FromDC2Iowa

Does Herky Have a Gambling Problem?

2012-01-25T07:01:00.008-06:00

January 25, 2012, 8:30 a.m.

NCAA vs. Hawkeyes
Both the Press-Citizen and Gazette (and possibly Daily Iowan to come) have stories about Iowa Athletic Director Gary Barta's meeting with faculty leaders yesterday. The differences in the stories are striking.

The Press-Citizen's story, buried in small print at the bottom of page 3 leads with the report that Barta "defended the departments hiring practices and coaches' salaries" (the exclusive subject matter of the entire story). Emily Schettler, "Barta Defends Coaches' Salaries and Iowa's Hiring Practices," Iowa City Press-Citizen, January 25, 2012, p. 3.

The Gazette, by contrast, in heavy type at the top of the page, leads with "Barta on Tuesday [Jan. 24] told faculty leaders he is comfortable with the department's renewed relationship with the Iowa Lottery" (the exclusive subject matter of the Gazette's entire story). Diane Heldt, "Barta: I'm Comfortable with Lottery Relationship," The Gazette, January 25, 2012, p. 11A.

I guess you had to be there. (Which is probably the case of anyone's report of any event.)

Barta says he's "comfortable" with the Iowa Lottery "because it's a state-sponsored agency." Is that relevant? Should it be? During my first judicial clerkship (U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit) a significant part of our caseload involved what was then called "the numbers racket," often Mafia-run, it was considered a serious crime. So, OK, now the state has taken it over. Does that make it, for NCAA student-athlete purposes, not gambling? I don't think so.

But what really caught my eye in Ms. Heldt's report was, "Barta said any relationships the department has with the gambling industry are limited to the Iowa Lottery . . .." [Photo of Kinnick scoreboard.]

Why did that catch my eye? Because the last time I checked (so it may have changed), the Kinnick scoreboard was still running an advertisement for the Riverside gambling casino, and the casino still had a Kinnick skybox for its high rollers.

And my memory, and a prior blog entry, indicate that the NCAA at one time put the Iowa athletic program on notice that it did not look favorably on these gambling industry associations, in light of the concerns and spirit of Article 10.3. ("The NCAA wants to distance itself from sports gambling, and the gambling industry generally, in every way possible. It expressly forbids association with gambling casinos at NCAA events or in its advertising. It highly recommends that NCAA schools follow the same practice. It has written the UI athletic program with regard to its partnership with the Riverside Gambling Casino. And yet our football program tries to rationalize the gambling partnership while refusing to do anything about it."
"Conflicts, Cover-ups and Corruption," June 26, 2007.)

I very seldom reprint a former blog entry. But since this one is so on point, and since it's over five years old (and therefore long forgotten if ever remembered), I now do so:

"UI Football Promoting Gambling?" September 16, 2006

Is the University of Iowa Athletic Department, specifically the football program, promoting gambling?

There is very little ambiguity regarding the NCAA's rules regarding gambling on college sports. The NCAA Division I Manual provides [Note Jan. 25, 2012: What's below is the relevant Article 10.3 in 2006; the current, 2007 version, has been only slightly modified from this one.]:

10.3 GAMBLING ACTIVITIES

Staff members of a member conference, staff members of the athletics department of a member institution and student-athletes shall not knowingly: (Revised: 4/22/98 effective 8/1/98)

( a ) Provide information to individuals involved in organized gambling activities concerning intercollegiate athletics competition;
( b ) Solicit a bet on any intercollegiate team;
( c ) Accept a bet on any team representing the institution;
( d ) Solicit or accept a bet on any intercollegiate competition for any item (e.g., cash, shirt, dinner) that has tangible value; or (Revised: 9/15/97)
( e ) Participate in any gambling activity that involves intercollegiate athletics or professional athletics, through a bookmaker, a parlay card or any other method employed by organized gambling. (Revised: 1/9/96, 1/14/97 effective 8/1/97)

NCAA Division I Manual, Bylaw Article 10, Ethical Conduct, 10.3 (2001-02).

_______________

It couldn't be much clearer, could it? Academic institutions are able to claim that they want to maintain an impenetrable wall between their athletic programs, staff and student athletes, on the one hand, and the temptations of sports gambling on the other.

Of course, these standards do not address, nor could they, gambling on sports by those unaffiliated with a university. (And I am not claiming that the Universty's getting in bed with gambling interests, and taking the gambling industry's money, is "the same as" coaches and athletes betting on games.)

But it does seem a bit incongruous for the University's athletic program to enter into what amounts to a partnership with the gambling industry. How has it done that?

The University has (1) sold special indoor box facilities in the football stadium to a local gambling casino, aware that the casino purchased the facility to entertain, and encourage, high rollers, (2) knowing that the casino plans to bring gamblers into the state, put them up at its hotel, transport them to and from the football games, and (3) then agreed to let the casino use the football program's oversized electronic scoreboard to advertise the gambling casino to the 70,000 plus sports fans in attendance! (4) Removing any possible ambiguity about this, the Casino Web site's opening page currently displays, "Turn a Hawkeye game day into a weekend getaway!"

See William Petroski, "E. Iowa Casino to Lure U of I Fans; It will offer post-game parties, stadium shuttles," Des Moines Register, August 29, 2006 ("The casino has spent $165,000 for a three-year deal to lease a new skybox at Kinnick Stadium, and the casino has purchased dozens of football tickets for its preferred customers. Starting with the Iowa-Iowa State game on Sept. 16, charter buses will be offered to transport patrons between the casino parking lot and Kinnick Stadium, and there will be post-game parties at the Riverside complex."), and William Petroski, "Kinnick ‘Hotel’ ad omits 'Casino;' By design, an ad for Riverside's complex does not mention gambling," Des Moines Register, September 8, 2006 ("Chief Executive Officer Dan Kehl pointed out in a recent interview that . . . many students already gamble online.").

The duplicity is stunning. Apparently the University, recognizing the impropriety of what it was doing, but wanting the money from the gambling industry advertising anyway, decided everything would be OK if only it would falsely represent that no gambling actually takes place in a gambling casino by changing the name on its scoreboard from the gambling casino's real name -- the "Riverside Casino & Golf Resort" -- to that of a non-existant facility called the "Riverside Hotel & Golf Resort."

While I suspect that few of the 70,000 fans were led to believe that the Casino had truly decided to abandon gambling income for total dependence on its hotel business, there may well have been a few who found the name switch a little bizarre and baffling.

Not only does a university's promoting gambling to the young students in its charge violate basic principles of common sense and decency, it also violates the spirit of the law (which forbids anyone under the age of 21 to enter a gambling casino), and the spirit of the NCAA rules.

(Another incongruity is that while the University forbids consumption of alcohol in the stadium and some tailgating areas, a special dispensation to drink is granted to the Casino's stadium gamblers, as well as the guests of other purchasers of the $50,000-plus-a-year indoor skyboxes. There's no telling what lesson that provides the students in the stands and the athletes on the field.)

The University is certainly in no position to feign ignorance and innocence. As early as May 2006 the campus paper reported,

"[Riverside Casino Manager Joe] Massa has hired a sales manager to lure groups and conventions to the casino, and he plans to hire a sales staff in Chicago and Des Moines. A package could include a hotel stay with a trip to Kinnick Stadium for tailgating and box seats at an Iowa football game. Kehl says he wants to organize junkets to the casino, where out-of-state gamblers would be flown into the Eastern Iowa Airport."

Elaine Watkins-Miller, "If they build it, will they come?," Master's Media Project/Riverside Project, The Daily Iowan, May 5, 2006.

What has the University had to say about all of this?

"University of Iowa athletic director Gary Barta said Tuesday that the university would not place restrictions on a Riverside casino that has rented a Kinnick Stadium skybox with plans to bring big gamblers to Hawkeye football games.

“'We have never placed any restrictions on a company which owns tickets, how they use them secondarily,' Barta said. 'Once they are sold to a company, it is that individual’s or that company’s discretion how they use them.'

"The new $140 million casino at Riverside is placing a special marketing emphasis on Hawkeye football games. The casino, located 12 miles south of Iowa City, has spent $165,000 for a three-year lease on a skybox at Kinnick Stadium. The casino has also purchased dozens of Hawkeye football tickets for its preferred guests.

"Iowa has 19 casinos, but the opening of the Riverside complex Thursday at 9 p.m. marks the first time a casino has been so close to one of Iowa’s three state universities.

"Barta said the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the U of I are 'very concerned about possible ill effects as they relate to gambling and intercollegiate athletics.'

"He added, 'On the other hand, the various casinos in this state, they are legal businesses. So you walk that fine line between your concern about gambling and its association with intercollegiate athletics and what you know has been understood as a legal entity in this state.'"

Randy Peterson, "High-Level, High-Dollar, High Ol' Times," Des Moines Register, August 30, 2006 ("Casino's Football Skybox is OK With U of I").

The Hawkeyes won the game today, and a good one it was. And they've made a lot of money from the gambling industry.

But in the process they've certainly fallen far from the educational and moral high ground to which they profess to aspire.

Technorati tags: Iowa Rain Forest, economic development, attractions, tourism, rain forest, pork, Earthpark, Earthpork, Earth Park, Iowa, casino, gambling, Riverside, Pella, Riverside Casino & Golf Resort, football, college sports, sports betting, gambling and college football

Peak Oil, Peak Football

2012-01-21T08:12:00.005-06:00

January 21, 2012, 10:00 a.m.

$80,000 for the Seat; $3750/Year to Sit In It
"San Francisco 49ers fans, how much would you pay to own a seat on the 50-yard line at the team's sparkling new stadium in Santa Clara? Try $80,000. And if you're looking for single tickets and want primo seats, you'll have to pay almost triple what it costs for a comparable view of the football action at Candlestick Park." Mike Rosenberg, "Club tickets won't come cheap at Santa Clara 49ers stadium," San Jose Mercury News," January 10, 2012. [Photo credit: NFL.] "This is what $1 billion looks like."

Of course, just because you own the seat doesn't mean you can actually sit in it and watch the 49ers play football. No, for that you'll need a $3750 season ticket. And if you want to take someone with you you'll need two seats and two season tickets.

We're not talking skyboxes here. Just a seat, out in the open, braving the elements. Before those tickets even went on sale a wealthier class of fans had already purchased $225 million worth of "luxury suites." No, we're just talking ordinary ticket holders, couples who think three hours or so watching football well worth the $750 for their tickets.

From "The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs" ("Killing The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs is among the best known of Aesop's Fables [and] has become idiomatic of an unprofitable action motivated by greed") to the "housing bubble" ("an economic bubble affecting . . . over half of American states. Housing prices peaked in early 2006 . . . and may not yet [2011] have hit bottom . . ..") there comes a time when things peak and begin their decline.

In fact, not that far from Santa Clara are those who remember Silicon Valley's "dot-com bubble" of the late 1990s ("A combination of rapidly increasing stock prices, market confidence that the companies would turn future profits, individual speculation in stocks, and widely available venture capital created an environment in which many investors were willing to overlook traditional metrics such as P/E ratio in favor of confidence in technological advancements").

One of the most serious "peak" phenomena is the prospect of declining oil supply (at prices the market can bear), known as "peak oil." Nick A. Owen, Oliver R. Inderwildi, David A. King, "The Status of Conventional World Oil Reserves--Hype or Cause for Concern?" Energy Policy, vol. 38, August 2010, pp. 4743-49 ("While there is certainly vast amounts of fossil fuel resources left in the gound, the volume of oil that can be commercially exploited at prices the global economy has become accustomed to is limited and will soon decline. The result is that oil may soon shift from a demand-led market to a supply constrained market."), and the more general essay, "Peak Oil," Wikipedia.org ("Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline.")

Is it possible that we could be reaching "peak football"?

The NFL's first TV contract paid the League $4.65 million in 1962. By 2010 the clubs earned over $20 billion -- 4000 times as much. Major college sports now gross $5.6 billion (over half from football), and the Iowa Hawkeyes' football coach, at $4 million give or take, is the state's highest paid "employee." Weiler, Roberts, Abrams & Ross, Sports and the Law (4th ed. 2011), pp. 434, 746.

Meanwhile, the injuries become more serious (see, Ken Belson, " For N.F.L., Concussion Suits May Be Test for Sport Itself," New York Times, December 30, 2011, p. A1; "Players still willing to hide head Injuries," Associated Press, December 26, 2011), and the criticism mounts. See, e.g., Branch, "The Shame of College Sports," The Atlantic, Oct. 2011; Nocera, "Let’s Start Paying College Athletes," New York Times Magazine, Jan. 1, 2012; National College Players Association, "Football Coaches' Salaries vs. Scholarship Shortfall (BCS Colleges)" [undated].

Taxpayers are becoming increasingly reluctant to underwrite the cost of billion-dollar stadiums they cannot afford to enter, just to increase the profits of the billionaires who own the teams, and the millionaires who play the game. (This one will require the city's taxpayers to take out an $850 million loan to cover most of the construction costs.) Lisa Fernandez, "Santa Clara: Group says it has enough signatures to force vote on 49ers stadium loan," San Jose Mercury News, January 18, 2012.

With the NFL playoffs coming tomorrow, this may not be the best of times to raise the issue, and peak football may be a decade or more away. But everything seems to have its "peak," and it's unlikely football will be the last exception left standing.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that, unless we start building a lot more rapid rail than is likely, we wouldn't have been able to find the gas to drive to those stadiums anyway -- even if we could afford to pay the tariff to sit in our $80,000 seats.

# # #

The Best Government Money Can Buy

2012-01-18T04:59:00.005-06:00

January 18, 2012, 5:00 a.m.; added item January 22.

Connecting the Dots
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

-- Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows"

"Everybody knows."

Everybody knows our political process, and thus ultimately our government, is corrupted with the influence of money. (See, "More Support for Going Communist Than Congress," November 16, 2011.) Sometimes it's illegal bribery. More often it's perfectly legal "campaign contributions." As I've often said, "The problem is not so much that corporations violate the law. It's that they write the law."

There's no little pill we can take to solve this problem. Even if there were, Big Pharma would patent it and then raise the price beyond the ability of any but the top 1% to pay for it. And those folks would have no reason to take it. They are not suffering from this political disease; they're profiting from it.

What we can do, by way of baby steps toward a solution, is to publicize the data that will enable the media and the people to connect the dots. We need to see, not just that politicians get money from special interests, not just that government largess tends to be squandered on those least in need of it. We need to see the unmistakable direct connection between the contributions and the return on that "investment."

Fifteen years ago I wrote a column in the Des Moines Register making this connection. A little research disclosed the "rate of return" on political "contributions." It turned out to be 1000 to one. That is, those who gave $1 million (say, in soft money for a political party's national convention) could expect to receive $1 billion in return. This online reproduction of that column actually provides the footnotes of verification: Nicholas Johnson, "Campaigns: You Pay $4 or $4000," Des Moines Register, July 21, 1996, p. C2. (The "$4 or $4000" reference was the contrast between what citizens would pay for public financing of campaigns ($4 each) compared with the additional amounts we have to pay as consumers and taxpayers when they are funded by corporations and the wealthy ($4000).)

In years past, this blog would occasionally give a "Hat's Off" award for outstanding journalism. Two years ago the Register and Clark Kauffman were awarded one for an investigative report of nursing home "contributions." Clark Kauffman: Clark Kauffman, "Nursing home groups donate to lawmakers," Des Moines Register, November 16, 2008, and Clark Kauffman, Industry Courts Legislators," Des Moines Register, November 16, 2008. Nicholas Johnson, "Hats Off" to Register for Money in Politics Expose; Register Wins "Hats Off" Award for Expose: Tawdry Impact of Campaign Contributions on Iowa's Nursing Home Public Policy," November 17, 2008.

Clark Kauffman remains on the case. But sadly, things seem not to have improved over the past four years according to the January 22 Des Moines Register: Clark Kauffman, "Lobbyists, Not Public, Met Panel; The Governor's Office Had Refused to Say Who Came to the Meetings About Sex Offenders in Nursing Homes," Des Moines Register, January 22, 2012, p. B1.

Earlier that year this blog commented, "Unfortunately, . . . investigative reporting of money in Iowa politics and governing is all too rare. Occasionally there will be stories regarding which legislators have raised how much money. There may even be a reference to where some of that money came from. Very rarely is there an effort to investigate the extent to which there is a relationship between the sources of campaign funds and the votes of the recipients -- let alone a routine reporting of these relationships for every single member of the Iowa legislature." Nicholas Johnson, "Golden Rules & Revolutions: A Series, Part VIII: Money and Lobbyists in Iowa: Smoke and Mirrors," April 19, 2008.

Last Sunday [Jan. 15] the Register did it again: Lee Rood, "Most tax incentives awarded to wealthy companies; More than $809 million in Iowa tax breaks went to 50 companies in seven years," Des Moines Register, January 15, 2012, p. A1 ("State leaders gave the lion’s share of Iowa’s economic development tax breaks from 2003 to 2010 to some of the most profitable businesses in the country, awarding 50 companies more than $809 million in seven years.")

This was an extraordinary bit of research and reporting, certainly warranting another "Hat's Off" for the Register and, in this instance, Lee Rood.

But while the nursing home story concentrated on receipt of campaign contributions, Rood's story concentrates on the distribution of taxpayers' money to the wealthy.

We have still not connected the dots. We need to know not only how much legislators receive in "contributions" (and from whom), we need to know not only how much they give away (and to whom). We need to know the relationship between what each individual legislator (or member of Congress) received from a given special interest (or its lobbyists) and how that individual legislator voted on the subsequent largess to that contributor.

By Monday [Jan. 16] we finally had an example of what I've been calling for. The New York Times focused on former Senator Rick Santorum, now a candidate for president in the Republican primaries. Michael Luo and Mike McIntire, "Donors Gave as Santorum Won Earmarks," New York Times, January 16, 2012, p. A1.

As Luo and McIntire report, "The announcements flowed out of Rick Santorum’s Senate office: a $3.5 million federal grant to Piasecki Aircraft to help it test a new helicopter propeller technology; another $3.5 million to JLG Industries to bolster its bid to build all-terrain forklifts for the military; $1.4 million to Medico Industries to upgrade equipment for its munitions work. . . . A review of some of his earmarks, viewed alongside his political donations, suggests that the river of federal money Mr. Santorum helped direct to Pennsylvania paid off handsomely in the form of campaign cash."

That's what I mean.

It's hard work connecting those dots. Those who have such information are reluctant to share it. But our democracy demands no less -- from the media, the academic and research communities, the government, indeed all of us.

As my favorite school superintendent's wall sign had it: "In God we trust; all others must bring data" (attributed to W. Edwards Deming).

In short, it's not enough that "everybody knows."

Without data, without connecting the dots, what everybody knows is unlikely to ever become what everybody does.

# # #

What Do You See . . .

2011-12-27T16:46:00.005-06:00

December 27, 2011, 10:00 p.m.

. . . When You Look At Iowa?
Stephen Bloom took a look at Iowans, and what he saw was "the elderly waiting to die, those too timid (or lacking in educated [sic]) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth, or those who quixotically believe, like Little Orphan Annie, that 'The sun'll come out tomorrow.'" Stephen G. Bloom,"Observations From 20 Years of Iowa Life; Thoughts from a university professor on the Iowa hamlets that will shape the contours of the GOP contest," The Atlantic, December 9, 2011.

Olivia White, an adventurous 21-year-old woman from Tasmania who came to visit America, also took a look at Iowa. But she liked what and who she saw, decided to stay, and wrote about it recently in the local press this way:

I have now adventured and worked in more than 15 states . . .. I have seen the sites of Manhattan, D.C., L.A. and San Francisco. My travels have taken me to the Big Sur Mountains of California . . .. [T]he Kenai Peninsula of Alaska . . .. I volunteered for a ministry in the Bible Belt of America . . .. I have explored Amish country and enjoyed dreamlike summer buggy rides with the Amish people. I worked on a horse ranch . . . on the Meramec River in Missouri . . .. Finally, I found Iowa — what I would describe as the epitome of “fair dinkum” (Australian slang for “real” and “genuine”). . . . The way in which I found my way to Iowa truly encapsulates my feelings toward Iowa and its wonderful people. . . . I came across a couple outside their cabin [at the Missouri horse ranch]. . .. We chatted for half an hour or so comparing and contrasting Tasmania and Iowa and just enjoying some friendly banter. When the couple departed the next day, a note was left behind with information and an invitation for me to come visit them in Iowa. . . . Upon arriving in Cedar Rapids, I only expected to visit for several weeks. I did not want to take advantage of such a hospitable invitation. However, my new family encouraged me to stay longer and I realized that I was by no means ready to depart my new home.

Olivia White, "Journey Brings Her to Iowa; Tasmania Native Falls in Love with State While Exploring U.S.," The Gazette, December 25, 2011, p. C2.

Olivia White, who is among other things an accomplished swimmer, is now a Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School's swimming coach.

Of course, I am pleased that Ms. White, having taken a pretty good look at what America has to offer, chose Iowa for her home.

But I wouldn't continue to write on the subject if she was just one more of the three million souls who have also looked at Iowa, liked what they saw, and chosen to live (or continue to live, or to return) here.

No number of accomplished and enthusiastic Iowans will ever change the minds of those who are blind to what the three million can see so clearly.

How to explain this difference in perception?

In my response to Stephen Bloom's mean-spirited screed attacking Iowa I noted, "[M]ost everything we say, or write is little more than an indication of what's going on inside that electro-chemical sensory processing soup we call our brain. . . . When we say the view of [a] . . . mountain range, river valley, ocean [or] desert [is] 'beautiful,' that 'beauty' is of our own making. It lies inside of us, not in the molecules that make up the physical stuff we're looking at." Nicholas Johnson, "Taking the Bloom From My Rose; Another Perspective on Stephen Bloom's Iowa," December 16, 2011.

That's why I'm bringing Olivia White to my attention, and yours. It's not that she just appreciates Iowa and Iowans. It is that this young lady has learned at her age that there is something to appreciate everywhere -- Manhattan, D.C., L.A. and San Francisco, Big Sur, the Kenai Peninsula, the Bible Belt, Amish country, and Missouri horse ranches.

Whatever it is that is going on in her own personal brew, that "electro-chemical sensory processing soup" that is her brain, is obviously a delightful place to be. That's why she can see what Stephen Bloom cannot. That's why everyplace is, for her, a delightful place to be, and why, of all those places, she's chosen our place to live.

And though I've never met her, I rather imagine it's also why the places she chooses to be become, as well, delightful places for those who share those places with her.

Now listen to what Louis Armstrong sees when he looks at the world:

Or read the lyrics of "What a Wonderful World," as written by Robert Thiele and George David Weiss:

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom, for me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

I see skies of blue, and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces, of people going by
I see friends shaking hands, sayin', "How do you do?"
They're really sayin', "I love you"

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more, than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

Yes, I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Oh yeah

And, finally, the full text of Ms. White's article:

As a young girl growing up on the island of Tasmania, just off the coast of South East Australia, I would often dream of the day that I could take flight on my own and travel across the United States of America.

Doing what, I wasn’t entirely sure, but that was the whole point. I would take time to broaden my horizons, to excite my senses and to experience life as I didn’t yet know it.

Now, as I sit here in Cedar Rapids writing an article for the local newspaper, I realize I am indeed living my dream.

I grew up in a family of six children with an American father and an Australian mother. It was this cross-cultural influence that first sparked my desire to know my father’s country as well as my mother’s.

At 21 years old, I have now adventured and worked in more than 15 states across America. I guess one could say I have come to quite enjoy the itinerant lifestyle. I have seen the sites of Manhattan, D.C., L.A. and San Francisco.

My travels have taken me to the Big Sur Mountains of California where I worked on a goat farm, hand-milking goats and making fresh cheeses. On the farm, I lived without electricity in a Mongolian tent and bathed on a cliff face overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was a rugged yet spectacular lifestyle.

I spent a summer on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska deep sea fishing, bear spotting and exploring the wild Alaskan coast. I volunteered for a ministry in the Bible Belt of America where I became accustomed to chiggers, fried chicken and okra, and of course that wonderful southern drawl.

I have explored Amish country and enjoyed dreamlike summer buggy rides with the Amish people. I worked on a horse ranch located on the Meramec River in Missouri, where I rode horses and cleaned stables, foraged for morel mushrooms and escaped tornadoes.

Finally, I found Iowa — what I would describe as the epitome of “fair dinkum” (Australian slang for “real” and “genuine”).

I can’t say how many times I have been asked, “But why did you choose to come to Cedar Rapids, Iowa!?” I get the feeling the locals perceive me as a little crazy for willingly choosing such a location, not to mention enjoying it so much. I just smile and patiently deliver my (very familiar) spiel, as if it is the first time anyone has ever asked.

The way in which I found my way to Iowa truly encapsulates my feelings toward Iowa and its wonderful people.

While I was in Missouri working on the horse ranch in May of 2011, I happened to meet a couple who were vacationing on the ranch for several days. Late one afternoon, after finishing work for the day, I decided to try my luck foraging in the woods for the much-prized morel mushrooms. While walking down the gravel lane I came across a couple outside their cabin attempting to wrap up some grapevines. We chatted for half an hour or so comparing and contrasting Tasmania and Iowa and just enjoying some friendly banter.

When the couple departed the next day, a note was left behind with information and an invitation for me to come visit them in Iowa. Our chance meeting on the horse ranch was not only the beginning of my sojourn in Iowa, but the first of many connections that have all seamlessly fallen into place since walking down that gravel lane.

Having always been drawn to the folklore of the prairie and the old Midwest, I was excited by the offer to go to Iowa. My dad’s stories of his youth and spending his early years in Nebraska had always stirred my curiosity. Upon arriving in Cedar Rapids, I only expected to visit for several weeks. I did not want to take advantage of such a hospitable invitation. However, my new family encouraged me to stay longer and I realized that I was by no means ready to depart my new home.

I determined that if my visit was going to turn into something more permanent, I had better make myself useful and start working. I decided to rely on what I know best, swimming.

Swimming has always played a significant role in my life. My father is a swimming coach and my mother a swimming instructor. They built a 25-meter indoor swimming pool at our home in Tasmania, where they have owned and operated their own aquatic business for 15 years.

Naturally, all six of the children became competitive swimmers, succeeding at a state level as well as competing in national competitions. My own competitive swimming background and my parents’ expertise prepared me well and by age 14 I began teaching classes solo for my parent’s successful business. By age 18 I was a fully qualified swimming instructor teaching children and adults of all ages, as well as coaching
competitive swimmers.

When I arrived in Cedar Rapids in the spring of 2011 the timing was perfect to become involved with a local swim team. Due to a friend’s recommendation, I inquired about a coaching job at the nearby Elmcrest Country Club. I met with the pool supervisor, dropped off my resume, and was offered a job coaching with their swim team; another seamless connection falling into place.

Elmcrest staff and club members were both friendly and welcoming and the flexibility of my role allowed me to work with the kids according to their needs, developing their strokes and focusing on some of the more technical aspects of swimming.

I think for the kids, it was a bit of a novelty to have an “Aussie swim coach”. There were a lot of questions: “Do I keep kangaroos as pets?” “Why do I talk funny?” and “Do we drive cars in Australia?” Our conversations would always bring about some good laughs and the kids would leave knowing something new about the “land down under.”

As a result of my involvement with the swim team at Elmcrest, I was offered an assistant coaching position at Kennedy High School, the third seamless happenstance. I was honored to coach alongside John Ross, Rick Forrester, Holly Broadwater and Leslie Nelson. I sought my Iowa coaching certification at Kirkwood Community College, which allowed me to coach for schools in Iowa. For me, this was yet another excellent
opportunity not only to contribute and be a part of local swim team, but also a chance to gain more experience coaching at a competitive level alongside veteran coaches such as Ross and Forrester.

Both swimmers and coaches worked hard throughout the season and reaped the benefits. Kennedy placed first at the sophomore Mississippi Valley Conference meet while also winning our division at the varsity level.

Kennedy hosted a very exciting regional meet with our team missing first place by just one point. We took a tenacious team of 10 swimmers to the state meet in Marshalltown and finished a very respectable 12th place, up from 16th place in 2010. Our freshman class was extremely strong throughout the season contributing to our success while holding promise of a very bright future for Kennedy swimming.

Assuming I survive the harsh winter here in Iowa — Tasmania’s lowest temperature dives to a shivering 32 degrees — I plan to return to Elmcrest and Kennedy for another swimming season in 2012. I am both excited and motivated to develop as a coach and see “our” local swimmers continue to improve.

I will always remember and cherish my time here in Cedar Rapids. The friendships I have made will last a lifetime and I will never forget the incredible feeling of being a stranger who found a home in a foreign place.

Olivia White, "Journey Brings Her to Iowa; Tasmania Native Falls in Love with State While Exploring U.S.," The Gazette, December 25, 2011, p. C2.

# # #

'We're Number One!' What's Your City's Ranking?

2011-12-22T14:23:00.009-06:00

December 22, 2011, 3:50 p.m.

And Why Rankings Are Silly
Mason Williams wrote in the Foreword to his book Flavors, "If I had to do it over again, I'd do it somewhere else. How about your house?"

Are you long-term unemployed, recently divorced, generally miserable? Like to start life over? If so, where's the best place to do it?

The Street.com blog decided to do the research for those seeking a fresh start. Jerold Leslie, "6 Best Cities for Starting Over in 2012," Street.com/Yahoo! Finance, December 19, 2011.

And what city came up Number One after all of their independent research? Well, Iowa City, Iowa, of course.

How significant is this? About as significant as the University of Texas' brag when I was a student there, that the school's marching band possessed "the world's largest base drum." As my friend, the late Molly Ivins sometimes observed, Texans believe that "more is better, and too much is not enough" -- illustrated by another brag at the time of the base drum: a billboard outside Austin that claimed to be "the world's largest billboard."

In my last blog entry I address whether being "average" is a necessary prerequisite for a state to be "first in the nation" with the presidential primaries and caucuses every four years -- something Stephen Bloom apparently thinks necessary, and finds wanting in Iowa: "Frankly, I don't think it obvious that the state to hold a presidential caucus or primary as first-in-the-nation has to be the 'most typical,' or 'average.' But if that's what you want, if that is your standard, Bloom to the contrary notwithstanding, Iowa is it. Michael Lewis-Beck, 'Iowa is a Natural for its "First in the Nation" Role,' Iowa City Press-Citizen, December 16, 2011, p. 9A ('50 states were rated on 51 important characteristics taken from U.S. Census data. Iowa turns out to be a highly representative state.')" Nicholas Johnson, "Taking the Bloom From My Rose; Another Perspective on Stephen Bloom's Iowa," December 16, 2011.

I have a similar take on the various "rankings" of cities. Sure, I prefer some cities over others, just as I prefer some states over others as first out of the gate in the presidential race. But just as I don't think "average" is necessarily the best criteria for picking caucus states, neither do I think rankings are the best way to pick cities.

(Nor are they the best way to pick law schools. For a more rational, focused and analytical way of thinking about the best law school for you, see one of the most long-term popular of the near-900 blog entries available here: Nicholas Johnson, "Random Thoughts on Law School Rankings," April 29, 2008.)

How I Prefer to Pick Cities: Their "Genuine Quality of Life"

So, what is the best way to pick cities, I hear you ask. It's not the point of this blog entry, but in brief, for me, it's what I call "genuine quality of life." What does that category include?

In another blog entry I commented, "Another nice thing about Iowa City is that an easy walk can get you to many of the places you want to go. If you're in a hurry you can bike. With time to spare, you can even drive." Nicholas Johnson, "Why Iowa? Chase Garrett and Robert Reich; Just Your Everyday Walk Around a Small Iowa Town," September 8, 2011. Of course, this can be said of any American rural town with a population less than, say, 25,000. The difference when that town houses a major state university -- such as Urbana-Champaign (81,000; Champaign), Bloomington (80,000), or Iowa City (68,000) -- is that the stress-free ease of "getting there" is combined with a high density of innovative, creative, intellectual, and cultural places and events worth getting to (as with Chase Garrett and Robert Reich, mentioned above). They are a sort of "best of all possible worlds" -- distinguished from the difficulty and cost (in time, money and stress) of "getting there" in, say, Los Angeles.

My home is three or four blocks from my office -- and a major research hospital, and a Big Ten football stadium. Many of our law students have an equally short walk from their apartments. That's worth something. In fact, if it were possible for millions of Americans to do this (as in some countries) it would pretty much solve our energy and obesity problems.

(An added, nostalgic "genuine quality of life" for me is that "my home" is the same house and lots my father bought in 1941, where I lived from then until graduating from high school in 1952. So that short walk to work also takes me through the neighborhood and woods where I delivered the Des Moines Register and played as a child.)

Genuine quality of life, for me, includes living in a town in which there is not only a radically reduced risk of theft, but one in which you occasionally hear stories of someone finding a billfold, and walking across town to deliver it to its owner -- complete with all cash and credit cards. It's a town surrounded by rolling hills, where a farmer who is seriously injured, or ill, wakes up one morning to find a column of tractors, or combines, his neighbors are bringing to plant, or harvest his crop; or perhaps when his barn burns, a "barn-raising" party of neighbors building the replacement.

It's what University of Iowa President Sally Mason noted in her response to Stephen Bloom: "[W]e were faced with a historic flood that devastated communities . . .. What I saw, . . . was the best that Iowa has to offer — our people. I saw sandbags being filled. I saw communities rallying together to help their neighbors protect what they treasured. I didn’t see woeful distress or abandonment." Sally Mason, "Bloom's caricature misrepresents Iowa and Iowans," Iowa City Press-Citizen, December 16, 2011, p. A9.

When I was running for Congress from Iowa's old Third District, it was a practice of small town merchants when a customer paid by check. There were books of blank checks on the counter from the various small banks in the area. You simply picked the one from your bank, filled it out, put your signature on it, and handed it to the clerk. No routing numbers; no printed names; no required identification. Just a signature, recognized by the bank teller who ultimately received it. My experience at that time in Los Angeles was that stores wanted, literally, my fingerprint as well as a photo ID.

It's a memory from my childhood of watching a local bank president, one of the community's wealthiest and most prominent individuals, pausing for a lengthy visit on the street with one of its poorest and most challenged citizens. Ever since reading in junior high Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), with its explanation of "conspicuous consumption," I have always preferred communities that value reverse ostentation -- like billionaire Sam Walton driving an old pickup truck -- to those that depend on obvious shows of wealth to establish individuals' worth.

Many Iowans have little desire to rank individuals, or place them in their proper "class." Evaluations turn on one's character, honesty, and professional ability and attention to detail -- not whether the work is neurosurgery or automobile repair, but how skillfully, conscientiously and professionally that work is done.

It's embodied in the story of the fellow criticized for not wearing a tie who responded, "Where I come from we judge a man by what he has above his neck, not what he ties around it."

Some of my law school colleagues wear suits and ties the days they teach. But one of our most nationally prestigious professors would sometimes return to the law school from the tennis courts in tennis shirt, shorts and shoes. Among the faculty, "casual" does not mean a sports coat instead of a suit; it means a shirt or sweater, maybe with jeans or khakis. (As a Supreme Court clerk, I recall a couple clerks from Harvard Law School who used to hold serious discussions not only about the comparative virtues of various designer suits, but the details of the most appropriate procedure to be used by their dry cleaners.)

These are among the characteristics of locations or institutions that are factored into my judgment regarding their "genuine quality of life."

Prefer High Rankings to "Genuine Quality of Life"? Iowa City Has Them, Too

Thus, as with whether Iowa is "average" enough to be first in the nation in picking presidents (it shouldn't need to be, but if that's what you want, it is that, too), so it is with Iowa City's placement in various rankings of cities. As just discussed with regard to "genuine quality of life," I don't happen to think rankings are that important, but if you do here are some to consider:

One of Iowa City's most prestigious bits of recognition was its 2008 designation by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as one of the world's three Cities of Literature. Following UNESCO's designation of Edinburgh, Scotland, and Melbourne, Australia, all three cities became part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.

Coincidentally, this was quite a week of rankings for Iowa City. Sunday, December 18, the Press-Citizen reported that Iowa City had been ranked 19th among 138 American cities found to be the "most secure" based on a www.bestplaces.net database (noting 600 physicians per 100,000 population vs. a national average of 220.5, and a 3.6 percent unemployment rate vs. 9.1 percent nationally). By Tuesday the city found itself ranked 8th on the Milken Institute's annual Best Performing Small Cities List (noting its $6.7 billion economy). On Thursday, December 22, came the discovery that Iowa City was ranked number one among America's best cities to start over -- the ranking with which this blog entry began.

Iowa City has the fourth best schools in the nation (out of 334 ranked). Expansion Management Magazine, 2004.

It is the third best metro for livability in the nation (out of 331), according to the same source.

Forbes ranked Iowa City as the second best metro area for business careers, eighth best "up and coming," and among the top ten "smartest cities," March 2008.

Outside Magazine called Iowa City the "Top Town in the Midwest" when it recognized the nation's 30 best towns in July 2007. It concluded that Iowa City is one of the "smart, progressive burgs with gorgeous wilderness playgrounds -- and realistic housing and job markets." They also found that "some of the happiest people in the world live in Iowa City."

Iowa City was one of the "Top Business Opportunity Metros" according to Expansion Management Magazine, which designated the city as the fifth best (of 329) "Metro Areas for Expanding a Business" in 2004.

The February 2010 issue of Oprah’s O Magazine came out with an unranked list of "100 Things That Are Getting Better," and Iowa was the only state to make this list (e.g., “Legalizing gay marriage in 2009 + University of Iowa football landing among the top 25 college teams for the fifth time this decade + ranking second on MainStreet.com ’s Happiness Index = one seriously happening Hawkeye State”).

Men’s Journal, a national publication, in its February 2010 issue listed Iowa City as the healthiest town in the nation. CNN medical writer Dr. Sanjay Gupta considered locally grown fruits and vegetables, short commutes, availability of sidewalks, low pollution, green spaces and good weather.

The Iowa City area ranked 10th on the MSN CareerBuilder's "Today's Best and Worst Cities for Jobs" list. The CareerBuilder article cited the "Iowa City metro area's 1.2 percent job growth between July and October 2009 . . . only 19 [of 77 cities] posted growth rates of 1 percent or higher."

In September 2007, National Geographic Adventure Magazine listed Iowa City as one of the "50 Best Places to Live and Play."

Iowa City was ranked third by Money Magazine in its list of "Best Places in the Nation to Retire."

In March 2007, Iowa City was listed as one of the 10 most affordable places to live and work by Sperling's Best Places. "Iowa City feels progressive," Bert Sperling says. "It boasts a lively cultural scene, an attractive downtown, and active community efforts."

American City Business Journal ranked Iowa City among the top 4 percent in the nation for "quality of life," and number one in Iowa.

Iowa City was ranked the sixth best golf city in America by Golf Digest, August 2005.

Sporting News, August 2005, ranked Iowa City one of America's "50 best sports cities," and number one for college football.

Men's Journal, May 2003, ranked Iowa City as sixth in the nation among the "healthiest, safest, and sexiest places to live."

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found Iowa City second in the country as an artist-friendly alternative to New York and Los Angeles, 2002.

USA Today, June 2002, judged Iowa City to be the "third most educated metro area in the country."

The University of Iowa in Iowa City -- and in Context

It is impossible to consider rankings of Iowa City without taking into account the many contributions of the University of Iowa, a major educational and research institution by any measure. Many of the local citizenry are either employees or enrollees of the institution. For example, Iowa City residents' easy access to quality, cutting edge health care, and the average educational level of the population, reflect the university's presence -- as would be true of other towns of comparable size that are home to major state research universities with hospitals.

U.S. News & World Report currently ranks The University of Iowa as the 28th best public university in the country. Of its graduate programs, 23 are ranked among the top 10 of their kind at U.S. public institutions. It is the only Big Ten university listed as a "best buy" in Fiske Guide to Colleges, 2011.

It is large: it has a budget of $2.8 billion, 30,000 students from over 100 countries, a 1700-acre campus with 120 major buildings, operated with 13,000 staff and 1700 faculty, offering over 100 areas of study including seven professional degree programs (MD, JD, MBA, LLM, PharmD, MNHP, and DDS), and an array of intellectual, cultural and athletic events that attract more than a million visitors a year.

The University has been around since 1847, was the first public university to admit men and women on an equal basis, and the first university in the world to accept creative work in literature and the arts for advanced degrees. West of the Mississippi it was the first to create a law school, educational broadcasting station, and college paper. As early as the 1870s it was one of the first public law schools in the country to grant degrees to women and African Americans. It had the nation's first female editor of a college paper. It is currently the home of the world-renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and the National Advanced Driving Simulator.

University of Iowa Healthcare is "an integrated academic medical center under one executive leadership team, consisting of UI Hospitals and Clinics, the UI Carver College of Medicine, and UI Physicians, Iowa’s largest multi-specialty medical and surgical group practice." Its predecessors have been offering patient services since 1873. It is recognized as one of the best hospitals in the U.S., with nearly 10,000 employees (making it one of the state's largest employers), research grants in the $100s of millions (during a recent year the 11th largest NIH recipient), some 200 specialties and programs. University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is currently again ranked as one of “America’s Best Hospitals,” now for the 22nd year in a row. Nine medical specialties are among the top 50 such programs in the nation: otolaryngology, ophthalmology, orthopaedics and rehabilitation, psychiatry, urology, surgery, neurology and neurosurgery, cancer, and kidney disease.

The UI's main library has been among the top 25 public academic research libraries. The law school's library is consistently ranked first or second in the nation; the research and writing of its faculty once placed it first in the nation among public law schools.

One could go on and on with such facts. All major U.S. educational institutions have their "brags": numbers of books and other publications, honors and memberships of faculty, quality of libraries, scientific inventions and cultural contributions, celebrity alums, new buildings and other facilities, athletic championships, or the size of endowments. Each institution has its strengths, its strongest colleges and departments, its "famous" faculty -- but also its weaknesses and its infamous faculty members. Iowa is no exception.

What does seem rather clear is that, by whatever standards and measures one may apply, the University of Iowa is clearly one of America's quality, public, research universities, and the full equal of its peers. Amongst those schools it makes even less sense to distinguish among them on the basis of a few positions one way or another in an arbitrary "ranking" than to decide who gets the gold and who gets the bronze on the basis of a 1/100th of a second difference in how fast they can ski down a hill. (At least there is agreement on the Olympics' criteria for such conclusions.) As I see it, anyone who can ski down a long hill at 90 mph and live to tell about it is a great athlete; and I feel the equivalent about our major research universities.

Conclusion

In my response to Stephen Bloom's mean-spirited screed attacking Iowa I noted, "[M]ost everything we say, or write is little more than an indication of what's going on inside that electro-chemical sensory processing soup we call our brain. . . . When we say the view of [a] . . . mountain range, river valley, ocean [or] desert [is] 'beautiful,' that 'beauty' is of our own making. It lies inside of us, not in the molecules that make up the physical stuff we're looking at." Nicholas Johnson, "Taking the Bloom From My Rose; Another Perspective on Stephen Bloom's Iowa," December 16, 2011.

It is an observation, if anything, even more applicable to our judgments about which are the "best places" -- for us -- during various phases of our lives. "Rankings" are of little use -- except for responding to mean-spirited characterizations of places and cultures by critics too limited to appreciate them.

# # #

Taking the Bloom From My Rose

2011-12-16T10:08:00.009-06:00

December 16, 2011, 1:55 p.m.

Another Perspective on Stephen Bloom's Iowa
I'd like to get the Bloom that is Stephen off of the rose that is Iowa.

Stephen G. Bloom is Professor and Bessie Dutton Murray Professional Scholar at the University of Iowa. This year, he is the Howard R. Marsh Visiting Professor of Journalism at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America and The Oxford Project (with Peter Feldstein).

That's what he is. He is not, however, what we Iowans call, "Iowa nice."

[Photo credit: Jason Reed/Reuters/The Atlantic.] If one of the jobs of a professor is to promote inquiry and discussion -- the more heated the better -- Stephen Bloom has been hard at work.

Tasked with explaining why Iowa is, or is not, an appropriate state with which to begin the nation's presidential selection process, he chose instead an anti-Iowa screed that never answers the question, but must leave most readers scratching their heads as to what purpose he did have in mind.

It reminds me of the recently popular song with the line, "Someday, I'll be, living in a big old city, and all you're ever going to be is mean." Taylor Swift, "Mean." [Picture of portion of downtown Des Moines, Iowa.]

Stephen G. Bloom,"Observations From 20 Years of Iowa Life; Thoughts from a university professor on the Iowa hamlets that will shape the contours of the GOP contest," The Atlantic, December 9, 2011 ("Whether a schizophrenic, economically-depressed, and some say, culturally-challenged state like Iowa should host the first grassroots referendum to determine who will be the next president isn't at issue. It's been this way since 1972, and there are no signs that it's going to change. In a perfect world, no way would Iowa ever be considered representative of America, or even a small part of it. Iowa's not representative of much. There are few minorities, no sizable cities, and the state's about to lose one of its five seats in the U.S. House because its population is shifting; any growth is negligible. Still, thanks to a host of nonsensical political precedents, whoever wins the Iowa Caucuses in January will very likely have a 50 percent chance of being elected president 11 months later. Go figure.").

It's a mixed bag. Bloom can be a very good writer, some of which pops up in this piece. Some is humorous -- sometimes right on, sometimes way off, sometimes just mean. Most Iowan's are aware of the genuine problems Iowa, and most other states, confront. The Iowa Policy Project, the state's investigative reporters, and numerous policy-oriented nonprofits are on top of most of them. Bloom doesn't offer a lot of data, but of what there is some is accurate, some is not. Mostly it's opinion -- as, indeed, most everything we say, or write is little more than an indication of what's going on inside that electro-chemical sensory processing soup we call our brain. What Bloom's article is not, by my standards, is "journalism" -- which is kind of odd, coming from a journalism professor. I would certainly hope he is not holding it up to his students as an example.

Most disturbing, from a general semantics perspective, is his apparent lack of awareness of the dramatic difference between the non-verbal space-time events of which we are a part and the ways in which our language permits grossly distorted "descriptions" of those events, often in the form of unsubstantiated generalizations.

When we say the view of clustered sky scrapers in an urban environment, mountain range, river valley, ocean, desert -- or, in my case, amateur radio antenna towers -- are "beautiful," that "beauty" is of our own making. It lies inside of us, not in the molecules that make up the physical stuff we're looking at.

There is no "Iowan." There are three million Iowans who are extraordinarily varied in their educations, professions, lifestyle choices, socio-economic status, religious beliefs, and so forth. Moreover, they are each changing over time. For example, to leave the impression that all Iowans are farmers (a) inaccurately represents the state's demographics, when less than 5% can be so classified, (b) conflates "agriculture" in 1930 with "agriculture" in 2011 (as different as newspapers and magazines in 1930 and 2011), and (c) denigrates the intellectual and professional skills required to run a successful agricultural operation during any year.

University of Iowa President Sally Mason has written a response that helps to put Bloom's assertions into perspective. Hopefully, The Atlantic will exercise the good judgment to run it. Sally Mason, "Bloom's caricature misrepresents Iowa and Iowans," Iowa City Press-Citizen, December 16, 2011, p. A9 ("Iowans are pragmatic and balanced, and they live within their means. This lifestyle, while not glitzy, is humble and true and can weather the most difficult of times. One’s reputation and word are understood to be his or her most valued attributes. As a result, people cultivate a sense of fairness, cooperation and humility. . . . You also don’t have to look far to immerse yourself in the fine arts. No fewer than seven Iowa communities claim symphony orchestras . . .. When you can boast one of five [UNESCO-designated] Cities of Literature worldwide — and the only one in the United States — you’re in a class all alone.")

There's always the risk that boosters, as well as bashers, may error with their generalizations. Here's one involving myself from a blog in early September of this year:

Walking along downtown Iowa City's Washington Street, following a reception at a restaurant that can match many of those on the coasts, we came upon an amazing piano player, 22-year-old Chase Garrett. He was sitting at a piano kindly placed on the sidewalk by those who thought it would be a nice addition to this community of literature (one of three so designated by the United Nations), theater, music, and creative arts generally.

Here is a direct link to the YouTube location of my video, and a link to Chase's Web site: http://chasegarrett.com//.

It turns out I'm far from the first person to discover this guy and upload his music to YouTube. Put "Chase Garrett" (in quotes) into YouTube search, and you'll see over 100 more.

From there we wandered down the hill to the Iowa Memorial Union (about three blocks). (Another nice thing about Iowa City is that an easy walk can get you to many of the places you want to go. If you're in a hurry you can bike. With time to spare, you can even drive.)

What we found in the main lounge of the IMU was a standing room only crowd, packed to the walls, waiting to hear a free lecture by Robert Reich, http://robertreich.org, once Secretary of Labor and now University of California, Berkeley, professor of public policy.

"Why Iowa? Chase Garrett and Robert Reich," September 8, 2011.

So what was wrong with what I wrote? A reader's comment added to the blog put it well: "I believe the more proper title question for your article is 'Why Iowa City?' Unless of course you truly believe that your article applies to other places in Iowa. I've lived in Taipei, Singapore, Tehran, Los Angeles, Knoxville, Cleveland, Iowa City, Chicago, and Overland Park, and Iowa City ranks first among them."

I feel the way she does about Iowa City's rank, but she's right about my leap in assigning the benefits of living in a college town like Iowa City with the resources available throughout the state of Iowa. Generalizations and exaggerations can and do run both ways.

Frankly, I don't think it obvious that the state to hold a presidential caucus or primary as first-in-the-nation has to be the "most typical," or "average." But if that's what you want, if that is your standard, Bloom to the contrary notwithstanding, Iowa is it. Michael Lewis-Beck, "Iowa is a Natural for its 'First in the Nation' Role," Iowa City Press-Citizen, December 16, 2011, p. 9A ("50 states were rated on 51 important characteristics taken from U.S. Census data. Iowa turns out to be a highly representative state. The characteristics cover a broad range of state life, which we organized under three general factors: Economics . . .. Social Problems . . .. Diversity . . .. First, Iowa falls close to the middle score for the overwhelming majority of the 51 separate measures. Only 12 are not near the middle, and about half of those are positive, representing desirable social conditions. For example, Iowa is below average in poor mental health days, wine consumption and housing prices; well above average in the high school graduation rate and voting turnout.")

Iowa's voting record is also about as representative of the nation as it gets, according to these figures from Gary Sanders:

In November 1992, Iowa voted: Bill Clinton, 43.3 percent; George H.W. Bush, 37.3 percent; Ross Perot, 18.7 percent. In November 1992, the country voted: Clinton, 43.0 percent; Bush, 37.4 percent; Perot, 18.9 percent.

In November 1996, Iowa voted: Clinton, 50.3 percent; Bob Dole, 39.9 percent; Perot, 8.5 percent. In November 1996, the country voted: Clinton, 49.2 percent; Dole, 40.7 percent; Perot, 8.4 percent.

In November 2000, Iowa voted: Al Gore, 48.5 percent; George W. Bush, 48.2 percent. In November 2000,the country voted: Gore, 48.4 percent; Bush, 47.9 percent.

In November 2004, Iowa voted: Bush, 49.9 percent; John Kerry, 49.2 percent. In November 2004, the country voted: Bush 50.6 percent; Kerry 48.1 percent.

In November 2008, Iowa voted: Obama, 53.9 percent; McCain 44.4 percent. In November 2008, the country voted: Obama, 52.9 percent; McCain, 45.6 percent.

Gary Sanders, "Iowa Is a Very Representative State," Iowa City Press-Citizen, January 5, 2012, p. A7.

As I say, "average" (however it might be measured) need not be the only Polestar in our quest to find the perfect first-in-the-nation" state, but given Lewis-Beck's research, and Gary Sanders' historic voting data, it's really bizarre, misleading, and potentially dangerous for Bloom to assert, as he does, "In a perfect world, no way would Iowa ever be considered representative of America, or even a small part of it. Iowa's not representative of much. There are few minorities, no sizable cities, and . . . any growth is negligible."

I'm not about to assert that Bloom holds racial or other politically-incorrect prejudices. There's no basis for believing he does. However, much of the language structure he uses is analogous to the language of prejudice.

It is simply not a factually or descriptively accurate use of language to characterize "all" of any classification to be this or that. It's just that some such characterizations are more socially acceptable than others. America has a long history of humor, and epithets thrown at the latest immigrants -- Irish, Scandinavian, German, Italian, Polish, Chinese or Japanese. Ditto for religious groups -- Catholics, Jews, and today's Muslims.

Comments about Californians, New Yorkers -- or "Iowa farmers" -- are somehow more acceptable. One can make fun of any group -- and many do: "Ivory tower" academics, "dumb jocks," "greedy bankers," "lying politicians," "dumb blonds."

But all such characterizations are equally inaccurate. There are farmers in California and New York as well as Iowa. And there are corporate CEOs and rocket scientists in Iowa as well as in California. No state is "all" anything; and no identifiable group in any of those states has members that are significantly identical with regard to most characteristics.

I have been in every U.S. state and Canadian province, and probably worked or visited in some 40 countries. I have spent considerable time, or lived, in Los Angeles, Houston, New York, Washington, D.C., and London -- among other cities. Although I was born and raised in Iowa, I am now very much an Iowan by choice. (Returning home from D.C. has provided this blog's name: "FromDC2Iowa.") In fact, I have since 1989 literally been living in the very same family home I lived in from 1941-1952.

I mention that because I don't think it's that unusual. In my experience, bi-coastal sophisticates without a midwest background risk a greater degree of parochialism than midwesterners. Both midwesterners and New Yorkers, of comparable socio-economic circumstance, spend time in, and have some understanding of, both coasts and Europe. What many midwesterners also have, and some New Yorkers may lack, is an appreciation of America's "fly over country."

And speaking of "fly over country": at a dinner party in Kuala Lumpur one evening, a New Yorker was telling our Malaysian hosts that there was virtually nothing of worth between our east and west coasts. I reminded her that although our hosts had never visited America, let alone Iowa City, when they found out I was from Iowa City their eyes brightened and their first response was to ask about the University's International Writers Program. (They had not inquired about her Manhattan neighborhood.) I went on to describe the other centers of manufacturing and business, arts and academia, culture and charms of the mid and far western United States.

I look for each region's strengths, not what it doesn't have. When I go to New York I don't complain about the lack of Grant Wood vistas of rolling fields and hills. I don't object to the lack of ocean-front beaches in the middle of desert beauty, nor the lack of mountains on the Florida Keys.

When I finished my seven-year term as an FCC commissioner, the question was what to do next. I knew I wanted to get out of Washington to refresh my sense of the America "outside the beltway." But how to do it?

When asked, we are tempted to advise others to do what we have done. Bill Moyers suggested I should just take a long ride around the country, preferably in a pickup truck with a dog in the back. It was an appealing idea. But on reflection I realized most of the people I'd meet would be the truck drivers and waitresses in restaurants along the road. Besides, I'd made that trip with my wife and daughter during the summer of 1958. I was in the last law school class able to take the bar exam before graduation, and my first clerkship didn't begin until August. So we set off with $19 and a Texaco credit card to visit all the national parks west of the Mississippi.

About that time I got a call from some Democratic Party leaders in Iowa's old Third Congressional District. Long held by the seemingly unbeatable Republican H.R. Gross, the Party could not find anyone willing to run against him. That I would consider it turned me into something of a local hero. That is, until after my announcement Congressman Gross stunned everyone with the announcement that he was not going to run -- following which I was immediately considered a carpetbagger. There are lots of stories about that race to leave for another day.

The point of mentioning it in the context of Bloom's take on Iowa, is the reason why I ultimately decided to do it. The Third District was an almost perfect square of perfectly square counties located in the center of Iowa's boundary with Minnesota. It's attraction to me was that it proved to be a microcosm of America. I could rediscover America by traveling around in relatively small circles in one state, rather than covering the entire continent.

The District had a Latino population around Mason City, an African-American population in Waterloo, and one of the country's few Native American "settlements" (owned by the tribe) rather than reservations. (Its Meskwaki Casino is now doing very well, thank you.) Sure, the District had farms; although many of the husbands and wives who farmed also worked, or even lived, in nearby cities. But it also had young professionals -- lawyers, doctors, architects, and accountants. It had one of the greatest densities of small colleges of any area in the United States. It had the strong Local 828 UAW union, whose members worked at the world's largest tractor factory, and a major meat packing plant.

It was, and the memories always will be, much more representative of what Iowa is, and who Iowans are, than Stephen Bloom's mythical Iowa.

# # #

TIFs Wealthy Relatives

2011-12-06T07:29:00.007-06:00

December 6, 2011, 8:10 a.m.

$7 Trillion Secret Giveaways to Banks; Marlins' Stadium
"What questions should officials ask (and answer) before giving away our tax money with subsidies, bailouts or TIFs to for-profit private ventures?" "TIF Impact Statements; The Questions We Should Insist Officials Ask First," November 29, 2011. That op ed column (embedded in the linked blog entry) focused on TIFs. But the problems and concerns with giveaways of taxpayers' money go far beyond TIFs. Examining some of the more outrageous offenses helps to put TIFs in context, to recognize that they come from the same bloodline as their more wealthy relatives.

As the Marlins’ new stadium nears completion in Miami, the wreckage from the deal to finance it continues to mount.

The Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenaed the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County seeking details about what investigation and analysis they did before agreeing to issue nearly $500 million in bonds to pay for the stadium and adjoining parking lots in the Little Havana neighborhood.

In a 20-page letter to the county dated Dec. 1, the commission also asked for any documents concerning the team’s ability to help pay for the stadium.

It is also seeking records of any campaign contributions that the Marlins may have given to officials working for the city, the county and the state, . . ..

City and county officials approved the deal to pay for more than three-quarters of the estimated $645 million cost of the stadium and parking lots in 2009. They did so during a deep recession, when services were being slashed, and despite calls to hold a referendum on the financing of the stadium and lots, which are being paid for with hotel bed taxes and parking fees.

City and county officials were accused of spending too much money on the Marlins — a for-profit organization — when other buildings, like the convention center, needed repairs. The Marlins also refused to show government officials their financial books.

This became an embarrassment last year when leaked financial documents showed that the Marlins were profitable in 2008 and 2009.

It may be difficult for the commission to accuse the Marlins of misrepresenting their finances if they did not represent them in the first place. Rather, the blame would fall to county and city officials if a lack of due diligence were found before the bonds were issued.

Ken Belson, "S.E.C. Subpoenas Details on Marlins’ Stadium Financing," Bats/New York Times, December 3, 2011.

An even bigger robbery, perhaps the biggest in centuries of human history, is the secret gift of $7.7 trillion to our largest banks, banks which in my judgment were "too big to bail."

A fresh account emerged last week about the magnitude of financial aid that the Federal Reserve bestowed on big banks during the 2008-09 credit crisis. The report came from Bloomberg News, which had to mount a lengthy legal fight to wrest documents from the Fed that detailed its rescue efforts.

It is dispiriting, of course, that we are still learning about the billions provided to various financial firms during the crisis. Another sad element to this mess is that getting the truth requires the legal firepower of an organization as rich as Bloomberg.

But that’s the way our world works. Billions are secretly showered on troubled financial institutions to stave off disaster. Individuals get little or no help.

Here are some of the new figures:

Among all the rescue programs set up by the Fed, $7.77 trillion in commitments were outstanding as of March 2009, Bloomberg said. The nation’s six largest banks — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — borrowed almost half a trillion dollars from the Fed at peak periods, Bloomberg calculated, using the central bank’s data.

Those six institutions accounted for 63 percent of the average daily borrowings from the Fed by all publicly traded United States banks, money management and investment firms, Bloomberg said.

Numbers for individual companies were equally astonishing. For example, the Fed provided Bear Stearns with $30 billion to see it through its 2008 shotgun marriage with JPMorgan. This was in addition to the $29.5 billion in assets purchased by the Fed from Bear to assist in the buyout by JPMorgan. Citigroup, meanwhile, tapped the Fed for almost $100 billion in January 2009 — its peak during the crisis — and Morgan Stanley received $107 billion in Fed loans in September 2008. . . .

[I]nvestors didn’t know how dire the situation was at these institutions. At the same time that these banks were privately thronging the teller windows at the Fed, some of their executives were publicly espousing their firms’ financial solidity. . . .

Citi’s earnings release didn’t detail its large Fed borrowings; neither did its filing for the first quarter of 2009 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Other banks kept silent on these activities or mentioned them in passing with few specifics.

Gretchen Morgenson, "Secrets of the Bailout, Now Told," New York Times, December 4, 2011, p. BU1.

TIFs may involve fewer dollars, but the questions that need to be asked, and answered, before entering into them, the categories of adverse impact on our economy and society from these transfers of taxpayers' money to for-profit corporations, are comparable.
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TIF Impact Statements

2011-11-29T09:38:00.005-06:00

November 29,, 2011, 9:50 a.m.

The Questions We Should Insist Officials Ask First
# # #

Making a 'Prudent TIF' More Than an Oxymoron
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen
November 29, 2011, p. A7
Our recently elected Iowa City Council members have said that TIFs should be used “prudently.”

TIFs, you’ll recall, are one of the many shell-and-pea games available to elected officials for transferring taxpayers’ money to the bottom line of for-profit businesses.

Telling officials always to TIF “prudently” has proved as effective as liquor companies’ TV commercials, urging University of Iowa binge-drinking students always to “drink responsibly.”

TIFs, like alcohol, are addictive. TIFs, also like alcohol, are unlikely to go away.

They’ve received attention recently in these pages and elsewhere. Abuses are acknowledged. The Iowa Legislature may plug some loopholes.

Meanwhile, what can we do to minimize the increase in property taxes and decrease in public services that result from our officials’ TIF habit?

My very modest suggestion is that we at least start with TIF Impact Statements. Think environmental impact statements, or the Powell Doctrine for going to war.

The reason I support “military control of the civilians” (almost seriously) is because it is the civilians in government who respond to foreign challenges with chants of “USA! USA!” and “Nuke ’em!” Military leaders thankfully take a much more measured approach.

When he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin Powell, asked questions such as:

Is a vital national security interest threatened?

Do we have a clear attainable objective?

Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?

Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?

Is there a plausible exit strategy?

We could have saved a couple trillion dollars of debt had the civilians done as much.

Recent attention has focused on the adverse impact of one town’s TIFs on the county, adjacent school districts and cities. (See, http://iowafiscal.org.) Those are serious harms. But they’re only one of a baker’s dozen categories of TIFs’ potential calamitous consequences. (See “The True Price of TIFs,” http://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2011/10/true-price-of-tifs.html.)

What questions should officials ask (and answer) before giving away our tax money with subsidies, bailouts or TIFs to for-profit private ventures? Here are mine:

What for-profit projects have been funded by this government over the past 10 years, and how did the return (or loss) to the public from each comport with its promised benefits? What is budgeted for the next five years? How are projects’ results monitored and reported?

Why is this project needed at all?

Why does that need exceed all conventional needs for public funds? What is its opportunity cost? What will other government units lose? How much more will taxpayers pay?

Among all for-profit applicants for funds, pending and future, why is this project top priority?

Will the project potentially benefit all citizens (The Englert Theatre, for example), a small segment or primarily the recipient?

How much money is involved?

Are all other ways of funding this project with or without taxpayers’ money identified and explored? What are they? If found wanting, why?

How convincing is evidence this for-profit venture requires public funding? Why are entrepreneurs, their family and friends, venture capitalists and bankers — those who will profit from it — unwilling to invest everything needed? Is their reluctance equally applicable to public investment?

Why is it reasonable to consider the project’s business plan a virtual guarantee of financial success?

What is the “exit strategy” when it fails — the recipient doesn’t do what’s promised, skips town, there are delays in construction or bankruptcy?

What business, financial, political, social or campaign contribution relationships are there between the potential recipient of public funds and the officials dispensing them?

How much harm will befall the (unfunded) private competitors of this project from the recipient’s advantages (for example, decline in competing hotels’ occupancy)?

Even if a “prudent TIF” is not an oxymoron, the least a government can do is give us answers to these questions before giving away our money.
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Nicholas Johnson, a former Iowa City Community School Board member and FCC commissioner, teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law, and maintains http://nicholasjohnson.org.

Press-Citizen online version: www.press-citizen.com/article/20111129/OPINION02/311290028/Making-prudent-TIF-more-than-an-oxymoron
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More Support for Going Communist Than Congress

2011-11-16T07:35:00.006-06:00

November 16, 2011, 9:00 a.m.

"How Bad Is It?"
Johnny Carson occasionally used a call and response with his audience. If he were announcing the recent report of Congress' approval ratings, it might have gone like this:

Carson: "Congress' approval rating is really bad."

Audience (shouting in chorus): "How bad is it?"

Carson: "It is so bad that . . .."

So how bad is Congress' approval rating these days?

U.S. Senator Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.) has pulled together some comparisons for us. (There's no direct link to his charts; so go to his Web site, http://bennet.senate.gov, and put "Congressional approval" into his Search box. The pdf will be the top choice on the list.) Others' selections from his list are going around the media and Internet, but his chart is the only place I've found with citations to the sources of this otherwise unbelievable data.

Let's start with his report that from 1997 to 2001 the percentage of Americans who approved of Congress ranged between 40 and 65%. OK?

Today it's 9%.

How does that compare with recent polls of our approval of other individuals and institutions?

The IRS that some Republican presidential candidates disapprove of so strongly that they advocate its abolition? It gets a 40% approval rating.

Lawyers get 29% approval.

President Richard Nixon, at the depth of the charges of his Watergate criminality and pending impeachment, was still approved by 24% of us.

The Wall Street and other banks that profited from bringing on the global recession headed to depression, contributed to massive unemployment and foreclosure of homes, and have engendered the anger of both Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, still get a 23% approval rating.

How about BP during the time its negligence resulted in the deaths of its offshore drilling rig employees and an uncontrolled spill of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico? There were still 16% of us who approved of BP.

And finally (among my selections from Senator Bennet's list), how many Americans approve of the "U.S. going communist"? It's more than the percentage who approve of their democratically, and campaign contributor, elected members of Congress -- a stunning 11%.

I'm reminded of an exchange with a well-educated Kazakh friend when I was visiting her country a few years ago. I'd asked what America could do to help, what do the people of Kazakhstan want and need? She replied, "What we need is another Stalin."

Here was a country, a people, who had just come out from under Russian domination as a part of the Soviet Union, and she was not the only Kazakhi who yearned for some leadership, working electric and water systems, and security on the streets.

Tom Friedman picks up that theme in his column this morning.

At a time when, from India to America, democracies have never had more big decisions to make, if they want to deliver better living standards for their people, this epidemic of not deciding is a troubling trend. It means that we are abdicating more and more leadership to technocrats or supercommittees — or just letting the market and Mother Nature impose on us decisions that we cannot make ourselves. The latter rarely yields optimal outcomes. . . .

[I]n the age of Facebook and Twitter, the people are more empowered and a lot more innovation and ideas will come from the bottom up, not just the top down. That’s a good thing — in theory. But at the end of the day — whether you are a president, senator, mayor or on the steering committee of your local Occupy Wall Street — someone needs to meld those ideas into a vision of how to move forward, sculpt them into policies that can make a difference in peoples’ lives and then build a majority to deliver on them. Those are called leaders. Leaders shape polls. They don’t just read polls.

Thomas L. Friedman, "Who's the Decider?" New York Times, November 16, 2011, p. A35.

We may not want a dictator like Communist Joseph Stalin -- although as many Americans approve of Hugo Chávez as approve of our Congress (9%). But benevolent "leaders" alone aren't the answer either. When 91% of Americans disapprove of their premier democratic institution, "the people's house," the U.S. House of Representatives, America itself, as well as its democracy, are in very serious trouble.
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College Football Scandals Larger Lessons

2011-11-08T06:32:00.049-06:00

This blog entry is being continuously updated from time to time as events and revelations unfold -- most recently January 27. See, e.g., these direct links to "Thursday Edition Addition," . . . and more additions thereafter, "Subsequent comments of others worth noting". There have also been some modifications and additions to the original blog entry, which follows, immediately below:

November 8, 2011, 8:00 a.m.

Football's Privileged Tip of Abuses by Powerful
It's a sad, sad story coming out of Penn State football and spread across the nation's sports pages. Mark Viera, "Two Penn State Officials Stepping Down," New York Times, November 7, 2011, p. D3. You can read the details there if you want. I have no desire or need to repeat them here, except to identify that they involve alleged sexual abuse of young boys and a grand jury indictment.

[Arrest of Coach Sandusky. Photo credit: Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General] What I want to focus on is what this case reveals, not only about higher education's administrators, but about institutional instincts and crisis management generally. See, e.g., "Crisis Communications 101," February 14, 23, 2011; and the text and links in "Strategic Communications a Failed Strategy," November 13, 2009.

The pattern is all too common. There's a scandal in a collegiate football program, often involving something that can be designated as one form or another of "sexual." Nothing is done until it hits the papers. The initial reaction is some variation of denial, with expressions of support for those responsible. As the trickle of details becomes a flood, like the 100- or 500-year floods Iowa City suffers every 10 years or so, the media continues to poke holes in the levies until the facts spread over the campus can no longer be ignored. Then come the professions of the institution's high ethical and moral standards, an "investigation" is launched, and ultimately the university president and coach are still in place, with raises on top of already more-than-adequate salaries, and a couple of others in the chain of responsibility are thrown under the bus.

Susan Harman has written an insightful column about this phenomenon in this morning's Press-Citizen describing cases at both Ohio State and the current Penn State scandal this year. "Are Big Programs Turning a Blind Eye? Sandusky Charges May Tarnish Image of Paterno, Penn St.," November 8, 2011, p. B1.

Apparently nobody at Penn State did anything about eye witness reports of these crimes -- except for reporting up the chain of command from witnesses, to coach, to athletic director, vice president for finance and business, and on to the Penn State president, Graham Spanier. [Photo credit (left): Iowa City Press-Citizen.] Allegedly, the president did not report this to law enforcement (as the law requires), say anything to his Board of Trustees, insist on firing the alleged perpetrator, or follow-up to see if the offenses continued.

What he did have to say, after the two in the middle were indicted by the grand jury for perjury, was that he predicted they both would be exonerated and that "I have known and worked daily with Tim and Gary for more than 16 years. I have complete confidence in how they handled the allegations about a former university employee." As Susan Harman put it, he was "casting aspersions on the grand jury process and the testimony of many witnesses by almost dismissively asserting his administrators' innocence." (Only after a post-media-revelation emergency meeting of the Board of Trustees was the AD put on administrative leave.)

Sometimes in Japan, and elsewhere, following an institutional embarrassment of this magnitude, the person at the top actually kills themselves because of the personal humiliation. In this country, the more common honorable response is to take the responsibility for it -- even when the top administrator has had neither participation or even knowledge of the problem -- and resign.

I would note in this context, a football example of this honorable response. Iowa's Coach Kirk Ferentz, following the embarrassing loss to Minnesota October 29, did not blame the assistant coach most responsible for Iowa's failure to anticipate Minnesota's fateful onside kick, nor did he blame any of his players. He assumed personal responsibility for the decision and 22-21 loss. "'The onside kick, I’ll take that one. Just as soon as [the kicker] started making his approach, I almost called timeout. I’m standing next to an official. I should have in retrospect, but I didn’t.'" Jordan Garretson, "Notebook: Ferentz shoulders blame for Minnesota’s onside kick," Daily Iowan, November 1, 2011.

Clearly, in spite of the multi-million-dollar revenue, the powerful conflicts of interest, the challenges to integrity, the abuses, there are college athletic programs that have not fallen victim to this process.

But my point is not even about what one university president once told me he considered the "anomaly" of big-time football within the academy. It is a point potentially applicable to almost all large institutions that, as Harman puts it, "continually protect the powerful at the expense of the vulnerable."

As she points out, "universities are not so different from banks and Wall Street financial institutions or established churches in the way they wield power and influence."

And before the day is out, we will have heard from a Republican presidential candidate, with a good deal of power behind him, also involved in "sexual" allegations. Jim Rutenberg and Michael D. Shear, "Woman Accuses Cain of Groping; He Denies Charge," New York Times, November 8, 2011, p. Al. Will it also be just yet one more, like DSK and the New York hotel maid, "Dominique's Dominos: Strauss-Kahn and Sexual Assault," July 1, 2011, of protecting "the powerful at the expense of the vulnerable"?

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Thursday Edition Addition

Normally I don't "update" blog entries, even though a significant number of the hits on this blog go to entries four and five years old. It's highly unlikely anyone today, November 10, 2011, is unaware of today's status of this story, but that may not be the case years from now. So here's one of this morning's accounts:

Mark Vera, "Paterno is Finished at Penn State, and President is Out," New York Times, November 10, 2011, p. A1.

Given that I'm assuming the Board essentially "fired" both Coach Paterno and President Spanier, it's not clear to me why the disparate characterization in the headline and story: "Paterno is Finished" but President Spanier is "Out"; "Joe Paterno . . . was fired . . .. Graham B. Spanier . . . was also removed by the Board of Trustees."

Nor is it clear, with Spanier and Paterno having been fired, and both Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President for Finance Gary Schultz having been indicted by the grand jury for perjury, why Curley has been permitted to have merely "taken a leave of absence" and Schultz has merely "decided to step down." "Penn State Fires Joe Paterno; Decision Made Wednesday Night," Associated Press/Hawk Central, November 9, 2011.

Questions have also been raised about the retention of assistant coach Mike McQueary: "That McQueary remains on the staff is shocking. Penn State fired legendary coach Joe Paterno and president Graham Spanier on Wednesday for their failure to follow up on a 2002 report . . .. That report came from McQueary, who told a grand jury earlier this year that he saw everything." Andy Staples, "Penn State Making Progress, but Two Personnel Moves Still Remain," "Inside College Football"/Sports Illustrated, November 10, 2011. News the afternoon of the next day was that "Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary . . . has been placed on administrative leave. . . . [T]he school said McQueary would not be present when the Nittany Lions play Nebraska on Saturday because he has received threats." Genaro C. Armas, "PSU: McQueary Put on Administrative Leave," Associated Press/rivals.com/Yahoo!, November 11, 2011.

The Times' story also quotes Spanier's statement that, "This university is a large and complex institution, and although I have always acted honorably and in the best interest of the university, the buck stops here. In this situation, I believe it is in the best interest of the university to give my successor a clear path to resolve the issues before us.”

To me, that sounds like, "I am totally blameless, always having acted honorably, and am now an innocent casualty. But because I am theoretically responsible for everything that goes on at this large and complex institution, whether I know about it or not, and I have always put the best interests of the university ahead of my own, I am voluntarily resigning."

Now I recognize that, had he said this two days ago when I first wrote this blog entry, he would have been saying precisely what I was advocating he should have said at that time. It's just that, coming after he's fired by his Board, it sounds a little disingenuous.

So where are we with this now?

1. Legally. Most of the official, media, and public concern about this sad mess has focused on (a) the harm done to the young boys, (b) the offenses by defendant and assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, and (c) the moral (as distinguished from legal) obligations of all who knew. But there are remaining legal issues and actions as well -- possibly civil as well as criminal. See, for example, the grand jury indictment linked from the top of this blog entry.

Those issues make for interesting law school faculty luncheon discussions regarding who has a responsibility, under the criminal law of various states, to report what, about whom, when, and to whom. (Indeed, what are your legal (or institutional) reporting obligations when you have something between a strong suspicion and an eye-witness account of a possible crime?) Similar questions arise under the regulations of an individual university regarding reporting requirements.

I'm not going to provide that law-review-article-depth-and-lengthy, footnoted discussion here. Those things will sort themselves out over time, and the outcomes will be reported and available to those who care.

2. Morally. The primary issues here -- and the basis for the firing of a university's president and football coach -- may well be moral and ethical rather than legal. On the hypothetical assumption they both complied with their legal obligations, what more were they morally obliged to do?

The late Senator Ted Kennedy's tribute to his brother, Robert, at a memorial service following Robert's death, included a description of him as "a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

The moral judgment, it seems to me, turns on whether as much will be able to be said of the five adult principals involved in this case when their memorial services are held. Did they know that wrong had been done, that suffering had resulted, and did they then try to stop it?

As Buzz Bissinger put it, "This is not a football scandal of illegal recruiting and payoffs and prostitutes. It is a national scandal involving morality, weakness of character, passing the buck, inaction, cowardice, neglect and what appears to be outright lying. If the allegations are true, head coach Joe Paterno and top-ranking university officials allowed former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky to roam loose as a sexual predator even though there were clear indications of his abuse of children."

Buzz Bissinger, "This Is Not a Football Scandal," New York Times, November 10, 2011 (arguing that Saturday's Nebraska game, and season, should not be cancelled; from a collection of five comments worth reading that address, "Room for Debate: Should Penn State Cancel Its Season?").

If Sandusky did in fact do what he is charged with having done, I know of no one who would come to his defense. Some might prefer psychiatric treatment along with prison, but none would excuse his actions.

"The five," however, are not charged with such acts. In fact, to the extent they are charged with anything, it is non-action rather than action -- except for the two whom the grand jury has charged with perjury.

Bissinger undoubtedly has access to more information than I have. It certainly appears, based on what I've read in the press, that he is right. But my final, moral judgments of certainty are going to await more documentation of the details of non-action by "the five."

For me, much of the answer to the moral issue turns on the answer to the question another senator, Senator Howard Baker, reiterated during the Senate investigation of President Richard Nixon's involvement in the Watergate break-in: "What did the President know, and when did he know it?" What did Paterno know, and when did he know it? What did Spanier know, and when did he know it? (Coincidentally, today's news also included, Calvin Woodward and Nancy Benac, "Nixon's Long-Secret Watergate Testimony Coming Out," Associated Press/Yahoo!News, November 10, 2011.)

Paterno worked with Sandusky for decades. When did he first hear rumors, have suspicion, or actual knowledge, of Sandusky's child abuse? If he had been provided only vague information, would he have had a legitimate, reasonable basis for believing that Sandusky had been involved in only one ambiguous encounter, received treatment, and been "cured"? Was this something he'd had multiple, detailed reports about over a period of years, or something that he is now as shocked to find out about as anyone? (That lack of awareness can happen, as we occasionally hear in a story of a crime and a neighbor's response: "They were such a nice friendly family; always kept their lawn nicely trimmed; attended church every Sunday. Who would ever have thought they were terrorists building bombs in the garage?")

When the eye witness reported to Paterno, how detailed was that report, what exactly was he told?

Not incidentally, what were the university's regulations and social norms regarding the reporting of crimes and inappropriate behavior? Are administrators and faculty members merely expected to report to superiors (e.g., vice presidents, deans, or department heads)-- which Paterno apparently did by telling the AD? Or are they expected to take matters into their own hands, and make individual independent judgments in each case whether to file a police report, commit a person to a psyc ward or hospital, get them into Alcoholics Anonymous or drug rehab, or whatever else in their judgment is the most appropriate action?

Similar questions need to be asked, and answered, regarding Spanier. What precisely was he told and when? It would seem to me that his moral obligation would vary, depending on whether he was told, almost casually, during the course of a lengthy meeting, "We've got a little personnel problem in athletics with Sandusky, but the AD's taking care of it," or he was provided the shocking details of what had been witnessed.

Finally, I don't think the individual Board members are immune from this line of inquiry. Were each of them totally shocked, never having heard a whisper of the scandal, prior to the days they started holding emergency sessions? Were none of them ever told by Spanier of the problem -- the answer to which reflects on both Spanier (to the extent he knew but didn't tell) and the Board members (to the extent they were fully informed, but never acted before last evening).

If the Board members knew and did nothing, was their ultimate resolution last evening -- the peremptory firing of Spanier and Paterno, without according them a reasonable opportunity to be heard, or other due process protections -- the result of the Board's investigation of and response to the facts, or a knee jerk response to adverse publicity? Had the national media firestorm not billowed out of control might they, too, have continued to let it slide without taking action?

This was a sad story on Tuesday, and an even sadder story on Thursday. It will not quickly go away. While I have no interest in repeating here the rumors that are already beginning to fly, there may be more to be added to this blog entry over the weeks and months to come as additional, documented facts come out.
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Subsequent comments of others worth noting . . .

Jon Stewart's Comedy Central "The Daily Show" offers up a four-times-a-week sharp, satiric commentary on the news that has become for many in its audience their primary source of news. Stewart found nothing funny about the Penn State scandal, but his November 10, 2011, commentary provides his own take on our relative priorities:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Penn State Riots

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

A University of Chicago graduate student with many ties to State College, Pennsylvania, has itemized, taken on, and scorched the failings of an entire generation, for which PSU's handling of Sandusky's crimes is simply the last straw. Thomas L. Day, "Penn State, My Final Loss of Faith," "On Faith: Guest Voices," Washington Post, November 11, 2011.

The Times Nina Bernstein has endeavored to put the Penn State events into a context of analogous mishandling by other universities. Nina Bernstein, "On Campus, a Law Enforcement System to Itself," New York Times, November 12, 2011, p. A1.

November 15 update: "Close to 10 additional suspected victims have come forward . . .. Sandusky [says] he was innocent of the charges [but] acknowledge[s], 'I shouldn't have showered with those kids.' . . . On Sunday [Nov. 13], Jack Raykovitz, the chief executive of [Second Mile] . . . resigned." Mark Vera and Jo Becker, "Ex-Coach Denies Charges Amid New Accusations," New York Times, November 15, 2011, p. B13.

November 17: For an historical itemization and account of relevant events, see Justin Sablich and Alan McLean, "Timeline: The Penn State Scandal," New York Times, November 11, 2011, and Jo Becker, "Inquiry Grew Into Concerns of a Cover-Up," New York Times, November 17, 2011, p. B11.

November 18: Frank Deford's usually insightful take on an answer to, "what happened and why?"

[T]he consensus . . . is that, first, Joe Paterno didn't want to scar the reputation of himself or his football program; and then, university executives wanted to protect the reputation of the dear old coach and his moneymaking team.

Yet I must wonder, as well, how much the culture of the particular sport involved — football — abetted the conspiracy of silence . . ..

Because of [football's] reputation of machismo — that conceit, that creed — it surely becomes painful, almost traitorous, for men who love football to accept such an abject contradiction of their sport's manliness — the very rape of a little boy by a coach. . . .

Even Paterno himself may not know what caused him to fail such a basic test of decency. But still, I cannot help but wonder that, no, it wasn't primarily because of his own reputation or because of all the money Penn State football made that stopped him from acting. No, I wonder if, above all, Coach Paterno could not bear to see shame come to his beloved game of football.

Frank Deford, "Is Football Culture The Core Of The Problem?" NPR, November 16, 2011.

Deford may have a point, but educational administrators -- university presidents -- are not the only ones among us whose good sense and ethics can be bent, and sometimes broken, with the explanation that "revenue is needed." As I have often said of that rationalization, "once 'revenue is needed' becomes your polestar, your moral compass begins to spin as if on the North Pole." Clearly, Penn State's football program generally, and Joe Paterno specifically, were responsible for millions of dollars of revenue -- not just from football tickets and TV, but from the additional grants and gifts they stimulated for educational programs.

Long before the Penn State scandal broke, the Houston Chronicle's Nick Anderson captured the impact of football's cash on university presidents in another context:

[Credit: Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle, September 23, 2011.]

November 20: Sandusky's charity, Second Mile, is being investigated regarding what its administrators and board knew, and when they knew it, and what they did about it. Some donors are backing away. Mark Viera, Jo Becker and Pete Thamel, "Charity Founded by Accused Ex-Coach May Fold," New York Times, November 19, 2011, p. D1.

The NCAA, not exactly the first on the scene, is now considering an "investigation" that will not require any investigators in State College and appears to be little more than following the story in the papers and courts. In fairness, its "enforcement," as a private association, has been primarily focused on, and limited to, its own self-imposed rules regarding academic and recruiting integrity, sports betting, the amateur status (limitations on payment) of college athletes, and related matters. Criminal and other offenses that do not affect such matters, the field of play, and fair competition between teams, have been left to the individual universities. That may now change. Pete Thamel, "N.C.A.A. Begins Penn State Inquiry," New York Times, November 19, 2011, p. D3

Assistant Coach Mike McQueary emailed friends that he did intervene when he saw Sandusky sexually assaulting a young boy in the shower, and that he did "discuss" the matter with the "police" (with no designation of "city" or "campus" police). However, both police departments now say they have no record of his contacting them."Police: PSU's McQueary didn't report Sandusky incident to us," Associated Press/Sports Illustrated, November 16, 2011.

November 21: Economists call them "externalities." It's a concept also applicable to criminal offenses. A factory belching pollutants in excess of permitted levels is fined, creating a financial impact on its profits. But there may not be as much public recognition of the impact on asthmatics. An over-leveraged Wall Street investment banker may throw the company into bankruptcy; but his behavior may also result in a foreclosure on a homeowner in Tucson, Arizona.

And so it is that Sandusky's alleged criminal behavior could have been predicted to cause a lifetime of harm to his victims, personal shame for him, risk a decline in ticket sales, and besmirch the formerly enviable ethical record of the Nittany Lions' football program. But the full reach of the fallout can only be guessed at now: a decline in donors' contributions to academic as well as athletic programs? New legislation from the Pennsylvania legislature -- as well as other states and Congress? A decline in students' applications for admission?

Today's revelation involves the impact on sales of clothing and other Penn State-logo items -- so far an unprecedented 40% decline. This is not an insignificant market: sales of $4 billion a year for college athletic programs; $80 million for Penn State, one of the top-10 schools. Joann Loviglio, "Scandal Hurts Penn State as a School and a Brand," Associated Press, November 20, 2011.

November 23: For a moving story about one of the alleged victims, and its fallout, see Nate Schweber and Jo Becker, "For a Reported Penn State Victim, a Search for Trust," New York Times, November 23, 2011, p. B13.

And an Associated Press story reveals the day-to-day impact of the internal power of big time sports on what is otherwise an academic institution:

Vicky Triponey, Penn State's "standards and conduct" officer, whose responsibility it was to enforce discipline, resigned in 2007. She had emailed Penn State President Graham Spanier on August 12, 2005,

"[Paterno] is insistent he knows best how to discipline his players ... and their status as a student when they commit violations of our standards should NOT be our concern ... and I think he was saying we should treat football players different from other students in this regard. . . . Coach Paterno would rather we NOT inform the public when a football player is found responsible for committing a serious violation of the law and/or our student code, despite any moral or legal obligation to do so." . . .

Triponey said that throughout her tenure at Penn State there was "an ongoing debate" over who should deal with misconduct by football players.

Her 2005 email was sent the day after a heated meeting in which Paterno complained about the discipline process.

"He knew better than anyone how to discipline them. We wanted to show him the (disciplinary) data and suggest that `Well, whatever it is we're doing, it's not working.' They're getting into trouble at a greater rate than they should. We wanted to find a way to address that," she said. "The meeting ended up being a one-sided conversation with the coach talking about his frustrations, his anger, his not being happy with the way we were running the system." . . .

A review of Associated Press stories over the last decade shows at least 35 Penn State players faced internal discipline or criminal charges between 2003-09 for a variety of offenses ranging from assault to drunk driving to marijuana possession. One player was acquitted of sexual assault. . . .

[P]ressure to go easier on football players increased as her tenure went on.

"Many times, (because of) the pressure placed on us by the president or the football coach, eventually, we would end up doing sanctions that were not what another student would've got," she said. "It was much less. It was adapted to try to accommodate the concerns of the coach."

Seanna Adcox, "Ex-PSU officer questioned player treatment," Associated Press/CitizensVoice/Times-Shamrock [Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania], November 22, 2011.

November 28: The culture and institutional pattern continues. This blog began on November 8 describing a pattern of institutional response to those crises that involve behavior of officials ranging from the embarrassing to the criminal -- institutional cover-up, initial media reports, institutional denials (often vociferous), media confirmations, institutional professions of shock, calls for in-house investigations, apologies to the victims (whose claims were earlier dismissed), and assertions "this will never happen again" (until it does), institutional firings, normally of someone in the middle, saving the jobs of the coach and university president. There are, of course, some variations in this pattern, as we've seen at Penn State, where ultimately the coach and president were fired.

So now it's Syracuse. What was head basketball coach Jim Boeheim's response when stories emerged that his associate head coach, Bernie Fine, had sexually molested two young "ball boys" during Fine's 36 years at Boeheim's side? He said the men's charges were "a bunch of a thousand lies . . .. I believe they are looking for money. I believe they saw what happened at Penn State, and they are using ESPN to get money. That is what I believe.”

There it is: the cover-up, the early media reports, the vociferous defense (remember Penn State President's defense of the AD and VP charged with perjury?), and yesterday's media confirmations, in the form of a third man coming forward and the release of a taped phone call with Fine's wife in which she appears to be aware of his behavior. Now Fine has been peremptorily fired, the president and Boeheim still securely employed. So, next phase? Boeheim is shocked, shocked I tell you, calling for an in-house investigation, and professing an apology to victims: "I believe the university took the appropriate step tonight [firing Fine]. What is most important is that this matter be fully investigated and that anyone with information be supported to come forward so that the truth can be found. I deeply regret any statements I made that might have inhibited that from occurring or been insensitive to victims of abuse."

Isn't this just further evidence that the institutional failures accompanying big money, semi-pro athletic entertainment programs inside the academy are inevitable, systemic, and a part of the culture?

Penn State is not the "bad apple" in an otherwise flawless orchard. It is but one more example of a blight that can potentially strike any tree, and has. Pete Thamel, "Syracuse Fires Fine After New Allegations in Molestation Case," New York Times, November 28, 2011, p. D1.

December 1: "Earlier Wednesday, a new accuser who is not part of the criminal case said in a lawsuit that Sandusky threatened to harm his family to keep him quiet. The 29-year-old, identified only as John Doe, had never told anyone about the abuse he claims he suffered until Sandusky was charged last month with abusing other boys. His lawyer said he filed a complaint with law enforcement on Tuesday. He became the first plaintiff to file suit in the Penn State child sex abuse scandal a day later. . . . The lawsuit claims Sandusky abused the boy from 1992, when the boy was 10, until 1996 in encounters at the coach's State College home, in a Penn State locker room and on trips, including to a bowl game. The account echoes a grand jury's description of trips, gifts and attention lavished on other boys." Genaro C. Armas and Maryclaire Dale, "1st Penn State Abuse Suit Comes From New Accuser," Associated Press/Las Vegas Review-Journal, December 1, 2011.

December 3: "The former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, in his first extended interview since his indictment on sexual abuse charges last month, said Coach Joe Paterno never spoke to him about any suspected misconduct with minors. Mr. Sandusky also said the charity he worked for never restricted his access to children until he became the subject of a criminal investigation in 2008." [Photo credit: New York Times.] Jo Becker, "Center of Penn State Scandal, Sandusky Tells His Own Story," New York Times, December 3, 2011, p. A1.

December 12, 2100: One of the best overviews of, especially, the role of the "culture" surrounding the Penn State football program in permitting the continuation of Sandusky's behavior, is contained in this detailed and lengthy (3750-word) AP story: Brett J. Blackledge, Jeff Donn and Michael Rubinkam, "PSU culture explained away Sandusky," Associated Press/Yahoo.com, December 12, 2011 ("The warning signs were there for more than a decade, disturbing indicators that Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was breaching boundaries with young boys — or maybe worse. . . . Too many, from the university president to department heads to janitors, knew of troubling behavior . . . [but] the circle of knowledge was kept very limited and very private. Year after year, Penn State missed opportunity after opportunity to stop Sandusky . . . — all part of a deep-rooted reflex to protect the sacred football program. The fact that so few say they knew is all anyone needs to know about the insular culture that surrounds Penn State — . . . a university cloaked in so much secrecy, in large part, because it is exempt from the state's open records law, and a football program that has prided itself on handling its indiscretions internally and quietly, without outside interference.").

December 17, 2011: Peter Durantine, "Penn State’s McQueary Tells Court What He Saw," New York Times, December 17, 2011, p. D1 ("A Penn State assistant football coach testified Friday that in 2002 he saw Jerry Sandusky sexually assaulting a young boy and that he reported it, in graphic detail, to Coach Joe Paterno and two senior Penn State University officials. “I described it was extremely sexual and that some kind of intercourse was going on,” the assistant coach, Mike McQueary, testified of the suspected assault by Sandusky, a longtime top assistant to Paterno.").

And see, Mary Pilon, "Scandals Test the N.C.A.A.’s Top Rules Enforcer," New York Times, December 17, 2011, p. D17 ("In terms of major scandals, this year has been one of the most calamitous in the history of college athletics. From reports in August about a University of Miami booster providing cash and prostitutes for its football players to sexual abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky at Penn State and then against a Syracuse assistant basketball coach, fans and college officials alike have begun asking whether the big-money world of college athletics has sufficient oversight.").

December 20, 2011: Much has been written, and rightfully so, about the "culture" of college football, and, among other things, the widespread violation of, and difficulty of enforcing, NCAA rules regarding universities' administrative control of their big sports programs. In fairness, however, this might be as much a matter of institutional, or human, failing as of athletic programs' failing.

Consider a corporation's instinct to refuse to report a disaster, and then minimize its extent once reported. A police department's handling of an officer's killing an innocent civilian. The bank that never reveals a million-dollar embezzlement from inside, or a hack from outside. A military unit's characterization of homicide as mere "collateral damage." A hospital that denies the results of medical malpractice are anything more than an ordinary risk of surgery. Children who lie to their parents, parents who lie to each other, witnesses who perjure themselves on the witness stand.

These widespread examples do not make what was done in any of them right, but they do make each illustration less something uniquely associated with a given institution -- including college sports.

And so it is that we cannot express great surprise that the cover-up of Sandusky's failings by those running Second Mile were very similar to the cover-up by Penn State administrators. There is a heavy incentive, it seems, for anyone to want to avoid, or at least minimize, contributing to one's embarrassment (not to mention criminal self-incrimination). Brett J. Blackledge, Mark Scolforo and Michael Rubinkam, "Former 2nd Mile board members: We needed to know," Associated Press, December 19, 2011 ("Former board members of [Second Mile] . . . say its CEO never told them about a 2002 shower incident . . .. If they knew . . . they say they could have taken steps to better protect children a decade ago. 'Not one thing was said to us,' said Bradley P. Lunsford, a Centre County judge who served on the Second Mile board between 2001 and 2005. 'Not a damn thing.'").

December 23, 2011: How are these abusive relationships created? And even more puzzling, how are children persuaded to maintain them? One of the more instructive examinations of this form of child abuse from the perspective of the child emerges from an Associated Press interview with Bobby Davis of Syracuse. "Michael Hill, "Fine Accuser Felt He 'Owed' Coach," Associated Press, December 22, 2011.

Here's a sampling: "Bobby Davis was a basketball-crazy teen who was handed a virtual all-access pass to the world of big-time college hoops by Syracuse assistant coach Bernie Fine. . . . Davis heard halftime locker-room tirades from the legendary coach [Jim Boeheim], took shots at practice, sat courtside, hit the road and ate nice dinners. Davis, now 39 . . ., says the indebtedness he felt toward Fine made it hard to break from the man he claims molested him throughout his teens and into his late 20s. . . . 'As I got older, I understood more that Bernie had this power. You almost feel it's like a cult in a sense. You don't know how to get away . . .. And as more and more time went on, you feel indebted to him. You feel like you owe him.'"

January 12, 2012: Kevin Begos and Mark Scolford, "Penn State president to face alumni in Pittsburgh," Associated Press/Miami Herald, January 11, 2012, ("[Penn State President Rodney] Erickson is attempting to repair the school's image with alumni, faculty, staff, and students, more than two months since Sandusky was arrested, bringing with it controversy, criticism and contemplation. Some alumni have criticized the school failing to conduct a complete investigation before firing Paterno and ousting Erickson's predecessor, Graham Spanier, while decrying the school's leadership as secretive and slow to act.")

January 14, 2012: Sally Jenkins, "Joe Paterno’s first interview since the Penn State-Sandusky scandal," Washington Post, January 14, 2012, (“'I didn’t know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was,' he [Joe Paterno] said. 'So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little
more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way.'”)

January 19, 2012: Pete Thamel and Mark Viera, "Penn State's Trustees Recall Painful Decision to Fire Paterno," New York Times, January 19, 2012, p. B15 ("The board, scrambling to address the child sexual abuse scandal involving the university and its football program, had already decided to remove Graham B. Spanier as president. Then, many of those present recalled this week, the tension in the room mounted. Joe Paterno’s future was next up. [John P. Surma, the chief executive of U.S. Steel and the vice chairman of Penn State University’s board of trustees] announced that an agreement appeared to have been reached to fire Paterno, too — the trustees having determined that he had failed to take adequate action when he was told that one of his longtime assistants had been seen molesting a 10-year-old boy in Paterno’s football facility. Surma, those present recalled, surveyed the other trustees — there are 32 — for their opinions and emotions before asking one last question: 'Does anyone have any objections? If you have an objection, we’re open to it.' No one in the room spoke. There was silence from the phone speakers. Paterno’s 46-year tenure as head coach of one of the country’s storied college football programs was over, and the gravity of the action began to sink in.")

January 27, 2012: Mark Viera, "Strong Words Resound at Tribute to Paterno," New York Times, January 27, 2012, p. B14, ("Phil Knight, the chairman of Nike, . . . in the memorial’s most riveting moment . . . lambasted Penn State’s board of trustees for firing Paterno . . .. 'It turns out he gave full disclosure to his superiors, information that went up the chain to the head of the campus police and the president of the school . . . The matter was in the hands of a world-class university and a president with an outstanding national reputation. Whatever the details of the investigation are, this much is clear to me: if there is a villain in this tragedy, it lies in that investigation, not in Joe Paterno.'”)

# # #

SSMIDs, Taxes and TIFs: The Lessons

2011-11-03T07:55:00.011-05:00

November 3, 2011, 12:05 p.m.

Say 'No' to Tax Increases, 'Yes' to SSMIDs?!

"Most of the state’s largest cities, including Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Davenport, Cedar Falls and Waterloo, have a SSMID. It can help a business district go as far as reinventing itself in the face of changing economic forces or simply making a few targeted improvements."
-- Editorial, The Gazette, November 1, 2011

What on earth is an "SSMID"?

It's a cash fund to benefit downtown businesses that I enthusiastically support.

"Whaaa?!" as Jon Stewart might exclaim.

It's no secret that I suffer a severe case of skepticism when it comes to federal, state, or local proposals that involve transferring taxpayers' money to the bottom line of private, for-profit businesses. See, e.g., "The True Price of TIFs," October 1, 2011, and associated links.

So what is it about SSMIDs? Do I now, at long last, "owe my soul to the company store," have I surrendered to the increasingly-powerful forces of that blend of capitalism and government called corporatism, or fascism? (Even Sarah Palin has attacked what she called "the corporatist agenda"; see "Palin Attacks 'The Corporatist Agenda,'" February 9, 2011.)

The "owe my soul" line is from the song "16 Tons," here sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford:

So why do I like SSMIDs?

First off, I find them kind of amusing. This is an age of "rugged individualism," anti-taxes, anti-government, anti-social programs. As Herman Cain has put it succinctly, "If you're not rich, it's your own fault."

So the prospect of the business community voting to increase its taxes is kind of delicious.

It is business persons recognition that there is a point to our doing things together that we cannot do alone; that there is a point of imposing on ourselves the obligation to pay for those things. It is their recognition that "the marketplace," run by disconnected individuals trying to maximize their own profit, is not enough -- even to increase individual businesses' profits, let alone to serve the best interests of all the people.

Substantively, I do like SSMIDs for the same reasons I don't like TIFs.

[Photo credit: CaddyLakGraffix.com]

(1) TIFs involve government officials using money that isn't theirs; it's the taxpayers' money, other communities' and public entities' money. It's very difficult to predict new jobs, or other public benefits from a TIF; the only thing a TIF guarantees is that one lucky business person will be personally enriched with public funds.

SSMIDs, by contrast, involve businesses' money, their money put to purposes designed to improve everyone's business. SSMIDs cost the taxpayers' nothing. In fact, to the extent the SSMID board invests wisely, thereby increasing businesses' profits and property values, SSMIDs may actually reduce taxpayers' obligations.

(2) TIFs require that public officials make decisions about private businesses in which they have personally invested nothing, and about which they may know even less. They did not qualify for public office, and get elected, because of their prior knowledge, experience, and record of business success.

The record of public officials' dispensing of subsidies, bailouts, tax breaks, and other financial incentives to private business is for the most part unknown. There often is no record, no accountability, no transparency, no follow-up to see what was or was not accomplished with the taxpayers' largess, which of the predictions of benefits proved out and which did not. See, e.g., Chris Earl, "The Push for Tax Dollar Transparency; Will People Care?" The Gazette, November 1, 2011 (as Iowa state Senator Joe Bolkcom puts it, "If we’re going to write a check to somebody for $10 million, geez, don’t you think people should know?”).

But to the extent there are records, there are plenty of examples of what, by any measure, would have to be chalked up as, at best, failure.

The decisions of SSMIDs are made by business people. My impression is that everyone is better off when that's the case -- owners, shareholders, bankers, taxpayers, and government officials. That's not to say we -- and business -- don't need or benefit from some regulation of business, to keep competition fair and vigorous, and protect consumers from the worst abuses. It's only to say that when the question is, "What's the most efficient and effective way to promote a community's downtown businesses?", the best answers are far more likely to come from business persons than from government officials.

Not incidentally, this approach also leaves the losses where they ought to fall -- on business, not taxpayers. If government officials guess wrong with a TIF, all the losses fall on taxpayers. If an SSMID board guesses wrong with, say, a promotional idea, the losses fall on business, where they ought to.

So that's a few of the reasons why I applaud Iowa City's business community for its support of a local SSMID, while remaining skeptical regarding TIFs.

As it happens, apparently not every downtown business person shares my enthusiasm. Notwithstanding the popularity of SSMIDs throughout the country, including Iowa (as the opening quote on this blog entry illustrates), they (and some of those commenting on the newspapers' stories) attack SSMID's as if this was some radical new idea that all right-thinking business people should obviously oppose.

For some, a tax is a tax is a tax. But for what is currently a large enough plurality of them to bring this SSMID into existence, they see the benefit of people working together for common ends that they cannot accomplish, individually, on their own, and the benefit of paying for the effort with a form of taxation.

Hopefully, the lesson we may all learn from this effort is that government is another example of our coming together to accomplish those things we cannot achieve on our own, and that taxes are a useful way to pay for those benefits.

Taxes are, after all -- like cash, bank loans, credit cards, and barter -- just another way of buying the stuff we need. See, e.g., "It's Not About Taxes," October 24, 2006 ("We buy from government our roads and bridges, public schools, libraries and parks, fire and police protection, judicial system and jails, and the safety of our food and drugs. To speak of 'cutting (or increasing) taxes' makes no more sense than cutting or increasing 'cash,' 'checking accounts,' or 'credit cards.' Taxes are just another form of currency we use to buy stuff.").

# # #
Here is the entirety of the editorial with which this blog entry began, along with brief excerpts and links to some of the recent news stories about this particular SSMID.

Do-it-yourself business tool
Editorial
The Gazette
November 1, 2011, p. A4
http://thegazette.com/2011/11/01/do-it-yourself-business-tool/
Tonight, the Iowa City Council can take the first step toward approving a tax that many downtown business owners are asking for. Asking to be taxed more may sound unusual, but there’s solid thinking behind the proposal.

The council is considering a self-supported municipal improvement district — SSMID for short. An additional $2 per $1,000 of taxable value in property taxes, starting a year from now, would give the downtown business district substantial funds for marketing, beautification and other improvements — well beyond what other business groups currently provide.

We think the proposal ties in with city leaders’ stepped-up emphasis on revitalizing downtown with a mix of more retailers, owner-occupied housing and office space. The SSMID wouldn’t raise taxes on residents or businesses not in the district. And it gives downtown owners a say in how the money should be used, via their own board.

Most of the state’s largest cities, including Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Davenport, Cedar Falls and Waterloo, have a SSMID. It can help a business district go as far as reinventing itself in the face of changing economic forces or simply making a few targeted improvements.

Iowa City’s downtown faces tough competition from the Coralridge Mall and other nearby retailers. But it also offers distinctive flavor because of its popular Ped Mall area and the proximity of the University of Iowa. Since voters OK’d the 21-only bar rule and it took effect in June 2011, both city and UI leaders have a big stake in pushing downtown’s evolution from a predominantly alcohol-fueled entertainment district to a thriving city center with more variety.

The SSMID can be a valuable tool in the evolution. And heading into tonight’s city council public hearing and discussion, support from business owners is substantial. State law requires at least 25 percent of the property owners and 25 percent of the assessed property value in the district to sign a petition to consider a SSMID. Iowa City’s numbers are 39 percent and 49 percent respectively.

The process comes with transparency and safeguards. Three of the seven city council members will not vote because they are downtown business owners. Approval requires at least three “yes” votes on each of three readings. A protest petition can stop the plan if signed by 40 percent of owners with 40 percent of the property value.

The UI has said it will contribute another $100,000 annually, reflecting the downtown’s importance to the institution, boosting total SSMID funding to about $380,000.

The proposal comes with no guarantees of success, of course. But who better to take this calculated risk than the business owners? They understand that being proactive improves the odds for a prosperous future.

Council gives the first approval of SSMID;
Supporters hope to have it up and running by January
Mitchell Schmidt
Iowa City Press-Citizen
November 2, 2011, p. A3
http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20111102/NEWS01/311020028/Council-gives-the-first-approval-of-SSMID
The Iowa City Council has approved the first reading of an ordinance to add a self-imposed tax to many downtown businesses to raise funds aimed to benefit the central business and near northside districts.

The Self Supporting Municipal Improvement District ordinance would be a self-imposed additional taxing district that would levy a tax on the properties within the district to be used toward marketing, business retention and expansion, information management and physical improvements.

Karen Kubby, chairwoman of the Downtown Association said the district had gained enough support from the community to move forward with a recommendation and handed in an additional signature during the Tuesday council meeting that she said brought the approval rate up to 40 percent.

The SSMID, proposed by the Downtown Association and recommended by the Iowa City Planning and Zoning Commission, would impose a levy of $2 for every $1,000 of taxable income for the district’s companies — which would be coupled with an annual $100,000 contribution from the tax-exempt University of Iowa for the school’s investment in a “vital downtown,” according to a memorandum sent to City Manager Tom Markus. . . .

Gregg Hennigan, "Downtown Iowa City tax district gets initial City Council support; The levy would take effect in July 2012 and generate an estimated $282,000 a year," The Gazette, November 2, 2011, p. A3.

Asmaa Elkeurti, "City Council votes in favor of tax district in second public hearing," Daily Iowan, November 2, 2011, p. A7.

Mitchell Schmidt, "Group ready to hit ground running if SSMID is approved; Critics worry tax won't benefit everyone equally," Iowa City Press-Citizen, November 3, 2011, p. A3.

# # #

Asmaa Mahfouz: Democracy's Heroine

2011-10-27T14:46:00.013-05:00

October 27, 2011, 5:40 p.m.

[Photo credit: "Moral Heroes"]

"Fear of the government, fear of kidnapping, fear of harassment and abuse. These fears had kept the [Egyptian] regime in power for three decades. . . . This all changed on January 18th, 2011 when Asmaa Mahfouz decided to face her fears and ask others to join her in protest. She posted a video of herself online . . . calling on others to join her at a protest in Tahrir Square on January 25." Moral Heroes. [more]

The rest, as they say, is history.

Amy Goodman's powerful and moving juxtaposition of that famous January 18 video with her own interview of 26-year-old Asmaa Mahfouz at the site of Occupy Wall Street, provided more than just a gentle reminder of this remarkable young woman's role in the news at the beginning of this year. It caused me to see her, what she did (and continues to do), what she stands for and represents, in a very much brighter, multi-faceted and awesome light.

Do watch this excerpt from Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now," of October 25, 2011. It runs from 12:00 minutes in, to 25:46:

From Tahrir to Wall Street: Egyptian Revolutionary Asmaa Mahfouz Speaks at Occupy Wall Street

(Actually, the cut begins 15 seconds before 12:00, with news from Occupy Oakland. And I apologize for not providing an embed here but, unlike YouTube (where the New York interview is not yet posted) it was not immediately clear how to embed the segment from Democracy Now into Blogger, other than the link it does provide for Blogger, above.)

The two videos that Amy Goodman has combined spark so many thoughts:

- This powerful, additional illustration of the insight I came to at least 35 years ago that I call "the natural superiority of women" (something Mahfouz demonstrates as well as espouses).

- I consider myself a feminist, in the dictionary sense of someone who is "advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men." As such, I think that men and women alike need to watch this video and reflect on what it represents.

- This young woman succeeded in shaming Egyptian men into joining in public protest: "If you think yourself a man, come with me on January 25th. Whoever says women shouldn't go to protests because they will get beaten, let him have some honor and manhood and come with me on January 25th. If you have honor and dignity as a man, come and protect me, and the other girls in the protest."

- I am just so proud of this young woman, whose eyes now look down upon me from my law school office wall, next to those of Dr. King, as inspiration and reminder of how little I have accomplished, how little I have sacrificed, in a life I profess to have committed to "the public interest," compared with what they have each done in far fewer years. Aside from an occasional assassination threat (usually drunken), all I ever did was to willingly "speak truth to power," and espouse positions, that I knew would prevent my ever being offered the most lucrative jobs in Washington -- because I felt that's what "public service" requires of one. But no one ever actually took a shot at me; I didn't have a lot of desire for what those jobs require you to do anyway; and I'd even written a book about the virtues of knowing the difference between "enough" and "more" (Test Pattern for Living).

- Both King and Mahfouz knowingly confronted death (and one was killed) for the causes in which they believed. Aside from our brave military men and women in combat, and the journalists who bring us their stories (such as Christiane Amanpour), most displays of what passes for male macho shrivels by comparison.

- Her historic launching of the 2011 "Arab Spring."

- How an idea like non-violent protest, and the the power of ordinary people in a democracy, can spread -- from Gandhi, to Dr. King, to Asmaa Mahfouz, who then brings it back again to America, to inspire and encourage us at Occupy Wall Street and throughout our country.

- There were (and are) many uses of cyberspace, the Internet, and social media in this year's global popular protests; but none with the drama and impact of Mahfouz' video on her Facebook page, copied to YouTube, inspiring millions of Egyptians to action, and now seen by probably hundreds of millions more.

- For those who mourn for our species' future, and especially those (such as parents and teachers) who work with, and hope for, the coming generation, Mahfouz is a beacon of possibility, a reminder that -- while there may be none exactly like her -- there are others coming along who have at least some of her smarts, her courage, her natural leadership qualities, her moral values, and her ability to articulate (in at least two languages) all of the above.

- The spark of hope that may be found in "the American fall" that has followed "the Arab spring;" our own, very much smaller and milder, "Occupy" movement. A spark that she reached out and helped to fan with her presence at Occupy Wall Street.

- And to think she doesn't even have a law degree! Just a B.A. in business from Cairo University. Amazing. :>)

Here's to you, Asmaa! Thank you.

# # #

Public's Rights to Public Schools and Land

2011-10-25T07:43:00.009-05:00

October 25, 2011, 8:50 a.m.

The Heavy Price of Profit Maximization
The ICCSD School Board and Superintendent have indicated in a variety of ways their inclination to demolish Iowa City's 80-year-old landmark, Roosevelt Elementary School, and sell off the land to the highest bidder, regardless of the winner's proposed use, adverse impact on the neighborhood, and loss of the benefits from this irreplaceable asset for the residents of Iowa City.

It's pretty much a done deal. But it's still worth getting your oar in this polluted water, so I'm going to ask you a favor. A meeting of the Iowa City Community School Board Facility Committee is being held this afternoon in the Central Administration Office, 509 South Dubuque Street (just south of the Post Office), at 4:00 p.m. If you're free, please attend. I'm teaching a class this afternoon until after 5:00, so I can't go. (Unfortunately, meetings on some of the most important Board matters tend to be held when most citizens can't attend.)

The point I'd like to register is that those making these decisions have a responsibility that goes beyond a "marketplace profit maximization" approach. Even if they personally owned this land, one would hope when disposing of it they'd give some weight to the Iowa City community's interests.

But they don't own it. The people do; this is public land. Taxpayers paid for it; stakeholders benefit from it. The Board members have no more moral right to exercise their whim in this matter than would a similar number of developers.

And what it looks like we're going to end up with is a cabal of both.

There are few remaining plots of land of this size and beauty, both west of the river and close to town. This is truly irreplaceable public land. And it should remain as such.

It need not remain a school. It need not be "owned" by the school district. There are many possible options for its maximum contribution to the community. A few of them have been spelled out in this morning's Press-Citizen by Lori Enloe, whose column is reproduced below.

If the Board wants to profit-maximize, it might want to consider a hog confinement, a smokestack industry, or using the beautiful nature trail through the ravine as a nuclear waste dump -- any one of which would benefit from easy access to the railroad, and would undoubtedly bring top dollar.

No; profit maximization, which sometimes works well in the for-profit, commercial sector of society, is inappropriate in this instance. This is not the Board members' land. It is the people's land. It has been for over 80 years. The Board has no need to curry favor with local developers. And this particular piece of property is not a "must have" for developers anyway. They're doing fine.

Now read Ms. Enloe's op ed column, and join with me in this eleventh hour effort to bring common sense and human decency to the Board's management of our land.

Consider Better Options for Roosevelt's School Building
Lori Enloe
Iowa City Press-Citizen
October 25, 2011, p. 7A
http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20111025/OPINION02/310250011/Consider-better-options-Roosevelt-s-school-building
Imagine a place close to downtown Iowa City where the community can:

Gather for meetings and performances in a renovated historic building.

Participate in a community garden.

Play soccer and cricket.

Produce art and take classes for all ages.

The closing of Roosevelt Elementary has created this possibility.

In June 2009, the Iowa City Community School Board voted to close Roosevelt and repurpose the building. A repurposing committee (as a district administrative committee) met from October 2010 to February with the charge of making recommendations for viable solutions for repurposing Roosevelt.

Their ideas were placed in four categories:

Repurpose the property.

Sell to another public entity or nonprofit organization.

Sell to a private entity with stipulations.

Sell to a private entity with no stipulations.

After some consideration of the committee’s recommendations, Superintendent Steve Murley met with the Miller-Orchard neighborhood to discuss his findings and the neighborhood’s concerns Sept. 20. He suggested that he will recommend that the School Board sell the Roosevelt school property.

I encourage the School Board either to repurpose Roosevelt or to sell it to someone who will repurpose the building and property for the local neighborhood and community.

The School Board has a great opportunity to be visionary when it makes a decision about the Roosevelt property when the elementary closes next year. Roosevelt sits very close to the new Iowa City Riverfront Crossing Development and is close to the University of Iowa — making it a great location for creating space that would fit the diverse needs of all of Iowa City and the immediate neighborhood.

The board should consider the gathering spaces that individuals and groups have created in Iowa City and Johnson County — such as Uptown Bills Coffee Shop, Backyard Abundance, Taproot Nature Experience, New Pioneer Co-op Earth Source gardens, Summer of the Arts, community pianos and many other examples — that are important for the sustainability and livability of our community.

Let’s find a way to revitalize and to repurpose the Roosevelt property for our community. It could be a place for a magnet school, early childhood education or a combination of educational programs. Although not revenue neutral, these options could make use of innovative public/private collaboration to offset the cost of the project.

Alternatively, the district could carefully select a buyer who will create a multiuse nonprofit or for-profit community space that could include edible community gardens, a gym, art studios, performance studio and evening classes.

The possibilities are great if the school board invites proposals and provides a long enough time frame for an individual or group to create a proposal for this space and raise the money to purchase it.

Come and listen to the School Board and superintendent as they talk about Roosevelt at their Work Session and Facility Committee meeting at 4 p.m. today in the Central Administration Office, 509 S. Dubuque St.
_______________
Lori Enloe is past president of Roosevelt Parent Teacher Organization and parent of two children in the Iowa City Community School District.
__________
To remove any possible suspicion, or curiosity, as to my direct, personal interest in this issue, (a) I did not attend Roosevelt Elementary (I went through the University's experimental schools, the University Elementary and High School ("U-Hi")), and (b) I neither live, nor own property, in the immediate neighborhood of Roosevelt; it is across the tracks and at the opposite end of Greenwood from me.

# # #

Banks of Marble: Long History of Wall St. Protests

2011-10-16T19:14:00.011-05:00

October 16, 2011, 10:00 p.m.

[And see the related,
"Occupy: When Will It Stop? It will not stop until . . .," Oct. 14, 2011
“Why ‘Occupy”? What Do ‘Those People’ Want?,” Oct. 10, 2011
“Those Kinds of Riots Here,” Sept. 18, 2011
and
"Economic Recovery? It's Simple and Obvious; Recovery Requires Consumers, and Consumers Require Jobs," Oct. 13, 2011
"Golden Rules and Revolutions: A Series - VIII," April 19, 2008 (with links to each in series)]

'Occupy' Only Latest in 230-Year-Long Protest
Pete Seeger started singing Les Rice's "The Banks Are Made of Marble" in 1950. It's a song that might have been written 50 years earlier, or 100 -- or today.

[From YouTube.com.]

In fact, it could have been written 230 years ago. Steve Fraser, "Wall Street protests: A long American tradition; The Occupy Wall Street movement is rooted in uprisings against policies that favor the financial elite over ordinary people," Los Angeles Times, October 13, 2011 -- with excerpts below.

If you didn't listen to Pete Seeger singing the song he made famous, above, and would prefer to just read the lyrics, here they are:

I've traveled round this country
From shore to shining shore
It really made me wonder
The things I heard and saw.

I saw the weary farmer
Plowing sod and loam
l heard the auction hammer
A knocking down his home

But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the farmer sweated for

l saw the seaman standing
Idly by the shore
l heard the bosses saying
Got no work for you no more

But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the seaman sweated for

I saw the weary miner
Scrubbing coal dust from his back
I heard his children cryin
Got no coal to heat the shack

But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And the vaults are stuffed with silver
That the miner sweated for

I've seen my brothers working
Throughout this mighty land
l prayed we'd get together
And together make a stand

Final Chorus
Then we'd own those banks of marble
With a guard at every door
And we'd share those vaults of silver
That we have sweated for

Les Rice, "The Banks are Made of Marble," Stormking Music (1950).

Now back to the centuries-old history of these bank protests, and excerpts from Steve Fraser's article:

The only thing really surprising about the Occupy Wall Street movement is that it didn't happen sooner. The United States has a long history of friction over policies that enable an elite to thrive at the expense of ordinary people.

The earliest tensions emerged soon after the Revolutionary War, when Jeffersonian democrats raised alarms about the "moneycrats" and their counter-revolutionary intrigues. . . .

In the first half of the 19th century, followers of Andrew Jackson inveighed against the Second Bank of the United States [and] feared the bank was part of a systematic monopolizing of financial resources by a politically privileged elite.

That tradition was embraced again just after the Civil War, when the Farmer-Labor and Greenback political parties were formed out of a determination to break the stranglehold on credit exercised by the big banks back East.

Later in the 19th century, Populists decried the overweening power of the Wall Street "devil fish." The tentacles of finance, they insisted, not only reached into every part of the economy but also corrupted churches, the press and institutions of higher learning, destroying the family and suborning public officials from the president on down. . . .

William Jennings Bryan . . . during his campaign for the presidency in 1896 . . . was taking aim at Wall Street, and everyone knew it.

Around the turn of the 20th century, the antitrust movement . . . worried most about . . . "the money trust" . . . skewered in court and in print by future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, subjected to withering congressional investigations, excoriated in the exposes of "muckraking" journalists and depicted by cartoonists as a cabal of prehensile Visigoths in death-heads.

[T]he new century . . . included reformers in statehouses and city halls, socialists in industrial cities, strikebound workers from coast to coast, working-class feminists and antiwar activists. Financial interests were blamed for . . . pillage and labor exploitation while practicing imperial adventuring abroad. As the movements made clear, everyone but Wall Street was suffering the consequences of a system of proliferating abuses perpetrated by "the Street."

[D]uring the [1930s] Depression . . . as now, there was no question in the minds of the "99%" that Wall Street was principally to blame for the country's crisis.

In addition to rallies and marches of the unemployed, there were hundreds of sit-down strikes . . ., foreclosures forestalled by infuriated neighbors and occupations — even seizures — of private property. There was a pervasive sense that the old order needed to be buried. . . . President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his determination to unseat "economic royalists" who were growing rich off "other people's money" while the country suffered its worst trauma since the Civil War.

Steve Fraser, "Wall Street protests: A long American tradition; The Occupy Wall Street movement is rooted in uprisings against policies that favor the financial elite over ordinary people," Los Angeles Times, October 13, 2011.Want to know the data that explains why the protesters are protesting? Would you trust what comes from a business publication? OK, take a look at what CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Business Insider, Henry Blodget, has put together for you. Henry Blodget, "Here Are the Four Charts That Explain What the Protesters Are Angry About . . .," Business Insider, October 15, 2011. I won't fill this blog entry with the charts you can see at that link (with the exception of one, below); but here are the explanatory titles on each:

1. Unemployment is at the highest level since the Great Depression.

2. At the same time, corporate profits are at an all-time high, both in absolute dollars and as a share of the economy.

3. Wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low. In other words, corporate profits are at an all-time high, in part, because corporations are paying less of their revenue to employees than they ever have.

4. Income and wealth inequality in the US economy is near an all-time high: The owners of the country's assets (capital) are winning, everyone else (labor) is losing. Three charts illustrate this:

(1) The top earners are capturing a higher share of the national income than they have anytime since the 1920s. Top decile income share in France and the United States [20th Century; roughly equal until 1980; in 2003 about 43% in U.S., 32% France]

(2) CEO pay and dcorporate profits have skyrocketed in the past 20 years, "production worker" pay has risen 4%

(3) After adjusting for inflation, average earnings haven't increased in 50 years; Average Hourly Earnings, 1964-2008 (in 2008 dollars) [e.g., 1979: $18.76/hour; 2008: $18.52/hour]

By now, "Occupy Wall Street" has not only spread across America, it has gone global. As the New York Times reports, "Buoyed by the longevity of the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Manhattan, a wave of protests swept across Asia, the Americas and Europe over the weekend, with hundreds and in some cases thousands of people expressing discontent with the economic tides in marches, rallies and occasional clashes with the police." Clara Buckley and Rachel Donadio, "Buoyed by Wall St. Protests, Rallies Sweep the Globe," New York Times, October 16, 2011, p. A4.

And yet the bankers -- along with most elected officials and candidates -- still refuse to take it seriously, or understand what it's all about.

Publicly, bankers say they understand the anger at Wall Street — but believe they are misunderstood by the protesters camped on their doorstep.

But when they speak privately, it is often a different story.

"Most people view it as a ragtag group looking for sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll," said one top hedge fund manager.

Nelson D. Schwartz and Eric Dash, "In Private, Wall St. Bankers Dismiss Protesters As Unsophisticated," New York Times, October 15, 2011, p. B1.

Iowa's own Senator Charles Grassley's reaction is illustrative and consistent with the Times' report: "I assume that it’s a lot of unemployed young people looking for some dates.” Quoted from KCCI-TV in Graham Gillette, "One Helping of Irony s Now Being Served," Des Moines Register, October 16, 2011, p. OP 3.

As he so often does, "Tom Tomorrow" captures the Establishment's response to the Business Insider's statistics, above:

[Credit: www.ThisModernWorld.com.]
# # #

Occupy: When Will It Stop?

2011-10-14T06:54:00.009-05:00

October 14, 2011, 8:15 a.m.

[And see the related,
“Why ‘Occupy”? What Do ‘Those People’ Want?,”
“Those Kinds of Riots Here,”
and
"Economic Recovery? It's Simple and Obvious; Recovery Requires Consumers, and Consumers Require Jobs"]

It will not stop until . . .

It will not stop until there is an end to the corporate abuse of the poor, the working class, the elderly, the sick, children, those being slaughtered in our imperial wars and tortured in our black sites. It will not stop until foreclosures and bank repossessions stop. It will not stop until students no longer have to go into debt to be educated, and families no longer have to plunge into bankruptcy to pay medical bills. It will not stop until the corporate destruction of the ecosystem stops, and our relationships with each other and the planet are radically reconfigured. And that is why the elites, and the rotted and degenerate system of corporate power they sustain, are in trouble. That is why they keep asking what the demands are. They don’t understand what is happening. They are deaf, dumb and blind.

Excerpt from, Chris Hedges, "Why the Elites Are in Trouble," TruthDig.com/CommonDreams.com, October 10, 2011.

[Photo credit: The Guardian.]

Freedom, justice, dignity and equity have seldom, if ever, been beneficently granted. They have almost always required a struggle, and too often required bloodshed. And they take time. It took us awhile, and the Civil War, to begin the process of releasing African-Americans from the bonds of slavery -- longer still to grant women the right to vote, and provide African-Americans the benefits of the Civil Rights, Voting Rights, and Public Accommodations Acts. There are gains, and there are setbacks. There are swells of popular participation, and retreats into apathy, resignation, despair and depression.

No one can know, can predict, where Occupy will go and when. It could fizzle. It could grow into marching millions. It could become a third party.

And, of course, there is always the possibility that not every participant will always react to police and national guard tanks, excessive brutality, pepper spray, tasers -- or Kent-State-style shootings and deaths -- with the near-universal non-violence we have seen from Occupy participants so far.

[John Filo's iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio, a 14-year-old runaway, kneeling in anguish over the body of Jeffrey Miller minutes after he was shot by the Ohio National Guard; from Wikipedia "Kent State Shootings" link, above.]

How likely is violence?

As Chris Hedges has written elsewhere,

The death of liberal institutions that once made incremental and piecemeal reform possible, which once could respond to the suffering of the poor, the unemployed and working men and women, which once sought to protect the Earth on which we depend for life, means the last thin hope for reform is embodied in acts of civil disobedience. There are no established institutions that will help us. The press ignores the cries of the underclass and the poor. The labor movement is atrophied and dying. Public education is degraded and being rapidly dismantled. Our religious institutions no longer engage in the core issues of justice. And the Democratic Party is on its knees before Wall Street. The most basic government services designed to ameliorate the pain, including Head Start and Social Security, are targeted by our corporate overlords for destruction. The Kyoto Protocol, which was not nearly ambitious enough to prevent environmental collapse, has been gutted so companies like Exxon Mobil can continue to amass the largest profits in history. . . .

Those of us who demand a return to the rule of law and remain steadfast to nonviolence will find ourselves cast aside—the useful idiots Lenin so despised. I watched this happen in the social and political implosions in El Salvador, Guatemala, the Palestinian territories, Algeria, Bosnia and Kosovo. I watched the same cocktail of despair, economic collapse and callousness from a corrupt power elite mix itself into potent brews of civil strife. I watched the same untiring efforts by those who detested the violence and cruelty of the state, and the nascent violence and intolerance of the radical opposition. I covered as a reporter the disintegration that tore these societies apart. Those who held fast to moral imperatives, including Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador and Ibrahim Rugova in Kosovo, were thrust aside and replaced with killers on both sides of the divide who embraced violence.

Chris Hedges, "Ralph Nader is Tired of Running for President," TruthDig.com/CommonDreams.org, July 4, 2011.

Let us, please, do more than just hope and pray this will not become America's path. Let us act to assure it. For although Occupy's ranks may decline and grow again, perhaps even with a different name and generation of participants, it will not stop. Ultimately, the legitimate grievances born of greed will be addressed, whether with brutality and bullets, or compassion and creativity.

Each of us can choose our favored option; ultimately, each of us will have to. The question we must answer, as the old labor song put it is, "Which side are you on?"

# # #

Economic Recovery? It's Simple and Obvious

2011-10-13T10:41:00.010-05:00

October 13, 2011, 1:45 p.m.

Recovery Requires Consumers, and Consumers Require Jobs
Yesterday [Oct. 12, 2011] the Senate refused to even debate, let alone pass, President Obama's jobs bill. As the New York Times editorialized:

[Photo credit: Pete Souza, White House.]

It was all predicted, but the unanimous decision by Senate Republicans on Tuesday to filibuster and thus kill President Obama’s jobs bill was still a breathtaking act of economic vandalism. There are 14 million people out of work, wages are falling, poverty is rising, and a second recession may be blowing in, but not a single Republican would even allow debate on a sound plan to cut middle-class taxes and increase public-works spending.

Editorial, "No Jobs Bill, and No Ideas," New York Times, October 13, 2011, p. A28.

For at least the past three years I have been repeatedly blogging here on a similar theme, for example:

You can't improve business (profits, returns to shareholders, executive compensation) without improving retail sales; you can't improve retail sales without putting money in the hands, and confidence in the heads, of potential consumers; and unemployed consumers don't have money unless they are provided either unemployment compensation or wages from a public sector job (in an economy with a shrinking private sector).

Given our rotting, unattended, infrastructure (roads, bridges, pipelines, schools) resulting from the last 30 years of "tax cuts" it seems to me, given the same amount of money, that using it to create "jobs" makes more sense than providing it for "unemployment compensation."

But either makes more sense than trying to turn an economy around with "trickle down" -- whether tax cuts for the rich, or bailouts for the rich.

"Jobs, Not Unemployment, Key to Recovery," November 8, 2008.

I may be naive, and I claim no credentials as an economist, but to me the solution to our economic doldrums has always seemed quite simple and obvious.

My son, Gregory, when providing computer consulting service, likes to respond to customers' frustration and confusion with, "There are three steps," which he then proceeds to set forth.

I'm not sure I can keep this to a three-step analytical progression, but it's not much more complex than that.

1. We have an economy that is driven -- for good or for ill, in boom times and bad -- overwhelmingly (say, 70% or more) by consumer spending.

2. We now have 25% or more of the workforce that is unemployed, significantly underemployed, or has given up trying to find work (for African-American, male, high school dropouts, between 18 and 25, it's well over 50%). Those who are in the workforce are, understandably, concerned that they might become unemployed. At best they are, again understandably, confused and worried about the future of our global economy, and America's role in it.

3. As a result, and as a variation on "the tragedy of the commons," while we would all be better off as members of an inter-dependent community if we would all spend more, the most rational thing for every individual to do, as an individual, is to save more and spend less.

4. Similarly, providing cash, tax breaks, and other incentives to business to increase hiring, and banks to increase lending, has not worked and will never work. Why? Because a corporate CEO would be nuts, and deserve being fired, if he or she were to borrow more money, to hire more workers, to increase production, at a time when their company is unable to sell what it already has in warehouses, on the shelves, or in showrooms. As evidence, we are told that business is now sitting on something like $2 trillion in cash. Clearly, it is a lack of demand, not a lack of capital, that is the problem. The private sector has repeatedly, and again recently, made clear that it is incapable of turning around a plummeting economy all by itself.

5. So what do I think is so "simple and obvious"?

We have a short term, immediate problem, and a longer range problem.

Longer range, to become globally competitive during the 21st Century we need to provide more education and training to more people, and provide incentives for entrepreneurial activity. (As someone has said, "There has never been a more difficult time to find a job; and never been an easier time to create a job.")

But short term, the way to bring ourselves out of the economic doldrums, to give a boost to our economy, to increase consumer spending, is to create more consumers, with greater confidence in their future prospects for employment. That means a full-employment economy; jobs for all; provided by the private sector when it's rational for business to do so, and provided by the federal government when it is not.

Don't start by talking about private sector jobs, or even "infrastructure." Start by talking about full employment -- or as near "full" as practicable.

In January of 2009, had we taken all the money we lavished on the banks, auto and insurance industries, and other large corporations, and used it for wages for all, our economy would have turned around by the fall of 2009 at the latest, and be humming along right now.

With the increase in consumer spending would have come the confidence of business. Once there is the prospect of continuing, dependable demand, smart business people are perfectly capable of providing the supply. And as the economy continued to spiral up, the federal payrolls would have contracted as better paying jobs would be created -- rationally created -- in the private sector marketplace.

Our unwillingness to take that path has hurt us all -- up to and including that "1%."

Can I put this in three steps?

1. If you have a downward spiraling economy, 70% of which represents consumer spending, you need to increase consumer spending.

2. If you have excessive unemployment and underemployment, you increase consumer spending by creating more consumers, with more money to spend.

3. If the private sector cannot create the jobs that create additional consumers, you must either (a) have the federal government become the "employer of last resort," or (b) resign yourself to the unnecessary prolonging of a grossly under-performing economy -- which has been our choice.

And that's what, to me, seems "simple and obvious."

# # #

Why 'Occupy'?

2011-10-10T06:53:00.006-05:00

October 10, 2011, 7:30 a.m.

[And see also, "Those Kinds of Riots Here," September 18, 2011.]

What Do "Those People" Want?
[Photo credit: Elvira Bakalbasic.]

There was a lot of newspaper commentary about the "Occupy" movement once the local media finally recognized that the story could no longer be ignored. (The New York City version of "Occupy Wall Street" quickly morphed into "Occupy" places all across the country, including Iowa and Iowa City -- plus Des Moines, Mason City, and Fairfield, among other cities in Iowa.)

Many of those reader comments were critical of Occupy, from wild rants and charges of "Communist!" to critiques regarding the lack of specific demands and leadership. (This from critics who failed to recognize that the existence of movement "leaders" and "specific demands" in a movement's beginning often contribute to its downfall.)

Senator Grassley elaborated on Donald Trump's line, saying these protesters are "just a bunch of unemployed college students looking for dates" -- a disparagement he may come to regret.
[Arrests at Occupy Des Moines; thanks to BlogForIowa.com.]

A common question, seemingly reflecting genuine bewilderment on the part of the relatively well off, was a variant of "What do these people want?"

My response, in newspaper comments, was a variation on "if you have to ask you haven't been paying attention":

More and more Americans over the past 30 years have come to the realization that, as the "silent majority" bumper sticker had it, "The Majority is not Silent, the Government is Deaf." They come from all regions of the country, slices of the political spectrum, religions (and no religions), ages, and occupations.

There is a perception that when corporations and the ultra rich are not getting away with violating the law it is because they have written the law, that the ever-escalating gap in income between the 1% and the 99% is at least in part the result of money in politics (not just differences in enterprise, intellectual and entrepreneurial ability), and that ours has become a "government of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%" -- a government that has for the most part rebuffed and ignored our polite requests.

Historically, when those perceptions begin to register with the people, they take to the streets. That's how our nation began -- as the Declaration of Independence put it, "The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations . . .." It's how women got the right to vote, and African-Americans got civil rights. It's what it took to get the right to unionize, and bring the Viet Nam war to an end.

"This is what democracy looks like." Get used to it. Support it. Nothing could be more "American."

See, "Those Kinds of Riots Here," September 18, 2011,
http://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2011/09/those-kinds-of-riots-here.html

So I was especially pleased to see the New York Times' editorial yesterday striking a similar theme. [I am taking the unusual step of reproducing here the entire editorial. I encourage you to subscribe to the Times, as I do: http://www.nytimes.com; they offer a special deal on a combination Sunday edition in Iowa City plus unlimited online access. But if they would like me to remove the editorial from this blog entry, along with my personal endorsement, I am quite willing to do so.]

Editorial: Protesters Against Wall Street
New York Times
October 9, 2011, p. SR 10

As the Occupy Wall Street protests spread from Lower Manhattan to Washington and other cities, the chattering classes keep complaining that the marchers lack a clear message and specific policy prescriptions. The message — and the solutions — should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention since the economy went into a recession that continues to sock the middle class while the rich have recovered and prospered. The problem is that no one in Washington has been listening.

At this point, protest is the message: income inequality is grinding down that middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people. On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity.

The jobless rate for college graduates under age 25 has averaged 9.6 percent over the past year; for young high school graduates, the average is 21.6 percent. Those figures do not reflect graduates who are working but in low-paying jobs that do not even require diplomas. Such poor prospects in the early years of a career portend a lifetime of diminished prospects and lower earnings — the very definition of downward mobility.

The protests, though, are more than a youth uprising. The protesters’ own problems are only one illustration of the ways in which the economy is not working for most Americans. They are exactly right when they say that the financial sector, with regulators and elected officials in collusion, inflated and profited from a credit bubble that burst, costing millions of Americans their jobs, incomes, savings and home equity. As the bad times have endured, Americans have also lost their belief in redress and recovery.

The initial outrage has been compounded by bailouts and by elected officials’ hunger for campaign cash from Wall Street, a toxic combination that has reaffirmed the economic and political power of banks and bankers, while ordinary Americans suffer.

Extreme inequality is the hallmark of a dysfunctional economy, dominated by a financial sector that is driven as much by speculation, gouging and government backing as by productive investment.

When the protesters say they represent 99 percent of Americans, they are referring to the concentration of income in today’s deeply unequal society. Before the recession, the share of income held by those in the top 1 percent of households was 23.5 percent, the highest since 1928 and more than double the 10 percent level of the late 1970s.

That share declined slightly as financial markets tanked in 2008, and updated data is not yet available, but inequality has almost certainly resurged. In the last few years, for instance, corporate profits (which flow largely to the wealthy) have reached their highest level as a share of the economy since 1950, while worker pay as a share of the economy is at its lowest point since the mid-1950s.

Income gains at the top would not be as worrisome as they are if the middle class and the poor were also gaining. But working-age households saw their real income decline in the first decade of this century. The recession and its aftermath have only accelerated the decline.

Research shows that such extreme inequality correlates to a host of ills, including lower levels of educational attainment, poorer health and less public investment. It also skews political power, because policy almost invariably reflects the views of upper-income Americans versus those of lower-income Americans.

No wonder then that Occupy Wall Street has become a magnet for discontent. There are plenty of policy goals to address the grievances of the protesters — including lasting foreclosure relief, a financial transactions tax, greater legal protection for workers’ rights, and more progressive taxation. The country needs a shift in the emphasis of public policy from protecting the banks to fostering full employment, including public spending for job creation and development of a strong, long-term strategy to increase domestic manufacturing.

It is not the job of the protesters to draft legislation. That’s the job of the nation’s leaders, and if they had been doing it all along there might not be a need for these marches and rallies. Because they have not, the public airing of grievances is a legitimate and important end in itself. It is also the first line of defense against a return to the Wall Street ways that plunged the nation into an economic crisis from which it has yet to emerge.

# # #

The True Price of TIFs

2011-10-01T06:35:00.011-05:00

October 1, 2011, 7:20 a.m.

Thank You Press-Citizen and Emily Schettler . . . but that's not all
With two stories about TIFs in Saturday's paper, the Iowa City Press-Citizen, and its reporter, Emily Schettler, have made a significant contribution to the people of Iowa in general, and Johnson County in particular. This is reporting in the best spirit of "civic journalism." Emily Schettler, "The Many Faces of TIF; Districts Offer Incentives as Well as Drawbacks," Iowa City Press-Citizen, October 1, 2011, p. A1; Emily Schettler, "What Impact Do TIFs Have on County, Schools?" Iowa City Press-Citizen, October 1, 2011, p. A1.

There are 13 categories of reasons why TIFs are usually, if not always, a bad idea that do significant harm to business, government, elected public officials -- and, of course, taxpayers. [Photo credit: Benjamin Roberts/Iowa City Press-Citizen]

One of those categories is the subject of this two-story presentation: how TIFs can tie the hands of the governmental unit that creates them (and otherwise exact high "opportunity costs"), lower its credit rating for government bonds, deprive neighboring governmental units of needed tax revenues, and related consequences.

Here is a summary presentation of another 12 categories of reasons why they should be avoided:

TIFs are not necessary for Iowa City and surrounding communities. We're not exactly going through a depression, with store fronts boarded up, unemployment around 40%, or other justifications for early New Deal-type programs.

Their "opportunity costs" are enormous for local property taxpayers and local governments. County Supervisor Rod Sullivan estimates they are currently taking some $700 million worth of business property off the tax rolls. That means both more taxes for the rest of us and cuts in needed programs.

TIFs tilt the playing field, are unfair to business, and cause imbalance in the free market. Why the business community doesn't rise up in righteous wrath over TIFs has always amazed me. It's tough enough out there in that free market jungle, what with competition from the likes of Wal-Mart and comparably advantaged businesses, government regulations that sometimes seem a wee bit irrational, and the unforeseeable challenges. It just seems so fundamentally unfair that, on top of all that, a business person should have to compete with someone who is handed the kind of competitive advantage represented by a TIF or other government subsidy. Talk about a "level playing field"! TIFs really upset a smoothly working free market -- and to no one's real advantage except for the lucky recipient of the taxpayers' largess.

There's no evidence that Iowa City's economy and development won't continue to expand at a satisfactory rate driven by nothing more than the forces of the marketplace -- entrepreneurs, investors, venture capitalists, banks and other loaning institutions.

TIFs (and other shifts of taxpayers' money to for-profit enterprises) don't work. Governor Vilsack offered Maytag $100 million in taxpayers' money not to leave Newton. It went to Michigan anyway. Should he have offered $200 million? I don't think so.

Business comes to an area for other reasons than TIFs: available skilled workforce, transportation, communications, and other infrastructure elements -- plus "quality of life" assets such as schools, parks, libraries, theaters, trails, entertainment venues, restaurants, and natural settings such as mountains, beaches, woods, rivers and lakes. (A business that came to an Iowa Mississippi River town recently explained that it didn't choose the location because of state subsidies, it chose the location because it needed access to barge transportation on the river.)

Transferring taxpayers' money to for-profit ventures in the name of "free private enterprise" carries so much hypocrisy that City Councilors who talk that way ought to hide in the shadows with their shame. Where's the ideological purity of these "greed is good," privatization, "let the marketplace do it all" pro-business advocates when they're holding out (or filling) a tin cup? Business proposals that make sense have no trouble getting funding; owners, investors, venture capitalists, and creditors are looking for places to put their money and will respond to well-crafted business plans. Free private enterprise ventures can make sense for a community. So can socialist ventures such as roads, schools, libraries and parks. However, the more they are kept distinct the better it is for both.

If free private enterprise can't fund a project with private sector money, that just might be a sign that it's not a very good place to be putting the public's money either.

How can one possibly judge with accuracy whether, if the TIF were not available, the project would not go ahead? When free public money is available to a for-profit venture the temptation to become a tough negotiator, and to just slightly misrepresent the facts, is overwhelming. And there's virtually no way to test the blackmail.

The TIF-granters' record ain't great. For the most part, the public officials handing out our tax dollars to the wealthy are more professionally skilled at keeping constituents (and campaign contributors) happy, getting re-elected, and moving up to higher office, than they are at evaluating business proposals. There is a long list of TIFed (or otherwise publicly subsidized) private projects that have gone belly up, or failed to meet their promised construction schedules, or goals for new employees at designated pay levels.

Will we lose some businesses if we don't offer TIFs? Maybe. Let other towns give away their taxpayers' money. We don't need to play their game. As one of the top-rated towns in the nation by any one of a number of measures we'll get our share of new businesses without offering TIFs. Have a little self-confidence. Vilsack's $100 million couldn't keep Maytag here. A firm that likes San Diego's climate, or port access to the Pacific Ocean, probably isn't going to come to Iowa City for a TIF. A firm that believes it needs a location giving it rapid access to the O'Hare airport in Chicago (whether for moving persons or cargo) probably can't be talked into using the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids "Eastern Iowa Airport" no matter how big the TIF.

Step up to the plate councilors and business community. If City Council members, or members of the business community, think we need more economic growth and development than the marketplace can provide on its own there's nothing to stop them taking up a collection or offering personal economic incentives to new businesses. Iowa City's banks could offer new businesses, or proposals for business expansion, reduced-rate loans. The business community could create its own venture capital fund to invest in, or loan to, business developments they thought worthy. And I'm sure they'd be more than happy to accept every dollar from a City councilor who would like to help out.

Excerpt from "The Terrible TIFs," July 26, 2011. And see also, "Brother, Can You Spare a TIF?" April 25, 2011; "Understanding TIFs," October 5, 2006.

And see especially the 41 citizen comments (as of now) on yesterday's Press-Citizen story, Josh O'Leary, "Hampton Inn eyes I.C. spot; Hotel could be first piece of Riverfront Crossings," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 30, 2011.

Reconsidering the Proposition That "All TIFs Are Evil"

Is it possible that describing all TIFs as "evil" is a bit of a stretch -- depending on your sense of evil? Would "all TIFs are outrageous" be a little more restrained?

Is it even possible, like being "just a little bit pregnant," that there are some very modest, or at least very precise, uses of TIFs that make sense for everyone?

Never before has that possibility come from my lips. But recent conversations with experienced and knowledgeable, independent individuals whose wisdom and judgment I value -- and who are opposed to TIFs in general -- have caused me to rethink it. I'm not convinced, mind you; I don't yet have enough information to even reject the idea, let alone accept it; all I'm saying is that my mind is open to considering the possibility.

So far, the conversations have been relatively superficial (only because we haven't had the time to pursue the issue in greater depth).

The general idea, if I understand it, is that TIFs can sometimes produce a public benefit in a for-profit venture that, but for the TIF, would not exist. I haven't yet been given specific examples, but my guess would be this might include such things as a greater set-back creating more open, green space, or intermixed low income housing, or more parking spaces.

The theory might be that this is but piggybacking a public goal on top of a private undertaking -- a public goal that would otherwise require the governmental unit to undertake the entire cost of the project. This would thus be somewhat akin to the government contracting with a private trash pickup service, or a private road builder to fill potholes -- public money may be going to help enrich a for-profit business, but that money is purchasing a public benefit that would otherwise have cost more.

(Note the emphasis on public benefit. Public schools, libraries, parks, and trails may help attract business to a community; after the business arrives, its employees will benefit. The point is, so will everyone else in the community. On the other hand, providing TIFs and subsidies, water and sewer lines to a new manufacturing plant -- or roads traveled almost exclusively only by the plant's employees -- do not have as direct a benefit to every taxpayer and citizen in the community.)

My first reaction to this argument is one of the 12 categories above: "How can one possibly judge with accuracy whether, if the TIF were not available, the project would not go ahead?" It may be no government intervention of any kind is required to get the benefit.

Second, if there were a way of definitively proving that is not the case, state, county and municipal governments have rather substantial regulatory power in the form of statutes, ordinances, agency regulations, fire and building codes, and zoning. So far as I know, it is not common for governments to subsidize, or provide tax breaks, to gain the public good of building materials and electric wiring less likely to burst into flame, restaurants' kitchens less likely to house rats and cockroaches, or rental housing fit for healthy living.

At a minimum, when governments are in pursuit of the public good in for-profit enterprise, I would like to see them totally exhaust all other possibilities for bringing about the end they desire before paying for it with taxpayers' money in the form of TIFs, other tax forgiveness, subsidies, and cash payments.

One of my trusted advisers tells me that, while my rule would certainly be preferable, it is often impossible to get the votes of legislators or city council members for that approach. I am quite willing to have conversations about political reality and corruption, but it does not seem to me that such considerations bear upon the inherent virtues and vices of TIFs as such. And I'd like to get the theoretical understanding of TIFs straight first, before getting into debate about necessary political compromises.

Third, so if (a) a desirable public benefit can be identified that is viewed by the public as a top priority, and (b) it can somehow be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the marketplace won't create it without taxpayer money, and (c) the governmental unit has no legislative or regulatory way to insist on the benefit without paying for it, and (d) it doesn't make sense for the governmental unit to undertake the entire benefit-producing project on its own (government planned, constructed, managed and operated), then (d) before pledging any public money to the project (TIF or other tax forgiveness, subsidy or cash) what I am looking for is some predictable, analytical,check list of questions, benefit-cost, structured way to evaluate which projects clearly do, and do not, qualify for public financing, and why.

A somewhat analogous approach, in an entirely different context, is what's called "the Powell doctrine," the questions one needs to address before concluding that involving the military in a matter of our foreign relations will be more constructive than destructive of our national interests. See, e.g., "War in Libya, the Unanswered Questions," March 23, 2011.

So that's it for now. I've yet to see a TIF I thought made sense, a TIF for which none of the 13 categories of objections was applicable. I am impressed with the overwhelming majority of my fellow citizens (who have expressed views in comments on the Press-Citizen stories and other TIF projects earlier) who seem to share not only my general conclusions, but the precise arguments (categories) I have put forth. My mind is open to considering data and arguments regarding a small category of exceptions. But I have yet to see the standards that would be used to qualify those applications.

# # #

Equalizing K-12 Class Size

2011-09-27T08:01:00.004-05:00

September 27, 2011, 8:20 a.m.

Many Advantages of Cluster Schools
The Press-Citizen reports this morning that class sizes in the Iowa City Community School District's elementary schools vary from 13 to 33 students. That is a needless irritant for students, parents, teachers, and principals alike. Rob Daniel, "Area schools adjusting to varying class sizes; District still able to provide adequate instruction," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 27, 2011, p. A1.

When it comes to unequal class sizes, as this story illustrates, the District’s central administration, principals and teachers have been extraordinarily creative and constructive given the hand they’ve been dealt by the Board.

There are simple solutions that could create almost precisely equal class sizes throughout the District.

Large classes involve two separate issues.

One is the District’s “average” class size – a number that’s determined by the simple math of dividing the total number of elementary school students in the District by the total number of elementary school teachers. The only way to reduce that average number is to hire more teachers.

The other involves the disparity in class sizes between classrooms in different schools (or within a school) illustrated in this article.

One solution to that problem is cluster schools. That’s an approach that can only be undertaken by the School Board, with its new membership.

Cluster schools have a number of additional advantages in addition to equalizing class sizes across the District. As I have summarized elsewhere, they could:

• Be politically feasible, minimize family disruption, and maximize developers' and realtors' advance notice, by implementing them gradually over, say, three to six years.

• Reduce busing costs.

• Cut administrative costs by two-thirds.

• Equalize grades' class size.

• Reduce overcrowding and equalize percentage occupancy of schools.

• Provide central administration flexibility in assigning students to schools.

• Maintain present schools while minimizing taxpayers' burden for costly new ones.

• More nearly equalize each school's percentage of free-and-reduced-lunch students.

For more explanation and details see, Nicholas Johnson, "District needs cluster schools," Iowa City Press-Citizen, June 3, 2009, embedded in "Cluster Schools: Potential for IC District?" June 3, 2009; and "Disparity in Class Sizes: Simple Solution Rejected; Community's Choice is 'Patch and Mend,'" October 13, 2010.

As the heading on that last blog entry indicates, the idea was not even given enough consideration to be rejected by the last Board. And I won't be stunned if it's ignored by the "new Board" as well.

But the point is not so much the value of the precise details of this particular cluster schools approach. It is that, with 15,000 school districts throughout America out there, there are few problems that the ICCSD confronts that have not been experienced, addressed, resolved and reported on by at least one other Board, somewhere, at some time.

It's the Board members' job to make a regular investment of time -- as individuals and as a Board -- researching, reading, reporting, discussing, and trying out as pilot projects the innovative ideas and programs that other Districts are adding to the growing list of "what works."

# # #

Execution of Troy Davis

2011-09-24T10:14:00.007-05:00

September 24, 2011, 11:00 a.m.

Don't Blame the Courts
Troy Davis has been executed, notwithstanding the protests of thousands of citizens around the world, with and without name recognition or celebrity status. [Photo credit: Erik S. Lesser/AFP/Getty Images/Time.]

Kim Severson, "Davis is Executed in Georgia," New York Times, September 22, 2011, p. A1 ("Proclaiming his innocence, Troy Davis was put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday night, his life — and the hopes of supporters worldwide — prolonged by several hours while the Supreme Court reviewed but then declined to act on a petition from his lawyers to stay the execution.").

Although I claim no expertise with respect to criminal law, or criminal procedure, it is a case worth reflection by all of us. Especially is this so as we mourn the loss of my colleague, personal friend, and internationally recognized true death penalty expert, David Baldus, and prepare for a conference and memorial service this next month to honor his lifetime achievements.

Some object to the death penalty as a punishment in any criminal case. Others were objecting to its use in this case, either because they were convinced he was the wrong defendant, that he had done no wrong, or because they believed there was sufficient doubt about his guilt to be troublesome.

Actually, I think my wife, Mary Vasey -- who is vigorously opposed to the death penalty in any case -- has this one right: if you, too, are troubled by the prospect of future Troy Davis cases, and the possibility of additional state-sanctioned killings of innocent men and women, what needs to change are not so much reviews of individual death penalty cases prior to executions, but repeal of the laws permitting the death penalty in the first place.

I have no firsthand knowledge of the events, did not serve on the jury, was not present at the trial, and have not read the transcript, judicial opinions, and other documents related to the case. Whatever I may suspect the facts might have been, I do not -- indeed I could not possibly -- "know."

So what was "the truth" in the Troy Davis case?

There are many definitions of “truth.” A scientific discovery -- such as this week's revelation that scientists at CERN may have propelled a particle at speeds in excess of the speed of light -- only becomes a scientific truth once carefully recorded experimental data has been peer reviewed and found to be capable of duplication. On the other hand, a religious truth may be whatever a religious leader proclaims it to be. An athletic truth is measured in strokes of a golf club, or the minutes and seconds -- even one-hundredths of seconds -- it takes the winner to run around a track, or ski down a hill.

On the other hand, the legal truth is whatever a jury's verdict proclaims it to be, whatever the jury says it is.

What is the truth regarding the allegations that O.J. Simpson murdered his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman? Whatever the real-world space-time-events, or "facts" in that sense, may have been, the legal truth, according to the jury verdict in his 1995 criminal trial, was that he was "not guilty." (Of course, that's not the same as saying "he didn't do it;" it's just saying that during this criminal trial the prosecutor failed to meet his or her "burden of proof" that he did it. Indeed, subsequently in the 1997 civil trial for "wrongful death," the plaintiffs' burden of proof was less, was met, and the "legal truth" for purposes of that trial was that "he did do it.")

Once the jury has rendered its verdict, and no executive (the president, or a governor) has intervened, the decision to execute a defendant rests with the appellate courts. And thus to criticize the execution of Troy Davis is to appear to criticize the appellate courts’ (including the Supreme Court’s) handling of the case.

However, if you want to avoid –- to use the popular characterization -– “judges legislating from the bench,” it’s hard to criticize them for following the law.

What can appellate courts do in death penalty cases? New trials can be ordered if the defendant did not have competent representation by counsel, if evidence was admitted that was prejudicial and should have been excluded, if defense counsel was prevented from striking a prejudiced juror when the jury was selected, if the judge’s instructions to the jury were not proper, among other examples. But if everything proceeded as the law provides, the appellate courts are largely bound by the findings of the jury and the sentencing by the trial judge.

Indeed, that’s precisely what those who wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights sought to accomplish. If the appellate courts can overturn a jury’s “guilty” verdict merely because, had they been jurors, they wouldn't have voted that way, they can also overturn a jury’s “not guilty” verdict, and impose the death penalty, as "super jurors." However inadequate a jury system may be, the drafters felt that for all its faults they would rather trust their fate to “a jury of their peers” than a potentially arbitrary, tyrannical, unelected judge.

Thus, much of what we do and don’t like about the judicial system can be, and should be (up to when Constitutional provisions intervene), resolved by legislative bodies (Congress for the federal courts, and state legislatures for state courts).

The death penalty is something many countries have long since abolished, consider barbaric, criticize America for, find a violation of basic human rights, and as the Innocence Project has repeatedly documented, is often wrongly applied (and may well have been in the case of Troy Davis).

If you believe Troy Davis was not guilty of the crime for which he was executed, and you live in a state that still has the death penalty, do something about it. Write your elected officials and tell them to abolish it. Join with others and the organizations that are working to bring our country into compliance with the standards of civilized nations.

On the other hand, if you think the death penalty is an appropriate punishment -– at least in some circumstances -– just hope and pray that you, your family members and friends never find yourselves wrongly accused.

Although if you do, probably you can at least count on the anti-death-penalty folks to petition on behalf of saving your life as well.

# # #

Those Kinds of Riots Here

2011-09-18T07:55:00.032-05:00

September 18, 2011, 11:45 a.m.

The Language of the Unheard

“You have a lot of kids graduating college can’t find jobs. That’s what happened in Cairo. That’s what happened in Madrid. You don’t want those kinds of riots here.”

-- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, quoted in Kate Taylor, "Bloomberg, on Radio, Raises Specter of Riots by Jobless," New York Times, September 17, 2011, p. A19. [Photo credit: Craig Ruttle/Associated Press]

Internal Links Within This Blog Entry

Poor People's Movements

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and Iowa Democratic Party

Golden Rules and Revolutions

Reich Robert Reich and "The Truth About the Economy"

Trudeau Garry Trudeau's "Doonesbury"

Bloomberg In 2011 our media have enabled us to focus upon, and cheer on, the rising tsunami of mass protest movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere. We have seen that, while messy and usually disorganized, the ability of such movements to bring about change.

"The Arab Spring (Arabic: الربيع العربي‎; also known as the Arabic Rebellions or the Arab Revolutions) is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world. Since 18 December 2010 there have been revolutions in Tunisia[2] and Egypt;[3] a civil war in Libya resulting in the fall of its regime;[4] civil uprisings in Bahrain,[5] Syria,[6] and Yemen;[7] major protests in Israel,[8] Algeria,[9] Iraq,[10] Jordan,[11] Morocco,[12] and Oman,[13] and minor protests in Kuwait,[14] Lebanon,[15] Mauritania,[16] Saudi Arabia,[17] Sudan,[18] and Western Sahara.[19] Clashes at the borders of Israel in May 2011 have also been inspired by the regional Arab Spring.[20] The protests have shared techniques of civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches and rallies, as well as the use of social media to organize, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of state attempts at repression and internet censorship.[21]" "Arab Spring," Wikipedia.org.

For this week's update see, Laura Kasinof, "Fighting Erupts for Second Day in Yemeni Capital," New York Times, September 19, 2011.

Although Michael Bloomberg did not expand on his comment, he provided a pin prick of a reminder that such things could happen here -- although he limited the protesters to unemployed college graduates, and one senses he clearly views it as an option to be avoided. Not incidentally, if the Mayor hasn't noticed, "Occupy Wall Street" is already active. It's not one of "those kinds of riots" -- yet -- but it is getting close, very unambiguous in word and deed, and being subjected to a similar form of oppression, in this instance by New York City police:

And meanwhile, . . .

[Photo credit: Indigene editions La Voix de l'Enfant and NPR.] . . . WWII hero Stephane Hessel has titled his book Time for Outrage. See Eleanor Beardsley, "WWII Survivor Stirs Literary World With 'Outrage,'" NPR, September 22, 2011 (now two million copies in 30 languages) ("'If you want to be a real human being — a real woman, a real man — you cannot tolerate things which put you to indignation, to outrage. You must stand up. I always say to people, 'Look around; look at what makes you unhappy, what makes you furious, and then engage yourself in some action.''").

Poor People's Movements Had Bloomberg continued to speak on the subject it would have been necessary for him to acknowledge that such mass protest movements not only could happen here, they have happened here. And when they have happened here they have often proven to be very similar in effect to those we have cheered in the Arab spring -- a messy, disorganized way to produce change.

But they have been not just a way to produce change, for the working class and poor, many observers have concluded they are the only way to create progress.

Among such observers are Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, authors of Poor People's Movements (New York: Random House/Vintage, 1977, paperback 1979). Tim Haight and I used it as one of the readings in a course we co-taught at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the spring of 1980. Piven and Cloward challenge many of the assumptions of America's Left as a result of their study of what is embodied in chapters titled, "The Unemployed Workers' Movement," "The Industrial Workers' Movement," "The Civil Rights movement," and "The Welfare Rights Movement."

They argue, for example, that efforts to "organize" the working poor actually tend to be self-defeating, for a variety of reasons, and what they say is "the obvious fact that whatever the people won was a response to their turbulence and not to their organized members." Introduction, first edition, p. xxiii. In the introduction to the paperback edition they take on their critics:

Some critics were dissatisfied, for example, with the various expressions of the post-World War II black movement: with the civil rights struggle in the South, or the riots in the North, or the surging demand for public welfare benefits that produced a welfare explosion in the 1960s. . . . But popular insurgency does not proceed by someone else's rules or hopes: it has its own logic and direction. It flows from historically specific circumstances: it is a reaction against those circumstances, and it is also limited by them.

Introduction, paperback, p. xi.

(Not incidentally, since welfare is mentioned, the authors observe, "Nor did the participants in the relief movement of the 1960s prefer welfare; together with Harrington, they plainly preferred decent jobs at decent wages. But they understood the political facts of their lives rather more clearly than Harrington: the unemployed poor in this period lacked the power to force programs of full employment." pp. xiii-xiv.)

Please understand, if it is not obvious, that I am not advocating "those kinds of riots here." What I am advocating is that those in a position to respond to legitimate demands from the unemployed and working poor not leave them with no option but the only one they have found to work in the past.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and the Iowa Democratic Party Recently we have even seen leaders of the Iowa Democratic Party complain about citizen action that, by all accounts, fell far short of "those kinds of riots." Matt Kearney and Sarah Clark, "CCI's Tactics Are Appropriate," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 15, 2011. For more detail see, Trish Nelson, "Brouhaha Over Grassley Town Hall," Blog for Iowa, September 6, 2011.

Let me make clear, I am not taking sides in this fight. There are reasons why the Iowa Democratic Party would want to distance itself from any group's behavior that was characterized as something other than "Iowa nice" -- however valid, or invalid, you might think its reasons. But in the context of this blog entry, the point is that there are also reasons why citizens who have been consistently ignored or rebuffed in their efforts to politely exercise their First Amendment right "to petition the government for a redress of grievances" might ultimately choose other tactics rather than give up entirely on what they consider legitimate, reasonable demands.

Here is an excerpt from the opinion piece:

Recent strong criticisms of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement by Sue Dvorsky (the chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party) and John Deeth (a local Democrat and blogger) warrant a reply.

Both Dvorsky and Deeth take ICCI members to task for their confrontational conduct at a recent town hall meeting with Sen. Chuck Grassley in Carroll -- an event where neither Dvorsky or Deeth was present. Although a video record of the event is on the Internet, both seem to base their version of events on reportage from Douglas Burns of the Daily Times Herald, who claims CCI members "hurled insults" during the forum, then became "a mob" blocking Grassley from a subsequent media interview, and finally, used "physicality" to prevent the senator's clear passage to his car.

Watch the video and judge for yourself if any of this took place.

Deeth finds all of this "shameful, hateful and dangerous" -- especially considering Grassley is such a "venerable public servant and exceedingly decent man," as Burns put it. As a partisan Democrat, Deeth says that the only real way to change Grassley's vote is by beating him in an election and then chastises CCI members for not working for Democrat Roxanne Conlin.

There's only one problem with this. CCI is not a partisan political party. It is an issue-oriented, grassroots community organization working for change. Our members are Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians and independents. We don't have any political litmus test for participation in CCI.

A lot of the frustration people are feeling in this country is with a two-party "system" that seems to constantly shape-shift to serve the interests of corporations rather than people. People elect candidates who promise "change" then get no change at all.

Former Gov. Chet Culver [a Democrat] promised local control of hog lots and promptly changed his tune after the election. He promised his strong supporters in the union movement improvements to Iowa's collective bargaining process and then vetoed the bill. Is it any wonder that people get angry and discouraged?

Deeth and Dvorsky are unhappy with the way thousands of CCI members express this anger. They ridicule our "trite chants" and "demands" and ask that we abide by their version of civility. But history teaches us something different.

Women did not receive equal rights or suffrage by being nice. The civil rights struggle was not won by sitting quietly in the back of the bus. And the many victories of the labor movement were not won without noisy and sometimes bloody -- picket lines and strike actions.

As you see, ICCI is learning from, and applying, the lessons Piven and Cloward passed along in Poor People's Movements -- albeit with tactics (and dare I say, results) far less than those the authors examine.

Golden Rules and Revolutions Two and one-half years ago I wrote an eight-part blog entry series here on this theme, "Golden Rules and Revolutions." (That link goes to Part VIII, which opens with links to the prior seven in the series.)

The reference to "Golden Rules," of course, is to both the Biblical reference and the take-off, "S/he who has the gold makes the rules."

A European lecturer at the law school the other day took questions following a talk on controlling health care costs. In the course of the talk he blithely mentioned that, of course, all the EU countries have universal, single-payer health care systems. I asked,"How do you explain that European countries accept as a matter of course that citizens should be taxed to provide health care for all, while we're not even debating the issue any longer in the U.S.?" He replied, "I guess we just have more of a sense of solidarity."

He's right. The problem, of course, is that as the gap between our rich and poor continues to widen, as increasing hostility is driven by lack of jobs and social services, so long as we refuse to institute federal-government-as-employer-of-last-resort jobs programs and as a result our consumer-driven economy fails to recover, we are increasing the risk of "those kinds of riots here."

Here is an excerpt from the opening blog essay in that eight-part series, "Income Disparity & Revolution":

Increasing income disparity, despair. . . I am not a conspiratorial theorist, nor am I charging that anyone truly desires to turn the United States into a third world country, in which the top 1% of super rich rule over a 90% in abject poverty. All I would observe is that what is happening -- as a result of what will be spelled out in this series -- is not that different from what would be happening if that were the goal of government officials and the ruling elite.

[F]rom the late 1980s to the mid-2000s . . . inequality increased across the country. . . . No state has seen a significant decline in inequality during this period. . . .

On average, incomes have declined by 2.5 percent among the bottom fifth of families since the late 1990s, while increasing by 9.1 percent among the top fifth.
Pulling Apart: A State-by-State Analysis of Income Trends, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, April 9, 2008.

And see, for Iowa data, David DeWitte, "Report finds income gap growing in Iowa," GazetteOnline, April 9, 2008, 11:40 a.m. ("The income gap between rich and poor is growing faster in Iowa than in most other states, according to a new report, which found a 49.3 percent average income growth in the wealthiest Iowa households over the past two decades. . . .")

. . . and Revolution. I recall reading many years ago -- where it was I would have no way of recalling now -- that there is a rough mathematical formula for predicting the point at which a growing income disparity will ultimately produce a revolution.

No, I don't think we're yet there in the United States.

But I am one of those who thinks Senator Obama was right when he said, "Lately, there has been a little, typical sort of political flare-up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my home town in Illinois who are bitter. . . . They are angry. They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through." Perry Bacon Jr. and Shailagh Murray,"'Bitter' Is a Hard Pill For Obama to Swallow; He Stands by Sentiment as Clinton Pounces," Washington Post, April 13, 2008, p. A6. . . .

It's reminiscent of Ben Stein's story about his visit with Warren Buffett.

It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. . . . “How can this be fair?” he asked . . ..

Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare.

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Ben Stein, "In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning," New York Times, November 26, 2006.

Those who refuse to acknowledge what's happening in America can charge those who do with being "elitist," or fomenting "class warfare." But that does little to assuage the anger of those on the losing side of this warfare.

And when that anger is permitted to seethe long enough the news from elsewhere can serve as a reminder of the limits that ultimately come to constrain the greed of oppressive governments and the super rich elite.

Barbara J. Fraser, "As Economy Grows, Income Disparity in Latin America Widens," Catholic News Service, August 3, 2007 ("a two-day general strike in the region was called to protest government economic policies. . . . The incident was one of many around Peru in mid-July, as teachers, farmers and others took their discontent to the streets . . .. ")

Thu-Trang Tran, "A new peasant revolution – is China learning from its past?" Inside Asia, June 1, 2006 (". . . The government is concerned about the simmering social tension resulting from the widening wealth gap as the giant economy powers its way to the top spot.")

Associated Press, "Egypt: American freelance photojournalist and translator detained while covering riots," International Herald Tribune, April 10, 2008 ("Thousands of Egyptians angry over high food prices and low wages have been rioting this week in Mahallah . . . in Egypt, a U.S. ally where 40 percent of the people live in or near poverty.")
No, I don't think we need fear imminent revolution in America.

And no, I don't think the declining dollar, the $40 trillion in unfunded federal debt we're leaving to our great-grandchildren, our multi-billion-dollar negative trade balance, and recession mean we're on the precipice of third-world status.

But I do think we need to take the impact of our economy and governmental policies on ordinary Americans much more seriously than I sense our leaders and media are willing to do. Why? For starters, because I think it is the decent, just and humane thing to do.

But also for all the reasons I have laid out here and will in the rest of the series to come.

"Golden Rules & Revolutions: A Series - I," April 12, 2008.

Robert Reich and "The Truth About the Economy" In a recent blog entry, in another context, I had occasion to share Robert Reich's two-minute explanation of the problem, "The Truth About the Economy." "Why Iowa? Chase Garrett and Robert Reich," September 8, 2011. It is even more relevant here:

We usually find ourselves in agreement, and certainly did on that one.

See also "Robert Reich Debunks 6 Big GOP Lies about the Economy" video, for related material:

Garry Trudeau's "Doonesbury" Finally, I conclude (did you think I never would?), with this morning's Doonesbury, from Garry Trudeau:

[With credit, and daily thanks and applause, to Garry B. Trudeau, Doonesbury.]

When you find Michael Bloomberg, Stephane Hessel, Frances Fox Piven & Richard A. Cloward, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, Robert Reich, and Garry Trudeau in agreement, it might just be a good time to rethink where we are going with America and why.

# # #

Terrorism, War, 9/11 and Looking Within

2011-09-10T08:11:00.009-05:00

September 10, 2011, 11:30

Reflections September 10, 2011, About Terrorism September 11, 2001
On the eve of 9/11's tenth anniversary, and all the reflecting that date triggers, it's useful to put it in context -- as we wait to see the outcome of the threatened truck bomb attack. Eric Schmitt and Scott Shane, "Hearing Rumors of a Plot, Cities Make Their Security Forces Seen," New York Times, September 10, 2011, p. A9

Given that milestone, this semester's Cyber and Electronic Law has led off with a focus on national security and the legal issues surrounding the role of technology as a weapon of war, a defensive shield, and a force eroding our civil liberties and privacy.

So the students and I naturally tend to keep an eye out for the new developments that seem to pop up on a daily basis, and informally share news stories with each other.

Thus, this morning's [Sept. 10] Associated Press story on the Gazette's front page, "An Intel Q&A: How the U.S. Gets It, Where It Goes," caused me to seek out the original and full story online. Kimberly Dozier and Calvin Woodward, "An intel Q&A: How the US gets it, where it goes," Associated Press/Panama City [Florida] News Herald, September 10, 2011.

It turned out to be a partial and not too detailed overview, mostly material we've already discussed in class, but useful basic information if you haven't been tracking what's going on.

What caught my eye, however, was an accompanying interactive document, "Government Targeted: Nine charged in radical U.S. Christian militia plot."

The only opening text is brief: "People who have attacked the government range from neo-Nazis and other racist and religious radicals to members of armed militias. A look at some of the most notorious attacks or plots the last 15 years."

What follows, as you scroll right, are descriptions of various anti-government attacks, with dates, pictures of the perpetrators, and the scenes of their damage.

Here are some of the first few:

It begins with April 19, 1995, and a picture of the Oklahoma City federal building after the bombing by "militia movement sympathizer Timothy McVeigh and assistant Terry Nichols."

Next is a deliberate derailment of an Amtrak train in Arizona six months later by the "Sons of Gestapo" (never caught).

Two months after that, December 18, 1995, "Tax protester Josephy Martin Baillie" is arrested when a "plastic drum packed with ammonium nitrate and fuel" is found behind the Reno, Nevada, IRS building.

"Seven members of Mountainer Militia are arrested in a plot to blow up the FBI's national fingerprint records center in West Virginia" the following year.

In 1997, "anti-government extremists" in what is "believed to be a protest against taxes" set fire to a Colorado Springs, Colorado, IRS office.

"Armed anti-government activists" near Fort Hood, Texas, chose July 4th of that year to attempt "an alleged planned invasion of an army base."

"Materials to make the deadly poison ricin" were found in the home of James Kenneth Gluck following his "10-page letter to judges in Colorado threatening to 'wage biological warfare' on a county justice center." That was 1999.

The list goes on: a plot to assassinate the governor of Washington, someone trying to buy sarin nerve gas and C-4 explosives who says "it would be a 'good thing' if somebody could detonate a weapon of mass destruction in Washington, D.C.," the discovery of "stockpiles of weapons allegedly intended for attacks on government officials," a "white supremacist, shoots a security guard to death at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum," an IRS dispute "and a hatred of the government" led to injury and death when a private plane was deliberately flown into an IRS building, someone "fascinated with conspiracy theories, libertarian ideas and the science of warfare" shot Pentagon police.

Obviously, there are many more -- and probably far more than what the AP interactive feature describes -- up to and including last year:

"March 28, 2010

Nine alleged members of a Christian militia group that was girding for battle with the Antichrist were charged with plotting to kill a police officer and slaughter scores more by bombing the funeral - all in hopes of touching off an uprising against the U.S. government. The Hutaree militia members were arrested in raids in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio."

What are we to make of this history?

1. "Crime" often involves a theft of property, or aggression toward another arising out of a personal encounter. That is not what these incidents represent. All of the cases cited by the AP, however criminal, and whatever the mental health of the perpetrators, are in one degree or another politically or ideologically driven -- in this case, often by a hatred of the American government in general or a specific agency (such as the IRS) in particular.

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports a variety of additional ideological and hatred-driven attacks -- primarily representing racial and religious, rather than anti-government, hatred -- in its Hate Map, Intelligence Files, Intelligence Report, and Hate Incidents.

2. None of the anti-American-government terrorists mentioned above were of the Muslim faith, let alone driven, or even influenced, by Muslim beliefs.

Some were overtly "Christian" (as was the recent Norwegian terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik, "described as a right-wing fundamentalist Christian" -- notwithstanding some media's early assertions he must have been Muslim).

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Virtually all of the individuals involved in the AP examples, one suspects, would self-identify as either Christian or non-religious. [The one possible exception, which the AP mentions and I did not include above, is "Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army major, allegedly opens fire at Fort Hood military base in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding many others. The motive behind the shooting is unclear. Hasan was in contact with a radical American-Yemeni cleric before the attack."]

3. We still confront real threats. Most responsible public officials, and American citizens, have made a genuine effort to distinguish between "anti-American radical Islamic fundamentalist jihadists" (or some similar phrase) and the peaceful American citizens who are their own neighbors, colleagues and friends of the Muslim faith.

We do this as naturally as we distinguish between members of the "Christian Hutaree Militia" and the Congregationalists and Catholics of our acquaintance.

Yet make no mistake, the evil motives of all responsible for the thousands of deaths, and subsequent consequences, of the attacks on September 11, 2001, in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, are among the worst in the trail of incidents of unspeakable cruelty throughout human history. I join all who continue to grieve over the loss of life on that day -- and the continuous loss of life, and $4 trillion in treasure, that have continued until the present day.

That kind of threat continues, despite our efforts.

The old line is still valid: "You're not paranoid, you've got real enemies."

America has real enemies. Eric Schmitt and Scott Shane, "Hearing Rumors of a Plot, Cities Make Their Security Forces Seen," New York Times, September 10, 2011, p. A9.

But if we are truly concerned about "terrorism," and seek to preserve our "homeland security," we need to look within as well as without. We need to recognize that by all odds the greatest source of terrorism in America -- criminal acts driven by political ideology and hatred -- comes from those who look like us and attend our churches.

As I have written elsewhere on this subject:

President Bush at one time said that those who finance, or “harbor” terrorists and their training camps, are as much our enemy as those who attack us.

OK, but surely we don't want to argue that it is only "terrorism" when others do it to us. And yet, if not, how do we justify "harboring" -- to use President Bush's word – the American Catholics who were financing terrorist acts of the IRA against Protestants in Ireland?

What about the "harboring" of our former "School of the Americas" (“SOA”) training camp in Georgia? It's trained those we've called "freedom fighters," and others might call “terrorists,” in Central and South America.

School of the Americas Watch charges that, "Graduates of the SOA are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America.” Does that make the former School of the Americas a terrorist training camp?

Apparently our government thinks not. At least there was no known plan to bomb the State of Georgia -- to be distinguished from our military forces sent to the Republic of Georgia.

Should we have bombed the State of Idaho [Timothy McVeigh's home] after the Oklahoma City bombing?

Nicholas Johnson, "General Semantics, Terrorism and War," Fordham University (speech text), New York City, September 8, 2006 (with endnotes of sources).

4. Rhetoric is relevant. Do I think right-wing, hate-spewing, haranguing talk shows are the sole motivating force responsible for the incidents itemized by the AP, or Jared Lee Loughner's shooting Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on January 8th of this year? No; of course not. Nicholas Johnson, "Glenn Beck: 'Shoot Them in the Head;' Beck Says 'Progressives' Are Radical, Revolutionary Communists Who May Shoot You," January 24, 2011.

On the other hand, there is a distressing similarity between what was said or espoused by some of those involved in the AP's cases, and some of the rhetoric coming from politicians, talk show hosts, and TV's chattering classes as they repeat their talking points.

With "freedom of speech" should go a certain "responsibility of speech," especially from those enjoying the awesome power and reach of our mass media.

Just some thoughts as we show our respect for our military, those who have survived as well as those who did not, patriotically following orders fashioned by others than themselves, and those civilians who also lost their lives ten years ago tomorrow.*
_____
* Chris Matthews just used [September 10, 5:00 p.m.] the following numbers: 6000 U.S. military killed (two times U.S. civilians on 9/11), 250,000 civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, 100,000 U.S. military injured and requiring care (some, for life), and a cost of $4 trillion.

# # #

Why Iowa? Chase Garrett and Robert Reich

2011-09-08T11:59:00.020-05:00

September 8, 2011, 3:00 p.m. (with some edits and additions September 9, 2011, 9:30 a.m.)

Just Your Everyday Walk Around a Small Iowa Town
I was lucky to have been born and raised in Iowa City, and schooled in the University's experimental elementary and high school (now North Hall). The next 30 years I spent elsewhere -- Texas, California, but mostly Washington, D.C. When I returned home, some friends and former colleagues on the east and west coasts would ask, "Iowa, Nick? Why Iowa?"

As those of us who live here know, there are hundreds of responses to those questions. Last evening provided yet one more.

Walking along downtown Iowa City's Washington Street, following a reception at a restaurant that can match many of those on the coasts, we came upon an amazing piano player, 22-year-old Chase Garrett. He was sitting at a piano kindly placed on the sidewalk by those who thought it would be a nice addition to this community of literature (one of three so designated by the United Nations), theater, music, and creative arts generally.

Here is a direct link to the YouTube location of my video, and a link to Chase's Web site: http://chasegarrett.com//.

It turns out I'm far from the first person to discover this guy and upload his music to YouTube. Put "Chase Garrett" (in quotes) into YouTube search, and you'll see over 100 more.

From there we wandered down the hill to the Iowa Memorial Union (about three blocks). (Another nice thing about Iowa City is that an easy walk can get you to many of the places you want to go. If you're in a hurry you can bike. With time to spare, you can even drive.)

What we found in the main lounge of the IMU was a standing room only crowd, packed to the walls, waiting to hear a free lecture by Robert Reich, http://robertreich.org, once Secretary of Labor and now University of California, Berkeley, professor of public policy.

Yet another advantage of life in an intellectual, research and cultural environment, Robert Reich's appearance was the University of Iowa Lecture Committee's Distinguished Lecture for 2010-2011, and one in the Public Policy Center's Forkenbrock Series, under the joint sponsorship of the University Lecture Committee, and the Public Policy Center (Peter C. Damiano, director).

He had the audience in the palm of his hand, roaming the stage with a hand held mike, no notes, incisive comment, humor, and a Jack-Benny-like sense of timing and the pause -- necessary last evening because of the audience's tendency to interrupt him with applause throughout, and a couple standing ovations. All in all a great evening.

It was nice to have a chance to visit with him before and after the event, recalling his campaigning in Iowa City for presidential candidate Senator Bill Bradley. Reich and I write on similar subjects and come to similar conclusions. The primary difference between us being (1) he knows what he's talking about, and I rely on gut instinct in coming to the same conclusions, and (2) people read what he writes and come to listen to what he has to say. (I am always surprised and delighted to discover that at least one of my close family members has actually read one of these blog entries. There was even one day last year when two had done so on the same day.) I told him that I got all my best ideas from him, and he was polite enough to instantly respond with the lie that he got all his best ideas from me.

I won't bother to repeat what he had to say in his lecture and Q and A; but here is his own truncated video version of some of his themes in 2:33 minutes.

Drake University, where he spoke the following evening, has a video of his Drake speech, albeit with less than adequate audio (apparently from a source other than his mike).

If you are a regular reader of this blog (there's bound to be one somewhere), you've encountered most of the themes here during the last three years or so. But I will refer you to a story in the local press in which Diane Heldt nicely captured the gist of Wednesday evening's presentation.

Diane Heldt, "Reich: Nation must stimulate economy, address wealth inequity," The Gazette/SourceMedia Group News, September 8, 2011

In his planned speech to the nation Thursday night about the economy, President Obama must be bold and ambitious, and relay the message of “priming the pump” with robust government stimulus and spending, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich said Wednesday night at the University of Iowa.

Government stimulus to boost consumer spending, loans to the states to perk up their flagging budgets and stop job cuts and the re-creation of such programs as the WPA to add jobs are what’s needed to revive the economy — steps far beyond just extending unemployment and the tax cuts, Reich said.

“It is more important now than deficit reduction,” he told a standing-room only crowd at the Iowa Memorial Union. “The debt, the deficit issue, although real, is manageable. What needs to be addressed now is jobs and growth.”

About 500 people turned out Wednesday to see Reich speak, the UI’s 2011-12 Distinguished Lecture event. Reich served in three presidential administrations, most recently as the Secretary of Labor for President Bill Clinton. Reich has authored 13 books; his most recent is “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future.”

Reich said he’s not suggesting the way out of our economic morass is to consume more things and fill our homes. Rather than blind consumerism, he advocates a broader notion of consumption — consuming better health care, a better environment, better arts and all the benefits of living a better life.

Government can only get so far priming the pump with stimulus when there’s not enough water in the well to begin with, Reich said. The issue of wealth inequality in the United States has to be addressed to produce long-term economic solutions, he said.

The wealthiest people control so much of the income that the vast middle class doesn’t have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going without going into debt, he said. Without reversing this trend of inequality, the country will come up against this issue again and again, Reich said.

“My fear is there is not much of a dialogue going on about any of this,” he said.

Why Iowa?

Chase Garrett, Robert Reich, and a lovely, short September evening's walk. That's one reason why Iowa.

There are hundreds more.

# # #

Governance: School Board Job No. 1

2011-09-06T06:37:00.005-05:00

September 6, 2011, 7:45 a.m.

There's been a lot of confusion around town regarding the "Carver governance model." Here is a brief, 500-word effort to explain why and how it empowers, rather than restrains in any way, school boards and their stakeholders. Additional resources on this and other K-12 topics is below the column.

(Mis)understanding Carver
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen
September 6, 2011, p. A7
[temporary Press-Citizen link:
http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20110906/OPINION02/109060303/-Mis-understanding-Carver]

A blazing sunset filled the Grand Canyon. But as I was taking it in from the canyon's rim, the photographer next to me swore at his expensive Nikon camera.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"My camera doesn't work," he said.

"The lens cover's on," I observed.

"Again?!" he exclaimed. "That's the trouble with these (expletive) Nikons."

And that's been our community's trouble with the Carver governance model. We're confusing the idea with its execution.

Carver works for Fortune 500 corporations, large and small non-profits -- and other districts' school boards.

It even worked for ours at one time.

"Plan your work, and work your plan" is good advice for any effort. But if the plan doesn't come off the shelf, the results are no more satisfying than when the lens cover doesn't come off the camera.

The basics of Carver are common sense, and the common practices of anyone who achieves their goals, including everyone reading this paper. A teenager plans to be a doctor. A couple plans a wedding. Iowa City's Combined Efforts Theater goes from script writing to opening night. Coach Kirk Ferentz goes from recruiting to a winning football season. The Powell Doctrine's evaluation of when you do, and don't, go to war and how. Every budding entrepreneur with a business plan.

We all know, "if you don't know where you're going, the odds are very good you'll never get there." It's great to plan, but if you're not clear whether you're planning a wedding or a waterfall in the backyard it's unlikely you'll end up with either.

It's the same with planning a school district's future.

School administrators and teachers need to be involved in planning, but they are overworked as it is. They don't have time for sitting around thinking about the future of the district.

Carver says that's board members' No. 1 job. Identifying and then transforming the district's highest priority ideals into specific dates, measurable goals and regular reports -- with constant monitoring. It's not like a one-time vaccination. It's continuous, hard work. Their job.

That, and drafting job descriptions -- their own, not an easy task, and the superintendent's. Much of the latter can be his accomplishment of board goals.

Carver is not about how boards conduct meetings. Nor how or whether board members answer their email, visit schools or welcome citizen input.

Carver simply reminds them that, whatever else they choose to do, they must first answer the question, "How would we know if we were ever 'successful'?"

Carver's suggestions are like an exercise routine. Make the commitment, work the plan, you'll get results. But as we all know, because there are more exercise books purchased than read, and more read than followed, is not a reason to curse the books.

Iowa City has abundant human resources. Once our board determines and reveals precisely where the district is going, we can get there.

But the picture will remain cloudy if we continue to curse the camera and refuse to remove the lens cover.
_______________
Nicholas Johnson, a former member of the Iowa City Community School Board, maintains www.nicholasjohnson.org and teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law.

__________
Resources

Nicholas Johnson served as a member of the Iowa City Community School District school board 1998-2001. Published material during that term, including the 75 or so bi-weekly Press-Citizen columns on K-12 issues, can be found here.

For more on governance and Carver in general, and what the school board did in particular, see Nicholas Johnson, "Board Governance: Theory and Practice" (last updated April 24, 2001).

For an update on what's been written since, go to the main Web page, http://www.nicholasjohnson.org, look for the Google search icon in the left column, put "governance" in the search panel, click the dot in front of "FromDC2Iowa Blog," and click on "Google Search." As of this morning that produced 249 hits.

This week two public meetings with school board candidates (tonight and Thursday) will focus on school finance, and school boundaries.

School finance. The former is addressed in a five-part series of Press-Citizen columns, numbers 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 (Dec. 22, 1998 through Feb. 16, 1999), available here.

School boundaries. Within the limits of federal and state law, school boards can design school boundaries however they'd like. A way of thinking about that task is laid out in
Nicholas Johnson, "District needs cluster schools," Iowa City Press-Citizen, June 3, 2009, reprinted in the blog entry "Cluster Schools Potential for IC District?" June 3, 2009. This source also contains the lively exchange of comments the column inspired.

Note, as with Carver's approach to governance, that the "cluster schools" approach to boundaries does not limit a school board in any way. It can make schools as roughly equal, or as different, as it likes with regard to say, comparative class sizes, distribution of "free-and-reduced-lunch" children, distances students travel by bus, and other variables. It simply provides a way of looking at, thinking and discussing, district-wide school boundary plans that have enough guiding principles and flexibility to last 10 or 20 years.

# # #

Republicans' Iowa Straw Poll

2011-08-15T17:23:00.007-05:00

August 15, 2011, 5:30 p.m.

Winning's Not "The Only Thing" In Politics or Golf
There were two major contests within the last 72 hours. Both resulted in someone being proclaimed "the winner."

First was the Iowa Republicans' "straw poll" Saturday [August 13] afternoon.

The headline proclaimed, ""Michele Bachmann wins Iowa Straw Poll." Jennifer Jacobs, "Michele Bachmann wins Iowa Straw Poll," Des Moines Register, August 14, 2011. (Other quotes from the story: "Michele Bachmann, the first woman to win the Iowa straw poll, is now the official front-runner in Iowa . . .. With 16,892 Iowans casting ballots, Bachmann won with 4,823 votes. . . . Bachmann’s win . . ..) [Photo credit: Charles Dharapak, Associated Press.]

What does "win" mean in this context?

Even if one candidate got 50% or more of the vote, they still wouldn't have won enough to buy deep fat fried butter on a stick at the Iowa State Fair.

Moreover, on this occasion (a) Bachmann only got 28% of the vote, and (b) Ron Paul virtually tied her with 27%. They were separated by only 152 votes out of 16,891. Does it make any sense to proclaim one a "winner" and the other a "loser," given those numbers out of 55 million registered Republicans?

Here is Jon Stewart's take on the mainstream media's virtual total dismissal of second place finisher Ron Paul:

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"Indecision 2012 - Corn Polled Edition - Ron Paul & the Top Tier," August 15, 2011.

I have a lot more problems with that straw poll.

For starters, two of the Party's frontrunners -- Mitt Romney and Rick Perry -- weren't even on the ballot. Jon Huntsman was, but made no effort to garner votes. What does it mean to "win" a vote in which the two leaders haven't participated?

The straw poll is about as far as one can get from scientific polling. It's a fund raiser; it's a poll tax on steroids. It's Chicago politics with no holds barred.

To vote you first have to pay the $30 poll tax -- except that "you" don't have to pay, because the candidate will pay you to vote. Moreover, candidates can bus in voters from anywhere -- and do. Last time Romney paid $10 million to bus in and turn out straw poll voters. (This time he wisely chose to save the money.) [Thanks to "baune" for Aug. 17 blog correction/comment, below, "Not that it matters that much, but Mitt Romney's name was on the ballot for the straw poll." Thus, the first sentence, two paragraphs above, should have read: "For starters, two of the Party's frontrunners -- Mitt Romney and Rick Perry -- weren't even campaigning for votes."]

Maybe the vote is a measure of how much money candidates were able to raise, and willing to spend, on staff, organization, buses and poll tax tickets, but it's not much indication of Republican voters' preferences at this point.

Indeed, there is a suspicion that some voters "refused to stay bought." They went to the tent of the candidate with the best food and entertainment, accepted their $30 ticket, and then voted for whomever they pleased.

Finally, there's the matter of Republicans' judgment, to the extent the results were a measure of their genuine choice. Not that there aren't Democrats equally capable of snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory, mind you, but it does say something about Iowa Republicans that less than 1/2 of 1% of them are willing to support the one candidate actually capable of attracting enough independents and even Democrats to defeat Obama in a head-to-head general election once it is heavily covered by the media. That candidate? Jon Huntsman.
_____
The other contest finished up on Sunday, August 14. It was the 2011 PGA Championship at the Atlanta Athletic Club in Johns Creek, Georgia.

Golf has always been more honorable than politics. Players' actual, and reported, numbers of strokes are far less likely to have been manipulated or distorted than a straw poll's number of votes.

And so it is that we know Keegan Bradley took one less stroke to finish a three-hole playoff than Jason Dufner required.[Photo credit: Kohjiro Kinno, Sports Illustrated.]

Thus, the headline proclaims that Bradley "wins PGA Championship." Gary Van Sickle, "First time's a charm for Bradley as he wins PGA Championship in a playoff," Sports Illustrated, August 15, 2011.

He deserved to win. He played spectacular golf throughout. I tend to agree with SI that "Bradley just might be that new golf star America so badly needs" -- though I may not be as confident as SI that America "badly needs" a golf star, as much as, say, to bring some of our wars to a close, create a few million jobs, and get our economy back on a growth curve.

How any human is capable of hitting a little golf ball with a stick some 200 to 300 yards and have it land within 15 feet of a flag is beyond me -- especially when most of that distance is over a lake. In fact, the only thing Bradley's game had in common with mine was his triple bogey on the 15th (where he did leave one in the lake).

The difference in ultimate outcome was that he was able to recover and Dufner was not, which is what sent them into a three-hole playoff which Bradley managed to finish with one stroke less than Dufner.

I understand about winning in sports. A baseball team can have better hitting and batting than their opponent for eight innings and still lose the game in the bottom of the ninth. A 1/100th of a second can make the difference between the gold and silver medals in swimming or downhill skiing. And some of the world's best golfers may be separated by no more than one to three strokes at the end of a tournament.

But after a sporting contest between the world's finest is over, it often seems to me that more needs to be said about the accomplishments of all the participants, not just the final score, or "winner's" time. I know that's not what some of the participants think. They want to "win." But it's what I think, as I review in my mind the unbelievable catch in the football game, the golfer's 30-foot putt, or approach shot that comes within a half inch of a hole in one.

Bradley and Dufner were no Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, of whom it was said, he was great, but she did everything he did, backwards and in high heels.

Neither Keegan Bradley nor Jason Dufner were were wearing high heels or walking backwards; both were playing on the same golf course.

But before the playoff, don't forget that out of all the championship golfers who made the cut for this tournament, it was only Jason Dufner who was able to tie the tournament score of America's new young golfing superstar -- who won the first major championship in which he played -- "that new golf star America so badly needs."

In my book Dufner's accomplishment is worthy of a little more recognition and respect than the characterization of Bradley as the "winner" and Dufner the "loser" of that championship. Clearly, Dufner is also a "golf star America needs."

And I'd say the same for Ron Paul's accomplishment in the straw poll -- brought about, I suspect, more from the wild enthusiasm from his Libertarian supporters than with busloads of strangers and lots of money.
# # #
Here's how the 16,892 straw poll votes ended up:

1st Michele Bachmann 4823 28.551977%
2nd Ron Paul 4671 27.652143%
3rd Tim Pawlenty 2293
4th Rick Santorum, 1657
5th Herman Cin 1456
6th Newt Gingrich 385
7th Jon Huntsman 69
8th Thaddeus McCotter 35

The Last One to Die . . .

2011-08-09T08:18:00.010-05:00

August 9, 2011, 1:50 p.m.

. . . for a mistake

Every Sunday toward the end of ABC News' "This Week with Christiane Amanpour," she says (as she does 45 seconds into the excerpt above, from the August 7, 2011, show's "Lives of Note" segment), "And we remember all of those who died in war this week."

It is, for me, a very somber moment; a Sunday church service of sorts. No more multi-tasking. I stop whatever else I am doing to focus on the name, rank and young age of each. I think of their families, loved ones, parents.

Last Sunday Amanpour continued, "The Pentagon has yet to release the identities of the Americans who were killed yesterday in the single deadliest attack of the war in Afghanistan, but we have learned the names of seventeen soldiers and Marines who were killed the days before."

With the soldiers' names, their home towns scrolled by: Edmond, Oklahoma; Broken Arrow, Oklahoma; Daly City, California; Columbus, Georgia; Wilson, North Carolina; Moscow, Pennsylvania; Brecksville, Ohio; Dallastown, Pennsylvania; Sapulpa, Oklahoma; Sliver Spring, Maryland; Holton, Kansas; Jacksonville, Florida; Red Bay, Alabama; Chelsea, Oklahoma; Chatsworth, California; Vernal, Utah; Warner Robins, Georgia.

They are not all well known American towns. Some are little more than a stop for gas when you take a trip along one of America's scenic "blue highways." But this week, each of those 17 towns is filled with grieving Americans.

The men and women in today's military were not drafted. They volunteered. We need a military, and all of us owe thanks and more to those willing to serve.

But we, and our elected officials, also owe them common sense, and more restraint in our willingness to risk their lives.

If there were hostile armed forces entering the United States from Canada, Mexico, or either coast by sea, I would be willing to take up arms myself, even in my advanced age, to help protect my country.

But the war into which we sent these 17 soldiers, and the 38 who died last Saturday, is not that kind of war.

The likelihood of the Afghan Taliban doing harm to Americans residing in the United States is somewhere between slim and none at all. Even in 2001, the individuals who attacked us on 9/11, and their funding, primarily came from Saudi Arabia not Afghanistan; and our decade-long goal since then -- to capture or kill bin Laden -- now truly is, "mission accomplished." The only Americans who are at risk of harm from the Taliban are those who have been sent into Afghanistan -- over the objections of many Afghans -- and whose presence is now fueling Afghan hostility and Taliban recruiting efforts.

The bumper sticker says, "Whatever is the question, war is not the answer." That's not, strictly speaking, always true in every instance. I'm not confident there was any meaningful answer besides war to Hitler's advance through Europe. War is sometimes not only an answer, it is the only answer.

But as I have written about the Viet Nam war, and in comparable ways about Iraq and Afghanistan, war is not a very sensible option when and if,

1. given the history of the country, you will be perceived as only the latest in a centuries-long string of invaders (which prior to us in Viet Nam were the French),

2. you can’t speak or understand the native language,

3. you know little or nothing of the history, religion, culture and customs of the people, and have little grasp of the territory in which you’re fighting,

4. you are easily identified by your “enemy,” and to make sure you will be, you wear uniforms

5. your enemy, on the other hand, looks almost identical to your allies and the locals you employ, and refuses to wear a uniform,

6. since there is no “front line,” as such, territory is repeatedly lost, and gained, only to be lost again,

7. during which battles, your troops are given the impossible choice between (a) killing disproportionately large numbers of innocent civilians, or (b) being killed by enemy fighters who look like innocent civilians,

8. with the consequence that an internal inconsistency exists between the strategy of “winning hearts and minds,” and the tactic of “burning down the village to save it,” such that the longer the fighting continues the more counterproductive it becomes

9. up to and including the possibility of exacerbating, rather than reducing, chaos and civil war

Nicholas Johnson, "General Semantics, Terrorism and War" (2006).

That piece also contains my own version of what's credited to former General Colin Powell as the "Powell Doctrine" -- questions the military leaders (and we citizens and taxpayers) need to ask our politicians before sending our sons, daughters and dollars to war:

* What, specifically, is the goal you’re trying to accomplish?
* Why do you think a military operation will contribute to (rather than impede) its accomplishment?
* What will it require in troops, materiel, lives and treasure to achieve that goal?
* Are you prepared to provide those resources and pay those costs?
* Will the American people support this effort for as long as it takes -- and how long will that be?
* How will we know if we’ve ever been “successful”?
* What, then, will be our exit strategy?
* What will happen when we leave?
* Will that be consistent with our original mission?

Given the conditions under which war is, and is not, a viable option, and given the questions that need to be at least asked, and hopefully answered, before engaging in war, my own view is that we ought to get our military personnel out of Afghanistan before even more will die.

In reflecting on the 30 more American dead in one helicopter (38 counting Afghans, whom I think should and do count), I hear an echo of the words of Senator John Kerry -- then a 27 year old Navy veteran of Vietnam -- in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 23, 1971:

How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

Kerry's entire moving presentation is very much worth reading, the video excerpt worth watching, in the context of Afghanistan today. Deborah White, "John Kerry's Famed 1971 Testimony to Congress on Vietnam," About.com.

A cynic might respond, "Don't be worrying about the last military man or woman to die in Afghanistan, Nick. The last person to die in Afghanistan hasn't yet been born."

We can only hope and pray that's not true.

Yet from what I read and hear in the media, we have troops in 150 countries, SOCOM (United States Special Operations Command) forces in 75, headed toward 100 by the end of this year, plus the CIA personnel and the private sector warriors. SOCOM has increased its numbers by four-fold or more since 9/11, and shows no signs of slowing down. (See/hear, e.g., Tom Ashbrook, "Special Operations Forces In Afghanistan," On Point, August 9, 2011.)

So, sadly, the cynic is probably right.

Nor are our military adventures unrelated to the global financial troubles, and the riots in London. The best estimates are that when everything is totaled up, the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan, including the lifelong care of the wounded, will run something like the $2-3 trillion we currently need to balance a budget.

Given that, in Afghanistan, even defining "success" seems almost as difficult as achieving it, one is not reassured by President Obama's insistence that "We will press on and we will succeed. Our troops will continue the hard work . . .." "President Obama Pledges to Press on in Afghan War," Reuters, August 8, 2011.

One is reminded of more of the commentary regarding the Viet Nam war, so effectively embedded into the anti-war protest songs that played a role in ultimately bringing that failed effort to an end.

Press on?

How about "push on"?

Here's Pete Seeger's Viet Nam era "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy ("and the big fool said to push on"):

While we're at it, here are a couple more from that war:

Edwin Starr singing his song "War (What is it good for? Absolutely nothing)" (1969)

An excerpt from the lyrics:

"War, what's it good for?/Absolutely nothing."
War..huh...look out...
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing...listen to me ohhhhh
WAR! I despise,
'cause it means destruction of innocent lives,
War means tears to thousands of mother's eyes,
When their sons gone to fight and lose their lives.
I said WAR!...huh...good God y'all,
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing

And . . .

Country Joe & The Fish, "Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die Rag"

with an excerpt from those lyrics:

Well, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Come on Wall Street, don't be slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go
There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of its trade,
But just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on the Viet Cong.

Why aren't we out in the streets? Why aren't there songs protesting the Afghan war?

Because those who favor war, even when it is counterproductive, learned a lesson from Viet Nam. To keep the American people from demanding an end to foreign and military policies of perpetual war, you need only provide the illusion that it is war without sacrifice.

(1) War costs nothing -- except for those few Americans (as a percentage of 325 million) who die or are wounded. We don't have to pay the costs of war. There are no war taxes. We simply put it on our Chinese credit card; we borrow the money -- plus a little more for tax breaks for the wealthy.

(2) We've abolished the draft. No one has to go to war; just the ones who want to. What could be more American than that?

As a strategy for perpetual war, it seems to have worked.

The last one to die for this mistake? She's yet to be born.

# # #

Here's Another Nice Mess

2011-08-06T07:17:00.004-05:00

August 6, 2011, 8:30 a.m.

Congress as Laurel and Hardy
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy created one of the most popular two-man comedy teams ever, "Laurel and Hardy." Together they made some 100 films from the 1920s to 1950s. See, "Laurel and Hardy," Wikipedia.org. Somewhere in each film, or stage routine, "Ollie" would inevitably deliver the line, "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into."

The behavior of our Congress, especially the House, calls to mind that line of Ollie's.

In "When Obstruction Becomes Treason," July 30, I referred to our waiting for "the other boot to fall."

Well, there it now is, right on our neck.

"Standard & Poor’s removed the United States government from its list of risk-free borrowers for the first time on Friday night [August 5, 2011] . . .." Binyamin Appelbaum and Eric Dash, "S.&P. Downgrades Debt Rating of U.S. For the First Time," New York Times, August 6, 2011, p. A1.

Let me repeat that, while you think about it: "Standard & Poor’s removed the United States government from its list of risk-free borrowers for the first time . . .."

What does "for the first time" refer to? It is a reference to the beginning of the United States of America's government on March 4, 1789. See "United States Constitution," Wikipedia.org.

That's right. For the first time in the history of our country we have a Congress so partisan, so selfish, so childish, so stupid, so irresponsible, so ideologically constrained, as to be willing to bring down the credit rating of our country.

Indeed, the only good news seems to be that the performance has attracted both the attention and the basic good sense of the American people: "A record 82 percent of Americans now disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job — the most since The Times first began asking the question in 1977 . . .." Michael Cooper and Megan Thee-Brenan, "Disapproval Rate for Congress at Record 82% After Debt Talks," New York Times, August 5, 2011, p. A1.

Now it may be that the sky is not falling -- although the global stock markets are. The other two ratings services, Moody's and Fitch, have not, at least not yet, lowered our credit rating. But it's very hard to argue with S&P's analysis, even if one wishes to argue with its conclusion. As Appelbaum and Dash report:

The company . . . said it was cutting its rating of long-term federal debt to AA+, one notch below the top grade of AAA. It described the decision as a judgment about the nation’s leaders, writing that “the gulf between the political parties” had reduced its confidence in the government’s ability to manage its finances.

“The downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenge,” the company said in a statement.

Isn't that what you think, too?

As further evidence of Congress' role playing Laurel and Hardy with very, very serious business, China is getting nervous.

Imagine you had loaned $1.2 trillion to your brother-in-law, only to discover that he's not quite as reliable, competent and trustworthy in managing a big business as you originally thought. Wouldn't you be a little nervous, too?

China, the largest foreign holder of United States debt, said Saturday [August 6, 2011] that Washington needed to “cure its addiction to debts” and “live within its means,” just hours after the rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded America’s long-term debt.

The harshly worded commentary, which was released by China’s official Xinhua news agency, was Beijing’s latest attempt to express its displeasure with Washington. . . .

Chinese officials are clearly concerned that China’s substantial holdings of American debt, worth at least $1.1 trillion, is being devalued.

“The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone,” read the commentary . . ..

Beijing, which did not release any other official statement on the downgrade, called on Washington to make substantial cuts to its “gigantic military expenditure” . . ..

The commentary serves as a sharp illustration of how America’s standing in the world is sliding and that China now views itself as ascendant. . . .

China is sitting on the world’s largest foreign exchange holdings and its economy is growing at close to 9 percent. The country is also once again racking up huge trade surpluses with the rest of the world. . . . [For another example of a country that is enjoying the benefits of a government more intelligent, rational and functional than ours, see "What Brazil Can Teach America," August 4, 2011.]

Beijing policy makers are discussing ways to diversify the country’s foreign exchange holdings away from dollars and also how to encourage Chinese companies to invest some of the foreign reserves overseas. . . .

China has about $3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves . . ..

Analysts say that if China pulls back from purchasing Treasuries, the dollar would weaken and America’s borrowing costs would rise sharply . . ..

[G]overnment leaders here increasingly sound like they are losing confidence.

“International supervision over the issue of U.S. dollars should be introduced and a new stable and secured global reserve currency may also be an option to avert a catastrophe caused by any single country,” the Xinhua commentary said."

"China, a Big Creditor, Says U.S. Has Only Itself to Blame," Reuters/New York Times, August 6, 2011.

The messes that Laural and Hardy got into were fiction, and funny.

The messes that many members of Congress repeatedly get us into are neither fiction nor funny. They're tragedy, not comedy; reality, not fiction.

They keep offering us further proof, if any were needed, that there comes a point at which obstruction is treason. A point Congress has now gone far beyond.

# # #

What Brazil Can Teach America

2011-08-04T08:36:00.004-05:00

August 4, 2011, 10:00 a.m.

America, There Is Another Way
Things aren't looking really good for America right now. And, frankly, I don't see a way out.

Our answers are obvious. What appears to be even more obvious is that we're apparently not going to choose any of them.

If we can't learn from our mistakes, or from others' success, at least it may be psychologically palliative to know about, and watch, other countries' progress and know that darkness is not covering the entire world.

As I have written here repeatedly, it seems so obvious that in an economy 70% driven by consumer spending it does little good to ask CEOs to build more plant and hire more workers when consumers aren't prepared to buy what's already stored in warehouses. With true un- and under-employment running closer to 20% than 9%, and some population sectors (e.g., black, male, high school dropouts) running over 50%, even those with jobs fear they may lose them, and those with job security are still shaky about their financial future (e.g., galloping inflation; global depression).

What we should have done three years ago was apply a lesson from the New Deal depression recovery: make the federal government the employer of last resort (e.g., WPA and CCC). That would have put money in the pockets of those who would have spent it, and helped restore the confidence of the rest of us as well. Gradually, as they spent, and the rest of us followed, it would have become rational for CEOs to increase production -- and hiring, moving the employed from federal to private payrolls.

Of course, now that the trillions have been given to Goldman Sachs' and other executives among the over-privileged employed, those who fear that we really can't go on spending billions and trillions on additional "stimulus" programs have a point.

That's why I don't see a way out -- especially given the financial problems confronting Greece, Spain and Italy, among others, as well. It's now impacting even China, since the rest of us have less with which to buy even China's production.

Many of our public officials have proven themselves to be either ignorant, incompetent, or venal. Clearly they can't either govern or be governed. (One is reminded of the adage "Lead, follow, or get out of the way" -- given that none of those options seem acceptable to them.) They seem prepared to see American fall further rather than "compromise" an emotionally held ideological mantra. See, e.g., "When Obstruction Becomes Treason," July 30, 2011.

So while we sit and wait for the final boot to fall, I find some satisfaction in Brazil, and its example that there is another way.

Here are some relevant fair use excerpts from a segment on last Sunday's [July 31, 2011] CBS' "60 Minutes" program -- "Brazil: The World's Next Economic Superpower?" -- followed by some comments from me.

While most of the world is consumed with debt and unemployment, Brazil is trying to figure out how to manage an economic boom. As we first reported last December, it was the last country to enter the Great Recession, the first to leave it, and is now poised to overtake France and Britain as the world's fifth largest economy. . . .

Brazilian tycoons like Eike Batista, who has . . . a net worth of $27 billion . . . said, "GDP-wise, we are bigger than all the other countries [in South America] together. . . .."

With most of the world's economies stagnant, Brazil's grew at 7 percent last year, three times faster than America. It is a huge country, slightly larger than the continental U.S., with vast expanses of arable farmland, an abundance of natural resources, and 14 percent of the world's fresh water.

Eighty percent of its electricity comes from hydropower, it has the most sophisticated bio fuels industry in the world, and for its size, the world's greenest economy. Brazil is already the largest producer of iron ore in the world, and the world's leading exporter of beef, chicken, orange juice, sugar, coffee and tobacco -- much of it bound for China, which has replaced the U.S. as Brazil's leading trade partner. . . .

Batista, who has interests in mining, transportation, oil and gas, is building a huge super-port complex north of Rio with Chinese investment. The complex will accommodate the world's largest tankers and speed delivery of iron ore and other resources to Asia.

But it's not just commodities that are driving the Brazilian boom. The country has a substantial manufacturing base and a large auto industry. Aviation giant Embraer is the world's third-largest aircraft manufacturer, behind Boeing and Airbus and a main supplier of regional jets to the U.S. market. . . .

"We have to create more engineers," he told Kroft. "In my oil company, I'm importing Americans to weld our platforms, just to give you an, an idea."

"To weld the platforms?" Kroft asked.

"Yes," Batista said. "There's a lack of welders. We are walking into a phase of almost full employment. Already we have created this year 1.5 million jobs. It's unbelievable." . . .

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva walked into the president's office. . . .

When he was elected eight years ago on his fourth try, Lula was a firebrand labor leader with socialist tendencies. Some predicted another Hugo Chavez.

But he left office at the end of last year with an 87 percent approval rating and much of the credit for turning the country around. . . .

Lula [said], "Look, every once in awhile I joke that a metal worker with a socialist background had to become president of Brazil to make capitalism work here. . . .."

He added, "If you look at the banks' balance sheets for this year, you will see that the banks have never made so much money in Brazil as they have during my government. The big companies have never sold as many cars as they have during my government, but the workers have also made money."

So how has he managed to do that?

Lula told Kroft he has "found out something amazing."

"The success of an elected official is in the art of doing what is obvious," Lula said. "It is what everyone knows needs to be done but some insist on doing differently."

One thing obvious to Lula was the social and economic chasm separating Brazil's rich and poor. He gave the poor families a monthly stipend of $115, just for sending their children to school and taking them to doctors.

The infusion of cash helped lift 21 million people out of poverty and into the lower middle class, creating an untapped market for first-time buyers of refrigerators and cars.

But he was also far friendlier to business than anyone expected. Lula encouraged growth and development, and maintained conservative fiscal policies and tight banking regulations that left Brazil unscathed by the world financial crisis. . . .

[E]conomists from Goldman Sachs no less are predicting that Brazil - along with Russia, China and India - will dominate the world economy in the 21st century.

If it happens, Brazil would be a different kind of superpower, one that would rather make love not war. It has no nuclear arsenal, and aside from contributing a small number of troops to the allied cause in 1944, Brazil hasn't fought a war since 1870.

"Why fight?" Batista asked. "With all the pleasures, beach and sun. War? Forget it. Soccer? Let's watch a soccer game. Let's go to the beach. Let's drink a beer."

So what lessons does Brazil offer America? Here are a few from my perspective.

How can we explain why Brazil is enjoying an "economic boom" and was "the last country to enter the Great Recession, the first to leave it, and is now poised to overtake France and Britain as the world's fifth largest economy" -- and we were not?

Why was it that Brazil's economy "grew at 7 percent last year, three times faster than America"?

Environmental initiatives. Did you notice the line that, "Eighty percent of its electricity comes from hydropower, it has the most sophisticated bio fuels industry in the world, and for its size, the world's greenest economy"? Our public officials, responsive to the campaign contributions, lobbying and other pressures from special interests, such as the oil industry, have failed to seize our opportunity to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. Brazil has figured out a way to fuel its cars with ethanol while still producing food for export.

Manufacturing base. Note that, Brazil "has a substantial manufacturing base and a large auto industry. Aviation giant Embraer is the world's third-largest aircraft manufacturer, behind Boeing and Airbus and a main supplier of regional jets to the U.S. market. . . ." We've largely abandoned our manufacturing, and the jobs it provided, letting American corporations profit by outsourcing and building plants overseas. As a result, Brazil has "created this year 1.5 million jobs" and is "walking into a phase of almost full employment." Meanwhile our government, while turning its back on the obvious solution of creating federal jobs for the unemployed, is bemoaning our 20% actual unemployment.

Economic recovery means supporting the poor. Some of our political leaders have as their primary mission (after making sure President Obama fails as a president and is limited to one term) the reduction or elimination of government itself, and everyone seemingly runs and hides at the mere whisper of the word "socialism." By contrast, Brazilians were not only willing to elect an confessed socialist, they -- including most of the Brazilian business community -- now give him 87% approval ratings.

"The success of an elected official is in the art of doing what is obvious," Lula said. "It is what everyone knows needs to be done but some insist on doing differently."

One thing obvious to Lula was the social and economic chasm separating Brazil's rich and poor. He gave the poor families a monthly stipend of $115, just for sending their children to school and taking them to doctors.

The infusion of cash helped lift 21 million people out of poverty and into the lower middle class, creating an untapped market for first-time buyers of refrigerators and cars.

This approach appeals to me, of course, because it demonstrates the success of precisely what I have been arguing; the solutions to our problems are available, we just need to be "doing what is obvious" that our majority "insist on dong differently."

Henry Ford, no socialist, knew that his success depended on his pricing his cars, and paying his workers, such that the workers could afford to buy the cars they were building.

Like Lula's Brazil we, too, need to recognize, and do something about, "the social and economic chasm separating [our] rich and poor." To stimulate an economy you need to give more money to the poor, not to the rich. Brazil proves it. By lifting "million[s of] people out of poverty and into the lower middle class, [we, too, could create] an untapped market for first-time buyers of refrigerators and cars" and pull our economy out of economic malaise in short order. That it is also a humane thing to do is an added benefit for those who care about such things.

Government regulation can be our friend. One of the consequences of our "best government that money can buy" is that workers die on offshore oil rigs that pollute the Gulf, and in coal mines that have been documented as unsafe, and Wall Street is permitted to profit while bringing down the global economy.

How did Lulu deal with that phenomenon? Was he hostile to business? Not at all. "[H]e was also far friendlier to business than anyone expected. Lula encouraged growth and development . . .." However, and this is the big difference, he also "maintained conservative fiscal policies and tight banking regulations that left Brazil unscathed by the world financial crisis. . . ." When we permit special interests to buy a substitution of "self-regulation" in place of rational regulation, as we do, people die and economies collapse. Lulu knew better than to permit that to happen. Why don't we?

As a result, now even the "masters of the universe," "[E]conomists from Goldman Sachs no less are predicting that Brazil - along with Russia, China and India - will dominate the world economy in the 21st century."

The true cost of military budgets. Finally, it is no accident that Switzerland and Brazil are among the most solid economies in the world. What am I talking about? We pay a price, an enormous and debilitating price, for our insistence on being, not only the strongest military power in the world, but one that spends more than the next ten nations combined.

What does Brazil do?

"Brazil . . . would rather make love not war. It has no nuclear arsenal, and aside from contributing a small number of troops to the allied cause in 1944, Brazil hasn't fought a war since 1870. "Why fight?" Batista asked. "With all the pleasures, beach and sun. War? Forget it. Soccer? Let's watch a soccer game. Let's go to the beach. Let's drink a beer."

Some final words. You see? That's what we could have been doing. We knowingly and deliberately chose not to. We chose to borrow 40% of what we spend. We chose to maintain three ongoing wars, and a military presence in 150 countries. We chose not to create a level playing field for third parties, or provide public financing of campaigns. We chose to run from anything that might be labeled socialism. We chose not to tax ourselves, and especially not our wealthiest.

We chose to become a third world country in which the richest 1% control 90% of the wealth. We chose to watch video games, computer screens, smart phones and TV rather than march in the streets in protest.

Finding ourselves in a hole, we chose to go on digging.

Rather than sucking it up and doing what needs to be done, we're still kicking the can down the road.

It's been fun. But it's no fun anymore.

Have a nice day.

Like to watch the entire segment? Here it is:

# # #

When Obstruction Becomes Treason

2011-07-30T16:12:00.015-05:00

July 30, 2011, 7:00 p.m.

There Are Many Ways to Bring Down a Government

In an [October 2010] interview with the National Journal [the Republican U.S. Senate Majority Leader] Senator [Mitch] McConnell was asked what "the job" of Republicans will be if they gain a majority in Congress. McConnell's response was,

"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

McConnell could have mentioned any one of a number of other priorities . . . Helping the country recover from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression; Protecting the country from another terrorist attack; [or] Ensuring the success of the United States' missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, McConnell made clear that the Republicans will be thinking about 2012 as soon as the 2010 midterm elections are over. [emphasis supplied]

Ryan Witt, "Republican leader says GOP's number one goal is defeating Obama in 2012," Examiner.com, October 25, 2010.

This was scarcely a casual slip of the tongue. "N2K Top 10: Let Me Repeat; Regrets? Not a One," National Journal, November 4, 2010 ("Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will deliver a speech at the Heritage Foundation that reiterates why making President Obama a one-term president is the GOP’s top priority.").

Although the National Journal article containing the initial interview with McConnell does not appear to be available to the public on the magazine's Web site, the quote has been widely reported -- including in subsequent National Journal articles. Matthew Cooper, "Kaine, Axelrod Fire Back After McConnell's NJ Comments," National Journal, October 26, 2010 ("My colleague, Major Garrett, made news with his interview with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in which the Kentuckian said that making Obama a one-term president was his highest priority. Now Democrats are firing back. DNC Chairman Tim Kaine has issued a statement saying: '. . . the very man who set his Republican colleagues on a course of politically motivated obstruction even before the President was sworn into office -- is promising two more years of politics as usual . . ..'"); see also the related, Major Garrett, "After the Wave; Mitch McConnell wants to learn from history, but his new recruits will not be easily led," National Journal, October 23, 2010; Peter Baker, "Obama Forces Showdown With G.O.P. on Arms Pact," New York Times, November 19, 2010, p. A12 ("Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has said his top priority is to deny Mr. Obama a second term.").

Nor is the mission limited to this one Republican leader. The campaign of one of the Republicans' leading presidential candidates, Congresswoman Michelle Backman, has declared "Rep. Bachmann looks forward to working with the Governor [of Alaska, Sarah Palin] for the common goal of making sure President Obama is a one-term President." Elspeth Reeve, "Palin Rivalry Becomes Bachmann Campaign Strategy," National Journal, June 10, 2011.

Now I do not question the right of what the British call "the loyal opposition" to disagree with whomever happens to be the President of the United States regarding particular legislative and other proposals and programs -- including wars. That's politics, that's democracy, that's governing.

But when the opposition, the party that does not control the White House, declares that "the single most important thing we want to achieve" is for the President's administration to fail, for him to be a one-term president, this risks crossing the line from politics as usual into potentially treasonous territory. When one's "most important" goal is to cause someone to fail, however unseemly if focused on any fellow human, but that someone happens to be the President of the United States, it is in effect a goal to bring on the failure of the United States itself -- as we have seen during the last couple of weeks with regard to the debt ceiling. Not incidentally, President Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times, and President George Bush seven times, with very little if any hoopla from Democrats.

At a minimum, the Republicans' acknowledgement of their "most important thing" calls into question every statement made by the Republican leadership, every legislative proposal, every vote they call for, every filibuster they threaten, every meeting they walk out of, and every charge they level at President Obama. Is it driven by the substance involved, or is it just another tactic in their strategy of presidential failure?

Am I charging some Republicans with a literal violation of our prohibitions of "treason"? No, of course not. Why "of course"? Because Article III, Section 3, of our Constitution was deliberately drafted to define "treason" much more narrowly than its dictionary definition. The Constitution declares that "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them [the United States], or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort." From inside the White House, the Republicans' shelling may sound and feel like "war," but it's not what the Constitution's drafters had in mind.

No, I am speaking of "treason" in its more general dictionary usage:

"1. the offense of acting to overthrow one's government or to harm or kill its sovereign.
2. a violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state.
3. the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.

Synonyms 1. Treason, sedition mean disloyalty or treachery to one's country or its government. Treason is any attempt to overthrow the government or impair the well-being of a state to which one owes allegiance; the crime of giving aid or comfort to the enemies of one's government. Sedition is any act, writing, speech, etc., directed unlawfully against state authority, the government, or constitution, or calculated to bring it into contempt or to incite others to hostility, ill will or disaffection; it does not amount to treason and therefore is not a capital offense."

"Treason," Dictionary.com.

At the outset, there is something troubling about candidates for federal office running against "government" -- as Grover Norquist puts it, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." [Photo credit: Wikipedia.org.]

I certainly support efforts to review government expenditures -- as I did as U.S. Maritime Administrator. Let us challenge what we're spending through the Defense Department (given that there have been retired admirals and generals who say more defense budget cuts could actually improve our national security), earmarks, the shockingly low tax rates for America's wealthiest 1% (who have more wealth than the bottom 90%), hidden corporate tax breaks and subsidies, and so forth.

But to refuse to provide a clean increase in the debt ceiling, as we've routinely done dozens of times before, to insist on cutting food, medical and other benefits for the poor, to refuse to ask for a dime's worth of increased revenue from the wealthy, and to be willing to bring down the global economy and the full faith and credit of the United States for the first time in over 200 years -- all in the cause of defeating an incumbent president -- does qualify, it seems to me, under the dictionary (though not the constitutional) definition of treason.

Why? Consider:

It is "acting to . . . harm . . . its sovereign [the president]," "a violation of allegiance," "the betrayal of a trust" [to "uphold the Constitution," to serve the American people and "the public interest"], "disloyalty to one's . . . government," an "attempt to . . . impair the well-being of a state," and it has certainly involved "speech . . . calculated to bring [the government and its president] into contempt or to incite others to hostility, ill will or disaffection." Indeed, that would seem to be the laser focus of the drumbeat of attack provided by the Republicans' television and radio propaganda arms (Fox "News," Rush Limbaugh, et al).

Hopefully, the American people will reflect on the Republicans' behavior this past two and one-half years, and we'll be rid of the lot by November of 2012. But given the number of voters who are seemingly willing to give higher priority to "social issues" over even their own best economic interests, the outcome remains to be seen.

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Should Faculty Share in University Governance?

2011-07-28T17:25:00.005-05:00

July 28, 2011, 7:15 p.m.

Hierarchy is Dead; Long Live Stakeholder Participation
Michael Gartner has enjoyed a long, varied and sometimes turbulent career. "Michael Gartner," Wikipedia.org. What Iowans will best remember, in addition to his ownership of the Iowa Cubs baseball team (and hopefully his skilled writing ability and Pulitzer Prize), is his term as a member, and president, of the Iowa Board of Regents. The Board has responsibility for Iowa's three Regents universities: University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and the University of Northern Iowa.

Although no longer a member of the Board of Regents, his chttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifreative mind recently drew upon his experience and imagination to lay out a to-do list for his former charges. Because it is a long list, it was necessarily a long article -- by 600-word op-ed column standards -- about 3,000 words.

Asked by a local paper to respond in 400 words, it was necessary to pick a single proposal. I chose "governance" of universities, and Gartner's insistence that involving the faculty in "shared governance" should be abolished. I disagreed.

[For background, see American Association of University Professors, "Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities" (1966), and related information.]

However, as noted among the 400 words, there is a great deal more that Gartner wrote about with which I not only agree, but about which I have written myself, both here in this blog and elsewhere.

The brief response to his article is immediately below.

It is followed by Gartner's full presentation. This is done primarily in fairness to Michael Gartner, rather than leave the impression that 400 words adequately dispose of everything he had to say. But his piece is also included because it is an important contribution to ongoing discussion about the universities and the Regents. Having disappeared from the Des Moines Register's online site, it will at least be searchable and retrievable here. Of course, if Gartner, or the Register, object to its republication and request it be removed from this blog, it will be.
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Shared Governance Still Needed
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen
(initially available online)
July 20, 2011, p. A9
In Sunday's Des Moines Register, former Regent Michael Gartner offered up a smörgåsbord of commands for Iowa's universities.

Demanding that "universities must change dramatically -- and quickly," as he did, is no more effective than it is specific. It's like telling the captain of the 1,132-foot Queen Mary 2 that he must turn her around "dramatically and quickly" without designating a reason, direction or destination.

Some of Gartner's ideas need better facts and serious rebuttal. Others you've heard before -- even from me.

But this time he had nearly 3,000 words; and I don't. Limited to one issue, I've chosen his assault on governance.

Gartner wrote, "The pleasant-sounding concept of 'shared governance' should be scuttled. ... (F)aculty political leaders insist they should help manage the institution -- but ... the concept has outlived its usefulness and is a roadblock to planning, to change and to effective administration. It institutionalizes mediocrity, stymies change and intimidates presidents, and it is a misuse of faculty time and energy."

As the student told the professor, "I have only one question."

"And what is that,?" the professor asked.

"What on earth are you talking about?" the student replied.

What does Gartner mean and how does he know? What does he mean by "scuttled," "faculty political leaders," "manage," "roadblock." What evidence does he have of "institutionalized mediocrity" or "intimidated presidents"?

Gartner owns the Iowa Cubs. Does his organization not take into account the wishes of fans and players? That's "shared governance," a 20th-century recognition that organizations have stakeholders as well as shareholders.

School boards and their superintendents have "shared governance" with administrators, teachers, parents, students and taxpayers. Why shouldn't the Iowa state Board of Regents and universities' presidents have shared governance with students, deans, faculty, staff, parents, students and taxpayers?

You want examples from business? Shared governance is a major component of most successful corporations. Involving customers through social media is just one example.

It's understandable Gartner didn't like the University of Iowa faculty's vote of "no confidence" in his regents. The NFL owners didn't like it when the players voted no confidence in them either.

But if the corporate CEOs Gartner wants as university presidents are good ones, they will be insisting on shared governance.

Shared governance in higher education began in 1920. There are even more reasons for it today, 91 years later.
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Nicholas Johnson teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law and maintains the website www.nicholasjohnson.org and blog FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com.
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Gartner says Iowa's state universities need to change quickly
Michael Gartner
Des Moines Register and Altoona Herald-Index
July 17, 2011
Iowa's three state universities must change dramatically -- and quickly. The system has problems -- money and non-money -- that can no longer be addressed by raising tuition and lobbying legislators. Those remedies are played out.

On top of systemic problems, each university has unique challenges.

There is a management problem in Iowa City -- where faculty politicians in effect run the University of Iowa. There is a looming leadership problem in Ames -- where the visionary Greg Geoffroy is stepping down as president of Iowa State University. And there is a money problem in Cedar Falls -- where legislators short-change the University of Northern Iowa by about $50 million a year.

All this comes at a time of strife and partisanship on the nine-member Board of Regents, where president David Miles and president pro tem Jack Evans on Tuesday stepped down from their leadership roles under pressure to make room for Gov. Terry Branstad's financial backer Bruce Rastetter and loyal supporter Craig Lang.

I was a regent for a little over six years, until April 30 of this year. For nearly three years, I was president. I dealt with the men and women who officially run the schools -- and those who unofficially run them. I spent time with presidents and legislators and faculty members and shop stewards and students. I learned a lot, and I left with clear opinions.

State aid to universities needs to be redirected

All three universities are very good at many things. And the University of Iowa medical complex is very good at almost everything. It is well-run, understands its mission, produces first-rate doctors and first-rate research, and generally pays its own way. One reason: It's run by those who are paid to run it, not by the doctors or the nurses or the patients or the help.

But change is needed elsewhere in the $4 billion-a-year regents enterprise.

Perhaps most important, the dwindling state aid must be redirected. Now, graduate schools, which should be self-sufficient, drain away money that should be used for in-state undergraduates. One yet-unpublished study says Iowa's dental students receive $1,171 in subsidy per student credit hour -- in contrast to $71.90 per credit hour for liberal arts students. That is not the intent of state appropriations.

The most cherished tenets of academe, particularly "shared governance," need to be challenged -- and probably thrown out. Assets need to be redeployed into education and out of ancillary activities. Course offerings and majors need to be slashed, the teaching load needs to be increased, more courses need to be taught by professors instead of graduate students, and the number of academic "centers" needs to be reduced. Athletics needs to be reined in and restructured. The relationships among the three universities need to be refigured. New partnerships need to be explored. And the increase in tuition for undergraduate youths from Iowa has to be slowed or stopped.

Those should be the elements of a 10-year strategic plan. The "givens": We must keep three fine universities. We must expect state aid to continue to decline, as it has in seven of the past 11 years. And we cannot offset that decline by continuous tuition increases.

Faculty members have too much clout

Most of all, the universities and the regents need focused, firm, fair -- and united -- leadership.

The pleasant-sounding concept of "shared governance" should be scuttled. Shared governance once meant that faculty ran curricular matters and administrators ran management matters. Now, faculty political leaders insist they should help manage the institution -- but woe to the administrator or regent who wants to have a say in the classroom.

The concept has outlived its usefulness and is a roadblock to planning, to change and to effective administration. It institutionalizes mediocrity, stymies change and intimidates presidents, and it is a misuse of faculty time and energy. Professors should teach or do their research. Presidents and provosts and deans should manage. Regents should govern.

When I was confirmed for the board, then Senate Majority Leader Stew Iverson called me aside. "Find out for me," he said, "whether the regents run the University of Iowa or the University of Iowa runs the Board of Regents."

I found out.

Example: The University of Iowa is a complex, $2.5 billion-a-year institution where the president -- like most presidents -- must spend nearly half her time raising money and most of the rest dealing with legal and financial and athletic and alumni and real-estate and political and housing and student and parent and other issues. Yet when a committee was named to find a successor to David Skorton in 2006, the faculty members made clear they would block any candidate who wasn't a full-fledged academic -- and they had that power through "shared governance."

Thus, Jim Leach, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 30 years, was laughed off the prospect list by the academics because he was not one of them. Forget that he was a graduate of Princeton with a master's degree in Soviet politics from Johns Hopkins and further study at the London School of Economics. He didn't pass muster -- so he ended up first on the faculty of Princeton, then head of an institute at Harvard and now chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. And Iowa got as president an accomplished academic -- the provost from Purdue -- who has had to learn to be a broad-based manager through on-the-job training.

Similarly, faculty members at Iowa State have made it clear they want an academic to succeed Geoffroy. The search committee will see to that; it has nine academics among its 18 members along with two doctors, two students, two regents, and three business people. It has no union representative. Jim Leaches need not apply. (Or Tom Vilsack. Republican leaders on and off the regents are paranoid about Vilsack, amazingly believing he would leave a Cabinet post he loves for Iowa State -- a thought that sends shivers down their spines. And probably down his.)

Schools waste money on search committees

Search committees are costly and, often, a waste of time -- or a sham. A board should have in mind one or two possible successors for each president, and a president should know whom he wants as his next lawyer or provost or finance person without having to go through a search.

Jean Robillard, the outstanding vice president for medical affairs at the University of Iowa, was not picked by a search committee but simply was tapped by Gary Fethke, who in 18 months as acting president of Iowa accomplished more than his predecessor or successor. "There was no search committee formed to pick Jean Robillard, just a few great conversations with a bunch of people who were on the same page," says Fethke, who had been dean of the business school.

That's how good executives operate.

Similarly, when Robillard wanted a dean of the medical school, he named Paul Rothman. "I didn't want to do a formal search since I knew Paul and could probably not have found someone better in the country," Robillard says. So why waste time and money? He did, however, use a search to find Ken Kates, the equally competent head of the hospital.

Sally Mason, Iowa's president, knew she would appoint Carroll Reasoner last fall to move from acting general counsel to general counsel, which she told the Board of Regents. In the next breath, she said she intended to appoint a search committee -- wasting time and resources and misleading any person who would be on it and any "candidate" other than Reasoner. After questioning by regents, she waived the process.

"Academia can learn a lot from private industry," Robillard says. That's one reason business-school deans -- Gary Fethke, Ben Allen -- often make good presidents.

Professors are not in classrooms enough

One thing academics could learn is to concentrate on their strengths and shed weaknesses and "businesses" that aren't central to their mission. The mission is teaching and research at Iowa and Iowa State and just teaching at UNI.

Thus, it's strategic and financial folly for the University of Iowa to own a $150 million painting (which hasn't been on campus for three years and probably won't be for another three) when that money could be redeployed into full-tuition scholarships for about 1,000 Iowa undergraduates each year till the end of time. Similarly, why do universities own golf courses?

There are hundreds of academic and research "centers" in the regents system - the University of Iowa alone has nearly 300. They proliferate like rabbits -- and have the longevity of elephants. Each should be looked at every two or three years to determine if it is central to the mission of the school and economically justifiable. Iowa alone has around 150 majors and programs for undergraduates, from Sanskrit to microbiology, from "informatics" to theater arts. All of this must be streamlined; the universities can no longer be all things to all people.

At the same time, the teaching load -- six hours or less of classroom teaching per week (up to nine at UNI) -- must be increased. "We went too far in reducing teaching loads," a professor at Ohio University wrote the other day. "Faculty members preferred research or leisure to teaching, and believed the path to vocational success was through publication, not teaching and counseling young students."

The three Iowa universities employ around 7,500 faculty members, some 5,300 of whom are full-time. Yet, at Iowa the full-time faculty spends just a third of their time in teaching-related activities (the figures are 40 percent at Iowa State and 58 percent at UNI), and only 46 percent of undergraduate student credit hours are taught by tenured or tenure-track faculty. The rest are taught by graduate assistants (22 percent) and adjuncts and the like. The figures are only somewhat better at ISU and are considerably higher at UNI, where research is not emphasized.

Research is vital, but so is teaching.

The work load must go up and the workforce down if the universities are to have a future providing effective and affordable education to Iowa high-school graduates. More than half of those 5,300 faculty members are tenured and all but guaranteed lifetime jobs.

Once a noble concept to ensure academic freedom, tenure now is another practice that stifles change, discourages innovative teaching and reinforces the status quo. It has outlived its usefulness, says Jim Lubker, the retired provost at UNI, who thinks about such issues.

More oversight needed for athletic programs

Athletics, too, has to be examined. Iowa has and Iowa State soon will have an athletic department that pays its own way, at least by some calculations. That's good, but beside the point. Athletic revenue is not part of the universities' general funds -- it is looked upon the way dormitory funds and hospital charges are accounted for -- but it should be considered the property of the institution, not the athletic department.

All university revenue should come into one pot, and every department should have to justify its spending. The University of Iowa takes in $66 million in athletic revenue, but that doesn't mean the department should have the unsupervised right to spend that. How can it justify paying the women's basketball coach a sum more than three times the revenue of the sport? Why shouldn't it return $10 million to $15 million to the general fund? Is it right that the four highest-paid state employees are coaches at Iowa and Iowa State? (One way of looking at it: The Iowa athletic department spends about $100,000 per athlete every year.)

In this era, no institution -- university, business, city -- can go it alone. Partnerships and alliances are everything. Iowa, Iowa State and UNI are good at forming partnerships with one another and with outsiders. But efforts must increase. Universities must eliminate duplication. Are two journalism schools necessary? Is there unnecessary duplication in engineering and business schools? Why shouldn't every class be available over the Internet to every student at each school? (Some ideas aren't so great. I suggested to then-Gov. Vilsack that students be admitted to the system, not to any one school. "Who would get the football players?" he asked.)

Rising tuition costs must be dealt with

Most of all, the universities must not keep raising tuition. Ten years ago, tuition and fees at the universities were around $3,100 a year; today, they are around $7,500. If you figure the value of a college degree goes up 11 percent annually throughout life, as compared to the earnings of a person without a degree, $7,500 is still a steal -- but only for those who can afford it.

The cost of education, including room and board and books and travel, now is around $20,000 a year. To be sure, the universities set aside as much as 20 percent of tuition income for student aid -- but that's not all for the needy or in-state students. Students graduate with so much debt it will take as long as 20 years to pay it off. Others simply can't afford college. What's more, it now is cheaper for some students to attend private colleges, where the chances are a student will graduate in four years. At regents schools, only 42 percent graduate within four years.

There are many reasons.

At Iowa, one reason is the culture. Nationwide, about 34 percent of college students are binge drinkers -- persons who have five or more drinks at least every couple of weeks. At Iowa, where weekends often start on Thursday noon, the figure is 64 percent -- down 6 points in a year but still nearly twice the national average. Iowa ranks ninth among "top party schools," according to The Princeton Review. That is not a good thing. One solution: schedule required courses for Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings.

If culture is the unique problem at Iowa, money is at UNI. The main purpose of state aid is to subsidize the education of undergraduates from the state, and UNI is woefully shortchanged. State aid is divided roughly 40-40-20 among Iowa, ISU and UNI, for reasons lost in history. Iowa receives $17,628 for each state undergraduate, Iowa State gets $10,802, and UNI gets $7,502. If the money were allocated fairly, $48.5 million would be redirected to UNI, mainly at the expense of Iowa.

This just adds to woes of UNI, a fine and well-led school. It must spend millions a year subsidizing athletics -- or else drop athletics entirely -- because it gets little or no television or bowl money but still has the expenses of intercollegiate competition. With Iowans comprising 93 percent of its student body, it gets little out-of-state tuition -- out-of-state students by law must pay more than the cost of their education -- to subsidize the in-state students. And it has a small base for fund-raising. The Legislature should change the formula.

Politicization of regents is not a good thing

But most change does not need legislative approval. The regents and presidents simply need to take back the reins of governance from governors, legislators and, especially, faculty members who have grabbed many levers of control. You can't change things if you're not in charge, and the regents and the presidents aren't always in charge.

The faculty senate basically runs the University of Iowa, the faculty union has an outsize voice at the University of Northern Iowa, the Legislature has begun meddling too much, and the two most recent governors -- Democrat Chet Culver and Republican Terry Branstad -- have wanted a say in the governance that they are not entitled to under the law. This has led to a politicization of the board for the first time.

The power of the board is clear. It shall "make rules for admission to and for the government of said institutions, not inconsistent with law," the Iowa Code says, as well as "manage and control the property, both real and personal, belonging to the institutions." It also hires and fires presidents and officers of the schools, hires all employees, and sets all salaries. It's hard to imagine any board with broader powers.

But a couple of years ago the board allowed Culver and Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, to talk it into putting a partisan labor issue on the agenda -- a labor agreement for university construction -- and the result was a predictable 5-4 vote along party lines, the first time in memory there was a party-line vote on anything. (The regents can have no more than five members of any one party. At the time, there were five Democrats. Now, there are five Republicans, three Democrats and a no-party member.) Branstad was elected and badgered Dave Miles out of the board presidency. This meddling is a bad thing.

Yet none of these issues -- money, structure, leadership -- is unsolvable. A determined board, strong presidents, and a watchful but non-meddling legislature and governor can work together on a blueprint for success.

The goal is simple: make the universities as good as they think they are.

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