Skip to content

The road that will not be taken

Sunday, November 9, 2014

So, I'm beginning to decompress from Tuesday's disaster. Overall, I think I agree with the analysis here. In a nutshell, we lost because the national party has sold its soul to Wall Street and corporate interests, but it is still not as satisfactory to those interests as the Republican Party, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America. Read the whole thing.

Personally, I shudder at the thought of the 2016 election. The Democrats should win big, but they are fully capable of throwing the election away, and this time the stakes could be huge. What are the odds that young people will turn out in droves to vote for a seventy year old woman who might throw some platitudes at them, but is, in fact, a tool of Wall Street? I firmly believe that in 2016 the crazies on the Republican side will get what they claim is their due: a candidate as crazy as them. The Democrats may just be setting up the country and the world for the election of a president of the United States who is certifiably nuts, or, at the very least, a science denying, religion embracing (though not necessarily believing) right wing extremist.

If you want people to vote for you, you have to give them something worth voting for. There are a number of things the Democrats could push that would be hugely popular that we can safely assume the Republicans would never endorse. Moreover, I would argue that each of them would be good public policy and many of them would be incredibly useful in pulling us out of the economic doldrums in which the Republicans, with a lot of Democratic help, have insisted we remain.

Consider this: the people of Arkansas just voted overwhelmingly for a minimum wage hike while also electing a Senator who would do whatever he could to make sure such a thing never happens at the Federal level. It seems like all those folks who came to vote to give themselves a raise should have been Democratic voters. You'd think so wouldn't you? But the guy they sent packing, Mark Pryor, couldn't see past the interests of Wal-Mart. He supported the relatively meagre raise in the state initiative, but opposed the still meagre Obama proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10. A real Democrat should have owned that issue, but he was pretty much indistinguishable from his opponent.

So, a few suggestions for some issues that would really bring people out to vote.

  1. We should free our young people from debt peonage. All federal student loan debt should be forgiven. As I'll argue below, higher education should be free in the first place. Forgiving student loan debt would free up a generation burdened by heavy debt to spend that money elsewhere, stimulating the economy and making at least some progress toward restoring the middle class. If they could forgive debt in ancient times we can do it now, in these allegedly more enlightened times, particularly because the creditor in this case is the U.S. government, which doesn't need the money and whose economy would be better off for the cancellation.
  2. Make public higher education free, obviating the need for student loans in the future. There was a time when getting a high school education was considered an achievement on its own, and all that most people needed to get a good job. Nowadays, a college degree is a necessary prerequisite for almost any job that doesn't involve flipping burgers or stocking shelves. It is the 21st century equivalent of a mid twentieth century high school diploma. High school was free in 1880; free in 1900; free in 1950; and free today. It's time we made a university education free. It would be an investment in our future well worth the relatively meagre cost. Private universities could charge what they like, but don't believe for a second that costs at Harvard and Yale wouldn't also come down, and, for purposes of this post, don't believe for a minute that prospective students and the parents who are faced with a choice between crippling payments, indebted children, or uneducated children condemned to a life at Wal-Mart wouldn't be eager to vote for the party that promised some relief.
  3. Raise taxes on the rich. Really. Another no brainer. In particular, raise the estate tax on billion dollar estates. The Kochs are bad enough. We don't need their offspring retaining ownership of one of our political parties. They call it the death tax, but surely we can come up with a competing and more accurate moniker.
  4. Abolish the social security cap. When the present cap on social security taxes was enacted, it was calculated using the assumption that the distribution of income would remain fairly stable. It's only because of the rising level of inequality that the Social Security trust fund faces a problem in the out years. Abolish the cap and the problem disappears. In fact, if we abolished the cap, we could probably lower the overall rate, raise benefits, and still fully fund the system. One small step toward reversing the march of inequality.
  5. Don't like Obamacare? Okay, how does Medicare for all sound? Why give away money to the insurance companies when the government can do a far better job of providing insurance for far fewer dollars.
  6. Be louder and prouder about raising the minimum wage, and don't argue for half measures. Go the distance, all the way back to 1968 or so, and demand a minimum wage equivalent to that we had in those bygone years.
  7. Mandatory sick leave, another no-brainer.
  8. Child care. Yet another no-brainer.

Recently, someone read a list of Dan Malloy's progressive achievements to me. It was not inconsiderable, but only a few items on the list affected the broader population. Immigration policy, for instance, affects some people quite a lot; but for most it is a blip. We can't win by focusing like a laser on identity politics issues. We shouldn't abandon them, but front and center should be issues that affect almost everyone. Nor should we shy away from an issue on the grounds that we might not be able to succeed right away. Republicans never give up; Democrats never try. The college loan issue would be a winning one for us, whether or not the Republicans can ultimately prevent its passage. If they do, then we can beat them over the head with that. Another thing: there are certain people we are never going to get: the total gun nuts, the religious whackos, etc. Stop trying. It's a futile endeavor and it only makes us look weak.

My list is not all inclusive, but you get the gist.

Finally, we need to take another page from the Republican play book. You see it all the time. Ask them a question, and they have an answer, and oddly enough, every one has the same answer using the same phrases. Ask them about global warming, and they duck by telling you that “I am not a scientist”. Sure it's intellectually barren, but it works. The Democrats have to start messaging like that. One nice thing about this election was that it stripped us of a lot of Blue Dogs, which means the remaining Democrats, should they wish to survive, can start talking together like real Democrats.

The fact is, we can't get by on just being the non-crazy party. It's amazing how quickly people forget the effects of crazy, particuarly when, like this year, the media is determined not to remind them.

Epilogue: I'm not kidding myself. The Democrats won't advocate much, if any of the above. They are far too beholden to Wall Street.

Filed in Uncategorized | | Comments (1)

A Nation of Hypocrites, Religious Edition

Friday, November 7, 2014

Have you ever noticed that the more loudly people proclaim their Christianity, the less like Christ they behave? I don't think anyone would argue with the premise that Bible Thumping gets louder the farther south you go, yet only in the South would they pass a law against feeding the hungry.

It outlaws the public sharing of food. Of course, in reality, were you to share food with a middle class person you wouldn't have a problem, but try sharing with the homeless and you get yourself arrested.

Let's see, I know there was someone who publicly shared food:

As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”

Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.

“Bring them here to me,” he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Yes, I know it's a fable and it never really happened. But those folks down south are supposed to believe every word of it.

Filed in Hypocrisy, Inequality, Religion | | Comments (0)

Reflections, take one

Thursday, November 6, 2014

We just returned from Drinking Liberally. I'm happy to report that turnout was up (misery loves company), and so were spirits. After all, if we don't find a way to blow it, 2016 should be our year.

But I must comment on a phenomenon that we observed here, though it was obviously not so pronounced elsewhere in the state. We lost a number of state legislative races. Previously Southeastern Connecticut was solid blue; we are now half red. Each loss had its own story, but I think there was a common thread in each.

My own feeling, and I've heard the same analysis from others, is that Dan Malloy did some of the Democrats in, but in a rather strange way. For example: Malloy won every district in Groton.

Okay, we interrupt this train of thought to digress. For us Groton Democrats this was a delicious thing, as it was a fairly good indication that Heather Bond had no business being on a state wide ticket, inasmuch as she couldn't deliver a single district in her own home town. In off years Groton is by no means solid blue. If Heather had any home town pull, then Foley should have swept the town. Hopefully, this means we have seen the last of Heather, Connecticut's answer to Sarah Palin (the main difference being that Heather is more all about Heather than Sarah is all about Sarah).

Okay, back on the train we go. As I said, Malloy won every district, but the incumbent Democratic state legislative candidates lost every district but one. That seems counterintuitive, given Malloy's unpopularity. My take is that a number of voters concluded that, while they disliked Malloy intensely, they loathed Foley even more; so their thinking went roughly like this: Okay, I'll vote for Malloy, but I'm not voting for any more fucking Democrats. Folks like Lisa Wright and Betsy Ritter lost because Dan Malloy won. Had the Republican alternative been more acceptable, one or both of them would likely have won.

So that's my take on things at the local level. Nationally, I think there was a different dynamic, and I'll get to that when I have a few minutes to put my thoughts together.

Filed in Local issues | | Comments (0)

Flash Boys (Book review, sort of)

Sunday, November 2, 2014

I just finished Michael Lewis's Flash Boys. I know I'm late to the game commenting on this book, but my take on it might be a little different. To me, it illustrates what comes of good timing, good publicity, or both.

First, the basic premise of the book: the stock market is rigged. Every time an investor buys a stock the price is just a little teeny bit inflated by high frequency traders, who essentially impose a tax on almost every stock market transaction that takes place. Were the U.S. government to impose such a tax, and put the money to good use, every Republican politician would be up in arms. But since this money, billions of dollars, goes into the pockets of the already rich, who perform no useful function (in fact, almost no function at all-the computers do all the work), we hear nary a word of protest. Flash Boys never lose money; they can't, almost by definition. If you want to buy a stock, they push in front of you, buy it for slightly less than you will eventually pay, and sell it to you in a nanosecond for slightly more. It all adds up to billions of dollars siphoned from the economy into the pockets of sociopaths.

What I thought was interesting about the book is that it was so similar to another book that came out a few years ago: Dark Pools-the Rise of the Machine Traders and the Rigging of the U.S. Stock Market, by Scott Patterson. It tells much the same story in much the same way. Honest trader can't understand why the (always a he-I don't think there was a female of note in either book) price of stocks he wants to buy shoot up the second he pushes the buy button. Eventually he finds out about the Flash Boys, etc. Both books are told through the stories of people trying to push back against the system. Both are worth reading, by the way. I'm not taking anything away from Lewis. Patterson's book was released in 2012, and while I'm sure it caused some ripples on Wall Street, I'm also sure it didn't get the attention Flash Boys got. I'm sure the 60 minutes profile of Lewis didn't hurt and, maybe, Lewis's title is a bit sexier. Also, and I think this may be key, Lewis's timing just may have been better. Personally, I think disgust with the banks and the markets has been growing as it's sinking in that we are being systemically fleeced and impoverished.

In the end, sadly, neither book has had much real world impact. Obama's SEC commissioner quickly stepped up to assure us that the rigged markets aren't rigged (pay no attention to those men behind the curtain); a few Senators blustered, but nothing concrete was proposed or done, and the Flash Boys continue to siphon money from productive uses. It affects even those of us who own no stock directly, if we have a 401k, for the funds in which we put our money are prime victims of the practice. So not only do we lose thousands over our lifetime due to excessive fees imposed by the funds in which we have no choice but to invest, those funds themselves lose thousands on our behalf by getting ripped off in turn by the bankers and brokers that execute their orders.

If things go as expected on Tuesday, the American people will vote to make double sure that nothing will be done to stop this systematic theft of their money, but we can take some comfort by considering that this problem is insignificant compared to other crises, such as global warming, that we'll also be voting to ignore.

Filed in Corporate Crime, Economics | | Comments (0)

Non Sequiturs anyone?

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

This morning's Times tells us that in Denmark McDonalds pays $20.00 an hour. Not, of course, because it wants to, but because it has to in order to do business in Denmark. It's employees can actually live on what they make working there. An amazing thing! The downside is that MacDonalds can't make the same obscene profits (although they do turn a comfortable profit) it makes here, and the CEO of MacDonalds Denmark likely doesn't make as much as his American counterparts. So sad.

But I come not to praise Denmark.

The Times, of course, being staffed with good journalists, searched out some right wing voices who could tell us why such pay would never do here in the land of “We're Number 1!”. Check this out:

Many American economists and business groups say the comparison is deeply flawed because of fundamental differences between Denmark and the United States, including Denmark’s high living costs and taxes, a generous social safety net that includes universal health care and a collective bargaining system in which employer associations and unions work together. The fast-food restaurants here are also less profitable than their American counterparts.

“Trying to compare the business and labor practices in Denmark and the U.S. is like comparing apples to autos,” said Steve Caldeira, president of the International Franchise Association, a group based in Washington that promotes franchising and has many fast-food companies as members.

“Denmark is a small country” with a far higher cost of living, Mr. Caldeira said. “Unions dominate, and the employment system revolves around that fact.”

via The New York Times

The argument seems to be that a lesser degree of inequality would never work here because we have a high degree of inequality, that high degree of inequality brought to you by the very people who are telling us that a lesser degree of inequality would never work here because we have a high degree of inequality. What they're really saying is that they pay well in Denmark only because they have to, and they damn well won't pay more here unless someone forces them to, and they'll sure as hell do everything in their power to make sure that never happens.

But I must justify the name of this post. The article quotes a number of “liberals” (code for rational), who take the not unreasonable position that if MacDonalds can make money paying a decent wage in Denmark, it can do so here. None of the factors cited by the unnamed “economists and business groups” have any bearing on the question of whether the liberals are correct. The cited factors may enable Danes to get paid decently, but, for example, the absence of universal health care here doesn't prevent MacDonald's from paying decent wages here. The conclusion we're supposed to reach simply doesn't flow from the cited facts.

What this does help prove is that individual states here in the land of the free can help their own citizens by raising the minimum wage. Most minimum wage workers work for entities such as MacDonalds. MacDonald's can scream all it wants about the job destroying effects of the minimum wage, but the fact is that if it's given the choice between making less money or leaving a state entirely, it will shut its yap and pay, just like it's paying in Denmark. Here in Connecticut, the money that we diverted to workers through our minimum wage increase will, for the most part, stay right here in Connecticut, where it will provide a little extra stimulus, instead of being exported to wherever the Dark Lords that run MacDonalds have their lair. Of course, optimally, we would re-empower the unions, so that, as in Denmark, they would make minimum wage laws unnecessary, but that's not in the cards, and the reason for that is a post for another day.

Filed in Economics | | Comments (0)

Some Connecticut History

Monday, October 27, 2014

So it seems some guy in London was getting his daily run, had his head down, and ran full steam into the British Prime Minister, whose Secret Service analogs were blissfully unaware that he was oncoming until the collision took place. Josh Marshal, at TPM, observed as follows:

After what were likely some tense moments, the security folks and the police realized that the guy just wasn't looking where he was going and (new word?) “de-arrested” him and allowed him to go on his way.

I'd like to think that our Secret Service has a better handle on people running at the full speed at the direction of the President when he's out in public, though recent events probably challenge that conceit. On the other hand, I get the sense that even with an innocent explanation, our system might not have allowed this guy to see the light of day for longer than a few hours.

via Talking Points Memo

Well, Josh you might like to think that the Secret Service has this sort of thing covered, but history says it just ain't so. We Hartfordites of a certain age remember. You see, back in 1965 or so there was this guy who was driving his car East on Talcott Street toward Market. The light at the intersection was green, so he tooled right through, and smacked directly into a car in which Lyndon Johnson, President of these United States, was riding. I tend to agree with Josh, if something like that happened in the good old USA today, the Secret Service would probably open fire first and ask questions later, if they asked them at all. But in those bygone days, even with memories of the JFK assassination fresh in our minds, there was still a semblance of respect for due process, so the hapless guy not only got to live to drive another day, but was fully exonerated, and, if my memory on this is accurate, got a bundle for his ruined car from someone with more money than brains.

If you don't believe me, you could look it up, but don't try either Google or DuckDuckGo, both of which let me down on this one. So, some of the details above may be inaccurate, specifically, the street names. I'm pretty sure I picked the right ones, but…

Anyway, the real reason I am writing this post on such an inconsequential subject is that I have now officially entered head in the sand mode, otherwise known as fetal position mode, re: the upcoming election. Things aren't looking good for the Dems nationally, primarily, in my opinion, because they tend to operate from a defensive crouch (Dan Malloy excepted; give him credit for that). What can you say about a country where the politicians in one party compete with each other to prove how insane they are, while the politicians in the other try to hide their sanity under a bushel? And after admitting there's nothing you can say about that, what can you say about a country like that where the party with the intramural crazy competition is the odds on favorite to win the election? Is there another planet in the universe that contains a country like that? Maybe Dr. Who can save us at the last second, but if he doesn't help, I think we're goners.

Filed in Ramblings | | Comments (0)

Tale of Two Parties

Thursday, October 23, 2014

So I spent last evening at a Democratic Party training session for volunteer attorneys. The object of our endeavors on election day will be to make sure that people are allowed to vote. There is a fear that even here in Connecticut there will be a concerted effort by the Republican Party to suppress the vote. There is also the more mundane problem of local registrars who believe the law says one thing when it says another (for instance, some require photo IDs, which is way more restrictive than the actual law). We were told, and I'm sure it's true, that the Democratic Party is running similar training sessions with similar objectives throughout the country.

It occurred to me as I made my way home through the drenching rain that while the Democrats are busily holding training sessions trying to make sure people can vote, the Republicans are no doubt holding training sessions to teach their volunteers how to prevent people from voting.

Something to point out the next time someone tells you that both parties are the same.

Filed in Politics | | Comments (0)

Fair and balanced everywhere we go

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Paul Krugman took a plane ride, and was subjected (sound blessedly off) to Newsmax TV (no choice, everyone had to watch it), which he speculates is even more right wing than Fox:

This sort of thing is obviously an important part of the reason we’re living in an age of derp. Events and data may have made nonsense of claims that the Fed’s policies would inevitably produce runaway inflation, and made those insisting on such claims look like fools; but there’s a large audience of people who, pulled in by affinity fraud, live in a bubble where they never hear about such evidence.

via Paul Krugman's Blog

I think Paul has it only partly right here. The real issue here is not that “there's a large audience” for right wing propaganda (there may be, but this incident doesn't prove it), but that many of us are subjected to this propaganda against our wills. How many times have you gone into a commercial establishment to find that there is a TV on the wall turned eternally to Fox News. My wife has been engaged for years in a battle with the folks at her gym to get them to stop tuning the televisions there to Fox News. This is not coincidental. It can't be, since the phenomenon is so all pervasive. This sort of bombardment reinforces, for those who pay little attention, the idea that Fox is a legitimate news purveyor. After all, why would Dunkin Donuts show Fox if it were a purveyor of lies. Dunkin' wouldn't do that to us, would it? Inflicting Newsmax on defenseless airplane passengers is just a step more blatant, given that Newsmax does even less than Fox to hide its bias.

Not all of the business that tune into Fox are evil, malevolent, or willfully seeking to propagandize, though many of them are. Many are just following the examples of others. There is an establishment in Groton situated across the road from one of the poorest areas in town. We know the owner quite well. When we took her to task for subjecting us to Fox News (why there's a TV in a deli type establishment at all is another question), she looked totally mystified. She clearly had no idea that it was anything other than a straight news channel because she was totally unengaged politically. To prove that point, she's now displaying a Foley/Somers sign in her window, not, I'm sure, out of any firm political convictions, but because Somers is a hometown girl and she's doing her a favor. To some people, politics is like sports. They have no conception of the fact that it actually matters who gets elected and that taking sides might, in fact, turn customers away. We have let them know we won't be coming back. For myself, it is especially galling that she is displaying a sign for a man who will do his best, if elected, to screw the bulk of her customers, who come from the neighborhood I mentioned earlier.

So, unwittingly, she went too far. But displaying Fox News is different, because you can pretend that you are not taking sides at all; you're just showing the fair and balanced news. Only the politically aware will realize what you're doing. The rest will just soak it in, even those who might otherwise, if at home, watch CNN or not watch the news at all. A good illustration of taking sides when not taking sides, in another context, comes from Krugman's most recent column, in which he rightly tells us we should be squashing Amazon. He discusses the Amazon/Hatchette controversy, and notes:

Specifically, the penalty Amazon is imposing on Hachette books is bad in itself, but there’s also a curious selectivity in the way that penalty has been applied. Last month the Times’s Bits blog documented the case of two Hachette books receiving very different treatment. One is Daniel Schulman’s “Sons of Wichita,” a profile of the Koch brothers; the other is “The Way Forward,” by Paul Ryan, who was Mitt Romney’s running mate and is chairman of the House Budget Committee. Both are listed as eligible for Amazon Prime, and for Mr. Ryan’s book Amazon offers the usual free two-day delivery. What about “Sons of Wichita”? As of Sunday, it “usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks.” Uh-huh.

via The New York Times

So, anyway, what Krugman's experience illustrates more than the lesson he took from it, is the all pervading corporate friendly propaganda to which we are endlessly subjected and which we are more or less powerless to avoid. Just another brick in the wall.

Filed in Corporate Crime, Media | | Comments (0)

The Grifter Party

Monday, October 20, 2014

One advantage the Democrats have over the Republicans is that they are not afflicted with a swarm of grifters that specialize in diverting money intended to advance political causes into the well lined pockets of said grifters. Nothing suits them better than to advance the cause of a candidate with no actual chance of winning, but who, for one reason or another, is great for fundraising. Ben Carson is a case in point:

In Iowa, he sits behind only Mitt Romney as the first choice of Republican caucus-goers, according to a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll. He’s on the verge of running for president, close to making the decision, so he has to learn about politics. The real challenge, he says, is not to learn too much.

Oh, I think he's safe there. If he runs he'll be getting advice from the folks who previously catapulted people like Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain into the spotlight. They'll be able to impart their collective wisdom to him on the first plane flight to Iowa somewhere between wheels-up and the time the first drinks are served. And yes, he will be presented as the alternative to Mitt Romney 2.0.

via Daily Kos (Emphasis added)

Carson is manna from heaven for the folks who made gobs of money off of Bachman, Santorum, and Cain. He's black, which means the rubes can play the “this proves I'm not a racist” card, and he's fairly good at articulating the right wing nonsense that they lap up. For the grifting industry winning is entirely beside the point. In fact, when they lose, it actually helps business, because they can convince the rubes that the losses are the result of a left wing conspiracy that only the next avatar of Sarah Palin can stop.

2016 is shaping up to the year that a grifter backed candidate may very well get the Republican nomination, for the simple reason that there is nary a non-grifter backed potential candidate in sight, with the possible exceptions of Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney and Chris Christie, neither of whom, for obvious reasons, has a serious shot at the nomination. No, this time the choice will be among the likes of Carson, Paul, Cruz, Jindal, and who knows what other red meat pusher the grifters might dig up.

The fascinating question in this respect is this: Are the candidates in on the grift? You could certainly make an argument either way. In my own opinion, Sarah Palin wasn't in on it at the beginning, but, give her credit, she's a fast learner in some respects, and she's been in full control of her grifting brand ever since she resigned as Alaska governor in order to grift full time. I'd like to believe that Cruz, who went to Harvard Law, is in on it, if only because I'd actually like to believe that it really does take brains to get into Harvard Law. No matter, the fact is that each of these potential presidents will be a source of wealth to various grifters that will latch on to them, rendering their campaigns less effective in the process. Assuming Cruz is fully aware of the problem, he'll still be incapable of preventing the grifters from siphoning money away from his campaign.

It would be nice to believe that grifter dominated campaigns will always ultimately fail, but, sadly, that's not the case. We live in a quantum universe after all. As I said, for the most part, at least at present, winning is not a grifter objective, but these things happen.

At least three presidents in the last century or so were the products of grifter type salesmanship: Warren G. Harding, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. Neither man was fit to be president, and that includes Reagan, whose handlers set the country on the path toward extreme inequality down which we careen to this date. I'll admit, the grifters running those campaigns were more focussed on winning than those that swarm around the current crop, but some of them have learned that winning is truly optional. Consider Karl Rove, who has amassed an impressive losing record at Crossroads, but who has made himself a much richer man in the process while retaining his reputation as a political wizard (nothing enhances your credibility in the Beltway more than always being wrong).

Yes, there'll be a lot of money diverted from productive uses on the Republican side of the 2016 presidential campaign. The shame of it is that it looks like Hillary Clinton will be the beneficiary of all that grifting. Perhaps there's a certain irony there, given how much money the grifters have raised stoking fear and loathing of the Clintons.

Filed in Grifters | | Comments (0)

Truth is Stranger than Satire

Saturday, October 18, 2014

A few days ago I made a modest proposal: that we should take immediate action to prevent Texans from entering the country in order to protect ourselves from the scourge of Ebola. You may recall at the beginning of the Obama administration Rahm Emmanuel was quoted as saying you should “never let a serious crisis go to waste”. My thinking was similar: never let mindless panic go to waste. Some good can come from every situation, and if it takes unreasoning fear to rid the rest of the country of Texans, then by all means we should take advantage of that fear.

Well, a few days later I noted that my advice was being taken in somewhat altered form, by the State of Louisiana, that, in typical Southern fashion, chose to keep Texas garbage out, while (presumably) still letting Texans in. Now, I am somewhat chagrined to report, my advice is also being followed in New England, where people are not supposed to be as stupid as the folks in the old Confederacy:

It's a sign of how fast fears over Ebola are spreading. A Maine teacher is told to stay away from her classroom for three weeks. But as far as anyone can tell, that teacher was at a teacher's conference in Dallas ten miles from the hospital with the Ebola patients.

Regardless, the district took the extraordinary step of putting that teacher on leave anyway. School district 58 is requiring the Strong elementary teacher to stay away from students and the school for three weeks, over fears by some parents the teacher could have been infected with the Ebola virus.

According to a message on the district's website, a number of parents expressed concerns about possible exposure of that staff member to Ebola after that person went to a teacher's conference in Dallas, Texas where three Ebola cases have been confirmed.

There's no indication that the teacher went anywhere near the hospital where the first case was undergoing treatment. Administrators say in the message to parents “We have no information to suggest this staff member has been in contact with anyone who has been exposed to Ebola."”

Via WGME News

Now, the fact is that while the majority of Mainers are not this stupid, the plurality may very well be ready to re-elect Ron LePage, so there is definitely a strain of crazy in the state. Those of us who consider New England a stronghold of rationality can only hope that Strong happens to be chock full of LePage voters, or maybe, and this is more than probable, the school superintendent bowed to the demands of a few nutcases. It's an odd thing in this country: the more insane the demand, the more likely our public servants are to accede. Give the press there credit. The article I've excerpted above makes the absurdity of this action pretty clear.

Filed in Crazies | | Comments (0)