Monday, November 29, 2010

Security That Works

Does anyone feel safer with the installation of new body scanners at airports? I don't. And I feel even less safe when I read in Roger Cohen's New York Times column, "The Real Threat to America," that Michael Chertoff--our former director of Homeland Security--runs a security advice business whose clients include the company making these new scanners.

Surprise, surprise. Former government officials profiting from fear.

Meanwhile, conservative Republicans are touting Israeli security, which I was curious about as well. But as Dana Milbank writes in The Washington Post, we can't begin to afford the sophisticated techniques used in Israel, and the use of profiling and invasion of privacy well exceed American norms.

No, what makes me feel safer is this weekend's story of the foiled teen-aged bomber in Portland who thought he was going to obliterate a crowd of Christmas revelers and instead found himself arrested. Good for the FBI. They'd been on his case for months and led him to a point where he couldn't succeed. This is the the kind of detective work that I call security. The more of it, the better.

Removing my shoes and watching TSA employees wand children at the airport don't strike me as powerful terrorist deterrents. Good old gumshoe work does.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Turkey Pardons

It's fine that President Obama pardoned a Thanksgiving turkey this year, but it's not fine that he continues to pardon the other turkeys in his midst: Congressional Republicans. The President has offered so many olive branches to John Boehner and Mitch McConnell that I think even Jesus would say Obama has turned his cheek too many times.

The Bush tax cut extensions offer President Obama one more chance--and perhaps one final chance--to speak on behalf of the majority of Americans and on behalf of the people who elected him. He needs to say forcefully, and to say every day, that he does not support extending tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. Millionaires don't need a tax break, and many of them agree. This is no time for compromise.

If the President's opponents in Congress outnumber him, so be it. He will have stood up for what's just and right.

This year's lucky Thanksgiving turkey will spend the rest of his days at Mount Vernon, waddling where George Washington once walked. If Barack Obama sells out poor and middle-class Americans on this issue, he may find himself going the way of the turkey: into early retirement, living among ex-presidents. For such a sell-out runs the risk of opening up the presidential field to a third-party candidate, splitting the Democratic party, and alienating once loyal supporters for good.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Sculpture in the Garden




You never know who you'll run into at the annual outdoor sculpture show at the North Carolina Botanical Gardens in Chapel Hill. This year's artists were asked to interpret the theme "Celebrating Life Forces--earth, air, fire, water, spirit."

Amazonian cats, ethereal women, angry stone men, they're all there to discover as you wander the lovely gardens. With friends and family, the show is a great way to spend a fall afternoon in Carolina.

Monday, November 15, 2010

The Court Jester

Walter Berglund, the frustrated environmentalist in Jonathan Franzen's novel Freedom, captures America today when his anger finally erupts: "This fragmentation . . . it's the same problem everywhere. It's like the internet, or cable TV--there's never any center, there's no communal agreement, there's just a trillion little bits of distracting noise. We can never sit down and have any kind of sustained conversation . . . All the real things, the authentic things, the honest things are dying off. Intellectually and culturally, we just bounce around like random billiard balls, reacting to the latest random stimuli."

How depressing, and how true. Examples of distracting noise abound--most recently in the mid-term elections, awash with dishonesty and inanity.

Enter Jon Stewart, comedian and host of The Daily Show. If you missed his interview with Rachel Maddow, watch it. Finally, two people in sustained conversation.

Stewart gives me hope. He exposes the noise of round-the-clock cable news for what it is: divisive and polarizing and distracting. He calls out red and blue activists alike for failing to tackle corruption and dishonesty. And he does so with humor and self awareness.

Jon Stewart for president? Not yet. But a lot of people producing politics and news could learn from him. He understands and articulates better than most the direction we need to go.

Take heed, all of us, of the comedian in our midst. He's a gem of a court jester, and we'd do well not just to laugh, but also to listen.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Veterans Through the Ages


The North Carolina Monument at Gettysburg honors our state's 14,147 soldiers who fought there in 1863. Close to 6,000 North Carolinians lost their lives in 3 days at Gettysburg, over 1/4 of all Confederate casualties.

To date, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have claimed nearly 5,800 American lives.

Does it matter how many die? Civil War numbers boggle the mind. Iraq and Afghanistan numbers, in comparison, seem like mere skirmishes. Many of us don't know anyone who's been killed this time around; I doubt if many southerners could say the same in 1863.

The dead, no matter how many they are, ask little of us. We, in turn, pay almost no attention to them. Perhaps on this Veteran's Day we can be reminded of the simple request made clear by this monument: May "[our] valorous deeds [be] enshrined in the hearts of men long after these transient memorials have crumbled into dust."

Monday, November 8, 2010

HELP!

Dear Abby,
I’m getting so much advice I don’t know where to turn. You’re my last hope. Talking heads everywhere are telling me what to do. I need to emote, I need to connect, I need to compromise, I need to lead.

It’s tough running a country with a bunch of know-it-alls. Even Sasha told me I ought to jog through the Mall or stop more often for Big Macs.

What’s a president to do?

Unaudaciously yours,
Barack O

Dear Barack O,
I know how you feel. Every time I give advice, I get letters the next day telling me how wrong I was. “Give that husband another chance?” they write. “No way.” You can’t win.

I take it by your name that you’re running the good old U. S. of A. Too bad for you. They’re a bad bunch, spoiled by years of free speech. But don’t let them get you down.

Here’s an idea. Wipe away a few tears every now and then, like that new Speaker you’ve got. Choke up when you talk about the American dream or when you see children saluting the flag. It’ll work every time.

In the meantime, don’t worry. Your people have short attention spans. They’ll soon be talking about the next American Idol and won’t remember a thing about you.

LOL,
Abby

Thursday, November 4, 2010

The Ice Man Speaketh

Following President Obama’s press conference yesterday, news analysts on NPR highlighted the President’s lack of emotion. Talking heads on MSNBC did the same. Why does this trait of Obama’s—his ability to remain calm no matter what—bother the press so much?

In response to one reporter’s question—“When you call your friends . . . and you see the Democratic Party set back, what does it feel like?”—President Obama replied, “It feels bad.”

A reasonable answer, I thought.

But this wasn’t good enough for NPR’s news analysts. It actually made them chuckle. Obama’s supposed lack of emotion translates into a flaw. He doesn’t care, he doesn’t get it—these are the charges against him.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather put my trust in the man who thinks under pressure and remains steadfast in his outlook . . . rather than our blubbering new House Speaker weeping over his weary childhood. We don’t need emotion at the top. We need courage and leadership.

I hope President Obama can summons these traits as a response to the “shellacking” he got yesterday, rather than focus on some misguided need to change his style. And fewer tears from John Boehner would be welcomed as well; he’s got work to do, and it’s time to replace the floors he mopped at his father’s tavern with the jobs Americans need to get back to work.