democratic views

Smoke ‘Em Out

Smokers in China inhale three times as many cigarettes as an American addict. This is great, because with three times our population and the threat that their economy will overrun ours we need the highest Chinese mortality figures we can get without starting yet another war. Because they're godless communists, have that wonderful one-child rule leading to state-sponsored abortion and infanticide, we should be looking for some enlightened social policy foundation to give them an award. Americans who stop smoking are showing their patriotism by enlisting in the tobacco war against China.

Overthrow the Czars

When things got intolerable in Russia, they murdered the Czars. Nothing changed except that the despot Stalin and his apparatchiks killed millions; their new oligopoly usurped and then redistributed the country's wealth - among themselves. The peasants remained peasants, the workers remained workers. But a new class of rich, no longer hereditary, emerged: the class we know today, purified by ideology. Sarah Palin knows about apparatchiks because she can see Russia from her front porch, and she's got ideas for the Republican party.

The Afghanistan-Pakistan Credibility Gap

We can't win in Afghanistan and Pakistan. (Wait, we're not at war in Pakistan, are we?). In the Sept. 28 New Yorker George Packer profiles Richard Holbrooke, who's been every president's go-to man since he started muscling his way into the halls of power during the Vietnam war. Pick a conflict with global impact for the U.S. and Holbrooke has been there. Now he's trying to win Afghanistan and Pakistan – but the battle involves more than boots on the ground and diplomacy – it's a war for public opinion in the U.S. that will be the capstone of his diplomatic career.

President Obama looks for the moment like a deer caught in the headlights.

The Shell Game

Early in my residency in Washington DC, I lived in an apartment building in a questionable neighborhood just a few blocks from the White House, and near the headquarters of The Washington Post. On the street outside hustlers plied their trades; there was one fellow who ran a shell game night after night, while streetwalkers trolled the sidewalks and cars from all over slowly drove by. I was both bemused by the spectacle and ashamed that the streets could be so rough a mere six blocks from the White House.

Food Before Theory

Whenever theory gets in the way of providing people decent nutrition it's a safe bet the theory is flawed. There is no excuse for starvation. Lack of housing and health care means little to someone whose body is being chewed up by hunger; lack of educational opportunity means nothing to someone who cannot concentrate because they are famished. All who have enough to eat should be ashamed that others do not.

The Specimen Zoo

I'm so pleased you've come to our new facility to take a tour. I'll be your guide today, and it's just a beautiful day to walk around this brand new zoo. It's full of all kinds of animals. Most of them are right-wing and many are Republican – we're hoping that further research will help us distinguish between the Republicans of Lincoln's party, who were instrumental in ending slavery in America, and the modern offshoots that are represented here, who seem to be a lunatic fringe, although we're not yet certain. But all the specimens in this zoo are identified by their membership in the genus racismisus.

Wall Street Sports: Moral Hazard

The Federal Reserve is talking about setting limits on compensation for bankers, which now includes firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, who converted to bank holding companies so that they could seek refuge in taxpayer bailout funds when their future looked dim. Pessimists (otherwise known as realists) believe that the banks will find creative ways to continue paying their stars millions of dollars annually in salary and bonuses, that the Fed will lose (intentionally) and that it's all just a magic show to deceive the public into believing that something is being done.

Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, A Nuked Iran Has Got To Go!?

You'd think Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons – or to be polite, nuclear power – is a crime against humanity. So many people are upset. The sanctimonious want sanctions while the hawks want military strikes against Iran. Some think it would be good to use a variation on the Bush preemption doctrine and bomb Iran back to the Stone Age. But a pre-emptive military strike against Iran – as if we haven't done enough damage without accomplishing much in Iraq or Afghanistan – seems like the priapic nightmare of someone who took too many male enlargement supplements.

Eyes 4 U

"We started putting cameras on the restroom doors," the manager said, "after we found pennies, face-up, clogging our urinals. In the early days it was just a thing that got started because we knew some folks who used the penny thing as a secret sign and an insult. Today we call them the Wilson eyes, you know, after that rude congressman who called the President a liar on national TV."

The Grand Googol (Text Version)

In the beginning was the search, and googol was number and was found. This was good; and its name was Google.

A Shot In The Dark

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence blog brought my attention to a new study that reveals disturbing facts about the gun trade in America. Based on visits to more than 78 gun shows in 19 states over a three-year period, the report shows substantial amounts of illegal activity, connections between neo-Nazi groups and gun show participants, and inadequate law enforcement presence at gun shows. Federal laws regulating gun shows are almost as toothless as Richie Havens was when he sang "Freedom" at Woodstock forty years ago.

Wall Street Is Betting On You – To Die

Any lingering thoughts I might have had about my most recent satire "Dr. Death" being a bit over the top disappeared when Jenny Anderson published "Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance" in the New York Times today. Remember the real estate meltdown driven by mortgage-backed securities and the resulting creation of the subprime mortgage market? The same folks who made fortunes selling those securities to investors who lost billions now plan to bundle and securitize life insurance policies. They will be betting on when you'll die. No matter when that happens or what happens to life insurance companies they'll make money on the trading activity.

Dr. Death

It's not just the old who should die first. Let's get serious. If doctors have to make a choice between an 80-yr-old who sits around all day watching Oprah, People's Court, and Jeopardy, or an 80-yr-old who is still writing a book and actively engaged in business, politics, and the arts, what's the dilemma? Cut off the couch potato who is on TV life support. Lifelines on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" aren't all they're cracked up to be.

Reviews of God and Critics

If you're a believer in God, all is well. Believers don't seem to have many problems with their belief. If you're an atheist, however, things aren't going so well. At least, that's the argument James Woods makes in his essay "God in the Quad" which reviews several contemporary books about religious beliefs and atheism. The bottom line is that the reasoning of atheists exhibits many problems, while the poetry of the Bible or the Koran seems to be as popular as ever and growing.

Murdering the Innocent

The death certificate for Cameron Todd Willingham lists the cause of death as homicide. It was a legal murder, committed by the state of Texas in 2004. If this case doesn't shake the American criminal justice system to its core, then we are in big trouble. The investigative methods used were deeply flawed and have been characterized as witchcraft. The value of eyewitness testimony has been impeached. The prejudices of law enforcement professionals - from first responders to prosecutors and even his own court-appointed legal counsel - have been revealed. The judicial and political processes used to review cases failed. An innocent man died at the hands of the state.

Justice Sotomayor’s First Supreme Test: Free Speech and Campaign Finances

Summer vacation is over. The Supreme Court is going back to work early on a case that will decide how many political ads we'll see in future campaigns, and what we'll know about who's paying for those ads. The Court asked for new arguments in a case they first heard last spring – an unusual development – important enough to the justices that they cut short their summer recess. Free speech is on the line, and Justice Sotomayor will have an early test of her political and judicial acumen.

Americans Lost In Paradise

I've been thinking a lot about Milton's "Paradise Lost" in the past weeks, working on an essay about poetry and the arts in public life. Then on Tuesday Ted Kennedy died. Yesterday I watched "The Soloist," a film (never mind its Oscar-winning potential) that brings shame upon America for our callousness toward the homeless and helpless. Some 90,000 people are homeless in Los Angeles, a population that is nearly half that of Arlington County, Virginia, home to the Pentagon, Arlington National Cemetery and some of the most affluent and powerful people in our country. This morning I read Dan Baum's review of Rebecca Solnits's book "A Paradise Built in Hell." Then I watched Ted Kennedy's funeral mass.

Called to a Better Country

Soldiers died today. So did their friend. Children, sick or starving, died today. So did their friend. Refugees died today. So did their friend. Nature in her blind unambiguous way took the lives of many around the world today; and she took our friend.

Back from Vacation – Deboning a Duck

I took a week off with family visiting. Nothing much changed. The headlines are still spinning around Republican recalcitrance, the tail of blue dog Democratics wagging the dog, Obama's mysterious lack of strong leadership on health care (though it might register in the West Wing that more and more voices are calling for "Medicare for everyone".

Getting Lost and Being Found

We all know the type: someone who expresses values based on opinion and for whom evidence, facts, and reason make no difference. There's no changing their mind. At their worst they gather into tribal groups, calling rivals names and chanting slogans to be sure they drown out what anyone else might have to say. Here's why this happens: they are lost.