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News and analysis: Youth, stupidity and the hockey player

As winter turns to spring, a young man's fancy turns to. . .murder. To Mike Danton, 23, a professional hockey player, that made sense. You see, he had a jones -- drugs. And, his behavior was rather bizarre sometimes. His agent, David Frost, was aware of both problems. Therefore, to Danton, anyway, the man needed to be killed.

The spring cleaning plan from hell came to a just conclusion in an Illinois court this week.

The New York Times has the story.

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) -- Former St. Louis Blues player Mike Danton admitted Friday that he tried to hire a hit man, almost certainly bringing his NHL career to an end.

Danton pleaded guilty to a federal murder-for-hire conspiracy charge and faces seven to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 22.

The plot unraveled when the would-be hit man turned out to be a police informant.

With an accomplice, an equally vacuous young woman, Danton tried to hire a hit man, a dispatcher employed by the police department. The man turned informant. It wasn't long before Danton was giving up a stick and skates for an orange jumpsuit.

I am not ready to enter fuddy-duddyhood by writing a lengthy lamentation about the shortcomings of young people. However, over the last two or three years, I have noticed a seeming decline in intelligent behavior by youths I come into contact with both on and off line. Last week, I explained to a young woman that cash can be used to pay most bills. She was under the impression that only credit cards and checks were acceptable. A few weeks ago, I helped an elderly woman up from the sidewalk after she had been knocked down by a large Labrador a fellow in his early twenties was walking. Fortunately, the entrance to a hospital was only three blocks away. While the fragile oldster leaned on my arm and limped to the emergency room, the young man cursed her as as a "clumsy old bitch" and departed with his dog. Here in the blogosphere, I regularly observe behavior notable both for its stupidity and dishonesty, often by people in the next generation. The ripping off of material from Big Media and attaching of one's name to it, tying to create the impression of authorship, is an example. Apparently, other people are not supposed to realize the young bloggers doing this haven't written a damn thing. But, we do.

I'm not a believer in the broad brush approach. Some of the finest blogger on my blogrolls are in their 20s. I have friends who don't remember Ronald Reagan I trust with my house key. However, I am beginning to think of them as exceptions. In an era when 'Paris Hilton' is among the most sought out references on the Internet, vapidity may become the identifying characteristic of a generation.

Mike Danton's vacuity caught up with him today.

The would-be killer -- identified by the government for the first time in court Friday as Justin Jones, a Columbia, Ill., police dispatcher -- eventually went to police, and Frost was unharmed.

The prosecutor told the judge Friday that Danton had promised to pay Jones $10,000 for the killing, and to make it appear like a botched burglary.

Investigators have said Danton was worried that Frost would go to the Blues with information that could damage his career. Frost has said he urged Danton to get help for his use of painkillers and sleeping pills and his erratic behavior.

I can't help but wonder if Danton ever figured out the kicker to his king-sized mistake. His agent has a legal duty not to disclose confidential information about a client. It is unlikely he would have reported Danton's drug use and erratic behavior to the team.

Law: Internet censorship at libraries has arrived

Multnomah County, in a case with implications for the rest of the country, is resigning itself to the fact that you win some and you lose some. The win and loss this time around is in regard to free speech. Unfettered access to the Internet is something we old hands take for granted. We accept that some pornography will inevitably pop up when we least expect it and that our email will contain the usual offers of Viagra and triple X pics. Some of us even seek such material out. But, we are old hands -- and adults. The question of whether Internet access should be freely available becomes more complex when children are involved.

The county first clashed with the federal government over the matter in 2002, filing a lawsuit in response to regulations it refused to implement. The regulations of the Child Online Protection Act would have allowed the federal government to decide which patrons of libraries could see what via Internet connected computers. Content that might be seen by children was to be filtered or else. The Act would have held libraries financially responsible if pornographic Internet content was sought out or slipped through. Multnomah County prevailed in court. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled the Act was unconstitutional because it unduly restricted access to information.

Congress passed the Child Protection Act in 1998, but it never went into effect. The law would have authorized fines up to $50,000 for the crime of placing harmful material within easy reach of children.

But, to an extent, the outcome in regard to the Child Online Protection Act was a Pyrrhic victory. Congress had passed another law restricting use of the Internet in public libraries. It is the later regulations that were upheld. The Multnomah County Library system, and possibly yours, is not in compliance with them.

The county -- one of two plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the then-nascent Children's Internet Protection Act -- argued that Internet filters were a form of censorship and prohibited access to information. Government officials countered that without filters libraries allowed access to pornography. The new law, they said, simply stopped children from viewing objectionable material.

Librarians and proponents of free speech complained that filters are the equivalent of censorship. Under filtered Internet use, students would be blocked from viewing sites that could be potentially helpful for school projects -- date rape or abusive relationships, for instance -- but that would be filtered out because of certain key words.

Multnomah County joined the American Library Association as a plaintiff in the suit and then-Director Ginnie Cooper -- who now runs the Brooklyn Public Library -- testified against the law.

. . .In 2002, a federal panel of judges in Philadelphia ruled that the law violated the First Amendment because filters blocked too much material that wasn't pornographic in nature. But in 2003, the Supreme Court overruled the panel, saying that because libraries can unlock the filters upon request, they don't impose too great a burden on the systems that use them.

The different rulings in the two cases can be summed up in one word: control. The COPA put control directly in the federal government's hands, the ultimate in state action. The CIPA, though, allows libraries to exercise some discretion in filtering Internet content.

For the most part, the Children's Internet Protection Act and the Supreme Court's ruling in the case last year don't serve as mandates to filter Internet use by children. Libraries still have control over the Internet use of children and other patrons.

A number of library systems in larger metropolitan areas offer a choice of filtered or unfiltered access. Some smaller and midsized systems decided to comply with the law in order to keep federal money, while others are figuring out how to balance the need for protection against the freedom to gather information.

The federal government is using a carrot instead of a stick to urge compliance with the Children's Internet Protection Act. Library systems that filter all Internet computers or filter any used by children, including teens, are eligible for federal funds. Systems that do not are not. Libraries decide whether to censor the Internet. However, SCOTUS has ruled that their decisionmaking does not amount to usurping the free speech rights of the public because exceptions can be made -- filters can be removed when it is deemed appropriate.

It is unclear how effective any of the plans that allow some form of filtering will be. Pornography is so rampant on the Internet that innocuous browsing can lead to a site full of lascivious photos. Even filtered computers, which search for porn using key words, are likely to miss some. Or, the material may enter through a back door, such as clicking on a recently published blog in the Blogger masthead and discovering it contains racy material. Furthermore, children who are subjected to censorship at the library may not be at home, the coffee shop or the neighborhood pizza place. Efforts to control children's access to pornographic content completely will prove futile.

Multnomah County Library will allow children under 13 to use only filtered computers.

What's the art?

An exterior view of the historic central Multnomah County Library in downtown Portland, Oregon. The building opened in 1913.

Reasonably related

The American Library Association maintains a comprehensive collection of information about the Children's Internet Protection Act on its site.

Music: Jonny Lang has grown up

The phrase 'child star' engenders ambivalence in many of us, and, with good reason. Child stars often grew up to be troubled adults before the Different Strokes curse. Even Shirley Temple, the perfect child star, was molested as a young teen and endured discomfiture when her audience's affection for her as a moppet did not follow her into adulthood. Donny and Marie Osmond both acknowledge emotional problems that partly relate to their early stardom. Michael Jackson? Let's not even go there. So, it is a pleasure to observe a performer who became known young and is still doing fine past turning twenty-one. I had that pleasure observing a performance by Jonny Lang at the Safeway Water Front Blues Festival last week. When I first met Lang he was too young to drive or to go into bars unless he was performing in them.

Since then, he has recorded two albums that sold platinum and been nominated for a Grammy. Now, the boy is a man. Age, self discovery and the purchase of his label by Interscope all played roles in Lang's new, broader focus.

Jonny Lang, the guitarist who exploded onto the scene at age 15 with the bluesy 1996 CD, Lie To Me, hadn't put out a CD in five years until Long Time Coming finally arrived in stores in October.

Lang, who plays in Seattle Saturday, nearly released a CD about three years ago. But when his record company said "We don't hear a single," it sent Lang down a considerably different path as a songwriter and musician.

A collaboration with musician and songwriter Marti Frederiksen has resulted in an album that is more about Lang than the blues per se.

The new CD brings those influences fully into the forefront. Only two tracks truly fit the blues-rock mold so familiar to Lang's fans.

Instead, Long Time Coming is dominated by songs that blend rock, soul and funk. A poppier side to Lang's music also emerges.

"Just like everybody, you have your own original style in you," said Lang, noting that he had grown up listening to Motown and soul and didn't discover blues until his early teens. "It was just what was in my heart to do."

Lang's precocity was apparent from his first album, Lie to Me. Consider his heartfelt rendition of the lyrics, by Bruce McCabe and David Z, of the title song.

Lie to me and tell me everything is all right
Lie to me and tell me that you'll stay here tonight
Tell me that you'll never leave
Oh, and I'll just try to make believe
That everything, everything you're telling me is true
Come on baby won't you just
Lie to me, go ahead and lie to me

A fifteen-year-old has just begun being lied to. But, Lang clearly knows there is lots more of that to come.

Some reviewers are saying Lang has abandoned the blues.

Lang, who shot to the top of the blues charts in the mid-'90s as a teenager with an old man's voice and a young man's guitar showmanship, headlined Gov. Jesse Ventura's inaugural ball and toured with B.B. King. But now it's bye-bye, Jonny Blues Boy; hello, soulful California rocker. He quit drinking, stopped smoking and abandoned the blues. On his third album, Long Time Coming, Lang sounds more like Stevie Wonder than Stevie Ray Vaughan. And he even does a version of a churchy piano ballad set to a rhythm track by -- get this -- Eminem.

I don't believe that is true. There were always rock undertones to the songs Lang penned himself. On Long Time Coming they are more pronounced. But, the blues inprint on his glorious guitarmanship is still very much present. A protege of Buddy Guy does not forget. The most memorable song on the CD, "Dying to Live," works as both blues and rock. So does his cover of "Red Light." Besides, the 23-year-old has plenty of time to geta full blown case of blues all over again.

One of the highlights of Long Time Coming, foreshadowed on 1988's Wander This World, is Lang's ability to cover a soul standard and make it his own. His version of Stevie Wonder's "Living for the City" is an astounding blend of guitar and saxophone virtuosity. The message of the song is bolstered by it being sung by someone too young to know the racially segregated world described, but deep enough to recognize the crushing evil being depicted. Partly reared by bluesmen who did know that world intimately, Lang seems to have absorbed the pain and outrage they must have felt. When I experienced the song performed live, in a crowd of thousands, it brought tears to my eyes. The cover of "Living for the City" also brings Lang full circle in a way. A successful former child star is interpreting one of the best former child stars ever.

Reasonably related

•Jonny Lang's website. Hear music from Long Time Coming there.

•A well-run fan site has the lyrics to some of Lang's songs.

•See videos for Lang's CDs at VH1.

•Photo from the 2004 Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival, by Mac Diva.

Commentary: Feeling for Marion Jones

I tend to be a fairly empathetic person. That means not forming a definite opinion about people accused of wrongdoing until I know most or all the facts available. I was sympathetic to the Portland Seven until the guilty pleas began. I hope Michael Jackson is not a child molester. I did not make up my mind about O.J. Simpson until after I was sure he had motive, means and opportunity to kill two people -- not to mention leaving his DNA on the scene. So, my inclination is to believe Marion Jones, the Olympian whose supposed involvement with the BALCO doping scandal has been widely discussed, is innocent. Jones (pictured) has not been charged by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, but the allegations cloud what should have been a glowing future for the athlete who won five medals in 2000. In fact, a pattern of poor performances at the Olympic trials by athletes associated with the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) has emerged. Guilty or blameless, their ability to perform is deteriorating.

The stress seems to be taking a toll on Jones, who has failed to qualify for her best event in this year's Olympics. Tim Layden, writing at CNN commented on the disappointing news.

Jones' fifth-place finish in the 100-meter final was staggering only in the moment it occurred. To see the erstwhile Mrs. Jones, winner of five medals in Sydney, holder of the seven fastest non-Flo-Jo 100-meter times in history and at her best an overwhelming presence on the track, flatten out at 50 meters and struggle home deep in the field was briefly disorienting

However, Layden dismisses the trauma of being the central figure in an embarrassing episode as irrelevant to Jones' failure.

Was she distracted from preparation by the Balco scandal? No sale. Sprinters train a few hours a day. She's supposed to be a professional and, what's more, it's her own high-priced legal and PR team that has pushed Jones to the front of the Balco Affair with an aggressive and questionably pre-emptive strategy.

He is less sure of himself in regard to Jones' giving birth last year, saying it may be an explanation or part of one. He hints Jones performs well when using steroids and poorly when not. However, Jones' high school and college records, and her early post-college performances, before she was associated with the BALCO circle, belie that. An athlete who was dependent on performance enhancing drugs would not have earned the stature Jones did earlier. Indeed, much of the taint of Jones is derived from her choices in partners. Her ex-husband, C.J. Hunter, is a shot putter who is said to have failed doping tests four times. Jones' fiance and the father of her son, Tim Montgomery, the world record-holder in the 100 meters, has allegedly admitted use of steroids in grand jury testimony. Her former coach is also a central figure in the scandal.

The aspect of the situation that makes me feel for Jones is this: At this time, it does not matter whether the doping allegations are true. The anxiety, depression and reputational damage occur when a person is accused, whether the accusations are ever proven to be well-founded or not. In my youth, I was naive enough to believe people could just ignore the travails they face and carry on as usual. But, older and wiser, I now know that stress under adversity is the norm of the human physiology. Under the circumstances, Jones will suffer. There is no escaping the mental and physical effects of difficult situations -- even if you are the fastest woman in the world.

Reasonably related

•See the accomplishments of America's best female athlete.

•ABC News reports Marion Jones qualified for the finals in the long jump, for which she is the record holder, but just barely. There is still a chance she will be eliminated before the Olympics.

Listening: Seduced by a New Age song

Just a little bit of Wyndham Hill type music goes a long way with me. New Age, sew-age. When exposed to anything more mellow than Mark Cohn or India Arie, my ears try to close themselves. So, I was surprised when I found myself liking a song by the singer Iron & Wine yesterday. I was seduced as much by the video that accompanies the song, "Naked As We Came," at the iTunes Music Store, as by the song itself. Perhaps more.

Simon at Webmink is responsible for whatever has happened to me since I became aware of Iron & Wine at his blog.

I'm not going to describe the video because I want you to form your own opinion.

View the vid and hear the song. Let me know if I am succumbing to easy listening syndrome.

Reasonably related

•The Iron & Wine website, courtesy of Sub Pop Records.

•Don't have iTunes? You can hear an audio clip at Amazon.

News: Texas education miracle wasn't

Education in Texas was the recipient of boxcar loads of attention a few years ago. When it was in the news, it played to the tune of a mariachi band. George W. Bush rode into the White House, or at least into the Supreme Court, partly because he claimed mastery of one of the major domestic dilemmas in the country -- the failure of our schools to teach and graduate more literate people. Bush then appointed the man he claimed had shepherded the Texas education miracle, Rod Paige, U.S. secretary of education. Now, cue the violins. The truth about the alleged miracle has emerged. The 'miracle' seems to have consisted of frauds on several levels.

The Houston Chronicle reports the Texas has the highest proportion of dropouts in the country, and, it is not improving.

For the second straight year, Texas has the lowest percentage of high school graduates in the nation, according to a U.S. Census Bureau study released Tuesday.

Seventy-seven percent of Texans age 25 and older had a high school degree in 2003, the same percentage as a decade earlier, when Texas ranked 39th in the country. So while other states have seen their graduation rates improve -- a record 85 percent of Americans have high school degrees -- Texas is treading water.

Defenders of the situation have tried to blame low graduation rates on the state having a large population of Hispanic immigrants. But, knowledgeable sources disagree, pointing out that 85 percent of Hispanic students are American born. Additionally, they say that the high rate of Hispanic dropouts, about 40 percent in cities such as Houston, shows the educational system is failing 34 percent of the state's population. There isn't a moderate achievement, not to mention a miracle, with such a level of failure occurring, they say.

Education officials understated the dropout rate in Texas by not acknowledging most dropouts. But, why would educators want to make a mockery of their commitment to education? The Daily Texan asked an expert.

'The dropouts become absolutely necessary because what they are trying to do is get the [test] numbers up, not improve the education of the children,'' Rice University researcher Linda McNeil said. ''What this system sets up is it rewards the principals who get those kids out of the building.''

It's called a ''leaver'' code system, and it's used to disguise dropout rates, said Maria Robledo Montecel, San Antonio-based director of the Inter-cultural Development Research Association.

School districts in Texas can use any one of about 30 ''leaver'' codes to explain a student's disappearance. About 20 of the codes, ranging from pursuit of a GED to imprisonment, exempt a student from being counted as a dropout, which, along with standardized test scores, is used to determine a district's annual accountability rating by the Texas Education Agency.

The TEA claims only 1.3 percent of Texas students dropped out in 2001-2002. The others, just 'left.' An independent group pegs the figure at 39 percent.

But, claims of fraud don't stop with falsified dropout numbers.

HOUSTON, June 25 - Three years after Rod Paige left his job as schools superintendent in Houston to become the federal secretary of education, his successor and several of his closest associates are stepping down, some amid questions about how business dealings have been conducted in the district.

The New York Times reports that associates of school board members and administrators were awarded profitable contracts by the Houston school district. A school board member quit when her husband was not awarded an additional contract for architectural work after investigators began probing the situation. Other officials have left claiming a need to spend more time with their families.

The revelations suggest a pattern and practice of dishonesty.

In the seven years that Dr. Paige was superintendent, Houston reported such gains in student achievement that George W. Bush's supporters hailed the progress in the 2000 presidential campaign as a Texas miracle. It helped Dr. Paige earn his cabinet seat and enabled the Bush administration to use Houston as a model for the No Child Left Behind education act. With Dr. Paige's departure for Washington, Ms. Stripling, a onetime teacher, was named to replace him. In 2002 the Broad Foundation, based in Los Angeles, awarded Houston a $1 million prize as the best urban school district in the United States.

But in 2003, a state audit of records at 16 middle and high schools in Houston showed that more than half the students who should have been reported as dropouts in the 2000-2001 school year had not been. Those findings were followed by the discovery that Houston had also failed to report thousands of schoolhouse crimes, raising doubts about the district's credibility with all kinds of data and attracting nationwide attention from the news media. . . .

We are all familiar with the adage, 'if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.' Yet, when people in high places try to sway us with tales of miracles, we are sometimes succeptible. The false impression of a very successful educational system in Texas, crafted by a coterie of interested parties, misled a nation. We should not allow ourselves to be fooled again.

Reasonably related

I learned about this topic from Dirtgrain, a teacher and blogger who regularly researches and writes about issues in education. You can read his weblog here.

EW interviews Michael Moore

Relax, Republicans. This entry is about an interview of Michael Moore that apppeared in Entertainment Weekly. That is right, entertainment. Where y'all say Moore (pictured) belongs. So, put away those 'Fahrenheit 9/11 is entertainment, not information,' talking points right now. First, some information. It has become popular among Right Wingers to say F9/11 is a failure. The facts suggest otherwise.

The surprise was that Fahrenheit won the Palme d'Or in Cannes. That it survived a bruising fight between Disney and Miramax. And most of all, that it soared to the top spot at the box office with $24 million and broke all kinds of records. By June 28, Fahrenheit was the highest grossing non-concert, non-IMAX documentary of all time, (besting Moore's last movie, the Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine), and the only one to ever win a box office weekend.

That's right, F9/11 is the only documentary, or 'mockumentary' if you prefer, to ever gross the highest receipts for a weekend. The film is not a failure. So, one wonders why it is a smash. A person with an opinion about its success is Michael Moore. He offers three reasons why the movie is popular.

•Fahrenheit 9/11 humanizes the people involved, including the Iraqis.

•One side of the invasion and occupation of Iraq has already been told by Big Media. He is telling the other.

•The film provides the first opportunity to see casualties in Iraq, getting past the cleansing imposed on footage and still photos from the occupation by the government.

But what of the hatred? How does it feel to be held in contempt to the extent that people try to make a living from criticizing you? Moore says he can handle it.

The way I learned to deal with this is that there are two Michael Moores. There's the one the rightwing lunatics have created. The fictional Michael Moore. The one that they just make stuff up about. And then there's me. So whenever I read something about me, I have a good laugh. I enjoy reading the exploits of the fictional Michael Moore who has a penthouse on Fifth Avenue and has, in the Daily News today, a hot tub on his balcony. Did you know that? I read that and I thought, That would feel good. (Laughs.)

While reading the several pages of the interview, I found myself really connecting with Michael Moore for the first time. I have appreciated his objectives as a film maker on an intellectual level throughout his career, but remained emotionally distant. That changed. In EW, Moore seems bewildered by some aspects of people's behavior that also bewilder me. For example, the lying -- often for no identifiable purpose. Why would someone want to claim the film maker has a hot tub on a balcony? Why not a gold toilet? Or a calvacade of call girls, on, well, call? Or, better yet, no lie at all? The film is said to humanize the not so collateral damage in the invasion of Iraq, both for Americans and Iraqis. The interview humanizes Moore.

Read the post Fahrenheit 9/11 Michael Moore interview, touted as the most thorough yet, in this week's edition of Entertainment Weekly.

Health: Waiting for mad cow disease rules

Six months have passed since the federal government announced it would pass legislation to curb practices that result in mad cow disease. But, nothing has happened. Some observers began to express skepticism, doubting the Bush administration intended to enact the rules it initially opposed. (The beef industry also claimed that no changes to the status quo were needed.) But, perhaps the doubters are in error.

Today, after appearing indifferent to reform as recently as last week, the FDA announced it has changed its tune.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Food and Drug Administration later this week will publish details on long-delayed safeguards aimed at protecting the U.S. food and animal feed supply from mad cow disease, the agency's top official said on Wednesday.

"There's going to be a suite of them (rules) out this week," said acting FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford.

The FDA said on Jan. 26 it would ban animal blood in cattle feed, as well as ensure that dietary supplements and cosmetics are kept free of materials from "downer cattle" -- animals too sick or hurt too walk.

Those of us who have maintained an interest in the controversy were wondering if we would ever see results. The FDA's entrance into the situation after a cow from the Pacific Northwest was identified as suffering Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) was slow. Spokespersons first said the food supply was safe. Only later, after the practices that result in the malady, including feeding animal parts and feces to cattle, were publicized, was there a move away from defensiveness.

The Oregonian wrote about the rules that appeared to be a phantasm last week.

The measures -- among them a call to stop calves from being fed cow's blood -- were announced Jan. 26 by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and then-FDA Commissioner Mark B. McClellan.

. . .At the time, the FDA said the rules would take effect upon publication in the Federal Register. But publication never happened.

FDA officials this week confirmed the rules had not taken effect. And a call Thursday to acting FDA Administrator Lester Crawford was referred to an agency spokeswoman who said she could not say when the new rules might be instituted.

That no new FDA protections are in place provokes concern among government officials and consumer advocates.

Consumer advocates fear the administration, never enthusiatic about changing the rules governing slaughter and usage of cattle, has been influenced by the industry to ignore the proposed changes now that the media has moved on to covering other controversies.

Carol Tucker Foreman, a former USDA assistant secretary and current director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America, referred this week to the "mysterious, disappearing rules" and criticized the FDA for being lax.

"It's not unusual for a department to say we're going to put out some proposed rules and then have some time pass," Foreman said. "But for the (Health and Human Services) secretary and the FDA commissioner to call a press conference to announce it and then to disappear from the face of the Earth is pretty . . . unusual and irresponsible."

Crawford's statement may be a response to that recent grumbling. However, even if the proposed legislation is enacted, it stops short of a reliable mad cow disease policy according to some. They support adopting the standards enacted in Europe.

The American measures will include:

•Restricting brains, spinal cords and other tissues known to harbor the highest concentrations of brain-destroying agents from FDA-regulated foods, dietary supplements and cosmetics.

•Prohibiting materials taken from dead or so-called "downer cattle" from FDA-regulated foods, dietary supplements and cosmetics.

•Ending the use of poultry litter collected in hen houses -- typically comprising feces and contaminated feed -- in cattle feed.

•Prohibiting the use of mammalian blood as a protein booster for young cattle.

We should know whether the FDA will act within a week.

Politics: John Edwards is an endorseable choice

I have been a reluctant trooper in regard to this year's presidential election. Unlike most people in the blogosphere, I have never heartily supported any candidate. When John Kerry emerged as the last man standing in the Democratic Party, I accepted that I would vote for him. However, of the two Johns, my preference would have been John Edwards. One of the reasons I admire Edwards (pictured) is he has lived a challenging life, rising from working-class origins to become a very successful trial lawyer. Kerry's wealth and status are largely inherited. Another reason, I prefer Edwards is his uncompromising support for civil rights. Silver Rights explains.

It appears Edwards will be more open about his opposition to some traditional Southern values. Right Wing talk radio host Les Kinsolving discovered Edwards will not balk at offending 'heritage' supporters recently.

SALEM, N.H. - Democrat presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, denounced the Confederate flag on Wednesday, Jan. 21, calling it "divisive" and "a symbol of oppression to some Americans."

He also declared that the Confederate flag which flies on the state capitol grounds in Columbia, in his native South Carolina, should be removed.

. . .My answer is that the Confederate flag, which is a symbol of oppression to a lot of Americans, is a divisive symbol and should not be flown in a place like it's being flown in South Carolina, in front of the state capitol. It shouldn't be flown on public grounds like that. That's my position and I stand by it.

The interviewer got nowhere with trying to manipulate or trip up the pugnacious trial lawyer turned politician.

But, how will Edwards' principled stand play with relatively conservative white voters? In my experience, many of those people like a bit of wink-and-nod from leaders to reassure them the status quo is not really being disturbed.

Edwards has also refused to wink in regard to the hot button issue of affirmative action. He emphasized his support of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding affirmative action programs in higher education this summer.

"The court reaffirmed America's commitment to equal opportunity and justice," Senator Edwards said. He cautioned, however, that the 5-4 ruling "underscores the importance of nominating and confirming justices committed to upholding civil rights."

. . .Senator Edwards filed a friend-of-the-court brief with 11 other senators urging justices to uphold the admissions policy. The senators argued that affirmative action policies at universities throughout the country play a significant role in remedying racial disparities. The senators' brief was one of more than 60 submitted to the high court in support of the University of Michigan.

Again, a politician has taken a principled stand that many of his constituents may oppose. The fact Edwards is a Southern politician taking that stand makes him even more vulnerable than he would be otherwise.

Edwards' unequivocal support for civil rights could cost him a some votes among Democrats who are also participants in or sympathizers with the neo-Confederate movement. However, it could also help Kerry with a part of the electorate he has failed to get enthusiastic support from -- racial minorities. Time Magazine recently considered Kerry's lack of appeal to African-American voters.

Because black voters are more opposed to President Bush than is almost any other voting bloc, John Kerry's first move to secure their enthusiastic support might have been simply to follow Hippocrates' instruction: do no harm. But when he appeared before the National Conference of Black Mayors in April, Kerry chose to speak not about their concerns but about his plan to make the U.S.'s chemical plants more secure — leaving the audience underwhelmed. And when Kerry's campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill, listed his top election strategists, it revealed that the group of six was all white, angering black activists who feel the Democratic Party takes African Americans for granted. Noting that Bill Clinton was sometimes called America's first black President, Kerry said earlier this year, "I wouldn't be upset if I could earn the right to be the second." Responds a senior Clinton Administration official who is black: "That ain't gonna happen. He's not going to out-Clinton Clinton, and if he tried, he would look phony."

. . .Though a Democrat, Massachusetts state representative Byron Rushing has said he will not campaign for Kerry until he sees a strategy that will energize black voters. "People want to like Kerry. People want to be enthusiastic about him. But for whatever reason, they're not," says Julianne Malveaux, a Washington-based black activist and writer who attended a recent Florida retreat for African-American political consultants.

According to Time, Kerry has been close to two black Americans in his life, one as a child and another as a young adult. Though that record is probably more diverse than one would find for many white Americans, it describes a person not exactly cognizant of the experiences people of color have. If he is to win the one in five Democratic voters who is African-American that Al Gore did, he must find a way to appeal to people he may rarely even think of. And, the problem does not stop there. Kerry, a patrician New Englander, has shown no particular knowledge of Hispanic or Asian voters, either.

Edwards, however, has achieved his political success in a part of the country still openly riven by issues of race and class. He was forced to face racial issues head on during his rise to prominence. Most importantly, he has not blinked. I believe many of the civil rights supporters Kerry needs to attract are aware of Edwards' advocacy for their cause.

Kerry will not win the degree of approval from supporters of civil rights he would have by hiring Donna Brazile as his campaign manager, but he will shore up an increasingly doubtful constituency by having selected John Edwards as his choice for vice president.

Reading: Asimov's Foundation fumbles

The science fiction writer of the last generation who has been in the public eye lately is Ray Bradbury. His rather silly complaint about Michael Moore's use of 'Fahrenheit' in the name of his movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, has gotten more ink than it deserves. I don't believe there is a copyright violation issue. Furthermore, the nod to Bradbury's novel, Fahrenheit 451, can be perceived as a compliment. But, the sci-fi writer who has had my attention for the the last two weeks is Isaac Asimov. Though I have read some Asimov over the years, I did not approach the Foundation cycle until now. I may have picked up the first book because I was stymied by Ursula Le Guin's Hain cycle. However, Asimov's Foundation books have their frustrations, too.

Asimov began the cycle in the early 1950s, when he was in his early twenties.

The time is millenia into the future. Humans have colonized the galaxy and reached an inventive zenith in which technology is well-dispersed, and mainly nuclear. Technological civilization is in decline, though few realize it because the process of decay is so slow. At the edges of the Empire, worlds have drifted back to using fossil fuels and wood as energy sources. The royalty of the Empire is not interested in seeing, hearing or saying any evil, that is, any acknowledgement that all is not well. Enter one Hari Seldon, the superhero of the Foundation series. He is a psychohistorian, a psychologist who can foresee the future by studying aggregates of people and determining their likely responses to stimuli. His goal is to soften the decline of the Empire into barbarism for 30,000 years he believes is inevitable. He plans a recovery that will take only 1,000 years. Seldon manipulates the emperor into setting up his dream laboratory -- a planet where he can develop his theory to his heart's content.

Seldon and his followers are exiled to Terminus, a planet at the far reaches of the galaxy that they develop from scratch. The exile serves the government's purpose by eliminating dissenters who might disrupt the status quo. It serves Seldon's purpose by giving him free reign over a population that, at first, is fully dedicated to his ideas. The initial rationale given for the existence of the Foundation is that it will research and publish an encylopedia containing all of the knowledge of mankind. But, by the end of Foundation, the first book of the series, that rationale is revealed as a pretext. The Foundation exists to keep technology alive and innovative. While the Empire loses its technological sophistication, the Foundation will gradually spread its technology to surrounding planets. The initial method for spreading technology is religion. In return for inventions of the Foundation, other planets agree to allowing 'priests' from the Foundation to 'minister' medicine and other science.

It isn't long before some rulers of barbarous planets reject Foundation technology rather than have their power threatened by Foundation priests. The method for transferring technology shifts to traders. The traders engage in mercantile capitalism, without the threatening trappings of religion. However, they will become a threat -- to the Foundation because of their independence. Another threat precedes them. Seldon can only predict matters involving large groups of people. Psychohistory does not apply to individuals. Therefore, he misses the emergence of a mutant leader 300 years into the Seldon Plan. The Mule grasps power over much of the Foundation's reach by controlling the minds of leaders of various governments and factions. Foundation and Empire chronicles the Mule's impact on the Foundation and the inevitable clash of what remains of the Empire and the Foundation.

Another set of protagonists in the Foundation series is a secret second Foundation that considers itself the ally of the first. Seldon's plan has been for the Second Foundation, consisting of the mentally powerful, to be the leaders of the technologically superior Second Empire. Leaders of the original Foundation rebel against the notion. They consider themselves the true heirs to Seldon's vision. In Second Foundation, the two groups finally meet. The result is a resolution that appears to consolidate the power of the first Foundation, while eliminating the second.

Though the plots of the three novels may sound complicated in description, they are not when actually reading the books. There is a group of leaders who are either on the wrong track or despotic. A single man rebels against them, and orthodoxy, and gets the next step of the Seldon Plan right. The first of the righteous renegades is of course, Hari Seldon. He reappears in holographic form time and again to confirm that events are proceeding as he predicted.

Some aspects of Asimov's futurism are puzzling. Despite the passage of time, human life expectancy hasn't increased. People still get the same diseases and there no are cures or even restoration of missing limbs. Smoking, likely one of the habits any advance society will find a less harmful substitute for, is prevalent. Nor is there is any caution about the dangers of nuclear power. Women get little attention in the novels, and then stereotypically. Bayta, the heroine of Foundation and Empire, achieves the distinction because of the Mule's romantic attraction to her. In Second Foundation, her teenaged granddaughter is a kind of good luck charm for the male characters. The sexual stereotyping is particularly noticeable if one has been reading Le Guin. Her early books, written during the same period, explore the role of gender in future societies. Asimov seems to believe sex roles are fixed. There are also no nonwhite characters in the three Foundation novels I read.

The frustration I am experiencing with Le Guin's Hain cycle is the opacity of the Hain themselves. The Hain influence other planets by introducing superior technology to them, but it is not clear what their own planet is like. The frustration I've experienced with Asimov's Foundation cycle is the lack of growth in human capacities he envisions for the future in these books. Asimov places all his faith in a single sort of human, the vigorous male leader who sets less vigorous male leaders straight, achieving power for himself. Asimov's ideal is not mine.

Reasonably related

•The official Isaac Asimov Homepage.

•There are three additional Foundation cycle novels written in the 1980s and 1990s.

Film: A cool look at Fahrenheit 9/11

Ms. Lauren at Feministe has seen Michael Moore's controversial movie. Her review is one of the most unbiased I've read in the blogosphere. Though she is on the Left, she has brought an objectivity to the topic not in keeping with the usual biases of Bloggersville. She resists the temptation to dehumanize people whose politics she disagrees with. Nor does she ignore the flaws in Moore's outlook. The result is a review I suspect any reader will find thoughtful.

Spoilers ahead.

I saw the movie tonight, and as much as I would like to give a raving review, I cannot. While I agree with the basic premise of the movie, much of Michael Moore's argument is based on an emotional appeal that I inherently resist.

Unlike others who have criticized the movie, I didn't think Moore's scope was too wide. Overall, Moore's threefold thesis was clear:

1) The Bush administration is a parade of assholes.

2) Like in Bowling for Columbine, a fear-based spin on the news will make us agree to just about anything - even war.

3) War is bad.

Oddly, much of the footage of the administrative rockstars readying themselves for the camera on September 11th made Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice appear more human than appear as members of the Evil Empire. The infamous seven minutes of Bush in his photo op at the Florida elementary school recorded a reaction much like my own -- his presidency doesn't make him less human for his stunned reaction.

Unlike Moore's analysis of Bush's paralysis due to lack of informed action by his cronies, I perceived his reaction of that day as much like mine.

I am impressed with Lauren's analysis of the use of the word 'conspiracy' to refer to the relationship among Bush administration members, cronies and corporations benefitting from the invasion of Iraq. In America, the interlocking aspects of power are often out in the open. For example, evidence of Vice President Dick Cheney's profitable relationship with Halliburton is available to see for anyone willing to do minimal research. As nefarious as the interlocking relationships may be, they lack the cloak and dagger qualities of what most people consider conspiracies.

As much as I disagree with the current administration, I cannot peg them as a part of a wide conspiracy to profit from the war. A conspiracy is not a conspiracy if it is in the open. This administration is heavily tied with business interests and has acted accordingly. This administration is heavily concerned with moral comeuppance and has acted accordingly. This is no conspiracy - no conspiracy about oil, no conspiracy about millions of dollars of profit.

Let me say it again: A conspiracy is not a conspiracy if it occurs in wide open spaces.

What of my own attitude toward Michael Moore? I am neither a partisan nor a critic. I consider his films to be good food for thought, but not sacrosanct. But, I reject the Right's claim that Moore's movies are 'just lies.' The blending of fact and techniques of fiction to make a point has a long history in the arts. I believe what is being called lying is actually a form of literary license.

Read the entire review of Fahrenheit 9/11 at Feministe.

News and analysis: Jack hits the road

Jack Ryan has officially withdrawn as the Republican nominee to the Senate from Illinois. Ryan, who sought to conceal seamy allegations about his sex life, blamed his inability to remain in the race on the media. His opponent, Democrat Barack Obama, has chosen not to comment on the scandal. USA Today has Ryan's parting remarks.

"The media has gotten out of control. The fact that the Chicago Tribune sues for access to sealed custody documents and then takes unto itself the right to publish details of a custody dispute over the objections of two parents who agree that the re-airing of their arguments will hurt their ability to co-parent their child and will hurt their child is truly outrageous.

"The debate between competing visions and philosophies is a vital one one the voters of Illinois absolutely deserve. Elections, after all, are about choices. But it's clear to me that a vigorous debate on the issues most likely could not take place if I remain in the race.

"What would take place, rather, is a brutal, scorched-earth campaign — the kind of campaign that has turned off so many voters, the kind of politics I refuse to play.

Accordingly, I am today withdrawing from the race."

Ryan has claimed he wanted his divorce records sealed, a very unusual step, because his son has 'special needs.' However, the material a California judge allowed to be released, a small part of the record, revealed intriguing information about Ryan himself, not the boy. Actress Jeri Ryan, his ex, alleges Jack Ryan took her to sex clubs on four occasions and asked that she engage in sexual activity while other people watched. Ryan disavows the allegations.

Party leaders were angered by Ryan's denial, up until the divorce files were opened, that the material contained any embarrassing revelations. They believe he knowingly misled them.

Despite a thorough reading of news and opinion about Ryan's predicament, I found few people who accepted his alibi for attempting to block the release of the material. Instead, the effort to shield himself with his son backfired, leading to negative assessments of Ryan's character.

Ryan's withdrawal statement also is an exercise in blame shifting, in my opinion. He takes no responsibility for having created the circumstances he finds himself in. Such an admission could attach to the unseemly behavior alleged by Jeri Ryan, his efforts to prevent the release of the material in the court files or his failure to be candid with party officials. All three opportunities to atone were ignored. Instead, Ryan attempts to shift the blame to the media. It has been clear since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), that a higher standard of conduct is expected of public officials than of ordinary citizens. The consideration they pay for receiving privileges not offered to the average Joe or Jane is having less privacy and being subject to more public criticism without grounds for complaint. Ryan, a Harvard Law School graduate, should have been well aware that as as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, he was a public figure. He should have known that being a public figure means having his behavior scrutinized by the media. I doubt he is ignorant of his legal status, so I must assume he is dissembling.

Jack Ryan left investment banking after becoming a multimillionaire. He taught at a Catholic school for boys for three years. During his campaign, youths from the all-black school were used as props in Ryan's public appearances and a television ad. I am curious to see whether Ryan returns to teaching or returns to accumulating wealth. The imbroglio over his divorce records appears to have been an effort of damage control he began years ago when his marriage was on the rocks. He knew then that he wanted a career in politics and planned accordingly -- getting his divorce records sealed. Is Ryan's supposed altruism another maneuver meant to profit his hoped for political career? Time will tell.

Blogospherics: New blogs should be better blogs

Blogger Simon at Simon's World is making an effort to revive The Truth Laid Bear's New Weblog Showcase. The contest provided exposure for new blogs. Bloggers submitted an entry and voters, from other blogs, decided which of the entries they considered evidence of the most promising weblog. Ideally, the best entry -- well thought out, researched, and capably written -- won. The ideal result occurred at least once. Mac-a-ro-nies won the contest.

Simon has described his plans for the new version of the competition.

Welcome to the New Blog Showcase Blog. After NZ Bear put his New Blog Showcase on hiatus I thought it was a shame that such a good idea go to waste. So I humbly present this New Blog Showcase blog, with the explicit aim of giving exposure to newer members of the blogosphere.

This will work a little differently to the Bear's old system. The qualification criteria remains simple: your blog must be less than 3 months old. Submit your post to me at simon@showcase.mu.nu and I will put it up. Each post will remain for 7 days from the day I post it. At this stage I will leave the comments open for now. Comments are NOT moderated but I will exercise my discretion to delete and ban anyone who doesn't follow the simple rules of common courtesy. I also reserve the right to close comments on particular posts or all posts at my sole discretion.

I strongly encourage people with blogs to link to those posts they enjoy. Or if you have something more you want to add, or disagree with, or whatever. Bloggers live for linkage and giving newer members of the blogosphere a taste of that is the aim of this site. All I ask is you also link back to the post here at this site as well as at the original.

I have mixed feelings about blog contests, probably because I have mixed feelings about blogs. I'm the person who will come on to a thread where bloggers are engaging in an orgy of self-congratulation and douse them will a ice cold bucket of virtual water. That H2O is called reality. The truth is most bloggers do not rock. And, the public is largely unaware of blogs. Only about 11 percent of Internet users have read weblogs, and those sporadically or only at the behest of friends or family. Researchers for the Pew Foundation have studied the authors and the audience.

A mere 2% of Adult Internet users maintain Web diaries or Web blogs, according to respondents to this phone survey. In other phone surveys prior to this one, and one more recently fielded in early 2004, we have heard that between 2% and 7% of adult Internet users have created diaries or blogs. In this survey we found that 11% of Internet users have read the blogs or diaries of other Internet users. About a third of these blog visitors have posted material to the blog. Most of those who do contribute material are not constantly updating or freshening content. Rather, they occasionally add to the material they have posted, created, or shared.

Furthermore, most blog entries are poorly written, completely unresearched, confuse fact and opinion and are bastions of copyright violation. But, what of claims blogs are better sources of news than print or broadcast media one hears bandied about? Pure malarkey. As imperfect as the media is, it is leagues ahead of blogs in providing reliable information. Even the best blogs provide very little information, relying on being conduits of opinion, instead. With the exception of a few bloggers who do some reporting, most notably Josh Marshall, of Talking Points Memo, little development of news occurs in the blogosphere.

My experience as a journalist has doubtlessly biased me. However, I believe it has biased me in the right direction. I believe quality matters.

My reservations about a revived New Weblog Showcase are based on what blogs really are, instead of unrealistic bloggers' delusions. The blogosphere has developed into a place where a few people with grandiose, often bullying personalities, have gathered sycophants to them. The networks of sycophants trade links back and forth among themselves. Based on this totally artificial construct, bloggers in the networks develop a sense of importance completely out of touch with their actual status in society. The members of a given network also regurgitate the brain droppings of their 'great leader' on demand. As a result, the blogosphere is an echo chamber of the know-nothings much of the time. Not long ago, I was engaged in a conversation with a blogger who was a part of a group that had spread a lie. He kept insisting that since X number of bloggers had linked to the falsehood and helped circulate it, that meant the lie was true. Stupid, you say. If the thing said is false, a million bloggers linking to it can't make it true. Absolutely. But, that is the kind of sophistry the organization of the blogosphere lends itself to. Information too often takes a back seat to misinformation and disinformation, and too many bloggers fail to grasp the difference. Instead, they rely on networks that reinforce their mistakes.

The risk with this contest is that it will become another way for the networks to support their participant, regardless of the quality of entries submitted. Awful entries will win votes because they have been smiled on by one of the larger networks. Excellent entries will fall by the wayside because the independent bloggers lack cheering sections. The results will say everything about the organization of the blogosphere, and nothing about thinking and writing well.

So, it is with ambivalence that I link to Simon's New Weblog Showcase and urge people who qualify to consider participating. There are independent bloggers who post entries that are well-researched and ably written. But, based on what I've observed in the blogosphere, we are a minority. If new bloggers adhere to basic standards of journalism, I welcome them. However, there are more than enough bad bloggers already.

To learn the qualifications for the new contest, visit Simon's blog.

Politics: We do know Jack. . .Ryan

The other shoe has dropped for Jack Ryan, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Illinois. It is a brogan. The material Ryan (pictured) fought to keep sealed in his divorce records is salacious and smells of spousal abuse.

The Sun-Times reported the court's decision last week.

A Los Angeles judge on Thursday ordered some of the sealed records from the 1999 divorce of Republican U.S. Senate nominee Jack Ryan and Hollywood actress Jeri Ryan opened for public scrutiny -- even though they "may be embarrassing" and "damaging."

. . .The papers in question were filed in 2000 and 2001 during custody hearings following the Ryans' 1999 divorce. Lawyers for Jeri Ryan, star of TV's "Boston Public," initially opposed closing the records, arguing that Jack Ryan was only worried about political embarrassment, but she later joined her ex-husband in calling for some of the documents to be removed from public view.

At the time, Ryan tried to brazen the situation out, claiming there was nothing embarrassing in the files. However, that claim has quickly eroded, as sleuths unearthed damaging allegations about the candidate's behavior. During the custody proceedings, Jeri Ryan described Jack Ryan's interesting inclinations.

I made clear to Respondent that our marriage was over for me in the spring of 1998. On three trips, one to New Orleans, one to New York, and one to Paris, Respondent insisted that I go to sex clubs with him. They were long weekends, supposed 'romantic' getaways. . . .

"The clubs in New York and Paris were explicit sex clubs. Respondent had done research. Respondent took me to two clubs in New York during the day. One club I refused to go in. It had mattresses in cubicles. The other club he insisted I go to. . . It was a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling. Respondent wanted me to have sex with him there, with another couple watching. I refused. Respondent asked me to perform a sexual activity upon him, and he specifically asked other people to watch. I was very upset. We left the club, and Respondent apologized, said that I was right and that he would never insist I go to a club again. He promised it was out of his system.

"Then during a trip to Paris, he took me to a sex club in Paris, without telling me where we were going. I told him I thought it was out of his system. I told him he had promised me would never go. People were having sex everywhere. I cried, I was physically ill. Respondent became very upset with me, and said it was not a 'turn on' for me to cry.

"In September 1998, I told Respondent it was not just Paris, I had been unhappy for years. We briefly tried counseling, but it did not work. . . I told him I was in love with another man, whom I fell in love with after our relationship had fallen apart that spring.

She says the continual pressure from her husband to participate in public sex resulted in emotional turmoil.

Ryan is the Great Republican Hope for the Senate, needed to retain control. Party leaders are attempting to shrug off the allegations of shady sexual behavior and psychological abuse of his former spouse. It has been falsely claimed the judge in the case, Robert A. Schnider was appointed by former California Gov. Jerry Brown, a liberal. Though Ryan is running as a pro-life and pro-family candidate, the implications of his abuse of his spouse are being ignored. Some people are even casting aspersions on Jeri Ryan's credibility. William Saletan, writing at Slate, isn't drinking the Kool-Aid.

Six years ago, Republicans demanded that Bill Clinton be investigated and impeached for having sex with an intern and covering it up. Now their nominee for the U.S. Senate in Illinois, Jack Ryan, is brushing off his then-wife's allegations that he repeatedly pressured her, despite her protestations, to have sex with him in front of other people. Instead of denouncing Ryan, many Republicans are defending him.

Like me, Saletan is particularly skeptical of Ryan's effort to hide behind his now nine-year-old son. Ryan claims that the very unusual effort to keep the divorce records sealed is all about Alex. But, it is doubtful that the topic will be news by the time the boy is old enough to understand it. Furthermore, the information is not about Alex in any way. There are situations that might embarrass a minor child. For example, if the boy had been fathered by someone else, or has a hidden medical condition, that might qualify as information that he should be shielded from until the right time. But, a father's penchant for going to sex clubs is all about Jack, not Alex. Saletan tracks Ryan's plan to hide behind a child's rompers back several years.

At a press conference Monday, Jack Ryan said he had fought to keep the divorce records sealed in order to "keep information about [my] child … private." He ducked most questions, claiming, "It's not helpful to our son." According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Ryan mentioned that his son had "special needs." Ryan didn't mention the "political aspirations" he had raised in his 2000 filing when he complained about Jeri Ryan making their marital troubles public. And according to the Chicago Tribune, "in September 2000, Anne Kiley, an attorney for Jeri Ryan, said in a court filing that one of Jack Ryan's attorneys had told her a few months earlier that Jack Ryan wanted parts of the file blacked out, removed, or sealed because he was 'concerned [it] would negatively impact his political aspirations.'

I don't believe Ryan is concerned about the impact on his son at all. He looked about for a pretext for keeping the divorce records sealed. The best gambit available was to imply that material in them is damaging to the boy. It is not. Ryan lied.

Jack Ryan has what the late writer and secret homosexual John Cheever referred to as 'difficult proclivities.' Instead of exercising control of his desire for public sex, Ryan attempted to bully a wife who did not share his interest into participating in it. Once he realized that his marriage was ending, he put a plan to hide the allegations into action. Not only is Ryan's current behavior continuing abuse of Jeri Ryan, it is abuse of the public trust. Ryan has revealed himself as lacking basic decency. Not because of his 'difficult proclivities,' per se, but because of his refusal to acknowledge them and take responsibility for the embarrassing situation he is in because of a lack of self-control.

I have considered only one aspect of Saletan's fine dissassembly of Ryan's 'defense' in Slate. Read the entire article.

Reasonably related

We last discussed Jack Ryan in regard to his race against Barack Obama. Read "Politics: Obama's campaign tense, touching."

News and analysis: Downfall of a governor

Connecticut's chief executive may soon be trading Brooks Brothers suits for stripes and his name for a number. He will be resigning from office under an ominous cloud today. The man some people thought might someday become president of the United States will be lucky if he avoids prosecution. Rowland's closest associate pled guilty to federal charges in regard to trading state contracts for profit in March. The governor's house of cards tumbled fast.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland will announce his resignation Monday night, amid a federal corruption investigation and a growing move to impeach him, two sources told The Associated Press.

. . .Rowland, 47, a Republican easily re-elected to a third term in 2002, admitted late last year that he lied about accepting gifts and favors from friends, state contractors and state employees.

State and federal authorities have been investigating those allegations, and a special House committee also has been considering whether to recommend Rowland's impeachment. The committee was scheduled to begin its third week of hearings later Monday.

The announcement comes several days after the state Supreme Court ruled that the legislative panel could compel the governor to testify.

Rowland was once the nation's youngest governor - he was 37 when first elected in 1994 - and considered a rising star in the GOP. He is a former chairman of the Republican Governors Association and was rumored to be considered for several positions in the Bush administration.

Rowland's situation interests me partly because of his use of executive privilege to try to hide his malfeasance. On the national level, we are seeing corrupt Pres. Richard M. Nixon's supposed trump card reemerge as a barrier to the release of information the public has a right to know. The chief executive, George W. Bush, and his staff, including a national security advisor, cite it as grounds for not revealing information that would confirm events preceding and during the invasion of Iraq. Rowland is somewhat novel in attempting to apply the same evasion to unseemly decisions at the state level. His bad decisonmaking was quite personal, despite its political implications. Free lodgings here, there and everywhere. Unpaid work done on a vacation home, including installation of a hot tub. Gratuitous boxes of boxes of Cuban cigars. Rowland would have been the eighth governor ever impeached and removed from office if he had not caved in to pressure. Considering the paucity of similar cases, I don't believe we can call the use of executive privilege to hide malfeasance by governors a slippery slope initiated in national politics, but the issue is worth considering.

The blogosphere being the partisan place it is, some people will wonder if I am writing about Rowland because he has been considered a Great Republican Hope. I am not. I have also expressed concern about the activities of Oregon's favorite son, Neil Goldschmidt, while he was in various offices. Goldschmidt carried on a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl while he was in his thirties and mayor of Portland. With the help of well-placed friends, he was able to keep the rape of a child secret for nearly 30 years. Continuing investigations reveal the man Goldschmidt used as the victim's handler was compensated by the then governor intervening in regulatory affairs on his behalf. Goldschmidt is a Democrat.

The commonality between a Rowland and a Goldschmidt is hubris. Both are men who were told they were special and always given their way from a young age. The plums of society and approval of millions were conferred on them. Along the way, they began to have such a strong sense of entitlement that any 'good fortune' they could avail themselves of struck them as their just due.