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Feels Like the Summer of 2001
Posted on July 3, 2009 by blogger
Filed Under Rob Meltzer | 3 Comments
Political sex scandals, dead celebrities, a world in political turmoil and a naive new president. Feels like the summer of 2001 all over again.
This morning at the supermarket, the tabloids are asking who murdered Michael Jackson, at least those who are not telling us that Jackson faked his own death and has removed himself to a private island near Nicobar, as he has planned for the past ten years, to avoid his debts, or those who tell us that it was a publicity stunt and that he will be showing up at his concerts. Indeed, who is buried in Jackson’s Tomb?
In the spirit of the summer of 2001, I propose that we engage in mindless pop culture diversions, all the better to be properly and fully shocked when we are attacked by terrorists later this year. My proposal is that we debate the proper wording for Michael Jackson’s gravestone. How bout “he was pretty fly for a white guy”?
July 4th
Posted on July 3, 2009 by blogger
Filed Under Tom Driscoll | 18 Comments
Independence Day. The country comes round to its birthday again. There will be parades and fireworks, baseball, beer and backyard barbecue, images of eagles, red and white stripes, stars on a dark blue background.
With every birthday there comes the occasion for reflection. We might consider our history with pride for what is best in us, and even rue one or two failings. We might ask ourselves if we are old, or still very young.
Every birthday brings us back to our beginnings, and as I write this I find myself pondering that moment that we’ve chosen to identify as our birth, as our first national breath. It was the signing of a document. We don’t mark our beginning as the day of some decisive military victory, or the day some treaty finally recognized our existence. We mark it as the day we declared our independence, and the day we found some powerful language to define our meaning.
I think what makes that moment in our history, and our living understanding of that history, meaningful is something of the poetry in that document we signed 233 years ago. It is something of that poetry that establishes the moment of birth for our country as something more than the date some disaffected gentry signed a pact against taxes and unfair commerce, or made a call for better representation of their interests in government. Had the Declaration of Independence merely been such a listing of grievances and some carefully worded political resolution, I don’t think we would celebrate July 4th in the way we do today. But there is something powerful happening with those words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” there is something still deeper as our founding promise is sealed with the pledge of our “lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” There is stirring music in that language, there is also something of substance to those words.
From the very first sentence, we define the American adventure as an episode “in the course of human events.” With those opening few words we state that the charter of this nation and its subsequent fate will be about more than one nation or its privileged people, but rather that these will be a comment on humanity itself. We go on to declare certain “self-evident” truths, and that in among these is the fundamental truth that all men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights. These rights are not conferred by the state, or defined as the due privilege of some select group. They are not ratified by our Declaration of Independence, they are simply, and profoundly, acknowledged, in truth, to exist for everyone.
This Declaration of ours is not about what it means to be an an American. Rather, it is about what we take it to mean to be a human being.
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Should health care be a right?
Posted on June 30, 2009 by Rick Holmes
Filed Under Rick Holmes | 70 Comments
Thought I’d start a new thread on health care, mostly because the thread where we’ve been discussing it (here) is getting unwieldy.
It’s easy to get lost in the details, and I’m not averse to going there, but there’s also a big picture issue. In an article he titled “Details, Schmetails,” bioethicist Artur Caplan writes:
“Specifically, what is going to determine whether health reform can be pushed through by the well-intended Obama administration is the answer to one single, fairly simple ethics question: Is health care a right that every American should have? That is what Obama needs to continue to stress. If he can sell the American people on the idea that they have a right to health care, then the details will all be worked out in time. If health care is not viewed as a right then the details are the boggy swamp where reform goes to die.”
In “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama argues that now is the time to rewrite the social compact in the same way FDR did in the ’30s. Social Security pulled half of America’s elderly out of poverty. Making affordable health care a right - wiping out such cruel inventions as the denial of health care on the grounds someone has been sick - isn’t a new idea. It’s an assumption in most parts of the world and an issue Democrats have been pushing, to one extent or another, since 1948.
Health care reform’s political success may be a test of whether Reagan’s philosophy - that government is the problem, not the solution - has lost enough steam so that people are ready to let the government try to fix something the private sector has royally screwed up.
Almost $300 a month is withheld from my wife’s paycheck for our private sector health insurance, and hundreds more are withheld for government Medicare. I don’t begrudge this, in part because my parents and my wife’s parents benefit from Medicare. What I do resent is the fact that if my wife loses her job, we lose our health insurance. Whether the money from our paychecks goes to a private insurer or a government program doesn’t much matter to me.
Then there’s the story I heard cited by Cokie Roberts, who recalled an elderly lady who came up to former Sen. John Breault in an airport. Wagging her finger in his face, she said “whatever you do, don’t let the government get involved in MY Medicare.”
Democratic drama: take two
Posted on June 29, 2009 by blogger
Filed Under Tom Driscoll | 23 Comments
It will be interesting to see how the chorus of drama coaches (the ones who have been demanding more “fire in the belly” from Obama on Iran) are going to react to the Honduran Crisis. Already we are getting signals that they will be more measured with their umbrage and exhortations. I’ve even come across the clever construction that it was “the Honduran government and constitution” that led President Zelaya away at gunpoint.
Apparently there are still those who don’t necessarily equate democratically elected presidents with “the government and constitution” —not in Latin America anyway. Instead they find “governance” in the guns of a coup d’etat—especially when the president to be deposed is a “lefty” after all.
The President has unequivocally called the military’s actions illegal. “We are very clear about the fact that President Zelaya is the democratically elected president,” President Obama said. The United States, he said, will work the Organization of American States and other bodies to try to resolve the conflict peacefully.
“The OAS has a key role to play now. It must rapidly find a multilateral solution to this breach of democracy in Honduras,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “To allow this coup to stand would be a huge step back from the progress that the region has made towards democracy in recent decades.”
The OAS will be holding an emergency session on the crisis Tuesday.
Defining Race in America
Posted on June 28, 2009 by blogger
Filed Under Rob Meltzer | 9 Comments
The debate about race in America has certainly been intensified in recent years, thanks in large part to Hussein Obama and Michael Jackson. Is what we view as “race” a matter of skin color, attitude, class, economics, education?
Well, we now, finally, have an answer, thanks to Michael Jackson. If Jesse Jackson shows up after you’re dead, grabs the microphone from your grieving family and suggests mischievous doings by whitey, you’re black. Sorry Michael. All the skin bleaches in the world can’t overcome the Jesse Jackson test.
Glad we have that resolved.
Elvis and Michael
Posted on June 27, 2009 by Rick Holmes
Filed Under Rick Holmes | 11 Comments
The similarities are striking:
Both became famous young, got weirder as they got older.
As artists, they both peaked early - not unusual with rock stars - but powered long careers through tabloid celebrity, loyal fans and a gift for showmanship.
Both wore flamboyant costumes, on and off-stage. They even came to the White House in costume.
Musically, both bridged the gap between the “black” and “white” music of their times.
On stage, both made their bodies as much of the show as their voices, Elvis with his swiveling hips and Michael with his moonwalk.
Both were obsessed with their appearances. Elvis made Priscilla dye her hair jet black to match his; he ate like a pig and had to use corsets to compensate. Michael showed the world how to go from handsome to grotesque through the miracle of cosmetic surgery. Read more
Moving the mountain
Posted on June 26, 2009 by blogger
Filed Under Tom Driscoll | 2 Comments
Reliable sources in Iran are suggesting that a possible compromise to put an end to the violent uprising that has rocked Iran for the past two weeks may be in the works. I have previously reported that the second most powerful man in Iran, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the Assembly of Experts (the body with the power to choose and dismiss the Supreme Leader) is in the city of Qom–the country’s religious center–trying to rally enough votes from his fellow Assembly members to remove the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from power. News out of Iran suggests that he may be succeeding. At the very least, it seems he may have gained enough support from the clerical establishment to force a compromise from Khamenei, one that would entail a run-off election between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main reformist rival Mir Hossein Mousavi.
It is worth realizing that, even with a title like “The Supreme Leader,” there are Iranian Constitutional checks on power and measures of accountability for the Ayatollah Khamenei. The balance is skewed towards the clerical leaders, as if the the judicial branch of our government were more ascendant. But just as it is possible to censure or impeach a Supreme Court Justice, there are means of “moving the mountain” in Iran.
About time
Posted on June 25, 2009 by blogger
Filed Under Tom Driscoll | 10 Comments
Koh was tapped for the job nearly four months ago, but has faced criticism from some conservatives for an alleged “transnational” approach to the law. But ranking Senate Foreign Relations Committee Republican Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) threw his support to Koh, in a statement Thursday: “After reading his answers to dozens of questions, attending his hearing in its entirety, meeting with him privately, and reviewing his writings, I believe that Dean Koh is unquestionably qualified to assume the post for which he is nominated.”
“Dean Koh is one of the foremost legal scholars in the country and a man of the highest intellect, integrity, and character,” SFRC chairman John Kerry (D-MA) said in a statement. “He is exactly the type of Legal Adviser we need at the State Department, and I thank my colleagues for supporting his nomination.”
We had a bit of a dust up about Mr. Koh back when he was first nominated. The news of his confirmation —with even a nod of approval from a handful of Republicans—might be a sign worthy of cautious hope. As Dahlia Lithwick writing for slate.com observed when he was first nominated —and challenged, Koh, along with, Dawn Johnsen, Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel, were “outspoken critics of Bush administration excesses.”
“And they have done so openly and unequivocally. They were willing to use strong words like torture and illegal long before most of us could bring ourselves to do so. President Obama could have named a pair of mild-mannered tax attorneys to these high government positions. Instead, he opted to pick precisely the sorts of people we most need there: fierce advocates who care deeply about these agencies and the law as it applies to them.”
Yes. Cautious hope.
Oh, and by the way…
Dawn Johnsen’s nomination still languishes in limbo.
It —is— about time.
Get Out of the Kitchen
Posted on June 25, 2009 by blogger
Filed Under Rob Meltzer | 1 Comment
“Recently we learned of a malicious desecration of a photo of the Governor and baby Trig that has become an iconic representation of a mother’s love for a special needs child,” Palin spokeswoman Meghan Stapelton said in a statement provided to CNN. “The mere idea of someone doctoring the photo of a special needs baby is appalling.”
If you can’t stand the heat…
Intent or Effect?
Posted on June 25, 2009 by blogger
Filed Under Rob Meltzer | 11 Comments
Had an interesting conversation with a former classmate of mine from lawschool about the takeover of the tobacco industry by the gummint. It appears that one of the consequences, or maybe the intent, of the legislation was to lock in the monopoly held by Phillip Morris and the other members of big tobacco, as the new law makes it very difficult to research, develop, manufacture, bring to market or advertise new tobacco products. Existing companies will be able to do so, but the new law has eliminated substantial competition. What kind of competition? Well, my colleague in California has a client who is developing, believe it or not, organic cigarettes. The idea is that the product is intended as a casual after-dinner type thing, not chain smoking carbon monoxide filled tubes of crap as if your life depends on it. The advertising and marketing campaign would essentially tout this product as something you might smoke as you sit around on your Sonoma patio or in the hot tub while sipping Chardonay with your friends. This product has been in development for a number of years, and is about ready for manufacture. Now its dead. Under the new law, new cigarette companies cannot bring a product like to market, as both the cost of submitting to the FDA and the blanket ban on advertising new products forecloses entry to market. A law that is supposed to be pro consumer will, instead, allow Big Tobacco to continue generating truly noxious and poisonous products for mass production, while precluding the introduction of better and safer products. Much like the GM bailout, and the refusal of the Obama folk to join in the organic food law this winter, the Obama folks have now enshired a new monopoly rather than foster entrepreneurism and free market competition that would benefit both the wallet and the health of the consumer.
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