Hillary in the pillory, Obama in the noose

(After months of non-functioning hands because of hand surgery and events leading up to it, I can now keyboard with digits 3,4, & 5 of each hand. You can expect some vitriol on our health care system in coming months as a result of a medical episode that began in an emergency room in Colorado and will, hopefully, come to positive issue in the physical therapy facility at the new Aberdeen regional YMCA.)

Anyone who does not see the trappings of racism and sexism and other forms of mental degradation as major issues in the presidential primaries has their brain pan firmly implanted in their lower colon. The media, particularly blogs, are in a state of titillation at exchanging euphemisms for issues of sex, race, and other preferred bigotries,

Lou Dobbs of CNN visibly struggles to choke back the N-word when he rants against Obama. The regressive blogs, some with tendentious fatuity that professors try to pass off as “reasoned discourse,” others with the weird bigotries that make no pretense to reason, have taken up the issues of Hillary’s personality and Obama’s racial identity with a cacophony but very discernible sexism and racism not well disguised by the contrivances they muster to avoid the overt use of “bitch’ and “n-word.”

For three months I have been electronically silenced by hands that could barely click a mouse. Occasionally, I have found blog entries that aspire to discourse and somewhat thoughtful and apt expression of ideas, But most blog posts are devoted to crude self-adulation or an ad hominem tirade against someone of a differing political stance. I have become convinced that those who espouse negative derogation as the most effective form of campaigning are right. It is what a large portion of the populous lives for. If blogging is the journalism of the people, we have a surplus of nasty-assed people out there,

Matthew Arnold said literature is the best that humans think and write. Blogs are at the bottom of the scale of human expression. They tend to be dementedly mean, crudely written, and reveal little egos living out lives of desperation. Our education system seems to have elevated the sounds of primal frustration to the ultimate measure of self-expression.

The outright examples of verbal dishonesty I have noted in the press and on the blogs in the past months are enough to fill volumes. A few blogs, which I will reference in weeks to come, have acted to set the record straight.

Barack Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, has been represented by blatant misquotation and racist finagling. He has corrected the dishonesty. But the press and its parasitic bloggers would rather let the n-word resonate.

Hillary has a forced laugh and can get shrill and unlikable. It is more important to let the b-word resonate than to hear her ideas.

If this is what our democracy has come to, what’s the point? But there is huge population who neither writes nor reads blogs and pays little attention to cable news.

May they prevail.

Hope and expectations for Northern Illinois University

When a place you know well becomes the site of a horrific tragedy, the landscape is irrevocably altered. A tragedy becomes part of the history and, therefore, the identity of a place, but there is a danger in letting the shadows of horror and grief obscure the bright and vital essence of a place. That is true for Northern Illinois University.

The University launched so many productive and distinguished lives, the recent shootings should not be allowed to discourage or dissuade people from perceiving it as a place of opportunity and resource for building and sustaining significant lives.

NIU is a part of my personal landscape. As an undergraduate at Augustana, I had many friends who came from the area around DeKalb--Sycamore, Downers Grove, Rockford--and we had much interaction with students from what was then Northern Illinois State Teachers College. It had a reputation for being a classy state college with an educational emphasis, and I can recall one gorgeous spring afternoon on the campus for a tennis match.

I have other memories. My ex-spouse earned her master's degree there, and I was impressed with the caliber of instruction offered. A cousin went there for a time. I worked with faculty and staff from there on academic and moonlighting projects and always took pleasure in visiting the campus. Its ivy-covered brick buildings seemed the epitome of the Halls of Ivy kind of institution.

Like all education institutions, NIU has had its time of trial. In the 1950s, it was a teachers' college much like the institution from which I retired, Northern State University. As enrollments burgeoned during the 1960s and it was transformed from a teachers' college to a university of 25,000 students, it struggled with poorly designed and badly constructed buildings. An arboretum near the campus became better known for sexual assaults than for tree specimens. And once when a car struck a student and sped off, a coed recognized it as belonging to the university president. Like all communities, universities have their problems. But they are also equipped better than any other kind of community to confront and solve those problems.

While we give our condolences and best wishes to the families of the young people who were killed and to the wounded, we also need to keep them in our memories as a reason to resume the business of the university and get back to work on February 25.

School shootings are a problem that needs the best information and the most dedicated minds brought to bear on it. The faculty, staff, and students at NIU can lead us out of this dark time in higher education. They have our thoughts, best wishes, support, and appreciation.

It's the deadlock, stupid

[First, a note about the absence of blog posts: severe carpal tunnel aggravated by getting rear-ended on I-76. Relief is spelled S-T-E-R-0-I-D-S. Surgery scheduled.]

The driving issue of this election campaign is glossed over by the traditional media, and consequently blogs, as an incidental strategy. The issue is the deadlock between the branches of government and within the legislature. In recent years, the public has ranked the performance of Congress as low as it has ranked the performance of George Bush—in the 30 percent range,

People do tend to get impatient with the workings of checks and balances in our government. The intended effect of checks and balances is to produce workable compromise and solutions to problems, to slow down stampeding legislation, or to sidetrack legislation that would work to the detriment of a significant part of the population. When differences devolve into angry intransigence and vengeful ploys, the result is deadlock and deadly incompetence. Once insult, abuse, and false representations enter the political dialogue, they create the conditions of war. Legislators are transformed from representatives of differing viewpoints to enemies, and deadlock is means of engaging enemies. It renders them powerless. It renders everyone powerless.

The aftermath of 9/11 has been the institution of an Orwellian regime presided over by a corporate plutocracy with pronounced fascist leanings. The Bush regime has used deception and intimidation to create a climate of fear, suspicion, and hatred that has permitted it to suspend civil rights, to sacrifice the lives and well-being of our military, and to institute a binge of war profiteering. The Bush regime and its Congressional allies have received carte blanche on the war. Resistance to the Bush juggernaut in Congress has resulted in deadlock.

Deadlock is the overriding issue. Past Congressional leaders met at the University of Oklahoma early in January to identify deadlock as the major problem facing our government and to recommend ways to surmount it. The low rating of Congress in opinion polls is tied to deadlock and the constant exchange of accusations, insult, and abuse that signals deadlock. The press, operating on the basis that conflict makes news, inflates every difference of viewpoint and statement into a fight. The press and bloggers who glean the press for every tid bit that can be the basis for accusations and condemnations play a major role in bringing America to a state of deadlock.

Barack Obama’s success in his campaign has been built on the promise of surmounting deadlock. When the Clintons were being goaded into the personal attacks that lead up to deadlock, the endorsements of Obama by key political figures caused them to change tactics. John McCain has promised in public statements to engage in dialogue rather than the tactics that lead to deadlock.

The significant divide in America is not between what defines liberal and what defines conservative. It is between those who see politics as a nasty game of impugning character and the mindless exercise of power and those who see it as the process of finding acceptable solutions to problems we face.

The primaries and caucuses signal that a majority of Americans want the end of deadlocks. That is the deciding issue in this election cycle.

You won’t find that issue much acknowledged in the press or the blogs. Listen, instead, to the candidates.

And what about our right to bear shovels?

Madville Times confronts the absurdity of a bill in the S.D. legislature to allow students to have and carry weapons on our college campuses. Cory points out the redundancy of the bill. For "redundancy" read "fence post dumb." On some days, students have enough trouble managing their pencils, and now firearms are being added to the academic mix.

I have a solution for the bill being proposed, HB 1261, that might save face, ass, and the sanity of the constituents in whose behalf the law is allegedly being offered. Amend the bill so that the world firearm is replaced with the word shovel. As in:

Section 1. No public institution of higher education may regulate or restrict the right to carry or possess a firearm [shovel] in accordance with state law. No public institution of higher education may expel, dismiss, or penalize any person who carries or possesses a firearm [shovel] in accordance with state law. However, any public institution of higher education may require that any firearm [shovel] in a campus dormitory of a public institution of higher education not in a person's immediate possession be stored in a locked gun [shovel] safe.

We need a Second Amendment to reaffirm our shovel rights in order to maintain a well-regulated militia. Here is the' story behind the idea:

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. (AP) — It looks like a couple of suburban St. Louis purse snatchers picked the wrong women to attack. The victims fought back — with a snow shovel.

Police in Maryland Heights released details of the Sunday incident outside a Schnucks grocery store. The women were unloading groceries when the thieves tried to steal two purses from their cart.

One of the women grabbed a shovel from the suspects' pickup and smacked one of the men upside the head. The other woman jumped into the cab and attacked the other suspect, then grabbed the keys so he couldn't drive away.

Police tracked the men to a hotel. The man struck with the shovel required staples to close the gash in his head.

Both are jailed and charged with robbery.

———

No nasties in Camelot

Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama has deep cultural implications. Along with Caroline Kennedy's and Patricky Kennedy's support for Obama, it is a repudiation of the kind of politics that that characterizes recent campaigns. As reported by The New York Times and Time, Ted Kennedy had conversations with the Clintons about the tack Hillary's campaign took in adopting the Republican strategy of "defining" Obama. It has led to other politicians, who see this as the Republican style of campaigning. to throw their support behind Obama.

When people are attacked in demeaning, untruthful, and accusatory ways, they are sorely tempted to respond in kind. The exchanges between John McCain and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee exemplify this tactic. Romney himself has termed some of the attacks on him as a return to the Nixon era. When the Clintons decided to play rough with Obama, they appeared to be adopting those Republican tactics and, consequently, offended a large portion of their own party. The Kennedys' endorsement of Barack Obama was a repudiation of the kind of "rhetoric" that has damaged politics and lead to the deadlocks in Congress. Personal animus displaces reason and intelligence.
When Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced each other Thursday night, they avoided the querulous rancor that so delights the electronic media which promotes intense animosity between debaters because they assume that is what people want to see and that's what attracts viewers. Instead, Senators Clinton and Obama engaged in a conversation that was civil, articulate, respectful, and, most of all, substantive. If people did not know what distinguishes the positions of the two candidates after that debate, they are not capable of knowing. The debate was an exchange of information and perspectives--an expository performance that is essential to any true debate. And that confounded those who think debate occurs only when there is nasty exchange and rancorous denouncements of other participants in a debate.

Bill Schneider of CNN opined that Obama did himself no favor by being nice. He said that Obama needs to make a more forceful assertion of himself, presumably by a personal attack on Sen. Clinton, if he us to attract needed support. Behind that statement is the assumption that the American people are drooling idiots who can respond only to Jerry Springer-like confrontations of mindless rancor. It is the opposite of Ralph Waldo Emerson's appraisal of audiences: "There is also something excellent in every audience,—the capacity of virtue. They are ready to be beatified."

The Republican National Committee in one of those mean, jeering school-yard taunts that passes for wit and satire among its witless and petulant minions, issued issued this "actors' awards" statement about the debate:

Actor in a leading role: Barack Obama, for his performance as Clinton's "friend" after snubbing her three days earlier.

Actress in a leading role: Hillary Clinton for her performance reaching out her hand "in friendship and unity" for three days. (This claim of a snub has been soundly refuted as a contrived ihterpretation by a press corps that wants and needs a fight.)

Writing (Adaptation of a screenplay): Hillary Clinton for rewriting her record.

Director: John Edwards for dictating the first 15 minutes.

Cinematography: CNN for capturing Hollywood's love of the Democratic candidates

The Kennedy endorsement was a call for politics on a higher plane. It is not a one family issue.

The press also totally ignored a bi-partisan conference of leaders at the University of Oklahoma early in January called to deal with the partisan gridlock that impedes the national business. The press could only fix on Mayor Bloomberg of NYC and whether he would announce as an independent candidate for president.

The Kennedy endorsements of Obama were a repudiation of those factors that cause the gridlock in Congress and affect the national business generally. While some people like to think of the Kennedy era as Camelot, the Kennedys represent a long tradition of New England reformers of which Ralph Waldo Emerson was the best known because of the lectures he delivered in out- of - the - way places throughout America. Obama's offering of hope is in that tradition. He echoes these words of Emerson's:

• Government exists to defend the weak and the poor and the injured party; the rich and the strong can better take care of themselves.

• Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.

• Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

• The people know that they need in their representative much more than talent, namely, the power to make his talent trusted.

• We shall one day learn to supersede politics by education. What we call our root-and-branch reforms of slavery, war, gambling, intemperance, is only medicating the symptoms. We must begin higher up, namely, in Education.

You can be assured that the attempts by Ted Kennedy to raise the level of campaign politics will be met by the Republicans and their blogging automatons with recitations about Chappaquiddick and Obama's secret life as a Muslim and a member of a black-racist church in Chicago.

In their last debate, Senators Clinton and Obama gave us a glimpse of what good will, good preparation, and substantive purpose can product. That is not to say that they did not make some factual errors during the course of their discussion. But what a relief it was from the tabloid fixations of the press and the relentless malevolence of the blogs.

While I am sometimes accused of being anti-blogger, my criticism of blogs is that they seldom rise above the level of petty meanness, malevolence, and self-absorption. That brings to mind another observation from Emerson:

• There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though it may not always call itself by that name.

The interest in the younger voters generated by Obama is from his offer of hope in a political culture that often serves the meanest motives rather than the highest aspirations.

The time of Emerson is called the American Renaissance in literary circles. The efforts to elevate political debate from the degraded depths is an attempt to capture that spirit and purpose again. There are many people who want that rebirth of decency.

The conference at the University of Oklahoma, the Kennedy family endorsement of Obama, and the debate that ensued show us what politics can be. The voices of good will and justice get outshouted in the malign clamor that forms the official style book of one of our major political parties and adopted by much of the media. We heard the voices of good will and justice in at least one debate, if anyone cared to listen.

It was rocket science and Cold War politics

The Juno 1 rocket blasting off 31 January 1958

Battery A had been at the little base on the Rhine River in West Germany less than two months 50 years ago today. It was a dank and dark place. We were there six weeks before a ray of sun managed to penetrate the gloom that hangs over the Rhine. In the eastern U.S., it was just before 11 p.m. on a Friday. On the Rhine it was just before 5 on Saturday morning. A Juno 1 rocket was blasting off at Cape Canaveral to put Explorer 1 satellite into orbit.

Battery A was a U.S. Army guided missile unit. We were aware that an attempt was going to be made to catch up with Soviets by putting a research satellite up. We were rooting for this one. The rocket that would carry Explorer 1 into orbit was an Army vehicle. There was a factor of inter-service rivalry involved.

In 1958, the military services had their own programs for the development of rockets. Just weeks prior to the launching of Explorer 1, a Navy rocket, the Vanguard, had been designated by Pres. Eisenhower to carry the first American satellite into orbit. He chose the Vanguard because it was designed for the purpose of injecting research satellites into orbit and did not have the warlike associations that other rockets had.

The Vanguard failed. It lifted off about four feet above the launch pad, lost power, and crashed in flames on the pad. Pres. Eisenhower then issued the order for the Army Jupiter-C rocket to carry a satellite into space. The Jupiter-C was a military rocket designed to carry war heads. It had a long genealogy as a military weapon. It was renamed Juno 1 as an attempt to disassociate it from its military function as an intermediate range ballistic missile. The Jupiter-C was basically a Redstone missile, which was designed by the German scientists who created the V-2 rocket during World War II. Pres. Eisenhower feared that using an IRBM to launch a satellite would be seen as a military threat by the Soviets. However, he thought it was more important to establish the U.S. as a contender in space exploration, so he finally chose the Redstone to do the job.

Battery A was familiar with the Redstone. While it worked with its ground-to-air missiles at White Sands and Red Canyon missile ranges, Redstone crews were busy developing and testing their missile.

By mid-morning on Saturday, as we manned our missile system, word came over our headsets that Explorer 1 was in orbit and that it was an Army vehicle that put it there. The dark skies on the Rhine seemed to lighten. We were proud to be Army missile men.

That Juno 1 carried another object of pride. The satellite was designed in part in Iowa City by Prof. Van Allen, who used it to probe the radiation belts that circle the earth. And that is quite a story in itself.


The day the space age began can be reviewed here.

A lot of Aberdeen people are getting TIFed off

The Argus Leader today carries a story about recent developments in Aberdeen that promise new industries and new jobs. The prospects, however, are not as bright and glossy as media accounts paint them. Below is an insider’s perspective from Aberdeen City Councilman Clint Rux who joined fellow council members in voting down an application for a tax increment financing (TIF) district that would have subsidized a housing development.

TIF districts have been at the center of economic development projects in Aberdeen. So has workforce development, which requires a supply of labor and adequate housing for the labor force. Therein is a problem. The Governor's Office of Economic Development has issued a profile of Brown County which details the characteristics of the workforce. The profile emphasizes the low wages and absence of labor unions, and that has been the factor on which the area has tried to market itself to potential businesses.

The developments now in progress include:

• Northern Beef Packers, a locally financed packing plant which says it will employ 200 initially with a potential of reaching 600 employees. Voters approved a TIF district for $8.6 in bonds. While construction is underway, the project has had problems sticking to its announced plans and schedule. It has vacillated on project managers, marketing contracts, and arrangements for disposing of its wastewater. Many community leaders who have supported the project express concern about whether the plant will become operational.

• Molded Fiberglass Companies, an Ohio-based firm, will manufacture the huge blades that drive wind turbines. It was approved a TIF district at $3.5 million. When it became apparent that the developers miscalculated some infrastructure costs, they asked the city council for an additional $1 million, and were granted TIF bonds for $4.5 million. The plant can employ up to 650 workers.

• Coventry Health Care came to Aberdeen when Mutual of Omaha sold its employer group insurance branch to Coventry. No TIF is involved. Coventry retained about 70 claim processing jobs and plans to increase its workforce up to 200 jobs.

• Homes Are Possible,Inc., (HAPI) is a local non-profit organization that puts up low-cost Governor’s Homes, built by penitentiary inmates, and sells them to qualified low-income buyers. It was granted a TIF district for $1.25 million.

• B&B Contractors has a housing development on the north side of Aberdeen. It applied for a $1.2 million TIF bonding authority but was rejected by a 4-3 vote of the city council. Its homes are in he $140,000 range with no income restrictions. The firm says the TIF rejection will add about $10,000 to the price of its homes.

TIF districts were created by federal law for the purpose of providing incentives to renew blighted areas. A community realizes no real estate tax revenues from TIF district above what the unimproved land was taxed. The taxes on the value of the improved real estate go, instead, to paying off the bonds sold for the TIF district.

Clint Rux was among the four Aberdeen Council members who rejected B&B Contractors application for a TIF district. Some people involved in the development projects were not happy and had snark fits.

Here is Clint Rux’s perspective on the issue:

Aberdeen Needs To Be Progressive, And That Is the Problem.

This TIF thing has seen to make people a little crazy. You have people against it, and people for it. The problem is that at many times there are many different circumstances that result in voting. At least in my case. I will not speak for other council members. The funny thing is that in voting against the TIF I have been labeled as non-progressive. And that actually got me thinking, as well as a little shocked. I have usually thought of myself as progressive. I have worked for more open and representative government, accountability, and more importantly change. In working for all these things I have gone from good blood pressure to pre-hypertension, and my wife swears she saw a gray hair. I am not even 33 years old. I have always taken pride in the fact that I am the poorest council member. That of course was made clear when it was printed in the paper that I could not afford a $140,000 home (I wished they would have left that one out). Lesson learned.

Of course, progressive in the dictionary means: moving forward, proceeding in steps, promoting or favoring political and social reform. Because I voted "NO" on the last TIF someone suggested that if I was not progressive enough, I should remove myself from the council. In reflection I realized that maybe I am too progressive. The current TIF issue probably reflects that more than any other issue. We are talking about what needs to happen in securing a future of growth. The problem is that many in Aberdeen have not had to tackle this issue, and are ill prepared to lead. They are putting past ways of doing things into the current scenarios we now face. They are protecting the interests of individuals, and not the future of this community. Sometimes a vote against something can make people ask, "What the hell do we do now."

The whole problem stems from the need for workforce housing. The problem with that is that many of the people in leadership roles attribute workforce housing to anyone who has a job. Unfortunately the accurate representation of "workforce" is anyone who works for an hourly wage. The people who work on salary, or own a business can be lumped into different groups, usually professional. And that is the big difference, a huge difference. People who work for an hourly wage have different housing needs than a professional. A person who works for an hourly wage wants an affordable, decent place to live. They do not care if they own it, they just want to live in it. A professional is more apt to want to own a home, invest in a financial future. There are different housing needs between these two groups, unique to themselves. The problem is that people in leadership roles are only focusing on housing geared to professionals, and not the every day worker. This is what has been done for years, and needs to change.

A growing community needs to have good places for people of all walks of life to live (that is the progressive philosophy coming out). A dramatic shift in thinking needs to occur in this community, or our growth will stall and fail. We need young people to come to this community, and that raises different issues. This community has not had to face this prospect, we have been an aging community. If we want true success we need to attract young adults. These individuals are more likely to have student loans that reduce their ability to pay for housing. They tend to be more of a credit risk. They have not proved financial stability. They want to be able to have the material things in life, and still enjoy life. More importantly, they have not yet settled down. They are not looking for homes, they are looking for places to rent. That is the shift in thinking that needs to occur, we need to think younger.

There are many other facts that would support the need for rental housing. It usually takes 30 to 60 days to close on a house. Where do those people that just move to town live in the mean time. This of course does not account for any construction. Workers in a beef processing facility on average only stay in a community for two years. These types of individual will never buy a home. Many communities that have seen growth built a large amount of rental units. People need time to get established in a community, having affordable rental housing gives them that time. You can accommodate the needs of a large influx of people buy building rentals. You build an 8-plex and you can house 8-24 people comfortably. You build a 200 unit apartment complex you can house 200-600 people. Unfortunately, we are focusing all our efforts on building houses.

Aberdeen is at a crossroads in a major shift of change. The problem is we need to be thinking differently, progressively. We need to change our thinking from what we have done, to what we need to do. This is proving increasingly difficult because some can not make that leap in thinking that is so desperately needed.

Clint Rux