12/30/10
So far, my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and its sequel, The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, have attracted a wide variety of readers, from those who are hard core Chicago politics enthusiasts to those from out of town who want to learn more about the politics of our town to those who care not a whit about politics but enjoy a good story well told. I am grateful for all my readers and am delighted that the books appeal to an audience with a wide range of interests.
Those readers who have strong backgrounds in the politics of the world’s most interesting political town have told me that, as they read the books, they enjoyed trying to determine who the fictional characters in the books are intended to represent. As I have said before, most saliently perhaps in my 10/16/10 post, ED VRDOLYAK, MEET EAMON DEVALERA COLLINS, while this exercise is engaging, even stimulating, it is ultimately futile because there is no character in either book who is a fictionalized version of one real person. All my characters, even those few who, on the surface, might seem transparent depictions of actual live people, are amalgams of real actors, incorporating characteristics, positive and negative, from ranges of the denizens of the politics of my home town.
Note that the characters in the Chairman series, though, are amalgams of current or past characters. Though I am a good writer and an avid observer of the local political scene, I don’t give myself credit for being able to predict the future, or at least not with any degree of accuracy. However, readers may ascribe to me such powers of prescience if Rahm Emanuel fulfills the fervent hopes of the local and national media and becomes mayor of Chicago. Why? Note that in my 12/23/10 post “…AH, MERCY, MERCY ME, AH, THINGS AREN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE…”, I referred to Mr. Emanuel as “…the epitome and standard-bearer of the ‘I know everything because I just moved to town from the North Shore’ vote.” Those of you who have read the first book know that description matches Tom Dempsey to a tee, except that Mr. Dempsey had spent more time in town than Mr. Emanuel before rising to prominence in the city’s political power structure.
So is Rahm Emanuel Tom Dempsey? Of course not; The Chairman was written long before Mr. Emanuel made even the faintest of noises regarding his desire to run for mayor and, again, even if that had not been the case, all characters in my books are fictional and none is based on only one living person. But the resemblance of Mr. Emanuel to Mr. Dempsey is uncanny, even to Mr. Dempsey’s creator.
The more interesting question is whether Mr. Emanuel will meet Mr. Dempsey’s fate, broadly speaking. First, of course, Mr. Emanuel will have to become mayor. Though this outcome is far more probable than I had once thought (See, inter alia, my 9/7/10 piece, “LONG LIVE THE KING!”), it is not, despite the fervent and breathless cheerleading described as “observation” and “commentary” among the local and national media and the backing of the Daley family, anything approaching a foregone conclusion; don’t believe everything you read. Second, the guys who run the strong ward organizations in this town would have to have a few aces remaining up their sleeves, even after having been defeated or dealt into emasculation by the Emanuel forces, to be able to do to Mr. Emanuel what Chairman Eamon DeValera Collins did to Tom Dempsey. While the ward guys aren’t what they used to be, they still have a great deal of influence in this town, as evidenced by the landslide election of Joe Berrios to the Assessor’s office (See, inter alia, my 11/2/10 piece, SAY IT’S SO, JOE.), and Mr. Emanuel matches Mr. Dempsey in hubris, ego, certitude, and ingenuousness, the last at least about the politics of this town. Consequently, if Mr. Emanuel does become mayor, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics, may turn out to be more than insightful, informative, and entertaining; it might turn out to be prophetic.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
“BEAUTIFUL HOME IN THE COUNTRY, UPSTAIRS AND DOWN. BEER FLOWING THROUGH THE ESTATE OVER YOUR GRANDMOTHER’S PAISLY SHAWL...”
12/30/10
Yesterday’s (i.e., Tuesday, 12/29’s, page A4) Wall Street Journal treated its readers to the tale of a 27 year old real estate “investor” who decided to walk away from his under-water mortgage loan despite his having had, according to him, “no difficulty paying the $5,000 monthly mortgage on the three-bedroom unit in a gated complex with a gym and a pool.” Walking away was “…a no-brainer, once you do the math,” this wunderkind proclaimed.
One supposes that if one were to dispense with the ethics of the situation and look at things from a completely amoral, or worse, financial perspective, stiffing the other side of a completely voluntary transaction would be a “no brainer.” But this piece is not being written to opine on the ethics of abandoning one’s obligations when it becomes financially advantageous to do so. As usual, I see an angle on this story that most don’t. The real estate “investor” who is the subject of this article
…runs an investment firm that buys up foreclosed properties and resells them. He said he realized months ago his home would take years to recover its value but decided only six weeks ago to stop making payments.
This same savvy real estate “investor” bought his own home, the condo on which he stiffed his lender, for $875,000 four years ago with $90,000 down (which probably seemed like a gargantuan down payment during those excerebrose years in real estate, but I digress). The home is now worth about $450,000.
Hmm…
The guy top-ticks the market, takes a 50% hit, and only realizes the gravity of the situation “months” ago, yet still has the audacity (or mental paucity) to call himself a real estate “investor.” Given this level of acumen in the real estate “investor” “profession,” is there any wonder that we wound up in the financial soup in which we continue to swim?
And one more thought…
The guys who call themselves stock “investors” are now almost unanimously proclaiming that the stock market, after a “spectacular” 13% year (S&P 500) in 2010, is the only place to be in 2011. Why, they assure us, why get nothing on your cash when you can earn a 2% dividend along with all the upside potential of the stock market? When you hear such advice, please remember the degree of expertise implied by the moniker “investor,” whether that noun be modified by the (in this case) adjective “stock” or “real estate.”
Yesterday’s (i.e., Tuesday, 12/29’s, page A4) Wall Street Journal treated its readers to the tale of a 27 year old real estate “investor” who decided to walk away from his under-water mortgage loan despite his having had, according to him, “no difficulty paying the $5,000 monthly mortgage on the three-bedroom unit in a gated complex with a gym and a pool.” Walking away was “…a no-brainer, once you do the math,” this wunderkind proclaimed.
One supposes that if one were to dispense with the ethics of the situation and look at things from a completely amoral, or worse, financial perspective, stiffing the other side of a completely voluntary transaction would be a “no brainer.” But this piece is not being written to opine on the ethics of abandoning one’s obligations when it becomes financially advantageous to do so. As usual, I see an angle on this story that most don’t. The real estate “investor” who is the subject of this article
…runs an investment firm that buys up foreclosed properties and resells them. He said he realized months ago his home would take years to recover its value but decided only six weeks ago to stop making payments.
This same savvy real estate “investor” bought his own home, the condo on which he stiffed his lender, for $875,000 four years ago with $90,000 down (which probably seemed like a gargantuan down payment during those excerebrose years in real estate, but I digress). The home is now worth about $450,000.
Hmm…
The guy top-ticks the market, takes a 50% hit, and only realizes the gravity of the situation “months” ago, yet still has the audacity (or mental paucity) to call himself a real estate “investor.” Given this level of acumen in the real estate “investor” “profession,” is there any wonder that we wound up in the financial soup in which we continue to swim?
And one more thought…
The guys who call themselves stock “investors” are now almost unanimously proclaiming that the stock market, after a “spectacular” 13% year (S&P 500) in 2010, is the only place to be in 2011. Why, they assure us, why get nothing on your cash when you can earn a 2% dividend along with all the upside potential of the stock market? When you hear such advice, please remember the degree of expertise implied by the moniker “investor,” whether that noun be modified by the (in this case) adjective “stock” or “real estate.”
Thursday, December 23, 2010
“…AH, MERCY, MERCY ME, AH, THINGS AREN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE…”
12/23/10
Two developments in the Chicago mayor’s race that could conceivably be called big, but neither of which came as a surprise to readers of the Insightful Pontificator, came to fruition today.
First, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners ratified the decision by hearing officer Joe Morris that where Rahm Emanuel lived for the last few years had nothing to do with his residency during that time period. While this development might seem important to the casual or uninformed observer (e.g., national political experts who have suddenly decided that they have, seemingly through osmosis, learned something about the politics of my home town and/or those who don’t read the Insightful Pontificator), this story was completely anticipated by readers of the right material (See, inter alia, my 12/17 post HOME, HOME ON HERMITAGE AVENUE, my 12/7/10 post MAYBE HE DIDN’T “FINISH WITH THE FOOTBALL,” and my 9/10/10 post PRESCIENT MR. PONTIFICATOR? NOT YET.) and is only the first, or maybe the second, round of deliberations on Mr. Emanuel’s residency. If the Board’s decision is reversed at some level of the courts, it will come as a surprise and/or indicate that maybe Ed Burke has more clout in the courts than I, but not some others, had supposed. The likely outcome is that, in the rabbit hole logic of politics in this town, where Rahm lived had no bearing on his residency. How this will sit with Chicago firefighters and police officers, who already have little love for Mr. Emanuel’s most salient local patron and who must live in the city or else, is another issue that may be explored in a future post on the Pontificator.
Today’s more interesting development was the Reverend Senator James Meeks’ dropping out of the race for mayor. Again, my readers anticipated this development (See, inter alia, my 12/17/10 piece THE MAN’S NAME BELIES HIM and my 11/25/10 piece “OPEN THE DOOR, RICHARD!”.). Senator Meeks, nobody’s fool, realized two things. First, as long as three black candidates remained in the race, no black candidate was going to make it past the February preliminaries. Second, given his tendency to speak his mind and his unwillingness to ditch principle for political expediency, the chances of Reverend Meeks’ advancing beyond his very safe senate seat were minimal. And so he did the right thing and dropped out, as he earlier dropped out of a race for governor after cutting a flimsy, and soon forgotten, “deal” with Rod Blagojevich.
But this leaves two viable black candidates, former U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun and Congressman Danny Davis. One of the city’s foremost political columnists is of the opinion that Ms. Braun is a mere stooge of the Daley family, citing as evidence her having hired Daley pal Victor Reyes and, curiously, from an evidential standpoint, Mike Madigan associate Mike Noonan to run her campaign. (There are less sinister explanations for these hires. For example, Victor Reyes is a political consultant, it’s an election year, and Ms. Braun was willing to hire him. While Mr. Reyes may have preferred to work for someone with better credit than Ms. Braun, political consultants have a limited market and when an opportunity arises, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to turn it down waiting for something better that may never come along. Similarly, Mike Noonan has done work for Mike Madigan but also has done work for other clients (I believe Mr. Noonan is a lawyer as well as a political operative.). That hardly makes him a Madigan stooge, or even a Madigan protégé. Further, why hiring a Madigan guy would be evidence that one is a Daley stooge is beyond me. But I digress.) If Carol Moseley Braun is a pawn of the Daley family and the Daleys are solidly behind Emanuel, what Braun does depends on what Rahm Emanuel wants. If Mr. Emanuel thinks a one-on-one vs. Gery Chico is the way to go, a dubious proposition (See, again, my 11/25/10 piece “OPEN THE DOOR, RICHARD!”.), Ms. Braun will stay in the race to assure that the black vote is split and Gery Chico thus makes it to the run-off. If Rahm Emanuel decides that he would rather go one-on-one against a black candidate, thinking that the dazzling self-styled urbanite portion of the old Washington coalition, Mr. Emanuel’s natural constituency, is in his pocket, thus making it impossible for a black candidate to win, then Ms. Braun will drop out, giving Danny Davis an excellent chance to make it to April to face Mr. Emanuel one-on-one.
Not being one of those who believe that Ms. Braun is a Daley pawn but that she is, rather, a misguided egotist whose election would prove nothing so saliently as that the voters are a pack of idiots, I don’t know what she will do. But it is clear that Danny Davis is the most viable black candidate for mayor. One can argue, with more than a little merit, that Mr. Davis has a sporadic, but always opportunistic, background, that he is a man of little achievement, and that he is evidence of the victory of style over substance that so characterizes our modern society. But one could have made the same arguments, with at least equal legitimacy, about Harold Washington in 1983.
That having been said, what I alluded to two paragraphs ago bears repeating. Harold Washington was elected mayor because he could unite the black vote with the “I know everything because I just moved to town from the North Shore” vote that tends to congregate along the lakefront from downtown north to the Evanston border. He also managed to attract some Hispanic votes, but far more in 1987 than 1983. The aforementioned self-styled urbanite vote this year will be in Rahm Emanuel’s pocket; after all, he is the epitome and standard-bearer of the “I know everything because I just moved to town from the North Shore” vote. Thus, it will be difficult for any black candidate to win, unless he can draw a substantial chunk of the Hispanic vote and/or persuade white voters on the city’s geographical fringes to support him, the former more likely than the latter, but neither very likely. Therefore, it would seem that Gery Chico would still be the more formidable challenger in April, and, consequently, that Mr. Emanuel should prefer Mr. Davis to Mr. Chico as an opponent in the Spring. Thus, if the columnist to whom I alluded to earlier is correct in his argument that the Daleys have planted Ms. Braun in the race to split the black vote for Mr. Emanuel, perhaps she will be, er, encouraged to drop out when Mr. Emanuel and his backers realize that Mr. Davis will be easier to beat than Mr. Chico.
However…
Since, as of 5:00 this evening, both Mr. Davis and Ms. Braun remain in the race, even if one drops out now his or her name will remain on the ballot. And you can count on either thus drawing plenty of votes even if s/he has pulled out of the race. It is never advisable to bet too heavily on the typical voter’s being sufficiently on the ball to know who is in the race and who is not.
So the only thing that one can say in the wake of these developments is that this race for mayor is truly one for the ages.
Two developments in the Chicago mayor’s race that could conceivably be called big, but neither of which came as a surprise to readers of the Insightful Pontificator, came to fruition today.
First, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners ratified the decision by hearing officer Joe Morris that where Rahm Emanuel lived for the last few years had nothing to do with his residency during that time period. While this development might seem important to the casual or uninformed observer (e.g., national political experts who have suddenly decided that they have, seemingly through osmosis, learned something about the politics of my home town and/or those who don’t read the Insightful Pontificator), this story was completely anticipated by readers of the right material (See, inter alia, my 12/17 post HOME, HOME ON HERMITAGE AVENUE, my 12/7/10 post MAYBE HE DIDN’T “FINISH WITH THE FOOTBALL,” and my 9/10/10 post PRESCIENT MR. PONTIFICATOR? NOT YET.) and is only the first, or maybe the second, round of deliberations on Mr. Emanuel’s residency. If the Board’s decision is reversed at some level of the courts, it will come as a surprise and/or indicate that maybe Ed Burke has more clout in the courts than I, but not some others, had supposed. The likely outcome is that, in the rabbit hole logic of politics in this town, where Rahm lived had no bearing on his residency. How this will sit with Chicago firefighters and police officers, who already have little love for Mr. Emanuel’s most salient local patron and who must live in the city or else, is another issue that may be explored in a future post on the Pontificator.
Today’s more interesting development was the Reverend Senator James Meeks’ dropping out of the race for mayor. Again, my readers anticipated this development (See, inter alia, my 12/17/10 piece THE MAN’S NAME BELIES HIM and my 11/25/10 piece “OPEN THE DOOR, RICHARD!”.). Senator Meeks, nobody’s fool, realized two things. First, as long as three black candidates remained in the race, no black candidate was going to make it past the February preliminaries. Second, given his tendency to speak his mind and his unwillingness to ditch principle for political expediency, the chances of Reverend Meeks’ advancing beyond his very safe senate seat were minimal. And so he did the right thing and dropped out, as he earlier dropped out of a race for governor after cutting a flimsy, and soon forgotten, “deal” with Rod Blagojevich.
But this leaves two viable black candidates, former U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun and Congressman Danny Davis. One of the city’s foremost political columnists is of the opinion that Ms. Braun is a mere stooge of the Daley family, citing as evidence her having hired Daley pal Victor Reyes and, curiously, from an evidential standpoint, Mike Madigan associate Mike Noonan to run her campaign. (There are less sinister explanations for these hires. For example, Victor Reyes is a political consultant, it’s an election year, and Ms. Braun was willing to hire him. While Mr. Reyes may have preferred to work for someone with better credit than Ms. Braun, political consultants have a limited market and when an opportunity arises, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to turn it down waiting for something better that may never come along. Similarly, Mike Noonan has done work for Mike Madigan but also has done work for other clients (I believe Mr. Noonan is a lawyer as well as a political operative.). That hardly makes him a Madigan stooge, or even a Madigan protégé. Further, why hiring a Madigan guy would be evidence that one is a Daley stooge is beyond me. But I digress.) If Carol Moseley Braun is a pawn of the Daley family and the Daleys are solidly behind Emanuel, what Braun does depends on what Rahm Emanuel wants. If Mr. Emanuel thinks a one-on-one vs. Gery Chico is the way to go, a dubious proposition (See, again, my 11/25/10 piece “OPEN THE DOOR, RICHARD!”.), Ms. Braun will stay in the race to assure that the black vote is split and Gery Chico thus makes it to the run-off. If Rahm Emanuel decides that he would rather go one-on-one against a black candidate, thinking that the dazzling self-styled urbanite portion of the old Washington coalition, Mr. Emanuel’s natural constituency, is in his pocket, thus making it impossible for a black candidate to win, then Ms. Braun will drop out, giving Danny Davis an excellent chance to make it to April to face Mr. Emanuel one-on-one.
Not being one of those who believe that Ms. Braun is a Daley pawn but that she is, rather, a misguided egotist whose election would prove nothing so saliently as that the voters are a pack of idiots, I don’t know what she will do. But it is clear that Danny Davis is the most viable black candidate for mayor. One can argue, with more than a little merit, that Mr. Davis has a sporadic, but always opportunistic, background, that he is a man of little achievement, and that he is evidence of the victory of style over substance that so characterizes our modern society. But one could have made the same arguments, with at least equal legitimacy, about Harold Washington in 1983.
That having been said, what I alluded to two paragraphs ago bears repeating. Harold Washington was elected mayor because he could unite the black vote with the “I know everything because I just moved to town from the North Shore” vote that tends to congregate along the lakefront from downtown north to the Evanston border. He also managed to attract some Hispanic votes, but far more in 1987 than 1983. The aforementioned self-styled urbanite vote this year will be in Rahm Emanuel’s pocket; after all, he is the epitome and standard-bearer of the “I know everything because I just moved to town from the North Shore” vote. Thus, it will be difficult for any black candidate to win, unless he can draw a substantial chunk of the Hispanic vote and/or persuade white voters on the city’s geographical fringes to support him, the former more likely than the latter, but neither very likely. Therefore, it would seem that Gery Chico would still be the more formidable challenger in April, and, consequently, that Mr. Emanuel should prefer Mr. Davis to Mr. Chico as an opponent in the Spring. Thus, if the columnist to whom I alluded to earlier is correct in his argument that the Daleys have planted Ms. Braun in the race to split the black vote for Mr. Emanuel, perhaps she will be, er, encouraged to drop out when Mr. Emanuel and his backers realize that Mr. Davis will be easier to beat than Mr. Chico.
However…
Since, as of 5:00 this evening, both Mr. Davis and Ms. Braun remain in the race, even if one drops out now his or her name will remain on the ballot. And you can count on either thus drawing plenty of votes even if s/he has pulled out of the race. It is never advisable to bet too heavily on the typical voter’s being sufficiently on the ball to know who is in the race and who is not.
So the only thing that one can say in the wake of these developments is that this race for mayor is truly one for the ages.
Friday, December 17, 2010
QUINN’S BOOKS ALSO AVAILABLE AT THE IRISH BOOK CLUB
12/17/10
I neglected to mention in my last post that both my books are available through the Irish Book Club at
http://www.theirishbookclub.com/
This is a great site for Irish, and non-Irish, authors and readers.
Thanks.
I neglected to mention in my last post that both my books are available through the Irish Book Club at
http://www.theirishbookclub.com/
This is a great site for Irish, and non-Irish, authors and readers.
Thanks.
THE CHAIRMAN’S CHALLENGE NOW AVAILABLE AT ANDERSON’S IN NAPERVILLE, AND A BOOK SIGNING IS COMING SOON
12/17/10
My second novel, The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, is now in stock at Anderson’s Book Shop in downtown Naperville. And…
I am doing a book signing at Anderson’s on Saturday, February 19 at 2:00 P.M. I’ll provide more information as that date approaches, but please mark your calendars.
I have now spoken to a host of people who have read both The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and its sequel, The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics. To a person, they have liked the sequel more for a number of reasons—tighter plot, toned down vocabulary, more suspense, stronger female characters, etc. Judging from their reaction to the first book, I think their feelings regarding the relative merits of the two books says more about the sequel than the original. I think I’ve really got a winner on my hands in The Chairman’s Challenge, but I will personally always like The Chairman more.
Both books remain in stock at Bookie’s on 103rd and Artesian in West Beverly in Chicago. It is immensely gratifying to have both books in my two “home town” independent book stores.
Also, both books remain available at Amazon.com and at virtually any online outlet and can be ordered anywhere books are sold. The distribution of the sequel, for a number of reasons, is slightly wider than that of the original.
Remember, books make great gifts at this time, or any, time of the year.
My second novel, The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, is now in stock at Anderson’s Book Shop in downtown Naperville. And…
I am doing a book signing at Anderson’s on Saturday, February 19 at 2:00 P.M. I’ll provide more information as that date approaches, but please mark your calendars.
I have now spoken to a host of people who have read both The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and its sequel, The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics. To a person, they have liked the sequel more for a number of reasons—tighter plot, toned down vocabulary, more suspense, stronger female characters, etc. Judging from their reaction to the first book, I think their feelings regarding the relative merits of the two books says more about the sequel than the original. I think I’ve really got a winner on my hands in The Chairman’s Challenge, but I will personally always like The Chairman more.
Both books remain in stock at Bookie’s on 103rd and Artesian in West Beverly in Chicago. It is immensely gratifying to have both books in my two “home town” independent book stores.
Also, both books remain available at Amazon.com and at virtually any online outlet and can be ordered anywhere books are sold. The distribution of the sequel, for a number of reasons, is slightly wider than that of the original.
Remember, books make great gifts at this time, or any, time of the year.
THE MAN’S NAME BELIES HIM
12/17/10
Yesterday, Reverend and State Senator James Meeks once again inserted his foot in his mouth by saying on WVON, an historically black radio station (The “VON” in WVON stands for “Voice of the Negro,” the name given the station at its inception, long before the term “Negro” acquired its negative connotation.), regarding minority set-asides in city contracts:
“The word ‘minority,’ from our standpoint, should mean ‘African-American.’ I don’t think women, Asians, and Hispanics should be able to use that title.”
Leaving aside entirely the merits of minority set-asides and the merit of the government’s deciding who is a minority and who isn’t, this isn’t the kind of thing one says when one is running for mayor of perhaps the most multi-ethnic city in the world. Part of the art (or the flim-flam) of politics is not feeling the need to say what one really thinks on every issue. This is one of the reasons yours truly will never be a politician, let alone a successful politician, but I digress.
I said in my 11/25/10 piece “OPEN THE DOOR, RICHARD!” that if I were Rahm Emanuel, I would most want to run against James Meeks, mostly because Mr. Meeks, regardless of his many merits and his readily apparent qualifications to run our fair city, has made far too many enemies among the city’s various interest groups because of his insistence on not only standing on principle but on leaving no principle unverbalized. This quality was once again on abundant display on WVON.
Most everyone agrees, and, in this case, “everyone” is uncharacteristically right, that if a Black candidate is to make it to the April run-off, two of the three serious Black candidates (Reverend Meeks, Danny Davis, and Carol Moseley Braun) have to drop out of the race. This incident is just the latest evidence for the argument that James Meeks should be the first to go. It is unfortunate when standing on one’s principles is a bar to high public office, but politics is a cockeyed business that has little room for people who consider beliefs more than convenient, and eminently disposable, props to be used on one’s relentless pursuit of self-aggrandizement.
Yesterday, Reverend and State Senator James Meeks once again inserted his foot in his mouth by saying on WVON, an historically black radio station (The “VON” in WVON stands for “Voice of the Negro,” the name given the station at its inception, long before the term “Negro” acquired its negative connotation.), regarding minority set-asides in city contracts:
“The word ‘minority,’ from our standpoint, should mean ‘African-American.’ I don’t think women, Asians, and Hispanics should be able to use that title.”
Leaving aside entirely the merits of minority set-asides and the merit of the government’s deciding who is a minority and who isn’t, this isn’t the kind of thing one says when one is running for mayor of perhaps the most multi-ethnic city in the world. Part of the art (or the flim-flam) of politics is not feeling the need to say what one really thinks on every issue. This is one of the reasons yours truly will never be a politician, let alone a successful politician, but I digress.
I said in my 11/25/10 piece “OPEN THE DOOR, RICHARD!” that if I were Rahm Emanuel, I would most want to run against James Meeks, mostly because Mr. Meeks, regardless of his many merits and his readily apparent qualifications to run our fair city, has made far too many enemies among the city’s various interest groups because of his insistence on not only standing on principle but on leaving no principle unverbalized. This quality was once again on abundant display on WVON.
Most everyone agrees, and, in this case, “everyone” is uncharacteristically right, that if a Black candidate is to make it to the April run-off, two of the three serious Black candidates (Reverend Meeks, Danny Davis, and Carol Moseley Braun) have to drop out of the race. This incident is just the latest evidence for the argument that James Meeks should be the first to go. It is unfortunate when standing on one’s principles is a bar to high public office, but politics is a cockeyed business that has little room for people who consider beliefs more than convenient, and eminently disposable, props to be used on one’s relentless pursuit of self-aggrandizement.
HOME, HOME ON HERMITAGE AVENUE
12/17/10
After the circus that the hearings on Rahm Emanuel’s residency became, I am confident that hearing officer Joe Morris will make a reasoned and sound recommendation to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners regarding Mr. Emanuel’s residency. Back in the ‘90s, I knew Joe Morris reasonably well. We were both involved in the City Club of Chicago and on several occasions appeared together as panelists on a political talk show on WLS. Joe’s politics was somewhat similar to mine (clearly more so back then), his vocabulary was even more similar to mine, and we got along well. One thing that immediately struck me, and has struck everyone else, about Joe Morris is his fairness and reasonableness. So, like everyone, I expect Joe will come up with an eminently fair and reasonable recommendation, especially since he, as a conservative Republican, has no dog in the mayoral fight, so to speak, unless one is to assume that Joe either is a supporter of James Meeks because of his views on education and his conservative outlook on social issues or that Joe is an opponent of Emanuel out of the knee-jerk hatred of Emanuel that characterizes most of those in his party. The first is possible, the second notion is laughable to those who know Joe Morris, and, in any case, Joe’s integrity will override whatever ideological or political feelings he may have.
Yet something came out at these hearings that altered my outlook regarding Rahm Emanuel’s residency. I have said in the past (See, inter alia, my 12/7/10 post MAYBE HE DIDN’T “FINISH WITH THE FOOTBALL” and my 9/10/10 post PRESCIENT MR. PONTIFICATOR? NOT YET.) that one of the reasons that residency will be a problem for Mr. Emanuel is that, as a smart and careful guy, he has to have thought of this issue before leaving his real home, Washington, D.C., to plunge into the mayor’s race in his city of political convenience. But at the hearing, Kevin Forde, one of Emanuel’s phalanx of attorneys, said that Mr. Emanuel was shocked to learn there could be a controversy about his residence and
“The reason he is shocked is because he did understand the residency requirement.”
Mr. Emanuel was shocked that there would be a controversy about his residency because he did understand the residency requirement? Clearly, he didn’t understand the requirement if he thought his living in Washington for at least the last two years wouldn’t be a problem. And if he was so confident that he understood the requirement, perhaps he didn’t think about it all that much before making the plunge into the mayor’s race into his sort of home town.
I still don’t think any of this will matter, though. The powers that be seem to have decided that Mr. Emanuel’s not having been a resident in Chicago has no bearing on his being a resident. Somewhere along the way, probably at some level in the courts, this decision will be ratified and Mr. Emanuel will be allowed to run.
One could add to the last sentence “…as he should be.” I’m not the first to say this, but the residency rule doesn’t make much sense. Why shouldn’t non-residents be allowed to run? If non-residency bothers the voters that much, they can vote against a candidate who is a non-resident. I suspect that most non-residents would be the victims of such a de facto disqualification from holding local office. But it doesn’t make sense to keep them off the ballot entirely.
Still, the law’s the law and the law in Chicago says you have to be a resident of the city of Chicago to run for office on Chicago. Unless, apparently, you are Rahm Emanuel and you have slavish, completely in the tank for you fans in the media and friends among a certain family whose historic residency in Bridgeport has never been questioned.
After the circus that the hearings on Rahm Emanuel’s residency became, I am confident that hearing officer Joe Morris will make a reasoned and sound recommendation to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners regarding Mr. Emanuel’s residency. Back in the ‘90s, I knew Joe Morris reasonably well. We were both involved in the City Club of Chicago and on several occasions appeared together as panelists on a political talk show on WLS. Joe’s politics was somewhat similar to mine (clearly more so back then), his vocabulary was even more similar to mine, and we got along well. One thing that immediately struck me, and has struck everyone else, about Joe Morris is his fairness and reasonableness. So, like everyone, I expect Joe will come up with an eminently fair and reasonable recommendation, especially since he, as a conservative Republican, has no dog in the mayoral fight, so to speak, unless one is to assume that Joe either is a supporter of James Meeks because of his views on education and his conservative outlook on social issues or that Joe is an opponent of Emanuel out of the knee-jerk hatred of Emanuel that characterizes most of those in his party. The first is possible, the second notion is laughable to those who know Joe Morris, and, in any case, Joe’s integrity will override whatever ideological or political feelings he may have.
Yet something came out at these hearings that altered my outlook regarding Rahm Emanuel’s residency. I have said in the past (See, inter alia, my 12/7/10 post MAYBE HE DIDN’T “FINISH WITH THE FOOTBALL” and my 9/10/10 post PRESCIENT MR. PONTIFICATOR? NOT YET.) that one of the reasons that residency will be a problem for Mr. Emanuel is that, as a smart and careful guy, he has to have thought of this issue before leaving his real home, Washington, D.C., to plunge into the mayor’s race in his city of political convenience. But at the hearing, Kevin Forde, one of Emanuel’s phalanx of attorneys, said that Mr. Emanuel was shocked to learn there could be a controversy about his residence and
“The reason he is shocked is because he did understand the residency requirement.”
Mr. Emanuel was shocked that there would be a controversy about his residency because he did understand the residency requirement? Clearly, he didn’t understand the requirement if he thought his living in Washington for at least the last two years wouldn’t be a problem. And if he was so confident that he understood the requirement, perhaps he didn’t think about it all that much before making the plunge into the mayor’s race into his sort of home town.
I still don’t think any of this will matter, though. The powers that be seem to have decided that Mr. Emanuel’s not having been a resident in Chicago has no bearing on his being a resident. Somewhere along the way, probably at some level in the courts, this decision will be ratified and Mr. Emanuel will be allowed to run.
One could add to the last sentence “…as he should be.” I’m not the first to say this, but the residency rule doesn’t make much sense. Why shouldn’t non-residents be allowed to run? If non-residency bothers the voters that much, they can vote against a candidate who is a non-resident. I suspect that most non-residents would be the victims of such a de facto disqualification from holding local office. But it doesn’t make sense to keep them off the ballot entirely.
Still, the law’s the law and the law in Chicago says you have to be a resident of the city of Chicago to run for office on Chicago. Unless, apparently, you are Rahm Emanuel and you have slavish, completely in the tank for you fans in the media and friends among a certain family whose historic residency in Bridgeport has never been questioned.
FINANCIAL POSEURS OF THE WORLD…UNITE!
12/17/10
The Wall Street Journal’s coverage today (Friday, 12/17, page A8) of the ongoing machinations of the eurozone countries in their efforts to save their tattered currency union contained a succinct and useful summary of three alternative solutions to problems presented by euronations’ on the financial and geographic fringes of the zone getting themselves into big trouble and expecting Uncles Wolfy and Pierre to ride to their rescue. The Journal listed the merits and demerits of a closer fiscal union, the abandoment of the euro, at least on the part of some of its current users, and a debt restructuring under which some of the bondholders might have to (sniff, sniff) lose some money. As on most things, I have some of my own opinions on these alternatives.
Closer fiscal union, a small step on the very slippery slope to a common fiscal policy, would make some sense if it amounted to the Germans and, to a lesser extent, the French, managing fiscal policy for the entire continent. I wouldn’t mind seeing the Germans take responsibility for American fiscal policy, but that is another matter, and a digressive one at that. However, such a fiscal union would amount to fiscal policy by a committee composed of representatives from each of a group of widely disparate economies, financial systems, and cultres. This would be a nightmare of desultory and discordant didacticism and debauchery in which nothing is accomplished and nobody learns anything. Even if a common fiscal policy were to amount to the Germans managing everyone’s budgets, most eurozonites would not go for such a deal for obvious political reasons; two wars have been fought within the last hundred years over the principles involved in such a plan. So this idea would probably is a nonstarter.
I have likened abandoning the euro to trying to extract the ingredients from cake batter. (See my 5/16/10 piece “JOEY, YOU GOT THAT LITTLE OLD DIME AND I GOT THIS BIG OLD NICKEL. BUT HERE’S WHAT I’M GONNA DO FOR YA…”). The problems would be myriad: contracts written in euros would have to be renegotiated or become virtually worthless, the new drachmas, punts, pesetas, etc. would be greeted with the same enthusiasm as the bedding of those who suffered from the Plague, one of the eurozone’s earlier bearers of travail and misfortune. Germany, an economy built on exports, would find its currency so strong as to put a serious crimp into its prosperity and its very economic model, etc. Despite its precipitous downsides, abandonment of the euro, either by the fringe countries or by all euro nations, would have the virtue of reuniting those natural partners, monetary and fiscal policy. And one currency for such a widely disparate group of countries (Those who think that our generation has the wisdom to transcend the petty and excerebrose quarrels and jealousies of our benighted ancestors might find this hard to believe, but not everything can be solved and all differences cannot be transcended by money and technology, nor should they necessarily be. And, again, Europe is a continent that has hosted the planet’s most execrable wars for the last four centuries or so. Those wars weren’t fought over nothing. But I digress.) makes little sense. So the euro is probably doomed for the long run, but the long run may not come in this instance for a very, very long time.
The third alternative, debt restructuring, or outright default, makes the most sense. Yes, the costs will be high and the eurozone countries themselves, primarily through their banks, will be the greatest victims of such an default. But that is the way the world should work; one, whether one is a country, an institution, or an individual, should bear responsibility for one’s actions; that way, one is provided a severe disincentive to engage in foolishness and irresponsibility. If one expects others to bear the responsibility for his misdeeds, and those expectations are met, one will continue in his misdeeds to the ruin of both himself and his ostensible saviors.
Some will wail that, should one eurouser default, bondholders and other creditors will abandon all those countries that sell debt denominated in euros, or at least will prematurely punish some euroissuers out of fear that they will soon catch the europlague. This is nonsense, or at least it ought to be. The bonds in question are held primarily by institutions that pay people huge money to analyze and price credit. These so-called financial professionals make fabulous livings ostensibly to make reasoned, intelligent decisions, not to assume that all eurodebt is created equal and to panic like small children at the first sign of trouble. We can get people to make such assumptions, and perform in such childish ways, for a lot less money than what these institutions are paying these poltroons. Indeed, if such a default, or at least a negotiated restructuring, were allowed to take place, the really smart financial people, those who genuinely earn their money by being clever and hardworking enough to make distinctions between the merits of various debtors, will be presented with an enormous basket of opportunities to enrich themselves by exploiting the panicky behavior of the poseurs whose only discernible ability is that of being able to hoist an enormous pay check while lording it over those who don’t have the connections to have been rewarded such a lifelong sinecure. Indeed, if an economy, global or otherwise, is to work efficiently, the smart people ought to be able to make huge fortunes exploiting the opportunities presented by the market imbalances presented by the pretenders and fakers. But the euroministers have been cowed into swearing up and down that such a default will not be allowed for fear of panicking the denizens of the financial world who seem to believe that socialism is only a failed system for the poor and the working class, that socialism works just fine for the well-heeled.
The Wall Street Journal’s coverage today (Friday, 12/17, page A8) of the ongoing machinations of the eurozone countries in their efforts to save their tattered currency union contained a succinct and useful summary of three alternative solutions to problems presented by euronations’ on the financial and geographic fringes of the zone getting themselves into big trouble and expecting Uncles Wolfy and Pierre to ride to their rescue. The Journal listed the merits and demerits of a closer fiscal union, the abandoment of the euro, at least on the part of some of its current users, and a debt restructuring under which some of the bondholders might have to (sniff, sniff) lose some money. As on most things, I have some of my own opinions on these alternatives.
Closer fiscal union, a small step on the very slippery slope to a common fiscal policy, would make some sense if it amounted to the Germans and, to a lesser extent, the French, managing fiscal policy for the entire continent. I wouldn’t mind seeing the Germans take responsibility for American fiscal policy, but that is another matter, and a digressive one at that. However, such a fiscal union would amount to fiscal policy by a committee composed of representatives from each of a group of widely disparate economies, financial systems, and cultres. This would be a nightmare of desultory and discordant didacticism and debauchery in which nothing is accomplished and nobody learns anything. Even if a common fiscal policy were to amount to the Germans managing everyone’s budgets, most eurozonites would not go for such a deal for obvious political reasons; two wars have been fought within the last hundred years over the principles involved in such a plan. So this idea would probably is a nonstarter.
I have likened abandoning the euro to trying to extract the ingredients from cake batter. (See my 5/16/10 piece “JOEY, YOU GOT THAT LITTLE OLD DIME AND I GOT THIS BIG OLD NICKEL. BUT HERE’S WHAT I’M GONNA DO FOR YA…”). The problems would be myriad: contracts written in euros would have to be renegotiated or become virtually worthless, the new drachmas, punts, pesetas, etc. would be greeted with the same enthusiasm as the bedding of those who suffered from the Plague, one of the eurozone’s earlier bearers of travail and misfortune. Germany, an economy built on exports, would find its currency so strong as to put a serious crimp into its prosperity and its very economic model, etc. Despite its precipitous downsides, abandonment of the euro, either by the fringe countries or by all euro nations, would have the virtue of reuniting those natural partners, monetary and fiscal policy. And one currency for such a widely disparate group of countries (Those who think that our generation has the wisdom to transcend the petty and excerebrose quarrels and jealousies of our benighted ancestors might find this hard to believe, but not everything can be solved and all differences cannot be transcended by money and technology, nor should they necessarily be. And, again, Europe is a continent that has hosted the planet’s most execrable wars for the last four centuries or so. Those wars weren’t fought over nothing. But I digress.) makes little sense. So the euro is probably doomed for the long run, but the long run may not come in this instance for a very, very long time.
The third alternative, debt restructuring, or outright default, makes the most sense. Yes, the costs will be high and the eurozone countries themselves, primarily through their banks, will be the greatest victims of such an default. But that is the way the world should work; one, whether one is a country, an institution, or an individual, should bear responsibility for one’s actions; that way, one is provided a severe disincentive to engage in foolishness and irresponsibility. If one expects others to bear the responsibility for his misdeeds, and those expectations are met, one will continue in his misdeeds to the ruin of both himself and his ostensible saviors.
Some will wail that, should one eurouser default, bondholders and other creditors will abandon all those countries that sell debt denominated in euros, or at least will prematurely punish some euroissuers out of fear that they will soon catch the europlague. This is nonsense, or at least it ought to be. The bonds in question are held primarily by institutions that pay people huge money to analyze and price credit. These so-called financial professionals make fabulous livings ostensibly to make reasoned, intelligent decisions, not to assume that all eurodebt is created equal and to panic like small children at the first sign of trouble. We can get people to make such assumptions, and perform in such childish ways, for a lot less money than what these institutions are paying these poltroons. Indeed, if such a default, or at least a negotiated restructuring, were allowed to take place, the really smart financial people, those who genuinely earn their money by being clever and hardworking enough to make distinctions between the merits of various debtors, will be presented with an enormous basket of opportunities to enrich themselves by exploiting the panicky behavior of the poseurs whose only discernible ability is that of being able to hoist an enormous pay check while lording it over those who don’t have the connections to have been rewarded such a lifelong sinecure. Indeed, if an economy, global or otherwise, is to work efficiently, the smart people ought to be able to make huge fortunes exploiting the opportunities presented by the market imbalances presented by the pretenders and fakers. But the euroministers have been cowed into swearing up and down that such a default will not be allowed for fear of panicking the denizens of the financial world who seem to believe that socialism is only a failed system for the poor and the working class, that socialism works just fine for the well-heeled.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
WHAT KIND OF WORLD IS IT WHEN A MOTHER CAN’T HELP OUT THE SON OF A FRIEND?
12/15/10
Yesterday, “reform” County Board President Toni Preckwinkle selected County Commissioner Robert Steele as president pro tempore of the County Board, meaning that young Mr. Steele will fill in for President Preckwinkle when she is away. Note that Mr. Steele originally became a Commissioner way back in 2006 when his mother, Bobbie Steele, appointed him to her seat when she retired. Nothing in young Mr. Steele’s background at the time of his appointment, other than his lineage, would have indicated that he would be a candidate, let alone a good candidate, for his mother’s job.
It was just a few days ago that Ms. Preckwinkle was chastising newly elected County Assessor Joe Berrios (but in a deferential manner, befitting Mr. Berrios’s position as both Ms. Preckwinkle’s friend and Chairman of the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization) for putting his son and his sister, both of whom have experience in assessing real estate, on the payroll at the Assessor’s office. (See my 12/10 post, “WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO WHEN A FATHER CAN’T HELP OUT HIS SON?”) Can the selection of young Mr. Steele, despite his ethereal resume and utter lack of seniority on the Board, mean that Ms. Preckwinkle has been convinced over in the last few days of the virtues of nepotism? Perhaps holding office in Cook County, even for the shortest of periods, does that to people.
I have few problems with Ms. Preckwinkle’s selecting Robert Steele as her pro tem Board President, just as I have few, if any, problems with Joe Berrios putting his qualified relatives on the County payroll. What I have a problem with is Ms. Preckwinkle’s transparent hypocrisy in this matter…and the local press’s unabashed adulation of Ms. Preckwinkle as some kind of “reformer.”
Yesterday, “reform” County Board President Toni Preckwinkle selected County Commissioner Robert Steele as president pro tempore of the County Board, meaning that young Mr. Steele will fill in for President Preckwinkle when she is away. Note that Mr. Steele originally became a Commissioner way back in 2006 when his mother, Bobbie Steele, appointed him to her seat when she retired. Nothing in young Mr. Steele’s background at the time of his appointment, other than his lineage, would have indicated that he would be a candidate, let alone a good candidate, for his mother’s job.
It was just a few days ago that Ms. Preckwinkle was chastising newly elected County Assessor Joe Berrios (but in a deferential manner, befitting Mr. Berrios’s position as both Ms. Preckwinkle’s friend and Chairman of the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization) for putting his son and his sister, both of whom have experience in assessing real estate, on the payroll at the Assessor’s office. (See my 12/10 post, “WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO WHEN A FATHER CAN’T HELP OUT HIS SON?”) Can the selection of young Mr. Steele, despite his ethereal resume and utter lack of seniority on the Board, mean that Ms. Preckwinkle has been convinced over in the last few days of the virtues of nepotism? Perhaps holding office in Cook County, even for the shortest of periods, does that to people.
I have few problems with Ms. Preckwinkle’s selecting Robert Steele as her pro tem Board President, just as I have few, if any, problems with Joe Berrios putting his qualified relatives on the County payroll. What I have a problem with is Ms. Preckwinkle’s transparent hypocrisy in this matter…and the local press’s unabashed adulation of Ms. Preckwinkle as some kind of “reformer.”
Saturday, December 11, 2010
PUT THE NUNS, AND VICKI QUADE, IN CHARGE!
12/11/10
When my wife Susan and I were at the Irish Books, Arts, and Music Celebration (IBAM!) at the Irish American Heritage Center in November promoting my books, we had the pleasure of being seated adjacent to Vicki Quade. You might not know Vicki’s name, but at least some of you are doubtless familiar with her work, and those of you who aren’t should be. Vicki, who grew up on the south side, attending St. Albert the Great grade school and Queen of Peace High School, is approximately my vintage, and is the writer and producer of a number of one woman plays about nuns (or, more properly, sisters. As I understand it, a nun is by definition cloistered. So the people we see and interact with are sisters, not nuns. If I am wrong on this, I am sure one of my sister friends will correct me. But it doesn’t matter much; in practice, we refer to sisters, along with nuns, as “nuns.” I may do so myself in this blog if I don’t catch myself.), including
--Late Night Catechism (the original, which she did with her partner Maripat Donovan)
--Put the Nuns in Charge
--Sunday School Cinema
--Saints and Sinners, and
--Mother Superior’s Ho-Ho-Holy Night (obviously the Christmas show.)
These shows, which started here in Chicago, are now done throughout the country.
I first saw Late Night Catechism years ago. I was very reluctant to attend, thinking that it was another one of those lame-brained, ill-fated attempts at “humor” that depict the Catholic Church as hopelessly silly and the nuns as its sadistic agents of mind control, determined to beat the benighted doctrines of their Church into their hapless charges by any means necessary. Having been taught by Springfield Dominicans and having had the privilege of having befriended sisters of several orders throughout my life, I have tremendous respect and admiration for the sisters and boundless gratitude for what they have done for me, my friends, and all of God’s children throughout the world. They are truly His hands and arms on earth. And I say this even though I am very familiar with being on the receiving end of the especially effective means of discipline and persuasion they employed when I was a kid. In none of those cases, by the way, did I not deserve whatever I received and in all of those cases I remain indebted to the sisters for the lessons they taught me.
So when my wife suggested that we go to Late Night Catechism, I protested strongly, but went along to preserve peace in the family. And thank God I did. The show was laugh out loud, continually hilarious while still being respectful. It was poignant without being sappy. It was a learning experience without being pedantic. It was one of the best plays I’ve ever seen. That the actress who played the sister (I don’t recall if it was Vicki, Maripat, or one of the several actresses Vicki now casts as the sister.) bore a dead ringer resemblance to the sainted Sister Monica (See the dedication page of my book, The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics.) of ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s St. Walter fame didn’t hurt either. It was a great show all around. Sisters and priests who have seen it have invariably (almost—some people have absolutely no sense of humor) loved it. And after the show, a completely voluntary collection was, and still is, taken up to benefit retired sisters. Over the years, Vicki has raised hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars for retired sisters of several orders.
Shortly after seeing Late Night Cathechism, we went to a show that advertised itself as, roughly, from the people who brought you Late Night Catechism. It was called Sister Bernie’s Bingo Bash and it was an abomination before God and man. I was so surprised by the malodorousness of this piece of tripe that I challenged the cast after the show, asking them how they could possibly have done something so awful after something as wonderful as Late Night Catechism. They hemmed and hawed when I asked exactly how the two shows were related. Vicki told me at IBAM (years after my having seen Sister Bernie) that the woman who put that show together had once worked briefly in Late Night Catechism and that was her basis for claiming the connection. Vicki tried, but failed, to get her to stop claiming that the two plays were associated. But I digress.
After meeting Vicki at IBAM, she asked us to go to Mother Superior’s Ho-Ho-Holy Night at the Royal George Theater on Halsted just north of North Avenue. We went on Friday night, 12/10. While I didn’t like it as much as Late Night Catechism (maybe because of my feelings about Christmas, as currently celebrated; that annual screed is coming), it was still a delightful show and evening.
Vicki’s shows run continually at the Royal George; Mother Superior’s Ho-Ho-Holy Night is obviously seasonal, but the others alternate evenings. More information can be obtained at Vicki’s site, http://www.nuns4fun.com/. Also note her Have Nuns Will Travel feature: her troupe does shows for charity virtually anywhere within reason, so if you have a church (The show or the humor is not exclusive to Catholics; she’s done the show at Protestant churches; whether she’s been to a synagogue yet, I don’t know.), school, or business function that could use some great entertainment, contact her through the website. I would like to get her out here to Naperville to one of the several parishes we attend (Yes, we are nomadic Catholics.) and have to get working on that. I am especially eager to see Put the Nuns in Charge.
In any case, do yourself a favor and see one of Vicki’s shows. You’ll enjoy it, especially, but not only, if you are a Catholic, educated by the sisters.
When my wife Susan and I were at the Irish Books, Arts, and Music Celebration (IBAM!) at the Irish American Heritage Center in November promoting my books, we had the pleasure of being seated adjacent to Vicki Quade. You might not know Vicki’s name, but at least some of you are doubtless familiar with her work, and those of you who aren’t should be. Vicki, who grew up on the south side, attending St. Albert the Great grade school and Queen of Peace High School, is approximately my vintage, and is the writer and producer of a number of one woman plays about nuns (or, more properly, sisters. As I understand it, a nun is by definition cloistered. So the people we see and interact with are sisters, not nuns. If I am wrong on this, I am sure one of my sister friends will correct me. But it doesn’t matter much; in practice, we refer to sisters, along with nuns, as “nuns.” I may do so myself in this blog if I don’t catch myself.), including
--Late Night Catechism (the original, which she did with her partner Maripat Donovan)
--Put the Nuns in Charge
--Sunday School Cinema
--Saints and Sinners, and
--Mother Superior’s Ho-Ho-Holy Night (obviously the Christmas show.)
These shows, which started here in Chicago, are now done throughout the country.
I first saw Late Night Catechism years ago. I was very reluctant to attend, thinking that it was another one of those lame-brained, ill-fated attempts at “humor” that depict the Catholic Church as hopelessly silly and the nuns as its sadistic agents of mind control, determined to beat the benighted doctrines of their Church into their hapless charges by any means necessary. Having been taught by Springfield Dominicans and having had the privilege of having befriended sisters of several orders throughout my life, I have tremendous respect and admiration for the sisters and boundless gratitude for what they have done for me, my friends, and all of God’s children throughout the world. They are truly His hands and arms on earth. And I say this even though I am very familiar with being on the receiving end of the especially effective means of discipline and persuasion they employed when I was a kid. In none of those cases, by the way, did I not deserve whatever I received and in all of those cases I remain indebted to the sisters for the lessons they taught me.
So when my wife suggested that we go to Late Night Catechism, I protested strongly, but went along to preserve peace in the family. And thank God I did. The show was laugh out loud, continually hilarious while still being respectful. It was poignant without being sappy. It was a learning experience without being pedantic. It was one of the best plays I’ve ever seen. That the actress who played the sister (I don’t recall if it was Vicki, Maripat, or one of the several actresses Vicki now casts as the sister.) bore a dead ringer resemblance to the sainted Sister Monica (See the dedication page of my book, The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics.) of ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s St. Walter fame didn’t hurt either. It was a great show all around. Sisters and priests who have seen it have invariably (almost—some people have absolutely no sense of humor) loved it. And after the show, a completely voluntary collection was, and still is, taken up to benefit retired sisters. Over the years, Vicki has raised hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars for retired sisters of several orders.
Shortly after seeing Late Night Cathechism, we went to a show that advertised itself as, roughly, from the people who brought you Late Night Catechism. It was called Sister Bernie’s Bingo Bash and it was an abomination before God and man. I was so surprised by the malodorousness of this piece of tripe that I challenged the cast after the show, asking them how they could possibly have done something so awful after something as wonderful as Late Night Catechism. They hemmed and hawed when I asked exactly how the two shows were related. Vicki told me at IBAM (years after my having seen Sister Bernie) that the woman who put that show together had once worked briefly in Late Night Catechism and that was her basis for claiming the connection. Vicki tried, but failed, to get her to stop claiming that the two plays were associated. But I digress.
After meeting Vicki at IBAM, she asked us to go to Mother Superior’s Ho-Ho-Holy Night at the Royal George Theater on Halsted just north of North Avenue. We went on Friday night, 12/10. While I didn’t like it as much as Late Night Catechism (maybe because of my feelings about Christmas, as currently celebrated; that annual screed is coming), it was still a delightful show and evening.
Vicki’s shows run continually at the Royal George; Mother Superior’s Ho-Ho-Holy Night is obviously seasonal, but the others alternate evenings. More information can be obtained at Vicki’s site, http://www.nuns4fun.com/. Also note her Have Nuns Will Travel feature: her troupe does shows for charity virtually anywhere within reason, so if you have a church (The show or the humor is not exclusive to Catholics; she’s done the show at Protestant churches; whether she’s been to a synagogue yet, I don’t know.), school, or business function that could use some great entertainment, contact her through the website. I would like to get her out here to Naperville to one of the several parishes we attend (Yes, we are nomadic Catholics.) and have to get working on that. I am especially eager to see Put the Nuns in Charge.
In any case, do yourself a favor and see one of Vicki’s shows. You’ll enjoy it, especially, but not only, if you are a Catholic, educated by the sisters.
Friday, December 10, 2010
“DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU…”
12/10/10
Today’s Wall Street Journal (Friday, 12/10/10 page A16) contains news of disgruntlement in Israel over a decree, signed on to by 300 prominent rabbis, that any Israeli who sells or rents property to a Gentile be ostracized by neighbors and acquaintances and denied the right to read from the Torah.
Over the last thirty years or so, my foreign policy views have evolved. As a young man, my approach to foreign policy was the basic Republican and, truth be told, Democratic, for the most part, approach: America has everything figured out and therefore we have the right to tell anybody anywhere on this planet what to do. If the benighted foreign masses do not want to heed our advice and our military must be brought in to show them the error of their ways, and the futility of resistance, well, that’s just more money in the pockets of the defense contractors who so willingly share their taxpayer provided dollars with our Party.
Over the years, however, I have slowly adopted a view much more akin to those of the Founding Fathers the GOP so hollowly adulates: What other countries do is their business, not ours. The best policy to follow, as long as their interests do not conflict with ours, narrowly defined, is to keep our considerable probosces out of other countries’ business, wish them well, not interfere in the least in their affairs, and, very importantly, let them bear the consequences, however dyspeptic or eupeptic, of those actions. Had we followed such a policy since, oh, 1946 or so, we would have saved ourselves a lot of lives, money, grief, and aggravation.
And so, consistent with this foreign policy stance, I have little comment on the aforementioned rabbinical decree or the public reaction in Israel. What caught my eye about the article was the last paragraph, which pointed to something that is indeed my, and, in many cases, your, business:
“The rabbinic establishment has undergone dramatic changes over the years, becoming increasingly dominated by ultra-orthodox sects whose leaders are educated entirely in ultra-orthodox schools. They have virtually no exposure to the secular or non-Jewish world, (Rabbi David Rosen) said.”
With just a few changes, the same could be said for the Catholic Church, and certainly of the American Catholic Church, of which I remain a loyal, participating, and active member.
Today’s Wall Street Journal (Friday, 12/10/10 page A16) contains news of disgruntlement in Israel over a decree, signed on to by 300 prominent rabbis, that any Israeli who sells or rents property to a Gentile be ostracized by neighbors and acquaintances and denied the right to read from the Torah.
Over the last thirty years or so, my foreign policy views have evolved. As a young man, my approach to foreign policy was the basic Republican and, truth be told, Democratic, for the most part, approach: America has everything figured out and therefore we have the right to tell anybody anywhere on this planet what to do. If the benighted foreign masses do not want to heed our advice and our military must be brought in to show them the error of their ways, and the futility of resistance, well, that’s just more money in the pockets of the defense contractors who so willingly share their taxpayer provided dollars with our Party.
Over the years, however, I have slowly adopted a view much more akin to those of the Founding Fathers the GOP so hollowly adulates: What other countries do is their business, not ours. The best policy to follow, as long as their interests do not conflict with ours, narrowly defined, is to keep our considerable probosces out of other countries’ business, wish them well, not interfere in the least in their affairs, and, very importantly, let them bear the consequences, however dyspeptic or eupeptic, of those actions. Had we followed such a policy since, oh, 1946 or so, we would have saved ourselves a lot of lives, money, grief, and aggravation.
And so, consistent with this foreign policy stance, I have little comment on the aforementioned rabbinical decree or the public reaction in Israel. What caught my eye about the article was the last paragraph, which pointed to something that is indeed my, and, in many cases, your, business:
“The rabbinic establishment has undergone dramatic changes over the years, becoming increasingly dominated by ultra-orthodox sects whose leaders are educated entirely in ultra-orthodox schools. They have virtually no exposure to the secular or non-Jewish world, (Rabbi David Rosen) said.”
With just a few changes, the same could be said for the Catholic Church, and certainly of the American Catholic Church, of which I remain a loyal, participating, and active member.
“WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO WHEN A FATHER CAN’T HELP OUT HIS SON?”
12/10/10
New Cook County Board Chairman Toni Preckwinkle has criticized newly elected Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios for hiring his son and his sister, two people had who worked for him when he was on the Board of (Tax) Appeals and apparently did so quite effectively. Preckwinkle has said that she thinks hiring relatives is “inappropriate,” abhors the “appearance of impropriety” (good to know the new Board Chairman is not given to trite phrases, eh? But I digress.), has never hired a relative to work for her in her 19 years as 4th Ward Alderman, and is “prepared to consider” (bold leadership, eh?) an ordinance prohibiting such hiring.
Two major thoughts, which in turn tend to spawn sub-thoughts, arise from Chairman Preckwinkle’s protestations.
First, why is it such a horrible thing to hire one’s relatives when one is in public life? There is no indication that either Mr. Berrios’s son or sister is unqualified; indeed, their work at the Board of Appeals indicates that they are perhaps supremely qualified for similar real estate work at the Assessor’s office. Should all relatives of politicians now somehow become automatically unqualified for work in the public sector? One shudders to think what would happen to the County Building and City Hall (the same building, really) were all of the relatives of pols to be given their walking papers. The echo of silence and the pallor of emptiness in the buildings would be, perhaps ironically, deafening.
Second, that Toni Preckwinkle, a ward committeeman, sees fit to criticize Joe Berrios, Chairman of the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization and (very) nominally head of the Party, shows how far the County Regular Democratic Organization (the Machine, in popular parlance), has descended. Can you imagine an earlier assessor, say, Parky Cullerton, castigating an earlier Party Chairman, say, Richard J. Daley, for hiring relatives? Such a scenario would indeed be a case of the pot calling the proverbial kettle black; were one to clear the County Building and City Hall of Cullertons, Daleys, and Guilfoyles in the ‘50s or ‘60s, that building would come to resemble an episode of the Twilight Zone depicting a post nuclear holocaust swath of the American countryside, but I digress. My point is that such criticism of the Boss would not even be considered back when the likes of Richard I was the Boss, and not only for reasons of avoiding hypocrisy. A committeeman in that era (Seymour Simon comes to mind.) who dared criticize the Boss would be summarily taken down about a hundred notches and would spend the rest of his life stripped of any real power and toiling away at an innocuous post in the public sector far, far removed from any proximity to the people that really matter. (See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for fictionalizations of such dressing downs.)
Notice that Ms. Preckwinkle soft-pedaled, or back-pedaled on, her criticism of Mr. Berrios. She hastened to add that, in addition to being her friend, Mr. Berrios was still chairman of the Party, of which she, as 4th Ward Committeeman, was still a part. So the protocol, if not the realities, of power still reside in the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization. Also, as I pointed out on election night (See my 11/2/10 commentary SAY IT’S SO, JOE.), long before this observation was made by, let alone became conventional wisdom among, the solons of the local media, Mr. Berrios’s landslide defeat of independent Forest Claypool indicates that the Orgnaization still can crank out the vote, which holds ramifications for the upcoming real election in Chicago. Still, though, Committeeman Preckwinkle’s criticism of Chairman Berrios indicates that the Machine is pale reflection of its former self.
New Cook County Board Chairman Toni Preckwinkle has criticized newly elected Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios for hiring his son and his sister, two people had who worked for him when he was on the Board of (Tax) Appeals and apparently did so quite effectively. Preckwinkle has said that she thinks hiring relatives is “inappropriate,” abhors the “appearance of impropriety” (good to know the new Board Chairman is not given to trite phrases, eh? But I digress.), has never hired a relative to work for her in her 19 years as 4th Ward Alderman, and is “prepared to consider” (bold leadership, eh?) an ordinance prohibiting such hiring.
Two major thoughts, which in turn tend to spawn sub-thoughts, arise from Chairman Preckwinkle’s protestations.
First, why is it such a horrible thing to hire one’s relatives when one is in public life? There is no indication that either Mr. Berrios’s son or sister is unqualified; indeed, their work at the Board of Appeals indicates that they are perhaps supremely qualified for similar real estate work at the Assessor’s office. Should all relatives of politicians now somehow become automatically unqualified for work in the public sector? One shudders to think what would happen to the County Building and City Hall (the same building, really) were all of the relatives of pols to be given their walking papers. The echo of silence and the pallor of emptiness in the buildings would be, perhaps ironically, deafening.
Second, that Toni Preckwinkle, a ward committeeman, sees fit to criticize Joe Berrios, Chairman of the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization and (very) nominally head of the Party, shows how far the County Regular Democratic Organization (the Machine, in popular parlance), has descended. Can you imagine an earlier assessor, say, Parky Cullerton, castigating an earlier Party Chairman, say, Richard J. Daley, for hiring relatives? Such a scenario would indeed be a case of the pot calling the proverbial kettle black; were one to clear the County Building and City Hall of Cullertons, Daleys, and Guilfoyles in the ‘50s or ‘60s, that building would come to resemble an episode of the Twilight Zone depicting a post nuclear holocaust swath of the American countryside, but I digress. My point is that such criticism of the Boss would not even be considered back when the likes of Richard I was the Boss, and not only for reasons of avoiding hypocrisy. A committeeman in that era (Seymour Simon comes to mind.) who dared criticize the Boss would be summarily taken down about a hundred notches and would spend the rest of his life stripped of any real power and toiling away at an innocuous post in the public sector far, far removed from any proximity to the people that really matter. (See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for fictionalizations of such dressing downs.)
Notice that Ms. Preckwinkle soft-pedaled, or back-pedaled on, her criticism of Mr. Berrios. She hastened to add that, in addition to being her friend, Mr. Berrios was still chairman of the Party, of which she, as 4th Ward Committeeman, was still a part. So the protocol, if not the realities, of power still reside in the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization. Also, as I pointed out on election night (See my 11/2/10 commentary SAY IT’S SO, JOE.), long before this observation was made by, let alone became conventional wisdom among, the solons of the local media, Mr. Berrios’s landslide defeat of independent Forest Claypool indicates that the Orgnaization still can crank out the vote, which holds ramifications for the upcoming real election in Chicago. Still, though, Committeeman Preckwinkle’s criticism of Chairman Berrios indicates that the Machine is pale reflection of its former self.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
ARKANSAS BIG BILL OBAMA?
12/8/10
I’m not in the habit of listening to political talk shows early in the day so, even though I haven’t heard this point made, I strongly suspect that I am not the first to make it. It bears making, though, and I can probably make it more effectively than most of the professional punditry.
President Obama has reached a compromise with congressional Republicans on extension of the “Bush era” tax cuts. The compromise was about as everybody, and certainly yours truly, expected. See my 12/4/10 piece, WHAT’S MINE IS MINE, WHAT’S YOURS IS NEGOTIABLE. Essentially, the entire package gets extended two years, and we get an added bonus of a payroll tax cut.
The Democrats in Congress, and especially in the House, are sullen and down in the mouth about this latest development. They accuse the President of betrayal. He counters by telling them to grow up and realize that they can’t get everything they want and that he is not about to sacrifice the after tax incomes of the American people, and the economic recovery, such as it is, in the pursuit of pyrrhic public policy purity. One would think that the election results would make the Democrats realize that the populace isn’t buying their nanny state nonsense, but apparently they need a more sober, and responsible, member of their party to bring them back from their hypnotic allegiance to supergovernment, but I digress.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are quite happy with this tax “compromise.” Why shouldn’t they be? They got just about everything they wanted and then some.
But perhaps the Republicans can’t see beyond the next trade and/or are too obtuse to see what just happened. It appears that President Obama has at least begun to take a page from that most successful of our recent presidents (Okay, okay, maybe Ronald Reagan was more effective, but he doesn’t qualify as “recent” to many of my readers. Yes, we are getting old, and quickly. But I digress.), his fellow Democrat, Bill Clinton. Clinton, the brightest president of my lifetime (with the possible exception of Richard Nixon, who was, as my mother-in-law likes to say, “so smart but not all that smart.”), realized after 1994 that if he didn’t ditch the ideological nonsense his party chieftains ladled out, figuratively sober up, and start looking out for not only the welfare of the country but also for Old Number 1, he was heading back to Arkansas pronto, and neither he nor Hillary could be delighted at that prospect. So he got smart and started a process that came to be called “triangulation.” He would alternately work with Congressional Democrats and Republicans (seemingly more often with the Republicans), playing them off against each other and keeping everybody but himself off balance. He used both the power of the White House, and the confusion he sowed in rival power centers in Washington, to achieve some very worthwhile, both for himself and for the country, goals, to win a second term, and to become a very successful president. If Barack Obama, a very clever fellow (but make no mistake (an admonition that Mr. Obama has taken from the aforementioned Richard Nixon): Obama is no match for Bill Clinton when it comes to cleverness, intellect, or street smarts.), can even come close to Bill Clinton’s degree of success in applying such a triangulation strategy to the current, and upcoming, alignment of power in Washington, Mr. Obama could still be a very successful, and two-term, president. And then another Clinton waits in the wings. Unless this latest compromise was a fluke, it could be a long time before the Republicans see the inside of the White House again.
A fitting digression on Bill Clinton:
Even those of us who could not stand Bill Clinton and relentlessly opposed him at every turn just for the joy of the fight, have to admit, if we are honest, that we miss the big guy, and not just for the thrill of intellectual (?) combat. For all his personal foibles, he was a great, or at least near great president, certainly, at the expense of erecting an ankle high bar, by comparison to his successors. While this is, of course, another of my digressions, I insist on continuing it by referring you to something I said, albeit in an entirely different context, in yesterday’s piece “LOOK…UP IN THE SKY…IT’S A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE…IT’S SUPER(BEN)”, to wit…
“With such age, I had thought, comes a dramatic reduction in the number of things in which one is 100% confident. I am down to about two.”
The certainty that I had when I was younger that Bill Clinton was a lousy president is one of those things that has evaporated with age. One would be wise to remember this before getting wildly antipathetic toward any president unless, of course, that president is George W. Bush. Then wild antipathy is completely justified and will be as long as history books continue to be written.
I have a feeling that one of my avid readers, former on-the-air colleagues, and dear friends is going to do a little bit of gloating on this digression, but I digress.
One more thing…
Does anybody recognize the OGCR (“Old Geezer Cultural Reference,” as my students call such musings I do in class.) contained in the title of this post?
I’m not in the habit of listening to political talk shows early in the day so, even though I haven’t heard this point made, I strongly suspect that I am not the first to make it. It bears making, though, and I can probably make it more effectively than most of the professional punditry.
President Obama has reached a compromise with congressional Republicans on extension of the “Bush era” tax cuts. The compromise was about as everybody, and certainly yours truly, expected. See my 12/4/10 piece, WHAT’S MINE IS MINE, WHAT’S YOURS IS NEGOTIABLE. Essentially, the entire package gets extended two years, and we get an added bonus of a payroll tax cut.
The Democrats in Congress, and especially in the House, are sullen and down in the mouth about this latest development. They accuse the President of betrayal. He counters by telling them to grow up and realize that they can’t get everything they want and that he is not about to sacrifice the after tax incomes of the American people, and the economic recovery, such as it is, in the pursuit of pyrrhic public policy purity. One would think that the election results would make the Democrats realize that the populace isn’t buying their nanny state nonsense, but apparently they need a more sober, and responsible, member of their party to bring them back from their hypnotic allegiance to supergovernment, but I digress.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are quite happy with this tax “compromise.” Why shouldn’t they be? They got just about everything they wanted and then some.
But perhaps the Republicans can’t see beyond the next trade and/or are too obtuse to see what just happened. It appears that President Obama has at least begun to take a page from that most successful of our recent presidents (Okay, okay, maybe Ronald Reagan was more effective, but he doesn’t qualify as “recent” to many of my readers. Yes, we are getting old, and quickly. But I digress.), his fellow Democrat, Bill Clinton. Clinton, the brightest president of my lifetime (with the possible exception of Richard Nixon, who was, as my mother-in-law likes to say, “so smart but not all that smart.”), realized after 1994 that if he didn’t ditch the ideological nonsense his party chieftains ladled out, figuratively sober up, and start looking out for not only the welfare of the country but also for Old Number 1, he was heading back to Arkansas pronto, and neither he nor Hillary could be delighted at that prospect. So he got smart and started a process that came to be called “triangulation.” He would alternately work with Congressional Democrats and Republicans (seemingly more often with the Republicans), playing them off against each other and keeping everybody but himself off balance. He used both the power of the White House, and the confusion he sowed in rival power centers in Washington, to achieve some very worthwhile, both for himself and for the country, goals, to win a second term, and to become a very successful president. If Barack Obama, a very clever fellow (but make no mistake (an admonition that Mr. Obama has taken from the aforementioned Richard Nixon): Obama is no match for Bill Clinton when it comes to cleverness, intellect, or street smarts.), can even come close to Bill Clinton’s degree of success in applying such a triangulation strategy to the current, and upcoming, alignment of power in Washington, Mr. Obama could still be a very successful, and two-term, president. And then another Clinton waits in the wings. Unless this latest compromise was a fluke, it could be a long time before the Republicans see the inside of the White House again.
A fitting digression on Bill Clinton:
Even those of us who could not stand Bill Clinton and relentlessly opposed him at every turn just for the joy of the fight, have to admit, if we are honest, that we miss the big guy, and not just for the thrill of intellectual (?) combat. For all his personal foibles, he was a great, or at least near great president, certainly, at the expense of erecting an ankle high bar, by comparison to his successors. While this is, of course, another of my digressions, I insist on continuing it by referring you to something I said, albeit in an entirely different context, in yesterday’s piece “LOOK…UP IN THE SKY…IT’S A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE…IT’S SUPER(BEN)”, to wit…
“With such age, I had thought, comes a dramatic reduction in the number of things in which one is 100% confident. I am down to about two.”
The certainty that I had when I was younger that Bill Clinton was a lousy president is one of those things that has evaporated with age. One would be wise to remember this before getting wildly antipathetic toward any president unless, of course, that president is George W. Bush. Then wild antipathy is completely justified and will be as long as history books continue to be written.
I have a feeling that one of my avid readers, former on-the-air colleagues, and dear friends is going to do a little bit of gloating on this digression, but I digress.
One more thing…
Does anybody recognize the OGCR (“Old Geezer Cultural Reference,” as my students call such musings I do in class.) contained in the title of this post?
“EVERYBODY’S MISUSED HIM, RIPPED HIM OFF AND ABUSED HIM…”
12/8/10
This morning’s Wall Street Journal reports that the Bush/Obama Administration is putting pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to “join fledgling programs aimed at reducing loan balances of mortgages where borrowers owe more than their homes are worth…”. This pressure is being applied, according to the Journal, through the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the primary regulator of Fannie and Freddie. Apparently, Fannie and Freddie have historically been reluctant to reduce mortgage balances, opting instead to go after mortgage insurers or attempt to force banks to buy back loans when those loans default, options that would be taken off the table, at least to a certain extent, were Fannie and Freddie to reduce loan balances. Indeed, of the 120,000 loans Fannie and Freddie modified in the first quarter of 2010, only 10 (ten, not ten thousand) involved a principal reduction.
A question and a comment are conjured up by this news.
First, why doe the Bush/Obama administration have to use FHFA to pressure Fannie and Freddie? As a result of the first efforts of the Bush phase of the Bush/Obama administration to have the taxpayers pick up the tab for deadbeat, or even potentially deadbeat, borrowers, the federal government owns Fannie and Freddie. So why can’t President Obama just tell Fannie and Freddie to reduce balances on mortgage loans? He’s the boss, after all.
Second, this is just the latest, and most direct, example, of the Bush/Obama administration’s making you, the financially responsible taxpayer and saver, bail out the financially irresponsible home “owner.” But there is no sense railing against this abomination. Long ago, through, among other programs, TARP and HAMP, our public servants, both Republican and Democrat, decided it is wise public policy to punish the responsible, both directly through spending on bailouts and indirectly through interest rates’ being kept artificially low to make it easier for people to “stay in their homes,” to reward those who bought more house than they could afford at least partially out of a desire to obtain a perch from which they could look down their noses at those of you who did not have the “means” to “acquire” such a home. Now you’re being forced to buy for your neighbor the home you were too prudent to buy for yourself. The spendthrifts win, the prudent lose, and the politicians congratulate themselves.
No wonder people are angry. And no wonder our economy, and our society, is doomed.
This morning’s Wall Street Journal reports that the Bush/Obama Administration is putting pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to “join fledgling programs aimed at reducing loan balances of mortgages where borrowers owe more than their homes are worth…”. This pressure is being applied, according to the Journal, through the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the primary regulator of Fannie and Freddie. Apparently, Fannie and Freddie have historically been reluctant to reduce mortgage balances, opting instead to go after mortgage insurers or attempt to force banks to buy back loans when those loans default, options that would be taken off the table, at least to a certain extent, were Fannie and Freddie to reduce loan balances. Indeed, of the 120,000 loans Fannie and Freddie modified in the first quarter of 2010, only 10 (ten, not ten thousand) involved a principal reduction.
A question and a comment are conjured up by this news.
First, why doe the Bush/Obama administration have to use FHFA to pressure Fannie and Freddie? As a result of the first efforts of the Bush phase of the Bush/Obama administration to have the taxpayers pick up the tab for deadbeat, or even potentially deadbeat, borrowers, the federal government owns Fannie and Freddie. So why can’t President Obama just tell Fannie and Freddie to reduce balances on mortgage loans? He’s the boss, after all.
Second, this is just the latest, and most direct, example, of the Bush/Obama administration’s making you, the financially responsible taxpayer and saver, bail out the financially irresponsible home “owner.” But there is no sense railing against this abomination. Long ago, through, among other programs, TARP and HAMP, our public servants, both Republican and Democrat, decided it is wise public policy to punish the responsible, both directly through spending on bailouts and indirectly through interest rates’ being kept artificially low to make it easier for people to “stay in their homes,” to reward those who bought more house than they could afford at least partially out of a desire to obtain a perch from which they could look down their noses at those of you who did not have the “means” to “acquire” such a home. Now you’re being forced to buy for your neighbor the home you were too prudent to buy for yourself. The spendthrifts win, the prudent lose, and the politicians congratulate themselves.
No wonder people are angry. And no wonder our economy, and our society, is doomed.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
MAYBE HE DIDN’T “FINISH WITH THE FOOTBALL”
12/7/10
Now comes the seemingly mundane, but potentially thrilling, stage in the campaign for mayor of Chicago when the eligibility of candidates can be challenged. Usually, these challenges have their origins in the validity of the petitions submitted by the candidates, and already such notables as M. Tricia Lee (apparently no relation to the Mr. Lee of the Bobbette’s 1957 girl group classic), Jay Stone (apparently no relation to former Harry Carey sidekick Steve Stone), Tommy Hanson (apparently no relation to the Hanson Brothers of the hockey (sort of) world), and Ryan Graves (apparently no relation to my old college buddy Dave Graves) have been dropped from the ballot due to the deficiencies in their petitions. In addition, Rob Halpin, distinguished mostly by his having rented a house from Rahm Emanuel, has taken himself out of the race, citing the “financial and legal” hurdles of a race, as if such obstacles had never occurred to him before. But the real attention is being drawn by challenges to Rahm Emanuel, the objections to whose candidacy have their geneses not in his petitions but in his residency. Mr. Emanuel, as anyone who is following this race knows, has a problem: He hasn’t lived in Chicago for a few years but is insisting that this doesn’t mean he has not been a resident of our town during that period. Only in politics does this make sense, but I digress.
I have thought about this residency issue, as I have written in the past, but not all that deeply. I still think it’s a non-issue if only because, while one can say a lot of things about Rahm Emanuel, no one can legitimately accuse the guy of not being on the ball. Since this is the case, I am assuming that Rahm had thought hard about the residency issue before leaving his White House job to run for mayor. This, of course, assumes that he left the White House job voluntarily (See my 9/10/10 post PRESCIENT MR. PONTIFICATOR? NOT YET.). Another reason that residency is probably not an issue is the politicized nature of this town. There are enough powerful people who want Emanuel to be mayor, if one believes the press, that one can be reasonably confident that Rahm will be, in Chicago vernacular, greased through the challenges to his candidacy. On the other hand, if, as rumor has it, Ed Burke both controls the courts in this town and backs Gery Chico, this could get interesting. I was about to say that such a line of argument might be too Machiavellian, even for Chicago, but then I returned from my ever so brief and disquieting flight of idealism to the reality of politics in my beloved home town.
I suppose what I am saying is that, while I remain confident that Rahm Emanuel’s lack of residency will not result in his being declared a non-resident and thus in his being tossed off the ballot, such confidence is being shaken ever so slightly. However, I would hate to see Mr. Emanuel lose the election on what, in Chicago politics at least, amounts to a technicality. Were, say, Gery Chico, Danny Davis, or James Meeks to become mayor under such circumstances, his victory would be very much akin to the Bears’ two victories over the Detroit Lions this year…hollow victories arising from lousy calls by the officials. Of course, a victory is still a victory, but in Chicago the show is as important as the outcome, and we all want the best show possible; they don’t come around all that often in these parts.
Now comes the seemingly mundane, but potentially thrilling, stage in the campaign for mayor of Chicago when the eligibility of candidates can be challenged. Usually, these challenges have their origins in the validity of the petitions submitted by the candidates, and already such notables as M. Tricia Lee (apparently no relation to the Mr. Lee of the Bobbette’s 1957 girl group classic), Jay Stone (apparently no relation to former Harry Carey sidekick Steve Stone), Tommy Hanson (apparently no relation to the Hanson Brothers of the hockey (sort of) world), and Ryan Graves (apparently no relation to my old college buddy Dave Graves) have been dropped from the ballot due to the deficiencies in their petitions. In addition, Rob Halpin, distinguished mostly by his having rented a house from Rahm Emanuel, has taken himself out of the race, citing the “financial and legal” hurdles of a race, as if such obstacles had never occurred to him before. But the real attention is being drawn by challenges to Rahm Emanuel, the objections to whose candidacy have their geneses not in his petitions but in his residency. Mr. Emanuel, as anyone who is following this race knows, has a problem: He hasn’t lived in Chicago for a few years but is insisting that this doesn’t mean he has not been a resident of our town during that period. Only in politics does this make sense, but I digress.
I have thought about this residency issue, as I have written in the past, but not all that deeply. I still think it’s a non-issue if only because, while one can say a lot of things about Rahm Emanuel, no one can legitimately accuse the guy of not being on the ball. Since this is the case, I am assuming that Rahm had thought hard about the residency issue before leaving his White House job to run for mayor. This, of course, assumes that he left the White House job voluntarily (See my 9/10/10 post PRESCIENT MR. PONTIFICATOR? NOT YET.). Another reason that residency is probably not an issue is the politicized nature of this town. There are enough powerful people who want Emanuel to be mayor, if one believes the press, that one can be reasonably confident that Rahm will be, in Chicago vernacular, greased through the challenges to his candidacy. On the other hand, if, as rumor has it, Ed Burke both controls the courts in this town and backs Gery Chico, this could get interesting. I was about to say that such a line of argument might be too Machiavellian, even for Chicago, but then I returned from my ever so brief and disquieting flight of idealism to the reality of politics in my beloved home town.
I suppose what I am saying is that, while I remain confident that Rahm Emanuel’s lack of residency will not result in his being declared a non-resident and thus in his being tossed off the ballot, such confidence is being shaken ever so slightly. However, I would hate to see Mr. Emanuel lose the election on what, in Chicago politics at least, amounts to a technicality. Were, say, Gery Chico, Danny Davis, or James Meeks to become mayor under such circumstances, his victory would be very much akin to the Bears’ two victories over the Detroit Lions this year…hollow victories arising from lousy calls by the officials. Of course, a victory is still a victory, but in Chicago the show is as important as the outcome, and we all want the best show possible; they don’t come around all that often in these parts.
“LOOK…UP IN THE SKY…IT’S A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE…IT’S SUPER(BEN)”
12/7/10
Apparently, Obsequious Ben Bernanke’s hubris (See my 12/2/10 piece, AFTER PRIDE COMES THE FALL) is not limited to matters of fiscal policy. One wonders, after watching Sunday night’s edition of 60 Minutes, whether the man’s hubris knows any boundaries, in either breadth or height, at all.
What caught the markets’ attention was Mr. Bernanke’s apparently expressed belief that the markets needed more help and thus his opining that “it’s certainly possible” that his program to use manufactured out of thin air money (okay, for you purists out there, manufactured out of thin air reserves) to purchase treasury debt could be expanded beyond the parsimonious $600 billion announced last month, which itself was an expansion of a previous, and so far failed (See my 11/16/10 post, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT…YOU MEAN THAT IT GETS LIGHT OUT WHEN THE SUN RISES?), trillion dollar plus program. The markets, hanging on Mr. Bernanke’s every utterance, took this to mean that the Olympian Mr. Bernanke, in his usual Solomonic wisdom, must know something they don’t and started out Monday in a dyspeptic mood.
What unsettled me, and others who think beyond the next trade, was not a hint from the bearded Hammurabi at the Fed that things may not be as eupeptic as the markets had apparently thought. What was truly troubling was Mr. Bernanke’s contention that he has “100%” confidence that he could prevent runaway inflation… “We could raise interest rates in 15 minutes if we had to. (Sounds an awful lot like “I could quit any time I want to,” but I digress.) So there really is no problem with raising rates, tightening monetary policy, slowing the economy, reducing inflation, at the appropriate time.” Mr. Bernanke has thus proclaimed himself Monetary Superman.
Mr. Bernanke is no kid; he is approximately my vintage. With such age, I had thought, comes a dramatic reduction in the number of things in which one is 100% confident. I am down to about two. Apparently, Mr. Bernanke’s list is long and growing. Regardless of what one thinks about the merits of what has been given the cutesy-pie moniker QE2, one ought to share my alarm at the thought of a man so certain in his wisdom and efficacy having effectively been handed the economic reins of the world.
Apparently, Obsequious Ben Bernanke’s hubris (See my 12/2/10 piece, AFTER PRIDE COMES THE FALL) is not limited to matters of fiscal policy. One wonders, after watching Sunday night’s edition of 60 Minutes, whether the man’s hubris knows any boundaries, in either breadth or height, at all.
What caught the markets’ attention was Mr. Bernanke’s apparently expressed belief that the markets needed more help and thus his opining that “it’s certainly possible” that his program to use manufactured out of thin air money (okay, for you purists out there, manufactured out of thin air reserves) to purchase treasury debt could be expanded beyond the parsimonious $600 billion announced last month, which itself was an expansion of a previous, and so far failed (See my 11/16/10 post, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT…YOU MEAN THAT IT GETS LIGHT OUT WHEN THE SUN RISES?), trillion dollar plus program. The markets, hanging on Mr. Bernanke’s every utterance, took this to mean that the Olympian Mr. Bernanke, in his usual Solomonic wisdom, must know something they don’t and started out Monday in a dyspeptic mood.
What unsettled me, and others who think beyond the next trade, was not a hint from the bearded Hammurabi at the Fed that things may not be as eupeptic as the markets had apparently thought. What was truly troubling was Mr. Bernanke’s contention that he has “100%” confidence that he could prevent runaway inflation… “We could raise interest rates in 15 minutes if we had to. (Sounds an awful lot like “I could quit any time I want to,” but I digress.) So there really is no problem with raising rates, tightening monetary policy, slowing the economy, reducing inflation, at the appropriate time.” Mr. Bernanke has thus proclaimed himself Monetary Superman.
Mr. Bernanke is no kid; he is approximately my vintage. With such age, I had thought, comes a dramatic reduction in the number of things in which one is 100% confident. I am down to about two. Apparently, Mr. Bernanke’s list is long and growing. Regardless of what one thinks about the merits of what has been given the cutesy-pie moniker QE2, one ought to share my alarm at the thought of a man so certain in his wisdom and efficacy having effectively been handed the economic reins of the world.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
“BABY, IT’S COLD OUTSIDE…”
12/4/10
Over last night and into today, we in the Chicago area had our first measurable snowfall of the season. Snowing (or snow blowing) the stuff is a task for which I am not yet psychologically ready, but, once I got going, I got to enjoy it, as I normally do. Yet there is one thing that makes this task especially annoying. While I clear the snow, I listen to the radio, usually our all news station, WBBM-AM, or one of the news/talk stations, like WGN, WLS, or WMAQ. I like these stations, usually. However, listening to them while clearing the snow is made especially dyspeptic by the constant repetition of stories about the weather. So I have come up with a creative way for the radio and television stations around this town, or any town that experiences what we call “winter weather,” to free up perhaps half their air time, or half their non-commercial air time, over the next several months. They could simply announce about now:
“It’s winter time in Chicago (or New York, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Detroit, etc., etc.). For those of you to whom this somehow comes as a startling revelation, it snows and gets cold around here in the winter. Deal with it. Now on to some real news.”
Instantly air time that is otherwise wasted interviewing some guy shoveling his snow who enlightens us with the news that it is cold outside or expended warning us that going out in the “brutal cold” will certainly result in instant death could then be used to report on things that really matter and somehow might qualify as actual news.
Oh, that’s right; then no one would listen. People would much rather hear the astounding news that it is cold outside in Chicago in January than, say, that the Germans are about to say “Nein” to propping up their financially miscreant neighbors or that the U.S. Congress is about to attend to such urgent business as The Dream Act or Don’t Ask Don’t Tell while our economy crumbles around us.
Over last night and into today, we in the Chicago area had our first measurable snowfall of the season. Snowing (or snow blowing) the stuff is a task for which I am not yet psychologically ready, but, once I got going, I got to enjoy it, as I normally do. Yet there is one thing that makes this task especially annoying. While I clear the snow, I listen to the radio, usually our all news station, WBBM-AM, or one of the news/talk stations, like WGN, WLS, or WMAQ. I like these stations, usually. However, listening to them while clearing the snow is made especially dyspeptic by the constant repetition of stories about the weather. So I have come up with a creative way for the radio and television stations around this town, or any town that experiences what we call “winter weather,” to free up perhaps half their air time, or half their non-commercial air time, over the next several months. They could simply announce about now:
“It’s winter time in Chicago (or New York, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Detroit, etc., etc.). For those of you to whom this somehow comes as a startling revelation, it snows and gets cold around here in the winter. Deal with it. Now on to some real news.”
Instantly air time that is otherwise wasted interviewing some guy shoveling his snow who enlightens us with the news that it is cold outside or expended warning us that going out in the “brutal cold” will certainly result in instant death could then be used to report on things that really matter and somehow might qualify as actual news.
Oh, that’s right; then no one would listen. People would much rather hear the astounding news that it is cold outside in Chicago in January than, say, that the Germans are about to say “Nein” to propping up their financially miscreant neighbors or that the U.S. Congress is about to attend to such urgent business as The Dream Act or Don’t Ask Don’t Tell while our economy crumbles around us.
WHAT’S MINE IS MINE, WHAT’S YOURS IS NEGOTIABLE
12/4/10
While just about the whole world knows by this time that the compromise on the “Bush era tax cuts” will be an extension of those cuts for all taxpayers for the next two or so years, the Democrats have played a very effective political game over the last few days, holding votes first on keeping tax rates where they are for those making under $250,000 while raising them for everyone else and then raising that threshold to $1,000,000. While the proposals passed the House easily, they were doomed in the Senate, where the Republicans, with the help of Democrats who are either more conservative or more frightened of their constituencies than are the true believers in their party, have enough votes to filibuster (Oh, for the days of the real filibuster, with the 30 hour speeches and the attendant mighty bladders or, failing the latter, the concealed catheters. What is called a “filibuster” today is, like many things in modern America, a mere namby-pamby faint echo of the manifestations of the nation’s distant greatness whose name they curiously continue to bear. But I digress.) any legislation not to their liking. One can hear the campaign commercials in 2012: While Hitchcockian music plays in the background, some somber fellow whom we are expected to take seriously, intones “Senator (Insert name of any Republican here) voted to increase taxes on the middle class….” while screams are heard emanating from the assemblage of the somehow put out. And, given the excerebrosity of the American voter, such stunts will probably work. So the Democrats, almost always better at politics than the Republicans, have engaged in some very good politics and, probably, some very poor economics.
The arguments surrounding extending the tax cuts are both old and silly, or at least completely ignorant of Constitutional functions and limits of government, on both sides of the aisle. The GOPers tell us that to raise taxes in the upper brackets would hurt small business people. In order to advance this argument, two statistics would be helpful. First, what percentage of those who pay taxes at the highest brackets are small business people paying business income taxes on their personal forms? Second, what percentage of small business people pay taxes at the highest bracket? That the GOP uses the small business argument as a mere talking point, never providing either of those two statistics, probably says a lot about that argument. Regardless of the statistics, though, it’s a lousy argument, as I will elucidate below.
The Democrats, on the other hand, argue that those in the upper brackets don’t “need” the money and thus should be taxed. I realize that a lot of people on the right who should know better are awfully quick to throw around the facile “Obama and the Democrats are a bunch of Commies” argument; such people should consult with those who have lived under real Communist regimes before throwing around such a specious charge. That having been written, the “ ‘Rich’ people don’t need it” argument sounds a great deal like “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” an utterance from a genuine Communist. But, again, I digress.
Both the GOP small business argument and the Democrat “They don’t need it” argument are silly and indicative a flawed understanding of what government can and should do. Both arguments presuppose that the government can and should decide how much of the fruits of one’s labors one should keep based on the worthiness of one’s efforts, in the case of the GOP, or one’s needs, in the case of the Dems. How can anyone with even a vague familiarity with our Constitution and/or our history legitimately argue that the government’s role is to determine how much of the money one makes one can keep? Since when is all income government’s to dispense as it sees fit?
While just about the whole world knows by this time that the compromise on the “Bush era tax cuts” will be an extension of those cuts for all taxpayers for the next two or so years, the Democrats have played a very effective political game over the last few days, holding votes first on keeping tax rates where they are for those making under $250,000 while raising them for everyone else and then raising that threshold to $1,000,000. While the proposals passed the House easily, they were doomed in the Senate, where the Republicans, with the help of Democrats who are either more conservative or more frightened of their constituencies than are the true believers in their party, have enough votes to filibuster (Oh, for the days of the real filibuster, with the 30 hour speeches and the attendant mighty bladders or, failing the latter, the concealed catheters. What is called a “filibuster” today is, like many things in modern America, a mere namby-pamby faint echo of the manifestations of the nation’s distant greatness whose name they curiously continue to bear. But I digress.) any legislation not to their liking. One can hear the campaign commercials in 2012: While Hitchcockian music plays in the background, some somber fellow whom we are expected to take seriously, intones “Senator (Insert name of any Republican here) voted to increase taxes on the middle class….” while screams are heard emanating from the assemblage of the somehow put out. And, given the excerebrosity of the American voter, such stunts will probably work. So the Democrats, almost always better at politics than the Republicans, have engaged in some very good politics and, probably, some very poor economics.
The arguments surrounding extending the tax cuts are both old and silly, or at least completely ignorant of Constitutional functions and limits of government, on both sides of the aisle. The GOPers tell us that to raise taxes in the upper brackets would hurt small business people. In order to advance this argument, two statistics would be helpful. First, what percentage of those who pay taxes at the highest brackets are small business people paying business income taxes on their personal forms? Second, what percentage of small business people pay taxes at the highest bracket? That the GOP uses the small business argument as a mere talking point, never providing either of those two statistics, probably says a lot about that argument. Regardless of the statistics, though, it’s a lousy argument, as I will elucidate below.
The Democrats, on the other hand, argue that those in the upper brackets don’t “need” the money and thus should be taxed. I realize that a lot of people on the right who should know better are awfully quick to throw around the facile “Obama and the Democrats are a bunch of Commies” argument; such people should consult with those who have lived under real Communist regimes before throwing around such a specious charge. That having been written, the “ ‘Rich’ people don’t need it” argument sounds a great deal like “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” an utterance from a genuine Communist. But, again, I digress.
Both the GOP small business argument and the Democrat “They don’t need it” argument are silly and indicative a flawed understanding of what government can and should do. Both arguments presuppose that the government can and should decide how much of the fruits of one’s labors one should keep based on the worthiness of one’s efforts, in the case of the GOP, or one’s needs, in the case of the Dems. How can anyone with even a vague familiarity with our Constitution and/or our history legitimately argue that the government’s role is to determine how much of the money one makes one can keep? Since when is all income government’s to dispense as it sees fit?
Thursday, December 2, 2010
AFTER PRIDE COMES THE FALL
12/2/10
According to this morning’s (i.e., Thursday, 12/2’s, page A2) Wall Street Journal, Fed officials, including Obsequious Ben Bernanke, are pushing, as Mr. Bernanke puts it, a plan “that combines near-term measures to enhance growth with strong confidence-inducing steps” to reduce the deficit. Another Fed eminence, Vice-Chairman Janet Yellen, said Wednesday that
“We need, and I believe there is scope for, an approach to fiscal policy that puts in place a well-timed and credible plan to bring deficits down to sustainable levels over the medium and long terms while addressing the economy’s short term needs.”
There they go again with those “needs” that seem to become dire and urgent whenever your money becomes available, but I digress.
Such platitudes and puffery as that emanating from Ms. Yellen and Mr. Bernanke are the fiscal equivalent of a drunk who promises to go on the wagon but only after engaging in one last week long bender. There is plenty of enthusiasm for the short term binging, and, perhaps, for the clean and sober living that is to follow…as long as the onset of that rectitude remains in the future.
Rarely, if ever, in history has it been nearly as easy to put on the fiscal brakes as it has been to push the fiscal accelerator. Assuming, perhaps bravely, that the economics prevailing at the time designated to achieve fiscal virtue are more hospitable to such tightening, do Mr. Bernanke and Ms. Yellen really believe that the politics will be any more auspicious? Can either cite an historic precedent, a time when the disparate desires of the majority who pay the bills a dollar at a time are not overwhelmed by the yelping of the minority on the receiving end of the largesse that comes millions, or billions, at a time? Put simply, handing out money is a lot easier than asking to get it back.
More generally, this entire “economy as a machine” approach, popularized by early Keynesians and, in our time, championed most ardently by the likes of Martin Feldstein and, apparently, Ben Bernanke, this idea that the economy will respond with precision to carefully calibrated inputs orchestrated by economic masterminds in Washington, D.C. has been, is now, and always will be preposterous. The economy is not a finely tuned mechanism that can be accelerated and decelerated at will by wise and beneficent philosopher kings on the banks of the Potomac. It is a living, breathing organism, the agglomeration of the hopes, shortcomings, aspirations, worst failures, and most monumental successes of billions of people who inhabit this complicated yet simple world. That Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, and their acolytes and henchmen think that somehow this time is different, that they, by the force of their overpowering intellects, can operate this economy as if it were a laptop computer, that they can somehow change the way the world has worked since the dawn of time is symptomatic of the hubris of my generation, a hubris that is leading us to what looks like certain ruin.
According to this morning’s (i.e., Thursday, 12/2’s, page A2) Wall Street Journal, Fed officials, including Obsequious Ben Bernanke, are pushing, as Mr. Bernanke puts it, a plan “that combines near-term measures to enhance growth with strong confidence-inducing steps” to reduce the deficit. Another Fed eminence, Vice-Chairman Janet Yellen, said Wednesday that
“We need, and I believe there is scope for, an approach to fiscal policy that puts in place a well-timed and credible plan to bring deficits down to sustainable levels over the medium and long terms while addressing the economy’s short term needs.”
There they go again with those “needs” that seem to become dire and urgent whenever your money becomes available, but I digress.
Such platitudes and puffery as that emanating from Ms. Yellen and Mr. Bernanke are the fiscal equivalent of a drunk who promises to go on the wagon but only after engaging in one last week long bender. There is plenty of enthusiasm for the short term binging, and, perhaps, for the clean and sober living that is to follow…as long as the onset of that rectitude remains in the future.
Rarely, if ever, in history has it been nearly as easy to put on the fiscal brakes as it has been to push the fiscal accelerator. Assuming, perhaps bravely, that the economics prevailing at the time designated to achieve fiscal virtue are more hospitable to such tightening, do Mr. Bernanke and Ms. Yellen really believe that the politics will be any more auspicious? Can either cite an historic precedent, a time when the disparate desires of the majority who pay the bills a dollar at a time are not overwhelmed by the yelping of the minority on the receiving end of the largesse that comes millions, or billions, at a time? Put simply, handing out money is a lot easier than asking to get it back.
More generally, this entire “economy as a machine” approach, popularized by early Keynesians and, in our time, championed most ardently by the likes of Martin Feldstein and, apparently, Ben Bernanke, this idea that the economy will respond with precision to carefully calibrated inputs orchestrated by economic masterminds in Washington, D.C. has been, is now, and always will be preposterous. The economy is not a finely tuned mechanism that can be accelerated and decelerated at will by wise and beneficent philosopher kings on the banks of the Potomac. It is a living, breathing organism, the agglomeration of the hopes, shortcomings, aspirations, worst failures, and most monumental successes of billions of people who inhabit this complicated yet simple world. That Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, and their acolytes and henchmen think that somehow this time is different, that they, by the force of their overpowering intellects, can operate this economy as if it were a laptop computer, that they can somehow change the way the world has worked since the dawn of time is symptomatic of the hubris of my generation, a hubris that is leading us to what looks like certain ruin.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
THE FRUITS OF THERAPEUTIC GOVERNMENT
12/1/10
There is nothing especially original, or even insightful, about this post, but its points have to be made.
The big story in Chicago the last few days has been the murders of Chicago Police Officer Michael Flisk and former CHA Officer Stephen Peters. Both were gunned down in the coldest of blood by convicted felon Timothy Herring while Officer Flisk, an evidence technician and father of four, was investigating the theft of speakers from Officer Peters’ car, which he parked in his mother’s garage on the Southeast Side. Herring, who had stolen the speakers, shot both men after Peters indicated to him that Flisk had lifted a fingerprint from the scene. When Herring discovered that Peters was still moving after being shot in the head, he fired another round into each of the men’s heads to finish them off.
That part of the story is bad enough. In some ways even worse is that Herring was paroled in April after serving half of a six year sentence for a 2007 armed robbery. He was jailed again in July for smoking pot in violation of his parole but was released in September. He was on electronic monitoring when he murdered Officer Flisk and Officer Peters last Friday afternoon.
So there you have it. The police put their lives in considerable danger to catch the bad guys only to have a clearly out of touch with reality penal system put these predators back on the street after a comparative slap on the wrist. To say that this is frustrating for the cop on the beat is to be woefully inadequate with one’s words. One wonders why the cops don’t say a perhaps more scatological equivalent of “Screw it! Why should I put my life on the line so that politicians, judges and parole notables, ever confident in their manifest wisdom and spirit of “compassion,” can put these soulless killers back on the street?” Then to have one of these products of our therapeutic, rehabilitatory penal system kill one of their fellow officers must be the ultimate slap in the cops’ face, again, being inadequate with words. Thank God that these officer continue to do their jobs, despite the Sisyphean nature of their tasks and the lack of support, bordering on constant suspicion, they have received from the top brass, at least in Chicago, over the last few years. Lesser people would just walk away and look for a job that is safer and/or gets more support from those with whom it works.
Clearly, this is an argument not only for more support for our police officers but, more directly, for stiffer sentencing, for realizing that a substantial plurality, if not the majority, of violent street criminals are never going to change their ways and must be permanently taken off the street if the general populace, and those charged with protecting the populace, is to be kept safe. Some will argue that, especially in these times, local and state governments simply don’t have the “resources” to keep those who exist to prey on others off the street. Perhaps, though, if we spent less money trying to rehabilitate the unrehabilitatable, we could build more prisons and keep the never-will-do-wells locked up where they belong…and our cities’ streets, and our officers’ lives, reasonably safe.
There is nothing especially original, or even insightful, about this post, but its points have to be made.
The big story in Chicago the last few days has been the murders of Chicago Police Officer Michael Flisk and former CHA Officer Stephen Peters. Both were gunned down in the coldest of blood by convicted felon Timothy Herring while Officer Flisk, an evidence technician and father of four, was investigating the theft of speakers from Officer Peters’ car, which he parked in his mother’s garage on the Southeast Side. Herring, who had stolen the speakers, shot both men after Peters indicated to him that Flisk had lifted a fingerprint from the scene. When Herring discovered that Peters was still moving after being shot in the head, he fired another round into each of the men’s heads to finish them off.
That part of the story is bad enough. In some ways even worse is that Herring was paroled in April after serving half of a six year sentence for a 2007 armed robbery. He was jailed again in July for smoking pot in violation of his parole but was released in September. He was on electronic monitoring when he murdered Officer Flisk and Officer Peters last Friday afternoon.
So there you have it. The police put their lives in considerable danger to catch the bad guys only to have a clearly out of touch with reality penal system put these predators back on the street after a comparative slap on the wrist. To say that this is frustrating for the cop on the beat is to be woefully inadequate with one’s words. One wonders why the cops don’t say a perhaps more scatological equivalent of “Screw it! Why should I put my life on the line so that politicians, judges and parole notables, ever confident in their manifest wisdom and spirit of “compassion,” can put these soulless killers back on the street?” Then to have one of these products of our therapeutic, rehabilitatory penal system kill one of their fellow officers must be the ultimate slap in the cops’ face, again, being inadequate with words. Thank God that these officer continue to do their jobs, despite the Sisyphean nature of their tasks and the lack of support, bordering on constant suspicion, they have received from the top brass, at least in Chicago, over the last few years. Lesser people would just walk away and look for a job that is safer and/or gets more support from those with whom it works.
Clearly, this is an argument not only for more support for our police officers but, more directly, for stiffer sentencing, for realizing that a substantial plurality, if not the majority, of violent street criminals are never going to change their ways and must be permanently taken off the street if the general populace, and those charged with protecting the populace, is to be kept safe. Some will argue that, especially in these times, local and state governments simply don’t have the “resources” to keep those who exist to prey on others off the street. Perhaps, though, if we spent less money trying to rehabilitate the unrehabilitatable, we could build more prisons and keep the never-will-do-wells locked up where they belong…and our cities’ streets, and our officers’ lives, reasonably safe.
“NOTHING TO SEE HERE…”
12/1/10
One begins to suspect that what has the Bush/Obama administration so incensed about the recent batch of diplomatic cables’ having been disseminated by WikiLeaks is not the revelations of U.S. diplomats’ estimation of foreign leaders contained in those encrypted e-mails. The most lurid of those, if not the most surprising or revelatory, are
--Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is “feckless, vain, and ineffective,” is effectively Russian Prime Minister Putin’s mouthpiece in the West, and doesn’t get enough rest because he has a penchant for “frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard.” (I’ve always kind of liked Berlusconi, but the WikiLeaks revelations have intensified my admiration, or envy, really, for the man. But I digress.)
--Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as an “exceptionally dangerous” Islamist influence on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
--Russia is a “virtual mafia states” in which President Dmitry Medvedev plays Robin to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s Batman.
--The brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Ahmed Wali Karzai (who used to operate a restaurant not far from Wrigley Field, I believe.) is “widely understood to be corrupt.” A member of a privileged Afghan family who spent time operating a heavily regulated business in Chicago is corrupt? Saints preserve us! I digress again.
No, it is not these gossipy piffles that have the Bush/Obama administration upset with WikiLeaks. What really makes these guys angry is the revelation that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have largely succeeded in their efforts to gain enormous influence in Iraq, efforts that were spawned by the U.S. invasion of the former Mesopotamia. In fact, it looks like Iraq is well on its way to becoming “economically dependent and politically subservient” to Iran, according to the leaked cables, largely due to the efforts of General Qasim Solei, commander of the Qods force, the Guards’ paramilitary and espionage arm, with generous assistance from George Bush and Barack Obama. Apparently, General Solei “enjoys longstanding close ties” with, inter alia, such Bush/Obama favorites as Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and the ironically, in this case, named Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
It would be tragic to think that George Bush and Barack Obama have spent so much American blood and treasure on an effort to provide Iran with the gift of a client state on its west to act as a buffer against an increasingly hostile Arab world. That is exactly what the WikiLeaks material is telling us. No wonder the Bush/Obama Administration is so embarrassed…and enraged.
Speaking of the growing hostility of the Arab world to Iran, another inconvenient truth WikiLeaks may have revealed is that the Bush/Obama administration is banging the drums for another war in the Middle East, this time with Iran, an Iran, ironically, having been made stronger by Messrs. Bush’s and Obama’s earlier, and continuing, efforts in Iraq.
The advisability of keeping the government small and its actions limited does not end at the water’s edge.
One begins to suspect that what has the Bush/Obama administration so incensed about the recent batch of diplomatic cables’ having been disseminated by WikiLeaks is not the revelations of U.S. diplomats’ estimation of foreign leaders contained in those encrypted e-mails. The most lurid of those, if not the most surprising or revelatory, are
--Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is “feckless, vain, and ineffective,” is effectively Russian Prime Minister Putin’s mouthpiece in the West, and doesn’t get enough rest because he has a penchant for “frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard.” (I’ve always kind of liked Berlusconi, but the WikiLeaks revelations have intensified my admiration, or envy, really, for the man. But I digress.)
--Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as an “exceptionally dangerous” Islamist influence on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
--Russia is a “virtual mafia states” in which President Dmitry Medvedev plays Robin to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s Batman.
--The brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Ahmed Wali Karzai (who used to operate a restaurant not far from Wrigley Field, I believe.) is “widely understood to be corrupt.” A member of a privileged Afghan family who spent time operating a heavily regulated business in Chicago is corrupt? Saints preserve us! I digress again.
No, it is not these gossipy piffles that have the Bush/Obama administration upset with WikiLeaks. What really makes these guys angry is the revelation that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have largely succeeded in their efforts to gain enormous influence in Iraq, efforts that were spawned by the U.S. invasion of the former Mesopotamia. In fact, it looks like Iraq is well on its way to becoming “economically dependent and politically subservient” to Iran, according to the leaked cables, largely due to the efforts of General Qasim Solei, commander of the Qods force, the Guards’ paramilitary and espionage arm, with generous assistance from George Bush and Barack Obama. Apparently, General Solei “enjoys longstanding close ties” with, inter alia, such Bush/Obama favorites as Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and the ironically, in this case, named Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
It would be tragic to think that George Bush and Barack Obama have spent so much American blood and treasure on an effort to provide Iran with the gift of a client state on its west to act as a buffer against an increasingly hostile Arab world. That is exactly what the WikiLeaks material is telling us. No wonder the Bush/Obama Administration is so embarrassed…and enraged.
Speaking of the growing hostility of the Arab world to Iran, another inconvenient truth WikiLeaks may have revealed is that the Bush/Obama administration is banging the drums for another war in the Middle East, this time with Iran, an Iran, ironically, having been made stronger by Messrs. Bush’s and Obama’s earlier, and continuing, efforts in Iraq.
The advisability of keeping the government small and its actions limited does not end at the water’s edge.
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