Reelpol

VENTURA COUNTY: USER FEE AT THOUSAND OAKS LIBRARIES WAS ONE FOR THE BOOKS

Published in the June 24, 2009 edition of the Ventura County Star

During the Dark Ages, the nobility secured their books with locks, lest the wrong people gain access. Charging a fee for a library card does basically the same thing.

The Thousand Oaks City Council is to be commended for jettisoning library fees for out-of-town borrowers. In a single, magnanimous gesture, it managed to propel Thousand Oaks into the 19th century — when the American free public library movement was born.

We so expect libraries to be without cost and universally accessible — to check e-mail while on vacation or to order a must-see DVD via interlibrary loan — that we are stunned when we run across one that locks outsiders out.

Prior to the council’s repeal of nonresident charges, if you didn’t live in the city or the unincorporated areas of Newbury Park, Lynn Ranch or Ventu Park, you had to pay to use the city’s two libraries. A library card cost $70 a year and each interlibrary loan item was $5.

The city’s deputy library director Nancy Sevier testified that Thousand Oaks reference librarians were so overwhelmed by long lines snaking around their counters in 1991, that the only solution that sprang to mind was to impose hefty levies on nonresidents.

Now mind you, no other library in Ventura County would have dreamt of being anything less than all-welcoming and fee-free. Making outsiders pay, however, did the job. Last year, nonresident cardholders numbered fewer than 400. However, the present batch of city librarians best be girding their loins for the onslaught that is to come.

Thousand Oaks will be extending the welcome mat to all Ventura County residents now able to enjoy gratis access — unless the city reverses itself again. The present agreement comes with no guarantees.

At the June 15 Board of Supervisors meeting where a library-subsidy deal between the city and county was discussed, Supervisor Steve Bennett argued that “return-to-source funding” (paying out property taxes where collected) is incompatible with universally accessible libraries.

“The county library system is open to everyone,” the supervisor said, “regardless of where they live — while Thousand Oaks is threatening to revoke this free-library concept unless they get the ($193,000 owed under the agreement) they want.”

“Is that,” he added, “a true commitment to free libraries?”

Good question. Here’s another — how many people from the unincorporated areas actually use Thousand Oaks libraries? According to library director Stephen R. Brogden, the figure for the latest two-year period was 1,500. Dividing $193,000 by 750 means the city is presently demanding more than $257 per person. To put that number in perspective, the Ventura County Library system manages to get by on $21 — one-tenth the amount.

First, don’t you find the dollar amount disturbing? Perhaps I am missing something, but the city’s latest demand has all the earmarks of a coldhearted money grab. I hope that I am wrong, but in the last 11 years, Thousand Oaks’ invoices to the county have swelled from $74,338 for 1998-99 to $193,000 for 2009-10 — an astonishing increase of 160 percent. The agreement that the city expects Ventura County to honor isn’t just lopsided, but, in light of already-tightened belts, unconscionable.

Second, while libraries cannot be equal, the two in Thousand Oaks profit not only from the generosity of city property owners but also sales tax dollars reaped from nonresidents who splurge at its auto malls, shopping centers and hotels. In addition, unlike the 14 Ventura County libraries, the city’s main library sits on parkland supported by county property taxes — rent: $1 a year. Shouldn’t these benefits also factor into the equation?

Third, while there may have been a legitimate need for the Ventura County Library system to subsidize residents in unincorporated areas 20 years ago — these days, not only does the Simi Valley Library serve portions of Newbury Park, Lynn Ranch and Ventu Park, but Oak Park and Camarillo can now offer more-than-adequate resources within a long walk or short ride as well.

Fourth, please note that $193,000 constitutes a mere 1.7 percent of the Thousand Oaks libraries’ budget. Having to honor the agreement with Thousand Oaks, however, would have devastated the 14 county libraries already cut to the bone — with one (Wright Library in Ventura) slated to close unless private donations are secured.

Fifth, Thousand Oaks may wish to abandon its “return-to-source-funding” mantra. It seems that despite a superior library, 1,916 good citizens of Thousand Oaks have taken out Ventura County library cards — 416 more than the unincorporated area residents in a two-year period acknowledged by Brogden. So who really owes whom the loot?

Worry not, Thousand Oaks, the Ventura County library system is not about to send you a bill. You see, when county folks speak about free public libraries, they really mean it.

MODERN-DAY FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH MIGHT BE ONLINE

Published in the July 10, 2009 edition of the Ventura County Star

Last semester, one of my students wanted to know if I was planning on canceling class that day. Why? It was raining.

When I suggested she carry an umbrella, she seemed stunned. Apparently, I hadn’t realized that an umbrella constituted a glaring example of a “What Not To Wear” fashion accessory.

Pretty silly, wasn’t she? Yet, only a few years ago, when one referred to “The Digital Divide,” it was all about race or class. These days, however, it’s a question of years.

In ancient Rome, the average soul lived to the ripe old age of 25. Today, a male who turns 21 in 2009 might expect to become an octogenarian, while a 21-year-old female might look forward to blowing out 85 candles on her birthday cake.

Yet, according to 2008 U.S. Department of Commerce figures, while 73.7 percent of those aged 50 to 64 eagerly participate online, a mere 34.1 percent of those over 65 do the same — principally because they retired well before the ability to Google became a bona fide occupational requirement.

Researchers report that more than half of all people over 65 voluntarily exclude themselves from cyberspace simply because they see no benefit, lifestyle-wise.

In actuality, however, it’s more likely that a fear of the unknown is holding these folks back — a terror that becomes more entrenched as the years spent toting this mortal coil increase.

Unfortunately, as oldsters isolate themselves from the rest of society — a 2009 AARP study reports that one-third of those 75 and older live alone — they also hasten the date of their demise.

“One of the greatest challenges or losses that we face as older adults, frankly, is not about our health, but it’s actually about our social network deteriorating on us, because our friends get sick, our spouse passes away, friends pass away or we move,” Joseph F. Coughlin, director of the AgeLab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told The New York Times.

“The new future of old age is about staying in society, staying in the workplace and staying very connected,” he added. “And technology is going to be a very big part of that, because the new reality is, increasingly, a virtual reality. It provides a way to make new connections, new friends and new senses of purpose.”

In addition, according to research by physicians at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, having close friends and staying in contact with family members also offers a protective effect against the damaging effects of Alzheimer’s disease.

So why couldn’t this de rigueur social network be assembled online?

MySpace, with 6.7 million users aged 65 and over, claims that seniors comprise the site’s fastest-growing demographic. Facebook shares similar findings as the elderly join up — not only to keep in touch with children and grandchildren, but also to reconnect with former school chums, relocated neighbors and/or previous workplace acquaintances.

Yet, a huge influx of old folks, despite their potential for boosting advertising bucks and swelling traffic statistics, might well be the veritable undoing of MySpace and Facebook.

Why? There’s always the risk that young people — who aren’t exactly thrilled with the prospect of Grandma gawking at their posts and photos — might start to migrate to more exclusive networking off-ramps on the Information Highway.

On the other hand, perhaps the pre-boomer generation may feel more comfortable on social-networking sites that actually specialize in the over-65 set. What’s available, however, not including senior citizen dating bureaus, is a bit disappointing.

First is eons.com, the brainchild of Jeff Taylor, former CEO of Monster.com. Eons supports a range of old-age-appropriate activities — from people-to-people connections to brainteasers to fitness facts to health information. What are conspicuously absent are vulgar videos, scantily clad candid shots and the conceited commentaries of adolescents.

Furthermore, Eons isn’t aiming for Facebook and MySpace numbers. Taylor’s goal is a modest and manageable 5 to 10 million users.

Second is MyWay Village — a social network for residents of retirement communities. While many seniors refuse to go online because they find computers and software overwhelming, Connected Living, which employs simplified technology and high-touch personal support under the guise of “Ambassadors,” links the generations via e-mail, digital photographs and personal memoirs.

MyWay Village, which just completed wildly successful pilot programs at assisted living facilities in Illinois and Massachusetts, is poised on the threshold of a national expansion.

Every generation now living, save those collecting Social Security, has managed to embrace the World Wide Web. By 2030, one out of five Americans will be over 65. Isn’t it time these folks stopped isolating themselves behind an umbrella of fear and ignorance? Let’s let them know that it won’t kill them to get wet.

In fact, it may just save their lives.

NO GENERATION GAP FOR 'ME GENERATION'

Published in the May 27, 2009 edition of the Ventura County Star

What do Bill Gates, Leonardo da Vinci, Marcel Proust, Abraham Lincoln and Henry Ford have in common?

All, according to leadership guru Michael Maccoby, are narcissists — albeit “productive” narcissists remembered both warmly and well.

So, considering such stellar fellows, could there be an upside to the current narcissism epidemic chronicled by Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell in their eponymous book?

Not if the narcissists in question, as defined by Twenge and Campbell, “brag about their achievements (while blaming others for their shortcomings), focus on their physical appearance, value material goods that display status ... constantly turn the conversation back to themselves, manipulate and cheat to get ahead, surround themselves with people who look up to them (like a ‘posse’ or entourage), seek out ‘trophy partners’ who make them look good and jump at opportunities to garner attention and fame.”

Unfortunately, that sort of narcissism can result in botched marriages, hostile work environments and billion-dollar Ponzi schemes.

The startling statistic that sums up the major argument in “The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement” is this: “Nearly 10 percent of 20-somethings in 2008 have already experienced symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder — compared with just over 3 percent of the 65-and-over set.”

Some scholars contend that bewailing the self-absorption of youth is a perennial pastime of oldsters.

“The children now love luxury,” Plato lamented 2,400 years ago. “They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.”

Kali Trzesniewski and her team studied the same data as Twenge and Campbell, yet published diametrically opposed results in Psychological Science, contending that there have been very few changes in the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of youths over the last 30 years.

Both research teams are correct.

Erhard Seminars Training was introduced in 1971; Twitter was born in 2006.

While Drew Pinsky argues in “The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism Is Seducing America” that the present celebrity-obsessed culture is causing even more narcissism, those of us who have been around for a while remember that MTV created pop culture icons out of its “Real World” participants nearly 20 years ago.

Furthermore, not only have most Americans, whatever their age, binged on the “you deserve a break today” call to consumption issued by Madison Avenue, but they also have themselves to blame for allowing their progeny to gorge on an empty-calorie diet of grade inflation, applause for merely showing up and the big-hearted bestowal of materialistic entitlements.

But let’s not stop there. Nowhere has “the power of you” caused more damage than in the political sphere.

According to Chapman University’s Joel Kotkin, the key to understanding California’s precipitous decline transcends liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. The real culprit, he believes, lies in the “politics of narcissism.”

So who practices the “politics of narcissism” at your political level?

Here are some telltale signs:

— The initial words out of their mouths, articulated at a decibel level higher than necessary, are: “I am not a NIMBY!”

— While they have only taken up residence in the last few years, they want everything to remain precisely the way it was on the day they first inked their escrow papers.

— They object to any project that involves growth — despite the fact that the development in which they now reside was wholeheartedly approved by future-thinking folks willing to share their little corner of paradise.

— While they identify themselves as activists for some sort of environmental cause, it’s window dressing in a vibrant shade of green. The real motivation behind the campaign button is protecting personal viewshed or quality of life — with nary a thought to others less fortunate or in need of jobs.

As Kotkin pointed out in Newsweek: “It’s even more disturbing that many of the primary apostles of this kind of politics are themselves wealthy high-livers like Hollywood magnates, Silicon Valley billionaires and well-heeled politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown. They might imagine that driving a Prius or blocking a new water system or new suburban housing development serves the planet, but this usually comes at no cost to themselves or their lifestyles.”

According to psychologists, a narcissist does not engage with others in any healthy sense — he or she merely glances at them to confirm his or her own existence. But the narcissist will respond, aggressively and even forcefully, if his or her reverie of self-delusion is disturbed by reality. In other words, I’ll get nasty letters.

So what do Napoleon Bonaparte, Richard Nixon, Orson Welles, Marlon Brando and Vincent Van Gogh have in common? They also appear on Maccoby’s narcissist list, yet aren’t remembered all that warmly or well.

Julius Caesar got it: “It’s only hubris,” he observed more than 2,000 years ago, “if I fail.”

FOR MEDIA, NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF REINVENTION

Published in the Wednesday, May 13, 2009 edition of the Ventura County Star

Book sales are declining, newspapers and magazines are going belly up, advertising dollars are deserting radio and fewer folks are queuing up at the box office. Sound familiar?

It should — if you go back about 50 years. That’s when the new medium threatening the old media was an upstart known as television. Yet, each old medium managed to survive by figuring out a way to reinvent itself.

Publishers of magazines and newspapers pushed back, largely by targeting special- interest readers and cramming 70 to 80 percent of their pages with advertising.

Cheaper, disposable paperbacks and limited runs gave a boost to book publishers.

Radio found salvation in the automobile, talk and niche music formats.

Motion picture studios offered up bigger screens, better sound and a great deal more sex and violence than networks — then shackled by blue-nosed departments of standards and practices — could.

Is it déjà vu all over again? Chris Anderson, in “The Long Tail,” cites some startling statistics:

— Television: Network audience share has fallen by a third since 1985.

— Radio: Listenership is at a 27-year low.

— Newspapers: Circulation peaked in 1987 and the decline is accelerating.

— Magazines: Total circulation peaked in 2000 and is now back to 1994 levels.

— Books: Sales growth is lagging the economy as whole.

Can we finger any one demographic for these dismal digits?

You betcha! Blame it on Millennials, who only crave media with social currency and user control.

Not only are they pushing up from the bottom of the coveted 18- to 49-year-old consumer base, but their propensity to share knowledge with their entire social network gives them a great deal of clout with advertisers.

According to the 2007 State of the Media Democracy survey, 62 percent of Millennials reported that they frequently or occasionally socialized on the Internet, versus 38 percent of the rest of the participants in the survey, a 63 percent advantage.

Other prominent Millennial online activities with such an advantage include watching content created by others, reading blogs, posting on message boards and creating personal content online.

Millennials also responded favorably to questions about potential devices that would give them even more digital capability. Their eagerness for new technology not only significantly exceeded other generations but the survey population in general.

Books, magazines and newspapers may only manage to survive by reinventing themselves but again.

How? Let’s ask Jeff Bezos. He’s more than willing to talk about his new jumbo-screen (9.7-inch display) Kindle DX, which employs electronic ink to create type that does not cause the eyestrain or tiredness associated with computer screens.

It’s safe to say Bezo knows that nothing peeves the college-bound Millennial more than the exorbitant cost of textbooks. So if you think coughing up $489 for a Kindle seems steep, Bezos realizes it’s a pittance compared with the $625 to $900 a semester the average college student forks over at a university bookstore.

In addition, Kindle users, who don’t have to worry about resale value, have the ability to annotate passages, bookmark pages and highlight text as well as feel good about saving trees.

Further, the Kindle DX is able to store an astounding 3,500 electronic books — no overloaded backpacks to lug around — and while download prices have yet to be set, Kindle versions of best sellers only command a piddling 10 bucks each.

Pearson and Wiley, who, according to Bezos, represent more than 60 percent of the U.S. higher-education textbook market, have struck a deal to begin offering Kindle textbooks this summer. If the trial programs at Arizona State University, Case Western Reserve University, Princeton University, Reed College and Darden School of Business rock the Millennial world, as Bezos bets, high schools and even grammar schools will quickly follow suit.

As for newspapers and magazines, both are hoping to attract new readers from the Millennial demographic as well. Right now, The New York Times, Washington Post or Boston Globe readers in nondelivery areas are being offered a break on the Kindle in return for a specified subscription commitment. Amazon already offers Kindle subscriptions to 37 ad-free newspapers for approximately $10 a month.

With circulation figures dipping for just about every newspaper, the need to slash overhead may propel even more dailies into partnering with Amazon.

For example, to put ink, paper and delivery outlays into perspective, according to the Business Insider, “It costs about twice as much money to print and deliver the newspaper over a year as it would cost to send each of its subscribers a brand-new Amazon Kindle instead.”

Looks like a win-win solution to me.

As singer-songwriter Henry Rollins once quipped — and he ought to know — “I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention.”

I’ll let you know in another 50 years.

IS CALIFORNIA A STATE OF GRASSHOPPERS OR ANTS?

Published in the April 29, 2009 edition of the Ventura County Star

According to Aesop’s Fables, the ant toils diligently in the heat of summer, weatherproofing his house and storing supplies for the winter. The grasshopper, on the other hand, who calls the ant a “fool,” wiles away the warmer months in pursuit of personal pleasure. Come the snows, however, the ant is warm and well-fed; the famished grasshopper is stranded out in the cold.

If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Legislature were writing this cautionary tale, they would simply grant the grasshopper permission to purloin the provisions stockpiled by the farsighted, hard-working ant.

Not only does the so-called budget fix of Schwarzenegger, et al., rely on expanding the state lottery and borrowing $5 billion against future revenues (Proposition 1C) but also seizing $608 million during the next fiscal year and $268 million each year for four more from First 5 (Proposition 1D) as well as siphoning off $460 million over the next two years from mental health care (Proposition 1E).

First 5 found funding when Hollywood’s Rob Reiner championed Proposition 10, which clamped a 50-cent-a-pack tax on cigarettes. Despite well-financed opposition by the tobacco industry, Reiner’s 1998 ballot measure became law. Subsequently, $500 million a year went into the early-childhood development program.

Reiner believes 1D is another sign of the decline of governance in the California republic.

“It’s unbelievably shortsighted on their part,” Reiner told the Los Angeles Times. “These programs are designed to save money for the state — to put children on the right path so they’re not a drain on the system.”

Furthermore, the passage of 1D could endanger the $200 million in First 5 money going to prevent child abuse, according to the Child Abuse Prevention Center’s Sheila Boxley.

In addition, the mental- health funding created in 2004 will likewise be jeopardized by Proposition 1E. Proposition 63, which levied a 1 percent surcharge on taxable income exceeding $1 million, was approved by 54 percent of the voters. The annual take for mental-health programs has ranged from $900 million to $1.5 billion. In the last five years, programs have served more than 200,000 mentally ill, slashed unnecessary emergency-room costs and significantly reduced jail time for the homeless. Under 1E, however, roughly a quarter of mental-health funding would be diverted to balance the state’s books.

So-called “budget surpluses” tattooed bull’s eyes on First 5 and mental-health programs during recent state budget negotiations. These two were targeted for the odious crime of practicing fiscal responsibility: They were guilty of setting aside cash reserves for the lean years or for funding future programs.

“Money’s coming in and we’re doing multiyear planning,” responded Sherry Novick, executive director of the First 5 Association. “This is what state government should be doing. We’re creating a model.”

If Bernie Madoff’s mendacity wasn’t enough for you, read the misleading proposition titles, courtesy of Secretary of State Debra Bowen. Even as Proposition 1D tries to grab $1.7 billion in tobacco taxes earmarked for preschoolers, the title deceives: “Protects Children’s Services Funding.”

Proposition 1E’s “Mental Health Services Funding. Temporary Reallocation” is another lie. Not only will the mentally ill lose, and not just temporarily, but counties such as Ventura, which control mental-health funding at the local level, will end up being trumped by the state forevermore.

A recent Public Policy Institute poll reported likely voters are lukewarm (short of 50 percent) when it comes to supporting Propositions 1D and 1E. Hopefully, they will come to adamantly oppose these measures once they determine the truth.

A Tulchin Research poll released by the “The No on 1D/E Campaign” reports that while Proposition 1D is leading slightly, 48 percent to 42 percent, Proposition 1E is expected to go down, 44 percent to 46 percent. Furthermore, the finding that voters most likely to cast a ballot will vote no may just turn the tide, especially in light of the low voter turnout expected.

So while opponents of 1D/E are heartened that the approval ratings for Schwarzenegger, at 33 percent, and the Legislature, at 11 percent, are at an all-time low, the bad news is that proponents for all propositions are raising a ton of money for direct mailers and boob-tube spots.

“It’s still early, the big money is just starting to be felt,” said California Lutheran University political science professor Herb Gooch. “I think 1F has a good chance to pass; the others, my suspicion is, will fail.”

The League of Women Voters of California, which rarely takes a position on propositions, is recommending a no vote on 1A, 1C, 1D and 1E.

Could the passage of Propositions 1D and 1E throw open the gates to future raids by lawmakers if forced, again, to grapple with the budget? It will be a cold day in you-know-where if it doesn’t. I have it on good authority from the ant.

SO WHO DOESN'T HATE PAYING TAXES?

Published in the April 15, 2009 edition of the Ventura County Star

Today is Tax Day. No, it is not a public holiday — schools, stores and other businesses will be open as usual. Public transportation is expected to run on schedule, no highway gridlock is anticipated and long lines at the post office have been eliminated by e-filing.

So if you yearn for the days when there was no Internal Revenue Service, just remember that financing the Revolutionary War also proved quite taxing. A balloon payment of $15 million was due in 1779, with $6 million to be paid out annually until 1797 — or $187.6 million and $75 million, respectively, in 2008 inflation-adjusted dollars.

The first income tax was collected during and after the Civil War (1862-72) at a rate of 3 percent on incomes above $800 — or $10,000 in 2008 inflation-adjusted dollars.

During the administration of President Grover Cleveland, the federal government again levied an income tax, however, the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional — a setback that propelled countless anti-tax organizations then, as now, to dream the impossible dream.

Yet, inevitably, the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913, and Congress, which snatched the power “to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census of enumeration,” refuses to let go.

Ronald Reagan once defined a “taxpayer” as “someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination.”

Ever since 1947, George Gallup has been asking Americans about taxes. On the whole, the majority thinks their taxes are too high, about a third believe they are just about right, and only 2 percent, whose sanity is questionable, are convinced that taxes are too low.

Last year, all manner of taxes consumed nearly 40 percent of the average family’s income and exceeded the total spent for food, clothing and shelter combined. It will be even worse during this challenging economic downturn, since taxpayers are being expected to pay up with moola they no longer make.

According to the latest CBS News/New York Times survey, almost three-quarters of those polled think it is a fantastic idea to raise taxes on people making more than $250,000 per year. In fact, two out of three argue that the tax code should be changed so that the middle class pays less while “upper income” folks pay more.

Historically, fat cats were taxed at top rates during both world wars and the Great Depression. Even now, as the wealthiest Americans fork over, on average, more than 27 percent of their considerable income in federal taxes, a conviction that the tax code is so riddled with loopholes that brainy lawyers and sleazy accountants can help the well-heeled avoid paying their fair share continues to persist.

A recent Tax Foundation/Harris Interactive poll underscores a loss of faith in the code’s evenhandedness. When asked who pays more federal income taxes as a percentage of income — you or Donald Trump — a remarkable 59 percent of poll respondents contended that they ante up a greater share of their income than the man with the attention-grabbing hairpiece.

Furthermore, the media are quick to disclose who among the rich and famous aren’t kicking in as well. Would it surprise you to learn that California’s budget deficit would shrink by nearly $5 million if singer Dionne Warwick and comedian Sinbad Adkins would simply pay their taxes?

Not only is the federal tax system perceived as unfair but also excruciatingly complicated. Although there are only 773,000 words in the Holy Bible, the code has swelled from 11,400 words in 1913 to more than 7 million today. Tax law is so complex, in fact, that 60 percent of taxpayers are forced to hire a professional to return their returns.

As Stephanie Greenwood, in “10 Excellent Reasons Not to Hate Taxes,” concludes, the debate about taxes raises two very important questions: “What kind of society do we want?” and “How are we going to pay for it?” Both questions, she added, are at the “root of our most deeply held beliefs.”

A majority of Americans — 57 percent, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll — would be willing to pay higher taxes if it meant health insurance for all Americans.

According to a poll commissioned by Building America’s Future, 81 percent are likewise amenable to paying 1 percent more in federal taxes if the money would be employed to upgrade schools, roads and other public works projects.

In his will, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who once wrote “taxes are what we pay for a civilized society,” bequeathed his entire estate to Uncle Sam.

At least you get to keep something. Happy Tax Day!

THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING FISHY ABOUT APRIL FOOLS' DAY

Published in the April 1, 2009 edition of the Ventura County Star

‘Mix a little foolishness with your prudence,” advised Horace two millennia ago. “It’s good to be silly at the right moment.”

Back then, however, there was no April Fools’ Day. That would have to wait until 1582, when folks refusing to recognize the Gregorian calendar insisted on celebrating the new year on the first day of April. Such stiff-necked fools were subjected to a plethora of practical jokes.

You won’t be surprised to learn that the most stubborn of the lot hailed from La Belle, France, where the traditional form of harassment for the Poisson d’Avril was to fasten a paper fish to the back of the person’s shirt, a la the infamous “kick me” sign. Perhaps these April fish inspired “hook, line and sinker” as well.

So, what is it about hoaxes that cause some people to swallow them whole?

A 1997 IBM Research study isolated three factors: 1) overconfidence in the authority figure providing the data; 2) a shortage of appropriate scientific skepticism by the victim; and 3) the feelings of power, excitement and belonging that accompany passing the hoax along.

The No. 1 April Fools’ Day spoof of all time, as judged by notoriety, creativity and number of people duped, was awarded by the Museum of Hoaxes to the first television program to stage an April Fools’ prank.

Back in 1957, Brits simply adored the news show “Panorama,” which was anchored by the authoritative Richard Dimbleby — the BBC’s answer to Walter Cronkite. On April 1, viewers were tricked by and treated to a three-minute segment featuring young Swiss lasses, outfitted in national folk garb, plucking long spaghetti strands from nearby trees.

Dimbleby disclosed that the so-called “bumper crop” — which regrettably failed to rival the customary Italian harvest — resulted from an unusually mild winter and “the virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil.”

Callers who had never tasted Italian cooking (“too exotic”) lit up the BBC phone lines. Those who inquired about the care and cultivation of pasta plants were told to “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”

The first cyberspace stunt meant to mark April Fools’ Day returns us to 1996, when thousands of e-mail recipients were informed that the Internet would be closed for cleaning from March 31, 23:59 p.m. GMT until 12:01 a.m. GMT April 1.

“As many of you know,” the message added, “the cleaning process, which eliminates dead e-mail and inactive ftp, www and gopher sites, allows for a better working and faster Internet.” In order to protect valuable data from deletion, netizens were cautioned to refrain from connecting any computer to the World Wide Web in any way.

The e-mail, signed by the Interconnected Network Maintenance Staff, Main Branch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, apologized for any inconvenience, thanked users for their cooperation and requested that recipients immediately forward the e-mail to every person in his or her address book. Have you gotten yours yet?

The granddaddy of all hoaxes, however, was carried out on the day before Halloween, not April 1. Some 1.7 million fairly intelligent Americans, according to Richard Hand in “Terror on the Air,” were suckered into believing that Martians were invading the New Jersey hamlet of Grover’s Mill.

When Orson Welles’ radio production of “War of the Worlds” hit the airwaves on Oct. 30, 1938, the national panic that ensued spawned the publication of more than 12,500 newspaper articles. While Welles feigned incredulity at the terror-inducing impact of his CBS radio play, his biographers would later reveal that Welles made two choices deliberately calculated to maximize effect.

First, instead of packaging H.G. Wells’ story as a conventional drama, Welles opted to present what was ostensibly a musical program — featuring the popular Ramon Roquello orchestra — and then, with increasing frequency, punctuating their performance with breaking-news bulletins.

According to the Oct. 31, 1938, edition of The New York Times, “Despite the fantastic nature of the reported ‘occurrences,’ the program, coming after the recent war scare in Europe and a period in which the radio frequently had interrupted regularly scheduled programs to report developments in the Czechoslovak situation, caused fright and panic throughout the area of the broadcast.”

Second, Welles timed his “updates” to coincide with regularly scheduled breaks during rival NBC’s big hit, the “Chase and Sanborn Hour,” in order to pick up listeners scouring the dial for respite from coffee commercials.

So be advised, Dear Readers, today is April Fools’ Day. All manner of media are hoping to reel you in like so many French fish.

My advice? Embrace change, question authority, avoid opening attachments and take to heart the words of educator Laurence J. Peter: “It is wise to remember that you are one of those who can be fooled some of the time.”

TAKING CHANCE WITH LIFTING BAN ON COFFIN PHOTOS

Published in the Wednesday, March 18, 2009 edition of the Ventura County Star

Three little words — but, oh, what disparate emotions they arouse!

You think I’m talking about “I love you,” don’t you? No, my three little words are “photographing flag-draped coffins” — the second word being hyphenated, after all.

For those opposed to the hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the past 18 years have given “photographing flag-draped coffins” veritable battle-cry status.

These peace-loving folks see the media ban on documenting some 4,000 war dead arriving at either of the nation’s two military mortuaries — Dover or Travis air force bases — as a cheap political ploy designed to conceal the actual human cost of war.

As Newsweek’s John Barry recalls, “On the eve of ground combat in the first Gulf war in 1991, the administration of George H.W. Bush grappled with a grisly question: War planners were expecting so many combat fatalities that they worried that the military would have to use forklifts and pallets at Dover.”

Was the camera ban a direct result of countless anticipated casualties?

The senior President Bush maintained that the photo blackout, which was finally rescinded on Feb. 26, 2009, was initiated to protect the privacy of grieving families.

The recent change in policy by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is attention-grabbing on two counts: His announcement was made without any fanfare whatsoever, and his so-called “reversal” contains a privacy-protecting poison pill — permission to photograph must be initially secured from immediate family members.

For those who support the war and/or the troops, the words “photographing flag-draped coffins” — especially when coupled with “freedom of the press” — tend to provoke anger as well as apprehension.

These Constitution-loving folks argue, quite rightly, that the First Amendment neither guarantees journalists access to coffins bearing the remains of military personnel killed overseas nor recognizes, despite the plethora of print pieces to the contrary, the right of the American public to view such images.

As the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Houchins v. KQED (1978): “There is no constitutional right to have access to particular government information, or to require openness from the bureaucracy. The public’s interest in knowing about its government is protected by the guarantee of a Free Press, but the protection is indirect. The Constitution itself is neither a Freedom of Information Act nor an Official Secrets Act.”

Furthermore, the prospect of press access to military caskets has long disturbed the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Both organizations fear that what should be an intimate, solemn moment might be trivialized as yet another photo op or, worse still, hijacked by any number of opportunistic propagandists for political purposes.

Finally, a Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission survey conducted Feb. 18, which represented some 60,000 military families and veterans, revealed that a solid two-thirds of the membership supported the media ban.

Since the draft no longer exists, a sizable number of American families have been virtually untouched by Iraq or Afghanistan. They have no idea what transpires after an American soldier pays the ultimate price for serving his or her country.

To that end, HBO transformed the journal of Lt. Col. Michael Strobl into a film called “Taking Chance” that not only competed at the Sundance Film Festival but also premiered Feb. 21 on cable.

Yet, even if you missed the movie, Strobl’s riveting account, as he escorted Chance Russel Phelps’ remains from Dover Air Force base to the final resting place in Dubois, Wyo., can be found at http://www.blackfive.net/main/2004/04/taking_chance.html.

Read it. It will make you proud to be an American.

The essay begins: “Chance Phelps was wearing his Saint Christopher medal when he was killed on Good Friday. Eight days later, I handed the medallion to his mother. I didn’t know Chance before he died. Today, I miss him.”

So will you.

What you will discover, along with Strobl, is that, all along the way, just about everybody involved, either directly or indirectly, felt privileged to contribute to getting Chance home:

— The morticians who washed away the horrors of battle and outfitted the 20-year-old in a spanking-clean dress uniform even though his body would not be viewed.

— The civilian construction workers who placed their hard hats over their hearts as his hearse departed with its special cargo.

— The flight attendant who pressed a well-worn gold crucifix into Strobl’s hand with the ambiguous admonition, “I want you to have this.”

— All the ordinary citizens who, to a person, treated the fallen Marine’s remains with dignity, honor and respect.

Strobl, like us, comes to the realization that an entire nation, albeit one person at a time, mourned the loss of Private First Class Phelps.

Do you really think a flag-draped coffin photograph had anything to do with that?

ISN'T IT ABOUT TIME YOU HELPED CHANGE THE WORLD?

Published in the March 4, 2009 edition of the Ventura County Star

‘Show me a successful individual and I’ll show you someone who didn’t want for positive influences in his or her life,” writes Denzel Washington in his New York Times best seller, “A Hand to Guide Me.”

“I don’t care who you are or what you do for a living,” he added, “if you do it well I’m betting there was someone cheering you on and showing you the way.”

At a time when his nonstop-working beautician mom and preacher dad couldn’t carve out even a few hours to spend with their three offspring, Washington’s “positive influence” went by the moniker of “Billy Thomas.”

Thomas, a staffer for the Mount Vernon, N.Y., Boys & Girls Club, remembers the super-energetic 6-year-old who first walked through the door nearly 50 years ago. Although the future two-time Academy Award-winner was “a little wild, always getting into everything,” he proved basically a good kid who merely required an extra dose of guidance now and then.

It is no accident that Washington — who spent a dozen years playing football, performing in talent contests and, in general, soaking up positive Boys & Girls Club experiences — would specialize in portraying law-enforcement officers on the silver screen. His starring roles in “The Mighty Quinn,” “Virtuosity,” “Fallen,” “Out Of Time” and “Inside Man” can be linked back to a hard-won stint as “Police Chief for a Day.”

Washington also credits the Boys & Girls Club for protecting him from the dangers of drugs, crime and violence in his Mount Vernon neighborhood — a safeguard that was not afforded his three closest childhood friends. Unfortunately, they ended up, according to Washington, as a homicide, an AIDS-related illness fatality and a long-term penitentiary inhabitant.

Life got especially dicey for 14-year old Washington when his parents skirmished through a particularly chaotic divorce and his father disappeared for the next six years. Yet, Billy Thomas, who, according to Washington, “was the mentor every child needs but few are lucky enough to have” did not abandon him.

“Whatever success I’ve enjoyed in this life,” admitted Washington, “I trace right back to Billy and the lessons he taught me at the Boys & Girls Club.”

“Billy always said that luck is where opportunity meets preparation,” Washington recalls. “So I decided to study for two years at the American Conservatory Theater, learning the classics. That decision prepared me for the challenging roles I’ve taken on throughout my career. Sure, I can wave a gun around and talk out of the side of my mouth in ‘Training Day,’ but I can also play Brutus in a Shakespeare production on Broadway.”

When the Federated Boys Clubs of Boston banded together in 1906, only 53 facilities existed. Today, Boys & Girls Clubs now number more than 4,000, serve some 4.8 million 6- to 18-year-olds and are located in all 50 states.

For the 13th consecutive year, The Chronicle of Philanthropy ranked Boys & Girls Clubs of America as “No. 1” among youth organizations.

While many clubs come equipped with basketball courts, swimming pools, computer labs and/or art studios, fancy facilities are not the key to success. A club will fail if there is not, at the heart, caring adults — just like Billy Thomas — who truly believe, “If you want to change the world, start by changing the life of a single child.”

While some club alumni such as Bill Cosby, Michael Jordan, Brad Pitt, former President Bill Clinton, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Martin Sheen and Neil Diamond have achieved stellar distinction in their respective fields, the average Boys & Girls Club alumnus does not boast quite as impressive a résumé.

Most, however, despite the odds stacked against them, have managed to live up to their potential by simply getting an education, raising a family, serving their country, pursuing a career or supporting the community.

In Ventura County, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Oxnard and Port Hueneme released an economic impact report in November — the first ever in California — that concluded, “For every $1 spent at the clubs’ center and after-school sites, $4 is saved by the communities they serve.”

Report author Jamshid Damooei of California Lutheran University and his team studied teen pregnancy rates, high school graduation rates, conflict avoidance, improved self-esteem, better job preparation and social impact on the lives of club participants, their families and the Oxnard and Port Hueneme communities.

Damooei concluded, “The study showed me there is a clear choice for us: We can help our children succeed, or they will be trapped in poverty and crime.”

“We’re all destined to leave some kind of mark. I really believe that,” writes Washington. “The key is to keep reaching for that guiding hand and to keep extending our own.”

Isn’t it about time you helped change the world?

POLITICIANS COULD LEARN FROM THE ROBERT PLANT-ALLISON KRAUSS COLABORATION

Published in the February 18, 2009 edition of the Ventura County Star. Imagine a new kind of politician — an individual who has evolved beyond the War Room tactics writ large by the likes of James Carville or Karl Rove. He or she operates out of respect, integrity and civility. He or she listens attentively, responds with facts rather than emotion and refuses to ascribe ulterior motives to the other side. Wouldn’t you say, “That’s about as good as politics gets?”

President Barack Obama, who spent much of the time on the campaign trail calling for a new era of bipartisanship, all but conceded at his first White House news conference that his recession-busting stimulus bill wouldn’t muster much GOP support.

That’s what folks here in Ventura County call “an understatement.” The Senate approved the $787 billion bill Friday with a paltry three Republican votes. There were none from the House.

In addition, the departure of Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, citing “irresolvable conflicts,” proved to be but another stumbling block to assembling a “team of rivals” Cabinet. Gregg is the third prospective Cabinet secretary — the second for the Department of Commerce after Bill Richardson — to remove his name from consideration.

Allow me to humbly suggest, Mr. President, that not only is a political paradigm shift in order, but I also have a replacement in mind. I call it the “Plant-Krauss Collaborative Model.”

For Alison Krauss, the most recognizable face in contemporary bluegrass — not only for peddling more than 8 million records but also for garnering more Grammy Awards than any other female artist — musical alliances are a way of life.

After the untimely death of John Bonham in 1980, Robert Plant, best known as the primal screamer fronting Led Zeppelin, went on to hook up with Jimmy Paige as well as the globally diverse Strange Sensation and Afro Celt Sound System.

The unlikely alchemy between Plant and Krauss managed to conjure Grammy gold five times Feb. 8. Sure, some rabid-to-the-max fans of either performer refused to line up behind the collaboration. Nothing but Plant belting out “Whole Lotta Love” or Krauss warbling “The Scarlet Tide” would have pleased them. Yet to those willing to expand their musical horizons, more than a million copies of “Raising Sand” have been sold.

So what can Krauss and Plant possibly teach politicos?

Step one: Opt to respect and learn from each other. Despite hailing from distinctly different backgrounds, these two consummate musicians shared three goals, namely, to educate themselves about the roots of American music, to evolve as artists and to extend the boundaries of their genres.

“When we got 75 percent of the way down the line,” Plant explained to the Rocky Mountain News, “I realized we’d created something that I could never have dreamt of.”

Step two: Start small. It wasn’t until Plant and Krauss first performed a duet at a Leadbelly tribute (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) that they considered recording together.

Step three: Bring in a catalyst such as T-Bone Burnett to serve as producer, orchestra leader and song selection specialist. (I expect President Obama to see himself in this role.) Burnett spent an inordinate number of hours listening to what both had to say. Then, as the duo shared songs side by side in Krauss’s Nashville home, Burnett merely provided guitar accompaniment. There were no microphones, supporting musicians or anything else that might distract from the progress of the noble experiment.

“The idea was to take them both out of their comfort zones,” Burnett reflected during a Nov. 13, 2007, Charlie Rose interview. It was his job, he added, to nurture the music without allowing the principals to revert to past successes or to merely “mash” their individual styles together.

Step four: Leave personal agendas, power- play strategies and expectations at home. Plant, who has never before performed with such understated soul, not only found himself amazed by Krauss’s knowledge of American music, but, at the Grammys, he thanked her “for her kindness and patience, teaching me to sing in straight lines instead of doing all that twirly stuff.” Krauss, who frequently broke from her usual self-imposed restraint on the album, admitted that around Plant, “there was never a dull moment.”

Step five: Play to the other’s strengths. If he or she looks good, you look good. Burnett’s subtle arrangements not only highlighted the common musical ground between Plant and Krauss, but also allowed each to shimmer in the reflected glow of the other. Krauss confessed she worked carefully to harmonize with Plant — following the contours of his phrasing almost by ESP. Plant, on the other hand, pared down his vocal style to its most basic components. The result, according to Burnett, was “about as good as music gets.”

Wouldn’t you like to say the same thing about politics, Mr. President?

QUITTERS NEVER WIN AND WINNERS NEVER QUIT

Published in the February 4, 2009 edition of the Ventura County Star

“Have we given up?,” inquires Newsweek’s Daniel Gross in an article provocatively entitled, “The Quitter Economy.” Circuit City, Sharper Image, Linens ‘n Things and Mervyns, among others, have opted to liquidate---disperse final checks to employees, auction off inventory, and fly the coop---instead of undertaking the challenging, time-consuming work of modifying debt and restructuring finances. In fact, the most recent Wall Street Watch List includes 230 additional retailers who may be facing a comparable future.

This “it’s too hard; just quit” pattern has become quite familiar by now---starting with mortgagees, who, because of greed or ignorance, found themselves saddled with more debt than equity in the wake of a bursting housing bubble. Many simply mailed in the keys and never looked back.

Bankers, instead of trying to figure out a way to restructure loans, simply threw up their hands or threw in the towel. As a result, foreclosures skyrocketed by 79 percent in 2007 and escalated an additional 81 percent in 2008. The abandoned single-family home tally may well approach three million by the end of 2009.

“The reason we’re seeing liquidation rather than bankruptcy from so many retailers is because people are hopeless,” Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research told Newsweek. “We’re still looking at a very bad year in 2009 and probably most of 2010, so it’s very difficult to be optimistic about reorganizing and coming out of it stronger.”

No, optimism doesn’t come cheaply, but I am reminded of the words of Corrie Ten Bloom, the Christian who endured a series of prisons and concentration camps for sheltering Jews from the Nazis in Holland. “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow;” she observed, “It empties today of its strength.”

Despite the fact that on the job front, some financial analysts are predicting that up to three million jobs will disappear even if Congress approves President Obama’s $819 billion stimulus package in record time; despite the fact that it will take almost 13 months, based on the current sales rate, to eliminate the current backlog of unsold new homes and despite the fact that the dip in orders for durable goods---including big-ticket items such as automobiles and refrigerators---is piling up inventories at the highest level since 1992 when the government began keeping track, there are three reasons to take heart.

First, this economic crisis is doing what pastors, family therapists and marriage counselors previously failed to do—keep squabbling couples together. While, historically, divorce rates tend to mount during tough economic times, a recent nationwide survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers is reporting a 37 percent decline in divorce cases. During this recession, husbands and wives are putting off splitting up because of the prohibitive financial cost of divorce, especially in light of stagnant salaries, plunging home values and growing unemployment.

Second, crime rates are falling. Nationwide, according to FBI statistics released in January, violent crime diminished 3.5 percent and property crime shrunk 2.5 percent. Right here in Ventura County, burglaries, vehicle thefts and rapes dropped in the four largest cities (Oxnard, Simi Valley, Ventura and Thousand Oaks). One of the major reasons for the drop-off here, according to local police, is that the public has effectively become a second set of eyes and ears for law enforcement by voluntarily observing and reporting crime right in their own neighborhoods.

Third, public libraries are making a comeback. Americans, who are as likely to check out a video, DVD, audiotape, paperback or magazine as a gilt-edged tome, are turning to their local libraries to meet the need for information as well as recreation. Cash-strapped families are taking advantage of children’s reading programs or homework centers, the unemployed are profiting from free internet access for job searches or expertise in polishing resumes, and instead of buying pricey plane tickets and heading to exotic locales, library patrons are experiencing new vistas at the turn of a page in a well-written book.

Speaking of libraries, not only do I have a check in the mail and my fingers crossed, as the San Buenaventura Friends of the Library (P.O. Box 403, Ventura, CA 93002) attempt to raise $280,000 to keep their beloved H.P. Wright Library open for at least one more year, but I am also issuing a heartfelt plea as well: please do not to give up. You have taken on a task that is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, yet don’t let the challenge or the time commitment deter you.

“Age wrinkles the body,” General Douglas McArthur once said, “But quitting wrinkles the soul.” The last thing anybody needs, these days, is a wrinkled soul.

REACHING OLD AGE IS AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART: CASE IN POINT, ROSETO, PA

Published in the January 21, 2009 edition of the Ventura County Star

This is usually the time each year when folks fall off their diets, find excuses to skip the gym workout or find themselves smokers once again. While we all know that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and can even rattle off three or four of the major risk factors, if pressed, we keep packing in the Big Macs, lamenting that garment manufacturers are missizing our clothes while we persist in vying for the parking spot nearest the store entrance.

Why?

Perhaps it’s because physical heart disease is not the only epidemic plaguing our culture. According to best-selling author Dr. Dean Ornish, we also suffer from emotional and spiritual heart disease — widespread feelings of loneliness and alienation. Ornish contends that while nobody was looking, social structures that used to provide a sense of connection have simply given up the ghost.

The first inkling of the importance of culture in heart health occurred five decades ago when Dr. Stewart Wolf, who died in 2005 at the tender age of 91, was introduced to the remarkable residents of Roseto, Penn.

What made the exclusively Italian-American community worth studying was the fact that, in stark contrast with neighboring cities, rarely did anyone under the age of 65 suffer from heart disease. Only one in 1,000 men died of a heart attack, compared to the national average of 3.5 per 1,000, and women fared even better, at only 0.6 per 1,000 compared to the national average of 2.09 per 1,000.

Furthermore, it wasn’t only the absence of heart disease that was so astonishing. Official records revealed few or no instances of suicide, alcoholism, drug addition or crime. In addition, the residents of Roseto boasted a better-than-average resistance to peptic ulcers as well as senility.

Wolf first chalked up Roseto’s startling statistics to the beneficial Mediterranean diet and physically active lifestyle that early settlers of the Pennsylvania borough brought with them from Roseto Valfortore, Italy, in 1882.

Yet when Wolf and his research team finished surveying 86 percent of the population, “we were surprised to find the usually accepted risk factors no different in Roseto than elsewhere. They didn’t exercise more. They probably ate more animal fat than most people, smoking was about the same as elsewhere and they were more obese.”

In a 1964 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Wolf attributed the longevity of Roseto residents to an insular social structure — neighborhoods, churches, civic organizations and workplaces — that protected citizens from the demands and pressures of modern living. Fathers, who unapologetically headed their families, were obeyed, housewives were cherished and respected and grandparents, like all the elderly in Roseto, were absolutely revered.

“The community,” Wolf observed, “was very cohesive. There was no keeping up with the Joneses. Houses were [built] very close together, and everyone lived more or less alike.”

From the start, however, Wolf realized change was inevitable.

“We predicted in 1963 that if the social values these people had began to erode,” he told People magazine in 1980, “they would lose their relative immunity from heart disease.”

And that, he lamented, is what happened.

“They weren’t going to the Marconi Social Club. Cars changed from Cheveys and Fords to Cadillacs, Mercedeses and even one Rolls-Royce. Swimming pools and fancy houses sprouted.”

Wolf”s final Roseto study reported that the heart attack rate more than doubled in just 14 years. Roseto had become just like the rest of America.

A recent Dartmouth study of open-heart surgery patients reported that those without a social support network are four times more likely to die in the six months following the operation.

Researchers at Yale University also found that artery blockages are significantly less frequent in those who feel loved and supported.

Business World’s Elizabeth Acostta-Micaller observes: “A mountain of evidence shows that persons who belong to a community, a special group, who have friends and relatives, are happier and healthier and are better able to cope with stress, heartaches, pain and have a remarkable resistance to emotional and physical ailments.”

Harvard professor Robert D. Putnam, author of “Bowling Alone,” offers this prediction: “As a rough rule of thumb, if you belong to no groups but decide to join one, you cut your risk of dying over the next year in half.”

In “Tuesdays With Morrie,” American sportswriter Mitch Albom is faced with several rather impertinent queries by Morris Schwartz, his former college professor. Morrie insisted on knowing: “Have you found someone to share your heart with? Are you giving to your community? Are you at peace with yourself? Are you trying to be as human as you can be?”

Perhaps instead of saddling ourselves with resolutions that fail by the end of January every year, we give Morrie’s questions a shot. Our hearts could depend on it.

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME: 50 YEARS LATER THANKS TO WALDEMAR KAEMPFFERT

Published in the January 7, 2009 edition of the Ventura County Star

Unlike Jeremy Rifkin, John Naisbitt and Alvin Toffler, Waldemar Kaempffert isn’t exactly a household name. Like them, however, he wore his “futurist” credentials with appropriate aplomb. Kaempffert’s claim to fame lies in the February 1950 edition of Popular Mechanics where you will stumble across the fruits of his prognosticating labors in an absorbing article entitled, “Miracles You’ll See in the Next Fifty Years.”

What is remarkable about Kaempffert is that not only was he employed as Science Editor for the New York Times when he wrote the article but that he was also looking forward to celebrating his 74th birthday as well. In addition, his foresight owed a great deal to hindsight harvested during editorial stints at Scientific American and Popular Science as well as a three-year hitch directing Chicago’s prestigious Museum of Science and Industry.

The future as a concept originated in ancient Mesopotamia when the first sedentary stargazers looked heavenward for signs of upcoming events. Yet the accuracy of their predictions was somewhat hampered by an intractable insistence on envisioning time as cyclical (“What goes around; comes around”)—a boon to figuring out the best time to plant crops but not so hot for advancing the culture.

It wasn’t until the first maverick Mesopotamian applied a different perspective to the fourth dimension, namely, envisioning time as a linear continuum, that the future of futurism was assured. Then, as now, not only did subsequent prognosticators expect the future to be far different from the past, but for the more optimistic among them, far better.

The same can be said of Kaempffer’s science-grounded crystal gazing in 1950. His accuracy was an astounding 80 percent. Among other technological developments, he foresaw the Concorde (supersonic jet), the fax machine, the Savannah (nuclear-powered ocean liner), the microwave oven, videoconferencing, computerized factories, seven-day weather forecasts, ethanol-fueled cars, the departure of telegrams and the arrival of frozen/processed foods.

Only five of his forecasts missed the mark.

First, there are no present-day cities illuminated by electric “suns” suspended from arms on steel towers 200 feet high.

Second, Kaempffert’s prophesy that cars “would be used chiefly for shopping and for journeys of not more than 20 miles” while huge aerial buses, holding more than 200 passengers, would haul commuters to and from places of employment has not been realized.

Third, although he got it right when he envisioned “furniture (upholstery included), rugs, draperies, and unscratchable floors…made of synthetic fabric or waterproof plastic,” he got it wrong---much to the consternation of housewives these days---when he envisioned cleaning one’s home sweet home via a high pressure hose, allowing the water to run down a drain in the middle of the floor, and utilizing a blast of hot air to render one’s domestic trappings dry once again.

Fourth, while Kaempffert seemed most enamored of the notion that storms could be diverted or controlled, the method he recommends, however, seems more than environmentally reckless and irresponsible: “It is easy enough to spot a budding hurricane in the doldrums off the coast of Africa before it has a chance to gather much strength and speed as it travels westward toward Florida, oil is spread over the sea and ignited. There is an updraft. Air from the surrounding region, which includes the developing hurricane, rushes in to fill the void. The rising air condenses so that some of the water in the whirling mass falls as rain.”

Fifth, although he was correct in contending that lightweight alloys, plastics and other synthetic materials could reduce the cost of the American Dream (especially if folks don’t mind that their brick-less, stone-less and wood-less abode isn’t built to last) Kaempffert’s “House of the Future”---with its $5,000 price tag---might as well be a castle in Cloudland, given inflation. Kaempffert had no way of knowing that $5,000 in 1950 would balloon to $36,000 in 2000.

So what will the future be like? Jeremy Rifkin warns, “We are entering a new phase in human history.” Naisbitt advises: “The most reliable way to forecast the future is to try to understand the present.” Toffler contends, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

It’s Kaempffert, however, who says it best: “You can read the answer in your home, in the streets, in the trains and cars that carry you to your work, in the bargain basement of every department store. You don’t realize what is happening because it is a piecemeal process. The jet-propelled plane is one piece; the latest insect killer is another. Thousands of such pieces are automatically dropping into their places to form the pattern of tomorrow’s world.”

Wasn’t 2008 so last year?

LET RUDOLPH GUIDE THE WAY DURING CHRISTMAS 2008

Published in the December 24, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

Then one foggy Christmas Eve, the principal came to say: “Rudolph with your nose so bright, you’re persona non grata here tonight.”

It seems a mother (who shall be called Ms. Grinch for the purpose of this discussion) objected to the warbling of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” at the Murrayville Elementary School (Wilmington, N.C.) holiday pageant. She complained about the ballad’s “religious overtones.” This is the same ditty that became an enormous hit for vocalist Gene Autry---selling two million copies in 1949 and joining “White Christmas” in the pantheon of Yuletide standards.

What is even more remarkable is that the school’s chief administrator, Dr. Julie Duclos, immediately agreed to pull the song from the program as a result of Ms. Grinch’s complaint. Talk about playing silly reindeer games!

Duclos shouldn’t have been a bit surprised at the outrage triggered by her pronouncement. Her next smooth move? She invited school board members, administrators, and a raft of attorneys to listen closely to the lyrics. Their verdict---the song is secular and should be reinstated---was met, quite predictably, by shouts of glee by the other parents.

Rudolph initially came to life in 1939. Instead of giving away coloring books published elsewhere to kids at Christmas, the head of the art department at Chicago-based Montgomery Wards figured he could save the company a sleighful of simoleons by creating the promotional gimmick in-house.

Advertising copywriter Robert L. May, who was gifted at conjuring up charming children’s stories as well as the occasional wicked limerick, was given the nod. To provide the plot, he called upon his personal history as a shy, small and slight child suffering at the hands of the neighborhood bully. He tested the tale recounted in rhyming couplets on his four-year-old daughter, Barbara. She apparently gave him a chubby-fingered “thumb’s up.”

May’s boss, however, expressed concern that Rudolph’s blessing and curse---a glowing red nose—was replete with negative connotations. I guess he fretted that folks might conclude that the flying reindeer had broken into Santa’s liquor cabinet or, worse still, was supposed to be the antlered equivalent of W.C. Fields---the actor-comedian-juggler who passed away on the holiday he claimed to despise (December 25, 1946) while continuing to maintain he never met a kid he liked.

The winsome illustrations provided by Denver Gillen, who also worked at Wards, proved impossible for the art department director to resist. That year the prosperous department store distributed 2.4 million copies of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”---and despite wartime paper shortages---found young readers for a total of 6 million books by Christmas of 1946.

If there is a silver lining to the economic cloud raining down on this year’s holiday season, it is the willingness by most folks to return to basics---gift-wise---as they call on their own innate talents and gifts to fashion one-of-a-kind presents for friends and family.

Instead of plunking down plastic to purchase this year’s most popular must-haves (iPhones, digital cameras, Nintendo Wiis, robot dogs, Hannah Montana apparel, or LCD televisions) and ending up making payments well into 2009, they are busying themselves, instead, with baking, knitting/crocheting, wood-working, metal-crafting, drawing/painting/photographing, gathering up themed gift baskets or printing out booklets of “love” coupons offered for free online.

Just as May utilized his flair for storytelling to create the outcast Rudolph, a number of Americans are currently employing their own skills and abilities to reach out to those currently snubbed or shunned during the holiday season.

Dayna Camp, an avid photographer from New York City, is providing family portraits for the homeless just in time for Christmas Eve.

First Baptist Church (Jacksonville, North Carolina) members are employing a wide variety of proficiencies and areas of expertise to stimulate the minds and bodies of the elderly in their community to delay or ward off Alzheimer’s disease.

Having successfully raised kids of their own, 41 sets of parents residing in Possum Trot, Texas have opened their hearts and homes to orphans facing special challenges due to neglect and abuse. To date, 70 children, ranging in age from one to 15 have been adopted, and another 10 foster children are in the process of becoming full family members via adoption.

Ironically, Montgomery Ward folded after 129 years---moribund sales during Christmas of 2000 forced the retailer to shutter all its stores. Yet the prediction, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, you’ll go down in history” couldn’t be more accurate or apt.

Just remember, it all started when an ordinary guy used his ordinary gifts to craft a Christmas present for children of all ages. The compelling moral lesson of his simple tale might prove just the right beacon to guide all our sleighs during these tough times.

Too bad Dr. Duclos had to learn that lesson the hard way.

PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN: THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Published in the December 10, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

Each year since 1901, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded on this very date, not coincidentally the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.

Just a scant two weeks from now, worshipers will be gathering to celebrate Christmas Eve. Most will listen to a reading of the words recorded in Luke 2:14, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

In January of 1897, the newspaper in Stockholm reported that Nobel, an affluent holder of some 355 patents and the inventor of dynamite, bequeathed the greater part of his fortune to the establishment of five prizes, one to be bestowed on the person “who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Nobel could not have foreseen the two world wars and nuclear age to come but although he was acutely aware of the potential of his invention to reshape the face of warfare, he also believed that the threat of its terrifying employment might actually promote peace. He once told anti-war activist and author (Lay Down Your Arms) Baroness von Suttner, “My factories will perhaps make an end to war sooner than your congresses. The day that two army corps can annihilate one another in one second, the civilized nations will shrink from war and discharge their troops.”

This year, the former president of Finland will join the ranks of Nobel Peace Prize winners for “his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts.” In 1989-90, Martti Ahtisaari played a significant part in the establishment of Namibia’s independence; in 1999 and again in 2005-07, he sought a solution to the conflict in Kosovo; in 2005, his organization Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) proved crucial to the complicated Aceh question in Indonesia; and presently, Ahtisaari and CMI are helping to carve out a peaceful conclusion to problems in Iraq, Northern Ireland, Central Asia, and Horn of Africa.

While the Nobel Peace Prize, one of 300 awarded across the globe, has neither brought peace on earth nor good will toward men, why is it as highly respected as it is?

A number of reasons have been suggested, including both the reward’s sheer longevity (107 years) as well as its significant monetary value (slightly more than $1.5 million) but it’s probably the consistently solid selections of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which has, over the years, managed to preserve its political independence while broadening its interpretation of the word “peace” to include virtually any field remotely relevant to Nobel’s vision.

During the earliest years, the prize was often awarded to pioneers in the organized peace movement. During the period of the two world wars, laureates were acknowledged for their work in such arenas as arms control and disarmament, peace negotiations, or democracy and human rights. Since World War II, however, the Nobel Committee started looking at efforts to limit the harm rendered by man with respect to climate change and/or risks to the environment. In 2004 Dr. Wangari Maathai was the first African female to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.” Just last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore were likewise given the nod.

The committee, of course, is not without its critics. Maathai is only one of a dozen women who have been invited to join the club (See: Champions for Peace by Judith Stiehm). Also conspicuous by his absence is Mahatma Gandhi. Although nominated five times (1937, 1938, 1939, 1947, and 1948), he never took home the prize, an oversight that prompted the Dalai Lama to accept his Nobel “as a tribute to the man [Gandhi} who founded the modern tradition of non-violent action for change.”

Alfred Nobel predicted that his prize would be awarded for no longer than 30 years. If the world had not become peaceful by then, he wrote (albeit erroneously) human beings would simply return to barbarism.

Another scientist of some renown, Albert Einstein, likewise observed, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

When the angel appeared to the shepherds, what were the first two words he said?

That’s right, “Fear not!” It was only after the shepherds’ trembling had subsided that the angel added, “I bring you good tidings of great joy.”

Perhaps the purpose of the Nobel Prize is not to bring world peace. Perhaps the purpose is to provide tidings of great joy, namely, despite the impossibility of the task, somebody is always willing to give peace a try.

AFTER 45 YEARS, PILOT SETS SAIL AGAIN IN PORT HUENEME

Published in the November 26, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

For 45 years, Port Hueneme has gone without a hometown newspaper.

Despite the fact that top publisher Gannett recently laid off 3,000 employees, the Los Angeles Times jettisoned its Washington bureau, and the 100 year-old print edition of the Christian Science Monitor has ceased to exist, Loran Lewis has made a most momentous decision---he’s bringing back the Hueneme Pilot.

The decline in traditional print media provides “even more reason that a community newspaper is needed,” Lewis wrote in a sample issue published on August 21 and mailed to 19,000 homes in Port Hueneme, Channel Islands Harbor, Silver Strand, Oxnard Shores, Hollywood Beach and Mandalay Beach.

Lewis has made this bank account-draining commitment at a time when “hold-in-your-hand, ink-on-your-fingertips” newspapers are facing a grim future. The much sought-after 18-to-34 demographic seems to be spurning the print product that older Americans know and love. Consequently advertisers are opting to fork over $20 for each 1,000 customers who click on a cyber-ad rather then scribbling out a four-figure check for a traditional by-the-inch block.

Since its official launch on September 18, the five fortnightly editions of the Hueneme Pilot have enjoyed a resoundingly positive reaction by readers who either found a copy at their front door or picked one up at 20 different locations throughout the circulation area.

So why would anybody in his right mind start a newspaper at this most inopportune time? Lewis, who holds a Ph.D. in journalism from Southern Illinois University and taught the subject for two decades, admits to being chased by a dream that simply won’t leave him alone.

Perhaps his vision of publishing a community newspaper was cemented by an early employment experience at the Tuscola (Illinois) Review now owned by News-Gazette Community Newspapers. Thirty-five years ago, the Tuscola Review was a little mom-and-pop weekly that served a town of a few thousand people in the heart of the Midwest.

Back in 1973, publisher and editor-in-chief Robert Hastings expected the 21-year old Lewis to paste up the paper, to cover sports and city council meetings, to “assist in distribution” (read: paperboy)---and, of course, to keep the Tuscola Review quarters dust-free and tidied-up---all skills he cheerfully employs at the Hueneme Pilot these days as well.

Why Port Hueneme? Lewis, who regularly visited friends in the area during the past decade, admits to having fallen in love with the un-crowded beaches, the shady, tree-lined streets, ocean breezes that keep the daytime thermometer hovering near 70 degrees, the picturesque promenade to the lighthouse, the duck-quacking choruses coming from Bubbling Springs Park, and Port Hueneme’s 22, 202 mostly-welcoming residents.

How welcoming are they? What other start-up in Ventura County can boast that its offices benefited from the painting talents of the local Kiwanis Club members? To a person, Hueneme Pilot readers seem to be tickled silly at the prospect of a community newspaper all their own.

After the original Hueneme Pilot shuttered its doors in 1963, “an entire generation has grown into middle-age with little identity of its community,” observed Lewis. “It is the goal of the Hueneme Pilot to change that. We believe a newspaper is more than just a business. It is a community service.”

So what’s the verdict on the Pilot so far? Readers manage to find at least one homegrown story in each issue to talk about---whether it be development at Channel Islands Harbor, the need for a half-cent sales tax boost, the delivery of more sand on the beach, the diamond wedding ring rescued by city sewer workers or various and sundry issues raised during the course of the November 4 election.

Most folks I interviewed remarked that the Hueneme Pilot went above and beyond with respect to coverage of local city council, school board and Harbor District candidates---not only as a presence at every public forum but also by conducting multiple interviews of individual candidates.

So how is the Hueneme Pilot going to avoid the fate of its predecessor? It’s a shoestring operation right now---solely supported by advertising dollars. Yet more and more local businesses seem to be discovering that promoting their enterprises in the Pilot can prove both affordable and effective despite the downturn.

Furthermore, neither does the Pilot compelled to realize huge profits for stockholders nor does Lewis harbor elaborate plans for expansion. The publisher is only concerned with eking out a modest living in a locale that speaks to his heart.

When radio, after losing audiences and advertisers to television, returned to its original roots, it prospered. The same may prove true for newspapers as well.

After 45 years, the Hueneme Pilot is back. Hopefully---for good.

OMAMA WILL KNOW THAT THE HONEYMOON IS OVER WHEN VOTERS STOP CRYING AND START LAUGHING

Published in the November 12, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

Barak Obama will know his political honeymoon is over as soon as mainstream media comics pull off the kid gloves. They shouldn’t wait.

Political humorists were vaulted into the money and spotlight during the 2008 presidential race. “Saturday Night Live,” which previously battled lousy ratings and ennui-inducing set pieces, stumbled onto its biggest audience since 1994 when Sarah Palin agreed to go womano-et-womano with Tina Fey. Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” reached a nightly average of 2 million viewers this fall, a 28 percent spike from the previous year. John McCain’s grilling by David Letterman garnered the highest ratings for the “Late Show” since 2005.

Even though it’s the job of a satirist to exploit weaknesses in a political target, so far Obama has gotten a free ride. Apparently, there was nothing to lampoon with respect to the smart, articulate, and self-confident Obama or maybe “SNL’s” Fred Armisen is the wrong wit for the work.

While McCain’s legendary temper, crooked smile and Yoda-esque age provided an endless supply chain of jokes, cable comedy clowns seemed to shrink from bulls-eyeing Obama. It isn’t as if the president-elect might have wilted under a playful punch or risked losing a significant number of votes had Steven Colbert, Bill Maher or D.L. Hughley spoofed his speech pattern once in a while.

Actually Obama had no difficulty poking fun at himself during the October 16th Al Smith dinner at which the Democratic nominee claimed, “Contrary to the rumors that you’ve heard, I was not born in a manger.” He continued, employing a Superman reference, “I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El, to save the planet Earth.”

Perhaps, as reported in Newsweek, “For many, Obama represents an opportunity to restore America’s promise, and it’s clear that satirists, perhaps for themselves as much as the rest of the country, don’t want to lend credence to the notion that [Obama] might not be the real deal.”

Yet, won’t America have to face reality soon enough?

We get the term “presidential honeymoon” from the first 100 days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s term (March 4 to June 12, 1933). During that time period, FDR offered Congress dozens of innovative programs, and Congress, which was overwhelmingly Democratic, passed them, sometimes after only 60 minutes of debate. Since then, columnists, reporters, commentators and purveyors of conventional wisdom have utilized the one hundred-day benchmark to evaluate presidents.

President Obama isn’t even going to get a 30-day honeymoon. Like FDR, who hit the ground running, Obama faces a unique set of historical circumstances: a favorably partisan House and Senate, a discredited predecessor, and an economic crisis affecting the entire globe—-all of which demand a significantly speeded-up timetable. You see, America wants (insert the Obama promise that won your heart, mind and vote here) and we want it now.

“We know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century,” Obama observed during his victory speech in Chicago’s Grant Park. “There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created, new schools to build and threats to meet and, for us to lead, alliances to repair.”

Although Obama keeps repeating, ad infinitum, that solutions won’t be quick or easy--perhaps not even achievable during a single term--the American electorate, which has never been known for its patience, has already tuned out his proviso. We keep voting for a man on a white horse. When he fails to please from Day One, we do everything we can to knock him off his steed.

Had Obama undergone the rigors of satirical testing, we might not be so shocked by warts that will become all too apparent, all too soon. The billions in Obama’s war chest allowed him to disseminate a carefully controlled image to the voters. Furthermore, his race, pundits of either political stripe continue to contend, kept his name from becoming a punch line.

So the question remains, will we, like the bridegroom observing his “better half” remove the carefully-coiffed wig, false teeth and concealing foundation before jumping into the marriage bed, allow ourselves to wallow in disappointment or will we choose to chuckle?

Quincy Jones believes that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, “Ain’t that the truth!”

English essayist, poet and Member of Parliament until 1719, Joseph Addison, adds: “It is folly for an eminent person to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected by it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age, have passed through this fiery persecution.”

But, then, of course, Addison was never lambasted on “Saturday Night Live.”

ELECTION 2008: TRICK OR TREAT

Published in the October 29, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

Despite the economic downturn, the National Retail Federation estimates that cash registers around the nation will ring up a whopping $5.77 billion in Halloween purchases this year. Not only are nearly two-thirds (64.5%) of Americans in the mood to celebrate but each, on average, plans to plunk down $66.54 to ring in All Hallows Eve.

According to Visa, Halloween spending has risen an astonishing 18 percent since last year---the biggest chunk going to the purchase of costumes for adults, children, and even the family pet. More than one out of every three (33.5 percent) Americans is planning on taking on a new identity on October 31st.

Dressing in Halloween costumes finds its roots in centuries-old European and Celtic traditions. Winter, with its bone-chilling cold, pitch-black nights, and dwindling supplies of food, was a time of fear, uncertainty and superstition.

Many folks believed that the formerly dearly departed returned to earth as ghastly ghouls on All Hallows Eve with the intent of doing irreparable harm to those above ground. To avoid that possibility, either the living treated their anticipated vaporous visitors to bowls overflowing with mouth-watering delicacies or tricked them via identity-concealing masks.

On October 17, this newspaper published an editorial cartoon by Steven Breen. Although he serves on the staff of the San Diego Union Tribune, Breen’s work is nationally syndicated by Copley News Service---he is their youngest cartoonist---and regularly appears in The New York Times, USA Today, Newsweek, and US News and World Report.

In the caricature in question, a man sporting an ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) tee shirt tells a woman, also sporting an ACORN tee shirt, “I just registered ‘Iron Man,’ ‘Dora the Explorer,’ and ‘Yoda’ to vote.”

Now, relax---this column is not going to rehash voter registration fraud. What interests me most about this drawing is Breen’s choice of costumes for his trick-or-treaters. Why did he select Iron Man, Yoda and Dora the Explorer from all the possibilities being peddled at a Halloween store near you this year?

Perhaps Breen’s rationale for selecting this trio of trick-or-treaters will end up having more to do with his sons and daughter’s choices of costumes than anything else, but I’d like to believe that the 1998 Pulitzer Prize winner was going for more nuanced, if not, more profound allusions in his editorial cartoon.

So who do Yoda, Iron Man, and Dora the Explorer actually represent?

Yoda is easy. The 900 year-old Jedi Master, known for his stumbling speech pattern, winsome humility, and skill at light-saber combat is John McCain. Although Yoda, whose name is derived from the Sanskrit for “warrior” was, arguably, the most highly Force-attuned member of the Order, he was not flawless. He failed to recognize the dark side of the Supreme Chancellor who provoked the seemingly endless Clone Wars. Yet given Yoda’s heroism and his reputation as a soldier, his very presence on the battlefield was enough to raise the spirits of the Republic Army. Unfortunately, the 2000 election, when victory should have been McCain’s, took place in a galaxy, far, far away.

Although Iron Man is a Marvel Comic superhero and the alter ego of multi-millionaire industrialist Tony Stark, it didn’t take much effort to trace similarities to Barak Obama. Not only do these two extremely intelligent men perceive themselves as agents of change, but they have also managed to build, out of nothing more than spare parts, powerful exoskeletons that both deflect all manner of attacks and are far more effective than the Teflon donned by former president Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Discovering the human counterpart to Dora the Explorer was the biggest challenge. Dora, who is constantly on the go, manages to find the good in every individual. Although she appreciates diversity with respect to new friends, Dora also values home and family.

Perhaps, Dora represents one of the most hotly contested voting blocs in this presidential campaign—namely, white women between the ages of 45 and 64, who, according to a recent AP/GfK poll could go either way with respect to her presidential selection. These ladies, like Dora, are waiting, and will continue to wait, for a detailed and accurate map from any would-be guide as they prepare to embark another four-year adventure.

So there you have it. Iron Man and Yoda are strolling along an autumn leaf-strewn sidewalk as they finish up the last few days of the presidential campaign. Both are convinced their masks will trick the voters, both have collected more than $1 billion in treats, and both are extremely hopeful that Dora will choose him when it comes time to clamber aboard her Explorer SUV and head toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

So who are you going to be for Halloween?

SLAPSTICK AND SALSA: RECIPE FOR TELEVISION HISTORY

Published in the October 15, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

What television show made its debut on this very date more than 50 years ago?

Here’s a trio of helpful hints:

·This black and white sitcom (October 15, 1951 to May 6, 1957) brought home five Emmys.

·While President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s taking office (January 20, 1953) drew 29 million viewers, a single episode of this show airing the evening prior to the inauguration (January 19, 1953), attracted a viewing audience of 45 million and garnered a unprecedented 71.7 percent Nielsen rating.

·When this weekly 30-minute show ceased production in 1957, it was still the No. 1 ranked program in America---the same superior status the show enjoyed during four of its six prime-time seasons.

The answer is simple, right? Don’t we all love “I Love Lucy?”

When CBS began negotiations to move its hit radio show “My Favorite Husband” (1948 to 1951) to television, the female lead, Lucille Ball, dug in her heels.

She insisted on the following conditions:
1) her real-life husband/musician, Desi Arnaz, whose touring schedule had placed an insurmountable strain on their marriage, would replace Richard Denning
2) “I Love Lucy,” unlike the majority of TV shows calling New York home, would be based in Southern California so the couple could raise a family
3) while the two stars were willing to recompense the network for relocation and post-production expenses, they, not CBS, would be sole owners of the shows

The episode that broke all existing ratings records was, of course, “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” the hilarious account of the amazing race to meet and greet Little Ricky. In real life, Lucille Ball gave birth to Desi Arnaz, Jr. on precisely the same day the hospital episode aired. Nearly three out of four households witnessed the happy event and only Elvis Presley’s appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” three years later would reap a higher rating (82.6 percent).

Yet, back in 1951, when the first “I Love Lucy” program aired, Ball was likewise expecting firstborn Lucie Arnaz. The madcap mother-to-be, however, was forced to go “undercover” via a wardrobe of baggy costumes or by making sure large pieces of furniture insinuated themselves between her pregnant tummy and the camera. Her condition was never mentioned on air. The CBS department of Standards and Practices held considerable censorship clout in those days.

When network executives and prospective sponsors balked at both an enceinte leading lady and a “mixed marriage,” between the American Ball and the Cuban Arnaz, the dynamic duo launched a lucrative night club tour to show the suits that 50s-era America was more than ready for a relationship that was half slapstick and half salsa.

Arnaz and Ball weren’t just talented artists; they shared a shrewd head for business as well. The average cost of a “Lucy” episode was an enviable $26,500. Live shows, which required a month of rehearsals by a cast on full salary, normally quadrupled that dollar amount. In addition, shooting on film enabled Arnaz and Ball to squirrel away 39 episodes in a mere 20 weeks.

You see, live shows were primarily preserved as substandard kinescopes, created by a 35mm or 16mm film camera recording the picture on a television monitor. Both blurry and brittle, kinescopes were the primary reason Television’s “Golden Age” remains little more than a memory.

Exploiting three film cameras not only produced images that could be edited but also generated a product of sufficient quality to allow for syndication. “I Love Lucy” would be earning over $1 million a year in reruns as early as the mid-50s.

Furthermore, responses to Lucy’s antics by a live audience were far more authentic than the canned laughter used on such other filmed sitcoms as “Amos and Andy,” “Trouble With Father” or “Life of Riley.”

Finally, by owning 100 percent of the show, Ball and Arnaz were able to accrue so much booty through syndication, that by 1957, they were able to procure 33 sound stages---four more than owned by MGM and 11 more than owned by Twentieth-Century Fox.

Desilu Studios produced, in addition to “I Love Lucy,” such winsome winners as “December Bride,” “The Danny Thomas Show,” “Star Trek,” “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Mission Impossible,” “The Untouchables,” “Mannix,” “I Spy,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “Hogan’s Heroes.”

Not only did “I Love Lucy” provide a gaggle of giggles for folks fifty years ago but also changed employment demographics right here in Ventura County. Arnaz and Ball led the rest of the fledgling television industry out of inclement and pricey Manhattan to a promised land of tropical climes, family-friendly suburbs and---once syndicated---never-ending paychecks.

And this was the date it all got started. How could you think it was just another Wednesday?

REMEMBERING LILLIAN SHARKEY

Published in the October 2, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star
Lillian Sharkey was the consummate “homemaker“ in every sense of that word. She was happiest when her dining room table groaned under a mouth-watering feast and her guests attempted to surreptitiously adjust their belts as the food started to disappear.

Yet, after her elegantly decorated nest emptied, she sought gainful employment outside of the home---achieving considerable success managing a men’s haberdashery and twice receiving recognition for leading the nation in sales.

Even after her husband passed away, she remained a whirling dervish of home improvement projects, and, although she relished oil painting, couldn’t seem to carve out ample time in her crowded schedule to indulge her muse.

Yet despite a productive past, during the last few years, four words had come to define her life. Somehow, she allowed the phrase “to hell with it” to become a constant mantra---whenever a task or activity loomed too thorny, too taxing or too terrifying.

Ever since an accidental fall at work and a dismal diagnosis of heart trouble, her seemingly boundless energy had narrowed to a trickle. All she seemed to be able to muster up was a daily, depression-inducing recitation of aches, complaints and frustrations. Her calendar amounted to nothing more, she would carp, than a bunch of useless doctors’ appointments.

Eventually, her ever-increasing shortness of breath kept her from even venturing out to shop for groceries or to pick up her mail. She was forced, much to her consternation, to depend on son Jonathan, neighbor/best friend Mary Jo, and me to taxi her around. It was not, she would insist, the way she had envisioned her “golden years.”

So when an operation to replace a faulty aortic valve in her heart was proposed, she gave it a great deal of thought. Not only was the decision hers alone, but she also had to convince her surgeon that she was ready, willing and able to tackle the difficult work necessary to achieve a full recovery, despite having celebrated an 84th birthday.

A decade ago, Lillian became my mother-in-law---yet she always insisted on introducing me as her “daughter.” I felt honored. She might have been happier with a “girly” girl who lived to shop and who kept up with the latest fashion trends but she did her best to tiptoe through the life of the mind that constitutes my world and to accept me for exactly who I am.

Most people are not surprised to learn that Lillian had been a beauty queen. The day after her operation, she instructed her intensive care nurse to call me at the veritable unzippering of dawn and “give me hell” for failing to leave her makeup kit at the ready. With a steady hand and a borrowed dime store mirror, she deftly applied the full measure of war paint she felt necessary to look her best---three times a day.

She met the ordeal of regaining her mobility with the same verve. In three days, she was ready to leave the cardiac care unit. Who could deny that hers was a miraculous recovery?

A complication requiring emergency surgery was the last thing anybody, including her doctors, expected. Her death came as a total shock, made all the more painful by the rosy-fingered future situated just out of reach.

From now on, September 13 will always be known as “Vicodin Day.” Twenty-four hours after open-heart surgery, the tee-totaling Lillian discovered a magic pill that enabled her to morph into a teenager—ablaze with vivacity and talking a-mile-a-minute. She regaled us with countless funny stories, cracked wise with the hospital staff, and ate heartily. So much raucous laughter was emanating from her room, we received a stern rebuke by her nurse. She never looked more beautiful.

But magic elixirs aren’t all they are cracked up to be—they don’t last. The real transformation in Lillian’s life arose when she opted to face her greatest fear and to defeat her greatest challenge. She triumphed, now and forever, when she bit back those four little words, “to hell with it.”

Before the surgery, Lillian had been a stunning stained glass window, sparkling and shimmering whenever bathed in the sunlight of a compliment, but now that death had blocked that particular source of luminosity, her true inner beauty, illuminated from within by courage and conquest, could finally be revealed.

Death and dying expert, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross claimed that all she did was sit and listen to thousands of patients facing the end of life. Her conclusions on the subject are quite simple: “Death is a graduation,” she wrote. “When we’ve taught all the things we came to teach, learned all the things we came to learn, then we’re allowed to graduate.”

Happy Graduation, Lillian.

GEORGE AND HILLARY: DOING WELL BY DOING GOOD

Published in the September 17, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

Could anyone come up with a more “politics-makes-for-strange-bedfellows” alliance than that of former presidents George H. W. Bush and William J. Clinton?

One was reared in Massachusetts, the patrician son of a U.S. Senator. The other was born in Arkansas, the impoverished stepson of a gambler and an alcoholic.

One was known as a consummate control freak. The other was known for his issues with impulse control.

One could boast a son in the Oval Office. The other would promote his wife for the job.

Yet by teaming up, Bush and Clinton were able to lead the American response to the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and raise $120 million for victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Allow me to (respectfully) propose, when he has little else going---save scribbling his memoirs as a retired leader of the free world---that President George W. Bush join forces with former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Although she will retain her post in the Senate, surely her considerable Energizer bunny get-up-and-go will demand additional to-do lists as well.

These days, nonprofits are in big trouble. Not only are they mushrooming in number, size, budget, and job creation, but they are also out-pacing growth in the rest of the economy. The Nonprofit Almanac (2007) notes that from 1994 to 2004, while U.S. gross domestic product expanded by less than 37 percent after adjusting for inflation, all three of the major financial measures of nonprofits (revenues, expenses, and assets) swelled by at least 56 percent.

In addition, the nonprofit sector finds itself in the midst of a significant leadership void as an entire generation of Boomer nonprofit leaders eases into retirement. The Bridgespan Group predicts that the nonprofit sector will require nearly 80,000 new senior staff members by 2016.

Wasn’t it boomer and AARP member Quincy Jones who once quipped, “They say when you’re over the hill, that’s when you pick up speed?” That’s exactly the case with employment numbers these days.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the figure for workers 55 and older is anticipated to burgeon by 11.3 million during the decade from 2004 to 2014---nearly four times the growth rate of the overall labor force. In fact, the number of Americans punching time cards into their 50s, 60s, or more is at a record high, according to outplacement consultants at Challenger, Gray, & Christmas.

Surveys by Merrill Lynch and AARP report that three out of four adults older than 50 currently indicate an interest in working in some capacity---full or part-time---beyond the traditional retirement years.

Both Hillary and George W. represent the leading edge of the pig-in-the-python baby boom demographic (now 77 million strong) that, after retirement, could supply ample talent to the nonprofit sector. According to Susan Moses, deputy director of Harvard’s Center for Health Communication, “First, the sheer size of the boomer cohort is impressive, so we don’t need to recruit everyone. Even a small percentage of boomer volunteers would be a resource of unprecedented proportion.” (See: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4416.html)

The boomer generation, David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service reported at a White House conference, is “an untapped resource of extraordinary proportions. They are the largest, healthiest, best-educated generation in history---and they can leave an incredible legacy through service to others.”

Furthermore, as cited in a 2007 survey by the Corporation for National and Community Service, nearly one in every three boomers presently volunteers---the highest rate of any age group.

Perhaps the strongest evidence to date that boomers might be attracted to jobs with a social mission comes from the MetLife Foundation–Civic Ventures New Face of Work Survey. More than half of the respondents, which included 1,000 adults between the ages of 50 and 70, reported an interest in seeking employment, now and in retirement, that improves the quality of life in their communities. Among them, 78 percent expressed a desire to help the poor, elderly, and others in need; 56 percent aspired to volunteer in a hospital or for an organization fighting disease, 55 percent wished to tutor or assist in the classroom, and 45 percent said they preferred to work with youth.

In the April 30, 2006 issue of Time Magazine, Michael Duffy, although he was referring to the senior Bush and the male Clinton at the time, wrote something equally apropos should George W. and Hillary opt to team up.

“Bush and Clinton,” he observed, “have created a new post-presidential brand and put it to work sealing the cracks between public need and public aid---and reminded us of what people can accomplish even in an era of deep partisan division.”

Now, wouldn’t that be nice for a change?

I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES

Published in the September 3, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

The first time I laid eyes on her, I was staggered. Although her consciously deliberate speech and flurry of flamboyant gestures made her appear affected and artificial, she, clad in that billowing white gown, seemed to hover just above the stage like some sort of titian-haired angelic being.

Kathryn Kuhlman was said to have touched more than 100 million Americans with four simple words: “I believe in miracles.”

Many of us remember her weekly (1965-75) television show on CBS. At some point in every service, Kuhlman would unexpectedly interrupt her folksy sermon and point out that an individual sitting in a specific seat was being healed. She would name and describe the particular illness, give thanks to Jesus, and go on to single out another spontaneous cure. One healing would follow another in a veritable chain reaction of miracles.

Kuhlman never took credit: “I believe in miracles with every atom of my being...because I believe in God---but Kathryn Kuhlman has nothing to do with the healing of sick bodies. I have no healing power. It’s the power of God that does the healing.”

In his 1974 book, “Healing: A Doctor in Search of a Miracle,” William Nolen M.D attempted to cast considerable scientific doubt on Kuhlman’s work. Despite extensive research and follow-up interviews, he claimed, he could not personally “certify” a single miracle attributed to Kuhlman.

Of course, what is actually at issue here is whether or not Nolen and Kuhlman share the same definition of “miracle.”

Three decades later, a pesky persistence of belief in miracles presents a paradox for both theologians who feel compelled to explain miracles and scientists who feel compelled to explain miracles away.

Jordan Peterson, a University of Toronto psychologist studying the impact of faith on society, maintains, that at its most basic level, belief acts like a set of headlights to guide us through a foggy universe which is far more complicated than we are smart. Belief is eradicable, he argues, because there will never be a time when even the most brilliant scientists know everything.

This is especially true when it comes to the science of medicine. In a study recently published in the Archives of Surgery (August 18, 2008), not only did 57 percent of the subjects believe that God’s intervention could save a family member even if physicians declared further medical action useless, but nearly three-quarters felt patients had a right to continue treatment despite the futility.

Furthermore, when asked to imagine their own relatives gravely ill or injured, nearly 20 percent of those who identified themselves either as doctors or other medical professionals maintained that God was capable of reversing a hopeless outcome.

Perhaps the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev (1820-1910) had these helpless healers in mind when he wrote: “Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: great God, grant that two and two be not four.”

In addition, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey (June 23, 2008) reported that Americans repeatedly count on a miracle-working God: 80 percent of those polled contend that miracles occur on a regular basis, about one-third reported receiving answers to their prayer requests at least once a month, and about one-third recounted having experienced or witnessed a divine healing of an illness or injury.

To boot, the Pew study found that not only do one out of two Americans pray at least once a day but---and here’s the astonishing part---even folks who describe themselves as “atheist” or “agnostic:” share a strong sense of a higher power. Twenty-one percent of those who classify themselves as “atheists:” expressed a belief in God or a universal spirit, and more than half of those who call themselves “agnostic” expressed a similar conviction.

Pew research fellow Gregory Smith explained the apparent contradiction by submitting that some people may identify themselves as “atheist” or “agnostic” without fully understanding the definitions, or, even if they believe in God, opt to categorize themselves as “agnostic” or “atheist” to distance themselves from organized religion.

Belief in miracles, like believing that the sun will come up tomorrow or that, although no single individual has ever glimpsed one, quarks do exist, likewise, remains a matter of belief.

Even renowned atheist Sam Harris, the best-selling author of “The End of Faith,” observes that belief is the “hinge upon which so much of human activity and human nature swings.”

Perhaps, anybody who wishes to be considered a realist in the strict scientific sense, will just have to resign him or herself to a belief in miracles as well.

 As for Ms. Kuhlman, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

MOTHER OF THE GROOM: LOOKING FOR A JOB DESCRIPTION

 Published in the August 20, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

My youngest son will embark on the sea of matrimony in 11 more days. His wedding will be one, albeit the most important one, of the estimated 2.21 million performed in the United States this year.

Furthermore, I’m no longer just a mom; I’m, ahem, the Mother of the Groom. So what exactly does that mean, inquiring minds (such as mine) want to know. All I have to do, according to the time-honored bromide, is “show up, shut up and wear beige.”

Hundreds of books, magazines and sites on the World Wide Web are ready, willing and able to instruct the Mother of the Bride (and other interested parties) in preparing “the perfect wedding.”

In this nation alone, over $72 billion per year is spent on celebrations of holy wedlock. These days, the average wedding takes a year to plan and the price tag, according to various studies by the Wedding Report, the Fairchild Bridal Group, and the Conde Nast Bridal Group, is rapidly approaching $30,000---up 100 per cent since 1990, when the total came to $15, 208.

Of course, economics varies significantly from region to region. According to Richard Markel, president of the Association for Wedding Professionals International, in the exclusive suburbs of Long Island, New York, the tab routinely reaches $40,000 to $50,000 while a storybook wedding can be obtained for a mere $12,000 in Walla Walla, Washington.

Averages for essential big-ticket items include $5,570 for the engagement ring, $2,570 for photography and/or videography, $3,197 for music, $2,048 for flowers, $2,938 for booze, $1,564 for a dress (worn only once), and $3,825 for a 7 to 9-day honeymoon.

The real bargain is the $698 fee for the officiator and site rental---80 percent of nuptials are performed in either a church or synagogue.

You may be surprised to learn that not all families are forced to hock the homestead when one or more female offspring decides to say, “I do.” According to Bride’s Magazine, only 17 percent of future wives will count on mom and dad to pick up the tab, a substantial drop since 2006, when 30 percent of all brides’ parents paid for the entire enchilada.

Since the 71 million males and females in the Echo Boom generation are not in a very big hurry to head to the altar (today’s dewy-eyed newlyweds tend to be a bit long in the tooth---averaging 27 and 29 years of age respectively) and since, as a couple, they tend to pull down a combined income of $51,000 per annum---the bride and groom are the ones most likely to write out a check to the wedding planner, caterer, bandleader, and florist.

Many couples are also opting to save a few bucks (to pop in that piggy bank marked “Home of Our Own”) by paring down guest lists, eighty-sixing the $690 stretch limo, printing out invitations on their own computers, Googling sites that teach the fine arts of arranging flowers or crafting wedding favors, purchasing “gently worn” wedding gowns or replacing the high-priced DJ with an iPod.

But, the other side of the ledger will be considered as well, namely the loot to be collected. Newlyweds receive an average of 200 gifts, each valued between $70 and $100. Some couples actually demand cash.

So for what big-ticket item/s are the groom’s parents responsible? As far as I can tell, consulting all manner of etiquette books, the rehearsal dinner (for which the average charge is $1,153) is our only obligation.

Angie and Trevor, our extremely considerate bride and groom-to-be, told us that they just wanted to keep it simple--- a hot dog and hamburger cookout in a park would be their idea of a perfect rehearsal dinner.

I was thrilled—”this is going to be (pun intended) a piece of cake,” I observed. Not quite.

A handful of complications cropped up to challenge my creativity and composure: first, the couple is not tying the knot in Ventura County where I know all the parks---they are getting married in Kansas City; second, the weather is likely to be 90 degree heat with 90 percent humidity; third, we are talking about Labor Day Weekend---all the shaded shelters have been reserved for months; fourth, one-third of the guests are either practicing vegans or vegetarians; and fifth, did I mention that Kansas City is approximately 1,293 miles away?

It was my husband who managed to provide words of comfort and cheer: “This is why,” he paused for effect, “God invented event planners.”

And he is right. So I’m going to write out a check—for nothing near the national average for rehearsal dinners—and I’m going to show up and shut up.

But I refuse to wear beige.

MEDIA BIAS = PERSONAL BIAS

Published in the August 6, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

Are the media biased? The short answer is “yes.”

Democrats are quick to point out that talk radio is dominated by the right-wing likes of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and James Dobson, that the Fox News Network is anything but fair and balanced and, according to Ben Bagdikian’s “The New Media Monopoly,” a mere five conservative-minded corporations (Time Warner, Disney, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom) presently control most of the American media industry.

Republicans counter with a 2006 study of bias by UCLA, Stanford and University of Chicago researchers determining that only one media outlet (Fox News) could be tagged as “right of center,” an online Tyndall Report showing Barak Obama receiving more than twice the network air time as did John McCain from June 4 to July 23, and a 2008 Harvard study (examining 1,742 presidential campaign stories by print, online, network, TV, cable and radio news outlets) concluding “not only did the Republicans receive less coverage overall, the attention they did get tended to be more negative than that of Democrats.”

Just last month, when the presumptive Democratic nominee traveled to Iraq Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and England, even major news outlet royalty showed up to document Obama’s every utterance while only a modest retinue of second-class scribes accompanied McCain on his overseas excursion last March.

Perceived bias has gotten so blatant that even the liberal writers at “Saturday Night Live,” “The Colbert Report,” and “The Daily Show” felt compelled to skewer the mainstream media for their Obama-fawning ways.

Fairness, like beauty, seems to dwell in the eye of the beholder. However, if critics presume that being anointed a “media darling” guarantees victory on Election night, you might want to check with McCain. The reporters who used to wax eloquent about the senator as they clambered aboard the Straight Talk Express (just eight short years ago) seem to be suffering from a bad case of Obamamania-induced amnesia right now.

Perhaps, Instead of inquiring whether or not the media are biased, we should be asking, “Does media bias actually matter?” The short answer is “no”---especially to Bill Bishop, the author of “The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-minded America is Tearing Us Apart.”

Bishop seems to be channeling the mid-50s selective perception theories of Gordon W. Alport, but with one distinguishing wrinkle----not only are we likely to seek out, pay attention to, or recall opinions with which we already agree, but also, at least over the past three decades, we are opting to reside in homogenous communities, a phenomenon which Bishop labels “The Big Sort “ and which, unfortunately, has led to intolerance of political differences, stymied legislative productivity at all government levels, and rendered national consensus virtually impossible.

When NBC, ABC and CBS dominated the dissemination of news, Americans shared the same images (John-John’s chubby-fingered salute), references (Andy Warhol’s “Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes”) and icons (Twiggy, Janis Joplin).

The post-cable and internet landscape, however, has splintered the nation into thousands of inward-looking tribes. We now inhabit a cultural universe that’s not only custom-tailored to our social standards, our musical tastes, and our unique viewpoint on every single political issue, but we have likewise become geographically insulated against inadvertently exposing ourselves to attitudes, values or beliefs contrary to our own.

“We have built a country,” Bishop writes, “where everyone can choose the neighbors (and church and news shows) most compatible with his or her lifestyle and beliefs. And we are living with the consequences of this segregation by way of life: pockets of like-minded citizens that have become so ideologically inbred that we don’t know, can’t understand, and can barely conceive of ‘those people’ who live just a few miles away.”

In 1976, fewer than one in four Americans lived in an electoral district that delivered a lopsided presidential vote. By 2004, however, nearly half of voters had set up housekeeping in landslide counties.

What does this statistical shift really mean?

Social psychologists such as Alport predicted that if we heard our political beliefs echoed or amplified by our neighbors, we would become even more rigid and/or extreme in our ideological thinking.

What occurred during the last 30 years, according to Bishop, “wasn't a simple increase in political partisanship, but a more fundamental kind of self-perpetuating, self-reinforcing social division.”

“Americans,” he continued, “were busy creating social resonators, and the hum that filled the air was the reverberated and amplified sound of their own voices and beliefs.”

Are the media biased? Fox News would have you believe “we report, you decide.” Isn’t the truth actually “you decide what we report?” Bias, my dear readers, resides in us.

GAS PRICES: NOTHING NEW SINCE THE FIRST FORD

Published in the July 23, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

On this very day (July 23) in 1903, Ford Motor Company sold the first Model A (not to be confused with the Roaring Twenties version) to a Chicago dentist named Dr. Ernst Pfenning.

A mere 80.6 million people resided in the United States 105 years ago.  Only eight percent of American households possessed a telephone, a house sold for around $2,000, the average breadwinner’s annual salary was $703, and gasoline cost approximately a nickel a gallon.

Although 88 new auto manufacturers entered the marketplace in 1903, an aggressive advertising campaign touting the mass-produced Model A as “Boss of the Road: The Latest and Best,” deposited 658 so-called “Fordmobiles” on the nation’s highways and byways by mid-May of 1904.

Henry Ford, who is reputed to have quipped, “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black,” rolled out the Model A line in a single color as well---fire engine red.  However, the car, which operated on a two-cylinder, eight-horsepower engine, could be ordered as a two-seater runabout or four-seater tonneau model.

The vehicle’s top speed was clocked at a sluggish 30 miles per hour but with a sticker price of only $850 (when the average for all new cars hovered around $1,157) the Model A introduced a long line of dependable, reasonably priced automobiles which, by 1908, would include the Model T, the vehicle that “put America on wheels” as it puttered along 25 miles of rutted road on a single gallon of gasoline.

As we learned in school, Henry Ford, whatever his personal foibles, can be credited with two innovations that, arguably, contributed to the emergence of America’s middle class:  the assembly line and $5-a-day wages enabling Ford employees to afford a Ford.

Not even three years would pass before the New York Times would be kvetching about the rapid rise in the price of gasoline.  Doesn’t that sound familiar?  In a March 18, 1906 article, “automobilists” were simply aghast that “the man who buys in only small quantities pays nearly 20 cents [a gallon] for his gasoline.”   In 2007 CPI-adjusted dollars, that would amount to $4.56 per gallon.  Doesn’t that also sound familiar?

The 1906 spike in the price of gas was so consternating to the American public that the fledgling (founded in 1902) Automobile Club of America decided to offer “prizes sufficiently attractive to manufacturers and inventors to stimulate their best efforts.”  Doesn’t that also sound familiar?  The leading candidate to replace gasoline was---and this is the familiarity topper for the day---denatured alcohol distilled from corn.

Yet a century ago, not only did seemingly insurmountable challenges in creating efficient alcohol-burning engines exist---chiefly pollution and problems with carburetion---but the greatest drawback, according to the  article, was “the high internal revenue tax [around $2 a gallon] which has made no discrimination between the highest grades of alcohol and the lower or denatured grades.”  Without the levy, denatured alcohol could have been purchased for 12 to 15 cents a gallon.

The Free Alcohol bill  (June 7, 1906), promoted by Big Oil foe Teddy Roosevelt, actually slashed the odious (to alternative fuel advocates) duty on denatured alcohol but the discovery of new oil fields in Texas the following year, likewise sent the cost of gasoline spiraling downward---at least momentarily. 

Congress, on the other hand, was most reluctant to impose a tax on gasoline (as alcohol-friendly officials in France and Germany had done) in order to promote alternative energy sources.  Think Standard Oil et al.   Using alcohol to fuel American automobiles, with the exception of racecars, went virtually nowhere until the 21st Century.

Now consider this particular June 23rd.  Americans are fuming---a condition that can only be described as a chronic pain in the gas tank.   Big girls do cry as they foot the bill for filling up their SUVs.  Greenies tooling around in electric cars look smug as they spot fossil fuel-foulers finally getting their comeuppance.

Even if Detroit refuses to buy global warming, Americans are now demanding honest-to-God-provable fuel efficiency as they trade in gas-guzzlers for hybrids and lofty MPG-getting foreign cars.  J.D. Power and Associates predicts that diesel engines, which boast 30 percent better mileage than gasoline, will be the Next Big Thing among auto mall-crawlers. 

Gas prices may have risen before, but only now, with fuel fees nudging $5 a gallon, are drivers changing their behavior.  Mass transit is seeing staggering gains in ridership. Folks are walking (gasp) to Starbucks, biking to their gyms, and looking for all manner of ways to conserve gasoline.  My question is---just exactly what took so long?

I think Dr. Pfenning might know.  Wasn’t he the first to fall in love?

 

LITTLE ARGUMENT OVER PROS AND CONS OF DEBATE

Published in the July 9, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

What do broadcast journalist Jane Pauley, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, and Congress of Racial Equality founder Dr. James Farmer Jr. have in common?

They are all former debaters.

Debate, like no other extracurricular activity, hones skills in research, analysis, logic, and the ability to weigh both sides of an issue. 

In fact, at the end of a forensic season, if you were to ask which side of a resolution a debater actually supports, you’d probably get a shrug.  Once forced to examine all the evidence on any topic, he or she can’t help but conclude that the truth lurks in the gray netherworld between black and white. 

According to Timothy M. O’Donnell, Chair of the National Debate Tournament, “Compared to intercollegiate athletics and other costly endeavors, debate is, dollar for dollar… an inexpensive, educational and effective way to both promote schools and enhance the quality of the academic experience.”

Recently, a documentary (“Resolved”) and a feature film (“The Great Debaters”) glimpsed the dark side of debate as well.

The “Resolved” trailer www.debatemovie.com/ begins with four young men apparently speaking in tongues, as they intersperse undefined jargon (flow, topicality, kritik) with an alphabet soup of federal agencies. 

Then the real shocker grabs your attention.  A speaker named Sam rears back and starts literally spitting out words---at the totally unintelligible rate of 400 per minute.  His auctioneer-like delivery is only interrupted by audible gulps for air.  There is nobody in the audience, save the judge.

No wonder intercollegiate debate is on the decline.  In fact, only 1 in 10 schools now support the once de rigueur academic pursuit. 

Assisted by stop-motion animation, “Resolved” chronicles the advent of “the spread,” a technique originally instigated by a national champion wannabe during the early 60s. 

Instead of leisurely issuing a few well fleshed-out arguments in a 10-minute constructive, he would spew as many points as possible (quality giving way to quantity) to propel his opponent into attempting to  “cover “ or respond to each during a five-minute rebuttal. 

Most teams competing before the spread became established, carted evidence around in a recipe card box.  Today, refrigerator dollies are required to lug five or six oversized Rubbermaid tubs bursting with cards.

If you’d rather view debate’s golden years, rent Denzel Washington’s “The Great Debaters.” The film follows a team from historically black Wiley College (Marshall, Texas), who packed auditoriums by amassing a string of Jim Crow South-stunning victories over white competitors.  Renowned poet Melvin B. Tolson was the coach.  Farmer, Wiley’s most famous alum, told American Legacy, “I debated Malcolm X four times and beat him.  I’d think, come off it Malcolm, you can’t win.  You didn’t come up under Tolson.”

While Tolson insisted only he was capable of constructing arguments for his students, as conquests boosted confidence, the debaters started substituting their own thoughtful analyses---peppered with vivid personal anecdotes.

Only once was the playing field between black and white debaters actually level, however—when both teams, armed with a stack of the same books and only a day to prepare, argued civil disobedience without their coaches in Cambridge, MA.  Actually, the film fudged. In real life, Wiley faced-off against USC on April 1, 1935.  Harvard wasn’t the reigning debate power at that time.

When “Resolved” shifts to Louis Blackwell and Richard Funches, who came out of nowhere---namely Long Beach Jordan High School---to become state champions, there are echoes of the golden years.  Even though their inner city school lacked travel funds and subscription databases, their hard work paid off.

In 2006, however, the dynamic duo felt led by Paolo Friere’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” to debate the structure of debate itself. “We decided to throw out all the evidence,” Funches explains in the film, “and [conversationally] talk about why debate wasn’t educational for us.”

This approach, although it won the ballots of many “fed-up-with-spread-debate” judges, didn’t result in a second championship.  Reform, like virtue, is its own punishment.

Is there a lesson here for either Barack Obama, who recently reneged on his promise to restrict himself to public funds, or John McCain, whose name is eponymous, if not synonymous, with campaign finance reform?

Like the first debater to exploit the spread to his advantage, Obama, according to experts, will spread $300M in television ads throughout all 50 states before Election Day.  McCain, however, who opted to honor his pledge, may well realize the cost, like young Funches and Blackwell, of standing on principle.

Besides Pauley, Alito, and Farmer, Karl Rove also claims to be former debater.  We would be wise to remember the principles-challenged political operative’s parting words upon vacating the West Wing on August 31, 2007: “You all had something to do with keeping me employed.”

VCMC EXPANSION IS A WORTHY PROJECT, LONG OVERDUE

Published in the June 23, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

During the three decades I’ve resided in Ventura County, I would have to say the Measure X campaign gets the nod as the most mendacious. 

Community Memorial Hospital officials spent $ 1.5 million to convince voters that a proposed new wing to the Ventura County Medical Center would merely duplicate services available a few blocks away at CMH. 

Yeah, right—CMH specialized in indigents.

Yet among the hyperbole, misinformation and false propaganda unloosed during the anti-X campaign, I don’t remember a single reference to the height of the proposed VCMC structure. 

Heather Christie, in her June 15, 2008 commentary, should have taken a little more time to check her facts:
1) Measure X was not a city (Ventura) referendum but rather a countywide election item.  
2) Measure X was not passed; it was defeated---due in no small part to the fact that county officials who put the measure on the ballot were not only legally prohibited from sinking one dime of taxpayer money into promoting the referendum but were not even allowed to speak publicly in the measure’s defense. 
3) Measure X opposition was hardly a grassroots effort.  Ninety percent of the funds that led to the measure’s defeat came from deep-pocketed CMH.   Follow the money, indeed.

The Foothill Neighbors, a small group of Ventura residents (only 30 showed up at a recent community outreach meeting) are apparently up in arms at the prospect of losing their views.  They not only aspire to halt a construction project that has been underway for five months but they intend to send the project’s planners back to square one.   To that end, recent efforts seem to be taking a page from Michael Bakst, former Executive Director at CMH.

The Foothill Neighbors might do well to remember that Bakst, who attempted to dismantle the public health delivery system in Ventura County in order to benefit his own private hospital, was eventually forced out (2003) after dust-ups with his own fed-up colleagues.  

Yes, we are being warned, these well-heeled NIMBYs (“they are writing checks---big checks,” according to a June 15, 2008 commentary by Camille Harris) are presently primed and “they have a good chance to win” (again Harris) with their own shiver-inducing modus operandi---namely, bullying Ventura County officials into submission via threats of budget-busting law suits. 

It might be wise for the Foothill Neighbors, however, to “take a trip” all the way “down memory lane.”  CMH tried the lawsuit route in 1995, alleging that a proposed $51M VCMC expansion constituted unfair competition.  They lost big time---a Superior Court judge ruled in the county’s favor, and the decision was upheld on appeal.  Unfortunately, all the legal wrangling cost Ventura County a cool million---dollars that could and should have been put to better use.

Yet CMH got its comeuppance with the defeat of Measure O, through which Bakst sought to shift control of $250M in tobacco settlement money to seven area private hospitals. 

Despite being outspent 15-to-1, David Maron, who played the Force-enabled Luke Skywalker to Bakst’s Darth Vader, was able to report to the Daily News in November 2000: '”It is extremely gratifying to see that the people of Ventura County looked at the issue intelligently and decided that private institutions should not control public funds.”

If the Foothill Neighbors are determined to sue somebody, their legal eagles should target the real estate agents who failed to disclose a project in the works since 1994 that might possibly hamper their horizon-gazing. 

Most folks realize that unless you are willing to fork out funds for an easement, there is always the possibility that somebody will build in front of you.    It is not, as Camille Harris would have you believe, “a case of eminent domain taking the skies above us.”  In fact, it is the Foothill Neighbors, who insist on “taking” the sky above VCMC.

Finally, what happens if viewshed is actually judged a tangible asset? I wonder if the Foothill Neighbors remember the infamous “view tax” proposed by the cash-strapped Port Hueneme City Council in 1991---especially with the Ventura City Council eyeing any and all possible sources of new revenue. 

Furthermore, in light of a nationwide housing slump, can the Foothill Neighbors’ “decline-in-property-values” argument be any more specious?

This worthy VCMC project will house offices and clinics that now crowd trailers, leased office space, and/or inadequate campus quarters and provide essential family care, pediatrics, women’s health and oncology to some 200,000 poor and uninsured patients.

The expansion is more than a decade overdue.  With state money drying up, there is no time to waste.  A multi-million dollar redesign to appease a few affluent NIMBYs is simply out of the question.

And that’s no lie. 

20 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT DUCT TAPE

Published in the June 9, 2008 edition of the  Ventura County Star

“Here,” writes Dean Christopher in “20 Things You Didn’t Know About Everything,” are a few of its apparently endless uses:  sealing, masking, joining, marking, holding, splicing, labeling, protecting, bundling, enforcing, moisture proofing, wrapping, patching, mending, hemming, refastening…not to mention creating cleavage, preventing frostbite, repairing horses’ hooves, [and] supporting weak joints.”

The surprise substance with unlimited uses?   Duct tape, of course. 

If you dig through Christopher’s book, you can amass so many fascinating factoids about everything (hence the title) that your brainpower will become most conspicuous, especially when compared to the uninformed slackers who gather around the office water cooler.  Who knows where a reputation as a “know-it-all” might lead?

The genesis for the book is an eponymous must-read column in Discover Magazine, an award-winning periodical that “tackles topics,” according to the Chicago Tribune, “ranging from global warming to black holes to Neanderthals with a refreshing lack of academic jargon.”

With more than five million readers, Discover targets the well-read non-scientist who might balk at plowing through a turgidly-written Scientific American on a monthly basis yet yearns for more cerebral stimulation than is typically provided by issues of Popular Science.

Launched in 1980 by Time, Inc. but now owned by Bob Guccione, Jr. (founder of Spin and Gear), Discover should not be confused with the Discovery Channel, where you are as likely to view science fiction about Sasquatch, aliens, or haunted houses as you would science fact about space, arachnids, or “How It’s Made.” 

We’ve all seen the Anthem (Blue Cross) commercial that features an uninsured couple who swathe themselves in duct tape in order to relieve hernias and “killer” headaches---not the most effectual use of the product.

Yet, you don’t have to be Tim “The Toolman” Taylor (“if you can’t fix it, duck it”) to realize that duct tape applications are only limited by one’s imagination and willingness to endure ridicule.

Christopher doesn’t duck controversy (You say “duct tape;” I say “duck tape”). During WW II, when Johnson and Johnson brought the green, waterproof self-adhesive to a battleground near you, GIs, intent on keeping their ammo cases as dry as a quacker’s back, called for “duck” tape.  During the late-40s housing boom, adhesive the color of Army fatigues gave way to a silver-hued variety that sealed the jointed ducts in home furnace and air conditioning systems. 

Ironically, the au courant tape (made with fabric and a rubber-based adhesive), at least according to Max Sherman of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is effective for joining nearly any two objects together except heating and cooling ducts.  At typical household temperatures, Sherman found that today’s duct tape took a dive from its fastening duties in a mere 72 hours.

If anybody ever asks you, Avon, Ohio is the duct (or duck) tape capital of the world.  It is here Henkel Consumer Adhesives manufactures enough of the sticky substance (trademarked as Duck Brand Tape) to encircle the globe 20 times---but let’s not give those madcap One World Order proponents any more wacky ideas.

Christopher is certainly on a roll with this subject (one of 20 in the book).  You may not realize that black gaffer’s tape (TV and film folk), rock ‘n’ roll tape (band roadies), 200 MPH tape (racing pit crews) green missile tape (aeronautical engineers) and 1,000 mile tape (Arctic dog sleds) are all aliases for the “let-er-rip” answer to MacGyver’s prayers. 

Speaking of the Man Upstairs, did you know that the guys at NASA, instead of their lucky stars, have duct tape to thank for salvaging a couple of their missions?  The pressure-sensitive adhesive repaired the damaged fender on the Apollo 17 lunar rover and aided in the improvised conversion of a CO₂ filter that literally saved the lives of three Apollo 13 astronauts.

Ed Smylie, the Houston engineer who dreamt up the Apollo 13 cardboard and duct tape device, summed it up best:  “One thing a Southern boy will never say is ‘I don’t think duct tape will fix it.’”

Their own duct tape addiction inspired the Duct Tape Guys www.ducttapeguys.com to author a number of bestsellers.  Jim Berg and Tim Nyberg maintain:  “Two rules get you through life: If it’s stuck and it’s not supposed to be, WD-40 it. If it’s not stuck and it’s supposed to be, duct tape it.” 

Duct tape prompted part-time philosopher and full-time Star Wars fan, Carl Zwanzig to pontificate:  “Duct tape is like The Force---it has a light side and a dark side, and it binds the Universe together.”

“The most exciting phrase to hear in science,” according to Isaac Asimov (a Discover contributor) “the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ (I found it!) but ‘that’s funny…’”

So is Dean Christopher.  Just read his book.

MEMORIES OF MEMORIAL DAY

Published in the May 26, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

My mother used to call it “Decoration Day.”  Every 30th of May, decked out in our Sunday-best frocks and polished white shoes, we filled our arms with fresh flowers to decorate the graves of departed relatives.  

Although we had learned in school that Memorial Day was a remembrance of those forfeiting their lives in our nation’s service, the only relation who had made the ultimate sacrifice on either side of the family was a maternal great-uncle who was laid to rest in some Flanders field in 1917.  We had no idea where that might be.

He was barely 17 when he perished during WWI---the only son of Sam Petroskey and Mary Saviskus, who left Lithuania around 1911 to settle in America.  After years of toiling in the employ of others, my great-grandparents were able to purchase a few acres just outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the industrious family of five foraged, farmed and fished on their own land.

In the years that followed, nobody talked much about Joe.   All that remained to document his existence was a formal portrait taken just before he enlisted in the Army and his prized pocket watch.

His snug shirt collar lies stiff against his neck in the photograph.   The old-fashioned tie is knotted in a somewhat haphazard fashion.   And, while most of his curly locks have been pomaded into submission, a few dark coils seem to defy his best efforts.   

His innocence and uncomplicated nature is easy to discern.  His deep brown eyes, which bear the confidence that comes from knowing exactly who one is, gaze resolutely into the camera lens.   

Furthermore, despite his diminutive stature, he seems ready, willing and able to meet whatever challenge life holds in store.  You can see why his mother hung on to the sepia-toned photo for the remainder of her days.

Sam and Mary must have scrimped for years to purchase the 18k gold watch they hoped would properly commemorate Joe’s graduation from high school.  

The stark white clock face marked the hours with large black Roman numerals.  The gold case of the cherished chronograph, while small and thin, was intricately hand-carved in an ornate pattern far too flowery for a Michigan farm boy.   Little wonder that he left the timepiece in his mother’s care when he embarked for Europe.  

Eventually, the heirloom was placed in my charge.  I used to wear it on a heavy gold chain and took great pride in relating what I knew about the brave boy who gave his life in service to his adopted land.   

Now the watch, last seen is a black leather pouch and tucked into a secret hiding place, has inexplicably vanished. I hold out hope that it has merely been mislaid.   I hold out hope that Memorial Day has merely been mislaid as well.  

I miss the American flags that once floated in front of every house on this day.  I miss the miniature stars and stripes that adorned every veteran’s grave at local cemeteries.  I miss the parades that featured high school bands and crepe paper-festooned floats.  I miss the artificial red poppies  (proceeds benefitting servicemen in need) that we proudly pinned to our lapels.  I miss singing patriotic hymns at church.  I miss tearing up as the last note of “Taps” evaporates into the ether.

Some believe we allowed Memorial Day to vanish when the National Holiday Act of 1971 morphed the solemn occasion into a three-day celebration of summer.  

To that end, President Clinton proposed a National Moment of Remembrance in 2000.  The directive asks Americans “to pause for one minute at 3:00 p.m. (local time) on Memorial Day, to remember and reflect on the sacrifices made by so many to provide freedom for all.”
   
If you’ve never heard about this sixty seconds of silent reflection, you are not alone.  However, what you probably have heard about,ad nauseam, is that hot dogs, lawn furniture and gas grills have been discounted---just in time to kick off your Memorial Day festivities.  

Every two years, Senator Inouye faithfully re-introduces a Senate bill calling for the restoration of the traditional May 30 observance.  He has done so, without success, since 1989.
 
Consider General John A. Logan’s (Memorial Day founder) 1868 admonition: “Let us, then, at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us, in this solemn presence, renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us, a sacred charge upon a nation’s gratitude, the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.”
 
It’s the least we can do.  And I’ll keep an eye out for that gold watch.

BARBIE AND THE GREAT SATAN

Published in the May 12, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

Two weeks ago, Iran’s Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi just said no to the destructive cultural and social consequences of Western toys. He’s sick and tired of Iranian markets being inundated with the Barbies, Batmen, Spider-Men and Harry Potters arriving on his shores through “unofficial” sources.

Smugglers and toyshop owners, you see, have discovered that Iranian parents, thanks to increased oil revenues, will pay top dollar to make their offspring’s dreams come true. Iran, reports Reuters, is the world’s third biggest importer of toys.

In 2002, after a Komiteh (public morals police) campaign---that heaved purveyors of black market Barbies in the clink---fizzled, Dara and Sara were introduced. However, the modestly attired twins, who come with a backstory designed to promote Islamic values, don’t seem to be stemming the Malibu Barbie tide.

Don’t you think Najafabadi should lighten up? Barbie is only a doll, for heaven’s sake. What’s the big deal?

All manner of popular culture observers have weighed in on the pint-sized phenomenon. Feminist thinkers from Betty Friedan to Naomi Wolf see the 11.5-inch fashion plate as symbolic of our obsession with idealized female bodies. M. G. Lord (“Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of Real Doll”) writes about Cindy Jackson, a woman who underwent nine cosmetic surgeries in order to resemble the fantastic plastic icon---exactly.

On the occasion of Barbie’s 35th birthday, Anna Quindlen harangued: “Long before [supermodel] Kate [Moss] and Ultra Slimfast came along, hanging over the lives of every little girl born in the second half of the twentieth century was the impossibly curvy shadow (40-18-32 in life-size terms) of Barbie. That preposterous physique, we learned as kids, is what a woman looks like with her clothes off.”

But proponents retort that Barbie, who is gainfully employed in a profession (Astronaut Barbie in 1965, Doctor Barbie in 1988 and Nascar Barbie in 1998) and enjoys oodles of friends, is one terrific role model. Not only is she not dependent on Ken for her identity but she also views the world as one of limitless choices. Isn’t that a great lesson, they ask, to offer any little girl?

What kind of role model, opponents hedge, is an anorexic (estimated 35 pounds underweight) Barbie?

Ask yourself---is merely putting a wasp-waisted fashion model mannequin through countless wardrobe changes really going to cause young girls to starve themselves in order to sculpt their bodies into hers?

Still, as any parent who has invested thousands of dollars in Barbie dolls, clothes, accessories, pets, residences, vehicles, books, and video games can attest, Barbie seems to teach glitzy gimme-ism for now and conspicuous consumerism for the future. Whether or not studies bear this out, here’s some food for thought. While most parents draw the line at outfitting their little darlings in Versace or Mackie, Barbies are an entirely different story.

So how many Barbies are we actually talking about? According to Smithsonian Magazine, if you queued up all the dolls sold during Barbie’s first three decades, you could circumnavigate the globe a whopping four times. Not one, but three Barbies are purchased somewhere on the planet every single second, and the average American three to ten-year old female owns ten dolls.

Barbie’s ubiquity wasn’t always the case. When she first appeared sporting a zebra-striped swimsuit on March 9, 1959, Mattel couldn’t give the dolls away. It seems America, which defined dollies as cherry-cheeked infants, wasn’t quite ready for playthings with perky protrusions.

Yet creator Ruth Handler, who believes a full-figured figure is essential to self-esteem, dug in her arched heels. According to her autobiography, Handler, who went on to develop a natural-feeling breast prosthesis (Nearly Me), did so in order to “return that same self-esteem to women who [through cancer] have lost theirs.”

Barbie’s initial popularity is credited to a jingle-laden ad that aired during must-see Mickey Mouse Club shows. Her longevity, nearly 50 years and counting, is due, according to author Kristin Noelle Weissmann (“Barbie: the Icon, the Image, the Ideal”) to Mattel making “sure that she can consistently adapt to the culture, and to her target audience”---even if that audience lives in Iran.

The problem with Najafabadi’s “lock-out-the-devil” viewpoint is that it gives a great deal of credit and/or control to the Great Satan. Abrar Awan, who sees real life as much more complicated than any black-and-white interpretation of Islamic theology, is sick and tired of “America or the West … always behind every fault, every problem,” as he told the New York Times. “Now, in my practical life, I know the faults are within us.”

Nancy Reagan was right---with respect to dolls as well as drugs. When it comes to Barbie, parents—in Iran or America---should just say no.

Making the Acquaintance of Your Googlegänger: You probably share more differences than similarities

She was the first female to command a Coast Guard cutter, the ex-wife (twice) of actor/song-writer James Coburn, an author and daughter of a world-famous clown, a chemistry professor, and a social worker. No, I'm not talking about one lady with a mind-boggling résumé — make that five remarkable American women who all share the name of Beverly Kelley.

It used to be common practice among traveling salespeople and frequent fliers to check out the local phone book for one's appellation. Searching out people who share one's moniker is much more productive, these days, with access to the World Wide Web. You can either type your name into your favorite search engine or head to http://www.samenameasme.com and let founder Robin Barratt do it for you.

The au courant phrase for one's name twin is "Googlegänger" — a term of unknown authorship that won the American Dialect Society's award as 2007's "most creative word."

So why do so many folks feel a connection to utter strangers just because they share the same "handle"? Social and behavioral scientists offer some answers.

First, there is the "name-letter effect" or the tendency to be influenced by initials or letters in one's name. Studies by B.W. Pelham et al published by both the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology report that the name-letter effect may even extend to choice of residence, spouse and/or favorite product brand.

To illustrate, Jack is more likely to move to Jacksonville, marry Jackie and eat at Jack in the Box than is Phil, who, on the other hand, might relocate to Philadelphia, marry Phyllis and dine on a Philly cheese steak.

Pelham further concludes that the name-letter effect seems to apply to choice of occupation as well. For example, he reports that a disproportionate number of dentists seem to share the name Dennis.

To answer skeptics who counter that individuals do make life decisions for reasons other than letters of the alphabet, Pelham and colleagues compared their test results to random chance. They discovered, for instance, that the number of Virginias who move to Virginia turned out to be 36 percent higher than could be expected by chance alone.

Additionally, it appears that a "same-as-me" effect may impact politics as well. During the 2000 presidential campaign, analysis of campaign contribution rolls demonstrated that people whose surnames began with "B" were far more likely to contribute to George Bush; those whose surnames that began with "G" favored Al Gore.

However, there is a downside to allowing the letters in one's name to affect one's behavior — however unconscious that may be. Leif Nelson (UC San Diego) and Joseph Simmons (Yale) investigated the effect of name resemblance on batter strikeout statistics. Bear in mind, strikeouts are recorded with the letter "K." After analyzing performances of major league baseball players over a period of 93 years, the investigators found that batters whose names began with "K" struck out at a significantly higher rate than all other batters.

The same researchers targeted academia in a follow-up study that reviewed 15 years of grade-point averages for Masters in Business Administration graduates from a large private American university. They found that students whose names began with "C" or "D" (I suspect you are already ahead of me here) earned lower GPAs than students whose names began with "A" or "B."

In 2001, a Hollywood screenwriter-actress-model calling herself Angela Shelton criss-crossed the country in a 33-foot RV in order to make the acquaintance of 40 other Angela Sheltons ranging in age from 22 to 48 years. Why? She had a hunch that these women shared something beyond just a name — something much more personal.

Two statistics, startling to her, emerged as the various Angela Sheltons let down their hair in conversation: not only were most Angelas employed as "angels of mercy" (nurses) but 70 percent had experienced sexual abuse or spousal violence. (Note: both predicaments begin with the letter "s.")

Angela's unique social experiment resulted in an award-winning documentary, appearances on "Oprah Winfrey," "Larry King Live," "48 Hours Investigates," "Lifetime Television for Women," and a 256-page eponymous paperback published by Meredith Books only this month.

Granted, my sample of Beverly Kelleys may be modest, but I did find a number of commonalities with my name twins: I, too, know what it is like to bump my noggin on the glass ceiling yet eventually break through, to be married (just once) to a musician with a flair for the dramatic, to be forced to share a funny father with the spotlight, and to spend time writing, teaching and caring for others.

Would I wish to meet my Googlegängers some day?

I already have. Remarkable women. They just don't happen to share my name.

DITH PRAN: REMEMBERING A LIFE-CHANGING LIFE

Published in the April 14, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

In the trailer for Roland Joffe’s 1984 Academy Award-winning “The Killing Fields,” Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterson), a New York Times reporter whose coverage of the Cambodian War would earn him a Pulitzer Prize, says: “It was there in the war-torn countryside amidst the fighting between government troops and the Khmer Rouge guerillas that I met my guide and interpreter Dith Pran---a man who was to change my life in a country that I grew to love and pity.”

Dith Pran also changed my life when he visited my radio show on March 13, 1995. He referred to himself only as a messenger but, oh, did he ever bring a powerful message.

Dith was, in his own words, “a one-person crusade who must speak for those who did not survive and for those who still suffer.” Dith, who coined the term “killing fields” to describe the countless corpses he encountered on a daily basis, would continue to advocate for victims of the Cambodian holocaust until his own death from pancreatic cancer two weeks ago at a New Brunswick (NJ) hospital. He was only 65.

The Cambodians themselves certainly didn’t expect the genocide instigated by a Paris-educated communist named Saloth Sar, who went by the nom de guerre “Pol Pot.” The subsequent bloodbath would claim the lives of nearly two million civilians (28 percent of the population) in a frenzy of anti-intellectual, anti-Western cleansing.

The Khmer Rouge attempted an overnight step-back-in-time as they carved Cambodia into farming cooperatives and demanded total devotion to the state. To dissent was to die.

Dith, a product of a middle-class family, grew up near the ruins of the ancient temple called Angkor Wat, where he picked up English from tourists---a talent that would equip him to serve as a guide and interpreter to Schanberg in 1972.

Three years later, two weeks before the fall of Saigon, Schanberg and Dith (after Dith’s family was safely evacuated) decided to stay and report as the Khmer Rouge stormed the capital of Phnom Penh.

Only a few days would pass before Schanberg and two other journalists would be arrested. Dith managed to convince the authorities that the reporters were French and they ended up at the French Embassy. Since Dith held a Cambodian passport, he ended up in a forced labor camp.

To survive, as Dith told me in 1995, he reinvented himself as an illiterate taxi-driver who remained under the Khmer Rouge radar by keeping his mouth shut and praying without ceasing. Dith labored 14 hours a day in the fields. To supplement the inadequate meals supplied by his captors, Dith opted to add insects and vegetation, no matter how unappetizing, to his diet. Many of his fellow prisoners and 50 of his relatives would not fare as well.

Dith may have been small in stature but a winsome smile that seemed to transform his entire face and a generous spirit made him appear larger than life. Years of torture had already taken a toll on his body---lining his face, slumping his shoulders and halting his speech. He mentioned, only in passing, the post-traumatic stress disorder that plagued him for two decades.

Yet it was his eyes that seemed to mesmerize me---they were deep brown pools, dazzling with hope. In fact, his whole demeanor sparkled with the credibility that seems to cloak a speaker of pure, unadulterated truth.

In addition, I was most impressed by his total lack of resentment or rancor at being abandoned by his closest friend. When Schanberg and Dith were finally reunited in a refugee camp nearly five years later, Schanberg asked with some hesitation, “You forgive me?” Dith, his face wreathed in his usual ear-to-ear grin, quickly responded, “Nothing to forgive Sydney. Nothing.”

Back in 1995, as a member of the Cambodia Documentation Commission, Dith continued to seek out and preserve evidence of Khmer Rouge atrocities in preparation for the time when the perpetrators could be brought to justice before an international tribunal.

Not only did Dith serve as an eloquent spokesperson for the victims of the Cambodian slaughter but he also sought out funding to dismantle the approximately 10 million landmines that lay buried in the soil of his homeland.

“Like one of my heroes, Elie Wiesel, who alerts the world to the horrors of the Jewish holocaust,” Dith told me 13 years ago, “I try to awaken the world to the holocaust of Cambodia, for all tragedies have universal implications.”

No quotation seems more appropriate to end this piece than Wiesel’s own words on the subject: “The killer killed his victims once, and there is nothing on earth we can do about it. But if they are forgotten, they will be killed a second time, and this we can and must prevent.”

Aren’t those words that could change your life?

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY AND POLITICS

Published in the March 31, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

California Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh used to call it “the mother’s milk of politics.”

For those who aspire to national office, campaigning includes a continuous chase for cash along a fundraising circuit that snakes from cocktail party to executive suite to hotel ballroom to union hall. Any downtime is filled with begging for bucks on the BlackBerry.

“While I might be able to gather as much as $10 million, I would have to spend more time in the living rooms of the wealthy raising money than I could out in the communities raising issues, raising hopes and raising hell,” admitted Jim Hightower, when asked why he didn’t run for the U.S. Senate back in 1990.

Here’s a startling statistic: the two eventual nominees for president in 2008 will need to raise a staggering $500 million apiece in order to compete.

Let’s just look at this year. John McCain saw a mere $11 million trickle into his campaign coffers in February, a slight dip from the $12.6 million the month before. During the first half of February, Hillary Clinton stockpiled a mind-blowing $1 million a day. Yet it was Obama who managed to set a fundraising record last month when he tabbed receipts in excess of $55 million.

You may wonder, as I do, from whence this currency came?

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, gifts from individuals (not PACs) make up more than 99 per cent of Obama’s contributions, 90 percent of Clinton’s and 91 percent of McCain’s.

So why are cash-strapped Americans, especially during an economic downturn, emptying their billfolds to invest in a presidential candidate?

Allow me to introduce the research of two academics partnering in pursuit of the answer to the long-standing query, “What makes folks give their money away?” Dean Karlan is a Yale professor researching global poverty, a generous contributor to liberal political organizations and a man who still can’t fathom why George W. Bush won re-election. John List, on the other hand, is a self-confessed conservative who taught economics at the University of Chicago and who has just completed a stint as the environmental expert on President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.

The effect of charitable contributions on the economy no longer has social scientists sniffing in disdain at its insignificance. The Center on Philanthropy (Indiana University) recently reported Americans donated $295 billion to charity in 2006. That figure represents an astonishing 2.2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.

Further, although most gifting comes in small packages, the prospect of landing deep-pocketed providers such as Bill and Melinda Gates or Ted Turner has inspired fundraisers to rigorously apply Big Business principles to their mission statements.

In “Conducting a Successful Fundraising Program,” Kent E. Dove advises, “Never underestimate the power of a challenge gift.” The economic payoff is simple: if you donate $100 without a matching grant, you would only make your favorite charity $100 richer. With a three-to-one match, however, you could add $400 to the not-for-profit’s bank account with the same Ben Franklin.

According to Karlan and List’s experimental results, conventional wisdom is only partially correct: the existence of a matching gift matters; the ratio (one-to-one, three-to-one) does not.

More importantly, keep in mind that the whole idea behind the presidential public financing system is matching funds. To avoid being saddled with spending limits, however, Clinton, Obama and McCain all opted out during the primaries. Only McCain has pledged to limit himself to public money during the general election.

Bad news: moralists consider giving-that-gets a high-minded form of consumption. Good news: economists don’t consider giving-that-gets a zero-sum game. A fat cat’s contribution won’t deter the widow’s mite.

More than 20 years ago, economist James Andreoni came up with the “warm glow” hypothesis. To illustrate: it would seem that folks don’t write checks to save baby seals; they write checks to feel the glow they get when they think of themselves as the sort who saves baby seals.

Karlan and List’s recent findings managed to validate both Andreoni’s theory as well as Russell Baker’s addled adage: “Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it.” Those disgruntled with President Bush, especially if isolated among Red State Republicans, seem to be clambering aboard the political contribution bandwagon in droves. “Giving is not about a calculation of what you are buying,” Karlan explains. “It is about participating in a fight.”

The senator from Illinois can thank numerous netizens of modest means for the $138.2 million he has amassed so far. Apparently, not only do Obamaniacs mean to slake their thirst for something different by responding to his call for change but they also seem more than willing to put their own contributions of mother’s milk where their mouths are.

Hmmmm.

DOGGIE DOO-DOO: BROWN IS THE NEW GREEN

Published in the March 17, 2008 of the Ventura County Star

Not even mouth-puckering lemonade sours my disposition more than a dog owner who looks the other way while his pampered pooch leaves a couple of steaming calling cards on the public walkway. While nobody relishes having to scrape that stuff off his/her sneakers, there are even more significant implications to the pet poop problem.

Question: what do the large yellow and red signs on our beaches have to do with dog detritus in inland parks or residential areas?

Answer: Maximum meltdown comes with the rains. Caution signs spin out the whole sorry story: “Warning: Contaminated Water. Urban runoff storm-drain water may cause illness.”

Although Ventura County water quality testers were kept pretty busy during the showery season, even now, with nary a nimbus in view, bacteria levels can still exceed state health-based limits at county beaches. Each gram of doggie doo contains 23 million fecal coliform colonies and a plethora of scientific studies rate canines as either the third or fourth most significant contributors to E. Coli contamination.

Even for those who conscientiously attend to doodie duty, much of the Bowser brownie bounty is currently scooped into non-biodegradable plastic bags and dumped in the garbage. In essence, pet owners have been dispatching ton after ton of plastic-wrapped time capsules containing, of all things, the family fleabag’s stool samples. How will future archeologists interpret this data?

Further, what happens when these bilious baggies reach the landfill? They sit there and mummify (a process which can take decades) but more importantly, fossilized scat takes up valuable space.

Ventura County residents have been attempting to divert more than 50 percent (at 1986 levels) of their trash from landfills by implementing composting, reuse or recycling programs. The diversion rate in Bay Areas cities, including densely populated San Francisco and Oakland, tops 60 percent.

But that’s not good enough for some dog-eat-dog No Cal environmentalists committed to putting local landfills out of business. Their goal? Diverting 100 percent (that’s right, 100 percent) by 2020.

When the doggedly green Bay Area powers-that-be decided to hound animal waste, which currently constitutes 4 percent (the same as disposable diapers) of residential refuse, Norcal Waste came up with the ultimate pie-in-the-sky (or rather, pie-on-the-sidewalk) plan.

They proposed that the Bay Area be the first in the nation to employ doggy No. 2 as a renewable energy source. Not only are Fido feces the ideal waste because of the protein-rich chow that owners purchase in 50-lb bags but there is also a whopping 6,500 tons of it generated by the 120,000 dogs that reside in the Bay Area.

Norcal’s production and combustion of methane gas proposal works like this: a combination of degradable material, dog poop and food scraps are fed into an anaerobic digester that uses bacteria to convert organic waste into methane gas. Methane gas, in turn, can be used to heat homes, cook meals, and generate electricity.

In addition, the two-week digestion process produces another valuable by-product, namely, compost for agriculture. According to Norcal officials, 80 tons of material (the average California sends about 5 pounds of trash to a landfill daily) could produce enough energy to electrify a thousand homes.

Furthermore, the notion of poop power is not so far-fetched. Several European nations, some developing countries and a smattering of American dairy farmers have been converting animal waste into energy for more than two decades. The Ventura County Regional Sanitation District, right here at home, presently uses the methane gas created by rotting refuse to generate 200 percent of the landfill’s power needs.

Fernando Berton of the California Integrated Waste Management Board insists that with a few technological tweaks, methane digesters could be used in residences within a few years. He told the San Francisco Chronicle, “You've got solar panels on homes. Why not home-based anaerobic digestion processes?”

When I checked with Kathy Jenks of Ventura County Animal regulation, she estimated that there were between 120,000 and 160,000 dogs in Ventura County. However, although we are talking about the same number as the Bay Area, unlike the mutts of our mostly apartment-dwelling neighbors to the north, Ventura County curs don’t usually befoul city streets during their canine constitutionals. They leave their daily deposits right in their own block-walled backyards.

Still, the solid waste of our critters is discarded as owners see fit. How many of you collect and flush on a regular basis?

Methane digestion may provide a promising solution to improved water quality, waste diversion goals and the push to find alternative energy sources. Of course, the powered-by-pooches proposal being beta-tested in the Bay Area won’t take off elsewhere until it makes sense economically.

Still, doesn’t poop power put a whole new interpretation on the old saw, “When life serves you lemons, make lemonade?”

LET'S EXAMINE THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION FROM A GENERATIONAL VIEWPOINT

Published in the March 3, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star
“Among democratic nations, each generation is a new people,” observed Alexis de Tocqueville.

The 2008 election has provided presidential choices from three, possibly, even four generations: John McCain (August 29, 1936) drew his first breath near the middle of the cohort that “The Fourth Turning” authors, William Strauss and Neil Howe, christened the Silent Generation (1925 to 1942), Hillary Clinton (October 26, 1947) is, without a doubt, a bona-fide Boomer (1943 to 1960), and while Barack Obama (August 4, 1961) hails from early Generation X (1961 to 1981), he is running a decidedly Millennial campaign.

For Tom Brokaw, America is blessed with silver-haired heroes/heroines who were born or came of age during the Great Depression. The eldest (Strauss and Howe’s G.I.s) “answered the call to save the world from the two most powerful and ruthless military machines ever assembled” at great personal expense.

“This was not a perfect generation,” Brokaw writes in “The Greatest Generation.” “They made mistakes along the way---they let racism go on too long. They were too slow to respond to the place of women in our society. But taken collectively, they came out of a very difficult time.”

Silents who were youngsters during WW II bundled papers, collected tin cans and/or weeded victory gardens to help the gallant Russians vanquish the fascist foes. In high school, however, they learned that the Germans and the Japanese were now American allies and the once gallant Russians had morphed into cold-blooded Cold War villains. Small wonder that they became wary of ideologies or political passions as they aged. It’s also easy to see why McCain is their man.

While the 69 million boomers currently range in age from 48 to 65, two distinct subgroups share the “pig-in-the-python” demographic bulge. At the front-end are peers of George W. Bush and Geraldo Rivera, Oliver North and Angela Davis, Newt Gingrich and Bill Bradley. They’re not only the first of the Dr. Spock toddlers but now comprise the old timers among the under-25 Americans once named by Time magazine as “1967 Man of the Year.” At the back-end are peers of Rick Santorum and Bill Gates, Sam Brownback and Michael Stipe, Peggy Noonan and Bill Maher. They, courtesy of the 26th Amendment, were expected to become an unstoppable political power.

It was not until 1992, however, two full decades after George McGovern first begged for their ballots, that support from 18- to 24-year-old Gen. Xers propelled Bill Clinton into the White House. After that, they mostly stayed home.

What happened? A 1999 Project Vote Smart survey found young voters, jaundiced by a national lack of trust in institutional leadership and ill-informed by MTV as a news source, simply couldn’t care less about civic issues and politics when compared to previous generations. If they did deign to exercise their franchise---they split the difference, politically, with the single-and-childless comprising a liberal Democratic voting bloc and the married-with-children identifying themselves as conservative GOP voters.

As latchkey kids (thanks to the spiking divorce rate) Xers may have relished their adolescent autonomy but they still suffered the psychological fallout from conspicuously absent parents. Little wonder they now tend to helicopter over their own offspring, some actually suing conscientious teachers who might keep their little darlings out of Harvard or insisting on showing up at salary and benefit negotiations as their overprotected progeny secure employment.

Just think, the 80 to 90 million millennials expected to arrive post-1982 (significantly outnumbering boomers) will have always resided in a multicultural country, will have never known a recession, are relatively unconcerned about the draft, and have enjoyed serious coddling not only by an unprecedented number of child-centered laws but by their “I-want to be-a-buddy-not-an-authority-figure” parents, who often force them into becoming involuntary heads of household by neglecting to enforce age-appropriate limits, boundaries and expectations. (See: Nanny-911).

Politically, millennials would be perfectly comfortable with a female Commander-in-Chief. According to a 2006 Emory study, girls already hold most leadership positions in elementary and high school organizations. With respect to Barack Hussein Obama, his millennial supporters argue: “What better way to restore America's standing in the world and heal the divisiveness over race and immigration than to elect a biracial president with a Muslim middle name?” Representatives from other generations seem to have clambered aboard his bandwagon as well.

Armed with a (so far) reliable crystal ball, Strauss and Howe second Tocqueville. They predict: “[Millennials] will rebel against the culture by cleaning it up, rebel against political cynicism by touting trust, rebel against individualism by stressing teamwork, rebel against adult pessimism by being upbeat, and rebel against social ennui by actually going out and getting a few things done.”

If they show up to vote, that is.

GOP CONSERVATIVES: TAKE A LESSON FROM PAUL TSONGAS

Published in the February 18, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

Some of you may remember Democratic presidential candidate Paul Tsongas holding up a stuffed panda bear in Fort Lauderdale during the 1992 primary. He was making the point that Bill Clinton was more than willing to pander to voters while he, Tsongas, was not going to play Santa Claus with tax cuts.

Now, John McCain is being told that if he fails to pander to GOP conservatives, he can’t possibly win the general election.

Just say no, Senator.

It started when attention-seeking pundits, talk radio bloviators and single-issue advocates, who lust to be large and in charge in the party of Lincoln, spent the better part of three months trying to convince voters that McCain was some sort of crypto-liberal. Mitt Romney, you see, was their guy.

Then the voters had their say.

Had Romney not changed residences so frequently he might have been shut out of the primaries entirely. By giving the former Massachusetts governor only three states on February 5, conservative voters proved they had not been bamboozled by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham et al.

Even with Focus on the Family’s James Dobson’s pronouncement on Ingraham’s radio show, “Should John McCain capture the nomination, as many assume, I believe this general election will offer the worst choices for president in my lifetime,” it was McCain who eclipsed Romney among evangelical Christians on Super Tuesday.

These surly, so-called “spokespersons,” who isolate themselves in a closed loop (talk-show host interviewing talk-show host or blogger quoting blogger) must realize, albeit reluctantly, that their credibility will only undergo further erosion if they dig in their heels and refuse to back a pro-life, pro-surge, fiscal conservative.

Perhaps Chris Matthews is right---unless Hillary is elected, conservative commentators will end up with nothing to rail about.

Still, on February 10, even President Bush couldn’t resist violating what Ronald Reagan labeled “the 11th Commandment.” During a Fox News Sunday interview, he pontificated, “I think that if John is the nominee, he has got some convincing to do to convince people that he is a solid conservative, and I’ll be glad to help him if he is the nominee.”

If anything, McCain would do well to distance himself from a president whose 30 percent approval rating (Associated Press-Ipsos) hovers at a nearly Nixonian low.

Furthermore, although lately Mike “I majored in miracles not math” Huckabee seems to be running the table, momentum-wise, nobody doubts McCain will triumph in St. Paul. The latest count has McCain topping 71 percent of needed delegates. More importantly, the most recent Newsweek poll reports that 69 percent of self-described conservatives say they will be satisfied with McCain as the nominee.

Conventional wisdom re: GOP presidential campaigns is to veer right during the primary and lean left during the general. It’s time, however, to shift that worn-out paradigm.

In an effort to build a long-term Republican majority, Carl Rove pitted red America against blue to produce 50-percent-plus-one victories. The strategy was crucial in boosting Republican Congressional numbers in 2002 and returning George W. Bush to the Oval Office. But voters have grown weary of polarization and give every indication of demanding something different in 2008.

Thirty-four percent of registered voters identify themselves as independents and 15 percent call themselves “conservative Democrats.” It’s these voters who will permit McCain to remain competitive in projected head-to-head bouts with either Clinton or Obama.

Politicos need to change-up their tactics: appeal to the sweet spot in the middle---and to do so from the get-go. Poll after poll reports that America is looking for a leader who is more about problem-solving and less about ideological purity.

Former U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas, who reached across the aisle almost as often as McCain, told Judy Woodruff in 1991 that he refused “to be locked into the ideology, sort of the class warfare, corporate bashing that Democrats find attractive.”

When Tsongas passed away on January 20, 1997, the Boston Globe’s Mike Barnicle observed, “But I think his cancer changed him a great deal. I think the fact that he combated it successfully gave him the opportunity to realize and to articulate publicly during the course of his presidential campaign that there was a tremendous market in this country for truth.”

Then he added, “And when he ran for the presidency, having faced death, he was certainly unafraid to tell the truth as he saw it. And I think to us that might make him seem unusual, but I think to the average person it would make him seem someone with just huge amounts of common sense.”

There is a bull market in America, these days, for both truth and common sense. If some conservatives miss it, well, they miss it.

TSUNAMI TUESDAY: VENTURA COUNTY-STYLE

Published in the February 4, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

“I have voted, have you?” Those words were printed on the detachable ballot section I was proud to pin to my blouse every Election Day. These days, however, it merely reads: “This ballot stub shall be removed and retained by the voter.”

One out of every two California voters received vote-by-mail ballots. In all probability, however, fewer than half will actually make it to the post office. The rest will end up clogging the count at the precincts along with the output of traditional in-person voters.

Why?

Some are simply having trouble making up their minds. The gyrations of this presidential season, according to a January 29, 2008 LA Times/CNN/Politico poll, have rendered them indecisive. Among those likely to vote in the Democratic primary, 30 percent said they could change their minds, including 50 percent who previously supported John Edwards. More than 40 percent of Republicans, as well, said they could end up backing another candidate come February 5.

Some have refused to pay attention---until the veritable 11th hour. Those who finally checked in via the boob tube with the Reagan Library debate held on January 30, 2008 or the next-day face-off at the Kodak Theatre, might have discovered, much to their chagrin, that the guy that had previously tickled their fancy was conspicuously absent from the stage.

While Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich dropped out much earlier, John Edwards opted to remove his chapeau from the ring just 24 hours before the January 31 debate. Republicans, likewise, discovered they didn’t have Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson or Rudy Giuliani to kick around anymore.

Furthermore, either some voters can’t manage to lay their hands on a 41-cent stamp (we are living in an e-mail/text message culture, you know) or they have decided, quite wisely, not to risk their franchise on the timeliness of the U.S. Postal Service. Postmarks simply don’t count this time; the ballot-stuffed envelope must make it to the nimble, number-crunching fingers of the Ventura County Elections Division by manana.

So what does this all mean for Ventura County? The majority of the vote-by-mail crowd will end up swamping the polls with their signed and sealed surveys. In all likelihood, the official count may be delayed, if the November 2006 election (when 30 percent of absentee ballots were dumped into precinct ballot boxes) is any indication, until the end of February.

“They are coming in a little bit slow this year,” County Clerk Phil Schmit told the Star in the epitome of an understatement. “We’re just hoping we don’t get hammered like we did in the last general election,” when a month rolled by without the official word from Phil.

Schmit might not be able to announce the victors tomorrow, but that won’t keep news networks from projecting the most delegate-rich Democratic and Republican presidential wannabes. After all, it’s Tsunami Tuesday, when coast-to-coast contests in California, New York, Illinois, Georgia and 17 other states will decide 41 percent of Republican delegates and 52 percent of Democratic delegates.

So what’s likely to happen in Ventura County? The 23rd and 24th congressional districts will each cough up one winner per party.

My trusty crystal ball tells me the Republican nod in both will go to John McCain. His victory in Florida and subsequent endorsements by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani should propel him forward ala the bandwagon effect. Don Sipple, a Republican strategist watching from the sidelines, agrees, “He’s got the mo’ when momentum counts the most,” Sipple told the LA Times: “The dominoes are all going to fall his way. I think this sets the table for him to claim the nomination Feb. 5.”

The LA Times/CNN/Politico poll, conducted before Giuliani (13 percent) dropped out, showed McCain vaulting ahead of Mitt Romney by 13 points. Even though local pundits extolled the debating skills exhibited by Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee at the Reagan Library, McCain has little to worry about from those two. Most of all, he’s the dude the Democrat diva most fears as an opponent.

Ventura County Democrats, who never fail to opt for the female candidate in a primary race, will be unable to resist Hillary. While Oprah, who stumped big time for Barak Obama, may reside up the road in Montecito, both Elton Gallegly’s and Lois Capps’ districts should go overwhelmingly for Clinton. Women Democrats, who will connect the head and tail of the arrow next to Clinton’s name by a 2-1 margin, will make the difference.

In all likelihood, each party will learn the identity of its presidential nominee by tomorrow night. At least on CNN. But not here in Ventura County.

Here’s the deal: I’ll retain my stub for as long as you want, as long as we get to vote about that.

CHARLIE WILSON: HE REFUSED TO BE A DO-NOTHING CONGRESSMAN

Published in the January 21, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

“Why is Congress saying one thing and doing nothing?” asks Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman) in the film “Charlie Wilson’s War.”

“Tradition, mostly,” the title character (Tom Hanks) deadpans.

Based on a 2003 book by CBS journalist George Crile, “Charlie Wilson’s War” encapsulates Washington politics-as-usual more effectively than any film since Otto Preminger’s “Advise and Consent” (1962).

The movie is not about a virtuous man doing the impossible. It’s about a U.S. Representative, a libertine as well as a liberal, figuring out what’s doable.

With politics, not only should one avoid focusing too painstakingly on the sausage-stuffing process, which, especially during Wilson’s tenure in the House, was liberally greased via flattery, favors and pharmacology but, more importantly, one must try one’s best to ignore any pesky unintended consequences.

“What no one involved anticipated was that it might be dangerous to awaken the dormant dreams and visions of Islam,” writes Crile in his epilogue. Because Muslims around the world fervently believe that the victory in Afghanistan was the work of Allah, Crile adds, “we set in motion the spirit of jihad and the belief in our surrogate soldiers that, having brought down one superpower, they could just as easily take on another.”

Although you won’t find any explicit references to Al-Qaeda or the World Trade Center in “Charlie Wilson’s War,” it’s not difficult for the moviegoer to connect the dots from the Islamic resurgence sparked by the Soviet defeat and America’s subsequent abandonment of Afghanistan to Osama bin Laden and 9/11.

Imposing, ridiculously handsome (far more than Hanks), and inimitable in custom cowboy boots, Mr. Wilson goes to Washington in 1973, despite the Nixon landslide, due to the gun-cleaning cloths he hands out instead of campaign literature, TV spots that boast he breakfasts on raw meat and relishes routing the Russkies and, in no small part, to his opponent’s spouse being incarcerated for bribery.

If Charlie Wilson, who got away with calling Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder “Babycakes,” were not a real person, his story would be deemed unbelievable, even for Hollywood.

Yet it mattered not in what decadent debauchery the twelve-term legislator was accused of indulging, his constituents would simply cluck, “Well, that's our Charlie.”

In 1979, the Soviet Union assaulted Afghanistan to salvage its deteriorating puppet government. President Jimmy Carter’s response was feeble: he cancelled grain sales to the Soviets and boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

The square-jawed Texas congressman, however, simultaneously appalled by Soviet ruthlessness (one-fifth of Afghanistan’s population was forced to seek refuge in makeshift Pakistan camps) and amazed at CIA reluctance to level the David-vs-Goliath playing field, took action.

Deeply moved by the daring and doggedness of the overmatched mujahadeen, Wilson visited the Pakistani camps more than a dozen times. Being Charlie, not only did he insist on dragging girlfriend Annelise Ilschenko (former Miss World USA) along, but he also strapped on a revolver, saddled up a horse, and galloped off with the plucky rebels.

Shepherds and tribesmen armed with 19th-century British rifles were decimated big time by Mi-24D (Hind) attack helicopters. What was needed were Stingers ($70,000 hand-held anti-aircraft missiles) that couldn’t be traced back to the U.S. Absolute secrecy, you see, was required to avoid inflaming either peacenik Americans or Cold War-wary Russians.

Wilson and Avrakotos cooked up canny back-channel machinations that involved the sixth richest woman in Texas (Julia Roberts), a belly dancer, and terminally estranged bedfellows from Israel, Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. In addition, Wilson’s seat on the military appropriations subcommittee allowed “Good Time Charlie” to ramp up his government’s unpublicized funding of the anti-Soviet jihad from $5 million to $1 billion per year.

Weapons purchased from Israel with American and Saudi dollars were dispatched to the port of Karachi, transported by rail to Islamabad and Peshawar, and subsequently trekked by mule over the mountains to Afghanistan. At one point, the CIA armed more than 300,000 Afghan freedom fighters.

In 1989, after 28,000 Soviet soldiers returned home in body bags, the communists pulled out of Afghanistan. On “60 Minutes,” when Pakistani dictator Zia ul-Haq was asked how the Afghan war was won, he replied without hesitation, “Charlie did it!”

Can a single individual change history? Wilson remains reticent to claim credit.

Now 74, retired, and recovering from a heart transplant operation, Wilson contends: “Today things are so partisan, and during our entire effort, which was an immense effort, there was no partisanship ever attempted on this,'” he told The Australian. “Nobody attempted to get any political gain from it and there were no leaks,” he added. “You just can’t imagine that kind of thing happening today with the kind of atmosphere now in Washington.'”

No, you can’t---especially now with Iraq. Congress is still saying one thing and doing nothing.

DOG IS OUR CO-PILOT

They call them Mutt Muffs. They are noise-canceling earphones for dogs with a yen to fly. I wouldn’t say our Yorkie has much of a yen but she has been gamely climbing onboard since her third month.

Mutt Muffs, were, as the www.safeandsoundpets.com site recounts, conceived in a Cessna. Apparently a black lab named Cooper loved to join his master as a furry co-pilot but she had qualms about the decibel level in the cockpit and the effect it would have on the animal’s hearing. After several unsuccessful prototypes, mutt muffs were finally “cleared for takeoff” and Jon invested in a pair for Chloe.

On her maiden voyage Jon insisted that the “dog be secured” during take-off and landing but when I checked to see if she was still sporting her earphones, she tried to dig her claws into my chest and her eyes were peeled wide with terror throughout the flight. Yet when we landed she seemed to find her old, happy-to-be-here personality.

One thing we had to do was to experiment with ways of covering her ear- flaps and making sure they stayed down under the earphones. Yorkies can move each of their ears 180 degrees. It is no small feat to keep these auditory appendages immobile. We searched the marketplace for bonnets or even doll hats but nothing was small enough. Finally we tried tying a handkerchief around her head as an old Russian grandmother might wear it—folded into a triangle with the long ends tied together in the back. It worked! The mutt muffs stayed on the entire flight. BTW, Chloe’s picture is now ensconced for all posterity in the Safe And Sound Pets Customer Gallery.

Chloe, who is now nine months old, has four flights under her Velcro walking vest and seems to enjoy flying as long as she gets to occupy the pink pet carrier strapped into the back seat. I don’t think she moves a muscle during the entire flight, but, just as the Mutt Muffs people predicted (See FAQ answer to the question “My dog would never wear these”), she is careful to keep her earphones on and her hearing unimpaired.

While Chloe is not apt to come when you call her—the stars and planets have to be in perfect alignment--actually I can’t blame her for balking at the command to “come.” It doesn’t take a pet psychic to interpret her reluctant behavior. I understand completely why hearing her name being called with sugary sweetness has put such an incredibly bad taste into her mouth. Every time she has bounded over with tail-wagging enthusiasm in the past, horrible things have happened. Jon or Beverly has attempted to drown her in the sink, insisted on squeezing her into some ridiculous outfit, or forced her to swallow vile-tasting medicine. Still she may wish to ditch her leash as she grows more mature.

At any rate, Chloe has really grasped the notion that when she is in either her pink or black purse-cum-pet carrier, she is not to make a sound. As a result, she has been able to accompany her two favorite humans into elegant hotels, sumptuous restaurants (where delicious tidbits are dropped into her lap), grocery stores, department stores, movie theatres and of course, planes, trains and automobiles. She has even sailed and motor-boated but she will be quick to tell you that she is much more fond of transportation in which there is no danger of getting wet.

NO END IN SIGHT RE: THE VAST WASTELAND

Published in the January 7, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

They don’t make them like Newton Minow anymore.

Last month, Kevin J. Martin, Federal Communications Commission chairman since 2005, found himself as the bulls-eye re: a congressional investigation into whether 1) he is abusing his authority and 2) his leadership has led to “a breakdown in proper procedure at the FCC.”

Not only has the 41-year-old Republican with close ties to the Bush administration been publicly chastised by all four of his fellow commissioners but lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have charged that Martin rushes to judgment, suppresses data or employs flawed studies (especially with respect to cable penetration figures), snubs public input, and schedules hearings with minimal notice to gain the tactical advantage.

Things are so bad that Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), head of the House Commerce Committee, fired off a missive to Martin last month that sniped: “Given several events and proceedings over the past year, I am rapidly losing confidence that the commission has been conducting its affairs in an appropriate manner.”

Minow, on the other hand, rose to political prominence on May 9, 1961 by speaking two little words, “vast wasteland,” to the National Association of Broadcasters. Those words achieved icon status as the punch-line of countless editorial cartoons, an entry in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, inclusion in “25 Speeches that Changed the World,” and the correct answer to questions on “Jeopardy!,” “Trivial Pursuit,” and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”.

In fact, no other member of the Kennedy administration, save the president himself, was invited to appear more on television and radio that year than Minow. Not only did the Associated Press survey of editors choose Minow as 1961’s top newsmaker but their collected reportage established Minnow as a household word with millions of Americans. An astounding 80.6 percent of the 4000 citizens who personally wrote to Minow supported his sentiments.

Minow’s “Vast Wasteland” speech is more than just a stinging censure of television programming---it carried the promise of change. The big stick Minow planned to wield to effect that change was bulleted in the pithy phrase: “[T]he people own the air.” Then he added, “For every hour that the people give you, you owe them something. I intend to see that your debt is paid with service.”

Little was known about the 35-year-old Minnow when he was first appointed other than he was the youngest person to hold the job, he was acclaimed as a college debater, and he was personally selected by JFK to clean house at both the FCC and the networks still reeling from the payola and quiz show scandals.

In early 1961, television viewing, with nearly nine out of ten households boasting one or more TVs, dominated every other form of mass entertainment. The public, Minow remarked later that year, spent more time ogling the boob tube than doing anything else except working and sleeping.

Only five years earlier, chunks of the schedule at all three networks had been consciously devoted to cultural programming despite the handicap in ratings. News divisions weren’t expected to make money.

“Is there one person in this room,” Minow asked the NAB, “who claims that broadcasting can’t do better?”

To that end, Minow shepherded the All Channels Act---which led to competing commercial and noncommercial stations on UHF---through the legislative process, as well as persuading Congress to clear the way for communication satellites, which, he prophesized quite rightly, would prove more earthshaking on a global scale than sending a man to the moon.

In “How Vast the Wasteland Now?,” a Columbia University address Minow used to mark the 30th anniversary of his little talk to the NAB, he recalled the prophetic words of American essayist E.B. White.

After glimpsing an experimental television demonstration in 1938, White felt compelled to say: “I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision, we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance to the general peace, or a saving radiance in the sky.”

“That radiance,” Minow concluded 53 years later, “falls unevenly today. It is still a dim light in education. It has not fulfilled its potential for children. It has neglected the needs of public television. And, in the electoral process, it has cast a dark shadow.”

Not much has changed since 1991 either.

The days of Martin, who conveniently fails to remember that the airwaves belong to the people, may be numbered, but I doubt many Americans will miss him.

To them, the nearly 50-year-old words of Minow still ring true: “When television is good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers—nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse.”

CHRISTMAS LETTER 2007

Dear Friends and Family,

For nearly a decade, Jon was able to stave off Beverly’s pleas for a canine companion with two debate-stopping arguments: “we live in a 1200-square foot condo and we travel all the time.” Last year, after extensive remodeling that included brand new floors, he was able to add an equally persuasive third. However, when a two-pound, seven-week Yorkie puppy licked his stubbly chin, all his steely resolve seemed to melt away.

We named the midget mutt “Chloe Tiffany Kelley-Sharkey,” a moniker Trevor says reminds him of four strippers being called for their hair appointments. Although she only comes, sits, and stays when the stars and planets properly align, she quickly caught on to doing her duty outside and going soundlessly “incognito” when placed in a well-ventilated shoulder bag. As a result we’ve been able to smuggle her into innumerable restaurants, stores, and hotels. Jon also purchased, at great expense, mini sound-canceling earphones so she can ride in the Cessna.

Maxwell, our favorite grandson, blows our minds with all the science facts he’s gleaned from watching the Discovery, Science, and National Geographic channels. He’s the best-behaved six year-old on the planet—due totally to his remarkable parents. He adores all things automotive (shades of Grandpa) and relishes T-ball, soccer, swimming, and, currently, basketball.

Nathan is now 2nd Lt. Sharkey, thank you very much. He’s been raising the grade point average in his classes at Vandenberg Air Force Base and is looking forward to being posted to a missile site in Great Falls, Montana for the next four or five years. Naomi, who recently exercised her considerable management skills by heading up Max’s wildly successful school fundraising fair, will be putting her pharmacy certificate to use after the move in January.

Our anarchist Trevor is chagrined to find himself working for The Man, especially since the man in question is Rupert Murdoch. First, it was at Harper Collins, the publisher of his best-selling Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide to Emo Culture. Trevor and co-writer Leslie Simon built up an extensive pre-publication buzz by giving the paperback its own MySpace page, signing up as many “friends” as possible, and inviting teenage lovers of emo music to participate in an interactive blog.

Second, it was at MySpace corporate headquarters (Beverly Hills), where the suits were so impressed with the tour Trevor pulled together for the book, he was offered a dream job booking “secret shows” and promoting video uploads on a scale competitive with YouTube. He and fiancée (yes, Trev finally popped the question) Angie St. Louis (ASL) are currently scouring the soon-to-be-gentrified environs of Echo Park for suitable housing and something they didn’t require while trekking around the Big Apple—a reliable car.

Brendan hasn’t given up women completely, but he’s decided to concentrate on church activities and building up his savings account in the meantime. He’s still gainfully employed at Countrywide in Fort Worth, despite all the well-publicized cutbacks. When he isn’t working overtime (the goal of home ownership tantalizingly in reach), he busies himself recording music, penning comic books, and singing with the choir.

Jon was reelected to his fourth term on the city council—a blessing and a curse, he’s decided. He fills in the hours between countless meetings and/or events by attending to his piano tuning clients, rebuilding a 120 year-old upright for Max, and cavorting with Chloe, who’s teaching him to play her version of human pet tricks, namely, “Throw-The-Toy,” ”Tug-of-War,” and “You-Can’t-Catch-Me.”

Beverly will add a Globalization course (Osher Institute at Cal State University, Channel Islands) to her teaching schedule in the Spring. She continues to file her biweekly column with the Star, is repackaging the material in her third book as a survey text, answers any invitation to speak in public, and painstakingly prowls the World Wide Web in search of cute canine apparel in size XS.

Holiday wishes and blessings to all of you,
Jonathan, Beverly, Nathan, Naomi, Max, Brendan, Trevor, and (now) Chloe

CHRISTMAS LETTER 2006

Christmas, 2006
We’ve been marking our progress through 2006 with the same dozen cardboard boxes. From week to week, they’ve held bath supplies, books, beverage glasses, and bric-a-brac as we embarked on a rolling remodel of just about every room in the house. Although we were cautioned that once you start, everything else begins to look dismal and dated, we embarked on a swift slide down the slippery makeover slope with the seemingly innocuous purchase of new mini-blinds.

Brendan continues to be recognized with raises and awards for his work at Countrywide. Unfortunately, he learned the hard way that it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. The same weekend we thought we were meeting his future fiancé, he and Kristin opted to part company. And we were really nice to her—honest! Bren, however, hasn’t felt the need to give up on romance—he’s already back in the dating game.

Trevor and his girlfriend Angie share a spacious, newly remodeled apartment in a quiet Polish neighborhood in Brooklyn. Although Trev still regularly contributes to Spin, AP, and Revolver, the big news is HarperCollins will be publishing his book Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide to Emo Culture on May 1st. You can pre-order a copy at Amazon.com. No pressure, no pressure.

We are thrilled that Nathan was accepted as an officer by the Air Force. He leaves for three months of OTS on November 28th. Naomi graduated with honors as a pharmacy assistant in the spring but has chosen to manage her father’s dental supply office in Tempe while juggling volunteering as a teaching assistant in Max’s kindergarten class. We can’t seem to get enough of our well-mannered five-year old grandson—he’s growing up so fast. When his parents come to visit, Max, who wants to make the most of his time, has already laid out a very specific schedule of activities for the entire family. The latest itinerary included baking cookies, building sandcastles, playing in the park, and feeding the already overfed Port Hueneme ducks.

Jon found out what it would be like to lose an election without having to actually do so. When we went to bed on November 7, he was way ahead. The next morning, however, the totals on the Ventura County Clerk website showed him out of the money by a paltry six votes. It wasn’t until some 71,000 absentee ballots (that had been put aside while the live vote was tallied) were counted, that he was returned to office as expected.

Had Jon actually been defeated, he claimed he would have the perfect excuse to indulge his passion for flying. He even persuaded Beverly to enroll in a class to prepare her to take over should anything untoward occur in the cockpit but the cartographically-challenged second-seater has to admit she can’t always figure out where she is. She does think, however, she’d be a whiz with radio communication—she’s a gal who never met a mike she didn’t like. While, this summer, she should have completed her third Reelpolitik volume, filthy lucre and the chance to become an expert essayist in organized crime, journalism ethics, biological breakthroughs, and gun control for an online encyclopedia lured her away from the political films of the 70s & 80s for just little while. That, and all those darn boxes, of course.

The happiest of holiday wishes from Jonathan, Beverly, Brendan, Trevor, Nathan, Naomi, and Maxwell

LIGHT ONE LITTLE CANDLE...

Published in the December 24, 2007 edition of the Ventura County Star

Okay, it’s time to admit it. Most of what we consider quintessentially American Yuletide ritual is, in reality, merely New World adaptations of time-honored French tradition.

Take, for example, the Christmas Tree (Sapin de Noël). The first evergreen to be bedecked in apples and roses claimed a place on Strasbourg’s snow-covered town square as early as 1605. The first nativity scene (crèche), which was the brainchild of St. Francis of Assisi, showed up in Avignon during the early 14th Century.

Finally, as this very day draws to a close and despite the fact that theirs is a decidedly secular nation, the French will find their magnificent cathedrals packed to the medieval rafters. The celebration of Midnight Mass (La Messe de minuit) is not only a de rigeur Christmas custom in La Belle France but is often perceived as a mystical experience---hypnotizing worshippers with the shimmer of candlelight, tickling noses with the sweet-scented fragrance of fir and frankincense, and bombarding ears with bells, each seemingly attempting to outdo the other in tolling the tidings of Christ’s birth.

Yet, unlike their American counterparts who balk at tedious readings from the Good Book, the French willingly sit through the seemingly endless recitation of Jesus of Nazareth’s genealogy as recounted in Luke 3:23-38. These verses trace the Messiah’s lineage from his legal father Joseph, through King David, back to Adam. (Mary’s lineage is charted in Matthew).

On the other hand, “every drop of human blood contains a history book written in the language of our genes,” population geneticist and Genographic Project head, Spencer Wells contends. “The DNA in each of our cells not only dictates the color of our eyes, it also contains the footprints of our ancestors.”

Everybody loves a good story, and when the Genographic Project currently being undertaken by the National Geographic Society, IBM, and the Waitt Family Foundation is finished in 2010, we will be treated to the second greatest story ever told.

The tale begins in Africa, where the first modern humans (whom researchers have nicknamed “Y-Chromosome Adam” and “Mitochondrial Eve”) were born, continues as a hungry hunter-gatherer decides “it’s getting too crowded around here---let’s see what lies beyond the next hill” and ends some 200,000 years later, when African Adam and Eve’s progeny, now 6.5 billion strong, can be found on every single continent on the planet.

Unlike their Biblical namesakes, “Y-Chromosome Adam” and “Mitochondrial Eve” were not the only human beings alive at the time. Their uniqueness arises out of the fact that their lines have survived to the present day.

Not only are natural mutations in human DNA, which occur every 10 to 20 generations, stored in every single individual’s genetic makeup but they also possess the ability to serve as “bread crumbs” for scientists tracing migration patterns over the millennia.

Sixty thousand years ago, when food and water began to grow scarce, our very distant African ancestors hit the road. Some reached Australia by ambling along the coast of South Asia. Others ended up strolling over to the Middle East, India, Asia and Northern Europe.

Still others---hardy mammoth hunters it turns out--- trudged onto the frigid tundra of southern Siberia. From there, their descendants followed herds of reindeer and musk ox across a short-lived, icy land bridge to the Americas.

And so it was. Over the years, the body shape, pigmentation and facial features of our initially tall, dark-skinned ancestors evolved---in response to geography, climate, and natural selection.

Genetically, human beings are 99.9 percent identical. As Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart, who submitted his DNA to the Genographic Project last September, put it: “In music we always talk about a universal language---you hear a minor chord and it sounds sad,” he told the Boston Globe. “There's a reason for that, and part of the reason is that despite the total disparity of appearance and cultural norms, we all came from the same place.”

So when are we going to realize that the “ancient hatreds” that sow seeds of conflict in the Middle East and elsewhere, do little more than take an ax to the roots of our family tree? In the extensive span of human history, aren’t centuries-old grievances really only recent wounds? Furthermore, having slogged on foot from East Africa to the literal ends of the earth, haven’t we been able to endure so much more?

“Light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it,” proclaims the ancient word. American clergy illustrate this lesson every Christmas Eve by conducting a candle-lighting ceremony, filched, of course, from the French. By the time every taper has been ignited---the entire room is ablaze with light.

Perhaps the Genographic Project will work in the same way.

Sidebar: If you would like to add your personal genetic information to the 270,000 samples already collected, you can order a Genographic Project Public Participation Kit ($99.95) at https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html

LIES, DAMNED LIES AND POLLS

Published in the December 10, 2007 edition of the Ventura County Star

At the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Stephen Colbert brought the house down when he quipped, “We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in ‘reality.’ And reality has a well known liberal bias.”

Hillary Clinton leads in the latest of polls (PollingReport.com) but what is not usually highlighted in the so-called “liberal press” is the number of “unsure” voters that has tabbed as high as 18 percent, depending on the order or wording of survey questions.

Statisticians tell us that not only is the public more likely to indicate support for a person described as “frontrunner” but by neglecting to mention all the other candidates or by lumping them together as “other,” both pollsters and the media can skew the results.

As a toothy Harry Truman illustrated in 1948 by waving a copy of the Chicago Daily Tribune headlined “Dewey Defeats Truman,” not only was the media (Billboard ran the same headline) dead wrong but so were most public opinion researchers, including both Gallup and Roper.

Although a local straw vote published in the 1824 Harrisburg Pennsylvanian (reporting Andrew Jackson’s lead over John Quincy Adams) is considered the first opinion survey, polling errors didn’t come to light for another 112 years.

The Literary Digest, in an effort to goose circulation in 1916, conducted a national survey that not only accurately predicted Woodrow Wilson’s victory but ushered in two decades of perfect presidential prognostication. By 1936, however, although the Literary Digest employed what would be considered a gargantuan sample (2.3 million), they failed to realize that their affluent postcard respondents tended to vote Republican.

At the same time the Literary Digest incorrectly predicted FDR being trounced by Alf Landon, George Gallup, who conducted a smaller but far more demographically representative survey, was able to launch an industry now inextricably bound up with politics.

But sampling error is not the only problem with polls. As television’s "House, M.D." constantly reminds his colleagues, patients lie. So do respondents: they might feel socially pressured to stifle the unpopular or politically incorrect attitudes they actually hold, they might say they support the more politically extreme position in order to conform to the polarized advocacy they see demonstrated on the media, or they might glom onto a pollster’s “suggested answer” to avoid feeling the psychological pain of cognitive dissonance (simultaneously holding two contradictory attitudes).

Following Dr. House’s lead in favoring medical technology over patient interviews, a group of researchers from UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience, the Annenberg Public Policy Center (University of Pennsylvania) and FKF Applied Research employed the ultimate public opinion surveying tool---magnetic resonance imaging. Their interpretation of results was published in the New York Times under the headline “This is your brain on politics.”

The article claimed that it is possible to read the minds of swing voters by observing brain activity while subjects view still pictures or video clips of various presidential candidates. For example, heightened activity in the amygdala and insula was argued to reflect more anxiety and disgust with the Republican Party than with the Democrats. Goings-on in the superior temporal sulcus and the inferior frontal cortex areas indicated, to the researchers, more of a “connectedness” with Fred Thompson than Rudy Guilliani.

While such claims are certainly compelling, especially in light of the above-cited errors inherent in public opinion polls, the “This is your brain on politics” study is nothing more than a screaming example of junk science.

Brain regions are typically engaged by several mental states and a one-to-one mapping between brain region and mental state is simply not possible. To illustrate from the article, rather than providing a brain marker of anxiety levels as the researchers assumed, the amygdala might be just as significantly activated by arousal and/or positive emotions as well.

Take a look at this titillating excerpt from the “This is your brain on politics” article: “Emotions about Hillary Clinton are mixed. Voters who rated Mrs. Clinton unfavorably on their questionnaire appeared not entirely comfortable with their assessment. When viewing images of her, these voters exhibited significant activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, an emotional center of the brain that is aroused when a person feels compelled to act in two different ways but must choose one. It looked as if they were battling unacknowledged impulses to like Mrs. Clinton.”

In other words, respondents lie.

So is Hillary actually the people’s choice? Although pollsters will continue to search for the flawless survey, as long as they are forced to deal with human beings, they are always in danger of being wrong, wrong, wrong.

And so are newspapers that continue to confuse elections with horse races.

Now, that’s reality.

COULD "NONE OF THE ABOVE" MEAN MICHAEL BLOOMBERG?

Published in the November 26, 2008 edition of the Ventura County Star

There’s still nearly twelve months to go.

By February 5, 2008---the day following “Tsunami Tuesday” (when two dozen states including California hold primaries)---a majority of voters might be so fed up with all the partisan posturing, duplicitous double-speak, and poll-driven palaver, they might be more than willing to pull the lever for “None of the Above.”

Could “None of the Above” mean Michael Bloomberg?

When asked if he is considering a bid to become America's 44th president, the 65 year-old media empire mogul and current mayor of New York, parries with a question of his own: “What chance does a five-foot-seven billionaire Jew who’s divorced really have of becoming president?”

What chance, indeed? The likelihood rockets to next-to-impossible when you dump his unceremonious defection from the Republican Party last June into the mix. Don’t forget Bloomberg split from the Dems in 2001 in order to run as a Republican. Currently, he is persona non grata in either camp.

It’s no surprise that if the election were held today, Bloomberg would be brutally trounced by either Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani. A recent Gallup poll predicted that only 12 percent of registered voters (nationally) would cast a ballot for Bloomberg in that particular three-way match-up.

Among New Yorkers, however, 2007 numbers (Quinnipiac University Polling Institute and Daily News poll) overwhelmingly favor “Mayor Mike” over “America’s Mayor” (Giuliani) as pick for both Gotham’s CEO and leader of the free world.

Remember in The American President, when Lewis Rothschild (Michael J. Fox) tells President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas), “Let’s take that approval rating out for a spin, see what it gets us”?

Bloomberg seems to channel “Casablanca’s” Captain Renault as he delivers his “I’m-shocked-Kevin-is-doing-this” protest. Kevin is Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey, not only the operative who steered Bloomberg to “hizzoner” status in the Big Apple but who is not afraid to admit he’s cast a coveting eye on the Oval Office as well.

“I can’t think of anyone better qualified to run a national campaign [than Sheekey],” claims pollster Doug Schoen, whose client list includes both Clintons. “He’s big-time,” concurs Mark McKinnon, who currently advises John McCain. “He’s got the James Carville–Karl Rove DNA.”

Undoubtedly Sheekey’s secret weapon will be the latest wrinkle in computerized campaign technology. Test-driven during the last mayoral race, the program identifies independent and unenrolled voters.

Still no independent candidate has ever won the presidency. What gives the Bloomberg camp hope?

Well, the presumed nominees of either party are pulling negative ratings near or above 40 percent. According to a September Gallup poll, Clinton’s unfavorables are soaring at 49 percent while Giuliani’s trail just behind at 38 percent.

In addition, recent polls show that 70 percent or more of Americans believe that the country is headed in the wrong direction, thus, shortening the odds on an independent candidacy, at least for 2008.

Besides, Bloomberg is hardly the typical third party candidate. He’s been able to amass oodles more moola ($13 billion) than either Theodore Roosevelt or Ross Perot. Furthermore, he is willing to toss a cool billion along with his hat into the ring. “Given his resources, it’s all sitting there for him,” Joe Trippi, the Internet-savvy consultant behind Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign, told New York Magazine.

Decline-to-staters, who are not only the fastest-growing but also the most-frustrated segment of the electorate, agree with Bloomberg’s observation that “the candidates are not addressing, in a way at least I can understand, what they would do if they got elected.”

Moreover, timing is everything. “In any third-party effort, you want to start late,” McKinnon told New York Magazine, “You gotta catch lightning in a bottle, not let yourself get stale. If Perot had waited to start his campaign until after his daughter’s wedding, he would probably have been president.”

The biggest obstacle in starting late, however, is the difficulty in getting on the ballot in all 50 states. But here the hypothetical Bloomberg campaign is being presented with a made-to-order solution. Unity08, a grassroots outfit (Washington, D.C.) that will field a centrist presidential ticket selected via a June 2008 online convention, seems more than willing to handle Bloomberg’s ballot-access hassles handily.

At the moment, Bloomberg is enjoying all the benefits of an archetypal American political phenomenon: he seems a great candidate because he is a non-candidate.

Pollster John Zogby, who isn’t making any predictions, did have this to say to the Washington Times: “The top three things voters tell us they are looking for in a president this year is competence as a manager, ability to cross the aisle and work with the other side, and ability to manage the military--Bloomberg can score on all three counts.”

Maybe yes; maybe no—there’s still nearly twelve months to go.

ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION: SOUTH CAROLINA DEMS SAY STEPHEN COLBERT LACKS STAMINA

Published in the November 12, 2007 edition of the Ventura County Star

It’s official. South Carolina won’t have favorite son, Stephen Colbert, to kick around anymore.

Sixteen funnybone-challenged executives of the Democratic Party in a state whose motto “dum spiro spero” means “while I breathe, I hope” voted 13-3 to deny the Comedy Central host a place on the primary ballot.

Although Chairwoman Carol Fowler confessed, “The council really agonized over this because they really like him, they love his show, and everyone thinks it’s wonderful that he cares about us,” the humorless party leaders determined that the faux right-wing provocateur did not meet two basic requirements: that he be generally acknowledged as a viable nationwide candidate; and that he be actively campaigning for the state’s primary.

Well, now that Colbert’s writers have gone on strike and the network is showing reruns of the Colbert Report, the second condition may be more easily met. As to the first, if Colbert isn’t a viable nationwide candidate, why did Barak Obama mention him during the last debate?

To be specific, Obama questioned whether or not, Colbert, who claims to hail from the Palmetto State, had ever even tasted grits. Colbert immediately challenged Obama to a grit-off, which appears to be the Southern equivalent of the cookie-baking challenge issued by First Lady Barbara Bush to Hillary Clinton.

Critics have claimed Colbert’s candidacy is simply a self-promotional distraction that drains news media time and attention away from what is a very, very serious campaign. In fact, the 2008 race for the White House is so serious, most voters refuse to engage in the process---that is until Colbert joined the fractious fray.

A Rasmussen Report national telephone survey held October 19-21 (prior to Colbert’s breakout appearance on “Meet the Press”) predicts Colbert gains 13 percent of voters in a match-up with Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Hillary Clinton. With former Sen. Fred Thompson substituted for Giuliani, Colbert still receives 12 percent.

Not only would Colbert, as candidate, cast an amusing and revealing eye on the hype and folly of presidential politics but he could also have propelled alienated younger voters toward the ballot box.

More than a million Facebook members signed on for Colbert and, according to the Rasmussen Report, in a race with Giuliani and Clinton, Colbert draws 28 percent of likely voters aged 18-29. He attracts 31 percent of that cohort when his foes are Thompson and Clinton.

If Colbert keeps gaining popularity at the present rate (over 10 percent a week) he should be leading the field before Thanksgiving. So what part of “serious candidate” don’t the dour Dems from South Carolina understand?

Colbert is not the first comedian-cum-candidate to pop up at one of the most discordant moments in American history. In 1879, during the economically-polarized “Gilded Age,” Mark Twain threw his satirical hat in the ring. In 1932, as the Depression pitched 25 percent of the country out of work, 20th Century Fox announced that Will Rogers would star in “If I Was President.” America, however, fancied Rogers in the Oval Office for real. In 1968, as the country was tearing itself apart over Vietnam, both Dick Gregory and Pat Paulsen trekked alongside legitimate presidential contenders.

Colbert announced his candidacy during the period New York Times journalist Ronald Brownstein labels “the age of hyper-partisanship.” In “The Second Civil War,” Brownstein writes, “What's unusual now is that the political system is more polarized than the country.”

Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein in “The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track,” cited “the escalation of the permanent campaign, the collapse of the center in Congress, and the growing ideological polarization of the parties” as key factors in “relegating bipartisanship on Capitol Hill to a nostalgic, bygone time.”

“I don’t think anything will change until Americans revolt and get it into their heads that they need to be informed voters instead of just listening to the paid political ads,” announced Deborah Pryce, the U.S. representative from Ohio, so fed up with the nasty partisan politics being practiced, these days, under the Capitol dome, that she resigned.

Last, but not least, how ironic is it that Colbert, a self-confessed Nixonophile, is being denied the opportunity to speak “truthiness” to partisan people in power?

In New York Magazine, Colbert pointed out that even John Kerry couldn’t have run on the platform the 37th president managed to actualize: “[Nixon] started the EPA. He gave 18 year-olds the vote. His issues were education, drugs, women, minorities, youth involvement, ending the death penalty and improving the environment. What I wouldn’t give for another Nixon?”

Indeed, what would any of us give for another Nixon?

Hmmm. Perhaps we should just settle for kicking Colbert’s jokes around instead.

IT'S OFFICIAL: YOUTH IS DEFINITELY WASTED ON THE YOUNG

Published in the October 29, 2007 edition of the Ventura County Star

He was bounding up the stairs, taking them three at a time, as I gingerly picked my way down, one hand in a death grip on the rail and the other corralling an armful of books. He spotted me seconds before a nasty collision ensued.

I remembered him from last semester. He was a freshman who sat in the back of the room with white iPod buds inserted in both ears. I noted that he would dutifully remove them the minute I started calling the roll but they were back the minute I dismissed the class.

“What’s playing?,” I asked, tapping my index finger on my ear.

“Oh, ‘I’m Eighteen’” he responded, with more zeal than he ever managed for the history of mass media.

“You mean the Alice Cooper song?,” I inquired. He seemed astonished that I had even heard of the shock-rocker. Admittedly, more than three-and-a-half decades have elapsed since Cooper, who was 23 years old at the time, penned his first big hit.

Apparently, the angst-laden lyrics “’cause I’m eighteen I get confused every day; eighteen, I just don’t know what to say,” which so resonated with my generation, have been rediscovered by the ready, willing and able ears of Millennials as well.

I don’t know if you find it difficult to believe that Alice Cooper will be blowing out 60 candles on his next birthday cake---but I do. He’s not only managing what would be considered a grueling tour schedule for a twenty-something (in fact, he played the Ventura Theater on Saturday night) but admits to warbling “I’m Eighteen” with more amusement than anguish these days.

That fact wouldn’t surprise Stacey Wood, a neuropsychologist and associate professor at Scripps College in Claremont. She and neuroscientist Michael Kisley (University of Colorado) published a study in Psychological Science last month that contends, when it comes to human emotions, the best is yet to come: older folks tend to be measurably happier than younger folks.

Wood told the Los Angeles Times, “What we see is a real difference in how negative information is processed by the brain.” She continued, “when we talk about maturity or wisdom, we’re talking about that ability to integrate negative emotion or cognitive information; being able to weigh it and not find it so disruptive.”

In addition, oldsters find contentment not because some chemical in the brain gradually incapacitates the “zero-to-60” emotional response mechanism that seemingly keeps young people in a constant state of agitation, but simply because experience turns out to be a very effective instructor. As we age, we are less likely to allow our emotions to dictate our actions. The hair-trigger temper that causes one to crash crockery not only becomes tempered by the negative reinforcement of having to clean up the mess but being forced to invest funds earmarked for fun into replacement dishes as well.

Moreover, maturity enables individuals with hard-won experience under their expanding belts to put negative events into perspective. “This too shall pass” remains a common mantra among long-term employees. They’ve been around long enough to predict patterns, whether it be a see-sawing business cycle or the rise and (eventual) fall of some fascist-minded supervisor.

Furthermore, the silver-haired among us also tend to cultivate selective memory---accentuating the positive rather than allowing a perceived slight or outright insult to elevate one’s blood pressure.

According to Robert A. Emmons, author of “Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier,” the secret to mental health is two-fold. First, “when you focus on gratefulness, you see that good stuff just doesn’t happen randomly. It helps you make sense out of life. Grateful people see their lives as gifts.” The other side of the Emmons coin, of course, is forgiveness, which helps reduce such negative emotions as anger and resentment.

Finally, a 2002 Stanford University study published in Psychology and Aging reported that as people grow older, they encounter “shrinking time horizons.” With fewer years left, claims psychologist and researcher Laura Carstensen, there is a tendency to focus on the now. “I think of old age as the richest form of emotional satisfaction that is possible,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “As people come to appreciate the fragility of life, they tend to put more value on it. There is something about recognizing our own mortality.”

And recognize it we do---every time we discover time robbing us of physical and mental abilities we once took for granted---like sprinting up stairs or calling up the rest of the lyrics to “I’m Eighteen.”

Wait a minute, that’s no problem. I’ll just haul out my Alice Cooper collection.

On second thought, do you know anybody who can still repair a record player?

A FINE COMEUPPANCE COMES TO HALACO ATTORNEY

Published in the October 15, 2007 edition of the Ventura County Star

Seven years ago, I wrote that Halaco seemed invincible. The honor of the triumph, I conceded, went to an environmental attorney named Arthur Fine.

During the first 35 years Halaco was in operation, Fine, the son of the company co-founder, Les Fine (now diseased), never lost a case.

When Fine mixed it up with the heavyweight Army Corps of Engineers in the 70s, he emerged victorious. Halaco was ordered to stop dumping waste onto the marshland to the north, so Fine sued, contending, “Pickleweed itself does not make a wetland.” The ACOE backed off and remained silent for 20 years.

In 1983, the state Department of Toxic Substance Control reported Halaco's waste exceeded limits for copper and zinc. Playing his usual game of hardball, Fine managed to negotiate a 1989 settlement exempting the company from the standard.

Fine also took the California Coastal Commission all the way to the California Supreme Court. In fact, Fine became so famous for the 1986 decision in Halaco’s favor, he was invited to lecture about hazardous waste at both USC and UCLA.

During the late 80s, after a cost-benefit analysis, the federal Environmental Protection Agency called a truce---hounding Halaco only propelled Fine into a forensic feeding frenzy.

In 1994, when the well-meaning but hardly legally-savvy Citizens for a Better Environment (San Francisco) claimed that Halaco neglected to file required reports with the EPA, Fine swatted them away like so many flies.

Fine especially relished playing the bully: not only did he haul Ventura County Air Pollution Control District officials into court for overstepping their bureaucratic boundaries but he also threatened to sue the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board for imposing unconstitutional restrictions on Halaco's operating permit.

Bottom line, by 2000, Halaco had to pay only a few nominal fines, largely as a result of the Air Pollution Control District violations. Fine told this journalist (with a straight face, I might add) that the seashore at Ormand Beach was the only logical location for a smelting plant---after all, “salty dirt” is its primary waste product.

He remained unconcerned about folks who worked downwind at neighboring facilities in the South Oxnard industrial park (where it was rumored that pollution from Halaco peeled the paint off cars) or the residents of Port Hueneme’s Surfside III, who regularly came down with watery eyes, wearisome headaches and/or a wicked metallic taste in their mouths whenever the wind shifted.

But Fine no longer occupies the catbird seat. In January of 2001, the non-profit Environmental Defense Center, on behalf of Santa Barbara Channelkeeper, sued Halaco in state and federal court. Fine lost big time. The resulting agreement required Halaco to refrain from discharging contaminated wastewater into its ponds and to cease adding any more solid waste to the 40-foot high slag heap. Additionally, Halaco could either truck away a significant portion of the 710,000 cubic yards of leftover heavy metals in the next three years or write a check for $500,000 to a local environmental enhancement fund.

Fine immediately filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on behalf of Halaco, which ultimately shuttered its doors in 2004.

David Seror, the court-appointed federal bankruptcy trustee in the case, alleged that manager Dave Gable and the Haack family owners (90-year old Clarence and sons, Robert and John) siphoned assets from Halaco to open MagPro in Camden, Tennessee, (which recently suffered a spectacular fire damaging 15 percent of the plant) to avoid financing the cleanup.

Both the EPA in U.S. Bankruptcy Court and Santa Barbara Channelkeeper/Environmental Defense Center in U.S. District Court hope to force the Haacks and Gable to pay up. According to preliminary EPA estimates, stabilizing and removing the slag heap could cost more than $150 million. In turn, Robert and John Haack have filed a malpractice claim against Fine and his firm (Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp LLP) for giving them bad advice during the past four decades.

In addition, last December, given the EPA’s recommendation that Halaco be listed as a federal Superfund hazardous-waste cleanup site (which became official last month) Seror announced he, too, was looking into the possibility that Fine and his firm might share liability along with the owners and manager because of “acts or omissions” re: Halaco’s legal affairs.

Fine’s fate brings the words of the cinematic General Patton (George C. Scott) to mind: “For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph---a tumultuous parade. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Yet a slave always stood behind the conqueror, holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”

Arthur Fine is going to wish he had listened to that slave.

MIDDLE AMERICANS TO RISE AGAIN IN ELECTION '08

Published in theOctober 1, 2007 edition of the Ventura County Star

It was a startling image, especially for a newsmagazine as conservative as Time. Not only did the art editor dispense with the dignified oil portrait customarily employed to pay homage to Time's "Person of the Year," but he also selected a highly controversial pop art "assemblage" by Vin Giuliani to feature on the Jan. 5, 1970, cover.

"Middle Americans," the honorees for 1969, were represented by a wooden children's puzzle with light and dark-stained pieces interlocking into flat and featureless conjoined male and female profiles. Juxtaposed against a blue field with white asterisk stars, a la Peter Max or Milton Glaser, the rest of the puzzle frame brimmed with three-inch tall dwellings, toy die-cast vehicles and a tiny plastic food-filled platter. A miniature ashtray overflowed with stubbed-out cigarette butts, and an itsy-bitsy crescent wrench held down a couple of folded dollar bills.

Just exactly who are Middle Americans? According to the 1970 Time cover story, "They were discovered' first by politicians and the press, and then they started to discover themselves. It was their interpretation of patriotism that bought Richard Nixon the time to pursue a gradual withdrawal from the war. By their silent but newly felt presence, they influenced the mood of government and the course of legislation, and thus began to shape the course of the nation and the nation's course in the world."

Were they "a resentful populist center of working and middle-class Christians, [who] loved [Nixon] not for himself but for his enemies," as Nixon biographer Richard Reeves maintained?

Without a doubt, the 1968 Nixon campaign had taken great pains to assail Democrats for pandering to the fashionable yet unrepresentative constituencies of the young, the poor, the racial minorities and the students. Without a doubt, the anti-Dem tactic resonated deeply with resentful, populist and Christian Middle Americans.

Time's honorees were defined not so much by what they supported but rather by what they opposed.

The late 1960s witnessed bitter divisions over America's fundamental cultural values. Middle Americans were appalled when Hollywood ramped up sex and violence in order to compete with the boob tube. They were shocked when one out of every two marriages ended up in court, and the subsequent increase in female-headed households and latchkey kids added to a climb in juvenile delinquency, drug use, premarital sex and teen pregnancy.

Time's honorees were likewise defined not so much by their hopes but rather by their fears. The key to assembling a winning coalition in 1968, according to "Real Majority" authors Richard M. Scammon and Ben J. Wattenberg, proved to be, at least demographically, a 47-year-old Catholic housewife from Dayton, Ohio. Although she had formerly voted her pocketbook and looked to liberal Democrats to provide strong unions, high wages, cheap mortgages and easy college loans, by 1968 she was pushed in the direction of Nixon's social conservatism by unsafe streets, dope, pornography and out-of-control kids.

Time's honorees, fed up with a materialistic society, a never-ending war, a decline in cultural values and a nonresponsive government, were on the lookout for a leader, astride a white horse or not, who could restore their faith in the American dream.

Is all of this starting to sound familiar?

Over the past four decades, Nixon's Catholic housewife has morphed into an angry white man, a suburban soccer mom and a NASCAR dad.

In the wake of voter discontent over Iraq — as well as declines in ethics, education and the economy — the latest incarnation of suburban housewife finds herself just as likely to cast her ballot for a Clinton as her 1990s-era predecessor. In fact, a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in July reported that a plurality of married women (46 percent) said that if the presidential election were held today, they would vote for a Democrat — Hillary is the front-runner — while only 29 percent said they would vote for a Republican.

On the other hand, since 2004, NASCAR dads have changed their minds about supporting both the war and the statement, "I wouldn't mind having a beer with this man," meaning Bush. Would they be willing to elect another Republican? Well, it depends. Almost half of all registered voters, male or female, say they would never vote for Ms. Clinton.

In just a few months, Time will name the "Person of the Year." I'd like to nominate The Swing Voter. The future of this country, you see, depends on how he or she pulls the lever for prez.

Since swing voters are always Middle Americans, Time's executives should also be pleased. They will be able to recycle some very expensive cover art from 1970.

On second thought, though, I hope they consider leaving out the cigarette butts.

A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON "PRIMARY COLORS"

Published in the September 24, 2007 edition of the Ventura County Star

In "Politics and Cinema," critic Andrew Sarris wrote, "What is particularly fascinating is how the same movie can keep changing its ideological coloration over the years." I know what he means. Joe Klein is coming to our campus this week and, in preparation, I screened "Primary Colors" for my class.

Klein, as you may recall, published the wildly popular (nine weeks at No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list) novel, albeit "anonymously" at first, on which the film is based.

When the cinematic through-the-keyhole glimpse into Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign was released in 1998, Pew Research Center polls were reporting a renewed faith in government but a deepening distrust of Washington politicians and the press; Howard Kurtz's "Spin Cycle" was already in its fifth printing; and "Wag the Dog," in which a phony, yet serendipitous war is cooked up by the political handlers of a scandal-beleaguered president, was crowding movie theaters. Most importantly, Monica Lewinsky was hogging the headlines.

The $65 million movie flopped.

"If you're interested in the unfolding soap opera in Washington, you don't want to watch reruns," wrote Andrew Hindes in Daily Variety. "This film is based on a book about the 1992 campaign; there's been so much water under the bridge since then."

Yet, viewing "Primary Colors" during the run-up to the 2008 election is a very different experience from seeing the film nine years ago. First, my focus seems to have shifted away from the affable Jack Stanton (John Travolta) in favor of his steely wife, Susan/Hillary. Emma Thompson brilliantly conveys all the love, fury, loyalty and denial of a woman fed up with the way her husband wreaks havoc on her painstakingly organized itinerary, but who, in turn, allows herself to be charmed out of her rage, as she once again plots, with Machiavellian fervor, "a way out of this mess."

Thompson provided a remarkable insight into Hillary and the "Stand By Your Man" stance that so infuriates women voters today when she told the Sunday Mirror: "I had a very wise grandmother. She says your heart was really no good as a heart until it had been broken at least 10 times. It's the cracks in the heart that makes us all human, isn't it?" Then she added, "I suppose we can only hope that any pain we go through will serve to make us more compassionate, which seems to be what (public service) is about after all."

Second, this time I wanted to learn much more about Fred Picker, the populist Florida governor who tosses his hat in the ring after Orlando Ozio/Mario Cuomo suffers a heart attack. It's easy to see how the honorable party veteran (played by Ojai's Larry Hagman) could be Klein's "ideal" candidate. Who wouldn't be attracted to a contender who promises he will raise absolutely no money? "I'm not hiring folks to tell me what you're thinking or how to get at you," Picker announces. Unhampered by spinmeistering political consultants, Picker's genuine humanity, empathy, intellect and decency seem to propel him to certain victory.

So what does Stanton do? He dispatches Libby Holden (Kathy Bates) to expose any skeletons lurking in Picker's armoire. In fact, she uncovers documented proof that, if divulged, will instantly morph Picker, the front-runner, into Picker, the pariah at the polls.

The decision whether or not to disclose the dirt she digs up becomes the ultimate litmus test for each character.

Libby opts to sit on the dossier. To her thinking, squelching "bimbo eruptions" surfacing during the Stanton campaign remains a legitimate way to make a living but blackening Picker's name in a calculated pre-emptory political strike violates her JFK/Camelot-inspired sense of morality.

"We were young," Susan admits with a terrible sorrow after Libby reminds her of the good old days when they were all idealists. "We didn't know how the world worked." Now an incurable pragmatist, with her eyeballs on the prize, Susan harbors no qualms about leaking the nasty truth about Picker to her favorite reporter at the Washington Post.

Jack comes down on the side of expediency. If the Stanton campaign doesn't use the information, the Republicans will. When faced with Libby's suicide, however, Jack turns the Picker file over to the subject, himself, who expresses his gratitude to Stanton, of all people, for being such an honorable man.

Would Picker have made a better president than Stanton? The public will never get the chance to choose. Perhaps the best man doesn't always win. Perhaps the best man cannot win.

I wonder if Klein sees his "Primary Colors" ideal in the pack of presidential contenders assembled of late for our voting pleasure. Better still, why don't you show up at Cal Lutheran and ask him for yourself?