A Party Platform Worth Considering

Here’s a party platform I could support, with some tweaks:

• Reject additional tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 a year, but expand breaks for low- and middle-income workers through tax credits for children, the earned-income tax credit or a new wage subsidy using tax dollars to bring low wages toward the local median level.

• Promote the benefits of global trade agreements, but help displaced workers.

• Rule out fully privatizing Social Security and Medicare, and reassure workers they will be exempt from cost-cutting.

• Acknowledge that universal health care is here to stay, but push for market-oriented changes.

• Disavow mass deportations and promote the economic benefits of legalizing longtime workers who are in the country illegally, but reduce the legal entry of less-skilled immigrants.

It might surprise you that these platform planks are part of the “Reformocon” movement of disenchanted conservative Republicans, as described in a New York Times article Friday (http://nyti.ms/2an1YbR)

It’s a long-shot that any of these more sober thoughts will become anything more than heresy to Grand Old Party poobahs (second time in a week I’ve used that mildly deprecating description of Republican leaders, but who cares, it fits). Yet it is revealing that some within the party are even thinking it is common sense to make the GOP appeal more universal.

Democrats should welcome such an overture. Perhaps the country would be able to return to what truly were “good old days” when politicians reached across the aisle to forge legislation that benefitted all, not just the rich and entitled. Back in those “good old days” the Second Amendment didn’t mean a gun, especially not an assault rifle, in every home. Nor did it mean taxes couldn’t be raised to fund infrastructure projects and other needs. Nor did it mean Roe v. Wade was the litmus test for Supreme Court appointees. Nor did it mean a presidential candidate could suggest not complying with NATO treaty defense obligations, or suggest Russia spy on an opponent, or suggest the military engage in torture. 

Yes, those were good old days. Trumpsters, however, will not go down easily in defeat. Donald Trump is seeding thoughts of a rigged election, oblivious to the facts that voter fraud has been found to be almost non existent. Federal appeals courts have repeatedly invalidated tighter voter identification laws enacted by states based on the alleged premise that voter fraud has been rampant. 

Elections at the state level are a supervised by appointees of each governor. There are 31 Republican governors, 19 Democrats. In the 11 so-called battleground states that may decide the presidential election, Democrats are governor in just four: Colorado, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Their states account for 51 Electoral College votes. Republicans are governors in Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin. Those states have 100 Electoral College votes. 

For Trump to claim the election is rigged, his own party’s election machinery would have to be conspiring against him. If only that were so …

The Political Blame Game: Obama, Hillary, ISIS

So I watched the Republican debate Thursday night. What did I learn? Not much as to specifics of what the candidates would do if elected, but I did learn that all of our problems can be summed up in three words—Obama, Hillary and ISIS. Oh, and it was confirmed again that debate moderators are more interested in he said-he said schoolyard squabble questions than asking candidates to outline in detail their plans to govern. They let the hopefuls get away with plugging their Web sites for their full position statements, as if the average voter will spend much time rummaging through the BS to be found there alongside calls for donations. The moderators let the candidates evade questions and only once, by my count, did they follow up an answer with another question.

The world, at least the United States, would be a better, safer place if a Republican sat in the Oval Office, they said, not daring to remind voters it was a Republican president in the White House when we were attacked on September 11 and subsequently when we began two destabilizing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention it was that same Republican president who presided over the cratering of the U.S. economy. 

Primaries are times to duke it out, so let’s consider attacks a valued, if sometimes demeaning, means of assessing how a candidate responds to criticism. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were the targets of most of the barbs. Neither distinguished himself as presidential material. They obfuscated their respective positions on fixing the illegal immigration dilemma. 

As for the other five men on the stage, they were almost afterthoughts, though I wonder how a seemingly solid thinker like John Kasich would have fared in a less vitriolic campaign season. 

Local boy Chris Christie apparently decided his best tactic would be to smear Hillary Clinton’s qualifications any time he was called. It was hard to tell who he thought endangered the republic more, ISIS or Hillary. 

It also was not startling to hear the pretenders castigate the outgoing incumbent president. But, like many a political representation, inaccuracies abounded. Consider the Associated Press’ fact-checking on several claims by Cruz:

“CRUZ: ‘We have seen now in six years of Obamacare that it has been a disaster. It is the biggest job-killer in this country. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, have been forced into part-time work, have lost their health insurance, have lost their doctors, have seen their premiums skyrocket.’

“THE FACTS: Lost jobs? Since the time Obama signed the health care law in March 2010, the nation’s jobless rate has fallen from 9.9 percent to 5 percent. The economy has added more than 13 million jobs over that period.

“Lost insurance? The share of Americans without coverage reached a historic low of 9 percent last year, according to the government’s National Health Interview Survey. More than 16 million people gained coverage since 2013, just before the law’s big coverage expansion got underway.”

Ah, well, let’s chalk it up to politics as usual.

On the other hand, there’s a feeling going around that President Obama deserves a lot of blame for the sorry state of Democratic head counts in the Senate and House of Representatives (http://nyti.ms/1ORWjFM). 

Yup, he earned his fair share of responsibility by not working hard enough for his party’s candidates during the mid-year congressional elections. But let’s not pin all the blame on him. 

As a party Democrats failed to project the positive aspects of the car industry bailout, the passage of Obamacare and the resurrection of the economy. 

More importantly, Democrats—leaders and rank and file party members—have failed to see the small picture, the importance of winning elections on the state and even more local levels. Losing governorships and majorities in state houses has left them vulnerable in national elections. Based on the 2010 census, GOP-controlled state houses have redistricted (gerrymandered) congressional seats to give Republicans an almost insurmountable majority in the House through 2022. Thus, even if a Democrat wins the presidency, he or she will be stymied by Republican majorities in Congress. We are in for stalemated government for at least the next six years. 

Obama can be blamed for lots of the problems Democrats face. But as Cassius explained in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” 

The First Debate

In a discussion between fellow presidential debate moderators aired today on CBS Sunday Morning, Jim Lehrer told Bob Schieffer he would consider a successful debate one in which the things “that matter most to the voters, to hell with the candidates, to hell with the moderators and to hell with the handlers, to hell with the pundits, but the things that the voters care most about have been discussed and have been discussed in a way that they can now understand what the differences are. That's what these debates are really all about.”

With that in mind, here are some questions I would like Lehrer to ask, this first debate Wednesday night being restricted to domestic issues. (I’d also like to see Lehrer challenge Barack Obama or Mitt Romney if either skirts around a question and simply delivers standard campaign pablum. Let’s get some real answers.) I figure the 90-minute debate will include 15 questions at most. Here are 16, just in case the debate runs a little long:

1. Are Americans better off today than we were when President Obama took office in January 2009?

2. What are your specific ideas for job creation? 

3. To balance the budget and reduce the deficit, program cuts would have to be enacted and tax loopholes would have to be closed. Please provide specific areas that would be affected under your next budget?

4. Would you accept a “grand bargain” of spending cuts tied to a slight tax increase?

5. Do you believe in global warming? Scientists have charted the rise in sea levels? What steps should we take, if any, to protect our shorelines?

6. What is your view of evolution? Do you believe Creationism should be an alternative taught in our schools? Do you believe dinosaurs and man lived at the same time?

7. Explain your evolved positions on same-sex marriage (Obama) and the right to an abortion (Romney)?

8. Do you support the Dream Act? How would you deal with our illegal immigrant population?

9. What are your views on government regulatory agencies? Would you do away with any and why specifically those agencies? 

10. Do we need to raise the age eligibility for Social Security and Medicare? Should we means-test for Social Security and Medicare benefits?

11. Is it government’s obligation to provide all Americans affordable health care as a right? What specific changes still need to be enacted to health care?  

12. What level of safety net protection is appropriate for government to provide the unemployed, school children, the impoverished?  

13. Do you see any danger in the disparity between the earnings of the average worker and that of corporate management?

14. Neither of you is a hunter. Explain your position on the right to possess assault rifles and super-sized bullet magazines, both of which are not necessary or used for hunting?

15. What is the proper balance, if indeed there is any need for balance, between a comprehensive energy policy and protection of our environment?

16. Are we better off with federal-administered programs or with programs pushed down to the individual states to administer?

Gee, that’s 16 questions and I didn’t ask about their plans to end the housing crisis, or how they feel about the effect super-PAC money has on the political process, or the need, if any, to provide more regulation on the financial industry, or what is the proper role of the federal government in education. 

Let’s hope we get some real answers to whatever questions Lehrer poses. Let’s hope the candidates aren’t merely posturing or engaging in a sound-bite-off. We have too much at stake.

A Sense of Higher Purpose

Among the most e-mailed recent articles listed by The NY Times was a piece on Apple’s store employees titled, “Apple’s Retail Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay” ( http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/business/apple-store-workers-loyal-but-short-on-pay.html?_r=1). 

As someone who covered retailing for more than three decades, I learned very little from the extensive reporting. It was not news to me that Apple, like most retailers, pays its store staff little more than minimum wage despite counting on them to rack up among the highest, if not the highest, sales per square foot among chain store retailers. 

Buried deep in the article was the following paragraph which explains to a large degree why Apple can get away with low hourly wages: “The phrase that trainees hear time and again, which echoes once they arrive at the stores, is ‘enriching people’s lives.’ The idea is to instill in employees the notion that they are doing something far grander than just selling or fixing products. If there is a secret to Apple’s sauce, this is it: the company ennobles employees. It understands that a lot of people will forgo money if they have a sense of higher purpose.”

That last sentence—”It understands that a lot of people will forgo money if they have a sense of higher purpose”—really got me. It brought me back several decades to a presentation by then CEO and founder of Crate & Barrel Gordon Segal. Asked by a Wall Street investment analyst to explain the success of his home furnishings chain, Segal attributed much of it to the dedication of store associates, men and women often with a degree in art or design or teaching. They had a talent for connecting with people and for feeling good about their work. That transcendent feeling, Segal said, allowed Crate & Barrel to keep salaries low because the staff received inner fulfillment from their work in lieu of demanding higher wages.

That’s the same management philosophy that for years buttressed the belief that public employees—firemen, police, social workers, sanitation workers, teachers, nurses, even the military—could be hired at low starting salaries. The tradeoff many of these workers, and government officials, accepted was better health care and retirement benefits. Now slash and burn governors, mayors and their legislative henchmen are trying to balance the books on the backs of government workers. 

Sure, there were and are some malingerers among them. What industry doesn’t have its share of goof-offs and people who take advantage of the system? But do we seriously believe teachers are not among the most important members of society and thus should be valued and paid appropriately? Does anyone seriously want to haul trash—even if it’s just their own trash— in the frigid dead of winter or the blazing hot summer? How about running into a burning building to save someone who might not even be inside the inferno, but firemen go in anyway because a family member or friend suspects a loved one is inside? How many of us are ready and willing to put our lives on the line each time we don a uniform to protect our cities or to safeguard our nation from attack in foreign lands? 

Perhaps what we need is a little more introspection about the good government workers bring to our standard of living. 

Class Warfare

Republicans are right. President Obama’s proposal to raise the taxes of rich people is class warfare. They’re damn right it is, and it’s about time.

It’s about time the president stepped forward and led a revolt against Republican insensitivity to the plight of the middle class and the working class.

Let’s be clear about one thing, however. Obama’s not the aggressor in this war. Republicans have been waging class warfare for decades, decades, at least as far back as FDR’s successful implementation of the Social Security Act, the setting of a national minimum wage and the formation of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The GOP has fought almost all attempts to protect and enhance the lives of working people and the middle class.

It’s class warfare when fat-cat Republicans carry the water for corporate America and the wealthy. It’s class warfare when they resist efforts to provide affordable health care to every citizen, regardless of their income. It’s class warfare when they try to dismantle social security, when they fail to provide adequate benefits to active and retired military personnel, when they work to overturn workplace and environmental protections, when they endeavor to cut back entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, Aid to Dependent Children, and school lunch programs.

Now, it could be argued Democrats started class warfare by passing all that progressive legislation. Guilty. With an explanation. Government has an obligation to care for and protect its citizens, not just in times of actual war but also when natural and man-made disasters jeopardize safety and even our existence. The Depression, poverty and discrimination fostered the need for corrective actions. Industry and private wealth have shown no continuous commitment to care for our countrymen, leaving it to government to hold the safety net for tens of millions of our citizens.

Obama’s problem is one of his own making. Instead of taking advantage of the strategic high ground his 2008 election provided, he has squandered his resources and allowed the GOP to outflank him and redraw the battle lines. Let’s face it—they have a much more effective PR campaign. They have defined Obama as the enemy of the common folk. Only now is he showing a determination to use his veto to exact the quid pro quo tax increase he has asked for in return for cuts in entitlement spending.

In this latest tussle over taxing millionaires, it’s hard to visualize a Republican-controlled Congress acquiescing, not when most members are millionaires themselves. They may be patriotic (well, maybe), but it’s doubtful they’re like billionaire Warren Buffett, willing to pay their fair share.

Do Nothing Congress II

The parallels to events of our time are eerily similar.

In the third and fourth years of a Democrat’s initial term as president of the United States, a Republican-controlled Congress repeatedly and stubbornly undermined his agenda. The GOP favored pro-business bills. The president advocated for civil rights, more unemployment compensation, universal health care. As the election campaign heated up, the president wound up maligning the Congress for thwarting his proposals as much as he ran against his opponent.

That 1948 campaign is perhaps best known for the infamous “Dewey Defeats Truman” Chicago Daily Tribune headline mockingly raised up for the cameras by the real winner, President Harry S. Truman. But to election buffs, Truman’s labeling of the legislature as the “Do Nothing Congress” is perhaps a more telling perspective on how events will unfold in the 15 months before the 2012 elections.

To secure a second term, to secure the type of support required for his progressive plans, Barack Obama will have to champion not only his credentials but he also will have to convince voters of their need for a Democratic majority in the House and Senate. One without the other will result in continued stalemate at the federal level. Truman’s Do Nothing Congress attack worked. It can work again, but only if Obama vigorously stumps for Democrats across the land.

Unless he’s a very good actor, Obama does not have the same feistiness Truman possessed. He does have a temper, but he’s cool, too cool, in public. After nearly three years in office, after three years of trying to portray a presidential-above-the-fray demeanor, Obama has left too many of his supporters wondering about his commitment to Democratic, progressive principles. Plus, they wonder how good a poker player he is (Truman, fyi, loved playing poker), considering his failed attempts to roll back the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy and the lack of any revenue enhancement provisions in the recent debt ceiling deal. When your opponent (John Boehner) boasts he got 98% of what he wanted, it’s hard to find backers for a stake in the game.

Yet that is what Obama must do. He must re-invigorate the coalition of voters who elected him in 2008. He must campaign in lock-step with congressional candidates. He must convince the disenchanted that sitting out the election, abstaining, is not really an opt-out choice. Not voting for the lesser of two evils, or as a protest against his performance, is, in fact, support for the worst candidate. People in opposition usually are more passionate than those content with the status quo, so they’ll turn out to the polls in droves.

Obama and the Democrats also have to contend with the misguided suggestion by Starbucks founder and CEO Howard Schultz for a boycott of campaign contributions to all incumbents until they act more responsibly and compromise their rigid positions. Was he not listening to Boehner’s remarks? Did he not hear or read how Democrats caved so a debt ceiling deal could be reached? Withholding funds from Democratic incumbents would only exacerbate Washington’s problems, unless Schultz seeks a Republican/Tea Party mandate, a result seemingly incompatible to his previous socially progressive positions.

Obama must define for those on the fence what a Republican/Tea Party win would mean: a more conservative-leaning Supreme Court; an anti-labor, anti-working class White House and Congress; less enforcement of civil rights; attacks on the separation of church and state; tax policies more favorable to the wealthy; fewer consumer protections; less environmental regulation; weakened food and product safety laws; less emphasis on education and the introduction of questionable science; restrictions on medical research; elimination of universal health care. The list could go on and on, but I’m sure you get the point.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

It’s Barack Obama’s 50th birthday Thursday. I can’t think of too many cheerful Democrats eager to wish him many happy returns.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to rationalize reasons to support his re-election. He’s forsaken much of his 2008 platform and progressive positions.

It will be hard to show up at the polls in November 2012. That is, until one contemplates the gang of right-wing politicians who not only want to reside in the White House but also want to take the country back to a time when we cared more about individual selves than our fellow citizens, when private business could run roughshod over workers, when it took muckrakers like Upton Sinclair to shame government into regulating industries, when our country threw up an almost impenetrable wall against foreign involvement, when bankers and Wall Street moguls could play with America’s solvency without fear of being held to account.

Yes, Barack Obama will be the lesser of two evils. But that is no way to fire up the troops for what will be a grueling campaign.

I get sick thinking of the prospects of Democrats and rational independents sitting out the election, thereby allowing the country to enter a dark age when our next leader might be someone who does not believe in evolution, who does not recognize the threat of global warming, who does not see the value of stem cell research, who does not respect the rights of all Americans, who does not understand the banner of states rights is shorthand for discrimination, who does not appreciate inequality is bred when 25% of our households possess 87% of the nation’s wealth, who does not comprehend that without compassionate reform to social security and Medicare our aging population will not live golden years but rather rust-filled ones, who doesn’t accept that the Christian thing for the richest country on Earth is to provide affordable universal health care.

Barack Obama today called once more for tax increases on the rich and industry so we don’t just “balance the budget on the backs of the very people who have borne the brunt of the recession.”

It all sounds so righteous. So good. If only he followed through. If only he drew a line in the sand that wouldn’t be washed away by the next wave of Republican and Tea Party demands.

Okay. Enough wishing. The next election for president and control of Congress and the Senate will be a referendum on which way the country wants to go—toward a tough, but enlightened future, or toward a dark passage back in time. Sitting out the election is not an option.

Public Service Announcements

History Lesson: For those who didn’t see it the first time it ran, there’s a great documentary series on Turner Classic Movies this week. The hour-long segments air 7 pm daily through Sunday and are entitled “Moguls and Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood.” Tonight is Episode 2 (sorry, but I didn’t realize the series started yesterday).

Anyone who has ever been to the movies will find this documentary fascinating and illuminating. Have fun watching it.


Healthy Diet: Gilda and I recently committed to eating more healthy, not that we weren’t already doing so, but we agreed we’d eat more fish, at least two or three times a week.

Last Friday night my gourmet-cooking wife prepared a delicious feast of roasted tilapia with herbs, one of the recipes Mark Bittman recently promoted in the NY Times Magazine section. Delicious. And healthy, too. Or so I thought.

Imagine my consternation when I opened Monday’s Times and came across “Another Side of Tilapia, the Perfect Factory Fish” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/science/earth/02tilapia.html?scp=1&sq=tilapia&st=cse). Tilapia offered the lowest amount of omega-3 fatty acids per 100 grams of fish than any of the 19 varieties studied by the National Fisheries Institute, according to the article. It was lowest by far, providing just 135 mgs vs. roughly 2,000 mgs for farm-raised salmon. Moreover, farm raised tilapia can be detrimental to the life of a lake.

We’ll still eat tilapia, as it still is healthier than eating meat or chicken, but it sure is disappointing to know even when I try to do the right thing someone, in this case, Mother Nature, is not very supportive.


Drink Up: Here’s another of my dietary dilemmas. Drinking too much Coca-Cola the first four decades of life elevated my blood sugar levels, so I switched to Diet Coke. Trust me, Diet Coke has gotten much better. No more aftertaste. I’ve managed to keep my sugar levels in check, but there still is some uncertainty about the long-term healthiness of sugar substitutes. Oh well...

Anyway, I bring this up because of Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign to receive federal government permission to restrict the use of food stamps to purchase sugar-sweetened beverages in New York City. Mayor Mike believes they contribute to obesity and diabetes (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/us/politics/30food.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Food%20Marketing%20Institute&st=cse).

I support him. Yes, I know this is another example of government getting into our pantries, but just as Bloomberg championed no smoking in restaurants, plus less salt and fat in fast food fare, it is proper for government to mandate behavior when the population at large (and getting larger) won’t take care of itself.

This is not a classic example of Big Brother telling us what to do, or not do. If you want to spend your own money to buy sugared drinks, fine. But don’t spend my money, my government money. Not when our collective health care system is overburdened by the overweight and the diabetic. We all wind up paying higher insurance premiums, and waiting longer in emergency rooms, because of it. We need to begin controlling the root causes of the health care crisis. Prevention should be paramount. Stopping the flow of sweetened liquid down our gullets is one of the quickest ways to have an impact on our collective waist line, blood line and bottom line.


Matza Meal II: My experiment giving birds leftover egg and whole wheat matza has produced less than spectacular results. A few birds, some grackles and even some cardinals, have nibbled at it. But by and large, the birds have ignored the religious offering.


Warm Feet: On the other hand, or foot, so to speak, I am thoroughly enjoying a toasty bed, thanks to the electric mattress pad installed last week. Normally, spring weather would have negated the need for a bed warmer. But this has been anything but a normal spring. I can favorably report my endorsement of this product.


Picture Perfect: Some people ask me why I never include pictures with my blogs. Here’s a reason why: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/business/media/03righthaven.html?src=rechp. I surely do not need to become penpals with copyright lawyers.


Dead, Again: Does it matter that the description of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden has been officially revised to say he was not armed when shot, but was still resisting capture? To me, no. He showed no mercy to the innocents he murdered here and around the world. I have no problem with his execution, with targeted assassinations. Let's get the next guy on the list!

(P)Raising Arizona

Finally, something from Arizona I agree with (at least at first blush). Now, I don’t know all the intricacies of Gov. Jan Brewer’s proposal, but on the surface it seems worthy of discussion.

Essentially, Gov. Brewer wants to impose a $50 annual fee on Medicaid recipients who are obese or smokers if they fail to follow their doctor’s regimens that presumably would help them lose weight or kick the habit. The fee would apply to non-disabled adults who are either childless or whose children are at least 19.

For sure the proposal would need refinement, so, for example, a person overweight because of a thyroid condition would not be hit with the fee. But as a practical matter, getting smokers and the obese to pay their fair share of the burgeoning health care cost is a plus. We’re all paying higher medical premiums because we are carrying some of the burden smokers and heavyweights impose on the medical system. Private enterprise has recognized this—insurance companies charge different rates if you’re a non-smoker. Some private employers carry a separate medical coverage option for non-smokers.

It’s no secret Gov. Brewer is not the most friendly person when it comes to entitlement programs. She’d prefer to do away completely with Medicaid. But if the $50 fee prompts people to stop smoking or lose weight, it might produce a positive outcome.

Of course, an objective look at her proposal might also raise an interesting question—since Republicans always trumpet the need to take government out of our personal lives, how could a GOP governor be in favor of imposing a fee based on personal behavior? I guess it’s not hypocritical when the GOP does it.

Just when I was about to give Arizona a favorable, though not passing grade, it reinforced the stereotype that its elected officials are just plain crazy. And back to their keep-government-out-of-our-lives mode. The Republican-controlled Arizona House has passed legislation allowing guns, even concealed guns, to be carried on university and college campuses, all in the name of providing a means of defense in the case of a shooting. The governor has not indicated whether she will sign the bill. I’m betting she will.

Making guns permissible on campus is catching on like wild fire across GOP territory. Similar legislation is being considered in Texas, Tennessee, Michigan, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Nebraska, Mississippi and Florida. Utah already permits it. Given the degree of drinking college students do, I am not thrilled with the mixture of alcohol and gunpowder. It’s a recipe for disaster, sooner or later.

It also gives parents another factor to consider when evaluating higher education options. Will the right to bear arms on campus be a positive or negative influence on their choice? There are some really good schools in those states. I’m glad I’m the father of college graduates and don’t have to confront this issue.


While we’re on the subject of guns, two groups, The Second Amendment Foundation and the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, filed a federal lawsuit against New York City this week because they say the cost to own a firearm in Gotham is too high, an “arbitrary financial constraint” to gun ownership. It costs $340 for an application and $94.25 to obtain a fingerprint check.

The fees seem reasonable to me, but to be honest, I think Chris Rock has a better suggestion. To cut down on random shootings, Rock proposes that each bullet cost $5,000. Too bad he’s a comedian so his idea won’t be seriously considered.

A Rose By Any Other Name

I woke up in the middle of the night, turned on my iTouch to read The New York Times and was confronted with a conundrum—just how do you spell the name of the hated Libyan dictator we are so desperate to depose?

In my last blog, I spelled his name Muammar Gaddafi. But that wasn’t the way I saw it through bleary eyes in The Times. Our most trusted newspaper spelled it Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Since I’d taken my computer downstairs to do our taxes, it wasn’t closely available to immediately revise my blog. But as I sat at the keyboard Wednesday afternoon ready to conform to The Times, I thought it might be interesting to see how other journalists publish his name:

Moammar Gadhafi is preferred by The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, the web site for NPR and the German publication Der Spiegel;
Muammar Gaddafi is the choice of Newsweek, The Jerusalem Post, Time, The Financial Times, the British newspaper The Guardian, The BBC and, perhaps most critically, Al Jazeera English;
Moammar Gaddafi says The Washington Post;
Muammar al-Qaddafi is the spelling favored by the Council on Foreign Relations;
Mouammar Kadhafi, according to the French paper Le Monde.

If I thought I could get through to him I’d ask you-know-who for the correct spelling of his name. I’m sure I’d have other questions, as well. Perhaps he’d respond with a quote attributed to P.T. Barnum: “I don’t care what you say about me, just spell my name right.”


It’s Transparently Obvious: Listening to The Brian Lehrer Show on NPR as I was driving around today delivering Meals on Wheels, I realized the most overused word in government today is “transparency”

Rima Cohen, counselor to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, must have used the word half a dozen times, at least, in one answer to describe the guidelines behind the health care law celebrating its first anniversary today. If they were so transparent, why are so many people confused?

Even for those who favor universal health care coverage, it’s transparently obvious the plan must be simplified. Make it more like Medicare, but instead of being just for seniors, make it for everyone.


After the Fall: Tom Stoppard was a guest of Leonard Lopate of NPR shortly thereafter, as his play Arcadia is currently in revival on Broadway. I haven’t seen it, but I did score a front row center seat back in the summer of 1968 to his first smash hit, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

Rosencrantz, or was it Guildenstern?, fell into my lap during the performance. They were standing near the edge of the stage apron bantering their Stoppard lines when all of a sudden Rosencrantz, or was it Guildenstern?, lost his footing and tumbled towards me. My reflexes were only 19-years-old at the time so I managed to thrust out my arms to cushion his fall, and save myself from agony. I quickly pushed him back on stage, without so much as a thank you from Rosencrantz, or was it Guildenstern?


Writer’s Block: As you might have figured out by now, I like writing. I’ll let you be the judge of my talent. Doesn’t matter what your verdict is, I’m going to continue.

Of course, I don’t get paid for this exercise, so recently I thought I might try my hand at freelancing for some local newspapers, maybe do a business article or two. One of the editors I queried said she might have some work, some short 300-word profiles of local businesses. Would I be interested, and oh, by the way, the fee is $60 per article, no mileage, non-negotiable.

$60!!! I used to pay freelancers $300 for a one-page article of about 400 words. And I thought my payouts were meager! Yikes, no wonder the average freelance writer says they make less than they did as a full-time employee. It’s a good thing I don’t need the money, otherwise I’d be really depressed.

Amalekites Among Us

Though posted today, I was inspired to write this blog entry while attending Sabbath services yesterday, the day before the Jewish holiday of Purim which commemorates victory over Haman, an evil minister of ancient Persia who sought to annihilate the Jewish people some 2,500 years ago. Haman is thought to have descended from the nomadic tribe of Amalek, a people reviled for their unprovoked attack on the vulnerable rear phalanx of the Israelites as they made their way through the desert to the promised land after the exodus from Egypt.

Each year, the Saturday before Purim is called Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembrance. Congregations read a Torah portion commanding Jews to remember Amalek’s treachery: “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore...you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget.” (Exodus 25: 17-19)

Listening to one of our temple members expound on the need to safeguard the disadvantaged and vulnerable in our society against both outside attackers and complacency from the more strong and fortunate, I couldn’t help but think we have in our country present-day Amalekites. They’re people who would turn their backs on the infirm, the uninsured, the jobless, the dispossessed, the homeless, the hungry, the needy, in short, the less fortunate. My first instinct was to label all of them Republicans. But that would be too easy, and, in truth, not inclusive enough.

Disregard for one’s fellow human knows no ideological bound. No religious border. No political persuasion.

Who has not been rightly moved by the tragic pictures from Japan, or from Haiti, or New Zealand? In an instant, the forces of nature overturned societies. Americans opened their hearts and wallets to the victims.

But why does it take a natural disaster to make us emote and care for the downtrodden, either here or abroad? How is it the citizens of the richest country on earth tolerate poverty in our midst? How is it some don’t accept it is not Christian charity to deny anyone a living wage, that it is within our depths of compassion and resources to provide sustenance and shelter for the needy? I’m not advocating a welfare state of handouts. Anyone receiving public assistance should be required to compensate the government for it by working on community projects or the like.

By virtue of luck, we were either born or emigrated here. We enjoy a standard of living married to institutional values second to none. Judeo-Christian precepts underpin our national psyche. Those precepts are imbued with concern and care for the poor and disadvantaged. They cherish learning and tolerance. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Bible knows it is not a libertarian treatise. There are codes of law that define proper personal and public behavior, by the individual and state.

Yet, while so many of our citizens espouse religious values, they fail to live by them. We have allowed our educational system to backslide. Infant mortality has risen. Some promote the right to life for the unborn but turn their backs on public support of the young once they breathe their first. Health care increasingly is reserved for the elite, and the battle is joined when proponents advance the idea of coverage for all. Driven by the pursuit of profits, corporations shut down domestic employment in favor of foreign workers, leaving individuals and communities forsaken.

Through the centuries Jews cast anyone who sought their destruction as an Amalekite. Today, an Amalekite has a more universal inhumanity. Our hope, as one biblical commentator put it, “is to blot out from the human heart the cruel Amalek spirit.”

Marching for Peace and Jobs

Some people grouse at the news of wars and national debt. Some listen to old protest songs. Sixty-three-year-old Alan Gilbert decided a more public demonstration was in order.

Late last fall he turned to his wife Barbara and said the only way to solve the mounting debt and budget crisis was to end U.S. involvement in the interminable double wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He would organize a march and rally in their home town of Tucson to call attention to a plan to shift the dollars we spend in Iraq and Afghanistan to more fully fund American jobs, education, health care, environmental protection and other human needs. Both wars have cost more than a trillion dollars since their inception.

There have been public protests before in Tucson over Iraq and Afghanistan, but no one had taken the initiative to organize anything for 2011. Alan assumed the role. So on the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq—Saturday, March 19—Alan will lead a march and rally from Armory Park to DeAnza Park. Thousands are expected to follow his footsteps. Twenty community organizations have signed on as sponsors. The Tucson march will be one of more than 200 planned across the country to commemorate the date.

Hardly a rabble-rouser, Alan is a military veteran. In planning the demonstration, Alan appealed to the common sense of an informed public. “Remember that the true security of our country depends on well- funded education for our children, good health care, decent paying jobs, and a healthy environment. We must insist that our government fund human needs instead of death and destruction,” he said in an e-mail soliciting support from ordinary citizens.

I hope many will heed his clarion call.

Alan’s our brother-in-law. He’s married to Gilda’s sister, Barbara.

Charlie Sheen Isn't the Only One Who Can Rant

Am I the only one who thinks Charlie Sheen is auditioning to be Hugh Hefner's replacement when the dirty old man passes on? All Charlie needs is a pair of black silk pajamas. He already has an ex-porn star and a model as live-in bunk mates.

I try to avoid Charlie-Sheen-all-news-all-the-time coverage, but it's hard to avoid it when every TV newscast, except CBS, has fashioned this story as the second coming of OJ Simpson coverage, albeit without the blood and gore, though Charlie reportedly has threatened violence against his ex-wife and mother of his twin boys.

Sheen's breakdown is like a train wreck. You're almost compelled to watch it unfold in front of your eyes. The other day a friend sent me a YouTube of cars crashing as they sped through red lights. I wound up watching the full video. I couldn't take my eyes away from it. Sheen's meltdown is the same. Though most everyone is counseling him to stay silent, he keeps ignoring the red lights and plows ahead with rants that make Qaddafi seem almost sane.


Cry Babies: The other day I compared the GOP to bullies. Today I think they're also cry babies. Here's why:

In their attempt to beat back opposition to the draconian measures they have proposed in state and federal budgets, Republicans argue they are merely following through on what they told the voeters they would do if elected. Since they shellacked the Democrats last November, they should be entitled to enact their campaign promises, they say. Therefore, Democrats should just get out of the way and stop whining.

Sounds like a plausible argument. Until one remembers that in 2008 Democrats won a convincing national election on a platform that included passage of universal health care. We know, of course, Republicans fought to forestall passage of health care reform and continue to battle its implementation in the courts and in Congress. So much for accepting the will of the people when it doesn't agree with their view.

Disrespect for reality and the will of the people can also be seen in continuing efforts to deny Barack Obama's legitimacy as president. Georgia has before it a proposal to challenge the native born citizenship of the president unless he produces a birth certificate showing he was born in Hawaii. Without it, the proposed legislation would not allow his name to appear on Peach State ballots. Of course, Georgia is ignoring documentation already released by Hawaii affirming Obama's birth status. But the Georgia GOP keeps crying foul.


Shades of the 50's and 60's: State and local budgets are being cut to the bone with school districts across the nation suffering major funding cutbacks forcing teacher layoffs that will result in more children per classroom per teacher.

What's the big deal? Back in the 1950s, my elementary school packed 35 per classroom taught by one teacher. A private Hebrew school, our school day ran from 9 am to 4:30 pm. Gilda's high school in the 1960s, Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall, was so overcrowded it required three different shifts to accommodate its 8,000 students. That's not a typo—8,000 students. There weren't enough desks and chairs for everyone in her class, so kids sat on the floor and the radiators.

We learned. We achieved. We had good teachers, we had bad teachers. Two critical factors helped us succeed—we were motivated and supported by parents who believed education was critical to upward mobility.

Until parents accept their responsibility, teachers will unfairly be cast as the villains for low tests scores and underachieving students.

Look for My Union Label

Let’s get my bias out in the open at the very beginning—30 years as a manager, yet I still identify with my two years as a union member back at the New Haven Register in 1975-76.

Perhaps that’s one reason I sympathize with public service employees in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere who are threatened with the loss of collective bargaining rights by newly emboldened Republican governors and state houses. Don’t focus on the demand to require civil servants to pay more for health care coverage and to contribute more toward their pensions. That’s an appropriate take back. Budget deficits are real and deep, with benefit liabilities a major factor. Belt tightening should be across the board and include government workers.

But the right to collective bargaining is a mainstay of union activity. Any action to strip that collective bargaining right is a first step in doing away with unions, both in the public and private sectors. For sure, not every union is pristine. Likewise, not every management team or politician is abusive or regressive. But history has shown time and again that unions have led to greater employee benefits for all (for non union workers and managers, as well), and that without union protection individual workers are vulnerable even if they are first-rate workers. A teacher I know in California, for example, received exemplary ratings from both her principal and independent test scores last year, but for some unknown reason this academic year has lost the confidence of this same administrator to the point that without a union to protect her she might well have lost her job or she would have had to resort to a costly, personal civil law suit.

The bogeyman du jour, probably des annes, is the labor union. Strip away public and private sector unions, the theory seems to go, and our economic woes will be on the road to solvency, our government deficits made less deep and our exceptionalism restored. If we eliminate unions, maybe we’ll be able to reduce, or even do away with, the minimum wage and worker benefits, especially that darned social security that we keep hearing is going to be bankrupt by the time baby boomers all retire. Who needs it anyway, since the economy is in such bad shape no one will be able to retire except the very rich, and since when do they need government help? If we could only do away with all those government entitlements and regulations perhaps then we’d be able to compete on the global labor market, compete with countries like Bangladesh, China, India, even Mexico. Without those costly wage levels and benefit programs plus OSHA and EPA rules to follow, we’d easily resolve our illegal immigration crisis. No self-respecting Latino would want to jump border fences or wade across the Rio Grande to enter a country that doesn’t provide any better earnings prospects and worker conditions than their native land. Without inflated union workers costs, no more manufacturing plants would be shut down in the United States, their jobs shipped overseas to lower labor markets. We’d go back to the way it was mid-last century, when all we did was close down northern plants and move the jobs to cheap-labor southern states. But at least we’d be keeping those “good” jobs in the good ol’ US of A, thus bringing more power to states that are the true core of our country’s creed, states that still believe the Civil War was a conflict based on states’ rights, not the exploitation of labor and human rights better known as slavery.

See, it all begins with getting rid of those damned unions. And the place to start is with public sector unions because we all know government workers, especially teachers, are slaggards, what with their two months off in the summer and all those winter and spring school breaks. Those damn teachers work just 180 days a year, while most others have a 261-day work year, before vacation and holidays. Those teachers have it cushy, considering we keep hearing education test scores keep dropping. They keep complaining parents aren’t helping out with good follow-up at home, but that’s merely a cover-up for no accountability. And, did you ever see state workers working hard at the motor vehicle department? And why is it my street never gets snowplowed until late afternoon? And building inspectors, why can’t they ever show up on time? Don’t they know they’re delaying my project, and when they do show up they are capricious, with no consistency from inspector to inspector? But that’s the type of service you get when jobs are guaranteed and you’re afraid to criticize because someone might go “postal” on you.

Those people in the badger state sure know which way the wind’s blowing. Let me tell you, that Gov. Walker, he’s a rising national star. He’s a man of principle. He’ll make those trains run on time in Wisconsin, or else.

The tragedy of it all is that too many workers—even some private sector union members, according to a NY Times article today— don’t realize they benefit directly and indirectly from the working conditions unions collectively attain for their members. They see an imbalance in civil servant contributions to health care and retirement benefits and selfishly turn their backs on their working class brethren. Ever since Richard Nixon and then Ronald Reagan convinced working class voters to vote with their hearts and not their minds, or pocketbooks, the American worker has had his and her earnings power reduced. It might be patriotic to support U.S. war efforts, but it is downright unpatriotic to vote into office legislators who sanction corporate rip-offs, be they unsafe products, unsafe working conditions, tax dodging schemes and plant closures that have transformed our economy from a manufacturing to a service-centric base. We no longer produce goods. All we do is create services to service the wealthiest segment of our population without taxing them appropriately.

Don’t worry about the rich. They have a union to protect them. It’s called the Republican Party, Tea Party members included.