August 17, 2008, 11:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m.
Currently Most Popular Blog Entries
"Earthpark: 'Pretty Quiet Phase; No Timetable to Speak of,'" August 14, 2008.
"UI Sexual Assault Update," July 19-August 9, and related Web page, "University of Iowa Sexual Assault Controversy -- 2007-08," July 19-present.
"Media's Medicines," August 12, 2008.
"How to Build an Indoor Rain Forest," July 10, 2008.
"Georgia on My Mind," August 13, 2008.
"Police Accidental Shootings -- Of Themselves," May 9, 2008.
"Random Thoughts on Law School Rankings," April 29, 2008.
Forbes and Ferentz
Forbes magazine has been ranking colleges and universities -- and their football coaches. Forbes is no friend of the University of Iowa. It ranks the University 331 out of the 569 ranked schools. Hana R. Alberts, Michael Noer and David M. Ewalt, eds., "America's Best Colleges," Forbes, August 13, 2008, 6:00 p.m.
And while "We're Number One!" "We're Number One!" in at least one category, we'll probably want to consider postponing any public celebrations of the honor.
Forbes ran a kind of comparative benefit-cost analysis of what every college football coach is being paid, and what they are producing for the money. The University of Iowa came in number one in the nation for "most overpaid coach."
Peter J. Schwartz, "The Business Of College Football; The Best (And Worst) College Football Coaches For The Buck," Forbes, August 13, 2008, 6:00 p.m. ET ("But the best bargain was Ohio State’s Jim Tressel, who scored a 122. Tressel has led the Buckeyes to the last two national championship games (losing to Florida in 2007 and Louisiana State in 2008) and was paid $2.6 million last season, less than eight of his peers. . . . The most overpaid coach is Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz, who made $3.4 million last year despite lackluster results on the field, for a score of 71. Just how lopsided is Ferentz’s deal? During the last three years he’s pocketed $10 million, including a record $4.7 million in 2006, but has led the Hawkeyes to just a 19-18 record.").
If the Press-Citizen's Pat Harty is to be believed, it doesn't look all that much better for the 2008 football season. Pat Harty, "Lack of competition for starting jobs is alarming," Iowa City Press-Citizen, August 17, 2008, in this morning's paper as, "Offense Up in the Air; Lack of Desire is Alarming," p. B1.
Of Mural and Money
Fungibles -- whether bushels of graded corn or cars -- have cost, market price, and based on their potential use by the owner, a "value." Lose one, or break one, and you can just buy another. "It's only money."
Irreplaceable natural resources, such as petroleum, are thought to have a "value," and price, that are merely equivalent to the cost of removing and consuming them (plus profits) -- not the millions of years it will take to replace them, or the billions of dollars it will take to find replacements for a fossil-fuel-based economy. It's "use it and lose it."
Paintings, or a multi-generation family Bible, likewise, have a cost (materials and artist's time) and market price. But their "value" is something that exits separate and apart from the economist's realm.
And so it is with the UI's Jackson Pollock painting. See, Nicholas Johnson, "Selling the Pollock" in "Floodplains, Art and Celebrities' Affairs," August 9, 2008, and . . .
Editorial, "True value of Iowa's art? Priceless," Des Moines Register, August 17, 2008 ("'Mural' belongs to the people of Iowa - those alive today and future generations. It's one of Iowa's gems, the same way public land, artifacts, monuments and rare documents are pieces of this state's history. . . . Iowa leaders should recognize the value of these items and places - beyond what they could bring at an auction.").
Pamela White, "What's the value of 'Mural'? Irreplaceable," Iowa City Press-Citizen, August 16, 2008 ("Museums have stringent standards regarding when it is appropriate to sell artwork from their collections. Donors give their art to museums in trust so future generations may enjoy and learn from them, and it is the duty of the museum to honor the donor's intention and to ensure that the art remains in public, not private, hands.").
Performance and Poverty
Richard Doak, who has had a long and distinguished journalistic career, including as an editor and columnist, is in fact one of Iowa's best sources of thoughtfully creative public policy analyzes. This morning he lays out a persuasive case for increasing educational performance by decreasing poverty. Richard Doak, "Best reform in education? End poverty," Des Moines Register, August 17, 2008 ("Poverty in itself does not produce low student achievement, but the conditions of life for children in poverty are not conducive to learning. . . . In the richest country in the world, a certain level of poverty seems to be increasingly intractable, chronically pushing down the average on test scores, among other social pathologies.
Finland, South Korea, Canada, Japan and other countries that outperform the United States in education are not as wealthy as America, but their gaps between rich and poor are not as wide. The wealth they do have is more evenly distributed. So is their student achievement.
We might not want to talk about it, but one of the most serious problems in contemporary America is the deep and widening chasm between rich and poor. There is a segment of the population . . . who are at risk of becoming members of a permanent underclass . . . in which poor and undereducated parents beget poor and undereducated children. . . .
[P]oliticians find it convenient to blame the schools, bash teachers and demand non-solutions such as vouchers. The political right chants a mantra that is uttered like one word: thefailingpublicschools.
Wrong. It is not the public schools that are failing. It is the larger American culture and economy.").
Look Who's Running for President
Jason Clayworth, "Seven presidential candidates on ballot," Des Moines Register, August 16, 2008,
"Iowans will have seven presidential candidates to choose from when they go to the polls in November," and here they are:
"PRESIDENT: (In addition to Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama) Bob Barr, Wayne A. Root for the Libertarian Party; James Harris, Alyson Kennedy for the Socialist Workers Party; Gloria La Riva, Robert Moses for the Socialism and Liberation Party; Cynthia McKinney, Wendy Barth for the Green Party; Ralph Nader, Matt Gonzalez for the Peace and Freedom Party."
. . . Knock, knock. Who's there? Shmoo. Shmoo who?
A high school friend who has been staying at our home just gave me what I guess is what we used to call a "house gift." It's called a "shmoo" (spelled by some as "schmoo").
In case shmoon (the plural) are unfamiliar to you, permit me to quote a line from the Wikipedia lengthy entry: "A shmoo (plural shmoon, also shmoos) is a fictional cartoon creature. It first appeared in Al Capp's newspaper comic strip Li'l Abner, on August 31, 1948."
In short, the Shmoo is coming up on his or her 60th birthday.
The only reason I mention this gift at all, thereby risking your judgment that I have finally totally fallen off the ledge, is because the donor is curious to know how many of you out there have any memory of these creatures -- or in fact actually have one of your own. I think it is social science research of some kind. Feel free to attach your comments to this blog entry and I'll pass them along to him.
# # #
November 12, 2007, 12:15 p.m.
At Long Last: Johnson Disagrees with Doak
Newspaper-TV Mergers Are Not in Democracy's Best Interest
I've finally found a reason to disagree with Richard Doak about something.
There is no one in American journalism I admire more than this Register former editor and (actually continuing) columnist, who's now lecturing at Iowa State for some very lucky students. (I just wish he was here in Iowa City.)
Not just for months or years, but for decades, I have been agreeing with virtually everything he's written. In fact, I've urged him to put some of those columns in a book for those who care about Iowa and who might just build a future for Iowa based on his blueprints. (He's so far been too modest to do it.)
So it was with a sense of relief, of sorts, that I found myself disagreeing with his column last Sunday. Richard Doak, "Get best of modern media world — allow newspaper, TV ownership," Des Moines Register, November 11, 2007. It's probably not a good idea to agree with anybody all the time.
Doak's column advocates that we'd all be better off if media corporations were permitted to own both newspapers and television stations in the same town.
For years this kind of media concentration has been prohibited by the FCC even though it has, over the last 30 years, continued to erode more and more of the specific regulations that once defined the Congressional licensing standard: "public interest, convenience and necessity." Now the current industry-dominated agency is proposing to do away with the prohibition. Doak thinks it would be a good thing if it did.
In order to respond to his arguments I must first set out excerpts from them in his own words rather than my characterization of them. I will number what I believe to be a rough breakdown of the categories.
1. More news. "the sum of the news it ["a combined newspaper-television newsroom"] could deliver to readers-viewers would be greater than either part could deliver alone.
The television broadcasts at 6 and 10 p.m. could carry more news because the station's small staff would be augmented by the reporting power of the newspaper's large staff.
The newspaper could broaden its news gathering even more if its reporters didn't have to staff the same events being covered by the TV reporters."
2. Better Web Sites. "Best of all, a combined newspaper-television station could produce a killer Web site.
A local Web site that had both comprehensive text and compelling visual presentation would be unbeatable. A merged TV-newspaper newsroom could create a site everyone in town would automatically log onto first, not only for news but also for community information, entertainment, discussions, weather and links to databases and government agencies.
It would be a convenient, indispensable, one-stop source for text and visual information. Every community should have one.
American communities never will, however, unless the Federal Communications Commission allows 'cross ownership' of newspapers and television stations."
3. Limit numbers, not co-ownership. "Opponents of allowing cross ownership raise the fear of media being concentrated in too few hands. If that's the problem, the way to address it is by limiting the total number of stations a company may own, not by prohibiting the natural convergence of print and broadcast news in local communities."
4. Promote convergence. "Convergence is the right word. It used to be a theoretical concept. Now it's here. The lines are blurring between print and electronic media as they converge onto one platform, the Internet.
* * *
But newspaper staffs aren't great at visuals, and TV staffs aren't great at text. Combined staffs could be, and a lot of unnecessary duplication of assignments could be eliminated in the process."
5. Make media more Wal-Mart-like. "Requiring newspapers and local television stations to remain separate would be like requiring hardware to be sold only in hardware stores and clothing to be sold only in clothing stores, thus denying Wal-Mart the ability to sell both in its supercenters.
The time has come for supercenters of another kind."
6. Blogs eliminate information monopolies. "Another argument against cross ownership is that it would allow one company to monopolize the news in a community. That's an obsolete concept. In an age when anyone with a computer can launch a blog, an information monopoly is impossible.
Having an information supercenter in your community would leave plenty of room for boutique information shops around town."
7. What's good for general media is good for the country. "Of course, it's possible that the motives of FCC commissioners who want to allow cross ownership are not entirely pure. Perhaps they are succumbing to the blandishments of media moguls who want to expand their empires.
If so, it would be an instance of self-interest coinciding with the public interest. A strong merged newspaper-TV newsroom in a community would serve the public better than two weak separate operations, even if media companies made more profit in the deal."
Here's my response to each of these arguments in turn.
1. More news. The track record so far, as A.J. Liebling once observed (in his book, The Press), is that newspapers are like bars. Bars used to offer the "blue plate special" -- reduced price food with the drink. But as monopoly or oligopoly bars took the place of competition, the first thing to go was the blue plate special. Similarly, he observed, the first thing to go, following the merger of newspapers into a local newspaper monopoly, was the news.
There are significant differences between today's five major multi-media owners and the early notion of local ownership of what were then AM radio stations, "integration of ownership and management" as the FCC called it in picking the winners in comparative hearings, or as it was sometimes called, "mom-and-pop" owners.
As many have bemoaned, it is no longer enough that a chain-owned newspaper make a profit. It must make increasingly greater profits each year in order to convince Wall Street that its stock price should increase. Newspapers making 20% and more profit are cutting back on the number of journalists in their overseas and domestic bureaus and becoming even more responsive to the interests of their advertisers and the demographics they want to reach.
Television stations owned by media conglomerates are, if anything, even worse in terms of their solid news coverage, investigative reporting, and community service.
When newspapers, or stations, are locally owned they may still have conflicts of interest, and third-generation owners may be more committed to profit than journalism, but the community at least knows who they are. The owners feel some pressure from their neighbors, country club colleagues, and others in the community to provide a constructive service. Once public ownership takes the place of human ownership those restraints disappear. Many multi-media CEOs -- hired guns all -- probably couldn't even name for you all the properties their corporation owns.
In short, I just don't believe that permitting multi-media conglomerate corporations to own newspaper-television combinations within a given community is going to increase the quantity or quality of local news and public service. (And, although of lesser concern to me, a decline in the number of local media owners has also proven to be bad for local merchants and advertisers who, historically, have found themselves paying much higher advertising rates as media competition declines.)
2. Better Web sites. Doak argues that America "never will [have the "killer Web sites" he desires], however, unless the Federal Communications Commission allows 'cross ownership' of newspapers and television stations."
Virtually every media outlet in the country has a Web presence, from the New York Times and Washington Post, and all the major television networks, to The Daily Iowan -- and, not incidentally, Dick Doak's Des Moines Register. Many, like the Register, already combine online reproductions of their hard copy content with video and still picture features, blogs from their own reporters and other publication-certified bloggers, along with spirited contributions from readers in comment sections for each story and opinion piece. As if this was not enough, the Register also offers an "e-mail newsletter," "news text alerts," RSS feeds, and a new "mobile site" that can provide news on your cell phone. Want to know what's next? The Register is "redesigning" all of this and now offers it for inspection on a beta site.
It's hard to argue that none of this will be possible without a merger of a community's newspapers and television stations -- especially given what the Register is already doing.
Moreover, where there is co-ownership, such as with one of Iowa's few remaining locally owned newspapers and television stations -- The Gazette and KCRG-TV9 in Cedar Rapids -- the owner wisely maintains separate news staffs, and Web sites, for each rather than combining them into one. There are advantages, in terms of quantity and quality of coverage and maintenance of a little more competition, to not merging the two.
3. Limit numbers, not co-ownership. I agree that it would be advantageous to reduce the numbers of stations any one owner could control. I just don't think that has anything to do with the evils of joint ownership within a community.
Initially, as mentioned above, the notion was that an owner would just hold a license to one station. Over the years the limits were raised to what they were when I was an FCC commissioner during the 1960s and '70s: 7 AM stations, 7 FM, and 7 TV -- only 5 of which could be VHF stations. Today, with the continuing erosion of FCC standards, at one time Clear Channel held licenses to something like 1200 radio stations.
There are several, distinguishable, problems associated with media ownership. Conglomerate ownership (owning media and other kinds of businesses in the same market) can influence the owner's coverage of issues affecting its other businesses. Regional concentration can create an undesirable amount of political power in a single media owner. Increasing the number of media outlets a single licensee can control nationally increases its national political power and reduces the number of media voices. Multiple-media owners (those owning book publishing, movie studios, TV networks, cable systems and cable program providers, DVD sales and rental, newspapers and magazines) can use their market power to cross-promote products, unfairly compete, and raise the barriers to entry of new firms and the creative community.
Joint ownership within a community -- whether of newspapers and television, or just multiple radio stations -- is a distinct problem. Ultimately, the only persons with meaningful First Amendment rights are media owners.
There is a distinction between "matters of grace" and "matters of right."
A newspaper may decide to publish virtually all letters to the editor -- whether because doing so helps increase circulation, or as a community service -- as a "matter of grace." But no one has a legally enforceable right to have their letter published -- or their paid advertisement accepted for publication for that matter.
The Supreme Court has ruled, in effect, that with a newspaper's First Amendment right to speak, to publish, goes its First Amendment right to censor all others from publishing in that paper.
Thus, as a practical matter, the fewer media owners in a community, the smaller is the likelihood that there will be a diversity of voices, a competition among those with the potential to do investigative reporting and to stand up to powerful advertisers.
At a minimum, local concentration of media ownership is a different issue, with different risks and compromises, than the issues surrounding the total number of media outlets nationally owned by any single licensee.
4. Promote convergence. Convergence is already here, as my description of the Register's Web site, above, illustrates: newspaper copy created with printer's ink and newsprint and also on computer screens, delivery by newspaper carriers and also by cell phones, bloggers commenting about newspapers' stories and newspapers providing outlets for bloggers.
Convergence has, and will continue to, occur regardless of ownership patterns -- though there will be more of it if the FCC fails to approve the newspaper-TV station merger proposal.
Doak argues that co-ownership will prevent the "unnecessary duplication of assignments" that exists today when a television crew and a newspaper reporter are both sent to cover the same story. But it's that "unnecessary duplication of assignments" that is an "essential duplication of assignments" if we are to maintain a distinction between our media and the Soviet-style single voice that is the preference of dictators.
It is that "duplication" that makes for a marketplace for any product. When it comes to news, it's all that makes possible a "marketplace of ideas."
5. Make media more Wal-Mart-like. Doak writes: "Requiring newspapers and local television stations to remain separate would be like requiring hardware to be sold only in hardware stores and clothing to be sold only in clothing stores, thus denying Wal-Mart the ability to sell both in its supercenters.
The time has come for supercenters of another kind."
I suspect there are a good number of Iowans who are already questioning the supercenters represented by Wal-Mart, let alone "supercenters of another kind." This was probably not Doak's best choice of analogy.
In the context of the news business, "hardware" and "clothing" are more like "sports news" and "city council news." The issue is not whether there should, or should not, be separate sources of each variety of news. The issue is whether their combinations in "supercenters" (called "newspapers" and "television stations") should be combined and then controlled by corporations with the power, and consequences, of a Wal-Mart supercenter's impact on local merchants or whether more, and smaller, locally owned "supercenters" would better serve the needs of citizens in a self-governing democracy.
6. Blogs eliminate information monopolies. Doak says, "Another argument against cross ownership is that it would allow one company to monopolize the news in a community. That's an obsolete concept. In an age when anyone with a computer can launch a blog, an information monopoly is impossible."
That fewer media outlets, and owners, reduce diversity in sources of news is far from an "obsolete concept." And to say that because "anyone with a computer can launch a blog, an information monopoly is impossible" would be laughable if it were not presented as a serious argument.
The Los Angeles Times is the dominant newspaper in what is about an 8000 square mile area with a population, and readership, in the millions. Anyone in the LA basin who disagrees with a position the paper has taken, and who is excluded from the paper's pages, has the option of going to a commercial copy center, running off millions of copies of an 8-1/2 x 11 flyer, and delivering them to every home in LA. Could anyone seriously argue that this option makes the LA Times any less of a dominant information source? (That it is not technically a "monopoly" -- either with or without the availability of blogs -- is really irrelevant to the point that it is clearly disproportionately influential when it comes to LA news and opinion.)
The same goes for blogs. As a blogger myself, I can assure you of that.
7. What's good for general media is good for the country. Doak argues: "Of course, it's possible that the motives of FCC commissioners who want to allow cross ownership are not entirely pure. Perhaps they are succumbing to the blandishments of media moguls who want to expand their empires.
If so, it would be an instance of self-interest coinciding with the public interest. A strong merged newspaper-TV newsroom in a community would serve the public better than two weak separate operations, even if media companies made more profit in the deal."
Doak has it right when he suggests that FCC commissioners are "succumbing to the blandishments of media moguls who what to expand their empires." But I believe he is dead wrong when he argues that "A strong merged newspaper-TV newsroom in a community would serve the public better than two weak separate operations, even if media companies made more profit in the deal" -- for all the reasons I've set forth above. It is precisely the financial community's pressure for the merged, publicly-held company to make "more profit in the deal" (made easier by the elimination of competition) that results in the problem.
Given the media moguls' adoption of the kind of arguments that Doak puts forth, the unwillingness of either members of Congress or of the FCC to argue back, or otherwise stand up to these firms, their lawyers, lobbyists and campaign contributions, and the expected failure of the mainstream mass media to present the issues to the public, it is likely this outrageous change in policy will probably come to pass.
But one cannot help but hear the voice of the ghost of Congressman Luther Johnson calling to us from the 1920s, when Congress was both more courageous and prescient, and reminding us of his warning from the floor of the House:
American thought and American politics will be largely at the mercy of those who operate these stations. For publicity is the most powerful weapon that can be wielded in a Republic, and when such a weapon is placed in the hands of one, or a single selfish group is permitted to either tacitly or otherwise acquire ownership and dominate these broadcasting stations throughout the country, then woe be to those who dare to differ with them. It will be impossible to compete with them in reaching the ears of the American people."
67 Cong. Rec. 5558 (1926).
Woe be to us, indeed.
# # #
September 25, 2007, 3:15 p.m.
The Good News and the Bad News
Last Sunday, September 23, brought both good news and bad news.
Oh, you want the bad news first? OK.
"Revenue is needed" has reared its ugly head again in academia. It's the basis for one of the best investigative stories in any of the Iowa papers since this blog began 16 months ago. More -- actually much more -- on this story further down in this blog entry.
The Good News
. . . Shaner Magalhaes: MBAs, They're Not Just in For-Profits Anymore. The first good news story is selected because it illustrates (a) the application of MBA skills to non-profits, and (b) the selection of employment on the basis of doing what you love rather than what will pay the maximum income.
The Johnson County Historical Society has a new Executive Director. His name is Shaner Magalhaes. That's a story for the reasons it's important to him and his family, and those who support or otherwise care about the Historical Society -- and that the local papers found worth prominent mention. Rachel Gallegos, "Mixing Business with History," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 23, 2007, p. A1; Emily Heiden, "All Work and All Play; New Historical Society Director Brings Wealth of Experience to the Job," the Gazette, September 23, 2007, p. J3.
I'm not disinterested in such factors. But it's not why I select this story as an example of "Good News."
It's because I've long advocated to public interest organizations and other non-profits on the one hand, and business students and business colleges on the other, that they get to know each other better. Non-profits need what MBAs have to offer. They're different from for-profits, of course, but both have far more in common than what differentiates them. Both need business plans, human resources, governance models, budgets and accounting, management information reporting systems, insurance, and so forth.
The late Molly Ivins once wrote about Texans for whom "too much is not enough." How many college graduates -- and not just MBAs -- select jobs on the basis of pay alone, or what they will "be" rather than what they will "do," without regard to what they're best at, most enjoy doing and gives them the most satisfaction?
Like the medical student who decides to specialize in "diseases of the rich," it's not uncommon for individuals to choose professional specializations that will permit them to bill the wealthiest Americans at the highest rates. This option is particularly difficult to resist among the MBAs who are offered jobs in the financial community that may ultimately pay millions of dollars a year.
It takes awhile, but many find that the old adage about money not buying happiness is true -- and that it is not necessary to have "too much" in order to have "enough" -- as they try to figure out where life went wrong. And so I've encouraged those with an aptitude for organizing and running institutions to think about the advantages of jobs with non-profits: looking forward to going to work every morning, an ability to sleep soundly at night -- and usually a salary that provides "enough."
As Magalhaes is quoted as saying, "My wife and I love this area. I really love history. I really believe in what the State Historical Society is doing. . . . I thought this would be a great thing to do."
The next Magalhaes story, a year from now, should be: "so what?" What difference did it make for the Johnson County Historical Society? Under the "but for" test, how different did it become from what it would have been without an MBA running it? Did he apply the John Carver -- or other -- approach to the activities of the board, and its relations with the CEO? Was there a better focus to the organization's day-to-day activities as a result of the board's equivalent of Carver's measurable "ends policies"?
Hopefully we'll get the answers to those kinds of questions a year from now if Gallegos and the Press-Citizen will do that interesting follow-up story.
Meanwhile, Sunday's story contains two lessons I consider "good news."
. . . Lonny Pulkrabek: Thinking Outside the Jail Cell. Rachel Gallegos has another story in last Sunday's (September 23) paper that is, by my standards, good news because it illustrates the possibilities when research, analysis and rational thought are brought to bear by public officials in the formulation and execution of public policy.
As with the Shaner Magalhaes story, the Pulkrabek story is also one that is, among other things, important to him and his family, and those who support or otherwise care about the Johnson County Sheriff's office and the current sheriff and his re-election. That's primarily (I'm guessing) why the Press-Citizen assigned a good reporter to write it. Rachel Gallegos, "Pulkrabek announces bid for re-election; Says he has some unfinished business," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 23, 2007, p. A3.
Those aspects of the story are also of interest to me. But the reason it came to my attention as "good news" is for what it reports of his creative thinking about crime and punishment.
The story reports one supporter as emphasizing "Pulkrabek's role in creating more solutions for working with people with substance abuse problems, rather than just locking them in jail," and continues, "If re-elected, Pulkrabek said he wants to see through the work on a joint dispatch center and continue tracking the jail alternative programs that have been implemented in the past three years, especially the mental health diversion program."
I wrote an op ed in the Press-Citizen a year ago, when he was under attack for such innovative ideas, suggesting that we need to encourage, rather than attack, that kind of thinking by public officials. Nicholas Johnson, "Shooting Our Messengers," Iowa City Press-Citizen, March 3, 2006.
(Not incidentally, this story shares something more with the Magalhaes story than the existence of "good news." Pulkrabek also enjoys what he's doing: "it is a job," Gallegos reports, "that he 'really, truly enjoys. I've just really enjoyed doing it.'")
I'm not writing about the merits -- either of any of Pulkrabek's proposals or, indeed, the whole of his performance in office. That's not the point of this blog entry. Frankly, I don't know the details of Pulkrabek's day-to-day performance in office, and it's not my area of expertise. I see by the story that he's still pushing a "new and larger" jail. Are there more alternatives that could still be pursued, or has he truly exhausted all of them? I don't know.
What I do know is that we have altogether too much "shoot from the lip" in public policy discussions and political decisions. Some officials who are quite willing to invest three days in a conference -- 72 hours away from the office -- are "too busy" to spend 72 minutes researching a local issue on the Internet.
As is often said, "We have more problems than we deserve and more solutions than we have ever tried."
It is highly unlikely that there is any challenge confronting our County, City, University or School Board (among other institutions) that has not existed elsewhere -- existed, been identified, researched, resolved, with the solution implemented, written up, and made available for us to read (at no cost for "consultants") on the Internet.
Whether it's the creation and preservation of Eastern Iowa's green spaces, deciding on the most appropriate number of Iowa City police officers (a "peak-load" analysis, among other things), the arming of campus police, students' binge drinking, the most appropriate way to help those children who have been "left behind" in our School District, for the City of Iowa City to deal with economic development, or alternatives to the ever-escalating building of "newer and larger" prisons as a national response to the "crimes" of mental illness and substance abuse -- there are answers out there.
Lonny Pulkrabek has found a couple of them. And that's why this story was, for me, an example of "good news."
. . . Richard Doak: Almost Always Good News. The Des Moines Register's Richard Doak, former editorial page editor and continuing columnist, sort of combines both of the two prior elements of "good news" -- he clearly loves his work, and he's committed to research and innovative thinking. So I just selected the latest in his life's work of columns: Richard Doak, "Iowa Isn't Enough; Sell the Best Region in the Nation: The Midwest," Des Moines Register, September 23, 2007.
This time, in addition to the suggestion in the title -- that we should emphasize promotion of the "Midwest" rather than going it alone as "Iowa" -- he also reminds us once again of Richard Florida's advice:
Florida recognized the emergence of a new driving force in economic growth, "the creative class."
This new class is made up of people who make their livings by thinking, creating, innovating and independent problem solving - people such as engineers, scientists, designers, architects, educators, artists, musicians, writers and others.
. . .
Florida's great discovery was that economic growth occurs in regions that are most inviting to creative people. That's what revolutionized thinking about economic development.
The old model of development was that you create jobs and the people will follow.
The new model is that you attract creative people and the jobs will follow.
. . .
Iowa has not entirely embraced the new thinking. There's still a strong element of bribe-the-companies-and-they-will-come in the state's development strategies.
Nevertheless, Iowa communities increasingly seem to realize that their best hope for growth is to become the kinds of places that creative-class people would find attractive.
. . .
The smart thing to do would be to take all the money wasted on business incentives and plow it into education and quality-of-life improvements. . . .
Doak is right. "Money can't buy love," and bribing businesses can't buy economic growth. The good news is that Iowa can have both: economic growth and improved quality of life. Indeed, that's the only way we can have either.
The Bad News
I may not have seen it all, but I've seen much of it in my lifetime.
And yet even I was simply not prepared for the page-one story in last Sunday's Des Moines Register. Clark Kauffman, "U of I, Iowa State use student data to sell credit cards," Des Moines Register, September 23, 2007, p. A1. (You might also want to take at look at the 42 comments -- as of the afternoon of September 25 -- entered by readers of the story, most of whom, it turns out, responded as I did.)
(To remind: Last week was also when UI professors were told they could no longer refer to students by name in class out of respect for the students' privacy, and the laws and regulations protecting it. (The suggestion was subsequently rescinded.) Now it appears the UI thinks it's perfectly appropriate to sell students' personal information -- and that of their parents -- to banks for the purpose of marketing credit cards!)
As I have written before, "Once 'revenue is needed' is the Polestar for a university's financial decisions its moral compass begins to spin as if it was located on the North Pole." Nicholas Johnson, "UI Loves Gambling" in "UI Held Hostage Day 410 - March 7," March 7, 2007.
"Revenue is needed" is why politicians accept the bribes called "campaign contributions;" why "non-commercial" educational radio stations run commercials; why K-12 schools subscribed to "Channel One" and continue to sell sugared soft drinks to their students, knowing they will increase obesity, dental caries, and diabetes; why the UI's athletic program becomes a partner with the organized gambling industry's casino in Riverside; and why universities provide advertising on their buildings, and in naming their colleges, that promotes their corporate "donors."
But the Regents' universities have really set their moral compass to spinning with this one.
You have to read the full 2300-word Register-copyrighted story to become totally outraged, but these fair use excerpts will get you started:
Iowa's two largest public universities are aggressively marketing credit cards to their students as part of an arrangement that generates millions of dollars for the schools' privately run alumni organizations.
Publicly, the University of Iowa and Iowa State University have expressed concern over the debt of their students, many of whom graduate with $25,000 to $30,000 in bills to pay. The schools say they are trying to reduce that debt load.
At the same time, however, the two schools have signed deals with their alumni associations in which they have agreed to endorse, promote and profit from Bank of America credit cards marketed directly to students.
Records obtained by The Des Moines Register also show that the U of I has agreed to give the bank access to databases that include the mailing addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of students, parents and people who buy tickets to Hawkeye football and basketball games. The university has also promised to provide its biggest-spending cardholders with exclusive access to university facilities, coaches and even student athletes.
. . .
In Iowa and most other states, the financial details of those partnerships are often shrouded in secrecy, despite the involvement of public universities that rely on taxpayers to provide a substantial portion of their operating revenues.
. . .
Consumer advocates . . . contend the schools are also facilitating on-campus marketing aimed directly at students who have limited income and are struggling with debt from student loans. They say public assets are being used to enrich corporate lenders . . ..
. . .
U of I alumni officials declined to say how much they are paid through their arrangement with Bank of America. Also, the bank declined to comment on its partnerships with Iowa schools.
But federal records show the University of Iowa Alumni Association was collecting $550,000 per year from MBNA, now Bank of America, through 2005.
Under the terms of the association's newest contract with the bank, the school is guaranteed at least $200,000 per year - all of which is to go to the athletics department.
. . .
Chris Bavolack, vice president of the U of I alumni association, declined to comment on the revenue-sharing deal that results in the association collecting additional money as cardholders' debt loads increase. . . .
The sales pitch that arrives in students' mailboxes in Iowa City is written on alumni association letterhead that includes the trademarked logo of the U of I.
The letter is signed by Vince Nelson, president of the U of I Alumni Association.
It begins: "Imagine the convenience of being able to purchase supplies for your classes without worrying about carrying a lot of cash. You could pay for your books - or get quick cash in an emergency - and put it on one easy-to-use account. That's the kind of flexibility every student can appreciate and it can be yours with the University of Iowa credit card."
Nelson's pitch also includes this postscript: "Bank of America helps support the University of Iowa with every account opened, and for every purchase made with the card. All at no additional cost to you."
[T]he alumni association . . . has signed a contract with the school committing the university to "creatively and aggressively" marketing the Bank of America card.
As part of that agreement with the association, the university has promised to provide Bank of America with lists of all people who purchase season or single tickets to athletic events - a list that would include students, parents and other supporters [as well as] for Bank of America's use, electronic lists containing the phone numbers, e-mail addresses and mailing addresses of students and their parents . . ..
In return for every new account opened as a result of the university's sales pitches, the school collects $50.
The agreement obligates the university to help sell the credit cards through public-address announcements during games at Kinnick Stadium and Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Card applications are mailed to buyers of sporting-event tickets, and the cards are promoted in advertisements during the coaches' weekly TV shows.
. . .
The [Iowa State] athletics department agreed to exclusively endorse the credit card program at athletic events and agreed to give the bank, free of charge, the names and contact information of season- and single-game-ticket holders.
. . . The company could set up booths and tables [at athletic events] to sign up cardholders at football and basketball games. To help with the "Charge it to Cy" campaign, the school authorized the bank to give T-shirts, hats and bobbleheads as gifts to new card applicants.
. . .
Robert Manning, a professor of consumer finance at the Rochester Institute of Technology, has testified before Congress [that] such programs increase the likelihood of students failing to complete school. He faults school administrators for having a "greater interest in increasing credit card royalties than in fulfilling their responsibility to ensure the graduation of their students with the lowest possible level of financial debt."
Using a credit card to pay for textbooks and class supplies can be risky, too. The U of I card offered to students has an interest rate that can balloon to 29.99 percent in the event of a single late payment. . . .
Governor Bill Richardson says he has been nominated four times for the Nobel Peace Prize. Well, I think this story of Clark Kauffman's should be nominated at least four times for a Pulitzer Prize.
It's eligible for any one of the first five (of fourteen) categories "for excellence in journalism work."
This is the kind of "investigative reporting" that serves to remind us of what newspapers used to be and should continue to be today.
That's the "good news."
The bad news is what he found, and needed to report.
What a sad commentary on what happens "Once 'revenue is needed' is the Polestar for a university's financial decisions."
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August 19, 2007, 7:40 a.m.
Our Constitutional Responsibility
There are three pieces in this morning's Des Moines Register, and reference to a fourth, that prompt me to belatedly speak out on the controversial issue of the "i word" -- impeachment.
Let me make clear that I think it's a perversion of the Constitution to encourage the impeachment of a president because you don't like him or her, or just because you want to hurt the opposing party. And I understand Speaker Nancy Pelosi's desire to avoid appearing petulant, and merely seeking revenge for the Republicans' effort to impeach President Bill Clinton, in her declaration that impeachment is "off the table." (I suspect it may also reflect a bit of vote counting on her part.)
Nor do I think a formal impeachment proceeding is absolutely necessary as the only way for American citizens and their representatives to "preserve, protect and defend" their Constitution (a part of the president's (and other officials') oath upon being sworn in). U.S. Constitution, Art. II, Sec. 1.
Although it may be relevant in this connection to note that the American Research Group's July 5 poll reports roughly 50% of Americans want Bush and Cheney impeached (45% Bush; 54% Cheney. Even registered Republicans support impeachment by 13% Bush, 17% Cheney.)
What I do think is that, at a minimum, the equivalent of articles of impeachment need to be drawn up with regard to what President George Bush, and Vice President Dick Cheney have done, detailing each of the extensions of executive power and restrictions on citizens' constitutional protections. Our representatives owe us at least that much: a resolution detailing, opposing, rejecting and expressing their combined view that much of what the President and Vice President have been doing is, in the judgment of Congress, a violation of the civil rights of citizens and the separation of powers of the three branches of government.
Obviously, regardless of what Congress does it is too late to reverse much of what this Administration has already done. Therefore, the purpose of this bill of particulars is not so much to restrain a Republican president as to make sure the next president -- which has a good likelihood of being a Democrat -- and his or her successor presidents are not permitted to simply continue the practices that are now in place.
These concerns, and this analysis, is not original with me. It is gaining momentum throughout the country -- as is borne out by the fact that one newspaper, in one state, on one day contains three opinion pieces, with a reference to a fourth, on the theme:
Richard Doak, "Daok: Who will defend Constitution? That should be presidential litmus test," Des Moines Register, August 19, 2007, p. OP1.
William Stosine, "America's Biggest Threat Comes from Within," Des Moines Register, August 19, 2007, p. OP2 -- with reference to similar theme in writings of Republican Paul Craig Roberts. (Roberts formerly served as President Reagan's undersecretary of treasury and associate editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal.) Roberts contends "The American constitutional system is near to being overthrown."
For the full text of Roberts' remarks see, Paul Craig Roberts, "Impeach Bush and Cheney Now," Online Journal, August 17, 2007.
Although Bruce Fein is not represented in this morning's Register, he can also be added to the list of conservatives calling for impeachment. He was at the top of President Reagan's Department of Justice, has been affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, and writes for the Washington Times. He recently laid out his own "articles of impeachment" on "Bill Moyers Journal," July 13, 2007 (includes links to background material, video, and transcript).
Lance Dickie, "Civil Liberties Assaulted," Des Moines Register, August 19, 2007, p. OP6; not available on the Register's Web site, but available as Lance Dickie, "A Scary Assault on Civil Liberties," Seattle Times, August 10, 2007. (Dickie is a Seattle Times editorial columnist. )
The Register Also Editorially Endorses Universal, Single Payer
As the health care debate rages on, it becomes ever clearer that the kind of universal, single-payer system advocated in Michael Moore's "Sicko" and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich's proposed legislation, is the only real, long term solution to our capitalist, profit-maximizing, benefit-minimizing, world's number 1 (in costs) and 42nd (in life expectancy and infant mortality) "health insurance" (not "health care") system. This morning's editorial faults the candidates for their weak-kneed, fuzzy, insurance/pharma-capitulating proposals, and seems to advocate the universal, single-payer approach. Editorial, "In search of vision on health care; Presidential candidates talk about it, but their plans fall short," Des Moines Register, August 19, 2007, p. OP1.
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A high school friend who has been staying at our home just gave me what I guess is what we used to call a "house gift." It's called a "shmoo" (spelled by some as "schmoo").
