The Explanatory Power Of Evolutionary Theory

I'm reading Ernst Mayr's massive The Growth of Biological Thought, an older yet still valuable introduction (for me, at any rate) to the history and development of the sciences of biology, with particular attention to the qualitative aspect of biology (as opposed to the centrality of quantification in the physical and chemical sciences). I'm still early in the book (it's a long slog, written as a textbook for advanced undergrads, or perhaps an introductory text for graduate students) yet, the overwhelming power of evolutionary theory, especially the twin concepts of population thinking and natural selection became clear as I was reading Mayr's all-too-brief synopsis of the developments in molecular biology and ethology (the study of animal behavior) in the 20th century.

The reality is quite simple. Studying myriad animal behaviors without having evolutionary theory as the background would leave one puzzled as to both "how" and "why" various behaviors developed. With evolution through the process of natural selection as one's operating assumption, and its central concepts of population thinking - any species is a group of conspecific individuals, unique in its own right, varying slightly in adaptive fitness - and natural selection - over time, individuals in a given population pass on their genetic material that are best adapted for survival - any number of behaviors, from predator avoidance to mating and parenting become clear. Without understanding the behavior, like any other adaptation, is part of a creatures genetic endowment, and that those behaviors more likely to ensure an individual's survival are more likely to be passed on to the population as a whole, the entire thing becomes meaningless, random, and unimportant.

Similarly, the realization that various proteins and other biological molecules, while strikingly similar in atomic makeup - carbon, of course, as well as oxygen, phosphorus, hydrogen, and nitrogen - are nevertheless strikingly unique in their physical structure (Mayr discusses all too briefly the breakthrough x-ray microscopy and electron microscopy provided by giving us access to the actual 3-D structure of these molecules). Their physical structure was discovered to be key to their functions, also very highly specific. These molecules, proteins whose development is the primary function of DNA (itself nothing more than a complex protein), are not just unique in structure and function, but vary according to species. Why would one species develop one protein with a structure only slightly altered - say, a nitrogen atom in a different space - from another species? Only through the process of natural selection.

Population thinking, combines with genetics and natural selection, reminds us that any given population has varying degrees of unique individuals, with random alterations in the genetic code scattered throughout the entire population. Evolution is occurring at all levels, and throughout a given population, all the time. Only through grasping the concept of "population" and its role in natural selection, does the entire array of biological breakthroughs in the 20th (and on into the 21st) century make sense.

Republican Governors Losing Their Minds

The more I think about Sarah Palin's resignation, the more I'm convinced that another Republican governor has just lost it.

Mark Sanford abandons his post, and then spends a couple news conferences waxing creepily on his "soul mate", without addressing the issue that he left without telling his staff, or leaving anyone in charge.

Now, Sarah Palin quits, blames the media, and people think it's some deep strategy, rather than, you know, her just being incapable of governing and quite possibly being a tad bit on the loony side.

I'd blame the water, but I doubt Alaska and South Carolina share an aquifer. I'd blame Obama (like Rush did for Sanford's goofiness) but . . . no. No, I think these people were always crazy and incapable of the administration of state government; reality is dope slapping them and they can't handle it, that's all.

Of course, this doesn't bode well for other Republicans running for their various State houses. It isn't good advertisement for your party that two of its most visible governors have quite publicly gone funny.

Like Calling Halloween Revelers Devil Worshippers

The folks at The Washington Post have had a tough week - selling access to lobbyists and all that - so maybe the op-ed page editor missed this one trying to figure out how to start putting the pieces of the paper's shattered reputation back together.

. . . I'd like to suggest a little surgery that will make the symbol more appropriate today: Let's get rid of The Poem.

I'm talking about "Give me your tired, your poor . . . " -- that poem, "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, which sometimes seems to define us as a nation even more than Lady Liberty herself.

Inscribed on a small brass plaque mounted inside the statue's stone base, the poem is an appendix, added belatedly, and it can safely be removed, shrouded or at least marked with a big asterisk. We live in a different era of immigration, and the schmaltzy sonnet offers a dangerously distorted picture of the relationship between newcomers and their new land.

First, as to the contingency of the poem's inclusion on the Statue of Liberty, all I can say is: So what? The Declaration of Independence was ratified by the Continental Congress, at least acting as the committee as a whole, on July 2, but final voting and signing was delayed due to in-fighting among the delegates. So, is Independence Day really July 4th, or is it July 2nd? The colonials could have lost the war, and the Declaration would have been burned, its words a mere rumor 233 years later.

History is full of contingencies, which does not make their symbolic import any less meaningful for their being singular events that could have been otherwise.

We are a nation of immigrants, from the Spanish settlers from Florida to the west coast, to the French from the upper Mississippi through the northeast, to the English and Scots-Irish along the eastern seaboard - immigrants all. The various waves of "new" immigrants - Germans, Irish, Italians, Poles, Russians, Greeks, Ukrainians, Chinese, Mexican and Central American, on and on - have added to the wealth of our culture, and the beautiful kaleidoscope that is the American public. For tens of thousands, the sight of the Statue in New York harbor was a sign they had made it from the shtetls Russian and Poland; the arbitrary and capricious rule of monarchs in Austria-Hungary; the chaos of anarchy on the Italian peninsula and the misnamed "Holy Roman Empire". Whatever else their reasons may have been for coming here, they came to breathe a little easier, to work a little harder, to live their lives without interference. The nation they have made has rarely lived up to the ideals of Ms. Lazarus' poem - our nation has occasionally turned its back on those who yearn to breathe free, and the golden door has slammed shut, the light beside it extinguished in a short-sited desire for non-existent purity - but the two together - the Statue and the promise of America embedded in Emma Lazarus brief yet powerful words - give to us, and those who have come here, a vision of what America should be, and can be when we listen to the better angels of our nature.

To erase the words of the poem, to eradicate that vision in the name of historical "accuracy", would do violence to the hope and promise we offer the world. It would eradicate the idea that we offer the world a better vision of what it means to live, and live freely, to be both American and Irish, or Italian, or Greek, or Korean, to add to the whole without subtracting from the parts.

Ugly words and bad history have no place on the one day when all Americans should remember the promise our nation has made, the on-going experiment in liberty and self-governance that is the United States of America, and the many gifts so many people from far-flung places have given to us.

Saturday Rock Show - Independence Day Edition

Something different for your Independence Day celebration, it's Jefferson Airplane and "Volunteers In America":

Palin In Comparison UPDATE

Leaving aside the tabloid-like attention to the multiple dysfunctions of her family - which, in truth, are no different from most others, just writ large because of her role in national life last fall - I think Eric Kleefeld's take on Gov. Palin's announcement is both more interesting and important. Indeed, the whole TPM discussion on the matter seems to be spiraling in toward the simple reality that the multiple instances of (at the very least) unethical behavior would, given time, catch up with her. Whether it's harassing individuals through the state power, turning the state offices in to a private fiefdom for her cronies and friends, or the recent blitz of information on her relationship with members of the McCain campaign which show her not only in a bad light, but actively detrimental to the Republican Presidential campaign (this last, while hardly criminal, is some of the serious rough-and-tumble of politics that, apparently, she finds it difficult to take).

I'm not fond of depictions of Palin and her family as (in TBogg's phrase) Snowbillies, of discussions of her family, of her daughter and her life, or other aspects that reduce her personal foibles to the stuff of serious discussion. These distractions from the many reasons to be wary of her as a politician, captured nicely here by tristero (although I do not like the use of the word "hate" here), actually make her a sympathetic character. Part of what makes our politics less and less attractive to many people is the line between personal and public has been slowly erased over the past generation, to the point now where Gov. Mark Sanford waxes poetic on finding his soulmate at press conferences, and reporters continue to ignore the reality that he abandoned his office without leaving anyone in charge, regardless of the specific circumstances.

My guess is that Palin had her feelings hurt by recent revelations that her presence on the Republican ticket was viewed as a drag by members of the campaign staff; by the unfolding multiple investigations into possible criminal activity in the governor's office in Juneau; with her refusal to take federal stimulus funds, Palin is denying her state opportunities to build and repair infrastructure and improve employment.

In a place as cold as Alaska, serious heat must be difficult to take. The kitchen of the national spotlight and revelations of the many investigations in to her official conduct got to her, so she's leaving.

Buh-bye.

UPDATE: This interesting report on polls from the Presidential campaign last fall indicate something that, should it become widely-known, flies in the face of conventional wisdom.

The correspondence between dynamics in her ratings and dynamics in McCain vote intentions is astonishingly exact. Her marginal impact in vote-intention estimation models dwarfs that for any Vice-Presidential we are aware of, certainly for her predecessors in 2000 and 2004. And the range traversed by her favorability ratings is truly impressive. But why? We are unaware of any theory that opens the door to serious impact from the bottom half of the ticket.

Translated to mean - adding Sarah Palin to the ticket doomed McCain's chances at becoming President long before the economy went in to the tank. The first two graphs on the website, if juxtaposed, show quite clearly that Americans were running away from McCain before the financial crisis in September. It isn't the meltdown that doomed McCain, or his odd "suspension" of his Presidential campaign.

It was all Palin.

The moral of the story is simple. We have nothing to fear, electorally, from the right for a while. I believe even failure of Pres. Obama on major policy initiatives will not turn around Republican fortunes as long as they continue to adhere to far-right stances. All the blather is meaningless. The real worry isn't the right. It's corporate obstructionism to serious health-care reform, and bureaucratic obstructionism to repealing DADT. If the Democratic Party in Congress actually had some gumption, they'd laugh every time Mitch McConnell or some other doofus opens his or her mouth, and then go about the business of legislating.

The base loves her, but the truth is, the base is crazy.

Hate Plus Lies Equals The Family Research Council

It would be far more honest to just say, "Don't Let This Faggot Near Your Children!" In the end, all the crap about the "homosexual agenda" and "special rights" are meaningless drivel, meant to cover up the simple reality that they hate queers.

Pushing back is not enough. We need to continually call them out as the haters they are. Bigots. Prejudiced. Say it loud and often.

The Course Of Human Events

N.B.: I know it's a day early, but I'm going to be busy tomorrow - who gets married on the the Fourth, I mean really! - so I thought I'd do this now, while I was thinking of it.

It's a remarkable document. It has no legal force, or else there wouldn't have been a Civil War. It doesn't set forth a system of government. It doesn't order the new nation it declares now exists. Had the war gone badly, the signatories would most assuredly been transported to London for trial and execution. As such, the words at the end take on a meaning far deeper than simple "declaration".

Yet, it is, nevertheless, the piece of paper that created the United States. two decades before the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, we Americans made the far more important, and practical, and workable, declaration that we will make our own way, without kings and parliaments an ocean away, for good or ill, because it is both a right nations have, and a burden a free people bear. Let us still recognize both the opportunity and the dread weight we Americans bear as free people.

One final note. The Declaration was ordered to be read in towns and villages throughout the newly-declared United States of America, so it might be a good idea to read it aloud, or perhaps listen to a recording of it being read. Just to get a feel for it.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Not Norm, Just Common

Saw this little video of the decriminalization of same-sex practices in India, and loved the poster I saw on the screen-cap. It reads "Heterosexuality is not the norm, it's just common."

Love it.

A cheer or two for India.

Not Only Are They Clueless, They Hate America And Democracy - Just Days Before Independence Day

AAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!!

Ignorance piled on top of stupid with a dollop of creepy makes it all go down easy, but come back up in a rancid stench.

Like Michael Sheuer, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the rest of the nutty-right, we now get musings on a coup d'etat and its beneficent possibilities.

Hey, Eric, I got something to tell you - the Republicans have been in charge for the vast majority of the past generation and pretty much screwed up everything. We had an election last fall (remember it, it was in all the papers . . .) and you guys LOST because crazy-stupid-right-wing government is an abject failure.

How much more evidence is needed that the right-wing in America is a font of danger? Not a serious threat to our stability, but certainly dangerous in the potential for harm to innocent lives. All this musing about coups and the inherent danger of our gay-Marxist-Islamist-terrorist President is fueling the fires smoldering on the right. It has already boiled over in violence - from Idaho and Oklahoma City in the 1990's to Pittsburgh, Nashville, and even Washington, DC in the past year - and we can expect much more of it.

Here's a clue, if you have a big enough glove to catch it, Eric. There are mechanisms to register your discontent with our current governance. Write a letter to your Congressional Representative and US Senator. Set up an organization to lobby for your pet issue(s). Give money to legitimate groups that will advocate on your behalf. Sitting on your duff in Alabama and writing about the benefits of the destruction of America only confirms that you are crazier than an outhouse rat.

Evidence For An Uncaring Universe

Somewhere in the Third World, an Indian Reservation, or some other sinkhole of poverty and despair, a potential future Nobel Laureate is dying, and this guy is wasting his oxygen.

If Newt Speaks And No One Listens, Has He Made A Sound?

Who gives a shit what he thinks?

Changing The Argument

Neil doesn't like it when people point out that pro-life arguments aren't really about the Holy Fetus. In fact, Neil doesn't like it when he loses control of the terms of any debate; he can't apply "logic" and point out phalluses, er, fallacies, and somehow "win" the argument.

I would be amused, or concerned, if I cared. The simple reality is this - the right managed to hold itself together through the Civil Rights movement (except for the racist fringe who will always be there, of course). It was the one-two punch of the pill (1964) and legalized abortion on demand (1973) that set the stage for the culture wars and the politicization of the Christian right. Except for the Christian Identity folks, conservatives Christians could accept social, political, and legal equality for African-Americans, because they tended to be Christian, and the terms of the debate were, for the most part, "conservative" (adhering to constitutional principles, equality before God, etc.). The sexual emancipation of women, formerly a wholly-owned subsidiary of maleness, drove them batty.

Resurrecting certain ugly facts from the early conception-control movement (Margaret Sanger's indelicate support of eugenics and racism) allows anti-choice folks to paint the pro-choice movement with the brush of supporting the slow death of minorities through abortion. This isn't helped by the too-often-used arguments of some in the pro-choice movement of the poor, minority woman who needs abortion more than middle-class white women (I've never liked this particular argument, and cringe when I read or hear it).

The creation of the human embryo/fetus suddenly being a creature imbued with full Constitutional rights and an equal claim upon our moral feeling is actually a clever move. As a parent, I recognize the power inherent in pictures of a developing fetus - especially when it's my own. The problem, of course, is this is a distraction, a non-sequitur, and just plain wrong. The issue isn't the sacred pre-born. The issue is full human agency for women, a threat to small-penised men everywhere. As long as women are objects of male sexuality, they are no threat. Once free to make the full spectrum of choices that were formerly the sole provenance of men, they become not objects, but fully-realized subjects. As objects, women cannot - and would not - turn down a man. As subjects, they are perfectly free to agree to a tryst or not. They can decide when, where, and with whom to have sexual relations without any input from men (especially from their husbands).

The facts are ugly, and the reality is that Neil is just plain wrong. The issue isn't the fetus. The issue is women's freedom. I realize he thinks he has the market cornered on arguments. Sad to say, he's wrong there, as well.

With the recent shift toward an uneasy consensus on abortion, the anti-choice movement has shifted toward a more vociferous voice on conception-control, as I noted yesterday. The long and short of it is this - these folks don't want women having sex, except with them. When they do, they should be publicly humiliated, regarded as the sluts and whores they are, dismissed from our care and consideration. Anything else is just a bunch of babble and burble.

Morality Police

There are few things guaranteed to make me want to beat my head against a wall more forcefully than the constant barrage of statements that boil down to this: "Being a Christian means being a good person."

I would challenge those who make this statement to show me where, exactly, in the Bible it says this. Now, I know people will point to Colossians, various passages in the Gospels, Hebrews, and even the Revelation to John. My counter-argument to this is quite simple - reading these passages in a simplistic, moralistic sense, misses the deeper point that these are addressed as opportunities through grace rather than a new moral code mandated by God. Even as we are offered a glimpse of the possibilities inherent in the new life offered by Jesus Christ, there is the recognition that some will fall short. Congratulating oneself and one's fellow Christians on one's good behavior is as meaningless as talking about the final disposition of oneself or others before the throne of God.

Yet, we hear it again and again. From alleged Protestants no less - it's as if Luther's simul iustus et peccator was never uttered. Luther is, indeed, a prime example of this very dictum. His private behavior, as revealed in his table talk, would make most Lutherans (and others) blush; yet, his abounding sense of the saving power of the Holy Spirit, his deep affection for his family, his voluminous musings on the power of grace to overcome sin and his own view of the Devil as an active force in personal and social life are ample testimony against any simplistic reduction of Christianity to some kind of middle-class morality.

The possibilities in the Christian life become stunted if we start worrying whether or not God wants us to be good little boys and girls. God becomes reduced to a stringent, prudish parent. We become afraid that our lives are unfolding before the cosmic censor, notepad on a clipboard, putting checks beside various things we do and say.

The first thing we are to do is to love God. We are called, then, to love our neighbors, defined as pretty much anyone in any given state. As far as I'm concerned, that leaves things pretty much open as far as how we go about living our lives. We are not offered salvation to become citizens of a divine dictatorship. Indeed, St. Paul is more than clear - we are freed for freedom's sake. We are to be about the work of returning the world to God, always remembering that God loves it enough that Jesus Christ volunteered to come and die for it. While there are ample quotes that purport to show otherwise, world-hating, world-denying is antithetical to the Christian life. We are called to love the world as it is, but also to make it better.

We should consort with drunkards and prostitutes. We should not worry whether or not someone or other is cheating on his or her spouse, but offer our love and help, seeking to assist that person in figuring out what's wrong, so that the relationship can heal. We should celebrate the real love of real people, and not worry whether or not the couple is of different genders or not. After all, there is little enough real love in this world.

Like my previous post on abortion, this is kind of a repeat. I say it again, however, to make the point that I have no interest in discussing morality in the context of the Christian religion, with anyone. Morality is for people who have something to hide, as far as I'm concerned. They are far more worried they're going to get caught, so they deflect attention to the actions of others.

Once More, With Feeling

I've said it before. I'm quite sure I'll say it again. Today, Duncan says it.

Lots of people are squishy about abortion, though I firmly believe the vast majority of people in this country are pro-choice for me if not for thee, but those involved in the anti-abortion movement don't just care about embryos and fetuses, they care about punishing women for unapproved fucking.

He is commenting on this little nugget from Matt Yglesias.

It’s precisely because of stances like this that it’s very hard to take the “abortion is murder” crowd seriously when they say abortion is murder. Their revealed behavior indicates that they don’t actually find abortion especially problematic, but just place it on a spectrum containing a general aversion to women controlling their own sexuality

Which is why I get so peeved when people start shedding crocodile tears for all those "pre-born" babies, fully-human fetuses (feti?), and other non-existent fetishes. It isn't about the poor suffering fetus, screaming with non-existent vocal chords from the depths of non-existent lungs from pain felt through non-existent nerves.

It's all about power over women, and the deep fear of women's sexuality.

And, of course, forcing poor people to pay for their sins, but not rich, white, Republican governors.

Health Care Competition

TPM has a little post up making a point too often lost in the ill-informed hysteria over "OBAMACARE!!!"

This won't come as the slightest surprise to those versed in health care policy issues. But I fear it's only barely permeated the health care reform debate in the country, certainly in Washington. And that's this: the opposition to a so-called 'public option' comes almost entirely from insurance companies who have developed monopolies or near monopolies in particular geographic areas. And they don't want competition.

Note, I'm not saying more competition. I'm saying any competition at all. As Zack Roth explains in this new piece 94% of the health care insurance market is now under monopoly or near-monopoly conditions -- the official term of art is 'highly concentrated'. In other words, there's no mystery why insurance costs keep going up even as the suck quotient rises precipitously. Because in most areas there's little or no actual competition.

During his press conference last week, the President made it abundantly clear that the arguments about the public option were illogical on their face. Since no one is seeking to replace private insurance with a single-payer program, but rather offer a public option as something to compete with private health insurance; and, since this is true, and conservatives and Republicans argue continuously that a public plan would be costly, inefficient, and riddled with bureaucratic obstacles, what in the world are they worried about?

The answer is pretty clear.

I have yet to read a substantive criticism of a public health care plan. All one hears is "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!!! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!" And, of course, the "r" word, which is meaningless since we already ration health care based on ability to pay. So, on the one hand we have the insurance companies and a few of their mindless enablers screeching meaningless drivel. On the other side we have a large majority of the American people, the President of the United States, several members of the United States Senate (not including, unfortunately, Max Baucus, who has come out forcefully against any public option whatsoever, favoring "co-ops" which are just HMOs by another name).

I am confident my Senators, Roland Burris and Richard Durbin, will do the right thing. I am also confident my Representative, Don Manzullo, will not. I would urge you, if you even suspect either your Senator or Representative is wavering, on the fence, could go either way (and not in a good way), send an email, give 'em a call, send a letter. Don't send a petition.

One note. I do not urge people to call Senators or Representatives from outside one's own state or district. What possible reason would a Senator from California have to listen to anything I say?

Music For Your Monday

It's all about the weather.

Be Warned

A longish post is stewing in the innards of my brain on the history and present state of nuclear weapons policy and diplomacy. It is only half-formed, will likely stir a few of my more liberal readers to post great "Harrumphs" of outrage, and probably be as wrong as it is right. In any event, since the news has been taken over by Michael Jackson's corpse, and the lid is tightening on Iran, and no one seems to care that violence in Iraq goes on unabated, there is little else going on.

Some pre-posting thoughts on the issue might be nice.

Saturday Rock Show

The new Dream Theater CD is out, and I finally have the time to pick it up later today. Here's the first "official" video, "Rite of Passage". Looking forward to August 23, seeing them once again at the Chicago Theater.

Big Bucks II - Politics

Listening to Republican arguments on the economy, and the potential economic apocalypse should we enact certain policies reminds me of the debate over the Clinton-endorsed economic stimulus bill in 1993. If you are old enough, you might remember the bill passed the House with one vote, the Republicans predicting the death of the United States should it pass. It passed both Houses of Congress, and the results should be memorable - the longest period of robust economic growth in American peacetime. Real wages even started a climb in the last years of the 1990's, for the first time in decades.

We are in the midst of more debates on the potential disaster awaiting us. Now, the times are different of course, in a number of ways. We are in the midst of a recession, and narrowly escaped complete economic disaster last fall. With the economic stimulus package, the passage of Waxman-Markey by the House yesterday, and the upcoming health care reform fight, the Republicans (and not a few Democrats, including Senator Max Baucus of Montana) have rediscovered the virtue of fiscal frugality and are warning of the economic and fiscal disaster that awaits us should we enact any of these bills in to law.

Since the track record these men and women have isn't exactly perfect, one wonders why anyone listens to them at all.

Big Bucks I - Policy

Between the Waxman-Markey climate/energy bill that passed the House of Representatives yesterday, and the upcoming fight on health care reform, there are a couple things to keep in mind. We will deal with the politics in a moment. For right now, it might be nice to address the issue usually discussed under the heading "price tag", as in, "health care reform might be nice, but what's the price tag?"

One of the ways to figure out the "price tag" is to project potential costs-versus-savings in to the future. Now, we all know the limited utility of economic projections, especially in light of the current recession and the financial meltdown from last autumn. Not that either was unpredictable or unpredicted (actually, the recession had begun the beginning of last year, but went unremarked until the entire banking system hung on the brink of collapse). Yet, the timing of the event, its severity, and the political response to it were all highly contingent events, played out against an important Presidential election, making the entire situation volatile. Be these things as they may, there is a certain amount of acceptability to projecting costs-versus-savings. Matt Yglesias has done the service of reprinting a chart from a Conor Clarke article in The Atlantic magazine.

The projected difference in GDP over time with and without Waxman-Markey is that almost-invisible orange stripe. In other words, in terms of prospective dollars, the cost is negligible (the figures from which this graph are taken come from the EPA's own estimates drawn up as part of consideration of the bill).

Bob Cesca does a similar service in re the cost of health care reform.

Via Ezra Klein, here's economist Uwe Reinhardt on the cost of healthcare reform:

A price tag of $1.6 trillion seems immense if one contemplates the figure in the abstract. It is, however, only about 4 percent of the total cumulative health spending of $40 trillion, the amount government actuaries now project for the decade from 2010 to 2020. That is also less than the 6 to 7 percent that total national health spending has increased each year in the past decade.

It is important to note, in defense of those who start getting twitchy when the talk edges past the $1 trillion mark, such numbers are, for all intents and purposes, unfathomable to us. Yet, for precisely this very reason, putting some kind of perspective and context on the numbers becomes all the more important. In other words, while the price tag sounds HUGE, in light of relevant factors, it's really quite small.

These are important points, although in and of themselves quite small. Politicians use these kinds of figures for their own purposes, but us lay folk, who can pressure politicians one way or another, might keep them in mind as the various debates start flying.

Big Yawny Headline From AP

My Yahoo newsfeed has the following as a headline:

Iran's president lashes out at Obama

Wow. Oh, boy. couldn't see this coming. Next thing we'll read is Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is denouncing President Obama.

Meaningless Biblical Analogies

Apparently Gov. Sanford believes he is the anointed king of South Carolina.

I have been doing a lot of soul searching on that front. What I find interesting is the story of David, and the way in which he fell mightily, he fell in very very significant ways. But then picked up the pieces and built from there.

So . . . is Sanford admitting he raped a woman, like David raped Bathsheba? Is he admitting he sought to commit murder against his mistress's husband in order to secure the woman for himself?

I really don't get the point of this.

The issue isn't that Sanford's infidelity. The issue is the dereliction of duty; the issue is lying to members of his staff; the issue is his odd behavior since returning to the US. Quite frankly, I wonder if he is capable of handling the duties of governor, his behavior has been so odd.

Invoking the name of a Biblical king, and said king's rape and subsequent abuse of power to cover up his own personal failings doesn't exactly make Sanford shine. Other than the fact that Sanford and David both had sexual relations with women not their wives (in David's case, one of several, as Bathsheba later became), I really don't get this.

He Must Have Got Enough So He Stopped

I love Michael Jackson's music, especially the albums Off The Wall and, of course, Thriller.

He was also an alleged pedophile, who admitted on several occasions to sleeping nude with a variety of young boys in his home. He insisted the action was totally innocent and was surprised and dismayed at the reactions of others.

Child abusers quite frequently react this way.

I'm sorry if others can't or won't accept this part of the reality that was Michael Jackson, that just want to talk about "Wanna Be Starting Something" or "Smooth Criminal" or Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo on "Beat It". Go right ahead. I can tolerate drug addiction, fornication and adultery, even flirtations with self-destruction in an artist. The sexual violation of a child, however, is my particular line. It is arbitrary, yes. It might even be called capricious. It is not less (and certainly no more) defensible than any other line others might draw.

I am sad, yes. In one day, two icons, one of my early youth (Farrah and that poster . . .) and one of my youth and early adulthood have died (and leave us not forget Ed McMahon, "You are correct, sir"). I am even more sad, however, that Michael Jackson never realized how destructive his actions were, how much pain and suffering, grief and anguish he caused others.

Psycho Therapy

I hadn't seen this, and while part of me wants to make jokes about "gay exorcism", the reality is, this is child abuse, plain and simple. It's disgusting, vile, and has no place in Christianity. As if gay youth aren't harassed enough, this kind of garbage takes it to criminal lengths.

Don't Cry For Me, South Carolina

The story started out kind of weird, got odder, and after a news conference today, kind of melted down and has now taken a turn for the Twilight Zone.

First, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (he's a Republican to all those who watch FOXNews) was discovered to have kinda sorta . . . disappeared without a trace over the weekend. His family admitted that, no, they had no idea where he was. His office insisted they were in contact with him. Later, they said that he was off hiking the Appalachian Trail as he contemplated starting a run for the White House in 2012. He suddenly appears, and admits that he wasn't hiking through the boreal forests, especially since a state-owned vehicle that he uses was seen at the Atlanta airport. In fact, he was in Argentina. He promised a news conference, duly delivered, and admitted (after much hemming and hawing) he was in South America with his mistress.

Fine and dandy. I really don't care about any of that, except that he was all about hanging Bill Clinton by his thumbs for a blow job. Maybe if Clinton had received said oral gratification in, say, Ecuador, Sanford would have been cool with it, I don't know. Anyway, despite the hypocrisy and schadenfreude of this particular event, my interest ended with the press conference.

Until I saw this:

Gov. Sanford's wife apparently just put out a statement saying she asked him to leave two weeks ago.

So . . . not only was he lying to the press, perhaps his staff, and the people of the state he governs (and probably his family as well), but now she is caught having lied to the press. See, this whole thing could have been cleared up when she was contacted over the weekend and said, in short, "My husband is a lying, cheating sack of crap whom I've asked to never darken my doorway again. He has obliged and I'm quite content, even though I'm still living in the manse the state provides the wife of the governor. Oh, and family values rock."

Except, of course, she waits until today to release a statement.

The news is becoming surreal.

Whatever Happened To . . .

Sam Harris and his campaign to rid the world of religion? I almost miss him, he was such low-hanging fruit.

Almost As Good As Newt

Chris Cilliza is reporting that Mississippi governor, and former RNC Chair Haley Barbour, has started the sounding-out process for a possible run at the White House in 2012. With his record, it would be like Newt Gingrich-lite (although, not really light, if you get my meaning). Although he probably won't get the nod, should he, it would solidify the image of the Republican Party as a southern-regional party for quite a while.

What could be better than a caricature of a southern-racist politician, from the most hard-core racist state in the country, running against the first African-American President?

Health Care Reform, The Deficit, Polls, And Nonsense

On the drive home from work this morning, I heard a brief promo for Cokie Roberts' usual Monday morning "analysis" bit she does on NPR's Morning Edition. I have made it clear in the past there are few pundits I despise more than Mrs. Roberts, and even the brief ten seconds or so I heard was enough make me shout and push a CD in so I didn't have to hear her.

Much has been made of a recent poll that shows Americans are "concerned" about the growing federal budget deficit. Quite a few people, both politicians and commentators, have taken this as a sign that some kind of public option on health care is a non-starter because the price tag would be prohibitive. At a time of contracting economic activity, growing joblessness, and the continuing effects of the Bush-era tax cuts, the deficit is growing. Yet, as been repeated ad nauseum since the beginning of the economic downturn, shrinking federal spending at a time when economic activity is stagnant will only make things worse. While the deficit is, indeed, worrisome, it is not, and should not be, at the top of our political "to do" list. Indeed, in the long run, offering a publicly-funded health care option will do far more to save money than anything currently being offered.

What's surprising about all this talk about health care vs deficits is that it takes place in the midst of discussions about the truly abysmal way health insurance companies treat policy-holders. On the very same program in which Mrs. Roberts waxed stupid about our national angst over deficits, came this story:

Insurers Revoke Policies To Avoid Paying High Costs
by Joanne Silberner

According to a new report by congressional investigators, an insurance company practice of retroactively canceling health insurance is fairly common, and it saves insurers a lot of money.

A subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee recently held a hearing about the report's findings in an effort to bring a halt to this practice. But at the hearing, insurance executives told lawmakers they have no plans to stop rescinding policies.

The act of retroactively canceling insurance is called rescission. It happens with individual health insurance policies, where people apply for insurance on their own, not through their employers. Their application generally includes a questionnaire about their health.

The process begins after a policyholder has been diagnosed with an expensive condition such as cancer. The insurer then reviews the health status information in the questionnaire, and if anything is missing, the policy may be rescinded.

The omission from the application may be deliberate, to hide a health condition that might have made the applicant ineligible for insurance. But sometimes there's an innocent explanation: The policyholder may not have known about a health condition, or may not have thought it was relevant.

The rescissions based on omissions or immaterial conditions incensed many lawmakers.

"I think it's shocking, it's inexcusable. It's a system that we have in place and we've got to stop," Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said at the hearing.

From the other side of the aisle, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) was also appalled.

"Doesn't it bother you to do this?" he asked Don Hamm, CEO of Assurant Health, who appeared with the CEOs of UnitedHealth's Golden Rule Insurance Co. and WellPoint's Consumer Business.

I'll take National Health over this kind of evil, immoral garbage any day of the week.

On the same issue of health care reform, I would like to raise a point of contention with Bob Somerby from his Friday Daily Howler. In it, he attempts to portray the "real fears" some people have about "rationing health care", and compares it to a long article that addresses the issue of "health care rationing" without, as he claims, actually dealing with their "fears". I would submit that, in fact, the "fears" expressed by those interviewed in the first part of Sombery's piece are both misguided and based on nothing more than propaganda. The way the issue of "rationing" is addressed in the piece he sharply criticizes in the second part of his post in fact addresses the issue head on - without treating false ideas and fears created by political propaganda as worth notice.

The entire question of "rationing", especially in light of the story about insurance companies dropping people so they don't have to actually pay money to cover them, ends up being a non-existent issue. As does the debate over whether or not "some bureaucrat" stands between an individual and his or her doctor. See, as it stands now, some bureaucrat does, but its a faceless, unaccountable number cruncher at a private health insurance company. If a public option is offered, not to replace but just to compete with existing health insurance companies, it migh raise the standards across the board.

Somerby takes a writer to task for not addressing fears, when those fears are misguided. Somberby takes a writer to task for addressing the issue of "rationing" in a thoughtful, substantive way, without pandering or talking down to his readership. Is it any wonder we can't have a serious debate on health care reform?

MST3K For Your Monday

I discovered Mystery Science Theater 3000 eleven years ago. On Saturday's, I would take Moriah out for the afternoon while Lisa got ready for Sunday service, then come home and relax. Flipping channels I landed on Sci-Fi and saw a bad movie being watched by a man and two puppet robots who tore the movie apart. I laughed so hard tears were coming out of my eyes. I kept saying, "Lisa, you have to come see this. This is me and my brother!" And that's true.

I discovered the show was already past its prime, though, but lucky for me episodes were released on VHS, and later DVD, so I didn't have to worry too much about missing anything. The setting was familiar enough to anyone who sat around on Saturday afternoons or evening as a kid watching Chiller Theater or whatever one's local TV channel called its broadcast of bad horror movies. Except, unlike those old local shows, here folks actually called it as they saw it - and the results were usually very funny.

Along with bad horror movies, bad '70's pictures, bad '80's pictures, and even an Oscar-preview or two, the folks at MST3K managed to take apart short films. Whether produced for industry or education, these shorts are invariably bad; if you are old enough, you might even have been forced to sit through one or two of them. These first two, "A Date With Your Family", and "Appreciating Your Parents", are so filled with horror - suppressed emotion, weird Freudian imagery, the insistence on submission to parental authority - it is really no wonder those who were forced to watch them in school would, upon reaching young adulthood, drop acid, read Herbert Marcuse with approval, and shout the "Fish Cheer" at Woodstock with gusto.





What they did best, though, was rip into "Z"-grade horror films. While I Was A Teenage Werewolf was more a "D" film (there are a couple moments of real tension, such as the stalking of the young woman practicing alone in the gym; Michael Landon's performance as a typical "angry young man" also lifts a truly bad film above the summy floor of late-50's horror schlock), it nevertheless gets the full treatment. Here's a clip from Mike and Crow and Tom Servo making sure we don't take any of it seriously at all.

All RIght, Huckleberry, What Would You Do?

As the violence in Iran continues, deaths mount, the Ayatollahs clamp down, the BBC gets kicked around, Twitter and Facebook get blocked and used as sources for finding dissidents, Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina wants Pres. Obama to do more.

He’s certainly moving in the right direction, but our point is that there is a monumental event going on in Iran, and you know, the President of the United States is supposed to lead the free world, not follow it. Other nations have been more outspoken, so I hope that we’ll hear more of this, because the young men and women taking the streets in Tehran need our support. The signs are in English. They are basically asking for us to speak up on their behalf.

That's his complaint? The President hasn't spoken out more? Are you freakin' serious?!?

US history of interference in Iranian politics goes back over half a century, to a CIA-engineered coup in 1953, and two decades of funding for one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. It seems to me that Pres. Obama is doing exactly right - he has spoken out, and quite forcefully, on the violence and suppression of peaceful demonstrations by the Iranian security forces. What else can he do? Would issuing a proclamation every five minutes help?

I wonder what Huck would do were he President? Send in the Special Forces? Broadcast an appeal to the Iranian government in Farsi? Maybe send his Vice President on a secret mission with a cake and a Bible like his hero, Ronald Reagan?

A few days ago, Charles Krauthammer whined about Pres. Obama calling the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khameini, the "Supreme Leader". I kid you not. That is how far gone these people are. The Republicans want Obama to "do more", yet what more can he possibly do that will really make a difference?

The reality is, whether we like it or not, this is an internal problem for the Iranian people. I don't like it, I would like to see change there, but it seems to me with the security forces and military squarely behind the current Islamic Republic, the Guardian Council, and Pres. Ahmedinejad, the outcome is preordained. Unless the security forces switch sides, or the military backs off, or the Guardian Council decides enough Iranian blood has been spilled and perhaps changes need to be made, we are going to see a few more days (at most) of violence, and then when enough folks are dead or in prison, it will all be over.

And no volume of words by Pres. Obama, or Lindsay Graham, or Charles Krauthammer, or anybody else, will change that.

Field Of Conservative Talking Points

My family sat and watched the film Field of Dreams last night. I haven't seen it in ages, and was quite surprised at how perfectly apt it is a summary of conservative ideology circa the late-1980's, and even contains elements of Gingrichian-style nuttiness that was even then (the film was made in 1988 and released in 1989) emerging on the national stage.

First, I should admit that I never really liked the movie. It is uneven, major characters and plot points don't enter the story smoothly or early, and as far as I'm concerned, brother-in-law or not, if Timothy Busfield had laid hands on or said things about my child the way he does in this film, I'd have laid him out.

Many of the themes that play out here are also at work in my least favorite film of the 1990's - Forrest Gump. The many references to the 1960's, to what "a crazy time" they were (Terrence Mann retired from the world because he was treated like a guru; Ray Consella moves to Iowa as an act of rebellion against his father). Yet, the setting, the symbolism of baseball - and not contemporary baseball, but old-time baseball - the "entrepreneurial spirit" Ray shows in pursuing his dream even as the bank is pursuing foreclosure, the redemptive power of surrender to a childlike faith in the past; these are all hallmarks of American conservatism. While there are certainly "liberal Hollywood" nods toward freedom of thought, the confrontation over the writings of Terrence Mann (he masturbates!) is really a clunky vehicle for introducing the character. The entirety of Mann's arc is overcoming his experience of the 1960's, in a Heideggerian sense. That is to say, jumping back behind it, and finding a far more primordial way of being (to get all fancy for a moment).

For the most part, this is a conservative film, made in a conservative era, promoting conservative ideas. Setting it in Iowa is almost pure genius. Using old-time baseball (untainted by drugs, hype, or race-mixing) is also pure genius. The dreams of long-dead white men are far more important in this film than the real struggles of people living today. Even Ray's desire to reconcile with his father - played out at the end - is part of this.

The only thing I am really happy about, at this point, is I am quite sure this film could not be made the way it was made, were it made today. For one things, no Kevin Costner (yea!). Mostly, though, the entire struggle between Ray Consella and the bank would run differently; Mann may be a disillusioned liberal, but his faith might just be renewed not in childhood fantasies that can never be realized, but in the set of beliefs that gave him strength in his prime (childhood isn't nearly as idyllic a time as we would wish it to be; the Chicago White Sox of 1919 may have loved baseball, but they were quite willing to throw a World Series for a pretty small amount of money). My guess is the entire film could be done today, but it would look very different.

Saturday Rock Show

R.E.M., Peter Gabriel, Duran Duran - the faces and voices of 80's rock. Yet none are more iconic of that strange decade that U2. Unlike Gabriel or Duran Duran, whose best work was done then, and R.E.M., who are like America's answer to the Rolling Stones, just a great rock and roll band that keeps getting better and better, U2 have their own unique vision, follow their own muse, and stand or fall on their own terms. Yet,The Joshua Tree is without a doubt their single best, most cohesive album, musically. They could still shock back then, such as with this very different (for them) bluesy, very LOUD song, "Bullet the Blues Sky".



I've been inspired to go back to the decade when I came of age because Lisa's on her way to her high school reunion, and I'm gonna miss mine.

Two Parts To The Health Care Reform Debate

In essence, any major public debate has two separate yet linked dimensions. Space is filled by considerations of legislative politicking; counting votes, in other words. Very often these votes hue to party lines, ideological preferences, and various coalitions of legislators, are formed in the committee stage (which is why floor debate is usually quite pointless; once a committee has done its work, the floor debates usually are nothing more than an exercise in ensuring either passage or defeat, trying to swing one or two members this way or that). The other dimension, the actual policy and its effectiveness (or lack thereof) is usually relegated to the staff of individual Senators or the committee responsible for various pieces of legislation. For this reason, unfortunately, the two parts of public debate are very often separate, going in their own directions without referencing one another all that much.

As we get the massive health care reform issue rolling (Sisyphus is no longer pleased, I think), we are witnessing the outlines of this very common occurrence. Matt Yglesias sums up this frustration very nicely.

The big problem, politically speaking, with health care is that you basically have people on the left arguing both sides of the question. On the one hand, insofar as your plan is “big government” that’s left-wing. But insofar as your plan is expensive, that’s also left-wing. Which is because people normally think of big government programs as expensive. But when it comes to health care, heavy-handed government intervention is actually way cheaper than private sector alternatives. Consequently, every time you try to make the plan more “moderate” by, for example, curbing the influence of a public option you actually wind up making the plan more “left wing” by needing to raise more taxes. And if you want to make the plan cheaper, while still actually achieving its goals, then you need to make it more left-wing not more moderate. But in the United States, ideological correctness and special interest politics prevents us from admitting this.

The chart accompanying this piece, as well as several other studies of health care expenditure per capita across the industrialized world, make a point that is worth pondering: It is far less expensive, over all, to have a single-payer, publicly-funded system than any alternatives being offered.

Another part of this whole politics-policy divide that is actually infuriating is this kind of thing, also reported by Yglesias:

After reading Volsky and Cohn on the Bipartisan Policy Council health reform plan put together by former Majority Leaders Howard Baker (R-TN), Tom Daschle (D-SD), Bob Dole (R-KS) and George Mitchell (D-ME) I feel, well, kind of “eh” about it. This is not a great plan, but it would be better than the status quo. It’s about what you’d be looking for from a bipartisan compromise, in other words. Personally, I’d like to think that overwhelming progressive electoral victories would result in some juicier fruit than this, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of the Democrats in the Senate appear to not have particularly progressive convictions.

Which I think leads to the question, how bipartisan is this really? Howard Baker and Bob Dole are nice, but how about some Republicans currently serving in the United States Senate?

If you are too young to remember, Howard Baker was Senate Majority Leader during the 1980's. He retired from the Senate after not seeking re-election in 1984. Bob Dole, you may recall, is also no longer in the Senate. While George Mitchell and Tom Daschle are probably nice guys (for the most part), they were also pretty ineffective Majority Leaders when the Democrats held thin majorities in the upper house. Neither, of course, currently hold elective office (although Mitchell is a special envoy for Pres. Obama).

I think it is important to note, as Bob Cesca does, that many of the major players in this debate are major recipients of campaign donations from the health insurance industry. One of the biggest, Max Baucus of Montana, has received over $2,000,000. While political ideology may be an important factor in this debate, what is driving the Senate away from the overwhelmingly popular public option is filthy lucre, pure and simple.

While I understand Pres. Obama will be holding a live discussion this weekend on health care reform, my own wish is similar to that of many other supporters both of the President and serious health care reform - get out there, speak loudly, often, clearly, and in detail, on what kind of reform you want, and how quickly you want to get it done. The public is behind you, but the health insurance lobby has far more cash at its disposal, and therefore more influence.

While much of the immediate debate sounds eerily familiar to the 1990's attempt to address the issue, there are several things that give me at least a dim glimmer of hope. First and foremost is the simple reality that the Republicans are no longer ascendant in Congress. While they and more conservative voices certainly have the bully pulpits of traditional media, they are no longer the only, or even the biggest, game in town. David Broder may nourish a seriously stiff jones on the whole Baker/Dole/Daschle/Mitchell business, but they aren't in the Senate anymore. In other words, who cares what they think?

We also have a President who is still, despite all the grumbling of the press and conservative yakkers, wildly popular with the American people. While I believe the poll data that emerged yesterday pointing to "concern" over federal spending, once the point is driven home that a public plan would be far cheaper overall than any other option currently under consideration, I believe the debate will shift back toward a proposal the country supports.

The Decline And Collapse Of Newspapers

Yesterday, The Washington Post fired Dan Froomkin, more an online than in-print pundit, not only capable, but consistent enough to be a prod to both the Bush and Obama White House. Today, having discarded a source of information that was popular, the Post prints two op-ed pieces, one by Charles Krauthammer, the other by Paul Wolfowitz, that demonstrate (especially taken with yesterday's dismissal of Froomkin) the editors' commitment to a new direction - failure.

Please note that this is not just an ideological critique. Krauthammer and Wolfowitz are not only propagators of a particular political point of view; on the specifics of policy preference - pretty much everything they insist the United States either ought to do, or (in the case of Wolfowitz) actually implemented as national policy was not only a dismal failure, but counterproductive and rejected by the American people during the last two election cycles. I am not suggesting they should not have a voice; I am not saying they shouldn't have their views printed in an organ as important as the op-ed page of The Washington Post.

One of the jobs of an editor is to make decisions that will not only reflect a certain consistency of viewpoint - if, say, The Washington Times or The Wall Street Journal offered a spot to Froomkin it would certainly raise a hue-and-cry from the right - but that benefit the paper financially. In the midst of a recession and changing market structure that is undermining the newspaper business in a variety of ways, making personnel and editorial decisions that not only reduce the number of readers your newspaper gets (Froomkin was not only popular, but linked and crossed-referenced all the time), but also present your paper as the mouthpiece for an ideological stance that is both out of favor politically and a dismal failure practically pretty much indicates that, as a business leader, the front wheels are already over the edge of the abyss.

Way to go.

Stupid Funny

Via Bob Cesca comes this wonderful bit of really hilarious crap. I wondered if this kind of thing was still around, and lo and behold, we get to listen to how listening to Kenny Loggins leads to child sacrifice. Well, maybe that's true . . .

End Of An Era

I saw an obituary in my hometown newspaper and realized we have really come to the end of an era. The death of James Lantz, a retired engineer on the Lehigh Valley Railroad marks a very real end, not just for the railroad and its relationship to Sayre, PA, but on a personal level as well. My grandfather was also an engineer on the Lehigh Valley, starting off in the first decade of the 20th century shoveling coal. By the time the 1920's rolled around, he was sitting behind a desk. When the Depression hit, and many lost jobs, he kept his in part thanks to his on-going union membership. When engineers were being let go, he left his desk and got behind the wheel again. He continued to drive those trains - the Lehigh had been a Rockefeller railroad, connecting various NY and PA rail lines - and even finagled a job for my father in what was known as the Big Shop in 1940 or so.

James Lantz must have been one of the last engineers on the Lehigh. My grandfather retired in the 1950's, and even then the line was ailing. Were he, by some miracle, still alive, my grandfather would be 119 years old this year, twenty-four years older than the late Mr. Lantz.

At one time, the Big Shop in Sayre, PA was one of the largest enclosed spaces in the world, housing a couple rounds, and space enough for engines and other cars to be dismantled for a thorough cleaning. My father told me about an old man named Chacona (his son would go on to be a long-time mayor of Sayre) whose job was to guide wheels in to a vat of acid for a thorough cleaning. The wheels, having been removed from the car, were hoisted on to a conveyor that carried them along the line. It would stop above this vat and the winch would lower the wheels ever so slowly down. Mr. Chacona would stand on a plank set across the top of the vat - with the acid fumes rising, no rail, no breathing equipment, no safety suit - and use a long pole to make sure they entered the vat just so. That was his job, and he did it day in and day out for years without an accident. Such was some folk's work experience before OSHA, I guess . . .

While not born from the rails, Sayre benefited enormously from them - the Lehigh even subsidized housing on a street along the rail yard - named (what else?) Lehigh Avenue. There was a tunnel that was built below the yard, with an entrance smack dab in the middle of Lehigh Ave.. Men in overalls, carrying their lunches in pails, would pour in to that tunnel every morning, and out again in the afternoon. When I was a kid, we would drive by that old tunnel entrance, long since boarded up, and I always wanted to go through it, but my father told me how dangerous it had become. While I am quite sure he was right for any number of reasons, part of me wishes I had not heeded his warning and taken that walk before both ends of the tunnel were sealed permanently.

The above photo, showing the Big Shop and its massive smokestacks, is very personal for me. I remember well the last days of the Lehigh yards in Sayre, and the final images as the Shop was taken down and those stacks were dynamited, tumbling with a sad majesty to earth. While that was certainly one mark of the end of the era of the rails in small town America, the death of someone very likely one of the last engineers on the Lehigh Valley Railroad draws to a final close - a kind of sad, human coda - this once wonderful, vibrant chapter in our national life.

Funny Republican Public FAIL

This is so funny.

Earlier today, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) put up this astonishing post on Twitter, likening the oppression of the Iranian people to the plight of House Republicans

--snip--

In the hours since, the Twitter community has responded -- with massive heckling.

Here's the original tweet from Hoekstra:

Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.

Here are a couple sample responses:

ArjunJaikumar @petehoekstra i spilled some lukewarm coffee on myself just now, which is somewhat analogous to being boiled in oil

ceedub7 @petehoekstra I got a splinter in my hand today. Felt just like Jesus getting nailed to the cross.

TahirDuckett @petehoekstra ran through the sprinklers this morning, claimed solidarity with victims of Hurricane Katrina

Republicans always claim that it is liberals and Democrats who relish their victimization, yet they are always the first to claim they suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

What a bunch of stupid schmucks.

Donna Joan Johnston Konicki, April 1, 1928 - December 17, 2008

While I say it with trepidation - who wants to pick out a "favorite" relative? - I am honest enough to admit that my Aunt Joan, my mother's only sister, was my favorite Aunt. Why do I say that? Three reasons - Uno, hosting, Good 'N' Plenty.

When you played Uno with Aunt Joan, it was brutal. Once, my brother managed to sneak a wrong card on the discard pile, and the whole game went around a couple times before he admitted it. I thought Aunt Joan was going to blow a gasket, even though she, and the rest of us, were laughing so hard we were crying. Of course, when we played, we always laughed like that.

I spent many eventful and fun days and nights with Aunt Joan, fewer moreso than the summer after Lisa and I were married. We were on our way to Illinois, and made a pitstop for a couple days to visit my mother's family and my relatives in Dayton, and stayed with Aunt Joan. She let us sleep in her bedroom, and the morning we were preparing to leave, we were making her bed, and I am sad to admit that I passed gas so loud it actually rattled the windows. Lisa insists that fart is still rattling around the Universe, and will be picked up by some advanced civilization a couple million years from now. Of course, she heard it in the other room (I think she would have heard it in Cincinnati), and started laughing, and we started laughing, and we left the house laughing. My guess is, however, that she cried when she went in to her bedroom later.

The summer after I was in kindergarten, my mother had gall bladder surgery. My father being helpless in the face of taking care of five children from 16 to age 5, my Aunt and my cousins Claudia and Leah came out to make sure we were fed and watered and that nothing horrible happened to us (you can read my cousin's recollection of one part of that trip here; sad to say, reading it forced me to recall my sisters and her singing "I'm the happiest girl in the whole USA"). In an effort to keep me occupied, Aunt Joan either bought or brought along a board game based on the candy Good 'N' Plenty. Part of playing with Aunt Joan was that she would give me some of the candy while we played. Never a huge fan of licorice, I nevertheless ate those candies eagerly, and forever after would associate the taste with that visit. She also bought me an orange stuffed bear that was almost as big as I was; said bear, named Theodore Edward (what else?) currently resides in my younger daughter's bedroom.

Now, if this seems like slim pickin's as to why my Aunt Joan was my favorite Aunt, let me elaborate a bit. She and my mother were the only girls in a large family full of boys, making their relationship far closer than it might otherwise have been. When she visited, both my mother and father were different. Mom always seem to laugh more, and Dad seemed so relaxed and open (I heard my first ever dirty joke, I must have been about 11 or so, from my father when he and Joan were sharing them back and forth). One summer about fifteen or so years ago - maybe more but no less - Aunt Joan came in early July and ended up staying almost the entire summer. It was an endless summer of enjoyment for my parents, and Joan, too. Once, my mother returned from somewhere, and walked through the house looking for Dad and Joan, finding them sitting together on a side porch. Joan laughed and said, "Virginia, why didn't you look in the bedroom?"

She had a difficult life in many ways, a sad life. In her last years, though, she was reconciled with her son and older daughter (her younger daughter, the cousin who writes about her family experiences, is by far my favorite non-immediate family member) and no one was happier than I when these things happened. Because, you see, beneath the gruff and very loud Johnston exterior lurked a warm, loving heart (the same, I think, is true for all of the members of my mother's family). I loved her because she took care of me and my whole family, provided a little light and light-heartedness to all of us with her visits. I would rather not dwell too long on those parts of her life, because, like Johnstons do, why talk about them?

She fell ill very suddenly last fall, and within a very few weeks was gone. For a variety of reasons, a memorial service was postponed until this coming weekend. Sadly, I cannot make it, but Lisa and the girls will be going in my stead.

I'm fighting tears as I write this, because saying goodbye is always hard, and knowing I cannot do so properly hurts. I love you, Aunt Joan, and will eat a whole box of Good 'N' Plenty on Friday, and think of you, and laugh because I know in my heart that you loved being with us for the same reason - we laughed so hard it would hurt.

Watching Iran

Like most Americans, I am watching events unfold in Iran with a mixture of hope and a sense that the inevitable crackdown will be ugly. It certainly doesn't help matters that there are confusing reports on the legitimacy of the election, on the way Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khameini is handling it, and the obvious question of which way the military and Revolutionary Guards will turn once a final decision is made.

Twenty years ago we had the weird and wonderful spectacle of the snowballing revolutions in Central and Southern Europe even as China landed with both tank-covered feet on pro-democracy rallies in and around the capital city. It was easy enough both to cheer and mourn the events of that fateful year - from the erection of the statue of liberty in Tianenmen Square to the people tearing down the Berlin Wall to the snow-covered corpses of the Ceaucescu's on Christmas Day - because everyone knew the horrible nature of the regimes involved, and celebrated the possibilities presented by the utter collapse of totalitarianism, as well as mourned the death of any possibility for change in China.

Now, however, the situation is different. First of all, far too many in influential circles in the United States government hold a thirty-year grudge for the storming of the US embassy and subsequent hostage-taking following the Islamic revolution in Iran. Most of our policy toward Iran in the intervening decades has been premised upon payback, pure and simple.

Because of the myopia brought on by a natural desire to punish a country that managed to humiliate the United States and bring down a President, it is often difficult to decipher the reality in Iran from our own wishes. It is true the final legal authority in Iran is the Supreme Council, a group of religious leaders devoted to a particular interpretation of Islamic law. This, however, doesn't make it much different from Saudi Arabia. Unlike the Saudi kingdom, however, within the parameters of theocratic absolutism - the supreme law of the land exists under the umbrella of Islamic law - Iran has had a lively, even vigorous democratic history in the thirty years since the revolution. Its parliament is multi-religious. Women have been a vital part of Iranian politics and civil life (one could hardly say the same for Saudi Arabia). While the first decade to decade and a half of its life were caught up in the twin predicaments of vilifying the United States and conducting a very long war of attrition with Iraq, national leadership has swung back and forth between various adherents to principles of the original revolution and those who wished to see the national constitutional framework of Iran - an Islamic nation - as contiguous with modern, western ideas of the Open Society. While not holding the reins of power, such a view is still powerful enough to make for lively debate within Iran, and drove much of the (foreign) news coverage of the recent elections there.

I will not pretend I do not wish to see Iran emerge from its current crisis as a secular state (one of the perils of being an American is seeing the advantage of dismantling any relationship between the state and religious practice). I will not pretend I do not desire sitting Pres. Ahmedinejad (sp?) to step aside. My hope is that the military and security apparatus will stand to one side and allow the legal system to disentangle the mess Iran currently has.

I fear, however, this will not be the case. Blood has already been spilled. The government is cracking down on foreign journalists reporting events. It has blocked various internet applications that would provide information to the outside world - a vital necessity.

So I watch and wait. I hope, but I also fear.

Hitler Was A Vegan, So von Brunn Was A Leftist

One of the most horrid, awful results of the recent spate of right-wing violence has been the sudden reappearance of Jonah Goldberg and his idiotic thesis that fascism is actually a phenomenon of political liberalism and the left. Dave Niewert does the world a service of calling out Goldberg's nonsensical thesis. I can only imagine how painful it was first to read Goldberg's thick pile of crap, then actually treat it with enough respect to call it crap in detail. For all that such a thesis is easily dismissed by a welter of historical evidence, Goldberg is out there, in print and TV, trying to get the message out.

Not just Goldberg, though. It's all over the place. Andrew Breitbart, who runs a right-wing blog, says the von Brunn is closer to a multiculturalist - and most would agree that adherents of the multicultural thesis are of the left - than to any figure on the right. I think the only way to square this particular circle is to construct an argument something like this:

- Multiculturalists stress the continuity of cultural identity over individuality.

- von Brunn stressed the continuity of the white race over the individuality of persons of different races

- von Brunn is a multiculturalist.

Now, the major premise is deeply flawed, a caricature of what multicultural theory is and how it operates. While the minor premise may be true to the extent that a racist sees race as the single determining factor in an individual's life, to equate multicultural theory with racism is not only deeply flawed, but highly offensive. As John Cook writes, "James von Brunn is exactly like a lesbian studies major."

One of the more stupid aspects of the whole "fascists are liberals" nonsense is the conflation of the personal quirks of this or that historical or contemporary political figure and modern political alignments. For example, Goldberg points out, quite correctly, that Woodrow Wilson was a racist. The roots of the party's power lay in the racist south at the time. In many ways, however, Wilson was also a Progressive. To argue, however, that because Wilson was both an adherent to many of the principles of classic Progressive politics and was also a racist that racism is, therefore, an inherent part of Progressive politics, then or now, is ridiculous.

The same applies to other figures. As the title of this post notes, Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, indeed a missionary of the superiority of a vegan diet over meat. Many contemporary vegans tend to drift leftward in their politics - mostly - so, apparently to Goldberg, Hitler was actually a liberal-lefty.

Treating this nonsense as anything other than nonsense is almost impossible. I have made the decision that anyone who comes around here and attempts to make this argument will not be engaged directly. I consider this argument on a part with creationism, another notion I refuse to engage directly. Part of keeping one's sanity in times such as ours is the necessity of drawing lines and creating boundaries. So, if someone reads this and starts typing, "But, but . . . Mussolini liked sprouts! Stalin was gay! They're all lefties!!!" and expect a response, forget about it. I may laugh and call you an idiot. I won't delete your comment. It will just convince me that you are as big a doofus as the people who promote this nonsense.

Prayer For Enemies

One of the most difficult aspects of the recent spate of right-wing murderous violence has been my own anger. Jesus insists we are to pray for those who hate us; I have no desire to do so. We are to love our enemies; I despise them. Yet, I want to do these things, because I have been admonished to do so. These are some of the hallmarks of the Christian life. Anger, disgust, disdain - these are not helpful in one's walk in faith.

I turned to a friend on Facebook for guidance, and I received the following prayer. It originated with St. Nicolai of Zica:

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Enemies have driven me into Your embrace more than friends have. Friends have bound me to earth; enemies have loosed me from earth and have demolished all my aspirations in the world.Enemies have made me a stranger in worldly realms and an extraneous inhabitant of the world.

Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an unhunted animal does, so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced myself beneath Your tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless and do not curse them.

They, rather than I, have confessed my sins before the world. They have punished me, whenever I have hesitated to punish myself. They have tormented me, whenever I have tried to flee torments. They have scolded me, whenever I have flattered myself. They have spat upon me, whenever I have filled myself with arrogance.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Whenever I have made myself wise, they have called me foolish. Whenever I have made myself mighty, they have mocked me as though I were a fly.

Whenever I have wanted to lead people, they have shoved me into the background.

Whenever I have rushed to enrich myself, they have prevented me with an iron hand.

Whenever I thought that I would sleep peacefully, they have wakened me from sleep.

Whenever I have tried to build a home for a long and tranquil life, they have demolished it and driven me out.

Truly, enemies have cut me loose from the world and have stretched out my hands to the hem of Your garment.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Bless them and multiply them; multiply them and make them even more bitterly against me:

So that my fleeing will have no return; So that all my hope in men may be scattered like cobwebs; So that absolute serenity may begin to reign in my soul; So that my heart may become the grave of my two evil twins: arrogance and anger;

So that I might amass all my treasure in heaven; Ah, so that I may for once be freed from self-deception, which has entangled me in the dreadful web of illusory life.

Enemies have taught me to know what hardly anyone knows, that a person has no enemies in the world except himself. One hates his enemies only when he fails to realize that they are not enemies, but cruel friends.

It is truly difficult for me to say who has done me more good and who has done me more evil in the world: friends or enemies. Therefore bless, O Lord, both my friends and my enemies. A slave curses enemies, for he does not understand. But a son blesses them, for he understands.

For a son knows that his enemies cannot touch his life. Therefore he freely steps among them and prays to God for them.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

I must admit I have said this prayer through gritted teeth, mouthing the words without necessarily feeling the emotion. Yet, continuing to say this prayer may lead to an honest expression of thankfulness and loving kindness toward those whom I currently despise.

Lord, make it so.