Category: Political

Categories
Political

We are not to blame

The shooting this weekend left many of us shaken. People should be able to go to a Congressional meet and greet without having to wear bullet proof armor. I hope for a complete recovery of those injured, including Congresswoman Giffords, and I’m sad for those killed.

I’m horrified at the events, and and sad at the losses, but I will not indulge in this national flagellation, as we once again overreact to a tragic event.

A sheriff remarks about the violence, hate, and bigotry in our speech; others point out a targeted list by Sarah Palin that had a bullseye aimed at Congresswoman Giffords. The belief seems to be that it was the national dialog that somehow drove this one man to kill. If only we weren’t so violent in our speech with one another; if only we were better.

Yet, those who knew the shooter have stated their fear of the man. One woman showed an email she wrote months ago that described her fear of Loughner, and hoped that he wouldn’t return to class with a gun someday. A former teacher of his also made similar remarks, and the school told him to leave and not to return until he sought medical help.

A psychiatrist looked at the material Loughner posted, and stated the obvious: the man was mentally ill, and most likely schizophrenic. Only time will tell us if he was previously diagnosed, and if so, why wasn’t he on medication.

We also heard that Loughner had attended a political rally of Giffords in 2007, and was unhappy that she didn’t understand what he was trying to say. His online screeds are a gibberish about government mind control and odd fixations on the dangers of illiteracy, and currency.

Jared Loughner is a dangerously disturbed young man who should have been under the care of a doctor. He was a powder keg looking for a place to blow. People may say that the national dialog acted as trigger, but look at the evidence of his own writings and self-made videos: he probably wasn’t even aware of the national dialog.

We do this. A horrible event happens, and we immediately look everywhere but at the instigator for “causes”, when in actuality there are sick people and guns are too easily accessible—a combination that has played out, all too often, in our news. No matter what thee and me do, such tragedies will continue to play out…as long as there are such sick people, and guns are so easily accessible.

Is our political dialog toxic? Of course. Political dialog in this country has been toxic since Adams and Jefferson ran for President 200 years ago: Adams accused Jefferson of incest, rape, and murder.

President Andrew Johnson was impeached because he went on a two week tour and gave speeches.

True, Johnson also had a reputation for being drunk during public appearances (including his own inauguration), and he sometimes used language inappropriate for a president when talking about his foes in Congress. But these improprieties were not his fundamental crime. The basic impropriety motivating this particular article of impeachment was that he stooped to address crowds directly in the first place, that he had reduced himself to the demeaning position of trying to whip up enthusiasm for his preferred policies by the ethically dubious practice of holding popular rallies. In Johnson’s time, making a speech to a crowd on policy questions was thought to be contrary to the dignity proper to the office of the presidency. Sitting presidents avoided doing this, and so did candidates for the presidency.

From Presidential Rhetoric in Historical Perspective.

In the 1826 campaign, the four candidates accused each other of murder, being drunks, and misconduct.

During the 1840 Presidential campaign, both Whigs and Democrats accused each other of being neo-monarchists.

The 1896 campaign was particularly rife with acrimonious rhetoric, as the field of six candidates indulged in open anti-Semitism, and battled over rights for women, immigration reform, business monopolies, and, of all things, currency.

Huey Long was so polarizing, and assumed so much personal power, his opponents formed an armed militia and openly talked about insurrection.

In contrast to the past, today’s political dialog is actually relatively tame. The most acrimonious accusation about President Obama is that he wasn’t born in this country. Really, compared to past accusations of murder and rape, this one is rather bland. It is also nothing more than a surrogate for what some people really want to say: Obama is black, his name is funny, his father is from Africa, he isn’t like us—all things that people would have said, openly and stridently, in the past.

We are nation that is, unfortunately, too familiar with assassinations. One only needs to look at the Wikipedia page associated with assassinated people to see that such events are not uncommon in the US. Yet there are just as many other violent events—in schools, workplaces, shopping malls, and along freeways. The only thing most of these events have in common is a sick person, and too easy access to rapid fire guns with never-ending bullet clips.

But of course, we don’t address the real problems: mental illness and lack of adequate care; too easy access to guns. We don’t address the former because we really don’t want to be reminded of our mentally ill, and we certainly don’t want to spend money on ensuring their care. We don’t talk about the latter because to do so would pit us against NRA. Politicians are scared to death of the NRA. Oh the politicians dress it up by waving the flag and misquoting the Constitution, but the cold hard fact of the matter is that politicians are more afraid of the NRA than they are of being shot in a rally or a parade.

No, it is more expedient to absorb the blame; to point to our “violent dialog” and our rudeness to each other.

Dr. Douglas Fields wrote in the Huffington Post that Americans are rude, and this is our problem, plain and simple. We know his statement is real because he points out brain graphs of teenagers and talks about mental imprinting at birth compared to learned, and how the Japanese are so much more courteous than we are.

I give him the point about the Japanese because most I have met are very courteous, but I don’t give him that Americans are more or less rude than people in many other countries.

Yesterday I had trouble getting a container of milk down from a shelf and holding the glass door open at the same time. A man immediately came over to hold the door for me. Earlier in the week, I got stuck behind a road construction crew, and when I turned on my blinkers to move over into the other lane, a car in that lane slowed down to allow me in. At the grocery store, a woman ended up stuck in a line that moved slower than the one next to it, and a person gestured for her to move over, take the next place in line.

Small simple acts, but ones I see every week, sometimes daily: the stranger who points out the envelope you dropped; the sales clerk who mentions that an item is on sale next week; the many people who inhabit online forums specifically to provide help to people; the anonymous donor who fills a need; those who spend hours writing the software we use without anyone knowing their names, usually without a thank you, and rarely for any compensation—the thousands of times we have sent each other little tweets and notes, just to say hi, to commiserate during a loss, to congratulate during a win, to be there for each other, when we’ve never met, and we will most likely never meet.

Unfortunately, it’s too easy to remember the small acts of rudeness, compared to the small acts of kindness, courtesy, and generosity. But the fact that we remember the rude acts that much more only demonstrates their rarity.

So no, I will not take up the cat-o-nine tails and join in the self-whipping. This event does not change me, nor will it change how I live. I will still argue, passionately, even angrily at times. I will not pretend a respect I do not feel. I will still demand answers from our political leaders, and still hold them accountable for their actions. I am not to blame for Saturday’s event. No, we who argue, who debate, who indulge in this supposed violent dialog are not to blame for Saturday’s event.

Saturday’s tragedy was caused by a sick young man, with too easy access to a gun.

Categories
Critters Political

Election, undone

So much for the importance of the vote. So much for the will of the people.

Other stories have popped up about Missouri state representatives deciding to undo Proposition B in the state legislature. Not a lot of representatives, and none from the urban areas:

That Missouri lawmakers would even consider overriding the will of the people is disturbing, but to do so in support of animal cruelty is astonishing.

This year, one of the most important movies is “Winter’s Bone”, a movie about a family in the Ozarks caught up in the Meth trade. Due to the critical acclaim and popularity of the movie, this is how many people will “see” Missouri.

We do not need to add to this story that Missouri also condones puppy mills, and disregards the vote of the people. We need to re-write the tale that is Missouri into something better.

As for some state representatives thinking that they can overturn Proposition B, I am going to borrow from history and promise that I have not yet begun to fight.

update The Humane Society of the United States responds to the recent discussions.

Categories
Critters Political

Election, please be done

Election 2010 is one of the most exciting mid-terms I’ve been through, and the one I want finished more than any other in the past. That the election has been ugly is the mother of all understatements. Add to this the anxiousness of seeing people I would expect to find living behind barbed wire with signs saying “Trezpassers will be shot”, amid hills filled with buried food and real metal coins, as candidates for national office, and I find myself wishing for an alien invasion from space.

Except the aliens wouldn’t be welcome in Arizona, and no matter their appearance, Sharron Angle would say they look vaguely Asian. It is that kind of fruitcake year.

The effect the Tea Party has had on the election is evident, and not just on the chosen candidates. The Tea Party folks said they were angry and that anger continued and solidified until we now have this sullen ember of burning, querulous discontent that is the antithesis of hope that marked 2008. That a campaign worker would stomp on a woman after she was knocked to the ground just doesn’t surprise us. That he would then ask for an apology from the women is no more than a head shaking moment. Worse, in all the foot stomping media coverage, no one asked the question, “Why was she knocked down in the first place?” She was neither armed nor a threat, and the only crime she seemed to be guilty of is that she wasn’t one of the people around her. But she was knocked down, and the police actually called and no one has said, “Wait? What’s up with that?”

Of course, this doesn’t surprise us either, as we’ve watched candidates literally fleeing from buildings and handcuffing journalists, rather than answer questions that should be asked, to get answers we need.

What’s most frightening though is knowing that there will be people who vote for candidates with staff members that stomp on a woman as she is held helpless on the ground or handcuff a journalist asking questions; candidates who refuse to answer questions and then display an unseemly pride in the fact. “We don’t answer questions from the liberal media”, they shout. When you look around, though, you quickly realize that all but a few are deemed liberal media.

What’s a little humorous, in a sad, shadowy way, is that here in Missouri, one of the birthplaces of the Tea Party movement, not one Tea Party candidate for national office made it to the polls. I’m not sure what that says about Missouri, other than it can be an exhausting place to live sometimes.

We do have our share of contentiousness, though. The Blunt/Carnahan race has been deemed one of the ugliest in the nation, and that tells you a lot when you consider how ugly the campaigns have been. We also have controversial issues up for a vote including Propositions A and B: The Earnings Tax Initiative and the Puppy Mill Cruelty Act. You would expect an issue related to taxes to be acrimonious…but puppies?

Early on, thanks to a rant from Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, it was thought that the Tea Party movement would move, as one monolithic body, against the puppies, but no such event happened. It would seem that the Angry Ones draw the line when it comes to their dogs. However, there is still plenty of hostility remaining, as the agricultural interests worked hard to ensure that they would be allowed to treat their animals however they wanted. It is none of our business, they tell us, if dogs live their lives on wire floors, in small cages that barely allow the dog to turn around, without a chance to run on the grass, sniff the air, or even chew a dog bone. One pet shop owner said in an interview that the dogs’ needs are met, and that we should be so lucky to live so well.

Unemployment is high, too high. Companies are actually doing well, but we’re faced with a new phenomena where companies having money no longer translate into jobs, as employees are expected to do more for less pay, or jobs are outsourced to other countries. Some say all we need do is lower taxes, but taxes are not the problem, nor are they the solution.

And yet, among all the anger and evasiveness, and cruelty and greed, the hope does still remain.

This last weekend, as a closed down factory farm breeder auctioned off 800 dogs, rescuers came from all over the country to try to save some of them. They managed to save 200, probably the ones that needed help the most. The other 600 went to commercial dog breeders, primarily the Amish who have taken to large scale dog breeding like ducks to water, but there’s hope for the dogs. There’s a change in the wind, and a growing awareness of what lies behind that cute little doggy in the window, and the days of these large, inhumane facilities are coming to a close.

Today, we also have a national health care plan. If all goes as planned, the majority of those currently uninsured will be covered in three years. In three years, no one need fear having to go bankrupt when they become ill; people will no longer be dying solely because they don’t have insurance. A need for a national health care plan has been one of the top concerns of every president since Harry Truman, and now that we have one, I’ll be damned if I’ll let someone tell me it’s a failure.

Unemployment is high, yes, but we have stopped that out-of-control upward spiral that began in 2008. We are spending a little more—not a lot, but we spending. There is no longer a threat of financial collapse, and people’s pension funds now look a lot safer than they were a few years back. People seemingly hate the stimulus fund, but it has provided jobs. They hate TARP, but it actually succeeded, and may even make the country money someday. We should actually be more hopeful today, if it weren’t for the incessant messages of doom and gloom— messages that reflect political and corporate motivation more than reality.

After years of watching consumer rights eroded, they’re back and even stronger with new consumer protection laws. The practices that triggered our financial meltdown have now been blocked and hopefully blasted into enough pieces so they can never surface again. The FCC came out with a report condemning the debt collection practices and urging states to crack down on abusive debt collectors. A state attorney general managed to convince the largest and most notorious arbitration firm to no longer take consumer cases—people’s constitutional rights to the courts have been restored.

Thanks to the new health care act, health care clinics in our state and others have received enough money to expand their operations; sick kids can’t be denied coverage; the ill can continue needed treatments; college students can remain on their parent’s policies, rather than trust to youth to keep them from financial disaster.

We’re gaining private sector jobs, not losing them. The Osage Bridge opened recently, and our beloved Eades bridge is getting a safety upgrade—just a few of the many stimulus-funded projects that dot the land and provide signs that something is working.

Considering how bad things were two years ago—how hopeless and terrifying the times—the fact that people now have the luxury to be angry is nothing short of a miracle. I have never been more proud of being a Democrat.

And this morning, 200 dogs now have a chance for a better life.

Categories
Environment Political

Oil Story

I am pleased to see President Obama more engaged in the Gulf crises, but how much control the federal government has is still open for debate. As long as BP controls where resources are allocated in the region, as well as controlling information access, then the Federal government is not in control.

Yes, BP is responsible for all of the costs of the clean up, but it should never have been given the authority in the clean up effort it has been given. It would seem that the Coast Guard in the region, as well as Mineral Management Services, has too cozy a relationship with the oil companies. This also has to end.

The bright spot this week was the moratorium on new oil drilling, particularly along the Arctic. It’s obvious we don’t have a handle on offshore drilling. All we’ve had, is a bit of luck.

Consider what’s happening now: we’ve put the company that caused this disaster in charge of fixing the problem, because the government doesn’t have the expertise or equipment in order to manage the effort. So, now we’re trusting in the competence of the same company whose incompetence triggered this mess. A company that has demonstrated, time and again, that it is acting less than honorably: hiding how much oil is spilling; not allowing independent experts access to the video; preventing media access; downplaying the seriousness of the spill; continuing to use a toxic chemical despite EPA demands. At what point in time is the government going to wake up to the fact that BP is more interested in protecting its butt than the Gulf?

However, the federal government isn’t the only governmental body that needs to be slapped awake. This tragedy is just as much a Louisiana mess as it is a federal government mess. Even now that the state faces untold damage to its coast, it still hastens to assure the oil industry that the two are friends, forever. The state wants the oil jobs and oil revenue, but doesn’t want the oil. As we’re now finding, though, every silver lining has its dark, oily cloud—you can’t separate the oil from the oil wealth.

But lets not talk about this now. This kind of talk is for later, after this current crises is over. You know, when clear heads can prevail. After all, we need the oil: Apple has more iPads to sell. Gosh darn it, can’t make iPads without oil. Instead, let’s focus on good old American ingenuity and know how. There’s no disaster so bad that can’t be fixed with the right mix of technology if we all work together. All we really need, is a wiki.

Governor “never met a press conference he didn’t like” Jindal wants the Army Corps of Engineers to build sand berms to protect the coastal areas. Instead of the oil lapping along the fragile marshes, it hits the sand berms, which can be easily cleaned. Or at least, that’s what we’re told. However, many experts believe the sand berms won’t work, at best, or may push the oil towards the Mississippi state coast line, at worst. It is a politically expedient move, though, and perhaps we may learn from the effort—because goodness knows I hope we learn something, now that we’ve turned the Gulf into one great big oil spill laboratory, already equipped with test animals.

update

I really hope that BP has succeeded in stopping the oil.

Second update

CNN has come out with an article about how little scientists know about the long term impact of the Gulf oil spill. Sometimes scientists irritate the hell out of me. One is “hopeful that scientists will be able to figure out a way to tackle the problem”, which again puts too much reliance on science to fix the problem, rather than changing human behavior to prevent the problem. Another says hopefully we’ll learn from this event for the next time. There should not be a “next time”. If we can’t guarantee the absolute safety of offshore oil platforms, they should be closed down.

However, I do agree with the scientists who are pissed that we didn’t have the research in hand about how to handle a spill before the spill—what were we thinking, to allow all of these drill rigs to operate in the Gulf, without any kind of emergency plan in place? To allow the use of chemicals, when we don’t understand their impact?

Categories
Government

Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources: In Transition

Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources (MoDNR), has been the focus of contention for the last several years. One of the first acts the state’s last governor, Matt Blunt, did when he first came to office back in 2005 was fire most of the DNR’s upper management—including the director, Steve Mahood, who was greatly respected in the environmental community. Mahood eventually went on to a position with the Nature Conservancy.

In Mahood’s place, Blunt appointed Doyle Childers, a long time Republican Missouri State Senator. Childer’s appointment was not without controversy, primarily because of his business focus, and by his lack of natural resource management experience. The controversy around Childers was exacerbated by his own politically motivated actions as regards to two specific events related to the DNR: the Taum Sauk dam break, and the Boonville Bridge.

The Boonville Bridge is an old train bridge outside the town of Boonville that advocates wanted to restore and include as part of the Katy Trail. However, Union Pacific wanted the bridge condemned so it could recover the steel used in its construction. Childers, in his position at DNR, supported the Union Pacific. Governor Jay Nixon, in his role, then, as state Attorney General, filed a lawsuit to stop the Union Pacific, contending that the bridge was deeded to the Katy Trail effort. When I last checked this item, the appeals court had sided with the DNR, the case was headed to the State Supreme court, and bridge supporters were looking for compromises, such as letting the Union Pacific have the steel, but keeping the bridge.

The Boonville Bridge wasn’t the only time that Childers and Nixon clashed. Following the Ameren Taum Sauk dam break, which caused devastating damage to the state’s Johnson’s Shut-Ins state park, both Childers in the DNR and Nixon as state Attorney General fought over who had control over the litigation related to the event. Nixon, as Attorney General should have been the obvious choice, but Childers accused Nixon of taking campaign contributions from Ameren. Of course, we later found out that the money came to Nixon indirectly, from general Democratic campaign organizations; that the campaign contributions were part of Ameren’s stock donations it makes to all political parties. In addition, Matt Blunt and his father, both, also received campaign contributions from Ameren. Regardless, the Childers accusation ended up being one of this state’s uglier events in the last few years, and also formed part of the unsuccessful election campaign against Nixon.

No surprise, then, that when Jay Nixon won the election for Governor that Childers signaled that he would be resigning, taking one last parting shot in the process

Childers said he and Nixon have had an openly contentious relationship and that he would have been able to do more as the director of the DNR had he not been in continuous conflict with Nixon.

He said his time at the department was consumed by fights with Nixon. One confrontation was over a proposal to tear down the Katy Trail railroad bridge that crosses the Missouri River near Boonville, and another involved the cleanup of Johnson Shut-Ins State Park after a dam holding back the Taum Sauk Reservoir burst in Southeast Missouri.

“It made for more complications,” Childers said. “The Boonville bridge, well, we beat him three times in court on that. It took up a lot of our time and effort. After that, Johnson Shut-Ins took a huge amount of time.”

He said it’s “no secret” that he and Nixon had been at odds.

“He’s a good politician — an excellent politician — but I do not have a lot of respect for him as an individual,” Childers said.

Of course, it was a given that Nixon would fire Childers, but Nixon also replaced many of the upper management in the DNR, as well as all DNR ombudsmen. The question on everyone’s mind at that point was: who Nixon would pick to be the new director of the DNR? The farmers had their own idea as to a good candidate, as did the environmental groups.

On January 12th, we had our answer: Mark Templeton. The response was a resounding, “Who?”, as people and organizations scrambled to find what they could about this surprising choice.

What is known, based on the resume provided by Governor Nixon’s office, and what can be deduced from online searches is that Mark N. Templeton is a 39 year old former Missouri citizen, who attended both Harvard and Yale before getting a degree in law. According to the bio at the DNR

A native of Olivette, Mo., Mr. Templeton developed environmental and sustainability strategies during his tenure with McKinsey & Company, a global management consultancy headquartered in New York. From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Templeton worked with clients to explore new, “green” markets for products and services and develop next-generation jobs in the environmental and energy sectors. While at McKinsey, Mr. Templeton advised major organizations in the public, private and non-profit sectors, including the United Nations Development Programme’s Commission on the Private Sector and Development. In 2005, Mr. Templeton left McKinsey to become associate dean and chief operating office of Yale Law School, his alma mater.

As associate dean and chief operating officer at Yale Law, Mr. Templeton managed more than 200 administrative personnel and an annual budget of $105 million. Among other duties, Mr. Templeton was responsible for approving departmental budgets, monitoring accounts and negotiating with other academic and administrative units.

Prior to joining McKinsey, Mr. Templeton was special assistant and senior adviser to the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and an adviser to the U.S. Delegation to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. He worked as office director of the Human Rights Documentation Center in Bangkok, Thailand, from 1999 to 2000 and as a research associate with the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center in New Delhi in 1997.

Mr. Templeton, 39, earned his bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard College in 1994 and his juris doctorate from Yale Law in 1999. He graduated from Horton Watkins High School.

Mr. Templeton and his wife, Kathy Dull, also a Missouri native, have two young children, Paisley and Graham.

An impressive background, but one that left everyone scratching their heads in wonderment as to Templeton’s qualification to running a department related to natural resources. Contrary to conservative opinion, Templeton is just as much an unknown the environmentalists as he is to the farmers.

What we have been able to find, primarily through determined Google searches, is that Mark N. Templeton is not Mark Templeton, the CEO or Citrix Systems. “Our” Mark Templeton has a law degree and is a member of the California Bar. His work with “green” jobs took place with McKinsey & Company, and since McKinsey is infamous for not divulging information about its clients, we may never know who Templeton worked with.

Before the McKinsey consulting gig, Templeton worked for the State Department, as well advising the US delegation to the UN. After his tenure at McKinsey, Templeton took a job as Chief Operating Officer at Yale University.

One other piece of information about our new Director of Missouri’s DNR that was not part of the public resume provided by Governor Nixon or the DNR, is that Mark Templeton is an original founder, and former director, of a company named Cobra Legal Solutions—a firm that specializes in outsourcing legal work for American corporations to India. Templeton is still listed as original founder and early investor, but the reference to his position as Acting Executive Directory has since been removed from the web site.

Cobra Legal Solutions: Founders and Investors - Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 2
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!
Cobra Legal Solutions - Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 2
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

I have a request into the DNR about Templeton’s current financial association with Cobra Legal Solutions, and the communications department responded with a note that they would check with him this week, since his first day at work at the DNR was Monday. When I have more information, I’ll provide an update.

Why was Mark Templeton picked to be the new Director of the Department of Natural Resources? It’s obvious that he does not bring with him any background in management of natural resources, or the environment, or even science, in general. According to Governor Nixon, Templeton’s focus within the DNR will be more on alternative energy and jobs, than day to day DNR management (Joplin Globe):

Said Nixon: “Finding new energy solutions and protecting our natural resources are the keys to Missouri’s environmental and economic future. Here in Missouri, we’re perfectly positioned to harness multiple new forms of energy, including wind, solar, nuclear, hydroelectric and biofuels. These energy solutions will lessen our dependence on foreign oil, create next-generation jobs and help turn this economy around.

“Mark Templeton has helped governmental, business and nonprofit groups find the links between environmental stewardship, alternative energy and sound business practices, and he will bring that cutting-edge thinking to our Department of Natural Resources.”

Sometimes the best way to end acrimonious and persistent contention is to surprise all of the players. In this regard, Nixon’s appointment of Mark Templeton is already a success. Whether Templeton will continue to enjoy success in his new role, though, is anyone’s guess.

Hearings to confirm Mark Templeton’s appointment as Director of DNR began on Wednesday. Unfortunately, there’s no public record of this session that I can find.

Mark Templeton was confirmed to the position at the DNR. I must admit to being somewhat surprised at the level of disinterest about Templeton’s involvement with Cobra Legal Solutions, particularly since the only reason he seems to have been hired was to generate jobs.

Mark Templeton’s name has been removed from the Cobra Legal Systems web site, as founder and investor. Surprising, because whatever his association with the group, he’s still an original founder, and investor.