Borrowed Suits

Customer Service

2011-12-12T11:18:00.002-05:00

It can look like this:

Dear Mr [Suits],

Please quote the following reference number in all correspondence: xxxxxx

Thank you very much for placing your order with us. Unfortunately the following item(s) are out of stock and will take a little longer than expected to reach you.

Order Ref Product Code Short Description Date Expected

W36894226 xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx 2 Jan 12
I offer you my sincere apologies for the delay. You have my word that as soon as we have the item(s) in stock we will send them to you as soon as we can.
In the meantime, your debit or credit card will not be charged until your order is safely on its way to you. In the interest of security, we have already processed your payment if you sent us a cheque, in order to avoid keeping it on the premises overnight.

Please be assured we will not charge you for extra postage if the items are sent in more than one package. In addition, if your order is part of an exchange for a returned item, or you have already paid postage, we will not make any additional charge for delivery.

I cannot apologise enough for any inconvenience this has caused you. We pride ourselves on our service but it seems it has not lived up to our high standards this time. We will do everything we can to ensure this will not happen again.
If there is anything we can do to assist or if you wish to change your order, please do not hesitate to call our Customer Services team on xxxx xxx x000. If calling from outside the UK, please call +44 xx xxxx xxxx. You can also email us by clicking here.

Mathis Wagner
Head of Customer Services

Yes. I believe I will continue to bring you my custom, Mr. Wagner. Your ass-kissing is sufficiently sincere and, let's be honest, that's pretty much all it takes.

Witness

2011-03-22T23:16:00.003-05:00

I've been trapped by the cable service again, and find myself watching first the final third and then the first two thirds of "The Rainmaker" on AMC. That's the beauty of cable: 150+ standard channels, most of which show nothing of value, the rest of which show the same thing enough times in a row that it becomes valueless. I won't miss it; in CT we will have internet access but not cable television. I like to think this will mean I'll read more, but internet is even more likely to distract me -- it already does, after all.

"The Rainmaker" is one of a string of 90's Grisham novels-cum-blockbusters about the legal profession. In this one, Matt Damon plays the role of newly-minted Memphis State Law School graduate Rudy Taylor, who stumbles on to the perfect client: a young man dying because he was denied a bone marrow transplant by a corrupt (read: ordinary) health insurance company, said company represented by a stereotypically slimy megafirm personified wonderfully by Jon Voight. (Voight is adept at these types: cerebral, casually corrupt apparatchiks.)

"Rainmaker" refers to two things: the case or client that makes the heavens rain money, and/or the attorney who finds clients like that.

Damon's Rudy wins the case, mainly through overwhelming evidence sustained through a combination of blind luck and a remote assist from a corrupt shyster on the lam. The not-so-subtle lesson is that even unstained righteousness requires ruthless and unprincipled champions to prevail. Christ himself would need more than Clarence Darrow; he'd need some combination of Johnny Cochrane, Don King and Jack Abramoff. Rudy, having won whilst keeping his shoes relatively free of putrescence, departs stage right with willowy domestic battery survivor Claire Danes in tow. Not a bad way to quit the law.

I left in a far less dramatic fashion, jumping ship early in the summer of 2004 after barely 8 months of billables. I was (and am) blessed to have a beauty of my own, who never blinked a lash though her glittering prince fell abruptly from elite-educated attorney-on-the-make to journeyman apprentice carpenter in two swift weeks. But I had no cache to take with me, to buoy me on my travels, nor did I understand quickly (or as it turns out, slowly) where I was headed or what it means to leave the law.

Spiritually, you're ever on the doorstep: never quite going away, yet never to reenter the hall; a beguiling contraption that others puzzle over, like an Archimedes' Trammel without a scribe. "Fascinating," they muse, "but whatever does it do?," while to lawyers you look a gelding.

What I've found myself doing is the title of this post. Most people call it "conservation," though.

In the "Rainmaker" we hear evidence (however fictionalized) of the brokenness of both our legal system and our healthcare system. We are even warned of the spectre of "government controlled" medical care -- a dire evil, ever to be feared. As the movie (and my second glass of wine) came to an end bitterness rose along with indigestion; bitter because in spite of the acrimony and strife of the intervening 13 years we haven't improved either of those systems. Indeed, with every passing year we slide further down the gullet. Since that movie was made, it is harder to win a lawsuit, harder to get a judgment, harder to get healthcare. But still we pay -- taxes, premiums, fees.

In conservation, we've reached a point where we argue the relative merits of development. We no longer argue its essential value. We no longer say "Not here." We are remaindered to "oh, well, here -- ok, but could you maybe move the building a few feet away from the wetland, the vernal pool, the already impossibly fractured habitat? And could you vent your waste in a different direction? Maybe bury it? Or store it next to the aquifer rather than dumping directly into the stream?"

We are witnesses. We may be the last witnesses, but there are millions of us. My friends who are teachers are witness to the end of the dream of equal public education. My friends in government are witness to the end of all manner of regulations and policies that either protect workers or the air or the water or the mom-and-pop saving for retirement. My scientist friends are witness to the end of endeavor for wonder's sake.

I am a witness to the vanished land. But I can't even protest its loss. The moment I raise my voice to say, "this is wrong -- more than wrong, it's suicide" the power is cut, the conversation is over, eyes glaze, doors close.

We have the power to do so much. We could do so much differently, so much better.

"Oh, we were like glory's gate, my darling. We were like that bloody shark of yours. We swam with the, um, uh — Oh, goddamn it. I had it on the plane. What was I gonna say? Ah, well." But I'll write about middle age when it's over, or more fully here.

For now I just want to record my sense of futility.

We are at war; my friends are at war.

2011-03-16T20:07:00.000-05:00

2nd Marine Recon Battalion Surgeon Lieutenant my friend John S. Maddox visits with his son, Jack. From Afghanistan to Virginia. A year is a lifetime.

Yeah, but can you fry that?

2011-03-15T09:22:00.004-05:00

Once again, another bloggist prompts me to Google* a strange new word and eyebrows lift over yet more human singularities.

Did you know people eat little birds called "ortolans?" Naturally, it's mainly the French. Here's how it works:

Catch an little ortolan and put it in a box, with plenty of food and total darkness. The ortolan (a species of bunting) responds to the constant darkness by gorging itself, growing to three or four times its original size. As you might expect from the culture that brought us foie gras, the next step is to kill the bird by literally drowning it in Armagnac. Then roast the fowl in its own fat and dine away.

Muster whatever Gallic sang froid you posses, drape your head in a napkin (either to spare your fellow diners the coming spectacle or to inhale the holy vapor emanating from the dish before you) and bite off the head. Discard. The remaining bird is consumed, les os et tous.

The practice was outlawed in 2007, but as with all things it may still be had for money and, this being France, perhaps also love.

This culinary adventure lies at the far end of the spectrum from the title of the post, which refers to an eponymous game invented by my good friends, brothers Rob and John. One year while Rob was living in Louisiana, John visited him for the winter holidays and came bearing gifts -- one of which was a "FryDaddy." John has ever been the giver of appropriate gifts: Once, upon moving in to a new apartment, I was visited by John who bestowed a jar of pigs feet. "Now if anyone who eats pigs feet comes to visit, you have them." I have them still.

I guess John felt a FryDaddy suited Louisiana. In any case, Rob and John are enthusiastic fellows. Following a day at the convict rodeo and an evening of drinking lots of brown liquor together, the night concluded by trying out the new kitchen tool with several rousing rounds of "Can you fry that?"

The verdict? Graham crackers and oreos, yes. Gummy bears? Not so much.

What would the French say?

*I have an image in my mind of the "Nighthawks" diner populated by a club of obsolescents, where the buggy-whip manufacturer sulks over a cold cup of coffee and commiserates with the former director of Encyclopedia Britannica.

Slow Foote

2011-03-10T08:40:00.005-05:00

A bloggist of my acquaintance posted recently on Shelby Foote, the great historian and writer, whose earthly belongings went for sale recently. In that post, he linked to a wonderful CNN interview with the author. On that jump, I found a wonderful trove of interviews with other writers and personalities -- I recommend a visit.

After listening to Foote, I went through Cronkite and then Dean Brown on Ernie Pyle, and Plimpton on Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Plimpton's interview was sad -- the kid doing the questioning had all the rhythm of an average attorney doing a dry deposition. I want to like George because of his unabashed elitism, not in spite of it. But in this interview he come off sounding far too impressed with George. Snuggling up to Papa seems to fall for him into the same category as hanging around the Lions or getting in the ring with the champ, when it's really just hero worship.

Not all interviewees were as compelling as Foote, but then not all tackled anything so delicate as an attempt to explain the benefits of Jim Crow to both blacks and whites, while simultaneously conceding that it was all horribly, horribly wrong -- but only in retrospect. I don't know him from the Burns series but read about 2/3 of his Civil War trilogy and one or two others. It seems you would be hard-pressed to find a black person who would say there were good aspects of the race-divided South, as the inverse of Foote's apologia is, "Well, they thought we were animals but that meant they were nice to us most of the time. So it wasn't all bad."

But as Foote would say, in fiction there is truth, but not always fact. He is appropriately complex, and the world misses him -- and many men of that era. We have great need for slow circumspection, even for its own sake and whatever its conclusions. Even if they are wrong, at least we arrive there with plenty of warning and with time to prepare.

Perpetual Quest

2011-02-22T19:25:00.004-05:00

They'd rather watch you walk than find space for you on the bench. Says something about both sides of the conversation. The apex of the decade in town was a low line on the beach, but reached with always an eye on far and imagined beacons. Now we look for new prospects in old fields, dragging behind us a beachcomber's trophies that look out of place inland. Beach trash.

The image is not of modest achievement, but of greater promise unfulfilled.

The Suit has been hung for a while.

2011-02-12T10:20:00.002-05:00

I've been absent, intentionally. I'm tired, a bit. I may come back. Or not.

I'm trying to be objective. But I have a strong viewpoint. I have a bias for mutual benefit.

I'm looking for new work. I'm leaving a homeplace. I'm seeking a lilypad; I don't ask for a rainbow.

The skies have been the color of battleships for weeks, it seems, but the sun has shone whilst I've sat in the office.

Snow that is not fresh is not uplifting.

See you here from time to time.

The loss.

2009-08-27T15:26:00.003-05:00

A short list of the more than 850 bills made into law that were authored (300+) or endorsed (550+) by Senator Edward Kennedy:

Women, Infants and Children program (WIC); food assistance and access to health care for low-income women and children.

State Children’s Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP)

Family Opportunity Act; expanded Medicaid to cover special-needs kids.

COBRA

HIPAA; limited the pre-existing conditions excuse for denial of coverage.

Mental Health Parity law; helps ensure lifetime coverage for mental health issues.

Ryan White Care Act; funds treatment of AIDS for hundreds of thousands of people.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Head Start

Direct Lending; a program for college aid lending

Up-armoring HUMVEE legislation, (2003 and 2005)

Voting Rights Act; amendments, 1982

Family and Medical Leave Act

Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act; keeps health insurers from nixing you based on your DNA.

Civil Rights Act of 1991

National Guard and Reserve Mental Health Access Act (2008)

Higher Education Opportunity Act

College Cost Reduction and Access Act

Strengthen FDA oversight of approved medication (2007)

Minimum Wage act (1996, 2007)

Pension Protection Act

Bioterrorism Preparedness Act

Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act

LIHEAP; low income heating energy assistance program

National and Community Service Trust Act (Americorps)

National Military Child Care Act

WARN Act; requires companies to give 2 months notice if a plant closing will put more than 50 people out of work.

Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act (includes mentally ill, disabled, elderly)

Meals on Wheels Act

National Cancer Act

Fair Housing Act

Immigration Act (1965); ended race-based quotas in immigration

“Don’t you find it remarkable that one of the most partisan, liberal men in the last century serving in the Senate had so many of his foes embrace him? Because they know he made them bigger, he made them more graceful by the way in which he conducted himself.”
Vice President Biden, 8-26-09

I took a vacation...

2009-08-24T13:19:00.003-05:00

...but apparently, I'm not the only thing that's been getting some sun.

I must confess

2009-08-07T22:03:00.003-05:00

Time to come clean, before my past catches up with me.

I was not born in these United States. The fact of the matter is that I was born in Coast General Hospital, Mombasa, Kenya.

And there's proof.

My mother was a child, a confused and frightened 14-year-old from Jersey City. She was offered as a token of fealty to Abdul Rahman Yasin OBAMA, who took her to Saudi Arabia where he was in training with a young Osama. It's a sad sordid tale.

Anyway, I feel compelled to disclose the truth, and the proof. My official Kenyan Birth Certificate:

Now you know.

Get yours today!

Today's GOP

2009-08-07T08:06:00.004-05:00

Allow me to introduce you to the "loyal opposition." This is the Republican party today: an anti-democratic, un-American wasteland of madness and spittle.

I know there are "Republicans" out there who do not fit that description -- I even know some of them. But this is the party. These are the methods they have selected to gain control.

I'm sure there will be bruises and broken bones, and there have already been deaths.

But the worse harm is the disintegration of the democratic fabric. In a nation that was once ruled by the law and by ideas, I call it treason.

Why treason? Because this isn't dissent. It isn't argument or debate. It's negation.

A pluralistic society can withstand any ideology but one: that which insists on no ideology but itself. The only political stance that is absolutely unacceptable in an open democracy (to which we still cling), is one that will brook no compromise, no difference, no alternative.

What you are seeing today is a transition. The Republican Party has been plugging its ears and shouting "I won't hear you." Now, they are taking their fists out of their ears and putting them in your face and saying, "I won't let you speak."

If you still identify with this party, when these are its methods, that means you. Sorry.

The South Will Rise Again...

2009-08-04T19:42:00.002-05:00

...just not on this graph.

source

Drinks! Drinks for my friends!

2009-08-03T10:02:00.005-05:00

That classic line is from Micky Rourke's first incarnation, in his role as Bukowski, the great street poet (who always reminds me of Tom Waites -- or maybe it's the other way around) in the movie Barfly. If you haven't seen the movie, you should.

First of all, it features the absurd and pathetic life of the talented Charles Bukowski. Bukowski wrote searing poetry, and steadfastly refused to clean up his act. Like many drunks and addicts, he believed his own hype and it made him an unbearably self-righteous person to be around. But his words were worth it (if you didn't have to live with him).

Second, it's probably Rourke's best role. It prefigures his turn as "The Wrestler," before his face was battered by his earnest courtship of boxing and equally earnest pursuit of chemical living. I guess that as a man he was already tiptoeing along the edge and that gives his portrait of Bukowski/Henry Chinaski a reckless core, convincing, probably because he was barely acting.

Finally, you'll get a dose of 1987 Faye Dunaway. If you're my age or younger, you're probably not quite old enough to remember the power of Faye's sexuality (or, she may have tormented your early adolescence). In "Barfly," she plays, like Rourke, an unrepentant booze-hound. But no matter how slovenly or sick she gets, her allure burns a hole in the film. Part of the tragedy of the movie is watching that light boxed off and traded away.

Anyway, drinks.

In what will surely go down as one of his many strokes of genius, my friend Rich married my friend Kristin. Together they came up with another nice idea: revive the cocktail hour.

There are many institutions from the first half of the 20th century that have thankfully fallen to the dustbin of history: segregation, smoking in restaraunts, sock suspenders. Yet in our headlong rush into the new, we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater: Vive l'Heure de Cocktail!

In support of that effort, Kristin and Rich bring you "52 Drink-up," now added to the "Stuff and Fun" blogroll to the right of this column. Drink along, and bring the "happy" back to "happy hour!"

Socialism will grind our country down.

2009-08-01T13:52:00.007-05:00

I mean, just look at Sweden -- card-carrying socialist nazi communist totalitarian pinkos, each and every one of 'em, just like Barry Hussein Obama (except the bikini team). Didja know he's black? And not from here? It's true -- I've seen the fake birth certifikat. It's on the interweb -- it's a fake! This guy? He went to Ghana or sumwhere in Africa, or, no, wait, he called there, right? And spoke to the Darkie's grandmama, who said she was there -- in Africa -- when Barry was born. She was there! RIGHT THERE! It's on tape and everything. How could she be there when the crossbreed came out if he came out in Hawaii? I mean, I'm here, right now and you're there -- where you are -- so there's no way I could be here if I'm gonna be there when you pop out a chillun? I can't! I'd be HERE when it was born! So if someone asked me, "Were you there when this lady had her baby" an I said, yes I was right here, then you couldn't have had your baby there, you should have had it here! GET it?

Where was I? Oh yeah, Sweden. Fuckers.

The US ranks #5 worldwide in per capita income, with a $33,070 average. You have to tumble all the way to #8 before you get to the Swedes, who average out at $25,105. Stupid Swedes! I've got $8,000 here that says you're weak!

(Of course, skewing that statistic is probably the US's dominance of the "richest people in the world" list, Where the top two (both American) each have twice as much money as 3, 4, 5 or 6. Even among the stratospherically rich, the richest are much richer than their own "middle" class. Number 1 (Bill Gates) has $40B. Numbers 98 (a tie among 6) each have a paltry $5B. And yes, that's "B" as in "billion." To put that in perspective, if you cashed out America's four richest men (Billy Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison and Jim Walton), you'd be able to balance every single state budget deficit in the United States. And they'd still have about $5,000,000,000 to split among themselves.)

Anyway, what do those stupide Swedes (I say "stupide" 'cause it's French, just like the Swedes -- stupid froggy swishy Swedes) get in exchange for being only the 8th richest country in the world (losers)?

Gah. Could you imagine? That would be horrible, just horrible. That's why we must all band together to stop our rapid slide! I want to keep living in a world where the Eagle soars ("like She's never soared before!"), we dominate the billionaires list (USA! USA! USA!) and you have to beg for unpaid time off to have a baby and hope to Sonny Jeezus that it doesn't torpedo your career. Wimins belong in the kitchen anyways. I'm Amurkin, dammit! Profit is God's holy water, blessings for the blessed! What? Huh? What? Fuck you!

What it means

2009-07-29T14:52:00.003-05:00

Some things were meant to be sung.

Some of those things make absolutely no sense otherwise.

One of my favorite songs in college was "Plush" by Stone Temple Pilots. To this day, I can not tell you what the hell he's singing about:

Where ya going for tomorrow?
Where ya going with that mask I found?
And I feel, and I feel
When the dogs begin to smell her
Will she smell alone?

WTF? Yet it works as a song (particularly as a pop song, for which the bar of coherence is quite low).

With that said, perhaps the biggest mistake Sarah Palin made (aside from, oh, everything else) was delivering an "I Quit" speech instead of an "I Quit" song. Or, if you long for days of berets and smoky cafes, a poem:

Healthcare in Canadia

2009-07-22T12:07:00.002-05:00

This is a complete repost from someone on Democratic Underground calling themselves "Canuckistanian" regarding socialized medicine.

I'll only add that when I heard Rep. Louie Gohmert (R - Texas) say, "I know enough about Canadian care, and I know this bureaucratic, socialized, piece of crap they have up there, it gives them a generalized standard of care ... 1 in 5 people have to die because they went to socialized medicine," all I can say is, Louie, just to remind you, they have this thing called "democracy" up there, and if they really hated it so much, I'm sure they'd change it.

Canuckistanian:

As a Canadian I marvel at all of these terms that are so common to Americans, but are virtually unknown to us.

Here's a partial list off the top of my head:

1. "Out of network"
There are no "networks" in Canada. Doctors and hospitals are not affiliated with private insurance companies. Doctors are private business entities and hospitals are usually run by non-profit boards or regional health associations.

2. "COBRA"
Health coverage is NOT tied to your place of employment in any way. So any COBRA-like scheme is unnecessary.

3. "Co-Pay"
The government pays 100% of basic care, 100% of the time. Drugs are not covered, but are subsidized by government to a point. And because of mass buys, discounts are obtained from the drug companies. That's why our prices are so much lower. Most employers offer a drug plan that pays for 100% of drug cost coverage.

4. "monthly premium\deductible"
Wazzat? We don't consider our health to be the same as our possessions.

5. "waiting for approval"
Doctors are the sole decision makers for health care. NOBODY influences or delays their decisions, warns them of costs or prevents them from giving treatment for any reason.

6. "Government interference"
The provincial government in each province PAYS for whatever services doctors provide. No questions asked. Unless the procedure is experimental, not medically necessary or unwarranted, doctors cannot deny basic care - by law.

7. "Health insurance lobby"
There are NO insurance companies for basic care, only companies for providing insurance for travelers. No money to be made here.

8. "bureaucracy"
When we visit a hospital or doctor's office, we walk in, get treated, walk out. No "applications", "registrations" or any other kind of paperwork is required. We NEVER have to talk to a single "government official" or wait for a "judgment".

9. "PRE-EXISTING CONDITION"
This is such a foreign concept to us. A Canadian's usual reaction to the explanation of this term is astonishment.

I'm glad to see that a sane health care system is within reach in America. Fight for it. It's WORTH it.

Music, Music, Music

2009-07-18T22:04:00.003-05:00

File this under "Meet the Blogroll," but don't file it away. I knew "Pop Argot," the author of "Baby I've Been Thinking," back in college, and stumbled across his 'blog a few years ago. I don't remember exactly how.

Anyway. If you're a lover of pop music, or just music, you've got to check out his site. Nearly every day brings a new hit, or an obscure pop tune that deserves more exposure, or a list of great tunes from a certain era or on a theme -- all conveniently linked to recordings or videos so you can enjoy it all over again (or for the first time).

I'm consistently impressed by the breadth of his knowledge, and I love the trivia he brings to the site -- like an actually good FM DJ from the days (not so long ago) when a DJ had some leeway to put his or her stamp on a show. Check him out.

What can science do?

2009-07-18T10:01:00.003-05:00

I highly recommend this post, "What Questions Can Science Answer?" on the Discover Magazine website. It's a great beginning at a more cogent popular understanding of the nature of science, and how, therefore, we might employ what it tells us in structuring our civic lives (the big kerfuffle these days). Here's a sample:

Alpha Centauri A is a G-type star a little over four light years away. Now pick some very particular moment one billion years ago, and zoom in to the precise center of the star. Protons and electrons are colliding with each other all the time. Consider the collision of two electrons nearest to that exact time and that precise point in space. Now let’s ask: was momentum conserved in that collision? ...

...The scientific answer to this question is: of course, the momentum was conserved. Conservation of momentum is a principle of science that has been tested to very high accuracy by all sorts of experiments, we have every reason to believe it held true in that particular collision, and absolutely no reason to doubt it; therefore, it’s perfectly reasonable to say that momentum was conserved.

A stickler might argue, well, you shouldn’t be so sure. You didn’t observe that particular event, after all, and more importantly there’s no conceivable way that you could collect data at the present time that would answer the question one way or the other. Science is an empirical endeavor, and should remain silent about things for which no empirical adjudication is possible.

But that’s completely crazy. That’s not how science works. Of course we can say that momentum was conserved. Indeed, if anyone were to take the logic of the previous paragraph seriously, science would be a completely worthless endeavor, because we could never make any statements about the future. Predictions would be impossible, because they haven’t happened yet, so we don’t have any data about them, so science would have to be silent.

The bloggist (this is a good post -- I think he rises above "blogger" status) has put his finger on the fulcrum around which all of our public debates about science (abortion, stem cells, environmental degradation, climate change, class action lawsuits based on pollution) turn. At every junction, conservatives demand absolute certainty as to each and every instance with empirical evidence from that instance to back it up. They demand not just a consistent history of "smoking guns," but the very gun used for the crime in question (and usually a few eyewitnesses as well -- preferable themselves).

If that is the standard -- as it has increasingly been -- then science always loses. This level of absolute determinism can only be found through religious certainty. Ironic, then, that so many who demand specific certainty from science -- which offers libraries of evidence -- adopt that absolute certainty regarding religion, which offers practically none.

Anyway, the article and the comments that follow are engagingly well-written (and by no means taken from the same sheet of music). Recommend.

2009-06-29T08:49:00.002-05:00

2009-06-22T10:09:00.001-05:00

It's that time of year again!

2009-06-20T20:54:00.004-05:00

Today, we went out to Windham for SummerFest, then drove off to Brunswick for "Taste of Brunswick" (all in all, entirely superior to SummerFest). Somewhere in Durham or Pownal, we saw a man setting up an awning on the side of the road, with a card table and a chair and a sign that said "Marriage = 1 Man 1 Woman SIGN HERE." Looks like the Prop 8 Army has begun to seek a toehold here in the great state of Maine. It's signature season. I wonder if they'll pull 'em in like Beal's does...

A PS on what's happening in Tehran

2009-06-16T08:36:00.003-05:00

One of the current right-wing talking points on this seems to be that "if the saviour (their word for Obama) doesn't declare his support for these freedom fighters now, then he will be complicit in their downfall."

Like most right-wing screed these days, this is specious and stupid. Of course, some of the reasons for that have to do with the extensive and draining elected war in Iraq from which we are slowly withdrawing our troops.

First, you may have noticed a distinct lack of American flags or pictures of Obama or signs bearing his name in that vast crowd. Iranians do not want our interference. Even among the more progressive sectors in their politics, feelings about the west and its presence in the middle east are ambiguous at best. If Obama were to come down on any side in this moment, it would have very unpredictable consequences as the side he chooses will scramble to distance itself from the west and the opposition will draw support from the center. If he picks the Greens, he would lessen their domestic support and any support that they're receiving (or might receive) from their neighbors.

Second, let's imagine that Obama comes out in support of the the Greens. Now let's imagine that the ruling factions determine that the vote count stands (after whatever sham investigation they conduct). That leaves Obama with two options, neither attractive, and both worse for the United States.

A) He does nothing, and has created a remarkably weaker hand for himself with Ahmadinejad and his government, who can credibly claim that the US intruded into domestic Iranian politics. He can pretty much do what he wants after that, and the US will have to scramble to regain any credibility in the area.

B) His declared support for the Greens may bind him to act if it is determined that they will be shut down by the Mullahs. But act with what? Our forces are already over-deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, the American right wing has never shied from an opportunity to kill massive amounts of brown people through "smart" bombing, so maybe this is just what they want. In any case, he becomes practically bound to some course that will lead to violence.

Finally, judging the majority will of Iran by what happens in the city of Tehran is a little like judging what people are thinking in Oklahoma City by what they're saying in San Francisco. Thanks to our near-complete lack of presence in Iran, we have nearly no idea what the "man in the street" in that country is thinking. Our government is relying on the same "free" intelligence that we all are -- largely, the British press.

But the American right-wing wants Obama to back the Greens now and without reservation. I wonder where they were when Saddam was gassing the Kurds? Or when Clinton wanted troops on the ground to protect Muslims in Kosovo? This fake litmus test betrays both a simplistic analysis of the situation and a hypocritical approach to international policy.

In other words, utterly predictable.

That said, this is already turning violent. If the general stability of Iran is at stake, the smart move for Obama, in my mind, is to pull a Poppy Bush. That is, begin working through Syria to build a regional coalition to moderate the situation with US support from over-the-horizon. It won't be the show the Right so deeply desires, but it would have the potential to do two things: it would enlist the regional neighborhood of nations in maintaining stability in the one place they need to maintain it if they hope to avoid a Balkan catastrophe, and it would establish the US as an honest broker with governments that should be partners (if not allies) with us in the region. It might even provide an opportunity to engage Turkey in a more influential role in the Persian states, something that could be very useful down the road.

Marching in Tehran

2009-06-15T13:08:00.003-05:00

No violence. No burning flags. Just Iranians, demanding a voice.

We took the gun away from their heads. We unclenched the first fist. Will we see an open hand by the end of the year? It is to be hoped for and encouraged.

Free for the taking

2009-06-12T13:45:00.002-05:00

Building the more perfect union

2009-06-03T16:45:00.001-05:00

And New Hampshire makes six.

Traditionally conservative New Hampshire today became the sixth state in the nation to legalize gay marriage, after a bill was was enacted by both the state House and Senate and then signed by Governor John Lynch.

Where you at, Rhode Island?

Killing in the Name of...

2009-06-01T14:33:00.003-05:00

Andrew Sullivan gets it right:

Imagine an Islamist fanatic had assassinated a pro-Israel rabbi in a synagogue, and had harassed synagogues for years, including one arrest for bomb materials in his car. Imagine if one of his associates had tried to kill the rabbi before. Would there be any question that this was Islamist terror? So why is this not Christianist terror?

By "this," Sullivan is referencing this (if you hadn't heard).

Name That Nominee

2009-05-31T14:31:00.003-05:00

In today's installment on knee-jerk hypocrisy, you will be presented with a quote from a recent nominee to the Supreme Court that displays a nakedly empathetic approach to decision-making based on the ethnicity, religion or gender of the plaintiff rather than a dispassionate review of the law and facts of the case.

Then you get to guess which of the most recent activist-judge nominees made the statement in question.

The correct answer will be revealed in the comments. Good luck.

I don't come from an affluent background or a privileged background. My parents were both quite poor when they were growing up.

And I know about their experiences and I didn't experience those things. I don't take credit for anything that they did or anything that they overcame.

But I think that children learn a lot from their parents and they learn from what the parents say. But I think they learn a lot more from what the parents do and from what they take from the stories of their parents lives.

And that's why I went into that in my opening statement. Because when a case comes before me involving, let's say, someone who is an immigrant -- and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases -- I can't help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn't that long ago when they were in that position.

And so it's my job to apply the law. It's not my job to change the law or to bend the law to achieve any result.

But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, "You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country."

When I have cases involving children, I can't help but think of my own children and think about my children being treated in the way that children may be treated in the case that's before me.

And that goes down the line. When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account. When I have a case involving someone who's been subjected to discrimination because of disability, I have to think of people who I've known and admire very greatly who've had disabilities, and I've watched them struggle to overcome the barriers that society puts up often just because it doesn't think of what it's doing -- the barriers that it puts up to them.

Swine Flu: It affects us all...

2009-05-29T23:28:00.000-05:00

The NBA: Where amazing happens...

2009-05-29T12:01:00.000-05:00

A Signing, a sign, a fall, a rising.

2009-05-06T22:21:00.005-05:00

Today, Governor Baldacci signed a bill to legalize the fact of Gay Marriage in the state of Maine: LD 1020 "An Act to End Discrimination in Civil Marriage and Affirm Religious Freedom."

Nearly 25 years ago, Charlie Howard was pitched from a bridge above Kenduskeag Stream in Bangor by three teenagers. Charlie, who could not swim, drowned in the middle of down town Bangor.

Within days of his murder, the bridge had been tagged, "Faggots Jump Here."

The boys who killed him were eventually convicted, as juveniles, of manslaughter.

With the signing of LD 1020, there has been some talk about how far we've come. And we have come a ways, I suppose.

But just in February, 25 year old Scott Libby was strangled with a belt and beaten to death with a frying pan, thrown in a car and left parked on railroad tracks. Basically, because he was gay. Agostino Samson, the man alleged to have killed him, had known Libby for seven years and had been employed by him for a short time.

Samson told police he punched Libby in the nose twice after Libby made sexual advances toward him.

And yet,

According to the affidavit, Samson called Libby's mother, Nancy, of Raymond on Feb. 20 to say he had heard about Libby's death from his sister. Nancy Libby told police Samson "appeared to be crying quite hard on the telephone."

Few of the facts in that case have come out. Yet in spite of the limited story, you'd think the media would be all over it. For all the drama involved (beating, debts owed, a fairly complex attempt to mask a murder by creating a train accident), the local press just doesn't seem all that interested. All the salacious details would ordinarily indicate prime local newsfodder.

The train tracks have yet to be tagged, so I suppose our progress is shown less in the lack of violence than in the lack of glee attending it.

Certainly there are enough people incensed at the idea of Gays Among Us that I believe a petition drive will be mounted. I do not know if it will succeed. In Maine, it will lack the open support of the Republican Party. That's a little progress, I guess.

It will also lack the active support of the Church of Latter Day Saints -- there just aren't that many Mormons in Maine. It will be supported, however, by the Catholic Church. Unlike the Mormons, there are enough Catholics in Maine for the diocese to feel a stake in the story.

The vote in the Maine House (89-57) indicates that there remains significant opposition to the separation of personal conviction from constitutional protection. And the facile conflation and straight misrepresentation of facts persists:

Assistant House Minority Leader Phil Curtis, R-Madison, said he worries how the bill will affect parenting, education and religious liberty.

"L.D. 1020, as printed, proposes a radical redefinition of marriage as we have known it to be for all of history," he said.

Yet the law is signed.

"We see the referendum as an opportunity," said Shenna Bellows, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union. "Maine may well be the antidote to California."

Or, as my friend Doug said on the 'phone tonight, "The tide is rising."

And because

he's fallen for twenty-three years,
despite whatever awkwardness
his flailing arms and legs assume
he is beautiful

and like any good diver
has only an edge of fear
he transforms into grace.
Or else he is not afraid,

and in this way climbs back
up the ladder of his fall,
out of the river into the arms
of the three teenage boys

who hurled him from the edge-
really boys now, afraid,
their fathers' cars shivering behind them,
headlights on- and tells them

it's all right, that he knows
they didn't believe him
when he said he couldn't swim,
and blesses his killers

in the way that only the dead
can afford to forgive.

From "Charlie Howard's Descent"
by Mark Doty

Feeling a little pig-fluey?

2009-04-28T14:12:00.003-05:00

After meeting with Mr. Obama, Sen. Collins expressed concern about a number of spending provisions, including $780 million for pandemic-flu preparedness. "I have no doubt that the president is willing to negotiate in good faith, that he wants to have a bipartisan bill," Sen. Collins said.

Thank goodness Maine's own Susan Collins had the foresight to strike that bit of spending from the stimulus bill. Standing strong on this particular 1/1000 of 1 percent of the bill in the name of fiscal discipline in these tough times must have been a hard row to hoe.

Anybody else feeling a bit of sniffle coming on?

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind

2009-04-21T19:48:00.005-05:00

"They have deeply corrupted themselves...therefore God will remember their iniquity, God will visit their sins." Hosea 9:9

Jane Harmon's come-to-the-Lord moment is here:

"Maybe I'm even wiretapped now."

And what a surprise, right Jane? I mean, who could have imagined that plainly and vastly unconstitutional violations of privacy would ever be used against the Protectors of the Nation?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Suddenly, finally, and perhaps too late, the media. But only because it suits someone else's shadowy motives to bring down Congresswoman Harmon. But she deserves to be laid low. In 2005

Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.

That should have been enough to bring her under investigation. And indeed, it was:

[The Justice Department was] prepared to open a case on her, which would include electronic surveillance approved by the so-called FISA Court, the secret panel established by the 1979 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to hear government wiretap requests.

Representative Harmon was primed to fall into the crosshairs of the Bush Justice Department, headed by Alberto Gonzales. This was a dangerous place to be for a Democrat. Well, for most Democrats (and many ordinary citizens). But, oddly, not for Jane Harmon. In fact, Abu Ghonzales himself was looking out for her. Why?

Gonzales said he "needed Jane" to help support the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by the New York Times.

Harman, he told Goss, had helped persuade the newspaper to hold the wiretap story before, on the eve of the 2004 elections. And although it was too late to stop the Times from publishing now, she could be counted on again to help defend the program

He was right.

On Dec. 21, 2005, in the midst of a firestorm of criticism about the wiretaps, Harman issued a statement defending the operation and slamming the Times, saying, "I believe it essential to U.S. national security, and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities."

Pelosi and Hastert never did get the briefing.

And thanks to grateful Bush administration officials, the investigation of Harman was effectively dead.

But now, years later, the tapes of the tapes made of the phone calls with the Israeli agent have come into the light. Somehow. And what do we hear from Ms. Jane Harmon, righteous defender of the integrity of the intelligence community?

"I am outraged that I may have been wiretapped by my government in 2005 or 2006 while I was ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee."

Earlier, on MNSBC, she expressed "disappoint[ment] that my country -- I'm an American citizen just like you are -- could have permitted what I think is a gross abuse of power in recent years." "I leave it to Glen Greenwald to sum this up precisely:

[W]hen the U.S. Government eavesdropped for years on American citizens with no warrants and in violation of the law, that was "both legal and necessary" as well as "essential to U.S. national security," and it was the "despicable" whistle-blowers (such as Thomas Tamm) who disclosed that crime and the newspapers which reported it who should have been criminally investigated, but not the lawbreaking government officials. But when the U.S. Government legally and with warrants eavesdrops on Jane Harman, that is an outrageous invasion of privacy and a violent assault on her rights as an American citizen, and full-scale investigations must be commenced immediately to get to the bottom of this abuse of power.

Right wingers are fond of saying, "A liberal is a conservative who hasn't been mugged yet." Greenwald says, "a 'civil liberties extremist' is a former Bush-enabling, Surveillance State-defending Blue Dog who learns that their own personal conversations were intercepted by the same government that they demanded be vested with unchecked power."

Reap it, Jane.

Nice shot.

2009-04-13T14:38:00.002-05:00

By now we've all heard of the rather dramatic rescue of Captain Richard Phillips by the Navy and the SEAL team.

The first thing I thought of when I heard the story is the same thing some pundits are making much of: that's one hell of a shot -- times three.

Think about it: your target is between 100 and 300 feet away, and is about the size of lunch tray. You're bobbing up and down and side to side. Your target is also bobbing up and down and side to side, but on a different, faster rhythm. If you miss, the hostage could get shot (maybe even by you). It's dark enough that you need nightvision goggles.

So -- amazing shot, right?

But here's the kicker: all three guys made the same amazing shot at the same time.

I don't know whether to be proud or terrified.

Anyway, welcome home, Captain Phillips.

In a nutshell

2009-04-12T11:23:00.002-05:00

6 minutes you won't regret spending.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

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Baracknophobia - Obey

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Still the man

2009-04-01T20:52:00.003-05:00

This affects all of us!

2009-03-29T11:31:00.004-05:00

A Gentleman Reads

2009-03-27T22:37:00.002-05:00

I know you're all taxed from the seriously heavy shit I've been laying down. Yep! This is a serious web log. Only the best, most informed prose.

Which, of course, makes it deadly dull and one of the least likely to be read pieces of electronic media currently littering the ether. And I do mean "littering."

To address this critical dearth of fun and silly shit, I try to link to some other practitioners of the bloggist's art who are considerably funnier and altogether better for your constitution.

You are instructed to go, at once, to the Foggy Monocle and laugh your ass off.

That is all.

A Portrait of Onanist Delight

2009-03-27T08:54:00.006-05:00

That's a year-to-date chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (all charts click to enlarge). The DJIA, and its turgid performance during the last two years of the Bush Presidency, are what allowed MSNBC, CNN, NBC, Powerline, and pretty much every pundit and bloviator tied to the corporate media to proclaim that the economy was doing just fine, thank you very much, in spite of rising jobless claims and mushrooming foreclosures.

Compare these charts of Initial Jobless Claims and New Home Sales

With this chart of the S&P 500:

It's a little hard to see because the scale of the graphs isn't perfectly aligned. ignore the point where the S&P falls off the table in October of 2008, and its fluctuations that spring and summer tend to look more like white noise in a stabilizing pattern at a very high level.

In the meantime, however, during the spring and summer of 2008 when practically every business analyst from Kudlow and Cramer to John Sidney McCain were telling us that the "fundamentals of the economy are sound," jobless claims were creeping steadily up and housing starts were declining.

I bring this up not to point out how wrong they were (which they were), but rather to highlight a huge blindspot in the media's vision: they are slaves to shareholder profits.

They don't analyze the economy. They tell you whether or not rich people are making money, and they mistake that for the same thing. If the stock market is performing well, that's all they're interested in. Cash is flowing in, baby! The fundamentals of the economy must be sound.

No one getting paid to tell the world what's what analyzes the economy. They report (take dictation from) the market. Sure, there were some whispers around the edges. But hey! Are you gonna listen to those nattering nabobs of negativism? Or do you wanna come for a swim in my pool of cash?

Now look at the top graph again. What you see there is an Obama-induced bounce. The markets are up about 20% since the early days of March. Not many people are talking about it, but that's mostly because they want Obama to fail and they've spent the last three months claiming every drop in the DOW was his fault. Suddenly they've got nothing to talk about.

But that's not my main point. My point is, this isn't necessarily good news. The "fundamentals of our economy" are but a whisker more sound now than they were last October, and only because we're starting to put on the brakes.

If the status quo system likes what's going on and the market is going up, I'm not filled with confidence. Here's another chart for ya (click to expand):

Since the '50's (when there were 14 tax brackets and income over $400k was taxed at 91%), the rate of growth was a steady-state economy. In the 1980's we bought into the supply side logic of the infinitely expanding market. We slowly took bankers and investment houses off the leash and shackled the wardens. 1992-2008 was as close as I hope we'll ever come to a financial anarchic utopia (for bankers) / dystopia (for workers).

I guess you can tell where that gets you.

So, finally the point: taking into account the growth of a world-wide market, or at least the introduction of that potential, I figure a good place for the DOW to be is a steady-state economy at about 4,000-6,000. In other words, a bit below where we are this Friday as I sit here typing away.

If this is where we should be, then we can probably expect another crash. Sometime this summer, I expect. Which will be blamed on Obama. Which will be right, in part. But also necessary. There is still a lot of waste in the private sector. Here's what I mean by "waste:"

Capital is created by labor, which adds value to the product being worked on. That value is sold to a market. The employer siphons off most of that value and pays his/her labor with the balance. Much more complicated than that, of course, but that's essentially the deal.

Over the last 40 years, more and more of that value has been lodged at the top. This is "supply-side" or "trickle-down" theory, which depends on two things being true: 1) If you feed the suppliers/oligarchs enough to keep them fat and happy, they'll keep the wheels of commerce turning by seeking infinite wealth, thereby employing you and keeping you fed and out of the rain. (With just enough extra to buy you off.) 2) We will never run out of markets to expand in, so the money will be able to continuously flow up the ladder and, mostly, stay there.

Something happened to this fairy tale. The money wasn't flowing fast enough. So the oligarchs (in this case, investment bankers and the lawyers who work for them) created a variety of investment baskets that allowed them to essentially sell the same "value" (from the "value added" equation, above) over and over again, and to package it with thousands of tiny risks (iffy mortgages) which themselves had been packaged multiple times and resold.

This worked well enough except for one thing: the need for more and more capital at the top of the ladder outstripped both the workers' ability to generate it, and the market's rate of expansion.

The butterfly in Thailand caused a tornado in Brussels. Or, in this case, some dude in Nevada finally failed to pull the ends to meet, tapped out his credit, and his home was foreclosed on. Then his neighbor, and his neighbor on the other side.

That was the pin in the balloon. It started small, but once that vacuum of capital was in the room -- a literal absence of money to fill a hole -- the game was over and the void spread very quickly up the chain and sucked the fancy house of cards into the shitter.

So anyway. The market is up in March. But I don't expect it to stay there, nor do I think it should.

These assholes just can't believe the party's over. And we're all going to take the bullet/pay the piper/sell our vacation homes.

What? You don't have a vacation home?

"Barry" Needs a Teleprompter

2009-03-26T05:27:00.003-05:00

Dear "President" Obama: I'm very disappointed to see you using a teleprompter. I guess the image you falsely portrayed to the Nation during your campaign of a thoughtful, articulate speaker, was a cheap charade designed to lull the passive left-wing media into a hero-worshiping drool-fest -- one that continues to this day. I hereby withdraw my support, since it's clear that your memory sucks and that you're therefore too addled to be President. Why don't you go back to Indonesia, you America-hating Islamist traitor? Only idiots use teleprompters...

More here.
Credit to John Aravosis

Twisted from the root

2009-03-21T14:40:00.001-05:00

From Kung Fu Monkey:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

False Choices: WSJ's self indulgent crap continues

2009-03-08T10:52:00.004-05:00

The Wall Street Journal's editorial page has become as predictably shallow as Rachel Ray, without the useful side effect of dinner.

This week's victim: the energy crisis.

In "Let's Get Real About Renewable Energy" Robert Bryce pulls off two equally disingenuous tricks: 1) He uncritically complements W's energy policy, and 2) pans Obama's efforts to "double, then double again" our output from alternative sources.

Naturally, I have a couple of quick comments that will have to suffice for a more thorough dressing down.

By promising to double our supply of renewables, Mr. Obama is only trying to keep pace with his predecessor. Yes, that's right: From 2005 to 2007, the former Texas oil man oversaw a near-doubling of the electrical output from solar and wind power. And between 2007 and 2008, output from those sources grew by another 30%.

Whatever W did to support this growth a) had little to do with that growth, as industry is more clear-eyed about the future of oil than our Republican colleagues are, and b) was motivated by a transparent desire to "greenwash" his permissive approach to extractive industries including so-called "clean" coal and his liberal expansion of pro-pollution policies both direct (the roll-back of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act) and indirect (appointing pro-pollution directors to the EPA with instructions to collude with industry in its efforts to dodge the true cost of production and foist it on the living things -- like you -- that enjoy breathing and drinking clean water).

Next, Bryce focuses on the output of our current "renewables" industry against the total energy usage of the USA. Of course, it's paltry.

The latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show that total solar and wind output for 2008 will likely be about 45,493,000 megawatt-hours. That sounds significant until you consider this number: 4,118,198,000 megawatt-hours. That's the total amount of electricity generated during the rolling 12-month period that ended last November. Solar and wind, in other words, produce about 1.1% of America's total electricity consumption.

Of course, you might respond that renewables need to start somewhere. True enough -- and to be clear, I'm not opposed to renewables. I have solar panels on the roof of my house here in Texas that generate 3,200 watts. And those panels (which were heavily subsidized by Austin Energy, the city-owned utility) provide about one-third of the electricity my family of five consumes.

Here's another way to consider the 76,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day that come from solar and wind: It's approximately equal to the raw energy output of one average-sized coal mine.

Sure, Mr. Obama can double the output from solar and wind. And then double it again. And again. And again. But getting from 76,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to something close to the 47.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day needed to keep the U.S. economy running is going to take a long, long time. It would be refreshing if the president or perhaps a few of the Democrats on Capitol Hill would admit that fact.

That's enough for the sense of it. Read the (very brief) editorial for all his calculations.

I absolutely include Democrats in my indictment of this editorial, by the way. Our entire government is colluding with the energy industry in preventing us from truly addressing the problem.

And it's a huge fucking problem. The most important thing that Bryce totally ignores is this: Oil -- hydrocarbons -- will, absolutely, incontrovertibly, without doubt, run out. Whether we need them or not, they will be exhausted if we keep using them.

"[H]ydrocarbons just won't go away." Um, Bryce? Yes. Yes, they will.

But there is a part of Bryce's essay with which I actually agree.

The happy fiction we allow ourselves (and our politicians permit us) is that we can invent and innovate our way to a future where we do exactly what we do now, but with different sources of energy. Clearly, that's the future Bryce is imagining: one where his family of 5 is still permitted to use 9,600 watts of energy per day (holy shit, by the way). Energy "independence" may also be a fiction, but there's no reason to assume that we can't eliminate our use of hydrocarbons, or our reliance on and exploitation of barbaric, repressive societies in unstable and impoverished countries.

The fairy tale is that we can do that and still drive our Texas-sized cars Texas-sized distances to our Texas-sized homes, where we sit down to Texas-sized meals of factory-raised food in front of Texas-sized televisions and bask in the cool breeze from our Texas-sized swamp cooler before tucking our Texas-sized family into their Texas-sized beds made in China, and expect that the subsidized solar panels on our roofs will do the trick.

I'm sorry to say that in the future (apocalyptic collapse after we exhaust the supply of hydrocarbons or transition to alternative sources of energy), this popular picture of the American Dream is dead as dinosaurs.

Bryce would do better to help solve that problem.

Instead, he'd rather play "gotcha journalism" with an intentionally shallow and one-sided examination of the new administration's energy policy.

In the words of David St. Hubbins, "It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever." Bryce? You're not being clever.

No Soup For You

2009-03-05T11:32:00.002-05:00

Play along with me here.

Stretch your arms out as wide as you can. Wider. Wider! C'mon, you're hugging a big pile of money! WIDER!

Good.

Now, at the tippity tip of your right middle finger is zero dollars. At the tippity tip of your left middle finger is the total amount of all the bailout money that has been given to the financial industry since the late fall of 2008 -- TARP money, supplemental funding, zero collateral loans (of your money), handouts and golden cushions. All of it.

Keep stretching: that pile keeps growing...

Now, take all the money represented by the first knuckle on the middle finger of your right hand. That's the money the Obama administration proposes to use to help out homeowners who are in danger losing their homes.

I'm not entirely sold on that plan. But I'm definitely not sold on the billions and billions of dollars (with no real end in sight) being doled out to AIG, BofA, etc.

The Right Wing would have you believe that class war is the left's idea. But let's just see what happens when the barest fraction of their precious bailout money might be siphoned off to keep people under a roof. "Ooo, we can't have that! That rewards bad behavior!"

This is the true spirit of "trickle-down" economics, laid bare. The truth is, even the trickle pisses them off.

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On the radar

2009-03-03T16:54:00.001-05:00

Borrowed Suits' recounting of my epic half-marathon/motorcycle wreck weekend has been picked up and edited by a new 'blog: The Accidental Extremist, where it has been retitled "Chariot of Fire (Burning Sensations)."

TAE features true-life stories of accidental idiocy, whether death-defying or merely dignity-slaying. I got the point to them from the gentlemen at The Foggy Monocle, another fine internet establishment which I highly recommend.

Here's to living the dream.

Hey Big Spender

2009-02-26T17:51:00.004-05:00

Tax and spend, tax and spend. Now who would that be?

The Secret in "The Secret"

2009-02-12T22:16:00.001-05:00

A while ago, I wrote a post bashing "The Secret" as a venal -- nearly insane -- piece of "self help."

Well gentle reader, I stand corrected. Here is a man who knows the true value of that timeless tome.

Don't drop the soap!

THIS is who I campaigned for

2009-02-05T22:58:00.003-05:00

His best speech yet. Unfortunately these links have trailers fore and aft. Skip them, but watch this speech.
Part I

Part II

When More is Less

2009-02-04T18:27:00.005-05:00

From Glenn Greenwald:

It hasn't taken long for the right wing media to hit its stride.

Both Fox News (of course) and the Washington Post (again, of course) are busy trashing the Obama budget for its purported "cuts" on military spending. Oh Noes!! The libruls are running from the fight and weakening Amurika!

When I tell you that your TV is lying to you, this is what I mean.

Obama is not cutting military spending. He is increasing military spending over W's last budget by $14 million dollars. Last year's budget called for $513 billion in defense spending. Obama's FY2010 budget calls for $527 billion.

527 > 513

Some Pentagon officials and congressional conservatives are already trying to portray the OMB number as a cut by comparing it to a $584 billion draft fiscal 2010 budget request compiled last fall by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Congressional Quarterly.

Just like Bush, Obama gave the Joint Chiefs less than they wanted. So, instead of reporting the truth (that Obama raised spending on the military), the right wing media reports that he's made cuts in spending.

That's a lie, for those of you slow on the uptake. A lie.

And it's just one lie out of many. But I'm tired right now.

Read Greenwald's piece. Also check out Matt Yglesias' take on Gallup's poll, which shows that Americans think we spend too much on the military:
Yglesias:

Meanwhile, no matter how much Obama spends on defense, it’s inevitable that the GOP will criticize him for not spending enough. And that alone should guarantee that the “too little” numbers will tick back up in the direction of at least 30 percent.

Bad. Getting worse.

2009-01-29T23:36:00.005-05:00

I guess these things go on all the time. When you're as close to the bottom as Detroit, I guess the abyss is that much closer. But we're all sliding down the ramp. I expect we'll see more of this before we see less, and not just in Detroit. Not to belabor the point, but this is not a sign of greatness.

Life goes on around body found frozen in vacant Detroit warehouse

After another two calls to 911 on Wednesday afternoon (one of which was disconnected), the Detroit Fire Department called and agreed to meet nearby.

Capt. Emma McDonald was on the scene.

"Every time I think I've seen it all, I see this," she said.

I forgot I even had this!

2009-01-28T09:57:00.003-05:00

With a change in administration, it looks like the State Department will be coming out of mothballs and re-engaging in the business of diplomacy. (You remember diplomacy -- it's all that nonsense that used to get in the way of the shooting and bombing we've been enjoying.)

Naturally, the folks down there are a little giddy about the prospect of their jobs actually meaning something again. Apparently, the following email has been making the rounds:

Dear World:

We, the United States of America, your top quality supplier of ideals of democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service. The technical fault that led to this eight- year service outage has been located, and the software responsible was replaced November 4. Early tests of the newly installed program indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional on January 20. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage. We look forward to resuming full service and hope to improve in years to come. We thank you for your patience and understanding,

Sincerely,

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

I picked this up at The World From Eagle Hill.

I'm liberal, so I'm biased...

2009-01-23T14:40:00.006-05:00

but I tend not to agree:

This screenshot pulled today from the website of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Res Ipsa Loquitur.

The "Bums" Won, Dick.

2009-01-23T12:18:00.002-05:00

Courtesy Nick Parish.

Pennsylvania: F

2009-01-22T20:08:00.003-05:00

How to break your backs, Keystone State. Really, no need to try so hard.

The Bailout: A Graphic

2008-12-11T20:16:00.004-05:00

English Pronounciation

2008-12-04T20:23:00.003-05:00

Author unknown (credit to thb for turning it up).

Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sleeve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?

Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!

"deliberative democracy"

2008-11-24T09:49:00.002-05:00

...a conversation among adults who listen to one another, who attempt to persuade one another by means of argument and evidence, and who remain open to the possibility that they could be wrong.

--George Packer

Think calmly and well, upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it.

--Lincoln

Prop 8 Fallout: Maine Clergy Back Same-sex Marriage

2008-11-15T13:31:00.002-05:00

The fall-out from the California Prop-8 battle continues, and not all of it is bad news.

The "mainline" Protestant denominations have largely trended with progressive values for years. This progress has not come without rupture and hard words, but it has continued nevertheless. What has often been missing from the mainline, however, is a willingness to elbow their way to a seat at the table of public discourse.

As a result, the far right of the religious community has been allowed (and encouraged) to define the "faithful" positions on many questions. Most notably, their flag has flown in the face of equal rights for gays, lesbians, bi-sexual and transgendered citizens.

Following the passage of Prop 8 in California, some mainstream clergy are finally beginning to take a more assertive approach:

Religious leaders across the state held news conferences Thursday to urge Mainers to end marriage discrimination against gay and lesbian couples and called for the state to create same-sex civil marriages.

While this clearly isn't the same as privately conspiring with the Catholic Church and encouraging all your Mormon brethren to bankroll discriminatory legislation, it represents a big step for groups who have preferred to fly low on the radar. In part, this was out of sensitivity to their membership, many of whom have struggled to expand their personal understanding of their closely held faith.

...more than 120 religious leaders from 14 different faith traditions across Maine have formed the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry in Maine. The coalition, [Presbyterian Rev. Marvin Ellison] said, is not a political action committee, but a group of clergy acting as individuals to raise awareness about the issue of same-sex marriage.

Ministers who joined the coalition signed a declaration. They agreed to “commit ourselves to public action, visibility, education, and mutual support in the service of the right and freedom to marry.”

"Visibility" is the big missing piece in mainline churches' effort to promote respect, understanding and equality in this struggle for rights.

If you agree that homosexuality, lesbianism, or gender difference or ambiguity (or disambiguity as the case may be) are inherent -- as most educated people do -- then this is very clearly an issue of civil rights. These faith communities are gradually coming to the understanding that advocacy and visibility on these questions is every bit as compelled as their support for the civil rights movement of the 60's and 70's, which focused on race and, latterly, sex.

Some tentative steps had been taken already. The UCC launched a publicity campaign for their beliefs entitled "God is still speaking," encouraging a fresh and renewing approach to faith and famously featuring television commercials that cleverly showcased a message of inclusion.

The Ejector:

The Steeples ("All the People")

The Bouncers

This campaign was famously banned by the traditional media.

The creation of this coalition seems to indicate that, at least in Maine, mainline churches now recognize that on a question of theology, the Right has made their religion a public policy. If, as they profess, the mainline stands for the oppressed, they must speak out.

This is one small, but important, step in that direction.

Maine law does state that marriage is between a man and a woman. Our constitution remains, for the moment, unstained.

Predictably,

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland would oppose efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in Maine, Marc Mutty, director of the Office of Public Affairs, said Thursday after the press conference.

The Family Policy Council of Maine, formerly the Christian Civic League of Maine, also has said it would be “working to defend marriage.” Executive Director Michael Heath announced in September that opponents of gay marriage were forming a group called Marriage Alliance. It would work to amend Maine’s constitution, according to information posted on the council’s Web site.

The Christian Civic League has become a punchline here in Maine. Mainers have consistently refused to legislate hate, and a petition drive they attempted last year had to be scrapped because there just wasn't any money out there to support it.

The Catholic Church, however, is becoming (has become?) an embarrassing case.

Clergy who appeared at the press conference in Bangor represented the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Church. Both denominations, along with Reform Judaism, allow the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of noncelibate gay and lesbian clergy.

The list of clergy who support the coalition, however, includes ministers in the United Methodist, Episcopal and Presbyterian denominations that continue to debate the issues of gay marriage and the role of gay clergy on national and international levels.

The declaration stated that the signers respected the fact that debate and discussion would continue in many of their religious communities concerning the theological and ethical issues of marriage. It also said that members of the coalition supported the right of all religious communities to make their own decisions about whom to marry within their faith traditions.

“We draw on our diverse religious traditions to arrive at a common conviction — the state of Maine should allow same-sex couples to share fully and equally in the legal institution of marriage and do all that it can to eradicate current discrimination and the lingering effects of past discrimination against our lesbian, gay bisexual and transgendered brothers and sisters,” the declaration continued.

Taking this stance reflects a distinctly mature approach to living (and hold a faith) in a pluralistic society. It separates the health and righteousness of the civic body from the integrity of a given body of faith. It acknowledges that we differ, and will continue to differ, on issues of moral theology (and, dare I say, science), but that equality in civil society does not permit the enforcement of only one creed. Down that road lies religious war. Down that road lies theocracy. Down that road lies the Taliban (if I need be so blunt).

Of course, if you believe you have the one, true, faith, this approach is anathema.

One wonders: If the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church of LDS both got substantially what they wanted, how long would it take before they were at each other's throat?

“I don’t think [the coalition] represents a great majority of the religious community in Maine,” Mutty said. “They represent marriage as a civil right and believe that anyone that meets certain criteria should be able to marry.

“Marriage is the building block of society and includes procreation,” Mutty continued. “Without procreation — and same sex couples can’t — they’re missing out on a huge piece of the puzzle. The argument is not any more complicated than that.”

Marriage, sanctioned by the state, is a civil right, Mark. Whatever you want to recognize within the walls of the Church is up to you.

I'm not even going to touch the weak "procreation" argument, which would disqualify thousands of hetero men and women from marriage.

Marriage should be dropped from the law altogether, in my opinion. The contractual, financial and privacy privileges which the state sees fit to confer on that arrangement between consenting adults should be available to everyone interested. If we see fit to qualify eligibility with a legal pledge of "love and support" or something similar, that seems fine to me. It would promote the social benefits of joining people together in small mutual enterprises and help glue the community together. But the definition of "marriage" as a spiritual state could easily be left to individual congregations.

It's their institution, after all.

“I have seen many loving, committed couples in my life,” the Rev. Becky Gunn, pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Bangor, said at the press conference. “Some choose to marry, some do not. But there are those who would choose to marry that are not currently allowed to marry. These same-sex couples do not have the same civil rights as married heterosexual couples. This is ethically and morally untenable.”

Amen.

2008-11-11T14:30:00.001-05:00

Just a few more days.

2008-10-30T22:52:00.010-05:00

The results will soon be in. Please get out and do what you can to help.

On this end, I'll be in New Hampshire for the weekend canvassing in CD#2. On the 1st and the 2nd, I'll be GOTV in Maine, wherever they choose to send me. Just give me one shift. Get to your local office and offer to do something for a few hours this weekend. Go to this website, enter your zip code, and find something to do.

It's a bitch, this democracy racket. It only works if you do.

In other, much less important, news, the Patriots renew their rivalry with the hated Colts of Indianapolis on Sunday. These two storied franchises are struggling through similarly frustrating seasons. The fact that they're not on the top of their respective games has caused a minor detente among the fan bases -- something like Adams and Jefferson, bitter rivals who in the end realized they only had each other. Except not as vital to our country. Nor as touching.

In that spirit, Pats Pulpit, the Patriot fansite I occasionally write for, is exchanging blogging privileges with Stampede Blue, internet home of Colts faithful. My contribution is a feature on Patriots' stalwart, Kevin Faulk.

I've been enjoying writing about the Pats. It's a hell of a lot less stressful than contemplating the possibility of President McCain and Vice President Palin.

I just puked in my mouth a little.

Which is exactly why I'm going out from 11/1 through 11/4. And why you should, also.

Cheap Laughs

2008-10-29T20:51:00.001-05:00

A new conservatism?

2008-10-27T18:54:00.003-05:00

The Public Servant has a very interesting piece up on a prospective Obama administration's 1st 100 days, titled "Rounding Third." It's a good piece, and I recommend treating yourself to its entirety. It contains this central thesis about the goals of that potential government during its first 3 or so months:

The point is to change the country in a way that will command the support of a large majority of the public before the general cynicism about government takes root.

I might modify that somewhat: The point is to hold the general cynicism about government at bay long enough to pull its teeth by fundamentally reinventing government, in practice first and then in the eyes of the people. Public Servant gets all that--I just wanted to take that extra cut for my readers, here.

I agree. This will be very interesting (provided the outcome we both wish for arrives). I don't know what BHO has in mind, of course, and the rather bold call that PS and I would make might not be on his radar at all (though the circumstances beg for original, unconventional approaches). But I've been thinking a lot lately about the need for a new, robustly intellectual conservatism. The more I think about it, the more I think that that might be just what Obama represents.

Certainly, many of his policies ring bells that 20th century conservatives would label as "liberal" (and really what I think we have in the GoP today is the rump party of 20th century conservatism, with all the real conservatives sucked out of it). But his pursuit of those policies is very measured and based on sober historical and factual analysis.

This is also to say that what was once conservative policy is now obsolete, and the new conservatism of the 21st century may very well represent a much more pragmatic cross-breeding of progressive sensibility with conservative procedure. Government will be pared back, but not to the quick, not to Norquist's bathtub-ready shrimp. It will be pared back to a purpose: the commonweal, as defined by the progressive dictum to protect the weak from the strong, the power-less from the powerful, and to secure an equitable starting gate for all citizens regardless of wealth.

I recognize that that's highly ideal, of course. But what are mission statements if not ideal? I also recognize the dissonance in claiming simultaneously that we need a dramatic shift in the nature of government and that that shift will be to a new conservatisim (a clear-cut oxymoron). So sue me.

I hope to come back to this and develop it a bit. This is a first cut, but I'd be interested to hear what you all think. What is conservatism, to you? My judgment is that the GoP is an intellectual desert right now; do you agree? I also see Obama proceeding very conservatively, in the classic sense.

Let's chat.

Ivan is laughing at you.

2008-10-23T16:26:00.000-05:00

And I am laughing at him:

Harrison out, maybe forever.

2008-10-23T15:45:00.003-05:00

I got the chance to attend a Monday Night Football game this week and had a blast. The view from the upper deck is, well, "all-encompassing" might be the best way to put it. We had a great time, but we might also have seen the last game played by 15-year NFL veteran Rodney Harrison. Here is a link to a piece I wrote on that for Pats Pulpit.

If you love football (or are reluctantly engrossed by it), you know he was archetypal. If that was his last play, to go down in the fight and be carted from the field was probably the only way for it to happen. Like Cool Hand Luke, he would never have stopped on his own.

I agree with John McCain.

2008-10-22T07:52:00.002-05:00

As a former resident of Western Pennsylvania, I couldn't have said it better myself:

I'd also like to note that practically every time I do a post on McCain, I feel somehow compelled to use my "general asshattery" tag. It's not exclusive to him, of course, but he does seem to drive that phrase into mind.

The next time Putin rears up his head to peek into Alaska,

2008-10-20T12:37:00.004-05:00

ask him if he can spare some change:

Russia's permanent mission to the UN has received a letter from U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain asking for financial support of his election campaign, the mission said in a statement on Monday.

"We have received a letter from Senator John McCain with a request for a financial donation to his presidential election campaign. In this respect we have to reiterate that neither Russia's permanent mission to the UN nor the Russian government or its officials finance political activities in foreign countries," the statement said.

According to Ruslan Bakhtin, press secretary of the Russian mission, the letter dated September 29 and signed by McCain, was addressed to Vitaly Churkin, Russia's envoy to the UN, and arrived on October 16.

The ambassador's title was not included in the letter, and was not clear why the letter had taken over two weeks to arrive.

Enclosed was a request for a donation of up to $5,000 to McCain's election campaign to be returned with a check or permission to withdraw the money from the donor's credit card until October 24.

Individual donations to candidates' election campaigns are capped by law at $2,300, and it is illegal to accept donations from foreign nationals.

Click on the title of the post for a link to the story. Predicted McCain camp reaction: "The Russian Information Agency has planted a despicable lie about Senator McCain. It is unsurprising that Barack Hussein Obama has the support of socialists and Communists around the world, who will do anything to see he is elected. Obviously, that includes lying about John McCain, a decorated war hero and former POW."

This comes via Politico, which has a link to the letter. Ben Smith, Politico's author, claims the story was confirmed by embassy press secretary Ruslan Bakhtin, but the link to the embassy-provided release also includes a link to the letter itself. That downloads as an unprotected word document, though it does read like a standard campaign solicitation.

True or not, it does fit the rightwing pattern: Accuse your opponent of the very malfeasance you yourself are currently perpetrating. While the crowd surrounds the newly-minted suspect, you walk away with the loot. Winger TV does this all the time--keeping people so busy looking for liberal bias in the media that they have no idea how viciously they're being spun.

The Stretch Run: Canvassing NH for Obama

2008-10-19T22:03:00.008-05:00

click on pictures for larger images

I do not like making phone calls. I do not like meeting new people. I don't like bothering strangers. I take rejection personally.

I am not a natural canvasser.

Ian, my friend, knows this. But he also knows how to motivate me. When he called to ask me to canvass New Hampshire with him for a day he said, "I don't really want to do it either, but if John McCain wins the Presidency and there was something I could have done about it, and I didn't, I don't think I could live with myself."

So that's how I found myself in Portsmouth, New Hampshire today, standing among a group of 40 strangers and listening to a young woman give me my marching orders. She is the Field Organizer for Obama's Portsmouth office, and she knows exactly what she needs from us.

Speaking to us like adults (which we were--I estimate the average age of that morning's group at around 44), Ellen gave us our territory, and clipboards with a list of contact names on it. "Be polite, be energetic. Do not engage in a debate. Get contact information if you can, and be sure to leave literature with everyone who wants it and at every door where no one is home. Be upbeat, polite and energetic: you are the face of this campaign."

Staff at work, 6:30pm. We were late.

Canvassing right now is about data gathering -- not persuasion. At least not if you walk in off the street like we did. The lists are targeted. Everyone in the packet of addresses they give you is either undecided or as yet un-contacted. Our job was very simple: find out what they're thinking. Everyone we met would be graded on a continuum of Obama, Leaning Obama, Undecided, Leaning McCain, McCain.

Honestly, it was a bit refreshing. So late in the game, it's not like the candidates need an introduction. It opened the door to a few long conversations and it kept encounters with those who had decided to vote McCain very short and sweet. And even occasionally polite.

Ian and I were sent to Rye. (I wish I had a rhyme to follow that.) We counted ourselves very lucky--this stretch of US Route 1A runs right along the shingle of the coast, and it has been perhaps the most beautiful fall I can remember.

The homes in our territory were spread relatively far apart--not least because we weren't going to visit every house in the neighborhood, just a subset of a subset. Some were very clearly monuments to wealth. Others were small; some few of the old capes that have escaped trophy-hunting renovators, some 60's era single-level bungalows. A scattering of condos converted from beach houses. It took us about 5 hours to knock on about 30 doors. Many people were not home, most conversations were short. But occasionally we met someone who wanted to talk.

We met Lorraine, mowing her lawn on this beautiful day. She was looking forward to voting for Obama very much. In her 70's, she and her husband had lived in the same house for 46 years, watching this once quiet stretch of New Hampshire's coast gradually become busier and wealthier. We met another woman with a houseful of five independents and a Republican mater familias, all of whom will be voting for the Democrat this year. She was pensive, but hopeful.

Worth noting: This campaign is explicitly working for down-ticket races as well. When we queried people about their preferences for president, we also asked about Jeanne Shaheen in the Senate race and Carol Shea-Porter for the House. Obama is clearly seeking to lengthen his coattails if his bid is successful.

Our area seemed roughly 60-40 for Obama, but many of the people we spoke with claimed to still be making up their minds. This boggles me, as I can't remember or come up with two candidates less like one another in modern Presidential history. Ian's take was that anyone still thinking about it would in other years have been a McCain lock. My feeling is more along the line that if you were once a McCain lock, or you're really still undecided because they seem so similar to you, you have the same issue: brain freeze.

But there was one guy who sticks with me. He was pleased that we knocked on his door. He wasn't sure who he wanted to vote for. He'd seen Powell's endorsement this morning. To me he felt genuinely worried, afflicted by the times he found himself living through, a little adrift. His wife couldn't come to the door--she has MS. Did we think Obama would be ok? Yes, we did. Did we see that Powell had endorsed him? We had. "A lot of people think of Colin Powell as a truthful, trustworthy man," I offered. He agreed--it was a good sign, he felt. Would he take an absentee ballot for his wife? He would. Perhaps some literature, with information about Obama's plan for healthcare? Yes, and thank you. He shook our hands.

I've been thinking about him since. He was in his early 70s, but could have been anywhere between there and 55. The older I get, the younger my elders seem. He looked like he could have been my Dad's age. A wife with late-onset MS. A small house with a new ramp to the door. And a clear worry. Thinking about him now, I almost feel like he was frozen -- petrified, really. I don't know if that's fair, but it was the feeling I got from him; as if the next move he made would either set his world safely down or shatter it beyond redemption or repair.

Does any President have an answer for that man? I don't know.

In all, it was a very good day. I strongly encourage you to do this, if you have any free time. Take this Saturday or Sunday. There is a very limited amount of time left to keep our country from going completely off a cliff and there is a very specific thing you can do to stop that. Contact your local office and put in some time.

It's easy--even for the antisocial.

How will you feel on November 5th if McCain wins, and you did nothing to prevent it?

Fried lunch. Yum.

When we came back, the car was still there, but the board was gone. Way, way down the surf line you could see this guy paddling out. We don't stop up here just 'cause it's cold. It's always cold. In fact, the water is probably warmer now than it was in May. Not that I verified that for myself, you understand.

Hi Mom!

2008-10-12T09:59:00.002-05:00

The roles are finally reversed: Now it's my Mom who asks the one-line questions that lead to long answers:

What do you know about the allegations relating to Ayers and the real estate guy? I have a friend who wants to vote for Obama but is a little uncomfortable with the things he's heard. Love, Mom.

Well, mom, here's what I know:

Bill Ayers: Ayers was a true 60's radical. He was prominent in the SDS, and followed his convictions to the extreme, eventually coming to the conclusion that the government's actions in Vietnam needed to be stopped and that the only language the Gov't would understand was violence. This conviction led to a schism with the SDS leading to the formation of the "Weather Underground." Ayers was co-founder.

During his time as a leader of the WU, Ayers participated in many street fights with the police and later in at least 3 bombings of US government buildings: the NYC polic headquarters building, the US Capitol and the Pentagon. No one was hurt in any of the bombings, though a water leak caused in the pentagon indicident did halt hight altitude bombing in Vietnam for 2 weeks.

Ayers had decided to turn himself in in the late '70s, but his wife and co-conspirator was not--she was pregnant and wanted to give birth. As a result of the COINTELPRO investigation through the Church Committee, the charges against him were dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct.

Since his days as a radical, Ayers has become, in the words of the prosecutor in those cases, "a responsible citizen." Since his student days he was interested in education and education reform. He currently holds a PhD in education and teaches at the University of Chicago, where he holds the title of "Distinguished Professor."

Ayers and Obama: There are three main contact points between Ayers and Obama.

1. Hyde Park. The Obamas and the Ayers both live in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Obama's political career was launched by Deborah Leff nominated him to head the board of the Joyce Foundation. In that role he came to the attention of then-state Senator Alice Palmer, who eventually gave her blessing for Obama to run to succeed her. Ayers' home was the site of a meet-the-candidate reception, attended by the political players of Hyde Park, of which Ayers was one. Palmer also attended. Ayers did not serve on Obama's campaign (then or now), nor has he ever been in an advisory role to Obama.

2. The Woods Fund of Chicago. The Woods fund is an anti-poverty organization. This is its mission statement: "a grantmaking foundation whose goal is to increase opportunities for less advantaged people and communities in the metropolitan area, including the opportunity to shape decisions affecting them. The foundation works primarily as a funding partner with nonprofit organizations. Woods supports nonprofits in their important roles of engaging people in civic life, addressing the causes of poverty and other challenges facing the region, promoting more effective public policies, reducing racism and other barriers to equal opportunity, and building a sense of community and common ground." Bill Ayers and Barack Obama served on that board together from 1999 to 2002. Ayers was there in his capacity as a professor of education; Obama in his capacity as state senator and professor of law.

3. The Annenberg Challenge Foundation. The ACF was founded with a $50million matching grant from former Nixon employee and friend-of-Ron (Reagan), billionaire Walter Annenberg. Though he is now dead, Annenberg is survived by his wife, a major McCain contributor. The goal of the grant program was to reform America's public schools, which, by Annenberg's lights, must be improved "or our civilzation will collapse." There were three primary grant-writers who brought the grant money to Chicagor; William Ayers, a member of the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, was one of them. Ayers would continue to serve in the operational arm of the ACF, using his expertise in education reform to help the ACF allocate its funds through local work. Obama served on the board of directors from 1995-2001. His bio when he was appointed read: "civil rights attorney at Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland; lecturer at theUniversity of Chicago Law School; member of the board of directors of the Joyce Foundation and the Woods Fund of Chicago; winner, Crain's Chicago Business 40 Under 40 award, 1993; former president of the Harvard Law Review (1990–1991); former executive director of the Developing Communities Project (June 1985–May 1988)."

Ayers has been defended--though always with caveats about his misspent youth--by officials and educators in Chicago for his work with the ACF. In late May 2008, Michael Kinsley, a persistent Ayers-hater, stated the following in Time Magazine: "If Obama's relationship with Ayers, however tangential, exposes Obama as a radical himself, or at least as a man with terrible judgment, he shares that radicalism or terrible judgment with a comically respectable list of Chicagoans and others — including Republicans and conservatives — who have embraced Ayers and Dohrn as good company, good citizens, even experts on children's issues...Ayers and Dohrn are despicable, and yet making an issue of Obama's relationship with them is absurd."

Here is a good NYTimes article on their association: Obama and a 60's Bomber -- A Look Into Crossed Paths.

Tony Rezko (the real-estate guy). Less has been made about this recently, but it was a big deal during the primary. Rezko, who has been convicted of fraud, was a big-time political fundraiser for Chicago democrats for almost 25 years, and for Obama's senate campaign beginning in 2003. In all, probably close to $250,000 came into Obama's senate campaign through Rezko--either people he tapped or people who he was at one remove from. The Obama's also bought a house from the same seller from whom Mrs.Tony Rezko purchased a plot of land and on the same day (a condition of the seller's). There was nothing untoward in the sale: Obama's offer was the highest offer on the table and the rate on the Obama's mortgage was good, but normal for an A+ credit risk--which the Obama's certainly were.

Obama later bought a strip of land from the parcel owned by the Rezkos for twice its assessed value. Some critics have said this was a favor to Obama on Rezko's part, as it made Rezko's land less salable. On the other hand, it has been argued that Obama's overpay was a favor to Rezko. The most reasonable conclusion, in my mind, is that the price was set higher than assessed value to compensate the Rezko's for that loss of saleability. Obama has since acknowledged that the creation of the appearance of impropriety as a result of this deal was a mistake.

Prior to his association with Rezko, in 1997 Obama advocated for a low-income housing project that was awarded to Rezko. Rezko, as a developer, made his fee out of that deal--which was a large amount of money.

If Rezko's conviction for fraud and influence peddling taints Obama, it taints many other people as well. In addition to Obama and former Illinois Governor Blagojevich, prominent Democrats that Rezko and his company, Rezmar, have contributed money to, or fund-raised for, are Comptroller Dan Hynes, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn, former Chicago Mayors Daley and Washington, and former Cook County Board President John Stroger. Rezko has also raised money for Republicans: former Illinois Governors Jim Edgar and George Ryan, the late Rosemont, Illinois Mayor Donald Stephens and he co-chaired a multimillion-dollar fund-raiser for President George W. Bush in 2003.

In spite of the flurry of press this association has generated, and the investigative reporting done by the Chicago papers, no credible evidence exists to show that either Rezko or Obama has benefited from their relationship in any illegitimate fashion. Obama's campaigns were not subjects of the law-breaking Rezko was convicted for, and there is no evidence that he or his clients benefited from Obama's office in any untoward or unethical way.

A couple of asides: Both of these "issues," while peddled on right-wing talk radio for a while, only rose to prominence once Hillary Clinton chose to give them a veneer of legitimacy by making them the centerpiece of her campaign for the nomination. Second, while these associations may cast an ephemeral pall over Obama, they are part of the miasma that surrounds any politician. Governance is the art of walking the narrow path between the venal, the greedy, and the corrupt in order to accomplish good things for under-financed people (that would be us). A politician who doesn't know anyone questionable is not going to be around for long because questionable people suffuse the halls of power. The relationship with Ayers, such as it is, hardly qualifies given the setting. The relationship with Rezko is an equal-opportunity stain. It's not like Obama went on high-toned family vacations with the guy at his expense and on his jet (see McCain/Keating). It's guilt by association at best.

Hope this helps.

Tumbledown Mountain, 10/4/08

2008-10-05T11:44:00.009-05:00

Click on images for larger views.For the first time in a long time, I got (made) a chance to get out for a hike. At the suggestion of my boss, I drove up to Weld, Maine on Saturday to hike Tumbledown Mountain. It's about a 2 hour drive to Weld from Portland, but it was beautiful fall day: crisp and sunny. I estimate 1 more week until we're at full peak for the change of leaves. Once north of Lewiston/Auburn, the roads travel through some of the most beautiful farmland in Maine--though the current crop of McCain signs was a constant reminder of why I live in Portland. The trailhead lies off a dirt road northwest of Weld village center. I chose to follow the Little Jackson trail, a track that would take you to nearby Little Jackson summit. I may do this next time, as I think it overlooks Tumbledown which would make a very pretty view. The trail roughly follows the eastern slope of a shallow defile in the hillside. After about 1.5 miles of steady climbing, I turned off on to the Pond Link Trail, headed west. There is a rushing stream in the crease of the defile which the trail crosses. I'd forgotten about the stream as I hiked and was reminded of it as a soft bass note was added to the sound of the wind in the trees.

Pond Link joins the Parker Ridge trail after about a mile, descending from a height-of-land with views of Crater Pond to the open saddle on top of Tumbledown. The day had become overcast and blustery during the climb and it was cold on the mountaintop so I didn't linger. There is no "moisture management" fabric that can really handle my moisture output. No matter the season, hiking makes me sweat like a fat man at a barbecue. After walking around the summit and near the pond, I returned down Parker Ridge. It was the right way to go, by my lights. Little Jackson is sheltered--you don't break into the open until you get to the Pond. Parker Ridge enjoys a fairly long stretch of open hiking on the ledges, with views to the south and east--very pretty in spite of the pewtery light through the cloud cover. The trail also descends through a quiet and dark pine stand, where water seeps out of the ground down the faces of the rocks, making them slick.

It was a good hike--not too many people on the summit and I only met a handful on the trail. The sun came out again when I got back to the car. I find it hard not to take these things personally. If I'd been only a couple of hours earlier or later, photos from the summit would have been spectacular (I Crummed* myself at the top, and took a few others--posted). And it would have been warm enough to sit and eat lunch, rather than eating and walking as I did.

Crummed.* Cold and windy.

The whole walk took me about four and a half hours--pretty close to the estimates made by the AMC in their Maine Mountain Guide. 10 years ago, I shredded those times. 10 years from now, I'll likely regard them as optimistic.

I took a long route home, first around the southern and western shores of Webb lake, then Route 124 to 11 to Gray before getting on the highway. As I stated, the farmland north of Turner through the Androscoggin watershed is some of the most beautiful in Maine. With the fields in stubble and fringed with turning trees I wanted to walk through it all.

TPL has done a fair amount of work in the Mt. Blue State Park/Tumbledown Mountain region (#s 21 & 22 in the link). Much of what you see from the summit as you look southeast toward Webb Lake has been protected through our work.

Toward Webb Lake and MBSP.

*Crummed: v. "Crumming" is the art of snapping a self-portrait with a camera held at arm's length. Its vulgar echoes are pure coincidence. The word is eponymous to its master, Tom Crumrine, author of Crumthekid and Crumtheteacher. It soon may be time for another "meet the blogroll" post.

Meanwhile, in the club car of the "straight" talk express...

2008-10-01T07:48:00.005-05:00

...the hits just keep on coming.

Couric: So, Mrs. Palin, could you remind me how you spell your last name?

Palin: Oh, you know... pretty much the way you would. It's a very common name, you know, not -- I mean a lot of people have heard one like it. I spell it the same way I always, the way my mother taught me, just like you and everybody else. There's this, you know, crazy perception that we, Alaska, you know we spell just like everyone does. It's not this strange foreign country unlike Washington. But, you know, like, I, you know, I get it--this gotcha journalism we all have to deal with these days. Plus, you know I can see that Russian guy in the morning from where I live. Nkay?

I'm just going to throw this out there--hedging my bets. Could this be the most elaborate game of rope-a-dope ever perpetrated? Will Sarah Palin suddenly drop this Klondike Barbie routine at the VP debate tomorrow and absolutely blindside Joe Biden?

Or is this the greatest travesty in the history of American government?

I'm tempted to list the ways in which I am more qualified for the Vice Presidency than this ignoramus. But I know I actually fall pretty low on the list of more qualified candidates. Your average New York City cab driver, for example, has (by McCain/Palin lights) vastly more foreign policy experience than I. And probably some crime-fighting chops I don't have either.

The Onion, January 17, 2001

2008-09-30T13:26:00.002-05:00

On January 17, 2001, in The Onion satirical newspaper:

Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over."

...

Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

...

On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further.

...

"Finally, the horrific misrule of the Democrats has been brought to a close," House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) told reporters. "Under Bush, we can all look forward to military aggression, deregulation of dangerous, greedy industries, and the defunding of vital domestic social-service programs upon which millions depend. Mercifully, we can now say goodbye to the awful nightmare that was Clinton's America."

"For years, I tirelessly preached the message that Clinton must be stopped," conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said. "And yet, in 1996, the American public failed to heed my urgent warnings, re-electing Clinton despite the fact that the nation was prosperous and at peace under his regime. But now, thank God, that's all done with. Once again, we will enjoy mounting debt, jingoism, nuclear paranoia, mass deficit, and a massive military build-up."

...

"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

First written as satire, then written as history.

Palin Pity Party?

2008-09-30T09:02:00.002-05:00

Not for Rebecca Traister:

Shaking our heads and wringing our hands in sympathy with Sarah Palin is a disservice to every woman who has ever been unfairly dismissed based on her gender, because this is an utterly fair dismissal, based on an utter lack of ability and readiness. It's a disservice to minority populations of every stripe whose place in the political spectrum has been unfairly spotlighted as mere tokenism; it is a disservice to women throughout this country who have gone from watching a woman who -- love her or hate her -- was able to show us what female leadership could look like to squirming in front of their televisions as they watch the woman sent to replace her struggle to string a complete sentence together.

The Banana Republic of the United States

2008-09-24T18:55:00.007-05:00

Remember when Bush won in '00, and the GoP got all smug about how "the adults are in charge now?"

I just want you to hold that idea, and read the following from Forbes.com:

The more Congress examines the Bush administration's bailout plan, the hazier its outcome gets. At a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle complained of being rushed to pass legislation or else risk financial meltdown.

...some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

Yeah, they just made it up. I'm filled with confidence.

"How much should we ask for?"

"I don't know...what do you think we can get?"

"Not sure. How scared do you think they are?"

"Pretty scared. The press is doing a good job, Joe lunchpail can't fill his tank or pay his mortgage...plus half the congress is on the take."

"I know. Plus we've got Phil Gramm!"

"Good point. Let's make it big. How about a billion -- no! 7 billion!"

"Seven billion?! Come on, man. That's peanuts. Think bigger! How about we just ask for the deficit Bush racked up? They're used to that."

"C'mon. That's just greedy."

"Well...what, then?"

"Hope they buy it."

"Oh they'll buy it, all right."

Your Urgent Help Needed

2008-09-23T20:05:00.004-05:00

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible.

Read the rest at Angry Bear, and enjoy the dark humor of the moment. The gallows makes comics of us all, I guess.

The beauty of the free market

2008-09-21T20:17:00.006-05:00

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

John McCain, "Contingencies" Sept/Oct 2008.

If you're lucky enough to get health insurance from your employer, you're probably also aware that your contribution to that insurance is taken out before you're taxed. In that article, McCain explains how, in addition to deregulating the health insurance market in the same way we've deregulated the mortgage market, he'd tax your contribution. Then he'd give you a $2,500 tax credit, regardless of your income, to offset your costs. A family could get up to a total of $5,000 in credits.

Individuals who currently don’t have access to employer sponsored insurance where they work can use the tax credit to purchase individual insurance coverage. Everyone purchasing health insurance would gain access to exactly the same tax benefits.

Think you can insure a family of four for $5000 a year? John McCain thinks so. In John McCain's happy world of friendly health insurance companies, "Consumer-friendly insurance policies will be more available and affordable when there is greater competition among insurers on a level playing field."

Just as with mortgages, however, the field will never be level. Not when the least among us will get whatever $5,000 pays for, while John McCain's base gets whatever they can afford. Or want.

Imagine a world where medical histories indicate "default risks" in health insurance. Imagine a world where those "default risks" are bundled and re-insured in the same way that mortgages are. Pools of people who have not yet become sick will be favored investments for these insurance companies. Pools of people with chronic or persistent illnesses (diabetes, depression, heart disease, Crohn's disease, e.g.) will become personae non grata. Hey--they're expensive! And you know they're going to cash in on their benefits. In fact, they're the very people that -- right now -- are costing you and me money!

If you have a history of breast cancer in your family, and your husband's father was diabetic, how much do you think it will cost to insure your children per year on John McCain's "open market?"

Do you think $5,000 will cover it?

I don't know how I can make this any simpler. John McCain says (and we all agree) that health insurance is too expensive to the government. His answer to that is not to find a less expensive way to insure people. His answer is to simply stop paying.

Well. That will certainly cost less. But don't worry. I'm sure that the "healthy competition" of a de-regulated health insurance market will guarantee you can afford coverage.

Right now, open market health insurance of the most basic variety (excluding Rx, hospital, or "critical illness" care) would cost $4,236 per year in my city, for a healthy family of three. Add one more kid, and the rate doubles. Add any "pre-existing conditions," and, well, it depends. And hey, who needs prescriptions anyway?

That plan is offered by a company that guarantees to cover you, as far as you are able to pay. Under McCain's plan, you'll be able to pay up to $5000 a year, plus whatever you can contribute on your own. Which is pretty good--unless something goes wrong. If you can get covered. If you don't have a high "default risk."

Anyway, don't worry about it. The same de-regulated markets that catapulted our national investment banks and mortgage companies to the top of the finance world is sure to help you out when your kid gets hit with leukemia, or something.

Obama's plan. If you care.

Here's a Boston Globe Editorial saying essentially the same thing. I hadn't read it until today (9/22), believe me or don't.

Privatize Social Security

2008-09-16T10:36:00.001-05:00

Still sounding like a good idea to you?

Patriots 2.0

2008-09-09T13:49:00.006-05:00

Crossposted from Pats Pulpit

So. Now what?

Now that we know NFL MVP and Patriots starting QB Brady is out for the season, what comes next? I put this column together for SB Nation site Pats Pulpit on Sunday, before the whole thing shook out. I stand by it (seriously--how can you get paid for this? I do it for fun and I know it's better than 99% of the sports-bloviating out there).

The Quarterback of the Future

The quarterback of the future is Tom Brady. I don't think that, even if we've lost him for the entire year, this team would seriously contemplate replacing him as the starter. In quarterback years, he's in his prime. His arm is good and his judgment and knowledge of the system have never been better. With the exception of his left ACL, his body is going to get a nice break from the weekly beating. Given the shallow pool of quarterback talent in the league (it's not even 32 deep) Tom Brady is still the near-term future of the team.

For that reason, I don't think you'll see a high profile signing like Daunte Culpepper for example. The cap hit would cripple the team's flexibility and introduce a complicated personnel dynamic. I think signing a guy like Sims is a backup the backup strategy, the judgment being that O'Connell isn't ready to be that close to live fire.

The quarterback of today is Matt Cassel. Cassel is an interesting story--one we're going to rehash ad nauseum this week. His last big game was in high school. He held a clipboard at USC for Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart. A backup's backup, if you will. So why would he get the call from Pioli and Belichick? I think we saw part of the answer on Sunday, and, given the crap he took in the preseason, it bears looking at again.

Matt Cassel

Before yesterday, Matt hadn't played a serious down in a game of football since he was in high school.

High School.

On opening day in front a packed house, he took over one of the premier teams in the league, got the snap from center and took two backward steps into his own endzone to hand off.

On the next play, he lined up in his own endzone and did the same thing.

On his third serious play from scrimmage since losing in the 3rd round of his high school championship tournament, Cassel took the snap from center, faked a hand-off and launched a 50-yard strike to a wideout on a go-route who had sagged into the zone, hitting him in the hands and in stride. If you'd been standing on the cross-bar, you could have peed on his helmet.

98 yards later, the Patriots were in the endzone and on the board. Cassel's day: 13 of 18 for 152 yards, one TD and no INTs.

Patriot haters, people who don't know better, and some that should, have in the past derided Brady as a "system" quarterback. But he isn't--he's a talent, and one of the best ever. Matt Cassel may one day be a very good quarterback. But the numbers he put up on Sunday illustrate one thing: the difference between a great quarterback and a great system. Start with a great quarterback in a great system. Subtract great QB. What do you get? 13 of 18 for 152 yards and a touchdown. Why (in this case)? Because the quarterback place-holder we put in was able to execute the system. He didn't bring much to it--but he didn't get in its way.

You really can't ask for more than that from your backup. In fact, if your backup QB does bring more than that to the table, then you're brewing one of two things: either your QB-of-the-future-in-waiting, or a quarterback controversy.

Give Matt his due: pretty much everyone wanted him out. What he showed on Sunday is what some of us suspected: the pre-season was a long science experiment that worked to his detriment. He's ok.

Of course, the Chiefs aren't the best. But it was one to grow on.

Who Are These Guys?

Team identity--what do you do well, consistently. How do you win?

When Brady went down, I lost whatever detachment I usually muster (not much) and became simply a fan again. I was rooting for the guys to come together, to lean on each other and make room for Matt to fill the void. I stopped paying attention to the little things I like to watch like, "how quickly is Light getting into his pass set?" "Is the running back seeing the blitz?" "Is Mayo flowing to the ball?" "How's the communication in the defensive backfield?" "Is Wilfork dealing with the doubleteams?"

My stream of consciousness was more like, "comeon comeon comeon comeon!"

Hey, they did it. Tough to pull it together like that. And I think we got a glimpse of who this team might be this year, offensively at least:

Run, then throw. Morris looks good. Maroney looks good. Evans looks his solid self and LaMont looks ready. With the return of Faulk, there are some seriously talented toys in that backfield and lots and lots of possible combinations. The only moments of concern were when we were pinned on Matty's first series. Backup QB, on your own goalline--even the PeeWees know you're going to try the run. Later in the drive, we were knocking them off the ball and dominating the LOS. Could be shades of things to come.

In the air, we looked efficient. Less opportunistic than with Brady at the helm but by no means incapable. I think you can look for Cassel to improve over the next six weeks, too. Thomas showed his hands; it'll be nice if Watson can get healthy (and stay healthy, dammit). Welker is going to be even more key this year than last, though his catches will inevitably decrease.

Defensively, this team will need to step up. Of all the units, the most rapid maturation has to happen in the defensive backfield. O'Neal filled in pretty well--a couple of minor lapses but otherwise solid. Hobbs is still short and there's nothing to be done about that. He managed--he'll have to do better. There are some good teachers there, though--again, time.

At the end of preseason, looking at the youth, I predicted that it would take a month to six weeks for this team to really sort itself out. I stand by that. This will still be a good year, but a different one from the one we were all anticipating. The sorting is going to result in a different product.

You may recall a team of scrappers with a stifling defense and an offense that did just enough to win who walked away from the season with a Vince Lombardi Trophy in hand. Your 2001 New England Patriots were a team like that. But they weren't the first: the 2000 Baltimore Ravens did that, too -- and with a game-management quarterback (Trent Dilfer, anyone?) who stayed out of the way of the system. Is there anyone else besides me who thinks Matt Cassel has more tools (of his own and on the team) than Trent Dilfer did?

The Key Guy

Every success has a key guy--at least one, anyway. The Patriots have several lynchpins right now, guys who have to really step it up: Wilfork, Mayo, Merriweather, Hobbs. On offense: Cassel, Maroney/Morris/Jordan and whomever winds up at right guard. But there's one dude in particular who I'll be watching closely: Randy Moss.

If I had to guess at how Randy's feeling today, I'd go with "dismayed."

All he's ever wanted was to have a quarterback who he thought was just as good as he is. And he got it--then he lost it. How has our Randy grown? Moss can really make the difference this year. If he shuts it down because Cassel's no Brady, this could get ugly. That's a worst-case scenario.

On the other hand, he can do better than that--by a long shot. A strong endorsement of Cassel (and the concomitant change in offensive emphasis) as well as a commitment to both mentor and be led by Matt would go miles and miles toward a play-off run. It could make all the difference.

Let's Play

This is going to be fun--I'm serious. The expectations are shot and the pressure is off. Everything they get they'll fight for--against the competition and internally as they struggle for a new sense of themselves. For fans, it will be a ride. But, unencumbered by the stratospheric expectations of last year, I plan to enjoy myself a little bit more.

Supporting the Troops

2008-09-08T16:01:00.006-05:00

It has always been a complex world. Most Americans would tell you that it is a more complex world today than it was in 2000, but that's just not true. Many Americans will claim that "everything changed after September 11th," but that's not true, either. The world is the same--it is we who have changed. We're paying a little more attention, right now. Not much, but a little. We're seeing a little bit deeper into the complex interrelations that move world events.

For example, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac (private, for-profit corporations) are being taken over by the US Government amid fears that their collapse would cause a domino effect of financial ruin at home and around the world. According to the NYTimes, the government (you and me) will guarantee Freddy's debt, while allowing shareholders to twist in the wind.

As an American, you might ask, "Whose debt am I guaranteeing? If the vig comes due, who will we--the taxpayer--have to pay? Who has so much pull with our government, that they can request us to take over the largest mortgage companies in the world and guarantee their investment? Especially in a lousy housing market, where the value that debt supports is rapidly shrinking? Who, in other words, does hold my mortgage?"

Answer (from MarketWatch):

The top five foreign holders of Freddie and Fannie long-term debt are China, Japan, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. In total foreign investors hold over $1.3 trillion in these agency bonds, according to the U.S. Treasury's most recent "Report on Foreign Portfolio Holdings of U.S. Securities."

$1.3 trillion dollars. At least it isn't a buyout. You and I aren't paying China. We're just guaranteeing their investment in our mortgage industry with our taxes. And, yes, it's the same mortgage industry that's in the toilet right now.

It's complex. Always has been. The point is, things are bad enough right now that we're starting to pay attention. I know I sure didn't care about China buying our debt before a couple of years ago. I don't know if I ever gave it more than a passing thought.

So, back to September 11 and everything changing and, as the title implies, supporting the troops. I don't think I'd find much argument if I said that our military is a little ragged these days. And most people would probably agree that our veterans aren't getting the help they need. If one of your older relatives went to school on the GI Bill -- maybe your Dad or your Grandfather -- you might know that's a lot harder to do now. You might also know phrases you never knew before, like "stop-loss" and "individual ready reserve."

National security has never been more critical or seemed so complex. Many of the first choices and policy decisions our next President will have to make will deal with the health and welfare of our military. If you're in the service, or you know someone who is, you're probably assuming that John McCain is the right man for the job. After all, Republicans support the troops more than Democrats and he served in the military (you might have heard he was a POW). He never hesitates to reiterate his abiding support for our military. I'm writing this post precisely for you. If you think John McCain is the best candidate for the military, then you're using the same logic as a woman who supports Sarah Palin because she, too, has a vagina.

Here are some examples:

In April of this year, the Webb GI Bill came up for a vote in the senate. The Webb bill would have guaranteed veterans a chance to go to college. The original bill, from WWII, could have (and did) put a service member through Yale University. Currently--well, not so much. McCain opposed the Webb bill, which was co-sponsored by Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) would have again made it possible for a soldier to go to college, with thanks from a grateful nation. McCain opposed this bill, saying it would decrease retention. Saying, essentially, that the benefits were too good.

Webb's bill would be expensive--about the same amount of money that we spend in Iraq in 36 hours. According to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the WWII bill returned $7 to the economy for every $1 it cost.

It is also the Army's primary recruiting tool.

On the day of the vote, only two Senators couldn't seem to make to the Senate. One was liberal Senator Ted Kennedy, at home recovering from brain surgery. The other was John McCain.

Here are some other dropped balls:

September 2007: John Sidney McCain (JSM) votes against another Webb bill that would have mandated adequate rest for troops between combat deployments (the "Dwell time" bill).

May 2006: JSM votes against providing the VA with $20 million needed for health care facilities; the money would have been provided by closing tax loopholes.

April 2006: JSM joins an elite group of 13 senators (all Republican) voting against $430,000,000 for the Department of Veteran Affairs for Medical Services for outpatient care and treatment for veterans.

March 2004: Votes against creating a reserve fund -- funded by closing tax loopholes for corporations -- to provide up to $1.8 billion in Veterans' medical care.

October 2003: JSM votes to table (essentially, to kill) an amendment that would have provided $322,000,000 of safety equipment (you know, like body armor) for troops in Iraq, funded by spending that much less on reconstruction.

In April of 2003, he voted to kill an amendment that would have appropriated $1 Billion for National Guard and Reserve Equipment in Iraq to address a shortage of helmets, tents, bullet-proof insets and tactical vests.

I'm not going to get into a discussion of how McCain voted on the war in Afghanistan or the invasion of Iraq, or how he wants to deal with Georgia or Iran. All I'm trying to say is that if you want to argue for military measures, or you want to say you support the troops, then you should be able to back it up with your voting record--since that's all you've really got.

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America has kept track of over 160 separate votes since 9/11, and graded every Senator and Congressman on their voting record. John McCain gets a "D."

The Disabled Veterans of America rated McCain at 20% for the 109th Congress.

IAVA and DVA also graded Obama. He got an 80% from DVA and a B+ from IAVA. If you're on the fence about these two guys, and the way they treat our people in uniform is something you're interested in, then I think you should take the evidence of their votes into account. One guy loves to use the military, but isn't interested in taking care of it. The other guy considers force the last resort, and would look after the health of his men.

If you find yourself surprised, and perhaps considering Obama, don't worry. You're in good company. According to the non-partisan Center For Responsive Politics, deployed troops support Obama over McCain 6:1, and he maintains a significant edge among all military personnel.

Our world is a much more complex place than some politicians try to make it seem. But this seems pretty simple to me.

The Voice: Don LaFontaine, 1940-2008

2008-09-04T08:29:00.001-05:00

Happy Labor Day!

2008-09-01T22:36:00.000-05:00

I hope you enjoyed a day off from work today, courtesy of the people who brought you a minimum wage, child labor laws and the weekend:

The Radical Left.

Hey, it worked for torture.

2008-08-27T22:45:00.003-05:00

Uninsured? No you're not! You lucky dog, you. John McCain and his healthcare policy advisor have you more than covered:

...John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank. Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."

You just can't invent this shit. I know--I've tried. But somehow, reality is always worse than my most fevered imaginings. Thankfully, if those fevers get too hectic, I know I'm covered. There's an emergency room right around the corner.

So. If you're concerned about the rising cost of healthcare, and are worried that you and your children might one day be without it...don't worry, silly! Just go to the emergency room. Alll better, thanks to Poppy McCain.

For those of you following along in your books, this is the point at which you say, "Aha! I know this will work. Because when they wanted to torture people and make it ok, they just redefined what torture is! That made the problem go away. So it's all good!"

Lucky (or not) for McCain that he was tortured when it was still torture. Under today's regime, he was simply in for some "aggressive questioning techniques." It's a lot harder to deflect difficult campaign questions by reminding people that you were "aggressively questioned for five years."

And no, I'm not denigrating his service. I'm denigrating the way he uses that service as a shield to all criticisms--including his inability to remember how many houses he has. No shit:

Making light of McCain's inability to put a number on his real estate holdings last week, Leno joked with the Republican nominee that, "for one million dollars, how many houses do you have?"

Rather than reply with either a real answer or a similarly light-hearted joke, McCain brought up his POW status.

"Could I just mention to you Jay, that in a moment of seriousness, I spent five and a half years in a prison cell, I didn't have a house, I didn't have a kitchen table, I didn't have a table, I didn't have a chair..."

He has made his own sacrifice into a humorless punchline. Should I even bother to point out that, given an opportunity to make torture illegal, McCain refused to sign the bill?! He was against it before he was for it.

God help us.

To All Democrats:

2008-08-26T10:50:00.003-05:00

The Bill of Rights is in tatters. Our international reputation is bankrupt. Our energy policy is a relic of the 60's. The economy is rotten.

This is the direct result of 8 years of Republican mismanagement--for 6 of which they had the place to themselves.

But just because this is true does not mean you are the default choice. You will have to take power.

Or you can plan how to explain to your kids why we invaded Iran and went to war with Russia while our roads crumbled, our bridges collapsed, our schools closed and millions of Americans went without medical care. The choice is that plain.

Something new, something wonderful.

2008-08-25T22:17:00.006-05:00

If you didn't get a chance to watch all of Michelle Obama's speech this evening, you owe it to yourself to set some time aside and see it. I think you'll agree that, with a few different forks in the road, we could easily have watched a convention on behalf of nominee Michelle Obama.

It was an address of personal politics, expressing, perhaps better than Barack himself, the deep service-oriented roots of their political philosophy. It was fitting that she shared a stage with Teddy Kennedy, in this way: Kennedy was born wealthy and could quite easily have turned his energy toward creating even greater personal wealth. Instead he devoted his personal fortune and his political career to serving the cause of those without a voice, without wealth.

The Obamas each came from modest means and each secured a ticket to the big leagues. A law degree from Harvard is a license to earn. But both Obamas have, with that opportunity, also willingly accepted an obligation to serve.

More even than that, however, this was a watershed moment for our nation. If we are lucky, we may be blessed one day to realize just how significant it was. A black woman stood before half of political America and told them in no uncertain terms of her humanity, her intelligence and her love for a black man who they should by now be compelled to elect as leader of the free world.

I'm very, very glad that I was able to see that.

Video below in two parts; runs just over 18 minutes total.

Song of the Day

2008-08-25T10:42:00.000-05:00

Biden!

2008-08-23T12:10:00.004-05:00

Great choice. I refer my reader(s) to Al Giordano:

[A]s the national media vetting process will disclose in the coming days, after 36 years in the US Senate, he's still one of the poorest US Senators: he never availed himself of the back-door personal enrichment techniques that most of his colleagues - Democrat and Republican - have utilized. Beyond class resentment, he retains a sense of class solidarity. His wife since 1977 never went into Washington lobbying: she remained a public schoolteacher.

Biden has also lived personal tragedies that would have splat most people like watermelons tossed from the sixth floor of a Wilmington tenement: between his first US Senate election in 1972 and being sworn in, his first wife and three small children were in a gruesome car accident. Mrs. Biden and his daughter died, his two boys were wounded, and he became a single father. Biden never quite entered the Washington DC culture so seductive to his peers: commuting from Delaware to DC, always coming home at night.

...Yes, I would have preferred the "three point shot" - that Obama pick a running mate from outside of Washington - but as DC insiders go, it's interesting that Biden chose all these years to refuse to live inside it, or meet with its lobbyists.

Obama stopped at the three point line, passed the ball to the new muscle man with the sharp elbows, and put two points on the board instead. I can live with that. And my working class soul is actually looking forward to the populist campaign that will come out of the unlikely alliance of two guys from humble beginnings against the owners of this coal mine called America.

I love Al's coal-mine analogy; love Biden's populist roots. It's a tough sell in Delaware (home of more Banks, Insurance Companies and Corporate headquarters than any state in the nation), but he's made it work since 1977.

He's smart, he's experienced, and he's not afraid to lay the smack-down. I would take a slightly different cut at the basketball analogy to add that Biden is a three point play: three the hard way. He can draw the foul, then make them pay.

And I'm also left with this: who do the Republics answer with? Biden has them beat in foreign policy and domestically. He has them beat on moral grounds and with gravitas. I don't see a guy on the other side of the aisle who is a fail-safe response. It's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Go ahead and read Al's whole take: Second Chance for the Everyman. As one of his commenters said, this is a "brass knuckles" choice by Obama.

Oh, and this made me laugh:

Biden has a reputation for shooting from the hip, as he did when he called President Bush "brain-dead" while campaigning for Sen. John Kerry. Republicans were outraged by his comments, but since Biden had also called former Democratic president Clinton brain-dead, many people dismissed the GOP's criticism.

Patriots blah-blah

2008-08-22T10:29:00.002-05:00

I've been writing a fair amount for Pats Pulpit, having become the default source for line commentary. Here's the latest:

In Like Flynn? Or Just in Chaos?

...Flynn is the latest signing in a bewildering array of free-agents old and new that the Pioli/Belichick team has brought in to shore up the front wall. Spurred by a merry-go-round of injuries all along the front five, the Patriots now enter officially desperate waters. To bring in an o-lineman this late in camp is beyond cause for concern--it's indicative of a serious issue. That issue is depth.

Click the link to read the rest.

How many houses do YOU have?

2008-08-21T10:30:00.001-05:00

Is your answer, "I'm not sure?"

From another world.

2008-08-19T12:29:00.001-05:00

Coupla nights ago, Lake Forest, California:

REV. WARREN: Okay, on taxes, define "rich." Everybody talks about, you know, taxing the rich but not the poor, the middle class. At what point -- give me a number. Give me a specific number. Where do you move from middle class to rich? Is it $100,000? Is it $50,000? Is it $200,000? How does anybody know if we don't know what the standards are?

SEN. MCCAIN:...I don't want to take any money from the rich. I want everybody to get rich. (Laughter.) I don't believe in class warfare or redistribution of wealth. But I can tell you, for example, there are small businessmen and women who are working 16 hours a day, seven days a week, that some people would classify as, quote, "rich," my friends, and want to raise their taxes and want to raise their payroll taxes.

Let's have -- keep taxes low. Let's give every family in America a $7,000 tax credit for every child they have. Let's give them a $5,000 refundable tax credit to go out and get the health insurance of their choice. Let's not have the government take over the health care system in America. (Applause.)

So I think if you're just talking about income, how about $5 million?

Now, he hemmed and hawed about that. But it was a simple question: where's the line? And that was the only number he could come up with. No matter what you pick, you're bound to piss off some people. But if you understand what things cost, if you have a passing sense for what it takes to get by in the world, you can come up with a number. That number -- where you cross from middle-class to rich -- is a measure of abundance. Sure, some people feel more comfort is due the middle class than others. Certainly, if you're on the bottom of the middle class most of what's above you looks rich enough. And McCain may have shot high on purpose, giving himself a chance to look like a kidder.

But even that underlines the essential flaw here: He really doesn't know where the line is. He doesn't even have a framework for talking about it. He flies on a private jet, owns eight homes and wears $500 shoes. That's more money than most people make in a week and he wears it on his feet. Those pictures of him looking clueless in a supermarket aren't the result of a bad day--he really is clueless about the average American.

The Obama's are rich (though by McCain's line, they're comfortably middle class). But at least they recognize that. And they've devoted their careers to helping ordinary folks. And they recognize that in order to help the common person, you have to understand the common person. McCain, though he wants you to believe he has your best interests at heart, has no idea what your interests are.

In response to that blind-spot, he's essentially adopted Bush's approach to policy discussions. But instead of saying "911 911 911 911," he says, "POW POW POW POW POW."

Which answers exactly nothing. But it has the effect of halting the conversation. That's something he does understand.

Click for big picture:

People Used to Ask Me Why

2008-08-18T20:05:00.002-05:00

I think this picture answers part of the question.

A Flash in the Pool: See Phelps, Don't Blink

2008-08-17T10:44:00.004-05:00

ESPN's Jim Caple has a celebratory piece up on Michael Phelps' unprecedented 8 gold medals.

I was 10 years old the summer Spitz won seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Games, and I still vividly remember getting the news of his latest races in Munich. For 36 years, those seven golds loomed as one of the few true magic numbers in sports, like Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, Ted Williams' .406 batting average and Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game. Spitz's mark was so special that a little part of me wanted Michael Phelps to fail in his quest to surpass him. But I soon was swept up pulling for Phelps to break the record just as everyone else was.

And Sunday he did, replacing Spitz's seven on sports' ever-changing ledger with an eight that will mean as much to current kids as Spitz's number meant to me.

I think Caple's wrong about Phelps' feat having the same impact on kids today as Spitz's 7 did. When Spitz won 7, I was in the womb. The sports world Jim Caple inhabited at the time, and the one that I grew up in, was measurably different from today's.

For sports entertainment, you were lucky if you got a couple of network broadcasts a week. After that, it was radio for your favorite MLB team and college, whatever your Dad took you to see of the local high school kids, the papers and, if you were really dedicated, Sports Illustrated or The Sporting News in your mailbox.

Today, there's a fire hose of coverage. Phelps' amazing achievement will be like a dazzling flash shining briefly out of the torrent--bright in the eye for a moment, then turned under by the tide and forgotten until the next Olympiad. Caple provides the proof of it in his own story, by comparing this moment to the saga of the New Jersey Favres:

Sports is filled with hyperbole, but rarely does the moment live up to the hype. (Jets fans will know what I mean by the first week of October.) This did.

That's the flood. Unless Phelps does something horribly wrong or is revealed as a doper, his time to shine is almost at an end already. And even a negative event like an investigation will prolong it only a few weeks--and ensure it doesn't re-ignite in London four years from now.

There's no room for imagination and anticipation to burn significance and wonder into us today. We track Phelps achievements immediately (if we're interested at all), and hold on to them about as long as a sand-castle's lifetime. Sure, a few dedicated kids will pin Phelps to their walls and dream of medals at night. But those kids are already in the pool. There's just not much room for greatness in unconventional venues to penetrate a market that's already under a flood of more profitable dreck.

I point out the New Jersey Favres story, because it's exactly what I mean. That could have been handled in three reports: Favre reinstated, Packers seek trade, Favre signed by Jets. Instead, we got the polit-bureau tea-leaves-reading version, where every time he took a shit we were subjected to a full report--and it's still going on! Even at the moment when our sporting eyes should be riveted to Beijing.

There are more TV channels than ever, but proportionately less that's worth watching. And all the Phelps's in the world aren't going to change that.

Georgia On Our Mind

2008-08-12T10:19:00.004-05:00

With the latest news that Russia has drawn only a dotted line on its incursion into Georgian territory, I wanted to point my gentle readers toward a well-done piece on the politics of that situation and our own.

Gregory Djerejian of The Belgravia Dispatch has an excellent, pithy piece on the motions in Eastern Europe and the superficial and naive administration understanding that brought us to this pass. And which McCain would seemingly double-down on.

A good thumbnail of the situation, including reference to foreign policy heavyweights George Kennan and Henry Kissinger, is followed up by a summary of the evolution of US policy toward Georgia over the last seven years. He concludes:

If we mean to help the Georgians escape an even worse fate, we must summon up the intelligence and humility to have a dialogue with Putin, Medvedev, Sergie Lavrov, Vitaly Churkin and the rest of them based on straight talk (not of the McCain variety, and if we can somehow find a messenger of the stature and talent to deliver the message in the right way, hard these days), to wit: we screwed up overly propping this guy up and he got too big for his britches, we understand, but for the sake of going forward strategic cooperation (and don't mention Iran here, at least not as the first example)--as well as stopping further civilian loss of life--agree to work with us in good faith towards a status quo ante as much as possible, don't enter Tbilisi, and throw show-boats Sarkozy/Kouchner a bone with some possible talk of a going forward EU peacekeeping role (if non-binding, for the time being). This is roughly what we should be saying/doing now, not having the President step up to the White House mike fresh back from the sand volleyball courts of Beijing to gravely declare Russia's actions are "unacceptable in the 21st century."

A side dish to his policy recommendations is a brief explication of the McCain response as a pattern for a McCain Presidency. His take, in short? "If you think you've seen myopic and naive, well, bbbaby, you ain't seen nuthin' yet."

Yukon River Lodge: Part III

2008-08-05T18:25:00.015-05:00

This is the final part of a three part piece. Part I, Part II. Click on images for a larger view.

Yukon River from YRL

Shortly after setting up home on the river, Sam and Tamara went in on a fishwheel with a native Rubyite named Dale. They split the fish and share in maintaining the wheel. Just what that might mean on a yearly basis became clearer to me late in the week. A few days of high water had multiplied the amount of driftwood on the river. A massive raft of it built up on, and under, the wheel and we spent a mostly unsuccessful morning trying to get it all loose. In the end, we pulled the fence and unhooked the spar, hoping that the wheel would drift in toward shore and the flotsam would be pulled past it by the current. With few fish and fewer days to harvest them, Sam is inclined to leave it as it lies.

Even in a short-run year, we enjoyed two meals of fresh King Salmon. Perhaps next year there will be more fish.

Over the course of the week, we have raised the exterior walls for the first floor above a walkout basement, and completed a fair portion of the interior framing as well. There will be no further upward progress, other than a three-gabled roof. Height is hard to heat.

Sam and Larry started the work almost two years ago. With a chainsaw, a portable mill and a John Deere tractor barged down the river from Fairbanks, they harvested the timber that has become the framing and cleared and dug the site for the foundation. A small cabin has been built for Sam and Tamara to winter in. A garden is planted. A pole barn is up. A frontier “home depot” of stickered lumber, rough-sawn from the jobsite, is nearly depleted.

Eventually these will be the walls of the Yukon River Lodge. There will be three guest rooms for up to six guests. There will be a cathedral-ceiling in the great-room, overlooking the river. There will be a screened-in porch on which to rock and watch the Yukon river roll by, and think about the fish to catch in the Melozitna: pike, graying, salmon. The Nowitna National Wildlife Refuge is just around the bend. The ghost-town of Kokrines still lies rotting under the hills. If you come, you may, like me, be lucky enough to know a grizzly was in camp the night before, without having first hand proof.

Tamara has a gift for writing. It brings her a little extra work here and there; a newsletter for the Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges, for example. In the Lodge’s online site, she gives her voice free reign in writing about her new home:

A morning of memories emerge from partly cloudy skies and pewter sheen logs that once drifted down the high waters of the Yukon River, now stopped short of their Norton Sound destination before me on the spit. The sun glistens off the river, shines warmly and exposes the deep greens of summer. And, finally, sitting in a pool of sunlight, I’m pulled out of the haze I have been in the last few weeks. It was cold last night - cold for Interior Alaska in July with lows around 39ºF or so here. Thankfully not cold enough for the garden to be frosted. Although the recent rains have left the garden well watered up on the hill off the river, I can hear the plants plead for more sun and heat as they reach that vital time of growth in the middle of a cooler than normal summer.

And what are they planting on that hill but the hope that you’ll come and a promise to welcome you in?

If Sam has been the muscle of this effort, Tamara has been the rudder. It is she who keeps the world aligned and people fed and bills paid. They like to joke that Sam, when he ventures to Ruby to run errands and pick up mail, is like a lost child—he needs a note pinned to his jacket: “My name is Sam Clark. I am supposed to go to the post office and mail two packages. Please be sure to give me a receipt." But Sam would never be lost for long. He can talk to anyone--even the stray BLM agent who, sadly, was born without a personality.

They make a wonderful, complimentary team.

Two years ago, Sam and Tamara had been living in Two Rivers, a community east of Fairbanks on the road to Chena Hot Springs. It was their sixth year in Alaska. Prior to moving to Alaska in February of 2000, they had been living in Orono, Maine. Sam was working part-time for a forest products company and completing his undergraduate in Forestry at the Univeristy of Maine, Orono while Tamara was working for the University library and taking graduate classes in Counseling. Work was frustrating Sam—there didn’t seem to be much opportunity. The winter previous, Tamara had talked Sam into buying some sled dogs. They had a short string— three pups—and ALASKA was still looming in Sam’s mind.

“I wanted to just quit and go, but Tamara wouldn’t go unless we had work,” said Sam. So they made a deal. If Sam could find them work, Tamara would agree to go. “That was a Friday. I got on the phone and by Monday I had us jobs at a lodge on Lake Minchumina. Eleven days later we were packed and on the road.” Minchumina is on the edge of Denali National Park, 150 air miles southwest of Fairbanks. Sam was to be a wilderness guide and Tamara would also guide during summer months and work in the office in what proved to be the ideal apprenticeship for each of them.

“We took a bush plane from Fairbanks to the lake. From the air, our boss pointed out the lodge, and he pointed out the trail to get there. Then he landed 6 miles away,” said Sam. “We got out, and he said, ‘OK, here’s the snowmachine. You know how to run one? Good. See you later.’ And he left. He was a throw-you-in-to-the-deep end kind of guy.” Three days later, Sam, who had never run a dogsled with more than six dogs, was guiding Lodge guests over snow-covered trails behind a 12-dog team. It was a baptism by ice, but they both weathered the storm.

It wasn’t the ideal work environment, though. The tech-bubble had burst and the lodge couldn’t guarantee them jobs for the summer. There were no other employers in that small community. After a year at Lake Minchumina, sadly, they moved to Two Rivers. Tamara got a job with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Career Services department recruiting teachers to work in Alaska’s bush schools. Tamara’s job gave them healthcare and allowed her to work on her masters again. Sam began to piece tree-work together for some summer money and in the winter he began working for a dog-food supplier. From a work perspective, that went pretty well. Sam is sharp, and he works hard, shows up on time. He was offered a manager’s role—more than that, actually. The owner was ready to turn the operation over to Sam entirely, and Sam was prepared to accept. It meant full-time work, security, the ability to live in Alaska with a reliable income and to mush dogs in the winter.

About a week before he was to take the manager’s role, Ann and Larry came for a visit. Ann asked, “Is this what you want?”

Well, what they wanted was to live in Alaska and run dogs. This was going to make that possible, so, yeah. It’s what they wanted.

Ann rephrased: “If you could do anything, what would you do?” Different answer.

“I would build and open a wilderness lodge on the Yukon River.” But that was out of the question. Sam and Tamara didn’t have the money or the time. It just wasn’t an option: it was a dream—like, “what if you won the lottery?” More a way to torture yourself than a plan.

Ann asked, “What if we helped you?”

Sam and Tamara pushed back at this: you can’t just wave money at this; this isn’t a thing to be done on a whim. This isn’t a thing to be done on a whim in a place like Maine, where you can get to the road, you can get to the hospital, and if things don’t work out you can stay with a friend. But in a place where everything you need that can’t be taken right off the land has to be shipped in by small boat or barge, a place that is pitch dark for half the year and so cold that trees crack and the creek freezes to its bed in 6 feet of ice—a hope, a dream, just doesn’t much matter. This thing takes time. And planning. And money. And work—lots of work. And even then…

But if there is something missing in our American hearts, then maybe it is in Alaska. Maybe it’s sitting on a bluff by the Yukon River, hiding in 40 acres of spruce and birch-stands, nestled under the Kokrine hills, waiting to be milled up, banged together, and roofed with steel against the winter storms.

For Tamara and Sam, that something lives in their sled-dogs as they raise a communal howl at an outboard motor still minutes down river from human hearing. That something comes in through the door behind them in the winter and settles around their table at noon in the dimness: The quiet immensity of the land; the breathing vastness of an arctic night; the strange liberty of space and emptiness, filled with life and empty of speech.

There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting;
It's luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder,
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It's the stillness that fills me with peace.

From “The Spell of the Yukon” by Robert Service, 1907

New Pats' Pulpit post up.

2008-08-04T21:38:00.002-05:00

Brett Farve, Rolling Rock, Kevin Faulk and Training Camp

Pay to Play

2008-08-04T12:57:00.006-05:00

In 1959, when deejay Phil Lind of Chicago's WAIT revealed that he had accepted $22,000 in exchange for playing a record, his life was threatened and he had to get police protection.

On June 16, 2008, John McCain flipped his flop on off-shore drilling, a prospect he once opposed.

On June 24, 2008, he received a nice, "Thanks for playing our record!" gratuity from the Hess oil family, to the tune of over $256,000:

Name	Status	Amout	Date
J. Barclay Collins	Hess Corp. Attorney	$28,500	19-Jun
John B. Hess	Hess Corp.Executive	$28,500	24-Jun
Susan K. Hess	Homemaker	$28,500	24-Jun
Norma W. Hess	Retired	$28,500	24-Jun
John J. O'Connor	Hess Corp. Executive	$28,500	24-Jun
Lawrence Ornstein	Hess Corp. Senior VP	$28,500	24-Jun
John Reilly	Hess Corp. Executive	$28,500	24-Jun
Alice Rocchio	Hess Corp. Office Manager	$28,500	24-Jun
John Scelfo	Hess Corp. Senior VP of Finance	$28,500	24-Jun
F. Borden Walker	Hess Corp. Businessman	$28,500	24-Jun

^{table from TPM}

That's a nice little thank you, if you ask me. (As a side note: Wow! That's one grateful office manager--either that or Hess pays it's office managers a little bit more than average.) As Paul Krugman notes,

A McCain campaign ad says that gas prices are high right now because “some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America.” That’s just plain dishonest: the U.S. government’s own Energy Information Administration says that removing restrictions on offshore drilling wouldn’t lead to any additional domestic oil production until 2017, and that even at its peak the extra production would have an “insignificant” impact on oil prices.

Still, if you drill, you get paid. Considering the profits reaped by oil companies, $285,000 is an insultingly small tip.

I'd be pissed, too, John.

UPDATE: From TPM, it turns out that ol' Alice the Office Manager was joined in her largesse by her husband Pasquale, a track foreman for Amtrak. The couple rent their home in Flushing, Queens, where the median household income is $58,069. The two also maxed out their yearly single-candidate limit at $2,300 each. For those of you counting at home, that's $61,600 in campaign contributions this year alone from an office manager and a track foreman. My friends, it would seem I am in the wrong industry.

Yukon River Lodge: Part II

2008-08-02T16:16:00.004-05:00

Part II of a 3 part piece. Part I

They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,
They have soaked you in convention through and through;
They have put you in a showcase; you're a credit to their teaching --
But can't you hear the Wild? -- it's calling you.
Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star agleam to guide us,
And the Wild is calling, calling . . . let us go.

From "The Call of the Wild" by Robert Service, 1907

Trumpeter Swans

Five days later, there is a cloud of mosquitoes trumpeting around my head and face. They sound a single, unison note that is almost loud enough to compete with speech. They aren’t landing: unlike your typical Maine mosquito, which laughs at OFF and scoffs at DEET, these bugs seem to respect the spray. But my god! How they swarm. They land on my shoulder and I crush them, wiping away a dozen per swipe, only to see them instantly replaced.

A sharp breath would result in a snack.

If it weren’t for the fact that I don’t want to look like a pansy in front of Sam, I’d be running my butt back to the boat. But even Sam is impressed: “I’ve seen them worse but this is pretty good. Let’s get out of here.” We’re standing on the verge of a meadow, several miles up Twin Slough. Twin Slough is a stream about 18 miles east of the town of Ruby on the Yukon River. The water of the slough is dark with tannins, leached out of a small part of the vast sub-tundra wetlands that make up much of the Yukon River Valley.

Like the mother river, Twin Slough winds its way through graceful ox-bows and switch-backs. As we retreated from the Yukon, the banks had gradually fallen back, the land softening and flattening, the trees fading from spruce and aspen to “Alaskan willow” and alder and even, perhaps, a tamarack or two. We passed a field of high-bush blueberries. The banks were dotted here and there with arctic poppy, lupine, monk’s hood, even some joe-pye weed. After 6 miles or so, the slough ended. It didn’t reduce to a trickle or fade into a network of runs and rills—it simply ended in a small pond in the middle of grassy wetland. “Moosey,” Sam rightly said: it is perfect moose habitat.

And where there are moose, there are bear. Early in spring Sam took a black bear on the bank by a broad curve in the slough. We had eaten some of him last night and it was damn good: flavorful and rich without being gamey. “He was a spring bear, too,” Sam marveled. The bear had been relatively thin and, perhaps, a little unwary or over-hungry from his long hibernation. But the meat had been good, and would hold the Clarks – Sam and Tamara – until fall, when moose season officially opens.

Black bear are not a favored species in Alaska. Everyone is entitled to take three of them. Sam and Tamara are entitled to six between them. Moose, on the other hand, are a different matter. There is both a season and a limit. Taking a cow is prohibited. Often, even in taking a bull the “trophy value,” that is, the antlers, must be destroyed. This is to discourage trophy hunting. Deep in the interior, however, there are few wardens watching. Sam is scrupulous. A conscientious subsistence hunter, he holds his fire on bears with cubs—at least early in the fall. A winter without meat is not a welcome option. But not everyone is so punctilious with their bullets—be the game bear, moose, or anything else.

We have nosed the boat into the bank of the slough and followed a game trail through a narrow break of trees and under-story to put eyes on a meadow, betrayed from the slough by open sky where dark forest should have been. Meadows, ponds and potholes off the slough like this are fine places to find game—to see or to hunt—and Sam wanted to check it out. No big animals in the meadow today, but plenty of mosquitoes. We head back to the boat.

It is getting late for dinner, though it is as light as mid-afternoon. The sky is grey, undecided. Perhaps it will rain, perhaps not. Interior Alaska gets little rain, though the ground is as wet as a sponge—12 to 15 inches per year. Though it has been spitting at us all day, it won’t amount to much in the end. Sam puts the boat “on step,” that is, on plane: gathering enough speed so that the shallow “v” of the hull no longer plows through the water but skims across the surface like a perpetually skipped stone.

We wind our way down the slough toward the Yukon, the Kokrine Hills playing hide-and-seek behind the trees. The banks of Twin Slough gradually rise from low berms to abrupt cuts and the flora show more spruce. Their needle-like profiles don’t “cone” like a dunce-cap, but shoot straight up like narrow silos. On one bank, a tree leans at a crazy angle over the slough, its roots grasping desperately, patiently, at the silty soil of riverbank. Its equilateral reflection is a perfect copy on the glassy surface of the slough until we race by, headed to the cabin for a late dinner.

We have seen two pairs of moose, both a cow with a calf. Two, maybe three red-tailed hawks. Three trumpeter swans, the pair with 5 cygnets in tow. Two pacific loons, a family of Shoveller ducks (Micione for the Cajuns in the audience), and a tree-full of what I think are probably white-wing crossbills that burst into the air as we and the hawk that was pacing us passed their roost. The crossbills are having quite a summer: A bumper crop of cones in the spruce hangs like bunches of grapes all along the river.

An owl swooped, ghost-like across our path, too quick for eyes to pick its traits and pin its ethereal glide to earth by naming it.

The shoveller ducks swam away as we slid up to them on the way in. First casually, then with increasing urgency until suddenly the ducklings dove to the bottom and the adults took off in front of us. Behind, hiding beneath the surface, the babies clung by their bills to the roots of grasses or stray sticks. Ahead, the adults led us warily on, landing from time to time then flying, drawing us away from their offspring.

At the mouth of the slough, where it joins the Yukon behind an island, a narrow channel communicates with the main river. Accordingly, Sam slowed the four-stroke Honda and made his course deliberately. As we idled through the turns and made our way into the river, the strong tea color of the slough mixed into the coffee-with-cream glacial till of the Yukon in a gradually vanishing rivulet.
(continued below)

Kokrines, mouth of Twin Slough

Kokrines from the Yukon. These hills are in the neighborhood of 5000 feet.

Motoring out of Deep Creek

Juvenile female, Deep Creek; raining.

Kokrines from Twin Slough.

Trumpeter swans, Twin Slough

We approach the creek and the bluff that braces Yukon River Lodge against the river from up-stream, and Jackson stands on the precipice, waiting for his master. Old Jackson is retired — a stout-hearted sled dog, an Alaskan husky, Jackson is the apotheosis of the breed: No pure-breeding nonsense here, no papers, no evaluation of carriage or brow-line. Alaskan huskies are selected for a simple, singular trait: their need and capacity to pull. Fastened in the traces of the sled, Sam and Tamara’s dogs turn themselves inside-out with eagerness. There can be no mistaking it: I challenge any human heart to witness a sled-dog as she waits to be let on the trail and deny the joy you see. Fulfillment at that pitch will forever be denied human kind.

Sam, though he might not wish me to say it, has deep tenderness for Jackson. Jackson hurt his back in the traces of the sled a winter or so ago, pulling at the head of the team. Pride and want made him beg for the harness again, but it was beyond him. There is a small peal of guilt that rings softly in Sam's voice when he talks of Jackson—you can see he feels fault. “That dog has done enough work,” he says. “That dog has done more for me than you could ever ask.”

Jackson, for his part, has as his birthright a dog’s sublime forgiveness for his master. And Tamara and Sam stand by their workers—neurotic Dillon, barking at every new face; Red Dog, policing the dog run; Daisy, shedding now and sitting in a divan of fur—as any devoted leader would look after his men. They have nearly 30 dogs in their charge, including one or two who, like Jackson, are more pets than employees.

Dogs are no longer necessary for Alaskan winter travel. Snow machines are faster, and they eat less. But many people, both native and setters from outside, keep and mush sled dogs. Every summer, the Tanana Chiefs Council (with a little help from Bob Barker!) sends around a team of veterinary students to administer rabies vaccine to the dogs of the Yukon. They pay a visit while I’m there, complimenting Tamara on the cleanliness of the dog-yard and the health of the dogs. The truth is that dogs have been mere workers in Alaska for generations. Competitive mushers and wilderness guides have a strong interest in the health of their animals, but as snow machines have supplanted dogs as a means of transportation, poverty and neglect have made it hard on many animals.

The dog run.
Larry on poop patrol. Keeping the dog run neat is a shared daily task.

Two Things Middle Yukon

2008-08-02T15:15:00.005-05:00

Bank Swallow colony, east of the camp on the Yukon. Bank Swallows always nest in colonies; this is a rather large one.

Bank Swallows make good bear food, when the bears can get it--note the claw-marks. Click on the images to enlarge the view. In spite of this apparent mis-match, swallows in Alaska are not sorely pressed -- in Alaska.

As with many migratory species, the Bank Swallow is listed as an endangered specie in California where it is under threat from human activities.

The colony serves as a mutual-aid society. Swallows forage from dawn 'til dusk and strive to maintain close contact with the nest and young during that time. Swallows communicate good sources of food to one another, increasing efficiency and decreasing exposure among members of the colony.

Close-up of the Aspen Leaf Miner worm. Nearly all of Alaska's quaking aspen population is affected by the Leaf miner moth. Very tiny, the larvae live off the leaves and in less than a decade have spread throughout the state. The tracks of the miner worm give whole hillsides of trees a pale, gray-green cast. Trees can survive the moth, though it does retard their growth rate. Field biologists have found that trees that -- through genetic chance -- secrete nectar near their leaves are able to fend off the worm. The nectar attracts ants; the ants eat the miner larvae.

Dendrologists and entomologists are watching this remarkable explosion in the miner population carefully. Will the leaf miner ultimately destroy the aspen population? Will ants alter their feeding patterns to seek out the miner worm rather than the proxy nectar? Will aspens adapt as a population to produce nectar more commonly, thus attracting the ants and fighting the miner worm?

Trees have remarkable adaptive capacity that we only slightly understand. During the gypsy moth infestation of southern New England early in the 1980's, oak trees fought back against the tent caterpillar -- a gestational stage of the gypsy moth -- by altering the chemistry of their leaves. While this is remarkable in itself, even more amazing was their ability to warn other trees.

I can recall those summers from my childhood. Standing in the woods on a quiet early summer day, millions of masticating caterpillars created a persistent susseration that sounded like light rain. What I couldn't hear were Oak trees under attack sending out a distress call in the form of jasmonic acid. The acid drifted out on the air from tree to tree, prompting unaffected Oaks to increase the toxicity of their own leaf chemistry in advance of the assault.ⁿ

Might not the Quaking Aspen develop a similar response? May it already? With nearly every acre of the Alaskan population affected, it is to be hoped.

n: See Reading the Forested Landscape by Tom Wessels.

New gig.

2008-07-31T23:10:00.002-05:00

Cool news from my end: I've been asked to be one of the front-page writers over at Pats Pulpit, a New England Patriots fanblog. Those of you who enjoy my writing about American Gridiron can chase me over there for at least one post a week.

Sorry, though, to those of you who are bored/disinterested/hostile to my football writing, 'cause I'm going to continue to post random thinks on this site as well--if it's in my head and socially acceptable, chances are it's going to show up on this site sooner or later.

I've already got a couple of stories up: Running Down the Line is a snapshot of where I think the Patriots' offensive line stands at the beginning of training camp; Camp Rules is an admonishment to hardcore fans (yes, sadly, like myself) to take pre-season reporting with a grain of salt.

My screen name over there is JohnHannahRules. When I was growing up in Giants country (Connecticut south of Hartford), John Hannah was one of the only things the Pats (then "Patsies") had going for them. Since it was already pretty clear that if I was going to do anything on the football field it was going to be in the trenches, he made a good football role model. I had a poster of him on my wall.

You can find a link to Pats Pulpit under the sports links, right.

Ruby, AK 99768

2008-07-31T19:56:00.005-05:00

1911-1917
click to enlarge

July 17, 2008
Click to enlarge.

I did not expect that.

2008-07-31T19:04:00.004-05:00

Huh. Sox finally traded Manny Ramirez. Sox give Manny to the Dodgers, pay the last $7million of his contract and give Brandon Moss and Craig Hanson to the Pirates in exchange for Jason Bay. Dodgers also sent some prospects to the Pirates to complete the deal. I don't really care about the Dodgers or the Pirates (if you couldn't tell), so I'm just going to look at this from the perspective of a Sox fan. (Plus, it's a good opportunity to bone up on html for tables.)

Bay is pretty good at Pittsburgh, especially compared to the 2008 regular season Manny:

Stats	Bay	Manny
BA	.282	.299
HR	22	20
RBI	64	68
OBP	.375	.398

That compares pretty well. Big Question: can Jason Bay hit as well against AL East pitching as he has in the NL central? Doubtful.

Even so, there's no way Bay is anything but an upgrade in the field, adjustment to the Wall included.

On the other hand, Manny is unquestionably a clutch post-season hitter and one of the hardest working at the art now in the game.

On the other hand, Bay isn't going to be slugging your traveling secretary, or sulking in the dugout during the Yankees series, or demanding to be traded every other year.

Manny is going to hit well out there--probably put on a show, even though he'd be better off as a DH in the AL than an outfielder in the NL (though the pitching over there is worse).

How will Big Poppy react? We can provide good lineup protection for him with Youk, Drew, or even Mike Lowell. If Bay maintains his production, this looks like a pretty clear case of addition by subtraction. Plus, Bay is about a third as expensive as Manny, freeing up some cash (creatively) to go after what we really need: some middle relief.

On Manny's parting words: Yeah? That's straight from his script. See? It says right here: player with noted exceptionalist streak expresses self-importance in tones of a righteous lover, daring the abused spouse to walk. Tra-la, tra-la, we walked.

On the Manny Era: I never had a problem with the guy, really. He was a flake, and if you took him on those terms, all the stories about "Manny being Manny" were boring, bordering on tiresome. When he was happy, he was the best hitter in the game--he even became a decent left-fielder in Fenway. And he very clearly loved playing (when he was playing), which is always joyful to watch. But this was bound to happen. Ever since we got rid of Pedro, Manny's had a hair across 'is arse for management.

So long, Manny. Thanks for the rings, you came as advertised, but this is the right thing for all of us. Kisses.

And you, dear reader, may think this is corny, but it makes perfect sense and I can't get it out of my head. In the words of Green Day,

For what it's worth,
it was worth all the while.

It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

That's en-ter-taaaaaain-ment!

2008-07-31T07:30:00.007-05:00

I've been recently captivated by DVDs of an animated series called The Venture Brothers. The fact that it's been out for two years tells you just how "Now" I am. Anyway, if you ever ill-spent your childhood Saturdays watching Johnny Quest and appreciate just how hokey it was, I have a hunch you'll find the Ventures pretty funny.

There's a great essay by David Foster Wallace called "Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness From Which Probably Not Enough Has Been Removed" that hints at some of what I love about this show.

First of all, you've got to be the kind of person that thinks the title of that essay is a little funny all by itself. Then, you've got to be the sort that thinks Kafka's writing is also funny. If you're American, you probably qualify this by saying "Kafka is funny, but in an unfunny Frenchish way." And only to your friends when you think the DHS isn't listening.

Of course, you also have to be the sort of person who can seriously discuss an animated sit-com featured on Adult Swim by the light of Kafka and David Foster Wallace.

Anyway, the hint is as follows:

It's not that students don't "get" Kafka's humor but that we've taught them to see humor as something you get--the same way we've taught them that a self is something you just have. No wonder they cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke: that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home.

So, if you're the sort who finds that very premise "funny" in a (duh) Kafkaesque way, then you'll really appreciate The Venture Bros.

Or you'll just think it's kind of funny.

As everyone knows and Wallace points out, there is no quicker way to kill a joke than to explain what makes it funny. So I'll just give you the premise:

Dr. Venture (pictured above) is a "super-scientist" in the Saturday morning mode. But he's a failure: the no-account son of a truly great super-scientist. Venture has two sons, Dean and Hank, both stupid and caught in a post-50's mindset. It's not entirely their fault, we discover, as they're actually clones -- the "blanks" for which Venture keeps locked up for use as the boys get killed. Which they frequently do.

Venture also has a bodyguard named Brock Sampson, an agent assigned to him from the "Office of Secret Intelligence" to protect the Venture family from the enemies of Venture's father. Sampson is especially hilarious in the second season -- I think the writers caught on to the fact that they had a great foil. He's the only one who seems aware that he's caught up in a very stupid farce. His lines become a kind of exhausted, eye-rolling recitation of the obvious -- which everyone else is missing. Very ably voiced by Patrick Warburton's lugubrious monotone.

Central to the story is Venture's wanna-be nemesis: The Monarch. As in butterfly. He directs his henchmen -- another hilarious side story is the existential dilemma of "henching" -- against Venture for no reason other than he's determined to be someone's nemesis and has picked Venture (with whom he went to college). The Monarch is ever in peril of having his heart broken by Doctor Girlfriend (pictured), a smoking hot (and actually competent) Jackie-O look-like with a disturbingly deep voice.

The show is peopled with all kinds of villains and other wannabe's, mostly farcical representations of Saturday-morning staples, but including a cameo by an Uncle Duke/HST doppelganger. As an example of what I find funny:

The Monarch has been imprisoned and his henchmen cast to the winds. We catch up with Henchmen #21 and #24 (the only ones with names, sort of) at a support group: "Men Before Henchmen." They can't kick the henching habit, and 21 unintentionally subverts the group by encouraging another sad-sack to keep hope alive: his master might not, in fact, have been sucked into a jet-engine.

If you think that's funny, rent the vids. As Zissou says, "If not, then yes."

Like an Addict, I'm back...

2008-07-30T15:49:00.005-05:00

Damn it. I feel like Brokeback Ledger saying, "I can't quit you."

Football season is right around the corner, and like a junkie, shaking and scratching, here I am again: completely incapable of staying away. Even after the sickening absurdity of last season, I still bend down (way, way down) to drink at the firehose that is the American Sports Media Machine.

It has begun. Camp, that is. Coaches love it, fans love it, players hate it with great hate. As SI writer Stefan Fastis discovered, it is a way of life and a living, but the joy is in competition and camaraderie. The everyday, the grind, the lack of security, constant self-doubt, the discomfort and, by about the third day or so, pretty much constant pain--it's not so fun.

And as a conscious individual, I am of course aware of the incredible waste of resources represented by the sport at all levels, not to mention the dubious effects it has on young people.

Yet, here I am, right on schedule.

So, camp. Here are the smartest men on the team:

I'm not kidding. By position, NFL offensive linemen are the smartest guys on the field. As a matter of routine, since about 1970, NFL teams administer a modified IQ test called "The Wonderlic Test" to all players before signing them. (It's named for its developer EF Wonderlic, you perv.)

Because the NFL incessantly quantifies all quantifiable things (and is constantly on the look-out for a means to quantify qualitative things like "heart" or "character" or "desperation"), the scores have been maintained.

Before you get to feeling too high and mighty, here are some average scores for non-football professions:

Chemist: 31
Programmer: 29
Newswriter: 26
Sales: 24
Bank teller: 22
Clerical Worker: 21
Security Guard: 17
Warehouse: 15

So that's your range. Now, as to the beefy guys in the picture? Here are their scores:

Matt Light (LT): 29
Logan Mankins (LG): 25
Dan Koppen (C): 28
Stephen Neal (RG): 31
Nick Kaczur (RT): 29

That's right, smarty-pants. Stephen Neal has the same average Wonderlic score as a chemist. Keep in mind that they take the test during the scouting combine, after a full day of physical evaluations--running, jumping, shuttling, benching, squatting, etc. and etc. Of course, the smart agent has his client prepare for the test. But just as when folks prepare for the SAT, LSAT, GRE, or MCAT, some do better than others.

Big tip o'the cap to Ben Fry, the data visualization genius who does these kinds of representative graphs and charts both in his sleep and for fun, for putting together a revealing graphic on the topic. You can find it here, together with a discussion. I'm swiping the best one to post and beg his indulgence. Offense in blue, defense in red:

Yukon River Lodge: Part I

2008-07-29T18:50:00.020-05:00

This is Part I of a three-part piece I've written about a week spent on the Yukon River, helping to build a wilderness lodge. I'll be posting parts II and III through the week. Click on pictures fo a larger view.

Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley
with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God's sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

From "The Call of the Wild," by Robert Service

In the summer of 1980, on a farm in Windham, Maine, Ann and Larry Clark packed their kids in the car for a classic American vacation: Drive across the country. From Maine to the West—a thousand sights to see, America the Beautiful. Young Sam Clark, though, had a singular itch in his nine year old head: Alaska! We’re going to Alaska! Alaska had fixed itself in Sam’s mind from the beginning of the trip. Like Jack’s Magic Seeds, from Maine to Washington, Alaska grew and loomed. “We got all the way to Prince Rupert – you know, in Canada, British Colombia—like 30 miles away. And we had to turn back,” he told me. “I was crushed.” They had run out of summer—school was starting all the way across the continent. Alaska would have to wait.

“Alaska” has never been simply a name. It is an icon, with a mythology that starts with Jack London’s "Tales of the Yukon" and traces a vein through our culture like the gold that induced a swarming generation of prospectors to clamber over its every rock. From Robert Service’s “Songs of a Sourdough” to the Grizzly Man; from Dick Proenneke’s wilderness outpost to the 1150-mile cacophony of the Iditarod; from “the Slope” and Prudhoe Bay to Denali and Chris McCandless and the Devil’s Thumb and the Kenai Peninsula; Caribou and Reindeer to King Salmon and sleek Grayling; from Anchorage to Valdez, to Exxon Valdez: Alaska works a fantasy on the American mind. We seek it, we long for it. There is something missing—it’s in Alaska. Our cultural inheritance, our frontier instinct, somehow knows that the last blank space on the map is Alaska.

Not true, of course. Every inch of Seward’s Folly has been walked on and examined in minute detail for two things at least: Yellow Gold and “Black Gold.” Nevertheless, it retains the lightest population density of all the United States, 1.1 people per square mile. It also retains its mystique. The allure of wilderness there has never died. Since 1958 Alaska has flown the stars and stripes. But in spite of those 50 years, the other 49 states remain “outside.”

A solid line of prospectors marches up and over the Chilkoot Pass at the height of the Gold Rush.

I am flying to Alaska. I am not going to fish, to hunt, or to hike. I am going to bang nails. It is that skill that has gotten me on this plane for free, it is that skill that’s taking me from Boston to Seattle to Fairbanks on jets. It will get me on a twin-prop plane to tiny Ruby. It will get me on a small aluminum boat to motor up the Yukon River. It will help me help two people to build a future together on an isolated stretch of that river, a wilderness lodge. There they will trade “outsiders” brief glimpses of a young, raw world, meals of fresh salmon and open hospitality, in exchange for the means to live in the midst of great, expanded silence.

I never thought a hammer would bring me this far.

From the air, the river valleys of interior Alaska look like a giant, half-drained puddle. The Chena River flows through the city of Fairbanks. West of town, it is joined by the Tanana (pictured) and later, the Yukon. All along this expansive plain, potholes, ponds, marshes and sloughs shine back at an aircraft passenger like so much spilled silver. The topsoil is shallow and the rivers cut their way through it as water drains from a sand-bar on the ocean. Through their post-ice-age lives, the great rivers of interior Alaska have carved alternate courses, often pursuing many options in concert so that from the sky a river looks like a vast, unraveling braid. Its fly-away strands may eventually become one of the countless ox-bow ponds—curiously crescent-shaped slivers of water, connected to the river only through the porous loam of topsoil. Even these ponds have no sure independence, however, as the meandering Yukon may one day reclaim them. Who knows but that one spring’s vicious and inexorable break-up of ice might deposit new sand-bars and shoals, redirecting this massive flood down one of its ancient paths?

At the height of the gold-rush, flat-bottomed stern-wheelers plied this bewildering channel. Raw gold motivated thousands upon thousands of speculators, prospectors and miners. In their wake came more calculating individuals: merchants, salesmen, outfitters. A paying claim is uncertain. What is certain is that men will need clothes, food, equipment, an occasional bath. Women. Whiskey. And not necessarily in that order.

To satisfy these needs, erstwhile prospector, Akron native and determined merchant E.T. Barnette commissioned Captain Charles Adams and his steamship, Lavelle Young, to get him up river to Tanana Crossing. The one rail line to the interior was slated to cross the gold river Tanana at a particular spot—the “Crossing.” Here, at the crossroads of steel and steam, E.T. Barnette would establish a trading-post. Then a town, then a city. He would be rich. Captain Adams would get him to Tanana Crossing; he would take it from there. At least that was the goal. Written in to the contract between them was a more open ended promise: Adams would take Barnett as far as his ship could go.

They steamed the Tanana River for hundreds of miles without reaching the crossing. Balked by shallow water, Barnette persuaded Adams to try the Chena. The going rumor was that the Chena was merely a slough that connected to the Tanana. In truth, it is a river. Barnette didn’t find out the truth on that trip. Again, the shoals of those broad, flat, shallow floods frustrated his aims. The Lavelle was stopped.

Unable to make Tanana Crossing by river and true to the terms of his contract, Captain Adams dumped Mr. Barnette, his wife Isabella and 130 tons of freight on the banks of the Chena river, having brought them all as far as he could.

Figuring that a trading post is where the goods are, Barnette set up shop. The ultimate result was Fairbanks Trading Post, named for Indiana Republican Charles Fairbanks—a political expedience at the request of one of Barnette’s investors.

Barnette’s Fairbanks tottered on the brink of instability, an unruly collection of stores, saloons and streets laid out in optimism, propped up by salesmanship, showmanship and gamesmanship. Finally, consummate conniver E.T. struck a deal with one Judge Wickersham that resulted in the construction of a jail and some government offices. This indicia of legitimacy and order (so far as it went) swung the pendulum from rival Tanana City toward Barnette’s trading post and firmly rooted this speculative collection of miners, traders, opportunists, “last-chancers,” sourdoughs, prostitutes and missionaries to the thin Alaskan soil. To this day, the city remains the last firm outpost of “outside” civilization on the way to Prudhoe Bay.

Two hundred and thirty air-miles west of Fairbanks, on the south shore of the Yukon river, lies the town of Ruby. Once, briefly, over 1000 miners and townspeople lived here. Now fewer than 200 folks remain, mostly Athabascan Alaskans, working mostly seasonal jobs and hunting and trapping. There is a gravel airstrip, and occasional barge service. No roads connect Ruby to other towns.

I flew in to Ruby in a Beechcraft 1900. On its way to Galena with 14 people on board, it touched down on Ruby’s gravel strip and unloaded but two passengers: myself and a woman returning from a trip to the city. I was met at the runway by a Frontier Alaska agent in a Toyota pickup truck. He secured the mail and me and drove me to town—to “The campground” on Front Street.

The campground is a covered picnic area with an open-pit grill on a bluff above the river. It’s a place for local events, and a place to meet your boat. For me, it was a place to find Ann and Larry Clark. They’re Sam’s parents and my main connection to this adventure. I met Ann and Larry because they are trying to preserve that farm in Windham. They need to get value out of it, but they don’t want to see the land and forests they’ve managed for a lifetime turned into tract housing. They want to see it farmed and used; not developed. I’m trying to help them. When they found out that I used to handle a hammer for my living, they invited me to come to Ruby (on their air-miles) for a week in exchange for helping Sam to build a dream by the Yukon River.

Ruby cliffs from the Campsite
Kokrine Hills and Yukon River from the Campsite

Ann and Larry are already at the Campsite when I arrive. I throw my backpack in the boat and we push off from the silty shore. I still have 13 miles to go, this time east, up the river. It is a clear day, around 70 degrees. We pull out into the current.

We are headed to Yukon River Lodge, still nothing but a pressure-treated basement, half decked. It perches on a northern bluff above the river about 13 miles east of Ruby. The property is split by a small stream, unnamed on any map, which is their source for fresh water. Over years, the stream has created a spit of gravel in the river-bottom, forming an eddy that protects a gravel beach. Driftwood has lodged against the spit, a silvering break-water subject to high river whims, yet remarkably constant in form from ice-out in the spring until the river freezes in October. That bluff and spit will be our light-posts, together with a solar array, as we motor northward along the wide breast of the river.

Headed east from Ruby

The Yukon is nearly a mile wide here, but its surface still boils with massive up-wellings and spiraling currents that betray an immense volume of water passing by in seeming placidity. It has been a warm, wet summer—wet near Ruby, warm in the mountains to the east. The warmer it is 500 miles away, the more ice and snow melt, the higher the river. As winter comes and melt turns to freeze, the level of the Yukon will drop and the water will clear to a crystal transparency. When that happens, it will be short weeks before the water freezes, and a month and a half to eight weeks before it becomes a winter highway, traversable by snow-machine and dogsled. In between, Yukon River Lodge will be completely cut off.

Yukon east of the eddy, first night.

But now it is summer and the salmon are running. Well, “running” might be a bit strong this year: the pulses of migrating fish have been uncharacteristically anemic. According to the fish report on KIYU "the voice of the Yukon," only 120,000 Kings are expected to come by Ruby during the week of my visit, and many of these are destined for Canada. There is a limit on what can be taken from the river here, as the natal spawning grounds of many of these fish are still some six- to seven hundred miles away.

Even so, there are prescribed times a fishwheel still can be run, and we pass a working wheel just a mile out of town. Fishwheels are a Japanese import, though of long standing here. They float in the river, held out from shore by a spar and anchored by a cable to something solid on land up-river. Using the current to drive it, the “wheel” alternates paddle, basket, paddle, basket through the water. Fish swimming upstream to spawn—mostly Chum and King salmon right now—are guided toward the wheel by a gate on the shore-side, scooped up in the basket and deposited in a holding box. Finicky (or, as I like to call them, “smart”) fishwheel owners also fasten a bucket to the wheel that scoops up river water and keeps the fish in the box well-doused.

I’ve never seen anything quite like it as we trundle slowly past, its baskets dipping with perfect regularity into the river’s flow. Every trip I take, there seems to be one thing that signals for me that I’ve arrived somewhere new, somewhere distinctly “other” than my life has yet seen. In Alaska, I might’ve thought this would be a wolf, or a Byronic snow-capped mountain, perhaps a grizzly bear. Instead, it’s this simple fishwheel, spinning in a riverine harmonic. I will be on this river for only 6 days.