I tend to believe that Komen’s sponsors had nothing but the best intentions in donating their time and money to supporting a worthy cause. However, I also can’t help noticing that I haven’t heard a peep out of any of them regarding the foundation’s appalling decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood, an entity that doesn’t harness its public health mission to partisan prerequisites.

I can also guarantee you that the PR groups and agencies charged with representing the brands of these sponsoring organizations have been holding their collective breath, desperately praying that this will all blow over and nobody will notice them.

Fat chance. Here’s a list of Komen’s corporate sponsors. If you patronize any of these companies, perhaps you might consider asking them what they think of Komen’s behavior over the past couple of weeks.

• 3M
• ACH Food Companies: Bake for the Cure
• Acushnet – Titleist, Pinnacle and FootJoy Worldwide
• American Airlines
• American Blue Ribbon Holdings
• Anchor Bay Entertainment
• Ansell Healthcare Products LLC
• Aquage (SalonQuest, LLC)
• Arizona AFO
• Armouth International
• Ask.com
• Avcor Healthcare Products, Inc.
• Balance Walking by Foot Solutions
• Bank of America
• BCBG MAXAZRIA and ClearVision Optical
• Belk
• Berkley Packaging Company, Inc.
• BIC USA Inc.
• Boar’s Head Provisions Co., Inc.
• BoConcept USA, Inc.
• Boots Retail USA, Inc
• Boston Proper
• Boston Warehouse
• Bowl for the Cure
• Brinker International
• Brown Shoe Company
• Caché
• California Pear Advisory Board
• Caltrate
• Canari Cyclewear
• Candy Coburn – Pink Warrior
• Caribou Coffee Company, Inc.
• Carlisle Collection, Ltd
• Caterpillar
• Century Payments
• Charlotte Motor Speedway and The Dollar General 300 Miles of Courage
• Chasing Fireflies
• Chesapeake Bay Candle Co
• Citizen Watch Company of America
• Clean Ones Corporation
• Coldwater Creek
• Collegiate Shipping Products, LLC
• Crayola
• Dallas Cowboys – I Promise
• Dell
• Deluxe Checks
• Deuce Brand
• Dots
• DS Waters
• Eggland’s Best, Inc.
• Emdeon
• Energizer
• EuroBlooms
• Evian
• Evite and Postmark
• Exercise TV
• Exhale Enterprises, Inc.
• Fable Designs, Inc
• Feld Entertainment’s Disney on Ice presents Treasure Trove and Dare to Dream
• Ford Gum
• Ford Motor Company
• Forever 21
• Fragrance Marketing Group
• Freed’s Bakery, LLC
• FUZE and Honest Tea
• Garden State Growers
• General Growth Properties
• General Mills Pink Together
• Georgia-Pacific
• Global Filtration
• Globe Electric
• Goldtouch
• Graphique de France
• GUESS
• GUESS by Marciano
• Hallmark Gold Crown Stores
• Hampshire Designers
• Hand & Nail Harmony
• Hanesbrands
• Helzberg Diamonds
• Hewlett-Packard
• Holland America Line
• HSN – Shop for the Cure®
• HUE
• Hunter Boot USA, LLC
• Igloo
• Inliten
• Interfresh, Inc.
• IOGEAR
• J. Berry Nursery
• Jason Aldean
• Jersey Mike’s Subs
• Kelly Gale Amen Design
• Kent International, Inc.
• Kentucky Oaks Ladies First
• Key Brands International
• KeyBank Foundation
• King’s Hawaiian Bakery West, Inc.
• KitchenAid
• Kobian USA, Inc.
• Koch Filter Corporation
• Koi Design
• Kyocera
• La Madeleine
• LaCroix Sparkling Water
• Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA)
• Liberty Mutual
• LIFE Event-The Val Skinner Foundation
• Louisville Stoneware
• Lowe’s Companies, Inc
• LPGA Golf Clinics for Women
• Magaschoni
• Major League Baseball
• McAlister’s Deli
• MD Jockey Club – Preakness
• MegaGoods, Inc.
• Merck Consumer Care
• Meredith Corporation
• Microsoft
• Mobile Edge
• Mohawk Flooring – Decorate for the Cure
• Mottega
• Mrs. Baird’s Bakeries
• Napa Valley Naturals
• Nature’s Flowers
• NBC Today Show
• Nestle Purina PetCare Company
• New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc.
• New Global Charities
• NKOTB
• Nordstrom
• North American Licensing Company
• Not Your Daughter’s Jeans
• Nuun
• Oil Can Henry’s
• Old Navy
• On The Border – Fiesta for the Cure™
• Opal Orthodontics by Ultradent
• OPI
• Oracle Giving Commitment Grant
• Oreck
• Oregon Cherry Growers, Inc.
• Oriental Trading Company
• Otis Spunkmeyer, Inc.
• Palmer’s
• Pandora Jewelry
• Paris Accessories, Inc (MMG Corporation)
• Payless ShoeSource
• Philips Consumer Lifestyle
• Pink Ribbon Produce
• PNY
• Pottery Barn Kids
• Premium Outlets
• Pretzel Crisps
• Princess Cruises Community Foundation
• Prolacta Bioscience
• Provide Commerce
• Rally for the Cure®
• Redken
• REMAX
• RiceSelect
• Rich Products Corporation
• Robinson Home Products
• Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc.
• Samsung Electronics Europe
• Santa Barbara Design Studio and Designs by Lolita
• Sarah Fisher Racing
• Savvi Formalwear
• SELF Magazine
• ShoeDazzle
• Shoutback Concepts – Deals for the Cure
• Shuman Produce, Inc.
• Simon Malls
• SodaStream
• Specialized Bicycle Components
• Springs Global
• Stein Mart
• Stylemark, Inc.
• Sy Kessler Sales, Inc.
• Teasdale Quality Foods
• Testing
• The Hillman Group
• The Mohawk Group – Specify for a Cure
• The Republic of Tea
• Trident Seafoods Corporation
• True Religion Brand Jeans
• Tubbs Romp to Stomp Snowshoe Series
• U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation
• Verbatim
• Wacoal America
• Walgreens
• Wells Lamont
• Woman Within
• Yoplait USA
• Young Dental
• Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity
• Zumba Fitness

Thanks to Deanna Pierce for the story idea.

A few days ago I predicted on Facebook that she’d be gone within a week, but  then retracted the prediction when I learned more about the heavy-Right political leanings of the rest of the board (and the involvement of Ari Fleischer in their strategy development).

On Friday, just before America took its collective brain offline for Super Bowl Weekend, Komen offered up a fake apology that encouraged the public to believe that it had changed its mind and was going to continue funding Planned Parenthood after all, even though its release actually said nothing of the sort. It isn’t clear how many average citizens the ploy fooled, but as I explained on Saturday, it sure as hell clowned the copy desk editors of just about every major news outlet in the country.

It’s hard to say at this point what the motivation is for Handel’s exit. Maybe the board is looking at the numbers and concluding that it still hasn’t done enough to assuage the anger of its donor base, and in this case it needs a scapegoat. Or maybe Handel is taking more personal heat than she’s comfortable with and just said to hell with it.

However, what isn’t happening is a substantive reversal on the part of the Komen organization. That social conservative board, in bed with the repugnant, fork-tongued Fleischer, has not decided that it was wrong. Whatever is going on today is designed to distract the public so that they can find another means of enacting their cynical agenda.

I said last week that three things need to happen before America should even consider giving Komen a penny of its cash or a second of its support. First, Handel must go. Second, the rest of the board must go (and at this point, I think that has to include founder Nancy Brinker, who can no longer be trusted). Finally, as I said Friday, demand “that they work with non-partisan health and women’s groups to replace [Handel and the board] with leaders who will put the well being of American women first.”

One down, two to go. Women’s health should not be subjugated to the whims of a partisan agenda, and Handel’s departure, while welcomed, is nothing more than a small first step on a long, rocky road to reconciliation.

I encourage those dedicated to the cause of cancer research and women’s health generally to do a little research. In addition to Planned Parenthood, there are many other local and national organizations who can put those dollars to valuable use.

Contrary to what Komen’s highly-paid PR crisis hacks and gullible headline writers at newsdesks around the nation would ask you to believe, The Susan G. Komen Foundation does NOT promise to fund Planned Parenthood in the future. They promise to let PP APPLY for grants in the future. Applying and receiving are different things, as anyone who ever applied and got rejected for a job ought to know.

I have some experience in the world of corporate communications, folks. Lots and lots, in fact, and I’ve been inside a Fortune 150 war room when the wheels flew off. Today’s media charade is an attempt to get the heat off  as soon as possible. Textbook stuff.

The announcement is timed beautifully – just before Super Bowl Weekend – and they’re hoping that the combination of the pretend apology and the big game will insure that, come Monday morning, nobody will remember what they did. They can then find a reason to deny those future Planned Parenthood grant apps when nobody is paying much attention.

So, America – how stupid are you?

If you want Komen to do the right thing, demand that they fire their aggressively anti-abortion president and their anti-abortion board and that they work with non-partisan health and women’s groups to replace them with leaders who will put the well being of American women first.

Anything short of that plays right into the hands of those who’d hold breast cancer victims hostage to a social conservative political agenda.

Bats have a bad rep. Think bat and you likely think bat with rabies. Think bat and you likely think dirty bat or bat as vampiric bloodsucker. Think bat and you likely think evil harbinger of doom and destruction. (Okay, that last one’s a tad over the top … but you get the idea.) Bats have fewer defenders than fear-laden critics.

But bats, the only mammal structurally capable of sustained flight, are just creatures with significant ecological — and economic — roles. Hate mosquitoes and other insects? They’re on the nighttime menu for bats. Like bees, many bats pollinate plants and spread seeds. Bat shit (sorry; bat guano) is rich in nitrogen and is a profitable fertilizer. Bats’ ability to navigate in the dark (echolocation) is a subject of significant scientific study.

But in the past five years, up to 6.7 million bats are estimated to have died in 16 states and Canada, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. Three species face extinction — the little brown bat, the northern long-eared bat and the tricolored bat. A malady called white-nose syndrome is killing them.

Researchers gleaned the estimate by counting bats in winter trips to caves. Bats roost densely, reports Darryl Fears of The Washington Post. So researchers take digital photographs of bats snoring through winter and literally count noses of bats. In 2009, researchers estimated bat deaths at about 1 million. The new figure has alarmed scientists. Says Mylea Bayless, conservation programs manager for Bat Conservation International in Austin, Tex.:

We’re watching a potential extinction event on the order of what we experienced with bison and passenger pigeons for this group of mammals, The difference is we may be seeing the regional extinction of multiple species. Unlike some of the extinction events or population depletion events we’ve seen in the past, we’re looking at a whole group of animals here, not just one species. We don’t know what that means, but it could be catastrophic.

White-nose syndrome, reports Fears, is caused by a fungus called Geomyces destructans. The fungus eats through the skin and membranes of bats. The syndrome was first observed in in 2006 in Howe Caverns near Albany, N.Y., a popular tourist destination down the road from me. Reports Fears:

Since then, biologists in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Vermont, Indiana and other states have returned to caves and mines during the annual winter hibernation of bats and reported alarming numbers of fresh dead to wildlife and gaming agencies.

The extensive demise of bats threatens forest health — and segments of the economy based on forests.

The paper products industry could also be hard hit if pests such as the emerald ash borer proliferate in the absence of bats. Loggers in states such as Vermont “ought to be concerned, but I don’t think the word has really gotten out to these folks,” said Mollie Matteson, a conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity in Richmond, Vt.

“It certainly behooves people concerned about the health of forests — loggers or ecologists — to pay attention,” Matteson said. “But it’s hard to make a direct connection between 7 million bats dead and what happens to forest pests.”

I still don’t like bats. I’ll still duck when they flit over my deck. But none of us should be happy that nearly 7 million have died with no apparent recourse to a cure. The potential extinction of any species — even one that fills many of us with fear and loathing — must concern us.

More on bats:
• white nose syndrome
• the economic cost of losing bats
• the science of bats (video)
• Bat Conservation International
• Organization for Bat Conservation

photo credit:
• vampire bat by Michael & Patricia Fogden/Corbis

I remember when Lennon was killed. I also remember the reactions of his fans. I liked The Beatles, of course, but they were a few years ahead of me. And Lennon’s solo work underwhelmed me. So it’s fair to say that I really didn’t get his importance to Baby Boomers or the powerful emotional connection that many of them felt to him. As a result, I didn’t quite fathom the oppressive pall that seemed to fall over every part of the world inhabited by Boomers when, on December 8, 1980, he was gunned down on the streets of New York City. The Beatles weren’t my band. They weren’t of my generation. John wasn’t my hero. And I had never lost a rock hero before.

But on November 24, 1991 – 20 years ago today – I came to understand perhaps a measure of the grief felt by my older friends and colleagues. On that day the man who had been my rock hero succumbed to AIDS. We had only learned a few days earlier that he even had the disease, and I had no idea that the end would come so quickly.

I think back now on the first time I heard Queen – back when you could hear good music on the radio, the local stations played “Killer Queen.” Then, with the release of A Night at the Opera, the band began to blow up. I remember one morning when I was a freshman at Ledford High School, riding in with my next-door neighbor David Rush. He was a senior, starting QB for the football team, and as cool as it got at Ledford. I asked him if he knew anything about Queen. “They’re a hard rock band,” was all he had to say, and “hard rock” in my perception had something to do with Satan, probably. They didn’t sound like devil music, though, so I saved my money and used it to buy the record. I think it must have cost $7 or so, an outlandish sum of money, and I don’t recall my grandfather being happy about such wastefulness. But I did it, and A Night at the Opera thus became the first record I bought with my own money.

And I played it so much I thought the needle was going to wear through the vinyl.

I remember discovering that a girl on my speech and debate team, Melanie Gear, was a big Queen fan, too. We’d sit together in class or on the bus to and from tournaments and talk about anything Queen-related we could think of. I’d hear something and have to share it with her. She’d hear some news and share it with me. And on those too-rare occasions where we had heard that a new Queen album was on the way we’d talk about it nonstop. We didn’t think we’d make it until the drop date, we were so damned excited.

When I’d finally get my hands on the new one – A Day at the Races in 1976, News of the World in 1977, Jazz in 1978 – again, I’d go in my room and close the door and play it as loud as I could without making my grandparents mad. Over and over again. I still know every freakin’ note, every word, even when I may not have heard the song for years.

Freddie was god. Brian was god. John was god. Roger was god. We’d argue over who was the best songwriter (I always contended it was Brian). We argued over who was the best singer, even. Yeah, Freddie was marvelous, but both Brian and John were gravely underrated voices, and it can be cool to hold unconventional opinions. It makes one appear thoughtful and intellectual and independent. I’m still like that, I suppose, although I don’t recall being that way before Queen, before Freddie Mercury, became the biggest pop culture icons in my entire world.

We never argued over who was the biggest star, though. Or who had the most charisma, the greatest presence. Somewhere up in heaven, surely Jesus dreamed of being as glorious as Freddie Mercury.

I’ve talked elsewhere about Freddie’s importance to me. And to the culture generally. I’m not the only one, either. I hope you read Gavin’s piece the other day, because the view from South Africa was decidedly different that the view from Wallburg, North Carolina. And I’m especially glad that Freddie’s legacy has grown through the years, that two decades on he is regarded as Asia’s greatest rock star, as the greatest male rock singer of all time, as one of the 100 greatest Britons. Hype, certainly. Open to debate? Of course. But plausible arguments? No question.

I’m also glad that he is honored as a cultural influence, because true rock greatness involves more than just putting out good records. Influence on other artists matters. Staying power matters, especially in our current age of disposable pop stardom. And impact on the world beyond music matters a great deal. The Beatles were a political phenomenon, as was Dylan, and as Gavin points out, few people did more to get the crisis of AIDS on the public radar than Freddie.

He also accelerated the pace at which we all got over our homophobia because all the narrow-minded, ignorant hate that people like me grew up with simply wasn’t compatible with the magnificence and the beauty and the grandeur of the music that Freddie and his bandmates showered on the world.

The likes of Freddie Mercury don’t come along very often, and I’m reflecting on what I felt 20 years ago, sitting in a friend’s living room in Charlotte, when I learned that one of the most important formative influences in my life was gone. Who wants to live forever, indeed. I just wish we’d had a few more years.

Ah, well…

Click here to view the embedded video.

My self-appointed task was to assist with setting up income generation projects. I had a “real” job during the week and would arrive early on Saturday mornings to a queue of toddlers and tiny children waiting to be picked up and swung. Little happy, snotty faces with upstretched arms taking their turns and then running to the back of the line to have another go.

And every one of them HIV-positive.

One day a child, late to be swung, came running too quickly and slipped. She fell hard on the concrete and scraped her arm and leg. Blood flowed and she began to howl. I stooped to pick her up and a nurse grabbed me, pulling me back.

“No,” she said, her face sad, “let her mother pick her up,” indicating the blood and cuts on my hands from where I’d injured myself working on my car.

That was the moment that the death sentence implied by AIDS hit home. None of these children would live more than another few years.

Princes of the Universe

1984 was the year of Big Brother. The rest of the world was grappling with the Cold War. South Africa had Total Onslaught as the Apartheid government of the time sent soldiers into the townships to fight pro-democracy activists. The ANC bombing campaign was under way with almost weekly attacks. The South African army was still fighting independence movements in Angola and Mozambique. Archbishop Desmond Tutu won his Nobel Peace Prize. The Stander Gang, bank robbers led by police officers, were killed in a shootout.

And — at the height of international sanctions — Queen visited Sun City in Bophuthatswana. The splatter of nominally independent states was an Apartheid construct, a vassal state “Bantustan,” created to represent the supposed “separate but equal” politics of the day.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Queen should never have come.

Freddie Mercury — birth name Farrokh Bulsara, a gay Parsi from Gujarat who grew up in Zanzibar and was raised as a Zoroastrian — visiting a country where everything about him is illegal as a celebrated guest? I was 10 years old and most of the hype went straight over my head.

I remember that the band had second thoughts. Mercury came down with a throat infection and the band threatened to pull out. Sol Kerzner, international man of mystery and the owner of Sun City, must have thrown a lot of cash at them to get them to stay. A trick he would use to grand effect every year during the Million Dollar Golf Tournament to get his big name stars to break sanctions.

Queen stayed and played nine sell-out concerts. They arrived back in the UK to universal condemnation, were fined by the British Musicians Union, and ostracised.

Why do it? They didn’t need the money. Maybe because they felt that the band was breaking up anyway?

Mercury had started recording duets with Michael Jackson in 1981 (none yet released), singles released in 1984 and a full solo album, Mr Bad Guy, in 1985. Brian May and Roger Taylor also tried their own efforts. The creative conflicts in the band had led to albums which swung between the epic rock anthems we all love and forgettable bits of dropsy.

Mercury wanted to experiment with more disco and electronic sounds while the rest of the band considered themselves firmly in the rock camp. The dynamic of intensely creative band members pulling in different directions is almost prosaically predictable.

In 1985, when Queen delivered a mind-bending performance at Live Aid, it really did feel like a break-up couldn’t be far away.

Who wants to live forever?

In May this year, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the formation of the band, the BBC aired “Queen: Days of Our Lives.” Roger Taylor and Brian May were extensively interviewed for it and gave a real sense that 1985 was the most troubled year for the group.

Bob Geldof didn’t quite beg them to perform for his Live Aid charity event, but he came pretty close. The concert would have the world’s largest ever television audience of 1.9 billion and he wanted a band who could amp a stadium.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Eventually they agreed. Jim Hutton, Mercury’s last partner, said that Mercury was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987, but May suggested that Mercury may already have known something was wrong at the time of Live Aid.

Live Aid may have done precious little for Ethiopia but it saved Queen from self-destruction. Mercury was always private about himself and it wouldn’t be until very close to his death that there would be any public statement about his illness.

Remember the times, though. Homosexuality was only legalised in the UK in 1967. AIDS was the Gay Disease. In the early 1980s hardly any popular male stars could maintain public support by announcing their sexual preferences for men.

Queen had already lost much chance of success in the US after the music video of “I Want to Break Free.” Written by bassist John Deacon and with the video story proposed by Taylor, this wasn’t intended as some attempt to be drag queens. It was a parody of long-running British soap, Coronation Street and was loved in the UK but banned in the US by MTV. The American antagonism to homosexuality (or even the hint of it) would ruin many careers.

The band closed ranks around Mercury. More importantly, their relationship with each other changed. Up to that time much of the creative antagonism related to the way in which credit was given for each song. Deacon, long considered one of the greatest bass guitarists, wrote few songs; Freddie most of them. From here on they would all share the credit, and the money.

At the end of 1985 they would release “One Vision,” with all band members sharing the credit for the first time. In 1986 they released A Kind of Magic, one of the greatest rock albums of all time. 1986 would see their last live tour, with over 120,000 people pouring in to Knebworth Park to view Mercury’s final performance.

The band then set to producing albums. The Miracle in 1989, Innuendo in 1991 and, with Freddie hanging on, Made in Heaven. He died on 24 November 1991.

The show must go on

What made Queen so fantastic? Mercury had a tremendous voice and personality to carry an entire stadium on his own. He was so powerful that it is easy to imagine he didn’t need the band, but he did. His solo albums weren’t that successful.

When Mercury died we also lost the musical talents of Roger Taylor, John Deacon and Brian May. Deacon in particular, one of the world’s most creative bass guitarists, no longer even performs. Mercury may have written “We Are the Champions”, but “We Will Rock You” is Brian May’s, “Another One Bites the Dust” is John Deacon’s and “Radio Ga Ga” is Roger Taylor’s. Four people in one band each capable of producing songs that can cause entire stadia to sing and clap together?

Click here to view the embedded video.

After Mercury’s death the remaining members of the band arranged what the Guinness Book of Records regards as the largest rock star benefit concert in history. 1.2 billion people tuned in to watch on 20 April 1992.

Live Aid had shownthat such big concerts could attract a lot of attention and support. Ending poverty is too diffuse a problem for concerts to solve. Poverty is remote. Could awareness and financial support for poverty in Ethiopia really have much impact when the toxic mix of civil war and oppression which cause it is of local origin? There have been numerous anti-poverty concerts and none of them have had any impact short of reviving the fortunes of ailing pop stars.

The Freddie Mercury Tribute would be on a different scale. In 1992 AIDS was still a shameful illness. The disease was spreading rapidly everywhere. AZT, the first anti-retroviral drug to make any impact on HIV, was released only in 1987, but people needed to be tested and accept the illness. The stigma needed to be overcome.

Almost as an afterthought, and certainly forgotten by most people, Queen invited Mango Groove — a South African band — to perform via a live satellite uplink. From a frozen and blustery Johannesburg the band performed. They’re a nice bunch and their music was doing well in South Africa at the time, but they weren’t epic, they weren’t awesome. But Queen introduced the world to AIDS Ground Zero.

The concert raised $20 million for AIDS programs. It put the illness on the world agenda. Condoms would be available. Clean needles for drug users. Everywhere but South Africa, AIDS spread crashed.

Mercury’s death was a tragedy but, without it, Queen may not have lasted much longer and AIDS awareness may not have received the boost it needed. Tens of thousands of lives may have been saved.

More importantly, consider the number of gay stars who came out after 1992. Consider the compassion with which most have been received. Do you think we’d be in a position where gay marriage is even up for discussion without the near universal support Freddie Mercury unleashed?

Sadly, my homeland refused the lesson proving again that pop-star-driven charity can only take you so far. Up until very recently the country entertained a procession of AIDS denialists. Even now anti-retroviral treatment is not universally available and 4 million people are HIV positive; 10 percent of the population.

These are the days of our lives

Will there be another Queen? How much has the world changed since 1991?

Individual bands find it difficult to fill stadiums on their own. Oh, sure, your big bands from the 1970s and 1980s can still do it, but they’re still products of the old studio system which is now falling apart. The most successful recent acts are churned out through popularity contests. Journeyman bands can build a local following and then trade that up to perform at the growing number of music festivals but that isn’t quite the same.

Music has become commoditised. Streaming downloads mean that we listen to types of music and individual songs. We wanted a world in which major corporations didn’t dominate the music business and now… different major corporations dominate the music business. We’ve exchanged EMI for Simon Cowell. Sure, it’s easier for some unknown to set up a YouTube distribution of their work. Much harder to make a living out of success. Even harder to maintain momentum with so many new acts charging in.

The age of Queen was an age of limited distribution in which only big agencies could muscle up the cash to get you on every radio station and ensure you were stocked in every store. The winners in that system could become global phenomenon.

Who here thinks Justin Bieber will remain popular once he escapes puberty?

But even today I believe that someone with that much raw talent, confidence, stage dominance and vocal awesomeness would succeed. That Freddie Mercury and Queen would have been a sensation whereever they started. And, if that is the case, then maybe one day we will see his type again.

Until that day, here’s someone to love…

Click here to view the embedded video.

My mom’s friend, I’ll call her Joan, needs a kidney. About a week ago Joan got the phone call that she had moved to the top of the donation list. Mom is Joan’s transportation once the call comes that a kidney is available. Since the call we’ve been waiting and making plans: someone to take care of Joan’s cats, someone to get Mom’s beagle to the kennel, contingency plans for making the trip if it’s snowing. Mom has her bag packed—so does Joan. It’s rather like a pregnant woman getting ready for the trip to the hospital.

Except for that death part.

We haven’t really talked about that. Death sits too close to everyone involved to have that conversation. Joan lost her husband about five years ago to cancer. Mom made “magic fruitcakes” for Bob whenever he wanted them as he became more ill. The only magic was that my grandmother’s fruitcake recipe provided him a little enjoyment year-round. When Bob died, my mom supported Joan in her grief. About three years ago, Joan had one of those drug side-effects that pharmaceutical companies slip by in tiny print and fast voices: her kidneys were severely damaged. Mom stepped in to get Joan to appointments, tests, and procedures. We’ve known for almost two years that she would eventually need a transplant.

Then, a little over a year ago, my dad died. Joan became one of Mom’s lifelines, not just supporting her but also giving Mom something important: Joan needed her. The last year has been difficult, but Mom and Joan have made it through together.

The reality is that the kidney that will be transplanted into Joan will probably become available because of an unexpected death. Some family, faced with an unbearably painful situation, is going to have to give final approval for the kidney donation. My heart goes out to them—whoever they are.

The person who will donate a kidney to Joan is still out there today—alive, breathing. He or she probably already signed the donor form, maybe when they renewed their driver’s license, with probably about as much deep contemplation that I gave it, which is to say, very little.

I’m a Unitarian-Universalist working at a Catholic institution, so my celebration of religious traditions tends to be pretty diverse. Every November the Chapel puts up a memorial wall after All Saints Day and people pin the names of loved ones to it. In addition to my dad and other friends and relatives, I added one for “The person who has to die so that Joan can get a kidney transplant.” It seems premature, fitting, and macabre all at once.

It also seems to be the best I can do while we wait for the phone call.

A President Who Reads

In a recent White House email, with “You Tell Me” in the subject line, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Nancy-Ann De Parle sent out an open request for ideas on ways the President can put Americans back to work without waiting for Congressional approval. Since Congress has refused to offer the President anything but hate-speech since the Koch Party took over, opening a dialogue with the American people directly seems like a reasonable strategy. Here’s what I suggested:

1. Manufacture and deploy “fake plastic trees” (developed at Columbia University) that remove carbon from the atmosphere, simultaneously de-smogging our cities, improving public health, recycling carbon into usable fuel, and creating jobs.

2. Develop an “American Hong Kong” free enterprize zone to lure Apple and Motorola type techonology manufacturing back to the USA. It is theoretically possible to use machines and skilled machine operators to achieve the same productivity that China currently uses slave labor to achieve, and we are complicit in the enslavement of our fellow humans if we continue to buy goods produced by slave labor when an alternative is possible. Also, if the global economic situation does not improve, we may be heading toward another world war, and we need to control the manufacture our own technology in case of that scenario.

3. Bring back the trolleys. The General Motors streetcar conspiracy did incalculable damage to American cities by replacing cheap, rapid, reliable, profitable, non-polluting electric public transit with petroleum fueled buses. Now GM needs our help, and they’re willing to manufacture electric powered vehicles to get it. Let’s put them on trolley tracks. In 1920 almost every city with a population over 10,000 had an privately owned electric trolley system. They employed 300,000 people, served 15 billion annual passengers, and generated $1 billion in income. Our population is 3 times bigger now, so our numbers should be correspondingly multiplied.

4. End subsidies for sugar, tobacco, and other agricultural or consumer products that are detrimental to public health. This will cut health care costs by reducing instances of diabetes, heart disease, etc. Instead, offer subsidies for local and community farming with the condition that only nutritious food be produced. Local farms require less fossil fuels and more laborers than giant corporate farms.

If you have ideas, please enter them in the comment section below. At least one branch of government still wants to hear what the voters think. Even thought the comment submission period is now closed, circulating a good idea can have a far reaching impact. If you’re the economic genius who can get us out of this mess, please, let somebody know.

Think of an airplane consisting of 100 seats which only breaks even on the cost for a single journey once there are 65 paying customers on board.  The blue seats in the image below are the 64 patiently waiting to start their travels.  The red chair waits for the 65th customer.

The 65th passenger

How much pricing power does the 65th passenger have?

The 65th fare is the difference between failure and success for the airline; whether the journey can take place or not for the travellers.

In most countries, airlines certainly don’t wait for break-even before taking off.  They accumulate losses on some flights and offset them with surpluses on others.  However, for any African travellers out there who have spent a day or two waiting for a mini-bus to fill up with passengers before departing, this example is rather real.

Even so, for airlines, that 65th passenger is not theoretical.  On average there must be breakeven otherwise the airline will fail.

That final passenger is the difference between survival and ruin.  If that passenger is never going to turn up then all the other passengers must accept not travelling or that they must make up the fare that will never be paid.  One fare divided up amongst 64 is only a 1.6% increase.  Maybe they can cover that.  But what happens if one person cannot?

Suddenly it’s 2 amongst 63…

As for the airline, what can it do?  Frequent flying programs, gold cards, seat upgrades, special benefits for those who are loyal.  In short, they favour the customers who pay the most.

The other passengers don’t own the plane.  They may grumble about such blatant favouritism but these perks don’t necessarily come out of their pockets (not that they can see, anyway).

This is the impact of marginal pricing. Small changes can reduce even prosperous economies to a similar state of dependency.

Welcome the 7 billion

In A tale of three islands, The Economist takes a look at the world population which reaches a tally of 7 billion on 31 October 2011.

“By 1968 John Brunner, a British novelist, observed that the earth’s people—by then 3.5 billion—would have required the Isle of Man, 572 square kilometres in the Irish Sea, for its standing room. Brunner forecast that by 2010 the world’s population would have reached 7 billion, and would need a bigger island. Hence the title of his 1968 novel about over-population, “Stand on Zanzibar” (1,554 square kilometres off east Africa).”

Which goes to show just how deterministic population growth is that Brunner could predict, with considerable accuracy, when the world population would hit 7 billion.

More interestingly is what The Economist says about population growth (which is stabilising) and its impact on economies.

“In 1970 the total fertility rate was 4.45 and the typical family in the world had four or five children. It is now 2.45 worldwide, and lower in some surprising places. Bangladesh’s rate is 2.16, having halved in 20 years. Iran’s fertility fell from 7 in 1984 to just 1.9 in 2006. Countries with below-replacement fertility include supposedly teeming Brazil, Tunisia and Thailand. Much of Europe and East Asia have fertility rates far below replacement levels.”

“A fall in fertility sends a sort of generational bulge surging through a society.”

That demographic bulge has three stages represented in the following three charts. The blue line represents population and the red line represents the demand on economic support not earned directly.  Children, obviously, depend on their parents (or the state for education / healthcare) while retirees may draw down their savings or depend on the state or relatives.

First, a linear fall-off with many children, a few of working age, and even fewer retirees.

The Youth Bubble

This is the situation for most of Africa and the Middle East and is where most of the next billion will be born.

The second stage is one which can result in tremendous economic growth.  A large working-age population has few children or retirees to support and so can invest dramatically in infrastructure and social wellbeing.  This is the era of the Baby Boomers in the US and much of Europe and also of a similar period during the 1980s to recently in East Asia.

The fewer dependents there are on those who are working, the lower the taxes they need to pay and the more of their income which can be saved.

The Working-Age Bubble

Watch that wave, though.  The bubble will retire.  That’s where we hit the problem.  As the first part of that wave starts to retire, draw down their savings and require more healthcare they start to place pressure on social insurance.

The Long-term Retired

The dependency ratio starts to change; fewer people of working age support more people who do not.  Worse, though (from a financial perspective) is that this massed period of retirement is coinciding with a burst in longevity.

A retiree at 65 used to rely on their (or the state’s) savings for maybe five years at the maximum.  Now they could be retired for 20.  A Baby Boomer who retires at 65 could be drawing funds from Medicare and Medicaid for far longer than any generation before.  And there will be a lot of them.

This generational shift goes some way to explaining why Europe and the US are finding it so difficult to escape from recession.  The burden on those working is increasing.

By way of comparison, Japan’s population over 65 is already 23.1% of the total and life-expectancy is about 80.  China, worryingly, is the fastest aging country in the world.  Its dependency ratio is projected to reach 64 by 2050, from 38 now.

Age is one factor.  The other is progressive taxation.

Don’t cry for the wealthy

There are, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 237 million people in the US of working age of whom 139 million (58%) are actually working.  This out of a population of 307 million.

This implies that 45% of the population covers the state benefits of the other 55%.  However, not all Americans earn sufficient to pay tax.  According to the US Inland Revenue Service 104 million file income tax returns.  There are 83 million people who earn between $20,000 and $200,000 a year and they earn 66% of total income and pay 54% of total income tax.

726,000 people earn over $500,000 annually, 0.7% of income tax-payers.  They earn 17.8% of total income and pay 27% of the total tax take.

I’m not sure where the 1%/99% line is supposed to sit.  However, income tax only pays for about 33% of the taxes raised in the US.  So the wealthiest 0.7% pay 9% of the total while making up 0.2% of the population.

Megan McArdle, writing in The Atlantic, says “I doubt Occupy Wall Street will be assuaged by learning that the top 0.1% now only receive 8% of the income earned in the US, even if that number is the lowest it’s been since 2003.”

But, as she says, it is important.

Professor Steven Kaplan of the University of Chicago has explained in lurid detail how the incomes of the top 1% have fallen in the past few years.  Nothing to worry about if you are wealthy; nobody is asking you to sob for the rich.

However, if 9% of the tax spent on entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid comes from a mere 0.2% of the population and their income drops 10% then billions of dollars just got added to the deficit.

Progressive taxation, and a massive dependency on the wealthy, puts them in charge of the economy.  The alternative is for everyone else to pay more.

“Why do you hate me, what have I ever done for you?”

We’re all on the runway waiting for that final passenger to take his seat.  That passenger is demanding special treatment or he won’t fly.  He wants tax breaks, subsidies, special security for his home and better education for his kids.

None of us, already in our seats, want to pay more for our flight.

The perks that the 1% demand don’t appear to come out of our pockets but they are opportunity costs that our economies can’t really afford.

If my example about marginal pricing has meant anything to you then you realise what this means.  The 1% don’t have to earn 100% or 80% or even 40% of all income to make greater demands on government.  What they earn is irrelevant; they just need to pay a disproportionate amount of the total tax take.  They need to make up the margin.

This they do.

The way we have structured our economies in the US, Japan and Europe (the “West”) means that we need the super-rich to keep being super-rich and pay for a disproportionate amount of our social services so that the rest of us can pay less.

In exchange, whether we meant to or not, we have given them negotiating power.  They get to travel first class, get tax loopholes and special meetings with senior political leaders.  As long as the rich earn sufficient to pay for our needs, we grudgingly accept this.

Now they are earning less and so the benefits they receive appear even more unfair.  Robert Frank in his The High-Beta Rich: How the Manic Wealthy Will Take Us to the Next Boom, Bubble and Bust, points out that the wealthy tend to gain more during the booms but they fall further during the busts.  From 2007-08 the top 1% lost 8% of their income as compared to 2% for the rest. Pegging a significant portion of tax collection to people whose incomes are this volatile dooms stability in your tax system.

That hasn’t stopped us hating them or Wall Street.  After all, there is a Chinese saying, “Why do you hate me, what have I ever done for you?”  What do they have to do for us to hate them less?  The Economist has some ideas.

We are all the one percent.

Yet the “West” is not Cameroon.  There the top 1% own almost half of the economy through their control of that West African nation’s oil wealth.  Everyone else is a peasant farmer.

Those peasants lack the skills, opportunities and protection of law to get ahead.

Not so in the West where the 1% make up far less of our economies.  We could actually depend on them less if we so choose.

It isn’t necessary for the 1% to earn less for them to have less power.  The economy is not a fixed-size pie.  Since 2000, the US economy has grown 42% in size.  The rich got richer because the economy got much, much bigger.  Unfortunately, so did the benefits paid by the state and the reliance on the wealthy to finance those benefits.

We don’t need the rich to be poorer in a flexible economy.  It is simply necessary for us to rely on them less to pay for our social benefits.

Indeed, right now – because of the global recession – everyone is earning less.  Even when the 65th person gets on the plane we still can’t afford to take off.  If the 99% refuse to pay more and demand more of the wealthy then we also give them more power than they have already.  Now is the perfect time to demand less and take that power back.

If you decide not to, and for as long as you depend on the wealthy, you are the one percent.  We all are.

Shortly after finishing his three-month, 3,312-mile run from the coast of Oregon to the Rhode Island shore, Glenn Caffery visited his physician and complained that his feet were numb.

“What’d you expect?” the doctor replied.

Caffery, a 49-year-old data management teacher at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, lives in Leyden, a small town in the Connecticut River Valley that borders Vermont. His cross-country pilgrimage was to raise awareness about the Alzheimer’s disease that killed his father at age 68.

“He was diagnosed at 55,” said Caffery, “but it was symptomatic at least two years prior to that.”

On May 19, Caffery stuck his foot into the Pacific Ocean and began his long, arduous journey across Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Minnesota on toward the Northeast and into New England. On Aug. 17, surrounded by friends and family, he splashed into the Atlantic Ocean at Misquamicut Beach in Rhode Island.

Along the way he had jogged through towns named Mud Butte and Faith and avoided roads with rumble strips that rattled the three-wheeled stroller he kept packed with supplies and camping gear. “It was kind of comfortable to have it with me. I never gave it a name. I’m glad it never came to that.”

His wife, Colleen, shipped Asics DS running shoes and multivitamins to designated truck stops every 350 miles. Truckers learned of his cause and gave him leeway on the highway. Railroad engineers leaned on train whistles for encouragement.

South Dakota was the most grueling part of the journey, a daunting 560-mile trek in 100-degree weather through desolate territory where the state mammal is the coyote.

“It got discouraging,” said Caffery. “There was no shelter. There were no trees. I was by myself and totally dependent on the people around me.”

He was grateful for people like the owners of the Ace Motel in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, who gave him a roof over his head and a fresh bar of soap in the shower stall. “Ceramic tile, toilet, shower … Compared to sleeping on the side of the highway, it couldn’t have been better.”

A nasty case of shin splints set him back a week, but his arthritic hip never barked and he was able to average 50 miles a day while burning 600 calories an hour.

“I was amazed with my body’s ability to bounce back every morning,” he said. “My left hip was pain free and my right arm wasn’t sore from pushing the stroller, but my left shoulder bothered me. It did nothing, but a person’s body responds to work.”

Most weight-conscious people try to maintain a caloric intake under 2,000, but Caffery needed 7,000 calories day to keep up his energy level.

“Food was the single hardest part of the trip,” he said. “The problem was, I had no appetite and the stuff I ate was high calorie and not particularly healthy. Mostly I got sick of things. They had really gross ice cream (in South Dakota) called Blue Bunny, and another problem was I was a vegetarian in one thousand miles of beef country. But I did eat a lot of eggs and drink a lot of chocolate milk.”

Jogging on thoroughfares built for fast-moving vehicles provided a shocking, near slow-motion perspective of death on the highway.

“Dead things were horrible, so many dead things in the road,” he said. “The stench was a constant companion. Cars are so disruptive, and I saw so much killing…. Two Canada geese crossing the road with their offspring and I thought how beautiful, and a car went smashing through them, just a swirl of feathers. The car never slowed. That was hard.”

At night in the West, snakes came to bask on the warm roads.

“I had to be careful. The really big snakes were the bull snakes and they camouflaged well on the road,” said Caffery. “When I saw my first prairie rattler I knew I had to keep getting fresh batteries for my head lamp.”

In Ohio his father-in-law died. He rented a car and drove to the memorial service in Easton, Pa., then returned to where he’d left off.

“It made me wonder whether my run was truly separate from my life or really just the same,” he said. “I don’t think it was as separate as it seemed.”

The country’s diverse geography didn’t affect him so much as the people he met.

“They have forever changed me,” he said. “I feel really blessed they brought me into their world. I came to learn that the U.S. is a big community and I’d never thought of it that way. I was given two flags along the way. I’ve never had a flag in front of my house but I cherish these two flags.”

Life has returned to normal for Caffery. He’s back teaching at UMass and on Oct. 18 he spoke at an Alzheimer’s symposium in Boston. Although he’s raised $25,000, he said, “Alzheimer’s been a part of my life but I don’t consider myself an activist, surprising as that sounds.”

His feet still hurt and his weight is down and he’s quick to admit, “I’m in pretty bad shape right now.”

Yet he’ll recover physically and keep the memory.

“It was the classic step-a-time and big things happen,” he said. “It’s changed my attitude about life and adversity, and I’m a better person for having done this.”

Monies raised by Caffery’s effort go to the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund in Wellesley, Mass. “They’re a lean and mean operation and have the top Alzheimer’s scientists,” said Caffery. “Every dollar goes to research and it’s a very efficient operation with a very deliberate roadmap. They redirect every single dollar. If they donate $100,000 to a university researcher, they won’t allow the university to take any overhead.”

Contributors can donate by going to alzrun.org or curealz.org or by calling the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund at 781-237-3800.

Photos from Glenn Caffery’s website, http://alzrun.org/.

If you want a more intelligent pet than a dog, try a pig. Pigs learn tricks quickly. They have even figured out video games. Scientists have compared pig intelligence to that of a 3-year-old child.

In factory farms, pigs have been observed going insane and committing cannibalism.

Factory farming should be illegal.

In factory farms, corporations raise thousands of animals in a confined area. Chickens spend their lives in about one square foot of space. Once they reach full size, they die in slaughterhouses that process thousands of animals each day. Factory farmers ignore animal health and welfare in favor of a cheap steak. Around 98 percent of America’s meat comes from factory farms.

Animals suffer in factory farms. Scientists genetically engineer unhealthy animals to produce the most meat. In chickens, this means their breasts and thighs are so large that they can barely stand.
Poor slaughtering technique leads to inhumane killing. For example, if pigs do not lose consciousness after an initial shot with a stun gun, they remain aware when they get dipped in a scalding tank to remove their hair.

In factory farms, animals get sick. Rather than treating them on a case-to-case basis, farmers maintain their stock by feeding all of them antibiotics. Overusing drugs creates breeding grounds for antibiotic-resistant bacteria or “superbugs.” These bugs kill people and could create a worldwide disease outbreak.

Learn where your meat comes from before you eat it. Demand that your government outlaw factory farming. End an inhumane system.

Emily West is a junior majoring in theater and journalism and mass communication at St. Bonaventure University.

photo credit: Vegetarians International Voice for Animals

Today is LiveStong Day and it’s also Susan Komen Race for the Cure Day here in Denver. Earlier this morning, roughly 50,000 people participated in the Race for the Cure over at Pepsi Center, and annually there are about 130 such races worldwide. For context, here’s the Wiki intro.

Since its inception in 1982, Komen has invested nearly $2 billion^[2] for breast cancer research, education, advocacy, health services and social support programs in the U.S.,^[3] and through partnerships in more than 50 countries.^[4][5] Today, Komen has more than 100,000 volunteers^[6]working in a network of 124 affiliates worldwide.^[7] As of March 2011, Komen is listed on Charity Navigator with the site’s highest rating of four stars.^[8] According to the Harris Interactive 2010 EquiTrend annual brand equity poll, Komen is one of the most trusted nonprofit organizations in America.^[9][10]

Cancer is a horrible disease, and it’s one I take personally. On November 8, 1984, I stood by my grandfather’s bed in Forsyth Memorial Hospital and watched him draw his last breath. He and my grandmother had taken me in at the age of three and raised me as their own son and he was, in every meaningful respect, the only father I ever had. He had “beaten” cancer twice before – colon, then lung – but the third time around it got to his pancreas before they caught it. At that point it was just a matter of time. It wasn’t pretty to watch his decline knowing there was nothing we could do but make him comfortable and “prepare ourselves.”

So no, I don’t mean it’s good when people get cancer and I certainly don’t want it myself.

Instead, I’m thinking about my own personal battle, one that some of my friends know about but until now I have not made public. Three or four years ago I was diagnosed with what my specialist calls a “progressive vestibular disorder.” In a nutshell, it’s a malfunction of the inner ear that affects my balance. That doesn’t sound so bad at a glance, probably, and it’s hard to describe how it feels. But you know that dizzy, out of control feeling you get when you’ve had too much to drink? It’s sort of like that, only it never stops. It’s not so bad some days, although I can always feel it at least a little bit. Other days it makes it difficult to do anything more aggressive than lay on the couch. And I know from experience that I can’t describe the overwhelming full-body sickness that results when you can’t really orient yourself to up and down properly.

It isn’t fatal. However, the doctor told me up front that people with a similar condition, Meniere’s Disease, have an extremely high suicide rate. It’s hard for me to compare what I have precisely with Meniere’s, and no, this isn’t a threat to off myself. But the physician told me this for a reason. And on the really bad days, I have no problem whatsoever understanding why.

The doc made sure I understood three other things.

1. There’s no cure.
2. It’s going to get worse.
3. There’s not a lot we can do to manage the symptoms, either.

This is where I begin to envy those with cancer. And please, understand that I am praising everyone associated with the battle against all the forms of the disease that claimed the man whose I name I now bear.

I envy the fact that you have hope. In many cases, those with cancer have a shot, maybe even a good shot, of beating it.

I envy the fact that you have a vast, highly advanced medical/technical research program backed by extensive funding dedicated to eradicating the disease once and for all. It is not unreasonable to think that at some point, perhaps even in a generation or two, we as a society and as a species will have beaten cancer pretty much for good.

Perhaps most of all, I envy the community of support that has been built around the fight against cancer. There are programs for fighting it and surviving it, and there are programs for easing the final days of those who lose their struggle. As we see with the Komen Foundation’s activities, as well as those promoted by organizations like the American Cancer Society and Lance Armstrong’s LiveStrong.org, there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, willing to dedicate their time, their physical and emotional energy and their financial resources to supporting those with the disease and celebrating those who have beaten it.

In other words, I envy that you don’t have to walk that road alone. There are those who know what you’re going through, those who can counsel you and empathize with you and lend an arm to steady you if you stumble.

I, like everyone else out there, have a battle or two to fight and I’m grateful to those who support me. I hope to hell I don’t sound bitter, because I’m not. I hope I don’t sound like I’m trying to hitch my small little wagon to something larger in a bad case of self-indulgence, although I can understand how some might see it that way. And I’m certainly not suggesting that society should throw as much money at my disorder as it does things like cancer and heart disease and even HIV. Lots of people suffer from those afflictions and what I have is pretty rare. You’d have to be stupid to overprioritize something as far down the list as vestibular disorders.

I hope, instead, that I’m managing to frame this so that it’s clear how much I appreciate the doctors, the researchers, the fundraisers and organizers, the participants, the family members and friends who stand in support of those with cancer.

I’m just overcome by all those pink ribbons today. I can’t help thinking how wonderful it would be if everyone who gets blindsided by a crippling disease were fortunate to have the same kind of infrastructure to draw on. I freely admit that there’s a selfish part of me that wishes I had that, too.

Anyhow, before this trip, I don’t believe I had ever heard a radio advertisement for anything testosterone related. Ever. But by golly, yesterday I heard dozens. Literally, dozens. I found a sports talk station as I was rolling out of the Hertz lot and I just left it on (because I like sports and also, it’s far less brain-damaging than music radio is these days) and honest to sweet baby Jesus, there were at least two testosterone spots in every commercial break. I am not exaggerating, not even for effect. Testosterone treatments, testosterone centers, testosterone supplements – I kept expecting an ad for a testosterone-themed water park to surge from the speakers at any second. Never happened, but I was out of the car conducting client interviews for two or three hours so it’s possible that I missed it.

Now, I’m not here to mess with Texas. I have great friends there. Truly, I love the place despite, well, everything. But yesterday gave me the willies and has me asking some hard questions. Like, why can’t Texans get it up?

I’ve heard it alleged, by those trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong with Texas, that the state suffers from a case of collective testosterone poisoning, and listening to Gov. Rick Perry swaggering around bragging about many people he has executed (a lot of them actually guilty, it turns out) sort of lends support to the theory. Listening to Texans in general lends support to the theory. Looking at the kinds of people they vote for and the policies they seem to approve of – more support still. I don’t know. But after yesterday it is abundantly clear that however much testosterone the men of the state have at the moment, they don’t believe it’s enough. Which may mean they all have low testosterone and are overcompensating in the, you know, political arena. Or it may mean that the crazy motherfuckers are in the process of mass overdosing. These may be the sorts of men who hear the warning in the Viagra commercial and say “fuck that, if I have an erection lasting more than four hours I’m a-fixin’ to take some more of them gosh-danged miracle tablets.”

No cattle, perhaps, but at least an interesting place to hang the hat.

I hate to speculate, honestly. And I’m certainly not going to go door to door asking these folks if they’d like to talk about their peckers. (I’m especially not going anywhere near the Governor’s Mansion with that question.) All I can do is report the facts as I see them. And the facts are these: I’ve been all over the US and I heard more concern about mojo levels in my first five minutes in Houston yesterday than I have in all my visits to all the other states in America combined. Whether this means they have too little testosterone, too much testosterone or are just insecure about the size of their Lyndon Johnsons I can’t say, but I’m worried for them.

Until we find out, though, I think it would be a good idea to shut down all those testosterone businesses and suspend shipments of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. If something isn’t done, and soon, there could be a stiff price to pay.

First, some background. Not too long ago I wrote a post in which I observed that pudgy Southern teen girls often grow up to be pudgy women. I expected some reaction, but I didn’t expect the reaction I got, which was to get pelted from every angle. The right and the left. Men and women. Old and young.  It was as if I spit into the ocean and caused a tsunami.

OK, at the bottom of the page before you post a blog there is a small box that says “Check to allow comments.” If you check that box, as I do, and write about controversial topics in provocative ways, as I do, then you shouldn’t whine (even though I do.)

But as is usually the case, from pain comes insight, or at least insightful questions. In this case: Why the extraordinary sensitivity to comments about overweight young Christian women? If I’d written a line critical of skinny adolescent male Muslim pot smokers, do you think people would have leaped to their defense? I don’t.

What was it about this group that drew this reaction? Was it because they were young? Women? Christian? Overweight?  I think it was because they are overweight.

90% of my blogs are humorous. This is one of the other 10%.  I am profoundly serious about what I am about to say. Many people believe it is unfair or cruel to call out people for their weight. They are dead wrong, and here’s why. 

There is a general trend in our society to be less judgmental. Since you have no choice whether you are born white or black, male or female, smart or dumb, or gay or straight, we have agreed as a society not to judge based on those inherent characteristics. We use public approbation to try to enforce those rules on everyone in our society. Good for us. But our society has simultaneously decided that it is still OK to discriminate on the basis of the choices people make.

We discriminate against some choices for good and obvious reasons, like pedophilia and wife beating. Some for less obvious and less good reasons, like practicing a religion other than Christianity. Some choices we discriminate against more aggressively  than others, like smoking. As a society, we have decided it is OK to be openly mean to smokers. In part, that is because we believe it to be a choice that affects all of us negatively, through second hand smoke, birth defects and health costs. In part, it is also because we believe by being mean to them we are helping them.

I don’t smoke. I have never smoked. I hate smoking. Most people agree with me. A few years ago in Berkeley, I saw a young professional woman cross the sidewalk to get as close as possible to two smokers, and when she got next to them wave her hand in front of her face, cough theatrically and mumble something. That same young woman would never, ever walk across the street towards two fat people drinking milkshakes, puff out her cheeks and mumble, “Oink! Oink!” The very idea horrifies most us.

Because unlike smoking, where most of us feel free to openly criticize our friends who smoke, we all give the obese a free pass.  Perhaps it’s because so many of us carry extra pounds ourselves and we sympathize. Or perhaps it’s because it seems too personal. Or perhaps it’s because we view obesity as a condition rather than a choice.

If it’s the last reason, we are simply wrong. Less than 1% of all people have a medical reason for obesity like thyroidism or Cushin’s syndrome. That means that for 99% of people who are overweight, obesity is a choice, or accumulation of choices. The choices are subtle. It’s hard to see saying yes to whipped cream and caramel on your frappucino as  deliberate decisions to be fat, but they are.  Semi-medical reasons like “slow metabolism” are not legitimate and sufficient excuses for being overweight, any more than chemicals in the brain are excuses for smoking, drinking, or gambling. If you have pale skin, use more sunscreen. If you tend toward gaining weight, eat less or exercise more.

There are good arguments for being mean to fat people. Like smoking and riding a motorcycle without a helmet, obesity is a choice that drives up health costs for all of us. And there’s an even better argument: Because it works. In 1950, roughly half the population smoked. It’s now fallen below 20%. Why? Because of a panoply of mean-spirited anti-smoking measures, from taxation to advertising to social stigmatization to good old fashioned scolding. Humans are social creatures. We can’t help it. We care what others think. Make something uncool enough and we will stop doing it. Currently 2/3 of adult Americans are overweight and 1/3 are obese. If we are mean to fat people as we are to smokers, could we get that down below 20% as we have smoking?

Instead though, not only are we not mean to them, but we bend over backwards not to be critical, particularly young overweight women. It’s well intended, but foolish. We seem to think that nagging them about their weight will either cause them to get an eating disorder or erode their self esteem. 1000 people die each year from anorexia, 300,000 die from obesity. Eating disorders are a tragic problem. Obesity is a pandemic. And no, we don’t want to erode young women’s self-esteem. But do we really think scolding them for being fat is going to erode their self-esteem more than being fat itself?

Why weren’t we this considerate for smokers? We never worried about their self-esteem.

Most of us have been fat at one time or another in our lives. We all have fat relatives. We all have fat friends. If we love them, we will nag them continuously. We will make it uncool. We will tax frappucinos  just as we did cigarettes.

A few years ago, a seriously obese relative invited us to a party. My wife and I, each of whom could stand to lose  ten pounds or so, were by far the thinnest people there. The tables were loaded with the least healthy assortment of food I’ve ever seen. Her friends ate from paper plates stacked high with cheese and fried chicken wings dripping with sweet sauce. One chubby six year-old stood at the table with a deviled egg stuffed in each cheek and one in each hand. If I was at a party where the host allowed her six year-old to smoke, or do cocaine, or even drink a beer, I probably would have said something. But I said nothing to this kid or to the parents. Instead I was polite. Or lazy. Or cowardly. Take your pick.

For some reason, we are reluctant to call out fat people and the behaviors that cause obesity. But our silence isn’t kindness, it’s enabling.

Republican assaults on social service programs have finally yielded some significant advances, with the Obama Administration offering to push the eligibility age for Medicare up from age 65 to 67. Also, as part of a bargain to raise the debt ceiling, the administration offered to dial down cost-of-living increases in Social Security benefits.

But it’s Medicaid, which, as the health provider of last resort for the most vulnerable segment of society, has long been a tempting target for Republicans. To remind the young, to whom Medicaid and Medicare tend to blend together, up to speed, the former is a program jointly funded by the state and federal governments that pays for medical care for those who can’t afford it.

In March Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan helped devise a  plan to cut Medicaid by one third over ten years. Also Republicans sought to turn Medicaid into a block grant, which is a fixed amount with few strings attached, for states, as opposed to an adjustable amount should certain contingencies arise. But Republicans soon realized that Ryan was coming perilously close to that that social-services third rail that has come to haunt many a Republican in elections past. They then instead introduced the State Flexibility Act to pave the way for states to accept fewer applicants to Medicaid.

Ironically, Medicaid is under assault at a time when a new paper — which a RAND Corporation economist said is destined to be a “classic” –  demonstrates just how much enrollment in Medicaid enhances the well-being of the poor. A few years ago Oregon experienced a shortfall in Medicaid funding, which the state managed by conducting a lottery among applicants. However out of luck the losers were, it was an ideal situation for a double-blind experiment to determine the effect on the lives of those on Medicaid as opposed to those who weren’t, but who were equally needy.

Among the results as cited by Gina Kolata of the New York Times: once on Medicaid the likelihood of enrollees who “said their health was good or excellent increased by 25 percent [and] were 40 percent less likely to borrow money or fail to pay other bills because they had to pay medical bills.”

Whether or not this study will have any effect is debatable. At a time when funding for everything is up for debate – even defense and nuclear weapons (even if the cuts are token) – it appears that Republicans will never let up in their relentless crusade to roll back social service programs, in particular, Medicaid, the lowest-hanging fruit of all social services.

Like all social service programs, in the opinion of many Republicans, it just enables those on the underside of society to continue their slothful ways. Never mind that, in the case of Medicaid, we’re speaking typically of the aged and disabled – hey, if those in succeeding generations see that we’re not coddling today’s disadvantaged, maybe they’ll eat better, exercise, and save their money.

Nature Abhors a Vacuum — Doesn’t It?

If Medicaid is stripped down in the future, what program replaces it to take care of the sick and poor denied access? Remember, Medicaid pays for an average of 63.6 percent of all nursing home residents nationally. Somehow, letting them die at home and then holding monthly bring-out-your-dead days seems less than ideal. In fact, it’s true that, in yet another form of privatization, some states contract out Medicaid to a managed care network run by private insurance firm

How’s that working out? At the Century Foundation’s blog Health Beat, which she edits, healthcare journalist Maggie Mahar quotes a Commonwealth Fund brief: “plans operated by publicly traded companies will enroll the majority of the expanded Medicaid population” after the Affordable Care Act goes into effect in 2013.” But, Ms. Mahar herself writes that “it’s not clear that managed care in its current incarnation will save money for states. In Connecticut, for example, Gov. Dan Malloy  decided earlier this year to drop managed care contracts it had with Aetna, United Health and a non-profit community health network.” According to an audit, Connecticut overpaid by at least $50 million a year.

The Commonwealth Fund brief also reported that those plans “paid out the lowest percentage of their Medicaid premium revenues in medical expenses and reported the highest percentage in administrative expenses.” Where have we heard that before? Oh,  right, health insurance companies versus the public option. The brief also informs us that those “plans also received lower scores for … preventive care, treatment of chronic conditions, members’ access to care, and customer service.”

Not only is managed care a poor substitute, neither does it replace Medicaid. It’s not comparable to private health insurance, with which the Republicans would like to replace Medicare. Nor does it parallel personal savings accounts, with which they’d like to replace Social Security. In other words, if funds dry up for Medicaid, they dwindle, as well, for managed care, which is just outsourced Medicaid.

Still, conservatives don’t like to think of themselves as heartless. But before we explain one of the reasons that they don’t seek to replace Medicaid, you’d better sit down. Here goes: one reason Republicans are unconcerned about replacing Medicaid is because some believe that most — not some, not many — individuals on Medicaid could, in reality, afford private health insurance. Yes, you heard that right

Pity the Poor Healthcare Companies

In May of 2010, Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, wrote, “Economists of all political stripes acknowledge that Medicaid crowds out private health insurance, which provides better access to medical care.”

Jonathan Gruber, who teaches health economics at MIT and has consulted with the Obama administration, coined the use of the term “crowd-out” in this context. “The notion that public insurance expansions simply erode private insurance coverage,” he wrote, “rather than providing coverage to those otherwise uninsured, is known as ‘crowd-out’.” By which he seems to mean that some who apply for Medicaid were covered by private health-care insurance, which, presumably they had been able to afford.

Aw, poor health care companies. Cannon wrote that Gruber (emphasis added) “has estimated that, in effect, as many as six out of every ten enrollees added to Medicaid and similar programs would otherwise have had private coverage.” Upon writing to Professor Gruber, he responded that he stood by those numbers. Not only that, but, writes Cannon, “Gruber’s MIT colleague Amy Finkelstein finds that Medicaid also crowds out private long-term care insurance.”

Never mind that the term “crowd-out,” by all rights, should refer to those crowded out of health care by high premiums. Who are these people who are choosing Medicaid over private health care or long-care insurance? Or, more to the point, managing to qualify for a means-tested program like Medicaid when, in fact, they can afford private insurance. Cannon again.

President Obama elides the existence of crowd-out when he implies that every single senior receiving Medicaid’s nursing-home benefits “wouldn’t be able to afford nursing home care without Medicaid.” That’s simply not true. An entire cottage industry of elder-law attorneys has emerged to help seniors qualify for Medicaid without spending down their wealth.

Artificial Impoverishment

In an email to us, Ms. Mahar explained.

…this 2011 essay on Medicaid and the Future of Long Term Care points out: “assets may be unlimited as long as they are held in exempt form, such as a business, home, automobile, term life insurance, prepaid burials, etc. Medicaid’s income and asset eligibility rules are easily stretched … Medicaid estate planning attorneys. … who routinely make six-figure incomes and seven-figure firm revenues. … are in the business of doing just that. By means of creative legal strategies, they artificially impoverish … even affluent clients to qualify them for Medicaid’s LTC benefits. …

In the process, though, these attorneys are “diverting Medicaid’s scarce resources from people truly in need to their often-affluent clients. … I would add that this is why Medicaid doesn’t have enough money to provide good care for the truly needy. … This practice has had devastating consequences for the program.

Finally, an issue on which conservatives and progressives would seem to be able to achieve bipartisan consensus. Republicans have no wish to see Medicaid’s equivalent of welfare queens gaming the system, while progressives don’t want precious funds diverted from those who most need them. Not only that, assuming Medicaid continues,  Republicans have been kind enough to devise an idea to “strengthen” Medicaid — cost sharing.

Who exactly would share the costs? Why, the elderly and disabled will be asked to pony up. Maybe not a problem for affluent abusers of Medicaid, but if the poor had any money to share the costs of Medicaid with the state and federal government, they obviously wouldn’t apply for Medicaid in the first place.

But their families might. Imagine the financial stress that making up a shortfall in Medicaid would inflict on not only a working-, but a middle-class, family? If both members of a couple were working, it might require the entire salary of one. Or if that’s deemed too expensive, the couple might elect to bring mom or dad home as the husband or wife quits his or her job to provide eldercare.

Guess Who Else Might Suffer Blowback From Medicaid Cuts? The Rich

One can make the case that, however despicable the rich are for gaming the system, there’s no reason that they, like those less affluent, should be the victim of today’s exorbitant health-care costs, which are an equal-opportunity bankrupter. Ms. Mahar, however, reminds us in her email that

… if you think about it, transferring assets to qualify for Medicaid is a way of further consolidating wealth among families at the top of the income ladder. Why should … a couple earning $60,000 a year who cannot afford to send their child to college … pay for an upper-middle-class person’s nursing home care while [the latter] transfers $100,000 or $500,000,or $1 million, to her upper-middle-class 30-something children (who have joint income of $125,000 — and in ten years, may well be earning twice that amount)?

She also told us that: “Most Republicans really don’t care how or where the cuts are made. … they just want to cut spending on Medicaid.” Or, as Paul Krugman told Benjamin Wallace-Wells of New York Magazine, “I think what people like Paul Ryan are trying to do is set us on a glide path to a much harsher society. A country in which, step by step, more and more people are cast out into a situation of not having health insurance and poverty, and so we slide back to a Victorian notion that life is full of evils and that’s too bad but that’s the way that God made the world.” Okay, maybe Republicans are heartless.

In practice, however, no one, rich or poor, escapes Medicaid cuts unscathed. As we all know conservatives excel at developing long-term messaging and electoral strategies. But they seem to have failed to plan for a scenario in which, bereft of Medicaid, their poor relations come a’knockin’ at their door.

The Republican man of the house might consent to his wife’s mother moving in and paying for her care. But, standing by his Republican guns, his instinct might be to cast other relatives out into the wilderness. “We send the wrong message if we help people who failed to plan for their retirement.” “You know what you can do with your messaging,” his wife replies. “My brother has no money and he’ll die without cardiac surgery.”

She seems oblivious to the angina pain she’s ignited in her husband with this news. After all both benevolent acts carve huge swaths out of even a rich man’s portfolio. Besides when he gives succor to one, there will likely be no end to the mendicants at his door. Watch out what you wish for, in other words.

Trying to thwart Republicans from cutting social services is certainly a never-ending story. Preventing the affluent from hollowing it out from inside, though, might not be as daunting a task. Ms. Mahar told us that “rather than lower thresholds for eligibility, or paying doctors less, I think the government should crack down on people who are transferring assets so that others pay for their long-term care. Perhaps the ‘look-back’ period should be 10 years or fifteen years. (In other words, the state looks back to see what assets you transferred 15 years before applying for Medicaid.) Under Germany’s socialized long-term care system, the look-back period is 10 years.”

It’s ironic that when conservatives and libertarians, such as those at the Institutes CATO and Heritage, try to attack Medicaid by going after those gaming the program, they’re inadvertently taking a position adversarial to the affluent, also often Republican. Nevertheless, in the end, Medicaid finds itself under assault from two directions: Congressional Republicans attempt to slash funding while the affluent core it out from inside.

by Guy Saperstein

As we think ahead toward 2012, ponder this: Consider the possibility that we would be better off if John McCain had won in 2008. Heresy?

Yes, but think about a few important points.

Although TARP was passed during Bush’s Presidency, it really was the beginning of Obama’s term, as it could not have passed without Obama’s strong public support and, indeed, as many books, such as Joseph Stiglitz’ Firefall, have outlined, he was intimately involved in the decisions which led to TARP, particularly the decision to pay Wall Street 100 cents on the dollar for toxic assets at a time when the private market was paying 20 cents, and decisions not to put strings and conditions on the money, such as requiring that 80% of the TARP money be lent out, not used for mergers and acquisitions, which have now enabled even greater concentration in the banking industry, thus putting the economy at even greater risk in the future. Could McCain have done any worse? If TARP had been viewed as a Republican plan all along, wouldn’t the Democrats have been more vigilant in monitoring the giveaways to Wall Street? And, if McCain had been President, there would be no Tea Party today because they would not have arisen in opposition to Republican economic policies.

Healthcare: Obama passed a Republican healthcare plan, one that originated with the Heritage Foundation, and which had the effect of strengthening private insurance companies by adding 30 million new customers for them, without any meaningful cost controls. After running in the primaries against an individual mandate, as President, Obama promoted an individual mandate with no cost controls. It was an insurance industry wet dream, which is why they backed it with a $150 million ad campaign. Yes, it added coverage for millions, but it was a phony reform that will prevent real reform for a generation, or more. Even worse, it will lead to the collapse of the system because the costs–which already are approximately DOUBLE per capita any other healthcare system in the world–are unsustainable. Had McCain been President, no healthcare bill would have been passed, but real reform would have remained on the table for a real Democratic President committed to Democratic Party values who would be willing to create Medicare for All, not shrink Medicare, as Obama did in the Affordable Healthcare Act by taking $500 billion out of it in alleged “savings,” and now by proposing to raise the age of eligibility and/or means-testing. With a Republican President, Democrats would have been more vigilant about protecting Democratic programs. A Democratic Congress would not have let a Republican President damage Medicare.

Afghanistan: After the expensive fiasco in Iraq, would a Republican President have been able to shift from counter-terrorism to counter-insurgency and escalate the war in Afghanistan? Maybe, but only over loud objections and close oversight by Congressional Democrats and the public. With Obama, Democratic opposition was muted and the war continues at an increased pace, while Obama privately tries to pressure the Iraqis to keep American troops there, at huge cost to American taxpayers.

One of the major structural impediments to progressive change in America is the $1+ trillion we spend each year on defense, most of it spent counter-productively. McCain might have succeeded in escalating the war in Afghanistan for a short while, but by now opposition in Congress and the country would have become irresistible. More importantly, at a time of calls for austerity and declining expectations, the public is less willing to continue to tolerate the expensive adventures of our military. With McCain at the helm arguing blindly for giving the military everything it wanted, the raw stupidity of the war in Afghanistan the stupidity of spending and trillions on defense would have become apparent to nearly everyone and real changes in defense spending would become possible.

By contrast, with Obama, people gave him a pass on Afghanistan because he had opposed the Iraq war, opposition to the developing fiasco has been muted and there have been no real calls for reductions in defense spending, despite the possibility of reductions everywhere else in the federal budget. Worse, Obama has flat-out lied about defense spending cutbacks, exaggerating $8 billion in projected cuts to future programs into $400 billion in cuts–a 50-1 ratio of deception that would challenge even Bush/Cheney.

What Obama represents is bipartisan support for unconditional defense spending. With McCain as President, if we were talking today about deficit reduction at all, we would be talking seriously about including defense-spending cuts and when we elected a new Democratic President in 2016, there would be a far greater chance that we would legislate a new approach to security and a much-reduced defense budget.

Bush Tax Cuts: There is no possible way McCain would have been able to continue the Bush tax cuts for the rich. That would have been the defining issue between Dems and Reps, the Dems would have been united in opposition, and tax cuts for the rich would not have passed. The idea of fairness and progressive taxation would have been promoted, not undermined. But by dividing Democrats and legislating with Republicans, Obama accomplished something no Republican President would have been able to do–and we are now paying the price in Obama’s call for “deficit-reduction,” partly to make up the deficits caused by his tax revenue giveaways [including $282 billion of tax cuts in the stimulus bill].

Deficit Reduction: It now appears Obama is the one pushing for deficit-reduction in the current debt limit negotiations, not the Republicans. He’s the deficit hawk; could McCain have been worse? Well, for starters, with McCain as President, we never would be in debt-limit negotiations at all, as McCain would have moved to raise the limit, just as every Rep president before him, and the Dems would not have objected. And if McCain had tried to cut entitlements, like Obama is willing to do, Democrats would have howled in outrage and been united in opposition.

To recall some recent history, Bush tried for eight years to alter Social Security, Pelosi put up a good defense, and Bush failed. But in less than three years, Obama voluntarily has put Social Security [and Medicare] in more serious jeopardy than Bush, or any Republican President, ever managed to do. This is the lesson: On a variety of issues, Obama has been worse than a Republican because by dividing the Dems and pursuing Rep policies with Republican votes, he is capable of doing more damage to progressive values and legislation than the Reps can do on their own.

The Economy: If McCain were President, he and the Reps would be getting blamed for economic stagnation; the emptiness of GOP economic theories would be plain to all. With Obama, we got a timid effort at Keynesian stimulus, followed by his unexplained pivot to Republican economic theories–such as the need for deficit reduction in the middle of a recession. Obama has been so weak and conciliatory toward Reps, Democratic economic theories never really were tried. The economy will almost certainly go deeper into recession and Democrats will be blamed, so we get the worst of two worlds–Republican economic theories [promoted by a Democratic President] and blame for the Democrats.

I could add many other issues where Obama acted as the Trojan Horse for Republican policies, but I think my point is clear: Obama is not governing as a Democrat, or with the Democratic Party. In fact, on issues such as Afghanistan funding, tax cuts for the rich, the bad February budget give-backs, he couldn’t carry a majority of Democrats. Obama has divided the Democratic Party and governed with Rep votes.

With McCain as President and the continuing lack of job creation, the Dems would have kept the House, not lost seats in the Senate, and the would probably have strengthened their numbers in both houses. Today, there would be a full-throated opposition, hammering at McCain’s economic failures and articulating an alternative vision of job creation. Instead, we have a DINO President espousing Republican economic theories with the Reps pushing the debate farther and farther to the right. Dems are not in the game; we have no voice in the national economic debate; Obama has defanged the Dems, divided them, made them voiceless–as the economy melts. You want four more years of this? You want to dig a deeper hole? Then re-elect Obama.

With austerity, we can safely predict the economy will stagnate and slide backwards. The Fed will do everything it can to prop up the economy and help Obama’s re-election between now and Nov 2012, but they will exhaust their tricks by then and 2013-16 is likely to be very grim. I want the Reps to take the fall for that, not my party. I also don’t want four more years of a DINO President intent on showing his independence by hollowing out Democratic Party achievements. Five and a half more years of what we’ve seen from Obama for the last two and a half years and you can pretty much forget about the Democratic Party and Democratic Party programs.

Some of you may argue that there will be one or more Supreme Court appointments in the next term. That is not insignificant, of course, but consider this: There is almost no chance any of the five Reps in the majority will retire in the next term; they are all either relatively young and/or healthy and none have made any indications they intend to leave, let alone leave an appointment to a Dem President. So there is no real chance that giving Obama a second term would fundamentally change the Supreme Court. The most likely next appointment will be to replace Ginsburg, who is not healthy, but replacing her with a Republican Justice doesn’t change much, it just means more 6-3, instead of 5-4, votes. Is that enough of a consideration to override the many reasons why we should not want second term for a DINO who is melting down the Democratic Party and Democratic values? I don’t think so.

The core question is, do we want to limp along defending a failed President who has no allegiance to progressive values or Democratic Party achievements and then get blamed for the next 20 years for the economic non-recovery? Or do we want to get into oppositional mode and build a real progressive movement from the ground up in the expectation that a Republican Presidency in 2013-16 will fail, that Democrats will win back the Presidency in 2016 and not blow their opportunity a second time with a weak President, and that real change will become possible. Based on past performance with Obama, we can expect him to continue digging a hole for Democrats; giving him four more years most likely would mean the hole would be too deep to climb out of. It is time for progressives to let Republicans take responsibility for digging that hole while we create an alternative.

I, for one, vote for the long-term future, not unconditional support for a very weak President who has proved both incompetent and uncourageous on every single issue he has faced.

_______

Guy T. Saperstein graduated law school (UC Berkeley) in 1969, received a poverty law fellowship and represented migrant farmworkers in Colorado; in 1972, he founded a law firm in Oakland which became the largest plaintiffs civil rights law firm in America, in the process successfully prosecuting the largest race, sex and age discrimination class actions in American history. Guy also prosecuted False Claims Act cases against Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. regarding satellite surveillance systems, and against Raytheon, Boeing and TRW regarding the sham National Missile Defense Program. From 1994-2000, Guy was included in the National Law Journal’s list of “The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.”

Guy was President of The Sierra Club Foundation 2004-6 and currently sits on the board of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. In 2003, his memoirs, Civil Warrior: Memoirs of a Civil Rights Attorney, were published, and in April 2005, RDR Books published The Getaway Guide to the John Muir Trail, Guy’s story of backpacking the 236-mile John Muir Trail with his youngest son. More…