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The Commentariat -- Dec. 26, 2012
Once again the commentary here has put me in a Bah! Humbug! mood. I'll do what I do when I do it, and if you don't like it, try the Anodyne News or the He Said/She Said Times-Express. -- Constant Weader
Cliff Notes
Obama Determined to Scrooge Seniors. Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "President Obama is planning to cut his Christmas vacation short and return to Washington to make a last-ditch push for a compromise on a tax and spending dispute that remains stubbornly unresolved. The White House said Tuesday that the president would leave Wednesday night. His family, however, will stay behind in Hawaii. Meanwhile, both chambers of Congress will come back from their holiday hiatus on Thursday...."
Jamelle Bouie in the Washington Post: Democrats want to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy not so much for the revenue the additional taxes would raise but to ever-so-slightly reduce income inequality.
Psychiatrist Paul Steinberg in a New York Times op-ed: "In our concern for the rights of people with mental illness, we have come to neglect the rights of ordinary Americans to be safe from the fear of being shot." ...
... CNN: "On Christmas Day, thanks to a grassroots effort by their fellow law enforcement brethren in nearby communities, Newtown's police officers [were] the recipients of a rare gift in their profession -- a holiday off, for the entire force." Adam Estes of the Atlantic has more.
** Mark Bittman of the New York Times: "Seven times as many poor children are obese as those who are underweight, an indication that government aid in the form of food stamps, now officially called SNAP, does a good job of addressing hunger but encourages the consumption of unhealthy calories." Bittman suggests "remov[ing] the subsidy for sugar-sweetened beverages," and "mak[ing] it easier to buy real food; several cities, including New York, have programs that double the value of food stamps when used for purchases at farmers markets."
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the AP: "New taxes are coming Jan. 1 to help finance President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Most people may not notice. But they will pay attention if Congress decides to start taxing employer-sponsored health insurance, one option in play if lawmakers can ever agree on a budget deal to reduce federal deficits."
Erica Goode & Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times: "The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been without a permanent director for six years, as President Obama recently noted. But even if someone were to be confirmed for the job, the agency's ability to thwart gun violence is hamstrung by legislative restrictions and by loopholes in federal gun laws, many law enforcement officials and advocates of tighter gun regulations say. For example, under current laws the bureau is prohibited from creating a federal registry of gun transactions.... Congress ... [has] sided with the National Rifle Association, which argues that such a database poses a threat to the Second Amendment." ...
... So Much for Show and Tell. Katie Glueck of Politico: "The Washington Metropolitan Police Department is investigating whether any city laws were violated when NBC's David Gregory displayed what appeared to be a 30-round gun magazine on NBC's 'Meet the Press' on Sunday." CW: Glueck doesn't say so, but I noticed some of the leaders of Right Wing World were shrieking on Sunday that Gregory had violated the law. So I guess it's safe to say the D.C. cops read the Right Wing News. ...
... Update: I see the denizens of Right Wing World are still on the story. And a White House petition to lock up Gregory or something! It might be fair to prosecute Gregory for past instances of impersonating a journalist, but not for waving a gun magazine in Wayne LaPierre's face, which was, contra Gregory's usual Sunday morning banter & blather, an actual act of journalism. ...
... Attaturk of Firedoglake feels the same way about the right's attack on CNN's Piers Morgan. CNN: somehow the wingers think their so-called Second Amendment rights trump everybody else's First Amendment rights.
AP: actor "Ben Affleck is taking his name off the list of possible candidates for U.S. Sen. John Kerry's seat, which would be open if the Democratic senator from Massachusetts is confirmed as secretary of state. Affleck says in a Monday posting on his Facebook page that while he loves the political process, he will not be running for public office. Speculation about the Cambridge, Mass., native rose slightly when he did not completely rule out a Senate bid during an appearance on CBS' Face The Nation on Sunday." CW: Rats! No Hunk v. Hunk. ...
... Dan Amira of New York magazine: "Whenever a Senate seat becomes available in Massachusetts, at least one Kennedy -- any Kennedy, doesn't really matter who -- must, by law, at least consider running for it. With John Kerry's seat opening up soon, Ted Kennedy Jr. has fulfilled this sacred duty, but [Monday] the Globe report[ed] that he won't run, partially because he lives in Connecticut, which is not the same state as Massachusetts." ...
Nancy Cordes of CBS news: "Gov. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, will announce Wednesday who he is appointing to late Sen. Daniel Inouye's vacant seat.... A few days ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urged Abercrombie to appoint a successor 'with due haste,' because Democrats want to have a full roster for critical fiscal cliff votes coming up as soon as Friday. When Inouye's successor is sworn in, Democrats will hold a 53-47 edge in the Senate through the end of the year."
Joshua Green, in the Washington Post: actor Jack Klugman, who died December 24, "... played an instrumental role in passing critical health-care legislation, the Orphan Drug Act, through Congress in the early 1980s, using 'Quincy' and his own celebrity to roll Sen. Orrin Hatch (R), who was blocking the bill."
Right Wing World
** Guns & Money. Amy Gardner of the Washington Post has a fascinating piece on the shake-ups at the Tea Party astroturf organization FreedomWorks. A gun was involved in one coup; big money paid for the second. ...
... Let's Round that out to Lawyers, Guns & Money. David Corn of Mother Jones on how Dick Armey's allies at FreedomWorks sicced lawyers on the Mike Kibbe wing before the gun incident -- and Kibbe's response.
News Ledes
AP: "Former President George H.W. Bush has been admitted to the intensive care unit at a Houston hospital 'following a series of setbacks including a persistent fever,' but he is alert and talking to medical staff, his spokesman said Wednesday. Jim McGrath, Bush's spokesman in Houston, said.... He said doctors are cautiously optimistic about his treatment and that the former president 'remains in guarded condition.'"
AP: "Former South African President Nelson Mandela was released Wednesday from the hospital after being treated for a lung infection and having gallstones removed, a government spokesman said."
New York Times: "Toyota Motor said on Wednesday that it would spend $1.1 billion to settle a sweeping class-action lawsuit by owners of millions of vehicles that were recalled for problems with unintended acceleration. The agreement, filed in federal court in California, was called one of the largest product-liability settlements in history."
AP: "An enormous storm system that dumped snow and sleet on the nation's midsection and unleashed damaging tornadoes around the Deep South has begun punching its way toward the Northeast, slowing holiday travel. Post-Christmas travelers braced for a second day of flight delays and cancellations, a day after rare winter twisters damaged numerous homes in Louisiana and Alabama."
AP: "A vehicle driven by a suicide bomber exploded at the gate of a US military base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing the attacker and three Afghans, Afghan police said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack."
AP: "U.S. shoppers spent cautiously this holiday season, a disappointment for retailers who slashed prices to lure people into stores.... Sales of electronics, clothing, jewelry and home goods in the two months before Christmas increased 0.7 percent compared with last year.... That was below the healthy 3 to 4 percent growth that analysts had expected -- and it was the worst year-over-year performance since 2008...."
Reuters: General Abdelaziz Jassim al-Shalal, "the head of Syria's military police, has defected from the army and declared allegiance to the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to a video and a Syrian security source. The high-level defection, while not a strategically significant development in the 21-month-old conflict, will be a blow to morale for Assad's forces, which are hitting back at a string of rebel advances across the country."
New York Times: the Japanese "Parliament formally elected Shinzo Abe as prime minister on Wednesday, ending a three-year break from decades of near-constant rule by his conservative Liberal Democratic Party."
AP: "The ex-con turned sniper who killed two firefighters wanted to make sure his goodbye note was legible, typing out his desire to 'do what I like doing best, killing people' before setting the house where he lived with his sister ablaze, police said. Police Chief Gerald Pickering said Tuesday that the 62-year-old loner, William Spengler, brought plenty of ammunition with him for three weapons including a military-style assault rifle as he set out on a quest to burn down his neighborhood just before sunrise on Christmas Eve."
AP: "The upper chamber of Russia's parliament has voted unanimously in favour of a measure banning Americans from adopting Russian children. It now goes to the president, Vladimir Putin, to sign or turn down.... Some senior government officials, including the foreign minister, have spoken against the bill, arguing that it would be in violation of Russia's constitution and international obligations."
New York Times: "Charles Durning, who overcame poverty, battlefield trauma and nagging self-doubt to become an acclaimed character actor, whether on stage as Big Daddy in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' or in film as the lonely widower smitten with a cross-dressing Dustin Hoffman in 'Tootsie,' died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 89."
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Reader Comments (11)
Re: What I got is what I got; I love wrapping presents; bows, bells,barking dogs, candy canes. Well no, really, local newspaper and duct tape cover my offerings.
Here's one; it says "To me" guess I'll open that one first.
Oh! It's an thought; simple, small, I like it, I'll wear it.
The AP story in todays ledes says consumer spending/shopping was down. People just like me spent just a tiny bit more this year than last buying crap from China. Just a tiny bit more. That's one more sweater. Or one more TeeVee, or ratchet set, or sled.
If there had been more jobs available this fall would have we bought more crap from China? The way I understand Mr. Krugman more jobs mean more commercial spending, more spending means more jobs etc.
Here's the thought; maybe we need to see improvements to the infrastructure, better mental health, better social aid, as gifts "to us", "from us".
So instead of a sweater my pit bull wouldn't wear I get a better road to get to a better school to visit healthier kids.
By spending more on our country and it's needs and not worrying so much about our individual needs we might get something we all could wear.
Let's increase fed spending projects; create more jobs, buy less crap from China and tidy up our own backyard.
Thanks Santa; it's what I've always wanted.
And no more fuck'n chipmonk music.
After years and years and years of spending on Christmas presents for all and sundry, wrapping and bow tying, making festive foods, sending out dozens of cards, trimming trees, going to dreary holiday gatherings we have, for the last five years, stopped all of the above. I'm afraid we are terrible consumers of "all that crap from China" and have simply quit. We give generous checks to our children who purchase sensible gifts for their children in our name; we give gifts of my husband's homemade rolls and sausage and I make my own cards that accompany these. We give each other each other which is better than anything one can buy. Of course this kind of thing doesn't make the economy hum, but given that we have contributed years of making that happen, I can rest easily. And I second JJG's cry that increasing federal spending on this country's infrastructure will create more jobs which indeed would tidy up our own backyard. And let chipmunks be chipmunks for Pete's sake!
On another matter: the article above re: food stamps: Why on earth would you be able to purchase soft drinks when there are so many other restrictions? And how could people who need to purchase actual food stuffs want to include something that is not food? Cory Booker who tried living on SNAP says he was hungry all the time. And then there is this article from the Times: Study Finds Modest Declines in Obesity Rates Among Young Children From Poor Families
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
I remain puzzled.
"World's Longest High-Speed Rail Line Opens in China"
Wouldn't it be great to see a story like this about creating high-speed rail lines here in the U.S.?
"China began service Wednesday morning on the world’s longest high-speed rail line, covering a distance in eight hours that is about equal to that from New York to Key West, Florida, or from London across Europe to Belgrade. "
—http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/27/business/global/worlds-longest-high-speed-rail-line-opens-in-china.html?hp
We are so far behind in this critical transportation need. Speaking with a friend from Mill Valley, CA who recently returned from a trip to L.A., she decried the horrendous traffic on freeways and elsewhere. Driving was a nightmare and took forever to get somewhere, no matter the time of day. "I never want to go back there again," she said.
High speed rail would be incredible for this country. In the past when friends opted to take the Autotrain from the NE to Florida, the experience was so bad...they have returned to the annual long drive down and back. The obvious option is, we need better rail, better trains...and have to get over the dumb solution of simply 'widening roadways' to handle more cars.
Now that we’ve passed the solstice and the sun is on the way back for another round of “There’s no such thing as global warming but SHIT is it hot!, perhaps we can also wish for a return of sanity; for as much light as heat. The difficulty is, as has been pointed out too often, one of our two major political parties is criminally insane which could make discussions about things like mental health issues problematic.
Apologists for the rights of everyone to own Uzis and AK-47s or their semi-automatic brethren have been quick to point out that guns are, and never have been, the problem. Instead, as usual when terrible things happen, they shake their heads and tsk, tsk about all those people out there with mental health issues running around untethered.
So what are we doing about helping those people? Why, we’re cutting, cutting, cutting. The Republican mania for tax cutting has become so viral that we’re making deep cuts in services that will end up costing us a bundle on the other end, comme d'habitude. But that’s okay as long as the Norquist Mafia can declare that taxes that would have gone to help some undeserving moochers with their phony mental problems have been cut to the bone or deleted entirely. Cue snickering sound effects.
Over the holiday I heard about a local family who used to receive assistance in caring for a child with mental health issues. But because the population that relies on such assistance doesn’t have the cachet or political connections or ability to help fund political campaigns, their services have been cut back every year to the point where help is no longer available.
So what happens to this family? Previously they were receiving something on the order of $190 a month to help their child. Then the funding was killed. Not long after, the child had a breakdown and had to be hospitalized. Now, instead of paying less than $200 a month to help a kid work through difficult issues, he has to be hospitalized at over $200 a day. Pretty smart, don’t you think? Really saves the taxpayers a bundle.
I’m sure our resident psychologist, Kate, can confirm that, especially for children, if help is not forthcoming in the form of preventive care, once mental health issues flare up into full blown psychological trauma, it’s already too late. Sure, something can be done, but once most people go past that tipping point, it’s very hard (and expensive) to pull them back and that’s why cutting things like mental health aid in public schools is, well, crazy.
There will always be individuals who slip through the cracks, but even a quick glance through the literature will indicate that we have entered an age of increasing need for mental health services and diminishing budgets and resources. It’s another version of the famous right-wing “Fuck you Charlie, I got mine” mindset.
You can play this little game with many other line items. Infrastructure? Roadways? Bridges? Sorry. Cut those budgets too. We need tax relief, goddammit! I don’t want my money going to fund bleeding heart bullshit programs for moochers!
But we all end up paying significantly more on the other end with a reduction in the overall state of our common wealth and health. Another reason that cuts to Medicare should never be connected to the ending of the Bush Tax Cuts for His Wealthy Buddies.
But we can’t be concerned with that shit when poor Wayne LaPierre is being viciously attacked by the national media!
After all, where are our priorities?
Thank you, Marie, for linking to Dr. Paul Steinberg's Op-Ed on the need for education about and treatment of schizophrenia. He says what needs to be said and done. My hope is that this will start a dialogue.
@Marie, please see my response to your comment last thread. Just wanted to reemphasize that I wasn't criticizing you. More like commenting on our popular, collective notion of sentimental songs as horribly wrong--and also to call out writer Kevin Fallon for doing no research. I can't see devoting a piece to a recent song and making such inaccurate claims--one doesn't need a lot of experience listening to (what I call) pop gospel to at least suspect that a song like "Christmas Shoes" is standard stuff, and I would hope that journalists writing on pop music topics would have some kind of historical orientation. I hate to think that, in the absence of a direct reference to the fact that "Shoes" is a standard ballad type, that Fallon wouldn't have checked, say, one of the standard folk song resources on the Net, where he would could have plugged in the applicable motifs. The info is there to be plucked.
I think such inaccuracies matter, even when offered in the spirit of humor (or ritual disdain), since they have the official stamp of journalism. How many readers will take Fallon's piece at its word and assume "Christmas Shoes" is some kind of modern concoction unique to Christian contemporary pop (or whatever it's deemed these days)?
Otherwise, I've merely pointed out that the ritual of calling out of sentiment--especially during Christmas--is an old one, and a class-oriented festival from the get-go. The only thing new about our "Family Guy" period of pop culture is the extremes people go to in disavowing popular sentiment. Otherwise, it's an ongoing process--note that Fallon's piece did the traditional bit of characterizing love for sentiment as lower class (unless contemporary Christian has suddenly become NYT-cool). Same ritual, just ramped up.
Sorry for of all the typos in the at my last comment quickly-written post.
Sorry I missed the Bad Christmas Song extravaganza yesterday. Some truly awful ones! Almost so bad they turn the corner into something else. Not good, really, more like terrible but too weird to turn off.
I would have added a couple but they're more from the category of "Really Depressing Christmas Songs", like Tom Waits' "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" or John Prine's "Christmas in Prison" "It was Christmas in prison, the food was real good. We had turkey and pistols carved out of wood." Hey, so did John Dillinger and look what it got him. A ticket to the Biograph.
Also I was reminded this year of the infamous William S. Burroughs masterpiece (not a song, actually, a spoken story, kind of like the Beat Generation's Christmas nightmare) "The Junky's Christmas" involving the titular character running around NYC trying to score, missing his connections but finding two severed legs in a trunk instead. Dylan Thomas it ain't.
But that aside, I hope all here had a day of laughter, lotsa food, and plenty of bonhomie.
@Raul & @Akhilleus: I would put the maudlin "Shoes" song in a category with "Honey" which Bobby Goldsboro sang in maybe the late 60s or early 70s. The lyrics of these songs are usually sophomoric & always exploitative. The whole purpose is to sell songs by preying on the fears or miseries of unsophisticated people. Here's a piece of evidence: first comment up on Goldboro's song, which has 3.6 million hits: "I first heard this song in the 80's, and sobbed my heart out. In 1997 my darling husband died, and I've been sobbing again after hearing it just now."
This is entirely different from Tom Waits' "Hooker in Minneapolis." The lyrics here may be fictional, too, but they give the hearer insight into the limited scope of the dreams of a woman in prison. As a "Christmas carol," of course the Waits song sucks, but as a work of art it has a purpose. Moreover, the portrait of the woman rings true.
I'm not sure I realized sob songs were a genre, but I suppose I should have because I love "You Never Call Me by My Name" by Steve Goodman & John Prine, and what I love about it of course is that it mocks the saccharine, exploitative songs I deplore.
Marie
P.S. The Goldsboro song would have been just another stupid country and western song if Honey had left the guy for laughing at her & calling her kinda dumb. There's nothing wrong with songs of regret, like Tom Paxton's "The Last Thing on My Mind" -- which is not to suggest that a rewrite of Goldsboro's piece of crap would have by any means equaled of Paxton's poetry.
I had planned to post links on FB to all of Marie's "Worst Christmas Songs Ever" but after linking Twisted Sister's "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" my loyal FB followers cried No Mas, No Mas!
I had never heard "The Christmas Shoes" song before. Thanks for balancing it out with Patton Oswalt's rant/explanation.
My wife and I stopped giving each other presents ten years ago. The grandkids, nieces and nephews receive "Gift Cards" that never expire, can be used at any store or placed in their savings accounts. We pick the "Gift Cards" up at our bank and find that they are always the right color, size and just what the kids wanted. We also make our annual contributions to the non-profits that we support. In the end we have reduced our contribution to the local landfill and enjoy our stress-free holiday much more than we did in the old gift shopping days.
While we here in the good old USofA are still debating the subject of how many assault rifles a militiaman can acquire, Costa Rica on Monday December 10, became the first Latin American country to ban hunting as a sport, following an unanimous and final vote from Congress. Amazing!!! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/11/costa-rica-hunting-ban_n_2275529.html