Testing: It's Real Value

Because we don't understand the history of testing, we somehow deceive ourselves into believing that testing adds to the qualitative measures that comprise meritocracy. As Malcolm Gladwell so aptly writes in The Outliers, there is no such thing as meritocracy. Many people in high places get there because of unequal access to opportunity.

SAT tests came out of the post World War II era when elite colleges wanted to limit the number of immigrants and people with the wrong pedigrees. Tests were derived to score the stuff that only the upper classes would know about and lesser classes shouldn't.

Same is true of the notorious LSAT, the test that students take to get into law school, and pay a fortune to take a cram course for. And the state bar exams: since law school allegedly teaches how to think like a lawyer, while most bar exams test obscure rules of law that no one might ever use again, or could easily look up.

Tests for police and firefighters, kept these services white, male, and often securely within one ethnic group for years.

Yesterday in a 5-4 decision that will reverberate throughout the confirmation hearings of Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court condemned New Haven, Connecticut for throwing out a firefighter test because it appeared to have racially biased results. In Ricci v. DeStefano, the conservative majority, a group of men who consistently wish us to be in a colorblind society and therefore are wiping out all of the remedies and judgments that might bring us there someday, held that the decision to throw out the results of a test that no one of color passed was racist.

If you want to get sick, read the decision.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor was one of the judges on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals who ruled that New Haven had done the right thing when it threw out the test results and used another test that appeared to have no racial bias.

Recently, two Berkeley researchers Marjorie Schultz and Sheldon Zedeck, devised an alternative to testing for what makes a good lawyer. Instead of the 3 aspects tested by the LSAT, considered the predictor of success in law school, Schultz and Zedeck found 26 factors. Read the New York Times article by Jonathan Glater. And their test had no racial bias.

Current tests are mostly gender and racially biased, serving as a gateway, a way to eliminate folks, not to really test for competency. I recently heard a commentary that even typing tests given to office workers in the 1950s only surveyed a skill that was used perhaps 10% of the time. Filing, answering the telephone, organizing the day, arranging for meetings, even buying presents for the boss's wife took up more time.

And with access to electronic libraries, and Google, what kinds of skills does this next generation really need? Think about it. We need to have a real conversation, not litigation, over testing, especially as No Child Left Behind comes back up for reevaluation.

How We Are Made

Back in May, Jeffrey Toobin wrote an insightful piece about Chief Justice John Roberts, in the May 25, 2009 issue of the New Yorker. His conclusions, which are harsh to someone who has studied the court and its role in American society are clear, and accurate:

After four years on the Court, however, Roberts’s record is not that of a humble moderate but, rather, that of a doctrinaire conservative. The kind of humility that Roberts favors reflects a view that the Court should almost always defer to the existing power relationships in society. In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff. Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party.

Where did this understanding of the role of the Supreme Court derive? Despite protestations to the contrary, Chief Justice Roberts who is personally youngish looking, handsome, and quite charming, although alarmingly combative in his questioning from the bench during oral argument, is the product of his upbringing: Catholic family where his father was an executive and his mother a homemaker; private boarding school; Harvard College; and then Harvard Law School. He is white, he has always been conservative, and he was groomed through various positions within Republican administrations.

His lack of empathy and his seemingly unrepentant support for the status quo, which means keeping white men in power (his votes and decisions on race issues, especially are disturbing), are the product of the circumstance of his birth, and he brings that to every decision he makes on the bench. That he is a white man, born into privilege, is never discussed until it is compared with the narrative of someone like Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy left by the resignation of David Souter.

This is an example of how race is invisible, along with all of its privileges, if one happens to be white and male. No one ever speaks about how race has provided these men with opportunities unavailable to most others. We can't allow these assumptions to remain invisible, and must, especially as debate on the Sotomayor nomination begins, keep annoucing to the country and to our elected representatives that we know the source of their power.

Sonia Sotomayor represents true meritocracy, unlike the wunderkind John Roberts. She battled where he glided. And we need people who have fought these kinds of battles for respect, position, and success to hear the stories of people, not just corporations, but people, too. The Supreme Court is not an umpire, but a policy maker, and let's never pretend that it isn't.

Mahler's No. 8 Symphony in E-Flat Major

I'm a word person. Too often I forget how music can change me, almost instantly. Today I listened to Eric Clapton sing the acoustic version of Layla, what maybe seven times, singing along in the car like a lunatic.

But tonight, well, tonight, friends took my husband and me to the New York Philharmonic to hear Mahler's Eighth Symphony.

My husband calls it German schmaltz, but for me, it was what I needed to leave the stresses of daily life and open my heart to the joy of human creation.

Lorin Maazel is leaving the New York Philharmonic after seven years, to be replaced in September by Alan Gilbert. As a little girl growing up in New York, "Lenny" was the musical director that we all loved. Leonard Bernstein was appointed musical director in 1969 and it was through his Young People's Concerts broadcast monthly that I learned to love classical music.

The stage was so filled with musicians and two choruses that some of the horns had to be situated above the stage. The symphony premiered on September 12, 1910 in Munich and hasn't been performed in New York since October 1976. The only time I had ever heard it performed live was at Louise Davies Hall in San Francisco with one chorus. Tonight at Avery Fisher Hall there were two!

When the symphony first premiered there were 858 singers and 171 instrumentalists on stage with one conductor, Mahler himself. Tonight was not quite there, but certainly, as a farewell performance as musical director, Maazel has chosen an extraordinary piece of music to engineer. Tomorrow night is the final performance, but tonight as soon as the last note had finished ringing through the hall, the entire audience jumped to their feet and began to applaud and hoot wildly.

Thank you, Rebecca and Leslie, for your generosity in sharing this evening with us.

Citizenship

Now is the time to be engaged as citizens. First, there is today's meeting at the White House on immigration reform. A majority of Americans support some form of path to citizenship despite the cries from the ultra right. It's up to us to put pressure on our legislators to move forward on this issue. But immediately, President Obama can change how immigration raids, arrests, detentions, and court proceedings are held. He can do that by executive order and by having Attorney General Eric Holder order a more dignified, constitutional, and humane way to treat the men, women, and children who come here for refuge.

Second, it's time to press for confirmation of both Dawn Johnsen and Sonia Sotomayor for their respective positions: Dawn Johnsen as head of the Office of Legal Counsel, demeaned by the Bush administration into rationalizing torture and Sonia Sotomayor as associate justice on the US Supreme Court.

Get out your pens and paper, my friends. It works better than an email.

Hypocrisy in High Places, Oh, Gosh, Not Again!

So now the illustrious senator from Nevada, Republican John Ensign, is screwing his aide's wife, despite his public outcry that Bill Clinton should have resigned back then because of Monica, that Christianity prohibits adultery, and all of the other bullshit that goes along with this ultraright agenda. Human frailty is not a capital crime.

Most disturbing however is the report that forty major news organizations kept the kidnapping of New York Times reporter David Rohde quiet for seven months, fearing that any publicity might risk his life and the lives of his companions who were also held by the Taliban.

How are these stories connected? In both instances, news organizations made decisions not to publish accounts.

Frankly, I'm sick and tired of the hypocrisy of these politicians who claim a higher ground and then we find out they are corrupt, actually more corrupt than we are because most of us don't claim to judge everyone else for their human failings, and don't get paid with taxpayer money to rail against their enemies. I'm also sick and tired of these diversions. Who sleeps with whom doesn't interest me.

I want the senate to do the work of the senate, to get these nominations through: Dawn Johnsen, Harold Koh, Sonia Sotomayor. I want the senate to pressure the White House to investigate the use of torture as part of our national security, a practice that might not have ended with the change of administration. And I want the news media to regain our confidence by doing some investigative reporting again, not about affairs, I don't care about affairs. I care about the money, where the money flows and how decisions are made. Like in financial bailouts, TARP, banking regulation, and the home mortgage industry. There seems to be a lot of work to be done on these issues.

On the Streets of Tehran

The information age makes modernization inevitable. As we watch the demonstrations in Tehran, we see young men and women connected with the outside world through cell phones, the internet, and even Twitter. Bloggers are sending out messages and images as journalists are kept out of Iran and official Iranian media say everything is just fine.

Twenty years ago it was the fax machine in Beijing that kept the revolt at Tiananmen Square alive until tanks and soldiers and guns ended the flicker of democracy.

What role should the United States play in this Iranian drama? This should be the subject of discussion, not just an opportunity to critique the President for not being strong enough in his rhetoric. As the United States restores its historic role as a beacon of hope, we need a full and informed discourse about how to use our power wisely, principled, and effectively.

My Own Celebrity Sighting

This morning I was up at the crack of dawn again, although I have been at three conferences in four days in DC. Brain over-stimulation, of course. I turned on the flat screen TV in my hotel room and since I am a C-SPAN junkie, happened upon the Radio & Television Correspondents' Dinner, not to be confused with the White House Correspondents' Dinner of two months ago.

Yes, President Obama was there in his tuxedo and gave a charming speech, knocking himself as well as the reporters in the room. It's really funny, and he is quite adorable in how he delivers a line, hears the laughter, and then gets the joke himself. Check it out on Youtube.

After the President spoke, John Hodgman came to the podium. Following the President? John Hodgman is the potato-skinned satirist from The Daily Show who also appears as the PC in Apple's computer commercials. He was brilliant and understated, as only John Hodgman can be. See his performance.

Here is my celebrity sighting: I was on line to get the noon Acela back to New York and who was just a few people ahead of me but John Hodgman and his delightful wife, partner, whomever.

"Mr. Hodgman," I said, "you were brilliant at the correspondents' dinner last night."

"Were you there?" he asked.

"No, I was up at 5:30 this morning and saw it on C-SPAN," I replied.

Without cracking a smile or missing a beat, he responded, "I arranged that."

Then I had to ask him the ultimate question. "Were you terrified?"

That's when his delightful wife joined in, "He was so nervous he would hardly speak to me for weeks."

"I was terrified," he said and we got onto the train, although in different cars.

Assumptions of Incompetence

What we have learned from the hateful talk radio chatter about the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor is that too many white people assume that people of color are not competent. The claims that despite her education, graduating with honors, and seventeen years on the federal bench, somehow she just hasn't got what she needs to be on the Supreme Court. Her years of judicial experience are greater at the moment of her nomination than any other seated justice.

It's about her being Puerto Rican. It's about her being a woman. Although I support her nomination, I wish Obama had chosen someone who was more leftist, not as centrist.

Now one of the stalwarts of conservatism of the US Senate, Tom Coburn (R-Ka.), has endorsed a bill that would require President Barack Obama to produce a birth certificate to prove that he is indeed a citizen.

As if Obama hasn't proven himself as probably the only qualified person to lead the United States through these treacherous times! There must be something wrong with him, according to the sponsors of this legislation that has support in the House and now has Senate sponsors. Let's undetermine his legitimacy.

I have lots of complaints about Obama, but qualifications are not part of my litany. I want him to be more radical, move this country to sustainable economics, regulate the shit out of the financial markets, make health care universal and provided with dignity, get out of Afghanistan and Iraq, prosecute Bush and Cheney and the rest of the mob of the Bush administration.

There is a difference, a real difference, in critiquing how and wondering whether.

Smart People

What's so exciting about Washington DC now is that smart people come in all colors and genders again. I've been to a series of meetings with very smart people, and race and gender have nothing to do with their intelligence. They are smart, they are engaged, they want this great Obama experience to succeed. There are varying degrees of support for the man personally, interesting critiques of various proposals--financial regulation, health care reform, immigration, economic stimulus, wars, national security--but it is about more than Obama. He is personally likable. He is articulate. His intelligence is vast and determined, and shrewd. Michelle is uniformly admired. Obama speaks and everyone listens, even his enemies, but more importantly, men and women who might not have paid attention before. Hope and pride. Those words come up a lot.

Last night I heard Senator Sheldon Whitehouse speak. He was once a US attorney and later an attorney general for the state of Rhode Island. He's a telegenic, tall, handsome, white man with a head of silver hair. He's smart. He spoke about the role of the Supreme Court in American history, he debunked the current Chief Justice's disingenuous statement from his own confirmation hearings that the role of the judge is more like an umpire at a baseball game than someone who makes judgments based on principles, values, experience, and yes, wisdom. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, wait until you hear him speak. There was such clarity, understanding of American history, and confidence that people, all of us, are smart enough to reject the false history that the Supreme Court is some sort of cognitive "Mr. Spock" and not actually reflections of the collective experiences of the men and women who serve.

The ACS (American Constitution Society) is holding its annual meeting. Unfortunately I was only able to attend the opening, because I'm at another set of meetings for the next two days, but watch the discussion about Sonia Sotomayor, and then call some friends.

Want to read the speech?

Hillary and Sonia Fall, But Not Really

Hillary Clinton fell and fractured her elbow today. Not a painless accident. She had to miss her public appearance with Angelina Jolie, who just so happens to be staying in a house with her family and stay-at-home dad Brad Pitt close to my home in Oyster Bay. There are "sightings" that people upload onto the local newspaper web blog. I missed them by five minutes at the local grocery store one Sunday, but the cashier showed me her cell phone photo of the family.

Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee, for the Souter vacancy on the Supreme Court, also tripped last week, breaking her ankle.

One of those bombastic assholes who makes a lot of money angering people on their radio and television shows--either Rush or Bill or Sean--claimed that Sotomayor fell to get sympathy, and her ankle probably wasn't even broken.

So what's happening to our women? I had dinner last night with a friend who was one of the first women I met when I started college. We've known each other for way over forty years. She was the most athletic of us all--a cheerleader, women's softball, an avid golfer now. She has disc problems that are causing radiating pain down her arms and legs. She's the one I figured would stay in the best shape of any of us. But alas.

Do women have to lose our grace as we age? I don't think so, although several years ago, I tripped in the NYC subway and broke my ankle. Is it that we are rushing too much? Is it that we can't believe that we can't do everything? Is it that we don't know how to slow down, because if we do, we are terrified that we might turn into our mother's?

Our Nation's Capital

This is my second trip to Washington DC since Obama was inaugurated and the entire feel of the city has changed. It's always been a young city, with ambitious recent graduates pouring in every four years to grab those jobs on the Hill and if their party is out of power, at the various think tanks around town. But this feeling, as summer is delayed with rain and cooler temperatures is different from anytime I've been here before.

I lived here from 1966 to 1970 through the Johnson and Nixon administrations. And one thing that was nowhere to be felt then was: hope.

Now the city is full of hope and pride.

Riding in a cab through rush hour to a meeting yesterday, I got into a conversation with the driver, a man, exactly my age--60--dark skinned from the islands with a seventeen year old son, because like me, he didn't marry and have children until he was in his forties. First, we pandered and told the other how damned good we looked for sixty!

Then we got down to the business of Obama. He spoke about his pride, how much he loves listening to him speak, how he might not be doing as much as we want him to, but that if he continues to speak and keep our spirits up that we have hope now.

"We didn't have any hope during the Bush years," he said.

His sadness was that his seventeen year old son seemed lost already. "He was such a good kid until he hit those teenage years," he confided, "and now, now I don't even know him."

Will the Obama hope reach into the hearts of these young African American men who seem to be getting lost in shameful numbers, having internalized racism to such a degree that they cannot learn in school or find the discipline to work at a job. Have we lost yet another generation despite the narrative of Barack Obama: he, too, was lost for a few years. That's what makes his story so powerful, that he was lost and then he found himself again. Redemption.

Self Governance

As Tehran seethes with tales of a stolen election, something that we are quite familiar with here in the allegedly stable and democratic United States, I was wondering who we elect to represent us.

Our president is a lawyer, although he never really practiced, choosing instead to teach, to organize, and to run for public office.

According to Harper's Index, the July issue, 53 of our 99 Senators, have law degrees. Our 100th Senator, Al Franken, if he ever gets certified, will have been trained as a satirist.

China's Communist Party's governing body are all trained as engineers.

That says something about where our countries are going. Perhaps we need to understand more about how things are built and maintained and less about cleverness and greed. Too many politicians are too closely connected with the same industries that they are supposed to be regulating. See the June 12, 2009 truthout.org piece on just how much stock our senators own in the banks that were bailed out. Let's get teachers, doctors, engineers, chemists, physicists, artists, and farmers engaged and running for office. Let's try to get stuff to work.

Unfortunately, also reported in the July Harper's Index is the discouraging statistic that 1 in 4 Americans thinks "the Jews" were moderately or very much to blame for the financial crisis. Even with a bi-racial or African American president, whichever label one prefers, we just can't seem to get away from that anti-semitism.

Tuning Out En Masse

As I posted yesterday, I've had to give myself a rest from the outside world this week as some personal issues as well as work took top priorities. That's when I realized that despite all of the personal angst, I was actually feeling better not paying too much attention to daily events. Yes, I knew there had been a shooting at the Holocaust Museum, and I understood what was at stake in the elections in Iran (actually posted on it last weekend before my "news fast" began), and I did see two episodes of Stephen Colbert in Iraq, which made me laugh and warmed my heart, but that was about it.

Here is my suggestion: let's stop watching television news altogether. I don't care what station. Our cable company just took MSNBC off basic cable service, so we lost it unless we use the cable box; digital won't allow the signal in unaided even with a brand new television. Lately Rachel and Keith have begun to sound as shrill as Glenn and Bill, so frankly, I stopped watching them. And some of their segments belonged on The Daily Show and not on a legitimate news show. I've never liked CNN, have only tuned to Fox News when I wanted to get angry, and am not around for The News Hour on PBS.

If we stopped watching, en masse, then perhaps as a country we would allow this extraordinarily gifted president to try to undo the damage done by greed and cleverness, exacerbated by deregulation and cronyism. Maybe he would stop trying to be so centrist and really put his head together with the best and the brightest and solve the real emergencies facing us: carbon emissions, health care, an unsustainable economy, and wars in countries we don't understand.

Maybe we would stop throwing names at each other and begin to listen a bit more.

We can't just label as "racist," "communist," or now "reverse racist" anyone with whom we disagree. And we can't forget that folks like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann are working for "entertainment-news" organizations that crave ratings, because higher ratings mean more advertising revenues.

Public interest isn't in their vocabulary.

So here is my suggestion: turn off the radio and television, and walk around your local community. Have a cup of coffee and begin a conversation with a neighbor. See what we can agree on, and maybe we can end the shrillness, isolate the extremes, and save the planet before it goes the way of Mars.

Take a look at both Paul Krugman and Frank Rich's columns.

Shrill Shouting in the Public Domain

This week I've taken a "news break." That means that I have watched no television, except for Monday night's Operation Iraqi Stephen, hardly listened to NPR except when I first wake up, and kept away from nytimes.com, well that's a lie. I do check it periodically during the day, but I've avoided reading much more than the headlines.

I decided to listen to music instead, and although I've been warned not to do this, I have had my iPod on while driving. Instead of arriving at work agitated, I get there in a state of ecstasy. Not bad.

Since the switch from analogue to digital television, my cable provider has taken MSNBC off of the basic cable service. With only one cable box, that means I can't watch Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann in bed anymore.

Not bad. They were beginning to sound too much like Jon Stewart anyway.

I haven't turned to television now that "In Treatment" is over (Gabriel Byrne as a flawed therapist). I didn't watch American Idol, although I did catch Adam Lambert singing "Mad World" and he broke my heart with his voice and talent. No dancing, no housewives, just music and reading.

And the world seems a bit quieter to me this week, which isn't so bad.

Marlboros and the Curse of Addiction

The first time I smoked a cigarette was at the end of the seventh grade at a party at Bobby Shamis' house. Jeff Horbar, Nancy Wapnik, and my boyfriend at the time Jay Sackman all puffed Benson & Hedges at the far end of the back yard so that no one could see us. Jeff and Jay supplied the cigarettes. Nancy and I coughed a lot. At the time, both of my parents smoked steadily and at home, so I wasn't offended by the smell and they couldn't smell me either. I thought I was cool. So did Bobby and Jeff and Nancy.

That summer I bought my first pack of cigarettes with Adrienne Gerson. They were Newports. My parents were in Europe on an extended vacation and my grandmother and her sister were staying with my sister and me. They had no idea what I was really doing: smoking, staying out late, wearing makeup, although not making out with Jay who was away at camp for the summer.

That started a twenty-five year addiction to tobacco. I smoked "Bette Davis" style. I smoked for affect, for punctuation, for doing something with my hands. I loved the taste of that first cigarette in the morning with a cup of freshly brewed filtered coffee.

I only tried to stop seriously several times: once immediately after law school; I lasted ten days and almost went mad. Next I tried hypnosis and kicked the habit for two years until I met Joshua and he looked so comfortable once again with a Marlboro Light. We smoked together for five years. Finally I quit on March 23, 1986, because I had such sharp chest pains that I had to pull my car over to the shoulder after crossing the Richmond Bridge on my way home from work.

Nah, I wasn't having a heart attack at 36, I said to myself. Then I stopped: my research assistant was dying of AIDS, I was caring for a disabled friend every Friday, and my law buddy with whom I practiced for six years was just diagnosed with leukemia. Yeah, I could be having a coronary.

I watched the Academy Awards that night and never smoked again. Then I quit Joshua later that year.

The Senate passed a bill last night to give jurisdiction to the FDA to regulate tobacco manufacture, sales, and marketing in the United States. It's about time. The House must pass it, and President Obama has promised to sign it. We need to end the curse of tobacco, and it is a curse. Yes, it's cool to sit in a hookah bar and drink and smoke, but it isn't cool to see what tobacco does to our lungs, heart, and brains.

The Greatest Invention of the Century

Until Sunday I had never lived with an iPod. Until Sunday no one had ever asked me what was on my playlist. Then because I have had to do a lot of waiting lately, I insisted that I get an iPod, a Nano, to be exact, frankly, a green Nano, which my daughter helped me program on Sunday afternoon.

In addition to meditations by the gifted teacher Mary Swanson, which are guided and keep me busy rather than empty my mind, my iPod has a lot of Sting, Joni Mitchell, Keith Jarrett, Badi Assad, Eric Clapton Unplugged, Bruce Stringsteen Live, Anoushka, the Four Seasons by Vivaldi with Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Shlomo Mintz, and Itzhak Perlman, and Leonard Cohen Live in London.

I am ordinarily a book on tape person, a person mostly of words, but now, I am in love with my iPod. The music fills me with such joy, that in addition to listening to the lyrics once again, the tonal quality allows me to hear every note.

I'm obsessed with Leonard Cohen's latest works, which are mostly Buddhist prayers. One piece talks about how no offering is perfect, how cracks are what let in the light. Each rendition of an old song is musically so new that I can hear it all over again, as if I never had listened to it over and over and over again forty years ago. I highly recommend the Live in London CD. His voice is gravel, destroyed, but the spiritual maturity, and the musical accompaniment bring new dimensions to these songs of love and alienation, from years ago, and songs of devotion now.

They Don't Represent Me

The Republican Party in New York State in a well-planned coup, offered leniency, I suspect, to two corrupt Democratic Senators, in exchange for jumping party lines to permit the Republicans to regain control of the Senate and the legislative agenda. Now what comes out is that the ego of another one of these "so-rich-I-can-buy-myself-into office" guys, Tom Golisano, played a role in this turn of events because he felt slighted by Malcolm Smith and helped orchestrate the coup. See the June 9, 2009, New York Times.

Corruption and greed, ah, so familiar.

And add into the mix some racism and patriarchy. Racism, because we are too stupid to see the inefficacy of David Paterson except through a lens of race, and the ineptitude of Malcolm Smith any other way, too. They are just not good politicians, like most of the fools running Albany. We don't look at Joe Bruno or Sheldon Silver, label them Italian or Jewish, and then attribute their mistakes to some ethnic gene. Race is only visible when it's darker. That's the shame of America.

And let's not forget patriarchy and the power of the Catholic Church either. Dean Skelos, that slick haired new majority leader, has an agenda for the legislature that doesn't include same sex marriage or full and accurate medical information about reproductive health.

Revolt! I am writing to my Senator Carl Marcellino and telling him right now that I will do everything legal and feasible to make sure he isn't reelected. He doesn't represent my interests.

The Disappearance of the Hair Dryer in Iraq

Only Stephen Colbert would incorporate a hair dryer icon into the logo for his latest exploit, his USO tour in Iraq. Last night was hysterical: Colbert mocked the secrecy of the war, walked that amazing line that he broached at the White House Correspondents Dinner between humor and disrespect with approval from the audience of service men and women, and then (spoiler alert) brought on the commander in chief himself, President Obama, to order General Odiemo to cut his hair. Watch this episode of Operation Iraqi Stephen!

On a much more serious note, the Supreme Court yesterday refused to review the failed military policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," that forces military personnel to keep their sexual orientation a secret or risk dishonorable discharge if they come out. Although there is a bill pending in the House, Ted Kennedy is waiting for a Republican co-sponsor to introduce it into the Senate. We are losing good service people, it's a waste of talent, and it forces people to be unreal. Israel, England, Ireland--there is a long list of countries that allow open service by gays and lesbians. Read the facts about openly gay service.

What's Really Happening

With her approval ratings over 70%, higher than her husband's, Michelle Obama has moved from angry black woman to America's best mother, wife, and First Lady. Not on Fox News, but everyplace else.

Cousin Laura sent me some wonderful photographs this weekend, including this one of Hillary Clinton huddled in a conversation with Michelle Obama. The caption: Bill thought he was president, too!

The Market for Hate

If we sit back and think about what caused the downfall of the United States economically, we see two enormous causes: greed and cleverness. Greed in that bankers, investors, CEOs, and corporate leaders stopped thinking long term and began to make decisions that created enormous short term wealth, draining the economic system of the money needed to invest in the future. Cleverness was creating income generating streams between the lines of statutory regulation.

Take any industry: automobiles, housing, newspapers, manufacturing, even health care and we see the same pattern. Not satisfied with reasonable, lower profit margins, decisions were made that made enormous immediate profits for a small group of elites. In the automobile industry, it was SUVs, which took advantage of the loophole in the passenger car safety requirements and fuel efficiency standards to create a market for giant, fuel-guzzling cars. In the housing industry, it was selling mortgages that would never get paid off to unqualified buyers. In the newspaper industry, it was taking such large profits without investing in new forms of news distribution so that the industry was taken by surprise by Craig's List and the Internet. Investment bankers withdrew funding from manufacturing, claiming that bigger profits could be made elsewhere. And broadcast television saw immediate profits in reality shows instead of series, news, and documentaries.

Ouch!

Let's take a closer look at the media industry which seems driven by hate. Rush Limbaugh responded to President Obama's speech in Cairo in part with this diatribe: Now, I firmly believe that Barack Obama has as part of his agenda to cut this nation down to size, and I believe one of the reasons for it, aside from whatever ideological beliefs he has, is that he's angry. This is a mad guy. He hung around people who were mad all of his life. His wife is angry all the time. Sonia Sotomayor is angry. She's angry at what she thinks was a life of disadvantage because she was Latina. Now, that line, that line scares me. Any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. Freedom will elevate people above tyranny. Nobody assigns it. It just happens. American exceptionalism now fails to exist. And in Obama's mind, American exceptionalism was unjust and immoral anyway.

Joe Scarborough, the host of the MSNBC news show, provided pro bono legal assistance to another man to killed in cold blood an abortion provider. In 1993 Michael Griffin murdered David Gunn, a doctor, and Scarborough represented him pro bono, and tried to have a greater role in his defense, precedent to running for Congress. Read the post on talkingpointsmemo.com. This is the same Scarborough featured in today's New York Times magazine profile.

Read the Huffingtonpost.com post about how many times Bill O'Reilly called George Tiller, the most recent abortion provider to be mowed down by a maniac, a "baby killer." After the murder, he tried to tone down his rhetoric, but one can't lie with videotape all over.

Listen to the hate spewed against Supreme Court nominee Sonya Sotomayor, if you can bear it, and wonder what kind of country we are becoming when media outlets are making money off of hate.

On the Street Corner

There is a small shop owned by a Middle Eastern man where I buy the best pistachios, cashews, and pumpkins seeds. With friends coming over for cocktails tonight, I stopped by to get a load to serve with martinis.

The shop is a congregating place for many of the Muslims who live in and around our community.

"So how was the reaction to Obama's speech?" I asked.

"Good, good," the shopkeeper replied. He is from Iran. "Who would have thought that an American President would speak that way in Egypt."

I wondered out loud why he had chosen to speak in Egypt rather than Jordan or Turkey, countries that are less authoritarian. However, my friend did not opine with words.

"Who do you think will win the election in Iran?" he asked me.

"I hope it isn't Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. All of the young people are rallying around Mir-Hossein Moussavi. Here in America, the young people helped vote in Obama."

My friend smiled. "In Iran, they will change the votes easily. Ahmadinejad will be president."

"They changed the votes here, too, remember, in 2000. We aren't so far apart."

Waking Up to Vision

Most mornings I wake up to mostly terrible news that gets blasted out on National Public Radio. But yesterday I woke up to hear President Obama speaking clearly and courageously to an audience in Cairo about the history of the Middle East and the history of American and Muslim relationships.

I never believed this might happen.

His speech was rhetorical, full of promise, exactly what is needed to begin to open hearts. Open hearts let minds believe.

His commitment to Israel couldn't be faulted by even the most devout Zionist. His understanding of Islam comes from deep personal experience.

America elected Barack Hussein Obama, and he chose to speak in Egypt.

Some criticized the site: why Egypt, a corrupt and brutal regime. Why not Turkey, Indonesia, or Jordan?

We need an answer here. It's a legitimate question. But for now, I'm just happy that the "war on terror" has ended and a moment of change is feasible.

Gambling With Our Retirements

On the day General Motors filed for bankruptcy, the New York Stock Market gained 200-odd points! Just weeks before the market climbed when Chrysler filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

One would believe with soaring unemployment figures, thousands of homes in foreclosure, retail sales declined, the second largest shopping mall developer in bankruptcy, car sales almost nil that the stock market would not be recovering.

Oh, yes, and another eight banks joined the growing list of financial institutions that are taking TARP funds. That brings the total to 616 banks across America.

And, did I forget? Oil is up above $60 a barrel!

Why is the stock market above 8,600?

How do people like us, ordinary folks, understand the stock market to assure that our 401(k) accounts can regain their losses and will be able to support our retirements so that we don't slip into poverty? When the market acts irrationally, how do we know what to do? Most of us already got burned with investment plans that invested across the board--small cap, mid cap, corporate bonds--those asset allocations didn't work because all of their parts lost value.

Yesterday Ben Bernanke, chief of the Federal Reserve, spoke before Congress and warned that our deficits are a larger percentage of gross national product than anytime since World War II.

That is unsustainable. What are we to do? As we Baby Boomers age, we won't be able to retire if we don't figure out what to do with our savings so that we can leave the workplace, making room for younger workers. I long for the time when I can spend my time volunteering, gardening, and reading, but right now that seems impossible despite all of my family's conservative investment strategies.

Under the mattress seems more reasonable than the irrational stock market.

Medical Homes

Yesterday I went to a roll out of Nassau County's NuCares program, a long overdue idea to offer medical "homes" to uninsured residents and their children. The poor are often chronically ill--with diseases like asthma, diabetes, hypertension, and coronary problems. All of these are preventable. So the idea is to create primary care facilities, yes another phrase for clinic, but with a different attitude towards service. By signing residents up for insurance through Child Care Plus and Family Care Plus, as well as through Medicaid, the very poorest will be covered as well as the working poor who will be asked to make some contribution for visits and prescriptions.

With preventive medicine the goal, perhaps we can drop the levels of these preventable diseases within our most vulnerable populations. A fascinating article appeared last week in The New Yorker by Atul Gawande, one of my favorite medical writers, in which he explains how cost has nothing to do with quality of care when it comes to Medicaid funding. Read the Annuls of Medicine: The Cost Conundrum.

Art Gianelli and Diane Cohen deserve our thanks. That Newsday, our local paper, hasn't carried the story is just evidence that newspapers aren't doing their job anymore. Look at Newsday.com this morning and instead there is junk.

We get overwhelmed by too much information over which we have little if any control. But when our government leaders come up with something that will eventually improve the quality of life for those who have the least, we should all be informed and applaud.

Clap, clap, clap to Art and Diane.

Ubiquitous Dick

Dick Cheney is everywhere! When he was in office, he was nowhere, and now, when he has no power except for the power of celebrity, he is spouting off on everything from terrorism to Guantanamo to gay marriage.

While in office his party used gay marriage as a wedge issue that brought out conservative voters by placing eleven anti-same sex initiatives on ballots in 2004. All of them won and Bush was reelected. The strategy won.

Dick Cheney is also self serving. His daughter is gay and a mother, so now he is claiming that he supports gay marriage but considers it a matter for the states to decide. The hypocrisy, of course, is that the Republican Party under the direction of Karl Rove used state ballot initiatives to ban legislatures from considering the issue.

Yesterday during an interview with President Obama on NPR radio, he was asked whether he considers Cheney's speeches an obstacle to America changing course especially in the Muslim world. Always gracious, this is what President Obama said in response to a question by Michelle Norris:

Obama suggested that though he believes Cheney's analysis is flawed, the former vice president has every right to weigh in on important national security issues.

"He also happens to be wrong, right?" Obama said. "Last time, immediately after his last speech, I think there was a fact check on his speech that didn't get a very good grade.

"Does it make it more complicated? No. because I think these are complicated issues, and there's a legitimate debate to be had about national security."

Obama added: "I don't doubt the sincerity of the former vice president or the previous administration in wanting to protect the American people."

The Roots of Hatred in Kansas and Everywhere Else

According to the Dali Lama, fear is one of the human emotions that brings out the very worst in us. Fear enables us to create "others," dehumanizing another person based on any arbitrary characteristic: race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, politics. None is justification. All are as flawed as being human without insight.

George Tiller was shot in church yesterday in Wichita, Kansas. Dr. Tiller was one of the few doctors in the United States who would perform late term abortions, not because he was a baby killer, but because in often tragic circumstances, women, to save their lives or their future reproductive capacity, have to terminate a pregnancy months, not weeks, into gestation.

He was shot in church while serving as an usher.

He had survived a prior shooting and a criminal prosecution for performing abortions. Dr. Tiller was a courageous man, and he never should have been forced into becoming a hero, or now a martyr.

Abortion is a medical procedure, although fewer doctors in training are learning how to perform one. Abortion is just one aspect of reproductive health, just one. And after eight years of inaccurate and incomplete federally funded information about sex, perhaps a more common procedure than it needs to be in the wake of abstinence only programs that don't work. Just last week Governor Mark Parkinson vetoed the funding cuts imposed by the legislature on Planned Parenthood.

Fear of women's ability to make babies, fear that one person's private life decisions might make your own more difficult, fear that society is decaying, fear of that enormous life force of sexuality. Fear makes us into monsters unless we stop to consider what makes us tick.