Lexicon Daily

Do we really want poor women to pump out more unwanted children? Really?

2012-02-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

The religious right has been up in arms for the past couple of months because they claim that the Obama administration's decision on prescription birth control, which requires most employers who provide health insurance to include free prescription birth control, is an affront to their religious beliefs, particularly to the Catholic Church's stupid opposition to artificial birth control methods.

But what has been under-reported--especially by news outlets unfriendly to this president--is that there is nothing new in the Obama policy from existing policies, other than that prescriptions for birth control must be free to the patient. For the last 12 years, federal rules have required most employers to include coverage of birth control methods.

Here is what NPR reported, this morning:

The only truly novel part of the plan is the "no cost" bit. The rule would mean, for the first time, that women won't have to pay a deductible or copayment to get prescription contraceptives.

Even though this policy is nothing new, it is fair to ask if it passes constitutional muster.

"Now millions more women and families are going to have access to essential health care coverage at a cost that they can afford," says Sarah Lipton-Lubet, policy counsel with the ACLU. "But as a legal matter, a constitutional matter, it's completely unremarkable."

In fact, employers have pretty much been required to provide contraceptive coverage as part of their health plans since December 2000. That's when the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that failure to provide such coverage violates the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act. That law is, in turn, an amendment to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlaws, among other things, discrimination based on gender.

Here's how the EEOC put it at the time: "The Commission concludes that Respondents' exclusion of prescription contraceptives violates Title VII, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, whether the contraceptives are used for birth control or for other medical purposes."

California is one of many states which has had a birth control requirement for years.

More than half the states have similar "contraceptive equity" laws on the books, many with religious exceptions similar or identical to the one included in the administration's regulation. That's no accident. "The HHS rule was modeled on the exceptions in several state laws, including California, New York and Oregon," says Lipton-Lubet of the ACLU.

While the state courts have consistently ruled in favor of this type of law, the Supreme Court of the United States will probably end the argument one way or the other:

There are now lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the policy, including a new one filed on behalf of the religious television network EWTN. But the exemptions have already been tested in court, at least at the state level. In 2004, the California Supreme Court upheld that state's law, in a suit brought by Catholic Charities, on a vote of 6-1. The court ruled that Catholic Charities didn't qualify as a "religious employer" because it didn't meet each of four key criteria (which, by the way, are the same as those in the new federal regulation):

● The organization's primary purpose is "the inculcation of religious values.
● It primarily employs people of that religion.
● It primarily serves people of that religion.
● It's a registered nonprofit organization.

Churches are exempt under the four rules, but not all church-affiliated groups are:

... in 2006, New York's top state court rejected a claim by Catholic Charities and several other religious groups that the state's contraceptive coverage law discriminated against them because it exempted churches but not their religiously affiliated groups. "When a religious organization chooses to hire nonbelievers, it must, at least to some degree, be prepared to accept neutral regulations imposed to protect those employees' legitimate interests in doing what their own beliefs permit," the justices wrote.

A reasonable argument could be made that the government should not require insurers to sell or employers to buy policies which charge this or that or nothing for a certain medication or a certain treatment. In other words, an argument can be made against the government interferring in a question of price. But no one arguing against "free birth control" is making that case. They appear to be making the false claim that this is some new war against the Catholic Church by Mr. Obama, when nothing has changed for the Church.

One thing I think all reasonable people can agree on--I am not counting any of the religious right in the reasonable category--is that poor people and our country at large are not better off having poor women give birth to children they don't want to have and that they will do a lousy job raising. Better and cheaper birth control for them will prevent unwanted births among women who cannot now afford the cost of prescribed birth control and it will reduce the demand for abortions.

Venezuela: Lots of beautiful women; one ugly dictatorship

2012-02-07T09:48:00.000-08:00

NPR had a story this morning about the opponents of Hugo Chávez coming together to put up a single candidate to face the dictator in October's scheduled presidential election.

The opposition to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has tried everything to end his long rule: huge protests, a coup and an oil strike. Nothing has worked, but now opposition leaders have coalesced into a united and focused movement that is preparing to choose one candidate to run against the president, posing the strongest electoral challenge to Chávez's populist rule.

If an autocrat is popular, as Chávez was in 2006 when oil prices were skyrocketing, and he was able to buy off the electorate, he can hold an honest poll, albeit one where Hugo controls the media, he controls the message, and he employs the people who will count the votes.

This year, with inflation up and employment down, Chávez is less popular. But with all the power in his hands, he will again win election, even if he needs to cheat to do so.

Venezuela is a country of stark contrasts: rich and poor; good and evil; ugly and beautiful. More than in any country on earth, good looks mean a lot to the Venezuelan people.

Since 1979, a Miss Venezuela has gone on to win the Miss Universe title 6 times. Many others have finished in the top 3. Six wins is more than any other country over that period. Perhaps the distinction is not a true measure of how many beautiful women Venezuela has. But certainly it shows how important pageants are to the Venezuelans.

Maritza Sayalero of Caracas won the global beauty prize 33 years ago. She was Venezuela's first Miss Universe. Since that time, no one from large countries like Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Spain, Japan or China has put on the Miss Universe crown. Yet five more Venezuelans have. The only country to come close is little Puerto Rico with four champions. The U.S. has had three since Miss Sayalero took the tiara.

A recent article in OPEN Magazine (from India) explains "How they do it in Venezuela":

(Venezuela) has won 17 beauty queen titles over the past 30 years. News reports there insist that the annual Miss Venezuela pageant is often the most watched TV show on the day it airs, and most girls grow up dreaming of the crown. For a Miss Venezuela aspirant, such ambitions could start at the tender age of 13, when her parents gift the pre-adolescent girl her first cosmetic makeover. Or even at age 7, when she is enrolled at a beauty academy, where she will be taught the difference between a high street bag and a Chanel one, and where she will learn that the only fork she needs to use is the salad one. Breast implants, nose jobs and tummy tucks typically come a little later—post adolescence, for that is when they are rather more effective. ...

Once a girl is chosen to compete in the Miss Venezuela contest, the drill gets stricter still. Under the guidance of Osmel Sousa, president of the Miss Venezuela Organization, the first step involves taking stock of the girl’s flaws, and then getting down to fixing them. This includes using hair stylists, make-up artists, physical trainers, speech and acting coaches, dental surgeons and dance and walking instructors. Plastic surgeons use their scalpel on whatever cannot be moulded through diet and exercise. And though most Venezuelan beauty contestants are tightlipped about the work done on them, Sousa had famously remarked in 2008, “This isn’t a nature contest. It’s a beauty contest, and science exists to help perfect beauty. There is nothing wrong with that.”

Yet for all that success in the world of pulchritude, Venezuela has one ugly government. In 1999, when Hugo Chávez won the presidency of his country in a free and fair election, Venezuela was a democracy. But Chávez is no democrat. In the last 13 years, a few weeks of which he was out of power during a failed coup, he has turned his country into a socialist police state, with all the power in his own beastly hands.

It is true that Venezuela still has elections. Saddam Hussein's Iraq held elections, too. The votes in Venezuela no longer matter. If the autocrat cannot win an honest vote, he can cheat and no one can stop him:

Certainly "elections" can't be expected to matter much. Mr. Chávez now controls the entire electoral process, from voter rolls to tallying totals after the polls have closed. Under enormous public pressure he accepted defeat in his 2007 bid for constitutional reforms designed to make him president for life. But so what? That loss allowed him to maintain the guise of democracy, and now he has decided that there will be another referendum on the same question in February. Presumably Venezuela will repeat this exercise until the right answer is produced.

All police states hold "elections." But they also specialize in combining the state's monopoly use of force with a monopoly in economic power and information control. Together these three weapons easily quash dissent. Venezuela is a prime example.

In a fashion not too different from how Moammar Ghaddafi concentrated power in his own hands in Libya, Chávez has given titles only to sycophants whose ultimate loyalty is to him. Ten years ago, Lt. Colonel Chávez purged all officers above the rank of second lieutenant from his armed forces. He has replaced all of them with lackeys loyal to him. Those men have subsequently become his eyes and ears in every government agency, every ministry, every courthouse. If anyone speaks his mind against the president, Chávez will find out and eliminate him.

The Venezuelan government is now a military government. Mr. Chávez purged the armed forces leadership in 2002 and replaced fired officers with those loyal to his socialist cause. Like their counterparts in Cuba, these elevated comandantes are well compensated. Lack of transparency makes it impossible to know just how much they get paid for their loyalty, but it is safe to say that they have not been left out of the oil fiesta that compliant chavistas have enjoyed over the past decade. Even if the resource pool shrinks this year, neither their importance nor their rewards are likely to diminish.

Mr. Chávez has also taken over the Metropolitan Police in Caracas, imported Cuban intelligence agents, and armed his own Bolivarian militias, whose job it is to act as neighborhood enforcers. Should Venezuelans decide that they are tired of one-man rule, chavismo has enough weapons on hand to convince them otherwise.

The way Hugo Chávez controls the message in his country--there is no freedom of the press and no more freedom of thought in the country's educational system--is Orwellian. Chávez as Big Brother is on TV all day for many days. His words loom over the public, workers and school children. They have mass rallies spreading the Chavismo thoughts. Chávez learned propaganda from his socialist forebearers: Mao, Kim, Stalin.

One measure that Mr. Chávez relies on heavily is control of the narrative. In government schools children are indoctrinated in Bolivarian thought. Meanwhile the state has stripped the media of its independence and now dominates all free television in the country. This allows the government to marinate the poor in Mr. Chávez's antimarket dogma. His captive audiences are told repeatedly that hardship of every sort -- including headline inflation of 31% last year -- is the result of profit makers, middlemen and consumerism.

The Orwellian screen is also used to stir up nationalist sentiment against foreign devils, like the U.S., Colombia and Israel. The audience has witnessed violence in Gaza through the lens of Hamas, and last week Mr. Chávez made a show of expelling the Israeli ambassador from Caracas.

The only group able to stand up to the Chávez dictatorship has been the owners of private businesses. However, Chávez has moved hard to cripple that opposition:

The most effective police-state tool remains Mr. Chávez's control over the economy. The state freely expropriates whatever it wants -- a shopping center in Caracas is Mr. Chávez's latest announced taking -- and economic freedom is dead. Moreover, the state has imposed strict capital controls, making saving or trading in hard currency impossible. Analysts are predicting another large devaluation of the bolivar in the not-too-distant future. The private sector has been wiped out, except for those who have thrown in their lot with the tyrant.

I am not counting on it, but perhaps the only chance the people of Venezuela will have to get rid of their dictator is if he dies in the next few years from cancer. Barring that, Chavismo as a force of ugliness will live on.

Where will Syria be one year from now?

2012-02-06T16:48:00.000-08:00

The way non-fans will often watch a major sporting event on TV, I am following the anti-Assad uprising in Syria: at a distance, not really paying attention to the plays as they take place on the field, but tuning in now and then for the occassional highlight on replay.

Due to the fact that the Alawite dominated dictatorship in Damascus brutalized its people from 1970-2000, when Hafez al-Assad was in charge, and it has continued to do so since Bashar al-Assad replaced his father 12 years ago, I am rooting for the rebels.

But there is reason to think that if the Alawites, who are a minority religious sect related to the Shiites, fall, the replacement government will be dominated by Sunni radical Islamists with views in line with Al-Qaeda and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. They might prove a greater danger to the outside world than the murderous man now on the throne.

Part of the reason why Sunni Islamists are likely to win power with the fall of the Alawites is that this rebellion, which came in the wake of the Arab Spring, is not so much one about liberation or economic freedom or civil rights for the oppressed or women's rights or a generation of young people raised on Twitter and Facebook who want the material goods they see that youths have in foreign lands. This conflict, war if you will, is sectarian. It is Sunni versus Shiite (albeit the Alawite version of Shi'a Islam).

The Sunnis make up 74 percent of the Syrian population. The Alawites, who have lorded over the Sunnis for more than 40 years, are less than 10 percent of Syria's people. In a sectarian sense, Ba'athist Syria is a reverse of Ba'athist Iraq, where Saddam Hussein's Sunni clan was a small relgious minority that dominated the much large Shiite majority. When Iraq finally had free elections after the United States ousted Saddam, the minority Sunni Arabs of Iraq came to realize that their country had a lot more Shiites than they had thought, and they learned what it was like to be an oppressed minority.

The traditional leadership of the Syrian Sunnis has been its religious clerics, the imams and the mullahs. They were the people who directed the uprising in 1982. Most of them pine for a theocratic government.

Hafez al-Assad ordered the murder of tens of thousands of Sunnis in the Hama Massacre, because he knew that his personal power could not last if the Sunnis across Syria, organized by religious leaders, stood as one against him and his fellow Alawites.

The question now on my mind is this: Where will Syria be one year from now?

Every day there are stories in the news about mass protests. Every day there are stories in the news about the rebellion forming its own army. Every day there are stories in the news about the geographic growth of the anti-Assad movement. Yet every day there are stories in the news about dozens or hundreds of "protesters" being shot and killed.

The LA Times, for example, is reporting that Mr. Assad bombed a medical clinic today in the city of Homs, killing 24 or more:

REPORTING FROM BEIRUT -- Opposition activists said Monday that the Syrian military bombarded the central city of Homs, hitting a makeshift clinic and killing at least two dozen people.

Amateur video from Homs purported to show a field clinic overwhelmed with wounded and dead, while an irate doctor blamed Russia and China for the shelling. The comment was a reference to the two superpowers' veto Saturday of a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have backed an Arab League plan calling for Syrian President Bashar Assad to relinquish power.

"The situation is dramatic: We are escaping from one side of the neighborhood to the other," said an opposition activist reached in Homs, adding that casualties included staff at the makeshift clinic in the Baba Amro district. "We are just putting the wounded in homes and just trying, without success, to stop the bleeding. We cannot put in stitches or do operations." ...

The opposition reported more than 200 killed in Homs during a weekend military bombardment of the Khaldiya neighborhood. The government denied the charges, accusing the opposition of fabricating the report and declaring that terrorists were attacking the city.

This chaos cannot last forever. At some point the government falls or Assad takes away the will of anyone to stand up against him. At some point there is a key battle or a key defection. At some point things become stable again.

My best guess is that Bashar al-Assad will still be in power come February, 2012, though I don't think the rebellion will have lost its will yet. Here is the basis for my calculus:

Assad has powerful friends outside of Syria who will sustain him. It's not just the Russians, who are supplying him with arms, or the Chinese, who are feeding him cash, it is his strong alliance with the Shiite crazies in Iran, who will back him to the last man. Assad also has a strong external alliances with Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist groups, which never lack the will to do evil. The government of Syria has no compunction to not murder and torture the people of Syria--in the name of staying in power.

With the money and material Assad is getting from the outside to bolster his regime, his Alawite faithful have nowhere else to go. If Bashar falls from power, ordinary Alawites know they will lose everything: their positions, their homes, their freedom, their lives. The average Alawite has very good reason to fear a Sunni Islamist takeover. They do not expect Assad's fall will result in free elections. They expect that will result in a reign of terror directed against them, even worse than the terror they have imposed on their countrymen.

The two wild cards, which could prove my guess about Syria's future wrong, are these:

1. Perhaps the Sunni rebels will get more outside support of their own. (I am not sure if they are getting much, now. Egypt might just have a Sunni Islamist government before too long. Egyptian Sunnis could sends guns and money. Maybe the Saudis will send material support to their Sunni brethren. Maybe al-Qaeda forces will join the fight. If the 74 percent majority of Syrians are well financed, armed, trained and organized, they could oust Assad; and

2. If more and more members of the Syrian armed forces switch sides, Assad might fall from within. While it is true that almost all of Assad's top generals are Alawites, as are his top political allies, there are secular Sunnis (including Kurds) in his army leadership, and a few of them have defected to what is now called the Free Syrian Army. If this trickle becomes a deluge, Assad will fall.

Time Magazine is reporting today that the regime's defectors have some advantages already:

The military breakaways tend to return to their hometowns, enabling even a small group to tap into a much wider social and clan-based network. In the early days of what was a predominantly peaceful uprising, bands of army defectors across the country were turning away the civilians volunteering to join their ranks, in a bid to maintain some semblance of military hierarchy and discipline. Now, in amateur videos posted on YouTube, some units are openly calling for civilian volunteers.

One thing I am sure won't happen: there will not be another Libya; the NATO powers will stay on the sidelines. The reason for this is not just the lack of oil, though that may play a role. The reason is that Bashar Assad is not Moammar Ghadaffi. He has not built up so much ill will in the West. And I presume the major Western powers understand that the Sunni forces fighting Assad will never be our friends.

It is painful to watch the Sacramento Kings ... most of the time

2012-02-05T12:32:00.000-08:00

Based on their 8 wins and 15 losses, the Kings are not the worst team in the NBA. That distinction goes to the 3-21 Charlotte Bobcats. Nice job, Michael Jordan. However, if you look deeper into their numbers, Sacramento is probably the worst team in the Western Conference and the third worst club overall. They can play competitively against the other bad teams. They almost always get blown out by the top 15 clubs in the NBA.

Last night at home, the Kings played very well ... against the 8-13 Golden State Warriors. It was, for a Kings game, unusually good to watch. It was back and forth all the way. It finished with a Sacramento victory in overtime. It's too bad that the Kings can't just play the other bad teams.

Most nights, the Kings are just pathetic. Of the 30 teams in the NBA, the Kings have the lowest field goal percentage (.404). They are tied with Utah for the worst 3-point percentage (.293). They are in the lower third as free throw shooters (.737). They are, by a long way, the worst team in the NBA in assists (372, which is far below Chicago's league-leading 587). They have just one more block (94) than the league-worst Detroit Pistons. They are 10th worst in turning the ball over (370).

Only five clubs have allowed more made baskets. Only three teams give up a higher percentage of shots made. They are the second worst team in the NBA in allowing the other team to get offensive rebounds on them and 11th worst in allowing defensive rebounds. Sacramento is 5th worst in both giving up assisted baskets and allowing steals against them.

The argument that they are the worst team in the Western Conference is based on a metric called the Simple Rating System. It "takes into account average point differential and strength of schedule." The average team in the SRS will have a rating of 0. Better than zero is better than average. The Kings have an SRS rating of -7.59. That is well worse than the -3.26 SRS rating of New Orleans, despite the Hornets team record of 4 wins and 20 losses.

The one bright spot for the Kings is that they are young. They average 24.5 years of age, third youngest in the NBA.

They have a talented, but inconsistent and emotionally imbalanced power forward in DeMarcus Cousins. If he does not lose his mind entirely, Cousins (age 21) will one day be an All-Star.

Their other most notable player is Tyreke Evans (age 22). Unfortunately, Evans does not appear to be getting any better since his rookie season. If anything, he is worse. He plays very poor defense and he cannot shoot the basketball. His FG% has declined each year since he came out of college. He also is injury prone.

The Kings added rookie Jimmer Fredette to their roster this year (trading for him on draft day). It looks like Fredette, who was a high scorer in college, will be a bust. He cannot defend anyone, and he has trouble making his shots. He is among the worst rookies in the NBA this year in a metric called Win Shares per 48 minutes played.

To improve, the Kings need to add a competent center. Last year they had that in Samuel Dalembert, but they did not resign him. His replacement has been Chuck Hayes, and Hayes is just not nearly as good. They also need a new small forward or shooting guard who shoots for a high percentage and plays defense.

My advice is they trade away Evans and Fredette. Maybe Utah, where Fredette played his college ball at BYU, would give up somebody for Jimmer?

As this group ages, it is inevitable that they will get better. But without a significant change in personnel, the Kings are not building toward a playoff team. They are likely to move up from the 15th worst of the 15 teams in the Western Conference to maybe the 10th or 9th worst.

It's not a pretty picture for Kings fans.

Obama's plan is total nonsense

2012-02-03T10:37:00.001-08:00

The federal government is running annual deficits around $1 trillion and President Obama proposes to increase our debt even further to create more jobs for local fire departments?

USA Today is reporting that Obama wants to pour $1 billion that we don't have into jobs for firefighters:

In an effort to cut the unemployment rate among veterans, President Obama ... will seek more grant money for programs that allow local communities to hire more police officers and firefighters.

"Let's get more cops on the beat, let's get more rangers in the parks, let's get more firefighters on call, and in the process, we're going to put more veterans back to work," Obama said Friday at a fire station in Arlington, Va. ...

Communities that hire veterans to work as police and firefighters will be given preference in the grants competition. ... He will propose an additional $1 billion for the firefighter grants.

This nonsense is all about President Obama paying off public employee unions in the hope that they will work hard to get him re-elected. It has little or nothing to do with helping new veterans. (If some of them cannot find work, they should be trained for productive employment in the private sector.)

Mr. Obama's plan has nothing to do with fighting fires. Local communities all over America have millions of firefighters sitting around with no fires to fight.

It has nothing to do with helping local governments. Once they take the federal money to hire a veteran as a firefighter, the local taxpayers will be stuck with the new union member's massive package of lifetime medical benefits and an unaffordable amount to cover his pension. The only cities which will take on these unsustainable burdens will be those where their firefighter unions are running the cities and don't care what long-term damage the added costs will bring.

The Obama hire-a-firefighter program has nothing to do with relieving national unemployment. Net job creation in our country is the result of creating efficiencies. Hiring more firefighters we don't need won't do that. Rather, it will divert money from productive uses--that is, the higher taxes needed to pay this plan off will come from money which could have gone into investment in research & development or new plant & equipment--into an unproductive use. Ultimately, this will cause our country to be less efficient and have fewer jobs created.

Is suicide always the wrong choice?

2012-02-02T13:07:00.000-08:00

The death by suicide of Don Cornelius of "Soul Train" fame is in the news today. The LA Times is reporting that health and money problems may have been behind Mr. Cornelius's choice to take his own life:

Authorities investigating the death of "Soul Train" creator Don Cornelius continued to sift for clues after he was found in his Encino home Wednesday with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Sources close to the investigation said they were looking at several possible triggers, including Cornelius' health and his financial situation. But they emphasized they had not made any determinations.

Cornelius had undergone brain surgery in the 1980s and was quoted in newspapers at the time as saying he didn't feel quite the same afterward.

Coming into adulthood, when I formulated my opinions on most topics, I thought suicide was always a terrible choice. I felt that the act was horribly selfish and it always left behind a wake of pain for the families and loved ones of the person who took his own life.

I still mostly feel that way. However, as I have gotten older I've learned a couple of things which have somewhat altered my view.

First and foremost, I have learned a little more about depression. I have never suffered from it or known anyone close who was depressed to the point of contemplating suicide, but I do know that severe depression is the byproduct of brain chemistry and for people who are not treated with medications and psychotherapy, the "decision" to commit suicide is often the irrational act of someone whose mind is chemically messed up. In other words, it's not exactly a choice for someone who has lost his rational mind.

Outside of people who are clinically depressed, I now think there are a small number of cases where suicide could be the best option for everyone, including close family members and friends. For example, take a person with a degenerative disease, the symptoms of which make the patient terribly unhappy and a burden on his wife and children. Say he will live another five years, but over that period he will lose his mind and lose control of all of his bodily functions. He will no longer be able to think clearly, to have conversations with friends, to walk his dog, to leave his home and so on. He knows up front that his medical care will wipe out his life savings and leave his family in a world of hurt. In that sort of an extreme case, it's unfair to call suicide selfish. I am not suggesting I think a patient needs to kill himself to better others. It's a personal choice. But I would not hold it against anyone for choosing suicide in that type of case.

After the dead bodies of his wife and her waiter were found, but before OJ Simpson had gone on the run in his white Ford Bronco, I thought to myself: This is the sort of rare circumstance where suicide would be best for everyone involved. Surely Simpson was guilty of that terrible crime, killing two innocent people. Surely he was going to end up in prison for the rest of his life if they found him alive. A trial was simply going to bankrupt him, stealing away the money that would better serve his surviving children. To the extent that his repuatation as a human being and as a celebrated football player could ever be salvaged, that was only possible if he immediately paid the highest price for his terrible act and died. Suicide in the case of OJ was, I thought, the best possible answer, or at least the least worst answer.

He did not kill himself, of course. And what happened? Shockingly, a stupid jury acquitted him. But the public never did. Everyone with a brain knows OJ was guilty of a double homicide. Because of what it took for his lawyers to get him off, his reputation was entirely unsalvagable afterward. Another jury in a civil case convicted him, and he lost his money and possessions that could have gone to his kids. So his living was selfish insofar as he ever wanted his kids to have his material possessions and insofar as OJ wanted his kids to have a famous father who was famous for something other than murder. By not dying, by not choosing suicide, OJ made that impossible. And in a strange twist, he was convicted of a felony in Nevada, where it seems he will spend the rest of his life as a prisoner.

Maybe that is a better outcome than death for himself. But I cannot see how he has made anything better for his children and friends and our country by choosing to not commit suicide after he murdered Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. Had OJ Simpson cared about anyone other than himself, he should not have fought the murder charges against him. He should have driven his white Ford Bronco off of a cliff before prosecutors had decided what to do with him.

What Joe didn't win, August 2010

2012-01-12T15:26:00.000-08:00

What follows is an email written by Jon Li. Mr. Li titled it, "What Joe didn't win, August 2010."

The New Davis City Council
Hysterical Historical Context
The first thing to understand is that it was never about Mayor Ruth.
Ruth’s time as Mayor was collateral damage.
Don Saylor and Sue Greenwald are at about 99.9998% on the dis-like scale.
The friction between Greenwald and Saylor has always been the definition of council dynamics, with Mayor Asmundson attempting to referee, and Lamar Haystek and Stephen Souza being content to share the limelight. Saylor would regularly lob some calculated bomb Sue’s way, and entirely too often it would hit a sensitive nerve somewhere in her unbalanced explosive psyche, and she would blow a fuse.

The blow up between Mayor Ruth and Greenwald on January 26th was only the latest flare-up. As Greenwald ally Mark Siegler pointed out two days later, Sue was the way she always is. Defending her right to speak, as though she had not just lost the vote. In this case, the Mayor didn’t respond to her about something she claimed she had said in closed session – the Mayor’s agreement would also have joined Sue in violating legally bound confidentiality – and the Mayor was stunned speechless. Impatiently, Sue called the Mayor “a liar” and demanded satisfaction. The Mayor fell apart.

Five years ago, as Asmundson was completing her first year as The Mayor and still on her honeymoon, she announced to her four daughters that she was so content with her life that she didn’t have anything to give up for Lent. In shocked unison, all four said, “Sue Greenwald.”

A year ago, I recommended that Mayor Ruth trade places with Mayor Pro Tem Saylor, so that he would have to campaign for Supervisor while actually managing Greenwald’s outbursts, rather than just initiating them and then watching the fun from the sidelines. I hypothesized that the Saylor-initiated outbursts would diminish because Saylor would then be responsible for dealing with the consequences. Now that he is finally Mayor, we get to see.

The over-riding issue with the Davis city council is making it work at all. Greenwald is so negative and argumentative that each council in the past decade has been noted for its antagonism and lack of accomplishment. Don Saylor has nothing to show for his time in city “service” except self-promotion. At least with now-Judge Dave Rosenberg (as a city council member, mayor and then county supervisor) you knew that he would get the credit, but it was actually for something.

The single biggest impact of Jon Li’s candidacy for city council was the Enterprise story at the end of the campaign re-stating the potential idea of recalling Greenwald. Having that over her head lowers her hubris significantly (but not completely) and gives her allies leverage to request that Greenwald tone down her histrionics.

Saylor is not going to make it easy for Greenwald to survive his six months of mayoral manipulation. He deeply resented her for his second place finish behind her in 2004, has coveted the Mayor position for a long time, and he is going to try to make the most of it, maybe trying to institute some new procedures that go down in history with his name on it. And Saylor wants to lock in city-county relations so that he can retain influence in Davis when he moves to the county board of supervisors.

For the record, over the past 14 years, sometimes Sue Greenwald has had something useful to say, but most of it is counterproductive. Andy Warhol talked about 15 minutes of fame. Sue has had the spotlight for 10 years, and has very little positive to show for it. She actually believes her responsible role in politics is to stop things: the dis-art of making things impossible. She keeps demanding that we listen to whatever she happens to want to talk about next, and there is very rarely an end to her sentences, let alone a satisfactory conclusion. The downtown would be at least as successful if she hadn’t said anything in ten years.

Clean Slate with a new Team
The internal dynamic of the new council is going to have to evolve. They do not have any established relationships – Don and Stephen have gamed each other a lot over the past six years, and no one has ever had a working relationship with Sue. New and old council members want to probe each other, exploring about specific policies, or following up on a chance phrase. While Joe and Rochelle each gained Sue’s endorsement for the election, and they have each maintained communication with her, she doesn’t actually want anything except to be paid attention to, and her motions seconded and supported. She doesn’t actually want to accomplish anything more than to be the center of attention, so Joe and Rochelle will find meeting with Sue to be a generally unproductive for achieving tangible results. Sue has certain pet themes, like the PG&E property (leaving out the $80 million replacement price tag), and most of them are things that will never happen in a million years. The second time she brings one up, you recognize the broken record…..

The state meeting rule, called the Brown Act, makes council intercommunication weird because the law prohibits majority interpersonal communication outside of properly noticed meetings. With a five member city council, that means that between meetings, two but no more can actually interact and explore ideas about a particular policy area: communicate, caucus, and strategize. Two particular members regularly talking during the week become known as Brown Buddies. On some issues, Asmundson and Saylor were Brown Buddies for six years. The Davis council tradition is to use the Brown Act as an excuse to cut off the conversation when a council member picks up the phone and it is Greenwald: Oh, I have already discussed that issue with another council member. Sorry.

Ruth was the integral glue to the social fabric of the council experience of the always contentious Saylor, Souza and Greenwald. They have battled under her maternal good will for six years, and now they have to learn to get along without her. So nothing is clearly defined as an ongoing primary interpersonal relationship – something so automatic that the other council members presume they have already talked about the new issue. This council is really starting from scratch. The short term of Saylor’s mayorship and the selection of his replacement create an artificial deadline: Saylor’s ego is so gargantuan that you know he is going to try to do something that only he can claim is important. In the very bottom of her heart, Ruth’s intention as Mayor was to be as fair as she could. Saylor does not have as big a heart as Ruth, and he has a lot higher aspirations for at least State Assembly, so his expectations about building his image in the Sacramento region and his long view may well get in the way of his immediate steps.

How the 2010 city council race played out
Rochelle Swanson
Davis is lucky Rochelle Swanson stepped forward and put in the effort to run for city council. She is the real deal. If you meet with her, she will probably be interested in what you have to say.

When I first spoke with her on the phone, I told her about Jon Walker’s Guide to the Viable System Model, and gave her the URL to find it on the Internet. When I met with her a week later, she had read the material, understood the basics of it, and during our far-ranging discussion about city issues appropriately used the VSM five times.

She inquired with others as she had me. She learned a lot about the city and is learning more all the time. Rochelle’s campaign was about inclusion. They involved as many people as they could.

Rochelle was that unique “person a campaign was looking for” who was prepared and juggled it with the rest of her crazy busy Mom life. In late January, Ruth and Sue had their flare-up, and the next evening Rochelle did such a good job of chairing a meeting of the Blue and White Foundation that it generated a spontaneous campaign. If they would have had another month, they probably could have come in first.

The real secret behind Rochelle’s campaign is its potential.

Sydney Vergis
Sydney Vergis was a candidate who peaked two years ago, on Election Day, June, 2008. Backed by then-victors Don Saylor and Stephen Souza, her credentials as a certified planner claimed “expert.” Her youth was complimented by a sorority girl formal bearing that some people perceived as grace. Especially, in the June 2008 election, Sydney looked good compared to Sue Greenwald, who she almost beat for the third seat, and Cecilia Escamillia-Greenwald, whose vote tally she surpassed.

In 2008, as election day approached, a new campaign emerged, with t-shirts and signs posted downtown: Super-S: vote Saylor, Souza and Sydney, tying Sydney to the front runners. The problem is that Sydney’s support was based on her associations, not her own campaign, and the support that she received in the June 2008 election mostly disappeared as the voters turned in their ballots.

Sydney’s biggest problem as a candidate in 2010 was that she spent the next two years assuming that if her name was on the ballot she would be elected. Don Saylor organized a meeting last August, at which they decided that Ruth would run for a third term and Sydney would be her running mate. It was assumed that Lamar was running for re-election. (Lamar instead chose to get married and delay further elected office.) Unknown to almost everyone, right after the 2008 election Sydney was riding her bike and had a nasty car accident – requiring serious shoulder surgery with a subsequent year of rehabilitation.

Maybe she passed that year recuperating with reading, but it wasn’t expanding what she knew about Davis. She re-applied to UCD King Law School, and this time she was accepted but she didn’t do it. Then she returned to UCD to graduate school, in how to measure carbon footprint. (Hardly preparation for ramping up to challenge an enthusiastic incumbent for the second seat on the city council.)

In September Sydney started rounding up endorsements. When she asked for mine, I said sure, but I had already given it to Joe and I would give it to Ruth as well, and maybe even someone who hadn’t emerged yet.

All Sydney wanted was my name, and she really didn’t care about anything else. She didn’t want to talk about Davis or her campaign. At all. She already knew everything she needed to know, and if she needed to know anything else, then someone in The Establishment (Don Saylor, Ruth, Covell Village, the city firefighter union…) would tell her what to think/say/do.

The most troubling thing about Sydney as a candidate in 2010 is that she still thought that in the Spring of 2010, her memorized answers from 2008 worked. Long after the global economic calamity of 2008, and all the federal and state budget problems, she often would use her lines memorized two years before, all too often opening with: “as I stated two years ago,….”

My advice a year ago with hyperactive Lamar still expected to run, was for Sydney to plan on walking every precinct in the city starting in January. She looked at me like it would never happen.

If Lamar had run, he would have danced precincts, and Joe and Ruth would have spent a lot more money to run more dynamic campaigns just to compete. Sydney would have been watching on the sidelines. She pretty much was anyway.

Without Lamar or Ruth in the race, Sydney made the strategic decision to do only a minimum number of things for her campaign: get endorsements, raise money, design a few special pieces for her bicycle sign campaign, a mailer, a brochure, a lawn sign, an ad for the Enterprise at the end of the campaign. The least she had to do to still get elected.

At her campaign kickoff in January, I still had no intention of running. I chatted with my very first UCD teacher and friend, Brian Horsfield (Ph.D. Ag Engineering UCD 1970) who has recently returned to retire in Davis after many years in the Seattle area working for Weyerhaeuser. He had taken an instant liking to Sydney during her previous campaign, and became her #1 volunteer. Brian asked me what he could do to best help Sydney’s campaign. I told him to schedule walking precincts three days a week with his adorable grandson who is why he moved back to Davis. He loved the idea. Sydney wouldn’t let Brian do it; too much trouble.

Sydney was never really more than a Ruth surrogate. The code for Sydney’s 2008 campaign was that the Enterprise would regularly announce that Jan Bridge was hosting Sunday pancakes with candidate Sydney, and probably at least a thousand Ruth supporters read that message as Ruth’s stamp of approval.

This time, Sydney assumed that having Ruth’s daughter’s name as her treasurer on the return address of the envelope of the fundraising solicitation letter would be enough to raise the $30,000 to finance a hot campaign. But Ruth’s political brand took a big hit with her defense of Covell Village when she ran for re-election after the defeat of Measure X, 40-60. And then Ruth’s brand dropped into the past tense with the total collapse of council decorum on January 26th.

When Rochelle entered the race, Sydney did not change her strategy at all. Fundraising was not successful. People who gave last time, or had given to Ruth in the past, were not as likely to contribute money to Sydney’s campaign. Nobody, starting with Sydney, was particularly interested in pushing Sydney’s campaign, which had just plain run out of juice. Her core group would have these fundraiser events that a few people would come to and they would pretend they were in a campaign. But her issues were to take the life out of the dismal science of economic development. She doesn’t even actually do anything at the city Business and Economic Development Commission, or she could have at least talked about what she had been advocating. Her one and only dedicated volunteer, Brian Horsfield, drove around putting up her signs.

For me, the most disappointing moment in Sydney’s campaign was when the Enterprise was interviewing the five candidates – in what apparently was her only attempt to respond to my advocating the Viable System Model, Sydney sat up in her prim, proper way, and announced that as a licensed professional financial planner, it is the judgment of the literature that re-organizations don’t work.

At least she figured out that I am advocating real time decision taking, which would mean perpetual re-organization.

But Sydney? Even the U.S. Army (remember the Army Air Corps) and the Catholic Church have re-organized. Due to drops in advertising revenue, the Enterprise has had major cutbacks leading to necessary consolidation of responsibilities among the survivors. World class sports editor Chris Saur emerged because he was still standing after one of the many earthquakes, and the boss Editor Debbie Davis would rather have husband Bruce writing enthusiastically about kids and sports, having the time of his life doing what he loves most, and leave Chris stuck with the POWER of writing the headlines, cropping the pictures, editing the captions and squeezing in the stories with the names mostly spelled right.

Shortly before the Enterprise interview with the candidates, the Davis City Manager announced a major reorganization, over half of which was based on attrition and elimination of unfilled positions. Basically, reorganization by default. I have confidence in the city management staff, especially Bill Emlen and Paul Navazio, so I am watching to see what emerges.

Sydney has a reputation for strong analytical skills. I didn’t see it at all. Never once did she deviate from script about policy issues based on new information. Sydney should become an investment banker, have maybe ten clients who appreciate her for who she is and whatever it is that she does.

Daniel Watts
Daniel Watts is mostly interested in self-promotion. He was often mis-informed, especially by his law professors who may have had tongue firmly in cheek, and he blabbed away whatever they had said. Quoting your law professors as the gospel of municipal governance may work in law school but he was a detriment to the city of Davis.

Joe Krovoza
Which brings us to Joe Krovoza, the smiling salesman.

I like Joe’s wife, Janet. We met when she started working in the UCD College of Engineering in 1992. A couple years ago, I asked her about Joe’s running for council. (I do that. I consider it my civic responsibility, my civic duty, to encourage people that make the effort to help the body politic. Reader: I am looking for people to run for city council in 2012, or to help with a campaign and eventually be somebody’s campaign manager, or lawn sign coordinator, or help table at the Farmers Market, or make some phone calls….)

When I went on a Davis Bicycles! organized ride in August, Joe rode with me and talked about his running for city council and I encouraged him. I sent him my template on how to set up a successful campaign in Davis. We met. I talked from the experience of being involved in every single Davis election since 1982. We met several times. Joe took lots of notes. (I met with Sydney, and she was already bored, coasting, and losing momentum.) I talked Joe up, and he met with key elected officials and opinion leaders.

He asked my advice on whether to have his campaign kickoff at Nugget Fields showing his longtime soccer connections, or the Farmers Market, or a bike ride, or the multi-modal train station to emphasize transportation policy options which is his day job at the university. I recommended that he meet at Farmers Market at 10:30, bike caravan to the train station at 11:00, and then give his speech. That image crystallized in his mind, and it turned out as I had suggested. I counted over 100 people attending at the beginning of his talk at the train station.

Then Joe and I met just before Thanksgiving, to evaluate and to plan. Joe told me, “You need to figure out a role for yourself in my campaign.” Joe parceled out different jobs and then he was coordinating. I had been advocating that he pick a campaign manager, but apparently he never did. He kept complete control of his operation. I had advocated that his role as a council member would be to direct staff, and to indirectly influence citizens, so he should practice by involving more people in his campaign organization and create a structure. The other thing I advocated was that he work towards an active precinct operation that comes to fruition in May.

Joe rejected the idea of having a grassroots community network. He was building a great database of names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses, and that computer list became his goal.

Based on all the work I had done laying the organization for his campaign, I told him I had a role in his campaign, campaign consultant. Joe said No you are not. And he pretty much stopped talking to me about what he was going to do in his campaign (this being the Tuesday before last Thanksgiving), and I was never again involved in any of the decisions (except one special meeting he had on President’s Holiday in late February, where the focus on partnerships emerged as a good campaign theme; again, before I had any thought of running.) At that point, Joe killed whatever relationship we had. He continued to meet with me for three months, always putting me off when I asked strategic questions (as though I was working for another candidate or going to run myself). And he would taunt me to come up with a role in his campaign that he would find acceptable. Well, there was no role that he would find acceptable. When I offered to actually make his campaign something more than he conceived with active precincts, he was so paranoid that he never trusted me again. Joe: the proof of the pudding: never at any time since last August have I, in thought, word or deed, by commission or omission (according to Luther) had a second where I even hinted at opposing your candidacy. [Then.]

Joe stopped talking to me, because he refused to listen to me, because he is paranoid. I recommended that Joe be Mayoral, that he treat each of the other candidates like he could work well with them/us. He couldn’t do it. He strategically attacked Sydney as though it would help him, when she was already gone anyway; he was hostile towards me; and, at the end, his campaign couldn’t understand why Rochelle’s campaign was gaining energy and they deeply resented it, and Joe’s campaign never had any energy except Joe’s personal hyperactivity. Joe personally worked really hard in May, and he had a network of individuals with assignments, but he didn’t have an organization that did much of anything together. Joe’s campaign wasn’t about building community of Davis, it was about building the community of Joe.

The winners of this election were: the citizens of Davis because we elected two strong candidates (Joe & Rochelle), Rochelle, Daniel because he got all his publicity, and me because I explored the Viable System Model as I claimed (contrary to whatever it is that Joe thinks motivated me to run).

The losers were Sydney, and Joe because he ended up making these false claims about getting along, that now makes all his claims sound like hollow hype. The very first time I met with Joe, he spent the final 20 minutes berating me because I wouldn’t unconditionally support whatever Davis Bicycles! might propose when I was already objecting to some of their ideas. Joe has berated me three times, where there was absolutely only one side to the story, his side.

After Joe told me I wasn’t his campaign consultant, I proved to him that I was – I made my services no longer necessary. I spent the hour saying that the kickoff was perfect. The only mistake was that he over-emphasized the need to raise money. Given his socio-economic status, and his family friends, when people hear his campaign, they will whip out their checkbooks and say “Only $100?” Just before I had to leave, I said, “AND, Thursday is Thanksgiving; on Sunday, you need to organize a fundraiser letter mailing party with two dozen people and have computer labels for what turned out to be 7,000 letters, so that people could write a check to his campaign before they started their Christmas shopping”.

Joe had lots and lots of favors to call in from his years of community volunteer work around his two daughters. During the month of December he put together an awesome database of his extended Friends-of-Friends mailing/email/campaign list. I wanted to map his whole list and create a precinct organization; he was content with having a mailing list that he could glean potential contributors and volunteers. That initial effort raised $7,000. It was a preemptive strike that sewed up his coming in first. He coasted from that point on and my ideas were unnecessary to him.

Each time Joe and I crossed paths proved more difficult. He would taunt me about what I could do for his campaign. I begged to let me help with a precinct operation, but that turned out to be something he had no interest in. Finally, in February we fought about it. I wanted an energetic precinct organization to build community with him as the focal point (The Mayor in reality and not just the elected figurehead.) Joe was content that he had already won and he was set in his campaign plan. I wasn’t a part of his plan.

Joe was so self-centered that I kept advising him to be Mayoral, to see all the candidates as allies not adversaries. He never got it. In January, after I recommended to Brian Horsfield that he walk for Sydney, I was explaining what I had recommended to Joe, and Joe was outraged that I had given HIS idea for precinct walking to the other campaign, when I was the only one talking precincts in his campaign, Joe wasn’t supporting what I was recommending, AND, I was telling Joe the story because it was opposition research that his then-principal opponent still was not mounting a serious campaign because Sydney had refused to let Brian walk precincts for her.

Although I don’t know first hand because Joe hasn’t been civil enough to talk with me (talked at, a few times, but not “talked with” after November), but he apparently was shocked when I announced for the city council race. He called but he didn’t say what he was thinking, and when we had lunch the next week for the last time, his definitive statement was that we are opponents and he resented me ever since. He never seemed to understand that he had cut me off three months before, and I had nowhere else to go with my ideas about the Viable System Model. (Forget Sydney – there were a lot less exotic things that she doesn’t comprehend or care about.) My candidacy supposedly confirmed his suspicions that I had intended to run all along, even though I never once cost him a vote by saying ANYTHING about him, except that I was supporting him with my other vote, which I did. Where is the shred of evidence to confirm his paranoia (unjustified fear)? I endorsed Joe in August, and I have kept unfailing support for him ever since. I took my Vote for Joe button off my bike a week after the election.

The city of Davis is best served by the election of Joe and Rochelle, and while I feel that Rochelle is a better politician than Joe, I am hopeful that the city will move in better directions due to their efforts.

I almost never asked for people to vote for me during the campaign. At the end of the forums, when Joe gave a rousing statement of why you should vote for him, I talked about the Viable System Model.

Joe went to law school and he likes to win. He pretty much ran his campaign to win at all cost, contrary to his civility claims after the campaign. Joe attacked Sydney on several occasions, about things she was already too embarrassed about to defend. From December on, he USUALLY misunderstood what I was saying. He often didn’t appear to listen, and got distinctly wrong what I had said. What was I supposed to do? Continue to support him unconditionally, like he is the king? Sit on the sidelines? He doesn’t understand that I appeared to do that for six years when I had Ruth’s ear. I have done everything I could to treat him the positive way he claims he has been treating me. The proof is that I sent him and Rochelle each an email after the election, congratulating them and asking for a chance to meet, but he hasn’t found time in two months to respond to my email. Joe couldn’t represent me any more than Sue who only represents herself. During the first council meeting, when Sue turned to Joe for help in gaining some of the council appointments she felt were important, he only cared about his own appointments and wouldn’t help her at all, probably not the last time Sue will be disappointed in Joe.

The only person I came half way close to as a result of Joe’s campaign was Robert Canning, who was responsible for the precinct version of Joe’s campaign. I happened to see him waiting for the train the morning before the election, and in a not friendly way he asked where Rochelle’s campaign came from, so I explained what I had seen:
- Joe’s campaign was made up of people whose children had grown up with Joe’s, and Joe was re-creating the PTA/AYSO soccer list of the past 20 years, and bringing that to life for one thing: to get Joe elected June 8th.
- Rochelle’s campaign grew out of the frustration of school people who feel the city should be doing more; it started with the Blue & White Foundation, which is the parents of children who hope to be on varsity teams when they are at Davis High, and Support our Schools, which is for parents who care about 7th period and foreign languages, and music and drama, and the kinds of programs that make the Davis community a nurturing environment for many, many children. Joe wanted to communicate with those parents, Rochelle was already communicating with those parents. Those parents are the current soccer moms, Joe’s are the former soccer moms. The reason Rochelle’s campaign caught fire was that her message was on the already necessary get-the-kids-to-school-today network. Joe claimed it, past tense; with Rochelle, it was the real thing, alive today and growing with every Blue & White Foundation Alumni Association Davis HS class reunion.

Don’t let the smile fool you. Joe cares about Joe first, Davis second. I had always advised Joe to peak on Election Day, but that was based on my ideas about a growing, evolving organization that would become the backbone of a citywide network supporting his leadership. I assumed that he would build a community of support. Joe’s campaign did only enough to come in first, but if the election campaign had run even a week longer, Rochelle had momentum, and Joe was chugging along but he had no organizational capacity to kick it up to another level, let along continue to grow after the election. Joe’s campaign list diminishes in quality daily.

Joe sold the city’s voters a product. He is a scam.

Forecast for the long term
This election was historic, like 1972 (growth versus slow growth), 1990-2 (limited growth versus no growth). This is the first time since 1906 when growth is not a force for political change. Covell Village is out there off the horizon, now in the distant future. UCD’s West Village will absorb whatever growth pressure might emerge, but that won’t be for at least 5 years (two more regular council elections).

Sue Greenwald and Lamar Heystak’s elections were the final products of a movement around the word “Progressive” that has lost all meaning, and many of the active people in the established network have retired, moved or passed away. Originally, Progressive implied environmental awareness. Like the Radical Liberal party of some Latin American country, the label came to mean whatever someone wanted to associate with it. Partly they lost their issue: it is the chaos of the global economy that is playing out in the Sacramento regional housing market; realtors are working hard to move existing product; less than ten new houses are expected to be built in Davis this year.

So during the next 5 years, if growth is no longer the dividing line within city politics, where will the dynamic be?

Without population growth, both the city government and the school district face expanding responsibilities and shrinking resources. There is increasing potential that two distinct political populations emerge as the New Davis Politics: families with children in the schools versus seniors. Within the city government, both elder and children services are unique enough that there is lots of potential for expansion or reduction of services. (One third of the city residential population are college students, who are about as relevant to city politics as the over-bred squirrels.)

The main way to see these two emerging competing political institutions (for at least the next five years and then maybe a transition to something else), is: Rochelle’s campaign represents the younger families and Joe’s campaign represents the seniors and retirees.

Joe’s database peaked in December when his computer teams finished going through the PTA rosters of the children of his friends. Most of those children are now in high school or graduated. Most of the voters in those households no longer have primary daily issues with the Davis school district, especially about using scarce school resources.

Rochelle’s list is people who are active in the schools now. Their most pressing concerns have to do with getting their families and kids ready for a successful school year.

Traditionally, the school district is subservient to the city. When former school board trustee Susie Boyd was Mayor, the city imposed restrictive parking around the high school, over the school board’s formal objections. The board pointed out that the city had violated its own policies: it surveyed the neighborhood and the potential beneficiaries had overwhelmingly opposed the policy. The Mayor haughtily concluded the discussion by announcing that the school district has no choice but to live with the city’s actions.

When the city bullied the school district and put a competing funding measure on the school race ballot, both H & I were defeated. With budget challenges looming, it will be interesting to see how the battle lines for resources set up, and how well the school board and the city council are able to collaborate.

Maybe 95% of the school district is inside the city limits. The city, the school district, the county and the university can pool their ideas about their resources and responsibilities. There has to be potential for consolidation, efficiencies, discontinuations, and shared economies of scale. I think the winning candidate called it partnerships.

Candidates to fill Don Saylor’s unfinished term:
Would not be a candidate in 2012: Delaine Easton
Others: Lucas Frehrichs, Dan Wolk
Definitely not a candidate: Susan Lovenburg

Candidates for City Council in 2012
Stephen Souza
Sue Greenwald
Dan Wolk
Lucas Frehrichs
Rochelle’s ami (woman candidate)

Should Krovoza see this

2012-01-12T15:24:00.000-08:00

What follows is an email from Jon Li, who ran for City Council against Joe Krovoza and lost. Mr. Li titled this email, "Should Krovoza see this."

Yeah, Yeah, Good, Good
The Mayor nobody knows: Joe Krovoza
February, 2011

A little over a year ago, by Thanksgiving, Joe Krovoza had built such a strong campaign mailing list of potential supporters that he was the acknowledged front runner and coasted to victory in June. Krovoza's campaign platform was partnerships, especially between the city and UC Davis, finding financial answers (which Krovoza claims as a strength), and being diplomatic in the council ego chaos. Krovoza leveraged his many years work on the Putah Creek Council to reflect his investment in water and environmental issues; his many years coaching youth soccer while his girls were growing up; and, his long time commitment to bicycles and his day time job with UCD's Institute for Transportation Studies - which all added up to an attractive package as a candidate for the Davis city council.

Krovoza campaigned hard personally, but he really didn't have a campaign organization. People had individual responsibilities and assignments, but the campaign wasn't about rejuvenating Davis politics - it was about elevating Krovoza. The front runner from start to finish, he ran a risk free campaign of not taking a stand on any issue, so he cannot legitimately claim a mandate to do something he had advocated as a candidate.

Krovoza's campaign peaked on June 8th, election day. He then shifted into post-election disconnect with the voters. Krovoza acts like he has a mandate, unconditional support for whatever he happens to propose. Apparently Krovoza's leadership model is that he wins all the arguments. Actually, too often he has already made up his mind, decided what to do, and expects you to ratify his announcement and cave on your concerns (rather than that he will be able to negotiate from a better position based on your new information).

Krovoza has a tin ear, and a short attention span. Fortunately, he has built in a subconscious reflex when he has lost all patience, and stopped listening and expects you to stop talking and submit to his superior wisdom: he says, “yeah, yeah, good, good.” At that point, his subconscious is announcing to you that you had best give up talking, because he is no longer listening to what you are talking about. His mind has shifted to an entirely different topic, and as soon as you have stopped talking, he will tell you what it is. Krovoza stopped listening to me November, 2009 (see Thanksgiving above).

Krovoza brings an interesting skill set to the council discussion. He went to a premier techie high school in Southern California, and he loves to play engineer. In college, he devoted a lot of energy to maintaining a council of colleges in the greater Los Angeles area. At King Law School, he excelled in environmental law. These experiences have shaped Krovoza’s strengths: he runs a good meeting, and there is little potential for the kind of sibling fights that dominated the past decade of council discussion; he is working hard at attending Sacramento regional meetings and being the “new Davis image” in regional politics; he is an advocate for bikes to a fault, and, he has a laser focus on what he considers to be sustainability issues.

Unfortunately, the strengths define too much the weaknesses as well:
- because of his day job and regional meetings, he is invisible in the community, in ways that Don Saylor remains conspicuous because Saylor has nothing else to do;
- he is spending too much time grilling city staff on the phone in these one way conversations where Krovoza expects immediate performance improvement, as he happens to be defining it in the moment. Entirely too much of the Mayor’s attention is focused in minutia in the mechanics of what is probably someplace in the public works department. The Mayor loves to be an engineer. It is hard to imagine him listening. “This is MAYOR KROVOZA..” the phone conversation begins with a growl tone and quickly gets deeper as he is pushing his personal power. (appropriate staff response should be: “Thank you for giving me your valuable time. It would be best if you would type that up as an email to your city council colleagues, and make it a council agenda item. Now, I need to get back to work. Thank you for your call. Good-bye.”

Krovoza is going to have a tough time as mayor. He is going to want to be advocating when he should be listening and focusing on serving all the other people who are waiting to talk. He thinks that power is enhanced by bossing people around, instead of by superior listening - for insights, alternatives, analysis and even a whole new way of looking at the problem at hand.

There should be another person besides the city council members, to facilitate the meetings - council, commission, whatever. Not Elvia, but people trained by the city's mediation program, for the council a pool of maybe a half dozen who would become a trained subculture like the referees in the National Football League. The mayor should be running the policy discussion, not worrying about personality issues.

During Krovoza’s campaign, he was focused on himself, and was competitive to a fault in his relations with his opponents. Krovoza started with a cache of good will built up over the years when he decided to run, and he leveraged that to a successful campaign; but he didn't build a campaign, he used his good will and coasted. He didn't learn how to build support during his campaign, he learned how to leverage endorsements into more endorsements. He peaked on June 8th, and expects people to automatically support him from now on.

Krovoza's first imperial shot was the mandatory back-in diagonal parking, which blew up badly enough that it will be interesting to see how well he is able to massage the message when he brings it back up for council analysis after the trial test period. Did anyone else think it was worth doing? Staff acted like sheep, automatically doing as directed, but that was the end of his honeymoon.

Whether or not Krovoza knows how to build community remains to be seen. With only six months experience, Krovoza has the mayorship for the next three and a half years, if he survives. Krovoza is not nearly as cool under stress as he claims. He blows up pretty easily, soon after he realizes he is not getting his way. He is going to find he is a captive audience. People will use public comments to personally provoke him (or other city representatives) in ways that are going to infuriate him. Krovoza is going to be steaming so red that his ears look like they are going to burst. What does Krovoza do then?

Sue Greenwald has many personal demons that Don Saylor provoked too often, but we have ten years experience with Greenwald. With Saylor gone, the Davis City Council won't have that melodrama to worry about any more. Krovoza's demons are of a different nature. His aspirations for power are calculated, so it will be interesting to see what deals (remember, partnerships) Krovoza comes up with.

Krovoza suffers from not having had a full two years as only a council member, to be able to push and shove for little projects, to learn his way around the inside. Now he is supposed to be right about the big things. How he does in the spring budget process will be a learning experience for everybody. Krovoza is only in charge. He needs to bring out the best in other people, especially Interim City Manager Paul Navazio. The Mayor hasn’t figured out that he is so attached to Navazio that every time he interrupts, on the phone or in meetings, the Mayor is hurting his own and the city’s effectiveness.

Better Davis

2012-01-12T15:20:00.000-08:00

What follows is an email I received in December, 2011. It was written by former City Council candidate Jon Li. It is an attack on Steve Pinkerton and Joe Krovoza. It was titled "Better Davis."

Test of Time 8.15: Better Davis: City Leadership?

Krovoza's Lapdog,
Steve Pinkerton flunks his probationary period
Too many stories - doesn't care to hear anybody including Department Heads
There are 4 city council votes to support Paul Navazio for City Manager

History Repeats:
In 1989, the Davis Test of Time was invented to build a case to replace the Davis Mayor, the Davis City Manager, and the UCD Chancellor; it took 3 years.

"The council just doesn't seem to understand that its win-at-all-costs strategy is ultimately a losing hand. The people have a right to make bad decisions. You simply can't say this thing is too important to trust to the voters. City Attorney Harriet Steiner's "opinion" was outcome based from the get go. Reach your conclusion first and then go backward to justify it. That's advocacy, pure and simple, but not good law. We need the Test of Time." -- Bob Dunning

KROVOZA'S LAST STAND
In his 17 months on the city council, Mayor Krovoza has been bogged down with repeated setbacks in the water rate approval process that should have been his road to glory. Within Davis governance, his one and only attempt to actually push through an idea was his September 2010 announcement to staff to have mandated reverse diagonal parking, which blew up in his face. Since then, he has tried to force little things behind the scenes, with disappointing consequences.

Krovoza's council campaign was strategically unspecific because he could get away with it given the way he interpreted his frontrunner status: don't take any positions that might offend a potential voter. So he kept his plans to himself. While he came in first he did not carry a mandate for anything in particular beyond bicycles. And yet, he has acted as though his coming in first gives him the powerful authority to be a Strong Mayor: personally ordering city employees around and changing city policy by arbitrary decisions rather than a majority vote of the city council after publicly noticed informed discussion.

Sidebar: The legal system that Davis has is a "Weak Mayor/Strong City Manager," where the Mayor needs two more votes just like any other council member, and so has to actually cooperate with the rest of the council. The binding state law is that a majority of the council picks the Mayor. In a Strong Mayor system, the Mayor has hiring, supervision and firing authority; with the Weak Mayor, the City Manager "serves at the pleasure of a majority of the council" and has supervision and hiring authority for all other city employees. Another feature of the Weak Mayor form is that council members including the Mayor are legally limited to only communicating with one city employee: the City Manager. All communication, legally, between council members and staff is limited exclusively to the City Manager. By design.

Krovoza acts like he has the powers that Sacramento's elected Mayor Kevin Johnson is trying to gain statutorily.

Krovoza feels that as Mayor his word should be boss to all city staff, and the city manager should honor the Mayor's wishes. Krovoza has rarely actually gone through the city council process of taking his ideas to the rest of the council via email/memo for a potential majority decision. Most of Krovoza's hands-on policy style is to call up the City Manager or some other city employee - spur of the moment - and tell them to change something. Usually not opening with a question but with an order, of a decision Krovoza has already unilaterally made and expects to be implemented immediately.

But Interim City Manager Paul Navazio was unwilling to automatically accommodate Krovoza's dictates. Whenever conflict and confusion arose, Krovoza blamed Navazio. The problem really was that Krovoza wanted to name his own city manager no matter what, so he was going to find fault with whomever the Asmundson/Saylor administrations had as Interim City Manager (Kelly Stachowicz would have been a profound alternative), so it appears that Krovoza was creating a hostile environment for the Interim City Manager so that it would be that much easier to get someone he could dominate.

No one knows what will happen with the public works department, but Krovoza wants to turn it into his personal playground. Krovoza went to a technology high school and is a closet engineer.

Former Bike Pedestrian Coordinator Tara Goddard was usually at the listening end of a screaming Krovoza demanding that she ignore the facts, ignore previous decisions and ignore her best professional judgment, because Krovoza has seen a better way. Tara Goddard was probably Krovoza's number one target for removal from city staff. There is said to be a list of ten names, nine to go.

KROVOZA'S PERSONAL CITY MANAGER
Mayor Krovoza found a soul mate in his personal city manager, Steve Pinkerton. They both love to talk. And couldn't care less to listen. They are so busy showing off how much they already know that it doesn't occur to them that 1) there might be part of the picture they haven't seen/figured out yet, or even 2) they don't have a clue what they are talking about, but that never stops them from making decisions and ordering city staff around. Both Krovoza and Pinkerton expect "collaboration" to consist of saying "Yes Sir."

It is a wonder what they do when they are together without anyone else? Both talk all the time? No, they enjoy each other too much, and listen respectfully to each other's fascinating brilliance. After all, they are in charge. They have all the time they want, and they are only accountable to each other.

Both Krovoza and Pinkerton are story tellers. The problem is that Pinkerton is so busy telling stories about previous exploits in Long Beach (have you heard about his wife's restaurant?), Stockton and Manteca, that he didn't get your name or anything about you, but now you have spent time with the new city manager, real quality time, even though you didn't get to say much of anything. Pinkerton already knows the answers anyway.

Pinkerton's claim to fame is what he has done in economic development. His experience aside, three months into the job, Pinkerton still doesn't actually know anything about the Davis economy. Every single meeting he has had with members of the Davis business community has been Pinkerton's one-way stories about his distant past, as though he was going through a job interview that he is not prepared for. The representatives of the Davis Downtown Business Association and the Davis Chamber of Commerce throw up their hands in frustration when they tell hideous war stories that Pinkerton did not have any time to understand their concerns because he was so in rapture telling them about Long Beach, Stockton and Manteca. Did you know that Pinkerton's wife opened a restaurant once?

Krovoza expects Pinkerton to complement his skills set and cover for him. Pinkerton really only knows about Davis what Krovoza has told him. Which in terms of the business community, is 3rd or 4th hand at best because Krovoza has not even made time to attend the city's business discussions. The Davis economy is Krovoza's weakest policy area, and he takes it for granted. Mayor Pro Tem Rochelle Swanson and the business community worked really hard to put together an initial meeting, to find out who the players are at the Davis table. Called "Who's On First?", 54 people showed up with something to say about their contribution to Davis economic vitality. An hour later, when everyone was done introducing themselves, Krovoza shows up, makes a speech cold without hearing what anyone else's concerns are, and then Pinkerton checks out, missing the discussion half of the event.

Wouldn't you think that if Pinkerton really cares about economic development, he would want to hear what the key people are thinking about? If it is his #1 concern, don't you think it would be the kind of event where Pinkerton would have his sleeves rolled up, and looking and acting like he is interested in engaging the Davis business community in a serious discussion about building the local economy. There has been Zero evidence that he has a clue how to do economic development for Davis.

Since Krovoza hadn't been in on the introductory foundation of the "Who's On First?" conversation, he had no idea what it was about, or why it went the way it did. The theater company wants restaurants to stay open after their shows close at 10 pm. That drove a discussion of communication between different businesses. Krovoza understood less than everyone who sat through the entire meeting. That is the only one of a half dozen city meetings on economic vitality that Krovoza attended. Krovoza is checked out on business: what he says is hot air.

Then a meeting with the new UCD Vice Chancellor for Research Harris Lewin to talk about how to collaborate between new campus innovation and the Davis business community drew 25 people, but neither Pinkerton nor Krovoza considered it important enough to attend. Lewin is the real deal, a world class cancer scientist who has had increasing administrative responsibilities and to a bunch of business people sounded like a venture capitalist. Long ago, he earned his Ph.D. at UCD, and he started by saying his major professor at UCD started a business, so he has always thought of entrepreneurial innovation as an integral part of the university mission. Lewin said more in any 5 minutes about Davis economic development than Pinkerton has said in his three months "on the job."

Of the dozen key meetings of concern to the business community during his three months, Mr. Economic Development specialist Pinkerton has attended the half of two meetings where he was the focus, and then left when other people started talking..

When either Pinkerton or Krovoza actually do meet with a business person, they are so busy talking that they don't listen. Pinkerton and Krovoza don't listen to the point that it is next to impossible to get any new versions of the situation (like maybe reality) into their thinking when they discuss particular policy conclusions that they intend to impose. And since they only know what each other has already confirmed, it is extremely difficult to get either Krovoza or Pinkerton to realize that they are operating from invalid assumptions. The problem is that they don't care to find out that they need to update their views; when asked to, they refuse to listen. That is usually referred to as "the arrogance of power."

Since Pinkerton mostly knows what Krovoza tells him, or from the standpoint of the way that Krovoza tells the story, Pinkerton only has a piecemeal view of the city, inappropriately deferring to Krovoza's views. Since Pinkerton is only accountable to Krovoza, he doesn't have to worry about the "whole city" and actually take over the reins of the government - actually take responsibility for the cumulative consequences of decisions and actions, as well as actually jump in and take charge, like he is a strong city manager and knows what he is doing. Krovoza's ego is so demanding that he has found someone who is willing to be a Weak City Manager. For Krovoza it is the way to misuse a Weak Mayor/Strong City Manager structure to fit his ego: Krovoza found somebody who is willing to be bossed around.

It looks like Pinkerton is an economic development grant hack, who really doesn't have a clue how to run a city, let alone take an economic mess in trying times, and figure out how to benefit from the University, which Pinkerton has so far been silent about.

Pinkerton hasn't engaged anyone in the business community: to actually ask questions, partly because Krovoza is confused about what he wants to do beyond "sustainability" and Pinkerton is taking his cues from Krovoza rather than the entire council. Pinkerton doesn't actually know what it takes to be a city manager. Pinkerton is a bureaucrat who specialized in getting grants for economic development when that was a useful skill. That gravy train has dried up. Economic development now means sitting down with real people with ideas who are trying to overcome tremendous challenges in this tight economy. Not for one minute has Pinkerton engaged the business community in that discussion: Pinkerton is too busy bragging that he did it before, in Long Beach, Stockton and Manteca. Pinkerton must have learned a lot about how to run a business when his wife opened that restaurant. Can't imagine what he' has learned in his time in Davis?

What about the cost of lost opportunities? How much does Sue Greenwald cost the city each meeting? Neither Krovoza nor Pinkerton has a clue what to do to have Sue Greenwald as a productive member of the discussion. The overall lack of focus and direction of the council can be blamed on Sue Greenwald's hysterics but it still seems that Krovoza only wants to be in power so he can do whatever he wants, with no particular course of action or medium term quantified objectives.

Roger Storey learned more about the Davis economy in his first 3 hours on the job of City Manager than Pinkerton has learned in his entire 3 months collecting a paycheck.

NOW KROVOZA IS REALLY IN CHARGE
All the problems Krovoza had with Paul Navazio have now disappeared. Pinkerton doesn't say "you can't do that". Pinkerton doesn't give five reasons why it won't work, why it is so unrealistic that it never should even be discussed. Because Pinkerton doesn't care, he doesn't know what he is talking about, and he doesn't want to have to find out and then have to be responsible enough to get back to Krovoza to tell Krovoza he is wrong.

And, that Krovoza is mini-micro managing so much that he refuses to even hear what are the real issues of concern. Krovoza could tell you the hundred things Davis should do, but he can't tell you the three things he is accomplishing and why they take priority. Where Don Saylor was EGO, History, Nice Talk, no substance (imitation warm fuzzies), Krovoza is EGO, Nice Talk, Big Smile, no history, no substance, no resolution (confused imitation warm fuzzies). Krovoza learned a lot from Saylor during his six month apprenticeship as Mayor Pro Tem about how to be a bully and boss city staff around. What Krovoza did not learn was how to work a project through the city process, so he assumes that whatever he wants to do is the right way to do it. No City Hall has ever worked that way. The History of New York City, for example, could well be described as how the Mayor battles City Hall at every turn and sometimes on the straightaway. That is why any community needs a mayor, to help work through the decisions; Krovoza on the other hand just thinks his point is the final decision.

At each successive city council meeting, Krovoza has spent the least amount of time reading the agenda packet and speaking with the respective communities of interest; Krovoza is least likely to be listening during presentation because his mindset is to already have a final decision and then drive towards it - too often ignoring information counter to Krovoza's predetermination.

Someone in a position to work with all of Davis' council members over the past 25 years says that some people are ignorant because they are un-informed, but some people are ignorant because they refuse to listen, and Krovoza is the most ignorant council person in their experience. Most un-educatable. Stuck in his egotistical rigidity.

Part of the problem is that Krovoza is attempting to implement a Strong Mayor form of governance within a Weak Mayor/Strong City Manager form of government. It only increases confusion. Dave Rosenberg is the closest Davis has ever come to having a Strong Mayor who was successful, all be it with a three vote majority the first time. Rosenberg drove Jerry Adler crazy with personal initiatives that he publicly announced and then brought to the city council for ratification. The most significant was the still-born and occasionally reborn "Association of Mayors of University of California Cities." But Rosenberg only got away with it because he knew he already had majority endorsement for the idea, he just hadn't gone through the formal part, which included informing Adler and requesting his support, but expecting irrelevant opposition, so why worry about it. There was too much of that towards Adler by the Rosenberg/Evans/Corbett Gang of Three whose cavalier design of the 1987 Davis General Plan precipitated the Davis Test of Time.

The art, the MAGIC, of the Weak Mayor form of council is based on the courtship of "counting to three." It is something that happens behind Krovoza's back. He is rarely involved except in lobbying other council members for his position. Krovoza is rarely the Mayor in the sense of being in the middle - his personal position always takes priority to the point of clouding his understanding of the rest of the council.

HAVE YOU DRILLED your PERSONAL WATER WELL?
The water rate issue is the biggest example of where Krovoza has lost the council but thinks he is in complete control. Krovoza was ambushed by Dan Wolk's alternative resolution, and Krovoza still refuses to respect the critics of the way the rate decision is happening.

What should be the crown jewel of a successful Krovoza administration, the grand water plan has become a clumsy disaster in terms of the process. Given Krovoza's history as a water lawyer, and his campaign claim to be an expert at public finance and big projects, this process should have given Krovoza the golden opportunity to shine as a leader who can carry a project to successful implementation.

At several significant steps, the petition gatherers and Dan Wolk have ambushed Krovoza. 1:30 a.m. in the marathon September 6th city council meeting Wolk brought up an exhaustive list of ways to improve the project process that completely surprised Krovoza. Not surprising, the list included a variety of ideas which had the finger prints of Wolk's parents, the former dean of the UCD law school and the state senator who is past chair of the assembly committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife and past Mayor of Davis. Krovoza made a deal in the heat of the moment, taking all the list in exchange for a 5-6 year rate increase package which was the only thing he cared about. That is part of the problem: Krovoza is impatient to get to the finish line to have something big.

On a fundamental level, what Dan Wolk, and Rochelle, get, and Krovoza doesn't have a clue about is that the water rate political controversy has gone way beyond the 218 requirements. Davis body politic, especially Enterprise columnist Bob Dunning, left that one behind long ago. No, this is about the fundamental credibility of the elected officials. At this point, the critics are specifically questioning the authority of Krovoza and Stephen Souza to make decisions on the water project Joint Powers Authority on behalf of the city of Davis. At question is their ability to be representatives.

After the more recent council meeting accepting the County Clerk's certification of the petition signatures, at midnight Pinkerton made public the city attorney's two week old "finding" that the city council could ignore the petition. Heretofore the city attorney's finding was "confidential" because of client attorney privilege because it was POLITICALLY sensitive: How many more people would have volunteered to carry petitions if they knew that the city attorney had already given the city manager the legal backing to ignore the petition? Following the email, Pinkerton and his staff presume that is the end of it: the city attorney said the council could ignore the petition and certify the rate increase; now the council can get on with the rest of the normal business of the city.

The way Pinkerton released the information about the city attorney's recommendation that the council actually ignore the petition for the vote on the water is such bad politics that Krovoza is in big political trouble. Unfortunately for Krovoza, the rookie city manager who should be in the best position to help him is the person making novice mistakes.

This is blatant arrogance of the new city manager. It is the electoral equivalent of the UCD police pepper spaying the motionless demonstrators three days later. It shows the complete disregard for the public process, the voters/taxpayers and the rule of law. When the petition leaders found out what the city manager did, they threatened to recall the 2010-14 council members, Krovoza and Swanson. [Rochelle lit up with delight at the prospect. Now that she knows what is going on more than anyone else, she has a story to tell.]

INSIDE CITY HALL
For the same reason that Pinkerton and Krovoza get along so well, Department Head meetings with the City Manager have become a worthless joke of listening to the boss tell more stories that mostly don't even have anything to do with the topic but are irrelevant anyway. If anyone else in the room ever did it twice, they would be reprimanded in the second meeting by the group and by the boss. But everybody has to indulge the boss.

With the second sentence of yet another worthless Pinkerton story, out come the cell phones to read email messages. Nobody has to pay any attention because the city manager is on automatic pilot. At least when Antonen was the city manager, the department heads had to work during their weekly meeting. Now it is productive only as personal time or side comments with other department heads that the city manager doesn't get and has no interest in. The meeting hours slowly creep by, as little or nothing of substance is even mentioned because the boss is too busy talking.

When Pinkerton walks into a room of Davis city employees, the room suddenly tenses as everyone is unsure what Pinkerton might possibly want. It is not likely to be good: Krovoza has a cut list. Getting rid of Bike Pedestrian Coordinator Tara Goddard was high on Krovoza's list. No telling who else is on it.

KROVOZA THE EMPTY SUIT
I supported Krovoza strongly from August to November 2009, lobbying key Davis people to support him for the June 2010 election. Then for three months, Krovoza taunted me to find a position in his imaginary campaign and he rejected each thing I proposed. Then Leo teased me to apply the Viable System Model to Krovoza's campaign, and I realized that I couldn't begin to, because Krovoza doesn't trust me at all. He is like that with a lot of people, too many people in Davis.

The good news is that since Ruth Asmundson left the council at the end of June, 2010, Rochelle Swanson has stepped into the breach as "de facto Mayor." Where Stephen Souza claims years of service (what the academics call "seat time" - the body is there but the mind is not engaged - has been used about Stephen in particular), Rochelle has been busy doing council service: actually listening to Sue Greenwald, and Stephen, as well as Krovoza, and of course Dan Wolk. Behind the scenes, it is Rochelle who has been doing her homework, listening to as many people as she can about a particular issue, working to be sure she understands all the sides, and learning what issues concern the sides, as well as what becomes the determining issues, for city staff and for her council colleagues. The behind the scenes work to settle the social friction - the art of the possible. What a society needs its Mayor to do.

Rochelle has out-thought and outworked Krovoza on every issue and every agenda item. Rochelle has out-thought staff so often they go to meetings with her for the fun of finding out what an engaged council member can add to public policy.

Krovoza is so busy in his day job at the university that he rarely has time for council business. He only shows up if he is scheduled, and then he is always rushed and usually late. Krovoza doesn't have time to have casual conversations with constituents, the glue of social intercourse, so he doesn't find out new information, and goes on what he thought before, even if others are changing, or worse, have already changed, leaving Krovoza behind. Wait. Isn't Krovoza supposed to be the "leader"?

Krovoza does power meetings on behalf of Davis, but he doesn't have time for Davis. He is respected at UCD, but there is not a single city employee who Krovoza has shown respect to besides his boy Pinkerton. He learned how to show dis-respect from Don Saylor, his mentor, and as Krovoza sees the POWER of having the office of Mayor for three and a half years, it means that he can do any-bully-thing he wants for a long time without any personal consequences except sullen city employees who don't jump at Krovoza's every whim.

Krovoza doesn't care about Davis; Krovoza only cares about Krovoza. Krovoza has a listening disability, the worst handicap a politician can have. First off, Krovoza talks non-stop (which is now called "Sue Greenwalding" someone), and just expects the listener to agree with the brilliance. When someone tries to disagree with him, Krovoza argues rather than listening to learn. Then Krovoza's brain just goes in another direction, and his subconscious actually gives the other person a courtesy: Krovoza starts saying "yeah, yeah, good, good; yeah, yeah, good, good," which is the sign to shut up and submit to Krovoza's superior ideas because you are just wasting your breath: no one is listening or cares about a word you are saying. And, Krovoza's brilliant thought is going to be so good that you are really, really going to appreciate the fact that Krovoza cut you off. Nice smile just before he cut you off.

Krovoza has turned unlistening almost into an art form; when he is being presented with information at a meeting, there is no telling where his brain is. Krovoza has had over a year, and he is a complete failure as "an elected official" because he cannot represent beyond his own personal opinion, just like Sue Greenwald. Hard to say who is worse for the city of Davis, Sue Greenwald or Joe Krovoza.

Krovoza is so arrogant that there are only about a dozen, maybe twenty Davis citizens that he listens to: the members of the school board, people he has appointed to the planning and natural resources commissions, four people in the bicycle community. Sue Greenwald has maybe a dozen people, although Mark Siegler is the only person who can tell her that she is wrong, so shut up and listen, and she actually does. Stephen Souza is so squirrelly that he will tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear. Dan Wolk is still the deer with his eyes in the headlights, will listen to everybody, as he is trying to figure out what he is really doing now that he is actually on the council and he has the opportunity and responsibility to face the voters next June. By comparison to the maybe three dozen people who actually influence those four individual council members, there are HUNDREDS of people who will say that Rochelle Swanson has asked their opinion, listened and then took their concerns into account in her thinking about the problem in particular and Davis in general so that when she is thinking about other problems in the future, Rochelle will keep those concerns in mind.

NEED A REAL CITY MANAGER
The chronic crisis in leadership that the City of Davis has is that we have been without a functioning city manager since John Meyer was so humiliated by Sue Greenwald in 2000 that he became the best administrator in the history of UCD. Sue Greenwald has ruined the lives of as many people as she can, especially city employees. The past decade has been painful, as the city manager's seat has been occupied by people with little investment in the future of the city or their decisions' consequences.

Jeannie Hippler struggled to keep the city on autopilot for two years, until I asked the Davis Enterprise reporter if Hippler was ever going to initiate the selection process for a new city manager, and Hippler used that weekly Enterprise interview to begin the recruitment process and be relieved of her duty.

Jim Antonen was a worthless Midwest escapee who was the fifth of five finalists - the first four were offered the job, found out about Sue Greenwald and turned it down. Antonen's only interest was building a 5-year CalPERS retirement fund at Top Dog wage, and he just tried to stay awake during City Council and Department Head meetings. The favorable perspective of Antonen was as the Grandfather of the city family, but Davis needs a Parent, not a Grandparent. Not just a nice person, or somebody that has great analytical skills, but someone who can seriously engage in having the city forces be discussed and worked through in public. When she was Mayor, Ruth Asmundson was so frustrated with Antonen that she went to John Meyer for advice on how to make Antonen actually do something.

I was having lunch with Bill Emlen the day that Antonen didn't keep his date for lunch that was how he symbolically resigned from the city manager's job, and the next day I had lunch with Mayor Ruth Asmundson at the restaurant next to the Davis Enterprise, and a woman walked in and the Mayor ducked her head, then glanced and asked if that is the Enterprise Editor? I said No, and the Mayor was relieved and confidentially said that she couldn't say anything but there was going to be an important headline story in today's paper and I guessed it was Antonen's departure.

As Community Development Director, Bill Emlen had been the only person in the city to stand up to the Covell Village Partners juggernaut, so I supported him in the city manager job. Emlen made drastic necessary council-mandated cuts and reprogrammings which protected his old department: Community Development keeping the most, and Public Works taking most of the General Fund hits (because of course we have to minimize the cuts to police and fire). A big part of what Emlen did was protect the city government from the bullying stomping of Don Saylor when he was Mayor. Emlen had an exit strategy from the day he started working for the City of Davis.

Paul Navazio is the first person to actually be City Manager since John Meyer, to actually pay attention to the long term consequences and plan for future decisions. In the tradition of Howard Reece (1959-83), Roger Storey (1983-87) and John Meyer (1990-2000), Paul Navazio actually cares about what he is doing and who he is doing it with.

As Finance Director/Interim City Manager, Navazio has brought the city government together with a common purpose. Those are not simply words; that is an ongoing institutional crisis that every organization must contend with, and with a city government is focused on the city manager. Paul's children are teenagers, one of whom is handicapped enough that the family is always overcoming obstacles. That is what life is: achieving what the family wants within the physical, financial, legal, social and environmental constraints of reality. Let's go to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, then Yankee Stadium, and then Fenway Park in Boston. Great, OK. Now what do we have to do to make that a success?

During the past year, Navazio has rebuilt camaraderie, esprit de corps, a sense of trust and good will that was impossible for a decade. The greatest irony about Krovoza's antics since he has become Mayor is that every time he has screamed at a city employee, every time he refused to listen, it has increased that employee's respect for Navazio.

KROVOZA & PINKERTON: CLUELESS, DEAF & IN COMMAND, BUT NOT IN CONTROL
Krovoza should resign and focus on his day job.

Kerry Loux is the perfect person to complete Krovoza's council term. Loux would have seconded many Krovoza's motions, almost as quickly as he would endorse and support Loux's more thoughtful comprehensive proposals moving policy in a sustainable direction, without any of Krovoza's ego or political ambition.

Krovoza's gigantic ego will overcome this minor setback, and he will chart a different path to greater glory.
Pinkerton isn't even as trustworthy as Katehi. Pretty close to zero.

It will be interesting to hear what Jon Li might be able to put into 3 minutes of legal public comment without swear words at Tuesday's city council meeting. Krovoza will survive that 3 minutes, but the odds are no better than 50% that he will make it to the end of the water discussion. He will get so exasperated that he resigns from the city council in complete aggravation.

Rochelle is the Mayor in fact.
Krovoza is at best a distraction.
Kerry Loux should be appointed by city council to complete Krovoza's term
Pick Stephen Souza to be Mayor Pro Tem so he doesn't run for another term
Souza is conflicted and the Davis representatives to the Woodland-Davis Water JPA should be Rochelle Swanson and Dan Wolk
Navazio should be named city manager,
Bob Clarke Public Works Director and
Navazio should be authorized to hire a Finance Director.
It is time for the adults to take responsibility for the City of Davis.

--

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Jon Li
jli@cal.net
Institute for Public Science & Art
http://daviswiki.org/Users/JonLi

Occupy Wall Street: How many of these protesters are anti-Semites?

2011-10-18T16:02:00.000-07:00

From my relatively centrist, relatively elite position, the Occupy Wall Street movement seems a lot like the Tea Party movement. Both are full of extremists who tend to have poor educations and an unsophisticated understanding of the economy and our political system. They both hate the Federal Reserve, but have no idea how much better off we are with it. They don't have a fundamental understanding of monetary policy. They want to shut down the GATT and the WTO and free trade, but they never studied the deleterious effects of Smoot-Hawley. They just are not that smart. I don't think the Occupy movements are full of Stanford and University of Chicago PhD's.

But there is a major difference in the two populist surges: the Occupy Wall Street movement has an explicitly anti-Semitic element setting the tone.

The left tried for a long time to portray the Tea Party groups as "racist." But the evidence was weak. I'm sure there are a handful of white, right-wing extremists among the Tea Party who are prejudiced. But the movement itself--to reduce government spending, lower taxes, and to abide by the Constitution--never focused on blaming one group or another for our country's problems. Its focus has always been on an amorphous hatred of big government.

The Tea Partiers have lately favored Herman Cain's bid for president. They don't seem to care about Cain's skin color. They care that his 9-9-9 plan (a rather simplistic plan that would probably harm the interests of lower-income people with a national sales tax) is in line with their ideology.

By contrast, there has not been a big Occupy Wall Street protest anywhere in the country which has not had signs blaming the Jews for America's problems. For hundreds of years--all the way back to the time 1,000 years ago when the English kicked all of their Jewish citizens--the hatred of "the 1%" has been a hatred of the Jews. When people say they hate Wall Street or they hate big banks or they hate people with money, they are at the very least mimicking thousands of years of anti-Semitism, very often explicitly.

I am not saying that all people on the far left are anti-Semites. In fact, many of them are Jews. What I am saying is that this hatred of the people who work for or run banks or who trade bonds or who fund capital calls is right in the tradition of centuries of anti-Semitism. It is scapegoating "the other." It is blaming someone else, some minority, for your own problems.

Up until the 1960s, this sort of anti-Semitism in the United States was mostly the province of the right. But Malcolm X and later Louis Farrakhan made hatred of the Jews popular on the left.

If you find someone who hates Israel in the U.S., he almost certainly will be a left-winger, likely someone protesting today against Jewish bankers. Those who call themselves anti-Zionist never seem to cover their tracks to prove their hatred of Israel is not hatred of the Jews. They don't protest against maltreatment in the Middle East. You never see the so-called anti-Zionists in Davis protesting the inhumane governments of Syria or Iran. They never denounced Ghadhafi or Saddam Hussein. They instead have focused all of their hate on the Jews, protraying Israel as a bastion of evil.

It's funny, though, because Israel is the best country in the Middle East. It always has been. It is not perfect. It deserves criticism for many of its policies. But those doing the criticizing should also be critical of the far worse crimes against humanity committed by Hamas and Hezbollah and the Turkish government and god-forbid the brutal Saudi Arabian regime. The one country which has free speech and democratic elections and has a successful market economy and good schools and fair courts is the only one they hate? Yes, the anti-Zionist left is really just anti-Semitic.

Today in the L.A. Times it was reported that a woman who works for the L.A. Unified School District and is a protestor against the Wall Street Jews in Occupy Los Angeles was fired, after she called for Jews to be kicked out of the United States:

"I think that the Zionist Jews who are running these big banks and our Federal Reserve, which is not run by the federal government -- they need to be run out of this country," McAllister said in the video by Reason.tv, a Libertarian-leaning news organization.

Do you think anything this blatantly racist was ever spoken at a Tea Party rally?

I don't think the Occupy Wall Street movement of the left will amount to anything in our national politics, even though it seems to be very widespread. They don't really have any sound political ideas. They seem to just have this hatred for "the other." But if any of them are disturbed by the anti-Semitism of their movement, they owe it to our country and the sake of decency to stop tolerating so much anti-Semitism. They need to go to those sit-ins and carry a sign denouncing the hatred of the Jew.

What the water experts say:

2011-10-10T15:31:00.000-07:00
I recently interviewed some UC Davis water experts regarding the sustainability of Davis continuing to draw its municipal water from wells, including the deep aquifer. Here is what I found out:

-----------

Richard Cowen, a professor emeritus in geology, told me: "A city the size of Davis (and it will increase in population) will locally deplete almost any aquifer. That will draw water inward to replace it. That situation can continue for a while, but in the end is not sustainable.

"The useful life span of a deeper aquifer depends on its geology and its source of recharge, neither of which I know. We are talking years rather than decades, I would imagine, without knowing the facts.

"Careful monitoring would give warning that an aquifer’s life is limited. But given the difficulty of finding an alternative, we might find ourselves in a bad bargaining position as time begins to run out. In other words, if we have a better alternative right now, why go to the trouble and expense of drilling into a new aquifer that has to be a diminishing resource?

"The Sacramento River is the biggest and cleanest water source in the region, and could certainly supply municipal water for Davis forever because its water is renewed from rain and snow every year. It would be much more reliable in the long term than any aquifer."

--------------

Gregory Pasternack, a professor of Watershed Hydrology in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, told me: "If you look at the facts on face value with no questioning of assumptions, then sure, Davis uses a lot of water and will be using ever more, so more supply and better supply is needed. A number of shallower wells in Davis are contaminated now and the good, deep aquifer varies in depth and water quality from East to West. Davis has spent a lot building one or more wells and then decommissioning without production due to manganese in the east, so that is a problem. The vision of getting high-quality surface water makes sense in that view. Deep groundwater can supply a lot, but do we really want to use that so heavily and ignore future generations? I think more deep groundwater wells would work for a while, as every community in the region is now probing for that same sweet spot at ~800-1000' depth."

"What bothers me is that we need to get serious about changing our water system more radically to get to where we need to go in terms of quality and quantity. If we were starting from scratch, we would never build the system like this, emptying all our best water onto lawns (or maybe they would, but shouldn't!). We would use low-quality water from shallower, cheap wells to irrigate, preserving the good, deep groundwater for household use only. Well, we are not starting from scratch, but the opportunity is here now just the same. We only get one shot to make this major investment in infrastructure, and what happens if the surface water conditions or water quality don't pan out over time due to climate change or legal rights issues? In fact, many neighborhoods have extensive greenbelts and buffer lands that could be used to run independent irrigation pipes OR we could open up the roads and run the pipes underground- just get it done one time and never have to worry about treating all that lawn water. Then retrofit the houses to take irrigation water from the new lines and leave the deep groundwater for household use."

-------------

Thomas Harter, a Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources and holder of the Robert M. Hagan Endowed Chair in Water Management and Policy, told me: "The issue, as I understand it, is not about the availability of groundwater, it is mostly about its quality and suitability a) for drinking and b) for meeting wastewater discharge requirements. I defer to the experts of Davis groundwater quality to speak to that topic and what future trends they may see. As to the question, whether groundwater will suddently change it's quality or will suddenly disappear in an unforeseen event - the answer depends on your perspective. Indeed, neither of these events will happen overnight or from one week to the next - the change is gradual. But when it takes a decade or more to develop an alternative water supply, "sudden" means: less than ten years. In that sense, we may indeed "suddenly" see changes that we cannot accurately predict today; water quality standards - which classify drinking water quality to be either "bad" or "good" may also change "suddenly", i.e., over the next decade. So, I do understand the need for planning ahead."

------------------

I asked Steve Grattan, a water specialist who studies "Salinity effects on plants at the plant and field scale; agricultural drainage water reuse and management; salinity-trace element interactions in plants; evapotranspiration" this:

Do you believe deep aquifer well water is a reliable, long-term source of water for Davis? Why or why not?

"This question is best answered by ground water hydrologists. However, my feeling is that if the Sacramento River is a viable option, the water will be of better quality than many of the ground water aquifers that supply the city of Davis. What is uncertain is the dependability on surface water supply over the long term. Certainly there will be continued droughts in California where various water users will compete for its (river) use. Another issue that needs to be considered is the gradual shift in peak water flows in many California rivers to earlier times. With climate change, not only is the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada mountains moving to higher elevations, snow melt is generally occuring earlier where peak flows are now occurring earlier in the year. This affects how much of this water is stored in dams vs how much is released down stream. With that trend, there may be merit in trying to re-capture that early flows in ground water aquifers by diverting it to flood plains. How this may affect water supplies for the city of Davis I am not sure but it is something important to consider."

If and when the deep aquifer dries up or no longer produces good water, will we have a number of years of advanced warning, or will we be shocked to find over night that we can no longer rely on our deep wells?

"If and when the deep aquifer dries up it will likely be a gradual process. It will not be something that happens over night. There will be a warning with sustained drop in aquifer depth over time. The water quality may also become progressively worse in quality over the years.

Based on what you know about the alternatives, would you recommend Davis go forward with its surface water project? Or do you think we are just as well off to wait 10 or 20 or more years before we spend the money it will take to bring Sacramento River water to Davis? Why or why not?

"It is never too early to begin to think about alternate water supplies. Ideally it would be valuable for the city of Davis if it had both sources available. The top priority would be Sacramento river water and during prolonged droughts, rely on ground water supplies. Ultimately it comes down to economics and water demand among the various water users."

-----------

By email, I asked Professor of Hydrogeology Graham Fogg if the deep aquifer was sustainable:

"This is poorly understood because of (a) the unknown future changes in groundwater quality due to downward movement of poor quality groundwater from agricultural and urban sources (Davis is not unique in this regard), (b) the unknown effects of increased pumping by the City in the so-called deep aquifer, from which UCD already withdraws drinking water, and (c) the unknown (to me at least) future demands for water in Davis when one considers growth and possible conservation measures. Of course, even if the groundwater quality continues to degrade, there is always the option of treating the groundwater to remove dissolved substances, much like we do routinely with surface water; but this costs."

How many years will the deep aquifer last?

"It's best to think of it as an "aquifer system" rather than an aquifer, because most of it consists of a complex network of aquifer materials (sands and gravels) and non-aquifer materials (silts and clays), and the latter are by far most prevalent. The groundwater levels appear to be recovering more or less fully every year following the dry season, indicating it is not yet in overdraft with respect to water quantity. In most any city where groundwater is the sole source of drinking water and landscape water, however, it is possible for demand to grow to the point that groundwater overdraft occurs. In that case, the aquifer system would not dry up and blow away, but there would be more severe restrictions on water use, like vastly reducing landscape watering, which is a large but non-essential part of the water demand. (I realize, it's an uphill battle in N. CA to get people more accustomed to lack of green grass, but since landscape watering in this part of the world is the largest part of the urban water budget, this issue will be receiving more and more attention.)

Will we have advanced warning before the aquifer dries up?

The changes in groundwater quality will not be sudden, but will likely continue on a decades to centuries time scale.

Do you believe that the Sacramento River water is a reliable and sufficiently safe long-term source for our municipal water?

Hydrologically, the Sacramento River water would be a reliable long term source. Legally, not sure because that is not my area of expertise.

Based on what you know about the alternatives, would you recommend Davis go forward with its surface water project?

"I am not sufficiently up to speed on the latest information (and related economics) to answer the big question. However, I would keep in mind the following guideposts:

"(a) The groundwater system is vulnerable due to long term degradation of water quality and potential for future overdraft. Many cities that rely solely on groundwater seem to eventually reach overdraft conditions.

"(b) Based on (a) and the water quality vulnerability, any planner in his right mind should jump at the chance to secure surface water sources that can be used in conjunction with the groundwater (i.e., use more of the surface water when you have it, keeping the groundwater in the 'bank'; use more of the groundwater during drought). Especially if that can be accomplished reasonably economically.

"(c) The common sense in (b) looks even better when you consider the wastewater discharge limitations that the Regional Board is apparently enforcing strictly. If the Board really will be requiring that Davis reduce drastically its salt load from wastewater discharged into the Delta watershed, then the only viable alternative I am aware of is for Davis to reduce the salt content in its drinking and landscape water by using substantially more Sac. R. water, which is much lower in dissolved salts.

"(d) The common sense in (b) also looks even better if the opportunity to secure the surface water is arising now and is unlikely to ever arise in the future.

"(e) The question probably hinges mostly on the wastewater discharge issue. If this will be strictly enforced, then Davis seems to have little alternative but to bring in more Sac. R. water if it can. If this discharge is not strictly enforced and never will be (big ifs), then Davis could probably make do just with groundwater. If they go groundwater only, then when the quality worsens, they will have to invest in water treatment in the coming decades. If and when they reach serious overdraft conditions, their only recourse would be to eliminate most lawn watering entirely. Such a measure would possibly be used to manage or reverse overdraft, but would require a major shift in attitudes of the citizenry."

----------------

I asked Qingfu Xiao, a research water scientist at UC Davis, if the deep aquifer was reliable:

"This is totally depends on how we (are) managing and using this resource. As more and more lands are used for buildings, streets, and parking lots, one problem, to make (the) deep aquifer well water reliable, is to use new technology and management to balance the groundwater withdraw and recharge. And the technologies are there at reasonable cost USGS has been testing recharge groundwater at relatively large scale in L.A."

How many years do you think deep aquifer water will last?

"It depends on how we pumping and recharging rate. It is a management issue. It will last longer than predicted because the fresh water line from Lake Berryessa (UCD), and water conservation from both technology and education."

Based on what you know about the alternatives, would you recommend Davis go forward with its surface water project?

"We should go forward with this surface water project. But, at the same time, we need rethink how we keep our groundwater system healthy, change our landscape design to increase groundwater recharge (water banking?). Multiple water resources will improve water quality and reliability for Davis."

America is happy: good triumphed over evil: the Mavericks beat the Heat: Dirk is a champ; LeBron is a chump

2011-06-13T11:19:00.000-07:00

Outside of South Florida, all of America is happy. The lovable Mavericks defeated the hated Heat in 6 games, winning the NBA Championship.

There has been much speculation as to why America was rooting for Dallas, and why America so hates LeBron James. Most of the talk centers around "The Decision," where LeBron held a one hour interview on live TV in order to announce last summer that he was going to sign a free agent contract with the Miami Heat.

That is part of the reason no one but Heat fans wanted to see LeBron win. But it's not the biggest reason. Here, then, are the top 10 reasons why America rooted for Dallas and against Miami in the NBA Championships:

1. The spurned woman syndrome. LeBron James grew up near Cleveland in Akron, Ohio. LeBron never had another girlfriend in the pros. He was married to Cleveland. He had played his entire career with the Cavaliers. Cleveland had been a good and loving wife. Cleveland did everything in her powers to make LeBron happy. Cleveland paid LeBron the top salary possible. Cleveland tried everything it could to acquire good players around LeBron to help him win a ring. Yet the second a prettier girl shook her hips in LeBron’s direction, he fell for the bait. He left his loyal wife for a younger, sexier model named Miami. No one loves the man who quits on his loyal wife. We identify with the spurned woman.

2. Cleveland as an underdog. It is not just the case that Cleveland has a poor economy, bad weather and miserable people. It’s that Cleveland never has had much luck with its pro sports teams. The Indians had a few good teams in the 1990s, but they haven’t won since the 1950s. And the Browns, ever since the great Jim Brown retired in the 1960s, have been a perennial loser, almost always finishing with a losing record. But that bad luck seemed to have turned around with the arrival of LeBron James. He took them to the Finals a few years ago; and each of his last 4 years in Cleveland had made the Cavaliers one of the best teams in the NBA. It seemed like just a matter of time before the Cavs would finally win it all. But then LeBron bolted. By quitting on them, he took away that hope for that underdog city.

3. The Decision as a shocker. It makes for much better theater when you have a drama and you don’t know the outcome. So give LeBron credit for not spilling the beans in advance of his announcement that he was going to play for Miami. But because no word had leaked out, just about everyone thought this was all a big show about nothing—that he would remain with the Cavaliers. So the shock was all that much worse when he announced he was quitting on his team, his city, and his fans. The second we collectively recovered from LeBron's sucker punch, the shock turned to anger, hurt and disappointment.

4. The Decision as egotism + The Miami Dance Party. It’s hard not to be an egoist when you have the god-given gifts of LeBron James. That said, he came across as terribly arrogant when he stated, “I am taking my talents to South Beach.” Never mind that the Heat play in Miami, not South Beach, which is in a different city (Miami Beach). The fact that he referred to his “talents” in the third person made it sound as if he pictured himself as above a human being, that he carried around this amazement known as his “talents.” Add to that the egoism of the celebration held in Miami before the season in which LeBron and his new mates danced and laughed and proclaimed they would win 8 championships as a group. That is hard to like when LeBron had never won anything.

5. The Conspiracy. The fact that LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, all of whom played together on Team USA conspired well in advance of their free agency to form a super team in the NBA makes this Miami Heat group feel inorganic. It’s not that they are a super team. The Lakers are a super team. The Celtics are another. There have been many past teams which had multiple superstars in their primes at the same time. But unlike all of those who came before this Heat team, the others were formed one piece at a time by the draft, by a trade or by adding a single free agent. In this case, it was clear that the Team USA teammates went around the traditional system. They took charge. They created this Miami Heat super team. And the team feels inauthentic for it.

6. Dallas as an underdog. The Mavericks have been around as an expansion team since the 1980-81 season. Yet they had never won a championship. Everyone loves the underdog. Everyone will keep on loving Dallas, unless they hurt us by continuing to win. Then they will be an overdog.

7. Dirk Nowitzki as an underdog. Dirk has been viewed for a long time as a very good, yet somewhat soft Euro. He’s a 7-foot tall man, yet all he seemed able to do was shoot from the outside. But after 13 years in the NBA, after progressively getting better, developing toughness, playing better team defense, learning how to drive to the basket and post up, and learning how to take charge of his team and to command respect from his opponents, his story arc is one fans can identify with. He overcame his own faults and worked and worked until he was good enough to win. Unlike LeBron, he was never handed the expectations of being an all-time great. He just made himself into one.

8. Race, but not racism. The fact that Dirk Nowitzki, the best player on Dallas, is white and that whites are generally bad at basketball compared with blacks, makes any great white player an anomaly and to that extent an underdog. As such, all very good white players tend to get overrated and over-loved in the NBA. If half the league were white, no one would care. But because 85% of the league is black and because 95 percent of the greatest players of all time are black makes the fans, who are naturally drawn to the underdog, root for the rare good white guy. This may sound like white racism. However, I think it is the same thing in other sports where most of the athletes are white and the black star is rare. In hockey, the few great black players get extra love for it. The same is true with black golfers, white sprinters in track, black swimmers, black skiers, etc.

9. The other Mavericks. Jason Kidd, for one, has been in the league a long time. He is one of the best point guards of all time. He will be in the Hall of Fame. Yet he had never before won a ring. Another is JJ Barea, a little man who came up big time and again in this post-season. I think people are happy for Jason Terry, who started out playing poorly but improved as the series went on and was the best player on the court in the final game.

10. The ugly factor. LeBron is not a good looking man. I don't think anyone hates him for that. However, his ugly face makes it easier to see him in the role of a villain. The same could never be said about Michael Jordan, who was born with good looks and loads of talent.

Would it be so wrong to appoint a person to replace Gabby Giffords in Congress until she is well enough to do the job?

2011-05-24T21:48:00.000-07:00

The AP is reporting that Gabby Giffords is back in the hospital following her most recent surgery:

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has been transferred back to her rehabilitation hospital in Houston after recovering from last week's surgery at a nearby hospital.

The 40-year-old Arizona Democrat had been recuperating at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center since last Wednesday's surgery to implant a synthetic replacement for a portion of her skull. Doctors also gave Giffords a permanent shunt to relieve fluid buildup in her brain.

Part of Giffords' skull was removed Jan. 8, the same day she was shot in the head in a shooting in Tucson that left six dead and 12 others wounded.

While I am terribly sympathetic to Ms. Giffords and hope for the best for her recovery, I have been thinking lately about how unrepresented the people of her Congressional district have been since Giffords was attacked in that Safeway parking lot.

I think we need a better way to deal with a member of Congress who has become temporarily (or possibly permanently) incapacitated: the governor of her state should be authorized to appoint an interim member who would serve in her place until the Congresswoman has healed or her term expires.

It would be unfair to Giffords to remove her from office in this case. She was duly elected. But it is unfair to her district to have no representation in Congress for nearly 2 years.

I recognize that the Arizona governor is a Republican and Ms. Giffords is a Democrat. So perhaps the fairest choice would be to allow the head of the Democrats in the state legislature to have a veto over the interim appointee. That would hopefully mean the person chosen was agreeable to all parties for the time being.

Judge Rosenberg claims my column was “full of misstatements and misconceptions.”

2011-04-25T23:02:00.000-07:00

In the April 26 edition of The Davis Enterprise, an op-ed penned by Yolo County Judge David Rosenberg will be published. Judge Rosenberg’s piece, which is now available in the online edition of the newspaper, is an attack on my April 13 column which questioned whether now is the right time to be spending $5 billion on 41 courthouse projects, one of which will be built in Woodland.

New Yolo courthouse will benefit residents
By David Rosenberg

Under the headline “Courthouse plans straining budget,” your columnist Rich Rifkin (April 13) challenged the new Yolo courthouse project. His column is so full of misstatements and misconceptions that I felt compelled to respond.

As a public service, I will count up every misstatement and every misconception I made.

In fact, a new courthouse project was approved (years ago) for Yolo County, costing about $173 million. The land already has been identified and acquired, the design phase is now under way, leading to the start of construction, hopefully, at some point next year.

So far, Judge Rosenberg has failed to point out a single misstatement or misconception of mine.

However, even the headline of Rifkin’s column is inaccurate.

The judge should know that I have nothing to do with the headlines. Those are written by the editors. That qualifies as the first misconception in this exchange.

Rosenberg 1-0 in misconceptions.

This project is not straining any budget — state, county or local.

I never stated in any way that this project is straining any budget. That counts as a second misconception for the man who worked so hard to get a public skate park built in Davis.

Rosenberg 2-0.

Not one penny of taxpayer money is used for the courthouse project.

I never said the 41 courthouse projects would be funded by a tax. I explained carefully in my piece how a new fee would be attached to all parking tickets, moving violations and other criminal convictions in which the convicted is not sent to prison.

I won’t charge Judge Rosenberg for a third misconception, here. Rather, I will charge him with a blatant deception. His effort is to mislead his readers, making them think I wrote incorrectly how the funds for his courthouse will be generated.

Rosenberg 2-0 in misconceptions plus one deception.

No state general fund money is used for the project.

Again, I never stated that any general fund money would be used. That counts as deception number two for Dave.

Rosenberg 2-0 in misconceptions plus two deceptions.

The project is completely funded by a statewide surcharge assessed against everyone convicted of a violation of the criminal law.

I think this statement qualifies as deception number three and misstatement number one for Yolo County’s presiding judge. He misleads his readers with “a violation of the criminal law,” because almost all of the money will come from traffic offenders and parking violations. And because, when a person is sent to prison (see EDIT 1) he normally does not pay the fee but works it off, Judge Rosenberg knows that it is not “everyone convicted” who will pay this surcharge.

Misconceptions: 2-0; Deceptions: 2-0. Misstatements: 1-0.

Rifkin’s column asserts that the money for the new courthouse could better be used elsewhere.

It could be better used elsewhere at this time. What I wrote was that until we are out of the economic and budget crisis, we should put off funding luxurious courthouses like the one planned for Woodland.

He says “with that much largesse, Yolo County could pay off almost all of its $175.5 million unfunded pension liability to the miscellaneous employees.” Interesting theory.

Thanks for your interest in my theory, Dave.

But Rifkin ignores several facts.

Let’s hear your facts, your honor.

First, to do so would violate state law, which requires that the money collected from people who violate the law should be used for court facilities.

I did not ignore that “fact,” Davey! I suggested that the Legislature change the law. I noted, “…there is no reason SB 1407 could not be temporarily changed.”

Misconceptions: 2-0; Deceptions: 2-0. Misstatements: 2-0.

Second, to do so would ignore the constitution, which would mandate some sort of nexus between the fee and the expenditure — using the funds from those convicted of crime to pay off a county’s debt has no nexus; using the funds to pay for court facilities certainly does.

I never said these fees should be used to pay off the county's debt. I merely noted that the amount that Yolo County's pension funding for its miscellaneous employees is short is nearly identical to the amount the new courthouse would cost. In other words, if Yolo County had this money, it could pay off this debt.

It’s hard for me, a layman, to argue the state constitution with a superior court judge. However, I believe the judge knows he is being duplicitous, here. He admitted as much some paragraphs down when he wrote this:

“Rifkin fails to mention that the state Legislature last year borrowed a substantial portion of this fund for ‘other purposes’ and is poised to divert a substantial amount of this fund again this year.”

So which is it, judge? You state that the money cannot be used for other purposes, and then you state that the money is being used for other purposes. Is your left brain not communicating well with your right brain? Or are you just trying to deceive your readers?

Misconceptions: 2-0; Deceptions: 3-0. Misstatements: 2-0.

Finally, pursuing Rifkin’s “logic” to the ultimate conclusion, government should not pay for capital projects but should divert its money to pay for debt service or operations.

Once again, this public servant is trying to deceive his readers. Either that, or he just did not read my column carefully.

I never mentioned anything about not paying for capital projects. I never even said the judge’s shiny new courthouse project should be abandoned. I simply suggested that while we are in a severe budget crisis, it is questionable in my mind whether now is the best time to be spending this $5 billion it will cost to build 41 courthouse projects, 35 of which are brand new buildings.

Misconceptions: 2-0; Deceptions: 4-0. Misstatements: 2-0.

I suppose the city of Davis should not have built or repaired roads, or parks or pools, or the Veterans’ Memorial Center or the Senior Center — per Rifkin, the money would have been better spent in operations.

The judge seems to have no factual points to make. So instead he just makes up shinola like this. The fact is that I don’t object to roads or public buildings. I simply argued in my column that while the state is drowning in red ink, it would be a good idea to put off this $5 billion expenditure.

Misconceptions: 2-0; Deceptions: 4-0. Misstatements: 3-0.

The reality is that it is never easy to accommodate long-range projects such as roads, bridges, canals or buildings.

Actually, the judge is wrong here. It’s not that hard. Our state has passed scores of bond measures to fund these sorts of projects. Since 1996, we have approved more than $21 billion in general obligation bonds. For details, see what the Legislative Analyst’s office reports.

Misconceptions: 2-0; Deceptions: 4-0. Misstatements: 4-0.

The immediate demands for operations are always great. Kudos to the governor, the Legislature and the judicial branch for recognizing this and for creating a logical funding source for new courthouses in California: a fee charged only to persons convicted of crimes. Who better to pay for court facilities?

Repeating himself, as the judge is wont to do, Rosenberg states that these courthouse buildings will be paid for by convicted criminals. He conveniently fails to mention that almost all of the money will be generated by a large surcharge on traffic tickets and a smaller charge tacked on parking tickets.

Do you wonder why the judge didn’t explain that in his tirade?

Misconceptions: 2-0; Deceptions: 5-0. Misstatements: 4-0.

Rifkin goes on to say that Davis City Councilwoman Sue Greenwald mentioned to him that the price of the new Yolo courthouse is almost three times the price of the “luxurious” Mondavi Center. But surely Greenwald and Rifkin understand that a courthouse is not a theater.

A courthouse is not a theater? Thanks for letting me in on that, your honor.

A courthouse is a complex structure, unlike any other building. The current Yolo courthouse facilities see more than 300,000 separate trips of users and visitors each year.

That’s another way of saying about 1,000 people each day go into our courthouse. I wonder how that compares with the foot traffic in a typical big box store?

A courthouse has special security needs, the requirement for three separate pathways (for the public, for in-custody defendants, and for judicial officers and staff), unique courtrooms, public-serving counters, jury assembly space, holding cells, interview rooms and numerous other requirements.

Further, the new Yolo courthouse will be a LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building, using the latest energy-saving technologies.

I wonder how many times in this column Judge Rosenberg will tell us that the new courthouse building will be LEED certified? I think LEED certification can be a nice thing. The new Target is LEED certified.

As an aside, there are a lot of environmentalists who are critical of LEED certifications. The famed architect Frank Gehry, who designed the purposefully weird Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, has, for example, said that LEED certification is often given for “bogus stuff.” I never charged that Rosenberg’s building will be given LEED points for bogus stuff.

Certainly, $173 million is a great deal of money — but it is what it costs to build a courthouse. The new courthouse planned for Sacramento County is pegged at about $510 million.

The judge likely read that in my column, where I noted that the “new 35-courtroom Sacramento Criminal Courthouse is slated to cost $509 million.” Maybe he wants you to think the $172.9 million project in Woodland is cheap by comparison?

The main thrust of Rifkin’s column is that in these difficult times, the money for courthouse construction could be better spent by being diverted for other purposes.

That was my main point, judge. I am glad to see you understood what I said.

Whether true or not, Rifkin fails to mention that the state Legislature last year borrowed a substantial portion of this fund for “other purposes” and is poised to divert a substantial amount of this fund again this year.

Recall that a few paragraphs up, Judge Rosenberg, who is an expert on the constitution, said this could not be done. Have you decided, Dave, which way is it?

So, clearly, the Legislature — which thrashes around for available pots of money in difficult times — has, in fact, diverted courthouse construction funds for “other purposes” already.

Good. I thought you told me that was unconstitutional. I guess you were thinking of some other state constitution when you wrote that.

Misconceptions: 2-0; Deceptions: 6-0. Misstatements: 4-0.

Fortunately, the Yolo courthouse project is so high on the list of critical projects that it will (sic) unaffected by this diversion.

It looks like no one edited Rosenberg’s writing. Not only does it have grammatical errors (“will unaffected”), but no one pointed out to the judge that he repeats his points again and again.

Rifkin’s column then goes on to denigrate courthouse projects as “Taj Mahals.” That is inaccurate and unfair.

How is that a denigration? The Taj Mahal is fabulous. Wikipedia says, “It is widely considered as one of the most beautiful buildings in the world and stands as a symbol of eternal love.”

Misconceptions: 2-0; Deceptions: 6-0. Misstatements: 5-0.

Courthouses are important public buildings that last many generations. The current historic courthouse in Yolo County has lasted almost a century. The new Yolo courthouse will be a courthouse for the next hundred years.

I have not seen any architectural renderings for the new Rosenberg courthouse. However, my guess is that it will feature a lot of high end décor. If it doesn’t, I will gladly buy Dave a coffee in downtown Woodland.

It will not be an insubstantial building — it will house 14 courtrooms, a jury assembly area to accommodate more than 300 prospective jurors, clerks’ offices and counters for the public, holding cells for in-custody defendants, security stations and many other features unique to courthouses.

Did you say it will house 14 courtrooms?

In addition, the new courthouse will be a LEED building, built to the best standards of environmental efficiency that we can muster.

Wait a minute, Dave. Didn’t you already brag that it will be a LEED building? Is it not against the law in Woodland to repeat yourself in your same column?

The Yolo court facilities are among the busiest — perhaps the busiest — public buildings in the county.

Maybe that’s because our district attorney has a tendency to bring every possible case to trial, rather than reach plea agreements with defendants? I don’t know if that is true. However, I have read that argument in a widely read Davis blog.

Rifkin’s criticism even goes so far as to challenge the five-story projection for the new courthouse.

Goes so far as to challenge? I stated its height as a matter of fact: “The five-story project will house 14 new courtrooms, each twice the size of the courtrooms in the historic edifice on Court Street.”

Misconceptions: 3-0; Deceptions: 6-0. Misstatements: 5-0.

Five stories, while clearly substantial, will not be out of place on Main Street in downtown Woodland.

I never said it would be out of place.

The historic Hotel Woodland — just down the street from the proposed courthouse — has four stories and roof facades.

As it happens, the Hotel Woodland is more than five blocks from where the Rosenberg Courthouse will be erected. Most of the existing structures adjacent to the block between Lincoln and Main and Fifth and Sixth streets, where the courthouse will be, are one story tall.

Misconceptions: 3-0; Deceptions: 7-0. Misstatements: 5-0.

The current historic courthouse on Court Street has four stories. There is a processing plant on Main Street just four blocks east of the proposed courthouse that is more than five stories in height.

The point is that the new courthouse must hold 14 courtrooms and attendant court uses.

You say it will house 14 courtrooms?

While the courthouse could be four stories, or even three stories, that would be poor planning. A shorter courthouse would have a larger footprint, taking much more of the land and thus restricting future expansion in 10 or 20 years.

The judge claimed above he is building this structure to last 100 years. Now he says in 10 or 20 years he wants it built even larger? Which is it, Dave?

Misconceptions: 4-0; Deceptions: 7-0. Misstatements: 5-0.

One problem with state buildings is that the state builds only for today’s needs, not for tomorrow’s requirements. The current needs for Yolo County are 14 courtrooms.

You say it will house 14 courtrooms?

In 10 years we will need more. By using less of the land, the court has the ability to expand on site.

Maybe instead of spending a lot more money in 10 years, we can make use of the historic courthouse on Main Street a decade from now?

Rifkin then criticizes the 14 courtrooms planned in the new courthouse by asserting that each will be twice the size of the current courtrooms.

I never criticized that. I merely pointed it out: “The five-story project will house 14 new courtrooms, each twice the size of the courtrooms in the historic edifice on Court Street.”

It is apparent that the judge has poor judgment when deciphering between a criticism and a statement of fact.

Misconceptions: 3-0; Deceptions: 6-0. Misstatements: 6-0.

It is certainly correct that the new courtrooms will be twice the size of current courtrooms.

He even agrees with me! Wait! I thought he said my column was full of misstatements. Maybe that was just the judge exercising poor judgment?

But what Rifkin fails to say is that current courtrooms are less than half the size of a standard California courtroom per state minimum standards.

This is circular logic, your honor. You and your fellow judges arbitrarily decide what the standard is, and then you declare our courtrooms fail to meet that standard. What I wonder is, what percentage of cases tried in our current Yolo County Courthouse must be moved to other facilities because the current courtrooms are too small? If it is greater than 1 percent, I will buy Judge Rosenberg a second cup of coffee in downtown Woodland.

Our current courtrooms were built in prior generations — our historic courthouse was built to house two courtrooms and we currently have eight courtrooms shoehorned into the building. We have two courtrooms in trailers, and others in rented buildings and in converted holding areas.

That’s a fine argument that at some point we need a new courthouse facility. I have not challenged that. I have simply questioned why, when the state is more than $15 billion in the red, we can’t put off this $5 billion, 41 courthouse program for a few years?

When the new courthouse is built, Yolo County will finally have standard-size courtrooms like other counties in the state.

Is that really what is bothering you? That other counties have bigger and better courtrooms than you have? Shouldn’t you be explaining how many trials had to be moved out of our county because our courtrooms are too small?

The need for a new Yolo County Courthouse is manifest. Our current facilities are scattered throughout the city of Woodland. The historic courthouse is ancient, and seismically unsafe.

You say it is seismically unsafe? Really?

Maybe you meant to say that it does not meet current seismic safety standards in California. But that certainly does not mean it is not structurally sound enough to survive the tremors that hit Woodland.(Note: there are no worrisome fault lines in or around Woodland. The closest faults are in the Capay Valley)

Misconceptions: 3-0; Deceptions: 6-0. Misstatements: 7-0.

Every single one of the existing courtrooms is substandard.

Yet they do not seem to be obstructing justice in Yolo County at the moment. As such, waiting a few more years until our economy recovers and the state’s fiscal crisis is resolved would not hurt anyone (other than a few judges who want nicer digs right away).

We have inadequate space for jurors, who often have to sit on stairways. We have no space for children. The wiring, plumbing and electrical systems are ancient. Hallways are shared by in-custody defendants, witnesses, victims, jurors, members of the public, judges and staff. It is truly medieval.

Truly medieval? Medieval times ended in the mid-1400s, before Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas. You must have meant to say the historic courthouse is truly Wilsonian. It was erected in 1917.

Misconceptions: 3-0; Deceptions: 6-0. Misstatements: 8-0.

That’s why Yolo wound up at the very top of the food chain in terms of critical needs for a new state-of-the-art courthouse. The citizens of Yolo County deserve no less.

You don’t mean to say, the court employees and judges deserve no less?

At the beginning of his piece, Judge Rosenberg claimed my column was “full of misstatements and misconceptions.” He never once pointed out a single misstatement or misconception of mine. Yet his op-ed was riddled with errors, each of which I noted above. It is sad that a public servant like Judge Rosenberg feels compelled to attack my work with so little regard for honest argument. He restated many of his points, simply because he had so little of worth to state. He had no direct refutation of anything I wrote. I feel embarrassed for the judge for having submitted this piece of drivel. It makes him look small.
----------------------------

EDIT 1: David Greenwald of the Davis Vanguard explained to me that the fee is not waived when a person is sent to prison. Rather, he said, the criminal must work off his fee in that case.

However, some court fees may be waived by a judge due to financial hardship. See Court Rule 3.50 to 3.58:

The rules in this division govern applications in the trial court for an initial waiver of court fees and costs because of the applicant’s financial condition. As provided in Government Code sections 68631 and following, any waiver may later be ended, modified, or retroactively withdrawn if the court determines that the applicant is not eligible for the waiver.

EDIT 2: Here are the six new fees imposed by SB 1407:

1. Proof of correction fee, $25 -- This fee is now collected per citation. Effective January 1, 2009, the fee will be collected per correction. $15 on the first correction and $25 on any additional corrections on the citation are remitted to SCFCF - ICNA.
2. Traffic violator school fee, $49 -- 51% of fee collected remitted to SCFCF - ICNA.
3. Criminal conviction assessment, $35 -- $35 remitted to SCFCF - ICNA.
4. Criminal conviction assessment, $30 -- $30 remitted to SCFCF - ICNA.
5. State court construction penalty, $5 -- Increase remitted to SCFCF - ICNA.
6. State court construction parking penalty, $4.50 -- $3 remitted to SCFCF - ICNA.

One artsy gang banger ...

2011-04-21T19:34:00.000-07:00

The people who say, "truth is stranger than fiction," just don't read much fiction. But once in a while, the truth is as hard to believe as fiction.

If I saw a crime drama on TV in which a murderer confessed to his crime by having his chest tattooed with all of the details of the murder, I would find that hard to believe.

If additionally the homicide investigator who discovered the tattooed man with all the details of his crime depicted on his chest only knew the details of that murder because before he was promoted to his new position he had been a beat cop in the exact neighborhood this strange killing took place, I would find that an incredible coincidence.

Yet apparently in the Pico Rivera section of Mexican L.A., there is just such a stupid killer and just such a lucky cop. This is from the L.A. Times story:

The process was routine. L.A. County Sheriff's homicide investigator Kevin Lloyd was flipping through snapshots of tattooed gang members.

Then one caught his attention.

Inked on the pudgy chest of a young Pico Rivera gangster who had been picked up and released on a minor offense was the scene of a 2004 liquor store slaying that had stumped Lloyd for more than four years.

Each key detail was right there: the Christmas lights that lined the roof of the liquor store where 23-year-old John Juarez was gunned down, the direction his body fell, the bowed street lamp across the way and the street sign — all under the chilling banner of RIVERA KILLS, a reference to the gang Rivera-13.

As if to seal the deal, below the collarbone of the gang member known by the alias "Chopper" was a miniature helicopter raining down bullets on the scene.

Lloyd's discovery of the tattoo in 2008 launched a bizarre investigation that soon led to Anthony Garcia's arrest for the shooting.

Teachers need to be paid based on their performance, not on seniority

2011-04-13T15:42:00.000-07:00

The L.A. Times reports today that the L.A. Unified School District is moving in the right direction, but in my view that district still has not yet gone far enough:

In a dramatic turn for the country's second-largest school district, Los Angeles Unified released school ratings based on a new approach that measures a school's success at raising student performance — the first in a series of high-stakes moves that will thrust the district into the center of the national debate over education reform.

Next month, the district will take the more controversial step of providing thousands of teachers with confidential ratings of their performance using the same approach, known as value-added. The district is also negotiating with the teachers union to include such measures in teachers' formal performance reviews, an effort the union bitterly opposes.

Along with some peer-review and the judgment of a school principal, how much progress a teacher's students make should determine how much the teacher is paid.

The new measure of academic success has been a top priority for incoming Supt. John Deasy, who formally takes over Friday. It comes as districts throughout the country are wrestling with the reliability and the proper use of the value-added approach, which estimates school and teacher performance by analyzing students' improvement on standardized tests in math and English.

There are, of course, some subjects, like art or music, where measuring student progress objectively is difficult. In those cases, peer-review and the judgment of the principal should decide how good the teacher is.

The district has had the data to conduct its own analysis for years but had never done so. Officials have said their adoption of the approach was hastened by a Times series and database released in August that rated elementary schools and about 6,000 elementary school teachers according to their value-added scores. The paper will release an updated database with the scores of 11,500 elementary teachers in the coming weeks, and later this year plans to expand it to include middle schools.

The L.A. Times has done a great public service with its project to promote value-added measurements of teacher performance.

The Los Angeles Unified School District's new school performance measure is likely to surprise many parents, who have traditionally compared schools — and at times purchased homes — based on the state's Academic Performance Index, which rates schools on a 1,000-point index based mainly on their students' abilities on standardized tests.

One thing I have never believed is that school A is better than school B if A has better test scores. The higher test scores are mostly a function of the home environments the students come from. However, if students at school C are making significantly better progress than students at school D are, then C is a better school.

Likewise, a teacher whose students come in with scores in the 50th percentile and leave with scores in the 60th percentile deserves more credit (and money) than her counterpart whose children scored in the 60th percentile coming in and stayed in the 60th going out.

The value-added approach focuses on how much progress students make year to year rather than measuring solely their achievement level, like the API, which is heavily influenced by factors outside a school's control, including poverty and parental involvement. Value-added analysis compares a student with his or her own prior performance, largely controlling for outside-of-school influences.

Because value-added is based on standardized test scores, most experts agree it should be one of several measures to determine school or teacher performance.

One argument against using standardized test scores is they force teachers to teach to the test. I don't see a problem with that, as long as the standardized tests are asking the right question. The reform is not to get rid of the tests; it's to make the tests as good as they can be.

Some critics say the value-added approach is too volatile to be used for teacher evaluations, but most experts say it is more accurate for campuses because it is based on the performance of hundreds, if not thousands, of pupils.

If volatility is a problem, then grade teacher performance over a few years, not just one.

The district's ratings, dubbed "Academic Growth Over Time," can send parents a very different signal about a school's performance. Take, for example, 3rd Street Elementary School in Hancock Park, which has an API score of 938, putting it among the highest-scoring schools in the district. Under the new growth measure, 3rd Street is one of the lowest-performing elementary schools in the district.

"We've got to do a better job and reexamine," said 3rd Street Principal Suzie Oh, adding that she was shocked by the results.

It would not surprise me to know that some schools in Davis which are deemed very good are in fact not helping students make much progress.

Board member Richard Vladovic later said, "I think this is going to be a great tool to help parents."

But A.J. Duffy, outgoing president of United Teachers Los Angeles, said in an interview that he suspects that administrators will use the new information punitively.

Punitively? Well, yes, if a teacher sucks.

Duffy and other union leaders have said they will not agree to a new teacher evaluation system that includes student test score data because they believe it is unreliable and will narrow the curriculum.

The teachers unions, predictably, want more money and no accountability for performance.

I agree that there are many great teachers, and all great teachers are underpaid. However, unless we insist on accountability, we won't get the best efforts out of our teachers and we won't get rid of those teachers who need to be fired.

How to amend the Constitution without amending the Constitution

2011-04-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

The San Francisco Chronicle has an interesting story today about a multi-state effort to change the way we elect the president.

Constitutionally, the electoral college chooses the president. This reform would not change that. It would alter the way most states choose their electors to the electoral college, and by doing so ensure that the winner of the popular vote would always be the winner of the electoral college vote. In effect, it would render the electoral college meaningless.

If AB459 is adopted, the 55 electors in California would no longer be determined by the popular vote in California. They would not be determined by the vote in Congressional districts or other districts. Rather, they would be given to the party whose presidential candidate won the most popular votes in the 50 states plus D.C.

This action would not be done in California alone. AB459 will only take effect if a collection of states with 270 or more electoral votes combined goes along with it. Once that happens, every state in this coalition would hand all of their electoral college votes to the plurality or majority winner of the popular presidential vote.

In effect, this is an effort to take power away from the handful of states whose popular vote for president tends to be close. New Mexico and Iowa, for example, get a lot of attention from the Democratic and Republican nominees, because the popular presidential vote in those states tends to be close. They are the swing states. A state like Texas gets no attention, because it will surely go to the Republican. Likewise, no one campaigns in California, because the Democrat will win no matter what.

But if California and Texas promise (by law) to award all of their electoral college votes to the winner of the national popular vote (instead of each state's popular vote), then every marginal vote in California and Texas will count.

In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral college vote. Had the AB459 system been in place in states which compose a majority of the electoral college, all of the Texas electors would have been Democrats and Gore would have been elected president.

AB459, the legislation that (Assemblyman Jerry Hill, a San Mateo Democrat) supports, would change California's system. He said states that pass similar legislation would agree through a compact to award all their votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote nationwide. The laws wouldn't go into effect until states representing 270 electoral votes, a majority and the number needed to elect a president, agree to the compact.

Illinois, Hawaii, New Jersey and Maryland - with a total of 73 electoral votes - have passed the legislation proposed by National Popular Vote, a nonprofit based in Silicon Valley and founded by Stanford Professor John Koza, who came up with the idea.

I suspect if this system takes effect in enough states, the attorneys general in the so-called swing states will challenge its constitutionality. This compact won't explicitly get rid of the electoral college. But it will implicitly make it irrelevant.

Two-thirds of the time and funding invested by presidential candidates' campaigns in 2008 was spent in a handful of swing states including Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, said Hill, while strongly Democratic California and other states where the outcome was considered predictable were left out of the mix.

Republican presidential candidate "John McCain and (Democrat) Barack Obama in 2008 both raised $150 million from California - and they spent together less than $30,000 here in the general election," Hill said, a fraction of 1 percent of their total advertising budget.

That $30,000 figure is telling. That is less money than Don Saylor and his buddies in the firefighters' union spent winning Saylor's seat on the Davis City Council.

Popular-vote supporters intend to change that in time for the 2012 presidential elections, guaranteeing that candidates would spend more time, resources and effort wooing states around the country rather than concentrating on swing states.

One thing to note is that the effort in California is bipartisan. Both Democrats and Republicans, here, understand that the electoral college math forces national candidates to ignore us, because we are now such an overwhelmingly blue state. In fact, marginal voters, Democratic-leaning or Republican-leaning, really have no reason to vote for president under the current system.

In California, former state Senate GOP Leader Jim Brulte and former Republican Rep. Tom Campbell already have joined the popular-vote effort. A 2008 Public Policy Institute of California poll showed 70 percent of likely voters support the idea.

Geraldine Ferraro: Upon her death I ask, was she the least qualified VP nominee?

2011-03-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

Reuters and all other news services are reporting the death, today, of former Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro.

Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic congresswoman who became the first woman on a major party presidential ticket as Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984, died on Saturday at the age of 75, her family said.

Ferraro died at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston of a blood cancer after a 12-year illness, according to a statement from her family.

Her passing reminds me that Ferraro was a nobody when Mondale chose her to be his running mate. She was a back-bencher in the House who no one had ever heard of. Her sole qualification seemed to be her gender. She was not especially bright. She was not especially accomplished. She was not a leader of a faction of her party. She was not an expert on any important topics facing the nation in 1984. She was not worthy of being one-heartbeat away from the presidency.

Walter Mondale chose Ferraro because he was desperate. He was getting wiped out in the polls to President Reagan and hoped that his choice of Ferraro would inspire independent women and moderate-Republican women to vote for him. It was a bad play and it failed. Mondale lost every single state but Minnesota in the electoral college. (He also snagged D.C.)

To know if Ferraro was the worst choice as a VP nominee since I have been following politics, I will apply four equally weighted criteria to all the nominees, judging them at the point they were selected. I will exclude all sitting vice presidents from consideration. The categories of judgment are:

1. Experience in high office;
2. Leadership of a party faction or regional leader;
3. Expertise in an important policy area;
4. Intelligence/articulateness.

Each criterion is worth up to 100 points. Going back to 1972, here are all of the Democratic and Republican vice presidential nominees with their scores:

1972 (D) Sargent Shriver 65 + 15 + 60 + 85 = 225
1976 (D) Walter Mondale 90 + 90 + 62 + 70 = 317
1976 (R) Bob Dole 60 + 70 + 50 + 60 = 240
1980 (R) George HW Bush 95 + 80 + 95 + 50 = 320
1984 (D) Geraldine Ferraro 10 + 5 + 20 + 50 = 85
1988 (D) Lloyd Bentsen 80 + 75 + 90 + 65 = 310
1988 (R) Dan Quayle 20 + 5 + 5 + 10 = 40
1992 (D) Al Gore 80 + 75 + 90 + 80 = 325
1996 (R) Jack Kemp 90 + 75 + 85 + 65 = 315
2000 (D) Joe Lieberman 80 + 65 + 85 + 83 = 313
2000 (R) Dick Cheney 95 + 70 + 85 + 78 = 328
2004 (D) John Edwards 20 + 40 + 20 + 90 = 170
2008 (D) Joe Biden 90 + 65 + 75 + 50 = 280
2008 (R) Sarah Palin 5 + 5 + 0 + 10 = 20

Of the 14 nominees, there are four categories: the highly qualified; the qualified; the unworthy; and the unqualified.

The good news is that 7 of the 14 rank as highly qualified. In order they are: Dick Cheney (328); Al Gore (325); George HW Bush (320); Walter Mondale (317); Jack Kemp (315); Joe Lieberman (313); and Lloyd Bentsen (310).

These three were qualified, but not necessarily the best picks: Joe Biden (280); Bob Dole (240); and Sargent Shriver (225).

With just his one 6-year stint in the US Senate and nothing else John Edwards (170) fits the unworthy category.

Finally, three nominees were clearly unqualified: Geraldine Ferraro (80); Dan Quayle (40); and Sarah Palin (20).

Thanks to Quayle and Palin, Ferraro no longer goes down as the worst VP nominee. R.I.P.

The day innocents won't be killed by maniacs in high speed police pursuits is not far off ...

2011-03-24T13:11:00.001-07:00

The answer was not Toyota's electronics systems.

The mystery that the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration was investigating was "unintended acceleration" in the Toyota Prius and some other Toyota models. The NHTSA's conclusion is that the problem was "improperly installed floor mats, sticky pedals, and driver error."

Yet the unintended consequence of this inquiry will be the solution to a serious danger in all urban areas: high speed police chases.

I'll get to that in a moment. Here is what Discover magazine reports about a finding of the NHTSA:

It wasn’t too surprising when scientists first hacked into a car using its own onboard diagnostic port—sure, it’s easy to get into a car’s electronic brain if you’re already inside the car. Now the science of car-hacking has received a digital upgrade: Researchers have have gained access to modern, electronics-riddled cars from the outside. And in so doing, they’ve managed to take control of a car’s door locks, dashboard displays, and even its brakes.

Imagine for a moment the California Highway Patrol is chasing a car driven by a murder suspect. Instead of racing at over 100 miles per hour through heavy traffic, the CHP can simply take control of the suspect's car and shut down its electronics, stopping the car and locking the driver inside.

The oddest part of these findings, which were presented this week to the National Academy of Science’s Committee on Electronic Vehicle Controls and Unintended Acceleration, is that they weren’t entirely intentional: It was all part of an investigation prompted by the Toyota acceleration problems, and was meant to probe the safety of electronic automotive systems. But testing those system’s safety also uncovered some flaws.

Insofar as this gives police agencies the power to stop a vehicle without a high speed chase, I don't see this as being a flaw at all. It should be designed into every car.

Here is how they did it:

The researchers took a 2009 sedan (they declined to identify the make and embarrass the manufacturer) and methodically tried to hack into it using every trick they could think of. They discovered a couple good ones.

PC World reported this trick:

By adding extra code to a digital music file, they were able to turn a song burned to CD into a Trojan horse. When played on the car’s stereo, this song could alter the firmware of the car’s stereo system, giving attackers an entry point to change other components on the car. This type of attack could be spread on file-sharing networks without arousing suspicion, they believe. “It’s hard to think of something more innocuous than a song,” said Stefan Savage, a professor at the University of California.

Discover notes that "built-in cellular services that provide safety and navigational assistance, like GM’s OnStar, can also be used to upload malicious code."

Technology review reports:

The researchers found that they could take control of this system by breaking through its authentication system. First, they made about 130 calls to the car to gain access, and then they uploaded code using 14 seconds of audio.

The obvious fear is that some malicious outsiders could get ahold of this sort of remote control and mess with an innocent person's vehicle. However, Discover notes that is not likely:

In the wrong hands, the technology could certainly be harmful; once a hacker gains access, they can do anything from sabotage brakes to monitor car movements (by forcing the car to send GPS signals). But the engineers say the “wrong” hands wouldn’t have the know-how to undertake these complicated procedures—at least for now. As Stefan Savage, a computer scientist at the University of California, San Diego, told Technology Review: “This took 10 researchers two years to accomplish,” Savage adds. “It’s not something that one guy is going to do in his garage.”

What should we do with a perjurer whose recantation frees an innocent man?

2011-03-15T14:31:00.000-07:00

From the L.A. Times, a story about bad evidence leading to a conviction:

A man who has spent 20 years behind bars for a murder he insists he did not commit is expected to be released from Los Angeles County Jail on Tuesday after several witnesses recanted their identification of him as the killer in a drive-by shooting.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge overturned the conviction of Francisco “Franky” Carrillo, 37, on Monday afternoon, finding that the recantations and other evidence undermined his conviction for the 1991 killing.

Judge Paul A. Bacigalupo made the decision after listening to more than a week of testimony from the witnesses and watching a dramatic reconstruction of the crime scene that raised questions about what the witnesses could have seen on the evening of the shooting.

My question in this case is whether the witnesses should be prosecuted for perjury. It seems like they belong in prison, and that they owe civil damages to Franky Carrillo.

The only reason I can think of for not prosecuting those witnesses at this point is that doing so would discourage witnesses who perjured themselves in the past from coming forward and admitting they were liars.

The case underscores what legal experts say is the danger of relying heavily on eyewitness testimony. Studies have shown that faulty identifications are the biggest factor in wrongful convictions and that witnesses are particularly unreliable when identifying someone of a different race. The witnesses who identified Carrillo are black, while he is Latino.

This is really beside the point. The problem in this case was not mostly that the prosecutors relied on eyewitnesses or that the witnesses were the wrong color. The problem was that these eyewitnesses were liars.

Things are looking worse every day in Japan

2011-03-14T22:03:00.000-07:00

On a Fox News show this evening, I heard a supposed nuclear energy expert, Jay Lehr*, pronounce with conviction that there would be no health consequences in Japan from the meltdowns taking place at various reactors in that country.

Then, at the next commercial break, I turned to CNN where the scroll at the bottom of its screen read: "Japanese government expects serious health consequences from nuclear meltdowns."

I wanted to believe the guy on Fox. But it struck me that the Japanese government would not say there will be health consequences to its people if there was even a small chance the guy on Fox was correct.

Here is the latest report from the Washington Post:

Japan’s nuclear emergency turned more dire on Tuesday after the third explosion in four days rocked the seaside Fukushima Daiichi complex and fire briefly raged in a storage facility for spent fuel rods at a fourth, previously unaffected reactor.

Officials from Tokyo Electric Power Co., owner of the nuclear complex, said radioactive substances were emitted after a 6:14 a.m. explosion, which took place in the unit 2 reactor. The blast took place near or in the suppression pool, which traps and cools radioactive elements from the containment vessel, officials said. The explosion appeared to have damaged valves and pipes, possibly creating a path for radioactive materials to escape.

That sounds bad.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan told the nation Tuesday morning that radiation had already spread from the reactors and there was “still a very high risk of further radioactive material escaping.” He advised people within 19 miles of the plant to remain indoors. He urged calm.

If there were no health risks, I don't think the prime minister of Japan would be urging people who live 19 miles away to remain indoors.

Tokyo Electric, which over the weekend said it had 1,400 people working at the complex, said it was evacuating all but 50 workers. Kan hailed those workers, who he said “are putting themselves in a very dangerous situation.”

Tokyo Electric would not say this was a very dangerous situation if it were as safe as Fox News's Jay Lehr thinks it is.

Tuesday began with a fire that broke out in a pool storing spent fuel rods at the base of unit 4, which had been shut down for inspection before last Friday’s earthquake. Radioactive substances might have spewed outside from the fire, officials said, because the structure housing the pool was damaged by Monday’s explosion at unit 3.

Half an hour later, the explosion at unit 2 took place. Experts said that, unlike the two previous explosions that destroyed outer buildings, this explosion might have damaged portions of the containment vessel designed to bottle up radioactive materials in the event of an emergency.

I claim no expertise, but that sounds very bad.

The explosion — more serious than the earlier ones — was followed by a brief drop in pressure in the vessel and a spike in radioactivity outside the reactor to levels more than eight times what people ordinarily receive in a year, the company said.

I can't spend an hour in the sun without getting too much solar radiation. I cannot imagine how bad it is to get 8 years of radiation in one day.

The new setbacks came on the heels of a difficult Monday at Fukushima Daiichi unit 2, one of six reactors at the site. Utility officials there reported that four out of five water pumps being used to flood the reactor had failed and that the other pump had briefly stopped working. As a result, the company said, the fuel rods, normally covered by water, were completely exposed for 140 minutes.

Given that the Japanese are about the most competent people on earth and they cannot handle this, I wonder how much worse this disaster would be in another, less advanced country.

The string of earthquake- and tsunami-triggered troubles at the Fukushima Daiichi plant began Friday, when a loss of grid power (caused by the earthquake) followed by a loss of backup diesel generators (caused by the tsunami) led to the failure of cooling systems needed to keep reactor cores from overheating.

In hindsight, it seems like it was a terrible idea to put nuclear power plants in a zone with both earthquake and tsunami risks. In California, we have two nuclear power stations, San Onofre in north San Diego County and Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, on the coast.

I don't think either one is at risk of being flooded by a tsunami, though there is a serious earthquake risk at Diablo Canyon. When I was in college, I protested PG&E building a nuclear generating station right on an earthquake fault. It still seems like a bad idea to me, though it has operated safely for more than 20 years.

The U.S. 7th Fleet said Monday that some of its personnel, who are stationed 100 miles offshore from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, had come into contact with radioactive contamination. The airborne radioactivity prompted the fleet to reposition its ships and aircraft.

Using sensitive instruments, precautionary measurements were conducted on three helicopter aircrews returning to the USS Ronald Reagan after conducting disaster relief missions near Sendai. Those measurements identified low levels of radioactivity on 17 crew members.

What is so sad about this heightened radiation leaking into the air is that the victims of the tsunami and earthquake need hordes of relief workers to come in and help them with food, water, shelter and medical care, but it is now dangerous for anyone to expose themselves anywhere near the nuclear plants.

“Let’s hope they can get these reactors under control,” said Richard Lester, head of the department of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “They’re not there yet.”

My hope is that in the next decade we build dozens of new nuclear power plants in the United States. But we should try to learn every lesson possible from what has gone wrong in Japan, so that we don't have any such meltdowns and are as prepared as necessary for them to survive natural disasters.

---------------

*I just looked up some facts on Jay Lehr. He is not a scientist of any sort. He has a PhD in economics. He works for a conservative think tank called The Heartland Institute. He makes his living as a motivational speaker. I discovered, among other things, he is a global warming skeptic (though, of course, he has never studied climate science or any hard science). Yet he goes around preaching some crazy theory that carbon dioxide plays no role in global warming.

Mr. Lehr rejects the global consensus of the IPCC scientists which say this about carbon dioxide's role in warming our planet:

The reason the Earth’s surface is this warm is the presence of greenhouse gases, which act as a partial blanket for the longwave radiation coming from the surface. This blanketing is known as the natural greenhouse effect. The most important greenhouse gases are water vapour and carbon dioxide. The two most abundant constituents of the atmosphere – nitrogen and oxygen – have no such effect. Clouds, on the other hand, do exert a blanketing effect similar to that of the greenhouse gases; however, this effect is offset by their reflectivity, such that on average, clouds tend to have a cooling effect on climate (although locally one can feel the warming effect: cloudy nights tend to remain warmer than clear nights because the clouds radiate longwave energy back down to the surface). Human activities intensify the blanketing effect through the release of greenhouse gases. For instance, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by about 35% in the industrial era, and this increase is known to be due to human activities, primarily the combustion of fossil fuels and removal of forests. Thus, humankind has dramatically altered the chemical composition of the global atmosphere with substantial implications for climate.

Unfortunately, there is no reason to take Mr. Lehr seriously, even if he calls himself an expert on nuclear energy. The government of Japan knows much more about what is happening with its reactors than this Fox News ideologue, Jay Lehr.

Pictures from Japan

2011-03-12T15:21:00.000-08:00
There are a great number of photographs on news websites of the devastation in Japan from the tsunami and the earthquake. Here are five images I thought were especially impressive:

This could be Japan's version of the China Syndrome

2011-03-12T10:13:00.000-08:00

After I published a short blog entry yesterday regarding the troubles with 5 of Japan's nuclear power plants and Hillary Clinton's very bizarre account of the USAF delivery mystery coolant to one of them, a much scarier event took place--there was a massive hydrogen explosion (see photo above) outside of one of the damaged reactors.

Here is the L.A. Times account:

A day after responding to one of the worst earthquakes on record and a massive tsunami, the Japanese government sought to allay fears of a radioactive disaster at a nuclear power plant on the country's battered northeastern coast.

The outer walls of the Fukushima power plant's No. 1 reactor were blown off by a hydrogen explosion Saturday, leaving only a skeletal frame. Officials said four workers at the site received non-life-threatening injuries.

The inner container holding the reactor's fuel rods is not believed to be damaged, said Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, and workers were cooling the facilities with seawater.

If this kind of explosion happened in most countries other than Japan, I would be highly skeptical that such a blast would not pose a great threat to public safety. However, I have faith in the Japanese. I hope what they are now saying is true. If any country could design their facilities to weather such a horrific natural disaster, it would be the highly competent Japanese.

In a press conference shortly after the explosion, which left the facility shrouded in plumes of gray smoke, Edano explained that the reactor is contained within a steel chamber, which in turn is surrounded by a concrete and steel building. Although the explosion destroyed the building, it did not occur in the chamber.

"The escape of hydrogen mixed with the air between the chamber and the concrete-and-steel building and led to the explosion," Edano said.

Hydrogen explosions tend to be awesome. Their ferocity makes me wonder if we really want to move from gasoline powered cars to hydrogen fuel cells.

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. has confirmed that the inner reactor is undamaged," he added. "There was no massive release of radiation."

Still, the reactor was already showing signs of a partial meltdown after Friday's magnitude 8.9 earthquake had prevented the plant 150 miles north of Tokyo from fully powering its water cooling system. Without it, the facility could overheat and explode, spewing radiation into the air.

If that reactor explodes, I would guess that will set back the expansion of new nuclear power plants in the United States by at least 20 years. That would be a shame, given that nuclear power is one of the only technologies which can produce electricity at a reasonable price and emits no carbon dioxide. Given the realities of global warming, we must start producing more of our power from clean sources of energy, and nuclear power should be in that mix.

People were reportedly fleeing the surrounding area and Japanese television was urging people to cover their faces with wet towels and not to expose any skin to the potentially contaminated air. An evacuation zone was doubled to a 12-mile radius around the plant by Saturday evening.

It seems like I have seen this movie before: Japanese people wearing face masks running away (from Godzilla) in a mass panic.

Japan relies on nuclear power for a third of its electricity and is said to require exacting safety standards for its plants.

I don't think Japan has ever had a better choice than nuclear power for its electricity production. The problem, though, is when you get a crisis like this and 11 power plants are shut down, you are in a serious bind. You cannot produce enough electricity to provide power for your people and industry.

That said, there are many other countries, mostly in Europe, which are even more reliant on nuclear power than Japan is.

Here are the top 10 most reliant on nuclear energy:

Lithuania 78%
France 77%
Belgium 58%
Slovakia 53%
Ukraine 46%
Sweden 44%
Bulgaria 42%
Hungary 39%
Slovenia 39%
South Korea 39%

It turns out ... I am famous ... and a winner!

2011-03-12T09:50:00.000-08:00
Because of some family business I was attending to yesterday, I didn't get around to looking at the Friday Davis Enterprise until this morning. After reading a handful of stories in the A-section, I turned to page B-3, where the opinion Forum was published.

I scanned a guest column, which discussed the notion of government subsidies for local news reporting; the Enterprise's editorial, which dealt with Libya; and a few letters to the editor, which addressed, in order, the lack of success of a neighborhood grocery store, a "peace" march and a new recycling program.

Surprisingly, until it came up last in the letters, I had not noticed the whole time I was reading the Forum page that I was the topic which drove someone named Scott Babcock to write a letter to the editor. Here is what Mr. Babcock had to say. It gave me a nice chuckle:

The mysterious delivery of magical coolant by the USAF? Or was it just more sniper fire?

2011-03-11T21:36:00.000-08:00

Among the thousands of tragic stories emanating from Japan today, following the 8.9 magnitude earthquake and the massive tsunami, is the scary tale of serious damage to five nuclear reactors at two sites in northern Japan. Here is what The Washington Post is reporting:

Japanese authorities declared a state of emergency Saturday for five nuclear reactors at two quake-stricken power plants as military and utility officials scrambled to tame rising pressure and radioactivity levels inside the units and stabilize the systems used to cool the plants' hot reactor cores.

Radiation surged to around 1,000 times the normal level in the control room of one reactor, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said. Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Saturday that the temperatures at two other reactors at a different power plant were rising and that it had lost control over pressure in three reactors there.

Though no significant release of radioactive material had taken place, the earthquake, which forced the automatic shutdown of 11 of the country's 55 nuclear power plants, is certain to rattle confidence in nuclear power in Japan, where people have long been sensitized to the dangers of radioactive releases, and in the United States, where foes of nuclear power were already pointing to the Japan crisis as a warning sign.

One other thing in the Post story caught my attention. The Hillary Clinton whopper:

In a statement that confused nuclear experts, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday morning that U.S. Air Force planes in Japan had delivered "coolant" to a nuclear power plant affected by the quake. Nuclear reactors do not require special coolants, only large amounts of pumped water.

"They have very high engineering standards, but one of their plants came under a lot of stress with the earthquake and didn't have enough coolant," she said, "and so Air Force planes were able to deliver that."

I was watching TV when she made that statement. I didn't know enough about cooling a nuclear power plant this morning to know she was full of shit. It just struck me as good that our military was doing some good. But it turns out Sec. Clinton was either fed some bad information or she just made the whole thing up.

An Air Force spokesman at the Pentagon, however, said he was unaware of any deliveries being made by Air Force planes related to the reactor issues.

"To our knowledge, we have delivered nothing in support of the nuclear power plant," Lt. Col. John Haynes said. "Obviously, we stand by to assist with anything they might need." He said the Air Force had received no formal request for help.

This is the second instance I can think of where Hillary was caught in a completely indefensible lie (though possibly one, in this instance, in which she was just repeating what an aide told her). The earlier lie was when she was running for president, she made up some bullshit about landing in a plane in Bosnia and saying she came under sniper fire. No aide fed her that. She just invented the situation, which every other witness who was with her on that flight said they never came under fire of any sort.

State Department officials later said Clinton misspoke.

Misspoke is really the wrong word here. It is the same word Hillary used to excuse her Bosnia lie. If Mrs. Clinton had meant this morning to say something like, "Our deepest sympathies go out to ... the people of Japan," but instead of Japan she got mixed up and said Korea or Jordan or China, it would be fair to say she misspoke. But that's not what happened here: Sec. Clinton told a huge whopper about our Air Force planes carrying magical nuclear power plant coolant, when our Air Force planes did not fly into that area, when they were not called on to fly into that area, and when this magic coolant does not exist.

That is not misspeaking. That is lying.

Why kids no longer enjoy history: the Internet

2011-03-07T12:00:00.000-08:00

The Sacramento Bee has a very brief interview today with UC Davis professor Alan Taylor, who won fame 15 years ago when his excellent book, "William Cooper's Town" won the Pulitzer Prize.

The story notes that his current book has a chance to win another prize:

Now, the history professor at the University of California, Davis, is looking at a possible George Washington Book Prize from Washington College in Maryland – which brings $50,000.

He is among three finalists for the prize, for his "The Civil War of 1812" (Knopf, $35, 640 pages), a project that took him 15 years to complete. The judges called the book "the most original history of the conflict ever written." The prize winner will be announced May 25.

While I look forward to reading Prof. Taylor's latest book, I have a different point of view about why kids today are less interested in history. Here is what The Bee asked Taylor and his reply:

On the subject of U.S. history, are we losing touch with it?

Yes, for a number of reasons. One is the mania for testing in grades K through 12. It's well-meant, but it's undermining true teaching because teachers are required to teach to the test. As a consequence, history comes across to students as the deadly dull memorization of facts.

It is certainly possible that testing is a part of the explanation. However, my take is that the decline in interest in history is a byproduct of the decline in literacy, which is largest among younger people.

That is to say, kids no longer read very much for amusement or to pass time. They don't read newspapers, magazines or books for pleasure. They play a lot of games on the Internet, participate in social media and otherwise occupy themselves on-line in their spare time.

I'm sure many kids have history reading assignments for school. But that never inspires anyone to "love history." What inspires is taking a week or so and reading a full, well written volume like "William Cooper's Town" or any other good history book.

I suspect that the children who come through the same, heavily tested schools but happen to be the few who read books, fiction and non-fiction, become lovers of history. What distinguishes them is not that they too did not come through school systems with a lot of tests on facts. They are different because they spend less time on the computer, less time watching TV, and more time reading.

When I was in school, the Internet did not yet exist. We were not heavily tested. The schools did not push us to read good books from cover to cover. We were bored to tears by the typical textbooks which had the feel of committee work. Yet I think the same distinction existed back then: kids who enjoyed reading books on their own and who watched less TV became fans and readers of history; and those who were never introduced to books and watched a lot of TV never developed an interest in history.

The only thing which has made this disconnect from history more severe from the time I was in school is the rise of the Internet. It has destroyed an interest in reading even more than television did.

When a flawed plan meets a perverse incentive structure: the result is serious government waste

2011-03-06T19:02:00.000-08:00

The L.A. Times has a fascinating piece of investigative journalism in today's paper. It's a long and detailed account of how a "visionary," who had hoped to save millions of dollars for the Los Angeles Community College District by installing a spectacular array of solar, wind, geothermal and hydrogen fuel cell power generating systems over and around and all about the nine junior colleges which make up the LACCD has thus far wasted $10 million in taxpayer money on his poorly thought out program.

Larry Eisenberg had a vision. "Amazing," he called it. "Spectacular."

The Los Angeles Community College District would become a paragon of clean energy. By generating solar, wind and geothermal power, the district would supply all its electricity needs. Not only would the nine colleges sever ties to the grid, saving millions of dollars a year, they would make money by selling surplus power. Thanks to state and federal subsidies, construction of the green energy projects would cost nothing upfront.

As head of a $5.7-billion, taxpayer-funded program to rebuild the college campuses, Eisenberg commanded attention. But his plan for energy independence was seriously flawed.

He overestimated how much power the colleges could generate. He underestimated the cost. And he poured millions of dollars into designs for projects that proved so impractical or unpopular they were never built.

These and other blunders cost nearly $10 million that could have paid for new classrooms, laboratories and other college facilities, a Times investigation found.

There seem to be two major lessons within the Times's story.

First, there is a lot of wishful thinking and overhype about "green" energy. Many who are pitching solar energy projects, for example, massively exaggerate how much energy will be produced from the installed solar panels. The same is true of wind power. It usually takes a few years to really know how much power you will be getting. And by the time you know, the salesman is long gone from the scene.

I don't know if the companies which are overhyping their products are liable down the road, if the panels fail to produce the promised amount of power, but they should be. There should be a government agency cracking down on anyone selling new "green" products who is making claims which are false or exaggerated. It's ultimately a form of consumer fraud.

The second lesson from the story of the Los Angeles Community College District wasting million of dollars on projects which never came to fruition is an old one: public entities never spend money like it's their own. They always waste taxpayer money when they can.

It's just so much more fun to spend money that is not yours than it is to be frugal that people will almost always spend like the spigot is never going to stop. It's a perverse incentive for government agents built into all contracting arrangements.

SPEND, SPEND, SPEND

In order to revive our dormant economy, President Obama thought the best answer was his hugely wasteful stimulus plan. In Davis, we have firsthand evidence of what kind of crap the stimulus plan was funding: sidewalk bulb-outs. Those are the silly extensions of the sidewalks at intersections, which are supposed to make a city more pedestrian friendly by shortening the distance one has to walk from sidewalk to sidewalk. In reality, they are a big load of nonsense. If we really needed them, the City of Davis would have spent our own local taxpayer money on them. But we didn't really need them. So we grabbed the "free money" Obama was giving away in his farcical stimulus plan.

The irony is that we really are short of funds for street and sidewalk repairs, but the stimulus money would not cover those expenses. So instead of repaving cracked streets and replacing damaged sidewalks, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a very low priority item.

That is essentially what happened in the LACCD. They were sold a bill of goods that this was other peoples' money. If the people authorizing these expenses were spending their own funds, or if they treated the taxpayers' money as if it were their own, this unfortunate wastefulness never would have occurred.

In the end, it is likely that the LACCD will cover this loss by raising taxes on property owners in Los Angeles County. Either that or the students will get a much poorer education because the District screwed the pooch.

Burning the evidence: In Egypt, the secret police are trying to keep their evil deeds secret forever ...

2011-03-05T15:55:00.000-08:00

Just because Egypt was never as bad as Libya, and just because Mubarak was never as evil as Kaddafi, does not mean that Egypt was not bad or evil under Mubarak. It was a brutal regime with unchecked state powers. It tortured and terrorized anyone who spoke up and it used intimidation tactics to make sure everyone else knew to never speak up.

Now that Mubarak is out of power, there has been an attempt among Egypt's revolutionaries to establish a truth and reconciliation commission, which would expose the horrors so many Egyptians were subject to, and then forgive the criminals who worked inside their Interior Ministry.

But there can be no truth and reconciliation without the documentation. And those in Mubarak's secret police are now trying to cover up their misdeeds.

The L.A. Times is reporting that Egyptian agents are dutifully burning the evidence of their crimes:

In an attempt to save documents that may incriminate Egypt's notorious state security services for years of torture and abuse, thousands of protesters on Saturday stormed Interior Ministry offices around Cairo as word spread that security officials were attempting to destroy files.

Witnesses and residents in 6th of October, a Cairo suburb, said protesters marched toward a state security office to prevent officials from burning documents. Protesters said they saw flames coming from near the building in the early hours of Saturday. About 3,000 protesters surrounded the building, eventually storming in and later handing it over to the army.

Witnesses claim that the majority of files, which may lead to the prosecution of state security officials for misuse of power, corruption and human rights violations, were already burned by the time protesters arrived. The documents, according to human-rights groups, would offer an intricate paper trail to former President Hosni Mubarak's reviled police state.

With the latest war raging in Libya and with the Egyptian military apparently ruling Egypt with the consent of the people, I had forgotten that there was still a great rift in Egypt between the democrats who forced Mubarak out of office and many people who still work for that government.

Later Saturday, several thousand protesters broke through barriers of the state security headquarters in the neighborhood of Nasr City. "State security obviously made an attempt to cover up or destroy implicating evidence of their horrible deeds over the last 30 years," Ahmed Raouf, one of the protesters, told The Times from inside the headquarters.

Protesters gathered documents and handed them to military officers, who in turn, forwarded files to a representative from the Attorney General's office. Another nearby state security headquarters also was successfully stormed less than an hour later. Many of the protesters were Islamists who either served time or had a member of their family detained at the underground building.

If Egypt is to become a democracy, the Islamists present a stumbling block. They were minimal in the effort to get rid of Hosni, but they might be the largest party in any democratic election. Beyond their extremism and their terrible values, the great danger of Islamists in government is if they ever take power, there may never again be a democratic election. Certainly they have no belief in elections, civil liberties or human rights. They simply want to force everyone else to live in a religious state, where they get to say what the religion is.

Under Islamic Law, apparently, if you are a part of the global jihad, Allah says you can rob banks ...

2011-03-04T13:20:00.000-08:00

The Associated Press is reporting today that the Hamas government of the Gaza Strip is now authorizing bank robberies:

All banks in the Gaza Strip temporarily shut down on Thursday after men affiliated with the ruling group Hamas forced a local branch to cash some $500,000 in checks.

Gaza bankers said Hamas sent the police to confiscate the money from a branch of the Palestine Investment Bank. They said the police were accompanied by members of a committee Hamas had appointed in 2009 to oversee the Palestine Investment Fund, which is run by the rival Palestinian government in the West Bank.

The men confiscated checks from the fund, then ordered bank tellers to cash them, though the account did not contain enough money. The bankers spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

It's good to see that the Palestinians are such good people with such good leaders.

The Hamas Interior Ministry said the police helped to seize the money because the investment fund had improperly transferred money out of Gaza to the West Bank. Hamas denied that the money was taken at gunpoint.

The more you know about the psychopaths who make up the Hamas terrorist movement, the more you have to wonder how stupid the Palestinian people are. What other nation would be dumb enough to elect these pathological idiots whose religion justifies murdering children and old women and now robbing banks?

Killer of U.S. airmen is radical Muslim, German official says

2011-03-04T09:48:00.000-08:00

CNN is reporting new details about the man in Germany who murdered two American Air Force servicemen:

The man suspected of shooting and killing two U.S. Air Force servicemen in Germany was seeking revenge because of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, according to a warrant issued on Friday for the suspect.

The suspect, Arid Uka, is a recently radicalized Muslim who seems to have been influenced by local radical Islamist websites, according to German authorities. Prosecutors say Uka shot and killed two U.S. servicemen and wounded two others in the attack Wednesday on a U.S. military bus at Frankfurt Airport.

The arrest warrant for Uka lists two accusations of murder, three allegations of attempted murder and two accusations of causing severe bodily harm.

The 21-year-old man said he was motivated to carry out the attack after seeing a video on the internet the day before, which he claimed showed U.S. soldiers raping Muslim women, according to a German intelligence official who viewed a record of the suspect's interrogation.

It's possible, not even unlikely, that Arid Uka is just stupid or he has serious mental health issues.

But it must be said that there are stupid and crazy people from all religions. Yet Jewish crazies, Hindu crazies and Christian crazies are not regularly translating their anger into terrorist attacks which they justify on the basis of their religion.

Islam is unique in this regard because so many of its adherents promote a violent response to whatever they believe is a slight against their people or their faith.

He was friends on Facebook with several pro-al Qaeda extremists from a group based in Bonn, Germany, that is known to German intelligence officials, according to the official. He also had links to an Islamist preacher named Pierre Vogel and someone named Nessery, who was arrested about two months ago in Afghanistan, according to a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the investigation.

I wonder if a legal case can be made against those "pro-al Qaeda extremists from a group based in Bonn, Germany"? I wonder if it could be demonstrated that they incited violence?

The suspect is from Mitrovica, a town in northern Kosovo, that country's interior minister, Bajram Rexhepi, told CNN. He cited the U.S. Embassy in Pristina as his source. The U.S. official with knowledge of the probe said Uka was a 1-year-old toddler when he moved to Germany, and that authorities believe Uka's relatives had suffered in the 1990s during the Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanians.

That he is a Kosovar is the most ironic part of the story. American soldiers and airmen risked their lives to save the lives of the Muslim majority in Kosovo. Tens of thousands of Kosovars who would have been killed by the Serbs are alive today because of the heroic efforts of Americans to protect them. That country is free today only because of U.S. intervention. And yet this one Kosovar nutjob decides to kill American soldiers. It's pathetically crazy.

No wonder so many of our schools stink ...

2011-03-02T13:32:00.000-08:00

This is a common sense is dead story.

Today a teacher was placed on leave in Redwood City because he had in his classroom a complete idiot of an 8th grader.

A California school teacher was placed on paid administrative leave after he rattled a table to get the attention of his math students, startling an eighth-grade girl who used her cell phone to call police.

Atherton police Sgt. Tim Lynch tells the Palo Alto Daily News that officers went to Selby Lane School Tuesday afternoon because of reports a teacher was causing a disturbance.

Officers found a calm teacher with class in session.

The sergeant says the teacher's table-rattling startled a student and she used her cell phone to call 911. He says other students in the class weren't bothered by the teacher's actions.

Redwood City School District deputy superintendent John Baker says the teacher was placed on leave because there was a police response.

We need to severely cut education budgets in this state, enough so that the John Baker no longer has a job and anyone who had anything to do with the policy which says that "a police response" requires the teacher to be placed on leave is fired as well.

Moreover, the idiot girl who called 911 needs to be expelled.

When in doubt, blame the Jews ...

2011-03-01T10:13:00.000-08:00

As the protests and rebellions continue to spread around the Arab world, it was only a matter of time before one of the despots pointed to the Jews as the culprits in this wave of citizen activism. Anti-Semitism is the favored card of Arabs of many stripes.

The despot who runs Yemen--or at least is in charge of the government in his capital city--says the reason the people in his fiefdom are so angry with him is because Obama and the Israelis are stirring them up:

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh delivered a fiery speech Tuesday blaming Israel and the United States for "destabilizing the Arab world," saying the anti-government protests in his capital were being "run by the White House."

Speaking to students and professors at Sana University, Saleh's accusations mark a departure for the president, a longtime ally of the United States in the war against Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula and the recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid in recent years.

If Mr. Saleh were Pinocchio, his nose would be growing.

The rally came a day after key opposition figures refused Saleh's offer to form a "unity government." The offer, which was widely considered the president's last-ditch effort at reconciliation, promised to include opposition leaders as well as members of the ruling party. Saleh also promised "intensifying anti-corruption investigations" and other political reforms.

You mean to say, Mr. Saleh, that corruption and not Israel might be to blame for your unpopularity?

Sheik Abdul Majeed Zindani, whom the U.S. has accused of being linked to Al Qaeda, led prayers over a loudspeaker at the protest, calling on Saleh to grant the protesters' "legitimate demands and rights." He envisions Yemen as an Islamist state, and his words brought both cheers and concern from the assembled crowd, underscoring the diversity of Yemenis present.

So the president of Yemen wants us to believe that Israel and the United States are stirring up protests in his country so that this extremely ugly, red-bearded maniac, Sheik Zindani, can take charge? That sure makes a whole lot of sense. Yeah, we really want Al-Qaeda's Red Osama running Yemen.

And then there were none...

2011-02-28T12:27:00.000-08:00

The New York Times is reporting that the last American veteran of the First World War has died.

Frank Buckles, who drove an Army ambulance in France in 1918 and came to symbolize a generation of embattled young Americans as the last of the World War I doughboys, died on Sunday at his home in Charles Town, W. Va. He was 110.

My mother's father, Benjamin Davis, was also a WW1 veteran. He served in the Army Air Corps in France, just as his son, my Uncle Fred, did a generation later in WW2. Ben sewed canvas patches on damaged airplanes when they came back to the airbase. Fred was a navigator on bombers, mostly ones which flew out of Great Britain to attack the Nazis in Europe.

Grandpa Davis, who was in his early 30s when he was drafted to fight in that conflict, passed away at approximately age 92 in 1978. (We don't know for sure what year he was born in Poland.) After the war Ben was accidentally reunited with his family who had, unbeknownst to him, moved to Los Angeles from Poland. Ben had been in the Czar's army in Siberia 15 years or more earlier when he fled to China and lost all contact with his parents in Poland. By chance Ben was living just blocks from them in the garment district of East L.A. in 1920 when the were reunited.

He was only a corporal and he never got closer than 30 or so miles from the Western Front trenches, but Mr. Buckles became something of a national treasure as the last living link to the two million men who served in the American Expeditionary Forces in France in “the war to end all wars.”

In its time, the First World War was generally called The Great War. I've read a number of excellent books detailing it. My favorite was probably A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin. That book tells the story of the war and its aftermath in the Middle East.

For a general history of the war, I recommend, The First World War: A Complete History by Martin Gilbert. Mr. Gilbert's book is very well written and gives an interesting insight into the many poets who served in that conflict. He quotes from a variety of poems penned by soldiers in the field of battle. The most famous poem from WW1 was, of course, In Flanders Fields by a Canadian doctor named Lt. Colonel John McCrae.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Should a Congressman step down because he is ill?

2011-02-26T09:26:00.000-08:00

The story of David Wu, a Democratic member of Congress from Oregon, has gotten a lot of play in Washington, DC and in his home state, but not too much nationally.

According to those closest to Rep. Wu on his staff, he is mentally ill. Based on the stories, it is unclear to me what specific condition he has. The stories simply cite his "erratic behavior" and various "strange episodes," such as emailing pictures of himself dressed up as a cat.

The National Journal today sums up editorial opinions from Oregon, calling for him to resign:

Even as several of his Oregon papers have called for Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) to resign, the seven-term congressman is showing no signs of stepping aside, and even filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday to begin organizing a reelection campaign for 2012.

The newspapers requesting he quit Congress are small and large:

On Thursday, the Beaverton Valley Times wrote that "Wu's troubles should force him to seek an immediate leave of absence from Congress or resign from office altogether" but that they did express hope he "receives professional help and recovers." The Times also wrote that Wu's latest actions weren't "all that surprising" though, as the Portland congressman has been rumored to have eccentric tendencies for years, but nothing as extreme as what happened last fall.

I don't know enough about Wu to say that resignation is the right course. However, it appears that the newspapers calling for him to step down don't believe treatment from a psychiatrist will lead to a satsifactory outcome, where he can perform his job. (My guess is that the newspapers are as ignorant as I am when it comes to his diagnosis and prospect for improvement.)

The Eugene Register-Guard wrote Wednesday that it was the fact that Wu was less-than-forthcoming about his problems that should cause him to step down. Wu "says he has sought professional care, and supporters claim that seeking treatment should not disqualify a person for public office. They're right, but that's not the issue. The real problem is a lack of candor, and for that he should resign."

Beside the stigma and embarrassment of mental illness, it is also true that many patients lack insight into their own disease. If you have skin cancer, you can see that your skin is not right. But when you have a brain disorder, there is nothing tangible and you might not realize that you are sick, even when others tell you that you are. As such, it seems a bit strange to suggest that "the real problem is a lack of candor." The real problem is likely that he is mentally ill and has not yet figured that out. If he gets good psychiatric treatment, perhaps he will recover and then his candor or lack thereof matters not at all.

The Daily Astorian was more sympathetic, writing that "Wu's situation appears to involve symptoms of mental illness, and that is sad to observe." But the paper ultimately comes to the conclusion that it "would be the better part of smartness for Wu to resign, but political decisions are more often emotional than rational."

I find it interesting that these newspapers want Wu to step down because he is sick and as such cannot serve his constituents. I don't think they are wrong to think that way. But compare Wu to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot through the head and is, likewise, unable to serve her constituents. Would all of these papers call for Ms. Giffords to resign her seat?

It is very unclear that Libya will have a good future after Kaddafi

2011-02-24T12:50:00.000-08:00

As the Libyan civil war grows in violence every day--meaning Col. Kaddafi has been more and more ruthless trying to remain on his gilded throne--there have been suggestions floated in the United States that we ought to get involved, that we ought to side with the rebellion in order to help push Kaddafi from power.

Paul Wolfowitz, for example, wants the "imposition of a NATO-supported 'no fly' zone over Libya to halt further bombing by Qaddafi’s forces."

I'm sure Mr. Wolfowitz is well-intentioned. However, I think the risk that the rebellion there is seen as a coup by foreign powers is far greater than the risk of letting the Libyans defeat Kaddafi on their own. If the rebels are judged to be tools of foreign powers, then Kaddafi will gain strength from his nationalists.

It's possible that this war will go on for a long time and will cost a lot of lives and destroy a lot of that nation's infrastructure. That, I am sure, is what Wolfowitz would like to avoid. But I think it is far more dangerous than just letting things play out.

What ultimately comes of this war is hard to know. I doubt in the end Col. Kaddafi can win. However, once he is dead--it looks like he won't go into exile--there are a great number of possible outcomes I can fathom, many of which are bad for us (and probably bad for the Libyan people):

1. Dissolution. It's entirely possible that Libya breaks up into multiple, tribal-based smaller countries. If that happens, there would be a chance that those new states would fight each other over borders and minerals;

2. An Islamic state. Col. Kaddafi is now claiming that Osama bin Laden is the force behind this rebellion.

In a rambling discourse, he blamed the uprising on the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, saying he had drugged the people, giving them “hallucinogenic pills in their coffee with milk, like Nescafe.”

I doubt in any country anywhere at any time there is a genuine desire among a majority of citizens for an Islamic Republic where dirty old mullahs hold sway. However, in the absence of truly democratic parties, it's always possible in the Muslim world that Islamists are the best organized and most ruthless opponents of the regime in charge. If a vacuum arises, no one but the Islamists may be able to fill it;

3. Chaos. Somalia is a fine example of this. It's been 20 years since they had a central government which actually ruled that country. It's entirely possible that no one group will be able to take charge of Libya after Kaddafi is gone. What could follow is the rule of petty warlords over small patches of territory, each, like a mafia godfather, ruling with violence over his own people and fighting endlessly against other gangsters. In that scenario, Libya no longer produces much oil, and the standard of living drops off considerably, even from its current pathetic state;

4. A new strongman. It may take a decade or more for one to emerge, but I think this is a likely outcome in Libya. A new strongman, who personalizes power much like Kaddafi did, will be able to rule over the entire country by installing loyalists everywhere at the local level and quickly destroying anyone who would challenge him. No strongman rulers are ever entirely benevolent, but if Libya is lucky they might end up with one who advances that country, creating a vibrant market, investing in better public infrastructure and improving their basic public education. On the other hand, he could be a despot, just like Kaddafi has been for 42 years;

5. A democracy. Libya lacks just about everything you need to succeed as a democracy. It is poor and full of illiterates. It has no capitalist middle class. It has no tradition of democracy and civil rights. It is divided along tribal lines. And, because the people are Muslims, it is culturally not geared toward democracy. The people expect their leaders to be authoritarian. I don't expect a democratic outcome. However, if it comes, it may be because nothing else would work. Maybe the Libyans realize that a strongman is apt to end up being another brutal dictator. Maybe the Libyan people love Libya as a country and don't want to live as tribesmen. Maybe the Libyans have seen how horrible Islamism is in Iran and Saudi Arabia and everywhere it has been tried and will reject that as an option. Hopefully they will behave collectively and avoid the chaos of an anarchic state.

A best case scenario for Libyan "democracy" would be free and fair elections which put in a parliament which is broadly representative; and gives Libya a president whose powers are checked by the parliament. I expect they would have to start off in a socialist manner, making sure that the country's oil riches are collectively owned and serve the best interests of the infrastructure of their entire country. In time, they need to encourage the development of capitalist investment and better basic education. Hopefully they can figure out a way to respect the Islamic religion without letting the religious impose themselves on the state.

Morons: Don't believe the scientists; we know better than y'all

2011-02-23T11:15:00.000-08:00

On average, I estimate, being a Southerner costs you 20 IQ points. How else to explain why such a large percentage of people from the South are blithering idiots?

In the 1950s and '60s, the stupid cause of the South was its indefensible defense of racist laws--most notably the suppression of the rights of blacks to vote and enjoy other civil rights. Once being a racist became unpopular, most of the Southern bigots pretended that segregation had nothing to do with racism and that no one they knew harbored any ill-will toward blacks. It was as if they thought, by saying the South was not a bastion of idiot racists, everyone else would forget that the South was a bastion of idiot racists.

In the 1920s and '30s, the stupid cause of South (and the Midwest) was the indefensible offense against the Darwinian science that human beings and other animals and plants evolve over millions and tens of millions of years. The idiot promoters of Creationism--yes, a few still exist to this day--based their anti-science attack on the Bible. Fundamentalists, unaware that the Bible is filled with errors and a whole lot of nonsense, take its words literally. So Adam was the first man and Eve was made from his rib; and the Earth is but 7,000 or so years old, created in six days by the magic father of Jesus.

The cause of causes of the South was its defense of the Lost Cause--the Civil War. Some idiot Southerners to this day pretend that their cause was not about fighting to retain slavery. It was. The enslavement of blacks was "the Southern way of life."

Today, the idiots of the South (and other parts of our country) have a new idiotic cause--their attacks on climate science. Never mind that most of these morons have no scientific education. Certainly none of them is an actual climatologist. But like their forefathers' attacks on the science of evolution, these retards feel like they know science better than the intelligent people who have dedicated their lives to studying the climate.

The New York Times has a story about a leading anti-science moron--of course he is from the Bible Belt--named Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II. Cooch was elected as the attorney general of Virginia.

For nearly a year, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, Virginia’s crusading Republican attorney general, has waged a one-man war on the theory of man-made global warming.

Invoking his subpoena powers, he has sought to force the University of Virginia to turn over the files of a prominent climatology professor, asserting that his research may be marred by fraud. The university is battling the move in the courts.

At the same time, Mr. Cuccinelli is suing the Environmental Protection Agency over its ruling that carbon dioxide and other global warming gases pose a threat to human health and welfare, describing the science behind the agency’s decision as “unreliable, unverifiable and doctored.”

So this ding-dong with a law degree thinks every one who studies climate science is engaged in some conspiracy?

Now his allegations of manipulated data and scientific fraud are resonating in Congress, where Republican leaders face an influx of new members, many of them Tea Party stalwarts like Mr. Cuccinelli, eager to inveigh against the body of research linking man-made emissions to warming.

“There’s a huge appetite among the rank-and-file to raise fundamental questions about the underlying science,” said Michael McKenna, a Republican strategist and energy lobbyist.

It would help the retard cause if they could find some reputable climatologists to support their cause. Instead, they tend to rely on the "findings" of petroleum engineers working for the oil and coal-mining companies. It doesn't quite hit the fundamentalists that those "scientists," who don't study the climate, might be biased in favor of their employers?

Responding to those concerns, the new Republican majority has introduced legislation that would strip federal regulators of their power to police the industrial emissions that contribute to climate change. But party leaders, treading warily, have cast their arguments against regulation largely in terms of economic consequences, playing down the prospect of major hearings to examine the scientific basis of human-caused warming.

Even dedicated opponents of climate action concede that hauling climate scientists before Congress and challenging their findings could easily backfire, as many representatives lack a sophisticated grasp of climatology and run the risk of making embarrassing errors.

Saying they "lack a sophisticated grasp of climatology" is another way of saying we are dealing with a large group of retards.

“It’s a trap for a lot of members,” said Marc Morano, a former Republican staff member on the Senate Environment and Public Works committee and publisher of Climate Depot, a Web site that advances the arguments of climate skeptics. “They’re apt to make mistakes.”

You mean to say retards don't know what the fuck they are talking about?

After fighting for decades to defend slavery, after fighting for decades to defend Creationism, and after fighting for decades to defend Jim Crow, the South lost every one of its stupid causes. But each time it lost, the morons of the South pretended that the position they faught for was not the position they really held. It was something else.

My guess is that for the next 20 or 30 years the South will fight against climatology. And then when all is lost and their cause is dead, those retards who claimed that they knew the science better than the scientists will pretend they never held such moronic views as they now hold.

Maybe it is not such a good thing to be the heir to the throne these days?

2011-02-22T13:26:00.000-08:00

The little man standing next to President Obama in the photo above is H.E. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. He is a serial murderer, a debaucherer, a kleptocrat and a megalomaniac along the lines of Saddam Hussein. With tremendous reserves of oil and natural gas in and around his country, Mr. Mbasogo is one of the world's wealtiest and most corrupt dictators.

Despite all the money in Equatorial Guinea, the people who live there have one of the worst standards of living in the world. They have high infant mortality rates and very low life expectancies. Disease, poverty, malnutrition and misery are ubiquitous in that oil-rich land.

Ken Silverstein, in this week's Foreign Policy magazine, details the lavish California lifestyle of the son of the dictator in Teodorin's World. This son is the heir to his father's throne. But maybe the people of his country will follow the steps of Egyptians in denying their dicatator's son that throne? If Col. Kaddafi is ousted in Libya and his son, Seif, is denied the reins of power, a trend could be emerging in which long-time dictators are being overrun just before they can hand off power to their filial heirs.

Here is how Silverstein's long piece begins:

The owner of the estate at 3620 Sweetwater Mesa Road, which sits high above Malibu, California, calls himself a prince, and he certainly lives like one. A long, tree-lined driveway runs from the estate's main gate past a motor court with fountains and down to a 15,000-square-foot mansion with eight bathrooms and an equal number of fireplaces. The grounds overlook the Pacific Ocean, complete with swimming pool, tennis court, four-hole golf course, and Hollywood stars Mel Gibson, Britney Spears, and Kelsey Grammer for neighbors.

With his short, stocky build, slicked-back hair, and Coke-bottle glasses, the prince hardly presents an image of royal elegance. But his wardrobe was picked from the racks of Versace, Gucci, and Dolce & Gabbana, and he spared no expense on himself, from the $30 million in cash he paid for the estate to what Senate investigators later reported were vast sums for household furnishings: $59,850 for rugs, $58,000 for a home theater, even $1,734.17 for a pair of wine glasses. When he arrived back home -- usually in the back seat of a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce or one of his other several dozen cars -- his employees were instructed to stand in a receiving line to greet the prince. And then they lined up to do the same when he left.

Was it just a fantasy? No escape from reality?

2011-02-22T09:22:00.000-08:00

Probably like a lot of people with too little money to actually do it, I have long fantasized the notion of taking off in a yacht and sailing all the way around the world, traversing the Panama Canal, circumnavigating South America and Africa, rounding the Indian subcontinent and the coast of Australia, passing through the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea, visiting Hanoi and Hong Kong and Hawaii, before making my way back to California under the Golden Gate Bridge.

What never occurred to me in that dream was piracy. Yet that is, alas, the dark side of that fantasy, especially in the Arabian Sea. Every day, Somali pirates, usually armed with light military weapons, are capturing seacraft, large and small, and holding them for ransom. That is what happened to four Americans last week on a yachting trip around the world:

The Americans, Jean and Scott Adam, from Southern California, and Phyllis Mackay and Robert A. Riggle, from Seattle, were sailing on their 58-foot yacht for the tiny nation of Djibouti to refuel when they were hijacked several hundred miles off the coast of Oman on Friday afternoon.

When I heard about their capture, it immediately made me think of my yachting fantasy. It was disenchanting. In an instant I knew that the dream of visiting every port from Sydney to Capetown could become a nightmare. I thought of the opening lyrics in the Queen song, Bohemian Rhapsody:

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see

The song itself has to do with a "poor boy" who has killed someone and his life is thereafter spiraling downhill. But it works (in my mind) for any time you put yourself in a terrible position, such as getting captured by pirates:

Too late, my time has come
Sends shivers down my spine
Body's aching all the time
Goodbye everybody - I've got to go
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth
Mama, ooo - (anyway the wind blows)
I don't want to die
I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all

This morning, the New York Times reported that all four Americans aboard that yacht, the Quest, had been killed by their captors:

Four Americans taken hostage after their yacht was hijacked by Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa last week were killed early Tuesday when gunfire erupted during attempts by the United States Navy to negotiate with their captors, American military officials said.

Two pirates were also killed in a confrontation with Navy forces and 13 were taken into American military custody.

The 13 pirates taken into custody will surely be tried for piracy and murder in US courts. I would honestly rather none of them get a trial at all. My sincere preference would be that the US Navy, today, place them in a small dinghy at sea and kill all of them with a torpedo blast. They don't deserve our Constitutional protections; we don't deserve to pay the costs of their lawyers and incarceration.

According to the military, the confrontation began after a pirate shot a rocket-propelled grenade at the nearby Navy ship, the Sterett, at 1 a.m. Eastern time Tuesday, which would be mid-morning local time. At the same time, American forces aboard also heard gunfire on the hijacked yacht.

In response, the military said, a small rescue force of 15 Navy Seals in two high-speed assault craft moved to board the Quest and were shot at by several of the pirates on board. In the ensuing gun battle, two pirates were killed.

It's probably a line out of some movie, but 'Who do these dumb Africans think they are dealing with?' They have nothing to gain getting into a fight with the United States Navy. Do they think we are pussies like Europeans?

The American forces then boarded the vessel and discovered that all four of the hostages had been shot. Two had died immediately, and two others succumbed to their wounds shortly after, despite emergency medical care provided by the American forces at the scene. The forces also discovered the remains of two other pirates who appeared to have been killed earlier, possibly by fellow pirates, the military said.

The sad truth is that this squadron of criminals will be instantly replaced by the Somali pirate breeding machine. It's not as if Somalia is not overflowing with human garbage willing and able to do these dastardly deeds. However, if we are as brutal with them as possible, maybe the message will be sent: Don't mess with Uncle Sam.

Despite an international effort to ensure safe passage through the world’s most treacherous waters, pirates have escalated their attacks in recent years, striking more ships and taking more hostages last year than in any year on record, according to the Piracy Reporting Center of the International Maritime Bureau.

At the present time, 33 vessels bearing 712 hostages were still being held for ransom. But of those, only one — a South African yacht with two passengers hijacked in 2010 — was a recreational vessel.

This strikes me as an eminently solvable problem: fly a number of unmanned drones over the Somali coast; any time a Somali boat tries to leave port, blow it up and kill everyone on board. That would destroy their fishing fleet and kill a lot of innocents, which is unfortunate. But at the same time it would make piracy a losing proposition. And doing so would return that portion of the Arabian Sea to the civilized world.

Libya: The end of the road for Kaddafi's tyranny?

2011-02-21T09:48:00.001-08:00

When anti-government protests spread around the Arab world from Tunisia to Egypt to Jordan to Bahrain, I pointed out that in the most oppressive societies, Libya, Syria and Saudi Arabia, no such movements had arisen. I thought this was because they had stagnant economies and their brutal regimes would countenance no mild sit-ins filled with protesters carrying placards and asking for change. They would plow their homes, kill the protesters and torture their loved ones before anything could get going. And the citizens of those lands, long afraid of their rulers, understood that.

The last time there was a protest movement in Syria, the Al-Assad regime had murdered roughly 20,000 opponents (mostly Sunni Islamists), killing them with military weaponry and covering their corpses with asphalt. Thomas Friedman, who witnessed the tarmac of death in Hama, Syria, called this response of the regime "the Hama rules."

But right now it appears I was completely wrong about Libya. It looks as if Col. Kaddafi (which can be spelled many different ways*) is losing his grip on power. This is what the New York Times is now reporting:

The 40-year-rule of the Libyan strongman Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi appeared to teeter Monday as his security forces retreated to a few buildings in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, fires burned unchecked and senior government officials and diplomats announced defections. The country’s second-largest city remained under the control of rebels.

Security forces loyal to Mr. Qaddafi defended a handful of strategic locations, including the state television headquarters and the presidential palace, witnesses reported from Tripoli. Fires from the previous night’s rioting burned at many intersections, most stores were shuttered, and long lines were forming for a chance to buy bread or gas.

Unlike in Egypt, where American reporters were able to cover the story from on the ground amid the protesters, none of what is happening in Libya is transpiring on my televsion. Nonetheless, this sounds like very bad news for Col. Kaddafi. His opponents are obviously not taking over cities and government buildings without some violence of their own. At the same time, they are surely outgunned by Kaddafi's military and police. So it must be the case that Kaddafi's forces are defecting in large numbers or just refusing to fight.

In a sign of growing cracks within the government, several senior officials — including the justice minister and members of the Libyan mission to the United Nations — announced their resignations. And protesters in Benghazi, the second-largest city where the revolt began and more than 200 were killed, issued a list of demands calling for a secular interim government led by the army in cooperation with a council of Libyan tribes.

Kaddafi's official henchmen would not be leaving their posts if they didn't think the Colonel was going to be deposed from his throne in Tripoli. It's also a positive sign, from my secular perspective, that the protesters want a secular government. I would imagine, nonetheless, that some protesters against Kaddafi are Islamists.

The ubiquitous posters of Colonel Qaddafi around the capital had been torn down or burned, witnesses said.

You know you are in a shit-hole of a country when they have ubiquitous posters and statues and so on of the dictator. It's a message which says: 'I am the state. It's about me, not you, folks. You better bleeping kiss my ass or else.'

Tripoli descended into chaos in less than 24 hours as a six-day-old revolt suddenly spread from Benghazi across the country on Sunday. The revolt shaking Libya is the latest and most violent turn in a rebellion across the Arab world that seemed unthinkable just two months ago and that has already toppled autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia.

Not that the governments in Egypt or Tunisia were democracies, but it's quite unfair to them to even be mentioned in the same breath as a tyrant like Moammar Kaddafi.

In a rambling, disjointed address delivered about 1 a.m. on Monday, Mr. Qaddafi’s son, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, played down the uprising sweeping the country, which witnesses and rights activists say has left more than 220 people dead and hundreds wounded from gunfire by security forces. He repeated several times that “Libya is not Tunisia or Egypt, ” neighbors to the east and west.

As Saddam Hussein's sons found out, it's not so good being the son of a toppled dictator. I would imagine that the Colonel's boy will soon be fleeing Libya. I'm not sure where he will wind up. Maybe Switzerland? I doubt he would enjoy living in a theocracy like Saudi Arabia.

News agencies reported that several foreign oil and gas companies were moving on Monday to evacuate their workers from the country. The Portuguese government sent a plane to Libya to pick up its citizens and other residents of the European Union, while Turkey sent two ferries for its construction workers in the strife-torn country, The Associated Press reported.

If this revolt in Libya does not end in a clean victory for the rebels or for Col. Kaddafi, I would think that world oil prices will go up for it. There was some of that with Egypt, just out of fears that the Suez Canal would shut down. However, Egypt is not a major oil producer. Libya is.

Oil prices jumped on Monday because of the ongoing turmoil in Libya, where Moammar Gadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, warned protesters on Sunday that they risked igniting a civil war in which Libya's oil wealth "will be burned." By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for March delivery was up $3.10 to $89.30.

The New York Times story notes that the Libyan regime is trying to protects its petroleum facilities:

The Quryna newspaper, which has ties to Colonel Qaddafi’s son Seif, said that protests have occurred in Ras Lanuf, an oil town where some workers were being assembled to defend a refinery complex from attacks.

Quryna also reported that Mr. Qaddafi’s justice minister, Mustafa Abud Al Jeleil, had resigned in protest over the deadly response to the anti-government demonstrations.

How could one be a 'justice minister' in Kaddafi's government and be at all surprised that the Colonel's response to protests would be anything but deadly? I guess Mr. Al Jeleil thinks that Kaddafi is going to lose and that by quitting now the protesters will not want to kill him. I suspect, though, that there are going to be a lot of recriminations against Kaddafi's vassals, if the Colonel is driven from power.

Al-Manara, an opposition website, reported that a senior military official, Col. Abdel Fattah Younes in Benghazi, resigned, and the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported that Colonel Qaddafi ordered that one of his top generals, Abu Bakr Younes, be put under house arrest after disobeying an order to use force against protesters in several cities.

This is the sort of thing Hitler did when Nazi Germany was in its final days. It makes me wonder if Kaddafi won't end up taking his own life, just as Hitler did.

Protesters remained in control of Benghazi on Monday. Online videos showed protesters flying an independence flag over the roof top of a building in Benghazi, and a crowd celebrating what they called “the fall of the regime in their city.”

If Kaddafi makes a comeback, he is going to level everything in Benghazi. It has been from that second city where the protests against his regime have been strongest.

The younger Mr. Qaddafi blamed Islamic radicals and Libyans in exile for the uprising. He offered a vague package of reforms in his televised speech, potentially including a new flag, national anthem and confederate structure. But his main theme was to threaten Libyans with the prospect of civil war over its oil resources that would break up the country, deprive residents of food and education, and even invite a Western takeover.

With no tradition of democracy and with no free capitalist class, it would not be too surprising if theocrats come into power. If so, then the liberty won will soon enough be lost. Time will tell. However, I am heartened that the protesters' only published demands call for a secular government.

With little shared national experience aside from brutal Italian colonialism, Libyans tend to identify themselves as members of tribes or clans rather than citizens of a country, and Colonel Qaddafi has governed in part through the mediation of a “social leadership committee” composed of about 15 representatives of various tribes, said Diederik Vandewalle, a Dartmouth professor who has studied the country.

That makes it sound like Libya might break up into multiple new countries.

Over the last three days Libyan security forces have killed at least 223 people, according to a tally by the group Human Rights Watch. Several people in Benghazi hospitals, reached by telephone, said they believed that as many as 200 had been killed and more than 800 wounded there on Saturday alone, with many of the deaths from machine gun fire.

Compared with Egypt, 223 is a large number. Compared with most historical revolts and civil wars, 223 is nothing. I am somewhat surprised the number of deaths is not yet much larger.

--------------

*This is what The Straight Dope reported about the spelling of Kaddafi's last name:

I count at least 12 different ways to spell the colonel's handle, including Qaddhafi (New York Review of Books), Qaddafi (New Republic), Gaddafi (Time), Kaddafi (Newsweek), Khadafy (Maclean's), Qadhafi (U.S. News & World Report), Qadaffi (Business Week), and Gadaffi (World Press Review). Libya's UN mission, in an effort to spread further confusion, spells the name Qathafi, and I know I've seen Gadaafi somewhere. To make matters worse, the Library of Congress and the Middle East Studies Association, to whom one would ordinarily look for guidance, have a fondness for Qadhdhafi, which is an abomination unto God. I think you now begin to grasp the dimensions of the problem.

With government, there has never been such a thing as "collective bargaining"; it's a fiction of the unions

2011-02-20T08:42:00.001-08:00

My first experiences with bargaining came as a teenager in my first trips across the border into Mexico. When I wanted to buy a shirt or shoes in Davis, I would go to the store and pay whatever the listed price was, if I thought a store was offering a good deal. As economists would say, I was deciding that I would rather have that pair of sneakers than I would hold onto my $20 bill; and the store would rather have my $20 bill than they would that pair of sneakers. By trading the shoes for the $20, both sides were better off.

In Mexico, prices were far more pliable for just about everything. A blanket I liked might be listed at $25. But that was just a starting point. I would say to the seller, "I like this one. How about $10?" He would then look away in disgust, as if I had insulted his family's good name. When he looked away, I would start to leave, seeing that along that same street there were dozens of others selling similar goods. Two steps out, he would stop me: "Wait! Wait, Mister! I give this one for you just $20." I would stop and turn back to him and shake my head. "No, that's too much. I'll give you $10." He would then put on the sad face and exclaim, "I need to feed my children, Mister. Please. $15 is the lowest I can go." Feeling guilty, I would nod, "Okay. $15." I got the blanket for 60% of what he listed it at; and the seller was happy to make whatever profit he made. These sorts of bargaining sessions went on--and still go on--all day long in Mexican street markets.

In Wisconsin, the public employees unions are in an uproar, because the reforms of Republican Gov. Scott Walker would impair their bargaining position:

State workers and pro-labor activists have filled the streets of downtown Madison to oppose Republican Gov. Scott Walker's attempt to force many Wisconsin employees to contribute more for their healthcare and pensions and to strip them of most of their collective bargaining rights.

What the government labor unions fail to concede is that there never has been collective bargaining with them. In order to bargain, you have to have both sides fully represented, where those fighting for the interests of the taxpayers are always trying to get the best deal for the taxpayers, just as the union reps are trying to do the same for their members.

Yet the taxpayers are almost never represented. The unions give millions of dollars in campaign contributions to the politicians who are supposed to be working for all taxpayers. Then when the two sides meet at "the bargaining table," the politicians roll over to the unions. They don't just cave in; they screw over the taxpayers with giveaways which harm the long-term interests of the people who elected them.

Part of this, of course, is with the voters. They elect corrupt stooges who take union money. But ultimately, the system is rigged all on the union side. That's why they are turning out in big numbers to keep the system of phony "collective bargaining" in place.

If you question how fake these negotiations are, then answer this: Why is it that all public employees, including those fresh on the job in places like Davis, get 3 weeks of paid holidays, when the norm in the private sector is one week (or 5 days), even for senior employees? Why do public employees in mid-career, including those in low-level positions, get 4-6 weeks of paid vacation time every year, when their private sector counterparts get half that? Why are the medical benefits and pension benefits given to public sector workers worth 5 to 10 times as much as those given to their equivalents in the private sector? Why are public employees often paid by the taxpayers to attend union functions, where they learn negotiating skills to get even better deals from the taxpayers?

The answer to all of these questions is the other side: unions are not "bargaining" with people who are putting their own money, their own interests on the line. They are bargaining with people who they already bought off. It's not a fair fight. If a union runs into someone on the other side of the table who is willing to hold the line, they will work harder in the next election to make sure he is replaced by a stooge whose campaign they funded.

Think back to my bargaining experiences in Mexico. I had every incentive to buy that blanket for as little as possible. The seller had every incentive to get the highest price possible. We met in the middle. That was bargaining. But if I was buying that blanket for, say, the City of Davis, and I had nothing personally at stake in the purchase, I would have paid the full $25. Why go through the hassle of bargaining, when it's no skin off my back to waste $10 of the taxpayers' money? That's the way public employers have always bargained. That's why public employees are paid so much more than their private sector counterparts. That's why governments up and down California are going broke.

It won't affect me one way or the other what goes on in Wisconsin. However, I hope this governor breaks the unions and ends the fraudulent collective bargaining process. It would set a good precedent for our nation.

Boys should not compete against girls in combat sports

2011-02-19T16:52:00.000-08:00

The story of Joel Northrup, a high school sophomore from Iowa who withdrew from his state's wrestling championships rather than compete against a girl, Cassy Herkelman, got a lot of media play this week.

Northrup explained that it was his religious beliefs which told him to bow out of this match.

"Wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times," Northrup said in a statement released by his high school. "As a matter of conscience and my faith I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner. It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most other high school sports in Iowa."

Critics of Mr. Northrup seemed to think his religious convictions led him to the wrong decision.

Speaking for myself, as a non-religious person, I think Northrup was completely right. It's insane to have boys and girls competing against each other in a violent, combative sport like wrestling.

It has little or nothing to do with the accidental touching of breasts or genitals. It has to do with the fact that in a combat sport you are literally trying to dominate your opponent with violence, something boys ought not be doing to girls, ever.

If girls want to wrestle, they should exclusively wrestle other girls. If there are not enough girls interested, then there is no reason to have female wrestling as a sport.

Outlawing drugs creates a black market and leads to police corruption

2011-02-19T10:39:00.000-08:00

The San Jose Mercury News is reporting today that Norman Wielsch, commander of the state's Central Contra Costa Narcotics Enforcement Team, or CNET, was arrested on charges "of running a narcotics-selling scheme, possibly with confiscated drugs." Also arrested by federal agents was "Chris Butler, who runs the investigative firm Butler and Associates."

Both men were booked into County Jail in Martinez on as many as 25 suspected felony offenses, including possessing, transporting and selling marijuana, methamphetamine and steroids, and embezzlement, second-degree burglary and conspiracy.

Probably most narcotics enforcement agents are on the up and up. It's not everyday one is arrested for the crimes Mr. Wielsch is accused of committing. However, it is the case that the rich profits which can be made selling drugs--due to the fact that they are not regulated and illegal--give cops a strong incentive to do so.

My guess is that there is at least one police officer on every police force for a city the size of Davis, 65,000, or larger who is corrupt, who is either stealing drugs from evidence lockers or is shaking down dealers.

Very few of these corrupt officers are ever arrested. I suspect that is so because their departments are either unwilling or unable to investigate them. Yet all the time there are stories in the news about confiscated drug evidence missing from police lockers.

In the last few days there was: 1. a story in Georgia about 2 kilos of missing cocaine; 2. a story in Broomfield, Colo. about missing drugs from their evidence room; 3. a federal lab which tests drug evidence in California missing large amounts of that drug evidence; and 4. a story from Boston where "hundreds of bags" of drug evidence is missing.

Common sense suggests, if some cops are willing to steal evidence from drug lockers after it was placed in custody, far more would just never enter that evidence in the first place. It does not seem hard to imagine that there are many police officers profitting from the drug trade by taking cash payoffs from wealthy drug dealers in exchange for not arresting them or stealing the money from them or confiscating the drugs and never reporting that confiscation.

All of these sorts of corrupt police activities were rife in the days of alcohol prohibition. There is no reason to think they are not common in our times of drug prohibition.

The answer to ridding police departments of these crimes is not just to investigate and arrest bad cops. It's also to legalize and regulate the production, distribution and sale of street drugs, which would wipe out the profits and take away the incentive for cops to be dishonest.

Death of a firefighter

2011-02-19T00:16:00.000-08:00

Regardless of whatever political problems I have with the firefighters' union in Davis, I am fully cognizant of the fact that when they have to enter a burning building or they face a raging wildfire, theirs is a very dangerous job which takes a great amount of training and courage.

Today in Los Angeles, a firefighter who was 2 years from his scheduled retirement died in the line of duty:

A Los Angeles firefighter died Friday from injuries he sustained when a ceiling collapsed on him in a house fire late Wednesday night in the Hollywood Hills.

"I don't think any of us as firefighters would expect such a catastrophic failure of ceiling," city Fire Chief Millage Peaks said after announcing the death of Glenn Allen, 61, an L.A. firefighter for more than 36 years.

Allen, who was less than two years from retirement, died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. His first grandchild is expected to be born Saturday.

When Allen and dozens of other firefighters arrived at the scene, the fire was blazing across the attic of a house in the 1500 block of North Viewsite Drive.

Running through the attic were plastic pipes for fire sprinklers. The fire melted the pipes, flooding the attic and filling the insulation with water, Peaks said. The weight of the insulation appears to have led a large section of the ceiling to collapse, injuring Allen and five other firefighters.

One of the firefighters was still hospitalized Friday with a broken ankle, but the others had been treated and released, Peaks said.

When the ceiling collapsed, Allen was covered with debris. Rescuers used a chainsaw to reach him. When they found him, he was not breathing and his heart had stopped.

The newly built three-story house was 12,500 square feet, according to Peaks. The Fire Department was continuing to investigate the cause of the blaze on Friday. But officials said it seemed to have started around a fireplace, then raced up the walls to the attic and spread. A couple who had been sleeping upstairs escaped without injury.

My sincerest condolences go out to Mr. Allen's loved ones.

Egypt going forward

2011-02-18T10:56:00.000-08:00

Hamza El-Nakhal wrote a letter to The Davis Enterprise, today, regarding the situation in Egypt, his native country.

He wrote:

I am so proud of all the defenseless Egyptian youths who stood up to the dictator and his terrorist regime for 18 days in Tahrir (Liberation) square in downtown Cairo. They endured the shutting down of communication means such as the Internet and mobile phone services, thugs on horseback, criminal drivers who plowed through the pedestrians, rock throwing, rubber and live bullets, tear gas and cocktail bombs, and freeing criminal prisoners and ordering them to cause as much chaos as possible in the civilian population.

I too feel good about the peaceful demonstrators in Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt. They behaved admirably. However, it should be noted that, as brutal as the Mubarak government (and the thugs within his political party) could be, that regime was tame compared to most Arab and Muslim governments. It is pure hyperbole to call Mubarak's government a "terrorist regime," when it is seen in the light of Syria, Algeria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iran.

Protests have spread recently to Libya. Not surprisingly, Col. Kaddafi's response was much more violent than Gen. Mubarak's was:

The severity of a Libyan crackdown on its so-called Day of Rage began to emerge Friday when a human rights advocacy group said 24 people had been killed by gunfire on Thursday and news reports said further clashes with security forces were feared at the funerals for the dead.

A later report from the AP says 84 have been killed by Col. Kaddafi's goons.

Mr. El-Nakhal adds that, "Egyptians lived under the iron fist of that regime for almost 30 years." That is true. But it's not the case that before Mubarak Egyptians had legitimately elected or liberal governments. Nasser and Sadat were, like Mubarak, military leaders who became dictators. Before them, Egypt had a king in power.

While Mubarak was no more democratic than his predecessors, he was no less. And in fact, Mubarak had started to liberalize their socialist economy. That liberalization led to the creation of new industry in Egypt, and its byproduct was a rising economy and a new middle class. The protestors in Tahrir Square were not peasants. Nor were most of them workers in Egypt's socialist enterprises. A great percentage of them were educated, middle class people whose fortunes were improved by the liberalization.

I hope the coming elections will be democratic. I have a small wager that they will be. However, because of the widespread illiteracy and bad education in Egypt, the ubiquitous poverty--the L.A. Times reports that about 40% of Egyptians live on $2 a day or less--and the lack of a tradition of democratic governance and the troubling influence of Muslim extremists, I don't have a lot of hope for much democracy after the elections.

One problem is that the military in Egypt is an independent entity which wants to end liberalization and return to the socialist ways which were adopted in the 1950s when Soviet planners directed the Egyptian economy:

The Egyptian military defends the country, but it also runs day care centers and beach resorts. Its divisions make television sets, jeeps, washing machines, wooden furniture and olive oil, as well as bottled water under a brand reportedly named after a general’s daughter, Safi.

From this vast web of businesses, the military pays no taxes, employs conscripted labor, buys public land on favorable terms and discloses nothing to Parliament or the public. ...

Field Marshal Tantawi, the defense minister, and other senior officers were all commissioned before Mr. Sadat switched Egypt’s allegiance to the West in 1979. They trained in the former Soviet Union, where sprawling business empires under military control were not uncommon. ...

(American ambassador to Egypt), Margaret Scobey, wrote of the plans for economic liberalization: “The military views the (government owned enterprise's) privatization efforts as a threat to its economic position, and therefore generally opposes economic reforms. We see the military’s role in the economy as a force that generally stifles free market reform by increasing direct government involvement in the markets.”

One probable political change in the next year, whether there are democratic elections or not, is that Egypt will become more socialist in its economy. The trend toward liberalization will end. And many of those protestors who helped to topple Mubarak will be disemployed as their new industries are shut down and replaced by government companies under the control of the military.

Socialism is not compatible with democracy. A stagnant, uncompetitive economy is not compatible with democracy. A military in charge of an economy is not compatible with democracy. In the end, it looks very unlikely that Egypt will soon be a truly free, democratic country.

Davis City Council -- selecting a new member

2011-02-16T10:58:00.000-08:00
Here is my take on the odds of each of the 10 candidates being selected:

Dan Wolk--31.35%
Kari Fry--27.40%
Sherelene Harrison--10.67%
Kerry Loux--10.03%
Walter Bunter, Jr.--6.55%
Steve Williams--4.93%
Linda Parfitt--2.76%
Paul Boylan--2.59%
Vincent Wyatt--1.98%
Robert Smith--1.75%

EDIT: After watching the LWV's forum--which can be viewed here--two candidates stood out to me as much stronger than they did in their videos recorded with Davis Media Access. Those two were Steve Williams and Paul Boylan. I don't mean that to demean the performances of any of the others. Williams and Boylan came across as confident, informed and having a sense what the four members of the council should be looking for in a new colleague.

Target Map

2011-02-16T09:47:00.000-08:00

Conaway Map

2011-02-08T10:34:00.000-08:00

This is an aerial map of Conaway Ranch:

Davis RDA Map

2011-02-07T10:43:00.000-08:00

PHEV

2011-01-23T18:28:00.000-08:00

Legalize it

2010-10-28T13:12:00.001-07:00

Trex

2010-08-01T16:04:00.001-07:00

Miss Iowa

2010-07-29T09:11:00.001-07:00

Understanding Regis Philbin, but still not liking sea cucumbers

2010-06-24T19:57:00.000-07:00

One of the joys of writing a column is getting letters from my readers. After I explained what a boring sport soccer is, I got this entertaining missive from a reader named Mayra. Here is my reply:

Hi Mayra,

Nice to hear from you.

You begin:
“okay you are out of your mind!!! your article really offended me! i cant believe someone would let you actually write this article about soccer!!”

They only let me out of the psychiatric ward to write my column occasionally.

“many people love soccer!! if basketball, baseball and football are so much better, how come they dont have a world cup??!”

I’ll be sure to explain to the Yankees that there really is no such thing as the World Series.

You continue:
“… you know why?? because only americans think that these sports are cool. i think football, baseball, and basketball are really boring!!”

Everyone has his or her own tastes and or opinions. That’s why Regis Philbin has a career on TV.

“your so called "tips" are useless. making the goals bigger will be way too easy to score goals from even half of the field!!”

I’ve never thought scoring was such a terrible thing. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong.

“soccer is more intense because its non-stop except for half time.”

Of course, it’s also non-start.

“in soccer you have to be really good to score a goal. and in basketball pretty much anyone could score, not much skill in that.”

I’ll tell Kobe Bryant that the next time I run into him.

“also in soccer when you score one goal it counts as one point no matter where the person scores it from. and in basketball one score could be like 2 or 3 points which is pretty lame to me. why cant it just be one point?!”

You make a very good point. Shakespeare wrote tragedies about lesser crises than the three-point field goal.

“also in football one touchdown would be 6 points, why so much for one touchdown?!”

Maybe because it’s six times as exciting as a soccer goal?

“the u.s. game vs. nigeria was really suspense, even though it was only one goal it was worth it.”

I won’t let the Algerians know you called them Nigerians. Wars have begun over lesser slights.

“what really sucks is that the u.s. soccer team doesn't get enough support from people like you.”

If they would let me off the psych ward more often, I might be a greater athletic supporter.

“people should support the team because they are playing internationally and it takes hard work competing against other countries.”

Fortunately, we have a very good military. So if they beat us on the field, we can send in the Marines.

“who ever wins the world cup, they are the best in the world not just in the nation.”

That is hard to argue with.

“soccer is a fun and an exciting sport, you should try it first before criticizing.”

I tried sea cucumber once at a Chinese restaurant. I didn’t care for it, either.

“support the u.s. this saturday against ghana.”

And miss the Davis Farmer’s Market?

All the best,

Your good friend,

Rich

Arizona immigration

2010-04-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

Nishi Property

2010-04-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

Prisons vs. Higher Education

2010-03-13T21:43:00.001-08:00

Not seeing the forest for the trees

2010-02-17T15:16:00.000-08:00

The missing piece of the puzzle of why Amy Bishop shot six of her colleagues at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, killing three, is mental illness. The idea that she was a perfectly normal person who just snapped due to stress brought on by the loss of her job is absurd.

However, exactly what disease she has is unknown. Her husband has said she never had seen a psychiatrist or had any psychiatric disorder. Yet every story which has come out about her past, including the fact that she killed her brother, possibly sent a bomb to one of her other colleagues and harassed her neighbors suggest she was a very disturbed person for a long time.

This ABC News story is the best I have seen at getting to the question of her likely mental illness:
Accused Alabama shooter Amy Bishop screamed and cursed at children, instigating confrontations with their parents, according to former neighbors who painted a frightening portrait of an woman accused of a killing rampage.

Former Massachusetts neighbors described the brilliant scientist as a woman who 15 years ago had "face-to-face, nose-to-nose confrontations" over evening basketball games, skateboarders and even whether an ice cream truck would be allowed on the child-friendly street.

"She picked fights with them," said one neighbor, who did not want to be identified because Bishop's children return summers to visit their grandparents -- Judy and Samuel Bishop -- who still live on Fille Street in quiet Ipswich, Mass.

"The ice cream truck was banished from the street because [Bishop] told them her children were lactose intolerant," said the neighbor. "She even had one of the children's teachers fired."

Last week Bishop was arrested for killing three professors and injuring three others -- all colleagues at University of Alabama in Huntsville -- during a faculty meeting. She is currently on suicide watch.

Soon more disturbing news emerged from Bishop's background. Investigators unearthed several disturbing pieces to the puzzle of the suspect, an accomplished cellular biologist and mother of four children aged 8 to 18.

In 1986, she shot her then 18-year-old brother Seth Bishop with a shotgun at their home in Braintree, Mass., but was never charged in the shooting.

And in 1993, she and her husband were questioned by police after a pipe bomb was mailed to one of Bishop's colleagues, Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Paul Rosenberg.

I'm quite certain that Bishop's husband is completely innocent in her crimes. However, I sense that he cannot see the forest for the trees. For whatever reason, her very peculiar behavior and paranoid personality strikes him as perfectly normal. Yet everyone else saw Amy Bishop as off her rocker.
James Anderson has said that he and his wife were cleared in the mail bomb investigation and were never suspects.

Anderson told ABC affiliate WCVB-TV in Boston Monday that he had no idea why his wife would shoot their co-workers.

"Nobody understands what happened. Nobody knew," he said.

Anderson told The Associated Press that he and Bishop went to a shooting range just weeks before the killing, but said the family did not own a gun.

This is the first story on this case I have seen which gets the views of trained psychiatrists:
Though many at the university had heard grumblings that she had been denied tenure, police, psychological experts and even her own family say her motivation is an enigma.

"For a faculty member to murder colleagues after denial of tenure would probably require 'standard' experiences of disappointment, a sense of betrayal, and desperation and the additional burden of mental illness, either a severe depression or some form of psychosis," said Dr. Stephen Shuchter, professor of clinical psychiatry emeritus at The University of California, San Diego.

"We are likely to learn about these only if the perpetrator chooses to defend herself by presenting the mitigating circumstances of an insanity defense," he told ABCNews.com.

Bishop's strange personality was not unknown to some of her colleagues and neighbors:
Sylvia Fluckiger, a lab technician who worked with Bishop then, described her as "an oddball" and "socially a little awkward," according to the Boston Globe.

Among former neighbors, Bishop was cantankerous and not well liked.

Ipswich police logged two calls for neighborhood disputes from Bishop, and in 2002, she reported receiving harassing calls, according to local reports.

Once, neighbors organized a block party and didn't tell Bishop because of conflicts she had with people.

"We never had any issue with them directly," said the grandmother who knew the family. "But it was very uncomfortable with the other neighbors. Amy was not friendly. The high school kids at the time were very in to sports and they'd come out and play from 8:30 to 10 at night. The noise was bothersome to her."

If Bishop has a serious mental illness, it was not diagnosed:
... many psychiatric disorders can go undiagnosed for years, especially for those who lead insular lives.

"People in science and computers are solitary people," said Dr. Igor Galynker, associate chairman for the department of psychiatry and behavioral science at psychiatry at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City and professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein college of Medicine.

"They work in solitude and they don't need to interact in complex social situations and can be paranoid for a long time without someone realizing."

Schizophrenia can be marked by social isolation, odd behavior, "strange disordered" thinking and speaking, poor hygiene and lack of friends, according to Galynker.

Often people don't notice signs until more serious symptoms emerge.

"Brilliant scientists are supposed to be crazy," he told ABCNews.com.

My sense is that those who knew her and didn't think she was mentally ill likely assumed her eccentricities were normal behavior for a scientist.
Anti-social personality disorders can also result behavior that is "incompatible with laws," like stealing or shooting, he said. And in narcissism, a person can display disregard for the feelings of others or seek self-aggrandizement and, like Bernie Madoff, can be "very charming."

Psychotics like Seung-Hui Cho, the student who who killed 31 at Virginia Tech in 2007, are particularly dangerous.

Killers like Cho view others as inconsequential and often humiliation can set off a psychotic depression that could make a person violent or suicidal, said Galynker.

Those with personality disorders, such as Eric Harris, who went on a shooting rampage at Columbine High School in 1999, are particularly dangerous.

"They don't have a conscience," said Frank Ochberg, a Michigan psychiatrist and founder of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.

"There is the fear of getting caught, and then you get away with it and you harbor a sense that all these other people are crazy," said Ochberg. "There's a sense of entitlement."

Any of those psychiatric disorders could justify an insanity defense -- lacking the capacity to know right from wrong , according to both psychiatrists.

Ochberg, who is an expert in psychopathic predators and mass shootings, said female shooters are rare, but he admits, "mothers have done tragic things. They have killed their kids."

"In general being a woman and a mother makes you more in tune with your feelings, more nurturing and sympathetic," said Ochberg. "I believe men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but some women are from Mars."

NAMI's political philosophy has resulted in a great increase in the stigma attached to mental illness

2010-02-01T16:15:00.000-08:00

One of the laudable goals of NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness) is to reduce the stigma associated with mental disease. The idea is to make Americans aware of the fact that psychiatric problems are not the patient's fault. They are not the product of bad parenting or moral weakness. They are biological illnesses, like cancer or the flu. They are not contagious and they can be treated effectively with a combination of pharmaceuticals and psychotherapy.

The hope is that by reducing stigma patients with mental issues will then seek out treatment, get well and be fully accepted as regular contributing members of society.

Ironically, however, NAMI's political philosophy has resulted in a great increase in the stigma attached to mental illness.

Why?

NAMI opposes involuntary treatment for the seriously mentally ill. NAMI's ideology is that the mentally ill are the same as everyone else and as such, they should not be forced into treatment. If we have to force some patients to take anti-psychotic medications, that would suggest that those folks really are not the same as you and me.

But allowing all patients to decide for themselves if they want to take anti-psychotic drugs means that many won't -- particularly those who, due to their disease, cannot understand that they are really sick -- and therefore we will necessarily have thousands of very sick mental patients all over the country not receiving treatment. Those untreated patients will act in a bizarre fashion and sometimes commit horrific crimes. And nothing does more to increase the stigma of mental illness than when a person with serious psychiatric problems becomes a danger to society.

More people today associate mental illness with violent crimes than they ever did in the past. And the greatest source of stigmatization of mental illness is its association with violence, according to the Surgeon General.

If you were trying to create a stigmatizing scenario about someone with serious mental illness on the loose, you could do a lot worse than portray Kain Figuereo. Everything about him right now screams "be afraid; he is dangerous."

Mr. Figuereo is a large man with paranoid schizophrenia. He is not being treated for his illness. He is confused and extremely paranoid. He has a background in the military, which probably means he knows how to use weapons. And authorities don't know where he is.

If Kain Figuereo commits a violent crime, stigma for the mentally ill will increase.

Here is the latest news from the Standard Speaker in Hazleton, Pennsylvania:
State police at Hazleton are looking for a missing man with a history of mental illness.

Police said Kain Figuereo, 50, was last seen at Ramada Inn, state Route 309, Hazle Township, on Jan. 15.

He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and hasn't been taking his medication, which may make him confused and extremely paranoid. He is an Army veteran and has been committed several times in the past for mental evaluations.

"He repeatedly struck the rabbi on the head with an aluminum baseball bat as the victim was walking to synagogue to pray"

2010-01-31T16:43:00.000-08:00

Because there is so much anti-Semitism in our world, it's normal to think that must be the cause when a rabbi is savagely attacked out of the blue. To all Jews, myself included, the notion is quite frightening that someone would hate us so much that he would take a baseball bat and bash a rabbi over the head repeatedly for no reason at all.

Unless, of course, there was a reason: serious, untreated mental illness. It's hard to assign blame in that case to Jew-hatred. When someone is delusional and psychotic, he is a danger to everyone, Jew and gentile.

That is just what happened in Toms River, New Jersey. Here is the story from the Washington Post:
TOMS RIVER, N.J. -- A man who savagely beat a New Jersey rabbi with a baseball bat during an unprovoked attack has been sentenced to eight years in state prison.

Lee Tucker must serve 85 percent of the term imposed Friday before becoming eligible for parole. He also must pay $9,500 in restitution to the rabbi, who has suffered seizures since the October 2007 attack in Lakewood.

Tucker, who has a history of mental illness, pleaded guilty in December to aggravated assault. He repeatedly struck the rabbi on the head with an aluminum baseball bat as the victim was walking to synagogue to pray.

The rabbi suffered skull, nose and eye socket fractures as well as a brain hemorrhage.

What was not said on the local TV news was more important that what was

2010-01-31T16:02:00.000-08:00

When I turned on the local news last night at 10 pm, I saw a reporter holding a microphone, stationed outside an upper-middle class home in Carmichael. On the screen was the word "live." I could see in the penumbra camera crews and reporters from other stations. Every news producer in Sacramento had decided an armed gunman in a stand-off with police was really big news.

However, the stand-off itself was long over. The reporters were on that street (LIVE!) to explain what had culminated five hours earlier. This is the AP summary of what happened:
A nearly six-hour standoff between an armed man and Sacramento County sheriff's deputies has ended safely.

Sheriff's Sgt. Tim Curran says the 52-year-old man pointed a gun at his mother after an argument with his parents at the suburban Sacramento home the three share. The man surrendered after deputies fired rounds of tear gas into the home in Carmichael, east of Sacramento.

A 52-year-old man living with his parents and pointing a gun at his mother?

What I knew immediately was that the "gunman" was seriously mentally ill and in all likelihood not being medicated. Yet the reporter on Channel 13 never mentioned that.

I suppose a responsible reporter is not supposed to speculate about an alleged criminal's psychiatric condition. But honestly, what else would explain such a crazy action?

The Associated Press story confirmed what I knew:
Curran says the man has a history of mental illness. Curran says it isn't immediately clear if the man will face criminal charges or will be referred for mental health treatment after Saturday's standoff.

Since TV reporters don't ever explain the reason we regularly have stories like this one is because we don't force people with serious mental illnesses to take their medications, the general public is left in the dark.

Many seem to think it's just a sign of the deteriorating morality in our society or the ubiquity of firearms. Most people naturally place blame on the man with the serious mental illness. Perhaps they think it's the fault of his parents for not raising him properly.

But he, of course, is not in control of his faculties and in all likelihood does not even understand that he is mentally ill. His parents don't have the legal right to force him to get treatment. They simply love their son and are suffering for it.

The blame lies with the rest of us who don't call for our laws to be changed so that men like the guy in Carmichael get treatment, voluntarily or otherwise. If he had been on anti-psychotic meds, the TV reporters and the SWAT team would have been off of that street.

John Edwards: made in the USA, but not really "Made in the USA"

2010-01-30T13:18:00.000-08:00

A new tell-all book about former Sen. John Edwards, who was once thought to be a strong contender for the presidency in 2008 and was Sen. John Kerry's running mate in 2004, is now available in bookstores. This book, called The Politician, is making headlines and affecting lives.

Although Edwards's bright-light dimmed 18 months ago -- he was a less effective candidate in the 2008 primaries than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton -- and was put out when it was reported last year that Edwards was a serial philanderer and had fathered a child out of wedlock with one of his aides, this book is making news because it seems to have caused Mr. Edwards to finally concede what everyone else knew: that his mistress's child was also his. And that concession seems to have prompted his cancer-stricken wife, who naively believed her husband up to that point, to divorce him.

What is notable about the book's author, Andrew Young -- not the same Andrew Young who was the Mayor of Atlanta and who served in the Carter Administration -- is how intimately he was involved in the affair itself. He helped Edwards pull it off. He helped with keeping things quiet and making sure payments were made. And when the Senator's paramour, Rielle Hunter, became pregnant, he took on the role of pretending that he was actually the baby's daddy.

I have no idea if all of Mr. Young's charges are true. (Young accuses Mrs. Edwards of politicizing her cancer diagnosis.) Both John and Elizabeth Edwards's representatives have said they are not. I don't care enough one way or the other. I won't read the book. However, the decline and fall of John Edwards does intrigue me.

In January 2006, John Edwards came to Davis as part of his pre-campaign campaign for the 2008 nomination. This is part of what I wrote about his appearance, which I attended at the Mondavi Center at UC Davis:
Though he has a very thin resume in elected office – his only experience in government was the single term he served in the U.S. Senate – John Edwards has all the markings of a person who could get elected president.

He speaks well. He’s good looking. He’s bright. He’s charming. He’s not a blowhard or a bore.

The Senator-cum-trial lawyer connects on an emotional level. He knows how to say what his audience wants to hear. And, even when talking about difficult problems, he comes across as a positive and uplifting character. If Edwards ever made it to the White House, his style would be more Ronald Reagan, less Jimmy Carter.

At that time and for the next two years, I did not think Edwards was going to win the Democratic nomination. I thought Hillary Clinton, with her more impressive resume and her greater degree of celebrity, would win. (Obviously, I did not give enough weight to Barack Obama's immense talent as a candidate.) But I saw Edwards as a top player, as someone who would for a long time be in the game. He had too much charm to just fade away.

Yet now that he has crashed and burned, we won't likely hear too much more from him.

Here are some excerpts from the new Young book from a CNN report:
... when Edwards impregnated Hunter, Young said he agreed to the senator's request to lie and say he was the father even though Young, himself, was married with three children.

Young said Hunter was also initially against the idea but warmed up to it after being told her financial needs would be met. His wife, Cheri, eventually agreed to the plan, setting in motion a chaotic time for the family as they uprooted their lives in North Carolina and criss-crossed the country with Hunter and their children in an effort to evade the media.

Young portrays John Edwards as a vain man whose only care in the world was himself:
Young said it wasn't until John Edwards privately expressed indifference about the birth of his daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter, in February 2008, that he realized the former senator cared only about himself.

"After watching and hearing John Edwards practice a thousand little deceptions and tell a thousand different lies, ostensibly in the service of some greater good, I finally recognized that he didn't care about anyone other than himself," Young writes.

"A precious living, breathing human being -- his daughter -- had come into the world, and he wasn't inclined to even call the woman who had given birth to her. Instead, I had to prompt him to do the right thing, to do the most basic, human thing."

Young also portrays Edwards's populism as phony:
Despite Edwards' carefully crafted image as a champion for everyday people, he was "irritated by ordinary events. He especially hated making appearances at state fairs, where 'fat rednecks try to shove food down my face. I know I'm the people's senator, but do I have to hang out with them?'"

Young further portrays Edwards's sympathy for union workers in the U.S. as contrived:
Edwards understood his audience and before appearing at a Service Employees International Union health care event in Las Vegas, Nevada, he instructed Young to take his Italian suit coat to a tailor to remove the label indicating it was Italian-made. In its place, Edwards had the tailor sew in a "Made in the USA" label that had been on Young's jacket.

Edwards made most of his fortune as a trial lawyer. He convinced gullible jurors to award his clients millions of dollars in medical "malpractice" cases, even when the doctors being sued followed the best available scientific evidence to guide their decisions. The fact that a lawyer of that caliber is in reality a fraud is not surprising. But the fact that this particular fraud has been exposed as such is something I never expected.

Psychosis: She used her stove to light a blanket on fire in an attempt to kill her boy

2010-01-29T16:32:00.000-08:00

Whenever you hear a story of a mother killing her children, know that the reason is almost certainly the woman's untreated mental illness. No rational-thinking mom would ever try to harm her kids. It's not a byproduct of punishment or selfishness. It's a byproduct of severe psychosis.

There was a story today out of Las Vegas, in which a mother tried to kill her son. Fortunately, a heroic neighbor intervened and saved the boy's life:
A southwest valley condo resident is being called a hero for saving the life of a six -year-old boy whose mother was trying to kill him.

A fire broke out on Wednesday afternoon at the West Tropicana Condominiums near Trop and Decatur. A neighbor, Brian Morace and his wife (pictured above) saw the fire and Morace went in despite the objections of the boy's mother. Once inside the smoke-filled condo, he rescued the boy, but suffered smoke inhalation.

The 36-year-old mother suffered second and third-degree burns. Police say the woman used her stove to light a blanket on fire in an attempt to kill the boy. The woman, who also has a history of mental illness is expected to face charges of arson and attempted murder.

I'm not sure if parenticide is always due to untreated mental illness. But I would suspect it mostly is. The Examiner today reports one such case out of San Diego:
Heather D'Aoust was 14 when she attacked her adoptive mother with a claw hammer in their Scripps Ranch home May 25, 2008.

During the attack, she struck her mother Rebecca D'Aoust, a school teacher and counselor, at least 25 times. The victim died the next day of head injuries sustained during the assault.

D'Aoust, who has a history of mental illness, professes to not knowing why she did it and said as much during Wednesday's sentencing for the crime in San Diego County Superior Court.

Now 16, she was sentenced to 16 years-to-life in state prison for second-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon. She pleaded guilty in December 2009

San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis called it a "tragic case for everyone involved."

When her adoptive father came to his wife's aid, she attacked him too.

Though the defendant professed not knowing why she killed to her sentencing judge, Superior Court Judge Michael Wellington, she told a San Diego County Probation Officer that she had planned to kill the whole family that morning, including her sister and the sister’s boyfriend.

“Hopefully, Heather will get the mental health treatment she needs while serving her sentence,” Dumanis said.

If Heather had been treated from the get-go, her mother would be alive today and Heather would not be in prison.

Without mental hospitals and without treatment, tragic outcomes are the only possibility, especially for someone born a sociopath

2010-01-26T22:14:00.000-08:00

When we had public mental hospitals, people who were born with defective brains which made them insane from early in life were placed in them. In those hospitals, they got treatment. Possibly, such a person could be healed, to the extent he could live in society on medications. If restoration of health was not possible, they and society could be kept safe. However, without mental hospitals and without treatment, tragic outcomes are the only possibility, especially for someone who seems to have been born a sociopath.

As the Bradenton Herald reports, Clifford Davis was born mentally damaged. And his life was tragic thereafter. As a consequence of not being hospitalized, he murdered his mother and his grandfather and then raped his mother's corpse:
BRADENTON — From as young as a 2-year-old, Clifford Davis showed signs of a troubled boy out of touch with reality, several relatives testified Monday.

Members of the Davis family came from Texas to testify on behalf of the man accused of killing his mother, Stephanie Davis, and grandfather, Joel Hill, more than four years ago.

Davis’ attorneys are looking to spare their client the death penalty by convincing a jury that Davis was insane at the time of the killings, seeking a not-guilty verdict by reason of insanity.

“I remember when he was 2, we were on a family trip and he didn’t like what we were doing and he suddenly turned around and spit in my face,” said half-brother James Davis. “It was always like that with him. One minute he was fine, then the next minute he would not even speak to me.”

Other family members testified to a similar pattern of erratic behavior throughout Davis’ life, a pained existence of depression and isolation. Family members have testified that Davis also descended into an obsession with violent video games, at times playing for 18 hours a day.

Families of mentally ill children need to be educated as well. They should have had him medicated early on, so he never got this bad.
“Clifford just never really connected with people on an emotional level. There was always a disconnect there. It was just always hard to reach Clifford,” his aunt Carol Anderson testified.

Davis’ attorney, Assistant State Attorney Carolyn Schlemmer, also presented medical professionals who said her client’s behavior was not just strange, but symptomatic of debilitating mental illness.

California psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Wu testified that Davis, 23, suffers from brain abnormalities on a brain scan conducted in 2006 that may have resulted from a psychotic disorder.

In addition to two counts of first-degree murder, Davis is also accused of sexually assaulting his mother’s dead body and of robbery. He has admitted in court — outside the presence of the jury — that on Dec. 4, 2005, he killed his mother and grandfather in the Wares Creek apartment he shared with his mother.

Now Mr. Davis's fate is in the hands of his judge and jury:
Smith would decide Davis’ fate should a jury find him not guilty by reason of insanity, which could include a lifetime commitment to a mental hospital.

Obviously this guy should have been committed to a mental hospital for life long before he committed these horrific senseless crimes.

Kenneth McDougall had schizophrenia and had been committed earlier: "He was a 'gentle man' but had stopped taking medication"

2010-01-26T17:28:00.000-08:00

When most people hear about a murder committed by someone who is seriously mentally ill, they presume the killer was a sociopath who had no regard for innocent life. But generally, that is not the case.

If a schizophrenic goes off his meds, he becomes a completely different person and has no sense of what he is doing, thinking and irrationally perceiving. He may believe he is acting in self-defense when he kills innocents. Or he may think God has commanded him to attack others in order to save society.

On meds, he would understand, at least, that those are crazy ideas. But off meds, it's a kill or be killed world in his diseased mind.

Kenneth McDougall was off his meds. Justina McDougall died for that. The Winnepeg (Canada) Free Press reports:
A Portage la Prairie man accused of killing his wife has a history of mental illness.

Kenneth Edward McDougall, 54, was charged with first-degree murder after his wife collapsed in their home last Wednesday. Medical officials tried CPR to rouse the woman, but to no avail.

Justina Shteen Unrau McDougall, 47, died in hospital three days later.

Medical officials were doing an autopsy Monday to determine her cause of death.

"My sister was a very loving person who had hundreds of friends," said Helen Unrau, Justina McDougall's sister.

"She will be dearly missed."

Helen Unrau said Kenneth McDougall had schizophrenia and had been committed to a care institution after an earlier incident involving his wife.

Unless a patient can be forced to keep taking antipsychotics, it makes no sense to release him. Yet McDougall was released and not forced to take his meds.
Unrau said the earlier event made her fear something might again happen to her sister.

Her brother-in-law was a "gentle man" but had stopped taking medication, which she thinks was a mistake.

"She was also the victim at that time but she took him back. He was supposed to be cured," she said. "He used to be a very loving husband and father."

"Three of the four people who had walked in front of moving trains last year were also students at Gunn High School"

2010-01-26T16:58:00.000-08:00

Suicide is almost always the byproduct of untreated mental illness. I doubt Brian Taylor was ever a danger to anyone but himself. However, had he been forced to take medication, he would be alive today:
Brian Bennion Taylor, a 19-year-old graduate of Palo Alto’s Gunn High School, was struck and killed by a southbound train at Meadow Drive at 11:45 p.m. Friday night, in an apparent suicide.

San Mateo County transit police are investigating the death as a suicide, though no official cause of death has been released as of press time. Taylor’s mother said her son, who graduated in 2008 and attended Brigham Young University, had a history of mental illness, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Taylor was killed near the crossing at East Meadow Drive, the fifth death at the same intersection since last May. Three of the four people who had walked in front of moving trains last year were also students at Gunn High School.

10 years in prison for attacking his mother with a hammer

2010-01-24T20:59:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday on this blog I wrote: "In the vast majority of cases where an untreated mental patient commits a violent crime ... the victim is a family member."

Today I noticed a story out of Wisconsin where a son tried to kill his mother. The son, of course, has untreated mental illness:
FOREST CITY — A Lake Mills man was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison Friday after being convicted of attacking his mother with a hammer.

A Winnebago County Court judge also ordered that Timothy P. Winter, 37, serve a mandatory minimum of at least five years for attacking Cynthia Winter, 63, in April 2009.

Winter’s attorney, Susan Flander, asked the judge to consider that her client has mental health issues. She said Winter is on medication to control his condition and has demonstrated his competency.

Philip Garland, Winnebago assistant county attorney, agreed that Winter “has had mental health issues,” and his criminal record does not include felony assault, but he said the attack on Winter’s mother was brutal.

Judge Colleen Weiland said she considered Winter’s mental health, but his prior criminal history including combative behavior justified the five-year minimum.

Notice that he is on medication now that he is in the criminal justice system. If we had a sane system for dealing with the seriously mentally ill, this crime never would have taken place. Timothy Winter would have been on medication before any crazy ideas like attacking his mother with a hammer took over him.

Laughing out loud ... at Chilly.

2010-01-22T16:17:00.000-08:00

In his column today forecasting the conference championships and possible Super Bowl match-ups, Bill Simmons had a very funny joke at the expense of Brad "Chilly" Childress, the head coach of the Minnesotra Vikings:
Potentially horrifying media day subplot that hasn't been mentioned yet: Someone making a "Have you ever walked into a kitchen holding a 12-pack and been ambushed by Chris Hansen?"-type joke to Brad Childress, followed by Childress vaulting his podium and pummeling him.

"Johnson used scissors to stab and slash her daughter 100 times in the laundry room of an apartment complex."

2010-01-20T15:21:00.000-08:00

In the vast majority of cases where an untreated mental patient commits a violent crime -- I hesitate to even use the word crime because someone out of his mind is incapable of making a rational decision to do wrong -- the victim is a family member. Here are three such cases from the news today.

The Houston Chronicle reports:
A man with a history of mental illness has been charged with murder in the stabbing death of his younger brother, Harris County Sheriff's officials said.

Joshua Lelay, 24, died after he was found about 3:45 a.m. Tuesday by deputies responding to a possible stabbing ...

Investigators learned that Daniel Lelay stabbed his brother after hearing voices, officials said.

Channel 7 News (NBC) in Boston reports:
GARDNER, Mass. -- 39-year old Susan Johnson is charged with repeatedly stabbing her two-year old daughter in Gardner last year. Lawyers for Johnson have indicated that she has a history of mental illness.

Prosecutors said Johnson used scissors to stab and slash her daughter 100 times in the laundry room of an apartment complex back in April. She also allegedly tried to strangle the girl with an electrical cord.

The AP in Binghamton, NY reports:
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (AP) - Tricia McGarity pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in October for beating to death her 3-year-old son Milken. An autopsy showed the boy died from several blows to the head.

A prosecutor and defense lawyer both said she has a history of mental illness.

Looking back at a 2004 column

2010-01-19T14:22:00.001-08:00

"Despite psychosis, schizoaffective disorder and other mental issues, a court-ordered evaluation found her competent for trial"

2010-01-18T15:26:00.000-08:00

I don't know what's crazier: the fact that we closed our mental hospitals and have hundreds of thousands of severely mentally ill people living unsupervised without adequate psychiatric treatment and without psychotropic medicines; or the fact that when one of these untreated mental patients commits a violent crime we hold them criminally responsible for "acting crazy."

In San Antonio, Texas, Denise Crouch, who suffers from psychosis and schizoaffective disorder, should have been hospitalized. Instead, she was set "free", she killed one of her neighbors and now, according to this account in the Express-News, she is going to be tried as if she actually could make a rational decision to stab someone:
HONDO — A woman with a history of mental illness faces trial starting Tuesday on a murder charge in connection with the stabbing death of a fellow resident of the Devine Trailer Park.

Denise Crouch, 39, admitted retrieving a knife from her home and killing James “Red” Long after exchanging words with him April 27, 2008, according to court records.

Long, 40, also identified Crouch as his attacker in a 911 call he made before dying in an ambulance on the way to a hospital, authorities said.

Crouch was arrested at her trailer shortly after the attack and has been held since then under $250,000 bail at the Medina County Jail.

Despite past hospitalizations for psychosis, schizoaffective disorder and other mental issues that first affected Crouch as a teen, a court-ordered evaluation found her competent for trial.

“She's been evaluated and come back sane,” said Assistant District Attorney Mike Cohen, who expects the jury trial to last about six days.

Crouch's attorney Russell Delk, who put the court on notice that he'll raise an insanity defense, could not be reached for comment.

A motion he filed seeking the competency exam said Crouch had had multiple psychiatric hospitalizations since 1991 at facilities in San Antonio, Devine, Kerrville, Louisiana and California.

Crouch's mental illness history includes “auditory hallucinations commanding her to hurt herself and others, persecutory and grandiose delusional thinking, paranoid delusions and disorganized thinking,” it said.

Canada is no better than we are when it comes to trying untreated mentally ill "criminals" for their irrational acts. Trevor James La Pierre is going on trial next week for murdering his 74-year-old neighbor who was delivering Christmas cards.

Here is The Record's story of the crime from 2007:
Paul La Pierre was rushing his mentally unstable son to a psychiatric ward Tuesday afternoon when police stopped their cab and arrested Trevor La Pierre.

He has been charged with first-degree murder in last Saturday's slaying of Hunter Brown.

"I knew he was off the wall,'' a shaken Paul La Pierre said outside court yesterday before his 22-old-son made his first appearance.

"I realized the severity of the situation. He'd been using insane language and acting like he was a victim of everything.''

Brown, a 74-year-old grandfather, was attacked with an edged weapon as he delivered Christmas cards to neighbours on his suburban street.

During his brief appearance in Kitchener's Ontario Court, Trevor James La Pierre looked distraught, teary-eyed and dishevelled.

His long black hair was wild and matted. He wore a loose, sleeveless white T-shirt, issued by police as protective clothing.

Brown's death stunned family and neighbours who couldn't understand why anyone would launch an unprovoked attack on a man known for selflessly helping others.

Paul La Pierre said his son has been struggling with an undiagnosed mental illness.

In the past year and half, he's been hospitalized four times, he said. Three of those times were at the Grand River Hospital psychiatric ward. He was released just five or six weeks ago.

"We fought,'' his father said. "He was always released.

"We said, 'Look, we don't think he's ready.' But he was self-admitted. They couldn't hold him. This is totally unnecessary. It could have been prevented.''

On Tuesday morning, he had made his son visit his psychiatrist.

"They released him with a different prescription."

He was so worried about his son's recent erratic behaviour, he called a cab to take him to the hospital later that day.