January 2010 Archives

Obama's lengthy exchange with Republicans yesterday was pretty impressive. You may not agree with his answers, but you have to admit he's got quite a grasp of the issues. He's a smart guy, and has thought deeply about issues long before becoming President (as "The Audacity of Hope" shows). We need more of this kind of exchange. Need to get the Republicans engaged in governing (which the Dems in Congress seem to have no interest in doing).

The ability to pull off an exchange like happened yesterday is not a necessity in a President. Ronald Reagan couldn't have done what Obama did yesterday, but he was most definitely a leader.

All things considered, I think Bill Clinton could have done it even better. He was as bright and obsessively immersed in issues as Obama, but not as...prickly? He would have turned on the famous Clinton charm, which Obama possesses in a smaller amount and which is usually hidden beneath his innate aloofness.

My marriage is backwards. I enjoy shopping, and Pam doesn't particularly. But in most marriages, if the stereotype holds, it's the husband who gets totally bored while the wife is taking her time perusing every aisle in the store. So for those men, here are some ways to pass the time. And come to think of it, Pam could try these, too.

1. Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.
2. Walk up to an employee and tell her in an official voice, "Code 3 in Menswear. Get on it right away."
3. Go to the Service Desk and try to put a bag of M&Ms on layaway.
4. Move a "CAUTION - WET FLOOR" sign to a carpeted area.
5. Set up a tent in the camping department and invite the children shoppers to join you if they bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department.
6. Place boxes of condoms in other people's carts when they aren't looking.
7. When a clerk asks if he can help you, begin crying, "Why can't you people just leave me alone?"
8. Look right into the security camera and use it as a mirror while picking your nose.
9. While handling guns in the hunting department, ask the clerk where you can find the anti-depressants.
10. Dart around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the "Mission Impossible" theme.
11. In the auto department, practice the Madonna look using different sizes of funnels.
12. Hide in a clothing rack and when people browse through, yell, "Pick me! Pick me!"
13. When an announcement comes over the loud speaker, assume a fetal position and scream, "Oh no! It's those voices again!"
14. Go into a fitting room, shut the door, wait awhile, then yelled very loudly, "Hey! There's no toilet paper in here!"

Peggy Noonan critiqued the State of the Union Address in her Wall Street Journal column. Of Obama's words regarding healthcare, she concluded:

The battle over the president's health-care plan is over, and the plan will not be imposed on the country. Waxing boring on the virtues of the bill was a rhetorical way to obscure the fact that it is dead....The bill will now get lost in the mists and disappear. It is a collapsed soufflé in an unused kitchen in the back of an empty house. Now and then the president will speak of it to rouse his base and remind them of his efforts.

She ended with some quotes from a man whom she describes as "a friendly acquaintance of the president, a Republican who bears him no animus." Here's the final paragraph.

"I hope we have big changes in 2010," the friend said. Only significant loss will force the president to focus on spending. "To heal our country we need to get the arrogance out of the White House and the elitists out of the Congress. We need tough love. We need a real adult in the White House because we don't have adults in the Congress."

Col. Stuart Herrington ran secret interrogation centers for the military from the Vietnam War through the early 1990s. He gave a speech about interrogation techniques, which Thomas Ricks mentions on his blog, The Best Defense.

Says Ricks, "One of the most striking aspects of his talk is the cold professional contempt he has for Cheney, Rumsfeld and others who not only encouraged a brutal approach, but were amateurish in doing so."

Herrington said, "There was no room on our team for charlatans who believed in sleep deprivation, inducing hypothermia, stress positions, face slapping, forced nudity, water boarding, blaring heavy metal music, or other amateurish, ineffective and ethically flawed tricks."

It's a very interesting post. I suspect Herrington was as sickened as I was at reading "The Dark Side," a superb piece of reporting about our descent torture, which will be remembered for decades as an American low-point.

I administer the United Brethren denominational news site at UBCentral.org. I wrote a number of articles regarding my recent trip to Honduras. In case you're interested.

I am regularly invited, by a personal email, to submit my biography for inclusion in the Princeton Premier Business Leaders and Professionals Honors Edition, which recognizes--

"the world's most accomplished individuals....Inclusion is considered by many as the single highest mark of achievement."

This is not the regular edition for peons. This is the Honors Edition.

I say...WHAT?

How's this for my bio:

"Steve Dennie has spent 30 years working for a church organization that you've never heard of; if the name sounds familiar, you're confusing it with a different group. He has written and designed a lot of stuff, some of it halfway decent, but nothing worthy of the widespread acclaim which has, quite deservedly, eluded his anxious grasp. He is married to an exceptional wife whom he doesn't deserve, and is bossed around by two cats who tolerate his presence. He lives in a house that looks like lots of other houses, on a street in an obscure subdivision of an unheralded city in a state that doesn't matter. Being recognized by Princeton Premier gives his life meaning and validates his otherwise nondescript existence."

I would submit this, but they require an email address, and that's what I suspect this thing is all about--collecting email addresses. And, having gradiated from college, I are two smart to fall fer that'n.

Thomas Ricks is a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter who was formerly the military correspondent for the Washington Post. He's well-regarded by the military, and has incredible access, as shown by his two thorough books on the Iraq War, "Fiasco" and "The Gamble."

Ricks loves digging through obscure military documents and the writings of everyday soldiers. He publishes some of his findings on his blog on the ForeignPolicy.com site.

A few days ago, he published an article by retired Marine colonel Gary Anderson which gives advice to US soldiers doing humanitarian work in Haiti. It's really interesting, common-sense stuff, and Anderson shows a lot of respect for the non-government relief organizations. Here are some excerpts:

Don't be afraid to use non-traditional sources such as reporters, NGOs, and missionaries in the ongoing assessment. That angry reporter or Non Governmental Organization (NGO) worker, who wants to know why nothing has been done for village X, has just given you a piece of your assessment puzzle.

As soon as possible, get permission to fly non Department of Defense personnel in military aircraft. This...always gets overlooked until some overly officious Air Force Master Sergeant won't let a desperately needed civilian doctor on an airplane.

Sea-base the operation as much as possible. Every American who spends the night on shore is one less Haitian that will get food or water that day. Ruthlessly weed out uniformed "tourists" who don't have a real function.

Wherever possible, use local security forces to secure distribution sites. The last thing you need to have on CNN is American troops clubbing desperate villagers like baby seals at a relief distribution site.

Whatever you do, don't do air drops--you are likely to kill more people than you help by crushing them with pallets or by starting riots.

Keep Your Relations with NGOs and IOs Professional. Most of these people are more likely to join the Peace Corps than the Marine Corps, but they are professionals in their own fields and will be as results-oriented as you are in their own way. Some have never dealt with the military before and may have an attitude when you first meet them. The best way to confront that is head on. Tell them, "We are both here to get a job done. Let's leave our personal feelings at the door. You may even find that I'm not a war criminal."

Don't get involved with the disposal of human remains. Think how you'd feel watching your grandmother shoved into a ditch by a Russian bulldozer. CARE and some of the other major NGOs are funded and know how to stand up ad hoc mortuary companies to bury people in ways acceptable to the local culture. This will also get some needed money pumped into the economy. They are also smart enough to keep an eye on the local entrepreneurs. At some point in the operation, they will start to run short of bodies. Gruesome as it sounds, some of these people in past disasters have dug up bodies to get paid for burying them multiple times. You would never have thought of that; leave that sort of thing to the pros.

Avoid going high tech. Mobile surgical field hospitals and reverse water treatment purification units are wonderful things, but you stand the risk of raising local expectations so high that they won't want to part with them, and they wouldn't be able to maintain them, even if you could leave them.

Sadly, those who will die from immediate injuries sustained in the earthquake will likely have done so by the time you get there. What will really be needed are internists with qualified interpreters who can treat the invariable gastrointestinal diseases that will follow from drinking bad water.

You can download the full article as a PDF here.

In the United States, we color-code our terror threat levels. The French are more specific.

Level 1: Run
Level 2: Hide
Level 3: In Fetal Position, Begging for Mercy
Level 4: Surrender
Level 5: Collaborate

Robert Parker, one of my favorite writers, died on Monday. He wrote 37 Spenser mysteries, short books that take practically no time to read. He also kept three other series going--Jesse Stone, Sunny Randall, and a western series (from which the movie "Appaloosa" came).

I've got three Parker books sitting on my shelf, unread--the latest Spenser, Stone, and Randall books. I've read all of the others. Word is that several more books are finished.

Parker died writing his latest Spenser book. He was found at his typewriter, dead of a heart attack, by his wife Joan. They'd been married 53 years. All of his books were dedicated to Joan. Look it up.

Everyone calls him the successor to Raymond Chandler, and maybe he is. But Spenser bears little resemblance to Philip Marlowe, and Chandler produced only a handful of books. Ross MacDonald might be a better comparison, though again, the similarities are few. Parker reinvented the private investigator. Spenser himself may not be so unique, but having a sidekick like Hawk is certainly new.

A Chandler book can be savored, because of the clever writing, the funny turns-of-phrases which Chandler pull off. Parker is just as witty, but in a more character-driven way. For example: the sparse interplay between Spenser and Hawk. It's delightful stuff.

Spenser, Hawk, Susan, Quirk, Rachel Wallace, and a variety of guys he could call on when he needed some muscle--these are fascinating, well-defined characters whom I've been reading about for 25 years (I read my first Spenser book somewhere around 1984). Spenser never aged during that time. Being a Korean War vet (like Parker), he should have been quite old by now.

Some things I picked up in reading tributes to Parker:

• He wrote a total of 60 novels, starting with "The Godwulf Manuscript" in 1973 (the first Spenser book).
• We never learn Spenser's first name.
  
• He wrote five double-spaced pages a day, 1,250 words, 6 days of the week (took Sunday off). At that rate, he cranked out a book every three months.
• He never knew what would happen next in a book, and finished books without revising them. He didn't rewrite, didn't do a second draft, and didn't reread it when done. He'd turn the manuscript over to Joan, then begin the next book.
• In recent years, he was getting a $1 million advance per book (and doing three books a year).
• Of the tributes I read, the best was in the Telegraph, from England.

FactCheck.org summarized the top falsehoods of the year in "Whoppers of 2009."  It's a month old at this point, but still interesting. The list begins with falsehoods from conservatives, then falsehoods from liberals, and then hits some individual topics. Some falsehoods that made the list:

• Statements about "death panels" by Sarah Palin and others.
• Claims that Obama is proposing a single-payer system like Canada's, which none of the major bills have advocated (not that it matters at this point).
• That the government would dictate which medical procedures doctors can perform.
• Four different healthcare-related statements by President Obama.
• Fear-mongering about the H1N1 vaccine (which, thankfully, didn't develop into the health crisis which, initially, it looked like it might).
• Continued nonsense from the birther people, who insist Obama wasn't born in the USA.
• Various unfounded statements that Obama would restrict gun rights in various ways.

It's quite an interesting summary, and good to be reminded about what was and wasn't true amidst all the things we heard in 2009.

Republican strategist and pundit Mike Murphy, and Babylon 5's Lenniere (played by Billy Mummy, the original Will Robinson on "Lost in Space").

Slate ran a very interesting article titled, "Why Did We Focus on Securing Haiti Rather Than Helping Haitians?" We've all heard various news reports about how aid was reaching the airport, under US control, but not Haitians. This article talks about that.

We sent in naval ships and 10,000 troops, and the military did what it does best: command and control. "Troops? Port-au-Prince had been leveled by an earthquake, not a barbarian invasion, but, OK, troops. Maybe they could put down their rifles and, you know, carry stuff, make themselves useful....

"Like a slow-witted, fearful giant, it built a wall around itself, commandeering the Port-au-Prince airport and constructing a mini-Green Zone. As thousands of tons of desperately needed food, water, and medical supplies piled up behind the airport fences--and thousands of corpses piled up outside them...the military's first priority was to build a 'structure for distribution' and 'to provide security.' Forget hunger, dehydration, gangrene, septicemia--the real concern was 'the security situation,' the possibility of chaos, violence, looting."

The article talks about how military flights were given priority over planes bearing much-needed relief supplies. That didn't change until the United Nations intervened.

"Meanwhile, much of the aid that was arriving remained at the airport. Haitians watched American helicopters fly over the capital, commanding and controlling, but no aid at all was being distributed in most of the city....

"Why the paranoid focus on security above saving lives? Clearly, President Obama failed to learn one of the basic lessons taught by Hurricane Katrina: You can't solve a humanitarian problem by throwing guns at it. Before the president had finished insisting that 'my national security team understands that I will not put up with any excuses,' Haiti's fate was sealed. National security teams prioritize national security, an amorphous and expensive notion that has little to do with keeping Haitian citizens alive.

"This leaves the more disturbing question of why the Obama administration chose to respond as if they were there to confront an insurgency, rather than to clear rubble and distribute antibiotics and MREs."

I suspect all of this has been solved at this point, and the focus is on saving lives, where it should have been from the beginning, rather than on carrying out a military mission. Maybe this emphasis on security only lasted a couple days. But still.

Amy Sullivan, writing on the Swampland blog, addresses the issue of John Edwards' current trip to Haiti.

I have no doubt that Edwards, with his long and admirable commitment to poverty issues, really wants to do what he can to help in Haiti. It also seems likely that this sounded to him like an EZ-Pass lane to get to image rehabilitation more quickly.

If I were Jon Stewart, this is where I'd say: "Edwards. Meet me at Camera 3."

Sir, it's obviously killing you to have fallen so far, even if it was your fault and you do still have millions and millions of dollars. You may possibly have a chance at some day rehabilitating your image. But you're going to have to follow these steps:

Step 1. Go away and keep your mouth shut.
Step 2. Seriously, you can't skip Step 1--go back and try again

.

Compliments of roflrazzi.com

Michael Sherer, over at Swampland, wrote a piece titled "Five Ways Obama Went Wrong." Then, he wrote a follow-up called "Swampland Responds: What Went Wrong for Obama," which used reader comments from his previous post.

It's very interesting stuff. Some great insights.

Charles Krauthhammer, on Fox, loves apocalyptic hyperbole. He's prone to statements like: "If this doesn't pass, Obama's presidency is over."

We're hearing a lot of nonsense like that in relation to Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts. I, for the record, am delighted that Brown won and broke the super-majority. I'm tickled pink. I'm disgusted with the way healthcare reform has gone.

But after just one year, don't you think it's a bit early to write Barack Obama's obituary? As it was with Bill Clinton?

A number of good things have happened under Obama's presidency, many things which I'm very pleased about (but which don't necessarily get much attention). But the healthcare mess and deficit spending overshadow everything.

I'm hoping Obama can get back on track with some of the ideals expressed in his campaign and in "The Audacity of Hope" (a book I loved). I'm not confident he will, and in my cynicism not even confident those were heart-felt ideals. But it's okay to hope. In two years, the gloom being expressed right now could be a distant memory. He's still in the early days of his presidency.

I suspect Obama's doing a lot of soul-searching right now, and realizes he got caught up in the Washington game in a rollercoaster year of crises. In his deep desire to pass healthcare reform, he allowed an "ends justify the means" mentality to rule, which inserted what is essentially blackmail and corruption into the package. Either he never intended to fulfill the ideals of his campaign (Dick Cheney: "We will not be bound by the things we had to say during the campaign"), or Reality stampeded him away from those ideals.

I'd love to seem him, in his State of the Union Address, say, "The deals made in the quest for universal healthcare are wrong, should never have been allowed. So I'm calling on Congress to scrap what it's done so far, and start over. We still need healthcare reform. But we need to do it right."

That'll never happen, I realize. But it would restore some confidence on my part. And I do believe he's a person of ideals, whose heart is to be a different kind of politician. There's still time to resurrect that potentially transformational person, though a whole lot of damage has been done. 

I might be wrong on that--I've been burned so many times by earnest-sounding politicians, most recently GW Bush, that I'm terribly cynical--but it's what I saw in "The Audacity of Hope," which shows a man who has thought deeply about a whole lot of issues. So though I'm disappointed right now, even gloomy, I cling to a few tablespoons of hope.

I would absolutely love to see the Dems lose the Ted Kennedy Senate seat in Massachusetts. That 60-vote majority in the Senate is a bad thing for America. Need to bust that up.

I'm a big believer in divided government. George Bush ran amuck when he commanded both houses of Congress. The Democrats are going the same route. If the Dems can't muster up enough bipartisanship to gain a couple Republican votes, then they are totally inept. Which looks like the case.

I've been in favor of the idea of universal health care. Repeat: the IDEA. But what's being done in Washington right now really stinks. If we must resort to corruption and blackmail to institute health care reform, then I want no part of it. These deals with the pharma companies, and the vote buy-outs in Louisiana and Nebraska, really disgust me. Plus doing everything behind closed doors. Really disappointing.

You can say this isn't Obama's doing, that what's happening is happening within the halls of the House and Senate. Which is true. But you know Rahm Emmanuel is in the thick of it, signing off on all kinds of junk.

If this is the way we're going to get healthcare reform, then I say: kill it.

Dr. Martin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech references President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which had happened 100 years before. At that point, the United States had allowed slavery for 80 years (plus many years before that under English rule).

But here's something to consider.

In 1807, Great Britain banned trafficking in slaves, and in 1833 banned slavery in most of the British Empire (there was a business exemption for the East India Company; corporate lobbying is nothing new).

Imagine the human misery that would have been spared if the American colonies had not revolted. Over 50 years of slavery wouldn't have happened. Tens of thousands of African families would not have been ripped apart, their members shackled and transported across the ocean and thrown into slavery. And the Civil War would not have been fought; 620,000 people wouldn't have died. The suppression of blacks which followed the Civil War, replete with lynchings and other atrocities up into the 1960s, would not have occurred.

So you have to wonder: was it truly God's will that America revolt against Britain? I'm just asking.

Romans 13:1-2 states, "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."

Did God violate his own Word with America by backing the American Revolution? Was rebellion okay in our case? Is that an example of divine American exceptionalism? Because if God violates his own Word...then that fundamentally changes my faith.

Let me continue musing. In addition to an early abolition of slavery, lots of other things would be different if the American Revolution hadn't happened. No Louisiana Purchase. No Mexican War land-grab (Texas would probably still be part of Mexico). Most likely, the atrocities of the Indian Wars would still have happened (as did similar suppression in Australia). America would still have been the Land of Opportunity to millions of immigrants from all parts of the world; it would have just been a smaller America. Though maybe we would have merged with Canada. The United States would have gained independence sometime during the 1900s. We would have gotten into World War 2 much quicker.

Really, that alternate what-if history would not be bad at all. Vastly different, but nothing to complain about.

Just musing.

The FOX NFL pregame team in Afghanistan: L-r: Curt Menefee, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Michael Strahan, Jimmy Johnson, Jay Glazer.

One of life's simple pleasures, guy-wise, is watching the three NFL Sunday pregame shows. In order of greatness, they are: FOX, ESPN, and CBS.

Each show has basic roles: "host," "coach," "quarterback," and then miscellaneous players.

My favorite, by far. is the FOX team: host Curt Menefee, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Michael Strahan, and Jimmy Johnson. They got chemistry! Adding Strahan last year was a huge; the gap-toothed one has personality plus. Strahan and Long duplicate the "defensive player" role, but I'll allow it. Terry Bradshaw is irreplaceable. Then they always throw in a segment with Frank Caliendo, which is Must-See TV. And Jay Glazer adds some great reports from off-screen.

I like the ESPN team, too: host Chris Berman, Mike Ditka, Tom Jackson, Keyshawn Johnson, and Chris Carter. A newcomer is Chris Carter, whom I really like. Keyshawn Johnson--he's okay, but talks too slow (yes, I'm a petty person). Chris Berman is head-and-shoulders the best host of any of the shows, and Mike Ditka is the best when it comes to the "coach" role. They're lacking a former quarterback, though Steve Young appears sometimes (he's so-so). And with both Johnson and Carter, they duplicate the "wide receiver" role. Need some balance.

Then there's CBS, my least favorite: host James Brown, Dan Marino, Boomer Esiason, Bll Cowher, and Shannon Sharpe. James Brown is a really good host, who until 2005 anchored the FOX pregame show. They duplicate the "quarterback" role with Marino and Esiason; I'd ditch Marino, whom I find bland. Cowher is okay in the "coach" role, but Ditka and Johnson are better.

Looking at all three teams, my MVP goes to Terry Bradshaw. Can be a nut, or quite serious. Shannon Sharpe is my MEP (Most Expendable Person). He's just way too serious.

Curt Menefee, at FOX, is the worst of the three hosts. The FOX team deserves better. I can't imagine Berman anywhere but at ESPN. Brown was the FOX host until 2005. They need to get James Brown back. Then replace Jimmy Johnson with Mike Ditka. Now there's an amazing team.  

Earlier this year, the FOX team spent a Sunday anchoring from Afghanistan. That was an amazing, amazing show.

I was at Cunningham Optical this afternoon getting a new lens (just the right eye--again). As I waited, I noticed how many customers were wearing bluejeans. Every single person who passed by me was wearing bluejeans. It's something I had mused over previously.

This morning five of us--three Americans and two Canadians--are having breakfast with Roger and Marilyn Reeck, missionaries here in Honduras. They were instrumental in helping me write the book Tio Archie, the story of Archie Cameron and Honduras Conference. Archie is Marilyn's dad. He pretty much founded the work here, which now includes nearly 100 churches.

I'm writing from La Ceiba, Honduras, where it has been raining constantly for the past day. But I'm not shivering, like folks back in Indiana. We heard there was a hurricane watch in effect yesterday, but I don't think it'll amount to anything. Though I'd love to experience a hurricane. I think. Maybe not. 

While watching bowl games today, I mused about some of the football coaches of my youth, when I began taking an interest in college football. We're talking early 1970s.

I can still remember the names of those coaches. Today, there is much parity in college football, many different teams that can shine in any given season. But back then, we had a handful of powerhouse programs, and those coaches tended to be larger than life. Legendary.

Consider these coaches from 1973:

• Ara Parseghian (Notre Dame).
• Joe Paterno (Penn State)
• Bear Bryant (Alabama)
• Darrell Royal (Texas)
• John McKay (USC)
• Tom Osborne (Nebraska)
• Barry Switzer (Oklahoma)
• Woody Hayes (Ohio State)
• Bo Schembechler (Michigan State)

Those were legends. Pete Carroll, Nick Saban, Urban Meyer--great coaches, but no comparison, in my book.

Over the Christmas holidays, I read three Black Lizard mysteries from Vintage books, all by different authors. Each book related in some way to World War 2. One is set in Germany, one in Sweden, and one in post-war Japan. One is outstanding, the others not so much.

"Self's Deception," by Bernhard Schlink. Schlink wrote a series of mysteries around Gerhard Self, a private detective in Germany. He's 69 years old, and had fought in the German army, and there are references to skeletons. The plot involves searching for a young woman who has gone missing. Self finds her fairly quickly, but things get complicated fast. We end up amidst a terrorist attack on an American installation where poison gas from the war is kept.

I didn't care for this book. I never got a good sense of Gerhard Self, never found a reason to find him the least bit interesting. The book had little action (read: violence), and the plot, though suitably intricate, never engaged me. I forced myself through the final pages, not caring how it turned out. Very disappointing for a Black Lizard book.