Government Regulation Makes for a More Civil Union

There are few things that can counterbalance the influence and greed of corporations and concentrated wealth. Government regulation is the most effective. The rise of the American government is in some ways a history of the rise of corporations and the various attempts to keep those corporations in check. Not only can regulation curb abuses, but it can help guide the direction of our society.

Consider this: if the Bush administration had admitted that there is a man-made climate change crisis, it could have led the Republican-majority Congress into enacting laws that would reward innovation and investment into alternative forms of energy. A non-delusional president with the power of his party backing him might have come up with block grants to states and cities to construct low-carbon emissions public transportation systems that would clear urban areas of automobile pollution.

Instead we have the dismantling of the professionalism of the federal government and the concentration of wealth into a very few people who have benefited from the last eight years.

Congress allowed the clout of the oil companies to dictate energy policy, and the Supreme Court, sometimes controlled by four ideologues trained by the Federalist Society, refused to shed any light on the identities of the oil company cabal who advised Dick Cheney in his secret energy meetings.

Deregulation brought an accumulation of wealth into the energy sector and drained resources from innovation, manufacturing, and our futures.

Deregulation also permitted concentration of media into just a few players. As newspapers fade in influence, we notice that there are fewer sources of investigative reporting. Television news is entertainment mostly, and the cable stations, well, the drive to fill 24-7 has created a false sense of news. Rumors about news overshadow any real news.

A report issued by researchers at Ball State University in Ohio found that two stories dominated the media these last two years: the war in Iraq and the presidential election. These two stories accounted for over 40% of media coverage. However, neither focused on the issues over which citizens have any control. Rather the constancy of these stories became disempowering and disengaging, because there was really nothing we could do about either. However, stories about education, health care, employment, housing, land use, environment, food security, and how local and state governments work might have had the impact of informing an electorate into organized action. They accounted for less than 1% of coverage.

Instead we became a country obsessed about American Idol and Dancing With the Stars, degrading the right to vote to how we feel about a contestant. As we listen to interviews and media rhetoric about the election, we see the impact of entertainment on our political beings. How we feel about a candidate should be irrelevant. What should matter is their values, priorities, and approaches to the crucial issues facing us as a nation and as residents of a crowded and troubled planet.

When we don't have regulation over how admissions work at colleges, how municipal and state contracts are bid, and how governments employ, people of color suffer. Not only do they lose out by not getting into school, forgoing government contracts and jobs, but those who do manage entry are often burdened by overt racism made less socially wrong because of a general attitude opposing affirmative action.

I would prefer to live in a clean environment, among communities of diverse, knowledgeable, and informed people.

Beauty in the Midst of Chaos

I'm on the road this week in Seattle. So when it became totally unbearable to be within the chaos of Wall Street and the bailout, I slipped away with my friend of forty years Anna to Tacoma. It is about forty-five minutes outside of Seattle, and the weather was clear enough that we could see Mt. Rainier in all of its glory. It was humbling to see that giant mountain, snow capped and magnificent.

Humbling to be before natural beauty, and humbling to be before constructed beauty, too.

Anna and I went to the Museum of Glass, a conical shaped building that houses one of the oldest artifacts of human society--glass. We first went to the Hot Shop where we watched a glass artist, Martin Blank, construct a portion of a stately organic glass sculpture that will eventually reside in the reflecting pool outside the Museum. The smell of the molten glass and loud rock n roll fueled the sense of urgent creativity as we watched glowing pools of glass be transformed into branches of a tree.

Daniel Clayman had a minimalist exhibit of milky white glass shapes, large and lit to create a sense of shadow and depth for each. As we walked around each piece, the lighting changed the experience of being with these simple yet deeply moving sculptures.

Dale Chihuly is all around Tacoma. His Laguna Murano Chandelier is breathtaking, over the top, a fascinating mass of golden glass topped with opalescent balls of sea creatures.

Dante Marioni is also featured. His vases and recepticles are made of vibrant hot colors and show off his ability to shape glass into graceful extremes.

Finally there was an interesting historic exhibit called Contrasts: a glass primer, that paired pieces together that showed the breadth of possibilities of the medium of glass.

Then we walked across the Chihuly Bridge of Glass that spans the highway over to the Tacoma History Museum and Art Museum. The Sea Form Gallery, the Venetian Wall, the cobalt blue crystal towers are awesome, in the real sense of the word, and full of great humor.

On the walk to the Tacoma Art Museum which has many Chihuly's, we passed the Tacoma Federal Courthouse, with its three Chihuly installations in the lobby. The courthouse was originally a train station, so the architecture is exciting in combining the sense of frontier Tacoma with the austerity of a courthouse.

Then last night I was fortunate to attend a piano concert by Grammy-winning Angelin Chang. She played four familiar pieces: Gershwin, Chopin, Schubert, and Bach. I knew each. But they were hardly recognizable under the skilled and fluid hands of this elegant musician. Her flourish is perfect in reestablishing the music so that once again we can hear every note. And somehow I was calmed a bit.

A Simple Statement Why We Do Not Live in a Colorblind Society Yet

Racially polarized voting patterns--when groups tend to vote along race lines as blocks--are proof that we are not yet living in a post-racial, or colorblind society.

The economic, social, and political reality for people is still defined by race. Think about it.

The New Yorker Magazine Endorses Obama

It's not surprising to learn that The New Yorker endorsed Obama, but the editors did put together a stunning condemnation of the Bush administration. And the magazine traces the McCain turn from maverick to supporting Bush and pandering to the fundamentalist right after the 2004 elections. It's conclusion is that Obama offers this country the best opportunity to undo the damage.

It's long, like most pieces in the magazine, so it requires time to get through. But it is an important reminder of just how bad this current administration is and how much, I can't believe I'm about to use this word, we need "change."

Like most endorsements of Obama, in order to come to the conclusion that he is the best candidate for the presidency, The New Yorker has to believe in his determination, calm, intellect, and in these troubled times, his ability to attract the best and the brightest to serve as counselors and advisers.

We have to believe in hope. Here is a link to The New Yorker endorsement, dated October 13, 2008, but released on its website yesterday. Pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea, or wait until this evening, and have a glass of wine or beer, and take the time to read this.

Miss Congeniality

Being confident is not the sole qualification for the vice presidency. Nor is congeniality. Sarah Palin gave a performance tonight that was better than expected because, in part, Gwen Ifill did not perform her role as a journalist. She failed to ask serious questions at a time when serious decisions need to be made by an informed and engaged electorate. Ifill, perhaps inhibited by right wing pundit claims that she was favoring Obama as a candidate because of her upcoming book (which focuses on this historic election and is supposed to be released on Election Day) didn't ask questions that required more than coached and packaged answers. She never asked a question that delved into the depth of knowledge that either candidate might possess, or not possess, and when Sarah Palin refused to answer the questions posed, Ifill didn't press.

And Joe Biden appeared constrained and nervous. There were many opportunities to contrast his depth of knowledge with her vapidness by answering the questions she refused to answer, showing off his experience, along with his sense of humor, as he did in the Democratic primary debates.

What does Sarah Palin stand for? She seemed more like a candidate for Miss America than for the vice presidency.

Tonight's debate was a mockery. This was more like a badly written comedic, made-for-television rendition of a political debate. I hope the American people want more than Gidget with her sprinkling of "darn" and "heck," her wink at the camera, and an intonation that was condescending in its false simplicity. There is no doubt that Sarah Palin enjoyed the limelight, that she has great confidence. It's also apparent that she has opinion without knowledge.

Recall that Palin actually spoke about "women's rights." What are those rights according to Palin?

With Palin, we have a cynical substitution: there once was a candidate named Hillary Clinton who has spent a lifetime articulating a political perspective that champions the rights of working women, autonomy over our bodies, access to health care, educational policies that encourage full opportunities to women, and early care and education. In comes Sarah Palin, chosen to attract those women who were disappointed and embittered that Hillary didn't get the nomination. Yes, Sarah Palin is a woman. But that is where the similarity to Hillary Clinton ends. I was shocked to hear Palin using the phrase "women's rights" tonight, as if she is trying to sell herself as a feminist. Does she believe that American women are so easily duped?

She is anti-choice. She is against medically accurate sex education. She is for taxing employer-financed health care, for those workers lucky enough to have this benefit, and financing a system that would just concentrate more power in private insurance companies. For women in this country, the economy is a women's issue, because there are so many single parent families in distress and those families are usually headed by women.

Sarah Palin is a woman. She is not a feminist.

All of Tina Fey, Oops, I Mean Sarah Palin in One Video Clip

Thanks to Josh Marshall at talkingpointsmemo.com who has put together all of the Sarah Palin gaffes in one video. Click here to view it.

October 1st in History

Whenever I wake up in a state of anxiety, I calm myself with meditation, exercise, and looking back into history. It is humbling to remind ourselves that what appears so pressing today will either fade into a momentary blip in just a few days or weeks, or become one of those tipping points, a moment that changes everything.

October 1 commemorates some important moments, many in baseball, which doesn’t interest me, but here is a site with a more complete list.

October 1, 1994—South African President Nelson Mandela who won the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, began his historic trip to the United States. Talk about a leader! 27 years in prison on Robins Island, and he returns to public life (he was released from prison on the day after my daughter’s first birthday) without a bitter heart, able to transition an apartheid nation into the beginning struggles of a democracy. A treasured gift from my friend Paul is a photograph taken by his brother when Mandela addressed a crowd in Chicago.

October 1, 1988—Mikhail Gorbachev became president of the Soviet Union and presided over its dismantling. In 1990 he won the Nobel Peace Prize. An end to history was declared. And with Sarah Palin watchful at our maritime border with Russia now, we are wary about the rise of post-Soviet Russia, rich with petro-dollars and yearning to reassert itself as a world power.

October 1, 1974—The trial of the Watergate cover-up began, a trial that would keep Americans riveted by the disclosures, day after day, of corruption, arrogance, and disrespect for the rule of law perpetuated by a lawyer, President Richard M. Nixon, his Attorney General John Mitchell, and a crew of ad agency guys who sold us a very flawed piece of presidency. We believed that finally the rule of law would be returned to the White House. You can actually listen to the Watergate tapes on line now through the Nixon Presidential Library.

On October 1, 2008, we are reminded how vigilant we must be in defending the rule of law from corruption.

October 1, 1964—The Free Speech Movement was launched at the University of California at Berkeley, and looking back, this is another one of those events that pushed history. This is the beginning of the culture wars. Everything became political. The Puritanical division between public and private began to erode. Modernity pushed and the next wave of fundamentalism was born. UC Berkeley maintains an archive of the movement on line.

October 1, 1955—And so this list isn’t too depressing, this is the day the Honeymooners premiered and we fell in love with Ed Norton, the guy who worked in the sewers, Ralph Kramden, a bus driver, and their long-suffering but wise wives, Trixie and Alice.

And Happy Birthday, Rolling Stones photographer, Annie Leibovitz,: she was born on October 1, 1949. Ironically, today is also the anniversary of the great modern photographer Richard Avedon’s death in 2004.