The Political Game

Gary 'The Kid' Carter, 1954-2012

2012-02-16T15:37:00.007-07:00

"He was a human backstop back there. Early, before his knees went bad, you couldn't steal on him in Montreal. When he wasn't able to throw because of his knees, that never affected his performance. He was running on and off the field after three outs. This guy played in some pain and it was hustle, hustle, hustle."

-- Keith Hernandez on Gary Carter, Carter died of cancer today.

Smorgasbord Saturday

2012-02-11T11:09:00.003-07:00

"Carlson: Hoisted on their petard"/Chris Carlson, Ridenbaugh Press
"20 years since Robin Row killed her husband, 2 kids"/Jamie Grey, KTVB.com
"The Occupy Boise Double Standard in the Idaho Senate"/Sisyphus, 43rd State Blues
"War on birth control"/Rachel Maddow, Washington Post
"Astronaut feels space's toll on his body"/Rich Phillips, Light Years (CNN.com)
"The Battle Behind the Fight"/Gail Collins, New York Times
"Bullies"/Alan, IdaBlue

2012 Postseason Predictions

2012-02-10T13:51:00.002-07:00

Editor's Note: I'm fed up with politics, so y'all get baseball again today.

The Mariners' pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training tomorrow with their first workout the following day and the remaining Major League teams report the following weekend, so it's time for some predictions.

Without further ado, my 2012 predictions:

American League: Yankees (East), Royals (Central), Angels (West), Rangers (Wild Card).

National League: Braves (East), Reds (Central), Rockies (West), Phillies (Wild Card).

If the two additional wild card spots that Commissioner Bud Selig wants instituted occur in 2012, my 2 additional wild card selections are the Rays (AL) and the Diamondbacks (NL).

Signing big free agents doesn't necessarily mean a team earns a playoff spot and you'll find my predictions take that into account. I like the way the Tigers are set up, more so for their Fister signing last season than for the Fielder signing, but there aren't enough wild card spots for them to edge out the strong pitching of the Rays and the great young talent emerging in Kansas City. While the Angels did make huge signings with C.J. Wilson and Albert Pujols, they had great pieces in place already and the signing put them over the top. Watching the AL West this season is going to be a blast!

One last comment on my predictions: The Braves edging out the Phillies. If the Braves do as well as they did last year and have even half as many injuries, I see them beating the Phillies easily. Sure, the Phillies may have the stronger rotation (their pitchers' experience beats out the Braves' talent), but the Braves have the stronger 'pen. The Braves have the strongest 'pen in the big leagues. Period. Without a healthy Ryan Howard to start the season and no signing as of yet of Oswalt or Ibanez, I anticipate the Phillies doing well, but not well enough. With the collapse behind them, the Braves are headed for success.

Opening Day can't come soon enough!

The Contenders Among Us

2012-02-02T23:14:00.003-07:00

This off season has been a particularly happening one in baseball. Not to mix metaphors, but once the ball got rolling, it seems every week since the World Series ended on October 28th there has been hot stove news.

This week is no different as the Nationals announced today the signing of starting pitcher Edwin Jackson. The signing of Jackson has been just another reminder to those of us who live and die with the Atlanta Braves that the National League East has become very competitive this off season. Of the five teams who reside in the NL East, only one team seems to be going in the wrong direction and will more than likely be out of contention before the first game is even played--the Mets. Here's a list of some of the biggest signings, trades and extensions in the NL East this off season:

Derek Lowe: Traded away to the Indians by the Braves on 10/31/11. Indians will pick up some of the remainder of his contract ($5 million), but the Braves eat the majority of his contract and pick up a no-name prospect. This actually helps the Braves by freeing up a spot in the rotation for one of the many amazing young arms in Triple A (not to mention Medlan should he return to the starting mix).
Jim Thome: Signed by the Phillies on 11/05/11. After a short stint back in Cleveland, Jim Thome signed with his old hitting coach Charlie Manuel. Brings veteran presence and a bench bat. May very well be Thome's last season if he can't return to the American League to DH. Look for production similar to his season off the bench with the Dodgers.
Jonathan Papelbon: Signed by the Phillies on 11/14/11 after Philadelphia's talks with closer Ryan Madson seemed to stall. Rounds out an incredibly talented pitching staff. The former Red Sox closer is proven, more dependable than Brad Lidge and may be even more dominant in the National League. Look for him to slow down games in the NL East now.
Ty Wigginton: Traded to the Phillies from the Rockies on 11/20/11. Fills the utility infielder role. Best guess? An insurance plan for the aging and oft-injured Philly infield.
Heath Bell: Signed by the Marlins on 12/05/11. One of the best signings of the off season, Bell leaves the Padres for the very different looking Marlins. Bell said he was willing to be a set-up guy, but the Marlins will surely plug him in as a closer. Will liven things up in Miami.
Andres Torres: Traded from the Giants to the New York Mets on 12/07/11 for Angel Pagan. One of the few moves in a positive direction for the Mets. Won't fill the production hole that Beltran's absence created and won't match Pagan's production, but can handle center field quite capably. Pagan will bring a needed bat and acceptable defense to the Bay.
Jose Reyes: Signed by the Miami Marlins on 12/07/11. Blockbuster deal of the off season, as top tier free agent signings usually are. Will bring his dynamic speed, defense and bat to a team that has desperately needed something to get excited about for several seasons now. His presence on the roster will move Hanley Ramirez to third base, possibly a good thing for a player who has become a bit too comfortable with his surroundings. Miami overpaid for an often injured player.
Mark Buehrle: Signed by the Marlins on 12/09/11. Within the space of a week, the Marlins made the announcement that they're serious about competing with their new name, new uniform and new park. Buehrle brings veteran presence, stability, consistency and a proven record to the rotation. The former White Sox ace also brings a bit of home for the new Marlins skipper. Moving to the National League may be a great move for Buehrle.
Jon Rausch: Signed by the Mets on 12/14/11. Fills a gap left by Francisco Rodriguez when he was traded to the Brewers following the 2011 All Star Game.
Dontrelle Willis: Signed by the Phillies on 12/15/11. The longtime Marlin signed with the Phillies after struggling in Detroit and re-establishing himself in Cincinnati. Yet another talented arm for the Phillies pitching staff. Unclear as to where he'll fit in the rotation.
Jimmy Rollins: Re-signed by the Phillies on 12/19/11. The market for Rollin fizzled a bit due to numerous injuries, but the longtime Philly shortstop signed a 3-year deal with the team erasing questions about where they might look to fill his spot. Rollins age & lingering injuries remain question marks for the Phillies, but the addition of Ty Wigginton will surely help.
Gio Gonzalez: Signed by the Nationals on 12/23/11. The biggest and most promising signing by the Nationals since Jayson Werth. Brings experience with the A's, struggles with the A's, and great talent to the Nats. Rounds out a very talented, young pitching staff. With today's addition of Edwin Jackson, the Nats' pitching staff could be one of the top 7 in Major League Baseball.
Carlos Zambrano: Traded to the Marlins by the Cubs on 1/05/12 for Chris Volstad. Volstad is a promising pitcher who would have been successful with the Marlins, but will likely be more successful with the Cubs. The same can't necessarily be said for Zambrano. He could easily become a distraction in Miami. When under control, Big Z brings big game pitching. When out of control, well, ask Chicago's retired Gatorade machine. In my opinion, the Cubs got the better deal here. How will Big Z impact the division competition level? The Braves hit him well.
Edwin Jackson: Signed by the Nationals on 2/2/12. Did fairly well with the Cardinals in the run up to the World Series and was a steal for the Nationals. When your fourth or fifth starter in the rotation is Edwin Jackson, your rotation is ridiculously strong.

This list leaves Cuban sensation Yoenis Cespedes out of the equation entirely. Cespedes could end up being the biggest NL East signing of the off season should he end up with the very interested (and suddenly rich) Marlins.

In addition to the fourteen listed and Cespedes, the following were signed by NL East teams: Mike Cameron (Nationals), Frank Francisco (Mets), Chad Gaudin (Marlins), Dan Cortes (Nationals), Jack Wilson (Braves), Xavier Paul (Nationals), Mark deRosa (Nationals), Ronny Cedeno (Mets), Joel Pineiro (Phillies), Austin Kearns (Marlins), Brad Lidge (Nationals), Juan Pierre (Phillies), Chad Qualls (Phillies), Chien-Ming Wang (Nationals), Adam Russell (Braves), Josh Wilson (Braves).

If the off season is any indication, both the Marlins and Nationals are ready to contend. No longer content playing the spoiler, both teams have been aggressive this off season and have been very successful attaining production as well as pitching. Both teams have some great young talent (Stanton, Sanchez, Johnson, Ramirez for the Marlins and Morse, Harper, Strasburg, Storen, Zimmermann, Ramos, Espinoza, and Desmond for the Nationals). Adding in key pieces as well as veterans with the presence and experience to lead the way, both teams will be very interesting to watch during the 2012 season.

The annual contenders will have their hands full with the newly rebuilt Nats and Marlins. The Phillies made plenty of moves this off season to shore up an already dominant rotation. The biggest questions for the Phillies will involve Ryan Howard's Achilles tendon, whatever plagued Utley for most of last season, and Jimmy Rollins' legs.

The Braves made very few moves this off season, something that has had fans scratching their heads. Moving D-Lowe opens up a spot in the rotation, as I said, for one of the young arms that we got to see with September call-ups. Julio Teheran or Randall Delgado seem to be the most likely. A rotation consisting of ace Tim Hudson, never traded Jair Jurrjens, Tommy Hanson, Brandon Beachy and one or more of Mike Minor, Teheran or Delgado could be just as dominant as the Phillies' big three (Halladay, Lee, Hamels). Surely if healthy the Braves will not regret for a second hanging on to Jair Jurrjens and Martin Prado. Without Lowe and with a healthy Prado, Jurrjens and Hanson, the great September collapse of '11 will be ancient history.

Suddenly the National League East looks as competitive as the American League East. No longer are the days of the Phillies and Braves contending for division champion and the wild card. The new look of the NL East seems to indicate that there are now many contenders.

Dems Introduce Jobs Legislation

2012-01-31T13:01:00.002-07:00

Editor's Note: The Idaho Democrats have announced several measures to help create jobs for Idahoans. It's a good first step. Here's hoping the Idaho GOP gives it some consideration.

Press Release from the Idaho Democratic Legislative Caucus

Date: Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Contact: Representative John Rusche (208) 750-6048 or Senator Edgar Malepeai (208) 251-9517

Idaho Democratic Legislators’ #1 Priority is Job Creation

BOISE – Today Idaho Democratic Legislators presented common sense, proactive policies they believe will help develop the prosperous communities we all desire and deserve.

IJOBs 2.0 consists of seven proposals that will grow existing companies and attract new companies, enhance our infrastructure, keep money in Idaho, and ensure that our economic development efforts are productive and accountable.

Representative Brian Cronin said, “The Idaho Legislature must play a critical and active role in returning prosperity to our communities. We thought so in 2010, when we first proposed our IJOBs economic development package and today we continue to push for real solutions to our ongoing economic challenges.”

The Idaho Jobs and Opportunity Blueprint consists of:

Value-Added Agriculture and Farmer Empowerment Act
Idaho Partnership Bank
Business Relocation & Finder’s Fee Tax Credit
Idaho Corporate Accountability and Transparency Act
Buy Idaho First Contracting Act
Micro Enterprise Bridge Loan Program
Rural Broadband Service Memorial

These bills hone in on the aspects of economic development that will impact job creation and business growth in Idaho’s communities. Rep. Cronin closed by saying, “Many of these initiatives focus on the long-term task of breaking out of the low-wage trap Idaho is in. We recognize the shared responsibility we have for creating jobs, an educated workforce, and a modern infrastructure. We look forward to working with our Republican colleagues to move forward the only job creation package currently before the Legislature.”

TDIH: 'High In the Sunlit Silence...'

2012-01-28T18:12:00.000-07:00

On this day in 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded a mere seventy-three seconds after lift off. It remains a moment that few Americans have forgotten who were alive to witness the event, either in person or as it was being broadcast on television.

In the days that followed the tragedy, Idaho was one of the first states to order the lowering of flags in honor of the six astronauts and one New Hampshire school teacher whose lives were lost. Congressman Richard Stallings, then representing Idaho's second congressional district, had been serving in the U.S. House of Representatives for just over a year and was interviewed by many Idaho-based media outlets about the tragedy. As a freshman representative and throughout his four terms in office, Stallings served on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Many of the oversight responsibilities retained by Congress to investigate what went wrong with Challenger fell to the Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Applications, one of two Science, Space and Technology subcommittees that Stallings served on (the other being the Subcommittee on Energy, Research, and Development).

I wasn't quite nine months old when the Challenger exploded moments after lift off. I don't have any of my own memories of watching the tragedy, but I've listened to Congressman Stallings discuss Challenger and the connection between the shuttle and the Idaho National Laboratory (INEL at the time of the explosion) many times. When I ran across the material in the Stallings Papers about the disaster as well as the investigation that ensued, I was in awe. One of the first items I found was this piece that was part of a NASA presentation given to the subcommittee that was investigating the Challenger disaster:

It is one of the many items throughout the Stallings Papers that brought my processing to a halt. It was a sobering moment to consider the pressure on NASA and those conducting the investigation to ensure that such a tragedy was not repeated. We don't tend to think about the magnitude of congressional committee work and how the decisions made by the members of those committees will impact history. Without identifying what went wrong on this day in 1986, the space program itself may have ended.

On the back of the Challenger memorial at Arlington National Cemetery is the famous poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. "Put out my hand and touched the face of God" is often quoted in connection with this day, but when I think of this day I think of a less quoted phrase of Magee's: "High in the sunlit silence..." High in the sunlit silence of that January day, from Florida to New Hampshire to even Idaho, Americans from all over this country tuned in to watch an endeavor that the twentieth century will forever be remembered for and instead witnessed tragedy.

________________________________________

The above images are contained in the Richard H. Stallings Papers at Idaho State University and are used with permission of the Department of Special Collections. The photo of Congressman Stallings can be found in Series I: The Washington Papers, Box 20, Folder 1. All material related to the Challenger disaster is contained in Series I, Box 40, Folders 13-15.

Stop SOPA & PIPA

2012-01-18T08:55:00.004-07:00

Join today's online protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) & the Protect IP Act (PIPA) by signing this petition to join the strike or contact your legislators. For more information on these pieces of legislation, both Google and Wikipedia, who are participating in the strike, have placed SOPA/PIPA on their front pages. You can read the text of SOPA and PIPA, available from OpenCongress. Please contact your legislators on this important issue. Here's a quick way to do so, but remember contacting your legislators individually with a personal message is much more effective. Both Senators Crapo and Risch have reported technical issues in their office this morning, hopefully from all the Stop SOPA/PIPA emails & calls they are receiving, so keep trying.

Smorgasbord Saturday

2012-01-14T13:44:00.003-07:00

Editor's Note: Have said it before, but I'm still not happy with the color scheme of the links, followed links and whatnot. I'm also not sure if I want to return to the old way of doing smorgasbords or not. Any thoughts on the new link list for smorgasbords? Would you prefer commentary on each of the links? I'm trying something different today--breaking the links into defined sections. Let me know what you think.

Baseball:

"Yankees part with Montero, reluctantly"/Andrew Marchand, ESPNNewYork.com
"Mariners, Yanks nearing Montero, Pineda swap"/Greg Johns, MLB.com
"Helping baseball's scouts in a post-'Moneyball' world"/Bill Shaikin, LATimes
"Manny might want to change, but it's too late"/Alden Gonzalez, MLB.com

Idaho Politics:

"The ethics tit-for-tat..."/John Miller, AP
"The Spiders of Wall Street: Threads of History Run Through Occupy Boise"/firedoglake

National Politics:

"America Isn't a Corporation" and "Untruths, Wholly Untrue, And Nothing But Untruths"/Paul Krugman, New York Times
"Occupy Atlanta helps save historic black church from eviction"/Kunbi Tinuoye, The Grio
"10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free"/Jonathan Turley, Washington Post
"Obama to Ask Congress for Power to Merge Agencies"/Mark Landler, New York Times
"Tucson Suspends Ethnic Studies Program under Threat of Funding Cut"/Democracy Now!
"The Value of Teachers"/Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times

TGIF Tunes

2012-01-13T12:50:00.004-07:00

One of the first singles out in 2012 and it could very well end up being one of the best of the year. Here is the ever impressive Jason Mraz with "I Won't Give Up." It is set to be released on the long-awaited new album, hopefully in May.

Idaho Democrats Put Forward Ethics Commission Bill

2012-01-12T16:23:00.004-07:00

Editor's Note: The following press release landed in my inbox yesterday from the Idaho Democratic Party. May the governor stick to his guns on the topic of ethics and put some pressure on the legislative majority to support this worthy idea.

Update (1.13.12): Speaker Denney has lashed out at Democrats for using the phrase "culture of corruption" in their portrayal of ethical lapses in governance. House Minority Leader Rusche has responded to Denney's outrage at the Democrats' rhetoric. This issue is bound to get more contentious. It is, after all, only the first week of the legislative session.

News release from the Idaho Democratic Party

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date: January 11, 2012

Contact: Sally Boynton Brown (208) 440-2374 or Shelley Landry (208) 336-1815

The Silence is Deafening

Idaho Democratic legislators have been steadily discussing the need to find solutions to the culture of corruption in our public offices for a week and the Majority Party has yet to respond. Despite a week of discussion with the media on the need for ethics reform from Idaho Democratic leaders neither the Governor nor GOP leadership have stepped forward with a plan or even comments on how best to address this issue.

Shelley Landry, Executive Director with the Idaho Democratic Party said, “Idahoans need to be clear, the only reason the elephant in the room is being discussed is because our Democratic Leadership is leading the charge. Let’s be realistic, the GOP was never going to push this issue on their own. Our Idaho Democratic Caucus has given the Majority Party ample opportunity over the years to make this a bi-partisan issue. We urge them to join us in prioritizing the renewal of confidence and faith in public leaders.”

She went on to say, “We were thrilled to hear Speaker Denney give his vote of support last week for an independent ethics commission and are patiently waiting for Republican lawmakers to express their interest or support of our bill. ”

The Idaho Democratic Legislative Caucus announced yesterday that they will be presenting their ethics commission bill to the media tomorrow. The meeting will be open to all that are interested in hearing more about the specifics of the bill.

Best Albums of 2011

2012-01-01T12:05:00.004-07:00

It may have been a bad movie year, but the music industry did not disappoint. I actually had a hard time narrowing down this list to fifteen. There are certainly others that were in the running, others that didn't make the list because of one track or another--it was that hard. Here it is:

Tom Waits: Bad As Me
Bon Iver: Bon Iver
Wilco: The Whole Love
Black Keys: El Camino
The Civil Wars: Barton Hollow
Trampled by Turtles: Palomino
The Roots: Undun
Glenn Campbell: Ghost on the Canvas
Foo Fighters: Wasting Light
HARDTOBREATHE: The Reckoning
Bush: Sea of Memories
Miranda Lambert: Four the Record
Lucinda Williams: Blessed
Matt Nathanson: Modern Love
Christina Perri: Lovestrong

Narrowing it down to fifteen may have been difficult, but picking the number one album of 2011 was incredibly easy. After listening to one track of Tom Waits' seventeenth studio album, I was sold. If you haven't listened to it, go. Now! It's that good.

It was a great year for upstarts (Christina Perri and The Civil Wars) and artists that have been around for what seems like ages (Lucinda Williams, Tom Waits and the incomparable Glenn Campbell). And that I can only think of two disappointments (return of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ryan Adams' Ashes & Fire) is saying something. The music industry better get cracking because 2011 is going to be hard to beat.

Smorgasbord Saturday (New Year's Edition)

2011-12-31T18:02:00.002-07:00

"New Rules for the New Year"/Bill Maher, New York Times
"Alcohol and the Idaho legislator"/Randy Stapilus, Ridenbaugh Press
"12/30/1905 - Today In History"/John T. Richards, Idaho Meanderings
"A brainpower revolution"/Eugene Robinson, Washington Post
"Perry's Abortion Stance Gets Even More Extreme"/Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones
"25 Literary resolutions for 2012. What's yours?"/Jacket Copy (via L.A. Times)
"2011: A Year of Transitions"/Greg Johns, MLB.com
"Keynes Was Right"/Paul Krugman, New York Times
"Why Is Nepal Cracking Down On Tibetan Refugees?"/Jon Krakauer, The New Yorker
"Pudge would welcome return to Rangers"/Texas Rangers Report, ESPNDallas.com
"A Drug That Wakes the Near Dead"/Jeneen Interlandi, New York Times Magazine

The Cost of Executing Monsters

2011-12-31T17:46:00.006-07:00

This week the Idaho Department of Correction released the amount the state's execution of Paul Ezra Rhoades cost the state of Idaho. Not surprisingly for those who are familiar with the cost of carrying out the death penalty, the cost was great. The exact cost IDOC released to the press was $53,411, not including the construction of the new execution chamber (F Block, as it is named).

In an interestingly timed release, the IDOC stated the following:

BOISE, December 30, 2011 – The recent execution of Paul Ezra Rhoades, IDOC #26864, cost the Idaho Department of Correction $53,411.

Of the total, $25,583 went to employee overtime and $27,828 went to operating costs [...]

[...] Operating expenses include medical supplies, equipment rentals and meals. The total cost figure does not include salary and benefits paid to IDOC staff who would have been working regardless of whether or not there had been an execution. Only overtime costs that were accrued as a result of the event were included in the final tally.

The press release went on to compare the cost of the state of Idaho's execution of Rhoades with that of the state of Oregon as they prepared for the execution of an inmate who was ultimately granted a reprieve when the governor of that state placed a moratorium on executions. The two states were separated by merely a few thousand dollars. The insertion of this information in the press release may only be a way for the IDOC to explain to the general public that the cost is comparable to other states and other executions, but it seemed inappropriate to be announcing that we can kill a man in the name of our people for cheaper than another state can.

When the new execution chamber was revealed to the people of the state of Idaho prior to Rhoades' execution, we were told that the necessity presented itself when the state began to realize there would be several more executions in the coming years. Maybe that is so, unfortunately to those of us who would rather our state not take lives in our name, but it doesn't erase the cost.

As long as we choose to execute the monsters among us, there will be a cost.

The Finder

2011-12-31T17:33:00.000-07:00

It's official, The Finder has it's own page on the FOX website! And they've been running ads for the hour-long show that will premiere on January 12, 2012 at 9/8c.

Check out this video for a preview of the show:

If you're not a regular watcher of Bones, you may have missed FOX introducing The Finder (aka Walter Sherman). They're calling it a spin-off of Bones, but the only connection I see is that both shows are based on a series of books and have the same creator. There isn't much of a connection between the two, other than the story line devised to introduce one show in the time slot of the other. The Finder is based on two amazing books by Richard Greener. Called The Locator series, Greener wrote The Knowland Retribution and The Lacey Confession centered on the unique gifts of a military veteran who can find nearly anything or anyone--lost, missing or stolen. Not unusually, there are some differences between the books and the soon to premiere tv show (just as there are differences between the books by Kathy Reichs and the Bones show). Most notably, there are far less characters in the tv show than in the book, one major character specifically. Differences aside, it looks to be a very entertaining show.

Given my track record of liking shows of late that are cancelled after a season or even less, I hope that Bones fans and fans of the Greener books will tune in and give this show a chance.

Smorgasbord Saturday

2011-12-17T12:54:00.002-07:00

"My Occupy LA Arrest"/Patrick Meighan, Family Guy
"Thousands Sterilized, North Carolina Weighs Restitution"/Kim Severson, New York Times
"Idaho Supreme Court will decide Bujak documents case"/Kristin Rodine, Idaho Statesman
"NPR Music's 100 Favorite Songs of 2011"/Music Staff, NPR
"Accounts of a Massacre, Saved From Junkyard Flames"/Michael S. Schmidt, New York Times
"An Early Holiday Hangover"/Gail Collins, New York Times
"Has Gingrich ever heard an idea he didn't like?"/Eugene Robinson, Washington Post
"Extended labor peace a credit to Selig"/Richard Justice, MLB.com

TDIH: Pearl Harbor (70th Anniversary)

2011-12-07T18:00:00.002-07:00

As today marks the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and America's entering World War II, I thought the best place to find material to share would be the records from Hawaii. First word of the attack came through official channels and began the sending of this naval dispatch from the ranking United States naval officer in Pearl Harbor. This image is available through the Library of Congress American Memory website and comes from the papers of Admiral John Jennings Ballentine (1896-1970).

A simple search on the American Memory page for 'Pearl Harbor' brought up 859 items, though surely there are hundreds more related to the attack as well as our involvement in World War II. I highly recommend taking a look at their site and the items available on the site of the National American History Museum website, not just today on the 70th anniversary of this historic event, but as often as you have time. These items exist for us to examine and study so that we do not lose our understanding of history over generations.

To the men and women who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor as well as those who subsequently joined the armed forces, out of patriotism, duty or conscription, we will never forget you. Yours is our story.

TGIF Tunes

2011-12-02T13:31:00.005-07:00

Lost most of the week to a trip at the beginning of it for a doctor's appointment. I'll get back into the swing of things next week. In the meantime, here's an interesting video I ran across that merges a few really interesting elements. Javier Colon, for those of you who didn't watch The Voice, is someone special. Add in a Ken Block of Sister Hazel and Mark Bryan of Hootie and the Blowfish and you get this very interesting version of "Let Her Cry" (only thing missing is Darius Rucker). Enjoy!

Tom Wicker, Dead at 85

2011-11-25T16:44:00.004-07:00

The New York Times announced the sad news that Tom Wicker has passed away of a heart attack at 85. From their piece:

"The searing images of that day [November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated]— the rifleman’s shots cracking across Dealey Plaza, the wounded president lurching forward in the open limousine, the blur of speed to Parkland Memorial Hospital and the nation’s anguish as the doctors gave way to the priests and a new era — were dictated by Mr. Wicker from a phone booth in stark, detailed prose drawn from notes scribbled on a White House itinerary sheet. It filled two front-page columns and the entire second page, and vaulted the writer to journalistic prominence overnight."

Wicker's death is just another reminder that there are becoming fewer and fewer men and women still alive who were associated with or covered the Kennedy assassination.

Presidential Assassinations

2011-11-24T23:58:00.000-07:00

From the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian comes this tweet and link on the 48th anniversary of Jack Ruby killing Lee Harvey Oswald. I highly recommend following the link--it takes you to a page of items housed at the museum in an exhibit called "Life and Death in the White House." The items on the page are all related to the Kennedy assassination, but if you take a look around you can find items related to the assassinations of Lincoln and Garfield as well. There may be items related to the assassination of McKinley, I just didn't spot them right away. Enjoy!

The Daily Rundown: JFK Assassination

2011-11-22T13:55:00.004-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

One of the few topics I find Chris Matthews to be credible when discussing is President Kennedy. This morning on MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown," he discussed today's 48th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.

Rhoades Postscript

2011-11-21T18:22:00.000-07:00

With two witnesses representing each of Paul Ezra Rhoades' victims, four members of the Idaho press, and various government as well as law enforcement officials, the state of Idaho executed a man convicted of three murders. Rhoades became the twenty-eighth prisoner to be executed in Idaho since 1864. Twenty-eight have been executed, none since 1994, and yet the pro-death penalty, conservative Governor of Idaho wasn't even in the state when the execution occurred. In fact, Governor Otter wasn't even in the continental United States, but the execution of Paul Ezra Rhoades was carried out. We ask this state to take the life of a convicted inmate in our name, but we don't ask that the leader of our state be in attendance.

My profound disappointment in what happened Friday morning does not begin and end with my opposition to the death penalty. I once said that I was grateful to live in a state that isn't as blasé about executions as Texas and that opinion was challenged by the blasé way the governor treated Friday's execution. The head of the Department of Corrections and the attorney general looked as if they hadn't slept in days, yet the governor was in Hawaii at an annual conference. It's unfortunate, to say the least. Despite the state politics and the divisive issues that surround the death penalty, there were far greater disappointments in what happened Friday. Continuing with how I've approached the topic, I highly encourage perusing the following articles regarding Friday's timeline, Rhoades' final words and the many reactions to the execution:

"IPT reporter Nate Green chronicles morning of Rhoades execution"/Nate Green, Idaho Press Tribune
"The Rhoades execution: final words" and "Back on the mainland, Otter says execution process has 'run its course' "/Kevin Richert, Idaho Statesman
"Prosecutor: 'Nothing brings total justice' "/Betsy Russell, Eye on Boise
"Rhoades defiant to the end"/Rebecca Boone, Associated Press

The most disappointing and horrible part of what happened Friday came in Rhoades' final words. By executing him and asking for his final words, the state of Idaho gave Paul Rhoades one last opportunity to inflict pain on his victims' families. Not only does the death penalty allow for pain to continue to be inflicted on those closest to these cases through the long and constitutionally granted appeals process, it gives monsters a pulpit and an audience to say incredibly hurtful things. All of this could be avoided by leaving him to rot in prison for the rest of his days.

It was always Rhoades' modus operandi to inflict unnecessary pain and he did so once again Friday in denying his involvement in two of the murders for which he was convicted, two murders that he unequivocally committed. Only a monster could do this, a monster given the pulpit in which to say as much. As a friend of one of Rhoades' victims uttered as it was determined that Rhoades was dead, "the Devil has gone home." Indeed.

TGIF Tunes

2011-11-18T14:53:00.003-07:00

Keeping with last week's Warren Zevon theme, I thought I'd share this video of Wagons & Joe Pug covering Zevon's "Lawyers, Guns and Money." Was actually recommended on Twitter by Braves beat writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dave O'Brien. Not a bad way to end a day that has been rather dark, literally and figuratively.

Idaho's Twenty-Eighth

2011-11-17T22:49:00.006-07:00

Tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. the death warrant for Paul Ezra Rhoades will be read. He will have already been moved to Idaho's new execution chamber and at 8:10 a.m. the lethal injection is scheduled to begin. Within minutes, Paul Ezra Rhoades will be the twenty-eighth prisoner to be executed by the state of Idaho since 1864.

Paul Ezra Rhoades has exhausted all appeals, including asking for and being denied a stay of execution by the United States Supreme Court. Barring an unforeseen granting of clemency, Rhoades will be executed tomorrow morning.

To further understand Rhoades' case, his appeals, the execution process, and Idaho's history of executions, I highly recommend the following:

"Detective: Rhoades is a serial killer"; "Judge unseals details about execution team"; "Judge to rule on whether to proceed with execution"; "Death row inmate talks about scheduled Rhoades' execution"/Jamie Grey, KTVB.com
"State says witnesses will not be able to see all of Rhoades' execution"/Rebecca Boone, Associated Press
"ACLU of Idaho to protest execution Friday morning"/Idaho Statesman
"Idaho's last execution; Remembering the victims of Keith Wells"/Andrea Lutz, KTVB.com
"16-year anti-death penalty vigil in Boise takes on new meaning as Rhoades' execution nears"/Anna Webb, Idaho Statesman
"What Idaho doesn't want its people to see"/Idaho Statesman
"US Supreme Court refuses to block Rhoades' execution"/Ty Brennan, KTVB.com
"Passing the buck on Paul Ezra Rhoades' execution"/Nathaniel Hoffman, Paleomedia.org
"Brother of victim dealing with pain, again, on eve of execution"/Justin Corr, KTVB.com
"Sister of executed inmate speaks"/Logan McDougall, KPVI.com
"Idaho Media Challenge Rhoades Execution Schedule: Press Club Calls Timing Unconstitutional"/Marissa Bodnar, Local News 8 (Idaho Press Club letter on media witness procedures)

It is unfortunate that the state of Idaho will not be allowing the media witnesses to view each step of the execution. In fact, Rhoades will spend twenty-five minutes in the execution chamber without any witnesses present. It is not out of any morbid fascination that we should demand that the press be witness to such a gruesome event. It is so that we can ensure that the letter of the law is followed when the state carries out an execution. It is out of respect for and protection of the First Amendment that we should demand the press access to each step of the execution process. It is so we, as residents of the state of Idaho, can fully realize the actions we allow our elected leaders to take in our name. Tomorrow's execution of Rhoades is, after all, the taking of a life by the state of Idaho in the name of justice and protection of the people of this state.

I cannot state any clearer why this matters than the Idaho Statesman editorial board did today: "The state that kills in the name of its people should be completely and fully accountable to its people." Unfortunately, tomorrow's execution is not being treated with the sensitivity such an event demands. The leaders of this state, both in the governor's office and the Department of Corrections, are behaving as if the executing of a prisoner is just business as usual. When I stated that I was grateful to live in a state that isn't as blasé about executions as Texas, I never imagined that when the time came to execute a death row inmate, the governor would feel no obligation to be in the state and we would deny the media access to the execution in its entirety.

Yes, you read that right, though Idaho Governor Butch Otter has received hundreds of letters addressed directly to him regarding the execution of Rhoades, Otter is in Hawaii and Lt. Governor Brad Little is currently at the helm. Neither have expressed any opposition to the death penalty and it is doubtful that the many out-of-state letters asking for clemency will outweigh the hundreds of comments the governor has received from Idahoans in support of tomorrow's execution. Idahoans fall largely on the side of vengeance (vengeance was something I discussed here) when it comes to the whether or not a convicted killer like Rhoades should be executed. The state that is resoundingly pro-life, the life of a man on death row is not to be shown mercy. Instead, Idahoans will sit quietly by, some surely cheering, as the state of Idaho takes a life in our name.

Tomorrow Idaho will continue, business as usual, and chances are there won't be seventeen years between this execution and our next. Will Idaho's twenty-eighth teach us anything?

Update: The state of Idaho executed Paul Ezra Rhoades Friday, November 18th at 9:15 a.m. (MST).

A Tribute to Rep. Allen Andersen

2011-11-15T00:27:00.004-07:00

Allen Andersen's parents were buried in Arbon Valley, Idaho where they spent most of their lives farming. As a young man, Allen spent a great deal of time in Arbon Valley as well, though he attended school in Pocatello. It's fitting that Allen, the former state representative, will be laid to rest in the city to which he devoted so much of his life.

For those of us who knew Allen, it came as a great shock when he passed away last week of a sudden heart attack. If others who knew Allen were at all like me, the shock of it all left us struggling to put into words what Allen meant to us. One word that consistently came up when I spoke to others who knew Allen was kind. Allen was one of the kindest people I ever had the privilege of knowing. His sincere kindness was a constant, as was his sense of humor.

Not only did Allen serve in the Idaho House of Representatives and as chairman of the Bannock County Democrats, he most recently served as co-chair of the first Idaho Redistricting Commission. But Allen's service didn't begin and end with politics. As a former teacher and regional director of the Idaho Education Association, Allen's heart belonged to public education. His more than two decades advocating for public education touched thousands of lives. The Idaho Education Association's collection of responses to the passing of Allen Andersen speaks to how deeply he was loved by his friends and colleagues.

For me personally, Allen Andersen was both a friend and mentor. I came to greatly appreciate his gentle friendship and deeply admired his dedication to public service. Allen was never content with a simple handshake, instead always offering a hug. I was blessed to co-host a local access television show for the Bannock County Democrats with Allen and will always cherish those segments as well as the wealth of knowledge he shared with me during filming. I was also blessed to have the opportunity to campaign for Allen in 2006 when he, James Ruchti and Diane Bilyeu were running for District 29 legislative seats. The truth is, it was one of the easiest campaigning efforts ever due to everyone loving Allen. When I was involved in student government at ISU, Allen was very supportive of everything I was doing and we had many a conversation that ended with him encouraging me to run for Pocatello City Council. That was never in the cards for me, but his confidence in me and support of my goals will never be forgotten. Allen's passing leaves a void in my life and the lives of so many.

There are few people who have so completely and passionately devoted their lives to public service the way Allen Andersen had. This state would be the better for it if more approached public service as Allen did. His presence in Idaho politics, public education, his church, and his community will be deeply missed. Though we will all miss him greatly, the mark he left on our lives and hearts will never be forgotten.

[This piece was cross-posted at 43rd State Blues. The photo that appears here was attained from the Cornelison Funeral Home with permission of the Andersen family.]

Happy Birthday, Buck!

2011-11-13T17:49:00.005-07:00

Today would have been the great Buck O'Neil's 100th birthday. Take a look at this local NBC video about the Buck O'Neil exhibit at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City.

TGIF Tunes

2011-11-11T10:13:00.007-07:00

They tell me love requires
A little standing in line

-- Warren Zevon, "Searching for a Heart"

In the closing moments of this week's Covert Affairs, Rebecca Pidgeon's cover of Warren Zevon's "Searching for a Heart" played. I'd forgotten how much I love this song. The video is a 1991 performance of the song by Zevon on Letterman. Check out Zevon's son Jordan performing the same song on Letterman after his father's death. Rebecca Pidgeon's version is now available at iTunes.

IDP on Allen Andersen's Passing

2011-11-10T16:45:00.003-07:00

Editor's Note: The Idaho Democratic Party released the following statement on the untimely passing of former state representative, redistricting commission co-chair, and county party chairman Allen Andersen. I'm still trying to find the words to express how sad I am about Allen's passing. My thoughts are with Allen's wife, Bev, their children and grandchildren.

(click to enlarge)

Hitchcock: What's Wrong With Class Warfare?

2011-11-02T14:41:00.003-06:00

Editor's Note: The following article was submitted to the Idaho State Journal by Professor Leonard Hitchcock. Hitchcock is a professor emeritus at Idaho State University.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH CLASS WARFARE?

Republicans have reacted to the Occupy Wall Street movement with contempt for the cause and disgust at the participants. They have revived epithets they once reserved for the hippies, and stigmatized the demonstrators collectively as a “mob” that is engaged in “class warfare.” This reaction is, needless to say, just as it should be, for Republicans are the defenders of precisely that class of Americans against which the protests are directed.

It’s unclear, however, whether Republicans deplore class warfare simply because their interests are threatened by it, or because they believe it to be un-American to assume that classes exist in this country, or perhaps because, while admitting that there are classes, they reject the notion that the ruling class in American is anything but deserving and beneficent.

It is unlikely, I think, that any Republican could be so willfully blind to the economic facts as to deny that there is a describable class of American citizens that are properly called “the super-rich”. Nor could any Republican pretend not to know that though there was a time when such a class was composed of “captains of industry,” the current crop of those enjoying multiple dwellings, yachts, private jets and Lamborghinis have largely amassed their wealth by figuring out ways to make the money that they already possess multiply like rabbits, without, in the process, producing anything of tangible value or use to the general public. There may be the occasional Bill Gates or Steve Jobs among that class, but, to a considerable extent, these billionaires have never made a widget in their lives. Instead, they’ve contrived ways of doing clever things with loans, mortgages and securities that bring in floods of profit without employing anyone but bankers and accountants.

But let’s be fair: even if there is a layer of the hyper-affluent that floats atop the national economy like pond scum, that doesn’t justify class warfare. After all, the rich, as the Bible says, will always be with us. What entitles us to blame them for our troubles? To answer that question, let’s consider an archetypal case of class warfare, the French Revolution.

By the latter half of the 18^th century, France had indulged itself in several unnecessary wars -- wars that it had funded largely by borrowing money. Since the higher strata of French society -- the clergy, the nobility and, the King and his bureaucracy -- had become accustomed to lives of considerable ease and opulence, when the country found itself deeply in debt it sought frantically to increase the national income, largely through the imposition of new taxes and higher tax rates. Because the privileged classes were legally exempt from the most severe of these taxes, and successfully evaded most of the others, the burden of taxation fell, perforce, upon the lower and middle classes.

The French peasantry was, at that time, experiencing greater poverty than it had endured during the Middle-Ages. What little protection the mutual obligations of serf and lord had provided for them during the Feudal period had now vanished and the land-owning classes aimed only to extract more profit from their estates. Peasants paid taxes to clerical and noble land-owners for the right to work the fields and then paid consumption taxes on the wretched provender that kept them alive. They had no voice whatsoever in local village government because the Crown made it a practice to sell municipal positions to the highest bidders to augment the state’s income.

In the cities, members of the urban working class were treated like beasts of burden by the bourgeoisie and the upper classes. Few had work on a regular basis, most lived close to starvation, and their political power was nil. Beneath them were swarms of unemployed beggars, prostitutes, and petty criminals, all of whom lived in even greater misery than the working class.

It was perfectly clear to any member of the lower classes that his enemy was not just the king, or his local landowner, or his bourgeois employer; it was the entire class of owners and exploiters, those who collectively ran the country and arranged the affairs of state to benefit themselves. It was also clear that those privileged classes, however much they might be in conflict with one another, had a shared interest in preserving their hegemony over the lower classes, and every intention of preserving the system that provided them with lives of luxury and security.

And what is our current situation, those of us who belong to the 99%? We seem to live in a plutocracy masquerading as a democracy. The rich write the tax laws and the banking regulations. The rich buy the politicians and are therefore able to reimburse themselves from the public till when their investment gambles fail. The corporate aristocracy has emerged from the economic catastrophe that it caused richer and more powerful than before. It seems capable of decimating the public sector, of crippling organized labor, and of thwarting those who seek to implement traditional measures to aid the unemployed and the helpless. Is that aristocracy not the ruling class, and have we no cause to go into the streets to denounce it?

Idaho Reports: Reinke Interview

2011-11-01T18:08:00.006-06:00

This interview footage comes via Idaho Reports and features Idaho Department of Corrections Director Brent Reinke. Reinke discusses the process that IDOC is going through as they prepare for the looming execution of death row inmate Paul Ezra Rhoades. It's a lengthy interview, but really worth the time.

Thanks to host Greg Hahn and Idaho Public Television for permission to post this video in full.

Smorgasbord Saturday

2011-10-29T13:56:00.000-06:00

Editor's Note: The piece I've been working on for three weeks has been delayed once again due to me being under the weather. In the meantime, here are some links that caught my attention this week and deserve a read.

"Drawing the Holocaust"/Art Spiegelman, New York Review of Books Blog
"We Can't Wait: Obama Administration to Lower Student Loan Payments for Millions of Borrowers" (plus Fact Sheet)/White House Press Office
"Prophets Without Honor" and "Slippery Slope"/Marc Johnson, The Johnson Post
"Elizabeth Warren's winning formula"/Dana Milbank, Washington Post
"Stephen King's New Monster in '11/22/1963': Lee Harvey Oswald"/Alexandra Alter, Wall Street Journal
"Feds sue Idaho GOP legislator over unpaid taxes"/John Miller, AP
"Role of government"/Alan, IdaBlue
"Q&A w/Negro League Baseball Museum President Bob Kendrick"/Jeremy Sickel and Geoff Ratliff, Pop Fly Boys

A Changing Tide?

2011-10-24T14:46:00.004-06:00

Since the Idaho Department of Corrections announced that Paul Ezra Rhoades had been served with a death warrant scheduling him for execution on November 18, 2011, there has been a wide array of reaction. Idahoans from all corners of the state have expressed a range of reactions from relief and what can only be categorized as a display of vengeance* to disappointment and opposition.

It may not be all that telling that in this state, one of the most conservative in the Union, that many wholeheartedly believe in the death penalty. There are not only thousands of Idahoans who believe in the death penalty, there are many who believe that inmates like Rhoades have been given too many appeals and too much time on death row before being executed. I've read many comments at various sites in the past week from people who would throw out due process and the right to appeal in favor of speedy vengeance against predators like Rhoades. These, of course, are the same folks who claim to love and defend the Constitution. In Idaho even conservative Catholics are divided on the issue of the death penalty despite the U.S. Conference on Catholic Bishops stating that the death penalty is no longer necessary and Christians should work to rehabilitate criminals through God. It probably isn't, but should be, surprising that officials at the Idaho Department of Corrections actually have volunteered to carry out the execution.

What is more telling, I believe, is the varied reaction of those closest to the case. Following the announcement of the execution date, a former homicide detective with the Bonneville County Sheriff's Office said he hopes that the execution of Rhoades will bring closure to the families of his victims as well as to the myriad of law enforcement officials who are associated with the case. When the family of victim Nolan Haddon was asked for comment regarding the announcement, one brother stated that Rhoades' execution may bring relief to the community while another brother of the victim said there will never be closure for the Haddon family. I, too, am of the opinion that there will never be closure for the families of Rhoades' victims whether Rhoades is alive or not.

What is also telling and may reflect a changing tide in Idaho is what the media is saying about the Rhoades execution. The Twin Falls Times-News, hardly a bastion of liberal thinking, said in an editorial that they do not believe that the state of Idaho "should be the agent of the guilty party's death." They also went on to make two very good points about the construction of a new death chamber, what the Department of Corrections is calling "F Block", and the seemingly unjust nature of executions in a state that has executed relatively few inmates since statehood:

"We don’t believe it makes sense for the state to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a new execution chamber. We don’t think it is just punishment when, over a course of 54 years, only three men are executed out of a death row population that has numbered dozens during that time span."

As a native Idahoan myself, I am grateful to live in a state that isn't as blasé about executions as, say, Texas. However, I agree with the Times-News that the state of Idaho hardly had the money to spend on a new and unnecessary execution chamber. I also adamantly agree with the Times-News' assertion that the practice of executing prisoners seems unjust when it has been utilized in such a way.

One last point. The Times went on to make one more point that may be the crux of why there seems to be a changing tide when it comes to public opinion and the death penalty: "[The death penalty] has never proven to be an effective deterrent; there is no agreement that execution is less costly than incarcerating someone for life." We have the ability to incarcerate individuals for life who have committed horrific crimes. There has been no proof that executing death row inmates deters crimes like those of Rhoades in any way. And if the brother of Nolan Haddon is a bellwether, there is absolutely no closure for the families of victims taken at the hands of a monster like Paul Ezra Rhoades. If there is no closure to come from it and no just way of administering it, what is achieved by executing a prisoner who could instead spend the rest of his life behind bars?

_____________________________________

*To better understand how I came to refer to some of the responses to Rhoades' execution date as vengeance, I encourage you to wade through the comments left following this thoughtful, reasoned piece by Kevin Richert of the Idaho Statesman. Where Richert was dispassionate (his word, not mine), the responses were anything but.

The Cost of Executions

2011-10-21T13:37:00.006-06:00

Today AP reporter Rebecca Boone has a fascinating article about the new execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution south of Boise where death row inmate Paul Ezra Rhoades will be executed next month. Because I mentioned the cost to the prison officials who are responsible for carrying out the execution in my post on the Rhoades execution, I found the following portion of the Boone piece insightful:

"It's also a weighty issue for the prison employees who will be involved in the process, [Idaho Department of Correction Operations Chief Kevin Kempf]. But whether they are involved or not, all prison officials are keeping the victims' families in mind, he said.

" 'Our hearts, literally, are with the victims. This obviously cannot be a very easy time for them and certainly what they have gone through to get to this point is an incredible amount of tragedies,' Kempf said. 'That said, yes, this is impactful to our staff, to everyone involved in this thing. You have to have a level of toughness just to do this job every single day.' "

Many of us certainly wouldn't have the "level of toughness" Kempf speaks of and I for one would undoubtedly refuse to be involved in the execution of a prisoner. The words of the former prison officials in Georgia who opposed the execution of Troy Davis bear repeating:

"Like few others in this country, we understand that you have a job to do in carrying out the lawful orders of the judiciary. We also understand, from our own personal experiences, the awful lifelong repercussions that come from participating in the execution of prisoners...

"Living with the nightmares is something that we know from experience. No one has the right to ask a public servant to take on a lifelong sentence of nagging doubt, and for some of us, shame and guilt. Should our justice system be causing so much harm to so many people when there is an alternative?"

Unfortunately, the state of Idaho is not going to suddenly decide against the execution of prisoners. So, as the 18th of November approaches, I hope we will all keep in mind both the families of Rhoades' victims as well as the men and women at the Idaho Department of Corrections who must carry out the execution of Rhoades.

[Editor's Note: The portion of Rebecca Boone's piece that is quoted here was done with her generous permission.]

The Rhoades Execution

2011-10-19T23:56:00.001-06:00

Today the Idaho Department of Corrections announced that inmate Paul Ezra Rhoades had been served with a death warrant. The state of Idaho will execute the death row inmate on November 18th. It will be the first execution of a prisoner conducted by the state of Idaho since 1994. Having exhausted all of his appeals, including a lawsuit against the state challenging the legality of the method of execution, he will be put to death by lethal injection.

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you likely noticed last month when my attention turned to the Georgia execution of Troy Davis. As I said repeatedly then, I cannot, will not and do not support the death penalty. The case of Troy Davis made the news because there was a complete lack of proof of his guilt. Uproar surrounding the execution of Troy Davis arose due to his apparent innocence. That was not the only reason to oppose his execution. Those of us opposed to the death penalty also had our sights on an execution taking place in Texas--the execution of Lawrence Russell Brewer. Brewer was found guilty of the murder of James Byrd, Jr. and there was never any doubt as to his guilt. The Brewer and Davis cases could not have been any more different, but their result the same. I find it perplexing when others support putting to death one prisoner, Brewer, but not another, Davis.

My personal belief about the death penalty takes into account two things. First, as was discussed around the execution of Troy Davis, the impact of carrying out an execution on the lives of the prison guards, staff, doctors and wardens. Taking a life, even if it is state sanctioned has horrendous costs. And second, the potential of executing an innocent man. Far too many men and women on death row have been exonerated which suggests the obvious--that the justice system is not perfect and mistakes are made. The exonerations also mean that inevitably we have put to death innocent prisoners.

Despite believing that the death penalty is flawed, as is the justice system that accounts for inmates on death row, I have found the announcement that Idaho will execute Paul Ezra Rhoades challenging. I find it challenging not because I believe he should be put to death for his crimes, but because I thought about how it reflects on me that I don't. Why do I say this? A personal connection.

Paul Ezra Rhoades was convicted in Idaho of three murders, though all told he is believed to have murdered at least six people. One of the three murders he was convicted of in Idaho was the sister of a family friend. I know what her death did to her family. I have seen the cost, the pain and the anger. However, knowing what I do, I cannot fathom any amount of closure or relief coming from the state executing Rhoades. It will not bring back his victims and it will not make what he did any less evil. If the law enforcement officials who brought Rhoades to justice will not find any satisfaction in his execution, what satisfaction can the state find in their killing him?

Unfortunately, in my life I have known the families of two victims of horrific murders. The murderer of the first victim was convicted and sentenced to death, but died on death row before the state could execute him. Why I say I have been challenged by how it reflects on me that I don't believe Rhoades should be executed is because I have thankfully never before been in the position to question how my opposition to the death penalty meshed with knowing the pain, loss and anger of someone whose loved one was taken by someone who is actually about to be executed. My personal connection in this case has only solidified my belief that the death penalty serves no reasonable purpose. It brings no closure. It deters no crime. It kills the guilty and occasionally the innocent. Is that a trade we are willing to make? I'm not. It solves no problem that lifetime incarceration can't. It sanctions the act of vengeance without returning the innocence that was lost in the commission of the crime itself. The cost is just too high.

When Paul Ezra Rhoades is put to death on November 18th, nothing will have changed for the families of his victims and his death will eliminate no major burden for the state of Idaho. He will simply be the fourteenth inmate executed in Idaho since statehood and one less person on Idaho's death row.

"The Most Powerful Man in the World"

2011-10-17T23:53:00.002-06:00

The trailer for J. Edgar is very intriguing. Written by Dustin Lance Black, writer of Milk, and directed by the brilliant Clint Eastwood, it could be a major contender come awards season. One thing is certain, the film tagline--"The Most Powerful Man in the World"--isn't far off. J. Edgar hits theaters next month.

Smorgasbord Saturday

2011-10-15T13:38:00.005-06:00

"Idaho Journalists Expose Bryan Fischer in National SPLC Report"/Jody May-Chang, As I See It...
"Labrador pushes bill aimed at helping foreign grads, high-tech employers" [But opposes the DREAM Act...]/Kevin Richert, Idaho Statesman
"Martin Luther King's legacy for today"/Martin Luther King III, WaPo
"Leading Idaho Republican Party official helped a firm now banned from doing business with the state"/Dan Popkey, Idaho Statesman
"The Gift of Glib"/Gail Collins, New York Times
"The Curse of The Lucchino" and "Theo? Your Bus Is Here!"/Keith Olbermann, Baseball Nerd (MLB.com)
"Redistricting Panel Unanimously Approves a Map"/Sisyphus, 43rd State Blues
"Portraits of Protest"/Martin Schoeller, The New Yorker
"Fister able to pitch more aggressively with Tigers"/Greg Johns, Mariners Musings (MLB.com)

TGIF Tunes

2011-10-14T15:48:00.001-06:00

It's been a rough day, topping off a rough week. Seems music may be the only cure. Here's the first video released from the new Bush album Sea of Memories. "The Sound of Winter" was also the first single off the album.

The Blue Elephant

2011-10-10T15:45:00.004-06:00

Want to see something amazing that turned up in a thrift store in the Treasure Valley? Even if you don't:

Why would I want a blue elephant figurine emblazened with "G.O.P."? This is why:

Yes, this figurine originated in one of Herman Welker's two campaigns for the United States Senate. Welker, as those of you familiar with Idaho history may remember, served in the U.S. Senate for one term before being defeated by Frank Church. Welker is also responsibile for something else important in Idaho history--he recommended a young Harmon Killebrew to then-owner of the Washington Senators Clark Griffith who sent a scout out to Idaho and the rest is baseball history.

A big thanks to the friend who spotted it and knew exactly who Welker was and that I would value this piece of Idaho history.

More Than A Stretch

2011-10-08T10:15:00.003-06:00

No-longer-Idaho's-problem & AFA wingnut Bryan Fischer said at the Values Voter Summit that by singing "God Bless America" during the 7th inning stretch of Major League Baseball games, another terrorist attack like 9/11 has been prevented. Seriously. That's exactly what he said. From saying Mitt Romney is not qualified to be president because he's weak on the issue of marriage to saying baseball's 7th inning stretch is keeping us safe from terrorist attacks...and all in less than a week! Mississippi, he's your problem now.

Hitchcock: Further Questions About Tolerance

2011-10-01T15:20:00.003-06:00

Editor's Note: This is part 2 of the article I posted Friday by Professor Hitchcock. It was submitted to the Idaho State Journal for consideration and is published here with his permission. Scroll down for part 1 or you can follow this link.

FURTHER QUESTIONS ABOUT TOLERANCE (PART 2)

If, as I suggested in a previous column, tolerance consists in restraining the desire to “act out” one’s disapproval of others’ behaviors or beliefs, the question then becomes: what degree of restraint is required? If total restraint is exercised, there will be no behavioral manifestations of disapproval whatsoever, including speech. No doubt there are circumstances under which this degree of inhibition, whether theoretically necessary or not, is the wisest course of action. If, for example, I am convinced that my daughter-in-law is raising my grandchildren to be savages, silence may be the best way for me to practice tolerance.

Silence is also something often recommended by parents. How often did our mothers say: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all?” Of course many of us failed to follow that admonition and therefore encountered another piece of childhood wisdom: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” However untrue that may be for children (or adults), we Americans have tended to regard critical and abusive speech as not only harmless, but, in a certain sense, privileged.

The right to not remain silent is, of course, assured to us by our Constitution, and the rationale for that right is generally understood to be that democracies function most effectively if all opinions on topics of social interest are heard and discussed. In the “marketplace of ideas”, the more competing opinions there are, the greater the chance that the truth will be recognized and acted upon. Moreover, as John Stuart Mill argues in On Liberty, a person whose opinions are borrowed from others and who has never personally tested those opinions against the full spectrum of contrary opinions cannot be rightfully said to hold them at all. The public conflict of ideas is thus as essential to the individual’s intellectual integrity as it is to the welfare of society. As a result, the expression of opinion is much more than a right: it is an obligation.

If, then, giving voice to one’s opinions serves the best interests of both society and the individual, it would seem very odd to stigmatize all those who do so as intolerant. We must conclude that, under most circumstances, acting out one’s disapproval through speech is not incompatible with being tolerant.

Some might suppose, nonetheless, that though speech, per se, is not intolerant, the manner of speech may be, for a speaker may show insufficient restraint in his or her choice of words. Mill thought that the manner of expression was irrelevant. He pointed out that those holding minority view are often condemned for abusive language, while the prevailing majority’s inflamed rhetoric is ignored. A local illustration of this is a recent ISJ “Faith” column by a Pocatello minister who asserted that all those who embrace “the lie,” (i.e. the view that god does not exist), are selfish, narcissistic, rebellious, disdainful of the lives and property of others and actively engaged in destroying morality, peace, and culture. No one was moved to publicly question the ferocity of this attack, much less accuse the minister of intolerance.

That minister’s vehemence in his denunciation of atheists might well remind us of the historical roots of the concept of tolerance. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that when and wherever Christians have had the ability to do so, they have not just willingly, but eagerly, persecuted those who did not share their beliefs. Pagans, Jews, Muslims, and heretics faced not only denunciation, but oppression, exile, torture, death. By the end of the 17th century, religious wars between Catholics and Protestants had raged in Europe for one hundred and fifty years. In 1689 the English philosopher John Locke, fearful that his homeland was about to witness an outbreak of this warfare, sent a long essay to a friend in Holland which came to be known as the Letter Concerning Toleration. In it he argued that it was both inconsistent with the principles of Christianity, and beyond the legitimate purview of civil government, to use force or the threat of force to extirpate or inhibit the practice of religious beliefs with which someone disagreed. Hence, sectarians and governments alike must tolerate all religious beliefs and practices.

It seems sensible to extend this conception of religious tolerance to tolerance in general, i.e. to conclude that the sort of restraint tolerance requires is an unwillingness to engage in the use of coercive force to halt or impede behaviors and beliefs of which we disapprove. That seems satisfactory, as far as it goes, but important questions remain unanswered. Is it, for example, intolerant to circulate a petition that seeks to create a law banning certain behaviors or beliefs? Laws, after all, represent intolerance that is socially-approved, and because of that approval we don’t usually regard as intolerant those who support and enforce them – nor, perhaps, those who campaign to enact them. But then sometimes we do, as in the case of the infamous Jim Crow laws. Why is this the case?

It seems clear that a satisfactory analysis of tolerance must go beyond this column’s conclusions regarding the proper definition of a tolerant act. What must also be explored is the substantive question that lies at the heart of the matter: what sorts of beliefs and behaviors actually deserve to be treated with tolerance?

TGIF Tunes

2011-09-30T17:27:00.001-06:00

"I Won't Let You Go" by James Morrison from The Awakening.

Hitchcock: What Does It Mean to Be Tolerant?

2011-09-30T14:30:00.004-06:00

Editor's Note: The following article was submitted to the Idaho State Journal by Professor Leonard Hitchcock and appears here with his permission. Part 2 will be available in the coming days.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE TOLERANT? (PART 1)

The word “tolerance” has often been bandied about in letters and op-ed pieces in the Idaho State Journal, most recently in connection with a letter that rather forcefully attacked Pocatello’s gay pride celebration and those who advocate the elimination of prayer at city council meetings.

It seems to be generally agreed by users of the word that it is a good thing to be tolerant and a bad thing to be intolerant. But beyond this general sense of approval or disapproval, it’s hard to discern exactly what the words are intended to convey.

What is it to be a “tolerant” person? It’s not implausible to think that the ideally tolerant person is one who values human diversity and hence accepts, or perhaps even welcomes, behaviors and beliefs that differ from his or her own. Such a person could be said to have, at a minimum, a “live-and-let-live attitude” or, more probably, to agree with that memorable expression from the sixties and cheerfully acknowledge that there are “different strokes for different folks.”

Yet the preceding conception of what tolerance amounts to may not find favor among many. The notion that a tolerant person must take a positive view of other people’s differing behaviors and beliefs may seem excessive, if not downright wrong-headed. It might be thought more accurate to say that a tolerant person should be non-judgmental about such things. There is a local church that advertises itself as “less judgmental,” which seems to mean the same thing as “more tolerant.” So perhaps all that is required is that a tolerant person refuse to make judgments or form opinions. This does, indeed, echo traditional Christian advice from the pulpit, such as “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” yet, in practice, it is difficult advice to follow, for more often than not, we form judgments quickly and involuntarily. It’s important to notice, here, that the discussion is now focused upon negative judgments. From the present perspective, it is the disapproval of others upon which tolerance crucially depends, not the acceptance of them.

But if it’s true that our minds are so plentifully supplied with categories of wrong-doing and wrong-believing that we rarely undergo a conscious decision-making process when making negative judgments, and hence that withholding judgment is not really an option, what, then, can being tolerant consist in? The obvious answer is: in not expressing those judgments.

In giving this answer, we have entered a very ancient current of moral thought.
We’ve reached two conclusions regarding tolerance: 1) the person who is being tolerant must disapprove of or dislike the thing, person, or behavior being tolerated, and 2) the tolerant person must intentionally refraining from “acting out” that disapproval. That puts tolerance within the traditional domain of “virtuous” behaviors, since at the heart of “virtue” is a willingness and ability to exercise control over certain appetites and urges. The courageous person suppresses fear and carries out his or her duty on the battlefield; the temperate person reins in the desire for food and drink; the generous person overcomes selfishness, the honest person fights off the urge to lie. And the tolerant person restrains the desire to act out feelings of anger and disapproval.

It is, at the same time, an odd consequence of this way of thinking about virtues that the degree of praiseworthiness of virtuous behavior is directly proportional to the strength of the urges that are suppressed. Hence, one who naturally feels little fear deserves less credit for courageous behavior than one who experiences intense terror and is able to conquer it. From that same perspective, the most virtuously tolerant person is someone who manages to exercise restraint while harboring the deepest and most passionately hostile feelings and opinions. That easy-going, live-and-let-live sort of person we discussed earlier is definitely not going to shine in the tolerance department.

Another interesting component of the concept of tolerance, consistent with its being a virtue, is that it can be overdone; that is to say, it’s possible to be too tolerant. Most people agree that one must not tolerate that which is a serious moral wrong, nor, in most cases, that which is not legally permissible. Unfortunately not much more can be said than that, because there is evidently great disagreement among people about exactly which behaviors are morally intolerable, and even about what circumstances might render law-breaking acceptable.

Many questions remain about the nature of tolerance, e.g.: exactly what degree of restraint is sufficient to merit the label “tolerant?”; why are the histories of tolerance and religion so closely intertwined?; and how does tolerance relate to freedom of speech? I will address these questions in a future column.

Miles Davis: Twenty Years

2011-09-28T15:51:00.006-06:00

The Miles Davis single "No Blues" from the bootleg Live in Europe 1967 series is available from iTunes this week for free.

This download is fourteen minutes of what jazz is supposed to be. It was recorded live November 2, 1967 in Tivoli Konsertsal, Copenhagen, Denmark.

I highly recommend this download. Especially on this, the twentieth anniversary of his death.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver Day

2011-09-24T19:24:00.008-06:00

"My mother was a warrior...Her weapons of choice were compassion, an enormous heart, a sharp intellect and a competitive spirit. She used her full arsenal of talents to fight for those who were not viewed by society to be capable, to be fully human, to be deserving of the opportunity to play, to compete, and to contribute to their community worldwide."

-- Maria Shriver on her mother, Eunice, for the Huffington Post

It is no coincidence that Eunice Kennedy Shriver is one of the seven individuals I have spotlighted on my blog masthead. Her life will remain an inspiration to thousands of individuals for decades to come and has been an inspiration to me for most of my own life. It is only fitting that a woman who gave so much to her family, her community, her country and eventually the entire world would be celebrated today. Today is Eunice Kennedy Shriver Day.

To gain an understanding of who Eunice Kennedy Shriver was, it is impossible to simply say she was the founder of Special Olympics and leave it at that. She was that and so much more. Many would say she was the sister of Jack, Bobby and Teddy. She was that and so much more. She was also the wife of Sarge Shriver, but yet so much more. Eunice Kennedy Shriver was and will always be the person who truly opened our eyes to the kindness, joy and capability of an entire minority of Americans--the disabled.

Eunice, like me and millions of Americans, had a family member who was disabled. I often wonder if Rosemary, Eunice's sister, knew what her life inspired. The Kennedy family became leading advocates of the disabled and introduced this nation to the joy they can bring to our lives. The Kennedy family, led by the advocacy of Eunice, taught acceptance and ability. To this day the children of Eunice, through her beloved Special Olympics and numerous other organizations, are leading the charge for acceptance and inclusion.

Could Eunice have helped her brothers' campaigns and left it at that? Of course, but not Eunice. Could Eunice have helped her husband push the Peace Corps toward a future mark of 200,000 Americans serving in 139 countries? Of course, but not Eunice. In 1968 she created the Special Olympics and was intricate to its success, leading it to eventual international status with more than 3 million athletes in nearly 180 countries. What is truly impressive about the Kennedy family is, and always has been, that they have never been content with simply running for and holding office.

There are few Americans born after 1968 who have any interest at all in the Kennedy family or truly grasp the legacy of the Kennedy brothers. Americans born after 1980 have no memory of a Kennedy brother running for president. Few Americans my age and younger know anything about the Kennedy sisters. Many Americans do not even know or could name the generation of Kennedys that includes a congressman who just left office (Patrick Kennedy), California's former first lady (Maria Shriver, who has an impressive list of causes she supports as well), a city councilman (Bobby Shriver) or a former gubernatorial candidate and Lieutenant Governor (Kathleen Kennedy Townsend) and those are the Kennedys on the front lines of public service.

There are Kennedys who run amazing non-profits and distinguished organizations as well (Jean Kennedy Smith, Very Special Arts; Caroline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Library Foundation; Timothy Shriver, now at the helm of Special Olympics International; Anthony Shriver, Best Buddies International; Mark Shriver, Save the Children; Kerry Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Foundation & Amnesty International Leadership Council; Joe Kennedy, Citizens Energy; Max Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Memorial; Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Natural Resources Defense Council; William Kennedy Smith, Physicians Against Land Mines; and the late Kara Kennedy, VSA & National Advisory Board of the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome). Their service and advocacy knows no bounds.

We would all be better people if we, like the Kennedy/Shriver children, sought to be like Eunice and were constantly in the volunteer mindset.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver was fearless, kind, and unbelievably caring. As was referenced in a video in her honor on this day, she was a revolutionary. As her daughter Maria recently wrote, she was a warrior. And, is evidenced by the tens of thousands of people in more than 100 countries who celebrated the second annual Eunice Kennedy Shriver Day today through all types of service, she was an extraordinary woman who set out to blaze a trail and ended up changing perceptions the world over. It will be another lifetime before another comes along as inspiring as Eunice and she will be missed for lifetimes to come.

For more on Eunice Kennedy Shriver Day
For more on Camp Shriver
For more on the End the Word campaign

Smorgasbord Saturday

2011-09-24T10:25:00.005-06:00

Editor's Note: Stay tuned today for a post in honor of Eunice Kennedy Shriver Day.

Matt Kemp is not-so-suddenly a contender for baseball's triple crown. If not for the craziness that is the Dodgers, he'd be leading the talk for National League MVP. Triple Crown Edition/Jayson Stark, ESPN.com
Morgan Freeman: The Tea Part is racist/Caitlin McDevitt, Politico
Another bow tie-wearing historian who paved the way for generations of American historians (especially those interested in urban studies) passed away this week. The Pulitizer Prize winner brought something relatively new to the field of History--the study of Census data. For every historian who has spent hours, days even, looking at Census data and trying to navigate the Census website, we have the great Oscar Handlin to thank for it. Oscar Handlin, Historian Who Chronicled U.S. Immigration, Dies at 95/Paul Vitello, New York Times
The Netflix saga continues. Now that Netflix has announced they'll be concentrating on streaming and Qwikster (not to be confused with QuickStar, the Amway company) will be the portion of the company responsible for mailing out DVDs, I'm beginning to rethink doing away with my streaming service on September 1st when Netflix raised their prices. The problem with Netflix streaming is their small inventory and the fact that Starz did not extend their contract with Netflix, therefore taking away a big chunk of videos from said inventory.Qwikster: Not to be Confused With Quixtar, QuickStar, Kwikster, Quickster, Kwik Star, or Kickstar/Harry McCracken, Technologizer; Netflix says it's sorry, then creates new uproar/Michael Liedtke, AP; Netflix's Focus on Streaming: Too Soon?/Robert Seidman, TVbytheNumbers.com

Update: Noticed after I posted this that I had forgotten entirely about the screwy color scheme that needs fixing on this template. I'll get to it soon, I promise! In the meantime, I apologize for the color of links, followed links, and hovering.

Smorgasbord Saturday

2011-09-17T14:15:00.003-06:00

My excitement about it being Constitution Day was dampened by the horribly sad news of Kara Kennedy's passing. I don't believe in curses, but the Kennedy family has sure had more than their share of heartache. Also sad to hear about Eleanor Mondale and Charles Percy. Percy's passing made me really think about what it meant to be a liberal Republican. Hardly possible in this day and age and certainly not the type of ideology that would be elected in the modern Republican Party. Arlen Specter always sort of reminded me of Percy.

Here's a round-up of links that are worth a read (things that caught my eye, topics that have been in the news, etc.):

On Day Devoted to Constitution, A Fight Over It/Kate Zernike, New York Times
Suspend disbelief to watch 'Moneyball'/Ken Rosenthal, Fox Sports
How the Right Made Racism Sound Fair--And Changed Immigration Politics/Gabriel Thompson, Colorlines
Eddie Vedder says Pearl Jam support for 'West Memphis Three' continues after their release/Associated Press
In Cheney's memoir, it's clear Iraq's lessons didn't sink in/Bob Woodward, WaPo
IBM putting Watson to work in health insurance/Jim Fitzgerald, Associated Press
In Tapes, Candid Talk By Young Kennedy Widow/Janny Scott, New York Times
Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism/Daily Number, Pew Research Center

Strangely enough, I haven't listened to any music today. Usually I listen to something as I start my day, but today I started my day with the kind of headache that actually sent me back to bed. I have been doing a great deal of Ezra Pound reading lately. I'd like to say that is what is causing my headache, but not even the craziness of Pound could cause the headache I had this morning. Headache or not, I did spend plenty of time yesterday trying to figure out what 'bunyah' meant. Pound's grasp of language, not just the English language, makes reading anything of his incredibly difficult. My vocabulary is by no means limited, it's just not even in the same universe as Mr. Pound. I'm not even sure that's a bad thing.

I'm always contemplating posts, in the rough draft stage or doing research on some post idea. Such is the case now, I've just been slow getting things completed due to not feeling well. Patience.

The Senseless Pat Robertson

2011-09-16T14:41:00.001-06:00

From time to time as I flip through the channels, I stop momentarily on The 700 Club to see what inane advice Pat Robertson is doling out to his audience. Thankfully, I wasn't channel surfing on Tuesday when a caller told Robertson of a friend whose wife had Alzheimer's and had begun dating another woman. Robertson's suggestion to the caller? Tell the man to divorce his wife because she's already dead anyway. Seriously. Right Wing Watch posted the video on their website and it has gone viral.

There are so many things I could say about the absolute nonsense Pat Robertson utters daily on his show. There are plenty of offenses in each of his shows that deserve mention, something Right Wing Watch does a admirable job chronicling. However, I don't want to talk about the absurdity of him saying he supports Israel, but insists that Jews must convert Christianity for their own salvation and to usher in the Second Coming. And I certainly don't want to talk about the blame he constantly places on all sorts of groups (gays, minorities, those who are pro-choice, etc.) for natural disasters and unavoidable tragedies.

What I do want to say is how utterly absurd it is to think that marriage vows don't apply when a spouse is incapacitated by a horrible disease like Alzheimer's. What I do want to say is how completely un-Christian I find it that anyone could find it acceptable to treat another human being as if they were already dead. It's disgusting. Unfortunately, as was demonstrated by those in the CNN/Tea Party Express GOP presidential debate earlier this week, it isn't uncommon in some current political circles to hold extremes views like that of Robertson. Sick and uninsured? Let them die. And now, apparently, tired of caring for a spouse who no longer has the mental capacity to know who you are? Divorce them. It's unbelievable and absolutely disgusting that people not only believe these things, but voice them proudly on a national stage.

Why Pat Robertson remains on the air is a mystery to me. I suppose there is an audience, no matter how deluded, for his despicable preaching, but that doesn't make it right. The stations that continue to run The 700 Club and other shows produced by the Christian Broadcasting Network should be ashamed of themselves.

Part of why Pat Robertson's comments have me so enraged has to do with my own grandparents. Last month when my grandfather passed away from Alzheimer's disease, my grandmother was and continues to be absolutely heartbroken. This was the love of her life. After sixty-one years of marriage, did she even hesitate to take care of him once his dementia turned into full-blown Alzheimer's? Absolutely not! She was there by his side 'til his last moment despite being seventy-seven and battling Parkinson's disease. Was their marriage perfect? No, few are, but they loved each other and couldn't have imagined their lives without each other. Even in his last months when my grandfather didn't even recognize her, my grandmother would not have even had the thought to abandon him in his time of need. That's not what you do to someone you love.

Something tells me if a woman had called in and said that her husband had dementia or Alzheimer's and she had begun dating another man, Robertson would have chastised her and reminded her of the responsibilities and obligations of her wedding vows...

The Walk to End Alzheimer's

2011-09-13T23:04:00.003-06:00

Today would have been my grandfather's 85th birthday. He passed away last month following a battle with Alzheimer's.

Please consider participating in the Walk to End Alzheimer's. There are currently two walks being organized in Idaho by the Alzheimer's Association.

Losing Our Innocence

2011-09-12T11:00:00.003-06:00

Editor's Note: I apologize for not posting this yesterday. I had visitors.

Can you hear when we call?
There where we fall?
Standing our backs against the wall?
Top of our lungs hallelujah?
Where pain and love bleed into one?

-- Mat Kearney, "Down"

When historians and those who lived through it look back on the assassination of President Kennedy, they often use the phrase "loss of innocence" in reference to themselves and the generation of Americans who had their eyes opened to a cynical world that day. As someone who has studied the assassination, I had only an inkling of an idea of what that phrase meant until the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Like the generation who lost their innocence November 22, 1963, my generation lost its innocence on 9/11.

As I have written here with the passing of each year since the tragedy, I was a junior in high school preparing for a another day of school when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. Unlike most days, I had not turned on the television or radio to listen to while getting ready for school that day. It was not until I was walking down my street to catch the school bus that I even knew that something had happened in New York City. A young man who lived a few houses down from mine asked if I had heard about the planes that hit the Twin Towers. Planes? All I can remember thinking is that one plane could be an accident, but two planes probably could not. Little did we know, as we were continuing our walk to the bus stop, a third plane was hitting the Pentagon.

Something I have always found interesting about human memory is how we each tend to group bits of information and memories together. For example, when thinking about an individual person we are close to, we often may remember several different events about that person and bring them all to mind when recalling that person. The most distinct memories I have about that day are grouped together in what I can only characterize as out of the ordinary happenings. Of course what happened that day was unlike anything that had happened in our history, but I speak of what was happening directly around me. It was out of the ordinary for me to not have listened to some sort of news that morning. It was out of the ordinary for the school bus driver to have on the radio. Once I reached school, it was completely out of the ordinary for the teacher of my first class to have the door open early and the television on. My memory has grouped each of these out of the ordinary happenings into a collective picture of what I did that day.

On the school bus that morning, I learned that just before I took my seat there had been another explosion, this time at the Pentagon. At this time, they could not confirm that it was another plane that hit. Just as I was reaching school, the radio was reporting that the south tower of the World Trade Center had collapsed. I left the school bus that morning wondering what they meant by 'collapsed'. Half an hour later I watched on television as the north tower collapsed. I listened as Peter Jennings said that a plane had crashed near Pittsburgh, a plane most likely headed for the United States Capitol or the White House.

When I speak of my generation losing our innocence, I not only speak of watching in horror that day as this nation was attacked. Surely many in my generation were watching and realizing, as I was, that the large objects falling from the towers were actually people. Surely many in my generation saw those around them crying, people we had all known to be immensely strong. All of these things were part of that day for my generation, but the days that came after were what changed us. My generation signed up with the selective service in the weeks and months that followed. My generation enlisted. And to this day, my generation is fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even though there was absolutely no connection between the events of September 11th and Iraq, that lie is how my generation ended up fighting in Iraq, losing life and limb. Like the thousands of Americans who were inspired by President Kennedy to dedicate themselves to public service, 9/11 drove thousands in my generation to military service. My generation fought and continues to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. My generation invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein. My generation was deployed to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and saw untold horrors, many that could have been prevented by a quicker response. While not all of these things are connected to the men who boarded those planes that September day, all of these things happened because on September 11th my generation found in themselves a sense of responsibility to this nation and rose up in droves, enlisting in the United States military.

The first time I visited Dealey Plaza where President Kennedy was killed, I had this indescribably heavy feeling. As I stood there, four years removed from the events of September 11th, I realized that the feeling I was having was exactly as I felt that September day as I watched in horror as the second tower fell. It was that day, standing under a blue, clear sky in Dallas that I understood completely what a generation of Americans meant when they said that the day Kennedy was assassinated they lost their innocence. On September 11, 2001, we lost ours.

TGIF Tunes

2011-09-09T00:06:00.004-06:00

Editor's Note: I'm still not happy with the color scheme, but I've had neither the time or patience to perfect it. Also, I was hoping to share some Sonny Rollins since he's soon to be one of the newest Kennedy Center honorees, there just doesn't seem to be anything great on youTube of his. I'll keep looking.

Mumford & Sons lesser-known single "After the Storm" from Sigh No More.

Template Design

2011-09-03T19:18:00.002-06:00

Clearly things look very different around here right now. Please bear with me.

Thursday night I was checking out the new Blogger interface, clicked on a widget to allow my blog to be viewable by mobile users, and the entire blog template disappeared. It set both the mobile view and the regular template to the simple setting I'd clicked on for mobile viewing. After using the Blogger/Google forum, I was told to click on 'revert to classic template' and that was a horrible idea. It reverted to the template I was using in 2004 when I started this blog. Completely maroon and gray. Remember that look? Yeah, I barely did. A very simplistic template with no customizations and no possibility of inserting my custom header because the old template was running on the earliest interface. I was sick about it.

After much worrying, I finally stopped trying to help from Blogger/Google and decided now was as good a time as ever to not only switch to a new blog template (compatible with the new Blogger interface), but to also customize the color scheme. At least my new template worked size-wise with my new blog header. I did not want to have to tell my dear friend Teresa that all her work redesigning that thing was for nothing! I'm not content with the color scheme yet, won't be for another week or so if I concentrate on it.

All I have to say is, what kind of company doesn't have a way to contact their customer support directly? Not only does Blogger not save the HTML template for individual blog users (or give you the chance to undo reverting to the classic template if you, like I, clicked on the tab), they don't allow you direct access to anyone that might be able to help you solve your problems. You're just stuck in blog purgatory awaiting someone coming along to the forum and answering your plea for help. I'm a fan of the numerous services Google offers, but after this week, I'm really starting to rethink using Blogger.

Middle of the Week Mélange

2011-08-31T03:33:00.001-06:00

The Religious Right's Twisted View of Religious Freedom/Kyle Mantyla, Right Wing Watch
Music Needs to Get Political Again/Billy Bragg, Alternet.org
The Knife In Ty Cobb's Back/Gilbert King, Smithsonian
Indians raise socks in tribute to Thome/Zack Meisel, MLB.com
Aura of Thome has yet to fade around Twins/Joe Christensen, Star Tribune
Fundraising letter says send donations to Gov. Otter - at Idaho Freedom Foundation/Betsy Z. Russell, Eye On Boise
Maya Angelou says King memorial inscription makes him look 'arrogant'/Gene Weingarten and Michael E. Ruane, WaPo

New Music Tuesday

2011-08-30T16:21:00.000-06:00

Glenn Campbell is back!

I don't know what I find more shocking, that he's back or that his new single is so good. Back in June, Campbell announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and that he hoped he would be able to go on one more tour before retiring from music for good. I didn't realize then that he'd be putting out new music and I honestly didn't expect that he'd actually be able to tour. Turns out I was wrong. The new single is no "Wichita Lineman" and Campbell, as far as I know, is still a Republican, but it served as a reminder of the days of my childhood when my grandfather would play Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams and Glenn Campbell on the radio.

Here's Campbell talking about his final album and here's a review of the album. The album Ghost On the Canvas is available today on iTunes.

"I Have A Dream..."

2011-08-28T14:54:00.000-06:00

On this, the 48th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the MLK Memorial may not be dedicated, but you can still celebrate this day by sending a MLK e-postcard from the folks at The American Film Company. And let's not forget that the "I Have A Dream" speech was given on the anniversary of the death of Emmett Till. A young man and an orator that forever changed the course of American history.

Baseball History

2011-08-25T23:56:00.000-06:00

Today the New York Yankees did something no team has ever done in the entire history of Major League Baseball--they hit three grand slams in a single game. Curtis Granderson, Robinson Cano and Russell Martin each hit a grand slam and the Bronx Bombers beat the Oakland A's 22-9.

Years from now the history books will state that on this day history was made by the Yankees. Strangely enough, quite a few baseball gems happened on this day in history.

* 1921: Yankee pitcher Harry Harper hits 3 batters in 1 inning
* 1922: The Cubs & Phillies combined for 49 runs
* 1924: Walter Johnson throws his 2nd no-hitter
* 1936: 3 Braves hit twice in 1 inning getting 2 hits each
* 1951: Cleveland Indians were on a 16-game win streak
* 1952: Tigers' Virgil Trucks throws his 2nd no-hitter of season
* 1967: Twins' Dean Chance throws 2nd no-hitter of month
* 1985: Doc Gooden becomes youngest pitcher to win 20 games

That's a lot of baseball history for one day. And some day down the road some baseball junkie will write about this day and say the Yankees hit three grand slams this day and chances are good, however many years from now that is, no other team will have accomplished the same feat. Somewhere it might even say that future Hall-of-Famer Jim Thome was claimed off waivers by his old team the Cleveland Indians where he still holds the franchise record for most career home runs.

Even if it is the damn Yankees celebrating such an accomplishment, what a day in baseball it has been.

Housekeeping

2011-08-24T16:52:00.000-06:00

As you've probably noticed, I have a new blog header. Thanks to my dear (and talented) friend Teresa, I have finally updated the header after months of considering it. In the next day or two I will be doing changes to the color scheme around here to match the new header. In the meantime, bear with me. I'm as indecisive as they come about design-related things.

For those of you wondering about the portrait choices in the new header, hopefully I will be able to write up a short blurb about each one. My passions are well represented in this group--baseball, politics, poetry, literature, history and Idaho. And I managed to stay true to the man and the quote that inspired the name of this blog. All in all it has been a successful redesign.

A huge thanks to Teresa for her help, her willingness to entertain my OCD need to change things up from time to time, and always for her friendship. Best friends like her only come around once in a lifetime for those of us who are truly lucky.

TGIF Tunes

2011-08-19T12:30:00.003-06:00

Was looking for a link to my kid brother's favorite song (Ben E. King's "Stand By Me") in honor of his 19th birthday and ran across this awesome cover of the Rollings Stones' "Paint It Black" by Incubus. I love several versions of "Paint It Black" including the original, of course, and the Jonny Lang version. This is a nice version, too. Not much from Incubus isn't good.

The True Cost of Budget Cuts

2011-08-17T23:57:00.000-06:00

Editor's Note: This made its way to my inbox and deserves our attention. It is absolutely astonishing what the Republican Party has done to education in this state.

IDAHO REPUBLICANS IMPOSE “FAMILY TAX.”
by Larry Grant
Idaho Democratic Party Chairman

This last week I paid the Idaho Republican-imposed “Family Tax.” If you have kids in school, you just paid it too. I paid mine when I registered my grandson for his sophomore year at our local high school.

The cost was over $100. It included $10 for the botany class, $5 for physical education/weights, a $75 athletic fee, $22 for a student activity card, and $5 for class dues. Students also pay additional fees for band, art, and broadcasting. Other than the class dues, I was dismayed at the amounts, particularly the athletic fee so he can play football and the student activity card fee required for all band, cheer, dance and sports.

I now see firsthand just how much the budget slashing demanded by Governor Otter and the school reform plans implemented by Superintendant of Public Instruction Tom Luna and imposed by our Republican-controlled legislature are really costing Idaho’s working, taxpaying families.

The fees charged to students are only part of it. There are plenty of other costs that are included in what can only be called Idaho’s “family tax” since it hits families with school-age children the hardest. Curtailing student bus service immediately means additional costs to the family for transportation. Four-day school weeks, furlough days, and reduced kindergarten classes add to the cost of daycare and in some families means a parent has to miss a day of work every week.

Because the state cut funding to local school districts, many districts are asking for override levies to make up the additional costs. Even after districts fire teachers and cut every imaginable expense or, in many cases, shift costs to parents through additional fees, reduced services or higher local taxes, it’s still not enough to provide the quality education every Idaho family is guaranteed by law in the Idaho State Constitution.

How many families have less money in their monthly budget because of these costs? How many talented students will never play sports or be in the band or take an art class because of the extra fees? How many families already struggling in these hard economic times will finally, simply, give up—and let their kids drop out of activities or even school because they can’t afford the state’s “free” education?

Our Republican leaders defend their actions by claiming there is a budget crisis—but only after they severely and deliberately underestimated revenues last year. Why are they shifting the costs to parents rather than closing tax loopholes, cutting something else or, yes, even raising revenues?

The answer, of course, is that Republicans want public schools to fail. They want to privatize education, just like they want to privatize Social Security and Medicare. Republicans support private schools, not public education. And, in a perverse twist of logic that makes sense only to them, they want the government to pay for private schools by giving vouchers to parents.

Simply put, they want budget cuts except when they don’t and they want to get rid of government except when it is their benefits that are being cut.

Fortunately, I can afford the extra fees. My grandson will play football. But how many other young, promising athletes and students will be denied that and other opportunities because of our stingy and misguided state legislature?

Too many.

Smorgasbord Saturday

2011-08-13T01:26:00.001-06:00

A few articles that caught my eye, a couple might turn up in posts around here in the coming days:

'Snail Mail' project promotes art of letters/Doug Gross, CNN
Like activist judges? Then you'll love the balanced budget amendment./Brad Plumer, WaPo
Carlson: Robins in context/Chris Carlson, Ridenbaugh Press
11-year-old wants postal service to honor Lewis and Clark slave with stamp/Megan Buerger, WaPo
A New Movie Makes Fun of Kids with Special Needs. Any of You Think That's Funny?/Ellen Seidman, Parents.com
Readers Poll: Best Collaborations of All Time/Rolling Stone
The Hijacked Crisis/Paul Krugman, New York Times

A few new blogs you should be following:

The Idaho Commentator (Idaho Politics)
The Byrd's Nest (Baseball)
On the Mike with Mike Safford (Baseball)
The Megafrontier: Urban life in Western America (Idaho & the West)

And an update on my summer reading list: I've now completed The Help, 10th Anniversary, and Betty: A Glad Awakening. That makes eleven of the eighteen on the list that I've finished. Actually, eleven of nineteen because as of today I have added The Lacey Confession by Richard Greener to my list. I am currently reading The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary and will most likely pick up The Silent Girl next. Quite the accomplishment for one summer and by far the most I've read consecutively in ages. Hopefully I can complete the list before September rolls around. If not, bonus fall reading!

Going to be a difficult Saturday for me, but hopefully a day of baseball on Sunday will make up for it. Cheers!

Constitutionality of Redistricting

2011-08-12T13:53:00.005-06:00

Editor's Note: The following Reader's Opinion was sent to me by members of the Idaho Redistricting Commission. Rather than being concerned with the politics of pitting incumbents against one another as the GOP members of the commission are, the Democratic members of the commission are looking at the constitutional factors involved in redistricting. As the authors of this opinion note, the members of the commission appear to be at an impasse.

____________________________________

Reader’s Opinion
Submitted 8/12/2011
Written by Co-Chair Allen Anderson of Pocatello, Commissioner Julie Kane of Lapwai, and George Moses of Boise.

As the constitutionally mandated deadline of September 4th looms, the press coverage of Idaho’s bi-partisan Redistricting Commission has increased. Two-thirds of the way through a 90-day timeline, the present Commission seems to be at an impasse. We believe that this impasse is rooted in differing interpretations of the legal guidelines. To resolve this apparent impasse, we believe it is imperative that the Commission adopt one consistent approach to redrawing the lines. Redistricting is done to protect individual voter rights, and we should approach redistricting in a way that best protects that Constitutional right. Such an approach is as follows: first determine if it meets US Constitutional requirements, then the Idaho constitution, and finally, state statutes.

Currently, Republican Commissioners bestow on statutory guidelines the same weight as constitutional requirements. We hold that statutes, which are passed by a simple majority of lawmakers, have less weight than constitutional requirements. To protect the rights that the constitution guarantees, any amendment to it requires a supermajority vote of the people in order to amend it. Simple legislative action is not enough. Considering all guidelines as equal permits more latitude in mapping than was ever intended and violates constitutional protections. Undermining the US and Idaho constitutions violates individual rights and permits the Commission a slippery slope to promote covert partisan goals.

Constitutions are designed to hamstring the power of government and protect individual rights. To ensure this Citizen’s Commission honors constitutional rights, we again assert that all plans should be approached by the following ranked standards:

First, uphold the US Constitution. The US Constitution requires that each legislative and congressional district must have equal population. Congressional districts must have exactly the same number of people. For state legislative districts, the Supreme Court determined that deviations of less than 10% presumptively honor the federal principle of one person, one vote. Interestingly, courts have not tossed out plans that meet the 10% threshold even if a lower deviation could have been attained. Courts have determined that changes below that threshold are simply political maneuvering.

Next, uphold the Idaho constitution. In Idaho, districts that join multiple counties must be contiguous, and a county may only be divided to comply with the standards of the US Constitution (Article III §5). The Idaho Supreme Court has rejected plans when it was shown that a county did not need to be divided. If any proposed plan divides fewer counties than the one adopted by the Commission, that adopted plan could be challenged as unconstitutional.

Finally, uphold Idaho Statutes. The Idaho Constitution grants the legislature authority to create guidelines for redistricting. Idaho Code lays out seven guidelines (72-15). However, in 2002 the Supreme Court held in Bingham v Idaho Commission for Reapportionment that while statues must be considered, “they are subordinate to the Constitutional standard of voter equality and the restrictions in the Idaho Constitution.” Constitutions always come first.

Idahoans should contact the Redistricting Commission and ask that they honor these requirements in their proper order of importance. Refusal to do so will create deadlock, waste taxpayers’ dollars, and erode the constitutional framework that protects individuals. As intended, a constitutional approach prevents the Commission from using its authority inappropriately. Idahoans should insist their Citizens’ Commission for Redistricting follow a mapping process that honors the US and Idaho constitutions first.

For those just tuning in, redistricting occurs every ten years after a U.S. census. It is designed to protect the voice of the voter and ensure our elected officials represent the same number of people. In 1993, a supermajority of Idahoans amended the state constitution to remove the redistricting process from the Legislature and incumbent influence. Idahoans instead implemented a six-member bipartisan commission of 3 Republican and 3 Democrats. Idahoans required that a final plan must have 4 votes out of 6 to pass. The Idaho legislature has passed a law requiring 5 votes to take certain actions, more than the constitution requires to adopt a plan.

The Commission began its work in June hosting public hearings all over the state to collect. July has been full of meetings and discussions on many proposed maps from both sides. Those who wish to follow archived meetings or future meetings and proposals may visit http://legislature.idaho.gov/redistricting/redistricting.htm.

A Personal Note

2011-08-10T23:21:00.006-06:00

"Everyone needs to have access to grandparents...in order to be a full human being."
-- Margaret Mead

Last night my grandfather passed away after a battle with Alzheimer's. He would have turned eighty-five this September. I have written about him twice on this blog, both times on Father's Day. As I said then, my grandfather had his faults, but he was and will always be the father of my childhood who never let me down.

Father's Day (2010)
Father's Day (2009)

Without my grandparents, I would not be the person I am today. It has been a tough day, but as so many with loved ones battling Alzheimer's know, it has been a long goodbye.

Seven Years On

2011-08-04T14:05:00.003-06:00

When I started this blog, I never imagined it would last seven years. In fact, I didn't think it would last more than a year. There have certainly been times when I thought I had already written about everything that needed to be written about. Now is no exception. I find I have little to say or what I do have to say doesn't bring anything new to the conversation. However, I'm still here. Seven years on and I'm still here. That's something. Thank you all for sticking with me.

New Music Tuesday

2011-08-02T17:50:00.001-06:00

Jack's Mannequin with the new single "Racing Thoughts" from the upcoming album that will hit stores October 4th.

TPG Returns

2011-07-28T14:09:00.002-06:00

After two months away from blogging, I feel like I've sufficiently regrouped. I would be lying if I said I really missed blogging. I didn't. Twitter is a fantastic outlet where I can leave my random musings about politics, current events and especially baseball. It's a great thing for me, especially given that most of my interaction with other people happens online these days. However, 140 characters doesn't really fit my writing style, so I will be returning to blogging for the stories that require more space. Look for my first real post back next week.

An update on my summer reading list is in order as well. The following books were on my reading list and have been finished (rather quickly when I started and then came the lull):

1. Kate Carlisle: The Lies That Bind (A Bibliophile Mystery) available on Amazon
2. Sarah Vowell: Unfamiliar Fishes available on Amazon
3. Brooke Kroeger: Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist available on Amazon
4. Richard Greener: The Knowland Retribution (The Locator Series) available on Amazon
5. James Patterson: Toys available on Amazon
6. Tom Rachman: The Imperfectionists: A Novel available on Amazon
7. Victoria F. Nourse: In Reckless Hands: Skinner v. Oklahoma and the Near-Triumph of American Eugenics available on Amazon
8. Kathryn Stockett: The Help available on Amazon

I am currently reading:

1. Betty Ford: Betty: A Glad Awakening available on Amazon

There are several books I am still waiting for to become available at my local public library and a few others I've had my eye on. I suspect I may have put far too many books on my summer reading list!

It seems an entire lifetime of news has taken place since I began my summer hiatus. There is no way I can catch up on everything. I will most likely dive right into the present and only reach back to the last few months for material once or twice. Let's hope that when I return next week the debt ceiling crisis has been resolved and I can avoid that aggravating topic entirely.

Check back next week!

Summer Hiatus

2011-05-12T12:14:00.000-06:00

Due to computer problems, I'm going to have to start my summer hiatus before I get around to writing about the Three Cups of Tea scandal. I am not entirely sure how long the hiatus will last or even if my computer can be repaired quickly and inexpensively. I've had power issues off-and-on for a year and now that I've replaced the battery and the power supply cord, I'm not sure what to do next. When TPG returns, I'm hoping to have a new blog header and possibly a new template. In the meantime, please check out my summer reading list and remember to follow me on Twitter. Have a great summer!

My Summer Reading List

2011-05-10T12:23:00.009-06:00

James Patterson: 10th Anniversary (Women's Murder Club Series) available on Amazon
John W. Dean: Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches available on Amazon
Kate Carlisle: The Lies That Bind (A Bibliophile Mystery) available on Amazon
Narumi Komatsu: Ichiro On Ichiro: Conversations with Narumi Komatsu available on Amazon
Sarah Vowell: Unfamiliar Fishes available on Amazon
Janet Evanovich: Smokin' Seventeen (A Stephanie Plum Novel) available on Amazon
Brooke Kroeger: Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist available on Amazon
Seymour Hersh: The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House available on Amazon
Richard Greener: The Knowland Retribution (The Locator Series) available on Amazon
Richard Reeves: President Kennedy: Profile of Power available on Amazon
James Patterson: Toys available on Amazon
Simon Winchester: The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary available on Amazon
Tess Gerritsen: The Silent Girl (A Rizzoli & Isles Novel) available for pre-order on Amazon
Victoria F. Nourse: In Reckless Hands: Skinner v. Oklahoma and the Near-Triumph of American Eugenics available on Amazon
Tom Rachman: The Imperfectionists: A Novel available on Amazon
Betty Ford: Betty: A Glad Awakening available on Amazon
Kathryn Stockett: The Help available on Amazon
James Patterson: Now You See Her available on Amazon
Richard Greener: The Lacey Confession available on Google Books

The Greatest

2011-05-06T08:47:00.004-06:00

A hearty Happy 80th Birthday to the Say Hey Kid! The greatest baseball player to ever take the field. No question.

(Image available at the California Historian)

TPG Housekeeping

2011-05-02T11:53:00.002-06:00

In case you haven't noticed and, yes, this is another shameless plug, I am on Twitter. If you enjoy the randomness of my Smorgasbord Saturday posts, you'll get a kick out of the concise randomness I spew on Twitter. I don't have many followers (30-ish) and I don't mind that, but if you're on Twitter and think I should be following you, let me know. I enjoy following the timeline on Twitter and I wouldn't mind breaking up the baseball monotony once in awhile. Around here I'm still mulling the Three Cups of Tea scandal for a post and once that rolls out, I'll be taking a much needed break. Haven't decided if it will be a break from the blog and Twitter or just the blog. Given my recent addiction to Twitter, it'll probably just be the blog. I've got a bunch of personal stuff going on and quite a few projects I need to work on. It would probably be beneficial to take a vacation from Twitter as well, but I'm not making any promises.

Obama On Death of Bin Laden

2011-05-02T11:39:00.005-06:00

I had always wondered if a speech like this one was sitting in a drawer somewhere in the White House waiting for a night like last night:

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________________________

For Immediate Release May 1, 2011

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

ON OSAMA BIN LADEN

East Room

11:35 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory -- hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky; the Twin Towers collapsing to the ground; black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon; the wreckage of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the actions of heroic citizens saved even more heartbreak and destruction.

And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.

On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.

We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice. We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda -- an organization headed by Osama bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. And so we went to war against al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.

Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we’ve made great strides in that effort. We’ve disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot.

Yet Osama bin Laden avoided capture and escaped across the Afghan border into Pakistan. Meanwhile, al Qaeda continued to operate from along that border and operate through its affiliates across the world.

And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.

Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.

Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.

For over two decades, bin Laden has been al Qaeda’s leader and symbol, and has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies. The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda.

Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must –- and we will -- remain vigilant at home and abroad.

As we do, we must also reaffirm that the United States is not –- and never will be -– at war with Islam. I’ve made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.

Over the years, I’ve repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where bin Laden was. That is what we’ve done. But it’s important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding. Indeed, bin Laden had declared war against Pakistan as well, and ordered attacks against the Pakistani people.

Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts. They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations. And going forward, it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates.

The American people did not choose this fight. It came to our shores, and started with the senseless slaughter of our citizens. After nearly 10 years of service, struggle, and sacrifice, we know well the costs of war. These efforts weigh on me every time I, as Commander-in-Chief, have to sign a letter to a family that has lost a loved one, or look into the eyes of a service member who’s been gravely wounded.

So Americans understand the costs of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda’s terror: Justice has been done.

Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who’ve worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work, nor know their names. But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice.

We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country. And they are part of a generation that has borne the heaviest share of the burden since that September day.

Finally, let me say to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 that we have never forgotten your loss, nor wavered in our commitment to see that we do whatever it takes to prevent another attack on our shores.

And tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.

The cause of securing our country is not complete. But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it’s the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place.

Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

END 11:44 P.M. EDT

Bin Laden Dead

2011-05-01T21:51:00.004-06:00

Editor's Note: Because this is a developing story, I will be noting the time stamp next to each new entry. It will run chronologically from when I tuned in.

Breaking news: Obama to announce shortly that Bin Laden has been killed. Announced by ESPN commentators during the Mets/Phillies game. Turning to MSNBC. (9:29 p.m. MST)

After a fire fight, U.S. Special Forces killed Bin Laden and captured his body at a compound in Pakistan. Began with intelligence attained in August 2010. (9:42 p.m. MST)

Former President Bush congratulated Obama and the men and women of the U.S. military citing justice being done. (9:51 p.m. MST)

As I was watching on ESPN the Mets/Phillies game taking place at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, ESPN (part of the ABC family) commentators noted that ABC News was reporting that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. They announced that Bin Laden had been killed over the PA speaker at the Bank and Phillies fans broke out into "USA! USA!" chants. It was ironic, to put it mildly, to be watching a New York team with fans that were devastated by the attacks on the World Trade Center playing a team located not far from the field where Flight 93 went down. I flipped immediately to MSNBC and awaited President Obama's speech. This isn't a night I thought would ever come. I had assumed, like so many, that Bin Laden was dead and we would never find his body. Bin Laden, 9/11, and the global war on terror have defined my generation.

Follow the rest of my thoughts on Twitter.

Smorgasbord Saturday

2011-04-30T11:01:00.000-06:00

I mentioned that I'd like to take a break from the blog for awhile and though that still hasn't happened, I do still intend to have some sort of late spring/early summer break. I'm still working on the research for a post about Greg Mortenson and the Three Cups of Tea scandal. Until I have finished that up, I'll still be somewhat tied to the blog. Regardless, you can still find me on Twitter (though that place has been seriously taken over by baseball tweets).

Yesterday I highlighted the team-up of Brandi Carlile and Gregory Alan Isakov, though I'd been thinking about Journey ballads. Today I woke up with "Breakeven (Falling to Pieces)" in my head--I think it may have something to do with Xenia on NBC's The Voice this week--and listened to it a couple dozen times this morning. Who knows what music will catch me this afternoon when the Braves/Cardinals game is over on Fox. Something tells me it won't be Craig Kimbrel's new entrance music "Welcome to the Jungle." Perfect choice for "the most unhittable closer in baseball." After the week the Braves have had, maybe it should be Toby Keith's "Get My Drink On"...

One last note and then I'm going to get ready for the Braves/Cards game. Tomorrow night on 60 Minutes, Lara Logan will be returning to discuss her sexual assault in Cairo after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak there. What she has to say about these type of assaults and the under reporting surrounding them is very important. Please tune in.

TGIF Tunes

2011-04-29T13:44:00.001-06:00

Be glad you didn't get Journey...

"You Belong To Me" performed by Brandi Carlile and Gregory Alan Isakov. This song was originally written in 1952 by Pee Wee King, Chilton Price, and Redd Stewart. It's been performed by quite a few artists including Patsy Cline, Jo Stafford, Bing Crosby, Bob Dylan, and most recently Jason Wade.

Apparently, Gregory Alan Isakov (who I showcased here a few Fridays ago) toured with Brandi Carlile. YouTube has a handful of videos with Carlile and Isakov performing various songs and I've been loving each one of them, "You Belong To Me" being my favorite. Also check out "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong," "Red and Gold," and "Virginia May." These two make a great duo.

To Set-Up or Close?

2011-04-26T12:27:00.004-06:00

Editor's Note: From time to time there are baseball topics that I can't manage to cram into the 140 characters of a Tweet. Therefore, I find that I need to mention them here. I know it feels like this blog has been taken over by America's pastime. Could be worse, right?

I don't pay much attention to the National League Central unless the teams in that division impact the standings in the National League East where my Braves compete. However, my fantasy baseball team requires that I pay attention to one team in particular--the Cincinnati Reds. I have nothing against the Reds. I even like Pete Rose. As someone interested in baseball history, I appreciate the Big Red Machine just as much as the next guy. However, there are a few things about the modern-day Reds that bug me and one of them really isn't helping my fantasy team one bit: Aroldis Chapman.

During the 2009 World Baseball Classic, Chapman pitched for the Cuban national team, but that came after a tumultuous few seasons where he had played in Cuba and then attempted to defect from Cuba unsuccessfully. After Raul Castro reprimanded Chapman for his unsuccessful attempt to defect in early 2008, he was suspended from the national team and was not allowed to play for Cuba at the Beijing Olympics. Eventually he was let back on the team, played in the WBC and appeared to be back in good standing with the Cuban government. Up until July 2009 when he walked out of a Netherlands hotel he was staying at with his Cuban teammates and eventually wound up in Andorra. From there he gained free agency from Major League Baseball and signed a long-term contract with the Reds in January 2010.

Chapman's time in the minors was as exciting as that of another young phenom, Steven Strasburg. Had Steven Strasburg not debuted last season with the Nationals, the most talked about debut may have easily been Aroldis Chapman. Chapman is a young fireballer like Strasburg and a strikeout king. In his big league debut last August, Chapman's threw fastballs ranging from 98 mph to 103 mph. The first pitch of his big league career was a smoking 98 mph fastball. In a matter of nine pitches, he struck out the side. It was an impressive beginning to what many think will be a shining career.

Now, taking his history and his talent into account as well as the fact that so far this season he has matched last season's velocity and command and has registered a 106 mph fastball, one could logically conclude that the best place for this young phenom is in the bullpen closing games for the Reds. Right? Well, not so fast. The Reds have him in the bullpen, but they've decided to use the young kid's gun to set-up for closer Francisco Cordero.

I've had successful fantasy baseball seasons in the past with Cordero closing, I may have even had him last year when the Reds were one of the best teams in the game. He's had success with the Reds, Brewers, & Rangers. Yet, Cordero is nothing like Chapman. Cordero has a hard fastball that can reach the high 90's, but he lives and dies with his slider. In addition to the difference in velocity, Cordero is much less consistent, blowing saves that seem a given when he comes into the game. Additionally, Cordero is 35 years old. Aside from Billy Wagner's success last season with the Braves and the ageless Mariano Rivera, closers, like most other pitchers, don't last as long as other players. Cordero is approaching the time-frame where the wheels have fallen off for other successful closers.

The question for the Reds seems to be why they don't let the veteran Cordero begin mentoring Chapman and grooming him for the closer's role. Unfortunately, the Reds seemed to be heading in the exact opposite direction. They'd like Chapman to become a top of the rotation starter. They think Chapman should be for them what Strasburg will eventually be (when healthy) for the Nationals. The problem? Great American Ball Park. The Reds play in what can only be described as a band box. So far in 2011, Great American ranks 8th in terms of hitter-friendly confines. With a pitching rotation that isn't as strong as it was a year ago, it is all the more important that the bullpen be able to shut games down, especially the closer. Yet, here again, the Reds seem to be ignoring these trends and hoping to make Chapman something he's not--a starter. Could Chapman be a starter? Sure. He has the stuff to pitch well wherever you put him, but his stuff seems to be best suited for 9th inning closing.

Having Chapman as a set-up man means one thing to those of us who are following stats closely for the sake of our fantasy teams--limited opportunity for strikeouts. With a basement ERA and the ability to strikeout every hitter he faces, it isn't helping fantasy teams anywhere when the Reds send him in to face a couple of hitters before Cordero takes the ball and either ends the game as painlessly as possibly or blows the save entirely. If I were a big league manager, I'd want the most reliable arm finishing the game and if Chapman keeps that velocity, he's going to blow it by every hitter he faces.

One other reason that I would much rather see Chapman as a closer isn't because I think setting up is a waste of his talent. I think that adding him to the starting rotation is a risk that nobody should take with this kid. When he defected from Cuba, he had to leave his parents, sisters, girlfriend and new baby. Even today with the changes that have taken place since 2006 when Raul Castro took power, Cubans like Chapman who have defected are not welcomed back by their government. The risks of putting Chapman in a position that leads down the road of, say, Kerry Wood, rather than someone who has had great success and few injuries are simply too great. He could be a long-time closer like Mo Rivera has been, pitching well and for a lengthy career, or he could be a short-term starter who encounters a career-ending injury, severely impacting his future in a country he doesn't know that well. I'd like for Chapman to be Livan Hernandez, but I wouldn't bet his future on it.

Until the Reds figure out what they're doing, I'll just be happy with the consistent two or three strikeouts I'm getting in my fantasy league because of Chapman's appearance on my roster. I just hope they really consider what they're doing to this young man and plan accordingly.

TGIF Tunes

2011-04-22T13:12:00.003-06:00

"Comedown" by Bush (lyrics here).

Castro, Tiant & the Cuban Embargo

2011-04-19T16:17:00.000-06:00

With the news that Fidel Castro is resigning from his official position within the Cuban Communist Party, the final official position he held since handing over power to his brother Raul in 2006, discussion about the Cuban embargo will peak. Last week the Pew Research Center tweeted the results of a 2009 poll of Americans on the issue of the ongoing Cuban embargo. 52% of Americans asked say they favor re-establishing U.S. relations with Cuba. 33% of Americans asked said they support the continued embargo of Cuba, an embargo that has been in place since 1962. As Pew points out, Gallup polls have shown a somewhat higher number of Americans who support lifting the embargo (61% in 2008 and 67% in 2006).

Why we should lift the embargo has been a topic in politics for some time. Many Cubans and Cuban-Americans have been impacted by the long-time reign of Fidel Castro in Cuba. One such group that comes readily to mind includes long-time Boston Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant. Cuban-born pitchers have a long history of defecting to the United States to play Major League Baseball. Mention of the 2009 poll and the news of Castro's final resignation reminds me of a great documentary, The Lost Son of Havana, about the legendary Luis Tiant. Tiant's story is like many Cuban baseball players who chose to take the risk of defecting for the potential reward of a long, successful professional baseball career. Tiant was successful, but many never succeed and are left to figure out how to live away from home with no hope of returning. I highly recommend the film about Tiant's journey, both to the states to play in the big leagues as well as his journey back to Cuba with Castro's approval to see family he hadn't seen in decades.

On a night forty-nine years ago, President Kennedy sent his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, out to purchase Cuban Petit Upmann cigars before he signed the Cuban embargo into law (for more on Kennedy's cigars, I offer this). The Cuban embargo has been in place since. While we may think of the Cuban embargo in terms of what we cannot import and export too and from Cuba, the larger consequence of the Cuban embargo has to do with the Cuban people. After all, the purpose of the embargo was to punish the communist affiliations and activities of Cuba, particularly Castro, and in so doing indirectly punish pro-Castro and anti-Castro Cubans alike. In this regard, the Cuban embargo has been very effective.

As Time noted in a 1959 cover story on Castro, Fidel is "egotistic, impulsive, immature, disorganized" and has "confidence, physical courage, shrewdness, generosity and luck." Instead of using each of those traits for the betterment of his people and his country, Castro has used each to the detriment of those people and that country. His dedication to Cuban communism, a far cry from the communism that caused the Red Scare, inevitably led to that night in 1962 when Kennedy sent out Pierre Salinger in search of cigars. It also led to his country becoming the 109th country in GDP (per capita, $9,900 as of 2010), 167th in GDP real growth rate (1.5% as of 2010), 149th in industrial production growth rate (0.8%, 2010 estimate), 118th in exports ($3.311 billion as of 2010), and 88th in imports ($10.25 billion, 2010 estimate). The Cuban embargo, regardless of what the Cuban government says, has crippled the Cuban economy and has left a majority of Cubans living in a poverty that can hardly be compared to the rest of the world. None of this has improved in the five years since Raul Castro took the place of his brother as leader of Cuba. Will it now that Fidel has let go of his last bit of power?

With a small number of allies in the world, far fewer since the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba needs the world. Perhaps now is the time.

Smorgasbord Saturday

2011-04-16T12:13:00.002-06:00

This week NASA announced where each of the four retiring space shuttles (3 orbiters, 1 test vehicle) will be housed. NASA's announcement coincided with the 30th anniversary of the space shuttle program's first flight and the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin becoming the first man in space. Shuttle Atlantis will make its new home at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida; Shuttle Discovery at the National Air and Space Museum in Virginia, under the administration of the Smithsonian; Shuttle Endeavor will reside at the California Science Center; and, the Enterprise test shuttle will be housed at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum in New York. Obviously, two shuttles did not survive the thirty-year run of the shuttle program, Columbia and Challenger. Unfortunately, Sen. John Cornyn did not like NASA's final decision and decried political favors and connections that resulted in the site destinations. The Texas politician felt that the Johnson Space Center in Houston should have been chosen among the numerous candidates to house one of the retiring shuttles. This is something I really hate about politics--the fact that no matter what, somebody will always be mad at you.

More bad news has come out of Arlington National Cemetery. The Washington Post is reporting that Congress is finally asking the Army why the former administration of the nation's cemetery wasn't reprimanded more harshly for the complete failures they were guilty of. In the last year we have heard that Arlington lost bodies, planted bodies in the wrong plots, has lost record of plot reservations, placed bodies in unmarked graves, buried more than one body in the same plot, and urns had been dug up, their contents dumped in a dirt pile. Despite the oversight that has been taking place in the last year by members of both houses of Congress, especially under the fierce leadership of Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri), atrocious failures at the cemetery continue to make the news. We haven't heard the last of Arlington, unfortunately.

I've been watching a lot of baseball in the early weeks of the season. Today on Root Sports I'm catching the Mariners and Royals. This afternoon I'll also catch the Fox game of the week, which unfortunately won't be the Mets/Braves matchup for this time zone, but will be the White Sox and Angels. I haven't seen the White Sox yet this season and the Angels are an interesting team (with a struggling Vernon Wells and a fully healthy Torii Hunter) and am looking forward to it. Blue Jays (they apparently just go by the 'Jays' these days) and Red Sox on TBS tomorrow, probably won't watch that one or the Red Sox until they get it together, but hopefully I'll catch some of Sunday Night Baseball's Rangers/Yankees matchup and I'm actually looking forward to seeing the Orioles Wednesday night against the Twins. I'm not sure I've ever said "looking forward to" in the same sentence with the Baltimore Orioles!

In between baseball and chores today I've listened to a few new songs that I'm loving. One, I mentioned here yesterday in my TGIF Tunes post--a great single called "If I Go, I'm Goin' " by Gregory Alan Isakov. The other single that I'm loving is "Turn On Tune In Drop Out With Me" by Cracker. Both appear on the soundtrack for season 4 soundtrack for Showtime's Californication. I'll update my sidebar with links to both on iTunes (though I used an Amazon gift card to download the mp3s from Amazon).

I'm considering taking a break from the blog for a few weeks, but haven't made a final decision. If I decide to, I'll be sure to mention it before I disappear. Should I take a break here, you can always follow me on Twitter. My tweets tend to be pretty baseball-centric these days, but the format is a welcome relief from the pressure of original long form posts here. Please check it out if you haven't already, the link to my Twitter feed appears in the sidebar.

TGIF Tunes

2011-04-15T12:32:00.004-06:00

Editor's Note: I think this fits both the criteria for my TGIF Tunes feature as well as could be categorized as poetry for National Poetry Month. If you haven't taken a moment to read about National Poetry Month, you can do so here.

If I Go, I'm Goin'
(Written by Gregory Alan Isakov, Johann Wagner, and John Elliot; Performed by Gregory Alan Isakov)

this house
she’s holding secrets
i got my change behind the bed

in a coffee can,
i throw my nickels in
just in case i have to leave

and i will go if you ask me to
i will stay if you dare
and if i go i’m goin shameless
i’ll let my hunger take me there

this house
she’s quite the talker
she creeks and moans
she keeps me up

and the photographs
know i’m a liar
they just laugh as i burn her down

and i will go if you ask me to
i will stay if you dare
and if i go i’m goin on fire
let my anger take me there

the shingles man they’re shaking
the back door’s burning through
this house she’s quite the keeper
quite the keeper of you

i will go if you ask me to
i will stay if you dare
and if i go, i’m goin crazy
i’ll let my darlin take me there

Single available to download on iTunes and Amazon. Also available to stream on his website. Isakov recently toured with Brandi Carlile.

Jackie Robinson Day

2011-04-15T00:06:00.000-06:00

"I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being."

-- Jackie Robinson, from Grand Slams and Fumbles by Peter Bellenson

Rising Child Abuse In Idaho

2011-04-14T11:53:00.003-06:00

From the AP via the Times-News:

BOISE - A new report by Idaho Department of Health and Welfare shows a 9 percent increase in the number of cases of life-threatening injury suffered by children reported last year.

The data released Tuesday shows the biggest leap in severe child abuse cases coming from southwest Idaho. The report tracks a 15 percent increase in the Nampa/Caldwell area and a 13 percent spike in Boise compared to 2009.

State officials did not identify specific reasons for the increase in those serious cases. But they suspect the stress of increased poverty and unemployment may be a factor.

The agency tallied more than 7,500 total reports of child abuse or neglect in Idaho last year, a total on par with 2009. Of those, 1,730 cases involved children in imminent danger, up from 1,594 reported in 2009.

That a higher rate of poverty and unemployment "may be a factor" seems rather obvious, unfortunate as it is.

Furcal's Luck

2011-04-12T12:28:00.004-06:00

Yesterday in a game against the rival San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodger shortstop Rafael Furcal broke his thumb sliding head first while stealing a base. The Dodgers have no other option than to place Furcal on the disabled list. Furcal, since signing with the Dodgers, has had numerous injuries including a back injury that required surgery and a lengthy recovery. It seems that Furcal is the victim of his own bad luck.

The reason I mention Furcal, other than the fact that my political writing has slowed to a stand still, is because he is a player I have watched from his first day in the big leagues and I admire him greatly.

As a rookie shortstop with the Atlanta Braves in 2000, Furcal won National League Rookie of the Year. He had some great years in Atlanta and it was hugely disappointing when he left for L.A. (something another Brave, Andruw Jones, would do several years later with much less success).

I've continued to watch Furcal's career with the Dodgers, but the real reason I've become such a fan of Furcal is because we had spinal surgery around the same time (something I mentioned here in 2009), his surgery in April, mine in September. Furcal sat out much of the 2008 season with a surgically repaired herniated disc, playing in only 36 games. He came back just before the 2008 playoffs. He was extremely rusty, his range wasn't there. Of course, anyone that has had any type of spinal surgery knows that range is one of the first things you notice is missing. His microdiskectomy was much less physically traumatic than the surgery I had, but I sympathized with the obstacles he was encountering. Perhaps most memorably, Furcal committed three errors in the fifth inning of the fifth game of the 2008 National League Championship Series against the Phillies. He looked defeated, a defeat I've felt quite frequently in my own struggle with my back. But then something amazing happened--2009.

In 2009, Furcal played in 150 games with 613 trips to the plate. He hadn't played in that many games since his 2006 debut with the Dodgers. His numbers looked like the Furcal of old. He had a more than impressive 165 hits, slightly less than his All Star season with Atlanta and comparable to the Rockies' Troy Tulowitzki who came in 5th in NL MVP ballots in 2009. He has 28 double, 47 RBIs, and a season batting average of .269. He played like the Furcal the Dodgers thought they were signing in 2006.

In 2010, Furcal spent more time on the disabled list, but his back was healing and allowing for him to steal bases. His speed and general shape coming out of spring training this year was thought to show the kind of season he'd have and as the Dodgers' lead-off hitter, the kind of year the Dodgers would have. That all came crashing down yesterday with the broken thumb.

Now that Furcal sees yet another stint on the DL in his future, he has been talking about retirement. At least he says that he thinks about retirement. He's only 33 years old, but you can't blame the guy for wondering if this is the kind of player he will be from here on. As he says, his back was finally feeling good and now this. It's a depressing position to be in and I only hope Furcal has people around him who will remind him of his love for baseball and who will help him remain positive about his health as well as his future in the game.

When I was recovering from my back surgery and while I was working my way through an ungodly two year rehab process with physical therapy, I had two pictures of Furcal printed out to serve as a reminder to me that if Furcal could go back to being the amazing shortstop he was prior to his back injury, the least I could do is relearn things like walking, sitting, standing, etc. One photo was of Furcal making an insanely difficult and acrobatic play at short where no part of his body was actually touching the ground. The second photo was of Furcal sliding into home with a catcher bearing down on him. One photo was near my desk at work, the second near my treadmill at home. I may not have those photos now, but even on the rough days when my back is getting the better of me, I still think about Furcal's return to baseball after his back surgery. A guy like that deserves better luck than he seems to have.

Poetry Month

2011-04-11T12:31:00.004-06:00

As I mentioned in a recent smorgasbord, April is National Poetry Month. My contribution in this annual discussion of poetry comes from the late, great Elizabeth Bishop:

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Bishop belongs to a generation of American poets that I am quite fond of. Bishop, Robert Lowell, Philip Booth, Charles Olson and the slightly older Marianne Moore, Robert Frost, Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), William Carlos Williams, and Ezra Pound--many of whom were not only contemporaries, but also friends. This is one of my favorites of Bishop's and one I am happy to share for National Poetry Month.

Congrats, Chipper!

2011-04-09T08:29:00.005-06:00

A fantastic night in Atlanta brought with it an appearance by Bobby Cox who threw out the first pitch and a milestone for Chipper Jones. Chipper secured his 2500th hit in front of the home crowd, nodding appreciatively to the fans who have supported him since his first day in the big leagues in 1993. Need I remind anyone that this blogger thought Chipper was done when he was helped off the field last August with a torn ACL? He's headed to the hall of fame, no question. Oh, and they beat the Phillies, that was just icing on the cake! Congrats, Chipper. It really couldn't have happened to a better guy.

Worst Session Ever

2011-04-06T12:57:00.003-06:00

This landed in my inbox from the minority party in the Idaho Statehouse:

For immediate release - Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Senate Democrats Call 2011 Legislative Session Worst in Memory
Boise – Idaho’s Democratic Senators are calling the almost-concluded 2011 Session the worst in their collective memories and blame this on the shifting of the Republican Party to the far right and on special interests guiding too much public policy, now including K-12 education.
“The movement to the far right by many in the Statehouse has eroded reasonable discourse and suppressed the voices of average Idahoans,” said Senator Les Bock, Assistant Minority Leader. “Closing primary elections will aggravate this trend toward party purification until the GOP is represented by only the most ideological candidates.”
Senator Edgar Malepeai, Minority Leader, said, “This was the toughest session in my nine years in office and I am dismayed by the outcome in terms of both legislation passed and legislation refused consideration.” “Moderate, independent views were often ignored which, at a time when recent polling points to a rise among those who identify themselves as such, means too many of our citizens may be lacking proper representation.”
There was an unprecedented level of citizen involvement in the legislative process this year but these views were consistently ignored by the majority party which feels authorized to act unilaterally when making laws that impact so many. From education to Medicaid cuts to measures targeting Idaho’s middle class, our constituents are not satisfied with the direction the state is heading.
“We have heard from the sponsors of the Otter/Luna education overhaul that there is a ‘silent majority’ who support this proposal and only a vocal minority who stood in opposition,” said Minority Caucus Chair Michelle Stennett. “If anyone knows what a minority looks like, it would be us, and calling the groundswell of opposition a minority shows a disdain for the democratic process.”
As the Republican party demonstrates an unwillingness to focus on the critical issues facing the state, Democrats welcome moderate Republicans and Independents not only into our Primary Elections, but into the Democratic party to once again build a powerful voice of opposition to create better balance and better policy for Idaho’s schools, communities, economy and families.
For more information, contact:
Senator Edgar Malepeai, 208-251-9517, emalepeai@senate.idaho.gov
Senator Les Bock, 208-332-1409, lbock@senate.idaho.gov
Senator Michelle Stennett, 208-332-1353, mstennett@senate.idaho.gov

Revenue Options Hearing

2011-04-02T16:18:00.003-06:00

From a press release for Rep. Sue Chew (D-17):

What: Revenue Options (Particularly the Cigarette Tax)
When: Monday, April 4, 2011
Time: 4:30 pm (MST)
Location: Idaho State Capitol, Revenue & Taxation committee room, EW 42
Given that House Leadership has refused to listen to constituents and grant the bill a hearing, an informational hearing on the proposed tobacco tax will be hosted by the minority party. This will also be a time to bring the other ideas you champion for generating revenues. The hearing is open to the public and there will be an opportunity to testify.

Smorgasbord Saturday

2011-04-02T00:07:00.000-06:00

Over the past two days, I watched six baseball games (Yankees/Tigers, Padres/Cardinals, Giants/Dodgers, Astros/Phillies, Red Sox/Rangers, A's/Mariners). If you're a baseball fan, you understand the exhilaration of Opening Day and how it really signals the end of winter. It's exciting. Now, if we could just see some less error-plagued play...

It was a thrill to see my Braves win on Opening Day, their first game in the post-Bobby Cox era. It was a pleasant surprise to hear that Chipper Jones got a double in his first at-bat. For Braves fans, as I've said, many of us thought we'd seen Chipper play his last game when he left the field last fall with a torn ACL. His Spring success appears to be carrying over into the early days of this season. Let's hope it continues.

Since yesterday kicked off National Poetry Month, I thought it would be fitting to mention that Poets.org has a page devoted to the annual celebration of poetry and on it you can find various events and poetry-related offerings. This year in particular I'm watching the Academy of American Poets' guest posts on Twitter. Each day of April, a poet was chosen and has 24 hours to post their poetry, insights, etc. Because I hadn't been on Twitter until recently, it's an exciting event I can follow that will introduce me to many poets I'm not familiar with. It's a fantastic way to celebrate National Poetry Month.

Speaking of Twitter, I added a gadget to my sidebar where you can follow my tweets. There you'll find plenty of retweets of things I find interesting or think my readers will find interesting, notifications of new posts on this blog, and my random thoughts (which recently have been devoted mostly to baseball). Though I wade into the Twitter waters, you won't find me on Facebook anytime soon. Even if Sisyphus can do it!

As a wrap-up to the slew of posts I had here about right-to-farm legislation and other legislative attempts that would serve to aid Moyle Mink & Tannery, they all passed. Every last one of them. This week I felt like blogging was an exercise in futility. I'm sure I'll get back into the swing of political reporting soon. Until then, enjoy the beginning days of the 2011 Major League Baseball season!

Happy Opening Day!

2011-03-31T09:59:00.003-06:00

Our long winter is over.

Bailing Out Moyle Mink

2011-03-30T09:49:00.003-06:00

Update 3.31.11: The Idaho Senate passed SB 1197 unanimously under a suspension of the rules yesterday. For what it's worth, 90% of the visitors to this post have been located in Alaska.

Monday when the Idaho Senate ran through their agenda prior to voting on the brutal cuts to Idaho's Medicaid program, a bill on first reading caught my attention. The bill, SB 1197 introduced in the State Affairs Committee, is described as follows:

S 1197 by STATE AFFAIRS COMMITTEE - TAXIDERMISTS AND FUR BUYERS - Amends existing law relating to Taxidermists and Fur Buyers to provide for recordkeeping requirements for commercial tanneries; and to provide that compliance with certain record requirements shall constitute satisfactory record of lawful origin and proof of ownership requirements.

For anyone following this blog, you are surely aware of a situation involving Moyle Mink & Tannery in Heyburn, Idaho, and a recent raid of their property by Fish & Game officials from Idaho and Alaska, as well as ICE agents. The raid, described best here, involved illegally attained animals that were then sent to Moyle Mink for tanning. What can be pieced together from the various sources that are actually talking about what happened at Moyle Mink, is that the furs/hides in the possession of Moyle Mink did not have the proper tags and paperwork, therefore illegal under the Lacey Act. The Lacey Act does give the states the right to determine their own laws regarding the illegal taking, possessing, selling and transporting of animals and plants. It isn't clear which of those laws Moyle Mink was evading, however, those laws as a whole are being amended by SB 1197.

The provision being inserted in Idaho Code by SB 1197 reads:

(2) Provided however, a commercial tannery receiving wildlife from a licensed taxidermist or fur buyer, shall satisfy all record keeping requirements by recording the license numbers of such taxidermist or fur buyer, and recording tag numbers of any attached tags required by law. This provision shall not apply in the event a commercial tannery receives wildlife from a taxidermist or fur buyer from a state other than the state of Idaho, and the taxidermist or fur buyer is not required to be licensed in that state, in which case the tannery shall record, the date received, the name, address and telephone number of the individual the wildlife was received from, and tag numbers of any attached tags required by law in the state of origin, the name and number of species received and the approximate date killed. Information so recorded shall be retained for a period of two (2) years.

This provision codifies a procedure that has been at the forefront of the Moyle Mink & Tannery saga. Established law, both state and federal, regarding the records kept on furs, skins or hides used in interstate commerce is what resulted in search warrants being served at Moyle Mink in Heyburn. This new provision goes on to note that "compliance with records requirements [as described in this new provision]...shall constitute satisfactory record of lawful origin and proof of ownership requirements." We can reasonably assume that the "satisfactory record" portion being added will include whatever record keeping was taking place at Moyle Mink.

SB 1197 also also includes an emergency clause that would put the law into "full force and effect" with its passage. Because the U.S. Attorney for the District of Idaho is playing the case against Moyle Mink close to the vest, we cannot be 100% certain that SB 1197 has come about specifically in response to the search warrants served at Moyle Mink, but the timing of the bill is suspicious and other pieces of legislation that have incorporated protections of the fur and mink industry this session allow us to make a number of assumptions. How we can assume that the new provision being proposed by SB 1197 would include whatever record keeping was taking place at Moyle Mink prior to search warrants being served and that the bill itself came into being because of the situation at Moyle Mink comes down to this:

Rep. Mike Moyle (R-Star), House Majority Leader and relative of Lee and Ryan Moyle of Moyle Mink & Tannery, has had no reservations about introducing legislation that would directly help the Moyle mink farm in their legal battles. Right-to-Farm legislation already introduced by the unscrupulous Rep. Moyle suggests he is responding to the legal trouble of his family at Moyle Mink & Tannery through his position in leadership. Passage of right-to-farm legislation helps Moyle Mink in their battle with the City of Heyburn. If right-to-farm helps Moyle Mink, why not SB 1197?
Magic Valley dairyman and hunter pilots decry the tactics of GOP leadership, particularly Rep. Moyle, in passing bills favorable to their own interests and the interests of their elite friends. If Moyle is willing to do as the hunter pilots suggest, why wouldn't he be willing to protect the legal interests of his own family with the help of his friend Sen. Pearce and the Senate State Affairs Committee? It would appear that Moyle wasn't pushing it, something he might be hesitant to do after the hunters cried cronyism, but could be passed quickly.
The Senate State Affairs Committee operates in ways similar to the House Ways & Means Committee in that GOP leadership controls the committee. The Senate State Affairs Committee consists of powerful members who can kill legislation as well as rush it through, completely at their discretion. Introducing legislation that can bypass committees or be sent on to the floor without hearing.
Prior to this session, there had never been a push for this section of code to include language specific to the fur/mink industry. Can it really be simply a coincidence that this legislation came about after the raid at Moyle Mink & Tannery? The timing is suspect. Moyle Mink & Tannery was served search warrants on Monday, February 28, 2011; SB 1197 was introduced on Monday, March 28, 2011. If there was a need for this addition to Idaho Code, why wasn't it introduced prior to March 1st and earlier in the session when it could be heard in committee, receive a hearing and go forward at the pace of other legislation?

The assumptions made here are supported by the situational politics of Representative Moyle. A juggernaut of mink farms in Idaho are held by the Moyle family, dating back to the Great Depression. Up until recently, Rep. Moyle had his own mink operation in Star. In the Magic Valley there are at least three mink operations owned and operated by a member of the Moyle family. Clearly, the Moyle family has a stake in legislation that serves to protect mink farms and taxidermists from legal action when they haven't properly documented the furs/hides coming into their businesses.

Like the right-to-farm legislation and the bill prohibiting hunting within 24 hours of landing on dry lake beds on state or federal lands, SB 1197 serves only one purpose--protecting the family and friends of Mike Moyle and GOP leadership. Instead of questioning the motive behind SB 1197 and actually uttering the word 'corruption,' SB 1197 will pass on the floor of the Idaho Senate, move to the floor of the House (maybe sponsored by Moyle himself), Moyle will invoke Rule 38 without a challenge from a single member of the legislature or the press, and the bill will sail to the governor's desk for his signature. The only thing remaining will be the case against Lee and Ryan Moyle at Moyle Mink & Tannery, undermined by new state law, enacted with an emergency clause. If this isn't cronyism and corruption, what is?

Hitchcock: The Appalling Threat of the 'Nanny State'

2011-03-28T14:12:00.005-06:00

Editor's Note: From now on, when I reprint a column written by Leonard Hitchcock, professor emeritus at Idaho State University, the post title will reflect his name and the title he originally assigned to each column. He submits each of his columns to the Idaho State Journal where they are considered for publication and are often reassigned titles at the editor's discretion. When possible I will also include a link to the column at the ISJ blogs. As always, his columns are reprinted here with his permission.

THE APPALLING THREAT OF THE 'NANNY STATE'

Right-wingers use the phrase “the nanny state” to encapsulate their conception of both the Obama administration and liberals’ generic vision of the good society. The phrase is, of course, also intended to express conservatives’ abhorrence of that reality and vision. They hope that it will call up from people’s childhood memories a deeply-felt resentment at being subjected to the rule of adults, i.e. adults who refused to grant them the right to make their own choices. The message is, then, that the nanny state treats its citizens as children, rather than as adults, and abrogates their freedom of choice.

It’s somewhat curious, by the way, that the adults that most frequently exercise this sort of authority over children are parents, yet the phrase refers to nannies. Perhaps that has to do with the expression’s origin, since it was reputedly a Conservative British M.P. who first used it. But it also might unintentionally reflect the fact that, in the United States, republicans are far more likely than democrats to belong to that stratum of society that can afford to employ nannies. And then there’s the phrase’s British connotation, which serves to further stigmatize such governments because Britain notoriously tends toward socialism, also known as the “welfare” state, the bête noir of the radical right. For conservatives, children are, indeed, quite properly ruled by parents (and sometimes by nannies), whose job it is to protect them from the evils that abound in the extra-family environment. Children are also to be instilled with a set of values and a yearning for independence so that, when the time comes, and they are ejected from the nest, they will be able to function independently of their parents. Once they have achieved “adulthood” they are on their own and parents who continue to attempt to direct or ameliorate their children’s lives violate the conservative model of child-rearing. This “strict father” conception of the family (see George Lakoff’s Moral Politics), stresses the moral virtue of self-reliance and approves of a world in which failure to succeed is quite properly punished by suffering.

It is therefore the conviction of conservatives that right-thinking adult citizens do not wish to be protected by their government. For them, government protection will imply that they are not, after all, adults; that they are not independent and capable of managing their own lives successfully. But what about wrong-thinking adults? Conservatives would acknowledge that there are, unfortunately, citizens who want protection, but such citizens are the weak, the incompetent and the undeserving, and they would be better off without protection because that would force them to grow up and take on the responsibilities of adulthood. Real adults, therefore, not only believe that their own freedom is compromised by government’s misguided efforts to protect them, but properly resent other people being “coddled” by such protection.

Ours is a capitalist society. The profit motive drives the machine. In the competition for profits, businesses regularly lie to the public, conceal the flaws and dangers that their products contain, cut production costs in any way possible, overcharge, and encourage excessive consumption. Centuries ago the public realized that “caveat emptor” was a slogan created by sellers to relieve themselves of responsibility. The average citizen had no way to check on whether the packing house that produced his meat was sanitary, whether adulterants had been added to his drugs, whether the construction firm that built his house used the right materials, whether the bank he patronized would still have his money when he wanted to withdraw it, or whether the toy he bought his child contained invisible toxins.

So the average citizen wanted, and felt he deserved, protection against all those affluent captains of industry whose intentions were to cheat and exploit him, and whose trustworthiness he hadn’t the means to ascertain. He asked the government for help, which was the rational, the adult, thing to do, and the government delivered.

There is no shame in being protected by the government. We pay it to do just that. The only freedom that we lose is the freedom to be bilked, left destitute in our old age, and denied medical care when we need it. And we should take encouragement from the fact that the rich and the corporations, the puppet masters of those conservative ideologues, seem to feel no shame in accepting their own protection from the government. They accept the tax breaks and subsidies that their political minions obtain for them, without complaint and without resentment, and are able somehow to bear the loss of freedom that is thereby so cruelly imposed upon them.

Smorgasbord Saturday

2011-03-26T11:02:00.000-06:00

Since yesterday I did a rundown of the stories I could have framed as a smorgasbord, I'm really short on original material here today. So, I'll touch on baseball and music then call it good.

Listening to one of my favorite bands, Seven Mary Three, this morning. Haven't listened to them in awhile because I was on a Sister Hazel kick for a good week and before that mostly country. "Strangely At Home Here" is playing currently. Still hope I'll see these guys in concert at some point in my life. Had a chance once, but couldn't make the trip due to my back. Still have a craptastic back and Seven Mary Three isn't going to stay together forever. It'll happen some day.

Yesterday in the Grapefruit League, Chipper Jones ripped a three-run homer over the scoreboard. Braves' beat writer Mark Bowman said that it was one of the longest homers he has seen Chipper hit from the right side. Bowman also said that Chipper is playing like he's 28, not 38. The tear Chipper has been on during spring training has been a pleasant surprise for Braves fans. Last season, up until his ACL ripping on a spectacular play, it was like watching the Braves as they once were in the 90s, Chipper especially. He was getting on base and his teammates were batting him in. He was showing some power, something he'd been lacking for several injury-plagued seasons. And his leadership in the clubhouse with the young rookie Jason Heyward was very important to the Braves' success. When Chipper tore his ACL, it wasn't known if he would ever play again and with Bobby Cox retiring it was truly the end of an era in Atlanta. Now us Braves fans who grew up in the Bobby Cox, Chipper Jones, John Smoltz, Greg Maddux and Tommy Glavine era have something to hold onto--a 38-year old third baseman who is batting .411 in spring training. The success he's had this spring couldn't have happened to a better guy.

Just saw the news that Geraldine Ferraro has died at the age of 75. I wasn't alive when Ferraro was on the ticket with Mondale, but I feel a great sense of gratitude for her breaking the glass ceiling. Her accomplishment of being the first woman on a presidential ticket paved the way for women in politics, Hillary especially, and I've never doubted that what Ferraro did in 1984 made it just a bit easier for every woman coming up in America after. Thank you, Geraldine Ferraro.

Wrapping Up the Week

2011-03-25T16:10:00.003-06:00

Despite it being a very busy, infuriating week in the Idaho Legislature, I haven't written anything original since Sunday. Not much of a reason for it either, other than I set up a Twitter account and I find that I can write my random, shortened thoughts there much easier than I can a long-form post here. Not a good excuse, I know, but you're welcome to take a look at my Twitter account anytime you'd like. I have several posts in the works, in draft form and floating around in my head, as I usually do. There are plenty of things I wanted to note this week, so I think I'll just make a list here and you can follow the links as you please. Some more important than others, of course. Without further ado:

Chipper Jones says "somebody high-ranking in U.S. government" may have been behind the assassination of President Kennedy...yes, you read that right, Chipper Jones./ The Post Game
Just in time for the one year anniversary of the passage of health care reform, Randy Stapilus lays out what reform has meant to Idaho./ "A strange kind of tyranny," Ridenbaugh Press
Eddie Vedder is going on tour, a solo tour coinciding with his Ukulele Songs album./ LATimes
One great thing about Twitter is that I can follow the always entertaining Torii Hunter of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Here's a great story about his enthusiasm for the Angels coming season./ MLB.com
More bad news at Arlington National Cemetery--this time they appear to have lost track of plot bookings./ WaPo

That covers everything. National politics, baseball (twice), and music. Now if I could just find something constructive to say about the Idaho Legislature...

Survive

2011-03-25T10:54:00.001-06:00

Editor's Note: To Adam, hang in there.

Survive
by Rise Against

Somewhere between happy, and total f*****g wreck
Feet sometimes on solid ground, sometimes at the edge
To spend your waking moments, simply killing time
Is to give up on your hopes and dreams, to give up on your...

Life for you, (who we are) has been less than kind
So take a number, (who we are) stand in line
We've all been sorry, (who we are) we've all been hurt
But how we survive, (who we are) is what makes us who we are

An obvious disinterest, a barely managed smile
A deep nod in agreement, a status quo exile
I shirk my obligations, I miss all your deadlines
I excel at quitting early, and f*****g up my life

All smiles and sunshine, a perfect world on a perfect day
Everything always works out, I have never felt so f*****g great
All smiles and sunshine, a perfect world on a perfect day
Everything always works out, I have never felt so great

(Life isn't like this) Life isn't like this
(Life isn't like this) Life isn't like this
(Life isn't like this) Are we verging on an answer,
Or f*****g up our...

Life for you, (who we are) has been less than kind
So take a number, (who we are) stand in line
We've all been sorry, (who we are) we've all been hurt
But how we survive, (who we are) is what makes us who we are

(Who we are)
It's what makes us who we are

Interesting unofficial video for this song can be viewed here and this single can be listened to and downloaded here.

New Music Tuesday

2011-03-22T12:32:00.002-06:00

This Tuesday brings the acoustic single "Longing To Belong" from Eddie Vedder. Available at iTunes here.

Education In Idaho

2011-03-21T15:49:00.003-06:00

Editor's Note: The following column was submitted to the Idaho State Journal and is reprinted here with the generous permission of the author.

Education In Idaho
by Leonard Hitchcock

It would not be unfair to say that Idaho is a comparatively ignorant state. This conclusion could easily be reached by attending a session of the Idaho State Legislature, but I happen to have relied upon the state’s educational statistics. Idaho ranks 38th among the states in both the percentage of its population that have bachelor degrees and the percentage that have advanced degrees. So, if ignorance is measured by the extent of formal education, then Idaho has it in greater abundance than most other states.

I’m not suggesting that “academic” ignorance is equatable with either stupidity or incompetence. No doubt many Idaho farmers, ranchers and businessmen who make good money and support families in comparative comfort do so without the aid of college degrees. There are, however, other, quite plausible, consequences of having an ignorant population. For one, a public that lacks academic sophistication in areas like history, political science, theology and economics is likely to be susceptible to political manipulation. For another, an ignorant public may well not value very highly that which it does not possess and which may well seem relatively unnecessary to it, viz. quality education.

Idaho certainly doesn’t seem enthusiastic about supporting K-12 education. The state ranks 41st among all states in its per capita expenditures for its students, and it should be noted that in many states where expenditures are higher than in Idaho, the average family income is lower. Idaho ranks 41st in the number of students it requires teachers to have in their classrooms: 17.9 students, compared to the national average of 15.5. Teacher salaries in Idaho are ranked 33rd in the country when starting salary, average salary and local cost-of-living are taken into consideration. When it comes to higher education, Idaho ranks 45th among the states in terms of the percentage of high school graduates that matriculate directly to college, and 44th in the percentage of college freshmen who graduate within six years (2002-3 figures).

Given this data, one might well predict that Idaho’s K-12 students would rank equally low in their performance on nationwide tests, specifically the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests. But they don’t. In scale scores on 4th grade math and reading, Idaho’s kids rank 13th and 18th; in 8th grade math and writing, they rank 23rd and 18th. What explains the fact that our students’ achievements are so much more impressive that our state’s?

I have been fortunate to become acquainted with a young woman who teaches 6th grade in American Falls. What I know of her and her work suggests a simple answer to that question: teachers do the job they are hired to do, and expend whatever time and effort is needed to do that job well. Their commitment to their work is profound and durable, and it’s a good thing it is, because their job is a daunting one. Educating a child is not like downloading data to a hard drive. The child must participate in the process, must make an effort, must be willing to read its assignments, do its homework and study for its tests. Parents, too, must participate. They must believe in the value of learning. They must reinforce their child’s motivation when it falters.

All too often, unfortunately, these elements of the educational equation are missing. Many students have no real interest in learning, or come from households in which no one supports their efforts to make academic progress. Moreover, there are inevitably students that have learning disabilities, or an incomplete mastery of English, or behavioral problems. Teachers must try to compensate for all these special handicaps and, at the same time, teach.

Idaho’s teachers have done well by their students, despite the best efforts of the state to demean and discourage them, but their tolerance has to have its limits. The state is currently doing its best to make public school teachers’ work even more difficult while it reduces their status to that of temporary office workers. It has allowed the proliferation of charter schools, which siphon off the more motivated students. It has exacerbated the worst aspect of No Child Left Behind, viz. the trivialization of teacher achievement by mandating that text scores be its only measure. It has now deprived teachers of their union rights: the ability to determine their work environment, their right to due process, extended contracts and reasonable job security. It threatens to fire hundreds of teachers, replacing them with lap top computers (thus insuring continued campaign contributions from education software vendors), and to increase average class size, the surest way to reduce teacher effectiveness. How long will teachers’ commitment withstand this kind of treatment?

___________________

Email hitcleon@isu for a list of the data sources used in this column.

The Fighter

2011-03-20T23:23:00.001-06:00

When I was a kid my grandparents had a satellite dish the size of a compact car. To a ten year old, it was a hulking tower in the backyard that seemed like it could have been part of a weapons system. While I lived with my grandparents I never managed to figure out how to operate the remote control for the satellite—without the right configuration of codes, the channel wouldn’t appear. The only memories I have of watching satellite television in those days had to do with boxing matches and the news that the Chief Theater in Pocatello had burned to the ground. For some reason watching boxing on HBO with my grandfather was seared into my memory. Those memories are what drew me to David O. Russell’s The Fighter.

As much as he must hate it, Mark Wahlberg will forever be “Marky Mark” to most of us. Training for the role of Micky Ward, Wahlberg’s body seemed to return to what it was two decades ago when he was rapping and modeling underwear. I think there was probably a bit of Micky in Mark, actually. There have certainly been bumps in the road through his career and his background isn’t all that different. Was Wahlberg on the receiving end of an Oscar snub? Yes. But the actor who most deserved both the Oscar nomination and win was Christian Bale playing Micky’s brother Dicky Eklund. Christian Bale was nothing similar to his more recent characters, particularly Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. He plays a gaunt, washed up, drug addict who tells everyone he encounters that HBO is making a film about his boxing comeback when in reality they are making a documentary about crack addiction in America.

The relationship between Dicky and his younger brother Micky, their dysfunctional family and the city of Lowell, Massachusetts is at the heart of a film that really isn’t a fighting movie. Yes, the film is about Micky turning around his boxing career, a career that amounted to being a stepping-stone for other boxers on the rise. And yes, the film is about Micky leaving the training of his troubled brother to take the advice of others who pushed Micky to success. Yet, throughout the film the audience is asked to choose between Micky’s boxing success and Micky’s relationship with Dicky. In this respect, The Fighter is nothing resembling Rocky. Watching Dicky battle his own ego, his addiction and the reality of never making a comeback overshadows his brother’s battle for boxing success. It left me wondering if the title was referring to Micky, Dicky or both.

Though Christian Bale wasn’t the only actor nominated for the film, his acting certainly was the strongest. Melissa Leo deserved her nomination and win for portraying Alice, the mother of Micky and Dicky (and what seemed like at least a dozen sisters). She was unyielding in her support of her sons, Dicky more so and in a way that anyone who has felt inferior to a sibling can understand. Her constant forgiveness and blindness to Dicky’s addiction seemed obvious to everyone, including the viewer, but Alice herself. The steely edge of Melissa Leo’s performance was as skillful as Bale’s and added to the dynamic that left me with the overall feeling that The Fighter wasn’t really a fighting movie. Amy Adams also deserves mentioning. She was as strong as I’ve seen her in the role of Micky’s girlfriend. The wholesome image most of us have of her was challenged and it no longer seems such a stretch that she could play Janis Joplin on screen. Something tells me that there may be more Oscar nods in Adams’ future.

From time to time a movie will come along that seems to be one thing on the surface—be that in trailers or previews—and another thing entirely once seen beginning to end. The Fighter is that kind of film. I don’t enjoy films that are especially violent nor do I always seek out boxing films (with the exception of Million Dollar Baby), but this film was not at all what I had expected and I found it pleasantly compelling.

Two Weeks To Go

2011-03-18T13:15:00.000-06:00

Editor's Note: I thought I'd break up the Moyle monotony around here, the constant bad news out of the Idaho Statehouse, and my own personal frustrations with a completely unrelated baseball post. When all else fails, turn to baseball.

During the off-season, I watched the hot stove closely and wondered about a few teams that made some big moves. Now that spring training has arrived, most of those teams are still grabbing attention.

The teams that caught my interest especially were teams that really had nothing to show for their last few seasons other than a losing record. The Oakland A's, Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals made big, expensive moves that seem to set them up for a few more wins. Big bats joined all three--Vlad Guerrero with the Orioles, Hideki Matsui with the A's and Jayson Werth with the Nats. The pitching staff of each team was shaken up a bit and all three teams have managers who haven't been with them for too many seasons, the newest being Buck Showalter in Baltimore. All three teams seem to be continuing in their attempts to make something of the 2011 season. They're off to a good start at spring training, their bats coming through for them and their pitchers living up to expectations (with the exception of the Orioles' Duchscherer who can't, once again, stay healthy). The Orioles are in a tough division where I don't anticipate they'll make huge waves right away, but we have to assume that at some point the Orioles and Blue Jays will be able to compete against the likes of the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays. The Nats have their work cut out for them in a division that includes the Braves and Phillies, two teams that have taken turns dominating the division in the last two decades. The one team that has a chance to really impact their division is the A's. Go figure.

The team that may stand in the way of the A's (other than the always competitive Angels) is the Rangers. However, recent shakeups in Texas have a lot of people scratching their heads. What appeared to be a leadership team made in baseball heaven is no longer. Chuck Greenberg resigned as the Ranger CEO and hall-of-famer Nolan Ryan was named President & CEO (he previously held just the role of president of the franchise). Greenberg cited disagreements among the front office as his reason for leaving after less than a year since he and Ryan bought the Rangers and brought the franchise back from bankruptcy. Greenberg didn't say exactly what caused the rift between the co-chairmen of the board, himself and Nolan Ryan, but there is one place to look for the writing on the wall--Michael Young.

Yes, Young plays on the field and has nothing to do with decisions in the front office, but over the off-season, Young requested a trade from the team he's spent his entire career with after a rocky few months of speculation about his future with the club. Though Young was originally drafted by the Blue Jays, he has spent his entire big league career with the Rangers. He began his career at 2nd base and was asked to play for the Rangers at shortstop when the Rangers traded away Alex Rodriguez. Young was asked to move to shortstop to make room for Alfonso Soriano and then he moved (without complaining) to 3rd base so a young, talented shortstop named Elvis Andrus could have the position. All of this happened to Young despite his stellar defensive numbers at each position. However, in the off-season, the 34 year-old Young was told by the Rangers that he would be moved to the full-time designated hitter slot since the team had bought Adrian Beltre from the Red Sox and would be using his high-paid services at 3rd. Understandably, Young was livid and requested the Rangers trade him rather than force him into a non-fielding position on the roster. Though Young wasn't traded, you have to think his situation has a lot to do with the departure of Greenberg.

If the Rangers can get it together in the front office and their off-season trades pan out, they could easily defend their 2010 American League Championship title.

With only two weeks until the season begins and knowing that around here no baseball post would be complete without mentioning my Atlanta Braves, I thought I would note a few things happening with Braves franchise. For those of you who know about Luis Salazar's freak injury during spring training, everything I've read seems to indicate he will fully recover. Salazar, a former MLB player, coaches a minor league Braves team. In a recent spring training game, he was in the dugout with the major league team when catcher Brian McCann pulled a pitch into the dugout where it hit Salazar in the face. Salazar was knocked out and fell from his perch at the dugout rail to the dugout floor below. His face was fractured in several places and eventually one of his eyes had to be removed. All seems to be well with him now and he seems much less shaken up about the injury than Brian McCann who used his power swing to hook the ball at Salazar.

In other Braves news, Chipper Jones is having a very successful spring training. Chipper, who seriously considered retirement at the end of last season and in the off-season after requiring surgery to fix a torn ACL, seems to have found his stroke. He hit a homer yesterday's spring training game and is hitting .386 in the Grapefruit League. If Chipper can stay healthy all season, it may be a repeat of the great numbers he put up before the injury last season. Even if his production isn't as great as it was last season, just having Chipper on the field and in the clubhouse is a plus for the Braves. His bat may not be as dangerous as it once was, but his leadership is very much needed in this the first season without Bobby Cox in the dugout since 1989. Fingers crossed.

Just two more weeks 'til the Braves & Nats kick off the season!

Medicaid Budget Cuts Pass House

2011-03-17T11:48:00.003-06:00

The Medicaid budget introduced by Rep. Janice McGeachin (R-Idaho Falls) has passed the Idaho House easily (56-14) and with little debate. It now moves to the Senate.

Quote of the Day

2011-03-17T00:06:00.002-06:00

"Not always will there be others to stand when we do not. And sadly it is not until it is too late that we will ever know that others did not stand. And then where shall we be but lost in a shaken tide of regret; landless and anchorless without a nation to recognize because, for us, standing up when all might be lost, was more than we were willing to do."

-- Sen. Nicole LeFavour (D-Boise)
"In Silence We Risk All" from Notes From the Floor

Guns On Campus

2011-03-16T14:56:00.000-06:00

"Stupidity carried beyond a certain point becomes a public menace."

-- Ezra Pound (In letter to Lascelles Abercrombie)

The Idaho House, in their infinite "wisdom," passed legislation today that would prevent state universities from banning or otherwise regulating the carrying of guns on campuses. This after university officials offered their grave concerns about such legislation, including two former members of the Idaho House Kent Kunz and Bruce Newcomb who now work for Idaho State University and Boise State University, respectively.

Clearly, the Idaho Legislature is operating on their own personal and mislead political beliefs or convoluted values this session and are not going to listen to their constituents regardless of how loudly opposed those constituents may be. Objections from Idaho residents to the education reform bills fell on deaf ears. It appears that the concerns of Idaho residents in regard to Medicaid cuts did little but take out the most extreme measures written into the bill. Unnecessary legislation masquerading as a bill to protect kids from online predators and from encountering pornography on their public library computers passed easily thus infringing on the first amendment rights of library patrons across the state. And, here again with the campus guns legislation, loud voices of opposition testified to the legislature and their voices were ignored. Add to this dangerous nullification efforts, anti-union bills, and attempts to protect the conscience of health care providers who should be first doing no harm and it has been one damaging legislative session.

Rep. Ken Roberts said during debate on the campus guns bill: “Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know about you, but I want to live in a country and a state where the citizens are armed. This legislation is legislation that's about protecting the very rights that made America free.” I don't know where Ken Roberts acquired his knowledge of American history, but my understanding of what made America free has nothing to do with guns and carrying them at public institutions like college campuses. Last I checked, it started out about representation, specifically taxation without representation. Maybe Rep. Roberts and his colleagues who voted in favor of allowing college students and members of the public to freely carry guns on campuses across the state should think long and hard about what kind of representation they're actually providing the people of Idaho.

I've spoken about gun control measures here before, but the reason I opposed this legislation has very little to do with whether or not I think people should be allowed to own hand guns. I grew up in a time when school shootings were constantly in the news. The spring before I started high school, two heavily armed young men walked into their Colorado high school and opened fire on their classmates and teachers--what was at the time the most deadly school shooting in U.S. history. While I was in college, a troubled young man at a university across the country in Virginia went on a rampage killing 32 college students and professors. Having guns on their person or having access to guns on campus would not have made either of these two shootings any less devastating. And like in Tuscon, who is to say that those who had access to guns would have gone after the correct assailant?

It's time for the legislature to go home. Whatever budget crisis we are in, the crises they are creating on other fronts by dismantling the state's Medicaid system, K-12 public education system, and municipal and county government authority are becoming far more dangerous than any budget crisis ever will be. More and more I believe the GOP members of the Idaho Legislature are a public menace, the guns on campuses bill just further proof.

Broke or Not Broke?

2011-03-16T00:36:00.006-06:00

“We’re broke.” ... The phrase is designed to create a sense of crisis that justifies rapid and radical actions before citizens have a chance to debate the consequences.

Just one problem: We’re not broke. Yes, nearly all levels of government face fiscal problems because of the economic downturn. But there is no crisis. There are many different paths open to fixing public budgets. And we will come up with wiser and more sustainable solutions if we approach fiscal problems calmly, realizing that we’re still a very rich country and that the wealthiest among us are doing exceptionally well.

... A phony metaphor is being used to hijack the nation’s political conversation and skew public policies to benefit better-off Americans and hurt most others.

E.J. Dionne makes some excellent and timely points about the way ideologues are attempting to shape any discussion of debt, deficit or denial of funding for some government programs. If only the members of the Idaho Legislature who cry about the budget crisis understood that saying so isn't going to solve anything and coupled with their senseless budget cuts will actually create an even deeper crisis for the people of Idaho. Unfortunately, the Idaho Legislature does not deal in facts.