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SCIENCE VS. SUPERSTITION

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics on April 22, 2013 at 12:01 am

Bureaucracies are not made up of robot-like machines. They are comprised of flesh-and-blood men and women.

That includes even the most important bureaucracies–such as those of the House, Senate and White House.

And as much as Americans like to believe their elected leaders always behave rationally and intelligently, they don’t. In fact, they can’t.

In a democracy, those who hold public office reflect the values of those who sent them there.

Consider the following:

On the eve of the 2012 Republican primaries in Alabama and Mississippi, a Public Policy Poll survey revealed a series of startling truths about the voters in those states.

Among the Republican voters of Alabama:

  • Only 26 percent believe in evolution.
  • Sixty percent don’t believe in it.
  • Thirteen percent aren’t sure about it.
  • Twenty-one percent still think interracial marriage should be illegal.
  • Twelve percent aren’t sure whether it should be.
  • Forty-five percent believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim.
  • Fourteen percent think he’s a Christian–although he’s always attended a Christian church.
    •Forty-one percent aren’t sure.

Among Republican voters in Mississippi:

  • Only 22 percent believe in evolution.
  • Eleven percent aren’t sure.
  • Fifty-four percent think interracial marriage should be legal.
  • Twenty-nine percent believe it shouldn’t be.
  • Seventeen percent aren’t sure.
  • Fifty-two percent think President Obama is a Muslim.
  • Only 12 percent think he’s a Christian.

These are among the voters who vilified a black, Harvard-educated, rationalist Obama–first as a Presidential candidate, and then as President.

And they aren’t going to change. It’s easier–and more comforting–to believe we are fallen angels instead of risen apes.

Just as it was easier for Germans in 1920s Germany to deny they had been defeated on the battlefields of World War 1.

It was far more satisfying to believe–and assert–that they had been “stabbed in the back” by Jews and “slackers” and Communists at home. Out of this denial of reality came the Final Solution.

Now, fast-forward to the 21st century.

The winter of 2011-2012 was the 4th warmest winter on record, behind 2000, 1999, and 1992. Winter temperatures have increased by about 1.7°F per century.

Despite ever-mounting evidence that global warming is indeed a reality, millions of right-wing voters refuse to accept it. The largest portion of these are concentrated in the South.

In April, 2010, America suffered its worst oil-spill disaster. For the next three months, 4.9 million barrels worth of crude oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico from a BP oil rig.

BP tried one oil-capping method after another–and the country feared that nothing might work. Those who had cheered on Sarah Palin in her chant of “Drill, baby, drill” during the 2008 Presidential race suddenly fell silent.

The second anniversary of America’s worst environmental disaster–April 20–is fast approaching.

And the country’s oil- and coal-producing conglomerates are flooding the airwaves with billions of dollars’ worth of lying propaganda.

“Clean coal” ads promise that America can meet its needs for energy and protect the environment. These ads never mention that the technologies for supposedly doing this are still in the experimental stage.

But most of the people watching these ads take them at face value. They want to believe they can have all the cheap gas they can get–and not feel guilty about destroying the world for their children.

Once again, millions of Americans–including those who live in the still-damaged Gulf of Mexico–are loudly demanding that President Obama “unleash America’s energy resources.”

President Obama is easily one of the best-educated men to occupy the White House. Like John F. Kennedy, he believes in rationalilty as a problem-solving tool.

But smarts at the top cannot make up for irrationality at the bottom.

During the 2008 Presidential race, Obama made a near-fatal mistake: He said that many Americans “cling to their guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

The fact that this was–and remains–absolutely true did not help Obama.  In fact, it threatened to cost him the election.

When an educated leader who believes in rationality must persuade a largely uneducated and irrational electorate, he must reshape his message accordingly.

That strategy must be the product of rational planning.  But the arguments aimed at such an audience must appeal to emotions rather than reason.

Republicans learned the lessons of emotion-driven politics decades ago.  Consider the words they routinely use to describe their political opponents:

Liberals…radicals…traitors…subversives…terrorists…socialists…communists.

In Mein Kampf–“My Struggle”–Adolf Hitler outlined his principles for the effective use of propaganda:

“…All effective propaganda must be confined to a few basic essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in sterotyped forumulas.

“Those slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”

Rationalistic politicians like Barack Obama believe they can attain their goals by appealing to the rationality of voters.  They forget–or ignore–the bitter truth that most people decide with their emotions, not with their intellect.

Until Obama and other Democrats learn this invaluable lesson–and start applying it–they will continue to lose to their Republican enemies.

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TAXING CRIMINALS FOR REVENUES: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Politics, Social commentary on April 19, 2013 at 12:19 am

Come visit San Francisco and you’ll see all the famous sights so beloved by tourists: Ghirardelli Square, the cable cars, the Golden Gate Bridge.

What you won’t see is one of the biggest blights facing the city: The behavior of predatory slumlords, who own both hotels and apartment buildings.

This behavior-–and the City’s steadfast refusal to change it-–poses a daily threat to the lives of San Francisco tenants. And it poses an equal threat to the City’s long-term ability to sustain its Number One source of revenues: The tourism industry.

To take one example: San Francisco is now facing an infestation of bedbugs. Everyone in the Department of Public Health (DPH) knows it. And everyone in DPH knows that many of the slumlords who own hotels plagued with these creatures refuse to do anything about them.

Bedbug

The reasons are twofold.

First, there’s a stigma attached to bedbugs that isn’t attached even to cockroaches. Roaches are filthy, but they don’t suck your blood. So when people learn that a hotel (including name-brand ones) has a bedbug infestation, they take their business elsewhere.

Second, combating bedbugs can be expensive. The most effective method involves a combination of poisons and heat treatments on a building-wide basis. Most landlords–-and certainly all slumlords––don’t want to take on that sort of expense.

San Francisco depends overwhelmingly on tourism for its revenues. A city whose hotels and apartment buildings are centers of contagion of any kind is a city destined to become a tourist ghost town, not a tourist mecca.

So, how to cope with this challenge? Here’s how:

  1. Greatly expand the Inspection Division at the Department of Public Health (DPH). This agency is legally charged with ensuring the health of San Francisco’s tenants-–both guests and residents.
  2. DPH should demand that a portion of those monies now directed toward entirely tourist-related issues be transferred to its Inspection Bureau. With those monies it can hire additional-–and badly-needed-–inspectors.
  3. Greatly expand the Inspection Division at the Department of Building Inspection–-and       make it independent of the agency. As matters now stand, too many high-ranking DBI officials tilt toward landlords because they are landlords themselves.
  4. End the culture of secrecy at DPH. The Department of Building Inspection is responsible for ensuring compliance with San Francisco building and housing codes. If a slumlord, for example, refuses to fix a tenant’s clogged bathtub drain or replace a window that’s about to fall out, the tenant calls DBI.
  5. DBI’s complaint records are immediately accessible at its website. Copies of its Notices of Violation–-ordering slumlords to correct problems-–can be obtained through the mails by request.  If a tenant wants to learn if other tenants have lodged complaints against his landlord, he can simply go online.
  6. By contrast, DPH offers nothing of this type of informational service.
  7. DPH should immediately make its records publicly available via the Internet, the same way DBI now does.
  8. DPH and DBI should order landlords to post their Notices of Violation in public areas of their buildings–-on pain of serious financial penalties for failing to do so.
  9. When DPH or DBI orders a slumlord to take corrective action, the only person who is notified of this is the landlord.   Thus, if that slumlord refuses to comply with those directives, s/he is the only one who knows about this. Given the pressing demands on DPH and DBI, weeks or months will pass before DPH/DBI learns about this violation of its orders.
  10. DPH and DBI should abandon their “gradual” approach to combating health/safety code violations in slumlord-owned apartments and hotels and hit the owner up-front with a heavy fine, payable immediately.  The landlord could recoup 75% to 80% of this money only if s/he could prove that the health threat had been totally eradicated within 30 days.
  11. If it were not, the slumlord would then be hit with a second fine twice the size of the last one and given another 30 days to correct the problem. So a slumlord hit with a $2,000 fine in January would face a $4,000 fine in February, and an $8,000 one in March.
  12. This would put the onus on the slumlord, not DBI/DPH.  These agencies now give landlords 30 days to correct a health/safety code violation. If the slumlord claims he needs more time, he’s automatically given another 30 days–minimum–to do so. This means the tenant must live with the discomfort–if not threat–of that violation until the slumlord finally decides to correct it.
  13. Inspectors for DPH and DBI should be armed with cross-jurisdiction authority. That is, if a DBI Inspector spots a health/safety violation covered by DPH, he should be able to cite the slumlord for this–and pass this information on to DPH for its own investigation. And the same should apply for Inspectors from DPH.
  14. This would instantly turn DBI and DPH into allies, not competitors. It would also make life far easier for tenants needing help. Whether a citizen called DBI or DPH, s/he could be assured of getting the assistance s/he needed. Currently, DPH and DBI Inspectors often tell citizens, “I’m sorry, that doesn’t lie within our jurisdiction. You’ll have to call—.”

By standing up to predatory slumlords, San Francisco can achieve three goals at once:

  1. Protect its residents and all-important tourist industry from predatory slumlords.
  2. Create new and popular sources of revenue for its cash-strapped public services.
  3. Set a shining example for other cities and states for how they can do the same.

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TAXING CRIMINALS FOR REVENUES: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Politics, Social commentary on April 18, 2013 at 12:00 am

The power of slumlords throughout the Nation calls to mind the scene in the 1987 movie, The Untouchables, where Sean Connery’s veteran cop tells Eliot Ness: “Everybody knows where the liquor is. It’s just a question of: Who wants to cross Capone?”

This holds true even in San Francisco, the so-called “renters paradise.” The files of the City’s Department of Public Health (DPH) and Department of Building Inspection (DBI) are filled with the names of slumlords whose buildings pose real dangers to those living in them.

All that the City needs to do is find the courage to enforce its own laws protecting tenants.

By refusing to do so, the City is losing millions of dollars in revenues that it could be collecting every year from slumlords violating its health/safety laws.

Here’s the way DBI and DPH now work: A landlord is given 30 days to correct a health/safety violation. If he drags his feet on the matter, the tenant must live with that continuing problem until it’s resolved.

If the landlord claims for any reason that he can’t fix the problem within one month, DBI and DPH automatically give him another month.

A slumlord has to really work at being hit with a fine—and that means letting a problem go uncorrected for three to six months. And even then the slumlord may well avoid the fine by pleading for leniency.

Many tenants have lived with rotting floors, nonworking toilets, chipping lead-based paint and other outrages for not simply months but years.

The City could vastly improve life for its thousands of renters—and bring millions of desperately-needed dollars’ worth of revenues into its cash-strapped coffers—by making the following reforms:

  1. Hit slumlord violators up-front with a fine—payable immediately—for at least $2,000 to $5,000 for each health/safety code violation.
  2. The slumlord would be told he can reclaim most of this money only if he fully corrected the violation within 30 days.
  3. If he fails to correct the problem within that time, he should be hit again with a fine that’s at least twice the amount of the first one. The fine should increase twice as much for each month the violation goes uncorrected. Thus, if it’s $2,000 in January, it should be $4,000 in February, and $8,000 in March. And so on.
  4. The slumlord would be allowed to reclaim 75% to 80% of the fine levied against him. This appeal to his greed would ensure his willingness to comply with the ordered actions. The other portion would go directly into the city coffers to maintain needed services.
  5. If he fails to comply with the actions ordered, the entire fine should go into the City’s coffers.
  6. Inspectors for DPH and DBI should be armed with cross-jurisdiction authority. Thus, if a DBI Inspector spots a health/safety violation covered by DPH, he should be able to cite the slumlord for this—and pass this information on to DPH for its own investigation. And the same would apply for Inspectors from DPH.
  7. This would instantly turn DBI and DPH into allies, not competitors—and would mean that whether a citizen called DBI or DPH, s/he could be assured of getting the assistance s/he needed. (Currently, DPH and DBI Inspectors often tell citizens, “I’m sorry, that doesn’t lie within our jurisdiction. You’ll have to call—.”)
  8. DPH and DBI should have their Inspectors divisions greatly expanded.  Cutting back these units is a no-win situation for San Francisco renters–and for desperately-needed City revenues.
  9. Turning these agencies into revenue-producing ones would enable the City to raise desperately-needed revenues—in a highly popular way. Fining delinquent slumlords would be as unpopular as raising taxes on tobacco companies. Only slumlords and their hired lackey allies would object.
  10. Slumlords, unlike drug-dealers, can’t move their operations from one street or city to another.  Landlords aren’t going to demolish their buildings and rebuild them somewhere else. So they have to stay put.
  11. Landlords should be legally required to give each tenant a list of the major city agencies (such as DBI, DPH and the Rent Board) that exist to help tenants resolve problems with their housing. 
  12. Landlords should be legally required to rehabilitate a unit every time a new tenant moves in, or at least have it examined by a DBI inspector every two years.  A tenant can occupy a unit for ten or more years, then die or move out, and the landlord immediately rents the unit to the first person who comes along, without any repairs or upgrades whatsoever.
  13. Landlords should be required to bring all the units in a building up to existing building codes, and not just those in need of immediate repair.
  14. Landlords should be legally required to hire a certified-expert contractor to perform building repairs.  Many landlords insist on making such repairs despite their not being trained or experienced in doing so, thereby risking the lives of their tenants. 

Andrew Jackson once said: “One man with courage makes a majority.” And one city—acting with courage—can ensure protection for its tenants and general revenues for vitally-needed services.

If San Francisco can do this, so can California. And then so can the rest of the Nation.

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CORPORATIONS ARE GREEDY PEOPLE, TOO

In Bureaucracy, Business, Law, Politics, Social commentary on April 10, 2013 at 12:02 am

“How many men ever went to a barbecue and would let one man take off the table what’s intended for nine-tenths of the people to eat? The only way you’ll ever be able to feed the balance of the people is to make that man come back and bring back some of that grub that he ain’t got no business with!”
– Louisiana Senator Huey P. Long, 1934

Campaigning for the Presidency, Mitt Romney was speaking to a crowd of hundreds at the Iowa State Fair. He was being pressed about raising taxes to help cover entitlement spending. Suddenly, a heckler suggested raising corporate tax rates.

Romney responded: “Corporations are people, my friend. Of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People’s pockets. Human beings, my friend.”

The line earned him a sustained round of applause from the crowd.

If it’s true that corporations are people, then they are exceptionally greedy and selfish people.

A December, 2011 report by Public Campaign, highlighting corporate abuses of the tax laws, makes this all too clear.

Public Campaign is a national nonpartisan organization dedicated to reforming campaign finance laws and holding elected officials accountable.

Summarizing its conclusions, the report’s author writes:

“Amidst a growing federal deficit and widespread economic insecurity for most Americans, some of the largest corporations in the country have avoided paying their fair share in taxes while spending millions to lobby Congress and influence elections.”

Its key findings:

  • The thirty big corporations analyzed in this report paid more to lobby Congress than they paid in federal income taxes between 2008 and 2010, despite being profitable.
  • Despite making combined profits totaling $164 billion in that three-year period, the 30 companies combined received tax rebates totaling nearly $11 billion.
  • Altogether, these companies spent nearly half a billion dollars ($476 million) over three years to lobby Congress. That’s about $400,000 each day, including weekends.
  • In the three-year period beginning in 2009 through most of 2011, these large firms spent over $22 million altogether on federal campaigns.
  • These corporations have also spent lavishly on compensatng their top executives ($706 million altogether in 2010).

Among those corporations whose tax-dodging and influence-buying were analyzed:

  • General Electric
  • Verizon
  • PG&E
  • Wells Fargo
  • Duke Energy
  • Boeing
  • Consolidated Edison
  • DuPont
  • Honeywell International
  • Mattel
  • Corning
  • FedEx
  • Tenet Healthcare
  • Wisconsin Energy
  • Con-way

The report bluntly cites the growing disparity between the relatively few rich and the vast majority of poor and middle-class citizens:

“Over the past few months, a growing protest movement has shifted the debate about economic inequality in this country.

“The American people wonder why members of Congress suggest cuts to Medicare and Social Security but won’t require millionaires to pay their fair share in taxes.

“They want to know why they are struggling to find jobs and put food on the the table while the country’s largest corporations get tax breaks and sweetheart deals, then use that extra cash to pay bloated bonuses to CEOs or ship jobs overseas.

“….At a time when millions of Americans are still unemployed and millions more make tough choices to get by, these companies are enriching their top executives and spending millions of dollars on Washington lobbyists to stave off higher taxes or regulations.”

Assessing the results of corporate tax-dodging, the report states:

  • Using various tax dodging techniques, including stashing profits in overseas tax havens and tax loopholes, 29 out of 30 companies featured in this study succeeded in paying no federal income taxes from 2008 through 2010.
  • These 29 companies received tax rebates over those three years, ranging from $4 million for Corning to nearly $5 billion for General Electric and totally nearly $11 billion altogether.
  • The only corporation that paid taxes in that three-year period, FedEx, paid a three-year tax rate of 1%, far less than the statutory rate of 35%.

The report bluntly notes the hypocrisy of corporate executives who call themselves “job creators” while enriching themselves by laying off thousands of employees:

“Another area where these corporations have decided to spend lavishly is compensation for their top executives ($706 million altogether in 2010).

“Executives doing particularly well work for General Electric ($76 million in total compensation in 2010), Honeywell International ($54 million), and Wells Fargo ($50 million).

“Executives who have seen the greatest increase work for DuPont (188% increase), Wells Fargo (180% increase) and Verizon (167% increase).

Despite being profitable, some of these corporations have actually laid off workers.

Since 2008, seven of the corporations have reported laying off American workers. The worst offenders are Verizon, which laid off 21,308 workers, and Boeing, which fired 14,862 employees.

Insisting that “corporations are people” wins applause from the wealthiest 1% and their Right-wing supporters. But it does nothing to better the lives of the poor and middle-class.

If the nation is to avoid economic and moral bankruptcy, Americans must demand that powerful corporations be held accountable–and punished harshly when they behave irresponsibly.

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“BEST-LOOKING” ATTORNEY GENERAL IS BIGGEST LAWBREAKER

In Bureaucracy, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics on April 9, 2013 at 12:03 am

On April 4, President Barack Obama unintentionally created a stir during a Democratic National Committee fundraising lunch in Atherton, California.

Referring to California Attorney General Kamala Harris, he said:

“You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake.  She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country.”

Kamala Harris

It was a compliment that was immediately interpreted–by some–as a sexist insult.

According to the Politically Correct crowd, even complimentary comments about a female politician’s physical appearance can diminish her accomplishments.

“It’s even more so when the person–like Kamala Harris–is holding a traditionally-male position like attorney general, the top law enforcement officer in the state,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

“That’s just what Obama did by including a comment about her appearance,” Walsh said. “I doubt if he’d say that about a male attorney general.”

According to White House press secretary Jay Carney, Obama called Harris that same evening evening to apologize for his comments.

“He fully recognizes the challenges women continue to face in the workplace and that they should not be judged based on appearance,” Carney said the next day. “They’re old friends. He certainly regretted that [his comments] caused a distraction.”

And Harris reportedly accepted Obama’s apology.

“The Attorney General and the President have been friends for many years,” Harris spokesman Gil Duran said in an April 5 statement. “They had a great conversation yesterday and she strongly supports him.”

If, in fact, Harris was offended by Obama’s compliment, she has a very thin skin indeed.

She could have been far more offended had her Republican opponent for Attorney General dared to tell the truth about her.

Steve Cooley, running against Harris in 2010, had a serious issue to raise against her.  But he didn’t have the guts to do it.

From 2004 to 2011, Harris had served as District Attorney for San Francisco.  In total defiance of the law, she set up a secret unit to keep even convicted illegal aliens out of prison.

Click here: San Francisco D.A.’s program trained illegal immigrants for jobs they couldn’t legally hold – Los Angeles Times

Her program, called Back on Track, trained them for jobs they could not legally hold.

This was a flagrant violation of Federal immigration law.

One such alumnus was Alexander Izaguirre, an illegal alien who had pled guilty to selling cocaine.  Four months later, in July, 2008, he assaulted Amanda Kiefer, a legal San Francisco resident.

Snatching her purse, he jumped into an SUV, then tried to run Kiefer down.  Terrified, she leaped onto the hood and saw Izaguirre and a driver laughing.

The driver slammed on the brakes, sending Kiefer flying onto the pavement and fracturing her skull.

The program, Back on Track, became a centerpiece of Harris’ campaign for state Attorney General.

Until she was questioned by the Los Angeles Times about the Izaguirre case, Harris had never publicly admitted that the program included illegal aliens.

Harris claimed she first learned that illegal aliens were training for jobs only after Izaguirre was arrested for the Kiefer assault.

Harris said it was a “flaw in the design” of the program to let illegal aliens into the program.  “I believe we fixed it,” she told the Times.

Harris never released statistics on how many illegal aliens were included since the program started in 2005.

She said that after Izaguirre’s arrest she never asked–or learned–how many illegal aliens were in Back on Track.

When Harris learned that illegal aliens were enrolled, she allowed those who were following the rules to finish the program and have their criminal records expunged.

It is not the duty of local law enforcement, she said, to enforce Federal immigration laws.

So much for her oath to faithfully defend the Constitution of the United States and that of the state of California “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

From 2005 to 2009, 113 admitted drug dealers graduated from Back on Track.  Another 99 were kicked off the program for failing to meet the requirements.  They were sentenced under their guilty plea, the D.A.’s office claimed.

Harris told the Times that graduates of Back on Track were less likely than other offenders to commit crimes again.  But her spokeswoman refused to offer detailed statistics to back this up.

When Harris became San Francisco District Attorney, she vowed she would “never charge the death penalty.”  Her opposition to capital punishment would be better-suited to a public defender.

Meanwhile, Amanda Kiefer left California.  Interviewed by the Times, she said she could not understand why San Francisco police and prosecutors would allow convicted illegal aliens back onto the streets.

“If they’re committing crimes,” she said, “I think there’s something wrong that they’re not being deported.”

It’s a sentiment that law-abiding Americans agree with. And it should go double for those who are charged with enforcing the law.

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TELL YOUR AIRLINE TO FLY OFF

In Bureaucracy, Business, Self-Help on April 8, 2013 at 1:39 pm

Imagine the following situation:

  • You’re vacationing in Denver and must return to San Francisco for an urgent-care medical appointment
  • You’re disabled but nevertheless arrive at the airport on time.
  • The airport–in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act–doesn’t have anyone assigned to help disabled passengers get onto departing planes.
  • As a result, you arrive at the gate–just as the plane takes off.
  • The airline informs you that if you want to board a plane, you’ll have to pay for another ticket.
  • You can’t afford to buy another ticket–and your urgent-care appointment is tomorrow.

What do you do? In this case, the stranded passenger called me: Bureaucracybuster.

First, I instinctively called the airline company. And that meant starting at the top–the president’s office.

I punched the name of the airline–and the words, “Board of Directors”–into google. This gave me several websites to click on to obtain the information I needed.

I started dialing–and quickly hung up: I had just remembered the day was a Sunday. Nobody but cleaning crews would be occupying the airline’s executive offices that day.

I had to start all over.

Next, I decided to call Denver Airport and find an official who would help Rachel onto another flight–without charging her for it.

I didn’t know where to start, so I decided that starting anywhere was just fine. As I was routed from one person to another, I would develop a sense of who I needed to reach.

Some of those I reached seemed genuinely concerned with Rachel’s plight. Others gave me the “that’s-life-in-the-big-city” attitude.

One of the latter felt I wasn’t deferential enough in my tone. He threatened to notify the chief of airport security.

“Go ahead,” I said. “I once worked for the United States Attorney’s Office. I’ll be glad to talk with him.”

He backed off–just as I had assumed he would.

Usually the best way to deal with threats is to directly confront the person making them.

(A friend of mine, Richard St. Germain, spent part of his 11 years with the U.S. Marshals Service protecting Mafia witnesses.

Many of them didn’t like the places where they were to be relocated under new identities.  “I’m going to complain to the Attorney General,” some of them would threaten.

St. Germain would reach for his office phone, plant it before the witness, and say, “Call him. I’ll give you his number.”

The witness always backed off.)

Eventually I reached the Chief of Airport Operations.

I outlined what had happened. He didn’t seem very sympathetic. So I decided to transfer the problem from Rachel to the airport.

Without raising my voice, I said: “It isn’t her fault that your airport was in non-compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act and she missed her flight because there wasn’t anyone to assist her.”

Suddenly his tone changed–and I could tell I had definitely reached him.

No doubt visions of federal investigations, private lawsuits and truly bad publicity for his airport flashed across his mind. And all this had been achieved without my making an overt threat of any kind.

He said he would see to it that she got onto another flight without having to buy another ticket.

I called Rachel to give her the good news. But a few minutes later she called me back, almost in tears.

The airline official at the departure gate was giving her a bad time: “If we have to choose between you and another passenger who has a ticket for this flight, he’ll go, not you.”

She laid out a series of other scenarios under which Rachel would remain stranded in Denver.

So once again I called the Chief of Airport Operations: “She’s being hassled by an official at the gate. Can you please send someone over there and put a stop to this nonsense?”

A few minutes later, I got another call from Rachel–this one totally upbeat. She said that a man who identified himself only as an airport official–but wearing an expensive suit–had visited her at the gate.

When the ticket-taking airline official had protested, he had cut her off. The official had then walked Rachel and her baggage onto an otherwise fully-loaded 777 jet bound for San Francisco.

Soon she was en route to San Francisco for her urgent-care medical appointment the next day. So if you’re having troubles with an airline:

  • Start by calling the highest-ranking airline official you can reach.
  • If s/he isn’t available or sympathetic, call the airport.
  • Be persistent–but businesslike.
  • Don’t let yourself be bullied.
  • If you can cite a legal violation by the airline and/or airport, don’t hesitate to do so. But don’t make overt threats.
  • Don’t hesitate to play for sympathy: “This is a woman has an urgent-care doctor’s appointment….”

Then cross your fingers and hope for the best.

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A NEW APPROACH TO GANGBUSTING: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 4, 2013 at 12:01 am

There is a phrase that’s well-known south of the border: “Pan, o palo.”  Or, in English: “Bread or  stick.”

And this, in turn, comes down to: Behave well and you’ll get this nice reward.  Behave badly and you’ll get your head beaten in.

In my last column I discussed the need for brandishing the stick when dealing with powerful street gangs such as the Aryan Brotherhood.

It’s the Brotherhood that’s suspected of being responsible for murdering two Texas prosecutors since February.

In this column I want to discuss creatively using the carrot to at least partially control gang violence.

It’s essential to remember the following:

  • Some 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs with about 1.4 million members are criminally active in the U.S. today.
  • Gangs are responsible for an average of 48 percent of violent crime in most jurisdictions and up to 90%  in several others.
  • Many are sophisticated and well organized; all use violence to control neighborhoods and boost their illegal money-making activities, which include robbery, drug- and gun-trafficking, fraud, extortion, and prostitution rings.

These gangs aren’t going to disappear, no matter how many of their members die or wind up in prison.

For decades, the rhetoric of the Cold War has carried over into the debate over policing.

“Hawks” on the Right have demanded a “hard” approach to law enforcement, emphasizing punishment.  “Doves” on the Left have pursued a “soft” line, stressing social programs and rehabilitation.

But it isn’t enough to be “hard” or “soft” in pursuing the goal of a safe, law-abiding society.  It’s necessary to be “smart” above all.

If you can’t eradicate evil, then you should try to direct at least some of its elements into a safer path.  Thus:

  • Each state should invite its resident gang members to take part in a series of competition for the title of “State Gang Champion.”
  • These would be modeled on competitions now existing within the National Football League–a series of playoffs to determine which two gangs will duke it out in the “Super Rumble.”

vs.

  • These competitions would be completely voluntary, thus eliminating any charges of State coersion.
  • They would be modeled on the country’s current mania for “Ultimate Warrior” contests for kickboxers and bare-kunckled fighters.
  • Contestants–as many as a score or more from at least two opposing gangs–would meet in a football-sized arena.

A modern-day Coliseum

  • No firearms would be allowed.
  • Contestants could otherwise arm themselves with whatever weapons they desired–such as baseball bats, swords, axes, spears or chains.
  • Everyone who agreed to participate would automatically be granted immunity for whatever carnage they inflicted.
  • The object of these contests would be to officially determine which State gang was the “baddest” for the year.
  • Tickets could be purchased by fans looking for an afternoon’s festival of gore.
  • Television networks could–and no doubt would–vie for rights to film the events, just as they now do for “pay-for-view” wrestling or boxing matches.

But would hard-core gangs even consider participating in such a series of contests?

Yes–most gangs would want to do so.  Here’s why:

  1. They would be able to eliminate members of rival gangs without risk of prosecution and imprisonment.
  2. They would be able to gauge–through the heat of combat–the toughness of their own associates.
  3. They would gain at least temporary stardom–just as successful gladiators did under the Roman Empire.
  4. The winning gang would gain official status as “The Baddest” gang in the State.

On the last point: Napoleon Bonaparte created the Order of the Legion of Honor, distributed 15,000 crosses to his soldiers and called his troops the “Grand Army.”  When someone criticized him for giving “toys” to his war-hardened veterans, Napoleon replied: “Men are ruled by toys.”

And for the State there would be gains as well:

  1. These contests would literally eliminate a great many gang members who cannot be removed any other way.
  2. Police and prosecutors could concentrate their limited resources on gangs that refused to participate or were deemed to pose a threat.
  3. Millions of dollars in State revenues would be generated through ticket sales and the buying of pay-per-view rights.

Admittedly, many law-abiding citizens would be repulsed by the carnage that would result from implemting this proposal.   But these are generally the people who disdain boxing or wrestling contests anyway.

But given our increasingly jaded and violence-prone society, most of them would eventually tolerate it as an effective way to simultaneously raise badly-needed tax revenues and reduce the size of criminal gangs.

Republican politicians would find this an especially attractive proposal, since it adheres to the two concepts dear to the hearts of all Right-wingers: Killing people and making money.

In short: With sufficient creativity and ruthlessness, it should be possible to reclaim control of our streets from the evils of gang violence.

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A NEW APPROACH TO GANGBUSTING: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 3, 2013 at 12:00 am

A Federal prosecutor has withdrawn from a large racketeering case involving members of the Aryan Brotherhood, citing “security concerns.”

The Dallas Morning News reported that Houston-based assistant U.S. attorney Jay Hileman announced his withdrawal in an email.

The news comes days after Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were shot and killed during Easter weekend in their home near Dallas.

Mike McLelland

In February, Mark Hasse, an assistant prosecutor in McLelland’s office, was gunned down in a parking lot about a block from his office at the Kaufman County Courthouse.  Hasse was a veteran prosecutor of organized crime cases.

Although no suspects have been positively identified, state and Federal investigators believe that the Aryan Brotherhood might be responsible for these attacks on prosecutors.

Such attacks–and the withdrawal of a federal prosecutor for fear of becoming a target–are unprecedented.  And clearly law enforcement needs to take a new and creative approach to attacking street gangs.

According to the FBI:

  • Some 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs with about 1.4 million members are criminally active in the U.S. today.
  • Many are sophisticated and well organized; all use violence to control neighborhoods and boost their illegal money-making activities, which include robbery, drug- and gun-trafficking, fraud, extortion, and prostitution rings.
  • The FBI is redoubling its efforts to dismantle gangs through intelligence-driven investigations and new initiatives and partnerships.

Obtaining timely and accurate intelligence about gang activities is, of course, an absolute necessity.  But there are two approaches the FBI and other law enforcement agencies should be applying.

These amount to using both the stick and the carrot.

First, the stick: An all-out declaration of war on any criminal foolhardy enough to directly attack law enforcement authorities.

Consider these past two examples:

In April, 1963, FBI agent John Foley was conducting surveillance at the Brooklyn funeral of Carmine “The Doctor” Lombardozzi, a capo in the Gambino Mafia Family.

Suddenly, four mobsters knocked Foley to the ground, then severely beat and kicked him.

For the FBI, this was unprecedented: It had long been known that organized crime was too smart to attack or kill law enforcement officers–especially Federal ones.  The resulting heat would simply be too great.

The FBI retaliated by launching an all-out war against the Gambinos.  Agents leaned heavily on the cartel’s boss, underboss, counselor and lieutenants.

The Bureau also intensified its use of illegal electronic surveillance against the mobsters.   Even law-abiding relatives of the Gambinos—one of these a nun, the other a priest—found themselves interrogated.

Angelo Bruno, the boss of the Philadelphia crime syndicate, unwittingly informed a hidden microphone on how the FBI brutally drove home the message to “boss of all bosses” Carlo Gambino:

BRUNO: They [the FBI] went to Carlo and named all his capos to him….The FBI asked him: “Did you change the laws in your family, that you could hit FBI men, punch and kick them? 

“Well, this is the test—that if you change the laws, and now you are going to hit FBI men, every time we pick up one of your people we are going to break their heads for them.”  

And, really, they picked up our guy, they almost killed him, the FBI.  They don’t do that, you know.  But they picked up one of his fellows and crippled him. 

They said, “This is an example.  Now, the next time anyone lays a hand on an FBI man, that’s just a warning.  There’s nothing else we have got to tell you.”  And they went away.  

Word traveled quickly through the nationwide organized crime network—and its leaders decreed there should be no further assaults on FBI agents.

Still, some mobsters apparently didn’t get the word.

During the 1960s or early 1970s, FBI agents monitoring a wiretap on a mob family in Youngstown, Ohio, heard something truly disturbing.

Several Mafia members were discussing putting out a contract on a local FBI agent they especially disliked.

“How many hit men do we have?” asked one.

“Three,” said another.

They made arrangements to meet and discuss the matter again the next day.

The FBI agents monitoring the wiretap immediately flashed an urgent warning to the Bureau’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

No less an authority than J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary director of the FBI since 1924, ordered that a “message’ be sent to the mobsters.

That night, about 20 large, heavily-armed FBI agents barged into the penthouse of the local Mafia boss.  Some agents tipped over vases, others dropped lit matches on the luxurious carpeting, and one of them even urinated in a potted plant.

“You may have three hitmen,” one of them told the mob boss, “but Mr. Hoover has thousands.”

The FBI agent thought to be the target for a rubout was never bothered.

In my next column I will discuss the option of the carrot.

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COLD LIVE BULLIES: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on April 2, 2013 at 12:00 am

The National Rifle Association (NRA) and its Right-wing allies are furious at comedian Jim Carrey.

The reason: His recent music parody video: “Cold Dead Hand,” which mocks gun fanatics and the late Charlton Heston, former president of the NRA.

Click here: Jim Carrey’s Pro-Gun Control Stance Angers Conservatives

Among its lyrics:

Charlton Heston movies are no longer in demand
And his immortal soul may lay forever in the sand.
The angels wouldn’t take him up to heaven like he’d planned.
’Cause they couldn’t pry that gun from his cold, dead hand.

The phrase, “cold dead hand,” originated with Heston himself.

Charlton Heston in his prime

On May 20, 2000, the actor and then-president of the NRA addressed the organization at its 129th convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

He warned that then-Vice President and Democratic Presidential candidade Al Gore “is going to smear you as the enemy,” and concluded:

“So, as we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those fighting words for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore: ‘From my cold, dead hands!'”

Carrey’s stance on gun control couldn’t be more opposite.

In in February, he outraged Right-wingers by tweeting: “Any1 who would run out to buy an assault rifle after the Newton massacre has very little left in their body or soul worth protecting.”

 Jim Carrey

Fox Nation referred to the tweet as “nasty.”  Red Alert Politics writer Erin Brown dismissed it as “a careless remark … rooted in the shallow, parroted talking points so commonly espoused by liberal elites.”

But that was nothing compared to the rage that has greeted “Cold Dead Hand.”  Reason TV’s Remy offered a parody rebuttal to Carrey’s song.  Its lyrics included:

It takes a talking ass
to oppose a vaccination
when your PhD is in
making funny faces.

None of which bothered Carrey.  In fact, he exulted in Right-wing outrage, tweeting: “Cold Dead Hand’ is abt u heartless motherf%ckers unwilling 2 bend 4 the safety of our kids.Sorry if you’re offended…”

Among its lyrics:

It takes a cold, dead hand to decide to pull the trigger.
Takes a cold, dead heart and as near as I can figger.
With your cold, dead aim you’re tryin’ to prove your dick is bigger …..

Many psychologists have long theorized that a fascination with firearms can compensate for inadequate sexual performance.

But it’s one thing for an unknown psychologist to write this in an obscure medical journal and another for a famous comedian to splash it across the Internet.

Carrey is especially ruthless in attacking those who–like the NRA–make a lucrative living off gun sales:

Imagine if the Lord were here…
And on the ones
Who sell the guns
He’d sic the vultures and coyotes
Only the devil’s true devotees
Could profiteer
From pain and fear.

Many Rightists attacked Carrey for parodying a man–Heston–who died in 2008 and could not defend himself. But Heston had appeared several times on “Saturday Night Live” to spoof his granite-hard image.

In his video, Carrey dares to attack not simply the masculinity of the Rightist NRA crowd, but even its courage:

You don’t want to get caught
With your trousers down
When the psycho killer
Comes around
So you make your home
Like a Thunderdome
And you’re always packin’
Everywhere you roam.

Perhaps that’s what most outrages the Right–the accusation that its members live in fear and do their best to generate needless fear in others.  Fear that can supposedly be abated by turning America into a society where everyone packs a weapon and every moment holds a potential High Noon.

An accusation, in short, based on fact.

Carrey has not been shy in responding to his Rightist critics.  On March 29, he issued this statement:

“Since I released my “Cold Dead Hand” video on Funny or Die this week, I have watched Fux News rant, rave, bare its fangs and viciously slander me because of my stand against large magazines and assault rifles.

“I would take them to task legally if I felt they were worth my time or that anyone with a brain in their head could actually fall for such irresponsible buffoonery. That would gain them far too much attention which is all they really care about.

“I’ll just say this: in my opinion Fux News is a last resort for kinda-sorta-almost-journalists whose options have been severely limited by their extreme and intolerant views; a media colostomy bag that has begun to burst at the seams and should be emptied before it becomes a public health issue.”

Bullies are conspicuously vulnerable to ridicule.  Their only “defense” is to smash anyone who dares to mock their folly, brutality or pretense to omnipotence.

The NRA has spent decades bribing and intimidating its way through Congress.  Those members who subscribe to its “guns for everyone” agenda get legalized bribes (i.e., “campaign contributions”).

Those who refuse to do so face the threat–if not the reality–of being ousted.

At the end of the Carrey video, “Heston” accidentally shoots his own foot off.

In their over-the-top response to what is essentially an inoffensive parody, the NRA and its Rightist allies may well do the same.

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COLD LIVE BULLIES: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on April 1, 2013 at 12:06 am

Bullies do not like to be mocked.

Anyone who doubts this need only examine the Right’s reaction to actor Jim Carrey’s recent “Cold Dead Hand”  music video.

In this, Carrey–a strong advocate of gun control–mocks the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its right-wing allies.

These include rural America and (for the video’s purposes) the late actor Charlton Heston, who served as the NRA’s five-term president (1998-2003).

Jim Carrey as Charlton Heston

The video features Carrey and alt-rock band Eels as “Lonesome Earl And The Clutterbusters,” a country band on a TV set modeled after the 1960s variety show, “Hee Haw.” Carrey also portrays Heston as a dim-witted, teeth-clenching champion of the NRA.

“I find the gun problem frustrating,” Carrey said in a press release, “and ‘Cold Dead Hand’ is my fun little way of expressing that frustration.”

Carrey’s frustration has triggered NRA outrage.

Click here: Jim Carrey’s Pro-Gun Control Stance Angers Conservatives

Fox News personality Greg Gutfeld ranted: “He is probably the most pathetic tool on the face of the earth and I hope his career is dead and I hope he ends up sleeping in a car.

“This video made me want to go out and buy a gun. He thinks this is biting satire going after rural America and a dead man… He’s a dirty, stinking coward… He’s such a pathetic, sad, little freak. He’s a gibbering mess. He’s a modern bigot.”

Columnist Larry Elder spared no venom in attacking Carrey: “Let’s be charitable–call Carrey ignorant, not stupid.”

Click here: Jim Carrey: Not ‘Dumb & Dumber,’ Just Ignorant

Much of his March 29 column centers on defending Heston, who died at 84 in 2008.

A lyric in Carrey’s song says “Charlton Heston’s movies are no longer in demand.”  This prompts Elder to defend the continuing popularity of Heston’s 1956 movie, “The Ten Commandments,” where he played Moses.

Elder feels compelled to defend Heston’s off-screen persona as well, citing his 64-year marriage to his college sweetheart, Lydia.

On the other hand, writes Elder, Carrey, “followed the well-worn Hollywood path: Get famous; get rich; dump the first wife/mother of your kid(s), who stood by you during the tough times; and act out your social life in the tabs to the embarrassment of your kid(s).”

Clearly, Carrey’s video has struck a nerve with Right-wing gun fanatics.  But why?

Start with Gutfield’s accusation that Carry was “going after rural America.”

Rural America–home of the most superstitious, ignorant and knee-jerk Fascist elements in American society–boastfully refers to itself as “The Heartland.”  In short: a prime NRA and Rightist constituency.

It was rural America to which Senator Barack Obama referred–accurately–during his 2008 Presidential campaign:

“They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Second, there’s Elder’s outrage that Carrey should dare to say that Heston’s movies “are no longer in demand.”

On a personal note: I have long enjoyed many of Heston’s movies and have been lucky enough to see several of his epics in a movie theater.

Among these: “Major Dundee,” “El Cid,” “Khartoum,” “The War Lord.”  And even the hammiest film for which he is best-known: “The Ten Commandments.”

In a film career spanning 62 years, Heston vividly portrayed such historical characters as:

  • Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar in “El Cid’:
  • Mark Anthony in “Julius Caesar”;
  • John the Baptist in “The Greatest Story Ever Told”;
  • Andrew Jackson in “The President’s Lady” and “The Buccaneer”;
  • Michaelangelo in “The Agony and the Ecstasy”;
  • General Charles Gordon in “Khartoun.”

And he played fictitious characters, too:

  • Civil War officers (“Major Dundee”);
  • Norman knights (“The War Lord”);
  • ranchers (“Three Violent People”;
  • explorers (“The Naked Jungle”).
  • Judah Ben-Hur (“Ben-Hur”);
  • astronauts (“Planet of the Apes”)’

Heston was a widely respected actor who won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1959 for “Ben Hur” and servecd as the president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1965 to 1971.

Yet even if I disdained Heston’s talents as an actor (and some movie critics did, finding him limited in range and wooden) it would be my right, under the First Amendment, to say so.

But it was not Heston’s film career that Carrey focused on–but his role as president of the NRA.

Related image

Charlton Heston at the NRA convention

Ironically, Heston had identified himself with liberal causes long before he became the face and voice of the gun lobby.

In 1961, he campaigned for Senator John F. Kennedy for President.  In 1963, he took part in Martin Luther King’s March on Washington.

In 1968, after the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, he joined actors Kirk Douglas, James Stewart and Gregory Peck in issuing a statement supporting President Lyndon Johnson’s Gun Control Act of 1968.

But over the coming decades, Heston became increasingly conservative: Reportedly voting for Richard Nixon in 1972; supporting gun rights; and campaigning for Republican Presidential candidates Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

When asked why he changed political alliances, Heston replied “I didn’t change. The Democratic party changed.”