Big Pharma Makes Me Sick

July 12, 2009, 8:30a.m.

Big Pharma is a Carcinogen
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
The pharmaceutical industry is deliberately causing and spreading cancer -- and very successfully so.

It is the cancer of corruption spreading from our body politic throughout the major institutions of our medical profession, research, and regulation.

I'm indebted to Holly Mosher (a successful, self-described "independent filmmaker - producing and directing independent media with an eye towards positive change") for bringing the film "Money Talks: Profits Before Public Safety" to my attention -- and especially for making the entire film available for viewing, for free!

In this film those from inside pharma, academic medicine, medical research, and practicing physicians who are willing to talk, describe in horrifying detail in this film how the pharmaceutical industry's money and influence has infected institutions well beyond those with which we're familiar: the Congress (campaign contributions and the $1.3-million-a-day lobbying expenses we're now experiencing)and the White House (e.g., although not in the film, the recent revelations of the President's agreement to oppose a legislative provision permitting government to negotiate for lower drug prices -- as a result of s secret, closed door meeting with pharma's top lobbyist).

According to those in the film, pharma's carcinogenic infestation of American institutions now includes relationships, financial and otherwise, with practicing physicians, medical schools, research institutions, government regulators, mass media and the academic journals. Pharma is designing, paying for, controlling, manipulating and withholding the data from clinical trials.

It is a credit to the participants in this film, and the producer, that the film is not a reenactment of the shouting matches on cable television; those interviewed are relatively calm and more straightforward in providing mere description rather than judgmental conclusions.

But with the facts they reveal there's no need to shout. The facts shout for them.

There's not room in a single blog entry to provide you a transcript of the additional litany of shocking practices -- and their consequences, up to and including unnecessary deaths (and obviously wildly overinflated prices for drugs that are sometimes less effective than the cheaper generics).

According to the Web page, the American Library Association has called "Money Talks" one of the most important films of 2008. I agree.

As the bumper sticker has it, "If you're not outraged you haven't been paying attention." In either case you need to watch this film. If you're already outraged you'll be much better informed as to why. If you're not yet outraged you will be after you've watched it.

Obviously, it couldn't be more timely than now, while our nation confronts its last best hope for meaningful health care reform.

But for public policy wonks, social studies teachers, and others interested in politics and our legal system, it contains more general lessons as well. They will, sadly, undoubtedly be as usefully insightful ten years from now in other contexts as they are today for health care.

This film portrays a classic case study of how we get ourselves in the fix we're so often in when obviously necessary reforms seem beyond our legislative grasp. How do industries, sometimes individual companies, spread their influence throughout not just our political institutions, but many to all of the powerful institutions in our society -- universities, organized religion, labor unions, the mass media? There is far more involved in this process than spreading around a few hundred million dollars on elected officials and mass media advertising.

So when you watch this film don't just learn how and why the drug industry makes us sick, as important and timely as that is. Think about the analogies: the power that AT&T once had over America (before its breakup), how Wall Street was able to get trillions of taxpayer dollars, why the auto industry was able to be the favored recipient of government largess when dollars elsewhere might have produced more and faster meaningful recovery -- and the examples of other companies and industries that seem to have what would otherwise be inexplicable power.

This film explains how they do it.
____________

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

# # #

Obama's Punking and Punting on First Down

July 10, 2009, 5:00 p.m.

Change We Can No Longer Believe In
From the blogosphere to the pages of the New York Times, others' disappointments and disillusionment with President Obama are coming more and more to resemble what I have been saying in blog entries here since the election last November. (And I consider myself an Obama supporter.)

Below are excerpts from a couple of examples. And see, Robert Reich, "How the White House's Deal With Big Pharma Undermines Democracy," Robert Reich's Blog, August 9, 2009.

First, some excerpts from Frank Rich, "Is Obama Punking Us?" New York Times, August 9, 2009, p. WK8:

Is Obama Punking Us?

By FRANK RICH

[T]here is real reason for longer-term worry in the form of a persistent, anecdotal drift toward disillusionment among some of the president’s supporters . . . articulated by an Obama voter . . . “Nothing’s changed for the common guy,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been punked.” She cited in particular the billions of dollars in bailouts given to banks . . ..

It’s the sinking sensation that the American game is rigged — that . . . [as the President said earlier] the system is in hock to “the interests of powerful lobbyists or the wealthiest few” who have “run Washington far too long.” . . . [T]he fear that almost everything, not just government, is fixed or manipulated by some powerful hidden hand, from commercial transactions as trivial as the sales of prime concert tickets to cultural forces as pervasive as the news media. . . .

[T]he Democratic members of Congress those hecklers assailed can hardly claim the moral high ground. . . . [I]ndustry groups contributed almost $1.8 million in the first six months of 2009 alone to the 18 House members of both parties supervising health care reform . . ..

[T]he Democratic Senate Campaign Committee . . . raked in nearly $500,000 from a single doctor-owned hospital in McAllen, Tex. — the very one that Obama has cited as a symbol of runaway medical costs . . ..

[Former Congressman Billy] Tauzin, an active player in White House health care negotiations, . . . secured a behind-closed-doors flip-flop, enlisting the administration to push for continued protection of drug prices. . . .

[Obama's] first questionable post-victory step was to assemble an old boys’ club of Robert Rubin protégés and Goldman-Citi alumni as the White House economic team . . .. The questions about Geithner’s role in adjudicating the subsequent bailouts aren’t going away . . ..

And here, in its entirety, is the Daily Kos blog's take on Obama supporters' dispair:

Oh, my President. What are you doing?

by flitedocnm

Sun Aug 09, 2009 at 07:53:27 PM PDT

You warned us from the beginning not to expect too much. You told us that you were a centrist.

OK, we said. You are intelligent, you understand constitutional law, you are inspiring, you speak of real change, you are saying all the right things about special interests. You are a natural leader. We want you to be the leader of all of us.

You were everything that George Bush was not.

You gave us hope.

We understood.

But today, Mr. President, we are devastated.

We were forgiving when you compromised on FISA.

We understood, you had to get elected, you didn't want to spook those who were still scared, and you didn't want to make this an issue.

We were puzzled when you appointed the guys from Goldman Sachs to run the economy.

OK, we knew these guys are smart and they have experience. They do understand how the system works. We gave you the benefit of the doubt on this.

We were patient when you asked us to be patient on Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Well, we still don't really understand why you can't end this now, but at least we know you're committed to fixing this. Most of us said we'd be patient.

We cheered when you vowed to shut down Guantánamo within twelve months.

Maybe a little longer than we'd hoped, but at least you've given a firm commitment.

We were concerned about what we were getting into with the increased mobilization in Afghanistan.

But you ran on this during your campaign, and nobody really knows the best answer for this. We again gave you the benefit of the doubt.

And we were thrilled at the real prospect of health system reform.

Maybe not what many had hoped for, but we were going to get real reform, real structural changes in the system, a real Public Option, a new paradigm.

But then, Mr. President, but then, things started going not so well.

First there were the second thoughts about indefinite detentions without charge or trial. And whether Guántanmo would really shut down within twelve months.

OK, the fools and cowards in Congress threw you a lead anchor on this. We know you'll do the best you can.

We heard you loudly and clearly about wanting to move forward, and not look backward.

But we remain increasingly alarmed, as more and more comes out about torture, rendition, the shredding of our Constitution, and now the alleged abuses of Blackwater, that we will never restore the precedent that the rule of law must come first, and can never be abrogated with impunity by an Executive branch that has claimed unaccountable power, beyond the rule of law.

And transparency, Mr. President. You promised transparency.

And you are more and more defending the idea that we can't afford transparency. That it's a luxury, not something we should expect of our government.

Then there was the DOJ brief not merely defending DOMA, but using language that would have made Sean Hannity proud.

What was that all about?? Was this a Bush mole run amok at DOJ?

We expected the pushback from the right on health system reform, albeit nobody quite expected the ferocity of the hatred and venom.

But at least we can understand where it's coming from. So, we'll be out there at all the town halls, we will mobilize, we will defend, we'll use calm logic where the other side uses slander and lies, we'll be there defending you and defending health system reform.

But despite all this, the talk of "bipartisanship" has continued, relentlessly, when it is clear as the New Mexico sky on a cold December morning that this would buy you nothing -- that maybe with one or two exceptions, the Republicans will oppose you every step of the way on this, and will extract concessions that would gut the bill.

And with this, Mr. President, we started to see the writing on the wall.

And at the same time, Mr. President, even the Senators like Bingaman and Durban who have supported real reform, who have spoken of the importance of a robust public option, have started to back down, using terms like "on the ropes", that maybe "co-ops are sorta the same thing".

We really, truly don't like this, Mr. President. This is not going well. The writing on the wall looks like it's written in blood now.

Amidst all of this, Mr. President, your Chief of Staff, Mr. Emanuel, decided that he'd had enough of interference from the people who were questioning how all this was going. He decided that it was the moment to exercise his superb powers of diplomacy to look in our direction -- in the direction of progressives, of the people who have given you our all, who sent in millions of donations during the campaign, who have worked for you tirelessly, endlessly, with faith that ultimately, finally, we would have a president who would lead us back from the abyss that we faced after eight long years wandering in the wilderness of ignorance, lies, greed and destruction, with faith that even when you felt you had to compromise, your heart was in the right place and you would do the best you possibly could -- your Chief of Staff looked in our direction, looked right into our eyes and smiled and extended his middle finger.

To this, Mr. President, I cannot begin to even offer a response.

And now, Mr. President, now we are dumbstruck. Over this weekend, we have learned of the deal with Big PhRMA. A deal that George Bush would be proud of -- the deal to buy their support, their advertising dollars, in return for their pledge to cut their profits by a defined margin, but not more than that, and that it would be promised that WE WOULD NEVER SEEK TO NEGOTIATE FOR THE BEST DRUG PRICES. I don't have to outline the details of why this leaves us speechless. Robert Reich spelled that out with great clarity today.

The Barack Obama we voted for in November of 2008, the guy who spoke eloquently of not allowing special interests to run the government, would understand. He wouldn't require Robert Reich or any of us to explain it to him.

This is not reform, Mr. President. It does not even remotely resemble "change". This is business as usual. It sends the message that true change is impossible, that there is no hope at all, that all we can do is capitulate.

Will all due respect, Mr. President, those who love you are all sitting here tonight with tears in our eyes, saying: "WTF, Mr. President. WTF are you doing?"

# # #

Nickel and Diming Don't Make Sense

July 7, 2009, 8:50 a.m.

How is MidAmerican Like a Country Club?
They Both Have Membership Fees
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
This is not a blog entry about "the high cost" of this or that. I don't disagree that monopoly and oligopoly price-setting, campaign-contribution-purchased government intervention with tariffs and price supports, and other factors unrelated to cost of production or quality of products, often result in our paying more than is justified. But that's a blog entry for another day.

What a glance at my current gas and electric bill reactivated was my irritation at what I think of as "nickel and diming" charges.

Why do businesses do it?

Is the income really enough to offset the loss of customer goodwill?

Motels. Normally I shop for cheap motel rates when traveling. But occasionally, when doing a public lecture, the sponsor insists I stay in the $200-300-a-night "conference hotel." (If they don't insist I usually still try to save money, even though it's their money, not mine.) But inevitably, these will be the hotels that want to charge as much as a dollar for every local call. (And don't get me started on the mini-bar prices.) And of course there's no free breakfast.

I will occasionally ask to speak to the manager to make my pitch. I'm not trying to reduce their cash flow, I'm just trying to rationalize it. I'll say, "Why is it you need to charge for local phone calls when I can go down the road to the Motel6, pay a fraction of your room charge, and make all the local calls I want to for free? Why don't you just charge $250 a night, instead of $200, and not charge for the incremental-cost-free-to-the-hotel local calls?"

(As a sidebar, do you know why it's called Motel 6? When I was a kid, Motel 6 charged $6.00 a night. It was "Motel $6.00." On a crowded weekend in Duluth recently the Motel 6 rates had progressed from $6.00 to $94.)

Cheap hotels offer relatively costly breakfasts for free. Expensive hotels' coffee shops and restaurants do not; it's easy to pay as much as $15 with tip, and often much more, if you want more than just coffee.

Auto mechanics. I've received bills from mechanics that include a charge for "rags." It's a pittance; I can afford it. But when anything done to a car seemingly ends up costing $200 why bother charging anything for the basic shop supplies that will be used in almost any repair job?

Gas and electric. My primary problem with public utility pricing for gas, electricity, and water has to do with the counter intuitive -- and environmentally disastrous -- formulas by which "the more you use the less you pay" (per unit of whatever). The customer is punished, not rewarded, for their efforts to reduce their impact on the planet. But, as with overpricing generally, that's also a topic for another blog entry someday.

This morning I want to focus on what MidAmerican Energy -- "obsessively relentlessly at your service" -- does when it becomes equally obsessive and relentless in coming up with tricky ways to charge you more money. (In fairness, I will acknowledge that the company is making some efforts at energy efficiency, including the offer of free home surveys which I find very helpful.)

They call it a "Basic Service Charge." And although I am only one customer I get two of them, one for electricity and one for gas. This is no "rag charge." It's substantial -- especially when compared with the cost of what I'm buying: electricity and natural gas.

The electric "basic service charge" is, at $6.00 a month, greater than a 10% add-on to my electric bill -- which, at about 9 cents per kilowatt hour, is already roughly twice what the really big users pay.

The gas bill is worse. Already I'm being charged for both the gas (calculated in "therms" rather than the "per 100 cubic feet" units the company's supplier is probably using) and a "delivery charge" that is as much as two-thirds of the price of the gas itself. But the "basic service charge" ends up being a 100% tax on top of the total of those two!

Just exactly what is this "basic service" for which I'm paying as much as the price of the gas -- and its delivery -- combined?

Again, I'm not -- in this blog entry -- suggesting that MidAmerican's cash flow is greater than it needs to be, or can appropriately be (though I'd be stunned if that were not the case). As an FCC commissioner I used to set public utility rates -- in that instance for AT&T, but the basic formulas and considerations are similar. While I see many advantages to municipal ownership (and rural electric coops), including the elimination of the cost of return on investment to shareholders, if you are going to have private ownership of public utilities executives' salaries and shareholder return are going to be a part of the cost to consumers.

Nor do I object to "transparency." Indeed, I'd like to have a lot more of it from the utilities and the Iowa Public Utilities Commission, drilling down to really explain what their costs are and why.

What I object to is what appears to be either a tax imposed by a non-governmental body or a sort of "membership fee," like Sam's Club charges, for the privilege of being a customer of MidAmerican -- a matter as to which few of us have any meaningful choice of alternatives.

(And of course I also object to the amount of the membership fee, and the fact that it disproportionately impacts the poor -- and those making an affirmative effort to conserve natural resources and reduce pollution -- in the same way the rate structure does. But for now I'm just focusing on the nickel and diming issue.)

Ideological itemization. The phone and cable bills itemize the various charges various governments require they collect. OK, I guess that's a kind of transparency. But I'm not unmindful that it's also a useful bit of anti-government ideology disguised as a monthly bill; a reminder of those "tax and spend" (or "borrow and spend now, tax later") folks in Washington and Des Moines. But I won't dwell on that.

Nickel and Diming. Can you imagine what this nickel and diming would look like on your grocery bill receipt?

"Can of peas, 22 cents (includes manufacturer's, wholesaler's and retailer's profit).
"Packaging charge, 11 cents.
"Delivery charge, 8 cents.
"Stocking charge, 6 cents.
"Check out charge, 3 cents.
"Basic service charge, 19 cents.
"Total, 69 cents."

It would be laughable.

Why is it not equally laughable when it comes to local phone calls from motels, mechanics' rags, and MidAmerican's membership fee "basic service charge"?
____________

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

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Sickness Empire Strikes Back

August 6, 2009, 10:25 a.m.

Too Hurt to Laugh, Too Old to Cry
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Adlai Stevenson remains to this day one of my political heroes from his 1952 presidential race 57 years ago. Although I'm normally relaxed about meeting people for the first time, when, 12 years later, Jack Valenti asked me at a Washington reception whether I'd like to meet him I was truly as nonplussed as if I was about to be introduced to Thomas Jefferson or Gandhi. Stevenson, sensing my reaction, launched into an enthusiastic explanation about what President Johnson had told him about me and how much he appreciated the opportunity to meet me. That's class.

I sure do wish we had him around today to help with the efforts at health care reform.

He lost that presidential election to General "Ike" Eisenhower by a 442 to 89 Electoral College margin. As for his reaction to the loss he used a line from an Abraham Lincoln story, "it hurts too much to laugh, but I'm too old to cry."

That's kind of how I feel about what seems to be happening to our last greatest hope for the kind of health care offered seemingly all the world's citizens but us.

Jon Stewart and some of the stand-up comics try to help us laugh about the corruption of our politics and the tactics of those who, for the sake of their own profits, are willing to add to that corruption of the political process -- even when it involves denying health care, and further accelerating its costs. But this is not really a laughing matter.

Adlai Stevenson had a word or two to say about them as well, such as: "The New Dealers have all left Washington to make way for the car dealers," "There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody," and "Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse."

Isn't that what the sickness industry, and the politicians they fund, are doing with their lies -- corrupting the public mind?

I'm reminded of the old bumper sticker: "If you're not outraged you haven't been paying attention." Goodness knows I've written about my own feelings on this enough. But maybe I haven't been sufficiently outraged in what I've written. For in addition to health care, Americans also need a greater sense of outrage about what Washington has been doing to us.

I don't often use this blog to reproduce others' writing in its entirety. But I came upon an expression of outrage over health care the other day that I thought worth repeating.

It is copyright, © 2009, by Gene Messick, wordsmith, http://earthhome.us, who also offers subscriptions to his "BAILOUT" publication with an email to TrueBlueNetwork@earthhome.us.

His essay follows:

Healthcare Empire Struck Back
Washington, early August, 2009: Combatants are withdrawing from the field of battle in DC. Retreating to their home Districts, Members of Congress are licking their wounds, as they fill their carpetbags with lies to tell constituents about why they failed to win the 2009 War for Healthcare Reform.
.
Not since the Civil War a century-and-a-half ago are so many civilian non-combatants dying on American soil. As smoke clears from the current battlefield, citizen deaths from absence of Healthcare Reform will continue, at a rate of 20,000 per year, day by day thru the August month of Congressional conflict recess.
.
This was a War that 76% of Americans have said they wanted won. Voters trusted Congress to win it for them. That's what they thought they said, loud and clear, in the 2008 November Elections ratifying and mandating Obama's Promises of Change.
.
Having lost the Skirmish of 1993 to the same alien Empire of Corporate Healthcare forces, Americans have stood mutely year after year, watching the death toll of Americans rise as stockholders took their ever more sumptuous dividends, and callous CEOs used their increasing bonuses to buy bigger houses, yachts, rings and things. Ghosts of 300,000 Americans hover over Congress, peering down in silent support for tens of millions still living without Healthcare of any kind.
.
Do these Ghosts-of-Failures-Past know who, and how many, will join them before murderous greed of an alien Empire Corporate Healthcare Industry will be expunged from the Earth, once and for all?
.
For yet another month, fictitious alien Healthcare Corporations will continue to thrive as more living Americans are murdered for profit, needlessly.
.
It's so outrageous that Keith Olbermann featured the national scandal Aug 3rd on MSNBC Countdown
___________________________
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One-million-four-hundred-thousand dollars per DAY are being spent this time, to send their mercenary Lobbyists trooping thru the Halls of Congress, stalking, one by one, the 535 elected Senators and Representatives who's votes will determine the fate of our Nation.
.
How in good conscience can pre-purchased Congress Critters chose to represent Empire Corporations that cannot vote, instead of American citizens who elected them? Healthcare Corporations are not citizens. They are unregistered aliens, ownable by anyone in the Global Empire Economy.
.
The task of these Empire Lobbyists is not only to kill any hope of a Public Option, but to preserve forevermore the Private Option as the only Healthcare Plan available for most Americans, offered only to those who can afford to pay for increasing Corporate profits. Any of the rest can die in agony from curable illnesses -- as they have been doing for 16 years -- without murmur, without protest, for at least another generation.
.
Killing Americans for Corporate profit has become so commonplace to currently living Americans, that they accept it as an inevitable part of being born American. While in-step Corporate Media distracts by reporting casualties from foreign Wars for Oil profits, ever growing numbers of American casualties caused here at home by our own Corporate Healthcare Industry are ignored, never reported.
.
Every other advanced Nation on Earth has moved to conquer the Evil Empire of Corporate Healthcare Greed. Everywhere on the Planet, that is, except in the US. Lies about inferior Healthcare abroad which could so easily be debunked are left to stand, stitched and embroidered into the brains of successive generations of TV addicts by highly skilled -- and highly paid -- Empire PR propagandists.
.
Creating cravings for more and more money is at the root cause of why sociopaths who operate the Healthcare Empire have been so successful. When the Empire took over, the measure of Healthcare success got changed: now it's measured by Corporate profits acquired, not by numbers of lives saved. And besides, exterminating the poor improves the economy of the Nation. Darwin was right says the Empire: survival for only the fittest. And the richest.
.
Even as propaganda from the alien Empire swells from more billions of Corporate Healthcare Industry dollars thrown into it, cries by patriot citizens that innocents are dying does not transfer into the one word no one dares to speak: murder.
.
Every trick of lies, every distraction, every diversion is employed to keep Americans from seeing that each and every one of them stands a chance to win the Corporate Greed Lottery, by becoming sick, and only then discovering that their Health Care Insurance will not pay, that they must bankrupt their family to pay skyrocketing treatment costs as CEOs print ever more glowing Annual Reports for stockholders.
.
With the flick of a Corporate Empire pen writing: Claim Denied, the hopes and dreams of a lifetime of being a responsible American vanish, along with those of your family. How is this fair? How is this America's finest effort?
____________________________
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How can so many be sacrificed on the Empire's altar for Corporate profit? Why are Americans so blinded to the slaughter that presents itself to them on and on and on? How many more families must the Finger of Corporate Induced Death touch before a critical mass has formed to resist, to fight, to conquer?
.
How close are we to the end of the 2009 War for Healthcare Reform? Actually, it has not yet begun.
.
What was sprung on the American people in the name of Healthcare Reform was a fraud. What both Houses of Congress presented was not Healthcare Reform Bills, but a pretense of Health Insurance Reform, a battle the Corporate Healthcare Industry knew they could win. The real War, for Universal Single-payer National Healthcare, was never allowed to be fought. Congress Critters pre-purchased by the Evil Empire made certain it never would be seen on the Congressional battlefield.
.
Big Pharma attacked preemptively with its powerful Lobbyist Association, headed by a former crooked Congressman. He knew how to wangle concessions such that Big Pharma profits would remain guaranteed with no Government negotiation for price reductions, and no prescription drugs allowed to be imported from Canada. All this was secured without the first shot being fired on the Congressional battlefield. Clever? Perhaps, but only if Americans do not realize how they have been screwed again by Big Pharma's well lubricated enema.
.
As July 2009 came to a close, those who were pre-purchased with Campaign Contributions, and those pre-positioned on key review Committees, valiantly pretended to be struggling to protect the American people, while serving their true Empire Corporate Masters.
.
Here's voluntary testimony from an Empire Builder, a former Healthcare Insurance Executive who recognized God's promise that he was headed straight for Hell if he continued helping the Empire murder innocent people: pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/transcript
.
What has emerged from Congressional Committees -- but NOT gotten to the floor of either the House or Senate -- are maimed and butchered Bills that only a Corporate Sociopath could cheer. And the Corporate Healthcare Empire is celebrating with all the billions of tax deductible dollars they can spend to keep a Public Option from becoming law. Private Option is healthy and well on its way to remaining the ONLY Option. Public Option will be DOA if it ever gets out of Congress to President Obama's desk. This Mission was Accomplished!
____________________________
.
Now on to their next Mission: send Congressional Critters back home to confuse the electorate into believing that a Public Option of any kind is (God forbid!) Socialism! It's Anti-American! It will steal your Freedom! It will ruin Healthcare for all Americans! It will bankrupt our Nation!
.
All lies of course. Intended to confuse, discombobulate an easily fooled citizenry addicted to a steady diet of Corporate lies spoon fed to them over TV. But now after the Empire's most fierce flagellation of lies, there's a single remaining tiny ember of Living Hope that they must drown: HR 676 and its companion Senate Bill.
.
With the sacrificial Judas Goat of a Public Option thoroughly bloodied, mangled, battered and on life support, not expected to survive, only one insignificant pocket of resistance stands any chance of driving a stake thru the heart of the Evil Empire, sending it back forever to Hades where it was born.
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Will this small cadre of Single Payer freedom fighters stand any chance of rescuing America? Can they use the August silence in Congress to expose how corrupt the Evil Corporate Healthcare Empire really is? And even if they do expose Congressional corruption, will it matter in this Healthcare debate?
.
Can we convince every BlueCross-BlueShield-BlueDog Democrat that if they are successful in killing any Public Option by preserving the Private Option unchallenged, that not one single one of them will be returned to Congress? Do Blue Dogs care? Of course not. Whether they will retire or BE retired in 2010, the Empire assures them their purchased services will be rewarded for the rest of their lives.
.
You see what True Blue Americans are up against? The purest bribery ever tried. We must make it seen, make it known, make it understood. Send the Evil Empire packing back to Hell. Rescue future generations of Americans, by giving them, every one of them, Universal Healthcare. It's a right, not a privilege: elsewhere, but not in America.
.
Convince your vacationing Congressperson that HR 676 is the only live option that the Evil Empire has left for our discussion.
____________

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

# # #

Cash for Contributors' Clunkers

August 4, 2009, 1:00 p.m.

"You're the reason I'm ridin' 'round on recapped tires"
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)

You're the reason I'm ridin' 'round on recapped tires
An' you're the reason I'm hangin' our clothes outside on wires
. . .
Ah, but money ain't everything
I love you just the same

-- You're the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly

I'm no fan of Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), but I have to admit we're at least in partial agreement about the "cash for clunkers" program.

On July 23 I added an "Update" to my blog entry, "Why GOP Fears Meaningful Health Care; GOP Sees Democrats Taking Credit for Meaningful Health Care Legislation
as Partisan Blow to Republican Party," July 8, 2009.

It was prompted by DeMint's comment that he wanted to "break" President Obama: "As further evidence that the GOP continues, up to this day, to view its opposition to health care as a way to strengthen the Republican Party -- at the expense of the health of the American people, as well as the Democrats and President Obama -- Senator Jim DeMint is urging on his Republican colleagues with the hopeful assessment, 'If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.' Linda Feldmann, "How Jim DeMint did Obama a favor; The senator said healthcare would be Obama's 'Waterloo' – if Obama lost, it would break him. Now, Obama is using the comment as an example of crass Beltway obstructionism," Christian Science Monitor, January 21, 2009."

More recently, he had this to say about the "cash for clunkers" program:

"If we give away free money, people will buy cars," said DeMint. "But what about appliances, and heat pumps, and TVs? The problem here is instead of across-the-board . . . effect on our whole economy, the federal government is trying to run a particular business by targeting just the auto industry . . ..

"It just doesn't make any sense to keep . . . borrowing money from our children, and then saying, 'Shazam, we've sold some cars!'"

David S. Morgan, "DeMint: Gov't 'Out of Control' on Clunkers," CBS News Blogs, August 4, 2009.

In politics you never want to permanently alienate anybody. Today's most forceful (and effective) opponent may become tomorrow's ally. I'm not "in politics" in that sense, and DeMint is neither my enemy nor my friend. But the juxtaposition of his two quotes does illustrate the proposition.

My position for the past year of our economic downturn has included:

- If you're "too big to fail" you're too big, and ought to be broken up

- I can handle either marketplace capitalism or socialism; what I object to is the privatization of profits on the way up and the socialization of losses passed on to the taxpayer on the way down

- Bankruptcy (followed by reorganization) is preferable to bailouts; assets may be "toxic" but they're still worth something in a free marketplace, and their low value is the consequence of management error that ought to fall on executives and investors; whatever's left can continue to be operated by somebody

- If you do want to involve taxpayers' money in recovery efforts, in an economy that is driven 60-70% by consumer spending the money needs to go to consumers, not corporate CEOs and bankers: federal jobs programs (e.g., WPA, CCC), increased and extended food stamps and unemployment compensation, universal single-payer health care for all (at least until the economy is back on track), job training programs, and prevention of mortgage foreclosures

- Even if you do want to contribute taxpayers' money to the bottom line of for profit corporations (and their executives' bonus payments), at a time when the entire economy is taking a hit it's hard to justify singling out any one favored sector (e.g., automobile industry) for special taxpayer largess.

It's against those principles that I evaluate the "cash for clunkers" program.

The up side: It is putting money in the hands of individuals, not banks and large corporations -- automobile dealers and their customers. There is some marginal environmental benefit to substituting a higher gas mileage car for a lower gas mileage car.

The down side:

- Senator DeMint and I agree that it's a little difficult to either rationalize or justify the limitation of the program to automobiles, rather than including, as he says, "appliances, and heat pumps, and TVs." The industries manufacturing those items, and the dealers selling them, are as hard hit as auto dealers. And replacing that equipment with the newer, power-saver models would also have a favorable environmental impact. As explained above, I wouldn't give taxpayers' money to any industrial sector; but if we're going to do it anyway I think it should be more equitably distributed and include, for example, the millions employed in retail establishments.

- My sense (without the data) is that if a part of the purpose of this program was to encourage automobile manufacturing I'm not sure it was well focused; my sense is that dealers are primarily simply reducing the inventory that was sitting on their lots unsold.

- To the extent a part of the purpose was to improve the average mpg of America's autos I'm not sure how impressive it's been; according to the Times the average mpg of those sold under this program have been "cars . . . 28.3 miles per gallon, for S.U.V.’s, 21.9 miles per gallon, and for trucks, 16.3 miles per gallon." Matthew L. Wald and Nick Bunkley, "Spurring Sales, Car Rebate Plan Is Left Up in Air," New York Times, August 4, 2009, p. A1. (a) I didn't realize that trucks and SUVs were included at all, and (b) I can't remember how long ago it would have been that a car we had would have done no better than 28 mpg. If we're really trying to improve cars' gas mileage with a multi-billion-dollar program, shouldn't we at least insist on the mileage equivalent of the used cars' mileage 10 and 15 years ago?

- To the extent the purpose was to help Americans suffering from the economic downturn it also failed. The people who most need help are the unemployed who need a car to look for work and can't even afford to take on the monthly payments for a five-year-old used car. If you can't pay your mortgage and credit card debt why would you ever consider buying a new car -- with or without this rebate -- and adding even more debt to your debt-burdened finances? My guess is that most of the customers taking advantage of this program are those who are doing well enough that they can afford to either pay cash, or easily take on the additional monthly payments, and are accustomed to buying new, rather than used, cars. (I don't think I've ever purchased a new car. I mostly walk and bike, and put no more than about 400 miles maximum on my vehicle, a 1978 VW van.)

- Even for those wealthy enough to buy new cars, the economic benefit of receiving cash for their "clunker" is not $3500 to $4500; it is the difference between the trade-in value the dealer would have authorized even without the program, and what was provided by the taxpayers to the dealer. (That is, if the trade-in value of the old car would have been $2500 anyway, the incremental benefit to the buyer is $1000 to $2000, not $3500 to $4500. Moreover, those wealthy enough to be buying new vehicles would probably be driving older vehicles worth at least $2500.)

- Those who can't even afford to buy the old clunkers are notoriously miserly when it comes to campaign contributions for senators and members of congress. Auto dealers are much more generous. Much as I'd like to think of "cash for clunkers" as a genuine effort to help those in need it has a slight sniff -- not a stench -- of political business as usual: pay to play.

When the Senate gets back to health care Senator DeMint and I will be back on our more comfortable opposite sides from each other. But, for today, we're in basic agreement on this one.
____________

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

# # #

Cronkite in Context: Walter, CBS or the Era?

July 31, 2009, 12:30 p.m. (August 19, 2009 Don Hewitt addition)

Insights from Cronkite's Success
Shed Light on Today's Media Failures
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)

This is my last broadcast as the anchorman of The CBS Evening News; for me, it's a moment for which I long have planned, but which, nevertheless, comes with some sadness. For almost two decades, after all, we've been meeting like this in the evenings, and I'll miss that. But those who have made anything of this departure, I'm afraid have made too much. This is but a transition, a passing of the baton. . . . And anyway, the person who sits here is but the most conspicuous member of a superb team of journalists; writers, reporters, editors, producers, . . .. Furthermore, I'm not even going away! I'll be back from time to time . . .. And that's the way it is . . .. I'll be away on assignment, and [others] will be sitting in here for the next few years. Good night.

Embedded in Dan Shelley, "Commentary: Cronkite & The CBS Broadcast Center; Legendary Newsman's Aura Permeates Every Inch Of Building," WCBS-TV & wcbstv.com, July 18, 2009.

That was how Walter Cronkite left us the last time, in 1981. Change "last broadcast" to "last day," "two decades" to "nine," and it works pretty well for his most recent departure two weeks ago. Had he witnessed our response to his passing I suspect he would say again, with equivalent modesty that "those who have made anything of this departure, I'm afraid have made too much."

And it would be neither inaccurate nor immodest of him to prophesy that "I'll be back from time to time." After all, he was known to most Americans as but an image on a television screen, and given the wonders of videotape and other storage media those images can always return. And, to quote Dan Shelley's headline, above, this "legendary newsman's aura" will continue to permeate not only the newsroom at WCBS-TV, but newsrooms of all media, and journalism classrooms, for decades to come.

Like the thousands who have written about his passing, I too acknowledge his greatness -- as a human being as well as a journalist. Like others whose lives intersected with his, I too have my personal stories. Like all Americans with access to a radio and later a television set during the last half-century or so, I also looked to him to tell me "the way it is."

But I've hesitated to leap into my own commentary because it seemed to me there was an even bigger story here. I'm not confident I'll ever fully understand what it is, but I certainly have a greater insight after two weeks' thought than I had on July 17. How much of "Walter Cronkite" was "Uncle Walter," how much "CBS," and how much the times, the era, in which he emerged?

But first, a sampling of some of my own Walter Cronkite and CBS stories.

We were both born in the midwest, he in St. Joseph, Missouri, and I in Iowa City, Iowa. We both attended the University of Texas, he about the time I was born, I about 18 years later. (In later years our pictures were both hung in the UT Journalism Building, along with that of Bill Moyers, as DeWitt Carter Reddick Award recipients.) Although my own accomplishments and prominence were those of a pygmy compared to Walter Cronkite, our most public times overlapped -- his as anchor of the half-hour "CBS Evening News" (1962-1981), mine in Washington from 1963-1979 (three presidential appointments, including Maritime Administrator, FCC commissioner, presidential adviser to President Carter, a congressional race, and chairing the National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting).

Cronkite knew of my interest in journalism in general, and television news in particular, and offered me a standing invitation to visit the set and control room whenever he was doing the news from Washington. These were days of film -- occasionally arriving only minutes before the show went live -- and the tension surrounding what would and would not be processed in time to air, along with the split-second commands to the camera operators (and Walter) made the scene, from my perspective, about as exciting a place to be as any I could imagine.

Earlier, as Maritime Administrator, I had learned the power of his broadcast. One of my responsibilities was moving shiploads of wheat to India. There were disputes with the unions, and various government agencies, that made this task something between very difficult and impossible. Cronkite mentioned the problem one evening in a newscast; the next day the orders came down from the White House, following which the ships promptly sailed. It was an insight and lesson that stayed with me when later confronting the power of the mass media as an FCC commissioner.

At the FCC I tried to focus public and congressional attention on the importance and responsibility of broadcast journalism. Broadcasting's greatest failing, I said, was not so much the harm that it did (though there was plenty of that) but the good it could do for America that it failed to do.

In 1967, the second year of my seven-year term on the FCC, CBS launched a new program called "60 Minutes" which I praised as a step in the right direction. It wasn't long, however, before the show's low ratings were cited by those who thought the experiment had failed and the program should be canceled. I urged the network to stick with it, give it time, that it takes awhile for a show to build a following. Not that my urging had anything to do with it, but the program was kept on the air and for many years thereafter reigned as number one in the ratings -- not number one among news programs but number one, period.

Addition: August 19, 2009: Mike Hale, "An Appraisal: Don Hewitt, The Man Who Kept ‘60 Minutes’ Ticking," New York Times, August 20, 2009, p. C1 ("In the wake of Mr. Hewitt’s death on Wednesday, much will be written about how the CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” his signal creation, paved the way for a good share of what we see on television today. . . . [A] moment should be taken simply to honor the success: no show in the history of television has been as widely popular for as long as '60 Minutes.'").

CBS had a Sunday morning show called "Face the Nation." On September 14, 1969, I was the guest. I recently accidentally came upon a "Face the Nation" transcript of my exchanges on that occasion with Mike Wallace and George Herman of CBS and Richard Burgheim of Time magazine. They were heated exchanges, and I was at my outrageous worst. Given that the show was not promoted, and the only listings had it at the wrong time, I was not surprised that one of the letters I received from a viewer explained that she had only seen it because she'd accidentally turned on her TV set while dusting it. (As the producer later explained to me, "You're not paranoid, Nick, you've got real enemies.") All told we had more than 7000 letters in my office (if I now remember correctly), and someone from CBS told me that the network got more mail about that show than any "Face the Nation" program prior to that time. (If you're interested in what was said, just click on the link above.)

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

Most of the occasions when I was the subject of a CBS' or New York Times' news item it involved my work. But years later, when I had long since settled into what would prove to be a 17-year period as a single man once again, Kathleen Nolan (then national president of the Screen Actors Guild) and I began dating and a personal item made Cronkite's newscast.

Kathleen had a friend with a small house on the north side of Oahu where we decided to spend a few days. Next door, among others, was a young boy who lived in a tree, could dive meters below the surface without a scuba tank, walk on coral, and smoked pot. (Asked why he wasn't in school, he replied, "Because the surf's too high.") When we considered a walk in the near-by forested mountain area he gave us suggestions and offered to accompany us. Since we didn't know the area, and assumed he knew it like the back of his hand, we followed him.

We climbed up a mountain under bushes with long thorns that permitted sliding under while going up, but would have torn the hide off of anything trying to go back down. We weren't concerned not only because we had our experienced guide, but because my mountain experience from Colorado and the Shenandoah was that there are usually animal trails along a mountain ridge that we could probably take back to our cottage. We were wrong on both counts. Our guide did not know this territory, and the trail along the top was very narrow, with drops on both sides precluding descent. Assuming we would ultimately get back down, we continued on only to find the trail ended with an equally impassible drop. We were stuck. We were supposed to have dinner with our friends Dorothy and John Craven (who was then running for Lt. Governor of Hawaii). When we didn't show, he got the Honolulu Fire Department helicopter out looking for us. Our guide, of course, came equipped with matches (though no pot, as I now recall), so we started a little (controlled) fire to alert the helicopter we saw coming for us. For some reason the fire did not get their attention, and they left us on the mountain overnight.

There followed a number of contradictory stories running on the wire services. We were lost in a forest. We had gone down in a small plane at sea. We were lost at sea in a boat. I later heard from some of the other women I was dating at the time of their concern -- both as to what might have happened to me, and as to whom I was with at the time.

The next day the helicopter sighted us, and we swung down in baskets from the mountaintop to the road below -- where the local TV cameras were ready to record our rescue. The reporters' first question to Kathleen: "What were you wearing?" (Dressed in shorts and climbing boots she sarcastically explained that she had been in a designer ball gown while climbing, but changed into shorts for the interview.)

And what does Walter Cronkite have to do with this misadventure? It was a slow news day apparently, so he included a report of our safe return on the evening news.

Another thing Cronkite said on his last day as anchor, quoted above, was "the person who sits here is but the most conspicuous member of a superb team of journalists; writers, reporters, editors, producers . . .."

And that's the point I'm about to make about Walter Cronkite, CBS, and the state of broadcasting during the 1960s and 1970s -- as contrasted with today.

CBS was, as Cronkite himself said, much more than the anchor on the Evening News. And my relationship was with CBS as much or more than with Cronkite.

Our next door neighbors, and probably closest family friends, in Bethesda, were the Pierpoints; Bob was then the CBS White House correspondent. Although I never met Edward R. Murrow (who died in 1965), I enjoyed a dinner with his widow, Janet, one evening in Pat and Bob's home. My sister, who started her career in television broadcasting while in high school ("Let's Pretend" and "It's Fun to Find Out" on award-winning WMT-TV, Cedar Rapids, were her creations), had gone on to work for NBC, CBC, BBC, and others. Before moving on to other things, she also worked with Cronkite and CBS News as both a researcher and on-air reporter. And as was necessarily the case for someone in my position at that time, I had an acquaintance with a number of CBS reporters and other personnel.

Which brings me to what is perhaps the broader significance of the "CBS era" in broadcasting. Its success was a tribute to more than just the "team of journalists" -- however professionally skilled, ethical, and hard working they may have been.

It was a tribute to CBS' owner, Bill Paley (whom I never met), its president Frank Stanton (whom I did meet), its general counsel, Dick Salant (with whom I publicly tangled in print), CBS News President Fred Friendly (whom I knew in a variety of his roles). It was they who made the decisions to spend more on CBS News than any other network was willing to spend, far more than the FCC would ever have required. They who lived the admonition, "with great power goes great responsibility." They who exercised that responsibility to all America as best they knew how. They who took pride in the creation and operation of one of the world's preeminent television news organizations.

Looking back the 40 years to those days it's ironic that I should ever have included CBS in my criticisms of the industry. They somehow seem, by comparison with today, the "golden years of responsible television journalism."

And so I'm left to wonder, "why?" What happened during the last three decades to create the state of the broadcast media we see today?

Certainly a part of the answer is the "Wall Street cancer" that infects the majority of American capitalism. Capitalism used to be run by capitalists. Now it's run by bankers and multi-million-dollar hired hands.

You knew who owned CBS in those days; where the buck stopped -- and where the bucks came from. It was Bill Paley. He was driven by forces other than the goal to become "the richest man in the cemetery." He took personal pride in CBS' accomplishments. (And as he once told Edward R. Murrow, when trimming his sails, he also felt it in the pit of his stomach when, in his judgment, CBS was stepping over the line.) But the result was that profit maximization was not paramount; the money spent on CBS News was money that would otherwise have been in Bill Paley's pocket.

Today's news judgments, and news budgets, are made by Wall Street financiers with little respect for journalism or sense of national responsibility. They know, as the saying has it, "the price of everything and the value of nothing." They not only want profits (and the multi-million-dollar bonuses they make possible), they want ever-increasing profits. Hard times? Fire the journalists, reward the executives.

Dick Salant was ferocious defender of CBS' First Amendment rights. I disagreed with him often, but always respected him. Journalism was serious business; it was no place for music or other promotional nonsense. When President Lyndon Johnson complained to Frank Stanton (LBJ's Austin station was a CBS affiliate, I believe) about CBS' Vietnam coverage Stanton never even mentioned the conversation to the reporter the president disliked. When Cronkite thought the Vietnam war unwinable, he simply said so. Unlike today's lapdog media, CBS never felt it had a responsibility to be a cheerleader for war for the White House.

Necessarily, TV reporters and anchors in those days had come up through print journalism (Cronkite with UPI). There were no TV stations to train them. My sense (devoid of data) is that at least some of today's TV's "reporters" have had neither that experience, nor its equivalent, in either journalism school or prior employment. (As a communications study student once told me, the reason he was choosing broadcasting rather than newspapers was because he didn't really like to research and write.)

Another factor, in fairness to ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and the others, is that we no longer have what we used to call a "two-and-a-half-network economy." We have hundreds of channels on cable, and even more from the online Internet sites (including blogs). There's a little more competition than there used to be -- and a lot less inflation-adjusted revenue.

The reasons we do not, today, have a Walter Cronkite are many. But among them is the fact that, even if there were a potential Cronkite out there somewhere there is no media operation that would hire him or her -- or place where such a journalist would stay for long even if hired.

"That's the way it is" -- and a significant part of the story of Walter Cronkite's life, and death, that didn't receive the attention it might have during our grieving and memorial services.
____________

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

# # #

It's the Unemployment, Stupid!

July 29, 2009, 6:00 a.m.

Perry County: If the Question is Economic Recovery
The Answer is Jobs
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
James Carville, the political consultant who once famously tried to keep presidential candidate Bill Clinton "on message" with the wall sign, "It's the economy, stupid!" is today giving Afghanistan presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani similar "stay on message" advice. If Carville were content to stay in his own country, and on message, I suspect his wall sign for President Obama might well be, "It's the unemployment, stupid!"

Our unemployment numbers continue to climb to roughly 10%, with some pockets more than double that, and most economists projecting at least a year before meaningful improvement, noting that the jobs picture is the last to improve when coming out of a recession.

Despite these realities, the response of Congress and the White House has been bailouts for the corporate CEOs credited with the largest campaign contributions rather than America's working men and women.

Nine months ago I urged a jobs program as the most efficient and effective "stimulus package." Nicholas Johnson, "Jobs, Not Unemployment, Key to Recovery; Why America Needs a Jobs Program: Because When Your Automobile (Industry) is in the River It Makes More Sense to Go For the Shore Than to Continue Bailing it Out," November 8, 2008.

Earlier this week the Times reported that at least one of America's 3100 counties is now successfully taking that approach. Michael Cooper, "To Create Jobs, Tennessee Looks to New Deal Model," New York Times, July 27, 2009 (the site offers a multimedia slide show including the voices of some of the new job holders).

Excerpts from my earlier recommendations, and the Times' report on the Perry County, Tennessee, project, follow.

My own view -- buttressed by [reports regarding] (1) the automobile industry (especially General Motors), (2) retail sales, and (3) unemployment -- is that the best interests of the business community, as well as the American people, will be served by providing public jobs programs, and economic support to the unemployed, rather than continuing to pour billions of dollars into failed and failing businesses. . . .

[A] major part of GM's problem is that laid-off GM workers, and the 10 million other unemployed Americans, don't have the money to buy anybody's cars right now . . ..

[T]here's little likelihood much of the billions given to GM (whether "loans" unlikely to be repaid, "bailouts," or money said to be for "re-tooling" or research on more energy efficient vehicles) is going to find its way to UAW workers, suppliers and dealers -- unless GM would be stupid enough to increase its production, and inventories, of cars that neither its dealers nor its customers can afford. . . .

If the automobile industry is the lynch pin to economic recovery the new president thinks it is, the solution is to get more money into the hands of consumers -- especially the unemployed (and soon to be unemployed). Enabling auto executives to have tens of billions of additional dollars to spend at their discretion in postponing bankruptcy doesn't strike me as a solution to anything . . ..

Another problem with Washington's willy-nilly giveaways, aside from the fact that they are unfair, don't work and will ultimately bankrupt our nation, is that they are irrational. . . .

I have no more enthusiasm for bailing out, or subsidizing, the retail sector than I have for the automobile sector. If Target's sales are down (as they are), I'm not confident that giving its executives billions of dollars will increase its "discretionary spending" sales to customers who barely have money for food.

But if Obama is looking for economic sectors to which to transfer taxpayers' money, wouldn't the one that represents "two-thirds of the nation's economic activity" make more sense in a recession/depression than bailing out the one that makes $30,000 new vehicles? . . .

Why We Need a Jobs Program

Look at the numbers. There are now over 10 million unemployed. Unemployment stands at 6.5 percent, and is projected to go to 8 percent next year -- 22 percent of whom have been out of work for more than six months, something we haven't seen for a quarter-century. The rates are increasing. Of the 1.2 million jobs lost this year 284,000 were in September and 240,000 in October.

In the 1950s over 50 percent of the unemployed received benefits; today, because of various restrictions, only 32 percent qualify -- more unemployment, more holes in the safety net. . . .

[T]he answers seem, to me, rather obvious.

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

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

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

Nicholas Johnson, "Jobs, Not Unemployment, Key to Recovery; Why America Needs a Jobs Program: Because When Your Automobile (Industry) is in the River It Makes More Sense to Go For the Shore Than to Continue Bailing it Out," November 8, 2008.

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

Now read what's happening in Tennessee:

Critics elsewhere may be questioning how many jobs the stimulus program has created, but here in central Tennessee, hundreds of workers are again drawing paychecks after many months out of work, thanks to a novel use of federal stimulus money by state officials.

Here in one of Tennessee’s hardest-hit areas, some workers were cutting down pine trees with chainsaws and clearing undergrowth on a recent morning, just past the auto parts factory that laid them off last year when it moved to Mexico. Others were taking applications for unemployment benefits at the very center where they themselves had applied not long ago. A few were making turnovers at the Armstrong Pie Company (“The South’s Finest Since 1946”).

The state decided to spend some of its money to try to reduce unemployment by up to 40 percent here in Perry County, a rural county of 7,600 people, 90 miles southwest of Nashville where the unemployment rate had risen to above 25 percent after its biggest plant, the auto parts factory, closed.

Rather than waiting for big projects to be planned and awarded to construction companies, or for tax cuts to trickle through the economy, state officials hit upon a New Deal model of trying to put people directly to work as quickly as possible.

They are using welfare money from the stimulus package to subsidize 300 new jobs across Perry County, with employers ranging from the state Transportation Department to the milkshake place near the high school.

As a result, the June unemployment rate, which does not yet include all the new jobs, dropped to 22.1 percent.

“If I could have done a W.P.A. out there, I would have done a W.P.A. out there,” said Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat, referring to the Works Progress Administration, which employed millions during the Great Depression. . . .

The impact has been enormous, all across the county. Even the look of the place is changing, following the old W.P.A. model. In addition to the jobs for adults, there are 150 summer jobs for young people, some of whom have been working with resident artists to paint murals depicting local history on the buildings along Main Street in Linden, the county seat.

Over all, two-thirds of the new jobs are in private sector businesses, which are reimbursed by the state for the salaries of eligible stimulus workers. Some, in retail, might be hard to sustain when the stimulus money runs out in September 2010. Other businesses say the free labor will help them expand, hopefully enough to keep a bigger work force.

The Commodore Hotel Linden, a newly restored 1939 hotel that has brought new life to downtown, has seen an increase in its bookings since it has expanded its staff thanks to the stimulus. And the Armstrong Pie Company expects to be able to keep on the new bakery assistants and drivers it hired with stimulus money, saying the new workers have helped the company triple its pie production and expand its reach through central Tennessee. . . .

Michael Cooper, "To Create Jobs, Tennessee Looks to New Deal Model," New York Times, July 27, 2009 (the site offers a multimedia slide show including the voices of some of the new job holders).

My only disagreement with the Times' story is its characterization of the Perry County approach as "novel." As it alludes later in the piece, we did this in the 1930s and called it the "Works Progress Administration" and "Civilian Conservation Corps" -- the creations of which we are still enjoying to this day (in, for example, our state parks).

Why are we not doing it today -- outside of Perry County? Your guess is as good as mine. But my suspicion is that it has more to do with the big money corruption of our political system than with some new, Nobel-prize-winning insight into the mysteries of economic theory.
____________

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

# # #

More for Insurance Ain't Rx for Health

July 27, 2009, 9:45 a.m.; July 28, 2009, 8:00 a.m.

Forget the "Details," the Devil is in the Basic Concept
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Update July 28: This morning brings more evidence that "insurance" is continuing to win out over "health care," thanks to the six senators who are, in fact, the folks writing America's 21st Century guarantee of their campaign contributors' profits. David M. Herszenhorn and Robert Pear, "Health Policy Now Carved Out at a More Centrist Table," New York Times, July 28, 2009, p. A1 ("Already, the group of six has tossed aside the idea of a government-run insurance plan that would compete with private insurers, which the president supports but Republicans said was a deal-breaker.").
__________
[July 27 blog entry:] Have you, like I, been more focused on the politics of health care, and the "universal, single-payer" systems of civilized countries that is off the table than what's in the plans that are on the table?

This thing is doomed to disaster from the starting gate.

"The Devil is in the details?" Not this time. The Devil is in these approaches from "Be it enacted" through the bottom of the last page.

As Congressman Dennis Kucinich has long and famously said, "I don't want everybody in America to have health insurance. I want everybody to have health care."

What the sickness industry's special interests, and the Democrats and Republicans they fund, are proposing is more sickness insurance. And it's far from clear that everybody is even going to have that.

The sickness insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. You want to cut the costs of medical services? Well, how about starting with the 25-30% of those costs that represent insurance companies' administration (compared to 3% for Medicare)?

The insurance companies, in case you hadn't noticed, are a for-profit operation. How do they increase profits to the levels Wall Street demands? Two ways: (1) continually increase premiums, while (2) reducing coverage, by refusing to insure at all those who might actually file claims, and then refusing to pay the claims of those they do insure.

And how are we going to solve this problem? By requiring everyone to have health insurance?! It would be a hilarious segment of a comedy club stand-up routine if it weren't so outrageously corrupt.

We've used taxpayers' money to bail out the banks and the auto companies. Now we're gong to pour more consumers' and taxpayers' money into the deep dark hole that is the for profit sickness industry.

Unbelievable!

Think I'm exagerating? Take a look at this sampling of three pieces from yesterday's and today's New York Times:

Editorial, "Health Care Reform and You," New York Times, July 26, 2009, p. WK9 ("The health care reform bills moving through Congress look as though they would do a good job of providing coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. But what would they do for the far greater number of people who already have insurance?"); Robert Pear, "Reach of Subsidies is Critical Issue for Health Plan," New York Times, July 27, 2009, p. A1 ("The major health care bills moving through Congress would require nearly all Americans to have health insurance. But as lawmakers struggle to achieve the goal of universal coverage, a critical question is whether the plans will be affordable to those who are currently uninsured."); Paul Krugman, "An Incoherent Truth," New York Times, July 27, 2009, p. A21 ("Reform, if it happens, will rest on four main pillars: regulation, mandates, subsidies and competition. . . . [E]ven as they complain about the plan’s cost, the Blue Dogs are making demands that would greatly increase that cost.").
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson

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Alcohol's Impact on Iowa City

July 24, 2009, 10:00 a.m., 10:00 p.m.

Police Toss Bar Closing Recommendation to Council;
Loh Talking Tough
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
July 29 Update: The Princeton Review has recently provided America's binge drinking high school graduates some guidance with regard to America's top "party schools." The University of Iowa came in 12th. It's too fuzzy a number to qualify as one of Provost Loh's alcohol metrics but, if it were, my recollection is that we were 9th last year. So, aside from the potential loss of tuition from those UI applicants more interested in alcohol and athletics than in academics, it can be chalked up as modest progress of sorts. (The UI's 2002-03 Parent Times Online indicates parents are notified when their kids are ticketed for alcohol violations. Is that still the case?) And see, Chris Rhatigan, "Council denies license renewal for 2 bars; PAULA rates at Etc., Fieldhouse triggered recommendation," Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 29, 2009 (As I wrote in this blog entry July 24, below, "It will be a real test for the City Council next Tuesday evening. Are they willing to really stand up to the politically and economically powerful Iowa City alcohol industry?" Well, apparently they were, and in fairness I want to give them credit for doing so.)

Evening update, July 24, 10:00 p.m.: "And the beat(ing up) goes on": more alcohol-related violence and killing, before the day is even out. "Stabbing, Shooting Reported in Iowa City," The Gazette Online, July 24, 2009, 10:00 p.m. ("According to witnesses, a long-time patron of the Hawkeye Hideaway bar . . . heard a man believed to be a transient drop two bags full of empty pop cans and bottles. The transient then stabbed the bar patron. Kevin Grimm of the Hawkeye Hideaway said the incident was witnessed by an off-duty Iowa City police officer, who then pulled a gun and shot the transient.")
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10:00 a.m. (original blog entry): Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine has made a radical proposal to the City Council: don't continue to grant liquor licenses to bars that consistently flout the law. What a concept!

It will be a real test for the City Council next Tuesday evening. Are they willing to really stand up to the politically and economically powerful Iowa City alcohol industry? Rob Daniel, "Police: No liquor license for 2 bars; Council to vote Tuesday on The Fieldhouse and Etc.," Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 24, 2009.

Meanwhile, UI's Provost Wallace Loh is also talking a little tougher.

He [Loh] wants action.

“It’s trial and error, experiment,” he said. “Let’s do things — let’s stop studying it.” “This problem has been studied to death,” he said. “There are hundreds and hundreds of articles with recommendations. What there is very little of is people taking action.”

So the partnership focuses its energies on specific, concrete ideas for gradually changing the culture, he said.

The UI is stepping up with police overtime on downtown patrol, beefing up alcohol safety education training for freshmen and offering even more intensive training to at risk groups.

They plan better communication with parents and cooperation with bar owners. They’ll schedule more Friday classes and fund more alternative activities, he said.

Loh’s goal: fewer alcohol-related emergency room admissions. A drop in blood alcohol levels, reduced incidents of alcohol-related assaults, fewer dropouts and more.

Jennifer Hemmingsen, "Attitude Change on UI Drinking on Horizon?" The Gazette, July 18, 2009, p. A4.

Although the test is "what happens next"? there's some reassurance in Hemmingsen's story and quotes. Perhaps most impressive to me is Provost Loh's reference to some metrics for measuring "success": alcohol-related dropouts and emergency room admissions, and blood alcohol levels in students arrested and tested.

There's really no substitute for the business adage "you get what you measure."

Speaking of which, what are we to make of the statistics regarding student arrests?

The Gazette recently headlined, "Athletes Not Most-Arrested Group." (Fraternity boys are.)

Might it have been more relevant/meaningful to look at some of the sports (and, presumably, fraternities) separately? Is it possible that the percentage of football players who get in trouble exceeds the percentages for members of the UI's teams in, say, cross country, golf, rowing, swimming, tennis, track and volleyball? Is it possible that some fraternities contribute a disproportionate number of fraternity members' arrests?

Here's how the Gazette presented the numbers:

Male student-athletes at the University of Iowa have had lower rates of arrest and citation than members of UI fraternities every year for the past five years, according to UI figures. . . .

Male athletes’ arrest and citation rates in Iowa City during the 2008-09 academic year — 10.5 percent — were nearly the same as those for male students living in residence halls — 10.1 percent. Fraternity members tallied the highest charge rate, at 15.1 percent. . . .

That compares with . . . 4 percent of the total UI student body. . . .
Of the 1,504 charges in the categories that were tracked, 75 percent were alcohol related . . ..

Diane Heldt, "Athletes not most-arrested UI group; Fraternity members’ rates higher, though athletes get attention," The Gazette, July 11, 2009, p. A1. And see, Editorial, "Hook students on positive activities," The Gazette, July 16, 2009, p. A4 ("Of the 1,504 criminal charges . . . 75 percent were alcohol related. . . . Yet another reminder of the UI’s struggles with alcohol. . . . [A] 2006 survey . . ., 'Research on Iowa Student Experiences,' found that binge drinking was lower among students who participated in . . . student organizations, honors programs and research projects with faculty. . . . Only students can choose to engage in positive, educationally purposeful activities. But the easier the UI can make that choice, the better.")

Some of the comments on papers' stories in their online editions emphasize individuals' "right" to drink alcohol (a right possessed, apparently, even by those who are legally precluded from exercising it) and the contribution to Iowa City's downtown businesses (i.e., bars) and "vibrancy."

But there are costs associated with our present policies -- economic, medical, social, and moral/ethical.

Universities may no longer have the responsibilities of parents for their students' every action (though they once did), but they do still have some obligation to contribute more to students' lives than freedom, football, and the rote learning and regurgitation of bits of information.

And consider the Gazette's report this morning regarding the Los Cocos bar:

Los Cocos . . . has been a popular hip-hop club since it opened a little more than a year ago, but in that time, the bar has had almost 210 calls to police that consumed more than 200 officer hours and ended in nearly 90 arrests. . . . Los Cocos has alcohol-related arrests, but unlike many other bars, it also has seen a stabbing, numerous assaults and shots fired.

Ashton Shurson, "Tough Crowd: Police Say Los Cocos Bar in I.C. Plagued with Violence; Owner Says It's Unfairly Targeted," The Gazette, July 24, 2009, p. A1.

And see, "Man assaulted in ped mall," Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 23, 2009 ("Police say a man was assaulted early Wednesday in downtown Iowa City. Police said a man had fallen down and was knocked unconscious in the 100 block of East College Street about 1:46 a.m. Wednesday. He was intoxicated and had a large cut on his head, police said. Officers determined he had an altercation with someone and that he was tripped by the suspect, who had fled on foot eastbound through the pedestrian mall.").

Taxpayers are subsidizing much of the "externalities" from Iowa City's bar culture. We pay the overtime for the diversion of the police to the violence that is the aftermath of drunk patrons. We pay the City employees who clean up the vomit outside the bars on Sunday morning. We pay for the streets and sidewalks, and their maintenance, that are given (free, so far as I know) to bar owners who'd like to claim the territory for more patrons. We pay, either as taxpayers or in excess health insurance premiums, for the alcohol-related emergency room treatments. We pay for the property damage for whom no perpetrator can be found. We are left with the obligation to clean up our yards after the drunken hoards of bumblebees depart Kinnick. We pay for the prisons. And we pay in having our freedom restrained by needing to avoid some areas of town at some times of the week and day because of risks of alcohol-related violence and just all-round unpleasantness. We pay the "opportunity cost" of what our downtown might have been had the City Council not been so willing to give in to bar owners' drive for ever-increasing profits.

There's much more involved here than the libertarian ideology that individuals ought to be left free to destroy their careers and lives by whatever means they choose, free to reject the opportunities offered them. Even in its purest form, that assumes they are doing no harm to others.

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

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U.S. Trains Honduran Coup Officers

July 22, 2009, 8:05 a.m.

Heads We Win, Tails They Lose -- in Honduras
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
It turns out that President Obama and his Administration, while bemoaning the coup in Honduras -- backing, and insisting on the return of, President Manuel Zelaya -- have been training the very officers and soldiers who brought off the coup!

It's an example of the U.S.'s win-win foreign policy strategy: In public we back the ousted leader; in private we train the army officers that overthrow him.

The story, which I found in the National Catholic Reporter, is just one example of what we were missing while the world's media brought the laser-like focus of its video cameras on the death of Michael Jackson and little more.

James Hodge and Linda Cooper, "U.S. continues to train Honduran soldiers; Coup that ousted president, didn't stop U.S. engagement in Honduras," National Catholic Reporter, July 14, 2009. Here are excerpts from the Hodge and Cooper story:

A controversial facility at Ft. Benning, Ga. -- formerly known as the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas -- is still training Honduran officers despite claims by the Obama administration that it cut military ties to Honduras after its president was overthrown June 28, NCR has learned.

A day after an SOA-trained army general ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint, President Barack Obama stated that "the coup was not legal" and that Zelaya remained "the democratically elected president."

The Foreign Operations Appropriations Act requires that U.S. military aid and training be suspended when a country undergoes a military coup, and the Obama administration has indicated those steps have been taken.

However, Lee Rials, public affairs officer for the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the successor of SOA, confirmed Monday that Honduran officers are still being trained at the school. . . .

Asked about the Obama administration's suspension of aid and training to Honduras, Rials said, "Well, all I know is they're here, and they're in class" . . . adding that it's possible that other U.S. military schools are training them too. "We're not the only place." . . .

The school trained 431 Honduran officers from 2001 to 2008, and some 88 were projected for this year, said Rials, who couldn't provide their names.

Since 2005, the Department of Defense has barred the release of their names after it was revealed that the school had enrolled well-known human rights abusers.

The general who overthrew Zelaya -- Romeo Orlando Vásquez Velásquez -- is a two-time graduate of SOA, which critics have nicknamed the "School of Coups" because it trained so many coup leaders, including two other Honduran graduates, Gen. Juan Melgar Castro and Gen. Policarpo Paz Garcia. . . .

The ongoing training of Hondurans at Ft. Benning is not the only evidence of unbroken U.S.-Honduran military ties since the coup.

Another piece was discovered by Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois, the founder of SOA Watch, while on fact-finding mission to Honduras last week. . . .

"Helicopters were flying all around, and we spoke with the U.S. official on duty, a Sgt. Reyes" about the U.S.-Honduran relationship, Bourgeois said. "We asked him if anything had changed since the coup and he said no, nothing."

The group later met with U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens, who claimed that he had no knowledge of ongoing U.S. military activity with the Hondurans, Bourgeois said. The ambassador also said that he himself has had no contact with the de facto government.

That has apparently changed. Christopher Webster, the director of the State Department's Office of Central American Affairs, said Monday that Llorens has in fact been in touch with the current coup government, according to Eric LeCompte, the national organizer for SOA Watch. . . .

Herrera Hernández, the lawyer with the Honduran attorney general's office, told Webster that the coup government has disseminated misinformation by claiming the coup was legal because the court had issued an arrest warrant for Zelaya for pushing ahead with a non-binding referendum on whether to change the Honduran constitution.

However, the order to arrest Zelaya came a day after the coup, he said. And contrary to coup propaganda, Zelaya never sought to extend his term in office, and even if the survey had been held, changing the constitution would have required action by the legislature, he said.

Whatever legal argument the coup leaders had against Zelaya, it fell apart when they flew him into exile rather than prosecuting him, the attorney said. The legal system has broken down, he added, for if this can happen to the president, who can't it happen to?

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

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Health Costs, Rationing and Hypocrisy

July 20, 2009, 9:00 a.m.

Two Thoughts on Medical Bills
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
There are a couple aspects of "the cost of health care" I'm going to try to put briefly this morning.

1. I believe that those public officials, and the campaign contributors who fund them, who so willingly handed over trillions of taxpayer dollars to some of America's wealthiest bankers this past year are now morally precluded from using "cost" as a reason for continuing to deny health care to Americans.

Am I concerned about sickness costs accelerating at a rate four times wages? Of course. It's not a trivial concern. But there are responses other than voting "No" on any and all proposed solutions.

(a) They talk of the added costs "over ten years." But a trillion dollars over 10 years is $100 billion a year. They gave that much to individual companies! To be able to provide health care to every American for the same amount puts both their prior generosity, and their current miserliness, in a clear, stark perspective.

(b) Where did this idea come from anyway that we can only have the quality of health care other countries provide their people if we can do it for no additional money? Of course it's going to cost money! We don't apply that standard to the defense budget. We don't apply it to earmarks and other corporate tax breaks, subsidies and giveaways. Why does it suddenly become our Polaris of navigation when it comes to keeping America healthy?

(2) "Rationing" health care. One of the arguments of the special-interest advocates, and their purchased public officials, in opposing universal, single-payer and public option plans is the bugaboo of "rationing."

(a) We already have "rationing." The rationing decisions are made by the executives of for-profit companies that make more profit, and pay those executives larger bonuses, by refusing to provide any insurance, or care for some, and denying the claims of others (all the while raising premiums). There are procedures, and drug treatments, they simply refuse to pay for. They try to suggest that there is no rationing in the present system, but that it would be imposed by "government bureaucrats" in the proposed reforms.

Give me a choice between a greed-driven rationing and even an incompetent (but at least not self-interested driven) rationing, and I'll choose the latter every time.

(b) We cannot provide every conceivable medical procedure known to everyone who might like to have it, regardless of cost. We can't, won't and don't pay for that approach whether with the insurance premiums paid to for-profit providers or with the taxes that support a public system.

There needs to be some metric, some way of thinking about, the benefit-cost returns in any health care system, private or public. It is not only economically essential, it is rational and reasonable, for a public system to focus on providing "the greatest good to the greatest number" by insisting that no one go without the relatively low cost procedures and medicines that can provide them more "quality years" of life -- even though the result may be that the very most expensive treatments have to be curtailed as a public expense (while retaining the option of a patient paying for them with cash, or an additional private insurance plan). The point is, that's what we do now. The very wealthiest get care the rest of us do not; we can't afford it, and our insurance policies won't cover it.

The advantage of a public option is that we would save the system money by getting the uninsured out of the emergency room and into a doctor's office (at a fraction of the cost). By providing medical care to all at the onset of disease, or immediately after an injury, by offering relatively cheap routine checkups, we'd not only improve Americans' health we'd also save the far greater future costs of treating more serious conditions.

Would this mean that some of us, some of the time, would not get public coverage of some treatment we might now get with our private for-profit insurance? Probably. But the opposite might also be true; there would undoubtedly be some treatments a non-profit system would conclude are cost-effective than a for-profit system refuses to provide. Regardless, we would have the benefit of a nationwide level of health -- of infant mortality rates, and life expectancy -- that would bring us closer to the standards of the rest of the industrialized world, with all the economic, humane and moral consequences of such a system.

This morning's blog entry was inspired by the following thoughtful, analytical, balanced article in yesterday's New York Times Magazine: Peter Singer, "Why We Must Ration Health Care/'Public Health Insurance Should Pay Up To $__________ For a Treatment That Would Extend a Patient's Life for One Year,'" New York Times, July 19, 2009, p. MM38.

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

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