April 2009 Archives

Finally, something more interesting than a 30-point loss to a BCS team comes out of Ohio State:

...[T]here was no significant difference between the groups in thinking [faux-right-wing TV host Steven] Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism.

...from the AP that Wall Street is never plugged much into reality:

Stocks surged Wednesday, lifting the Dow Jones industrials more than 200 points, even after the government said the economy as measured by the G.D.P. contracted at an annual rate of 6.1 percent during the first three months of the year.

Ronald Reagan famously switched parties decades ago, saying he didn't leave the Democrats, they left him. That's a little far-fetched for a supply-side guy who said he worshipped the New Dealer FDR. But Arlen Specter now says something similar:

"Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right," he said in a statement released early Tuesday afternoon. "Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."

That may be far-fetched too. He was always a liberal Republican. Yet he's a liberal Republican who says the Big Tent has squeezed him out. Is this a good thing for the GOP....?

For those of you who miss LA's Adam Carolla Show, the original group is back here today for a podcast. More here.

Is there no other wit to be found on L.A. morning radio? I've tried waking up to other morning programs, but I'm at the point that I prefer silence.

So there's a swine flu epidemic--soon to be a major pandemic. What better time not to have a cabinet level Secretary of Health and Human Services? What better time not to have a Surgeon General?

Do these positions actually make a difference? Well, I believe so. Having just witnessed Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano's press conference, I really want someone who knows something about health. Napolitano's policy pronouncements were contradictory and logically incoherent.

To the question if we were controlling our ports and airports to see that sick people didn't come into the country--as is being done in countries around the world--Napolitano said "No. Because the flu is already here and...people can carry it for up to three days without symptoms." Okay, that makes some sense.

Then when asked if we had plans to control our borders she said, "Yes." And went on to explain that if it got worse and was upgraded from level 3 to level 4 or 5, we had plans to close the borders.

So there is no point in closing or controlling the borders because it wouldn't help, but if it gets worse, we will???? Oy. Is there a doctor in the house?

©2009 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.org

Then Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama did a prescient thing last October. He told an interviewer on a Colorado radio station that he thought the first 1000 days not the first 100 days would make the crucial difference for his presidency. Candidate Obama directly parodied the line from JFK's inauguration address in 1961. Kennedy proclaimed the first 1000 days as the better time frame to measure how effective or bumbling an administration is. Obama and JFK were wise to cite the much longer time frame. They sought to damp down the wild public expectations that they can work quick magic and miracles in no time flat.

Obama is well aware that the 100 days burden weighs heavier on him than any other president in modern times. He's young, liberal, untested, and black. There are still deep doubts, suspicions and loud grumbles from some about his competency and political savvy. The Mt. Everest stack of op-eds, news articles, pictorials, websites, chatrooms, national viewer polls and surveys, and CNN and MSNBC specials will dissect, peck apart his words and initiatives for the first 100 days, and nag everyone else to do the same. This put even more pressure on to show he's a tough, resolute, effective leader.
Obama in his quip to the Colorado radio interviewer knew the silliness of fixating on the drop in the bucket 100 day time span to brand a president and his presidency as a stunning success or a miserable flop. A quick look at the presidency of his two immediate predecessors is enough to prove that. Clinton bombed badly in pushing Congress for a $16 billion stimulus package; he bungled the don't ask, don't tell policy regarding gays in the military, and got the first flack on his health care reform plan. Yet, the Clinton presidency is regarded as one of the most successful, popular and enduring in modern times.

Then there's the Bush presidency. He got off to a fast start. At the 100 day mark in April 2001, his approval ratings matched Obama's. He was widely applauded for his trillion dollar tax cutting program, his "Faith-Based" and disabled Americans Initiatives, and for talking up education, health care reform and slashing the national debt. But aside from the momentary adulation he got after the 9/11 terror attack his presidency is rated as one of the worst in modern times.

The 1000 day mark that Obama, Kennedy and other presidents have cited as the more realistic time frame is not an arbitrary number. That marks the near end of a president's first White House term. The honeymoon is over, and the president has fought major battles over his policies, initiatives, executive orders, court appointments and programs with Congress, the courts, interest groups and the media. Battles that by then have been won or lost, or fought to a draw, and there's enough time to gauge their impact and the president's effectiveness.

The other big problem with the whimsical 100 day fixation is that it can force a president, in this case Obama, to feel that he must move sprint out the gate to fulfill campaign promises, pass legislation, and burnish up his media and public credentials as a top leader. This carries risks; risks of acting too hastily and making missteps that invite intense criticism.

Obama's dash to padlock Guantanamo, announce big sweeping plans for health care, financial and banking regulation reform, his much ado about nothing handshake with Hugo Chavez, his outstretch to Iran, and Cuba, and hint at dumping nuclear weapons from the world's arsenals has drawn heat fire from the right that he's a reckless tax and spend, debt burdening, free market wrecker, and enemy conciliator. His mixed signals on prosecuting CIA torture cases and retaining virtually intact the faith based initiative, and ladling out billions to the banks have drawn heat from the left that he's a backslider and Beltway politician.

Obama, though, is no different than other every other president modern era. He is pulled and tugged at by corporate and defense industry lobbyists, the oil and nuclear power industry, government regulators, environmental watchdog groups, conservative family values groups, moderate and conservative GOP senators and house members, foreign diplomats and leaders. They all have their priorities and agendas and all vie for White House support for their pet legislation, or to kill or cripple legislation that threatens their interests. They'll applaud him when they get their way and bash him when they don't.
Obama did another smart thing in his first presidential interview with 60 Minutes in November. He told the interviewer that he took a close look at FDR's first 100 days and he was struck not by the avalanche of legislation and programs that FDR rammed through Congress his first 100 days but his willingness to do things that were different and that made lasting change. This will take far more than 100 days for that to happen and for it to be remembered.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard on weekly on Fridays 9:30 to 10:00 AM in Los Angeles on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and nationally on ktym.com and blogtalkradio.com

I gave a talk last Monday at USC entitled, "Postcards from the World's Most Dangerous Place," looking at my time last summer in Pakistan, where my family built a school for underserved rural children in the Punjab. I also discussed being in the capital, Islamabad, last fall, when the Taliban blew up a hotel in town. A few days after my talk, the Taliban was reported to be taking root about 60 miles from Islamabad, where much of our family is based.

Jonathan and others have asked what I think of what's going on. As much as I love to bloviate, frequently unencumbered by facts or good taste, I think this is one of those times where it's best to say, "I don't really know." All of Pakistan's problems, including the rise of the Taliban, proceed in some way from its paranoia regarding India. But I can't say much about how dire the situation is at this time, for them or for us.

But for those who want a little more info, this is about as insightful as whatever you'll see.

It doesn't do much good to try to pierce the brick headedness of the pack who rag on President Obama for shaking Hugo Chavez' hand with a quick diplomatic history lesson. But here goes. Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and even Bush Jr. shook the hands of the long line of dictators, tyrants, scalawags, and con artists who have masqueraded as democratically elected or popular heads of state. Many of them committed human rights abuses far worse than anything that Chavez is remotely accused of, let alone committing.

It doesn't mean much to remind this crowd that a cardinal tenet of correct, smart, prudent politics and diplomacy is to talk not just to your foreign friends and allies but foes and even enemies. Not to do so guarantees that they stay enemies. It doesn't do much to repeat that a pillar of politics is that nations have no permanent enemies, no permanent friends, just permanent interests.

Let's hope the handshake with Chavez means a shake loose of Venezuelan and the US relations from the silly isolation policy and saber rattle rhetoric of Obama's diplomatic tin ear predecessor. The handshake is a good start.

Gail-T asks if Obama would have shaken Mussolini's or Stalin's hand. Well, we do know that Churchill did. He wrote in 1927, "I could not help being charmed by Signor Mussolini's gentle and simple bearing, and by his calm, detached poise in spite of so many burdens and dangers." Many Depression-era Americans admired the Italian's effectiveness. As for Stalin, wasn't he Churchill's and America's invaluable ally in opposing Hitler...?

Hawks have squawked about Obama's humble international tone, which did seem like a good idea when the previous president advocated it. One Hoover Institution fellow railed against Obama's conciliatory tone in last week's Wall Street Journal; but I soon found another article by this scholar just a year ago in which he preached the need for America to be more gracious and friendly to other nations.

I've left a message for him asking what he really believes and when he believes it. But I suspect such persons ridicule civility only when it's modeled by someone they don't like. This seems as much about envy as about geopolitical strategy.

Wouldn't you know it but the first time we actually get bi-partisan agreement in the state legislature, it is pure lunacy? Speaker Karen Bass (Dem) and Minority leader Michael Villines (Rep) have agreed to pay increases for selected staff members totaling over $500,000!

At a time when California is in economic free-fall, with unemployment pushing past 10%, with public employees being laid off, teachers pink slipped and workers put on forced furloughs, when better to give the deserving few a pay raise? I know, it's only half a million, a mere soupcon, a drop in the state budget's bucket. But the bucket has a hole in it and we the people are circling the drain.

In May we are being asked to approve the phony baloney budget deal. Maybe 11% of the voters will show up and decide whether or not to trust in the analyses, judgment and intelligence of our elected representatives. Bass and Villines do not make trust easier by this act of truly remarkable political tone-deafness.

Of course the professional politicians have a really good excuse cum analysis. This raise won't cost us anything because they are going to take the money from money already allocated. So, let me see about this: They are saying that in the middle of a financial crisis, the worst of our lifetime, giving raises will be costless because they found money they don't really need? Did it ever occur to them that if they had money they didn't need to give it back or put it into programs that have been reduced or save jobs that were important? Sorry, that was a rhetorical question. They obviously never thought about that. What did they think about? Do they actually think or just plot and scheme?

This is an act of such stunning political malpractice (never mind the morality of it), that they should both lose their leadership positions. Then we can recall them. You see, they went beyond just political tone-deafness; they are clearly deaf to our cries, to our pain, to the reality with which so many Californians are trying to live.
©2009 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.org

I usually don't always like shaking hands because I don't like germs, and I know that that is one of the fastest ways to move them along. In fact, some germs have been known to travel at a rate of .0001 parts per second after entering one of the body's passageways and canals. (I made that up, but it sounded pretty good anyway.)

Still, there are those who I would never shake hands with like Nazis, idiots, criminals, unreformed skinheads and certain politicians. And this is why Barack Obama shouldn't have shaken hands so vigorously with Hugo Chavez for being in at least one of the aforementioned categories. Instead, Obama should have given him a fish handshake, coughed and looked away.

I know all about building bridges and roads instead of walls, and for all I know Chavez had a lousy childhood that led to all this, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have some limits and standards over what is acceptable and what is not. After all, would Obama have shaken hands with Hitler or Mussolini had he had the chance? What about Stalin or the Marquis de Sade? Never mind.

All I know is that it is one thing to be polite and kind but another to try turning everything into one giant peace and love rally from the 60's.

Let's stipulate that Hugo Chavez is a petty tyrant, a demagogue, an outspoken anti-Semite and not a friend to America. But hey, who's perfect, right?

He is, however, the elected president of a sovereign state--and we believe in elections, at least as long as they turn out the way we want. So far, while nationalizing our assets, he has not directly attacked us--except for verbally. So the great question dominating the news (On Fox) is this: Did President Obama do a bad thing in shaking Chavez's outstretched hand or should he have turned his back?

Well, if you're at a conference of leaders of our two American continents and part of your goal is to build a bridge to Cuba then going out of your way to diss a Cuban ally doesn't enhance your chances for achieving your goals. But some complain we shouldn't be nice either to Chavez's Venezuela or to Cuba as long as anyone with the name Castro lives. That is a legitimate policy issue. But diplomatic rudeness seldom gains anyone or any nation much.

But yes, I'll admit that sometimes the pictures can be disturbing. I was not thrilled with President George W Bush holding hands and kissing a Saudi Prince--who is not in my view a prince of a fellow. I know W is a baseball guy (Look at his artful dodge of a high inside shoe) and I guess I can live with the handholding, which is generally considered to be getting to first base). The kiss in the lips? Well, that was at least second base. And given what happened to gas prices in the first half of W's last year, I'm thinking he scored. Thank goodness there is no photo of that. Though Miss California seems inarticulately ambivalent on this. For me a kiss is not just a kiss, but a handshake is okay if it doesn't lead to being taken advantage of.

©2009 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.org

President Obama got it right and terribly wrong on the UN Racism Conference in Geneva. He rightly demanded that the conference convenors drop the stock Zionism is racism plank from the draft resolution of the conference. The Israel knock was the same sticking point that former President Bush used to dodge going to the anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa in 2001. The convenors complied and sanitized the objectionable language from the resolution. That should have been enough to get a U.S. delegation on a plane to Geneva.

For a brief moment it looked like it would be enough. An Obama spokesperson went so far as too publicly praise the move and say that the administration was deeply grateful for the change. The Obama administration wasn't grateful enough though to attend.
This is where President Obama gets it terribly wrong. The 20 nations that initially put the anti-Israel language in the resolution as well as certain other rhetorical points that the U.S. can't stomach can't be challenged in absentia. There is still too much bitter racial and ethnic hate and turmoil in too many places in the world that have nothing to do with Israel and Middle East problems that scream for attention. Attention that President Obama can't duck. The United States has the money, muscle, and political clout to take the lead in the continuing fight against racism, repression, genocide, state sponsored ethnic war and cleansing in every part of the globe. That's all state or group sponsored racial and human rights abuses and that includes abuses by some of the nations that ritually target Israel for its human rights abuses.

Obama seems to welcome that chance to confront those nations on their abuses saying repeatedly that he will engage them whenever and wherever he can. He's shown signs of keeping that promise on Cuba and Iran. But they are relatively soft targets since there is broad international consensus that the US must dump its archaic, outdated, and failed policy on Cuba, a policy that's out of step with all of Latin America. In the case of Iran, US outreach is a matter of international security since Iran is a looming regional and international nuclear threat.

Diplomatic détente with Cuba and Iran, though, doesn't do much to spotlight caste oppression in India, the plight of the Kurds in Turkey and other Mid East countries, skinhead violence in Germany and Britain, the continuing theft of Indian lands in Brazil, Mexico, and Guatemala, and the genocidal ethnic attacks in Darfur and the Congo. Nor does it prod Canada and Australia to do even more to right the historic wrongs against Indians and Aborigines. The US must also call on the carpet those corrupt African and Asian dictatorial regimes that elevate violence and terror to state policy against dissidents, many of whom are invariably of different ethnic groups.

In 2001, a clearly conflicted Secretary of State Colin Powell understood this. He thought the decision to bail out of the Durban conference was a grave mistake, and that the U.S. should and could do more good by being there to prove that it did take the fight against global racism seriously. Powell understood that the racism conference was supposed to draw up a battle plan to combat racism wherever it reared its ugly head in the world.
In the provisional agenda the UN Racism conference drew up in 1997 it called for nations to identify victims of discrimination, develop prevention, education, and protection measures, and provide long term strategies to bolster national and international efforts to combat discrimination. The obsessive focus on Israel just kept getting in the way of making any real headway on that agenda. The disputed resolution equating Zionism with racism passed in 1975 by a deeply divided U.N. was vague and ill-defined and had no force of law.

It did nothing to alleviate Palestinian suffering. Instead, it made Israel dig its heels in deeper and refuse more concessions on Palestinian rights. The U.N., with the consent of Arab nations and the Palestinians, wised up to the blunder and overwhelmingly voted to dump the resolution in 1991. However, it still keeps cropping up as a barrier to getting the US to the conference table.

The big danger in a one track focus on Israel is that the conference will again give short shrift to the ethnic warfare that still rages in these countries.

The Congressional Black Caucus has been one of the Obama administration's loudest cheerleaders. Yet it flatly called the Obama administration's decision to skip Geneva disappointing. It's more than disappointing. It's yet another opportunity the US blew to struggle against global racism. Bush didn't do that, and that was no real surprise. But Obama is not Bush and for him to blow the opportunity to engage against global racism at Geneva repeats Bush's folly.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard on weekly in Los Angeles on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and nationally on blogtalkradio.com

When un-plucked, un-tweezed and un-Botoxed Susan Boyle walked out on stage last week and answered Simon Cowell's questions about her dreams of becoming a singer, the audience jeered and a few men even whistled and threw out catcalls, while Ms. Boyle kept up her cheerful banter.

When I saw her on U-Tube along with 35 million others, I knew that this was someone who had known her share of schoolyard taunts and bullies. What I didn't know is that she had been deprived of oxygen at birth, which caused a learning disability, or that she had gone on the show to fulfill a promise to her mother who died two years ago and who Susan had lived with and cared for, or that had "never been kissed."

Then came that wretched first note and a song so chock full of emotion, it made me cry each time I heard it, and I heard it plenty.

Aside from having talent, part of the pull lies in the fact that beneath the exterior of someone most people wouldn't have given a passing glance to if they saw her on the street, is someone with a poet's soul and a heart of gold. Her ascent to Internet superstardom is almost a slap in the face to the women who opt for surgery and Botox or pose for Playboy when this dark horse comes trotting out, turns it all upside down and blows everything away. Like one of the show's judges, Amanda Holden, said, "it is a wake up call."

Susan had things that some of us don't have like a support system and those who believed in her and cheered her on. In her case, it was her mother and her voice coach, Fred O'Neil, who both encouraged her to audition for the show. And that is why it is important to find people who believe in you and who will see your talent and encourage you during those moments when doubt starts to seep in.

In the end, Susan Boyle is getting the last laugh, like Steven Spielberg and others who've been scarred by bullies yet somehow manage to get past them to win. She is the underdog, the Rocky Balboa of the music world, the one whose success gives us hope, and she is the one we will cheer for as she hits that ball over the fence and out of the park the next time she sings another wretched first note.

Journalist Roxana Saberi should not be in jail. The Iranians are both foolish and cruel for arresting her, trying her in secret and depriving her of her lawyer. She was even forbidden from attending her own trial. So much for justice Iranian style.

This, of course, makes no sense. Eight years for espionage? If she truly were a spy, she would have gotten life--or death. The sentence bespeaks the level of unfunny farce.

However, we should remember with whom we are dealing and realize that this was a foreseeable consequence to an American-born journalist losing her press credentials and reporting anyway. It is neither right nor fair but let her clients, for whom she reported, take some responsibility for putting her in predictable jeopardy.

Both the BBC and our own National Public Radio kept using her reporting even after knowing that her credentials had been revoked. In some countries you do not work at all as a foreigner without a permit. In Iran, it is safe to say that if they tell you can't report and you do it anyway, they might take it somewhat amiss.

Let me be clear, I am not defending the Iranian regime and this judicial mockery. I am asking our own news media to exercise some care for the safety of their reporters. Yes, reporters are put in harm's way all the time. It is a dangerous profession. We do not need to make it more dangerous by putting a young reporter in the face of such a predictably angry and paranoid government.

As part of his ongoing effort to portray Obama as the source of all evil, seemingly oblivious to the economic meltdown of 2008, my good friend John Galt complains about how it's a crime that April 13 has been calculated by one group as the first day you can stop working for the government and start working for yourself.

If John were being fair, he'd point out that this April 13 "tax freedom day" comes earlier than many recent years, thanks in part to Obama's efforts.

If John were being objective, he'd look at some other numbers that show that the "tax freedom day" is a bit overhyped, as revealed by our own CBO's numbers.

# Estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) show that middle- and even upper-middle-income Americans pay less of their income in federal taxes than the "average" tax burden reported in the Tax Foundation's "Tax Freedom Day" report.
# In fact, the CBO estimates indicate that some 80 percent of U.S. households pay federal tax at rates lower than the Tax Foundation's reported average.

And if John wanted to see the silver lining, he could see that America has consistently been ranked by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative and libertarian groups as one of the most economically free nations in the world. Will Obama's outrageous tax cuts to most Americans and mild increase to the wealthy drop us out of the top 10? I doubt it.

The real concern with Obama is that he's gambling that his costly long-term investments will give us the infrastructure that we need to grow faster than our debt. Since Bush supporters say that he'll need a generation before his efforts can be judged, how about at least, oh, a year or two for Obama....? Instead, we get this talk about "tyranny," which somehow wasn't a problem when Eisenhower and Reagan were overseeing higher rates of taxes, or when Bush was pushing through Patriot Acts. That's why I think John's constant lamenting about Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright shows a generalized annoyance at Democrats rather than a focused, valid concern.

Me, I prefer coffee. But here are the surprising results from a tax debate at the website of my favorite wags, those relatively libertarian, tea-loving Brits from the Economist.

While I am usually on the lookout for a good party, last Wednesday's Tea Party wasn't it, so I stayed home, worked on my taxes and brewed my own blend. After all, about the only thing that tea can do is either rev people up or calm them down, which would result in a more hyper or mellow country depending on whether caffeinated or decaf had been selected as the brew of choice to commemorate the Boston Tea Party while protesting taxation.

If the GOP organizers of that brouhaha wanted to do it right, then they would have asked everyone to toss the herbal variety into the canals and waterways. This would have mellowed Congress and the President out and maybe even led to a meditation session or two where everyone could think of ways to cut back on their spending.

Do the right side wing nuts that dreamed up this tea party drivel really think that they fooled anybody? The tea party bunch had one aim and one aim only; to dig at President Obama. Since everything else the GOP has done including run a joke of a presidential campaign has been a dismal flop, they figured that their uproariously hilarious and ludicrous Founding Father Taxation without Representation masquerade might touch a nerve.

The problem with all this is that even if you think taxes are too high, government is a bloated, listing white elephant, and the debt from Obama spending will orbit somewhere past Pluto, this bunch's prescription for solving the crisis--cut taxes, cut spending, and return to 19th Century free boot laissez faire capitalism--would guarantee America's streets stuffed with shopping carts, paper shanties, soup kitchens and bread lines ala 1933 Great Depression America.

The tea party was yet another GOP sour grapes hammer of a president who some in their loony tune world still think is the second coming of V.I. Lenin. The tea party deserves the same fate as the tea dumped into Boston Harbor; and that's a quick dumping from the public plate.

If tea bagging is a somewhat perverse sexual act the current tea parties are clearly perverse political acts. Our founding revolutionaries didn't have tea bag parties in Boston Harbor. The tea bag wasn't invented till 1904.

Demonstrations and street theater against taxation without representation do have a long and honorable history. What they don't have is any connection to the current political stunt. Sure, I understand that few want to pay taxes. Me too neither. But if people are protesting taxes, shouldn't they be rejoicing that the top rate is no longer 91% as under President Eisenhower? No one's taxes have gone up since Clinton. So what is the protest? Oh, it's about taxes going up some day. This isn't a political dog that will hunt. We are taxed and we are represented. So the point is?

Okay, some are understandably upset about the bailouts. Good. Me too also! But shall we look at who is getting the benefit of the bailouts? Banks. Investment banks. Stockbrokerages. Insurance companies. So, the Republicans have whipped up the mob to protest a tax raise that hasn't happened and a bailout that is for the benefit of mostly Republicans. I need something stronger than tea!
©2009 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.org

So what did I learn this week that will stay with me and inform my instincts and reform my judgments? Like so much of the English-speaking world, I heard Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent sing. She sang, I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserable's. And as Mohammad Ali used to say she "shocked the world." Out came this 47-year-old woman from a village in Scotland. She was dumpy and frumpy looking. She was clearly not a candidate for Britain's Next Hot Model (if such a show exists). She didn't look like she would be anything but the butt of some harsh jokes.

Simon Cowell, who will never be mistaken for St Francis, asked her what her dream was and it was to sing, she replied. So naturally, with the tact of Dr. Phil, he asked rhetorically how that was working for her and why she wasn't already a star? "Haven't been getting the chance so far," she replied. The judges sat back with smirks, not even barely disguised, and she began to sing.

From the first note, she had them--and they were truly had. Such beauty came out of her unremarkable face. Her phrasing, her tone, the drama, the selling of the song--but without hamming it up--just blew everyone away. The judges were smiling, laughing, I think, at themselves. The audience was on its feet cheering and clapping. There were tears. Mine included. They all looked as if a miracle had happened. They could not have appeared more surprised if a lump of clay had formed itself into a person and began to sing like an angel. Which is pretty much exactly what happened.

The sad truth is we do judge books by their covers. We do not expect beauty and excellence from ordinary people or ordinary looking people. We expect beautiful people to be talented and when they are not, they get judged harshly. We expect ordinary looking people to be ordinary and when they are not--we are surprised. We look at people and make assumptions about their talent or intelligence, their wit or their goodness from what they show on the outside. This is prejudice in its purest form.

When Mr. Smith goes to Washington, he is supposed to fail. A Fair Lady cannot be made of a Cockney girl selling flowers on the street. We read and hear the story of the Ugly Duckling and we see the example of Beauty and the Beast--and even children know that there is beauty buried in the beast. We see, we read, we hear, but when we grow up, we don't remember. These remain only fairly tales. When they become demonstrably true, we are astounded.

I know that this is perilously close to populism, but ordinary people are often capable of extraordinary acts or both artistic and moral beauty. This is such a simple lesson, but so hard to remember and live by. So thank you Susan Boyle for reminding me to keep my heart open wider than my eyes and to fight every kind of prejudice on race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, and our arbitrary standards of beauty.
©2009 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.org

This week's tea party protests seem to have been a mildly successful grassroots effort to show popular sentiment against bailouts and higher taxes.

I'm sympathetic, to a degree. The Bush administration blamed its overspending on its predecessors and its political rivals. The Obama administration is doing the same. And the national debt mounts.

I personally wish that the nation's best economic minds had a more free-market, fiscally conservative approach to stimulus and bailout programs. But they don't. The pols who posture about posterity's unbearable debt load are too cowardly to present real solutions -- solutions that would involve political accountability. John McCain promised to "go after pork" -- even though pork is not much more of an issue in the federal deficit than it is in a Jewish deli. No one seems serious about tackling debt.

And yet we have to pull the nation out of a ditch, and that seems to cost money. We have to get the nation's engine running again, and the best minds claim a laissez-faire approach won't get that baby humming anytime soon. I don't believe that, if a Republican had won instead of Obama, we'd be somehow lowering our debt over its current levels.

I wish there were a better way, but no one has stepped forward to show that way. And the tea-party crowd seems painfully naive in going after the new administration as the partisan source of all our collective irresponsibilities.

Funny, my mom, your mom and all the experts swore real estate is the only sure way to financial stability. Not today. For those like me who've never owned, I shrug, smirk, and move on.

I am puzzled by some of the great patriots of the right. When they are in or near power they are 110% pro America. "My country right or wrong. Go team!" When they are in or near power, dissent is treason, and even asking questions is, well, questionable.

This great dedication to our Grand Old Flag hymn starts going off key when they do not get their way, the only way. Then either liberals should love America or leave it, or they will threaten to prove their love by leaving the Union and taking their states with them. America takes second chair to States' Rights when integration is at stake. A United States of America is not such a terrific idea when they do not rule. They seem to believe that maybe a loose confederation would be better--particularly when the Federal Courts rule against them.

Many of us thought it was a weirdo wacko anomaly when Gov. Sarah Palin's hunter hubby was associated with the Alaska Independence Party. How could a good Republican be a dissident, a secessionist and a part of a movement that questioned the legitimacy of our nation? That should be the exclusive franchise of America-hating liberals. Right?

Now it seems that this is not an isolated anomaly. The Republican Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, threatens to have Texas secede from the Union. I knew these guys were anti-union, but I didn't really think that it applied to our nation. Perry, who is running for re-election, is going far to the right of his likely opponent in the primary Kay Bailey Hutchison. He is running against Washington and claiming that Texas could be its own country. After all: It has oil. It has ports. It has agriculture. He is making the same basic argument as the separatists in Scotland. "We pay too much, get too little and would be better off alone."

While some liberals might be tempted to respond with loud hosannas and hearty wishes of, "Good luck with your new country," I would mourn the loss of Texas. Some of my favorite relatives live there--and they seem to be good, loyal and patriotic Americans.

One of the conditions of Texas joining the Union was the right to leave, or to divide itself into four states. Now, that would be far more interesting. In that way, the land now called Texas would have eight senators and four governors. I suspect it would be far more in their interests to increase their power than to leave.

The deeper point, however, is the leitmotif of secession that is running through far right politics. I do not, as yet, take it seriously as a threat (any more than Alec Baldwin's empty promise to leave the country if W were re-elected in 2004). This is just a strange kind of "sunshine patriots and summer soldiers," who maintain the right to withdraw from our nation when not in agreement, yet call such thoughts when manifest or even suspected of others: treason.

©2009 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.org

Listen to Susan Boyle singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from "Les Miserables" on Britain's version of "American Idol," "Britain's Got Talent." Hers is a voice that uplifts and transcends and makes the impossible seem possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

...am I the only one who sees the humor in how one crowd that championed the Patriot Act now detests how the government might be meddling in our lives....? Or how the civil libertarian crowd suddenly thinks it's a capital idea to keep tabs on potential trouble-makers in our midst...?

La plus ca change....

I doubt if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and for power -- power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors; they want to retaliate.
-- Eric Hoffer

We should pay more for water. A lot more.

Only then would people be more conscientious when they turn on the faucet or hose or sprinklers. More homeowners would consider letting their lawns go brown or switching to a drought-tolerant landscape -- a good thing since irrigation makes up about 70 percent of household water use. Farmers would consider crops or farming methods that don't need as much water. Water agencies and their constituents would be more willing to consider high-tech, but potentially unpopular recycled water projects (aka toilet to tap).

It will be painful. Higher utility bills always are, and more expensive water leads to more expensive food, higher rent and other unanticipated costs. But as we saw with the price of oil, people only change behavior when they're hit in the wallet, and then the marketplace responds with better, more efficient products to conserve this pricey resource.

Now, farm workers marching in the Central Valley this week to demand more water for fallowed fields blame the problem on a three-inch fish in the Delta. They say we are putting the needs of a fish above the needs of a community. That seems to be a short-sighted view. Increasing pumping in the Delta - and ignoring the health of the smelt - may help this year but what is gained? No one is forced to conserve more or develop more water efficient ways, and we will likely find California facing the same shortage again and again.

Others say the problem is overdevelopment and overpopulation. There's too many people here and too many new homes sucking up water. In L.A. most of the new developments are apartments and condominiums, which don't come with the big, green lawns that consume so much water. As for population, well, nobody has figured out a way to export millions of Californians (legal or not) or prevent new ones from being born. And they're not going to figure it out this year or next year, so Californian must manage the water we have for the population we have.

And the easiest, fastest way to save water is to jack up the price.

Unlike Sarah Palin and today's "tea party" revolters, I believe it's patriotic to pay my share of taxes -- and even a higher proportion of taxes than those who make less than me. That reflects my willing participation in the world's greatest nation, a free democracy built on consensus. I may not be taxed enough, based on the large and growing debt that has characterized our habits since the advent of Reagan. But since I don't have kids, I suppose I'll be willing to pass the debt along to John Galt's kids.

For the Tea Party folks, I'd want to pose some questions:

* Many of you complain that "hard-working" people don't have enough of a chance to get ahead when taxes exceed, oh, 3 or 4%. But is there real, demonstrable evidence that hard-working people work less hard with 5-10% fluctuations in their tax rates?

* If some Americans came into sudden wealth through mere speculation on margin, should they be protected from higher taxes as much as "hard-working" people?

* Have you ever demanded that a small-government politician put forth publicly a balanced budget, rather than merely complaining vaguely about overspending?

* If other people in India work harder than you -- and four times cheaper than you -- in the same job that you have, what does the global economy owe to you? Don't those people deserve a level playing field that means you'd be making far less than what you do currently?

I guess I'm getting at a larger question: Is it really about "What we deserve economically as hard-working people"? Or is it about "What we can get away with in the short-term as the world's top economy"? The Bush years seem to have shown that "what we can get away with" is less and less. So what comes next? Responsibility. And gratitude for what we do have. Many religious people, who taught the need to be grateful for even tyrannical governments in years past, now preach ingratitude in the world's greatest nation.

I find that odd.

"We can — and we will — beat this recession," Mayor Villaraigosa just emoted.

Now he's talking about his grandfather and others who "came here for a better life." Cue the violins. ...

"It explains the life of Tom Bradley" — where did that come from?

"The future is a matter of what we're willing to say 'yes' to," he continues. "We can do anything, we can be anything here, in the City of the Angels. Thank you all and God Bless."

He went out to the strains of Sly Stone's "Everyday People."

Antonio just praised LAUSD Superintendent Ray Cortines and pledged to put "a team in place" to help reform schools.

He's probably said the word "charters" eight times already.

And if our schools don't succeed:

"When wholesale change is the only answer, we will close them down ... and turn them over to charter operators, the mayor's partnership, local universities."

Mayor Villaraigosa just bragged about some 2,000 diesel trucks that have been replaced with "clean" alternatives. He plans to make the harbor cleaner still.

He calls a development near Arroyo Seco "the clean-tech corridor" of L.A.

Much like President Obama, Antonio says he wants clean technology and economic growth to fuel each other.

Antonio just said, "crime is at historic lows, our police force at historic highs." Homicides are down, and then there's the anti-gang program.

"Our budget will protect police and fire and put 1,000 cops on our streets," he continues.

"We can't afford not to (hire more police)," he says.

Now he's talking about ending the council-district-apportioned money for anti-gang programs and instead focusing the funding and effort on the most needed areas. The "Summer Night Lights" program "will be expanded to 15 parks."

"With the passage of Measure R, Los Angeles is in the business of building again," he continues.

"Angelenos didn't buy the politics of 'no,' " ... and yes, he used the words "subway to the sea."

If the water rises enough, I guess Westwood will be seaside soon enough, but I digress.

Now he's getting all pollyannish about Locke High, Green Dot and parental involvement. Bet UTLA's happy about that.

Antonio just announced a partnership (with unknown partners) that would place 16,500 youngsters in jobs, "the most in 15 years," he said to applause. All I'm thinking is that things were super-good 15 years ago.

He said he's counting on federal funds to get kids "off the streets and out of trouble" in education and work programs.

He wants to create "21 family (re)source centers" in "the toughest neighborhood" to help people get all the help that's coming to them — and he thinks 15,000 families will benefit.

He then pledged to help some 4,000 families with immediate needs.

"We will not leave our neighbors behind, no matter what the cost," Antonio said.

He just uttered the phrase "From Van Nuys to Venice," in a preamble to a pledge to help small business in the city. He said it's time "to take our game to a higher level," and assist "over 1,000 local and small businesses in the coming months."

With this kind of aid, he said, the dollars will "come back to local communities."

He wants to "aggressively grow the industries of the future," making L.A. the center of "the green economy," and a "clean-energy powerhouse."

The mayor sure sounds like he's running for something: He commented on what a tragedy it would be if Social Security funds had been invested in the kind of shaky investments that brought down the rest of the economy (and our 401k plans).

Now he's making a case for city services and how they're strained more than ever in this terrible economy.

He's offering to form a "partnership" with city unions in order to get over the hump.

He said the city could be forced to lay off 2,800 city workers. Right now he said that 1 hour per week without pay could save 500 jobs, and other things such as deferring raises will save even more jobs.

And he just said "lockbox." He channeled both Obama and Gore in the space of a few minutes.

While taking stock of the businesses and people suffering in the recession during his State of the City speech Tuesday, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa mentioned the struggling newspaper industry, with this shout out:

"And the recession has done lasting damage to one of our most vital civic institutions: our great newspapers."

Oh, mayor, how you flatter us.

What looks to be a local high-school jazz band has been playing for the past 20+ minutes preceding Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's State of the City address at a Harbor City factory where electric trucks are made.

I have no idea where the kids are from, but for the most part they're pretty good. Sure there's a horn player in there somewhere who's more than a little flat. I won't single out winds or brass, so you've gotta listen yourself if you seek additional information.

A girl delivered a pretty good-sounding flute solo (who doesn't love jazz flute, am I right?), and there was a fine sax solo by another girl after that. I also dig the vibes — meaning the vibraphone — you don't see that very often in a high-school band.

The CEO of the electric-truck company is giving a speech now, and I guess that takes the pressure off of Antonio, who should be on at any minute.

I've heard many conservatives demand that Muslims be more vigorous in denouncing and fighting extremists since 9/11. I've sometimes joined them in that. One guy wrote to lament how people like me were deaf to all the denouncing that had been going on.

Now that the government is worrying about right-wing extremism on our own shores, the Economist notes that conservatives are downplaying and rationalizing their own extremists.

Conservative pundits are, understandably, ticked off. "The piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives," writes Michelle Malkin. Nobody likes being insulted by a government agency, least of all during tax week, but shouldn't conservatives be reacting to this by... distancing themselves from the extremists?

Historically, when Democrats have been able to paint Republicans as far-right radicals, the Democrats have won. Look at Bill Clinton's placing the blame for the Oklahoma City bombings on right-wing extremism, or look at Democrats in the 1960s blaming John Birchers for the climate that led to the Kennedy assassination. Republicans really can't afford to be blamed for right-wing extremism. It's foolish for the government to pin that on them, but it would be doubly foolish if they did it to themselves.

Too true. I'm sure some conservatives on this board will split hairs over the difference between conservative Muslim extremism and conservative American extremism. But I'd just love to hear one of them say, "Yeah, we should be consistent on this stuff."

The only reason that Somalia is in the news these days is the spectacular desperation and criminality of the Somali pirates, an American sea captain held hostage by them, and Hollywood image sharp shooting by American Navy Seal commandoes to free him. This news will quickly fade but the reasons the Somali pirates exist and make news in the first place won't fade. In the past year nearly forty ships have been hijacked off the coast of Somalia and millions have been paid out in ransom.

But the Somali pirates are not the modern day's sea going Robin Hoods that some have tried to portray them as who rob from the rich, booty laden European and Asian ships and turn their riches over to their impoverished kin and villagers on the shore. They aren't motivated as some Somali pirate mouthpieces have hinted, and backed up by some writers, as a kind of unofficial Coast Guard protecting their sea waters from plundering fisherman, and trying to halt illegal chemical and radioactive waste dumping off their coast.

A Somali pirate leader candidly told interviewers in Kenya last October after hijacking a Ukrainian freighter loaded with tanks, artillery, grenade launchers and ammunition that their sole motivation was to grab the ransom money.

It's more than a money grab though that drives the pirates. It's the never ending Somali crisis. The UN has described the security situation in Somalia as the worst the country has experienced since the early 1990s, while the UN's Food Security and Analysis Unit (FSAU) has described the level of human suffering and deprivation in Somalia as "shocking".

In the best of economic days Somalia still ranked near rock bottom on every economic and social scale of the world's poorest countries. The same month that the Ukrainian ship was hijacked 52 non government organizations doing relief and humanitarian work in the country implored the UN to intervene in the crisis.

There is good reason for the urgent appeal. More than 3 million Somalis, or about half the country's population, are in desperate need of emergency aid. This is a near one hundred percent increase in the aid stricken numbers from the start of 2008. The reasons for the desperation are well known; a devastating drought, record-high food prices, and a horrific and expanding war by gangster militia bands. The fighting in 2008 drove hundreds of thousands from their homes in the cities. The war fleeing refugees pushed the total of displaced persons to a staggering 1.1 million. The greatest impact of the suffering as always has fallen on the children. One in six children under five, or approximately 180,000 children, is acutely malnourished in South and Central Somalia.

Somalis are not the only ones who are in mortal danger from the raging violence. In 2008, 24 aid workers were killed and scores of others were kidnapped while carrying out their work. There were more than 100 reported security incidents directly targeting aid agencies. The majority of the aid workers are Somali nationals, but European workers have also been the victims.
The non government organizations did not simply beg the UN to intervene in the country's crisis. They also lambasted international agencies for not doing more to protect civilians and aid workers alike.

The piracy escapades have made things worse in a couple of other ways. They have taken the glare off the dire conditions in the country since much of the Western press has fixated on the sensationalism of the piracy acts and President Obama's response to it. Worse, the sea violence and the threat posed to shipping could disrupt the always precarious flow of food and medical supplies to the 1 million and daily increasing displaced persons in the country.

Several international donor groups have appealed to European and American donor groups to increase pressure on governments to formulate a plan to insure that the piracy doesn't stop the flow of the aid.

A year ago, the Navy announced plans to build dozens of new smaller, more mobile combat ships to better chase down the pirates near the shore and maybe even hit their on shore bases. However the recent announcement by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, of defense budget cuts, puts that up in the air. Even if the ships are built that wouldn't do much to stop the piracy. There are always hundreds more desperate, impoverished and violence scarred young men who would happily take the place of the pirates who American combat forces knock out.

Meanwhile, President Obama's tough talk to frontally combat piracy is welcome and applauded by all. But the far bigger problem remains the never ending crisis of a broken, war torn nation that pushes thousands of men to high sea gangsterism. Navy Seal sharpshooters can't do much to end that crisis.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard on weekly in Los Angeles on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and nationally on blogtalkradio.com

A Los Angeles jury has convicted a celebrity of murder. He's actually going to prison for murder in the second degree. Maybe an A List actress might have gotten him murder in the first. Still, this is a special day.

The jury did not buy that this guy with a history of brandishing guns towards women was just coincidentally standing at the door when she took his gun and shot herself. Although, to be fair, a reasonable person might have a suicidal impulse just finding herself out on a date with Spector.

Given our record here in LA, it is far easier to send celebrities to jail for drugs or drink than for killing people. We are a strange town, but this is a step in the right direction. Money influences justice but it mustn't be allowed to buy it. Yes, the man behind the "Wall of Sound," will be behind some pretty soundproof walls. At last.
©2009 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.org

President Obama is a hot button and controversial personage in the academic world. With the real world in turmoil, with pirates escaping from the Disney version of the Caribbean, with Iran bragging about its nuclear program, with Pakistan going to hell and Afghanistan already in hell, we have indeed reached the silly season of academic politics when our great and not so great institutions of higher learning are embroiled in who gets honorary degrees at commencement. These made for status events are usually win-win situations where a prominent politician gets a large public stage and a university gets a celebrity to boost its academic image. They also get to sell prestigious cocktail receptions and private dinners for big bucks.

These honorary positions started getting controversial in the 60s with Berkeley, Harvard and Stanford leading the way in vetting the political appropriateness of the commencement entertainment. Some protested at the announcement of some political, military or industrial leader being selected. Some promised boycotts or shouted the speaker down. Some stood and turned their backs. Occasionally this back turning was enhanced with actual mooning. Ah, academic freedom and tolerance.

Now comes Obama, straight on the heels of numerous George W Bush honorary degrees, going out on the rubber chicken and gothically calligraphied parchment circuit. Arizona State University was happy to welcome him as a featured speaker, but didn't want to award him an honorary degree. (See Earl's fine piece on this!) It is hard to imagine the criteria used to exclude him. Hmmm. BA Columbia? No. That must be okay. Law School at Harvard and head of the Law Review? Nah, can't be that. No visible accomplishments? Well, he is president but his predecessor may indeed stand as mute testimony to that not being a singular achievement. First African American President of the United States? No. That's not possible. No institution is that stupid.

At least Arizona hasn't matched the lunacy of Notre Dame, which is waging a huge food fight over both Obama coming and being awarded an honorary degree. Prominent Cardinals, Bishops and Priests (Oh my!) are boycotting because Obama is pro choice. Okay, fair enough. The Catholic Church is anti-choice and they have every right to their position. However, where is their moral consistency? The Church is also against capital punishment. Has a pro-death penalty person ever been denied a speaking position or an honorary degree? Could it possibly be that this sacred institution, consecrated to the teaching of Catholic doctrine, is actually practicing the dreaded sin of "cafeteria Catholicism" and is picking and choosing their favorite sins?

Maybe there should be a separation of not just church and state but academia and state. Just as fewer political meetings are blessed by clergy doing invocations, maybe the politicians should return the favor and eschew showing up at graduations and getting fancy degrees that were not earned. Former President William Howard Taft when offered an honorary degree turned it down, pointing out that it was in Latin and "no man ought to receive a degree he can't read." Amen.
©2009 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.org

The other night, I googled my former best friend. We hadn't spoken in years, and the last contact I had with her was twenty years ago after I'd moved across the country and she wrote me a note telling me she missed me and that she thought of me every morning when drinking coffee from a mug I'd given her many years before. Mad at her at the time for what I though was ignoring me after her daughter was born, I showed the letter to my then boyfriend, and he suggested that I ignore it, so I tossed the it aside and never answered.

Still, I thought of her from time-to-time over the years and tried looking for her on classmates.com, but never found her. I looked for her younger sister, too, but nothing came up. I tried googling her, but a lot of people have the same name, and I knew that none of them were her.

The other day, I decided to type in her name along with that of her husband on google and found an obituary with her name on it. My friend, Karen, had died suddenly two years ago at 51 and one-half.

I will never have the chance to apologize to her or beg her forgiveness. I will never be able to reminisce with her about the time I took the five-hour bus trip to visit her at her Michigan college campus one winter break. Standing in the corridor in her dorm one morning, I announced said I was hungry. While my voice rolled down the corridor, she turned to me and said, "You are so stupid. Do you want to get us kicked out of here?" Then we snuck into the cafeteria and ate. Or the evenings we snuck into a community center's garden and planted a sign with a cryptic message on it. The sign made it into the local paper and no one ever knew who it was, until now.

I now see that Karen was about the only friend I ever had, the only where that was that easy repartee, the one that made hours seem like minutes and how many friends do you get like that? Like my father once said, "You are lucky if you get one friend. All the rest will be acquaintances."

I found her husband's name on a social networking site and emailed him. He said she had wondered why I never answered her, and all I could do was apologize for being foolish and immature.

I will light a candle for her and say Yizkor, a memorial prayer that is said during Yom Kippur and on the last day of Passover, and I will buy some trees in her memory in Israel because I know how she loved plants and trees.

If only she could know how sorry I am and that I hope in some way that she will forgive me, if I could just learn to forgive myself.

Erma Bombeck, Hugh Downs, Howard Pyle, Jerry Colangelo, Art Buchwald, and Steve Allen to name a few from the check list of entertainers, sports owners, gossip columnists, and satirists that Arizona State University claims had lofty enough credentials to merit an honorary degree. In fact, since ASU ladled out its first honorary degree to Federick M. Irish and John Matthews on May 28, 1940 the cast of second tier politicians, writers, entertainers, artists, business tycoons, oil and gas magnets, and sports notables the school has dished out the award to flows off the pages.

Some years ASU just couldn't seem to shelve out enough of the paper symbols. In 1987 it gave out seven honorary degrees. In 1994 it gave out seven more. And in five other years the school handed out three or more honorary degrees. The recipients were the usual suspects and they were spread all over the map, artists, writers, entertainers, politicians, and business moguls. The only thing consistent about who ASU officials chooses to toss the paper too is there is no consistency.

The ASU honors committee mission statement is a study in brevity. It simply reads that faculty, the six person honors committee, and the president will "single out people who have made contributions to society." This purposely vague criteria for an honorary degree says everything and nothing. It pretty much makes the degree a subjective judgment call which comes down to money, politics, celebrity, or merely the like or dislike of a person. That's a far cry from the lofty, sanctimonious and smug academic nonsensical reason ASU officials gave for snubbing President Obama with the degree.

ASU president Michael Crow though has the final say so over whether President Obama will get the degree or not is. That could be another problem. Crow has been called insensitive, pig headed, and an unapologetic bigot for his alleged treatment of students, faculty, and especially women and minorities. The bill of particulars against Crow is that he fired 1/3 of the minority faculty at ASU west without justifiable cause, and that he has not hired an African American to serve as dean or a vice-president. He's also alleged to have fired a tenured African American professor even though a faculty committee that he appointed recommended that the professor be retained. Crow supposedly has turned a tin ear toward demands that he tell who and how many African-Americans the school has granted tenure to during his watch.

This is not the first time that Crow has been sledge hammered by charges that he's a closet bigot. Before taking the top spot at ASU, he served a stint as vice provost at Columbia University. Crow supposedly played hard ball in a gender discrimination lawsuit brought by a Latina professor. Columbia eventually was forced to shell out millions to settle the claim.

This is mostly hearsay and does not tag Crow as a president with a vendetta against women and minorities. So when the news broke that President Obama wouldn't get the honorary degree, all eyes quickly turned to Crow to do quick damage control and weigh in in favor of granting the degree to Obama. But that didn't happen. Crow gave a cryptic promise to a reporter that ASU would "honor him in every way possible." No mention was made of the honorary degree being that honor.

Crow and red faced ASU officials eventually will back down and grant the President the honorary degree. After all, Erma Bombeck certainly wouldn't object.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard on weekly in Los Angeles on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and nationally on blogtalkradio.com

It's not clear whether Arizona State University President Michael Crow had any say in the decision not to grant President Obama, the school's commencement speaker, an honorary degree. But one thing's for sure the dumbest thing that school officials said in telling why they won't grant an honorary degree to President Obama was not that he didn't have a credible body of work and thus supposedly was unfit for the honorary degree. It was that the commencement committee may not have even considered him for the degree in the first place. Here are the names of the wise ones on ASU's Honorary Degrees Committee who snubbed President Obama for the honorary degreee.

Laurie Chassin, Psychology, 2010 (Chair) Christine Wilkinson, Senior Vice President and Secretary of the University, 2010 (Co-Chair) Roger Adelson, History, 2009 Bill Miller, Applied Biological Sciences, 2009 Joan Brett, Graduate College, 2010 Claudia Brown, Art, 2010 Chris Callahan, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, 2010 Philip Christensen, Earth and Space Exploration, 2010 Luis Gomez-Mejia, Management, 2010 Jewell Parker Rhodes, Virginia C. Piper Center for Creative Writing, 2010 Paul Patterson, Morrison School of Management and Agribusiness, 2010 Sander van der Leeuw, Human Evolution and Social Change, 2010 Linda Vaughan, Nutrition, 2010 Gary Waissi, ASU Global Engagement, 2010
The university vice provost and dean of the Graduate College; and the president of the ASU Foundation also are ex-officio members of the committee.

The committee members hail from all over the university map and they made no mention in the flurry of press announcements they put out variously explaining and defending the snub the exact criteria they used to determine why Obama didn't cut the academic muster. That would be tough anyway. The whole thing is either ludicrous or farcical depending on how charitable one wants to be. By any measure--organization, political mastery, historic trend setting, his education and legal writings, research and instruction, and intellect--President Obama's merits speak for themselves. And ASU officials pretty much acknowledged that by inviting him to give the commencement address in the first place.

The reason for the degree snub then can't be lack of merit or a lack of a body of work. It's something else and that something else speaks to the politics and money behind who gets an honorary degree and why they get it. In years past ASU has laddled them out to a laundry list of such academic wizards as a movie director, oil computer and microchip executives, and newpaper publishers. Universities, and that includes ASU, routinely hand out honorary degrees to a check list of fat cat contributors and donors. Universities have even been known to award them to politicians who have never taken pen to paper. This was the case in 2001 when Yale University awarded an honorary degree to George W. Bush. He was barely one year into his presidency. The sum of Bush's academic accomplishment from Yale was a degree in history in 1968.

ASU also honored its favored political son, Barry M. Goldwater, with an honorary degree in 1961. It didn't hurt that Goldwater was the state's most influential US senator and could steer a lot of federal cash to the university. But a Goldwater honorary degree at least in that respect made some sense. Not sure if the same could be said for the recipient of the honorary degree from Long Island's Southampton College in 1996. The academic marvel that year was a Sesame Street Muppet Kermit the Frog.

Then again maybe Kermit was more deserving than Bush since Kermit had used his celebrity to spread positive messages about environmental protection in public service announcements for the National Wildlife Federation, National Parks Service, the Better World Society, and other groups.

At least that's what University officials said in defending Kermit's honorary degree.
Then there are the universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University Stanford University, the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Virginia. They play it close to the vest, maintain their level of real academic integrity and cut out the honorary degree sham.

ASU obviously isn't on that elite list of academic non-honorary degree game players. And President Obama is not Bush or Kermit the Frog. So here's how ASU President Crow can erase an embarassment. Ignore the Honor's Committee's blindspot toward or deliberate egg of the President, and bestow on him the award that he richly deserves, an honorary degree.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard on weekly in Los Angeles on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and nationally on blogtalkradio.com

John and Diane make some fascinating claims about how small town in Georgia became safer when officials forced everyone to keep a gun at home.

I'm puzzled that two people like them would be so willing to gloss over the government telling people what to do. But I'll let that pass. The truth is that the Kennesaw, Georgia law was a knee-jerk reaction to a handgun ban in Morton Grove, Ill.

Some have demonstrated that the evidence in favor of gun ownership in Kennesaw is lacking. It does seem that both sides have gamed the stats in their favor, which any intellectually honest person ought to be able to expect.

Given my own biases, I'll admit I'm not sure that you can get a good sense of the effect of gun laws by comparing crime in a 20,000-person town in Georgia to that in larger surrounding towns. It seems reasonable that burglary would go down when would-be-perpetrators realize that they could get shot; but I always figured that burglars tend to be sure that adults have left a house before breaking in.

And even if I concede those points to John and Diane, I'm curious if they're as resistant as the NRA is to at least banning the most dangerous assault-type weapons that clearly don't serve the immediate household needs of the Joneses or the Smiths.

John, as for my comment about an American overenthusiasm for turning people into criminals, I cite last week's Lexington column in the somewhat libertarian Economist, which argues, "America's incarceration habit is a disgrace, wasting resources at home and damaging the country abroad."

And this week's Lexington happens to ponder the Virginia Tech anniversary:

Advocates of gun control, such as The Economist, took the opportunity to reiterate their opposition to guns. Despite a history of mental illness, the killer had had no trouble buying two semi-automatic pistols and several kilos of ammunition. Had he been refused, innocent lives might have been spared. Not so, argued the pro-gun pundits: the real problem was that students were not allowed guns on campus to defend themselves....

Armed students do sometimes subdue school shooters. Ms Roy lists examples. Whether more guns on campus would lead to fewer deaths, as some claim, or more, as others insist, is impossible to prove. There are too many confounding factors, and too few school shootings, thank heavens. In any case, the gun nuts' thesis is unlikely to be tested. Few teachers would feel comfortable in a gun-filled classroom. How do you give an "F" grade to an armed adolescent?

That's what I like about the free-market crowd that's not drenched in American partisanship. There's some give and take there, on taxes, on regulations, on foreign policy. It's suppleness over dogma.

The spate of mass killings is heart wrenching and deeply worrisome and is a grave warning that more unhinged individuals could be set off by an economic tumble. But hard times aren't the only reason that individuals wipe out families and strangers. Mass killings happen even in the best of economic times. There are cultural and social reasons for the mayhem that are just as compelling and disturbing as a lousy economy.

Then there's the media. The mass killings are spectacular, gory, and sensational and that makes them prime candidates for non stop media saturation coverage. The intense media focus on every detail known about the victims, and especially the killer, stokes the public's fascination with the gore. This stirs even greater media frenzy. This puts a perverse stamp of legitimacy on the killings as macabre drama. That can further unhinge individuals already on the edge.

The motive for a mass killing can be economic hardship. Or it can be cultural or perceived racial victimization, social isolation, or a copycat act. In any case, the murders cause colossal pain, suffering and anguish for families, stir fear in society, and pose a severe challenge to policy makers. There are no easy answers to the violence. Yet finding answers is a matter of life and death.

I weigh in on Obama's reconciliation with Muslims here. And also here.

It's really hard to know which kills more of us--guns or butter. Probably cholesterol kills more, but its victims are usually assuming a certain risk. Gun deaths are different. Just being an American raises your risk of dying by ballistic lead poisoning.

Yes, I know that guns don't kill people, people do. Well, actually it's usually the bullets. Guns do however help accelerate the bullets to speeds where their impact can kill. However, since we cannot get rid of guns, bullets or people--and the recent spate of multiple killing events were perpetrated by people in legal possession of their guns--what do we do besides mourn?

I also know that we cannot do the single most effective thing to reduce violence, other than banning semi-automatic weapons, and that is to censor the violence in the media. The extreme violence we depict in movies and videogames has to have a toxic effect on society and a corrosive effect on the soul of our nation.

We, as a nation of advertisers, cannot believe that what we see repeated again and again does not have consequences in the choices and bad reflexes of people. While it is true that only a small number of people are influenced directly, the number is great enough that we should do the only thing left: Buy Mylar Bullet Resistant Vests.
©2009 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.org

Gail-Tzipporah says she is "not in favor of gun control because I know that all the law-abiding citizens will be the ones holed up in their own homes while the all loose cannons will be out there shooting anything they can find."

But that's already the case, isn't it? I'm not aware of any mass-shootings that have been averted on account of a little old lady from Chatsworth whipping out her handgun and plugging a villain before he unleashes fury.

America is looser with gun controls and tighter with incarceration than other industrialized nations. We are unrivaled in turning ordinary citizens into criminals, and those folks are the ones most likely to get a gun, once they've been returned to a society that ruined their name. That does not help you or me or the little old lady in Chatsworth.

It's getting to be so that there are safe havens anymore. No church, no nursing home, no community adult center offers the complete and utter sanctuary we once thought they did. And it's mostly because someone can get a gun and snuff someone else out with all the nonchalance of a kid buying a pack of gum at a drug store

Yet in spite of all the recent mayhem and shootings, I still am not in favor of gun control because I know where it will lead. All the law-abiding citizens will be the ones following the rules while all the loose cannons will be out there shooting at anything that moves.

Still, there are some solutions. One is that schools and communities need to expand their mental health services. Anger and mental illness do not come out of nowhere and for every Jiverly Wong, the Vietnamese immigrant who pulled the trigger on 13 people before killing himself in the Binghamton, NY rampage, or Marie Moore, the 44 year-old Florida woman with a history of mental illness who shot and killed her 20 year-old son at a shooting range before turning the gun on herself, there are those who knew these people and what they were capable of.

This means that the universities need to start turning out more competent counselors and social workers, meaning those who exhibit a relative degree of sanity and want to help others. And I know of what I speak. One counselor I worked with spends much of her time holed up in her office while her inbox floweth over with requests and referrals. Another always has repeat customers because she is unable to set clear expectations the first five times around, and a third has no idea about his counselees' home life because he seldom asks. Clearly they are graduates of one of our roll them out like cream puffs counseling degree programs.

One: I can't tell the Left from the Right anymore. The Conservative answer to any economic situation is to cut taxes. In good times, you gotta cut taxes to reward investment. In bad times you gotta cut taxes to encourage investment. Okay. I get it, and so does Vladimir Putin. Yesterday he told the Russian people that the way out of their economic problems was, yes, tax cuts. Hmmmm. Vlad is a conservative or conservatives are really on Vlad's wavelength?

Two: A kid steals a small planer in Canada and flies it into the states. He is intercepted but our Air Force does nothing. The kid, running low on gas, lands on a highway.

So, I take off my shoes at the airport. They wand old ladies. But a private plane is allowed to penetrate our airspace for hours? The three most likely terrorist attacks here will be:
1. A private plane--flying out of a small airport and loaded with fuel and explosives crashing into a city or a stadium.
2. A coordinated multi-gunned attack with conventional weapons in several cities.
3. A cargo, passenger or container ship with a dirty bomb blowing up in a major port.
Homeland Security is a sick joke. We are all form and no substance. Letting this plane fly for hours indicates we are neither serious nor do we understand the will of those who want to harm us.
©2009 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.org

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker criticized Obama recently for a bad precedent in meddling in free enterprise when Obama pushed out the head of GM; that led to liberals deriding Corker for himself recently calling for blue-collar union workers to work for less than what they're accustomed to. Liberals' implication was that Republicans care less about the blue-collar workers than about executives.

Conservatives will deny this, of course. But should they? Think about the values and priorities that make us either liberal or conservative.

On average...

Don't liberals worry more about the plight of the poor than conservatives do?

And aren't conservatives more flag-wavingly patriotic and religious than liberals?

Don't liberals care more about racial equality than conservatives?

And don't conservatives dislike abortion more than those who make it "a choice"?

And so on.

When push comes to shove, don't liberals feel we must collectively consider every possible way to rescue the indigent, whereas conservatives are quicker to say that many potential solutions would only gum things up for the rest of us who think we have a fighting shot at getting wealthy? Don't liberals insist on racial and gender equity while conservatives say things will shake out fine by themselves? Don't conservatives detest every abortion and every flag-burning whereas liberals say that there are plenty of bigger things to worry about? Aren't conservatives willing to go to a war to protect what they consider to be the American way of life whereas liberals feel that approach is too imperialistic?

Do we need to be more honest about our priorities, rather than the "methinks she doth protest too much" approach to claiming that we worry about things that we don't really worry about?

Had an experience the other day where I almost got scammed. Here is a brief litany of events.

At 8:00 a.m. Trudged to work. A well-meaning coworker gave me a card for a loan broker she had met at her church but had only known for about six months.

11:00 a.m. Called him, and he rattled off a deal that made my eyes bugger out. With $2,000.00 upfront in one or two easy payments, I could get a 3% refinance on my home loan. Said I'd think about it.

11:01 a.m. Tried staying in the moment.

12:00 Googled the meatball. His name came up as a doctor in Ohio.

12:02 Called the Bank of America. They said that if he was for real, then his name would be all over the Internet. It was not. Called my bank. They said that no one can get an interest rate that low and that loans don't call for money upfront.

12:05 Checked the Better Business Bureau's website. Neither the meatball's name nor company came up. Means nothing as one can open shop on a Monday and close down by Friday.

8:00 a.m. the next morning. Hailed coworker over. Suggested she cancel her deposit with this guy. She said I was going to give her a heart attack by all the commotion and called me cynical.

10:00 a.m. Called the sheriff's department under the meatball's jurisdiction. They thanked me and took the report. Checked the Department of Real Estate's licenses. His name didn't come up. What a surprise. Learned that this is one of the biggest scams around but can't file a report unless I get scammed.

Fin

Let's cut the bull. The issue is not Mercy James. That's the four year old Malawian orphan girl who Madonna wants to adopt. The issue is Madonna. Whether their motive is revulsion, disgust, secret wish fulfillment, sexism, or just plain, garden variety envy, legions just flat out loathe Madonna. Or in the street vernacular, there's a thriving growth industry in playa hatin' on Madonna.
This writer became painfully aware of that after my piece "Madonna Deserves Cheers not Jeers for casting the ugly glare on Africa's adoption misery" hit the web. The calls, letters, emails, and shots from Madonna's sex book, and her on stage at times sado masochistic antics poured in. The idea was to remind me that Madonna is an ego maniacal, crotch grabbing, whacked out on stage porno and fast buck exhibitionist who no one with a shred of decency could possibly think could be a fit mother, especially a fit mother to a black kid.
\
The rants were against me, Madonna, and those Malawians who cheered Madonna; which by the way as every poll and survey has shown is just about everyone in Malawi from top officials down to the beggar on the street to Mercy's grandparents, relatives and caregivers. They all applaud Madonna for taking a personal and humanitarian interest in Malawi's one million orphans.

The Madonna playa haters are absolutely unfazed by the millions of dollars that she has raised for her Raise Malawi organization. They pooh pooh the international attention that she's brought to a country that ranks near dead last on nearly every social and economic measure for developing countries. This is a country which nearly all the Madonna loathers thought was another way of saying Malarky, hadn't heard of and couldn't find on a map before Madonna tossed the spotlight on the dire poverty in the country. The haters air brush off Madonna's plans to bankroll a school for orphan girls in the country.

They wave away the reminder that Madonna outside of President Obama is the most over exposed celebrity on the planet and hardly needs to snatch away an African orphan to get some cheap pub. They turn the tinniest ear to this rejoinder; OK, so other than yap that Madonna has turned Africa into what the hater's brand a rich closet bigotted white woman's plaything, have you contributed money, written letters to elected officials, volunteered to work with relief agencies, or tried to sponsor an African orphan?
Madonna's brash, sassy, and high energy in your face style and persona has long sent the clear message that she was her own woman. She turned sensuality into a badge of fierce independence and pride, the trademark of defiance.This has always sent the pack of Madonna haters spinning into orbit. The issue is not and never has been Madonna and Malawi's orphans. The issue is and always will be Madonna. It's a playa hater's delight.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard on weekly in Los Angeles on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and nationally on blogtalkradio.com

Termed-out Controller Laura Chick is skipping town early to become Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's watchdog over how federal stimulus funds are spent. Chick will start work April 27 and her top deputy, Rushmore Cervantes, will cover the two months before Controller-elect Wendy Greuel takes office.

Chick has never been shy about speaking her mind, and was eager to point out City Hall shenanigans -- never mind if her talk angered insiders. Candor is all too rare in politics and that made her a favorite of the Daily News readers, who frequently write in, urging her to run for mayor.

We're sorry to lose this L.A. watchdog sooner than expected, but we know her candor and sharp eye will be put to good use in Sacramento.

In today's Daily News, my picture appeared in the center of an article I never wrote and whose views I do not endorse to begin with.

The article, written by Debra J. Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle, was in support of the legalization of marijuana, which is something I would agree to only if a hot poker was pointed in my general direction.

Imagine taking out a loan with a bank officer who has just toked up. While it may help explain a lower than normal interest rate, it could put the bank in jeopardy later on. Or a 45 year-old mother of two on the operating table of a plastic surgeon who is high. She could come out up looking like Rocky Balboa after a fight.

Besides, research has shown that marijuana can lead to the more hardcore stuff later on. Though I don't think that possession should carry all the weight of a felony, I don't think it should be legalized aside from using it for medicinal purposes. And should legalization ever come aside from that, then I'm going to leave the country and move to a mountaintop retreat in Tibet.