Teachers! And other union thugs!

A confused letter-writing campaign

The California state legislature is in Democratic hands, so it's trying to protect public-school teachers rather than firing them or stripping them of collective-bargaining rights. Political cartoonist Tom Meyer decided to portray this as selfish teachers hogging scarce resources in a time of emergency—at the expense of poor little children. (After all, every teacher saved is a student harmed.) Editorial cartoons aren't a good medium for nuance, but it was still a rather nasty effort by the normally moderate Meyer.

There was, of course, a flurry of letters castigating Meyer for his cartoon's ham-handed “teacher versus student” message. Just as predictably, there were a few that cheered him on. Here's one that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on July 19:

CTA's orchestrated outrage

I just received an e-mail from the California Teachers Association suggesting that I express my outrage over the recent political cartoon run in your paper. So here goes: I am outraged that every time the overpaid, self-serving, self-important CTA union bureaucrats get attacked, they try to turn it into an attack on teachers.

CTA does not represent students, period. For that matter, it does not even truly represent teachers. While every public school teacher in California is required by law to pay dues to CTA, only those members who pay extra to support political candidates of CTA's choosing are allowed to vote in CTA elections. Does that sound like representation to you?

Like virtually all organizations with power, their primary goal is securing more control over those issues they deem important (many of which have nothing to do with education).

Kinsey Blomgren, Porterville

Porterville? That's right in the middle of Tulare County, down in the Central Valley—the reddest part of the Golden State. Mr. Blomgren is undoubtedly one of those teachers who knows things would be better if the California Teachers Association went away and left him to the tender mercies of school administrators, most of whom are unlikely to take undue advantage of unrepresented faculty members. Most.

Then I saw a letter in the July 20 edition of the Sacramento Bee. Gosh, it looked familiar:

The real outrage on cartoon

Re “Cartoon is ignorant” (Letters, July 18): I just received an email from the California Teachers Association suggesting that I express my outrage over the July 14 Tom Meyer cartoon depicting how teachers were protected in the recent budget. So here goes: I am outraged that every time the overpaid, self-serving, self-important CTA union bureaucrats get attacked, they try to turn it into an attack on teachers.

CTA does not represent students, period. For that matter, it does not even truly represent teachers. While every public school teacher in California is required by law to pay dues to CTA, only those members who pay extra to support political candidates of CTA's choosing are allowed to vote in CTA elections. Does that sound like representation to you?

Like virtually all organizations with power, its primary goal is securing more control over those issues they deem important – many of which have nothing to do with education.

—Kinsey Blomgren, Springville

Huh. It looks like Kinsey has forgotten he lives in Porterville. Or did he previously forget that he lives in Springville? On the other (third?) hand, perhaps he moved from one town to the other between bouts of letter-writing.

Not only is Mr. Blomgren uncertain of where he lives, he appears not to understand that unions are accountable to their members—and Blomgren prefers not to be one. He pays a representation fee because CTA is obligated to represent him in any grievances he might file against his school, but he has chosen not to become a full member and therefore does not have a voice in choosing the CTA leadership. His choice.

I think it's probably a rational choice by Blomgren. The “political candidates of CTA's choosing” are never going to be right-wing politicians who attack public schools (like the one Blomgren teaches in down in Tulare County) and Blomgren would be doomed in his attempts to garner majority support among his fellow teachers for a reversal of CTA policy. One might as well try to organize chickens to endorse Colonel Sanders.

Thus Mr. Blomgren's complaint about “representation” is rather pointless. He has embraced what is certain to remain a minority viewpoint within his profession. He can rail against CTA all he likes, but it's not an anti-democratic organization. It's also not an anti-Democratic organization, which may be Blomgren's real complaint.

I won't deny that unions have sometimes descended into thuggery and strong-arm tactics, but that's pretty rare. Modern-day examples are not easy to find. (The pointing and screaming by Wisconsin's teabaggers is pure anti-union propaganda.) Fortunately, there's a dead giveaway for when unions start to go bad: They endorse Republicans.

Addendum

Today (July 22) a thoughtful letter-writer shares an informed perspective of the California Teachers Association and its role in representing anti-union faculty like Mr. Blomgren:

Clarifying CTA rules

Re “The real outrage on cartoon” (Letters, July 20): Whether or not the California Teachers Association does a good job of representing teachers and students is a matter of opinion for another letter; however, there are some problems with the facts in this letter.

First of all, every public school teacher is not required by law to pay dues. In each district, the teachers must vote to form a union, then vote whether they want to affiliate with CTA. Even then every teacher only pays dues if they vote for an agency “fair pay” agreement. Not all districts have unions, and not all local unions join with CTA; some affiliate with AFT or only have a local union. Secondly, CTA members are still voting members even if they opt out of paying for political action.

—Steven Smith, Rocklin

If he still balks at joining CTA so that he can vote for the union's officers, Blomgren could always consider moving to one of the idyllic “Right to Work” states where he could cheerfully work with lower pay and less job security. I hear Texas is hiring. He should wait awhile, however. God is still smiting Texas with a heat wave in disapproval of something or another.

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Fixing California education

USC puts in the fix

Saturday morning's edition of the Sacramento Bee treated us to an opinion piece by Dr. William G. Tierney, director of the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis at the University of Southern California. Naturally it caught my eye, especially when I noticed the title: Simple changes would make college degree easier and cheaper. My eyebrow quirked with skepticism and I steeled myself for disappointment.

I was not disappointed—about being disappointed, I mean. Tierney is not completely out to lunch, but he certainly overreaches and oversimplifies. Here are some pertinent excerpts from his article, along with my comments:

Viewpoints: Simple changes would make college degree easier and cheaper

By William G. Tierney

Special to The Bee
Published Saturday, Jun. 11, 2011

How can California produce the number of college graduates its future economy will need when its public higher education system is staggering because of the ongoing budget squeeze? Unfortunately, the state's public universities and colleges won't receive any of the unexpected surge in new tax revenue and will continue to scale back their enrollments. If the tax extensions sought by Gov. Jerry Brown are not approved, enrollments will likely shrink further.

California's private nonprofit and for-profit colleges and universities, by contrast, are in relatively good financial shape. Enrollments in most institutions are holding steady or are up. Endowments and philanthropic giving are on the upswing. Tuition is still higher than in the public schools but is rising at a slower pace.

We should be careful not to overstate the situation relative to public versus private college education in California. The Great Recession has caused a dramatic spike in tuition costs at the California State University and the University of California. The steep rates of increase cannot be sustained without the destruction of these institutions (so I predict it won't happen). It would be misleading to make too much of the “slower pace” of private-school tuition in the state.

If these two higher-education systems would put aside their long-running competition for students, faculty and resources, and cooperate to boost graduation rates, they could go a long way toward turning out the 1 million more credentialed individuals—according to one study—the economy will need in 2025. Heresy? Hardly.

Here I pause to climb onto one of my favorite hobbyhorses: I hate the expression “according to one study” and similar unhelpful non-references. What study? I realize that this is an opinion piece published in a newspaper and not a peer-reviewed research article in an education journal, but the Bee falls short in its mission to inform the public when it expects us to take unsourced statements at face value. I don't know whether to blame Tierney as well. Did he try to include a citation, only to have the Bee editors complain about the fusty academic prose?

In any case, I have done the leg-work for you, should you want to check whether the claims are well supported. Tierney is referring to the work of Hans Johnson, who published two papers in 2009 with the Public Policy Institute of California:

Johnson, H. (2009). Educating California: Choices for the future. San Francisco, CA: Public Policy Institute of California.
Johnson, H., & Sengupta, R. (2009). Closing the Gap: Meeting California's need for college graduates. San Francisco, CA: Public Policy Institute of California.

Johnson's more recent paper may also be of interest:

Johnson, H. (2011). California workforce: Planning for a better future. San Francisco, CA: Public Policy Institute of California.

While I'm at it, I'll point out that Tierney's article appears to be a public-consumption version of a more extensive report titled Making It Happen: Increasing college access and participation in California Higher Education: The role of private postsecondary providers. Tierney coauthored it with Guilbert Hentschke, a colleague at the USC school of education.

Now let's get back to Tierney's argument:

There are three important ways the public and private sectors can work together to produce more graduates.

• Shifting the remedial burden to the private sector: California's public schools and universities are lousy at remedial education. Sixty percent of entering Cal State students have to complete at least one remedial course when they arrive at college. It's a task that consumes professorial and student time, and is ill-suited to the mission of graduating students.

For certain private nonprofit and for-profit schools, however, remedial education is a forte. They have experience in dealing with learning deficiencies and are adept in tutoring and some forms of special education. Unencumbered by competing missions, they can focus on the remedial task at hand. And monitoring their success rates would be as easy as grading exams.

Did a warning flag pop up when you read that? Here we have a professor at a private university recommending that more of California's education program be shifted to private institutions. Of course, he's not suggesting that the remediation work be allocated to the University of Southern California, which is presumably above all that. Instead, Tierney is arguing that certain profit-based schools excel at making up educational deficiencies and should be encouraged to do what they do best. I have my doubts.

For-profit schools tend to report high success rates, but these statistics can be misleading. Such schools have a vested interest in retaining their paying customers. Students and colleagues of mine who have taught at profit-driven schools are amazed at how difficult it can be to maintain standards or drop non-performing students. (“Hey, I paid for this class. Now give me my passing grade!”)

Are public schools any better? Tierney says we “are lousy at remedial education.” In my long experience as a college teacher who often teaches elementary algebra (a course that used to be standard high school freshman fare), I can report that my success rate hovers between sixty and seventy percent. In general, my colleagues and I find that one-half to two-thirds of our students pass algebra.

It's shocking, I know. I think our success rates would be higher if we had fewer students in each class and more time to give them individual attention. Perhaps that's what private schools could do (for a price). However, I also want to point out that open-admission institutions like community colleges have to take on all comers, ready or not. We strive mightily with the twin tools of assessment and placement to figure out what students already know and what courses they should take to maximize their probability of success. Still, even the best instructors lose a quarter of their students.

It's my opinion that we can't do much about it. That might be a defeatist attitude, but I'm not one to casually acquiesce in failure. The reality is that every semester brings us students who are placed as best we can manage but who lack any real interest in education. These are the students who are marking time till they find something better or more interesting to do. They may be living rent-free under a parent's roof as long as they're enrolled in school, so sitting in class is like the price they pay for shelter. It would be rude to also expect them to work at the subject material.

Other students have life problems or emergencies that predictably or unpredictably sabotage their academic progress. Many of these people will regroup and try again (and succeed) under better circumstances. Still, they go into the “failure” column when we tote up the statistics. In general, you can assume that ten to twenty percent of your students are doomed to fail because of attitudes or circumstances. As instructors—at least if you are serious about doing the greatest good for the greatest number—you have to guard against snap judgments. Try to foster success for every student, even if you know you are fated to fall short in a unknown number of instances.

Good schools in the private and for-profit sector might also be serious about helping students. I expect that most are. However, it's often apples and oranges when we make these comparisons and I can't quite get on board with Tierney's assertion that public schools are inherently worse at remediation than private schools. Community colleges, in particular, do a lot of remediation. Furthermore, to stand things on their heads, consider that we get over half of our algebra students to succeed. In algebra! The math class from hell!

• Making it easier to complete required courses: Currently, a student seeking to transfer credit to another school faces too many institutional and faculty hurdles. An “A” in English 101 at Los Angeles City College isn't automatically credited at UCLA.

The state took a baby step this year toward clearing up the uncertainty with the Student Transfer Reform Act, which guarantees junior status at Cal State schools to community college students who earn an associate degree. There is no reason why such a relationship should only exist between community colleges and Cal State.

To facilitate transfers, all accredited institutions would adopt a common course-numbering system that ensures that students learn similar things regardless of where they took the class. For example, credit for completing English 101 at a community college would automatically transfer to a UC or a private college or university. Not only would general education requirements be part of this system but preparation courses for students' majors as well. Arizona has set up such a credit-transfer system, and initial reports are that it is producing more graduates faster.

I agree unreservedly with Tierney's recommendation concerning the transferability of college courses. It should have happened yesterday.

I know, however, why it didn't. And Tierney plows right into the problem without apparently realizing it: “all accredited institutions would adopt a common course-numbering system that ensures that students learn similar things.” How much experience does Tierney have in higher education? Has he been paying any attention at all? California's colleges and faculty will fight tooth and nail against a uniform statewide curriculum. Hardly anything is so precious to a college as its own curriculum. Losing control of course definitions to some centralized authority is tantamount to becoming merely one small cog in a monolithic educational machine.

No thanks!

Community colleges, especially, tailor curriculum to their communities and colleges in general cherish the right to tweak their own courses and experiment with their own curriculum. Ceding that ability to a central authority is a non-starter. Of course, you can never tell what the California legislature will do—or try to do. Years ago the legislature passed and the governor signed a measure mandating that all California community colleges use a uniform course-numbering system. The requirement is still on the books:

66725. (a) It is the intent of the Legislature to facilitate articulation and seamless integration of California's postsecondary institutions by facilitating the adoption and integration of a common course numbering system among the public and private postsecondary institutions. The purpose of building and implementing a common course numbering system is to provide for the effective and efficient progression of students within and among the higher education segments and to minimize duplication of coursework.

It never happened, probably because the legislature failed to allocate funds to pay for it and to establish the mechanism by which it would occur. We do, however, at least have the California Articulation Numbering system, which provides an intermediary for the comparison of courses at different institutions in the community college system. Something along these lines might be a way to advance the positive aspects of Tierney's recommendation without falling into the trap of statewide course uniformity.

• Encouraging private colleges to admit more students, especially through online learning: To get private colleges to admit more students, the state might pick up a portion of the tuition difference between private and public schools. That, no doubt, would bring howls of protest—taxpayers giving money to well-heeled privates. But consider UC's newest campus in Merced, currently with 4,000 students. The state could surely find cheaper seats for those 4,000 students in California's 79 private institutions than pay $500 million and counting to complete the campus.

While shilling again for his own segment of California's postsecondary education system, Tierney takes an ill-considered slap at the University of California. The Central Valley is a major growth center for the state. The establishment of the tenth UC campus in that region was long overdue. Tierney is recommending a penny-wise and pound-foolish approach of shutting down a growing institution that will be sorely needed by the burgeoning San Joaquin population. Does he want higher education in that region ceded to private institutions? Perhaps so.

But more private admissions can't begin to close the graduate gap. A significant state-led effort to increase online education would have far more impact—and the private nonprofit and for-profit sectors are best qualified to lead it because they are doing it now and want to grow. Given their checkered history, participation by the for-profits would have to be tightly regulated.

I support the expansion of on-line education, although I have reservations about quality control and identity verification (who is taking those on-line exams?). It's interesting that Tierney felt obligated to cite in passing the “checkered history” of profit-driven schools in the on-line sector. Here's an area where we are best advised to hurry slowly.

California's persistent budget squeeze and anti-tax mood erect a high hurdle to increased graduation rates. Only a coordinated effort of its five higher-education systems—three public and the nonprofit and for-profit privates—can produce the number of graduates the economy will need. There's still plenty of room for spirited competition, but California's economy needs all five on the same team to remain competitive globally.

I can't argue with Tierney's team metaphor for addressing the problems in Caifornia's postsecondary education. I'm not sure, though, that I want him to be the captain.

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A Christmas miracle

Nothing happened

On Christmas Eve I received in the mail a card from my parents. To my astonishment, it wished me Season's Greetings. Since Mom & Dad have been inducted into the Bill O'Reilly school of obstreperous observation of “Merry Christmas or Else!”, this was an unprecedented departure. I have never before received a holiday card from my parents that was not overtly religious. It gave me pause.

A positive omen?

Having ascertained from Mom (I'm not speaking to Dad, after all) that dinner on Christmas day would get under way shortly after 11:00 a.m., I timed my arrival at the family homestead to a nicety, turning onto their county road at a quarter of. To my horror, however, not a single vehicle sat in front of their house. I was unmistakably the first to arrive. I considered looping around the block (that's a four-mile detour out in the country, where each block consists of 640 acres), but decided instead to take advantage of the opportunity to secure the pole position in the driveway for my later departure. I placed the car so that no one could block my escape. (It also meant that my Barbara Boxer and “No on 8” stickers were on prominent display.)

I entered the house. The tables were set up and the place settings laid out in the dining room, but the room was empty. Mom & Dad were in the family room, being (further) deafened by the television (tuned to Fox, of course). I cleverly entered the house with my hands full of gift bags for my various nieces, nephews, and grand-nephews. (No grand-nieces yet.) Mom grabbed me and hugged me anyway, but Dad had to wait till I had deposited the gift bags in the living room and then accosted me with an out-thrust hand. Interestingly, Mom chose that moment to give me another hug and got in his way. An accident, perhaps—or she feared I might snub him. But Dad tried again and I deigned to shake his hand. (Mom was right to be concerned. I hesitated a moment.)

The truce was now official.

I fetched a second batch of gift bags and fussed over grouping them according to recipient families for a while, killing a few minutes. I stepped outside to snap some photos of the dairy and, in the opposite direction, the snow-capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada, which were remarkably sharp and visible after the series of rainstorms. With the air in the valley having gotten rather bad, the mountains are usually obscured by a pervasive haze. When I was a kid back in the sixties, the Sierra was spectacular on a daily basis, so of course we hardly paid them any attention.

A nephew finally arrived with wife and son in tow. Then a niece and assorted grand-nephews. (My parents currently have five great-grandsons, some of them older than their youngest granddaughter.) The house began to fill up. All of my siblings eventually showed up, along with all of their spouses (save the one estranged wife) and all of their children and children-in-law. Even my godson from out of state was present, as well as one cousin who is my parents' godson. Twenty-nine people in all, which was not a record-breaking crowd by any means.

Still, my sister's grandson—an only child so far—was slightly overwhelmed. My sister tried to put the two-year-old at ease by identifying me and her other brothers to the little guy. “See? I have three brothers. See how lucky I am?”

“That's certainly not what you used to say,” I observed.

My grand-nephew was uncertain why my brothers and I were chuckling, but he took it as a good sign and broke into a grin. His parents have told him he'll have a little brother or sister by the end of spring.

Mom cut back (a little) on cooking this year because it's started to overwhelm her. Sensible move. Therefore she fixed only one turkey for Christmas—along with stuffing, potato salad, mashed potatoes, torresmos (fried pork), cranberry, and dinner rolls. One brother broiled a batch of steaks, my sister-in-law provided a shrimp salad, the cousin brought a ham, and my sister provided her weird but tasty orange Jell-O marshmallow-cheddar salad, plus pumpkin pies, cookies, and brownies for dessert. No one went hungry, although a vegetarian might have been a little overwhelmed. (I'm not aware that we currently have any in the family. It's an omnivorous group.)

In the aftermath, adults took turns keeping track of the hyperactive children (preventing things like cliff-diving off the piano in the living room, where two of the little ones were pounding out a random-key duet). A niece's spouse tried to talk sport vehicles with me (I asked him when in the seventies American Motors had taken over manufacturer of the Jeep from Willys—which established my street credit that I even knew it had occurred—and launched him on a happy discourse). Dad showed off his gargantuan project of digitizing old family photos and slides, which is supposed to result in a DVD album to distribute in the near future. (I'll need to turn down the sound: a loop of Mozart's “Eine Kleine Natchmusik” is sprightly and entertaining background music only the first twelve times you hear it.)

The party started to break up at 2:00, with people trickling away. I dug out a copy of my unpublished book and gave it to Mom, who seemed mildly surprised but did not react very much. I wondered if my sister had already spilled the beans to her about the book's existence. She said no, that Mom was still in holiday-overwhelmed mode and it would sink in later. When my sister got out the door, I also made my escape. No overnight stay for me this year. I told Mom good-bye and hit the road. Dad was otherwise occupied (probably back at his slide show) and I didn't seek him out. No point in tempting fate.

The trip home was accompanied by some rain, but nothing spectacular. It was a long day with several hours of road travel (scenic Highway 99!), but it was also a rather successful day.

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How red is my valley

Red in the old-fashioned sense

I frequently refer to my old stomping grounds in Central California as the reddest part of the state. By this I mean, of course, that Californians in the Central Valley love to cast right-wing votes and support conservative causes.

Now, to my great surprise, I have uncovered a red brigade calling for collective action and government interference in free enterprise. It's really quite shocking. The conspirators are naturally rather coy about portraying themselves as advocates of statism and a planned economy, but they cannot help but give it away.

One clue lies in their name. Just as countries in the Soviet bloc used to glory in misleading names—“People's Republic,” “Democratic Republic”—the red threat in the San Joaquin Valley marches under the banner of “Families Protecting the Valley.” Sounds nice and harmless, doesn't it? But check out this excerpt from their manifesto:

Current attacks on the Valley’s water take two forms. One is the view that water is nothing but a commodity and must be sold to the highest bidder. This is a foolhardy concept which, if followed, will condemn the United States to depend upon foreign sources with unreliable health protections for its food supply.

There it is, folks. They oppose capitalism. They want intervention in the free market economy of California.

I agree with them, of course, but then I was long ago accused by a certain family member of being a socialist. We socialists love planned economies, you know.

Or perhaps I just see a role for the public sector in setting policy that might forestall the abuses of unfettered capitalism. Remember the robber barons? (They're back, by the way.) If the highest bidder always wins, we fall instantly into a plutocracy. It appears that the members of Families Protecting the Valley have awakened to this stark reality. Perhaps too late.

If the principles of the free market are applied too rigorously to California's water resources, Central Valley agriculture is doomed. People living in the San Joaquin's burgeoning towns and cities will almost certainly pay lip service to the notion that farming is a crucial industry that deserves their support, but don't expect that lip service to turn into votes for growth limits and municipal water rationing. Farm families are hugely outnumbered by the city and town dwellers, and the latter will balk at anything that reduces the flow of water from their faucets (or forces them to drain their swimming pools).

Absent a strong government policy establishing a water allocation program to preserve agriculture in California's arid Central Valley, that agriculture will fall prey to competing demands from the growing urban regions. While many of the townies are in farm-related enterprises, most of the people in Bakersfield, Visalia, Tulare, and Fresno don't think of themselves as farmers. It's not a majority bloc.

Furthermore, the water in the Central Valley is diverted from sources in Northern California. Diversions from the Delta damages those wetlands and blights the fishing industry in the Bay Area. These are legitimate competing interests for California's water (and they had the water first, too). Valley farmers who sneer at fisheries and declare that the fishes should die to preserve farm crops are conveniently forgetting that they're really talking about killing the livelihood of fishermen. The competition is keen and the supplies are short. It's not a pretty picture. 

In a more enlightened age, the state legislature promulgated the California Land Conservation Act of 1965. It was an example of singling out agriculture for special treatment because it was deemed a key state interest (and not just a majoritarian concern). The handiwork of Assemblyman John Williamson, the “Williamson Act” provided tax benefits to agricultural landholders who agreed to preserve their farmlands from commercial development for a period of ten years. Recently the state saw fit to strengthen the Williamson Act with an infusion of money to allow it to continue in operation and to fund tax breaks for more ten-year moritoriums on farmland development.

The Williamson Act is a survivor of the time when the state enacted formal policies to maintain the viability of California agriculture. Now it has gotten all but impossible to act in concert this way. The rugged individualists in California farming who regarded subsidized water as their birthright apparently assumed the situation was sustainable. Naturally and understandably wary of government control, they preferred to pretend to stand alone. In many cases, unfortunately, the lack of sufficiently strong policies to protect family farms meant that they were swallowed up by corporate interests. Agricultural land is now concentrated in the hands of a few large agribusiness companies. Individual family farms continue to dwindle in number and those that survive are perched on the edge of commercial nonviability. While farmers carp and complain about federal programs like the Endangered Species Act, they should have been looking for some similar protection for themselves.

It was the partnership of government and family farms that made the valley bloom. State and federal subsidies for huge water projects irrigated the San Joaquin at bargain prices—once. Today California's urban population is larger and thirstier than the state's farms. By the numbers, they win and farms lose. Clearly, Families Protecting the Valley does not want that to happen, but signs demanding that the governor simply “turn the pumps back on” demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of reality in a drought-stricken state. A slow-motion tragedy is unfolding before us while the victims rail at the only entity that can preserve them—at least some of them.

Ironically, Families Protecting the Valley had a prominent place at the big Tea Party event at the Tulare International Agri-Center last July, where banners denounced big government and extolled unfettered free markets. Yet no one objected to the presence of these anti-capitalist interventionists.

Can I get you some water for your tea? Sorry. Fresh out.

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The big blue bastion

Timing your punches

Sen. Barbara Boxer made a low-key campaign swing through northern California at the end of July. She dropped in one Saturday at the home of a former statewide office-holder. It was more of a meet-and-greet than a fundraiser, although a few bucks were collected. (I picked up a Boxer T-shirt and a Boxer bumpersticker to display on my car during my next trip down Highway 99 into reddest California.) Boxer's main purpose was to rally the troops. Several present and former elected officials were present, as were several present and former staff aides. A mix of young up-and-coming volunteers joined the old-timers and rounded out the group.

After some schmoozing and mingling, Sen. Boxer held court in the host's living room. She thanked everyone for their support and tried to assuage our fears about the summer polls that showed her in a virtual tie with Carly Fiorina. Boxer was used to running (and winning) tight races, although it would be more of a challenge in what was shaping up to be a Republican year. She outlined the sharp contrasts between her positions and those of her opponent. It was an effective motivational speech. The adrenaline level in the room went up.

Boxer ran smoothly through her remarks and then entertained questions from the attendees. One of the first queries was not about her campaign.

“Can you tell Jerry to get off his ass and start campaigning? We see nothing but Whitman ads all the time.”

The senator's hands were clasped. She squeezed them tight for a moment and then relaxed a little. It seemed to me that she had heard this question before and was just a little weary of it.

“You need to understand this,” she said. “Jerry knows what he's doing. There is no way he can match Whitman's spending. He's conserving his resources and waiting for his moment. If he tries to match her now, he'll soon have nothing left. He is doing a lot of fundraising, but he's not spending yet.”

Someone in the crowd helped Sen. Boxer look for the silver lining.

“Whitman's ad campaign is so excessive it could be counterproductive. I'm sick of them.”

Sen. Boxer smiled.

“Jerry will match her in the homestretch, when it really matters,” she said.

We now know that Boxer was right. Jerry Brown knew what he was doing. Like a guest who overstayed her welcome, Meg Whitman was incessantly in our faces with an unavoidable avalanche of political ads. Even her supporters sometimes marveled at the overkill. When the Brown campaign took to the airwaves, his low-key ads were a welcome relief from Whitman's mindless repetition of talking points. One of Brown's spots mocked Whitman as a word-for-word clone of Arnold Schwarzenegger, juxtaposing the Republican incumbent and the Republican candidate mouthing the exact same slogans and catch phrases.

The once and future governor amply justified Sen. Boxer's faith in the old politician. At the top of the Democratic ticket, Jerry led a complete sweep of California's statewide offices (with the possible exception of the attorney general's office, where the votes are still being counted). California is true blue because its Democratic candidates know what they're doing.

Welcome back, Governor Brown. I guess experience counts.

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The dollar-sign alternate universe

Not always for sale

Remember California's Governor William Matson Roth? You probably don't. How about U.S. Senator Norton Simon? (I know: you're thinking, “Isn't there a museum named after him in Pasadena?”)

Here's a pair of easier ones: Governor Al Checchi? U.S. Senator Mike Huffington?

You're catching on, aren't you? Let's clinch it:

Governor Meg Whitman?

Yeah, right.

While Ms. Whitman still has an outside chance of beating former governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday, most people are now aware that her attempt to purchase California's governor's mansion is falling short. (The joke is on her! Jerry rejected the governor's mansion during his first term in the 1970s and the Reagan-designed mediocrity in Carmichael was sold as a white elephant.)

All of the people cited above were (or are) multi-millionaires who decided the best route to elective office was a self-funded campaign. While Whitman is taking the cake with over $140 million having been dug out of her deep, deep pockets, her predecessors were pikers only by comparison.

Norton Simon accurately appraised U.S. Senator George Murphy as a light-weight party hack out of touch with the California electorate and decided to challenge him in the 1970 Republican primary. Murphy was a former Hollywood song-and-dance man who had won the seat in a kind of fluke in the Johnson landslide year of 1964, breasting the Democratic tide by beating Pierre Salinger, the short-term placeholder senator who had been appointed when the elected senator died in office.

Simon's dollars, however, could not dislodge the “senator from Technicolor.” Sen. Murphy won the GOP nomination (although he lost in the general election).

In 1974, former University of California regent William Matson Roth decided on a similar good-government tack. Once again, a millionaire spent freely to gain political office. As a self-funded candidate, Roth would of course be beholden to no one, since there would be no financial strings on him. (Sound familiar?) As it turned out, he would not be beholden to many voters, either, since they cast their ballots for other candidates. He came in fourth in the Democratic primary. The winner? Jerry Brown.

For a while, it looked like U.S. Rep. Mike Huffington, a Republican from a California coastal district, might be the exception to the rule that rich candidates can't buy political office. He had displaced his predecessor, a long-serving Republican congressman from Santa Barbara, by washing him away in a tidal wave of money in the 1992 GOP primary. All told, Huffington spent $5.4 million dollars for a congressional seat (but at least he got it). Naturally political consultants and media outlets rejoiced and salivated when Rep. Huffington began to gear up in 1994 for a U.S. senate race against incumbent Dianne Feinstein.

Again, money flowed like water—$28 million this time. But Mike never became a U.S. senator. In rapid succession, Huffington lost to Feinstein, announced he was gay (or at least bisexual), and divorced his wife Arianna. (She probably didn't mind, though, since it was now clear that Mike was not her ticket to becoming First Lady.)

These lessons were lost on former airline executive Al Checchi, who thought it would be nice to be California's governor. He never made it to the general election. In 1998 he dropped $39 million into the Democratic primary, but lost to Gray Davis, who spent “only” $9 million.

Enter Meg Whitman, today's self-funded, no-strings-attached candidate. If nothing else, she is a walking and talking (but not very much) one-woman stimulus for California's political economy. She could have gotten a lot more bang out of her $140 million if she had spent half of it on charity instead of those incessant, aggravating, and mind-numbing advertisements. (Meg, ever heard of diminishing returns? How about diminishing election returns?)

Is it ironic or merely amusing that Whitman's opponent in Tuesday's election—the once and future governor Jerry Brown—made his political career back in the 1970s by sponsoring the Fair Political Practices Act, which created the reporting mechanism that tracks all of this wacky campaign spending and established the state's disclosure rules (which the federal government would do well to emulate)? The Fair Political Practices Commission recently released a report that makes for some sadly entertaining reading: Breaking the Bank: Primary Campaign Spending for Governor since 1978. Shake your head and cluck your tongue while scanning the cost-per-vote data for the losers, who clearly had more dollars than sense (or votes).

Let's give Jerry Brown the last word. From an article by Bill Boyarsky in the Los Angeles Times, December 28, 1973, when Brown was California's secretary of state and gearing up for his first successful gubernatorial run:

Democratic Secretary of State Edmund G. Brown Jr. proposed Thursday that he and the other prospective candidates for governor spend no more than $750,000 each in the 1974 primary election.

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Meg Whitman: Too stupid to govern

Three examples

In an era of vacuum-headed candidates (e.g., Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, and Christine O'Donnell), one would not have expected the former chief executive officer for a major corporation to distinguish herself by her cluelessness. Nevertheless, Meg Whitman has managed to make her mark in the moron sweepstakes. The skills that permitted her to be a successful corporate executive for eBay have not shown themselves equal to the task of campaigning for governor of the state of California. I offer the following evidence:

Exhibit A

No sooner had she won the Republican nomination in the primary election by drowning her opponent in a deluge of money, Meg approached the problem of securing Steve Poizner's support and endorsement in the general election by attacking him some more. The primary was in June. During the first week of August, while being interviewed on the Los Angeles radio station KFI, Whitman heaped additional criticism on state insurance commissioner Poizner by saying he didn't do “what his Republican governor asked him to do to solve the budget crisis.”

Poizner quickly fired back, “The Sacramento Bee audited our books and confirmed that Meg was just plain wrong on this issue in the primary, going so far as to call her attack an outright lie.”

It took another month of cooling down before Poizner finally offered a lukewarm endorsement of Whitman's candidacy. He hasn't, however, been stumping for her during the general election campaign. Poizner has apparently managed to find better things to do.

Whitman never found it necessary to say nice things about her erstwhile rival and to stage a photo opportunity with their hands clasped and raised in the victory salute. I guess she was too busy spending her own money to spend any time making nice to Poizner.

Exhibit B

Fresno is the epicenter of California's central valley, the state's creamy red center. If a Republican candidate doesn't rack up big numbers in the valley, the Democratic candidate rides to victory with Bay Area and Los Angeles votes. No sensible GOP politician would risk diminishing that treasure trove of conservative votes.

So what does Whitman do while chatting with the editorial board of the San Jose Mercury News? She says, “I don't know if you've been to Fresno recently. Fresno looks like it's like Detroit. It's just awful.”

Naturally many Fresnans took umbrage. Whitman and her campaign scrambled quickly to explain that the candidate was actually decrying economic conditions in the San Joaquin Valley—not trashing the pride of central California.

Whitman's excuse is not false. She was talking economics at the time. It's just evidence that even at this late date the candidate can't frame a statement without jamming a foot in her mouth. (Or perhaps she really does disdain Fresno. She wouldn't be the first.)

Exhibit C

Nothing demonstrates Whitman's amateur status more starkly than the current fuss over her falsely documented maid. While some of her supporters may find her naivety refreshing (she's not a career politican—just an idealist with more money than sense!), it doesn't speak well of her potential for handling the job in Sacramento. One hears that politics goes on there all the time, and Meg may not be equal to it.

Right now Whitman is complaining that the timing of the maid's revelations is politically motivated.

Well, duh.

If she had had enough sense, she could have inoculated herself against this back in 2009, when she was launching her campaign, digging into her deep pockets, and learning (allegedly for the first time) that her maid was not in the country legally. While staking out her politically nuanced position on immigration reform and border enforcement (trying to placate Hispanic voters while hanging on to the nativists that fill the GOP's ranks), Whitman could have matter-of-factly noted that prospective employers needed more assurance that potential employees were providing legitimate paperwork. In that context she could have alluded to her own experience as an object lesson in the system's flaws and evidence of the need for more stringent rules.

The controversy would have been minimal. Instead, Whitman appears to have thought that the matter would never arise in the heat of the general election campaign. If so, she's a fool. Worse, she insisted loudly that she and her husband never had a clue about their maid's status and had never seen the letter from the Social Security Administration inquiring about irregularities in the maid's Social Security number—only to discover too late that her husband had written a note on the letter they supposedly never saw.

Amateur hour.

It's a good year to be a Republican candidate and Jerry Brown is not the sexiest candidate the Democrats could have selected as their gubernatorial nominee, so perhaps—just maybe—Whitman and her avalanche of greenbacks will manage to survive her missteps and eke out a victory. But her campaign performance doesn't augur well for her political future. Meg Whitman may just be too stupid to govern.

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Motes and beams: Gingrich on Catholic television

Whore & whoremonger

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was kind enough to tape an endorsement in 2008 for Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that placed a ban on same-sex marriage in the California state constitution. He used the cant language of “protecting marriage” and declared, “I can't overstate the dangers of tyranny from elitist judges who believe they have the right and the power to dictate their values to the American people.”

It's good to know that Newt is firmly in favor of “values,” but one wonders just what those “values” might be.

One can derive a clue from Gingrich's appearance last April 30 on “The World Over,” a public affairs and news program from EWTN, the Catholic broadcasting network. While Raymond Arroyo, the program's earnest and epicene host, fawned over them, Newt and his third wife promoted their documentary on John Paul II and spoke humbly about Newt's conversion to Catholicism.

Callista Gingrich, who was Newt's mistress during his second marriage, is a devout Catholic and church choir member who seduced the former House speaker into Rome's arms. I presume this must be one of those “situational ethics” affairs where little sins can be forgiven in the achievement of a noble goal.

“Callista is very, very faithful,” said Newt to Arroyo, giving his former mistress credit for his conversion. (He says this at 14:18 in the video below.)

Faithful? Then I must presume she obtained some kind of fornication dispensation from her local priest. Otherwise Callista would have been committing mortal sins on a regular basis, even if each occasion of sin was very brief.



Newt Gingrich is quite angry about Judge Walker's ruling that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. He cherishes the sacred institution of marriage and characterizes Walker's decision as a grievous affront to those Americans who have “affirmed that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.” Just to be clear, since Newt did not expand on this point: While a man might seek after multiple women, he should be married to only one at a time. The others have to be mistresses—at least until it's their turn to be the wife. (Keep looking over your shoulder, Callista!)

It's God's sacred plan.

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Lucy Van Whitman runs for governor

The campaign budget is peanuts

The insight was not mine. It was a friend's daughter who said, “You know who Meg Whitman reminds me of? Lucy Van Pelt!”

Suddenly it all became clear. That's right. Whitman is exactly like the self-proclaimed fussbudget from the Peanuts comic strip. She promises faithfully to hold the ball steady while California—in the guise of Charlie Brown—runs up to give it a good kick.

We all know what's going to happen if we fall for it, don't we?

Speaking of boys named Brown, Meg is both eager to remind us that Jerry Brown is one of California's historical figures and hopeful that we remember none of the historical details. While she labels him a failure, his eight years in the governor's office seem like the good old days relative to the current political and budgetary environment. In particular, Whitman wants us to think that Jerry Brown was such a profligate big-government spender that he broke the bank:

His big spending turned a surplus into a billion-dollar deficit.

Actually, Meg, the voters broke the bank with Proposition 13. Brown was an exceedingly frugal governor. So frugal, in fact, that the tax increases enacted under Governor Reagan (that's right, Reagan) were creating a surplus.

Perhaps Meg is not aware of Brown's penny-pinching history. Back in those days she was far away from California, going to school at Princeton and Harvard. More likely, though, Meg and her people are consciously distorting Brown's record. That's what politicians tend to do during campaigns and Meg has certainly become a politician, complete with a well-funded propaganda campaign.

The truth about that era of California politics is difficult for right-wingers to swallow. I remember being called a liar in 1980 during Reagan's unfortunately successful campaign for president. A Reagan supporter blew up at me when I pointed out that California budgets had grown more rapidly under Reagan than they were growing under Jerry Brown. Knowing that Ronnie was the patron saint of tight-fisted budget-slashers, the Reaganite told me quite emphatically that I was either a fool or a liar.

It's easy, however, to check the numbers for yourself. The California state treasurer's office in the spring of 1986 put out the Annual Long-Term General Fund Forecast that I still have on my shelf. It's replete with historical data. In 1967, Reagan's first year in office, state expenditures totaled approximately 2.939 billion dollars. By 1974, the last year of his two terms, expenditures had reached 7.245 billion dollars. On a point-to-point comparison, that's a 46.5% increase. It amounts to an average increase of 13.8% each year.

In 1975, Jerry Brown's first budget came in at $8.264 billion. Three years later, his 1978 budget (before Proposition 13 passed) was $11.612 billion. His budget increases were averaging 12.0% per year, nearly two points less than those of supposedly fiscally conservative Reagan (who would soon be running up a deficit as U.S. president).

People couldn't help notice that Jerry was spending less money than the state was taking in. The state surplus ballooned to nearly four billion dollars, an awesome amount. It helped spur Californians into voting for Proposition 13 on the June 1978 primary election ballot, slashing property taxes to the bone and putting the Golden State into a fiscal straitjacket.

The state government had not exactly stood idly by while the surplus grew and the voters got antsy. The governor's office supported a reduction in property taxes. However, a concerted effort to enact property-tax relief for California's homeowners was consistently opposed by conservative legislators who wanted it to fail. They wanted things to get worse so that middle-class voters would support an initiative written to principally benefit corporations and owners of commercial property. It worked, and California took a quick tumble into the fiscal frailty from which it has never fully recovered.

The 1979 state budget incorporated major subventions to local governments and school districts to soften the blow of the gutted property tax. As a result, that budget totaled $16.174 billion, a dramatic one-year increase of 39.3%, largely at the expense of the rapidly shrinking surplus. As the surplus dwindled and Brown reasserted his fiscal frugality—now underscored by the draconian Proposition 13—the governor ended his final year in office, 1982, with a budget of $21.522 billion. Compared to 1975, that was a 60.4% increase. Averaged out, it represented a growth of 14.7% per year.

Thus the impact of Proposition 13 pushed Brown into a position where he exceeded Reagan's overall growth rate. Nevertheless, his average ended up less than one point higher even after absorbing the 39.3% kick in the teeth occasioned by Proposition 13. It strains credulity to portray Brown's record as governor as one of irresponsible spending. As a budgetary manager, he did a good job. In light of his successors, he did a damned good job. It is endlessly regrettable that Brown and the contending forces in the legislature were unable to forestall Proposition 13 by coming to terms on a reasonable and timely property-tax relief measure. The Golden State still suffers the scars of that battle and that proposition's enactment.

Now here comes Meg Whitman to save us! She presumably knows how to solve our state's problems because she's cut from the same cloth as the people who imposed them on us. How much irony is there in her free-spending quest for political office? She spent $76 for each vote she got in the state primary. And now her general election campaign trail is carpeted with the greenbacks spilling from her deep pockets, much of that money going to a statewide media campaign that smears Jerry Brown as a big spender.

Good grief!

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Dollars for scholars

Race to the bottom with SB 1143

My college is a public school. The taxpayers and their elected representatives control us. Most of the time, they exercise a fairly light touch, although they understandably want some assurances whenever we ask the voters to pass a bond issue. Sometimes they agree with our plans, and sometimes they don't.

Usually, however, voters and legislators don't try to micromanage the school. The California community college system may be the largest public system of higher education in the entire world, but we're broken up into dozens of districts and over a hundred individual colleges, each of which has its own locally elected board of trustees and campus president. Sacramento sets broad general education policy and appropriates our aggregate budget (unfortunately stingy in this era of the Great Recession), but details are left to the various boards and presidents. Most of the time, anyway.

Now, however, the bright lights in the state capital are thinking about reaching into the classroom level and creating incentives to improve course completion rates among our students. “Improve,” of course, means only one thing: increase the number of students who earn passing grades.

The legislators might be surprised to learn (and they appear to need some teaching on this subject) that student success rates are an abiding concern among faculty members and teachers never stop trying to raise student performance. They apparently intend to encourage us, but I fear that more often their mercurial policies interfere with the teaching process. At least at the college level, we public school teachers have so far been spared the stream of K-12 mandates coming out of Sacramento, decisions that move the academic goalposts and tweak the high-stakes testing program every couple of years (often confusing “activity” with “progress”).

State senator Carol Liu is the author of SB 1143, a measure which would somehow incorporate course completion rates in the formula for computing state funding for community colleges. Think about that for a moment. (Try giving it more thought than our legislators do.) Colleges that pass more students through their curriculum will get more funding. Colleges that pass fewer will get less. At first blush, that might seem reasonable.

Liu forgot, however, to include any quality standards in her bill. Schools that are willing to become diploma mills will prosper under her dollars for scholars program. The pressure to lower standards will be intense.

Sure, upright defenders of truth and justice and beauty like yours truly will adamantly refuse to prostitute ourselves to state demands. We will bravely uphold standards of excellence and continue to flunk those students who do not measure up to them. Yes, I could bravely (oh, so bravely!) hide behind my seniority and job security and remain magisterially unaffected by the petty carping of the state capitol crowd. I, after all, would not be paying the price of budgets compressed by the maintenance of meaningful standards. It would be my junior colleagues who would get laid off during the financial contractions. They could end up going out the door right after the last of the part-timers were let go. I would not be entirely happy about surviving under such circumstances (and my college's administration wouldn't be too happy either).

Practically speaking, I don't expect it to come to anything that draconian, but I have to wonder why Senator Liu thinks she can mandate student success from outside, urging teachers to do something they're always trying to do anyway. Even if she amends her bill to impose a uniform statewide testing program (to hell with local control) in order to gauge the maintenance (or deterioration) of academic standards—good trick, that—Liu would be adding all kinds of complications to college funding.

It's not a good idea. SB 1143 appeals to those who view education through business-model eyes: students are the input and degrees or certificates are the output. But some things don't fit a business model. The nation's recent MBA president proved that beyond all reasonable doubt.

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What's the frequency, Kenneth?

Suburban superstition

Pacific Gas & Electric has been installing new meters throughout its service area. I've had one since last year. The PG&E meter reader no longer needs to bustle up to the side of my house to check on my electricity usage. Instead, my meter dutifully reports in wirelessly. No more hassles with locked gates, growling dogs, or other yard hazards.

No more meter readers, either, but I'm sure that workforce reduction was part of what PG&E was going for.

There were reportedly some initial problems when people started receiving ridiculously high utility bills. (No one complained about ridiculously low bills, so I assume there must have been none of those.) PG&E recalibrated or reprogrammed the new meters (or something like that) and the complaints faded away.

Time for new complaints!

The meters, you see, are trying to kill us.

Perhaps you thought the new complaints would be about the prospect of PG&E using the remote-control features to impose arbitrary and capricious black-outs and brown-outs during power shortages. (I think we're saving those concerns for the next round of complaints.) But, no, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the fearmongers have seized on the tiny, tiny emissions when the PG&E SmartMeters transmit their reports.

Some Sebastopol residents have questioned whether radio frequency radiation from the meters, which transmit their data to the utility via wireless communications, could threaten their health.

Their concerns grow from the heated debate over whether radiation from cell phones, Wi-Fi computers and other wireless devices can cause cancer or other ailments. They want a moratorium on installing the SmartMeters to measure electricity and gas use.

The meters are zapping us with electromagnetism! Arrggh!

There is solid science behind this concern, of course. Recall that microwaves from cell phones cause ear cancer. Or maybe not. A well-known Danish study followed a large cohort of cell-phone users for decades without finding any sign of increased incidence of cancer.

But absence of evidence is no reason to put off a panic attack. San Francisco is considering legislation to require a “radiation” warning on cell phones. Such a good idea. And, of course, concerned citizens want to stop the SmartMeters.

“We are being increasingly exposed to an exponential amount of radio frequency radiation,” said Sebastopol resident Sandi Maurer. “Now there are going to be two of these things in every home.”

Maurer is the founder of the EMF Safety Network, a clearinghouse for information on the possible dangers of electromagnetic fields. She and other residents persuaded the Sebastopol City Council this month to ask California energy regulators to stop SmartMeter installation while the possible health risks can be assessed.

Oh, good. An information “clearinghouse” is involved. Not surprisingly, the EMF Safety Network's website offers a plethora of advice and links about protecting oneself (and one's kids!) from EMF.

What we really need is a kind of early-alert system that warns concerned citizens whenever anyone installs any kind of transmission device anywhere.

We could use the radio!

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An outlier goes mainstream

Measures of Central Valley Tendency

During a recent weekend down in California's Central Valley, I had breakfast with my parents at a restaurant in the city of Tulare. There I picked up a copy of the Valley Voice, a free weekly newspaper whose coverage area spans Kings and Tulare counties. In general, its pages reflect the conservative perspective of its rural readers. I hope, however, that the paper's editorial policy has erred on the side of free speech in deciding what to permit in its Letters to the Editor column. Some newspapers would balk at publishing the spittle-flecked ravings of the emotionally unhinged.

The following is not annotated in any way, but think of it as being labeled with one big “[sic]”:

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

For 230 years, men and women were willing to fight and die for “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” President Obama says we now need a new “Declaration of Independence” and the U.S. Constitution is too restrictive.

On Nov. 4, 2008, we switched enemies. Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, Israel, are now our enemies and Castro, Hamas, Hugo Chavez, are now our friends. We can't call Al Qaeda terrorist, now those attending the Town Hall Meetings are terrorists.

Barak Obama, Bill Ayers, Louis Farrakhan, all have the same goal, overthrow our government.

All Communist dictators have one thing in common, they will squelch all opposition, public execution of their own citizens.

Obama's first action as President was to murder more unborn, now passing health care will allow Obama to get rid of old people who are resisting his transforming America into a Communist regime.

How is it possible to have a Commander In Chief who hates what America stands for and loves our enemies.

All Czars should have been vetted, but the truth of the matter is that Barak Obama was not vetted. Obama would not have passed the F.B.I. background check and he did not submit the proper documents, birth certificate that was sealed, to the Election Committee. This committee should be held accountable.

It's so sad that we have an inept President that has never run a business, made payroll and paid payroll taxes.

Vernon B

This is another example of what David Neiwert has been documenting as the mainstreaming of extremist rhetoric. Mr. B's letter is an incoherent rant, a scatter-shot blast at a list of things he's heard about on talk radio and Fox News (and perhaps Free Republic). And this example comes directly from my old home turf. (Is it safe to drive down Highway 99 with an Obama sticker on your car?)

Perhaps after national health care reform is enacted, Mr. B will finally be able to get the psychiatric treatment he so desperately needs.

A lesson in grammar and punctuation would help, too.

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Turing turns their stomachs

Nuts among the raisins

Alan M. Turing has gotten a long overdue apology from the British government for the way they treated him—a genuine World War II hero—for the high crime of homosexuality. I commend Prime Minister Gordon Brown for taking this small step in the interest of simple justice.

Others, of course, are not so pleased.

This is particularly true on the noisome fringe of American right-wing extremism. (Is it exaggeration to refer to our nation's right-wing extremists as having a “fringe”? I'm afraid not.) Excellent examples of reactionary fulminations are routinely served up by the loons with room-temperature IQs at Free Republic, the Fresno-based website that serves as the sweaty lint in the belly button of Central California. These comments (characteristic misspellings and all) were posted by “Freepers” in outraged response to Britain's apology:

Can’t trust poofers. Good rule of thumb.

3 posted on Friday, September 11, 2009 4:05:51 PM by pissant (THE Conservative party: www.falconparty.com)

Turing supposedly told the cops he was a homosexual when they visited his home to investigate a robbery he had reported.

He suggested that his 19 year old male lover might have been among the young men who robbed him.

He was later convicted on 12 counts.

Just looking up the Age of Majority in UK at that time, and it was 21. So Alan, like many risky gay blades of his time, was messing with a minor.

Certainly a well-known homosexual like Turing would not want for ADULT lovers ~ so he was taking risks ~ kind of like the office thief at work who liked to steal small things from people ~ personal things, and then set them out on her desk like trophies.

He later on may have commited suicide or accidentally poisoned himself while eating an apple.

Like many homosexuals of his time (or now) he may well have gloried in the tawdrier and more unwashed side of life ~ and all he had to do was wash his hands regularly to live (as suggested by his own mother).

I don't buy it that this genius commited suicide. He was just a nasty guy who wasn't all that clean.

Personal hygiene is not just a condom.

4 posted on Friday, September 11, 2009 4:06:35 PM by muawiyah

Britain sinks deeper into the black hole of political correctness. Should we go easier on a brilliant mathematician who is also a crazed killer? No. One has nothing to do with the other. If he is a great mathematician, he deserves to be recognized for it. If he is a depraved human being, he deserves to be ostracized for it — or worse.

Libs... always wanting to drag us deeper into that black hole. I know lots of mathematicians who should be castrated. All of them are libs.

7 posted on Friday, September 11, 2009 4:12:01 PM by LibWhacker (America awake!)

The guy was buggering underage (at that time) teenage boys?

Sick.

8 posted on Friday, September 11, 2009 4:26:57 PM by icwhatudo ("laws requiring compulsory abortion could be sustained under the existing Constitution"Obama Adviser)

The law at the time in UK made 21 the age of majority. I don't believe back in the early 1950s that they were into gradiations of buggery based on age differntials or time dilation factors.

Just a straight up and down ~ of age, or not of age.

So Turing was not satisfied with the law and violated it.

9 posted on Friday, September 11, 2009 4:29:53 PM by muawiyah

Every so often, however, the Free Republic echo chamber is disturbed by a discordant note. This time it was a Freeper by the handle of “steve-b,” the person responsible for the original post on the Turing apology. He had a rather telling observation about the way in which his fellow Freepers were falling all over themselves to justify compliance with law, although Free Republic is usually a hotbed of anti-government sedition.

So Turing was not satisfied with the law and violated it.

I'm sure the concept of disagreeing with and disregarding the government's decrees will give all good FReepers a severe case of the vapors.

11 posted on Saturday, September 12, 2009 7:02:23 AM by steve-b (Intelligent Design -- "A Wizard Did It")

Note that steve-b also mocks ID creationism. That alone suffices to make him suspect among Free Republic's creationist majority.

Not to mention that highly questionable support for apologizing to a dead queer. Shocking! (If he's not careful, he'll get “expelled.”)

Yeah. Even the extremists have a fringe.

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The Harvey Milk of human kindness

A freedom medal for a freedom fighter

Harvey Milk knew a political opportunist when he saw one. In part, it was because it takes one to know one, and Milk had a broad streak of opportunism in his makeup. Harvey, however, was a man on a mission to elevate the status of gay people everywhere in society and seized opportunities to advance his cause. Opposite him was state Sen. John Briggs, a man whose opportunism was devoted to elevating himself and his political career. Milk and Briggs were engaged in a running debate over Proposition 6 on the November 1978 general election ballot.

Briggs had created Proposition 6 to raise his political profile in the state of California and create a groundswell of support that might carry him into the governor's mansion in Sacramento. The initiative was inspired by Anita Bryant's successful campaign in Florida against Miami-Dade's gay rights ordinance. Briggs had cynically picked up on Bryant's “save the children” motto and drafted Proposition 6 to empower public school boards to fire gay teachers—or any teachers (gay or not) who supported gay rights.

The Milk vs. Briggs rolling debate jumped from venue to venue, often before audiences predisposed to cheer Briggs and jeer at the queer from San Francisco. Nevertheless, Milk fearlessly answered Briggs point by point and took the battle to the enemy. When the ballots were counted on November 7, Proposition 6 had been defeated by a margin exceeding a million votes.

Twenty days later, San Francisco County Supervisor Harvey Milk was dead, murdered in a killing spree by former supervisor Dan White, an anti-gay politician who took his vengeance against both Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone. White later killed himself, aimless and depressed at failing to put his life back together after serving an absurdly short five-year prison sentence for the double murder (he was actually convicted of manslaughter instead of murder). White died knowing he had elevated his nemesis Harvey Milk to iconic martyr status, which probably gnawed constantly at his vitals during the seven years he survived his victim.

Harvey would undoubtedly have preferred a longer life than the fifty years he was given, but he had been fatalistic about the likely price he would pay for his open political activism. Milk tape-recorded a manifesto to be played in the event of his murder, so he was as prepared as one can be for the eventuality that overtook him on November 27, 1978. “Play that tape of Briggs and I over and over again so people can know what an evil man he is. So people know what our Hitler is like. So people know that where the ideas of hate come from. So they know what the future will bring if they're not careful.” While “our Hitler” has all but vanished from the pages of California history, his quest for political power aborted by the No on 6 coalition, the most visible leader of that coalition is at least as famous today as he was twenty years ago.

On Wednesday, August 12, President Barack Obama will formally award Harvey Milk the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It's an apt choice, although I know it's also a relatively easy sop for the president to toss to those of us who are not content with his administration's extremely slow and casual approach to “Don't ask, don't tell” (which should have been suspended by executive order immediately upon his taking office) and his Justice Department's willingness to defend the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act. The recognition of Harvey Milk is a good thing, Mr. President, but it would be even better if you acted more vigorously in support of the human rights for which he gave his life. Much better.

Meanwhile, here in California, we may be able to parlay Milk's presidential honor into more support for SB 572, a legislative measure to establish Harvey Milk Day. A similar measure passed the legislature in 2008 and was vetoed by the governor. SB 572 would put the issue on his desk again. (Here's your big chance to get something right for a change, Arnold!) Harvey Milk Day would be a day of commemoration under the provisions of the legislation and not a state holiday, so it's financial impact on California would be minimal. The state's right-wingers and gay-bashers are more concerned, however, about the social impact of Harvey Milk Day. Treat gay people as human beings with equal human rights! Good Lord, no! They are desperate to—are you ready?—save our children. Yes, it's the same old song. Here's a paragraph that SaveCalifornia.com is urging people to include in letters demanding the defeat or veto of SB 572:

INDOCTRINATES CHILDREN AS YOUNG AS 5 YEARS OLD: Harvey Milk Day would promote the “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender” agenda of Harvey Milk to up to six million children in public schools, including kindergarteners. These kids aren’t old enough to be taught about sex, but now they’ll be taught about same-sex “marriages,” cross-dressing and same-sex desires? This is highly inappropriate.

I do believe that cross-dressing often occurs spontaneously among kindergarten-age children, but is this one of the things mandated by SB 572? Let's look at the actual language of the bill. Here is the entire text of the measure as it relates to activities on Harvey Milk Day:

On Harvey Milk Day, exercises remembering the life of Harvey Milk, recognizing his accomplishments, and familiarizing pupils with the contributions he made to this state.

Pretty explicit, isn't it? Once again, the graphic content is in the warped mind of the gay-bashing beholders, whose Freudian fascination with the details of gay sex is epitomized by their constant whining about not wanting the supposed gay rights agenda “jammed down our throats.”

These people need help.

Perhaps someone could remind them about that amusing statement (whose source I am at a loss to track down) that “Gay people are completely different from straight people—except for what they do in bed.”

One of my friends is a high school teacher who sees Harvey Milk Day as a perfect opportunity to discourage gay-bashing and bullying of all kinds, as well as the use of “that's so gay” as a casual expression of disapprobation. In language earthier than any he would use on campus, he says, “The uptight anti-gay right is ridiculously paranoid about this. They refuse to understand what it's about. We're not teaching our students about fucking assholes. We're teaching them not to be fucking assholes!”

So there.

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