Usually only right wing Republicans make future Supreme Court nominees a deciding factor for a presidential candidate; but if the Supreme Court does not make a common sense decision in “The Strip Search Case,” then most Democrats and a whole lot of Independents are going to make it the  major factor in the next presidential election.  

If the court fails in this case, the need for the next president to ensure that a more sensible court is populated will be magnified.

The right to everyday strip searching by school officials on the flimsiest of evidence without any legal protections for the rights of children will create a vivid image that will be easy to rekindle, and Michael Moore or someone like him will remind us how dangerously close to tyranny some of our schools may easily slip into at any time without legal protections.  Just remember the Bush years and the torture issues now finally being exposed. 

For details of this case see the NPR morning report which includes an interview with Savana Redding, the victim of the strip search who is now in college, and the News Hour report which summarized arguments presented in the court during the day.

“Republicans are now firmly committed to the view that we should do nothing to respond to the economic crisis, except cut taxes — which they always want to do regardless of circumstances.”  –  Paul Krugman

Why are so many people afraid of universal healthcare?

They seem to think that means the government will actually run hospitals and tell doctors what to do, but it does not have to mean that.  It can just mean government coordinating the system however it will work most efficiently.

And we already KNOW the system of competition between private insurance companies does NOT work for the best interests of patients.

This quote by a family doctor says it all –

I wasn’t trained to say, “What’s your insurance company before making a treatment decision?” And now I have to. (Online News Hour 1/6/09)

As the doctor explained, this situation arises because “what medicine I can put you on depends upon your insurance company.”

But doctors are trained to diagnose and prescribe on the basis of symptoms and evidence, not on the basis of a variety of formularies making them clerical workers.  

Since their professional associations are apparently not strong enough to step in on behalf of patients, it is time for people to unite through the means of government to demand universal healthcare to resolve these kinds of problems, to coordinate the delivery of healthcare so that costs are reduced and the best care is delivered as efficiently to as many people as possible.

It appears she does.

E. J. Dionne notes that in her Republican Convention speech she made the following charge against Obama –

“Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America; he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights.”

If Obama is for constitutional rights – for human rights – and therefore against torturing our prisoners; where does Sarah Palin stand?

And why does the Republican audience think demeaning human rights is such great fun?

Two recent reports on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer combine to explain a big part of our current economic crisis, especially as is pertains to housing, and it boils down to this:

1. Wall Street supported a major industry of financing risky house mortgages because it believed that housing prices would always rise and thereby cut the losses for bad loans.

No/low down-payment loans to people with risky credit were common. Flimsy credit checks were built into the system. Everyone in the industry made money by selling, not by denying a sale. (Paul Muolo)

2. Middle class people have been basing their economic security largely on the principle that their rising house value represents their savings.

More than enough credit was readily available. They absorbed the message that spending is good for the economy. They have no restraints on impulsivity since the ability to spend from the privacy of their home exists 24/7. (Stuart Vyse)

So it looks like the greed underlying our economic woes is pandemic – or endemic – or systemic… however you want to describe it.

It just goes to show, though, that “honesty” is not the only important virtue needed when it comes to how we manage our money and other resources.

The experts can’t figure out Obama!

Paul Krugman:

Getting a fix on Obama — Is he a transformative Reagan or a tinkering Clinton?

Charles Krauthammer:

A morphing Obama keeps us guessing about his true beliefs

What is Obama’s appeal if he does not represent a specific set of promises?

I can’t speak for everyone else, but to me a tendency to not offer specific promises is what is appealing.

The way I understand Obama is that he has a belief system motivating him, and that he offers some initial plans to start the ball rolling in various areas; but that he will only implement his ideas to the extent that they can be developed democratically. So the nature of Obama’s “promises” is directional and not intended to indicate that any specific content will be delivered.

His signature phrase is “bring everyone to the table” to discuss and resolve problems, with universal healthcare and ending the Iraq war being top priorities.

Obama is primarily a leader, and one of the major qualifications he calls attention to is his experience as a community organizer. Although Obama is liberal in his belief system, even as far back as Harvard law school, both conservative and liberal classmates voted him into office because he treated them fairly and gave them full voice.

I only fear leaders who will not accept broad input into the decision-making process. And I do want a leader such as Obama who has demonstrated wisdom, justice, and character in the political process. It does not concern me that some think that Obama’s open-ended approach will be much more difficult to accomplish at the presidential level — no president accomplishes anything unless the people also elect a compatible Congress. The presidential election is not really where the main decisions will be made in November.

The danger with such an open-minded president is that he will accomplish nothing, as Paul Krugman says happened during the Bill Clinton years. And that is probably what will happen to Obama if he does not have a Congress willing to work with him. After all, it was only because Congress decided to be combative in response to Hillary Clinton that the healthcare reform that was so desperately needed was not enacted in 1994. Now look where we are.

Remember also that George Bush came into office promising to be a “uniter, not a divider.” This approach is what the country wants; but for Bush this was all rhetoric, because his pattern through most of his administration has been to surround himself with only those who saw the world the way he did and who would support his worldview. And now we are left with the sorry results. And it is sickening!

The country is now crying out for someone whose established track record has been to bring people of different viewpoints together to reach agreements. We need a person who can get things done politically for the good of the country. We don’t need promises. We need proven leadership.

NBC chose honor and respect by choosing to delay announcement of Tim Russert’s death until his immediate family had been notified. In so doing Wikipedia and other news outlets broke the news first according to the New York Times.

Does it matter?

It depends who answers that question.

I think NBC chose the right path. Tim Russert was part of their family – let other news organizations do their thing. NBC will have their turn with other news stories. What mattered for this story was their relationship with the Russert family.

Not only that, they chose to walk in the path of the ancient wisdom that says, “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.” (Proverbs 22:1). They did the honorable thing rather than pursue the scoop on the news. For that they have earned the respect of a great many people who know about it.

Is Wikipedia less honorable?

According to this same New York Times report, Wikipedia has consistently broken the news about many events, including notable deaths.

I think this is to be expected since this online encyclopedia should be considered the counterpart of neighbors sharing over-the-fence gossip, but in this case among a growing online community. Users of Wikipedia always need to be alert to documentation – to footnotes and sources – to support significant factual claims. Until you see documentation, you might only have gossip. Since all content is user generated and user corrected (though most corrections seem to be done by a small group of users), what you see today may be gone tomorrow if anyone notices the errors.

There is nothing dishonorable in this process when it is done truthfully. It is simply people sharing what they know.When they feel themselves to be part of an online community, they are part of this communication process, and it is part of their identity and how they find a sense of who they are in life as they try to put facts into print together.

This is not how Wikipedia was conceived; but this is what it has become.

For those of us who stumble across such breaking news as someone’s death in Wikipedia, since we would not know to be looking for it, we may still have to wait for mainline news outlets to publish it before there will be significant documentation to establish believable factual claims.

Wikipedia does not currently compete with NBC or virtually any other news outlet in that market. I suspect TV did not play second fiddle to Wikipedia for the two days following Tim Russert’s death.

And I suspect a lot more people saw Tom Brokaw’s announcement than read the Wikipedia entry.

Conservatism as Narcissism

Conservatism “tells us to save your own skin and not to care about your neighbor.”

That’s according to George Lakoff as quoted in the New York Times.

The reviewer who quotes Lakoff rightly notes that many conservatives do not fit this mold. But on the other hand, unfortunately, all of us do know far too many that this quote fits to a T. They figure they are the beneficiaries of trickle-down economics and not the benefactors. They rationalize that they have worked to get where they are and that others should do the same if they want to enjoy the same benefits.

Yet the richer you are the more generous you can afford to be. And it is only when you are really poor that you will know how generous you really are.

Forget tatoos: How about an exotic name?

A 57 year old man who was named Steve Kreuscher changed his name to In God We Trust, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

That’s first name: In God; and last name: We Trust.

Perhaps he’s giving us a glimpse of the next stage of human evolution!

At least his heart seems to be in the right place.

Blind Win Court Ruling on U.S. Currency

According to this report, by a “2-to-1 decision, …the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, held that the Treasury Department had failed to demonstrate that it would be too burdensome to make bills of different sizes or add features that could be read by touch to distinguish monetary value.”

That means that unless the government further appeals this case, we will soon have major changes in our paper currency; and dollar bills in various denominations will be easier to distinguish from each other, especially if you are visually impaired.

This report describes the following appeal options:  ”The government could appeal to the full 13-member appeals court (one of whose judges, David S. Tatel, is blind), or it could seek quick review by the Supreme Court, a step it has 90 days to take.”

This current decision against the government supports an earlier federal court decision in the same case.  Back in 2006 a federal judge decided that “the government was violating the Rehabilitation Act” against blind people “by keeping all U.S. currency the same size and texture” - see Judge Says Currency Shortchanges the Blind .

In that earlier decision the judge wrote-

Of the more than 180 countries that issue paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations …More than 100 of the other issuers vary their bills in size according to denomination, and every other issuer includes at least some features that help the visually impaired. (Washington Post)

What do you think about this decision? 

If you think it’s going too far, I think you should watch the movie Ray before you make up your mind.

I’m not sure what I would have thought a couple of weeks ago.  But I just saw the movie Ray within the past week, and it opened up my eyes to this issue in a way I never thought of before.

Ray is the life story of Ray Charles.  You probably know him as one of the great jazz musicians who died not that long ago.  You might know that he was blind since childhood.  Most people probably don’t know all the challenges he faced transitioning from a poor, Southern single parent family to become the R&B legend that we know him to be.

The movie shows the barriers of race, economic class, and religion he had to negotiate in order to find a way to express the musical talents he had welling up inside him.  One of his strikingly interesting practices was that he usually insisted on being paid in one-dollar bills since it was the only way he could keep from being cheated - and also so he could function as an independent person. 

This insistence that he be paid in one-dollar bills was apparently employed  through through much of the time it took to establish his career; but it would only have worked during the times he lived, since it was a simpler time.  Simpler financially perhaps, since wages were lower then; but not easier for a person who had to travel all over the country from gig to gig with his limitations.

The impact of seeing how having only one-dollar bills helps a blind person be in control of their life is arresting.  Although it is inspiring to witness the heroic efforts of someone overcoming difficult challenges; there is also a case to be made for removing obstacles to normal functioning when that can be accomplished with reasonable efforts.  Given that so many other countries are already serving the needs of the blind with their currencies, it seems that the US government could find a way.