The Data Port

The Republicans’ Phony Meme

2011-07-13T10:25:00.002-07:00

There have been a number over the years. “Tax and Spend Democrats,” and “Death Tax” are a couple of examples. About the time “Tax and Spend” was launched the Republicans were slashing tax revenues and borrowing and spending to support our two ruinous wars.

But that was then and this is now.

The latest slogan the Republican word magicians want us to swallow as God’s truth is “Job Killing Tax Increases.” Say that often enough and people will believe that it’s true; that increased federal income will (or has) stifled job creation.

There is not a jot of evidence that this is true. Think a minute, people. No jobs are being created now, when the tax laws are as forgiving as any in the modern industrial world. Forgiving taxation hasn’t done thing to produce jobs. Corporate America is sitting on record amounts of cash and we have 9.2% unemployment.

In the current debt limit debate the Republicans have fought any suggestion of tax reform that would increase revenue by closing loopholes, or removing some selected tax exemptions.

The Republican solution to the debt crisis is to slash expenditures in the area of the social safety net. If they don’t want to raise taxes, let’s cut 200 billion out of the defense budget instead.

Cross Posted from: http://tucsoncitizen.com/dataport

2011-07-03T19:52:00.001-07:00

Independence Day

The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. I love the picnics and fireworks, the parades and marching bands-- but what I love most are the words of the day; the words of Jefferson and Paine, of the founding documents and the passionate speeches.

English is the mother tongue of democracy and no better political prose has ever been written. It’s muscular, direct, clear. It appeals to the mind as well as the heart and it expresses what we are as a nation. When we fall short of its ideals it reminds us what we ought to be.

The movements to deconstruct and reconstruct American history, to reveal the hidden hypocrisies at the heart of the nation’s founding, have tempted some into an attitude of world-weary dismissal of those ideals.

But imperfect men may yet have perfect thoughts, and slave owners may recognize the moral imperative of the rights of man.

On the morning of July 4th I’ll take my coffee out on the patio and read the Declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

These truths are the axioms of our political geometry. The assertion of them is not a scientific proposition, nor the deduction from some simpler or more evident truths. They are the bedrock on which we build a government. They are the commandments of a political faith.

Although all men have these rights, in a material and imperfect world they must be secured to us.

… to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The preamble to the Constitution echoes the theme. The Constitution is written to… establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

Democratic government is not a burden, it is the condition of our liberty. Without it, as Thomas Hobbes earlier observed, we live in a state described as “the war of all against all” and lead lives that are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

Government cannot be left simply in the hands of others, as Thomas Paine reminded his fellow citizens in “The Crisis” (December 1776).

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of men and women.

Not every crisis that our nation faces has the chilling dimensions of that winter in Valley Forge. Some may be purely local, springing up only in our own moral neighborhoods so to speak, but each to some degree requires that we shoulder the responsibility for protecting our fellow citizens’ unalienable rights, and promoting the general welfare.

To fail in this is to be no more than summer soldiers, espousing the right but not defending it.

Circling the interior of the rotunda of the Jefferson Memorial is the following quotation.

I am quoting it from memory, and perhaps I have some single word wrong, but if I do, so be it.

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

This is the great commandment of our political faith. Of course it implies freedom of speech, the press, expression… because a truth thought but not expressed is nothing.

There are other forms that tyranny over the mind can take, subtle, elusive, not always recognized for what they are: Hunger, prejudice and bigotry, poverty, the closing off of access to knowledge, the simple refusal to listen…all of these may stunt or cripple the mind by denying it the conditions to develop fully.

Finally, it is good to keep in mind that we are a country born of revolution.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. .( Jefferson.)

As a nation we might well remember this and take a more understanding and supportive view of other people’s revolutions.

Have a great Fourth of July.

The Republican Party vs The Rest of Us

2011-07-03T16:03:00.002-07:00

There are two stories in today’s Arizona Daily Star that mesh nicely with yesterday’s “Loading Dock Manifesto” post.

The first was on the front page of the business section and headlined. “Recovery is most off-kiter since ’30s.”

Not surprisingly the rich have gotten richer and the rest of us have been done the dirty. There are still 9.1% of us unemployed, but none of the 9.1% happen to be the CEOs of major corporations. .

An associated Press analysis found that the typical CEO of a major company earned $9 million last year, up a fourth.

In the meantime worker’s wages have slipped from where they were in the mid 2000s (64% of the economy) to 57.5 percent and any new jobs being created pay less than the ones that have been lost.

As this wealth-shift has gone on Republican legislators have persisted in their refusal to include tax increases in a program of budget balancing; and at the Federal level they have fought controls on the financial industry whose rascality got us into the recession in the first place.

Have our masters kept an eye out for the welfare of their workers?

Au contraire, mon frere...they have pushed for more tax cuts (the Laugher Principle...they cut taxes and laugh all the way to the bank) and cut the services that constitute the workingman’s safety net.

Mark Dayton, the governor of Minnesota, has shown remarkable courage in digging in against his Republican legislature’s refusal to make tax increases a part of the state’s budget. Absent a new budget the state is now idle.Turn out the lights...for now the party’s over.

The soft-spoken Dayton refuses to cave to the GOP's stance that higher taxes are verboten. Since taking office, he has championed tax hikes on rich Minnesotans - or at least some form of new state revenue - as a necessary part of any solution to closing the state's $5 billion budget deficit.

The Loading Doc Manifesto---John Hyduk

2011-07-03T12:09:00.005-07:00

The Loading Dock Manifesto by John Hyduk

America isn’t long on working-class intellectuals, but surely John Hyduk is one of them...although he would sure be scornful of my calling him one. He’s a working guy who happens to write. Not a lot, not enough to quit his night job on a beverage company loading dock

“You want something higher, a prickly Everyman speaking half-truths to power, go scare up Joe the Plumber. All I know is this: I am a schlub walking a high wire between paydays in steel-toed shoes. And my name is legion.”

His wonderful essay on what the working life is, and its values, was recently published in Esquire.

“I grew up in a blue-collar Cleveland neighborhood, a little bit of Old Europe transplanted onto a bend of the Cuyahoga River. The men — Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, Ukies, Hungarians — were scrappers and needed to be. Their wives stayed home, had gardens and babies, and could see the future in the bottoms of teacups.

I never needed a fortune-teller to see mine. It came shuffling past our porch every evening at 5:25, toting a lunch pail. At eighteen you were swallowed by the python and made your way through the beast like a lump. At the other end was a mill pension, casino trips on a bus charter twice a year, and church bingo every Wednesday.”

You don’t always have work. After losing a job, five months went by before the loading dock job came up.

Once a month I update my résumé. Why, I don't know exactly. When I was looking, five months spent on orange plastic interview chairs, with my livelihood hanging on reliable transportation and a willingness to pee in a stranger's cup, that was the mantra. "Make sure you keep your résumé updated," some hiring clerk would tell me.

So I walk the hall of mirrors. There I am at the beginning — my hair is black and my back is straight, and I'm sliding into my first Ford, heading off to work. "Honky Tonk Women" is on the radio. Then I'm gone, pushing, pulling my way down a tunnel. A page later you look up and that gray-haired daddy o' mine is ... you. That's the working life.

No illusions: The only way I will ever see Paris is on the Travel Channel. I will never taste cassoulet unless they put it on the menu at Sheetz. I'm okay with that. One day you stare into the bathroom mirror and Willie Nelson is staring back at you. I'm okay with that, too.

You tote a lot more to work in a lunch pail than Ring Dings. You pack alimony and autism diagnoses and car notes and the rest of the workingman's grind. Baby needs a new pair of shoes. Also braces, a better school, and a down payment on that spring field trip. And you chew whatever has been dumped on your plate in silence.

You don't go into therapy. You go to work.

Read More: http://www.esquire.com/features/essay/john-hyduk-0511

Gettysburg!

2011-07-01T11:21:00.003-07:00

July 1, 1863

Our correspondent in the field reports the BMI (Bureau of Military Information) has confirmed Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia has crossed the Potomac River and after its march north into Pennsylvania has wheeled east. Units of the rebel Third Corps ( Lt. General A. P. Hill commanding) are approaching Gettysburg.

Two brigades of the Federal First Cavalry Division (Brig.Gen. John Buford commanding) are drawn up to interdict the advancing rebel army. Buford’s two brigades number just under 3,000 men.

With the approach of July Fourth we naturally focus on the great events of 1776 and the Revolutionary War. That war was our great founding conflict.

But less than one hundred years later the nation was to be in another war, as important to the founding and character of our nation as the events of 1776.

We were “engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

The key battle in that war, the one that marked its turning point, was a series of savage engagements fought around the small Pennsylvania town Gettysburg on July 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

One of the great ironies of the war was that Lee didn’t really want to fight the federals there, but on some other ground of his own choosing where he could defeat The Army of The Potomac under Maj. Gen. George Mead. Mead, for his part, had found the battle more or less forced on him (as it was on Lee) when A.P. Hill’s engagement with Buford’s cavalry grew out of hand.

It had been Lee’s hope to defeat federal forces and threaten Washington, forcing the North to recognize The Confederate States of America. Lincoln, for his part wanted Mead to crush the Army of Northern Virginia and pursue it to Richmond, ending the war. Although Gettysburg was a great victory for the North, Mead did not pursue the victory and Lee slipped away back to Virginia.

I’ve been reading two excellent books about Gettysburg as I holed up against the 110 degree heat.

The first, and probably most accessible to the average reader is Michael Shaara’s “The Killer Angels” for which he was awarded the 1975 Pulitzer Prize. This is a novelized but extremely accurate account of the battle told from the perspectives of major participants, among them Chamberlain, Buford, Longstreet, Armistead and Freemantle. Freemantle was a British observer with Lee’s army and Chamberlain was the hero of the Little Round Top defense. A Maine man, he survived serious wounds and lived to become the the Governor of Maine.

The second book is Stephen W. Sears’ “Gettysburg.” This is a serious book of historical scholarship, meticulously researched with detailed notes and bibliography. But don’t let me put you off, in it’s way it’s as much of a page turner as “Killer Angels.”

Gettysburg was a series of engagements which are collectively “the battle.” George Skoch’s maps of the stages of the battle are a big help in visualizing the events. My suggestion is to read Shaara first.

Anarchy and Anarchism

2011-06-24T20:59:00.002-07:00

The English language is rich in words and complex in structure. Pay any attention at all to this richness and complexity and it is a more than adequate medium of expression.

Sadly, in the age of bullet points, run-on sentences, and tweets, this richness and complexity is either lost on, or completely baffles, the average writer.

Often it is with pairs of words that the careless writer has problems. Is it “shall” or “will”? Never mind, I’ll cover my indecision with an apostrophe.

There seems to be an epidemic merging of “valid” with “true” so that we feel free to use one for the other with little understanding of their difference. Validity is a characteristic of arguments; truth is a characteristic of propositions. Consider the following argument:

All celestial bodies are made of cream cheese,

The moon is a celestial body

Therefore the moon is made of cream cheese.

This is a formally valid argument, yet it is false that the moon is made of cream cheese because the major premise is false.

Well, this distinction probably makes no fine difference in the twitter-verse since we all, like, understand one another anyway. By the way, the subjunctive mood is essentially dead...at least amongst the ill-educated...so I wouldn’t worry about that either, if I was you.

Many of the technical terms of political discourse that appear in comment threads are used for little more than an acquired emotional tone. Marxist! Communist! Socialist! Fascist! are epithets thrown at opponents to indicate our disapproval of them. As readers we often wonder whether the commenter understands what they mean, or whether he understands his opponent’s position.

Now, consider “anarchy” and “Anarchism.”

Anarchy (with a small “a”) is the confusion and lack of order that follows on the failure or breakdown of law and government; or it’s confusion or lack of order of any kind.

Anarchism, on the other hand is a philosophy of social organization. There is a confusing wealth of “anarchisms,” however the the core belief of all is that government is a form of tyranny that must be destroyed.

But anarchists are not fools; they recognize that that modern society is complex and that mechanisms for the exchange of goods and services must be established. The Anarcho-Syndicalists, who flourished during the Spanish Civil War, conceived of a society organized from the bottom up through an integrated system of trade unions.

To learn a bit more about this form of anarchism look at this:

Cross-posted from The Data Port

Vibrant, Gannett, and a Reader’s Complaint

2011-06-24T10:41:00.002-07:00

A regular reader of TucsonCitizen.com, and of The Data Port, forwarded us the following letter sent to Editor Mark Evans:

I often read blog on the Tucson Citizen website and have found the use of what appears at first to be links to further knowledge are advertisements of unrelated "stuff". One recognizes the income that might flow from such techniques, but it sure interferes with the manner in which people will desire to use your source for obtaining knowledge which is so generally and readily available elsewhere without such distractions. I doubt I'm the first one to take note of this technique and likely not the first to voice a negative feeling gained by the mis-use of reader's time and attentions. Just count me as one more reader who thinks this is a poor choice for gathering advertising dollars where many better choices exist in harmony with Internet content on a very broad basis.

Just to remind everyone, here’s a quote from the letter Vibrant sent me in response to my complaint about their using my copy for advertising for which I’m not paid.

Can you disable these ads?

Vibrant In-Text Ads are found on over 3,500 premium websites. Some of these websites choose to offer a disable switch. You can find this by going to the website and moving your mouse over a double-underlined word or phrase. Once you see the Vibrant In-Text Ad unit, click on the "?" in the upper right corner. If the website has chosen to offer the disable feature it will be found on this page

I clicked. No disable feature was offered by Gannett.

I have no objection to advertising copy (I’ve written it for pay) and I don’t object to being paid for what I write, which is not the case here at TC.com.

But imagine you’re at the flicks watching a jungle thriller and the hero is under attack by army ants. Suddenly the action stops and a pitchman appears on screen with a fifteen second ad for “Ants-Be-Gone” inserted there by Vibrant In-Film Advertising. How would the producers of the movie feel about that? Really.

As the reader quoted above indicates this in-text advertising nonsense does violence to all the advantages of web 2.0

Cross-posted from http://tucsoncitizen.com/dataport

Good Editors Make Good Writers

2011-06-22T13:35:00.002-07:00

It is the rare writer who doesn’t benefit from the thoughtful attention of his or her editor. Part of what distinguishes TucsonCitizen.com from fully-fledged online newspapers is the absence of editorial supervision.

What gets written here, according to Gannett, are blogs. As bloggers we are independent entities, for whom our publisher accepts no responsibility.

This is not necessarily a good thing.

No assignment editor is pointing us in the direction of a reportorial task and no copy editor is vetting the copy for style or fact. This accounts for the occasionally rackety and unrestrained nature of a good deal of what goes on here.

A case in point is a recent posting over at “The View from Baja Arizona.” I’m a big booster of Hugh Holub’s coverage of the border. That said, this piece could have used the helpful hand of a fair-minded editor.

Holub draws a stark picture of cartel violence and of the apparent inability of the Mexican government to control it. He will eventually ask the sorts of “what is to be done” questions that could stimulate thoughtful debate: Should we make cross-border military incursions? Should we legalize drugs to kill the profit motive?

Fair enough; but first he introduces the question of Aztec human sacrifice and wonders if there may not be something in Mexican cultural history that explains cartel savagery. The implication seems to be that Mexicans are genetically predisposed to violence

And the ‘chit’ hits the fan. An editor might well have pencilled out the Aztecs on the grounds that they are really a distraction from his central concern, or factually dubious. I can hear the editor saying, “It’s the blue pencil or the spike, take your choice.”

Cross-posted from: TucsonCitizen.com

Read Holub’s column here

http://tucsoncitizen.com/view-from-baja-arizona/2011/06/20/drug-cartel-violence-in-mexico-the-aztecs-are-still

Giffords-Kelly Memoir Inked by Scribner

2011-06-21T16:05:00.001-07:00

The New York Times reported today that Scribner, a Simon and Shuster company, will publish Mark and Gabrielle’s memoir.

From the Times article:

“The book will be an account of their courtship, Ms. Giffords’s political career and the attack in Tucson in January that left Ms. Giffords gravely wounded with a gunshot wound to the head, according to a statement from Scribner. “We are deeply honored to publish Mark Kelly’s and Gabby Giffords’ memoir, which will fully unfold the remarkable story of two exceptionally brave public servants,” said Susan Moldow, the publisher of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.”

Mark and Gabby will be assisted in the writing by Jeffrey Zaslow, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal.

Vibrant Replies

2011-06-16T08:16:00.003-07:00

When I discovered Vibrant advertising linked to The Data Port I sent a polite short note to Vibrant. I enquired how I might be paid on a per-hit basis for their use of, and intrusion into, my posts.

My reality principle is perfectly sound. I didn’t really expect an answer...but what the hey! it was worth a shot. I didn’t at the time realize that Gannett, a powerful communications organization was responsible. I assumed that it must be making enough money from a Joint Operating Agreement with the Star to throw a few bucks in our direction.

I received a courteous boilerplate response from Vibrant, part of which follows:

Can you disable these ads?

Vibrant In-Text Ads are found on over 3,500 premium websites. Some of these websites choose to offer a disable switch. You can find this by going to the website and moving your mouse over a double-underlined word or phrase. Once you see the Vibrant In-Text Ad unit, click on the "?" in the upper right corner. If the website has chosen to offer the disable feature it will be found on this page.

I clicked. No disable feature was offered by Gannett.

Official Data Port Disclaimer:

The Data Port does not endorse or guarantee the safety, honesty or reliability of any product or service offered by hot link in the body of a Data Port post. If you wish to follow The Data Port free of these unwanted links please visit us here.

This post will be puzzling to some as I have just started to double post again. For background visit:

http://tucsoncitizen.com/dataport

More Republican Infighting

2010-08-01T19:36:00.002-07:00

Over in Jim Kelly’s cactus patch I read that Jim Deakin may be losing his home. This is a serious enough fault, apparently, to occasion a continuing rant against Deakin’s candidacy for the Republican senatorial nomination.

In fairness to the prickly one he does go on to sympathize with Deakin for the loss of his home.

Wait a minute...is that a tear in the crocodile’s eye?

For earlier comments on political hit pieces click here.

CrossPosted from: http://tucsoncitizen.com/dataport

WikiLeaks and the Afghan War

2010-07-30T20:40:00.002-07:00

It’s been five days since WikiLeaks released the raw intelligence data about the Afghan war.

If you are a true political junky you have probably devoured the reportage by The NY Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel. If you’ve missed any of it I suggest you visit those sites and get caught up. Links below.

There are two questions that can be asked about this huge data dump: Has it done any harm and does it tell us anything about the progress of the war that we (as citizens here at home) didn’t already know?

Let’s talk about the possible damage. On this issue Don Smith, over at Fort Buckley, makes an excellent point. The data dumps revealed the names of numerous Afghan informants upon whom our forces relied. Those informants were ordinary Afghanis and not part of the Afghan government infrastructure...army, police, political officials.

They have now been put in harm’s way and, worse, their reasonable expectation of confidentiality has been damaged...with the result that informants will be less likely to come forward in the future.

It’s argued by some that another source of damage is the fact that these reports reveal something about the response tactics of our forces; something that the Taliban somehow didn’t know. It’s not clear to me that this could be true, since the Taliban have been on the receiving end of those tactics and they’re not dummies.

So what do we at home know that’s new, really new? Not much, with the possible exception of the fact that the enemy now has heat-seeking missiles with which to bring down helicopters. I imagine they’re a bit more sophisticated than the weapons we gave the Mujahidin with which to torment the Russian bear.

For the rest of it, all the leaks do is confirm what we might already have assumed from news reports:

The Taliban are skilled guerilla fighters, whose mobility allows them to offset some of the advantages of heavily mechanized armies. Like all guerilla forces they have the advantage of invisibility, able to melt into the population, like fish in the ocean.

The Afghanis have apparently no real sense of “Nationhood.” Afghanistan is essentially a collection of tribal fiefdoms in which corruption (or what we recognize as corruption) is simply what they recognize as common practice.

Corruption is so commonplace that it became fodder for an American comic strip. Trudeau (Doonesbury) spent a week describing an Afghan commander and his soldiers systematically disassembling an army post and selling it off piecemeal.

Civilian deaths do us no good, and there have been a number of them. I believe that we have made every effort to avoid them. However, in the fog of war, especially in the sort of guerilla war that is Afghanistan, face this fact: These deaths are tragic, but unavoidable.

To the extent that we, as American citizens, continue to support this war, or fail to oppose it, the responsibility for those deaths are yours and mine

Finally, something we knew but didn’t want to face: It is cheaper for the Taliban to fight us than it is for us to fight them. The latest supplemental war funding bill was a shade less than 59 billion dollars. That’s 59,000 million dollars. Since we are planning to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan that figures to almost 2 million dollars a soldier.

Perhaps it’s time for us, as citizens, as voters, to discuss what we really want to do about this war. Nine years is a long time; 1215 deaths and 6773 casualties is a high cost in human suffering; 90 billion dollars (Heritage Foundation estimate through 2010) is a lot of money.

Does the present state of the Afghan war represent success or failure? Ultimately it’s our call.

Here are some links:

Re-posted from Http://tucsoncitizen.com/dataport

Political Hit Pieces

2010-07-28T08:46:00.005-07:00

I’m a big fan of the rough-and-tumble of political debates. When debate becomes character assassination I worry about the consequences for the health of our political system.

I’m sorry, but I’ve about had it with the repeated mailings from the McCain campaign about JD Hayworth. Now I happen to believe that Hayworth has the heart of a scoundrel; but I also believe that once McCain has pointed this out he should move on to outlining plans and programs for the next six years.

Assuming he’s elected, that is...and the rancorous progress of the Republican primary makes that less likely. How many Independents and quietly middle of the road Republicans are going to swallow McCain’s avidity for office? His rejection of hands-across-the aisle cooperation with Democrats in the interest of what’s good for the nation? The loss of his fabled status as a “maverick?” Your guess is as good as mine.

By the same token he has probably put paid to Hayworth’s chances, which leaves the Republican Party in bad shape.

And what about the third wheel in the campaign, Jim Deakin? He’s despised by the Hayworth supporters, because they are afraid he will take votes from Hayworth and hand the primary to McCain.

Frankly I can’t see a nickel’s worth of difference between the Tea Party convictions of any of them. Why not vote for Deakin?

The Tea Party conservatives are as interested in defeating McCain (in the primary) as his potential Democratic opponents would be (in the general.) For the sake of defeating McCain they are willing to risk sacrificing a Senate seat.

Before this primary season I’d have bet the farm on the proposition that no Democrat would be able to defeat McCain. But now the Democrats have a field of talented and aggressive candidates, any one of whom could defeat Hayworth or Deakin; and any one of whom stands a great chance of beating McCain, should he survive the primary.

Hard times ahead for the Republican Party.

Cross-posted to tucsoncitizen.com/dataport

Primary Early Voting Begins Thursday

2010-07-27T08:56:00.003-07:00

(Independents Welcome)

Not that anyone will notice, since that’s the day when SB 1070 becomes active and we’ll all be riveted by the events of the day. Still, the events surrounding “1070 Day” may wake you from political lethargy to the point that you’d want to vote.

It’s important to remember that Independents may vote in any of the four primaries...Republican, Democratic, Green or Libertarian. All you have to do is ask.

There are plenty of reasons for Independents to shoulder in to one of the four primaries. If there are no contests in the party you secretly favor you may want to nip over into the opposition primary and vote for the “weakest” opposition candidate.

Of course you may secretly favor a party in which there are a number of contestants in a race and you want to vote for your favorite.

Don’t forget there are races for more than state and national legislators. Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Corporation Commission, among others. You may want to cast a ballot to deny some whacko a chance of election.

During early voting there are two ways of requesting an early ballot.

You may contact the Pima County Recorder on line and request an early ballot. To do that, click here.

(http://www.recorder.pima.gov/earlyballot/default.aspx).

You may also request a ballot by phone: 520-740-4330

If you would prefer to cast a ballot in person a number of polling places will be available. These are listed here, click.

(http://www.recorder.pima.gov/ev_sites.aspx)

Cross-Posted from TucsonCitizen.com/dataport

Concealed Carry

2010-07-25T09:47:00.003-07:00

I don’t really have a dog in this fight. Back in my pistol-shooting days I’d just drop my holstered weapon into a saddle bag and ride off; but I’m not shooting any longer.

As I’ve aged I do occasionally carry a walking stick and I wonder if now I might not carry my quite elegant sword cane. Clearly a weapon and clearly concealed.

Perhaps it was the coming change in our laws that helped call attention to the bumper sticker I saw yesterday:

ARIZONA
Armed and Uneducated

Reposted from The Data Port at TucsonCitizen.com

April's Fools

2010-04-01T12:00:00.003-07:00

Yesterday the Republican majority in the state legislature voted to join 14 other states in a courageous battle to keep health care for Arizonans from being forced down their throats.

Here are some examples of the incisive Republican analysis of the dangers of health care reform, as reported in the Arizona Republic:

Rep. Ray Barnes, R-Phoenix, said the health-care law is a death sentence for elderly Americans because, he predicted, it will lead to rationed care.

Apparently Barnes wants to return to the good old days when 30 million Americans had their health care rationed into near non-existence by their inability to buy insurance.

"This really is about much more than health care, and much more than cost," said House Health Committee Chairwoman Nancy Barto, R-Phoenix. "It's about freedom."

The federal law, she said, gives Washington, D.C., complete control of health-care decisions.

No...federal law leaves almost complete control of health-care decisions in the hands of the insurance industry.

The loopiest justification of the the proposed legal attack on health care reform comes from Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise:

“We're seeking to protect the citizens from this unconstitutional socialism that is under way. The socialists of today are only a gun confiscation away from the communists of tomorrow.”

Wow! How’s that for a slippery slope? Insurance by private corporations...to socialism...to gun confiscation...to communism.

Oh, comrades, if only it were that simple.

Cross Posted from TucsonCitizen.com

A Short Note on Coffee

2010-03-30T09:23:00.002-07:00

I’ve just finished reading “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” and “The Girl Who Played With Fire,” the first two novels in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium-series trilogy about Lisbeth Salander.

Assuming that Larsson’s picture of daily life in Sweden is true, the Swedes are close to the world’s champion coffee drinkers. Of course it may be that a world filled with journalists, cops, and a quirky little girl hacker...the fascinating Lisbeth Salander...isn’t perfectly reflective of the quotidian life of the average Swede. But I don’t think so.

I’ve always thought that Americans were the most devoted coffee drinkers, but the United States annually consumes 4.2 kilograms of coffee per capita; the Swedes top out at 8.2 kilograms per capita. (Incidentally the Finns seem to be the champs, at 12 Kilograms per person...I wonder why.)

Still, we undoubtedly do a lot coffee drinking and that makes me wonder why so much of it is so bad. It’s heresy, I know, but we drink an awful lot of bad coffee...a kind of watery brown fluid which you might not recognize as coffee blindfolded. A decent cup of restaurant coffee is rare.

One reason may be that we make our coffee too weak, which might explain why Swedes apparently use twice as much coffee in their cup of Joe as we do. And why devoted coffee drinkers go to specialty coffee houses.

Fun coffee statistics here

Read about Stieg Larsson here.

Cross Posted from Tucson Citizen

Protests at Giffords’ District 8 Office

2010-03-17T09:14:00.003-07:00

The folks who are absolutely enchanted with their current health care plans are out in force jamming the phone lines, honking horns and demanding that things remain exactly as they are.

God help any member of Congress who tampers with the wonderfulness of things as they are! I’m sure they believe that such rational arguments as horn honks and sign waving are going to change someone’s mind.

I know it’s small-minded of me, but I’d like to know exactly what it is about the current state of health insurance that they love.

Is it being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions? Is it having insurance arbitrarily cancelled? Oh, I bet it’s the “donut hole” in their drug coverage. You know, the time you have to pay full-pop for your drugs.

If they’re self-employed, or don’t have insurance with their jobs, I guess they don’t want to have tax credits for the health insurance they buy for themselves. Having tax credits ‘forced down their throats’ would be simply dreadful. And of course it would be terrible to be able to keep their kids on their health insurance until the kids were out in the job market and getting their own insurance.

Cross-posted to Tucson Citizen.

Blogging Thru A Glass Darkly

2010-03-17T08:04:00.003-07:00

In my own case, thru vision changes following cataract surgery, which gave with one hand while it took away with the other. It meant that for a while my computer keyboard looked like it was being viewed trough the bottom of a Coca Cola bottle. That, and not boredom, explains a light writing schedule here at the Data Port.

Happily things are on the mend.

House keeping note: The Data Port is cross-posted from the Tucson Citizen.

Democrats and Republicans: Living in Different Universes

2010-03-05T16:21:00.002-07:00

In today’s NY Times column Paul Krugman takes a quick look back at the Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky) delay of the extension of unemployment benefits; and to our own Jon Kyl’s well-reported case of foot-in-mouth disease.

His conclusion is that the gap between the intellectual and moral universes of the two parties, however it has come about, is so great that it puts paid to the possibility of bi-partisanship.

Once again Kyl illustrates the difference. Krugman writes:

Consider, in particular, the position that Mr. Kyl has taken on a proposed bill that would extend unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for the jobless for the rest of the year. Republicans will block that bill, said Mr. Kyl, unless they get a “path forward fairly soon” on the estate tax.

Now, the House has already passed a bill that, by exempting the assets of couples up to $7 million, would leave 99.75 percent of estates tax-free. But that doesn’t seem to be enough for Mr. Kyl; he’s willing to hold up desperately needed aid to the unemployed on behalf of the remaining 0.25 percent. That’s a very clear statement of priorities.

Read Krugman Here

************************

Meanwhile, up at the state legislature, the Solons have struck another blow for the well to do. They have rejected the idea of limiting tax-credited gifts to private and parochial schools to poor and middle income families.

Well, hey, that’s fair isn’t it? Just because we can afford to give a thousand bucks to the grandkids’ private school why should we be denied our thousand buck credit against state income taxes?

As the law now stands I can “recommend” that my gift be for the benefit of a particular child. Lawmakers rejected a proposal to outlaw this practice.

This whole tax-credit hustle steals funding from the state budget that ought go to the improvement of public education.

This subtle shift from public to private education simply means that we are moving toward a two-tiered education system: Education for the rich and education for the poor.

(Cross-posted from TucsonCitizen.com)

Arizona Senate Votes to Lease State Parks

2010-03-04T15:25:00.003-07:00

As a strategy to avoid closing state parks the Senate has okayed a bill to lease state parks to private concessionaires.

In addition to enabling the leasing of state parks the bill outlines what may be in the proposals submitted by potential vendors:

Requests for proposals shall be broadly construed to allow for:

1. One hundred per cent privately funded parks through contributions, fees or corporate sponsorships.

2. Facility enhancements, including lodging facilities, retail facilities, equipment rentals and amusement facilities.

3. The management of multiple park facilities.
4. Changing the purpose or function of an existing state park.
5. Any other innovation that facilitates the mission of a

publicly-owned park.

Note that there is no requirement that current entrance fees remain the same...and who would expect it? It was expensive building that hotel and amusement facility. Need to change the purpose or function of an existing state park? Make us an offer we can’t refuse.

Now that the beast is dying we can lop off its more attractive parts and lease them to corporate America.

Text of Senate Bill 1349.

(Cross-Posted from TucsonCitizen.com)

Pandora Founder To Be in Tucson Sunday

2010-03-02T21:23:00.005-07:00

Tim Westergren (left) will be holding free a meet-up at the Rialto Theater on Sunday, March 7th, starting at 5:00 pm.

According to his e-mailed press release: "It'll be a very informal gathering. I'll share some Pandora history, some background on the Music Genome Project and talk about what's ahead for Pandora. 2010 is already shaping up to be quite a year, so there's a lot to talk about!"

Last month I wrote an enthusiastic note about Pandora, the internet radio service, and about the Music Genome Project that is its heart. I was hardly ahead of the curve, since there were something like 2.5 million Pandora fans ahead of me.

Well, very much better late than never since Pandora is now a constant musical companion while I’m at the keyboard.

Frankly, I’m intrigued by the notion of a live promotional tour for a web-based business. Seems very “Apple” to me.

Recap: Pandora’s Tim Westergren

Sunday, March 7, at 5:00 PM

Rialto Theatre, 318 East Congress Street, Tucson

Free

One request is made. If you are planning to attend please drop an e-mail RSVP to this address: Tour@Pandora.com

Here are some links you might be interested in.

Data Port Column on Pandora: click

Wiki on he Genome Project: click

Westergren on the project: click

(Re-posted from TucsonCitizen.com)

Jon Kyl On The Unemployed

2010-03-02T08:42:00.006-07:00

Gotta love our Senator’s understanding of what it is to be unemployed and poor. During a Senate debate Kyl explained why unemployment insurance and other benefits ought not be extended: They discourage people from looking for work "because people are being paid even though they're not working."

The same is true of extending COBRA. Nothing puts the hustle in a job hunter like being denied health insurance.

During the debate Senator Max Baucus (D- Mont.) pointed out that “There are five unemployed Americans for every job opening in the economy. People are looking for work. They're not unemployed because of choice."

Baucus gave our guy a chance to rethink his claim; maybe modify his remarks. Kyl stuck to his guns.

Good Grief!

(Cross-posted from Tucson Citizen.)

Vehicle Tag Surcharge to Keep Parks Open?

2010-03-01T11:02:00.004-07:00

A plan to keep Arizona’s parks and roadside rest stops open surfaced last Thursday up at the state legislature. The suggestion is to add a $12 surcharge to each non-commercial Arizona vehicle license fee.

Any driver of a vehicle with an Arizona license would then have free access to state parks. 75% of the money raised would go to a fund to manage, maintain, and improve the parks. The remaining 25% would go to the Department of Transportation to set up the fee system. Rep. Russ Jones, R-Yuma, estimates that there would be enough enough funding to re-open rest areas now closed or slated to be closed.

As always, the devil is in the details and complaints are being raised that people who own more that one vehicle may be disproportionately taxed. To judge the likelihood of passage of this legislation by the voters in November you might explore the comments on this story over at the Star.

Details of HCR 2040 can be read here.

Cross-posted from http://tucsoncitizen.com/dataport.

Updated Comment: It's interesting to note how common the "I don't use it, why should I pay for it?" objection is. Good Grief, we're a tourist state! Not a smart idea to close down our major tourist attractions.

Something in My Eye

2010-02-27T13:10:00.003-07:00

Well, that was interesting! A short vacation in Jerome, followed by blurred vision preparing for and recovering from cataract surgery, has kept me off the keyboard.

Jerome is a fascinating Arizona ghost town populated by about 400 living ghosts. Old hippies don’t die, or fade away, they move to Jerome and open gift shops and artists’ studios. Who’s to say they’re out of step with the rest of us? Certainly not I.

If you want spectral ghosts, you can find those there, too. The Jerome Grand Hotel, which is located in what was once the hospital, is supposed to be haunted; stayed there twice...never saw a ghost.

**********************

We had breakfast at the Cup Cafe in the Hotel Congress the morning we left. That was the day the announcement of the funding for our streetcar line was announced and street traffic was seriously disrupted.

I really wonder how Tucson’s drivers are going to take to the “nuisance” of sharing road space with the new streetcars.

**********************

Jim Hopkins has relaunched his Gannett Blog, which he runs along with blogs about the NY Times and News Corp. I’ve posted links in my blogroll. If you’re interested in the state of American journalism as commented on by (still) working journalists you might want to look at these. As always, read with a critical eye. Most commentators have a dog in journalism’s current fight for survival. Still...good stuff.

Citizen Journalism

2010-02-24T13:01:00.003-07:00

(Forgive me, but this is more nearly a place holder post than a finished story. I’ll return to the topic but for now I am just reacquainting myself with the Blogger platform.)

What’s the difference between traditional journalism and this new creature called ‘citizen journalism?’

Much of the difference, and some of the friction between traditional journalists and survival strategies like TucsonCitizen.com, is discussed in three blogs maintained by Jim Hopkins. Probably of most interest to Tucson Citizen bloggers is his Gannett Blog, although he also maintains blogs dealing with the NY Times and News Corp.

Updated and edited 2/27/10

Trying To Keep Current

2010-02-24T12:23:00.006-07:00

I don't know if anyone still checks in to this version of The Data Port, but my current plan is to stay at the Tucson Citizen until my first anniversary (in June.) At which time I'll re-think The Data Port's participation at TC.com I think I've had pretty good traffic over there but I have not been happy with loss of control over the way the blog looks.

I have no particular gripes with my "non-employer" Gannett since the big G has left me alone. Still, I think it is making a mistake not okaying site redesign, the current one being coldly unattractive.

Edited and updated 2/27/10

Moving to TucsonCitizen.com

2009-06-06T05:03:00.003-07:00

The Data Port has been resident here on Blogspot for a good long time. Sometimes it's been very active and sometimes it's just passively occupied this site, too exhausted by the little disturbances of politics to offer much in the way of comment.

As some readers may already have discovered I've switched platforms to WordPress and accepted an invitation from TucsonCitizen.com to move over there to take part in building the Citizen's web-only presence. Will it work? Who knows? But I think, given the rapidly changing face of American journalism, it's worth taking a shot.

You may visit the Data Port directly here: http://tucsoncitizen.com/dataport/ but I would urge you to explore the posts of my fellow bloggers...they'll surprise you.

The "beta" site is not, according to Editor Mark Evans, a beta in the true sense but only a kind of holding position while extensive redesigning goes on. A good thing, too, since the present site is uglier than a junkyard dog. But, hey, it's my dog now, so don't kick it around.

Lefty Blogs...RIP?

2009-06-01T20:02:00.001-07:00

I notice that there have been no updates to Lefty Blogs since Friday. Has the site died?

Coming Changes

2009-06-01T08:16:00.002-07:00

The winds of change will be blowing through The Data Port. Posts may be a bit erratic and there surely will be a few technical glitches as TDP moves over to the Wordpress platform. More later.

True Belief

2009-05-31T20:22:00.003-07:00

What follows was published some years ago in the Desert Leaf. Things haven't changed---as the recent murder of an abortion doctor while he was in church suggests. Things haven't changed. Neither has my opinion.

True Belief and Tribunals

Terrorists are true believers. They are men and women so profoundly convinced that theirs is the one true way that they are willing to see you dead for disagreeing with them. They are frequently religious fundamentalists and they have a hard time dealing with life in a secular society.

Open societies make room for their citizens to hold many different religious or political views. The social contract upon which such societies are grounded is the simple agreement that I may live according to my beliefs and you according to yours so long as the practice of mine doesn’t keep you from the practice of yours.

As kindly old Chairman Mao once said, “Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy.”

Schools of thought may contend through vigorous debate, propaganda broadsides, or friendly conversations. You are free to fill your neighbor’s mail with pamphlets or slip a waspish jeremiad under his door. You are not free to open his door and toss a hand grenade into his living room. That’s terrorism.

Religious fundamentalism pushed to wacko extremes destroys an open society when it tries to impose a one-size-fits-all lifestyle on its citizens. In this respect there isn’t a nickel’s worth of difference between the Taliban and anti-abortion extremists who bomb clinics, send anthrax threats in the mail, harass men and women seeking family planning advice and assassinate physicians.

Each group is at war with America and the social contract that makes our open society possible. Each group resorts to strategies of terror to effect social or moral change. In the fundamentalist’s garden only one flower blossoms and an opposing school of thought dares not speak its name.

Here in the United States the anti-abortion terrorists have been at it longer than the Taliban. Letters to abortion rights groups and family planning centers threatening anthrax attacks were common here long before September 11^th. Ditto bombings. Ditto murder.

As a result of the events of September 11 Americans have adopted a get tough attitude towards terrorism that can be appropriately applied to anti-abortion clinic bombers and anyone who finances or harbors them.

Now that we have established the principle of justice by tribunal we have a nifty new tool for digging out anti-abortion terrorists. The tedious old safeguards of the rights of the accused and the guarantees of a fair and impartial trial don’t apply if you are a terrorist.

Neither do many of the quaint notions of protected privacy, the right to confront your accuser, examination of the jury by your attorney, or viewing the evidence to be presented against you prior to your trial.

Best of all, the polls show that most Americans approve of this attack on what used to be our constitutional guarantees to a fair trial. After all, only non-citizens are going to be treated that way, and they may be, or harbor, terrorists.

It is precisely here that the slippery slope begins.

Why should citizens be exempt? Why not apply the same standard to any persons or groups who employ the strategies of terror? By accepting the idea of tribunal justice for non-citizens we have already given up one of the central ideals by which we defined ourselves as a just society.

We have given up the idea that any human being accused of a crime in our country has the right to a fair and impartial trial as defined and guaranteed by our constitution. It’s a shame we have found it so easy to cast off this idea; defending it was what gave moral force to our international arguments on behalf of universal principles of justice.

Here’s the way the tribunal system might work. We send letters to every person who has had any contact with the anti-abortion movement and request that they report for ‘voluntary’ interrogation. (This sort of thing was proposed by Attorney General Ashcroft in targeting some 5000 young men from the Middle East.) You donated money to a “right to life” organization? You attended a church retreat in which anti-abortion strategies were discussed? We’d like to talk to you.

Incidentally, did you know that your cousin in Benson has been accused of sending threatening letters to a clinic in Eloy? We can’t tell you who made the accusation, protecting sources you know. We’re sure you’re innocent but we’re going to hold you as a material witness.and bye bye habeas corpus.

Adopting the principle of justice by tribunal does us more harm than good in the long run since it requires that we give up one of the core principles of American democracy and is not necessary to bring the accused to justice in cases of terrorism.

TucsonCitizen.com: Changes Coming Monday

2009-05-29T22:22:00.003-07:00

TucsonCitizen.Com has been publishing with the online format of the Tucson Citizen newspaper. I think it's fair to say the format has not been perfectly suitable for what TucsonCitizen.com is trying to become. Editor Mark Evans has been busily redesigning it.

I have no idea what it will be but, "Be the good Lord willing and the Creek don't rise," we'll be able to get a look at the Beta version on Monday, sometime around noon.

Tucson's Poor Little Rich Kids

2009-05-26T16:38:00.010-07:00

When the Lege whacks the education budget it is truly an "equal opportunity whacking." Schools in low income areas--say those serving the boys and girls who live around Three Points--get whacked with the same axe that batters the Catalina Foothills School District. Ain't equality grand?

The parents in the Foothills have launched the 30/60 program. That's a push to raise enough money in 60 days to save 30 teaching positions possibly jeopardized by the legislature's budget "solutions." The goal---hold your breath now--- wait for it--- is $1.3 million. With three weeks of the campaign left, as of Memorial Day, the campaign had raised $208,000.00. Will they raise it all? My guess is probably not.

in an e-mail to The Data Port, Mark Kipphut, President of the Catalina Foothills School District Foundation, indicated that the full amount may not be needed. Kipphut wrote:

Tomorrow night, Tuesday, is another Catalina Foothills School District Governing Board meeting (starts at 6:30 PM at the high school) and funding for teaching positions is on the agenda. We will know more after the board meeting, but between our current fund raising efforts and favorable student enrollment numbers, the number of remaining positions at risk is declining and is around 18.

I don't fault the parents for wanting the best for their children, nor paying extra for it if they can afford it, but there are too many parents across our state who can't. The children of our communities are the responsibility of each of us, they are all "our children." Tax credit gimmicks, and tax deductions for donations to schools are inequitable at their heart. So, sorry, foothills folks-- no money for you this time around.

Let's work to raise taxes until every child across the state has Foothills quality facilities and small class size.

Ripping and Reading in Tucson

2009-05-25T06:11:00.002-07:00

The expression “rip and read” is used scornfully by print journalists who are annoyed to turn on their radios and hear one of their stories being read- after a possible light rewrite- by a radio news reader.

I was a radio news reader many years ago, possibly as punishment for sin in a previous life; or perhaps it was my listeners who were being punished.

At WUOM, the broadcasting service of the University of Michigan, we subscribed to an Associated Press wire that regularly scrolled out fifteen minute news summaries, five minute “splits,” and assorted features. We dutifully ripped and read, occasionally rewriting to suit our individual speech rhythms and providing segues between stories. We never lifted stories from Michigan newspapers and we paid the Associated Press for the content.

The modern equivalent of the worst of “rip and read” is the practice of commercial web sites (Huffington Post, for instance) using newspapers to provide their journalistic content. (For Free? I imagine so.) You know the drill...you click on the BIG HEADLINE and up pops the Washington Post or The NY Times. This practice is called “news aggregation,” and I’m not totally opposed to it. After all, that’s what most bloggers do although, we seldom make a buck at it.

There has to be a limit to it, however, or we’re going to be like the town in which everyone makes a living by taking in the other guy’s laundry.

This brings us at last to the TucsonCitizen.com, which will be modeled after the HufPo. In a recent post Mark Evans introduced a daily feature, his Top Ten News Digs...ten stories he thinks are particularly interesting and his comments on the stories.

I quite like the idea. We’ll get to know Evans, what his tastes and interests are and the stories he likes (or doesn’t.) We’ll look forward to his choices, or we won’t. If

his choices don’t ring our bells and whistles we’ll read elsewhere, or rant in the comments thread. If we go elsewhere in TucsonCitizen.com, or swell the comment thread, it’s more eyeballs for the site and better ad revenue for Gannett.

Now here’s my question: Did TucsonCitizen.com pay anyone for the stories he linked to? Seven of the links were to papers owned by Gannett: USA Today, and the Republic. Three stories were from the Arizona Daily Star. Perhaps the quotes from other Gannett papers were simply some sort of bookkeeping swap. I don’t know.

What about the Star stories? Did the Star make a buck or two?

And simply as a point of information I’d like to know if Gannett has a prior financial agreement with AP to link to any copyrighted AP story.

The New Tucson Citizen: Food Fight! Food Fight!

2009-05-22T09:55:00.008-07:00

Tucson Journalism

The Data Port is going to be covering the development of Tucson Citizen.com as it transforms itself from a newspaper site to something entirely different. Exactly what, how different, and whether it's worth the while, remains to be seen.

News junkies and others interested in the destiny of journalism should take an interest in this transformation as it offers us a laboratory case study of what I suspect will be happening more frequently in the future.

An entertaining little wrangle popped up almost immediately when Citizen.com editor Mark Evans wrote: Reports of the Tucson Citizen's demise greatly exaggerated.

This generated the following exchange between Evans and Arizona Public Media reporter Robert Rappaport.

Mark Evans:

This morning, driving in to work at the TUCSON CITIZEN, the rip-and-read Arizona Public Media reporter said the Tucson Citizen was shut down.

If I was editing those reporters, I would have changed the copy to say "the Tucson Citizen has ceased printing a newspaper but continues to have an online presence and a skeleton staff."

The lights are still on. The computers still work. The site, TucsonCitizen.com is still up. We may be a work in progress, but we are still at work.

Hey Mark,

Arizona Public Media HAS mentioned the online site, but it was not included this morning, except I did say the "PRINTED EDITION." Let's face it, Gannett is keeping the name, but the Tucson Citizen is dead. The website is nothing more than a self-serving blog with built-in "viewers" from the previous newspaper site.

Heck, I even have a blog and talk about your site. Perhaps you should read it. FYI...the free promotion stories for this website are done, although I really do wish you good luck.

Robert Rappaport, Arizona Public Media

Robert,

The Star, the AP, you and others have mentioned in previous news reports and some on their blogs, that Tucson Citizen's web site continues.
Thanks for that.

However, in your news report this morning you inaccurately said the Tucson Citizen is "shut down." That's wrong. For the listeners who may not have heard your previous reports or read your blog, you've now misinformed them about the status of TucsonCitizen.com

If you wanted to editorialize and say "effectively shut down" or relay any of your above opinions about what's left here, that would have been fine, as long as your listeners knew it was opinion and not news.

Additionally, I didn't know that reporting the news on Arizona Public Media equaled "free promotion stories."

In the interest of fairness, I suppose I shouldn't have called you "rip and read." I take it back.
Now, will you treat us fairly in the future?

Mark Evans originsal story here
The Comment Thread here

Tucson's New Police Chief "Glad He Came Out"

2009-05-19T15:41:00.004-07:00

Went to Woody's Monday night for an LGBT gathering. It was a meet-and-greet with Tucson's new Chief of Police, Chief Roberto Villaseñor. Lots of familiar faces, including the Mayor of South Tucson, a famous blogger/political candidate, Karen Uhlich, Rodney Glassman and a fair assortment of our town's movers and shakers, gay and straight.

Lots of credit to the Chief who "worked the crowd" like a pro, listening to comments about perceived issues and questions the community might have about the state of Police/Citizen relations.

At the end of his short address to the group he said something I thought was interesting because it indicates how tricky language can be. Thanking everyone for inviting him he said, "I'm glad I came out tonight" and the first two or three rows in the bar simply exploded. Laughter rippled back through the room. Puzzled, the chief asked what he'd said. It was explained to him. He was good natured about the whole thing, but it indicated that the Chief's visit was a two-way learning experience.

Starbucks

2009-05-19T15:17:00.004-07:00

I am not one of those people who knock Starbucks. I think the coffee is terrific and my local has been a second office. When I'm not trying to work it's where I go to watch the passing parade or read the paper. The young people who work there seem to love it and it's been my understanding tht even part-timers have health insurance.

Still, I firmly believe in the right to organize for union representation. I thought the following was interesting:

Brave New Foundation has launched "StopStarbucks.com" an online video and campaign. Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks touts Starbucks as being at the forefront of progressive corporate responsibility: except of course when it comes to allowing its workers to organize.

To view the video please visit, www.StopStarbucks.com

More Susan Boyle

2009-04-17T10:04:00.002-07:00

Here is more from Susan Boyle, this time from a charity CD

she made in 1999. Absolutely astonishing!

Cry Me a River

Susan Boyle Makes Me Happy

2009-04-16T09:56:00.002-07:00

I’m probably the last person on the internet to discover this clip. Whatever. Just the thought of her success has given me joy and delight since I first heard it last night. Ms. Boyle was a contestant on “Britain's Got Talent.” When she walked on stage this 47 year old, slightly dumpy, woman elicited eye-rolling, ill concealed, smirks.

I’m sure the audience was expecting to have a little fun--something along the lines of Florence Foster Jenkins. With the first notes of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables, when this simply enormous voice poured forth, it literally popped eyes open and snapped heads back.

Listen

Krugman On Tea Parties

2009-04-13T11:05:00.005-07:00

Oh, what fun! The wacky world of the Republic Party.

".... President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.

Read Krugman here.

A Speech From the Past, A Manifesto for The Future

2009-04-12T19:58:00.004-07:00

Occasional readers of this occasional blog will remember that I regularly follow Professor David Kaiser’s blog, “History Unfolding.” In a recent post, dated April 4th, 2009, he quotes a campaign speech that FDR made on November 1, 1940. That speech is so eerily pertinent today that it justifies my re-quoting it here, despite its unbloglike length.

It perfectly characterizes and justifies what I believe to be the function of government and the unalterable opposition to that function by the Republican Party.

After nearly seventy years nothing has changed.

FDR:

Back in the 20's, in the years after the last World War, Americans worked and built many things, but few of our people then stopped to think why they were working and why they were building and whither they were tending.

Those were the days when prosperity was measured only by the stock ticker.

There were the factory workers forced to labor long hours at low wages in sweat-shop conditions. They could look forward to no security in their old age. They could look forward to no insurance during periods of unemployment. There were the farmers of the Nation, overburdened with debt and with farm surpluses, their income vanishing, their farms threatened with foreclosure.

There were the natural resources of the land, being wasted-soil, forests, minerals and water power.

There were millions of workers, unable to organize to protect their livelihoods, unable to form trade unions.

There were the small businesses of the Nation, threatened by the monopolies of concentrated wealth.

The savings of the many were entrusted to supposedly great financiers, who were to lose those savings in fantastic adventures of giant holding companies and giant investment trusts.

The crash came as it had to come. And then for three years the American people waited and suffered. For three years the American Government did nothing to help.In 1933, the American people began to bestir themselves. They had come to learn that inaction offered no escape from the problems of a troubled and changing world. The American people determined then and there that what could not be done by individual effort could be done through joint effort; that what the industrial and financial leaders could not do, or would not do, a democratic Government could do and would do

You all know the history of recovery, beginning in 1933, and progressing ever since.

Our economic system began again to function. Then came the suggestion from monopolistic finance that while the Government had done a good rescue job, the best thing it could do at that point was to forget all about it, and to turn the whole economic system back to Wall Street to run again.

But they little knew the temper of the American people. The New Deal was no mere rescue party to restore to a chosen few their old power over the people's savings, the people's labor, the people's lives.

We all remember how negligible was the opposition that this Administration met in the early days when it was cleaning up the wreckage, which had come from the era of speculation.

The bitter opposition from Republican leaders did not come until a little later. It came when this Administration made it clear that we were not merely salvaging afew things from the past, but that we were determined to make our system of private enterprise and private profit work more efficiently, more democratically, to fill the demands and needs of all the people of this land.

We understand the philosophy of those who offer resistance, of those who conduct a counter offensive against the American people's march of social progress. It is not an opposition which comes necessarily from wickedness—it is an opposition that comes from subconscious resistance to any measure that disturbs the position of privilege. It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

I am, as you know, a firm believer in private enterprise and in private property. I am a firm believer in the American opportunity of men and women to rise in private enterprise. But, of course, if private opportunity is to remain safe, average men and women must be able to have it as a part of their own individual satisfaction in life and their own stake in democracy.

With that in view, we have pushed ahead with social and economic reforms, determined that this period in American life should be written down as an heroic era—an era in which men fought not merely to preserve a past, but to build a future.

You and I have seen nations great and small go down in ruin, or get backed up against the wall, because the reactionary men who led them could not see the real danger that threatened. They were afraid of losing their own selfish privilege and power. They feared the legitimate forward surge of their own common people, more than they feared the menacing might of foreign dictators.

From them, we in the United States take warning. Most Republican leaders in our own country for the last seven years have bitterly fought and blocked that forward surge of average men and women in their pursuit of happiness. And let us not be deluded that overnight those leaders have suddenly become the real friends of these average men and women.Oh, they may say at election time that they approve the social gains and social objectives of the last seven years. But I say that these men have not yet proven that they even understand what these social gains or social objectives have been.

The people throughout this country know how many and how difficult were the battles that we have fought and won in the last seven years.

Do you want to abandon the protection of people's savings from fraudulent manipulators, the curbing of giant holding companies that despoiled investors and consumers alike, by delivering them into the hands of those who have fought those reforms?

Do you want to abandon the responsibility for the well-being of those who live and work on the farms of the Nation to those who fought against the farm program every inch of the way?

Do you want to abandon collective bargaining, the outlawing of child labor, the minimum wage, the time-and-a-half for overtime, the elimination of sweat-shop conditions, by turning them over to the proven enemies of labor?

Do you want to hamstring the old-age pension system, or unemployment insurance, or aid for children, or maternity welfare, or vocational training for the physically handicapped, or financial aid to the blind by delivering them into the hands of those who have fought and misrepresented those reforms?

Do you want to abandon slum clearance to those Republican leaders who have fought against every appropriation for decent housing?

Do you want to turn over your Government to those who failed to have confidence in the future of America and who now preach fear for the future of America? As an example of that doctrine of fear, certain insurance companies are now sending letters to their policyholders, warning them that if this Administration is retained in office, their policies will shrink in value.

That is just another form of things we have seen before, another form, for instance, of that pay-envelope campaign—that campaign of fear of the last week of 1936.

The fact is that the very existence of most of these insurance companies I speak of was saved by this Administration in 1933. They are today more solvent than they ever were before.

Our program in the past, our program for the future, is, as you know, equality of economic opportunity. Such a program calls for many things. It requires an orderly settlement of industrial disputes not by those devoted to company unions, but by agencies alert to the requirements of labor and mindful of the responsibilities of industry.

This program entails old-age insurance and unemployment insurance, operating on an increasingly wider base, so that eventually it will include every man and woman in the country.

It makes available cheap credit to impoverished tenants, to consumers, and to small business. In fact, it has always seemed to me that our program starts with small business, so that it may grow and flourish.

It curbs the old predatory activities of high finance and monopoly practices.

It guarantees that our national resources are used for the benefit of the whole people—and not exploited for the benefit of a few.

It provides for the resettlement of farmers from marginal lands to richer lands, and for farm ownership for enslaved tenants.

Monopoly does not like this program. Certain types of high finance do not like it. Most of the American plutocracy do not like it.

But the vast majority of American business, the backbone of American business, continues to grow and flourish under it. For that business is interested in reasonable profits, not in promoters' tribute. That business is interested in freedom from monopolistic restraints and economic imperialism. That business knows that the farmers and the workers, the great mass of our citizens, have never asked for more than equality and fair play.

Is Rio Nuevo Based On A Mistake?

2009-03-23T19:15:00.005-07:00

I’d like to suggest that it is. The mistake is a mixture of two things: A sentimental yearning for something that never quite existed in reality, and the failure to see that much of what we realistically expect of a downtown already exists.

This nostalgia for something that never was quite real is captured in this song by Petula Clark. Remember ? A kind of fantasy land where all the good stuff was; lit by neon. My guess is that underlying our businesslike arguments for “development” is some similar emotional engine.

In the meantime we easily forget what is already there. Museums and galleries and the public library. The Symphony, Opera, a variety musicals, and performances at the Leo Rich. Theater? You bet: ATC, Beowulf Alley Theater, the Rogue Theatre upstairs at The Temple of Music and Art . At either end of Congress The Fox and The Rialto. Club Congress of course, although not for elderly ears.

It’s not likely that you’ll go hungry, either: Poca Cosa, The Cup Cafe, Barrio Grill, Maynards, El Minuto, and others that I can’t name. Fourth Avenue is alive and well and no more removed from the places I’ve named than some venues in Manhattan or Chicago’s Loop.

Finally, there’s more of Tucson’s great “downtown” actually spread all across the city, at its theaters, galleries and truly wonderful restaurants. Frankly I’m glad it isn’t all crammed into the handful of blocks in the old downtown area.

So... let’s build a new hotel and convention center, which I believe might actually be an important economic resource, get the trolley rolling... and then call it quits.

What Fools These Mortals Be

2009-03-20T13:33:00.002-07:00

Well, one mortal anyway. The Arizona Guardian reports that State Senator Thayer Verschoor has dipped into the Republic Party’s bag of tricks and come up with a nifty money saving strategy: No state employee should be paid more than the Governor; 95 thousand bucks a year.

Do that and the sucking sound you hear will be all the state’s highly paid professionals--docs, lawyers, scientists, university professors and administrators--- getting out of town.

An Odd Editorial

2009-03-18T08:37:00.003-07:00

There’s a very odd (dare we say snarky?) editorial in this morning’s Arizona daily Star. It respectfully bows in the direction of all those brave contributors to its Letters section who sign their names.

This, of course, is not the case where commentators in the “comments” section are concerned, those folks are described as “stealthily posting a drive-by snipe or a gratuitous rant.” These snipes and rants are frequently directed at the Star itself.

I’ve always been a John Hancock sort of guy. Ever since I started blogging I have signed my name to what I write. When I comment on someone else’s blog I sign my name. I can’t really fault the Star’s requirement for full disclosure.

But at the same time there are many posters who might legitimately fear their comments would put their jobs at risk.

You can cruise all the comments here. I particularly direct your attention to comments #9 and #13.

The Star’s editorial is not signed. I'm shocked, shocked.

Tucson Citizen...A Temporary Reprieve

2009-03-17T19:50:00.002-07:00

A late story (on line) in the Tucson Citizen reports that the scheduled March 21st closing of the Citizen has been delayed while negotiations with two prospective buyers continue.

Renee Horton’s article on the Tucson Citizen’s web site gives all the details that are available .

Pure speculation: The announcement that the Seattle Post Intelligencer was going all digital may have moved Gannett to drop the “no digital” barrier to sales. Who knows?

Socialism? Yes, Please!

2009-03-09T20:10:00.002-07:00

x4mr, over at “Sustainability...etc” has posted an excellent observation springing from Thomas Friedman’s NY Times piece “The Inflection is Near.” I recommend x4mr’s post and the comment thread it generated.

Perhaps Data Port readers would also be interested in the Barbara Ehrenreich/Bill Fletcher article in the March 6, 2009 issue of The Nation:

“If We Are in the Death Spiral of Capitalism, Can We Start Using the "S" Word?” (Click)

Tucson Citizen- Is There a Buyers’ Group In The Wings?

2009-03-04T11:06:00.002-07:00

Citizen reporter, Renee Shafer Horton, posted a report yesterday afternoon about the Justice Department’s querying of potential buyers. Her story appears in the Business section of today’s Citizen. click

What caught my eye was this:

"Mike Hamila, owner of UNIsystems MS LLC in Phoenix, told the Citizen on Feb. 23 that he had been contacted by Justin Dempsey of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division. Dempsey wanted details of Hamila's conversations with Broadwater. Though Hamila said Tuesday that he was working on a bid, he would not comment further, citing a confidentiality agreement he signed Monday as part of the bidding process."

Saying Goodbye to The Rocky Mountain News

2009-03-02T21:25:00.001-07:00

Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

Tucson: A One Paper Town

2009-03-02T20:16:00.004-07:00

No miracle is going to save the Tucson Citizen and the chance of a miraculous intervention saving the Citizen’s journalists is small to none. On March 21st Tucson will become a one newspaper town. That was perhaps inevitable, and we are at least better off than San Francisco, which runs the risk of becoming a no newspaper town with the possible demise of the San Francisco Chronicle.

The only chance that a brave little band of Citizen alums might keep the Citizen alive as an all-digital paper has been put paid by Gannett’s conditions of sale, so if a group does strike out on its own it will not be as the Tucson Citizen.

The staff is going to receive what they have been assured is the “standard” separation compensation: One week’s pay for each year they’ve been employed up to a limit of twenty-six years. After which they will drift off to whatever fates await unemployed journalists: positions as corporate flacks, advertising copywriters, freelancers or taking school yearbook photos.

Tucson Citizen Sale. The Department of Justice is Curious.

2009-02-28T15:46:00.004-07:00

Because I wanted to nail down the details of Gannett’s sale of the Tucson Citizen I went right to what I hoped would be the horse’s mouth: Robert J. Broadwater.

Broadwater is the managing director of Broadwater & Associates. I e-mailed him asking to be sent any boilerplate he might have, outlining the details of the sale. In other words I asked for the offering memorandum. He e-mailed back saying he would be glad to talk to me. Note: No

offering memorandum was sent. I called.

During our conversation I confirmed what I had heard from another source, namely that the only things being sold were the name, “Tucson Citizen,” the archives, the subscriber list and the names of the carriers. The JOA was not for sale. Okay.

Being an online sort of guy I thought why not put a group together and publish an entirely digitized version, so I asked what might be considered a non-frivolous offer. I was told that it would probably take pretty deep pockets in addition to a substantial buying price because, get this: It would be a condition of the sale that the buyer would have to publish a dead tree (a paper) newspaper.

And of course since the JOA was not for sale that would mean finding a new printing plant.In other words the sale was being structured so that no one would buy the Citizen and Gannett could close it down but retain the income flow from the JOA with the Star.

When I expressed my dubiousness about the deal Mr. Broadwater indicated that it had been vetted by the DOJ.

I’m not the only person to make enquiries. An attorney friend, whose practice includes advising clients on investment opportunities, called.My friend was told that before any offering memorandum could be sent a full financial disclosure would have to be made by any potential buyer. That put paid (at least for now) to any further interest on my friend’s part.

I pretty much bagged stirring up the pot until yesterday, when I received a call from Justin Dempsey of the DOJ. He had heard, I don’t know how, that I had spoken with Broadwater and wanted to know the details of my conversation so far as I could remember them. I told him.

He seemed quite surprised when I said I thought the DOJ had already vetted and approved the deal.

More to come.

Tucson Citizen Deathwatch

2009-02-23T12:16:00.005-07:00

On March 21st the Tucson Citizen will fade into history and Tucson will be a one-newspaper town. Sadly, its passage will be mourned by few. The cranks who regularly add to the paper’s comments section understand the cause: The Citizen has become too liberal, too biased, too socialistic.

Huh? I suspect the real reason is that Gannett wants to profit from a phantom JOA, reaping the rewards of a joint operating agreement without actually jointly operating anything.

Tucson will lose more than it realizes when the Citizen closes down; it will lose a large part of its corporate memory, for that’s what a newsroom staff is. They are the folks who remember and pass on to the new arrivals in the newsroom, and to their readers, our community’s history.

Historical context is important. It’s good for a city to remember where the bodies are buried and who buried them. We are less likely to be taken advantage of if we do.

More about the "phantom JOA" phenomenon later. (Added at 6:21 pm Monday)

Welcome To The Class War

2009-02-14T05:51:00.003-07:00

The expression “class warfare” suggests an enraged proletariat barricading the streets and tearing up paving stones to defend themselves against the tyranny of the ruling class.

That was then, this is now, and class warfare has a different face; it is subtler and the ordinary citizens who are its victims passively accept loss after loss. The ruling elites of Washington, the financial upper class, the corporate and financial interests and their party are more than willing to sacrifice the little guys in the interest of a “national good.”

They will wring their hands in despair at the prospect of increasing the national debt, unless that debt balloons for the benefit of the wealthy. What gets cut from legislation? Extension of unemployment benefits, health care, education. In short, the safety net we should all be willing to provide for the common good.

These rascals are like the guys who refuse to throw a rope to a drowning man because it won't do anything for the bathing suit industry. Here’s the rule for recovery: Privatize profit, Nationalize debt.

I recommend an article by William Greider in The Nation, reposted to AlterNet.org

Here’s the lede:

Governing elites in Washington and Wall Street have devised a fiendishly clever "grand bargain" they want President Obama to embrace in the name of "fiscal responsibility." The government, they argue, having spent billions on bailing out the banks, can recover its costs by looting the Social Security system. They are also targeting Medicare and Medicaid. The pitch sounds preposterous to millions of ordinary working people anxious about their economic security and worried about their retirement years. But an impressive armada is lined up to push the idea--Washington's leading think tanks, the prestige media, tax-exempt foundations, skillful propagandists posing as economic experts and a self-righteous billionaire spending his fortune to save the nation from the elderly.

Read the whole piece here.

Bob Cauthorn Did It

2009-01-17T18:04:00.004-07:00

A shocking report just issued by the prestigious Journalism Society Review indicates that the collapse of the newspaper industry may have begun right here in Tucson. Local Data Port readers may remember the pride we pioneer StarNetters felt when the Arizona Daily Star first went on line; a journalistic 'first.'

Star reporter and computer guru Robert Cauthorn was hailed as the saviour of journalism for the digitalization of our daily paper. As much as techies loved the accomplishment some of us, this reporter included, were heard to mumble, "Who the hell wants to read a newspaper on a computer."

Pretty soon we all did, especially as we left heavyweight desktops behind for teeny cell phone screens and we could take our electronic papers to the outhouse with us.

Unfortunately we also left behind the idea that we ought to pay for our news. Right there the rot began; and it was all Bob Cauthorn's fault.

The Incredible Shrinking (Arizona Daily) Star

2009-01-13T20:13:00.002-07:00

A story in Sunday’s Star announced a reshaping of the paper and the reduction of certain types of coverage. Stock listings will be gone, except the listings for local companies. Wire stories related to entertainment and lifestyle will disappear.

The Accent section will be gone Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday Accent will be re-branded as Food, The Arts, and Out and About.

Monday through Saturday, Business and Tucson & Region will become part of the A section. The new A section will start as it does now with national and international news, followed by Business, Tucson & Region, obituaries and the Editorial pages.

The Sports Section (of course) and Caliente will remain the same as will the Sunday paper.

Exactly how many column inches of news will be lost is very hard to determine, since the changes are intended in part to do away with odd pages that had to be filled with self-promotions to make he page count come out.

But things don’t look good. Sigh.

Arizona Guardian Reporters Denied Access

2009-01-07T15:18:00.006-07:00

My suspicions are confirmed: Republican politicians, particularly the ultra conservative sort, prefer to hunker down in dark corners where they can work undisturbed by nagging questions from reporters.

The Data Port has received e-mail from the Arizona Guardian reporting that

"Senate officials are denying access to lawmakers' offices and even the Capitol press room to some media organizations that don't have a lease with the Senate. And, despite a much-ballyhooed budget shortfall and extra space available in the press room, Senate officials refuse to issue any new leases, even short term through the end of the upcoming legislative session. The ban on some reporters primarily affects the Arizona Guardian staff, which started operations at the Capitol on Monday. Arizona Capitol Times reporters, who also do not lease space from the Senate, are still allowed to roam the halls outside of lawmakers' offices and but can't use the desks in the press room."

Read the Arizona Guardian story here.

Call the office of the State Senate President to comment.

(602)926-3559 or toll free 1-800-352-8404

Arizona Guardian Launches

2009-01-06T06:31:00.007-07:00

Is it a newspaper or is a blog by any other name still a blog? Four Arizona journalists have launched a newspaper based on “a new business model.” The reporters and editors are the owners and publishers.

We may be seeing more undertakings of this sort across the nation, as newspapers cut newsroom staff. For that matter we may see established “dead tree” newspapers giving up paper for electrons.

A recent report about the LA Times indicated that for the first time its electronic edition was actually paying for itself, covering editorial costs. How long before owners find deep-sixing paper attractive?

Check out the Arizona Guardian and its staff here.

Wish them well.

The Michael Moore Solution

2008-12-03T16:05:00.004-07:00

Moore’s latest comment on the auto industry bailout is well worth reading, which you can do if you click here.

You’ll see that Moore is pretty skeptical about the auto industry and also scathing about the treatment Congress handed out to the leadership of that industry at the hearings.

“Two weeks ago, the CEOs of the Big 3 were tarred and feathered before a Congressional committee who sneered at them in a way far different than when the heads of the financial industry showed up two months earlier. At that time, the politicians tripped over each other in their swoon for Wall Street and its Ponzi schemers who had concocted Byzantine ways to bet other people's money on unregulated credit default swaps, known in the common vernacular as unicorns and fairies."

What particularly caught my attention was one of his suggested solutions to the crisis.

"You could buy ALL the common shares of stock in General Motors for less than $3 billion. Why should we give GM $18 billion or $25 billion or anything? Take the money and buy the company! (You're going to demand collateral anyway if you give them the "loan," and because we know they will default on that loan, you're going to own the company in the end as it is. So why wait? Just buy them out now."

Of course this is not a complete solution, since buying only the extant stock leaves the companies, particularly GM, on the brink of financial collapse. Ownership of voting stock, rather than simply Warrants, gives you greater corporate control through seats on the board of directors. Yes, the tax payers still have to invest billions in GM, but they are investing in a company they own. If the nation's wisdom comes to be that the company should go public then the shares can be sold.

A Black Friday Experiment

2008-11-29T11:48:00.006-07:00

Here's the story- it's really very intuitive. If you've been using Dos/Win 3.1/and assorted other Windows iterations it will be no problem at all.

Well, maybe, but I've been using Bill Gates products since 1985.

I promise, I really do, that I will learn to use a mouse pad. In the meantime it's me for the mouse.

I have had the same Fujitsu Laptop for almost seven years. Bits and pieces have stopped working or required amateur tinkering in the sub basements of the operating system.

So yesterday I went Mac. I have managed to get on line and set up my mail (finally.) I'll publish this and then try to turn this devil off. (Just kidding) I'm as happy as a clam in the mud.

Socialism? Yes, Please!

2008-11-21T13:38:00.003-07:00

One of the fear memes of the recent Republican campaign was the terrifying aspect of the Socialist bogeyman, lurking like some anarchist bomb thrower ready to blow us all into the gray monotony of a classless society.

I have always suspected that the people who appeal to the “threat of Socialism” are using the word ‘socialism’ the way we sometimes use the word ‘Nazi’—as an indicator of our own state of extreme, frenzied, and emotional disapproval. I don’t think that used in this context the word has any objective denotation at all; it’s just a big “boo word.” It’s like calling someone a S—t Head.

These folks wouldn’t recognize a socialist if one bit ‘em on the ass.

“Some socialists advocate complete nationalization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange; while others advocate state control of capital within the framework of a market economy. Social democrats propose selective nationalization of key national industries in mixed economies combined with tax-funded welfare programs.”
---Wikipedia

The first sort of socialism, the complete nationalization of production, distribution, and exchange was the path that failed in the Soviet Union, but the socialism of the modern Social Democratic movements has, on balance, been successful.

It’s been successful here in the United States, the two most prominent examples of which are Social Security and Medicare. In addition there is the complex network of social safety net programs, two examples of which are unemployment insurance and legislation governing worker health and safety.

It is not Socialism we have to fear, but the kind of Capitalism that is the mirror image of Soviet socialism-- the unregulated robber baronage that has got us into out present economic difficulties.

More to come.

Don't Go, Governor!

2008-11-20T11:05:00.003-07:00

I urge everyone to contact Governor Napolitano, asking her to continue to serve the people of Arizona as Governor. Given the state of Arizona's legislature and the specter of a Republican governor we clearly need her here. (Incidentally,this will be an excellent platform from which to launch a 2010 US Senate campaign, should she wish to run.)

The full mailing address is:
The Honorable Janet Napolitano
Governor of Arizona
1700 West Washington
Phoenix, Arizona 85007

Telephone (602) 542-4331
Toll Free 1-(800) 253-0883
Fax (602) 542-1381
On her website (http://azgovernor.gov/Contact.asp) there is a form for e-mailing her.

Suggestion: it is hard to avoid noticing paper correspondence, which spills out of fax machines in abundance. If possible I suggest you fax the governor.

Submissive Democrats give Lieberman a Pass

2008-11-19T05:12:00.002-07:00

Oops, that should have been "Senate Democrats."

Just when I was about to re-register as a Democrat the Senate Democrats wuss out on Lieberman. Guess I’ll remain a progressive Independent.

Let’s see. The Democrats control the House, the Presidency, and with or without old Mr. Sanctimony have a majority in the Senate. Lieberman ran as an Independent after he was rejected by the Democrats of his state and then campaigned with the Republicans.

Let him caucus with the Republicans and good riddance.

Two short quotations from today’s Salon are spot on:

Nov. 19, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- If you ever happen to find yourself accused of serious wrongdoing -- publicly betraying your friends and colleagues, say, or maybe something like a federal felony conviction -- forget about a jury of your peers. What you're really looking for is a jury composed entirely of members of the United States Senate.

Both of Tuesday's big winners would seem to be ideal candidates for some kind of harsh punishment: Lieberman, for not just endorsing John McCain but putting down Barack Obama as just "a talker" and other deprecating remarks, and campaigning for the reelection of Senate Republicans. And Stevens, for hiding a quarter million bucks in "gifts" from businessmen.

After Word

2008-11-14T15:47:00.000-07:00

Prolificity

I guess that’s a real word. I imagine it shares roots with the French word, “prolificeur:” One who writes much and writes frequently. There is, I believe, a German expression, “prolificheit,” used to characterize frequent publication.

I gather that one of my favorite prolificheitmeisters, x4mr over at Sustainability, has been taken to task for not writing as much, or as frequently, as his devoted readers could wish.

His defense of publishing episodes (following Gauss) that are “few but ripe” is well taken; as is his reminder that most of us in the blogosphere are amateurs---folks who do this for the love of it. For a variety of reasons we have volunteered for the duty, which has to be squeezed into days filled with the ordinary demands of are our rich, full, lives.

I hope Matt will continue his detailed and thoughtful writing. But once a week is plenty.

Having Nothing to Say

Or, rather, having nothing to say that isn’t already being said, it has seemed to me that a decent respect for the patience of my readers required a measured and respectful silence.

I confess to a writer’s pride. I fancy myself a master of a style once described as “elegant Victorian snottiness,” but when everyone is writing that the emperor is jay-bird naked what more is there to be said?

Political Irony

The neo-con Republicans wanted to shrink government until it could be dragged into the bathroom and drowned in the tub. Americans so despised the Bush regime that they shrank the Republican Party instead. We have dragged it into the bathroom, now let’s fill the tub.

Tucson Precinct 56

2008-11-04T07:12:00.001-07:00

Katherine and I got up at five this morning and hustled off to our Orange Grove School polling place. Arrived at 5:30 to find that we were not the first in line. There were two ahead of us.

When the polls opened there were 56 people in line. When we finished voting there was an even longer line than when we went in. Poll workers seemed to know their stuff although they were a tad slow.

Met District 26 legislative candidate Don Jorgensen out at the 75 foot limit- palm carding.

NY Times reports first election victory for Obama. He carries Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, 15 to 6.

Too Funny For Words

2008-10-22T16:49:00.000-07:00

John McCain Accidentally Left On Campaign Bus Overnight

Sarah's Mind

2008-10-08T08:51:00.002-07:00

While waiting for news of fresh financial disasters I thought Data Porters might get a chuckle out of this. It was sent to me in an e-mail.

Live Blogging: Retirement's Collapse

2008-10-07T13:55:00.005-07:00

I had intended to live blog about today's market. In the end I couldn't do it, hypnotized by the stock ticker. So I settle here for the close, as the Dow tumbles down more than 500 points. That's a 5.11% decline in value for the Dow Industrials. Things are worse for the S+P 500 and the Nasdaq, where losses are 5.74% and 5.80% respectively.

A friend of mine commented the other day that when everyone is panicking it might just be rational to panic too. The downturn is being fueled by the anxiety of retirees who are quite rationally judging that they may not have the time to hold fast.

Traditional wisdom is always that the investor should stay invested, waiting for the turnaround. Many elderly retirees probably hear time's winged chariot hurrying too near for such dallying. They're outa here! . (Interesting Reuters story about that: click)

On a personal note, echoed by other members of our local Geezeropolis, we have postponed projects and purchases we had planned before our retirement nest egg had dropped 30% in value. This behavior is another way in which local merchants and tradesmen are going to pay the price for the economic policies of the Republicans.

Now the Bailout Fun Begins

2008-10-04T18:54:00.003-07:00

There's a wonderful line in one of the Nancy Drew mysteries. A group of her girlfriends are hanging out, waiting for Nancy, when she shows up in her convertible. One of them shouts, "Hurrah, girls, now the fun begins! Here comes Nancy Drew!"

A spooky echo of that line has been running through my head: "Hurrah girls (and boys) now the fun begins! Here comes Henry Paulson!"

I have to say this whole financial disaster appeals mightily to my deep-seated capacity for schadenfreude. This is very even-handed of me since it looks like I'm going to have to bend over, along with all of you, and firmly grasp my financial ankles.

The disaster is far from over, and here's why. The foxes got in the hen house, but now it seems that the only creatures that can administer the bailout are the foxes themselves.

The companies, like Legg-Mason, who have the manpower and the expertise to supervise the bailout are really located on both sides of this deal. On the one hand they have an interest in arranging the sale of worthless mortgage securities for the highest possible price; on the other hand it is to our best interest to pay as little as possible. Which interest is going to be most compelling? You betcha!

A Light-Hearted Romp in Tucson

2008-10-04T08:33:00.002-07:00

I went to Arizona Theater Company's "Enchanted April" last night. It was a light-hearted romp by New York actors set in examples of simply terrific stagecraft.

ATC audiences adore great sets. They prefer light-hearted romps. They enjoyed the show. Well, why not? It was Georges Feydeau produced by David Belasco.

It makes some of us yearn for the days of ATC's predecessor.

Social Security and The Bailout

2008-09-30T09:25:00.003-07:00

I hope the current Wall Street flap has put paid to the financial weasels' suggestion that we privatize Social Security. Aw, they so wanted to be of help managing our retirements. For a fee, of course.

Sure, it's a good idea to save regularly for emergencies and retirement.

But if you've been too busy living from paycheck to paycheck to build up a private retirement stash you’ll be glad for your socialized retirement plan and your socialized medical program.

In your "golden years" Social Security and Medicare are your only safety net.

House Rejects Bailout

2008-09-29T11:43:00.003-07:00

What we're seeing is the capitalist system slowly devolving as a result of its internal contradictions. It begins to seem that a debt-based capitalism, one that only survives by borrowing money, is like the one-industry town where everyone lives by doing the other guy's laundry.

Doesn't it seem that if there is something wrong with our debt-ridden financial system it is simply a mistake to prop it up by more borrowing from ourselves and foreign governments? We are becoming our own loan sharks. What happens when we can no longer pay ourselves the vig? I suppose we break our own kneecaps.

Let's postpone the "bailout" for ninety days. There's plenty of money in the system. The problem is that the financial industry is sitting on it hoping that the government will print more so it doesn’t have to risk its own.

NY Times Story

Tucson Notes

2008-09-28T06:28:00.003-07:00

Looking Back

Happy Birthday to Me!

I understand it's a matter of profound indifference to most of you who stumble on The Data Port in Lefty Blogs, but I’m 79 years old today. There is no particular virtue in being old; no wisdom bestowed by age that recommends what is written here. Still, the memory of those years does much to inform what I believe and write about. Getting clear about all that is what these occasional Looking Back pieces will be about as I sweep into my Eightieth year.

I have lived, in accord with an old Chinese curse, in interesting times. I actually remember events that many (or perhaps most?) of the inhabitants of this small slice of the blogosphere know only as 'history.'

My life is bracketed by two great financial collapses: the stock market crash of 1929, and our current financial system disaster. I was only a month old on Black Monday, October 28. The next day, Black Tuesday, a record 16.4 million shares were traded and at one point the ticker tape fell two and a half hours behind. While I was asleep in my crib the Great Depression had begun.

Annexation
I had meant to comment about the information meeting on possible annexation by Tucson of a parcel of land north of River Road. Other stuff came up. I think the city officials knew that dog wasn’t going to hunt, but they had to respond to a request made by a resident in the area.

Foothills people fear over-building, which they believe city zoning will make inevitable. Ironically, as soon as the CC&Rs on granddad's three and a half acres expire the folks up here tend to break the property into smaller parcels and build houses.

Downtown Saturday Night
I went. I’ll probably go again. It seemed thin.

While Tucson Watched the Debate

2008-09-27T10:48:00.004-07:00

I went to the Rogue Theatre's wonderful production of Luigi Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author."

Six Characters is a play that most actors have heard of and some Lit Majors have actually read, but no one has had an opportunity either to act in or to see performed. It is precisely the sort of play that the Rogue Theatre has made one of their priorities to present.

Six Characters is a thinker's play, the sort of theatre that invites a post performance bottle of wine (or in my case two martinis) and a long discussion with friends about (among other things) the nature of theatrical reality.

When you enter the Zuzi Theatre a group of local actors are lounging on stage waiting for their director to arrive and begin the rehearsal. Soon a family of mysterious Characters arrive and ask the actors to tell their story.

You’ll soon realize that Six Characters is more than a 'think' piece; you’ll be riveted by the dreadful things that are going to be revealed about these characters.

The show is crisply paced (not always the case with Rogue productions) thanks to the marvelous direction of David Morden and a fresh translation/adaptation by U of A professor Patrick Baliani. I was specially tickled by sly insider references to past Rogue shows, a gentle dig at ATC’s hiring practices, and a couple of references to traditional Rogue rehearsal practices that only a former Rogue performer (as I am) would catch.

Finally, let us praise whatever gods or benefactors are responsible for the new seats in the Zuzi Theatre.

Republican Bailout Plan

2008-09-26T05:02:00.001-07:00

Shrink the economy until it's small enough to drown in the bathtub.

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime

2008-09-26T04:44:00.002-07:00

Here's a great quote from a Huffington Post story on the bailout debacle.

"Bush is no diplomat," said a Democratic staffer, "but he's Cardinal freaking Richelieu compared to McCain. McCain couldn't negotiate an agreement on dinner among a family of four without making a big drama with himself at the heroic center of it. And then they'd all just leave to make themselves a sandwich."

Tucson Downtown Saturday Night

2008-09-24T16:42:00.006-07:00

These Downtown Saturday night events used to be a regular feature of Tucson nightlife. I'm not sure why they were discontinued. Maybe they were too threatening to the suits; all those freaks, ya know.

This seems like a tailor-made opportunity for some spontaneous street theater protesting whatever you have to protest. I'll be there; maybe with a sign. With or without signs this is a good chance to mix with your neighbors.

Here’s the announcement from the Downtown Tucson Organization.

CONGRESS STREET URBAN BLOCK PARTY
Saturday, September 27
6:00pm. FREE

Join us Downtown for an evening of free arts and entertainment. Take a stroll down Congress Street and experience live music, DJs, street performers, vendors, multi-media visuals, gallery openings and more. It’s all happening Downtown, Saturday Night, September 27.

Flam Chen

Fire and stilts spectacular!
Don't miss Flam Chen’s Downtown Saturday Night special performance of "Critical Stilts" at 9:30pm.

Live Music

Downtown Saturday Night live music at various locations along Congress Street:

6:00-7:00pm - Tender Strings
6.30-7.30pm - Low Ones
7:00-8:00pm - Carlos Solorzano
7:00-9:00pm - Stefen George
7.30-9.30pm - Beatnik Dream Vacation
8:00-9:00pm - Leila Lopez
9:00-10:00pm - Cassette Culture

Hey, Congress-- Stay on the Job!

2008-09-23T08:59:00.004-07:00

It looks like Congress is going to be panicked and rushed to action on the bailout. There seems to be an indecent desire to adjourn on Friday so it can get back on the campaign trail.

Frankly, my dears, some of us won't give a damn about your re-election if you screw this up.

There is an interesting short comment to today's NY Times column by David Brooks:

"After being told we were doomed unless we handed over absolute authority to the President to wage war on Iraq, now we are told we are doomed unless we hand over unprecedented power to the Treasury Secretary. Don't be fooled again.

I have another term for the merger of government and corporations - it was done once before when people were told to ignore checks and balances and just to trust their leader, and it was called National Socialism."

— Scottsdale Jack, Scottsdale, AZ

Scottsdale Jack nails it!

Post Script: Write your Representative. I did.

Pssst...Hey, Buddy,You Wanna Buy some Derivatives?

2008-09-20T07:53:00.003-07:00

Our masters in Congress are running around in ever tightening circles, bewildered by the disaster brought on by a Republican philosophy of non-regulation on the one hand, and Democratic inaction on the other.

Well, never you mind. After 48 hours of the deepest thought Washington’s financial wizards have done an end run around Congress and come up with a plan to solve the last financial crisis…a version of the Resolution Trust Corporation.

Hang on to your hats, gang, this ain’t your father’s RTC. Back in the day the RTC simply took over the properties of the failed Savings and Loan banks. That stuff had real value… land and buildings. This time around the suggestion is that we save Wall Street by actually buying all the phony paper it holds. (Bargain price half a trillion rapidly depreciating dollars.)

Two problems: No one knows exactly what that paper is worth, and there seems to be no notion of what to do with it once we own it.

Maybe we could use it to paper the National Outhouse.

Wall Street Cooks the Books

2008-09-18T20:54:00.003-07:00

Where were the “quants” when we needed them? The “quants” were the quantitative analysts: economists and computer techies, whose job it was to warn a banking firm's traders of risk. They were there, but they were systematically undermined by bankers with deals too rich to ignore.

In an article on the technology pages of the New York Times for September 18th Saul Hansell writes:

They (the “quants”) were developing systems that would comb through all the firm’s positions, analyze everything that might go wrong and estimate how much it might lose.

As a mater of fact the computer models did a pretty good job of alerting financial institutions to risk. The bankers were now in a tough position.

Top bankers couldn’t simply ignore the computer models, because after the last round of big financial losses, regulators now require them to monitor their risk positions. Indeed, if the firm’s models say a firm’s risk has increased, the firm must either reduce its bets or set aside more capital as a cushion in case things go wrong.

According to Gregg Bermann, co-head of Risk Metrics, a risk management software company quoted in the NY Times article:

There was a willful designing of the systems to measure risks in a certain way that would not necessarily pick up all the risks. They wanted to keep their capital base as stable as possible so that the limits they imposed on their trading desks would be stable.

As Hansell says,

Lying to your risk-management computer is like lying to your Doctor. You just aren’t going to get the help you really need.

Glass-Steagall

2008-09-17T08:44:00.002-07:00

Well, not a glass steagall, more like a paper steagall. As a matter of fact no steagall at all. Oh-my-God! I just love it. I wish I were sorry to be thinking, “I told you so,” but I can’t help myself.

In case you don’t know about Glass Steagall let me remind you:

The Glass-Steagall Act is the Depression-era law that separated commercial and investment banking. It was functionally repealed in 1998, when Travelers (the parent company of Salomon Smith Barney) acquired Citicorp. And it was officially repealed in 1999. But recent events on Wall Street-the failure or sale of three of the five largest independent investment banks-have effectively turned back the clock to the 1920s, when investment banks and commercial banks cohabited under the same corporate umbrella.
--Daniel Gross, Newsweek

“Trust us,” said the members of he financial ruling class, “we’re too smart to get into trouble, too responsible to need regulation.” Yeah, sure. As always in a class war it’s the little guys who get screwed.

One bright note: It may cost us 85 billion, but at least we have a socialized insurance company to show for it. That’s a good first step.

Twilight of the American Empire

2008-09-11T17:31:00.002-07:00

If anything can be said to characterize this period in the history of the American Empire it is the faint sweet smell of decay, the aroma of something barely nosed out behind the curtains of our public and private lives. It is the way an Empire in decline begins to smell.

As a people we have become spiritually feverish and anxious, only dimly aware (if at all) that we are sick yet, somehow, responding to that half-sensed odor by questing after distraction and emotional excitation. Thus we hide ourselves from the truth.

Americans have never been a particularly introspective people; our thought has always been directed outward, toward the world. We have been engineers, pragmatists. At least by the myths we employ to understand ourselves and others it is the French to whom we attribute the inward turning of thought: Think Descartes.

When I look about today I can’t help but think of Rome: Bread…circuses… and Caesar’s royal circlet sold to the highest bidder; political destinies sold to the corn merchants.

Some weeks a go a friend looked up from his coffee and after a pause in our conversation said, “There is no honor any more.” Then just a few nights ago someone turned to me and asked, “Don’t we care about facts anymore?”

If there is a public life without honor anything is thinkable; and in a public life in which facts are less important than emotions and attitudes, the thinkable becomes attainable.

The Rodeo Clown

2008-09-06T16:39:00.002-07:00

Progressive Blogospherians would be well served to remember the true function of Sarah Palin in this campaign. Only in part is she the Republicans’ attack dog…a pit bull in petticoats. Her major function is to be the Republicans’ Rodeo Clown. While we are busy chasing the clown we miss the opportunity to put a horn in our true enemies

Palin is not an important issue. She is what she is…so move on. (Correct her lies when and where necessary, but without mentioning her, her religious beliefs, or her mothering skills.) Neo-Conservative Republicanism is the issue and the continuing threat.

Warning: Mixed metaphor ahead!

The Progressive Blogosphere reminds me of a nest of scorpions surrounded by a ring of burning straw. They thrash around stinging themselves in a frustrated fury, but they are not attacking a real enemy and they are not breaking out.

We lefty bloggers have a tendency to preach to ourselves when we should be out in the streets. Or, if revolutionary action is not your cup of tea, at least have a coffee for some of your friends and neighbors and remind them of the ways in which neo-conservative Republicanism has been a catastrophe for America.

You’d be surprised how many of your neighbors do not realize the true dimensions of our nation’s disaster.

Precinct 56 Report

2008-09-02T09:23:00.003-07:00

I got up early this morning to celebrate Primary Election Day by actually going to the polls. I have no sympathy with voting by mail. I believe in the secret ballot but I also believe that the act of voting should be public.

I like to walk up to my polling place, say hello to my fellow citizens, and “witness” my belief in the system by actually being there. Voting by mail is too much like renewing a magazine subscription by mail---it trivializes the act of voting; no one knows if you actually care.

I walked into the Orange Grove School gymnasium shortly after 7 o’clock.It was empty. Oh, there were voting booths and tables with bright eyed election workers—there just weren’t any voters. Everyone was being very careful slowly to dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t.’ This was a good dry run for November. It was probably needed.

I voted. I was the third person today.

Tucson Foothills Annexation

2008-08-31T19:11:00.005-07:00

The folks in the Catalina Foothills just love living in Tucson…so long as they aren’t actually part of Tucson; never understood it, myself.

I’ve lived in the Foothills for thirty-five years and I think it would be nifty to be able to elect representatives to the Tucson City Council. I’d like to be able to have a vote in water issues, too. I’m okay with city police and fire protection; and the city’s solid waste fee is cheaper than what I pay for garbage collection.

There must be peristaltic waves of “annexation” anxiety sweeping through the lower reaches of the Foothills. I spotted these signs along River Road. What’s up?

Here’s the City’s annexation site: click
The sponsor of one of the signs is at: Bobbaker2@gmail.com

Palin's Wikipedia Entry Gets Overhaul

2008-08-30T08:40:00.003-07:00

Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive!

The Palin candidacy is going to be an innocent source of merriment and mirth. Let me offer for your consideration the tale of the miraculously revising Palin biography. Did they think no one would catch this? NPR did!

“All Things Considered, August 29, 2008 · If you happened to check Sarah Palin's Wikipedia entry Thursday, you might have had a good tip about today's (Friday’s) announcement. Someone — and apparently it was just one person — felt like the existing biography wasn't appropriate for a vice-presidential candidate.”

Arizona Legislative District 26

2008-08-30T06:43:00.003-07:00

There are plenty of registered Independents who are really closet Democrats. I’m one of them, although as a very public old lefty I haven’t seen my closet for some time.

Some of us dropped Democratic registration because we were annoyed with what we perceived as the spineless behavior of the current crop of Democratic Congressmen and Congresswomen; others left because they just wanted to get the full burden of every party’s mailings and robocalls; some like the opportunity to dip into a Republican primary and take a shot at warping the outcome.

If any Data Port reader is a District 26 registered Independent, or if you know one, let me suggest you or they vote (ugh) Republican in this primary.

Let’s help Democrat Cheryl Cage in her run for the state senate by giving her the weaker of two possible Republican opponents, Pete Hershberger and Al Melvin. Let’s help bump Pete and elect Captain Al.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Hershberger is moderate and has been good on a variety of social issues. But if he is elected his very first vote will be to hand leadership of the Senate over to the Republicans.

Cheryl will attract moderate Republicans who will prefer her to the very conservative Al Melvin; and Hershberger Democrats, who might otherwise split their vote, will be solidly pro Cage.

Cage campaign video here.

Return To The Fray

2008-08-29T09:27:00.005-07:00

Two-and-a-half months out of the blogosphere! Well, almost. I did dip in just enough to note that Matt Foraker had played gadfly effectively and goaded the sluggish AzStarbeast into paying attention to cloth rooting about in the public trough. Good work, Matt!

I paid very little attention to anything political and spent a lot of time on the road. It was motorcycle heaven. How heavenly it was will be made clear in a few days over at the other blog: Data Port Two.

Here’s a picture of the divine one loading the hack after a glamorous night in Page, Arizona.
Of possible political interest is a comment about ethanol. I keep very careful gas mileage records on my bikes. I have found that the addition of ethanol to gasoline reduces gas mileage by a bit over 5%.

I was amused by a sticker on a BP gas pump that proudly announced that BP fuel was “enhanced” with ethanol. It was like going into a fish market and seeing a label proudly announcing that the salmon was enhanced with mercury.

C’mon, guys. If you must make alcohol out of corn, make bourbon and don’t pour it in your gas tank.

Why I'm Voting Republican

2008-06-16T11:44:00.001-07:00

Just in case you missed this.

Remembering My Father

2008-06-15T05:21:00.003-07:00

The old man had been an actor all his life and that was a rare thing. What was rare was that he'd never done anything else. He’d never sold shoes, never waited tables while he was “at liberty,” never driven a cab.

Unlike some of his pals he hadn't hung around New York waiting for a big part; never waited to be 'discovered' by some critic or producer who would pick him out of the crowd as Broadway’s newest star. He simply went wherever the work was.

As a young man he was told it wasn't clever career management to leave the center of the theatrical world and go careening around the sticks with some wandering repertory company. Why not pick up some cash waiting tables and bet on the big break?

He'd think about that for a moment and say, “Given the chance I'd rather just go acting.” And that’s what he did, moving across the country to wherever there was work for a journeyman performer with a decent wardrobe and the knack for learning his part quickly.

When acting jobs weren't available he’d direct. He’d go wherever there was a little theatre, community group, or church pageant that needed to be put in order. He taught acting at a museum theatre school, and acted in radio soap operas. But whatever he did he was always a creature of the theatre, a man for whom the practice of his craft was more important than the conditions under which he practiced it, or the fame of the place he did his work.

He lived in a Volkswagen van in the parking lot of a Texas theatre one boiling hot summer because he wanted, he needed, to “go acting.”

As the years rolled by and the casting calls became less frequent he had pretty much decided that he was no longer “at liberty” but simply retired. And that was why, the Christmas season of his seventy-second year, he took a job as a department store Santa Claus. It was another chance to go acting.

He was glad of the work but now the old actor had a problem. He’d been doing a favor for a lady friend and the new job would mean he’d have to stop doing that favor.

The lady had a son, a rising star in the banking business. A nice enough ‘kid,’ as the old actor always called him, but as articulate as a barrel of hair when facing any group greater than one. The actor had volunteered to be the kid’s speech coach and over the weeks a polite distance between the two grew into the closeness of mutual affection.

The young man was sad to think the actor’s new job would interrupt their sessions together, but he was happy for the old man. The job was a nice Christmas present.

“So what’s the part, Coach?”

“It’s a character part. I’m going to do Santa Claus at Bulloch’s department store.”

The kid was well and truly knocked down by this. He was embarrassed for the old actor; at his taking what seemed like a humiliating end-of-the-road job.

“How can you do that?” he asked. “You’ve spent your entire life as an actor, you’ve never driven a cab or waited on tables, or sold socks ...and now you’re going to play Santa in a department store?”

“Ah, kid, it’s a pretty good job. Costume and makeup are provided and I get a private green room. Think of that! Besides, there are no lines to learn, I’m only on for about a half-hour at a time and I get one free meal a day in the employee cafeteria. Best of all, I’m making better than Equity minimum.”

“Well, I think it’s humiliating,” said the kid, who didn’t realize until that moment how much he loved the old man.

“It’s humiliating to think that someone like you who’s worked in the theatre with some of our finest actors has to play a department store Santa. Good Lord! Imagine stuffing a pillow in your costume, wearing those awful fake patent leather boots, the phony beard and ...and...that ridiculous red suit! How can you do that?”

The old actor thought about this for a while, just a little hurt that the kid was raining on his parade.

“You know, I want to give you a little advice. There’s a lesson to be learned here that’ll do you more good in the long run than anything I can teach you about speaking in some bank board room. It’s advice about life, and it’s just as good for bankers as it is for actors. It's all about what you call that ridiculous red suit."

The old actor leaned into the young man until they were practically nose to nose and in a sotto voce growl said…

“Listen, kid, if you want to play Santa Claus, you gotta wear the red suit.”
…………………………………………
My father died two years after the Santa Claus gig, his last chance to go acting. The young man is the vice president of a southern California bank.

Originally published in The desert Leaf

Formula One!

2008-06-09T09:18:00.005-07:00

It was a little little bit of Sunday heaven yesterday watching Formula One racing.
If you're unfamiliar with F1, take a look at the official web site.

The greatest cars and drivers in open wheel racing compete in Formula One, an 18-contest season on road courses. I watch Indy Car of course, mainly following Danica Patrick and Tony Kanaan, but oval course racing seems to lack the challenge and excitement of the road courses and the IRL broadcasts are overloaded with commercials.

NASCAR? I've never been able to get on with it.....Round and round and round and snore.

Yesterday Polish driver Robert Kubica driving a BMW-Sauber car won the Canadian Grand Prix. BMW cars are now first and second as BMW-Sauber closes in on the Constructor’s Trophy just 3 points behind Ferrari.

Two Pieces of Really Bad News

2008-06-06T17:01:00.002-07:00

I've taken up my bicycle again...just in case.

A Sweet Deal for US Sugar

2008-06-04T14:33:00.003-07:00

I guess the Mott family really needs the money.

CLEWISTON, Fla. — Thousands of workers at U.S. Sugar thought they were getting a good deal when the company shelved their pension plan and gave them stock for their retirement instead. They had a heady sense of controlling their own destiny as they became the company’s biggest shareholders, Vic McCorvey, a former farm manager there, said.

Now that many U.S. Sugar workers are reaching retirement age, though, the company has been cashing them out of the retirement plan at a much lower price than they could have received. Unknown to them, an outside investor was offering to buy the company — and their shares — for far more. Longtime employees say they have lost out on tens of thousands of dollars each and millions of dollars as a group, while insiders of the company came out ahead.

Corporations loved these plans (ESOPs- Employee Stock Ownership plans) if for no other reason than that they allowed them an alternative to defined benefit plans. There were corporate tax breaks as well and owners could sell their otherwise illiquid stock to the plans. US Sugar took its stock off the public market when the ESOP was created in 1983.

Nearly 95 percent of the country’s 10,000 ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans) are now at privately held companies, like U.S. Sugar. Because their shares are not publicly traded, there is no market price. So workers cash out shares without knowing what the price would be on an open market.

You can read the whole story by clicking here.

American Fascism and The Corporate State

2008-06-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

While you’re waiting patiently for the official announcement that our Primary ordeal is over, let me suggest some reading: “America’s Democratic Collapse,” by Pulitzer prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges.

Here are some excerpts:

We have watched over the past few decades the rise of a powerful web of interlocking corporate entities, a network of arrangements within subsectors, industries, or other partial jurisdictions to diminish and often abolish outside control and oversight. These corporations have neutralized national, state and judicial authority. They dominate, for example, a bloated and wasteful defense industry, which has become sacrosanct and beyond the reach of politicians, most of whom are left defending military projects in their districts, no matter how redundant, because they provide jobs. This has permitted a military-industrial complex, which contributes lavishly to political campaigns, to spread across the country with virtual impunity.

The corporate state, begun under Ronald Reagan and pushed forward by every president since, has destroyed the public and private institutions that protected workers and safeguarded citizens. Only 7.8 percent of workers in the private sector are unionized. This is about the same percentage as in the early 1900s. There are 50 million Americans in real poverty and tens of millions of Americans in a category called "near poverty." Our health care system is broken. Eighteen thousand people die in this country, according to the Institute of Medicine, every year because they can't afford health care. That is six times the number of people who died in the 9/11 attacks, and these unnecessary deaths continue year after year. But we do not hear these stories of pain and dislocation. We are diverted by bread and circus. News reports do little more than report on trivia and celebrity gossip. The FCC, in an example of how far our standards have fallen, defines shows like Fox's celebrity gossip program "TMZ" and the Christian Broadcast Network's "700 Club" as "bona fide newscasts." The economist Charlotte Twight calls this vast corporate system of spectacle and democratic collapse "participatory fascism."

How did we get here? How did this happen? In a word, deregulation -- the systematic dismantling of the managed capitalism that was the hallmark of the American democratic state. Our political decline came about because of deregulation, the repeal of antitrust laws, and the radical transformation from a manufacturing economy to a capital economy.

End excerpts

We are the victims of a slow motion coup d’etat.

Top Down, Bottom Up

2008-06-02T10:26:00.001-07:00

I’m fairly sure that when primary postmortems are held that simple phrase, “Top Down, Bottom Up,” will summarize the difference between the Clinton and Obama campaigns. There is considerable anecdotal evidence that, here in Arizona at least, the Clinton campaign passed over some canny local pols, preferring out-of-state organizers.

Whether that was true and whether, or to what degree, that was the case at the national level will have to wait for scholarly analysis.

Another expression, “That was then, this is now,” pretty neatly summarizes another mistake by Clinton campaign strategists: The nature of political action and political organizing has really changed since 1993. It’s not perfectly clear to me that the campaign understood the power of Web 2.0, and the nature of bottom up campaigning that makes possible.

The Obama campaign clearly did---not too amazing in a campaign run by and for a seasoned community organizer.

What Makes Clinton Run

2008-06-01T10:41:00.003-07:00

There are two fairly obvious emotional engines driving Senator Clinton’s continued scramble for her party’s nomination: She desperately wants the job and she fervently believes that Senator Obama can’t beat McCain.

Only a political naïf would fault her for wanting the job and devoting herself passionately to its pursuit. If you don’t believe you deserve to be President, if that desire isn’t the hot center of your emotional life then you probably shouldn’t run. Passionate ambition is the sine qua non of a political life.

The Clinton problem, however, (and the reason so many people dislike her without being able to quite say why) is that her ambition is so painfully obvious. We much prefer our candidates to appear at least a little reluctant to shoulder the awful burdens of public service---but willing to do it, of course, out of devotion to the public welfare and as the result of a great spontaneous groundswell. Oh, Yeah.

On the question of Obama’s ability to beat McCain I can only comment that he was able enough to beat one of the cleverest political families of recent times. In my judgment he will be more than able to handle McCain.

Did the Clintons misjudge how good a politician Obama is? You bet. Far from being some sort of misty-eyed novice dreaming an impossible dream he was (and is) a political street fighter and community organizer trained up by some of the wiliest attack dogs in Chicago Democratic politics.

It makes those of us who learned our politics in the Chicago wards of the Daley organization smile .

For a revealing backgrounder on Obama click here.

Vote Yellow Dog

2008-05-31T06:11:00.002-07:00

Be a Yellow Dog Democrat!

A Yellow Dog Democrat is someone who would vote for anyone, even a yellow dog, if he she or it were running on the Democratic ticket. A Yellow Dog Democrat will even vote for a Blue Dog, or Hillary, or Obama. Follow the Yellow Dog!

The Data Port is back.

How Tucson Drives

2008-05-07T10:47:00.002-07:00

Badly. Badly, that is, for a town whose drivers are beginning to whine about the high cost of gasoline. Well, I’m sorry---okay, not very--- but didn’t you see it coming before you bought your wheels? Never had an inkling? Oh.

We’re all stuck with the choices we made until we can trade down or get our Albatross Eight paid for; but that doesn’t mean we are helpless.

I regularly ride the Ina Road, Skyline Drive, Sunrise dog-leg. When the light I’m at turns green I shift up through the gears as soon as my engine speed allows. I do not jack-rabbit off the starting line. Invariably the car behind me snaps to my left, barrels past and pulls in front of me so that he can be the first guy at the next red light. He’s there waiting for me when I arrive.

Driving this way I can actually increase my gas mileage by almost three miles per gallon.

For the record my two personal vehicles are a 1990 BMW K75 with sidecar (my pickup truck) and a BMW F650 CS single cylinder solo bike. Riding as I have described I get 40 MPG from the hack and nearly 60 MPG from the solo.

I can’t believe the laws of physics are such that what works for me won’t for work you, whatever you drive.

Tucson’s Rio Nada

2008-05-07T09:21:00.001-07:00

The best job of local journalism is not being done by any of the local journals; it’s being done by blogger Matt Foraker over at Sustainability, Equity, Development.

The latest installment (Tuesday, May 6) of his devastating analysis of the Rio Nuevo disaster can be read here.

I particularly relish this paragraph:

I've never met Greg or Hecker, but the cloth alarm is screaming. I have met Snell. I speak with confidence that if you asked these three to team up and bake a pizza, they'd drop fifty grand on an oven study, twelve grand to fly to Greece and watch them, $40 grand to consultants to study 1) dough, 2) sauce, 3) ingredients, 4) cheese, 5) baking temps, 6) pizza size, and 7) crust thickness policies. After extensive meetings and interviews, Snell would drop 75 grand for glossy pamphlets no one will read because everyone's already left for Pizza Hut, where it takes 20 minutes and costs about twelve bucks.

Love it!

Another Note From The Sidelines

2008-04-25T12:25:00.002-07:00

There’s a story in today’s Huffington Post that I find particularly depressing.
Here is the lede:

"In a blink of an eye, the media has jumped ship from the Obama campaign and become a crucial Clinton ally, pressing just the message -- that Obama is a likely loser in the general election -- that Hillary and her allies have been promoting for the past six weeks."

Does this mean that in order to win the Democratic Party must become the party of the Reagan Democrats and people in whose hearts the N word still governs their political choices? I have always hoped that the Democratic Party would turn out to be tougher and more aggressive than this capitulation would suggest.

Based on the Party’s performance over the past 8 years I’m not going to bet on it.

A Note From The Sidelines

2008-04-18T09:36:00.003-07:00

Well, I’ve just been standing on the corner watching all the blogs go by. It’s been restful to take a break. Besides, my fellow Lefty Bloggers have been doing such an excellent job of keeping us focussed on the disasters and disturbances of the current social and political scene that I've simply had nothing to add.

X4mr has raised some interesting questions about the dark underbelly of Tucson society and you can always count on Tedski’s political memory to put local political events into an historical context.

In addition to standing on the political corner I have spent some time standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona; and making plans for a Spring and Summer of motorcycling.

Misplaced Priorities

2008-03-11T21:16:00.000-07:00

Let’s see if I understand this. People are losing their homes and others, having already lost their homes, are living in their cars or pitching their tents in washes. The dollar is cratering, rising food costs are squeezing family budgets, education is seriously under-funded, college graduates can’t get jobs and Arizona struggles with its budget.

In the mean time an assistant basketball coach gets a nice raise to $725,000 and an absentee head coach draws down $737,790. In addition there are performance bonuses he probably won’t get unless the assistant coach performs a miracle; in which case his earnings kick up to over a million bucks.

Decades ago one of our greatest universities, The University of Chicago, gave up on intercollegiate sports. Students still got to play games, most stayed in school for four years, and no one ever got a degree in “Family Studies.”

What a world.