You couldn't make this up. COULDN'T IN A MILLION YEARS MAKE THIS UP. Paul Krugman reports a comment from Senator Mitch McConnell. I don't know if Krugman and Reich are fun fellows to be around or not, but I do know that Rush Limbaugh is one of the most vile and reprehensible human beings on the face of the earth. There is no more pompous blow-hard on the face of the earth than Limbaugh.
New York Times Blog
February 27, 2009, 11:04 am — Updated: 11:04 am -->
Triumph of the dull
No comment:
In his CPAC speech, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that conservatives are more “interesting” and “fun” than liberals. Here’s his proof: “who wants to hang out with guys like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich when you can be with Rush Limbaugh?”
Friday, February 27, 2009
Robert D. Richardson - William James
I have tried so hard to get into the head of William James, perhaps the leading intellectual of the 19th century (since I am a 19th century person), but now I'm ready to give up having read this definitive biography of James. I like William James since he was a roving intellectual who dabbled very successfully in many things in various areas of psychology, philosophy, and religion. It's just that somehow even after reading this exhaustive book I just can't get a handle on James. Earlier I had read the Linda Simon biography and I've read many of his essays but somehow, somehow, I just don't click with this guy. I thought I would click with pragmatism, but so far that hasn't worked either. What gives?
Tell It Like It Is, James!
Tell it like it is, James Carville, as the Republicans, as usual, put ideology over the needs of people and ideology over common sense.
Commentary: Jindal leads GOP on a 'march of folly'
Story Highlights
James Carville: Historian Barbara Tuchman wrote of people on "march of folly"
She documented people in high positions doing self-defeating things, he says
Carville says Republicans are risking their own march to folly now
He says it doesn't make sense to oppose expanding benefits for the jobless.
Editor's Note: James Carville, a Democratic strategist who serves as a political contributor for CNN, was the Clinton-Gore campaign manager in 1992 and political adviser to President Clinton. He is active in Democratic politics and a party fundraiser.
James Carville says the Republicans who oppose expanded jobless benefits are on a "march to folly."
(CNN) -- Over the course of history, governments, political regimes and leaders have done some stupid things despite all arguments to the contrary, at times even against their own self-interest.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman (best known for "The Guns of August") chronicled this in "The March of Folly," examining the Trojan War, the provocation by the Renaissance Popes that led to the Protestant secession, the unnecessary loss of American colonies by Britain and the now well-documented United States loss in Vietnam.
Fast forward to 2009. The Republican Party has just suffered a bad but not unprecedented defeat. The U.S. economy is in shambles. And the patch of ground some leading figures in the GOP have chosen to occupy to rally back is to oppose expanded unemployment benefits in the middle of a recession.
They could have chosen a stronger national defense and terrorism policy, personal responsibility or even market-based health care reform. Arguing that President Obama's publicly-supported economic stimulus bill was full of wasteful spending (Rush Limbaugh termed it "Porkulus") was not enough.
No, their cause in this time of crisis is to deny expanded unemployment benefits to tens of thousands of jobless workers by saying they would not accept added federal funding for them.
So my home state governor, creationism-toting Bobby Jindal, the newly-tapped spokesperson of the Rush Limbaugh-led Republican Party, and a handful of Southern governors, took their stand on expanded unemployment benefits which make up about 2 percent of the economic recovery package
This, despite the fact that ec
onomists from all political ideologies concluded that extending the length of time that workers can collect unemployment insurance benefits would be one of the most effective stimulus measures.
A 2008 Congressional Budget Office memo stated that it would be an effective measure for Congress to pass because "it seems likely that recipients would spend most of those benefits."
Mark Zandi, former economic adviser to Sen. John McCain's campaign, estimates that for every $1 invested in unemployment benefits assistance, $1.64 in economic activity is generated.
Gov. Jindal is being joined in this folly by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, whose states have high jobless rates and could use the most economic assistance.
Worse, the right's new hero is CNBC's Rick Santelli, a man who on September 2, 2008, said the economy was healthy and blamed the business media for the financial crisis.
He has taken a similarly small, eroding patch of ground to mount a charge against the government's recovery package by suggesting that the government should let more homes needlessly fall into foreclosure.
In his latest tirade, Santelli comments the government is "promoting bad behavior" and that it's going to "subsidize the losers' mortgages." Well Mr. Santelli, President Obama's home affordability plan will help stave off even more foreclosures and allow those who are barely staying afloat to refinance their mortgages, both of which are in the best interest of the American economy as each foreclosed home reduces nearby property values by as much as 9 percent.
This is the same guy who recently said that the all-white, all-male stock traders next to him represented "a pretty good statistical cross-section of America. The silent majority." This from a former derivatives trader -- a patriotic profession up there with the likes of soldiers, teachers and farmers. Like what America needs now is advice from a derivatives trader.
Today's Republican Party, the lowest-held political party in the history of modern polling, should be in agony. They have just committed a serious blunder -- a folly have you.
If the great Mrs. Tuchman were still alive, she'd surely call this latest Republican gambit the Cap Pistols of February.
Commentary: Jindal leads GOP on a 'march of folly'
Story Highlights
James Carville: Historian Barbara Tuchman wrote of people on "march of folly"
She documented people in high positions doing self-defeating things, he says
Carville says Republicans are risking their own march to folly now
He says it doesn't make sense to oppose expanding benefits for the jobless.
Editor's Note: James Carville, a Democratic strategist who serves as a political contributor for CNN, was the Clinton-Gore campaign manager in 1992 and political adviser to President Clinton. He is active in Democratic politics and a party fundraiser.
James Carville says the Republicans who oppose expanded jobless benefits are on a "march to folly."
(CNN) -- Over the course of history, governments, political regimes and leaders have done some stupid things despite all arguments to the contrary, at times even against their own self-interest.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman (best known for "The Guns of August") chronicled this in "The March of Folly," examining the Trojan War, the provocation by the Renaissance Popes that led to the Protestant secession, the unnecessary loss of American colonies by Britain and the now well-documented United States loss in Vietnam.
Fast forward to 2009. The Republican Party has just suffered a bad but not unprecedented defeat. The U.S. economy is in shambles. And the patch of ground some leading figures in the GOP have chosen to occupy to rally back is to oppose expanded unemployment benefits in the middle of a recession.
They could have chosen a stronger national defense and terrorism policy, personal responsibility or even market-based health care reform. Arguing that President Obama's publicly-supported economic stimulus bill was full of wasteful spending (Rush Limbaugh termed it "Porkulus") was not enough.
No, their cause in this time of crisis is to deny expanded unemployment benefits to tens of thousands of jobless workers by saying they would not accept added federal funding for them.
So my home state governor, creationism-toting Bobby Jindal, the newly-tapped spokesperson of the Rush Limbaugh-led Republican Party, and a handful of Southern governors, took their stand on expanded unemployment benefits which make up about 2 percent of the economic recovery package
This, despite the fact that ec
onomists from all political ideologies concluded that extending the length of time that workers can collect unemployment insurance benefits would be one of the most effective stimulus measures.
A 2008 Congressional Budget Office memo stated that it would be an effective measure for Congress to pass because "it seems likely that recipients would spend most of those benefits."
Mark Zandi, former economic adviser to Sen. John McCain's campaign, estimates that for every $1 invested in unemployment benefits assistance, $1.64 in economic activity is generated.
Gov. Jindal is being joined in this folly by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, whose states have high jobless rates and could use the most economic assistance.
Worse, the right's new hero is CNBC's Rick Santelli, a man who on September 2, 2008, said the economy was healthy and blamed the business media for the financial crisis.
He has taken a similarly small, eroding patch of ground to mount a charge against the government's recovery package by suggesting that the government should let more homes needlessly fall into foreclosure.
In his latest tirade, Santelli comments the government is "promoting bad behavior" and that it's going to "subsidize the losers' mortgages." Well Mr. Santelli, President Obama's home affordability plan will help stave off even more foreclosures and allow those who are barely staying afloat to refinance their mortgages, both of which are in the best interest of the American economy as each foreclosed home reduces nearby property values by as much as 9 percent.
This is the same guy who recently said that the all-white, all-male stock traders next to him represented "a pretty good statistical cross-section of America. The silent majority." This from a former derivatives trader -- a patriotic profession up there with the likes of soldiers, teachers and farmers. Like what America needs now is advice from a derivatives trader.
Today's Republican Party, the lowest-held political party in the history of modern polling, should be in agony. They have just committed a serious blunder -- a folly have you.
If the great Mrs. Tuchman were still alive, she'd surely call this latest Republican gambit the Cap Pistols of February.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The End of History?
My question is this: are we coming to end of history as we know it?
The President says, “We will recover; we will rebuild.” History “says” he is correct given the broad expanse of American history---the continual economic booms and busts that dot our collective history. We’ve always come out of these busts in the past. But is it different this time? Are we sinking into an economic black hole from which there is no return? Will I be alive if and when we do come out of it? Will I be properly dressed for the occasion? Will there be enough soft food for me to eat? Will I recognize the country by the time we do come out of it? Or will my neighbors hiss and curse at me under their breath because my turban is not the same color as theirs.
I fear we face the end of literature. Online digital reading will kill literature. Who is going to read Tolstoy anymore? (Actually, who reads Tolstoy now?) Who is going to read anything of substance anymore? Will reading the labels on oatmeal boxes begin to count as literature? Will the bookstores only carry Terry Pratchet and Twilight? Once all the independent bookstores vanish will there only be one bookstore in every town the size of mine? One Wal Mart bookstore---take it or leave it?
When the money runs out for all of us, will we remember the days when we actually carried this paper and copper in our possession and that we could swap these things for real tangible THINGS? Will we miss THINGS like houses and cars and fresh vegetables?
As I get older and my mind gets shakier, will I live increasingly in the past or will I forget the past? Will I be able to tell the difference anyway? At a certain point will the past and present coexist in my mind like intertwined DNA strands so that one becomes the other and vice versa? Will I be able to remember my wife’s name and all the wonderful times we’ve had together, or will the memory of my first puppy be the highlight of my latter years.
The political partisanship becomes shriller by the hour. What if Rush Limbaugh (the head of the Republican Party) became President? After all, he knows it all. If Limbaugh were to become President, would Oxycontin become available over the counter? Would hate speech become the most popular means of public communication? Would Ann Coulter be Vice-President? And maybe Sean Hannity Secretary of State? What about Joe the Plumber? Chief of staff? Palin would have to stay in Alaska. Limbaugh could never handle that diva.
By the way, was Abraham Lincoln our first President? Did World War I come before or after the Civil War? Did Al Gore invent electricity?
If the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off, who will warn us of the next great crisis? Dogs sniff the ground to keep up with what’s going on. Will somebody clue me in before I lose it and start doing likewise?
P.S. I believe that lurking somewhere beneath my prose is profundity. If anyone finds it, do let me know.
The President says, “We will recover; we will rebuild.” History “says” he is correct given the broad expanse of American history---the continual economic booms and busts that dot our collective history. We’ve always come out of these busts in the past. But is it different this time? Are we sinking into an economic black hole from which there is no return? Will I be alive if and when we do come out of it? Will I be properly dressed for the occasion? Will there be enough soft food for me to eat? Will I recognize the country by the time we do come out of it? Or will my neighbors hiss and curse at me under their breath because my turban is not the same color as theirs.
I fear we face the end of literature. Online digital reading will kill literature. Who is going to read Tolstoy anymore? (Actually, who reads Tolstoy now?) Who is going to read anything of substance anymore? Will reading the labels on oatmeal boxes begin to count as literature? Will the bookstores only carry Terry Pratchet and Twilight? Once all the independent bookstores vanish will there only be one bookstore in every town the size of mine? One Wal Mart bookstore---take it or leave it?
When the money runs out for all of us, will we remember the days when we actually carried this paper and copper in our possession and that we could swap these things for real tangible THINGS? Will we miss THINGS like houses and cars and fresh vegetables?
As I get older and my mind gets shakier, will I live increasingly in the past or will I forget the past? Will I be able to tell the difference anyway? At a certain point will the past and present coexist in my mind like intertwined DNA strands so that one becomes the other and vice versa? Will I be able to remember my wife’s name and all the wonderful times we’ve had together, or will the memory of my first puppy be the highlight of my latter years.
The political partisanship becomes shriller by the hour. What if Rush Limbaugh (the head of the Republican Party) became President? After all, he knows it all. If Limbaugh were to become President, would Oxycontin become available over the counter? Would hate speech become the most popular means of public communication? Would Ann Coulter be Vice-President? And maybe Sean Hannity Secretary of State? What about Joe the Plumber? Chief of staff? Palin would have to stay in Alaska. Limbaugh could never handle that diva.
By the way, was Abraham Lincoln our first President? Did World War I come before or after the Civil War? Did Al Gore invent electricity?
If the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off, who will warn us of the next great crisis? Dogs sniff the ground to keep up with what’s going on. Will somebody clue me in before I lose it and start doing likewise?
P.S. I believe that lurking somewhere beneath my prose is profundity. If anyone finds it, do let me know.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Ridiculing the GOP
It seems like everyone is joining in the fun: ridiculing the Republican Party. The hilarious irony is that Republicans seem to make the case that government doesn't work based on their own party's ineptitude (see GWB's 8 years of disaster).
February 25, 2009, 11:08 am — Updated: 12:43 pm --> FROM PAUL KRUGMAN
What should government do? A Jindal meditation
What is the appropriate role of government?
Traditionally, the division between conservatives and liberals has been over the role and size of the welfare state: liberals think that the government should play a large role in sanding off the market economy’s rough edges, conservatives believe that time and chance happen to us all, and that’s that.
But both sides, I thought, agreed that the government should provide public goods — goods that are nonrival (they benefit everyone) and nonexcludable (there’s no way to restrict the benefits to people who pay.) The classic examples are things like lighthouses and national defense, but there are many others. For example, knowing when a volcano is likely to erupt can save many lives; but there’s no private incentive to spend money on monitoring, since even people who didn’t contribute to maintaining the monitoring system can still benefit from the warning. So that’s the sort of activity that should be undertaken by government.
So what did Bobby Jindal choose to ridicule in this response to Obama last night? Volcano monitoring, of course.
And leaving aside the chutzpah of casting the failure of his own party’s governance as proof that government can’t work, does he really think that the response to natural disasters like Katrina is best undertaken by uncoordinated private action? Hey, why bother having an army? Let’s just rely on self-defense by armed citizens.
The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the 3:50 pm — Updated: 12:44 pm -->
February 25, 2009, 11:08 am — Updated: 12:43 pm --> FROM PAUL KRUGMAN
What should government do? A Jindal meditation
What is the appropriate role of government?
Traditionally, the division between conservatives and liberals has been over the role and size of the welfare state: liberals think that the government should play a large role in sanding off the market economy’s rough edges, conservatives believe that time and chance happen to us all, and that’s that.
But both sides, I thought, agreed that the government should provide public goods — goods that are nonrival (they benefit everyone) and nonexcludable (there’s no way to restrict the benefits to people who pay.) The classic examples are things like lighthouses and national defense, but there are many others. For example, knowing when a volcano is likely to erupt can save many lives; but there’s no private incentive to spend money on monitoring, since even people who didn’t contribute to maintaining the monitoring system can still benefit from the warning. So that’s the sort of activity that should be undertaken by government.
So what did Bobby Jindal choose to ridicule in this response to Obama last night? Volcano monitoring, of course.
And leaving aside the chutzpah of casting the failure of his own party’s governance as proof that government can’t work, does he really think that the response to natural disasters like Katrina is best undertaken by uncoordinated private action? Hey, why bother having an army? Let’s just rely on self-defense by armed citizens.
The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the 3:50 pm — Updated: 12:44 pm -->
Reaction to Jindal
LEHRER: How well did he do?
BROOKS: Not so well. You know, I think Bobby Jindal is a very promising politician, and I opposed the stimulus package - I thought it was poorly drafted - but to come up at this moment in history with a stale, "government is the problem...we can't trust the government"...it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic, now. They may not like the way the Congress passed the stimulus bill. The idea that government is going to have no role in this...in a moment where only the Federal government is big enough to do stuff...to just ignore all that and say government's the problem...corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending - it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. There's an intra-Republican debate: some people say the Republican party lost its way because it got too moderate, some people say they got too weird or too conservative. He thinks they got too moderate, and he's making that case. I think it's insane. I think it's a disaster for the party. I just think it's unfortunate right now.
FROM FRED: Even David Brooks, the voice of respectable Republicanism, pans Jindal.
BROOKS: Not so well. You know, I think Bobby Jindal is a very promising politician, and I opposed the stimulus package - I thought it was poorly drafted - but to come up at this moment in history with a stale, "government is the problem...we can't trust the government"...it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic, now. They may not like the way the Congress passed the stimulus bill. The idea that government is going to have no role in this...in a moment where only the Federal government is big enough to do stuff...to just ignore all that and say government's the problem...corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending - it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. There's an intra-Republican debate: some people say the Republican party lost its way because it got too moderate, some people say they got too weird or too conservative. He thinks they got too moderate, and he's making that case. I think it's insane. I think it's a disaster for the party. I just think it's unfortunate right now.
FROM FRED: Even David Brooks, the voice of respectable Republicanism, pans Jindal.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
While driving to work
While driving to work today I was listening to CNN on my satellite radio and someone was interviewing this high school girl who has the aspiration to go to an Ivy League college but her goal is threatened because her Mother lost her job and she figures she can't afford it. After all, scholarship money is becoming more scarce. I couldn't but think that this girl probably shouldn't go to an Ivy League school anyway. Maybe that's a good idealistic goal for a high school student these days, but somehow I am not convinced. We can't all go to Princeton, can we? I didn't go to an Ivy League school, and I do not feel in any way inferior to anyone else. After all, George W. Bush went to Yale and Harvard Business School. I rest my case.
From George Orwell
"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle," Orwell wrote in 1946. "One thing that helps towards it is to keep a diary, or, at any rate, to keep some kind of record of one's opinions about important events. Otherwise, when some particularly absurd belief is exploded by events, one may simply forget that one ever held it. ... In private life most people are fairly realistic. When one is making out one's weekly budget, two and two invariably make four. Politics, on the other hand, is a sort of sub-atomic or non-Euclidean world where it is quite easy for the part to be greater than the whole or for two objects to be in the same place simultaneously."
-George Orwell
-George Orwell
Monday, February 23, 2009
Palin & Common Sense
We've had the same guy servicing our heating and air-conditioning units for many years now. He lives in Pelham, and his name is Gary. He is garrulous to say the least. We always get to talking when he comes in. His business is down. People are not spending money these days. People are not doing routine maintanence at their places of residence. It's tough for lots of folks. What is going to happen with the economy? Gary says the best thing would have been for McCain to have been elected, then died, so that Palin could be President now. At least she's got common sense, he says. So Palin may not know a blooming thing, but by golly, she's got common sense!
Slumdog?
Did Slumdog deserve to win the Oscar? Here is the quick poll on the CNN website.
Quick Vote
Did "Slumdog Millionaire" deserve to win the Oscar for best picture?
Yes
51%
6041
No
49%
5866
Total Votes: 11907
Quick Vote
Did "Slumdog Millionaire" deserve to win the Oscar for best picture?
Yes
51%
6041
No
49%
5866
Total Votes: 11907
Sunday, February 22, 2009
How Things Change!
The current talk about nationalizing banks even by top Republicans makes folly of Republican claptrap about "socialism." Glenn Beck wouldn't know socialism if it jumped up and bit him on his rear end.
Arianna Huffington: Sunday Roundup
In times as uncertain as ours, yesterday's heretical view can rapidly turn into today's conventional wisdom. Take the question of nationalizing America's insolvent banks. Just six months ago, raising the idea would have immediately branded you as an old school Marxist. Now, it's being suggested by none other than Alan Greenspan. Last Sunday, Lindsey Graham said he wouldn't take nationalizing the banks off the table. On Wednesday, Greenspan, the high priest of laissez-faire capitalism, said it "may be necessary." And on Friday, Chuck Schumer, who just five days earlier had said he "would not be for nationalizing," told HuffPost he was actually in favor of "good nationalization," wherein the government takes over zombie banks, cleans house, then resells them to the private sector. Who knows, by next week Ayn Rand might pop up from the grave and start speaking Swedish.
Arianna Huffington: Sunday Roundup
In times as uncertain as ours, yesterday's heretical view can rapidly turn into today's conventional wisdom. Take the question of nationalizing America's insolvent banks. Just six months ago, raising the idea would have immediately branded you as an old school Marxist. Now, it's being suggested by none other than Alan Greenspan. Last Sunday, Lindsey Graham said he wouldn't take nationalizing the banks off the table. On Wednesday, Greenspan, the high priest of laissez-faire capitalism, said it "may be necessary." And on Friday, Chuck Schumer, who just five days earlier had said he "would not be for nationalizing," told HuffPost he was actually in favor of "good nationalization," wherein the government takes over zombie banks, cleans house, then resells them to the private sector. Who knows, by next week Ayn Rand might pop up from the grave and start speaking Swedish.
One Thing about William James
I've learned so far that William James invented the term "stream of consciousness," a literary technique developed by William Faulkner and Virginia Wolf.
The Unending Stupidity of Republicans
We Alabamians have brawls at high school basketball games to embarass us in front of the nation. And we have Senator Shelby to do likewise. Whether it's passing along bogus chain emails, or juvenile emails geared to the mentality of 13-yr olds, or repeating baseless accusations, the Republicans can't seem to control their political id.
The Cullman Times reports that Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, in a meeting with constituents, appeared to give some thought to rumors questioning President Obama's citizenship.
Another local resident asked Shelby if there was any truth to a rumor that appeared during the presidential campaign concerning Obama's U.S. citizenship, or lack thereof.
"Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven't seen any birth certificate," Shelby said. "You have to be born in America to be president."
According to the Associated Press, state officials in Hawaii checked health department records during the campaign and determined there was no doubt Obama was born in Hawaii.
The Cullman Times reports that Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, in a meeting with constituents, appeared to give some thought to rumors questioning President Obama's citizenship.
Another local resident asked Shelby if there was any truth to a rumor that appeared during the presidential campaign concerning Obama's U.S. citizenship, or lack thereof.
"Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven't seen any birth certificate," Shelby said. "You have to be born in America to be president."
According to the Associated Press, state officials in Hawaii checked health department records during the campaign and determined there was no doubt Obama was born in Hawaii.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Republican Talking Points
Obviously Republicans speak from the same script. They all march in lock-step and say the same things---Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Sowell, etc. During the Bush administration, the talking points came from the White House. Who is distributing the Republican talking points now? I don't know, but somebody is because Republicans continue to babble in unison like parrots. Have you ever known a Republican with an original thought? Neither have I.
McClellan: White House gave FOX commentators talking pointsBy SilentPatriot Thursday Jul 24, 2008 8:10pm
This just in from the Department of the Obvious: Scott McClellan admits to Chris Matthews that the White House made a deliberate effort to use FOX News commentators like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly to disseminate White House talking points.
Matthews: "Did you see FOX television as a tool when you were in the White House? As a useful avenue to get your message out?"
McClellan: "I make a distinction between the journalists and the commentators. Certainly there were commentators and other, pundits at FOX News, that were useful to the White House." [...] That was something we at the White House, yes, were doing, getting them talking points and making sure they knew where we were coming from.
Matthews: "So you were using these commentators as your spokespeople."
McClellan: "Well, certainly."
Straight from the source. Enough with the "fair and balanced" crap already.
McClellan: White House gave FOX commentators talking pointsBy SilentPatriot Thursday Jul 24, 2008 8:10pm
This just in from the Department of the Obvious: Scott McClellan admits to Chris Matthews that the White House made a deliberate effort to use FOX News commentators like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly to disseminate White House talking points.
Matthews: "Did you see FOX television as a tool when you were in the White House? As a useful avenue to get your message out?"
McClellan: "I make a distinction between the journalists and the commentators. Certainly there were commentators and other, pundits at FOX News, that were useful to the White House." [...] That was something we at the White House, yes, were doing, getting them talking points and making sure they knew where we were coming from.
Matthews: "So you were using these commentators as your spokespeople."
McClellan: "Well, certainly."
Straight from the source. Enough with the "fair and balanced" crap already.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
From Lincoln to William James
I take a temporary leave from Lincoln reading, reiterating again that Richard Hofstadter's piece on Lincoln in THE AMERICAN POLITICAL TRADITION is the best thing ever written about Honest Abe. Hofstadter nails Lincoln cold.
I move to the Robert D. Richardson biography of William James. As a 19th century man, I wish to master William James--philosopher, psychologist, man of the broadest intellectual interests.
Perhaps I can come to some conclusions as I have with Lincoln.
I move to the Robert D. Richardson biography of William James. As a 19th century man, I wish to master William James--philosopher, psychologist, man of the broadest intellectual interests.
Perhaps I can come to some conclusions as I have with Lincoln.
Monday, February 16, 2009
About Lincoln
I anticipate reading books about Lincoln the rest of my life. But currently I am getting tired of reading about our 16th President. I need a Lincoln break!
The book I'm finishing now is THE BEST HISTORICAL ESSAYS ON LINCOLN edited by Sean Wilentz, one of our leading 19th century historians. This volume collects what Wilentz thinks is the best on Lincoln.
Richard Hofstadter's essay "Abraham Lincoln and the Self-Made Myth" is the BEST short treatment of Lincoln bar none. Hofstadter gives us a conservative Lincoln who was pushed by events and who created the American myth of the self-made man. My conclusion likewise is that Lincoln was very much a conservative on race and slavery (even by the standards of the 19th century) though his Whig economics (goverment spending for infrastructure development which is anathma to today's Republicans) is quite liberal by today's reckoning.
James Oliver Horton's "Naturally Anti-Slavery" puts Lincoln's anti-slavery positions in proper historical perspective. Horton seems to believe that Lincoln abandoned colonization because he said no more about it after December of 1862. I'm not sure about this. It's funny to make an assumption about the mind of Abraham Lincoln based on his silence!
Richard Current's piece on Lincoln the politician is the best treatment on the subject. The same can be said---the best treatment---of McPherson's discussion of Lincoln's policy of unconditional surrender.
All in all this is certainly a handy and necessary addition to the Lincoln canon.
The book I'm finishing now is THE BEST HISTORICAL ESSAYS ON LINCOLN edited by Sean Wilentz, one of our leading 19th century historians. This volume collects what Wilentz thinks is the best on Lincoln.
Richard Hofstadter's essay "Abraham Lincoln and the Self-Made Myth" is the BEST short treatment of Lincoln bar none. Hofstadter gives us a conservative Lincoln who was pushed by events and who created the American myth of the self-made man. My conclusion likewise is that Lincoln was very much a conservative on race and slavery (even by the standards of the 19th century) though his Whig economics (goverment spending for infrastructure development which is anathma to today's Republicans) is quite liberal by today's reckoning.
James Oliver Horton's "Naturally Anti-Slavery" puts Lincoln's anti-slavery positions in proper historical perspective. Horton seems to believe that Lincoln abandoned colonization because he said no more about it after December of 1862. I'm not sure about this. It's funny to make an assumption about the mind of Abraham Lincoln based on his silence!
Richard Current's piece on Lincoln the politician is the best treatment on the subject. The same can be said---the best treatment---of McPherson's discussion of Lincoln's policy of unconditional surrender.
All in all this is certainly a handy and necessary addition to the Lincoln canon.
Paul Krugman Again
Paul Krugman leads the charge of the pessemists: warning that we are probably in for a long period of economic stagnation and the risk of deflation. Below he mentions the reason that I loathe the National Review and the Wall Street Journal. It's staggering to see that average household net worth is now lower than it was in 2001. Thanks alot, Republicans.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 15, 2009
By now everyone knows the sad tale of Bernard Madoff’s duped investors. They looked at their statements and thought they were rich. But then, one day, they discovered to their horror that their supposed wealth was a figment of someone else’s imagination.
Unfortunately, that’s a pretty good metaphor for what happened to America as a whole in the first decade of the 21st century.
Last week the Federal Reserve released the results of the latest Survey of Consumer Finances, a triennial report on the assets and liabilities of American households. The bottom line is that there has been basically no wealth creation at all since the turn of the millennium: the net worth of the average American household, adjusted for inflation, is lower now than it was in 2001.
At one level this should come as no surprise. For most of the last decade America was a nation of borrowers and spenders, not savers. The personal savings rate dropped from 9 percent in the 1980s to 5 percent in the 1990s, to just 0.6 percent from 2005 to 2007, and household debt grew much faster than personal income. Why should we have expected our net worth to go up?
Yet until very recently Americans believed they were getting richer, because they received statements saying that their houses and stock portfolios were appreciating in value faster than their debts were increasing. And if the belief of many Americans that they could count on capital gains forever sounds naïve, it’s worth remembering just how many influential voices — notably in right-leaning publications like The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and National Review — promoted that belief, and ridiculed those who worried about low savings and high levels of debt.
Then reality struck, and it turned out that the worriers had been right all along. The surge in asset values had been an illusion — but the surge in debt had been all too real.
So now we’re in trouble — deeper trouble, I think, than most people realize even now. And I’m not just talking about the dwindling band of forecasters who still insist that the economy will snap back any day now.
For this is a broad-based mess. Everyone talks about the problems of the banks, which are indeed in even worse shape than the rest of the system. But the banks aren’t the only players with too much debt and too few assets; the same description applies to the private sector as a whole.
And as the great American economist Irving Fisher pointed out in the 1930s, the things people and companies do when they realize they have too much debt tend to be self-defeating when everyone tries to do them at the same time. Attempts to sell assets and pay off debt deepen the plunge in asset prices, further reducing net worth. Attempts to save more translate into a collapse of consumer demand, deepening the economic slump.
Are policy makers ready to do what it takes to break this vicious circle? In principle, yes.
Government officials understand the issue: we need to “contain what is a very damaging and potentially deflationary spiral,” says Lawrence Summers, a top Obama economic adviser.
In practice, however, the policies currently on offer don’t look adequate to the challenge. The fiscal stimulus plan, while it will certainly help, probably won’t do more than mitigate the economic side effects of debt deflation. And the much-awaited announcement of the bank rescue plan left everyone confused rather than reassured.
There’s hope that the bank rescue will eventually turn into something stronger. It has been interesting to watch the idea of temporary bank nationalization move from the fringe to mainstream acceptance, with even Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham conceding that it may be necessary. But even if we eventually do what’s needed on the bank front, that will solve only part of the problem.
If you want to see what it really takes to boot the economy out of a debt trap, look at the large public works program, otherwise known as World War II, that ended the Great Depression. The war didn’t just lead to full employment. It also led to rapidly rising incomes and substantial inflation, all with virtually no borrowing by the private sector. By 1945 the government’s debt had soared, but the ratio of private-sector debt to G.D.P. was only half what it had been in 1940. And this low level of private debt helped set the stage for the great postwar boom.
Since nothing like that is on the table, or seems likely to get on the table any time soon, it will take years for families and firms to work off the debt they ran up so blithely. The odds are that the legacy of our time of illusion — our decade at Bernie’s — will be a long, painful slump.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 15, 2009
By now everyone knows the sad tale of Bernard Madoff’s duped investors. They looked at their statements and thought they were rich. But then, one day, they discovered to their horror that their supposed wealth was a figment of someone else’s imagination.
Unfortunately, that’s a pretty good metaphor for what happened to America as a whole in the first decade of the 21st century.
Last week the Federal Reserve released the results of the latest Survey of Consumer Finances, a triennial report on the assets and liabilities of American households. The bottom line is that there has been basically no wealth creation at all since the turn of the millennium: the net worth of the average American household, adjusted for inflation, is lower now than it was in 2001.
At one level this should come as no surprise. For most of the last decade America was a nation of borrowers and spenders, not savers. The personal savings rate dropped from 9 percent in the 1980s to 5 percent in the 1990s, to just 0.6 percent from 2005 to 2007, and household debt grew much faster than personal income. Why should we have expected our net worth to go up?
Yet until very recently Americans believed they were getting richer, because they received statements saying that their houses and stock portfolios were appreciating in value faster than their debts were increasing. And if the belief of many Americans that they could count on capital gains forever sounds naïve, it’s worth remembering just how many influential voices — notably in right-leaning publications like The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and National Review — promoted that belief, and ridiculed those who worried about low savings and high levels of debt.
Then reality struck, and it turned out that the worriers had been right all along. The surge in asset values had been an illusion — but the surge in debt had been all too real.
So now we’re in trouble — deeper trouble, I think, than most people realize even now. And I’m not just talking about the dwindling band of forecasters who still insist that the economy will snap back any day now.
For this is a broad-based mess. Everyone talks about the problems of the banks, which are indeed in even worse shape than the rest of the system. But the banks aren’t the only players with too much debt and too few assets; the same description applies to the private sector as a whole.
And as the great American economist Irving Fisher pointed out in the 1930s, the things people and companies do when they realize they have too much debt tend to be self-defeating when everyone tries to do them at the same time. Attempts to sell assets and pay off debt deepen the plunge in asset prices, further reducing net worth. Attempts to save more translate into a collapse of consumer demand, deepening the economic slump.
Are policy makers ready to do what it takes to break this vicious circle? In principle, yes.
Government officials understand the issue: we need to “contain what is a very damaging and potentially deflationary spiral,” says Lawrence Summers, a top Obama economic adviser.
In practice, however, the policies currently on offer don’t look adequate to the challenge. The fiscal stimulus plan, while it will certainly help, probably won’t do more than mitigate the economic side effects of debt deflation. And the much-awaited announcement of the bank rescue plan left everyone confused rather than reassured.
There’s hope that the bank rescue will eventually turn into something stronger. It has been interesting to watch the idea of temporary bank nationalization move from the fringe to mainstream acceptance, with even Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham conceding that it may be necessary. But even if we eventually do what’s needed on the bank front, that will solve only part of the problem.
If you want to see what it really takes to boot the economy out of a debt trap, look at the large public works program, otherwise known as World War II, that ended the Great Depression. The war didn’t just lead to full employment. It also led to rapidly rising incomes and substantial inflation, all with virtually no borrowing by the private sector. By 1945 the government’s debt had soared, but the ratio of private-sector debt to G.D.P. was only half what it had been in 1940. And this low level of private debt helped set the stage for the great postwar boom.
Since nothing like that is on the table, or seems likely to get on the table any time soon, it will take years for families and firms to work off the debt they ran up so blithely. The odds are that the legacy of our time of illusion — our decade at Bernie’s — will be a long, painful slump.
We Wouldn't Need a Stimulus Bill If-------
We wouldn't need a stimulus bill if we could waterboard Cheney and charge admission for watching it. The revenue raised would be astromical.
I''d pay $39.95 to watch that on Pay-per-View.
Posted by hungry686 at 10:01 AM : Feb 16, 2009
+ report abuse
I think Cheney needs a good, long waterboarding.......... Posted by raflin0010 _______Yes, and on TV.
I''d pay $39.95 to watch that on Pay-per-View.
Posted by hungry686 at 10:01 AM : Feb 16, 2009
+ report abuse
I think Cheney needs a good, long waterboarding.......... Posted by raflin0010 _______Yes, and on TV.
The Latest Presidential Rankings
Ever so often we see a ranking of US Presidents, usually the result of a poll of historians. These polls are always subjective: it is difficult to get an objective poll even when the poll takers try and get a balance of Republicans and Democrats, conservative and progrssive. Here is the latest one from a poll of 65 US historians. I do not know how "balanced" the list of voters is (or if it matters). Here before the article is my list the 10 best and 10 worst.
TEN BEST
1. George Washington
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt
4. Harry Truman
5. Dwight Eisenhower
6. Teddy Roosevelt
7. Woodrow Wilson
8. Andrew Jackson
9. John Adams
10.Thomas Jefferson
TEN WORST
1. Herbert Hoover
2. George W. Bush
3. Andrew Johnson
4. Millard Fillmore
5. Franklin Pierce
6. Calvin Coolidge
7. James Buchanan
8. John Tyler
9. Warren G. Harding
10.Richard Nixon
Comments
WASHINGTON — Just days after the nation honored the 200th anniversary of his birth, 65 historians ranked Abraham Lincoln as the nation's best president.
Former President George W. Bush, who left office last month, was ranked 36th out of the 42 men who had been chief executive by the end of 2008, according to a survey conducted by the cable channel C-SPAN.
Bush scored lowest in international relations, where he was ranked 41st, and in economic management, where he was ranked 40th. His highest ranking, 24th, was in the category of pursuing equal justice for all. He was ranked 25th in crisis leadership and vision and agenda setting.
In contrast, Lincoln was ranked in the top three in each of the 10 categories evaluated by participants.
In C-SPAN's only other ranking of presidents, in 2000, former President Bill Clinton jumped six spots from No. 21 to 15. Other recent presidents moved positions as well: Ronald Reagan advanced from No. 11 to 10, George H.W. Bush rose from No. 20 to 18 and Jimmy Carter fell from No. 22 to 25.
This movement illustrates that presidential reputations are influenced by present-day concerns, said survey adviser and participant Edna Medford.
"Today's concerns shape our views of the past, be it in the area of foreign policy, managing the economy or human rights," Medford said in a statement.
After Lincoln, the academics rated George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman as the best leaders overall. The same five received top spots in the 2000 survey, although Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt swapped spots this year.
Rated worst overall were James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, William Henry Harrison and Warren G. Harding.
The survey was conducted in December and January. Participants ranked each president on a scale of one, "not effective" to 10, "very effective," on a list of 10 leadership qualities including relations with Congress, public persuasion and moral authority.
TEN BEST
1. George Washington
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt
4. Harry Truman
5. Dwight Eisenhower
6. Teddy Roosevelt
7. Woodrow Wilson
8. Andrew Jackson
9. John Adams
10.Thomas Jefferson
TEN WORST
1. Herbert Hoover
2. George W. Bush
3. Andrew Johnson
4. Millard Fillmore
5. Franklin Pierce
6. Calvin Coolidge
7. James Buchanan
8. John Tyler
9. Warren G. Harding
10.Richard Nixon
Comments
WASHINGTON — Just days after the nation honored the 200th anniversary of his birth, 65 historians ranked Abraham Lincoln as the nation's best president.
Former President George W. Bush, who left office last month, was ranked 36th out of the 42 men who had been chief executive by the end of 2008, according to a survey conducted by the cable channel C-SPAN.
Bush scored lowest in international relations, where he was ranked 41st, and in economic management, where he was ranked 40th. His highest ranking, 24th, was in the category of pursuing equal justice for all. He was ranked 25th in crisis leadership and vision and agenda setting.
In contrast, Lincoln was ranked in the top three in each of the 10 categories evaluated by participants.
In C-SPAN's only other ranking of presidents, in 2000, former President Bill Clinton jumped six spots from No. 21 to 15. Other recent presidents moved positions as well: Ronald Reagan advanced from No. 11 to 10, George H.W. Bush rose from No. 20 to 18 and Jimmy Carter fell from No. 22 to 25.
This movement illustrates that presidential reputations are influenced by present-day concerns, said survey adviser and participant Edna Medford.
"Today's concerns shape our views of the past, be it in the area of foreign policy, managing the economy or human rights," Medford said in a statement.
After Lincoln, the academics rated George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman as the best leaders overall. The same five received top spots in the 2000 survey, although Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt swapped spots this year.
Rated worst overall were James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, William Henry Harrison and Warren G. Harding.
The survey was conducted in December and January. Participants ranked each president on a scale of one, "not effective" to 10, "very effective," on a list of 10 leadership qualities including relations with Congress, public persuasion and moral authority.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
David Broder Reminds the GOP
The esteemed columnist David Broder reminds the Republicans that not a single Republican voted for President Clinton's deficit reduction bill in 1993, and we all know the results of that legislation: a sustained economic boom in the 90's and balanced budgets, which the Bush administration promptly destroyed. Are the Republicans, mired in their tired, old ideology, still fighting FDR and Keynes, making the same mistake again?
____________________________________
by David Broder
Now comes the hard part.
Difficult as it has been to push the almost $800 billion stimulus plan to the point of passage in Congress, making it work in local communities across America will be much more challenging.
And here in Washington, the political tests that lie ahead as the agenda shifts to energy, the environment, health care, Iraq, Afghanistan and other trouble spots will also pose higher hurdles.
Predictably, President Obama has had a shaky introduction to his new duties. Talented as he is, he had never previously been asked to assemble an administration, to identify prospective appointees, decide where they might fit, recruit them and qualify them for the confirmation process.
Some of the biggest names on his list -
- Tom Daschle, Bill Richardson and Judd Gregg -- backed out before they ever took office. They withdrew for different reasons, but had Obama, with only four Senate years behind him, known the environment and personalities in public life better, he might have anticipated some of these problems.
His Treasury choice, Timothy Geithner, turned out to have issues with unpaid taxes. More important, in his first big test -- explaining the new effort to bolster the shaky banking and credit system -- Geithner managed to trigger a big sell-off on Wall Street. That was hardly a vote of confidence.
Despite these difficulties and distractions, Obama was able to conduct an inside-outside offensive for his first big bill, the stimulus plan designed to stop the scary slide in the economy. He carried his campaign from Capitol Hill to Indiana, Florida and Illinois, reaching out to Republicans as well as Democrats.
The resistance proved to be much stiffer than he anticipated. Some of it was partisan, with the GOP leadership sending a message that it would not be rolled. But much of it was the reaction to the staggering sums involved. Republicans asked themselves how we would ever pay for this. Democrats, whose doubts kept breaking out in public despite pleas for unity, questioned whether the mix of spending and tax cuts was what it should be.
The daunting thing for Obama is that the next issues will be even tougher in Congress. This was, relatively speaking, easy pickings. It is always simpler to assemble a majority for spending money than for saving it. When Obama turns to health care, he will have to ask someone to pay for the millions of people he wants to add to the insurance rolls. Finding renewable energy sources, combating global warming and improving the schools will all be expensive. And every one of these fields is chock-full of interest groups prepared to fight hard to protect themselves.
Meantime, Obama and his aides have to prove that their expensive fix for the economy can work. Eighteen months or two years from now, statisticians are certain to be arguing whether the stimulus package created or saved the promised 4 million jobs. But by then, voters will have made their own judgment of whether the prescription worked -- based on the condition of the overall economy, the employment and profits picture, the movement of the markets, and the degree of consumer confidence.
Obama has promised -- and invested -- a lot, even while acknowledging in advance that he knows that not everything will work. Any spending program this big is bound to produce its quota of scandals; there aren't nearly enough contracting officers in Washington and the 50 states to prevent the chicanery.
Republicans have seen to it that Obama has complete ownership of the economic rescue. By withholding nearly all their votes, they are betting that it will fail, just as they did in 1993 when the newly elected Bill Clinton pushed his first budget and tax package through Congress without a single Republican vote.
Back then, Newt Gingrich predicted that the Democratic plan would lead to "a job-killing recession," and Dick Armey, his lieutenant, called it "a recipe for disaster."
Even if they had been right, they took the risk of seeming to be betting against something most voters hoped would succeed. But they were wrong -- the economy soared under Clinton.
Sixteen years later, today's Republicans seem to have forgotten that experience.
____________________________________
by David Broder
Now comes the hard part.
Difficult as it has been to push the almost $800 billion stimulus plan to the point of passage in Congress, making it work in local communities across America will be much more challenging.
And here in Washington, the political tests that lie ahead as the agenda shifts to energy, the environment, health care, Iraq, Afghanistan and other trouble spots will also pose higher hurdles.
Predictably, President Obama has had a shaky introduction to his new duties. Talented as he is, he had never previously been asked to assemble an administration, to identify prospective appointees, decide where they might fit, recruit them and qualify them for the confirmation process.
Some of the biggest names on his list -
- Tom Daschle, Bill Richardson and Judd Gregg -- backed out before they ever took office. They withdrew for different reasons, but had Obama, with only four Senate years behind him, known the environment and personalities in public life better, he might have anticipated some of these problems.
His Treasury choice, Timothy Geithner, turned out to have issues with unpaid taxes. More important, in his first big test -- explaining the new effort to bolster the shaky banking and credit system -- Geithner managed to trigger a big sell-off on Wall Street. That was hardly a vote of confidence.
Despite these difficulties and distractions, Obama was able to conduct an inside-outside offensive for his first big bill, the stimulus plan designed to stop the scary slide in the economy. He carried his campaign from Capitol Hill to Indiana, Florida and Illinois, reaching out to Republicans as well as Democrats.
The resistance proved to be much stiffer than he anticipated. Some of it was partisan, with the GOP leadership sending a message that it would not be rolled. But much of it was the reaction to the staggering sums involved. Republicans asked themselves how we would ever pay for this. Democrats, whose doubts kept breaking out in public despite pleas for unity, questioned whether the mix of spending and tax cuts was what it should be.
The daunting thing for Obama is that the next issues will be even tougher in Congress. This was, relatively speaking, easy pickings. It is always simpler to assemble a majority for spending money than for saving it. When Obama turns to health care, he will have to ask someone to pay for the millions of people he wants to add to the insurance rolls. Finding renewable energy sources, combating global warming and improving the schools will all be expensive. And every one of these fields is chock-full of interest groups prepared to fight hard to protect themselves.
Meantime, Obama and his aides have to prove that their expensive fix for the economy can work. Eighteen months or two years from now, statisticians are certain to be arguing whether the stimulus package created or saved the promised 4 million jobs. But by then, voters will have made their own judgment of whether the prescription worked -- based on the condition of the overall economy, the employment and profits picture, the movement of the markets, and the degree of consumer confidence.
Obama has promised -- and invested -- a lot, even while acknowledging in advance that he knows that not everything will work. Any spending program this big is bound to produce its quota of scandals; there aren't nearly enough contracting officers in Washington and the 50 states to prevent the chicanery.
Republicans have seen to it that Obama has complete ownership of the economic rescue. By withholding nearly all their votes, they are betting that it will fail, just as they did in 1993 when the newly elected Bill Clinton pushed his first budget and tax package through Congress without a single Republican vote.
Back then, Newt Gingrich predicted that the Democratic plan would lead to "a job-killing recession," and Dick Armey, his lieutenant, called it "a recipe for disaster."
Even if they had been right, they took the risk of seeming to be betting against something most voters hoped would succeed. But they were wrong -- the economy soared under Clinton.
Sixteen years later, today's Republicans seem to have forgotten that experience.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Lincoln's Birthday (3)
One of the best Lincoln books of the season is OUR LINCOLN edited by Eric Foner. The book is a compilation of original essays by some of the leading current Lincoln scholars.
I have long been interested in Lincoln's favoring colonization of African Americans. As a disciple of Henry Clay, Lincoln pushed colonization until as late as December of 1862. Once the Emancipation Proclamation was issued January, 1863, Lincoln said no more about colonization. I have yet to find the Lincoln biographer who says much about colonization. I suppose it's embarassing for Lincoln's admireres, but it's the truth. Lincoln's colonization ideas lead to charges that he wanted an all-white country. You can be harsh or soft with Lincoln on this, but there is no doubt that he is open to this charge.
Eric Foner's essay in this volume is the first lengthy treatment of Lincoln's views on colonization that I have run across. I find it to be very enlightening. Foner puts Lincoln's views in context, but there is no way to obliterate them.
In this book, the James Oakes piece on Lincoln and race is the best summary of this topic, something I will always be interested in, that I have found.
There is a great article by Andrew Delbanco on Lincoln's language. This is another topic that I will always be reading about. I will have more to say about this article later.
In short, this book is cutting-edge Lincoln.
I have long been interested in Lincoln's favoring colonization of African Americans. As a disciple of Henry Clay, Lincoln pushed colonization until as late as December of 1862. Once the Emancipation Proclamation was issued January, 1863, Lincoln said no more about colonization. I have yet to find the Lincoln biographer who says much about colonization. I suppose it's embarassing for Lincoln's admireres, but it's the truth. Lincoln's colonization ideas lead to charges that he wanted an all-white country. You can be harsh or soft with Lincoln on this, but there is no doubt that he is open to this charge.
Eric Foner's essay in this volume is the first lengthy treatment of Lincoln's views on colonization that I have run across. I find it to be very enlightening. Foner puts Lincoln's views in context, but there is no way to obliterate them.
In this book, the James Oakes piece on Lincoln and race is the best summary of this topic, something I will always be interested in, that I have found.
There is a great article by Andrew Delbanco on Lincoln's language. This is another topic that I will always be reading about. I will have more to say about this article later.
In short, this book is cutting-edge Lincoln.
Krugman on the Current Economic Situation
My economic guru is Princeton Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman. He is a classic Keynesian. He points out the shortfall in the stimulus plan that will be approved, and has fun with Republicans who got us into this mess and now they are going to lecture us on how to get out of the mess that THEY created. The same people who voted for Bush's 2 trillion dollar tax cuts and 1 trillion dollars for Iraq complain about deficit spending all of a sudden. When Republicans control the country's credit card, deficits are not a problem (Bush DOUBLED the national debt while in office). When Democrats are in charge, Republicans become born again deficit hawks overnight. The people who get their political views from the National Review & The Wall Street Journal have no idea how uninformed they are. Can you say HYPOCRISY! It's quite comical though deadly serious in the current economic crisis we're in.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 12, 2009
By any normal political standards, this week’s Congressional agreement on an economic stimulus package was a great victory for President Obama. He got more or less what he asked for: almost $800 billion to rescue the economy, with most of the money allocated to spending rather than tax cuts. Break out the Champagne!
Or maybe not. These aren’t normal times, so normal political standards don’t apply: Mr. Obama’s victory feels more than a bit like defeat. The stimulus bill looks helpful but inadequate, especially when combined with a disappointing plan for rescuing the banks. And the politics of the stimulus fight have made nonsense of Mr. Obama’s postpartisan dreams.
Let’s start with the politics.
One might have expected Republicans to act at least slightly chastened in these early days of the Obama administration, given both their drubbing in the last two elections and the economic debacle of the past eight years.
But it’s now clear that the party’s commitment to deep voodoo — enforced, in part, by pressure groups that stand ready to run primary challengers against heretics — is as strong as ever. In both the House and the Senate, the vast majority of Republicans rallied behind the idea that the appropriate response to the abject failure of the Bush administration’s tax cuts is more Bush-style tax cuts.
And the rhetorical response of conservatives to the stimulus plan — which will, it’s worth bearing in mind, cost substantially less than either the Bush administration’s $2 trillion in tax cuts or the $1 trillion and counting spent in Iraq — has bordered on the deranged.
It’s “generational theft,” said Senator John McCain, just a few days after voting for tax cuts that would, over the next decade, have cost about four times as much.
It’s “destroying my daughters’ future. It is like sitting there watching my house ransacked by a gang of thugs,” said Arnold Kling of the Cato Institute.
And the ugliness of the political debate matters because it raises doubts about the Obama administration’s ability to come back for more if, as seems likely, the stimulus bill proves inadequate.
For while Mr. Obama got more or less what he asked for, he almost certainly didn’t ask for enough. We’re probably facing the worst slump since the Great Depression. The Congressional Budget Office, not usually given to hyperbole, predicts that over the next three years there will be a $2.9 trillion gap between what the economy could produce and what it will actually produce. And $800 billion, while it sounds like a lot of money, isn’t nearly enough to bridge that chasm.
Officially, the administration insists that the plan is adequate to the economy’s need. But few economists agree. And it’s widely believed that political considerations led to a plan that was weaker and contains more tax cuts than it should have — that Mr. Obama compromised in advance in the hope of gaining broad bipartisan support. We’ve just seen how well that worked.
Now, the chances that the fiscal stimulus will prove adequate would be higher if it were accompanied by an effective financial rescue, one that would unfreeze the credit markets and get money moving again. But the long-awaited announcement of the Obama administration’s plans on that front, which also came this week, landed with a dull thud.
The plan sketched out by Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, wasn’t bad, exactly. What it was, instead, was vague. It left everyone trying to figure out where the administration was really going. Will those public-private partnerships end up being a covert way to bail out bankers at taxpayers’ expense? Or will the required “stress test” act as a back-door route to temporary bank nationalization (the solution favored by a growing number of economists, myself included)?
Nobody knows.
Over all, the effect was to kick the can down the road. And that’s not good enough. So far the Obama administration’s response to the economic crisis is all too reminiscent of Japan in the 1990s: a fiscal expansion large enough to avert the worst, but not enough to kick-start recovery; support for the banking system, but a reluctance to force banks to face up to their losses. It’s early days yet, but we’re falling behind the curve.
And I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach — a feeling that America just isn’t rising to the greatest economic challenge in 70 years. The best may not lack all conviction, but they seem alarmingly willing to settle for half-measures. And the worst are, as ever, full of passionate intensity, oblivious to the grotesque failure of their doctrine in practice.
There’s still time to turn this around. But Mr. Obama has to be stronger looking forward. Otherwise, the verdict on this crisis might be that no, we can’t.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 12, 2009
By any normal political standards, this week’s Congressional agreement on an economic stimulus package was a great victory for President Obama. He got more or less what he asked for: almost $800 billion to rescue the economy, with most of the money allocated to spending rather than tax cuts. Break out the Champagne!
Or maybe not. These aren’t normal times, so normal political standards don’t apply: Mr. Obama’s victory feels more than a bit like defeat. The stimulus bill looks helpful but inadequate, especially when combined with a disappointing plan for rescuing the banks. And the politics of the stimulus fight have made nonsense of Mr. Obama’s postpartisan dreams.
Let’s start with the politics.
One might have expected Republicans to act at least slightly chastened in these early days of the Obama administration, given both their drubbing in the last two elections and the economic debacle of the past eight years.
But it’s now clear that the party’s commitment to deep voodoo — enforced, in part, by pressure groups that stand ready to run primary challengers against heretics — is as strong as ever. In both the House and the Senate, the vast majority of Republicans rallied behind the idea that the appropriate response to the abject failure of the Bush administration’s tax cuts is more Bush-style tax cuts.
And the rhetorical response of conservatives to the stimulus plan — which will, it’s worth bearing in mind, cost substantially less than either the Bush administration’s $2 trillion in tax cuts or the $1 trillion and counting spent in Iraq — has bordered on the deranged.
It’s “generational theft,” said Senator John McCain, just a few days after voting for tax cuts that would, over the next decade, have cost about four times as much.
It’s “destroying my daughters’ future. It is like sitting there watching my house ransacked by a gang of thugs,” said Arnold Kling of the Cato Institute.
And the ugliness of the political debate matters because it raises doubts about the Obama administration’s ability to come back for more if, as seems likely, the stimulus bill proves inadequate.
For while Mr. Obama got more or less what he asked for, he almost certainly didn’t ask for enough. We’re probably facing the worst slump since the Great Depression. The Congressional Budget Office, not usually given to hyperbole, predicts that over the next three years there will be a $2.9 trillion gap between what the economy could produce and what it will actually produce. And $800 billion, while it sounds like a lot of money, isn’t nearly enough to bridge that chasm.
Officially, the administration insists that the plan is adequate to the economy’s need. But few economists agree. And it’s widely believed that political considerations led to a plan that was weaker and contains more tax cuts than it should have — that Mr. Obama compromised in advance in the hope of gaining broad bipartisan support. We’ve just seen how well that worked.
Now, the chances that the fiscal stimulus will prove adequate would be higher if it were accompanied by an effective financial rescue, one that would unfreeze the credit markets and get money moving again. But the long-awaited announcement of the Obama administration’s plans on that front, which also came this week, landed with a dull thud.
The plan sketched out by Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, wasn’t bad, exactly. What it was, instead, was vague. It left everyone trying to figure out where the administration was really going. Will those public-private partnerships end up being a covert way to bail out bankers at taxpayers’ expense? Or will the required “stress test” act as a back-door route to temporary bank nationalization (the solution favored by a growing number of economists, myself included)?
Nobody knows.
Over all, the effect was to kick the can down the road. And that’s not good enough. So far the Obama administration’s response to the economic crisis is all too reminiscent of Japan in the 1990s: a fiscal expansion large enough to avert the worst, but not enough to kick-start recovery; support for the banking system, but a reluctance to force banks to face up to their losses. It’s early days yet, but we’re falling behind the curve.
And I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach — a feeling that America just isn’t rising to the greatest economic challenge in 70 years. The best may not lack all conviction, but they seem alarmingly willing to settle for half-measures. And the worst are, as ever, full of passionate intensity, oblivious to the grotesque failure of their doctrine in practice.
There’s still time to turn this around. But Mr. Obama has to be stronger looking forward. Otherwise, the verdict on this crisis might be that no, we can’t.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Lincoln's Birthday (2)
Lincoln would have been 200 today! From what I have read, I think it is accurate to say that had it not been for Lincoln, the United States as we know it today would not exist. Had William Seward been elected---he was the favorite to win the Republican nomination in 1860 but Lincoln won the nomination instead---he would have compromised with Confederate States of America and we would have had 2 separate countries. The two countries might have reunited later, but I don't think so. Imagine what world history would have been like if the U.S. as we know it today had been split in the 19th century. Abraham Lincoln is the most consequential American after only George Washington (we might have not had a country to start with were it not for Washington).
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Lincoln's Birthday
As we approach and move past Thursday, the magic day of Lincoln's 200th birthday, I will offer various comments on our 16th President. I will indicate the books and questions that interest me, and I will mention the questions about Lincoln that do NOT interest me. First, what does not interest me concerning Lincoln.
First of all, I notice that many books, most in recent years, have been written about the Lincoln marriage. This subject does not interest me. I merely note in passing Herndon's negative opinion of Mary Lincoln, and the fact that most historians have followed suit in dismissing her.
In some quarters we hear the refrain "What would Lincoln do?" Maybe the question is asked about the current economic crisis. I am not interested in what Lincoln would do. Lincoln lived in a different America in a different time and such a question is fruitless.
James McPherson has a new book on Lincoln the military commander. This is not for me. I do not care for military history. Suffice it to say that Lincoln did come to a view that the South had to submit to unconditional surrender. The process that led Lincoln to this view is of interest, but not the military strategy that brought it about.
Lincoln's religious views do not interest me. That is because the question of Lincoln's exact views on religion seems to be an unanswerable question with views all over the place; thus, I dismiss the issue.
First of all, I notice that many books, most in recent years, have been written about the Lincoln marriage. This subject does not interest me. I merely note in passing Herndon's negative opinion of Mary Lincoln, and the fact that most historians have followed suit in dismissing her.
In some quarters we hear the refrain "What would Lincoln do?" Maybe the question is asked about the current economic crisis. I am not interested in what Lincoln would do. Lincoln lived in a different America in a different time and such a question is fruitless.
James McPherson has a new book on Lincoln the military commander. This is not for me. I do not care for military history. Suffice it to say that Lincoln did come to a view that the South had to submit to unconditional surrender. The process that led Lincoln to this view is of interest, but not the military strategy that brought it about.
Lincoln's religious views do not interest me. That is because the question of Lincoln's exact views on religion seems to be an unanswerable question with views all over the place; thus, I dismiss the issue.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Ben & Jerry's George W. Bush ice cream
Ben and Jerry's is coming out with a GWB ice cream. What to call it? Here are some possibilities.
Grape Depression
Abu Grape
Cluster Fudge
Iraqi Road
Impeach Cobbler
Guantanmallow
Heck of Job, Brownie!
Necon Politan
Rocky Road to Fascism
Torture and Credit Crunch
Country Pumpkin
The Reese's Cession
Grape Depression
Abu Grape
Cluster Fudge
Iraqi Road
Impeach Cobbler
Guantanmallow
Heck of Job, Brownie!
Necon Politan
Rocky Road to Fascism
Torture and Credit Crunch
Country Pumpkin
The Reese's Cession
Sunday, February 8, 2009
RNC Chair Ronald Steele is an Idiot
If there was ever any doubt that Republicans are complete idiots, the doubt is dispelled by these comments from Ronald Steele, the new chair of the Republican Party, on ABC this morning with George Stephanopoulos.
Read More: George Stephanopoulos, Government Jobs, Jobs Government Proivate Sector, Michael Steele, Private Sector Jobs, Steele Jobs, Steele Work, This Week, Politics News
There is certainly a political debate to be waged over whether or not government spending can effectively create jobs. But in his interview on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Michael Steele seemed to suggest, as he did back in January, that government jobs are not, in fact, really jobs.
Rather, Steele said, government jobs are "just work." (Is work not a job?) The newly-minted RNC Chairman added that when it comes to the private sector, job loss is never permanent.
"They come back though George," said Steele. "That's the point. They've gone away before and they come back."
Stephanopolous did his best to sift through the logic, pointing out that millions of private sector jobs have been lost in just this past year.
Earlier in the interview, Steele acknowledged that the government can create "work" in the short-term. But the notion that this type of spending could spur economic growth -- whether in advancing environmentally friendly industries or through the filter down of more infrastructure -- was dismissed out of hand by Steele.
"These road projects we're talking about have an end point," he said. "As a small business owner, I'm looking to grow my business, expand my business. I want to reach further. I want to be international. I want to be national. It's a whole different perspective on how you create a job, versus how you create work...
"I guess I don't really understand
the distinction," said Stephanopolous.
"Well, the distinction is this," replied Steele. "If you got a government contract that's a fixed period of time it goes away. The work may go away. There's no guarantee that there's going to be more work when you're done with that job."
Story continues below
Transcript:
STEELE: You've got to look at what's going to create sustainable jobs. What this administration is talking about is making work. It is creating work.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But that's a job.
STEELE: No, it's not a job. A job is something that -- that a business owner creates. It's going to be long term. What he's creating...
STEPHANOPOULOS: So a job doesn't count if it's a government job?
(CROSSTALK)
STEELE: Hold on. No, let me -- let me -- let me finish. That is a contract. It ends at a certain point, George. You know that. These road projects that we're talking about have an end point.
As a small-business owner, I'm looking to grow my business, expand my business. I want to reach further. I want to be international. I want to be national. It's a whole different perspective on how you create a job versus how you create work. And I'm -- either way, the bottom line is...
STEPHANOPOULOS: I guess I don't really understand that distinction.
STEELE: Well, the difference -- the distinction is this. If a government -- if you've got a government contract that is a fixed period of time, it goes away. The work may go away. That's -- there's no guarantee that that -- that there's going to be more work when you're done in that job.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yes, but we've seen millions and millions of jobs going away in the private sector just in the last year.
STEELE: But they come -- yes, they -- and they come back, though, George. That's the point. When they go -- they've gone away before, and they come back.
Read More: George Stephanopoulos, Government Jobs, Jobs Government Proivate Sector, Michael Steele, Private Sector Jobs, Steele Jobs, Steele Work, This Week, Politics News
There is certainly a political debate to be waged over whether or not government spending can effectively create jobs. But in his interview on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Michael Steele seemed to suggest, as he did back in January, that government jobs are not, in fact, really jobs.
Rather, Steele said, government jobs are "just work." (Is work not a job?) The newly-minted RNC Chairman added that when it comes to the private sector, job loss is never permanent.
"They come back though George," said Steele. "That's the point. They've gone away before and they come back."
Stephanopolous did his best to sift through the logic, pointing out that millions of private sector jobs have been lost in just this past year.
Earlier in the interview, Steele acknowledged that the government can create "work" in the short-term. But the notion that this type of spending could spur economic growth -- whether in advancing environmentally friendly industries or through the filter down of more infrastructure -- was dismissed out of hand by Steele.
"These road projects we're talking about have an end point," he said. "As a small business owner, I'm looking to grow my business, expand my business. I want to reach further. I want to be international. I want to be national. It's a whole different perspective on how you create a job, versus how you create work...
"I guess I don't really understand
the distinction," said Stephanopolous.
"Well, the distinction is this," replied Steele. "If you got a government contract that's a fixed period of time it goes away. The work may go away. There's no guarantee that there's going to be more work when you're done with that job."
Story continues below
Transcript:
STEELE: You've got to look at what's going to create sustainable jobs. What this administration is talking about is making work. It is creating work.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But that's a job.
STEELE: No, it's not a job. A job is something that -- that a business owner creates. It's going to be long term. What he's creating...
STEPHANOPOULOS: So a job doesn't count if it's a government job?
(CROSSTALK)
STEELE: Hold on. No, let me -- let me -- let me finish. That is a contract. It ends at a certain point, George. You know that. These road projects that we're talking about have an end point.
As a small-business owner, I'm looking to grow my business, expand my business. I want to reach further. I want to be international. I want to be national. It's a whole different perspective on how you create a job versus how you create work. And I'm -- either way, the bottom line is...
STEPHANOPOULOS: I guess I don't really understand that distinction.
STEELE: Well, the difference -- the distinction is this. If a government -- if you've got a government contract that is a fixed period of time, it goes away. The work may go away. That's -- there's no guarantee that that -- that there's going to be more work when you're done in that job.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yes, but we've seen millions and millions of jobs going away in the private sector just in the last year.
STEELE: But they come -- yes, they -- and they come back, though, George. That's the point. When they go -- they've gone away before, and they come back.
Lincoln Says (2)
"When I read aloud two senses catch the idea: first, I see what I read; second, I hear it, and therefore I can remember it better."
-Abraham Lincoln from The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln edited by Bob Blaisdell
-Abraham Lincoln from The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln edited by Bob Blaisdell
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Playing With Fire
BY Bob Herbert
New York Times
February 6, 2009
It was good to see the president, ordinarily so cool, so accommodating, exhibiting some real fire the other night. It seems to have done some good.
With the economy in deep, deep trouble, and Americans suffering by the tens of millions, the Republicans spent much of the week doing their same-old, bad-faith Neanderthal two-step: trying their best to derail the economic stimulus package working its difficult way through Congress.
“This bill is stinking up the place,” said Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina who not only opposed the legislation but wanted to make sure that no one would mistake him for a class act.
One of the goals of the package, of course, is to begin cleaning up the holy mess that resulted from the long, dark night of G.O.P. control in Washington. President Obama went out of his way to get a substantial number of Republicans to make a genuine effort to move the economic revitalization process along, but was rebuffed, and in some cases contemptuously.
On Thursday night, he struck back, attacking Republican intransigence and its failed policies of the past. On Friday morning, with the government reporting that nearly 600,000 more jobs had been lost in January, the president went public again, stressing how irresponsible it would be to do nothing in the face of the growing crisis.
Neither the job losses nor the president’s prodding was enough to prompt much of a response from the Republicans. But by Friday evening, it appeared that a small number of G.O.P. senators, enough to assure Senate passage of a revised (and watered-down) stimulus package by a very slim margin, had come aboard.
But only a small number. Even as the report of an agreement was being circulated, Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, was bad-mouthing the package on CNN. “This bill is a disaster,” he said.
It’s been clear for years that the G.O.P. is a party without a heart. But its pointless obstructionism, its overall lack of any serious response to what is a clear national economic emergency, seems to indicate it’s also a party without a brain.
Republicans in Washington have behaved like a milling crowd standing in the way of firefighters trying to respond to a devastating blaze. The best that can be said for the party is that a few senators seem to have been able part the crowd enough to let the rescuers begin to inch forward.
President Obama addressed Republican inflexibility on Thursday night when he said at a gathering in Williamsburg, Va., “Don’t come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis.” He added that without swift action on the stimulus bill, “an economy that is already in crisis will be faced with catastrophe.”
The report of January’s enormous job losses came roughly a dozen hours later. It was the latest in a long and hideous pattern of employment woes, much of it resulting from the G.O.P.’s obsession with destructive supply-side economic voodoo.
On the front page of The Times on Friday was an article that said the number of women on the nation’s payrolls is poised to pass that of men for the first time in American history. This is not because women have been doing so well, but because men have been doing so poorly.
As I was reading the article, I thought of all the guys who used to listen to Rush Limbaugh while driving to or from work but are now tuning in from their living rooms because the benefits of the G.O.P.’s right-wing, tax-cutting ideology never trickled down to them and they are now jobless.
“Since the start of the recession,” as Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, points out, “the U.S. economy has shed more jobs than the total population of Chicago.”
The Republicans still don’t get it. Most act as if they don’t understand that in this radical economic downturn the demand for goods and services has fallen off a cliff, and that government spending is needed — and needed quickly — to replace a large portion of that lost demand.
The goal is twofold: to alleviate some of the enormous suffering (something that is easily understood if you have a heart), and to revive the battered economy (equally easy to understand by anyone with a brain).
Senator John McCain echoed many of his Republican colleagues on Friday when he indignantly asserted, “This is not a stimulus bill; it is a spending bill.”
It was an objection that had been addressed by an incredulous President Obama on Thursday night. “What do you think a stimulus is?” the president asked, his voice rising. Spending, he said — to laughter from his audience — “is the whole point.”
New York Times
February 6, 2009
It was good to see the president, ordinarily so cool, so accommodating, exhibiting some real fire the other night. It seems to have done some good.
With the economy in deep, deep trouble, and Americans suffering by the tens of millions, the Republicans spent much of the week doing their same-old, bad-faith Neanderthal two-step: trying their best to derail the economic stimulus package working its difficult way through Congress.
“This bill is stinking up the place,” said Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina who not only opposed the legislation but wanted to make sure that no one would mistake him for a class act.
One of the goals of the package, of course, is to begin cleaning up the holy mess that resulted from the long, dark night of G.O.P. control in Washington. President Obama went out of his way to get a substantial number of Republicans to make a genuine effort to move the economic revitalization process along, but was rebuffed, and in some cases contemptuously.
On Thursday night, he struck back, attacking Republican intransigence and its failed policies of the past. On Friday morning, with the government reporting that nearly 600,000 more jobs had been lost in January, the president went public again, stressing how irresponsible it would be to do nothing in the face of the growing crisis.
Neither the job losses nor the president’s prodding was enough to prompt much of a response from the Republicans. But by Friday evening, it appeared that a small number of G.O.P. senators, enough to assure Senate passage of a revised (and watered-down) stimulus package by a very slim margin, had come aboard.
But only a small number. Even as the report of an agreement was being circulated, Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, was bad-mouthing the package on CNN. “This bill is a disaster,” he said.
It’s been clear for years that the G.O.P. is a party without a heart. But its pointless obstructionism, its overall lack of any serious response to what is a clear national economic emergency, seems to indicate it’s also a party without a brain.
Republicans in Washington have behaved like a milling crowd standing in the way of firefighters trying to respond to a devastating blaze. The best that can be said for the party is that a few senators seem to have been able part the crowd enough to let the rescuers begin to inch forward.
President Obama addressed Republican inflexibility on Thursday night when he said at a gathering in Williamsburg, Va., “Don’t come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis.” He added that without swift action on the stimulus bill, “an economy that is already in crisis will be faced with catastrophe.”
The report of January’s enormous job losses came roughly a dozen hours later. It was the latest in a long and hideous pattern of employment woes, much of it resulting from the G.O.P.’s obsession with destructive supply-side economic voodoo.
On the front page of The Times on Friday was an article that said the number of women on the nation’s payrolls is poised to pass that of men for the first time in American history. This is not because women have been doing so well, but because men have been doing so poorly.
As I was reading the article, I thought of all the guys who used to listen to Rush Limbaugh while driving to or from work but are now tuning in from their living rooms because the benefits of the G.O.P.’s right-wing, tax-cutting ideology never trickled down to them and they are now jobless.
“Since the start of the recession,” as Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, points out, “the U.S. economy has shed more jobs than the total population of Chicago.”
The Republicans still don’t get it. Most act as if they don’t understand that in this radical economic downturn the demand for goods and services has fallen off a cliff, and that government spending is needed — and needed quickly — to replace a large portion of that lost demand.
The goal is twofold: to alleviate some of the enormous suffering (something that is easily understood if you have a heart), and to revive the battered economy (equally easy to understand by anyone with a brain).
Senator John McCain echoed many of his Republican colleagues on Friday when he indignantly asserted, “This is not a stimulus bill; it is a spending bill.”
It was an objection that had been addressed by an incredulous President Obama on Thursday night. “What do you think a stimulus is?” the president asked, his voice rising. Spending, he said — to laughter from his audience — “is the whole point.”
Friday, February 6, 2009
University of Georgia Student Offers Inside Look at the 21st Century Campus
This article gives a peek into how campuses have changed and will continue to change. I wonder if Fred sees campuses the same way. I wonder what he would say about how campuses have changed over the course of job as a book salesman.
Published 5 February 2009
In science-fiction and fantasy books, seers and prognosticators usually are ancient men with white beards down to their knees. They wear cloaks. They carry scepters. Sometimes, they're even wizards.
Andy Homrich, however, is none of those things.
Sure, the jovial 21-year-old is a senior, but he's a senior at the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga., a speech communication major, and a student with everyday, on-the-ground experience with the various social networking, Web 2.0 and wireless technologies as components of a 21st Century Campus.
On a daily basis, even before he comes to campus, Homrich says he uses a SmartPhone, his laptop, and his iPod. He notes that over the past two years, he can count on one hand the days that he has not gone online at least once. Much of this daily online activity surrounds checking multiple email accounts, podcasting, Facebook and world and sporting news sites.
Of course, Homrich, who is a Field Sales intern for CDW-G, also regularly logs onto his school's learning management system to complete coursework.
Still, from Homrich's perspective—the perspective of someone who has lived, eaten and
breathed the 21st Century Campus for the last four years —the campus of tomorrow must incorporate a much broader array of technology in order to be successful.
"The 21st Century Campus is one that is not limited to the confines of a physical space, but instead is more about technology that allows you to experience class work outside the classroom," he says. "It's less about in-class media and more about media that enables students to turn any situation into a place they can learn."
Specifically, at least from Homrich's point of view, these technologies should facilitate:
§ Easy information gathering (class slides, lecture notes and Web-based articles)
§ Instant feedback (assessment tools, chat/email with instructors)
§ Collaboration with classmates (discussion boards, shared workspaces, wikis)
Already, at least at the University of Georgia, in-class technology use is pretty high. Homrich reports that most of his instructors use projectors for PowerPoints and occasional media. In addition, students use laptops during class to take notes, download lecture slides and look up supplemental material online.
Furthermore, in Homrich's experience, about 75 percent of classes use WebCT or Blackboard for online course collaboration and communication.
Still, at least according to the CDW-G 21st Century Campus Study released late last year, there's always room for improvement. The study collected replies from 1,007 student, faculty and IT staff respondents, and indicated that when ranked by an index of 20 different factors, the average U.S. post-secondary institution scored in the mid-range (46.08 out of 100) on technology integration.
One area the survey targeted for improvement is educator use of technology; though 85 percent of all responding faculty members said their institutions provide IT training, 44 percent say they don't know how to use the technology.
While Homrich estimates that nearly two-thirds of his professors at the University of Georgia actually had a refreshing command of the latest classroom technology, he noted that there were always professors who shied away from technology because they were uncomfortable utilizing the technology in the classroom.
"When a teacher just does not use technology in the classroom, I personally am frustrated," he says.
Another area with room for improvement: communication. The CDW-G survey indicated that higher education students want regular and immediate communication with professors, but only 23 percent of IT professionals say their campuses offer it.
Homrich says the ability for students to communicate with educators electronically could revolutionize the age-old concept of "office hours," and would be particularly useful for commuter students with disparate schedules who have trouble getting to campus for large chunks of time.
"Anything to make life easier," he says.
Still, as Homrich prepares to move from the world of higher education into the workforce, he looks back on his tenure at the University of Georgia and admits that the 21st Century Campus has come a long way. When he visited the school as a pre-freshman in 2005, he was impressed with the school's ID cards, hand-scanners, digital signage and wireless connectivity.
"They've gotten better tenfold over my tenure," he notes of these technologies. "No matter how you look at it, those are steps in the right direction."
http://www.campustechnology.com/21stcenturyskills
Published 5 February 2009
In science-fiction and fantasy books, seers and prognosticators usually are ancient men with white beards down to their knees. They wear cloaks. They carry scepters. Sometimes, they're even wizards.
Andy Homrich, however, is none of those things.
Sure, the jovial 21-year-old is a senior, but he's a senior at the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga., a speech communication major, and a student with everyday, on-the-ground experience with the various social networking, Web 2.0 and wireless technologies as components of a 21st Century Campus.
On a daily basis, even before he comes to campus, Homrich says he uses a SmartPhone, his laptop, and his iPod. He notes that over the past two years, he can count on one hand the days that he has not gone online at least once. Much of this daily online activity surrounds checking multiple email accounts, podcasting, Facebook and world and sporting news sites.
Of course, Homrich, who is a Field Sales intern for CDW-G, also regularly logs onto his school's learning management system to complete coursework.
Still, from Homrich's perspective—the perspective of someone who has lived, eaten and
breathed the 21st Century Campus for the last four years —the campus of tomorrow must incorporate a much broader array of technology in order to be successful.
"The 21st Century Campus is one that is not limited to the confines of a physical space, but instead is more about technology that allows you to experience class work outside the classroom," he says. "It's less about in-class media and more about media that enables students to turn any situation into a place they can learn."
Specifically, at least from Homrich's point of view, these technologies should facilitate:
§ Easy information gathering (class slides, lecture notes and Web-based articles)
§ Instant feedback (assessment tools, chat/email with instructors)
§ Collaboration with classmates (discussion boards, shared workspaces, wikis)
Already, at least at the University of Georgia, in-class technology use is pretty high. Homrich reports that most of his instructors use projectors for PowerPoints and occasional media. In addition, students use laptops during class to take notes, download lecture slides and look up supplemental material online.
Furthermore, in Homrich's experience, about 75 percent of classes use WebCT or Blackboard for online course collaboration and communication.
Still, at least according to the CDW-G 21st Century Campus Study released late last year, there's always room for improvement. The study collected replies from 1,007 student, faculty and IT staff respondents, and indicated that when ranked by an index of 20 different factors, the average U.S. post-secondary institution scored in the mid-range (46.08 out of 100) on technology integration.
One area the survey targeted for improvement is educator use of technology; though 85 percent of all responding faculty members said their institutions provide IT training, 44 percent say they don't know how to use the technology.
While Homrich estimates that nearly two-thirds of his professors at the University of Georgia actually had a refreshing command of the latest classroom technology, he noted that there were always professors who shied away from technology because they were uncomfortable utilizing the technology in the classroom.
"When a teacher just does not use technology in the classroom, I personally am frustrated," he says.
Another area with room for improvement: communication. The CDW-G survey indicated that higher education students want regular and immediate communication with professors, but only 23 percent of IT professionals say their campuses offer it.
Homrich says the ability for students to communicate with educators electronically could revolutionize the age-old concept of "office hours," and would be particularly useful for commuter students with disparate schedules who have trouble getting to campus for large chunks of time.
"Anything to make life easier," he says.
Still, as Homrich prepares to move from the world of higher education into the workforce, he looks back on his tenure at the University of Georgia and admits that the 21st Century Campus has come a long way. When he visited the school as a pre-freshman in 2005, he was impressed with the school's ID cards, hand-scanners, digital signage and wireless connectivity.
"They've gotten better tenfold over my tenure," he notes of these technologies. "No matter how you look at it, those are steps in the right direction."
http://www.campustechnology.com/21stcenturyskills
Thursday, February 5, 2009
More on Sarah Palin
Here is a good piece on the willful ignorance of the followers of Sarah Palin.
04.02.2009
Practical Foolishness
In this post from Tuesday, I described (Sarah-Palin-style) cultural populism as a dead end for the conservative movement. And now, as if right on cue, along comes Yuval Levin in the new issue of Commentary eager to defend Sarah Palin against various "elitist" critics and provide a (nuanced) defense of conservative cultural populism.
Much could be said in response to Levin's argument (and Conor Friedersdorf says much of it here), but I want to focus on what I consider to be its most important aspect -- important both because it resonates with themes in classic works of political philosophy and because it is widely affirmed by many influential conservative intellectuals. Levin writes:
[T]hose who reacted so viscerally against [Sarah Palin] evinced little or no appreciation for an essential premise of democracy: that practical wisdom matters at least as much as formal education, and that leadership can emerge from utterly unexpected places. The concept of practical wisdom (phronesis) derives from Aristotle, who described it as the somewhat mysterious form of insight that guides human beings in applying general principles to particular (and particularly difficult) cases. It helps us to choose the right action in the right way at the right time and in the right circumstances. Moreover, because it involves thinking as well as acting, it unites moral and intellectual virtue at their respective peaks. And as such, it is an exceedingly rare quality.
This is the concept that Levin and other conservatives believe can be used to defend Sarah Palin's fitness for high political office -- which just goes to show the incapacity of even the noblest philosophical idea to resist the universal solvent of American egalitarianism. In the hands of these conservatives, Aristotelian phronesis becomes the gut instinct or brute common sense possessed by plumbers and mayors of small towns in the farthest-flung provinces of the nation -- possessed, in fact, by just about everyone in the United States except for those unlucky enough not to have escaped corruption by an Ivy-League education. For these conservatives, attaining the peak of human judgment requires no prior study of history or philosophy, science or mathematics, literature or the arts. It can be possessed by someone incapable of listing a single book or magazine or newspaper or website she has recently read. And it certainly does not presuppose openness to or curiosity about the world beyond America's borders. Nope, it just takes a wink, some sass, a sexy smile.
Levin is right, of course, that "leadership can emerge from utterly unexpected places." But that doesn't mean it often does. Most of the time, it's better to rely on good, old-fashioned intelligence as our best proxy for practical wisdom. American democracy -- not to mention the Republican Party -- will be much better off once conservatives stop putting their faith in the practical foolishness of would-be populist saviors, and begin once again unapologetically to value, champion, and cultivate the virtues of the mind.
Posted: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 11:52 AM with 1 comment(s)
Comments
04.02.2009
Practical Foolishness
In this post from Tuesday, I described (Sarah-Palin-style) cultural populism as a dead end for the conservative movement. And now, as if right on cue, along comes Yuval Levin in the new issue of Commentary eager to defend Sarah Palin against various "elitist" critics and provide a (nuanced) defense of conservative cultural populism.
Much could be said in response to Levin's argument (and Conor Friedersdorf says much of it here), but I want to focus on what I consider to be its most important aspect -- important both because it resonates with themes in classic works of political philosophy and because it is widely affirmed by many influential conservative intellectuals. Levin writes:
[T]hose who reacted so viscerally against [Sarah Palin] evinced little or no appreciation for an essential premise of democracy: that practical wisdom matters at least as much as formal education, and that leadership can emerge from utterly unexpected places. The concept of practical wisdom (phronesis) derives from Aristotle, who described it as the somewhat mysterious form of insight that guides human beings in applying general principles to particular (and particularly difficult) cases. It helps us to choose the right action in the right way at the right time and in the right circumstances. Moreover, because it involves thinking as well as acting, it unites moral and intellectual virtue at their respective peaks. And as such, it is an exceedingly rare quality.
This is the concept that Levin and other conservatives believe can be used to defend Sarah Palin's fitness for high political office -- which just goes to show the incapacity of even the noblest philosophical idea to resist the universal solvent of American egalitarianism. In the hands of these conservatives, Aristotelian phronesis becomes the gut instinct or brute common sense possessed by plumbers and mayors of small towns in the farthest-flung provinces of the nation -- possessed, in fact, by just about everyone in the United States except for those unlucky enough not to have escaped corruption by an Ivy-League education. For these conservatives, attaining the peak of human judgment requires no prior study of history or philosophy, science or mathematics, literature or the arts. It can be possessed by someone incapable of listing a single book or magazine or newspaper or website she has recently read. And it certainly does not presuppose openness to or curiosity about the world beyond America's borders. Nope, it just takes a wink, some sass, a sexy smile.
Levin is right, of course, that "leadership can emerge from utterly unexpected places." But that doesn't mean it often does. Most of the time, it's better to rely on good, old-fashioned intelligence as our best proxy for practical wisdom. American democracy -- not to mention the Republican Party -- will be much better off once conservatives stop putting their faith in the practical foolishness of would-be populist saviors, and begin once again unapologetically to value, champion, and cultivate the virtues of the mind.
Posted: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 11:52 AM with 1 comment(s)
Comments
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Revolutionary Road
I saw Revolutionary Road. There is much to discuss, more than I can say here. Nonetheless, here is my analysis.
Frank and April want more from their lives. They think that they are special and that they are superior to their friends. However, as Fred suggested, it is not clear what specifically they want for themselves. What is this better future they dream of? What are they striving for? Frank and April offer no answers.
Now, April wanted to be an actress when she was younger, so that must be part of her longing. Frank, though, has no idea what he wants and never did. They both want something different and better, but neither says what that is.
For any marriage to be successful, two people must be ready for marriage. April and Frank were not ready. They married too young and had not lived and experienced enough to settle their own issues and reach the maturity needed for marriage. I even question how much they really love each other. When April tells Frank she does not love him, it might be true.
An important issue in this story is the impact of suburbia. Some would say that living in suburbia is a cause of their troubles. Such a life can be monotonous: every day going to work (in Frank's case, the "dullest job imaginable"), spending time with your kids, always seeing the same people... It is easy to imagine how stifling such a lack of vitality can be. We see it when Frank goes to work, surrounded by the endless stream of men all wearing gray suits. We see it too when April stands at the edge of her lawn and looks down the street at all the same garbage cans dotting the houses next to all the same mailboxes.
While I think that suburbia can frustrate and subdue anyone, I think that suburbia is not a major reason for their troubles. I do not think going to Paris would have helped their marriage. It perhaps would have provided a respite, but their problems would have persisted. Indeed, environment matters, but the sum of their unhappiness is not suburbia's fault alone.
However, it would be interesting to research divorce rates. I wonder if they increased significantly during the 50s as suburbia spread?
Related to the issue of suburbia is the stereotype of the 50s as being about conformity. Certainly, there were societal pressures to adopt a particular way of life. As April observes, when they had their first child, they felt they needed to buy a house and start raising a family. Their second child was to prove the first was not a mistake. Or, when Frank tells his friends that April will support him in Paris, they cannot believe a man would allow such a thing. No doubt, they were expected to conform.
Conformity may be at the heart of their problems. I think they want to rise above being like everyone else. They want to determine for themselves the direction their lives take. I think part of the problem is they are so entangled in society's machinery. They have a family, a job, a house... if they wanted to defy conformity, they should have done it earlier in their lives.
I liken it to Marcus Messner in Roth's Indignation. He too wants to resist conformity and does so. But he is young enough to achieve that triumph, a mere university student with no roots in society like the Wheelers. It is difficult to break free of conformity's claws when you are so entrenched in them.
When April pretends during breakfast that everything is fine, I think she is trying to ignore their problems, as if not acknowledging will make them disappear. This seems to be the way all the characters operate, except John Givings. They see only what they want to see. Complexity is hushed. We see this when Helen Givings says the Wheelers are perfect for their house, then, when the new owners move in, says the same about them and that she actually never really liked the Wheelers. She and the rest are blind to the difficulties around them. The problem for the Wheelers is that they never did ignore their problems, and when they try to over breakfast it is too late: the wounds are too deep to simply forget.
Someone asked me who I sympathize with, Frank or April. Both are unlikable, but I choose April. I dislike Frank more because he is too angry. He pushes April when she needs to be alone. He is more disrespectful.
John Givings is my favorite character. He understands the Wheelers. He sees the "hopelessness and emptiness" of their lives. I think he and the Campbells live vicariously through Frank and April. They too wish they could escape to Paris; they are disappointed when the Wheelers do not go.
I am happy that this is a movie that does not romanticize love. Too many movies portray love as a gooey rainbow; this movie shows that love and marriage are not fairy tales, but painstakingly arduous. There should be more like it.
Frank and April want more from their lives. They think that they are special and that they are superior to their friends. However, as Fred suggested, it is not clear what specifically they want for themselves. What is this better future they dream of? What are they striving for? Frank and April offer no answers.
Now, April wanted to be an actress when she was younger, so that must be part of her longing. Frank, though, has no idea what he wants and never did. They both want something different and better, but neither says what that is.
For any marriage to be successful, two people must be ready for marriage. April and Frank were not ready. They married too young and had not lived and experienced enough to settle their own issues and reach the maturity needed for marriage. I even question how much they really love each other. When April tells Frank she does not love him, it might be true.
An important issue in this story is the impact of suburbia. Some would say that living in suburbia is a cause of their troubles. Such a life can be monotonous: every day going to work (in Frank's case, the "dullest job imaginable"), spending time with your kids, always seeing the same people... It is easy to imagine how stifling such a lack of vitality can be. We see it when Frank goes to work, surrounded by the endless stream of men all wearing gray suits. We see it too when April stands at the edge of her lawn and looks down the street at all the same garbage cans dotting the houses next to all the same mailboxes.
While I think that suburbia can frustrate and subdue anyone, I think that suburbia is not a major reason for their troubles. I do not think going to Paris would have helped their marriage. It perhaps would have provided a respite, but their problems would have persisted. Indeed, environment matters, but the sum of their unhappiness is not suburbia's fault alone.
However, it would be interesting to research divorce rates. I wonder if they increased significantly during the 50s as suburbia spread?
Related to the issue of suburbia is the stereotype of the 50s as being about conformity. Certainly, there were societal pressures to adopt a particular way of life. As April observes, when they had their first child, they felt they needed to buy a house and start raising a family. Their second child was to prove the first was not a mistake. Or, when Frank tells his friends that April will support him in Paris, they cannot believe a man would allow such a thing. No doubt, they were expected to conform.
Conformity may be at the heart of their problems. I think they want to rise above being like everyone else. They want to determine for themselves the direction their lives take. I think part of the problem is they are so entangled in society's machinery. They have a family, a job, a house... if they wanted to defy conformity, they should have done it earlier in their lives.
I liken it to Marcus Messner in Roth's Indignation. He too wants to resist conformity and does so. But he is young enough to achieve that triumph, a mere university student with no roots in society like the Wheelers. It is difficult to break free of conformity's claws when you are so entrenched in them.
When April pretends during breakfast that everything is fine, I think she is trying to ignore their problems, as if not acknowledging will make them disappear. This seems to be the way all the characters operate, except John Givings. They see only what they want to see. Complexity is hushed. We see this when Helen Givings says the Wheelers are perfect for their house, then, when the new owners move in, says the same about them and that she actually never really liked the Wheelers. She and the rest are blind to the difficulties around them. The problem for the Wheelers is that they never did ignore their problems, and when they try to over breakfast it is too late: the wounds are too deep to simply forget.
Someone asked me who I sympathize with, Frank or April. Both are unlikable, but I choose April. I dislike Frank more because he is too angry. He pushes April when she needs to be alone. He is more disrespectful.
John Givings is my favorite character. He understands the Wheelers. He sees the "hopelessness and emptiness" of their lives. I think he and the Campbells live vicariously through Frank and April. They too wish they could escape to Paris; they are disappointed when the Wheelers do not go.
I am happy that this is a movie that does not romanticize love. Too many movies portray love as a gooey rainbow; this movie shows that love and marriage are not fairy tales, but painstakingly arduous. There should be more like it.
Monday, February 2, 2009
The Party of Herbert Hoover Rises Again
Republicans Go Back to Hoover in Response to Obama’s Stimulus Bill
By Matthew Rothschild, January 26, 2009
The Republicans have turned to Herbert Hoover for advice on Obama’s economic recovery plan.
Defying all economic sense since the Great Depression, they’ve dusted off Hoover’s ruinous policies and are now presenting them as fiscal sense.
“Government can’t fix this,” said John Boehner on Meet the Press. “It’s a lot of spending that I just don’t think will work.”
John McCain was reading from the same script to Chris Wallace on Fox. “We're going to lay an additional $2 trillion of debt on future Americans,” he said. “We've got to eliminate the unnecessary spending."
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who gave the Republican response to Obama’s radio address Saturday, stressed “holding the line on spending” and “balancing the budget.”
To follow this Republican advice would send the economy straight into a depression.
The private sector is shedding jobs by the thousands every day. But Republicans would rather have people be unemployed by the private sector than employed by the public sector. (Rep. Rodgers insisted that every single job that the economic recovery plan creates be in the private sector.)
Only the federal government has the resources to stave off the disaster that will surely befall us if we let the free market take us further over the cliff.
The Republicans keep reiterating Hooverisms.
Why?
Because they’re ideologically bankrupt.
And because worried that Obama’s stimulus may actually work. And they don’t want him—or the Democrats—to get the credit.
As Rush Limbaugh put it on January 23, “Obama’s plan would buy votes for the Democrat Party, in the same way FDR’s New Deal established majority power for 50 years of Democrat rule.”
Limbaugh’s been upfront, saying, “I hope he fails.”
Republican leaders in Congress are not quite that crude.
But they mean the same thing.
By Matthew Rothschild, January 26, 2009
The Republicans have turned to Herbert Hoover for advice on Obama’s economic recovery plan.
Defying all economic sense since the Great Depression, they’ve dusted off Hoover’s ruinous policies and are now presenting them as fiscal sense.
“Government can’t fix this,” said John Boehner on Meet the Press. “It’s a lot of spending that I just don’t think will work.”
John McCain was reading from the same script to Chris Wallace on Fox. “We're going to lay an additional $2 trillion of debt on future Americans,” he said. “We've got to eliminate the unnecessary spending."
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who gave the Republican response to Obama’s radio address Saturday, stressed “holding the line on spending” and “balancing the budget.”
To follow this Republican advice would send the economy straight into a depression.
The private sector is shedding jobs by the thousands every day. But Republicans would rather have people be unemployed by the private sector than employed by the public sector. (Rep. Rodgers insisted that every single job that the economic recovery plan creates be in the private sector.)
Only the federal government has the resources to stave off the disaster that will surely befall us if we let the free market take us further over the cliff.
The Republicans keep reiterating Hooverisms.
Why?
Because they’re ideologically bankrupt.
And because worried that Obama’s stimulus may actually work. And they don’t want him—or the Democrats—to get the credit.
As Rush Limbaugh put it on January 23, “Obama’s plan would buy votes for the Democrat Party, in the same way FDR’s New Deal established majority power for 50 years of Democrat rule.”
Limbaugh’s been upfront, saying, “I hope he fails.”
Republican leaders in Congress are not quite that crude.
But they mean the same thing.
Public Libraries Are Popular These Days
» Links to this article
By Annie GowenWashington Post Staff Writer Monday, February 2, 2009; Page A01
Nearly every study table is full with patrons sipping lattes and surfing the Web. Teens are curled up in easy chairs. In a worried knot by the doorway, job seekers gather around a sign-up station for the Internet, waiting for their turn.
Before the Germantown library opened in 2007, there was hardly any "downtown" to speak of in the Montgomery County community, where houses and strip malls grew before anything else. Now it's an important civic anchor, a main street where none existed, and the busiest library in the county.
In the past few months, it has become even busier. The library, like most in the Washington area, has had a rising tide of users as patrons look for free computer access, DVD loans and activities for children during the recession. Circulation in the last six months of the year rose as much as 23 percent in libraries around the region, records show.
The influx comes just as county managers are preparing budgets for the coming fiscal year in a time of huge shortfalls. Libraries, like other services, face drastic cuts that could mean reducing staff and hours or even shuttering branches.
"It's a cruel irony that use is going up and budget cuts are occurring simultaneously," said Jim Rettig, president of the American Library Association and a librarian at the University of Richmond. "What I think doesn't get enough recognition is the role libraries play in the economic vitality and development of a community."
Cultural soothsayers once thought libraries would become obsolete in the Internet age. Not so. They have modernized, digitized, virtualized.
Patrons can bring their own beverages; Arlington County hopes to add a cafe in one of its branches. They can access databases, read Chinese newspapers or the latest graphic teen novel. Users have more and more access from home; they can text in reference questions to a Fairfax County librarian, for example, or listen to podcasts. Fairfax card holders can read an e-book online. Librarians are trying to tailor services to community needs, hoping to add more babysitting certification classes in Silver Spring or résumé-writing workshops in Prince George's County.
More than 68 percent of American adults now have a library card, the highest number since the ALA began tracking the numbers in 1990.
"One thing I hear quite frequently is 'Gee, it's cheaper to come here than Borders,' " said Nancy Savas, the library manager at Germantown. "It makes me laugh, because we've always been here."
The Germantown library cost $19 million to build three years ago, a civic project emblematic of flush times that would be hard to build today. It has soaring glass windows and a rotunda with a spiral staircase that is supposed to evoke a silo -- and memories of the county's agricultural past, the dairy farms now plowed under. It has the latest bestsellers, 32 computers and Chinese- and Spanish-speaking staff, a necessity in a community where a third of the population is foreign-born.
"You feel like you're almost in a little bit of a cathedral," said Galen Yoder, 63, a Chevy Chase resident who visited the library recently. "The only thing missing is stained glass."
Into the cathedral the seekers come. One middle-aged mom at the information desk was looking for a DVD of a self-help tome, "The Secret," popularized by Oprah Winfrey two years ago. "I'm trying to find myself, the meaning of life, my existence," she whispered.
By Annie GowenWashington Post Staff Writer Monday, February 2, 2009; Page A01
Nearly every study table is full with patrons sipping lattes and surfing the Web. Teens are curled up in easy chairs. In a worried knot by the doorway, job seekers gather around a sign-up station for the Internet, waiting for their turn.
Before the Germantown library opened in 2007, there was hardly any "downtown" to speak of in the Montgomery County community, where houses and strip malls grew before anything else. Now it's an important civic anchor, a main street where none existed, and the busiest library in the county.
In the past few months, it has become even busier. The library, like most in the Washington area, has had a rising tide of users as patrons look for free computer access, DVD loans and activities for children during the recession. Circulation in the last six months of the year rose as much as 23 percent in libraries around the region, records show.
The influx comes just as county managers are preparing budgets for the coming fiscal year in a time of huge shortfalls. Libraries, like other services, face drastic cuts that could mean reducing staff and hours or even shuttering branches.
"It's a cruel irony that use is going up and budget cuts are occurring simultaneously," said Jim Rettig, president of the American Library Association and a librarian at the University of Richmond. "What I think doesn't get enough recognition is the role libraries play in the economic vitality and development of a community."
Cultural soothsayers once thought libraries would become obsolete in the Internet age. Not so. They have modernized, digitized, virtualized.
Patrons can bring their own beverages; Arlington County hopes to add a cafe in one of its branches. They can access databases, read Chinese newspapers or the latest graphic teen novel. Users have more and more access from home; they can text in reference questions to a Fairfax County librarian, for example, or listen to podcasts. Fairfax card holders can read an e-book online. Librarians are trying to tailor services to community needs, hoping to add more babysitting certification classes in Silver Spring or résumé-writing workshops in Prince George's County.
More than 68 percent of American adults now have a library card, the highest number since the ALA began tracking the numbers in 1990.
"One thing I hear quite frequently is 'Gee, it's cheaper to come here than Borders,' " said Nancy Savas, the library manager at Germantown. "It makes me laugh, because we've always been here."
The Germantown library cost $19 million to build three years ago, a civic project emblematic of flush times that would be hard to build today. It has soaring glass windows and a rotunda with a spiral staircase that is supposed to evoke a silo -- and memories of the county's agricultural past, the dairy farms now plowed under. It has the latest bestsellers, 32 computers and Chinese- and Spanish-speaking staff, a necessity in a community where a third of the population is foreign-born.
"You feel like you're almost in a little bit of a cathedral," said Galen Yoder, 63, a Chevy Chase resident who visited the library recently. "The only thing missing is stained glass."
Into the cathedral the seekers come. One middle-aged mom at the information desk was looking for a DVD of a self-help tome, "The Secret," popularized by Oprah Winfrey two years ago. "I'm trying to find myself, the meaning of life, my existence," she whispered.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Obama's Stimulus vs Bush's Tax Cuts (from Paul Krugman)
Breathtaking and staggering
Dean Baker is having some fun with the Washington Post, which keeps looking for superlatives to describe the “staggering”, “breathtaking” expense of the stimulus plan. And Dean is quite right to point out that reasonable estimates of the shortfall in private demand are on the order of three times the $800 billion package. (Jan Hatzius at Goldman, using different methods, arrives at more or less the same number.)
One other comparison worth making, however, is with the Bush tax cuts, which will end up having cost about $2 trillion over the course of a decade — without anything like the economic rationale for the stimulus. Did the Post find this cost staggering? Inquiring minds want to know.
Dean Baker is having some fun with the Washington Post, which keeps looking for superlatives to describe the “staggering”, “breathtaking” expense of the stimulus plan. And Dean is quite right to point out that reasonable estimates of the shortfall in private demand are on the order of three times the $800 billion package. (Jan Hatzius at Goldman, using different methods, arrives at more or less the same number.)
One other comparison worth making, however, is with the Bush tax cuts, which will end up having cost about $2 trillion over the course of a decade — without anything like the economic rationale for the stimulus. Did the Post find this cost staggering? Inquiring minds want to know.
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