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April 2008 archives
About 60 years ago, I said to my father, "Old Mr. Senex is showing his age; he sometimes talks quite stupidly." My father replied, "That isn't age. He's always been stupid. He is just losing his ability to conceal it." - Robertson Davies, New York Times Book Review (May 12, 1991)
The wonderful thing about having George Bush as president is that a commentator can write about the same subject repeatedly and it will always be timely and fresh. That is because when George Bush finds a bad thing to do, he does it repeatedly because he's too sure of his own good judgment to notice that it's a bad thing. One of his favorite things is hiding facts to protect myths. One of his favorite myths is that the war in Iraq is going swimmingly. Among one of many ways the myth is perpetuated is by not letting journalists photograph service personnel being brought home in coffins as they arrive at Andrews Air Force Base. Another, we have now learned, is not letting members of the press get near burial services taking place at Arlington National Cemetery.
According to a report in the Washington Post, at the burial of Lt. Col. Billy Hall, the family wanted the press in attendance to record the burial of one of the senior officers to be killed in Iraq and, by reporting on it, to honor Colonel Hall's patriotism and sacrifice. Mr. Bush's Pentagon believes Colonel Hall's sacrifice can be better honored privately, the family's wishes notwithstanding. Accordingly a yellow rope kept the press 50 yards from the grave site. A photographer complained there could be no pictures of the family without the yellow rope being in the way to which an employee of the cemetery responded: "This is the best shot you're going to get". When the reporters complained that the pastor's eulogy, in which he presumably talked about Colonel Hall's valor and sacrifice, could not be heard, the Arlington official responded by saying "Mm-hmm." As a result, all the press could report to commemorate this brave man, father and husband was that it could not report anything. Mr. Bush likes it that way.
Another myth in which George Bush believes, is that in a well-run country politics should always trump science. The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report the end of April disclosing that science and ignorance (the latter clothed in garments purchased for it by Mr. Bush and his courtiers) have been in mortal combat during the Bush administration's tenure and ignorance has proved its worth winning easily in many of the confrontations.
Focusing on the Environmental Protection Agency (an agency that has received attention in here), the report discloses that in a survey of the agency's scientists more than half said there had been political interference in scientific decisions during the preceding five years. George Bush has been president for seven years and presumably the reason for interference during only the last five is that it takes a while for someone like Mr. Bush to figure out those areas in which commonly accepted scientific notions are deficient and should give way to political considerations.
In the survey fifty five hundred questionnaires were sent out and 1,586 scientists responded. More than half said they had observed political interference in scientific decisions made by the agency. Some said the interference came form the Office of Management and Budget for strictly political reasons. As a threshold matter that would seem a singularly inappropriate agency to be interfering in matters scientific until one realizes that if scientific decisions are to be made by the ignorant, it is a singularly appropriate agency to be making those decisions.
The Office of Management and Budget is not alone in thwarting science. According to the Washington Post report, when E.P.A. staff members came to the non-startling conclusion that greenhouse gasses were bad for public health, efforts at creating regulations halted after the White House received its findings. Mr. Bush also caused the agency to weaken its proposed limits on smog-forming ozone, he having apparently concluded ozone is not the problem the scientists believe it to be.
Following publication of the most recent survey, Jonathan Shradar defended his boss, Stephen L. Johnson, E.P.A. Administrator. Mr. Shradar said Mr. Johnson carefully weighs the input of staff in all agency decisions.
An example of how Mr. Johnson uses the scale to weigh agency decision can be seen in the decision to deny California the waiver it sought in 2007 to reduce tailpipe emissions by 2016 to 30% instead of to 40% by 2020 as mandated by the December 2007 Energy bill. The staff at the EPA was reportedly in favor of granting the waiver, being possessed of scientific knowledge and unencumbered by political considerations. Placing his thumb on the scientific scale, Mr. Johnson concluded his staff was wrong and denied the waiver.
Mr. Shrader told the Post that the findings in the Union's survey would not change anything. That is very likely true-at least for the next eight months. Thereafter one can hope that science will once again be recognized as a valid field of study, the findings of which are entitled to at least as much, if not slightly more weight, than the conclusions of politicians led by the Grand Poobah in the White House.
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul; see, where it flies! -Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus [1604]
Lowest common denominator.
That's the group to whom George Stephanopolous and Charles Gibson of ABC news were appealing during the first half of the April 16 presidential debate for which they served as moderators. That explains the reason for the really dumb questions they posed and pursued with remarkable, if mindless, persistency, about lapel pins, helicopter landings, bitter people and sermons. Nonehas the slightest relevance to determining which of the debaters would be a better president.
George Bush never appears in public without his American flag lapel pin and few believe he was a good president. Hillary Clinton never appears in public with a lapel pin and that does not suggest she would be a bad president. Since appealing to the lowest common denominator was the goal of Messrs. Gibson and Stephanopolous, I have a suggestion for a future program that will draw even more viewers than did the debate and will appeal to an even lower common denominator.
They should interview Ashley Youmans for an hour and a half. Ashley Youmans, now known as Ashley Alexandra Dupré is the woman whose face, metaphorically speaking, brought down an empire. Or at least a governorship. Ashley is the young woman at the center of the Eliot Spitzer scandal.
Without casting aspersions on either of the two presidential candidates who debated (each of whom is well dressed and attractive) all would agree that to the extent anything interesting was elicited from the candidates by their inquisitors, it was unrelated to what they were wearing. It is safe to assume, on the other hand, that no matter how pathetic the questioning, Ashley would have made a better visual impression than either of the candidates, especially if she had been counseled to attire herself in such a way as to display the attributes that make her both interesting and successful.Furthermore, she could provide information that would be of interest to lots of viewers, especially those with mildly prurient interests - a group larger than the viewers would like to admit.
Since the economy is undeniably in a slump, she could have explained how competitive pricing works in the industry in which she is employed, thus introducing transparency to a profession that frequently operates in the dark. It would almost certainly be of interest to the viewer to know and understand why, for example, radio executive, Tom Athans, of Michigan, who is married to U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow and was recently arrested in a Residence Inn near Big Beaver and Interstate 75 (no double entendre intended and apologies to Kurt Vonnegut) paid a woman engaged in Ashley's line of work only $150 whereas Mr. Spitzer reportedly paid Ashley $4300.
It is not adequate to attribute the difference in price to depressed economic conditions in Michigan nor can it be attributed solely to the length of the encounter. As an examination of the rate structure of Ashley's company set out below demonstrates, for $150 at her employer one would get little more than a cup of water with which to down a Viagra pill.
It would be interesting to hear Ashley explain, in response to questions from the ABC team, the details of the price list formerly displayed on the Emperors Club Website. (The site uses the apostrophe sparingly and inconsistently.)
The quality of the services are, as restrooms at gas stations were in days gone by, measured by diamonds and, conveniently, (as gas stations were not) in dollars, euros and pounds so that prospective customers know what to expect. The rates are either hourly or by the day. A three-diamond encounter of one hour's duration costs $1,000 or 700 Euros whereas a 7-diamond encounter of the same length costs $3,100 or 2200 Euros. (Based on today's exchange rates it makes more sense to pay in dollars.) Day rates that are described as "dawn to dawn" range from $10,000 to $31,000.
Ashley could have discussed competitive pricing, variation in pricing depending on locales, and how income is shared between Emperors and its subjects. There will be readers who suggest that such a program would be a waste of time since only those of prurient interest would want to watch.
To them I can only say Gibson and Stephanopolous offered so little worthwhile in their one and a half hours that any subject, no matter how trivial, would be an improvement. Would it were otherwise.
But optics sharp it needs, I ween, To see what is not to be seen. - John Trumbull, McFingal (1782)
What does George Bush have in common with prostitutes?
As was observed in last week's column, photographs of French president François Mitterand's funeral, showed his widow, mistress and their daughter, all gazing sadly at the casket. Had former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer died while consorting with prostitutes there would have been no photographs of the prostitutes standing sadly by the coffin with Mr. Spitzer's wife and daughters.
That's because prostitutes don't do funerals. Here is the answer to the riddle. Neither does George Bush.
George Bush doesn't even like to be in the presence of coffins even though it is, thanks to him, that the remains of more than 4000 service personnel have found resting places in coffins.
Unlike other presidents who in time of war have shared the grief of families of fallen soldiers by attending funeral or memorial services as time and location permit, Mr. Bush has avoided such displays of respect for the fallen and has attempted to bar the media from photographing the coffins of fallen service people returning from Iraq lest the sad sights create hostility towards Mr. Bush's legacy war. What the American public doesn't see or recall, Mr. Bush believes, probably hasn't happened. That explains the most recent events involving Johns Hopkins University.
Johns Hopkins manages POPLINE, the world's largest database on reproductive health. According to Robert Pear of the New York Times, it has more than 360,000 records and articles "on family planning, fertility and sexually transmitted diseases." The database is funded by USAID, an agency that imposes severe restrictions on funds being given to any NGO that performs abortions or actively promotes it in foreign countries as a means of family planning.
As a result of brilliant and thorough research, out of the 360,000 articles in the data base, Sandy Jordan, director of communications in USAID's Office of Population and Reproductive Health, discovered two articles that, said she, "were one-sided in favor of abortion." As a result, the organization asked that the articles be removed from the database.
Explaining what might otherwise seem like the mindless act of another Bush "You're doing a great job Brownie" political hack, Jordan said: "We are part of the Bush administration, so we have to make sure that all parts of the story are told. The administration's policy is definitely anti-abortion and the administration does not see abortion as a part of family planning policy."
Because of Ms. Jordan's concern, beginning in February, Johns Hopkins programmed its computers' search engines so that they would treat the word "abortion" the same way they treat the words "a", "the", "an" etc.
People using that word in searches would get no results. By taking steps that resulted in the removal of the word "abortion" from the POPLINE data base search engine, the Bush administration accomplished the same thing Mr. Bush has accomplished by not publicly acknowledging the deaths of American service personnel in Iraq except on very rare and carefully controlled occasions.
The deaths do not go away. Public awareness of them does.
By causing "abortion" to be removed from the POPLINE search engine doesn't keep girls and women from getting abortions. What they can't get, at least from the Johns Hopkins site, was information about abortions. The school told those inquiring about the change in policy that "abortion" was not a valid search term.
Johns Hopkins being an institution of higher education run by people with brains and common sense rather than ideology, is more enlightened than the Bush administration. When the Dean of the Public Health School, Dr. Michael J. Klag, learned of the restrictions in early April, he ordered the restrictions lifted saying: "I could not disagree more strongly with this decision, and I have directed that the POPLINE administrators restore 'abortion' as a search term immediately. I will also launch an inquiry to determine why this change occurred."
The answer is not hard to come by. It changed because the country is run by Orwellian ideologues who believe that the way to control the country is to control the minds of its citizens by limiting information available to them. It has been stunningly successful. One can only hope that in January 2008, the minds of the citizens are restored to their rightful owners.
'Tis a pity she's a whore. - Title of a John Ford play
Why can't Americans be more like the French? The slightly mangled line from My Fair Lady is inspired by the fascination with which we in the United States have viewed the sexual peccadilloes of assorted leaders as compared with how such behavior is perceived by the French.
On June 18, 2007, France had an election featuring beautiful women and assorted men in the two parties competing for the presidency. On one side was Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal and her partner of more than 20 years, François Hollande. During their time together they had four children and to all outward appearances were to live happily ever after. Within hours after the polls closed, the end of their partnership was announced. Mr. Hollande said the separation was a private affair. A book published after the election quoted Ms. Royale as saying that: "I asked François Hollande to leave our home, to pursue his love interest, which is now laid bare in books and newspapers, on his own." The whole parting seemed, at least from this side of the Atlantic, remarkably tasteful.
Not to be outdone, her opponent and his wife-followed suit. During the campaign Cécilia Sarkozy, wife of Union for a Popular Movement candidate Nicolas Sarkozy was noticeably absent. Following the election she briefly played the role of first lady of France visiting Libya where she participated in obtaining the release of six health care workers who had been detained in Libya since 2004. Following their release she concluded that the world of politics was not for her, ended her marriage to Nicolas and resumed her relationship with Richard Attlas.
Divorced in October, Mr. Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, a singer and former model whom he met in November 2007, were wed on February 2, 2008. Upon learning of her former husband's marriage, Cécilia and Richard were married on March 22 instead of marrying in June as originally planned. One paper described the wedding and the elaborate reception that followed as a "revenge", wedding, the former Mme. Sarkozy having been annoyed that M. Sarkozy's new wife was 10 years younger.
Both French partings were civilized. No prostitutes No sad spouses standing stolidly by, and no stoical statements by any of the parties. Compare similar events on this side of the Atlantic. There are more examples from which to choose space in a column such as this.
Kwame Kilpatrick had a bright future. He is the mayor of Detroit. If he lived in France he would still have a bright future because it would have been unnecessary to lie about the explicit emails he and another government worker exchanged. The city would not have negotiated the settlement of a whistleblower lawsuit that cost Detroit millions of taxpayer dollars. He and his wife would have said their private lives were their private lives and gone on to live them privately. Instead he may be going to jail, not for sex but for lying about sex.
From Detroit we move to New York where two governors have made the news. Upon becoming governor on March 17, David Paterson held a press conference in which he described the challenges facing New York. On March 18 he held a press conference with his wife, Michelle, in which he described challenges they faced during their marriage including their respective acts of adultery. The affairs were consensual and no one had to pay anything as a result of the companionship or its disclosure thus making it more French than American.
Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York is, of course, the pre-eminent example of how the French don't do it. He was robbed of his dignity and because of that behavior lost a good post-mortem photo opportunity.
If Eliot lived in France he could have had as many lovers as he wanted and still prosecuted prostitution rings in his official capacity without being called a hypocrite. Instead of standing awkwardly with a stalwart wife by his side, confessing to the fact that he had to pay for the kind of friendship many people routinely enjoy, he would have said with great dignity that he had begun an affair but remained deeply in love with his wife and would/would not be divorcing her and would/would not marry his new friend.
But by consorting, instead, with prostitutes he deprived himself and his family of a dramatic post-death photo opportunity such as enjoyed by former French President François Mitterand.
It is impossible to forget the touching images published around the world at Mitterand's funeral. Standing side by side, sadly viewing the coffin, were Messieur Mitterand's wife, Danielle, and his mistress, Anne Pingeot and their illegitimate daughter, Mazarine. It was a touching scene, one Mr. Spitzer could not look forward to even if his nocturnal wanderings had not come to light. That's because prostitutes don't do funerals.
Drink a health to the wonders of the Western world, the pirates, preachers, poteen-makers. . . .John Millington Synge, The Playboy of the Western World
John McCain has two advantages over Barack Obama. Whereas Barack has only one spiritual advisor, John has three - one of whom is dead and two of whom say nuttier things than Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright. McCain's three advisors, are, however, supporting a Republican and thus, based on the silence from the right, one can only conclude their comments need no explanation. That may be because their sort of nuttiness is indigenous to a party whose biggest present to the United States in the 21st Century is George W. Bush.
John Hagee is the most prominent supporter and where the Lord has led him was explored here earlier. John McCain's statement that he was "very proud to have pastor Hagee's support" tells you more about McCain than an 800-word column can. So does McCain's acceptance of Rod Parsley as his religious advisor.
Rod is a bible-college drop out who began preaching to small crowds some 20 years ago. Today he is the chief pastor of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, an organization that has 12,000 members.
One week before the Ohio primary, Senator McCain appeared with Rod Parsley at a campaign rally in Cincinnati in which Rod described McCain as a "strong, true, consistent conservative." Accepting the description and with Rod standing next to him the senator described Rod as a "spiritual guide." That occupation does not, however, enable Rod to live up to his full potential. Rod would make an excellent Secretary of State since he knows a fair amount about foreign policy as his writings show. Mother Jones writer David Corn describes some of the things Rod has written that lend weight to my suggestion.
In his book 2005 Silent No More Rod describes the fact that there is a war between "Islam and Christian civilization." As quoted by Mr. Corn, Rod writes: "The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore."
Of course a Secretary of State has to understand history as well as current events in order to be effective, and Rod has the appropriate background for that as well. In his book, Rod says Columbus: "dreamed of defeating the armies of Islam with the armies of Europe made mighty by the wealth of the New World. It was this dream that, in part, began America."
Rod's dislike of Muslims is not irrational. Rod has discovered, he says, that "Islam is responsible for more pain, more bloodshed, and more devastation than nearly any other force on earth at this moment." (Lest he appear naïve it should be observed that the book was written before Mr. Bush trumped Islam by invading Iraq.) Furthermore, Rod continues, Islam is not simply evil. It is actually the "anti-Christ religion." Muhammad "received revelations from demons and not from the true God. Allah was a 'demon spirit'."
In his book Rod calls himself a "Christocrat", wants to prosecute folks who commit adultery (but probably not for past offenses since that would include Senator McCain if Bernard Shaw's uncontradicted statement to Mr. McCain during a 1999 CNN interview that the senator had an affair while married, is to be believed) and compares Planned Parenthood to Nazis. There are no reports that McCain has disavowed anything Rod has said.
The third endorsement comes from a corpse and one is forced to rely on a blog called BuzzFlash for the report of that endorsement.
According to the blog, shortly after the primary season voting started, the McCain campaign announced that the senator had been endorsed by Jerry Falwell. When a reporter asked how that news had been imparted since Jerry had gone on to his great reward some months earlier, the spokesman said the endorsement was a matter of controversy "you know, like global warming . . .. following Senator Brownback's lead, and indeed that of Gov. Huckabee, about what counts in life, we take the Falwell endorsement on faith."
It's not surprising that the campaign welcomes the endorsement. A corpse is considerably less likely to say things publicly that embarrass John McCain than either of the two self-proclaimed representatives of the Lord he has adopted as spiritual advisors. Of course, John being elderly, may not even notice.
