I HAVE A DREAM AND BEEN TO THE MOUNTAIN TOP

I am writing this on the 50th anniversary of what has come to be called the "I Have A Dream" 11 min.  speech by Martin Luther King* on August 28th, 1963.  I presume that all of us have heard that the "I Have A Dream" part of the speech was ad libbed in response to Mahalia Jackson's plea for him to tell them about the dream, but perhaps few of us know that he had given that part of the speech earlier in Detroit at an event called "The Great March On Detroit" (June 23, 1963) estimated at 125,000 participants which may be what Jackson was referring to.**

Another speech that greatly affected me was his "Been To The Mountain Top" speech, his last, on April 3, 1968.***  This speech was 43 min. long and also had the cadences called "somewhere I have read."  He was assassinated the next day (April 4, 1968).  I presume there will be another big event for this speech in five years.

I don't know that I have heard the full context of either of these speeches, but, what I have heard, has had a powerful effect on me.  If you wish to hear either of these speeches, the YouTube reverences are given below.

I flew to Washington, D.C. on April 4th of 1968 to go to an American Geophysical Union meeting, and was to stay in the National Hotel (not the famous one and probably defunct now), a small low-cost hotel available at special rates to Civil Servants on per diem.  It was just a few blocks from the 14th street riots, and you could see the red sky from the hotel.  As I went into the hotel, I wondered if I had always been nice to the Black doorman.  I checked in and went to my room and to bed, thinking that I wouldn't wake up in the morning.  But I did wake up and was absolutely amazed that nothing had happened to the hotel.  There were National Guard soldiers posted all around, and you couldn't get a drink anywhere.  There was a rumor that you could get a drink at the Yenching Palace in Cleveland Park (no longer exists).  My memory (perhaps faulty) is that I walked there, but it would be a long way from downtown where the meetings were held.  However I got there, the rumors were correct.  This restaurant was famous for being the place where the Cuban Missile Crisis was negotiated.  Though the riots were said to last for 5 days, I don't remember worrying about them after April 5th.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRIF4_WzU1w
** http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_speech_at_the_great_march_on_detroit
*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I've_Been_to_the_Mountaintop; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oehry1JC9Rk; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixfwGLxRJU8 entire speech.

WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT

Maybe you have seen advertisements on TV asking for $19/mo donations to the Wounded Warrior Project. This charity gets a 3 star rating from Charity Navigator mainly because they have excellent transparency.  This organization devotes only 55.0% of its funds to program expenses.  Its 8% going to administrative expenses is pretty good, but 36.8% (!) of their funds go to fund raising (e.g. all those TV ads).  I have wondered if there might be better supporting charities for our veterans.

In contrast, Charity Navigator gives 4 stars to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America which gives 85.2% of it funds to program expenses, 8.1% to administrative expenses, and only 6.5% to fund raising expenses.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) is the first and largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for new veterans, with over 200,000 Member Veterans and supporters nationwide. IAVA is a 21st Century veterans' organization dedicated to standing with the 2.4 million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan from their first day home through the rest of their lives. Founded in 2004 by an Iraq veteran, our mission is to improve the lives of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families. IAVA strives to build an empowered generation of veterans who provide sustainable leadership for our country and their local communities. We work toward this vision through programs in four key impact areas: supporting new veterans in Health, Education, Employment and building a lasting Community for vets and their families (HEEC).

The Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund even has a somewhat higher 4 star rating and devotes 94% to program activities, only 3.9% to administrative expenses, and only 2.0% to fund raising.

The Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund provides financial aid and quality of life solutions to: marines and sailors as well as members of the Army, Air Force and Coast Guard who have served in support of Marine forces, when they become injured in post 9-11 combat or training, and their families; help defray the expenses incurred during hospitalization, rehabilitation and recovery; assist with the expenses associated with the purchase of specialized equipment, adaptive vehicles and home modifications; and educate the public about the special needs of our wounded service members and their families. Our mission, since May of 2004, has remained constant: to serve those who preserve our freedom.

MAY THE SAINT'S PRESERVE US!

I suppose you have all heard the results of a poll of Republicans in Louisiana about who caused the Katrina blunders, but in case you didn't:

The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, provided exclusively to TPM, showed an eye-popping divide among Republicans in the Bayou State when it comes to accountability for the government's post-Katrina blunders.

Twenty-eight percent said they think former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time, was more responsible for the poor federal response while 29 percent said Obama, who was still a freshman U.S. Senator when the storm battered the Gulf Coast in 2005, was more responsible. Nearly half of Louisiana Republicans — 44 percent — said they aren't sure who to blame. (http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/poll-louisiana-gopers-unsure-if-katrina-response-was)

It is hard to believe this poll is legit, but no one is contesting it so far as I know.  There is an old saying attributed to an Australian Mr. Gregory Wildie (date unknown) that "No one ever lost an election by underestimating the intelligence of the  electorate." (http://www.ronowengympie.com/time-wasters/the-first-defence-of-katters-cowboys/)  It is hard to believe that we have pretty much flourished for so long.  Consider:

Georgians believe in creationism over evolution, too, with 70 percent of Republicans for creationism, 17 percent for evolution and 13 percent unsure. For Democrats, it was 43 percent for creationism, 33 percent for evolution and 24 percent undecided.  

http://sandysprings.patch.com/groups/newscruncher/p/survey-70-percent-of-ga-republicans-believe-in-creationism

PRIVACY, WHAT PRIVACY?

There seems to be a lot of concern over the National Security Agency (NSA) compiling  a record of who we call.  Actually one of our protections is that the file contains millions of calls so any individual is lost in the mass.  They didn't catch the Boston bombers through this file, but it may have helped afterward to find out who the contacts are.  Of course the telephone companies have records of our calls too and who it is registered to.  I used to have an account where they told me each month who I had called, not only by number, but by name when it was available.  Perhaps the telephone companies cannot chain the number called to numbers they call, but someone in the company has access (and maybe several someones) to who you are calling.  If the "white hat" criminal programs on TV are any guide (like NCIS), various groups can access your phone records.  If there are voyeurs in NSA, don't you think it is even more likely within the telephone companies themselves?

As to my comment about crime programs on TV, also people tracking your GPS location might also be mentioned (see programs like NCIS again) and putting tracking items on cars is a hot issue (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/opinion/gps-tracking-and-secret-policies.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130817&_r=0).

And it is well known that e-mails are not very safe, just ask Anthony Weiner.  And people today are not very good at keeping things private.  The recipient of the e-mail tells someone else who gleefully tells someone else, and the next thing you know it is all over the news media, especially if you are a VIP.

Do you use a credit card or credit cards?  Have you thought of what you have done to your privacy when you use these?  I think for many of us, what we are buying is more hazardous to our privacy than who we are calling on our phones.  Someone out there and perhaps many, if they want, know all about your buying habits.  Do you buy a lot of stuff from amazon.com?

Anything you put up on the internet is not very safe and the record exists forever.  It is almost impossible to really delete any content on the internet.

And then there is the matter of thousands of cameras in stores and on street corners watching our every move, at least in big cities.  And don't forget the citizens that seem to be photographing everything with their smart phones, including, by accident, the Boston Bombers.  Watch what you are doing in public.

A RIDE (Biographical)

It was one of those warm clear September days with a nice breeze blowing up from the south.  The time was somewhere around noon, and the bus was quite loaded although no one was standing.  The fact that all busses are rather stuffy and hot in the first place and that on hot sunny days when they are loaded with people they become even more hot and more stuffy made the bus a mite uncomfortable.  Unfortunately, I was unable to get a seat by a window.  I had been standing for quite a while, however, so that for the moment I was very relieved just to be able to sit down.  Besides heat itself hadn't bothered me much for several years and being able to sit caused me to overlook the stuffiness.

The bus was one of a new type that had been installed several months before.  This being the first time I had cause to ride on one of them, naturally I started to examine the interior and to note improvements with which it must have been equipped.  I noticed a few years back that a national semantics organization died after seven years of work when they discovered that they hadn't accomplished a thing.  They never must have run across the word bus.  That is one word that should have been duck soup for them.  I can see where it might be somewhat difficult to define, but, if you ever see a bus, you certainly know what  it is and will never forget what you saw.  Actually of all the ways we have combined letters together to represent objects as words, the formation of the word bus to represent what it represents was one of the most fortunate.  If there is anything that buses are, it is that they are, essentially, buses.  There is certainly nothing pretty or beautiful about them.  They are used as the last resort by the lazy and the unfortunate who desire some other means than those at hand for arriving at some destination.  Those people who like to ride on buses never do because they are all in sanitariums.  Yes, although some buses may have their motor in the front and others in the rear, once you have seen a bus there is no doubt that it is a bus.

The driver of the particular vehicle that I was on was uncommonly good considering the impossibility of his job.  We jostled along with a minimum of jostles.  Finally we were forced to stop and observe the progress of a slow freight train crossing our "T".  I was finally rested enough to begin to notice the stuffiness when a little girl said in an excited voice to her wilting mother,  "Mama, look at the train!"  I thought of how nice it would be to get excited over our delay instead of getting irritated.

The study of the bus proving to be very poor stimulus, I moved my concentration to a little boy sitting in front of me who was in the process of removing one of the advertising cards from the racks that are fastened to the back of the seats.  Advertising companies must like to amuse small children, for these cards certainly are of no interest to older people. The little boy examined the card very carefully, then put it back in the holder and stared at the ceiling.  The little boy's mother got up.  She went to the front of the vehicle and called to her son to follow.  The son noticed that no one was at the back door.  He couldn't see any reason for waiting in line so he skipped out the back.  The mother chose to ignore her son's wit, however, and kept bucking the crowd.  I moved to the seat made vacant, which was by a window.  Now I could look out a window and breathe in the warm September air which was only slightly tainted by the smell of bus exhaust.  Being an admirer of good literature, I moved my concentration to a billboard advertising beer.

                                                                                                                                                    1955

CONGRESS TOO ACTIVE?

Congress is getting only a 12% approval rating and an 80% disapproval rating. The media assumes that this means that the electorate feels congress should do something.  But I don't know, maybe it means that the electorate feels that congress is doing too much!*

Consider:  The speaker of the House says that congress should not be judged by how many laws it makes but how many it repeals.  The electorate keeps electing and reelecting the do nothings that would indicate they don't want congress to do anything.  They say insanity is to do the same thing over and over expecting different results.  Is the electorate insane?

A lot of the news media and some conservatives say that the Republicans should propose an alternative to Obamacare.  But Obamacare is already a conservative medical law.  Every liberal knows that we should have a single payer health system to control medical costs, for example.  It was a conservative proposal to go to the individual mandate.  The alternative to Obamamcare really is to do nothing and to just let the previous system ride with more and more people shut out of health insurance because it has become prohibitively expensive.  This is not to say that Obamacare cannot be improved.  After all it is a huge and cumbersome law.  Some improvements have already been made, but I doubt that single payer is in the cards.

* Also see The Government You Voted For: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-government-you-voted-for.html

POLITICIANS AND SEX

One of my favorite jokes used to be that Republicans are the kind of people who pull there shades and draw their curtains but probably don't need to.  Democrats are the kind of people who don't pull their shades or draw their curtains but probably should.  Democrat Grover Cleveland, for example, was elected President even though he had fathered an illegitimate child.*  He is the only President to have been elected twice to non-consecutive terms, and he actually won the popular vote three times.

This joke was ruined during the impeachment process of President Bill Clinton when it was found that there was this woman Republican Representative from Idaho, Helen Chenowith,** who thought Clinton should be impeached for his sexual indiscretions, but who, it turned out, had an affair with a married man for six years.  Of course this paragon of virtue said her case was different.  Fortunately, she had taken the pledge to serve only six years as a Representative and at least kept that promise.  Then there was Republican Representative Henry Hyde*** who had a five year "youthful indiscretion" in his forties (sic) but led the charge to impeach the President anyway.  So this sort of thing is bipartisan.  But these scandals are long ago.

At the present time, we have four political scandals going.  The worst of them in my mind is Democrat Bob Finer, mayor of San Diego, who has been accused of sexual harassment by 14 women at the time of this writing.****  He first claimed his problem was that he was of the "old school", presumably when sexual harassment was permitted.  But this is a very old school as sexual harassment goes back to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and has been "clarified" a number of times since.  In 1980, now 23 years ago, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) produced guidelines to enforce Title VII to define and enforce sexual harassment and they were expanded to educational institutions in 1984.****  One wonders where Mayor Finer has been all this time?  It is no surprise there is a growing effort at recall building.

Perhaps the second worst case involves Republican Mark Sanford when he was governor of South Carolina.*****  He disappeared from sight and left word he was on the Appalachian Trail, though it turned out he was in Buenos Aires.  He eventually admitted having an affair with a woman by the name of Maria Belen Chapur and reimbursed the state for funds used in a visit to Buenos Aires that included a visit with Mrs. Chapur.  The state claimed other financial indiscretions also.  His marriage ended  in divorce, and he now says he is engaged to Mrs. Chapur.  After spending some time in seclusion, he ran to regain his old seat in the House of Representatives First District and was elected.

Next on the list is the sexting by Democrat Anthony Weiner who resigned his House of Representatives seat over the matter and has admitted to doing more of it since he took treatment.*****  So far as I am concerned, this is a case of knowing more than I want to know about a politician's private life including pictures of, um, Weiner's wiener.  But he is the person who put his graphic pictures of himself and dirty texts on the internet where privacy is limited.  And if women were offended by his emails they could simply block them.  So far as we know, he has not met any of his contacts.  Well, this is all too sad because Weiner is not only taking his own political career down but may take his wife's professional career down with him.  She has not shown signs of wanting a divorce action which bothers many women.  Also it is an interesting marriage of a Jew to a Muslim.  I find that his career as a representative was much better than many give him credit for.  It certainly appears that Weiner's compulsive exhibitionism (of all kinds) has ruined his chances for election as New York City mayor.

Last on the list is Eliot Spitzer who resigned from governorship of New York in 2008 over his meetings with upscale prostitutes from the Emperor's Club VIP (since shut down) that cost from $1,000/hr to $5,000/hr and as much as $31, 000/day.******  Much normal prostitution involves trafficking, and the people are forced to enter prostitution and cannot leave, therefore a form of slavery.  Upscale prostitutes are a different matter.  They are in voluntary commerce, able to earn as much as $50,000 in a weekend.  It is a completely different matter and not much different than the common practice of someone marrying a spouse for their money.  So far as I am concerned, it is a matter between Eliot Spitzer and his wife.   Five years later, a contrite Spitzer is running for Comptroller of New York City and has begged forgiveness for his prior indiscretions.  He has gained a certain amount of sympathy because he is running for a lower office than he previously held (Weiner, however, is considered to be running for a higher office.) and is said to have a 19 point lead in his race.

Many sexual indiscretions by politicians are forgiven and some are not.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Cleveland
** http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/chenoweth091198.htm
*** http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/hyde091798.htm
**** http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/14/san-diego-mayor-banned-from-hooters/:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment
***** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Sanford
****** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Spitzer; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/14/eliot-spitzer-poll_n_3756115.html

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING -- THEM

George Orwell wrote a book called 1984 that has had a resurgence of sales since the finding that the NSA is compiling a data file of who we call.  A famous slogan in the novel is Big Brother Is Watching You.  We have a TV station that scrolls through the programs that are running on TV at the bottm of the screen.  But the main screen after a certain time at night runs a program called Big Brother.  I don't really watch the program, but it seems to me that it is for young people laying around who want to watch young people laying around.  Big Brother seems to be the TV camera.  So far as I am concerned, the program is a lot like watching grass grow.  About the most exciting thing I have seen is an attractive young lady going to the refrigerator to get a glass of milk.

So I have Googled the program (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(TV_series  This article discusses the program in great detail.).   In various formats, Big Brother is very popular and runs in many countries, but I have seen only the American version.  Ah, it turns out that every week someone is chosen by the "contestants" to be evicted and the last person remaining wins -- something, often big.  It seems sometimes there are angry and  violent confrontations, but not while I was watching.  It might be interesting, when two "contestants" are remaining, how one of them gets evicted.  After all, the one evicted must agree to be evicted?

THE GOVERNMENT YOU VOTED FOR

On rare occasions, someone writes a piece in which almost every word carries weight.  Paul Krugman did just that on Sunday, August 4 (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/opinion/krugman-republicans-against-reality.html?nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20130805)  I wish everyone would read it.  Prof. Krugman writes:

Think of it this way: For a long time the Republican establishment got its way by playing a con game with the party’s base. Voters would be mobilized as soldiers in an ideological crusade, fired up by warnings that liberals were going to turn the country over to gay married terrorists, not to mention taking your hard-earned dollars and giving them to Those People. Then, once the election was over, the establishment would get on with its real priorities — deregulation and lower taxes on the wealthy.  (emphasis added)

Then they held the pointless vote on Obamacare, apparently just to make themselves feel better. (It’s curious how comforting they [Republicans] find the idea of denying health care to millions of Americans.)  (emphasis added)

An article quoted by Prof. Krugman says, The June bill included $20.5 billion in proposed cuts to the food stamp program, plus amendments calling for mandatory drugs tests for recipients and employment requirements. Democrats protested the food stamp cuts, while many Republicans said the cuts did not go deep enough.*  (emphasis added)  But now it appears the Republicans are proposing a cut twice as large though there is to be an automatic cut in food stamps amounting to $29/mo. for a family of three to $319/mo. in any event as a result of the Stimulus bill that carried a temporary increase in food stamps. (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/us/politics/gop-push-to-slash-food-stamps-puts-farm-bill-in-jeopardy.html) 

The House already had passed a meaningless farm bill stripped of food stamps and proposed a series of benefits to wealthy farmers.  Some of the members or their spouses of the Senate and House Agricultural Committees benefit from the farm subsidies the committees oversee. 9http://www.taxpayer.net/library/article/political-contributions-conflicts-of-interest-taint-u.s.-ag-policies)

Cuts are being made to the Federal budget anyway because of across the board cuts in the Sequester (But congress made an exception for air controllers so they wouldn't be inconvenienced in flying.).  Though no one says they like the Sequester, Republicans let it happen because it did make cuts in programs for the poor.  Democrats aren't too upset because at least there are some cuts to the defense budget and the Sequester seems the only way to get these.  Congressmen are not to be inconvenienced.  A part of Obamacare was that congressmen were to get their health insurance from the Exchanges like everyone else, but it looks as if they will also accept a subsidy from the government as well.

Then there is the canceled vote in the House on a transportation bill because not enough Republicans showed up.  Prof. Krugman writes:  But it turned out that a significant number of representatives, while willing to vote for huge spending cuts as long as there weren’t any specifics, balked at the details. Don’t cut you, don’t cut me, cut that fellow behind the tree. (emphasis added)

* This seems to be the new way to get a bipartisan agreement.  Democrats vote against it because the cuts for the poor go too far and Republicans vote against it because cuts for the poor doe not go far enough.