The Senescent Man

A Tally on the Vote for Obama Care Last Night – The Fight Isn’t Over

2009-11-08T08:02:00.001-05:00

Here is the complete tally on the final vote last night in favor of establishing socialized medicine in this country.

RI’s Langevin and Kennedy, of course, both voted with the slim majority.

Below are some other interesting cuts of the voting data.

The first is from Red Elephant who tracked the Democrats that have the most to lose (and we hope so) for supporting Obamacare. The number next to their names is the percent of the vote McCain received in their Congressional District in 2008. The list is also color coded to denote Freshman, 1+ Term and 3+ Term incumbents and includes McCain’s performance in 2008 in that congressional district.

MS-04 Taylor         67
TX-17 Edwards      67
OK-02 Boren         66
TN-04 Davis          64
AL-02 Bright          63
ID-01 Minnick        62
MS-01 Childers      62
TN-06 Gordon       62
AL-05 Griffith         61
LA-03 Melancon    61
MO-04 Skelton      61
AR-01 Berry          59
VA-09 Boucher      59
AR-04 Ross           58
MD-01 Kratovil     58
UT-02 Matheson    57
WV-01 Mollohan   57
GA-08 Marshall     56
TN-08 Tanner        56
WV-03 Rahall        56
KY-06 Chandler   55
PA-04 Altmire        55
AR-02 Snyder        54
AZ-01 Kirkpatrick 54
FL-02 Boyd           54
PA-10 Carney        54
ND-AL Pomeroy    53
SC-05 Spratt          53
AZ-05 Mitchell       52
AZ-08 Giffords       52
NC-07 McIntyre   52
NC-11 Shuler         52
OH-18 Space         52
FL-24 Kosmas       51
IN-08 Ellsworth      51
NY-13 McMahon 51
NY-29 Massa        51
PA-17 Holden        51
VA-05 Perriello      51
CO-03 Salazar       50
CO-04 Markey      50
IN-09 Hill               50
MN-07 Peterson    50
NM-02 Teague      50
OH-06 Wilson       50
OH-16 Boccieri     50
PA-12 Murtha       50

And this is from the Weekly Standard: The thirty-nine Democrats voted against it:

1. Rep. John Adler (NJ)

2. Rep. Jason Altmire (PA)

3. Rep. Brian Baird (WA)

4. Rep. John Barrow (GA)

5. Rep. John Boccieri (OH)

6. Rep. Dan Boren (OK)

7. Rep. Rick Boucher (VA)

8. Rep. Allen Boyd (FL)

9. Rep. Bobby Bright (AL)

10. Rep. Ben Chandler (KT)

11. Rep. Travis Childers (MS)

12. Rep. Artur Davis (AL)

13. Rep. Lincoln Davis (TN)

14. Rep. Chet Edwards (TX)

15. Rep. Bart Gordon (TN)

16. Rep. Parker Griffith (AL)

17. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD)

18. Rep. Tim Holden (PA)

19. Rep. Larry Kissell (NC)

20. Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (FL)

21. Rep. Frank Kratovil (MD)

22. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (OH)

23. Rep. Jim Marshall (GA)

24. Rep. Betsy Markey (CO)

25. Rep. Eric Massa (NY)

26. Rep. Jim Matheson(UT)

27. Rep. Mike McIntyre (NC)

28. Rep. Michael McMahon (NY)

29. Rep. Charlie Melancon (LA)

30. Rep. Walt Minnick (ID)

31. Rep. Scott Murphy (NY)

32. Rep. Glenn Nye (VA)

33. Rep. Collin Peterson (MN)

34. Rep. Mike Ross (AR)

35. Rep. Heath Shuler (NC)

36. Rep. Ike Skelton (MO)

37. Rep. John Tanner (TN)

38. Rep. Gene Taylor (MS)

39. Rep. Harry Teague (NM)

So, for Obamacare to become the law of the land, first the Senate needs to pass a bill, and Harry Reid can't afford to lose a single Democrat if the Republicans stick together. And then the House and Senate would need to reconcile the two bills in conference committee and each vote on the conference report before it goes to Obama's desk. This fight isn't over.

Kill this Bill!

2009-11-07T09:00:00.001-05:00

To all my friends: Tell Rep. Langevin and Kennedy what’s really in the Pelosi Health Care Bill. They may vote on it as early as today, Saturday, November 7. Or over this weekend.

Tell them, if they haven’t the four ream bill, just read this excerpted from the WSJ…

Here are some important passages in the 2,000 page legislation.

By BETSY MCCAUGHEY

The health bill that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is bringing to a vote (H.R. 3962) is 1,990 pages. Here are some of the details you need to know.

What the government will require you to do:

• Sec. 202 (p. 91-92) of the bill requires you to enroll in a "qualified plan." If you get your insurance at work, your employer will have a "grace period" to switch you to a "qualified plan," meaning a plan designed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. If you buy your own insurance, there's no grace period. You'll have to enroll in a qualified plan as soon as any term in your contract changes, such as the co-pay, deductible or benefit.

• Sec. 224 (p. 118) provides that 18 months after the bill becomes law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will decide what a "qualified plan" covers and how much you'll be legally required to pay for it. That's like a banker telling you to sign the loan agreement now, then filling in the interest rate and repayment terms 18 months later.

Associated Press

Protestors wave signs in front of the Capitol on Thursday.

On Nov. 2, the Congressional Budget Office estimated what the plans will likely cost. An individual earning $44,000 before taxes who purchases his own insurance will have to pay a $5,300 premium and an estimated $2,000 in out-of-pocket expenses, for a total of $7,300 a year, which is 17% of his pre-tax income. A family earning $102,100 a year before taxes will have to pay a $15,000 premium plus an estimated $5,300 out-of-pocket, for a $20,300 total, or 20% of its pre-tax income. Individuals and families earning less than these amounts will be eligible for subsidies paid directly to their insurer.

• Sec. 303 (pp. 167-168) makes it clear that, although the "qualified plan" is not yet designed, it will be of the "one size fits all" variety. The bill claims to offer choice—basic, enhanced and premium levels—but the benefits are the same. Only the co-pays and deductibles differ. You will have to enroll in the same plan, whether the government is paying for it or you and your employer are footing the bill.

• Sec. 59b (pp. 297-299) says that when you file your taxes, you must include proof that you are in a qualified plan. If not, you will be fined thousands of dollars. Illegal immigrants are exempt from this requirement.

• Sec. 412 (p. 272) says that employers must provide a "qualified plan" for their employees and pay 72.5% of the cost, and a smaller share of family coverage, or incur an 8% payroll tax. Small businesses, with payrolls from $500,000 to $750,000, are fined less.

Eviscerating Medicare:

In addition to reducing future Medicare funding by an estimated $500 billion, the bill fundamentally changes how Medicare pays doctors and hospitals, permitting the government to dictate treatment decisions.

• Sec. 1302 (pp. 672-692) moves Medicare from a fee-for-service payment system, in which patients choose which doctors to see and doctors are paid for each service they provide, toward what's called a "medical home."

The medical home is this decade's version of HMO-restrictions on care. A primary-care provider manages access to costly specialists and diagnostic tests for a flat monthly fee. The bill specifies that patients may have to settle for a nurse practitioner rather than a physician as the primary-care provider. Medical homes begin with demonstration projects, but the HHS secretary is authorized to "disseminate this approach rapidly on a national basis."

A December 2008 Congressional Budget Office report noted that "medical homes" were likely to resemble the unpopular gatekeepers of 20 years ago if cost control was a priority.

• Sec. 1114 (pp. 391-393) replaces physicians with physician assistants in overseeing care for hospice patients.

• Secs. 1158-1160 (pp. 499-520) initiates programs to reduce payments for patient care to what it costs in the lowest cost regions of the country. This will reduce payments for care (and by implication the standard of care) for hospital patients in higher cost areas such as New York and Florida.

• Sec. 1161 (pp. 520-545) cuts payments to Medicare Advantage plans (used by 20% of seniors). Advantage plans have warned this will result in reductions in optional benefits such as vision and dental care.

• Sec. 1402 (p. 756) says that the results of comparative effectiveness research conducted by the government will be delivered to doctors electronically to guide their use of "medical items and services."

Questionable Priorities:

While the bill will slash Medicare funding, it will also direct billions of dollars to numerous inner-city social work and diversity programs with vague standards of accountability.

• Sec. 399V (p. 1422) provides for grants to community "entities" with no required qualifications except having "documented community activity and experience with community healthcare workers" to "educate, guide, and provide experiential learning opportunities" aimed at drug abuse, poor nutrition, smoking and obesity. "Each community health worker program receiving funds under the grant will provide services in the cultural context most appropriate for the individual served by the program."

These programs will "enhance the capacity of individuals to utilize health services and health related social services under Federal, State and local programs by assisting individuals in establishing eligibility . . . and in receiving services and other benefits" including transportation and translation services.

• Sec. 222 (p. 617) provides reimbursement for culturally and linguistically appropriate services. This program will train health-care workers to inform Medicare beneficiaries of their "right" to have an interpreter at all times and with no co-pays for language services.

• Secs. 2521 and 2533 (pp. 1379 and 1437) establishes racial and ethnic preferences in awarding grants for training nurses and creating secondary-school health science programs. For example, grants for nursing schools should "give preference to programs that provide for improving the diversity of new nurse graduates to reflect changes in the demographics of the patient population." And secondary-school grants should go to schools "graduating students from disadvantaged backgrounds including racial and ethnic minorities."

• Sec. 305 (p. 189) Provides for automatic Medicaid enrollment of newborns who do not otherwise have insurance.

For the text of the bill with page numbers, see www.defendyourhealthcare.us.

Ms. McCaughey is chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and a former Lt. Governor of New York state.

Rod Dreher: Glenn Beck’s world order endangers the right

2009-10-05T18:59:00.001-04:00

I usually discover that the Projo is off its rocker. But here is an op ed piece that appeared in today’s printed version of the Projo that I agree with. As a conservative, Glenn Beck concerns me when starts heading for deep waters. Dreher is with the Dallas Morning News, affiliated with the Projo:

YOU CAN SAY THIS for Glenn Beck: He’s charismatic, he was right on ACORN and Van Jones, and he’s correct to point out that the government in Washington doesn’t work for the common good. The affable Beck articulates the legitimate anger and frustration that millions of Americans feel when faced by the fact that the country is in a hot mess of trouble.

But here’s the thing: Beck is a white Jeremiah Wright, a crazy-pants conspiracy theorist whose world-view is rooted in the paranoid teachings of a far-right Mormon political guru named W. Cleon Skousen. Before signing up as a recruit in Beck’s army, conservative Becketeers had better think long and hard about where their affable leader is taking them.

A few weeks back, the red-hot Fox News Channel phenom spent nine minutes on the air leading a seminar on public artwork in New York City. By the time he was finished, Beck had illuminated a propaganda conspiracy linking communists, fascists, the Soviet Union, the Rockefeller family and the United Nations. This is the sort of weirdo rant you expect to encounter on fringey Web sites. You don’t expect to see it on national television.

But that’s a big part of Beck’s shtick. He’s always carrying on about sinister Obamaite conspiracies threatening to overthrow the constitutional order. On the Fox & Friends morning show, Beck declared: “The Manchurian Candidate couldn’t destroy us faster than Barack Obama. If you were planning a sleeper to come in and become president of the United States, this is how he would do it.”

How is it that a man can call the American president a traitorous subversive and not be laughed, or booed, off the national stage? He’s a happy-go-lucky Howard Beale (from the movie Network). Paddy Chayefsky, you should have lived to see this moment.

Beck’s paranoia doesn’t come from nowhere. His man Skousen was a fanatical Mormon reactionary so far to the right that the Latter-day Saints Church finally felt compelled to distance itself from his teaching.

Beck, an enthusiastic Mormon convert, pushes Skousen’s 1981 book, The 5,000 Year Leap, a tendentious pseudo-history of the U.S. that interprets the founding in religious terms. Texas Gov. Rick Perry recommended it at the recent Values Voter Summit in Washington. And if the pious nationalism of that book were all you knew about Skousen, you would be hard-pressed to see what the big deal was.

But Skousen wrote many less anodyne books about politics — and held views far darker than revealed in the hokey but harmless Leap. In a 1976 lecture, the audio of which is available on the pro-Skousen Web site AwakeAndArise.org, Skousen rails like an Old Testament prophet, quoting Mormon scriptures and detailing how Satan is working with “secret combinations” — a Mormon theological term — within political parties, churches, labor unions and the wealthy elite, especially the Rockefeller family, to bring about the “One World Order.”

Skousen, like his follower Beck, is obsessed with the idea that these secret combinations are conniving to overthrow the U.S. Constitution. Though it is not part of official LDS doctrine, some Mormons believe in an apocalyptic prophecy attributed to church founder Joseph Smith, who supposedly taught that the Constitution would one dark day be hanging by a thread and that Mormon elders would rescue it.

The pudgy, sweet-natured Beck offers a more palatable form of this paranoia — but all his fruit and sugar can’t hide the Skousenite firewater. How ironic that conservative Christians who unjustly dunned conventional Mitt Romney because of his LDS faith are uncritically backing the squirrelly Beck, who looks like he’s casting himself as hero of a prophetic Mormon melodrama.

There are conservatives who know perfectly well that Beck is an unhinged buffoon who traffics in crude, ridiculous ideas. But unlike the hapless GOP, he’s popular and effective in the political war against Obama. So these conservative cynics adopt a “no enemies to the right” approach to Beck, even though he’s mainstreaming the ooga-booga worldview of a crank prophet who believed, with the John Birch Society, that Eisenhower was a closet commie.

This is foolish. Not every enemy of Obama is a friend to conservatism. In 1962, in a time when conservatives needed all the help they could get, William F. Buckley nevertheless published in National Review a lengthy denunciation of paranoid Bircher Robert Welch. How long, Buckley asked, can the right tolerate his malicious gibberish without losing credibility? National Review eventually sidelined the Birchers for good over their “psychosis of conspiracy,” thus doing the right an enormous service by making conservatism more credible with the American mainstream.

Today, poor Bill is in the grave, Glenn Beck’s ratings are soaring, and most conservatives don’t see what the problem is. One way or another, they will.

Rod Dreher is a columnist for The Dallas Morning News ( rdreher@dallasnews.com).

Happy Anniversary Senescent Old Man – Welcome New Senescent Man Blogs & New Addresses

2009-09-27T08:26:00.001-04:00

This month (September) marks the fifth anniversary of The Senescent Man Blog. We initiated this blog on or about the 3rd anniversary of the September 11 attacks. We have now moved to a new blogger address (and a new wordpress address) to stay up with the times – the new blogger format more efficiently connects to twitter and other networking tools, and the software is much easier to work with than the old. The new wordpress address (which we will run in parallel with the same postings for awhile) offer other features. We’re going to test drive both for awhile until we feel we’ve homed in on the better new format.

The new blogger address for the Senescent Man is (rightfully): http://senescentman.blogspot.com; and the new wordpress address is http://senescentman.wordpress.com. Try both of them on for size. Let us know what you think.

We are hopeful that you and others that have been most loyal to us will continue to follow, and that we’ll add many others.

Health Care Reform: Prove it, President Obama

2009-09-24T13:49:00.002-04:00

The health care debate rages. I've tried to stay out of it, believing something bad is going to come of it no matter whether I state my opinion or not, but now think I will weigh in with a couple of posts.

I watched President Obama's speech...when was it? A couple of Wednesdays ago, maybe? You know the one, where Representative Joe Wilson shouted "you liar" when Obama said no illegal aliens would be covered. I sat there fairly calm during it, and don't think I once shouted at the television. Though I did give the president some long-distance advice he didn't immediately take.

The thing that struck me most was that Obama said we could pay for most of the increased cost--just under a trillion dollars--with 1) increased efficiencies, 2) eliminating unnecessary treatments, and 3) ending Medicare/Medicaid fraud. Leaving the first two for a moment, who can argue with ending M/M fraud? That would be a good thing, right? I'm all for it. But...

...WE DON'T NEED ANY REFORM TO DO IT! DO IT NOW!!!

President Obama, do you know how stupid what you said sounds? If you know there is fraud in M/M, why haven't you appointed someone to root it out and end it? Why haven't you made this a priority? Why haven't you used it as a knife in the back of the departing Bush administration to show what a bunch of idiots they were? And if M/M fraud is such a problem that you can't be bothered to do anything about it, why in God's name should we trust your administration--or any administration--with an even bigger hand in health care? Good grief, Mr. President, think about your words.

How much fraud is there in M/M? I'd like to see it quantified in terms of percent of all dollars paid to physicians and care-givers, and in terms of actual dollars per year. I'd like to see some evidence as to why you think this is the correct number to base savings from ended fraud on? How long has this been going on? What are the specific steps that you propose to end the fraud? Who in your administration is handling this? To whom are they accountable? What savings do you expect in year 1, year 2, etc. from the increased fraud prevention efforts that you can implement immediately, without needing to go to Congress?

The answer, of course, is nothing. Obama is not doing anything special about rooting out fraud in M/M. If he were, he would already have been singing about it from the rooftops. He would have been chiding Bush, Cheney, etc. and making political points.

Mr. Obama, prove that the amount of fraud in M/M is enough to make a significant debt in that universal health care proposal of yours by ending fraud right now. Show us the savings. Maybe then I'll have a little trust in you, that you can do what you promise in regards to health care. Do it for the rest of this term. Then let's talk about health care reform.

Kanye West is a Racist

2009-09-16T23:11:00.002-04:00

I don't know Kanye West. I may have heard the name from time to time, but couldn't have told you if he was a band leader, a famous doctor, or a czar in the Obama administration. That's how far removed I am from popular culture. But of course I've heard the news and seen the sound bite of interest.

I conclude that Kanye West is a racist. Taylor Swift--who I also didn't know, so far am I removed from popular culture--a lilly white woman, was getting that award. Good on her. West, the black man, took the mic from her and began praising a music video done by Beyonce, a black woman, and I think West was saying or implying that Beyonce's music video was much better than Swift's video and that Beyonce, the black woman, should have received the award rather than Swift, the white woman. Do y'all think I've got that correct?

Obviously, West's action was that of a racist. He was incensed that the black woman didn't win, and so couldn't allow the white woman to have her 15 seconds of fame. I believe West's apologies are insincere, and he is a racist at heart and needs to be censured by the organization that was giving out the awards. So far am I removed from popular culture, I don't even know what organization that is.

Happy Anniversary Senescent Old Man – Welcome New Senescent Man & New Address

2009-09-06T20:06:00.001-04:00

This month marks the fifth anniversary of The Senescent Man Blog. We began the blog around the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks. We have moved to a new blogger address to stay up with the times – the new blogger format will more efficiently connect to twitter and other networking tools, and the software is much easier to work with than the old.

The new address for the Senescent Man blog is (rightfully): http://senescentman.blogspot.com

We are hopeful that you and others that have been most loyal to us will continue to follow, and that we’ll add many others.

Ted Kennedy RIP

2009-08-26T21:13:00.001-04:00

I have to write really fast here, so forgive my mistakes. I have to be somewhere, and frankly the topic doesn’t deserve too much of one’s time, but it is a milestone for which to take notice. The death of Senator Ted Kennedy has raised a plethora of interesting political issues:

For one, what the affect will be on the health bill which Democrats now threaten to name the Kennedy bill in honor of the man that pursued socialist medicine and other overtly socialized causes for years. Somehow the naming of this turkey as the “Kennedy” bill is going to tame all the town hallers and make us all go into a slumber of good feeling. What it will do is encourage some unthinking voters to favor it for reasons of nostalgia. Imagine finding yourself in front of one of those death committees at some godforsaken nursing home in a few years and learning that the government bureaucrats have decided your number was up, and just because you were a fan of the Kennedy clan, and made the grave error of deciding to support his stupid socialized medicine bill to give honor to the name?!

And then what about all the sleazy things Ted was well known for over the years. Not to speak ill of the dead, but his cheating in college, the unnecessary death of Mary-Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick, the defending of alleged rapist and relative Will Kennedy Smith with whom he and son Patrick (yes, RI’s own) hung out together in Florida years ago.

Several good books were written about Chappaquiddick, and all of them pretty much condemned Ted’s terrible, immature and self centered behavior designed extemporaneously to save his own hide and preserve his political career.

Okay, so the Senate is a lady’s and gentleman’s club, and a lot of conservative colleagues respected Ted as he got older and as he finally matured when he reached his 70’s. Why, then, why must we have socialized medicine shoved down our throats simply because the man was transfixed with the idea and the majority of his fellow Democrats wish to honor him? Honor him with a trophy or something. Give him a great send off, but please name this bill after him, and use that to get it passed when it should be deep sixed.

Sure, he was the brother of John F. Kennedy, and even conservatives thought well of anti-communist, tax reducing JFK (except perhaps for his own personal exploits), but it started when brother Robert needed a way to distinguish himself from Texas Democrat LBJ who took over after John’s assassination. Robert saw that in the late 60’s he could carve out a constituency in a run for the presidency in the leftism that became popular and then prevalent at the time. Ted merely followed Robert’s designed strategy. Perhaps he could have been more moderate a Democrat, and how that would have changed history. Too bad he hadn’t an idea of his own in this regard, except to move deliberately and inexorably leftward. Too bad. RIP.

Not Above His Pay Grade

2009-08-17T18:09:00.002-04:00

The debate is currently raging over health care. Barak is pushing it as hard as he can; for the most part the Senate and House are running away from it; and Secretary Seblius is parsing it. One point of contention are the so-called "death panels,"--which are to counsel people to end their treatment (and thus their lives) perhaps earlier than justified. Some say this provision is in the bill, some say it isn't. Some say it was in the bill but now isn't, some say it was never in the bill. Some say it's fear-mongering lies on the part of one side, some say it's the ultimate price for a government run systems.

Truth be told, I haven’t time to access and read the bill, and so don't know which side is telling the truth. Concerning any type of public option for health insurance, I’ll follow my normal knee-jerk reaction: Leahy and Shumer are for it, so I'm against it.

But why have the rumors (or lies) and distortions and the extreme interest in the death panel provision gone this far? It is simply that it is believable, based on Barak's own words in that sound bite played so often. You know the one where he tells the woman with a 100 old mother who was faced with the decision of whether to have an operation. What was it Barak said? "Maybe it would have been better for her to take a pain pill." Something like that. And I hope I'm getting the context correct; always difficult to tell from sound bites.

This is the same man who said determining when life began was "above my pay grade." It appears that knowing when a life should be ended is NOT above his pay grade. If he is willing for a senior citizen to take a pill to ease suffering as an earlier than necessary death comes on, it is believable that the government would push the elderly toward choosing death.

The source of the death panel rumors? Barak himself.

Calvin 500

2009-07-11T19:25:00.001-04:00

In March, Time Magazine listed “Ten Ideas Changing the World Right Now.” Third on their list and nestled among other notions like “reinstating the interstates” was something they called “the new Calvinism.” It’s not that easy to see, however, how this old world view is somehow repackaged, alive and changing the social order as we approach the 500^th birthday of its originator this July 10.

People are quick to associate Calvinism with a Puritanical sternness and a fatalistic, predestined fate, but laying aside what some would argue are distortions of Calvinism, let’s consider John Calvin the man, how he affected his world in the 16^th Century, what role he may have played in how we developed as a culture and how his ideas may be affecting us even today.

Calvin was one of several 16^thCentury architects (though some say THE chief architect) of the Protestant Reformation. He established a body of theology and connected it to the soul of what was a fledgling Protestant revolution, documenting his beliefs in his Institutes which he wrote in 1534 at the age of 25.

In Calvinism, common labor was considered “a calling from God,” as sacred as serving as a priest or minister. Every task, no matter how menial, was accomplished with a sense of duty to mankind.

Education in Calvin’s day was limited to the aristocratic class, so he launched an academy in Geneva, Switzerland training people in whatever “God had called them to do.” It was revolutionary in the 16^th century for a college to teach law, medicine, math and engineering. When Calvinism arrived in the American colonies, the first colleges – Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown, Yale, Rutgers and Princeton – were launched to train Calvin influenced teachers.

Calvin believed that the pillars of Western law, order and justice were founded in Mosaic Law, and as such engineered the codification of laws based on scripture. Influenced by Calvin, Sirs Edward Blackstone and William Coke established what we now refer to as the Common Law which later formed the basis for laws in the Colonies, and are still in application today.

Deeply rooted in Calvinism is a true love of freedom and free market capitalism. Through the hard work of one’s “calling” and the excellence pursued by the measure of a just God, common workers would invest in private capital, risk taking, personal and private ownership, while showing charity towards the poor. Wherever Calvinism spread, it was often followed by investment in capital, productivity and an improvement of the standard of living, while other parts of Europe usually were stricken by poverty under absolute monarchal rule.

Derived from the eldership model of the Bible, Calvin promoted representative government, the limitation of government power, a plurality of leadership, and branches of government with checks and balances where no one branch would rule without the symmetry and balance of the other branches, to preserve individual liberty. It is no wonder that historians like 19^th Century German author Leopold Von Ranke would say that “John Calvin was virtually the founder of America,…”

Besides a change in tone and content emanating from today’s pulpits which are challenging people’s beliefs, do we not see other trends exhibiting the invisible hand of a resurgent Calvinism? What about reforms in education strategy? How about the reform and restructuring of world markets?

To cite an example, earlier this month, Boston’s Mayor Tom Menino surprised teachers and constituents by giving a powerful speech on school reform where he advocated the “transformative change” available to Boston through “charter schools.”

The zeitgeist of a new Calvinism is also subtly inspiring the work ethic of boomers, influencing them to rethink taking their retirements. A June 2009 article in the Journal of the American Enterprise Institute discusses “The Coming Entrepreneurship Boom,” which the authors claim is occurring not in spite of an aging population but because of it. We’re likewise witnessing the death throes of gigantic, bureaucratic, government protected conglomerates, like GM, which are faltering as they compete ineffectively against agile, rapidly growing and competitive small businesses.

And what about those freedom loving, empathetic Twitterers who have been overtly supporting the street demonstrations for freedom in Iran?

As we approach the celebration of the 233^rd anniversary of the birth of our own Independence, we should consider that there was once another revolution that predated our own which not only had an impact on our Founders but remains active and alive even today influencing change through an emerging and new reformation resembling a very, very old one.

Obama's Words on Roberts Reveal a Lot About Obama

2009-06-06T15:03:00.001-04:00

I came across this in today’s Wall Street Journal in the letters to the editor section, and I found that the more I pondered what this writer has stated, the more I think it lands in the heart of Obamaland. This is the reason why conservatives like Christopher Buckley, David Brooks and others were enamored of Obama prior to the election, why some still stand in awe.

Obama's Words on Roberts Reveal a Lot About Obama

I found the excerpt from Barack Obama's 2005 Senate speech, "Why Obama Voted Against Roberts" (June 2), fascinating because it shows very well how President Obama operates. He makes fantastic speeches which all praise principle, values and common sense. Many conservatives would not even deliver speeches as deeply conservative as Mr. Obama's. Yet when he casts his vote, he is a super liberal, to the left of the left. The usual liberal "culprits" show their colors at the first word they pronounce. One or two sentences and one knows that a liberal is talking. But not with Mr. Obama. This is what has contributed to his initial successes but will ultimately be his downfall. If you find so many good qualities in Justice Roberts, and find he may be "deficient" in 1% or 2% of his personality, why vote against him?

George Naniche
Moraga, Calif.

Indoor Prostitution List by Senate District

2009-06-01T19:13:00.001-04:00

Put your State Senators to work…

The following is a listing of known venues of indoor prostitution by RI Senate District collected and compiled by Melanie Shapiro and Donna M. Hughes from the University of RI whose comments on the movie Happy Endings? was shared in a previous post:

District	Senator	Brothel	Notes
1	Maryellen Goodwin	Beautiful Life 19 Atwells Avenue Providence, RI 02903	An Asian spa-brothel that is prison like: the fire escape is ripped off, there are bars on the windows, and the exits sealed. Beautiful Life has been open since February 2007.
		Cadillac Lounge 61 Charles Street Providence, RI 02904	A strip club where prostitution has been reported by men on an Internet forum.
		Central Health 76 Derry Street Providence, RI 02903	A Korean spa-brothel that has been open since at least 2005. It was one of 31 brothels in a multi-state federal investigation of Korean organized crime sex trafficking and money laundering. The manager was arrested in 2006. Central Health is located near a housing project and a school.
		Club Fantasies 28 Sims Avenue Providence, RI 02909	A strip club. “Johns” report on Internet forums that there is prostitution there.
		Foxy Lady 318 Chalkstone Avenue Providence, RI 02908	A strip club. “Johns” report on Internet forums that there is prostitution there.
		Heavenly Hands 46 Admiral Street Providence, RI 02908	An Asian spa-brothel that has been open since January 2009.
		Lily’s Spa 375 Admiral Street Providence, RI 02908	An Asian spa-brothel that has been open since 2004. The brothel owner, Choon Yeol Jeon residence is at the brothel. Women live on the premises. ”Johns" say that the women are younger than at other brothels and are rotated faster than other brothels.
		North Main Street Spa 1185 North Main Street Providence, RI 02906	An Asian spa-brothel that has been open since 2000. Connected to Harmony Spa. The president, Naja Ho, is listed as residing at the brothel. The manager, Sumi Ray, was arrested for allowing women to perform massages without licenses. Women live on the premises.
		Sunflower Spa 627 Douglas Ave Providence, RI 02908	An Asian spa-brothel that has been open since July 2008. The incorporator, Chunyu Guo, is listed as living there. Located in a residential area. “Johns” say on Internet forums that the inside is not clean.
2	Juan M. Pichardo	Japan Spa 1021 Broad Street Providence, RI 02905	An Asian spa-brothel that opened in early 2005. Japan Spa is located above a hair salon. One “john” reported a woman at the spa-brothel pleaded for him to marry her and take her back to South Korea.
		J.J. Tuina Bodywork 30 Pontiac Avenue Providence, RI 02907	An Asian spa-brothel located a few doors from Red Rose Spa. Open since early 2008. The president is listed as residing there, a tiny, one floor building. Several women reported to ”johns” that they were frightened.
	.	Red Rose Spa 2 Pontiac Avenue Providence, RI 02907	An Asian spa-brothel open since 2007. One of the managers, Hui Pinf Lu, is listed as residing in Flushing, NY, an information and transit hub for Korean sex trafficking. Located at a busy intersection off of Reservoir Avenue a few doors down from J.J. Tuina Bodywork.
3	Rhoda E. Perry	Body Work 91 South Angell Street Providence, RI 02906	An Asian spa-brothel open since March 2009, operating out of an apartment.
		Downtown Spa 385 South Main Street Providence, RI 02903	An Asian spa-brothel that has been open since 2006. It is one of the brothels involved in a Federal human trafficking case in 2006. It was part of a large Korean organized crime sex trafficking ring spanning from Boston to South Carolina. Women are rotated on a network of brothels along the east coast. “Johns’ say the women are reluctant to engage in sex acts, but they make them to it anyway. Women were also reported to be sent out for plastic surgery.
4	Dominick J. Ruggiero	Wanskuck Wellness Center 725 Branch Avenue Unit #132 Providence, RI 02904	An Asian spa-brothel open since early 2006. Located next to an adult entertainment store and connected to Wellness Spa in Plainville, MA. “Johns” say they women are held in debt bondage
5	Paul V. Jabour	425 Atwells Avenue Providence, RI 02903	An Asian spa-brothel open since April 2009. It is in a residential apartment.
		Asian Body Work 326 Broadway Street Providence, RI 02903	An Asian spa-brothel open since May 2009. It is in a residential apartment around the corner from an elementary school.
		Bali Day Spa 204 Westminster Street Providence, RI 02903	An Asian spa-brothel open since 2004. The president, Wai K. Lew is listed as residing there. Women live on the premises. It is connected to ABC Spa and Sundance Spa.
		Fuji Spa 417 Atwells Avenue Providence, RI 02903	An Asian spa-brothel that opened in April 2009. It is located in an historic purple Victorian home.
		One Spa 55 Bradford Street Providence, RI 02903	An Asian spa-brothel open since January 2009. Located above the Federal Hill Gazette office in an apartment. It is connected to Down Town Spa. ”Johns” say the women here are rotated very quickly. The women live at the brothel.
		Satin Doll 35 Aborn Street Providence, RI 02903	A strip club where prostitution has been reported by ”Johns” on the Internet
6	Harold M. Metts	Balloons 257 Allens Avenue Providence, RI 02905	An 18+ strip club. “Johns” say there is underage prostitution there. Club Balloon is open 24 hours a day. In 2008, Angel Varagas of Woonsocket was murdered outside the club.
		Cheaters 245 Allens Avenue Providence, RI 02905	A strip club. ‘Johns” say there is prostitution there.
		Club Desire 1 Franklin Square Providence, RI 02903	A strip club. “Johns” say there is prostitution there.
		MegaPlex 257 Allens Avenue Providence, RI 02905	A gay bathhouse where prostitution has been reported by men on Internet forums.
		Spa 81 81 Richmond Street Providence, RI 02903	A spa-brothel open since 2007. Was previously QQ Spa, an Asian spa-brothel. Now it advertises American women of non-Asian ethnicities. Spa 81 is located above Club Hell.
		Studio 253 Adult Emporium 257 Allens Avenue Providence, RI 02905	An 18+ nude modeling studio where prostitution is reported by “Johns” on Internet forums.
8	James Doyle II	Daily Spa 508 Armistice Blvd Pawtucket, RI 02861	An Asian spa-brothel that has been open since 2008.
		Far East 72 East Street Pawtucket, RI 02860	An Asian spa-brothel open since early 2007. Hyo Sik Kim, the current manager, has a criminal record. It is connected to Downtown Spa, which was found to be part of a large Korean organized crime and sex trafficking network investigated by Federal agencies
		Harmony Spa 11 Benefit Street #A Pawtucket, RI	An Asian spa-brothel that opened in April 2009. It is connected to Century Spa, North Main Street Spa, and Sundance Spa.
12	Louis P. DiPalma	Lee Health Center 1341 W. Main Road Middletown, RI 02842	An Asian spa-brothel that opened in 2006. A family-oriented business located nearby was forced to relocate because of the brothel.
		Salon 657 Middletown, RI 02842	A spa-brothel with American women.
14	Daniel DaPonte	Century Spa 150 Warren Ave East Providence RI 02914	An Asian spa-brothel that opened in March 2009 and is connected to Harmony Spa. Located in a house in a residential area.
		Shiatsu Spa 254 Warren Ave East Providence, RI 02914	An Asian spa-brothel that opened in January 2009. It is connected to Fuji Spa. Located in a house in a residential area.
15	John F. McBurney III	Pleasant Street Spa 88 Pleasant Street Pawtucket, RI 02860	An Asian spa-brothel that has been open since 2003. Located in a small shopping complex, next to a family pizzeria.
16	Elizabeth A. Crowley	Simple Pleasures 753 Broad Street Central Falls, RI 02907	An Asian spa-brothel that opened in April 2009.
		Sundance Spa 49 Sheridan Street Central Falls, RI 02863	An Asian spa-brothel that has been open since 2006.
17	Edward J. O’Neill	ABC Spa 417 Smithfield Avenue Providence, RI 02904	An Asian spa-brothel that has been open since 2008. It is connected to Bali Day Spa and Sundance Spa. Can be seen from a popular Rhode Island restaurant.
		Mineral Spring Massage & Bodywork 1410 Mineral Spring Avenue North Providence, RI 02904	An Asian spa-brothel that has been open since 2006. Located in a strip mall.
26	Beatrice A. Lanzi	Anne’s Garden Spa 415 Atwood Avenue Cranston, RI 02920	An Asian spa-brothel that has been open since 2008. It is connected to Anne’s Garden Spa in Brighton, MA.
		Asian Bodywork Center 786 Atwood Avenue Cranston, RI 02920	An Asian spa-brothel that has been open since 2008.

On the Slave Trade in RI Today (Yes I said Today)

2009-05-28T17:31:00.001-04:00

Several people have asked Professor Donna M. Hughes of the University of Rhode Island for her opinion about the film “Happy Endings,” a documentary on Asian indoor spa-brothels located in RI, a film by Tara Hurley. On Sunday, Professor Hughes had the opportunity to see the film in its entirety. Here are her comments.

The film should not be viewed by underage children because it includes a sex act filmed in one of the spa-brothels. Some adults may be offended by this.

This is not a film that should be used for education on sex trafficking.

Tara Hurley, the filmmaker, has testified before the RI House Judiciary Committee and said on talk shows that based on observations making the film, there is no sex trafficking in Rhode Island. This is the view that is conveyed by “Happy Endings?”

There are serious omissions of information about the people in the film and political biases that the filmmaker does not acknowledge.

The filmmaker does not identify the three Korean women interviewed in the film as brothel owners or operators. They are not the women doing the sex acts. By definition, the women interviewed in the film are women pimps and possibly traffickers. The women-pimps have a vested interest is saying that the women are there voluntarily. (Letting the women-pimps speak for the women doing the sex acts is like letting the owners of a sweat shop speak for the people running the sewing machines. Of course, they say the workers are content.)

Much of the film was made at an Asian spa-brothel called Central Health (76 Derry Street, Providence). This brothel was included in a federal investigation of Asian Organized Crime for sex trafficking and money laundering. It was one of 31 brothels in an organized crime network operating along the east coast from Boston to South Carolina. (U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York v. Tae Hoon Kim, Sung Chul Il, Fnu Lnu, Tae Jun Park, Kyong Polachek, Byong Il Son, Jin Sook Kim Lee, and Miae Choi-son, August 14, 2006.) During this investigation victims of trafficking were identified. They were controlled with threats to their families in South Korea.

One woman-pimp who is interviewed in the film tried to open a spa-brothel in Fox Point (and was defeated by community organizing against it). She was the operator of Asian Fantasies spa-brothel in Warwick (1550 B Post Road), which was raided last month (April 11, 2009).

The third woman says at the end of the film that she is going to open her own spa-brothel.

We never hear the voices of the women at the bottom, the ones who are sexually exploited and often abused, and sometimes trafficked. We only hear the voices of the women-pimps and two male pimps.

Filmmaker Hurley does not identify close relationship to the sex industry. According to her own blog she has been asked by the Erotic Service Providers Union to be their representative in Rhode Island. A convicted madam from this organization visited her in February. They discussed strategies to decriminalize prostitution.

Hurley has been showing her film in sex industry venues (not human rights film festivals). The film “Happy Endings?” premiered at an erotic film festival (Cinekink) in New York City in January. Next it will be shown as part of a Sex Workers Film Festival in San Francisco in June. (The hostess of the festival is Carol Leigh, also known as “The Scarlet Harlot,” who recently published a book entitled The Unrepentant Whore.)

The film has a grotesque quality to it. All the faces are blurred out, the voices are disguised. The camera often focuses only on the mouth or body of the speaker. There is grainy black and white footage from surveillance cameras inside the spa-brothel. For a number of scenes of men coming to the brothel, Hurley filmed from an upstairs window of the brothel.

If you already know something about sex trafficking in Rhode Island, you can pick-up a few interesting details from the film, but overall, most viewers will leave confused, or worse, they will believe what the women-pimps that say about women choosing to work in the brothels. It is not fair to the exploited and abused women to pretend that this film represents their lives.

What Do Rhode Islanders Really Believe About Gay Marriage

2009-05-28T16:35:00.001-04:00

A couple of things happening in RI today.

Brown Taubman Center Poll:

First, the Projo’s top of the fold piece on a poll taken by Brown University’s Taubman Center for Public Policy on Rhode Islander’s views on same sex marriage. RI is dominated by blue collar, Catholic Democrats , and unless something happened while we were sleeping, the results of this poll seems very questionable, and I hope it places very large question marks on all polls coming out of Brown. The Projo reporters would have been wise to vet the results further. Maybe Projo isn’t paying their reporters well enough for them to do some extra legwork because internet competition is causing them to tighten their belts? Maybe the reporters were so enthusiastically in favor of what they wanted to hear and believe that they figured, well, after all this is BROWN. I mean BROWN University. It must be true. Fallacy of Appeal to Authority.

Here’s why the poll results are specious, and from their own data. The following is from the Taubman website:

May 2009 Survey Questions and Responses

Would you support or oppose a law that would allow same-sex couples to get married?
Support 60%; Oppose 31%; DK/NA 9%
Would you support or oppose a law that would allow civil unions for same-sex couples?
Support 75%; Oppose 17%; DK/NA 8%
Do you think same-sex couples should be allowed legally to marry, should be allowed legally to form civil unions but not marry, or should not be allowed to obtain legal recognition of their relationships?
Should be allowed legally to marry 55%;
Should be allowed legally to form civil unions but not marry 22%;
Should not be allowed to obtain legal recognition of their relationship 15%;
DK/NA 8%

Okay, here’s what puzzles me: In question 1, 60% support same sex couples marrying. Yet, in question 3, 55% support same sex couples being allowed to marry. Now why such a quick shift from the same sample of respondents? I realize there is a margin of error, but regular people if they said “support” in question 1 would also say “should allow legally to marry” in question 3. Right? Even though there is a purported majority in both, the disparity of the percentage leaves one to wonder about the accuracy of all of it, if you get my drift.

Also, there is no information on where the respondent sample came from: phone calls? door to door polling? dorm room interviews?

There is specific mention of the difference between respondents and their age group – from the report:

Younger voters support same-sex marriage at a higher levels than older voters. For example, among 18-29 year olds, 87 percent support same-sex marriage, as do 70 percent of the 30-39 year olds. Among those 60-69 years old, however, only 49 percent support same-sex marriage, and only 32 percent of those 70 and older support same-sex marriage. The survey also uncovered partisan differences in support for same-sex marriage. While 77 percent of Democrats say they support same-sex marriage, only 28 percent of Republicans do. Among independents, 56 percent said they would support a law allowing same-sex couples to marry.

What was the size of the 18-29 year old respondent sample? How did it compare with the 60-69 year old sample? How do we not know if, of the total 593 respondents, 500 were 18-29 year old Brown students? We don’t.

And in RI, everyone knows that liberalism, for the most part, resides among Republicans. Democrats, as I mentioned earlier, tend to be more conservative. RIer’s who’ve been around know this. So why are the results of Democrat respondents versus Republican respondents so, well, non-Rhode Island-ish? Republicans in RI overwhelmingly against gay marriage? No way. Democrats overwhelmingly for? Not possible. This is RI, not Utah. Something is wrong with this picture.

Frankly I therefore don’t believe these results, and neither should you all. And here’s a couple of other reasons why too:

On the Projo website which includes this article, signed in readers could comment, and one comment caught my eye. It read: ‘Taubman Center "polls" are always to be viewed with a jaundiced eye as the sample is largely made up of the "East Side" group. Skewed slightly toward the "Left".’

Someone else commented that liberal university polls predicted California’s favorability to gay marriage before the recent election and prop 8 which we all know proved the opposite. And that was during a liberal Democrat landslide.

I am a realist, and believe somewhat along the lines of Whitaker Chambers, that we’re fighting a losing battle here, and ultimately the Left will win out on this issue. After all when political conservatives like Ted Olsen are ready to argue in favor of gay marriage, it’s time to pack it up; but for now, let’s be real about what RIer’s really think.

The Governor Race:

Secondly, the news about Arlene Violet considering a run for governor. Now I like Arlene as an entertainer in the same way I am amused and entertained by the likes of Rush Limbaugh (she is no Rush Limbaugh of course), but I would not like a Violet governorship. What I see brewing is a major battle among the Democrats: Lynch, Roberts, Caprio. I see Caprio potentially winning the primary, but that remains to be seen – I am not sure Lynch will win despite his positives – he is rather obsequious and smarmy and eventually that will wear thin. Lincoln Chafee has already indicated he’s running as an independent. The Republicans will not put up anyone as conservative as Carcieri unfortunately, we we’ll get the likes of Violet. So can you see a Caprio – Chafee – Violet race in November of 2010?

I won’t predict further as I usually guess wrong, but you get the picture. Not pretty.

“Nuts”

2009-05-23T22:32:00.001-04:00

It’s Saturday night, and Memorial Day “observed” is not for a couple more days, but the cable stations are playing old war movies. I came across the last of the HBO series “Band of Brothers” Episode 9 when they liberated a concentration camp on their way into the heart of Germany near the end of the war. HBO did a remarkable job reenacting a true event, the incredulousness of the American Army as it discovers the heinous and criminal inhumanity of the Nazis. On the other channel was an old 1949 movie about the Battle of the Bulge and the 101 stuck in Bastogne. When the Germans told them they were surrounded, the commanding officer had only a one word response: “Nuts.”

Episode 9 of “Band of Brothers” was entitled “Why We Fight.”

A reminder of why we fought in past wars, and why we will fight wars in the future assuming Western Civilization lives on. Young men have given their lives; young men will give their lives again. As a father of a young man, I grieve bitterly with only a shadow of a sense of the cost. To those we remember this weekend:

“When they shall die, take them and cut them out in little stars and they will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.”

Wm. Shakespeare

Is There a “Middle Ground” on Dealing with Terrorism?

2009-05-23T08:29:00.001-04:00

On the recent “debate” between former VP Cheney and President Obama, an analysis from Gerald F. Seib of the WSJ, an excerpt:

Mr. Obama portrayed the search for the proper strategy for handling terror suspects as a debate between those on the left who "make little allowance for the unique challenges posed by terrorism" and those on the right who argue that "anything goes" in fighting terrorism.
"And both sides may be sincere in their views, but neither side is right," he said.
Mr. Cheney would have none of it. "The administration seems to pride itself on searching for some kind of middle ground in policies addressing terrorism," he said. "They may take comfort in hearing disagreement from opposite ends of the spectrum....But in the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground. And half-measures keep you half-exposed."

I agree with the former VP, but you decide.

No Credit for You

2009-05-19T13:52:00.001-04:00

When one squeezes the balloon in one direction, it grows in the other. What I suspect will happen now that the Senate has passed credit card reform legislation is that the House will surely approve some version of the bill, and it will be undoubtedly signed by the President; but ultimately it will have an effect on consumers, and not necessarily a good effect. People will find it a lot harder to get credit, and the convenience of a credit card. In order to counter the impositions placed upon them by this legislation, credit card companies and banks will offset the new demands by making it a lot harder for people to obtain credit cards. This may be momentarily helpful in that Americans are credit crazy and heavily in debt right now, and perhaps it will deter bad behavior; but it will also still commerce, and a slow economy could continue for a much longer time. When you fiddle with markets, markets tend to fiddle back.

Jack Kemp, RIP

2009-05-03T22:46:00.002-04:00

Jack Kemp was a different kind of politician. The polar opposite of the Arlen Specter types who only want power for themselves. Kemp wanted to empower every American and probably every non-American, for that matter, by giving them the freedom and opportunity to achieve everything they yearned for. Read one commentary on his life here.

State of Tedium

2009-05-03T18:22:00.001-04:00

I recently watched the 6 hour BBC version of the relatively recent movie “State of Play” starring Russell Crowe, Helen Mirren and Ben Affleck. The BBC version weaved an intricate plot about a member of Parliament, played by British actor David Morrissey, who was an heroic opponent against the mean ol’ right wing energy companies who were exploiting the people. The 2 hour “American” version is about a Congressman played by Affleck – someone who has never once convinced me as an actor – set in Washington DC. In this version, Affleck is an heroic opponent to the mean ol’ right wing private contracting “Blackwater” type outfits.

If you are a DC-afile then you might enjoy the scenery. Ben’s Chili Bowl. Union Station. The monuments. Ah.

The self-righteous and politically “aware” Affleck patronizes us with several tirades against these right wing villains who sound like, if unchecked, will one day rule not only the world, but over the entire Universe. The writers lose all credibility here. This kind of conservative bashing is outright tiring: banality bathed in ennui to people like me. If I was watching this at home on DVD, this nonsense along with the watered down plot would be the point I turn off the DVD and return to “Days of Our Lives. The writers stretch it so far that one of the obvious dirt soaked bad-guy Congressmen we find at the denouement, you had to know, was some kind of Christian right winger who takes umbrage of the Affleck character “taking the Lord’s name in vain…” My, how hypocritical and so, so ho hum.

A couple of weeks ago, Joe Morgenstern of the WSJ picked up on the superiority of the BBC version. Watching the two is like reading a book, then going to see the movie version. Always a bit disappointing, and certainly over exploitive of those guys who are always the villains. But at least the shots of downtown DC are fun to see.

…We All Have Our Roles

2009-05-02T17:44:00.001-04:00

From Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review,…

I’ve been travelling this week and meeting with some wonderfully good people here in Los Angeles so I haven’t kept up with every step of the back and forth Danielle got rolling. But, having read some of it, and firmly believing this Notre Dame story is a significant one for the nation and the Catholic Church and human dignity, I want to say something as a Catholic, a conservative, a pro-lifer, a citizen of the United States of America, where Barack Obama is my president.

I feel nothing beleaguered in me. I am not isolated. To be frank, I know that my Redeemer lives. So that’s that.

That’s simplified, or shorthand, at least. But it’s why [Professor] Mary Ann {Glendon] did what she did and why I love her for it. She’s operating very much in this world, but knowing she owes her ultimate trust and service to another. She loves her country, whoever the president is, and knows the importance of the processes and the institutions. Notre Dame, though, is one of those important institutions. And what is its reason for being? That question needs to be answered within, or they’re just not going to be prepared for their supposed dialogues with the most powerful and influential and arguably persuasive personality of the present moment.

I love a story Rush Limbaugh tells of being at National Review’s 50th anniversary party. I may butcher the story, but the gist of it is a beautiful young soul of a man approached him, an obviously wounded warrior in his dress best, and expressed his admiration for Rush. Rush was so moved and humbled and when he expressed an unworthiness, our young hero said, Mr. Limbaugh, we all have our roles.

That’s it. And that’s why Mary Ann did what she did. And that’s what Notre Dame needs to be meditating on (every day, and everyone). That’s what conservatives need to be doing as a movement and as individuals and individual parts. Otherwise it’s all a crapshoot. It might be any way, to some extent, but if you at least walk into every new door knowing your role there – walk in knowing what you’re about — you’ve got something to work with.

Notre Dame is a tremendous institution. But if it loses its mission, it’s for naught. That’s why Mary Ann did the right thing. As that young mom wrote Friday, addressing Notre Dame’s president:

Who draws support from your decision to honor President Obama—the young, pregnant Notre Dame woman sitting in that graduating class who wants desperately to keep her baby, or the Notre Dame man who believes that the Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of abortion is just dining-room talk?
Mary Ann joined no one in any way in questioning or demeaning the moral legitimacy of the office of the presidency or the president himself. It is precisely because Notre Dame and the president have such great responsibilities that she had to stand athwart and say thank you for the opportunity to highlight some fundamentals. I believe she couldn’t have done that on Commencement Day without doing some damage (ironically in the way Danielle suggests she has).

Mary Ann Glendon’s move had nothing to do with self-destruction, but renewal. Public fights can not be engaged in successfully without constant private work, too.

Interview with RI Sec’y of Treasury, Frank Caprio

2009-04-26T16:59:00.001-04:00

I don’t often talk about local politics on this blog, but I noticed with interest an interview with RI Secretary of the treasury, Frank Caprio which aired this morning against NBC 10 news veterans Jim Taricani and Bill Rappleye. The two baited Caprio for the whole half hour, and I couldn’t help but notice the patience and composure of the man as well as the surprisingly excellent answers he gave. Rappleye’s questions were the most obtuse: “do you think that teacher assignments should be based on merit rather than seniority?” Then later, after Caprio explained that he wouldn’t want to micromanage school districts, and by the way, neither should the legislature, Rappleye adds, “but a bedrock tenet of unions is seniority, if you tell teachers that seniority doesn’t count anymore [sic], you’re going to upset the unions, aren’t you?” Please! Where does this nonsense come from?

Caprio is a contender for Governor, and though a Democrat, seems to be handling taxpayer money, even through this most difficult period in our history, with a degree of prudence. He is also pro-life, and thinks some of the anti-business tax policies, which scare away job growth in the state, are a danger to the state’s economic wellbeing.

A memorable remark, and I paraphrase: “In our region, New Hampshire has the lowest tax rates; New Hampshire has the lowest unemployment. You think that’s a coincidence? RI has some of the highest tax rates; RI has one of the highest unemployment rates…When the Federal government raises taxes, it doesn’t cause taxpayers to flea the country, but when RI raises taxes, those who bare the burden leave,…” and I would add, those who leave are the ones paying the most, leaving behind an even greater burden on a fewer number left to pay the tab for the public trough. And all the while the number on public assistance grows and grows into a death spiral for the state and its economy.

With Stave Laffey out of the race, and with the hyper-liberal 1970’s peacenik and appeaser Lincoln Chafee threatening to run for governor, Republicans should consider their options well.

We View the [Bush] Policy as Having Failed

2009-04-25T12:01:00.001-04:00

From the NYT, HT: Donna Doleman

Clinton Scores Points [with the whackos of the world] by Admitting Past U.S. Errors

Kena Betancur/Associated Press

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke during a press conference in Santo Domingo, on Friday.

By MARK LANDLER

Published: April 17, 2009

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — It has become a recurring theme of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s early travels as the chief diplomat of the United States: she says that American policy on a given issue has failed, and her foreign listeners fall all over themselves in gratitude.

On Friday, Mrs. Clinton said here that the uncompromising policy of the Bush administration toward Cuba had not worked. That, she said, is why President Obama decided earlier this week to lift restrictions on travel and financial transfers for United States residents with relatives in Cuba.

“We are continuing to look for productive ways forward, because we view the present policy as having failed,” Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference in this sun-dappled capital, hours before flying to join Mr. Obama at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

The contrition tour goes beyond Latin America. In China, Mrs. Clinton told audiences that the United States must accept its responsibility as a leading emitter of greenhouse gases. In Indonesia, she said the American-backed policy of sanctions against Myanmar had not been effective. And in the Middle East, she pointed out that ostracizing the Iranian government had not persuaded it to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions.

Like other leaders around the world, Mrs. Clinton’s host, the president of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernández, responded effusively on Friday, hailing the secretary and her boss, Mr. Obama, for their view on Cuban policy, which he said took “great courage” and could utterly transform the political landscape of Latin America.

“President Obama is paving a new road,” he said. “It is recognition of the fact that previous policies have failed. Fifty years of a policy that has not generated the originally sought purposes can be called a failure.”

In fact, Mrs. Clinton’s aides clarified, she was not condemning the half-century-old trade embargo against Cuba, which the Obama administration has not yet agreed to lift. Rather, her reference was to the strict travel and financial restrictions imposed by the Bush administration.

But it hardly seemed to matter. For a senior American official — someone who almost became president — to declare that the United States had erred, makes a major impact on foreign audiences.

Mrs. Clinton drew a similarly gratified response when she said in Mexico recently that the huge American appetite for drugs was fueling the booming narcotics trade in that country and elsewhere in the region.

She repeated that message in the Dominican Republic on Friday, telling a questioner at a town hall meeting here, “We acknowledge we have a responsibility, and we have to act in concert with you.”

Regret is a new role for Mrs. Clinton, but one that she has had plenty of opportunity to observe up close. On a single trip to Africa in 1998 her husband, former President Bill Clinton, apologized for American participation in slavery; American support of brutal African dictators; American “neglect and ignorance” of Africa; American failure to intervene sooner in the Rwandan genocide of 1994; American “complicity” in apartheid; and even for a failure that occurred far from Africa — America’s slow response to the bloodshed in Bosnia.

In most cases, Mrs. Clinton has been simply disavowing a policy of the Bush White House — something she did with zeal as a Democratic candidate. But the words carry much more weight overseas. And there is some evidence that these gestures are starting to register.

On Friday, Cuba’s president, Raúl Castro, welcomed the administration’s easing of travel restrictions, saying he was open to dialogue with the United States on a full range of topics, including human rights and the release of political prisoners — something Mrs. Clinton had demanded a day earlier.

“We have seen Raúl Castro’s comments and we welcome this overture,” she said. “We are taking a very serious look at it, and we will consider how we intend to respond.”

Last week, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, softened his tone against the United States, suggesting that Iran would make a new offer to the West on its nuclear program.

There are holdouts, of course: North Korea has greeted the Obama administration by testing a missile, ratcheting up its language and threatening to pull out of multiparty talks on its nuclear program. Mrs. Clinton, in turn, has had few warm words for North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il.

But in many countries, her statements have elicited an almost palpable sense of relief. And she suggested that the Obama administration’s drive for warmer relations with old foes was just getting started.

Asked whether the United States would build bridges to hostile Latin American leaders, like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Mrs. Clinton said, “Let’s put ideology aside; that is so yesterday.”

The Candy Store Generation, Part 4 - The Panic of 2008

2009-04-23T08:12:00.003-04:00

Fast forward to the last four months of the Bush Administration, and the Panic of 2008. The economy was already in a downturn, and had been for some months. We all got a stimulus check, a return of our tax money, earlier in 2008. So we already knew things were going downhill.

Then banks that were "too big to fail" started to fail. We learned they were "too big to allow to fail"--or so we were told. How many billions of dollars were authorized or appropriated to rescue failing banks? Was it $700 billion? I think the earlier stimulus bill was about $300 billion, so that put us at a trillion dollars, spent or authorized, to prop up an ailing economy.

Of course, we weren't through yet. Bail-out of the United Auto Workers at General Motors and Chrysler was to come, a paltry $20 billion or so. Then there's the next stimulus package, passed in the early days of the Obama administration. There's no telling where that ended up. No one read the bill in any of its several versions. $800 billion is the best guess, but it might be a hundred more.

So we are up to about $2 trillion dollars of spending, give or take a couple of hundred billion, either already done or fixin' to be done, to keep our economy from going into a depression. We, the Baby Boomers in control of Congress, the Baby Boomers who are running the corporations, the Baby Boomers who are filling the majority of places in the work force and beginning to creep to retirement age (the oldest of our group are already there) have done this. Where did we get the money? Did we have it, stashed in a failing bank? Was it buried in a field? Of course, no. We manufactured it out of thin air. We are either going to print it or borrow it. Borrowing we are familiar with, since we've done so much of it over the years. Printing money is kind of new, but we are willing to try it. Call it "Instant Money".

And, typical of the Baby Boomers, the Candy Store Generation, we are not looking far enough ahead to think about how we will pay the bill for debt service when it comes due. We'll no doubt piddle around with it over the next ten years, but really the bill will be paid by the next generation, the Gen X-ers as they are called, or maybe even the ones after them, Generation Y. One of these groups will eventually take real steps to fix everything. That will be when the bills come due and the taxes need to be raised to pay them and they will stand up and say "had enough." Had enough of borrowing. Had enough of confiscatory taxation. Had enough of these lame-brained Baby Boomer schemes to continuously live off other people's money. And they will be called the "Had Enough" Generation.

I don't know if I'll live to see the Had Enough Generation clean up the mess the Candy Store Generation has made. It's a good sized mess. Candy wrappers everywhere. Failing social programs. Failing retirement programs (i.e. Social Security, which we wouldn't fix for our children so long as it still worked for us). Expansion of rights based on prosperity not on what God gave us. Unrealistic expectations suddenly crashing down around us. A debt amassed that no reasonable bank would loan proportionately to any corporation or individual. We've sure made a mess that we're leaving the Had Enough-ers to clean up.

I guess "The Greatest Generation" didn't teach us too good.

The Candy Store Generation, Part 3: Even the Corporations

2009-04-19T18:14:00.003-04:00

The Baby Boomers, who I'm calling the Candy Store Generation, could also be called the Instant Generation. Instant food, instant prosperity, instant news, instant answers, instant replay, instant resolution. Things moved fast for us. En-mass, we entered grade school mostly in the 1950s, high school in the 1960s, college in the late 60s and early 70s, the work force in the 70s, toiled under old codgers in the 80s, and finally entered management in the 1990s as the "Greatest" generation had almost all retired.

By the 2000s we were running the corporations; we were stockholders--sometimes major stockholders; we ran the mutual funds; we called the shots. Among the worker bees who filled the ranks of corporate employees, while the next generation had begun to join us, most of the workers who produced most of the good and services were being produced by Baby Boomers. So we made the products, provided services, managed the companies, received the dividends, and benefited from stock price increases. Or, if we weren't yet to the point of being stockholders, our parents were, and they would soon be assuming room temperature and those stocks would be ours.

So what did we do with all this influence? As the instant generation, we expected instant results for our money. Stockholders demanded dividends each quarter and rising stock prices. Corporate boards, being of the same mind themselves, were quite happy to oblige the stockholders. CEOs, COOs, CFOs, and all the other C--Os, being of the same mind themselves, were quite happy to manage the businesses that way. So the focus became extremely short-term, only to the end of the next quarter.

I wanted to develop this train of thought more, but suddenly I'm out of ideas or words. Hopefully I have painted a clear picture. We, the Baby Boomers, being in the candy store, ran our economy with such a short-term focus that long-term success was improbable if not impossible.

The Candy Store Generation, Part 2: The Bush Years

2009-04-18T20:11:00.002-04:00

Children in a candy store. I can think of no better way than that to describe Bush and Gore--and the nation they sought to lead--on the campaign trail in 2000. they are Baby Boomers, both children of privilege, both trust fund kids of rich daddies with political pedigrees. The Bush family money seems to have gone back farther than the Gore family money. But them, Bush was more involved in learning how to make money, while Gore knew nothing more than feeding at the public trough.

Bush, being narrowly elected, and with an evenly divided Congress, was slow to act. Except when a crisis such as 9-11-2001 required fast action, Bush seemed to be a plodder in both his thinking and his doing. It took years for him to bring forth legislative proposals for Social Security reform and a comprehensive national energy plan, just to name two things. That slowness, though, was actually calming. How glad I would be for such slowness today.

Yet, faced with the crisis of 9-11, and its barely related crisis of the Iraq war, Bush's call to the American Citizen on how best to support the national effort was: Spend! Travel! Fly! Live life as normal. Don't let our enemies know we even felt their gnat buzzing at our face. Don't worry about sacrifice. The candy store was on fire, yet we were called upon to keep buying and ingesting.

Which we did, as if this would end the problem. Digital TVs awaited, and newer, slimmer, and more powerful devices for playing more song. Thus we sought instant correction of a national disaster.
And that describes the Candy Store Generation: the instant generation. Instant resolution of crises in a 30 or 60 minute TV drama or a two hour movie. Instant information for purchasing decisions in a 30 second commercial. Instant food from the microwave or the restaurant. Instant promotions in business without taking the normal development time. Instant replay. Instant prosperity through borrowing.

Or, rather, instant appearance of instant prosperity through borrowing. Over=sized houses full of stuff, driveways full of cars bought with other people's money, hours full of comings and goings that cost money, the bills delayed to a future time, to be paid in cheaper dollars. We borrowed our way into personal prosperity, our long-term views dampened by instant success. Never did we seek to see over the next hill. Life was too good on this side.