The Broad View

How come we're smarter 'n anyone?

Pat and I have really intelligent discussions with each other. These days, of course, they're mostly about politics.

And mostly we come up with insights and solutions that are just plain better than anyone else's. The question we often ask each other is, "How come we're so smart and they're not?" (This is usually with reference to pundits and their panels.)

We've long included RJ Eskow in our [verrry exclusive] pantheon of really smart people. Here are two examples of why:

On Wes Clark

On the risks of Obama's lurch to the "center"

Am I an elitist...

...a New York sophisticate, a coastal cosmopolitan? You betcha! And if these make you giggle, or at least smile , you are too!

Ooops. He got caught.

Update, October 29: The jerk won't be going to work for the DNI after all. Whew!

According to the Washington Post, John Philbin recognizes the error of his ways in setting up a FEMA "press conference" where the role of the press was played by FEMA staffers.

Thus:

It was absolutely a bad decision. I regret it happened. Certainly . . . I should have stopped it," said John P. "Pat" Philbin, FEMA's director of external affairs.

Philbin further insults us and what's left of our brains by saying:

I hope readers understand we're working very hard to establish credibility and integrity, and I would hope this does not undermine it.

Got that? Credibility! Integrity!

As of Thursday, Philbin has left his FEMA job. So where is this duplicitous moron headed? To the assh heap of history, where he belongs? In this administration -- not bloody likely! No, dear friends, this is his reward:

He has been named as the new head of public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence...

It's breathtaking.

Fly the friendly skies -- if you dare!

Headline in today's San Jose Mercury News:

NASA refuses to disclose survey on air safety

This is the lede:

Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government previously recognized.

NASA gathered the information under an $8.5 million safety project, through telephone interviews with roughly 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots over nearly four years. Since ending the interviews at the beginning of 2005 and shutting down the project completely more than one year ago, the space agency has refused to divulge the results publicly.

Just last week, NASA ordered the contractor that conducted the survey to purge all related data from its computers.
[Italics mine]

As though extreme discomfort, late and cancelled flights, annoying (and grossly inefficient) "counter-terrorist" baggage limitations and searches weren't enough to discourage me from flying, the notion that there are significant safety concerns that a government agency refuses to disclose -- well, guys, I'd rather hail a passing camel train than fly. (I wonder if the "camel train" crack will get me put on a watch list! Or maybe the word "crack" will.)

The AP sought to obtain the survey data over 14 months under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

"Release of the requested data, which are sensitive and safety-related, could materially affect the public confidence in, and the commercial welfare of, the air carriers and general aviation companies whose pilots participated in the survey," [NASA associate administrator Thomas S.] Luedtke wrote in a final denial letter to the AP.

Again, the italics are mine, and so is sputtering rage.

Mark Your Calendars

Naomi Klein is coming to our little "adobe Disneyland"

Saturday, September 29, 2007 @ 8:00 PM
Victoria Hall Theater, 33 W. Victoria St.

"The Shock Doctrine - The Rise of Disaster Capitalism"

In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America's "free market" policies have come to dominate the world- — through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq's civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country's vast oil reserves.... Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the "War on Terror" to Halliburton and Blackwater.... After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans's residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened.... These events are examples of "the shock doctrine": using the public's disorientation following massive collective shocks — wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters — to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don't succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.

This is a FREE event.

For more info: 805.893.3535

Presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and the UCSB Women's Center as part of the 9th Annual Santa Barbara Book & Author Festival, September 28-29.

I've resigned from MoveOn

They asked me why. I tried to keep it simple. Here's what I said:

I'm as anti-the Iraq War as you are. But I loathed the Times ad. Yes, MoveOn got a lot of attention. But so does a guy at a party who gets drunk and drops trou.

In praise of Chiaroscuro

I marvel at my friend and Broad View colleague, Chiaroscuro. In the past month, while I have been silent in these pages, she has been out front on the most confounding news stories. While I have tried and failed to make my way through the great tangle of events in this, the "cruellest month," Chiaro has slashed through the Gordian knot time and again, the point of her bright sword each time reaching to the very heart of the matter.

The other evening I spoke with a friend who is one of the finest writers in the blogosphere. He told me that he holds Chiaroscuro's thinking and writing in the highest esteem. It was good to hear that from a "pro." I do wish her work were more widely disseminated. I know we have a pretty good readership here (though, alas, too few commenters), but I'd like to see Chiaro's work in the leadership role it deserves.

Meanwhile, I am grateful to know her, to read her, and to drink from the fountain of her spirit.

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Click here for the archive of Chiaroscuro's posts.

UFCW v. Grocers: negotiations extended

There's another temporary extension of the UFCW contract with Von's, Albertson's and Ralph's while negotiations continue. The new deadline is midnight April 9, with day-to-day continuations after that unless cancelled with 72 hours' notice by either side.

Please take this opportunity to visit the UFCW Contract Campaign website for greater depth of detail, and while you're there sign the petition expressing solidarity with the employees.

New grocery contract is not in the bag

One of the signal new delights Santa Barbara offered me when I arrived here from New York City was...Von's. Von's was a revelation! — a supermarket with wide aisles, capacious carts, and checkers and baggers who were helpful, cheerful, attentive and and unfailingly polite. What a happy change from cramped New York markets and the even more cramped attitude of their personnel.

I take Von's for granted now — and Ralph's, and Albertson's — and I've been taking the checkers and baggers and stockers for granted too. But no more.

Now I know something about the stress they're under, as an extended period for contract negotiations is set to end at midnight tonight, and at issue again is the appallingly unfair "two-tier" system the employers imposed on their workers as the last contract dispute was finally settled, three years ago.

Two-tier system severely penalizes new hires

During the last contract battle — which resulted in a 4 1/2 month work stoppage as members of seven Southern California locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers [UFCW] went on strike and the three major supermarket chains closed their doors "from Bakersfield to the Mexican border" — the Big 3 cried poverty.

The union members — 65,000 of them — finally accepted a deal in which veteran employees continued to receive pay increases (but in the non-cumulative form of bonuses) and health benefits for themselves and their families; but new hires were brought in at a significantly lower pay scale, and were forced to wait anywhere from a year to 18 months before any health benefits at all kicked in.

The result? Under the old contract, close to 98% of workers had health care coverage; under the two-tier system, only ±50% do. In other words, approximately one-half of the stores' employees are now in the second tier. Instead of promising a stable, middle-class job, the grocery chains are making second-class citizens out of its new hires — many of whom simply don't stick around. There is hardly any incentive to: no health care, no pension, and pay that is in some cases only 5¢ above minimum wage.

Increased employee turnover means higher training costs, and an inevitable fall-off of service to customers. In the long run, it can't be a good strategy for the employers. And it is a bad one for our communities.

Stores showing record profits

Pleading poverty may have worked the last time, but how can the three chains square their employee squeeze with what can now be seen as record profits — and record compensation for their CEOs? Last time the Big 3 cited increasing competitive pressure from other chains, pressure which simply didn't materialize. We don't know what their negotiating stance is this time around (neither side has gone public with the specifics), but the old arguments just don't work.

"No news is good news"

Yesterday I asked the check-out lady at my local Von's whether she'd heard anything about how the negotiations were proceeding. She hadn't, but then added, in that cheerful way I've come to know, "No news is good news."

We'll know better at 12:01 tonight whether her optimism is justified.

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You can find more information about the dispute at the Los Angeles Times (do a search on UFCW) — though there is surprisingly little reporting on the subject. And for the union's point-of-view, as well as action items for demonstrating support of the workers, go to http://respectufcw.com/.

Meanwhile, you can give your custom to Gelson's or Costco, both of whom came to reasonable agreements with the union some time ago.

Me-o-con

Me-o-con, a solipsistic neocon. (See George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney.)