Or, why anyone who cares about America—left or right—should be concerned:
[The argument] really isn't about Palin. Or about [Levi] Johnston.
It's about our democracy's apparent lack of interest any more in what is true and what is false. It's about the mainstream media's willful decision not to tackle a story that was integral to a major candidate's core integrity; it's about the Republican party elite's cynicism and condescension to millions of voters; it's about the decision of Harper Collins, Adam Bellow and Jonathan Burnham to publish a book so riddled with untruth without even a gesture toward ensuring its accuracy; and it's about the recklessness of John McCain, a man hollowed out by careerism and cynicism, selling out every scruple or principle he may have had to make his way in the modern GOP; and it's about the power of fundamentalist religion to blind everyone to the banal but vital details of secular politics.
It's about the constant struggle of being human: take the quick-and-easy route to ruin, or the slow-and-hard route to the future. Aaron Sorkin said it better:
America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, you want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free."
It's so much easier to call people names and make up stories, to make lying and cynicism the planks in a party platform. To the people leading the Republican party to its own ruin, and taking American democracy with it, I recommend meditating on Matthew 26:52.
During the few months I lived in Vermont, Bill Clinton got elected President. He spoke at one big rally that year, up in Burlington, and thanks to a press pass from a friend at a radio station, I got to see him in person:
I think you can see the Secret Service agent pushing me away in this shot, though Clinton himself couldn't get enough of the rope line:
Then-Vermont-governor Howard Dean was there too:
After detecting Asian carp DNA only 10 km from Lake Michigan, the Illinois Dept. of Resources last night started killing everything in the Sanitary and Ship Canal that runs through the city:
About 8,300 liters of the liquid toxin rotenone were put into a 6-mile stretch of the canal near Romeoville Wednesday night.
More than a dozen boats were to go on the canal later today to begin cleanup operations....
The toxin was put into the water because fears that the carp--which can grow to about 150 cm and 50 kg--are pushing their way north toward Lake Michigan and could devastate the Great Lakes' $7 billion commercial fishing industry. The carp can eat 40 percent of their body weight each day.
Apparently they don't taste too good, either.
Since the Canal runs backwards, thanks to an engineering trick in 1901 that stopped us poisoning our drinking water (and started us poisoning Peoria's), the carp may not make it all the way to the lake. Except for that jumping thing they do, when they launch themselves in the air the same way pigs don't, and have occasionally cleared 20 meters.
Just a few quick things today:
- The temperature hit 13°C today, not a record but definitely a pleasant day in December. In Chicago. Because, of course, there are parts of the world where that temperature on any day of the year would cause alarm.
- Matthew Yglesias thinks mutual funds are stupid. I'm linking because of his two clear charts. His recommendations: index funds. (But...is any of this news?)
- The local pizza place around the corner folded last week. This was Parker's favorite summer hangout. We'll miss it.
- Comcast and AT&T are fighting public broadband in areas that don't have it. Common sense suggests that the government subsidy would ultimately go to them, but their first reaction is that of any monopolist. As Duke University economist Leslie Marx put it only yesterday, "remember that everywhere a firm looks, it is obligated to look for profits, and I would challenge anyone to show me an industry where the suppression of rivalry is not profitable."
More later. Possibly a Parker photo, too.
The Chicago Tribune today has an in-depth article about the misuse of autism research in therapy:
In his letter, obtained by the Tribune, [Florida family physician Dr. Dan] Rossignol justified the unorthodox treatment in part by writing that "a recent study out of Johns Hopkins has shown that children with autism have evidence of neuroinflammation on autopsy and (cerebral spinal fluid) evaluations."
It was [Dr. Carlos] Pardo's study.
Rossignol did not mention that Pardo's team had written in its online primer, using capital letters for emphasis, that intravenous immunoglobulin "WOULD NOT HAVE a significant effect" on what they saw in the brains of people with autism.
"THERE IS NO indication for using anti-inflammatory medications in patients with autism," the team wrote.
There's a word for doctors who offer treatments to desperate people without any evidence that the treatments will work. Or, to put it another way, if it walks like a duck...
I have some experience dealing with the allure of long-shot treatments for diseases that no one actually understands. Fortunately my mother was a solidly rational person, so when she volunteered for an experimental treatment, she understood the possibility—one in three, in fact—that she would only get a placebo, and the bigger possibility that the drug wouldn't work anyway. And the experiment was conducted by an actual science team with actual experimental methods and an actual study-review board.
Quacks are dangerous because desperate people don't usually think rationally. Undergoing dangerous, not to mention costly, treatments that come from shaky foundations and incomplete research do far more harm than good. The hope these treatments bring has a cost that many families don't understand until, much later, they regain their rationality. Then they find that only the quacks have really benefitted.
Of course we knew Bill O'Reilly didn't care about the Constitution, but it's refreshing to hear him admit it:
Andrew Sullivan has a recap of the top 30:
Palin lied when she repeatedly claimed to have said, "Thanks, but no thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere; in fact, she openly campaigned for the federal project when running for governor.
Palin lied when she denied that Wasilla's police chief and librarian had been fired; in fact, both were given letters of termination the previous day.
Palin lied when she wrote in the NYT that a comprehensive review by Alaska wildlife officials showed that polar bears were not endangered; in fact, email correspondence between those scientists showed the opposite.
Palin lied when she claimed to be unaware of a turkey being slaughtered behind her during a filmed interview; in fact, the cameraman said she had picked the spot herself, while the slaughter was underway.
Palin lied when she denied having rejected federal stimulus money; in fact, she continued to accept and reject the funds several times.
And many, many more. This is the opposition party's de facto leader.
Is anyone surprised that Hamid Karzai, who brazenly stole the election in Afghanistan not too long ago, managed to get rid of the constitutionally-required runoff scheduled for this week?
It really makes you wonder what we're fighting for over there.
Not one single new. Even though MSNBC sent me this urgent update:
msnbc.com: BREAKING NEWS: Poll: 47 percent of Americans support an increase in troops in Afghanistan.
As I shake my head, I feel impelled to blog the following questions:
- Who did they poll?
- What question or questions did the pollsters ask?
- Why did the people they polled answer one way or another?
- In what way is a poll that shows less than a plurality in any way newsworthy?
- Why did MSNBC feel this important enough to send a news alert?
- What do the people responsible for (5) want to happen as a result of this news alert?
Call me crazy, but I think the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is so difficult and complicated that I really don't care what popular opinion has to say about it. I think we all deserve more complete information, as this is a republic; but I also think most people haven't got enough of a clue to have an opinion that matters.
Possibly the major news media in the U.S. would have more relevance if they tried. But a news alert like this? Heavens.
Chicago Tribune transport columnist John Hilkevich is shocked—shocked!—this morning to find that Chicago parking tickets are up 26% this year:
The stepped-up enforcement contributed to a $7 million year-over-year increase in parking ticket revenue, which totaled $119.2 million from January through August, the Chicago Department of Revenue reported.
Fines assessed from tickets go to the city's nearly depleted general fund. Revenue collected from a four-fold increase in parking rates this year is kept by Chicago Parking Meters LLC, which paid the city $1.15 billion as part of a 75-year lease to manage on-street parking.
The extra emphasis on enforcement may be contributing to an abundance of parking spaces in many parts of the city where finding street parking was previously luck of the draw.
The clampdown also is discouraging some suburbanites and others to limit their trips to the city.
Discouraging? No kidding. I'm in North Carolina this weekend, where I took advantage of a clothing sale I could have gone to at the same store in Chicago, because even N.C.'s 7.5% sales tax is better than downtown Chicago's 10.5%. (Maine was just too far to go for one suit.)
Mayor Daley fils has done some great things for Chicago, but the biggest things—privitization of public assets, unbelievable taxation, etc.—threaten his legacy. Perhaps now that we don't have the distraction of the 2016 Olympics anymore, he'll turn his energies toward making the city more financially livable again.