Save Us This Day, From Edumacators

May3 by Marc Grober

I could not resist purchasing this (rewritten Third Edition addressing the dramatic changes in education since 1950) in no small part because I was laughing so hard at UAA Instructors advising students not to use Wikipedia in composing answers to short answer/identification questions on take home finals (as if they were going to find usable answers in the horrendous texts employed, or the equally useless lecture notes afforded to the students ). The book was waiting for me on the UAA Consortium Library cast-offs cart for the stated price of $.25 and, as I said, I could not (would not) resist.

From quoting Commager, “No other people ever demanded so much of education as have the American. None other was ever served so well by its schools and educators” (93), the book moves to more realistic appraisals of the issues education in the U.S. face.

No agency but the school can provide the systemic, disciplined intellectual training required. This is, and always has been, the primary, indispensable funtion of the school. The nation is betrayed if the school shirks this responsbility or subordinates it to any other aim, however worthy in itself. The school exists to provide intellectual training, in every field of activity where systematic thinking is an important component of success * * * [but] [a]n increasing number of public schools administrators and educational theorists today refuse to define the purposes of the school in terms of intellectual training or of recognized disciplines of science and scholarship (103, misciting Bestor, the cite for which can be found below ).

And Bestor’s take? Well….

An inkling of what the educators mean ·when they propose to bring the great issues of public life down tb the level of what they call the “real-life problems of youth” is afforded by an elaborate report on The SchoolJ and National Security, which the Illinois Curriculum Program has recently published. The first task of the social studies, according to the d1apter devoted to them, is to “reduce the tensions and meet the needs of children and youth.” There are some starry-eyed promises about developing “a constructively critical attitude toward foreign policy” among pupils who, of. course, are not to be burdened with any useless knowledge of history or geography or foreign languages. And when the report gets down to specific classroom work, it solemnly suggests that the schools can serve the nation in its present, hour of peril by asking its students to “make studies of how the last war affected the dating pattern in our culture.”

But perhaps the best way to approach the book is its review in Educational Leadership via Lewis Carroll.

One who seeks definitive answers to educational problems may he disappointed in this book. One who seeks an organized departure point for thinking through many of the issues of secondary education will find this source very helpful. Unlike the discussion of curriculum in Alice in Wonderland, this text deals with Modern Secondary Education in a realistic, straightforward, practical manner. And, as the Gryphon said in a very decided tone to Alice, “That’s enough about lessons.”

Maybe we have something to learn from Alexander and Saylor?

Alexander, William M., and J. Galen Saylor. Modern Secondary Education: Basic Principles and Practices. New York: Rinehart, 1959.

Bestor Jr., Arthur E. “Anti-Intellectualism in the Schools.” New Republic 128, no. 3 (January 19, 1953): 11. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=14557231&site=pov-live.

Bishop, Leslee. “Significant Books: Modern Secondary Education.” Educational Leadership 17, no. 4 (January 1960): 257–258. Accessed May 2, 2017. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/jan60/vol17/num04/toc.aspx.

A Less Modest Proposal

May3 by Marc Grober

Recently some folk have gotten their shorts in a twist because someone has the temerity to suggest that killing a 200 year old whale is not necessarily a good idea. Efforts to address those upset have been very unsuccessful because any word to suggest that Native harvest of whales should be challenged is labeled racism (which it, by definition, is not).

There is way too much emotive baggage, way too little reflection on issues underlying our cultural prejudices. Tribalism is inherent in Homo sapiens… we are virtually hard wired to be tribal as that provided some selective benefit as we evolved from under the shadows of the thunder lizards , but now it will kill us all. The harvest of marine mammals is still (and will likely become more of) a widely debated ethical decision (much as has happened with respect to pigs) as no human will die of lack of whale meat. The question is one of cultural relativism. If I eat children should I be allowed to continue eating children? Really. Why shouldn’t I eat your child? Or just mash it up as a blood sacrifice to my gods (which, after all, is not atypical for Homo sapiens)? While Dean Swift was being ironic when he penned “A Modest Proposal”, the point he makes is still very poignant, and the taking of marine mammals is as close to the dominionism now infecting our political culture.

If Critter A is hungry and he wants to eat another critter, he will run into some issues eventually, and he develops a credo that allows him to eat some (but not all) other critters. That credo, based largely on belief, is a matter of faith. You eat pig because you believe the pig is dumb, or you have some divine authority, or other excuse that applies to pig, but not dog, horse, or people. Many Neolithic and tribal cultures invent a mythology that results in their belief that their prey gives themselves freely to predator. This is, as suggested above, no far reach from dominionism.

Arguing that a specific cultural approach to life is inappropriate is not necessarily racist (and I think is rarely so, though humans are particularly inventive when it comes to being stupid). I think Female Genital Mutilation is horrific, yet I have no real qualms about Male Genital Mutilation… imagine that! Such cultural prejudices are endemic to Homo sapiens. At core it is now essentially a matter of faith. With the clash of cultures, questions will be asked, and I think that is appropriate – that is what Montesquieu was talking about when he discussed commerce, and the claims of “historical accident”, “cultural artifact”, or “religious tenet” can, and eventually will, wear thin.

Swift, Jonathan. A Modest Proposal. 1729. https://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/modest.html

The Stain of God’s Anointing

Jan28 by Marc Grober

Parking validation is difficult enough; the concept of validating a messiah is positively fraught.

Once upon a time (back in the days of make-believe) one could look for a slick (anointing, at least among humans, largely being effected with olive oil) but then, is that a luncheon dribble there on your tunic, or a holy pronouncement from way on high? Of course, once some clever prelate started marketing “holy water” all bets were off as the only stain water leaves is by way of contaminants (does the Lord take into account turbidity and mineral content?)

Of course, this all relates only to human anointment, and how could any human even hypothesize anointment by a deity… Goodness gracious, anointment by a supernatural alien could be by anything from neutron bombardment to a spurt of chimp semen! Look, don’t get all upset and bothered with me! I am not the one who failed to provide a CSI manual on how to detect sacred “emanations”…

I used to proclaim that I was the anointed one (not to say that, just because I don’t argue that point regularly anymore, it alters the fact that I am – the anointed one, that is – and I can show you the stains) and was somewhat disturbed by the froth that would appear on the lips of the fruiting faithful. Of course I was denounced (in the most hurtful terms) and the claim made that they would know HIM when they see HIM. Roger that; so tell me, “HOW?” Describe for me the stain of God’s anointing.

Well, they’ll stone you when you ask them for their proof…

Well, they’ll stone ya when you’re trying to be so good
They’ll stone ya just a-like they said they would
They’ll stone ya when you’re tryin’ to go home
Then they’ll stone ya when you’re there all alone
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned

Well, they’ll stone ya when you’re walkin’ ’long the street
They’ll stone ya when you’re tryin’ to keep your seat
They’ll stone ya when you’re walkin’ on the floor
They’ll stone ya when you’re walkin’ to the door
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned

They’ll stone ya when you’re at the breakfast table
They’ll stone ya when you are young and able
They’ll stone ya when you’re tryin’ to make a buck
They’ll stone ya and then they’ll say, “good luck”
Tell ya what, I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned

Well, they’ll stone you and say that it’s the end
Then they’ll stone you and then they’ll come back again
They’ll stone you when you’re riding in your car
They’ll stone you when you’re playing your guitar
Yes, but I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned

Well, they’ll stone you when you walk all alone
They’ll stone you when you are walking home
They’ll stone you and then say you are brave
They’ll stone you when you are set down in your grave
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned

lyrics © Bob Dylan Music Co.

The Real Death Panels and Their Toll

Jan19 by Marc Grober

Recently, Robert Reich noted, “the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office concludes that Republican plans to partially repeal the Affordable Care Act will immediately cause 18 million Americans to lose their health insurance. A decade from now, 32 million fewer Americans will be insured.“ Reich went on to say that the report does not provide any specific numbers on the actual death toll created by that loss of coverage.But, there has been research over the past few decades on just that. Wilper et al. revisited research from 1993 and found that

Among all participants, 3.1% (95% confidence interval [CI]=2.5%, 3.7%) died. The hazard ratio for mortality among the uninsured compared with the insured, with adjustment for age and gender only, was 1.80 (95% CI=1.44, 2.26). After additional adjustment for race/ethnicity, income, education, self- and physician-rated health status, body mass index, leisure exercise, smoking, and regular alcohol use, the uninsured were more likely to die (hazard ratio=1.40; 95% CI=1.06, 1.84) than those with insurance.

That means that between the CBO conclusions and research conducted on the impact of being uninsured on mortality (which indicates that 1.4 times more people will die than the typical 3% in a population controlled for other matters), killing the Affordable Care Act is also going to kill at least 300,000 people, and that toll will likely rise to 600,000.

Where are those deaths going to fall? I am guessing they will fall most heavily on the poor, uneducated, and ill-prepared supporters of the GOP and Trump.

Want to talk about death panels? It is now very clear that the only death panels we have in the United States is the GOP majority in the US House of Representatives and US Senate. Fasten your seat belts; we are in for a very bumpy ride…

Notes

United States Congressional Budget Office. “How Repealing Portions of the Affordable Care Act Would Affect Health Insurance Coverage and Premiums.” Congressional Budget Office. Last modified January 17, 2017. Accessed January 19, 2017. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52371.

Wilper, Andrew P., Steffie Woolhandler, Karen E. Lasser, Danny McCormick, David H. Bor, and David U. Himmelstein. “Health Insurance and Mortality in US Adults.” American Journal of Public Health 99, no. 12 (December 2009): 2289–2295. Accessed January 18, 2017. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775760/.

Altai High

Nov14 by Marc Grober

Recently, having had my full of the chest beating about “Native Americans” I let fly:

Some Europeans arrived before some “Native Americans” both as a matter of migration and simple birth, while the concept that a group of murdering primitives migrating over a period of 20000 years as “original inhabitants” is less useful than noting that most Native Americans are more closely related to Altaisians than to each other.

This resulted in some minor outrage and some bright person shot back, “For me, [the] statement makes no difference because all migration started from Africa. [There] would be no Europeans without that migration.” And that was, in fact, largely my point.

We seem to be infected with some romantic notion of “First Peoples”. The fact is that Homo sapiens is a murderous little beastie who regularly acts out behavior his cousins (thre Great Apes) manage to suppress, probably because his innerchimp is at war with a yet to mature forebrain. As a result, the denizens of the Altai migrated, killing everything in their path, East and then South, eventually rising to the notion of empire (as Homo sapiens has a penchant to do) where he ritually murdered innocents by ripping their hearts out – charming folk – while on the vast expanses of other portions of the Americas he engaged in tribal atrocities with predatory bands wiping out agrarian settlements, much as he does everywhere.

The fact is that trying to argue an artifact (a “people”) from 20,000 years of migration East from the foothills of the Altai makes as little sense as suggesting that the “Palestinians” are a “people” (oooooo – did I hit another liberal reflex – see, Doumani, Beshara B. “Rediscovering Ottoman Palestine: Writing Palestinians into History.” Journal of Palestine Studies 21, no. 2 (January 1, 1992): 5–28. Accessed March 15, 2015. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2537216.)

To go a step further, my children, by way of example, must use a small “n” because they do evidence the Altaissian DNA, while others, some who have never set foot in Alaska, are Cap N Natives because they do have that DNA. This reminds me of the confusion suffered by “white people from Africa on naturalization in the US, having to be told that they can no longer be Afro-Americans…. In sum, while we scream to the heavens that we detest racism, we continue to invest in racist devices. Initially I thought that prescriptions such as those of Cornell West could be solutions, but whether for lack of trying, cultural hunger, or other reason, we are stuck, and I for one do not see things getting better.

Yes, my family left Belarus because of ethnic cleansing, and the half of the family that did not leave was wiped out 4 decades later because of their genes. While I don’t make anything of that, some muckraker might try to argue I have a chip on my shoulder; argue away. In part, the neoliberalism of the left was founded on the notion that, heartstrings aside, change would have to be based on hard economic changes. Unfortunately, the neolibs went in the wrong direction, simply asking different magnates to play nicer than the industrialists of the past. You know how that played out. But the impetus for that response is still there, and we continue to address it (at least some of us) through inane prestidigitation intended apparently more to make us feel good about ourselves, than resolve the underlying problems.

In a recent staff wide meeting for ASD teacher, teachers were advised that they need to be more Native in approaching Native students, one example being the use of shaming as a disciplinary tool… Yes, you heard me correctly. While the biggest problem facing Native Alaskans in education is a non-verbal culture in which critical language development is all but absent, teachers are being asked to shame students who don’t perform, because this is how elders do it in the village. Enough!

If you read this as a racist rant, that is your prerogative, but you have missed the point entirely. The message here, as Mr. Brown so elegantly puts it, is to get up offa that thing, but for those of you who can’t manage that….

Election Reflection

Nov11 by Marc Grober

The pain is not so much from the horrible mess that Trump could produce, but the recognition that so much of this country is so fearful, greedy, and hateful… But some observations and some reflection on the terrors that await are in order, so here are my thoughts, disordered by events as they may be.

You can blame the DNC all you want, but the fact is that even without the superdelegates, Bernie did not win the primary, and in states where they voted (as opposed to caucused) he rarely polled as well, so while we may have some problems with “elites”, we have bigger problems with couch potatoes.

While the number of votes cast for GOP Presidential candidates has remained relatively stable over the last 3 cycles, the number of people casting ballots for Dem candidates has plummeted. This suggests that Trump was not elected by the people voting for him so much as he was elected by the people who refused to vote.

HRC’s electoral “failure” was razor slim and she won the popular vote. This suggests that it is the “hopeandchangey” crowd whose nonfeasance resulted in a Trump election, and we have to ask, “What did this crowd actually want?” Would Bernie magic have brought those voters to the polls, and if so, why didn’t it bring them to the polls during the primaries.

While, as Frank argues, more could have been done by the Obama Administration, we have to face the fact that people do not come out and vote for redistribution… We are in the grip of a virulent strain of possessive narcissism where everyone seems to think they simply don’t have enough. Scaif and Kochs have been buying up our academic and political institutions for half a century now, and it shows.

While I can’t disagree that the DNC was Democrats’ worst enemy, with respect to Dem voters I think you need to recognize that Dem success has often been based on smoke and mirrors. There is no way Obama could have possibly done what the surge of hopeandchangey voters expected of him, and the rancor, fed by 8 years of Rovian vitriol, was a player in this election that no one wants to acknowledge. Frankly, I am tired to death of hearing people making $150,000 whining about how they are suffering, so my question remains the same…. What specific policies could a Democrat in good conscience represent were achievable such that s/he would garner 70,000,000 votes?

As much as I pushed for Bernie, his campaign did not garner the majority of Dems. I think this is in no small part because the Dems who do vote are largely DLC neo-libs, whether they want to admit it or not. Even if Obama had tried harder, the incremental policy results would not have satisfied the hopeandchange crowd. Obama had a 58% turnout in 2008. He garnered almost 70,000,000 votes and won by a 7% margin! Turnout dropped 3.5% in 2012 as did the margin. And this election I believe turnout dropped another 3.5% and that same bit of Dem margin slipped away. While the RSLC has been successful in gerrymandering most of the country (which is in itself evidence of Democrats asleep at the wheel) just look at the Congress! For crying out loud, look at Alaska’s federal Senators and Representative! Can you spell “obstruction?”

I have to argue that this election has shown we have issues with delayed gratification more than the narrative of Trumpers that the media has been blaring. In a polarized country nothing is going to happen overnight, and I see the rather inane behavior of Dem Berniecrats over Stock as symptomatic of the problems endemic to our political system… change requires political work, and I think it is difficult to get consensus about a progressive agenda, and difficult to keep people committed to working towards such an agenda. I am not trying to mimimize the horror that 60,000,000 proud morons presents – I am just trying to note that it is within the power of the electorate to put those people back in their box, and we apparently want them running amok for a bit.

I don’t follow the narrative being peddled about the Dems not connecting with the country. The rank and file are delusional. They have been fed a hateful gruel for almost a decade in preparation for this moment, and have been roused by someone I can only call Il Gialo, a jaundiced ape of Mussolini. This election was NOT about more Republicans coming out to vote for Il Gialo; it was about millions of Democrats who felt they would not be bothered to vote. This is not about Trumpers, it’s about shallow, useless, patina ‘liberals’ whose commitment to the republic is epidermal. It was about people who wanted to be molly-coddled and promised, and snuggled. And now they are going to howl for years because the big bad hairy Cheetoh got elected by the moronic brutes… It was the Dems who did not vote that elected Trump (Dems had half the showing they had 8 years ago) and while I am deeply offended by the crass ignorance and cruelty of the Trumpers, the narrative has been that Derms “know better”, and we expect those that know better to do better, it is “liberal” mantra, and Dems took a pass and the maroons screamed, “OLE!”

I think one of then points Frank makes is that while the sector driving politics may have changed, the fact that industry is driving politics has not changed in almost 100 years. What I think Kochs found most troubling about Trump is the caprice and the willingness to use the Administration to punish “enemies”. Our legal system has opposed the arbitrary and capricious as a central tenet, but now we have the legally unwashed, the folk who would as soon as follow the Dick the Butcher’s suggestion and hang all the lawyers, putting Il Gialo in charge. Caprice will reign, and all those chanting “federal over reach” will be sobbing in their nasty corporate ersatz beer.

And I don’t mean this as a part of some blame game, but as a tool for looking at candidates for 2020. The point is that a vibrant candidate who moves the left will win, despite all the nasty trash that the right can muster. I had hoped for a seasoned executive, such as Jerry Brown, but we have to look at a Senate leader like Elizabeth Warren, who has the chops, the gumption, and the cred. But, the double entendre of our times is still, to my mind, “What is left?” Sorry, but I don’t see progressivism as part and parcel of neonicotinoid hysteria, GMO mania, or circuses on the Cannonball… Bernie tried to define left, and there are many who will continue to argue that the wave of optimism he generated in so doing was (or would have been) the equivalent of the hopeandchange army. We will never know because the neolibs (no, I am not talking about DWS, but about the millions, so comfortable in their homes, that allowed the DLC to become the DNC) took the wind out of his sails. What we do know, is faced with horrific prospects, almost 8% of our registered voters decided it was better that they stay home then vote against Trump.

Yes, I suppose the shambles that are left may well produce another surge against the right in 2020. But such a surge will require both ideals AND discipline, and I honestly think we are hopelessly short there, though I will continue to paddle upstream…

Wikipedia has some nicely done data on voting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin

Paul Jenkins and the Brave New World

Oct16 by Marc Grober

Paul Jenkins has now come forth and apparently unfurled the fact that he suffers from BobLynnefaction, an edema of the forebrain that inhibits rational thought. In his most recent malefactory diatribe he argues against Ballot Measure 1 (though he is apparently so ill he could not manage to offer a name or a pointer to the text of the proposition ).

Horrors of horrors, he argues, voter registration is a ploy of the Godless Left to undermine the Republic! For shame, he cries, that Alaskans won;t get off their lazy asses and register themselves!

Of course, Jenkins, despite his illness (this brings to mind the millions of monkeys typing out Shakespeare eventually) is correct (at least in part, and frankly we can’t expect much more than that from poor Paul, I mean look who he is named after…. the nuttiest fruitcake in the last two millennia). No, not that Alaska should seek to intentionally disenfranchise ANY voter, but that Alaska voters SHOULD BE expected to rise to their civic obligations.

Jenkins demurs on the ideal of civic obligation, arguing, like all well-behaved anti-statists (whatever those are) against their beloved Saint Locke (only second to Saint Reagan) that no one should be obliged to perform any civic duty. In doing so he essentially eviscerates the entire classical liberal scheme underlying his pseudo-philosophy, but that is a painful topic for another day. What is pertinent today is that as Locke suggests, one’s decision to become a member of a polity must trigger a set of reciprocal obligations among those so electing. In other words, under classical liberalism, if you chose to me a member of the polity, who are expected to pull your weight as far as civil obligations, including military service, providing subsistence for the poor, etc.

Bob Lynn the unethical legislative ideologue who has repeatedly sponsored Alaska Voter ID bills (HB 57 being the most recent version), and after whom Jenkins’ malady is named, was so badly taken with the condition that he suffered some blindness and paralysis. Your charming correspondent pointed out to Rep. Lynn that he has a really really good idea that should in fact be taken up by the federal government (more on that below), because, after all, we don;t want any second class citizens in Alaska and we DO want all Alaskans to be able to easily obtain a picture ID. The onty thing missing in Bob’s plan was the establishment in every village in Alaska a full time DMV office fully capable of issuing picture IDs. This was important because the likes of Rep. Lynn, in their wisdom, had to date made it lawful to drive without a license in rural Alaska because they were too cheap to provide access to essential State services.

Aha! But no more. Now, with one brilliant stroke Alaska could not only make sure there was a continuing dearth of Alaska voter fraud (yes, of course Jenkins supports Alaska VoterID proposals though there is no evidence of voter fraud in Alaska) but could do away with the second class citizen status to which those in the bush have been relegated. And we could actually get a handle of how many people we had in the state. WOW! Of course Lynn, asked if he had just overlooked this, did not respond. After a number of attempts to elicit a reply he was asked if he had intentionally meant to deny rural people access to essential State services, and at that point he “unfriended” me. Imagine that, to get unfriended on FACEBOOK by a legislator because you are trying to clearly understand just what the fellow is trying to accomplish with his proposed legislation?!

Of course, there is more to this conversation, such as the fact that Lynn et al ganged up to pass a legislative prohibition on the State of Alaska spending any money whatsoever on ensuring that a new Alaska ID would comply with the Federal REAL ID standards (which would allow Alaskans to use their State ID to get on military bases (a significant activity in Anchorage for example, as JBER – Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson – covers much of what is Anchorage) and get into airline terminals! Governor Walker (the Unity Governor) seeks to resolve this impasse by passing a bill that allows the State to issue TWO different photo IDs, which would in fact cost more than just doing RealID compliance, but here is the kicker: the AKGOP argues that RealID compliance would infringe on the individuals right not to be identified because the RealID Act requires that the ID data be built such as it could be accessed to enable law enforcement usage. Yes folk, the law and order, anti-terrorist, PictureID crowd wants to ensure that we have people in this State who are unidentified. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, eh?

What ties this all up for me is that ancillary observation that all these VoterID supporters also tend to be persons who want to be able to read and interpret the U. S. Constitution as a seven year old. Well, OK!

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the state of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three. Article I, Section 2, U.S. Constitution.

We can, therefore, resolve ALL our census issues by enabling a State by State program that requires all individuals in that State to be counted by way of identification. State ID cum VoterID cum federal entrance document cum key to social security number look-up, etc. etc. It would be like being able to get a driver’s endorsement on a passport that would be more convenient to carry, while ensuring that the census was accurate, that we knew where all aliens were living, and our gerrymandering at least accurate. Let’s all say it together, boys and girls, “LIONS, AND TIGERS, AND BEEAAARRRRRSSSSS!!!!”

Taking Stock

Sep27 by Marc Grober

In an attempt to look closely at the support for Margaret Stock by millennial self-identified “Berniecrats”, when one published a meme touting Ms. Stock in the Alaskans for Bernie Sanders stock Facebook group I invited him to specifically identify any progressive legislation now pending in the US Senate that Ms. Stock would be willing to commit to co-sponsor. I suppose this could be considered “trolling” because it was at the time very clear to me that Stock was and continues to be very much a true Alaskan Republican, in no small part because her major endorsement thus far (other than dog musher Jeff King) was from the The Centrist Project. After lots of your typical deflection, the poster suggested that I address my concerns to the candidate, so I did. I e-mailed Ms. Stock’s campaign:

The question has arisen, in as much as Ms. Stock has indicated that she is receiving support from the Centrist PAC (which some read as Rockefeller Republican) and has stated that she wants to work with other Senators to get things done, whether she would co-sponsor any of the following progressive bills now pending in the Senate: S2391, S2237, S2142, S2054, S2023, S1832, S1713, S1631, S3118, S3078, S3025, S2789, S2761, S2744, S2647, S2624, S2578, S2436, S1709 , S1381, S793.

And almost immediately I received an answer directly from Ms. Stock:

Thank you for reaching out to ask about my positions on the 22 Senate bills that you listed in your email. As you can imagine, I don’t have the bill numbers memorized, but first chance I get, I will check the names of the bills and let you know my positions on them. Do you want to set up a time to talk by telephone so we can chat about your views on these bills?

Also, just FYI, the Centrist Project is not a PAC and they do not provide money to political candidates. Instead, they are a national project that endorses candidates, and they send emails to their supporters and ask the supporters to send individual donations to the candidates. But again, the Centrist Project is not a PAC.

Let me know if you’d like to set up a time to talk by telephone.

And I quickly responded:

Dear Margaret,

FYI, I never said that the Centrist Project was a PAC, and there is a Centrist Project PAC, the Centrist Voice, a separate segregated fund of the Centrist Project (https://centristproject.nationbuilder.com/centrist_voice). I am surprised that you are not aware of it, especially as the CPV donated to campaigns in 2014, and has done so again in 2016 according to the CRP.

My views on progressive legislation are not, of course, an issue in the campaign. But as you have been touted by many Democrats as a progressive candidate, I wanted to know if you were a centrist, or a progressive, and I thought if you were to confirm your willingness, if elected, to co-sponsor the legislation mentioned, that would go quite a ways to resolving that question. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter, Marc [list at left, attached]

Margaret has now been caught out, as it were. The website she references for her campaign is a joint project of The Centrist Project and The Centrist Project Voice, and the website continues to solicit money, and all the money continues to go into its PAC and the PAC continues to file FEC forms and spend money (see this OpenSecrets link). But Margaret (much like any Republican), just doubles down:

Centrist Project Voice isn’t an active PAC. It looks like they gave $75.00 to candidates in 2016. I have not received any funds from them.

Yes, the position of the person who proposes to be our new US Senator is that because the last quarterly filing shows only $75 in candidate support the PAC is not “active”, nor is she receiving any funds. Well, one has to wonder, then, why she sought their endorsement, especially in as much as the 2014 candidates that The Centrist Project endorsed received thousands of dollars!

While I let all that stew for a bit, I plumbed the Centrist Project website and made a donation. I was thanked for my donation via an e-mail with an address of asmith@centristproject.org (Andy Smith, past Outreach Manager for The Centrist Project) but the e-mail said it actually came from Dane Sharrets, whose LinkedIn profile indicates that he is the current Outreach Manager at the project and the one responsible for the current web site. Of course, that may be problematic for Mr. Sharrets, as e-mails to both asmith@centristproject.org (the e-mail employed by Mr. Sharrets) and my attempt at what might be Mr. Sharrets’ address, dsharrets@centristproject.org, bounced. I followed up with a telephone call that went to voice mail and I left a message.

And no, I have not had anything further either from Ms. Stock’s campaign, nor from the Centrist Project. I will update this if I hear from either.

Now, am I suggesting that you not vote for Margaret Stock? Nope. Am I suggesting that you vote for someone else? No there as well. Am I suggesting that any of the points raised above are earthshaking? screen-shot-2016-09-27-at-10-30-52-am Sorry to disappoint. Margaret Stock was, is, and will continue to be a Republican: she contributed to the McCain 2008 campaign, as well as to the campaign of a “true Alaska conservative” (Treadwell 2014), and her positioning today makes it clear that she is looking for a way to avoid the ideological litmus tests inherent in today’s GOP primaries. It’s great that people want to “take back” the GOP, it’s just unfortunate that as contrasted to Senator Sander’s efforts, they are trying to do that from outside the party.
The bit that is problematic is the confusion by self identified “Berniecrats” that use of the word “independent” somehow equates with some sense of one’s political views being progressive. Let’s put it this way, if you can argue that John McCain and Mead Treadwell are progressive goto guys for our country, then we apparently have no common understanding of what the term “progressive means. Don’t get me wrong, I have often opined how politics is rendering so much of our language virtually meaningless, but this would be rather an extreme example. So extreme, that when I read the penultimate graph in Cal Thomas’ latest piece,

Only one candidate for president is capable of overturning the “money changers” in Washington. The political, governmental and media elites have had their chance to turn things around and they have failed. Now it’s time for…

I felt that Thomas (about as far right as one can get and still appear in a major newspaper) was, in borrowing Senator Sander’s script, pulling the same thing.

You can take Stock. You can have Trump as well. Are they two peas in a pod? ‘Won’t say; wouldn’t be prudent…’ But they both look to take advantage of fear and anger, don’t they?

DAPLgangers

Sep14 by Marc Grober

No, I am not going to talk about the brutish BigOil oligarchs today. Today I want to talk about the other bullies, the protesters. Now, don’t get me wrong; I would rather not have streets covered in Petrochemical detritus, a State beholden to BigOil, or pipelines threatening the health and safety of one and all. But I don’t rule the world. Neither does my pet delusion, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, nor his prophet, The Great Noodle (pbuh), make or enforce the rules in the United States. That means, believe it or not, that based on our demographic, we are ruled by the stupid. Huzzah!

Of course, there all types and varieties of stupid. You have your garden variety ignorant, and then you have your rampant dumb and proud, and all manner of clueless, right and left, betwixt and between. A regular megaplex of morons. But that is, as it were, the nature of the beast, and surely Hobbes saw as clearly as anyone what Homo sapiens’ natural state portends. On occasion the Historian observes that the stupid rise, bellow like unmilked cows, and then usually return to shitting on each other. My argument today, is that the Great Chest Beating of 2016 is one such event, as I shall try to demonstrate below.

What we saw is that a company interested in moving sweet crude across country (you know, the stuff you have to have in order to drive that Dodge Tough Truck around the block) spent millions of dollars (almost $4B to build it) on a permitting process that involved each State that the proposed pipeline was to pass through, and several agencies of the federal government. In North Dakota, the permit process was completed almost nine months ago, and the Army Corps of Engineers agreed to issue permits for the pipeline to pass underneath the Missouri River near Cannonball North Dakota in August 2016, over a month ago.

The path of the pipeline on its approach to the Missouri “crossing” was on private land through licensing by the private land owners in question. This land had never been owned by any local tribe. The land had never been the subject in fact of any inquiry by any tribe, nor the subject of any filings before the ND Public Service Commission by any tribe.

The surface water in and around the Missouri is unfit for consumption because of its coliform load. All other water in the region is subject to appropriation (i. e. is “property” in a sense) as is the case on the local Reservation (which has never had its water regulations approved, but they have been recognized as being in effect in no small part because they are consistent with water regulation and control throughout the Southwest).

In late August, members of the Standing Rock Reservation began trespassing on private property for the purpose of (illegally) obstructing the construction of the pipeline. This eventually became a media circus with hundreds of screaming individuals crossing fences and interfering with heavy machinery. The pipeline company’s security personnel became embroiled in altercations with the protesters, of course, and a lawsuit was filed seeking injunctive relief.

In the aftermath of this media drama, there has been a great deal of chest beating about how the Indian Nation stood up to protect Earth and their sacred sites. Unfortunately the facts, as is so often the case, tell a bit of a different story.

The records of James MacKay indicate that in the late 1700s the land in question was still occupied by Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara. The Dakota were woodland people of the Great Lakes who left the Great Lakes because of pressure from the Ojibwa and Cree, who had been armed by the French. So, the Dakota arrived along the Missouri in what is now North Dakota after the white devil was already there, and went about “displacing” the existing Native occupants (as in, killing them off). This was hurried along by the 1837 Small Pox epidemic. The US tried to promote inter-tribal peace in the region through the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 , but the process was problematic and the results spotty and unsuccessful (the Lakota, for instance, were reported to have violated the treaty no sooner had it been agreed upon).

The Native Interlopers, as it were, the Lakota, eventually also entered in to a treaty, the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. This treaty did not cover any lands in North Dakota. In fact, the portion of the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota (across which the pipeline does not run) was added by executive order in 1875 after the treaty in order to further protect the residents of the reservation by making the agency more functional (there was a deep water landing at the mouth of the Cannonball).

There have been numerous surveys of the area, and in a 58 page decision (link below) the US District Court made it clear that the Army Corps had done everything it was required to do. The federal Administration, however, while deferring to the Court’s opinion, decided to temporarily hold off on the permits issued pending further study.

The result is that people with no property interest in the subject land, who don’t consume surface water, who had never, during the State pipeline process, ever filed any documents evidencing any concern until after the final permit was issued, who were afforded every legal protection during the Corps permitting process,who arguably were themselves murdering interlopers who first appeared in the area of Cannonball circa 1875 and whose presence outside the reservation at the time would have been “problematic”, suddenly see the area North of the reservation as sacred though no evidence of use has been found by anyone but the tribal archeologist in the last couple of weeks, and then trespass en masse in order to secure the “purity” of water too foul to drink and the sanctity of sites that arguably don’t exist. Yup, I want to jump on that bandwagon right now! The fact that these people have decided to heat their homes by burning wood, instead of using propane, well that’s just icing on the cake.

Yes, that was all a bit harsh. But I wanted to demonstrate how darkly this could be seen, and that an accurate appreciation for what is going on is likely somewhere short of the rhetoric issued by the Council’s counsel.

Order denying Standing Rock Council the relief requested

Joint Statement from the Department of Justice, the Department of the Army and the Department of the Interior Regarding Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851

Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868

Almost Blind Justice

Sep13 by Marc Grober

One of the interesting divides across the Canadian-US border is the concept prevalent south of the border that laws making certain behavior criminal a) are only for criminals, and since the putative offender is certainly NOT a criminal, the law could not possibly apply, and b) are in any event merely advisory. blind-justice-peeking

So, in the US we have people bringing their infants along to break the law, and then getting all teary eyed because the crime scene doesn’t have daycare. After all, there is no crime if I am righteous, is there, and I am the ultimate arbiter of whether I am being righteous! Huzzah!

Usually we have cause to evoke the image of blind justice because it reminds us that justice should be equal, but in this case we are specifically seeking “unequal” justice”. We still want the person who is trespassing on our property to be prosecuted, but we don;t want to be prosecuted if we are trespassing on someone else’s property because we feel that our neighbor is doing something that is legal, but, well, unpalatable to us.

And yes, this issue with our vision seems to effect us no matter our political persuasions. I think it even more infuriating when seen on the left; don’t we assume that those on the left are more intelligent and self-aware? Of course, some argue that this is only a matter of the increase in self-involvement in that we are so consumed with looking for ourselves, we fail to see almost anything clearly. Is it Narcissus who holds up the scales now instead of Themis?

The popular media of late seems consumed with stories of swollen (or shrunken) body parts, but I don’t see that as being in the least helpful. We seemed to have celebrated the death of the great chest beater, the gorilla (who was not doing any chest beating and presented no real threat), while we look the other way when we are confronted with the banal braggadocio of our own species. And while we may all equate that last bit with Trumpism, is that really so far a throw from invading someone else’s land to unlawfully block their legal behavior and then congratulating ourselves on our coup?

We talk a good deal about walking in another’s shoes, but do not seem to have the same appreciation for seeing with another’s eyes. Must be a foot fetish….

Pardon me, but….

A serious place for some serious discussion

Author Archives: Marc Grober

The Stain of God’s Anointing

Taking Stock