Been working...

I have been working on the dissertation.... might have some time to comment on the state of California tomorrow..... maybe not....

Pharisees on the Potomac by Maureen Dowd - New York Times Op-Ed columnist

I thought this was so right on I had to post it here. This appeared in the New York Times 7-19-2009.

Pharisees on the Potomac

By MAUREEN DOWD

Like cats that have lost their whiskers, the Republicans seem off balance now that they have lost their talent for hypocrisy.

They are still practicing the ancient political art of Tartuffery, of course, just without their former aplomb.

Who can forget the glory years, when the Gipper invoked God but never went to church? When Arlen Specter accused Anita Hill of perjury to distract from Clarence Thomas’s false witness? When Newt Gingrich and other conservatives indulged in affairs with young Washington peaches as they pushed to impeach Bill Clinton?

No one had more flair than W. and Cheney, crowing about making us safe as they made the world more dangerous, and bragging about fiscal restraint while they spent us into oblivion.

Now when Republicans get caught flouting the principles they dictate, they are not able to practice hypocrisy with such impunity.

Loverboy Mark Sanford’s career continued to go south last week as news organizations exposed his two-faced tactics on travel expenses. When he ran for South Carolina governor in 2002, he attacked the Democratic incumbent for “lavish spending” on hotels and planes. Once elected, he asked state employees to bunk together in hotel rooms when they traveled and chastised staffers who spent more than the $208 federal rate.

But, as Politico reports: “He routinely billed taxpayers for high-end airline seats, racking up more than $44,000 on business and first-class tickets. He often stayed in pricey hotels that far exceeded the rates he imposed on other state employees.” On a trade mission to China, Sanford spent $12,000 on business-class tickets, leaving aides in economy for about $1,900.

The religious boardinghouse in Washington where Sanford sought succor from fellow conservatives, where he agonized to pals about his tango with the enticing María, is also back in the news. Affiliated with a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship — which also sponsored Bible study and prayer circles attended by Hillary Clinton when she was a senator — the pious dwelling is becoming a tourist attraction, a monument to Republican hypocrisy.

The C Street house, as the flag-flying brick rowhouse near the Capitol is known, serves as a residence and Bible study retreat for many Christian conservative lawmakers. But it looks as if what these guys were praying for was a chance to get lucky.

John Ensign, the Promise Keeper who broke all his promises, resides there. As The Washington Post reported, Senator Tom Coburn, who lives there, had an emotional meeting about forgiveness at the house with Doug Hampton, the husband of Ensign’s mistress. (Forgiveness plus bribery can often do the trick.) Coburn says he would not talk to a court or the Senate ethics committee about the episode because he was counseling Ensign partly as a doctor. (Coburn is an ob-gyn.)

Last week, The Associated Press revealed that the estranged wife of a former Republican congressman, Chip Pickering of Mississippi, had filed an alienation of affection lawsuit seeking damages against her husband’s gal pal, a wealthy former college sweetheart named Elizabeth Creekmore Byrd.

The suit charges that as a lawmaker, Chip used C Street as a divine love nest. “Ultimately,” it says, “Creekmore Byrd gave Pickering the option to remain a public servant or become a private citizen and continue relations with her.”

Republican hypocrisy fell flat at the Sotomayor hearings. After railing all week against the “empathy standard,” as Senator Jeff Sessions called it, the Republicans tried to play the empathy card by calling in two New Haven firefighters, one white and one Hispanic, who were on the losing end of Sonia Sotomayor’s ruling. Wearing their dress uniforms, the pair told their heart-tugging tales of studying for an exam that got thrown out after they scored high. Frank Ricci, who studied hard to overcome his dyslexia, used his finger to trace under the words as he read his testimony.

But the Republican complaint against Sotomayor in that case boiled down to wanting her to be more activist. They were upset that she sided with elected officials and precedent rather than intervening to strike down a result that many people, including me, found unfair.

Sotomayor’s syntax was unfathomable, but the Republicans’ language sounded positively archaic: dire warnings against activist judges, when the conservative majority on this Supreme Court has ignored or upended precedent in a slew of cases.

Judge Sotomayor kept her feelings in check, while her white male Republican interrogators dissolved into whining about wanting to keep their guns and nunchakus and wishing they could get back some sway over what women do with their bodies.

If they are so interested in women’s bodies, maybe they should just move to C Street.

And that's the way it is....

RIP Walter Cronkite ... he was one of my heroes and role models. When I did the news, I tried to imitate his style.

The State Budget... vs The Children of California

Catchy title huh? Actually this entry is about the battle royal over education funding in our fair (?) state. Plunging state income, way below even the most dire predictions, about $1.8 billion could wind up costing state schools as much as $8 billion in money that is owed them. What is brewing is a major fight over whether or not to suspend proposition 98, the constitutional guarantee to public schools that they will be funded. This is a battle that the Gov. and the California Teacher's Association (which by the way, was founded in 1863) had sought to avoid by asking voters to approve proposition 1B in the last election. What appears to be missing from this whole mess is what will happen to this state as a result of underfunding education. The effects of that could last for several generations and may never be able to be fully reversed. What am I referring to, you may ask? Well, lets think about this a bit. A student with a High School diploma is more likely to get and hold a job. That means they will be paying taxes, which will, in turn help the state, and that will, in turn help local communities. Now if we are lucky, that HS grad. is able to go to a community college or get into a 4 year university. This means that they will be able to make even more money and yep, be able to pay a little more in taxes. This is a very simplified look at what can be a complex thing. The bottom line is an educated population is a population that sustains a community, a state, a nation. Sacramento its time to get off your butt and fully fund the future of this great state and not get bogged down with your petty arguments over your pet pork projects.

California Water and the Peripheral Canal - the heart of the state's water problem

Here we go again. Legislators, farmers, fishermen, environmentalists and community activists have come out against the proposed peripheral canal that would shift Northern California water southward around the delta. The delta is an important part of the water system here in California as most of the drinking water in our state flows through it. Because of the drought conditions that have plagued our state for the past three or four years, there has been a significant lack of water flowing into the delta. This in-turn has allowed salt water from the bay to flow inland causing all sorts of problems. Farmers need the water for their crops and people need the water for drinking. Its a classic fight here in the Golden State. The proposed canal would redirect about 15,000 cubic feet of water a second through a 500 to 700 foot wide, 47 mile long canal into the southern part of the state... where I live by the way. Critics claim that the delta cannot sustain that kind of diversion even if we were not in a drought. Sport fishermen say the canal will destroy delta fisheries, water quality and waste tens of billions of dollars and severely damage the delta's economy not to mention the increase in litigation over the use of water. One state assembly member said that building the canal would be the biggest public construction made in the United States, equivalent to building the Panama Canal.

Hummm. Sounds like that person is not very well schooled in history. I suggest they take a road trip to Boulder (Hoover) Dam on the Colorado River, and then follow the river down to the Davis Dam, then turn right and follow the aqueduct so they can get a sense of just how small the canal project is compared to what was built in the 20th century. Here in the west, water is the life blood of everything. Mess with it and there will be hell to pay. People living in an area that has, at times, an abundance of water, appear to care very little for those who live in areas that are arid or semi-arid. The battle continues.... the film Chinatown comes to mind. I need a drink of water.

Its Thursday.... is California still alive?

I just noticed that some people are selling state issued IOU's on Craigslist and eBay. I guess some people think those notes are worth more that their face value. Recession? What recession.... its a full blown depression.

The state has up and running a website with links to almost every database the state maintains. It includes everything from health and employment, county by county demographics and projections to the year 2050, transportation data and lakeside marinas. If you are a data nut, this site is for you go to http://www.ca.gov/data.html

Pomegranates. Love them. They are filled with lots of good things and their juice makes an excellent addition to an evening cocktail. They also provide the raw material for making grenadine, a "must have" flavor in any cocktail bar. Most of the pomegranates grown in the United States are grown right here in the Golden State. About 250 farmers have about 35,000 acres in pomegranate production. The harvest is worth about $75 million annually.

The largest producer and distributor of this fine stuff is POM Wonderful, named after one of the varieties of pomegranates they grow. Here is where it get political. The owner of POM Wonderful is Stewart Resnick who just happens own The Franklin Mint, Teleflora, and Paramount Farms. He is a billionaire, and a significant figure in California Politics. He is a major donor to legislators of both political parties, and political campaigns. In 2007-2008 he donated $197,000. So what? Well, there is a bill pending in Sacramento, SB 190 that would define what 100% pure pomegranate juice is. Big deal you say. Many marketers of juice cut their product with juice from other fruit. It helps keep the cost down and the profits up. If this bill passes, it would freeze out other produces of this juice because their product would not meet the chemical profile in the bill. As it is with the legislative process, this bill has been changed many times, but it would still favor POM. Critics say this is a matter for the Feds, not the state because juice production is regulated by the FDA. They also say this bill would tie the hands of California processors. Notice this is not about helping all people, its about protecting one company and its vertically integrated economic model. Shades of Carnegie and his steel operations at the turn of the 20th century. Politics... As Patrick Shannon wrote, "Everything is political." Think I'll go get juiced...

Monday, Monday

Hummm. Did a lot of reading and writing today. Trying to get this dissertation done. It looks like rice and beans for the rest of the month. The tree, the car the water heater, the water bill... they all arrived on my desk today in the form of bills. The economic crunch has finally hit home.... in my wallet. Ouch. Its like being a first year University student all over again. Oh well... got through that so I guess I can do it again.

Later.... Oh, the wedding was FABULOUS. Everyone had a great time. Dancing, drinking, eating and celebrating... just like it should be.

The wedding

I now know what a $50,000 dollar wedding is like. WOW.
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The Wedding.

Wow. What a wedding. The ceremony was delightful. The Cocktail hour was great and the dinner consisted of Wine country salad, Chicken Chili Relleno and an after dinner buffet. The party lasted until 1AM. The wedding cake was 5 tiers tall and covered in gold leaf.
What an interesting mix of people. Cal and Bob and their entourage filled up one table. A good time was had by all.

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Morning Newspaper items

It’s curious that Americans consider cheating on taxes less reprehensible than cheating on a spouse, because there is a lot of extramarital sex going on. - Seen in the N.Y. Times this morning.

My how times have not changed. Only the players have. Maslow's hierarchy of needs in action. More thoughts on this intriguing subject later.

Unemployment is up.... highest its been in 26 years... 9.6%. Looks like this is going to be a long, difficult time for many. I am so glad that I have a job. I have been overhearing 20 somethings talking about the things they have to do to just get an interview, like get dressed up and drive 50 miles. Life is tough.... and then you have to do things you don't like.

Sacramento is still jacking the state around. IOU's for Christ's sake. Its time for both sides to get their heads out of their behinds and get this state back on the road to recovery.

Observation

Today I noticed three different families eating breakfast. That in itself is not odd. What struck me was each family was SHARING one order. They even used a coupon to help pay for the food. Is this a picture of things to come?
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What is going on up in Sacramento???

Sacramento CA 7/1/2009 The state Senate rejected three bills that would have lessened the state's immediate cash crush by billions of dollars in a surreal late-night session in which a packed Senate chamber quietly counted down the minutes to the new fiscal year. The bills' failure eliminates about $7 billion in budget solutions that had been embraced by Democrats and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and means the state will begin issuing IOUs as early as today. - Capitol Weekly.

I have had enough of this merde. What the hell in God's name do those elected officials think they are doing? The state is in financial crisis, people are moving out of the state, taxes are at an all time high and now they are starting to drive business out by their inability to solve the budget problem. They have to face facts. It's time to rewrite the state constitution. Term limits have to go. All that does is give the veteran lobbyists fresh meat every two years. In effect its the lobbyists who are running the state and they are available by the hour. Just like members of the oldest profession and I am not talking about bankers here. Ideology is getting in the way of solving a crisis. Its time to put differences aside and come up with viable solutions... or there will be hell to pay come election time... that is if there is anybody left living in the state who will be willing to vote. Grumble....