. . . because much of the content relates both to Washington, D.C., and "outside the beltway" -- the heartland, specifically Iowa -- and because after going from Iowa to Washington via Texas and California I subsequently returned, From DC 2 Iowa.
Why Fish Need Bicycles (bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
There's a wonderful column in the Press-Citizen this morning by D.J. Moser explaining why fish need bicycles. It's clever, well written, and analytically sound. It's reproduced at the bottom of this blog entry.
Do you recall the line from the 1970's: "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"?
My own realization that fish might actually need bicycles occurred during Iowa City's 1993 flood, while I was bicycling through the City Park. The sidewalk between the ball fields and the River had a couple of inches of water over it, so I was biking even slower than usual to minimize the water on the bike and myself. Looking down, I saw a fish on the sidewalk, alive but lying on its side, also making its way slowly along the path. As I looked at it I said to myself, "Now there's a fish that really does need a bicycle.
D.J.'s point is less frivolous, more related to the day's news -- as you'll see in a moment.
Anyhow, even though bike to work week is long passed, it caused me to Google myself and "bicycles" to see what I might have written on the subject.
Last December someone kindly uploaded a column of which I had no memory whatsoever, with the notation, "Federal Communications Commissioner Nicholas Johnson wrote this piece for the New York Times, Aug. 2, 1973." (They also nicely noted, in reference to my candidacy in the Iowa Third District congressional Democratic primary of 1974 -- following which Chuck Grassley won the general election to Congress -- "Imagine what the Senate might be like if Johnson beat Grassley back then.") Curious, I checked my online bibliography and lo and behold, there was the column. So I guess it is my writing, especially since there is a version of it in my book, Test Pattern for Living.
It's my take on how automobiles are like cigarettes. Because it refers to giving up smoking, I should probably quickly add in this anti-tobacco age that to the best of my memory I have never smoked a cigarette. (Unlike President Clinton, who smoked but didn't inhale, since I lived through a time when cigarette smoke was everywhere, I didn't smoke but did inhale!) The line does, however, reflect the true story of my father's path to giving up tobacco -- too late in his short life, as it turned out.
The column, reflecting the spirit of the 1970s, went like this:
"Bicycles are Model Citizens" The Bicycle -- It's Like Giving Up Smoking New York Times August 2, 1973, p. 35, col. 2.
I ride a bicycle. Not because I hate General Motors but haven't the courage to bomb an auto plant. I don't do it as a gesture of great stoicism and personal sacrifice.
I am not even engaged, necessarily, in an act of political protest over that company's responsibility for most of the air pollution tonnage in the United States.
It's like finally giving up cigarettes. You just wake up one morning and realize you don't want to start the day with another automobile.
Cigarette smoking is not a pleasure, it's a business. In the same say, you finally come to realize that you don't need General Motors, they need you. They need you to drive their cars for them. You are working for Detroit and paying them to do it. Automobiles are just a part of your life that's over, that's all.
No hard feelings. You've just moved on to something else. From now on, you just use their buses, taxis, and rental cars when they suit your convenience. You don't keep one for them that you have to house, feed and water, insure and care for.
You ride a bicycle because it feels good. The air feels good on your body; even the rain feels good. The blood starts moving around your body, and pretty soon it gets to your head, and, glory be, your head feels good.
You start noticing things. You look until you really see. You hear things, and smell smells you never knew were there. You start whistling nice little original tunes to suit the moment. Words start getting caught in the web of poetry in your mind.
And there's a nice feeling, too, in knowing you're doing a fundamental life thing for yourself: transportation. You got a little bit of your life back! And the thing you use is simple, functional, and relatively cheap.
You want one that fits you and rides smoothly, but with proper care and a few parts, it should last almost forever.
Your satisfaction comes from within you, and not from the envy or jealousy of others. (Although you are entitled to feel a little smug during rush hours, knowing you are also making better time than most of the people in cars.)
On those occasions when I am not able to cycle through the parks or along the [C&O] canal -- because the paths are rough with ice or muddy from rain or melting snow -- bicycling enables me to keep closer to the street people, folks waiting for buses or to cross streets, street sweepers, policemen, school "patrol," men unloading trucks.
Needless to say, you cannot claim any depth of understanding as a result of such momentary and chance encounters but by the time I get to the office I do somehow have the sense that I have a much better feeling for the mood of the city that day than if I had come to my office in a chauffeur-driven government limousine.
Although I am willing to brave the traffic and exhaust, I am aware it is dangerous. I think bicycles ought to be accorded a preferred position in the city's transportation system. At the very least, they deserve an even break.
Notice that bicycle riding also has some significant social advantages over the automobile. Cars unnecessarily kill sixty thousand people every year, permanently maim another one hundred and seventy thousand, and injure three and a half million more.
The automobile accounts for at least 66 percent of the total air pollution in the United States by tonnage -- as high as 85 percent in some urban areas -- and 91 percent of all-carbon monoxide pollution; it creates about nine hundred pounds of pollution for every person every year.
One million acres of land are paved each years, there is now a mile of road for each square mile of land. The concrete used in our Interstate Highway System would build six sidewalks to the moon.
Even so, everyone is familiar with the clogged streets and parking problems -- not to mention the unconscionable rates charged by the parking garages.
Automobile transportation is the largest single consumer of the resources used in our nation's total annual output of energy. It is an economic drain on consumers -- in no way aided by auto companies that deliberately build bumpers weaker than they were fifty years ago in order to contribute to an unnecessary bumper repair bill in excess of one billion dollars annually.
The bicycle is a model citizen, by comparison.
If you've read this far you will understand why D.J. Moser's column caught my eye and caused me to smile and applaud.
(Headlined, "If You Give a Fish a Bicycle," I couldn't help myself from playing with the thought: "Give a fish a bike ride and she can ride for a day; teach her how to ride a bicycle and she can ride for a lifetime." Something like that. Maybe you had to be there.)
Here is Moser's column.
(Because it is copyright, if either he or the Press-Citizen objects to my reproducing it in this context I will, of course, remove it.)
You've probably heard it said that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. This phrase has been around since the 1970s and is a variant of the earlier observation that man needs god like a fish needs a bicycle.
Without getting into such complex matters as feminine needs and religion -- neither of which I yet understand -- I think it's important to point out that fish do need bicycles and they need them badly. [Photo credit: Iowa City Press-Citizen.]
Which fish, you ask?
Well, for starters, the fish that are currently floundering around in the pool o' stank previously known as the Gulf of Mexico.
And what, exactly, are their biking needs? They need us to get off our cans, ride our bikes a little more, drive our cars a little less, and thereby reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.
Stop.
I know what you're thinking.
Here's another diatribe from one of those hyperintense, neon spandex-clad bikers who slow traffic by riding four abreast on Iowa City roads.
Not the case.
While I do believe that bikers and motorists must learn to share the road, and that choice of biking apparel is both personal and tricky, please know that I'm a regular guy who rides a 1999 mountain bike to work, using the bike lanes and wearing the baggiest clothes I can find.
But my question is this: "Why do so many people refuse, or not even give consideration to, riding their bike to work or on errands?"
Well, I've conducted my own unscientific poll and the answers are generally unconvincing.
• Biking takes too much time. Really? If you take various shortcuts and bike paths, I think you'll find that bike time and car time are actually pretty comparable in a city like ours. Not to mention the fact that you'll be multi-tasking by running your errand and getting some exercise at the same time.
• Biking makes me sweaty and gives me helmet-head. There are a couple options here. Some bike commuters choose to shower and change at work. It's actually pretty easy to do once you get in the routine. (Admittedly, this isn't an option available to everyone, but it is a choice that many simply fail to consider.)
As for helmet-head, just unbuckle and keep your helmet on as you do your shopping. Shoppers might stare at you, but they might be thinking how sporty and awesome you are.
• Biking's dangerous. Maybe so, but if you obey traffic laws and signs and use some common sense, you can greatly reduce your risk. I've crashed my bike twice in the past 10 years with nothing hurt but my pride.
Of course, there have been some nasty and even fatal car versus bike accidents, but plenty of people get hurt while driving or riding in cars, too. So be alert, be visible, and ride defensively, but don't let safety worries keep you off your bike.
• Bikes are expensive, uncomfortable and complicated. This is simply untrue. Many of us have one or more bikes getting dusty in the garage. Furthermore, there is an almost endless supply of affordable bikes available through sources such as Craigslist, eBay, the Iowa City Bike Library, etc.
As for being uncomfortable and complicated, bikes are getting more user-friendly every day. Take a look at any bike rack in town and you'll see that practical, comfortable bikes are all the rage.
Maybe you're already biking occasionally. If so, great job. Keep up the good work. But if you're using one of the above excuses, please reconsider. Just ride once this week -- just once -- and see how it goes.
You'll be giving the fish the bicycles they need while becoming less addicted to companies like BP.
Ride Baby Ride!
As you see, it all circles back to the prior blog entries linked from the top of this one.
You want to know what you can do about BP's pollution of the Gulf of Mexico.
Here's our suggestion. Think about 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
Praise of Plugge and Reflections on Governance (bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
The Gazette had a nice editorial about ICCSD's departing Superintendent Lane Plugge this morning. There are some excerpts and a link at the bottom of this blog entry. I wrote and posted my own ode to Debbie and Lane last Christmas Eve, "The Plugge Era: 1999-2010," December 24, 2009, so you can read it there if you care to, rather than my repeating the sentiments again here.
But this was one of those mornings when two sufficiently related items hit my desk at the same time to warrant a blog comment. (Actually one hit my kitchen porch and the other was an email that crept quietly upon my computer screen.)
So you can understand the relationship between the editorial and the email, let me set the stage with a quote from my ode to Lane, linked above:
I remain convinced that any school board that would properly do its job, expressing its goals and governance wishes with clarity, would find that Lane would be doing his best to give the Board whatever it said it wanted -- within the bounds of federal, state, and local law and regulations. Requiring a superintendent to perform the board's job as well as his own is as unfair as it is inappropriate.
As you'll see if you check it out, ICCSD School Board President Patti Fields put in a comment there about "the Carver model" of governance (saying she had found it a "barrier"), and others put in comments as well.
One, from "John Barleykorn," included the sentence, "You don't need to have a specific model, you just need clearly defined roles and expectations" -- a sentiment with which I agree and have often expressed. (I put in a comment myself on that blog entry: "I do not, and need not, make a case for Carver. [T]here are alternatives. The only alternative I find unacceptable is no governance model, policy or rules. That's true chaos . . ..")
Like Board President Fields (whom I like and respect), others in Iowa City also have, as I perceive it, "thrown the baby (clearly defined Board-Superintendent roles and expectations) out with the bathwater (the John Carver governance model)."
And so it was that an email from the State of Washington brightened my day. It was from Rick Maloney, someone I do not know, but who obviously shares the approach that I (and "John Barleykorn") take to board-CEO relations and allocation of responsibilities. It is reproduced here with his permission.
I stumbled across your writing about governance on the internet while researching for a presentation to a Western Washington University superintendent certification cohort on the subject of school boards.
I very much enjoyed the ideas that you shared with your fellow school board members in 1998, then was pleased to find that your board subsequently transitioned to the Carver model. Our board did exactly the same during 2001-2003, also without the assistance of a high-priced consultant, mostly by thoroughly reading and applying the principles in Carver's books. We did attend a training session as a board-superintendent team in 2002, but then accomplished the policy development and 'launch' (and 7 years, so far, of operation and maintenance of the model) by ourselves. I keep up my learning by presenting on the model and writing on related topics.
As for the WWU superintendent candidates, I plan to give them, as potential future manipulators of school boards, a sense of 'there is a better way to govern' (that boards really do have their own role, and that administrators don't necessarily know what that role is) without trying to detach them completely from reality. I have a visceral reaction to people like Doug Eadie and Paul Houston who teach about the "care and feeding" of boards. Of course the reality is that if boards drop the ball and go into reactive rather than proactive mode, it is incumbent on the superintendent to lead not only the district but also its board of directors. But I want to give them a feel for the appropriate role that a board CAN take if it leads, and delegates to the superintendent the authority to manage the district.
I'm attaching an article that I recently wrote for the American School Board Journal on treating board work as a professional calling. A friend and I have put together a website, sharing what we have learned about policy governance with other boards here in Washington State. http://www.policygov.com.
-- Rick Maloney, University Place School District #83
[Photo credit: www.policygov.com] I always find it reassuring to discover that other school districts have taken the governance issues seriously, and even followed the same process with it that our Board did when I was there.
When working with the government in Kazakhstan some years ago, since my ideas seemed to be more highly regarded there than in Iowa City, I came up with a hypothesis of explanation for the disparity.The theory was that the respect accorded one's expertise varies with the square of the distance from one's home. Thus, since Kazakhstan was about as far from Iowa as one could get without leaving our planet, I should prepare myself for reentry to North America, and then Iowa City.
I am hoping that the same theory will apply to Rick Maloney. At home, his school board chooses to misspell his last name and leave him out of the group picture of the Board. If the theory holds, given that University Place is 1882 miles from Iowa City, that should make his advice at least 3.5 million times more respected in Iowa City than in his school district (and than mine is in my school district).
Clearly, his suggestions will be accorded at least far more respect than my own. And, with luck, his District's Policy Governance Policies, and his Web site, will be sufficiently well regarded in Iowa City to prompt a reconsideration of the value of governance principles for Iowa, and Iowa City, institutions as well.
It would be the greatest gift we could give our new Superintendent, Steve Murley, when he starts to work next month, to save him the impossible assignment of having to function as both superintendent and school board. (See Murley's comment on Board's need for "clear governance system" in "School Boards, Superintendents, Contracts & Candor," April 28, 2010.)
April 28, 2
And finally, here are some excerpts from The Gazette's editorial about Lane Plugge:
Plugge kept focus on students
Iowa City school district Superintendent Lane Plugge dealt with just about everything in his 11 years on the job. . . .
And through it all, he kept a cool head and a firm hand on the wheel.
'He's a person of integrity,' Jim Pedersen, director of human resources for the school district, told us this week. 'He's got a tremendous work ethic. . . ."
Not all Plugge's decisions were without controversy, but there's little question that Plugge always remembered his primary responsibility was to the district's students.
Plugge announced last winter that he'd be leaving the district to take a position as chief administrator of the Green Hills Area Education Agency near Council Bluffs. His last day with the Iowa City school district is June 30.
He served the district during a period of rapid growth - during his tenure, school enrollment increased by more than 1,200 students - and all the challenges that entails. . . .
In more than a decade with Iowa City Schools, he developed a community reputation as being an accessible administrator who listened to public opinion - even if his decisions didn't always please everyone. . . .
Pedersen said it was Plugge's interpersonal skills that anchored his success: He was approachable, articulate and didn't flaunt his authority. . . .
'Anytime you can keep that continuity, that consistency, that shared vision [for the 11 years Plugge was in Iowa City] - if you can keep that person in a leadership role, it's good for the organization,' he said.
Lane Plugge was good for Iowa City schools and students.
We wish Debbie and Lane well as they settle, still in Iowa but closer to their Nebraska home. It has been my pleasure to know and work with them. _______________
* 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
School Board's Boundary Decision in Perspective (bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
With a headline referring to a "Betrayal of Representative Democracy" you may be surprised to discover that I am about to provide a little sympathetic perspective to my criticism of the school board's boundary process and decision.
The challenge the board confronted, the choices before them, come from the core of representative democracy theory, and involve a dilemma at least identified (and to some extent resolved) as long ago as 1774.
As the Press-Citizen reported June 12,
School board president Patti Fields said the parents who spoke out at the forums and subsequent school board sessions were clear on what they wanted.
"In the end, it [the school board] felt the community's priority was (in maintaining) neighborhood schools," she said. "People became protective of what was comfortable. Change isn't easy."
It may surprise you, but I couldn't agree with her more -- on all counts: "change isn't easy," people protect what's comfortable, and in this instance that meant making no change in school boundaries.
The day before the paper's editorial saw it differently:
But the 2010 redistricting debacle also showed that our schools leaders still have no idea how to strike a balance between too little community input and too overwhelmingly much. They either failed to take heed from lessons learned in the 2009 Roosevelt debacle or they simply overcompensated.
Frankly, that comes closer to my own takeaway from the redistricting process, but for the slightly different reasons famously analyzed and expounded by Edmund Burke 236 years ago in his "Speech to the Electors of Bristol."
It is [a representative’s] duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to [his constituents]; and . . . to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you . . .. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
Edmund Burke, “Speech to the Electors of Bristol,” November 3, 1774, The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke (1854‐56), vol. 1, pp. 446‐48, as reproduced in The Founders’ Constitution (University of Chicago, 1987), vol. 1, ch. 13, document 7.
Burke did not offer elected officials a simple, clean mathematical model for calculating their decisions on controversial issues with precision. But he did make courageously clear to his constituents that he would be betraying, rather than serving them if he merely surveyed and then sacrificed his own best judgment to, and voted, their opinions.
When a school board redraws its district boundaries, should it be aware of, and give some consideration to, the opinions of parents? Of course. The same goes for the opinions of other stakeholders as well. That is a part of the responsibility of a "representative."
But a school board meeting is not a New England town meeting, with a direct democracy in which everyone votes on every issue and the majority rules.
In 1955 did the Little Rock school board hold community meetings to find out if the Little Rock parents preferred to keep the segregated schools they had, or desegregate them? Did they vote on the basis of "the community's priority (in maintaining) [segregated] schools"? No. Indeed, as President Eisenhower noted, in ordering troops to Little Rock in 1957 to quell the dangerous public violence over the decision, "In May of 1955, the Little Rock School Board approved a moderate plan for the gradual desegregation of the public schools in that city." "Text of the Address of the President of the United States, Delivered From His Office in the White House," White House News Release, September 24, 1957.
I rather suspect that the members of the Little Rock school board, and President Eisenhower, were as fully aware as ICCSD Board President Patti Fields, that "People became protective of what was comfortable. Change isn't easy." They went ahead with desegregation anyway. Not because it was popular, but because it was right.
School board members have -- or ought to have, if they do not -- access to vast bodies of data regarding "what works" in K-12 education. They are not only able, but should feel themselves required, to put in the time to become familiar with the relevant literature and experiences of other school districts nationwide and worldwide.
As a result of having done that homework, like Edmund Burke, school board members also then have an obligation to bring to the decision making process their knowledge and experience, their "unbiased opinion . . . mature judgment [and] enlightened conscience." They need to believe, and act as if they believed, something I heard then presidential candidate, now Vice President, Joe Biden say more than once in 2007 and 2008: "There are some things worth losing an election for."
Admittedly, this is a balancing act. Admittedly, the wisdom, the responsibility, of Burke's perspective is widely ignored by our other representatives -- especially in this election year -- when their polling of our opinions precedes the formulation of their own. But that doesn't make it right.
And that is why my "betrayal of representative democracy" charge is, in fact, at least in some measure an expression of understanding and sympathy. _______________
* 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
Why Are We Blind to What Artists See So Clearly? (bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
In 1979, on March 16, "The China Syndrome" was released to America's theaters. It was a fictional account of a near-nuclear power plant meltdown and corporate efforts at a cover up (and see "The China Syndrome," wikipedia.org).
Twelve days later, at 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, there was a partial core meltdown in a Babcock & Wilcox pressurized water nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. "It was the most significant accident in the history of the American commercial nuclear power generating industry, resulting in the release of up to 481 PBq (13 million curies) of radioactive gases . . .." "Three Mile Island Accident", wikipedia.org.
Life does have a way of imitating art. Indeed, I believe it was in one of Abraham Maslow's books that I first encountered the theory that just as the canary responds to poisonous gas before humans, so do some artists have the capacity to detect -- and project in one art form or another -- the tiny ripples of change in society years before the waves sweep over the rest of us.
And so it is that an outfit called Democracy for Sale appears to be looking back through old movies to see what might be coming our way. They cleverly package 9:59 worth of excerpts, and put them up on YouTube.
They have at least two for us already -- which together pretty well explain both the values of BP and the corruption in Washington, D.C., that makes it possible for such corporations to prosper (while taking human life and despoiling the environment in the process).
The 1994 movie "On Deadly Ground" involves an oil company that has an explosion on an offshore drilling rig, tries to cover up the facts, blames the environmentalists for the problem, and then produces a slick commercial. (See yesterday's "BP's Commercial: Shame on Media," June 9.)
Watch:
As Democracy For Sale explains: "June 10, 2010 — In this purely fictional video, an oil spill causes major damage to the environment. When it's discovered that the oil company cut corners and disregarded safety measures, the oil company responds with an advertising campaign of soothing and reassuring words, then blames the spill on sabotage by environmentalists. Ultimately, the citizens realize that their government and the agencies established to protect them and the environment are really controlled by special interests and the oil executives. Any similarity to real people or events is purely coincidental. This video is for educational use only."
So just how does the corrupting process work? Democracy For Sale attempts to answer that question for us as well, with these excerpts from the 1992 movie, "The Distinguished Gentleman," starring Eddie Murphy as Congressman Thomas Jefferson Johnson.
Democracy For Sale explains: "What's Wrong with Washington. February 01, 2010. In a government where democratic representation is sold to the highest bidder, big corporations, not citizens, have a disproportionate share of democratic control. This short compilation illustrates the problem in under 10 minutes. The need for campaign finance reform is very clear. This video is for educational academic use only. Any similarity to real people or events is purely coincidental."
Can you think of other examples of feature films that dealt with societal problems that subsequently came to pass? If so, post them here as comments.
_______________
* 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
Media's Profit is Public's Loss: BP vs. Mobil Oil (bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
It has been said that we are no more conscious of the media through which we swim each day than fish must be of the waters through which they swim -- unless, perhaps, those waters are are part of the BP-polluted waters of the Gulf, and the fish notice that their family and friends are covered with oil and floating to the surface of the water.
Thus, no one, so far as I have seen, has picked up on what BP has been doing to pollute the media -- and how the media has sacrificed its values and capitulated to the company's public relations efforts (to the media's financial profit).
I'm talking about BP's $50 million public relations campaign, and specifically the commercial starring BP CEO Tony Hayward. And I'm responding to the media's willingness to not only plop that commercial right in the middle of news and public affairs programming -- but to do so without providing a critique of the commercial, or a public service announcement answer to it of any kind from those holding a contrary view.
If you watch television at all I can't believe you haven't seen it. But anyway, here it is:
I trust you picked up on the soothing tones, the seemingly sincere apology, the representation that "we will make this right," the assurance that it "never happens again," and the pictures of clean, white sand beaches and birds with not a drop of oil on a one of them.
Now don't get me wrong. I think BP has a right to make an effort to put its best foot forward in this public relations disaster. I don't buy the Supreme Court's assertion that corporations have all the constitutional rights of persons, that political contributions (money) are the constitutional equivalent of First Amendment-protected speech, and that Congress has no right to try to bring some balance back to the wildly disproportionate power of corporate treasuries thrown into the political arena. But I do think BP has a right to produce this commercial.
My problem is with the almost total absence of any critique of the commercial, the absence of public service announcements from environmental organizations with equivalent production (and psychologically manipulative) techniques, and television's placement of the BP commercial inside news and public affairs programs.
And to help make my point, I want to relate a story from another time, involving another oil company.
I can't warrant that I have recalled all the facts precisely. But neither will I use Mason Williams' line, "This is not a true tale, but who needs truth if it's dull." Mason Williams, "Tomato Vendetta", lyrics with brief musical excerpt ("This song’s about the Tomato Vendetta/and the tale of a man who let a/Hate for tomatoes cause him strife/He lost his job, wife, home, car, kids, and life . . .."). I just acknowledge that my best memory of truth may not correspond exactly with the facts -- including the date, which I'm assuming must have been the early 1970s.
This is a story about NBC and a Mobil Oil executive who was a former lawyer and active Kennedy family friend and political supporter named Herb Schmertz. [Photo credit: Current.]
The feisty Schmertz was Mobil's Vice President for Public Affairs. [For more background, see, e.g., the New York Times' review of his book, Herb Schmertz with William Novak, Good-by To the Low Profile (Little, Brown, 1986), Bryce Nelson, "Playing Hardball With the Press,"New York Times, June 1, 1986.]
Mobil, like BP, had a need to convince the American public and their elected representatives that fish and other creatures of the deep really liked offshore drilling rigs. So Mobil, like BP, produced a slick commercial making the point.
When Herb took it to NBC, however, the network refused to air it. Why? It was controversial. (Moreover, the network may have been concerned that the "Fairness Doctrine" then in effect might have required it to air opposing views -- possibly at NBC's expense, both for production and the absence of paid time).
So what did Schmertz do? My memory is that he went to some of the environmental groups and offered to use Mobil's money to pay for the air time for them to put commercials on NBC that would respond to Mobil's assertions, including attacks on the company. Otherwise put, Mobil would be both paying twice the going commercial rates for the time it would use, and relieving NBC of any obligation or expense to put on opposing views.
NBC still refused to put on the Mobil ads.
Note that (a) NBC refused to air the oil company's ad, and (b) even the oil company recognized the need -- for both the colloquial "fairness," and the legal "Fairness Doctrine" -- to offer the public opposing views.
So move forward in time thirty or more years and what do we have? BP mounts a $50 million public relations campaign involving offshore drilling, the networks take the money and plop the commercials down in the middle of news and public affairs programming, and neither BP nor the networks make any effort to let environmental and other groups respond with equally hard hitting public service announcements. (Of course, there has been some effort, however inadequate, to provide a little balance in reporting BP's pollution, including some selected and edited comments from environmentalists. However, there is an enormous difference between that and giving them the opportunity to present their views in an unedited, highly produced commercial equivalent to what BP is permitted to do.)
Moreover, the reason why responsible television news programs used to keep such commercials out of their programs is because advocacy commercials create the appearance (and all too often the reality) that (a) they are news, (b) that they represent the editorial position of the news program, thereby raising questions about the impartial nature of the news reports generally, and (c) that they, and the network income they represent, have influenced the content (or even existence) of adverse reports about the program's advertisers.
And now you know "the rest of the [BP media manipulation] story" (with apologies to Paul Harvey). _______________
* 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
Preparing for the Unexpected (bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
As BP says, "accidents happen."
And as UI administrators say, sometimes "off-campus students go missing."
The question is not whether all untoward events can be prevented. They cannot. The question (for each of us individually as well as large institutions) is whether all of the most serious untoward events have been anticipated, studied, thought about, and planned for -- both in terms of taking the maximum reasonable precautions to avoid them in the first place, and having plans in place to deal with them when they occur anyway, as they inevitably will.
That goes for the White House anticipating the probability, and consequences, of corruption and "agency capture" by otherwise-regulated corporations -- from unsafe coal mines to Gulf oil disasters. It's certainly applicable to oil companies that start drilling at 5000-to-10000 feet beneath the ocean's surface, and then continue for as much as 20,000 or more feet beyond that into the ocean floor.
And it applies to universities.
Every university administrator knows, or ought to know, that it is not a question of "whether," but only "when," certain publicized disasters will occur.
In one of the world's most heavily armed countries, a university with 30,000 students and 15,000 staff is probably going to have to deal with one of them being shot on campus. (And one of the questions is whether arming campus police is more likely to increase, or decrease, the likelihood of that happening.)
There will be tornadoes, floods, chemical spills, and widespread outbreaks of disease.
Students will be raped -- sometimes by high-profile athletes.
Students will die from alcohol abuse, whether falling from buildings, drunk driving accidents, strangling on their own vomit, fights, freezing in a snow drift, or alcohol poisoning.
Students will commit suicide.
And there will be occasions when "off-campus students go missing." (See Malewitz story, below, at p. A7.)
So it was at the University of Iowa on September 28, 2009.
(As a Media Watch sidebar, this story -- and indeed the entire front page of that issue of The Gazette -- are significant for reasons beyond the substance of the stories. Iowa Watch, the source of the missing student story, is a project of the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism, devoted to collaborative efforts with Iowa papers on explanatory and investigative work. See Gazette Editor Lyle Muller, "Non-profit center, IowaWatch, launches with report on fall missing person tragedy,"GazetteOnline, May 29, 2010. The other two above-the-fold stories, although written by Gazette reporters, were also feature stories -- magazine-like-articles reporting significant events not generated by dramatic news pegs, news conferences or police blotters. Rick Smith, "Shifting Lines; E. Iowa Farm Fences Disappear, as do Livestock Operations," The Gazette, May 29, 2010, p. A1; Cindy Hadish, "Chickens Already Roosting in Palo," The Gazette, May 29, 2010, p. A1. Both Iowa Watch, and the use of feature stories on page one, bode well for the future of a struggling newspaper industry trying to find its way during a digital revolution. To which Jim Malewitz added another piece, including comments from The Gazette's Senior Content Editor, Mary Sharp, regarding the limitations on the mainstream media's response to missing students. Jim Malewitz, "Media Response Depends on Information, Resources," IowaWatch/The Gazette, May 29, 2010, p. A7.)
Most generously put, the UI's response to a frantic parent's effort to find his son was "low key." But the story not only describes what the University did and did not do. It also contrasts what the UI did with what was done when an Iowa State student went missing and his body was found on April 14, three months after he went missing. (Although the names of the students, and university officials, are contained in the stories, it's not my purpose to focus on the individuals involved and therefore I will not identify them.)
As Malewitz reports:
"[The two boys] were each in their 20s. Both were described by friends and family as kind, funny, somtimes sociabile, sometimes quiet. One was the son of a Grinnell lawyer and art instructor, the other the son of a refugee preacher from Haiti.
And 116 days and 108 miles apart, both vanished.
While one community and its university were galvanized by news of the disappearance, the other received no news. While hundreds search for one missing son, a father was left, at times alone, to find the other. The lackluster response in the [University of Iowa] case raises questions about the policies and practices of the University of Iowa and about the slow and minimal response by Cedar Rapids police and news organizations.
Malewitz, supra, at p. A7.
The possibility that the disparity in response could be partially explained by the socio-economic disparity of the parents ("Grinnell lawyer" vs. "refugee preacher from Haiti") is disturbing to say the least, although there is nothing additional in the story to suggest that was the case.
If you're interested in more of the details about the parties, the events, the dead students, the comments and actions of university officials, read Malewitz' story. I won't repeat it all here.
My point, my reason for mentioning the case at all, is occasioned by the memories it brings back of the University's somewhat disorganized response during the aftermath of the alleged rape of a student athlete by football players on October 14, 2007. See Nicholas Johnson, "University of Iowa Sexual Assault Controversy -- 2007-08," August 9, 2008, et seq.
Viewed from outside the events, both would seem to be BP-like failures to anticipate and plan for the inevitable. There is no way to anticipate who, when and where a college student will go missing. But there are many ways, and reasons, to prepare a playbook in advance for what the University's response will be when s/he does -- as Iowa State, and other universities, apparently have done.
Ultimately the playbooks for students' rapes, deaths from alcohol, suicides, murders, and "going missing" are going to have to be prepared. It won't take any more time, staff and money to prepare them before the events occur rather than after. But being proactive in this way can make an enormous difference in terms of human sorrow, a university's responsibility to its students (and their parents) -- not to mention the university's reputation and public relations.
I'm not in a position to write that playbook, or say that its contents are obvious. These are emotionally charged events. Other institutions' approachs can be helpful, but are not decisive. All I am saying is that giving the matter some thought ahead of time, whatever the emerging game plan may be, can at a minimum avoid the appearance -- whether for BP or the University of Iowa -- that those in charge are flailing about, uncoordinated, either ignoring the problem or trying everything they can pull out of the air as the IEDs (inevitable embarrassing developments) explode in front of them.
What seems most unfortunate -- substantively, morally, and in terms of public relations -- is for the University's response to be, as one official put it, that when students go missing off-campus, "It's not my case." _______________
* 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
Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho Salazar Has Got to Go! (bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
All systems of government are capable of being bent and twisted beyond recognition, compared with their initial theoretical promise and potential -- democratic capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism.
The only limits on the pejoratives thrown by President Obama's opponents are the limits of human imagination. But one of their favorites is that he is a "socialist." That is so far off the mark as to be funnier than the best from Jon Stewart. Were that he were! To watch our democratic capitalism morph into democratic socialism -- a highly unlikely prospect at any time -- would cause me far less concern that what I see happening.
The real risk is that we have already allowed our democracy to morph into corporatism, rule by major corporations, unchecked by democratic institutions -- a form of fascism. (Although even fascism at least typically allows for a stronger role for government than what we seem to have today in a corporate-government ruling partnership.)
Consider this report from the New York Times: "In the days since President Obama announced a moratorium on permits for drilling new offshore oil wells and a halt to a controversial type of environmental waiver that was given to the Deepwater Horizon rig, at least seven new permits for various types of drilling and five environmental waivers have been granted, according to records." Ian Urbina, "Despite Moratorium, Drilling Projects Move Ahead,"New York Times, May 24, 2010, p. A1.
The story gets worse, as I'll lay out in a moment; but for now just re-read that lead. This was not a call for a moratorium by the executive director of some environmental group. (There were those as well.) This was the President of the United States ordering a moratorium on drilling permits and environmental waivers.
Note that it was not even a order to stop pumping oil from offshore Gulf of Mexico wells -- as reasonable and understandable as such an order would be at this time. It was only a prohibition on more drilling in violation of the nation's environmental laws.
And how did his Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, and his corrupt Minerals Management Service, respond? Did they, as Oliver North once characterized as the appropriate response, "salute smartly and charge up the hill," canceling all pending applications for additional drilling? No. They totally ignored it, and continued business as usual with their powerful buddies in the oil industry, risking additional pollution of the Gulf from others utilizing BP's approach.
So what are we left with? The pollution in the Minerals Management Service has continued to spread just as BP's continuing pollution of the Gulf increasingly destroys the human and animal life from the depths of the ocean to the nation's southern coast.
And who has President Obama -- who as late as April 2 of this year was still functioning as cheerleader for the offshore drilling gang -- decided can best clean up these messes? Ken Salazar -- who has presided over the MMS mess for over a year, and either knew, should have known, or actually made worse, what was going on there -- is the fox in charge of cleaning up that chicken coop. And who's in charge of cleaning up the ongoing pollution? Why BP, of course; the very folks who got the waivers from the MMS that permitted them to drill without an environmental plan in the first place.
[S]ince the April 20 explosion on the rig, federal regulators have granted at least 19 environmental waivers for gulf drilling projects and at least 17 drilling permits, most of which were for types of work like that on the Deepwater Horizon shortly before it exploded . . ..
Asked about the permits and waivers, officials . . . pointed to public statements by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, reiterating that the agency had no intention of stopping all new oil and gas production in the gulf. . . .
[C]ritics say the moratorium has been violated or too narrowly defined to prevent another disaster. . . .
Since the explosion, federal regulators have been harshly criticized for giving BP’s Deepwater Horizon and hundreds of other drilling projects waivers from full environmental review and for failing to provide rigorous oversight of these projects. . . .
Mr. Obama announced on May 14 a moratorium on drilling new wells and the granting of environmental waivers.
“It seems as if permits were too often issued based on little more than assurances of safety from the oil companies,” Mr. Obama said. “That cannot and will not happen anymore.”
“We’re also closing the loophole that has allowed some oil companies to bypass some critical environmental reviews,” he added in reference to the environmental waivers.
But records indicated that regulators continued granting the environmental waivers and permits for types of work like that occurring on the Deepwater Horizon. . . .
At least six of the drilling projects that have been given waivers in the past four weeks are for waters that are deeper — and therefore more difficult and dangerous — than where Deepwater Horizon was operating. While that rig, which was drilling at a depth just shy of 5,000 feet, was classified as a deep-water operation, many of the wells in the six projects are classified as “ultra” deep water, including four new wells at over 9,100 feet. . . .
[O]one of the main justifications of the moratorium on new drilling was safety. . . .
And yet, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has classified some of the drilling types that have been allowed to continue as being . . . hazardous . . .. [T]here have been at least three major accidents involving spills, leaks or explosions on rigs in the gulf since 2002 caused by the drilling procedures still being permitted. . . .
Mr. Salazar, when pressed to explain why new drilling was being allowed, testified on May 18 that “there is no deep-water well in the O.C.S. that has been spudded — that means started — after April 20,” referring to the gulf’s outer continental shelf.
However, Newfield Exploration Company has confirmed that it began drilling a deep-water well in 2,095 feet of water after April 20. . . .
Among the types of drilling permits that the minerals agency is still granting are called bypass permits. These allow an operator to drill around a mechanical problem in the original hole to the original target from the existing wellbore.
Five days before the explosion, the Deepwater Horizon requested and received a revised bypass permit, which was the last drilling permit the rig received from the minerals agency before the explosion. The bore was created and it was the faulty cementing or plugging of that hole that has been cited as one of the causes of the explosion. . . .
Even before the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the use of environmental waivers was a source of concern. In September 2009, the Government Accountability Office released a report concluding that the waivers were being illegally granted to onshore drilling projects.
This month, the Interior Department announced plans to restrict the use of the waivers onshore, though not offshore. . . .
The investigation, however, is likely to take months, and in the meantime the waivers are continuing to be issued. There is also a 60-day statute of limitations on contesting the waivers, which reduces the chances that they will be reversed if problems are found with the projects or the Obama administration’s review finds fault in the exemption process.
At least three lawsuits to strike down the waivers have been filed by environmental groups this month. The lawsuits argue that the waivers are overly broad and that they undermine the spirit of laws like the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act, which forbid drilling projects from moving forward unless they produce detailed environmental studies about minimizing potential risks.
Even the most inattentive, blind and hardhearted of institutional executives usually respond to massive bad publicity in the mainstream media. The major problems involve matters that do not receive such public attention, and thus can be ignored -- often to the profit of the institution, even if to the loss of its customers and employees.
In this instance, it's not even clear that the otherwise sophisticated Obama Administration has even responded as one would expect from a public relations disaster.
But as tragic as are the consequences of America's most serious ecological disaster in history, there is an even more serious problem.
What has President Obama done during the last year-plus with regard to other abuses of the public trust that may be going on in the federal government? What has he done proactively, preemptively, to avoid the corruption and agency capture by industry elsewhere than at the MMS? To what extent does he care; and how has that care been manifest -- beyond running through the playbook after the disasters occur?
I can't begin to list all the possible places to look, but here are a few: President Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex" (the Defense Department-defense contractor revolving door; Congressional pressure for weapons systems the military don't want or need); the "cozy relationship" (to use Obama's characterization) between the industry that is supposed to be regulated and, say, the FAA, FDA, OSHA, MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration; think Massey Coal and 29 dead), SEC, agricultural and other subsidy and price support programs. The list is endless.
Has President Obama initiated any inquiries into general Washington "coziness"? Has he provided any, specific, instructions to his appointees on this score? Is he aware that he is the CEO of an organization with hundreds of otherwise-hidden agencies, any one of which is a potential political weapon of mass destruction?
I recall a companion once commenting as the driver of the car in front of him was seemingly unable to bring himself to proceed beyond a "Yield" sign: "Hey, it says 'yield,' not capitulate completely!"
I fear that we as a nation have also passed beyond merely yielding to corporate control to the place where we have capitulated completely. We're not even running a reputable fascist state anymore.
The first step on the road to reform is to get rid of Secretary Salazar. The second is to acknowledge that the problem is systemic and that the removal of one cabinet officer isn't going to clean up either corruption in government or oil pollution in the Gulf. _______________
* 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
What's Scandal in London is SOP in Washington Just Business -- As Usual (bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Sarah Ferguson has stepped in it again.
But is what she did any different from what goes on in Washington every day?
In case you missed the story, Sarah Ferguson married Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth's second son, the Duke of York, in 1986, making her a member of the Royal Family as the Duchess of York. They were divorced in 1996.
So, what's she done now? As The Guardian story continues,
[S]he was exposed by a News of the World sting operation in which she promised to obtain access to her former husband in return for £500,000. [Photo Credit: News of the World.]
In a taped interview . . . the duchess is seen telling the man she supposed was a foreign businessman that she could obtain access for him to the prince, who acts as a quasi-official British trade envoy promoting deals for UK firms around the world.
Demanding a payment of £500,000 . . . she told the reporter: 'That opens up everything you would ever wish for. I can open any door you want, and I will for you. Look after me and he'll look after you … you'll get it back tenfold.'"
Shocking! Scandalous! An embarrassment to the Royal Family, to the Duke and former Duchess of York, to all Brits who revel in the monarchy.
And then I got to thinking.
Why is it that we don't consider what is going on in Washington, even while you read this, equally shocking and scandalous?
What am I talking about?
Think about it. How do our elected officials justify their receipt of five-to-seven-figure cash contributions from those who stand to benefit (or lose) from those officials' votes and interventions in government decisions (e.g., softening safety standards for offshore drilling, coal mines, workplaces generally, multi-billion-dollar "bailouts")? Why is that not considered the buying of votes? Why do we not call it "bribery," and prosecute it as a criminal offense?
Because, say our officials (and those who collect the money for them), "No one can buy my vote with a 'campaign contribution.'"
So, then, we sometimes ask, "Why do your donors give you such large amounts of money, and spend equally large amounts on lobbyists?"
"Oh," say the officials, "all they want, and all they get, is 'access;' the ability to tell me their story directly."
Put aside your cynicism for a moment. Let us assume, even if it doesn't pass the laugh test, that campaign contributions don't sway votes as such; that all they purchase is the opportunity for "access."
Is that valuable? How much is "access" worth? Ask Sarah Ferguson. She runs in those circles. She has a pretty good sense of its market value. In this instance she thought it worth $700,000.
In Washington, some have paid more, some have paid less.
All have found it a worthwhile investment, even if all it got them was "access."
Because in the "pay to play" town that Washington has become, you're likely to find the committee chair, or senator, you need to talk to about your business is "too busy" to see you without your first coming up with what Sarah Ferguson was demanding.
In London, promises Ms. Ferguson, "you'll get it back tenfold." In Washington, the return on a campaign contribution "investment" runs closer to 1000-to-one. Give a million, get a billion. (See supporting data at Nicholas Johnson, "Campaigns: You Pay $4 or $4000,"Des Moines Register, July 21, 1996, p. C2.
Yet in London a 10-to-one return is a scandal. And in Washington a 1000-to-one return is just "business -- as usual."
There are going to be some Senate seats open this year. If only she'd thought to come here and run for one of them. More money; no scandal. Oh, well. Maybe next time. ______________
* 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
Special thanks for yesterday's events go to Dr. Victoria Sharp, UI's special assistant to the provost for alcohol safety, and Sarah Hansen, director of assessment and strategic initiatives in the Division of Student Services.
Yesterday's Nebraska delegation included Linda Major, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, assistant vice chancellor for student affairs (who's played a major role in the creation and evolution of the effort since the beginning); Ian Newman, Ph.D., the Wesley C. Meierhenry Distinguished Professor in Educational Psychology at UNL and director of the Nebraska Prevention Center for Alcohol and other Drug Abuse; and Captain Joy Cita of the Lincoln Police Department.
Whatever the visit cost the University, it was worth it. Given my schedule, the only time I was able to spend with them was the media briefing over the noon hour. But from what I gathered, we worked them from dawn to dusk with separate meetings including University officials, faculty, staff, students, City Council members, downtown merchants, bar owners, media, and neighborhood association representatives. (There may have been other individuals and organizations as well.)
I have been critical in the past of the University's and City's lack of leadership on this issue. Nor have I been alone. Even former Mayor Ernie Lehman expressed a comparable frustration:
In the 12 years that I spent on the council, I tried several times to get the council to pass a 21 ordinance. University of Iowa presidents Mary Sue Coleman and David Skorton also encouraged the council to pass such an ordinance -- along with the UI College of Public Health, the public school system and numerous others within the community. In fact, every piece of credible evidence presented to the council called for a 21 ordinance -- all of which the council ignored, choosing instead to listen to the bar owners and patrons of the bars.
So it's a great pleasure to be able to spread a little praise over the community's leadership today.
Of course, it's a little premature to say Iowa City has now solved its alcohol problems. Clearly, being curious about, and willing to learn from, the successes of others is a big improvement over ignoring them. But it's a long way from implementation -- as the Nebraska delegation has been the first to acknowledge.
1. To be successful in actually doing anything about binge drinking (or anything else for that matter) -- as distinguished from talking about it -- it cannot merely be "one of my 325 highest priority projects." It needs to be, if not number one, at least one of the top three or four. There needs to be a community-wide agreement that (a) binge drinking is a really serious problem, along with (b) a commitment to actually sticking with it until there has been a measurable reduction in its adverse effects on students and community alike.
2. There needs to be both an involvement of, and a buy-in by, every relevant group of stakeholders: university administrators, faculty, staff and students; parents; downtown merchants; bar owners and liquor stores; the City's council members and staff; university and City police; the faith community; and other organizations.
3. There's no cookie cutter approach or master plan. Each community needs to put together the components that best work for it.
4. Don't expect overnight miracles. Lincoln hasn't eliminated binge drinking; it has cut it by one-third. The University of Iowa's binge drinking rates (and its serious consequences) are among the highest in the nation (as formerly were those at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln). If we could also bring our rates down to the national averages, as Lincoln did, that would be a significant improvement.
Could the Lincoln lessons work in Iowa City? It's too early to tell. For one thing, the bar owners in Lincoln were a very important part of the project's success. Among other things, they imposed 21-only limitations on themselves and used peer pressure to bring the deviants into line. How likely is it that Iowa City bar owners would be as cooperative?
But clearly it's worth a try. Yesterday's briefings from Lincoln is the first step. This blog will continue to monitor whether Iowa City's "journey of 1000 miles" either begins -- or both begins and ends -- with this single step.
* 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
What's Take-Away from May 18 Primary Elections? (bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
There were four elections yesterday, one each in Arkansas and Kentucky, and two in Pennsylvania. What do their outcomes tell us about November we didn't know before?
Very little.
What follows is just one, relatively uninformed, blogger's intuition; not the result of having worked in any of the campaigns, memorized the piles of polling data, or even having read a significant amount of others' commentary.
There are some things we at least thought we knew before the results were in.
"All politics is local." There are so many factors that help shape the outcome of a given congressional or senatorial primary, or general election, that drawing any national (or even local!) generalizations from their outcomes runs the risk of being wide of the mark.
Especially is this so in light of the fact that most outcomes are relatively close. When there are less than 10 points separating the candidates anything from cold or rainy weather to a last-minute news item could have made the difference. In such cases, for purposes of deriving meaning from an election, it's a little silly even to designate a "winner" and "loser," let alone to discard from consideration the "meaning" behind the votes of the 40 percent or more of the voters who supported the "loser."
An incumbent President's party tends to lose seats in the Senate and House during off-year elections.
Aside from that, incumbents tend to get re-elected. No matter how angry the public is with "Congress" in general, voters tend to think their own Member of Congress is OK. The number of Members who want to be re-elected, and are, is generally well above 90 percent.
Most districts are solidly either Democrat or Republican. The real contests occur in the ones that are neither.
Perhaps the largest percentage of voters consider themselves "independent" or third party.
On the other hand, those who vote in party primaries are necessarily more partisan, more concerned about party loyalty, candidates having "paid their dues" to the party, and the impact of primary choices on general election outcomes.
Overall election results tend to reflect the economy. When the economy is trending down, or seems stuck there, voters want "change" -- often manifested in ousting incumbents. When the economy is booming, or clearly recovering, they're less likely to "throw the rascals out" -- or even bother to vote.
Lengthy incumbency cuts both ways. There is at least a lingering concern on the part of voters that "old age" and too many decades in Washington may make an elected official less, rather than more, effective on their behalf. (This is, of course, offset by the increased power, and ability to help the state or district, that comes with seniority.) But it is especially so if constituents detect (whether true or not) a growing disconnect between the Washington elite lifestyle of the elected official and that of the residents of the local area.
My thinking is that nothing happened yesterday to change any of that conventional wisdom.
But there are two conclusions that at least some commentators seem to be drawing from yesterday's returns with which I really disagree. One is that the results reflect a turn to the right, a resurgence of conservatism -- and hope for the Republicans in November. The other is that what we witnessed was an anti-incumbent movement. (E.g., Jeff Zeleny and Carl Hulse, "Specter Defeat Signals a Wave Against Incumbents,"New York Times, May 19, 2010, p. A1.)
Sestak's Victory Over Senator Arlen Spector: An Example of "Anti-Establishment, Anti-Incumbency"?
Voters are not in a good mood -- whether discouraged, depressed, angry or violent. Admittedly, that did not cut in favor of Spector's re-election.
But there were so many other factors at play in Spector's case that I think it is woefully overly simplistic to put the results in the "anti-incumbency" column.
For starters, he got 47 percent of the vote. That's not exactly a rout.
Bear in mind, this was a Republican Senator running in a Democratic Party primary! He only recently switched parties, and acknowledged he did it because there was no way he was going to get the Republican Party nomination. The switch enabled the winner, Congressman Joe Sestak to utilize a very effective commercial that left few if any Democrats unaware of Sestak's assertion that Specter was just a Republican opportunist.
Moreover, he was a five-term, 30-year, 80-year-old Senator. The political meaning from the ouster of a one-term incumbent Senator is one thing. But when a Senator has served as long as Specter, and has reached 80 years of age, to be voted out of office involves much more than mere "anti-incumbency."
Admittedly, "'close' only counts in horseshoes," and it really hurts to lose an election. But for what it's worth, under the circumstances, and against all the odds, Specter should take some considerable personal solace and satisfaction from the 47 percent vote of confidence, admiration, and appreciation that he was able to win as an 80-year-old Republican running in a Democratic primary.
How About Senator Blance Lincoln in Arkansas?
The meaning of the outcome in the Democratic Primary in Arkansas is a little more clear cut than the one in Pennsylvania. But it's still not unambiguous -- especially with regard to the assertions that yesterday's four elections represent a "swing to the conservative right" on the part of voters.
For starters, Lincoln "won" in the sense that she got more votes than the runner-up, Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter -- just not enough to prevent the need for a runoff, since she did not get 50 percent.
Second, the winner of the Republican Primary election, John Boozman, who defeated seven opponents, has been an Arkansas Representative in Congress since 2001. So that can scarcely be said to be the result of an "anti-establishment, anti-incumbent" vote.
Did Lincoln's failure to win outright illustrate the voters' move to the conservative right? No, the fact is that in her case it was exactly the opposite.
The SEIU and AFL-CIO weighed in heavily on the side of Halter precisely because she was perceived as being too conservative -- especially with her votes against healthcare reform, and her perceived support of the Wall Street banks. The voters wanted a more liberal candidate.
Republicans vs. Democrats in Congressman Jack Murtha's District
Following Democratic Congressman Jack Murtha's death, the only election yesterday pitting a Republican against a Democrat was in Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District.
If an overwhelming Republican victory anywhere could have been seen as a harbinger of a national tectonic shift to the conservative right and a Republican sweep of the House in November it would have been this one.
On the other hand, the same could be said for the Democrats were they to win. Even though the 12th had been a Democratic district with Murtha, it also happens to be a district that went for Senator McCain over Obama a mere 18 months ago.
However conservative the district may be said to be, the majority did not vote for the Republican. The Democrat, Mark Critz (a former Murtha aide), won over a Republican businessman, Tim Burns, by a substantial 53 to 45 percent.
Incumbency was not in issue in that contest. But the issue of a possible shift -- from the Democratic Party, to a pro-conservative, Republican Party -- certainly was. And the verdict on that race would have to be that it just wasn't there for the conservative Republicans..
Paul's Win is Republicans' Problem -- Not Nation's or Democrats'
Rand Paul, son of Presidential candidate and Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.), scored a 24-point Republican Senate primary victory over Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson -- the favorite of the Republican establishment, up to and including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Thus, while it contributes nothing to an understanding of "anti-incumbency" (as neither held the Senate office), it certainly does say something about the division within the Republican Party between the Republican establishment and the anti-Establishment, Tea Party, wing of opposition.
Given that this was a Republican Primary it necessarily tells us little about the conservative, anti-Establishment leanings of Democrats and Independents. Indeed, there are those who believe that Paul will be much easier for the Democratic Party candidate to beat than Trey Grayson would have been. And Tea Party membership, to the extent it can be measured, seems to be disproportionately made up of those who would otherwise be (or still are) Republicans.
But we scarcely needed this Primary to know that there is a schism between the conservative, right wing, take no prisoners, anything to bring down Obama, just say no wing of the GOP, and the Establishment, moderate, reasonable, come let us reason together wing. Nor have we been unaware that the former seems to be gaining adherents over the latter.
In sum, they were an interesting four elections, but when Chris Matthews says, "Tell me something I don't know," I'm not sure what one can offer based on the results. _______________
* 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
Whatever Happened to "The Buck Stops Here"? (bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Normally when a large and embarrassing institutional error is revealed by the media, the head of that institution, whether called chair, CEO, executive director -- or "President of the United States" -- steps forward to take responsibility.
President Harry Truman was associated with the constant reminder of that obligation he kept on his desk, the sign that read, "The Buck Stops Here" -- "buck" as in "passing the buck." [Photo credit: Harry S. Truman Library and Museum.]
It was not inappropriate for President Obama to chastise the BP, Transocean and Halliburton CEOs' performance before Congress -- seemingly passing responsibility for the Gulf disaster between themselves faster than the basketball at a college team's ball handling practice.
Fortunately for Obama, he went on to acknowledge, almost as an afterthought, "there is enough responsibility to go around. And all parties should be willing to accept it. That includes, by the way, the federal government."
Unfortunately for Obama, the national finger-pointer-in-chief stopped there, unable to move his arm and hand into a position where he could point at himself.
You had executives of BP and Transocean and Halliburton falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else. The American people could not have been impressed with that display, and I certainly wasn’t.
I understand that there are legal and financial issues involved, and a full investigation will tell us exactly what happened. But it is pretty clear that the system failed, and it failed badly. And for that, there is enough responsibility to go around. And all parties should be willing to accept it.
That includes, by the way, the federal government. For too long, for a decade or more, there has been a cozy relationship between the oil companies and the federal agency that permits them to drill. It seems as if permits were too often issued based on little more than assurances of safety from the oil companies.
Top executives often take responsibility for their institution's failures in an almost formal, ritualistic, theoretical sense -- failures for which they played no direct role, failures of which they could not even have been expected to have had advance knowledge.
Alas, President Obama's responsibility for the BP oil pollution was not such a failure.
After all, it was not the CEO of the historically disaster-ridden BP, or the head of the ineffective and corrupt Minerals Management Service, who said that offshore drilling could be done in a way to "protect communities and protect coastlines," "protect America's natural resources -- tourism, the environment," and in ways that are today "technologically advanced" and "guided by scientific evidence," "environmentally sound and not risky" with a "low risk environmentally." It was neither of them who asserted that "oil rigs today don't cause spills."
Those cheerleading assertions sound as if they were written by a BP publicist. Hopefully, they were not -- but the result is just the same -- in fact, far more powerful and influential when delivered and carried worldwide from the "bully pulpit" of the President of the United States.
For they were all the words of President Obama, in his personal effort to boost the oil industry's profitable offshore drilling, days before the BP disaster.
So today we’re announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration, but in ways that balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America’s natural resources. Under the leadership of Secretary Salazar, we’ll employ new technologies that reduce the impact of oil exploration. We’ll protect areas that are vital to tourism, the environment, and our national security. And we’ll be guided not by political ideology, but by scientific evidence.
[Photo credit: White House] [W]e’ve got to look at our traditional energy sources and figure out how can we use those most effectively and in the most environmentally sound way. . . .
The decision around drilling -- same approach. What we did was we said we’re not going to have drilling a mile off the North Carolina coast or two miles off. But 50 miles off, 100 miles off, where it is appropriate and environmentally sound and not risky, we should allow exploration to begin taking place to see if there’s certain reserves. . . .
But what we did was we tried to look at the scientific evidence and figure out where are areas where low risk environmentally and a high potential upside. . . .
I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore.
It was President Obama who encouraged the reversal of policy to permit offshore drilling. It was President Obama who nominated Ken Salazar as his Secretary of Interior. It was President Obama who, presumably aware of big oil's political influence, seemingly cared not at all about the "cozy relationship" between the industry and the Minerals Management Service -- until the oil hit the fan.
The finger pointing should not stop, the buck does not stop, at the MMS; it stops at President Obama's desk, just as it stopped at President Truman's.
President Obama is a bright, sophisticated, well-informed, student of government. Surely he is knowledgeable regarding the phenomenon called "agency capture," or "regulatory capture." That's when an agency created to regulate an industry "in the public interest" ultimately ends up becoming that industry's advocate, its cheerleader, and a partner in its public-be-damned, employee-safety-be-damned, race to ever-increasing profitability and stock prices.
How could it be that he only discovered what he called this "cozy relationship between the oil companies and the federal agency that permits them to drill" after the BP Gulf disaster?
Had he not connected the dots between the results of agency capture (the failure of the Mine Safety and Health Administration to close the mine) and the deaths of 29 coal miners in the Massey Upper Big Branch disaster on April 5, one month before his "cozy relationship" speech? Ian Urbina, "No Survivors Found After West Virginia Mine Disaster,"New York Times, April 10, 2010, p. A1 ("The blast at Upper Big Branch comes four years after a pair of other West Virginia mine disasters — an explosion that killed 12 miners at the Sago mine and a fire that killed two at the Aracoma Alma coal mine. . . . In 2008, the Aracoma Coal Company, a subsidiary of Massey, agreed to pay $4.2 million in criminal fines [for] several safety violations related to that fire. . . . This week’s blast comes after a year in which the Upper Big Branch mine had repeated problems with methane buildups [and had been] cited . . . eight times for 'substantial' violations . . ..")
Had he not heard, specifically with regard to BP, of "the 2005 explosion at a refinery in Texas City" for which BP was fined "a record $87 million for neglecting to correct safety violations;" or that "only a year later, a leaky BP oil pipeline in Alaska" resulted in "$20 million in criminal penalties;" or that "last year, when the federal Minerals Management Service proposed a rule that would have required companies to have their safety and environmental management programs audited once every three years, BP and other companies objected"? Clifford Krauss, "Oil Spill’s Blow to BP’s Image May Eclipse Costs,"New York Times, April 30, 2010; and see additional details and comparisons with other companies in Jad Mouawad, "BP Has a Record of Blasts and Oil Spills,"New York Times, May 9, 2010, p. A22 ("BP, the nation’s biggest oil and gas producer, has a worse health, environment and safety record than many other major oil companies, according to Yulia Reuter, the head of the energy research team at RiskMetrics . . ..").
When I received my first presidential appointment (U.S. Maritime Administrator), I sat in the oval office with the president, one-on-one, while he provided me instructions in no uncertain terms as to what he wanted done with regard to the "agency capture" in the agency I was about to head. Indeed, I have always assumed that one of the reasons for my unlikely selection, for this job -- a job for which I had not applied, and for which I expressed disinterest to the President when it was offered -- was that I did not have any association with the shipping or ship building industries.
That's a part of what concerns me about the number of former Goldman Sachs employees brought into the Obama Administration, including Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner, and the wisdom of appointing Ken Salazar Secretary of Interior given his ties to the energy industries.
(Goldman Sachs alums have infiltrated the government, from the Fed to the Treasury to the White House itself, and also influence Congress. See, e.g., the summary in Alex Floum, "Goldman Sachs alumni hold many of the top government positions,"Economic Policy Examiner, May 6, 2010; Albert R. Hunt, "Scarlet Letter for the Greed Generation,"New York Times, April 25, 2010 ("Goldman’s political action committee gave $290,500 to congressional candidates last month as Congress weighed the financial-regulation overhaul. Mr. Obama shook the Goldman Sachs money tree for almost $1 million in his presidential campaign.").)
Surely he has appointed someone, to head an agency somewhere in Washington, who is a true consumer advocate, someone who is challenging corporate abuses. But offhand, I must confess, no name immediately comes to mind.
Does President Obama provide explicit directions to his appointees regarding agency capture, like those President Johnson provided me? Or, from his behavior, and the absence of any instructions to the contrary, do agency heads' sensitive antennae pick up the sense that corporate interests should be accommodated rather than challenged?
Public relations firms' libraries are full of playbooks for handling an institution's screw ups after they reach the media. The top guy should issue a statement saying his thoughts and prayers are with the families of those killed (killed needlessly as a result of the institution's negligence and lack of management oversight). (E.g., "President Obama earlier on Friday [April 9] expressed his condolences to the families of those [29 coal miners] killed or injured in the [inadequately regulated Massey Upper Big Branch coal] mine explosion." Ian Urbina, "No Survivors Found After West Virginia Mine Disaster,"New York Times, April 10, 2010, p. A1.)
A statement is issued reaffirming the institution's commitment to the highest standards of ethics and quality control. A commission is appointed to investigate the totally unpredictable disaster that occurred, "so that this will never happen again." We're all familiar with that process.
Indeed, many institutions leave one with the impression it is only the failures that make their way into the mainstream media that are of any concern at all. Employees' expressions of concern are at best ignored, and at worst lead to the complaining employee's dismissal. This seems to have been the case at the Minerals Management Service. Ian Urbina, "U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits," May 14, 2010, p. A1 ("The . . . M.M.S. . . . routinely overruled its staff biologists and engineers who raised concerns about the safety and the environmental impact of certain drilling proposals in the gulf and in Alaska, according to a half-dozen current and former agency scientists.").
We need to judge the heads of major institutions -- including our presidents -- not on the basis of how they respond to the institutional public relations disasters after they reach the media and public, but how they hopefully prevent and respond to those that fall well below the media's radar.
When you choose foxes to protect the public's chickens you cannot fairly express surprise when the size of the flock begins to dwindle. Nor can you expect much from the report of a commission of foxes that does little to prevent future losses, and concludes that those losses are not the fault of the foxes. Nor does it solve the foxes' inherent conflicts of interest to ask the head fox to separate the single group of foxes into two groups of foxes -- or even to replace the head fox with a different fox. Juliet Eilperin, "Obama to create commission to investigate gulf oil spill,"Washington Post, May 18, 2010; Juliet Eilperin, "Salazar to split MMS into two agencies,"Washington Post, May 11, 2010 ("Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Tuesday he had commissioned an independent review of the BP oil spill and will split the Minerals Management Service into two parts"); Juliet Eilperin, "Interior Dept. official at MMS resigns,"Washington Post, ("Chris Oynes, the top Interior Department official who oversees offshore oil and gas drilling for the Minerals Management Service, announced Monday that he will retire on May 31 . . ..").
I'm not suggesting that the Administration of President George Bush was better in terms of agency capture. If anything, it was probably worse. But the BP Gulf disaster can't be blamed on George Bush. Obama has been president for well over a year, and was planning his presidency at least since the election in November 2008.
We know he voted as a senator to grant immunity to the phone companies that had turned the private records of their customers over to the government in violation of law. We saw his early direction of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money to banks and other businesses -- rather than genuine jobs creation programs like the CCC and WPA that worked for President Roosevelt and would have been the quickest and cheapest way to actually create jobs. We watched as he refused to even consider universal single-payer health care, and then took a public option off the table. We know he held secret closed door meetings at the White House with representatives of Big Pharma that undercut patients' rights to more pharmaceutical options at lower prices. We recently witnessed the consequences of his failure to reform federal oversight of coal mine safety.
And now we're looking at what has been characterized as the most devastating environmental disaster in the history of America as a result of the "cozy relationship" between his MMS and the oil industry.
Barack Obama was my candidate. He is my only U.S. President. There is still a great deal about him that I like and admire. I want him to succeed.
But I don't think it helps him to succeed for his supporters to turn a blind eye to his turning a blind eye to corporations turning a blind eye to the public interest. _______________
* 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
You've probably heard it said that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. This phrase has been around since the 1970s and is a variant of the earlier observation that man needs god like a fish needs a bicycle.
