Externalities: Hawkeyes' Football, Obama's Safety

September 21, 2009, 5:50 a.m.

Externalities: Football; Murdoch and Obama's Safety
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)

externality -- an external effect, often unforeseen or unintended, accompanying a process or activity: to eliminate externalities such as air pollution through government regulation. Dictionary.com

Football's Externalities

If you live near the Kinnick Stadium you know that leaves are not the only things that fall on your yard in the fall.

(1) When I was a lad I was trained by my parents and other adults to deposit trash in receptacles -- and not just when they were close at hand. On wilderness hiking trips, the rule was "if you carry it in, you pack out the trash." I've never grasped the "drop-it-anywhere" philosophy, especially when trash cans are only seconds or minutes away. (The philosophy also applies, apparently, to dropping one's pants anywhere, notwithstanding the availability of port-a-johns within a block or two walk, as urination on private lawns continues to be a problem.)

(2) But that's not my complaint. Thank goodness for the bottle and can deposit law, and those who believe it's worth a nickel to bend over and pick up cans, put them in large trash bags, and bike or carry them to redemption centers. Those folks clean up much of my lawn between the sidewalk and the street.

At 3:00 a.m. I feel like the father in the Cheerios ad
whose kid is concerned about the father's heart condition and brings him a bowl of Cheerios at 6:00 a.m. The father responds, "That was very thoughtful of you. Very early, but very thoughtful." For I know I'll always start the day early on the Sunday mornings following the Saturday football afternoons when the street sweepers come rumbling down the street and back again at 3:00 a.m. That someone would be willing to get up even earlier than I in order to clean my street before dawn is also, "Very thoughtful. Very early, but very thoughtful." Besides, I've been fascinated with street sweeping equipment for most of my life.

(3) Indeed, if the bumblebees and their offspring would just drop their trash, I wouldn't like having to pick it up rather than their doing so, but it would at least be a relatively easy task and things would soon be back to normal. But they don't. They throw it in and under bushes. Maybe they think they're doing me a favor, so their trash won't be so visible on my yard. But they're not. They are necessitating my crawling under some rather uncomfortable growth to drag out goodness knows what.

This is a picture of what I found under one bush following one football game (yesterday). Because not even the can and bottle redeemers consider a nickel a worthwhile reward for such effort, it's left to me. Beer cans and bottles, cups, snack sacks, a condom -- thankfully unused, presumably by someone who doesn't yet know where they need to go to prevent pregnancy and STDs. (Research data and best practices advise that merely putting them on the ground, unopened, before you put down the blanket and lie down provides virtually no protection.) Also note that Budweiser's effort to sell even more beer to college students by using schools' colors on the beer cans is successfully proceeding apace, notwithstanding the UI's professed objections, if my sample of black and gold Bud is representative. [Photo credit: Me.]

Needless to say, I don't go around taking pictures at every football game, but if you're interested in more here are some on Picasa from a Kinnick neighborhood from a couple years ago. See -- and especially read the comments on -- Nicholas Johnson, "Hawkeye Football's Externalities," September 9, 2007.

And for a participant-observer's more detailed, but consistent and candid descriptions of football Saturdays in the Melrose neighborhood, see Michael Dale-Stein, "Quintessential Iowa Tradition," The Daily Iowan, September 21, 2009, p. 4A. For a blogger's comment about (disgust with) that DI column, see Dawn, "Growing Up Sober," For the Love of . . . Eloquence," September 21, 2009.

Rupert Murdoch's Externalities: President Obama's Safety

"Congress shall make . . . no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; . . .." So reads the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

"What part of 'no' do our judges not understand?" Justice Hugo Black, for whom I clerked, took the view that because the drafters knew how to use qualifiers, such as "unreasonable searches and seizures" in the Fourth Amendment, we should assume when they said "no law" they meant "no law."

When the FCC exacts substantial fines for relatively trivial "indecency" (which, unlike "obscenity," is constitutionally protected speech), when the post office sets postal rates for newspapers on the basis of the quantity of advertising they contain, when the airport security rules forbid humor near the metal detector machines, when corporations are required to put revelations in a stock prospectus they would rather keep to themselves, when the FTC finds advertising "false and misleading," when cigarette makers are required to tell potential customers that their product will kill them -- each constitutes an "abridgment" of speech the judges say is consistent with the "no law" prohibition.

Sometimes the judges just say the speech in question isn't "speech." Obscenity, defamation (until the Sullivan case), "fighting words," speech that might lead to "imminent lawless action," commercial speech (for the first half of the 20th Century), military secrets in time of war, and child pornography are simply defined as "non-speech" outside of the First Amendment's protection.

(To remove any possible ambiguity, I am not voicing objection to the ultimate result in these cases. I'm certainly not making the case for the social benefits of child pornography or, as in the next paragraph, visual depictions of animal cruelty. All I'm saying is that coming to these results as an interpretation of a constitutional provision that there shall be "no law" abridging free speech really does require three years in a law school.)

On October 6th the Supreme Court will consider adding another category of speech to this long list of exemptions: dog fight videos (under a 1999 federal law that forbids trafficking in “depictions of animal cruelty”). Adam Liptak, "A Free Speech Battle Arises From Videos of Fighting Dogs," New York Times, September 19, 2009, p. A1.

I recently came upon a letter from a citizen to Rupert Murdoch [Photo credit: Wikipedia.org], owner of the Fox broadcasting enterprise, in which she expresses her concern about the impact of Fox's programming on our nation, including the potential physical risk to our President from those

who actually believe President Obama is the equivalent of Adolph Hitler . . . someone to be feared. They get these ideas from your media organizations.

And it makes them dangerous and sick . . ..

[Y]ou are hurting people in our country, and I would like you and your stations to start showing some restraint before one of these individuals thinks they are doing the right thing by actually committing an act of violence.

For a more detailed documentation of similar serious concerns and their connection to the media, see Larry Keller, "The Second Wave; Evidence Grows of Far-Right Militia Resurgence," Intellegence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, Issue 135, Fall 2009, p. 30.

A part of what I omitted (the entire letter is reproduced below) is, "Maybe you have the right to do whatever you want . . .."

And indeed Murdoch does. Because hate speech -- especially political hate speech -- including that which reflects inaccurate sources of information, is protected speech under our courts' interpretations of the First Amendment. The Court may find that "animal cruelty" is outside the protection of the First Amendment. But depictions of, and incitement to, human cruelty are protected. Unless the "lawless action" from speech is "imminent" it's OK.

It was not always thus. In 1932 a court upheld the old Radio Commission (predecessor to the FCC in 1934) in its denial of a license renewal to Reverend Dr. Shuler of the Trinty Church in Los Angeles, licensee of station KGEF. Based on the record in the case it would seem that his speech was no more inaccurate, mean spirited and hateful than what passes for talk shows on Fox. The court, while upholding Shuler's First Amendment rights to hold and speak his views elsewhere, drew a distinction in terms of his right to use a station licensed to serve "the public interest" for such purposes. Judge Groner wrote:

[If broadcasters are permitted to] use these facilities, reaching out, as they do, from one corner of the country to the other, to obstruct the administration of justice, offend the religious susceptibilities of thousands, inspire political distrust and civic discord . . . and be answerable for slander only at the instance of the one offended, then this great science [of radio broadcasting], instead of a boon, will become a scourge, and the nation a theater for the display of individual passions and the collision of personal interests. This [restriction on a broadcaster's speech, in this case resulting in the Commission's refusal to renew Shuler's license] is neither censorship nor previous restraint, nor is it a whittling away of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, or an impairment of their free exercise.

Appellant may continue to indulge his strictures upon the characters of men in public office. He may just as freely as ever criticize religious practices of which he does not approve [which were Roman Catholicism].

He may even indulge private malice or personal slander -- subject, of course, to be required to answer for the abuse thereof -- but he may not, as we think, demand, of right, the continued use of an instrumentality of commerce for such purposes, or any other, except in subordination to all reasonable rules and regulations Congress, acting through the Commission, may prescribe.

Trinity Methodist Church, South v. Federal Radio Commission, 62 F.2d 850, 852-53 (C.A.D.C. 1932).

Suffice it to say, Trinity is no longer the law either at the FCC or among the judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit.

Rupert Murdoch, this Australian-born, 78-year-old media mogul, and 132nd richest person in the world, controls the News Corporation, which owns Fox. And today, unlike 1932, he can legally use his media to spew forth hatred-for-ratings of a sort that would have resulted in the loss of his licenses in the Commission's early days.

When I was an FCC commissioner, major media operations were owned and controlled by, and identified with, individual human beings. Bill Paley was the one to give the credit, or blame, for CBS' programming; as was David Sarnoff for NBC. Today, all too often, media corporations are run by hired hands (albeit very well compensated hired hands) and controlled by Wall Street.

But in the case of Fox we still have a person, Rupert Murdoch.

So in the absence of any prospect for action from Congress, the FCC, or the courts, Ms. Trish Nelson wrote directly to Rupert Murdoch:

Rupert Murdoch
Chairman and Chief Executive
News Corporation
1211 Avenue of Americas
8th Floor
New York NY 10036-8701

Dear Mr. Murdoch:

I am writing to you because I understand you own and control a large number of newspapers, television stations and other kinds of media outlets.

I have been sickened and saddened by the choices your news organizations have made to show, over and over, on TV, horrible, hate inspired images against President Obama, and people carrying signs with messages of violence.

You are taking advantage of a few sad, ignorant people, who don't know any better, because they believe Fox and people like Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly care about them and are telling them the truth. They don't understand that these people are just doing what they do because they are TV and radio personalities. The people in those crowds don't understand that they are being used, and that the ideas they are supporting are actually harmful to them. This is not right.

Do you do this for the money? How much money do you and yours need? Are you trying to start full-blown civil unrest so that you can make even more money?

Do you have any idea what it is like out here, having to live and work alongside people who are so horribly misinformed about how the world works? Who actually believe Obama was not born in this country, who actually believe in death panels, who actually believe President Obama is the equivalent of Adolph Hitler, and is someone to be feared? They get these ideas from your media organizations.

And it makes them dangerous and sick on an individual level.

Maybe you have the right to do whatever you want, but you are hurting people in our country, and I would like you and your stations to start showing some restraint before one of these individuals thinks they are doing the right thing by actually committing an act of violence.

Trish Nelson
Iowa City, Iowa

Murdoch's address is at the top of the letter. You might want to consider writing him, as I will -- making reference to Ms. Nelson's letter, or not, as you choose. Given our Constitution and courts -- and corporate control of Congress -- Murdoch is these days about the only power to which you can appeal.

Blog Entry Makes "Saturday Night Live"

A week ago I had a blog entry suggesting that Congressman Joe Wilson's shout out at President Obama during a Joint Session of Congress was the result of a prior plan among Republicans that they would all shout "You lie!" in chorus -- a chorus in which Wilson would ultimately become the only member. Nicholas Johnson, "Republicans' Practical Joke . . .; 'You lie!'" September 11, 2009.

Imagine my surprise when "Saturday Night Live" developed the idea into one of the show's openings.



["Update Thursday, Part I," Saturday Night Live Web site.]

You're welcome, SNL. Great job with the video! And special thanks to Jason Grubbe.
____________

* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson

# # #

Don't Buy Stuff

March 6, 2009, 7:45 a.m.

The Sure-Fire Solution to Economic Pain
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com* -- and Saturday Night Live, see below)
My Dad told the story of a Kansas farmer who was asked whether he believed in baptism. "Why of course I do," he said, "I've seen it done."

That's kind of how I am about credit. I've seen it done. And all about me I'm now watching the consequences of its having been done. And that's why I really don't believe in credit.

Mason Williams (the composer of "Classical Gas" and one-time head writer for the "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour") once wrote the story of the automobiles in his life, which he called his "Auto-biography."

In a similar spirit here is how I would describe my own "Auto-biography" of Nicholas Johnson.

My first car was a 20-year-old Model A Ford I bought from a local farmer for $25.

I paid cash.

My second car required saving money for a year as a college student. It was a much fancier Model A, with four doors and a roof, and therefore cost $75.

I paid cash.

Over the years the cars got grander and more expensive. A two-door Chevy ($700), a Volvo ($600), and a couple others along the way.

I paid cash.

My current vehicle is a 1978 VW camper van, one of my most expensive ever at $2000.

But I still paid cash.

Is this because I'm wealthy? No; quite the opposite. When offered job choices I've never simply picked the one that paid the most. I've chosen the ones that would offer the most interesting new experience, the most fun, or the greatest opportunity for public service -- one of which was serving on the local school board, a job I once described as providing "no money, but at least you get a lot of grief."

(Don't get me wrong, this is not a "pitty poor me" blog entry. I've been blessed at every turn in a life that could not have been better: my parents, growing up in Iowa City, the University's schools, from the two-year-old group at the Iowa Child Welfare Station on through University High School, a top flight public university undergraduate and law school education when tuition was $50 and a couple part-time jobs plus managing an apartment house were enough to get you by (compared with today's near-$50 thousand at private colleges, with the accompanying student loan debt), the lucky accidents of the U.S. Court of Appeals and Supreme Court clerkships, and three presidential appointments, and being able to return in my later years to my home town, live in the house where I grew up (on which the mortgage has long since been paid -- if indeed it was not purchased for cash), and welcomed into the UI College of Law, a three-block walk from home, where I live with a former high school classmate who is, for me, the perfect wife -- in addition to our wonderful children, grandchildren and now great-grandchildren. No; all I am saying is that I have, by choice, purchased cars for which I could afford to pay cash, rather than paying interest to a bank on a newer, more expensive one.)

No; I've paid cash because, in attempting to control living costs, the elimination of interest payments always seemed to me to involve the greatest returns for the least effort -- with the least pain.

I don't confess this as a badge of honor. I'm fully aware most Americans will ridicule my choices and think me a fool.

I merely mention it to give you some insight as to why I might be questioning the behavior and choices of those who propelled us into this global economic collapse -- and who now propose that the way out of the pit we're in is to go back to making more credit available, to recreate the economic structure and behavior that got us into this mess.

Why should every small business, home and automobile be owned in largest measure by a bank's shareholders? And for what? So we can have our stuff a few months before we'd have it if we saved first and then paid cash? Rented a few more years before buying a home? Drove a little older car?

Why should one of our largest expenses -- as taxpayers as well as consumers -- be the transfer of our hard-earned dollars (in the form of interest payments) to bankers and investors who have contributed neither goods nor services to our economy? Banks were getting "bailouts" from the federal government -- that is, you and me as taxpayers -- long before they brought down our economy. Do you know what one of (if not the) largest expenses of the federal government is? That's right, interest payments from you and me to those wealthy enough to loan their money to our government -- some $412 billion in the FY2008 budget! Federal Budget Spending and the National Debt. I'd say that's a pretty nice income for what Senator Bob Dole once described as "indoor work with no heavy lifting."

And our payments to those folks are only going to increase as our government continues its present "solution," this glide path to economic hell: getting us out of a economic mess created by credit and debt by taking on more credit and debt.



[Credit: "Don't Buy Stuff: The sure-fire way to get out of debt," NBC Saturday Night Live, Season 31, Episode 12, aired February 4, 2006, available from hulu.com.]

I don't expect anyone to agree with me. But I think Saturday Night Live had it right: "The sure-fire way to get out of debt"? "Don't buy stuff you can't afford."
__________
Related Blog Entries on Global Economy and Bailouts
Nicholas Johnson, "Who's The Reason?" September 5, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "How Much Do You Owe the Chinese?" September 6, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "Taxpayer Rescue," September 15, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "Global Finance: The Great Fountain Pen Robbery," September 21, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "Alternatives to 'The Plan,'" September 28, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "Better Alternatives to Congress' Bailout Plan," October 2, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "Can We Trust Our Bankers?" October 29, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "It's the Economy," November 7, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "Jobs, Not Unemployment, Key to Recovery," November 8, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "Trust Your Instincts, Auto Bailout's Terrible Idea," November 14, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "Auto Bailout: An Open Letter to Congress," November 19, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "A Trillion Here, a Trillion There," November 20, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "FromDC2Iowa's Weekend Edition," November 21, 2008 ("The Answer to Global Economic Collapse" and "Auto Bailout: 'Show Me the . . . Plan'")

Nicholas Johnson, "Citigroup Deal Stinks," November 25, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "Only Select Few Are Thankful for Trillions," November 27, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "Auto Loan Makes Too Few Dollars Even Less Sense," December 4, 2008

Nicholas Johnson,"Quick Fix for the Economy," December 12, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "You Know It's Serious When We Start Laughing," December 15, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "A Car in Every Garage," December 16, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "Forget Madoff, Focus on Bernanke," December 17, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "Of Theaters and Automobiles," December 20, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "There's Bad News and . . . and . . .," December 21, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "Et Tu, Toyota?" December 22, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "Revolting Developments," December 23, 2008

Nicholas Johnson, "First Things First," January 8, 2009

Nicholas Johnson, "Why We Should 'Point Fingers' and 'Look Backwards,'" January 13, 2009

Nicholas Johnson, "Fool Me Twice," January 14, 2009

Nicholas Johnson, "Economic Sorrows and Solutions," January 27, 2009

Nicholas Johnson, "No More for Wall Street!" February 1, 2009

Nicholas Johnson, "Hang Onto Your Wallet," February 5, 2009

Nicholas Johnson, "Quick Fix: Support Jobless, Not Bankers," February 7, 2009

Nicholas Johnson, "Geithner's Same Old, Same Old," February 10, 2009

Nicholas Johnson, "Terrorist Bankers," February 13, 2009

Nicholas Johnson, "Financial Crises for Dummies," February 17, 2009

Nicholas Johnson, "They're Back!!" February 20, 2009

Nicholas Johnson, "The Burden We Ought to Bear," February 23, 2009

Nicholas Johnson, "Candid Conservatism," February 27, 2009

Nicholas Johnson, "Bankers as Arsonists," March 3, 2009

Nicholas Johnson, "Don't Buy Stuff," March 6, 2009

_______________

* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson

# # #

More Awards, Understanding and Survival Skills

September 16, 2008, 10:15 a.m.

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Unprecedented: Two Consecutive "Hats Off" Awards to Press-Citizen

Yesterday's Press-Citizen editorial earned it a "Hats Off" journalism award -- in this case "civic journalism" in the best tradition of putting the interests of readers/taxpayers ahead of the interests of government subsidized businesses. Editorial, "Center to Open Without Public Assistance," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 15, 2008, p. A9. See Nicholas Johnson, "Taxpayer Rescue," September 15, 2008.

Today they've done it again: Editorial, "Lock up at night, but don't narrow Sheraton walkway," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 16, 2008, p. A9.

I don't know if anyone's put lipstick on the Sheraton, but it's sure had its snout in the trough more than once. It (and its predecessors) squatted down over Dubuque Street, promising to at least keep a walkway open. Now it wants to seize more of that City property for its own -- without paying taxpayers a dime -- while asking us to pick up at least half the cost of the remodeling necessary to complete this land grab.

Since neither the City nor the University is prepared to do anything meaningful to cut back on the downtown drunkenness, with all of the attendant consequences that predictably flow from our surfeit of bars and illegal sales to underage patrons, the hotel has also reasonably requested that it be permitted to close off the walkway after 11:00 p.m.

The common sense resolution? Permit the post-11:00 p.m. closure. Deny the narrowing of the walkway and the movement of taxpayers' money to the hotel's bottom line. That's what the Press-Citizen is proposing. Will the City Council have the courage to take this course? Watch this space and see.

Financial Crisis: How We Got Here, Where We're Going

There are lots of analyses. One I found especially useful is Louise Story and Edmund L. Andrews, "A Sense That Wall St.’s Boom Times Are Over," New York Times, September 15, 2008.

And there are significant lessons here for this year's presidential election, and regulation generally.

As I've often conceded, when it comes to servicing their major campaign contributors (big corporations and the wealthiest 1/2 of 1%) George Wallace was right: "there's not a dime's worth of difference" between Democrats and Republicans.

Having said that, the Republicans are both more comfortable, and skilled, at doing so. Democrats never have been very good at "Republican light."

President Reagan summed up the ideology: "government is not the solution; government is the problem." An unregulated market is the consumer's best friend. "Deregulation" and "re-regulation" are heralded as the rising tide that will lift all boats. "Get the government off our backs" -- unless it's about to put money in our pockets -- they say.

Well, in my view the consequences of unrestrained and unregulated greed and selfishness have left in their wake in our economy and society what Hurricane Ike left in its wake in Galveston.

This financial collapse is just one example. The collapse of coal mines on miners is another. The growing disparity between the wages of workers and those of CEOs is another. The examples are endless. Just look around.

I don't think either McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden are inclined or able to return our country to sanity with regard to business' excesses. I just think the Democrats will be marginally better, and that the margin is well worth our voting for.

As Story and Andrews report:

"During the Depression, Congress separated commercial banks, which take deposits and make loans, from investment banks, which underwrite and trade securities. The investment banks were allowed to do business with less oversight, while commercial banks operated with tighter supervision.

"But after Congress repealed those Depression-era laws in 1999, commercial banks began muscling in on Wall Street’s turf. As the new competition whittled down profit margins, investment banks used more of their capital to trade securities and also began developing financial derivatives to fuel profits."

On a lighter note . . .

. . . if you haven't yet seen the September 13 NBC "Saturday Night Live" routine that's all over the Internet, take five minutes to watch:



[Credit: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, NBC "Saturday Night Live" Source: http://entertainment.msn.com] With a whole lot of common sense, courage and a sense of humor we'll get through all this.