Working for the candidates

Yesterday I volunteered at a printing facility for the McCain-Palin ticket. I met some interesting people and got a little taste of how "boots on the ground" works during campaigns. You can have tons of money for the TV ads, billboards and appearances on Letterman and SNL, but if you don't have the loyal, organized volunteers, you probably won't get elected--at any level.

Until the carpetbaggers came to Ohio (about a dozen Obama staffers have now cancelled their registration and ballots--they must have cut a deal to avoid felony charges), I thought the involvement of some of my Democrat friends 24/7 was admirable, even though I disagreed with their politics. It takes a lot of gumption, guts and glorification to pick up and move to another state even for a week or two. I don't see it that way anymore.

Not that my friends of 50 years would register and vote multiple times or encourage anyone else to, but they've helped with the plan--whether setting up the headquarters, filling in for the locals, making the coffee or hosting an event. The 20-30 year olds they admire so much do not have our grounding in ethics and morality. They are of the ends justifies the means crowd. They're schooled in Obamanomics. As Michelle said this week in Bexley, "Barack gets it" (and I think she means your money).

Seeing the vans pull up to voter sites (during golden week in Ohio you could register and vote the same day and our Secretary of State and Courts have said it is legal even though she can't verify them) and disgorge the homeless from God knows where with ACORN drivers and counselors telling them how to vote makes me see political volunteering outside your own city and state in a whole new light.

The houseful of 13 out of towners who came here were taking time out of their busy schedules in Europe and elite Ivy League schools as honor scholars with wealthy parents to fund their fun to tell us poor schmucks how we should vote. Good riddance, and I hope they can't find another sandbox to litter and just go back to studying peace, justice and marxism until they grow up.

The International Herald Tribune regrets

Not that I expected it to print my comments--I never give out all that detail (phone, address, eye color, handedness, all identity stuff) that you need, and still your comments will never appear--your identify just goes into a database. I just wanted to let them know that the comments of Joe Biden My Time promising Barack's election would cause an international crisis appeared in their paper a few days before our local journalists thought to mention it. At another international on-line news service (Pakistan) I think I noticed the phrase "Islamic terrorists", whereas the USAToday had called them "insurgents" when they burned down a building storing cooking oil intended for families with daughters enrolled in school.

At the bottom of the Tribune's nice "thanks but no thanks" response I saw this warning.

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In order to preserve the environment, please do not print this message unless it is necessary.

This e-mail message, including any attachments, is destined solely for the recipients detailed above and may not therefore be divulged or communicated to any other persons. Any modification, publication, use or dissemination is prohibited if not authorized by the International Herald Tribune.

So you are seeing an unauthorized response to my e-mail complimenting them on their coverage of a very alarming incident that happened twice in one day in the U.S. on the Biden by-hook-or-by-crook march to the White House.

A voting record Left of Everybody

New York Times Endorses Obama for President

Oct. 24, a Reuters headline. Now that's a big surprise, right?

"S&P Lowers NYT Rating to 'Junk'" also a headline on October 24, Crain's New York Business.

The company reported a 51.4% decline in third-quarter profit but still beat Wall Street estimates as the newspaper industry continues to suffer from advertising reductions accelerated by a worsening economy.

For years the New York Times
has published only its opines
of how much America declines
while George Bush it always slimes.

Read it daily if you will
I can't take the snooty swill.
A 50+ decline but still
Team Obama is their drill.

The National Run Around

We can expect FDR type programs from BHO, for in your face, God Almighty inspired government regulations, and jack boots on the necks of non-compliant plumbers. But with better looking graphics and logos, given that his campaign man is a media guru. The National Recovery Association was called the National Run Around because of the hundreds of codes that impeded business, and the WPA, Works Progress Administration, was called the We Piddle Around.



"The economic impact of the NRA was immediate and powerful. In the five months leading up to the act’s passage, signs of recovery were evident: factory employment and payrolls had increased by 23 and 35 percent, respectively. Then came the NRA, shortening hours of work, raising wages arbitrarily, and imposing other new costs on enterprise. In the six months after the law took effect, industrial production dropped 25 percent. Benjamin M. Anderson writes, "NRA was not a revival measure. It was an antirevival measure . . . . Through the whole of the NRA period industrial production did not rise as high as it had been in July 1933, before NRA came in.

To run NRA, FDR chose "General Hugh "Iron Pants" Johnson, a profane, red-faced bully and professed admirer of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Thundered Johnson, "May Almighty God have mercy on anyone who attempts to interfere with the Blue Eagle" (the official symbol of the NRA, which one senator derisively referred to as the "Soviet duck"). Those who refused to comply with the NRA Johnson personally threatened with public boycotts and "a punch in the nose."

Roosevelt next signed into law steep income tax increases on the higher brackets and introduced a five-percent withholding tax on corporate dividends. He secured another tax increase in 1934. In fact, tax hikes became a favorite policy of Roosevelt for the next ten years, culminating in a top income tax rate of 90 percent.
Read Reed.

Calling Team Obama

While they were out investigating Joe the Plumber's taxes, look what was going on in New York with a Kennedy man.

Gov. David Paterson's embattled top aide resigned Friday, after a week of escalating criticism over his failure to pay $300,000 in taxes on time and a questionable excuse for the lapse.

Mr. O'Byrne, who has ties to the Kennedy family, has said clinical depression kept him from paying taxes between 2001 and 2005, before he took the job as secretary to the governor. He's a former Jesuit priest who officiated at the wedding of John F. Kennedy Jr. and counseled the Kennedy family three years later after he died in a plane crash. He was the top aide to Mr. Paterson. He was responsible for mapping out policy and politics as Mr. Paterson rose from the near powerless Democratic minority in the Senate to lieutenant governor and then governor after Democrat Eliot Spitzer resigned in March amid a prostitution scandal. Crains

Dear President Gee

You probably don't remember me, but we met during your first round as OSU's president when I went to a public meeting to "meet the new guy on campus" and boldly asked what you intended to do about the leaky roof over my library which was putting our books and computers at risk. Ah, the good old days, when one could ask questions face to face. That building's gone now, replaced by the one I helped plan, and you are back at Ohio State.

I'm writing to tell you I met one of your wonderful students today. Not only am I impressed with the quality of our young people, but I feel safer too--he's in the National Guard. We had a delightful time volunteering together on a political campaign project for McCain-Palin.

However, as Glenn Beck would say, I need to wrap duct tape around my head to keep it from exploding over what I learned about the abusive behavior of your faculty at Ohio State. It was shocking and alarming, and as a tax payer, I recommend an investigation. I was aware of the brainwashing going on in the 80s and 90s, but I don't think it was anything like today. I think OSU's faculty of 20 years ago had more integrity, and weren't so monolithic in their views and politics.

He told me that he has seen every one of Michael Moore's movies in his college classes! It was required. One was a biology course, one was a political science course, and I've forgotten the other two. For one class final in a Latin American history course the only question was to write an essay on the seven best things Fidel Castro had done for Cuba. In another course where the students needed to write a persuasive paper, he chose "Why the U.S. needs to drill in ANWR." His instructor, an honest but not particularly ethical woman, told him at the outset he'd need to choose another topic. She'd have to flunk him because he'd never be able to persuade her, no matter how good his argument or bibliography, she said. He says the ridiculing and trashing of the Bush administration has been relentless in all his classes.

He also told me he doesn't know why we hear so much about unemployment--he has three jobs! After volunteering, he was going to go play golf with his dad, retired military, who was in town visiting.

Dr. Gee. Tell me. What is going on at Ohio State? Whatever happened to a liberal education where students were taught and encouraged to think on their own? Why are you asking for money for buildings and landscaping if all you're producing there is a graveyard for young minds?

The sale of National City

National City Corp., Ohio's biggest bank, acquired Buckeye Federal Savings and Loan of Columbus in 1991 which had a small branch in the Tremont Shopping Center close to our home. This week it agreed to be bought by PNC Financial Services Group for more than $5 billion. I had opened a savings account at Buckeye Federal because it was convenient (within walking distance). When depositors were allowed to buy stock, I did--maybe 10 shares. I think until it was bought by National City, I used my dividends to buy more stock. This was my first adventure into investing, and I know exactly where the money came from and the sad, sad story of where it has gone (subprime mortgages). My last dividend check was thirty-two cents, less than the stamp to mail it.

When my grandmother's estate was finally settled (it took years--apparently the fine state of Illinois thought my grandmother had given her three children her farms in Iowa and Illinois as a death-tax dodge). My mother, a very mild mannered woman with a wry sense of humor, said this was clearly ridiculous, noting that Grandmother a somewhat stubborn and strong willed woman had no intention of dying--ever. Grandma died in 1963 at 87, and I don't recall exactly when everything was settled, but it went on a long time. Sometime in the early to mid-1970s my mother gave me $5,000 from Grandma's estate. This was more money than I'd ever seen, so I took it to the Buckeye Federal branch, and in turn, opened college accounts for my two young children using their SS# (don't ever do that), and put the balance in my account.

I wanted to be very careful with this money because I knew the story of its journey. My grandmother's father was born in 1828 in Adams County, Pennsylvania. He was a hard worker, ambitious, and when news of the Gold Rush in California got to southeastern Pennsylvania, it looked like a lot more fun and money than driving a team to Baltimore and back for his father. So he and a friend were on their way. We have no record of what happened, but we assume the friend died during the trip, and Grandfather David settled in Rockford, Illinois where he worked as a carpenter making furniture and household things. He saved his money, and eventually bought acreage in Lee County very cheap because it was marsh land that needed to be tiled. He returned to Pennsylvania, found a bride, and they set up house near Ashton, Illinois.

Wedding photos, 1855
Fast forward through the Civil War, coming of the railroad and boom and bust years of the 19th century. When he died in 1912 his estate was worth about $250,000, which was a lot of money in those days--probably millions in today's dollars. My grandmother was the youngest of four, with a college education, husband and 2 young sons. The other three siblings had all died rather tragically as adults--Willy, diphtheria, Martha, child birth and Ira, blood poisoning. So she inherited a third of his estate along with her nieces and nephews, children of her deceased siblings. She and grandpa, who didn't like farming and wanted to be a business man, settled down on the farm--although neither were suited or prepared for this life. Fast forward through the ups and downs of WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, and old age, with grandma doing all she could to hang on to the land.

So that's how the money came down to me to deposit in Buckeye Federal, which was absorbed into National City (I'm guessing because of the S&L scandal of the 80s, but haven't really documented that), which this week met its own end. National City was most likely brought down by bad investments in subprime mortgages.

And it all started about 160 years ago with a young man heading for California on an adventure.

-----------

Note: As I re-read this a month later, I see I used both "City National" and "National City", probably because when you leave a saved post in blogger to go out to the internet, it sometimes returns you to a previous unsaved post, and thus, you think a correction you made is there, and it isn't, you then resave, losing the first save. Get it? Well, since these mistakes never get erased, if you got here or didn't get here because of a mistake, I apologize. I really did try to correct them early on.

The health care gap and the poor

My years in a medical library have left me with a bias and love for medical literature. I'm pretty much down to reading JAMA regularly (love the poetry, essays, editorials and book reviews), but I also visit a lot of web pages and have bcome dependent on googling the terms that confuse me (many). I have a growing concern alarm about the amount of money circulating to support research on research (i.e. the value and distribution of information) and/or research on social/political issues or conditions. When you look at the huge dollar amounts from NIH, corporations, pharmaceuticals or foundations or even various philanthropic runs or walks for the disease of the week, you see that so much of it never finds its way into the lab or the clinic. It never touches the virus, bug or neoplasm. It gets sifted and sorted and distributed to various versions of the medical community organizer--ACORN in a lab coat--for lack of a better term.

For example, let's just look at this simple phrase in a review of Metabolic syndrome and psychiatic illness by Scott D. Mendelson (2008) which appeared in JAMA, Oct. 15, p. 1824.

Patients with chronic mental illnesses may not have access to regular medical care and may lead unhealthy lifestyles, and their physical conditions are often not diagnosed or treated in a timely fashion.

I can guarantee you there will be millions and millions of grant dollars heading out the door to chase "access" and "timely fashion," and not enough toward diagnosis and treatment. Further, there will be more millions wasted on "unhealthy lifestyles," primarily in the form of education, information, and hand wringing with endless lectures by the nearest relative--especially the mother! At the risk of sounding like a cold hearted wingnut as some of my readers call me (not realizing I'm a reformed humanist), I call that "peace and justice medicine." Science isn't advanced, people aren't healed, but liberals get a warm glow, a sense of doing something and a good salary.

Before you buy into peace and justice medicine, just look around at your own family or friends. Especially someone with very serious health concerns. You probably won't find lack of access or timely treatment (unless you're on a government plan, but that's another topic). You'll see that person's genes and jeans. What they inherited from the generations who came before them, and what they are doing with it now: eating too much, exercising too little, driving too fast, chasing too many rainbows, drinking too much, smoking or chewing tobacco, sleeping around, shooting up or sniffing, and hanging out with bad people. That about covers it.

There may be an insurance gap, gender gap or access gap for the mentally ill, but that isn't what made them ill. There may be some people who need cholesterol or high blood pressure medicine and don't get it because they bought groceries instead, but that's not what caused their high cholesterol. There may be men going to bath houses who don't know there is a drug out there for the disease they are about to plant inside the anus or mouth of another man, but it isn't ignorance or poverty that is causing their behavior.

More later. Time for the coffee shop and reading more book reviews in this excellent issue. I'm going to write P. Murali Doraiswamy, MD and tell him/her that was really an excellent review.

You've read or seen "I am Joe"

Don't miss "I am Bill" for equal time, to be fair to the other side, to spread the wealth and fun around.

In his 2001 screed, Fugitive Days, Ayers recounts his life as a Sixties radical, his tenure as a Weatherman lieutenant, his terrorist campaign across America, and his enduring hatred for the United States. "What a country," Ayers said in 2001. "It makes me want to puke." Discover the networks

How the New Deal hurt the poor

Poor people were principal victims of the New Deal. The evidence has been developed by dozens of economists. . .

"New Deal programs were financed by tripling federal taxes from $1.6 billion in 1933 to $5.3 billion in 1940. Excise taxes, personal income taxes, inheritance taxes, corporate income taxes, holding company taxes and so-called "excess profits" taxes all went up. . ." excise taxes on alcohol, chewing gum, candy, playing cards, movie tickets--hitting mostly the poor and middle class.

"New Deal taxes were major job destroyers during the 1930s, prolonging unemployment that averaged 17%. Higher business taxes meant that employers had less money for growth and jobs. Social Security excise taxes on payrolls made it more expensive for employers to hire people, which discouraged hiring."

Other New Deal programs destroyed jobs, too. For example, the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) cut back production and forced wages above market levels, making it more expensive for employers to hire people - blacks alone were estimated to have lost some 500,000 jobs because of the National Industrial Recovery Act. . . "

"For defenders of the New Deal, perhaps the most embarrassing revelation about New Deal spending programs is they channeled money AWAY from the South, the poorest region in the United States. The largest share of New Deal spending and loan programs went to political "swing" states in the West and East - where incomes were at least 60% higher than in the South. As an incumbent, FDR didn't see any point giving much money to the South where voters were already overwhelmingly on his side.

For the whole article.

Interesting thought. FDR channeling money away from the people supporting him to influence votes in another region.

Campaign volunteer story a hoax

Young female McCain volunteer who claimed she'd been attacked at an ATM has admitted she lied. Needed some attention, I guess. But this one isn't a hoax. At a place of business in Columbus, employees caught removing McCain bumper stickers from customers' or other employees' automobiles have been warned they will be fired. Nor is this one. There are yards in Upper Arlington with both Obama-Biden signs and McCain-Palin signs. Should make for some interesting dinner table conversation. . . or sleeping arrangements. We've wondered if the folks who live in these half-million dollar homes sprouting Obama signs can't get their calculators to work, or if they are just patriotic, as Joe Biden My Time claims.

I saw the cutest Obama logo/badge at another location that had been photoshopped with CNN on it. I won't show it because Obama's puppeteer is a media guru and it's probably copyright. But you can probably google it.

If your property for public benefit, why not your investments?

"Eminent domain is the power governments have to confiscate, or take, private property as long as it is for a legitimate “public use” and property owners receive “just compensation.” Whereas eminent domain was initially intended to ensure that public services, such as roads and highways, were available to the public, local and state governments often use eminent domain for any project that is considered economically beneficial. Public use, as a practical matter, has morphed into a more ambiguous “public benefit.”

An estimated 10,000 cases between 1998 and 2002 involved projects where private parties benefit substantially from government seizures of property under the banner of economic development or urban redevelopment." Eminent domain, private property and redevelopment

Yes, those of us who invested in 401-ks, IRAs, Roths and other vehicles (with or without our employers) got a tax break--and we fueled the powerful economy we've enjoyed the last 25 years. We, the investors, aren't the ones who brought it all down. Hands off, Congress. Hands off, Barney and Barack. You've done enough damage.

Finally someone bold enough to use the S word. No wonder Obama's hiding in Hawaii. I imagine he went there to cover for his Kenyan birth certificate and now has just decided he'd better lie low, or, just lie.

This comment at the USNews blog was good: "I'm encouraged that Obama will make our senior citizens earn their paychecks. Michelle spoke at length that people will be made to work and there will be no shortages of volunteering opportunities. Let's clean up our streets, get seniors out raking leaves, picking up trash, cleaning up dog droppings in our parks, mowing city property, mentoring children in the schools and serving other useful functions. Every government dollar provided should be met with enthusiastic joy and reciprocity by the receiving citizen. An idle citizen is an unappreciated citizen."

How the government takes care of retirees

1) Don't reform Social Security.

2) Destroy the value of your 401-k and 403-b and any other investments you have through a subprime mortgage meltdown they could have stopped (or never started). Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Barack Obama made sure no one would stop their pet projects and kick-backs from the GSEs.

3) Steal the value of the 401-k that's left.

Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive. Workforce

Share the wealth, folks. Share the pain. You're next.

Dear Samuel Swann

I'm a big fan of free-circ serials and newspapers, and today I saw CityNewsUSA (serving Cleveland, Akron and Columbus) for the first time. I'm a retired librarian, and at one time I'd planned to write an article about the role of free-circs in the information food chain, lamenting that they aren't indexed (at least they weren't in 1999). They are an excellent source of news, advertising, and a good market for writers, but without being indexed, they are a hard to find segment. I gave up that project before I retired in 2000. By then I had collected about 40 that served our metropolitan area--pets, recreation, sports, leisure, politics, religion, fashion, home decor, cooking, parenting, book reviews, etc. Perhaps the internet advertising has solved the print indexing problem.

I was very impressed by your article "Making the Grade; gaps still exist between urban and suburban grad rates," on p. 8 of the Oct-23-29, Columbus edition. I just blogged on that topic two days ago, referencing a Columbus school teacher, the Wall Street Journal, and a current book review. Columbus and Cleveland were in the bottom five of 50 major cities. The WSJ article used the study you cited commissioned by America's Promise Alliance.

I am a big booster of marriage and parental involvement as the #1 best reducer of poverty and poor academic performance by children, and was glad to see that you included it as

The biggest reason we have so many drop outs in Cleveland is lack of parental involvement and the failure of the middle schools to continue the grammar school educational process."

I know your paper is a heavy supporter of Obama-Biden, however, I don't see this as a resource or funding problem as you also suggested. The Ohio parent who sued a few years ago was in a district that had much higher graduation rates with lower per-pupil state funding. For instance, Obama wants universal day care beginning in infancy, when we're already spending $11 billion on child care for at risk children, and it hasn't made any difference. How can children of poor single mothers compete with children from in tact homes with biological, married parents? (I'm speaking statistically--this is not to say individual single parents can't or won't do a good job.)

Keep up the good work of reminding parents that children need their involvement to succeed--and I would add a reminder that Uncle Sam is a poor step-father.

More wrong headlines

Greenspan admits errors
Now maybe the Democrats can take the stand and admit their errors? Don't hold your breath. The most breathtaking statement in this article by Kara Scannel in WSJ (Kara, don't you realize your job too is going down the tubes?)

"Greenspan dodged and weaved."

The finest weavers in the country first tied us in knots and now sit unraveling our economy in Congress. Barney Frank. Chris Dodd. Barack Obama. John Kerry. Ted Kennedy. The fraternity of fixers.

Forecasting, Kara, is not the problem. There clearly was time 18 months ago to stop this blood bath. Many Republicans tried to save the sinking ship, including John McCain and George Bush, and they were blocked by accusations of racism and defeating the dreams of the poor. And you guys who write that puerile, journalism school 101 nonsense as the "news" for WSJ, NYT, WaPo and USAToday just went along, and along and along. You never dug deep, never ask questions, but if the truth did peep through, you buried it somewhere beyond paragraph 15.

For edification, Kara, please read, "Would the last honest reporter please turn out the lights"

If there were no Fox News, I might be 2 or 3 points higher in the polls

Barack Obama told liberal journalist Matt Bai. Every major news source grovels before this man reporting or distorting every thought, word, and move. If there's one that doesn't, he whines about that alternative, the one that provided him with a long interview on O'Reilly, putting him at length in front of an audience who might otherwise tune him out because of the mainstream bias. The broadcast and cable media which has provided us with a steady frame-up of Republican Sarah Palin on ABC, NBC and CNN. This man's fragile ego is amazing! Palin has smiled through all the muck and yuk, and he's a cry baby. He and Team Obama cry "racist" at the most non-racial terms, like "that one," and "socialist." Which backbone is made of steel, is more prepared for the crisis Joe Biden is threatening?

It's hard to pin him down on legislation, however, he does write letters, and it's excruciatingly clear in this one to the FCC about a year ago (Oct. 22, 2007) about how he plans to further restrict our freedoms. Note certain themes, then remember "community organizer" and "ACORN," the oak tree harvest of Saul Alinsky. In your face, swamp the opposition, storm the meetings, community input. Words matter. History matters.

U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today sent the following letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Kevin J. Martin, calling on him to launch an independent review panel to develop proposals to further promote media ownership diversity. According to press accounts, following an insufficient 30-day review, the FCC intends to modify existing ownership rules by allowing greater media market consolidation. This would allow large media outlets to become larger, potentially cutting out small business, women and minority-owned firms. Minority owned and operated newspapers and radio stations play an important role in the African American and Latino communities and help bring minority issues to the forefront of our national dialogue.

However, the Commission has failed to recognize the vital role these outlets play in our democracy and has not done enough to further the goals of diversity in the media. In the letter, Obama also asks for the FCC to reconsider the Chairman’s proposed consolidation timeline and start a public review of any specific proposed rule modifications. He also asks Martin to complete a study of the responsibilities that broadcasters have to the communities in which they operate.

Obama and Senator John Kerry have previously written to Kevin Martin asking him to address the issue of minority media ownership, and the impact that new rules would have on opportunities for minority, small business, and women owned firms. http://obama.senate.gov/press/071022-obama_fcc_polic/

In case you don't understand how "community" and "diversity" is used these days by special interest groups, let's look at an example in my quiet, suburban community, Upper Arlington, Ohio when parents went to the library board to ask that explicit, how-to gay publications (bundles of free-circ, boiler-plate newspapers) be removed from the library lobby. Not removed from the collection, but removed from the lobby. Representatives of the gay community packed the meeting, objected (they didn't even live in UA) on the basis of state funding of public libraries. The result? The publications were removed from the lobby, and brought inside the library and placed on an expensive, specially designed unit, now even more prominent. No library is required to be a launch site for free materials that are primarily supported by advertising--not gay newspapers, not church bulletins, not health insurance plans designed to look like health advice. The parents lost, just as they lost the computer filtering battle, and the x-rated video battle.

The power of special interest groups over the media even without new legislation was perfectly clear when Dr. Laura, the 2nd highest rated talk show, literally disappeared over night in 2001 because she was attacted by powerful pro-gay groups when she advised against gay adoption of infants, believing as a counselor and orthodox Jew that children thrive best in a home with a mother and father. A posse of thirty liberal Christian pastors in Columbus has tried to get Rod Parsley bounced by going after his tax exempt status.

This, my readers, is "community" and "diversity" in the 21st century. Not community standards, but "community input." It isn't your community--it's any group that calls itself a community. Since virtually every organization, non-profit and church ministry now receives government money, this leaves them wide open for pressure groups like ACORN or one of their little squirrelly off-shoots planting seeds.

Luther recommended book burning--his own

There's nothing like the political season to enjoy some good name calling and personal smears. No one mastered this like Martin Luther, who struggled with the Roman church whose defenders thought he'd gone too far in his reforms, and the other Reformers who thought he hadn't gone far enough. Coxcombs and blockheads, he called them. Today at my other blog, I write about his suggestion that his own books be burned because he'd learned so much from his critics.

How much for child care and development?

Obama's concern for children (who make it through the birth canal and aren't a product of a botched abortion) is evident on his web page under "Education." I can't find details on the proposed costs, but here's the bare bones for early childhood education.

1. Zero to Five Plan: The Obama-Biden comprehensive "Zero to Five" plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. Unlike other early childhood education plans, the Obama-Biden plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama and Biden will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state "zero to five" efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school.
2. Expand Early Head Start and Head Start: Obama and Biden will quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding and improve quality for both.
3. Affordable, High-Quality Child Care: Obama and Biden will also provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.

Would you like to take a guess at what we've been spending under mean old President Bush, those heartless Republicans? Would you believe ELEVEN BILLION in FY 2004 and FY 2005?

For both Fiscal Years (FY) 2004 and 2005, $4.8 billion in Federal CCDF funding was available through block grants to all 50 States, the District of Columbia,5 Territories, and 261 Tribal grantees in FY 2004 and 265 Tribal grantees in FY 2005 (representing over 500 Indian Tribes). Through CCDF and other funding streams available for child care––including State Matching and Maintenance of Effort (MOE) funds, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) dollars transferred to CCDF or spent directly by States on child care services, and Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) funds––over $11 billion was available for child care in FY 2004 and FY 2005. Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF)Report to Congress for FY 2004-2005

To hear Obama tell, you'd think America's poor children have been left on street corners and with great grandmothers while their mothers go to work in sweat shops. These huge block grants to the states began back in the mid-90s under "welfare reform" so that mothers who needed to work had safe and reliable child care. I've looked through hundreds of these alphabet soup programs. I do have concerns about their effectiveness, however, lack of funding and pie-in-the-sky goals aren't it.

Keep in mind there's no hard evidence that Head Start type programs, even after 40 years, have any long term affect, because these youngsters will continue to compete their entire lives with children who have come from enriched environments, with two parents who value education. True, they would be even further behind if they hadn't learned to sit still, follow instructions, the names of colors, how to stand in line, etc., but they won't catch up no matter how many billions Obama or Bush throws their way.

Marriage is now the great divide in social class, education and wealth, and our government programs have been discouraging marriage for decades giving women with children money and keeping the fathers out of the home. The government "helps" discourage achievement, because benefits might be lost as one moves up the social and salary scale. A few hours a day in even the best enriched program cannot balance or play catch up--its a fairy tale that liberals, conservatives and religious people want to believe, in part I think, because there is so much government money waiting for those who do. Whatever gains they achieve by attending even good pre-schools are lost by second or third grade. There is some evidence that keeping mainstream kids in universal child care environments holds them back and creates more problems for their families, so perhaps thats the BO-Biden plan for fairness.

What to do with information?

Repackage and distribute for others to repackage and distribute for others to repackage and distribute, etc., etc. It's a commodity with a price tag and value added taxes, with distribution systems, with CEOs and worker bees, and it's much, much bigger than Wal-Mart, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and the federal government combined. Information, of course is important in education, but it is by far the biggest component in social services. It is sliced and diced, molded and shaped, digitized and dramatized, sifted, shifted, and sh*tted.

Since I was 5 years old I've been in the information business, and before that I had a sharp eye and was taking it all in without realizing it, analyzing, puzzling and disgorging it to anyone who would listen or look at my drawings (before I could read or write). With nearly 20 years of formal education, and probably fifty required, no-credit workshops, I went on to help other people find and redistribute information--helped them find obscure details for their novels, graduate from college, locate jobs, get tenure and promotion, nail down grants to do research, find a formula for a baby gorilla rejected by its mother, and bake blackbirds in a pie. I even published my own research on agricultural publications and home libraries by examining bits and pieces of other people's research who had done likewise.

In my pursuit to dig out, disgorge and distribute information, I held hands, wiped tears, observed love affairs, translated documents, got blisters on my ear from phone calls, created web pages, compiled bibliographies, nodded off in hundreds of meetings, lectured at conferences, ruined my rotator cuff and placed shaky fingers of the elderly on keyboards. I mopped water from leaking ceilings, tore fingernails changing print cartridges, handed out tissues, woke up sleeping students, and brought blueprints home, all in the name of organizing and distributing information. In thanks for my efforts for information I received a paycheck, benefits, thank you cards, flowers, and the occasional lunch out or box of pastries. In the late summer of 2000 I had five retirement parties. Two years later when the new library I helped design opened, I never even got an invite to the open house.

I'm eight years into retirement and think maybe it was all for nothing. 1) Repackaging of information is a huge industry in itself--but that information when it trickles down to the ordinary person doesn't seem to change lives or matter much. 2) Our ever expanding education system has created a class of people that expects and usually gets more, often by producing something other than information. It has also created yet another class, similarly well educated, who say it isn't fair for people with PhDs or MDs to earn more than social workers or government clerks, as they repackage and distribute information to earn their livings, but never produce anything.

More will follow.