Dana Blankenhorn

Thinking of Chengdu

As you may recall, our plans have been to visit Chengdu, Sichuan China starting next Thursday, May 22 through June 4.

I'd say the chances of that happening are now 20%. There's no official word from the tour sponsor, Ms. Ning of the North Atlanta High Chinese Department (who lives in Chengdu and whom we're trying to accompany home) but right now I just don't see it.

NPR got "lucky," in that their anchors were in Chengdu doing pre-Olympic prep when the earthquake hit. Their reports have been nothing short of heart-breaking. I try to imagine how I might feel if the quake had waited, say, 10 days, and I were, say, at the Airport (above) when this happened.

The Airport is quite far from the epicenter, according to Google Earth. The city is situated much like Denver, on a plain with the front ridge of the Himalayas running at a southwest-northeast angle, 60 miles away at the nearest point. It's along this ridge that the quakes occurred, the giant 7.9 quake coming around 1:20 PM local time, when everyone was at work or school, and a long series of aftershocks continuing to this moment, most in the 5-6 range. (Note that the Richter scale is logarithmic -- the first shock was 100 times more powerful than most aftershocks.)

My Burma Sorrow

I am sorry about the Burma hurricane. I am sad that its leaders are so paranoid as to refuse aid from the world. I am saddened that so little aid is getting into the affected region and that people are dieing needlessly.

But still...

When I read complaints from our government about the failure to allow aid it's like someone rubbing a balloon before popping it and laughing in my face.

Is it that way to you?

This morning on TV Cindy McCain was complaining bitterly of the Burmese peoples' plight. I have no doubt she felt sincere. But I kept switching back to that picture of her husband, the day Katrina hit New Orleans, standing with our leader, and a birthday cake.

Crocodile tears.

When I see Secretary of State Rice demanding that Burma allow aid in, all I can think of is what she was doing when Katrina hit New Orleans. Shopping for shoes.

When I read about U.S. diplomats bemoaning the destruction of Burmese rice fields, I think about how all they cared about after Katrina was getting the casinos back into operation, and how we're now benefiting from higher rice prices.

Closing the Deal

I'm sort of accustomed to being ignored. But since I often end up being right, I just shrug my shoulders and move on.

I'm a bit like the lady to the right in that. As has been noted before, she passed away at the same age I am right now, at 53. And she didn't live one day for how other people saw her. She charted her own path. She was a role model.

So now, despite my distinct lack of qualifications or notoreity, I'm going to explain to Barack Obama just how he closes this nomination deal.

Yo Mama.

Had Stanley Ann Dunham not been felled by ovarian cancer in 1995, she would be turning 66 this year. She would be right in Hillary Clinton's wheelhouse.

So use that. Speak from the heart of how she might feel. This is the time in campaigns where we start getting the full autobiography anyway. This question has to be addressed.

Start by stating the obvious.

The Road to Chengdu

The tickets are paid for. The visa application is in the mail. It seems likely that my son John and I will be heading to Chengdu, Sichuan, China on May 22, taking his exchange teacher home.  (Not this way, of course.)

A decade ago, I would have gone with great optimism, a representative of American values. Now? Well, consider these two stories, and where in the world they occurred:

• Hundreds of people quietly protest a new refinery, expecting to be heard.
• Regime opponents are subject to political prosecutions, to having their homes torched, while elections are stolen and public opinion is ignored.

The first story is from Chengdu. The second is from Alabama. As others have noted, the Bush war against democracy continues apace, and even seems to be accelerating.

I think it's time for us to get off our ideological high horses and start talking first principles, not just the what but the why.

Making It About Us Again

Why are people so disgusted with the present political campaign?

It's not about us. (Picture by Fred Askew from MonthlyReview.)

Candidates give lip service to this being about us, but it seems to be more about the media and the pundits and their own obsessions than about us.

Campaigns generally get into the weeds like this when the discussion about us becomes uncomfortable to the elites in power. It's not policy choices which make the elites uncomfortable. It's the idea of someone other than the elites making those choices which makes them uncomfortable.

I'm not talking here of idiots and know-nothings making decisions based on their own prejudices. I'm talking about candidates and parties addressing our real crisis, not just pandering to our short-term problems but inspiring us with a different future.

What's happening, to both young and old, is we fear losing control of our future. We don't know where our next job is. We don't know if America can ever lead again. We don't know how we'll pay our bills or educate our children. We fear we've lost control, personally, politically, economically. We're scared.

Why the Press Hates America

There are several good reasons why the TV media wants to use Jeremiah Wright to push Barack Obama to the sidelines:

1. This decade has been very-very-good for Big Media. Monopolization means you don't have to work hard for profits. Disney, GE, Time-Warner, Microsoft and Fox have gotten everything they could have wanted (and more) from this Administration.
2. The Internet threatens to destroy Big Media's ability to create campaign narratives, which lie at the heart of its political power. You spend your life working toward the height of power, you're going to resent another medium trying to take that power from you.
3. The myths, values and assumptions of 40 years are deeply ingrained in New York and Washington. Power isn't going to give up easily. It has to be seized.
4. After decades of basing power on Nixon's McCarthyism, using 30-second soundbites, TV can't conceive of people sitting through a long speech and getting information on their own.

It is telling that Obama is having problems right now with under-educated, older women, people who are unlikely to use the Internet. They're the people most easily manipulated by Big Media. That's the greatest threat the Internet Thesis has right now.

When a comedian is the best reporter in the room there is something wrong with the room. It's not just Jon Stewart's interviews. His bit about the rice shortage last week was classic, getting the message of American arrogance through our resistance.

Not everyone is helping, however, which says something very interesting about this medium.

The American Disease

I have no scientific proof of this, but I have long believed ADHD to be the American Disease.

Up to 5% of Americans are diagnosed with ADHD. I'm one of them. I'm creative, I'm quick, I tend to being a polymath. I also have trouble finishing anything longer than a blog post, I'm quick to anger, and I have enormous trouble concentrating on anything I'm told I have to concentrate on (as opposed to what I want to concentrate on). I am very difficult to compel.

In other words, I am both hyper-focused and distractable, I can be charming but I'm prone to depression. These are symptoms typical of what I call "male" ADHD, the kind you hear about and read about most often. I have likened it, most popularly, to having Robin Williams in my head. (This also brings a tendency to self-medicate. Robin's had two stints in rehab.)

There is another kind of ADHD, which may be dramatically under-diagnosed. I learned about it from my daughter. I call it "female" ADHD. In this version you become Robin's audience. You're lost in your own world, and breaking out into the real world can be a struggle. This often comes with learning disabilities -- dyslexia in my daughter's case.

So why do I call this the American disease? Partly because very few Europeans have it. To many Europeans this proves Americans are making the whole thing up. But think about it. If you were living in, say Germany or Italy 100 years ago, or in Ireland or Scotland 200 years ago, or in England 300 years ago, and you had ADHD, what's the first thing you'd think of doing?

Right, getting the heck out of there. Going to America.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

ADHD is like this sometimes.

Just when you think you have a handle on everything, that things are moving forward, the call comes and you're thrown back into it.

A science teacher this time. John argued about the answer to a question. It got personal. He got mad. He raised his voice. He ignored signals to calm down, to leave the room. The other kids were scared, and didn't know what he was going to do.

All the kind words and promises in the world won't do a lot of good at times like this. Talking to the teacher I feel like I'm talking someone down off a ledge, all the while feeling like I want to crawl out there with them.

It doesn't help to realize that this is happening less-and-less. It doesn't help much to realize that, when John came home that day, he was filled with remorse, angry at himself. He didn't want to hear my words. He had heard them too often. They were playing in his head all day.

Yet in some ways these are the best of times. We got a letter last week inviting John to apply to Yale. I have on my desk an invitation from five top schools, including Harvard and Penn, for him to attend a seminar on going to one of them. It's like being the parent of a top basketball prospect with iffy friends. He might become a star or he might fall down completely.

Another type of spam victim

Every spam which goes out has millions of victims. (I hope those lovely people at Hormel, makers of this fine canned pork-and-ham product so beloved in Hawaii and Alaska, accept my apology for the picture or, if they wish to complain, do so to John Cleese.)

When sending out millions of spams to e-mail boxes, the spammer hopes this will become thousands of larger victims, those who respond positively to the spam. By including viruses and other malware in the spam, this "success rate" increases, as many people are infected just by downloading the spam. (I learned this after installing a new anti-viral which checks mail as it hits Mailwasher.)

But there's another type of victim, as anyone (like me) who has had the same e-mail address for some time (or worse, their own domain) will attest .

That's the from: victim.

Not Good Enough

The apology of Pope Benedict XVI for the Church's sex abuse scandal is not good enough.

Not by a long shot.

His words remind me of what a child says when he or she is caught taking the toy of another child. The personal shame and repentance may be real. But is anything really changing?

In this case it's clear nothing is changing. This is certain because we haven't heard of the Church doing anything in the other countries where it works. The Church is acting like this is some sort of American aberration, when the only aberrant thing about it is priests here were caught, and the Church as a whole was held to account.

"It wasn't just sexual abuse, it was spiritual abuse," one victim told CNN, but he wasn't the only one spiritually abused. His whole family was, and his whole congregation was.

There are few crimes in this world whose impact can compare with that of child sexual abuse. It happens every day -- in every denomination and creed -- and it destroys everyone it touches.

This isn't a gay crime. It's a crime of power.

When done against a child by a person who claims authority from God, it's even worse. The chance of the victim opening up to anyone, and seeking a cure for the hurt and anger inside them, drops to near zero. And the resulting scars last a lifetime.

The Manipulators

We don't like being talked down to.

(This is actually a marketing talk, by Seth Godin, done at Google, but it's worth listening to whatever business you're in. Notice that he's not talking down to anyone.)

The reason the Obama "bitter" deal hasn't hurt him is the same reason the "Jeremiah Wright" deal didn't hurt him.

This election is not about him.

What all the manipulators who are pissing-and-moaning about it, whether on the TeeVee or online, don't realize is something just as important.

This election is not about them, either.

This election is about us. You and me.

Crisis elections are like that.

Anyone want to deny we're in a crisis (other than the manipulators)?

A Father's Worst Fear

Once you have a child your own death is no longer the worst fear you can imagine.

Every parent knows this. Risk and loss are the price we pay for love. The price is highest when it comes to our kids.

Yet people pay it every day. Babies die, and older children get cancer. Teenagers lose their lives in car accidents, black teenagers more often in a hail of bullets. Athletes get sudden heart attacks. Then we give these most precious gifts to the nation, and risk their loss in war.

We can't protect them, although we try. We fret over them instead, natter at them, worry aloud until they send us an exasperated "Mu-therrrrr" or "Daaaaad" to shut us down, because they have that first fear, their own deaths an unimaginable horror.

Not Die in Vain

A New York Times article involving my friend Russell Shaw came out today, and it was just about as bad as expected.

I don't blame the writer, Matt Richtel, with whom I shared a very pleasant conversation. Neither does my editor, Larry Dignan. We both understand that editors tend to cut away anything which doesn't flow directly from a story's main point.

The story, as written, is designed as an indictment against web reporting and blogging, but ironically it stands as its opposite. By ignoring the other side in the interests of space, the Times' editors demonstrated precisely what's wrong with the paper medium, and the broadcast medium. A lack of space.

The fact is, as I told Matt, Russell Shaw did not die in vain. He did not die from overwork. He died in love. Ellen Green was his fiance, but in many ways she was his mistress. Journalism was his wife, and he was always true to journalism. He died in journalism's arms, like a soldier falling in battle or a politician in his mistress' bed. He died much as David Halberstam did. To a journalist, the difference between a car wreck on the way to an interview and a heart attack while waiting for one is the same tragedy -- you missed the interview.

The point is not that Russell overworked himself blogging. He overworked himself doing what he loved to do. He was a freelance, like me. He best moments were, as Rabbi Stone noted in his eulogy, when he could put a -30- on the end of a story.  That feeling of accomplishment, the knowledge you've done your best and sent something worthwhile to readers is like a hit of cocaine to a journalist. It's what we live for. It's why we usually don't write novels until we retire.

Dust

Think of this as Volume 11, Number 14 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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On sunny Sunday mornings, while the rest of Atlanta is in bed, at church, or huddling over brunch, I ride my bike downtown and visit Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (right).

It's quiet then. Just a few Japanese tourists wander by. If it's sunny, if I've been riding a few hours, I will sit by the reflecting pool and talk to him.

I don't expect him to talk back. He's dust. His tomb is a symbol for the life he lived, and the work he did. I was pleased when I snapped this picture, because it shows his wife Coretta is now with him. She lived nearly as long without him as he'd spent time on this Earth (38 years against 39) but they're together now in heaven, and in memory.

Fighting the War Against Oil at Home

How can you fight the War Against Oil today?

Here on Winter Avenue, we're doing our bit.

First, let's take a look at the field of battle. We live in an old "Craftsman" style bungalow, built in 1921 by guys with hand saws. It's one story, three bedrooms and one bath, about 1,650 square feet in all. The home was originally heated by coal, then by gas space heaters, before a central system was installed in the mid-1960s. We replaced it in 1990, added air conditioning 8 years later.

Three years ago, in 2005, we added a layer of cellulose insulation to the attic, where it's now R-30. We also had all our old knob-and-post wiring replaced by real insulated copper.

Still, with the rising price of oil and gas we're suffering. Our natural gas bills have been running at $200-250/month during the winter, and our electric bills the same in the summer.

What to do?

Joy of Russell

If you could be truly happy for one year, even if it cost you the rest of your life, would you take the deal?

We buried Russell Shaw in Ft. Lauderdale Sunday, in a crypt at the Star of David Cemetery. It was a tragic day until his fiancee, Ellen Green, showed me some pictures she had taken of them last summer and fall.  (In this picture, Ellen is at the center and Russell's mom is on the right.) 

That tight line of the mouth you remember from my own tribute was gone. In its place was the most amazing, beatific grin. The clouds which seemed to surround him like his beloved Oregon sky were parted, replaced by a look of peace and content.

That's the Russell his family wants you to think about, and they've set up a special memorial page where you may add your own thoughts. They hope that, through his writing and links and connections to the cyberworld, he might be remembered, kindly, as more than magnetic ink, as a man in full. Cry for yourself, not for him. He finally found what he was looking for.

What Lasts

Think of this as Volume 11, Number 12 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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The death of my friend Russell Shaw was one of those events which happens to everyone, the kind of event which forces you to re-assess your own life and path.

Sudden death can come to any of us, at any time, in any way. As we age, heart attacks become quite popular.

I still remember my trip to Japan, almost 20 years ago now, for the Electronic Networking Association. We were given a banquet in Sendai, copious amounts of sake, which caused me to pass out. When I awoke I learned that one of our party had stayed with the festivities, agreeing to join his hosts for a Japanese-style bath, many degrees hotter than an American hot tub. And there, his heart stopped. He was pretty old, I thought later, 53.

I'm 53 now. And Russell was 60.

Night of the Concern Troll

You can fool all of the people some of the time.

That's one-third of a famous quote, from Abraham Lincoln. Cynics depend on that to maintain power. After all, in a democracy you only have to fool most of the people once in a while, at the time of an election, to rule.

At a transformative time -- and this is such a time -- that trick doesn't work. But it does work most of the time, which is why concern trolls continue to trot it out. Even now.

"I'm not a racist. I'm an adult. But most people aren't," they'll say. "Most people are easily manipulated. They're fools. Want proof? They listen to me."

Want further proof? Just look at the polls.

In the face of such "overwhelming evidence" it is easy for idealists to get discouraged. The worst thing that can happen, however, is that you accept the trolls' premise. I'm an adult, you're an adult, but those people over there are children, easily led, just looking to follow.

That way lies madness.

That is the cold cynicism at the heart of the Nixon Thesis of Conflict. It has a long history in our culture. It was central to H.L. Mencken's derision of middle class voters as the "booboisie."

Now I think Mencken was one of our greatest writers, but his own politics were fascist. His sensibility, the idea that there is a "better" class of person and that the majority is a mob, sounds great in the salon, but if you really believe that blatherskite you should turn in your American citizenship.

Each new Thesis rises based on reaction to what came before. The cynicism of the Nixon Era, whose sunset we now see before us, was a reaction to the idealism, the Capra-corn if you will, of the Roosevelt Era. Which itself was a reaction against Menckenism.

Sudden Death

I suffered some panic attacks recently, and I  now know why.

Russell Shaw (right), my friend of many years, died suddenly on Friday. He was 60.

Sudden death is a shock to loved ones at any age.

For the young it most often comes from a bullet or a car crash. A few athletes die suddenly from undiagnosed heart conditions, and these cause the most shock of all because it's not supposed to happen that way.

The Magic Word for 2008

Think of this as Volume 11, Number 10 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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Production.

Say the magic word and the debate, as well as the choices, of 2008 come into sharp focus.

The only way to get out of our current economic problems is through production of new goods. The only way to launch the War Against Oil is through production of new types of energy.

The two points are directly related. The key to production at a profit lies in reducing the energy costs of production. And the energy costs of distribution.

Speaking of which, a focus on production is how you address questions regarding the Internet. Our Internet infrastructure is in sorry shape. It needs a serious upgrade. These are the canals or roads of our time, and we need to treat Internet access just as seriously as our forefathers did those routes to market.

Production also puts many issues into sharp focus because of how the two parties have proposed to boost it.

Republicans want tax cuts. They want "incentives" for companies to boost production of oil and gas, of coal, and of Internet capacity. These have been at the heart of their economic program for years.

Democrats want competition. A Democratic program for production would focus on increasing the amount of competition in all markets.

A floor price for energy would be a good start. Lock in the current gains, tax away oil and gas whose price comes in under the floor (it won't once the floor is in place) and you provide plenty of incentives for both the production of new energy and increasing the efficiency of industrial production.

Competition is also the answer to our Internet problems. Demand that current networks, both wired and wireless, open up to new competition, as was done in the 1990s. Problem solved, thanks to Moore's Law, because it is only by violating Moore's Law and squeezing more money out of the same services that the current duopolists have stayed afloat.

Production is the answer to not only our labor problems, but (in part) to our crime problems. Production creates lots of relatively low-skill jobs. High demand for low-skill jobs will increase wages for those jobs, and create incentives for producers to take a chance on the 1% of us now behind bars. If you enable people with minimum education the chance to earn a fair living your crime problem goes down.  Create enough jobs and we can even hire Mexicans, in Mexico.  So much for immigration problems.

Production is an economic policy, it's environmental policy, it's energy policy, it's trade policy. By creating new ways to make things, which are more energy efficient, we create exports, both in the goods themselves and the machines used to create the efficiency.

Race

Northern racism is different from southern racism.

Northern racism is economic in origin. Southern racism is cultural in origin.

Not that this matters to the victim. Racism is racism.

I grew up in Massapequa, on Long Island. Many of my neighbors were refugees from what would become  Geraldine Ferraro's Congressional district.

In my day Massapequa was all-white. I never thought about this until I met a new friend in junior high school.

Too Casual About It

Tinfoil hat time!

I first got this feeling last week, with Bush's dance before his endorsement of John McCain. It was like he didn't care what anyone thought, like democracy (small d) was meaningless. (Picture from Sushimoo.)

Is anyone else out there worried that the Bush Administration is acting a little too casual and flip about its continuing efforts to undermine the Constitution?

To the complete disregarding of Congress' oversight and its treaty-making role, we now have the sudden resignation of Adm. William Fallon, who was thought to be among the few voices in the military trying to tamp-down talk of an attack on Iran.

Every week or so, it seems, I read new blog posts about buying "taser cannon" to control demonstrators, about the growing politicization of our military, even a deliberate refusal to abide by Supreme Court rulings which go against them.

It sometimes seems as if the Bush people aren't even trying anymore to hide their disgust with the popular will.

It's true that this may just be total incompetence, and it's also true that such dark thoughts as these are one mark of a generational crisis. Anyone who remembers the late 1960s remembers fearing for democracy, as their fathers feared for it in the early 1930s, and their fathers feared for it in the 1890s, and their fathers feared for it in the 1850s.

Fear for democracy's fate is a necessary precondition for major democratic change.

But still...

The Manchurian Presidency

The Manchurian Candidate is about a Communist plot to install a dupe, played by James Gregory (left in the photo at right), as President. He claims to be fiercely anti-communist, but he's really controlled by the communists through his wife, played by Angela Lansbury. (Sorry if I spoiled it. Watch it for Frank Sinatra next time -- one of his best roles.)

Ever since the movie returned to vogue politicians have been warning that their opponents are secretly working for the other side. The claim is made this cycle about Barack Obama. That is, Barack Hussein Obama.

Of course, this deliberately misses the plot. The James Gregory candidate is a perfect conservative, a neo-McCarthyite. In 2008 parlance, he's McCain.

But what if the Manchurian Candidate has already been elected? What if, in fact, he's been in office for over 7 years?

Becoming the Change

Here is a simple (sounding) way Barack Obama can win Pennsylvania, win the nomination, win the Presidency, do something powerfully good and illustrate his theme of Change. It's a follow up to my post of earlier today.

The opportunity is right in front of us, six weeks leading up to the Pennsylvania primary. And the mechanism is the old Dean Corps.

The Dean Corps was a clever idea concocted by Democracy for America, unfortunately just as the Dean campaign was folding in 2004. The ideawas that Dean supporters would volunteer to do work in communities that were about to hold primaries or caucuses -- like Iowa.

Now imagine what the Obama campaign, with its enormous database, its volunteer army, its energy, and its message could do in Pennsylvania over the next six weeks, based on that simple idea?

Imagine seeing white folks in inner-city Philadelphia helping reclaim a park, or black folks doing something similar in, say, Lancaster. Imagine helping people at senior centers, in those "white ethnic" neighborhoods Chris Matthews keeps yammering about.

All you need to do is collect a lot of projects, organize teams based in those communities, create sign-up lists, pick leaders who live nearby, and have the campaign provide snacks. If Clinton people show up, give them a shovel, a sandwich, a kind word -- draw them in. Same thing with McCain supporters. Same thing with the apathetic. It's politics as not-politics.

Only the Barack Obama campaign has the scaled Internet-based computing systems needed to organize this, to make this happen. This is how you capitalize on it.