#195 Obama's Freshman Year Report Card III

But even as the AfPak casualties keep rising, and the body bags keep de-planing and piling-up at Dover AFB and pulling-down this guy's GPA, there is HOPE for "Change You Can Believe In"--because there already has been. More change than I thought, frankly--as evidenced in the last two posts--much of it obfuscated by front-line issues of War and Health Care. Naturally and perhaps rightly so.

The tangibles that follow depend a lot on the intangibles of Obama's character and personality. He is above all, I think, a congenital scholar/teacher (e.g. at Harvard above). First true intellectual since Clinton. Even though the President came to the wrong decision about Afghanistan, in my opinion, it's gratifying that he took three months THINKING it over. Can this man be at any greater distance from the mindless "decidership" of trigger-happy, former First Cowboy G. Dubya Bush, who notoriously relied solely on rumblings of the gut and the voice of God? No, Obama's primary strength is cool, informed deliberation, first and foremost. I trust the President's mind.

III. "OTHER" 20% of Grade: 3.75 = B+

--Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. A very big deal, and very high marks for the President. Against all sorts of racist and reactionary opposition, Obama got his super-qualified first-choice through the House of Lords. A milestone: first Latina, and only the third woman confirmed to that tottering, all-white-male body. Already the new Executive is making his influence felt on the judicial branch of our government.

--Lesser accomplishments--all indicating positive and progressive change in the way the White House does business--include, among other things,

• Kicking out the Lobbyists--or at least severely limiting their access;

• Instructing all federal agencies to adopt policies conducive to openness and transparency, and to pay strict attention to the Freedom of Information Act;
  

• Being more open to the public generally--as opposed to the insularity of former administration--with more press conferences, FDR-like radio addresses, Town Halls, etc.;

• Closing loopholes for off-shore corporate tax-havens and Swiss bank accounts;

• Easing travel restrictions to Cuba, thereby setting the stage for ending our unjust and self-defeating policies toward this long-suffering (at our hands) country in our back-yard;

• Celebrating the first ever Seder at the White House, which may seem a small thing, but in reality it is writ large symbolically in terms of the new inclusiveness on the part of the Obama administration--i.e. to recognize the diversity of the American people and to tell the world that the Executive Branch is no longer the eminent domain of the Christian Right.

Then there's the old "E" for Effort. And a double "O" for Obama Optimism. These are quantities not be gainsaid in this time of Anxiety and Need for his fellow Americans. In fact, he comes close to exuding the confidence of a JFK or Clinton, such that he seems fully capable of getting all that needs to be done, done. Early on, even his inner-council reputedly advised him to slow down, to take it one thing at a time. Nope. Life is short, and in Presidential as in First-Doggy-Bo years, even shorter. So he has taken on EVERYTHING at a time. And scoring the highest marks for it.

Unfortunately--to play this game but a moment longer--the overall grade point of this clearly A-plus student is being compromised by the Foreign Policy component, involving more specifically the Middle-East War assignment. He'll remain at the "B-minus" level, alas, as long as he's sunk in its bloody slough ... us along with him.
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#194 Obama's Freshman Year Report Card II

Now, Obama's no FDR, but he will turn in his only "Incomplete" next semester. Even if he gets through Congress a less-than-perfect Health-Care Reform bill, it will get through. He will be the first and only of SEVEN Presidents before him to accomplish that way-overdue feat. His overall grade domestically might then be shaved back a bit, but ending up as a good, solid "A"--and maybe higher, if the White House and the less-troglodytic members of the combined legislatures can come up with some sort of Public-Option "wedge," called by any other name, in the final bill. It's the following heavily-weighted area, however, that brings down his final grade.

II. FOREIGN POLICY 40% of Grade: 1.75 = D-plus.

--The Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan axis of evil. And Graveyard of Empires, including us, if Obama doesn't re-think, quick. Otherwise, this will remain an F-minus-minus constant on the President's record for some semesters to come, I fear ... but there are some ameliorating factors, like below.

--At least he's got a timetable for ultimate withdrawal. Something too sacrilegious to even contemplate for Bush/Cheney and Company.

--Also totally "foreign" to the former administration is Obama's non-military outreach to the troubled and troublesome Muslim world. He's gonna try to get along. Been to Ankara; been to Cairo. To loud acclaim. It just might work. He's charmed the rest of the world already.

--And that's why he won the Nobel Peace Prize ... against all logic, really. But scoring not insignificant points toward his final grade. For, think about it: he's got a silver-platter platform--however willy-nilly it came to him--to talk Peace. (Just as Al Gore is similarly credentialized to talk global warming.) And the far-more-sophisticated-collectively-than-us culture of northern Europe, represented by the furry-fuzzy Scandians, think Obama can achieve it. For them, his re-starting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Talks was a very, very big step.

--For, at heart, Obama is a "community organizer," not a willing War President, in decided contrast to his gun-slinging predecessor. And he wants Us and the World to know it. This student would rather sing "ain't gonna study war no more" than a refrain from "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Despite the horrific AfPak quagmire, he's done some things--somewhat obscured by that war--symptomatic of a changed state of mind in the White House. In a complete reversal of what the last aggressivist/militarist administration would ever think of doing, Obama has

• Phased-out expensive or outdated, and hence "offensively" self-indulgent Weapons of War, like the F-22 war-plane, and other battlefield systems NOT even used or needed in the Middle-East Wars;

• Cut funding of the essentially sci-fi, Star-Wars-in-the-Sky Missile "Defense" Program by $1.4 billion for 2010;

• Ended news blackouts on full information about war casualties, and on coverage of fallen soldiers returned to Dover Air Force Base;
  

• Initiated an absolute NO-TORTURE policy, bringing us, about-time-wise, into full compliance with Geneva Convention standards;

And managed to bring this grade component close to a "C"--with only 20% to go. (more)
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#193 Obama's Freshman Year Report Card

After two semesters as President, not counting his stealing an occasional smoke in the little boys' room, here it is: Overall GPA: 2.85 = B-minus. Results certified by the accounting team of Funk and Wagnalls and delivered to my front porch in a sealed mayonnaise jar.

The kid's got a lot of potential. Brainy. Could be a straight-A student, but holding him back from the beginning is his flawed and so-far uncorrected view of what needs to be done in the Middle East, WAR-wise. This near-failing grade is offset, though, by a few achievements on the foreign policy front, and by some laudable accomplishments domestically. Further, in regard to the latter area, Mr. Obama has been allowed to take an "I" in Health-Care Reform, since the project is currently "Incomplete" and will have to be carried over to next semester. Not counted.

I. DOMESTIC POLICY 40% of Grade: 4.25 = A-plus.

--When we disallow the health-care debacle, the President gets the very highest scores for saving the American Economy. The various Stimuli worked. The Job-deficit will mend itself slowly, but meanwhile Obama created through Transportation 2500 highway projects that will eventually employ 260,000. Plus some other things. "Cash for Clunkers," for one, was a blockbuster.

--And even though comprehensive Reform is in limbo, Obama could do his Executive thing and expand Health Insurance for Children (SCHIP) to cover thousands of families in need. and an additional 4 million children.

--Education is a gainer with his $2500 tax-credit for qualified families to send their kids off to college. Authorized expansion of student loans overall.

--Women have acquired greater Socio-Economic parity with Obama-sponsored legislation to make it easier to sue their employers for wage-discrimination.

--On the Environmental front he got the (albeit weak) Cap and Trade thing through a reluctant Congress, too, which will green-up our carbon footprint a bit, though much more needs to be done. In this area also--reversing the predatory policies of Bush/Cheney--the President was able to sign into law the Omnibus PUBLIC LAND Management Act, immediately protecting an additional 2 million acres of federal lands, and, in future, more. Working on National Energy Grid to get us ultimately out of the oil business.

--Finally, Obama is rescuing Science from the Luddite idiocracy of the past administration, if only in tone. We all know the White House has taken a quantum leap in overall I.Q. scores. Symptomatic is the dramatic return of federallly-funded stem-cell research. By Executive order. No more demon-haunted restrictions on money for same. High marks here. (more)
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#189 Biggest Shock of 2009--Graft in Congress

Call it corruption, fraud, and abuse of office; or call it more specifically bribery, barratry, and simony; and also call me naive. Until this year, The BlogMan was simply unaware of the ENORMITY (in all senses) of the problem. The sad facts point to a larcenous gang of grafters and grifters in Congress taking money and making money-tainted laws. Or taking the money for NOT making laws--so much of that went on this last year--all of which profoundly threatens our democratic system of government (DM #133).The righteous amongst them, no matter the party, just can't get anything of good consequence done. The GREED that abounds is astounding.

Nothing new, of course. Back in the 14C, the etching above represents how Dante Alighieri would have dealt with corrupt politicians if he could get hold of them in the afterlife. (Or if he could in real life--his Divina Commedia wouldn't have been written if corrupt Florentine officials hadn't driven the aspiring statesman into exile.) He would give 'em a good ol' tar-and-feathering. Well, tar. That's a lake of black pitch you see above, where Dante condemns the miscreants to eternal punishment beneath the surface. Dante's got a big hate on here. One of them tries to escape, but doesn't get far. He puts these Barrators (civil graft) in Hell's 8th and next-to-deepest circle, FRAUD, along with the Simoniacs (ecclesiastical graft), and the False Counselors--all church and state officials, with differing but symbolically appropriate punishments, who suborn their positions of authority for money or power or both.

When I taught selections from the Inferno in World Lit, I made sure the students realized that the poet's various after-life punishments are allegorically tied to the sinner's crimes in earthly life. And that really they were already being punished in the here and now, conscience-wise. What better metaphor for GRAFT than black tar or pitch? The color is appropriate: political corruption is a dark and secret crime, carried on undercover in the shadows behind the scenes. And its sticky. It smudges and smears willy-nilly all involved with a blackish stain that is not easily wiped clean. And once waded into, that lake of pitch sucks you in and down forever. There's no escape. Just ask the fossils in the La Brea tar pits. Or Br'er Rabbit.

So who in Congress bears that ineradicable, pitch-black stain of GRAFT ... of corruption and fraud? Whose votes for cash threaten our democratic system? Who should be tarred and feathered and run outta town? Alas, too many. (more)
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#166 BHO and LBJ III

Our week runneth over. The President of late-nite talk, David Letterman, confesses to past sexual adventures shortly after his interview with fellow-sportsman President Clinton; President Obama recognizes the sixtieth anniversary of Red China, while ignoring the ninth anniversary of the Afghan War; college students demonstrate against that war right here in Raleigh; and several old gentlemen in Oslo, Norway try to manipulate world-affairs by giving a Swedish peace-prize to the leader of the most powerful, and lately the most bellicose, country on earth.

Will their devious plan work? I hope so, but there has been so much unexpected and disheartening "Bush-speak" coming out of the White House lately--"Troop-reduction in Afghanistan is extremely unlikely" ... "Draw-down is effectively off-the-table" etc. Whence all this uncharacteristic arrogance? ... I'd like to know.

I'll put my money on student protesters, and lately on the American people--60% are now anti-war--to turn the heads of the power-brokers in Washington. And let's hope, too, that the students make their demonstrations more than an anniversary event. At the height of the Vietnam War they were out there every day on Pennsylvania Avenue, and everywhere else across the country on a regular basis. It got deadly at Kent State U. on May 4, 1970, as the Pulitzer-Prize-winning news-photo above most famously shows. Student groups organized a huge publicity campaign calling for a national one-day boycott of classes for the very next week to commemorate the event. I was a Teaching Fellow at Vanderbilt at the time. About half the regular faculty took attendance on that day; half didn't. A small "radical" percentage made it clear that their classes were canceled. Pretty much a microcosm of the mood of the country at the time. No surprise: the student-teacher hybrids, like me, supported the boycott almost to a man and woman--we either took no attendance in our classes ... or took off altogether to the picket line.

The boiling point was reached in May 1970 because of CAMBODIA = Obama's PAKISTAN. The only real difference is that Nixon had kept his aerial incursion into a "neutral" country secret. Once he revealed the fact that the over-the-border bombing had been going on for months--in the face of all his pre- and post-election lies about "a plan to end the war"--the college campuses exploded. And so, tragically, did the Ohio National Guard, in the case above.

Look at these parallel configurations, too ominous to ignore:

THREE COUNTRIES--first Vietnam, then the invasion of Laos, then the carpet bombing of Cambodia. But the Ho Chi Min Trail with its tributaries and tunnels led everywhere, anywhere, and underwhere--analogous to the caves and crannies of Afghanistan. And the supply of people to man them grew daily, no matter how many bombs were dropped--in fact: the more bombs = the more people. Newsflash: we didn't win that war.

THREE COUNTRIES--forth and back in Iraq, to and fro in Afghanistan, and then the drone-bombing in Pakistan, which has intensified. Gen. William McCrystal, speaking for the ghost of Gen.William Westmoreland, asks for 40,000 more troops, on top of the 21,000 Obama has already deployed. Where is all this cannon-fodder destined to go? Into Pakistan, of course. That smacks of a slippery-slope fallacy, I know, but I'll let it stand. For there really is no Afghan/Pakistan "border" anyway, at least for those straddling it. Just as it was in Southeast Asia, tribal and ethnic boundaries in the Middle East are more important. In the case of Afghan/Pakistan, the fearsome Pashtuns call the vast and forbidding territory overlapping both nations their ancestral home, and they don't need no stinkin' badges.

The more combat troops, the more piloted air-strikes, the more drone-bombing--no matter--all the more virulent and widespread the insurgency will become. And all the more looking like Vietnam. Get out while you can Obama; don't give college students the opportunity make up nasty LBJ-like chants about a Nobel laureate. So uncool.
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#164 BHO and LBJ II

Yesterday, fortuitously for this post, marked the eighth anniversary of the Afghanistan War, and what did my wearied eyes behold on the local news but STUDENT PROTESTERS! Yes, there they were: earnest youngsters from the University of of North Carolina from nearby Chapel Hill on the State House grounds in Raleigh. They declaimed against our occupation of that despoiled country with picket signs and angry voices reminiscent--finally--of the Vietnam protests of long ago. Did that do my old heart good? Most would agree, in fact, that college students deserve the the credit for initially stirring up the conscience of America and getting the anti-Vietnam ball rolling. Of course they had an added incentive for protesting in those days: THE DRAFT. Selfish motives aside though, their ball would be passed to the rest of America, until virtually universal opposition to our involvement in Vietnam eventually brought it to a close. It couldn't last, after all, once the MOTHERS joined in.

In the late 60's when student-protests got under way across the nation's campuses, I was there. By that time my draft card had already by-passed the student deferment and was comfortably "3A" status--married with kid(s)--virtually impervious to induction. I was there, though, during those years on those very quads of "student unrest" as teacher and sympathetic observer and occasional TV commentator. Well, just once. Shortly after I arrived at my first full-time teaching job at a small southern college, and sporting a bit of "hippie" hair barely over my ears, I was put on the spot by a local newsman covering OUR little anti-war demonstration going on in the video background behind us: "As a teacher at this institution, what do you think of ... etc, etc?" I don't think my response ever got on the air, probably because it was far from "Bomb the Cong!" My students congratulated me, anyway. That was a good thing.

Yesterday, the Chapel Hill kids didn't directly attack Obama, giving him a pass at this point, no doubt thinking as most do that he inherited the bulk of the problem from the former administration. The picket signs were thus generic like "No More Troops!" and "Stop the War!" Sorry, but sad to say Obama's only other definitive accomplishment--besides The Stimulus (and Bush started that)--since taking office has been to expand The War. Health care, etc? Not yet. But lots of blood. (See my "Report Card" posts and earlier.) He's got his own record now to answer for.

No My Lai massacre yet, though, you say. Perhaps not the March '68 premeditated murder pictured above right, but not far from it. Aye, there's the rub--Obama's massacre's are "far from it." Conducted from far above in piloted air-strikes, or from far away on a remote-control, robot-missile computer-screen in New Mexico, the killing of innocent civilians has gone on unabated since Inauguration Day. Here's what was discovered last May:

... the bodies of dozens, perhaps well over a hundred, women, children and men , their corpses blown to bits of human flesh by iron fragmentation bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes in a village in the western province of Farah ... Afghan survivors carted some two dozen corpses from their villages to the provincial capital in trucks this week to publicly denounce the carnage. [Chris Hedges, Truthdig 5/11, via Red Cross reports]

This "My Lai" happened BEFORE the President sent in his fresh 21,000 troops to do even more killing. And more accompanying air-strikes. And more robot-bombs for Pakistan.

Ell-Bee-Jay, Ell-Bee-Jay ... How many kids have you killed today?
Ell-Bee-Jay, Ell-Bee-Jay ... How many kids have you killed today?
(Repeat, repeat, repeat ..............)

The students drove LBJ crazy with that one ... and out of office. Hasn't come to that point yet for BHO, but it might. He's weighing his options as I write. A wrong decision might conceivably result in Bee-Aytch-Oh, Bee-Aytch-Oh ... Don't kill no kids no mo'! OR, Obama, Obama ... Please don't murder their mama! OR, maybe the students will come up with something better. (more)
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#142 Health-Care Reform, the Post Office, and Me

The Blogman must take umbrage--nay, extreme umbrage--at the aspersions cast upon our U.S. Postal Service by GOPers, Blue Doggers, Tea-Baggers, and other rump-fed runnions* bent on denying Americans proper health care. Aroint thee, fat-rump baggage--health care is one thing, but "hands-off" MY U.S. mail bag. That would be my picket sign. For I was a "mail-bagger" once. During one Christmas season long, long ago.

And it was by far the hardest and honestest job I ever had. And the biggest hourly-rate of pay, up to that time. It was Christmas break from my 1962-63 sophomore year at Kalamazoo College. Having taken the civil-service exam in the fall, I became an auxiliary mail-carrier assigned to several routes in our Chicago suburb of Lombard for the three-week rush and volume, mailwise, in and around the big Dec. 25th holiday. And we were true mail-CARRIERS back then--big leather pouch and all--none of those cute little putt-putt Good Humor vans in those days (only for parcel-post). Delivering overflow cards and letters, us temps trudged our appointed rounds faithfully, despite the drifting snow (neither rain nor sleet ...), and got the mail through. It really was a White Christmas the whole time--not unusual for the "lake-effect" Chicago area. Satisfying work, and nobody "went postal"... as far as I know.

So I take these indirect slurs on our postal service personally. Gimme just 5 minutes with John Boehner, please. (*Shakespeare's runnion is a "boner"= male-member, by the way.) The Senate Minority Leader and his minions have slandered the good name of our USPS by way of false analogy and invidious comparison. Asks Boehner: "Would you want our health-care system run by the Post Office, or the DMV?"--thinking it a rhetorical question. As to the former ... hell yes, and I'll get to that in a minute. (Notice though , as mentioned in last post, these folk don't dare point to the V.A., where we have an actual government-run, indeed "socialized," health-care program at work, and working.) As for the DMV whipping-boy, they know this is dishonest ... a TV sit-com cliche'. DMV's are state-run, not federal. Some states are efficient, some not. Inevitably, though, it works--you will always walk out with a license plate, or get a renewal sticker in--you guessed it--THE MAIL.

It's self-defeating, I hope, for those rump-fed, graft-bloated politicians (DM #133) to compare the workings of our postal service to what might happen in a government-run health-care program--e.g. the Public Option. For most thinking people unthinkingly take for granted that their cards and letters are going to get where they send them. Some of us may experience inconvenient clogs at holiday-times, like Christmas, but otherwise, generations of Americans have counted on the non-profit institution as a model of inexpensive efficiency. Put a 37-cent U.S. stamp on your birthday card to Grandma, slip it in the mailbox, and it arrives at her house the very next day. Two days at the most, anywhere in the country. If she lives in Hong Kong, plan on 6-10 days for only 98 cents (I looked it up). Still ... a marvel. And I don't even have to mention the wonderful world of Netflix.

Our government gets a goodly number of good things right, and everything doesn't have make a profit to be good. A very few things are too important to be left to the vagaries of private enterprise. Health care is one of them.
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#139 Universal Health Care--A Morning Danish

I'll get back to more Reform nuts and bolts "directly" (my old Grandaddy's favorite Southern contranym for "whenever"), but in the interim let's take a trip to one of those rosy-cheeked countries with universal health care, mentioned in last post. It's relevant. First of all, though, it shouldn't come as a shock that these first-worlders all placed at the top of the "Happiest Nations" lists. AS USUAL, I might add--Forbes, Business Week, and others do these surveys every year. Canada always scores in the top ten, which is otherwise dominated by Northern and Scandinavian Europe. This year Denmark ranked #1 again in several polls. (FYI: the USA is forever down in the 20's.)

"Do you know why there are so many SMILES on these Danish faces that you are seeing?"--she asked, at one point on our itinerary. Our tour-guide's question came up on one leg of my early 70's journey "retracing" Beowulf's journey from Sweden (another happy "top-tenner") to Denmark after Grendel's first lethal attack on King Hrothgar's mead-hall, Heorot. Subject of my Ph.D. dissertation, the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf is fictional, but the geography is fact. And fun. Bear with me. I shipped out from the English port of Hull, in East Anglia (where I contend the poem was written), on an overnight Swedish casino-boat, and landed across the cold North Sea (even in spring) at Goteborg--note first element Gote="Geat." Beowulf was a Geat/Swede. I was in the hero's tribal "home town" in the area still known as VesterGOTland.

Unable to procure a pre-Viking-age long-boat for the voyage to Denmark's Roskilde Fjord and Heorot, as Beowulf would have done, I enjoyed instead a Swedish holiday in what seemed to be the cleanest city on the planet, and took an overnight boat-train to Copenhagen. Touristic stuff ensued. Then the morning bus trip to the ancient town of Roskilde--first element Ros="Hrothgar's"--on Zeeland's west coast. It is still a "holy city"--all the later Danish kings are buried in the cathedral there. And the poem's Heorot Hall is still there too ... sort of. Only now, not far up the headlands from the fjord, an impregnable medieval-masonry castle occupies forever the hill-top site of the perishable wood-built long-gone dark-age long-building that Beowulf would have visited. Still exhilarating, however.

But back to our Danish tour-guide. Not a "melancholy Dane," by any means, she reminded me of an ebullient Kathleen Freeman, recently-deceased character-actress of hundreds of films, perhaps most familiarly to Myriad Readers as the "mission-from-God" sister/nun, aka The Penguin, in the Blues Brothers movie. Like the actress, our tour-guide was truly a "character." And like Freeman too, she was a stocky/Nordic/muscular type--no doubt from gripping those aisle-side seat hand-holds as she faced and lectured her seated passengers, and standing steady against the sway and jostle of the moving bus. She may have been on some sort of "mission" herself. A diplomatic one perhaps. Anyway, the somewhat stilted-English ANSWER to her own question about smiling Danes was actually quite smart, had a peculiar twist, and was eminently unforgettable. It went something like this:

You see the smiles on all the Danish faces because of two things. We are happy because our wonderful Danish pigs have an extra rib--Did you know that?--which makes the pig longer in the body, and having more meat makes our hams taste much better.

And what else? We are also smiling all the time because of our Danish Welfare State. We are happy that from the time we are born we are taken care of in our health and well-being. We don't have to worry about those things, so we are always having a smile on our face.

So help me. I remember the exact words, "Welfare State," above all because I thought to myself at the time: Whoa--did she mean to put it quite that way? That's got some pretty negative connotations in English and in the USA. Okay, maybe in Danish the equivalent is a little more euphemistic. On the other hand, so what? She was so proud of it. In whatever language, Can she teach us maybe that government looking out for the "welfare" of its citizens in this most important area is not such a bad thing? One thing you can't argue with her about, though: Danish hams.
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#95 The Bailout--pt. 3: "What, Me Worry?"

The Mad Magazine motto worked itself out pretty nicely over the last couple of days, with record gains on the NYSE from the jumping-out-of-windows mark to the coming-in-off-the-ledge levels of moderate loss. It simply WAS to be that way, and hence forward for the next couple of years--no, no ... not soon enough, ye gods forfend, to infect the upcoming election day with any kind of McCain/Palin/Republican resurgency and turn the tide for them--as the Economy stabilizes. As it will, if only because echoing in the back of everybody's mind is the refrain, "the Democrats are coming ... the Democrats are coming." They'll fix IT, just like F.D.R. and Bill Clinton did. It's a 99% placebo effect, I'm convinced. Because nobody really knows for sure how to get a grip on this Protean/Procrustean monster.

Except Alfred E. Newman, and his school (see #92). Print lots of money; lend it to almost anybody. Treas. Sec. Paulson's now even shipping it overseas. And, as I predicted, it's working. (But please don't BUY anything, Henry. Way too far from free-market principles for me. Usury, OK. Outright purchase, no-no. Let the banks use the loan-money to buy back bad assets from themselves, if need be. They need the practice.) Of course this exaggerates 20th C. liberal economics, which was the the other side of my liberal education in the field. Sherill Cleland (see last post) in his Econ 101 class at K-College was the purveyor (indeed actor, in a minute) of the Pump-up-the-economy-when-necessary-with-federal-funds Theory. He had the aid of still-one-of-my-favorite books, Heilbruner's The Worldly Philosophers, still-in-classroom-use in later editions, I'm sure, across the known world. The text, as I recall, took us through the preliminaries and up to classical Adam Smith and Parson Malthus (Darwin's and Aldous Huxley's favorite), then ultimately to Marx and J.M. Keynes and the economic activists. In fact, there seemed to be a kind of Darwinian agenda to the book, as if really all that went on before was leading inevitably to Keynesian Economics (I don't know about later editions, where Friedman and his conservative ilk might come into play). And I was sold, just as I been on the tee-total free-marketers in H.S. Civics.

These were the Kennedy-Johnson years, after all, where the Keynsian J.K. Galbraith held sway at almost cabinet level, and where Dr. Cleland his-very-self was called upon by the that administration to help pump some good-will American money into several Latin American countries on the edge of what we're facing now. (He took a leave of absence as a kind of financial ambassador for several years shortly after I luckily had my class with him, and didn't return until after I graduated.) But that's basically the theory: modulate and moderate and even preempt the ups and downs of the economy with a "liberal" flow of funds from the government treasury.

What the heck: I swing back and forth in a bi-fiduciary kind of way, man. Let the ghosts of Adam Smith and Fred Hayek hover over a REGULATED (some of what's been going on smacks of simple fraud) Free Market most of the time. But when it's in extremis, as it is now, boogie down with a dose of Marx and Galbraith, and let the Monopoly money flow. Alfred E. Newman would approve.
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#94 The Bailout Again--Two Views for the Price of One

I'm a Libertarian ... (slap!) ... No, a Liberal ... (slap!) ... Libertarian ... (slap!) ... Liberal ... (slap!) ... OK, I'm her mother AND her sister, Mr. Gittes. Please stop.

At least as regards Political Economy, I've always been a bit schizoid, even polarized. It all started I think with two charismatic academics from opposite sides of the Dismal-Science fence when I was right around college-entrance age. Our teacher for 12th-grade Honors Civics was Mr. Tip-Of-My-Tongue, a rabid anti-communist in bow-tie, pin-stripes, and wing-tips--a very dapper, graying-at-the-temples fellow--with an M.A. Unusual for a high-school teacher at the time, but I'm sure it was in History and not an M.B.A., because otherwise he would have been out earning a living in the real world, and not wasting his ideological fervor on us kids. I guess.

A couple of books, classics, as I was later to learn, stand out for me in that class: Sociologist David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd (with its "tradition-, inner-, and other-directed" business) and Economist Friedrich Hayek's Road to Serfdom. The latter, along with co-conspirator Mr. TOMT, convinced me that any government involvement WHATSOEVER in The Economy would lead us to the salt mines of Siberia. Tax a piece of candy, and pretty soon the State would be telling you What Flavor, and soon be interfering in other areas of your political life, until ultimately getting right in between your bedsheets, and generally violating your moral privacy all-to-hell. Now that I've for sure mis-characterized him sufficiently--it was a rather slippery-slopery argument in retrospect (thus prima facie fallacious), but also classically Adam Smithian premise-wise, whose "invisible hand" laissez-faire-ism had a clean, simplistic appeal to an economically blank-slate senior in high school. Thus you could say that I was a sociologically tradition-directed and economically inner-directed upon graduation. Pretty much.

But that lasted for only a couple of years, until I took Econ 101 at Kalamazoo College from Dr. Sherill Cleland, a rabid Keynesian in bow-tie, pin-stripes, and wing-tips--a very dapper fellow, but too young for graying temples at that time. What is it about bow-ties and Economists?--but they couldn't have been more wildly apart on Economic Theory.

But more of this later. Must check on the NYSE, which at this very moment is setting sales records (upwards), and may, in so doing, prove my point while increasing my portfolio ... as if I had one anymore.
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#58 VP-DNA Again--Joe Biden and Me

OK, here's the very indirect connection, though not a trivial one: in my English classes Sen. Biden was for many years the "poster child" and ultimate example of the terrible consequences of PLAGIARISM. It killed his 1988 Presidential run. "Listen," I'd say to my students in the obligatory annual briefing on the subject, "you gotta take this thing seriously [or some such]--it toppled a President"...a wannabe, anyway. The point is, I told them, not only is plagiarism wrong in principle, but it's in your self-interest to avoid it because of possible repercussions in future. Look, it followed Joe Biden even onto the national political stage. It's gonna be "on your record"--those terrible and despised words.

So it was for Biden in '88, unfortunately, and so it will be today. Interestingly, the alarm sounded for him early on, but he didn't seem to hear. He had to take an "F" in a law-school course for plagiarizing. and yet later in his run for President he went right ahead and stole a speech from a British MP...and a couple more from the then-late RFK!--only attributed several days later. (Did no one on his team suspect that just about anyone in the audience was bound to remember this democratic icon's speeches?) And I don't mean just ideas re-worded (which, believe me, far too many of my old students thought was OK)--we're talking near verbatim thievery. I've read the stuff in question.

Furthermore, as my favorite political website, CrooksAndLiars.com, would have it (by implication), a true POL must be possessed of BOTH kinds of dishonesty, brewing a perfect storm of larceny AND mendacity. Biden passes the test. Plagiarism makes him a crook. And another incident or two from the '88 campaign makes him a liar. This time call it "resume-padding." Baffling...that a hyper-public figure like Biden could think he could get away with fact-fudging, even 20 years ago. But lie he did about his class rank, scholarship status, and degrees. All of this may seem "academic" (ha), but it forced him to withdraw. (Or could it have been those laughable hair-plugs that were barely growing in at the time?)

Now, 20 years later, mark my words, it'll all come back to dog him once again. He dodged the bullet in the primaries because they were just...primaries, and he was so far out of the running anyway. Now, he could be "a heart-beat from the Presidency." Do we want a person in that position who is capable of glibly engaging in petty theft and of blithely distorting the facts? I'm being much too hard on him, I know. Well, I shouldn't have to be, per last post. Yes, all this was two decades ago, and some sort of unofficial statute of limitations should be in effect. Or "time served," if you will. But would-be VP Joe Biden will again be fielding these old questions, and he can't simply withdraw from THIS horse race--he'll have to come up with some persuasive answers. Alas, if he'd only paid closer attention to his college English professor.
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#55 Mosteller Plantation--pt. 3: The Trek North...and South Again

About a half-mile up from Mosteller Millstream (the only official, map-worthy landmark bearing the ancient name these days) is the wooded, but not overgrown, family plot. Off-property now and maintained by a local church, the cemetery's last graves date from the turn of the century. One prominent headstone stands out...or actually down, now. Though toppled, the six-footer vaingloriously marks the grave of the long-lived, post-civil-war patriarch, Berryman Mosteller, true country squire and sirer of seven sons, whose progeny in turn descends to me and mine.

His great-great-etc. grandson, Andrew, decided that he would rather tinker with a newfangled invention--the motorcar--than to be chief Miller on the old homestead. So, after a few months at Henry Ford's "university" in Detroit (the family's first foray into Yankee territory), he returned to Adairsville to pick up his young wife and son (the future Dr. J.D. Sr.) and move even farther south to Florida to grow a few oranges and open the Mosteller Garage. My grandfather was eccentrically loyal to his nominal mentor, driving a Model "A" Ford he called "Horace" (always well-tuned of course) until its "death," and shortly before his. (His second-only-and-last car?--a Studebaker! of all things)

Alas, though the Garage still stands in Mt.Dora (near Orlando), it became a victim of the Crash of '29...thus failing--family-business-wise--to become a successor to the century-old successfullness of the Mosteller Plantation and its subsequent incarnations. Andrew's three sons (we are specialists in the male-offspring department) had to look elsewhere for honest employment. The scion, James Donovan Mosteller, (after an M.A. in ENGLISH [!] and Chair of the Dept. at Oglethorpe College in Atlanta) found his way north (repeating long-term his father's brief trek) with young-wife-Iris and toddler-Junior to the University of Chicago. This is how we wound up in OBAMALAND, and he as Dean of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard IL for many years, and I as Kalamazoo College alumnus.

But I guess the lure of gentle climes and mint-julep dreams (oh my) was too much for us. My father ended his career as Full Professor at New Orleans Baptist Seminary, after also serving as Dean and Acting President over his years there. I came back south to get a Vanderbilt Ph.D. and ended MY career as Full Professor of English (and quondam Chair) at Coker College in Hartsville SC. And here am I in Raleigh with some of my grandkids nearby. My oh my. "One never know...do one"--as Fats Waller used to say. However, Myriad Readers, you can be sure that I'll keep you updated on the Mosteller clan, ad nauseum. But this is all the memoirage you can take, for now.
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#40 Obama and Me

No...never met him, but there are some socio-politico-geographico-anthropologico-educational connections that you may find interesting...or not. As I mentioned in last post, there's the Chicago connection, which runs deep, if not inter-personally so. Here's how it works. After being kidnapped by my own mother and father from my toddlin' town (I was two-ish) in our native Georgia, USA, I was rudely transported (I had to leave my pet chickens) to another toddlin' town a.k.a. Chicago, USA, just blocks away from Hyde Park central and the University of Chicago--Barack Obama's latter-day living and husting-grounds. Soon-to-be-Dr. J.D. Senior had gotten a graduate scholarship of some sort at U of C's Divinity School. Obama was to end up there as long-term Lecturer in the School of Law after his degree at Harvard, where he entered just a year after I did a post-doc N.E.H. Summer Seminar there, and where we both met...Kevin Bacon. But getting back to Chi-town, we settled in what was called the South Shore (and even more pin-pointedly, the South Shore "Gardens" section of the South Shore--Chicago has been accurately called a City of Villages), which would become part of Obama's Illinois-state-legislative district, and in turn the launching ground for his elective-office career.

In my early years, these residential areas of Chicago were truly garden-like: classy two-story bungalow-type homes, upscale three-and-six-flat apartments (where we first lived), lovely parks and schools, and only a bike-ride (see earlier post) from beautiful Lake Michigan beaches. And totally de facto SEGREGATED. (Before "white flight," blacks populated areas for-the-most-part north and west of the Hyde Park hub; now, virtually all of the south-side.) In fact, I was present on THE VERY DAY that the very first sit-down protest was held (one summer Saturday in '55 or '56--I'd have to research the exact date, which I'm sure Obama would know) at Rainbow Beach, 75th St. south and lake-front. (I have no doubt that these were inspired/sponsored by the liberal folk up the road in the integrated U of C/Hyde Park neighborhood--folk he would join later on his road to the White House.) We were just kids, and watched in wonder from the sidelines while, as I remember it, some of Chicago's Finest engaged in pleasant conversation with the young black couples in attendance. Brave folks. But this WAS the beginning: every single Saturday that summer they were back there, and subsequently sitting-in at every shoreline beach and park in Chicagoland, until all were integrated. It would have done Obama proud, if he had been born yet.

That would happen somewhat later near another lovely, fully-integregated, newly-American beachfront property called HAWAII. And, as you are doubtless aware, this is one reason that some of his detractors, black and white, say he isn't really "black enough." That, along with the fact of his mixed parentage, Kenyan (unlinked-to-American-slavery-heritage) father, virtually "foreign" and fairly privileged upbringing, etc. Well...eyewash to all that. I'm reminded of a great Chris Rock line from a stand-up performance that goes something like this: "I'm black...but I'm also RICH. I can get almost anything money can buy for me and my family--homes, yachts, travel, you name it. But not a single one of you white men in this audience would trade places with me, would you." And he's right: the built-in burden of blackdom in America is just too daunting for even the bravest among us, unless we're born to it. All this is nothing new, and I wouldn't harp on it, if it didn't touch me personally in another way. You see, Obama in the strictest sense is NOT BLACK at all...more of a bronze, or burnished-brown coppery color, if you will. Much like my 4th son, who, coincidentally, bears a vague resemblance to the Presidential candidate. They both are from mixed parentage. One male, one female...(drum riff). No, from mixed African and Caucasion stock, but with the parental genders switched. My son is more white than black genetically, however, and thus most accurately and ironically reflects America's tragic slave-holding past: he was born with blue eyes, though they're getting darker-greener with age.... Understand? (If not, go back to your Mendel.) He and Obama are truly African-American in a way that transcends the political/nationalistic sense of the term in current usage. They're not black or white, but BI-racial, MULTI-racial, not one or the other. So why should they have to CHOOSE between one or the other? One CULTURE over another? I don't know. Well, maybe I do. We just haven't quite GOT it yet. Globalization has to start at home.

Not so very long ago, Obama and my son would have been called--yes--mulattos, and NOT ONLY by white society. It's that "one drop [of blood] theory" that was actually de jure (Jim Crow laws) in the South and pretty much de facto everywhere else in America. (And, by the way, unforgettably dramatized in a tragi-comic paint-bucket episode in Ralph Ellison's novel, Invisible Man.) Thus beginning at half-breed and then on a sliding scale from black to white, but never quite, you had the verbal monstrosities of quadroon, octoroon ("high yaller"), even unto hexadecaroon--all, however, translated "Negro." "Zero tolerance," as it were. I'm afraid this artificial racial divide is still with us. Why has Obama lagged behind (by almost 20 points) the popular approval of the Democratic party as a whole in this election year? Maybe I've already answered that question. More of this later.
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