Whose Ox is Gored?

The folks down I-95 at Fred2Blue are complaining about how “gerrymandered” Virginia is.

Gerrymandering is an age old tradition. In fact, as I noted some time back the first partisan apportionment happened right here in Virginia. It is a practice as the “spoils system” as propounded by Andrew Jackson, and when a party is swept to power they hack at the other guys districts with gusto, and expect and accept the same in return.

I think we need non-partisan apportionment, and I think mid-decade apportionments should be done away with.. Until that happens, we have to make do with what we have.

But I confess to more than a bit of cynicism on this point…in fact, this report smells just a tad of Claude Rains in “Capablanca” professing to be shocked gambling is going on in Rick’s American Cafe…and then accepts his gambling winnings from the croupier.

I would be more impressed by this report and indignation if:

**The supporting report had not come out of the DLC, a Democratic support group;
**The report were not full of “might” and “if” and “perhaps” type wiggle words estimating how many more voters would vote if different redistricting methods were used.
**Tucked away in a note on page 16 the paper itself said “placement on this list should not be confused with a ranking of which states maintain systems most prone to creating non-competitive districts”…so that fourth worst stat Fred2Blue throws around about Virginia may not be all it is cracked up to be.
**I didn’t recall how in 1990 the Virginia Democracy redistricted the House so that 14 GOP incumbents were redistricted into seven house districts, and completely reshaped the old Virginia 7 to knock out a GOP incumbent.
**I didn’t recall how the Senate Democratic leadership shot down legislation in the 2008 session that would create bi- or non- partisan redistricting…presumably because they want to guarantee themselves a big chair at the table in 2010.

This is a game that has been going on for over two hundred years, and it isn’t going away any time soon…and if the DLC thinks it is a problem, then maybe they should get get guys like Dick Saslaw to send up legislation that would change the way things are done.

Forty Years Ago today…Bobby Kennedy, RIP

Forty years ago today, less a few hours, Bobby Kennedy claimed victory in the 1968 California Democratic primary…and a few minutes later hope turned to helplessness.

I was a child then, and remember the sheer shock of my parents that violence had again touched the American body politic. I have a hunch that my father would have voted for Nixon in the fall election, and my mother for RFK…Bobby had kicked off his West Virginia campaign in her hometown of Princeton, WV, and my grandmother shook his hand…so that kind of sealed the deal for her.  His evolution from hatchet man for Roy Cohn to enforcer for his brother to a vessel of hope for so many captured her imagination, as he did for so many others in this country.

Many remember RFK in his final moments at the Ambassador Hotel on June 4, 2008, with his “now it’s on to Chicago, and let’s win there!” shortly before his date with destiny.

But the moment that has long stuck in my mind was the speech he delivered in Indianapolis on April 4, 1968, when he broke the news to a large crowd that Martin Luther King had been killed:

I typically prefer the eloquence of the moment over the eloquence of the prepared speech, and I think there are few impromptu speeches that match that of Bobby Kennedy that night in Indianapolis.

So let us remember Bobby Kennedy, and move beyond his politics and consider what was lost forty years ago tonight. And let us remember, in these trying times, RFK’s favorite poet, Aeschylus, who wrote:

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.

God bless the memory of Bobby Kennedy, God Bless us all, and God Bless the USA.

Quick Hits from the Crutch

Well, I am crutching it these days…I got the left knee MRI’d this AM, and the right knee is set for surgery next wednesday.  It is not that I need the crutches all the time…but OMG when one of these knees rares up is like Calhoun’s bar on Saturday night and the Charge of the Light Bridgade all wrapped up into one…so I keep them near me all the time.

Since the jolts of pain seem to prohibit me from any really deeeeeep thoughts, I wanted to offer some quick hits and thoughts:

• Hillary wins Pennsylvania, but I am really having trouble seeing my way to how she wins the nod without tearing up the democratic party.  She says she has won the states that a democrat has to win in order to take the White House, but does she really think that Obama will lose PA, NY, NJ, MA, etc., to McCain?  Hillary beat Obama in TX, but I somehow don’t think she will beat McCain there in November.
• Folks keep talking about the Dream Ticket, but there is only a dream ticket if Hillary wins the nod.  She will not take on the #2 slot on an Obama ticket.  This is her year for good or ill, and she will ride the wave as long as it swells…and if it dies, go back to the Senate.
• As long as we take count of the Democratic tussle, I just saw an Obama ad over at NLS where Obama’s minister, among other comments, takes the USA to task for using the atomic bomb in WW2.  I do not get why Obama doesn’t distance himself from this guy.  If you don’t want to leave his church, don’t use his words in your campaign ad.  I  understand this is a subject that won’t go away, and that some say the Japanese were about to surrender, but the military planning suggested losses in an invasion of the Japanese home islands that would have pound for pound exceeded Iwo Jima or Okinawa.  The Army ordered so many Purple Heart medals-in anticipation of the landing casualties, and that were then not needed due to the Bomb Drop-that medals from that order were still being used twenty years later in Vietnam.
• I have a hunch that Jim Gilmore would have cleaned out Bob Marshall in a primary…but of course, Jim wanted a convention.  Ironic, ain’t it?
• Keith Femian might want to spend some of the bank he has accumulated to get Leslie Byrne nominated.  A recent conversation with a Fairfax business type laid it all out for me…if Leslie gets the Dem nod, the Fairfax Chamber folks will go with Femian.  If Connolly gets the nod, they will go with Gerry as they are familiar with him and will have access.  So, if Keith knows what is good for him…
• Last I heard, life seems to continue apace in Va-10…Congressman Wolf and Feder raise about equal amounts, and she gets the vast majority of it from out of state.  One interesting new fact is that while the DCCC claims this is a targeted race, Congressional Quarterly ranks Va-10 as a safe GOP seat.
• “The Cooch, the Cooch, the Cooch is on fire…He don’t need no water let the…” yeah, I know, I just felt like typing it.
• One thing to get off my chest, something of cosmic significance-The Food Network (TFN) and their horribly tacky “THROWDOWN” series with Bobby Flay.  Bad enough that they send Flay out in these quasi-ambush settings to go head to head with talented local chefs cooking the cook’s specialty…don’t they have something more constructive for Flay to be doing?  However, TFN has this really shady tactic where they tell someone ( in recent episodes I have seen this done to Diana Barrios-Trevino and Mark Bove) that they are being auditioned by TFN for a new show, and suddenly-BA-DA-BING!…here’s Bobby!…and suddenly you are on TFN, but you do not have any real hope of a new show.  I guess it is consistent with the new focus on entertainment on TFN…but if that is the case, bring back the West Virginia Road Kill Festival!
• If you want to read about a master legislator, pick up Robert Caro’s Master of the Senate, and carefully read how LBj put through the Civil Rights Act of 1957…

 

Well, I have to go have a talk with Dr. Advil about now (my last until after my kneed gets scoped)…so take care!  I will see you around the campus!

Martin Luther King-Forty years ago Today…

Forty years ago today Martin Luther King was shot down outside his Memphis motel room.  He knew he lived in a society that was far from perfect, but was driven to make that society not only free for his people but free for all people.

As we remember his life, let us also remember his final public speech, one that for me speaks more to hope and drive than even the “I Have a Dream Speech”:

It really doesn’t matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us. The pilot said over the public address system, “We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with on the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we’ve had the plane protected and guarded all night.”And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I’m happy, tonight.
I’m not worried about anything.
I’m not fearing any man!
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!

…and so shall we all, some day.  May we all have the faith that moves mountains, and a willingness to work to reach our own Mountain Tops

Dem Central offers this account of the event.

Martin Luther King, January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968

Triangle Shirtwaist Disaster-March 25, 1911

Today marks the 97th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, which left 148 dead and served as a critical pivot in improving working conditions in American factories.  For those not familiar with the tragedy, Wikipedia offers a recounting, but a more comprehensive one is offered by Democratic Central.

It was terrible event, 148 women and children killed by fire, suffocation, and failed attempts to flee. Doors were locked, fire escapes faulty, doors that were unlocked opened in and could not swing free for the crush of bodies. Others jumped, finding death on the pavement nine stories below, some impaled on the spikes of the fence surrounding the building.

Only 9/11 outpaces Triangle as a workplace disaster in NYC.

The memorial service at the Metropolitan Opera Theater was telling. Activist Rosa Schneiderman uttered her immortal “j’accuse” with the words:

I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public and we have found you wanting.

The disaster was the tragic inspiration for new workplace legislation in NY and across the country. A little known Tammany politico named Al Smith chaired the legislative committee that investigated and wrote the state legislation. His clear anguish over the incident and his drive to prevent a repeat impressed the NY reform coalition, and made them realize this was more than a cigar chomping, shanty Irishman from the Fulton Fish Market. From the ashes of Triangle came the governorship of Al Smith and the social legislation he pushed that eventually served as the inspiration for FDR’s New Deal.

Why talk about such things? Because when we forget such things we are doomed to allow such things to be repeated.

I have walked the battlefields at Shiloh and The Wilderness and Manassas in the dusk, and you can feel the presence of the dead. A similar thing happens when you walk by 23-29 Washington Place in New York City, look up at what is now called the Brown Building of Science to feel the awful horror of what happened.

On days like this it is a good thing to stop and remember these things…not only to remind us of where we have been, but to make sure we never pass that way again.

Other sources on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire:

Triangle: The Fire That Changed America
Empire Statesman: The Rise and Redemption of Al Smith, devotes a full chapter to the fire
The Power Broker, pages 122-126. Robert Caro describes the disaster in pungent detail, and the reaction and rise of Al Smith in its aftermath.

Obama and Hillary should look to Eisenhower for “Fair Play”

As I got ready for church this AM I caught the talking heads keep using terms like “fair play” and “right thing”.  The more they talked the more I realized that potentially the key lesson to who wins the Democratic nod lies in who can emulate Dwight Eisenhower.

Both Clinton and Obama hava unusual delegate problems.  Hillary is in the lead because she has a large edge in democratic “superdelegates”, people like past presidents, VP, sitting governors, senators, congressmen, etc.  Obama argues that superdelegates should vote according to the primary/convention process in their state…which means that potentially a lot of superdelegates who are with Hillary would shift to Obama.  Interestingly, this would compel Ted Kennedy to vote for Hillary Clinton for the nomination.

Hillary, on the other hand won in both Michigan and Florida.  Both states voted according to scheduling by the resepective state legislatures and not by the state party.  However, the dates were in advance of Super Tuesday, and did not have the exemption that South Carolina had-with the result that the states delegates to the Democratic National Convention will not be counted.

Both candidates have rules they want overturned or implemented.  I suggest they look back to 1952 and emulate the Dwight Eisenhower campaign.

In 1952 Eisenhower was running against Ohio US Senator Robert Taft for the nomination.  Taft was the heavy favorite of the conservative wing of the party.  This was especially true in the South, where the conservatives loved Taft but had kept the GOP small so as to maximize their share of the spoils if the GOP won the election.

They did not count on great up-swells of support for Eisenhower throughout the South, and some extremely capable organizers who came to the for to nominate the general.  In state after state old guard support for Taft allowed delegates to be seated through chicanery and dishonesty.

GOP rules allowed the submitted delegations to vote until the credentials report was approved.  Contested delegates would potentially be allowed to vote on their own legitimacy, which would lead to a raft of pro-Taft delegates being selected and handing him the nomination.

The Eisenhower campaign challenged the credentials of several delegations and produced proof of their dishonesty.  Next came a motion that overturned party rules and disallowed contested delegates to vote on their own seating.  This was called the “Fair Play” motion, and led to enough pro-Eisenhower delegations replacing the Taft slates sent for the by their states that by evening Eisenhower had won the nod.

Eisenhower, who was as much after power as Taft, was able to win the “Fair Play” vote because the vote itself was cast as a vote for honesty over dishonesty for-literally-fair play and an even playing field.

I think for Hillary or Obama to compel the state party to do what they each want, they have to be able to cast it as a vote not about process or procedure but about fundamental fairness.  At present, I don’t see that Obama has real good chances of doing that.

Given that the Superdelegates were created as a way to offset popular passion for a candidate who was unelectable and bring sanity to the process by giving the elected official branch of the party a voice in the selection,  it seems odd to think that the party will now-after the game has begun-turn around and say that Superdelegates had to vote to reflect the primary/caucus vote in their respective states.  The Superdelegates were chosen so they could exercise political judgement…I don’t think you can make a fair play argument that says they should not be allowed to do exactly what they were selected to do.

Hillary seems to have a better chance, even though it would amount to changing the rules after the game has started.  She can argue that it is wrong to disenfranchise entire states.  Penalize, deduct delegate votes, etc., but don’t throw them out (or the Hillary Delegates!)…especially since the state parties were simply complying with state law.  This choice seems much more likely to carry the day on Fair Play vote.

Ultimately all the above may seem like bilge, but the reporters who talk are reporting Obama and Hillary talking about challenges based on the  items discussed above.  If the credentials vote is phrased as a morality, then whoever placed the challenge will have an increased chance.

And, if neither passes?  Then we shall see…

But I think the campaigns should reread the accounts of the 1952 GOP convention, and see what needs to be added to their arguments to make them more about “fair play” and less about “I need votes”.

Bobby Fischer is Dead

American chess genius and former world champion Robert James Fischer is dead at the age of 64 from undisclosed causes.

I am not having a good week.

Fischer was the young wunderkind who challenged Soviet hegemony in world chess, accused them of cheating and as a result changed the way the world champion was selected. His defeat of Boris Spassky in their 1972 match was seen as the Cold War writ large over an 8×8 grid. He gave up the title in 1975 to Anatoly Karpov when Fischer and FIDE, the world chess governing body, could not come to terms over match conditions.

Most folks who know of Fischer remember him for his vile post 9/11 comments, his professed and likely self-loathing anti-semitism, and his erratic behavior since he defied trade sanctions and played a match with Spassky in 1992 in embargoed Sveti Stefan, part of Slobodan Milosevic’s turf.

I think of him differently…

Players of a certain age remember instead the pre-1973 Fischer. Eight US Championships, winning every one he every played in. An undefeated 11-0 in the 1963 US Championship. Set the mark in 1959 as the youngest person to achieve the Grandmaster title, a mark only recently topped. The comeback at the Second Piatagorsky Cup in 1966, demolishing international fields in the 1962 and 1970 Interzonal tournaments. Twenty consecutive wins against world class grandmasters running from the 1970 Interzonal through his candidates matches with Taimanov, Larson, and then Petrosian. His games pantheon included his “Game of the Century” against Donald Byrne, his sacrificial masterpieces against Robert Byrne and Pal Benko, his strategic crush in Game 7 against Petrosian and Game 6 against Spassky.

For young kid who was learning the game, Fischer was a hero. His monthly columns in Boys Life magazine gave an insight into top level chess play at a time when it was almost impossible to get up to date information and analysis unless you could translate Russian and subscribed to 64 and Shakmatny Bulletin.  He was a giant, and he made chess somehow cool.  Everyone was playing chess, even-to my mother’s surprise-a local shoe salesman.  She had purchased a book on the Fischer Spassky match for me for my birthday in 1972, and the salesman saw it in a bag while she was trying on shoes…and the next thing you know he is talking pawns and bishops and fianchetto’s to her…and she has no idea what he was saying.

Fischer was a meteor…his success popularized chess in the USA for a short time, and then it went back to the weekend tournaments, clubs, and parks.  Oh, but for a while chess was THE thing…and all because of that Boy from Brooklyn.

Whatever he became, he was a hero to me as a kid…and I am sorry to see him pass on.

Six Years Later…

September 11, 2001

We Remember…

We Remember where we were…

We Remember what happened…

We Remember those we lost…

We Will Never Forget

Franklin’s Cockpit: Our perceptions and reality

Today I was once again reminded of how our perception affects our reality, and urge you in the weeks ahead to be mindful of the same.

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s book Benjamin Franklin, and came upon the account of Franklin’s being called before His Majesty’s Privvy Council to answer for colonial petitions asking for the w/drawal of Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver as the appointed governor and lt. governor of Massachusetts.  The meeting was held in a room called “The Cockpit”, as cockfighting had gone on there during the reign of Henry VIII…you know, sort of like Whoppi Goldberg says goes on all the time in Puerto Rico today.

Franklin was roundly and unfairly abused (he was the agent for Pennsylvania, and had no involvement in the Massachusetts petition), but took the calumny heaped upon in stoic fashion.  Years later, when attending the treaty ceremony where Great Britain granted independence to America, Franklin took some measure of revenge by wearing the same jacket to that ceremony as he had worn during the Cockpit ordeal.

Here’s the thing…I read of this even many years ago, but without this picture (the same as in Isaccson’s book).  I always pictured Franklin’s Cockpit as smaller, darker, looking more like a tavern.

Why had I such a mistaken image of this place, thinking it small and dark when it is apparently grand and bright?

I realized it is because many years ago when I tried unsuccessfully to get a law degree at Washington and Lee University there was a student dining establishment called “The Cockpit”, a name later changed to “General Headquarters”.  It was a student dining area open for lunch, with dark wood, no windows, very dark.  It occured to me that in reading the story without illustrations I took my experience and used that to form my perception of reality…and had me thinking that Franklin’s cockpit looked alot like my Cockpit!

Why is this ruminating and cogitating on my part of any value to you?  Because in the upcoming beautiful autumnal days and nights we will be making small decisions based on our perceptions, decisions like “no need for a jacket, it can’t be that cold”, “it’s not that cold out “, or, if we are walking to something like the Burke Fair, “oh, it’s not that far to walk”.  More often than not, we will discover it can be that warm, it is that cold out, and even if it is not too far to walk it is danged site further than we thought!

As we spend more time out and about this fall, don’t be fooled by such thoughts.  Don’t let your perceptions impede your ability to analyze and react to the situation you really face.  Dress appropriate to the weather, don’t over estimate your physical capabilities, and stay out of harms way…or at least minor illness’s way.

The Taney Statue and Historical Reputations

Today’s WaPo reports that Maryland now gets a turn at dealing with the matter of the Sins of the Forefathers. The matter in question if public images of former Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court (USSC)Roger B. Taney.

Taney wrote the US Supreme Court opinion in United States v. Dred Scott (1856), which ruled that slaves were property, overturned the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, said slavery was legal in the territories and that African-Americans, free or slave, could not be citizens of any state. For this opinion there are calls that his statue in Annapolis and his bronze bust in the Frederick, Maryland, city hall be removed to less celebrated locations.   Costs to do so are unknown, but the estimate to move the Annapolis statue is at least $100,000.00.

There is another side of the coin. Taney-born in 1795 to a slave holding family in Maryland-emancipated his slaves long before his death and created a pension system for those too old to work. taney was a born Federalist who bacame a loyal Jacksonian Democrat. He was Attorney General for Old Hickory, and as a recess appointment at Secrtary of the Treasury he was the point man for Andrew Jackson’s campaign to terminate the Bank of the United States. For that loyalty the Whig opposition defeated his full appointment as Secretary of the Treasury and his initial appointment to the Supreme Court. Taney carved out a reputation as a great to near great USSC Chief Justice.

When asked about the controversy, Dred Scott Madison II, the great-great-grandson of the subject of the above court case, said “”Someone’s statue? If you move it, where do you end? Do you go down South and start removing all of the statues of Confederate officers? It’s part of American history. You can’t hide it.”

But that is part of the consideration here. Confederate officers led troops in rebellion against the USA. Taney’s actions were completely legal, and became the law of the land until they were repealed by statute and amendment after the war.

Historians agree that slavery was a nettle the Founding Fathers refused to grasp, choosing instead to set the matter aside in the interests of creating a new nation. They knew the issue would be settled one day, but hoped by that time the nation would be “going concern”, and be able to address it in such a matter that the nation would be preserved. Franklin wrote that his generation passed the plate forward, and Jefferson considered slavery “a firebell in the night” that could rend the country. I suspect they knew in their heart of hearts there would come a time when blood would be shed to determine whether the South’s “Peculiar Institution” would continue to exist.

Ultimately, how do we judge? Should public images of men who make a bad decision, surrounded by a life of achievement, be taken down? Should we hide our history? Which is more important, spending public funds on our current public needs or in tucking away unwelcome reminders of our past?

I think I understand the emotions driving those who want the images moved. But I tend to agree with Madison, who indicated

“Moving the statues, he added, might suggest that blame for slavery can be pinned on one man, rather than accepting the harder truth that Taney’s views were widespread in his time.”

The fact that these statues went up in the first place shows there was support for the man, and that maybe his accomplishments and views were appreciated by more people than we might like to admit.

While the idea of moving these images to a museum where he can be “studied, not celebrated” has some merit, it seems to me that keeping these images where they are has more. Beyond the cost in dollars that could be better spent elsewhere, they are a reminder that we are all imperfect; that simply because a belief is fiercely held or eloquently argued does not mean it is right; and that this country, a vast mixture of people, culture, and history will never be perfect-but that we keep moving forward to try to get it right.