2008: Rod, Eliot, Yuck
During the presidential contest between an African-American from Chicago and a plumber from Toledo, eros reared its beguiling head.
George F. Will
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Jan 5, 2009
Never a stickler for rhetorical ruffles and flourishes, the president simply said: "This sucker could go down." He was referring to the economy, which took the president's party down with it. In the second quarter, General Motors lost $181,000 a minute. Would you buy a used car company? Didn't think so. But in 2009, you probably will, if you are a taxpayer.
By 2010, you will be able to buy the plug-in electric Chevrolet Volt. Although it is designed to reduce America's dependency on foreign oil, a GM spokesman said: "There is a fear that if we position this as a 'pro-American' car, it will upset some of the environmentally conscious crowd." Heaven forfend.
If 2008 were not divisible by four, this would have been The Year of Gen. David Petraeus. During the presidential contest between an African-American from Chicago and a plumber from Toledo, eros reared its beguiling head, so: Coming soon to a Cineplex near you, "Republicans in Love," a romantic comedy about conservatives who advocate extravagant presidential powers and who this autumn favored putting the governor of a national park (the federal government owns 63 percent of Alaska) in close proximity to those powers.
Cuba being politically primitive, Fidel Castro yielded power to his brother. Caroline Kennedy, because she is a president's daughter, sought the gift of the Senate seat from New York that Hillary Clinton got because she married a president, but Andrew Cuomo, son of a New York governor, might get it, because this is a democracy.
Thanks to Rod Blagojevich, Eliot Spitzer, a.k.a. Client Nine, was only the second-most embarrassing governor. Actually, third-most, considering the lurid mismanagement of California. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, like Mrs. Jellyby in Dickens's "Bleak House," practiced "telescopic philanthropy." She neglected her chaotic family so she could devote herself to improving conditions in distant Borrioboola-Gha. With California chin-deep in red ink, Schwarzenegger summoned an international conference to tweak the planet's thermostat.
A San Francisco teacher's first graders went on a field trip to witness her lesbian wedding. In nearby Hayward, a teacher asked her kindergartners to sign cards pledging "not to use anti-LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] language or slurs." For some reason, Californians voted to define marriage as between a man and a woman. "This is not a matter for ridicule, this is serious," said Australia's health minister, whose department urged teachers not to mark grades with red pens because that color "can be seen as aggressive."
Peanut allergy had its 15 minutes as a cause of public health hysteria, long enough for the vigilant schools of Union County, N.C., to ban PB&J sandwiches. In New Haven, Conn., an eighth grader was suspended, removed as class vice president and banned from a school honors dinner because he bought a banned substance from a classmate. The substance was Skittles, the fruit-flavored candy. A food fascist explained that candy sales violate the school system's wellness policy. In Prince William County, Va., police were called when Randy Castro, 7, a first grader, became the subject of an incident report titled "Sexual Touching Against Student, Offensive." While still 6 he had smacked a classmate's bottom. Residents of New York City are becoming obese almost three times faster than other Americans, which is probably partly explained by nanny-mayor Michael Bloomberg's jihad against smoking. Compulsory calisthenics—"Central Park at 6:30 a.m. Be there or be fined!"—cannot be far off.
Even with a bum knee Tiger Woods was the best golfer. No one notified Michael Phelps that it was considered evolution when our Homo sapiens predecessors crawled out of the water.
Death, as it must to all, came to Jack Lucas, 80, who lied his way into the Marines at age 14, and on Iwo Jima, six days after his 17th birthday, won the Medal of Honor, becoming the youngest winner since the Civil War. Lazare Monticello, 110, was the last French infantryman from the War to End All Wars, which ended 90 years and hundreds of wars ago. Mildred Loving, 68, was a black woman who also was part Cherokee and Rappahannock Indian. Like another Virginian of color, Pocahontas, she married a white man. In 1967 she was the plaintiff in the wonderfully named Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, which struck down miscegenation laws. A lower court had upheld Virginia's Racial Integrity Act on the ground that if God had wanted the races to mix He would not have put them on different continents. That court did not explain why He allowed the slave trade to interfere with His plan.
"Shoot pool, Fast Eddie," said an irritated Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason) in "The Hustler" (1961). "I'm shootin' pool, Fats. When I miss, you can shoot," replied Fast Eddie Felsen (Paul Newman, then 36, in the movie that made him a star). Newman, 83, who rarely missed, will be. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, one of the slayers of the Soviet Union, was 89, seven years older than an American soulmate, the principal maker of the American conservative movement, William F. Buckley, whose harpsichord now makes Heavenly music among the harps.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/176299
© 2009
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Effects of Socialization
An interesting premise. How true is this? How much do we do for ourselves, and how much do we fall into a situation that is to our benefit? What role does this research play in our school systems?
From the New York Times
December 16, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Lost in the Crowd
By DAVID BROOKS
All day long, you are affected by large forces. Genes influence your intelligence and willingness to take risks. Social dynamics unconsciously shape your choices. Instantaneous perceptions set off neural reactions in your head without you even being aware of them.
Over the past few years, scientists have made a series of exciting discoveries about how these deep patterns influence daily life. Nobody has done more to bring these discoveries to public attention than Malcolm Gladwell.
Gladwell’s important new book, “Outliers,” seems at first glance to be a description of exceptionally talented individuals. But in fact, it’s another book about deep patterns. Exceptionally successful people are not lone pioneers who created their own success, he argues. They are the lucky beneficiaries of social arrangements.
As Gladwell told Jason Zengerle of New York magazine: “The book’s saying, ‘Great people aren’t so great. Their own greatness is not the salient fact about them. It’s the kind of fortunate mix of opportunities they’ve been given.’ ”
Gladwell’s noncontroversial claim is that some people have more opportunities than other people. Bill Gates was lucky to go to a great private school with its own computer at the dawn of the information revolution. Gladwell’s more interesting claim is that social forces largely explain why some people work harder when presented with those opportunities.
Chinese people work hard because they grew up in a culture built around rice farming. Tending a rice paddy required working up to 3,000 hours a year, and it left a cultural legacy that prizes industriousness. Many upper-middle-class American kids are raised in an atmosphere of “concerted cultivation,” which inculcates a fanatical devotion to meritocratic striving.
In Gladwell’s account, individual traits play a smaller role in explaining success while social circumstances play a larger one. As he told Zengerle, “I am explicitly turning my back on, I think, these kind of empty models that say, you know, you can be whatever you want to be. Well, actually, you can’t be whatever you want to be. The world decides what you can and can’t be.”
As usual, Gladwell intelligently captures a larger tendency of thought — the growing appreciation of the power of cultural patterns, social contagions, memes. His book is being received by reviewers as a call to action for the Obama age. It could lead policy makers to finally reject policies built on the assumption that people are coldly rational utility-maximizing individuals. It could cause them to focus more on policies that foster relationships, social bonds and cultures of achievement.
Yet, I can’t help but feel that Gladwell and others who share his emphasis are getting swept away by the coolness of the new discoveries. They’ve lost sight of the point at which the influence of social forces ends and the influence of the self-initiating individual begins.
Most successful people begin with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so. They were often showered by good fortune, but relied at crucial moments upon achievements of individual will.
Most successful people also have a phenomenal ability to consciously focus their attention. We know from experiments with subjects as diverse as obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers and Buddhist monks that people who can self-consciously focus attention have the power to rewire their brains.
Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them. They can choose from the patterns in the world and lengthen their time horizons. This individual power leads to others. It leads to self-control, the ability to formulate strategies in order to resist impulses. If forced to choose, we would all rather our children be poor with self-control than rich without it.
It leads to resilience, the ability to persevere with an idea even when all the influences in the world say it can’t be done. A common story among entrepreneurs is that people told them they were too stupid to do something, and they set out to prove the jerks wrong.
It leads to creativity. Individuals who can focus attention have the ability to hold a subject or problem in their mind long enough to see it anew.
Gladwell’s social determinism is a useful corrective to the Homo economicus view of human nature. It’s also pleasantly egalitarian. The less successful are not less worthy, they’re just less lucky. But it slights the centrality of individual character and individual creativity. And it doesn’t fully explain the genuine greatness of humanity’s outliers. As the classical philosophers understood, examples of individual greatness inspire achievement more reliably than any other form of education. If Gladwell can reduce William Shakespeare to a mere product of social forces, I’ll buy 25 more copies of “Outliers” and give them away in Times Square.
From the New York Times
December 16, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Lost in the Crowd
By DAVID BROOKS
All day long, you are affected by large forces. Genes influence your intelligence and willingness to take risks. Social dynamics unconsciously shape your choices. Instantaneous perceptions set off neural reactions in your head without you even being aware of them.
Over the past few years, scientists have made a series of exciting discoveries about how these deep patterns influence daily life. Nobody has done more to bring these discoveries to public attention than Malcolm Gladwell.
Gladwell’s important new book, “Outliers,” seems at first glance to be a description of exceptionally talented individuals. But in fact, it’s another book about deep patterns. Exceptionally successful people are not lone pioneers who created their own success, he argues. They are the lucky beneficiaries of social arrangements.
As Gladwell told Jason Zengerle of New York magazine: “The book’s saying, ‘Great people aren’t so great. Their own greatness is not the salient fact about them. It’s the kind of fortunate mix of opportunities they’ve been given.’ ”
Gladwell’s noncontroversial claim is that some people have more opportunities than other people. Bill Gates was lucky to go to a great private school with its own computer at the dawn of the information revolution. Gladwell’s more interesting claim is that social forces largely explain why some people work harder when presented with those opportunities.
Chinese people work hard because they grew up in a culture built around rice farming. Tending a rice paddy required working up to 3,000 hours a year, and it left a cultural legacy that prizes industriousness. Many upper-middle-class American kids are raised in an atmosphere of “concerted cultivation,” which inculcates a fanatical devotion to meritocratic striving.
In Gladwell’s account, individual traits play a smaller role in explaining success while social circumstances play a larger one. As he told Zengerle, “I am explicitly turning my back on, I think, these kind of empty models that say, you know, you can be whatever you want to be. Well, actually, you can’t be whatever you want to be. The world decides what you can and can’t be.”
As usual, Gladwell intelligently captures a larger tendency of thought — the growing appreciation of the power of cultural patterns, social contagions, memes. His book is being received by reviewers as a call to action for the Obama age. It could lead policy makers to finally reject policies built on the assumption that people are coldly rational utility-maximizing individuals. It could cause them to focus more on policies that foster relationships, social bonds and cultures of achievement.
Yet, I can’t help but feel that Gladwell and others who share his emphasis are getting swept away by the coolness of the new discoveries. They’ve lost sight of the point at which the influence of social forces ends and the influence of the self-initiating individual begins.
Most successful people begin with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so. They were often showered by good fortune, but relied at crucial moments upon achievements of individual will.
Most successful people also have a phenomenal ability to consciously focus their attention. We know from experiments with subjects as diverse as obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers and Buddhist monks that people who can self-consciously focus attention have the power to rewire their brains.
Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them. They can choose from the patterns in the world and lengthen their time horizons. This individual power leads to others. It leads to self-control, the ability to formulate strategies in order to resist impulses. If forced to choose, we would all rather our children be poor with self-control than rich without it.
It leads to resilience, the ability to persevere with an idea even when all the influences in the world say it can’t be done. A common story among entrepreneurs is that people told them they were too stupid to do something, and they set out to prove the jerks wrong.
It leads to creativity. Individuals who can focus attention have the ability to hold a subject or problem in their mind long enough to see it anew.
Gladwell’s social determinism is a useful corrective to the Homo economicus view of human nature. It’s also pleasantly egalitarian. The less successful are not less worthy, they’re just less lucky. But it slights the centrality of individual character and individual creativity. And it doesn’t fully explain the genuine greatness of humanity’s outliers. As the classical philosophers understood, examples of individual greatness inspire achievement more reliably than any other form of education. If Gladwell can reduce William Shakespeare to a mere product of social forces, I’ll buy 25 more copies of “Outliers” and give them away in Times Square.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
A tie in to Mel Gibson's "Gallipoli"
This is a selection from Military History, describing the failure of the attack at Gallipoli. Gibson's early career involved a movie with the same name. The movie is decent, and this should help you get a better idea of the battle.
The Worst Battlefield Blunders: Five Battles That Ended Badly
Posted By HistoryNet Staff On 9/27/2007 @ 9:58 am In Military History 10 Comments
Imagine how much longer and bloodier World War II might have been had Admiral Yamamoto not filled the decks of his vulnerable carriers at Midway with fully fueled airplanes awaiting ordnance. What if Hitler, despite his anger at the bombing of Berlin, hadn’t switched tactics from downing Spitfires to uselessly attacking London?
Battlefield blunders can be as decisive as brilliant tactics, whether they suddenly advance tribal factions toward nationhood, punish a proud military unaccustomed to losing or temporarily swing the balance of power in an utterly unexpected direction.
That said, following are five losers who might have wished for a do-over.
Hamilton at Gallipoli
During World War I, German General Erich Ludendorff famously observed, “The English fight
like lions.” “Yes,” a staff officer famously replied, “but they are led by donkeys.”
British General Sir Ian Hamilton might not have been a full-fledged ass, but he was certainly a bumbling Ferdinand the bull—shy, courteous and overly accommodating. Unfortunately, Lord Kitchener, Britain’s Secretary of State for War, gave him command of the 1915 invasion of Gallipoli—the amphibious landings by British, French and ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) troops intended to take Turkey, a German ally, out of the war. The campaign demanded an assertive, tactically brilliant, take-charge commander. Instead, the Allies got a kindly uncle who really didn’t want to interfere with his brigadier nephews.
British General Sir Ian Hamilton might not have been a full-fledged ass, but he was certainly a bumbling Ferdinand the bull—shy, courteous and overly accommodating. Unfortunately, Lord Kitchener, Britain’s Secretary of State for War, gave him command of the 1915 invasion of Gallipoli—the amphibious landings by British, French and ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) troops intended to take Turkey, a German ally, out of the war. The campaign demanded an assertive, tactically brilliant, take-charge commander. Instead, the Allies got a kindly uncle who really didn’t want to interfere with his brigadier nephews.
Not that a promising young Winston Churchill had done any better. As First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915, he proposed that a task force of 18 aging battleships charge through the Dardanelles, the narrow 38-mile-long strait that led toward the Turkish capital at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul). Forts flanked the high-bluffed Gallipoli Peninsula west of the strait, so Churchill’s strategy was akin to taking a convoy of vintage Cadillacs on a thunder run through central Baghdad. The British lost five battleships, mainly to mines but also to Turkish coast artillery.
This should have been a hint, not that Gallipoli was impregnable, for the Turks really didn’t have a modern army or much in the way of good artillery, but that the commanding terrain made a frontal attack potentially suicidal. Indeed, the Greeks—the Turks’ neighbors and longtime adversaries—had formulated a war plan in case the Gallipoli Peninsula ever needed to be attacked, and it called for 150,000 men. Lord Kitchener scoffed at that estimate. Johnny Turk would cut and run at the first sign of the Allies, he insisted, and half as many troops would do just fine.
Thus, early on the morning of April 25, 1915, Hamilton launched his enormously ambitious amphibious landing. An outline of the beachhead assault might read like a description of the D-Day landings were it not for the absence of any specialized landing craft. Armored assault boats did exist back in England, but they remained a well-guarded secret; heaven forfend invaders would use them and thus spill the British beans. Instead, huge warships towed ponderous strings of cockleshells—essentially lifeboats—toward shore, then split the strings and transferred the towing job to slow, shallow-draft launches. Oarsmen stroked the final few yards onto the beaches.
The action most often memorialized in paintings of the landing was the beaching of the old steamer River Clyde to allow soldiers to emerge from its sally ports (doors along the hull at the waterline) and stroll ashore on gangplanks. Unfortunately, it was equally easy for Turkish machine gunners on the heights to pick off troopers one at a time as they popped from the sally ports like mechanical ducks in a shooting gallery. Of the first 200 soldiers to step from the ships, just 21 made it to the beach alive.
General Hamilton chose the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth, the grandest ship available, as his command vessel. While it made sense to oversee the battle from somewhere offshore, an oceangoing capital ship engaged in long-range bombardment wasn’t the ideal platform. Hamilton was too far from the beaches to see what was going on (chaos, for the most part), and his corps commanders were also literally and figuratively adrift during the crucial early hours of the invasion. Communications both ashore between units and from ship to shore ran the gamut from primitive to nonexistent, so junior officers on the beach were largely left to their own devices.
Two thousand Brits had landed at a providentially undefended spot called Y Beach and climbed the cliffs unopposed. Having nothing else to do, no commanders to enact Plan B and no direction from Hamilton, they simply hunkered down and boiled water for cuppas. They heard distant firing but had no idea it signified the slaughter of ANZACs at the beachhead to their north. While the Turkish defenders were relatively few in number, they commanded the high ground with machine guns. A flanking maneuver by 2,000 Tommies could have ended the battle in minutes, but it was not to be.
Two thousand Brits had landed at a providentially undefended spot called Y Beach and climbed the cliffs unopposed. Having nothing else to do, no commanders to enact Plan B and no direction from Hamilton, they simply hunkered down and boiled water for cuppas. They heard distant firing but had no idea it signified the slaughter of ANZACs at the beachhead to their north. While the Turkish defenders were relatively few in number, they commanded the high ground with machine guns. A flanking maneuver by 2,000 Tommies could have ended the battle in minutes, but it was not to be.
To this day ANZACs haven’t forgiven the English for “sittin’ on their arses brewing tea and havin’ a smoke” while Aussies and Kiwis who had never before experienced war were dying by the hundreds only hours away.
Due to Hamilton’s haphazard planning, the beachheads ANZAC forces were able to secure were cramped and highly vulnerable. In fact, British corps commander General Sir William Birdwood suggested an immediate evacuation, to which Hamilton replied: “There is nothing for it but to dig yourselves right in and stick it out….You have got through the difficult business, now you have only to dig, dig, dig until you are safe.” (Australians have since borne the fond nickname “Diggers.”) At one point, the clueless Hamilton wired Kitchener, “Thanks to the weather and the wonderfully fine spirit of our troops, all continues to go well.”
After eight months of pointless trench warfare, Hamilton’s forces evacuated the bloody beaches. Half a million men on both sides had died for nothing in a true standoff— combined British and French losses numbered just 700 men more than Turkish losses. Each year on April 25, the invasion anniversary, Australia and New Zealand celebrate ANZAC Day, marking their painful emergence into true nationhood.
Cheney Records Conflict
Sep 9, 2008 1:00 pm US/Pacific
Watchdog Group Sues Cheney Over Records
WASHINGTON (AP) ―
A watchdog group sued Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday, seeking a court order that he comply with the Presidential Records Act.The group that sued is concerned that Cheney will argue that his records are not subject to the post-Watergate law aimed at safeguarding White House records for eventual release to the public.The lawsuit by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington stems from Cheney's position that his office is not part of the executive branch of government.A spokesman for Cheney, Jamie Hennigan, said the office of the vice president follows the Presidential Records Act and will continue to follow the requirements of the law. He said that includes turning over vice presidential records to the National Archives at the end of the term."Given the unlawful policies and directives of the defendants, there is an imminent threat that even before the end of this administration, Vice President Cheney and the OVP will destroy, transfer, or otherwise dispose of many of the vice president's records under the theory they are personal records and therefore not covered" by the law, the lawsuit stated.The lawsuit details Bush administration actions that raise questions over whether the White House will turn over records created by Cheney and his staff to the National Archives in January.President Bush issued an order in 2001 saying that the Presidential Records Act applies to the "executive records" of the vice president.In 2003, Cheney asserted that the office of the vice president is not an entity within the executive branch.On four occasions, the vice president's office has refused to comply with an Ethics in Government Act requirement that all executive branch agencies file reports on any privately paid travel. Separately, the vice president's office has refused to submit its staff list to Congress.Two months ago, Cheney chief of staff David Addington told Congress the vice president belongs to neither the executive nor legislative branch of government, but rather is attached by the Constitution to Congress. The vice president presides over the Senate.CREW also is suing the National Archives, which said recently that legislative records of the vice president subject to the Presidential Records Act are the vice president's personal records.Others joining CREW in the lawsuit are two noted historians and three organizations of historians and archivists.The lawsuit is before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, an appointee of President Clinton.Separately, 32 historians wrote congressional leaders saying that the Presidential Records Act should be strengthened to include some kind of enforcement mechanism for violations. The historians cited the White House e-mail controversy involving millions of apparently missing emails.The White House is missing as many as 225 days of e-mail dating back to 2003 and there is little if any likelihood a recovery effort will be completed by the time the Bush administration leaves office, according to an internal White House draft document obtained by The Associated Press.
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Watchdog Group Sues Cheney Over Records
WASHINGTON (AP) ―
A watchdog group sued Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday, seeking a court order that he comply with the Presidential Records Act.The group that sued is concerned that Cheney will argue that his records are not subject to the post-Watergate law aimed at safeguarding White House records for eventual release to the public.The lawsuit by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington stems from Cheney's position that his office is not part of the executive branch of government.A spokesman for Cheney, Jamie Hennigan, said the office of the vice president follows the Presidential Records Act and will continue to follow the requirements of the law. He said that includes turning over vice presidential records to the National Archives at the end of the term."Given the unlawful policies and directives of the defendants, there is an imminent threat that even before the end of this administration, Vice President Cheney and the OVP will destroy, transfer, or otherwise dispose of many of the vice president's records under the theory they are personal records and therefore not covered" by the law, the lawsuit stated.The lawsuit details Bush administration actions that raise questions over whether the White House will turn over records created by Cheney and his staff to the National Archives in January.President Bush issued an order in 2001 saying that the Presidential Records Act applies to the "executive records" of the vice president.In 2003, Cheney asserted that the office of the vice president is not an entity within the executive branch.On four occasions, the vice president's office has refused to comply with an Ethics in Government Act requirement that all executive branch agencies file reports on any privately paid travel. Separately, the vice president's office has refused to submit its staff list to Congress.Two months ago, Cheney chief of staff David Addington told Congress the vice president belongs to neither the executive nor legislative branch of government, but rather is attached by the Constitution to Congress. The vice president presides over the Senate.CREW also is suing the National Archives, which said recently that legislative records of the vice president subject to the Presidential Records Act are the vice president's personal records.Others joining CREW in the lawsuit are two noted historians and three organizations of historians and archivists.The lawsuit is before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, an appointee of President Clinton.Separately, 32 historians wrote congressional leaders saying that the Presidential Records Act should be strengthened to include some kind of enforcement mechanism for violations. The historians cited the White House e-mail controversy involving millions of apparently missing emails.The White House is missing as many as 225 days of e-mail dating back to 2003 and there is little if any likelihood a recovery effort will be completed by the time the Bush administration leaves office, according to an internal White House draft document obtained by The Associated Press.
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Historians Sue Dick Cheney
Historian David McCullough has signed on to this suit, as listed in the February issue of American History Magazine. What are the implications for hisotry if the Vice President refuses to turn over his documents?
Lawsuit to Ask That Cheney's Papers Be Made Public
By Christopher LeeWashington Post Staff WriterMonday, September 8, 2008; A04
Months before the Bush administration ends, historians and open-government advocates are concerned that Vice President Cheney, who has long bristled at requirements to disclose his records, will destroy or withhold key documents that illustrate his role in forming U.S. policy for the past 7 1/2 years.
In a preemptive move, several of them have agreed to join the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in asking a federal judge to declare that Cheney's records are covered by the Presidential Records Act of 1978 and cannot be destroyed, taken or withheld without proper review.
The group expects to file the lawsuit today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It will name Cheney, the executive offices of the president and vice president, and the National Archives and chief archivist Allen Weinstein as defendants.
The goal, proponents say, is to protect a treasure trove of information about national security, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, domestic wiretapping, energy policy, and other major issues that could be hidden from the public if Cheney adheres to his view that he is not part of the executive branch. Extending the argument, scholars say, Cheney could assert that he is not required to make his papers public after leaving office. Access to the documents is crucial because he is widely considered to be the most influential vice president in U.S. history, they note.
"I'm concerned that they may not be preserved. Whether they've been zapped already, we don't know," said Stanley I. Kutler, an emeritus professor and constitutional scholar at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Former vice president Walter F. Mondale, whose papers are being declassified and shipped to the Minnesota Historical Society, said the fate of Cheney's records bears watching.
"I think you'd have to be very worried about it," said Mondale, who is not a party to the lawsuit. "Under Bush and Cheney, they've used every opportunity to assert executive privilege."
Cheney has not disclosed his plans for his papers, nor has he argued publicly that any are exempt from the 1978 law. Congress passed the law after the Watergate scandal to ensure that the country's highest elected officials preserve their papers for public review.
"The Office of the Vice President currently follows the Presidential Records Act and will continue to follow the requirements of the law, which includes turning over vice presidential records to the National Archives at the end of the term," Cheney spokesman Jamie Hennigan said in an e-mail.
Kutler and others, including the American Historical Association and the Society of American Archivists, are not reassured. Their lawsuit contends that President Bush sought to improperly narrow the scope of the records law in a 2001 executive order that declares, in part, that the statute "applies to the executive records of the Vice President."
Scholars say "executive records" is a term that is not found in the original act, and that seemingly opens the door to withholding some documents on the grounds that they are "non-executive" records -- legislative records, for instance. It raised red flags because Cheney has frequently argued that his office is not part of the executive branch but rather is "attached" to the legislative branch by virtue of the vice president's role as president of the Senate.
"I think this has been in the works since then, but nobody really focused on it," said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for the ethics group.
The group wants the Archives to abandon its interpretation that legislative records of vice presidents are personal property and not covered by the presidential records law.
Gary M. Stern, general counsel for the Archives, said he has shared the group's concerns with the White House.
"We have no reason to think that anything will happen differently with this vice president than has happened with any other," Stern said, "which is, the records that they create in their White House office and with their White House staff will come to us as vice presidential records under PRA."
Former vice president Al Gore's papers, for instance, are maintained at an Archives facility in Washington, he said.
Martin J. Sherwin, a history professor at George Mason University and a plaintiff in the case, said it will be impossible to measure Cheney's influence without access to the records.
"It horrifies me as a citizen to think our government can operate in total secrecy during the administration and then, after the administration, remain in secrecy," he said.
For years, Cheney has resisted revealing any aspect of the inner workings of his office; he has shielded information such as the names of industry executives who advised his energy task force, his travel costs and details, and Secret Service logs of visitors to his office and residence. Since 2003, his office has refused to comply with an executive order requiring entities in the executive branch to file annual reports on their possession of classified data, at one point blocking an inspection by officials from the Archives.
The Presidential Records Act, inspired by Nixon's attempt to withhold from Congress and perhaps destroy some of his records and tapes after Watergate, first applied to the Reagan administration. For the first time, it provided for the preservation of vice presidential records.
The law established a process for providing public access to presidential and vice presidential records through the Freedom of Information Act, beginning five years after an administration ends. Presidents and vice presidents can restrict access to certain records, notably those involving national security, for up to 12 years.
Archives officials say they have met with White House staff members to discuss the records transfer. The agency has leased a 60,000-square-foot building near Dallas to archive records temporarily until Bush's presidential library is completed at Southern Methodist University.
"There have been no red flags that have gone up for us about records-management procedures and getting ready to turn records over to us," said Susan Cooper, an Archives spokeswoman.
Joel K. Goldstein, a constitutional scholar and expert on the vice presidency at the St. Louis University School of Law, said Cheney faces a tough sell if he argues that many of his documents are not "executive records."
"When a vice president is sitting there in the West Wing and participating at the highest levels in the work of the executive branch, and when the main reason somebody like Vice President Cheney wants to be vice president is to help drive the car, it's a little bit anomalous to say you're not part of the executive branch," said Goldstein, who is not part of the lawsuit.
Staff writer Lyndsey Layton contributed to this report.
Lawsuit to Ask That Cheney's Papers Be Made Public
By Christopher LeeWashington Post Staff WriterMonday, September 8, 2008; A04
Months before the Bush administration ends, historians and open-government advocates are concerned that Vice President Cheney, who has long bristled at requirements to disclose his records, will destroy or withhold key documents that illustrate his role in forming U.S. policy for the past 7 1/2 years.
In a preemptive move, several of them have agreed to join the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in asking a federal judge to declare that Cheney's records are covered by the Presidential Records Act of 1978 and cannot be destroyed, taken or withheld without proper review.
The group expects to file the lawsuit today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It will name Cheney, the executive offices of the president and vice president, and the National Archives and chief archivist Allen Weinstein as defendants.
The goal, proponents say, is to protect a treasure trove of information about national security, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, domestic wiretapping, energy policy, and other major issues that could be hidden from the public if Cheney adheres to his view that he is not part of the executive branch. Extending the argument, scholars say, Cheney could assert that he is not required to make his papers public after leaving office. Access to the documents is crucial because he is widely considered to be the most influential vice president in U.S. history, they note.
"I'm concerned that they may not be preserved. Whether they've been zapped already, we don't know," said Stanley I. Kutler, an emeritus professor and constitutional scholar at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Former vice president Walter F. Mondale, whose papers are being declassified and shipped to the Minnesota Historical Society, said the fate of Cheney's records bears watching.
"I think you'd have to be very worried about it," said Mondale, who is not a party to the lawsuit. "Under Bush and Cheney, they've used every opportunity to assert executive privilege."
Cheney has not disclosed his plans for his papers, nor has he argued publicly that any are exempt from the 1978 law. Congress passed the law after the Watergate scandal to ensure that the country's highest elected officials preserve their papers for public review.
"The Office of the Vice President currently follows the Presidential Records Act and will continue to follow the requirements of the law, which includes turning over vice presidential records to the National Archives at the end of the term," Cheney spokesman Jamie Hennigan said in an e-mail.
Kutler and others, including the American Historical Association and the Society of American Archivists, are not reassured. Their lawsuit contends that President Bush sought to improperly narrow the scope of the records law in a 2001 executive order that declares, in part, that the statute "applies to the executive records of the Vice President."
Scholars say "executive records" is a term that is not found in the original act, and that seemingly opens the door to withholding some documents on the grounds that they are "non-executive" records -- legislative records, for instance. It raised red flags because Cheney has frequently argued that his office is not part of the executive branch but rather is "attached" to the legislative branch by virtue of the vice president's role as president of the Senate.
"I think this has been in the works since then, but nobody really focused on it," said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for the ethics group.
The group wants the Archives to abandon its interpretation that legislative records of vice presidents are personal property and not covered by the presidential records law.
Gary M. Stern, general counsel for the Archives, said he has shared the group's concerns with the White House.
"We have no reason to think that anything will happen differently with this vice president than has happened with any other," Stern said, "which is, the records that they create in their White House office and with their White House staff will come to us as vice presidential records under PRA."
Former vice president Al Gore's papers, for instance, are maintained at an Archives facility in Washington, he said.
Martin J. Sherwin, a history professor at George Mason University and a plaintiff in the case, said it will be impossible to measure Cheney's influence without access to the records.
"It horrifies me as a citizen to think our government can operate in total secrecy during the administration and then, after the administration, remain in secrecy," he said.
For years, Cheney has resisted revealing any aspect of the inner workings of his office; he has shielded information such as the names of industry executives who advised his energy task force, his travel costs and details, and Secret Service logs of visitors to his office and residence. Since 2003, his office has refused to comply with an executive order requiring entities in the executive branch to file annual reports on their possession of classified data, at one point blocking an inspection by officials from the Archives.
The Presidential Records Act, inspired by Nixon's attempt to withhold from Congress and perhaps destroy some of his records and tapes after Watergate, first applied to the Reagan administration. For the first time, it provided for the preservation of vice presidential records.
The law established a process for providing public access to presidential and vice presidential records through the Freedom of Information Act, beginning five years after an administration ends. Presidents and vice presidents can restrict access to certain records, notably those involving national security, for up to 12 years.
Archives officials say they have met with White House staff members to discuss the records transfer. The agency has leased a 60,000-square-foot building near Dallas to archive records temporarily until Bush's presidential library is completed at Southern Methodist University.
"There have been no red flags that have gone up for us about records-management procedures and getting ready to turn records over to us," said Susan Cooper, an Archives spokeswoman.
Joel K. Goldstein, a constitutional scholar and expert on the vice presidency at the St. Louis University School of Law, said Cheney faces a tough sell if he argues that many of his documents are not "executive records."
"When a vice president is sitting there in the West Wing and participating at the highest levels in the work of the executive branch, and when the main reason somebody like Vice President Cheney wants to be vice president is to help drive the car, it's a little bit anomalous to say you're not part of the executive branch," said Goldstein, who is not part of the lawsuit.
Staff writer Lyndsey Layton contributed to this report.
How America Can Maintain Its Edge
How America Can Maintain Its Edge
By Simon Winchester
Publication Date: 12/21/2008
Parade Magazine
At an iron-ore mine in western Australia, I once stood and watched as a young man worked an excavator to claw bucketfuls of deep-red ore from the ground. For a project, I wanted to follow the ore on its journey from raw material to finished product. So I went on a train that took it to a port, then traveled on the Chinese ship that carried it to Japan. There it was refined into steel ingots, which were sent to a factory outside Tokyo and fashioned into a Toyota Corolla. Next I got on a mighty ship carrying thousands of Toyota imports across the Pacific Ocean to Seattle.
The car made from my ore--small, red, sporty--was unloaded in Washington and put on a truck. I rode with it to a dealer in San Francisco, where I bought the car. Then I drove it to a port and put it, and me as well, onto a Norwegian passenger liner bound for Australia. Ten days later, I unloaded and drove the car to the cliff face and to the young excavator operator.
"Here," I said to him, pointing at the car. "This is what your bucketful of iron ore made." He was astonished. Astonished that I had come back to see him. Astonished that his pile of ore had been made into a car. But most astonished of all to learn that so many people--Chinese, Japanese, American, Norwegian--from so many countries had been involved in the process. "I guess we are all linked," he said. "Even if we never think we are."
Americans are coming to this realization--that we are connected in so many invisible little ways--more and more often these days. Every week, it seems, we're greeted with news of more melting ice in the Arctic, a result of carbon emanating from the pipes and smokestacks in this country and others. In September, the U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers was the first major firm toppled in a financial crisis that has afflicted economies and workers from Iceland to Dubai. And, for any lingering doubters of globalization's reach, the election of Barack Obama--a man whose childhood was shaped by connections to Hawaii, Kenya, and Indonesia--provided the ultimate proof.
Nonetheless, the degree to which Americans know about and travel around the world is surprisingly low. Thirty percent of Americans possess a valid passport, according to State Department figures. Despite our immigrant roots, just 10% of U.S. citizens can speak a second language. In contrast, more than half of the people in the 27 nations of the European Union are bilingual, and 28% are trilingual. And while America is home of the world-famous, yellow-bordered National Geographic magazine, 63% of U.S. students surveyed in a 2006 poll could not find Iraq--where their troops are fighting--on a map. In addition, 75% had no idea where Israel--the largest recipient of America's foreign aid--was, and 75% had no idea that Indonesia was an Islamic nation (in fact, the world's biggest).
The U.S. Department of Education recently pinpointed the languages most vital to this country's future: Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Hindi, and Urdu. Less than 1% of high school students are studying any of these. More specifically, around 30,000 to 50,000 American students--high school and college--are learning Chinese. But in China, where English is mandatory for students from third grade onward, at least 150 million students currently are becoming fluent in our language.
"The U.S. will become less competitive in the global economy because of a shortage of strong foreign-language and international-studies programs at the elementary, high school, and college levels," stated one of the findings in a 2006 report from the nonprofit Committee for Economic Development. "Our diplomatic efforts often have been hampered by a lack of cultural awareness."
Almost all events, no matter how far away, have an effect on us. Upheaval in Bolivia? That could mean a shortage of cellphone batteries down the road. (Bolivia has the world's largest reserves of lithium, vital to small batteries.) War in the Democratic Republic of Congo? We may have to produce fewer jets, since Congo is a leading exporter of cobalt, a metal crucial to jet engines. More dramatically, if the conflict heats up between Pakistan and India, then nuclear annihilation threatens, since they both have atomic weapons. And yet how much do most Americans know about Bolivia, Congo, Pakistan, or India? And how many of us have contemplated visiting them or their neighbors?
I raised these questions with a college student I know from Elko, Nev. He felt that technology trumped the need to go overseas, saying, "Anything can be found out on the Internet--you don't have to go places to find out about them."
I'm not so sure. I'm a firm believer in getting to know people who are very different from ourselves, in trying to understand customs and beliefs and systems that are unfamiliar and, yes, foreign. More than a century ago, Mark Twain said words that still are true today: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."
I first arrived in America from England as a teenager. A nervous schoolboy, I hitchhiked (it was safe back in the 1960s) up and down and from coast to coast--30,000 miles in six months. The lesson I learned as I met strangers in Texas, Oklahoma, and Maine? That Americans are some of the biggest-hearted people in the world. To fully appreciate that we are all passengers on the same vast planet, it's essential to go and see the intricacies of humankind for yourself. You don't need to spend a lot to achieve the kind of wisdom that is necessary to be fully informed citizens and participants in the world. So, if you're ready to embark on your own journey toward greater awareness, get yourself a shiny new blue-jacketed U.S. passport. And then get going. PARADE Contributing Editor Simon Winchester is the author of 20 books, including the best-selling "The Professor and the Madman" and "Krakatoa." His newest book is "The Man Who Loved China." He is on his 11th passport and has been to more than 150 countries.
By Simon Winchester
Publication Date: 12/21/2008
Parade Magazine
At an iron-ore mine in western Australia, I once stood and watched as a young man worked an excavator to claw bucketfuls of deep-red ore from the ground. For a project, I wanted to follow the ore on its journey from raw material to finished product. So I went on a train that took it to a port, then traveled on the Chinese ship that carried it to Japan. There it was refined into steel ingots, which were sent to a factory outside Tokyo and fashioned into a Toyota Corolla. Next I got on a mighty ship carrying thousands of Toyota imports across the Pacific Ocean to Seattle.
The car made from my ore--small, red, sporty--was unloaded in Washington and put on a truck. I rode with it to a dealer in San Francisco, where I bought the car. Then I drove it to a port and put it, and me as well, onto a Norwegian passenger liner bound for Australia. Ten days later, I unloaded and drove the car to the cliff face and to the young excavator operator.
"Here," I said to him, pointing at the car. "This is what your bucketful of iron ore made." He was astonished. Astonished that I had come back to see him. Astonished that his pile of ore had been made into a car. But most astonished of all to learn that so many people--Chinese, Japanese, American, Norwegian--from so many countries had been involved in the process. "I guess we are all linked," he said. "Even if we never think we are."
Americans are coming to this realization--that we are connected in so many invisible little ways--more and more often these days. Every week, it seems, we're greeted with news of more melting ice in the Arctic, a result of carbon emanating from the pipes and smokestacks in this country and others. In September, the U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers was the first major firm toppled in a financial crisis that has afflicted economies and workers from Iceland to Dubai. And, for any lingering doubters of globalization's reach, the election of Barack Obama--a man whose childhood was shaped by connections to Hawaii, Kenya, and Indonesia--provided the ultimate proof.
Nonetheless, the degree to which Americans know about and travel around the world is surprisingly low. Thirty percent of Americans possess a valid passport, according to State Department figures. Despite our immigrant roots, just 10% of U.S. citizens can speak a second language. In contrast, more than half of the people in the 27 nations of the European Union are bilingual, and 28% are trilingual. And while America is home of the world-famous, yellow-bordered National Geographic magazine, 63% of U.S. students surveyed in a 2006 poll could not find Iraq--where their troops are fighting--on a map. In addition, 75% had no idea where Israel--the largest recipient of America's foreign aid--was, and 75% had no idea that Indonesia was an Islamic nation (in fact, the world's biggest).
The U.S. Department of Education recently pinpointed the languages most vital to this country's future: Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Hindi, and Urdu. Less than 1% of high school students are studying any of these. More specifically, around 30,000 to 50,000 American students--high school and college--are learning Chinese. But in China, where English is mandatory for students from third grade onward, at least 150 million students currently are becoming fluent in our language.
"The U.S. will become less competitive in the global economy because of a shortage of strong foreign-language and international-studies programs at the elementary, high school, and college levels," stated one of the findings in a 2006 report from the nonprofit Committee for Economic Development. "Our diplomatic efforts often have been hampered by a lack of cultural awareness."
Almost all events, no matter how far away, have an effect on us. Upheaval in Bolivia? That could mean a shortage of cellphone batteries down the road. (Bolivia has the world's largest reserves of lithium, vital to small batteries.) War in the Democratic Republic of Congo? We may have to produce fewer jets, since Congo is a leading exporter of cobalt, a metal crucial to jet engines. More dramatically, if the conflict heats up between Pakistan and India, then nuclear annihilation threatens, since they both have atomic weapons. And yet how much do most Americans know about Bolivia, Congo, Pakistan, or India? And how many of us have contemplated visiting them or their neighbors?
I raised these questions with a college student I know from Elko, Nev. He felt that technology trumped the need to go overseas, saying, "Anything can be found out on the Internet--you don't have to go places to find out about them."
I'm not so sure. I'm a firm believer in getting to know people who are very different from ourselves, in trying to understand customs and beliefs and systems that are unfamiliar and, yes, foreign. More than a century ago, Mark Twain said words that still are true today: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."
I first arrived in America from England as a teenager. A nervous schoolboy, I hitchhiked (it was safe back in the 1960s) up and down and from coast to coast--30,000 miles in six months. The lesson I learned as I met strangers in Texas, Oklahoma, and Maine? That Americans are some of the biggest-hearted people in the world. To fully appreciate that we are all passengers on the same vast planet, it's essential to go and see the intricacies of humankind for yourself. You don't need to spend a lot to achieve the kind of wisdom that is necessary to be fully informed citizens and participants in the world. So, if you're ready to embark on your own journey toward greater awareness, get yourself a shiny new blue-jacketed U.S. passport. And then get going. PARADE Contributing Editor Simon Winchester is the author of 20 books, including the best-selling "The Professor and the Madman" and "Krakatoa." His newest book is "The Man Who Loved China." He is on his 11th passport and has been to more than 150 countries.
World Conflicts we need to give Awareness
From Parade Magazine, from December 21, 2008.
Disputes That Threaten Our Security
Last month’s attacks in Mumbai have been linked to the feud between India and Pakistan over the Himalayan region of Kashmir—just one of many disputed lands that threaten global stability. Regions without stable governments can be breeding grounds for terrorism, and when conflict erupts, U.S. forces often are called upon to restore the peace. Here are four of the most historically contested regions and their prospects.
CONFLICT: India and Pakistan have fought over Kashmir since 1947. The two countries’ forces regularly exchange fire over the line of control that divides the region.
U.S. POSITION: Neutral. A U.N. peacekeeping force has been in place since 1949.
CHANCES OF RESOLUTION: Poor. Kashmir is so critical to identity and security for both countries that neither will give it up easily.
CONFLICT: Israel won the Golan Heights from Syria 40 years ago in the Six Days War. Both countries want Golan because of its strategic importance for security.
U.S. POSITION: The U.S. has tried to broker a settlement between the two nations. Leaders met unsuccessfully in 2007.
CHANCES OF RESOLUTION: Moderate. Israel says it will not cede its claim unless Syria stops sponsoring terrorism and guarantees security along the Syrian-Israeli border.
CONFLICT: Ethnic Kurds want to secede from Turkey. Long persecuted under Saddam Hussein, neighboring Iraqi Kurds now have a semi-autonomous government within Iraq. Turkey refuses to make any such concessions.
U.S. POSITION: The U.S. supports some autonomy for Iraqi Kurds but does not want to divide Iraq or strain relations with Turkey.
CHANCES OF RESOLUTION: Mixed. Iraqi Kurdistan is relatively stable, but tension remains high along the border between Turkey and Iraq.
CONFLICT: China has occupied Tibet since 1950 and claims it as a province. Violence erupted again this spring when Tibetan monks demonstrated for autonomy and Chinese troops forcibly subdued them.
U.S. POSITION: The U.S. has condemned China’s abuses but has not offered outright support for an independent Tibet.
CHANCES OF RESOLUTION: Unlikely in the near future. Talks continue between the Dalai Lama—Tibet’s leader in exile—and the Chinese government.
— Rebecca Davis O'Brien
Disputes That Threaten Our Security
Last month’s attacks in Mumbai have been linked to the feud between India and Pakistan over the Himalayan region of Kashmir—just one of many disputed lands that threaten global stability. Regions without stable governments can be breeding grounds for terrorism, and when conflict erupts, U.S. forces often are called upon to restore the peace. Here are four of the most historically contested regions and their prospects.
CONFLICT: India and Pakistan have fought over Kashmir since 1947. The two countries’ forces regularly exchange fire over the line of control that divides the region.
U.S. POSITION: Neutral. A U.N. peacekeeping force has been in place since 1949.
CHANCES OF RESOLUTION: Poor. Kashmir is so critical to identity and security for both countries that neither will give it up easily.
CONFLICT: Israel won the Golan Heights from Syria 40 years ago in the Six Days War. Both countries want Golan because of its strategic importance for security.
U.S. POSITION: The U.S. has tried to broker a settlement between the two nations. Leaders met unsuccessfully in 2007.
CHANCES OF RESOLUTION: Moderate. Israel says it will not cede its claim unless Syria stops sponsoring terrorism and guarantees security along the Syrian-Israeli border.
CONFLICT: Ethnic Kurds want to secede from Turkey. Long persecuted under Saddam Hussein, neighboring Iraqi Kurds now have a semi-autonomous government within Iraq. Turkey refuses to make any such concessions.
U.S. POSITION: The U.S. supports some autonomy for Iraqi Kurds but does not want to divide Iraq or strain relations with Turkey.
CHANCES OF RESOLUTION: Mixed. Iraqi Kurdistan is relatively stable, but tension remains high along the border between Turkey and Iraq.
CONFLICT: China has occupied Tibet since 1950 and claims it as a province. Violence erupted again this spring when Tibetan monks demonstrated for autonomy and Chinese troops forcibly subdued them.
U.S. POSITION: The U.S. has condemned China’s abuses but has not offered outright support for an independent Tibet.
CHANCES OF RESOLUTION: Unlikely in the near future. Talks continue between the Dalai Lama—Tibet’s leader in exile—and the Chinese government.
— Rebecca Davis O'Brien
Rethinking the Death Penalty
Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2008
Is Texas Changing Its Mind About the Death Penalty?
Texas has executed prisoners with a regularity and in record numbers that has earned the state worldwide attention. But, while Texas still led the U.S. in executions in 2008, juries in the state appear to have began to turn away from the ultimate punishment even for the most heinous crimes.
Ten men and one woman were sentenced to death in Texas in 2008, according to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. It was the lowest annual figure since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty. Texas handed out more than 20 death sentences in each of 2003 and 2004. In 2005, the number fell to 14, and it has not risen above that annual figure since. "The need for revenge, for vengeance is being curbed, the appetite is no longer there," contends Robert Hirschorn, a nationally known Texas attorney and jury consultant who has helped pick juries for many prominent clients, including, most recently, millionaire real estate mogul Robert Durst, who was found not guilty of killing and dismembering his neighbor. "The tide has changed," Hirschorn says. "It used to be fashionable to say, 'I support the death penalty.' It used to be unfashionable to say, 'I am against the death penalty.'" (See the Top 10 Crime Stories of 2008
Nationwide, and particularly in Texas, anti-death penalty sentiment has usually been centered on college campuses and within the Catholic Church, Hirschorn says, but is expanding beyond those communities — a trend he sees reflected in his jury questionnaires as well as in nationwide political polls.
The number of people sentenced to death has been falling nationally since a peak of about 300 a year in the 1990s, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, to 115 people in 2007. The reduction comes as more states, such as New York, New Jersey and Illinois have passed death penalty moratoriums; while some, like Maryland, are considering whether to abolish executions altogether.
Texas still accounts for 50% of the executions in the U.S., and with an appeal process of 10 years (the shortest among the states), the numbers are unlikely to decrease significantly. According to Kristin Houle, director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, the state averaged nearly one lethal injection per week over a five month period in 2008. There have been 423 executions in Texas since the state reininstituted the death penalty in 1982, and 374 condemned men and women are currently residing on Texas' Death Row. (One resident, Michael Blair, walked off death row this year after being exonerated by DNA testing.) (See the Top 10 Unsolved Crimes.)
But now the number of new residents appears to be slowing. "[In 2008] officials' zeal for executions was not matched by public desire for new death sentences, as evidenced by the continued steep decline in the number of new inmates arriving on death row," Houle says. Nowhere was that more apparent than in Houston, a city dubbed the "capital of capital punishment" in a study by the NAACP. After years of being a major contributor to Texas death row numbers, thanks in part to high profile "tough-on-crime" prosecutors, Houston juries sent no new prisoners to death row in 2008. The Harris County prosecutor's office (which was roiled by the departure of its elected District Attorney over a sex-and-e-mail scandal) brought only two capital cases this year. One ended in a tough plea bargain and a 60-year sentence; the other, involving the vicious murder of a police officer, shocked the city's legal community when the defendant was convicted but spared the death penalty and given a life sentence.
The changing attitudes reflect broader changes in the cultural, political and social climate, says Hirschorn. But another factor is a key change in state sentencing laws, which now allow Texas juries to levy a life-without-parole sentence, dubbed LWOP. The LWOP sentencing provision, though vociferously opposed by the Texas prosecution bar, was passed by a conservative legislature and signed by a conservative governor in 2005.
"Cop killers, baby killers are poster children for the death penalty," Hirschorn says, "and without the option of LWOP you could guarantee the death penalty." In the Houston cop killing case, the lawyers for defendant Juan Quintero initially attempted an insanity defense, citing a traumatic brain injury. Though the jurors rejected it and found Quintero guilty, Mark Bennett, a Houston defense lawyer argued on his blog "Defendingpeople.com" that the head injury testimony lingered in the minds of some jurors, who may have regarded it as a mitigating factor in deciding on a life sentence rather than execution.
But along with changes in sentencing guidelines, something else has changed in Texas, death-penalty opponents claim. In the past, both Democrats and Republicans for high office have embraced the death penalty as an issue, but in recent elections, Houle notes, the issue has been rarely raised. Improved access to better quality defense counsel and the realization that capital cases usually cost county government upwards of $2 million each, Houle says, have helped reduce the number of death penalty cases. Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions striking down the death penalty in certain kinds of cases — the rape of a child — and concerns about the legality of executing mentally retarded or mentally ill individuals have also slowed the number of capital cases being brought. With broader legal options, the most execution-prone state of the union may increasingly be opting for some other punishment than a life for a life.
Caroline Kennedy and the Senate
What is the author's ideological view? Does he have strong basis for his statements? Is there any slant in this essay? Do you agree with him?
Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008
Posted on Mon, Dec. 22, 2008
No to Caroline: Senate already weighed down with the privileged
By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMERThe problem with Caroline Kennedy’s presumption to Hillary Clinton’s soon-to-be-vacated Senate seat is not lack of qualification or experience. The Senate houses lots of inexperienced rookies — wealthy businessmen, sports stars, even the occasional actor.
The problem is Kennedy’s sense of entitlement. Given her rather modest achievements, she is trading entirely on pedigree.
I hate to be a good government scold, but wasn’t the American experiment a rather firm renunciation of government by pedigree?
Yes, the Founders were not democrats. They believed in aristocracy. But their idea was government by natural — not inherited — aristocracy, an aristocracy of “virtue and talents,” as Jefferson put it.
And yes, of course, we have our own history of dynamic succession: Adamses and Harrisons, and in the last century, Roosevelts, Kennedys and Bushes. Recently, we’ve even branched out into Argentine-style marital transmission, as in the Doles and the Clintons.
It’s not the end of the world, but it is an accelerating trend that need not be encouraged. After all, we have already created another huge distortion in our politics: a plethora of plutocrats in the U.S. Senate, courtesy of our crazed campaign finance laws. If you’re very very rich, you can buy your Senate seat by spending as much of your money as you want. Meanwhile, your poor plebeian opponent is running around groveling for the small contributions allowed by law. Hence the Corzines and the Kohls, who parachute into Congress seemingly out of nowhere.
Having given this additional leg up to the rich, we should resist packing our legislatures with yet more privileged parachutists, the well-born.
True, the Brits did it that way for centuries, but with characteristic honesty. They established a house of Parliament exclusively for highborn twits and ensconced them there for life. There they chatter away in supreme irrelevance. The problem is the U.S. Senate retains House of Commons powers even as it develops a House of Lords membership.
Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Caroline Kennedy. She certainly has led the life of a worthy socialite helping all the right causes. But when the mayor of New York endorses her candidacy by offering that “her uncle has been one of the best senators that we have had in an awful long time,” we’ve reached the point of embarrassment.
Nor is Kennedy alone. Vice President-elect Biden’s Senate seat will now be filled by Edward Kaufman, a family retainer to hold the seat until Joe’s son returns from Iraq to assume his father’s mantle.
In light of the pending dynastic disposition of the New York and Delaware Senate seats, the Illinois way is almost refreshing. At least Gov. Rod Blagojevich (allegedly) made Barack Obama’s seat democratically open to all. Just register the highest bid, eBay style.
Sadly, however, even this auction was not free of aristo-creep. Deducing from the U.S. attorney’s criminal complaint, we find that a full one-third of those under consideration are pedigreed, including the first-born son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Caroline Kennedy could someday become a great senator, but if she wants the seat let her do it by election. There’s one in 2010. To do it now by appointment on the basis of bloodline is an offense to the most minimal republicanism. Every state in the union is entitled to representation in the Senate. Camelot is not a state.
© 2008, The Washington Post Writers Group
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Sure to cause a stir, for all classes
I saw this and thought it was a great conversation starter. What is the view of the artist? What history is he trying to tie in to with this drawing? How does it play against the theme of the bailouts of business?
Shift in Population Telling
Posted for Government and Sociology:
Times are a changin, yes they are.
Posted on Sunday, December 21, 2008
Minorities a majority in 3 cities in Kansas
BY HURST LAVIANAThe Wichita Eagle
Non-Hispanic whites are now a minority in three of Kansas' 18 largest cities, while a fourth is 50 percent minority, new Census figures show.
Sixteen of the 18 cities have grown more racially diverse since 2000, with the suburban communities of Derby, Olathe and Overland Park showing some of the fastest gains in minority population.
The figures, which come from the American Community Survey, were released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau. They offer the first look at the demographics of medium-size cities since the 2000 Census.
William Hoston, a Wichita State University assistant professor of political science, said it's not surprising -- in a country that just elected its first black president -- to see whites and minorities living side by side in the suburbs.
Although racism still exists in the country, he said, most white people today probably feel less of a "minority threat" than their counterparts of years past.
"If they don't see that minority threat, they're less likely to be in clusters" by themselves, he said. "They just feel more comfortable" living around minorities.
The Census Bureau said the survey, which was taken over a three-year period, allows small cities to track demographic changes on an annual basis rather than waiting for the results of a once-a-decade Census.
The numbers show that the western Kansas towns of Liberal, Dodge City and Garden City are at least 50 percent minority, due largely to sizable Hispanic populations.
Kansas City, Kan., is the other city where non-Hispanic whites are now a minority.
Wichita's picture
Wichita's non-Hispanic white population, meanwhile, has dipped below 70 percent since the 2000 Census. The figures suggest non-Hispanic whites will remain a majority in the city for the next 30 years or more.
Hispanics continue to be the city's fastest-growing minority, as their numbers increased from 9.6 percent in 2000 to 11.9 percent in 2007.
The Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group, reported earlier this year that Hispanics accounted for more than half of the nation's growth so far this decade and for 15.1 percent of the nation's population.
Although immigration was the major factor in Hispanic population growth in the 1990s, the Pew Center said, Hispanic population growth this decade has been largely the result of high birth rates.
Wichita's Asian population jumped 26.2 percent between 2000 and 2007 and now makes up 4.5 percent of the city's population.
Mohan Kambampati, the executive director of the Wichita Indochinese Center, said he wasn't surprised by the numbers.
In recent years, he said, workers from India have moved to Wichita to fill contract jobs in the fields of accounting and software engineering. He said Wichita State University also has drawn Asians to the city.
Kambampati said even the Wichita school district's recruitment of teachers from the Philippines has contributed to the Asian population growth.
Growth in Derby
One of the biggest surprises to come from the data is the growth of Derby, which has outpaced its suburban counterparts in Johnson County. The figures show that 35 percent of Derby's growth has come from new minority residents.
From 2000 to 2007, Derby's black population rose from 0.9 percent to 3 percent, while its Hispanic population rose from 2.8 to 5.4 percent.
City Manager Kathy Sexton said the city's diversity was partly a reflection of the number of military families moving into the city.
"McConnell Air Force Base has had a pretty healthy impact on that racial diversity," she said. "You get a lot of people here who've lived in a lot of different places."
Sexton said Derby's steady 2 to 2.5 percent annual growth has been ongoing for more than two decades.
"What's neat about Derby's growth is that it's not coming in little spurts -- from one new housing development," she said. "It's every year we have several developments going on at same time.
"Continuing to do that year after year after year after year has made this a place of 22,000" residents, she said.
Times are a changin, yes they are.
Posted on Sunday, December 21, 2008
Minorities a majority in 3 cities in Kansas
BY HURST LAVIANAThe Wichita Eagle
Non-Hispanic whites are now a minority in three of Kansas' 18 largest cities, while a fourth is 50 percent minority, new Census figures show.
Sixteen of the 18 cities have grown more racially diverse since 2000, with the suburban communities of Derby, Olathe and Overland Park showing some of the fastest gains in minority population.
The figures, which come from the American Community Survey, were released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau. They offer the first look at the demographics of medium-size cities since the 2000 Census.
William Hoston, a Wichita State University assistant professor of political science, said it's not surprising -- in a country that just elected its first black president -- to see whites and minorities living side by side in the suburbs.
Although racism still exists in the country, he said, most white people today probably feel less of a "minority threat" than their counterparts of years past.
"If they don't see that minority threat, they're less likely to be in clusters" by themselves, he said. "They just feel more comfortable" living around minorities.
The Census Bureau said the survey, which was taken over a three-year period, allows small cities to track demographic changes on an annual basis rather than waiting for the results of a once-a-decade Census.
The numbers show that the western Kansas towns of Liberal, Dodge City and Garden City are at least 50 percent minority, due largely to sizable Hispanic populations.
Kansas City, Kan., is the other city where non-Hispanic whites are now a minority.
Wichita's picture
Wichita's non-Hispanic white population, meanwhile, has dipped below 70 percent since the 2000 Census. The figures suggest non-Hispanic whites will remain a majority in the city for the next 30 years or more.
Hispanics continue to be the city's fastest-growing minority, as their numbers increased from 9.6 percent in 2000 to 11.9 percent in 2007.
The Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group, reported earlier this year that Hispanics accounted for more than half of the nation's growth so far this decade and for 15.1 percent of the nation's population.
Although immigration was the major factor in Hispanic population growth in the 1990s, the Pew Center said, Hispanic population growth this decade has been largely the result of high birth rates.
Wichita's Asian population jumped 26.2 percent between 2000 and 2007 and now makes up 4.5 percent of the city's population.
Mohan Kambampati, the executive director of the Wichita Indochinese Center, said he wasn't surprised by the numbers.
In recent years, he said, workers from India have moved to Wichita to fill contract jobs in the fields of accounting and software engineering. He said Wichita State University also has drawn Asians to the city.
Kambampati said even the Wichita school district's recruitment of teachers from the Philippines has contributed to the Asian population growth.
Growth in Derby
One of the biggest surprises to come from the data is the growth of Derby, which has outpaced its suburban counterparts in Johnson County. The figures show that 35 percent of Derby's growth has come from new minority residents.
From 2000 to 2007, Derby's black population rose from 0.9 percent to 3 percent, while its Hispanic population rose from 2.8 to 5.4 percent.
City Manager Kathy Sexton said the city's diversity was partly a reflection of the number of military families moving into the city.
"McConnell Air Force Base has had a pretty healthy impact on that racial diversity," she said. "You get a lot of people here who've lived in a lot of different places."
Sexton said Derby's steady 2 to 2.5 percent annual growth has been ongoing for more than two decades.
"What's neat about Derby's growth is that it's not coming in little spurts -- from one new housing development," she said. "It's every year we have several developments going on at same time.
"Continuing to do that year after year after year after year has made this a place of 22,000" residents, she said.
Sociology: Rwanda Genocide leftovers
Posted for Sociology: Genocide Studies.
Posted on Thu, Dec. 18, 2008
Former Rwandan colonel convicted in 1994 genocide
By SUKHDEV CHHATBAR and DONNA BRYSONThe Associated Press
ARUSHA, Tanzania A former Rwandan army colonel was convicted Thursday of genocide and crimes against humanity for masterminding the killings of more than half a million people in 1994.
Survivors welcomed the watershed moment in a long search for justice.
The U.N. courtroom in Tanzania was packed for the culmination of the trial of Theoneste Bagosora, the highest-ranking Rwandan official to be convicted in the genocide. Onlookers were silent as the 67-year-old was sentenced to life in prison.
“Let him think about what he did for the rest of his life,” said Jean Pierre Sagahutu, 46, in Rwanda. He lost his parents and seven siblings and said he escaped by hiding in a septic tank for 2 1/2 months.
Former military commanders Anatole Nsengiyumva and Aloys Ntabakuze also were found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison. The former chief of military operations, Brig. Gratien Kabiligi, was cleared of all charges and released.
The U.N. Security Council created a tribunal in 1994 to prosecute those responsible for “genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law.”
The 1994 genocide saw government troops, Hutu militia and ordinary villagers — spurred on by hate messages broadcast on the radio — going from village to village, butchering men, women and children. The consequences still shake the region.
Hutu fighters, chased by the Tutsi military leader who is now Rwanda’s president, fled into Congo at the end of the bloodletting. Rwanda has twice invaded Congo, fueling a conflict that drew in a half-dozen African nations.
Recent clashes in eastern Congo, which borders Rwanda, have driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. Laurent Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi and former general who quit his country’s army in 2004 to launch a rebellion, contends he is fighting to protect the region’s ethnic Tutsis from Hutu militias.
Perpetrators and victims, meanwhile, struggle to reconcile in Rwanda, a desperately poor and densely packed east African country the size of Vermont.
On Thursday, the court said Bagosora used his position as the highest authority in Rwanda’s Ministry of Defense to direct Hutu soldiers to kill Tutsis and moderate Hutus. According to the indictment against him, Bagosora once said he was returning to Rwanda to “prepare the apocalypse.”
The U.S. called the convictions an important step in providing justice and accountability for the Rwandan people and the international community.
The U.S. urged countries to continue cooperating with the tribunal, which is still seeking the arrest and transfer of 13 fugitives in the case.
Some 63,000 people are suspected of taking part in the genocide. Many have been sentenced by community-based courts where suspects were encouraged to confess and seek forgiveness in exchange for lighter sentences. Eighteen trials remain under way.
Reed Brody, a specialist in international justice for Human Rights Watch, said Thursday’s sentence sent a clear message to other world leaders accused of crimes against humanity and genocide: “It says watch out. Justice can catch up with you.”
ABOUT THE LONG-RUNNING CONFLICT What is the history of Rwanda’s genocide?
Hutus in Rwanda overthrew a Tutsi monarchy three years before independence from Belgium in 1962 and took power. Ethnic tensions simmered, and rebels, most of them ethnic Tutsis, invaded from their base in neighboring Uganda in 1990.
President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, had been negotiating peace with the rebels when his plane was shot down on April 6, 1994. Rwanda recognizes the next day as the start of the genocide unleashed by Hutu extremists on Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.
The killings spread across the country and lasted 100 days, until a Tutsi, Paul Kagame, led his rebel army to victory and became president. Tutsis now dominate the nation’s government and army.
What have been some of the wider consequences?
The flight of Rwanda’s Hutu fighters over the border and into the Congolese forest has fed instability in Congo.
Resulting clashes in eastern Congo — which intensified in August — have driven more than 250,000 people from their homes.
A U.N. Security Council panel said earlier this month that Rwanda and Congo are fighting a proxy war, with Rwanda helping ethnic Tutsi rebels fight the Congolese government and Congo collaborating with ethnic Hutu rebels and other forces against Rwanda.
Rwanda’s legacy continues to shadow debates about what should be done to prevent such horrors. The United Nations and former President Bill Clinton have apologized for failing to intervene.
The Associated Press
© 2007 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.kansascity.com/
Posted on Thu, Dec. 18, 2008
Former Rwandan colonel convicted in 1994 genocide
By SUKHDEV CHHATBAR and DONNA BRYSONThe Associated Press
ARUSHA, Tanzania A former Rwandan army colonel was convicted Thursday of genocide and crimes against humanity for masterminding the killings of more than half a million people in 1994.
Survivors welcomed the watershed moment in a long search for justice.
The U.N. courtroom in Tanzania was packed for the culmination of the trial of Theoneste Bagosora, the highest-ranking Rwandan official to be convicted in the genocide. Onlookers were silent as the 67-year-old was sentenced to life in prison.
“Let him think about what he did for the rest of his life,” said Jean Pierre Sagahutu, 46, in Rwanda. He lost his parents and seven siblings and said he escaped by hiding in a septic tank for 2 1/2 months.
Former military commanders Anatole Nsengiyumva and Aloys Ntabakuze also were found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison. The former chief of military operations, Brig. Gratien Kabiligi, was cleared of all charges and released.
The U.N. Security Council created a tribunal in 1994 to prosecute those responsible for “genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law.”
The 1994 genocide saw government troops, Hutu militia and ordinary villagers — spurred on by hate messages broadcast on the radio — going from village to village, butchering men, women and children. The consequences still shake the region.
Hutu fighters, chased by the Tutsi military leader who is now Rwanda’s president, fled into Congo at the end of the bloodletting. Rwanda has twice invaded Congo, fueling a conflict that drew in a half-dozen African nations.
Recent clashes in eastern Congo, which borders Rwanda, have driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. Laurent Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi and former general who quit his country’s army in 2004 to launch a rebellion, contends he is fighting to protect the region’s ethnic Tutsis from Hutu militias.
Perpetrators and victims, meanwhile, struggle to reconcile in Rwanda, a desperately poor and densely packed east African country the size of Vermont.
On Thursday, the court said Bagosora used his position as the highest authority in Rwanda’s Ministry of Defense to direct Hutu soldiers to kill Tutsis and moderate Hutus. According to the indictment against him, Bagosora once said he was returning to Rwanda to “prepare the apocalypse.”
The U.S. called the convictions an important step in providing justice and accountability for the Rwandan people and the international community.
The U.S. urged countries to continue cooperating with the tribunal, which is still seeking the arrest and transfer of 13 fugitives in the case.
Some 63,000 people are suspected of taking part in the genocide. Many have been sentenced by community-based courts where suspects were encouraged to confess and seek forgiveness in exchange for lighter sentences. Eighteen trials remain under way.
Reed Brody, a specialist in international justice for Human Rights Watch, said Thursday’s sentence sent a clear message to other world leaders accused of crimes against humanity and genocide: “It says watch out. Justice can catch up with you.”
ABOUT THE LONG-RUNNING CONFLICT What is the history of Rwanda’s genocide?
Hutus in Rwanda overthrew a Tutsi monarchy three years before independence from Belgium in 1962 and took power. Ethnic tensions simmered, and rebels, most of them ethnic Tutsis, invaded from their base in neighboring Uganda in 1990.
President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, had been negotiating peace with the rebels when his plane was shot down on April 6, 1994. Rwanda recognizes the next day as the start of the genocide unleashed by Hutu extremists on Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.
The killings spread across the country and lasted 100 days, until a Tutsi, Paul Kagame, led his rebel army to victory and became president. Tutsis now dominate the nation’s government and army.
What have been some of the wider consequences?
The flight of Rwanda’s Hutu fighters over the border and into the Congolese forest has fed instability in Congo.
Resulting clashes in eastern Congo — which intensified in August — have driven more than 250,000 people from their homes.
A U.N. Security Council panel said earlier this month that Rwanda and Congo are fighting a proxy war, with Rwanda helping ethnic Tutsi rebels fight the Congolese government and Congo collaborating with ethnic Hutu rebels and other forces against Rwanda.
Rwanda’s legacy continues to shadow debates about what should be done to prevent such horrors. The United Nations and former President Bill Clinton have apologized for failing to intervene.
The Associated Press
© 2007 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.kansascity.com/
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