Is it winter yet?

The New Neo Posted on by

In New England, the fact that the calendar-based beginnings and endings of the seasons rarely seem to line up with the actual changes in the weather is often cause for snickering.

Fall begins before the leaves turn. And spring? Don’t even go there—it’s still winter whenever it arrives. Summer comes closer to the right time. But then there’s that old New England joke that there are two seasons here: winter and the Fourth of July.

Well, although it’s not yet winter (tune in tomorrow for the kickoff day), we are certainly proving the truth of that old saying. And this time it’s no joke. It’s been winter, winter, winter, for quite some time now, no matter what the calendar says.

The ice storm last week was so traumatic—a few unlucky people are still without power—that we start the season in a depleted state. And now this weekend comes a large storm sandwich: a big one yesterday from which everyone is digging out, as flurries continue to fly; and one tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s is particularly worrisome. It will begin as snow in most of New England and change to rain in an unpredictable line of—you guessed it—ice. Ice is what tends to cause power outages because the weight of it snaps trees and breaks lines quite readily.

To top it all off, it is the holidays. Right now it’s not beginning to look a lot like Christmas; it does look a lot like Christmas. Only northern New England usually has a white Christmas, typically. But this year all of New England will be able to hum that tune and not just be dreaming.

That’s about the only consolation, as far as I’m concerned. I’m trying to travel to the West Coast for the holidays, and I had to cancel and remake my reservation for Monday, which seems to be one of the few snow-free days predicted in the next week.

Usually I rather like winter in New England. Despite the snow, it is typically very beautiful, and there are many sunny days where the light is especially brilliant. Right now we haven’t had many of those. How about you?

Waiting for the Fairness Doctrine

The New Neo Posted on by

One of the “promises” of the recent campaign has been the threat that the overwhelming nature of the Democrats’ victory would allow them to push their long-held dream of imposing (re-imposing, that is) the Fairness Doctrine.

And now it may indeed come to pass. The idea that it would be a good thing to require every political program that espouses a certain viewpoint to also offer an equal and opposite viewpoint could sound “fair”—if you don’t think it should be left to the marketplace to decide.

It would be different if freedom of speech were involved here—or rather, infringements on it. But that is most definitely not involved. No one is censoring liberal speech, for example, by listening to Rush Limbaugh and deciding that Air America is more boring.

The proposed Fairness Doctrine would function as an extremely muscular and forceful affirmative action (on steroids) for liberal thought, which has not been the subject of discrimination in the first place. Rather, it has had trouble competing for viewers in the radio marketplace against the more lucrative and popular conservative programs.

How “progressive” is this?:

A senior advisor to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told one magazine last year, “Conservative radio is a huge threat and political advantage for Republicans and we have had to find a way to limit it.”

Well, at least it’s honest. Will it be successful? Tune in to see—and hear.

Or not hear, as the case may be.

Bow, bow, to the President-elect

The New Neo Posted on by

Ever since Obama began sporting this sort of sign it’s put me in mind of “The Mikado:”

preselect.jpg

In fact, in connection with any sort of governmental and legal ridiculousness, you can hardly go wrong if you think of “The Mikado.” Although Gilbert and Sullivan wrote their satiric masterpiece in 1885, and it was set in a very fanciful Japan, it has never ceased to be relevant to the ways of elected officials in a host of countries, including ours.

For those of you who don’t know the original, here are Gilbert’s lyrics; skip the first two verses, which are a Japanese processional. The song marks the grand entrance of the Mikado, the Emperor of Japan. He’s a pretentious figure, but he’s upstaged—and quite literally shoved aside—by Katisha, his self-styled Daughter-in-law-Elect.

Here is the new version:

BUSH:
From every kind of gent
Gross ridicule I expect;
I’m the outgoing President…

OBAMA:
And I’m the President-elect!
He was the top gun
But now I’m The One,
I’m the President-elect!

BUSH:
My morals have been declared
Particularly incorrect;

OBAMA:
But they’re nothing at all, compared
With those of the President-elect!
Bow, bow,
To the President-elect!

CHORUS:
Bow, bow
To the President-elect.

BUSH:
In a fatherly kind of way
I help each tribe and sect,
In Iraq and Africa they…

OBAMA:
Prefer the President elect!
So eloquence-prone,
Though the rest is unknown,
That’s the President-elect!

BUSH:
My nature is strength and fight
But my freedom from all defect…

OBAMA:
Is insignificant quite,
Compared with the President-elect!
Bow, bow,
To the President-elect!

CHORUS:
Bow, bow,
To the President-elect.

[NOTE: I tried to find a great version of the original on You Tube. But this was the best I could do; it’s nowhere near as good as it should be. But I include it for the curious. The song I am parodying begins around minute 1:00 and ends around minute 2:35.

The Madoff plot thickens

The New Neo Posted on by

The so-called “independent auditor” of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme seems to have been something of a storefront operation. Unbelievable that this didn’t raise red flags.

Oh, wait. Apparently, it did, according to the article. But the red flags didn’t raise any red flags. Maybe the regulators were color blind.

The lack of investigation is partly explained by the overburdening of the SEC inspection system itself:

“There are just so many people out there who are and aren’t registered that it really just overwhelms the system,” [Duke securities law professor] Cox said. “There is no easy way to expand the regulatory net unless we’re willing to put the might of the federal budget behind it to carry out more inspections.”

But, as previously noted, there were bona fide complaints and suspicions registered about Madoff’s scheme (see also this). It makes more sense to me that the failure to regulate may have had more to do with collegiality and reputation:

[Madoff] sat on a committee of academics, regulators and executives formed in 2000 by former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt to advise the agency on new stock-market rules in response to the growth of electronic trading. Madoff has led the trading committee at the Securities Industry Association, Wall Street’s biggest trade group, and served as chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Since 2000, he has given at least $100,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and more than $23,000 to the party’s candidates, including Senator Charles Schumer of New York and Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, who leads a charitable foundation that invested with Madoff.

“You can see where people would pull the shades down over their eyes in terms of recognizing what could be one of the great frauds of our time,” Levitt said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “I’ve known him for nearly 35 years, and I’m absolutely astonished.”

Well, there’s a sucker born every minute, and apparently one of them might be Arthur Levitt. But Madoff was apparently one smooth operator, almost on the order of a world-class spy in his ability to lead a double life and dissemble—and to screw his friends, associates, and clients, which included many large charities.

And fasten your seat belts. Madoff may not be alone. It’s not a coincidence that the Ponzi nature of his hedge fund is emerging now, during the financial crisis. Ponzi schemes rely on relatively good economic times; they collapse if too many people want to pull out their money at once.

That’s exactly what happened to Madoff, and it is likely that it will happen to others who are similarly overextended. In a “bad news, bad news” way, the financial crisis acts as a sort of plaque discloser for such operations.

Whatever Caroline wants, Caroline gets?

The New Neo Posted on by

It came as a surprise to me to hear that Caroline Kennedy is pushing to be appointed as the replacement for New York Senator Hillary Clinton.

I had always been under the impression that Caroline was a quiet and retiring sort, eschewing the public limelight for the more private joys of literature and the arts, philanthropy, and above all family. She was also a person who had learned only too well the perils of political fame. She seemed to step into an official role only reluctantly and intermittently, although with her lineage she could easily have run for office long ago.

Welcome to the new Caroline. Except for her name and her law degree, she appears to lack any particular qualifications for the job, although it must be said that she is a bona fide New Yorker, unlike her late-arrival predecessor Hillary or earlier relative and NY Senator Bobby Kennedy.

Does her lack of experience matter? As Roland Martin points out, Hillary had similarly meager qualifications when she first sought the same office. What Martin fails to mention is that Hillary ran for Senator in an election. It was up to the people to decide if her experience was suitable. An appointment is different, however. That decision is up to one person, not the electorate.

In New York, the situation is compounded by the fact that Governor Paterson himself, the man doing the appointing, only came to be governor because of the wrongdoings of his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer. Paterson, however, already had a long history of elective office in the state, even before being elected Lieutenant Governor and then succeeding Spitzer to the governorship.

There is a certain hubris to the Caroline Kennedy request, an idea that she somehow should not have to pay her political dues at all. Is there a precedent for this? If one looks at previous recent appointees to the Senate—which are quite numerous, by the way—there are at least a few.

If you look at the chart at the link, you will see that most appointees to the Senate have the expected and customary political chops. The list is replete with members of Congress, state legislators, mayors, and the like. But interspersed are several spouses (or other family members) of deceased Senators, and most of these appointees had never held elective office before (Jean Carnahan is a well-known and recent example; Muriel Humphrey is an earlier one I had forgotten).

This seems to be the closest precedent to the Caroline Kennedy caper. Of course, Caroline is not the spouse of Hillary Clinton, nor is Hillary deceased. So the analogy is a very poor one. But the similarity is that Caroline is part of one of the largest and strongest political dynasties in the United States, in which the most influential present member—Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts—does indeed appear to be dying. Thus, her desire to be Senator may reflect more of an intent to replace him than to replace Hillary, and if so her appointment would fit roughly in the traditional mold.

Does this make it a good idea? I actually think Caroline would be up to the task. She’s a smart woman, and I would guess that she is politically astute, based on what she’s observed in her life. But the whole idea of governors appointing Senators sticks in my craw (and that was even before the Blogajevich fiasco), and the appointment of Caroline would be an enormous stretch—almost to the breaking point of what’s reasonable. I’m not a New Yorker anymore, but if I were I would welcome a special election, especially for an office as important as Senator.

Will Caroline be appointed? Sounds as though she’s the current front-runner. It also sounds as though she got the politics bug recently, now that her kids are grown or almost-grown.

And speaking of kids, this is the way I remember her:

jfkcaroline.jpg

Let there be lights

The New Neo Posted on by

My power came on yesterday afternoon. By the time I got back home, it was toasty warm and everything was working again. It was like watching something that had been dead come back to glowing life.

I need to chase away the memory of the transformation of my warm, cozy place into a cold and offputting darkness. And so I find that, at least for now, my usual frugality about having too many lights on has been jettisoned in favor of lights, lights and more lights. I love having them on, especially in the evening. And the pleasure of the hot shower is immense. Not to mention being able to microwave a cup of tea.

I cranked the heat way up for a while at the beginning and basked in the unaccustomed pleasure. I don’t want to be cold, not even for a moment, not even a little bit. I’m sure this will pass and I’ll go back to the usual, but for now it seems to be the best way to undo the last four days of cold and wandering.

Obama’s slowness to pass judgment

The New Neo Posted on by

Steve Chapman calls Obama’s 48-hour delay in strongly denouncing Blogajevich a “my pet goat moment.”

Wrong analogy. Bush’s “moment” lasted only a few minutes. He was awaiting further word from aides after getting incredibly shocking news while in front of a group of schoolchildren. What’s Obama’s excuse?

In this case, the person I am reminded of most is not Bush but rather Mike Dukakis, Democratic Presidential candidate in 1988. It is widely thought that his bloodless answer to the far less important (and hypothetical) question about what his response would be if his wife had been raped turned the election tide against him. People perceived him as too wonky to be truly human—or to be President.

As for Obama, his slow response time seems to be a pattern. His delays in condemning the offenses of former friends or associates (Blogajevich, who was endorsed by Obama, would have to qualify as at least the latter) has been noticeable. One might even call it a character trait: when in doubt, Obama reserves judgment and speaks cautiously and generally. His stronger words come only after the evidence is overwhelming, usually long past the point where most people would have spoken out.

Obama has been described as emotionally cool and cerebral. Despite his soaring rhetoric, there is something excessively calculated and controlled about him. In crises so far, much of the time he simply mouths generalities and does nothing. Sometimes this works out in his favor, such as during the beginning of the financial crisis prior to the election, when the contrast with John McCain’s emotionality—and frenetic, although largely unproductive, energy—could not have been more stark.

It’s not that Obama did or said anything that was especially intelligent or helpful (and some of what he said was decidedly unhelpful, IMHO). But many people liked the way he said it, and his calm demeanor that indicated he could not be easily rattled.

I agree that composure under fire is a good trait for a President to have. But Obama’s foot-dragging slowness in denouncing the Reverend Wrights and Blogajevichs of this world, even when the evidence of wrongdoing is clear, is not. It bespeaks a cloudy moral code and a difficulty in making judgments and decisions. These are most assuredly not good traits for a President to have.

The frustration of the long-distance rower

The New Neo Posted on by

This story was frustrating to even read about.

Italian Alex Bellini set out to row across the Pacific from Peru to Australia. To contemplate the execution of this sort of feat is beyond the comprehension of most people—certainly beyond mine—and to achieve it requires a force of will and an ability to endure that is extraordinary. Actually, I think it can sometimes border on the pathologically obsessional. A person has to be able to judge when enough is enough.

Bellini apparently made that judgment. He rowed almost the entire distance of 9,500 nautical miles for ten months before giving up. Yes, he gave up—within sixty-five nautical miles of his goal.

Nowadays, even solo adventurers such as Bellini are in some sort of contact with the outside world, and he “contacted his wife Friday to say he was too exhausted to row his 25-foot (7.5 meter) boat any further, despite being nearly in sight of the eastern Australian town of Laurieton.”

It’s that “nearly in sight” part that made me gnash my teeth. I can only imagine how wiped out Bellini must have been to have abandoned his goal when he was so close to achieving it. I would dearly love to have been able to listen in on that conversation with his wife, though.

The night without artificial light

The New Neo Posted on by

The ice storm that hit most of New England and some of New York last week is long gone. In most places, the shimmering coat that covered everything for a day has melted, and the downed branches and power lines have been cleared.

But that doesn’t mean the power is on. In most states, there are still whole towns without power. In most towns, there are still pockets of people without power.

Well, lucky me. I’m one of those still without power. As I write this, I’m sitting in the warm dining room of a good friend who has kindly consented to let me visit every day for as long as I want. I eat, recharge my batteries (literally), take a shower, and just generally get comfortable.

I’ve learned that the most important thing to have in a power outage of any duration is a good and generous friend. The second is patience (wearing thin, I must say). The third is an appreciation of the strange beauty of it all.

Beauty? Yes. At night, driving through the part of town that was (and still is) without street lights or traffic lights, I feel transported back to another time and place—except, of course, for the fact that I’m driving a car. The moon has been full and luminous, and it’s the only light there is in that area of town. The dark seems darker than usual, and the moon brighter in contrast, much more of a presence.

In the day, during the hours the sun is out, it seems a wonderful thing to have natural light and not have to function with candles and flashlights when inside. But at night, when I’m in my place and padding about in my down jacket, I notice how beautiful candlelight is but how little it actually illuminates. Just the bit in its immediate proximity—so very different from the uniform brightness of electric lights, which must have seemed a miracle when they were first invented. They seem like a miracle again to me right about now.

Mind change on climate change?

The New Neo Posted on by

This is interesting.

And here’s something related. It’s from a year ago, when a number of previously convinced scientists were having doubts about the proof that global warming is generated by human activity. That number seems to have increased since—and in my opinion a scientist who once believed and now does not is of even more significance that one who was always a doubter.

One recanter, Dr. David Evans of Australia, said:

“As Lord Keynes famously said, ”˜When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’”

This is right up my alley, being a specialist of sorts in what it takes to change a person’s mind in the face of a strongly entrenched belief system. Answer: a great many facts, forming a pattern strong enough to mount a powerful challenge. And even then, only some minds will change.

More fascinating stuff from Dr. Evans:

Evans noted how he benefited from climate fears as a scientist. “And the political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990’s, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn’t believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; and there were international conferences full of such people. And we had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet! But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence outlined above fell away or reversed,” Evans wrote.

This is another example of how difficult it is, and how much courage it takes, to dissent or even to withhold final judgment on this highly politicized scientific issue. As a layperson, I have followed the arguments for quite some time now, and I believe the jury is still out.

[NOTE: See this and this for previous discussions.]