Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

Election Results...

... are never quite what the media pundits think they are. Consider that in the 2008 election, that the overwhelming victories by the Democrats for the White House, Senate and House at the federal level had people scratching their heads, wondering what will happen to the Republicans -- some even talked openly of the end of the Republican party in the not so distant future.

An interesting concept. I was born in 1958 and it's been a two-party system my entire life. Go back through U.S. history and there's been, more or less, a two-party system almost from the beginning. In fact, there's something known as Duverger's Law which suggests that when votes cast a single vote for a candidate in their district, the results not only favor a two-party system, it makes it very difficult for third parties to emerge. And yet, go back in history and you discover that in the U.S., it's not always the same two parties. (grin) Consider this quote from the Wikipedia article and see if you recognize the major players based on where they are today:

A third party can only enter the arena if it can exploit the mistakes of a pre-existing major party, ultimately at that party's expense. For example, the political chaos in the United States immediately preceding the Civil War allowed the Republican Party to replace the Whig Party as the progressive half of the American political landscape. Loosely united on a platform of country-wide economic reform and federally funded industrialization, the decentralized Whig leadership failed to take a decisive stance on the slavery issue, effectively splitting the party along the Mason-Dixon Line. Southern rural planters, initially lured by the prospect of federal infrastructure and schools, quickly aligned themselves with the pro-slavery Democrats, while urban laborers and professionals in the northern states, threatened by the sudden shift in political and economic power and losing faith in the failing Whig candidates, flocked to the increasingly vocal anti-slavery Republican Party.

Republicans In A Landslide!

At least some in the Republican leadership aren't trying to swing their victories in the U.S. House as a mandate. Winning one house, while not winning the Senate or the White House isn't decisive. And just having the White House and both sides of Congress isn't sufficient either -- ask the Democrats who didn't have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate the last two years.

Years ago I might've applauded this year's results. To some extent I was a fan of divided government -- having different bums in charge in the House and the Senate was a way to feed in new ideas and compromise. Alas, the politics of the last ten to twenty years has turned ever more divisive and destructive. The Republicans in the past two years have acted as the 'Party of No' and threatened filibuster in the Senate at every turn -- while the Democrats didn't want to take them up on their threat and too often didn't act like a party in charge. This isn't my opinion. There have been plenty of Republicans who have openly stated their opposition to any and all things Obama. And all this while the President made enemies with his own party by trying to add compromise elements to his legislative agenda in the hope of getting some Republican votes. I'm not sure I yet see how the Republicans will be moved to compromise in this new environment.

And holding only the House for sure, if they can keep their voting bloc together, doesn't give them a way to pass legislation by themselves. So the Republicans can talk all they want about repealing Obamacare and cutting taxes, etc., but none of that will happen without Democratic agreement. Of course not holding the House pretty much means some of the same thing for the Democrats and their surviving agenda. As a result, either nothing will happen for the next two years -- in which case the voters may well savage ALL the incumbents as fiddling while Rome burn or we might see a return to "real" politics and discussions and deals.

Which Republican Party?

But the Republican leadership has a new problem. The Tea Party movement, which isn't an actual party, encompasses some of those who won in these 2010 mid-term elections. But not all. And some high profile Tea Party candidates were defeated, as happens in elections. So who will lead the Republicans? Who will negotiate? Or will we see a fractured Republican party, where one side will create a new majority by working with some/all of the Democrats? What will be the rhetoric for such 'betrayals'? The new Speaker of the House will surely have to walk a fine line, lest his name be used as a swear word as much as Pelosi and Obama have been.

Just Say NO! To The CEOs!

For all the talk about jobs and the economy, being a former CEO of a major corporation, rather than The Usual Politician, might have seemed the right thing to do. But in two of the highest profile races, this didn't work out. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) keeps her Senate seat and, surprise-surprise, Jerry Brown (D-CA) returns as governor. NPR made the point that in his two different stints, the former 'Governor Moonbeam' will have been both the youngest and the oldest person elected to head California. An interesting duck to be sure, perhaps he will be a worthy successor to the equally interesting 'Govenator' Arnold Schwarzeneggar (R-CA).

Of course not all the CEO candidates were defeated. Rick Snyder (R-MI) takes the governorship in Michigan. The former CEO of Gateway Computers ran a campaign as the 'nerd' outsider candidate. All the top positions in Michigan went Republican, as this formerly Very Purple State has become Very Red State in Lansing. We'll have to see what actual real legislative plans will emerge from Our New Red Overlord Masters here in the Great Lakes State. Michigan has been losing jobs since back in the Engler (R-MI) administration. Granholm (D-MI) inherited a suddenly discovered budget deficit -- and the governor and state legislature have been cutting and cutting the budgets for eight years.

One wonders what budget cuts AND tax cuts will be enacted by the new team that will also attract new businesses and new jobs. Can't possibly increase the gas tax, despite the desperate condition of Michigan's roads and the simple facts that with (a) higher m.p.g. cars, (b) a gas tax based on a flat rate per gallon and (c) fewer drivers and less driving as the jobs go away, there is simply less gas tax revenue. Michigan is getting some visibility as a new Midwest center of film making -- but the state's high subsidies are roundly criticized in some circles -- with similar complaints for subsidies to bring in high tech medical, lithium car battery technology and alternative energy industries.

Throw The Bums Out -- Or At Least Throw Them Sideways

In Michigan, the elections for statewide offices might look to an outsider as a 'throw the bums out' affair. But it's complicated -- or at least mitigated -- by an aggressive set of term limits laws. As a result, Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D-MI) could not run again, even if she had a snowball's chance in hell of winning again in this tough economy. And many of the state legislature and state senate positions were also term limited. This results in a complicated game of musical chairs, as state legislators tried to muscle into a smaller number of state senate positions. Retirements of some venerable U.S. House members provided escape paths for term limited others. In West Michigan, the near sweep of these positions by Republicans was hardly news -- they were nearly all Republican seats to begin with.

"What Are You Against?" "Whatya Got?"

In the just concluded elections, there has been a great deal of rhetoric on many subjects. Some of it has been simply not true, others merely spinning the truth and twisting it to serve an agenda. In other words, an election -- sometimes feeling like an election on steroids. After the campaigns end and the new officeholders take their oaths, then the rubber meets the road. Only time will tell about how well this election works in getting things done. Either we'll dissolve into more rhetoric and blame gaming, or we'll get the proverbial sleeves rolled up and get down to work.

I have my own ideas, but I've not spent a lot of time/space in this blog espousing them over the years. This entry is much more a commentary on the realities creeping into what has just happened, then either a Hooray For My Side! or OMG We're All Going To Die! I have seen great things accomplished in my lifetime in areas which can be labeled both liberal and conservative. I think that much can be done to shore up our economy and prevent meltdowns such as we've endured these past couple of years from occurring again by a serious blending of liberal and conservative ideas. If, on the other hand, we only get name calling and demonizing of the other side, then it is going to be a long two years.

Methinks in any event we shall only get a short respite from campaigning -- as Election 2012 begins to wind up in earnest before the Class of 2010 even gets to do anything. (sigh)

Dr. Phil

Another MLK Day

I'm not sure what most of my students think about MLK Day. Science and engineering majors aren't the most culturally literate and empathetic of people -- they tend to be grounded in the reality in front of them and take a cost benefit analysis to a lot of the humanities part of the university curriculum, which usually loses out. They take to literature and history kicking and screaming at times. Demographically, they just aren't that into MLK Day, on average. They definitely don't appreciate any comments about King and race in a Physics class.

2010

It's easy to post today and talk about "the progress" made. President Obama. Bill Cosby. L.L. Cool J on a hit series as a Federal agent. Uhuru getting Spock in the Star Trek reboot. See how strange it begins to sound? And coming from a middle-aged white guy, it's no doubt insulting as well. NPR had a piece this morning about Newton MA being the "first community" to have a black mayor, governor and president. Progress? Sure. But basically not the conversation that needs to be out in the air.

As Others Comment

So I will leave you with links to a couple of postings from others on MLK Day. Here. Here. And not a lot else posted at midday.

Dr. Phil

Walter Cronkite, 1916-2009

The Voice of Reason from my childhood, legendary CBS news anchorman Walter Cronkite, died just about two hours ago at age 92. In those days we had just three national TV networks in America, and while we watched the news on NBC with The Huntley-Brinkley Report and later the NBC Nightly News with John Chancellor, we still watched Uncle Walter, especially at major news events -- and most especially switching between NBC and CBS during the US space program. It is perhaps telling that I remember Frank Reynolds was the anchor on ABC at the time of Apollo 13, but I cannot remember the name of anyone anchoring the ABC news during the rest of Walter's tenure at CBS.

Watching some remembrances on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, everyone was talking about Walter crying twice on air -- announcing the death of President Kennedy and Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon. But what I remember was Walter Cronkite breaking into programming one night to announce in tears the loss of Grissom, White and Chaffee in the Apollo 1 fire on the pad during a test at Cape Kennedy. The moon program and JFK, brought together in one sentence. You might consider that my generation's Hindenburg. How ironic that Walter Cronkite died just shy of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing itself. Perhaps it best that his resonant voice will be played out this week and he will be remembered along with the first men on the moon -- and not drowned out by the recent weeks' tumult over Michael Jackson.

There are those who say that reporters of the news shouldn't be the news itself. A sentiment which is sorely breached by those who merge news and commentary and, may I suggest, creating news and things meant to look like news. Yet Walter is also best known for one simple commentary, where after traveling to Vietnam in 1968, he announced on the air that the war was unwinnable. As a result, President Lyndon Johnson decided not to run for re-election, citing that if he'd lost Cronkite, he'd lost middle America.

He left CBS before he was ready, that is probably true. Yet he managed to continue to do things like host the Kennedy Center Honors and the Vienna New Year's Concert. And he sailed his boats for a long time.

The Most Trusted Man in America is now gone. Would that we see the likes of his kind grace our lives again... but I fear not.

Good night, Walter.

Dr. Phil

Every Sunday

... the Grand Rapids Press runs all the major obits of the week. For some reason the top three this Sunday got me to thinking.

The Controversial Celeb Death

Leading off was the death of David Carradine, 72. Nearly all the radio and TV pieces I ran across talked about Kung Fu. Only the out-of-town TV talked about Kill Bill. But this one will be in the tabloids for a while. Found in hotel room! Hanged! Suicide! In Bangkok! Then the details get murkier. Maybe not suicide. Maybe involving kinky behavior.

My first thought: Never, especially if you are any kind of a celebrity or role model, get yourself involved in any kind of behind closed doors activity that you would hate to be revealed in public as the first paragraph of your obituary. Just sayin'. After that, though, this is less than Earth shattering news, especially as we don't know what really was going on. Yet. Or ever.

The Interesting But...

Millvina Dean, 97, the last Titanic survivor. As much as I love the movie Titanic and the whole real story and technological issues of the RMS Titanic herself, this is but a historical footnote. Unlike the impending moment where the last two U.K. World War I vets die and Britain loses its eyewitnesses to history, Ms. Dean was a baby on 15 April 1912 -- hardly a participant or observer to disaster.

The Most Important Obit Of The Week

Paul Haney, 80. Who? Well Paul Haney went to work in 1958 as an information officer for a new government agency, NASA. By 1962 he was working at Houston's Manned Spaceflight Center and became known as "the voice of Mission Control." Yup, through many of the years of the U.S. space program, up until Apollo 9, the calm, reassuring and informative voice you heard was Paul Haney. And the style of reporting he gave the space program continued on.

This is the voice I grew up on, as I watched every Mercury, Gemini and Apollo mission. Ironically, as a "grown up", both the news media and my own work life have kept me from following every moment of the Shuttle program with as much dedication.

Mr. Haney not only witnessed history as it was being made, he announced it. Walter and all the other news commentators could report the news or write the poetry of how we felt about these amazing times, or even just weep on air with joy or sadness. But all of the networks used Mr. Haney's voice to give us the official NASA reports. It was all such a part of everything, I remember being struck twice by surprise -- once when I heard another voice announcing part of a space mission, as if there could never be but one voice of the space program, and again when one of the networks, ABC I think it was, actually captioned not as something authoritative like "The Voice of Mission Control" but someone's name followed by Mission Control.

As an interesting footnote, Googling "wikipedia paul haney" pulls up as the first Wikipedia entry, only one on The Ancient Order of Turtles.

Maybe you had to have been there...

Dr. Phil

NOTE: An unfortunate typo was fixed 6-15-09 Mon.

Decoration Day

Or Memorial Day as it is more commonly known today, is intended to commemorate those members of the armed forces killed in action. Grand Rapids MI hosts their Memorial Day parade on May 30th, a Saturday in 2009, which technically is the actual commemorative date. For everyone else, Memorial Day is the last Monday in May, which falls on the earliest possible date this year -- Monday 25 May 2009.

The Three-Day Weekend Effect

Of course that means that most people treat Memorial Day as a play day. An extra vacation day. The official start of summer. Well, I'd rather that Americans get to take a day off, cook some hot dogs, go see a ball game or the latest blockbuster movie, crack open some beers, put up a flag or attend a parade because they WANT to -- than live in some tinpot dictatorship where they pay people to attend the big parades and round up people to celebrate that latest bit of nonsense that the government claims is doing wonders to the world. Because freedoms are what those men and women died for in the service of our country.

The Sci-Fi Effect

Given there are only a limited number of three-day weekends available, it is no surprise that a number of science fiction conventions have adopted Memorial Day weekend as their home. You at the very least get to make Sundays a whole convention day, if not add a whole day to the entire schedule. DragonCon gets Labor Day, but I know Memorial Day has Wiscon and Marcon (Multiple Alternative Realities Convention).

In fact, a more complete list from LocusOnline's Convention page includes:

# Balticon 43 - May 22-25, 2009
* Hunt Valley Inn, Baltimore, MD
* GOH: Charles Stross. Music GOH: Mary Crowell. 2008 Compton Crook Winner: Mark L. Van Name.
* 2009 Compton Crook Winner to be announced.
* Art show, dealers' room, literary, science, masquerade, gaming, etc.

# BayCon 2009 - May 22-25, 2009
* The Hyatt Regency, Santa Clara, CA
* Guests Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon have cancelled due to illness; other guests: Tim Kirk, Fred Patten.

# ConQuesT 40 - May 22-24, 2009
* Hyatt Regency Crown Center, Kansas City, MO.
* Guest of Honor, John Scalzi; Artist Guest, Oberon Zell; Anime/Media Guest, Jerry Gelb; Fan Guest, Ed deGruy; Toastmaster, Ellen Datlow.

# MisCon 23 - May 22-25, 2009
* Missoula, Montana.
* Author Guest Steven Brust, Artist Guest John Kovalic, Special Guest Author Michael Stackpole.
* Writer's Workshops, Writing Panels, Art Auction, Dealers Room, Gaming, Film Festival.

# OASIS 22 - May 22-24, 2009
* Sheraton Orlando Downtown, Orlando FL.
* Writer GoH: Peter David, Special Guest Writer: John Ringo, Editor GoH: TOni Weisskopf Artist GoH: Johnny Atomic.

# WisCon 33 - May 22-25, 2009
* Madison, WI.
* GOHs Ellen Klages, Geoff Ryman.
* Panels, discussions, readings, signings, art show, dealers room, parties, special events.
* WisCon is the world's leading feminist science fiction convention and encourages discussion and debate of ideas relating to feminism, gender, race and class.

UPDATE:
CONduit XIX - May 22-24, 2009
Salt Lake City, Utah

I have friends going to Marcon and Wiscon. Haven't been to the Columbus con, but I've made it to Wiscon twice and am sorry not to be going this year or every year. It is one of the best run cons for my money (and the best stocked consuite by far) and includes an academic track and a really nice writing workshop. Alas, as long as I'm teaching a Summer-I class, it's hard to teach a Friday class and then make it to Madison WI. Especially if the late Muskegon-Milwaukee Lake Express ferry isn't running yet.

So That Leaves...

Nothing says commemorating America's heroes like marathons of our "favorite" shows on cable TV. I remember when marathons were actual 24-hour or all-weekend marathons of whole runs or whole seasons of shows. Practically television events. Alas, they are all too common now. Skipping around the dial, I could've had Deadliest Catch on, but I've seen them all. Or better yet, Band of Brothers. But... I am trying to get things done and Band of Brothers demands concentration. So, fluffier TV background? NCIS on USA Network it is. At least for a Saturday afternoon.

And Those Gas Prices

Obviously the oil companies read my musings on gas prices. Their perfidy exposed, after jacking prices up to $2.49.9/gal., they left it there, rather than jerking higher and then running the prices "lower" for the holiday. So I guess this is merely ordinary gouging.

Happy Memorial Day.

Dr. Phil

But I Love Ice Station Zebra

While eating lunch and listening to Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me: The NPR News Quiz, I saw that one of my favorite movies, Ice Station Zebra, was starting up on Turner Classic Movies. Properly Letterboxed, and including the Overture, Intermission and End Music frames from the last of an era when Great Films had such things. Though the sound was off through the first half-hour, I did get to see that first half-hour. Every time I run into the film at random on TV, it is always towards the end. Also part of the documentary that showed how they filmed real subs diving, etc.

Sure, there are problems with the film. And by today's standards, the special effects and soundstage work are laughable as Big Budget Movie fare. The quartet of MiG-21s, I'm looking at you! But what a great cast -- Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, Ernest Borgnine and Jim Brown. And a real attempt at making a sub look like a working system.

Grown Up

Now that I am older and doing some serious writing, I can see things which I didn't notice before. Switching to interior red lights to protect night vision, and then surfacing in daylight. Huh? And that scene where the torpedo tube has been sabotaged? The two men in the scene are suddenly talking "life stuff", in particular the one guy's paperwork to get married to an instant family. Yeah, that's got Red Shirt pasted all over it. You know who's going to die. Chekhov put a loaded, er... flooded torpedo tube on the mantle and he just had to use it.

And Rock Hudson making sure it's all a stalemate with the Soviets? A golden moment. If only that wasn't a Soviet F-4 Phantom II making the run to pick up the satellite and the balloon. (sigh) (grin) That probably drove old Howard Hughes nuts. Oh wait.

Dr. Phil