December 2009 archive

Dec 24 2009

A Holiday Greeting

It’s that time of the year when I step back from my keyboard, post my usual, bilingual Happy Holidays message at my blog, and shuffle off for a week or so for an end-of-the-year break.

So this is a good time to wish all of you Happy Holidays and a healthy and prosperous New Year.  Won’t it be great to have 2009 in our rear view mirror?

This is a time of year when I want particularly to remember all of those in the US who are imprisoned.  There are about 2 million people incarcerated.  My work in real life is being a criminal defense lawyer. I’ve done this work for more than thirty years, and I’m passionate about it (that is the subject of an upcoming essay in 2010 about Gideon v. Wainwright and me).  Sometimes I fail; sometimes my clients go to prison.  Some go for very, very long periods of time.  My clients who have been convicted and imprisoned, I have discovered, are not much different from me.  But their lives are far harder. The prison walls keep them in while they serve their time, but the walls also keep me and you out, isolating those who are locked up and making it likely, unless they are our immediate family or close friends, that we might forget that they are imprisoned.  Many who are locked up are estranged from their families, and if they’re not, they might be far away from them geographically.  So this time of year increases their suffering. There can, it turns out, be extreme loneliness even in the midst of complete, institutional lack of privacy.  And suffering can be increased even by monotony. Anyway, particularly at this time of year, I hope that we can pause for just a moment and remember those who are behind the walls.  And that they are just like us.  And wish for them happiness and a cessation of their suffering.

I’m thankful that every year there are stories like this one.  I wish there were more stories like this.

Dec 24 2009

The ragged men in ragged clothes,

The silver thorn of bloody rose,

Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

Now I think I know what you tried to say to me,

How you suffered for your sanity,

How you tried to set them free.

Dec 24 2009

Random Thoughts / Open Wolfy Thread

Good morning, my dear ones.

I was sitting on the couch to type something, you know, remotely profound, when the wolf decided to come and have his morning “greet-greet” ritual. He’s a very old man now, but has a spring in his step this morning. So his head rested on my knee, until I performed my alpha duty: “Rub this ear mom, wait, wait, now that ear mom, ok this side of my face itches, and the shoulder too. Ok, now get the eye boogers out of my eyes!” Then he has to smell my hand and make sure all of the scent glands on his neck has marked me as his, and off he goes, tail up and prancing, all perfect in his world. He loves the cold, but it is getting really hard on his hips. Sometimes he engages the young stupid dogs in play and forgets he can’t really wrestle. I sometimes forget how stunningly beautiful he is. He is a McKenzie Valley Grey Wolf, with a 2nd generation strain of Arctic. After raising 3 hybrids previously, I ended up having to take him on for my breeder, who had to move when her husband died. He was to be breeding stock. He is no hybrid. Unlike the cubs I got at 6 weeks, I got him at 6 months old. He was extremely shy for a long time, though in his old age and running with the pure-dogs as pack these last years of his life has mellowed him. He has always been a sucker for women. Little girls? Jeeez. They can maul him. Little boys (other than Jake) he would just as soon hide from. Too rowdy for his taste.

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Dec 24 2009

Docudharma Times Thursday December 24




Thursday’s Headlines:

Army’s new all-terrain vehicle debuts in Afghanistan

Ben Chu: There’s a good reason why climate naysayers are failing

Taking Hold in Silicon Valley, a Ping-Pong Boom

Black men hit hard by unemployment in Milwaukee

In Yemen, tribal tradition trumps education

Iranian security forces suppress new wave of opposition protests in Isfahan

A child is reborn

Pakistani Taliban sends reinforcements to Afghanistan

The unfinished business of Romania’s revolution

Who’s killing cock robin? Activists point finger at Cyprus

Colombia’s FARC rebels kill governor, prompting calls for security shift

Dec 24 2009

Senate passes historic health care legislation

Unusual Christmas Eve vote symbolic in ongoing debate

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats passed a landmark health care bill early Thursday morning that could define President Barack Obama’s legacy and usher in near-universal medical coverage for the first time in U.S. history.

Ahead lie complex talks with the House to reach final legislation in the new year.

Just before the vote Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said “We stand on the doorstep of history. We recognize that, but much more importantly, we stand so close to making so many individual lives better.”

The vote Thursday on the bill extending health care coverage to some 31 million uninsured Americans brings Obama’s closer to achieving his top domestic priority. The White House and Congress have now come farther toward the goal of a comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. health care system than any of their predecessors.

Dec 24 2009

Imploding households rescue Treasury debt!

Well.  Never count the Americans out…for the full count.  1-2-3-4-5-6-7…just pause right there, on seven, and wait 9/10th of a sec!   Because we are getting up off the mat, and we are going kick some serious economic ass.  Adrienne!!!!  Just when you thought there were no regular buyers left to buy our Treasuries in 2009, just when you were fretting about how we’d explain to the rest of the world that we’d be defaulting on sovereign debt in 2010, well, someone did buy our Treasuries in 2009.  Check it out:

Dec 24 2009

Pique the Geek. Safe Driving for the Holidays 20091224

This is too late for the trips coming to Grandma’s House, but hopefully will be useful for the return trip.  I spent over 300 miles mulling this around my feeble excuse for a mind today, well, officially yesterday, now.

Driving in the rain poses unique difficulties and dangers. I have posted a general essay about winter driving here, but driving in the rain transcends seasons, as it may rain in any month.  My shoulders are sore and my hands cramping from the drive today.

Dec 24 2009

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

This was filmed in a single take  

Dec 24 2009

Countdown: Obama lied….

Dec 24 2009

Homeless Dead

Not Forgotten

Not forgotten: Salvation Army hosts memorial for area homeless who have died

by Kari Knutson

December 22, 2009

“Mark, age 19.” The name and age drew gasps when read Monday at the Salvation Army’s Candlelight Memorial to remember those in the La Crosse area who died while homeless or previously homeless.

Six other names were read and candles lit in their memory. An eighth was lit to honor the unknown who have died.

“Homelessness is much more prevalent in La Crosse than people think,” said Kathy Bolling, emergency homeless shelter case manager.

Dec 24 2009

Five Steps Forward

Cross-Posted at Wild Wild Left; Originally posted at Jay's Right of Assembly

I have been a little puzzled by the Progressive Bloggerati's recent anger at Obama.  Given Obama's unique background in community organizing and international culture, we had a legitimate hope that he might turn out to be more than he promised — but it was never more than a hope.  

So Obama turns out to be exactly what he promised, no more.  He'll sign anything decent that comes out of Congress — which is a HUGE difference from the prior resident (who promised to veto anything decent that came out of Congress).  Obama has also mostly appointed decent people into the federal administrative and judicial apparatus, whereas the prior resident mostly appointed cronies and crooks. HUGE difference, which matters every day.  

For smart progressive strategists, that's pretty much the end of the analysis. Not because Obama couldn't be better, but because the Presidency is no longer an effective leverage point for us.  We can make much more progress by fixing the MORE broken parts of the political system, and then using Obama opportunistically to our advantage, than we can by beating on him for incremental improvements.  

So I was puzzled by all the anger, which is not only a waste of energy, but also suggests a misapprehension of reality.  Happily, Buhdydharma, nailed the phenomenon in today's piece "Obama Can't Save You…Remedial Politics."  Buhdy said it better than I would have.  

So here is what I think is the big-picture context that explains how we are to deal with Obama, and similar imminent disappointments.

Dec 24 2009

Magic 8-ball says affirmative, negative,and non-committal things.

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Pictured above: Tim Geithner on NPR with Michelle Norris.

NORRIS: You know that businesses are spending again. The administration has been asking the banks to try to free up more money for small business in particular. And I want you to help me understand something because on one hand the administration is telling the bankers that they need to take fewer risks, that they need to deleverage, that they need to have higher capital reserve. And at the same time you’re also telling them that they need to lend more money. Those two things don’t seem to square.

Sec. GEITHNER: It is very important that we work with Congress to pass legislation that can put in place financial reforms that can prevent the next crisis. So it’s pretty important in the future we build a more stable financial system. We constrain risk taking in the future. But right now the real risk we face is that banks are not lending enough and not going to provide the capital businesses need to grow for the economy to strengthen going forward.

NORRIS: So it’s okay for them to take risks right now?

Sec. GEITHNER: Absolutely. Right now the real risk is that the pendulum having been too soft and easy on the lending side. Right now the risk is that banks overcorrect or that supervisors overcorrect. And that’s something we need to work against, lean against, because, again, the strength in recovery will depend in part on credit being available to businesses across the county.

What a confidence booster.  Geithner doesn’t see any job growth until Spring–we just lost half a million more jobs last week.  His plan has been to take over toxic gambling losses in exchange for cash so the banks have no need to deleverage and can take more risks.

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