In case you had any doubts, Mother Nature has quite solidly reminded our staff in Nebraska and DC that springtime is fickle, and not always so warm and gentle (It's nearly always warm in our Florida location, so they don't really have "spring" anyway).
While it was a bit nippy in our DC location, at least we had plenty of beautiful sunshine yesterday, and we're supposed to have more today.
In our Lincoln quarters, we've been receiving some welcome rain and not-so-welcome wind in Southeast Nebraska. At least we're not out in "Cattle Country", in western and central Nebraska. They've got blizzard conditions in some parts of Nebraska today - which somehow seems terribly wrong and yet perfectly normal, as a fellow Lincoln wordsmith might have said.
In case you haven't heard, that wordsmith, former Lincoln Journal-Star columnist and longtime Nebraska Wesleyan English professor Leon Satterfield, passed away this week. He was 77, and died of complications from Alzheimers, a fate we wish on no one.
We knew Leon Satterfield in various ways - including through his daughter Amy, whom both Paul and Shawn have worked with before. Paul and his wife initially met Amy Satterfield in 1982, as part of a UNL/Wesleyan/UNK summer program in Guadalajara, Mexico. Amy was sick as a dog near the beginning of the adventure, and ended up at the American hospital, suffering from a burst appendix. That was the end of Amy's Mexico trip. The rest of the group went on to Guadalajara for the next six weeks while poor Amy Satterfield recovered from her surgery and then returned to Lincoln. As Paul recalls, the trip sponsors had a devil of a time contacting her dad, Leon, and her mom, who both spent summers in Colorado in a family cabin way the hell out in the boondocks.
Leon Satterfield had a truly unique way of "drawing clarity from confusion," as he used to say at the end of his columns.
We hope that as the weather rages - or, if you're in sunny West Palm Beach, doesn't - this spring, you think about gathering your own clarity from the confusion of your busy life.
Go to the Red-White Game on Saturday, if you get a chance. If the weather holds, grab a P.O. Pears Burger at the East Campus UNL Dairy Store. Find your favorite local record shop and celebrate National Record Store Day, whether it's in downtown or north Lincoln, one of the many down in Dupont Circle, or at a spin shop west of I-95 near the coast.
The world is moving so fast these days, every moment we spend laughing, enjoying cartoons, and enjoying life, helps every person to get through the confusion this modern world seems to create.
If nothing else, curl up in your favorite spot, and grab a book - Mr. Satterfield would recommend 'Huckleberry Finn' we believe - and get away from wherever you are for a while.
Wherever you are, remember - it's a warm, gentle, spring-like day somewhere right now.
Probably in West Palm Beach.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Fightin' Words
For all of the technology and educational opportunities that most Americans have access to these days, it continues to amaze us exactly how many people choose to be obtuse when the facts don't agree with the outcome they wish to see.
Wednesday afternoon, after the President's direct and honest speech about the fiscal situation in which America finds itself, it became quite clear that the Congressional Republican leadership members were perfect examples of that sad truism.
What the President said on Wednesday is what we have been preaching from these pages, and elsewhere, for quite some time.
America IS a great country - but it's great because of many of the things Americans have done TOGETHER. As President Obama noted, those include a strong military, solid public schools and universities, our great highway system, Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and more. These are all great commitments we've chosen to make as one nation, and as the President said, "We would not be a great country without those commitments."
The President acknowledged that we've borrowed too much as a nation, and that most of that destructive borrowing came before he ever set foot in the White House.
He also drove home a hard fact: no matter how much anyone tells you to the contrary, we cannot solve our massive monetary problems by cutting to death only TWELVE PERCENT of our total national budget without touching the rest of it. Even if we do only that, just cut... our budget problems will still not be solved, because WE NEED MORE REVENUE.
It doesn't take a genius to understand the difference between the President's plan and the Republican plan, as laid out by Rep. Paul Ryan. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out recently, Ryan's plan calls for $4.3 Trillion in program cuts - and $4.2 Trillion in tax cuts, that would mostly go to the wealthiest Americans.
As President Obama laid out Wednesday, his plan calls for about $4 Trillion dollars in budget cuts as well - but it also calls for reinvestment in education, transportation, Medicare, Social Security and more.
Only a blind, insane, lobotomized fool would choose Rep. Ryan's plan over the President's. Still, the GOP leadership is doing just that.
Sadly, uncomprehending blindness to facts didn't appear to be strictly a Washington, DC phenomenon yesterday.
As we pointed out nearly a month and a half ago, Nebraska's Governor Dave Heineman and other anti-labor forces within the state of Nebraska still don't seem to understand the basic truth already laid down by the Nebraska Supreme Court many years ago: Either Nebraska has a Commission of Industrial Relations to mediate disputes between the public labor unions and employers... OR public employees of the State Of Nebraska will be allowed to strike. The original purpose of the CIR was to avoid strike scenarios and to give labor and management an independent mediator to work out their differences. When you have reached an impasse, the CIR is there to rule on the issues. Generally, neither side is happy with the outcome. The system works; the participants make not like the outcomes, but it works.
Yet, on Wednesday, the Nebraska Legislature held a hearing where certain members of the Legislature were trying to eliminate the CIR, by trying to justify it as a cost saving measure. Sadly for conservatives, even THEIR figures say neutering or eliminating the CIR would not be cost efficient. It may even cost taxpayers more in the end.
This isn't rocket science, people. If you start with the facts, you're almost always likely to come to a logically defensible result. If you choose to start from what you wish the outcome would be and work backward, blindly ignoring any inconvenient facts, you're either delusional or just plain stupid.
Wednesday afternoon, after the President's direct and honest speech about the fiscal situation in which America finds itself, it became quite clear that the Congressional Republican leadership members were perfect examples of that sad truism.
What the President said on Wednesday is what we have been preaching from these pages, and elsewhere, for quite some time.
America IS a great country - but it's great because of many of the things Americans have done TOGETHER. As President Obama noted, those include a strong military, solid public schools and universities, our great highway system, Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and more. These are all great commitments we've chosen to make as one nation, and as the President said, "We would not be a great country without those commitments."
The President acknowledged that we've borrowed too much as a nation, and that most of that destructive borrowing came before he ever set foot in the White House.
He also drove home a hard fact: no matter how much anyone tells you to the contrary, we cannot solve our massive monetary problems by cutting to death only TWELVE PERCENT of our total national budget without touching the rest of it. Even if we do only that, just cut... our budget problems will still not be solved, because WE NEED MORE REVENUE.
It doesn't take a genius to understand the difference between the President's plan and the Republican plan, as laid out by Rep. Paul Ryan. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out recently, Ryan's plan calls for $4.3 Trillion in program cuts - and $4.2 Trillion in tax cuts, that would mostly go to the wealthiest Americans.
As President Obama laid out Wednesday, his plan calls for about $4 Trillion dollars in budget cuts as well - but it also calls for reinvestment in education, transportation, Medicare, Social Security and more.
Only a blind, insane, lobotomized fool would choose Rep. Ryan's plan over the President's. Still, the GOP leadership is doing just that.
Sadly, uncomprehending blindness to facts didn't appear to be strictly a Washington, DC phenomenon yesterday.
As we pointed out nearly a month and a half ago, Nebraska's Governor Dave Heineman and other anti-labor forces within the state of Nebraska still don't seem to understand the basic truth already laid down by the Nebraska Supreme Court many years ago: Either Nebraska has a Commission of Industrial Relations to mediate disputes between the public labor unions and employers... OR public employees of the State Of Nebraska will be allowed to strike. The original purpose of the CIR was to avoid strike scenarios and to give labor and management an independent mediator to work out their differences. When you have reached an impasse, the CIR is there to rule on the issues. Generally, neither side is happy with the outcome. The system works; the participants make not like the outcomes, but it works.
Yet, on Wednesday, the Nebraska Legislature held a hearing where certain members of the Legislature were trying to eliminate the CIR, by trying to justify it as a cost saving measure. Sadly for conservatives, even THEIR figures say neutering or eliminating the CIR would not be cost efficient. It may even cost taxpayers more in the end.
This isn't rocket science, people. If you start with the facts, you're almost always likely to come to a logically defensible result. If you choose to start from what you wish the outcome would be and work backward, blindly ignoring any inconvenient facts, you're either delusional or just plain stupid.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Short Faces Are Never "In" - But They're The Fashion Right Now
"Cutting off your nose to spite your face" is a phrase we're sure most of our readers have heard before. Maybe you've even done it to yourself a few times. We certainly have.
It's not an action we normally undertake when we are thinking logically and clearly, however.
Unfortunately, this spring short faces seem to be the fashion trend in many places around the world. It's like a style change gone horribly wrong.
In Washington, DC, certain members of the Republican Party seem intent on throwing a temper tantrum about the budget, as we pointed out on Tuesday. The political left isn't doing any better, as President Obama continues to cripple his ability to govern effectively by giving in to the idea that the political center is where those on the far right say it is.
The behavioral version of this fashion faux pas doesn't just stop in DC.
In Pakistan, the CIA has basically been thrown out of the country.
This isn't entirely an unseen or unexpected event. It's been reported that U.S.-Pakistan intelligence cooperation has been frozen since January, with no real thaw on the horizon. Things only got worse when Pakistanis captured a CIA contractor in January who had killed two Pakistanis who were rumored to work for their comparable security service, the ISI.
CIA Director Leon Panetta met with the head of Pakistan's ISI in DC on Monday, to try and straighten things out. So far, reports seem to suggest the only thing they may have worked out was that U.S. drone strikes could continue.
That the CIA has been expelled in a way not even the Russians were at the height of the Cold War is bad news, indeed, for the U.S., and its intelligence services, who continue to try and catch or kill al-Qaeda members either because the Pakistanis can't or won't. It's also bad news for the Pakistani government, which is not entirely stable or secure and in many ways more in danger from al-Qaeda than is America.
This is an action that is, in no way, good for Pakistan. Sure, it temporarily allows Pakistanis to square their shoulders, puff up, and say to each other, "See how we tossed those arrogant Americans out of our country?"
At least they'll have something to be proud of when the al-Qaeda operatives who are likely hiding in their midst overthrow their government, as al-Qaeda did the government of Afghanistan, not that long ago.
We'd like to say that this trend of insane, self-destructive, ego-driven actions by politicians is a temporary worldwide fashion aberration - like hoop skirts, zoot suits, or polyester Nehru jackets all were at one time or another.
We'd like to say that - but we're not sure we can.
What we can say is that it appears that leaders, both at home and abroad, are being too short-sighted for their own good - or ours.
After all, we understand behavioral fashion enough to know that cutting off one's nose to spite one's face is never a good idea.
Some things are just not meant to be cut short.
It's not an action we normally undertake when we are thinking logically and clearly, however.
Unfortunately, this spring short faces seem to be the fashion trend in many places around the world. It's like a style change gone horribly wrong.
In Washington, DC, certain members of the Republican Party seem intent on throwing a temper tantrum about the budget, as we pointed out on Tuesday. The political left isn't doing any better, as President Obama continues to cripple his ability to govern effectively by giving in to the idea that the political center is where those on the far right say it is.
The behavioral version of this fashion faux pas doesn't just stop in DC.
In Pakistan, the CIA has basically been thrown out of the country.
This isn't entirely an unseen or unexpected event. It's been reported that U.S.-Pakistan intelligence cooperation has been frozen since January, with no real thaw on the horizon. Things only got worse when Pakistanis captured a CIA contractor in January who had killed two Pakistanis who were rumored to work for their comparable security service, the ISI.
CIA Director Leon Panetta met with the head of Pakistan's ISI in DC on Monday, to try and straighten things out. So far, reports seem to suggest the only thing they may have worked out was that U.S. drone strikes could continue.
That the CIA has been expelled in a way not even the Russians were at the height of the Cold War is bad news, indeed, for the U.S., and its intelligence services, who continue to try and catch or kill al-Qaeda members either because the Pakistanis can't or won't. It's also bad news for the Pakistani government, which is not entirely stable or secure and in many ways more in danger from al-Qaeda than is America.
This is an action that is, in no way, good for Pakistan. Sure, it temporarily allows Pakistanis to square their shoulders, puff up, and say to each other, "See how we tossed those arrogant Americans out of our country?"
At least they'll have something to be proud of when the al-Qaeda operatives who are likely hiding in their midst overthrow their government, as al-Qaeda did the government of Afghanistan, not that long ago.
We'd like to say that this trend of insane, self-destructive, ego-driven actions by politicians is a temporary worldwide fashion aberration - like hoop skirts, zoot suits, or polyester Nehru jackets all were at one time or another.
We'd like to say that - but we're not sure we can.
What we can say is that it appears that leaders, both at home and abroad, are being too short-sighted for their own good - or ours.
After all, we understand behavioral fashion enough to know that cutting off one's nose to spite one's face is never a good idea.
Some things are just not meant to be cut short.
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