Sound of Silence

I uploaded a video of my son's graduation to youtube last year, and used Simon & Garfunkel's song "Sound of Silence" as the soundtrack. The video uploaded, but youtube disabled the audio either because of copyright issues, or perhaps someone working there has a finely-developed sense of irony. I left it up, and at some point they changed the status of my video because the audio is now fully restored. But, the video does have an interesting disclaimer attached saying something to the effect that "This video is blocked in some countries"

Now, when you drag a cursor over the graduation video, a pop-up message prompts you to download the song from the itunes store. So, they have figured out a formula that seems to allow a happy outcome for all parties, but it obviously does not apply to everything as evidenced by the two videos that I just uploaded. They are muted on youtube, and I have no good options at the point. I visited youtube's copyright infringement resolution page and quickly learned that the "appeal" process is probably hopeless.

This video opens with the 2009 PS 40 graduating class filing out of the auditorium after the diploma ceremony. I fully understand that much of this will be of scant interest to anyone not related to a child, but if you join it at the 1:55 mark the song comes in and the video assumes that bittersweet quality that is the inevitable companion to memory. The photo slideshow opens with images of the children on the day of graduation, and then gradually the images change to photos taken over the six-year span. The video following the slideshow is of a 1st grade school concert, and the viewer sees the same children as they appeared five years earlier.

Boob Tube

The video sharing site youtube obviously does not have a coherent policy as regards their enforcement of copyright infringement. For example, the video that I have embedded in this post was also uploaded to youtube. Once the upload was complete and I went to view it, I discovered that youtube had disabled the audio because of my song choice. Well, the song that I chose is John Fogerty's 'Centerfield", an altogether appropriate track for the video. I then did a search on youtube and there were at least 50 hits for Fogerty's ode to springtime. All with perfectly functional audio. Did they all obtain permission from Warner?

This is the second time they have disabled the audio for one of my videos. It is more then frustrating because of the time and effort that go into synching up the video clips with the song choice. Obviously, no other song will work at that point so it is either back to the drawing board, or you post a silent movie. Youtube desperately needs to come up with a better system for allowing or disallowing content because this is unworkable.

The video in question is the highlight reel made from video I shot of my son Andrew's travel baseball team, during the Fall 2005 season. The players, known affectionately as the Pip Squeaks, were 6 or 7-years old at the time. The team was composed of players drawn from the Peter Stuyvesant Little League Program in Manhattan, and we played all our games either in Brooklyn, or out on Long Island.

Million Dollar Slaves

I haven't been paying a great deal of attention to the story of the captive Orca that drowned it's trainer earlier this week. The couple of things that I did read about it left me disgusted. Not because of what the animal did, but because of the moronic way the incident was being interpreted by most commentators. For example, one of the articles described the whale as having a "troubled background", presumably because of it's involvement in several earlier incidents of a similar nature. The overall tone of the article conveyed the impression that Tilikum (the whale) was somehow behaving in a abnormal manner when it seized the girl by her ponytail and dragged her underwater repeatedly.

I will allow that the behavior exhibited by the animal would certainly be considered abnormal, or perhaps unexpected, on the part of a whale living in the wild, given that wild orcas are not considered a danger to humans. However, one could certainly make the case that any of the behavior displayed by captive orcas is abnormal, in the sense that they are essentially captive slaves forced to endlessly perform tricks in order to be fed. And if you accept the premise that these creatures are indeed slaves, then the idea of rebellion does not seem so far-fetched. In fact, given that these are highly intelligent animals that work together when hunting, even the concept of organized resistance becomes at least credible.

I have never attended a Sea World show, but expect that I would be entertained by the sight of these awesome animals performing mere yards away from where you sit. And now there is an added attraction, albeit a macabre one. I have always heard that most of the people that attend auto-racing events in person, do so in the hope that they will be rewarded with a spectacular wreck. Will they now flock to Sea World hoping to see an Orca kill it's trainer?

The World that Moses Built

I have been busy working on converting the video of the Moses documentary to a format that youtube will accept. I am going to embed Part 4 of the film in this post because it contains the Stuyvesant Town footage in it's entirety, and that is what I am focusing on right now. If you would like to watch the documentary from the beginning, click here for Part 1 posted on youtube. I am amazed that no one has uploaded any of this documentary before now. It is one of the best documentaries that I have seen on any subject. The list of projects that Moses conceived and created is staggering. The New York Metropolitan Region, as it exists today, is largely because of the vision of this remarkable man. And when you realize just how much Robert Moses accomplished, and the grandeur of what he built, then you start to understand why there will never be another like him.

I am by no means blind to the downside of what he did, and this film deals at length with the controversy that accompanied many of his projects. But, in the final analysis, I think that the New York Times said it best in his obituary: "His (Moses') projects hurt thousands, but benefited millions"

The footage on Stuyvesant Town begins at the 2:56 mark.

And The Walls Came Tumbling Down...

The film on the Gas House District that I posted yesterday was cropped, and the clip ended just as the Stuyvesant Town footage was starting to roll. That started me searching the web again and while I haven't yet located the unedited film, I did find something else. The PBS Television Series The American Experience produced a documentary on Robert Moses titled The World that Moses Built. Turns out that New York's Master Builder had a hand in the development of Stuyvesant Town. As a result, the producers included a brief, but wonderful, bit of footage that is obviously excerpted from another Met Life promotional film for Stuyvesant Town. This footage is also in color and shows the complex as it appeared in the early years of it's existence.

Gas House Gang

In the process of scanning the news headlines for the latest on Stuyvesant Town, I stumbled across a terrific promotional video for the complex dating from 1947. I think this is the first video footage, that I have seen, of the neighborhood that was demolished to make way for the sprawling residential complex. The film is in color, and it explores the gritty, urban neighborhood that was called the Gas House District, for reasons that become obvious when you watch the footage. The narrator describes it as "blighted", a loaded word that became quite useful in the hands of real estate developers, and their enablers in City Hall. By calling something "blighted", you are in effect saying that it would be better for all concerned, if the neighborhood in question were to be torn down, and replaced with something nicer.

The problem, of course, is that the buildings and shops that are slated for demolition are not empty. They are instead teeming with humanity. Thousands of people were displaced to clear 80 acres of land so that a private corporation, Metropolitan Life, could build a planned community. And while I don't have statistics at hand, I do not believe more then a small handful of those refugees found a home in Stuyvesant Town. This was by no means an isolated instance; urban renewal projects duplicated the process all over the city.

I lived in Stuyvesant Town for 15 years and only moved in August of this past year. It was a wonderful place to live, in many respects, if you ignore the fact that it brutally altered the urban fabric of the area. Cross streets and avenues do not bisect the development, and there is no commercial activity within Stuyvesant Town. In many respects, it almost looks like a walled city, and I have no doubt that many of the people on the outside looking in view it in exactly that way.

The southern border of the complex is 14th street, stretching from First Avenue to the East River. On the downtown side of 14th, you have the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a neighborhood that still looks very much like the one leveled to make room for Stuyvesant Town. And, apart from some gentrification, the Lower East Side is comprised of people much like the ones who lived in the Gas House District. The ethnic and racial composition might be different, but the stark reality of poverty remains unchanged.

I'll embed the video below this post...

Blood and Sausages?

With the much-ballyhooed bipartisan health care summit only two days away, it might be worthwhile to explore the issue in depth and attempt to add some historical context. Obviously, the illustration that I chose to feature is specifically targeting Social Security, not health care reform. However, Otto von Bismarck and the German model of a comprehensive social welfare network is generally understood to be the inspiration for the American programs that emerged in the 1930's. Those programs were, respectively, Social Security and Unemployment Insurance. Conspicuously absent was the 3rd leg of the trinity: National Health Insurance.

Without question. the Social Security Administration fully recognizes von Bismarck's contribution to it's existence, although someone saw fit to add a disclaimer to the archival document on their website. Perhaps they're afraid that Glen Beck might stumble across it and launch into an incoherent rant. Regardless of what the motivations might be, it is disheartening that a government agency feels obligated to distance itself from it's own past. On it's own website no less.

The NYT's has a timeline on it's website that does an excellent job of mapping the century-long struggle to establish some form of universal health coverage for Americans. The first mention on the timeline is of former president Theodore Roosevelt, and his support for health insurance, when he ran in 1912 as a 3rd party candidate. And, Roosevelt didn't hesitate to point to Germany as the model that we should be emulating with regard to programs such as old-age insurance and health insurance. TR also had some very progressive ideas about woman's suffrage (he was in favor of it) and safer working conditions.

Interestingly enough, there is a school of thought, more libertarian then conservative, that believes that the welfare state and the so-called warfare state are really two sides of the same coin. Exploring that further would be a significant departure from what I'm writing about now so it will have to wait for another time.

It is perhaps not surprising that the aforementioned Glen Beck is targeting the Progressive Movement as being at the root of all of the things that he finds wrong with American society and government. On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart dismantled Beck's "logic" in typically entertaining fashion. I'll embed the video of it below:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rage Within the Machine - Progressivism
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Pound of Flesh

The fallout from the suicide-plane attack in Austin yesterday continues to litter the internet. Condemnation of Andrew Joseph Stack is by no means universal, and that has everything to do with the target of his rage. There is nothing more American then hating taxes and the agency charged with collecting them. And while most commentators will be careful to draw a distinction between despising the taxman, and trying to kill him, literally no one is lining up to defend the IRS. So, we now have what appears to be an obvious case of domestic terrorism, yet few are willing to label it as such. The preferred description appears to be "Kamikaze attack", which is an imprecise, and perhaps intentionally misleading, choice of words.

Since I enjoy trying to put things into an historical perspective, I offer the following example to highlight the IRS's well-deserved reputation for ruthless and vindictive enforcement of it's mandate. During the Second World War, heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis fought two title defenses, for which he received payments that he immediately donated to the Army and Navy relief funds. Meaning that he donated both his purses, in their entirety, to charity. That set into motion a decades-long battle with the IRS, a battle that left Louis a broken (and broke) man.

In 1938, scarcely more then a year before Hitler would send his armies into Poland, Joe Louis defended his title against German fighter Max Schmeling. Given the state of affairs in the world at that moment, it was inevitable that this particular fight would stand for something much greater then either of the two combatants. Schmeling shouldered the unwanted burden of representing Hitler's master race, while Louis became the standard-bearer for American freedom and democracy. Which meant that Joe Louis, an African-American fighter, was defending a status quo that systematically denied him, and his people, many of the basic human rights enshrined in the Constitution.

I found a short video that does an excellent job of telling the story and will embed it below...

Tick Tock Where's the Clock?

My search for Jacob Ruppert Brewery-related memorabilia and history continues unabated. I have been trying, with some success, to locate vintage images of the Brewery. Somewhat surprisingly, there is not a lot to be found. Finding memorabilia, on the other hand, is not a problem; there is a treasure trove of it out there. Actual cans of Knickerbocker Beer, or other Ruppert Brewery products, can fetch a pretty penny on some sites. However, not everyone is on the same page when it comes to putting a price on them. Who would have thought that a rusty old beer can could be worth something?

Interestingly enough, the best results that I got as far as images of the Ruppert Brewery came courtesy of a web site that organizes "meet-ups" for the purpose of visiting historic New York City bars and restaurants. The particular page that I was directed to was for the Yorkville Neighborhood meet-up that appears to have taken place on April 4, 2009. I would have very much enjoyed attending that gathering. On the page are links for both a photo and a map of the Brewery.

I also found this wonderful aerial photo of The Upper East Side looking west towards the Central Park Reservoir and beyond that, the Hudson River. If you zoom in on the lower right side of the photo, you will see a sign identifying the location of the Ruppert Brewery. Jacob Ruppert became the sole owner of the New York Yankees Baseball Team in 1922 when he bought out his partner, Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston. Now, that is an impressive name! During their time as co-owners, they purchased Babe Ruth's contract from the Boston Red Sox for cash and, in the process, giving birth to the famous curse.

If you scroll down to the image, you can clearly see the clock tower that is the subject of the NYT's article that appears alongside this post...

Faulty Google Video Bar

It appears that someone hacked into the Video Bar app because the videos keep flipping, from those that I selected, to unknown videos. So, I removed the application and am going to embed the 3rd Ave. El movie into this post.

Forever Young

We had friends from the city up for a visit this weekend and that never fails to make me nostalgic. I put this book out on the coffee table hoping that it would start a conversation, and I was not disappointed. What a wonderful book. The text and color photographs do a remarkable job of capturing the rich urban texture of Manhattan, as it existed in the early 1950's.

Earlier this evening, it occurred to me that there just might be related video footage posted on the web. So, I did a search and hit the jackpot. There is a 10-minute long film on youtube that is amazing. It is titled 3rd Avenue El and I posted it to the video bar that I just set up about an hour ago. By all means, have a look. You won't be disappointed.

Holy Cow

I came across a book today titled Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused The Mortgage and Credit Crisis, and I started reading it almost immediately. The subject fascinates me and I have been meaning to read something that promises to explain just what happened, and why. So far, Chain of Blame appears to be delivering.

The reader is introduced to Countrywide Financial Corporation, and it's co-founder and CEO Angelo Mozila, at the very beginning of the book. Mozila's reputation today is not much better then that of Bernie Madoff, yet not so long ago Mozila, and the company he ran, dominated the home mortgage lending business. Then came the fall, but unlike Madoff, Angelo Mozila managed to emerge from the wreckage a free, and very wealthy, individual. However, that happy state of affairs may not last for too much longer, although I have been unable to find any updates on the current status of the indictments against Mozila.

The opening chapters set the stage for the meltdown to come by introducing the other players, besides Countrywide, and by explaining how the business of home lending evolved over the past 4 decades. And then, on page 34, a name that I hadn't heard in years jumped off the page at me. I grew up watching the Yankees on WPIX, and that meant listening to Yankee announcer, and former player, "The Scooter" Phil Rizzuto pitch The Money Store during commercial breaks.

I never gave much thought to The Money Store back then other then to suspect that, despite Rizzuto's endorsement, it seemed kind of shady. Turns out that The Money Store was a pioneer in The Consumer Finance Industry that sprang up in the 1960's to meet the needs of borrowers who were likely to get turned away by banks. Starting from humble roots, this new industry took off once President Ronald Reagan, and his philosophy of "taking the shackles off of business", took over in Washington. The biggest favor that Reagan did for these lenders that were not banks, was to destroy The Savings and Loan Industry. That had the wonderful effect of eliminating the competition.

Since I am only some 50 pages into Chain of Blame, I don't have much else to add at this point. I will try and return to it at a later date...

Patriot Games

Contrary to what most people in this country probably think, anti-war protests in America were not solely a phenomenon of the Vietnam War era, as evidenced by the nicely-attired ladies holding up protest signs in the image to the left. The picture was most probably taken in early 1941, as a controversial piece of legislation, HR 1776, came before Congress. Note the obvious symbolism (think "PATRIOT ACT") in the bill's designation. FDR might be deified today, but he was not above resorting to the same sort of trickery that the Bush Administration employed in 2001 to get HR 3162, better known as the USA PATRIOT ACT, passed.

HR 1776 was eventually passed in March of 1941, and became what we today remember as the Lend-Lease Act. As first conceived, HR 1776 was an attempt to nullify the effects of the Neutrality Acts of the 1930's, which greatly hindered FDR's attempts to arm, and otherwise support, the British war effort against Germany and Italy. Although a "cash and carry" provision allowed belligerents to purchase arms and materials in the US, provided that they paid cash up front and had the means to ship what they purchased, by 1941 Britain no longer had the resources to do either of those things. They were in desperate straits, and Churchill was frantically trying to get that message across to the American government and people. The British Prime Minister had an ally in Roosevelt, but the President's hands were tied if Congress refused to pass his proposed measures.

In 1941, American public opinion was by no means solidly in favor of doing whatever was necessary to avoid a British defeat. To be sure, there was a great deal of sympathy for what Britain was up against, and the Fascist regimes were generally considered odious, but that did not necessarily translate into public support for what the president was asking for. I don't know anything about the ladies holding the signs, but I would wager they at least know the contents of the bill that they are opposing. And the reference to "Another Boston Tea Party" is as topical today as it was in 1941. Back then, those who opposed American involvement in another European war were derisively labeled "Isolationists". And those who oppose the wars that we find ourselves embroiled in today run the risk of being pilloried by the mainstream media.

Kabuki Theater

As much as I hate to admit it, there are moments when I wish that the United States and Israel would just go ahead and get it over with. Damn the Torpedoes and send in the cruise missiles. The consequences of launching an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would quite likely be catastrophic, but Trixie Klondike would be thrilled. I just heard that nickname for Ms. Palin earlier this morning and my kudos to the genius who coined it. If only I could be so clever.

It seems highly unlikely that President Ahmadinejad donned those funky googles to watch a Farsi translation of Avatar, so I am left to conclude that his choice of eye wear has something to do with Iran's nuclear program. That, or he is watching an episode of Captain Video with his pal Ed Norton. Speaking of beloved old TV shows, I remember an episode of All in the Family that has Archie going on the local news program to deliver a rebuttal. I think perhaps Archie was onto something. Why not simply make nuclear weapons technology available to every nation? As demonstrated by the fact that we chose to invade Iraq, and not North Korea, it seems obvious that possession of even a single nuke is a powerful deterrent against aggression.

If the bombs and missiles start falling on Iran, the one thing we can be sure of is that our actions will trigger what the boys in Langley like to call "blowback". Regardless of whether or not the attacks accomplish what they are supposed to (unlikely), this country will become the target of terror attacks, and at least a couple of them will achieve their purpose. But, as we well know, even a failed attempt results in desirable results from the point of view of the terrorist, not to mention our own government. What I am referring to is more curtailment of civil liberties; more strip-searches at the airport, virtual and otherwise; a further expansion of big government, only not the kind of government that makes our lives better.

And, I seem to recall a time, not so long ago, when we actually encouraged the Iranians to go nuclear...

Sun, Sex And Spaghetti

I am reading a book titled 1941: Our Lives in A World On The Edge written by William K. Klingaman. Although I am only some 50 pages into it, the descriptions of Italy's misadventures in the Libyan Desert, before Rommel came on the scene, struck me as so marvelously absurd that I had to write about them. As France collapsed in the spring of 1940, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini declared war and sent 28 Italian divisions across the border into France. Opposing them stood only 4 French divisions, yet the Italians were unable to gain any ground, and suffered some 5000 casualties against French losses of only 8 men killed. It was decidedly inauspicious beginning for Ill Duce's Roman Legions, and proved to be a foreshadowing of military disasters still to come.

Next up for Italy was an offensive in the north African desert, where Mussolini was attempting to carve out an empire. Despite a promising start, the situation quickly deteriorated for the hapless Italian soldiers. Although greatly outnumbered, the British and Australian troops proved to be more then a match for the already-demoralized Italians, and raced from one big victory to another. Italian soldiers surrendered by the tens of thousands, and strained the allies ability to cope with them. Author Klingaman offers some fascinating examples of what I called the "marvelous absurdity" of Mussolini's attempts to emulate Hitler. Klingaman describes "... ferocious Aussie foot soldiers singing-for reasons best known to themselves-the chorus of The Wizard of Oz", as they assaulted the Italian base at Bardia. But the best account of the aftermath of the battle comes to us courtesy of someone whose job it was to chronicle the events as they occurred.

Alan Moorehead, serving as a war correspondent in northern Africa, followed (British General) Wavell's troops and witnessed the remarkable sights of deserted Italian outposts and subterranean dugouts filled with luxuries almost unimaginable in wartime: "...We sat down on the open sand and ate from stores of bottled cherries and greengages; great tins of frozen hams and anchovies; bread that had been baked somehow in the desert; and wines from Frascati and Salerno and Chianti, red and white, and Lacrimae Christi from the slopes of Vesuvius above Naples. The spaghetti was packed in long blue paper packages and stored with great sacks of macaroni and other wheat foods as numerous as they used to be in the shops of Italy before the war. Parmesan cheeses as big as small cart-wheels and nearly a foot thick lay about in neat piles except where some hungry soldier had slashed one open with his sword. Ten pound tins of Estratto di Pomidoro-the tomato extract vital to so many Italian dishes-formed the bulk of the tinned stuff...We sampled one package that seemed at first to contain dry grass, but brewed itself over a stove into a rich minestrone soup." The book goes on to explain that "...1,704 (Italian) officers and five generals had been taken prisoner and that many of them spent the holidays teaching their British captors how to make spaghetti properly".

Perhaps not surprisingly, if you take into account the enormous effort that must have gone into each meal they prepared, the Italians fared poorly at the art of war. As his disasters mounted in north Africa and in the Balkans, Mussolini was complaining about the miserable material he had to work with. "Even Michelangelo had need of marble to make statues," the Duce told Count Ciano, his son-in-law and foreign minister. "If he only had clay he would have been nothing more then a potter. A people who for sixteen centuries have been an anvil cannot become a hammer within a few years."

Had it not been for Hitler's decision to dispatch a light panzer division, under the command of General Erwin Rommel, to the western desert, then the Italian collapse would most probably have been total. If Italy were to be driven out of Africa in 1941, it seems logical to assume that would have been followed by domestic upheavals in Italy. It is possible that Mussolini might have been overthrown 2 years earlier then actually happened. That raises some intriguing questions. With his southern flank threatened, it seems likely that Hitler would have had to cancel, or at least postpone, his invasion of Russia. A delay of one year would have drastically have altered the dynamics of the struggle, although it remains impossible to know with any certainty exactly how much of a difference an Italian defeat in 1941 might have had on the eventual outcome of the war.

General Rommel, immortalized as The Desert Fox, remains the only one of the combatants who fought, in the north African desert, that anyone really remembers today. Rommel's exploits are the stuff of legend, and his vaunted Afrika Korps commanded the respect of friend and foe alike. He was a superb practitioner of the art of war. Meanwhile, the Italians became the object of scorn and derision by friend and foe alike. To wit, British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden in a message to Prime Minister Winston Churchill following the fall of Bardia: "If I may debase a golden phrase, Never has so much been surrendered by so many to so few."

But, if I might play devil's advocate for a moment, let us consider the following: It is at least possible that the Italians, and the French as well, might have been right about the whole nasty business after all. For example, France with a total population of 41,700,000 people suffered some 567,000 deaths over the course of the war; however total military deaths were on the order of 217,600. Compare that number with what France lost in the First World War and you begin to understand why they marched to war again with something less then enthusiasm. The same applies to the Italians. Clearly, both cultures share a common taste for the better things in life, as evidenced by the wonderful cache of foodstuffs surrendered in the desert by the Italians. And if the French had continued the fight in 1940, the end result would have been the same, but at much greater cost. So, they quit the fight in June, and many thousands who would otherwise have been killed, lived and loved for many more years.

What's Good For General Motors...

From 1985 through 1988, I worked on the assembly line at the General Motors North Tarrytown Assembly Plant, located in Westchester County, New York. At the time of my employment, the plant was building two models: The Pontiac 6000 and The Buick Century. By 1985, the fat years for American Automakers were a thing of the past, and the future looked uncertain at best. The Plant had cut back to one shift, prior to 1985, and was now bringing back the night shift, which was how I ended up being hired. Apparently, not everyone who was laid off when they cut back to one shift came back, so job openings were available.

Watching Toyota's ongoing recall debacle brought back some memories of my time working in the Auto Industry. I remember a pervasive sense of gloom hanging over us, due to the constant uncertainty and fear of layoffs. Everyone well understood that it wasn't Ford or Chrysler that threatened our jobs, if anything they were in worse shape then GM. No, even back in 1985 we understood that the real menace was the Japanese threat. I'll never forget the day when one of my coworkers drove up in a brand-new Nissan sedan. His defense was along the lines of "I'm not going to buy one of these cars we make". Implicit in that statement was a belief, on his part, that the product that we produced was inferior to what the Japanese were making. I had heard stories about foreign cars in the parking lots of American Auto Plants being vandalized, but that didn't happen to my coworker's shiny, white Nissan.

That is not to say that we didn't have strong feelings about what was happening to America's Auto Industry, only that we weren't exactly sure who to blame. The picture was a lot clearer for the older workers; they had no qualms whatsoever about blaming it on the Japanese. For those of us in our 20's and early-30's who had grown up in a different world, it was not so clear. For starters, few of us had any illusions about the nature of our jobs. The pay and benefit package was good, but the nature of the work was mind-numbing. We also realized that the odds of any of us low-seniority workers making it to 30 years, and a pension, were remote. Therefore, our attachment and loyalty to the company that employed us was tenuous, at best.

Something else that I remembered from those years was the ugly dustup between Japan and the United States over some derogatory remarks about American workers made by Japanese Parliament Speaker Yoshio Sakurauchi. In early 1992, Sakurauchi bluntly described the average American worker as "lazy and illiterate". I don't recall whether he was talking specifically about auto workers, but it seems likely since the Auto Industry was ground zero in the trade war between the two countries. Regardless, his comments caused an uproar here when they became known. I half-remembered an incident that involved workers at a factory and a poster of an atomic explosion with a caption reading "Made In The United States By Lazy and Illiterate Workers And Tested In Japan".

I was a bit fuzzy on the actual details, but the truth is close enough. While touring a Rolling Bearing Company of America plant in his home state, Senator Fritz Hollings (Dem.-S.C.) told the assembled workers that they ought to respond to Sakurauchi's comments by drawing up a poster such as the one that I described above. And while the home crowd he was playing to probably loved his suggestion, it didn't sit as well with the chattering classes and, while I don't know if he actually apologized, Hollings later claimed that it was a "joke".

It is probably too late in the game for our "Big Three" to ever catch up with their overseas competitors. Because it is not only Japan that we have to worry about. It is Korea today, and before too long, China and maybe India, will be flooding our domestic market with well-made, and probably less-expensive, alternatives to what Detroit is turning out. And it makes little sense to urge people to "Buy American" because that becomes a hopelessly muddled message if the parts come from all over the globe. Toyota assembles it's cars here in the US as does a number of other "foreign" automakers. So, I can only hope that this recall of Toyotas isn't limited to cars assembled in this country, otherwise the long-suffering American worker will once again find himself under fire.

I See Black People

I just came across a BBC article, titled Why do people vote against their own interests and the people referenced in the title are American voters. The article appears to be a text version of a BBC radio program called Turkeys Voting for Christmas. Both titles convey the same message, but the latter does it with a bit of wit. Obviously, the irony is directed at a British audience because the Turkeys are voting for Christmas, and not Thanksgiving. We Yanks still get it, but it isn't quite as funny once it crosses the pond.

We all remember the man who showed up, to protest a Health Care Reform Town Hall meeting, with a handgun strapped to his leg. As Stephen Colbert so memorably put it "Of course he needed a gun, someone might have tried to offer him free dental insurance.". And that one throwaway line from a late-night satirist perfectly captures the absurdity of political life in these United States. And while examples such as the one I just cited abound, explanations for this seemingly irrational behavior are harder to come by. But, the BBC does an admirable job of putting it all in perspective. I particularly appreciate the sentiments that they attribute to Richard Hofstadter, although they immediately go on to say it would be a mistake to blame it all on what Hofstadter so famously described as the "paronoid style" in American Politics.

The article boils it down as follows: "the paranoid style" of American politics, in which God, guns and race get mixed into a toxic stew of resentment at anything coming out of Washington." It certainly isn't difficult to find examples of this disorder and I happen to disagree with the BBC on this one. The "toxic stew" that they invoke can indeed be employed in order to make sense of ugly and hate-filled behavior. I remember reading that opposition to President Truman's own health care initiative, on the part of conservative Southern Democrats, was driven by racial fears. The fear was that any health care program run out of Washington would result in the desegregation of health care facilities in the segregated south. It would be a mistake to discount the role that race continues to play in American Politics today.

I can only reach the sad conclusion that, regardless of what Obama did or didn't do, the opposition to the man and his policies would continue to be driven by primal racial fears. To many white Americans, the face of government that they personally experienced, even before Obama's arrival on the scene, was often a black face. What I mean is that government offices often seem to be disproportionately staffed by minority employees. That can be explained by the fact that, in a time when private employers still openly discriminated against blacks, government jobs were available by virtue of the fact that government hiring practices were subject to anti-discrimination laws. Therefore, many blacks took advantage of the opportunity to obtain gainful employment in an environment that was, at least officially, a colorblind one.

The most obvious manifestation of this would white American's attitudes towards both the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Post Office. These government offices are typically where most people interact face-to-face with government employees. And we all have heard the whining and complaining about how slow the service was, and how surly the person behind the counter was. Most people's personal experiences would probably contradict this stereotype, but no matter. The incessant drumbeat of anti-government rhetoric has accomplished the purpose of convincing a sizable minority of American voters that government is indeed the problem.