So Obama has won. Why do I still think about that Woody Allen quote, the one about the two roads we face (one to total calamity and horrible suffering, the other to total disaster, let us hope we have the wisdom to choose wisely yada yada). As of this writing, the Republicans have forty Senate seats, the Democrats have 56. Apparently four are too close to call.
Now, the Senate is crucial, because the Republicans had made the most of their 49 seats in last couple of years to block a lot of legislation. They may still do that if they have as little as one seat over forty. This could mean that a lot of Obama's proposals are DOA in Congress. Which may not be an absolutely bad thing, given the state of the economy. How we got so much in debt may not be as important as how we handle it from here on out. Obama’s proposal are ambitious, and will cost a lot of money.
On the other hand, we know from the great depression that investment in America yields good results. We know that too from the interstate highway system (which now needs reinvestment badly). Obama has said he wants to invest in the highway system, in American health care, in alternative energy (including working on the all important electric grid), and also make a general investment in America by improving secondary and making higher education more affordable and therefore more accessible. Down the line these kinds of investment could yield results that help us tackle our debt with a stronger economy. Trying to save money now, by contrast, might leave us weaker in the future.
But there is no guarantee that it is Obama’s proposals we would see moving through Congress, if the Democrats had 60 votes. Whether or not you think Obama is socialist, I strongly suspect there are more radical Congresspersons who might advance some problematic legislation, much higher taxes on capital gains than Obama has proposed, much higher spending on pet projects than Obama has proposed, an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, etc. I only vaguely remember 1993 politically, but I know we have been living through the fallout ever since.
It would be nice if one of the campaign promises both sides made, about ending partisan rancor and reaching across the aisle, could actually be kept. The Democrats did not filibuster much of any of President Bush’s legislation after 9/11. If the Democrats don’t reach 60 seats in the Senate, it would be nice if the Republicans could consider signing on to at least part of Obama’s agenda, and letting Obama know ahead of time. Then some legislation could be passed swiftly and then the rest could be debated nationally. If the Democrats reach that 60 seat number in the Senate, then it is possible the midterms will look like 1994
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Sunday, November 02, 2008
The fallout from the choice ...
Since it seems more and more likely Obama will be elected, I wanted to look ahead a little. The fact that Obama refuses to admit that he will have to scale back his programs some in the face of the financial crisis tells me that a)Obama did not believe Jessica Lange when she told a disguised Dustin Hoffman that she just wanted to meet an honest man, and b)Obama has mastered the politician's trick of answering the question he wants to answer it, and in the way he wants to answer it. Which is to say Obama doesn't trust us enough to think we will still vote for him if he tells us the truth. And I can't blame him, it didn't work for Paul Tsongas.
But that leaves us with a question. Is Obama up to the tough job of saying no to Congress (or does he even recognize the coming need to do that). I vaguely remember a story (possibly from the West Wing) about a basketball player, possibly Wilt Chamberlin, who when he moved up to professional basketball was getting fouled left and right. His coach told him he would need to throw an elbow. Chamberlin, raised to be fair player, objected. The coach said, if you throw that one elbow, that will be enough.
Now, like I said, my memory of the story is vague and probably wrong, but I think the lesson could be valuable. Obama may need to veto an extravagant democratic initiative early. Maybe a spending bill with excessive pork, or that is just totally pork. The risk is the Democrats would punish Obama, but it might be worth it.
Now, there is another very related question in the up coming election, whether the Democrats will get 60 votes in the Senate or not. And I don’t know what to hope for. If the Democrats got 58 votes, they could lobby Olympia Snowe or Arlen Specter only on the important votes, for education and infrastructure, for Iraq and for the really important parts of the tax cuts, the increases in the EIC and tax increases on the rich. The rest of it they could let the Republicans threaten to filibuster and have some of the same problems as now. It would slow down government, which might make everybody publicly outraged and secretly happy.
Meanwhile, the biggest story here tomorrow may be the brown wrapper your Post-Gazette comes wrapped in.
But that leaves us with a question. Is Obama up to the tough job of saying no to Congress (or does he even recognize the coming need to do that). I vaguely remember a story (possibly from the West Wing) about a basketball player, possibly Wilt Chamberlin, who when he moved up to professional basketball was getting fouled left and right. His coach told him he would need to throw an elbow. Chamberlin, raised to be fair player, objected. The coach said, if you throw that one elbow, that will be enough.
Now, like I said, my memory of the story is vague and probably wrong, but I think the lesson could be valuable. Obama may need to veto an extravagant democratic initiative early. Maybe a spending bill with excessive pork, or that is just totally pork. The risk is the Democrats would punish Obama, but it might be worth it.
Now, there is another very related question in the up coming election, whether the Democrats will get 60 votes in the Senate or not. And I don’t know what to hope for. If the Democrats got 58 votes, they could lobby Olympia Snowe or Arlen Specter only on the important votes, for education and infrastructure, for Iraq and for the really important parts of the tax cuts, the increases in the EIC and tax increases on the rich. The rest of it they could let the Republicans threaten to filibuster and have some of the same problems as now. It would slow down government, which might make everybody publicly outraged and secretly happy.
Meanwhile, the biggest story here tomorrow may be the brown wrapper your Post-Gazette comes wrapped in.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The Choice ...
So there have been all sorts of charges leveled at Barack Obama. That he was born in Kenya (the latest I have heard), that he is a secret communist or fascist, that he learned about politics in some fashion from one (or more) of maybe a dozen shadowy figures; William Ayres, Jeremiah Wright, or several other names I have heard in passing. The he wants to take money from the rich and give it to the poor (that accusation may have more traction). I wonder if it is all just because he is black. Obama seems to be doing much better than John Kerry was at this point. The American people seemed fed up with George Bush in 2004, but John Kerry seemed no better than a conventional choice, and in fact turned out to be something of weenie. In my opinion Barack Obama is also something of a weenie, but he wears it better. Obama comes off as a faculty member who has spent a lot of time trying pro bono cases, and has actually seen enough poverty to be able to think of it both in particular and make some generalizations. He also seems like a politician, in his way just as sharp as Sarah Palin but also able to hold his own (so to speak) with the likes of Daniel Moynihan. Could Obama be a communist? I suppose it could have been something that interested him in his youth, I really don’t know. But Obama seems to want to be President, seems very ambitious. I can’t believe any serious candidate for President would actually believe he could turn the United States into a communist nation. Obama has already promised to tax the rich and borrow from our future to put more money into the hands of both the poor and the middle class. So he would accomplish some symbolic wealth redistribution from the rich to the poor, and I am sure that would be satisfying to him.
And on the note I want to look at the Choice. I haven’t said anything about John McCain yet in part because no charges have been leveled against him apart from the obvious. He’s old. He’s temperamental. He’s become somewhat erratic, as evidenced in the debates and his appearance on Meet the Press last Sunday (whether you think he is erratic might be a matter of personal perspective, after all, all politicians answer the questions they want to, not the questions their asked). His choice of running mates raises questions. But the most important thing about John McCain to me is that if elected he will face an opposition Congress. Most of McCain’s promises will be DOA in the Congress. McCain’s promise to eliminate earmarks will be defeated by veto proof majorities on spending bills (the one thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on, spending on themselves). If the Democrats don’t get 60 seats in the Senate the Republicans will continue to block a lot of legislation (this is true no matter who gets elected). So the country will drift along, with out any serious policy initiatives, much like the last eight years. Maybe there will be some peripheral stuff on education or immigration. Maybe.
If Obama is elected, his presidency will be affected by that 60 seat factor in the Senate. If the Democrats have 56 seats in the Senate, things are likely to proceed as they have, with Republicans blocking many measures. If they are closer, at 58 or 59 seats, then we will see what kind of arm twister Obama is, how good he is at influencing public opinion on specific issues, and using it to bring pressure to bear. He may have a shot at making Chuck Hegal or Olympia Snowe (or both) the de facto 60th Democrat. Possibly even Arlen Specter may be persuaded to vote with the Democrats, although he is a lot more conservative than people think. Obama may get parts of his agenda passed in this case.
If the Democrats do get 60 seats in the Senate, we should expect to see most or all of Obama’s agenda come into law. If well organized, and if the parts that create infrastructure jobs are set up first, they may have a good effect on the economy. If it were up to me, Obama could skip parts of the middle class tax cut, but it isn’t up to me. The only question is how far Democrats would go in their legislative spree. They’ve been frustrated for 16 years, so they may be out of practice, but I suspect they might instead try to make up for lost time. It’s not the laws like new CAFÉ standards or laws expanding the powers of unions to organize I would mind. It would be new spending initiatives that would bother me. I worry that Obama would feel obliged to sign everything, since after all it would be coming from his party. He might need to throw an elbow early on, veto a piece of legislation, just to get a point across. Unfortunately I doubt he would.
So that is the Choice, in my estimate. Our one little vote each of us has will probably not make any real difference. But the election will likely be close (I think, despite some of the polls), so we probably should get out their and vote our conscience.
And on the note I want to look at the Choice. I haven’t said anything about John McCain yet in part because no charges have been leveled against him apart from the obvious. He’s old. He’s temperamental. He’s become somewhat erratic, as evidenced in the debates and his appearance on Meet the Press last Sunday (whether you think he is erratic might be a matter of personal perspective, after all, all politicians answer the questions they want to, not the questions their asked). His choice of running mates raises questions. But the most important thing about John McCain to me is that if elected he will face an opposition Congress. Most of McCain’s promises will be DOA in the Congress. McCain’s promise to eliminate earmarks will be defeated by veto proof majorities on spending bills (the one thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on, spending on themselves). If the Democrats don’t get 60 seats in the Senate the Republicans will continue to block a lot of legislation (this is true no matter who gets elected). So the country will drift along, with out any serious policy initiatives, much like the last eight years. Maybe there will be some peripheral stuff on education or immigration. Maybe.
If Obama is elected, his presidency will be affected by that 60 seat factor in the Senate. If the Democrats have 56 seats in the Senate, things are likely to proceed as they have, with Republicans blocking many measures. If they are closer, at 58 or 59 seats, then we will see what kind of arm twister Obama is, how good he is at influencing public opinion on specific issues, and using it to bring pressure to bear. He may have a shot at making Chuck Hegal or Olympia Snowe (or both) the de facto 60th Democrat. Possibly even Arlen Specter may be persuaded to vote with the Democrats, although he is a lot more conservative than people think. Obama may get parts of his agenda passed in this case.
If the Democrats do get 60 seats in the Senate, we should expect to see most or all of Obama’s agenda come into law. If well organized, and if the parts that create infrastructure jobs are set up first, they may have a good effect on the economy. If it were up to me, Obama could skip parts of the middle class tax cut, but it isn’t up to me. The only question is how far Democrats would go in their legislative spree. They’ve been frustrated for 16 years, so they may be out of practice, but I suspect they might instead try to make up for lost time. It’s not the laws like new CAFÉ standards or laws expanding the powers of unions to organize I would mind. It would be new spending initiatives that would bother me. I worry that Obama would feel obliged to sign everything, since after all it would be coming from his party. He might need to throw an elbow early on, veto a piece of legislation, just to get a point across. Unfortunately I doubt he would.
So that is the Choice, in my estimate. Our one little vote each of us has will probably not make any real difference. But the election will likely be close (I think, despite some of the polls), so we probably should get out their and vote our conscience.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
ACORN on KDKA
I finally caught the KD/PG Sunday edition today, at it’s punted football season time of 8:30 am on Sundays. I’m glad I did because they had representatives of ACORN on, two women, one the local director and the other a woman who came to ACORN because her house is being foreclosed on and stayed to become a member and help others (both white, by the way). Ken Rice was able to ask them why they hate America and tear them apart, exposing them for the fascist communists they are … OK, actually not. They did talk about John McCain’s accusations against ACORN, and ACORN did not apologize. What they did say is what I have heard in a few places plus a bit more. The director talked about how they hire workers to register voters, and they hire from the low and middle income communities because ACORN wants to help low and middle income people, and they hire a lot of them. So some of them don’t do the job they are supposed to, and to the extent they are identified they are fired and ACORN may turn the workers name over to the county board of elections for prosecution (ACORN warns its workers when they are hired that this could happen). ACORN tries to call the phone number on the voter registration form three times, and if they don’t get the voter they flag the form with a cover sheet describing the possible problem. The director said she thinks it is illegal for ACORN to simply destroy voter registration forms they think are fraudulent, but she says that all the ones where they can’t contact someone they flag. She didn’t say what her criteria for flagging a registration form is. After all, there may be more than one Jerome Bettis and is likely more than one William Parker living in Pittsburgh, and if they answer the phone … So ACORN says it does its due diligence with regard to voter registration. I can see how that would work, too, in the sense that ACORN probably gets grants for its voter registration work, and probably hires as many people as it can. So it justifies hiring phone bank workers evenings and weekends by saying they have to verify registrations.
But let’s face it, you can see how the voter fraud operation would work. This could be done by communists working on their own, but it would be easiest to use the communist front operation ACORN. After filing out voter registrations forms with several different names at real addresses scattered over several different districts in the city (you would use apartment buildings, and load as many as twenty names maybe into a single apartment – any more would clog the mail box), ACORN would turn the registrations into the county board of elections at the last moment. ACORN would use the excuse that it had to verify registrations, but mostly it would be overwhelming the Board of Elections that the Democrats specifically under-funded to prepare for this day. On election day, operatives would drive from polling place to polling place, flooding the voting machines with Obama votes, using identification papers created by skilled communist forgers. When Obama took office, he would immediately rescind the second amendment, seize all the guns the Democrats had been keeping track of, and enslave us all. My Friends …
Sorry, got caught up in that a bit. It is theoretically possible that ACORN could be part of a big conspiracy to win the election for Obama. It would only work once, though, since the City of Pittsburgh would suddenly have many more voters than it had residents identified by census. And it would be hard to pull this fraud off in rural counties, where the distances between polling places is further and people are more likely to know each other. It is basically a silly idea. A number of people have talked about how it is possible to hack into electronic voting machines, or perhaps into the database that records votes. That would seem to be an easier way to get a lot more bang for your buck, and if I were trying to rig an election, that would be the way I would go. A few people throwing the election would have to be better than thousands of operatives, any one of which could expose the plot.
I want to talk about the woman whose house was foreclosed on, and about income redistribution in general, but I think I will save that for another day.
But let’s face it, you can see how the voter fraud operation would work. This could be done by communists working on their own, but it would be easiest to use the communist front operation ACORN. After filing out voter registrations forms with several different names at real addresses scattered over several different districts in the city (you would use apartment buildings, and load as many as twenty names maybe into a single apartment – any more would clog the mail box), ACORN would turn the registrations into the county board of elections at the last moment. ACORN would use the excuse that it had to verify registrations, but mostly it would be overwhelming the Board of Elections that the Democrats specifically under-funded to prepare for this day. On election day, operatives would drive from polling place to polling place, flooding the voting machines with Obama votes, using identification papers created by skilled communist forgers. When Obama took office, he would immediately rescind the second amendment, seize all the guns the Democrats had been keeping track of, and enslave us all. My Friends …
Sorry, got caught up in that a bit. It is theoretically possible that ACORN could be part of a big conspiracy to win the election for Obama. It would only work once, though, since the City of Pittsburgh would suddenly have many more voters than it had residents identified by census. And it would be hard to pull this fraud off in rural counties, where the distances between polling places is further and people are more likely to know each other. It is basically a silly idea. A number of people have talked about how it is possible to hack into electronic voting machines, or perhaps into the database that records votes. That would seem to be an easier way to get a lot more bang for your buck, and if I were trying to rig an election, that would be the way I would go. A few people throwing the election would have to be better than thousands of operatives, any one of which could expose the plot.
I want to talk about the woman whose house was foreclosed on, and about income redistribution in general, but I think I will save that for another day.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Joe the plumber, senator, independent/democrat, etc
Joe the plumber is starting to irritate me. It's not because he is a real guy, or that he turns out to be something of a real fraud, but because he is being described and is still being described as a symbol. Joe says the business he works for makes $250,000 to $280,000 a year, he says he would like to buy the business, and he asks why Obama is against the "American Dream". By the way, I have not watched, nor do I want to watch, the YouTube video of the back and forth between Joe and Obama. But I have watched what other people are saying about Joe, how he is now an important symbol. On the show Off Q, the two Republicans were arguing fiercely that Obama's (unfortunate and yet accurate for Joe) comment to Joe that we need to share the wealth. The Republican's were asking why would you tell people you were taking their money away for other people who don't work as hard as you do. On Washington Week, Doyle McManus was saying it didn't matter what Joe's actual circumstances are, what is important is his role as a symbol.
So apparently Joe was misrepresenting himself to the world. He was characterized as undecided and independent, when in fact he is apparently a long time Republican. I have heard the plumbing company does not make nearly as much as was claimed, and/or that if two men are sharing the revenue, then the 280,000 becomes less, maybe 230,000 and 50,000 or a more equal number. Either way, the owner of the company is not making the quarter of a million dollars that Joe apparently claimed he was anticipating. Based on what I know personally about taxes, it is possible that an individual could be set up as an individual corporation or some kind of partnership. But if you fill out a schedule C in your income tax, you are supposed to claim those expenses like supplies, equipment and depreciation, advertising, health insurance for yourself and any employees, etc, these things reduce your income for tax purposes. So Joe's whole problem is a red herring. Seeing him as a symbol of blue collar ambition is a lie. Plus he looks like a Republican plant, or at the very least, an opportunist. And he owes the State back taxes and is not currently a registered plumber and may be penalized for the attention that has been drawn to him.
So the symbol is a fraud. And that is really, really important. Why? Because incomes between the people at the top (say the top ten percent) and people at the bottom (the lower 90% or so) are showing an increasing gap for the last fifty years or so (with maybe some time off during Democratic administration). The "American Dream" is that anyone can work hard and succeed and have a pretty comfortable life or maybe even get wealthy, like Joe was saying he wanted to do. And Joe was asking Obama why he wanted to ruin Joe's dream (with the extra 4% of taxes). Joe's point is that electing Obama will end the American Dream for all of us.
But it's not true. We need to look seriously at what Obama's tax policy will do for us, what "spreading the wealth around" means. It would mean for poorer people, they will have a few more dollars back when they file their taxes (a few will cannily adjust their with-holding to take advantage of the new tax policy, but most will just save with Uncle Sam). They will also have incentive with a higher tax credit for education to get more or perhaps any training or education. And the people who provide some of the money to do all this will be the richer among us, the professionals who did work hard for their money like lawyers, doctors and businessmen. They do work hard and apparently many of them don't like giving their money to people who didn't have to work for it. But we should note that despite the few but prominent rags to riches stories we hear about, most wealthy people come from wealthy households with the advantages that come with knowing the right people. Further, I resent the idea that it is somehow harder to sit behind a desk and do work on a computer, or work in an operating theatre, or research and argue before a judge and jury, than to clean floors for eight hours, or take care of either the very old or the very young. I would agree that both types are hard, but if pay is based on how hard work is, then at worst everybody would be paid the same. As people keep asking, when did it become patriotic to avoid paying taxes. But that is what the wealthy have gotten away with for these many years. And it is the wealthy who can best afford to help the less fortunate, and part of the reason they are so wealthy is because of past policies, so it only appropriate that they take their turn paying their share.
Meanwhile, we need to think more critically about Joe, and what he really symbolizes.
So apparently Joe was misrepresenting himself to the world. He was characterized as undecided and independent, when in fact he is apparently a long time Republican. I have heard the plumbing company does not make nearly as much as was claimed, and/or that if two men are sharing the revenue, then the 280,000 becomes less, maybe 230,000 and 50,000 or a more equal number. Either way, the owner of the company is not making the quarter of a million dollars that Joe apparently claimed he was anticipating. Based on what I know personally about taxes, it is possible that an individual could be set up as an individual corporation or some kind of partnership. But if you fill out a schedule C in your income tax, you are supposed to claim those expenses like supplies, equipment and depreciation, advertising, health insurance for yourself and any employees, etc, these things reduce your income for tax purposes. So Joe's whole problem is a red herring. Seeing him as a symbol of blue collar ambition is a lie. Plus he looks like a Republican plant, or at the very least, an opportunist. And he owes the State back taxes and is not currently a registered plumber and may be penalized for the attention that has been drawn to him.
So the symbol is a fraud. And that is really, really important. Why? Because incomes between the people at the top (say the top ten percent) and people at the bottom (the lower 90% or so) are showing an increasing gap for the last fifty years or so (with maybe some time off during Democratic administration). The "American Dream" is that anyone can work hard and succeed and have a pretty comfortable life or maybe even get wealthy, like Joe was saying he wanted to do. And Joe was asking Obama why he wanted to ruin Joe's dream (with the extra 4% of taxes). Joe's point is that electing Obama will end the American Dream for all of us.
But it's not true. We need to look seriously at what Obama's tax policy will do for us, what "spreading the wealth around" means. It would mean for poorer people, they will have a few more dollars back when they file their taxes (a few will cannily adjust their with-holding to take advantage of the new tax policy, but most will just save with Uncle Sam). They will also have incentive with a higher tax credit for education to get more or perhaps any training or education. And the people who provide some of the money to do all this will be the richer among us, the professionals who did work hard for their money like lawyers, doctors and businessmen. They do work hard and apparently many of them don't like giving their money to people who didn't have to work for it. But we should note that despite the few but prominent rags to riches stories we hear about, most wealthy people come from wealthy households with the advantages that come with knowing the right people. Further, I resent the idea that it is somehow harder to sit behind a desk and do work on a computer, or work in an operating theatre, or research and argue before a judge and jury, than to clean floors for eight hours, or take care of either the very old or the very young. I would agree that both types are hard, but if pay is based on how hard work is, then at worst everybody would be paid the same. As people keep asking, when did it become patriotic to avoid paying taxes. But that is what the wealthy have gotten away with for these many years. And it is the wealthy who can best afford to help the less fortunate, and part of the reason they are so wealthy is because of past policies, so it only appropriate that they take their turn paying their share.
Meanwhile, we need to think more critically about Joe, and what he really symbolizes.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
That's Debatable ...
So the last debate has passed. I thought that, in debate world, John McCain landed some hits on Obama. The story about a fairly ordinary sounding guy, Joe the plumber, who apparently would be making over (at least) two hundred grand if he bought his bosses’ business. Personally I was thinking that Joe had never filled out a schedule C in his life, and didn’t understand the difference between gross receipts and income after expenses. I think that Joe may have sealed his fate too, Turbo Tax and/or H & R Block are probably descending on Toledo right now, trying to get video of Joe using their products. He may be the biggest winner of last night’s debate.
Speaking of which, despite McCain’s seeming success with a sneer about “spreading the wealth around”, I don’t know that either candidate did anything memorable enough to say “a-ha”. As I say, John McCain was better than he had been in previous debates. One commenter said that Republicans will be asking “where was this guy before?”. But I also agree with (I believe) David Brooks when he said that he thought McCain looked angry or flustered or both. Brooks wondered if voters would want four years of that. By comparison, Obama was his (now) usual cool and calm self. Occasionally he would, robot like, ratchet up his voice one decibel, modulate his tone up one unit, raise his finger and say “Bob, I have to respond to this”. The new algorithm would fire, the subroutine (“agitated”) would run through its instruction and the little sub loop would return to original program. This was a noticeable difference from the debate with Hillary Clinton before the Pennsylvania primary, where Obama was startled to find the moderators had switched from Sunday morning mode to “Hard Copy” mode (I notice no one from ABC moderated any of the Presidential/Vice debates).
During the debate William Ayers finally came up, in a section on negative campaigning. McCain did make a sort of meandering accusation, starting it with a silly “I don’t care about a washed up terrorist”. McCain mentioned a specific dollar contribution to ACORN as well. Obama gave a limited response about Ayers, mostly saying that the McCain campaign was hyping Ayers, that Ayers had served on a board with him (Obama) ten years ago, of a group that had a lot of republicans (Obama named four or so). Then Obama gave the short story on how ACORN had paid people to register voters and some of those people made up names, and Obama was not involved, had only once participated in a long ago lawsuit with the Justice Department and ACORN on motor voter rules in Illinois. Both good, coherent answers that really didn’t address McCain’s points (on ACORN at least), but should satisfy viewers because they were more coherent than McCain was being at the time. McCain and Obama then got in a back and forth when McCain fired off an accusation that Obama, together with Ayers, funneled $230,000 grand for the Woods foundation to ACORN and that Obama started his political career in Ayers’ living room. “OBAMA: That's absolutely not true. MCCAIN: And the facts are facts and records are records. OBAMA: And that's not the facts.” And then McCain fumbled around just a bit more with Ayers and ACORN. Even I would say Obama dodged the questions, yet Obama is likely to be seen as coming out on top of that exchange because he was so smooth about dodging them. McCain seemed like a petulant grand dad accusing grandson of messing with his vinyl LP’s. He might be right, but grand dad is always accusing somebody of something. Just let him talk and eventually he’ll go take a nap.
McCain was trying to say that Obama was wrong on many issues, and seemed to almost make his case. But Obama was too cool and intelligent sounding to really seem like a wrong guy. And McCain became visibly agitated as the debate wore on, fumbling for words a few times and coming back, somewhat randomly, to Joe the Plumber and Spreading the Wealth. In the end, you might wonder if McCain is right about Obama, but then you also might just wonder about McCain - period.
It will be interesting to see what Saturday Night Live does with the debate tonight on their (almost) regular Thursday night spot.
Speaking of which, despite McCain’s seeming success with a sneer about “spreading the wealth around”, I don’t know that either candidate did anything memorable enough to say “a-ha”. As I say, John McCain was better than he had been in previous debates. One commenter said that Republicans will be asking “where was this guy before?”. But I also agree with (I believe) David Brooks when he said that he thought McCain looked angry or flustered or both. Brooks wondered if voters would want four years of that. By comparison, Obama was his (now) usual cool and calm self. Occasionally he would, robot like, ratchet up his voice one decibel, modulate his tone up one unit, raise his finger and say “Bob, I have to respond to this”. The new algorithm would fire, the subroutine (“agitated”) would run through its instruction and the little sub loop would return to original program. This was a noticeable difference from the debate with Hillary Clinton before the Pennsylvania primary, where Obama was startled to find the moderators had switched from Sunday morning mode to “Hard Copy” mode (I notice no one from ABC moderated any of the Presidential/Vice debates).
During the debate William Ayers finally came up, in a section on negative campaigning. McCain did make a sort of meandering accusation, starting it with a silly “I don’t care about a washed up terrorist”. McCain mentioned a specific dollar contribution to ACORN as well. Obama gave a limited response about Ayers, mostly saying that the McCain campaign was hyping Ayers, that Ayers had served on a board with him (Obama) ten years ago, of a group that had a lot of republicans (Obama named four or so). Then Obama gave the short story on how ACORN had paid people to register voters and some of those people made up names, and Obama was not involved, had only once participated in a long ago lawsuit with the Justice Department and ACORN on motor voter rules in Illinois. Both good, coherent answers that really didn’t address McCain’s points (on ACORN at least), but should satisfy viewers because they were more coherent than McCain was being at the time. McCain and Obama then got in a back and forth when McCain fired off an accusation that Obama, together with Ayers, funneled $230,000 grand for the Woods foundation to ACORN and that Obama started his political career in Ayers’ living room. “OBAMA: That's absolutely not true. MCCAIN: And the facts are facts and records are records. OBAMA: And that's not the facts.” And then McCain fumbled around just a bit more with Ayers and ACORN. Even I would say Obama dodged the questions, yet Obama is likely to be seen as coming out on top of that exchange because he was so smooth about dodging them. McCain seemed like a petulant grand dad accusing grandson of messing with his vinyl LP’s. He might be right, but grand dad is always accusing somebody of something. Just let him talk and eventually he’ll go take a nap.
McCain was trying to say that Obama was wrong on many issues, and seemed to almost make his case. But Obama was too cool and intelligent sounding to really seem like a wrong guy. And McCain became visibly agitated as the debate wore on, fumbling for words a few times and coming back, somewhat randomly, to Joe the Plumber and Spreading the Wealth. In the end, you might wonder if McCain is right about Obama, but then you also might just wonder about McCain - period.
It will be interesting to see what Saturday Night Live does with the debate tonight on their (almost) regular Thursday night spot.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Philosphy is a smile on a dog ...
American elections are one of the few times Americans dust off the political philosophies and talk about them. I can’t help but think of Edie Brickell and her line in What I Am:”Chuck me in the shallow water, Before I get too deep”. We don’t engage in discussions of “political economy” in the US, at least not outside college campuses. But we do have limited discussions about whether more or less government regulation and more of less aid to the poor is a good idea. Mostly in the last eight years it has been that less regulation is a good idea, and that the poor should turn to churches for help. The Republicans are generally linked with the more laissez faire argument and democrats with the government aid position.
David Brooks attempted to address the state of modern conservative thought in the NYTimes on Friday. He described it as originating in dissent from a group of intellectuals, but has drifted away from that because (his words) Democrats keep nominating pointy headed intellectuals and Republican strategists decided to attack them based on class war. What Brooks is dancing around with, but does not say is that Reagan and the people who handled him used Reagan’s acting talents to out-folksy Carter (who had done something similar to Gerry Ford). Reagan promised the easy solution, promised that he would get government off people’s backs. Of course the term Reagan Democrat, a group of working class people without college degrees, who might be a union man or woman but didn’t think the unions were doing anything anymore, originated then. I have been using it, I think some people might have used it in connection with Hillary Clinton’s Pennsylvania race.
Brooks now decries the dumbing down of the Republican party, fueled by the “plain speaking” conservative talk radio jocks like Rush Limbaugh and, around here Jim Quinn. He actually says that Democrats are deliberative and self-examining (well, maybe more than the Republicans) while the Republicans now govern from the gut. It sounds like he is a fan of Steven Colbert.
George Bush is a near caricature of this. John McCain also has some elements of this, as a Navy pilot he would have prized instinct and split second decisions over a considered approach (that would be more Colin Powell’s approach). Brooks also praises Sarah Palin as “smart, politically skilled, courageous and likable”. But he says that nobody plays the class-warfare card “as constantly” than Palin.
There is a commenter on twopoliticaljunkies, John K, who says that George Will and David Brooks are not “real” conservatives. They want the adulation of liberals, according to him. John K and other conservative commenters scattered around the Pittsburgh political blogosphere are commenters that I think Rush Limbaugh would approve of. John K uses short sentences with simple statements like “You lefties worship Ayers and Dorn” (not an actual quote, although that is how he spells “Dorn”). He writes “lol” a lot, comments not on the post but on whatever subject might have come up recently that is favorable to conservatives, and makes personally negative comments about other commenters. Now 2PJ’s is an unabashedly liberal blog, so a certain amount of this is probably a good thing. But John K and other commenters of that ilk represent a wing of conservatism that does attack using key works like terrorist, Marxist and John K, for example, rarely if ever refers to Obama as Barack Obama; he uses Hussein Obama constantly.
This kind of thing is also happening at Universities. Institutions of higher learning are finding they can not be part of any discourse on current events. If they try to discuss current events, whether from a professor’ particular point of view or even as an illustration for a lesson plan, professor’s find themselves besieged by national and local politicians and by trustees. Of course one problem is that the professors who feel most strongly about politics are usually the first to speak out at a University, and expressing only their views may well distort debate. The extremists who do leap to speak out help make conservatives arguments for them.
So actual discourse may only still exist on the mainstream media, often called the liberal media. Programs like Washington Week In Review or round tables on Meet the Press or this Week. Today somebody, might have been Brokaw himself, mentioned on MTP how we are a credit card economy. Since Brokaw broke the idea, the other journalists were happy enough to “comment” on it (I suspect no one wanted to be first with an idea like that). That discussion is only just barely present in the media, let alone on the campaign trail. McCain and Palin seem to want to use George W Bush’s old stand by, fear, to win the election. There’s little we can do about this now, but feel free to pester the next President.
David Brooks attempted to address the state of modern conservative thought in the NYTimes on Friday. He described it as originating in dissent from a group of intellectuals, but has drifted away from that because (his words) Democrats keep nominating pointy headed intellectuals and Republican strategists decided to attack them based on class war. What Brooks is dancing around with, but does not say is that Reagan and the people who handled him used Reagan’s acting talents to out-folksy Carter (who had done something similar to Gerry Ford). Reagan promised the easy solution, promised that he would get government off people’s backs. Of course the term Reagan Democrat, a group of working class people without college degrees, who might be a union man or woman but didn’t think the unions were doing anything anymore, originated then. I have been using it, I think some people might have used it in connection with Hillary Clinton’s Pennsylvania race.
Brooks now decries the dumbing down of the Republican party, fueled by the “plain speaking” conservative talk radio jocks like Rush Limbaugh and, around here Jim Quinn. He actually says that Democrats are deliberative and self-examining (well, maybe more than the Republicans) while the Republicans now govern from the gut. It sounds like he is a fan of Steven Colbert.
George Bush is a near caricature of this. John McCain also has some elements of this, as a Navy pilot he would have prized instinct and split second decisions over a considered approach (that would be more Colin Powell’s approach). Brooks also praises Sarah Palin as “smart, politically skilled, courageous and likable”. But he says that nobody plays the class-warfare card “as constantly” than Palin.
There is a commenter on twopoliticaljunkies, John K, who says that George Will and David Brooks are not “real” conservatives. They want the adulation of liberals, according to him. John K and other conservative commenters scattered around the Pittsburgh political blogosphere are commenters that I think Rush Limbaugh would approve of. John K uses short sentences with simple statements like “You lefties worship Ayers and Dorn” (not an actual quote, although that is how he spells “Dorn”). He writes “lol” a lot, comments not on the post but on whatever subject might have come up recently that is favorable to conservatives, and makes personally negative comments about other commenters. Now 2PJ’s is an unabashedly liberal blog, so a certain amount of this is probably a good thing. But John K and other commenters of that ilk represent a wing of conservatism that does attack using key works like terrorist, Marxist and John K, for example, rarely if ever refers to Obama as Barack Obama; he uses Hussein Obama constantly.
This kind of thing is also happening at Universities. Institutions of higher learning are finding they can not be part of any discourse on current events. If they try to discuss current events, whether from a professor’ particular point of view or even as an illustration for a lesson plan, professor’s find themselves besieged by national and local politicians and by trustees. Of course one problem is that the professors who feel most strongly about politics are usually the first to speak out at a University, and expressing only their views may well distort debate. The extremists who do leap to speak out help make conservatives arguments for them.
So actual discourse may only still exist on the mainstream media, often called the liberal media. Programs like Washington Week In Review or round tables on Meet the Press or this Week. Today somebody, might have been Brokaw himself, mentioned on MTP how we are a credit card economy. Since Brokaw broke the idea, the other journalists were happy enough to “comment” on it (I suspect no one wanted to be first with an idea like that). That discussion is only just barely present in the media, let alone on the campaign trail. McCain and Palin seem to want to use George W Bush’s old stand by, fear, to win the election. There’s little we can do about this now, but feel free to pester the next President.
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Anothr Sunday ...
The 2 Political Junkies were kind enough to find a story in the Rolling Stone I likely would have missed, which in fact made the cover of the “Rolling Stone” (like them, I couldn’t resist). I will now shamelessly comment on this story, which they did not do in their post. I basically respect the Rolling Stone when it chooses to do real journalism. This article, “Make Believe Maverick”, is an unflattering biography of John McCain. Whether it is accurate or not will be up to readers to decide, but I suspect enough of the information is basically public record that large parts, maybe most, will be hard to dispute. The tone of the article, of course, reflects the politics of the magazine.
I haven’t finished the article (I got up to McCain’s early political career), but there was a bit during the Vietnam that caught my eye. Right after a fire on the Forrestal where a F-4 “inexplicably” fired an unguided rocket that happened to go through the fuel tank of the A-4 McCain was sitting in here (no sinister suggestion on my part, but weird, right?), causing a fire McCain emerged largely unscathed from (but which killed 134 other sailors), McCain talked to a New York Times reporter. I’m sure the reporter was delighted, talking to the son of a four star admiral. McCain, for his part, liked the attention, according to the Rolling Stone. Apparently, among other things, McCain said:
“"Now that I've seen what the bombs and napalm did to the people on our ship," he told Apple, "I'm not so sure that I want to drop any more of that stuff on North Vietnam."”
McCain of course did drop more "stuff", transferring to another carrier and flying more missions, until he was shot down. And after he was freed from the POW camp, he championed the idea of continuing the war, according to the article. Still, I think the Wikipedia might have used that NYTimes story as part of their bio of McCain, suggesting he at least partially opposed the conduct of the war, during the war (like John Kerry absolutely did). Even then, McCain played to his audience.
I haven’t finished the article (I got up to McCain’s early political career), but there was a bit during the Vietnam that caught my eye. Right after a fire on the Forrestal where a F-4 “inexplicably” fired an unguided rocket that happened to go through the fuel tank of the A-4 McCain was sitting in here (no sinister suggestion on my part, but weird, right?), causing a fire McCain emerged largely unscathed from (but which killed 134 other sailors), McCain talked to a New York Times reporter. I’m sure the reporter was delighted, talking to the son of a four star admiral. McCain, for his part, liked the attention, according to the Rolling Stone. Apparently, among other things, McCain said:
“"Now that I've seen what the bombs and napalm did to the people on our ship," he told Apple, "I'm not so sure that I want to drop any more of that stuff on North Vietnam."”
McCain of course did drop more "stuff", transferring to another carrier and flying more missions, until he was shot down. And after he was freed from the POW camp, he championed the idea of continuing the war, according to the article. Still, I think the Wikipedia might have used that NYTimes story as part of their bio of McCain, suggesting he at least partially opposed the conduct of the war, during the war (like John Kerry absolutely did). Even then, McCain played to his audience.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
An anecdote ...
I remember an event, roughly twenty years ago, in the presidency of the first George Bush. He had campaigned on “Read my lips, no new taxes”. But at some point I guess he decided the Reagan debt was too much, he needed to raise taxes. He got the Congressional leadership on board, but when it came to a vote, the Congressional rank and file bailed. They split from their leaders and voted no. Sound familiar?
By the way, I believe the tax increase did go through eventually. I just remember that one vote, but the Wikipedia says that the first Bush did raise taxes.
No special point here, really just an observation. There’s more than a little irony, to me, that a similar thing has happened to the son. If we weren’t at risk for another depression, I might chuckle a little louder.
By the way, I believe the tax increase did go through eventually. I just remember that one vote, but the Wikipedia says that the first Bush did raise taxes.
No special point here, really just an observation. There’s more than a little irony, to me, that a similar thing has happened to the son. If we weren’t at risk for another depression, I might chuckle a little louder.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Excesses of (mostly in) the Sunday PG Fourm
Again I have been neglecting my own blog, although I have not been commenting as much on other people’s bogs. No one seems to have reacted to the debates. I think the partisans are upset that their candidates did not deliver a knock out blow to the other candidate. Jack Kelly, in his column this morning in the PG, did not mention the debates at all. I didn’t have my laptop on during the debate, but I would assume Kelly did some live blogging during the debate. I might go look for it later. But no column gloating about how McCain wiped the floor with Obama (even though I am sure the paper would have held his deadline for him), because it was not obvious that either man won. So Kelly satisfied himself with comparing ‘60’s radicals to Nazi war criminals. Well, you’re entitled to your opinion. And according to the PG, so are we.
The PG also carried Chad Hermann’s final shot at Pittsburgh, about how we aren’t smart enough for him. I would write a letter to the editor of the PG, but in part because of my exasperation at Hermann, I shot a letter off last month about bicycling (not in any way my best effort) at the same time Hermann was conducting his assault on bicyclists.
Hermann’s piece on today’s PG’s “Next Page” was absolutely vintage Hermann. He titled it “The Out Post”. I suspect he might have titled it the “Last Post”, but apparently part of the reason he stopped blogging is because he seemed genuinely stung when his flippant criticism of Randy Pausch was so negatively received (he said he received three death threats). The page is laid out in the style of his blog page, complete with the virtual bric a brac on the right (including an “official soundtrack”, an “official muse” and praise from readers).
I think this “Out Post” gives us the quintessential Hermann experience. How he started before everyone else, but not in political blogging. By the time he started, blogging was already a wasteland (he says “Voices rose. Standards fell”). He was begged to ride to our rescue, to open a window to higher culture and thought. He would post to the level of major-paper, op-ed quality. He would not be self-indulgent, but would write every day, “make every word, subject and syllable count”.
Now, anyone who reads my blog knows I have criticized Hermann in the past, but I will confess I enjoyed reading his stuff when he was telling non-political anecdotes. But I have been told a story about how Hermann antagonized a particular political figure during a political event, making whispered comments at this persons back and then feigning innocence when the person turned around. That may neatly capture, for me, the “Hermann” experience.
Hermann takes pains to criticize us all in his “Out Post”. Maybe he is just criticizing me, and the handful of other Pittsburgh bloggers, when he talks about how the philistines are everywhere and winning. He suggests looking at “a few local or national political blogs. If you have a strong stomach, dip into the comment threads. You’ll see why I never allowed them on TWM. And you’ll think you stumbled into an Edward Albee play. Without the wit or erudition.”
And there is the essence of the problem for me. Hermann complained about how people didn’t do him the service of writing “impassioned, respectful” emails, which he said he would respond to, and carry on exchanges. But Hermann says the emails became “bunkered assaults”, and he realized the “reach of my efforts exceeded the grasp of readers willing and able to engage them. As my reputation grew, the caliber of my audience precipitously declined”.
I don’t get a lot of readers, I know. Fewer when I don’t post as often, which is one reason I comment on other people’s blogs. Unfortunately, I drain some of my best ideas in comments, and I am uncomfortable recycling a comment into a post. But I do know I get more readers during the political seasons, like now (and I often post more during the political seasons, finding more inspiration). And I have complained about anonymous comments, and don’t have them on my blog, although commenters simply chose handles, which are more consistent but no less anonymous. But at least I allow comments. I want to do that in part because I want to encourage discussion, and in part because I don’t mind exposing the occasional ignorance of the most partisan of voices, on both sides.
Some times Chad Hermann would reprint parts of an email sent to him, usually to ridicule the ignorance of the sender. But we had no idea about whether we were seeing the whole email, or whether it was altered. Those who blog know you can not alter the comments on your blog, only delete them, and then the deleted comment leaves a visible hole you would feel obliged to explain, to retain the trust of your readers. But not Chad Hermann. He would have us believe he was carrying on (hidden) email exchanges with the intelligentsia of Pittsburgh, something us common folk could only dream about. When I emailed Hermann, I rarely got a response.
My blog, and the comments on my blog, stand or fall on their own. The Burgh Report, with its occasional breaking story and its established base, Two Political Junkies and The Pittsburgh Comet all have more readers than me, I am sure. Other blogs are up and coming. But I am satisfied with my place in the world, and think that I could get more readers if I wanted to. I don’t see any point in calling people stupid because they don’t praise me. I may rip apart national political figures because of their diction. But you will be able to insert you own comment about it.
The PG also carried Chad Hermann’s final shot at Pittsburgh, about how we aren’t smart enough for him. I would write a letter to the editor of the PG, but in part because of my exasperation at Hermann, I shot a letter off last month about bicycling (not in any way my best effort) at the same time Hermann was conducting his assault on bicyclists.
Hermann’s piece on today’s PG’s “Next Page” was absolutely vintage Hermann. He titled it “The Out Post”. I suspect he might have titled it the “Last Post”, but apparently part of the reason he stopped blogging is because he seemed genuinely stung when his flippant criticism of Randy Pausch was so negatively received (he said he received three death threats). The page is laid out in the style of his blog page, complete with the virtual bric a brac on the right (including an “official soundtrack”, an “official muse” and praise from readers).
I think this “Out Post” gives us the quintessential Hermann experience. How he started before everyone else, but not in political blogging. By the time he started, blogging was already a wasteland (he says “Voices rose. Standards fell”). He was begged to ride to our rescue, to open a window to higher culture and thought. He would post to the level of major-paper, op-ed quality. He would not be self-indulgent, but would write every day, “make every word, subject and syllable count”.
Now, anyone who reads my blog knows I have criticized Hermann in the past, but I will confess I enjoyed reading his stuff when he was telling non-political anecdotes. But I have been told a story about how Hermann antagonized a particular political figure during a political event, making whispered comments at this persons back and then feigning innocence when the person turned around. That may neatly capture, for me, the “Hermann” experience.
Hermann takes pains to criticize us all in his “Out Post”. Maybe he is just criticizing me, and the handful of other Pittsburgh bloggers, when he talks about how the philistines are everywhere and winning. He suggests looking at “a few local or national political blogs. If you have a strong stomach, dip into the comment threads. You’ll see why I never allowed them on TWM. And you’ll think you stumbled into an Edward Albee play. Without the wit or erudition.”
And there is the essence of the problem for me. Hermann complained about how people didn’t do him the service of writing “impassioned, respectful” emails, which he said he would respond to, and carry on exchanges. But Hermann says the emails became “bunkered assaults”, and he realized the “reach of my efforts exceeded the grasp of readers willing and able to engage them. As my reputation grew, the caliber of my audience precipitously declined”.
I don’t get a lot of readers, I know. Fewer when I don’t post as often, which is one reason I comment on other people’s blogs. Unfortunately, I drain some of my best ideas in comments, and I am uncomfortable recycling a comment into a post. But I do know I get more readers during the political seasons, like now (and I often post more during the political seasons, finding more inspiration). And I have complained about anonymous comments, and don’t have them on my blog, although commenters simply chose handles, which are more consistent but no less anonymous. But at least I allow comments. I want to do that in part because I want to encourage discussion, and in part because I don’t mind exposing the occasional ignorance of the most partisan of voices, on both sides.
Some times Chad Hermann would reprint parts of an email sent to him, usually to ridicule the ignorance of the sender. But we had no idea about whether we were seeing the whole email, or whether it was altered. Those who blog know you can not alter the comments on your blog, only delete them, and then the deleted comment leaves a visible hole you would feel obliged to explain, to retain the trust of your readers. But not Chad Hermann. He would have us believe he was carrying on (hidden) email exchanges with the intelligentsia of Pittsburgh, something us common folk could only dream about. When I emailed Hermann, I rarely got a response.
My blog, and the comments on my blog, stand or fall on their own. The Burgh Report, with its occasional breaking story and its established base, Two Political Junkies and The Pittsburgh Comet all have more readers than me, I am sure. Other blogs are up and coming. But I am satisfied with my place in the world, and think that I could get more readers if I wanted to. I don’t see any point in calling people stupid because they don’t praise me. I may rip apart national political figures because of their diction. But you will be able to insert you own comment about it.
Monday, September 22, 2008
A McCain Presidency ...
Well, I apologize for neglecting my own blog. I have been busy commenting on other people’s blogs, plus engaging in real life sometimes. But I have an idea I have mentioned in comments, that I want to mention here too.
What exactly would happen if John McCain were elected. I don’t expect the Senate or House to move very much in their respective majorities. I don’t think the Senate will lose it’s Democratic majority, in fact I have heard here and there that the Democrats might pick up a seat or two. No one expects the Democrats to make it to 60 seats though. Even if the Democrats lose the Senate, I would expect the House to remain in Democratic hands.
So McCain is unlikely to be able to move as agenda through Congress. The Democrats in Congress also may not be able to move an agenda, considering the success of Senate Republicans in either blocking votes or blocking legislation. The only promise McCain may be able to keep legislatively is block earmarks. Since earmarks are buried in appropriations bills, and since Congressmen and women really depend on those to deliver favors to their districts, Congress (Republicans and Democrats) would likely fight McCain on that. We might see some veto proof majorities, but I see no reason for such bi-partisanship to last long. I think ultimately we would end up with White House/Congressional gridlock. Actually, we have that now in the Senate to some extent, but I think it would be much worse with a President McCain. What the Senate Republicans failed to kill, the President would.
Congress always finds it easier not to take action, and then blame someone else. The higher the stakes, the greater the cost of pissing a group of organized fringe constituents off, especially for Senators. An opposition President, particularly one like John McCain, whose campaign staff has been vilifying the Democrats even as McCain himself loudly proclaims his independence from the Republicans, would stand against everyone. He might cause a war or negotiate a peace, all to little avail. By the time of the midterms, Congressional incumbents might be thrown out by the bucket full, but to be replaced by who? Perhaps the Mickey Mouse party. They could hardly be worse.
I do think Obama would have a better chance of advancing an agenda (although the behavior of the current Senate makes me worry about the future). If Obama does achieve some goals, that brings a whole different set of consequences, which would be the topic for a different post.
What exactly would happen if John McCain were elected. I don’t expect the Senate or House to move very much in their respective majorities. I don’t think the Senate will lose it’s Democratic majority, in fact I have heard here and there that the Democrats might pick up a seat or two. No one expects the Democrats to make it to 60 seats though. Even if the Democrats lose the Senate, I would expect the House to remain in Democratic hands.
So McCain is unlikely to be able to move as agenda through Congress. The Democrats in Congress also may not be able to move an agenda, considering the success of Senate Republicans in either blocking votes or blocking legislation. The only promise McCain may be able to keep legislatively is block earmarks. Since earmarks are buried in appropriations bills, and since Congressmen and women really depend on those to deliver favors to their districts, Congress (Republicans and Democrats) would likely fight McCain on that. We might see some veto proof majorities, but I see no reason for such bi-partisanship to last long. I think ultimately we would end up with White House/Congressional gridlock. Actually, we have that now in the Senate to some extent, but I think it would be much worse with a President McCain. What the Senate Republicans failed to kill, the President would.
Congress always finds it easier not to take action, and then blame someone else. The higher the stakes, the greater the cost of pissing a group of organized fringe constituents off, especially for Senators. An opposition President, particularly one like John McCain, whose campaign staff has been vilifying the Democrats even as McCain himself loudly proclaims his independence from the Republicans, would stand against everyone. He might cause a war or negotiate a peace, all to little avail. By the time of the midterms, Congressional incumbents might be thrown out by the bucket full, but to be replaced by who? Perhaps the Mickey Mouse party. They could hardly be worse.
I do think Obama would have a better chance of advancing an agenda (although the behavior of the current Senate makes me worry about the future). If Obama does achieve some goals, that brings a whole different set of consequences, which would be the topic for a different post.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Of suburbs and exurbs
I talked to my brother on Sunday. Being brothers, we talk not about family or jobs, but about bicycles and cars. I talked about a new bike and my old bike, and how my newish car has a ventilation system issue I am having addressed. He talked about how he has gotten as high as 30 mpg on the highway in his car (using the air conditioner). He has a six cylinder VW Passat (I believe, maybe a Jetta) with this in dash computer that will tell him his mileage. It’s a stick, in fact I think it is sort of a German muscle car. He told me something else I fouind frankly amazing, but before I repeat it I should back up a bit. My brother lives in Peachtree City, Georgia. He works for NCR, which has an operation 3 miles from his house. Peachtree City is a planned community dating back to the 60’s. It has an extensive walking/bike path network that parallels and crosses the street network, so that people can travel throughout the city only occasionally crossing streets and dealing with cars. Peachtree City is an affluent town, home to many Delta pilots and their families because of its relatively close proximity to the Atlanta airport. It also has the highest per capita number of golf carts in the country, or something (or so my brother says, I tend to believe him).
The surprising thing my brother said is that he had used only one tank of gas the whole summer. He backed off a little on that later (I think) and maybe allowed two tanks. What he does is bike to and from work (and home for lunch), and he has bought himself an electric golf cart. So he does all his grocery shopping with the golf cart, he visits his girl friend in the golf cart, they go to concerts or dinner or bars in the golf cart, and he charges it overnight.
Now, he says that he is pretty much one the few bike riders on the paths, and his is the only bike at the bike rack at his work, but the parking lot is full of golf carts. Golf carts crowd free public concerts, and of course use the walking/biking paths extensively. So this is not an excessively healthy or green town. Still, like my brother, they have the ability to live without using gas excessively if they happen to work locally. This is the sort of suburb that is likely to survive if gas prices skyrocket. Especially in the “sunny” South, he could install solar panels and certainly power the golf cart, if not his whole house. If his local Kroger would stock locally grown food, he could reduce his carbon footprint (should he choose to) significantly. If you compare that even to urban residents such as myself, he could potentially achieve what would be much more difficult for me. Of course, city residents such as myself could be served by wind farms or solar panel arrays for our electricity, and the size of a place like Pittsburgh makes it a good market for local farmers at the always busy farmer’s markets.
But it is interesting to me that a carefully planned community can yield as unexpected spin off benefit of a more green lifestyle.
The surprising thing my brother said is that he had used only one tank of gas the whole summer. He backed off a little on that later (I think) and maybe allowed two tanks. What he does is bike to and from work (and home for lunch), and he has bought himself an electric golf cart. So he does all his grocery shopping with the golf cart, he visits his girl friend in the golf cart, they go to concerts or dinner or bars in the golf cart, and he charges it overnight.
Now, he says that he is pretty much one the few bike riders on the paths, and his is the only bike at the bike rack at his work, but the parking lot is full of golf carts. Golf carts crowd free public concerts, and of course use the walking/biking paths extensively. So this is not an excessively healthy or green town. Still, like my brother, they have the ability to live without using gas excessively if they happen to work locally. This is the sort of suburb that is likely to survive if gas prices skyrocket. Especially in the “sunny” South, he could install solar panels and certainly power the golf cart, if not his whole house. If his local Kroger would stock locally grown food, he could reduce his carbon footprint (should he choose to) significantly. If you compare that even to urban residents such as myself, he could potentially achieve what would be much more difficult for me. Of course, city residents such as myself could be served by wind farms or solar panel arrays for our electricity, and the size of a place like Pittsburgh makes it a good market for local farmers at the always busy farmer’s markets.
But it is interesting to me that a carefully planned community can yield as unexpected spin off benefit of a more green lifestyle.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
The have it both ways campaign
When you compare John McCain to John Kerry, both of whom being in the navy, you look at two different definitions of hero.
Kerry joined the navy when the draft board denied a request for a deferment so he could spend a year in France, and also because some of his classmates had joined the navy. Kerry spent some time on a guided missile frigate picking up downed aviators off the coast of Vietnam but then requested an assignment on the “Swift boats” (at the time, he thought it would be a safe assignment). As we know, Kerry had several encounters with the Vietcong or North Vietnamese, and was wounded three times. He later protested the war.
John McCain was planning to be a career man in the Navy. After graduating Annapolis and then flight school, he requested a combat assignment during Vietnam, and flew bombing missions over Vietnam. Everybody pretty much knows he was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese. His father, an admiral, became the commander of the Vietnamese theater of operations shortly there after, and the North Vietnamese offered John McCain a release, to show that children of privileged parents were taking advantage of their status. McCain said no, not until all POW’s were released. He stayed a prisoner for I believe around five years, helping some of his fellow prisoners keep their spirits up.
McCain’s heroic status comes from having been a POW, which is different than how we usually look at hero’s. Kerry’s heroic status is more conventional, although he was somewhat uncomfortable with it and of course it was called into question.
McCain is portrayed as a man who served his country with distinction, but at least one reality is that he was a competent but not great pilot, and the most significant feature of his military career was having been a POW. He left the military because he realized he would never be a full admiral like his father and grandfather (although he might have made the lesser rank of rear admiral).
Another reality is that John McCain married a former model as a young man, before going to Vietnam. When he returned from Vietnam, he came home to a wife who had been in an auto accident and had become less attractive. He started having extramarital affairs and eventually divorced her. He then married a former beauty pageant contestant who was (and is) also rich. How should we compare this behavior with Bill Clinton’s, or does the POW status excuse anything.
John McCain’s presidential candidacy this time has become a situation where his campaign staff viciously attacks his opponent while John McCain acts as though he is above it all. Mark Salter handed out tire gauges labeled “Obama’s Energy Plan” back in late July, although McCain later admitted that keeping your tire pressure up to recommended levels is a fine idea. Someone else in the McCain campaign called Obama an “arugula eating, pointy headed professor type”, yet John McCain said in his nomination speech that he would end partisan rancor. These are the have it both ways people.
This is the issue for voters to reconcile. Obama is proposing a lot of policy. Maybe too much. He wants to increase the amount and range of the EIC, he wants to double the hope credit, he wanted to implement an extension of the Social Security payroll tax on people making $250.000 (the tax currently is on incomes up to $102,000). He want to provide a tax cut for essentially everybody with incomes under 250,000 and raise taxes for people with incomes over $250,000. His own people project a three and a half trillion deficit by 2014 (I believe it was). And of course a universal health care plan with no mandates.
There is a chance Obama will get a lot of that, and we shouldn’t rely on Congress to reign him in.
Still, McCain is worse. His fiscal proposals include making the Bush tax cuts permanent, removing the tax free status of employer provided healthcare and a couple of more. It is truly difficult seeing a Democratic Congress doing any of that.
McCain seems more interested in trying to kill earmarks and reduce DC corruption. That’s fine, and more likely something he could actually do while in office, but the Country needs (and should want) more. We need someone to look at income inequality, and do all the government can do about that. We need someone to tackle the mortgage crisis, Social Security and Medicare. We need a detail President, and John McCain is not that man. Even Sarah Palin is not that woman. They are flashy people, jetting into a crisis and then jetting out. You know, celebrities.
McCain is back to even in the polls, though. Apparently a lot of people whose interests are congruent with barrack Obama’s are saying they will not vote for him. Some people on the Burgh Report say how other people they know are excited by McCain’s POW record. Sure, it gives you a reason not to vote for Obama.
I hope people will actually listen to the words and think, can this guy achieve this working with a Democratic Congress? And will it be good for me?
Kerry joined the navy when the draft board denied a request for a deferment so he could spend a year in France, and also because some of his classmates had joined the navy. Kerry spent some time on a guided missile frigate picking up downed aviators off the coast of Vietnam but then requested an assignment on the “Swift boats” (at the time, he thought it would be a safe assignment). As we know, Kerry had several encounters with the Vietcong or North Vietnamese, and was wounded three times. He later protested the war.
John McCain was planning to be a career man in the Navy. After graduating Annapolis and then flight school, he requested a combat assignment during Vietnam, and flew bombing missions over Vietnam. Everybody pretty much knows he was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese. His father, an admiral, became the commander of the Vietnamese theater of operations shortly there after, and the North Vietnamese offered John McCain a release, to show that children of privileged parents were taking advantage of their status. McCain said no, not until all POW’s were released. He stayed a prisoner for I believe around five years, helping some of his fellow prisoners keep their spirits up.
McCain’s heroic status comes from having been a POW, which is different than how we usually look at hero’s. Kerry’s heroic status is more conventional, although he was somewhat uncomfortable with it and of course it was called into question.
McCain is portrayed as a man who served his country with distinction, but at least one reality is that he was a competent but not great pilot, and the most significant feature of his military career was having been a POW. He left the military because he realized he would never be a full admiral like his father and grandfather (although he might have made the lesser rank of rear admiral).
Another reality is that John McCain married a former model as a young man, before going to Vietnam. When he returned from Vietnam, he came home to a wife who had been in an auto accident and had become less attractive. He started having extramarital affairs and eventually divorced her. He then married a former beauty pageant contestant who was (and is) also rich. How should we compare this behavior with Bill Clinton’s, or does the POW status excuse anything.
John McCain’s presidential candidacy this time has become a situation where his campaign staff viciously attacks his opponent while John McCain acts as though he is above it all. Mark Salter handed out tire gauges labeled “Obama’s Energy Plan” back in late July, although McCain later admitted that keeping your tire pressure up to recommended levels is a fine idea. Someone else in the McCain campaign called Obama an “arugula eating, pointy headed professor type”, yet John McCain said in his nomination speech that he would end partisan rancor. These are the have it both ways people.
This is the issue for voters to reconcile. Obama is proposing a lot of policy. Maybe too much. He wants to increase the amount and range of the EIC, he wants to double the hope credit, he wanted to implement an extension of the Social Security payroll tax on people making $250.000 (the tax currently is on incomes up to $102,000). He want to provide a tax cut for essentially everybody with incomes under 250,000 and raise taxes for people with incomes over $250,000. His own people project a three and a half trillion deficit by 2014 (I believe it was). And of course a universal health care plan with no mandates.
There is a chance Obama will get a lot of that, and we shouldn’t rely on Congress to reign him in.
Still, McCain is worse. His fiscal proposals include making the Bush tax cuts permanent, removing the tax free status of employer provided healthcare and a couple of more. It is truly difficult seeing a Democratic Congress doing any of that.
McCain seems more interested in trying to kill earmarks and reduce DC corruption. That’s fine, and more likely something he could actually do while in office, but the Country needs (and should want) more. We need someone to look at income inequality, and do all the government can do about that. We need someone to tackle the mortgage crisis, Social Security and Medicare. We need a detail President, and John McCain is not that man. Even Sarah Palin is not that woman. They are flashy people, jetting into a crisis and then jetting out. You know, celebrities.
McCain is back to even in the polls, though. Apparently a lot of people whose interests are congruent with barrack Obama’s are saying they will not vote for him. Some people on the Burgh Report say how other people they know are excited by McCain’s POW record. Sure, it gives you a reason not to vote for Obama.
I hope people will actually listen to the words and think, can this guy achieve this working with a Democratic Congress? And will it be good for me?
Monday, September 01, 2008
Personality versus issues
I caught the roundtable part of This Week on ABC and the Meet the Press on NBC this Sunday. This Week had a Republican strategist Mathew Dowd on, who said something startling to me, until I realized he was not so much describing as trying to direct. He said the election would not be about issues, it would be about the experience and values of the candidates. Well, sure, McCain wants the only issue to be that he will maintain the status quo, and Obama will raise taxes and change things. Whenever you can make it seem like a black man is saying “things gonna change ’round here”, you can make some large segment of the population nervous. McCain is going after the Republican base, the evangelicals (those presumably not already part of the Republican base) and independent and conservative white Democratic voters with no more than a high school degree. Obama presumably is going after educated white Democratic, independent and even Republican voters, as well as the Democratic base and a fair number of young voters. Mathew Dowd was at pains to say that many voters had no participated in the primaries (even though Democrats reported record turnouts) and that the young people who voted in the primaries would not turnout for the general.
There is a fair danger that Mathew Dowd is correct. It is pretty difficult to get and/or keep undereducated voters to focus on issues. They internalize character issues and scandal more easily (a lot of the time so too do educated voters). Obama is getting help from the NYTimes on this front, but even that is a double edged sword, reinforcing accusations that Obama is elitist. I suspect the unions will help. Despite the fact the Democrats felt somewhat betrayed by Clinton in 1992, I don’t think they want to risk losing Congress again.
If McCain is elected, he will likely face a Democratic Congress that still does not have a veto proof majority in the Senate. He will have to decide, if the Congress does decide to pass a universal health insurance bill (and in this situation they could pass Edwards’ plan as easily as Obama’s), would he veto it. If the Congress passed tax cuts for the middle class and poor, and let the Bush tax cuts expire, would McCain veto those. Honestly I have no idea, but certainly a return to government gridlock, for at least two years until the midterms, could be possible.
What’s interesting is that conservatives are partly right in talking about how liberal are talking about McCain. He used to be the Democrats best friend outside their own party. He attacked the Bush tax cuts, he supported Tom Daschle who wanted to investigate what the administration knew about 9/11 and he sponsored and passed the anti-torture bill. But McCain has backpedaled on quite a bit. He now wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent (Congress passed them as temporary) and he agrees with the administration’s definition of torture.
I think John McCain has the potential to be another Ronald Reagan, a plain spoken guy, this time a genuine hero (although a person being a hero for being a POW is a bit dubious), and someone liked even by some liberals like Jon Stewart. But I think if Obama sticks to talking about the issues, about how policy affects real people, he can keep the election focused where it needs to be - on us, not on the personalities or characteristics of the candidates.
One more brief note. Sarah Palin is described as an expert on energy policy. Maria Bartiromo said as much, based on Palin’s two years as governor, and unknown time on the State Oil and Gas board as the ethic commissioner. She resigned the board after sometime, complaining about the ethics of her fellow (Republican) commissioners. I note she raised the tax on oil and gas production at some point during the last two years. She placed the interests of 600,000 Alaskans over 299,400,000 lower 48 and 1 island Americans. This is an indication of her expertise?
There is a fair danger that Mathew Dowd is correct. It is pretty difficult to get and/or keep undereducated voters to focus on issues. They internalize character issues and scandal more easily (a lot of the time so too do educated voters). Obama is getting help from the NYTimes on this front, but even that is a double edged sword, reinforcing accusations that Obama is elitist. I suspect the unions will help. Despite the fact the Democrats felt somewhat betrayed by Clinton in 1992, I don’t think they want to risk losing Congress again.
If McCain is elected, he will likely face a Democratic Congress that still does not have a veto proof majority in the Senate. He will have to decide, if the Congress does decide to pass a universal health insurance bill (and in this situation they could pass Edwards’ plan as easily as Obama’s), would he veto it. If the Congress passed tax cuts for the middle class and poor, and let the Bush tax cuts expire, would McCain veto those. Honestly I have no idea, but certainly a return to government gridlock, for at least two years until the midterms, could be possible.
What’s interesting is that conservatives are partly right in talking about how liberal are talking about McCain. He used to be the Democrats best friend outside their own party. He attacked the Bush tax cuts, he supported Tom Daschle who wanted to investigate what the administration knew about 9/11 and he sponsored and passed the anti-torture bill. But McCain has backpedaled on quite a bit. He now wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent (Congress passed them as temporary) and he agrees with the administration’s definition of torture.
I think John McCain has the potential to be another Ronald Reagan, a plain spoken guy, this time a genuine hero (although a person being a hero for being a POW is a bit dubious), and someone liked even by some liberals like Jon Stewart. But I think if Obama sticks to talking about the issues, about how policy affects real people, he can keep the election focused where it needs to be - on us, not on the personalities or characteristics of the candidates.
One more brief note. Sarah Palin is described as an expert on energy policy. Maria Bartiromo said as much, based on Palin’s two years as governor, and unknown time on the State Oil and Gas board as the ethic commissioner. She resigned the board after sometime, complaining about the ethics of her fellow (Republican) commissioners. I note she raised the tax on oil and gas production at some point during the last two years. She placed the interests of 600,000 Alaskans over 299,400,000 lower 48 and 1 island Americans. This is an indication of her expertise?
Sunday, August 31, 2008
A comment on the disappearance of no comments
I know I am a minor figure in the blogging scheme of things. I don’t break stories and my opinions are little noted. Which is fine with me. If I do come up with something or several things that are clever, maybe someone will notice. If I blog a lot more, perhaps everyday, I get more traffic, I know this. But I am content with my position in the order of things.
I do allow comments, albeit not (strictly speaking) anonymous ones. But Blogger and blogging in general have an interesting definition of anonymous. When you don’t allow anonymous comments, it means your commenters can not hit the “anonymous” button. I don’t know if that masks your IP address (probably not), but if you still want to remain anonymous on my blog or the other few blogs that don’t allow “anonymous” comments, you just choose a nickname for yourself when you sign up with Google. You could choose a new nickname every time you comment, except you have to give an email address, and having an unlimited supply of email addresses is beyond the abilities most people.
I decided not to allow anonymous comments because of Pat Dowd. He had expressed an irritation with anonymous commenters, feeling like their presence suppressed genuine debate (I hope I got that right). I tried to explain that anonymity is a tradition of the internet (I believe), but I also partly agreed with Dr. Dowd. Being forced to adopt a consistent persona, even if we don’t know who are, makes debate flow more smoothly, and more sophisticated arguments can be developed.
That’s why I think sites that don’t allow commenters are not really blogs. There are only a few; the Carbolic Smoke Ball and Teacher, Wordsmith, Madman are two come to mind. Actually, the Carbolic Smoke Ball is more like entertainment. Teacher, Wordsmith, Madman is Chad Hermann’s vehicle, which I have written about before.
Dr. Hermann has decided to hang up his blogging … er keyboard, apparently. In his second to last post he complained about an email he got where a reader told him it was not enough to not complain about Barack Obama, Dr. Hermann needed to actively praise him. Then Dr. Hermann posted this on Thursday:
“I'M DONE
(with this.)
The rest is silence.”
Now, my understanding is that Dr. Hermann is currently a speechwriter for Tim Murphy. I don’t have the faintest idea whether that is related, or if a commenter threatened him, or he wanted to vacate the stage to make way for Sarah Palin. I will say that I think the opportunities for comments are an important part of a blog. I know, I get very few comments, but I am ok with that. I could get more if I chose to stir the pot. And that would be a good thing. If you think that someone who writes things that other people may read is spreading falsehoods, it is actually a good thing to be able to argue with them, force them to back up their opinions. Dr. Hermann obviously did not do that, and if he ended up feeling mischaracterized on other blogs (hopefully not mine, but in fact probably on mine), he bears some of the responsibility. I liked some of the funny stuff he wrote. But I like pretty much all the funny stuff Dave Barry writes.
Just a quick, unfair note on Sarah Palin. John McCain’s first wife was a former model. McCain’s second wife participated in beauty pageants. And now he has picked as his veep candidate a former beauty pageant contestant. His first choice was said to be Joe Lieberman, but Lieberman tested poorly with Republicans (possibly because Lieberman is a Democrat). So McCain went with the adolescent boy choice. Meanwhile, since Palin is younger than Obama, with an equally brief resume, should we compare schooling? University of Idaho in journalism with a minor in Political Science, with no mention of class rank. Versus Columbia, BA in Political Science, Harvard Law – president of the Law Review and magna cum laude. Forget her being pro-life, she believes in teaching creationism. Our kids aren’t being educated now, and she wants to weaken the curriculum.
I do allow comments, albeit not (strictly speaking) anonymous ones. But Blogger and blogging in general have an interesting definition of anonymous. When you don’t allow anonymous comments, it means your commenters can not hit the “anonymous” button. I don’t know if that masks your IP address (probably not), but if you still want to remain anonymous on my blog or the other few blogs that don’t allow “anonymous” comments, you just choose a nickname for yourself when you sign up with Google. You could choose a new nickname every time you comment, except you have to give an email address, and having an unlimited supply of email addresses is beyond the abilities most people.
I decided not to allow anonymous comments because of Pat Dowd. He had expressed an irritation with anonymous commenters, feeling like their presence suppressed genuine debate (I hope I got that right). I tried to explain that anonymity is a tradition of the internet (I believe), but I also partly agreed with Dr. Dowd. Being forced to adopt a consistent persona, even if we don’t know who are, makes debate flow more smoothly, and more sophisticated arguments can be developed.
That’s why I think sites that don’t allow commenters are not really blogs. There are only a few; the Carbolic Smoke Ball and Teacher, Wordsmith, Madman are two come to mind. Actually, the Carbolic Smoke Ball is more like entertainment. Teacher, Wordsmith, Madman is Chad Hermann’s vehicle, which I have written about before.
Dr. Hermann has decided to hang up his blogging … er keyboard, apparently. In his second to last post he complained about an email he got where a reader told him it was not enough to not complain about Barack Obama, Dr. Hermann needed to actively praise him. Then Dr. Hermann posted this on Thursday:
“I'M DONE
(with this.)
The rest is silence.”
Now, my understanding is that Dr. Hermann is currently a speechwriter for Tim Murphy. I don’t have the faintest idea whether that is related, or if a commenter threatened him, or he wanted to vacate the stage to make way for Sarah Palin. I will say that I think the opportunities for comments are an important part of a blog. I know, I get very few comments, but I am ok with that. I could get more if I chose to stir the pot. And that would be a good thing. If you think that someone who writes things that other people may read is spreading falsehoods, it is actually a good thing to be able to argue with them, force them to back up their opinions. Dr. Hermann obviously did not do that, and if he ended up feeling mischaracterized on other blogs (hopefully not mine, but in fact probably on mine), he bears some of the responsibility. I liked some of the funny stuff he wrote. But I like pretty much all the funny stuff Dave Barry writes.
Just a quick, unfair note on Sarah Palin. John McCain’s first wife was a former model. McCain’s second wife participated in beauty pageants. And now he has picked as his veep candidate a former beauty pageant contestant. His first choice was said to be Joe Lieberman, but Lieberman tested poorly with Republicans (possibly because Lieberman is a Democrat). So McCain went with the adolescent boy choice. Meanwhile, since Palin is younger than Obama, with an equally brief resume, should we compare schooling? University of Idaho in journalism with a minor in Political Science, with no mention of class rank. Versus Columbia, BA in Political Science, Harvard Law – president of the Law Review and magna cum laude. Forget her being pro-life, she believes in teaching creationism. Our kids aren’t being educated now, and she wants to weaken the curriculum.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Ford is Job One (was that the catch phrase?) ...
So by now Pittsburgh should know that Pat Ford resigned. His letter was carried online on the Post-Gazette and Bob Mayo’s websites. It was apparently aimed at Yarone Zober, but to my way of thinking it is practically gibberish and simultaneously career suicide. He starts by complaining that he has received no support from the administration. He complains that although it has been two weeks since the state ethics board cleared him, the administration has not talked about reinstating him. But what ford fails to distinguish is that it was Ford’s lawyer who declared Ford cleared, and no one has heard from the ethics board directly.
From there it takes a right turn into looneyville. Ford complains that he does not “support the actions of what I believe to be a failed administration and no longer desire to return to a position where I will again be forced to serve as a scapegoat for the inappropriate affairs and activities of others.”. He further says that he “believed that by working together we could have a positive impact on this City, embracing all that it has to offer. But that vision never materialized, and as I have always said, "Where there is no vision, people perish." I have no desire to perish along with Luke Ravenstahl's Pittsburgh.” Then there is the whole culture of deception and corruption thing and people who support him being retaliated against. Those things could be true, but the thing is that Pat Ford was a very high ranking official in the Ravenstahl administration. He could have resigned, could have worked to influence the Mayor to remove the corruption, could have worked within the URA to make it a better place. In fact, when this deception and corruption was taking place, Pat Ford was in charge of the authority that he apparently charges was deceitful and corrupt. How does that square with this high minded tone he is taking. He actually dictates the terms of his resignation, telling the chair of the board of the URA that he is cleaning out his desk, but the URA will still continue to pay him through December 31st.
I think the city is well rid of Mr. Ford, but I don’t think his departure is going to do much for us. We have so many problems, and a lot of them start and end with our Mayor. Surely this will hurt Our Mayor’s chance for re-election, but there is only a slim chance that he will be replaced by anyone better.
By the way, I wrote this morning's post fairly hurriedly. Some of the numbers I rattled off are in fact inaccurate. For example, Obama’s tax increase (rollback of the Bush tax cuts plus a bit more) would hit tax returns (individual or family) of more than $250,000. If you look by quintile, the top quintile loses money, but in fact the tax increase doesn’t start until you get to the top five percent. But really, to understand the idea, you should read the article.
From there it takes a right turn into looneyville. Ford complains that he does not “support the actions of what I believe to be a failed administration and no longer desire to return to a position where I will again be forced to serve as a scapegoat for the inappropriate affairs and activities of others.”. He further says that he “believed that by working together we could have a positive impact on this City, embracing all that it has to offer. But that vision never materialized, and as I have always said, "Where there is no vision, people perish." I have no desire to perish along with Luke Ravenstahl's Pittsburgh.” Then there is the whole culture of deception and corruption thing and people who support him being retaliated against. Those things could be true, but the thing is that Pat Ford was a very high ranking official in the Ravenstahl administration. He could have resigned, could have worked to influence the Mayor to remove the corruption, could have worked within the URA to make it a better place. In fact, when this deception and corruption was taking place, Pat Ford was in charge of the authority that he apparently charges was deceitful and corrupt. How does that square with this high minded tone he is taking. He actually dictates the terms of his resignation, telling the chair of the board of the URA that he is cleaning out his desk, but the URA will still continue to pay him through December 31st.
I think the city is well rid of Mr. Ford, but I don’t think his departure is going to do much for us. We have so many problems, and a lot of them start and end with our Mayor. Surely this will hurt Our Mayor’s chance for re-election, but there is only a slim chance that he will be replaced by anyone better.
By the way, I wrote this morning's post fairly hurriedly. Some of the numbers I rattled off are in fact inaccurate. For example, Obama’s tax increase (rollback of the Bush tax cuts plus a bit more) would hit tax returns (individual or family) of more than $250,000. If you look by quintile, the top quintile loses money, but in fact the tax increase doesn’t start until you get to the top five percent. But really, to understand the idea, you should read the article.
short(ish) takes on Bikes and Obamanomics
It seems like the bicycling issue has died down. I noticed Ruth Ann Dailey, everyone’s favorite conservative columnist (apart from Jack Kelly), had a relatively pro bicycling piece on Monday, because her current husband is a bicyclist. To say my last words on the subject, if you asked a random selection of drivers what they think about other drivers and cars on the road, what do you think you would hear? Complaints about traffic, the condition of the roads, maybe about how rude other drivers are. One in a hundred might complain about how fast people drive on the Parkway or 28, but no more. But clearly if you ask drivers about bicycles, practically everyone will say first that bicyclists break the law every day, and then that bicyclists get in the way of traffic and cause problems where ever they go. The exceptions to that rule are if you ask a driver who is also a bicyclist.
Our Mayor wants the city to gain a “bicycle-friendly” designation by some date (two years, four years?). The new bike czar is going to have his work cut out for him, maybe having the “furries” (the people who dress in animal costumes who keep holding their conventions here) ride on bikes to make it seem cuter. Or give drivers a more fun target (how many points for hitting a guy dressed up like a giant rat on a bike).
The New York Times had an interesting article on Obama’s view of economics in the Sunday magazine this week. Well, interesting to me as I had never seen his views laid out like that. As a bonus, it also included a pdf of a report from the Tax Policy Center (buried on page five) that compares the tax and income implications of Obama’s and McCain’s proposed tax cuts. That 53 page pdf made really fascinating reading (well, skimming). Apparently McCain’s proposals, while benefiting the middle class slightly and the poor even more slightly, will be a huge windfall for the rich, further dropping their tax rates and netting them tens of thousands of dollars (or in some cases perhaps hundreds of thousands). Obama’s proposals, by contrast, help the poor and middle class significantly, but roll the gains of the top twenty percent back to 2000, and a bit more. Both proposals take the economy into deficit, but with Obama the deficits are lower.
The article itself details how Obama has been influenced by hanging around the University of Chicago. It is a conservative place, but in innovative ways; the economics department has been fairly influenced the newer theories of behavioral economics. For Obama, it has influenced his thinking. Now, he recognizes clearly that the free market has built in problems, things it ignores when left to itself. Pollution is the classic example, but health care in the US now is also a candidate. Traditionally, with pollution for example, the free market does not control for it because no one owns the air (or rivers, etc), so polluters are free to pollute as much as they want. Where Obama differs from old school democrats is that instead of criminalizing pollution, or regulating it with one technology (say scrubbers on smokestacks), Obama wants to use market techniques to most efficiently control pollution. So you have the carbon auction, you set up a market where companies buy, sell or trade pollution credits. You reduce pollution to the level you want, and if you sell credits you give them back to the consumer in tax reductions to offset the higher prices caused by pollution controls. This is a way of thinking very close to my heart. Definitely another reason it is so important to elect Obama over McCain.
Our Mayor wants the city to gain a “bicycle-friendly” designation by some date (two years, four years?). The new bike czar is going to have his work cut out for him, maybe having the “furries” (the people who dress in animal costumes who keep holding their conventions here) ride on bikes to make it seem cuter. Or give drivers a more fun target (how many points for hitting a guy dressed up like a giant rat on a bike).
The New York Times had an interesting article on Obama’s view of economics in the Sunday magazine this week. Well, interesting to me as I had never seen his views laid out like that. As a bonus, it also included a pdf of a report from the Tax Policy Center (buried on page five) that compares the tax and income implications of Obama’s and McCain’s proposed tax cuts. That 53 page pdf made really fascinating reading (well, skimming). Apparently McCain’s proposals, while benefiting the middle class slightly and the poor even more slightly, will be a huge windfall for the rich, further dropping their tax rates and netting them tens of thousands of dollars (or in some cases perhaps hundreds of thousands). Obama’s proposals, by contrast, help the poor and middle class significantly, but roll the gains of the top twenty percent back to 2000, and a bit more. Both proposals take the economy into deficit, but with Obama the deficits are lower.
The article itself details how Obama has been influenced by hanging around the University of Chicago. It is a conservative place, but in innovative ways; the economics department has been fairly influenced the newer theories of behavioral economics. For Obama, it has influenced his thinking. Now, he recognizes clearly that the free market has built in problems, things it ignores when left to itself. Pollution is the classic example, but health care in the US now is also a candidate. Traditionally, with pollution for example, the free market does not control for it because no one owns the air (or rivers, etc), so polluters are free to pollute as much as they want. Where Obama differs from old school democrats is that instead of criminalizing pollution, or regulating it with one technology (say scrubbers on smokestacks), Obama wants to use market techniques to most efficiently control pollution. So you have the carbon auction, you set up a market where companies buy, sell or trade pollution credits. You reduce pollution to the level you want, and if you sell credits you give them back to the consumer in tax reductions to offset the higher prices caused by pollution controls. This is a way of thinking very close to my heart. Definitely another reason it is so important to elect Obama over McCain.
Friday, August 22, 2008
McCain vs Obama
So who are these guys running for President? Despite a vigorous primary season, voters apparently still don’t know.
From the Wikipedia, John McCain had a mixed college career at the Naval Academy. He apparently was well regarded, sometimes stood up for students being bullied, but also had conflicts with authority and while he worked hard at literature and history, didn’t work as hard at other subjects. He graduated with a low class ranking.
McCain then became a naval aviator. I guess he was somewhat typical as a navy pilot, doing some hard partying apparently. He apparently was not real talented at flying planes off and landing planes on carriers, although he did well enough to have flight status, and that is saying a lot. He was shot down in Vietnam while flying a jet on a ground attack mission (those are the types of missions most likely to be shot down by surface to air missiles). He was injured, taken prisoner and tortured for six months. The Vietnamese then offered to release him, because his father had been made commander of all US forces in Vietnam. It was an offer probably made for propaganda purposes, and McCain refused it, and as a result he remained a POW for a total of five and a half years. As a result of his torure, he is not able to lift his arms above shoulder level today. The quality of resisting authority that he should as a cadet was also one he showed as a POW. It is brave, but kind of questionable in terms of showing judgment.
I am going to leave McCain’s political career and personal life for a different time and glance a bit at Obama. Obama was born in Hawaii (although conservatives like to question that), and spent his first six years there. He then moved with his mom and step dad to Indonesia. He came back to Hawaii for high school, living with his grandparents. I get all this again from the Wikipedia; from there I see no sign that Obama ever lived in Kansas (FWIW). He started college at Occidental college, apparently a small but good liberal arts school. After two years he transferred to Columbia. Anybody he has ever looked at transferring schools knows that the admissions people generally hold you to a higher standard (although Luke Ravenstahl maybe the exception to the rule). So that Obama was able to get into Columbia two years in speaks well of his scholarship. He studied political science with a concentration in international relations there, which may have equipped him better equipped to handle foreign relations than the Republicans have claimed. After graduation, he spent five years out in the working world, a year at a corporation, a year at a public interest group, and then three years at Chicago non-profit. Then he applied to Harvard Law.
I remember reading that Harvard Law gets so many talented applicants that it is not enough to have perfect grades and LSAT’s, you have to be interesting. Well, here was Barack Obama, a mixed race child raised for a while by a single mom, who had lived in Indonesia for a while, and who had worked for non-profits. The thing is, Obama justified the “you have to be interesting” policy. He got elected president of the law review and graduated magna cum laude.
One conservative commenter over at the Burgh Report suggested that Obama had a privileged education. As far as I know, he was not a legacy (unlike the current President) and he paid his own way (thousands of dollars of loans, probably couldn’t even do it today). Now, some say Obama is too good at playing politics. Maybe, but isn’t a pragmatic and smart individual better than someone who fights authority when it would be better in the long run to go along. Do we want someone who might be able to persuade people like Putin that the economic consequences of alienating the west out weigh the domestic (in Russia) benefits of occupying Georgia, or do we want someone who calls him a bully?
I hope Hillary Clinton goes to Texas and Ohio and Pennsylvania, and tells the people who voted for her that Obama is for health care and social security and jobs. Obama is polling behind McCain because some people will seize on any reason not to vote for a black man. But McCain is scary, he has drifted to the right (instead of to the center) and it also appears his mental faculties may be showing signs of impairment.
From the Wikipedia, John McCain had a mixed college career at the Naval Academy. He apparently was well regarded, sometimes stood up for students being bullied, but also had conflicts with authority and while he worked hard at literature and history, didn’t work as hard at other subjects. He graduated with a low class ranking.
McCain then became a naval aviator. I guess he was somewhat typical as a navy pilot, doing some hard partying apparently. He apparently was not real talented at flying planes off and landing planes on carriers, although he did well enough to have flight status, and that is saying a lot. He was shot down in Vietnam while flying a jet on a ground attack mission (those are the types of missions most likely to be shot down by surface to air missiles). He was injured, taken prisoner and tortured for six months. The Vietnamese then offered to release him, because his father had been made commander of all US forces in Vietnam. It was an offer probably made for propaganda purposes, and McCain refused it, and as a result he remained a POW for a total of five and a half years. As a result of his torure, he is not able to lift his arms above shoulder level today. The quality of resisting authority that he should as a cadet was also one he showed as a POW. It is brave, but kind of questionable in terms of showing judgment.
I am going to leave McCain’s political career and personal life for a different time and glance a bit at Obama. Obama was born in Hawaii (although conservatives like to question that), and spent his first six years there. He then moved with his mom and step dad to Indonesia. He came back to Hawaii for high school, living with his grandparents. I get all this again from the Wikipedia; from there I see no sign that Obama ever lived in Kansas (FWIW). He started college at Occidental college, apparently a small but good liberal arts school. After two years he transferred to Columbia. Anybody he has ever looked at transferring schools knows that the admissions people generally hold you to a higher standard (although Luke Ravenstahl maybe the exception to the rule). So that Obama was able to get into Columbia two years in speaks well of his scholarship. He studied political science with a concentration in international relations there, which may have equipped him better equipped to handle foreign relations than the Republicans have claimed. After graduation, he spent five years out in the working world, a year at a corporation, a year at a public interest group, and then three years at Chicago non-profit. Then he applied to Harvard Law.
I remember reading that Harvard Law gets so many talented applicants that it is not enough to have perfect grades and LSAT’s, you have to be interesting. Well, here was Barack Obama, a mixed race child raised for a while by a single mom, who had lived in Indonesia for a while, and who had worked for non-profits. The thing is, Obama justified the “you have to be interesting” policy. He got elected president of the law review and graduated magna cum laude.
One conservative commenter over at the Burgh Report suggested that Obama had a privileged education. As far as I know, he was not a legacy (unlike the current President) and he paid his own way (thousands of dollars of loans, probably couldn’t even do it today). Now, some say Obama is too good at playing politics. Maybe, but isn’t a pragmatic and smart individual better than someone who fights authority when it would be better in the long run to go along. Do we want someone who might be able to persuade people like Putin that the economic consequences of alienating the west out weigh the domestic (in Russia) benefits of occupying Georgia, or do we want someone who calls him a bully?
I hope Hillary Clinton goes to Texas and Ohio and Pennsylvania, and tells the people who voted for her that Obama is for health care and social security and jobs. Obama is polling behind McCain because some people will seize on any reason not to vote for a black man. But McCain is scary, he has drifted to the right (instead of to the center) and it also appears his mental faculties may be showing signs of impairment.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
And on ...
There are still new and old voices piping up about bicycling around the internet. This was a comment on Pittsblog (reprinted in its entirety):
“Here's why drivers are never going to be happy...
Drivers see no real benefit from cyclists, but clearly are inconvenienced by them.
That's about all there is to it.
Bicyclists need to somehow compensate drivers for the "externalities" related to their decision to cycle.”
Another commenter on the Burgh Report essentially blamed all car-bicycle accidents on bicycles, for engaging in the risky behavior of riding on the street.
I think the objections to bicycles have fallen into two different groups. First are the people who say that all bicyclists break the law. I guess they simply want to get rid of bicyclists, and that is their club. I will say once again that I believe nearly if not all car drivers also break the law, by speeding and/or rolling through stop signs. Obviously they stop at stop signs if there is a car (hopefully they also stop for bicycles) in the way, but at a clear stop sign …
The second set of objections, possibly combined with the first, are that bicycles are in the way. This is more honest, and perhaps sometimes more legitimate. After all, an out of shape cyclists riding a poorly maintained bicycle on a bridge like the Liberty or Smithfield Street Bridge in traffic is likely to hold up a lot of people. That’s where a bicyclist should consider using the sidewalk, even if (s)he has to walk the bike.
But regular commuting on city streets like Negley or Northumberland shouldn’t be a problem for drivers. It should be easy to pass a bicycle after a short time on these streets. Still clearly this is what drivers who complain about bicycles in the way have in mind.
Some people are suggesting bicyclists pass a test. But reasonable questions arise, how do (some low income) bicyclists get to a testing center, and is the a practical minimum age for the test? I myself think some safety requirements should be enforced. All bicyclists should be compelled to wear a helmet. All bicycles should have reflective devices and a bell. But I think the cops should carry, in their cars, reflective tape, a supply of bells and coupons for free helmets (available perhaps at police stations and mini-stations),. Other people suggest licensing, registration and perhaps taxing bicycles as well or instead (like the commenter above). Fine, let’s tax all vehicles by weight, which should determine how much they tear up the road. I’ll match my 35 pound bike with your 8,000 pound Hummer. A penny a pound or a dollar a pound (a dollar a pound might hit my Hyundai Accent pretty hard).
Some people who are riding a bicycle do so because they don’t have the money to shell out for bus fare, much less buy a car. These are people for whom a fee to ride a bike might be enough to make them give up working and go homeless. But they probably weren’t working a particularly important job, it can be filled with another poor person, and that’s one less bike on the road. Result!
I myself can easily toss my commuting bike on a bike rack and drive to a testing center, I can pay a fee to register my bike, the whole thing. But there are people for whom it would be a burden. Maybe in this new bike regime people could bring a copy of a tax return to prove income level and receive free registration a certain level. That is if they’re not working two jobs and can't get to the testing center.
“Here's why drivers are never going to be happy...
Drivers see no real benefit from cyclists, but clearly are inconvenienced by them.
That's about all there is to it.
Bicyclists need to somehow compensate drivers for the "externalities" related to their decision to cycle.”
Another commenter on the Burgh Report essentially blamed all car-bicycle accidents on bicycles, for engaging in the risky behavior of riding on the street.
I think the objections to bicycles have fallen into two different groups. First are the people who say that all bicyclists break the law. I guess they simply want to get rid of bicyclists, and that is their club. I will say once again that I believe nearly if not all car drivers also break the law, by speeding and/or rolling through stop signs. Obviously they stop at stop signs if there is a car (hopefully they also stop for bicycles) in the way, but at a clear stop sign …
The second set of objections, possibly combined with the first, are that bicycles are in the way. This is more honest, and perhaps sometimes more legitimate. After all, an out of shape cyclists riding a poorly maintained bicycle on a bridge like the Liberty or Smithfield Street Bridge in traffic is likely to hold up a lot of people. That’s where a bicyclist should consider using the sidewalk, even if (s)he has to walk the bike.
But regular commuting on city streets like Negley or Northumberland shouldn’t be a problem for drivers. It should be easy to pass a bicycle after a short time on these streets. Still clearly this is what drivers who complain about bicycles in the way have in mind.
Some people are suggesting bicyclists pass a test. But reasonable questions arise, how do (some low income) bicyclists get to a testing center, and is the a practical minimum age for the test? I myself think some safety requirements should be enforced. All bicyclists should be compelled to wear a helmet. All bicycles should have reflective devices and a bell. But I think the cops should carry, in their cars, reflective tape, a supply of bells and coupons for free helmets (available perhaps at police stations and mini-stations),. Other people suggest licensing, registration and perhaps taxing bicycles as well or instead (like the commenter above). Fine, let’s tax all vehicles by weight, which should determine how much they tear up the road. I’ll match my 35 pound bike with your 8,000 pound Hummer. A penny a pound or a dollar a pound (a dollar a pound might hit my Hyundai Accent pretty hard).
Some people who are riding a bicycle do so because they don’t have the money to shell out for bus fare, much less buy a car. These are people for whom a fee to ride a bike might be enough to make them give up working and go homeless. But they probably weren’t working a particularly important job, it can be filled with another poor person, and that’s one less bike on the road. Result!
I myself can easily toss my commuting bike on a bike rack and drive to a testing center, I can pay a fee to register my bike, the whole thing. But there are people for whom it would be a burden. Maybe in this new bike regime people could bring a copy of a tax return to prove income level and receive free registration a certain level. That is if they’re not working two jobs and can't get to the testing center.
Monday, August 18, 2008
And on ...
Chad Hermann kept at least as busy as me continuing to comment on bicyclists. He was doing it because the thread refused to die on the Burgh Report, he got emails and since stuff has starting appearing in the PG. The emails he reprints have (in the parts he reprints) a tone reminiscent of the arguments against driving 55 mph. People drving that slow represent a hazard, because we have to slow down.
Now, I know I’m lucky because almost all of my commute takes over roads with parked cars or wide enough that I pose no problem for drivers. Cyclists who have to cross bridges probably ought to ride on the sidewalk, if there is one. But you know, if your best suggestion (as one of the emails starts) is “Bicyclists should just stay the fuck off the road ” and then make some half-assed tax argument, then you are not adding to the conversation.
Again to be fair, that particular email mentioned dedicated bike lanes. Now, we might get some more bike lanes around here, but drivers are not going to be happy about having some of their commuting space cut. The letters and emails and blog discussion we are getting now will be as nothing compared to the push back from drivers if they are forced to share the road.
Dr. Hermann also referenced a Rich Lord bicycle piece in this morning’s PG. Dr. Hermann notes one quote “It takes a lot of energy to get a bicycle from zero to cruising speed, he noted, so if the coast is clear, some cyclists roll on” from Scott Bricker of Bike Pittsburgh. I suspect this is exactly the argument most cyclists would make, but as more cyclists do come onto the roads, I suspect the red light and even stop sign jumping will have to stop. It may be something experienced riders can get away with (although it is illegal), but with more cyclists on the road, all will need to behave the same, to keep unthinking drivers and/or unthinking cyclists from coming together in an unfortunate way.
Mr Bricker also apparently said that onus to avoid collisions rests most heavily on motorists (possibly not a direct quote). Well … yeah, but bikes can move to the side even faster than cars, and cars can’t stop as fast as bikes. So if a bike is changing lanes or even swinging out to avoid a parked car or a road hazard that only (s)he can see, the cyclist needs to make sure it is safe. We don’t have blinkers and the times we might need to make hand signals might also be the times we need to keep both hands on the handlebars to be able to brake. Use a mirror, make sure it is safe to swerve (otherwise stop and wait).
Lastly, I will note that Dr. Hermann, in his own defense, notes he has always skewered bad drivers over the last four years. I dunno, I read his blog periodically and I only remember maybe some drivers with cell phones complaints. It certainly seems in keeping with his personality that he might complain about bad driving he had witnessed or read about. I just wish he had made *mention* of the equally illegal behavior of cars (speeding, not stopping atstop signs) at the time he was applying “scorn, these last few days, to equally discourteous cyclists and the often silly justifications for them”. On the other hand, as I have said, we take much of the illegal behavior of car drivers for granted, in fact, we seem to count on it as we drive.
Now, I know I’m lucky because almost all of my commute takes over roads with parked cars or wide enough that I pose no problem for drivers. Cyclists who have to cross bridges probably ought to ride on the sidewalk, if there is one. But you know, if your best suggestion (as one of the emails starts) is “Bicyclists should just stay the fuck off the road ” and then make some half-assed tax argument, then you are not adding to the conversation.
Again to be fair, that particular email mentioned dedicated bike lanes. Now, we might get some more bike lanes around here, but drivers are not going to be happy about having some of their commuting space cut. The letters and emails and blog discussion we are getting now will be as nothing compared to the push back from drivers if they are forced to share the road.
Dr. Hermann also referenced a Rich Lord bicycle piece in this morning’s PG. Dr. Hermann notes one quote “It takes a lot of energy to get a bicycle from zero to cruising speed, he noted, so if the coast is clear, some cyclists roll on” from Scott Bricker of Bike Pittsburgh. I suspect this is exactly the argument most cyclists would make, but as more cyclists do come onto the roads, I suspect the red light and even stop sign jumping will have to stop. It may be something experienced riders can get away with (although it is illegal), but with more cyclists on the road, all will need to behave the same, to keep unthinking drivers and/or unthinking cyclists from coming together in an unfortunate way.
Mr Bricker also apparently said that onus to avoid collisions rests most heavily on motorists (possibly not a direct quote). Well … yeah, but bikes can move to the side even faster than cars, and cars can’t stop as fast as bikes. So if a bike is changing lanes or even swinging out to avoid a parked car or a road hazard that only (s)he can see, the cyclist needs to make sure it is safe. We don’t have blinkers and the times we might need to make hand signals might also be the times we need to keep both hands on the handlebars to be able to brake. Use a mirror, make sure it is safe to swerve (otherwise stop and wait).
Lastly, I will note that Dr. Hermann, in his own defense, notes he has always skewered bad drivers over the last four years. I dunno, I read his blog periodically and I only remember maybe some drivers with cell phones complaints. It certainly seems in keeping with his personality that he might complain about bad driving he had witnessed or read about. I just wish he had made *mention* of the equally illegal behavior of cars (speeding, not stopping atstop signs) at the time he was applying “scorn, these last few days, to equally discourteous cyclists and the often silly justifications for them”. On the other hand, as I have said, we take much of the illegal behavior of car drivers for granted, in fact, we seem to count on it as we drive.
Undying issue ...
This bicycling issue has surprised me with its longevity. I sort of understand the supporters of cycling, but the hostility shown by opponents of cycling is a bit baffling. There was a letter in the Issue One section of Sunday’s paper from a Kristin Debbis that is a good example of that hostility. She evidently travels in the hilly area of the city around Station Square, where they used to run that race. Now, possibly some cyclists are zipping down the hills in the area, whipping around blind corners. She would have a point in complaining about them. But the style of her complaints reveals a startling lack of understanding of how bicycles operate, how they have to operate. She complains about cycles running red lights (illegal), turning left or right across oncoming cars (isn’t that what you have to do in traffic), going 15 or 20 MPH under the speed limit (hello, they are bikes) and (my favorite) riding next to but not on the sidewalks (that’s what the law says bikes should do). Basically this woman wants bikes out of her way.
Biking on roads where there are two traffic lanes is tough, and if I am in that situation I will often ride on the sidewalk, although that is not my preference. But Ms Debbis wants the City to make sure she is not inconvenienced by bicycles at all. Unless she is driving a Prius or Civic Hybrid, she is not doing all she can to make sure her driving does not inconvenience the rest of us. If you ask (or demand) something of the rest of us, we have a right to ask what you are doing for us.
Biking on roads where there are two traffic lanes is tough, and if I am in that situation I will often ride on the sidewalk, although that is not my preference. But Ms Debbis wants the City to make sure she is not inconvenienced by bicycles at all. Unless she is driving a Prius or Civic Hybrid, she is not doing all she can to make sure her driving does not inconvenience the rest of us. If you ask (or demand) something of the rest of us, we have a right to ask what you are doing for us.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
In the interest of fairness ...
In the interest of fairness I should note that Chad Hermann posted a follow up to yesterday’s commentary about bicyclists. In this post he mentioned his personal experiences with bicyclists (as Bram did, but not in such detail). Chad Hermann thinks only 75% of bicyclists break the law. And he did mention someone passed him twice, in a car, so he also noticed the behavior of one motorized lawbreaker. I still say we close our eyes to the illegal behavior of cars/SUVs/pickups and mostly to motorcycles, because we all go at least a bit over 25 and 55, and we slow down but don’t actually stop at stop signs.
Dr. Hermann also, after taking an “aw shucks you don’t want me to do this” attitude, made a couple of suggestions. First he mentioned there should be a complete re-examination of the traffic laws for bicycles, which is actually a very enlightened suggestion. I suspect he would not want the rules loosened any, but that is entirely speculation on my part. He then suggested bicyclists be licensed. This is a more complicated suggestion. It’s a lot like the Republican suggestion that voters have photo ID’s. I myself, and most everyone I know who rides bicycles, would have no problem with this suggestion. As I stated before, though, some poor people rely on bicycles as cheap transportation. If you can only afford a bike, then trekking to a bicycle testing center (the old driver testing center – now a Pittsburgh police station – on Washington road?) could be fairly arduous. The license requirement might be yet another excuse for racial profiling and harassment (not necessarily here. Again, if you can only afford a bicycle to get around with, you probably can’t afford a $25, $50 or $100 ticket.
But I have to give Dr. Hermann credit for making the suggestion, and if it were ever made by a policy maker, I’m sure the issues I just cited would be raised. And I would like to see something done so that bicyclists and car drivers know what bicyclists should and shouldn’t do in traffic.
Dr. Hermann also, after taking an “aw shucks you don’t want me to do this” attitude, made a couple of suggestions. First he mentioned there should be a complete re-examination of the traffic laws for bicycles, which is actually a very enlightened suggestion. I suspect he would not want the rules loosened any, but that is entirely speculation on my part. He then suggested bicyclists be licensed. This is a more complicated suggestion. It’s a lot like the Republican suggestion that voters have photo ID’s. I myself, and most everyone I know who rides bicycles, would have no problem with this suggestion. As I stated before, though, some poor people rely on bicycles as cheap transportation. If you can only afford a bike, then trekking to a bicycle testing center (the old driver testing center – now a Pittsburgh police station – on Washington road?) could be fairly arduous. The license requirement might be yet another excuse for racial profiling and harassment (not necessarily here. Again, if you can only afford a bicycle to get around with, you probably can’t afford a $25, $50 or $100 ticket.
But I have to give Dr. Hermann credit for making the suggestion, and if it were ever made by a policy maker, I’m sure the issues I just cited would be raised. And I would like to see something done so that bicyclists and car drivers know what bicyclists should and shouldn’t do in traffic.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Death to Bicyclists
Are bicycles the same as cars? What do you think? I think they’re not. Not as fast and entirely human powered. Bicycles are in fact regulated more than cars; the rules say, essentially, get out of the way of cars. Stay to the right. I’m not sure what we are supposed to do when we want to go left. It appears that some people would prefer that we just stay off the road, or maybe disappear altogether.
In the wake of the announcement of the bike czar, two blogs made statements about bicyclists. John McIntire called bicyclists annoying, and reckless bastards (in his post “Annoying Bikers Edition”). And Bram Reichbaum (on the Burgh report) said that “As of today, 100% of cyclists have egregiously broken at least one traffic law -- disregarding stop signs, blowing through red lights, blowing through red lights to make left turns, weaving in and out of traffic.” (emphasis his). I sent McIntire an email, which he ignored, but I used the comments area at the Burgh Report to complain to/about Bram’s post. I mean, do people even notice when cars glide through stop signs? But that’s ok, they’re cars, and they belong on roads. Bikes don’t.
Into this fray comes the great commenter Chad Hermann, with another long, wordy post (I know, pot calling kettle). Dr. Hermann is another blogger who doesn’t actually believe in democracy in that his blog is not set up to receive comments. Anyone who has read his blog knows how he handles comments, I will leave it at that (res ipsa and all that). I believe Dr. Hermann wants to be seen as the voice of common sense, just someone intelligently commenting on life in a sea of idiots. But Dr. Hermann is, in real life, a speech writer for a Republican Congressman running for re-election. His agenda is advancing the agenda of the Republican party, the people who brought you the “conservation is a personal virtue, but has no place in policy” energy policy.
Dr. Hermann suggests that cyclists see criticizing them as the same as criticizing the pope or Barack Obama (making sure to link Obama to a religious figure, to get that little shot in). He says he is entertained and infuriated by “the clockwork accumulation of silliness, of moral relativism and ethical obfuscation, from the (for lack of a better term) pro-biking commenters”. Mind you, McIntire called bicyclists annoying and Bram said all bicyclists break laws every time we ride, both prior to any bicyclist comment. But we are the self-righteous moral relativists.
I’m sure that there have been cases where a bicyclist caused someone else’s death in a traffic accident. But I think we are talking fingers on a hand numbers, not the tens of thousands in auto accidents. I really think this is a case of people complaining about the mote in my eye, not considering the beam in theirs (oh great, a biblical reference, who does he thing he is, Obama?). I should point out that many of the bicyclists in the thread on the Burgh Report essentially confessed their sins, admitting about blowing through traffic lights and stop signs. Not one driver admitted rolling through stop signs or driving 70 mph on the Parkway or Route 28. The drivers did say that bicyclists would get respect when they started obeying the laws. I suspect African Americans would find that statement familiar. Of course, as long as one bicyclist breaks one law, we will all be tarred with the same brush, branded as annoying law breakers, while drivers continue rolling through stop signs, blasting along at 70 mph in a 55 mph zone and killing bicyclists.
Bicycles are both transportation for the poor and toys for the rich. You can buy a bike at a yard sale for $25 or at a bike shop for a thousand. But bikes as commuting vehicles do not use (scarce) gas, do not pollute and don’t take up much space on the road. As I say, bikes don’t cause traffic deaths (except perhaps from heads exploding because of bicyclists sheer moral relativism and ethical obfuscation). But my wife heard a discussion on a bus as it passed me cycling to work one day. The bus driver was being encouraged to run me over. You just don’t hear about how car drivers should be killed just for being on the road.
Again, the basic theme on Dr. Hermann’s post was that bicyclists were admitting breaking the laws and he took them to task for it. But if a bicyclist suggested drivers also break traffic laws, he dismissed them as being juvenile. When a car and a bike tangle as a result of either law breaking or accident, the bicyclist will end up in much worse shape almost all the time. Which is I guess what Dr. Hermann wants: the death penalty for riding bikes.
In the wake of the announcement of the bike czar, two blogs made statements about bicyclists. John McIntire called bicyclists annoying, and reckless bastards (in his post “Annoying Bikers Edition”). And Bram Reichbaum (on the Burgh report) said that “As of today, 100% of cyclists have egregiously broken at least one traffic law -- disregarding stop signs, blowing through red lights, blowing through red lights to make left turns, weaving in and out of traffic.” (emphasis his). I sent McIntire an email, which he ignored, but I used the comments area at the Burgh Report to complain to/about Bram’s post. I mean, do people even notice when cars glide through stop signs? But that’s ok, they’re cars, and they belong on roads. Bikes don’t.
Into this fray comes the great commenter Chad Hermann, with another long, wordy post (I know, pot calling kettle). Dr. Hermann is another blogger who doesn’t actually believe in democracy in that his blog is not set up to receive comments. Anyone who has read his blog knows how he handles comments, I will leave it at that (res ipsa and all that). I believe Dr. Hermann wants to be seen as the voice of common sense, just someone intelligently commenting on life in a sea of idiots. But Dr. Hermann is, in real life, a speech writer for a Republican Congressman running for re-election. His agenda is advancing the agenda of the Republican party, the people who brought you the “conservation is a personal virtue, but has no place in policy” energy policy.
Dr. Hermann suggests that cyclists see criticizing them as the same as criticizing the pope or Barack Obama (making sure to link Obama to a religious figure, to get that little shot in). He says he is entertained and infuriated by “the clockwork accumulation of silliness, of moral relativism and ethical obfuscation, from the (for lack of a better term) pro-biking commenters”. Mind you, McIntire called bicyclists annoying and Bram said all bicyclists break laws every time we ride, both prior to any bicyclist comment. But we are the self-righteous moral relativists.
I’m sure that there have been cases where a bicyclist caused someone else’s death in a traffic accident. But I think we are talking fingers on a hand numbers, not the tens of thousands in auto accidents. I really think this is a case of people complaining about the mote in my eye, not considering the beam in theirs (oh great, a biblical reference, who does he thing he is, Obama?). I should point out that many of the bicyclists in the thread on the Burgh Report essentially confessed their sins, admitting about blowing through traffic lights and stop signs. Not one driver admitted rolling through stop signs or driving 70 mph on the Parkway or Route 28. The drivers did say that bicyclists would get respect when they started obeying the laws. I suspect African Americans would find that statement familiar. Of course, as long as one bicyclist breaks one law, we will all be tarred with the same brush, branded as annoying law breakers, while drivers continue rolling through stop signs, blasting along at 70 mph in a 55 mph zone and killing bicyclists.
Bicycles are both transportation for the poor and toys for the rich. You can buy a bike at a yard sale for $25 or at a bike shop for a thousand. But bikes as commuting vehicles do not use (scarce) gas, do not pollute and don’t take up much space on the road. As I say, bikes don’t cause traffic deaths (except perhaps from heads exploding because of bicyclists sheer moral relativism and ethical obfuscation). But my wife heard a discussion on a bus as it passed me cycling to work one day. The bus driver was being encouraged to run me over. You just don’t hear about how car drivers should be killed just for being on the road.
Again, the basic theme on Dr. Hermann’s post was that bicyclists were admitting breaking the laws and he took them to task for it. But if a bicyclist suggested drivers also break traffic laws, he dismissed them as being juvenile. When a car and a bike tangle as a result of either law breaking or accident, the bicyclist will end up in much worse shape almost all the time. Which is I guess what Dr. Hermann wants: the death penalty for riding bikes.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Today's stuff n@
In a few places I have seen people applaud the recent run up in gas prices, because it forced people to take measures to conserve. Specifically people drove less, possibly some drove slower and demand for SUV’s and pickups fell through the floor. From a policy standpoint, I think that on balance the run up in prices was not a good thing. It was not good but government had no hand in controlling it, and no way to ameliorate the negative effects on the poor. What we should have been doing, starting twenty five years ago, was taxing gasoline at one hundred percent. The revenue from that tax could have been split between poorer people and trucking companies, to keep the price of transporting things from going too high (just like Congress never raided the Social Security trust fund …). 1983 is about when OPEC lost its discipline and the price of oil dropped after its first big run up in the mid seventies. Right then the government should have taxed the fifty cent gas (whatever the price was at that point) at fifty cents, and kept the tax at one hundred percent. Of course it should have never allowed the states to wriggle out of the 55 mile per hour speed limit. Doing those things would have saved huge amounts of gas, and would have limited our dependence on foreign oil. Alternatives to petroleum based gas would have been much more cost effective, and thus brought to the market much sooner
By the way, the people who say that traffic deaths actually dropped the year after the Congress finally jettisoned the 55 mph national speed limit, never seem to note that by then air bags, which had been made mandatory a few years back, were finally becoming a factor in traffic accidents. An air bag in a 70 mph crash is better than no air bag in a 55 mph crash. But what’s best of all is an air bag in a 55 mph crash (actually what’s best is driving at 55 mph and avoiding the crash you wouldn’t have been able to at 70 mph).
On a different note, apparently yesterday there was an incident in City Council yesterday. Doug Shields had an exchange with Barbara Trant, City Personnel Director, which led to her walking out. As she was doing this, apparently other Council people (notably Jim Motznik) were having something of an exchange with Mr. Shields. Shields actually sent the police officer assigned to Council after Ms.Trant, to no avail. Mr. Shields then walked out of Council, and Mr. Motznik called for his resignation.
Pat Dowd had had words with Mr. Shields earlier in the Council session, and later was quoted in the PG (I paraphrase) saying that it was not the first time that had happened and it was unfortunate. Pat Dowd is very intelligent, as far as I can see. But maybe he has spent too much time first with high school students (who can be intelligent but are never experienced) and then with Council people (who, in this town, have no training in their jobs). I shouldn’t wonder if Dr. Dowd expects to be in line for Mr. Shields’ position. But there is a problem with that. In this town people can succeed if they offer extremely brilliant ideas, but all the press Dr. Dowd has received shows him to be little more than contrary. Alternatively people can succeed in politics if they are good party men or women, but we know that Dr. Dowd is not doing that. It ends up that I have to wonder how Dr. Dowd will fare in the next district election, much less in any advancement of his position.
By the way, the people who say that traffic deaths actually dropped the year after the Congress finally jettisoned the 55 mph national speed limit, never seem to note that by then air bags, which had been made mandatory a few years back, were finally becoming a factor in traffic accidents. An air bag in a 70 mph crash is better than no air bag in a 55 mph crash. But what’s best of all is an air bag in a 55 mph crash (actually what’s best is driving at 55 mph and avoiding the crash you wouldn’t have been able to at 70 mph).
On a different note, apparently yesterday there was an incident in City Council yesterday. Doug Shields had an exchange with Barbara Trant, City Personnel Director, which led to her walking out. As she was doing this, apparently other Council people (notably Jim Motznik) were having something of an exchange with Mr. Shields. Shields actually sent the police officer assigned to Council after Ms.Trant, to no avail. Mr. Shields then walked out of Council, and Mr. Motznik called for his resignation.
Pat Dowd had had words with Mr. Shields earlier in the Council session, and later was quoted in the PG (I paraphrase) saying that it was not the first time that had happened and it was unfortunate. Pat Dowd is very intelligent, as far as I can see. But maybe he has spent too much time first with high school students (who can be intelligent but are never experienced) and then with Council people (who, in this town, have no training in their jobs). I shouldn’t wonder if Dr. Dowd expects to be in line for Mr. Shields’ position. But there is a problem with that. In this town people can succeed if they offer extremely brilliant ideas, but all the press Dr. Dowd has received shows him to be little more than contrary. Alternatively people can succeed in politics if they are good party men or women, but we know that Dr. Dowd is not doing that. It ends up that I have to wonder how Dr. Dowd will fare in the next district election, much less in any advancement of his position.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Your own hype ...
Last week I noticed a post over at TWM. Mr/Dr Hermann noted how a Florida man had threatened to kill Barack Obama, and was taken into custody. He also noted that the man had also threatened to kill the President, but the newspaper story had put that fact down in the fourth sentence. Mr/Dr Hermann speculated that a threat against the President wasn’t important enough to lead the story, or possibly, not important enough a reason to arrest the man.
Except that Barack Obama was traveling in Florida at the time.
It’s a terrible thing when you believe your own hype.
Except that Barack Obama was traveling in Florida at the time.
It’s a terrible thing when you believe your own hype.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Fuel economy
Again I have been ignoring my blog in favor of kibitzing on others people’s blogs. Also, I have not had an idea that seemed real … well, “post-worthy” (with apologies to Seinfeld). But there have been a few things rattling around the back of my brain.
First, the question of how fast people should be allowed to drive keeps nagging at me. I have settled for myself that about 45 miles per hour is an optimum speed for my car. I had purchased a little plug in on-board computer that calculates fuel economy. I believe if does that by measuring the speed of the car against the rpms, although I have read it is something to do with the speed of aid moving through the engine. So all that is a little suspect, but I will say my MPG as measured by how many miles I go versus how much gas I put in my car when I fill up has shown improvement (up to an average 36 MPG overall in my last thankful). But if I try to use my car as an example, people may say that their eight cylinder is different than my four. Plus the EPA seems to support the idea that 55 MPH is the optimum of efficiency with graphs like this.
But I have been thinking about why that graph might differ so much from my own experience. Then it occurred to me that the Feds do their mileage testing in a lab. They put the car on a dynamometer, a device that has rollers and measures how fast the wheels are turning. I believe it might also provide resistance, but clearly it wouldn’t take into account wind resistance. The Feds may try to take this into account, but given the chart above, it doesn’t look like they succeed totally.
I saw this next chart elsewhere on the web. It looks like a Volkswagen made an effort to measure the fuel efficiency of the cars (Volkswagen TDI’s) of several of their members. It must have been a long process, measure fuel efficiency at several MPH points, say 25, 35, 45, 55, 65 and 75 (or something like that). I myself am struck by how, even though the cars (all the same model) get different levels of mileage, how the curves are shaped exactly alike. The mileage is clearly highest at a point between 35 and 40 MPH, and drops from there.
I think that this graph would justify calling for a return to the national 55 MPH speed limit, although it would make an even stronger case for a 50 MPH speed limit. After all, my car seems to max its fuel economy around 40 MPH, except up hills, where anything below abouit 48 MPH makes the car lug or at least strain some in fifth gear. So 50 would be a good catch all for all makes of vehicles.
By the way, the top image above came from fueleconomy.gov, and the bottom from drive55.org, although they clearly got it from someone else.
On another related front, conservative commenters over at the Burgh Report, as well as everywhere else, have called for drilling in the OCS and the ANWR. One rather obnoxiously phrases it as drill through a polar bears head to get to oil (and then they wonder why liberal bloggers call them names). National polls show the same sentiment among regular voters, 67% want drilling now in at least the OCS. Conservatives claim their motives are patriotic, while I think voters just want to go back to the way it was three months ago, when all you has to worry about was foreclosure, getting laid off or healthcare. Even Obama has picked up on this, now supporting limited drilling.
So we want to drill now, to get this oil out so that we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil. For how long, a couple of years? Maybe ten years, if we are lucky. If it takes ten years to get to the oil, the longest we could be looking at the oil lasting is maybe twenty years from now. Does anyone thing we will be off oil by then? Plug in hybrids are coming, but Toyota can’t keep up with demand for it’s hybrids now. Unless no new cars are sold that aren’t plug in hybrids, then we will have heavier users of oil with us for some time to come.
What I am leading up to is that there may come a time when we really need that OCS oil, not like now where we want the oil to return to an easier life style. Possibly even in a couple of years, four dollar a gallon gas may seem like the good times.
Now, going partially electric in cars is going to put a strain on the electric grid, with all those cars recharging over night. Any additional contribution made from wind farms will need to go to augmenting the electric grid before it goes to replacing coal burning power plants. And plug in hybrids will still need some gas sometimes, for trips between cities. By which I mean that we are not going to get off oil dependence in four years, or even eight. We may be looking at slowly reducing our use of oil over the next fifty years. So we may need that OCS oil in forty years, when everyone else runs out, and we can turn a good buck selling (and using) it. So we should resist using it now. Our children will thank us.
First, the question of how fast people should be allowed to drive keeps nagging at me. I have settled for myself that about 45 miles per hour is an optimum speed for my car. I had purchased a little plug in on-board computer that calculates fuel economy. I believe if does that by measuring the speed of the car against the rpms, although I have read it is something to do with the speed of aid moving through the engine. So all that is a little suspect, but I will say my MPG as measured by how many miles I go versus how much gas I put in my car when I fill up has shown improvement (up to an average 36 MPG overall in my last thankful). But if I try to use my car as an example, people may say that their eight cylinder is different than my four. Plus the EPA seems to support the idea that 55 MPH is the optimum of efficiency with graphs like this.
But I have been thinking about why that graph might differ so much from my own experience. Then it occurred to me that the Feds do their mileage testing in a lab. They put the car on a dynamometer, a device that has rollers and measures how fast the wheels are turning. I believe it might also provide resistance, but clearly it wouldn’t take into account wind resistance. The Feds may try to take this into account, but given the chart above, it doesn’t look like they succeed totally.
I saw this next chart elsewhere on the web. It looks like a Volkswagen made an effort to measure the fuel efficiency of the cars (Volkswagen TDI’s) of several of their members. It must have been a long process, measure fuel efficiency at several MPH points, say 25, 35, 45, 55, 65 and 75 (or something like that). I myself am struck by how, even though the cars (all the same model) get different levels of mileage, how the curves are shaped exactly alike. The mileage is clearly highest at a point between 35 and 40 MPH, and drops from there.
I think that this graph would justify calling for a return to the national 55 MPH speed limit, although it would make an even stronger case for a 50 MPH speed limit. After all, my car seems to max its fuel economy around 40 MPH, except up hills, where anything below abouit 48 MPH makes the car lug or at least strain some in fifth gear. So 50 would be a good catch all for all makes of vehicles.
By the way, the top image above came from fueleconomy.gov, and the bottom from drive55.org, although they clearly got it from someone else.
On another related front, conservative commenters over at the Burgh Report, as well as everywhere else, have called for drilling in the OCS and the ANWR. One rather obnoxiously phrases it as drill through a polar bears head to get to oil (and then they wonder why liberal bloggers call them names). National polls show the same sentiment among regular voters, 67% want drilling now in at least the OCS. Conservatives claim their motives are patriotic, while I think voters just want to go back to the way it was three months ago, when all you has to worry about was foreclosure, getting laid off or healthcare. Even Obama has picked up on this, now supporting limited drilling.
So we want to drill now, to get this oil out so that we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil. For how long, a couple of years? Maybe ten years, if we are lucky. If it takes ten years to get to the oil, the longest we could be looking at the oil lasting is maybe twenty years from now. Does anyone thing we will be off oil by then? Plug in hybrids are coming, but Toyota can’t keep up with demand for it’s hybrids now. Unless no new cars are sold that aren’t plug in hybrids, then we will have heavier users of oil with us for some time to come.
What I am leading up to is that there may come a time when we really need that OCS oil, not like now where we want the oil to return to an easier life style. Possibly even in a couple of years, four dollar a gallon gas may seem like the good times.
Now, going partially electric in cars is going to put a strain on the electric grid, with all those cars recharging over night. Any additional contribution made from wind farms will need to go to augmenting the electric grid before it goes to replacing coal burning power plants. And plug in hybrids will still need some gas sometimes, for trips between cities. By which I mean that we are not going to get off oil dependence in four years, or even eight. We may be looking at slowly reducing our use of oil over the next fifty years. So we may need that OCS oil in forty years, when everyone else runs out, and we can turn a good buck selling (and using) it. So we should resist using it now. Our children will thank us.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Ruth Ann weighs in ...
I hadn't noticed Ruth Ann Dailey's column yesterday, but the Two Political Junkies did, and compared it to Bob Herbert’s column in the NYTimes the other day. There are interesting differences between the two, and interesting connections to other people. For example, Herbert mentioned the attempt of the Republicans to define Obama as “the other”, someone not of this country, “not sufficiently patriotic” or “one of us”. Well, David Brooks spent an entire column today about how Obama consciously stands apart from his enterprises, teaching law, organizing in the community, going to a church, being a state legislator or US Senator. Americans, Brooks says, like to be able to define their candidates and they can’t do that with Obama. That’s why Obama is not ahead in the polls. Brooks says nothing about Americans defining their candidates by race, because he doesn’t have to.
Ruth Ann Dailey pushes back in a different way. She trots out her familiar point, that the Democrats were the party of racism before the 1960’s. And she’s right, the Democrats were the party of racism, probably most explicitly in the south, but I suspect also in the north when needed. In fact, the Republicans provided the votes to get the civil rights legislation passed in the 1960’s. But since the “Southern strategy” of the 1970’s (darn that Richard Nixon, he was also responsible for the 55 mph speed limit), the positions have flipped.
But Ruth Ann does an interesting thing in her column. She accuses the Democrats of accusing the Republicans of racism ever so subtlety, but she never describes the McCain ad that set off the whole issue, at least not its racial angle. Which was my earlier point, that the attack was subtle enough that, for example, Bram Reichbaum didn’t think it had a racist component. It was just enough to set off certain voters with a predisposition to look for such things. Since the ad went out with John McCain’s approval, it needed that cover. So Ruth Ann Dailey self righteously attacks the Democrats as hypocrites, while McCain pulls even in the polls. David Brooks self righteously describes Obama’s failure to pull ahead as Obama’s own fault for being so aloof and distant, providing those independents and Democrats of a racist inclination with cover for their rejection of Obama. Meanwhile McCain jettisons everything he believed in for one last chance at the presidency, becoming the new pro-business candidate, the one who will block new regulations and allow Americans a few more years living a fantasy lifestyle. “Apres moi le deluge”
Ruth Ann Dailey pushes back in a different way. She trots out her familiar point, that the Democrats were the party of racism before the 1960’s. And she’s right, the Democrats were the party of racism, probably most explicitly in the south, but I suspect also in the north when needed. In fact, the Republicans provided the votes to get the civil rights legislation passed in the 1960’s. But since the “Southern strategy” of the 1970’s (darn that Richard Nixon, he was also responsible for the 55 mph speed limit), the positions have flipped.
But Ruth Ann does an interesting thing in her column. She accuses the Democrats of accusing the Republicans of racism ever so subtlety, but she never describes the McCain ad that set off the whole issue, at least not its racial angle. Which was my earlier point, that the attack was subtle enough that, for example, Bram Reichbaum didn’t think it had a racist component. It was just enough to set off certain voters with a predisposition to look for such things. Since the ad went out with John McCain’s approval, it needed that cover. So Ruth Ann Dailey self righteously attacks the Democrats as hypocrites, while McCain pulls even in the polls. David Brooks self righteously describes Obama’s failure to pull ahead as Obama’s own fault for being so aloof and distant, providing those independents and Democrats of a racist inclination with cover for their rejection of Obama. Meanwhile McCain jettisons everything he believed in for one last chance at the presidency, becoming the new pro-business candidate, the one who will block new regulations and allow Americans a few more years living a fantasy lifestyle. “Apres moi le deluge”
Monday, August 04, 2008
McCains ad
In my previous post, I suggested the McCain ad with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton was subtle, and probably I really should not have. When you think about how the ad was made, the people making the ad asking themselves, "if we want to describe Barack Obama as a celebrity, whose image should we use?". Are there bigger celebrities than Spears and Hilton? Yes, Pitt and Jolie, Tom Cruise, Oprah, Tom Hanks all leap instantly to mind. What Hilton and Spears share, besides some celebrity, is a reputation for loose morals.
Now for decades African American men (and now teenage girls) have also had a reputation for loose morals. This is true particularly in southern states, but thanks to the magic of television, African-Americans have played the villain in numberless cop shows. We would naturally assume that a Britney or Paris would want to experiment with a black man, an Obama's natural impulse would be to indulge himself. That is a lot to read into one ad, but I think it is justified. Obama himself is the product of a failed interracial marriage, raising that specter with his mere presence.
Obama should push back soon against these ads, although I'm not sure how. He needs to include us (all Americans, but particularly white America) and tell us we are better than these ads. Racial overtones, even if meant humorously, are never acceptable.
Now for decades African American men (and now teenage girls) have also had a reputation for loose morals. This is true particularly in southern states, but thanks to the magic of television, African-Americans have played the villain in numberless cop shows. We would naturally assume that a Britney or Paris would want to experiment with a black man, an Obama's natural impulse would be to indulge himself. That is a lot to read into one ad, but I think it is justified. Obama himself is the product of a failed interracial marriage, raising that specter with his mere presence.
Obama should push back soon against these ads, although I'm not sure how. He needs to include us (all Americans, but particularly white America) and tell us we are better than these ads. Racial overtones, even if meant humorously, are never acceptable.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Of resumes and senior moments...
David Brooks, conservative NYTimes columnist, has stopped praising Barack Obama’s intellect, speaking abilities and policy proposals, and has started showing his true colors. In complaining about Obama’s lack of experience, he suggested you would have to go back maybe two hundred years before finding a presidential candidate with less experience. Like most people, I don’t know much about the experience of Presidents or candidates before 1950, with one significant exception. In fact, Obama might have himself mentioned that exception in the past, although in any event I know about it from having read a book about the exception. As I considered that exception, I also remembered reading some of the late night talk show host monologues, and the following hypothetical sequence came out of those musings:
Obama, answering charges related to his lack of experience, pointed out that Lincoln was only a one term Representative from Illinois. McCain responded that it is the height of arrogance for Obama to compare himself to Lincoln, and anyway McCain had been in the Navy during Lincoln’s term, serving our country. Aides later commented that it was a natural mistake for Senator McCain to make. After all, Lincoln and Ford are the same car company.
Heh.
Well, so I shouldn’t quit my day job, but there are some points worth considering, sort of in there. For example, on the surge Obama is starting to look like the Fonz, who never seemed to be able to even utter the “wrong”, let alone admit a mistake. It would be a relief for Obama to say he was wrong … except for the follow up question. About the only thing Obama could do would be to blame faulty intelligence. Otherwise, he would have to blame his inexperience or that he was standing with the crowd of Democrats in mechanically denouncing everything about the war/occupation. The second choice would not be good for the “change” candidate. Obama had better get used to the question, because he is going to hear it in every interview until his head explodes.
On the McCain side, it is clear that someone McCain trusts read “The Political Brain” by Drew Westen (yes, I am bringing that up again). In McCain’s Paris Hilton/Britney Spears ad, a narrator calls Obama the biggest celebrity in the world as Hilton and Spears images appear before Mr. Obama, and then the voice asks if he is ready to lead. The ad didn’t need the images of Spears or Hilton, it could have shown Oprah Winfrey and Tom Cruise, or Tom Hanks and Celine Dion, or other celebrities. Obama’s response was equally subtle, and frankly restrained, talking about his “funny” name and how he doesn’t look like the Presidents on the dollar or five dollar bill. And that’s when the McCain camp made its next move, saying Obama was tarring McCain as a racist.
There is an elaborate dance being choreographed here. Each side wants to portray the other side as either racist or playing the race card, without appearing to. So the McCain ad, by using the word “celebrity”, justifies its use of the image of young white women with known bad reputations and loose morals. Obama’s response was the sort of subtly he has used before, that his story is unusual and that he knows he is not what people are used to in a Presidential candidate. Of course, part of that is that he is black, but he didn’t say that. And the McCain campaign’s response was to say that the didn’t appreciate the insinuation of racism.
These are subtle attacks, pretty much like the Willie Horton ad was a (sort of) subtle attack on Dukakis. Each side is raising the specter of race, but waits to accuse racism until there is sufficient provocation. David Brooks (again), on “Face the Nation”, said that this is not the campaign McCain wanted to run, the McCain campaign must be delighted with the results. They have successfully introduced the idea of racism in the campaign by claiming they were accused of it, that they are the victims. Obama will have trouble diffusing this. He will have to give another epic speech where he convinces people not to give into their fear. That will be a really tough needle to thread, because a mis-step anywhere and Obama will offend white voters who do not thing that they themselves are racists, they just cross the street when an African American youth approaches.
It will be an interesting fall. I just wish Obama wouldn’t vacation in Hawaii, even if he did spend part of his childhood there. Branson, Mississippi would be a much better choice (even if Michele would never forgive him). Just don’t wear a cowboy hat, Barack.
Obama, answering charges related to his lack of experience, pointed out that Lincoln was only a one term Representative from Illinois. McCain responded that it is the height of arrogance for Obama to compare himself to Lincoln, and anyway McCain had been in the Navy during Lincoln’s term, serving our country. Aides later commented that it was a natural mistake for Senator McCain to make. After all, Lincoln and Ford are the same car company.
Heh.
Well, so I shouldn’t quit my day job, but there are some points worth considering, sort of in there. For example, on the surge Obama is starting to look like the Fonz, who never seemed to be able to even utter the “wrong”, let alone admit a mistake. It would be a relief for Obama to say he was wrong … except for the follow up question. About the only thing Obama could do would be to blame faulty intelligence. Otherwise, he would have to blame his inexperience or that he was standing with the crowd of Democrats in mechanically denouncing everything about the war/occupation. The second choice would not be good for the “change” candidate. Obama had better get used to the question, because he is going to hear it in every interview until his head explodes.
On the McCain side, it is clear that someone McCain trusts read “The Political Brain” by Drew Westen (yes, I am bringing that up again). In McCain’s Paris Hilton/Britney Spears ad, a narrator calls Obama the biggest celebrity in the world as Hilton and Spears images appear before Mr. Obama, and then the voice asks if he is ready to lead. The ad didn’t need the images of Spears or Hilton, it could have shown Oprah Winfrey and Tom Cruise, or Tom Hanks and Celine Dion, or other celebrities. Obama’s response was equally subtle, and frankly restrained, talking about his “funny” name and how he doesn’t look like the Presidents on the dollar or five dollar bill. And that’s when the McCain camp made its next move, saying Obama was tarring McCain as a racist.
There is an elaborate dance being choreographed here. Each side wants to portray the other side as either racist or playing the race card, without appearing to. So the McCain ad, by using the word “celebrity”, justifies its use of the image of young white women with known bad reputations and loose morals. Obama’s response was the sort of subtly he has used before, that his story is unusual and that he knows he is not what people are used to in a Presidential candidate. Of course, part of that is that he is black, but he didn’t say that. And the McCain campaign’s response was to say that the didn’t appreciate the insinuation of racism.
These are subtle attacks, pretty much like the Willie Horton ad was a (sort of) subtle attack on Dukakis. Each side is raising the specter of race, but waits to accuse racism until there is sufficient provocation. David Brooks (again), on “Face the Nation”, said that this is not the campaign McCain wanted to run, the McCain campaign must be delighted with the results. They have successfully introduced the idea of racism in the campaign by claiming they were accused of it, that they are the victims. Obama will have trouble diffusing this. He will have to give another epic speech where he convinces people not to give into their fear. That will be a really tough needle to thread, because a mis-step anywhere and Obama will offend white voters who do not thing that they themselves are racists, they just cross the street when an African American youth approaches.
It will be an interesting fall. I just wish Obama wouldn’t vacation in Hawaii, even if he did spend part of his childhood there. Branson, Mississippi would be a much better choice (even if Michele would never forgive him). Just don’t wear a cowboy hat, Barack.
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