History of Depression

If you found this post thinking it will be about psychology, you're gonna be disappointed.

In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, was elected president. The country was mired in a devastating economic collapse and the Republican incumbent, Herbert Hoover, was blamed. Roosevelt and the Democrats in Congress proceeded to enact a "New Deal" for America that tried to restore the economy but by 1934 unemployment and its attendant suffering remained very high. Democrats increased their Congressional majorities in the midterm elections and in 1935 passed a second series of bills, including Social Security.

In 2010, Barack Obama, a Democrat, was elected president. The country was in the throes of another economic contraction and the Republican president, George Bush, was blamed. Obama and the Democrats proceeded to enact a health care reform act by a tortuous method, bailed out the auto industry and the banks, but did little to reform the nation's life from a structural standpoint. Unemployment remained high, though not nearly as high as it was in the 1930's. In the midterm election of 2010, Democrats took a pounding of historic proportions.

So, what's the difference? Was Roosevelt so much better a politician than Obama that he was able to persuade the country to go left in 1934, whereas it went right in 2010?

In the 1930's people received their news from daily papers and weekly magazines. Most newspapers favored the Republicans and said so on their editorial pages. Some, like the Chicago Tribune, shaded their news coverage against the president. So did Time magazine. Nowadays, people get their news from television and irregular sources, including the Internet, even blogs like this one. (But not actually this one!) TV news reflects a variety of opinions, but right-wingers are in full voice at Fox and on the many talk radio stations.

The population has changed since 1934. We are older, and ethnicity has changed. Opinion polls show that older voters are more inclined to vote Republican. Older voters have significant economic issues but, thanks in part to Social Security, they don't have to worry as much about starvation or homelessness. In other words, the very reforms enacted by the Democrats have turned the beneficiaries of those reforms against the Democrats!

Roosevelt never shrunk from a confrontation with the GOP. Nor did he hesitate to invoke what in our own times is derided as "class warfare." During his second term he exclaimed of rich folks, "They hate me and I welcome their hate." President Obama has repeatedly tried to accommodate the Republicans with the result that they are more, not less, intransigent. Some of them are also openly contemptuous of the president, as witnessed by the Congressman who shouted that the president is a liar during his State of the Union speech. Imagine the furor if a Democrat had shouted such an insult at President Bush.

Is there a lesson in this? Well, not being a politician myself, I am inclined to defer to the political judgement of a professional politician. That being said, if I was ever asked for my advice, I'd say, "Be bold, Mr. President. If the GOP wants a fight, give it to them. If no legislation is passed in the next two years, so be it. Take your case to the American people in 2012. You'll win."

BOYCOTT! IT'S THE AMERICAN WAY

That's Koch Industries – the infamous Koch (pronounced 'coke') Brothers.

For those who may not be familiar with these fine (I use the term loosely) brothers, let me give you a little background. Let's see... they are filthy rich... no, stinking, filthy rich. And they got that way because YOU (and the rest of we minions) buy their stuff. You might be asking yourself at this point, “Self? What do they do with their butt loads of money?” If you don't mind, I'll take this one.

They buy political influence. That's right. They buy political influence with your money because you needed to drink water from a disposable Dixie cup. OK, that may be a bit overstated, but that really is about it in a nutshell.

They push a Libertarian agenda (very low taxes, very little social services, very little corporate regulations, nearly no environmental regulations, to name a few) via the Republican party and now also through their marionettes known as the Tea Party. And I'm sure it is only coincidence that the policies they push would also benefit their mega-conglomeration known as Koch Industries.

As reported by the New Yorker, “the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.”

It's time to put a stop to the Kochtopus. Let's start by going cold turkey with our Koch addiction. Join Boycott and Defeat Koch Industries on Facebook. According to their list, here's some of the brands to boycott:

Koch Industry Gasoline:
Chevron
Union
Union 76
Conoco

Koch Industry/Georgia-Pacific Products:
Angel Soft toilet paper
Brawny paper towels
Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups
Mardi Gras napkins and towels
Quilted Northern toilet paper
Soft 'n Gentle toilet paper
Sparkle napkins
Vanity fair napkins
Zee napkins

POLARGUARD® fiber and
LYCRA® fiber

Georgia Pacific Building products

That's just the tip of the Koch iceberg. Check out a more complete listing from their own page worldofkoch.com.

We may not be able to de-fund them, but we can at least make an impact in the one thing that matters to them, their money. As a Christian minister, I don't want to see their agenda continue to gain ground. It steps on the least of these, favors The Powers That Be over individuals and sets up a social and political structure that values some people much more than others. Please help send them a message.

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And now, a few more minutes with CAPTAIN OBVIOUS, the superhero whose amazing power is the ability to point out what everyone else already knows!

Dr. Seuss once wrote a story about a town where a bee lived, producing honey for the townspeople to eat. Unfortunately, there wasn't quite enough honey for everyone, so the town fathers (and possibly the town mothers, though Dr. Seuss doesn't say so) met and decided the bee wasn't working hard enough. The bee was a goof-off. So they hired a townsman to watch the bee to be sure it was fulfilling its potential for honey. But there was no more honey with a watcher than before he was hired, so the town government wisely decided the bee-watcher wasn't doing much of a job and needed supervision. Another townsman was hired to watch the bee-watcher. Still, the honey production level remained flat, so. . . . Well by now you undoubtedly have the idea. Soon everyone in town was lined up, each person looking over the shoulder of someone else to be sure that person was watching to the very best of that person's ability. The whole system collapsed eventually. No productive work was being done and the town fell apart entirely.

Dr. Seuss must have been reading his Max Weber, the early twentieth century sociologist who studied bureaucracy and wrote that within any organization a minority soon takes control and runs the shop for its own benefit, not for its original purpose. John Kenneth Galbraith, the liberal economist, made much the same point about private enterprises when he said companies come to be run by managers who are much less interested in providing dividends for stockholders than they are in their own salaries and bonuses. The last few years make that point so clear that even CAPTAIN OBVIOUS doesn't need to underline it.

Last year's election makes it plain to the CAPTAIN and to all right-thinking people that we remember Dr. Seuss' point and forget Mr. Galbraith's. So now CAPTAIN OBVIOUS will tell you another story. Some years ago the CAPTAIN'S sister waited tables at a steakhouse where the employees worked very hard cooking, cleaning, serving customers, busing tables and so forth, while the nephew of the owner sat at a desk in an office with his feet up, holding conferences with the other employees at which he urged them to work even harder. This nephew drew a very hefty salary. The steakhouse is no longer in business.

All organizations have their drones, unlike our busy little bee, people who spend their workdays sipping coffee, finding ways to avoid helping anyone and yearn for five o'clock when they can begin taking their overly generous holidays, vacations, or slip away into a cushy retirement. If that's your view of government employees, there's a place in the Republican Party for you! But the CAPTAIN will close by saying he saw less waste and less venality in government service than he ever expected.

Next time, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS confronts his arch-nemesis, the evil and maniacal GOVERNMENT SECRECY!

It's easier to rhyme

Father than Mother -

Or something or other.

How could I possibly have forgotten O Brother, Where Art Thou? Great music and characters.

After the heaviness of last week's post, I think I'd better lighten up a bit with a few miscellaneous observations.

This morning I was in the doctor's office for a routine consultation and while waiting found a copy of ESPN magazine, the baseball preview for 2010. ESPN, showing great prescience, said the baseball division winners would be the Red Sox, Twins, Angels, Phillies, Cardinals, and Dodgers.

Well, that's two right out of six. Particularly egregious was their prediction that the Giants and Padres would fight it out for the NL western division cellar spot. Actually they battled down to the last day for the division championship. The Dodgers finished way up the track. (A mixed metaphor, I know.)

The Rockies here in Colorado boast two of the very best young players in the game in Troy Tulowitsky and Carlos Gonzalez. They have a prime right-handed pitcher in Ubaldo Jimenez, but the rest of their rotation looks a bit spotty and closer Houston Street (what a great name!) is injury prone. They badly need Chris Iannetta and Dexter Fowler to emerge and Ian Stewart to fulfill his potential. if all those things happen, they'll be formidable.

But I'm going way out on a limb and calling them the World Series winners this year.

I posted about movies recently and had several suggestions for additions to my list. So here are a couple more.

Calendar Girls - most of us would do almost anything to see cancer eradicated, but pose nude when we're (shall we say) past prime nude posing age? The interaction among the characters was very good and the humor was priceless. "We're going to need bigger buns!"

The Lion in Winter - the original version with Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn is the best, the story of a Christmas confab with what is surely history' s most dysfunctional family. How they tear at one another! At the end you're wondering how there could be any survivors between the knives and the hypertension. Also, at the end nothing has changed, nothing is resolved and they'll have to do the same terrible things all over again at Easter, as King Henry suggests.

The Graduate - I'm surprised how well this movie has worn - still timely forty years after it was made. I saw it several times when I was a college freshman and the theme of the greedy materialistic hypocritical older people versus the idealistic youth really appealed to me at the time. Dustin Hoffman became a star and Mrs. Robinson entered the popular language as a symbol for everything wrong with the "Greatest Generation." Now that I'm on the other side of the age divide, I recall the wistful moment when Mrs. Robinson confessed that she was interested in art but had to leave college when she became pregnant. And, lets face it, our generation of baby boomers hasn't turned out any better than our parents' generation did.

Well, that's all folks for today. Coming soon: more with CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

Some Personal Musings About Abortion

What follows is a personal reflection.

We recently passed the thirty-eighth year since Roe v. Wade made many, but not all, abortions legal in the United States. The decision of a deeply divided Supreme Court in the case has been amplified in the population, and has been the most contentious issue in American life ever since.

Of course, the controversy over abortion didn't begin in 1973. It was always there. By the early 70's, though, celebrity women were admitting that they had undergone illegal abortions at some time in life. Wealthy women could go abroad to end a pregnancy, as an Arizona woman did in 1962 when she learned the thalidomide she had taken could lead to severe physical damage to her fetus. Many many other desperate women went to doctors for illegal procedures or fell into the arms of unlicensed, often unqualified, abortionists.

My own thoughts about abortion have changed markedly through the years, first one way and then another. When the decision was first announced, I was against it. (One friend said I must be opposed because of my Catholic heritage, but I rejected that.) My reasoning was that we Americans had made much progress by 1973 in recognizing and protecting the rights of minorities, children, elderly people, and disabled persons, and we should also protect the not-yet-born. Whether that which is within the woman's body is called a baby, an embryo, or an undifferentiated mass of tissue, it is indisputably true that it will one day be born as a human being. So, like everyone else, it has an inherent right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

After a few years I began to believe that every woman has a right to control her own body. This seemed to me no less an inalienable right than the supposed rights of the organism growing inside her. Though I never went so far as to think the fertilized egg is similar to a tumor or cyst, I came to believe that what she decides in consultation with her doctor is all that counts.

Then after some more years passed, I thought it's really just glib for any man to tell a woman what she should do about an unwanted pregnancy. We men can't get pregnant, we don't go through morning sickness, get distended abdomens, become entirely uncomfortable as the pregnancy nears its end, or go through labor and delivery. Women need to sort out the matter of abortion, whether or not it should be legal, without male interference.

This doesn't seem satisfactory at all to me now. Men can no more wash their hands of the controversy than Pontius Pilate could wash his hands of Jesus. If a man believes abortion is morally reprehensible he must say so, must urge his opinion on others.

About two million abortions were performed legally in the USA last year. How many illegal abortions were performed before Roe v. Wade is unknown with any certainty, but there have been some pretty good guesses. Time magazine estimated in 1965 that between one and one and a half million were being done annually at that time. (Source: Time, September 17, 1965, as cited in "Nixonland" by Rick Perlstein, page 405.) The American population in 1965 was probably somewhere around 190 million people, whereas nowadays there are over 300 million of us. In other words, as a percentage of the population, the abortion frequency has risen somewhat, but not drastically. How many women and girls were maimed or killed by unqualified abortionists back then is also unknown, but now that abortions are mostly legal hardly anyone suffers significant physical damage from the procedure.

So where does all this leave me? (Or us.) Perhaps we can find some common ground with a couple of suppositions.

First of all, could we agree that ending a pregnancy through abortion should be a last resort, not something ever to be done without significant thought, consultation with trusted advisors and, if so inclined, prayer.

Second, and here comes the controversy, could we agree that once the woman has decided to end her pregnancy, at least in its early stages, the interest of the state is to protect her safety and wellbeing by assuring the abortion is performed by a qualified doctor? That is, legally.

Third, if we want to reduce the number of abortions, can we support comprehensive sex education curriculum for our children? Although the reasons for abortion are varied, certainly some of them result from an ignorance of human reproduction. Decisions about whether to have sex are not always rational, and knowledge of birth control methods would undoubtedly lower the number of women who want to end what a few minutes of passion produced. (I was a park ranger who patrolled the Colonial Parkway, a twenty-three mile long lover's lane on Friday and Saturday nights, and I know what I'm talking about.)

Fourth, if you think abortion is sinful, you have every right to protest, or persuade women to continue their pregnancies. You don't have a right to bomb abortion clinics, and absolutely don't have a right to kill abortionists. Not only is it immoral and criminal to do so, it's counter-productive.

Fifth, if you do encourage a woman to continue her pregnancy, you must be ready to provide real, meaningful support, financially, emotionally, and as a mentor for the child she will have. It is hypocritical as well as ineffectual to tell a young woman to bear her undesired child and then abandon them.

I'll end with one last thought. How could anyone tell a thirteen-year-old who has been raped by her father or her brother that she has to bear the child hate placed within her? Lest you think such things don't happen, just remember the bitter old joke that defined a virgin as a girl who can run faster than her brother.

The Wheel of (Financial) Life

In 1965 I had my first real job, bagging groceries part-time at a local supermarket. The pay was $1.15 an hour, minimum wage at the time. With tips, I managed about $1.50. My parents provided my food, shelter, clothing, and medical care. My money was for lunches out and record albums. Gas cost about $.35 a gallon, so I could buy about four gallons with what I earned in an hour. I was 16 years old then.

Now I'm 61. (Notice reversal of digits from when I first started working.) I work part-time at the local library as a security monitor and clerk. The pay is $12.36 an hour, substantially above minimum wage. My pension from years of work for the feds pays for most of my mortgage. My money buys me my food, shelter, clothing and medical care. There's precious little for lunches out and record cd's. Gas costs about $3.00 per gallon, so I can buy about four gallons with what I earn in an hour.

Just where did I go wrong? How can someone on minimum wage possibly make a go of things nowadays?

On an unrelated note, I would like to thank the people who responded to my blog entry about movies. I'll post more about movies sometime soon. And watch this space for the next appearance of CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!

Do Republicans really oppose making health-care insurance cheaper?

By Ezra Klein

The health-care debate has a cyclical nature, and I don't want to keep writing the same posts over and over again. So rather than write a whole new piece on the GOP's rediscovery of the Congressional Budget Office's estimate that the health-care law will reduce the labor supply (which they recast as "destroying jobs"), I'll just link to the long post I did on the subject in January.

In case you don't want to click over, though, the short version is this: If you make health-care insurance cheaper and make it harder for insurance companies to deny people coverage, then a certain number of people who would like to leave the labor force but can't afford or access health-care insurance without their job will stop working.

To understand why, imagine a 62-year-old woman who works for IBM and beat breast cancer 10 years ago. She wants to retire. She has the money to retire. But no one will sell her health care under the status quo. Under the health-reform law, she can buy health care in an exchange because insurers can't turn her away due to her history of breast cancer. So she'll retire. Or imagine a 50-year-old single mother who wants to home-school her developmentally disabled child but can't quit her job because they'll lose health care. The subsidies and the protections in the Affordable Care Act will give her the option to stop working for awhile, while under the old system she'd need to stick with her job to keep her family's health-care coverage. That's how health-care reform can reduce the labor supply. If either case counts as a destroyed job, then so does my winning the lottery and moving to Scotland in search of the perfect glass of whiskey.

Moreover, this would happen for any health-care reform that reduced costs and improved access. So when Republicans say that they want abetter health-care reform bill that does even more to reduce costs, they're calling for legislation that, according to them, would "destroy" even more jobs than the Affordable Care Act. If they're against all legislation that might destroy jobs in this way, then they're against making health care cheaper. In fact, by that logic, we could just jack the price of health-care insurance up and make it easier for insurers to turn individuals away. Then even more people would have to stick with their employers. Job creation!

By Ezra Klein | February 11, 2011; 6:41 PM ET
Categories: Health Reform

Movies Worth Watching

And now for something completely different I offer the Pete Awards for achievement in films, presented early so as not to overshadow the Oscars. Actually, this is a compilation of movies, a baker's dozen of flicks I've enjoyed through the years. See if you agree with me.

13. "A Walk on the Moon." I'm watching this movie as I write this blog. It's the story of a woman's attempt to come to terms with life in 1969 America, perhaps a last fling before her youth vanishes forever. Viggo Mortenson and Liev Schreiber provide support but it's Diane Lane's movie. The movie makes the point that promises are made in bed, whether they're spoken or not, and that reconciliation is always possible.

12. "Pirates of the Caribbean." The original, before all the plot disappeared in the two (soon to be three) sequels. I've included it just for fun, and for Johnny Depp's crazy performance as Captain Jack Sparrow.

11. "Coming Home." Now we're getting heavy. The love story of Jane Fonda and John Voight is tragically compelling, but no less so is the despair of Bruce Dern as the husband betrayed. I live near Fort Carson, in the midst of soldiers who are about to be deployed or are just back from a war zone. Their troubles re-entering peacetime America are awful to see, and this film pulls no punches about their elder brothers coming home from Vietnam, and the women in their lives.

10. "Groundhog Day." This movie seems preachy to me now, but I recall how much I enjoyed it when it first came out. The wisenheimer weatherman who must change his personality to change his life reveals the theme of change which is also in. . .

9. "Bedazzled." The Brendan Frasier - Elizabeth Hurley version in which a lovable loser trades his soul to the devil for seven wishes, all of which turn out to be unfulfilling, until he finally does the right thing and finds his own redemption. The recessional hymn, "If you want to be somebody else, change your mind," by They Might be Giants, sums it up.

8. "The Sting." This one is higher on my wife's list than on mine, but it's still one of the best comedies and revenge pictures in movie history. Paul Newman and Robert Redford team up to defraud Robert Shaw of his ill-gotten gains in an imaginative scheme that holds its secrets nearly to the end. One thought: there are hardly any women in the movie. For a large cast it's almost entirely male. How is it possible I'd like such a thing?

7. "Gandhi." What we need is a hero, and here he is. Without ever killing anyone, without ever hurting anyone, he brought independence to India, and to Indians in South Africa. The movie tells his story with grace and empathy. Good guys can finish first.

6. "A Prairie Home Companion." There had to be a musical on the list and this is it. The songs are lots of fun and the theme of a way of life now being lost to corporate greed resonates. (At least with me.)

5. "Ratatouille." Whoa, another movie with rodents in the cast. "Anyone can cook," says chef Gusteau and Remy the rat proves it. The final scenes, where the critic discovers charity and the human chefs find love are heartwarming. Anyone can cook, and anyone can find happiness and purpose in life. Besides, cooking is my hobby.

4. "It's a Wonderful Life." I know, I know, but for all the syrupy characters, it's still a wonderful flick, and no Christmas season is complete without giving it another look.

3. "Shakespeare in Love." The idea that the first production of "Romeo and Juliet" was going to feature a female impersonator as Juliet and a male impersonator as Romeo is just delightful. Of course things work out in the end, though it's a mystery how they work out. Gwyneth Paltrow won the acting accolades for this movie but the male cast and Judi Dench were also wonderful.

2. "Rain Man." This drama has some extremely funny moments, centering on Tom Cruise's inability to reach or reason with Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman's Raymond is so endearing and at the same time so frustrating as to be almost indescribable. Cruise, as Charlie, acts the part he was famous for, the man in a hurry who learns to take some time to smell the roses. (In this case, the roses were his inheritance from his rigid father.) Of course, the movie is about autism, but it's the story of Charlie Babbitt's gradually emerging humanity too.

1. (Drum roll.) "A Man for all Seasons." Still my favorite, forty-five years after it was made. Paul Scofield's performance as Thomas More is famous, but Robert Shaw as the overwhelming King Henry and Leo McKern as Thomas Cromwell are equal to him. The story of how More is pushed into a corner he cannot escape without losing his soul is powerful and riveting. When I saw this movie for the first time I was a high school senior and very impressionable, but it has held up beautifully and is still marvelous.

Well, that's my list. What's yours?

And now, a few minutes with CAPTAIN OBVIOUS, the superhero whose amazing power is the ability to point out what everyone else already knows.

Yesterday was the annual festival known as Super Bowl Sunday, when Americans of all sizes, shapes, and opinions gather to overeat and watch heavily padded men bash each other in the brief interludes between commercials. The Captain will refrain from making less obvious points and merely mention that several of our gladiators had to leave the game with injuries of various severity. The truth is, if you play football for any length of time you're guaranteed future health issues. The lives of these men are being cut short for present day riches and for our amusement.

Once again, sponsors paid exorbitant amounts of money for snippets of airtime to hawk their wares. Commercials were of different quality. One ad, I think it was for Audi, was so obscure that Captain Obvious was left completely flummoxed and with absolutely no urge to buy a car.

The Captain reminds everyone that many of the commercials were meant to sell beer. The trouble is, all the beer consumed yesterday had already been bought by the time the commercials appeared! So the beer companies were appealing to a large audience of people who were already drunk, and whose powers of retention were probably about on the level of inanimate objects.

The Black-Eyed Peas appeared at halftime and performed non-melodic songs with lyrics that were incomprehensible to the Captain. When he mentioned his mystification out loud, Mrs. Captain reminded him that his own elders probably felt the same way about the beloved bands of his younger years. "Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, babe, bra-la-la how life goes on."

Coal

Twenty-nine miners died last year in West Virginia in a coal mine cave-in. The owner of the mine had received hundreds of safety violation citations from OSHA, but apparently decided it would be less expensive to pay the fines than to fix the problems. Now there are twenty-nine families without a dad or son or brother.

Between 1850 and 1950 the toll of miners was much higher, about 1000 miners killed each year. (For anyone who's math impaired, that's 100,000 miners dead over a century.) Along the spine of the Appalachians, and even here in Colorado, miners and their families paid the price for the national harvest of coal.

The number of men who were killed outright doesn't take into account the enormous toll of men who were injured or whose health was broken from working in the mines. My first job with the National Park Service was at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, at the toe of Virginia, where it meets Tennessee and Kentucky. I remember the mobile health van and the line of old miners lined up for black lung examinations.

Now I'm not a luddite. I don't look nostalgically at a mythical past in which everyone was a happy peasant, and I use fossil fuels as much as anyone else. What I don't understand morally or economically or environmentally or from the standpoint of public health, is the reluctance many people display at moving away from our dependence on these dirty sources of energy.

It is morally unacceptable for us to sacrifice the lives of miners for our own convenience and our temporary prosperity. The damage done to our planet by mining is evident for all to see. (An old surface mine is clearly visible at Colorado Springs even though it has been inactive for more than 100 years.)

Eventually, the coal supplies will be exhausted. What will our descendants have then, and what will they think of us?