Rep. Heffley sets new record

Pennsylvania State Representative Doyle Heffley today broke his old record of five photos in a single issue of the Times News by appearing today in six different shots.  Congratulations are in order.  Well done, Representative Heffley, once again in the forefront of legislative accomplishments.

Noah's wife

Ten percent of the American people think that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife.  

I learned this from a column by Nicholas Kristoff in Sunday’s Times.  Kristoff was making the point that while the U.S. is one of the most “religious” nations on earth, almost no one knows anything about religion or the Bible.

In his column he quotes an unnamed Texas governor (Perry?)  who opposed Spanish instruction because, “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for us.”

And no, Jesus did not deliver the Sermon on the Mount from his horse.

Skin cancer and global warming

Approximately 97% of climatologists believe that the earth is warming and that the warming trend is connected to man-made pollution.  In spite of this, the U.S. has a whole industry of “climate deniers.”  A few days ago the Allentown Morning Call, published a letter on this subject that was right on target. 

The author said, in effect, suppose you went to 100 doctors about a growth on your skin; 97 told you it was skin cancer and should be removed.  Three doctors told you, no problem, don’t worry about it.  What would you do?

Yet the U.S. is chocked full of people who evidently would go with the 3%.  One of them is running in the Republican primary to oppose Congressman Matt Cartwright.  Is there any other country which has this many stupid people?  

A well regulated militia

A small item in Saturday’s Times News noted that a Pennsylvania bride fatally shot her niece with her new husband’s handgun during an argument over who would be the designated driver after the wedding party.  

I am not making this up.  It’s on page 16 of the Saturday Times News.

The incident took place in New Brighton, about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh.  

I really should write to the N.R.A. and ask how this fits in with our 2nd Amendment rights.

Earth Day Celebration in Jim Thorpe

The Carbon County Democrats for Change sponsored a booth at the Earth Day celebration in Jim Thorpe.  We had a sign that read  “The most important thing you can do for the environment:  VOTE!”  We also collected signatures on a petition for Rep. Heffley asking him to withdraw his name as a sponsor of HB 1576, a bill which would weaken the state’s endangered species law.

While we did get a few hundred signatures, I came away from the event depressed and discouraged.  I remember the very first Earth Day, and I remember when being an environmentalist was mainstream politics.  In Jim Thorpe today the movement seemed marginalized--tattooed hippies, tie-dyed stoners--the kind of people who couldn’t organize a Sunday School picnic, let alone a movement to halt global climate change or the Keystone Pipeline.

Earth Day should not be about drum circles and herbal tea and costumes.  Did the festival attendees understand that we are in a crisis?  We don’t need this kind of silliness.  We need some hard-edged political organizing and political action, and I didn’t see much evidence of that today.

Beer Tasting at Whispering Pines

The Carbon County Democratic Party held its annual "Spring Fling" at the Penn Forest Fire Company. The event featured beer tasting, a basket action, homemade food, and short speeches by Attorney General Kane, 122nd district candidate Patti Borger, and appeals by representatives for gubernatorial candidates Schwartz, McCord, and Wolf.

It is most pleasant to have Democrats united in their determination to defeat Gov. Corbett in the fall.  I can't remember when the party was this united; the eventual nominee, I believe, will be enthusiastically supported by the other three candidates.

On the way home via Penn Forest Drive, we saw seven deer, one fox, and one possum.  Time to get ready for the Earth Day celebration in Jim Thorpe tomorrow.  Plus the beer has made me sleepy.  Good night.

Greedy old farts

On Monday, my last day of radiation, I mentioned to the radiologists that I had no idea what the treatments cost.  Amanda said, “You don’t want to know.”  I’m so lucky--what Medicare doesn’t pay, my health insurance (thank you, AFL-CIO) will almost certainly cover.  I do know that the whole process ran to thousands and thousands of dollars.

A poll discussed in today’s Morning Call noted that only 39% of Pennsylvanians had a favorable view of the Affordable Care Act.  47% were unfavorable.  One woman from Bethlehem said she did not like the idea of giving subsidized insurance to low income people.  

That woman is on Medicare. 

She evidently wants to go back to the old system in which old people, who are sucking the health care system dry, continue to receive medical treatments.  If you are young poor, and sick, you can die.

Affirmative Action and the Supreme Court

A majority of the Supreme Court said states have the power to decide whether or not to continue affirmative action.  While I think the reasoning was flawed--Justice Kennedy said the case was not about racial preferences, but about who has power to resolve the issue--I have never favored affirmative action as it is usually constituted.  

Affirmative action can be implemented by different methods.  Schools can recruit, give scholarships, provide tutoring, and act affirmatively to bring in minority students who are underrepresented.  The easier way, however, and the one often adopted, is to assign a rough quota for the various demographic groups.  This being America, those groups are usually defined by race, ethnicity, and gender.  Thus, what is important is not “achieved” characteristics, such as effort, grades, or activities, but “ascribed” characteristics, i.e., the ones you are born with.  

If we only thought in terms of class.  Rich kids, whatever race or gender, will get in.  Alumni kids will get in.  What is the largest underrepresented group in American universities today?  Poor kids.  Of course, poor kids are often American Indians or ethnic or racial minorities, but just suppose instead of recruiting students by race and ethnicity, we instead asked them how much their parents made last year and helped those on the bottom, who, by the way, probably attended inferior high schools as well.

It’s the old Populist Party dream--unite the people on the bottom across all ethnicities and races.  I so wish it would happen.

McGinty, McCord, or Wolf

 Pennsylvania Democrats are confronted with four candidates running for governor, each of whom would be good for the state and provide a refreshing change from the disastrous Corbett years.

Tonight at the Carbon County Democrats for Change meeting Bill O’Gurek spoke on behalf of McGinty, Bill Vinsko spoke for Wolf, and Billy O’Gurek represented McCord.  Ms. Schwartrz, whom I understand is concentrating her efforts on southeastern Pennsylvania, did not have a representative at the meeting.

One attendee said the presentations left her more undecided than she had been at the beginning of the meeting.  While my own respect for the candidates grew, I remain a McGinty supporter.  Global warming, the extinction of more and more species, the fouling of our air and water--these are my biggest concerns.  I believe McGinty has the best environmental credentials.  Whatever happens in the Democratic primary, however, I know I’ll be voting Democratic come November.

Assault rifle lottery

At the Weissport Redneck Festival last summer, the local 9/12 group was raffling off an assault rifle.  Now I read that Tea Party candidates are using the same idea as a fundraiser and a way to collect the names and addresses of committed pro-gun voters.

This got me to thinking about what liberals could raffle off.  I can’t come up with something comparable.  I do have a few ideas:

     --an all-expense vacation to Florida to swim with the manatees.

     --a year’s subscription to the NewYork Times.

     --two tickets to a Broadway musical.

     --a hundred shares in a solar panel company.

Somehow none of these has the same resonance as an assault rifle, however.  Maybe we should just raffle off a Glock and be done with it.

Al Jazeera

A recent issue of The Nation discussed Al Jazeera America, the new cable news network.  According to the author, Reed Richardson, the network actually covers news, unlike MSNBC or Fox, which are both propaganda outlets.  And then we have CNN, which spent roughly a month on a lost Malaysian airline.

The problem is that most Americans think of Al Jazeera as an Arab front.  Actually Al Jazeera has correspondents in places Fox or MSNBC couldn’t find with GPS, such as South Sudan.  The reporters strive to be objective.  That’s different.

I’ll be contacting my local cable company to see if it will carry Al Jazeera.  I’d like to see a real news program for a change.

Kitty Genovese

In 1964  28-year-old Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death in Queens.  She became famous after A.M. Rosenthal of the New York Times wrote Thirty-Eight Witnesses.  38 people heard her call for help and did nothing.  Well, not exactly nothing.  One guy yelled out of his window, and the assailant left for a time.  Then he came back and finished his work.  Eventually somebody did call the police, but Ms. Genovese died on the way to the hospital.

The case is frequently discussed in psychology books as an example of how bystanders  fail to react because they think someone else will.  Now two recently published books, both entitled Kitty Genovese, take a fresh look at the case.  They quibble at the details--for example, maybe 38 witnesses was too high a number.  The assailant came back twice, not three times as originally reported.  Ms. Genovese died in the ambulance, not on the doorstep.  Oh, yes, and she was a lesbian.

None of that matters to me.  The Kitty Genovese story had a major impact on many people, including me.  If I remember correctly, and keep in mind this was 50 years ago, a Boston DJ named urged everyone to carry a dime at all times.  That way, if they saw something wrong, they could go to a pay phone and call the police.  At the time I made up my mind that if I was ever in a situation where someone needed help, I would react. 

Since then there have been a number of times when, I’m proud to say, I have intervened, although nothing as dramatic as aiding someone getting stabbed.  I am not the only one.  I’ve often thought that Kitty Genovese’s death, as terrible as it was, was not in vain.

Zoning for sex

Towamensing Township is completing an update of its zoning ordinance.  As a one-time member of the township Planning Commission, an early participant in the update process, and a grammar fanatic, I was asked to review the draft.  Overall I think it is an impressive effort, but I noticed one aspect that is rather depressing.

Because of the issue of “adult” entertainment and “adult” establishments of various kinds, any zoning ordinance must be carefully drawn.  Under the Pennsylvania municipal code, if a use isn’t regulated, it is assumed to be permitted.  This means everything must be spelled out--what kind of sexual displays are permitted, where they are permitted, and what zoning districts (i.e., light commercial) can accommodate them.

That means that page after page of the zoning ordinance must delineate in great detail public sexual activities and where and how they can be practiced.  I know I’ll sound like an old fuddy-duddy (even the word “fuddy-duddy” is dated), but I think we live in a sick society.  Something is rotten about the U.S. with its emphasis on entertainment based on sex, violence, or a combination.  Child porn, internet porn, mass killings--how did we get like this?  Can’t we do better?

Koch Brothers oppose solar power

These guys don’t  quit.  First they are on a mission to buy the American electoral process.  Not wanting any opposition to their schemes, they go on another mission to destroy unions.  Now they are campaigning in Kansas to overturn a mandate that 20% of the state’s electricity must come from renewable sources.  They will start with Kansas and then move on to other states.  They have also enlisted the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in their fight.  (Info from an article by Evan Halper in today’s Morning Call entitled “Solar’s Power Challenged.”)

There are possible reasons why they are doing this.  One is that renewable sources of power will cut the revenues from oil and tar sands, the major reason that Charles and David are the second and third richest men in America.  Presumably they hope to be #1 and 2.

The other reason is that they are truly subversive men, out to destroy not only American democracy, but also the future of the planet.  

Or both.

Income tax day

I sent ours in last week.  We generally end up paying, partly because I refuse to go to a tax consultant.  I have this theory that someone with a Ph.D. in political science who has fairly simple sources of income ought to be able to figure out his taxes, although I really should get some help.

One year when we lived in San Jose we had to sell our car to make the payment.  I also was a procrastinator, and more than once we were in the line of cars at the Post Office beating the midnight postmark deadline.

Occasionally I have to pay a penalty because I don’t make quarterly payments the I.R.S. would like.  I would rather pay the penalty than to deal with the whole tax thing four times a year.

I’m hoping that our payment is going to foreign aid or the Death Valley National Monument or Walter Reed Hospital.  I’d hate to think that Sen. Ted Cruz is getting any of it.  Too bad we can’t earmark our returns.

The Stone Age

Recently Elisabeth Rosenthal, an environmental writer, published a chart comparing how much electrical energy was produced by renewable sources in a number of industrialized countries.  An amazing 97% of Norway’s electricity comes from renewable  sources, mostly hydroelectric.  Canada, home of tar sands, produces 63% of its electricity from renewables, again almost all of it hydro power.  Denmark produces 40% of its power from renewables, almost entirely wind power.

And the U.S.?  13%, mostly hydro.  We should be moving away from oil, natural gas, and especially coal.  It doesn’t matter if we have more gas available from fracking, more coal available from removing West Virginia’s mountain tops.  Global climate change is here, and it is getting worse each year.

Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, former oil minister of Saudi Arabia, once said, “The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.”  It ended because bronze, and later iron, were discovered.

Oil and coal use is the modern equivalent of the stone age.  It is time we moved past it.

Prostate Cancer

For the past eight weeks I have been receiving radiation treatments for prostate cancer.  This will be my ninth and final week.  I think the statistics are that at least a third of the men in the U.S. will develop prostate cancer, and I believe it is generally when they are in their seventies.  I’m sure I could look all of this up on the internet, but it is one of those things I’d prefer not to know too much about.  That way I can just do what Dr. Alden and Dr. Rosen tell me to do without asking too many dumb questions.

The treatments themselves last six minutes each.  I have not succeeded in falling asleep during a treatment, but I’ve come close.  While the machine is working, music is piped into the room, either Elvis, the Beatles, or oldies.  Remember, all the patients are old men.  

The center is in Allentown off Hamilton Boulevard.  So far I’ve driven myself, and I don’t think that will change during the last week.  I did receive offers from about a dozen people to drive me if I needed a chauffeur.  I listen to books on tape (literally--I have a portable tape player) or lectures from the Teaching Company, so the trip seems short.

These last few weeks I have been getting some side effects, but they are the type of thing I’d prefer not to discuss in public, and so far it is nothing I can’t handle.

Perhaps the worst side effects are from the hormone shots that go with the radiation.  They give me hot flashes.  And when I tell that to women, they seem positively gleeful.

Toomey pushes for more federal power

I just had to use that headline.  Sen. Toomey is one of those Republicans who’s always whining about the evils of federal control.   In today’s Morning Call I learned of a bill Toomey introduced to mandate that all school employees undergo state and federal background checks and repeat those checks periodically.  States that did not comply would lose some federal dollars.  The bill does not provide any money for compliance.

Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said the proposed bill amounts to a federal mandate and undermines state and local decision-making.  He also said that Congress would be constituting itself into a “national school board.”

I personally see nothing wrong with Toomey’s bill, which is also supported by the PA School Board Association.  I do like the fact that Toomey is getting a little taste of his own medicine.  That’s sweet.

John Morganelli, D.A.

It seems like just about every day for the past two weeks I have opened my Morning Call to a picture of Amanda Hein, a 27-year-old woman on trial for killing her newborn baby in the bathroom of a Lehigh Valley pub.  Yesterday she was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

Northampton County D.A. Morganelli was quoted as saying, “If she didn’t intend death, she would have called for help, to have her little baby live.”

Maybe Morganelli wants to run for PA Attorney General.  Maybe he wants to prove how tough he is on crime.  In any case, 27-year-old obviously desperate woman sentenced to life in prison is cruel and vindictive.  That woman needs help badly.  She needs psychological treatment. 

Teaching at Soledad State Prison

In 1984 I taught a political science course at Soledad State Prison south of Salinas.  The course was entitled Parties and Elections, and the inmates who took it received three units of college credit.  Not many prisoners participated; I was told the average reading level was between third and fourth grade.  Out of several thousand inmates, fewer than 100 were in the program, run by San Jose State.

None of the instructors were allowed to wear any sort of blue clothing.  In case of a prison riot, the authorities concentrated on people wearing blue.  We were also told not to ask any of our students what they had done, but Soledad was a real prison, and you had to commit a real felony to get in there. It was best not to know.  We were also warned that in case of a prison riot, there would be no negotiations for hostages, which, being a potential hostage, was sobering.

My students were about 1/3 black, 1/3 white, and 1/3 Latino.  As in any class, some of them were excellent; some were scraping by.  The students did not have it easy.  The library was rudimentary, study time was limited by lights out, and twice lockdowns resulted in cancelled classes.  Nonetheless, students did manage to complete the program and received a degree from San Jose State.  The recidivism rate for graduates was amazingly low.

The program ended a few years after I taught there.  Voters complained about prisoners receiving a free education while their kids had to pay tuition.

This all came back to me when I read an op-ed piece by Bill Keller in today’s Times about Gov. Cuomo’s plan to spend a million dollars out of a corrections budget of $2.8 billion on a college program for N.Y. prisoners.  The cost of the program would be about $5000 per year per student, compared to $60,000 it costs to house a prisoner for a year.

New York Republican Assembly staffers made their opposition clear with two photos.  One portrayed jubilant white kids tossing their graduation caps in the air, over the caption: “Studied hard.  Worked summer jobs.  Saved.  Took out loans....” The second featured a line of minority prisoners in orange jumpsuits: “Stole a car.  Robbed a bank.  Shot a bystander.  Got a free college education paid for by YOU.”

Gov. Cuomo’s proposal, as you might guess, was DOA.  Sometimes I just get discouraged.

Note to readers:  Somehow last night I posted the title but not the contents of the posting.  It's there now.

Fossil Cycad National Monument

You're visiting a national monument or park, say Death Valley, and you see signs asking you not to take any rocks home with you.  And you think, who are they kidding?  There are millions of rocks, and no one will miss them.

Which brings us to Fossil Cycad National Monument in South Dakota, created by President Warren Harding in 1922.  A cycad is a fossilized plant, about 120 million years old, and is considered a possible forerunner of flowering plants.

You can't visit the Cycad National Monument, however.  By the Fifties, visitors had stripped the park clean of the fossils.  On September 1, 1957, the Cycad Monument was removed from the park system.

The next time you are in a national park, overcome your temptation to pocket a souvenir.  Buy some postcards at the visitors' center.  (And if you are a meth tweaker cutting burls off redwoods in the Redwoods National Park for sale to China, I hope you accidentally slip with your power saw and cut off your goddam hand.)

(Information on the Cycad Monument is taken from the spring 2014 issue of National Parks magazine.  The opinion on people who are stealing and selling burls for coffee tables is my own.)

The End of Your Life Book Club

My doctor noticed that I was always reading before my radiation treatments and asked me if I had read “The End of Your Life Book Club.”  [I’ll explain why I’m getting radiation treatments, but not just yet.]  

Anyway, I borrowed the book from the Palmerton Library, and it is wonderful.  It concerns a woman who is dying of pancreatic cancer and her son who read the same books.  I’m over half way through it, but, of course, I know how it will end.

The mother and son are both great readers.  Remember when you would ask a friend, “What are you reading these days?”  Mother and son are eclectic in their selections, and an appendix lists every book mentioned or discussed.  

Linda’s reaction to the recommendation was, “Is your doctor trying to tell you something?”  I asked him that, and he smiled and said no, it was just a great book.  It is.  The author is Will Schwalbe; the book was published by Alfred A Knopf in 2012.  If you are a reader, I recommend it.

Clinton and Bush

I’m getting emails touting Hillary for 2016.  Today I read that Jeb Bush is exploring a run in 2016.  Think about this.  1988-1992, George Bush; 1992-2000, Bill Clinton; 2000-2008, George W. Bush; 2008-2016, an interim with Barack Obama; 2016-2024, another Clinton or another Bush.  If that happens, it would mean than in a 36-year-period of American history, 28 of those years would have either a president Clinton or a president Bush.

Can’t we do better?   I am so tired of Bushes and Clintons. 

Thank you for your service, now get deported

California Republican congressman Jeff Denham, an Air Force vet, is supporting a bill to grant permanent residency to undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. before age 15 and enlisted in the military. 

At a hearing on the bill, Rep. Denham said, “It is very frustrating to hear controversy from members who have never served their country and don’t understand the impact that immigrants have had on our freedoms.”  

Mo Brooks, a Republican from Alabama, whom I’ll bet never served in any branch of the military, then said “That’s bunk; next question.”  I really don’t understand people like Mo Brooks.

If you want to read the whole sorry story, go to <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/05/us/politics/new-push-on-immigration-bill-causes-gop-rift.html?ref=us&_r=0>.

A proposal on the minimum wage

A few weeks ago the Times News printed a letter from George White, a friend of mine and a regular reader of this blog.  The letter had a suggestion for the legislators.  Here’s what Mr. White wrote:

Why not set our legislators’ pay at minimum wage and have them fund their pensions with a 401K or IRA plan.  It’s time they see what a lot of average Americans have to live on.

We the people are their employers and should be setting their pay.  They should not be determining salary and pensions.

I, for one, would like to see this question put on the ballot when we vote at the federal and state levels.  Perhaps they would change their tone about the minimum wage issue.

Virtue and invisibility

First, my only comment on the Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance is to quote the headline from Gail Collins’ column in today’s Times:  “Surprise!  The Rich Won One.”  The Supreme Court has become the official arm of the plutocrats who decide our elections.  The five Republicans are doing their utmost to end democracy in the U.S.

Instead, what I want to talk about is Plato and virtue.  In his discussion of virtue, Plato discusses Gyges, a shepherd who finds a magic ring.  Gyges discovers that when he twists the ring a certain way he becomes invisible.  He immediately slays the local king and rapes the queen.  The point of the story is, would we be virtuous if we could get away with it?

I thought about Gyges when I read about a twitter site at Northampton Community College.  Evidently people are saying all kinds of mean and scurrilous things under the cloak of anonymity.  They obviously lack virtue.

What would you do if you could be invisible?  I know I wouldn’t shoplift from Mallard Markets in Lehighton, but I might do something evil at Wal-Mart.  I certainly wouldn’t rob from poor people, but I might do something to the Koch Brothers. Plato never really got into this, but if I did perform acts under the cloak of invisibility that might be illegal, I would consider them highly moral.  Virtuous acts and illegal acts are two completely different matters.  I wish I had that ring.

"Obamacare"

The plan was way too complicated and way too solicitous of insurance and drug companies, the rollout was terrible, the statement that you could keep your insurance was flat out wrong.  I know all that.  

Nonetheless, millions of people now have health insurance who didn’t have it before.  Hundreds of thousands of college students are covered.  Millions of people in states with reasonable governors and legislatures are now covered by Medicaid.  And all of this in spite of constant attacks by Republicans who were (and still are) doing everything in their power to kill “Obamacare” without any proposed alternative except permission to die.

Way to go President Obama.  You did good.

Into the 21st century!

I’ve decided that I’ve resisted technology long enough.  Today I purchased a smart phone, opened a Facebook account, opened a Twitter account, sent my first text, and and bought a digital watch.

All of this in just one day--April 1.