September 13, 2007, 7:45 a.m.
Serious Reflections on "Football's Externalities"
We had some good-natured fun with pictures of the morning after the night before (the Syracuse game last Saturday). Nicholas Johnson, "Hawkeye Football's Externalities," September 9, 2007.
This morning I'd like to add a serious comment or two.
One of the things we try to train our law students to do is referred to as "spotting the issue." It's a skill involving detailed analysis, a pulling on the threads of analytically different considerations out of a fabric that might otherwise produce an overall, and muddled, general impression.
That's what I'd like to do this morning in writing about the chaos of drunken pre-game crowds.
I'm speaking only for myself, not my neighbors or our neighborhood association.
But there is much about Hawkeye football -- including the crowds of "bumble bees" -- that provides for me something between real enjoyment and "no problem." It's colorful. It's exciting. We enjoy talking to the sober students and visitors from out of town walking by our house, or who we encounter as we stroll along Melrose Avenue in a sea of black and gold. If we don't go to the games, and they are televised, we are close enough to hear the roar of the crowd from Kinnick following a Hawkeye accomplishment on the field.
We don't park cars on our lawn (except on rare occasions, for free, for some out-of-town friend). We don't have students living in the house. We don't "tailgate," or have others doing it, on our property. The largest parking operation near our house involves what may even be an alcohol-free crowd. I don't know. There's tailgating there, but not that much noise and seemingly little or no litter afterwards.
Disaster waiting to happen. To start with my conclusion, the most serious aspect of out-of-control, unsupervised, drunken mobs is their potential to create significant, regrettable disasters. You name it, you imagine it, it could happen. Fights between fans of rival teams that involve increasing numbers of people, and the resulting serious injuries or death as guns or knives are ultimately involved. When a drunken student suffocates to death on his own vomit, or falls from a building to his death (it's usually a "his"), it may make the news. The hundreds of injuries from assaults and accidents do not. We've seen the extent of injury and death from drunken, out-of-control mobs of soccer fans around the world. It could happen here. Excessive alcohol can encourage deliberate vandalism and property damage, possibly even involving accidental or deliberate fire damage. Neighborhood homes that are unoccupied (perhaps because their residents are sitting in the stadium) are open targets for every property crime on the books.
That's the problem. In fact, any other issues, or problems, really fade in significance by comparison.
Trash and urination. The trash that's left lying about the neighborhoods and parking lots after a game is of greatest significance simply as evidence of the excessive alcohol consumption that fueled such behavior -- and the risks it creates that are alluded to above.
The most serious element of trash qua trash is the broken glass -- which I have witnessed being created by drunken students throwing bottles in the air just to watch them crash on the pavement. Broken glass can cause human and animal injury. It can puncture bicycle and automobile tires (as I have experienced). It is sometimes hard to see, and is always difficult to completely remove -- ironically even more so if someone, thinking they're being helpful, moves it off of a sidewalk and into the adjoining lawn.
Aside from that, what's the harm? Well, there is some. (a) It reflects badly on the students, the University (and athletic program) administrators, and the City. It's not consistent with our self-image -- or what we advertise to the world. It doesn't encourage parents to send their kids here (thereby risking our increased revenue from tuition.) (b) It's far more expensive to deal with than if folks picked up after themselves. (c) It shows disrespect to the private homeowners (by City, University and polluters alike) who have to clean their yards.
In my case, it just means I have to get down on my hands and knees to crawl under hedges to collect the trash that has been thrown under them, rather than just dropped where I could more easily pick it up. I can probably benefit from that exercise, and it doesn't take all that long.
Public urination is a little more gross and disrespectful than leaving trash. But until it gets to smelling really bad it probably doesn't do the lawn all that much harm -- it may even provide a fertilizing benefit -- and will be pretty well diluted after we get the next good rain.
With some exceptions, most of the trash has been picked up -- by someone -- within 24 hours after a game. (In fact, heavy street sweeper equipment was going up and down the street outside my house at 2:30 or 3:00 Sunday morning. Like the Cheerios commercial line used to have it: "That was very thoughtful. Very early, but very thoughtful.") So aside from the broken glass it's more of a University embarrassment, visual blight and irritant than a truly serious problem.
Noise. Some complain of noise from the crowds. I complain about shouting, loud music, firecrackers (or is it gun shots?), screeching car tires and roaring motorcycles at 3:00 in the morning. Aside from that, it doesn't bother me all that much -- especially when it's a roar from Kinnick following a Hawk's touchdown. It's all part of "game day."
So what's the answer? President Lyndon Johnson was sometimes a little hard on his staff. I finally stopped counting the number of times he fired Bill Moyers, only to hire him back again later in the day. Anyhow, a story is told -- it may be true, it may be only apocryphal -- about a disgruntled speech writer charged with writing one more set of "rose garden pap" notes on speech cards for the President to use for one of those rose garden gatherings just outside his office. The cards went something like this:
"Now I've been asked about 'guns and butter.'
"Folks want to know how we can pay for the War in Vietnam and still pay for our 'Great Society' programs.
"'Guns and butter.'
"Well, we can pay for both.
"And I'm going to tell you, today, exactly how we're going to do it, too."
When the President turned to the next card it read, simply:
"Now you're on your own, you old SOB. I quit."
All of which is by way of saying, I don't have any more of an answer than that young speech writer had.
And I don't have the time at the moment to sit and brainstorm by myself what some of the options might be.
I'm just "spotting the issue." And I think I've found it. I think we do have a problem. A very, very serious potential problem in the form of a disaster waiting to happen.
I just don't think it's that empty beer can almost out of my reach under my hedge.
# # #
September 12, 2007, 12:10 p.m.
"A TIF-kit's a Basket, With Money for the Askin'"
"Hello, I'm Johnny-with-your-Cash,"
(With credit to, and apologies for mangling, Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues.")
I see that TIF a comin'
Comin' down the track
No one seems to care much
And it ain't turnin' back
That engine looks so funny
We used to feed 'em coal
Now they burn our money
With wealthy on the dole
Their golden rule's a changin'
Our Council thinks we're fools:
"Those that have the gold, boys,
Are those who make our rules"
"So shut up and pay your taxes,
And don't forget to vote.
The rising tide's that's coming,
Will lift our leaking boat"
Yes, folks, it's TIF time in Iowa City once again; a time to sing, dance, drink and celebrate.
TIFs, which our City Council candidates think are one of the best ways to divert what would otherwise be general property taxes for the benefit of all of us into grants to individual wealthy business persons, were originally designed to help the poor, build low income housing, and fix up blighted areas. They didn't make much sense then (if it's a worthy public project let the City own it, as long as the City's paying for it), and they make even less as a "rob the poor and give to the rich" scheme.
The next TIF coming down the railroaded track in Iowa City is designed to help that underpriviledged, economically depressed sub-group in our local population we call medical doctors! Hieu Pham, "City considers TIF for surgical center; If OK'd, would get tax rebates from '01 to '13," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 12, 2007, p. A3.
How much? $600,000. The doctors' executive director says, "We're excited about it." Yeah, I expect they are. Wouldn't you be excited if someone would agree to pick up $600,000 of your property, or income, tax bill?
Don't get me wrong. I'm alive because of doctors. I like doctors. "Some of my best friends are doctors." Doctors are brighter than the rest of us, well-traveled, good writers (with the exception of their handwriting on prescriptions), great story tellers, good musicians -- and many really are compassionate conservatives (especially pediatricians).
Moreover, I actually like their idea. It has merit. I just think that the risks associated with whether it has economic merit ought to be theirs rather than mine -- especially since they haven't proposed to share the profits with me if it succeeds.
What's next, a taxpayer-funded private dental clinic? The dentists have already trained us to believe that we should put our money where our mouth is. So why not our tax money as well?
You sure can't blame the doctors for trying to get the taxpayers to fund their for-profit company so long as the money is so freely being handed out to others. Shucks, I've even got my application in for a TIF for my backyard tool shed. It sure will cost the taxpayers a lot less than what these doctors want. I haven't heard anything back from the Council yet.
I know a couple guys living under the bridges where I bike who would actually like to use a TIF for its original purpose: building low income housing. They tell me they haven't had any better luck with the Council than I have; not a lot of enthusiasm among the City Council candidates. And the nights are already getting colder.
Oh, well. Now they won't have to walk all the way to Mercy Hospital when they get pneumonia.
At least I assume there will be a "free clinic" at our new, taxpayer-funded "outpatient surgical center." Won't there? Gee, I guess you're right. Hieu didn't really write anything about that. Maybe the editors just cut that part of her story.
# # #
P.S. Normally I don't respond to comments. I like to leave as much opportunity for readers' dialog as possible (within some bounds) -- thoughtful, and not so much, critical and agreement.
But since Irl Tubbs has suggested in his 12:14 p.m. comment that I am lying ("a TIF is not taking tax money from someone else . . . the author believes that if he tells a lie long enough...it will be the truth") I thought a brief reply might be in order.
Does this lighthearted blog entry overly simplify TIFs? Absolutely.
Is it a "lie"? I think that's both inaccurate and unnecessarily harsh.
1. If you save me an expense, that is the financial, the bottom line, equivalent of my (a) paying that expense, but then (b) getting that amount of cash from you. On the other hand, if you cause me an expense that, but for you, I would not have had and that does not benefit me, that is the equivalent of "taking money from" me.
2. Cities can't print money. They depend on tax revenue. That revenue changes from year to year with both tax rates and property values.
3. When a city's revenue declines -- for any reason -- it is presented with two options: (a) increase taxes ("taking tax money from someone else"), or (b) cutting City programs benefiting the entire community (the equivalent of "taking tax money from someone else").
4. Why does a business person want a TIF? Because there is a financial benefit associated with it. It may involve getting land for a price well below market -- up to and including for free. It may involve the City paying for features required by a given business project that, but for the TIF, would not otherwise have been paid for by the City. It may involve paying what the normal taxes would have been on the property and project and then getting an immediate rebate of that tax payment in whole or in part.
5. Whatever the details may be for a given TIFed project, the fact is that the City is, for a given year during the applicability of the TIF, ending up with less property tax income from the TIF-ed property/project for that year than it would have received had the project gone ahead (as a part of the free private enterprise, entrepreneurial, capitalist system) without the TIF (or other government subsidies) having been granted.
6. As in any group project (which a tax-funded community is) if one member of the group does not pull his or her weight, put in their time, do their share of the work, show up on time, has their hand in the till -- or fails to pay their fair share of the expense -- the net effect is that either someone else has to pick up the slack or all will end up getting less out of the project than they thought they would.
7. Given the nature of the above blog entry I didn't want to have to (and did not feel it necessary to) get into this level of detail. Having now done so, hopefully anyone who shares Mr. Tubbs' view can see why, with very little literary license, I don't think it's a "lie" to say that the TIF beneficiary is, in effect, "taking tax money from someone else." Frankly, I don't think I actually said that anyway. But if I had (or did) I think it's a perfectly legitimate simplistic way to communicate what's going on.
# # #
September 9, 2007, 10:00 a.m.
Football's Externalities
The Hawkeyes got their home football season off to a good start in Kinnick Stadium last night, beating Syracuse 35-0 in their opening home game.
The performance of their fans in the adjoining residential neighborhood was considerably less impressive.
Look for "Football's Externalities, Sept. 8, 2007," one of the first of the "public" albums available at my Picasa site.
It is not my intention to identify individual students, homes, landlords or tenants. It is simply to try to portray, through pictures, the impact that the football program has on one of Iowa City's most historic residential neighborhoods when the football machine is fueled on alcohol and left to run without supervision.
# # #
September 7, 2007, 11:30 a.m.
I wasn't going to write this morning. Other things to do. The "let's bring weapons to campus" discussion went about the way I predicted yesterday anyway.
But just came upon an entry from my brother in arms in the "War on TIFs," State29, that should be required reading for any TIF supporters in the Iowa City City Council race -- as well as for anyone who's paying property taxes under the illusion that the money is going for public purposes.
The headline tells the tale, but the blog entry text just gets even better and better. Check it out:
State29, "eServe Gets Corporate Welfare and a Property Tax Break for Moving 11 Miles," September 7, 2007.
Unbelievable!
And don't tell me, "Oh, that's an exception. We wouldn't do anything like that in Iowa City."
Baloney! TIFs are fatally flawed. All of them. Any where, any time, for any purpose. For lots, and lots, and lots of reasons I don't have time to repeat here once again.
Just read State29's take on this one and come join the rational forces for sensible economic development. We call it the free private enterprise marketplace. A radical idea, I know, but it works -- and at a small fraction of the cost to citizen taxpayers of watching their property tax dollars drop to the bottom line of some for-profit corporation of the wealthy.
# # #
September 6, 2007, 6:30 a.m.
Weaponry on Campus: Wrong Reasons, Wrong Result
Republican presidential candidate, Governor Mike Huckabee, asked about his conservative credentials, once said "I'm a conservative all right; I'm just not angry about it."
That's kind of how I am about bringing guns onto the UI campus -- something that looks close to inevitable at this point. I think it's a terrible thing to do, but I'm not angry about it. Just disappointed and sad.
Since I'll be teaching this afternoon while the public meeting is going on, I thought I'd put some of my thoughts into the debate in this way.
We should not be surprised that, since this groundswell of support for weaponry has come out of the wrong governance model, using the wrong process, relying on the wrong reasons, the advocates have come up with the wrong proposal.
For satisfactory policies to emerge there must first be a clear and precisely articulated governance model, allocating responsibilities between policy boards and administrators. The Board of Regents (and Regents' universities administrators) have yet to spell out such a model.
Once responsibility for "ends policies" has been clearly established, the most productive way to create the wisest policies is an ongoing undertaking of the extremely difficult work of gathering data, analysis, and brainstorming, ultimately producing precisely articulated, measurable, shared goals -- unencumbered by the media's focus on the crisis of the day.
Constantly responding to crises, locking barn doors after the horses turn up missing, not only interrupts (if it does not actually prevent) a calm, ongoing policy formulation and review process, it also tends to cloud rational risk assessment and lead to unwise or inadequately-considered policies -- responding to yesterday's exceedingly rare specifics rather than tomorrow's probabilities.
So it was in this case.
Everyone concedes what the Regents are doing is a response to the Virginia Tech tragedy. That may or may not make sense from a public relations perspective -- but it makes absolutely no sense from a policy perspective.
"Aren't you going to do something to make sure it won't happen here?"
"OK, we'll do something, we'll provide our campus police deadly weapons."
"Oh, gee, that's good. Now I know my child will be safe on your campus."
So, even if arming campus police made sense, making such a decision because of the events at Virginia Tech is not a rational time or way to go about thinking about such a policy -- and is likely to result in our coming up with the wrong policy, which in fact has happened in this case.
The public relations advantage, if something does happen -- even though, as is almost always the case, armed campus police could not prevent it -- is that administrators can say, even if inaccurately, "Well, we did all we could."
Of course, they won't have. But they can say they did, and most people will be willing to accept that arming the police really is doing about all the public can expect of university administrators.
The fact is that the UI, and its sister universities, have been quite aware of campus security issues for decades. They have responded to those concerns with sensible policies not inconsistent with an academic institution. Most recently they have been putting in place uses of the new technologies enabling more rapid communication to the entire campus community -- something that would have made a difference at Virginia Tech.
In a rational consideration of weapons policy, uninfluenced by the media's understandably emotionally-laden coverage of Virginia Tech, to the extent that case study would be discussed at all, it would immediately be recognized as an instance in which the fact that the campus police were armed provided no additional campus safety and saved no lives.
1. "Everybody's doing it." I have never found the preferences of others determinative of my own decisions. I observe, I listen, and I sometimes come to the same conclusion as the crowd -- but if so, it is after my own analysis. And so it is in this case that I find revealingly weak the weapons advocates' argument that, "Well, look, we're the only school in the Big 10 without armed campus police." I am interested in the reasons they came to those decisions, their data, their anecdotal experiences. I don't find at all persuasive the mere fact that we stand alone.
Frankly, I think it a matter of some pride that we are different. There is something delightfully "Iowa" about our distinctions in terms of the quality of our K-12 schools, the education of our work force, the work ethic they bring to farm or factory, our friendly Iowa ways, the small towns with unlocked houses and pickup trucks with keys in the ignition -- and, yes, campuses without the presence of guns.
2. "The police would like to have guns." Most of the discussion and debate of armed campus police has been driven by the arguments of the weapons advocates. They have been given the opportunity to draft the documents and make the presentations.
Given the lack of any organized, academically respectable, data-driven, balanced presentation of the issues it is not surprising that they have won over some adherents.
Nor is there nothing to their case; they have some valid arguments; I just think they are more than outweighed by the contrary arguments. Of course, campus police would like to have more guns -- for some reasons that are understandable and other reasons that are far less compelling. Faculty researchers would like to have newer, larger and better-equipped labs -- also for equally mixed reasons, even if providing them would, usually, be far less hazardous than increasing the number of guns on campus.
3. "Guns make us safer." Guns did not make the tens of thousands of dead innocent civilians in Iraq any safer. The $1 billion worth of weapons Russia delivered to Indonesia yesterday won't make the Indonesians safer. The guns American urban gang members carry for "protection" don't make them safer.
Guns in the home don't make the family safer -- they are 16 times more likely to be used against friends and family members from misidentification, children getting them, accidents, deliberate intra-family homicide, and suicides, than used to protect family members from intruders.
Campus police with guns wouldn't have saved our physics department on November 1 any more than they were able to save lives at Virginia Tech. Iowa City's armed police didn't make Eric Shaw safer -- and accidental (and deliberate) deaths of the innocent from police firearms have occurred throughout the country with even greater regularity than locally.
There is no basis for the belief that guns on campus won't create the same risks as they do elsewhere -- including the risk that a campus police officer's gun will be stolen in a scuffle and then used on him or her, or someone else. As others have pointed out, with the number of misdemeanors campus police deal with, there's a real risk of conflict escalating.
At a minimum, campus police with guns will tend to encourage, rather than discourage, the additional possession of guns (both legal and illegal) by others on campus.
4. Where are the benefits? The costs of an always armed campus police are the additional deaths they may provoke. But where are the benefits in this benefit-cost analysis?
(a) There are few imaginable scenarios in which an always-armed campus police would be relevant to solutions. They don't help in tornadoes. They don't help in case of a chemical spill, natural gas pipeline explosion, or derailment of railroad cars carrying nuclear waste. They are not, now, making any safer those women assaulted on Iowa City's streets at night. (A few hundred more City police might, but arming campus police won't.)
(b) The fact is, our campus police are armed -- just not all the time. So the utility of arming them all the time becomes even smaller. In the rare instances in which having weapons on our campus police might make at least a little rational sense, they can be armed with the weapons they have at headquarters.
Thus, the only time when it might have been useful to have them armed, and they would not be, would be on those even rarer occasions (if any), and those very limited times on those occasions, between the time a campus policeman confronted a situation in which he or she wished for a gun and the backup police (who presumably would need to be called in any event) arrived from headquarters, armed and with an extra gun.
5. Our fragile, precious campus. If you've walked the streets of countries at war, or under military rule, as I have, you know that they have a different feel to them than do the streets of downtown Iowa City.
There are limits to how much security can be provided with locks, fences, surveillance cameras -- and armed guards. There's a risk to life, and you never know when your time may come.
But the data shows that among the safest places in the United States are our K-12 schools, college and university campuses.
I believe that safety begets safety -- not to mention an atmosphere conducive to academic study -- and that "security" begets insecurity.
It's sad and inconsistent enough to have to warn students that they'd better watch their backpacks. But to have to warn them to watch their backs as well is worse. And that's a part of the message we send when they're told there is a need to keep constantly armed police on the campus to protect them from violence.
It's a message I believe is inconsistent with learning, inconsistent with the state of Iowa, and inconsistent with the University of Iowa's proud tradition.
But I'm not angry about it. Just sad.
# # #
September 5, 2007, 6:00 a.m.
"The Most Important News Stories in the World!"
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has a daily feature he calls "The worst person in the world."
The Iowa City Press-Citizen has a weekly feature each Saturday it calls "Our Quick Take on Last Week's News Stories" -- its version of what Keith Olbermann might call "The Most Important News Stories in the World!"
I have a feature called a "Wendy."
Newspapers and television, constitutionally protected as the citizen's watchdog on government and other major institutions, need a watchdog of their own. In many communities it takes the form of a "journalism review" -- such as the granddaddy of journalism reviews, the Columbia Journalism Review.
So far as I know, we don't have a journalism review in eastern Iowa -- or anywhere else in the state, for that matter. And I'm certainly not inclined to take on that more-than-full-time role myself.
But I do award the Wendy.
What's the Wendy?
Newspapers (and television) are for-profit enterprises funded, for the most part, by advertisers. I understand that.
But there has historically been a wall, as high and strong as the old Berlin wall, between the advertising department and the news department. Reporters were free to do investigative journalism, revealing faults of local corporations that were also major advertisers -- over the objection of the advertising department, and occasionally resulting in the loss of a major account. Promotion of products on television took the form of commercials, not "product placement." Not only was advertising kept out of newspapers' stories -- let alone editorials -- it was kept off the front page.
With the merger of media firms into five or six major owners of most of our major media outlets -- and corporate decisions being driven by stock prices and the Wall Street financial community more than the nostalgia of "the public interest" and a democracy's need for news -- the mice have been gnawing away at that wall, leaving it in less stable condition than many of our nation's bridges. [Although the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics still contains the admonition, "Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two," it was last revised in 1996 and needs to be brought up-to-date with the deletion of that long-forgotten standard.]
The original Wendy was awarded to The Gazette. (So it's only appropriate the Press-Citizen should get one, too.) The Gazette won for a full news story -- with pictures -- promoting the delights of a new imitation milk shake: Wendy's Vanilla Frosty. Nicholas Johnson, "Mr. Editor, tear down this wall!" August 8, 2006. (Not incidentally, the story was hyped by the paper on its front page.)
So how and why has the Press-Citizen achieved this distinction?
Because two of the three "most important news stories in the world" turned out to be Panchero's $1.00 burritos, and Dunkin' Donuts' new donut formula. (That issue of the paper also gave over news space to an ad on page one.)
The paper gets extra points toward its Wendy award for the fact that this information about Panchero's and Dunkin' Donuts was provided to readers, not as advertisements, not even on the news pages, but in an editorial!
Here are the excerpts from that editorial, as they appeared, followed by some suggestions for possible alternative stories that might have been selected instead as "The Most Important News Stories in the World!":
Standing in the heat for burritos
The local chain Panchero's Mexican Grill celebrated its 15th anniversary Tuesday by selling $1 burritos and handing out free T-shirts at its Iowa City downtown location at 32 S. Clinton St. ("Panchero's notes 15 years; Hundreds wait in long line for $1 burritos," Aug. 29). The line stretched almost an entire block as hundreds of students waited in 90-degree heat for their turn. In two hours, workers doled out 1,500 burritos and gave out 1,500 black-and-gold T-shirts.
Panchero's opened at the corner of Clinton and Washington streets in 1992. It quickly became a staple downtown, and in particular, for University of Iowa students. Since its opening, the eatery has expanded to more than 45 locations in 13 states. There are plans this year to open about 25 new locations.
We're glad that Panchero's remains firmly rooted in Iowa City as its branches keep extending outward.
None vs. zero
Dunkin' Donuts announced last week that it has developed an alternative cooking oil and reformulated more than 50 menu items -- doughnuts included -- so that its 5,400 U.S. restaurants will go "zero grams trans fat" by Oct. 15. In no way are company officials suggesting that they are making healthy donuts, but they are making their confections less unhealthy by phasing out the artery-clogging trans fat. Baskin-Robbins, another unit of Dunkin' Brands Inc., plans to be "zero grams trans fat" by Jan. 1.
Anyone concerned with his or her trans fat intake, however, needs to know the difference between "no" and "zero" trans fat. The first indicates that there is no trans fat at all in the food. The second indicates that there is less than a half-gram of trans fat per serving -- and those near half-grams can add up quickly.
Editorial, "Our Quick Take on Last Week's News Stories," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 1, 2007.
What were some of the alternative choices for "Most Important News Stories in the World"?
International news, in addition to the GAO report on the failure of Iraq's government to meet the benchmarks, and the increased levels of violence in Pakistan, might have included significant political shifts -- of great relevance to Americans -- in Pakistan, Turkey and Iran.
Don't want to look abroad?
National news -- much of which occurred in, or affected, Iowa, and would have had local news pegs -- might have included the boost to Senator Dodd's campaign from the endorsement of Iowa City's fire fighters; the declaration of all the Democratic candidates that they will skip states that try to leapfrog Iowa's caucus date; the expected entrance of Fred Thompson; some shift in public reaction following the Republicans throwing Senator Larry Craig under the bus; Alberto Gonzales' resignation; new revelations regarding insurance companies' performance in New Orleans; the delays and decline in quality of airline service; the significance of the housing and mortgage markets stumble to the future of the American economy; and the record $87.1 billion in national net farm income.
Other Iowa, even Iowa City, stories would have included the unprecedented three UI campus bomb threats; the census report on median income and poverty (and Iowa's rank); the court case declaring Iowa's ban on gay marriage to be unconstitutional; and the bacteria warnings at six state park beaches (some of which were found to be 30 times levels thought safe for swimming).
The Register and Gazette gave at least a little, back-page coverage to the UNI faculty's thoughtful, analytical rejection of an armed campus police. The Press-Citizen mentioned it not at all -- anywhere that I noticed, not just in its Saturday round-up. That omission may well have contributed -- at least in some small way -- to this morning's news that it looks like the UI faculty is going to support an armed campus.
[Not incidentally, if you're truly interested in understanding the armed campus issues -- given that the reports circulating in Iowa are primarily simply advocacy briefs for bringing guns on campus -- one of the most thoroughly researched, and balanced, reports I've seen is the recent SUNY Courtland, "Report of the University Police Arming Task Force."]
For ignoring these stories, for helping tear down the iron curtain between advertising and news (and in this case even editorials), and for exalting the news value of Panchero's burritos and Dunkin' Donuts' sweet and greasy dough -- we proudly award a coveted Wendy to the Iowa City Press-Citizen.
# # #
September 3, 2007, 8:00 a.m.
Anti-Labor Day
As befits one of the most anti-union, anti-labor states in the nation, none of the top four local papers -- Daily Iowan, Des Moines Register, Gazette and Press-Citizen -- have editorialized about (or even much recognized) that this is "Labor Day."
Because you wouldn't know from the papers today, I thought perhaps it worthwhile to report here that, yes, there is a Labor Day Picnic today in the City Park in Iowa City, upper level Shelter 2, 12 noon to 3:00 p.m. City Council candidate Mike Wright (and others) will speak. It's always a great event. I'll see you there.
The DI is mostly sports, celebrating the Hawkeyes' unimpressive win over some Illinois high school team last Saturday. (This fall's schedule has been rigged so we won't have to suffer the embarrassment of even playing teams like Ohio and Michigan. Of course, we do end the season with Western Michigan, which showed its football prowess last Saturday in holding West Virginia to only 62 points in Western Michigan's 62-24 loss.) The Register at least has another editorial in support of universal, single-payer health care. The Gazette has it's usual "Homers and Gomers." And the Press-Citizen has now caught up with what I was blogging about -- and The Gazette and Register were editorializing about -- last Saturday: the court decision finding Iowa's ban on gay marriage to be unconstitutional.
So it's once again been left up to Johnson County Supervisor Rod Sullivan to remind us what today is all about.
Child labor laws, 40 hour weeks, health insurance, weekends, overtime, vacations, the minimum wage, sick leave, parental leave, OSHA, pensions, disability insurance, employment nondiscrimination, Social Security, health insurance, and so much more. We owe organized labor for all of this.
Here's the whole of his latest "Sullivan Salvos":
Monday marks Labor Day. Every year, I write essentially the same piece, noting the good that organized labor has done for this country.
I said I wouldn¹t do it this year. Sorry, but I can¹t resist. Labor Day is too important to me.
Child labor laws, 40 hour weeks, health insurance, weekends, overtime, vacations, the minimum wage, sick leave, parental leave, OSHA, pensions, disability insurance, employment nondiscrimination, Social Security, health insurance, and so much more. We owe organized labor for all of this.
But labor is not just a part of the past. If we are to have a successful future, labor will need to play a key role. Organizing for better wages and benefits is still the key to pulling folks out of poverty and into the middle class.
You will hear people complain about labor, and explain how labor makes the US ³less competitive². Americans must quit buying into this BS. Who were the real heroes of 9/11? Not Rudy Giuliani, but police, firefighters, and EMTs all union members. We need organized labor now more than ever. It is the great equalizer, and our best anti-poverty program.
I would like to see more Democrats point out how un-American it is for large multi-national corporations to exploit labor and the environment around the globe. I would like to see them stand with labor not just at election time, but all year round.
Similarly, just as corporations have gone global, so must unions. It does no good for anyone to have American workers compete with foreign workers who feel they must settle for so little. When workers of the world unite, workers of the world will improve their lot.
We are frequently urged to support the troops; that is as it should be.
We should also show support for the working men and women of the world. It is un-American to let global profits trump the needs of our families.
Along similar lines, I encourage everyone to reread the final chapter of the Barbara Ehrenreich classic Nickel & Dimed.
You can certainly reread the whole book; it is fantastic. But the final chapter really sums up the difficulties faced by the working poor, including all the ways that organizing can & does help.
Of all the widely-distributed, free e-zines from public officials in this country, "Sullivan's Salvos" is the most constructive, compassionate, consumer-and-taxpayer-oriented, generally supportive and informative of which I am aware. If you're not on the list, but would like to be, just email rodsullivan@mchsi.com with "subscribe" in the subject line.
In fairness, both the Press-Citizen and Gazette did permit others to say something nice about labor this one day of the year.
In fact, it was Rod Sullivan again who had the op ed column in the P-C. It's a moving story of three generations of his family and the beneficial role of unions in their lives that he has personally witnessed (and benefited from). Read it: Rod Sullivan, "Honoring Our Labor Heroes," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 3, 2007, p. A11. Although, unfortunately, the paper chose to omit any link to his piece from its opening Web page listing of "Opinion" for the day, so without my link you'd have to know how to hunt for it.
The Gazette offers us Ross Eisenbrey, "Labor Day Marks Bad News for Laborers in America," The Gazette, September 3, 2007, p. A4, at the very bottom of its editorial page. Eisenbrey is vice president and policy director of the Economic Policy Institute so, as you might suspect (and the headline hints) it is more in the nature of a news story than an opinion piece. Any passion is found in the numbers, the absolutely devastating numbers, regarding the destruction of America's middle class that followed the deliberate devastation of the union movement, and creation of an ever-increasing gap between the incomes and other benefits of the very rich and those of the working poor and working class.
# # #
September 1, 2007, 7:00 a.m.
Church, State and Gay Marriage
Three editorials this morning offer a similar approach to Judge Hanson's 63-page ruling holding Iowa's prohibition on gay marriage ("only a marriage between a male and a female is valid") to be unconstitutional.
They are analogous in a way to the bumper sticker's advice: "Opposed to abortion? Don't have one." In this context I guess it would be, "Opposed to gays marrying? Don't marry one."
(It's not that simple, of course. With the exceptions of self-defense, insanity, and manslaughter, among others, there are both laws and widespread general agreement that frown on "murder." So we're left with "when, if ever, prior to the moment of birth, should the decision to abort a fetus be equated with the deliberate killing of a fully born human being for purposes of inclusion within the criminal law definition of 'murder'?" Obviously, this has been a matter of considerable disagreement.)
The similarity between the controversies surrounding abortion and gay marriage, however, is that both have utilized arguments that tend to conflate (1) one's personal, religious, moral, ethical, philosophical and public policy beliefs and practices, with (2) the desirability and propriety of the state, the government, imposing one's standards as a matter of criminal or civil law on everyone (or groups of citizens taking matters into their own hands).
I happen to think that urban transportation by bicycle makes a lot of sense. It strengthens your body, awakens your mind, improves your health, reduces disease -- with significant savings in our $2 trillion, profit-maximizing health insurance system. It is environmentally friendly, reduces greenhouse gases, reduces our disproportionate use of petroleum -- and need for the other (ultimately, with externalities) $2 trillion total cost: the Iraq war that was apparently necessary to get our oil out from under their sand. It requires less expense (or could if more did it) of road building and repair. It's cheaper, usually faster, and saves looking (and paying) for parking.
But I'd agree the bumper sticker (if there were room for it on a bike) ought to read: "Favor bicycle transportation? Get a bike and ride it."
In other words, I would not advocate criminal penalties for driving automobiles in urban areas; additional license fees maybe (as reduced London's congestion), but not compulsory bicycle riding.
The distinction between one's personal preferences and imposing them on everyone else is a distinction too often overlooked in everything from casual conversation to newspaper editorials.
That's why I was pleased to see this morning's editorial efforts in the Register and Gazette.
The Gazette draws the distinction between church and state from the start of the editorial:
A Polk County district judge’s ruling Thursday that Iowa’s law banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional sets the stage for a resolution of this issue . . .. [T]his debate needs to be settled regardless of whether any consensus is ever reached in the moral and religious arenas.
It continues:
Whether same-sex marriage is right or wrong morally is a matter of faith or personal belief. However, civil marriage, whether between opposite- sex or same-sex partners, is not the legal business of religion.
That task belongs to governments that preserve both the freedom of religion and the rights of those who disagree with others’ beliefs.
Governments need to define legal unions between two people because tax issues, insurance and other benefits and many other public policies rely on definitions of various relationships.
. . .
Beyond legal circles, churches and their members and families continue to struggle with the samesex marriage issue and likely will do so for years to come.
In the meantime, Iowa can make sure its laws don’t place unfair restrictions on people’s civil freedoms, including same-sex marriage.
The paper couldn't have made the issue -- the distinction between church and state -- much clearer. Editorial, "Let Court Settle Marriage Debate," The Gazette, September 1, 2007, p. A4.
The Register gets to the Gazette's mountaintop by a different trail. Rather than have the government grant gays the rights to "marriage," have it grant all couples -- gay and straight -- equivalent "civil union" rights, and then leave the "marriage" business to churches:
To truly assure equal treatment, the government should get out of the "marriage" business altogether and grant civil unions to everyone, gay or straight.
That would allow the law to focus on the legal benefits to which all couples are entitled in a democracy that espouses equality for all people - and allow religious institutions to set their own rules for marriage.
Editorial, "Extending Civil Rights is Part of a Great American Tradition," Des Moines Register, September 1, 2007. See also, Jeff Eckhoff and Abby Simons, "Briefly, two men can say 'I do,'" Des Moines Register, September 1, 2007, and Editorial, "Polk ruling correct: Law unconstitutional; Gay-marriage ban violates rights," Des Moines Register, September 1, 2007.
Once in a while (quite often actually) the editorial writers get it right. And so it was (in my opinion) this morning.
Individuals, religious organizations and their spokespersons and leaders should be free to offer such rejoinder as they're able to another bumper sticker -- "Hatred is not a family value" -- citing such teachings of Jesus (and others) as they find persuasive in their opposition to gay marriage.
Legislating their hatred is not an appropriate role for government. Protecting their First Amendment rights to talk about it is.
Just as is protecting gays' constitutional rights to equal protection of the law with straights when it comes to marriage -- or universal civil unions.
# # #
August 30, 2007, 7:20, 9:40 a.m.
Campus Security
Given President Mason's and other UI administrators' obvious priority on campus security -- spurred on by their having received their third email regarding bomb threats [Kurtis Hiatt, "String of Bomb Threats Continues," The Daily Iowan, August 30, 2007, p. A1] -- I'm sure they are, or soon will be, all over the Virginia Tech report. But they won't find it in the local papers.
Here are links to the New York Times' story and the entire Review Panel's lengthy report, broken down into pdf files, including its 70 recommendations -- all presumably of at least interest, if not direct applicability, to all U.S. colleges and universities.
Ian Urbina, "Virginia Tech Criticized for Actions in Shooting," New York Times, August 30, 2007.
The full Report of the Virginia Tech Review Panel, August 29, 2007, is available from Virginia Governor Tim Kaine's Web page.
Note, as I've blogged here before, that Virginia Tech's campus police are armed and yet -- as would often (if not near always) be the case in an unanticipated random shooting -- that made no difference in their ability to prevent the tragedy and deaths. At least one UI student, in a letter to the editor, has expressed the view of many that she would feel very much safer if the UI campus police were not armed than if they were. Thalia Sutton, "Arming Campus Won't Reassure Me," Des Moines Register, August 27, 2007.
Meanwhile, this morning's DI has a professionally balanced and well written review of campus opinion on the issue prior to the Regents' discussion at their regular meeting September 18 -- including what appears to be President Mason's leaning toward arming campus police while recognizing that "I'd feel safer if no one had guns" and "I'm not a fan of guns." Ben Fornell, "People Split on UI Police Guns," The Daily Iowan, August 30, 2007, p. A5.
Iowa's Back in Train - ing
I have a vague recollection of seeing railroad trolley car rails embedded in Iowa City's streets when I was a little boy. (No trolleys; just almost totally covered tracks). But that memory may come from another town. I certainly remember the CRANDIC ("Cedar Rapids and Iowa City") interurban line, with its depot down by the east side of the Burlington Street bridge, on the south side of the street, across from what was then Nagle's Lumber. The Rock Island Line was my usual means of getting to Des Moines or Chicago as a high school student when attending student organization meetings. I occasionally came home to Iowa City from Austin, Texas, during the 1950s on the "Katy" railroad. And I remember regularly commuting by trolley car in Washington, D.C., during what must have been the summer of 1957.
So it's not like passenger rail is new to me -- or to Iowa. But what's only been history may now be on the verge of coming back. (As Johnny Cash used to sing, "I hear that train a comin.'") A local group of railroad enthusiasts took the CRANDIC out of mothballs and rode it up and back to Cedar Rapids the other day. The local papers editorialized that it was a good idea.
Editorial, "If You Want Rail Service, Speak Up," The Gazette, August 28, 2007, p. A4.
Editorial, "Time to Jump on Board for Interurban Rail," Iowa City Press-Citizen, August 28, 2007, p. A11.
From a tiny village in Switzerland my wife and I discovered we had access to two passenger rail services, both of which seemed to run every 20 minutes or so. In fact, our former U-High school mates who live there don't even bother to own a car. It's like they were living in downtown Manhattan and relying on the subway. (I had similar experiences traveling in Japan years ago, with trains criss-crossing that entire country on regular schedules.)
The entire country of Switzerland is only 15,940 square miles. Iowa, by contrast, is is 3.5 times that size: 56,276 square miles (26th in size among the 50 states). And yet Switzerland has 3145 miles of railroad, mostly for passenger trains. If Iowa had the equivalent amount of rail per square mile we'd have 11103 miles of rail criss-crossing our little state. It may surprise you to know, but we had almost that much about 1910. With the popularity of the automobile -- encouraged by the lobbying pressure of the auto, oil, contracting and cement industries (General Motors bought up Los Angeles urban rail, destroyed it, and replaced it with auto dealerships) -- we permitted Iowa's rail to decline over the years to the point that 10 years ago (the latest figures I could quickly find) it was 38% of that, at 4275 miles (almost exclusively used for freight). (Prior to that -- and General Motors' efforts to kill off rail -- most cities of any size were served by electric rail systems.)
Would it be expensive for America to go back to passenger trains? Of course. Everything's expensive. It all comes back to benefit-cost. And "compared to what"?
1. It's never going to be any cheaper to do than it is now. As big a fan as I am of "rails to trails" (for hiking, jogging and biking), a few "rails to rails" might not be a bad idea either.
2. Have you ever taken a look at the total taxpayer support provided the auto industry with our multi-billion-dollar road system (Interstates, state, county and city roads)? Or the locks along the Mississippi for the barge business?
Or the airline industry -- runways and airports, air traffic control and TSA, the 9/11 bailout, and the defense contracts (originally producing war planes, but inventing technology that then finds its way for free into commercial aircraft) -- which ends up benefiting a relatively small proportion of the American people? (The "externalities" associated with the fact that jet planes are a major contributor to global warming and the hole in the ozone makes the industry's claim on subsidy dollars even weaker.)
I used to time those Swiss passenger trains (and their big clocks on the depots). I keep my watch set to the atomic clock time, accurate to the second. So, apparently, do they. It was a rare occurrence for a train to vary by more than 10 seconds either way from the very minute it was scheduled to arrive.
Our Amtrak passenger train (from San Francisco to Chicago, by way of Mt. Pleasant) may arrive as much as four or five hours late by the time it gets to eastern Iowa.
But note: That's not all Amtrack's fault. It's been deliberately set up be a rail fail. It has to travel on rails owned by railroads in the freight business. And with a policy that puts freight profits over passenger punctuality, Amtrack trains have to find and sit on a side track waiting for the freight trains to pass.
I'm reminded of a joke in a collection from the 1920s called "On a Slow Train Through Arkansas." "How come the train's stopped?" a passenger asks the conductor. "Guess we must have caught up with those cows again," he's told.
For rail -- or any other public transportation system -- to work there has to be lots of it.
If you're within a walk of a Metro station in Washington, you can enter that underground system there, transfer at Washington's Union Station, get off the train at Pennsylvania Station in New York City, and take a subway to your ultimate Manhattan destination without ever exiting this point-to-point rail transportation system.
You can't count on people driving to Mt. Pleasant to wait 4 hours for a train to Chicago when they could have driven in less time than that. The trains need to meet people's schedules rather than people having to meet the trains' schedules.
And all that goes for Corridor trains between Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, and maybe Amana.
To do it right we'd need to start by putting rail between Iowa's major population centers, and out to the primary locations where the employees in those urban centers live. And we'd need to have additional transportation from depots to ultimate destinations. And the trains would have to run with sufficient regularity that people would be willing to accept their benefits in exchange for the additional flexibility offered by the automobile. (We might also want to take a second look at the Swiss roadbeds that produce the super-smooth rides, in part, by attaching the rails to the ties with six heavy nuts and bolts rather than a single spike.)
The benefits would be enormous in terms of economics, consumption of energy with its attendant seeming need for Middle East wars, global warming, and commuters' increased productivity and reduction of stress.
We did it once. Will we do it again? In my lifetime? I'm watching -- but I'm not going to be selling my primary form of transportation, my old bicycle, anytime soon.
# # #
August 28, 2007, 4:00 p.m.
Growing Iowa Business the Right Way
A month ago I wrote:
I've had it with the Iowa City City Council and TIFs. I'm going to do my best to see to it that anyone running for council who persists in continuing to take Iowa City taxpayers' money and give it to wealthy, supposedly "free private enterprise" for-profit corporations -- while denying it to their competitors, not to mention needed social programs -- is prevented from serving on the City Council.
Nicholas Johnson, "They're Back: The Terrible TIFs" in "The Terrible TIFs," July 26, 2007 (the entry contains links to prior TIF blog entries and 12 categories of arguments against TIFs).
To which State29 commented:
Nick Johnson . . . says he's going to campaign against every city council candidate there who supports TIFs . . .. Good luck with that uphill battle. Unless Ron Paul is planning to run for political office in Iowa City, I think Nick is going to be rather busy. TIF-supporting candidates (regardless of political affiliation) tend to be "connected" and "experienced", something which voters eat up, even if it takes money out of their own wallets.
State29, "Over in the People's Republic of Iowa City," August 15, 2007.
As is often the case, State29 is right.
The best I've been able to get out of them is that some recognize that Iowa City and Coralville have gone too far with TIFs, or an admission that, yes, some of them have not worked out. But all insist that there are some cases -- perhaps with start-up entrepreneurs -- where they make sense.
So, I hear you say, "We understand what you're against. But does that include any and everything that benefits business -- especially new entrepreneurial start-up businesses? And if not, what are you for?"
This entry is an effort to explain what I'm for: (1) "state-qualified community seed funds" and (2) micro-credit programs.
Community Seed Funds
At the end of "The Terrible TIFs" entry July 26, among my suggestions was: "The business community could create its own venture capital fund to invest in, or loan to, business developments they thought worthy."
Since I know that 90% of my ideas are going to be rejected out of hand (and that many of them deserve to be) I just spin them off and forget them until I'm reminded.
This morning I was reminded.
George C. Ford, "'Seed Fund' Raised to Back Iowa Entrepreneurs," The Gazette, August 28, 2007, p. B8.
It turns out that Iowa has something called community seed funds, and that Corridor banks and private investors have put together a $1.25 million one already.
The approach has many advantages over TIFs.
It's an investment, not a gift -- let alone a gift of the taxpayers' money without their permission.
"An investment committee of seasoned investors" makes the decisions -- rather than a bunch of public officials who have no financial stake in the project and, whatever their strengths may be, are for the most part not "seasoned investors."
Moreover, The Entrepreneurial Development Center President Curt Nelson also says, "We will continue to work closely with these entrepreneurs, monitoring the company and the fund's investment."
I need to find out more about this undertaking, and whether there are some downsides of which I am unaware. But it's always fun for me when it turns out that something that is spurred by my imagination and intuition, and comes out of the depths of my ignorance of a subject, turns out to have been proposed, and put in motion, by folks who really do know what they're talking about.
Micro-Credit Programs
You may know the name Muhammad Yunus. He and his Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006.
For what? For what's now called "micro-credit" -- small loans to the poor -- that began with Yunus' 46-cent loans to each of a group of poor craftspersons in Bangladesh in 1976 (for a total of $27).
For the world's truly poor a small loan can make a big difference.
The results were impressive -- both in terms of what the borrowers were able to do with the money and their honorable approach to repaying the loans.
The idea quickly spread. Among other things, this approach removes the opportunity for tempted government officials to take a slice of a multi-billion-dollar loan to their country and send it off to a personal Swiss bank account.
When I served on the board of Volunteers in Technical Assistance some years ago it was one of the categories of projects in which VITA was engaged.
Now, it turns out, you no longer need to own a bank, or be managing funds from USAID, to get into the micro-credit business. You, like Muhammad Yunus, can provide a $25 loan directly to a third world entrepreneur with a face and a name.
You can do it through an organization called Kiva, which you reach at http://kiva.org.
It humanizes and provides a personal story regarding the loan applicants. By joining with Kiva, their third-world "field partners" that administer the program locally (funded by the interest on the loans), and other Kiva members, your $25 (or more) contributions can quickly total the $450 or $1100 requested. As the loans are paid back (and they almost always are in full and on time) your philanthropy becomes a revolving fund that can go on helping more and more entrepreneurs.
There's no reason why micro-credit won't work for entrepreneurs here in Iowa as well as abroad -- even if the "micro" is going to have to be a little bigger.
"Community seed funds" and "micro-credit" are but two of the ways that Iowa can help business grow in the right way.
They draw upon the strengths of the free private enterprise market system -- rather than tax revenues.
Moreover, because an investor, or a creditor, has a personal financial stake in the venture it's more likely the business plan will be well thought through, and reviewed, by people with the incentive -- and skill -- to be of real help in avoiding preventable disasters.
They are more fair to the new venture's competitors -- all of whom have a shot at the funds; all of whom will be judged by the same standards -- than the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't, inexplicable, random allocation of TIF benefits.
They are devoid of the internal ideological inconsistency and hypocrisy of cutting the budgets of legitimate public projects and transferring taxpayers' money directly to a wealthy, for-profit owner's bottom line.
Want to know what I'm for? That's what I'm for. You already know what I'm against.
# # #
August 25, 2007, 10:30, 11:30 a.m.; August 26, 2007, 6:45 a.m.
Cribbing from the Crips? -- Facebook and Gang Signs
Thursday (August 23) I commented about the UI athletes' Facebook saga. Nicholas Johnson, "What Do Abu Ghraib and Athletes' Facebooks Have in Common?" in "Abu Ghraib, Rumsfeld, and Athletes' Facebook Photos," August 23, 2007.
Not only do athletes' Facebook entries include pictures with cash and alcohol, they also display their passion for good literature by presenting "favorite quotes," such as, "She can't say no if her mouth is taped shut."
But hand signs?
I'm pretty compulsive about reading the comments attached to these blog entries. They help to keep me honest, provide advice, and offer useful data and alternative points of view. From time to time I remind blog readers that some of the best stuff here is in the comments rather than the blog entries.
And this really turned out to be the case with that Facebook blog entry of mine -- though I didn't catch it myself. The comment read in its entirety,
Anonymous said...
Yeah, many of the college students drink. However, you have to examine the photos carefully to see what's going on.
Look at what the hands are doing. Look at the colors worn. You tell me if you see the same thing I see.
If the hand gestures and colors worn mean something, then this isn't normal student activity.
8/23/2007 03:58:00 PM
So, "colors"? "Hand gestures"? I was late with other obligations. I didn't follow up.
But a friend did, and here's what she referred me to:
New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, Juvenile Justice Commission, Gang Management Unit, Gang Awareness Guide: Recognize the Signs
Ask Images, "Crip Gang Hand Signs"
Harald Otto Schweizer, CSU-Fresno, Global Criminal Justice Links, "Gang Signs"
We're talking about what may be athletes' use of hand signals from the "Crips" gang. If you're not familiar with it, and its long-running battles with the "Bloods," here's what the New Jersey Attorney General's manual has to say:
Originally from Los Angeles, the Crips are an organization of aggressive and brutal gang members who are heavily involved in the drug trade. Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s the Crips developed intricate networks and a respected reputation with other gangs across America. Crip gangs are well established across the United States.
Acknowledging that I know little to nothing about gangs, let alone their signs, let me reveal at the outset my uninformed guess that probably the UI football team does not have card-carrying members of the Crips gang on its roster. On the other hand, I am no more capable of proving that to be true than I am of proving the opposite; nor do I have the responsibility of a coach or athletic director for knowing it to be true.
Because I am personally aware of the consequences of the human capacity for rushing to, and expressing, defamatory conclusions on the basis of inadequate information, let me make sure to put the qualifiers on all this.
1. Gangs borrow colors and signs from other institutions. One gang, the Latin Kings, has black and gold as its colors, after all. If wearing black and gold was enough to make you a member of the Latin Kings there would be an awful lot of Iowa members on some Saturday fall afternoons in Iowa City. (Could that be why the Hawkeye athletic program is so popular in some quarters?) Another (not believed to have religious origins) uses a variation on the Star of David. One of the Crips' signs used by one of the athletes in a Facebook photo is a hand position also used in yoga. (Hey, how many friends do you have, like my source, who are experts in both gang signs and yoga postures?) Maybe our football coach is one of those coaches who are using yoga these days with various athletes, and that's where our football players got it.
2. Gangs change their signs from time to time -- usually just after adults have figured out what they are. This is, after all, a communications system designed to exclude us. Who knows if the Internet sources are accurate and up to date?
3. Non-gang members sometimes use gang signs to be cool, or funny. It's a matter of posing. Rappers use gang signs. The football players were probably just joking.
Following the uploading of this blog entry, there was another comment from Anonymous (my guess: probably the same Anonymous who put me on to this hand sign business in the first place) with sufficient additional detail -- and consistent with the online references linked above -- that I believe it warrants reproducing here:
Anonymous said...
Great of you to follow up the comments.
In those Hawkeye football pics, there are several gang signs.
The wrist watch may be gang related. The triangle on the face is a blood sign (dog).
The hand signs included 'E' (East Coast Bloods), the sign for Brim (a Blood gang), and and in the photo with all 3 players, Douglas is giving an obvious 'BL' (Bloods for Life).
The colors are significant too. Bowman wears red (not for NASCAR but for Blood). He wears a red bandana too.
Note the 'B' (Boston hat) B for Blood.
Further, the group called themselves the City Boys Inc. A drug dealing Detroit gang was called the Young Boys Inc. The Hawk players are from Detroit, probably a link there too.
Obviously these guys are not Bloods, but it is a bit disturbing.
8/25/2007 07:18:00 PM
My thanks to Anonymous for bringing all of this to my attention, that of other blog readers -- and any University administrators who might like to pursue this matter before a possible worst case scenario actually hits the mainstream media.
Betting on the Hawkeyes
When yesterday's Press-Citizen arrived it had stuck to the front of it one of those irritating advertising stickers. Why irritating? (1) Because page one ought to be reserved for news. There's no shortage of space for advertising inside. (2) Because it's not only a distraction, it also covers up whatever happens to be under the place it's arbitrarily affixed. (3) Once you remove it, with the underlying print stuck to its back it is, like a wad of chewing gum or pitch from a pine tree in the hand, not easy to dispose of.
Anyhow, yesterday's advertising sticker carried with it a bit of news. It read, in its entirety:
Park and Ride
Stop driving yourself crazy
with gameday parking!
Riverside Casino & Golf Resort to Kinnick Stadium!
Park & Ride starts the first home game of the season.
Round trip $10 for hotel guests, $20 for all others.
Call for time of departure - Toll Free 877.677.3456
RIVERSIDE
CASINO & GOLF RESORT
So, the partnership -- between the UI athletic program and the organized gambling industry -- continues.
Last year it involved advertising the gambling casino on the scoreboard, and a real deal for high rollers: flying them to the casino, putting them up in the hotel, transportation to and from the games, football tickets, seats in the skybox the casino bought from the UI -- where, of course, alcohol can be served -- and a return trip to gamble away whatever money they have left after, presumably, gambling on the outcome of the game. Never mind that what they are expected to leave behind at the casino is multiples of the cost of any services they receive.
This year's offer is, apparently, a joint marketing effort to increase ticket sales while extending gambling's allure to those failing to qualify as high rollers -- so long as they'll pay for the bus ride. (Though why anyone who could park within a couple blocks of the stadium for $20 or less would think it a bargain to drive, and be driven, some 60 miles or more of round trips for the same price is not immediately apparent.)
Morality, Money and Enthusiasm for the "Gambling Tax"
Both The Gazette and the Press-Citizen have had major stories about the gambling casino's first year. Gregg Hennigan, "The House is Winning; Riverside Casino Exceeds Expectations in its First Year," The Gazette, August 24, 2007, p. A1; Rachel Gallegos, "Riverside Casino: One Year Later; Win, Loss or Draw?; Residents Undecided About Casino's Effect on Area," Iowa City Press-Citizen, August 25, 2007, p. A1.
As regular readers of this blog have long since figured out, I'm not a big fan of gambling. Indeed, while I've often spent time observing the behavior of those in casinos (I was at Riverside last week) I've never left a nickel of my own behind.
My position would emphasize such things as that gambling (except, of course, for bingo) is opposed by most major religions. It was for years a federal crime, and outlawed in most of the 50 states including Iowa. Its externalities impose enormous social negatives on the communities where it is found. They include increases in domestic disturbances, alcoholism, crime, suicide, and bankruptcies. There are correlations between the number of casinos (how far a gambler needs to drive) and the numbers of problem, and addicted, gamblers; there's been a significant increase in gamblers seeking counseling since the Riverside Gambling Casino opened. There are also the direct economic costs of providing roads, water and sewer systems, and additional police (as in Riverside). I believe that position to be logically, internally consistent.
However, I will concede that the opposite is also logically, internally consistent. It would go something like this: archaeologists have demonstrated that humans have been gambling for thousands of years. While once illegal, it is no longer -- at least not for licensed casinos in Iowa. The law was changed by democratically elected representatives of a majority of the citizens who were no more subjected to campaign contributions and bribes than they are for any other legislation involving enormous economic stakes. While there are gambling addicts, they have treatment programs available. No one is compelled to enter a casino. Gambling, when engaged in for fun, with money one can afford to lose, is an individual citizen's voluntary marketplace decision regarding the expenditure of discretionary income spent for a form of entertainment. That kind of gambling does no (direct) harm to anyone. Why not permit it? (I may not hold this view, but it is at least internally logically consistent.)
Another often-overlooked advantage of gambling is its relation to prayer. As has been observed, "As long as there are algebra tests there will always be prayer in schools." It turns out that as the Powerball drawing for this evening has now reached $300 million, more and more potential players are turning to prayer as well as Powerball to assure their future. Adam Belz, "Millions of Reasons to Play -- and Pray," The Gazette, August 25, 2007, p. B1. I am sure that selecting the proper winner is a matter of great interest to God, whoever she may be, and that -- now that Mother Teresa has been revealed to have questioned her faith -- this will be the Lord's way of picking up a replacement adherent.
It is the third position that I find internally illogical and questionable. It is, "I am opposed to gambling because of all the harm it does to society and the costs it imposes. But because the casino makes little grants to various local projects and organizations I guess it's OK."
That's like saying, "Yes, I know that the sugared soft drinks in our high schools' vending machines contribute to our students obesity, diabetes, teeth and gum disease, but, gee, how else would we have been able to get the money to buy that wonderful scoreboard for the football field?" Or, "It would be disgraceful, and detract from the credibility of our professors' research, to name a college after a corporation. On the other hand, if the corporation would pay enough money, well, that would be different because, after all, 'revenue is needed.'"
In a society in which everything is for sale I guess I find it disturbing that ethics and morality are also on the auction block.
Another inconsistency I find is with those who fight "tax increases" tooth and nail and yet are even enthusiastic about what I call the "gambling tax." Why the "gambling tax"? Because citizens are bringing billions of dollars into Iowa's casinos, much of which stays there, and the community is getting back less than 10% of their losses in the form of these little community grants -- grants that contribute to the kinds of projects our tax dollars normally go to fund.
Whatever you may say about income, property, sales and FICA taxes, all of them (aside from what's paid out in corporate welfare and forfeited in TIFs) goes to government, its projects, and the employees necessary to carry them out. Most of the "gambling" tax goes to the organized gambling industry; only a little trickles down to the community.
It's kind of like "public financing of campaigns." We already have it. The public buys products at prices sufficiently inflated to cover the manufacturers' multi-million-dollar campaign "contributions," and then the corporation gets the credit for the money paid to the elected official. The pay back? Between 1000-to-one and 2000-to-one. Contribute a million dollars, you'll get back a billion dollars in the form of tax breaks, failure to enforce the antitrust laws, price supports, defense contracts, subsidies, access to public lands for oil or timber, earmarks, and in any other form the imagination of lobbyists can devise. Bottom line: We could have "public financing" because each of us contributes $2 into a campaign fund, or we could have "public financing" because each of us contributes an extra $2000 to the corporations we buy from -- following which they will pass along the $2 of our money and keep the rest. In either case it's "public financed campaigns."
Here again, there is another view about the "gambling tax" which I only came upon after writing this blog entry. I found it as a comment following the Press-Citizen's story about the Riverside casino this morning:
"Lotteries are how the poor people pay their share of the taxes." . . . At least you have a choice of paying a "volunteer tax." I have no choice in paying property tax, income tax, all the taxes on utilities and phone bills, and a host of other taxes imposed on citizens every day. . . . [A]t least when you gamble, you eventually see where some of that tax money is being spent, (Riverside) and you have fun while gambling.
So there you have it, as another blogger -- a very, very wealthy blogger -- puts it: "Fair and balanced. You decide."
# # #
August 24, 2007, 1:40 p.m.
"The Marketplace" vs. Public Money, Private Profits
It's no secret to any regular reader of this blog that I find it a little hypocritical, putting it mildly, for those who are ideologically committed to "the marketplace" and the "free private enterprise system" -- those who believe that "government is the problem, not the solution" and that "social programs" are repulsively "socialistic" if not worse -- and yet cannot see anything objectionable about taxing the public in order to further enrich the wealthy and their for-profit enterprises.
[As I wrote last month:
"I've had it with the Iowa City City Council and TIFs. I'm going to do my best to see to it that anyone running for council who persists in continuing to take Iowa City taxpayers' money and give it to wealthy, supposedly "free private enterprise" for-profit corporations -- while denying it to their competitors, not to mention needed social programs -- is prevented from serving on the City Council." Nicholas Johnson, "They're Back: The Terrible TIFs" in "The Terrible TIFs," July 26, 2007.]
The ways in which "corporate welfare" can be done -- TIFs, subsidies, tax breaks, government contracts, use of public property, among others -- are limited only by the imagination of the beneficiaries' lawyers and accountants.
All too often, the press ends up on the side of those beneficiaries who, if not advertisers, are at least "pillars of the community."
So that's why I want to award a "Hat's Off" to the Register for not only its position, but the analysis and rhetoric represented in its editorial yesterday (August 23). Editorial, "Let a Developer Pay for Convention Hotel; Marketplace Will Say When Hotel Needed," Des Moines Register, August 23, 2007. Here are some samples:
Polk County and Des Moines . . . are no closer to getting a convention hotel . . .. It's to the point where local leaders need to listen to the marketplace rather than consultants.
A study by a Chicago consultant released Monday concluded that market demand is growing for another hotel downtown, which would boost events and attendance at the Iowa Events Center . . . [and] throw off $39 million in economic benefits to the community.
The catch: For that to happen now, taxpayers would be expected to kick in a substantial subsidy. That is something city and county officials should firmly resist.
There is cause for optimism that downtown Des Moines will eventually support a new convention hotel. But that should happen when the market is ready for one without a public subsidy. . . .
Other local hotel owners, whose occupancy rates according to the study are below 60 percent, could be forgiven for wondering whether they, too, will be eligible for government handouts.
. . .
City and county officials will know the time is right when developers start lining up to build the hotel - without expecting government subsidies.
What would it take to get Iowa's legislators and city officials to start thinking that way? Enough of this "free private enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich."
I can give you as long a list as anyone of market failures, corporate abuses, the inequity and other evils of "the marketplace." And I have an equally long list of things I'd like to see government doing. Unlike many who oppose government programs, and want nothing more than to "cut taxes," I have less problem with paying my fair share for rational, efficient, and needed government programs.
But when it comes to setting priorities for the allocation of economic resources among all the potentially competing for-profit projects, the marketplace is like democracy. It's the worst possible way to do it -- except for all the other alternatives.
It's when we try to combine the two -- transfers of taxpayers' money to for-profit enterprises -- that we really get the worst of all possible worlds. (For example, talk about "a level playing field," as marketplace advocates are wont to do! When we throw public money onto the bottom line of one business person, while denying it to all their competitors, we have really tilted our economy.)
This morning's Gazette editorialized along a consistent line this morning. Editorial, "Don't Focus on the Rankings," The Gazette, August 24, 2007, p. A4.
How does Iowa’s business climate compare to other states?
If you look for the answer among the numerous rankings compiled by various business magazines and think tanks, prepare to be more confused than enlightened. It’s best not to rely on these lists to judge our state, or others, for that matter.
. . .
Peter Fisher, University of Iowa professor and research director for the Iowa Policy Project, a non-profit public policy organization, determined the indexes were produced by ideological organizations that advocated mostly lower taxes and less government regulation. He concluded that their validity thus was diminished.
. . .
Peeling back the layers on taxes, for example, shows that Iowa’s overall business tax burden is lower than in border states Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois.
Business climate isn’t easy to define. However, a favorable environment for long-term growth must be based on more than tax rates. A skilled work force attracted by good schools and other quality-of-life measures is certainly just as important. Access to markets and materials is another.
Much of Iowa, including the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City corridor, can offer those things. But a looming worker shortage as the baby boomers retire poses a major challenge to this state.
Iowa’s focus should be on making sure our children are well-educated and well-informed about career opportunities here. That will do more to keep good companies here and help attract new business than a think tank’s lofty rating.
In short, the emphasis on "taxes," and the necessity of corporate welfare is often bogus.
In terms of the quality of life for those already living there, not all "development" and new or expanded businesses are a net plus.
Speaking of rankings, Iowa City, for example, is constantly being well ranked by those publications evaluating best places for college students, retired couples, entrepreneurs, and other categories. It's an attractive community -- attracting citizens and corporations alike. Additional growth is no longer our number one need, if it ever was. That's not to say we should put a fence around the town and forbid any growth. It is to say that it makes it much more difficult to make a case for handing out taxpayers' money to for-profit enterprises to encourage even more and faster growth.
# # #
August 23, 2007, 10:45 a.m.
What Do Abu Ghraib and Athletes' Facebooks Have in Common?
Shortly after the revelations of the shocking practices at the Abu Ghrahib prison in Iraq I wrote a column headlined, "Lessons from Abu Ghrahib." There was much to say and wonder about that bit of American military history. But one was, Given that Red Cross spokesperson Antonella Notari has said, "The photos are certainly shocking, but our reports are worse," how can one account for the administration's failure to respond to those reports?
I continued:
As Secretary Rumsfeld testified before the Senate, "It is the photographs, the people running around with digital cameras."
The problem, in short, was the public relations impact on American citizens (and possibly the president's re-election), and on Iraqis' "hearts and minds." The problem was not our pre-interrogation techniques, the problem was the pictures of those techniques. No cameras, no problem.
Before we get too shocked about this administrative response we need to reflect. Just how unusual is it?
Think back over publicized scandals involving deaths in hospitals, unsafe products, journalists' fraudulent stories, tobacco companies' lies, sexual abuse in the church, manufacturers' toxic dumps, or universities' athletic programs. How often have they involved facts well known to top administrators for some time? Or, if not known, facts that would have been known with even rudimentary monitoring and management information systems?
Without media coverage, whistle blowers are often ignored, even when they propose solutions. Remember the repeated warnings that contractors' practices risked setting the Old Capitol dome on fire? Recall Ralph Nader's proposal, many years before 9/11, that terrorists' hijacking of airplanes could be prevented by strengthening cockpit doors?
There are lessons for all institutional administrators from Abu Ghraib. Don't think you get the big bucks just for favorable public relations. Substance matters. Ethics matter. Human dignity matters.
Nicholas Johnson, "Lessons from Abu Ghraib," Daily Iowan, May 11, 2004.
Before I went in search of that column this morning I had long since forgotten that I had included a reference to "athletic programs."
But isn't that what's going on now with UI athletic and other administrators' reactions to our athletes' (and other students') Facebook postings?
In short, the problem is not the behavior the photos reveal, it is the fact the photos reveal it. The problem is, to repeat Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's expressed concern: "the people running around with digital cameras."
As the UI's associate athletics director put it in this instance, "We're looking at them [the Facebook pages and photos] to see . . . Is it something that is an embarrassment to the institution? . . . [I]t could be [that is, the photo could depict] an action that brings on public embarrassment."
Andy Hamilton, "Athletes' Photographs Under Review; Expert Talked to Coaches About Sites' Dangers," Iowa City Press-Citizen, August 22, 2007.
And just what is on those Facebook pages? As Brian Morelli reports this morning:
The Facebook pages of more than 20 underaged University of Iowa football players have photos appearing to show them engaging alcohol in various ways, from drinking to posing with liquor bottles or beer cans.
In addition, several UI football players have messages attached to their profiles that discuss alcohol consumption, racial slurs and other offensive subjects.
"She can't say no if her mouth is taped shut," is posted as a favorite quote on one player's page. Another's says, "If you send me back to jail, I'll rape your family."
Brian Morelli, "Alcohol Abundant on Players' Sites; Review Shows Questionable Material," Iowa City Press-Citizen, August 23, 2007.
You see, the problem is not that athletes (and other students) might feel that way, think those things, or even say those things. The problem is that when they put them up on their Facebook page it risks embarrassing the University.
As for the UI administrators' and Iowa City City Council members' "see-no-evil-hear-no-evil-speak-no-evil" stance when it comes to the highly profitable and politically powerful bar owner and liquor lobby, Stepping Up Project executive committee chairman put it best:
"What it becomes is an anecdotal confirmation of what research has shown is going on at this university for years," Clayton said. "The behavior that is depicted in Facebook pictures, or in tailgate lots, should come as no surprise. It is ingrained in our local cultures."
Two recent reports make his point.
1. The Harvard University School of Public Health did a UI campus study. The result? During the prior month 70 percent of the UI's students had been binge drinking.
2. The Princeton Review reports that the UI is now number five in the nation for hard liquor consumption by students.
Any athletic program or other university administrator who claims not to have known about the amount, and serious consequences, of our students' (including "student athletes'") alcohol abuse before seeing it depicted within Facebook is either dissembling or incompetent.
So which is it? Is it that we really care one way or the other whether our students are abusing alcohol, consider rape a matter of right, and credit cards free for the taking? Or is it just that we don't want to suffer the institutional "embarrassment" of having our students' behavior -- and our obvious attitudes about it, as reflected in our inaction -- reported by the media or otherwise widely known?
What say you, President Sally Mason?
# # #
August 22, 2007, 7:00 a.m.
We are increasingly coming to recognize the contribution of the full range of the arts -- not only to our "quality of life" but also the economic growth and wellbeing that is increasingly dependent in this Information Age on the full range of human creativity.
Richard Florida, who has been here in Iowa City, is one of the better known spokespersons for this view with his "Creative Class Group."
It is much of what makes Iowa City the top rated place to live that it is. We are well blessed with theaters, art galleries, music venues, and of course our emphasis on writing.
Mary Blackwood, Director of the Landlocked Film Festival, recently put the case for developing a motion picture industry here in Iowa. Mary Blackwood, "It's Time for Iowa's Close-Up; A Short Manifesto for How Iowa Can Grow a State Film Industry," Iowa City Press-Citizen, August 21, 2007, p. A11. The paper joined her sentiments the same day. Editorial, "Smile, Iowa, the Cameras Are Rolling," Iowa City Press-Citizen, August 21, 2007, p. A11.
Flashback, introduction and analogy.
Over 30 years ago, working with my own and other public interest organizations in Washington, D.C., fund raising was a challenge for us all -- as it remains to this day. The standard practice was for those foundations that were funding us to give cash grants to each organization separately. It was then up to each of us to spend it as efficiently as possible for rent, phone, copying, salaries, transportation, and such other costs as we might have.
One day it occurred to me how wasteful this was from the standpoint of the foundations. I proposed that they buy a building (which would go up in value anyway) and house us there -- at a radically reduced cost to them compared with what they were paying us to pay rent to for-profit landlords. I proposed that they include in the building a copy center, a travel agency, a business supplies store, and other commonly shared resources needed by all of us.
Some of these ideas were actually adopted. Others not.
Subsequently, other service organizations were created to serve the entire public interest community: computer services in the early years of mainframe computers and then desktops, mass mailing fund raising letters and service, media relations, and counsel regarding social change strategies.
Fast forward: Supporting the Arts in Eastern Iowa
Some years ago I was asked to teach a course in "Entertainment Law and Business" for some theater students. During that semester I ran into a couple (not in the class) in the music business. The wife was the musician -- song writer and performer. The husband (who agreed to talk to the students) handled the business side of the business. He made the CDs, distributed them to radio stations, and then followed up with phone calls to encourage their getting air play. He promoted and handled the bookings for concerts.
At the time, and since, I have extrapolated from that, and my prior Washington experience -- along with exposure to UI's entrepreneurial programs -- to a vision of a model for the arts generally, anywhere, but especially here in eastern Iowa.
We have a lot of talent in this part of the state -- actors, quilt makers, performing musicians, novelists, potters, graphic artists, poets, song writers, film and video makers, playwrights and virtually every other imaginable artist.
There's no question about their professional artistic talent. There is, often, some question about their business talent. That's not a criticism. No one (or at least only a statistically insignificant minority) is talented at everything. That's why we take our cars to mechanics, our bodies to doctors, and seek the advice of lawyers.
I recall a conversation with one of the "Charlie's Angels" when on location with them in Colorado for a film. She explained the disparity between what was reported she was paid and how much she ended up with. After paying percentage shares to managers, business managers, agents, publicists, lawyers, goodness knows who else -- and taxes -- her cut was about 10%.
The cuts taken by each of her "support staff" may or may not have been excessive. The point is, there are entertainment industry professionals in California's "creative community" who are supporting the artists (as well as being supported by them). And much, if not all, of what they are doing for their clients pays off in terms of their clients' total revenue and careers.
Few, if any, of our eastern Iowa artists can afford that kind of professional staff.
So what do they do? Most do without. Some try to master the business side of their business, but find it doesn't really suit their aptitudes or interests. At best it's draining time, creative and emotional energy away from their artistic productivity.
So you see where I'm going with this.
Indeed, others are already moving in that direction.
Matthew Krigbaum, a lawyer with Moyer & Bergman, is pushing a project that would provide free legal advice to artists and musicians. Fred Love, "Free Legal Help for Artists Awaiting OK," The Gazette, August 20, 2007, p. B1. At this point he's simply awaiting an Iowa Bar Association ruling that the organization, Iowa Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, will comport with the bar's ethical obligations.
I think this is a great idea.
But it's only a beginning. (Of course, better a "beginning" that is accomplished than another one of my grandiose dreams and schemes that is ignored and withers.)
It would be great if others would pick up this baton.
Like a professional team taking responsibility for a K-12 student with special needs, or a team at Hospice, we need a team of professionals to advise and direct those artists who would welcome the support: lawyers, yes, but also accountants, bankers, and venture capitalists; business persons (like SCORE, the Service Corps of Retired Executives), venue managers, agents, professors and students focused on marketing, and entrepreneurial enterprises; and others with relevant talents to contribute.
It's too early in the development of this idea to be talking about financing. Besides, Krigbaum and others are really talking about volunteer, pro bono efforts -- something many of us can do that may be even more valuable than the cash we pay for tickets or give as contributions.
But there also could be some arrangement whereby (as with a commercial agent) the artist would agree that some agreed upon percentage of any incremental increase in their income attributable to the efforts of the group would return to provide some of the basic budget for its operations, such as, perhaps, a paid office worker or rental of space.
Artists are already doing a lot for the quality of life, and economy, of eastern Iowa. Imagine what they could do if we'd lend a hand to the business side of their lives and free up even more time for them to pursue their craft.
# # #
