NEWS BURIED ON JUMP PAGE. READER’S DILEMMA: TO JUMP OR NOT TO JUMP

 Prompted by a column today by the Times' public editor.

In Ann Arbor today, as on most days since late December, the snow that dominates the view from our kitchen window and the well-below freezing temperatures that go with it are the most important topics of the day. As I have almost every morning for more years than I care to admit, I unfold my reading rack and place the first section of the Times on it. But as I drizzle honey on my granola and prepare to pour my first cup of coffee, I see this troubling headline on the front page, “Accidents Surge As Oil Industry Takes the Train.” I want to know more so I read down to the bottom and learn about breakfast at Kerry’s Kitchen in a small town in North Dakota where comfort food, especially freshly baked caramel rolls, is the order of the day. 

I took a large spoonful of cereal, topped with fresh fruit and raisins and sipped some coffee. Then, I learned that the trains the headline alluded to rumble by the diner’s window seven times a day, and that sometime last month one of them had a fiery accident that caused evacuation of the town. That’s what I learned by reading a little over three and a half column inches. Naturally, my curiosity was whetted, but I couldn’t learn more without removing the paper from the rack, unfolding it (I can’t believe the Times doesn’t know what its readers are acutely aware of, that turning pages of the Times requires care and skills best developed on the subway, as it wends its way through the tunnels and bridges that take one from an apartment in Brooklyn to lower Manhattan, something I did over fifty years ago).

I took another sip of coffee to wash down the bits of flax seed that had begun to cover my teeth so I could turn to the jump page and follow the story.

On page 18, I find the history of the practice that led to the accidents alluded to by the headline, and finally get the actual facts after I have made it through another 2 ½ column inches.

I decided to make a complaint, so I told my girlfriend, to whom I do most of my whining, and she told me of the Public Editor’s piece in today’s Week in Review, for which I thank you. But this particular story is polluted not only by interpretation, but by irrelevant “human interest” details that keep me from what once might have been called “news.”

The effort involved in turning pages of the Times is considerable and the possibility that it will be fruitful can’t be estimated until you’ve actually done it. This is not fair to print edition readers. At Erasmus Hall High School I took two terms of journalism from Erna Fleischer, and learned the inverted pyramid system of writing news stories and the reasons for it. It seems to me that the print edition of a broad-sheet newspaper should, for the most part, follow that plan.

Perhaps you think that readers don’t need details because they get them from TV, radio and internet, but that doesn’t apply to me. If it did, I might cancel my subscription to the hard copy paper and save myself over $600.00 per year because it would render your paper irrelevant.

I hope your column today bears fruit so that I can continue to look to the Times as my primary news source.

GUEST BLOGGER: New York Times editorial opposes King amendment to farm bill (updates piece below, October 28, 2013) by N. Nonymous

For more information on this threat to animals and democracy, see the editorial in today's (1/25/14) New York Times and this article from Huff Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/16/farm-bill-amendment_n_4277666.html.

GUEST BLOGGER: A Letter Sent To Our Representatives and Senators By My Girlfriend

Please do everything in your power to defeat the King amendment to the Farm Bill. This amendment is an attack on democracy and threatens to undermine Americans' confidence in their ability to have any meaningful input on the laws under which they live. As just one example, in 2008, according to Wikipedia, more than 8 million Californians (63% of voters) approved Proposition 2, which confers some meager protections on farm animals. By contrast, there are only some 3 million people in Iowa, of whom only 200,000 (53%) voted for Mr. King. And he has the power to set farm policy for the United States? By attaching an odious amendment to must-pass legislation, Mr. King seeks to get by trickery what he could never achieve by legitimate means. It is as much to keep the faith with American voters as to protect farm animals that we must defeat Mr. King's noxious, antidemocratic amendment. Better no farm bill at all than one that spits in the face of the people of California and other states and rewards the bullying tactics of a single, out-of-step individual.

MR. BOEHNER, CALL A HALT TO THE COUP D'ETAT

If you haven’t already, you must hear this excerpt from an actual House of Representatives proceeding, because all Americans need to know how far the House has gone to constrict the life breath of our democracy. As you hear it, note the smugness of the speaker pro-tem chairing the session as he rebuffs the arguments of a representative who wants to bring to the floor for a vote an amendment proposed by the Senate to end the shut down and debt payment crisis we now face.

Next consider this definition of coup d’état that comes from Wikipedia.

A coup d'état  . . . is the sudden deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to depose the extant government and replace it with another body, civil or military. A coup d'état is considered successful when the usurpers establish their dominance. When the coup neither fails completely nor succeeds, a civil war is a likely consequence.

A coup d'état typically uses the extant government's power to assume political control of the country. In Coup d’état: A Practical Handbook, military historian Edward Luttwak states that "[a] coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder." The armed forces, whether military or paramilitary, are not a defining factor of a coup d'état . . .

The House of Representatives has amended its standing rule so that only the speaker or his delegate could call for a vote on an amendment made by the Senate, effectively putting in the hands of one man, John Boehner, the ability to call a house vote on a sensible and necessary plan to permit the government to function, with no recourse to the full House, and to make timely payments of debt service This is the latest step of a coup d’etat designed to concentrate power in the hands of the Tea Party rump. It’s clear that the change to the long-standing and sensibly-democratic House rule  was adopted simply to prevent a vote that the Tea Party rump would probably lose.

Earlier steps include use at record levels of frequency of procedures in the Senate to prevent bills and appointments that the Democratic majority would pass ; court decisions that permit unlimited and often anonymous campaign donations; radically gerrymandered House districts, proposals to have presidential electors chosen by congressional districts instead of statewide. Some call the Tea Party crazy, but these small steps are beginning to form a pattern of concentrating power in a minority of Republicans.

A small group of government insiders using the power of the government to take over functions constitutionally assigned to both Houses of Congress and the President is  happening and it closely tracks the definition of coup d'état. And now it has come to this: a small rump of Congress has amassed the power to prevent the U.S. government from functioning according to our constitution and laws.

I offer no solutions, but we must prevent the democracy hating rump of Congress from taking over the government for its own purposes. Add to court decisions that, the absolute refusal of a minority of the House of Representatives to permit the nation to function according to its constitution and laws, and there is real danger present. The Tea Party rump is drawing about itself, in small steps, a wall of undemocratic actions to preserve and extend its power over the majority made up of Republicans and

Democrats. I offer no solutions except to exhort the sane members of both parties to put a stop to the power-hungry rump’s ongoing coup.

Many have called the Tea Party faction crazy, but they begin to seem diabolically clever. They’re on the verge of causing untold damage to this Country’s finances for a long time to come, of severely reducing our reputation as the leader of the “free world;” of depriving Americans of lawful benefits; and repealing the democratically elected and Supreme Court approved Affordable Health Care act by simply withholding the funds necessary to implement it.

President Obama and the Democrats are doing the right thing by not yielding to the demands of bullies but, oddly enough, only John Boehner can call a halt to this passive violence by calling for a vote in the House. He hasn’t so far been a profile in courage but we can only hope.

MR. PRESIDENT, DON'T APPEASE THE BULLIES

[N. B. Ironically, President Obama's website says that, because of the shutdown, his office may not see this letter I sent today until it is over. Thanks to the invaluable Nancy for her editing help.]

 

Dear President Obama:

 

I’m 74 years old, a Democrat since college when I campaigned for Adlai Stevenson; I’ve been a loyal supporter of President Obama, Senators Levin and Stabenow, and Representative Dingell. Although I depend on social security and Medicare I’m also a patriot, as my immigrant father taught me. As much as the government shutdown may hurt me, the imminent danger to the nation that I hope my grandchildren will inherit with pride, will hurt me more.

The passive aggression of the smug, do-nothing anarchists of the far right must be resisted at all costs. To me, this means that you must not give them anything in return for modifying or even dropping their extortionate demands. To do otherwise, would be to invite an ongoing crisis by rewarding behavior that partakes of disloyalty and borders on treason.

Airplane, the 1980 film comedy, has a satire on Point Counterpoint in which the conservative says of the trapped plane passengers, “They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into, let ‘em die!” Thus, yesterday’s satire is today’s doctrine. Food inspection, medical research, aid to the hungry, Medicare, Medicaid, and many other services that have an impact on health either have been or will be interrupted or just lost if the “Let ‘em die!” faction isn’t stopped now.

Please, I beg you, no matter the short-term cost, stand your ground to save our democracy.

PERFORMANCE NETWORK’S BECKY SHAW STIMULATES, ENTERTAINS, TITILLATES, AND SATISFIES

Last week, I saw the premiere of Becky Shaw at the Performance Network: funny, touching and troubling, it gives us five interesting (frightening in one case) characters and five outstanding performances, with perfect timing and pacing under the direction of Phil Powers.

The characters are richly drawn by playwright, actors, and director. Sarab Kamoo and David Wolber, play non-siblings who were raised together, have a complicated relationship, and let us peer into to every nook and nuance of it. Wolber’s Max and Kamoo’s Suzanna are obviously damaged. He hides his insecurities behind manly bravado but lives as a responsible man, the picture of the Yiddish “Mensch.” She lives through her insecurities but leaves us with the feeling that she’s going to be all right.

 Only the title character (Maggie Meyer) dismays and confounds, a stone idly tossed into a pond, making ripples that radiate from the point of impact, a playwright’s shortcut, like the crazy neighbors in A Delicate Balance or the goat in “The Goat.”

The script leaves the conclusion of the story in doubt, which is far better than a forced happy ending, but suggests a conclusion which, as I understand it, would have sold out cheaply one of the characters. Can’t say more without ruining the second act for you, but since nothing seems final when the house lights go on, does it matter?

 Monika Essen turns in her usual excellent and serviceable sets: there isn't a false note anywhere in this production.

Once, I said to an actress friend that plays are about characters; she said, no; plays are about relationships. Either way, Becky Shaw draws us deeply into the lives of some very lively and very human people, a fine place to be for a couple of hours.

THE TEA PARTY SILLY SEASON

The silly season, having degenerated into stupid on its way to the psychotic season, moves on. Two recent Huff Post posts may be seen as guide posts to the end of the journey. Or to put it another way, there seems to be a stampede on the road that should be less traveled. One from June 28 reports:

“Matt Davis, a Michigan attorney who was once the state Republican Party's spokesman, sent out an email that asked whether armed rebellion would be justified in the wake of the court's [Affordable Health Care Act] decision. 

… It begins: ‘Implicit in Benjamin Franklin's fabled response at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention was a dire warning: That the Republic would one day devolve into tyranny unless we the people prevented it.’ 

It goes on to characterize Obama's election as the end point of a "100-year progressive trek to tyranny."

In fairness, according to the Detroit Free Press, Mr. Davis later apologized for sending what he called “unedited work product.” He took back what seemed to be a call for armed insurrection but he didn't retract or explain his misquotation of Ben Franklin.

Franklin never said what Davis attributes to him. He did say this at convention’s end about the Constitution,

“. . . I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.”

The meaning is obvious: despotism will come only if the people become so corrupt they are otherwise ungovernable. Then, Franklin goes on to laud the constitution:  “It approach[es] so near to perfection … I expect no better, and … I am not sure that it is not the best.” Yet conservative websites quote only the part about despotism and pretend, as Davis has, that Franklin predicted the inevitability of despotic government. Quoting out of context and distorting the plain meaning of the words, Davis and others have wandered far from the truth to tell a bald lie.

The other whiff of political sulfur came July 2.

“Tea Party lawmaker in Montana [Krayton Kerns] said the relocation of 60 bison -- which he blamed on Walt Disney's creation of "Bambi" -- could lead to gas jumping to $25 a gallon as part of a liberal federal government plot.” …

Kerns said the moving of the 60 bison from Yellowstone National Park to the Fort Peck Native American Reservation this winter is part of "a four step process to crush the republic and bring our populace into perfect dependence on big government -- just as Karl Marx dreamed.”

I don’t know what Marx’ dreamt but there is no record of it in his voluminous writings. It’s contrary to what he wrote in “The Communist Manifesto” where he predicted that at the end of the process begun by a working-class revolution the state would “wither away” because people satisfied by economic justice won’t need a government.

These folks are not ordinary private idiots, but serious public ones. As Davis made up a pseudo quotation for Ben Franklin, Kerns put an idea into Karl Marx’ dreams that would have been anathema to him. Two Tea Party activists, two plain lies, batting a thousand for the team. The level of divorcement from reality that informs these people and their websites is awe-inspiring. Their willingness to distort and ignore the truth for political ends is a fine example of the corruption among the populace that Franklin was afraid of. Ironic, no?

Thomas Huxley wrote, “If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is a man who has so much as to be out of danger?” 

Surely not in the Davis-Kerns wing of the Tea Party.

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