Newstradamus

Patrick Chapatte/Le Temps, Switzerland

Last week, the Times-Standard caught some flak about an Associated Press story that a pre-war trip to Iraq in 2002 by Mike Thompson and two other Democratic congressmen was secretly financed by Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency.

While the other daily in town had a banner headline about the story, the Times-Standard had nothing at all. This led to charges that we deliberately left the story out because we’re liberal, and thus were protecting the North Coast congressman from criticism.

It’s always easier to believe a conspiracy theory, but the truth is that it was a case of safety-net failure. The story was discussed in our daily news meeting. Some editors came away with the belief that the news desk would grab the AP story; others thought a local story would be written. The result: The ball was dropped.

Early the next morning, we did post the story online, and followed up in the print edition the next day with a fresh story, with Thompson’s comments. The story ran inside the paper because the story didn’t rise to the significance of being on page one, let alone a banner headline, for a number of reasons.

First of all, the trip was six years ago — six months before the invasion of Iraq. Second, despite Bush administration opposition to congressmen sticking their nose in Iraq when the White House was drumming up war, the trip got full approval from the State Department.

It’s no surprise that the congressmen didn’t know the public relations coordinator for the trip’s sponsor, a Michigan charity called Life for Relief and Development, was being paid off by Iraqi intelligence. It’s more shocking that a year after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, how is it that the U.S. had not identified an Arabic spy funneling money into trips for federal lawmakers? In fact, the ruse was only revealed last week — six years later — when charges were filed against Muthanna Al-Hanooti.

After returning from his trip, Thompson — a wounded Vietnam veteran and member of the House Armed Services Committee — explained in a My Word column in this newspaper:

“I wanted to see the country firsthand before deciding whether to commit our troops. Being there gave me a perspective far greater than any report I have read or committee hearing I have attended.”

He described the repression and despair he found. He said Hussein shouldered responsibility, but said “it would take more than military might” to win the war against terrorism.

“Providing any president with a blank check for a unilateral attack without exhausting all diplomatic efforts and gaining allied support would be a great disservice to our 200 years of constitutional democracy. It would also squander an unprecedented international opportunity to defeat terrorism where it breeds.”

Prophetic words in 2008, as we have just passed five years of war and marked the 4,000th American military death, with Osama bin Laden still out there plotting terror. One can only wish more people had listened to Thompson.

Instead, he came back to be blasted by North Coast political foes for wasting his time “showboating” in Iraq and being a “stooge” for Hussein. Time, I think, has shown who the real stooges are.

Although critics said the trip distracted the congressman from the massive fish kill on the Klamath River that took place while he was in the Mideast, on his return Thompson quickly delivered dozens of dead salmon to the doorstep of the Interior Department, and introduced legislation on Klamath Basin water issues — an effort that is bearing fruit today.

It is true that, editorially, the Times-Standard has been supportive of Mike Thompson over the years. His Iraq trip and his Klamath role are two examples why.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 07:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

R. J. Matson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch

This Jeremiah Wright kerfuffle won't go away, at least from the tabloid television news, which loves the "let's you and him fight" style of election coverage. The discovery of some other juicy tidbits that Barack Obama's former pastor may have said or done almost pushed off the air the important speeches by all three presidential candidates about the economy.

Bill Clinton says that "if candidates don't want to get beat up, then don't run for office. ... Let's saddle up and have an argument."

OK, we'll let go for the moment that the Clintons are among the biggest protesters when something is said about them that they don't like. (Witness the wailing that resulted when their daughter Chelsea — an adult who has willingly "saddled up" for the campaign trail — was asked a legitimate question about the Monica Lewinsky incident.)

So if Hillary Clinton is OK with ignoring Obama's passionate rejection of Wright's more extremist views, saying SHE would have left his church, and that Obama is not a Muslim "as far as I know," then she has no problem with being called a liar for misremembering the conditions of her mission to Bosnia as First Lady, or being accused of trying to "kneecap" Obama, Tonya Harding style, to make him unelectable in her bid for superdelegates.

And by that standard, it's business as usual if John McCain is said to have a "senior moment" over al-Qaida and Iran, or is so old he needs Depends.

Well, it's not OK with me. I'm willing to accept Obama's statements about what he believes about America, Clinton's explanation that she misremembered about her Tusla reception, and the McCain campaign's description of his flubs about the difference between Sunnis and Shiites as misspeaking.

I'm even willing to give Reverend Wright a little benefit of the doubt and look a little deeper. When Hillary opined about Wright, she said she based her view — as most people did — on what she "heard and saw" about the man, presumably those small YouTube clips that cycled over and over.

I took a look at the transcript of the sermon from which the most controversial clip was taken — given after 9/11. The part of the sermon in the popular video was a reference to an appearance on Fox News by Edward Peck, a former state department official and terrorism expert in the Nixon and Reagan administrations. Wright said:

"This is a white man, and he was upsetting the Fox News commentators to no end. He pointed out ... that ... America's chickens are coming home to roost. We took this country, by terror, away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Iroquois, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism — we took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism. We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians — babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with Stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We bombed Khadafi, his home and killed his child. ...

"We bombed Iraq, we killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed the plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy — killed hundreds of hard working people — mothers and fathers, who left home to go that day, not knowing they'd never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school — civilians, not soldiers. People just trying to make it day by day. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and South Africa and now we are indignant? Because the stuff we have done overseas is brought back into our own front yard. America's chickens are coming home, to roost. Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred, and terrorism begets terrorism.

"A white ambassador said that, y'all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism — an ambassador whose eyes are wide open, and who's trying to get us to wake up, and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said that the people we have wounded don't have the military capability we have, but they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them, and we need to come to grips with that."

Wright was making a point by quoting a white diplomat. He was expressing his opinion. I recognize that many Caucasians, accustomed to the comparatively staid nature of mainstream white churches, may have problems with a man wearing a dashiki, speaking with a booming voice and gesticulating wildly. In a video, such a man could appear threatening.

But in reading that quote, it's a valid argument, whether you agree or not. Yes, it threatens our view that the United States is always in the right, and that "collateral damage" is sometimes necessary to spread good in the world. (President Bush basically said that the other day on the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.) But it's a view that is increasingly untenable, and in our hearts we know it.

You may read the full text of the sermon and still come away thinking Wright is evil, but you owe it to yourself to get more than a video bite. And to show that there is more to Pastor Wright that meets the eye, you might want to read the text of "Audacity of Hope," the 1990 sermon showing the side of Wright that inspired Barack Obama's book of the same title.

In a defense of Wright in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Martin Marty — a (white) professor emeritus at the University of Chicago School of Divinity who attends Trinity United Church of Christ— also takes a wider view:

"In the early 1960s, at a time when many young people were being radicalized by the Vietnam War, Wright left college and volunteered to join the United States Marine Corps. After three years as a Marine, he chose to serve three more as a naval medical technician, during which time he received several White House commendations."

That doesn't sound like somebody who hates America.

Marty acknowledges and, like Obama, criticizes some of Wright's more fantastic beliefs, such as the government having a role in spreading AIDS (just as white evangelists like Pat Robertson believe AIDS is God's punishment for gays). "Having said that, and reserving the right to offer more criticisms, I've been too impressed by the way Wright preaches the Christian Gospel to break with him. Those who were part of his ministry for years — school superintendents, nurses, legislators, teachers, laborers, the unemployed, the previously shunned and shamed, the anxious — are not going to turn their backs on their pastor and prophet."

I am not a drum-beater for religion in politics. It seems nobody can run for election any more without proclaiming their born-again (and mostly Christian) bona fides. This whole Wright episode is an example of the harm that can cause.

In the nastiness that historically has marked American politics, it would be too much to expect any candidate to adopt the Golden Rule. Nonetheless, by the time this election is finished we'll probably end up despising them all.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 06:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (242)

The Eureka Rotary Club meeting at the Wharfinger Building on Monday was jumping as the Zane Middle School jazz band blew the roof off the place in a tune-up for the Redwood Coast Jazz Festival this week.

It was great to see these youngsters — some hardly bigger than their instruments — producing such powerful music. My favorite was Santana’s driving version of Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va,” where the band sings along in Spanish, “Oye como va, mi ritmo, bueno pa’ gozar” (“Listen how it goes, my rhythm — good for partying...”).

And party they will, I’m sure, on stage at the festival, which is among Humboldt County’s top fun events.

Watching the kids from Zane took me back to when I was that age. My junior high in Des Moines was in the same building as the high school, so those of us who were musical (I was a percussionist) had the advantage of being a part of the high school’s concert and marching bands.

However, there was no jazz program at the school for those who wanted something hipper than Sousa. So one of the guys, a budding entrepreneur, created a swing band and named it for himself: Russ Allen and the Downbeats.

Till we split up after graduation, the Downbeats were pretty much booked every weekend all over central Iowa, at everything from teen sock hops to Eagles lodges. I was the backup drummer (Parker Davis, the first-stringer, was much better — like the drummer for the Zane band). If Parker couldn’t make a gig, I got called.

The high point for the Downbeats was a tour of Europe an organization called Youth for Understanding. Parker got to go, along with my best friend, Bob McCloskey, who played alto sax.

The band cut an LP (that’s a long-playing 33 1/3 vinyl record, for you young whipper-snappers). I still have it, and play it now and then when I’m in a melancholy mood. (Bob, who died way too young from cancer, has a great solo on it.)

The point of this column, however, is not nostalgia, but the jazz festival and bands like the kids from Zane.

As we were reminded at Rotary, the festival’s mission is to raise money for worthy causes, and since 1996 one of those causes is to promote and support youth musical education. But as everyone knows who has been following the state’s budget crisis, many programs at our schools may be on the chopping block — especially arts programs.

So Zane’s band and other area school jazz ensembles (Eureka high and Winship will appear this weekend) may not be around for next year’s festival. If they are, it may only be because of jazz fans (and kid fans) who kick in to keep the fun alive.

All of this is a roundabout way to encourage you to take in all or part of the Redwood Coast Jazz Festival. It starts Thursday with the Taste of Main Street food fest in Old Town and a Big Band Dance at the Adorni Center. Then on Friday through Sunday, there will be music all over town.

The festival’s Web site lists the groups of every jazz taste who are appearing, along with schedules, venues and where to get tickets — for one day or all three. Also, check out this Thursday’s Northern Lights entertainment section in the Times-Standard.

And remember, if we help make the festival a success, the festival keeps the joy of music in these kids’ lives.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mike Keefe/The Denver Post

Arthur C. Clarke died last week at 90. Science fiction fans will recognize him as a giant of that genre, of course. I have been an avid reader of his work ever since I was a youngster, but I gained even more respect for him as a futurist.

Some people know I have political science MA in Alternative Futures from the University of Hawaii, and I've taken some ribbing about that: "How can anything of academic seriousness come out of laid-back Hawaii, especially something as goofy-sounding as 'futurism'?"

Methodological studies of the future are much more than taking wild guesses about what will happen, but are built on analyses of the possible consequences of today's actions (which I consider a worthy role for the news media).

But most people, if they consider the future at all, think of it as being more like today, only faster, shinier or smaller, like flying cars or cell phones the size of sticks of gum. Many of us live our lives looking in the rear-view mirror, and our prevailing thought about the future is "Que sera sera — what will be, will be ... Nobody can change the future."

Futurists take a different view. They believe not only can they make an effort to understand possible alternative tomorrows, but can use that understanding to effect the positive future they desire.

Although his medium was fiction — as in the classic film in collaboration with Stanley Kubrick, "2001: A Space Odyssey" — Clarke was firmly grounded in the world of the possible. That movie was sheer fantasy then, but 40 years later the orbiting space station is so routine that hardly anyone pays attention to what is going on up there anymore.

In 1945, while with the Royal Air Force, Clarke wrote a technical paper, published in the British journal Wireless World, that explained the feasibility of using stationary satellites around the globe as relay stations for earth-based communications. This was 10 years before the first orbital rocket flight, yet today such satellites are the the key pipeline for the digital revolution.

I got into futures studies in mid-life as I tried to understand the implications and consequences to the news industry as a result of this revolution. At Hawaii, I met many others who were on the same quest regarding their own fields, from the sciences to the arts to economics.

It requires some mental refocusing to get away from the rigid world-views we box ourselves into over a lifetime. To do this, I found Clark's Three Laws to be useful:

1. "When a distinguished but elderly scientist [or editor] states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

2. "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

3. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

My mentor at Hawaii, Dr. Jim Dator, has his own take on this mind shift: "Any useful observation about the future will appear on its face to be ridiculous."

Clarke was said to be working on a novel when he died, "The Last Theorem." I hope he finished it, because I'd love to read one more book by Arthur C. Clarke.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 05:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Larry Wright/The Detroit News

For me, like many political junkies, this started out like a dream year: Wide-open presidential races in both parties, with different types of candidates for every political bent.

It got even more lively when the front-runners, Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton, began to develop cracks in their pedestals. It was like the great line from Bette Davis’ character, Margo, in “All About Eve”: “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

Two and a half months into the primary season, however, and the campaign has many of us reaching for our air-sickness bags. The bumps are turning into screaming death spirals, with charges and counter-charges about race, religion, money and fear squeezing out crucial issues such as war, economy, health care and immigration.

And it’s not just the Democrats who seem to be trying to self-destruct. While halftime in the attempted neo-con evisceration of John McCain, no doubt the second half will begin before long.

Is it just me, or is all this election’s positive appeal being swiftly replaced by a sense of impending dread, no matter what one’s political hopes are? It wasn’t that many weeks ago that I looked forward to a long and stimulating campaign. Now I just want it to be over.

What better time to start thinking about our local elections, which promise to be every bit as lively as the national contests without (we hope) the ugliness.

In 2006, the biggest local issue was the Balloon Tract, which came into play in both the races for Eureka City Council and Humboldt County Board of Supervisors. This year, a main driver of the supervisor contests will be the General Plan update, which seems to be coming to a head after many years in the waiting.

The Times-Standard launched its in-depth county election coverage last week with overviews of those who filed for the three supervisor seats up for grabs this year.

Dairy farmer John Vevoda is challenging incumbent Jimmy Smith, a former commercial fisherman, in the First District.

The three-way Second District contest in Southern Humboldt pits incumbent Roger Rodoni against former radio news director Estelle Fennell and Clif Clendenen of Clendenen’s Cider Works.

Registration for the Third District seat was extended after incumbent John Woolley decided not to run for re-election. So vying in another three-way race are financial adviser Bryan Plumley, Arcata City Councilman Paul Pitino and environmental activist Mark Lovelace.

In the June 3 primary, a candidate can win outright if he or she gets more than 50 percent of the vote. Otherwise, the top two vote-getters will be in a runoff on Nov. 4.

Between now and then, the Times-Standard will be examining the issues and candidates from many different directions to help voters make their decisions. And we’ll be asking our readers to help us.
In the meantime, I hope with a little fresh air the current queasiness about the national race will pass.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 06:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Angel Boligan/El Universal

The Sacramento Bee stirred up quite a reaction last week after it posted an online database that makes it easy to look up the salary of any state employee.

The first reaction: Angry state workers charged that the release of the information (which is public record and available to any citizen upon request) is an invasion of privacy. Editor Melanie Sill, in her column, explained her newspaper's rationale.

The second reaction: Millions of taxpayers found the data VERY interesting — setting a Bee record for page views in just a couple of days, and paralyzing the newspaper's online comment feature for a while.

Was the Bee right to right to make the salaries available? It was part of a larger story about the escalation of state pay raises and the growing gap between those who make the most money and those making the least.

This most recently flared into the news when the huge raises being given to top administrators of the California State University system were revealed at a time when budgets and programs are being slashed at schools such as Humboldt State.

A column Sunday by the Bee's public editor, Armando Acuna, noted that the reaction was no doubt accelerated by the fact the 16 percent of the capital city's workforce are state employees. Which makes it all the more important of a story for the Bee to cover.

Acuna disagreed with demands from workers, spurred by state unions, that the site be taken down. He also disagreed with the argument that the newspaper should not have made the data so available — that those who want to know should “do the homework” and find their way through the bureaucracy.

Acuna rightly noted that it's a newspaper's job to gather and disseminate information, not make it hard to find. In fact, he said, other online search tools can turn up much more information about most anyone than the Bee's salary database.

At the core of the controversy, said Acuna, is this: “If you work for the government, you are a public employee, with all that entails. You are paid by taxpayers, who are entitled to know how much you are paid, not in some abstract way but in real dollars and cents. That's the deal. You know that going in. There's no bait-and-switch here.”

Each community sees such coverage through a unique lens. I am curious what the reaction would be in Humboldt County if the Times-Standard were to link to a county salary database, teacher pay, or other lists such as permits to carry concealed weapons? Share your thoughts with me, if you like.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 05:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Young Barack Obama and his mother, Ann, in Hawaii.

Another observation from my recent visit back to Hawaii has to do with the convergence of politics, race and social strata on the islands.

When I was visiting, there was fallout from comments made before the Hawaii caucuses by long-time U.S. Senator Dan Inouye (a Hillary Clinton supporter) about Barack Obama. The son of an African father and a caucasian mother, Obama graduated from Punahou School, a prestigious (and expensive) private high school.

Inouye said in an interview with the Honolulu Advertiser: "If you ask the people in Hawai'i what they know about Barack Obama, I think the honest answer is, 'Very little.' He went to school in Hawaii but he went to Punahou, and that was not a school for the impoverished. I don't hold it against anyone who is a Punahou grad. It's a fine school. I would say one of the finest in the United States. But to suggest that Punahou maybe set his life plan in place, I find it very interesting."

Obama replied: "Shame on Danny for trying to pull that stunt. I went to Punahou on a scholarship. I was raised by a single mom and my grandmother."

Last week, the political fallout was such that Inouye sent a letter of apology to Punahou, and planned to meet with the school's president.

The incident highlighted the various economic and social divides in a state that has the image of being a friendly melting pot of many types of people. It's a divide that goes back all the way to the arrival of the white man in the in the early 1800s — the businessmen who overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy, and the missionaries who overthrew the ancient Hawaiian religious beliefs.

Punahou was founded by missionaries in 1841 for their children, and although it soon was opened to all races and religious, it has remained a symbol of the power elite in Hawaii. It is the most prestigious of a parallel set of private schools that were created because — much like in the Deep South — public schools were perceived as offering an inferior education. Obama's mother was probably like many parents I know in Hawaii who sacrifice financially, working two jobs, to pay private school tuition.

This has created very clear class distinctions. One of the first things that "locals" (i.e. people who grew up on the islands) want to know is "Where you go school?." Inouye attended McKinley High School — not far from Punahou, and considered one of the "rougher" public schools.

And although most locals won't talk about it, one of the reasons white parents want to send their kids to a private school is that life in some public schools can be tough for a "haole" (originally the Hawaiian word for "foreigner" which has come to mean "white"). I was told that each year there is a designated "Kill a Haole Day" when white students would get roughed up if they didn't stay home or band together to watch each others' back.

Live long enough in Hawaii, and one can see how various racial groups have settled into the social strata, Whites, about 25% of the population, started out controlling the Big Five companies that ran Hawaii (such as the sugar industry) and they still are seen as having much of the economic power. As the waves of immigrants brought to work in the sugar and pineapple fields were assimilated into society, the Chinese became strong in small business, and Japanese took over labor unions and — after World War II — the Democratic machine, which is dominant. (Inouye was a war hero who lost an arm fighting in Italy with the legendary 442nd Infantry Regiment, made up of Japanese-American GIs.)

A high percentage of those in law enforcement and entertainment are of Hawaiian ancestry, and Filipinos are a force in the hospitality business.

And African Americans? They are a tiny minority in Hawaii, about 2%, mostly military. My sense from having lived there is that this group is the most discriminated against. Which makes the issue of a potential future president who had a black parent being from Hawaii a particularly sensitive one — even in a state where racial mixing is common.

All of that popped briefly out of Pandora's Box in the Inouye incident, and had to be quickly stuffed back inside. (Incidentally, Obama came out on top in the Hawaii caucuses.)

Another quick point: Right-wing radio host Michael Medved went off the other day about how appalling it was that Obama's father, the son of a Kenyan goat-herder who became a Harvard-educated economist, attended graduate school with U.S. funding at the East-West Center in Honolulu (where he and Barack's mother met), but then went back to Kenya.

What Medved doesn't understand is that the point of the East-West Center (funded by Congress with Inouye's clout) is to educate bright people from around the world and then have them return to their native countries. (Or have Americans take their skills abroad, as Obama's mother did. She met her second husband in Indonesia.)

Posted by Rich Somerville at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (815)

The H1 freeway/Honolulu Advertiser

A week of rest and relaxation can do wonders for one's outlook on life, even if you don't go anywhere. As it happens, however, I spent part of last week in Hawaii, where I used to live and work. It was my first return to the islands in about five years, and I found some differences — but new things, too.

Transportation, for instance. Those who view Honolulu through tourist eyes don't realize how much a traffic nightmare the city is. More than 75 percent of Hawaii's 1.2 million people live on Oahu, Honolulu's island, and the vast majority of them live or work within the narrow corridor between the mountains and ocean on the island's leeward side.

This means that the one freeway (H1) and the few other parallel streets that pass through this corridor are jammed much of the day. I used to live in Makaha on the west end of Oahu, and thank goodness I worked off-hours, when the commute downtown was 45 minutes. If I had to drive from 6-9 a.m. or 4-7 p.m., the trip could be three times as long.

The idea of rapid mass transit along this corridor has seemed like a no-brainer for years, but politics and the oil lobby have kept it at bay for decades as the projected cost has risen. I found on my trip, however, that a $3.5 billion project is now in the planning stage.

Of course, being a typical dysfunctional government, the city has little innovative thinking going on. Instead of a monorail, magnetic levitation, or rubber tires on concrete, a panel last week recommended steel wheels on steel rails. Just what you want to hear instead of tradewinds in the palms: ear-splitting screeches, a la Chicago's Loop.

To top it off, they are building the first leg from Kapolei in West Oahu — where hardly anybody lives. The city has been trying for years to get people to move out where there used to be sugar cane fields, before that industry (along with pineapples) moved to countries with cheaper labor.

No doubt the commuter train will be bait to lure new residents. But the Honolulu Advertiser ran photos of the landscape where transit stations are supposed to be by 2012, and nothing is there but hot, barren scrubland. Good luck...

On the plus side, the new H3 freeway, which connects Pearl City (near the airport) to Kaneohe on the windward side — through the middle of the Koolau mountains — is an engineering marvel, and cuts that commute to 20 minutes or so. And the politeness of Honolulu drivers hasn't changed, despite the commuter stress. Honking is so not Hawaiian.

Driving a car in Hawaii keeps getting more expensive, though, with insurance and gas prices always among the highest in the nation. But I was surprised when a woman at the rental car office warned me about the cost per gallon: $3.43. I told her that it was $3.50 in Humboldt County, and when I got home I see that regular is now up to $3.60. Take that, Hawaii — we're number one!

Posted by Rich Somerville at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)