Miscellany: 11/24/12

Quote of the Day
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
Or what's a heaven for?
Robert Browning

Larry Hagman: RIP

Courtesy of www.larryhagman.com

As a young man growing up, who was cooler than Major Anthony Nelson (played by the son of legendary Mary Martin (Peter Pan))? Not only was he in the coolest, most selective profession (an astronaut) but he was desperately loved by his gorgeous, shapely blond genie (Jeannie/Barbara Eden).

As a writer I knew it was a mistake for them to get married in the storyline, just like having Gilligan rescued from from that deserted island. Then Hagman landed the role of a lifetime: the greatest antihero in the history of television, J.R. Ewing. Of course J.R. was ambitious, ruthless, a womanizer, amoral,  manipulative and controlling, but he relied on his wits not brute force and in his own way fiercely loyal to his family and homestead.. I thought TNT's limited season revival of the series this past summer was brilliantly done (the next sequence starts in 2 months, and I'm not sure if the second run  was in the can or whether Hagman's passing will require some rewriting. To be honest, I wanted to see more JR in the first run, but I was struck by how physically frail both Hagman and Duffy looked although in Duffy's (Bobby Ewing's) case, that may have been part of the storyline.

Larry Hagman didn't seem to mind viewers identifying him with his character and could easily slip into character (what sports entertainment calls 'kayfabe'). Larry has had serious health issues over the years and reportedly died from cancer complications. My thoughts and prayers are with Larry's surviving friends and family.

I Dream of Jeannie Theme


Dallas Theme


Rahm Emanuel / Washington Post, 
"How to Rebuild America"  Thumbs DOWN!


I would not be surprised if Chicago Mayor "Dead Fish" has had dreams of succeeding Obama in the White House.You might think this is nonpartisan, but you would be wrong:

 There is nothing in this year’s election returns that guarantees Democrats a permanent majority in the years to come. President Obama and the Democratic Party earned the support of key groups — young people, single women, Latinos, African Americans, auto workers in the Rust Belt and millions of other middle-class Americans — because of our ideas. So, instead of resting on false assurances of underlying demographic advantages, the Democratic Party must follow through on our No. 1 priority, which the president set when he took office and reemphasized throughout this campaign: It is time to come home and rebuild America.

First, a reality check for His Dishonor the Mayor. First, Obama was decisively beaten in the first debate, which focused on domestic issues. Second, polls repeatedly showed Romney beating Obama on the economy. Third, despite the natural advantage of incumbency (including high-profile favorable coverage in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy playing Santa Obama), a  superior ground game, an inept opposition campaign, and a summer of unanswered negative campaign ads funded by full campaign coffers, Obama barely beat Romney in a number of states, including Ohio, Virginia, and Florida.

Next, it was hardly because of ideas: only about 1 in 5 voters identify themselves as progressives, i.e., national Dem policies. Obama underperformed in total votes and margin of victory from the 2008 campaign. Part of the GOP problem was that Romney underperformed both Bush and McCain, immigration reformers, with Hispanics. The Democrats are facing their own demographic challenges--a declining percentage on unionized workforce--plus conflicts among their coalition members, e.g., union opposition to certain immigration reforms and to environmentalist hostility to fossil fuel development, transport and refining (including well-paying jobs).

Emanuel is, in a sense, correct: the Democrats can't count on Republicans continuing to shoot  themselves in the foot on policies or running inferior, under-organized, technologically  deficient campaigns or rerunning the 1980 campaign; the Dems cannot continue rerunning the 1972 campaign.  pushing unsustainable expensive, ineffective, morally hazardous programs, running divisive class warfare campaigns and bashing the GOP over attempts to reform the Ponzi scheme entitlements.

"To come home and rebuild". This appears to be code for taking the roughly $100B a year we are frittering away nation building (which, by the way Clinton also did) and meddling in the Middle East and Gulf Region and instead of applying it against ongoing trillion dollar deficits, throwing good money after bad on crony interests and bailing out spendthrift state and local governments, which, among other things,  refuse to address unsustainable pension obligations.

Chicago is making one of the nation’s largest coordinated investments, putting 30,000 residents to work over the next three years improving our roads, rails and runways; repairing our aged water system; and increasing access to gigabit-speed broadband. We are paying for these critical improvements through a combination of reforms, efficiencies and direct user fees, as well as creating the nation’s first city-level public-private infrastructure bank. Democrats should champion these kinds of innovative financing tools at a national level.

The proper reform is for the public sector to give up its anti-competitive inefficient, ineffective public monopolies. The public sector needs to mitigate risk, not take on private sector risk. I abhor the concept of crony private-public sector partnerships, and I oppose government involvement in banking, beyond its core competencies and mandate.

 Chicago has adopted its own Race to the Top for early childhood education, allowing public schools, Head Start, charters and parochial schools to compete for dollars by improving the quality of their pre-kindergarten programs. In addition, this year Chicago Public Schools put into effect a 30 percent increase in class time.

First, the studies I've seen that head start programs only provide short-term gains often attenuated by middle school. The Chicago teachers are among the nation's highest paid  despite poor objective achievement and graduation rates. We've seen little progress on even minimal  necessary reforms like delegating authority to the principal level, streamlining teacher removal,  limiting collective bargaining, outlawing strikes, converting from defined-benefits to defined-contributions, market-based compensation,  outlawing seniority-based layoff schemes, and putting an end to public school monopolies and giving parents tax credits/vouchers applicable to private schools. The solution to school problems is competition. Whereas more school time is a step in the right direction, it is important to detect learning performance failures early through standardized testing and bar dysfunctional social promotion and  related policies and accommodating the parents' right to know their child's  teacher's performance record.

 While Republicans are likely to become less intransigent on immigration, Democrats need to push for comprehensive immigration reform to ensure that, true to our history, we continue to be the party of opportunity and inclusion. Democrats in Congress should follow Chicago’s lead and develop a national “Citizenship Initiative” to provide the 8.5 million people eligible to become citizens with the information and resources they need to achieve the American dream. 

First of all, the Democrats sabotaged the 2007 reform by striking concessions  on temporary visiting worker programs The idea that Democrats pandering to Latinos constitutes the moral upper hand is laughably absurd. Free marketers like myself hate government getting in the way of  employers securing the low- or high-skill resources they need. We want to see improved quota systems, expedited green card programs for new in-demand higher degree professionals or entrepreneurs, more balanced merit-based immigration, fairness where those who play by the rules are rewarded.

The idea that the Democratic Party was/is the party of opportunity and inclusion is delusional. The GOP did not support slavery or establish Jim Crow laws. The GOP has two Latino senators (Rubio and Cruz), a Latina Governor (Martinez), two Indian-American Governors (Jindal and Haley) and in 2010 ran 3 former female CEO's for governor or senator. One of the stars of the GOP convention was a black Utah Congressional candidate, Mia Love. The GOP has consistently fought to limit the government footprint in the affairs of small business.

 We balanced the budget in the [Clinton] second term, cutting spending while lowering taxes for working families, to lay the groundwork for a decade of prosperity.

 Emanuel is knowingly distorting the record. He knows that the Dems had controlled the House for decades without balancing the budget, and it was the GOP Congress, not Clinton, which balanced the budget. The 1997 tax relief act was passed by a GOP-controlled Congress and included investment tax cuts, which drew in unsustainable revenues  during the stock market bubble.

 If Democrats develop innovative policies that help Americans compete in a global economy, we will outperform Republicans on Election Day. It’s that simple. 

No, if the GOP can liberate the free market from the yolk of counterproductive government meddling (high taxes, obscene spending and regulatory burden), the rising tide will lift all boats. Government is the problem, not the solution. Notice that Emanuel hasn't accepted partisan responsibility for the mismanagement of Chicago for decades--not the fault of the GOP.  The Democrats will be banished from power, possibly for decades. It really is that simple.

Musical Interlude: Christmas Retrospective

  Scrooge (Musical), "I Like Life"