Category Archives: Americana

It ain’t terrorism if the non-terrorist uses a gun or isn’t a Muslim

Americana, Religion

Asswipe Miller

This morning I woke up to a New York Times headline of Drive-By Attack Leaves 7 Dead in ‘Work of a Madman’.  The Times went on to say Seven people were killed and another seven injured on Friday night in a bloody drive-by shooting on the crowded streets of a small college town near Santa Barbara, as what police described as a mentally disturbed gunman methodically opened fire in a 10-minute spasm of terror. Of course he was mentally disturbed, he killed people at random; that could be one of the definitions of mentally disturbed.

A month, or so, ago, an old white man named Glenn Miller, killed three people at random. He was trying to kill Jews only because they were Jewish. The killing of people because they are all identifiable – preferably self-identifiable as well –  as a distinct group, is terrorism. Group isn’t the right word, but either is race or religion – maybe an identifiable other is the right way to put it – but terrorism is the right word. When Timothy  McVeigh killed 168 people on that April morning in 1995, only because they happened to be in Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, it was an act of terrorism.

When Miller, 73 and the founder of a Ku Klux Klan group called the White Patriot Party, killed people with a gun nobody said he did it because he is white and nobody called it an act of terrorism. McVeigh was a Roman Catholic and a Gulf War veteran. Nobody says that McVeigh’s behavior typifies Catholic behavior. When a Christian kills 168 people, he does not do it because he is a Christian, he does it because he is fucked up.

When two Muslim boys blow up a bomb, killing people in Boston, it is also terrorism. But they did not do it because they were Muslim, like McVeigh they did it because they were fucked up. It was no more about Islam than McVeigh was about Christianity.

 

Mathew Brady’s picture of General U. S. Grant and the new American Hero

Americana, War, What's a man?

This is a very much modified copy of a post I made in 2009. I am reposting it now because, 150 years ago, the Army of The Potomac was in the middle of what is now known as The Overland Campaign. Grant  and Lee had battled to a draw in The Wilderness on May 5th through the 7th, 1864. This is where the Army of The Potomac learned that Grant was a different kind of general and they were going to become a different kind of Army.

Up until now, the Army of The Potomac would move south, fight the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, and win lose or draw – sadly, it was often lose – retreat to rebuild and re-provision for the next battle. This time, when Grant pulled his troops out of the battle-line, it was not to retreat, but to move further south to attack again at Spotsylvania Court House (May 8–21), then again and again. This was total war. Grant had said I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer, and he meant it.

Grant had come to do a job and he did it. The picture below shows just that.

This is a new kind of portrait and Grant was a new kind of general. The picture was probably taken during the Overland Campaign just after the battle of Cold Harbor. Grant is not the patrician hero, Grant, like Lincoln, was a mid-westerner. A common man. In this picture, he is tired, his eyes are sad, his boots are muddy. This is probably Matthew Bradley’s most famous photo. Not only because of it’s informality, but because it is so penetrating. I have read that a good portrait is an artifact of a relationship. This is a portrait of a real man, the dynamic new kind of American from the West.

Grant was the new American hero. The quiet man just doing his job. John Wayne. Gary Cooper in High Noon.  No braggadocio flourishes, just quietly getting the job done.

 

 

PG&E and Government

Americana, Around home

PG&E

I resaw Erin Brockovich – the movie, not the real person – the other day. I had forgotten how good the movie is and how bad it paints PG&E. I have alot of experience with PG&E and they are every bit as bad as the movie depicts. They are, by far, the worst organization I have ever worked with.

In my experience, PG&E is way more difficult to work with than any state organization, worse than any water department or city. It is much harder to do business with than the Federal Government.  Without going off to far on a Libertarian rant, I think that a huge number of laws and codes are just there to protect some vested interest; a rich vested interest. However, governments are – to a greater or lesser degree – accountable to the people. The less accountable they are, the worse they are. The United States – Federal – government is not as accountable as I would like, nonetheless, it is still accountable. But PG&E isn’t. It may pretend to be but, in almost every area, it isn’t.

The PG&E entrenched bureaucracy with its unknown – to the outside world – table of organization and power centers, does what it thinks is best for itself. The picture above is a scan of a mailer that PG&E sent out telling us what a good job they are doing. The mailer neglects to tell us that a 30″ gas pipeline blew up in September of 2010 because of neglect and eight people were killed and alot more were injured. They do tell us that they replaced nearly 15 miles of gas transmission lines in the Bay Area and pressure tested an additional 50 miles but they neglect to tell us that this is out of 48,579 miles of natural gas distribution and transportation pipelines in Northern and Central California.

The second worse organization was a railroad, Union Pacific (I think). We were building a soundwall next to their tracks and wanted to get permission to encroach on their right-of-way with our cranes. The request had to go to engineering and a right-of-way committee and I would call week after week for a schedule without getting one. Finally, I told our guys to just do the work and try to stay away from their right-of-way as much as they could. We had been finished with the work for about six months before the permission to do the work came through . When people say that the government should be run more like a business, I wonder what they are really talking about.

Aside from the obvious, a business is designed to make money and government is supposed to protect Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness, a business that has been around for a hundred years is probably run much worse than any government.

 

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Living like the 1%

Americana, Around home

Table cloth-1664We have a very expensive, heirloom, tablecloth that I wanted to get cleaned. There is a nearby cleaner in Menlo Park that I have gone to in the past, Peninou French Laundry and Cleaners, where I took it this time, figuring I would get a good job. What I hadn’t counted on was how much Menlo Park has changed since the last time I used them. This is at the northern end of Silicon Valley – if you don’t count San Francisco, which is becoming the hip bedroom community for the Valley – and Silicon Valley is becoming the richest place on earth. I heard the other day that Facebook going public created three billionaires and over a thousand millionaires.

Not everybody is in the 1% but alot are and the ones who aren’t, want to be, and consider themselves falling by the wayside if they barely get into the top 10%. Peninou, which is a local chain with a history going back to 1903, has changed with the times. They have really changed with the times, charging us $54.21.

The table-cloth came back folded – wrapped in a suitable, lightweight, cardboard wrapper – and then wrapped in the purple? tissue in the picture. It is lovely and, I suppose, it looks like it should cost more than the $54.21 they charged, but – still – $54.21 to clean a tablecloth?  Almost $55 big ones as Woody Allen used to say.

As an aside, there is no sales tax because a sales tax is only added to things rather than services. When the sales tax was introduced in California during the 30s, most people bought alot more things than services (except for the rich). Having to raise money, the Legislature passed a tax that looks fair at first glance – after all, the more you spend, the more tax you pay – and is really regressive because the rich pay a smaller percentage, so everybody was happy. End aside.

Since we were taking the table-cloth in any way, I added three sweaters. That cost $75! The really troublesome part is that they were sale sweaters and originally cost less than $25 each (without the required sales tax of course).

The Supreme Court isn’t always wrong

Americana, Politics, Psychological Musings

Wallace_at_University_of_Alabama_edit2

I only have one data point, named Joe as it turns out, but, as Michele Stern says: One data point may not be proof but it is still a data point.

The Supreme Court ruled against Affirmative Action a couple of days ago (even though they did not couch it in those terms, everybody else seems to). Adam Liptak of the New York Times wrote: In a fractured decision that revealed deep divisions over what role the judiciary should play in protecting racial and ethnic minorities, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a Michigan constitutional amendment that bans affirmative action in admissions to the state’s public universities.

Contrary to most of the columnists and bloggers I admire, I think that the Supreme Court is right. The operative part of the NYT quote above is  what role the judiciary should play in protecting racial and ethnic minorities and the implication is that giving racial and ethnic minorities special rights protects those minorities. I don’t think it does and I have my reasons.

My only data point is from when I had a development company and we hired a Stanford MBA for the the job of Construction Manager. It was probably in the mid-80s and his name was Joe. Joe was a full blooded American Indian and the job didn’t work out. Not because he he was an Indian – obviously – but because he did not like making decisions that didn’t have clear-cut answers. He didn’t like the stress. When we talked about going our separate ways, he asked me why I had hired him. I told him it was because he was a Stanford MBA and he answered something like Yeh, but I only got in because I am an Indian. I have no idea if that is true or not but he, clearly, thought so and, I suspect, many of his fellow students did also.

I think that Affirmative Action misidentifies the problem. The problem is that a huge proportion of racial and ethnic minorities – we are using racial and ethnic minorities as a euphemism for African Americans and Hispanics here in California – are poor. They come from poor families, poor neighborhoods, and they have almost no exposure to what they need to prosper in our society including useful connections. Most importantly and most powerfully, they come from substandard schools and they get a poor educations compared to their peers from affluent areas.

As an aside, those schools are substandard not as a result of chance, but because of Government Policy. In California, and – I think – every state, schools are primarily supported by the State, but, when State funds are cut, affluent local areas make up the difference or send their kids to private schools. In Portola Valley, where I live, the locals voted to raise taxes to compensate for State education cuts (not me, other locals). Portola Valley is a Liberal – even if somewhat Libertarian – town that prides itself on having voted for Obama and Anna Eshoo, but being able to compensate for for State cuts in Education makes it much easier to ignore those cuts. End aside.

Giving African Americans and Hispanics Special Rights just pisses off those whites – and probably Asians – that feel that the Special Right of Affirmative Action is unfair. That those Special Rights are an attempt – no matter how ineffective – at compensation for the screwing the affirmed minorities got in the first place, is forgotten or was never considered. It is easy to say that those pissed off whites are wrong – or racist – but that doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t make them less pissed and, in most cases, it doesn’t make them want  to improve minority education.

For whatever reason, the people of Michigan voted against Affirmative Action and I think the court was right in upholding that vote. Jamming Affirmative Action down their throats would not solve the problem, it would just build resentment and resentment is part of the problem. After what I just wrote, it may not be obvious that I think everybody deserves a good education, but I do. I think that giving everybody the best education that they can absorb should be one of the main jobs of our government; it is way more important than killing illiterate Taliban in Afghanistan. I think that education should be free, good, and equal for all Citizens. It is not only a moral imperative but a better educated Citizenry makes for a healthier country. But, the Affirmative Action that Michigan voted against, didn’t do that, it only made some people feel better about themselves without solving the problem and it made even more people angry and resistant.

My only complaint with the new Section 26 of Article I of  the Michigan Constitution is that it does not go far enough, it should also eliminate legacy Affirmative Action. The idea that an Alumni’s kid should get preference at State schools, paid for by taxpayers, is wrong and unfair and should also be eliminated. Hopefully this Supreme Court ruling will get people thinking about how to solve the real problem.

One suggestion that I have read and that appeals to me is that the top students from every high-school get to go to the top Universities in the State. There are somewhere in the order of 2100 high-schools in California so there would be plenty of room for the top five students from each school. That would mean that the top five students from Woodside High or Redwood High would be automatically eligible for Cal or UCLA or Davis, et al. The top five students from Compton High or Fresno High would also be automatically eligible.

I am sure that there are other good ideas out there, but traditional Affirmative Action isn’t one of them.