Licking County Pro-Active Citizens

Capitol Cat Fight

President Obama must agree with my recent post that it is possible to herd cats.  In any case, he gave it a good try Wednesday night in his first State of the Union address to Congress.

• For the Left, he offered up bank bashing, gays in the military, immigration reform, green jobs, college subsidies, curbs on corporate fat cats, taxes on the rich and - let's not forget - another shot at health care reform.
• For the Right, he extended tax cuts for the middle class, small business loans, nuclear power and "drill-baby-drill," cuts in capital gains taxes, a 3-year partial freeze on federal spending, a budget control commission and a push to increase U.S. exports.
• For the Independents, fiscal restraint, curbs on Wall Street excesses and renewed efforts at bipartisanship to actually get things done in Washington.
• For the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the back of his hand for last week's disastrous 5-4 decision opening what he called "the floodgates" for corporate cash in political campaigns. 
• For unemployed Americans: jobs, jobs, jobs.
• For the rest of the world, well not so much this time around.  It was 55 minutes into the President's 70-minute address before he even got around to foreign affairs.  And then about the only noteworthy items in this 7-minute segment was a promise to pull all combat troops out of Iraq by August and his cheer leading for American aid to Haiti.

As you might suspect, he didn't exactly get all the cats into the corral - maybe not even most of them.  Only time will tell.

The Republicans in the chamber held back from the "liar-liar" chant which marked last January's congressional address, but tittered and guffawed frequently over Obama's claims of transparency and even-handedness on health care reform.  (The Republican response by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonald was short and clueless but Fox News managed within an hour of the speech to let both ends of the 2008 McCain-Palin ticket take their revenge).

Supreme Court justices endured their rebuke in stony silence.  Even those justices whose dissents agreed with the President's position were as mute as misbehaving kids parked on a bench in the principal's office.

Obama's generals were just as stiff and silent when he vowed to end the occupation of Iraq, although they joined seconds later in the chamber's enthusiastic applause for the veterans chewed up in that war.

Progressives - and that would include me - always enjoy Obama's speeches, and this one was no exception.  Sure, we're lap cats but we still hiss and scratch every time Obama starts up again with that nicey-nice "bipartisan" pandering to Republicans obstructionists in the Congress. But after Wednesday night, he's still got most of us in the corral.

-- David Lore

STRICKLAND HIGH ON OHIO

Expecting a sales pitch from Governor Strickland, we got a love letter instead.

To put it in biblical terms, it was as if our governor was channeling the torments of Job: beset by the boils of joblessness, budget crisis and a crippling recession, Strickland in his State of the State address today proclaimed his love for Ohio even as many of his supporters forsake him (at least in the polls) for another,  To quote the governor: 

"I believe in Ohio.

I believe in Ohio because you can’t write the history of the world without us – without flight, without light, without Rock and Roll, without professional football, without John Glenn in space and John Glenn on the Earth, without the tomato, without the underground railroad, without Roy Rogers, without tires and ignition switches, without the humble fly swatter, without the Richter Scale, without Jesse Owens running for gold and for all of us in Berlin, without street lights, without fire departments, without Superman."

http://www.tedstrickland.com/content/pages/state_of_the_state/

Since I'm retired as a journalist, I don't have to recount for you all the details of Strickland's speech.

You can now read it yourself -- on-line. 

In brief, Strickland said we're going through a tough patch but because we're a great state and a great people we'll get through it if we show enough grit.  And, incidentally, look at all the good stuff going on (thanks to my administration) to make that happen.

But what resonated with me was not all his details about programs adopted and promises made and progress achieved, but rather that one simple opening phrase: "I believe in Ohio."

Governor, so do I, even though I'm not a native son.  And that's why I share your optimism.

• Ohio, in 1958, made it possible for me to get a college education that wasn't very affordable back in New Jersey.  Along with thousands of other Jersey boys and girls limited in their options back home, I hopped a bus to the Midwest, ending up spending four glorious years at Bowling Green State University back when out-of-state-fees were still very low.
• It was at BGSU that I met Hummingbird, my bride-to-be, and learned to be not only a writer and scholar but a political activist as well. (Okay, the cause at BGSU in those days was freedom to drink beer and kiss our dates good night in front of the dorm.)
• But after four years I had impressed at least one professor enough to get a recommendation which landed me a $110-a-week reporting job in 1965 at the Columbus Dispatch, despite a near total lack of prior journalistic experience.
• And there I stayed - mostly happily - for nearly 40 years covering stories from the bottom of Ohio coal mines to shuttle launches to the edge of space, from the South Pole to the Arctic Circle, from the classroom to the steel mill, from pollution spills to drive-by homicides.  And, of course, politics: my father, a life-long New Yorker and a one-time newspaperman himself, told me early on that Ohio was the place to be to cover politics and boy, was he right.
• Now retired, I have no enthusiasm for leaving Ohio, even though my daughter and her family deserted to Dixie, outside of Atlanta.  But the South is not for me.  I'd miss the Buckeyes, the blanket of snow softening the world (on days I don't have to drive), the dazzling pageantry of fall colors, the courtesies Ohioans usually show one another even if they despise one's politics (or driving habits).

So yes, I believe in Ohio because even though I am an adopted son, this state has been good to me.

We all should be so lucky, and I'll put my bet on Strickland to help make that happen.

-- David Lore

 

AFTERSHOCKS BURY REDISTRICTING REFORM?

Any chance that a legislative redistricting reform measure would make the May 4 ballot likely has disappeared given the aftershocks from last week's political earthquakes in Massachusetts and Washington. 

Newspaper editorial writers across Ohio have for months been badgering legislative leaders to act by the Feb. 3 filing deadline to place such a constitutional amendment before voters this spring.  Proponents say this is the best - and possibly only - time to bring fairness and equity to the process of redrawing state House and Senate districts since neither party can be assured it will emerge from the 2010 elections with control of the state apportionment board, the panel which redraws the political map on the basis of the 2010 census.

Redistricting reform is all very complicated and hopelessly infected by partisan maneuvering -- but no need to give it much thought now.  

Given the Republican senatorial victory in Massachusetts and the Supreme Court's grant of enormous electoral clout to corporate America, there's no reason to think that either Democratic or Republican party leaders here are left with any appetite for bipartisan cooperation.

Statehouse Republicans opposed such reforms when they were on the ballot in 2005.

They were only showing interest this year because Democrats seemed to be in a strong position to control the reapportionment board after this year's balloting for governor, auditor and secretary of state.  Even then, party support was far from assured - and that was before Republican prospects for this November spiked given the evident public anger at the Obama administration and the predicted flood of corporate cash now unleashed by the high court in favor of Republican candidates.

Democrats - namely party leader Chris Redfern and House Speaker Armond Budish - have been even more skeptical that redistricting reform at this time serves their interests. 

Even before last week's events, Budish was flatly predicting the matter would not be on this year's ballot.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/ohiopolitics/entries/2010/01/12/speaker_budish_redistricting_r.html?cxtype=feedbot

Neither was labor on board.

Reform proponents might now argue that it makes even more sense for Democrats to back redistricting reform and thus minimize the political damage if Republicans do come back strongly this November.  But so far, the Democratic battle plan appear to be to go back on the offense rather than call for a truce.

So much for "leveling the playing field" in 2010.

According to reform proponents, there is no Plan B if the reform measure  isn't on the ballot this year.

Other than to revisit the issue come 2020.

-- David Lore

STUCK-ON HEALTH CARE

 
  

Speaking of the Health Care bill, where does one get a "HealthCare '010' " bumper sticker?

My "HealthCare '09" sticker, which I thought was going to be a temporary addition on the back bumper, has now after a full year become as worn and torn as my "Obama '08" and "War Is Not the Answer" stickers.  Is there going to be a re-issue in the wake of the Massachusetts vote?  Or should I just accept reality and scrape it off now?

-- David Lore
  
  

ZACK ZAPS SENATE HEALTH CARE BILL

"Hell No, I won't go," Congressman Zack Space, D-18, told the House Democratic Leadership yesterday.  Space, who voted for the House version of the health reform bill, said he would join House Democrats opposing adoption of the Senate version.  His reasoning below:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On the heels of recent announcements that House Leadership may try to bring the Senate health care bill to a vote in the House of Representatives, U.S. Rep. Zack Space (OH-18) today blasted the legislation as unacceptable to his district, his constituents, and Ohioans across the state.

“I support making our health care system more responsive to our residents, but proceeding with the Senate-passed bill is unacceptable,” Space said. 

“The Senate Bill is the most egregious example of politics as usual, with big giveaways to states like Nebraska to shore up support and buy the votes needed for passage,” Space continued.  “I didn’t come to Washington for politics as usual.  I absolutely refuse to support legislation that provides a windfall for insurance companies out of the pockets of my constituents.”

“My standards for health reform have always been that it must be good for seniors, small businesses, and middle class families in my district,” Space continued.  “In my opinion, the Senate bill is none of these things.  It will not provide consumers with lower costs, it will place a tax on my district’s working families, and it plays right into the hands of the insurance industry.  That’s why I have told House Leadership that the Senate Bill is absolutely unacceptable.”

“I am outraged and disappointed that the leadership would even consider this plan,” Space continued. 

Space expressed his concerns yesterday in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.  The text of the letter is below:

January 20, 2010

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker   
H232, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Steny Hoyer
Majority Leader
H107, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Speaker Pelosi and Leader Hoyer:

I write today to express my grave concern about the state of health reform legislation, as well as the agenda of the 111th Congress.  In particular, I write to inform you that I will not be able to offer my support to the version of health reform legislation passed by the Senate, and I urge you to reconsider this legislation as well as other plans for the 111th Congress.

The legislation passed by the Senate fails to meet standards I have put forth for health reform legislation.  Throughout the health reform debate, I have said that health reform legislation must:

1.  Provide consumers with more choice and lower costs

2.  Help small businesses afford the challenges of health insurance

3.  Protect rural hospitals and health care providers from unfair reimbursement policies

The Senate’s bill fails to meet the first standard.  By forcing all consumers to purchase insurance without providing ample financial support, this legislation will mean higher costs for many of my constituents.  I worry that rather than helping my constituents manage their health care costs, this legislation will saddle my constituents with a new financial burden they cannot manage.

Additionally, I believe that the proposed excise tax on health insurance plans is an unfair penalty on the working families of my district.  There is no reason to place this burden on working families, particularly at a when so many are struggling to make ends meet.

Rather than pursuing passage of this legislation, I emphatically believe we must shift our focus toward the issue of greatest importance to my constituents – the economy.   This Congress must be working to find creative solutions to this challenging problem, and working to create new economic opportunity for the people of Ohio.  We have already waited far too long to address this problem, failing to recognize the wishes of the people of this country.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.  I trust you recognize the importance of the message I have relayed on behalf of my constituents.

Sincerely,

Zack Space

MASS BACKWARDS

Looking for the bright side of the Democrats loss of the Senate seat in Massachusetts?

Unlike the electoral disasters which gave us W in 2000 and 2004..........................

THIS TIME NOBODY CAN BLAME OHIO!

THE PLUNDERING OF PRINT MEDIA

In my younger days as a reporter at the Dispatch, it always irked me that articles which took me (and my colleagues) hours or days or even weeks to bring forth could so casually be cannibalized without credit by our local TV anchors. 

When I saw one of the TV trucks pull up in front of the newspaper each afternoon to snatch up the latest edition from the box outside of 34 S. Third St., I wished somebody would take a picture of this journalistic larceny so that people could see where those well-coiffed talking heads really got their news.

Of course, that never happened because the owners of the Dispatch also owned (among other things) one of the local TV stations most guilty of such theft.

Which brings me to today's lead editorial in yesterday's Dispatch, Best Source, which cites research refuting the notion that newspapers can easily be replaced by blogs, Twitter and other "social media tools" on the Internet. 

"Looking at the Baltimore news market and tracking six big stories during a week in July 2009, Pew found that 61 percent of the original reporting on those stories was done by newspapers and their Web sites. Local TV stations and their Web sites did most other original reporting, at 28 percent.

Radio stations and their sites contributed only 7 percent of new content, and Internet-only outlets did only 4 percent," the editorial states.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2010/01/19/paperz.ART_ART_01-19-10_A10_V9GBE5P.html?sid=101

The argument certainly is valid, but it's one that should have been made decades ago, when local radio and then television began poaching on print to fill up their newscasts without the expense of building an independent news operation. Over time, readers became viewers and as the newspaper habit wore off, most people didn't mind the loss of detail and depth as long as they got from the Tube the gist of what was going on across the wider world.

Well, we let them get away with it.  And now as the print media stumbles, the flock of low-rent media buzzards feeds on the carcass. 

(To be sure, this blog is just one more bird in the hunt.  But at least we don't pretend LICOPAC.ORG should be anybody's primary news source.  We're a secondary source, one which provides comment on events documented by others, but only occasionally doing basic reporting.)

Should all this be of concern to anybody but journalists?  Probably not, unless you care what happens once the bones of print journalism are picked clean and the news scavengers have to look elsewhere -- to the government, the corporations, the politicians -- for their daily feed.

One alternative - still controversial - is an increase in public subsidies to keep print journalism alive.  The argument is being best made these days by a new book, The Death and Life of American Journalism, by John Nichols and Robert McChesney.  You can find a summary in the cover story in the Jan. 25 issue of The Nation:  Read it here (and then subscribe!):

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100125/nichols_mcchesney

On the other hand, there are those who prefer getting their news electronically instead of having to dig through the brush and slush for the smeared, soaked sling edition of the "Daily Bugle." 

And then there are those, like Henry David Thoreau, who find this daily wad of woeful news just too depressing and too distracting from the simple joys of everyday life.  Note this excerpt Hummingbird retrieved this morning from Thoreau's journal (Jan. 20, 1852):

"You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day’s devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day. To read of things distant and sounding betrays us into slighting these which are then apparently near and small."

More of this heresy at: http://hdt.typepad.com/henrys_blog/

-- David Lore

WELCOME OUR NEW CORRESPONDENT

My name is Garry Goldsmith, I live in Heath, Ohio and I'll be joining Dave Lore on this site, cheering (or heckling) the passing parade.

I have been politically active pretty much all of my adult life. I consider myself a liberal progressive and I seek out and support candidates who at the very least, lean that way.

I am concerned that the working poor in our country are not given the opportunity to rise up out of that status by our national and state governments. Middle class families have shouldered too much of the tax burden. What we need is a concerted effort, by Dems, labor, environmentalists, progressives, etc. to keep going in the right direction.

Over the last couple of years we have made significant progress in turning the country around. This year, 2010, we face a huge challenge. Most will tell us that we are going to take setbacks in Congress and in state races all across America. I say it doesn't have to be that way. We have to craft a positive message and get that into the hands of the voters. I believe that Two Thousand and Ten can be "Two Thousand and Win!"  I believe that right wingers haven't got an answer to anything: all they know how to do is obstruct progress. Let's turn that against them, and replace it with real solutions to real problems in our country.

I want to thank LICOPAC for this opportunity, I will be posting as often as I can, given all that I am involved in here in Licking County. Remember it's "Two Thousand and Win". If you would like a "Two Thousand and Win" button please contact me.

My e-mail is garry@garrygoldsmith.com

WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?

No Sooner had I promised an item on "herding dogs" (see Herding Cats, below) than Dispatch Editor Ben Marrison let loose the hounds.

In his Sunday column, Toxic Rants Taint Online Comments, Marrison bemoaned the racism and hostility embedded in many of the online comments posted in response to Dispatch articles and columns.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/insight/stories/2010/01/10/Ben_0110.ART_ART_01-10-10_G1_3MG7JTH.html?sid=101

Here's what the trade calls "the nut graph:"

"Removing distasteful comments is a daily occurrence. The anonymity of the Web too often brings out the worst in people or reveals their worst flaws."

Predictably, the Marrison column triggered an avalanche of comment, more than 200 postings as of this writing. Even adjusting that count for individuals who logged in multiple times, that's still a lot of readers stirring the broth.

If you have nothing else to do today, log in and read the reactions for yourself.  The sampling I took (who's got the time to read 200 rants?) indicated a lot of criticism of Marrison and the Dispatch but quite a bit of support as well for responsible editing and/or restrictions in the operation of these online forums.

When I was a reporter, before such forums were established, I would have killed to get 200 responses to anything I wrote. Writers need feedback even when it's uncomfortable.  But rarely would a by-line piece generate any more than a half-dozen phone calls, e-mails or letters, and many would disappear without making a splash at all (sort of like my experience writing for LICOPAC!).

But I don't like the way newspapers (the Dispatch, the Advocate) manage these reader forums:

• It's not the poor spelling or grammar I mind, since that at least tells you something about the state of public education in your community.  But the anger and hostility of many of these people is just over the top.  I've canvassed for political candidates and rarely been attacked face-to-face in the way some of these people feel free to do when cloaked by an alias.
• With both newspaper reader forums and blogs, the focus of the original article can soon get lost as responders battle it out, seemingly oblivious to the topic at hand.  There appears to be a community of critics out there who type to tangle and don't much care what forum plays the host.
• In the Age of the Tweet, can't there be length limits imposed on reader comments, as well as limits on the number of postings per forum by any one individual?  Some of the comments are way longer than the original article which, I should note, was written by a reporter operating under severe space constraints.
• Allow use of aliases but cut off those individuals who hide behind that screen to launch attacks they'd never make if their name was used, as it is in the newspaper's letters-to-the-editor column.
• Scrap the "Judge This" type of feature which allows readers to rate one another's comments.  Who - if anybody - pays attention to that?
• If a newspaper is going to provide this feature, it should apply to all staff-written articles and features (except, maybe, the funnies).  I was surprised to learn from comments on the Marrison piece that some columnists can choose not to allow reader comment.  That makes no sense.

And finally, newspapers need to figure out a way to translate this reader enthusiasm for online forums into patronage for their print editions.  Why not print a couple of the best forum comments each day in the next day's edition?

Your comments?

-- David Lore 

HERDING CATS

It's inevitable that any discussion on television about congressional stalemate winds up with the same old tired analogy about the impossibility of it all.   "It's like herding cats," one of the pundits will say with a resigned shake of the head.

But wait!  Why is so impossible to herd cats?  I've done it.  And the same technique I used would probably work -- indeed, does work -- in Congress, given the right bait.

To explain, several decades ago, having decided to move from our rental farmhouse in rural Franklin County to Folk Lore Farm in McKean Township, I confronted the question of what to do about the dozen or so barn cats who we had named and thereby semi-adopted.  The landlord certainly didn't want these feline tenants staying on, and I doubted Mayflower was up to the job of moving them.

So how did I herd this pride of wild yowlers some 40 miles to our (and their) new home?

Simple, with the right tools: one station wagon, parked in the barnyard, back lid open; one dish of tuna fish, set in the cargo bay for 5 minutes or so; one muleskinner driver, quick enough to slam shut the lid, squeeze into the driver's seat and survive the hour drive to Licking County while ignoring the chorus of "meows" and the distraction of a cat perched on each shoulder.

So you can herd them (briefly) but don't bother to try and corral them.  Within several weeks, at least half of the transplants had wandered off into the wilds of Licking County, reducing (as Scrooge would say) our "surplus population." 

To make this work in Congress, of course, you'd have to use a different bait (cash comes to mind) and put up with a lot of whining en route to one's legislative destination.  And expect that the lawmakers once trapped can only be coaxed to stay put through the lure of more and more cash.

Wait, isn't this what lobbyists do every day?  If herding cats was impossible, these guys would be out of business. 

Now herding dogs (including Blue Dogs) is another topic, for another day.

-- David Lore