Springing into Cognitive Dissonance

Am I the only one who thinks it's jarring that the first day of spring coincides with the sixth anniversary of the Iraq War? As if the war itself weren't appalling enough, the timing just seems like an affront to all that's good in the universe.

In a different register, but also distressing: Ohio's unemployment rate climbed to 9.4%, the highest in 25 years, according to figures released today.

In the face of all that, my daffodils have finally burst into bloom.

Sex, Schools, and the Politics of Distraction

The superintendent of Westfall School District in south-central Ohio is being pilloried for accessing racy websites from work, the Columbus Dispatch reports. Okay, he shouldn't have done that. But is he really all that different from millions of other American employees who've done the same while at work? Don't millions more use work computers for personal stuff? This guy's biggest offense, I think, was forgetting how teachers and other school employees are held to higher standards than the rest of society. In other words, his main offense was stupidity.

And what did he actually look at? Well, he did check out one hardcore free porn site - exactly once. The rest appears to have been no spicier that what you see on the average newsstand. (Cosmo covers, anyone?)

At 6 p.m. on Oct. 22, 2007, [Superintendent] Cotner's computer was used to visit an Internet site that today features free online hard-core pornography videos, the newspaper [the Dispatch] found.

The computer assigned to the leader of the Pickaway County district also was used three times during the fall of 2006 to visit a site that sells sex aids and toys.

The majority of the site visits being examined by the Westfall school board involved Google image searches for pictures of swimsuit models, actresses and celebrities.

Some of those sites included Sports Illustrated swimsuit models and "almost-nude photos-wet-and-wild" of a female former American Idol contestant.

(Source: Columbus Dispatch)

Oooh, women in swimsuits! Wet women in swimsuits! I'm no big fan of the SI swimsuit editions (they give kids the idea that women's main role in sports is as eye candy), but does even the most prudish fundamentalist consider this to be porn? And is ordering a sex toy from a work computer any less ethical than shopping at Amazon while at work? Actually, if the superintendent had browsed the sex toy section of Amazon, no one would have been the wiser!

If I lived in this district, I'd be steamed, all right. But not about the superintendent's computer usage. The district's former treasurer is sitting in prison after pilfering tens of thousands of dollars. And its school board meeting drew a crowd of 300 last night. They came not to accuse the superintendent (though some attendees did call for his resignation), but to protest proposed budget cuts.

The politics of distraction is so handy in tough economic times.

Marx Was Wrong

Zombie bank kitteh from I Can Has Cheezburger?

The proletariat isn't killing capitalism. The banks are.

This is not an economics blog, but I thought Robert Reich really nailed it in his commentary on the big bonuses AIG is paying to the guys who orchestrated the failure of our economy:

This sordid story of government helplessness in the face of massive taxpayer commitments illustrates better than anything to date why the government should take over any institution that's "too big to fail" and which has cost taxpayers dearly. Such institutions are no longer within the capitalist system because they are no longer accountable to the market. [my emphasis]

(More like this here.)

The Obama Administration's greatest failure, so far, has been its unwillingness to insist on accountability. The lack of accountability built into the initial rescue package should have been obvious to the least perspicacious economic minds. I mean, it was obvious to me! But I thought Obama would institute accountability even though his appointees helped get us into this mess. I hoped he'd override Timothy Geithner on at least this one point.

Why is Robert Reich not in the White House? Why not Joseph Stiglitz? Dean Baker? George Soros? I could name a half-dozen other people who aren't so personally invested as Geithner or Larry Summers in maintaining the status quo. For crying out loud, Badtux the Snarky Penguin would make a helluva better Treasury Secretary than Geithner. (See this post for just one example of why I'm not joking about this!)

AIG and its ilk are going to have to be nationalized (or put into receivership, or whatever euphemism you prefer) sooner or later. The only question is whether Obama has the nerve and foresight to do it now, and not wait until another trillion or so is squandered. Joseph Stiglitz has a smart explanation of what's going wrong and how to fix it: basically, by splitting each of the zombie banks into two pieces, hiving off the bad investments, and sticking shareholders and executives with the losses. In other words, he advocates eliminating the current moral hazard and disincentives to lend while reinstating accountability.

Right now, the zombie banks are murdering markets and capitalism itself. Time for a new escape plan.

A Sweeter Gig than Wall Street Tycoon

"Money" by FLickr user TW Collins, used under a Creative Commons license.

So the poor Wall-Street fat-cats are wincing at a $500,000 pay cap? They just picked the wrong job. A recent article in the Columbus Dispatch reported that the presidents of Ohio's public universities and their senior henchmen advisers won't see pay cuts this year - although unionized state employees are staring down a six percent cut:

According to figures compiled by the Associated Press, the 154 individuals at Ohio's 14 four-year public institutions made a combined $34.6 million last year.

They were led by Ohio State University President Gordon Gee, the highest paid public university president in America. He makes $775,008 a year before bonuses. [My emphasis. WTF does he make after bonuses??!!]

A 6 percent pay cut akin to what Strickland is seeking from unionized agency workers would amount to a $2 million savings if applied to university presidents and other top university officials.

My own university's president makes less than $400,000, a comparatively penurious sum. Of that, $85,000 came from this year's raise alone (about a 30% increase on his previous base). Elsewhere in Ohio, Miami University's president is foregoing his $68,000 performance bonus. No word of anything similar happening here.

Instead, my university has hired a headhunting firm to control the search for our next provost. According to the Athens News, the headhunters will be paid a quarter of the new hire's first-year salary. The outgoing provost makes $264,000. Administrators are not typically hired at lower salaries than their predecessors, so my university will likely shell out over $65,000.

For that amount they could hire:

• one well-paid assistant professor
• one-and-a-half instructors at my current level
• five people working under my former conditions as an adjunct
• or a scant one-fifth of our current president.

I guess they need a headhunter because there just aren't any smart, ambitious university administrators willing to work for less than half a million, and so none would apply. They'd all waltz off to Wall Street instead. Hey, times are tough all over.

Within a Whisker of Martial Law

Wow. Apparently Bush or his henchpersons threatened martial law last October while pushing their economic "rescue" package. Here's how The Political Cat reports it:

Later on down the line, we find (Surprise! NOT!) that the League of Incompetent EvilMen actually threatened our elected congresscritters with martial law if they didn't approve the bailout of Wall Street and its legions of fat, slobbering, greedy bankers. Pig man, pig man.

(This little gem is buried in the midst of a nice long rant featuring the best financial meltdown LOLcat ever, so go read the whole thing.)

TPC's source for this is the Santa Monica Mirror:

On October 3, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) stated on the floor of the House of Representatives that “a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no [on the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill].” Under National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), the president has sole discretion to invoke martial law in case of a "catastrophic emergency" defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”

Full implementation of martial law would include the invocation of a series of executive orders (10990-11921) which entail government control of all modes of transportation, communication, utilities, food, health, education, and welfare functions. The statutes also allow for the mobilization of civilians into work brigades, the relocation of communities, and control over all U.S. financial institutions.

Now, I don't think it would have actually come to actual martial law. I think Bush and his evil cronies would have blinked. Then again, maybe I'm indulging in what Cornel West would call optimism rather than hope: the dogged wish that the world will be just fine, despite evidence to the contrary.

Regardless, I'm outraged but sadly unsurprised that at a time when we needed sober deliberation and smart policymaking, we instead got scare tactics. Imagine if FDR had pushed through the New Deal with the threat of bayonets.

No wonder the bankers got umpteen billions with no strings attached. No wonder they got to hand out kajillions in year-end bonuses to the same bozos who wrecked the world's economy.

I harbor no illusions that the new administration is going to fix everything. I was pretty frustrated at how Obama birth control funding under the bus last week. However, it looks as though it's going to be packed into the big budget bill, so I'm withholding judgment for now. I'm less forgiving about Obama's vote on the FISA debacle last summer; he's gonna have to prove his rhetoric about transparency and the rule of law before I drop that old grudge.

No matter what, though, I think we can be pretty confident that Obama won't throw a hissy fit and threaten martial law when he doesn't get his way.

Time Travel to the Island of Lost Toys

From the annals of classic 1970s ads, here's a reminder of what's gone lost in the world of play since my childhood.

I'm not arguing for a pink-and-blue-tinged nostalgia. I remember how clearly trucks were considered a boy toy. My little brother adored his Tonka trucks while I stuck to my stuffed animals. I was no gender outlaw in the sandbox. He got a doctor kit for Christmas; I got a nurse kit. All we really cared about was the bottle of candy pills. Still, the message hit its mark.

But by 1972, marketers couldn't just ignore the burgeoning social ferment. In the first of these ads, check out how many dads are involved with their kids - sons and daughters alike. Note the nod toward racial inclusivity. In all honesty, toy marketing is no more racist or sexist in those ads than it is today; maybe less so.

And man, were these ads prescient for 1972! Thirty-seven years later, we're surrounded by plastic crap that breaks on contact. We're deluged by gadgetry meant to entertain rather than engage. I love the line:

You see, we've learned that when a toy doesn't need a kid, in a very short time, the kid doesn't need the toy.

But enough seriousness. If you're old enough to remember 1972, by now you're recalling the classic Tonka elephant commercial and wondering where it went. It's here in this clip, too; ain't YouTube grand? Unlike platform shoes and Richard Nixon, the Tonka elephant hasn't gone terminally uncool. (Well, okay, so Nixon was never cool.) Enjoy!

God O Thunder Falls to Earth

Lego version of Thor, the Norse God of Thunder; image by Flickr user Dunechaser, used under a Creative Commons license.

Yesterday, Columbus police arrested a guy who'd been an active member of an Internet discussion board for johns, where he reviewed prostitutes and issued advice on not getting busted. The Columbus Dispatch reports he posted under such charming screen names as "God O Thunder." Among the allegations is that he promoted online the prostitution services of a 17-year-old.

The real name of this Thor wannabe: Robert Eric McFadden.

Previous government position: director of Ohio's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Before that, he was field director for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

Current employer: Ohio's Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

So (assuming the charges are true), he's managed to come pretty close to maxing out the hypocrisy angle, and he's making good headway on the irony angle, too. Does his current job mean he might be able to oversee his own prison sentence?

It gets even more sordid (again from The Dispatch):

Police said they have seized a computer and two vehicles. One was his wife's car, which detectives said was the setting for photos of the 17-year-old girl that McFadden then posted online.

Eeeew. This man sounds like he's got some serious boundary issues. Not that I think it'd be perfectly kosher if he'd used his own car. Still, using his wife's vehicle speaks to a level of hubris and/or passive aggressiveness that too-neatly matches his pseudo-Norse-god alias.

There's also a nice irony in his being busted through one of these john forums. I'm pretty grossed out even at the idea of such forums. The little I've seen of them looks to me like they're more about reviewing a product than a service. They confirm my sense that too many johns view women's bodies as commodities. They underscore my suspicion that for too many of them, paying for sex is both an exercise in and confirmation of masculine sexual entitlement.

Professional escort Peridot Ash, who obviously knows a heck of a lot more about sex work than I do, seems to concur. She recently had a smart post on the demeaning terms johns use in these "reviews." She concludes that their disparagement of prostitutes' bodies is just an extension of contempt in which they hold all women's "saggy, fat, and ugly" bodies. She writes:

This list says to me: women are THINGS. And we only like certain kinds of these things. And the consumer has a right to prefer these things. Because in business, the market decides. Female bodies are consumable and the market has decided that fat, black, old, or flat-chested ones are not as economically valuable as nubile, white, young, big-boobied ones. BUYER BEWARE.

(Read the whole thing.)

And that's why - even though I'm sorry for McFadden's wife and others who'll have to deal with the fallout, and even though I'm convinced that criminalizing prostitution only multiplies its ills - I can't feel sorry that this particular God O Thunder is apparently hoist on his own lightning bolt.

The Depression Hits Home

Recession kitteh from I Can Has Cheezburger?

No, I didn't lose my job. But my sister's husband did. He just got laid off after a decade-plus as a sales rep for a major tool maker.

My sis and her husband will be okay financially. They're in no danger of losing their home. My sister is still employed. Their situation is not comparable to that of people whose trailer homes are being repossessed. I'm grateful for that.

But still, it's a blow. Finding a new job in this depression will be tough. I worry that he'll get discouraged - depressed, even - and who would blame him?

Boom Times, North Dakota Style

Photo of North Dakota sky at sunset by Flickr user Pete Baer, used under a Creative Commons license.

I just loved last weekend's New York Times article on North Dakota's so-far resilient economy.

As the rest of the nation sinks into a 12th grim month of recession, this state, at least up until now, has been quietly reveling in a picture so different that it might well be on another planet.

The number of new cars sold statewide was 27 percent higher this year than last, state records through November showed. North Dakota’s foreclosure rate was minuscule, among the lowest in the country. Many homes have still been gaining modestly in value, and, here in Fargo, construction workers can be found on any given day hammering away on a new downtown condominium complex, complete with a $540,000 penthouse (still unsold, but with a steady stream of lookers).

While dozens of states, including neighboring ones, have desperately begun raising fees, firing workers, shuttering tourist attractions and even abolishing holiday displays to overcome gaping deficits, lawmakers this week in Bismarck, the capital, were contemplating what to do with a $1.2 billion budget surplus.

And as some states’ unemployment rates stretched perilously close to the double digits in the fall, North Dakota’s was 3.4 percent, among the lowest in the country.

North Dakota’s cheery circumstance — which economic analysts are quick to warn is showing clear signs that it, too, may be in jeopardy — can be explained by an odd collection of factors: a recent surge in oil production that catapulted the state to fifth-largest producer in the nation; a mostly strong year for farmers (agriculture is the state’s biggest business); and a conservative, steady, never-fancy culture that has nurtured fewer sudden booms of wealth like those seen elsewhere (“Our banks don’t do those goofy loans,” Mr. Theel said) and also fewer tumultuous slumps.

(More here.)

North Dakota's secret? Its people just are not prone to excess. In fact, any excess is liable to freeze up in the winter and fall off.

If anything, North Dakotans can be excessive in their rejection of excess. I say this as an expat who's still got a streak of this. Also, you grow up eating hotdish, and something happens to your DNA to keep you from ever getting terribly impressed with yourself. Certainly it's hard to imagine North Dakotans cockily trading toxic mortgage securities or even getting irrationally exuberant.

So if North Dakota is now experiencing a relative boom - or at least seems to be cushioned from the worst of the recession - it's due primarily to a culture that's so far removed from Wall Street, it might as well be another country altogether.

I don't want to romanticize my birthplace. It does get really, really cold. And it's not that North Dakota is immune from economic woes. The farm crisis of the 1980s was pretty devastating.

But I do wonder if the rest of this country might take a page from North Dakotan commonsense and humility, dial down our expectations, and put community over commerce.

Oh, and we might all learn to wave laconically at every vehicle we pass while you're driving down two-lane country roads. You do this by barely lifting a finger or two off the steering wheel, whether you know the other drivers or not. (No, not that finger, remember this is North Dakota!) It's a small thing, yes, but I think it's one of many influences making it unlikely that people will write "those goofy loans."

Laboring by the Insurance Clock

I'm feeling taciturn and mildly mopey today because I have a nasty sinus headache and the Tiger (who has tonsillitis) just yakked up his lunch. So, from the department of "it could be way worse" comes this news about how the recession is stranding people without health care. The New York Times (via Broadsheet) reports that when the Archway cookie factory in Ashland, Ohio (yes, Ohio again!) went belly-up two months ago, it left its employees stuck without health insurance.

While no one has died (yet) as a result, the company's irresponsibility made it shockingly hard for one baby to find its way into the world, as the Times recounts:

[Starla] Darling, who was pregnant when her insurance ran out, worked at Archway for eight years, and her father, Franklin J. Phillips, worked there for 24 years.

“When I heard that I was losing my insurance,” she said, “I was scared. I remember that the bill for my son’s delivery in 2005 was about $9,000, and I knew I would never be able to pay that by myself.”

So Ms. Darling asked her midwife to induce labor two days before her health insurance expired.

“I was determined that we were getting this baby out, and it was going to be paid for,” said Ms. Darling, who was interviewed at her home here as she cradled the infant in her arms.

As it turned out, the insurance company denied her claim, leaving Ms. Darling with more than $17,000 in medical bills.

I couldn't fathom how Starla Darling could be left stranded with those bills if she was still insured. It turns out the company misinformed her - or to put it bluntly, Archway lied. The Mansfield News Journal connects the dots:

On Oct. 4, [Darling] received a certified letter stating that, as of two days from then, she would no longer have a job or health insurance.

Darling says she asked and doctors agreed induce labor the next day, before the insurance expired Oct. 6.

After seven hours, with doctors about to send her home because the effort to induce was not taking, she began hemorrhaging.

"My placenta tore away from the wall and both the baby and I were literally inches away from death," she said. "We were rushed into emergency C-section, with both of us hanging tight to our lives."

Darling said doctors had to cut her open with no time to administer pain medications. Afterward, she learned her health insurance had already expired, despite the certified letter. Archway had stopped paying its part for employee health insurance months prior.

"Apparently, employees were paying their share of health insurance, but it has been reported that the company had not been paying since June," Meghan Dubyak, a spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, told the News Journal on Friday.

Ugh. It's one thing for a company to slide into bankruptcy; it's quite another to lie to your employees. Also, can I just note that the credit crunch only began in September, not June? Archway had a problem for a good long time before credit froze up. It obviously had other mismanagement issues.

Former Archway employees are really stuck. Most can't afford COBRA coverage anyway on their meager unemployment benefits. But even if they could, their former employer's actions have rendered them ineligible. The Wall Street Journal gives more detail (via Michael Panzner at Daily Markets):

Archway was self-insured — and when it filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 6, there wasn’t enough money in its coffers to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of outstanding health-care claims along with all its other debts.

Workers weren’t eligible for Cobra, a federal act that gives certain laid-off employees the right to temporarily continue health-care coverage at group rates. That’s because Cobra doesn’t apply when a company terminates its insurance plan.

This story is disgusting from start to finish. About the only thing Archway is not culpable for is the hemorrhage Darling experienced. To the best of my knowledge, induction of labor is not a particular risk factor for placental abruption.

Otherwise, Darling's story and those of her co-workers (follow the links above for those other stories) demonstrate why health insurance desperately needs to be de-coupled from employment. Insurance costs are bleeding employers (and indirectly, their employees, whose wages are depressed when premiums rise). As Archway's "ethics" show, a few employers can't be trusted to make their employees' health a priority in hard times. Most perniciously, as the recession/depression deepens, the number of uninsured is going to skyrocket.

Giving Thanks for Obama's Appointments?

Heck no! I'm not the least thankful for the first batch of appointments to the Obama administration. Honestly, they strike me as a bunch of turkeys so far.

Photo by Flickr user Hey Paul, used under a Creative Commons license.

Hillary Clinton for secretary of state? Umm ... I'm all for mending fences, but the only area of substantive policy differences between her and Obama was foreign policy. As I explained at the start of the primaries, Obama's early opposition to the Iraq War convinced me that he would be more judicious in foreign affairs than Clinton, given her vote to authorize military action and her saber-rattling on Iran. If Clinton is kept on a short leash, her appointment would be hollow and meaningless. If not ... well, as I said back in February, peace is the basis for advancing any of the other goals I care about, whether combatting poverty or achieving a sustainable energy policy or securing health care for every American.

Larry Summers as Obama's top economic advisor? Never mind how he infamously speculated on women's biological shortcomings in science and math; that only cost him the Harvard presidency. I'm much more put off by his role as co-architect of late Clinton-era deregulation, which cost all of us a stable economy. Our next Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, also shares culpability for our current morass. On the flip side, none of those economists who've given us trenchant analyses of the mess - Paul Krugman, Dean Baker, Robert Reich, even George Soros for goodness sake - appears to have any formal role in the new administration.

In fact, there's not yet been a key appointment that I've cheered. I wallow in worry when I read analyses like William Greider's at The Nation. Greider sees Obama's appointments as capitulating to center-right policies. In terms of temperament and ability, he notes, these appointees are managers and technocrats who can make the wheels of government turn but don't have the stomach for radical change:

Alas, Obama is coming to power at a critical moment when incrementalism is irrelevant. The system is in collapse. Financial chaos won't wait for patient deliberations. ... Wasting more public money on insolvent mastodons is the least of it. The real scandal is it doesn't work. It can't work because the black hole is too large even for Washington to fill. Government should take over the failing institutions or force them into bankruptcy, break them up and sell them off or mercifully relieve everyone, including the taxpayers.

Part of me thinks that Obama is smart enough to embrace a paradigm shift. Also at The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel argues that while Obama is a pragmatist at heart, times are tough enough that pragmatism itself will force him to take bold action. Digby leans toward a similar assessment, though she's reluctant to prognosticate:

I suspect that on the economy, it's going to have to be a hell of a lot more progressive than anybody dreamed it would be even three months ago. There are no conservative solutions to economic meltdown except just letting it happen --- and I don't think anyone expects Obama to do that.

I don't have a crystal ball, either, and as a historian I do much better at looking backward, anyway. Historically, we're at a great hinge - like the Great Depression, like the Civil War - that could swing either way. With visionary leadership, Obama could exploit the current crisis, much as FDR did, to institute universal health care, launch a sustainable energy and environmental policy along the lines of the Apollo Alliance, and reintroduce regulation that will create a framework for healthy markets. At the HuffPost, Robert Creamer argues Obama is likely to pursue progressive policies because the center of American politics has shifted dramatically to the left and because Obama recognizes historical necessity:

Change doesn't happen incrementally. I think of it as the "Drain-O" theory of history. At key points in history the pressure for democratizing, progressive change overwhelms the forces of the status quo. Then, as the pipes are suddenly cleaned out, massive numbers of progressive changes can finally flow. America is about to experience one of those periods. How much we can accomplish, and how long this period lasts will depend on many factors that we don't yet know -- and one that we do. It will depend heavily on our success in continuing to mobilize the millions of Americans who elected Barack Obama into a movement to enact his program.

Like Obama, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln all installed people in their cabinets who they believed to be effective managers who could deliver. They all had their share of outsiders and progressives, but many were old Washington hands. Yet all of these Presidents faced historic challenges that demanded and enabled them to make fundamental change. And all of them were guided by progressive values that were sharply different from those of Bush, Cheney, and Delay. Obama shares and articulates those values more than any political leader since Robert Kennedy died forty years ago.

Obama himself seems to have finally realized that we progressives are growing nervous. He's insisting that he will set the tone, and not his advisors:

[U]nderstand where the vision for change comes from first and foremost: it comes from me. That's my job, to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and to make sure that my team is implementing it.

(Obama as quoted by Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly, via Alternet)

I'm enough of an optimist - and the historical pressures are inexorable enough - that I'm willing to hope that's this is true, and that his vision is basically a progressive one.

I'm enough of a cynic - and worried enough about the $2 trillion in hush-hush loans that the Federal Reserve has granted to banks - to think that we'd had better hold him to it. If we fail, there won't be much cause for gratitude, come next Thanksgiving Day.

Bloggers: The Adjunct Professors of the Media?

The founder of Shakesville, Melissa McEwan, reappeared earlier this week after contemplating an end to her blogging career. I can't say I blame her. She does a daunting amount of work for no pay whatsoever. Melissa's long post explaining her absence and return is touching and illuminating. It sounds like she's experiencing the post-election fatigue that has struck many of us, combined with burnout from long hours for only intermittent recognition. And she's been working for free. Now, many of her loyal readers are pledging to support Shakesville with a regular stream of donations.

I'm glad Melissa has a supportive community. I think it's lovely that she's getting lots of donation offers. But she'll need an awful lot of small donors - or a few exceedingly generous ones - to even make minimum wage for her efforts. This still doesn't add up to an income!

Melissa's quandary makes me wonder how sustainable independent, progressive blogging will prove to be. It's precisely these truly independent progressive blogs that are creating a meaningful public sphere - a cradle of civil society - in a country that desperately needs reasonable, critical discourse. Yes, progressive bloggers do say "fuck" a lot, but they're civil on a far deeper level. They've placed relentless pressure on Democratic candidates to respond to our concerns. They've given voice to those who've been silenced. They've pushed a host of issues onto the agenda of the corporate media. In short, they're playing a leading role in transforming American politics. I seriously wonder if Obama could have won without them.

And most independent lefty bloggers do this work without any compensation. With loads of luck, their blogging might catapult them into the limelight long enough to snag a book contract or some freelance writing for established media. Needless to say, even those folks aren't getting rich from their writing.

What to do? Donations can only be a temporary, patchwork solution. In fact, the whole language of "donations" and "tip jars" has been troubling me all day. Other people who work their asses off to do a job don't expect to live from donations! They're paid wages or salaries. The language reminds us that they've earned their pay. Don't bloggers do the same? Or will people persist in seeing major projects like Shakesville as basically a hobby?

Here's where I have some hard-earned empathy for Melissa and others in her boat - less from my experience as a small-potatoes blogger than as a long-term adjunct professor.

Both bloggers and adjuncts repeatedly get the message that they should feel lucky to have a creative outlet for their talents. Both are too often looked down upon by colleagues who ought to be their allies: tenured professors and conventional journalists. Both earn a pittance or nothing at all. (In America, adjuncts usually get paid something, but in Germany unpaid gigs are quite common.)

And yet both bloggers and adjuncts serve an essential function in society. We educate. We inspire. We provoke. We contribute an outsider's perspective. We fill needs neglected by those in more comfy positions.

Universities, at least, have resources that can potentially be used to improve the lot of adjuncts. This just requires the will to recommit to teaching, as opposed to administration and capital projects. (My chair and dean have done that for me, and I'm now on an annual contract - bless them!)

The solution is less obvious for blogs, where many of the readers are themselves unpaid bloggers. As I've already suggested, the donations model is not sustainable on a large scale or in the long run. Melissa rightly argues that ads are no solution, either, especially for feminist blogs where key terms generate bizarrely counterproductive ads. Just one example: Last spring, Feministing was plagued by a Playboy ad, as my friend Sugarmag pointed out (I'd link to this if her blog were still up).

I don't have any realistic solutions. I do have a few fantasy ones. Maybe George Soros would establish a foundation for lefty bloggers? Better yet, how about a foundation supported by a surtax on Rupert Murdoch and other major media conglomerates? I think that'd be perfectly just, considering the yawning gap that they've created in media coverage - and that bloggers are bridging.

I just know one thing for sure: we'll be totally blinkered in seeking solutions until we reframe politically engaged blogging as something far more important and serious than a hobby. We need to ditch the talk of donations and tip jars. Especially on the scale of Shakesville, blogging is a public service and a crucial, vibrant part of civil society. Those who provide this service should be able to earn a decent living from it.

And before I get way too sanctimonious, one final thought: I hope that Melissa really will use some of her earnings to buy some first-rate catnip and paint her house sparkly purple, as some of her commenters suggested. That is what we do with real income. We spend it on both projects both noble and silly without having to be accountable to "donors." If Grey Kitty, patron cat of Kittywampus, were still here today, she'd remind us that there's nothing nobler than good 'nip, even if it did make her drool.

Boob Radar

Photo by Flickr user Dave Pearson, used under a Creative Commons license.

One reason I've been quiet the past couple of days is that I've been squandering loads time on the phone arguing about a rejected medical claim. As I mentioned briefly last summer, I had a mysterious little blob turn up on a mammogram in spring 2007. I got lots more mammograms plus a total of three MRIs at half-year intervals. Insurance won't cover the last MRI unless they get more documentation from the doctors. Right now, I owe $3200 unless (until!! let's think positively) my insurer steps up and covers the exam.

I know, I know. I'm very lucky to even have an insurance company to wrangle with.

The MRI really was medically necessary. It's better than a mammogram in evaluating "dense breast tissue." I would like to say that I've got these fabulous dense, firm, perky hooters and that's why the MRI was needed. But in fact, this says nothing about my hawtness; dense tissue is linked with "youth" and in the universe of mammograms, I'm just a babe - chronologically, that is.

The MRI really did provide superior information in my case. It showed that my blob was regular in shape and that it wasn't growing, both of which suggested it wasn't malign. The last time I had an MRI in June, it showed that the blob had in fact disappeared. (Most likely, the blob was some kind of inflammatory process in a cyst. Yes, I realize I was lucky.) A biopsy might have provided the same information, but biopsies can be pretty painful, and the blob was small enough that it would have been hard to locate.

So, both medically and psychologically, the MRI accomplished what a mammogram couldn't. I've stopped worrying about the blob. I feel a whole lot less alienated from my body.

But. The MRI costs roughly ten times more than a mammogram, which is why insurance demands justification.

Let's dream a moment. What if we had an imaging technology that offered the sensitivity of an MRI at the cost of a mammogram but without the radiation exposure? That's just what researchers at the University of Bristol hope to develop. They've come up with a new approach to boob-a-vision. And it's based on ... radar.

Professor Alan Preece and Dr Ian Craddock from the University of Bristol have been working for a number of years to develop a breast-imaging device which uses radio waves and therefore has no radiation risk unlike conventional mammograms.

The team began developing and researching a prototype around five years ago ... [Dr. Craddock says:] "This new imaging technique works by transmitting radio waves of a very low energy and detecting reflected signals, it then uses these signals to make a 3D image of the breast. This is basically the same as any radar system, such as the radars used for air traffic control at our airports." ...

Mike Shere, Associate Specialist Breast Clinician at NBT [North Bristol NHS Trust], added: ... "It takes less time to operate than a mammogram approximately six minutes for both breasts compared with 30-45 minutes for an MRI, and like an MRI it provides a very detailed 3D digital image.

"Women love it as they compare it to a mammogram and find the whole experience much more comfortable."

The radar breast imaging system is built using transmitters and receivers arranged around a ceramic cup, which the breast sits in. These transmitters view the breast from several different angles. ...

Professor Preece from the University's Medical Physics, said ... "Using this engineering knowledge we built the machine using ground penetrating radar, a similar technique to land mine detection to take four hundred quarter of a second pictures of the breast to form a 3D image.

"Women do not feel any sensation and it equates to the same type of radiation exposure as speaking into a mobile phone at arms length which makes it much safer."

More testing remains to be done. The next round of studies will focus on young women (us of the dense, perky breasts!) and look at whether boob radar is as sensitive as other methods. But the researchers are optimistic about both the scientific and the economic utility of this technology. They think it can be produced cheaply on a mass scale.

Wouldn't it be cool if radio imaging replaced mammograms? I already discussed the cost and precision factors. Negligible radiation exposure would be a huge point in its favor, too. I know that the medical establishment always reassures us that the risk from mammograms is minimal. But as someone who's now been exposed at a very young age to several mammograms per year with lots of extra views taken, I'm uneasy. We were told that CT scans were safe, too, but recent research seems to indicate considerably greater risks than originally claimed, especially where kids are concerned.

I don't suppose the inventors will pay me any heed, but I vote for the name "boob radar" for this new technology. Both words are palindromes. What's not to love?

"Liberals Fought against More Regulation"

Oooh. Maybe I slept through politics from the start of the Reagan era?

I'm trying to catch up on my much-neglected TV watching, and in the midst of House, this ad appeared. Its jaw-dropping line: "Congressional liberals fought for risky subprime loans. Congressional liberals fought against more regulation."



Um, yeah. You know those liberals: They're un-American because they hate big government!

Up is down; socialism is capitalism; misogyny is feminism. Oh - and Orwellian is the new Straight Talk Express.

(Now I'm going to finish watching House, where at least the lies all get exposed by the end of the episode.)

Socialism with a Republican Face

Statue of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in Berlin, Germany, photographed by Flickr user Pete Johnston, used under a Creative Commons license.

Am I wrong, or is this "socialist" canard the Repubs are throwing at Obama a brand new tactic from the Rovian playbook? I don't remember Kerry or Gore or Dukakis being red-baited like this. And all because Obama wants to "spread the wealth around." The horror!

Anyone else notice that the "socialist" accusations have escalated just as the wealth is being spread around very generously indeed? Spread upward, that is?

Economist Dean Baker explains at TPMCafe how this works:

The public has a real interest in keeping the banking system functioning. It has zero interest in subsidized the pay checks of wealthy bank executives or enriching the bank's shareholders, which Secretary Paulson is now doing.

There is no question about what is going on here. The public is providing massive subsidies to the country's major banks. The terms of the bailout were far more generous than what the banks could get from the private market. As a result, banks that might not have survived otherwise, or at least would have been forced to make serious cutbacks, can now keep operating as they had been.

This means that their high level executives will continue to draw salaries in the millions or tens of millions of dollars. It also means that the shareholders will continue to receive dividends.

This was not inevitable. Paulson could have imposed serious pay caps on executive compensation. In Germany, the banks that are getting government money can't pay their executives more than 500,000 euros, about $680,000. The United Kingdom also limited executive compensation as part of its bailout.

(Read the rest here.)

Huh. I'm confused. If socialism with a Republican face means feathering the banker's nests, and if our European friends are refusing to spread the wealth to the bank execs, does that make them not socialists? But how can that be? Haven't we been taught that the French, especially, are socialists by definition?

Who wants to bet that by November 4, we'll hear the rumor that Obama is a French socialist?

(Apologies to Alexander Dubcek for warping his slogan unforgivably.)

Plumbing the Depths of Bullshit

"WTF Plumbing," photo taken in Sacramento, CA, by Flickr user timballas, used under a Creative Commons license. (Hey, I know that street!)

I'm heartily sick of candidates trying to manipulate us with stories they've gleaned from Ordinary Americans they've met on the campaign trail. These Ordinary Americans are invariably salt-of-the-earth figures who live in small towns and have been dealt an Injustice.

It's not that I don't care about injustice. In fact, I believe passionately in justice (the social kind, not the sort that's just thinly-veiled revenge). That's precisely why I resent politicians using such stories to circumvent reasoned thinking.

The Democrats are as guilty of this as the Republicans, by the way. This is an equal-opportunity, non-partisan beef of mine.

Nonetheless: By basically making "Joe the Plumber" a third participant in the final presidential debate, McCain carried this conceit further than I'd ever seen. And so I wallowed in schadenfreude when I read this in yesterday's Columbus Dispatch:

Joe the Plumber is not actually a licensed plumber.

Here's the scoop:

Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, the nickname Republican John McCain bestowed on him during Wednesday's presidential debate, said he works for a small plumbing company that does residential work. Because he works for someone else, he doesn't need a license, he said.

But the county Wurzelbacher and his employer live in, Lucas County, requires plumbers to have licenses. Neither Wurzelbacher nor his employer are licensed there, said Cheryl Schimming of Lucas County Building Regulations, which handles plumber licenses in parts of the county outside Toledo. ...

Wurzelbacher, 34, said he doesn't have a good plan put together on how he would buy Newell Plumbing and Heating in nearby Toledo.

He said the business consists of owner Al Newell and him. Wurzelbacher said he's worked there for six years and that the two have talked about his taking it over at some point.

"There's a lot I've got to learn," he said.

To quote Sarah Palin: "Say it ain't so, Joe!"

The amount of bullshit swirling around Joe the Plumber's fifteen minutes is pretty impressive. He's not legally licensed as a plumber. So even his folksy moniker is in doubt! Wurzelbacher is in no position to be hurt by Obama's tax plan; his plumbing business is merely hypothetical and far in the future. Honestly, it sounds like Wurzelbacher will be lucky if he makes it into the $250,000-plus bracket. Since he's not there yet, he'd most likely pay lower taxes under Obama's plan.

So how 'bout if the candidates cut the crap, stop trying to manipulate us with these tales of Ordinary Americans, and focus instead on how they would start to repair our broken economy.

The End of the World as We Know It

I'm not a very apocalyptic kind of gal, but as the world economy crumbles, it's hard not to wonder how it's gonna end. I'm also not a huge REM fan but I've always liked this song, and when I heard it on the radio last night I thought it was an anthem for these times.

That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane - Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn - world serves its own needs, don’t misserve your own needs. Feed it up a knock, speed, grunt no, strength no. Ladder structure clatter with fear of height, down height. Wire in a fire, represent the seven games in a government for hire and a combat site. Left her, wasn’t coming in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck. Team by team reporters baffled, trump, tethered crop. Look at that low plane! Fine then. Uh oh, overflow, population, common group, but it’ll do. Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves it's own needs, listen to your heart bleed. Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right - right. You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

Six o’clock - TV hour. Don’t get caught in foreign tower. Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn. Lock him in uniform and book burning, blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle, light a motive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh, this means no fear - cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide. Mountains sit in a line. Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs. Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom! You symbiotic, patriotic, slam, but neck, right? Right.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine...fine...

(It’s time I had some time alone)

(Lyrics found here.)

Mortgage That, John McCain!

This is my house. I am very happy to hear that John McCain is planning to get the federal government into the mortgage business. Since I'm not entirely sure what will happen with my employment next year, I think it would make good economic sense for the government to buy up my mortgage, too, and refinance it at an affordable zero percent interest.

Geez louise! Did anyone besides me wonder what it would cost for the feds to buy up all the iffy mortgages? And did anyone else weigh that against the cost of simply allowing judges to locally renegotiate or rewrite the terms of predatory loans?

McCain is obviously getting desperate. This isn't policy; it's populist pandering. And it's almost as erratic and bizarre as his reference to Obama as "that one."



(Video clip via Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish)

What did you all think of the debate?

Breaking the Banks

My kids don't have piggybanks. The Bear has a kittybank, which he painted himself. The Tiger has a duckiebank that was a gift upon his birth.

Enjoy their cuteness now, because with the $700 billion bailout package that cleared the House today, they've just been smashed to smithereens.

Photo by Sungold.

Playing Poker with Our Economy

A friend of mine published this marvelous letter to the editor in yesterday's Athens News, the local free, independent paper. You have to imagine it read out loud in a rich Scottish brogue:

To the Editor:

I would like to share with you a letter I mailed to Treasury Secretary Henry, aka Hank, Paulson. I am sure that I will receive a reply in due course, reflecting the honest generosity of the man when it comes to doling out taxpayer dollars to the fiscally distressed.

“Dear Secretary Paulson: Or can I just call you Hank? You seem like a decent sort of chap. I see from the news that you are seeking to help your cronies after they made some bad bets. I am hoping you can help me out, too.

On Friday night, I had a straight to the five in a five-card poker game. I stoked the pot as best I could, but incredibly my opponent had a straight to the Queen (God bless her and all her heirs). I took a significant hit with this malinvestment. I assure you I was not at all at fault; it was just the way the cards were dealt.

I see that some of your old cronies have gotten into the same position with some unfortunate bets, and you’ve been funneling them some of Dr. Bernanke’s freshly inflated dollars. Luckily, I did not have time to leverage my bet prior to it going down, as I’d then have been in the hole for much more – like what happened with your chums. My tin of coins is, however, much lighter than it was, and for the next game I am facing a liquidity crunch. I was wondering if it could be arranged for my toxic investment to be sold as an illiquid asset to the taxpayer?

Your obedient servant, etc.”

I am awaiting the check in the mail once our gutless Congress again caves.

David Young
Albany

Yes. We're waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

As for David's poker losses: I can confirm they're not just a literary device. We talked about his Black Friday Night at the after-school pickup. Luckily for us taxpayers who'll bail him out, David's losses are still in the two-digit range.

The disheartening thing is that it's Hank and his cronies who are holding all the cards.

Photo by Flickr user Fabio, used under a Creative Commons license.