Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Vacation. The celebration of my sister and brother-in-law's 50^th wedding anniversary was a real treat. Amazingly even though 65 friends/family were invited and the town small, the surprise was complete and a good time was had by all!

Fall is coming........ Albeit a bit slowly here in Denver. There was some very light snow on the mountains. The neighborhood columbines (our state flower) have gone to seed. Other flowers are having their last fling, only the pansies are flourishing with the ever cooler nights. The changes will be quite noticeable at the condo in Breckenridge which has beautiful hanging baskets all along Main Street.

Political Parties. The link below entitled “The United States of Weakness,” gives one view of America in the 21^st century, noting changes that have altered our day-to-day political reality.  Today's reality has markedly changed the world view and operation of political parties, the media, the public, the military, and, finally, the presidency.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/united-states-of-weakness-96518.html

Egypt and Syria. A friend in D.C., a long time student of the Middle East, notes a major fissure in Egypt because “Al Qa’ida despises the Brotherhood as infidels!” Most Americans have no conception of the many “faces” of Islam, no more monolithic than America's myriad of Protestant churches.

     Last Thursday's news brought a story about about a heretofore secret Al Qa'ida unit formed to produce CW-s.

During the Iraq – Iran conflict in the 1980s, US intelligence became convinced that Iraq intended a major attack through an opening in the front lines and, further, had reason to believe that Saddam's forces would use CW to gain a major victory, but did not pass this intelligence to the Iranians. In short, the US was complicit in a CW attack that killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, Iranian troops. Just another reason for the continuing enmity Iranians feel for the US.

     For a look “behind the headlines,” see the article from Foreign Policy, what the administration knew but did not share with the public. Also note that the major, widely read news organizations did not know – or chose not to publicize – this information. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/09/19/the_spies_inside_damascus_mossad_syria?page=full

Mother Jones. The magazine was named after Mary Harris Jones, called Mother Jones, an Irish-American trade union activist, opponent of child labor, and self-described "hell-raiser". She was a part of the Knights of Labor, the Industrial Workers of the World, the Social Democratic Party, the Socialist Party of America, the United Mine Workers of America, and the Western Federation of Miners, organizations all considered as subversive at one time or another by many.  

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/obama-financial-crisis-anniversary-speech  

Here are five things President Obama didn't mention in his Monday (16^th) Financial Crisis speech: continued weak employment, foreclosure relief failure, household wealth non-recovery, too big to fail may still be with us, and shadow banking (i.e. derivatives) still lurk in the shadows.

A very scary book.  Do not even think about reading this book to your kids. It relates much about the numerous incidents/accidents involving America's nuclear weapons, near misses, many right here at home. The Cuban missile crisis almost pales in comparison. And thousands of the nucs – many outdated or in need of serious updating – are still with us. http://www.motherjones.com/print/232731

Text book changes and censorship.  "Once again, culture warriors in the state board are putting Texas at risk of becoming a national laughingstock on science education," said Kathy Miller, the president of the Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit group that monitors religious extremists and "far-right issues." TFN and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) obtained the review panel documents in response to a state open-records request. How does this effect your local school district, charter school, or private school?  Consider this: because Texas has such a huge public school system, its text book review board can arguably dictate what textbooks will and will not include and these Texas censored textbooks then become the only option for schools in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.  Can any publisher be expected to print two versions of, say, a long-standard text such as, Maguder's American Government?  Perhaps, but only if one/both versions is made available only online as an e-text. http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/creationist-science-texas-textbook-review-evolution-climate-change If you are inclined to look further, here's a link from Slate on the text book controversy. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/09/texas_science_textbooks_creationists_try_to_remove_evolution_from_classrooms.html To give full disclosure – and if you are interested in reading the other side's arguments – here is the link to Friends of the Texas Public Schools site. http://fotps.org/

The desire to serve. In today's political climate, the desire to serve runs headlong into the reality that an elected official's serving comes with a prologue fraught with seemingly endless fundraisers and debates with your opponent(s). Regrettably, the fund raising continues immediately on election night – if you have any thought of a second term, especially for those offices that have only two-year terms (as in the US House). Former White House chief-of-staff Bill Daley is dropping his bid to be Illinois governor, telling the Chicago Tribune he had been struggling with the decision and realized he didn't want to spend the next five to nine years living life this way.

Whither to now? From NPR's “Morning Line,” September 18^th, re. government shutdown &/or debt ceiling limits vs. defunding Obamacare. Senator Harry Reid (D, NV) declared, "None of the Republicans are willing to stand up to these anarchists....[House Republicans aligned with the Tea Party who] are obsessed with a bill that passed four years ago, a bill that was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. They can't get over that."

On the same topic, Senator McCain (R, AZ) said, "Republicans ought to understand if we shut down the government, Congress always gets blamed -- rightly or wrongly....We've seen the movie before. It's just some of them weren't around at the time; I was."

Tasty meat, you say? The link below tells the story of a pilot program in use by the USDA (agriculture), a program that has allowed large amounts of tainted meat to enter the market place. These failures not withstanding, a budget conscious Congress will probably continue to cut funding for meat inspection. Switch to a veggie-burger? Perhaps, but consider that Monsanto has pumped millions into a campaign to defeat a Washington state ballot initiative which would require the labeling of food items containing GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Where is the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt when you need him? Teddy, who according to legend, pitched his morning sausage out the window as he read reading The Jungle, Upton Sinclair's muckraking book about the then unregulated meat packing industry. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/usda-pilot-program-fails-to-stop-contaminated-meat/2013/09/08/60f8bb94-0f58-11e3-85b6-d27422650fd5_story.html

The Harvest Moon. Spectacular pictures from all over the globe abound on the internet. A now deceased friend, a Navy pilot, acquainted me with the naval aviators's phrase, “commander's moon,” which applied to full moons throughout the year. To maintain flight proficiency, carrier qualified navy pilots are required to make a certain number of nighttime carrier landings. For older aviators landings were easiest when there was a cloudless night sky and a full moon – a “commander's moon.” Hence, these prized, nighttime carrier landing slots were traditionally reserved for older, senior pilots.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Syria. Facing determined opposition to involvement in Syria, belatedly the president decided to request congressional approval for any US military actions. He lobbied mightily all through the Labor Day weekend but has yet to use the power of the bully pulpit to convince a generally skeptical American citizenry. To many the president appears to be the modern day version of the little boy “who cried wolf too often.” The president's cause was certainly not helped by the rejection of British involvement by the House of Commons – an ignominious defeat for Prime Minister Cameron.

     Here the question has to asked, why did the administration not take some sort of action as more than 100,000 Syrians perished during Assad's conventional weapons assault? Assuredly the use of chemical weapons (CW) is morally reprehensible and violates international treaties. Now the Congress wants assurances that there will be no “boots on the ground” in Syria. (see comment below) By what possible means can the international community be assured of the destruction and/or securement of Syria's CW stockpiles if not by close inspection? Ever since the secret 1916 Sikes-Picot agreement long-time Syria-watchers have repeatedly attested to the multiplicity of the diverse ethnic and religious groups in Syria and their long animosity for, and distrust of, each other. Indeed, President Assad is comes from the Alawhite sect, a minority group in Syria.

     Which group(s) is/are to be entrusted with the CW stockpiles? Further, how does the international community verify their securement and continued safety? Senator McCain even questioned the phrase, “boots on the ground.” Did this mean actual combat boots or boots like those of our non-combatant troops still in Iraq?

     As for the administration's calling for a limited strike, in a recent column, columnist Kathleen Parker commented that “Waging a little bit of war is like being a little bit pregnant. History and human experience tell us that neither is possible, yet we seem bent on believing it. Or, should I say, deceiving ourselves.” The entire column is worth reading. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-just-a-little-bit-of-war-against-syria/2013/09/06/80ae9f3a-1732-11e3-804b-d3a1a3a18f2c_story.html?hpid=z3

   In this Monday's column, George Will commented,

In London exile in 1940, Charles de Gaulle decided, “It was up to me to take responsibility for France” (“c’etait a moi d’assumer la France ”). No U.S. president should assume he is, as de Gaulle almost mystically did, the nation, or is solely responsible for it. Remember this Tuesday when Barack Obama defends his choice to attack Syria. [Will's emphasis]

Will also cautions that, “Skepticism [regarding the various Syrian groups] is warranted, given the prodigies of confusion in administration statements, including historical amnesia.” He notes that CW weapons have been used more than a few times since they were “outlawed” by the 1925 Geneva Protocol. We are left wondering is there, in fact, a “vetted opposition that can be trusted to secure, but not use these CW weapons?

     Charles Krauthammer compares Obama's muddled ambiguity with Israel's decisive four unannounced air strikes into Syria.

Israel had already announced that it would not tolerate Assad acquiring or transferring to Hezbollah advanced weaponry. No grandiloquent speeches by the Israeli foreign minister. No leaked target lists. Indeed, the Israelis didn’t acknowledge the strikes even after they had carried them out. Unlike the American president, they have no interest in basking in perceived toughness. They care only about effect. They care about just one audience — the party to be deterred, namely Assad and his allies.

Albert Einstein recognized that “Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.”

     Politico, September 10^th: “Barack Obama’s unsteady handling of the Syria crisis has been an avert-your-gaze moment in the history of the modern presidency — highlighting his unsettled views and unattractive options in a way that has caused his enemies to cackle and supporters to cringe.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/united-states-of-weakness-96518.html#ixzz2eUUa2h7D

     Stay tuned for the President's address to the nation. Not only are his words being carefully phrased, incredibly, on Monday some White House advisers continued to argue about which room he should give his address.

2016. In another column, after relating an amusing antidote about Ronald Reagan's 1981 inauguration-day jitters, George Will continued, “[Today] some are so eager to be inaugurated in 2017 that the 2016 campaign has begun 28 months before the 1.4 percent of Americans who live in Iowa and New Hampshire express themselves. It is, therefore, not too soon to get a head start on being dismayed.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-clinton-christie-promise-2016-follies/2013/09/06/d440b3d6-1660-11e3-804b-d3a1a3a18f2c_story.html

He then discusses the possible candidacies of Hillary Clinton and NJ Governor Chris Christie. Folks, it's going to be a long, bumpy ride to November 2016.

Vacation: I will be “off” next week; leaving on 9/11 for a trip to PA for my sister's 50^th wedding anniversary. Back online on 9/24. 

 Now that I am leaving it is cooling off in Denver. Hope fall has come to your house!  

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

A 50^th to celebrate. Not to lessen the importance of my sister's 50^th wedding anniversary, but the March on Washington, August 28, 1963, was a momentous event, the beginning of so much that we now take for granted. Nevertheless, Michael Fletcher's August 27^th story in the Washington Post, pointed out some unpleasant facts:

Even as racial barriers have tumbled and the nation has grown wealthier and better educated, the economic disparities separating blacks and whites remain as wide as they were when marchers assembled on the Mall in 1963. When it comes to household income and wealth, the gaps between blacks and whites have widened. On other measures, the gaps are roughly the same as they were four decades ago. The poverty rate for blacks, for instance, continues to be about three times that of whites.

There are “Miles to go before [we] sleep.”

William Darity, Jr., of Duke University continues, “Certainly, poverty has declined for everybody, but it has declined in a way that the proportion of blacks to whites who are poor is about the same as it was 50 years ago.” And, as if he were looking into a very clear crystal ball in 1963, A. Philip Randolph, the March's visionary, said, “Yes, we want a Fair Employment Practice Act, but what good will it do if profit-geared automation destroys the jobs of millions of workers, black and white?” [emphasis added] The problems of “globalization” was not yet on the horizon.

A typical work week? According to the August 28^th Politico, Congress has a very full plate between now and December 31^st. Especially, when one considers the congressional work week: 9 days in September, 14 days in October, in total, less than 40 working-days prior to the end of the year. This certainly appears to show American voters whose interests are being served first and, conversely, whose ox is being gored. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/immigration-reform-95980.html

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T. E. Lawrence... I've often wanted to tackle Lawrence's “history” of his involvement with the Arabs and their WW I effort to dislodge the Ottoman empire from this area and help the overall English war effort. Having read the introduction and first chapter, I have concluded this will not be an “easy read,” no ordinary wartime conflict book. I learned, for example, that virtually the entire manuscript was lost after the war when Lawrence was changing trains in Reading, England, and that portions were rewritten yet a third time. Stay tuned.

Syria, chemical weapons (CW), and weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Deferred until next week given the president's decision to ask for congressional approval.

Secrecy and security. In an increasingly, instantly transparent world, what are a nation's real secrets and to what end are they kept? In last Friday's column, David Ignatius quoted John Maguire: “Secrecy, compartmentation and over-classification today are used to conceal malfeasance, systemic corruption and intelligence shortfalls.” Maguire is a career CIA operations officer who retired several years ago.

At week's end, Labor Day, 2014. The holiday began in 1894 and was created by the workers themselves. It proved to be a force for unionization in America. The traditional holiday ending the summer is much changed. For those not among the “1 %-ers”, the long-ago words of President Lincoln probably ring more than a bit hollow, though CEOs and bankers taking advantage of the revolving door between banking to government service might want to take note. "Labor is prior to and independent of capital," Abe declared in his first state of the union address. "Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

Looking back, today's workers might remember the words from two songs long favored in earlier laborers' taverns. “Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end...” Also, “Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time. Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?”

(The first is often credited to Gene Haskin, but he merely put English lyrics to a much earlier Russian romance song. The second, which became something of an anthem during the Great Depression, is by Yip Harburg.)

Recall, anyone? Recall election, that is. Sunday's “Perspective Section” in the Denver Post featured point-counter point essays. The pro-point of view was written by the chairman of Colorado's Republican party; the anti- side was submitted by the state's Democratic party chairman. For the first time in CO history, state legislators are facing recalls over their votes in favor of gun control legislation. (Recalls for other elected officials have occurred.) As you might imagine, these two particular recalls are attracting national attention and outside money, including a $350,000 donation from a pro-gun control advocate, NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg. Since neither legislator represents me, I will not be voting, but, as they say, full disclosure requires that I note I do favor citizen recalls in general and I would have voted in favor of the gun control measures in question.

The respective links:

Yes: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_23976660/are-colorados-recall-attempts-legitimate-yes

No: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_23976659/no-temper-tantrums-and-wave-fear