Weekend Tids and Bits

 

RULE, MS. BRITANNIA! After 341 years of the job’s existence, beginning with John Dryden, Britain finally appointed a woman as Poet Laureate. Carol Ann Duffy, 53, told the BBC that she decided to accept the offered position “purely because they hadn’t had a woman.” The term of the job runs ten years, which should give Great Britain enough time to collect its wits after such a hasty plunge into modern practice.

 

EGYPT FOLLOWS RAHM’S ADVICE right out the window. Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s chief of staff, has been widely quoted as saying “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.” So Egypt, an overwhelmingly pork-avoiding Muslin nation, is responding to the swine flu crisis by slaughtering all the 300,000 or so pigs owned and eaten by the nation’s minority Coptic Christians. See, that way it’s not state-sanctioned oppression of a minority, it’s just sound public health.

 

NOT TONIGHT, DEAR – THE COALITION GOVERNMENT WRANGLING GIVES ME A HEADACHE is the refrain from women in Kenya, says CNN. They’re withholding their favors for a week to protest political divisiveness. CNN did not report what the millions of married women elsewhere in the world were protesting.

 

AL-QAIDA USED HOTMAIL to communicate following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and plotted the location of other possible targets in an almanac, the AP reports, citing a guilty plea agreement. Seems the bad guys had a problem with a similar attempt on Yahoo. Although both Microsoft and Yahoo are locked in a struggle for e-mail El Supremo, neither marketing department seems to have recognized the presented opportunity.

 

THE MEASURED, CALM SWINE FLU REPORTING of the last week caused tremendous runs on dust masks around the globe, even though the number of confirmed deaths is ten – nine in Mexico and one in the United States. So far there have been no reports of an upsurge in personal lightning protection sales, even though the National Weather Service says lightning kills and average of 62 Americans every year. Clearly another case of press bias.

 

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE chairman Michael Steele says of the coming David Souter Supreme Court vacancy that “the president should take his time and search for a nominee whose legal views are consistent with and reflective of mainstream America.” It’s the first known instance of a major U.S. political party taking its membership out of Supreme Court consideration.

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Swine Flu Hoopla’s Silver Lining ?

 

Swine Flu – oops! H1N1 virus – may accomplish something besides boosting the sale of dust masks and giving newspapers a chance to cover deaths other than their own. Since it seems to have started in Mexico, it may revive the debate on illegal, mostly Mexican immigration.

 

Those in the public arena with exceptionally long memories – say 18 months, or even longer – will recall when the 12 million or so illegal immigrants were a Big Issue, with the Radio Right calling for mass deportations and the Looney Left demanding no-strings-attached amnesty.

 

The Bush administration failed to get immigration reform legislation passed and then, except for a few storm-trooper raids on factories, focused all its talents on the presidential election and the economy.

 

The results there speak for themselves.

 

Questioned at his Wednesday press conference about accomplishing something on immigration reform within his first year, President Obama didn’t completely embrace the deadline, but gave a very clear summary of the issues:

 

“We can’t continue with a broken immigration system. It’s not good for anybody. It’s not good for American workers. It’s dangerous for Mexican would-be workers who are trying to cross a dangerous border. It is putting a strain on border communities who oftentimes have to deal with a host of undocumented workers, and it keeps those undocumented workers in the shadows, which means they can be exploited at the same time as they’re depressing U.S. wages.”

 

Things that President Obama didn’t mention but should also be considered:

 

Walls and border patrols can’t close a 2,000-mile-long border as though it were some sort of corral. “Sealing our borders” makes great talk radio but impossible policy.

 

Deportation is an equal fantasy. Even if all 12 million cooperated, which they won’t – would you?—we’d have to deport 23 persons every minute of every hour of every day for a year. And while we were keeping the Exit busy, the 2,000-mile-wide Entrance wouldn’t be loafing either.

 

Those who work in the shadows are generally thought to be five percent of the U.S. labor force, and if we could wave a wand of evil magic and deport them all, we’d deliver a one-two punch to our own economy, removing both the goods and services they produce and the customers they are.

 

Organized labor has finally figured out that allowing any workers to be exploited has negative effects on all workers and is trying to focus less on whether that worker has a Green Card and more on whether or not he has a union card. That’s going to be an uphill sell with the rank-and-file, but so was equal opportunity and integration.

 

Conservative Republicans, who lately are beginning to notice that they’re the only kind of Republicans left, might wish to reconsider their anti-immigrant thunder, since on life and family issues, most of the illegal immigrants agree with them.

 

Even if the Obama administration can’t get Congress to go along with significant immigration reform before January, if it can at least get a calm, fact-and-reality-based discussion going, it will have made a good beginning.

 

Let’s hope the opportunity won’t pass when the current Flu Follies closes its run.

 

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Suggestion For Closet Storytellers

 

Journalism should come out of the closet.

 

No, not that one.

 

The secret of most journalists is that they are closet writers and storytellers. Although hiding in the personas of just-the-facts reporters, they exert a very strong influence over public discourse, turning what should be a recital of facts into a compelling drama.

 

Take the current Swine Flu situation, or, if you prefer, the H1N1 virus situation. After almost a week of conflicting but widely and wildly trumpeted stories in all media, this paragraph in a GlobalPost report by Christine Gorman sums up what is known quite nicely:

 

“The WHO had received notice of 114 cases of human swine flu from seven countries. Officially, eight people have died — seven in Mexico and one in the U.S. The death in the U.S., reported Wednesday, was of a 23-month-old child in Texas.”

 

Other than adding that the toddler who died was visiting from Mexico, those few facts from the World Health Organization cover most of what’s known.

 

But while those are the confirmed facts, they don’t make much of a story. Stories have beginnings that introduce the characters, middle parts that show the characters in conflict, and endings that wrap up all loose threads.

 

Saying eight persons have died from an apparently new variety of a disease that kills 36,000 Americans annually doesn’t generate much drama, so the first question aimed at President Obama at his Wednesday new conference was, according to a Huffington Post transcript:

 

“With the flu outbreak spreading and worsening, can you talk about whether you think it's time to close the border with Mexico and whether -- under what conditions you might consider quarantining, when that might be appropriate?”

 

Ignore that our record on closing the border with Mexico for any reason isn’t stellar. The question isn’t asking for facts, it’s suggesting a plot development and asking for a episode synopsis.

 

That’s necessary for storytelling, and generally follows the plot outline of the 1918 flu epidemic, which is boy meets girl/boy infects girl/boy and girl die. Closing borders and establishing quarantines are dramatic events, and both stories and storytellers need drama.

 

Which is why the core of the common-sense answer from No Drama Obama probably frustrated the storytellers: “But the most important thing right now that public health officials have indicated is that we treat this the same way that we would treat other flu outbreaks, just understanding that, because this is a new strain, we don't yet know how it will respond.”

 

President Obama also noted that a border closing would be “akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out, because we already have cases here in the United States,” and reminded us all to wash our hands, cover our coughs stay home when we’re sick.

 

Good, solid advice, but certainly not as dramatic as repeated use of “pandemic.” Or photos of folks wearing masks, which may not provide much protection but make great visuals. Or governors declaring states of emergency, even if the emergency they have in mind is that their name has been missing for three news cycles.

 

It will be a while before this all shakes out, but until then, here’s a  suggestion that will allow news consumers to know when they’re about to read reporting or storytelling. It’s a simple style change, really. Here’s an example, for a reporting story from the nation’s capitol:

 

WASHINGTON – President Obama etc.

 

The other is for story-telling:

 

ONCE UPON A TIME IN WASHINGTON – President Obama etc.

 

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GOP’s Great Ex-Specterations

 

 

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter switched from being a Republican to being a Democrat around noon on Tuesday. This action made him (check one):

 

            ___ A crass opportunist whose polls told him he was going to get creamed in the 2010 Republican primary election.

            ___A principled advocate and leader, a1980 Reagan Republican who signed up for the Grand Old Party and couldn’t watch it become the Gotterdammerung Old Party.

            ___One more nail in the Republican Party’s clever plan to crucify itself in the hopes that it will arise from the dead.

            ___Some parts of all of the above.

 

Specter’s own statement puts it this way:

 

“Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.”

 

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, presumably after clearing it with Rush Limbaugh, put it differently:

 

“Let's be honest-Senator Specter didn't leave the GOP based on principles of any kind. He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record.”

 

A politician of any sort beginning a sentence with “Let’s be honest” obviously admits that this is an unusual action worthy of special notice, so it’s worth a quick visit to the web site of Americans for Democratic Action, whose spring newsletter rates members of Congress according to how much their votes agree with the ADA’s ultra-liberal positions. Specter agreed with the ADA 45 percent of the time.

 

So he didn’t even vote “left wing” a majority of the time. Republican Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon did, coming up with a 60 percent rating. And Republican Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine found common cause with the ADA respectively 75 and 80 percent of the time. (The last three senators should give any invitations for an RNC-sponsored quail hunt with Dick Cheney very careful scrutiny.)

 

Specter’s decision to join the Democrats puts them one vote short of the 60 needed under Senate rules to end filibusters, the GOP’s one-size-fits-all response to any 21^st century issue. Vote number 60 depends on Minnesota finally deciding whether Democrat Al Franken or Republican Norm Coleman won the election, a choice now with the Minnesota Supreme Court and almost certainly heading to a federal court after that.

 

Now we all know aboutletting Republicans win in the courts what they lost in the polls, but it’s the positions of the arch-conservatives who have hijacked the Republican party that are giving everyone from Senators to seniors pause.

 

Ronald Reagan was a giant of a man and his Big Tent Republican Party had enough room for diverse views. Arlen Specter’s switch today highlights that the Big Tent has become a holding corral for a huge herd of WAT (We’re Against That), producing little but political dung and unaware that the only exit is the slaughterhouse of the 2010 elections.

 

Or, as South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, he of the just-15 percent ADA rating, was quoted Tuesday in Politico, “As Republicans, we got a problem.”

 

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In Bed With Jimmy Carter

 

 

Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows – I just rolled around in the sheets and found myself in the sack with Jimmy Carter.

 

Carter, our 39^th president, usually does yeoman duty anchoring the rock bottom of the How-Bad-Can-It-Be scale I use to judge politicians. From the speech on July 15, 1979 that critics rightfully dubbed the “national malaise” speech, to hostages in Iran competing for attention with the scheduling of the White House tennis courts, Carter’s leadership style was inaction by reaction.

 

But this time he’s right about something. In an op-ed piece in the April 27 issue of The New York Times, Carter calls for a renewed ban on assault weapons. As Carter explains, he’s a gun owner, a hunter and a strong supporter of the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms – just not assault weapons.

 

We once had a ten-year ban on assault weapons, passed in 1994. It quite correctly recognized that the primary design purpose of weapons like the AK-47, AR-15, Uzi and others wasn’t sport or hunting, unless your sport was hunting  people, especially cops.

 

With a lot of help from the National Rifle Association’s Boom Boom Uber Alles wing, the Bush administration was too busy looking for weapons of mass destruction to worry about weapons of more personal destruction and the assault weapons ban expired in 2004.

 

It’s a ban that needs to be revived and strengthened, but first we have to revive and strengthen the spines of Congress, which typically turn into Jell-O when they hear the rising crescendo of NRA knuckle drags at election time.

 

Congressional spines might be stiffer if NRA members urged their organization to stop taking the silly position that every common-sense regulation of firearms is part of a vast conspiracy to ban all firearms. To start, here’s an urge from one paying NRA member – me, Number 142261256.

 

Otherwise, we’re left defending the position that a Tec-9 automatic pistol with a 32-shot magazine, or a night-scoped semi-automatic rifle with a banana clip and bayonet mount is really for hunting or shooting tin cans.

 

Or maybe the rumor that Bambi and Thumper have started to shoot back is true.

 

Failing that, there’s no good reason not to revive the ban on assault weapons.  Of course, the standard NRA answer is that these laws will only prevent law-abiding citizens from owning assault weapons while criminals, being lawbreakers, will just ignore the ban.

 

And in that, they’re probably right. But if an assault weapons ban can dramatically reduce the legal market and the profits that drive it, production will fall. If production falls, overall availability will fall.

And that’s a good thing – even if Jimmy Carter and Larry Blasko did suggest it.

 

 

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Core Republican Peasants

 

Sociologists who worried that the United States would never establish a permanent peasant class should look in gratitude to Core Republicans – they’re volunteering.

 

Most folk think being a peasant means wearing a special costume and following ancient life customs. Just look at a gathering of Core Republicans.

 

Suit and tie or jeans and workshirt are the two main male costume groups, and it doesn’t matter which group you’re in as much as it matters that everyone in your group dresses exactly like you do. No exceptions allowed.

 

Core Republican women have a broader (wink! nudge! get it?) choice of costume  but within that spectrum the rule is as ironclad as among the men. No exceptions allowed.

 

Core Republicans balance that wild diversity of dress with an even stricter set of life customs. In common with peasants throughout history, the focus of  customs is to guard against Change.

 

“My father did it this way and his father and his father before him, and I will do the same,” is a mantra that can be applied equally to sowing the fields with manure and reaping the crop at the polls. Just look at the Core Republican harvest in 2006 and 2008. Look for them to do it again in 2010 and 2012, since consistency is to be cherished, whether or not it works.

 

For Core Republicans, the past is never prologue – the past is always present, and it’s that suspicious-looking Future you’ve got to guard against, lest Change get the upper hand.

 

Under stress from the constant attacks of Change, Core Republicans like to chant their traditional mantra:

 

Marriage is between a man and a woman, and it always will be.

 

The invisible hand of the market is what protects us, and it always will be.

 

A traditional family is the only way to raise children, and it always will be.

 

Equal opportunity is just reverse discrimination, and it always will be.

 

Unregulated capitalism is the best economic model, and it always will be.

 

The stimulus package is wrong, and it always will be.

 

Universal, government-backed health care is wrong, and it always will be.

 

Multi-nation diplomacy instead of unilateral aggression is wrong, and it always will be.

 

The mantra goes on forever, but each verse always ends the same way.  For Core Republicans, that’s the core value: Always The Same.

 

That the rest of us in large numbers ignore the mantra only validates it. Just ask the most prominent Core Republicans, including Rush Limbaugh, whose website offers this pearl:” "When you interact with average, ordinary, everyday liberals or Democrats, it's hard not to think, 'My God, the country is finished.'"

 

Apparently taking that to heart, Core Republicans avoid interacting with ordinary, everyday liberals or Democrats, especially when it comes to building workable majorities in Congress. Of course, when you interact, you sometimes have to compromise.

 

And we know what Core Republicans think about compromise, so let’s say it together: “Compromise is bad, and it always will be.

 

So Core Republicans are clearly enthusiastic about becoming the permanent American peasant class.

 

Now if we could only teach them quaint folk dances. . .

 

 

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