Revelations

The Boston Marathon bombing and aftermath brought out the best and the worst in American life.  You could see them both for example on the same Rachel Maddow program (Wednesday's): the millions in contributions to help the victims, the Rabid Right conspiracy theories and xenophobia.

There are also many kinds of attempts to figure out how to prevent such destructive actions in the future.  Because of the as-yet unknowns and the complexities of the Boston bomber situation--the dynamics of personality, age, family, unique experience as well as political and religious beliefs and information--that add up to never-to-be-completely-knowns.

But surely the point is that whatever those beliefs, motivations, etc. might be in this case or any other, what matters most are the actions taken.  And dealing with those require what much of the Rabid Right won't deal with.

In previous posts I noted various intersections of the bombing and gun debates.  Now there are clear relationships.  It's the NRA and its successful efforts to prevent background checks for people who buy the gunpowder (the "black powder") of the kind used to make the Boston bombs.  And the NRA's very successful efforts to prevent the powder from containing "taggants" or very small markers that could trace the powder back to the person who bought it.  It's been technically possible since the 70s, and advocated by law enforcement etc. but the NRA and its congressional minions have prevented it.

Rachel detailed the absurdity of the current situation regarding background checks.  A person can be put on the terrorist watch list, and therefore be prevented from getting on a commercial airliner.  But they can leave the airport and buy as many guns and as much gunpowder as they want, legally.

In a sane society it might be noticed that  while you can't tell how potentially dangerous someone is from what they say about their beliefs or what they read, you have a better chance by knowing how many weapons and how much bomb-making material they've acquired.

That doesn't make sense to the Rabid Right, because government is the enemy, and they need those guns and bombs to defend themselves, or kill abortion doctors and other evil people.  They are so close to being the GOPer mainstream now partly because of gun manufacturer money, on top of all that oil money etc.

In terms of the electorate, we're probably seeing a time lag phenomenon: their time is demographically gone, but demography hasn't quite caught up to political structures.  However, this reactionary phase is lengthened and made more powerful and dangerous by the uber-wealthy who use this dwindling group for their own interests.  Money has a multiplier effect.  Together these elements are paralyzing the federal legislature, weakening government's ability to respond to needs at every level.  We're in the deep water of insanity, with no clear idea how close to shore we might be.

The Forest Planet

Earth was a forest planet.  Forests and oceans.  Humankind cut down most of the forests, thereby longterm cutting its own throat.

Emerald Isle?  Ireland has no forests anymore.  The Black Forest of Germany?  It's a cake.  Greece?  Not for milennia.  The great pine forests of eastern America, gone, gone, gone.  The precious redwoods of California, 95% gone.

Forests (and oceans) have been protecting us from our own idiocy throughout the industrial age by compensating for the carbon overload in the atmosphere.  It's a losing battle now.  And as temperatures rise (or fail to fall as far) more diseases and insects that prey on trees are successfully killing the remaining forests.

Humankind, more powerful that smart, is just learning how little it actually knows about forests, about trees and the Earth.  Earth Day is a good day to remember that.

Over at Books in Heat  is my review of a book that notes this context in the course of telling the remarkable story of David Milarch and his project to clone the champion trees and reforest the planet.  The project has had its ups and downs, but today it got some fanfare for planting two dozen clones of California redwoods in seven countries around the planet.  These include clones taken from a stump, 35 feet in diameter, some 4,000 years called the Fieldbrook Stump, which sits nursing new growth redwood just a few miles from where I live.

It's a publicity move that worked, timing it to the U.S. Earth Day, but the project is not all feel good public relations.  For one thing, there's an easily understood rationale for cloning the biggest and oldest trees: their DNA is survivor stuff.  As threats to forests from climate, weather, pests and disease increase in the Climate Crisis era, surviving is going to be a challenge.

It's also a more sophisticated project than even that, because these trees are just not planted randomly anywhere.  Though our redwoods got the headlines today, champion trees of various species are planted where they can thrive and do the most good, and in ways that encourage forest growth, not just tree growth. For instance, willows are particularly good at detoxifying rivers.

Plus the "cloning" may get attention and sound all high tech, but many of the methods are very old, and don't involve test tubes.  They do involve a lot of care and precision.  And luck.

There are a lot of efforts underway to get Gaia through this long crisis.  Some are simple (though not simple enough for politicians) and some are complex, technological and visionary.  (Some of course are technological and stupid, guaranteed to make things a hell of a lot worse.)  But there are few as simple and soaring as this, as grand and as just very clearly right.  Reforest the Earth.
  

The Week in Review

Of all the moments in the Boston events last week, this is the one that sticks most in my mind--the audio of the firefight in Watertown, recorded from a home that's both near and far from the action--far enough that amidst the sound of the shooting, there's the sound of barking dogs and a bird.  It's the barking dogs and the bird that got to me.

Otherwise, there's this summary of the events, with all the misinformation left out.

The Dreaming Up Daily Quote

"The most inspirational literature I ever read was Dostoevsky or Camus.  Then I believe his assertions when he says you only have one choice in your life: it's whether or not to commit suicide.  If you don't commit suicide, you have to treat your life with a great deal of energy and assertiveness."

Jim Harrison

A brief personal coda.  I'm reminded that the last time I was in Boston, we stayed with friends in Watertown.  Even that was more than a decade ago. They still live there, and teach at universities in Boston.  We knew them from Pittsburgh, and we hope they got through all this okay.  Update: We've heard from them, and they did.   

Looking back on these posts, somewhere between a third and a half of what was said was wrong.  At least according to the narratives now.

Now things go into the longer process.  Already conflicting information on the suspects, though the older is getting really bad press.  Already politics is entering, on how the suspect is to be prosecuted--the Obama administration is insisting on civilian courts, and I think commentators are right that Boston public will insist on it.

It turns out that these guys did live on Norfolk St. in Cambridge, very close to where I lived, though that was years before either of them was born.  Apparently it is still a predominantly a Portuguese neigbhorhood.  The buildings, the layout of the wood frames,the colors, very much like the buildings where I lived in a first floor apartment on Columbia St. 

So it adds to the strangeness for me, to feel connected and yet distant.  The people I knew in Cambridge in those years are mostly long gone, and I expect that the place is both different and familiar. 

As for how this all played out, the first such event in the era of ubiquitious cell phones and social media, there were pluses and minuses, and in his statement President Obama warned against rush to judgment against entire groups. 

But right now crowds are spontaneously gathering on Boston Common, and I expect in Harvard Square, which is itself a repudiation of the terror theory.  People not afraid to gather in public.

All in all, the resilience and ability to cooperate, both of ordinary people and public servants, has been heartening.

There are so many police vehicles and so many people on the street in Watertown cheering, it's like a nighttime parade.

People in Watertown have come out of their homes, lining the street, cheering the police as they leave.

Suspect is alive and in custody, NBC is reporting.

At the very least the police forces have the boat surrounded, and as night falls they have night vision.  There are conflicting reports on whether the suspect is still alive, perhaps even talking to police.  Now it's not certain there was a fire.  So nothing much is clear except they think they have the suspect cornered.  A resident noted that thing are very quiet.

It's about 12 hours after I last posted and essentially nothing happened until the last few minutes.  It looks as though the suspect is cornered in a boat in a driveway.  It is just outside the original 20 block perimenter in Watertown.  One answer to why they were fairly confident he was still here is that he was wounded in the original firefight.  Still, they were almost ready to give up the search in this area.

A tip from a woman who saw a ladder that was moved, blood on the tarp over the boat, and then helicopters got a heat signature--copters hadn't been able to fly most of the time because of low ceiling.

There were sounds of shots and now a report that there is a fire on the boat, which has gasoline aboard.  The general reporting is that this is coming to an end.

Also a detail: the order to stay in your homes in Watertown was carried by robocalls, so people in the middle of the night got a call.

The huge military/law enforcement presence seems to be now concerned that the suspect could still have a bomb, even a suicide bomb.  His older brother had a device strapped on him when he was shot.

I see there's some new information: the older brother was out of the country for six months last year.  There is a sister in New Jersey, who may have been bullied by the older brother.  The father is abroad.  The mother seems to be claiming this is all an FI plot.  Others are being questioned, roommates or former roommates of the suspect.

Flash bangs were thrown into the boat, to stun the suspect.  That might be the source of the fire.

8 am in Boston, as the "shelter in place" reccommendation is extended to the city of Boston, as well as the other towns.  So essentially Greater Boston has stopped everything.  Nobody is supposed to leave their homes, or let anyone into them.  This may be the first shelter in place order for a major American city ever.

A police spokesperson says this may go on for hours.

Several of the NBC outside commentators are really going with the Chechnya connection, and the connection to terrorism there.  They seem to be ignoring the information that neither was born in Chechnya and the suspect at large has been in America since he was nine.  There's no information released about them leaving the U.S.  So it's jumping to conclusions.

If there's any reason now that this guy is still in Watertown, they're not saying.  Nobody has mentioned either where they lived in Cambridge, but that might be because the police and FBI are there.

It's after 5 am here.  I'm fading, so pretty soon I may stop talking to myself in blog form and get some sleep.

Boston Police etc. are warning people away from Norfolk St. in Cambridge, maybe a block or two from where I used to live in Cambridge.  It may be where they're detonating a bomb, maybe something else.  A dangerous situation they're saying. 

Now they're reporting that these brothers have been in the U.S. for more than 10 years, since they were children.  Though they were born in Russia, it seems they grew up here.  I'd thought before that if they lived in Cambridge and weren't well to do, they might live in the area near where I lived, East Cambridge, and that's where Norfolk St. basically is.

The whole MBTA is shut down.  So is Amtrak from Boston to Providence.  So people waking up in the Boston area are waking up to this.  I think I heard someone say that the violence last night started in Central Square, which is very near where I lived in Cambridge.  I bought groceries every Saturday at the Purity Supreme supermarket there.  I'm not sure why an MIT police officer would respond to a robbery attempt in Central Square, so maybe I heard wrong. 

As this goes on, my visual memory is returning of these places. 

Boston Police just announced they've conducting a controlled explosion in Cambridge.  Earlier reports said that as the suspects fled Cambridge they threw bombs out of the car. 

Now it seems the guy on the run had been living in Cambridge for several years, even went to high school there.

Police still assembling, and apparently military assets assembling in the mall parking lot in Watertown.

AP is reporting the bombing suspects are from Chechnya in Russia.  Pete Williams is being quoted as saying they are apparently Chechnan who had been living in Turkey.  NBC is not yet confirming this, but a commentator slipped up and mentioned it, mentioning also the Islamicist terrorism in Chechnya.

At this point it seems Cambridge and Boston in general is shut down and locked down.  The universities and schools across Boston are closed.  People are literally being kept off the streets.  Incredible.

Pete Williams is reporting that they are brothers, 19 and 20.  The one at large is Cambridge resident.  Tsarnaez is the name being identified.  No nationality given, but repeated that they've been in the U.S. for a year or so.  The one at large is 19.

Less emphasis on the idea that police suspect they know where he is.  A lot of public transit is shut.  NBC estimates 320,000 in the area around Watertown are being told to stay home.

It's almost 3 a.m. here, 6 am there, and the start of the day.  But Watertown is locked down--no transit, no businesses opening, nobody going out or in.  Pete Williams is reporting that the police believe they know the building where the guy at large is holed up.  That answers my question, which is how do they know that he is still in Watertown.  He got away reportedly by flooring an SUV and breaking through police lines.  It would seem he would drive as far as he could.  But they believe they know where he is.

These guys were heavily armed with guns and explosives.  Nobody knows what the guy on the run has with him.

I've been away from the TV for a half hour or so, not much has changed, and the print media via goggle news seems to have caught up.

Pete Williams reports that although the identities of the suspects are not confirmed, the FBI thinks they know who they are--both with overseas military training, who have been in the U.S. for a year or so. 

It's approaching 5 a.m. in Watertown.  These are all places near where I used to live.  But a lot of people there probably have no idea what has gone on overnight, and the warnings not to answer their doors is something they haven't heard.  They're also considering not reopening the transit system this morning, as long as the second guy is at large.

One detail I saw on a report: that in the Watertown firefight, one of these guys threw a bomb towards police and shouted "Fire in the hole!"  That's a phrase popularized in the ongoing TV series Justified.  In the pilot, a white supremacist shouts this as he shoots a rocketlauncher at a black church.  His job in coal mines was explosives, and before setting off the explosives in the mine he would shout Fire in the hole. 

It's about 1:20 am here in CA.  A couple of hours ago I turned on the TV to see the replay of the Boston memorial service and President Obama's great speech (which I'd seen on my computer), and was greeted with flashing lights and chaos in Watertown, Mass.  A chase that apparently began at MIT resulted in a firefight in Watertown.  Right now they're playing home video of that firefight and explosions between two suspects and police.  The gunfire is interlaced with barking dogs and birds calling.

I've been watching all this in real time.  The police are now announcing that one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing identified last evening with photos from the FBI was involved in the firefight and is now at large in Watertown.  One of the suspects was killed in the firefight.  The officers looked pretty worried, and were warning residents to stay indoors.  In reference to the photos released earlier, it is the young man in the black cap who was killed, and the one in the white cap who is on the run.

It's very weird, watching this unfold in real time in the middle of the night.  Through all the TV blather I've also been monitoring online.  The New York Times actually had the most precise story from an eyewitness to the firefight. 

This started with an MIT officer shot and killed when investigating a distrubance complaint, possibly a car-jacking, a robbery at a 7-Eleven.  The dots are yet to be assembled, and the situation is ongoing.  Pete Williams of NBC, who has been the most reliable reporter on this entire story from the bombing onward, suggests that this all started when the two guys decided to get out of town and car-jacked a vehicle.  It may be that the whole photo thing was the FBI's way of flushing out the suspect.  That's my speculation, not his.

Gutless Check

On Wednesday, Republicans in the U.S. Senate forced a 60 vote supermajority on gun regulation legislation.  The compromise bipartisan bill to expand background checks lost by 5 votes, though it had a majority.

In response, President Obama called it a shameful day in Washington, in an angry statement in the White House rose garden, surrounded by parents of gun violence victims, and gun violence victims themselves, like former Member of Congress Gabrielle Giffords.  He said the NRA and other violence promoters  “willfully lied about the bill” in order to scare gutless senators into opposing even a straight vote on it.

 Gabrielle Giffords wrote an oped published in the New York Times Thursday edition:

"I watch TV and read the papers like everyone else. We know what we’re going to hear: vague platitudes like “tough vote” and “complicated issue.” I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress. I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote. This was neither. These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association..."

"Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe. We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation — to go on."

"I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators’ e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences."

"Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way."

Martin's Dream Deferred

Martin Richards died at the age of 8.  His little sister, who loved to dance, has lost a leg, and may lose the other.  His mother has a severe brain injury.  All of this the result of one of the homemade bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon--bombs that did little damage to property, but were made to inflict pain and horrible damage to human beings.  Made to hurt people.

When will Martin Richards' dream come true?  Not today, when it is likely now that the cowards of the U.S. Senate will not even allow votes on gun regulation measures.  They're using the Boston tragedy as cover for their cowardice.

Does it matter that one eight year old was killed by a crude bomb, while 20 six year olds were killed by the bullets of a high tech rifle?  It does not matter to those children.  As a society we do a great deal to protect against such a bomb.  But our Congress is about to decide to do nothing to protect children against guns, especially those that are at least as efficient at hurting people as one homemade bomb, though the guns at Sandy Hook were more lethal.

The U.S. at all levels of government spends immense sums in trying to prevent terrorist bombs from exploding.  Thousands of people are trained and deployed around the world.  Those bombs and components that can be outlawed, are outlawed.  People have to make their own bombs.  Unfortunately, the ingredients are not uncommon--they mostly all have other legitimate functions.  Guns are lethal weapons to begin with.

Nobody gets to openly bring a bomb to a public place, to a political rally.  But last week a group of mothers demonstrating in support of gun regulations were surrounded by men with guns.  Legally.  

All guns and bullets are dangerous to begin with.  They go off by accident or by stupidity or innocence.  They   are lethal weapons that are too easy to use in anger, or to intimidate. It used to be common sense to regulate how they are used and where they can be carried.

Some guns and bullets have only one function: to kill as many people in as short a time as possible, which they did at Sandy Hook when they killed 20 six year olds and several adults in five minutes of nearly continuous firing, by a coward who brought unthinkable firepower provided legally by his mother to face defenseless children at an elementary school.

No more hurting people.  Too much to ask, Martin.  Our leaders can't even agree on doing something just so that fewer people will be hurt and maimed and killed.  Anywhere, anytime.  Tens of thousands of people, many hundreds of children killed and maimed by guns, every year.

We don't need terrorists.  We've got the GOPer Congress.

Rest in Peace, Martin.  Those of us still alive have to keep working towards your dream.  In our own lives, and as citizens.  

The Marathon

photo by  Aaron Tang/wikipedia

Over the weekend and early Monday, the news was that the bipartisan support  in the U.S. Senate for a watered-down version of the least controversial gun regulation proposal was breaking down.  It was further evidence that the central government of the most powerful nation in the world can't even enact a measure that in any sensible society would have been on the books for a century.  All last week the news was about the heroic efforts to get Congress just to pass some laws that would indicate that we live in a civilized society, not to mention save people from horrific violence and death.  All that effort for what should be automatic, and with far more complex and threatening problems not only unresolved but not seriously addressed.  Not exactly inspiring.

Then came the bombs at the Boston Marathon, and to the possibly fatal dereliction of duty in Washington, the overwhelming power of big money to swamp democracy, poison the present and slaughter the future, a few different features of the American present came forward to contest this fatalism.

On the suddenly bloody streets of Boston, there was competence.  The bombs exploded near the finish line of the Marathon, which happens to be just a few blocks from where I used to work every day in the then-offices of the then-Boston Phoenix.  No central city in America is blessed with more or better medical resources in a compact area, and the Marathon itself had a triage and treatment tent already set up nearby.  But beyond that, the competence and courage, of EMTs and other personnel, including instant volunteers, as well as those who set up response procedures, speaks well for our capabilities in future emergencies, whatever their cause.  Skills, discipline, the temperament to use those skills: the calling to learn them and use them.

And there was kindness.  People who rushed towards the horrific scene in order to help survivors. Runners who kept running to the hospitals, to give blood.  Bostonians who volunteered their homes for the many out-of-towners (including international visitors) in Boston for the Marathon, who couldn't get back to hotels zoned off in the crime scene blocks.

If anything is going to save any of us, it will be the competence and kindness of the non-rich, and the courage to apply both.  "You'd do the same for me" rises to the occasion again. Not just kindness, but to be impelled to help, to anticipate how to help.

 There are less noble forces at work right now, sacrificing the poor, the old and the otherwise helpless and unconnected non-rich.  That ignored war against the anonymous is only going to get bigger and worse as all kind of things tighten.  But these countervailing qualities are still alive, at least in vivid emergencies.  Maybe in this marathon emergency we can build on that.

Stand With Dianne

There was movement in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday regarding gun regulation.  After GOPer leader McConnell said he would join the cowards in their filibuster, eight other GOP Senators announced they would not.  That might be enough to forestall it.  A test vote is scheduled for Thursday, though if it is apparent by then the votes aren't there, even that might not happen.

Also on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Reid vowed that all the measures voted out of committee would get a vote on the floor.  He had already reminded the GOP that it would take a majority vote to change the rules, meaning new restrictions on the filibuster.  But by whatever procedural method, it now seems more likely than it did yesterday that votes will really be taken.  There was even a story that GOPer Senators had agreed on a background checks bill.

Senator Dianne Feinstein said that Reid had promised her a vote specifically on her bill to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, to be offered as an amendment.  She appeared on Lawrence O'Donnell, who continues to refer to the bill as "massacre control" and Feinstein's effort as a countermeasure to fostering the best equipped mass murderers in the world.  He urged voters and senators to "stand with Dianne."

Feinstein, who sponsored the 1994 assault weapons ban that was overturned in 2003, was eloquent in her argument.  In addition to arguments others have offered, including President Obama, she pointed out that the assault rifle is the weapon of choice for mass murderers because it is relatively light and easy to use.  It doesn't require even a minimum of marksmanship.  It's a point and slaughter weapon.  It's only purpose is as a horrific weapon of war.  It has no non-military purpose but to slaughter.  To slaughter the innocent.

I can't see the Newtown parents without thinking of one little girl among those who were slaughtered by man with a legal assault weapon, who fired 105 rounds in 5 minutes.  Her mother mentioned in an interview that just a week before the massacre, they discovered their child had perfect pitch.  This remarkable gift, which might have led to a remarkable life and given joy to many people, ended in the first grade, in the land of guns.

The Right Time

President Obama in Connecticut on Monday (excerpts from the transcript.  Full video is above):

"We have to tell Congress it’s time to crack down on gun trafficking so that folks will think twice before buying a gun as part of a scheme to arm someone who won’t pass a background check. Let’s get that done. (Applause.)

We have to tell Congress it’s time to restore the ban on military-style assault weapons, and a 10-round limit for magazines, to make it harder for a gunman to fire 154 bullets into his victims in less than five minutes. Let’s put that to a vote. (Applause.)

We have to tell Congress it’s time to strengthen school safety and help people struggling with mental health problems get the treatment they need before it’s too late. Let’s do that for our kids and for our communities. (Applause.)

Now, I know that some of these proposals inspire more debate than others, but each of them has the support of the majority of the American people. All of them are common sense. All of them deserve a vote. All of them deserve a vote. (Applause.)"

"...And yet, there is only one thing that can stand in the way of change that just about everybody agrees on, and that’s politics in Washington. You would think that with those numbers Congress would rush to make this happen. That's what you would think. (Applause.) If our democracy is working the way it’s supposed to, and 90 percent of the American people agree on something, in the wake of a tragedy you’d think this would not be a heavy lift.

And yet, some folks back in Washington are already floating the idea that they may use political stunts to prevent votes on any of these reforms. Think about that. They’re not just saying they’ll vote “no” on ideas that almost all Americans support. They’re saying they’ll do everything they can to even prevent any votes on these provisions. They’re saying your opinion doesn’t matter. And that’s not right."

"...I thought about the mom I met from suburban Chicago whose son was killed in a random shooting. And this mom told me, I hate it when people tell me that my son was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was on his way to school. He was exactly where he was supposed to be. He was in the right place at the right time, and he still got shot. (Applause.)

The kids at Sandy Hook were where they were supposed to be. So were those moviegoers in Aurora. So were those worshippers in Oak Creek. So was Gabby Giffords. She was at a supermarket, listening to the concerns of her constituents. (Applause.) They were exactly where they were supposed to be. They were also exercising their rights -- to assemble peaceably; to worship freely and safely. They were exercising the rights of life and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So surely, we can reconcile those two things. Surely, America doesn’t have to be divided between rural and urban, and Democrat and Republican when it comes to something like this."

"I've got to tell you, I've had tough days in the presidency -- I've said this before. The day Newtown happened was the toughest day of my presidency. But I've got to tell you, if we don’t respond to this, that will be a tough day for me, too. (Applause.) Because we've got to expect more from ourselves, and we've got to expect more from Congress. We've got to believe that every once in a while, we set politics aside and we just do what's right. (Applause.) We've got to believe that.

And if you believe that, I'm asking you to stand up. (Applause.) If you believe in the right to bears arms, like I do, but think we should prevent an irresponsible few from inflicting harm -- stand up. Stand up. (Applause.)

If you believe that the families of Newtown and Aurora and Tucson and Virginia Tech and the thousands of Americans who have been gunned down in the last four months deserve a vote, we all have to stand up. (Applause.)

If you want the people you send to Washington to have just an iota of the courage that the educators at Sandy Hook showed when danger arrived on their doorstep, then we’re all going to have to stand up.

And if we do, if we come together and raise our voices together and demand this change together, I’m convinced cooperation and common sense will prevail. We will find sensible, intelligent ways to make this country stronger and safer for our children. (Applause.)

So let’s do the right thing. Let’s do right by our kids. Let’s do right by these families. Let’s get this done. Connecticut, thank you. God bless you. God bless the United States of America."  (Applause.)

Congress of Cowards

Gabriel Giffords was a young, articulate and dedicated Member of Congress, with a bright future of public service.  She was not deterred from what she believed in, even when windows of her Colorado office were shattered right after she voted for the Affordable Care Act.  But she valued dialogue with her constituents, and went out of her way to make it easy for them to approach her.  She was gunned down in a public place, surrounded by constituents and just plain shoppers.

It took many months, heroic effort, and better medical care than most of us can hope for, until she had recovered sufficiently for the media to decide she was all better.  She's not.  Words come with great difficulty.  Her sentences are short, made up of short words.

But besides being visible and audible evidence of the damage done to her, these words and sentences can also be incredibly direct and eloquent.  After Newtown, and just as Congress was holding its first hearings towards crafting new gun control legislation, she spoke to a congressional committee.  In the course of her brief statement, she said a two word sentence, emphasizing both words.  It was the most important sentence anyone has uttered in this debate.  It was directed to her former colleagues in Congress.  "Be brave."

She knew then what we know now.  That despite majorities favoring every aspect of gun regulation on President Obama's list, and despite 90% approval of the simplest measure--universal criminal background checks--Republican Senators are falling over each other, eager to say they will prevent any of these measures from being debated or coming to a vote.  And the senators are supposed to be the sane GOPers.

They are instead redefining the 10% to include corporations that make and sell guns.  They are serving these masters, and cannot disobey.  Nor have all Democrats distinguished themselves in regard to these proposals.

With some exceptions, it is a Congress of cowards.

President Obama, in the speech I've posted above, is more constructive on the subject than I am.  He is leading a citizen revolt against this particular obstruction. He brought 12 parents whose children were killed at Newtown aboard Air Force One, to stay for the week and lobby these sniveling senators in Washington.
 Still it has to be said, because--especially set against the courage of Gabby Giffords-- this cowardice is so craven that it must be named.

Wolf Bites Deeper

This man in the John Deere cap is listening to names being announced of children who are going to be allowed to stay in their Head Start classes, knowing that children whose names aren't called will be thrown out of theirs, not because of anything they did, but because of budget cuts mandated by the U.S. Congress in that neutral sounding "sequester."  He's in Columbus, Indiana, a neat little town I've seen, and Columbus was one of two places that resorted to a lottery to determine who would be dropped.  It turned out he wasn't affected, but this AP story quotes a mother whose 4 year old son was thriving in the program, learning the alphabet and numbers. He's out.  "He loves school," Miller said. "I don't know how I'm going to tell him he's not going back."

Study after study has reaffirmed the immense importance Head Start can have at a very crucial time in these young lives.  For families without the resources of the rich, this program is possibly definitive, more important to their children than the Ivy League school might be to the children of rich Members of Congress.

But this is only the beginning.  The White House estimates that Indiana alone could lose 1,000 Head Start slots.

Buzzfeed had another example: a long story on an army vet who just got a 27% pay cut at his new Defense Department job, and figures if the sequester goes on and layoffs start, he'll be the first to go. Since he's not the CEO of Penneys this cut hurt so much he's got a second job cleaning bathrooms at a pizza place. At the age of 40 he's trying to get back to combat, for the income.
 
But these are not just isolated instances. A piece in the Huffington Post asserts: "The grips of sequestration are just now beginning to be felt and the effects are already quite dramatic."  Amanda Terkel and Sam Stein  provide 100 examples of local services closed and people fired: a food pantry in Utah, a rehab center in Alaska, both closed; jobs lost in research, on an Air Force base, and a lot of impact on health care and schools.

It's not only that the rich and well connected aren't feeling this yet.  (Though some private airplane owners are starting to, and all air travelers probably will soon.)  It's a systems dynamics thing--it's sitting in traffic when the light is green, and moving ahead when the light is red.  Part of it is agencies holding off cuts as long as they can, hoping Congress comes to its senses, but when they finally have to cut, they will be deeper cuts.  But part of it is time lag.

The sequester cuts aren't hurting the twittering class, while all the economic news is about growth--factory orders, housing, etc.  Inflated corporate earnings make Wall Street joyous.  But it's not going to last.  None of it.  Not when money is not being spent on jobs, and when money is being taken away from the jobs that still exist, but won't for much longer.

Unemployment checks are going to be 10% lighter this month.  That's money drained out of the consumer economy immediately.  It will show up in the stats in a month or two.  The wolf is biting.  But the wolf is just getting started.

The Connecticut Effect

The NRA calmed its gun company masters and its easily panicked minions by sagely suggesting that staving off anti- massacre-by-gun  laws was just a matter of waiting out the "Connecticut Effect"--the national response to the assault rifle slaughter of 6 year olds in Newtown.

But suddenly there's another kind of Connecticut Effect.  The state government of Connecticut is poised to enact the most "far reaching gun control package in the country."  Its centerpiece is banning high capacity ammunition magazines--all new sales immediately, the registration of all existing magazines, and it bans shooting with these magazines anywhere but at a registered gun range.

Moreover, it is a thoroughly bipartisan plan.  Connecticut has a Democratic governor, and Dem majorities in its legislature.  But a process that included extensive public hearings also included extensive consultations and work with Republican legislators, to craft the legislation.

It is by far the most dramatic and the most hopeful outcome so far.  With the U.S. Congress beset by craven cowardice, it is in the states that progress is being made.  The Connecticut Effect may be to show the way.

Read It and Weep

It seems the Board of Directors of J.C. Penney are really upset with how the company is going, and they've decided to punish their CEO.

In a bold if not unprecedented move, they've slashed the CEO's pay--by 97%!

Quoted the New York Times: “The C.E.O. is certainly being given a message,” said Kent Hughes, managing director at the proxy advisory firm Egan-Jones Ratings Company. 

And what a message!  Somehow this guy has to make do on only 3% of his regular pay.  Hard to imagine how he can do it and still concentrate on turning the company around to please the board.

Yes, unless he dips into his savings or his stock portfolio or even his retirement, he and his family are going to have to make do for the entire year on only $1.9 million.

oh and by the way