Here are this week's topics: school boards and money; OH marijuana initiative; 60th anniversary; death at an early age; doomsday message; the past as teacher; Congress's dismal ratings; NH and IA; the "forgotten war;" non-fiction reading; Republicans -- round ?, whatever.

Jefferson County, CO. The results are in for a Colorado school board election that drew national attention. Three members were recalled in a vote that money-wise was characterized as David vs Goliath: a modestly voter-funded recall effort vs more than a million dollars from a Koch Brothers-backed organization. Now comes the county superintendent's difficult task of reconciliation.

Ohio and pot. The voters there decided not to become the 6th political entity to legalize marijuana, medical or recreational. The proposed multi-faceted constitutional amendment may well have contained the seeds of its own defeat; voters had multiple reasons to vote NO. On the Sunday preceding the election, CBS's "60 Minutes" aired a segment detailing what OH officials called a state-wide heroin epidemic. There will no doubt be research into the program's impact on the vote.

Roll Call, the insider's guide to Congress. (Monday, November 5)  

To some Americans, 60 years of watching Congress’ every move might seem like sentence in purgatory, but for the editors and reporters at Roll Call, and for those of us who have been regular readers, it has been one hell of an interesting ride.
Exactly 60 years ago, Sid Yudain, press secretary to Al Morano, R-Conn., created a Capitol Hill community newspaper — Roll Call — to serve what he called “the most important community in the world.” It quickly caught on, becoming the small town paper of the Congress, divulging the gossip whispered in the corridors and chronicling the comings and goings of members and staff, the day-to-day tidbits of birthdays and births, weddings, retirements and deaths.

Unfortunate parallels, Russia and USA. This past Wednesday's Washington Post article noted that the deaths among certain groups (i.e. white, middle-aged, middle-class workers) in Russia and the US appeared to have similarities, "... the real cause in each instance was the end of a world that had sustained them." Only the early HIV/AIDS  era and collapse of the USSR have produced similar statistical anomalies. 

Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and Peter Donaldson. For Americans who grew up in the Cold War era, the voices of Murrow and Cronkite are well known. For Brits, the same can be said for Peter Donaldson, the "voice" of BBC. In the dark days of the Cold War, the British government asked him to make a radio message they hoped would never be played, the one announcing that Britain had been attacked by nuclear weapons. The message was, of course, classified but soon leaked. The brutal, chilling radio message said, in part,  "This country has been attacked with nuclear weapons...Stay in your own house, there's nothing to be gained in trying to get away.” A colleague said "... Donaldson’s voice '[was] rich and warm and resonant and without a trace of affectation ... when he read the news you trusted him.' ” Cronkite in his prime often polled as the "most trusted" man in America.

Intelligence Failures. The Christian Science Monitor book review says Ardennes 1944 offers fresh insight into the calamitous Battle of the Bulge. A lesson, as it were, of how Germany misread Allies' resolve, especially the American forces and, in turn, how Allied intelligence misread the warning signs of the Germans' impending offensive thrust. Noted historian and WW II scholar, Anthony Bevore, said, “There were indeed many fragmented pieces of information which taken together should have indicated German intentions, but as in almost all intelligence failures, senior [allied] officers discarded anything which did not match their own assumptions.” Sound familiar? Failures in Iraq, Syria, et. al.

Where is home? Congress continues to be plagued with dismal ratings -- who wants to be ranked below the proverbial used car salesman? Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, has a suggestion to begin to solve the problem: bite the bullet and move the family to Washington! Swell the ranks of the now much diminished, thinly populated "Congressional family." Milbanks notes, "[Living in Washington] was supposed to keep [members] from going native and succumbing to Washington’s backslapping ways...[But, as a result] lawmakers have ceased to know each other as colleagues, friends and human beings....It’s harder to savage a colleague on the floor if your kids are friends." Out with the Friday night Capitol Hill get togethers and in with the 3-day work week. Where do your senators and representative reside?

Who's on first? Political reporters Philip Rucker and Robert Coasta are the Washington Post's intrepid two-some toiling to cover the presidential contest in the two "early states," Iowa and New Hampshire. They noted comments by Stuart Stevens (Mitt Romney's chief adviser), "Evaluating the candidates on the basis of who is up and down in national polls is like looking at someone’s bowling average to determine if they can play tennis. It’s completely irrelevant. At the end of the day, all that matters are these [early] states, where you run for president like you’re running for governor.” Can anyone picture The Donald on the court?

The "Forgotten" (Korean) War. This segment on Sunday's CBS Sunday Morning program was undoubtedly an eye-opener for many viewers for whom "Forgotten," even "Unknown,"is indeed appropriate. At the urging of a Korean-American woman now living in UT, the South Korean government hosted families whose relatives are among those still classified as MIA (Missing In Action). A wall at the Korean Nation War Museum, much like our own Vietnam War memorial in Washington, lists each MIA from the Korean "police action," as it was then known. Even if this conflict is not a forgotten moment in American history for you, please take a few minutes to check the link and view the video.
    On Friday, June 30, 1950, when the war began, I was a nine year-old spending the night with my father who was the night shift press room foreman at the Meadville Tribune, the local paper. I distinctly remember sleepily reading Saturday morning's HUGE banner headline to the effect that we "were at war in Korea." I had no idea where Korea was, but having grown up with the Trib, so to speak, I soon found out. I still count this event as the day of my political awakening.
     For many years as a government teacher, I took students to the nation's capital for a week of government studies. One of those spring-time trips was not long after the Koren War memorial had opened on the National Mall. Our group of teachers visited the memorial, in part because one of our number had an uncle whose picture had been used as the face for one of the statues in the memorial. Some memorials have more meaning, are more personal, than others.We shared her grief in remembering her long-ago lost uncle.

Reading, non-fiction. My most recent cruise (Oct 18 - 31) sailed southward along the eastern Adriatic coast with visits to the Croatian cities of Rovinj, Split, and Dubrovnik and Kotor in Montenegro. While in the USAF during the dark days of the Cold War, I  was stationed in West Germany and traveled a lot, but travel to/through Marshal Tito's dictatorial Yugoslavia was, of course, out of the question. My current trip to these four Balkan cities prompted me to reread Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler's classic work about the inner workings of Stalin's iron-fisted dictatorship.
     In Dubrovnik, there is a prominent map that pinpoints the exact locations of the 1,000+ bombs and artillery shells which fell on the city during the most recent Balkan conflict, the 1990-1991 siege. As I sat in the square near the city's again restored palace, I remembered reading accounts of Nazi Germany's extreme brutality in Yugoslavia and reflected on the hospitality tendered the many German tourists who now flock southward, especially in the wintertime. Strange, the vicissitudes of war and peace, of enemies now friends.

The Republican debates. In commenting on NJ governor Christie being knocked off  the main debate stage , Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne said,   

If the Republicans did listen to the New Jersey governor, they might not have to complain about how their encounters have become a blend of a professional wrestling match and a hallway argument among high school students...Their real problem is not with formats or with who is asking what questions. It’s their own profound lack of empathy....They worry that any hints of social concern or generosity might make them sound like — God forbid! — liberals. 

     Meanwhile, the Democrats wait in the wings for their first "get together" on Saturday evening. 

Thank you for reading. Have a good week. We have our first significant snowfall in the city, but this, too, shall quickly pass in tomorrow's high altitude sunshine.