I Concur

Elaine (Cunningham) Podgorski Kerr

2009-12-31T13:08:00.003-05:00

January 6, 1924 to December 30, 2009

Future FCC students

2009-04-30T07:56:00.001-04:00

K-I-S-S—Keep it Simple, Stupid!

2009-03-09T09:26:00.004-04:00

Monday, March 9, 2009

When life, relationships, finances, world events, and social issues become bewilderingly complex, American seek simple answers and even simpler explanations. In April of 2008, trying to explain the culture of Working Class Americans to a group of much wealthier Californians, then-candidate Obama said:

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

We will recall that he was soundly criticized for being elitist and out-of-touch, even effete, for making a comment like that. His California audience understood his complex explanation. Those about whom he was explaining, however, did not. Fox News and right-wing radio, pretended not to understand him so they could be righteously indignant for the disrespected "true Americans" Obama so callously insulted.

Candidate Obama was correct. Small-town America does like it simple. They do cling to guns and god and the blaming of those they see as less powerful than themselves to vent frustrations. They did it then; they are doing it now.

I received the following, copy-and-past-and-send-to-everyone-on-your-email-list, message last week.

What a profound short little paragraph that says it all:

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931-2005

It certainly does not get any simpler than that—or any more ridiculously illogical.Let's look at it point-by-point.

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom."

What initially sounded reasonable is confused nonsense. First is the confusing and undefined use of the word "freedom." How is there a different law that provides freedom based upon socio-economic class? He could be referring to Jim Crow, or Poll Taxes, or institutionalized segregation. But how could that take freedom from wealthy people? It is Orwellian. It's like saying that the Emancipation Proclamation made free white men into slaves by declaring black saves free men. At its best, that statement is foolish, at its worst, it is bigotry. Either way—it's class warfare. What I mean is, it would be class warfare, only that term is reserved for instances where the lower classes cry foul against the upper classes—not the other way around. When the wealthy cry foul against the lower and middle classes, that is just capitalism.
Anyway, who the heck is taking away freedom? That was the PARTIOT act.

"What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving."

I thought this was a central aspect of Christian teaching. The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 7, is where Jesus instructs:

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. "

Did noteth they covereth this in preacher school? Or was Dr. Rogers sick that day?

"The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. "

True, that is what governments do. That is how we get the funding necessary to build hospitals and libraries, to hire police and provide for the defense, to support education, to provide clean water . . . the list goes on. Am I missing the point?

Then Dr. Rogers says something really ridiculous:

"When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for."

Seriously? Fifty percent? Fully half of the population of the United States is operating under the assumption that they do not have to work because they will be provided for? And the other 50% is on the brink of joining in? Not one man or woman in this great country is intrinsically motivated? No one finds dignity in work? All of us are one lame excuse away from sloth?

"That, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. "

I am really not trying to be cute here, but what does that mean? It's one of those lines meant to enrage and frighten rather than be coherent.

You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

Adrian Rogers was single-handedly responsible for Southern Baptists' hard turn right in the 1970. And for a man-o-the-cloth, he seems incongruently preoccupied with the accumulation of wealth. "Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24). Another sick day?

Eighty percent of the wealth on this planet is in the hands of about 220 people. That seems like more of a cause for a Southern Baptist preacher to champion than complaining about the wealthy not being wealthy enough.We all know that the motivation for the copying-pasting-and-forwarding of this and other emails like it is in reaction to President Obama's tax proposals.

The ironic thing is, I bet that no one on the mailing list makes over $250K a year. No one who receives, and reads, and forwards this absurd nonsense is going to be negatively affected by Obama's tax plan.

Why are people unaffected by this so willing to shill for the wealthy at the expense of the poor? I guess that is easier than taking the time to think about it. It's even easier to copy-paste-and forward.

Grab a Shovel

2009-03-02T18:09:00.002-05:00

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

British Labour party politician, Denis Healey, is credited with the saying, "If you're in a hole, stop digging." Apparently, that advice was not offered to the audience and speakers at last weeks' Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Quite to the contrary, they seemed to be handing out shovels at the door.

The situation has not been this bad for Republicans since Watergate. They are out-of-favor, and out-of-touch. The Democratic-controlled Congress has its best approval ratings in two years, despite GOP obstructionist politics. In fact, approval of Congress recently went up 12 points. Actually, approval of Congressional Democrats went from 18% to 43 while the Congressional Republicans dragged overall Congressional approval ratings down as they went from 23% approval to 19%.

Yet, they keep digging.

Even before CPAC, it was shaping up to be a bad week for the GOP with Gov. Bobby Jindal's embarrassing performance as the GOP's savior-in-waiting. While President Obama was looking like a cross between Reagan and Kennedy, Gov. Jindal looked like Fred Rogers. "Insane, Childish, Disaster," were a few of the kinder terms conservatives and liberals alike used to describe the televised train wreck.

Then CPAC came. What can one say about an event where Joe-the-Plumber was a draw and the party's last presidential candidate did not even attend?

They trotted out the usual line up of suspects. The loudest applause seemed to come from questioning President Obama's citizenship and patriotism. Ron Paul drew loud cheers from half the overly-young crowd while the others sat on their hands. I'm not sure what it means that about 57% CPAC attendees were between 18 and 25. These youngsters ate-it-up when Newt and Huckabee uttered the dreaded word, "Socialism." Have they no new material? Do they know what the word means? I think I just found another use for that shovel.

There was a curious moment when Former Governor Mike Huckabee insisted, "We've got to get out the word that the Republican Party is not just a haven for rich white guys who want to get richer." That will be a tough sell when at the last party convention there were only 36 black delegates out of 2261 total. Even tougher when the winner of the presidential straw poll is a rich white guy who told the police they would have to speak to his wife's jewelry consultant to figure out what exactly were the "between 15 and 20 pieces of jewelry from Mitt Romney's Park City mansion," the Romneys refer to as their "cabin."

Speaking of the Straw Poll, Romney won that last year, too. That didn't work out too well for his presidential campaign. Here are the final results to the question of: "Thinking ahead to 2012 presidential election, who [sic] would you vote for as the next Republican nominee for president?"
Mitt Romney - 20 percent
Bobby Jindal - 14 percent
Ron Paul -13 percent
Sarah Palin - 13 percent
Newt Gingrich -10 percent
Mike Huckabee - 7 percent
Mark Sanford - 4 percent
Rudy Guiliani - 3 percent
Tim Pawlenty - 2 percent
Charlie Crist - 1 percent
Undecided - 9 percent
These data need no comment as they speak for themselves. Newt!!??

The biggest, and I mean biggest, speaker of the conference was Radio-Shock-Jock, Rush Limbaugh, who, accor ding to Rahm Emanuel, is the current leader of the Republican Party.

Curiously, Limbaugh's listener ratings are best during his commercials. Apparently, people get into their cars to go to lunch and the radio is still on the same station as when they drove into work. Once the noonday news and commercials are over, and the drone of The Pretenders, "My City was Gone" comes on, his "listeners" can't get to the dial fast enough. Yet, he is the one repentant Republicans kowtow to when they dare disagree. I guess the CPAC organizers are unaware that Limbaugh is less popular outside their bubble than the despised Jeremiah Wright. He's right down there with Republican congresspersons in the nation's esteem. Yet, they keep on digging.

Clearly playing before a home-town crowd, Limbaugh-the-sophist used his trademark logical fallacies to distort and confuse, to incite and enrage, to defame and demagogue. Obviously in love with the sound of his own voice, he took his 15-minute time slot and magically expanded it to a full 90-minute stem-winder. While saying he hopes the president fails, he counters with, ""I want the country to survive. I want the country to succeed." He called the Democrats' disagreement with George Bush as evidence they "hoped George Bush failed," and dared to draw a moral comparison between his treason and Democrats' disagreement.
He warned his followers in the Congress that cooperating with Democrats to craft legislation is tantamount to being "co-opted by liberals."

Apparently, there is no worse crime in the USA than being a liberal. Of the president, Limbaugh blustered, "It doesn't matter to me what his race is. He's liberal, and that's what matters." He went on, "The racism, the sexism, the bigotry that we are all charged with . . . doesn't exist on our side," he then added, "We want everybody to succeed."

Well, almost everyone—just not the president, or the Congress, or anyone he deems to be liberal. But everyone else.

In tortured reality what would make Orwell jealous, Limbaugh insisted, ""The racism in our culture was exclusively and fully on display in the Democrat primary last year. We didn't ask if he was authentically black." Apparently, I asked, we all asked, if our candidate was black. I must have forgotten, sorry.

But Limbaugh's real objection is the "bastardization of the Constitution that the Obama plans are." He didn't bother to elaborate. That wasn't his goal. He just likes to see the way the flames grow when he adds the gasoline.

Last Saturday, RNC Chairman, Michael Steele said,"Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh's whole thing is entertainment," Steele continued, "Yes, it is incendiary. Yes, it is ugly." Let's see if the RNC Chair Steele now finds it necessary to apologize to the intellectual and philosophical leader of the Republican Party Limbaugh.

Tuesday Update: Steele folded like a lawn chair. He even uses now the job description Rush suggested for him in post-woodshed interviews.

1.7 ¢ for Your Thoughts

2009-02-23T17:58:00.004-05:00

Monday, February 23, 2009

We recently celebrated the 200th birthday of our nation's greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. To commemorate the occasion, the US Mint released new pennies with four new designs on the reverse showing important scenes from Lincoln's life. It's a nice sentiment—only it's 100 years too late.
It is now time to eliminate the penny.
As of last March, it cost about 1.7 cents in labor and materials to make a penny. Let's say the average wage in the U.S. is about $17 per hour. If so, it takes about two seconds to earn one cent. Furthermore, if it takes only two seconds extra for a cash transaction that uses a penny, the cost of time wasted in the U.S. per person is about $3.65 annually. The cost for all Americans combined is about $1 billion.

Nothing takes a penny anymore—not gumball machines, not parking meters, not toll booths. Most Americans seeing a penny on the ground will not even bother to pick it up. It will take more than two seconds and they will be losing money. In fact, there has never been a coin in the US worth as little as today's penny.

As of 2007, Due to inflation, a nickel is worth approximately what a penny was as recently as 1972. In 1857, the United States discontinued the half-cent coin as no longer viable, and it had a 2008-equivalent buying power 13¢. That made the new smallest coin the penny, which (do the math) had a 2008-equivalent buying power of 26¢--the lowest denomination coin had the value of more than today's quarter. Now that's a pretty penny!
I'm not trying to be a penny pincher. I think I am being reasonable here—I am only saying, "Let's get rid of the penny." But while we are at it, let's look at the nickel.

Eliminating the penny would create a huge demand for nickels, which are already produced at a loss. The nickel has not been worth a nickel since 1974, and it now costs over a 10¢ to make one. So, maybe we should make the penny the new nickel and stop making nickels. The economist François R. Velde has suggested such a plan and estimated that the change would cause minor monetary inflation of $5.6 billion. That's just a couple-of-year's bonuses for banking and financial executives. Since we are losing as much as $40 million a year in production costs and $1 billion in productivity, we'd be turning a profit in 5 years. I don't expect to see that kind of performance from my TIAA-Cref account anytime soon.

There are sentimental reasons to keep losing $1.04 billion in bad-coin policy each year: we love Lincoln and we owe it to him; if we eliminate the nickel, what happens to Jefferson? As you may suspect, I have answers.

Lincoln is still on the $5-bill. And, if we eliminate the nickel, Lincoln's penny will still survive but be worth 5¢. So, what about Jefferson? He's on the $2-bill. While we are overhauling our currency, let's eliminate the $1-bill (Washington can stay on the quarter), bring back the $2-bill (which costs 4¢ to make) and use the golden $1 coin (which costs about 10¢ to make). Our greatest presidents: Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln keep their honored place in American currency and we save money in the federal budget. Everybody's happy; everybody wins. Let's not be "penny wise and pound foolish."

Finally, the dime has not been worth a dime since 1980, and the quarter fell below its face value in 2007. But for now, it's one step at a time. I say we go for it—in for a penny in for a pound! If I have it my way, we'll all be saying, "A penny saved is a nickel earned."

Well, it's just my two cents, but I think I may have just figured out how to get us out of this financial crisis.

Crimes of Olympic Proportion

2009-02-16T09:45:00.003-05:00

Monday, February 16, 2009

Readers of this column know that I am no fan of Michael Phelps (Gold Medal Platitudes, Aug 25, 2008). His post-gold-medal interviews where he droned that anybody-can-achieve-anything-if-they-WANT-it-badly-enough sent an irresponsible and discouraging message to the average athletically-mediocre, intellectually unimpressive American. And then the UK-based "News of the World" published a picture of Phelps doing bong hits at a University of South Carolina party. Imagine! A college-age kid smoking pot at a college party. Scandalous? Yes, but for the wrong reasons.

We have been waging a War on Drugs since the Nixon Administration at a cost of almost $20 billion a year, $600 a second. What do we have to show for it? Almost 15 million Americans self-identify as current marijuana smokers. There has been no significant decrease in drug use. There has, however, been a significant increase in prison populations. There are now over 2 million Americans in prison. That is more that 1 out of every 100 adults. We are only 5% of the world's population, but we are 25% of the world's prisoners. Can we be that pathologically criminal?

Freelance writer and mental health practitioner, Christina Gleason, writes, "According to the Department of Justice, over half of all sentenced federal prisoners are drug offenders. Over 80% of the increase in the federal prison population was due to drug convictions between 1985 and 1995. In addition, a 2006 report claimed that 17% of State prisoners and 18% of Federal prisoners committed their crimes in order to obtain drug money. According to a 2001 report, the average sentence for all offenses was 56.8 months. The average sentence for drug offenses was 75.6 months, while the average sentence for violent offenses was 63.0 months."

Someone is arrested for violating a drug law every 17 seconds. Someone is arrested for violating a cannabis law every 38 seconds. And our last three presidents have all used marijuana. In a White House Drug Policy brief, the Bush Administration attempted to put-to-rest the false notion that there are thousands of people in prison for smoking marijuana claiming less than 1% of all prisoners were behind bars for simple marijuana possession. Well, that is still 15,000 people in prison for doing what Phelps is accused of doing. I am not saying we should legalize drugs, but we should stop putting people in prison for using them.

In 2006, there were 829,625 arrested for using marijuana. That is 829,625 criminal records; 829,625 court appearances; 829,625 lawyer fees; 829,625 families in crisis, 829,625 explanations on job applications, 829,625 young lives disrupted or destroyed. And this is all for violating a 1937 law that was racially motivated to harass Southwestern Mexican immigrants and Northeastern big-city black jazz musicians.

High-profile people can bring about high-profile public awareness. Michael Phelps has the opportunity here to do something truly courageous, responsible, and helpful. Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott is still considering arresting and prosecuting Phelps for using an illegal substance. Rather than sleepwalking through a series of "I'm young and I made a mistake" public apologies, maybe he can take a stand against the USA's reckless and irresponsible drug policies.

Now is the time to speak up rather than lay low. Phelps has been banned from competition for three months. Kellogg's dropped Phelps from an endorsement contract after the photo surfaced. Ironically, regularly eating the products Phelps endorsed will probably do more physical harm than smoking marijuana. However, Michael Phelps is the kind of guy who moves through life as he moves through water—avoiding friction.

Please, Michael, prove me wrong. Show me you are not just a callow young man with big feet, big hands, and extraordinary lung capacity. Speak up. Stand up. It is time to admit that this 38-year-long War on Drugs is about over, and we lost. It's time to sue for peace. In this war, Michael, you can be a negotiator—or a casualty. It's your choice.

The Scarlet Lette-R

2009-02-02T18:07:00.001-05:00

Monday, February 2, 2009

Yesterday, I attended a lecture by Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy at the Center for Excellence in Jackson Missisippi. He was in attendance to talk to a group of Phi Theta Kappa Faculty Scholars. Kennedy was discussing his recent book, Sellout.

Kennedy’s central hypothesis is that all groups suffer from “betrayal anxiety.” We all fear that a close confidant, a friend, a partner, will sell-us-out for personal or financial gain. As a nation, we were founded on betrayal anxiety, according to Kennedy. He pointed out that the only crime specified in the US Constitution is treason: the most extreme form of selling out.
In the course of his lecture, he focused on the book’s most detailed chapter: Clarence Thomas. The case for Thomas’ betrayal is that he abandoned his race by marrying a white woman. He benefitted from affirmative action and then voted against it. Rather than help his race, his conservative political views condemn many black Americans to live in poverty and desperation. Worst of all, the sellout accusations go, he does the white man's bidding.

Kennedy disagrees. While Kennedy admits to disagreeing with Thomas on political issues, he argues that Thomas’ career on the Court does not amount to “selling out.” Kennedy’s careful analysis of Thomas’ opinions shows that he does no one's bidding and certainly not that of Antonin Scalia—as many critics claim. While Kennedy finds much fault with Justice Thomas, he does not find him to be a sellout.

Following the lecture, I went up to Dr. Kennedy and suggested a candidate for sellout: Michael Steele.

Kennedy quickly disagreed with me. Steele is not a traitor to the black race, he insisted. His political views may not toe-the-line for African American concerns, but he finds the man to he honest and consistent—certainly not a classic sellout. Kennedy pointed to Steeles law degree and “certainly, he had a successful law career and did not need to sell out to make a living.”

I pointed out that Steele had not passed the Maryland Bar. His career limped along until he was near insolvency when the Maryland GOP asked him to run for Lt. Governor with (last week’s column topic) Bob Ehrlich. Steel agreed after negotiating $1250-a-week salary. If that does not fit the rhetorical definition of “sellout,” I argued, it certainly meets the literal. Kennedy said he was not aware of those aspects of Steel’s career.

I didn’t even get to metion the Oreo Cookie incident at my alma matter, Morgan State University, that was a blatant attempt at race-baiting.

So now, in a Palinesque move, Steele is the Chairman of the Republican National Committee. One must really ask: What exactly qualifies Steele to lead the GOP? Alex Koppelman of Salon.com summarizes Steele’s not-so-illustrious career. “He graduated from Johns Hopkins University and then got a law degree from Georgetown University, true. That said, though, he initially flunked out of Hopkins, and while he did pass the bar in Pennsylvania, he failed it in Maryland. His record as a businessman wasn't stellar, either. A consulting firm he founded never turned a profit, and was a serious drain on his finances. Shortly after he began his run for lieutenant governor, Steele ran into trouble because of a $25,000 loan his sister had given to his campaign for comptroller that he'd never paid back. Then, there were revelations of an additional $35,000 in personal debt, as well as more than $100,000 he'd taken out of two retirement accounts in order to support his family, leaving a balance of less than $600 at the time the news broke. He suffered further embarrassment over his finances when it was revealed that the Republican Party was paying him a consulting fee of $5,000 a month during his campaign for lieutenant governor.”

Add to that a lack-luster term as Lt. Governor, a failed Senate bid, and a recurring stint as a Fox News Contributor. Not surprisingly, Steele’s first interview after being elected RNC Chair was with Sean Hannity of Fox News—for whom Steele often fills in for on Hannity’s “news” program.
So now, at the head of the conservative party in the United States, we have a man who once, according to a John Dickerson article, “said the R for Republican next to his name was like a ‘scarlet letter.’ He went on to say the GOP-controlled Congress should ‘just shut up and get something done,’ that the Iraq war ‘didn't work’ and ‘we didn't prepare for the peace,’ that the response to Hurricane Katrina was ‘a monumental failure of government.’ He said having his party leader President Bush campaign for him would be a disadvantage.”

On second thought, maybe Steele is not the sellout—maybe the Republican Party is.

It Starts

2009-01-26T16:40:00.003-05:00

Monday, January 26, 2009

It didn't take long for the GOP to try and spoil the party. People were still finding their way home from last Tuesday's Inauguration before Limbaugh unpatriotically wished for the complete failure of our new president. Then our former Governor, Robert Ehrlich, told us in Wednesday's Washington Post that we were so "caught up in the historic nature of the moment but blind to the substance of the speech" which, according to Ehrlich is a call for class warfare.

Ehrlich appeared later that evening on the CNN program "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" where David Shuster asked him about the class warfare and how it can be possible for the middle and working class to engage in "war" on the wealthy. Ehrlich replied, in his unfortunate Baltimore accent, that the top 1% wealthiest Americans now pay 40% of the income tax, and that sounds like warfare to him.

Shuster let it go; I can't. We can't. We can no longer let them Limbaugh-logic us. We can no longer let them play fast and loose with the facts, cherry-pick data, and distort reality.
Ehrlich said "income tax." The top 1% pay 40% of "Income" tax. It's not only untrue, it is deviously deceptive and deliberately designed to make middle and low income earners feel sorry for the wealthy and guilty about not holding up our end.

Limbaugh blustered, "And, of course, when there's a tax cut that comes down, it's inevitable that the people who pay taxes get the tax cut. And I forgot the number off the top of my head, but we're up to now something like 38% of all taxes are paid by the top 1%. How can you have a tax cut and those people not get one? And if the purpose for the tax cut is to stimulate the economy the people that pay the taxes have got to get the tax cut.

"The tax cuts . . . reduced tax rates for people in all income brackets but they had a disproportionate effect on people at the very highest levels because they had already been paying a disproportionate share of total federal taxes and in part because stock dividends get a special lower rate."

Disproportionate as compared to what? Feudalism?

Factcheck.org reports "The top 1 percent of all households got 18 percent of all personal income and paid nearly 28 percent of all federal taxes in 2005, according to the Congressional Budget Office."

According to Stephen Moore of The American, the wealthiest 1% of the population earn 19% of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent—those below the median income level—now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes. These are proportions of the income tax alone and don't include payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare.

That's right. But notice how Moore refers to "19% of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. " There are other taxes besides "income tax." The wealthy know this all-too-well. Actually, CBO calculates that the top 1 percent paid only 27.6% percent of all federal taxes.
One big tax that lower and middle income earners pay is Social Security—that and Medicare/Medicaid. Most of us pay 6.2% on our earnings for Social Security and 1.45% on our earnings for Medicare. However, that is only for the first $102,000 of yearly earnings. That means most of us (me) pay a tax of 6.2% on every dime we earn while the wealthy get a 6.2% tax cut for every dime beyond $102,000. And for the top 1%, that goes FAR beyond $102,000.
The CBO states that the top 1% pay 4% of those taxes. I think they can afford it. But, we are fighting on their ground and according to their rules. We should be looking at this differently.

Here is how we should be looking at this. Let's take it a-step-at-a-time:

America's 112 million families had combined wealth of $50.3 trillion in 2004.
When those families are ranked by the size of their wealth, however, the top 1% alone held $16.8 trillion in wealth.
That is more than a third of the United States' total wealth
It is also more than the $15.3 trillion held by the bottom 90% of U.S. families.
The top 1% had average wealth of $15 million per family in contrast to the $22,800 average wealth of the least wealthy 50% of families or the $313,500 in wealth for families ranked between 50% and 90%.

You got that? According to Ehrlich and Limbaugh, we are supposed to feel sorry for and grateful to the top 1% who have an average family income of 15-million-dollars-a-year!

Put another way, does it seem fair that 5% of the people have 95% of the wealth, yet pay only 50% of the taxes? Yet, 95% of the people live on 5% of the wealth and have to come up with the other 50%.

Our new President said in his inaugural address that we "will restore science to its rightful place." After a prolonged period of anti-intellectualism in the United States, we can no longer let these conservative sophists frame the argument, set the rules for discourse, and control the language.

Let's start with this nonsense about an unfair tax burden on the obscenely wealthy.

Inauguration Photos

2009-01-23T09:33:00.006-05:00

Richard being Richard

Ken and Richard on the Mall

So close . . .but yet so far away.

Joe takes the oath on the Jumbotron.

The crowd in front of me.

Ken and Richard on the MARC train with commemorative train tickets in hand

My view. My "Silver" ticket unusable because of long lines and too few checkpoints, I headed to the mall. You can see the Capitol Dome above the screen

Closer to what my view "would have been" had I been able to use my ticket.

The view behind me. Notice the Washington Monument in the background.
Snipers on the Museam of Natural History

Charley in the crowd with the Smithsonian Castle behind.

Charley and Richard enjoying a beer and watching the parade from inside a restaurant.

Lo que piensan (What they think)

2009-01-19T10:04:00.005-05:00

Monday, January 19, 2009

One advantage of learning a second language is that you can find out what people think—not what the English-language newspapers tell you they think, but what the people actually tell you they think. I returned Sunday from three weeks in Buenos Aires. I visited with old friends and made new friends. Inevitable, the conversation would turn to politics.
There are two main topics to these conversations: George Bush and Barack Obama.
It is not easy to explain George Bush. Argentines are genuinely confused as to how we could have elected George Bush. They are completely baffled as to how we re-elected him. As completely as my Spanish skills allowed, I explained the questionable voting in Florida and the Gore v. Bush Supreme Court decision. That satisfied most as to the question of the first time, but how did it happen twice? I told them he took advantage of Americans' fear. The landlady of the apartment I was renting replied that in re-electing him, we made the world have fear. The words "loco" and "Diablo" often came up when talking about Bush.
Argentines think the current world financial crisis rests at Bush's feet as well. Their Peso has fallen from 3:1 against the Dollar to 3.5:1 while they have seen inflation of 30% a year. As the world's second-largest exporter of corn and soy (behind the US) the world-wide recession has seen exports drop. A prolonged drought has made a suffering agri-conomy worse with dried up fields and 300,000 dead beef cattle. The failure of huge sectors of the US financial system could not have come at a worse time.
A friend, a retired Argentine diplomat, was surprised when I told him how much I disliked the president and asked me why. I told him of Karl Rove's push polling in South Carolina that derailed McCain's 2000 bid and the arm's length endorsement of T. Boone Pickens's "Swift Boating" of Kerry's 2004 presidential candidacy. I went on with claiming mandates he did not have, eroding citizens' rights, his Oedipal-complex-inspired Iraq war financed by Chinese debt while giving tax cuts to the wealthy. At the end of my tirade, he responded, "We didn't know any of that."
At a dinner-gathering of two families in the home of another friend, I was asked if Bush has dyslexia. "Can he read?" was how bluntly they put it. These people cannot speak English, yet they got the sense that our president has a learning disability.
The Argentine impression of Barack Obama was also surprising. When I arrived at the airport and the driver was loading my luggage, he saw my "Educators for Obama" pin on my carry on. He pointed to it and said, "El Salvador." My retired diplomat friend, however, said, "I think he is a demagogue."
Argentines have a strong sense that there is racial tension in the USA. A waiter in the café said, "But many Americans don't like Obama." I asked him why he thought that and he stroked his cheek and said, "The color of his skin." He was not the only one who asked about American racial bigotry. I tried to assure them that the issue of race has gotten better in the USA, and it is not the problem it once was. I am not sure they believed me.
Many, many Argentines asked if I was afraid that Obama will be assassinated. I told them that we can't worry about that. I told them that Americans are tired of being afraid; that our fear has not helped us in these past seven years. I told them that whatever happens, Barack Obama's election says good things about the United States. "Es un buen día para los Estados Unidos," I said. A man I spoke with in the little neighborhood restaurant, El Rincon, replied, "El tiempo lo dirá."
"Time will tell."

Amigo, ¿Puedes Darme Diez Centavos? (Buddy, can you spare a dime)

2009-01-12T16:24:00.006-05:00

The canary in the coal mine for the US economy is the image of men and women standing on street corners selling pencils and apples on the street corner. That, along with Yip Harburg, and Jay Gorney’s song, “Brother, can you spare a dime?” are icons of the Great Depression.

Last week, an Argentine business associate of mine told me as we discussed our respective economic crises, “The best day in Argentina is not as good as the worst day in the United States.” I politely nodded and dismissed it as hyperbole, but then gave it some thought.

In the last big American recession of the 1980s, we saw the emergence of squeegee men and “Will Work For Food” written on cardboard signs, and stoplight beggars. On the streets of Buenos Aires, it is common to see the modern-day equivalent. Outside the grocery store, a young woman sells cherries for $2.99 a quarter kilo. Inside, the same sell for $3.29. A few blocks later, there are the same cherries for the same price on a different corner with a different woman. On the bus, a man gets on and speaks to the driver before going into his sales pitch about an excellent quality pen with a light on its cap for two pesos, about sixty cents. He gets off after accommodating all takers only to be replaced by a man selling sewing kits for AR$5. In the subway, an old woman sits near the entrance selling small packets of facial tissue for a peso.

We see unemployment figure headlines that tell us the rate is the highest in four years, then ten years, and now sixteen years. It will not be long before we see it reach Reagan’s 1982 rate of 10+%--the highest since the Great Depression. Argentina’s unemployment rate now stands at about 8.1%. However, those working in the “informal economy” have an unemployment rate of 15%. The unemployment rate in the US was 7.2% as of December 2008.

Buenos Aires is a city with an important café/restaurant culture. Families, even those of modest means, eat in a restaurant every week. An article in La Nacion last week told of 300 restaurants closing in Buenos Aires in recent months because of falling revenues and rising rents.

After the 2001 economic crisis, where the average Argentine lost 2/3 of his wealth, unemployment in Argentina reached US Great Depression numbers. Desperate for work, men once employed as car mechanics and laborers resorted to sorting through the garbage to scavenge for any trash of recyclable value. They became known as Los Cartoneros, the Cardboard Collectors. This army of over 100,000 scavengers descended upon the wealthier neighborhoods in a government-supplied train that the locals called, El Tren Fantasma—The Ghost Train. This was because the people ignored them as they went about their work; like ghosts, they were invisible to the world.

Cartoneros now have uniforms and official status. Their numbers have dropped to about 20,000. They have also had the serendipitous effect of reducing Buenos Aires landfill by 25% a day. The Ghost Train has been replaced by busses and trucks located at various pick-up locations.

Curiously, if one were to be blindfolded and dropped into the center of Argentina, he would, upon regaining sight, swear he was in some agricultural part of the USA. Argentina is, like the USA, a country of European immigrants. In the years just before WWII, it had the 4th highest standard of living in the world. Average wages and middle class wealth were above that of even the USA and most of Europe. Argentina’s constitution is modeled so closely to the Constitution of the United States that it could be considered plagiarism.

According to American lore, the “canary in the coalmine” served as an early warning for miners. As long as the canary kept singing, it was OK to keep on doing what we were doing. Very sensitive to methane and carbon dioxide, a dead canary signaled the need for immediate action. For the United States, perhaps the canary is Argentina.

The Ego has Landed

2009-01-06T08:34:00.006-05:00

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

There is nothing quite as effective as traveling to help take the focus off one's own problems. We in the USA are fascinated with ourselves and our situation to the almost-complete exclusion of the remainder of the world. Traveling abroad helps us remember that it's a big world out there and other people live in it. That is not to say that the USA is not important, but there are only 3 of us for every 5,000 people on this planet. We should try and keep that in perspective.

As an American, I have to work pretty hard to overcome my own egocentrism. For example, when I return to a place a have not seen in a while, I expect it to be the same as when I left it—frozen in time like the last snapshot of the last visit.

I returned last week to Buenos Aires for the first time in 18 months. I had expected to find it just as I had left it. I had a Brigadoon-like fantasy that this city and surrounding environs of 12 million people would begin to sleep as my plane left the runway only to reawaken upon my return. Well, things changed.

While in the USA, we have been stung with inflation, Argentines have been mugged. Eighteen months ago, I enjoyed a strong dollar and low prices. I returned to a slightly stronger dollar and significantly higher prices. Even the American dollar has not kept up with Argentine inflation. The American dollar (US$) had about the same value in the USA as the Argentine peso (AR$). A moderate family income in both countries is $50,000. In 2007, US$1.00 was about AR$3.10. So, my dollars went three times as far. Today, the US$1 is worth AR$3.45. But is has hardly kept pace with Argentine prices.

I went to Balcaarce, my favorite café, and reacquainted myself with my old friend, Leo. I order my usual breakfast that once cost AR$6.90. When Leo brought the check, he warned me, "Es mas." It was more, now AR$10.90. My 12% stronger dollar did not keep pace with the 63% increase in the cost of an Argentine breakfast.

Prices for almost everything have gone up. A bus ride that cost AR$.80 now costs $AR1.00 and, it was just reported today, it will go up to AR$1.20. A coin shortage will only complicate that situation. Gasoline in the US has fallen to below $2.00 a gallon while here is has risen to over AR$4.00—and Argentina does not import oil.

Many businesses in my adopted barrio of Recoleta have closed and there are more empty storefronts that there were in June of 2007. Almost all restaurants now charge a cubierto—cover charge—of between AR$3 and 5. That keeps them from having to change the prices on menu items. Others have begun to put menu prices in pencil. A bottle beer that cost AR$8.00 in a restaurant in 2007, now costs AR$14.00. A load of laundry was AR$7.00 when we arrived in 2007, but soon went up to AR$9.00. It is now AR$11.00.

I can only imagine what would happen in the USA if our standard of living saw increases this large this fast. The only thing that has seen this level of increase in the USA is gasoline—and that has since gone down.

To be fair, many of these prices had not risen in seven years since the Argentine Financial Crisis peaked in 2001. The Kirchner administration (first Nestor and now Christina) had produced an economic miracle and Argentina's economy boomed. But so did inflation. Government economists cherry-pick data to announce an "official" inflation rate of under 10%, but independent data reveal it is closer to 20% a year. From what I have seen, it would cost me 30% more to enjoy the same standard of living today that I had in my six months here in 2007.

We can't freeze time, and we can't keep things from changing. Even if we could, we'd never know the perfect moment to hold.

When I return to the USA in two more weeks, I'll find my life exactly as I left it. If I stayed here for another 18 months, I'd also return to pretty much the same financial, social, political situation. I can't say the same for Argentina. We Americans are blessed with a remarkably stable and incredibly wealthy country. I seem to need to leave it to appreciate it, sometimes.

We hereby resolve

2008-12-29T15:05:00.002-05:00

Monday, December 29, 2008

Sources place the origin of the New Year's Resolutions tradition to 153 B.C. Rome. The god, Janus, for whom the first moth of the year was named, was placed at the head of the calendar. With his two faces, Janus looked back at the past and forward to the future. This gave him incredible insight into what went poorly and how to avoid it in the future.

Janus became the ancient symbol for year-ending resolutions as Romans looked for forgiveness and exchanged gifts before the beginning of each year. Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus, otherwise known as the Roman Emperor Constantine, declared Christianity as the official religion of Rome with the Edict of Milan in 313, these traditions began their transformation for pagan to Christian.

At this time each year, we take up this ancient custom as we resolve to improve ourselves. Steven Shapiro, Author, Innovation Consultant and Speaker, found
· 34% set resolutions related to money
· 38% set resolutions related to weight
· 47% set resolutions related to self-improvement or education
· 31% set resolutions related to relationships

We are in a time of crisis in the United States. There is a claim, perhaps apocryphal, that the Chinese character for "crisis" is the same as the one for "opportunity." I don't know if it's true, but it's an intriguing concept. Perhaps this year it should be a national effort to resolve as a population to set to use this crisis as an opportunity and resolve to make ourselves a better people.

The United States Federal Government has an Office of Citizen Services and Communications. Curiously, they publish a list of the ten most popular New Year's Resolutions. Let's take a look at each and see how it applies to us as a nation.

#1. Lose Weight
We are at the apex of a 20-year trend in becoming an obese population. The surgeon general estimates it costs over half-a-trillion dollars in increased medical costs to address our poor diets and over eating. We evolved to be a hunter-gatherer species that eats lean meats and fruits and vegetables—not corn-fed beef and white bread. Actually, grain should not even be part of our diet. Corn syrup is the crack cocaine of the food industry. We—you and I—subsidize the corn industry to the tune of $5 billion a year to find more ways to introduce more corn into our diet. Subsidies to farmers, almost $20 billion a year, are out-of-synch with the government created food pyramid. In fact, if we all followed it, there would not be enough fruit and vegetables for everyone to eat a healthy diet.

#2. Managing Debt
The average American household has $10,000 in credit card debt. We don't have to repeat the foreclosure crisis, bailouts, the federal deficit . . . we all know we are in trouble here. I have three words for all of us, "pay-with-cash." When considering "paper or plastic," Andrew Beattie, of Investopedia, insists, "Cash is almost always the better choice." That 1950's relic, layaway, is making a comeback, and we should all take a hint. If we can't pay for it, and we don't absolutely need it, we should not buy it.

#3. Save Money
Seventy percent of us live paycheck-to-paycheck. That's really stupid. Americans save an average of $392 a year—that's three-hundred-and- ninety-two dollars. Consumer debt is at $2.5 trillion and, according to the Housing Bubble, "As of 2008, the average household debt is $117,951 and this includes credit cards, installment loans, home equity loans, and mortgages." This is not sustainable.

#4 Get a Better Job
Good luck with this one. We should probably resolve to "keep a job" in 2009. Nonfarm payroll employment fell sharply (-533,000) last November, and the unemployment rate rose from 6.5 to 6.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor. Obama hopes to generate 2 million new jobs with his $210 billion jobs program. However, that will just get us back to where we were at the start of 2008.

#5. Get Fit
There is something that separates us middle-agers from our younger-agers. When we are out of shape, we buy bigger clothes and wear things to hide the fact that we are fat. Kids no longer share that shame. Whereas we wanted a six pack the past few years we have seen the "muffin top" become a fashion.

The Centers for Disease Control recommends a 30 minute walk five-days-a-week and two sessions-a-week of strength training. However, the Wall Street Journal tells us that fewer that 16% of us are physically active on any given day according to a map showing that the most active American live on the west coast, in Alaska, and Hawaii. We all saw the pictures of Barack Obama shirtless on a Hawaiian beach. That should inspire us.

#6. Eat Right
Bottom line—we eat too much. Second bottom line—we eat the wrong stuff. We are eating ourselves to death. We gotta stop that.

#7. Get a Better Education
We lag behind most of the developed world in education. According to a CNN report, "The total cost of going to a private four-year college rose to $34,132 on average for the 2008-09 academic year. In-state students at public four-year schools paid an average of $14,333 for the current school year, according to the College Board, a non-profit association of more than 5,400 schools, colleges and universities. That's an increase of 5.7% from the previous year." What makes it worse is that the cost of a college education has risen at about 7% a year while household incomes for the poorest Americans—who need access to higher education the most—rose at only 3%. As an Illinois senator, Barack Obama worked to address this issue. Let's hope he is able to affect change on a greater scale as president.

#8. Drink Less Alcohol
I have a better idea: do less cocaine. We need to communicate the message that doing cocaine is unpatriotic. Much of the money spent by Americans on cocaine leads t a destabilization of our international neighbors and finds its way into the hands of terrorists. We need to resolve to look at the War on Drugs differently. Over $10 billion-a-year has been spent and we have made no progress except to put over two-million Americans in prison. Half of all prisoners are behind bars for drugs. We need a rational drug policy that addresses the real issues of poverty, opportunity, and access. Drugs are not the problem—they are the symptom.

#9. Quit Smoking Now
We are actually keeping this resolution pretty well. About one-in-five Americans now smoke, down from 28% a decade ago. Smoking peaked in 1954 with about half of Americans smoking. Sadly, while older Americans are quitting, younger Americans are taking up the habit. I guess they need something to go with those muffin tops.

#10. Reduce Stress Overall
If our diet is not killing us, stress is. Two-thirds of Americans seek help for stress—and that is just those who seek it out. Fifty-four percent of us say it is a real concern. We have a tendency to live to work in this country. We put our jobs over our lives and families. We should resolve this year to work to live. It is becoming increasingly obvious that our employers do not share the same level of commitment and obligation to us that we have historically felt toward them. We do not owe them our lives, just an honest day's work.

Bonus Resolution

#11. Volunteer to Help Others
A lot of research has been done on happiness these past few years. What it found was that more money does not bring more happiness. More things, we have found, just bring more debt. So what will make us happy? Doing things for others. We face a few tough years. There is much to be done. Let's all resolve to do things for others this year.

When 9/11 happened, we were all eager and waiting to help. We would have done anything President Bush asked of us. Anything. He asked us to shop. Well, we see where that got us.
In a few weeks, President Barack Obama is going to ask us to do something to get the country healthy again. Let's listen. Let's heed the call. Let's all pitch in and work without expectation of personal gain. Research shows it will make us happier. Let's all resolve to be happy.

Let's drink a cup of kindness. Happy New Year.

A Visit from St. Nick (of time!)

2008-12-22T10:48:00.003-05:00

‘Twas the end of the year, when all through the nation
The people were stirring with mild trepidation.
Saddam had been hanged by the Sunnis with care,
But outside the Greenzone, fear still hangs in the air.
Cuba’s Castro fell ill, and took to his bed,
But his brother Raul took over as head.
Will 700 billion, big banks got a big bailout,
And execs still got big bonuses—can’t figure that one out.
The boys from Detroit wanted some of that action.
They tried and they tried, but got no satisfaction.
The in came George Bush, dipping into his stash.
And after some scolding, came across with the cash.
To every reporter Bush will give interview,
As Karl Rove tries to make Bush’s image a-new.
And then what should assault the membrane of my ear?
Dick Chaney as well, trying to remake his career.
And they talked and they talked and they never stopped trying.
But except for Fox News—no one was buying.
Then more rapid than light speed, Right-Wing Radio came.
When Karl Rove whistles, the moths circle the flame.
Come on Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Coulter, Ingram, and Hannity.
Will you give it a rest? For the sake of humanity!
For the past 30 years, we heard all your denying.
Yet we elected Obama despite all of your lying.
As Bush leave District, there are few who will cry.
He’s been such an obstacle—time to bid him goodbye.
Soon into the Whitehouse, the Obamas will move,
With those cute little girls and a puppy dog, too.
Things are bound to get better, and for those who need proof,
Take a look at the Cabinet he’s put under that roof.
With Democrats controlling both Congressional Houses,
Let’s hope they turn out to be lions, not mouses.
‘Cause in Russia we’ve still got Medvedev and Putin.
We’ve got to make sure they don’t want to start shootin’.
In North Korea, Kim Jong Il is now back.
One thing is for sure—that dude is Whack!
Hugo Chavez is holding on in Venezuela.
He don’t like us much, and he’s the first one to tell ya.
We still have a few friends, like most of West Europe
Now that President Cowboy is headed back to his stirrups.
Still the stump of his legacy sticks in our teeth.
It will take quite a while for that to get some relief.
And Right here at home, we’ve still got lots of trouble:
A national debt we’ve seen double . . .and double,
Two million jobs we’ve lost in just one year,
With more layoffs, plant closings, and foreclosure fear.
With a wink of her eye, Sarah Palin looms large,
But her daughter’s soon Mom-in-law faces felony drug charge.
The Republican Party is in total despair
That will take several decades to begin to repair.
So we place all our hopes in the man we just chose,
We can’t expect too much too soon, I suppose.
All our shoulders to the wheel and in total support,
In no time, there will be some good news to report.
So now let me exclaim, as I’m ceasing to write,
Merry Christmas to all . . . may we all be alright.

"Time" for a Change?

2008-12-15T16:22:00.003-05:00

"Time" for a Change?

As a boy, I dreamed of time travel—anywhere, anyplace, anytime had to be better. HG Wells provided me with the details and imagined for me the possibility of moving backward and forward to escape the mediocrity and tedium of my adolescence.
I now believe that it is only practical to move backward in time. Our world is moving at such a bewildering pace that the jobs we have today are often not there tomorrow. The careers college kids are studying for may not exist when they are finished preparing for them. A middle-aged, middle American from 2008 suddenly placed in 2033 would be lost. Without the gradual exposure to changes in technology and culture, he or she would be of little use in a future America. No, we can only go back.

In the past, our 21st Century knowledge and skills would serve us well. In the past, we could be pretty darned impressive.

Gregg Easterbrook, in his 2004 book, The Progress Paradox, challenges his readers to participate in a thought experiment:

"If the means existed, would you exchange places with a typical person living in any year before your birth? Exchange places permanently—not, say, observe the Battle of Hastings and then rematerialize in the present. You could pick the year and place in the past, but you could not specify trading places with someone specific like Catherine the Great or Leonardo da Vinci, and you could not specify that you would be a lord or lady or hold similar advantage. In this deal, you'd be transported back to live out the rest of your life as an ordinary person."

I'll let you think about that for a bit . . .

You probably came up with a favorite historical period and event you wanted to witness, a golden age in a special place where life was less complicated and more pure. The more you think, the greater the detail you begin to fill in. You begin to realize what you'd have to give up. You'll soon come to realize that the sacrifice would be too dear. Almost all of us would choose to stay right where and when we are.

Easterbrook reminds us, "A century ago, the rich lived in heated houses, rode in carriages, traveled the world, enjoyed unlimited food and wine, had access to physicians, attained college educations, attended the theater for entertainment, and if engaged in gainful work, did so in a comfortable office."

Wait a minute. That sounds like me. It probably sounds like you, too. Why would I go back a hundred years to an unheated farm house wondering about the next meal and rarely having access to a doctor? I'd have to walk everywhere I wanted to go—which would have been fewer than 50 miles from the place of my birth for my entire life—and work really hard every day. I'd be lucky to live to 50, keep my teeth, have indoor plumbing, or complete high school.

Things in the United States are pretty bad right now, the worst many of us have experienced or can remember—and they are likely to get worse before they get better. UCLA's Anderson School of Management reports that over 2 million of us lost our jobs in 2008. The Gallup organization reports that more of us are worried about our standard of living than were in the 1991 recession. The current Secretary of the Treasury has no clue what to do with the $700 billion he asked for, and the Big Three auto makers are circling the drain. However, since the election of Barack Obama, those thinking optimistically about our country have risen by 20%--and he has yet to take office.

So, I wouldn't trade my typical American existence for typical existence with anyone, or any time, or anyplace. I'll stay right where I am, and have confidence in us to get things right again. For those of you still entertaining the idea of time transplantation, I have two words . . . modern dentistry.

Check, Please

2008-12-08T15:09:00.005-05:00

Check, Please

There are 7.5 million Americans working in the food and beverage industry—waiter, bartenders, hostesses. The US Department of Labor reports that average hourly wages, including tips, are $7.14 for waiters, $7.86 for bartenders, and $7.78 for hostesses. That comes out to about $16,500 a year. Barbara Ehrenreich chronicled the server experience in her 2001 book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. She set out to answer the question "how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour?" The answer—you can't.

As far back as last June, servers started to complain about reduced tip income. Let's set a side for now the 1998 IRS estimate that "fewer than 40% of all tips received were reported, an estimated $9–$12 billion in unreported income." We also won't consider that restaurant owners are only required to pay $2.13 an hour in direct wages. The point is, tips are down. And in an economy that is focused on service—not manufacturing, agriculture, or mining—that is a canary in a coal mine.

We just heard this week that another 533,000 jobs were lost in November—the second biggest loss since WWII and the largest since 1974. Unemployment is at 6.7%, and that only counts those who want to work and are actively job seeking. We also got confirmation this week about something many Americans, like restaurant workers, already knew; we are, and have been, in a recession for the past year.

Unlike in other countries where tipping is expected, in the United States, tipping is an institution. The entire industry is structured so that menu costs are kept down because we supplement wages with cash gratuities to restaurant employees. We can't change it. We can't all of a sudden decide that we no longer need to provide part of the restaurant's payroll. We may not like it, but that's the way it is. The system has evolved and the customer and server are in a symbiotic relationship. We are co-dependant; we both want to eat.

So, here we are. The economy is a mess. People are out of work. And it's Christmas.
It is up to up to do something about it. It sounds cliché, but, this is the time of year when we need to think of others. If we cut back, others get cut. If we stay home, others lose homes. If we don't "do," others do without.

As much as possible, we need to continue to support local workers and businesses. Especially remember those who rely on end-of-year gratuities to cover family holiday expenses—the newspaper carrier, the barber, the stylist, the childcare provider, dog groomer, the doorman, the trash collector.

What we seem to have forgotten is that what is great about this country is our ability to get things done on a local, grassroots level. Our next president understands that, and he will provide the inspiration and leadership in about five weeks. Until then it's up to us.

It’s Time to Re-Think Failure

2008-12-01T08:00:00.002-05:00

It's Time to Re-think Failure

My colleagues and I have noticed a change in our students over the past few years—the studnets don’t think they can fail. Not all of them, and not all the time, but enough to be remarkable. Just out of high school, they don’t think they will fail their classes regardless of how little time, effort, or attendance they put forth.

I had a phone call from one of our college councilors last summer who was calling on behalf of a student from the just-completed spring semester. She had my former student in the office and the student wanted to know why she had failed my class. According to the councilor, (yes, the student was there with her, but I was talking to the councilor) the student thought she was doing well in the class and was baffled as to how she could have possibly failed.
“She didn’t do any of the work,” I told the councilor.

She came to every class, even after I gave her written advice to drop the class after midterm when it was no longer mathematically possible for her to receive a passing grade. She was polite. She was present. Perhaps she believed Woody Allen when he said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” If that were the case, she deserved a “B.”

It’s not just her. Many of these new freshmen seem to believe we will not fail them under any circumstances. I asked some of the other students what this was all about. They told me that, in high school, if a student does nothing all semester long, he will just go to the teacher at the end of the semester and ask what he can do to pass. The teacher will give the student some paper to write with the promise of a “D.” I don’t know if this is true or not, but more than one student has told me so. Even if it’s not true, it’s what they believe—and they bring that belief to college.

It may not be their fault. Who can blame them? Lately, we have seen evidence on a national/global scale that confirms their belief—some people, some institutions, some businesses are so important, we can’t allow them to fail.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Public Law 107-110), was originally proposed by President George W. Bush on January 23, 2001, immediately after taking office. These kids would have been in 5th grade at the time, just getting ready to enter middle school.

NCLB requires all public schools to administer a state-wide standardized test to all students each year. Those schools receiving Title I funding must make “Adequate Yearly Progress” in test scores. That means fifth graders must do better on this year’s tests than they did on last year’s. If it “fails” to do so, it is put on a list of "failing” schools. These failing schools are published in the local paper and the parents of children attending a failing school are given the option to transfer to a different, non-failing school. The failing school’s Title I funding is cut, and it must provide federally mandated special tutoring for its students—at the local system’s expense.

That’s a high price for failure. It leads to gaming the system and teaching to the test. The schools can’t afford to fail—so they don’t allow themselves to fail.

On October 1-3, 2008 Congress passed The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Within hours of its enactment President Bush signed the bill into law, creating a $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program to purchase “failing” bank assets. The banks could not be allowed to fail. They are too big—too important.

Earlier this month, executive from Ford, Chrysler, and GM arrived on Capitol Hill in private planes to convince Congress that the auto industry could not be allowed to “fail”—too many jobs at stake, too many families at risk.

Maybe it’s OK to fail. Failure actually has a long tradition of success in Western history. Henry Havelock Ellis, 19th century social reformer, remarked, “It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success.”

His contemporary, John Dewey, the American philosopher, psychologist, and educationa; reformer, said, “Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.”

Still another contemporary, Thomas Edison, was fond of saying, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

This was America’s Golden Age, a period from post-Reconstruction leading up to World War I where there was a general sense of optimism in America. We had a booming economy; we had realized our manifest destiny expanding our borders from the Atlantic to the Pacific. And Teddy Roosevelt was leading the new Progressivism. We believed in ourselves and our abilities. And a little failure was the price we paid for progress.

It was our Golden Age and our greatest minds were not afraid of failure? What has changed? Even up until the 1960’s we had a different attitude about failure. Robert Kennedy said, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”

There are still those who keep failure in perspective. Colin Powell insists, “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” And Malcolm Forbes believes, “Failure is success—if we learn from it.”

But perhaps the Chinese (who have been eating our lunch lately) have had it right for thousands of years: “Failure is not falling down, but refusing to get up.”

We need to rethink failure. We need to be brave enough to fail—and to allow each other to fail. If the stakes are too high, lower the stakes. Keep corporations from getting so big that they can extort us. Make large school systems into manageable sub-systems that can be more entrepreneurial and responsive to their particular population. Let the big three automakers go the way of the buggy whip factory. If they refuse to adapt to a changing environment, then they should fail. It’s not like a new, modern; auto industry would not emerge to take their place.

The dinosaurs probably sat around convincing each other that there was nothing to this climate change thing and they, too, were too important an institution to be allowed to fail.
Let’s not be dinosaurs about this. Let’s put failure back in perspective. Failure can be good. Failure can be necessary. It may actually be a failure to keep something from failing that needs to fail.

Let’s learn to live with failure, and let it make us better. It may be just what we need to enter a New Golden Age in America.

We all “Don’t get it”

2008-11-24T16:42:00.002-05:00

Monday, November 24, 2008

When automotive industry executives arrived on Capitol Hill last week in private jets to beg for money, we shook our collective heads and said, "They don't get it." They are so out of touch with the real world that it never occurred to them that $20,000-an-hour plane rides would appear inconsistent with the message they had arrived to deliver.

They don't understand that before you can ask someone else to help you out of your financial crisis, you should have already done all you can to address it yourself.

During the campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly told us that John "The-Fundamentals-of-our-Economy-are-Sound" McCain "doesn't get it."

McCain, Obama reminded us, is a nice guy who has served his country with honor and should be respected for his lifetime of public service. But he, with his seven homes and $100 million wife, doesn't get it.

I think we all don't get it. We are all nice guys, who work hard and do the right thing by others, but we don't get it.

We complain about the cost of energy while wasting over $100-a-year in our homes by keeping our instant-on electronics on standby. Five to fifteen percent of our electric bill comes from appliances on stand-by.

We leave our cell phone chargers plugged in even when we are not charging a cell phone. The computer is never turned off. And just exactly how many digital clocks do we need in one room?

We drink bottled water that comes from someone else's tap, at 240-10,000 times the price, rather than drink water from our own tap. The cost to manufacture and dispose of the plastic bottles and truck the 7-pound-per-gallon water around the country is gluttonous.

As for gasoline, we think in dollars—not gallons. We feel like burning $50 of $2.00-a-gallon gasoline is less than burning $100 of $4.00-a-gallon gasoline. We don't get it. We may be bottom-line people, but we don't think about how we got to the bottom line.

We drive our SUV to the bank to ask for a renegotiation of our mortgage. We call the utility company on our iPhone to ask for emergency winter heating relief. And we complain about the state-of-things as we watch the Tivo-ed news on our premium digital cable package. It may not be on the level of a private jet or 7th house—but it's the same thing. We don't get it.

I was out at my favorite simulcast horse racing establishment last week when my new acquaintance, Mike, asked me, "What do you do?"

"I am an English professor," I replied. To which he said, "Oh! You'll be fine." He then turned to our other new acquaintance, Danny, and asked the same question. Danny said, "I am in commercial printing. And we are hurting."

Danny then told us about how he had to lay off 25% of his 60-worker department before Christmas. Mike then talked about his commercial construction business and how he sees bleak times ahead. It seemed, for a moment, like these guys were starting to get it.

Then we all got up and bet on the next race.

We all don't get it—not yet, anyway.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

Kickin’ it New Skool

2008-11-17T07:44:00.004-05:00

Monday, November 17, 2008

There is an expression in the popular culture: "Kickin' it ol' skool." It means doing something the way it was done before—before new knowledge, new technology, and new techniques. It means doing something without these advantages and limiting one's self to what was done in a previous time or age. Things like cooking with charcoal rather than a gas grill, playing horseshoes rather than a video game, taking chicken soup for a cold, sending someone an actual paper-and-stamp letter, using a camera that has film in it. These are all examples of kickin' it ol' skool.

Sometimes we kick it ol's skool for the challenge, to see if we can still do it. Sometimes it is purist thing.

Sometimes we are just too stubborn and rigid to change.

We kick it ol' skool because that's all we know how to do.Whether someone voted for Obama or McCain, whether Obama's margin of victory gives him a mandate or not, it is clear Americans voted for change in four areas: Energy independence, healthcare, tax relief, and public education. Americans are not satisfied to keep kickin' these ol' school.

Speaking of school, few would argue that American public education is as good as it should be. It is a regular topic in the media . For all the talk, time, effort, and money, K-12 education in the USA is not something we can be universally proud of—especially America's high schools. That is not to say that there are not many dedicated, committed professionals and interested engaged students in pockets of excellence. However, we are not giving the majority of our children the education then need to be successful in the 21st Century.

Actually, we do pretty well in elementary schools. David Marsh, a professor at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education says, "In fourth grade, American kids do above average internationally. By eighth grade, they slip a bit, and by 12th-grade, they've slipped a lot." Marsh goes on to say, "We're the only country that slides down that much from fourth to 12th grade."We are leaving our children behind. They are being harassed, assaulted, stolen from, intimidated, threatened, and abused. And we expect them to learn in that environment.

Don't take my word for it. Consider these data:

· According to Hostile Hallways, 83% of the girls and 60% of the boys reported experiencing sexual harassment in school. Over half of the incidents took place in the classroom.

· 160,000 children skip school each day because of intimidation by their peers. The National Center for Educational Statistics reports that 77 % of middle and high school students in small mid-western towns have been bullied.

· Nearly 95% of students aged twelve through eighteen reported that they had been bullied at school in the last six months. In general, females were as likely as males to report being bullied. (Indicators of School Crime and Safety 2000, U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice, 2000)

· And a newly released study from the National Institutes of Health published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reveals that almost a third of 6th to 10th graders -- 5.7 million children nationwide -- have experienced some kind of bullying..

· 44% to 49% percent of all schools reported physical attacks, theft or larceny, and vandalism to the authorities. (2000 Annual Report on School Safety, Department of Education and Department of Justice, 2000)

· 21% of middle school/junior high schools reported fights or attacks with a weapon; these incidents for an estimated 7,576 incidents. (A National Study of School Environment and Problem Behavior: The National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools, Gottfredson Associates, Inc., 2000)

· Students aged twelve through eighteen were victims of more than 2.7 million total crimes at school. (Indicators of School Crime and Safety 2000, U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice, 2000)

· Younger students, ages twelve through fourteen, were more likely than older students, ages fifteen through eighteen, to be victims of crime at school. (2000 Annual Report on School Safety, Department of Education and Department of Justice, 2000)

· Almost one in five students reported being threatened with a beating, and again this was a more common experience for middle school students (22%) than for high school students (16%). (A National Study of School Environment and Problem Behavior: The National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools, Gottfredson Associates, Inc. 2000)

· On average, each year there are 133,700 violent crimes against teachers at school and 217,400 thefts from teachers at school, reported by teachers from both public and private schools. (2000 Annual Report on School Safety, Department of Education and Department of Justice, 2000)

What is most disturbing is that these are crimes—some felonies—yet they go unreported. In fact, only nine percent of violent crimes against teenagers occurring in school were reported to the police compared with thirty-seven percent of such crimes occurring on the streets. We are telling our young people that public schools are places where the laws of the larger society do not apply.

Apparently, building-level administrators are empowered to interpret the law within their schools. That bothers me.

But this is where we are, and this is what we've got. It's not getting better; it's not getting worse. It is what it is. The situation has, more or less, stabilized.Just like a stabilized patient in the ICU, he's no longer dying, but he's not getting better. He's stable. Now medical personnel have something to work with. They have some base-line data. They can tell if what they are doing is making him better, or making him worse.

Let's think of our public schools that way. What we have is baseline data, Square 1. From here we can see if we can get them healthy.What I am about to propose is not as radical as it may seem. It preserves that status quo. It maintains the current stable state. It maintains the currently accepted situation and preserves the rights of all students to keep exactly the same quality of education and learning environment they currently enjoy. Nobody is taking anything away from anyone. It maintains the Old School.

What I propose is kickin' it New School.The New School will co-exist with the Old School. Everyone is welcome in the new school, but not everyone can stay. The new school is for students who decide they want a better environment in which to learn, and they understand that it is up to them to create it. To be a member of this learning community, you have to show up, arrive prepared, do thoughtful work, make progress, and behave in a civil way.

The new school is not reserved for the best and the brightest. It is not a magnet school where the most promising students apply and are selected. Students self select to be a part of this learning community. It is open to anyone who wants to learn. The difference is student need to perform in order to stay. They must attend, be attentive, complete assignments, and contribute to a positive learning environment.If some students decide they do not what to do what is expected in the New School, they are welcome to return to the Old School where the status quo has been preserved. Nothing has been taken away. The student self-selected to return to the established standard.

Students can return to the New School. They are always welcome back. They just have to demonstrate a desire to learn and help maintain a positive learning environment. It's no big deal—they just walk over to the other side of the building. Part of maturation is making good choices. The New School/Old School model gives student control over their education. They get to make decisions and experience the consequences. Not only that, but they get second (and third and fourth) chances. And remember, nothing has been taken away from anyone, and a recent survey indicates that what we have now is just fine with parents and students. So there should be no complaints.

Certainly, there are logistical considerations to work out. Who and what decides when a student must leave the New School or may return? How do we coordinate course content so that there is portability between New and Old? These challenges can be solved. It can't be any harder than working out lunch shifts, bus issues, and traditional transfers.

As for teachers not wanting to teach in the Old School—they teach there now. They must believe they can be, and are, effective in the status-quo environment. Why do they stay otherwise? Good enough must be good enough for them, too. How else could they continue to do it year-after-year?

We can continue with our current way and probably survive. That is what we have been doing. But seeing where we are not in our nation, our economy, and our world makes me think we need to make some changes. We need to make some good decisions about our collective future and our priorities. Some of us are happy where we are and with what we have; some of us want to advance as a nation and as a people.

It's time for America to kick it new school. Let's start with the school.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

Discipline—Not Secrecy

2008-11-10T11:04:00.003-05:00

Monday, November 10, 2008

These past nearly-eight-years-of-a-Bush-Administration have been arguably the most secretive in White House history. From the very start, President Bush tightened the government's hold on information and limited public scrutiny of his administration's activities. He asserted executive privilege, adopted a restrictively-narrow view of the Freedom of Information Act, stamped everything in sight with national security classification, and was unresponsive to congressional requests for information. This all was before September 11th.

In his second week in office Bush created the now-infamous National Energy Policy Development Group with chairman Dick Cheney, to , "develop a national energy policy designed to help the private sector, and, as necessary and appropriate, State and local governments, promote dependable, affordable, and environmentally sound production and distribution of energy for the future." We still don't know who was invited to that party, but we know how it turned out.

What resulted from these eight years were suspicion; division; and economic, social, and political disaster. It's been a really bad time.

I am tired of all the secrecy and mistrust. It's no way to run a democracy. What I hope to see from President Barack Obama is not secrecy, but discipline.

Obama ran a remarkably disciplined campaign. "No Drama Obama" was its moniker. After being soundly dismissed and ridiculed as "a community organizer," he organized and mobilized a community of volunteers and dispersed them into nearly every populated corner of the country. A junior senator with no executive experience executed a remarkable victory. This is a remarkably capable and disciplined man.

We can only hope that the discipline of the campaign extends to the administration. The selection of Rahm Emanuel as chief-of-staff is a good sign that will be the case. An effective senior advisor to President Clinton, experience as an investment Banker, a term on the Board of Directors for the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation ("Freddie Mac"), and five years in the US House of Representatives gives him a near 360o view of the current political landscape.
Emanuel led the Democrats to victory the 2006 elections, and he was a leading candidate for the position of Majority Whip. His oversight of the day-to-day operations at the White House will guarantee a tight ship—not a leaky one.

On the other side of town, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have been less-than-impressive in using their slim majorities. Congress currently has a 17.3 Approval Rating to show for it. South Carolina Democrat James Clyburn, the House Majority Whip will need to bring his "A-Game" come January. In the past, he admitted difficulty of counting votes and rallying the fractious Democratic caucus. He needs to get out the whip and instill some discipline in the 256 Democratic Congresspersons. He picked up 20 seats so far. The Republicans are in disarray. We should know in the first few weeks of the 111th Congress if he is up to the job.

The way I see it, is there are two milestones Obama and Congress have to pass: the first quarter of 2009 and the Congressional Elections of 2010. With some discipline, teamwork, thoughtfulness, and a bit of good luck, they may be able to turn this mess around. We need them to. And it will take discipline.

In very broad terms, "discipline" is systematic instruction given to a disciple. Given the messianic expectation many have of our new president, maybe that is an appropriate way of thinking of the word.

But it is the origin of the word, the Latin disciplina meaning "instruction," from the Latin root discere meaning, "to learn," that we come to understand discipline as a means to instruct a person to follow a particular code of conduct, or to adhere to a certain "order."

We must all exercise some discipline in the coming months and years. We don't need secrecy and insular thinking. We need to work together in an orderly, courteous way. If Democrats can show themselves to be effective and as acting in the best interest for the future of our country, Americans will respond to that with gratitude and support.

Let's hope we are up to that challenge.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

The Day After Tomorrow

2008-11-03T10:41:00.002-05:00

First of all, it will not be close. Barack Obama will win perhaps as many as 355-360 electoral votes. The poplar vote will be closer, no more than 52% for Obama. So, tomorrow is not in question.

What is in question is the day after tomorrow.

The day after tomorrow, we can expect near-universal approval among our friends and allies throughout the world. The election of Obama signals a US willingness to change. The world will appreciate that we traded in a cowboy for a professor, carelessness for caution, brashness and impulse for thoughtfulness and insight. We forget that as much as we are hated and feared, we are counted on throughout the world for stability. Friend and foe alike will welcome a return to a ship-of-state on an even keel.

Over the next 80 days, Obama's transition team will begin to introduce potential cabinet members. We can expect a few republicans: Chuck Hagel and Dick Lugar for certain—Arnold Schwarzenegger, a curious possibility.

However, Barack Obama is inheriting a wounded America. We have to put his campaign in perspective. He set out a plan for change and a vision for a future. A crippled economy, a crushing deficit, and two poorly-waged wars will overshadow many of his bold initiatives. The very thing that ensured Obama's victory will make it difficult for him to deliver on the promise of his presidency.

It is likely that we will continue to run deficits beyond Obama's first term. We will continue to see widespread unemployment, limited lending, and anemic growth. Obama's plan to invest in infrastructure can help with employment but without some kind of dotcom-like economic phenomenon, it is hard to see how we can pay-as-we-go.

A Manhattan/Apollo-size energy initiative has the potential of producing innovative breakthroughs in fuel cell, alternative energy technologies. But those will be hard to sell in a war-weary, bailout-battered, recession-racked budget year - Or years.

But enough about what won't happen. Here is what will happen the day after tomorrow.
The day after tomorrow, we can expect President-Elect Senator Obama to be prominently seen in Republican company on the Senate floor. Even though the Democrats are unlikely to reach the filibuster-proof-majority of 60 (58 seems more likely), there will be any number of Republican lawmakers all-too-willing to associated with a president elect, and then president who has just won a landslide.

The day after tomorrow, John McCain will lay low for a while. He will then work to restore a reputation reduced by a cascade of bad choices, bad advice, bad decisions, and bad timing. He will remind us why we once admired him. And we will do so once again.

The day after tomorrow, Sarah Palin will continue to splinter the Republican Party. She will solidify her core constituency of rural, white, uneducated, self-identified-Christians who will huddle around her in anger and defiance that their vision of American was rejected by a preponderance of the electorate. What remains of GOP "leadership" will quickly destroy her by year's end—unless the rest of us get bored and ignore her before then. The GOP will not embrace Ultra-rural, -right, -religious, -anti-intellectualism as a brand.

Each Tuesday, following the first Monday of November, of every even-numbered year divisible evenly by four, we collectively stand at a crossroads—a mythical, metaphorical place of monumental decision. Throughout literature and across cultures, the crossroads is a place where we pause and look ahead. We choose a direction and go down a road together—for better or worse.

Eight years ago, we followed the same path as Robert Johnson. This year, we follow Robert Frost.

And we start the day after tomorrow.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

They Can’t Win . . . If We are Not Afraid

2008-10-28T20:29:00.002-04:00

Monday, October 27, 2008

In 1991, there was a movie starring Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep titled, Defending Your Life. It was a little two-star movie with a four-star theme.

Daniel Miller, played by Albert Brooks, dies in a car accident sent to Judgment City, a waiting area for the recently deceased of the United States. He, like everyone else is put on trial for "being afraid." Day after day goes by in a court room setting where he is made to watch himself controlled by fear, lacking courage, and making bad decisions as a result. In Judgment City, he meets and falls in love with Julia (Meryl Streep), a woman who lived a seemingly perfect life of courage and generosity, especially compared to his.

His fear caused him to lead a meaningless life. He is sentenced to be recycled back to earth to live another life time to see if, this time, he can overcome fear. Julia, having overcome fear, gets to move on.

That is where we are today. We, as a nation, are on trial to see if this year we will continue to let our fear control us. For the past eight years—who knows, maybe longer than that—we have been controlled by a government kept in power by keeping us afraid.
Our fears have caused us to make some very bad decisions—indefensible decisions. The War in Iraq, the election and re-election of Bush, the PATRIOT Act, domestic spying, refusing to talk to our enemies . . . you can probably add a few of your own.

For better or worse, fear is powerful and as basic to human survival as air and water.
There is a part of your brain, the stem, that exists solely for survival called the "reptilian" brain. This is the original part of the brain. As we evolved, our brains evolved, and other parts were added, for example, the limbic system which deals with emotions and the cerebellum which is the thinking part. This stem of the brain is securely protected by the rest of the brain. When all other parts of the brain are non-functional, this part will still be working, ensuring survival.

When our limbic system experiences the emotion of fear, the reptilian brain goes into action and the rest of the brain pretty much shuts down. While in the emotional state of fear, we have two choices and everything we do will be based on one of those choices: fight or flight. The body goes into survival mode. Everything becomes black or white, yes or no, good or evil, live or die.
In this fear state, human beings do not have the ability to think of alternative solutions, to behave rationally—only run or fight.

Our current government keeps us in a constant state of fear—Code Orange, take your shoes off at the airport, "real America." Now John McCain has only that one trick left in the bag—FEAR. We need to vote for McCain because Obama is (in hockey terms) just too doggone scary, doggonit!

What we need to fear is the erratic, questionable judgment of McCain and his hand-picked successor. We need only to look at the Republican rats deserting the SS McCain, their resumes flooding the mail rooms of the Fortune 500. They know there will be no jobs for them in the West Wing. They fear.

At the end of the Movie, Brook's Dan Miller character, seeing he would lose Julia forever, was able to overcome his fear, risked his own existence, and was released from the eternal cycle of fear-loss-rebirth-only-to-fear-again.

Let's be Dan this year. Let's find the courage to fight the fear, to overcome our reptilian origins and act like rational human beings. Let's imagine a world where there are alternatives, where it is not black and white, good and evil. Let's find the courage to find real solutions, not just make the best of a bad situation.

Let's vote hope—not fear.

The most famous "fear" quotation comes from Franklin D Roosevelt's inaugural address in 1933. We often repeat the sound bite, but we rarely hear it in context. And it is the context that is relevant to our time:

"This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days."

Think about that . . .Leadership in critical days.

On November 4Th, I am giving my reptilian brain the day off.

My cerebral cortex will be casting my vote.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

The Politics of Poker and the Poker of Politics

2008-10-20T16:52:00.002-04:00

Monday, October 20, 2008

At the final presidential debate, a new American icon emerged—Joe the Plumber. Contrary to popular myth, Barack Obama did not knock on John McCain's new poster boy's front door while canvassing in Joe Wurzelbacher's Toledo, Ohio neighborhood. The "plumber" tracked Obama down and confronted him in front of the cameras. Asking Obama if he believed in the American dream.

It made for good television. It made for good sloganeering. It made no sense.

Wurzelbacher presented himself as a plumber who was on the verge of buying the two-man plumbing company where he works. He falsely indicated that he was an undecided voter who was genuinely curious about how Obama's and McCain's tax plans would affect his entrepreneurial endeavor. He was less than truthful.

Joe is not a plumber. He is an unlicensed contractor who works for a two man company. His partner, too, is unlicensed. He makes about $40,000 a year and has not the money, the means, or even the beginning of a plan to buy Newell Plumbing & Heating from his partner, Al Newell.

He was bluffing.

And Joe, like many—too many—Republican voters, is a really bad poker player.
There is a poker strategy—if it can be called a strategy—known as "betting on the come." What that means is, a player does not bet with the hand he has, but bets on the hand he thinks he might get. It is drawing to the inside straight, a low-percentage play, and a proven way to lose almost all the time.

Poker players like Joe usually leave the table broke.

Joe is using his paycheck to bet on the come. It is clear that he will benefit under Obama's tax plan and will not under McCain's. But Joe, and all-too-many working class Republicans, thinks he might be wealthy some day. So he bets (sorry, votes) one the come. He votes to have tax policies already in place that will benefit his long shot, improbable, ill-conceived plan.

At his age, in this economy, with his skills and preparation, making over $250,000 a year is not likely to happen. It may, but probably won't. Just like drawing to an inside straight, you can do it. But there are only four cards in the deck that can get it done and they are likely already in the hands of other players.

It is not just Joe Wurzelbacher; Working class Republicans have a history and tradition of irrational voting. They consistently vote against their own, best self interest. Rural Americans vote to support big-business interests, middle class Republicans who will never inherit anything sizable support repeal of the "Death Tax" that shifts a greater tax burden onto themselves.

Poker is an interesting game. For most players, the more they play, the better they get. They learn from other players, learn to read the table and see if the hand they have is likely to have a chance at winning. If a hand cannot be potentially improved, they fold and wait for the next hand.

In politics, just like in poker, there is always a next hand. The cards are being dealt this November 4Th. In this hand, Barack Obama is the card that will give Joe Wurzelbacher, and all other working Americans, the best chance of winning.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

Ronald Reagan has Left the Building

2008-10-13T16:50:00.002-04:00

Monday, October 13, 2008

After a successful career as Governor of California, Ronald Reagan, the former movie star, was a political star. Not quite bright enough to outshine the incumbent Gerald Ford for the 1976 Republican presidential nomination in 1976, Reagan later eclipsed all competition in 1980.
Soon after talking office in 1981, the movie star/political star went supernova. Reagan was the brightest object in the political sky.

In ancient times, when science was non-existent and myth and superstition ruled the human mind, such a supernova would be seen as an object of awe and mystery. The ancients would have worshiped it as a god. Much the same thing happened to Reagan.

Politicians and devotees sought to bask in the light of Reagan's supernova star. They evoked his name, repeated his words, and studied his teachings. Reagan took on mythic proportions. He ceased to be human. In fact, if Reagan the man were to run against Reagan the myth, he would not stand a chance. He would lose in a landslide.

In 1994, diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, he retreated to his Bel Air home-much like the Greek gods of Olympus—we knew he was there, but we could not reach him. But just knowing that he was there his star, though dimmed, continued to warm and reassure his devoted followers. In that same year, his false prophet, Newt Gingrich—full of Reagan power, authority, and sanctimony—engineered control of Congress.

Later, a completely unprepared and unqualified Nero-like George W. Bush rode the Reagan wave to the White House. Bush's propaganda minister, Karl Rove, predicted a permanent Republican majority in American government. The Cult of Reagan was at its height, in full control of all branches of government: functionally, politically, and ideologically. And the United States of America is in crisis as a result.

Twenty-eight years later, Reagan's star has vanished. His supernova is now a black hole collapsed upon itself by its own weight and sucking in from around it the remnants of a Republican party in complete disarray—and the last remnants of his tattered legacy.

A few pathetic attempts to resurrect his power have been seen lately. Last week at the second debate, John McCain claimed Reagan as his personal hero—but only after he had already given that honor to Teddy Roosevelt. A week before, at the vice presidential debate, Sarah Palin's coaches gave her some Reagan scripture to quote in her closing comments. Curiously, it was from a speech that Governor Reagan gave in opposition to Medicare. So unaware of content and context are Palin's Republican handlers that they gave her lines to recite that were first spoken in an attempt to deny health care to old people.

The so-called Reagan Democrats, now awake and aware that Republican/Reagan ideology does not benefit them (and never really did) are returning to the Democrats. The party is over—the Republican Party that is. Democrats woke up and they are angry at being misled for a generation. The celebrity of Reagan no longer holds power over the American political firmament.

When Elvis Presley would give a concert, his devoted fans demanded encore after encore. They were hoping to hang on to the moment, to be in his presence a bit longer. Similarly, Reagan fans used to cheer at the mere mention of the name, Reagan. When Elvis was finally exhausted and had nothing left to give, his staff would make an announcement intended to send the adoring crowd home. It is now time to borrow that line from Elvis and send the Republican Party home:

Ronald Reagan has left the building.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

Obama’s New-New Deal

2008-10-06T16:49:00.001-04:00

Monday, October 6, 2008

It's pretty clear how we got into this financial mess. The regulations placed upon the financial sector after The Great Depression were whittled-away over the past 16 years. This took on an accelerated pace over the past eight years.

We also know how we got out of it last time. President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted The New Deal, a series of programs between 1933 and 1938 with the goal of giving work to the unemployed, reforming business and financial practices, and helping the economy recover from The Great Depression.

The "First New Deal" of 1933 was aimed at short-term recovery. Roosevelt implemented banking reform laws, emergency relief programs, work relief programs, agricultural programs, and industrial reform. There was a "Second New Deal" in 1935–1936 that included labor union support, the WPA relief program, the Social Security Act, and programs to aid farmers.
So here we are, almost 80 years later. Much of what Roosevelt did to restore our prosperity has been undone. And we now have the greatest disparity of wealth in the United States since the time just before The Great Depression. Greed and a largely-unregulated financial sector have returned us to 1929.

The Financial Bailout Bill—now renamed the Rescue Package—is just as necessary in shoring up the US economy today as was Roosevelt's support of the banking industry in the First New Deal. Barack Obama not only voted for it, but has spoken extensively in New Deal terms since last February when he spoke at a GE Assembly Plant in Jamesville Wisconsin: "For our economy, our safety, and our workers, we have to rebuild America," said Obama. "This investment will multiply into almost half a trillion dollars of infrastructure spending and generate nearly two million new jobs—many of them in the construction industry that's been hit hard by the housing crisis."

That sounds a lot like Roosevelt's New Deal to me.

Obama also calls for creating five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future. He hopes to put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon on the road by 2015. He calls for these cars to be built here in America by Americans. And his plan to ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025 will create more high-paying jobs for American workers.

Some criticize this as Socialism. They said the same about Roosevelt. So what? What is so wrong about a little socialism?

According to the Future of Freedom Foundation, any government-owned, -funded, or -subsidized operation is considered to be a socialist program. For example, publicly owned airports, sports arenas or government-funded universities would be considered socialist operations by that definition. And we have plenty of those.

What we need in the months and years ahead is to look back to what has worked and what has not. We need a cool-headed, thoughtful, scholarly approach to solving a problem brought on by decades of greed and anti-intellectualism.

I look forward to the next four years under Obama's leadership. I anticipate a rebirth of this nation as an engine of innovation, and science, and prosperity. And I look forward to reading the details of Obama's New-New Deal.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

Let Them Eat Cake

2008-09-29T16:47:00.001-04:00

Monday, September 29, 2008

It was pretty touch-and-go last Friday. It wasn't until just before 11:00a.m. that John McCain decided to attend that evening's debate with Barack Obama.

Here where I teach, at Frederick Community College, we had scheduled Debate Watch Parties. Teaching in a community college with a 100% commuter population, and very few students taking Friday classes, presents its own challenges when planning a Friday evening event. Once the drinking age was moved back up to 21 from 18, it's been difficult to get students to attend college social events. I can remember being an undergrad at Hood College back in 1980 and Dr. Len Latkovski invited us all to watch the debate. He brought a 12-pack to the classroom. Those were the days.

The best I can offer my students is pizza and soft drinks and a sheet cake for each candidate. The idea is, once the debate is over, the students come up and take a piece of cake of the candidate they think won their vote.

It was a rainy evening, McCain's appearance was shaky, and I knew the newspaper and NBC affiliate were coming to do a story on college students involved in the political process. I pulled up in my pizza-laden pick-up truck to find several cars in the Conference center parking lot.
They came. Over 60 college students came back to campus at 9:00 on a Friday night to watch a presidential debate for what was probably the first time in their lives.

This is a year of firsts. I work a regular Friday afternoon shift at Democratic Headquarters in Frederick, Maryland. In 2004, I was needed for the full day—10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. This year, I am only needed from 4-6. Four years ago, I would spend the 8-hour day with very little to do. This year, in get much more traffic in a single two-hour shift than I got in a full 8-hour day in 2004.

It is not just that have registered more voters this year, but I have registered more adults who are voting for the first time in their lives. And I am registering voters who do not look like typical Frederick County Democrats. The typical gun rights, hard working, low taxes, family values, flag waving, socially conservative, yet politically apathetic, resident of Frederick County isn't buying it anymore. He wants things to change.

Things are different this year. But I don't see how it cannot go Obama's way. For the first time in a long time, the Electoral College is the Democrat's friend. In the 35 remaining days, I don't see how the map can change. Obama will get 283 electoral votes, despite Bubba. For the most part, Bubba lives in states that are going red anyway.

Actually, I had Bubba in my class last Thursday. I covered a class for a colleague and the class had been reading about politics: the Electoral College, the Meaning of Liberal and Conservative. A brash, vocal, opinionated young man was expressing total disinterest in politics in total and an admiration for Republicans in general. I went to the computer and brought up a presidential quiz and asked him to complete it while the class looked on. I don't have to tell you his reaction when he found that Obama would support his stand on the issues more that McCain.

So I say, "Let them eat cake." And, last Friday after the debate, they did. If you click on the link above for the first mention of the cakes, you can see them pre-debate. Click here, to see the results.

Like this cake, in 35 days, victory will be sweet.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

Let them eat cake

2008-09-28T15:34:00.002-04:00

Here are the before and after photos of the Vote by cake after the first McCain/Obama debate

Why I Support Barack Obama

2008-09-22T16:45:00.001-04:00

Monday, September 22, 2008

In Sunday's "Frederick News Post" a conservative letter writer attempted to explain why liberals (I think he means me) hate Sarah Palin. In typical Republican fashion, he begs the question by creating a fiction that liberals hate her and then proceeds to tell us why we are wrong.

In fact, I don't hate her; I actually kind of like her. There is much to admire about her. She's clever, confident, assertive, organized, and apparently fearless. I just don't agree with her. And I don't support her or John McCain.

What I hate is the McCain campaign playing fast and loose with US security by suggesting that this otherwise fine woman is a good choice to lead this nation in the event that an elderly man with a history of health issues should be unable to complete his term as president. I hope that is the last I will write about John McCain's choice.

The point of today's column is why I support Barack Obama.

Obama is a servant leader. Robert K. Greenleaf first described the Servant Leader in an essay published in 1970. In that essay, he said, "The servant-leader is servant first . . . It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first; perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions . . . The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types."

John McCain, in contrast, is a leader first. A leader in the military tradition where one seeks leadership and expects obedience from subordinates who do not necessarily grow under leadership as much as survive to achieve an objective.

Greenleaf goes on to describe, "The difference [between leader-first and the servant-first]manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people's highest priority needs are being served.

Obama's policies have our priorities in mind. They seek to provide health care for all Americans as a basic human right. To educate children, not just test them. To secure a source of energy that looks to the future and new technologies rather than to cling to a finite, fading resource.

To determine if a leader is leader-first or servant-first, Greenleaf suggests, "The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?"

I am always puzzled why the least privileged in our nations so often vote against their own self interest. The Bush tax cuts, once rejected but now supported by McCain, did not help the least among us—yet many of them support these cuts. Equally baffling is the widespread support of the elimination of the inheritance tax—cleverly renamed "death tax" that allows someone to leave to his heirs, tax-free, up to $2 million in 2006-2008 and to $3.5 million in 2009. Seriously, how many people who support this nonsense will ever inherit anywhere near this sum? To swindle gullible Americans and trick them into supporting something that actually hurts them is not servant leadership—it's a con game. It does not help them grow; it holds them down.
Barack Obama has the potential to make a fortune, yet he chooses public service. Republicans are quick to spew, "But he's a millionaire!" Technically, yes. The Obama's have a net worth of $1.3 million, mostly from the royalties on his book and his wife's income as a corporate lawyer. That's not even the $5 million McCain says would make him wealthy.

My point is, Obama didn't cash in—he pitched in.

Barack Obama is one of the smartest people to ever seek the office of the presidency. We should be pleased by that—not suspicious. He has steadily taken on new challenges and the causes of others. Obama has held elective office for 10 years. He has taught constitutional law at one of the top law schools in the country. He has experience politics and government from the ground up as a community organizer.

There is no real way of knowing if someone is qualified to be president. But I am confident Obama is. Let's take a look at his qualification.

He earned a B.A. in Political Science from Columbia University where his major was International Relations. His senior thesis topic was "Soviet nuclear disarmament."

At Harvard Law School he earned J.D. and was magna cum laude. He was also elected president of the Harvard Law Review. For those who don't know what that is--it's a really big deal.

From 1983-1988 he was Director of the Developing Communities Project.

He is a scholar of U. S. Constitutional law, and, from 1993-2004, he was a Senior Lecturer in Constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School

He served as an Illinois Senator from 1996-2004 where he was chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee

Obama has been a United States Senator since 2004, where he has been a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs

He has served on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; Senate Committee on Veterans' Affair

As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama has made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.

I am not going to compare John McCain's career here. I am weary of disparaging the opponents. With 42 days until the election, I hope we can look for reason why we should vote for our candidate—not against the other. The American mood seems to be that we are looking for a president with vision, integrity, wisdom, courage and a record of good judgment, cool temperament, and the ability to make us all better people.

That is why I support Barack Obama.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

When Life Begins

2008-09-15T16:43:00.001-04:00

Monday, September 15, 2008

Today is going to be one of the worst days of my life. At 5:00 this evening, I am taking my almost 15-year-old-dog in to have him euthanized.

My wife and I have been watching this once-strong, fast, athletic guy become frail and crippled. He can't even walk without the aid of a leash looped under his belly to hold up his once-powerful, now-useless back legs.

So it is a little difficult to think of politics this week. So for now, Sarah Palin can adjust her lipstick and say, "Thanks, but no thanks" for the pork that she orders while at her home is Wasilla taking a per diem for travel. John McCain can continue to pretend that he still has some honor while he cozies-up to Karl Rove and does to Obama what Rove did to McCain in 2000. Joe Biden can figure out how to debate a lightweight without looking like he is "Picking on a girl." And Obama can take this time to figure out how to be outraged without looking like an angry black man.

You all go ahead. I'll catch up with you soon. Tonight, I have to bury my dog.

Actually, it reminds me of a story:

A Christina preacher, a rabbi and a secular humanist are having a discussion about when life begins. The preacher insists that life begins at the moment of conception. The humanist counters that life begins when the baby is able to thrive on its own outside the womb. The rabbi says, "You're both wrong. Life begins when the kids move out and the dog dies."

My kids moved out years ago. I guess life begins tonight.

So, while I am on the subject, and in a life-and-death kind of mood, let's assume for argument's sake that life begins at conception. Put aside, for the moment considerations of choice and abortion. Let's suppose that the issue is settled in Palin/McCain favor and all abortion is banned. The choice has been taken away.

Shouldn't those who took the choice away now take responsibility for the consequence of that lack of choice? Aren't they responsible to make sure the unwanted child is loved and wanted? And clothed and fed, and schooled and sheltered, and healthy and happy? Isn't it now their—our—responsibility?

You know what I think—take away the choice and assume the responsibility for your choice to deny someone else a choice. Yeah, it's confusing. Better yet, I think men should just stay out of it. We will never be pregnant. We will never have to make that choice. I trust women to decide. If they can get together and come up with a solution, men should just shut up and go along with it.

But if life begins at conception, what about the 400,000 frozen, fertilized (meaning "conceived") embryos? Are they not "people"? Do they not have the right to life? Is it not de facto abortion to allow them to wither in liquid nitrogen until they become non-viable? Don't we put people in jail for failing to care for their children and causing them to die as a result? Why is this not discussed?

What ever happens, choice-no choice, abortion no abortion, I just want kids to have a fair chance at life with a family to love them and be sad when they die.

Once, I get over the loss of my friend, the election will still be there. The issues will still be there. And they will all seem important to me once again. Today—not so much.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

Jack 1993-2008

2008-09-14T22:15:00.005-04:00

We had to put our Jack down. We had him for almost 15 years. He was a very good friend and the nicest person I ever knew. I really miss him.

McCain’s “Drive By” Vice President

2008-09-08T16:41:00.001-04:00

Monday, September 8, 2008

It is Sunday morning, the day that my wife and dog sleep in and I have some alone time to read the paper and plan my favorite Sunday activity: watching the Sunday politics shows. Coffee in one hand the, newspaper in the other, I look to see who is going to be on which program. Let’s see . . . Barack Obama is on This Week at 10:00. John McCain is on Face the Nation at 10:30. Joe Biden in on Meet the Press at 10:30, and Sarah Palin is on . . . nothing.

It has been 10 days since Sarah Palin was tapped to be McCain’s Vice Presidential nominee, and she has not answered one reporter’s question. Not one.

She has given nearly a dozen speeches where she attacks Obama, belittles liberals, and charms the crowd. And then she is off like a gangbanger in a drive-by shooting. The McCain campaign strategy as far as Palin is concerned seems to be, “Get out while the getting is good.”

The best strategy for McCain is to keep her hidden, never let her speak without a script, don’t give anyone the opportunity to ask her a question until the debate, and then hope that her poor performance is overshadowed by calling Biden a bully.Here are some questions that desperately need asking.

“Are you now, or have you ever been a member of a separatist movement?” This seems a fair question given McCain’s “Nation First” theme at his convention.

“If we were to being offshore drilling today, what is the soonest we could begin to use this source of oil and what effect would it have on gasoline and heating fuel prices?” After the chants of “Drill Baby Drill” I think a good second verse is “When Baby When?”

“You were initially in favor of the Bridge to Nowhere and then said, “Thanks but no thanks.” Yet you accepted the money and used it for other projects. Given your opposition to earmarks, how can you explain this inconsistency?” This seems like something a reformer would want to clear up.

“While mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, you hired a lobbyist who procured $27 million in federal earmarks for your town. As a candidate for vice president, you pledge to end this type of practice. What changed your mind?”

“In 1996, you fired the police chief and library director of Wasilla for "not fully supporting her efforts to govern." The assumption of your constituents at that time was that you retaliated for their not supporting you in your election. This seems quite similar to the undergoing investigation into your firing your public safety commissioner for allegedly not carrying out your wishes that he fire your former brother-in-law. As a self-professed reformer, how can you claim to root out corruption given these past actions of your own?” Since administration is under continued scrutiny for its firing of federal prosecutors who were politically disloyal, it seems that McCain/Pail is indeed a third Bush term.

“You praised your 17 year-old daughter for making the right choice to bring her pregnancy to full term and marry the future father. Yet you seek to deny that same choice to others in your daughter’s situation. Shouldn’t everyone be given the same opportunity as your daughter?” This is a fair question given that she has built a political career by taking an extreme stance on reproductive rights.

This is a good start. We could go on and on: global climate change, endangered species, creationism...

I think we have enough here to fill the 30 minute interview. That interview is yet to be scheduled. According to reports, Palin is sequestered with tutors and unlikely to face any reporters before her Thursday, October 2nd debate with Joe Biden. Let’s call that the final exam.

Drive-by attacks are as despicable in politics as they are in street gangs. It is an act of cowardice. It is sneaky, It is dishonorable. In the meantime, it is helpful to recall American boxer Joe Louis (1914-81), who, on the eve of his fight with the light heavyweight champion Billy Conn, said, “You can run, but you can’t hide.”

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

You Heard it Here First: Palin will Bow Out

2008-09-01T16:38:00.001-04:00

Monday, September 1, 2008

On Monday, September 22, at 3:40 p.m., we will say goodbye to summer with the arrival of the autumnal equinox. By that date, we will also have said goodbye to the vice presidential hopes of Alaskan Hockey Mom, Sarah Palin.

That is how long it will take the McCain Campaign to realize what the rest of us already know. Selecting Sarah Palin was the worst mistake of John McCain’s life.

It was worse than getting involved with the Keating Five; worse than deciding to play a practical joke on the crew of the USS Forestal by wet starting his A-4E Skyhawk engines resulting in a fire that killed 27 and injured over 100 of his fellow sailors; worse than his embracing of Rovian tactics to make his campaign as ugly as Bush 2000.

Selecting Sarah Palin makes those mistakes look miniscule. The McCain Campaign is probably already crafting an exit strategy. It will go something like his:

Surrounded by her family at some Alaskan location, hair down and dressed-down, Palin, holding her infant son, will approach the podium. A concerned-looking McCain with wife Cindy by his side will hold hands as Palin bravely begins to speak. “Over these past few weeks, I have been honored and humbled by the confidence that Sen. McCain and the people of this great nation have placed in me by nominating me for the vice presidency. However, I have come to realize that the demands of my family, and my unfinished work of reforming the Great State of Alaska, must come first. Therefore, I must step down from the ticket so that . . .”

Or, it will go like this: In a tailored suit with hair up in business-like fashion, Palin and McCain appear together at a small press conference. McCain does not speak, but stands, alone, beside her. Palin begins:“The on-going investigation into the legitimate firing of an employee in my administration has become a distraction for Senator McCain and the campaign. Although these accusations have no merit, and I will be exonerated of all allegations, it is in the best interest of the Republican Party and the people of the United States that I step down from my candidacy of vice president so that Senator McCain can focus on what is really important in this election.”

There are other scenarios. The McCain Campaign will find some excuse to attempt to correct this bold blunder. Yes, this is the worst political blunder in modern American politics. And it proves what Barack Obama said last Thursday night: “John McCain doesn’t get it.” She’s not a plug-in Hillary, she is completely unqualified.

Alaska has a population the size of Charlotte North Carolina; Wasilla, Alaska, about the size of Thurmont, Maryland. Alaska is not a typical American state and does not reflect typical American issues and challenges. Alaska is a single issue state and Governor Palin is on the wrong side of that issue. They tout her reputation as a maverick and a reformer, yet to be a successful reformer in a rampantly corrupt state is just picking the low hanging fruit.

To argue that she has “executive experience” that qualifies her to lead this country, should a 72 year-cancer survivor die in office, is head-shakingly absurd.

By Republican qualification standards, Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon is more qualified. But then, Dixon is a Democrat. There are hundreds of Democratic women who are more qualified than Sarah Palin, but the pool of Republican women is pretty shallow.McCain has a history of poor choices and impetuous behavior.

Let’s hope it’s not too long before the American voter realizes that. Selecting Palin was a disastrous decision. It will be corrected. If not by McCain, then by the American voters.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

Gold Medal Platitudes

2008-08-25T16:36:00.002-04:00

Monday, August 25, 2008

Michael Phelps, perhaps the greatest athlete of all time, is fond of saying, “Anyone can do anything they set their mind to.” He has said it more than once. He also credits his imagination for propelling him to victory.

So what are we to assume? His opponents lacked imagination? They were simply weak minded? They didn’t “want” it badly enough?

Apparently, it was not Phelps’ huge hands which allow him to scoop more water than the average person, his size 14 feet that propel him through the water, his six-feet-four inch body, his nearly six feet seven inches wing-span, his long torso and short legs, and his incredible work ethic—it was his mind and imagination that earned him a record eight gold medals in a single Olympics.

Don’t get me wrong. I admire Michael Phelps and think he is a likable, affable young man. But he is a young man. At 23, and on a global stage, he may be too young and too inexperienced to be doling out motivational advice.

Such platitudes by a global champion are possibly unkind, arguably arrogant, and usually not at all helpful. It minimizes the importance of having physical and intellectual abilities, and access to opportunities.

As an English professor at a community college with open admissions, we often get underprepared students in our classrooms. We offer them a range of “developmental” courses—some call them “remedial.” On more than one occasion, there have been students in my classes who were intellectually limited—some call them mentally retarded. One particular student could not do the work, could not keep up with the class, and was unable to participate in a meaningful way. I checked the records and saw she had taken the course before—and failed.

I met with her to discuss her progress and her goals. She said she was tired of working the third maintenance shift at the hospital and thought if she could finish college, she’d get a better job. She expressed determination to succeed.

She said that everyone in her family told her, “You can be successful at anything if you just try hard enough.” When she would fail, they would say, “Just keep trying; you’ll get it!”She could not have tried any harder. She could not have wanted it more. And she could not be successful in college.

Telling her—and others like her—that they are able to accomplish anything if they work hard enough may make the person saying it feel better, but it is not kind. It is cruel. And it is people like me who have to explain the harsh reality after others have showered them with positive platitudes.

A few years back, I was trying to run a qualifying time for the Boston Marathon. At my age, I had to run the 26.2 miles in 3 hours and 26 minutes—about a 7 minute, 50 second-per-mile pace. I trained hard, did speed work, endurance work, hill work, cross training, and watched my diet . . . everything the experts told me to do.

I ran the race of my life: at 3 hour 40 minute race—14 minutes too slow—half-a-minute-a-mile too slow. I did more than set my mind to it; I did more than imagine it. My body, unlike Michael Phelps’, is just not capable of doing what I imagined it could do. However, my body did exactly the best it could do.

We can’t all be Michael Phelps, but we can achieve our individual best—the best our bodies and our minds can do with our unique abilities and available opportunities.That is what Michal Phelps should have said: “We are all capable of accomplishing great things if we set our minds to them, allow our imaginations to flourish, and work very, very hard.”

That is what is possible for all of us. That’s the message America needs to hear.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

Boys Just Want to Have Fun

2008-08-11T16:34:00.001-04:00

Monday, August 11, 2008

John McCain’s campaign has made a decidedly sharp turn toward the negative. After getting trounced by Obama’s triumphant European trip and McCain’s inability to rise above 45% in the polls, McCain’s people released a series of video ads designed to attack Obama on his strengths. I guess he wasn’t getting enough traction calling Obama a traitor and blaming him personally for gas prices.

You’ve seen them: Brittany, Paris, Moses. It’s the kind of sophomoric humor that is usually produced and created by snickering high school boys in the locker room. When McCain was asked about the nasty tone of these ads, he replied that he and the boys were “just having some fun.”

When McCain was asked why he was focusing on Obama’s image rather than the issues, he said, “Well, I don’t think it’s negative. I think we are drawing the differences between us.” “This is a very respectful campaign,’’ McCain said. “I’ve repeated my admiration and respect for Senator Obama. That clip is of Charlton Heston. It’s a movie. It’s a film, movie. So, I really appreciated the movie and I appreciated Charlton Heston’s magnificent acting skills as I saw it, but it’s a movie.’’

Just a movie, and he’s just having a bit of harmless fun, showing that maverick sense of humor, taking that Straight Talk Express on a side trip to Laughsville. McCain said, “We think, it’s got a lot of humor in it, and we’re having fun and enjoying it. And that is what campaigns are going to be like, that’s what every campaign that I have been involved in. I am going to enjoy it . . .”

It amazes me how short McCain’s memory is. In 2000, (the last, “every campaign that I have been involved in“) the Bush Campaign was just having a bit of fun with McCain.

Back then those fun-loving Bush folks called McCain “The Fag Candidate.” Actually they implied McCain was both gay and cheated on his wife. They suggested he had fathered an illegitimate black child and that his wife was a drug addict. Oh, those guys—such cut ups. How did they get any work done with all the hi-jinx?

Once they regained their composure from all the convulsive laughter over those gems, they spread the word that John McCain was unstable, that he returned from 5 1/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam with a screw loose. They asserted that his five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam had driven him insane. (Now, I’m confused. I thought those 5 ½ years made him a hero.) Bush operative, Ted Sampley even called McCain “The Manchurian Candidate.” Sampley went on to accuse McCain of being a “weak-minded coward” and that McCain had escaped death “by collaborating with the enemy.”

According to the New Yorker, that ‘ol prankster, Karl Rove, suggested McCain committed treason as a POW and fathered a child with black prostitute. You’d think that would make McCain hesitant to make the treason claim against Obama—that he’d rather lose a war than lose an election. I guess not. A good gag is a good gag.

I doubt that the Obama Campaign will nasty-it-up Bush/Rove style. But if they do, we can be sure that McCain will laugh it off. After all, they are “just having some fun.”

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

Sticks and Stones . . .

2008-08-04T16:22:00.001-04:00

Monday, August 4, 2008

Some people say the word “liberal” like it’s a bad thing—something we should be ashamed of. It’s right up there with pedophile and traitor. They kind of remind me of the children on the playground who think “gay” is an insult. Apparently, we godless tax raisers are responsible for all that is wrong with this country.

The other side—conservatives—has been trying to defame the world “liberal” for quite some time.

The ol’ standby: “Tax and Spend Liberals,” however, may be showing some wear now that they are the “Spend and Spend Conservatives.” You just don’t hear that one anymore. We were once proud to be liberals. A generation ago, John Kennedy, on September 14, 1960, said, “If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

What has happened is that we have allowed the Republican Conservatives to control the language. Limbaugh, Rove, Coulter, Hannity, O’Reilly, even our local mini-demagog , Maryland State Senator Alex Mooney, have spat the word with such disdain that we are now afraid to use it. They are trying to do the same with the name of our party. Obama is not the democratic candidate—he’s the democrat candidate. It’s now the Democrat Convention and the Democrat Party. They like the cacophony and harshness of the word—and how they get to say “Rat” at the end.

It looks like they have won the battle of words. Many of us are afraid to say we are liberal. We deny it and chafe at the accusation. So, we are now calling ourselves “Progressives.” I guess that’s kind of catchy. Let’s see them spit out “Prog-ress.” They will probably emphasize the “Prog” partand even call us “Progs.” They are relentless like that—kind of like gnats.

On the other side, the word conservative is so sacrosanct that, until recently, the party’s nominee, John McCain, was not even allowed to use it. To be conservative is to maintain the status quo, to be careful stewards of resources, to value personal freedom, to demonstrate character and family values. Yeah, right.

Conservatives like to remind us that Winston Churchill once said, "Any man under 30 who is not a liberal has no heart, and any man over 30 who is not a conservative has no brains." What they don’t say—or more than likely don’t understand—is the Churchill was referring to British conservatism—not 21st century American Conservatism. In fact, British “Conservatives” are more liberal than American Liberals!

OK, so we’re all heart and they are all brains. OK, let’s go with that: the Heart Party and the Brain Party.Let’s take a look at how the battle of hearts and brains is playing out with two issues: one local, one national. On the topic of dependence on foreign oil, the conservative solution is to drill for more oil domestically. This is definitely a conservative solution. It maintains the status quo, it is comfortable, easy to understand and about as challenging a concept as a connect-the-dots puzzle in Highlights Magazine. You don’t have to explain THAT one to the party of brains.

However, foreign oil is not the problem—oil is the problem. It is running out; the whole concept is no longer sustainable. Fixing the oil problem by drilling for new sources of oil is like trying to cure alcoholism by going to a different liquor store.

The progressive solution is to look beyond oil. Of course we are still going to USE oil for the near future but we need to stop investing our time, money, and (dare I say it?) brains on an obsolete system. We didn’t make a better buggy whip as an alternative to the automobile. We don’t walk around with cellular telegraph machines. There comes a time when we must face up the end of oil. Even if it is easily understood and comfortable, its time has passed. Even oil man Boone Pickens, (the money behind the Swiftboat Campaign and a big financial supporter of the current president of the brain party) has moved on.

Progressives look forward with bold new solutions to complex problems. Conservatives look backward to the tried and true—even if it’s been tried and no longer true.

On a local issue, here In Frederick, Maryland, we have a problem with where to put all of our trash. Our landfill is full and we are spending something like $12 million a year to take our trash and put it in someone else’s landfill. Our county commissioners are divided. Two from the brain party—Charles Jenkins and Lenny Thompson—want to build an incinerator at a cost of over $300 million.I’m not kidding. They want to solve a 21st century problem with a 1950’s solution. And they are not even embarrassed about it. The third Brain Party commissioner, David Gray, seems to be waiting to be convinced.

Weighing in for the Heart Party is Kai Hagen (and to a somewhat lesser extent, Jan Gardner). He would like to take that $300-plus-million and invest it in a 21st century solution. He wants to build a reclamation center where recyclable materials can be captured and reused instead of burned, thus reducing the amount of non-recyclable waste to a point where the system is sustainable. The revenue gained from the recycled materials would help offset the cost of waste disposal.The Brains have a problem with this; they understand burning. But picking through he trash? Jenkins is an outspoken advocate of the concept that human activity has nothing to do with global climate change. To him, burning is of no consequence.

According to Business Week, “8% of global oil production is siphoned off to make plastic each year. Recycled plastic, however, requires 80% less energy to produce. Recycled aluminum burns up 95% less energy. Recycled iron and steel use 74% less, while paper requires 64% less. . . One ton of recycled aluminum saves an average of $700 in electricity. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that if the recycling rate were to increase by just five points, to 35%, this would save the equivalent of almost 2 billion gallons of gasoline annually.”

The Party of Fear—the Brain Party –falls backward on comfortable, familiar easily understood solutions to new and complex problems. The Party of Hope—the Heart Party—looks forward to face challenges with bold new innovations to build a sustainable future.The challenges of the future cannot be faced with the solutions of the past.

You would think the Brain Party could get their brains around that concept—we certainly got our hearts around it.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

All in the Family

2008-07-28T16:18:00.001-04:00

Monday, July 28, 2008

I was in the Elk’s Club last Tuesday. This is a place that one would think is pretty secure Bush Country. There are several flat screen TVs above the bar and several are usually tuned-in to Fox News. However, this evening all were tuned to the local DC news broadcast.

President Bush appeared on the TV and was reassuring the American Public that we are just fine, the economy is growing, gas pricing are falling and things are looking up. The kind of thing the Elk’s Club crowd would usually buy in to.A few barstools away, a man said—intending for all of us to hear—“Sure, he’s gonna be fine. He’s a multi-millionaire. He got what he wanted—he’s rich. The hell with the rest of us.”

I looked around—sure enough, I was still in the Elk’s Club. And I thought, “What has happened to the base?” My, my, how times have changed.

I remember when Al Gore won/lost the 2000 election. I tried to rationalize it over Thanksgiving dinner and told my conservative Republican brothers and sister that maybe this was a good thing. I predicted, in November of 2000, that four years of a Bush presidency, combined with a Republican Congress, was all American would need to see that the Republicans-left unchecked, could not be trusted to look out for the average American. All the blustering about family values, fiscal responsibility, and lower taxes, would reveal themselves to be a cruel hoax. Just lies they told people to gain and abuse power.

After four years, America would be so disgusted with the Republican excess and lies and abuses and secrecy and arrogance and contempt that we’d have the Democratic Party in power for the next 20 years.

Soon after inauguration, my prediction was coming true. For the first 8 months of Bush Inc., all went according to plan: 6 hour work days, long weekends, even longer vacations. Bush showed himself to be kind of lazy, completely incurious, and a divider—not the uniter he promised to be.Let’s take a look; shall we?

In January 2001, Bush suspended implementation of most of former President Clinton's late-term executive orders regarding the environment, including the continued use of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. Bush’s EPA lifted air-pollution standards and former Sen. Spencer Abraham—who tried to abolish the Energy Department while in Congress—was approved as Energy secretary.

In February 2001, Interior Secretary Gale Norton sought to "adjust the boundaries" of Clinton-designated national monuments while Bush planed to cut funding for environmental policy enforcement by 7 percent. The Republican-controlled Senate introduced the now-infamous bill that would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge-- the cornerstone of Bush's energy policy.

In March 2001, Bush reversed a campaign pledge and announced he will not order mandatory reductions of carbon dioxide emissions from the nation's electrical plants. He also withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol. Mining industry lobbyist, J. Steven Griles was nominated for Interior deputy secretary.

In April 2001, Bush broke another campaign promise and abandoned plans to invest $100 million a year for rainforest conservation. Bush’s Assistant secretary is Bennett Raley, who once testified that the Endangered Species Act should be repealed. And Vice President Dick Cheney met with Enron executives to write the administration’s energy policy.

By May of 2001, Bush and company placed a freeze on new proposals for the national park system. James Connaughton, who defended General Electric in Superfund fights with the EPA, was nominated as the chair of his Council on Environmental Quality. Bush released his super-secret energy plan, devised in super-secret fashion by a super-secret task force headed by super-secret Vice President Cheney.

Then the first cracks in Carl Rove’s Permanent Republican Majority began to appear. In June 2001, Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords, disgusted by Bush’s environmental policies, abandoned the Republican Party to become an Independent. This gave nominal control of the Senate to the Democrats. Unperturbed, Bush nominated former timber lobbyist, Mark Rey, as Undersecretary of Agriculture for natural resources and environment.

In July of 2001, the administration announced it will open 1.5 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to oil drilling -- but not near Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's shorelines. The U.S. is conspicuously absent at Kyoto Protocol climate talks in Bonn, Germany.The Justice Department indicated, in August 2001, that it wanted to overturn a federal court order blocking oil and gas exploration off the California coast. Another crack appeared when the General Accounting Office sent a letter to Bush demanding the release of documents relating to the deliberations of the super-secret Cheney-led Energy Task Force. Citing executive privilege, Bush refused to reveal with whom Cheney met.

By this time, I was patting myself on the back. My prediction was way ahead of schedule. Bush’s approval ratings were in a freefall.

And then September . . .Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there was something to this man. The world was with us. Here was an opportunity for greatness. Maybe, just maybe, he was a man for our time. . . Nah.

There were two spikes in Bush’s approval ratings: when the war began and when Sadam was captured. Aside from that, Bush was right back to where he was in August of 2001. It took two years for the confusion of 9/11 to begin to clear. Too late, however, for a frightened America to deny him a second term of excess—I mean office.

My prediction was back on track—it just took a two-year break.

This Thanksgiving, I’ll remind my brothers and sister of my 2000 prediction. Let’s hope they have the opportunity to try and make a similar prediction on a Democratic Whitehouse and Congress.

I welcome the challenge. My 2000 prediction has 20 years to go.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

Fool me Once . . .

2008-07-21T16:16:00.001-04:00

Monday, July 21, 2008

Way back in those halcyon days in the fall of 2002, President Bush was speaking about the need for the United Nations to confront Iraq's President Saddam Hussein. We now know he was building a case for unilateral war. Anyway, in an effort to justify his actions, Bush told an audience at a school in Nashville, Tennessee: "We're trying to figure out how best to make the world a peaceful place." He then gave the world a classic Bushism:“There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

For those of you who just arrived on Planet Earth, the actual Chinese Proverb reads: Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me.Early one Friday morning, October 11, 2002, the Senate voted 77-23 to authorize President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refused to give up weapons of mass destruction as required by U.N. resolutions. A scant few hours earlier, the House approved an identical resolution, 296-133.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, who initially opposed the war powers resolution as too broad, decided to back it, "because we should support compelling Iraq to make good on its obligations to the United Nations."Biden also said, "A strong vote in Congress increases the prospect for a tough new U.N. resolution on weapons inspections, which in turn decreases the prospects of war."

But a number of Democrats said the resolution set a dangerous precedent for unilateral pre-emptive strikes, that Bush had not made a case that Iraq posed an imminent threat, and that conflict in Iraq would detract from efforts to root out terrorist groups they said posed a greater threat.Bush repeatedly and emphatically said that he had not yet decided whether to launch a military strike against Iraq. But he has sought congressional backing for possible action to strengthen his hand as he seeks U.N. Security Council approval of a tough, new resolution ordering Iraq to permit unconditional weapons inspections and disarm, or face the use of force if it does not.

See that, he didn’t actually want to go to war. All he wanted was for the UN to make Iraq let the weapons inspectors back in. That’s all.

Senator Byrd of West Virginia had argued during a failed filibuster attempt, that the resolution amounted to a "blank check" for the White House.It seems beyond ironic now. Now that we know there were no WMD, no active nuclear program no yellow cake from Nigeria. In fact, WE were the ones being “fooled once.”

But wait. Blank check, blank check . . . . That sounds some how familiar.

Thursday, July 17, Treasury's acting under secretary for financial markets, Anthony Ryan, requested the ability for the Treasury to buy unlimited amounts of stock and provide unlimited loans to Fannie May and Freddie Mack. Ryan said repeatedly and emphatically he didn't think the troubled government-sponsored enterprises of Fannie May and Freddie Mack would need to tap unlimited credit lines but said it would help stabilize financial markets if they had it.

But lawmakers, Republicans this time, expressed strong opposition claiming it amounts to granting a "blank check."Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson defended the plan as a "bazooka" that federal officials could hold in reserve but would probably not have to use because it was so potentially potent. Its mere existence, he testified, should give confidence to the financial markets that the government was standing behind the firms."The stability of these institutions is very important and having this ultimate backstop -- again, we don't see that they'll have to access this -- sends a very strong message in terms of the stability of the marketplace," Ryan said.Asked whether specifying a dollar amount would ruin the effectiveness of the plan, Ryan said "I think it limits it, and it creates additional challenges for the marketplace. It looks different than it does when it's unconditioned and unlimited."

And here is the fool me twice part:"Let me stress that there are no immediate plans to access either the proposed liquidity or the proposed capital backstop," Paulson stated. "If either authority is used, it would be done so only at Treasury's discretion, under terms and conditions that protect the U.S. taxpayer and are agreed to by both Treasury" and the mortgage-finance companies.

When will we learn that we cannot trust this administration?

Shame on us.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

Caminar una milla en sus zapatos!

2008-07-14T16:13:00.001-04:00

Monday, July 14, 2008

Ken KerrIn the past seven-and-a-half years, I have agreed with President Bush on one issue: Immigration Reform. Specifically, the following provisions of President Bush's Plan for Comprehensive Immigration Reform:
*To Secure Our Border, We Must Create a Temporary Worker Program;
*We Must Bring Undocumented Workers Already In the Country Out Of the Shadows
*We Must Promote Assimilation into Our Society by Teaching New Immigrants English and American Values

Particularly encouraging was the president’s middle-ground approach to a very polarizing issue:“The President Supports A Rational Middle Ground Between A Program Of Mass Deportation And A Program Of Automatic Amnesty. It is neither wise nor realistic to round up and deport millions of illegal immigrants in the United States. But there should be no automatic path to citizenship. The President supports a rational middle ground.”

Here in Frederick, Maryland, the elected Republican officials apparently don’t agree with the president and me.Frederick County Commissioners Charles Jenkins and Lenny Thompson, as well as Sheriff Chuck Jenkins, are three elected officials who have taken a hard line against undocumented county residents. None will admit political motivation in taking on locally what is a federal issue. None of these fiscal conservatives seem bothered by the waste of time and money on issues that the Court has clearly placed outside their jurisdiction. They are clearly overstepping, and I don’t believe that the three have any idea what it is they are asking.

We have, at best, sent mixed signals (Keep Out/Help Wanted) to immigrants, largely South American, who have entered this country outside of proper channels.Sheriff Jenkins says, “If you are here illegally, and you commit a crime, you are not welcome in Frederick County.” Never mind that the vast majority of those “crimes” are driving offences. Jenkins also opposes giving drivers’ licenses to undocumented residents. Commissioner Jenkins wants to declare English as the official language of Frederick County.

Back at the turn of the 20th century, it is said that you heard as much German spoken on the streets of Frederick as you did English. No uproar back then.Commissioner Lenny Thompson wants the school board to survey the number of illegal immigrants who are students and has proposed withholding school funding if the BoE fails to agree. A little snag in this attorney’s plan is that Federal law prohibits school systems from inquiring after a students' immigration status.

Insisting on “English Only” and while denying them school? Arresting them for driving offences while denying them driving privileges? Complaining they don’t contribute while intimidating them deeper into an underground economy? If it weren’t so mind-bogglingly ill-conceived it would seem fiendishly sinister.I am reminded of Thomas Moore’s Utopia: “In this point, I pray you, what other thing do you, than make thieves and then punish them?”I really don’t think Jenkins, Jenkins, and Thompson fully appreciate what they are asking—demanding—of others.

I don’t know how well traveled they are. I don’t know if any of them has ever tried to speak another language or attempted to live in another country (High school French and seeing a city through the window of an English-guided tour bus don’t count).

I recently lived in Argentina for six months to get some idea of what it’s like to find my way in another country, in another language. I took 18 months of Spanish in preparation. I moved into an apartment in the Recoleta Barrio of Buenos Aires. I had money and a safe apartment. All I had to do was go to school at the University of Buenos Aires and take Spanish classes.It was the most humbling experience of my life.Everyday was stressful. Every situation was awkward. Every thing was a challenge.

If I had to raise a family, get my kids into school, find a job—it would have been oppressively difficult. I was exhausted at the end of the day just from Spanish class.Once the first three months of excitement and novelty wore off, the last three months were often humiliatingly difficult. I wasn’t smart, I wasn’t funny, I wasn’t important. I wanted to go home to the familiar, the friendly, my culture, my language. I now have some small idea of what immigrants—regardless of legal status—experience.

We can continue to argue about whose fault it is that Frederick has about 3000 undocumented residents. We can continue to say “What part of “illegal” don’t they understand.” But that’s not a plan—that’s just finger pointing and an empty slogan.“They” are here. If we can try to exceed our legal authority to persecute them, we can also exceed in the other direction—and help them.

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

The Happiest Place on Earth (Hint: It's not Disneyland)

2008-07-07T16:07:00.001-04:00

Monday, July 7, 2008

Much attention is being given, these days, to the concept of happiness. A recent study was conducted by University of Michigan political scientist Ronald Inglehart for the July 2008 issue of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. His findings were reported by the Associated Press on July 1, 2008.

This study, of 17 years in 52 countries and involving 350,000 people, finds the happiest people in the world are not in here in the USA--but in Denmark; we are 16th. That is actually better than what Adrian White, an analytic social psychologist at the British Leicester University's School of Psychology, found. He places the USA at #23.

On the bright side, at the University of Michigan, their 20-year World Values survey places us at #15. Let's go with that one. However, even that list puts El Salvador ahead of us at #12. Hmmm, that means a sizable portion of the immigrant population here in Frederick, Maryland actually traded down.Why is the #1 most prosperous country in the world only the 15th happiest? Apparently, money cannot buy happiness.

In Daniel Gilbert's book, Stumbling on Happiness, he finds that once one's basic needs are met, a "little" more money brings a "little" more happiness. After that, more money does not bring more happiness or affect one's sense ofwell-being. It seems that meeting life's basic needs is the big tipping point for getting happy.There is always the difference in the definition of "basic needs." Nevertheless, the wealthier are not happier. The super rich are not super happy.

Inglehart found, "The happiest societies are those that allow people the freedom to choose how to live their lives." Maybe he is on to something there.Gregg Easterbrook, in The Prosperity Paradox, writes, "It requires some effort to achieve a happy outlook on life, and most people don't make it." He also found that, "People who are grateful, optimistic and forgiving have better experiences with their lives, more happiness, fewer strokes, and higher incomes." Easterbrook also found that money makes people happy only when they give it away. People report higher levels of happiness when they use their wealth to help others.

Under Barack Obama's tax plan, a worker making up to $250,000 a year would pay no additional payroll taxes. I'd say most of us could have our "basic needs" met with that income. However, those making $250,000 or more a year would pay an additional 6.2 percent in payroll taxes.

Perhaps the next congress and president can do the wealthy a big favor and help them get a little happier.

It's the least we can do. It would make me happier

This column was originally posted on airitoutwithgeorge.com

I am named a faculty scholar

2008-02-13T07:14:00.004-05:00

PHI THETA KAPPA
INTERNATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY OF THE TWO-YEAR COLLEGE
For Immediate Release
Contact: Susan Edwards
2/12/2008 susan.edwards@ptk.org
601.984.3541
Frederick Community College Faculty Selected
2008 Faculty Scholar

Jackson, MS - Dr. Kenneth Kerr, a member of the Frederick Community College faculty, was selected as a Faculty Scholar for the 2008 Phi Theta Kappa Faculty Scholar Conference and 2008 Phi Theta Kappa International Honors Institute.

Dr. Kerr is one of only 24 people who were selected for this honor from a large pool of applicants. Applicants must be Phi Theta Kappa advisors who have exhibited exceptional knowledge of the current Honors Study Topic, The Paradox of Affluence: Choices, Challenges, and Consequences, and demonstrated excellence in teaching. In addition to being selected as a Faculty Scholar, Dr. Kerr was also named the 2008 Parnell Scholar. This honor is given to one of the faculty scholars each year in recognition of excellence in incorporating the Honors Study Topic within the curriculum.

The Faculty Scholar Conference, sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, was held at Phi Theta Kappa’s Center for Excellence in Jackson, Mississippi, January 30 –February 3, 2008. The Faculty Scholar Conference prepares the Faculty Scholars to serve as group facilitators at the Phi Theta Kappa International Honors Institute. Faculty Scholars heard presentations on a variety of issues concerning the paradox of affluence and participated in discussion groups throughout the four-day conference.

The annual International Honors Institute will be held at San Francisco State University (SFSU) in San Francisco, California June 16-21, 2008. During this conference, Dr. Kerr and the other Phi Theta Kappa Faculty Scholars will lead groups of 15-20 honor students in seminar discussions of the issues presented throughout the week.

Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society, headquartered in Jackson, MS, is the largest honor society in American higher education with 1,250 chapters on two-year and community college campuses in all 50 of the United States, Canada, Germany, the Republic of Palau, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, the British Virgin Islands, the United Arab Emirates and U.S. territorial possessions. More than two million students have been inducted since its founding in 1918, with approximately 100,000 students inducted annually.

For more information on the 2008 Faculty Scholars and Phi Theta Kappa Honors Programs, contact Susan Edwards, Director of Honors Programs at 800.946.9995, ext. 3541.