even the nation's most efficient, high quality providers, eventually driving them out of the market." That means we would say goodbye to some of the best health-care systems in the country.
...9) Medical decisions are made in Washington. Patients and their doctors are slowly losing the ability to decide what course of treatment is best. Medicare's decisions to cut funding for the cancer drug EPO, implantable cardiac defibrillators and virtual colonoscopies, for example, have led to epic battles between providers and politicians, while patients and their doctors watch from the sidelines. Medical decisions, which should be made by doctors and patients, are being made by politicians.
...Instead of pretending that Medicare is the best model for the country, policy makers should recognize that the program is as much in need of reform as the rest of the health system. Before we give the federal government authority over health coverage for tens of millions more Americans, shouldn't the government prove it can do a better job with the "public plan" we already have?
Check out how Medicare works for doctors, from a piece by Budget & Tax News' Steve Stanek:
Failing to Pay Providers
"The main problem is reimbursement rates in Illinois are low," Eupierre said. "And they are late with reimbursements, now about five to six months. Imagine a company trying to stay alive and having to wait six months for customers to pay. We frequently send in a bill, the state finds something to question, and it comes back six months later. So it becomes a year before you're paid. Sometimes you don't get paid at all."Because of increases in the costs of liability insurance, office staff salary and benefits, rent, and other operating expenses, "many physicians cannot afford to see Medicaid patients," Eupierre said. "If I see three Medicaid patients and get $30 an hour, I'm getting $90 an hour. It easily costs me $300 an hour to be open. I'm losing $210 an hour. Many doctors in areas where Medicaid is the main population have a hard time staying open or have to see seven or eight patients an hour. I, as an internist, cannot see that many patients per hour."
And then, begging the question, "Do you think the entire American public is drunk, high or just really, really stupid?" there was this groaner from Obama's speech the other night:
Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan.
And Arnold Kling's perfect reply:
And if we don't pass this plan, does he intend to keep the waste and inefficiency, out of spite?
Obese People Eat Nurses
Barbara Hahler, in an article for MedSurg Nursing, writes about the risks to health care workers from very fat people:
The sheer physical weight and size of patients places staff at risk for injury and stress-related disorders. Eighty-nine percent of back injury claims filed by hospitals are related to patient handling. Further, back injuries eligible for workers' compensation cost more than nonwork-related back injuries (Gallagher, Greenstein, & Parson, 1998). Once injuries occur, direct costs include temporary or permanent disability, and medical costs. Indirect costs include loss of productivity and the high cost of orienting new employees (Jacknow, McCunney, & Jofe, 1988). Unfortunately, there are inadequate data identifying the percentage of health care worker back and other injuries attributable to patient obesity. Health care providers often complain about the difficulties when they encounter turning, transferring, or lifting bariatric patients. Understandably, staff are fearful of physical injury. Of concern is that inappropriate equipment or inadequate staffing may contribute to the staff's reluctance to care for morbidly obese patients.
She lays out numerous other ways people who've grown obese are challenging in ways people of normal weight aren't. Reuters says caring for obese people sucked up 35 percent of total health care spending in 2006.
Maybe, at least financially, they should be asked to, uh, pull their weight in health care costs (including paying extra for Hulk Hogan types to come lift them out of bed). Smokers, too, should pay more. (Except, perhaps for those rare people who are fat or smoke because of some hormonal issue. That is why people smoke, right?)
A big part of the health care crisis is people who want something for nothing or who want other people to pay their way. How about you live just the way you want, but you pick up the damn tab?
Is It 1999 or 2009? Time-Warner Cable Isn't Too Sure
Thursday night, a Time-Warner service problems had me on the phone on hold about 90 minutes, total -- after five calls into their system...getting dumped each time, and then finally figuring out a way to trick my way past the recorded bitch who makes you press in your phone number and account number, and then tells you there's no record of you, leaving you at a telephonic dead end. (I can't remember what I did to get through, but I don't think screaming profanity at the recording, which sometimes triggers phone systems to get a person on the line, was it.)
At the 40 minute mark, I asked for a month's credit for all the aggravation and wanton stupidity (see below) and the woman put me on hold to "verify something." Next, I was on hold another 40 minutes until some other woman got on (it had been forwarded to their national desk at that time). And let me just say that woman one had my phone number and PROMISED me she'd call me if we got disconnected. Nice! (Did she think I'd forget?)
I waited for the first 40 minutes because I figured the problem had to be with my computer since there was no news posted on their site, and I need to write in the morning, not deal with crap like this. But, it turned out there had been some big L.A. outage. Why don't they post it, I asked the first woman?They don't, she said because people don't have access to the Internet in an outage. Hello? Check your watch, clock radio, calendar or other time/date telling device. It's 2009. Many or most people have phones and various other devices to that connect to the Internet! (This is a major national cable company and they haven't figured this out?)
Why, when you call a corporation like this, do you so often feel it's mostly run by highly compensated people who've had their brains sucked out of their skulls and replaced by shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and other taco fixings?
In case you're wondering, they're the only choice of cable Internet company where I live.
Ding Dong The Health Care Witch Is Dead!
For now. In the House, anyway. I mean, if we're naive enough to expect a politician to stand by his word. Obama, of course, has broken his numerous times during his presidency. But, the NYT's David Brooks, if we pretend to be naive about Obama's truthfulness, has fantastic news from Obama's speech:
Obama rested the credibility of his presidency on what you might call the Dime Standard. He was flexible about many things, but not this: "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits -- either now or in the future. Period."This sound bite kills the House health care bill. That bill would add $220 billion (that's 2.2 trillion dimes) to the deficit over the first 10 years and another $1 trillion (10 trillion dimes) to the deficit over the next 10 years.
There is no way to get from the House bill to deficit neutrality. The president's speech guarantees that the more moderate Senate Finance Committee bill will be the basis for the negotiations to come.
The Dime Standard also sets off a political cascade. Since the Congressional Budget Office is the universally accepted arbiter in such matters, the Democrats have to produce a bill that the C.B.O. says is deficit-neutral, now and forever.
Palin On The Problems With The President's Plan
She writes on her Facebook page:
After promising to "make sure that no government bureaucrat .... gets between you and the health care you need," the President repeated his call for an Independent Medicare Advisory Council -- an unelected, largely unaccountable group of bureaucrats charged with containing Medicare costs. He did not disavow his own statement that such a group, working outside of "normal political channels," should guide decisions regarding that "huge driver of cost ... the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives...." He did not disavow the statements of his health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, and continuing to pay his salary with taxpayer dollars proves a commitment to his beliefs. The President can keep making unsupported assertions, but until he directly responds to the arguments I've made, I'm going to call him out too.It was heartening to hear the President finally recognize that tort reform is an important part of any solution. But this concession shouldn't lead us to take our eye off the ball: the Democrats' proposals will not reduce costs, and they will not deliver better health care. It's this kind of "healthy skepticism of government" that truly reflects a "concern and regard for the plight of others."
My feeling -- we're living an economic disaster, and at the helm, we've got a guy who did not do a lot more in the Senate than smile and look good. And now, that same smiling handshaker is trying to rush us into vast and largely uninvestigated changes in health care in this country...about 20 minutes after hammering at the last Mr. Muckup in The Oval Office for rushing us in to Iraq.
As others have said, and I'll repeat, we're making a huge error: trying to replace a system with some problems -- our not-really capitalist system -- with a failed system, socialism. It's against human nature -- the notion that people will work hard if they're working largely for others and not for themselves -- and anybody who thinks socialism makes any sort of rational sense hasn't given it objective thought.
Via reason, the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Gregory Conko, who writes that "it is increasingly clear that what ails health care is not too little, but too much government intervention," has some better ideas:
Policy makers should eliminate the many layers of market-distorting government regulation that have produced our current crisis. To truly reform America's health care system, policy makers should:1. Modify tax policy to eliminate the disincentives for individual purchase of health insurance and health care.
2. Eliminate regulatory barriers that prevent small businesses from cooperatively pooling and self-insuring their health risks by liberalizing the rules that govern voluntary health care purchasing cooperatives.
3. Eliminate laws that prevent interstate purchase of health insurance by individuals and businesses.
4. Eliminate rules that prevent individuals and group purchasers from tailoring health insurance plans to their needs, including federal and state benefit mandates and community rating requirements.
5. Eliminate artificial restrictions on the supply of health care services and products, such as the overregulation of drugs and medical devices, as well as state and federal restrictions on who may provide medical services and how they must be delivered.
6. Improve the availability of provider and procedure-specific cost and quality data for use by individual health consumers.
The "Pervert" They Call Daddy
A British father was branded a pervert for photographing his own children in the park. From The London Evening Standard, a man started taking pictures of his 5-year-old and 7-year-old boys going down an inflatable slide:
The woman running the slide at Wolverhampton Show asked him what he was doing and other families waiting in the queue demanded that he stop.One even accused him of photographing youngsters to put the pictures on the internet.
Mr Crutchley, 39, who had taken pictures only of his own children, was so enraged that he found two policemen who confirmed he had done nothing wrong.
Yesterday he said: 'What is the world coming to when anybody seen with a camera is assumed to be doing things that they should not?
'This parental paranoia is getting completely out of hand. I was so shocked. One of the police officers told me that it was just the way society is these days. He agreed with me that it was madness.'
Check out this "sexy" shot he took of the kids:
What's particularly stupid is that you can see thousands of free stock photos like this without constraint on the Internet.
Does anybody maybe think all this constant panic and overprotection is particularly bad for the children these people are claiming to want to protect?
Are these people really in such fear that every daddy with a camera is a "who's yer daddy"? Or is it possible some of this hysteria is manufactured for some other reason? Need for attention? Soaps gone into reruns over the summer?
Who Tanked The Economy?
My friend Bruce Feirstein chronicles the top 100 people, companies, institutions, and vices to blame in Vanity Fair. From September 9, into the Cs, there's Cheney, Clinton, and China. Here's Bill:
25. Bill Clinton.
In a New York Times Magazine cover story by Peter Baker on May 31, 2009, Bill Clinton assessed his role in the financial meltdown. Regarding the Community Reinvestment Act, he dismissed charges that he had forced small banks to write mortgages to risky home buyers, calling this "totally off-the-wall crazy" and pointing out that community banks hadn't had major problems. Regarding the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, he accepted some "indirect" responsibility for the aftermath of allowing banks to go into the investment business, but placed most of the blame on George W. Bush and the failure of the S.E.C. to do its job, although he still doesn't think it "had much to do with this meltdown." And as to the charge that he didn't regulate derivatives, Clinton pleaded guilty, blaming himself for listening to Alan Greenspan, and adding that the S.E.C. and the credit-rating agencies were also at fault. But in a larger sense, this is all beside the point. The power of the American presidency lies in its moral authority. And in some ways, it's impossible to separate Clinton's personal ethos from everything that was to follow. From the selling of the Lincoln Bedroom to the blue dress, to "It depends on what your definition of 'is' is," to the unprecedented pardoning of the fugitive Marc Rich, Clinton set the tone for the era of indulgence that followed--and followed through himself with his dubious financial associations. Clinton supporters will argue vociferously that none of this mattered, and that it was possible to separate the man's personal peccadilloes from his performance in office. We're willing to bet that's what the bankers and the subprime lenders thought, too: None of it mattered, so long as you were making money.
VF is posting five a day, but here's the whole list in alphabetical order.
What's Wrong With The Democrats?
Camille has a pretty good handle on it. Paglia writes at Salon:
Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers (one reason for the hypocritical absence of tort reform in the healthcare bills). Weirdly, given their worship of highly individualistic, secularized self-actualization, such professionals are as a whole amazingly credulous these days about big-government solutions to every social problem. They see no danger in expanding government authority and intrusive, wasteful bureaucracy. This is, I submit, a stunning turn away from the anti-authority and anti-establishment principles of authentic 1960s leftism.How has "liberty" become the inspirational code word of conservatives rather than liberals? (A prominent example is radio host Mark Levin's book Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto
, which was No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly three months without receiving major reviews, including in the Times.) I always thought that the Democratic Party is the freedom party -- but I must be living in the nostalgic past.
...Affluent middle-class Democrats now seem to be complacently servile toward authority and automatically believe everything party leaders tell them. Why? Is it because the new professional class is a glossy product of generically institutionalized learning? Independent thought and logical analysis of argument are no longer taught. Elite education in the U.S. has become a frenetic assembly line of competitive college application to schools where ideological brainwashing is so pandemic that it's invisible. The top schools, from the Ivy League on down, promote "critical thinking," which sounds good but is in fact just a style of rote regurgitation of hackneyed approved terms ("racism, sexism, homophobia") when confronted with any social issue. The Democratic brain has been marinating so long in those clichés that it's positively pickled.
Need (More) Holiday Rudeness
Actually, I'd like to stop it, but my book, I See Rude People: One Woman's Battle to Beat Some Manners into Impolite Society
If you all could suggest some issues, I would be most grateful. Non-holiday issues are welcome, too. Very helpful for my press kit. Thank you!
UPDATE: I've moved this post up, because I can use some more of these. Thanks -- the ones you've posted are fantastic. More, please!
Revenge Is Best Not Served At All
Just posted a couple Advice Goddess columns. Here's my excerpt from the short one, in response to a woman seeking revenge:
If you love something...slash its tires? Oh, wait -- I think that's not quite how it goes. A lot of people feel like you do, and justify it with stuff like, "You know, there's a thin line between love and hate." No, there isn't. There's just a thin line between not getting what you want and hating the person who isn't giving it to you. If your love for somebody is contingent on being wanted by them, you don't really love them; you love being wanted.
Comments are live at the link.
No Mercy...A Familiar Refrain
Can't do the time? Shoulda stayed home knitting. Great piece by Steve Chapman at reason, "When Compassion is Cruel: Justice demands that killers serve out their full sentences":
People don't always get what they deserve in this world, so it is gratifying to see when someone does. It happened Wednesday when a California parole board insisted that Susan Atkins, a 61-year-old amputee with incurable brain cancer, live her few remaining months in prison rather than the embrace of her loved ones.This may sound like pointless excess inflicted on someone whose crime, committed 40 years ago, is ancient history. But even to mention Atkins without first mentioning her victims is an affront. In 1969, she repeatedly thrust a knife into an innocent woman who was eight and a half months pregnant, killing her and her unborn child.
"Compassionate release" is what it's called -- letting the guilty out of jail when they have some medical issue...as Scotland, most disgustingly did, in freeing convicted Lockerbie murderer, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. Terminal prostate cancer? Boohoo. He outlived the 270 people who died on that airliner.
In California these days, one argument for letting perhaps 42,000 prisoners out is that the jails are overcrowded and it's costly to run them. And I have a solution: Let prisoners run on giant hamster wheels to generate electricity for the state to pay their keep, and let them keep running and running to pay their victims restitution. And no, I'm not kidding.
A Former Child Abuse Prosecutor Weighs In
Free Range Kids blogger Lenore Skenazy wrote about a father arrested when he and his partner (the children's mother) left their 9-year-old and 6-year-old in the car to read at a central New York grocery store. (I figured the children's mother wasn't their biological mother, since perplexingly, only the dad was arrested, but that doesn't seem to be the case.) Lenore just blogged the thoughts of a former child abuse prosecutor about the case:
The legislature of the State of NY has evidently seen fit to criminalize the 'leaving' of children 'unattended' in a parked automobile if the children are younger than a certain age. But that is just statute. An officer of the law has discretion to arrest or not; arrest is not mandatory and should not be. An officer has the discretion, and is indeed obligated, to exercise his or her judgment in each and every situation the officer encounters than might involve law breaking as to whether or not an arrest should be made.In this instance, unless the readers of this blog are not receiving some key piece of information, no harm or damage resulted from the actions of these parents. The parent or parents were arrested not for something they did, but for the possibility that something harmful could occur. And did not.
I don't see what good can or will result from this arrest. I do see that among the readers of this blog it is generating fear, anxiety, and resentment. I expect that these parents will never leave a kid of theirs alone anywhere, under ANY circumstances, ever again. If that is considered a 'good' and a legitimate exercise of legislative and police power, then there you have it. To me, it sounds -- in the very least -- wacky and overblown, and perhaps grossly unfair, and even destructive.
The desire and impulse to make the world safe for each and every child is a good one, but obviously impossible to effect. Arrests such as these, in my opinion, deflect valuable (and expensive) police and governmental time and energies away from the myriad pressing dangers facing our children and young people.... Don't even get me started on gang violence!
Lenore's terrific book: Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry
Time To Overturn The Law Against Free Speech
Theodore B. Olson writes in the WSJ about McCain-Feingold's effects:
Public discussion about the character and fitness for office of presidential candidates is at the core of the First Amendment's command that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the Freedom of Speech." Yet Congress, in its zeal to impose onerous campaign-finance restrictions, has made political speech a felony for one class of speakers. Corporations and unions can face up to five years in prison for broadcasting candidate-related advocacy during federal elections....While the law prohibits even the smallest nonprofit groups from engaging in election advocacy, it exempts wealthy individuals, and it does not restrict the many advantages of incumbency for sitting members of Congress. A limitless loophole is also granted to the media. Thus the corporations that own NBC and ABC (GE and Disney, respectively), and corporations like The New York Times (or News Corp., owner of this newspaper), can express whatever views they want during campaigns.
Loopholes aside, the government's argument that speech may be outlawed because it does not reflect "public support for the ideas expressed" is absurd. It is the very antithesis of free speech.
...The idea that corporate and union speech is somehow inherently corrupting is nonsense. Most corporations are small businesses, and they have every right to speak out when a candidate threatens the welfare of their employees or shareholders.
...Tomorrow's case . . . is about the rights of all persons--individuals, associations, corporations and unions--to speak freely. And it is about our right to hear those voices and to judge for ourselves who has the soundest message.
Naomi Wolf Thinks Going Around Wearing A Pup Tent Has Its Merits
Phyllis Chesler, who has lived in a Muslim country, blogs about the realities of Muslim women forced to go around dressed in tents and/or with tablecloths over their heads -- a response to Naomi Wolf's flirtation with getting tented up (presumably in those earth tones she suggested to Al Gore). Wolf chronicled her dress-up play in a naive and idiotic Sydney Morning Herald piece, "Behind the veil lives a thriving Muslim sexuality":
The West interprets veiling as repression of women and suppression of their sexuality. But when I travelled in Muslim countries and was invited to join a discussion in women-only settings within Muslim homes, I learned that Muslim attitudes toward women's appearance and sexuality are not rooted in repression, but in a strong sense of public versus private, of what is due to God and what is due to one's husband. It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but that it embodies a strongly developed sense of its appropriate channelling - toward marriage, the bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home.Outside the walls of the typical Muslim households that I visited in Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt, all was demureness and propriety. But inside, women were as interested in allure, seduction and pleasure as women anywhere in the world.
At home, in the context of marital intimacy, Victoria's Secret, elegant fashion and skin care lotions abounded. The bridal videos that I was shown, with the sensuous dancing that the bride learns as part of what makes her a wonderful wife, and which she proudly displays for her bridegroom, suggested that sensuality was not alien to Muslim women. Rather, pleasure and sexuality, both male and female, should not be displayed promiscuously - and possibly destructively - for all to see.
Indeed, many Muslim women I spoke with did not feel at all subjugated by the chador or the headscarf. On the contrary, they felt liberated from what they experienced as the intrusive, commodifying, basely sexualising Western gaze. Many women said something like this: "When I wear Western clothes, men stare at me, objectify me, or I am always measuring myself against the standards of models in magazines, which are hard to live up to - and even harder as you get older, not to mention how tiring it can be to be on display all the time. When I wear my headscarf or chador, people relate to me as an individual, not an object; I feel respected." This may not be expressed in a traditional Western feminist set of images, but it is a recognisably Western feminist set of feelings.
I experienced it myself. I put on a shalwar kameez and a headscarf in Morocco for a trip to the bazaar. Yes, some of the warmth I encountered was probably from the novelty of seeing a Westerner so clothed; but, as I moved about the market - the curve of my breasts covered, the shape of my legs obscured, my long hair not flying about me - I felt a novel sense of calm and serenity. I felt, yes, in certain ways, free.
I feel free to wear an evening dress to the cafe (as I did today, with a jeans jacket) or a pup tent over my head, because nobody's forcing me to wear either. I'm not going to be "honor"-murdered by the man in my life for dressing immodestly -- will I be groped by strangers on the street the way I read Muslim women in Muslim countries so often are...that is, when they aren't being dragged to court and brought up on charges of adultery for the crime of being raped without having four men witnessing it who can testify that it was indeed rape.
A wise commenter, "dissent," at Salon, has the real deal:
I spent time as a child growing up in Iraq but I am American.(This was before any of the American wars in Iraq.)
I did have an abaya and I wore it quite a bit in rural Iraq where my family lived (in a village not an oil installation), so I know what it is like. It was not a good experience for me as a girl. It made me feel a bit alarmed and uptight about my body.
What I have always found confounding about the abaya (the basic whole body veil, called chador in Iran) is that, by concealing, it draws attention to what is concealed. Since what is concealed is related to sex, it has an effect like repression. But woman's body doesn't vanish just because it is visually erased, nor does sexuality. What fills the erasure is sexual hysteria. There is a kind of sexual panic that arises in response to the abaya, & to seclusion in general. I think so much repression makes people, especially men, sex hungry. And so in the Middle East (I speak from personal experience) there is more frenzy and sex hunger that fuels harassment and other peculiar and alienated behavior.
I think, in other words, that veiling and seclusion actually produce the kinds of behaviors that they are supposed to guard against. That is my personal experience.
I am an American of Scandinavian background, and the Scandinavians are seen to be lascivious about sex, but actually they are relaxed about the body first of all, and as a consequence about sex.
I think the "Islamic" rules (in quotes because what exactly the Islamic rules are is disputed) are a mistake because they produce alienation and frustration and acting out in men, even as they deprive women of freedom. In the long run reducing repression will result in fewer alienated sexual behaviors.
The intensity of seclusion and veiling of women varies a lot in Islamic countries. But the more intense it is, the harder it is for men and women to just be friends. Veiling and seclusion have the effect of sexualizing all contact between unrelated men and women. This really disrupts social and personal development. When there is no veiling and no seclusion, learning to get along with the opposite sex takes place in many contexts, and takes years, and is part of maturing to adulthood. These are skills which are taken for granted in the West - but we should value them, for they add a lot to our lives.
Chesler's follow-up is here.
What Exactly Is "Equal Work"?
Over at LewRockwell, Michael Tennant, writing about the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, just signed into law by Obama. The law guarantees equal pay for equal work, a term we've all heard so many times that we don't really consider what it means. Tennant does -- and he asks the right question about "equal pay for equal work," and answers it, too:
Now who could be against that? Anyone who cares about liberty should be, and here's why.First of all, it is exceedingly rare to find two people who are doing precisely the same work. Perhaps only two workers doing the same job at the same rate on the same assembly line would qualify. Two secretaries in an office, who in theory probably have the same duties, might still find that one of them ends up typing twice as many letters as the other. And this second secretary may in turn do three times as much filing as the first. One might take half again as many phone calls as the other yet do so in the same amount of time because she is able to get to the nub of the conversation more quickly. Even in the plumbing example I cited at the outset, the two toilets were different models, so plumber number two may have had an easier time of it or found cheaper parts than plumber number one. Productivity, proficiency, and even a certain amount of chance play huge roles in determining exactly what, and how much, work each person does. It is next to impossible to say that any two people have done "equal" work.
Even if it could be shown beyond all doubt that employee A and employee B were doing exactly the same work, there would still remain the problem illustrated by the plumbing story. If A and B each agreed to work at the wages they were being paid, then there is no injustice in paying A more than B for equal work. In the case of Lilly Ledbetter, who sued Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. for alleged pay discrimination, the fact that Ledbetter continued to work for Goodyear for 19 years and, presumably, to cash her paychecks indicates that she was satisfied with her compensation during that time. Had she at any time disagreed that she was being compensated fairly for the work she was doing, she had only to request an increase in pay and then, if the company declined her request, to quit. By remaining in Goodyear's employ for nearly two decades, she gave assent to the wages she was receiving. As long as a person accepts the pay he is receiving and is not the victim of either force or fraud by his employer - and paying a person the wage to which he agreed, even if it differs from others' wages, in no way constitutes fraud - the government has absolutely no business punishing the employer. It's a simple matter of property rights.
As I've blogged before, many women make less money than men because the women take less risky jobs, work fewer hours, and take off to have and care for kids.
Let's pretend you (Mrs. M) and I are exactly equal as employees -- until you have children. Make family your priority where work is mine, and your salary should rightly suffer where mine should not.
As I've also said previously, many women make less money than men because they are more likely (in general) to just take what they're offered instead of negotiating. I'm the opposite sort of woman, and it really pays off. About five years after signing a rather important contract, I just renegotiated it in my favor. It helps that I have been doing business with honorable people, but I stated my case, laid out why it would be the fair thing for them to do to come around to what I wanted, and that's what they did. And, before any of that went down, I had the idea that I should renegotiate it, rather than just pouting and sticking with terms I thought should change.
Somebody here posted this recently: If you try, you might fail in getting what you want. If you don't try, you'll definitely fail. Yoohoo, ladies...this means you!
via Wendy McElroy
Rhode Island: Where Streetwalking Is Illegal But Rugwalking Isn't
Simmi Aujla and Jennifer Levitz write in the WSJ that prostitution is legal in Rhode Island, as long as it happens indoors, thanks to a legal loophole, but state lawmakers are looking to change that:
Rhode Island's legal quirk has its defenders, including the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and some academics, who say the businesses don't bother anyone and provide a way for prostitutes, many of whom are Asian immigrants, to support their families. Fifty academics signed an open letter in August saying prostitutes who work indoors are less likely to be assaulted or raped and less likely to use drugs or disturb neighbors than those who solicit in public.Police estimate the state has at least 40 brothels, often called spas, massage parlors, or health centers, and that the number is growing. Says Providence City Solicitor Joseph Fernandez: "Rhode Island is a great state with many wonderful things, but this is not one of them."
Why not?
The government has no business telling consenting adults what they can and cannot do with their bodies.
It's your body -- you should be allowed to rent it out if you want to. Or sell a kidney. Or smoke pot.
If pot, for example, were legal, it would be more safely smoked, because they'd be talking about ingestion pros and cons all over news websites, telling people to use a vaporizer so as not to suffer the effects of smoke in the lungs.
We all have or had mommies. Government is an unneeded and unwelcome substitute.
Prohibition Continues -- But Not Everywhere
Simon Jenkins writes for The Guardian that Argentina has come to its senses on drugs:
Last week the Argentine supreme court declared in a landmark ruling that it was "unconstitutional" to prosecute citizens for having drugs for their personal use. It asserted in ringing terms that "adults should be free to make lifestyle decisions without the intervention of the state". This classic statement of civil liberty comes not from some liberal British home secretary or Tory ideologue. They would not dare. The doctrine is adumbrated by a regime only 25 years from dictatorship.Nor is that all. The Mexican government has been brought to its knees by a drug-trafficking industry employing some 500,000 workers and policed by 5,600 killings a year, all to supply America's gargantuan appetite and Mexico's lesser one. Three years ago, Mexico concluded that prison for drug possession merely criminalised a large slice of its population. Drug users should be regarded as "patients, not criminals".
Next to the plate step Brazil and Ecuador. Both are quietly proposing to follow suit, fearful only of offending America's drug enforcement bureaucracy, now a dominant presence in every South American capital. Ecuador has pardoned 1,500 "mules" - women used by the gangs to transport cocaine over international borders. Britain, still in the dark ages, locks these pathetic women up in Holloway for years on end.
...America spends a reported $70bn a year on suppressing drug imports, and untold billions on prosecuting its own citizens for drugs offences.
...The underlying concept of the war on drugs, initiated by Richard Nixon in the 1970s, is that demand can be curbed by eliminating supply. It has been enunciated by every US president and every British prime minister.
...This concept marries intellectual idiocy - that supply leads demand - with practical impossibility. But it is golden politics. For 30 years it has allowed western politicians to shift blame for not regulating drug abuse at home on to the shoulders of poor countries abroad. It is gloriously, crashingly immoral.
Decriminalize possession and legalize pot, and tax it as cigarettes and alcohol are taxed, and let those taxes go for rehab and other associated costs that would be (and are) borne by the rest of us.
Enough is enough. Alcohol prohibition didn't work, and drug prohibition isn't working just the same.
The War On Intelligent Drug Policy
The crackdown on sales of cold remedies containing pseudoephedrine has given rise to the "shake and bake" method of meth-making that does away with the meth lab, and uses fewer pills. Now anyone can make their own -- right in the back seat of their car. Jacob Sullum blogs at reason:
The pills are crushed, combined with some common household chemicals and then shaken in the soda bottle. No flame is required.......The downside:
"If there is any oxygen at all in the bottle, it has a propensity to make a giant fireball," said Sgt. Jason Clark of the Missouri State Highway Patrol's Division of Drug and Crime Control. "You're not dealing with rocket scientists here anyway. If they get unlucky at all, it can have a very devastating reaction."
One little mistake, such as unscrewing the bottle cap too fast, can result in a huge blast, and police in Alabama, Oklahoma and other states have linked dozens of flash fires this year--some of them fatal--to meth manufacturing.
"Every meth recipe is dangerous, but in this one, if you don't shake it just right, you can build up too much pressure, and the container can pop," Woodward said.
When fire broke out in older labs, "it was usually on a stove in a back room or garage and people would just run, but when these things pop, you see more extreme burns because they are holding it. There are more fires and more burns because of the close proximity, whether it's on a couch or driving down the road."
After the chemical reaction, what's left is a crystalline powder that users smoke, snort or inject. They often discard the bottle, which now contains a poisonous brown and white sludge. Dozens of reports describe toxic bottles strewn along highways and rural roads in states with the worst meth problems.
From the comments at reason, Abdul writes:
I met a DEA agent who called the pseudoephedrine crackdown the "Mexican Drug Lab Full Employment Act.
Click Till You Drop
Big Labor Day Amazon Kitchen & Home Sale, 
Don't miss this
You can also pre-order my book, I See Rude People: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society
Shopping through my Amazon links on my blog or those on Amy's Mall (or using my Amazon search window there, which credits my account for everything you buy) helps keep me afloat in the downturn in newspapers, and I truly appreciate it.
My book comes out November 27, 2009, and I'm hoping things will start looking up then. (P.S. I'm looking for a great speaking agent, should anyone know of any.)
We're Too Comfortable With Government
John Paulson directed me to a really smart piece, blogged by John Ray at astutebloggers, who blogs about how we drive on government-maintained congested highways, often enroute to pick up their kids at an overcrowded government school, then home to collect their mail from the government-run bankrupt post office:
Simply put: American citizens cannot avoid the pernicious intrusion of government into virtually every facet of their lives. It is pervasive. And it is invasive. Yet, very few people fully understand the long-term consequences of constant government intervention. It is clear that the side effects of ubiquitous government control often causes people to make what many free market advocates might consider irrational decisions about current government programs.For example, when one economist asked MIT Nobel laureate Robert Solow why he was opposed to school choice he said, "It isn't for any economic reason; all the economic reasons favor school vouchers. It is because what made me an American is the United States Army and the public school system." That economist was Dr. Daniel Klein and Solow's reaction is what he calls "The People's Romance."
"The People's Romance" is a phenomenon that draws people to government in a way that allows government to do things to which most people would object were they to step back and take a closer look at the deleterious effects of government usurpation. Through a myriad of common government-owned "focal points" (i.e. roads, postal service, schools), government solidifies its power, which Klein calls "encompassing sentiment coordination."
Once government gains the passive acceptance of a large portion of the population under "The People's Romance," it can do almost anything it wants. One common historical example was Josef Stalin's reign over the Soviet Union. It is clear that he had the subjugated people under one of the strongest "People Romances" in recorded history.
Here, from the WSJ, is how the government mucks up our health care. From a piece by Congressmen John Shadegg and Pete Hoekstra:
Roughly 60% of all health care in America is employer-provided. This third-party payment structure has divorced the consumer--the patient--from the real cost of services. It encourages excess spending, runaway lawsuits, defensive medicine (doctors ordering unnecessary tests and procedures out of fear of being sued), and huge malpractice premiums.President Obama and Democrats in Congress say that a new federal health-care bureaucracy and a so-called public plan is the answer. They are wrong.
Government has caused the problems we face in health care. Our tax code incentivizes employer-provided health care, rewards health insurance companies by insulating them from accountability, and punishes those who lack employer-provided care.
Every night on television there are dozens of commercials from Geico, Progressive, Allstate and other companies offering us better auto insurance at lower costs. But there are virtually no commercials for health insurance. This is because the federal government protects health insurance companies from real competition. Insurers don't have to market to consumers. They only have to satisfy employers. In addition, a person living in New York, for example, is currently only permitted to purchase individual insurance in New York. Allowing competition across state lines would drive down cost tremendously.
We believe the solution to this problem is patient choice. What appears to be a free market in health care today is not. The health-care market is a stacked deck that favors insurance companies rather than patients.
We must stop punishing Americans who buy their own plan by forcing them to purchase their care with after-tax dollars, making it at least one-third more expensive than employer-provided care. Individuals should be able to take their employer's plan, or turn it down and select insurance of their own choosing without any tax penalty.
And then, from the opposite side of the line, there's this nitwittery some vegan sent me something about, that I looked up later -- it's basically a proposal for legalized theft (I mean, more than we already have): Work really hard and pay for some chick to lie on her ass all day smoking pot, only getting up when she gets the munchies so she can go to the grocery store to buy brownies, beer, and Doritos you're paying for.
The basic income guarantee (BIG) is a government insured guarantee that no citizen's income will fall below some minimal level for any reason. All citizens would receive a BIG without means test or work requirement. BIG is an efficient and effective solution to poverty that preserves individual autonomy and work incentives while simplifying government social policy. Some researchers estimate that a small BIG, sufficient to cut the poverty rate in half could be financed without an increase in taxes by redirecting funds from spending programs and tax deductions aimed at maintaining incomes. Click here for more information.
Can We Have Buckley Back?
Patrick Ruffini at The Next Right echoes Jon Henke's call for conservatives "more strongly disavowing outfits like WorldNetDaily that actively peddle Birther nonsense." Ruffini writes:
As a pretty down-the-line conservative, I don't believe I am alone in noting with disappointment the trivialization, excessive sloganeering, and pettiness that has overtaken the movement of late. In "The Joe the Plumberization of the GOP," I argued that conservatives have grown too comfortable with wearing scorn as a badge of honor, content to play sarcastic second fiddle to the dominant culture of academia and Hollywood with second-rate knock-off institutions. A side effect of this has been a tendency to accept conspiracy nuts as a slightly cranky edge case within the broad continuum of conservatism, rather than as a threat to the movement itself.Those advocating a tough stand against the Birthers like to point to William F. Buckley and the Birchers.
In founding National Review, Buckley made a point of casting out the conspiracy nuts and the cranks of his day because he saw them as a fundamental threat to a conservatism that was just emerging as a political force. In doing so, he was able to define conservatism for a generation.
What is interesting about Buckley (and that is so different today) was his ability to align intellectual firepower and a faster march to the Right. Buckley was a man of class and erudition who happened to be more conservative than virtually all of his peers. That's the key point. To the extent we think of intellectuals today, we deride them as creatures of the Left. When they are active within conservative circles, they are discarded as to the left of the movement. The archetypical center-right intellectual today is a guy like Ross Douthat, whose ideas (to be fair) are often outside the conservative mainstream. Most of the party's rising intellectuals are seen as advocating a shift away from social conservative issues, which are still deeply relevant to a critical mass of Americans beyond the two coasts. Back in Buckley's day, it was possible to get 175-proof conservatism in Ivy League flavoring.
Perhaps the intellectual composition of the conservative (or liberal) movement wasn't all that different in Buckley's time, but Buckley provided an ideal -- and set a standard -- for conservatives to position themselves as scholarly thought leaders within the broader culture that simply no longer exists today -- despite numerous conservative academics toiling facelessly in the vineyards. This gave a Buckley the credibility to cast out the movement's lesser lights, and impose a layer of discernment between fact and fiction inside the movement.
via @AllahPundit
Jill The Plumber
Small business owner Catherine Bragg kicks some pandering legislative ass on Obamacare:
She makes a great point about the limited number of insurance companies available to her. This is the kind of problem these idiots should be solving. Free up the free market, and see what competition does to health insurance prices.
I See Media Coverage
This is a moved-up post. Thanks so much for all the tips. If anyone has any more, please post them here, or e-mail me. I have to send in the list on Wednesday.
My book, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society, is coming out November 27, and I need to give the publicity people a list of media outlets and influential bloggers to send my book to.
If you have suggestions, I would be most grateful. (Addresses and e-mail addresses to go with would be especially helpful, but aren't necessary.)
And a note: There are limited review copies, so I can't just blanket the universe, plus I need people to actually buy my book for it to do well, so I can write the next one!
P.S. For anyone else who has a book for sale, or will have, my agent, who's terrific, and whose opinion I greatly respect, e-mailed me yesterday and mentioned two books on publicity: Jacqueline Deval's Publicize Your Book (Updated): An Insider's Guide to Getting Your Book the Attention It Deserves
The French Might Be Commies
But they know a thing or two about love, sex, and relationships (there's no French word for dating). An excerpt, from the Daily Mail, from Debra Ollivier's book (which I've read, and recommend), What French Women Know: About Love, Sex, and Other Matters of the Heart and Mind
In France there is no war of the sexes going on. French men and women actually want to be together. They enjoy their mutual company. They spar. They debate. They flirt.Here's what a French woman would tell you: a man is not a woman. He cannot think like you. He cannot 'process' like you. So don't try to make him like you. And don't have any expectation that he might behave like you.
When British women aren't busy trying to change ourselves, we're often busy trying to change our men. The French attitude is why fight when you can finesse? Why try to modify your mate's behaviour when this futile exercise generally causes stresses?
FRENCH WOMEN FLIRT
Flirtation is not just alive and well in France. It is the lifeblood that beats at the core of French society. Young women flirt. Older women flirt. Feminists flirt. French women not only enjoy flirtation, they expect it.The hint of sexuality that infuses flirtation is not perceived as a threat; on the contrary, it's perceived as a necessary expression of difference.
Men also ask women out in France. The idea of a woman pursuing a man there? Simply unheard of. Ridiculous. Unnecessary.
Yet, my French friend Christelle Laffin, an adorable French journo living in America, just sold a book in France about her time in Los Angeles. The title? "No Sex In Zee City." And that's pretty much what she experienced. Here she is, an adorable, accomplished, nice, smart, fun, cultured girl -- and then there's another friend of mine who reminds me of a young Sophia Loren, and other equally desirable women -- and American men won't even approach them, let alone ask them out. Totally different experience in France -- one men here would do well to emulate.
Should We Be In Afghanistan?
McClatchy military columnist Joseph L. Galloway suggests we run the question through the old "Powell Doctrine," and we'll see Afghanistan isn't worth one more American life. Here goes:
1. Is a vital national security interest threatened? 2. Do we have a clear, attainable objective? 3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed? 4. Have all non-violent policy means been exhausted? 5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement? 6. Have all the consequences of our action been fully considered? 7. Is the action supported by the American people? 8. Do we have broad international support?It can fairly be argued that not a single affirmative answer can be given to Gen. Powell's eight questions with regard to the actions now planned or underway in Afghanistan. Had those questions been asked about Iraq in early 2003, not a single affirmative answer could have been given.
There was, in the beginning in Afghanistan, a vital national security interest in toppling the Taliban government and killing or capturing the Taliban's murderous guests, Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorists. We toppled the Taliban, but we let al Qaida flee over the rugged, mountainous border into Pakistan.
Even before that, we began to let Afghanistan fester, starved of U.S. manpower and money, and turned our attention to Iraq, where Rumsfeld had estimated that victory would be ours and our troops would be home in six months or so.
We no longer have a vital national security interest or a clearly attainable goal in Afghanistan. Our stated goal is to deny any future sanctuary to al Qaida in Afghanistan - but al Qaida isn't based in Afghanistan and hasn't been for years.
Ayn Rand Institute supports a somewhat different take:
"Washington failed to eradicate the terrorist-sponsoring Taliban and to make Afghanistan a non-threatening regime, because its battle plans are shaped by the moral code of self-sacrifice," says Elan Journo, a fellow at the Ayn Rand Center."Instead of waging a ruthless war of self-defense, Washington pulled its punches in the air bombing and ground war--for fear of upsetting Afghans and Muslims elsewhere. By embracing a 'compassionate' war, Washington renounced victory.
"America's security depends on identifying precisely the enemy that threatens our lives--and then crushing it, rendering it a non-threat. It depends on proudly defending our right to live free of foreign aggression--by unapologetically killing the killers who want us dead."
Our Elected Sluts
They're promiscuous with our money. They suck up general taxpayer funds to bribe for votes in their own district, and in John Murtha's case, also to set himself up with his very own airport that flies only to Washington, D.C. Tyler Grimm writes for the WSJ:
If you hate the hubbub of crowded airports, you might want to consider flying out of Johnstown, Pa. The airport sees an average of fewer than 30 people per day, there is never a wait for security, you can park for free right outside the gate, and you are almost guaranteed a row to yourself on any flight.You might wonder how the region ever had the air traffic demand to justify such a facility. It didn't. But it is located in the district of one of Congress's most unapologetic earmarkers: Democrat John Murtha.
In 20 years, Mr. Murtha has successfully doled out more than $150 million of federal payments to what is now being called the airport for no one. I took a trip to southwestern Pennsylvania to explore how this small town received so much money and whether the John Murtha Airport is a legitimate federal investment.
...There are a total of 18 flights per week, all of which go to Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. I was visiting the airport from Washington, but because flights cost a pricey $400, I drove. The drive took less than three and a half hours and cost about $35 in gas--not to mention that it was arguably faster than flying. And this isn't a remote area of the state: Murtha airport is less than two hours from the Pittsburgh airport.
Disgustingly, anti-earmarkers like Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake are the outcasts in politics, when they're the good guys who should be getting elected, especially as we've got a president trying to spend like some Hollywood wife with a bottomless allowance.
Homo Sapien Pride
Zora Neale Hurston was way ahead of her time -- a post-racial lady living in a just-post-slavery world. John H. McWhorter writes on CIty Journal:
To many today, Hurston's impatience with groupthink suggests an underlying discomfort with being black. But for Hurston, it was a simple matter of inner pride. Her anthropological and literary work puts paid to the slightest question of whether she loved black culture and her own people. Yet she still understood that seeking individual validation in race "pride" amounted mostly to smoke and mirrors:
Now, suppose a Negro does something really magnificent, and I glory, not in the benefit to mankind, but in the fact that the doer was a Negro. Must I not also go hang my head in shame when a member of my race does something execrable? . . . The white race did not go into a laboratory and invent incandescent light. That was Edison. . . . If you are under the impression that every white man is an Edison, just look around a bit.Hurston would likely irk many today with skepticism about the black community's pride in Barack Obama's election. She would also have no patience for the slavery reparations movement that flowered most recently in the early 2000s, in the wake of Randall Robinson's best-selling manifesto The Debt (see "Reparations, R.I.P.," Autumn 2008). When slavery was recent enough for her to have interviewed former slaves, she even went as far as asserting, "Slavery is the price I paid for civilization."
...Hurston did not live long enough to offer her two cents on affirmative action, but she gave ample hints of how she would have responded to universities' lowering standards based on pigmentation:
It seems to me that if I say a whole system must be upset for me to win, I am saying that I cannot sit in the game, and that safer rules must be made to give me a chance. I repudiate that. If others are in there, deal me a hand and let me see what I can make of it, even though I know some in there are dealing from the bottom and cheating like hell in other ways.Italics mine: she knew that life was never perfect, but she counseled blacks to make the best of themselves nevertheless, rather than shouting from the rooftops that human nature must change first. She knew that when it comes to ability, assertion cannot stand up to demonstration: "Equality is as you do it and not as you talk it. If you are better than I, you can tell me about it if you want to, but then again, show me so I can know. . . . If you can't show me your superiority, don't bother to bring the mess up, lest I merely rate you as a bully."
McWhorter's book: Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America
Cell Phone Karma
Loved this.
Expressing Your Opinion Is Now "Obstruction Of Justice"
Anything to prop up that "war on drugs" -- which, in the case of patients suffering terrible pain, turns out to be a war on them getting relief from living in hell day after day. Harvey A. Silvergate writes on Forbes:
Sean Greenwood, who for more than a decade suffered from a rare but debilitating connective tissue disorder, finally found a remedy. William Hurwitz, a Virginia doctor, prescribed the high doses of pain relief medicine necessary for Greenwood to be able to function day-to-day.Yet when federal agents raided Hurwitz's clinic in 2003 and charged the pain management specialist with illegal drug trafficking, Greenwood's short-lived return to normalcy ended. He couldn't find another doctor willing to treat his pain--the chances were too good that the "narcs" and the federal prosecutors who work with them would assert impossibly vague federal criminal drug laws. Three years later, Greenwood died from a brain hemorrhage, likely brought on by the blood pressure build-up from years of untreated pain.
Greenwood's wife, Siobhan Reynolds, decided to fight back. In 2003 she founded the Pain Relief Network (PRN), a group of activists, doctors and patients who oppose the federal government's tyranny over pain relief specialists.
Now, the PRN's campaign to raise public awareness of pain-doctor prosecutions has made Reynolds herself the target of drug warriors. Prosecutors in Wichita have asked a federal grand jury to decide whether Reynolds engaged in "obstruction of justice" for her role in seeking to create public awareness, and to otherwise assist the defense, in an ongoing prosecution of Kansas pain relief providers. The feds' message is clear: In the pursuit of pain doctors, private citizen-activists--not just physicians--will be targeted.
...On Sept. 3, a federal judge will decide whether to enforce this subpoena, which Reynolds' lawyers have sought to invalidate on free speech and other grounds. The citizen's liberty to loudly and publicly oppose the drug warriors' long-running reign of terror on the medical profession and its patients should not be in question. Rather, the question should be how the federal government has managed to accumulate the power to punish doctors who, in good faith, are attempting to alleviate excruciating pain in their patients.
Silvergate has a book just out that sounds like it could be good -- Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent
via Insty
Obstinate Idiots Seek Rescue
From LA Times' Corina Knoll, blogging on the fires from Hansen Dam, Gold Canyon residents who refused to be evacuated now want firefighters to risk their asses to save them:
The problem is there is no way to get to them. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department considered sending a helicopter up to get them, but fire officials advised it would be too dangerous.Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said the department is now monitoring conditions and figuring out how to get them.
Officials have expressed concern over the last few days about residents refusing to evacuate their homes as the Station fire moves through. In Big Tujunga Canyon on Saturday, three people were burned when they tried to protect their homes from the flames. Two of them tried to evade the fire by jumping into a hot tub.
Death by genius?
Probably not. Chances are, firefighters' lives will be endangered and thousands upon thousands of dollars will be spent to rescue these jerks. Dollars this state doesn't have to spend.
I'm reminded of the recent news from France, that they're going to make their nitwit citizenry who go to hostile territory pay for their own rescue.
Pony up, morons!
"I Leave My Wheelchair Behind Up In The Air"
Tammy Duckworth, a former Black Hawk helicopter pilot who lost both her legs to a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq, won't let herself be grounded, writes Katherine Skiba in the LA Times:
On the flight one recent Sunday, she's accompanied by a flight instructor and wears only one artificial leg. It's for her left leg, which still has a knee. The single prosthesis works both rudder pedals, making for some fancy footwork at 2,000 feet.What remains of her right leg is three inches of femur, and its full-length prosthesis "gets in the way" while flying. "It's too high an amputation," she said.
For 85 minutes, Duckworth carves the skies, traveling up to 109 mph, and practices turns, stalls and landings. Elementary maneuvers for a student pilot, but exhilarating.
"It's joy when I'm back in the aircraft and I'm up in the air," she said, "because this is what I used to do."
Duckworth had logged more than 1,000 hours of flight time over 11 years and had won promotion to major in the Illinois National Guard when her part-time career in military aviation came to an abrupt, fiery halt on Nov. 12, 2004.
An insurgent blasted her helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade that ripped through the cockpit floor and left her body a bloody tangle of flesh and bone. The other pilot got the damaged aircraft down.
Duckworth's legs were gravely injured and her right arm was practically severed. In Baghdad, a vascular surgeon operated through the night to salvage the arm. "He wasn't about to let me be a triple amputee," she said.
By her husband's estimate, it took 20 units of blood to keep her alive. At one point her heart gave out. "There's no earthly reason I should have survived," she said.
Working today in Washington, she is not self-conscious about her wounds or high-tech prostheses, favoring skirts and short-sleeved blazers. She walks with two artificial legs and a cane or she uses a wheelchair.
..."I never thought some guy . . . in Iraq should change my life's plan for me," she said. "That's for me to decide. Not just some dude who got lucky and shot me down."
Women Need To Flirt
Just posted another Advice Goddess column -- for a woman who doesn't understand why a guy she's got a crush on, but who she's given nary a signal of it to, hasn't pursued her. An excerpt:
Although you're utterly overwhelmed by the prospect of rejection, you seem to think it's easy for guys, that they just say to themselves, "Oh, look! It's human and wearing a bra. I think I'll ask it out!" Unless you're stunning -- in which case, all you have to do is exist in a guy's eyeline -- you need to let him know you're open for business; specifically, his. But, you don't just march up and blurt out "I like you. Do you like me?" -- which is about as alluring as "Drop by some afternoon so I can give you genital herpes."Asking a guy out is another lousy idea. Men will tell you they're fine with it -- just as they're subconsciously knocking you from an 8 to a 3.6 for doing it. Because sex is more costly for a woman -- potentially leading to nine months of pregnancy, then a kid to drag around -- women evolved to be the choosier sex and men evolved to value choosy women, and to apply to be chosen. This isn't to say all the work should be left to men. It's your job to flirt with a guy, signaling that if he asked you out, you wouldn't scream "Rape!", fall on the floor laughing, or report him to Human Resources and have him demoted to crossing guard.
Comments are live at the link above.
Welcome To The "Art Farms"
NPR's Neal Conan interviews Charlotte Allen about her LA Times op-ed criticizing Ellen Ruppel Shell's new book, Cheap
The latest cheerleader for higher prices is Ellen Ruppel Shell, a professor of science journalism at Boston University who has just published a book titled "Cheap." It's not a guide to bargain-hunting. The theme of Shell's book, subtitled "The High Cost of Discount Culture," is "America's dangerous liaison with Cheap."Shell's argument goes like this: Shopping at discount stores, factory outlets and, of course, Wal-Mart (no work of social criticism is complete without a drive-by shooting aimed at that chain) exploits Chinese factory workers (who would much rather be back on the collective farm wearing their Mao suits) and degrades the environment because much of the low-price junk wears out and ends up in landfills.
...Demanding that other people impoverish themselves, especially these days, in the name of your pet cause -- fostering craftsmanship, feeling "connected" to the land, "living more lightly on the planet" or whatever -- goes way beyond Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat cake." It's more like Marie Antoinette dressing up in her shepherdess costume and holding court in a fake rustic cottage at the Petit Trianon.
An excerpt from Conan's interview of Allen:
CONAN: ...Aren't these people just trying to find a better way?Ms. ALLEN: Well, sure they are, but the things that they tell people to find a better way are basically impossible given what most people have, for example, to spend on food. We have Alice Waters, for example, crusading that everyone should buy all their food at farmers markets. You shouldn't buy food that's grown more than 100 miles away, which is great for Californians where everything grows everywhere, not so great if you'll live on the East Coast, as I do.
You go to a farmers market - I found some prices, for example, at the one closest to my home. You'll pay, for example, $4 a pound for tomatoes, 2.49 at the Safeway. You'll pay an outrageous $6 for a half pint of artisanal gelato that was advertised. That's $6 for a cup of ice cream, barely enough to feed two people.
CONAN: I think I decoded the word artisanal. It means 50 percent extra.
Ms. ALLEN: Yes, it does. I think that's exactly what it means. And what's happened - I mean, it's sort of crazy. Back, say, in the old days, there have always been farmers markets, farm stands, road-side stands where farmers have sold their produce, and it's usually, actually, a bit cheaper than what you can get at the supermarket, and better tasting.
Now, you've got all these artisanal sustainable farms. I call them art farms. They're little boutique farms that grow very expensive stuff. They have eco-conscious green names, like - they'll have a name like Eco Acres or Sustainable Hills, and they'll have some special dairy product or whatever. And they're just way out of the price range. They're great. The food's really, really good, but it's stuff that most people can't afford. What's unfortunate is that we live in a country with just a plethora of affordable food. Go to the Safeway and - good quality beef for not too much money.
CONAN: And this is something that you seem to - you're very funny about it in your piece, and it's good, but you almost resent the fact that these people want you to pay more when you could pay less.
Ms. ALLEN: When you - yeah, when you could and can pay less, especially since we've got a recession going on, the worst recession since the Great Depression. You've also got ordinary food prices going up because of fuel prices last year. And so - and to ask people who are already trying to stretch their food dollars to say go without an extra pair of Nike sneakers or go without a cell phone, which is what Alice Waters told the New York Times, it just seems absurd.
CONAN: Other people, though, say - in terms of Ellen Ruppel Shell, one of the things she was talking about is all of these cheap products come from places - well, manufactured, many of them in China, where workers are exploited.
Ah yes...we'll again turn to The New York Times' John Tierney for how that works for the "exploited" workers:
Has any organization in the world lifted more people out of poverty than Wal-Mart?...There's a limit to how much money villagers can make selling eggs to one another -- a thatched ceiling, as Michael Strong calls it. Strong, the head of Flow, a nonprofit group promoting entrepreneurship abroad, is a fan of the Grameen Bank, but he figures that villagers can lift themselves out of poverty much faster by getting a job in a factory.
The best way for third world villagers to tap "the vast pipeline of wealth from the developed world," he argued in a recent TCSDaily.com article, is to sell their products to the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart. Strong challenged anyone to name an organization that is doing more to alleviate third world poverty than Wal-Mart.
So far he's gotten a lot of angry responses from Wal-Mart's critics, but nobody has come up with a convincing nomination for a more effective antipoverty organization. And certainly none that saves money for Americans at the same time it's helping foreigners.
Making toys or shoes for Wal-Mart in a Chinese or Latin American factory may sound like hell to American college students -- and some factories should treat their workers much better, as Strong readily concedes. But there are good reasons that villagers will move hundreds of miles for a job.
Most "sweatshop" jobs -- even ones paying just $2 per day -- provide enough to lift a worker above the poverty level, and often far above it, according to a study of 10 Asian and Latin American countries by Benjamin Powell and David Skarbek. In Honduras, the economists note, the average apparel worker makes $13 a day, while nearly half the population makes less than $2 a day.
Equal Rights Stop At The Divorce Court Door
I got an e-mail from Fathers & Families' Glenn Sacks last night about an AP piece on renegotiating child support payments in the economic downturn:
The AP piece details Lavine's case, which is a textbook example of what is wrong with the current child support system. Lavine is being turned into a "deadbeat dad" and possibly becoming criminalized, yet his kids live with him 50% of the time.Lavine worked in the Real Estate industry and had a $1,100 a month child support obligation based on a $4,500 a month income. Like so many in the Real Estate industry, his income evaporated, and now he's earning about $1,500 a month repairing jet skis. Yet the Florida Department of Children and Families told him his industry was going to bounce back and refused to give him a modification. So instead of protecting his children-who are currently in a functional, supportive shared custody arrangement-the state is instead going to ruin one of these children's parents. Who benefits from this?
Oh, Hurl!
I am not making this up. I wish I were -- then it would be funny. There's actually a "chief diversity officer" at the FCC. And it's as creepy as it sounds. Forget what the marketplace says people want to hear. According to Investors Business Daily, Mark Lloyd, a disciple of Saul Alinsky and a fan of Hugo Chavez, sees free speech as a distraction, and wants to force broadcasters to air unprofitable programming:
Lloyd wants to restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations and ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing. The kicker is he would also require owners who refuse to give up profitable air time in the name of "localism" to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.He proposes using the existing FCC "localism" requirement, which can mean anything from running more public service announcements to putting Janeane Garofalo on after Rush Limbaugh. Local community organizers would be encouraged to harass conservative stations by filing complaints with the FCC.
He essentially proposes extorting money from broadcasters who have the audacity to air the likes of Beck, Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham, all of whom have competed in the marketplace of ideas and won in the ratings, and use it to fund those outfits nobody wants to listen to -- like NPR and Air America.
As Lloyd writes, the "part of our proposal that gets the dittoheads (Rush Limbaugh fans) upset is our suggestion that the commercial radio station owners either play by the rules or pay." Or worse.
The FCC could then say they had enough justification to revoke a station's license if they didn't comply or pay a fee. In true Alinsky style, shut them up by shutting them down.
Lloyd praises Hugo Chavez's "incredible revolution" in Venezuela and the way "Chavez began to take very seriously the media in his country" by imposing restraints on cable TV and revoking the licenses of more than 200 radio stations" that insufficiently toed the Chavez party line.
Lloyd long ago declared war on unbridled talk radio and cable news. He wrote that "our work was not simply convincing policy makers of the logic and morality of our arguments. We understood that we were in a struggle for power against an opponent, the commercial broadcasters."
When Mark Lloyd talks about diversity, it is not diversity of opinion. As in the '60s sci-fi series, "Outer Limits," his advice is to "sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear."
