March, 2006 archive

Apparently Richard Cohen heard the same interview I heard.

And it led him to some interesting observations. I couldn’t have said it better myself, which is why he works for the Washington Post. And I don’t:

Buckley mentioned the difficulty of writing satire in Washington, where the most outrageous idea is trumped by the next day’s headline. I heard the interview just as I was reading in the newspaper that Republicans were “distressed by the White House’s performance since President Bush’s reelection.” As the old saying goes, can you top that, Chris?

Republicans were not “distressed,” mind you, by the war in Iraq, which turns out to have been waged for no good reason. Republicans were not distressed by the massive intelligence failure that preceded the war. Republicans were not distressed, either, by the intelligence failure that produced the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, more than seven months after our MBA president took over as CEO of the federal government.

(snip–there is much more worth reading)

Lest you think I am a partisan hack, let me tell you what distresses the Democrats: an innocuous port deal that lent itself to demagogic mischief. This reprehensible exercise in Arab-bashing was led by New York’s two senators, Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton, both of whom revealed themselves to be ill-suited to fill the Senate seats once occupied by the likes of Jacob Javits, Pat Moynihan, Bobby Kennedy, Herbert Lehman and Robert Wagner. They wound up taking the same side as Bill Frist, the Senate’s most nimble opportunist, a physician who took one look at a videotape of Terri Schiavo and rendered a medical opinion so wrong and so irresponsible that he violated the physician’s paramount obligation to “First do no harm” by simply getting out of bed that morning. If Frist is your doctor, seek a second opinion.

Truly, we — you and I — should be the ones distressed. This country has a bunch of fools for leaders.

From On the Media:

Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC’s Countdown, has a weekly segment called “the worst person in the world,” and frequently awards that honor to Bill O’Reilly, of Fox’s O’Reilly Factor. Recently, O’Reilly cracked. He said anyone who spoke Olbermann’s name on his program would hear from Fox security and apparently, at least one caller to his radio program already has. We gathered actual tape of the feuding hosts, set their voices to music, and yes, embellished the tale, just a little.

Phillybits has the clearest explanation of the US “terror threat levels” I’ve seen yet.

Here.

Anyone who cares about the Great Experiment in self-rule called United States of America to listen to this weeks episode of “This American Life.” From the website:

The right of habeas corpus has been a part of this country’s legal tradition longer than we’ve actually been a country. It means the government has to explain why it’s holding a person in custody. But now, the war on terror has nixed many of the rules we used to think of as fundamental. At Guantanamo Bay, our government initially claimed that the prisoners should not be covered by habeas – or even by the Geneva Conventions – because they’re the most fearsome terrorist enemies we have. But is that true? Is it a camp full of terrorists, or a camp full of our mistakes? Reporter Jack Hitt unveils everything we know about who these prisoners are. In interviews with two former detainees, he finds out the consequences of taking away habeas, for them and for us. Broadcast the weekend of March 10-12 in most places, or here via RealAudio next week.

There is more and more talk that cell phone use may be allowed in flight. Nevertheless, there appears to be some science, not just fear, behind the requirement to turn off those cell phones in the air. From an interview on this week’s Living on Earth (Steve Cherry is the interviewer; Bill Strauss is the researcher):

CHERRY: Strauss says GPS is becoming an increasingly important aid to pilots, especially during night and bad weather landings. One particular cell phone model, the Samsung N300, was notable for the way its radio frequency emissions interfered with GPS.

STRAUSS: The Samsung phones were basically emitting RF energy in the same band as the GPS navigational systems. The problem there is that the GPS system uses very low-level signals, and these were quite large signals, essentially blinding the GPS onboard equipment. So any aircraft that’s navigating using GPS navigation solely, or at least as a primary system, will have a very difficult time. Not so much of a concern at 30,000 feet when you’re going coast to coast, but a big concern if you’re using a GPS landing aid system and you’re coming in on approach.

Frankly, I would rather not see cell phone use allowed on planes. Airplanes, the cell-phone free coach on Amtrak, and my little yellow truck seem to be about the only places any more where I can be free from hearing the disgusting details of the personal lives of whatever luser$ happen to be in the neighborhood.

Here.

A US housewife has confessed to spamvertising internet porn sites in her spare time. Jennifer Clason, 33, of Raymond, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty to two offences under the US CAN-SPAM Act, and one count of criminal conspiracy, at a federal court hearing in Phoenix, Arizona on Monday. Clason, whose agreed to pay back the money she made from her anti-social activities, faces up to five years imprisonment on each count at a sentencing hearing scheduled for 5 June.

From the right, Geoge Will quite properly skewers the those who would keep military recruiters off campus in the name of free speech (not that I am a big fan of military recruiters these days–they serve a corrupt and venal master these days, but that is not their fault):

Thirty-six law schools and faculties challenged the constitutionality of the law on the grounds that “forced hosting” of military recruiters constitutes a “crisis of conscience” over compelled speech. They said they are compelled to communicate the false message that they support the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, and their hosting also subsidizes the military’s expression of its view that openly gay persons are not suited for service.

(Do those professors object to public financing of political campaigns, which compels taxpayers to subsidize political speech they oppose? Don’t ask.) Monday’s opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, who, during last December’s oral argument, blandly said of the schools’ desire to discriminate against the military, “You are perfectly free to do that, if you don’t take the money.” On Monday Roberts’s shredding of the law schools’ arguments included a tartness that betrayed impatience with law professors who cannot understand pertinent distinctions.

The Law Schools wanted to practice civil disobedience without paying the price for disobedience. Won’t work. An essential element of civil disobedience is the willingness to to pay the price: go to jail, loose the grant, suffer beatings at the hands of the police, be tortured in Bush’s concentration camps, whatever.

Concomitantly (I’ve waited years to work this into a sentence!), Richard Cohen nails the intellectual deceipt of the current Federal Administration:

It will be nearly impossible in the next several months to avoid the phrase “culture of corruption.” It is of Democratic vintage, coined to take the sins of Jack Abramoff, former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham and maybe some others and visit them on all Republicans running for office, especially congressional incumbents. Strictly speaking, it’s a bit of a smear. But if it applies anywhere, and it does, it’s not to corruption having to do with money, it’s to corruption having to do with thought. The Bush administration is intellectually corrupt.

Some of this corruption is induced by the inability to keep religion in its place. The president suffers mightily from this. After just eight months in office, George Bush drew a line between acceptable and unacceptable stem cell research and based it entirely on religious views that had nothing to do with science. Destruction of the cells was likened, as so much is nowadays, to the supposedly overriding issue of abortion or, as it is sometimes put, the “culture of life.”

(snip)

That culture, as applied by the Bush administration, holds that what works is what ought to work. So, for example, the official policy of the United States government is the promotion of sexual abstinence (outside of marriage), which is all right in and of itself but not as a substitute for a workable policy of population control and HIV-AIDS avoidance. The latter should entail sex education and, of course, the use of some sort of contraceptive device, particularly (for AIDS prevention) condoms. The Bush administration eschews that approach, exhorting the young and the randy just to eschew sex. That approach works until it does not. Then catastrophe hits.

The current Federal Administration wants to act on its FantasyLand as if it were real, disregarding all–and any–evidence to the contrary.

Unfortunately, wishing don’t make it so. And our children and grandchildren will pay the price for the misdeeds of the current Federal Administration.

I am not a fan of Walmart. I much prefer Target. I like stores with ceilings.

Nor am I fan of their business practices. They squeeze their suppliers and their employees. This website, though it clearly has an anti-Walmart slant agenda, points out some of the reasons many persons do not like Walmart for political reasons. And it is true that Walmart has been caught with its pants down in several unfair labor practices suits.

And certainly there seems to have been a change since the Old Man died, at least in the atmosphere of the stores as observed by an infrequent customer. I can’t remember the last time I saw a greeter who wasn’t grumpy. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw a greeter. I’m not sure his heirs have been true to the Old Man’s vision, but that’s another story.

And as someone who carried a union card for 24 years, I resent the heavy-handed tactics they use to fight efforts of employees to organize.

Nevertheless, I have mixed feelings about the recent legislation in Maryland and the proposed legislation in New Jersey and other states that clearly singles out Walmart.

Andrew Cassel had some very interesting observations on the anti-Walmart legislation, which takes the form of mandating the company spend a percentage of revenue on healthcare, in Sunday’s local rag:

Recall if you can the mid-1990s, when President Bill Clinton was trying, in his words, to “end welfare as we know it.”

Welfare as we knew it was a decades-old disaster. Not only had it failed to end poverty in America, it had fostered social and political divisions that were at their most corrosive in cities such as Philadelphia.

Fixing welfare, in the view of Clinton and other reformers, meant reforming public assistance programs so they no longer discouraged poor people from taking jobs – even low-paying ones.

The idea was that work helps build skills, self-esteem and better lives. Thus, it was better for government not to abruptly cut off benefits such as Medicaid and food stamps when people took jobs, but rather offer them as supplements to entry-level wages.

Clinton labeled this strategy “making work pay.” Many progressive-minded people hailed it because it extended help to people who formerly had fallen through the cracks while putting government on the side of mainstream values such as work and thrift.

I’m not sure I agree with him, but I think his history lesson is worth attention.

I am certain of this: Legislation of this sort is not the way to fix healthcare costs. Maybe I’ll ramble about that some other time.

I think their studies will be interrupted:

Authorities arrested three college students on Wednesday on charges of setting fires that damaged or destroyed nine Baptist churches in Alabama, in what one suspect allegedly called a joke that went too far.

Guess they’ll have plenty of time to reflect on the nature of humor where they’ll be spending the next 15 t0 20 with time off for good behavior.

School board members in Minnesota called it anti-American and anti-Christian. A Virginia school dropped it after parents complained that top state colleges didn’t recognize it. And some Cherry Hill school board members say it’s a waste of money.

Battles over the increasingly popular global education program known as International Baccalaureate have been popping up in towns across the country. Most recently, a school district in the Pittsburgh suburbs abolished the program after some members questioned its politics and costs.

But supporters of the college-preparatory curriculum known as IB said efforts to quash the program are more about the politics of its detractors.

Since when is learning, since when is learning how to think critically, since when is learning how to analyze situations and draw conclusions somehow unAmerican?

The Know-Nothings are on parade.

God help us all.

Gibbstown, NJ, Valero, $2.16, up $.05.

Paulsboro, NJ, Lukoil, $2.08, down $.01.

Paulsboro, NJ, Exxon (TA Truck Stop), $2.06, down $.03.

Paulsboro, NJ, BP, $2.14, up $.03.

Claymont, Del., Exxon, $2.21, up $.02.

Claymont, Del., Sunoco, $2.23, up $.04.

Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.19, up $.02.

Claymont, Del., BP, $2.25, up $.08.

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $2.25, up $.10.

Claymont, Del., Gulf, $2.25, up $.06.

Claymont, Del, Wawa, $2.19, up $.14.

Holly Oak, Del, Mobil, $2.29, up $.15.

Penny Hill, Del., Exxon, $2.27, up $.10.

Penny Hill, Del., BP, $2.29, up $.14.

Penny Hill, Del., Getty, $2.29, up $.10.

Back when I worked for the railroad, I had co-workers in the Claims Department. Fraudulent claims were common–so much so that the railroad would hire detectives to follow persons claiming disability to their second jobs–which sometimes turned out to be loading furniture trucks.

This is not to say, by any means, that all claims were fraudulent. Most were not. And most claimants were fairly treated, compensated for lost time, and given proper medical care, without needing to resort to the courts.

(Aside: the railroad does not operate under the workmen’s compensation system. It operates under FELA, which is all or nothing. I still receive letters from personal injury lawyers with numbers like 1-800-xxx-FELA wanting to know whether I sustained hearing loss during my years in engine service–and I was no more an engineer than George Bush is a scholar!)

But fraudulent claims are commonly pursued in our courts by lawyers who figure that insurance companies and employers will pay because, frankly, settling is cheaper than fighting in court, where lawyer fees may top $500 an hour. When looking at a multi-week trial, settling for a measly hundred grand or two looks cheap.

This story shows what happens when companies decide to fight. The story is well-worth a read; the broadcast is doubly well-worth a listen.

In a packed Texas courtroom last year, a federal judge accused doctors and lawyers of legal and medical fraud.

(snip)

But the lawsuits hit a major roadblock in Corpus Christi, Texas, when a judge warned a testifying doctor that he might want to get a lawyer before he said anything further. U.S. District Judge Janis Jack ruled that thousands of silicosis claims had been manufactured for money. Her ruling is having an impact on hundreds of thousands of asbestos and silica claims across the country.

Now I predict we will hear a chorus from the lawyers that this ruling is denying injured persons their day in court. As I read it, it is not. It is only requiring that persons who file a claim have evidence.

After all, evidence is what a trial is all about.

I’m not one who favors limiting anyone’s right to sue or the awards that plaintiffs can get. Persons who are grievously wronged deserve grievous recompence.

Nevertheless, I strongly believe that frivolous suits should be dealt with harshly, that is, bounced out of court on their ears; furthermore, I believe the tendency of companies to settle because it’s cheaper than fighting more than any other factor has fostered the proliferation of frivolous and dubious civil lawsuits.

Yesterday I delivered myself of this gem: “Somewhere, things have gotten turned on their heads. Self-esteem does not lead to good behavior. Good behavior leads to self-esteem.”

I’ve decided I was wrong. Rather, self-esteem and good behavior are independent of each other.

No doubt John Dillinger, Ken Lay, and George Bush all have or had excellent self-esteem. In contrast, Abraham Lincoln, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Dorothy Parker were tortured individuals full of self-doubt.

Who would you rather spend an evening with?

Rather, what I was clumsily attempting to express was the fallacy that trying to improve someone’s self-esteem will cause that person to improve his or her performance, at the job, at school, or at home.

Indeed there is a thriving industry sucking money out of those who think that, if they somehow improve their opinion of themselves, their behavior will magically change.

Look here. And here. And here.

The silliest aspects of this movement manifest themselves as regards our children. The Great Purple Ink movement illustrates how stupid those who think self-esteem is all can become.

Rather, legitimate accomplishment builds legitimate self-esteem. An individual can increase his or own self-esteem by setting reasonable goals and reaching them. (One wonders by this measure how George Bush can have any self-esteem left.)

An individual (such as a parent, teacher, or boss) can help someone else build self-esteem by helping them set clear, reasonable goals and providing them feedback and resources as they work to accomplish those goals.

Illegitimate self-esteem, that is self-esteem that exists in someone’s mind, but is not reflected in their behavior, can lead to great damage, not so much to the person holding that self-image, but to those persons and endeavors that surround them. (Oh, okay.)

At its extreme, illegitimate self-esteem manifests itself as sociopathy.

I think the self-esteem fallacy may be a pendulum swing in response to the “insult them and they’ll prove you wrong” school of motivation, immortalized in the popular concept of drill instructors. This method may work in a few people–I’ve known a couple like that–but, for the great majority, that technique destroys motivation and incentive. It is, indeed, not a motivational technique–it is sadism in a smiling mask.

Patricia Dalton, a clinical psychologist who practices in Washington, has some trenchant comments in today’s Washington Post:

The tendency to shirk the burden of responsibility permeates our family rooms and our boardrooms. I saw it in Vice President Cheney’s belated response to the shooting incident last month. And it has characterized former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay’s public statements since his company’s debacle: “Of anything and everything that I could imagine might happen to me in my lifetime,” Lay said in Houston in December, “the one thing I would have never even remotely speculated about was that someday I would become entangled in our country’s criminal justice system.”

Whether or not he is found guilty, Lay sounds like the spokesman for our culture of victimhood. It is a culture that reflects a studiously nonjudgmental attitude toward one’s own behavior, while ignoring its effects on others. And it is based on a belief system like this: I am more important than most people; I am good; therefore, I am incapable of doing bad things.

This seems to relate to the topic of last week’s Speaking of Faith:

In an age of Enron and WorldCom, how can we imagine a place for business ethics, much less religious virtue, in the global economy? We speak with a Hindu international business analyst who offers learned, fascinating observations about how the world’s myriad religions have shaped global business norms and practices.

Which, as far as I am concerned, ties back to the fallacy that self-esteem is everything.

Somewhere, things have gotten turned on their heads. Self-esteem does not lead to good behavior. Good behavior leads to self-esteem.

The Oscars are tonight.

(yawn)

I can’t think of a more overwhelming waste of time that watching the film industry’s masturbatory orgy of self-congratulation for producing hours of crap.

I think I’ll be watching reruns of Jack Benny or Bugs Bunny or something else that makes a positive contribution to life.

Here’s a new picture of Pine View Farm. It’s sort of a “big picture” view.

In this one, Wise Point is to the left, Cape Henry to the right. You can faintly see the route of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel across the mouth of the Chesapeake.

This shows the Chesapeake Bay to the left, the mouth of the James River to the right; you can dimly see the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel crossing the mouth of the James.

The city of Hampton is to the bottom; Norfolk to the top; Virginia Beach to the left, and Portsmouth to the right.