MorningBird

Hillary the Heir Apparent

Rocky Who?

I watched an NFL football game last night. It was played in Philadelphia and it was broadcast on national TV, but the game was incidental; the star of the show was Rocky. Sylvester Stallone was all over the place; on the sidelines before the game and in the broadcast booth during the game, and everyone within shouting distance wanted their "Yo" moment. They love Rocky in South Philly.

Rocky is a big deal in Philadelphia--except in that rarified world of locked jaws and hyphenated names that rule the city's arts community. The Philadelphia art mavens view Rocky's statue like a boil, and years ago they banned it from the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum where it attracted more interest than the exhibits inside the museum. A museum which over the years has been forced to close its doors on certain days for lack of funds to pay the poor security guards.

Rocky was shuttled off to the sports complex in South Philly, and the art mavens thought, that was that. But the public clamored for Rocky's return and after much pressure and wringing of silk hankies, he was allowed to return to the Art Museum area, but not to his old home atop the steps. Rocky was planted on the side of the building, discreetly away from the main entrance, and presumably away from the windows of the curator and her smug accomplices inside that blue-blooded palace of privilege.

Never-the-less as ESPN reminded us last night, you can't keep a good man down--even on the Main Line.

Sylvester Stallone is as far removed from Philadelphia's snooty art denizens as Albert Barnes was in his time. Dr. Barnes despised the exclusive, condescending ways of Philadelphia's coupon-clipping arts crowd and he was careful to remain apart from that world even as he prepared to enter the next world. Dr. Barnes left very careful instructions in his will about what to do and what not to do with his incomparably valuable collection and he left an estate to finance that gift.

Of course you know the rest of the story. At the same time as the Philadelphia arts community was banning Rocky from the steps of the Art Museum, apparently they were planning to hijack the Barnes Foundation. And they did! Now they are building a new palace across the street from the Art Museum to house the Barnes Collection.

May the shadow of Rocky darken its doors.

Have you seen any good news lately?

Why is bad news more interesting than good news? The local TV news is about fires, rapes and murders—and weather. Have you ever seen anything on a local TV newscast but disasters, criminal events, and weather? (Some would classify weather forecasting as a criminal event.)

And newspapers are no more cheerful. But I’ll cut newspapers some slack on the weather. Your house could blow away before the newspaper arrives, and so we don’t pay much attention to weather reports in the newspaper. But newspapers print the same dreadful news, along with the national dreads, which local TV rarely mentions (the local dreads, the weather and the commercials don’t leave much time for national news on Channel X).

The daily newspaper national news usually includes a mix of sports, business and politics from Washington, London, Sri Lanka, Sao Paolo, and other places we can’t pronounce or locate on a map. Of course if your newspaper is a weekly, the weather section is ludicrous. But weekly newspapers have an especially sobering section that warrants extra space—the obituaries.

We don't pay enough attention to the good stuff. And so, I put together a sampling of news that I think should merit attention. These are listed in no particular order; simply as they fell from my still functioning, 67 year-old, non-Alzheimer affected brain.

Dateline: Durham, NC. "The Duke University Lacrosse team had a 100% graduation rate this year." It's true. Did you know that? We hear a lot about dumb jocks that can’t get to the verb, but not much about student-athletes who go to class, study, and earn a diploma. The Duke Lacrosse Team's academic achievements will be good news for some, but bad news for others; depending on their persuasion about that dreadful event with the dancer.

Dateline: Washington, DC: The National Center for Health Statistics: "In 2002, 2.6 million babies were born to parents with a marriage contract." The report said that another 1.4 million children were born out of wedlock that year. (And 1.4 million were killed in the womb.) Why don’t we celebrate parents who don't kill their babies? I don't care if they have a marriage contract; although I wonder why one would bring a child into this world without a social and legal umbrella. Note: 2002 is the most recent period I could find statistics for. Maybe it's better now.

Dateline: Atlantic City, NJ: "Last night, in Atlantic City, Bill Cosby held forth with two hours of non-profanity laced stories. They were rolling in the aisles." Mr. Cosby is dealing with his own set of dreads at the moment, but we should not forget the wholesome humor he has entertained us with for decades. He is a funny man and he does it without four-letter words.

Dateline: Philadelphia, PA. "Not one Philadelphia city official was indicted yesterday." (OK, I made this one up, but I'm sure there were a few days in the recent past when that statement would have been true.) Unless you live in Philadelphia, you cannot appreciate what a joyous reception that headline would receive. Of course, no one would believe it. Maybe they could run it in the funnies section.

Enough. I don't purposefully watch the local news on TV, but occasionally it drifts into my space, and without exception, I am amazed at the negative content. Maybe I should say the continuity, for it never changes: fires, rapes and murders. Local newspapers are no different; they too headline the dreads.

But the dreads can mean different things to different people. For some, they can be happy events, in a perverse sort of way. Take the NY Times for example. A few weeks ago a low level White House official was convicted of something to do with the Jack Abramoff scandal. You know the guy in Washington who bought off some Republican Congressmen? (They don't tell us that he bought off some Democrats, too.) Anyway this low level White House official got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, or his ass in a G-5, I'm not sure what. I had never heard of him before that event, and I can't remember his name now. I'm sure you can't either. And that's my point. The NY Times had this poor slob's color photo ON THE FRONT PAGE ABOVE THE FOLD, a space normally reserved for stock market crashes, declarations of war, and the death of world leaders. So much for objectivity in the newsroom. I assume this sad event was a happy one for The New York Times. (I'm not taking sides; I could pull a similar story from Fox News.)

This is one--but only one--of the reasons TV, newspapers, and news magazines are threatened. Not because they are partisan, but because they attempt to hide it. The Internet is a refreshing change. Amateur news on the web is unabashedly awash with opinions, and it is delivered head-on, not cloaked in oblique language. It comes from the bottom up, not top down from the editor's desks of the establishment news industry. And it is delivered in real time, not shackled to the 6:00 newscast, or the lumbering printing press.

The rise of the Internet and specifically the blogging format will surely go down as one of the most important events in news gathering history; perhaps all of history. It has liberated thought. Expression is unstructured, even out of control at times; uncontrollable might be a better description. But this medium has revealed some very good thinkers--and exceptional writers. And it has shrunk the world like nothing else in history. The establishment should be worried.

That is the good news.

NOW OR LATER

When I was growing up, my parents moved a few times.  Four elementary schools, two junior highs (middle school), and two years in a boarding school gave me opportunities to make new friends--and to be tested. There is a bully everywhere you go, and they always pick on the new kid.  I had a lot of fights, but I never started one.

It is human nature to avoid conflict, and that was my first tactic--always.  First I tried to appease them--you know, attempt to make friends, but that invariably failed.  And sometimes I tried to bribe them--"You want to ride my bike?"  But that stuff never worked for long; they kept coming back until I stood my ground.  Their weapon was fear.  Once I penetrated that flimsy veil, it was all over.  But to do that, I had to clean their clock.

I learned a lesson from that--you can fight them now, or you can fight them later.

Is it any different with the terrorists?

Whose pipes?

According to Chairman Edward R. Whitacre, "at&t will not give its pipes away."  Mr. Whitacre is a lifelong employee of the old AT&T and the Bell Telephone system, and no doubt (in his mind anyway) his crowning achievement was to put the telephone company back together--at least the parts not owned by Qwest and Verizon, which by-the-way, include MCI, that old Bell nemesis that started this mess back in the last century.

The pipes Mr. Whitacre is referring to are the last mile connections to our houses and places of business, favorite bars and so on.  The last mile is an industry buzzword for the copper wire that connects us to the old telephone network.  I say "old" for even though the telephone network is still the big kahuna for talking and faxing (about 180 million U.S. telephone subscribers use it every day), it is aging fast.  In fact it is technologically dead, a condition that Mr. Whitacre will not admit, for at&t is racing forward with a new hybrid system to transmit voice and data and video that relies on that poor, brittle, slow copper wire for the "last mile."   

Mr. Whitacre does not talk about the miles in between the last miles.  In the last few years, tens of thousands of miles of copper have been replaced by fiber optic cable. More than we need.  There are more unused strands of fiber-optic cable strung around the world than stars in the sky.  And those strands of glass connect population centers all over the world; East, West, North and South; yep it runs under the oceans too.  Compared to copper wire, fiber-optic cable is like a Ferrari is to a Volkswagen Beetle.  It ain't no contest Alice.

Messages race around the world on fiber (and satellite), but when they get to our neighborhoods they screech to a halt and crawl into the house on copper wire.  Mr. Whitacre likes it that way.  Now don't get me wrong; at&t (and Verizon and Qwest) have miles and miles of fiber-optic cable too, but they also have lots of competition for that long haul business.  And so they have staked out the last mile to defend their turfs; not with innovative products and services--no, with money.  Money thrown at the politicians in Washington.

Mr. Whitacre says he paid for that last mile and therefore deserves a decent rate of return on his investment.  (I'll get back to that in a  minute.)  And furthermore, he says, "I'm not going to let my competitors use it for nothing."  He claims to be talking about Yahoo and Google and Microsoft and a hundred other companies that are bringing new and better communications tools for us to use.  But he is really talking about us--the consumers.  He wants to build a fence around that last poor little strand of slow-poke copper and charge extra for certain Internet activity.  at&t can't compete with better products and services and so why not just lock the gate? Of course we, the poor lobby-less consumers, do not have a Congressman hooked on our tool belt, but if we did, we would point out that we already paid for access to our ISP--handsomely in fact, to the tune of $40 per month and up for broadband service.  And our ISP pays for every bit and byte of data that it transmits over Mr. Whitacre's slow poke last mile. 

Now back to Mr. Whitacre's  claim that at&t deserves a decent rate of return on its investment.  Why?  Is Disney guaranteed a decent rate of return when they make a bad movie? Remember the New Coke?  Was Coca-Cola rewarded for that flop?  If you're old enough, you surely remember the Edsel, the largest disaster in automotive history.  Who reimbursed Ford for that fiasco?  If at&t can't make money under the present Internet open source system, step aside.  Who cares if at&t carries Internet traffic or not?  Do you?  I don't?

Mr. Whitacre has worked for a monopoly for so long that he can't stop looking to the government to bail him out.  He's used to bullying his way to success, the consumer be damned. Sadly he has the money to do that in Washington.  But it will be a temporary victory, for the Googles and the Skypes of this new age will surely find a way around Mr. Whitacre's legislative roadblock.  Where will at&t turn then?  Probably to new management; executives seasoned in the rough and tough world of free enterprise.  at&t and the other Bell survivors will have to flush out the current crop of monopolist bred managers, if they are to survive.    

Hang-up on Spanish

The Spanish language is in the spotlight. Last month The U.S. Senate passed the immigration-reform bill (S.2611), including a provision declaring English the official national language of the United States. As I write this, there is a similar bill working its way through the House of Representatives (HR 5456). A lot of Americans, including me, are concerned that we are headed for a language duopoly, hence the flurry of activity on Capitol Hill.

Others pooh-pooh that notion and point to past generations of non-English speaking immigrants, primarily Europeans, whose offspring mastered the new language within a generation. But we did not genuflect before the Italian language; or the German language, or the Polish language. One could argue that learning the language of the land allowed the children of those immigrants to quickly move into the mainstream of society; and commerce.

But those immigrants arrived here legally. They were above board, and they jumped through hoops to become naturalized citizens. Now we have a flood in the Rio Grande; a flood of bodies. Never before have so many come so fast, and never have so many illegal immigrants crossed our border, doomed by their unauthorized entry to remain in the shadows. Remember when Jimmy Carter opened the door to Cuban's wanting to flee Fidel's iron hand? And Fidel opened the jailhouse doors and loaded the boats with criminals; remember that? I'm not suggesting that President Fox is pulling a Fidel, but you know there are a fair number of criminals among the hordes of people coming across our southern border. From the shadows to the shadows.

Spanish language newspapers, TV and Radio networks proliferate in the U.S. and they serve to isolate non-English speaking Mexicans even more. Why should they learn English? But why should we be concerned? I don't have to talk to the guy who mows my grass; if I have a complaint I go to his supervisor. And the guy who mows my grass does not have to communicate with me, because that same supervisor insulates him.

It's not hard to understand the motivation behind this flood. Jobs. Apparently there are no jobs in Mexico for these people; or if there are jobs, they do not pay a living wage. And so they come here, take jobs American's do not want (so they say) and send a large part of their earnings back across the border (over $20 billion in 2005). And so, let's assume for a moment that we could find all of them, and load them onto buses and airplanes, and send them home. All 10 million of them; or 15 million; or 20 million, depending on which estimate you believe. What would happen to Mexico's economy? Would that loss in income usher in another left-wing dictator as in Cuba and Venezuela? And then what? Nationalization of GM and Ford plants? Coca-Cola? More oil spikes?

We've allowed a cancer to metastasize before our eyes, afraid to go to the doctor, because we fear the cure more than the disease. Who would harvest our crops? Who would mow our grass? Who would clean our offices? Who would baby-sit our children?

Government--at all levels--contributed to this. Our schools permit Spanish-speaking students to use their English language deficiency as a crutch. We do not force them to learn English as a primary language, and in some school districts, not even as a second language. So much for the second generation learns English theory. In those communities, Spanish rules.

Election ballots are printed in Spanish (and dozens of other languages). What is that about? Doesn't a naturalized citizen have to learn English before they take the oath? Who are these people who vote in another language? Why do we allow that?

I could go on and on about the government's enabling policies and procedures, but government is not the problem. The government is a follower, not a leader. Governments typically react after the fact. They are ponderous, and for good reason.

Commerce is to blame. Without jobs there would be no immigration problem. Forged documents and no documents are the norm. Who checks papers? Who cares? OK, I can empathize with that. You have a business to run and a job you can't fill with legal applicants. You learn about a pool of immigrant workers--day laborers--and you do what you have to do. Meanwhile, the government looks the other way. This is how we got here; it happens hundreds of thousands of times every day and the result is that we have an underground pool of millions of illegal workers. The government ignores their presence, but their needs are not ignored; they are blessed with security blankets for medical care, education, driver's licenses, etc.

But here is my real gripe. The Captains of Commerce have endorsed the Spanish language. What is the first thing you hear when you call your cellular company, your rental car company, or your airline? "Press 1 for English, or 2 for Spanish." The business world has capitulated; greed rules. I suppose we should be grateful that English is the first option. How long will that last?

It's one thing to hire them. It's another thing to put their language on par with ours. We need to hang-up on Spanish.

KATRINA ONE WEEK LATER

I watched the disaster on TV last week.

The authorities looked helpless—all of them. The Mayor of New Orleans pointed a finger at everyone but himself. The Governor of Louisiana looked like a deer in the headlights, and the Director of FEMA seemed to be on another planet. Where was Rudy when we needed him?

Meanwhile, Texas, first in executions, last in education and largest in hearts, opened it’s arms and said, “Come on in, we’ll take care of you.” Houston absorbed over 100,000 refugees and thousands of other homeless victims were shunted off to other Texas communities. San Antonio even volunteered to house the impotent New Orleans Saints, a sacrifice they will surely regret.

Sunday night, 60 Minutes had its “get even for Dan Rather” moment when Scott Pelley fawned over the hapless, helpless Mayor of New Orleans. This was not an interview, but a sugarcoated attempt to focus the blame on anyone and everyone—read George W. Bush—but the city and the state. But it is obvious the mayor and the governor failed their constituents in the days leading up to Katrina and CBS can’t cover that up; the dozens of inquiries and commissions to come will reveal that. Today New Orleans looks like Haiti, but what do you expect from the Banana Republic of Louisiana?

One week after the storm, I awoke on Labor Day morning to an NPR newscast from New Orleans. In the background I heard music and the tinkling of ice. A bar in the French Quarter was open for business. (Did it ever close?) The bartender was selling alcohol and giving away water. The Big Easy is down, but don’t count her out.

WHO IS GUARDING OUR BORDERS?

The 9/11 terrorists arrived in the United States by air, and performed their awful deeds in the air. Since that day, the American aviation system has been in a state of high alert.

There are five ways to enter the United States. You can drive, fly, sail, swim, or walk in. What are we doing to protect the other gateways?

After flying, driving might be the most inspected mode of entry. Travelers and vehicles enter this country through border stations operated by the Department of Homeland Security, where Customs agents inspect passengers, vehicles, personal property, passports, and other documentation. Reportedly, there are a handful of unofficial entry points on the Canadian border manned by private security guards.

Visitors, who sail to the U.S., arrive on cruise ships, cargo vessels, ferries, charter boats and privately owned vessels. Customs procedures vary as to vessel type, point of entry and other variables. Container ships offer plentiful opportunities for stowaways. And there are thousands of miles of shoreline stretching from Maine to Mexico on the east, and Washington to Mexico on the west, including thousands of inlets where a small boat can put ashore.

Swimming is another way to get here. Passengers may be transported by vessel until close to shore, where they are put overboard, and using an inflatable raft or scuba gear, simply float ashore. Again, the thousands of miles of unprotected shoreline make this an inconspicuous option. Mexico, Canada, Cuba, and the Bahamas are convenient launching pads for this type of entry.

The U.S. coastline is porous and the U.S. Coast Guard, mysteriously mired in the Department of Transportation, does not have the resources to cope.

Yet, with a 2,000 mile land border on the south and almost 4,000 miles on the north, simply walking in may be the easiest way to enter the United States.

In the south, the government cannot, or will not, stop the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico. To the north, Canada gets even less attention, and its rough and remote geography offers a safer environment for slipping across undetected.

I am not a Homeland Security or Homeland Defense expert, and it is not my intention to examine the convoluted reasons for our porous borders; however, we now face a new kind of illegal alien, one who is coming here not to work for us, but to kill us.

I have an idea for plugging our borders, and it is free; the resources are already on the U.S. Government payroll.

Once a year 1.2 million Reserve and National Guard troops go away for two-weeks of active duty drills. Some units go the same place year-in and year-out; others go to different locations. The destination is a function of their mission in coordination with the military command structure, but my point is this: they all go somewhere for two weeks. Once a year, Army, Air Force, Marines, and Navy personnel get into their jeeps, trucks, buses, boats and aircraft and go off to hone their skills.

Why not deploy them to guard our borders for that two-week period?

The 9/11 Commission asked the question, “Who is responsible for defending us at home?” And the answer was, “Our national defense at home is the responsibility, first, of the Department of Defense and, second, of the Department of Homeland Security.”

1.2 million troops, deployed on a rotating two-week duty cycle on the borders with Mexico and Canada would provide a constant contingent of approximately 45,000 personnel. (1) That assignment would be more than a training drill for them; they would be our first line of defense. Can there be a more important mission than that? And since those two-week exercises are already budgeted, the incremental cost to U.S. taxpayers would be minimal.

(1) The war in Iraq put an enormous strain on Reserve and National Guard resources, and I am not ignoring the dilutive effect that war would have on this proposal. Obviously, Reserve and National Guard commanders would consider active-duty cycles when scheduling summer drills.

IT'S TOO QUIET

This week the world will focus on burying a Pope.  And after that, the election of his successor.  That will keep us preoccupied for most of April.

Meanwhile, the Israeli’s and Palestinians are playing kissy-face.

Syria is making plans to march out of Lebanon.

From Kabul, that Democratic corral surrounded by Afghanistan, we hear nothing.

Iraq is actually forming a government.

The crazy man in North Korea is nowhere to be seen.

The Chinese are too busy emulating Taiwan to attack Taiwan.

Egypt had elections?

Be alert.  It’s too quiet.

Karol Wojtyla

I was invited to submit my thoughts about Pope John Paul for a memorial section to be published in the Philadelphia Inquirer.  I didn’t have to think twice; I responded immediately. The words raced from my head onto the screen and I was surprised at the ease and the speed at which they came.

I mentioned that my connection to him has nothing to do with his church or his imperial position.  John Paul transcends religion; his appeal reaches beyond the pomp and pageantry of the Catholic Church (I’m sure that causes problems for him inside the ponderous Vatican bureaucracy), and I guess that is why I relate to the man; he is an outsider in his own church. 

Enlightened Catholics clamor for this and that in their attempts to shoehorn their religious beliefs into a secular world, but the Pope does not waver.  He takes not the path of least resistance, but walks a principled course; the man is a rock.   

If Karol Wojtyla had chosen a career in sports, he would have been a Vince Lombardi.  If in politics, an Abraham Lincoln.