Cognative dissonance on the radical right isn't worth aggravating my vertigo anymore, and besides there's always TBogg and World O' Crap and The General and Ailes and all the others who will appear on the blogroll here once I get off my ass to handle it with talent. But I can manage the occasional Chinese fire drill still hold on to my chair. Here's Hugh Hewitt:
Several voices have been raised against the action of the president and the Congress, and bogus opinion polls circulated. Fine. Anyone who wants to run for office on the basis of that position is welcome to do so.
Um kay. Hugh links the "bogus opinion polls" line to Captain's Quarters, where Captain Ed informs us:
...a look at the questionnaire shows that ABC News completely misrepresented Terri's medical condition, which undoubtedly impacted the responses given. Question 2, which asks the central question, claims that Terri is on life support:
"2. Schiavo suffered brain damage and has been on life support for 15 years...."
Terri has never been on life support. The only medical treatment Terri received for the past five years has been food and water through a feeding tube, which is nothing at all like artificial life support. Artificial life support consists of ventilation for people unable to breathe on their own. The question sets up a strawman argument that so completely contradicts reality that the entire poll must be considered invalid.
Goddamit, don't you kids make me come down there with my AMA Glossary:
Withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment – life-sustaining treatment includes, but is not limited to, mechanical ventilation, renal dialysis, chemotherapy, and administration of artificial nutrition and hydration. The AMA Code of Medical Ethics, and the majority bioethics opinion accept that " a competent, adult patient, may, in advance, formulate and provide a valid consent to the withholding and withdrawing of life-support systems in the event that injury or illness renders that individual incompetent to make such a decision" (AMA Code of Medical Ethics, Opinion 2.20). A designated patient surrogate may also make the decision to withhold or withdraw such treatment. The Code recognizes no ethical difference between the withholding and the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment.
Not to mention that Florida law, which was the law in question before better men took over, has defined assisted feeding as "life support" since 1999.
And Hugh? "Bogus" means "sham, artificial" not "something some unlettered typist quibbled with somewhere". And "polls" is plural, which means "more than one". But, hey, that sure doesn't contradict your political wisdom in the slightest. Why don't your guys start running out in the open on their actual, out-of-touch Bronze Age ideals next time?
Wednesday, March 23
Whose Issue Is This?
Over at The Next Hurrah DemFromCt wonders whether Bush's failing Social Security mission is behind the Schiavo furor:
But the 'important' constituency here for Bush and the other Republicans is the Religious Right. Clearly the polls show this is an unpopular decision for Congress to intervene. Nonetheless, the politics appear to be pushing Republicans to take this as far as they can, heedless of the collateral damage done to them and their image as the party of 'small government'.
I can't help but wonder whether impending losses and/or compromises on such matters as Medicaid cuts, Social Security 'reform' or even failure to exercise the 'nuclear option' is part of the equation driving the desperation on the GOP's part to radically alter the relationship between the branches of government that all of this represents.
My feeling is it's more like the other way around: squandering the first half of his effective presidency before lame duckitude sets in on the ill-advised attack on Social Security has given the Congressional radicals free rein a good six months or more before they'd have ever tried to assert it, and Bush had to hop on the Tsunami Express for a quick ride to the head of the parade. I don't think they had a choice, and like the earlier DOMA business I think they'd have preferred to stay on the sidelines and mouth platitudes. Bush doesn't need to rally the religious right anymore; he just needs them on board. They see 2008 as their best chance ever, but don't think for a minute they don't realize that might entail running away from the Bush economy and the wreck of our foreign policy, even if their room to do so is limited.
And while I cringe whenever people on my end of the spectrum treat Unka Karl like he's Goldfinger, I'm not beyond asking the question: was the quick shift into corporate giveaway mode after the inauguration designed to give the radicals a bigger head start? The nomination is still probably Cheney's if he wants it, but he's got serious negatives that go beyond his health. Has he already made the decision? After him, the charisma and political sense is almost all in what passes for the center: McCain, Romney, Bob Ehrlich, Giuliani. Opposed to that there's what? Frist? Gingrich? The freeper wet-dream of Condi Rice? I've thought all along that the theocrats were going to have to start scorching the landscape before '06; I didn't realize it would start this early.
But the 'important' constituency here for Bush and the other Republicans is the Religious Right. Clearly the polls show this is an unpopular decision for Congress to intervene. Nonetheless, the politics appear to be pushing Republicans to take this as far as they can, heedless of the collateral damage done to them and their image as the party of 'small government'.
I can't help but wonder whether impending losses and/or compromises on such matters as Medicaid cuts, Social Security 'reform' or even failure to exercise the 'nuclear option' is part of the equation driving the desperation on the GOP's part to radically alter the relationship between the branches of government that all of this represents.
My feeling is it's more like the other way around: squandering the first half of his effective presidency before lame duckitude sets in on the ill-advised attack on Social Security has given the Congressional radicals free rein a good six months or more before they'd have ever tried to assert it, and Bush had to hop on the Tsunami Express for a quick ride to the head of the parade. I don't think they had a choice, and like the earlier DOMA business I think they'd have preferred to stay on the sidelines and mouth platitudes. Bush doesn't need to rally the religious right anymore; he just needs them on board. They see 2008 as their best chance ever, but don't think for a minute they don't realize that might entail running away from the Bush economy and the wreck of our foreign policy, even if their room to do so is limited.
And while I cringe whenever people on my end of the spectrum treat Unka Karl like he's Goldfinger, I'm not beyond asking the question: was the quick shift into corporate giveaway mode after the inauguration designed to give the radicals a bigger head start? The nomination is still probably Cheney's if he wants it, but he's got serious negatives that go beyond his health. Has he already made the decision? After him, the charisma and political sense is almost all in what passes for the center: McCain, Romney, Bob Ehrlich, Giuliani. Opposed to that there's what? Frist? Gingrich? The freeper wet-dream of Condi Rice? I've thought all along that the theocrats were going to have to start scorching the landscape before '06; I didn't realize it would start this early.
Tuesday, March 22
Incontinent Nostalgia
While other forms of incontinence are probably on the way, the one that's struck me first, maybe even pre-dotage, is nostalgia. It's no longer confined to the accidental eye contact with Fig Newtons, my mass-produced madeleines, in the cookie aisle, or the odd phrase from the basketball court next door echoing something Rhonda Campbell used to say on the playground at recess in fifth grade, where Richard Perry and I competed to prove Most Worthy of her precocious charms, no, now just about anything will bring it on and just about anything will serve as grist for that particular mill.
Even today's headlines. Why, just this morning I was in the kitchen, making a cup of tea and listening to my new source for world news, CNN. And out of the blue someone whispered to me, "Ha ha, now the grownups are in charge!"
Yeah. The Grownups are in charge. I'm feeling a little misty about the day when, no matter how disingenuous or moronic, someone could actually try to make that claim about this bunch. God help me. I'm gonna go find my 45 of ? and the Mysterians' "96 Tears" and think about Rhonda Campbell's rec room, and get this taste out of my mouth.
Even today's headlines. Why, just this morning I was in the kitchen, making a cup of tea and listening to my new source for world news, CNN. And out of the blue someone whispered to me, "Ha ha, now the grownups are in charge!"
Yeah. The Grownups are in charge. I'm feeling a little misty about the day when, no matter how disingenuous or moronic, someone could actually try to make that claim about this bunch. God help me. I'm gonna go find my 45 of ? and the Mysterians' "96 Tears" and think about Rhonda Campbell's rec room, and get this taste out of my mouth.
Tom Burka Is An Effing National Treasure
Exhibit A: Other 293 Million Americans Waiting For Congress To Pass Bills For Them
"Not A Precedent"
AP: The White House said Monday that an extraordinary law allowing a federal court to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case was narrowly tailored and not intended as a precedent for Congress to step into battles over the fate of seriously disabled or terminally ill patients.
Who says?
It's absurd to talk about precedent in a legislative act--presumably the bill was an expression of the sense of this Congress. But how can you argue that it does not set a legal precedent, no matter how "narrowly tailored" it was? I'm far from a legal scholar, so someone please explain to me what I've missed here: what now prevents a future where a lower court can stay the execution of a Supreme Court ruling on the grounds that a single legislator intends to offer just such a bill?
I've been saying for a quarter century now that it was time for the Right to shut up and govern. That was apparently nothing more than naïveté on my part. The Right is either a whole lot smarter or even more insane than I've credited them for. Maybe both. This is a bunch which now baldly admits it cannot govern, and simply intends to hold power and enforce its will. If this is not a tipping point then we will have none until everything is smoke and ashes. I'm a Red State boy; I can tell you those polls which say Americans want the government's nose out of their personal business are on the money. There's no such thing as principled conservativism left; if there still exists such a thing as principled conservatives it's time they sign on for the fight.
Who says?
It's absurd to talk about precedent in a legislative act--presumably the bill was an expression of the sense of this Congress. But how can you argue that it does not set a legal precedent, no matter how "narrowly tailored" it was? I'm far from a legal scholar, so someone please explain to me what I've missed here: what now prevents a future where a lower court can stay the execution of a Supreme Court ruling on the grounds that a single legislator intends to offer just such a bill?
I've been saying for a quarter century now that it was time for the Right to shut up and govern. That was apparently nothing more than naïveté on my part. The Right is either a whole lot smarter or even more insane than I've credited them for. Maybe both. This is a bunch which now baldly admits it cannot govern, and simply intends to hold power and enforce its will. If this is not a tipping point then we will have none until everything is smoke and ashes. I'm a Red State boy; I can tell you those polls which say Americans want the government's nose out of their personal business are on the money. There's no such thing as principled conservativism left; if there still exists such a thing as principled conservatives it's time they sign on for the fight.
Monday, March 21
"Culture of Life"
Okay, I was taking a quick lunch break and just for the hell of it turned on CNN. Missed the top of the hour so I had to wait as they cycled through Jessica Lunsford and Michael Jackson to get back to Terri Schiavo. These three stories are our national news, folks.
The only bit of humanity that poked through in this grim and grubby spectacle was provided by, well, humanity, as the CNN online poll went 78% for The Husband to make the decision, and 92% for the proposition that the case had been "too politicized". The report closes, of course, with the standard disclaimer that the results "aren't scientific". It's just too bad their news reports don't close with a warning that what we've just witnessed is not professional journalism.
I was also treated to a sidebar story about how "Culture of Life" has become a buzzword for the campaign to raise funds from abortion opponents to fight everything from stem cell research to teaching evolution. CNN didn't actually mention evolution, but Peter Slevin's WaPo story on "Intelligent Design" sure did. In keeping with standard practice since at least 1979, the right doesn't have to face any difficult questions, either about tricky ethical issues or its own lapses and omissions. Pharmacists refusing to fill birth-control prescriptions? That's a matter for the states, apparently. "Opposition" here means "speculating about what Democrats are going to do."
My own advice is free, as usual. Democrats should find a plain-spoken champion for the idea of the rule of law, for the responsibility to govern as opposed to the authority to grandstand. You can't fight a war of soundbites, particularly when the field isn't level to begin with. With Republican majorities everywhere you turn, when do they begin to offer solutions instead of demagogy?
The only bit of humanity that poked through in this grim and grubby spectacle was provided by, well, humanity, as the CNN online poll went 78% for The Husband to make the decision, and 92% for the proposition that the case had been "too politicized". The report closes, of course, with the standard disclaimer that the results "aren't scientific". It's just too bad their news reports don't close with a warning that what we've just witnessed is not professional journalism.
I was also treated to a sidebar story about how "Culture of Life" has become a buzzword for the campaign to raise funds from abortion opponents to fight everything from stem cell research to teaching evolution. CNN didn't actually mention evolution, but Peter Slevin's WaPo story on "Intelligent Design" sure did. In keeping with standard practice since at least 1979, the right doesn't have to face any difficult questions, either about tricky ethical issues or its own lapses and omissions. Pharmacists refusing to fill birth-control prescriptions? That's a matter for the states, apparently. "Opposition" here means "speculating about what Democrats are going to do."
My own advice is free, as usual. Democrats should find a plain-spoken champion for the idea of the rule of law, for the responsibility to govern as opposed to the authority to grandstand. You can't fight a war of soundbites, particularly when the field isn't level to begin with. With Republican majorities everywhere you turn, when do they begin to offer solutions instead of demagogy?
Monday Monday
Busy weekend. Back to the screen late Sunday, check in with the usual suspects, and everybody's got the Sun Hudson story, and the Spiro Nikolouzos story, beginning with Mark Kleiman. Everybody but me, and the teevee news, and the people who rely on it to keep them informed.
Saturday, March 19
...And An Old Man's Fancy Turns To Thoughts Of Patio Furniture Maintenance
Two days of sun, Thursday and Friday, and I had the time to get out into the garden. Always reminds me of the far-off days of USENET, when a friend of mine from one of the boards emailed me one mid-January. "I was cutting flowers this morning. What are *you* doing?" "I'm dreaming of next year's garden. Wanna trade? I don't."
I lived for awhile in one of those places where the weather is always "nice". I'm not too partial to "nice", and certainly not as a steady diet. Give me a hike in an all-day downpour, falling in the mud going upslope. Gimme a trek up Pearl Ravine at Shades State Park, up the long narrow rivulet of freezing water slipping over rounded stones, with ice hanging from every tree. There'll be fun enough to be had when the sun's beating down in June. When everybody's forgotten all about winter, and started complaining about the humidity.
I like cold weather. There's usually about three weeks too much of it around here for my tastes, but that's a blessing. It makes those first uncertain days of sun when it warms you like you're feeling it through a window just that much better. There are tiny spots of green throughout the herb bed, and the cats have found the suggestion of valerian under the mulch and gone nuts rolling on it. They don't care for it once it's big enough to spot across the bed. The old reliable catbird was off in the wilderness out back doing vocal gymnastics, and the maniac-on-the-loose calls of a yellow shafted flicker that's adopted the near-dead red maple in the front yard are really its love song. Got my fingers crossed that it'll nest there this year. It's been a banner year for crocuses; stayed cold enough that some are a month old by now. And the familiar garden dramas--the wrestling match between the early rising, peripatetic blue rye and the groggy but muscular fountain grass which sleep side by side, or the barrenwort vs. deadnettle battle of the groundcovers under the big elm--all come back to you after you'd forgotten them with the snow.
I don't pity you folks who can go to the beach everyday. I just wonder if you know what you're missing.
I lived for awhile in one of those places where the weather is always "nice". I'm not too partial to "nice", and certainly not as a steady diet. Give me a hike in an all-day downpour, falling in the mud going upslope. Gimme a trek up Pearl Ravine at Shades State Park, up the long narrow rivulet of freezing water slipping over rounded stones, with ice hanging from every tree. There'll be fun enough to be had when the sun's beating down in June. When everybody's forgotten all about winter, and started complaining about the humidity.
I like cold weather. There's usually about three weeks too much of it around here for my tastes, but that's a blessing. It makes those first uncertain days of sun when it warms you like you're feeling it through a window just that much better. There are tiny spots of green throughout the herb bed, and the cats have found the suggestion of valerian under the mulch and gone nuts rolling on it. They don't care for it once it's big enough to spot across the bed. The old reliable catbird was off in the wilderness out back doing vocal gymnastics, and the maniac-on-the-loose calls of a yellow shafted flicker that's adopted the near-dead red maple in the front yard are really its love song. Got my fingers crossed that it'll nest there this year. It's been a banner year for crocuses; stayed cold enough that some are a month old by now. And the familiar garden dramas--the wrestling match between the early rising, peripatetic blue rye and the groggy but muscular fountain grass which sleep side by side, or the barrenwort vs. deadnettle battle of the groundcovers under the big elm--all come back to you after you'd forgotten them with the snow.
I don't pity you folks who can go to the beach everyday. I just wonder if you know what you're missing.
Friday, March 18
Friday Guitar Blogging
Ilsa takes advantage of the spring-like weather to sun herself on the potting bench. She's a 47-year-old Hoyer acoustic archtop, European maple, dovetailed violin neck construction, weird 50s Tune-O-Matic™ bridge. All original except for tuners. Little finish damage on the edge near the bottom strap button, but otherwise in fine form for her age and a great player. Original Selmer tweed case with burnt orange velvet lining. A one-owner baby I got from a guy in Australia. I think she'd spent a lot of time under the bed.
Also pictured: cat.
Doghouse Riley uses Thomastik-Infeld "George Benson" strings, for which he gets absolutely bupkes.
Caveat Emptor
The discussion at Rox Populi from which I appropriated ellroon's comment involved Michelle of A Small Victory. In fact somehow it focused on her for awhile, as she became what über commenter Chris Clarke called a synedoche for the thread.
Michelle has both a lively style and a lively blog, and by the time I'd seen the link to her reply there were far to many comments to attempt any meaningful discussion.
Roxanne was writing about Bush voters with "Buyers Remorse". My own comment, posted before Michelle entered the picture, was to the effect that there'd be no welcome mat on my door; that people who now found themselves with a different administration than the one they thought they were getting could have a decent interval to think about why they'd gone wrong and why. Here's Michelle, on her own blog:
I've also left similar sentiments in comments on various blogs and, for the most part, they were met with a flurry of clenched fists and righteous indignation, with calls for me to go out and start protesting (or something like that) to prove my regret.
Well...no. It's not like that. First of all, I am not sitting here admitting to the world (ok, just the minuscule part of the world who reads this) that I regret my vote so I can, oh, get a pat on the head or a clap on the back or a wide-armed welcome back to the fold. I'm not going back to any fold and I don't seek anyone's approval.
As I said later, I didn't see any fist clenching, not by blog discussion standards, anyway, and what there was was more aimed at Rox's general point than Michelle specifically. I'd never considered this a discussion about welcoming people into any "fold". The question is if we can find some place to have a decent, civilized discussion. Like the Paris Peace Conference, we're going to spend a long time arguing about the shape of the table, folks. It's a chasm, not a crack in the asphalt. Michelle again:
There are others out there like me. I talk to them at work. I talk to them in the parking lot of schools, waiting for our kids. I talk to them in email or instant message, people from across the country who feel that twinge of regret. What we all have in common is this: we feel used. We feel taken advantage of. We feel manipulated.
I mean to be concilliatory. I've lived in a "Red State" all my life. I know Republican voters beyond the silly stereotypes of our chattering class. It's impossible to accept that a Republican in 2005 had no understanding of the power of the religious right, no inkling that the party favored big corporations over average Americans, no awareness that Republicans were every bit the Big Spenders and Nanny Staters they claim Democrats are, merely with different alignment. The Republican party has never been anything else. The cognative dissonace and the political cacophony that covered this over has got to be addressed. Michelle:
There are people who have seen this “confession” from me already who assume this means I think George W. Bush is an evil person, that I’ve finally joined the BusHitler crowd. No. Hardly. I don’t hate George Bush, much as I don’t hate John Kerry. I just don’t think that either of them is what America needs.
With all due respect, I can't accept the sentiment. I don't think there's any sense on the right of what sort of President John Kerry would have been; there's simply an ongoing meme that dates to Carter. The "BusHitler" business is just the product of a party which has been talking to itself for twenty-five years, and a media which has facilitated, where it did not promote, the the right's defining every argument on every political issue we face. Those chickens are back home to roost. We do not have a disaster in Iraq, and zero international credibility, because you backed the wrong horse, or because you weren't offered a suitable alternative. We have a disaster because of the hubris displayed when you bash those cardboard cartoon Democrats. We have a disaster because we do not have a fair and honest hearing of the issue for a free an informed electorate. We have, instead, these bumper-sticker caricatures that cut off all debate on any issue, including the invasion of a country that posed no immediate threat to us or anybody else. Until and unless people recognize that failure, until they can acknowledge what is simple, hard truth, that there are legitimate points of view on the left side of the spectrum, and engage those views, there can't be any port for drifting Republicans in the Democratic party. If you don't want one, fine. But at least stop and think about which party has shut off all options and pulled up all the lifeboats.
Michelle has both a lively style and a lively blog, and by the time I'd seen the link to her reply there were far to many comments to attempt any meaningful discussion.
Roxanne was writing about Bush voters with "Buyers Remorse". My own comment, posted before Michelle entered the picture, was to the effect that there'd be no welcome mat on my door; that people who now found themselves with a different administration than the one they thought they were getting could have a decent interval to think about why they'd gone wrong and why. Here's Michelle, on her own blog:
I've also left similar sentiments in comments on various blogs and, for the most part, they were met with a flurry of clenched fists and righteous indignation, with calls for me to go out and start protesting (or something like that) to prove my regret.
Well...no. It's not like that. First of all, I am not sitting here admitting to the world (ok, just the minuscule part of the world who reads this) that I regret my vote so I can, oh, get a pat on the head or a clap on the back or a wide-armed welcome back to the fold. I'm not going back to any fold and I don't seek anyone's approval.
As I said later, I didn't see any fist clenching, not by blog discussion standards, anyway, and what there was was more aimed at Rox's general point than Michelle specifically. I'd never considered this a discussion about welcoming people into any "fold". The question is if we can find some place to have a decent, civilized discussion. Like the Paris Peace Conference, we're going to spend a long time arguing about the shape of the table, folks. It's a chasm, not a crack in the asphalt. Michelle again:
There are others out there like me. I talk to them at work. I talk to them in the parking lot of schools, waiting for our kids. I talk to them in email or instant message, people from across the country who feel that twinge of regret. What we all have in common is this: we feel used. We feel taken advantage of. We feel manipulated.
I mean to be concilliatory. I've lived in a "Red State" all my life. I know Republican voters beyond the silly stereotypes of our chattering class. It's impossible to accept that a Republican in 2005 had no understanding of the power of the religious right, no inkling that the party favored big corporations over average Americans, no awareness that Republicans were every bit the Big Spenders and Nanny Staters they claim Democrats are, merely with different alignment. The Republican party has never been anything else. The cognative dissonace and the political cacophony that covered this over has got to be addressed. Michelle:
There are people who have seen this “confession” from me already who assume this means I think George W. Bush is an evil person, that I’ve finally joined the BusHitler crowd. No. Hardly. I don’t hate George Bush, much as I don’t hate John Kerry. I just don’t think that either of them is what America needs.
With all due respect, I can't accept the sentiment. I don't think there's any sense on the right of what sort of President John Kerry would have been; there's simply an ongoing meme that dates to Carter. The "BusHitler" business is just the product of a party which has been talking to itself for twenty-five years, and a media which has facilitated, where it did not promote, the the right's defining every argument on every political issue we face. Those chickens are back home to roost. We do not have a disaster in Iraq, and zero international credibility, because you backed the wrong horse, or because you weren't offered a suitable alternative. We have a disaster because of the hubris displayed when you bash those cardboard cartoon Democrats. We have a disaster because we do not have a fair and honest hearing of the issue for a free an informed electorate. We have, instead, these bumper-sticker caricatures that cut off all debate on any issue, including the invasion of a country that posed no immediate threat to us or anybody else. Until and unless people recognize that failure, until they can acknowledge what is simple, hard truth, that there are legitimate points of view on the left side of the spectrum, and engage those views, there can't be any port for drifting Republicans in the Democratic party. If you don't want one, fine. But at least stop and think about which party has shut off all options and pulled up all the lifeboats.
Thursday, March 17
Back Home Again
As you may have heard, Planned Parenthood is suing the State of Indiana over Attorney General Steve Carter's attempt to seize records from forty clinics across the state via his Medicaid fraud division. Feministe has much detail and an attendant story on the usual anti-abortion monkeyshines in the World's Third Worst State Legislature™ (Motto: "Step On It. Mac, Kansas Is Gaining On Us").
Carter's request reportedly does not include abortion records; he's looking for evidence of sexual abuse and whether Planned Parenthood has reported cases of possible molestation. Or so his spokeswoman said; Planned Parenthood, which earlier turned over eight records his office requested, says it doesn't know what he wants the 73 additional records for, and says it reports possible abuse cases as required by law.
The shitstorm started Monday, when the suit was filed. Carter is junketing in D.C. When local teevee caught up with him he said he needed to get back to the state so he could "be brought up to speed." Staci Schneider, the spokeswoman, mumbled something I didn't quite catch about "specific allegations". If so, that's at least an elaboration of her earlier comments. To my knowledge, no one's asked her whether it's the AG's policy to sit on allegations of sexual abuse of 12 and 13 year old girls until they have a large enough batch to justify paying attention to.
But I can tell you a bit about Steve Carter. He was reelected last fall running as The Scourge of Consumer Fraud. He's responsible for Indiana's wildly popular anti-telemarketing Do Not Call List. I voted for the guy, in no small part because his Dem challenger ran hideously racist "street crime" ads.
There was already a storm cloud on the horizon. Carter had inserted himself in a It-Would-Be-Comical-If-It-Weren't-So-Chilling land grab scheme in Indianapolis' wealthy Republican bedroom county of Hamilton. The controversy involved Earlham College and a living history museum called Connor Prairie the college operated under a trust from the late Eli Lilly. In June 2003 Earlham fired 28 board members, local movers and shakers like Board Chairman Berkley W. Duck III. The Indianapolis Star beat the drum for an investigation of this outrage, and Carter stepped in and demanded Earlham open its records on the trust.
I can't comment on the legal questions, though some experts seem to think that Carter was on shaky ground. It revolved around the question of whether the $150M trust belonged to Earlham or was specifically designated for the museum. Instead, let's take a brief treetop-level flight over the ground. It's the fastest-growing and wealthiest county in the state. Carter got more agressive about it after the election, and Earlham eventually agreed to his proposed settlement. As a result, 300 acres of land that used to belong to the museum will be turned over to a condominium developer.
Well, we're all glad that's settled. But Carter's still got a dilemma, even if lining up potential campaign contributors is not going to be a problem. He's a second-termer in a Republican state with a first-term governor. The safe Republican House seats are taken. Dick Lugar is Senator-for-Life, and Evan Bayh probably is too, unless he manages to become President. Am I saying this ham-fisted mission is some sort of political ploy? Heavens, we don't engage in wild speculation in these parts. Mr. Carter's fishing plans are his own business.
Carter's request reportedly does not include abortion records; he's looking for evidence of sexual abuse and whether Planned Parenthood has reported cases of possible molestation. Or so his spokeswoman said; Planned Parenthood, which earlier turned over eight records his office requested, says it doesn't know what he wants the 73 additional records for, and says it reports possible abuse cases as required by law.
The shitstorm started Monday, when the suit was filed. Carter is junketing in D.C. When local teevee caught up with him he said he needed to get back to the state so he could "be brought up to speed." Staci Schneider, the spokeswoman, mumbled something I didn't quite catch about "specific allegations". If so, that's at least an elaboration of her earlier comments. To my knowledge, no one's asked her whether it's the AG's policy to sit on allegations of sexual abuse of 12 and 13 year old girls until they have a large enough batch to justify paying attention to.
But I can tell you a bit about Steve Carter. He was reelected last fall running as The Scourge of Consumer Fraud. He's responsible for Indiana's wildly popular anti-telemarketing Do Not Call List. I voted for the guy, in no small part because his Dem challenger ran hideously racist "street crime" ads.
There was already a storm cloud on the horizon. Carter had inserted himself in a It-Would-Be-Comical-If-It-Weren't-So-Chilling land grab scheme in Indianapolis' wealthy Republican bedroom county of Hamilton. The controversy involved Earlham College and a living history museum called Connor Prairie the college operated under a trust from the late Eli Lilly. In June 2003 Earlham fired 28 board members, local movers and shakers like Board Chairman Berkley W. Duck III. The Indianapolis Star beat the drum for an investigation of this outrage, and Carter stepped in and demanded Earlham open its records on the trust.
I can't comment on the legal questions, though some experts seem to think that Carter was on shaky ground. It revolved around the question of whether the $150M trust belonged to Earlham or was specifically designated for the museum. Instead, let's take a brief treetop-level flight over the ground. It's the fastest-growing and wealthiest county in the state. Carter got more agressive about it after the election, and Earlham eventually agreed to his proposed settlement. As a result, 300 acres of land that used to belong to the museum will be turned over to a condominium developer.
Well, we're all glad that's settled. But Carter's still got a dilemma, even if lining up potential campaign contributors is not going to be a problem. He's a second-termer in a Republican state with a first-term governor. The safe Republican House seats are taken. Dick Lugar is Senator-for-Life, and Evan Bayh probably is too, unless he manages to become President. Am I saying this ham-fisted mission is some sort of political ploy? Heavens, we don't engage in wild speculation in these parts. Mr. Carter's fishing plans are his own business.
Oh, That Crispus Attucks? Well, That's Different.
I wrote earlier this month about the 50th Anniversary of the Indiana state basketball championship won by Crispus Attucks High School, the first segregated black school to win a state championship anywhere in the country. Their win followed the storied victory of Milan High, as told to America in Hoosiers.
Last year the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame inducted the Milan team. It was the first time a team had been given the honor.
Wait a minute, you're getting ahead of me.
Yep. No such plans this year, until today, after local teevee news got wind of the story and aimed the kleig lights at another dark corner in the state's history. No reports on what they found scurrying around, but plans have changed rather abruptly and there'll be an induction dinner March 23. That's four days after the anniversary, but you know how hard it is to book a caterer on short notice.
Last year the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame inducted the Milan team. It was the first time a team had been given the honor.
Wait a minute, you're getting ahead of me.
Yep. No such plans this year, until today, after local teevee news got wind of the story and aimed the kleig lights at another dark corner in the state's history. No reports on what they found scurrying around, but plans have changed rather abruptly and there'll be an induction dinner March 23. That's four days after the anniversary, but you know how hard it is to book a caterer on short notice.
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