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All the King’s Men…and the Health Care Debate

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Broderick Crawford as Willie StarkOn Saturday of our vacation it rained hard all day as the remnants of Hurricane Bill sent showers our way.  With no opportunity for biking or canoeing, Candice and I pulled out the 1949 Academy Award winning movie All the King’s Men starring Broderick Crawford and settled in for an afternoon with Willie Stark, Sadie Burke, and Jack Burden.

I had a high school English teacher who loved Southern literature, so my first introduction to this powerful Robert Penn Warren novel came early in life.  I’ve read it on several occasions since then but it has been a long time since I’ve revisited the tale of political idealism gone wrong.  Seeing the movie – which won Best Movie, a Best Actor award for Crawford and a Best Supporting Actress award for Mercedes McCambridge as Sadie Burke – was a timely reminder that demagoguery is part of the American experience and not something new as part of the current health care debate.

Willie has many memorable lines in the movie.  One that I’ve always remembered is Stark’s cynical line when he pushes Jack Burden to go find some dirt on the Judge:

Jack, there’s something on everybody. Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption. He passes from the stink of the dydie to the stench of the shroud. There’s ALWAYS something.

But what hit me this time was Willie’s line to the effect that “If you yell loud enough and long enough, people will believe its true.”  In today’s current “debate” on health care, that seems to be the operative approach.  Yelling and shouting to drown out conversation can come in many forms. We’re all familiar with the nonsense that’s been orchestrated at the town halls.  But I also recall seeing Betsy McCaughey – the originator of the sham that the health care bill creates death panels (Palin’s words, not hers) – on The Daily Show earlier this week.  While Jon Stewart answered and undercut every one of her arguments, she just kept saying “I’m right and he’s wrong.”  No debate.  (For an interesting history lesson, read John Buntin’s story in today’s Washington Post about how big government once shut down death panels – which were set up by hospitals – just a few short decades ago.)

Of course, not all falsehood and demagoguery comes from one political party.  In the novel, Warren has Jack explain the more complicated realities of life:

And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.

All the King’s Men. Still worth a read or a viewing during these most curious times.

More to come…

DJB

The Sun Shines and the Nats Sign Strasburg

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BaseballI went to bed last evening around 11:40 p.m. after checking to see if the Washington Nationals had signed #1 draft choice Stephen Strasburg.  They had not.

I awoke this morning and checked the Nats icon on my blackberry to find…YES, they pulled it off!  And for ONLY a little over $15 million.  The sun is indeed shining over baseball in the District today.

Writing in the Washington Post, Tom Boswell talked about Washington’s baseball redemption.

Few teams have ever needed a watershed event more than the Nationals. And no town in baseball has needed a validation and a fresh start more than Washington. On Monday night, at 11:58:43 p.m., both the team and the town got their wish.

Just 77 seconds before a witching midnight deadline, the franchise that so often gets kicked when it is down and the town that is constantly accused of baseball’s original sin (being Washington) proved that it could do something big and difficult and right.

The Nats signed Stephen Strasburg, probably the most heralded young pitcher of the last 50 years. Who knows what portion of his collegiate and Olympic fame will prove justified. But not only did the Nats sign him for a fair price of $15.67 million, despite the howls of his crusading agent Scott Boras, but Strasburg also did what has been unthinkable in baseball until now.

He chose here.

The sun is shining and the Nats have avoided losing their second #1 draft pick in as many years.  The Nats did have to do something special, but they also have something to build upon, as Boswell notes:

Right now, for a town that is deeply unsure whether it wants to fall for baseball, something special is required. Adam Dunn, Ryan Zimmerman and Josh Willingham will probably hit 100 homers and drive in 300 runs this year in the heart of a Nats order that is in the top half in the National League. That would be sufficient attraction, even in a last-place season, in some old-line baseball towns. Nyjer Morgan, a new leadoff man hitting .306, on pace for 52 stolen bases and with as much range as almost any center fielder in the game, would add spice. Even a crafty kid such as southpaw John Lannan would have a following.

So let’s cheer the Nats move to do something special and sign Strasburg.  And let’s hope the kid (and his elbow) can handle the pressure and hype.

More to come…

DJB

Good Roots Music On the Web

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River House Sunset

Even on vacation I can’t spend all my time enjoying the beauty of the river.  So I went online this morning and came across one new roots music blog and was reminded of another old favorite.  I thought I’d share them with you.

The new find is called Fiddlefreak Folk Music Blog, written by a musician and artist on the west coast named Stuart Mason.  I found his recent post on singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz to be a great introduction to someone who seems worth checking out – just as his blog promised.  Visit the site and see if you find some new music that’s worth exploring.

The old favorite is the website No Depression, which is the online version of the late and lamented magazine of the same name.  (The title is taken from the 1930s Carter Family tune, They’ll Be No Depression in Heaven, which could be just as appropriate in 2009.)   No Depression was a great magazine covering the broad area called Americana, alt-country, or roots music.  That tradition is bravely carried on by the online version, and I recommend it.  For a look at the business side of trying to make an online version of a magazine work economically, check out their article entitled The Cold Hard Facts. If you just want to read about music, then read the review of a recent Dr. John show in St. Louis.  No Depression has strong articles, but I always found their album and concert reviews to be insightful and full of surprises.

Take some time out in August to give the roots music online community some support!

More to come…

DJB

Summer Reading – 2009 Version

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In Fed We TrustLast August I wrote a blog on summer reading lists, where I opined that summers are for checking out lighter topics than war, death and other such critical issues.

But this summer I’ve back-tracked a bit on that perspective.  Perhaps it is the reality of the economy.  Perhaps it was the good reviews.  But in any case, I began my time off this summer with In Fed We Trust:  Ben Bernanke’s War on the Great Panic.

David Wessel’s insightful look at how the Federal Reserve responded to the recession and Great Panic of 2007-2009 is informative, sobering – and a very good read.  Wessel is the economics editor for the The Wall Street Journal and writes with clarity and urgency.  It is all here – the rescue of Bear Stearns, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and the government moves to take over AIG and Fannie Mae.  And the story is as fresh as today’s headlines.  For those of us who are not economics majors, this is a great introduction to understanding one part of the government response to what the International Monetary Fund declared to be “by far the deepest global recession since the Great Depression.”

When you read In Fed We Trust and see how close we came to the collapse of the financial system, today’s news about the childishness of the public discussion over issues such as the impact of the stimulus bill or health care reform makes you fear for your country.

Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, wrote a column on August 9th that backed up Wessel’s thesis.

In addition to having this “automatic” stabilizing effect, the government has stepped in to rescue the financial sector. You can argue (and I would) that the bailouts of financial firms could and should have been handled better, that taxpayers have paid too much and received too little. Yet it’s possible to be dissatisfied, even angry, about the way the financial bailouts have worked while acknowledging that without these bailouts things would have been much worse.

The point is that this time, unlike in the 1930s, the government didn’t take a hands-off attitude while much of the banking system collapsed. And that’s another reason we’re not living through Great Depression II.

Last and probably least, but by no means trivial, have been the deliberate efforts of the government to pump up the economy. From the beginning, I argued that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a k a the Obama stimulus plan, was too small. Nonetheless, reasonable estimates suggest that around a million more Americans are working now than would have been employed without that plan — a number that will grow over time — and that the stimulus has played a significant role in pulling the economy out of its free fall.

All in all, then, the government has played a crucial stabilizing role in this economic crisis. Ronald Reagan was wrong: sometimes the private sector is the problem, and government is the solution.

Wessel doesn’t smooth over serious concerns about the actions of Bernanke, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and then New York Fed President Tim Geithner.  But he does help the reader see the fundamental issues.  Where would we be as a country if the Chairman of the Federal Reserve hadn’t been a lifelong student of the causes and responses to the Great Depression, and then had the understanding and conviction to act?  As Wessel repeats throughout the book, the Fed was willing to do whatever it takes to avoid collapse.  In response to this courage – by two Republicans and a Democrat in three key positions in government – we have politicians who dismiss facts and rewrite history on the fly.  Health care reform and the continuing response to the recession both are being treated as political footballs and ways to score points.  These are serious times.  Where are the grown ups?

For those interested in more than a superficial understanding of what we faced as a country during the Great Panic and why rescuing the financial system, In Fed We Trust is a good place to start.

And to prove that I take last year’s blog seriously, I’ll turn to less serious reading for the next few books in my pile.  So look soon for my take on Satchel:  The Life and Times of an American Legend.

More to come…

DJB


Mike Seeger Passes Away

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Open Back BanjoI was saddened to read in today’s Bluegrass Blog of the passing of roots musician extraordinaire Mike Seeger.

Half-brother to the more famous Pete Seeger, Mike was one of those people who loved old-time music and the people who played it.  He was a great musical scholar who worked to expand the audience for American roots music.  I had the chance to hear him play live on a couple of occasions after he moved to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, and he was just one of the giants in the field.

I found this wonderful clip on You Tube of Seeger talking about – and then playing – Elizabeth Cotten’s classic Freight Train.

Rest in peace.

More to come…

DJB

P.S.  – An update:  Here’s the posting on Seeger from the always informative, The Music’s Over But the Songs Live On blog.

Great Week to Be a Nats Fan

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BaseballWith the Washington Nationals heading into today’s game with a chance to sweep a home stand AND extend a winning streak to eight in a row,  I just couldn’t stay away from Nationals Park.  So when friends made plans to join me, it was a done deal – humidity and a hot sun notwithstanding.

And am I glad I went.  Sixteen hits!  Adam Dunn’s 30th home run!  J.D. Martin’s first major league win!  Zimmerman gets 3 hits and scores 3 runs!  The offense continues to come through with timely hit after timely hit!  Happy friends and fans all around!

A 9-2 romp.

(How often do you get to use the words “Nats” and “romp” in the same column?)

What a great week to be a Nats fan.  At the end of 25 straight games without a break, the Nats find their inner ballplayers and go on a tear.  As a vacationing bachelor this week (with Candice and the twins away), I’ve also had every opportunity to catch the games on TV and in person.

You almost hate to see these guys take a day off, even after playing 25 straight days.  But hey, no matter what happens when they land in Atlanta on Tuesday, this has been a great week to be a Nats fan.

Goooooo Nats!

More to come…

DJB

What’s Gotten Into Our Nats?

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Nats Win Six in a Row On a beautiful night for baseball in the nation’s capital (81 low-humidity degrees at game time), the Washington Nationals continued their mystifying ways – by winning their 6th in a row!

Our boys have been playing error-free baseball with sparkling defense since Rockville’s own Jim Riggleman took over as manager more than 20 games ago.  Combine that with a new-found timeliness with their hitting and a rebuilt and generally effective bullpen and – while we may see a bunch of bush-league politics in this town – all of a sudden we’re seeing major league baseball in the District of Columbia!

With Candice and the twins in Florida visiting her family and tonight’s promise of beautiful weather, I made up my mind early to take in the Nats-Diamondbacks game.  I was worried that my presence at the ballpark would jinx them, as I’ve been to 4 or 5 games already this season…and all have been losses (if you throw out the 10-10 tie that was won about two months later).  When I barely missed a batting practice home run because I was talking on the phone to Candice,  I really worried about my luck.  And when the Diamondbacks jumped on starter Collin Balester for five runs (featuring 3 home runs) in the 2nd, I was sure the season’s longest winning streak would end at 5 games.

But somebody has replaced these hapless Nats with real ballplayers, and my handy-dandy scorebook tells me that they started chipping away with one run in the bottom of the second and then added 3 more in the 4th.  By the time Ryan Zimmerman hit his fourth home run in four games in the bottom of the 5th, the Nats had tied the game and the old momentum had clearly swung.  Just like Abe snuck up on George and Tom to steal the President’s race tonight, the Nats snuck up on Diamondbacks and had them looking as helpless as Teddy (especially center-fielder Gerardo Parra who misplayed at least two balls – one of which the official scorer generously credited as a double).

One of the great things about scoring a ballgame is that all the folks around you are willing to ask questions, chat about special plays, and help you out when your eyes are diverted watching George Washington dance and you miss a play.  It also helps you remember the key plays.  Like Guzman’s very close 6-3 put-out of Trent Oeltjen in the 8th that got the D’backs manager tossed from the game (but not before he did his best Earl Weaver impersonation and got the ump riled up).  I suspect the replay showed Oeltjen was safe because they never showed it in the stadium (a suspicion that was later confirmed).  Had he been called safe, the D’backs would have tied the game in the 8th and we might still be playing.  But as the late philosopher Jerry Reed said, “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot!”

My seatmates included a British gentleman who had a very good grasp of the game, two families from NY/Connecticut taking a break from a college-visiting trip with their daughter and son, and two couples out for a night of beer and baseball.  I remember asking my British friend why in the world the D’backs would let their pitcher bat in the 6th when he’d already given up 5 runs and had thrown 103 pitches…and then they took him out after just one-third of an inning in the 7th, which messed up their pinch-hitting opportunities later in the game.  Riggleman, on the other hand, made a number of double switches that made my scorecard look a bit of a mess but meant that he always had the right guy at the plate when it counted AND he got the most out of his bullpen.  I like the way Riggleman is managing this club and think he deserves a shot at a permanent job.  (But the Nats and their countless interim positions are another blog for when I’m not feeling so charitable towards our hometown team.)

Great night for baseball.  Great win by our Nats.  As my t-shirt with a simple drawing of a baseball on the front of it declares, “Life is Good.”

More to come…

DJB

Jane Jacobs, Robert Moses and the Future of the American City

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One of the blogs I check on a regular basis is The Edge of the American West. It features a variety of viewpoints, sharp writing, and intelligent discussions on history.  On the about page, the blog features the quote:  History is Philosophy teaching by example.

Today there’s a post on the site entitled “I hate the government for making my life absurd” – a quote from urban crusader and preservation heroine Jane Jacobs.

The writer is highlighting a new book on the relationship between Jacobs and the New York City power broker Robert Moses, which was featured in the New York Times on Tuesday.

Writing in the Times, reviewer Dwight Garner provides the background for the Wrestling With Moses:

Moses and Jacobs clashed during the 1950s and ’60s over three of the huge public works projects Moses tried to force on Manhattan. It is hard even to list them now without cringing — or nearly weeping with gratitude that they never came to pass.There was his plan to build a four-lane highway through the middle of Washington Square Park. Another project would have razed 14 blocks in the heart of Greenwich Village under the guise of urban renewal. There was also a plan to plunge a 10-lane elevated superhighway, to be called the Lower Manhattan Expressway, through SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown and the Lower East Side.

Each of these projects is, from today’s vantage point, clearly insane; each would have had cataclysmic effects on the quality of life in Manhattan. But their flaws were less obvious to many at the time. It took an accidental activist, Jacobs, and her ability to marshal popular support and political will, to stop them. The battles over all three projects form the spine of “Wrestling With Moses.”

As The Edge of the American West says so well, “…if you’ve never read Jacobs, and you like cities at all, you should rush right out to the library.”

More to come…

DJB


Summer Saturdays

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Erin's Fiddle

As summer Saturdays go, this was a pretty good one.

First of all, I’m focused on moving things off my desk so that both my head AND office are cleared to begin vacation on Monday.  So I went into work this morning.  That may not sound like fun on a summer day, but if no one’s around and you can put on the Bluegrass Instrumentals playlist off the iTunes site and crank up the sound, it makes for a great setting for getting things done.

I didn’t stay too long, however, as I wanted to catch the championship game of the Cal Ripken, Sr. Baseball League, featuring the Bethesda Big Train.  My colleague at work (and fellow baseball enthusiast) Dolores and her son Noah joined me at Povich Field where – after the strangest “sun downpour” (this was more than a shower) – the Big Train played a stellar game and beat the Maryland Redbirds 7-0. to cap a 31-10 season with both the regular season and playoff titles.  The Big Train pitcher had a perfect game through 5 and 2/3’s innings and was unhittable all afternoon.

It was nice being outside with friends, but it was good to return to the air conditioning, where I’m now listening to some hot fiddle/guitar swing jazz from the 2009 Takoma Park Jazz Fest by an amazing young fiddler named Casey Driscoll and guitarist/mandolinist Danny Knicely.  If you get a chance to catch either one, I recommend it. Terrific stuff – only sorry I missed it live at the Takoma Park Jazz Fest.

More to come…

DJB

Brooks, Big Train, and The Onion

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BaseballI’m not sure it is a good sign when New York Times columnists begin showing up at Bethesda Big Train wooden bat league baseball games.

Tonight I was at Shirley Povich Field for the Cal Ripken, Sr. League playoff game between Big Train and the Herndon Braves when I look down my aisle to the right (of course) and there sits David Brooks, conservative voice of the Times editorial page and PBS’s Newshour with Jim Lehrer.  Brooks is a commentator who says enough sane things (e.g., see comments about Sarah Palin) to make some believe he’s bi-partisan.  I’ll reserve judgment on that…but I usually agree with how his columns are “interpreted” by the Daily Kos Abbreviated Pundit Round-Up (e.g., David Brooks recycles another “we’re all going to die” column).

Nonetheless, I’m not picking on conservatives.  Heck, I’d be concerned if it was Maureen Dowd sitting down the row in the bleachers from me.  Part of the fun of college wooden league baseball is that it really has that small town, family feel.  Kids throw out the first pitch on their birthday and they have a water balloon contest in between innings to see who can burst the most with a bat in a 30-second period.  I’d hate to lose all that if the announcer feels he has to tell us what celebrity is in the house that evening. (Only in Washington are columnists celebrities.)

And maybe that’s what set me off.  I’m really happy that David Brooks and his family can relax and enjoy some great, winning baseball.  (The Big Train were just ranked 11th in the nation in the latest poll of summer college wooden bat league teams.  The Nationals are…not quite as successful.)

Just don’t announce it!

What does any of this have to do with the satirical newspaper, The Onion?  Well, nothing really, except I’m looking for a transition between columnists in the Times and the ridiculous sports columns I read today in the most recent edition of my favorite hard copy source of non-news. (At least you know The Onion is making this stuff up.  You can never be sure about the chattering class.)

The Onion’s July 30th edition reported on “Sports Going Through Slump.”

“Whether it’s mental fatigue, a lack of emotional involvement, or simply its age beginning to show, sports hasn’t been able to do anything whatsoever for quite a while now,” said noted sports psychologist Dr. David Grand, who tracks sports’ annual performance and believes this may be the worst year for the recreational activity since it went professional in the early 20th century…”Frankly, sports is showing all the signs of being an overworked, overstressed field of human endeavor,” Grand said.  “It’s been doing double duty for years, probably since the collapse of religion.  It should reaffirm itself, concentrate on its games, and stop trying to be all things to all people.  Otherwise sports will just have to give up for good and leave us with nothing but arts and literature.  No one wants to see that.”

In a “Sportgraphic” in the same issue, The Onion turns its attention to “America’s Most Flawed Sports Facilities.”  Among those gems:

Minute Maid Park: Jesus Christ, a hill in centerfield?  With a flagpole in play?  What the hell were the Astros thinking?

Qwest Field: The Seahawks organization is unable to explain how, during two years of construction, no one noticed they were building the stadium upside down.

Ebbets Field: Is actually a Popeye’s Chicken, and not a very clean one either.

Lambeau Field: There is absolutely nothing whatsoever wrong with Lambeau Field.

As for that last remark, truer words were never spoken in the New York Times.

More to come…

DJB