We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
A Message From Childhood Friends
Today's birthday is shared with fellow southpaw Sandy Koufax (one of the greatest pitchers ever), the musical genius behind one of my favorite music groups ELO (Jeff Lynne), a great comedienne (Tracey Ullman), a once great golfer (Tiger Woods), the NBC Today Show co-hosts, a well-known radio/cable TV conservative commentator (Sean Hannity), and some obscure former professor and conservative blogger.
My Favorite Ballplayer of All Time Is Diagnosed With Cancer
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| Harmon Killebrew, during his playing days |
Harmon Killebrew is a true ambassador of the sport, a gentleman and legitimate role model. He is being treated at the Mayo Clinic and expects a full recovery. My thoughts and prayers are with him.
NYC Public Unions: Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow...
Julian Assange, instead of playing diplomacy-killing i-Spy, should try doing something constructive with his time, like bringing up a WikiSnitch website exposing the corruption of top-heavy, unproductive, self-serving labor union monopolists.
GOP City Councilman Dan Halloran reported that 3 plow workers and 2 supervisors, anonymous due to threats of union reprisals, said that there was a work slowdown, in some cases drivers being told not to plow a number of bypassed roads without explicit orders, in other cases skimming only part of the snow layer, thus requiring an inefficient, follow-up plow. There are other ad hoc news reports, e.g., of sitting plows with workers in them asleep in late morning/early afternoon. Why? The Sanitation Department workers were allegedly angry over supervisory demotions/pay cuts and layoffs, as Bloomberg sought to balance the books given lower recession-bound tax revenues, and attempted to embarrass the mayor in a passive-aggressive response while taking full advantage of the blizzard to attenuate the pay cuts. The union, of course, predictably denies any such conspiracy, but the fact is that New York City averages roughly 30 inches of snow per year and multiple areas to the north collect multiples of that. Not only that, but big snowfalls are not unknown. There was a blizzard just as I finished officer training in Newport several years ago; I remember walking through thigh-deep snow to eat at the mess hall, with strong winds off the nearby waters so cold my eyeballs ached, and the Navy generously offered to take the airport delays (a day or two) off our annual leaves.
I do understand that there are some challenges with fast-falling, accumulating snowfalls and this was not a typical snowstorm. But just like any civil emergency (including hurricanes, tornadoes or earthquakes), there should be an operational plan, with clearly defined priorities and logistics. It doesn't help if a plan exists (like the 2004 plan for the evacuation of New Orleans, before the Katrina disaster), if leaders fail to manage and control.
There are a couple of things I feel Mayor Bloomberg should consider as a lessons learned. First, he needs to adopt more of a fixed-cost versus time-and-materials approach to the annual maintenance of snow. It's also important to collect baseline performance data. Unions have to absorb the risks of inefficient performance. It would be to their benefit to come in below the targeted figure, because otherwise, once they exhaust the budget, they still have to clear the streets--without any additional compensation; the unions would have little incentive to let slackers exhaust funding prematurely. (And no, we don't want a "plower fix" like the Medicare "doc fix" because the city and the unions won't address productivity issues.) Second, and more ideally, he should consider privatizing sanitation responsibilities. At minimum, he should consider situations where he can augment city services, already operating at full capacity, unable to respond effectively.
Apples and Oranges: The Pentagon Papers and WikiLeaks
I should note that Daniel Ellsberg, the source of the famous Pentagon Papers, fully supports Julian Assange, but, as Floyd Abrams, who represented the New York Times, points out in his excellent Wall Street Journal column "Why WikiLeaks Is Unlike the Pentagon Papers", Ellsberg did not release 4 volumes of documents which discussed diplomatic efforts on behalf of the United States by other countries in very frank terms. The release of those documents would have accomplished no purpose other than straining relationships with our allies. Abrams notes that national leaders deliberately misled the American people about the history of America's involvement in Vietnam (which Ellsberg did leak).
Embarrassing or outing individuals has more more of an effect on sowing distrust between diplomatic parties than impeaching the knowingly false statements of policymakers. The last thing we need to do is to make diplomacy even more difficult than it already is. As Abrams points out, this has more to do with the secrecy of the materials, not the nature of the materials.
The other point I don't think other commentators have focused on (in my brief review of other posts) is that fact that the parties within WikiLeaks could use information to engage in political blackmail. Julian Assange is really a law unto himself. Just like an author owns the intellectual property of his writings, the US owns its diplomatic documents, and theft of those documents has a material impact on US operations and costs. Where do you draw the line then? Could any leak be considered legitimate? My response is somewhat nuanced: I think if there is material evidence that policymakers are misleading the American people (which is different than keeping certain process-related information discreet), it is legitimate to leak the information, but only the amount relevant to the specifics of policymaker misrepresentation.
Political Humor
A few originals:
- Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the day after Snowpocalypse, suggested that frustrated New Yorkers should just chill out and take in a Broadway show. Rumor has it Marie Antoinette herself will even serve cake...
- Former President George W. Bush, President Obama, and Mayor Bloomberg appeared on the game show "To Tell the Truth". The goal was to identify which leader handled emergencies in an effective, preventive, proactive manner. George W. Bush was asked to discuss Katrina, Obama talked about the BP oil spill, and Bloomberg spoke of the Snowpocalypse. The panelists correctly concluded that all 3 leaders were engaging in political spin and thus nobody told the truth...
Musical Interlude: Holiday Tunes
Crystals, "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers"
