Out Back Question of the Week

"Patches" Kennedy spoke yesterday.  Actually, I am not sure that Talk Show Host Howie Carr is being fair to Rhode Island's US Representative Patrick Kennedy when he calls him Patches.  Shouldn't a member of the US House of Representatives get more respect?

Well, Mr Kennedy is a resident of Rhode Island, which made me take notice when he took up about 18% of the front page of The Boston Globe today, with his ranting about US Senator Scott Brown.  Mr Kennedy is from the other house and from another state.  Why do we care?  Then I thought that perhaps people in Rhode Island read The Boston Globe.  Perhaps there are no newspapers in Rhode Island.

Mr Kennedy asserts:

Seven out of 10 of Brown’s voters were labor households and he stressed that he was independent...

Seven out of ten?  I am trying to do the math here.  Is he just pulling that number out of the air?  Is that supposed to be union only or union and non-union?  Is that including all workers or only those traditionally considered blue color plus SEUI?  In the end, Mr Kennedy is telling us that about 50% of the voters in the last Massachusetts state-wide election were from labor households.

But, the lede was about the Brown campaign being a joke.  Mr Kennedy said

Brown’s whole candidacy was shown to be a joke today when he was sworn in early to cast his first vote as an objection to Obama’s appointment to the NLRB,

I guess.  But, if Senator Brown's was a joke, what was Ms Martha Coakley's?

Here was Richard Howe's take on Wednesday, which agreed with mine:

My guess is that his future colleagues have grown tired – maybe jealous is a better word - of the whirlwind PR tour that’s engulfed Brown since his election and let him know that he ought to report for duty and get to work.

Time to turn off the campaign mode and get down to work.

The Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank opined about the reason to move up the swearing in:

Still, the urgency requiring the hastily arranged swearing-in ceremony was something of a puzzle. Democrats had already agreed that their health-care reform bill was dead, so that couldn't explain it.

Was he rushing to town to vote against a jobs bill? That would be awkward, because Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, is a co-sponsor of one of its main provisions. He may have been in a hurry to block Obama's nominee to the National Labor Relations Board, but this was hardly top priority for Massachusetts voters.

This doesn't exactly jibe with the assertion of Mr Kenney.

So, the question of the week is:

1. Was Richard Howe correct in saying that the "early" swearing in was about Mr Brown sucking all the oxygen out of the atmosphere, or,
2. Was Mr Kennedy correct in saying this was all about stopping the nomination of (the never named♠) new appointee to the NLRB, or,
3. Was this about Gail Huff having to get back to work?

And, of course, there are those who have the gumption to just up and put down some other reason.  Good on you.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  From The Washington Post:

A Senate panel has narrowly approved the nomination of union lawyer Craig Becker to become a member of the National Labor Relations Board.

But the loss of a Democratic seat in the Senate could mean that Becker won't take the post anytime soon.  Arizona Sen. John McCain has vowed to place a hold on the nomination.  When newly elected Republican Scott Brown is sworn in later Thursday, Democrats will no longer have the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster.

Republicans claim that Becker would make pro-union changes on the NLRB without congressional approval.  The 13-10 party line vote in committee sends Becker's nomination to the Senate floor, where a vote could come as soon as next week.

TTT

A new term for me, picked up at the Ann Althouse Blog.  TTT stands for "Third Tier Trash" and refers to the less highly ranked law schools and its use is attributed to certain lawyers who are out blogging.  Ms Althouse is not amongst them.

At this location Ms Althouse comments on Justice Clarence Thomas speaking at the University of Florida Law School.

And for law clerks he chooses "the kids I like," with "a preference for non-Ivy League law clerks," because "I'm not part of this new or faux nobility."

For a long time there has been this "nobility" from the northeastern quadrant of the nation running things. And here is Justice Thomas trying to give a leg up to folks from the southeast quadrant.

The Justice Thomas talk is shown on this video of the webcast.

But, back to TTT.  This sort of class distinction is not good for the nation.  Sure, we know that Harvard is the second oldest university on the continent. But, let us not look down our collective noses at people who graduated from Slippery Rock State Teachers College until we see how they perform on the job.

Regards  —  Cliff

Lawrence and the $35 Million

Over at Left in Lowell Kristin Ross-Sitcawich♠ has posted on House Bill 4421 (Great and General Court House).  This bill will give $35 million to help the City of Lawrence weather its current economic storm but proposes a financial control board be kicked down the road 12 months.  Frankly, that seems wrong to me.  I would hope that for $35 million of our taxpayer money a financial control regime of some sort would be put in place concurrent with the arrival of the money.

I have written to my own Representative, Mr David Nangle, asking him to vote against this or to provide some reason why it should go down the way it is currently written.  I urge you to do the same.

EMails are:

David Nangle—Rep.DavidNangle@Hou.State.MA.US
Kevin Murphy—Rep.KevinMurphy@Hou.State.MA.US
Tom Golden—Rep.ThomasGolden@Hou.State.MA.US

Thanks

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Who is someone I know and sometimes work with on the Lowell City Government project to end Homelessness in 10 years.

My Brother's Keeper

At Genesis 4:9 Cain, trying to duck responsibility, asks "Am I my brother's keeper?"

I would like to compare Irish revolutionary leader Gerry Adams, whose letter to the editor appeared in today's Boston Globe with Dr William Bulger, of Boston, Massachusetts, in regard to how each interacts with the law, regarding his brother.

In the letter from Mr Adams he admits that, having sought and received advice, he has supported his niece in her accusations against her father, his brother, with regard to child molestation.  His first three paragraphs read:

When my niece, Aine Tyrell, made her allegations against her father - my brother Liam - in 1987, one of my family members accompanied her to social services, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary was informed.

When Aine came back to live in Ireland in the 1990s as an adult, I offered to go to the police with her, and I told her I would support her in whatever action she might decide. She told me she wanted Liam to admit what he had done. There commenced a very long and difficult process in which I tried to create the circumstance for him to do precisely what his daughter wanted. He failed to do so.

Moreover, when Aine decided to go back to the police three years ago, I went and made a statement to the police in support of her.

He admits he made mistakes in this long process, but he is clear that he was interested in supporting his niece and that he was interested in justice being done and his brother, Liam, admitting to what he had done.

OK, not perfect, but pretty good, in a trying family situation.

Granted, Wikipedia is not the be-all and end-all of truth, justice and the American way, but here is part of their posting about Dr Bulger and his brother, James (aka Whitey), who is currently a fugitive from the law.

On June 19, 2003, he testified to a House about an incident in which, while still President of the Massachusetts State Senate, he "went to an arranged location in 1995 to take a call from his fugitive brother, apparently to avoid electronic eavesdropping. He said that accepting the call from the gangster without bothering to inform the FBI was 'in no way inconsistent with my devotion to my own responsibilities, my public responsibilities.'"

Given his position as first a State Senator and then the President of the State Senate and then President of the University of Massachusetts System, I find his reluctance to be engaged in bringing justice to his brother James to be a dereliction of duty.

What kind of an example is he to other citizens and especially to our youth?

It discourages me that the Commonwealth's Republican Party was unwilling to go to the mat on this issue.  It saddens me that the Commonwealth's Democratic Party was unwilling to call out one of its own over this.

Gerry Adams provides the much better example of a brother doing his duty to his brother and to his family and to his fellow citizens.

I hope that others have drawn a similar comparison based upon today's letter from Mr Gerry Adams, stand up guy.

Regards  —  Cliff

Obama Boost State Budget

Ah, the shorthand we use.  President Obama has proposed a $5 billion increase in the budget for the Department of State for FY2011.  This is good news.  It is time to stop depending on the Department of Defense to do a lot of our overseas work.  It is time to bring the Department of State back into the picture.

The article, from The Washington Times is right here.  The author is Nicholas Kralev—no, I don't know him either.

President Obama on Monday proposed a $5 billion increase in the State Department's 2011 budget, most of which is intended for programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq — the only three countries to also benefit from an additional $4.5 billion this year.

Global health and development aid overseas will go up significantly in the fiscal year beginning in October, while the biggest decreases will affect the fight against HIV/AIDS and migration and refugee assistance.

The State Department budget request, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, totals $52.8 billion, Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew told reporters. Aid and civilian contributions to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq represents 20 percent of the entire budget, he added.

One of the good things about appointing Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State is the possibility that her voice will be heard in the corridors of power.

Regards  —  Cliff

Troublesome Young Men

If you were lucky you missed the weekend kerfuffle between Amazon and Macmillan Publishing.♠  It as all about Mr Jeff Bezos of Amazon being a troublesome young man.

Amazon was boycotting Macmillan for a couple of days—you couldn't buy a Macmillan published book at Amazon, either on the Kindle or in paper.  Here is the reporting from The New York Times.

Now comes Mr Charlie Martin, of Pajamas Media, talking about the issues behind the dispute.  Mr Martin is a Colorado computer scientist and freelance writer.  He holds an MS in Computer Science from Duke University, where he spent six years with the National Biomedical Simulation Resource, Duke University Medical Center.

Mr Martin's take is that it is all about the business model.  With the Amazon Kindle♥ now being supplemented by the Barnes and Noble e-reader and now Apple's iPAD, the computer based approach to reading is threatening to make big cuts into the production and selling of paper books, hard cover or paperback.

Who is going to win? Bet on Bezos. The mainstream publishers can hold on for a while, based on reputation and while e-readers aren’t widely available; there’s still some prestige to being published by a reputable publisher like MacMillan. But eventually, some publisher will realize that a book that would have sold for $29.95 in a physical edition can be sold for the cost of the royalty, plus a small markup for production and administration. Our $29.95 novel would sell instead for $3.95. When that happens, except for coffee table books and an occasional print-on-demand hard copy, the physical book is dead.

Speaking of "print-on-demand", it has come to the COOP at Harvard Square, Cambridge, or so I am told.  I need to go down and check it out.  It sounds neat.

The article is interesting, but it involves talking about business models and risk and anticipation of the future.  All of which are very important as we ask where the jobs are in the current economic recovery.

The world is a'changing and if we are to move forward and secure the new jobs for our citizens we are going to have to find out which way the future is going and run with it.

UPDATE:

And here is a rebuttal, from a writer.  Hat tip to Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Interestingly enough, the future British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, used to edit books in the family business during the day, before showing up for sessions of Parliament.  This was in the 1930s, when he was one of those Troublesome Young Men who thought that Adolf Hitler was a menace to Western Civilization.
♥  I love mine.

Sun on City Life

I am listened to the Local Access TV show, City Life.  The guest co-host today is Sun Editor Jim Campanini, who has just explained about the finances for the paper and its parent holding company.  While the holding company is in some financial trouble, apparently the local "paper of record" is making money and hiring people, and without benefit of help from the Obama Administration Stimulus Package.

Love it or hate it, The Sun is our local paper and it would be a serious loss if it went away.

So, some good news today.

And, the show will rerun this afternoon at 4 PM, on Channel 95.

Regards  —  Cliff

PS:  I noted that The Sun swapped out a cartoon on us yesterday.  It didn't swap out some great cartoon, so no loss there, but it is a duplicate of the new cartoon at The Boston Globe, which replaced Spiderman.  Now that was tragic.