Index: November 22, 1973, remembered; winter's arrival; a non-classical concert; this year's “late” Thanksgiving, I'll be in FL; Christmas 2013; ACA; the “new” US Senate; NSA news; ACA, still; social media; a suggested site;

power, security, and foreign policy. Late, poorly edited posting. -:(  Hope your Thanksgiving went well, good food and friends!

November 22, 1973. By the accounts of most reporters/observers/pundits, the US was forever changed on that fateful day. Many of us would concur. Indeed, not until September 11, 2001, would one day produce such profound national changes. News outlets gave extensive coverage to JFK's assassination, running the gamut from tasteful and contemplative to the development and continual replay of the many conspiracy theories. Many can relate exactly where they heard the news: in school, on the job, driving somewhere, on the radio/TV..... It was somehow fitting that I was in the business lobby of a hospital in Erie, PA. I then worked for the US Public Health Service and was waiting to see a doctor about a case I was investigating.

It is all remembered, all very clear, all very sad. On November 22^nd, the nation had seemed to slow, to proceed in slow motion through the next tumultuous days until after the slain president's funeral. In contrast , on 9/11, the nation seemed to speed up, kicked into “warp speed” to deal with the actual and perceived crisis.

Winter's arrival. Denver's first snowfall. One local prognosticator set the commencement time at 2am, but, after getting to bed later than usual, I did not set an alarm. When I rose and looked out at 7:30, Thursday morning, there was a 2” accumulation, so winter has officially begun here in southeast Denver. As is typical, the predictions of 40° on Friday missed the mark – we did not break 30°. The snow tires are mounted on the 4x4 for motoring to/from the condo in Breckenridge and windshield washer reservoir is full.

Thursday morning I saw a second sign of winter – overnight the backyard lilly pond turned “slushy,” not a good sign for the many large and small birds who frequent the neighborhood watering hole.

The Michael Boublé concert. Our first visit to “The Can” (Denver Pepsi Center). All in all, an enjoyable evening. My wife and I had not been to a non-classical concert in ages, but the audience received Mr. B warmly. Being old folks and all, we had forgotten that the concert would begin an hour “late,” what with the warm-up act, followed by the necessary stage set up. “Warm up” seems a misnomer for any warming effect is long gone when the stage is finally set – there having been ample time for the audience to go to the ladies'/gents', buy another round of food and liquid refreshment, schmooze with friends, take pictures, etc. Mr. Boublé shows promise, but is not yet a showman in the same class as Tony Bennet or the late Frank Sinatra. Too much homey “chit-chat” with the audience, too little singing. And, as is invariably true today, the show's electronic/lighting effects far outclassed the singing.

A late Thanksgiving. As one might expect, merchants are unhappy with the shortened holiday shopping season. In a Denver Post column, Greg Dobbs, a former TV network journalist now retired in metro Denver, gently asked readers to boycott all of the money-hungry, big box stores who have elected to oblige their employees to forego their own families' Thanksgiving day activities. Mr. Dobbs assured readers that what you want to buy will be available on Black Friday and, as several consumer reporters have suggested, perhaps at an even lower price.

It has been noted that some Walmart employees have put out holiday food boxes – not for the homeless, but, sadly, for their fellow employees who are feeling the pinch of the latest round of cuts in the SNAP (food stamp) program.

This year my wife and I will be spending this longest-running national holiday (1789) beach-side on FL's east coast just south of Daytona. We will have our dinner with two of my wife's cousins, one a USAF 2^nd Lt stationed in GA (soon to be deployed), the other a junior at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. Everyone hopes for warm weather, even though the Atlantic will be too chilly for swimming; well, maybe the “kids” will go in!

Christmas, 2013. As a friend noted in his blog, Christmas is coming far too early and, for my tastes, much too commercialized. I can appreciate putting up the town's holiday decorations when it is warmer and I truly enjoy holiday music, but TV sales pitches before Thanksgiving?
Classical music @ McDonalds. One of the national networks reported that in an effort to deter loiters some McDonalds restaurants were resorting to playing classical music in their outside speakers. This was an old story here in Denver: the McDonalds on the 16^th Street pedestrian mall has successfully employed that tactic for many years. Alas, if only there were a few outside seats for those of us who enjoy the classics!

ACA. Some harsh realities of the poorly designed, inadequately tested website continue unabated. At a photo-op, the system “crashed” just as HHS Secretary Sebelius attempted to help someone log on and join. To quote Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now: “Oh, the horror!” One unfortunate crucial truth was highlighted in a recent Politico article: “....young people will have to pay so older people don’t face sky-high premiums.” Without young enrollees the system is doomed to failure and, unfortunately, early figures indicate that the young and healthy are, indeed, opting “out.” Nor is there any likelihood that Congress can rewrite the act and increase the penalties on non-signers. Technology aside, the root problems remain the increasing costs of our high tech health care technology and pharmacology, plus the profit-driven nature of our health care system.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/obamacare-tradeoffs-now-they-tell-us-100170.html#ixzz2lJT16QnN

US Senate. This past week, the US Senate changed its filibuster rules, lowing to 51 the number of votes necessary to approve executive nominees. In 1975, the minimum had been lowered to 60 from the previous 2/3rds present and voting. Should the Senate “change hands” in November 2014, the shoe will be on the other foot and Democrats may rue this change.


NSA news. Here is Senator Patrick Leahy (I, VT) on whether or not to shut the “back door”, the “maybe” provision, used by the NSA to sweep up all of your phone/email communications.
The NSA says because we can collect every one of your phone calls and imprints and everything else, we need to be able to do it in case someday we need it. Well, you can imagine if the local police department said, 'We're just going to break into your house, steal everything out of your files, everything out of your records, because someday we may need it,' everybody would be in an uproar. But if they can do the same thing electronically, we ought to say wait a minute.
The heart of this ongoing controversy might well be titled “The 4^th Amendment Meets the 21^st Century.”
In the debate over the Feinstein vs. Leahy versions of the proposed bill, here is what my senior CO senator, Mark Udall (D), now admits.
The significant reforms in this bill are especially important in light of declassified reports that show what Sen. Wyden [R, OR] and I [as members of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee] have known for years. The National Security Agency has been unable to properly manage existing surveillance programs. This has led to the abuse of Americans' privacy and misleading statements made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and we've only seen the tip of the iceberg.
http://www.creators.com/opinion/robert-scheer/be-thankful-for-the-people-struggling-to-limit-nsa-spying.html


ACA. George Will on President Obama's recent “apology.”
After Obama’s semi-demi-apology for millions of canceled insurance policies — an intended and predictable consequence of his crusade to liberate Americans from their childish choices of “substandard” policies sold by “bad apple” insurers — [ Representative Scalise (R,LA)] said Obama is like someone who burns down your house. Then shows up with an empty water bucket. Then lectures you about how defective the house was....But even this [current predicament] is a crisis only if Congress makes it so by supine acquiescence. Congressional Democrats are White House poodles. They also are progressives and therefore disposed to favor unfettered executive power. Republicans are supposed to be different.


Social Media. An interesting article from an unlikely source, The Federalist magazine, about the impact and usefulness of the various social media platforms available today. I wonder how many of my blog readers use social media and to what extent? “It seems unfortunate that social media services have bestowed miniature soap boxes on all of us, just at a time when society... is so deeply polarized by serious political and moral disagreements.” Nevertheless, there are the positive aspects. http://thefederalist.com/2013/11/22/facebook-etiquette-quitting-social-media-losing-proposition/

Suggested site. A quick check of the index for the daily blog, realclearpolitics.com, will reveal a wide range of offerings from the right, center, and left.

American power, national security, and foreign policy. The following comes from The Nation, December 16, 2013. In his article, “When success is failure, why it's hard to make sense of US foreign policy,” Eric Alterman, notes...
The dramatic extension of America’s overseas involvement and commitments in the past hundred years has reflected a growth of power rather the decline of security. Yet the full and effective deployment of that power has required from the American people disciplines and sacrifices that they are prepared to sustain only if they are persuaded the nation’s safety is directly at stake.” This has resulted in the expansion of national security to include the upholding of American values and the maintenance of world order... [and] the recurrent tendency to exaggerate the country’s vulnerability to attack.

In fact, one might push the date back to the Spanish – American, perhaps even to the Mexican – American conflicts. Both were portrayed by the government and national press as necessary to guard America's frontiers and secure our place in the world. WW I, of course, saw the US gain the preeminent position that it has only lately come to see as slipping away. We surely developed, and continue to possess, the world's most formidable military machine, but, as was evident in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, we find our power is becoming prohibitively costly, difficult to employ, and faces increasing domestic oppositon.   

This week's index: An overused word; women's economic recovery; spin machine; gerrymandering; classical music; jazz, too; economic disparities; the Constitution's “two-year” House; child labor; future defense budgets; a short Filipino history; fracking update; drone warfare

The most overused word bandied about today? Is there an alternative? Absolutely not!

Refreshing economic news? Well, yes, for women in the US workforce. A story from the Wall Street Journal reports they have recovered all the jobs they lost during the recession. Men have not. The primary reason for the labor-market milestone: Women tend to hold jobs in health, education, hospitality and retail, all sectors that have weathered the economic turmoil of recent years comparatively well. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303755504579203833804047994

The “Spin Machine,” is now an indispensable tool in the tool box of every elected politician, one readily available given modern technology. The machine will magically “explain” to the unschooled all manner of political facts and actions. Why was the ACA not ready on time? How did Governor Christie manage to win so “big” in NJ. Why is the as-yet undeclared candidate, Hillary, so busily raising money? The machine can explain – and always with seeming credibility. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/obamacare-spin-machine-white-house-99768.html

     Five points from the White House spin machine regarding ACA: (1) Only 123...; (2) the website stinks; (3) if only Republicans would cooperate; (4) George W. Bush did it, too; (5) it gets better. Point 1 refers to the number who signed up in the first month Mitt Romney's version of ACA was on line when he was governor in MA. Point 2: it is useless to argue with all those disappointed/dispirited would-be customers. Point 3 raises the historical question: how many Republicans lined up wishing FDR well as he introduced his “socialist” New Deal programs? Point 4 refers to George Bush's problems with the roll out of Medicare Part D. Point 5: darn tootin' it will get better! In the meantime, there is more than enough egg for everyone's face at the White House.

From one of those NPR stories (you know, when you park the car but do not turn off the radio) comes this resurrection of a little used, but succinct, one-word characterization of the ACA's problems: botched!

Gerrymandering. This is the heart of one article explaining “how” the Republicans garnered control of the US House, despite receiving 1.4 million FEWER votes than their Democratic opponents in November 2010. The culprit, of course, was “Unscrupulous Republican gerrymandering following the 2010 census...” As the TV ad says, “But, wait...”. By definition the other party's gerrymandering is always held to have been unscrupulous.

No matter how much the Democrats might wish it had not been true, the fact remains that after November 2010 numerous state legislatures were so comfortably controlled by Republican majorities that malicious, unscrupulous gerrymandering was the inevitable, however inconvenient, outcome.

     The charges that some of these same state legislatures then engaged in passing laws to suppress voter turnout is definitely a horse of a different color and will no doubt be subjected to rigorous judicial examination.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-republicans-rig-the-game-20131111

Classical music. My introduction came when I was a freshman (1959) at Penn State University. Live classical music was not often heard in central PA. The Nittany Valley was not close to any large airport and philharmonic orchestras tend to travel with a lot of baggage. It was always a tossup amongst Cleveland, Pittsburgh, or Philadelphia.

     So, in the fall of 1959, the Cleveland Philharmonic made the long trip by charter bus over US 322. The local joke was that after partying one Friday night, some PSU civil engineering students laid out the route by following a rattlesnake over the Alleghenies from Cleveland to New York City.

Undeterred, conductor George Szell brought his orchestra, though one can readily imagine that he was taken aback when he was led into the evening's venue – PSU's venerable, tired field house -- which offered more seating than the school's auditorium. You could pack 6,000 rabid wrestling or gymnastic fans into that small arena; basketball games were never sold out unless Jerry West and the WV Mountaineers were coming to town.

     Mr. Szell led the orchestra through the first movement of a now forgotten piece, then, dramatically paused, turned to the audience and apologized for having to re-tune, stating the obvious, “....the humidity in here is simply awful.” Indeed, his orchestra may have set a record for re-tuning that night. Nonetheless, I was hooked on classical music and enjoy Denver's classical station daily.

Jazz, too. During those undergraduate years, PSU had one of the largest collegiate jazz clubs in the nation, so I was fortunate in being able to hear many of the jazz greats – they came much less encumbered than a philharmonic orchestra. A mere $2 and student ID got you a ticket to see these legendary jazz musicians. In those days, before segregation had ended, jazz greats played the clubs in “safe” US cities, toured northern and western college campuses, and then spent the summer on the European jazz festival circuit. I also have a “quick tune” button for the local jazz station.

America's growing economic disparities. Here is a Progressive Budget Blueprint by Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT). Some of the senator's points are certainly open to heated argument and discussion, but given the headlines involving the ACA, how can any cost-conscious consumer of health care argue with his last point? Unless, of course, your re-election campaign war chest is being silk-lined by the pharmaceutical industry!

Here are 10 fair ways to raise revenue, reduce spending and create jobs.

1. Stop corporations from using off shore tax havens to avoid U.S. taxes.

2. Establish a Robin Hood tax on wall street speculators.

3. End tax breaks and subsidies for big oil, gas and coal companies.

4. Establish a progressive estate tax.

5. Tax capital gains and dividends the same as work.

6. Repeal all of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax breaks for the top 2%.

7. Eliminate the cap on taxable income that goes into the Social Security Trust Fund.

8. Establish a currency manipulation fee on China and other countries.

9. Reduce unnecessary and wasteful spending at the Pentagon.

10. Require Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry.”

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/budget/

Economist Joseph Stiglitz notes some of the absurdities in America's farm/food programs that help to perpetuate high prices and food shortages at home and abroad. By and large, these programs enrich only a very few agricultural giants here at home. Economists and environmentalists are also taking note of the world-wide effects of America's ethanol program and the Obama administration has just announced lower ethanol levels for our gas tanks. America's present ethanol consumption diverts nearly 40% of our corn from the world's food chain. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/the-insanity-of-our-food-policy/?ref=opinion&_r=1

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/15/obama-lower-quotas-ethanol-gasoline

     Regarding the food stamp cuts, see Nicholas Kristof's article. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/opinion/sunday/prudence-or-cruelty.html?ref=opinion

     In 1967, I was a student at San Diego State University and a group of college educated, politically-savy enlisted men (US Navy) applied for food stamps. Before the end of the day they were called on the carpet by their commander, who lectured them about putting the USN in an unfavorable light. Undeterred – with hungry children and wives at home – these young enlistees went far, far out on a limb and engaged in old fashioned blackmail, telling their commander that they had already contacted the pro-military San Diego Union newspaper which very much wanted their story. They implored their commander to come with them and take the lead in lobbying Congress to raise military pay. To his lasting honor, the commander did just that. He went with them, let them tell their story, and then began the process that in short order caused Congress to pass a much needed military pay increase.

     I knew how desperate they were. In 1964-1967, while stationed in Germany, I knew of enlisted families who gathered regularly in the last days of every month to cook what amounted to soup kitchen meals for their hungry families. There were even wives, known for their culinary ability, who early in the month very quietly broke the law and earned money by serving meals cooked in their on-base kitchens. Forget the rhetoric to the contrary, then as now, there are those among us who are truly in need!

Future defense spending. The following factoid is a harbinger of the imminent change in the way Congress will view the defense establishment. “For the first time [since 1946], there are no....World War II veterans in the Senate. The last — Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) — died in June.” Paul Moore, an assistant secretary of defense in the Bush administration, has rightly noted, “Experience matters in any endeavor [including defense allocations and spending.]”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/defense-hawks-capitol-hill-congress-99767.html#ixzz2kajz4ymD

The constitutionally mandated, two-year US House. This is one constitutional provision that the modern era has most assuredly rendered obsolete – and cries out for change: Article I, Section 2, Clause 1: “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States.”
     Combining today's “price tag” for a House seat with the two-year re-election cycle requires each representative to become little more than a perpetual money-raiser. As calculated by the “Outside the Beltway” blog, in 2012, each house member's election campaign spent an average of $1.6M. I should be paying my representative, Diane DeGette, her base salary of $174,000 to do legislative business, not spend untold hours raising money for her re-election – and Ms. DeGette has one of the “safer” House seats! http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-win-a-house-seat-about-1-6-million-on-average/
     This old dictum stands the test of time: politics makes strange bedfellows. Consider this money- raising note from last Friday morning's Roll Call. “Three former GOP congressmen, including former National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Thomas M. Reynolds, will co-host a fundraiser for Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins next month, according to the Buffalo News.” Oh, the irony: former Republican House members raising campaign funds for a Democratic colleague. Very curious! Have we gone down Alice's rabbit hole?   http://atr.rollcall.com/ex-nrcc-chairman-to-raise-money-for-democrat-in-new-york/


Child Labor. It is not a closed issue, especially not in American agriculture. The title of the article from The Nation (linked below) asks “Why are children working in American tobacco fields?” To borrow the opening words of monologues by the late Andy Griffith, “Well, I don't know, but I think...” it is probably because their families need the minimum wages they earn. http://www.thenation.com/article/177136/why-are-children-working-american-tobacco-fields
     Just as in an earlier era when coal dust and black lung afflicted young mine workers, so, too, are today's child tobacco field workers being afflicted with nicotine poisoning, variously referred to as “green tobacco sickness” or just “the green monster.” Saliva tests from one Wake Forest University study indicated that at the picking season's end, a non-smoking tobacco worker had a level of nicotine equivalent to that of a smoker. Some growers actually advise their workers to begin smoking in order to develop a tolerance. Urine tests also indicate an increase in the presence of harmful pesticides in workers' blood. More than a few of these young workers are here illegally and, as a result, they and their families are doubly at the mercy of the growers.
     From its earliest years, American agriculture revolved around the storied “family farm” and, hence, has a long history of laxity related to child farm labor. The school year and vacations were even tailored to the growing and harvesting seasons. The color of America's youngest workers may have gone from white, to black, and now largely to brown, but their long, cruel working conditions remain.


After Haiyan, a short Filipino history. Our relationship with this 7,107 island-nation has been long and tortured. In 1898, after having “won” the Spanish-American war, the US fought its first foreign guerrilla war in the Philippines. It was a nasty campaign, replete with charges of war crimes on both sides and, in the end, American assumed sovereignty over the islands. True, we hastened to their assistance when the Japanese invaded WW II began.  Filipinos and escaped Americans fought another guerrilla war, this time against the Japanese invaders.
     After MacArthur's celebrated return, relations smoothed out a bit. Filipino independence was declared on July 4, 1946 (since changed to June 12^th, to honor Emilio Aguinaldo's declaration of independence from Spain in 1898.) Our assistance was again applauded as the we jointly fought and bested a short-lived anti-communist insurrection in 1946-1948.
     Now to the present. What is not so well known is that many Filipinos have dual citizenship. After WW II, young Filipino men who joined the US Navy and served honorably for a six year enlistment were granted American citizenship. Indeed, for years most mess stewards aboard USN vessels were not African American, but Filipino. Our post-WW II relationship yielded two large, strategically located military facilities, Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base, both returned to Filipino control in 1991. These two installations and the naval task force of the USS George Washington aircraft carrier group are at the heart of the typhoon recovery effort.


Fracking update. In Broomfield, CO, votes have been tabulated from all military and overseas ballots and the final results indicate that the city's anti-fracking ban passed by 17 votes. Thus, anti-fracking bans passed in all four CO jurisdictions. Of course, legal fights loom ahead in the contest between state laws and these locally enacted restrictions.


The use of drones (unmanned aerial vehicles). If you are at all concerned about our continued use of targeted-attacks using UAVs, including operations against American citizens, see the story linked below. http://www.thenation.com/article/176869/dirty-wars-continued-how-does-global-war-terror-ever-end
Note, though, that unnoticed amid these headline-grabbing, military-related stories are others illustrating to the usefulness of UAVs in a myriad of peaceful, humanitarian efforts: fighting huge forest fires, search and rescue operations, rapid responses to amber alerts involving lost or abducted children. At this point, for all the public knows, UAVs may be/have been pressed into service over the far-flung islands in Philippine rescue operations.  

November 12, 2013

The Index. For those wishing to jump over sections of little interest, here a new twist: an index to the week's blog entries.

• Veterans Day
• Election re-cap
• America's right, then and now
• Are we really alone? (astronomy)
• Nonfiction: David McCullough's The Greater Journey
• Our new secretary of state
• The “state of the art” White House

Veterans Day. A hearty “thank you” to all of my comrades who have served over the years. The grammarians among you will no doubt note the lack of an apostrophe in the usual spelling.

     This national holiday was formerly known as Armistice Day, having been first proclaimed by President Wilson, on November 11, 1919, since broadened to honor all American military veterans. Including, only very belatedly (1980), the Women's Army Air Corps (WAAC). WAACS held all manner of wartime jobs, including ferrying all types of aircraft from factories to air bases, including overseas locations. (See recent PBS Nova program.)

      History buffs will remember that the armistice ending WW I, began the 11^th hour, of the 11^th day, of the 11^th month in 1918. Intense armistice talks had been ongoing for three days and the official document was signed at 5:10am on November 11^th just outside Compiegne, France. However, the fire-breathing American commander, General John J. (Blackjack) Pershing, thought the Germans needed to taught a “severe lesson” and had elected to continue the fighting. As a result – and despite the valiant attempts of German machine gunners to stop an impending assault – the last American (Private Henry Gunther) died needlessly at 10:50am, November 11^th. RIP

Election re-cap. First, to follow up on last week's blog note: In the nationally-watched, Republican primary in AL's 1^st congressional district, the tea party candidate failed to defeat the establishment's choice. To continue, for the first time in twenty years, NYC's “His Honor” will be a (progressive?) Democrat, William de Blasio. In NJ, that loveable heavyweight, Chris Christie, was re-elected with support from disaffected Democrats, Hispanics, and independents. Governor Christie appears to be on his way for a run at the “big show” in 2016. Meanwhile, in the northwest, in a much-watched, nasty campaign, Seattle elected its first openly gay mayor.

     Here in CO, voters rejected by a nearly 2-1 margin a $1B tax increase (over 10 years) for K-12 education. (When I came to Denver in March 1970, CO was among the top five states in funding education. Back then, of course, CA had a marvelous higher education system; that, too, has been largely dismantled.) Fear not, the CO treasury will get added revenue from two taxes on marijuana sales. Finally, citizens in three CO jurisdictions voted to limit/eliminate the process of “fracking” in gas/oil wells. The results in a fourth county will require a recount since the measure apparently failed by a mere thirteen votes.

     The internal policies of both parties, especially among Republicans, are intricate and arcane. Republican moderates, who once dominated the party, are attempting to regain control by changing the way their candidates are selected, from state-wide conventions to primaries. See this article from the congressional daily, Roll Call. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/07/us/politics/gop-weighs-limiting-clout-of-right-wing.html?hp&_r=1&

“Conventions have a flimsy track record of selecting the most electable candidates,” David Kochel, an Iowa-based Republican strategist, said in an interview on Wednesday. “There’s just no good substitute for a full-scale vetting by a large universe of primary voters.” So, the beat goes on!

America's Right, then and now. Rick Perlstein's article in the Nation (November 7th) recounts the rise and fall of various right wing Republican movements, from Senators McCarthy (1950s) and Goldwater (1964), through Governor Ronald Reagan (1980), to the Tea Party of today.

http://www.thenation.com/authors/rick-perlstein#

Are we really alone – here in our very small bit of the Milky Way? According to a story from this past Tuesday's science news, we may not be as alone as we once thought. Numbers extrapolated from observations by NASA's Kepler deep space telescope indicate that roughly one in every five sun-like stars is orbited by a potentially habitable, Earth-size planet, meaning that the universe has abundant real estate that could be congenial to life – tea-temperature water is one key ingredient. In the “seeable” universe, those numbers run to the untold billions of possibilities!

     So, what did transpire in Roswell, NM, in 1947?? Spooky stuff, coming this close after Halloween and all! http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/kepler-space-telescope-finds-earth-size-potentially-habitable-planets-are-common/2013/11/04/49d782b4-4555-11e3-bf0c-cebf37c6f484_story.html

     There was an astronomical anniversary this past week. On November 6, 1572, the inveterate night-time sky watcher and astronomer, Tycho Brahe, observed a totally new star in the firmament. (Those years, with little if any light pollution to “darken” the night's skies, must have been a glorious time for Brahe and his kindred spirits.) This new star appeared, increased in brightness, then vanished, all within two short years. Biblical references aside, Brahe had witnessed and noted the birth and death of a super nova, though, admittedly, this birth and death had transpired untold light years earlier.

     For the first time, there was concrete evidence of the following: The stars were not fixed, eternal and constant; new stars could (apparently) be created, and, finally, stars can (apparently) go away, too. The most eternal things in all of human experience weren’t eternal, after all. Now four centuries after Tycho’s supernova first appeared, we have discovered this truth numerous times over as we turned our telescopes (radio and visual) skyward. Not to worry, though, our sun is not slated for death anytime soon.

Nonfiction. America's early travelers. Have we not always been hurrying to get somewhere else? Last week I began David McCullough's book, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. At first blush, you might assume that this eminent historian would regale us with vignettes about the more well known Americans in Paris, those who came (some stayed) after WW I and the Spanish Civil War. Stories about the better known literary giants like Earnest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, John dos Passos, et. al., not to mention, Jerry Mulligan, Gene Kelly's loveable, fictional painter in the movie, “An American in Paris.”

     But, as noted on the book's flyleaf, not all early American pioneers followed Horace Greeley's advice to go west. Rather, McCullough tells of the Americans involved in the first rush eastward, 1830 – 1900, an era when travel by sea was equally as daunting as plunging into the vastness of the American west. Some travelers were well known, some lesser, but all were drawn, moth-to-the flame, to the City of Light.

Elizabeth Blackwell (America's first certified MD), Charles Sumner (anti-slavery abolitionist), Samuel F. B. Morris (skilled painter, but most remembered for the telegraph), Louis Moreau Gottschalk (pianist), George P.A. Healy (portrait painter), Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (physician), Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Henry James, and James Fenimore Cooper (writers all). The list goes on, a veritable who's-who of Americana.

     In 1831 came one of those noteworthy historical coincidences: a young Frenchman, Alex de Tocqueville, sailed west from Le Harve to the United States. He traveled among us for nine months, returned to Paris, and, in a poignant remembrance, held up a mirror to our early nation in his unforgettable Democracy in America.

Our new secretary of state. Washington Post deputy editorial page editor, Jackson Diehl, penned a recent column titled, “John Kerry's Middle East dream world,” which he later referred to as “....Kerry’s Magical Mystery Tour.” Indeed, Secretary Kerry seems to be struggling to find his voice and place in this touchiest of diplomatic venues that involves, among other things, Iran's nuclear arms program. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jackson-diehl-john-kerrys-middle-east-dream-world/2013/11/10/5b17d2d2-47cf-11e3-b6f8-3782ff6cb769_story.html?wprss=rss_todays-opeds&tid=pp_widget

The “state of the art” White House.  It's worth a peek at the website to enjoy the cover of the November 11^th New Yorker magazine: President Obama talking on a 30 year-old cell “brick,” HHS Secretary Sebelius with crossed fingers (on both hands), and the IT specialist about to insert a floppy disk into the desk top, a venerable Apple 2, hammer and screw driver close at hand. As my young friend says, “Well, it could have happened!” http://www.newyorker.com/magazine

November 5, 2013

Tuesday, election day. Alabama's 1^st congressional district seems a sleepy, southern, almost back-water, place to begin, but it is here that the US Chamber of Commerce has chosen to throw down its monied gauntlet and back a former AL state senator who is running against an equally well-supported Tea Party-backed candidate. Is it a bit of an overstatement to say that the “soul” of the GOP may at stake? Watch as the returns come in tonight.

A book's wonderful beginning and end. Last Wednesday's visit to the DPL (Denver Public Library) yielded The Men Who United the States by Simon Winchester, prolific author, resident of Sandisfield, Massachusetts (MA), by order of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, a 2006 officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), and, more recently, newly-minted American citizen.

     The book's subtitle urges the reader on: America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible. How can you not wonder who will be included among the eccentrics and mavericks? No doubt history buffs will enjoy the entire book, but the author's memorial dedication (to his mother-in-law), introductory note, preface, and epilogue are must reads for all who value and wonder about the sense of community and citizenship where they live. In the Memorial, Winchester explains how he came to weave America's story around the five primary elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. In his Epilogue, the author recalls the impact of Sherwood Anderson's classic, Winesburg, Ohio. He then goes on to relate how the creation of his town's monthly newspaper, the Sandisfield Times, ushered in – and continues to foster – a sense of community.

     Between the introductory notes and epilog, Winchester recounts a myriad of little, many unknown, details about America's inexorable westward expansion by trails, early “corduroy” turnpikes, rivers, canals, wagon trains, railroads, and interstate highways. The lesser known exploits of the eccentrics and mavericks are interwoven amongst the more well known episodes.

     Ironically, as I drove home, National Public Radio (NPR) had a segment about the mostly forgotten “Lincoln Highway,” which was not included in Winchester's index. The Lincoln Highway was the early 20^th century's first road across America. It stretched from New York City to San Francisco, generally following the routes explored by Winchester. However, It was a highway in name only, a hodgepodge of surfaces: dirt, brick, plank, early asphalt, but, outside the cities, almost invariably dirt. The route was the brainchild of Carl Fisher (“father” of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway) and existed long before America had even begun to consider a national highway system. To use a later highway mapping term, the Lincoln Highway was America's original “blue highway.” (See William Least Heat Moon's book, Blue Highways.) The NPR link is http://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/info/

A lovely autumn-orange avenue. A nearby street in the Denver Tech Center has a row of ash trees that turn iridescent orange each fall. Last week, a pale late afternoon sun shone through the trees, casting a fitting, ghostly glow over the adjacent sidewalk. One has to hope that the “emerald ash borer” blight, now marching westward, does not take its terrible toll here – at least not in the near future. During Halloween week we had a day of the “Seattle drizzles,” but things dried quickly and the leaves fell anew, skipping about on the yard, the front and rear decks. Here is an appropriate autumn quote from a “Passport to Paris,” the current exhibit at the Denver Art Museum: “There are no lines in nature, only areas of color.” Édourad Manet.

Halloween night, 2013. There were a myriad of ghosts, goblins, ghouls, zombies, and other denizens of the night. Most came with parent(s) in tow and most were adorned with safety-wise glow sticks. At the end of the evening, there were even a few treats left for the master of the house.

Keep Your Plan? What a mess and it appears that the bungling IT company tasked with writing the computer code for the federal ACA was also paid – and bungled – the coding for many of the states' web sites. Last Wednesday, right-leaning columnist Jennifer Rubin wrote:

The major news networks have discovered what conservatives figured out a long time ago: You don’t get to keep your insurance plan – that is, if it is not Obamacare-compliant, if your employer has been forced to alter or drop his plans and/or if you are priced out of the individual market, as many people are discovering they are. This was entirely foreseeable and indeed baked into the cake, if you will. As soon as the administration decided that gold-plated insurance — not low-cost and high-deductible catastrophic coverage — was to be the norm, those people who had the latter were not going to get to keep the plan they liked.

     Indeed, throughout the past week everyone in the administration's health care-related hierarchy was subjected to the veritable third-degree when they testified before Congress or spoke to the press. When he spoke in Boston this past Wednesday, even the President was forced to retract his earlier rosy predictions about the ease of the roll out and an individual's ability to keep their present health care plan at their current price. It was nothing if not hysterical that it was the usually dour Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, who tried to inject a bit of levity into the situation. “Unsurprisingly,” he said, “just 12 percent of Americans think the rollout has gone well. That’s less than the 14 percent of Americans who believe in Bigfoot.” Gee whiz, just when I was going to book a trip to the northwest hoping for a sighting!

     All of the Washington dunderheads (the President included) can not seem to grasp this simple economic truth: our profit-driven health care market will always seek to raise premiums, while weeding out the elderly and sick, those most likely to drive up costs and lower profits. The following caution from Margaret MacMillan, though intended for an earlier wartime era (the origins of WW I), seems hauntingly relevant to our current 21^st century health care predicament: “We should never underestimate the part played in human affairs by mistakes, muddle, or simply poor timing.” Amen!

SNAP (food stamps). Grinches of all stripes and at all levels of government are trumpeting this past Friday's across-the-board cuts in this portion of the nation's safety net. The careful observer might have noted that none of these “spokespersons” seem to be too thin or in need of additional nutrition; in fact, a few would benefit from pushing back from the table.

NSA on the line. Jealousy or real fear? Bernard Kouchner, the former foreign minister of France, bluntly noted in a radio interview: “Let’s be honest. We eavesdrop, too. Everyone is listening to everyone else. But we don’t have the same means as the United States, which makes us jealous.” Frankly, I am more worried about my metadata being “stolen” by logging onto Secretary Sebelius's suspect health care website than by the NSA.

The Netherlands' changing welfare system. This small, proud European country recently became a “changed-nation,” as its reigning monarch, 75-year-old Queen Beatrice quietly abdicated, handing the reins to her son, Willem-Alexander. In the King's first annual parliamentary speech, written (as is customary) by the current Liberal party cabinet, Willem noted the some very visible deficiencies in the Dutch welfare system. True, he said, changes have been made, but the nation's economic and social welfare systems need to keep pace with a continually changing and globally linked world. The article linked below looks at the Netherlands and draws comparisons with the problems and changes in the Scandinavian countries to the north.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/004028-the-dutch-rethink-welfare-state

English society, a reflection of America? In last Saturday's [London] Daily Telegraph, Jeramy Warner reflected on the apparent decline in four vital areas of English society: (1) the lower living standards for the coming generation; (2) a larger percentage of the family budget going to the necessities of life; (3) the declining levels of education where “those leaving the workforce are better educated than those joining it”; and (4) a coming health care crisis, “fundamental is that a poor start to life will significantly impair later health outcomes.” These are all areas about which America should be equally concerned.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10417838/Harsh-truths-about-the-decline-of-Britain.html