Recent readings

American Theocracy The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, Kevin Phillips, Penguin Group, New York 2006, 462 pp.

This is the latest in a series of books by a disillusioned man. Phillips was a solid Republican for many years: He was, at age 27, a principal strategist in Richard Nixon’s 1968 election to the presidency; the following year he served for 12 months as Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General. Following Ronald Reagan’s election, Phillips again became active in Republican party politics. The Wall Street Journal described him in 1982 as "the leading conservative electoral analyst–the man who invented the Sun Belt, named the New Right..."

For several years he has been a commentator on National Public Radio–I have always found his comments cogent and well-presented, even when I disagreed with some of them. (I haven’t heard him recently; it seems as if he is on a sabbatical.)

If "disillusioned" is too strong a word for his present state of mind as gleaned form his recent books, yet he clearly exhibits a strong aversion to the antics of those on the Republican Far Right and much concern about the future of our country if our major problems aren’t successfully addressed.

Following is an excerpt from a recent review of American Theocracy by The New York Times.

He identifies three broad and related trends —— none of them new to the Bush years but all of them, he believes, exacerbated by this administration's policies —— that together threaten the future of the United States and the world. One is the role of oil in defining and, as Phillips sees it, distorting American foreign and domestic policy. The second is the ominous intrusion of radical Christianity into politics and government. And the third is the astonishing levels of debt —— current and prospective —— that both the government and the American people have been heedlessly accumulating. If there is a single, if implicit, theme running through the three linked essays that form this book, it is the failure of leaders to look beyond their own and the country's immediate ambitions and desires so as to plan prudently for a darkening future.

The following selections from the book provide a broad perspective of his thoughts.

This book is dedicated to the millions of Republicans, present and lapsed, who have opposed the Bush dynasty and the disenlightenment in the 2000 and 2004 elections. (front flyleaf)

...the attack (on Iraq), while at bottom about access to oil and U.S. global supremacy, had other intentions. One was to fold oil objectives into the global war against terror. A second was to cement the U.S. dollar’s hegemonic role in global oil sales–and thus in the world economy. A third was to keep the invasion’s purpose broad enough to allow the biblically minded Christian right to see it...as a destruction of the new Babylon, on the road to Armageddon and redemption. (p. 69)

The deceit-cloaked invasion of Iraq in 2003 may never command a full or satisfactory explanation. Nevertheless, a near-final decision to invade seems to have been made in early 2001...Vice President Cheney, with his successive positions at the junction of the business and government pipelines connecting oil, national politics, and the Pentagon, must have played a pivotal role. Indeed, this triple expertise may explain the July 2000 decision to slate him as George W. Bush’s running mate. (p. 87)

Conversion on the part of adults–the deep personal experience of being "born again" in Christ–is...far more important in the United States (than in other countries), with its emphasis and personal experience, than elsewhere than elsewhere...George W. Bush’s own tale of coming to God struck a chord in the churchgoing United States that would have been impossible in less-observant Europe. Even in kindred Canada, supposedly no prime minister has ever claimed to be born again. (p. 106)

The president used the phrase "I believe" twelve times...and two of the references "were meant to justify his wars as holy. The first–‘I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century’–prompts a question: called by whom? The second helps answer that query: ‘I believe freedom is not America’s gift to the world. It is the Almighty’s gift to every man and woman.’" The man in the White House was becoming America’s preacher in chief. (p. 206)

It’s finally happened: Moving money around has surpassed making things as a share of the U.S. gross domestic product...the benign phrase "financial services" still dominates the discussion...the armchair detective can easily figure out that we are approaching a national transformation in economic vitality that past world powers allowed to their peril.

In official statistics the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sector of the U.S. economy swelled to 20 percent of the gross domestic product in 2000, jumping ahead of manufacturing, which slipped to 14.5 percent (p.265)

Historically debt is constructive in emerging and adolescent nations but perilous in those beginning to age or contemplate retirement. Take, for example, Alexander Hamilton’s 1781 notion of a funded national debt as a fiscal boon–a "national blessing." For a new nation with commercial aspirations, it might well be. The Dutch in the early seventeenth century and the English in the 1690's had pioneered funded national debts and found them essential for borrowing at reasonable rates of interest during wartime. Many generations later, however, as their public debts bloated and their national trajectories turned downward, Dutchmen and Britons in turn staggered under their heritage of lending, borrowing, and cultivating reliance on finance and rentier cultures. (p. 271)

(Quoting Alan Greenspan): "Is it important for an economy to have manufacturing? There is a big dispute on this issue: What is important is that economies create value, and whether value is created by taking raw materials and fabricating them into something consumers want, or value is created by various services which consumers want, presumably should not make any difference so far as standards of living are concerned." (p. 306)

(He talks about the "rentier class"): The word "rentier"–(means) a person living off unearned income...Over the last four centuries...it was first Spain, then Holland and Great Britain, and now the United States that created the most notable rentier cultures. Each ultimately became vulnerable as a result. (p. 307)

History...tends to interrelate events, and events that necessarily have been discussed separately in this book show further signs of integration–oil and the debt-and-credit crunch; true-believing religion and the substitution of faith for science and national strategy. (p. 348)

(He expresses his disappointment): The Republican electoral, near and dear to me four decades ago...has become more like the exhausted, erring majorities of earlier failures: the militant southernized Democrats of the 1850's; the stock-market-dazzled and Elmer Gantry-ish GOP of the 1920's; and the imperials of the 1960's, with their Great Society social engineering, quagmire in Vietnam, and the New Economy skills expected to tame the business cycle. Now the Republicans are the miscreants. (p. 348)

But he is not without his detractors. The comments below are taken from an article "The Erring Republican Authority: Kevin Phillips is wrong about everything. Why is he taken so seriously?" by Jacob Weisberg posted on 3/29/06 on the Slate magazine website.

In the years since (his devotion to the Republican party), almost every aspect of (his thinking) has been turned around. Phillips long ago left behind both obscurity and conservatism, becoming one of our most ubiquitous political commentators and one of the most left-wing. His biennial books have become illogical, dizzying screeds. And his diagnoses, predictions, and advice to Democrats have been consistently, embarrassingly wrong...

Phillips’ argument is that oil dependency, Christian fundamentalism, and excessive debt are destroying the country. He is not wrong that these are dangers. But he wildly misunderstands, distorts and overstates all of them.

So, take your pick: Phillips, the wise man or Phillips, the writer of "illogical, dizzying screeds"?

This week's quiz, last week's answers

This week’s quiz: Battles of history.

1. King Leonidas was the leader of his army in what battle?

2. A famous poem was inspired by a battle in the Crimean war. Name the poem and the poet.

3. Mikhail Kutuzov commanded Russian forces in what battle?

4. In a war fought by American forces there were two battles fought in the same place, almost a year apart. Name the war and the place.

Next week's quiz: American and British writers.


Answers to last week’s quiz: European countries.

1. One country has four official languages. What is the country and what are the four languages?

Switzerland. French, German, Italian, and Romansch.

2. The languages of all but three countries are members of the Indo-European family (none of the Russian federation countries are considered here). What are the three exceptions and what is their family called?

Finland, Estonia, and Hungary. They are the Finno-Ugric family. Finnish and Estonian are similar enough that speakers of one can generally understand the other. However, Hungarian seems so different as to make it not understandable by Finns or Estonians, and vice-versa. I say that by comparing written texts.

3. Four countries have a female head of state. Name two of the countries and their heads of state.

Finland: Tarja Halonen
Ireland: Mary McAleese
Germany: Angela Merkel
Latvia: Vaira Vike-Freiberga

4. A department store operates in five countries, one of which is Russia. Name the store and two of the other four countries in which it operates.

Stockmann. Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, it has stores in Finland, Estonia, Russia, Latvia, and Lithuania. I did some shopping at its flagship store in Helsinki during a trip there in 2004.

Competition is dandy

There’s nothing like competition for the consumer. I found that out recently when I had to have a window of my car replaced after it was broken into while parked near Baltimore’s (railroad) Penn Station. (Although I had a small amount of money in coins, a flashlight, and a few other things in plain sight in the car that might have been attractive to a thief, all he/she took was a handicap hanger, obtained a few years ago by my wife because of her arthritis. Apparently these hangers can be sold to inner-city residents who have a very limited number of places to park near their homes.)

Because I have a $500 deductible on my auto insurance policy, I knew I would have to pay for the replacement myself. However, I thought it would be a good idea to call the insurance company to get a referral to a repair shop that the company knew. I was given the name of one company that, I was told, the insurer knew well and would probably give me a good price if I told them that I had that insurer for my auto policy.

Ah yes, for me the price for replacement would be $175; two or three other companies that I called quoted $165 to $180. But another one quoted $155, so I took the car there and the job was done in an hour, as I waited, (the others said 1 ½ hours) in a thoroughly professional job (with all the small bits of glass from the break-in removed).

Anyone who has "Angie’s List" in his geographic area in the USA should take advantage of it. It is a website on which one can seek info about all kinds of service providers (good and bad); one can also post info from his own experience (good or bad) with any of these providers on the website–I intend to add a positive one about the company that did the work on my car.

Another case of the benefit of competition in the Baltimore area is the advent in April 2006 of the new newspaper The Baltimore Examiner. It is owned by a Denver publishing company which has similar papers in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.; it is a tabloid published Monday through Saturday and delivered free-of-charge to homes in certain sections of the Baltimore area.

When I first heard of the paper’s planned inception, I assumed that it would be like many small tabloids that specialize in local stuff–and are good at what they do–but have limited appeal to a reader. Not so with the Examiner: it gives the Baltimore Sun (the only daily newspaper in the Baltimore area for many years prior to this interloper) a run for its money. (One advertising industry trade publication, Adrants, commented the paper "is so much better than your average newspaper.")

I have seen several news items and commentary in the Examiner that the Sun either missed altogether or trailed the Examiner in reporting. One such incident was the arrest of a young (white) couple from Virginia who got lost trying to find their way out of Baltimore after attending an Orioles game–they inadvertently drove their car into a high crime area of the city and then stopped to ask a Baltimore police officer for directions. Instead of being helpful, the officer arrested them and their car was impounded. The Sun missed the original incident altogether and, a day or so later, came out with a follow-up.

I also remember an example of the benefit of competition some twenty years ago, when I was working as a financial analyst in the assessment of the financial strength of insurance companies. Up until about 1986, A.M. Best, a company headquartered in New Jersey, was the only game in town for the rating of insurance companies; it had been around since the 1890's. It published its manuals around July of each year–the manuals contained info and ratings for just about every insurance company in the USA, using a rating system ranging (at the time) from "A+" for the best on down. It rarely revised its ratings during the interim between one July and the next, so people in the insurance industry awaited the new ratings anxiously. Much of the info on a company was basic stuff about its operations, with data from the company’s financial statements provided, but very little explanation was provided as to the reason for its rating. I recall asking a Best executive in a phone conversation about the rationale for the rating of a particular insurance company and was told, "We don’t gild the lily; what you see is what you get."

But all of that changed when Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s in the mid-1980's got into the game of rating insurance companies. Those two companies had been around for many years as recognized providers of credit ratings for all kinds of companies, but the ratings of insurance companies which they began to publish–and which Best had done for years–were claims-paying ability ratings–that is, the assessment of their solvency, something different from a credit rating.

This competition from the old-line S&P and Moody’s (and two other lesser-known rivals that cropped up about the same time) put Best’s feet to the fire. They began to publish rating changes at any time (along with the rationale for the ratings) in their periodical news bulletins; furthermore, one could phone Best and discuss with one of their analysts their ratings for individual insurance companies.

Certainly, there can be exceptions where competition can be harmful. It is debatable as to whether deregulation of the airline industry during the Carter presidency in the 1970's, driving many airlines into bankruptcy from the cut-throat competition, has been beneficial or disadvantageous to the flying public. Likewise, deregulation of the electric utility industry may turn out to have been not in the best interest of consumers. But these cases involved a swing, over a short period of time, from heavily-regulated industies to sudden deregulation.

Yes indeed, whether it comes from Adam Smith’s "invisible hand" or from some other human striving, competition is usually just dandy.

Surprise at Google

I am passing this on just as it was sent to me.

1. Go to http://www.google.com/ 2. Type the word "Failure" 3. Press the "I'm feeling lucky" button (instead of the "Google Search"). 4. Laugh 5. Forward to others before the Google folks fix this.

"The Worst President in History?"

That is the title of an article in the 5/4/06 issue of the magazine Rolling Stone which assesses George W. Bush. The author, one Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University, poses the question in a rhetorical sense: the reader of the article pretty well knows, from the beginning, what Wilentz’s answer is going to be. Following are some quotations from the article.

–Twelve percent of the historians polled (by the cable channel History News Network)–nearly as many as those who rated Bush a success–flatly called Bush the worst president in American history. And these figures were gathered before the debacles over Hurricane Katrina, Bush’s role in the Valerie Plame leak affair and the deterioration in Iraq. Were the historians polled today, that figure would certainly be higher.

–Since the commencement of reliable polling in the 1940's, only one twice-elected president has seen his ratings fall as low as Bush’s in his second term: Richard Nixon, during the months preceding his resignation in 1974.

–How does any president’s reputation sink so low? The reasons are best understood as the reverse of those that produce presidential greatness...Calamitous presidents, faced with enormous difficulties–Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover and now Bush have divided the nation, governed erratically and left the nation worse off.

–He has not only displayed a weakness among the greatest presidential failures–an unswerving adherence to a simplistic ideology that abjures deviation from dogma as heresy, thus preventing any pragmatic adjustment to changing realities.

–No other president–Lincoln in the Civil War, FDR in World War II, John Kennedy at critical moments of the Cold War–faced with such a monumental set of military and political circumstances failed to embrace the opposing political party to help wage a truly national struggle. but Bush shut out and even demonized the Democrats. Top military advisers and even members of the president’s own Cabinet who expressed any reservations or criticisms of his policies–including retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni and former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil–suffered either dismissal, smear attacks from the president’s supporters or investigations into their alleged breaches of national security.

–The wise men who counseled Bush’s father, including James Baker and Brent Scowcroft, found their entreaties brusquely ignored by his son. When asked if he ever sought advice from the elder Bush, the president responded, "There is a higher Father that I appeal to."

The author goes on to cite, in his opinion, the three worst and the three best presidents.

In the worst category ("The Biggest Failures" he calls them) he lists James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Herbert Hoover. Part of his commentary on each is:

Buchanan: "Like Bush, Buchanan left the country more divided and acrimonious."
Johnson: "Johnson’s efforts during Reconstruction were as disastrous as the rebuilding of Iraq."
Hoover: "The failure of Bush’s domestic agenda is unmatched since Hoover...(Hoover’s) upbeat insistence that 'prosperity is just around the corner' backfired, resulting in a landslide for FDR."

As the best ("The Greatest Successes") he cites George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Washington:"Unlike Bush, whose contested election divided the country, the greatest hero of the American Revolution was named the nation’s first president nearly by acclamation, which gave the new national government immediate credibility."
Lincoln: "Lincoln under pressure of daily combat on American soil, did not flout the law in secret, as Bush has. He welcomed rival voices in his own cabinet..."
Roosevelt: "While Bush adheres to a simplistic ideology in the face of changing realities, Roosevelt fought the Great Depression by engaging in relentless experimentation."

It is interesting to note that Wilentz’s choices of the worst and best presidents largely coincide with those from the book Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and Worst in the White House* His picks for the best are the same as the book’s--and in the same order: each of the 39** presidents is given a rating from 1 (worst) to 5 (best); Washington’s was the highest at 4.92. Those for the worst were slightly different: the book listed Buchanan (with the lowest rating of all the 39 at 1.33), and Andrew Johnson but did not include Hoover (instead Franklin Pierce and Warring Harding filled out the list). However, Wilentz’s descriptions of each of the six presidents seem to be original and in no way follow the descriptions in the book.

* Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and Worst in the White House, edited by James Taranto and Leonard Leo, Free Press, New York 2004, 291 pages. Approximately 75 individuals (historians, political scientists, and law school professors) participated in the ratings of the presidents; there was a separate writer (from various professions, none from the rating participants) for each president.

** All presidents through Bill Clinton are included in the book with the exceptions of William Henry Harrison (who served only one month in office prior to his death) and George W. Bush (because he was still in his first term when the book was put together).

Buchanan’s pick as the worst president is of personal interest to me because he was the commencement speaker at my grandfather’s class’s graduation from the University of North Carolina in 1859. He is reported to have commented that "War clouds are gathering" in his address.

My take

Selecting the worst of 40 presidents in our 200+ year history poses the difficulty of judging a man in an era other than his own.

Would Buchanan have been the worst if he had been in office during the 1920's, when the first World War was over, the economy was humming (although with the problem of inflation), and the stock market couldn’t go anywhere but up (prior to October 1929)? Unlike Harding, who died in office after serving 2 ½ years in the early 1920's, Buchanan was not charged with any scandal.

Suppose Buchanan had been in office during the 1950's, when our country had recovered from the second World War and people were feeling good most of the time–the Cold War seemed distant, inflation was moderate, people could get jobs (especially those who went to college under the GI bill). Again, with no scandal charged to him (unlike Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Sherman Adams, who had to resign in the vicuña coat affair), Buchanan may have looked better in history.

So it is hard to say whether George W. Bush has been "The Worst President in History," but I have no difficulty in saying that he has certainly been one of the worst.

My charges against Bush:

His bullheadedness, combined with an arrogance that exacerbates his very moderate intellect, lead him to largely shut out those who disagree with him.

His courting the religious far right.

Iraq. About two months before the invasion of Iraq, my son asked me how I felt about Bush’s building up to the invasion. I recall saying that I was "conflicted." I had to believe his allegations of WMD’s and Hussein’s connection to Al Quida–I had nothing at my disposal to disprove those allegations. But I did say that, even if the allegations were true, I strongly disliked his swaggering attitude toward the rest of the world: "Those who aren’t with us are against us."

His father, as president, sent his secretary of state, Jim Baker, to consult with those countries who later became our allies in the first Gulf war; by doing so, he won the support of most of the world in driving Hussein out of Kuwait. George W. could have sent Colin Powell on the same mission or, even better, gone himself to do the job (as he, in fact, tried to do after the invasion of Iraq was well under way). No multilateral game for him: we’ll do it ourselves!

Now that his mendacity and all the poor planning for the invasion’s aftermath have come to light, Iraq is his albatross. We can hope that eventually history will show that the Iraq invasion did do some good by bringing something like democracy to the Middle East, but that is certainly a lot to hope for.

Since he professes to be a faithful believer in the Divinity, when he passes on to meet his Maker, Bush had better be prepared to explain away his personal responsibility for the tens of thousands of American military personnel and Iraqi civilians killed and gravely wounded, as well as the thousands more of ordinary Iraqis whose lives have been made miserable during the war and its aftermath.

His actions unrelated or indirectly related to the invasion of Iraq:

–Reneging on a planned meeting at his Texas ranch with Jean Chretien, the Canadian prime minister at the time, shortly after the invasion of Iraq because of his (Bush’s) pique over Canada’s not sending troops to join the invasion. Instead, he met with Spain’s president Asner, who did send troops; but Asner was voted out of office and replaced by Rodriguez Zapatero in 2004, who brought the Spanish troops back home.

–Setting a tariff on imported steel in 2003–a move clearly intended to win votes in the 2004 election from steel-making states (he had lost Pennsylvania, with its 23 electoral votes in 2000); he rescinded it some months later. While the tariff might have helped the steel companies and their workers for a time, the higher steel prices that resulted hurt many companies that fabricate products from steel and their workers (2003, with GDP growth of just 2.7%, was still in a recovery phase from an earlier slow economy).

–An income tax cut, that together with the cost of the Iraq war and other massive spending, has ballooned the deficit, after surpluses during the Clinton administration. One day, the rest of the world may stop buying our Treasury and Federal Agency notes, instead investing in Euro-denominated debt; if that happens, our country will suffer greatly. (I plan to do a future blog posting on this point.)

A more sure way of boosting the economy and putting more money in the pockets of low and middle-income workers would have been a holiday of several months from the payroll tax. That, of course, would have worked against the solvency of Social Security (including Medicare) but would still have been a better trade-off.

–Claiming to be a fiscal conservative but failing to veto farm and highway construction bills that were reported to be filled with pork. I have no expertise on those topics but I believe commentary by economists and others who cite the pork.

--Not allowing the USA to become a member of the International Court of Justice--the judiciary body which brings international war criminals to the bar of justice. One can speculate that Bush wouldn't have anything to do with this court out of a sense of PYOA (protect your own ass)--that is, because of his invasion of Iraq, he could conceivably be hauled before that body and charged as a war criminal.

–His disgusting behavior in the Terri Schiavo situation.

–His proposed Constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage.

–The Harriet Miers affair.

Should he be given credit for anything that he may have done right? Perhaps. The Medicare prescription drug bill may prove to have merit. His personal investment accounts idea, although now seemingly dead, might have been good for working people if many serious potential obstacles could somehow have been worked out. He might be on the right track in respect to the immigration issue; I like his viewpoint that Hispanic and other immigrants are a net benefit to our country.

But all that said, I stick by my opinion expressed in an earlier blog:

I believe if George Bush were my next-door neighbor, or the neighborhood hardware merchant, I would like him. He has some likable traits. I would probably like to have a beer with him–except he says he doesn’t drink.

But, as President I believe that he is a tragic misfit. I am afraid that, as a nation, we and our children will have to pay for his many misguided actions for a long time. ( "A nice guy in one role, a disaster in another" posted 3/15/06).

My response to "Anonymous's" comments (see them by clicking on "Comments" at the bottom of the posting (below) and then clicking on
the up arrow):

Thanks for your comments. I welcome all comments.

Watch your language, Anonymous, this is a family-oriented blog. Would you like your little ones to see your comments?

I would probably like to have a beer with Bush if he were my neighbor (and not our president) for the reason I gave: he has some likeable traits.

As to Yale vs. U. of Maryland: it's not the college, it's the student. I'll wager that you learned as much (and perhaps more) at U.of M. than Bush did at Yale. With a grandfather and father who were wealthy and influential politicians, I suspect that George W. was less than a brilliant student.

This week's quiz, last week's answers

This week's quiz: European countries

1. One country has four official languages. What is the country and what are the four languages?

2. The languages of all but three countries are members of the Indo-European family (none of the Russian federation countries are considered here). What are the three exceptions and what is their family called?

3. Four countries have a female head of state. Name two of the countries and their heads of state.

4. A department store operates in five countries, one of which is Russia. Name the store and two of the other four countries in which it operates.

Next week's quiz: Battles of history.

Answers to last week’s quiz: U.S. states

1. The University of ____ is located in Vermillion; _____ State University is in Brookings. Which is the state?

South Dakota

2. Only one state has a unicameral (just one chamber) legislature. Which is it?

Nebraska

3. Name any two of the 14th, 15th, and 16th states to enter the Union after the original 13 colonies.

Vermont 1791, Kentucky 1792, Tennessee 1796.

4. Fourteen presidents were previously governors of their states. Name seven (name and state).

Actually there were 16--I missed a couple:

Thomas Jefferson (Virginia). James Monroe (Virginia). Martin Van Buren (New York). John Tyler (Virginia). James K. Polk (Tennessee). Andrew Johnson (Tennessee). Grover Cleveland (New York). Theodore Roosevelt (New York). Woodrow Wilson (New Jersey). Warren G. Harding (Ohio). Calvin Coolidge (Massachusetts). Franklin D. Roosevelt (New York). Jimmy Carter (Georgia). Ronald Reagan (California). Bill Clinton (Arkansas). George W. Bush (Texas).

That wise guy/gal "Anonymous" in Tustin, CA got them right again. We'll trip him/her up eventually.

The shame of Darfur continues

“Dithering Through Death” is the title of Nicholas Kristof’s Op-Ed column in the 5/16/06 issue of The New York Times. He says:

For those of us who admire the United Nations, there is an uncomfortable reality to grapple with: The U.N. has put barely a speed bump in the path to genocide in Darfur. The U.N. has been just as ineffective there for the last three years as it was during the slaughter in Rwanda, Bosnia and Cambodia. Once again, it rolled over...The sad fact is that the U.N. is a wimp. It publishes fine reports and is terrific at handing out food and organizing vaccination campaigns, but the General Assembly and the Security Council routinely doze through crimes against humanity...the U.N. has regularly failed abysmally in situations like the one in Darfur, when military intervention is needed but a major power (in this case China) uses the threat of a veto to block action.

An article in the Times two days earlier (5/14/06) by reporter Lydia Polgreen describes the continuing rampage of the janjaweed thugs in Darfur–she recounts just one bloody incident:

Three men with machine guns stopped (a) truck on the road and fired into its cabin, shooting the driver and blowing out the tires...the raiders set upon the women, raping them in turn, witnesses said.

The reporter adds that one woman was killed, six villagers were wounded , and fifteen women were raped. She goes on:

These atrocities occur even when police and military personnel are nearby but rarely respond. ...protecting from the attacks of the militias (the janjaweed) is the job of the police, but they seldom respond...African Union troops occasionally patrol the area, but their narrow mandate calls for them to monitor, not enforce, the 2004 cease-fire.

All of this deplorable mayhem goes on while terms of another peace treaty between the Sudanese government in Khartoum and the Darfur rebel groups are supposedly being worked out. It seems that Khartoum’s game is to make it appear that, by making small incremental movements, it is working toward a genuine end to the genocide; in fact, however, its real intent is to temporize so that it can continue the depredations in Darfur.

I attended the 4/30/06 rally at the National Mall in Washington to support stopping the Darfur genocide. One report said that over 50,000 people were there; a long mixed bag of speakers (clergy of all faiths, politicians, media people, victims of the Darfur atrocities, victims of the Jewish holocaust, and others) expressed their outrage at the situation.

The most pragmatic proposals were that military intervention is needed now. Dick Gregory, the black comedian, said he was going to fast until there was such action; the leader of a Jewish group said that his organization was going to call on most of the European and African embassies in Washington to urge their countries to participate in such action.

One can only regret that our government could invade Iraq on the pretext that it was to protect our national interest while, at the same time, only “dither” (to use Nicholas Kristof’s word) in regard to Darfur (dithering is about all that we can do with so much of our military force engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan). How about our moral interest?

I have done all that I know how to support action NOW to stop this horrible situation. Besides two previous postings on this blog about it and attending the Washington rally, my wife and I have sent letters to President Bush, our two U.S. senators from Maryland and to the congressman from our district urging such action. (Ironically, Senator Paul Sarbanes, who is to retire from the Senate at the end of his term this year, was the first to respond to our letter; Senator Barbara Mikulski, who still has time left on her term, was next; but Congressman Ben Cardin, who is running for the Senate this year (to replace Sarbanes) and who needs our support the most–and who has fewer constituents than the two senators, who represent the whole state of Maryland, has yet to respond.)

Introduction of Internet Explorer 7 (Beta 2): be warned

The much-heralded Internet Explorer 7 (Beta 2) version just became available from Microsoft a short time ago, at which time the company put out a promotion describing all of its desirable new features. So I downloaded it, which was very easy, taking only a few minutes. But, a day or two later, I found to my horror that I could no longer paste text from a Word Perfect page (by using "Edit" and "Copy") onto a page of a new e-mail (using Outlook Express) that I was creating. Other than very short ones, I always create e-mails that way (so I can edit and use Spell Check in Word Perfect before copying to the e-mail).

At first, I had no idea that my problem was caused by the downloading of IE7 because I didn’t know that there was any connection between Outlook Express and Internet Explorer. After much time spent, I learned that the downloading of IE7 was causing the problem. To uninstall it I had to contact tech service at Hewlett Packard (Windows XP had been installed at the factory on my computer) to remove it and go back to IE6, which cost me $45, my computer being out of warranty.

The situation was like taking a prescription drug that offers benefits in one way but has unacceptable side effects.

IE7 may be wonderful for anyone who doesn’t use my method of creating e-mails, but if you do, be warned.

Stop those loose statistics!

I get annoyed when I hear or read statistics cited that can’t possibly be verified. I recently read in Steve Chapman’s column in the Chicago Tribune that 72 % of third-generation Hispanics living in the USA speak only English at home. I generally admire Chapman but his tossing out that statistic did annoy me. He didn’t say "according to polls" or use some such qualifier; it is virtually impossible to know the actual percentage: no one is going to contact every single third-generation Hispanic and get a response.

There are many instances of such stats being thoughtlessly thrown around, usually based on someone's estimates (or better, "guesstimates"). We hear that x million children go to bed hungry every night, the drug trade in the USA puts y dollars in the pockets of dealers, people with only a high school education make z dollars less in a lifetime of work than those who finish college, etc., etc.

But the most patently foolish one to me is it being reported, as an unqualified fact, that a certain percent of blacks/ Hispanics/ married women over 25/ white men between 25 and 40/ Catholics, etc. voted for one candidate (or party) or another in a national election.

I have heard from several sources that 7% of black people voted for George Bush in 2000, but the number increased to 13% in 2004. Clearly, no one can possibly know this. One could take the votes from precincts where the population is heavily black, but how about the increasing numbers of blacks who live in mostly white areas? One could use exit poll numbers, which are such a small and unscientific sample that they would have little validity as a proxy for the nation. Or how about small southern towns of a few thousand population which are about 50/50 white/black? There are probably only one or two polling places in those towns, making it impossible to know the numbers of the black vote.

To anyone who might say I am being picky, I say: if those users of grandiose "facts" aren't called to task, they will continue to stretch in making them up.

Please, columnists, politicians, activists, and all you others who toss these stats around. Stop it!

The Star Spangled Banner in Spanish

It’s been much talked about lately that Hispanics in the USA have come up with a Spanish-language version of our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner (Nuestro himno, “Our anthem”). There are those who disapprove of having such a version of it, including (according to National Public Radio) the great-grandson of its composer, Francis Scott Key, and George Bush (“It should be sung in English,” he said).

Having heard it played and sung, I think it is in good taste. It is set to the same music as The Star Spangled Banner with just a bit of Latino flavor added. It is respectful of our anthem–certainly more so than many pop singers who jazz it up disgustingly at sports events and other public gatherings. I think we should be pleased that Hispanics living in the USA want to show by their Spanish version that they are proud of their adopted country. They even have a second verse similar to that of the English version (which almost no one who sings the English version knows).

Having the Spanish version doesn’t in any way detract from the English one; anyone can choose to sing one or the other, or both, on various occasions. Canada has both an English and French version of its national anthem Oh, Canada.

Following is are the words of Nuestro himno and an English translation (taken from National Public Radio’s website).

Amanece, lo veis?, a la luz de la aurora?
lo que tanto aclamamos la noche al caer?
sus estrellas sus franjas flotaban ayer
en el fiero combate
en señal de victoria,
fulgor de lucha, al paso de la libertad.
Por la noche decían:
"Se va defendiendo!"
Oh decid! Despliega aún
Su hermosura estrellada
sobre tierra de libres,
la bandera sagrada?

English translation:

It's sunrise. Do you see by the light of the dawn
What we proudly hailed last nightfall?
Its stars, its stripes
yesterday streamed
above fierce combat
a symbol of victory
the glory of battle, the march toward liberty.
Throughout the night, they proclaimed: "We will defend it!"
Tell me! Does its starry beauty still wave
above the land of the free,
the sacred flag?