From the Sunday Indianapolis Star: “One by one, homes are sinking in subdivision.” No one understands why multiple homes are suddenly sinking into the ground but officials “believe water that has bubbled to the surface is playing a role…Nobody can explain why suddenly there is plentiful water atop the hill in a county with groundwater shortages.”
Where, you ask, is this unfortunate subdivision, this mysterious and inexplicable water?
Lakeport. In Lake County, California.
Yeah, I'm not touching Boston, Texas, ricin, China's earthquake, gun law reform, chained CPI, or immigration reform today.
I'm thinking about those things– and a host of others– but I'm not touching them in this post.
Welcome to Saturday. I'm, erm, percolating on a number of things and would rather not write until said things are fully, well, brewed.
So, what that leaves me with is random bits of the following (oh, you lucky three blog-readers, you):
#MadGEDSkills
The Indianapolis Star and the Washington Post, in an Associated Press article, on Monday, April 15, reported that some states are dropping the GED because the new, digital-based replacement in many states is too expensive and too onerous on test-takers than the previous paper-based GED. This may be a fair point. Those seeking the GED are, generally speaking, probably going to find the $140 fee for the new GED a little steep (at minimum wage, that would be 70-plus hours; difficult to manage when minimum wage keeps a person in American-style poverty). But on top of that, some of the test-takers are expressing concern with the computer-based format of the new GED. “You've got to learn how to type, use the computer, plus your GED. That's three things instead of just trying to focus all on your GED test,” said one test-taker, a mother of three.
Here's the thing: one could argue that the typing, the familiarity to use a computer to take the test– these actually are, now, skills that are themselves part of General Educational Attainment. At this point, you basically have to apply online at little computer kiosks for the most entry-level of entry-level positions at Target, Walmart, Kroger. Putting pen to paper is increasingly less useful in terms of getting a job, with or without a GED.
First-graders, second-graders are expected to be able to hunt-and-peck words on a keyboard. They can certainly answer test questions that don't come on pristine white sheets.
In some ways, it is completely appropriate that the GED is moving to an exclusively electronic format: it is a basic level skill, the ability to communicate by and navigate the medium. Maybe, arguably, you should not in this century and at this time, be able to earn a GED without being able to demonstrate a modicum of digital practical ability.
It's part of what should earn one the right to say one has a GED, if a GED is to have any meaning.
Now, that would include: incorporating basic computing skills into the GED curriculum (good god, is it really not?) and not charging extra or, say, more than a week's worth of minimum-wage pay for the actual test (though, maybe it should cost something so as to be worth something, but that's a different debate) just because it's not on paper.
Reading the article, in this strange tango between GED test takers, states, and the educational assessment industry, it's difficult to think the only people who are coming out ahead in the entire world of GED-ness aren't the inventors and peddlers of “alternative” tests. Because, earned digitally or on paper, a GED is necessary without being especially helpful in the long-term; the tests are not the point so much as the educational attainment and skills represented (again, a different debate)– but somehow, one can't help but feel, none of it matters in the face of the profits to be gained by the lower-priced alternatives developed by Educational Testing Services and CTB/McGraw-Hill.
#KidsTheseDays
“I hit him,” said the sixteen-year old, “because he was the closest teacher, and I was mad…I got in trouble yesterday for talking back…and wearing some jewelry. When I got home, my mom took away my Xbox, my Beats, and my cellphone…I was mad because all my stuff was taken away.”
The sixteen-year-old in question clocked a teacher in the face.
Well, in fairness, it does really, really suck when your mom takes away your $90 dollar headphones.
[Grimace.]
So…this was the same week in the greater Indianapolis area as a 15-year old torched a teacher's car and (AND!?!?) a ninth-grader punched another teacher's jaw so severely the recovery time is 6 weeks long.
But let us focus instead on teacher assessments and needing to attract the “best and brightest” in the need for educational reform.
After all, the responsibility for the entirety of the educational problems in the U.S. should clearly be laid at the feet of our teachers– but just the grossly inadequate ones.
Who may or may not be in need of dental work, reconstructive surgery, and/or a rental car.
(And seriously, $90 dollar-plus headphones? What the hell is your kid listening to that he needs costly sound- definition and noise-canceling technology? Please tell me it's at least news or really good music and not total crap. And if he's going to face-plant a teacher at the loss of them, please tell me that this year's birthday gift will be Anger Management Counseling. Or, what the hell, a circa-1989 Discman with $3 Radio Shack headphones. Maybe your kid's just got a little too much to lose. At 16. Headphones?)
#GrosslyNeeded
I propose a program, let's call it “PATCH.” This program would assist citizens applying for benefits (unemployment, SS Disability, VA, TANF, SNAP, housing assistance): it would help direct them to the correct benefit program based on need and eligibility and expedite the process when the need is severe.
I think of it as “Public Assistance to Coordinate Help.”
In my head, it would fill the “holes” between benefit programs and direct people in need to the programs that could actually assist them. It would help benefit workers (and people) by coordinating the various programs so people in need no longer fall between the cracks.
This should exist, but doesn't. Paging a state rep or senator, a grant program, or a fed rep…
People need help, sometimes immediately, and they're getting lost in a sprawling, confusing tangle of state and federal benefits, a wide and equally confounding array of agencies and acronyms. We'd be doing good deeds to assist them. We'd be saving money, labor, and time by directing them to correct programs effectively.
So why aren't we?
#SaveOurFarmland
Further, on domestic policy, I'm still concerned about all this farmland that's for sale, zoned “commercial.”
The flooding of the past week in the Midwest, the increased focus on climate change and “global weirding,” the fact that foreign countries have been spending their free time in the past 6 or so years purchasing acres in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana so as to have farmland in reserve…
I've written before about it, but I'm saying it again:
I do not think it's a good idea to sell off every spare inch of farmland. I do not think it's a great idea to not have farmland in reserve. Just because productivity per acre is high now does not necessarily mean it will be permanently so. And if productivity per acre falls (too much or too little water, bad weather, genetic adaptation, will of the gods, whatever), it might be good to have a couple acres of beautiful, fertile Indiana soil in the pocket and not, say, tied up in yet another strip mall or slab-based-if asthetically-pleasing and multi-roofed suburban housing division.
So can some trust or government or do-gooder purchase some of this beautiful farmland that's continually, daily put on the market for commercial use? And then just let it be? Just in case?
#HighMaintenance
I'm a fan of women, generally speaking. My god, I am one, myself. But.
Some of them are high-maintenance in ways that know no expression and surpass belief.
One of these was strikingly on display at the snack shop the other day.
Here is she, curly-haired, with Friend. She is buying the 85 cent bag of popcorn. She is not just walking away with it, as one would think she'd be doing. No.
She is stopping, at the end of the counter (impeding progress of anyone else, even if anyone else is holding their 32-ounce coffee and ready to fly past her, if only they could), to ask for a bowl. A free bowl. Or two.
Why?
So she can test out the various versions of free cheese powders on a handful of kernels before sprinkling these cheesy accoutrements on the entire 85-cent bag.
No hurry.
High maintenance women. Sheesh.
And then there's Cookie, as I called her. She came running, sprinting, back to the snack shop because her chocolate-chip walnut cookie wasn't hot when she ate it.
What?
It's Otis Spunkmeyer; the little rack says they're baked fresh daily, which they are. And Cookie raised hell in the snack shop because her cookie was not hot.
There was no sign, no slogan, no anything that should have implied to her that it might be or should be.
High Maintenance Woman.
Holding up all the rest of us god-fearing, black-coffee-drinking, non-cookie-eating people.
And getting multiple free cookies just so she would go away.
Ah, womanhood, what have you become?
Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister, passed away yesterday.
You might have heard.
Prepare yourself and go seek a legitimate obit, if that's what you're after.
I am not about to get into a discussion of the late, great Iron Lady's legacy. I am not going to rehash the things she did or did not do, the things one might have wished she did or didn't do. Others have done and will continue to do that, with facts and thought and perspective.
That's just not where I'm going to go with that.
Here is what I'm going to say (you will not have seen it coming unless you also were in Mr. F.'s history class sometime in the '80's. And also, you would have to be similarly pseudo-philosophically inclined and prone to nostalgia, sentiment, and peculiar twists of mind.)
As an unabashed child of the eighties, I will say: nothing, nothing, has made so plain that childhood is dead and said childhood is basically thirty years gone, like the prime of Ms. Margaret Thatcher, the passing of Margaret Thatcher.
(This is not to say we, or anyone like us, is stuck in childhood– just that we, or I, perpetually drop a decade and the fact that our childhood is not twenty but thirty years passed is a constant surprise. Because we– I– still feel somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 to 25. Anywhere between 13-25; they share such bizarre similarities and we– I– have not managed to become somehow fully formed and complete in said thirty [30!] years.)
The 80's have lost their names: Michael Jackson and Whitney have gone. The Iron Curtain crumbled so long ago that teenagers now are shocked it ever existed. Reagan's been gone forever, gone before he was actually gone. Culture has changed so much that the neon and the fashions have come completely back in style. Tiffany went so far out of style she became a reality TV thing– or so I hear from friends and family who ritually enjoy such things. And maybe that is also so far ago that it classifies as “Past.”
But Maggie. Margaret Thatcher. That's the one that seals the deal: the eighties, the innocence of children of the eighties is irrevocably gone.
The eighties to me were many things. And a surprisingly large chunk of them consists of the non-stop doodles of Chris P. If you're in the year 1987, and you are me or someone like me, your days begin with history (social studies) class with Mr. F. Mr. F. has a perpetual white crust around his mouth that you long to remind him of (seriously, Mr. F., check your face before you stand in front of 7th graders: We are very unforgiving and judgmental). Mr. F. will be one of the first and only teachers you encounter before high school to suggest in red-state, Bible Belt Indiana that alternative religions to Christianity have rich and storied histories and equal validity in the world to the stories of and beliefs about Jesus. Mr. F. served in the military but he was never able to be very specific about it, in class and all, and you (the seventh grader) remember that he served and are ashamed you noticed the inevitable white crust and nicotine fumes.
But your days begin with Mr. F. He tells you about Korea (we had a war there, in the fifties), and Hinduism (more people in India believe in it than Christianity and that's really okay). He mentions the Treaty of Verdun and he doesn't make students spit out their gum. He speaks for 55 minutes exactly every morning, 5 days per week, and seldom gives quizzes. He just talks and waves unconcernedly at the chalkboard he would never dream of getting up from his seat and writing on.
And you, you are sitting there in 1987, and you are taking copious, precise notes in pink, purple, or turquoise ink. Occasionally you will check out the megaphone on your Coke watch, the coral reef on your Swatch. Occasionally you will draw a damn good version of Mr. F.'s head on your notes, which are more complete than could be expected from the Lisa Frank notebook (bubble gum machine, very perky, further festooned with Lisa Frank stickers of teddy bears, unicorns, dewy-bubble-eyed and 80's-fantastic.)
But sometimes, you will look over at Chris' messy, paper-everywhere, helter-skelter desk. You will watch him doodling on loose-leaf paper (can't even pull the Trapper Keeper out of his bag and put it on the desk, nope. Too much to ask). You will notice he never– never– takes notes. What he does, all 55 minutes of first period long, is draw.
He draws boxing gloves (Rocky V!). But mostly he draws weaponry. And there's my complete (your complete, if you're like me) pre-90's introduction to foreign policy, on a Mead loose-leaf, wide-rule sheet of ridiculously cheap paper: bomber airplanes, U.S.S.R. sickle-and-hammers, more bombers. The occasional mushroom cloud.
And in a weird way, retrospectively, you've got to hand it to Chris P: the news I saw scattered in the evening between Kate and Allie and My Two Dads was actually very much a story of bombers, the U.S.S.R., and…
Margaret Thatcher.
Not that Chris P. ever once drew Maggie– he wasn't prone to drawing humans.
But still, she was there, like the (threat of the) mushroom cloud, the boxing glove, Red Dawn, and the Wall-pre-torn-down.
There was anxiety, hidden well by Alf, Rainbow Brite, Coke jerseys, and Guess jeans.
There were evenings of news reports that, weirdly and yet again in retrospect, probably really did come down to Chris P.'s drawings of boxing gloves and Gorbachev's birthmarks.
News reports in which Margaret Thatcher's name was a chronic inclusion.
So, on Monday, it was announced she is gone. She has passed: she was sick and now, she has gone. Stealthily, quietly, in 2013.
And that's when it occurs to you– to me– that time has passed faster than you know. I mean, in your head you're fully aware that it's 2013. You don't generally think of the eighties that much, except in your nostalgia fits, nor the '90's or the aughts. You know it's the day that it is. You go to work. You do the laundry. You read the paper. You worry about the future.
But a lot of the time, you feel uncertain.
Like a 12 year old.
And it occasionally dawns on you that the uncertainty you're feeling is the same uncertainty you've had since the beginning, and that you were really aware of, back in the day of Bonne Bell lipgloss and used clothes you hoped would be disguised by Palmetto jeans miraculously passing as your best and only Christmas Guess (by Georges Marciano) pants.
And then–then– it will dawn on you: my god. That was thirty years ago.
Margaret Thatcher is dead.
Aspiration for Dummies:
“My ambition is the status quo.” Governor Mike Pence (R-IN)
Education for Dummies:
Indiana children are not required to attend public school until age 7, a problem with an easy solution, the proverbial low-hanging fruit. A bill to require kids to be in school or home-schooled if they are 5 at the time of the start of the school year is one that the Indiana Senate has declined to debate so far this year. Education for Dummies or Legislating for Dummies = Hoping Indiana Kids Are All Late Bloomers. (Read here for more.)
Science for Dummies:
“When a physician removes a child from a woman, that is the largest organ in a body. That’s a big thing. That’s a big surgery. You don’t have any organs in your body that are bigger than that.” State Representative Mary Sue McClurkin (R-Pelham) of Mississippi
Playing Fair for Dummies:
“You didn’t win but I did.” Christina Shaw, hairstylist and lottery winner, who told her co-workers that the tickets she purchased from all the workers’ contributions wasn’t lucky but the one she purchased for herself was. Who gets the 9.5 million dollars in winnings will now be up to the courts to decide because decency and camaraderie either weren’t present or just couldn’t overcome mindless, selfish greed. Perhaps Ms. Shaw didn’t attend school until she was 7, thereby missing the essential early days of kindergarten which include the lessons on How to Share, Why We Share, What is Sharing, and Only Bad Evil Monster-Trolls Don’t Like to Share.
Another letter suggested the United States use drones on the southern border to deter illegal crossings. An idea which follows the implentation of it by over 7 years: drones have been flying over the U.S.-Mexico border since 2005.
Legislative Opinion for Dummies:
Most Americans still believe that our economy is based on this basic premise: that it is possible for most people to work their way to the middle class, however loosely that's defined; that hard work and education will lead to success for most people and if people struggle, that's mostly due to poor decisions, sub-par work ethic, or lack of personal responsibility.
The recent suggestion by President Obama to raise the federal minimum wage is based on the premise that many people are working full-time jobs and still not making it. Which is true, many are. But many (more?) are stuck in situations where full-time jobs are not options– and not due to personal choice or failures or even personal and family conditions. A job market that is full of mostly retail and service positions is not one that is predominantly “full-time” (for purposes here, full-time employment is 36-40 hours per week even though legal definitions usually permit the employer or industry to define what is full-time in their sector or market). There's been quiet but growing attention in the media to the changing face of employment. Stories in the New York Times (here, here, here) and NPR (this and this) have pointed out that a growing majority of retail and service jobs prefer to operate with part-time workers because it better meets the demands of their business and allows flexibility of scheduling to meet the level of traffic, down to 15-minute increments. Profits expand when labor costs can be micro-controlled using mini-shifts of 2 to 3 hours or even placing employees on unpaid on-call status throughout the week. This is bad for workers, who have no set schedules, can't get enough hours to earn a living, can't arrange childcare or even pick up the necessary second and third part-time job to meet their monthly expenses. Lifting the minimum wage can help— but its effects will be limited if the whole idea of it is based on a “living wage for full-time work.” This is not just about the obvious employers like Walmart and Jamba Juice. The health care industry is also prone to giving part-time hours and, even less stable from the worker's point of view, PRN (on-call, as-needed) shifts. The education sector, particularly universities and vocational-technical schools also rely heavily on adjunct faculty and associate professors who similarly have no guarantees and no stability, teaching perhaps two classes one semester and then none for one or more semesters. And then there's the increasing use of temporary staffing services which provide short-term jobs, generally low-paying, with lag periods between assignments when no work is available. As an increasing number of companies use these staffing services in place of hiring full-time, permanent employees, the job market offers even less traditional full-time jobs.
The traditional job market most Americans believe in didn't go away entirely due to the Great Recession. The traditional job market has been changed by an economy that's fundamentally different from the past. The new job market does have full-time permanent positions: but what proportion of jobs are covered by that? A light majority, possibly, but, it appears, a declining one. Even when the economy recovers to, optimistically, 5% unemployment, the signs seem to indicate that the new economy, the recovered economy, will actually be majority part-time, PRN, and temporary employment. The new job market in 2 to 3 years will be based in no small part on jobs that are non-traditional and impermanent. The new condition for a growing plurality of Americans will be under-employment not by choice, lack of education, or personal “fault,” but due to an economy that works differently than it ever has in the modern era.
Without some change to wages or even social supports (TANF, UI, WIC) and employment regulations, this new mode of employment will be bad for everyone. The individual workers and their families will be affected immediately. But even in the short-term, businesses are affected by lack of demand as people cannot afford to purchase goods and services for themselves. In the medium to long-term, it will affect finance and the world of money in the U.S. writ large: how do the permanently under-employed and permanently transient workers qualify for credit? How would solid loans be made to workers who work for a staffing agency one quarter of the year and spend the following three quarters in various part-time jobs? How stable would be credit given to people who cannot demonstrate a reasonable ability to repay that credit because they have no reliable income? So the choice of lenders would be between denying all such applications (very, very bad for the national economy) or risking the entire credit and financing system on sub-grade, high-risk loans. Housing crisis, anyone? Fiscal crisis, anyone?
Equally troubling is the idea that neither public nor private entities appear to be accurately measuring these trends, let alone coming up with solutions to them. Unemployment is still measured largely by people who self-report through the Current Population Survey that they are both unemployed and looking for full-time work. This misses, as is so often said, those who are underemployed, temporarily employed, or so frustrated they've dropped out of the labor market entirely. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is working on a number of alternative metrics but those aren't the norm right now— and it always depends on the level of communication between government agencies and how the data is used. And even then, there are the questions. Who is measuring and compiling all the necessary elements of this new labor economy: the nature of the jobs in existence, the jobs that will be created? Do they measure only the number of jobs by industry or are they doing an accurate job of measuring by type (part-time, full-time) and by stability (temporary, seasonal, intermittent, permanent)? Of course, how these terms are defined makes a world of difference: permitting industry to define “full-time” may be useful for questions of safety— truck drivers, air traffic controllers, or surgeons— but is much less useful in questions of employment and wages. If the measurement of employment, like unemployment, is both incomplete and based on self-reporting, the measurement will be inadequate to provide the data needed to create solutions to the problems of the new economy.
Current benefits programs like unemployment insurance (UI) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) are already being used as income supports by many who are already stuck in and limited by the new economy, which means benefits are being used in ways they weren't designed for and for purposes they aren't efficient or effective at meeting. The UI system was intended for people who are involuntarily unemployed in the short-term. The media and the government have already focused heavily on the problem of the long-term unemployed. However, there is a growing use of UI benefits by underemployed, part-time, temporary, and on-call workers– people who are employed. In many cases, their income is absolutely inadequate to meet their basic needs but they may make too much money to qualify for TANF, WIC, or similar programs and UI will only cover them for a limited period (in Indiana, it's 26 weeks). In many cases, these benefits are difficult to navigate for working people precisely because they were intended for the impoverished— and, in American mind and American policy, these are two characteristics that weren't intended to elide.
Like unemployment and wages, the systems of these benefit programs also rely heavily on self-reporting and the nature of the corresponding laws for these programs requires time-consuming interviews and paperwork to ascertain eligibility for the benefits. Here again, eligibility is defined by being unemployed, not “under-employed,” and unemployed in the short-term. Think “Welfare to Work”. The problem is, assistance frequently comes weeks after people have already fallen into desperation. And assistance stops when partial employment, temporary, or on-call employment has been accepted or, at least, after that under or temporary employment has become “customary”. If the long term trajectory of the nature of jobs in this country is trending toward extended under, partial, and temporary employment for a significant portion of Americans, these programs are and will be insufficient to provide what will be needed.
Is a new benefit program needed as a form of income support? Politically, that would be nearly impossible.
Are new regulations needed to protect workers? (And protect businesses and the overall economy?) Again, that would be nearly impossible to achieve, politically.
Will we need to change the way creditworthiness is defined and go to micro-loans at low interest rates?
Do we require a change to how we think about wages and place people/workers on “retainers”– a minimum amount of monthly income to remain on jobs where the number of hours must be flexible and inconsistent? Who would pay these retainers? The government? Federal or state? The employers?
What probably can't happen is changing the economy back to one where full-time, 40 hours per week, permanent jobs are the norm. The businesses and services we have, need, and expect don't function that way. The peculiarly American insistence that our desires and needs alike be met 24 hours per day or delivered the next day creates businesses and services which don't fit neatly into 40 hour per week boxes. Of course, businesses could change the dynamic so they use less workers for more hours per week and/or pay reasonable wages– both of which have benefits and problems of their own and will never happen as long as businesses' goals are mostly maximizing profits and increasing growth in terms of “now” and “this quarter.” Sure, we could have jobs that are busy-work: the old digging holes and then filling them conundrum. But this is not a reasonable solution. It isn't reality-based.
The problem is not being adequately measured, let alone addressed. Nostalgia and denial are standing in the way. Too many in power don't yet recognize the problem or at least, don't acknowledge that there has been a significant and probably permanent change in the nature and demands of work– but no change to the real needs and overabundance of supply of workers to fill the “decreased” or, rather, intermittent, micro-variable roles that need filled (by hour, not year). And even good policy solutions like lifting the minimum wage, EITC, TANF, and UI are based on a world and economy that lies in the past: a world of full-time permanent jobs. So, of course, we should continue with the good policy solutions– they address real problems. They just don't address this one. And that is the Real Problem.
So what do we do?
Sunday, February 10, 2013:
Indiana teacher Diana Medley made herself mighty unpopular with mostly everyone when she said that gay kids have no purpose in life. Just goes to show Sunday’s a day of rest but not from unparalleled intolerant asshattery or terrifically bad press, depending on your point of view. Now, granted, teachers are private citizens and they have the same rights to freedom of thought and expression as the rest of us. But they also have the same responsibilities to face the consequences of those thoughts when they’re blathered into a live microphone wielded by a reporter. Unsurprisingly, her words have whipped up calls for Medley’s immediate and involuntary unemployment from her position as a special needs educator with the Northeast School Corporation in Sullivan County, Indiana (see also: Facebook page titled “Fire Diana Medley”).
So far the superintendent of the school corporation, Mark Baker, has expressed that he’s dismayed by Medley’s comments but no action has yet been taken to remove Medley from the classroom.
Perhaps in next week’s news, Ms. Medley will self-deport.
Monday, February 11, 2013: Edutainment!
The History Channel’s crack research team misspelled “seceded.” The misspelling looked humorously similar to “succeed,” which is probably not the word association you want evoked when you’re the History Channel and you’ve just failed on the one tiny bit of mild information about, you know, history, that you were trying to throw into your reality series.
In other news, Pope Benedict XVI announced he was resigning the throne of St. Peter at the end of February, prompting amusing bon mots like “guess he didn’t like the car” and “didn’t know the pope could give up being pope for Lent.” I love Twitter.
Related and interesting: Atlantic Monthly’s piece about the mass media at the time of last papal resignation in 1415.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013: Holiday, Cubed. Just Add Water.
Lincoln’s Birthday:
Mardi Gras: Some people ate, drank, and made merry. And then gave it up temporarily.
State of the Union (SOTU day is a holiday. You just read that online, which means it’s true.): President Barack Obama delivered his first State of the Union of his second term in a chamber chock-full of bipartisan bonhomie (this evident by the sartorial choices of members of Congress: lavender ties, pale blue shirts with red ties, or non-partisan ties in orange (my personal favorite and yet another reason to like Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY), aqua, mint, and rose.
The full text of the speech is here. Wonkblog’s crack footnoting of the speech is here.
The 2013 SOTU speech, in my opinion, was Obama’s best yet, but then, it did contain about 80 percent of my personal policy wish-list. (Money for science and health research, lifting the minimum wage, attention to climate change, reforming the legal immigration system as well as addressing illegal immigration, repairing infrastructure, tax reform, Medicare/Medicaid reform done by changing payments instead of cutting benefits, etc.) It was lighter on foreign policy and aid for veterans than I would have liked, but I’m told that Ordinary Americans have short attention spans. The speech was an hour long and had greater density than a kitchen-table sized asteroid smacking into Russia (spoiler alert: that happened on Friday), so I’ll give it a pass for its absences since the content was otherwise so full.
On the topic of Ordinary Americans and the SOTU, however, a big, whomping “shame on you” to Chuck Todd, who tweeted this as the speech began: “@chucktodd: Am surprised POTUS is leading with deficit and sequester: if his audience is outside DC, then why not lead w/min.wage and or pre-k?” I tweeted back “@myrailey: @chucktodd Because those of us outside DC are grown-ups, too.”
Oh, Chuck Todd, if you keep up with condescending towards those of us outside the beltway, I’m going to be forced to remove you from the all-important List of Smart People at My Dream Dinner Party. And you don’t want that to happen, do you?
Just Add Water:
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) gave the official Republican response to the State of the Union. By which I actually mean “Marco Rubio drank some water.” This was followed in turn by the most exhilarating night of Twitter ever: “Somewhere in Louisiana, Bobby Jindal is laughing his ass off.” “Stay thirsty, my friends.” “He just went for the kiddie bottle of Poland Springs. I’m done.” “Looks like a drinking problem.” “Watergate.”
I love Twitter.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013:
Marco Rubio, in a lemonade moment of genius, decided to invest in water bottles.
Thursday, February 14, 2013:
Republicans in the Senate filibustered the confirmation of Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense. This was done partly to show that Tuesday night’s neckties were simply Tuesday night’s neckties and Symbolism is Dead.
“That's when you know you're living right, when you're an eighty-something percent free throw shooter and you get your own rebound. But I think he needs a haircut.” I.U. Men's Basketball Coach Tom Crean of Jordan Hulls, following the 01/12/13 game against Minnesota. Indianapolis Star.
“There are no conditions of life to which a man cannot get accustomed, especially if he sees them accepted by everyone around him.” Leo Tolstoy
“Some argue that [flat and falling wages, labor conditions, loss of well-paying "middle class" jobs, and inequality] was an unavoidable result of deeper shifts: global competition, cheap goods made in China, technological changes. Although those factors played a part, they have not been decisive. In Europe, where the same changes took place, inequality has remained much lower than in the United States. The decisive factor has been politics and public policy: tax rates, spending choices, labor laws, regulations, campaign finance rules…. Inequality hardens society into a class system, imprisoning people in the circumstances of their birth– a rebuke to the very idea of the American dream. Inequality divides us from one another in schools, in neighborhoods, at work, on airplanes, in hospitals, in what we eat, the condition of our bodies, in what we think, in our children's futures, in how we die…Inequality corrodes trust among fellow citizens, making it seem as if the game is rigged. Inequality provokes a generalized anger that finds targets where it can…Inequality saps the will to conceive of ambitious solutions to large collective problems, because those problems no longer seem very collective. Inequality undermines democracy.” George Packer, “The Broken Contract: Inequality and American Decline,” Foreign Affairs, November-December 2011. (Don't let the date on this one fool you. This is still an engrossing journal article with important things to say about what's happened in American life and what it means.)
“Government, politics, corporations, the media, organized religion, organized labor, banks, businesses, and other mainstays of a healthy society are failing…With few notable exceptions, the nation's onetime social pillars are ill-equipped for the 21st century. Most critically, they are failing to adapt quickly enough for a population buffeted by wrenching economic, technological, and demographic change.” Ron Fournier and Sophie Quinton, “In Nothing We Trust,” National Journal, April 19, 2012. (still a worthwhile and relevant read.)
“The care of human happiness, not the destruction of life, is the first and only object of good government.” Thomas Jefferson
“We, the people, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which asks only what's in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals and those who died in their defense. As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It's about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. That's what we believe.” President Barack Obama
“Going to war, being at war, should be painful for the entire country, from the start. Henceforth, when we ship the troops off to battle, let's pay for it… 'Freedom isn't free' shouldn't be a bumper sticker– it should be policy.” Rachel Maddow, Drift.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Prolonged growth in income inequality undermines the basic American belief that hard work should pay off. Anyone who contributes to the nation's economic growth should reap the benefits of that growth. But for decades now, those benefits have been skewed in favor of the wealthiest members of society.” Elizabeth McNichol, of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Indianapolis Star, “Report: Indiana's income gap is among the fastest-growing,” Maureen Groppe.
“A society is judged by how well it treats the least of its citizens, and using our resources to support families is not only a moral imperative, it is economically wise.” Shelli Yoder, who, at 43% of the vote, lost her bid for Indiana's 9th congressional district seat against the better-funded incumbent,Todd Young (R), but will hopefully run again in the next election.
President Obama “smiles when he misses [a basket]; when he makes one, he looks even more serious.” Michael Lewis, “Obama's Way,” Vanity Fair (another highly recommended read from earlier this year)
“Obama does not promise or threaten fundamental change. He personifies it. He is its product.” Dan Carpenter
“The president's campaign, if you will, focused on giving targeted groups a big gift.” Mitt Romney, considering the cause of his failed 2012 presidential bid. (Maybe it's just that the President's a better singer. No offense, Mr. Romney.)
“We've got to give our political organization a very serious proctology exam. We need to look everywhere.” Post-election Republican, erm, soul-searching by former Mississippi governor, Haley Barbour (R).
“Look, if you want voters to like you, the first thing you've got to do is to like them first. And it's certainly not helpful to tell voters that you think their votes were bought.” Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal (R) in reference to Mitt Romney's supposition that he lost because the President bought the votes of the young and minority populations.
“Teachers aren't against reform. They just don't like to be slapped around.” Jon Easter, on his Indy Democrat blog, speaking about Glenda Ritz' (D) election as the next State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Indiana.
“Educators now know in their hearts because of this election that they are respected members of their communities. When they talk, people respect their opinion.” Glenda Ritz
“Is it any worse…to leave a wounded man in battle than to have him return home and struggle alone?” Cpl. Aaron Mankin
“Our military and weapons prowess is a fantastic and perfectly weighted hammer, but that doesn't make every international problem a nail.” Rachel Maddow, Drift (Highly-recommended reading. I even added it to the Bookshelf.)
“Only an idiot would drive on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus.” Message printed on a sign a 32-year old Cleveland woman was sentenced to hold at an intersection for one hour on Tuesday, November 13 after she had, in fact, driven on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus.
Indiana Gubernatorial Race: The Emerald/Orange endorsement goes to John Gregg (D). I think he and his running mate, Vi Simpson, are more connected to this state and its interests than is opponent Mike Pence (R). Besides, the combined legislative experience of Gregg and Simpson (55 years total in the General Assembly) gives them a huge advantage in working with the legislative branch. Gregg is moderate and his policy positions are very safe. They should be appealing to a broad range of Hoosiers. Unfortunately, the Emerald/Orange prediction is that Pence and his running mate, Sue Ellspermann will win this race.
Indiana– U.S. Senate: You know, if it hadn't been for Richard Mourdock's (R) highly-publicized “God intended” statement, this race would look a lot different at this point in time. When Joe Donnelly (D) was announced as the candidate, my first thought was that West Wing quote “I wanted a Democrat. Instead I got you.” Nevertheless, the official Emerald/Orange endorsement is for Donnelly anyway; mostly because he isn't Richard Mourdock. And between Mourdock's mouth and Donnelly's conservatism, the prediction here is that Donnelly will win the seat. However, as a representative for the entire state, that's probably the best fit: we are a conservative-leaning state (no kidding) so a conservative-leaning senator is probably the right choice. Despite what the negative campaign ads tried to accomplish in linking Donnelly with “the extreme Pelosi-Obama agenda,” Donnelly prides himself on being the 6th most conservative Democrat in the House; he's quite probably the Hoosier Mean. And I think he'll be in Washington for the next 6 years.
Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction: By some happy accident, a high proportion of my friends and acquaintances are in the field of education. Most of them are non-plussed at best by incumbent Tony Bennett (R). I have listened to Tony Bennett tell both ISTA representatives and callers to a public-affairs radio program that “If you had read my dissertation, you would…” and I've heard Mr. Bennett wax hostile to educators and public education while funding in the state was cut by $300 million dollars. I have never heard Mr. Bennett (and I've listened to him with an open mind on multiple occasions) sound like his primary interest wasn't Tony Bennett. I have also never heard him throw in a couple of bars of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” which tells me he's humorless besides. So I'm endorsing Glenda Ritz (D) because she sounds like she believes in public service and public education; because she says “teachers” like they matter; and because many of my teacher friends tell me I should. Another sad prognostication here though: I'm predicting Bennett will retain his position. I'm also predicting it's going to be close and it's going to be–mostly– caused by a slew of Republican straight-ticket voters.
IN-9 U.S. House of Representatives: Surprising no one, I'm endorsing Shelli Yoder (D). I've been in agreement with her policy positions since Day One. She's intelligent, incredibly well-informed, and compassionate besides. In her debate with opponent Todd Young (R) at Franklin College, she not only emphasized her familiarity and concern with every inch and every person in the Ninth District, she fact-checked Young at every turn: if his statement was overdone, she came back with the statistic or study that corrected it; if he went for a classic Talking Point, she immediately countered with the rest of the story. Which means she knew those things. And she said repeatedly that she was going to listen to her constituents: this is a huge difference between herself and Young. Young's closing statement at that debate was to highlight that at the end of the day, he was going to vote his conscience. Fair enough, and admittedly, there's always a fine line to walk between representing the public and choosing the best policy for that public. But Young's expressed methodology of governance seems to negate the representation with a paternalistic “let me choose for you.” I don't want his conscience to be louder than the vox populi. And on the majority of things done (or not) in the House, I don't think his conscience is the best guide. I don't see that it even belongs in a discussion on tax reform or infrastructure, agriculture or energy, or any of the most common, mundane housekeeping and budgeting chores which he would be responsible for. No prediction here: I think this one's going to be close.
Indiana General Assembly, House District 93: The endorsement goes to Democrat Ryan Guillory. He's energetic and he thinks big: mass transit and pre-K education. Like Shelli Yoder, he seems to be both responsive to and genuinely interested in the actual community he's campaigning to serve. Additionally, he shows an openness and transparency about his thinking: his website has been very good at highlighting issues, saying what he wants to do, and better, explaining why. The Indiana General Assembly is a high-retention environment: it holds those that get in there for decades. I think it needs more new faces. I think at this time, it needs Ryan Guillory more than it needs 20-year incumbent David Frizzell (R). No prediction here, either: the Republican straight-party ticket scares me in this race, too.
President of the United States: Emerald/Orange endorses President Obama and Vice President Biden. But then, it's been endorsing them since it started, hasn't it? I'll keep it brief because everyone's writing about this one– and doing it better. I support the President because I think he's honest, objective, and careful. I also think he tends to govern as a mostly moderate problem-solver, especially since he's a Kenyan Muslim Socialist and all. I am voting for Obama because I believe he's unusually adept at balancing immediate necessities with long-term stability; because I believe in government, too, and I believe in good, smart government. And I think the President actually does believe that personal responsibility means nothing if people don't start on a level ground of actual opportunity and access to basic, basic things like decent, affordable education; safe food, drugs, water, and environment; fair laws that don't privilege banks over humans; and access to health care. The President emphasizes fairness and justice, as well as personal responsibility. He has shown himself to be a strong leader internationally. And I think the things people are viscerally angry about like gas prices, rising costs, stagnant economic growth, and declining wages are all conditions of a changing America and have been quietly happening for 40 years. Four years ago, I believed he was the right man for the right time and that he had the ability to be a thoughtful and capable president. That's still what I think. I don't think the country will benefit with the leadership of Mitt Romney. I don't think what America needs right now is a man who thinks $7 an hour Staples jobs are the path to greatness or that large societal problems can be solved by community and religious charity organizations alone. I don't trust a viewpoint that suggests that personal responsibility and hard work can magically solve every problem–and should. I don't want to ascertain that my milk isn't tainted with melamine and I don't want to bet that the market will do that for me. I don't want the Wall Street Masters of the Universe to bet the American house on bad cards– and do it overnight in less time than it takes to order a pizza online. I certainly don't want them to do it unchecked. See, it's in all of our interests for banks to work and to be perceived as working. “Trust me” just isn't an adequate plan: not for financial institutions, not for a president. Of the two candidates, I think one of them agrees with that. I think one of them understands that these beliefs and policies and positions can build or destroy lives, can build or insidiously destroy a country's welfare. And I think one of them just wants to be president to be president. He's not the one I'll be voting for. No prediction here, either. I'm just praying Nate Silver is right again.
Et Cetera, Et Cetera, Etc (or, as it's sometimes inexplicably seen around town, “ect”):
Indiana State Congressional District 58
Prediction: Incumbent Woody Burton (R) will win this race. It's a lock. There's no opponent. But Emerald/Orange is going to go crazy and endorse her author-owner-operator. Yes, folks, the official Emerald/Orange endorsement is for…me. I'm writing myself in (maybe) — not because I think I'm the best candidate. The best candidate is out there somewhere but (a) I don't know them personally yet and (b) they're sitting this one out, apparently. So, I'm endorsing myself as a write-in because here's what I'd get to work on in the Indiana General Assembly if I were going to be sworn-in to office in January:
