Neonicotinoids

Annual sales of neonicotinoids, powerful insecticides, total in the billions. Neonicotinoids are very effective at killing pests.  Unfortunately, bees are one of the insects killed.  Many environmentalists blame this insecticide for “Colony Collapse Disorder,” in which a whole hive can die off in days.

The European Union yesterday banned the substance for two years, though not in the winter when bees are dormant.  At the end of two years scientists will examine the data to see whether a permanent ban is warranted.  To read more about the ban, go to <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/29/bees-european-neonicotinoids-ban>.

Here in the U.S., where government is sold to the highest bidder and agribusiness reigns supreme, neonicotinoids have not been banned.

S.U.V.s in China

At San Jose State I was a member of the Environmental Studies Department in addition to my teaching duties in Political Science and American Studies.  I taught a course entitled “U.S. Environmental Studies.”  I would explain that the U.S., with five percent of the world’s population, consumed something like 40% of the earth’s resources.  

I would also point out that the only thing that was saving the globe from total environmental degradation was that countries like India and China were dirt poor, depending on bicycles or walking for transportation and living in what we would consider to be primitive conditions.  What would happen if those countries developed advanced consumer tastes like the U.S.along with the ability to satisfy them?

Last week General Motors announced that it would introduce nine S.U.V. models in China over the next five years.  Chrysler plans to start marketing Jeep Cherokees.  Ford is promoting the Lincoln brand.  

The planet is doomed.  It is not a matter of if, but when.

(Info for this post came from an article in the Business section of the Times entitled “Chinese Auto Buyers Grow Hungry for Larger Cars,” April 22, 2013.)

How can American economic policy be so bad?  Here are three examples from the Business page of the Times in just one day--Saturday, April 27.

1.  Austerity during a recession.

Every intelligent economist knows you don’t cut government spending during a recession.  It makes the recession worse.  Yet here’s the headline:  “Federal Cuts Are Concern In Modest U.S. Growth.”  Of course they are.  Austerity isn’t working in Europe, and it certainly isn’t working here.

2.  Internet sales tax.

Here’s the headline:  “Internet Sales Tax Coming Too Late for Some Stores.”  After 18 years of getting a free ride on sales taxes, Amazon may finally be required to collect them because of a bill working its way through Congress.  Unfortunately, many mom and pop stores have already been forced out of business.  By the way, dear readers, if you can only buy it at Wal-Mart or Amazon, you don’t really need it.

3.  The rich get richer.

Here’s the headline:  “Median Pay in U.S. Is Stagnant, but Lower-Paid Workers Lose.”  The top tenth is up 9% from 2000; the bottom tenth is 3% lower than in 2000.  Class divisions are worsening.

Obama caves on sequester

The sequester was supposed to be painful to everyone, right?  All programs would be cut.  No favorites.  

Then some people experienced airport delays and called their congress members.  Congressman Dent from Allentown noted that he had received many calls about this.  He did not say how many calls he had received from people who were not getting Meals on Wheels, but those aren’t the kind of people who call their member of Congress. 

Congressional Republicans, who we all know don’t care an iota about cuts to programs for the poor, proposed legislation to restore FAA funding.  Congressional Democrats, who should have held firm, rushed to join their Republican colleagues.  

President Obama, who could have taken a principled stand and vetoed the measure until cuts were restored to programs to help the poor, caved.  He announced that he would sign the legislation.  The word is out on President Obama.  He caves.  

Flying and Eating

How many of the people who get Meals on Wheels fly?  How many people who fly get Meals on Wheels?

When four million people who get Meals on Wheels were affected by the Sequester, Congress didn’t complain.  When the FAA began its sequester cuts, resulting in flight delays, members of Congress went nuts.

I hope if Congress passes a bill funding the FAA, the President vetoes it unless it has a rider attached restoring funding for health care for military families, Meals on Wheels, and Head Start.  

No New York Times. OMG

Every day Linda and I drive four miles to Kresgeville to buy our New York Times at the Deli on 209.  When we lived in Fairfax, CA, the paper was delivered in a blue bag every morning.  No such luck in Towamensing Township.

For the past two months, the Friday papers have not been available at the Deli.  Evidently there is a dispute over delivery contracts.  Being the resourceful person I am, I found other outlets.  The Sunoco Station on Delaware in Palmerton carries the Times, but not today. I then drove to the gas station at the Mahoning Turnpike Interchange--no Times, but they usually only receive one or two copies, so I wasn’t surprised.

That meant a trip to Dugan’s on Broadway in Jim Thorpe.  They always have extra copies, but not today--no delivery.  That’s it for Carbon County.

Are we at war?  Did Congress pass a bill?  Was the Keystone Pipeline approved?  

If this happens tomorrow I’ll have to drive to New York.  I need that paper.

Publicizing torture

Conservatives were angry that the trial of a doctor in Philadelphia who performed abortions under illegal circumstances was not getting more publicity.  They accused the “liberal media” of not covering the trial and made a big fuss about the supposed lack of reporting.

If the Pennsylvania authorities had been doing their jobs, this doctor would have been stopped years ago.  What he was doing was already illegal under Pennsylvania law.  We didn’t need new legislation on ultrasounds and vaginal probes and clinic requirements, we needed state inspectors to do their jobs.

Now my complaint about news coverage.  In mid-April, an 11-member task force led by Asa Hutchinson, a Republican who was an official in the Bush Administration, and James Jones, ambassador to Mexico under Clinton, issued its report on the treatment of prisoners during the Iraq War. 

The conclusion:  “...the United States engaged in the practice of torture.”  There’s a 22-page appendix that details legal cases in which our country prosecuted others for doing what we did or said it was torture when other countries did it.

Why didn’t that make the news?  And why isn’t the hunger strike by prisoners at Guantanamo in the news?  They are being force-fed through tubes through their noses.  Now.  Under American supervision.  

I know, I sound strident, even shrill, but I can hardly stand some of the things we do.  And we lecture the rest of the world about justice and democracy.  

No Lyndon Johnson

Ninety percent of Americans favor background checks for buyers of assault weapons.  90%!  Yet the bill couldn’t get though the Senate.  A good deal of blame goes to Harry Reed, who, when he had the chance, did not get rid of the stupid rules on shutting off debate.  Keep in mind that a clear majority of the Senate did favor background checks.

Nonetheless, the main reason this bill is not law must rest with President Obama.  The man is just too nice.  Maureen Dowd wrote a column in the Sunday Times pointing out how the President could have called in Senators like Coburn (his friend), or Heidi Heitkamp, newly elected to six-year term, and pressed and threatened and promised.

A front-page article in today’s Times was headlined “In Gun Bill Defeat, a President Who Hesitates to Twist Arms.”  After a full term in office, one would think that the President would have learned how the game works.  You need to call this “shameful” before the vote, not after it was taken.  You need to get down into the pit and grapple in the dust.  This bill was too important to rise above the fray.  Please, Mr. President, fight back.

Faith in American Institutions

I’m amazed at how little faith American politicians have in American institutions.  Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, right to an attorney--Senators McCain and Graham would throw them all out.  They want Dzhokhar Tsarnaev considered an enemy combatant, held by the military without trial.  As evil as Mr. Tsarnaev is, our legal system can deal with him.  

After all, our police and our F.B.I. did a good job in capturing Tsarnaev, albeit with the help of civilians.  The military was not involved.  Our civilian justice system will be just as   efficient.  Mr. McCain, have some faith.  

Jim Thorpe

Earlier this week two of Jim Thorpe’s sons won a ruling in a federal district court to have Thorpe’s remains moved from Jim Thorpe to Oklahoma.  The Sac tribe was also a party to the suit.  The judge ruled the body had to be sent back under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.  

The purpose of the act was to insure that American museums, some of which had hundreds of Indian remains in storage, would return them to their tribes or homelands. Indians in the 19th and early 20th century were treated more like animal specimens than as human beings, and the 1990 Act was meant to rectify that.

I have mixed feelings about the ruling.  First of all, Thorpe’s widow agreed that the remains should be transferred to the town in return for the name change from Mauch Chunk to Jim Thorpe.  Secondly, this is not some skeleton put on display or stored in a basement drawer, but a respectful tomb with good interpretive signage about Thorpe’s life.  When we have visitors, we almost always take them by the tomb.  Finally, even though the judge ruled that the town was a “museum,” I don’t think it qualifies.  I’ve never seen a museum that charges $10 to park a car.

Nonetheless, the town of Jim Thorpe should not fight the ruling.  The actual body is not important to the town, though it may be to his sons and his tribe.  The name can stay.  The memorial can stay.  The respectful tribute will stay, whether the remains rest here or in Oklahoma.  The man was truly amazing; let’s not fight over his bones.

Thank you, Senator Toomey

The Carbon County Democrats for Change rented a space at the Earth Day Festival in Jim Thorpe today.  Our main activity was collecting signatures on a petition to thank Senator Toomey for spearheading the drive to pass legislation mandating background checks for people buying assault rifles. 

I did my best to defeat Sen. Toomey when he ran two years ago, and I can’t think of any other issue on which he and I were in agreement.  Nonetheless, he worked very hard in tandem with West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin to get the background check bill through the Senate.  That it failed does not lessen my respect for him.  

By the way, the bill did get a majority, but under the undemocratic Senate rules, 60 votes were needed to pass it.  Our Founding Fathers would be amazed.

Flying and buying

Let’s say you are a law-abiding citizen who would like to fly from Philadelphia to Chicago.  To do that you have to either undergo a full-body scan (is your underwear clean?), or endure an intrusive pat-down.  You must take off your shoes.  You won’t be able to purchase your ticket in cash at the gate.  You better not have a large bottle of C

Diet Coke in your carry-on bag.

Now let’s say you are at a gun show.  You have a restraining order forbidding you from getting within 500 yards of your ex-wife.  You have a felony conviction for an incident of road rage where you tried to force a motorist off the highway.  You have been institutionalized once for threatening a judge.  No problem.  Do you have cash for the Bushmaster you’d like to buy?  

Is this just insane?

Two for three so far

After the Newtown slaughter of the innocents I made three predictions.  First, a cry for limitations on guns and gun purchases would arise.  Second, no effective legislation would pass because of the power of the gun nuts.  Third, another mass shooting would occur.  

Poll after poll shows that Americans want background checks, want limits on magazines, want bans on assault rifles.  Too many members of Congress, however, fear the N.R.A. 

When the next massacre occurs, perhaps at a school play or a high school basketball game, the N.R.A. will point out that guns don’t kill people, people kill people, and we should arm the actors or the refs and coaches.  These are sick people.  I’ve heard that the N.R.A. director really dislikes the term “gun nut.”  Perhaps he would prefer “asshole.”

Tea Party Environmentalists?

Fayette County, Georgia, is a suburban county near Atlanta.  All five county commissioners, the county school board, the sheriff, a mayor, and some city council members are Tea Party members.   The county was run by traditional Republicans for years.  The median income is $81,000, and the county is overwhelmingly white.  The Tea Party officials are fairly new to the scene.

Here’s the interesting thing.  The local government is now battling high-density growth.  The new commissioners say the old Republican commissioners were in the developers’ pockets, which is probably true.  The Tea Party commissioners are also posting on-line videos of meetings and trying to be more transparent in appointing citizens to advisory boards.  They are not dismantling the county government, nor is there any mention of “Agenda 21,” theyt whipping horse of the our local Carbon County Tea Party types.  

I guess once people have the actual responsibility of governing, they learn that silly rhetoric no longer applies. 

Information for this post came from an article entitled “Tea Time” in the April 2013 issue of Governing magazine.

Always hope

There’s a a picture on the Times front page of two men helping a woman at the bombing in Boston.  The men are obviously not EMTs or emergency personnel.  One guy is wearing a plaid shirt, the other a baseball cap and tattoos on his left arm almost to the elbow.  They are holding a compress on the woman’s leg. The man in the plaid shirt has his hand cradling the woman’s head, while baseball cap is obviously pressing both of his hands to stop the bleeding.  Blood is everywhere, but here are two guys who are doing what they can.  There is always hope.

Betraying our friends

When the U.S. bugged out of Vietnam, we left thousands of Vietnamese translators and workers to the tender mercies of the Viet Cong.  Some were killed, while others spent years in “re-education camps.”  The “boat people” were those who managed to get out, often in horrific circumstances.  Many of the boat people settled in San Jose; I taught some of their kids at San Jose State.

I was ashamed of what my country did--or failed to do--for our friends and allies.  People who help us should not be left behind, even if it means that thousands of them are resettled here.  

Today’s New York Times has a front-page headline:  “Afghan Interpreters for the U.S. Are Left Stranded and at Risk.”  We are doing it again.

Mr. Smith goes to Washington--and takes a bribe

I watch a very few shows on TV.  I enjoy “Ridiculousnes,” I occasionally see an old movie on TCM, I check the weather channel in the morning, and I wouldn’t miss “Fashion Police.”  That’s it.

I have not seen “Veep,” “Scandal,” “House of Cards,” or “The Americans,” but I have read enough to know that they aren’t healthy for American democracy.  When the F.B.I. wiretapped mobsters after “The Godfather” films came out, they heard Mafia guys quoting lines from the movies.  Torture became more acceptable to millions of Americans after watching “24” on Fox.  Cocktails made a comeback after “Madmen.”  What is fictional becomes part of the milieu in which we operate, and that goes for politics as well.

The message of these new political shows is that all politicians are motivated by greed, a lust for power, or just plain lust.  This, of course, plays into the belief that since all politicians are crooks, why vote.  People can feel superior to the whole process--cynicism is taken for wisdom.  

In 1961 a series about two lawyers--father played by E. G. Marshall, son by Robert Reed--made its debut.  The son was very idealistic; the father more of a realist, but that show tackled such issues as censorship, the blacklist, abortion, and euthanasia and did it with intelligence. I didn’t switch my major to pre-law, but that show was inspiring. (It went off the air in 1965.)

Heck, I was even affected by Davy Crockett.  One commentator said the protests in the Sixties were not a result of Karl Marx; rather they were inspired by Davy Crockett.  His motto--according to the Disney version--was “Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.”  Not a bad philosophy to live by.  Certainly better than the cynicism of “Veep” or “House of Cards."

Harper's Index

Every month Harper’s Magazine devotes a page to “Harper’s Index,” a rather random listing of statistics from documented sources.  I always turn to that page first, and I’ll just give you a small sample from the latest issue.

Number of on-air minutes during last fall’s campaign season that CNN devoted to climate change: 23

To Joe Biden’s smile:  43

Amount Florida spent per student on testing in 1996:  $4.44

Last year:  $30.59

Percentage change since 1980 in California’s spending on public universities:  -13

On prisons:  +436

One more.

Number of U..S. states that have fewer abortion providers today tjhan in 1978:  48

42

Jackie Robinson’s first year playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers was an important important milestone along the road to racial equality.  Two years after Hitler was defeated, a black man was finally allowed to play major league baseball.  

The film “42” (Robinson’s number, now retired from all of baseball) is one of those feel-good movies in which the reality seems almost too Hollywood to be believed.  I recommend you take your children or grandchildren so they can see just how bad racism really was. The film also makes clear that racism was not just a Southern phenomenon, but existed in places like Pittsburgh and even Brooklyn.

The script is reasonably accurate.  The Philadelphia Phillies manager was a racist who taunted Robinson. Pee Wee Reese did put his arm around Robinson after a particularly vicious crowd yelled epithets.  And yes, Robinson was that fast on the base paths.  

Required Reading in Idaho

According to an article in the Spokesman-Review (Spokane,Washington) Idaho State Senator John Goedde introduced a bill to require every high school student in Idaho to read “Atlas Shrugged” and pass a test on the book in order to graduate.  He said, “That book made my son a Republican.”  

I have not read if the bill passed, but I wouldn’t be surprised.  Idaho is the state that makes Oklahoma look intelligent.

Scotch Bonnet

Everybody needs a break now and then.  I'm planting pepper seeds tonight.  Scotch Bonnet.  Poblano.  Bhut Jolokia.  Cayenne.  Jalapeno.  Chiltepin.  It's almost a poem.

In addition to blogging I am the pepper king of Carbon County.  Politics has to wait until tomorrow.

Voter Registration in Lehighton

This past Saturday two teams of three each walked portions of Iron Street and Mahoning Street to register voters.  Three of the six volunteers were high school students.  

I had this all planned.  We would hit houses of Democrats to ask if anyone else in the household needed to register.  We would also knock on doors of people NOT on the registered voter list, assuming those people needed to register.  We skipped houses listed as Republican.

We also had flyers to leave at houses where no one was home--or didn’t answer the door.  They said in bold letters: “Citizens of Lehighton:  A message from the Democratic Information Center.”  

That was followed by:  “Lehighton has a very good record of voter registration and voter turnout.  The Borough has a reputation for community service and citizen participation.  We hope to expand on that and involve even more of our fellow Lehightonians.  If you are already registered to vote, bless you.  If you aren’t and would like to join your neighbors in voting, call us at 610-377-5178.  We would be happy to drop off a registration form (and we register all parties).”

From everything I’ve read, people are encouraged to do what their neighbors are doing.  This is a psychological ploy, and tomorrow, when we check our messages at the HQ, we’ll see if it worked.  

By the way, two of the three wards in Lehighton voted for Obama in 2012.  

A followup note:   A few days I noted that only one spring peeper was calling to his mates, and how sad that was.  It turns out I jumped the gun.  There is now a whole chorus of spring peepers singing away in our old farm pond.  It is a wonderful sound.  

50 Children

HBO ran a documentary last night entitled “50 Children:  The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus.”  I don’t subscribe to HBO, but I read a review in the Times.  Mr. and Mrs. Kraus, who lived in Philadelphia, decided in 1939 that they should rescue 50 Jewish children from Nazi Austria.

Jewish themselves, Mr. and Mrs. Kraus first had to travel to Berlin, then to Austria.  They succeeded.  Their biggest obstacle was not the Nazis, but the American authorities who did not want to accept Jewish refugees.  

The film interviewed nine of the fifty, now in their 70s and 80s.  Probably all would have been killed were it not for Mr. and Mrs. Kraus.  Henny Wenkart, one of the children, says this:  “What people don’t understand is that at the beginning, you could get out.  Everybody could get out.  Nobody would let us in.  Everyone could have been saved.  Everyone.”

Company town

The April issue of Governing magazine, which covers state and local governments, features an interesting article about company towns.  Company towns are those in which one industry dominates the local economy.  The main employer in Peoria, Illinois, is Caterpillar, which employes 16,700 full and part-time workers.  In Dayton, Ohio, the Wright Patterson Air Force Base employes 27,000.

I know about this first hand.  For many years Palmerton, Pennsylvania, was dominated by the New Jersey Zinc Company of Pennsylvania.  (That was its full name.)  My grandfather, seven uncles, and three aunts worked at the Zinc.  I had a summer job myself (Oxide powder, East Plant).  

One big problem is when the dominant industry moves, downsizes, or closes.  Flint, Michigan, once had 80,000 workers employed by G.M.  Now G.M. has a workforce in Flint of 7,000.  Flint’s city government is broke.

The second problem is when the dominant industry (let’s say PenCor in Palmerton, the new dominant industry) wants a favor from the municipality (let’s say to build a huge building on the main street in the commercial area, along with tearing down houses to provide parking for workers), the local government officials are under the gun.  They need that employer.  They can’t afford to have that company move to another town.  

The best strategy is to diversify, but in Carbon County, Pennsylvania, a town is lucky to attract any industry.

Guest Workers in Construction

There’s an old joke in Texas that goes something like this:  What did Jim Bowie say to Davy Crockett when they saw the Mexicans coming toward the Alamo?  Answer:  I didn’t know we were pouring concrete today.

I thought about that old chestnut when I saw that the construction industry is angry about the agreement worked out between the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO.  First of all, do you realize what a breakthrough it is to have those two groups agree on anything?  The Chamber wants cheap labor; the AFL-CIO wants to protect decent-paying American jobs.  The compromise calls for 20,000 “guest workers” the first year, with the number climbing to 75,000 after four years.  After that the number can vary depending on a formula involving the unemployment rate and industry needs.  Skilled workers like electricians are barred under the compromise.  See the article in the Washington Post for the details at <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/30/how-immigration-reform-is-scrambling-american-politics/>.

Contractor trade groups are already lobbying against the compromise.  Their threat is that a cap on construction guest workers will make it impossible to secure the border.  Unspoken is the knowledge that it will be also very difficult to find Mexican roofers, framers, and yes, concrete pourers, at substandard wages.  

Grading essays by computer

You write an essay, hit send, and the computer immediately replies with your grade, allowing you to rewrite the essay for a higher mark.  Software has already been developed to do it, and some administrators are praising this new development.  Of course they are.  They don’t need to pay teachers.

Since this is America, an interest group has formed to fight computer essay grading.  The group has the unfortunate name “Professionals Against Machine Scoring of Student Essays in High-Stakes Assessment,” almost an essay in itself.  

Nonetheless, the group’s statement, quoted in today’s New York Times, makes sense:  Computers cannot “read.”  They cannot measure the essentials of effective written communication:  accuracy, reasoning, adequacy of evidence, good sense, ethical stance, convincing argument, meaningful organization, clarity, and veracity, among others.

As much as I hated to grade essays, I’d have to agree with that.

Saving Social Security

I have never understood why a top limit is placed on wages subject to the Social Security payroll tax.  When you reach a certain threshold, which now stands at $113,700, you don’t pay into Social Security on anything above that yamount.  I’ve read that if the level were raised to $200,000, about 1/3 of the projected gap between income and payout would be filled.  That’s an easy reform for a large chunk of money.

Even better, why have any upper limit?  What’s the point of that?

What a surprise

Over the past few years lobbyists for the N.R.A. have strenuously fought any attempt to use federal dollars to study the relationship between regulations and deaths by firearms.  Congress forbade the Center for Disease Control from even looking at the issue.

Here’s why the N.R.A. did not want to study the issue.  Last month the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that firearms deaths were associated with lesser regulations.

Today the New York Times reported on a second study, this one by the Center for American Progress, that looked at this issue state-by-state.  The Center found that the states with the fewest regulations ranked high on gun homicides, firearms deaths of children, and killing of law enforcement officers.  

By the way, Alaska ranked first in gun deaths.  Louisiana and Montana were second and third.  Hawaii had the least deaths from guns.  For the Reuters report on the Center for American Progress study, click on <http://ca.news.yahoo.com/states-weakest-firearm-laws-lead-gun-deaths-study-185335813.html>.

Citizens or residents?

The “Project on Fair Representation” filed a lawsuit in federal court demanding that representation be based on citizenship rather than residency.  The suit pointed out that in some districts many of the inhabitants were not citizens, yet those residents were counted when district lines were drawn.  According to an article in today’s Morning Call, the group’s lawyers noted that in Irving, Texas, where each council district had 31,000 people, one district only had approximately 11,200 eligible voters.

The challenge was denied by a federal district court judge and by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.  Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court let the lower court rulings stand.

The Constitution calls for a census every ten years to determine representation.  It makes no mention of counting only eligible voters.  Everyone is counted, including prisoners in jails.  The districts have always been drawn according to residents, not eligible voters.

Had only eligible voters been counted, big cities like Chicago and L.A. and New York would have lost seats.  Every now and then we win one.

Corbett resigns

Today Pennsylvania Governor Corbett released a brief statement resigning from his office.  The Governor apologized for ruining the state’s educational system and his disastrous environmental policies.

The announcement was greeted with both surprise and relief.  One bystander said, “This came years too late.”  Speculation centered on the Governor’s inability to win reelection and the possibility that Corbett might be angling for a job with either the liquor industry or Texas fracking interests.

The full text of the release follows:

“My fellow Pennsylvanians.  I am ashamed of what I have done to our Commonwealth during my tenure in office.  My approval of voter suppression, my support for assault weapons, my opposition to a severance tax, my cuts in educational funding, my attempt to sell off the state stores, my anti-union activity, my refusal to expand Medicare, and my  approval of the worst gerrymander in the state’s history have all contributed to wrecking our Commonwealth.  I am so sorry for what I have done.  I just hope you will find it in your hearts to forgive me.  Also, while you are forgiving me, I also want to say I am sorry for not pushing the investigation of Sandusky while I was Attorney General.  Thank you.”