Thursday, December 30, 2004

The Fox and the Hen House

How would you like to be overseeing your competitor’s development project? It’s a sweet job if you can get it. But that’s what is now happening with many Pentagon contracts. For example, Northrop Grumman, one of the few remaining monolithic defense contractors, was assigned the task of overseeing the efforts of Space Exploration Technologies to develop a new rocket. Of course, Northrop did not cease working on its own rocket projects.

Yes, Northrop is a huge company that operates in many areas. And, it’s possible that they would have assigned members of their non-rocket operations to this project. Such an assignment would have at least two problems: would the Northrop people know enough to oversee the project; whether they did or not would they have been tempted to pass information back to Northrop’s rocketeers.

But, that is not what Northrop did. They assigned people from their rocket and non-rocket operations to monitor Space Exploration’s activities.

In all fairness, the Pentagon is in a bind as the many mergers in the defense industry have narrowed their options. Plus, a large portion of the defense budget is not going to increasing the number of civilian scientists at the Pentagon. They are aware of the problem and are trying to resolve it. In the meantime, be happy that you’re not in the defense business.

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

How do you define 'discount'?

If you’re a normally intelligent human being, you would expect to pay less when you use a ‘discount’ card. Right? Not if you use the TogetherRx prescription drug card.

I tried to use this card to reorder a prescription of mine. The per pill cost after the ‘discount’ was 72 cents, and I could only order 34. The per pill cost without the discount was 72 cents, and I could order 90.

We’re getting closer and closer to Orwell’s 1984 where words have no meaning.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

A trillion here, a trillion there

Forty or so years ago Senator Everett Dirksen said, “A billion here. A billion there. And pretty soon it adds up to real money.” Today, we’re talking trillions and, if we continue ignoring reality and refusing to deal with our problems, tomorrow we’ll be talking quadrillions.

The latest GAO estimate as to what we would have to put away today to pay the cost of the Medicare prescription drug benefit alone is $8.119 trillion. The Comptroller General, David Walker, called this “one of the largest unfunded liabilities undertaken by the federal government”. It’s good that Bush is focusing on Social Security, but the costs of Medicare are now twice as large as those of Social Security. Both programs have to be fixed.

The annual financial statements of the federal government show your individual gross government debt at $25,000, whether you are one month or 100 years old. When you add in all our unfunded liabilities and commitments, such as SSA and Medicare, your individual debt climbs to $145,000. That is, every kid born today in this country starts out being $145,000 in the hole.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Light is coming

The first day of Winter. We exchange cold and snowy weather for more sunlight. Yes, it doesn’t seem that way in the dark days of February. But, like much of life, appearances can be deceiving. Keep the faith. More light will be here soon – at least in the physical sense.

Sunday, December 19, 2004

I'd like to join Bush in LaLa Land

Yesterday’s radio address by President Bush was a classic case of Peterson’s claim that our politicians are more interested in rhetoric than reason when speaking of our nation’s problems.

Here’s what Bush said about solving the Social Security problem:

“As we reform and strengthen the system we will deliver all the benefits owed to current and near retirees. We must not increase payroll taxes. And we must tap into the power of markets and compound interest by giving younger workers the option of saving some of their payroll taxes in a personal investment account, a nest egg they call their own, which the government can never take away.” (My emphasis)

The phrase, “no gain, no pain” is not in the president’s lexicon. We can have everything today if only we forget about tomorrow. I wonder how Bush runs his private finances. Of course, he’s one of the lucky ones to have been born into great wealth and power so he doesn’t have to worry about the financial future of his kids. He clearly is not worrying about the financial future of this country.

Saturday, December 18, 2004

Running On Empty

Pete Peterson’s latest book, “Running on Empty”, will scare the hell out of you if you believe that tomorrow will automatically be better than today. On the other hand, if you want to read a sober, clear-headed analysis of how we got here and how we can perhaps get out of this mess, this is the book for you.

Peterson argues that we are on the road to bankruptcy. The numbers are staggering. If we do nothing, eventually the entire federal budget would have to be devoted to entitlements, such as Medicare and Social Security.

We have become a nation that has allowed our politicians to bring us to this point. The political class is more interested in winning the next election than in trying to solve our problems. Each side demonizes the other, convinced that all wisdom, truth and justice lies on its side. Neither side is willing to ask us to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow for us and our kids and grandkids. Peterson urges us to take up President Kennedy’s challenge: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” And what we can do for our country, Peterson says, is take back our government so that it serves our needs today while ensuring that it will serve our and our kids’ and grandkids’ needs tomorrow.

Peterson, a Republican who has served in government, takes both Republicans and Democrats to task; Republicans largely because of their mania for cutting taxes no matter what needs go unmet, Democrats for expanding entitlements no matter what they cost today or tomorrow. And, he attributes a fair amount of our difficulties with each party to the gerrymandering that practically ensures the re-election of incumbent Congressmen.

You’ve probably read about Bush’s commitment to reform Social Security by allowing people to establish investment accounts with part of their payroll taxes. Since Social Security benefits are paid from the payroll taxes collected today, switching some of these taxes into an investment account means that the benefits that would have been paid by these missing taxes will have to be found elsewhere. Bush proposes to borrow the money for it; some estimates are that we would have to borrow a trillion dollars.

Peterson’s proposal for Social Security is more nuanced:

  • he wants to index benefits to prices rather than wages as they are done now.
  • he, an investment banker, believes in investing for one’s future but he wants the investment to be mandatory as it is in other countries such as Singapore, Chile and Australia.
  • for those who are unable to contribute to the preceding investment accounts, the government should do so.

The deficits generated by Medicare dwarf those of Social Security; they’re about three times as much. And, the recent prescription benefit does not make the numbers smaller. Here, Peterson is on shakier ground in suggesting changes. He advocates:

  • managed competition such as that provided to federal employees.
  • promote higher deductibles and co-payments.
  • determine which treatments work and which don’t.
  • reduce litigation costs by instituting malpractice reform.
  • promote public health.
  • provide insurance for those currently uninsured.
  • eliminate the tax deductibility of employer-paid coverage.
  • introduce global budgetary caps.

How we keep the books is one of the themes of Peterson’s thesis. The government does an extremely poor job in producing financial records that can be understood by most people or that help it to actually manage. Peterson points out time and again that Congress should apply to the federal government the same rules and regulations (such as Sarbanes-Oxley) that it enacts into law for everybody else.

My limited experience with municipal budgets reinforces Peterson’s claim that the budget process of the largest financial entity in the world stinks. Most people cannot understand the government’s finances. We budget on a short term, not long term basis. We keep the books on a cash, not accrual, basis. It’s as though the feds operate in the dark ages.

But nothing will happen unless we reform our nation’s politics and parties starting with restoring the electoral process by eliminating gerrymandering thus giving people a decent hope of defeating an incumbent.

We own the airwaves. Why can’t television and radio stations be made to give time to qualified candidates since the stations are using our airwaves? This would reduce the massive amounts of money needed to conduct an election in the twenty-first century.

Remember the civics classes we had when we, the older generation, were kids? We learned how our government was supposed to run and what our duties as citizens were. Have our kids or grandkids taken such a class? Would it not make sense to try to educate them about their roles as citizens? As John Quincy Adams, President and Congressman, said when asked what he felt was his most important job, it is that of CITIZEN.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Somewhere over the rainbow

A quote by President Bush from yesterday’s press conference with Silvio Berlusconi: “There's a trade deficit. That's easy to resolve; people can buy more United States products if they're worried about the trade deficit.”

But, the question is why are people not buying more US products? It’s become a different economic world and, instead of trying to understand why we have a trade deficit, the President tosses it off as being something easy to resolve. If it were so easy, why will we import more food than we export this year? Why is Brazil the leading exporter of beef? Why do we compete with Russian wheat growers when a few years ago we were supplying wheat to Russia to avert a famine? How many Japanese cars are among the top sellers in this country? If it were so easy to resolve the trade deficit, why hasn’t it been done?

The President mentioned our two other deficits: short term and long term. He said zero about the short term deficit although, if the first two months of the year are indicative of the whole year, we’ll wind up with a short term deficit 50% higher than the record we set last year. He’ll fix the long term deficit by privatizing social security. What about Medicare, which may be in worse trouble than social security?

Was it Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz who said, “I wish I may. I wish I may,,,,, I wish I may.”? It’s too bad that we’re not in a fictitious Kansas any more.

A Little Better Sign

A week later, another class, and another international math and science test given worldwide (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Survey, Timss). Last week I reported (the post entitled “Not a Good Sign”) on the poor results of 15 year-olds in a similar test (administered by the OECD). This week’s results were somewhat better.

The test was given to fourth and eighth graders. The eighth graders did better than the fourth graders. They rose to 12th from 17th in math and from 14th to 7th in science. However, their actual math scores did not improve from the last time the test was given; their science scores increased quite a bit. The fourth graders went from 6th to 8th in math and from 2nd to 6th in science. Their math scores stayed the same; their science scores decreased.

Educators are finally getting concerned as the test results become better known as they do not bode well for our future. As I’ve said many times, recognizing a problem is the first step in solving it.

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Really goof and you'll get a really big medal

Another case of refusing to acknowledge reality occurred yesterday when President Bush award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation's highest civilian award which is given to men and women of exceptional merit, integrity and achievement, to Paul Bremer, Tommy Franks and George Tenet.

I’m sure that the three of them are pretty smart and have gone far in their careers. However, they each made very major errors relative to Iraq. Bremer acknowledged one of his a few months ago: he did not ask for more troops. However, he did not acknowledge his wrong decision to disband the Iraqi army. Franks said we’d be able to really lower our troop commitment in the summer of 2003. Tell that to the kids being called up today. Tenet was convinced that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Despite these singularly inept achievements, they were given our nation’s highest civilian award for achievement. Remember Orwell: War is Peace.

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

AAA

In addition to the same first letter, what do these words have in common: agriculture, automobile and airplane? You win the cigar if you said that they are all fields in which the US was number one within the lifetime of most of us and is now no longer.

As you saw from my last post, Brazil is now the leader in many agricultural areas. Russia competes with us in the world wheat market; it was not many years ago that we were shipping wheat to Russia to prevent famine. McDonalds buys 10% or more of its food from Australia. Vietnam is a major shrimp dealer.

Like many Americans, I could not conceive of buying a Toyota when they first landed here. An Alfa Romeo, maybe. But a Japanese car? Never. Now, forty or so years later, Toyota is number 1 in the world and most of the other Japanese car makers hold slots in the top 10. It’s not only Japan; Chrysler is owned by Daimler-Benz. Fifty years ago, Charles Wilson, the head of GM, made headlines around the world when he declared, “What’s good for GM is good for America.” When was the last time you considered GM a truly major international force?

Remember McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed, Grumman, Northrop, Boeing? Who among them actually makes planes today? Yea, how many of these companies remain as independent entities? Boeing is having a hard time competing with Airbus, a firm that almost did not make it past its infancy. Now, they share the market with an American icon.

I’m not mouthing off here just to be negative about this country. I’m really asking us to look at the world with clear eyes and see it for what it is. We are inventive and ingenious enough to have solved many of the problems we have faced. But, our solution has always came after we realized that there was a problem.

Nor am I saying that we have to be #1 in everything. However, instead of mouthing off about how great we are and thinking we are the envy of the world, we should acknowledge the reality that exists today. Only by doing so can we decide whether it is worthwhile to try to change that reality.

Monday, December 13, 2004

Let's talk agriculture

This piece is a follow-up to my commentary on “Emerging Economies: Good or Bad” of November 10.

What country is the world’s largest exporter of beef, chicken, orange juice, sugar and tobacco? Think again. It’s not the United States. It’s Brazil!

Whose agricultural productivity is higher: United States, Europe or Brazil? You know the answer now: Brazil.

They’re doing it with technology that has enabled them to make what twenty five years ago was considered poor tropical and savanna soil fruitful. They produce “two crops a year yielding three tons of grain an acre”, according to one of the leading farmers; and that is something that can be done nowhere else on earth.

Brazil is larger than the continental US and its grain belt is larger than ours. And it seems that their government is doing more than ours to improve their position as a leading agricultural exporter. For example, the technology mentioned above was developed by a state agency, the Brazilian Enterprise for Agricultural and Livestock Research. We countered this threat by increasing the subsidies to our farmers, most of whom, by now, are no longer the family farmers of yore but are major corporations.

The world is changing rapidly. There are fewer developing nations today than ever. But we seem not to be aware of this. We are convinced that we are #1 in almost everything, but seem unwilling to put in the effort to ensure that our beliefs become reality.

I wonder if the Romans and other empires felt and acted the same as we are doing today.

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Show Me The Evidence

Friday’s Wall Street Journal had two interesting articles. The Science Journal column raised the question of whether we really know how schoolchildren learn. The second, a review of Michael Crichton’s new book, State of Fear, raised the question of scientific proof. Are these articles touting the Journal’s conservative philosophy or is there a nugget of truth there? Do we really know as much as we think we do? That’s been a basic question of man since time immemorial. We think that Science can give us the answers. But, is this more a wish than a reality?

Sharon Begley in the Science Column used an experiment with only 112 third-graders to see whether they learned better by “discovery learning” (the kids solve the problem largely on their own) or “direct instruction” (the teacher gives explicit instructions as to what to do to solve the problem and explains what is going on). As you’d expect, the kids instructed directly gave better results: more kids solved the problem. Furthermore, the idea that discovery learning gives students a deeper, more enduring knowledge did not seem to hold up.

Of course, the sample is minuscule, but the issue it raises has deep societal implications. What proof is there for either claim? Where is the evidence? This whole question of today’s education is one that troubles a friend of mine. She notes the high cost of education, particularly on this island; but education is costly everywhere in the country. Then, she asks whether the ‘output’ is any better than it was 20 or 40 or 60 years ago. Of course, she has a hard time defining ‘output’ in any measurable sense.

Crichton argues that the environmental movement is, at heart, a religion. And, as such, it is based on faith, not facts. Crichton is by no means a stupid guy. The book is an outgrowth of a speech he gave to San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club, so the book probably represents his thoughts, rather than just an attempt to make money. We’ve all heard that the Greenland ice cap will be melting because of rising temperatures. Well, the review claims that it is scientifically established that the temperature in Greenland has fallen 2.2 degrees C. per decade since 1987. Another scientist claims the sea level is falling not rising in the Indian Ocean. The World Conservation Union - whatever that is and wherever they get their funds from – found that since 1600 only about 1000 species of animals, insects and plants combined have vanished.

This is just another example that in science, as with most of life, you’re really on your own. There is no one out there with the answers. You have to figure out your own.

Going For A New Record?

The federal deficit in the first two months of this fiscal year is expected to be around $109 billion. That puts us on track for an annual deficit of $654 billion. or almost 50% more than the $413 billion record of last fiscal year. And, the administration is still thinking (if you want to call it that) of more tax cuts???
Does this make sense to you?

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Not a Good Sign

In Friedman’s article that I talked about on Sunday (Bush and Energy Independence) he spoke of achieving the goal of energy independence through a program of the National Science Foundation. Presumably, the scientists implementing the program will be as capable as those who got us to the moon thirty-five years ago. However, an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal does not fill one with a great deal of confidence that we could achieve the goal even if Bush proclaimed it.

The reason for my trepidation is a survey of fifteen-year olds in industrialized countries conducted by the OECD. It shows the US as ranking 24th out of 29 countries surveyed relative to math skills. In problem-solving skills we scored close to the bottom. In science we scored less than average. On average, 4% of the test takers scored in the top ranges; in the US only 2% did so. In a different survey, 17% of students at public four-year colleges need remedial math courses.

Not a good sign for energy independence or a leading economy.

Wonders Never Cease

Lately, I’ve come across two surprising divisions within the Department of Defense: Defense Science Board and Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College. I’ve been surprised because the reports I’ve read seem to be quite clear-eyed about the world we face.

The Defense Science Board (
http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/) issued the “Strategic Communications” report that has been in the news recently.

I’ve just subscribed to the monthly newsletter of The Strategic Studies Institute (http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/) and am intrigued by the titles (and abstracts) of some of their

Publications:

Shadows of Things Past and Images of the Future: Lessons for the Insurgencies in Our Midst

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in the 21st Century: Re-conceptualizing Threat and Response

Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice

Islamic Rulings on Warfare

Current and Future Challenges for Asian Nonproliferation Export Controls: A Regional Response

Civil-Military Cooperation in Peace Operations: The Case of Kosovo

Research:

Politics and the National Guard

The Information Element of National Power; Clarity at Last?

Conferences:

Beyond the U.S. War on Terrorism: Comparing Domestic Legal Remedies to an International Dilemma

The Rise and Fall of Empires

Building Regional Security in the Western Hemisphere

You wonder whether the higher-ups in DOD pay any attention to what their underlings are doing. If they did, maybe things would be better.

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

"Get rid of it"

That's what Dick Gephardt says of the Electoral College in last Sunday's NY Times magazine. To continue: "You basically had an election in seven or eight states, not the whole country. And I don't think that's healthy."

Sign the petition to eliminate the Electoral College at www.fairvote.org. Do it now.

Memories of the Big War

Do you know where you were at about 7 p.m. sixty-three years ago today? I certainly do. December 7 always triggers memories of my youth, a youth where war and the likelihood of war were constantly in most people’s minds. And now it seems that, in my dotage, war and the likelihood of war is becoming a constant again.

But, let me tell you of the last good war. I say ‘good’ because it was the last war where we, the United States of America, were truly united because, I believe, we were correct in believing and doing the right thing, the just thing and (although many will disagree) the moral thing.

The last good war, World War II, was a totally different war than just about all we have fought since, including the one against terrorism that we are fighting today. First of all, everyone knew in their innermost selves that we were at war – and knew it virtually every waking moment. There was no way to avoid it; the newspapers, magazines, radio, movies were full of it (think of CNN on steroids). We all had ration books and, most importantly, we all had brothers, uncles or cousins who were in the armed forces.

For a kid physically removed from any possible danger the war was an exciting time. The movies were filled with gallant Americans fighting the dirty enemy. “The FBI in Peace and War” and similar radio programs warned us constantly of the chicanery of the enemy. Posters, such as the famous “Loose lips sink ships” one, appeared in many public and private places. Thoughts of death and mutilation were far from my mind until the big brothers of the kids down the street came home damaged or dead. And even then the excitement remained. They were not family. I was not close to them.

Even the newspapers were exciting: the huge headlines, the maps of places with exotic names, photos and stories of the heroes in combat. My reading skills and knowledge of geography improved considerably during the war.

The war was central to my growing up and had significant impact on my family. I was almost five years old when we entered WWII. And, in some ways - since it is the first memory I can recall – it was the beginning of recorded time for me. It was a Sunday night around 7. The kitchen had not yet been divided in two; it was still a very big room. I was playing on the floor. The radio was tuned to the news as it always was when Aunt Jennie visited. Then, the interruption – the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor. As with the 9/11 actions, America was stunned. They had attacked us directly. True, it was not the mainland and Hawaii was not yet a state; but they had destroyed American ships and killed Americans. As with 9/11, we should not have been surprised. In fact, the Pearl Harbor attack should have been less of a surprise since the war had been going on in the rest of the world for more than two years. But, then as now, we found it hard to accept that we have enemies, real, flesh-and-blood people who hate us.

Despite our being 3000 miles from the front, the war became our life. It was our constant companion. It so captured America’s imagination, thoughts, fears and dreams that even kids did their bit to help. It united America as little has since.

Some background

I don’t want to delve into politics too much but some background is necessary. Although my mother was born in the States, we were very much a first generation Italian immigrant family. My father had come here in 1912, my mother spent some of her youth in Italy. While there was a strong love of Italy and things Italian, the primary drive for them and their children was toward assimilation. English was the language they used most of the time; however, Italian dialect was also spoken often around the house. My father’s mother, brother and sister remained in Italy, so there were family ties to the homeland as well. Nonetheless, being a US citizen was the sine qua non of those days for an immigrant. My father served in the army in the first war and during the second he was on the draft board and was an air raid warden.

Since Italy was now one of the enemy, my parents and other Italian-Americans were in a difficult spot. Their children were fighting Italians, their blood brothers. Other Americans were skeptical of the loyalty of Italians. During Mussolini’s rise, he was praised by many Italian-Americans, my family included. In fact, for many years there in the living room was a photograph of my brother, Eddie, dressed in the uniform of the Fascist youth; it was taken while he was a guest of the Italian government for a month in the 1930’s.

Although my mother came from a family of seven girls, we were closest to Aunt Jennie, her sister, and Uncle Musty, my father’s brother. Both Jennie and Musty were strong personalities. I don’t know whether they were always politically conservative or not, but during the war they were definitely anti-Roosevelt. My aunt’s hatred of Roosevelt stemmed from a campaign promise he had made in 1940: “Mothers, your sons will not go to war”. When young men, her son included, began to be drafted, she went ballistic. While my parents may have disagreed with her, they did not often voice it as she was the older sister and quite powerful in her beliefs, which she shared with us almost every evening as she listened to Fulton J. Lewis, an arch-conservative, read and comment on the news.

The economy

Today, Bush cuts taxes and urges us to go out and spend as a way to beat the enemy. This approach was totally opposite to what happened in the war years. We couldn’t buy many things without a book of ration coupons. Getting a new book of coupons was like getting a pay check. When we went to the grocery store, we took along our ration books. When my father bought gas for his car, he needed his ration book. Of course, new cars were not seen, as the production of all the car companies went for military purposes. The names of airplanes were as well known then as the names of cars today – Flying Fortress, P-47, Stuka, Spitfire, Zero; I can still see them in my mind. Miniature planes came along with your box of cereal.

Price controls were also in effect. Our wartime economy was a government-run economy. And, it really had to be as the economies of our allies were in shambles and this war really had the potential to destroy Western Civilization.

Air Raid Drills and other wartime activity

What could be more exciting to a little kid than an air raid drill? The sirens blaring, the closing of the curtains, the dowsing of the lights. But, maybe because you were a kid you knew it was only a drill. It couldn’t be real; the Krauts and the Japs were very far away. Yet, when the horns blew, my father, who was an air raid warden, put on his helmet, picked up his flashlight and went out to check that there were no lights shining from any homes or businesses in the neighborhood. We, of course, shut all the lights, drew the curtains and then peeked out to see whether anyone had their lights on.

The only way to communicate with the troops was via the mail. (Unless of course, your son was wounded or killed; in that case you’d get a telegram.) So, my mother would write letters to her sons and, for some reason, she felt that I should do so also. My sisters were exempt from this task, but I was not. It was a real pain for me as I had no idea what to write and would be frustrated by my inability to do so.

After Italy fell, my parents were able to send packages to my father’s family. Perhaps once a month my mother would create these huge care packages filled with the basics. She would sew them up in heavy cotton and my father would lug them to the post office after filling out the appropriate forms.

We spent days rolling the aluminum foil in which gum sticks were wrapped into a giant ball. Where this ball went I know not, but it was a patriotic thing to do. As it was patriotic for the females to knit sweaters and assemble bandages.

Daily entertainment was largely over the radio; periodically, we would go to the local movie house when they were giving out free dishes. Movies then were accompanied by newsreels which largely reported the US view of the war. Even movie stars were dragooned into the war. Some saw combat, many sold war bonds. Contrast that with today’s volunteer army.

While before the war kids played “cops and robbers”, we, the kids of the early ‘40s, played war games. There was no escaping the real world, not even in play.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Even now, almost sixty years later, I find it hard to comprehend the power of the atom bombs we dropped on Japan. (And those bombs were tiny compared to today’s generation!) At that time we really didn’t get a complete picture of how horrific the damage was, or at least I didn’t. The strong impression drilled into my Catholic mind was that the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, a Catholic city. The nuns saw it as another attempt to persecute Catholics and drilled it into our heads. They ignored the catastrophic effect of the bomb, as did most of America. We were just happy that the war was finally ending.

VJ Day

VJ Day was the day the Japanese surrendered. It so happened to also be the Feast of the Assumption (a fact noted by the religious among us). My sisters, cousins and I spent the day cutting up newspapers which we threw from the window when the formal announcement was made. The whole country was a bedlam. Even Cambridge Street was crowded unlike any other time before or since. You could cross the street only with great difficulty and with a degree of risk. Drivers and others were drunk. I can still see the guy down the street playing the bagpipe. The blaring of car horns was constant. It was an unbelievable day across the country.

Back to “normalcy”

The return to the life we led before the war never happened. The Cold War began virtually immediately. In many ways this was even scarier than the hot war that had just ended. But, that is the subject of another day.

Monday, December 06, 2004

The Devil Made Me Do It

1948 really was another century, particularly if you were a kid on his first trip to Italy. Italy after the war was a totally different country than mine. Not only were the ravages of war all around you, to a child raised in Cambridge, Italy was still very “old world”. Italy had yet to join our so-called modern world. I suppose that’s why I got one of the scares of my life.

It happened in Assisi, the home of St. Francis. It was a stop on our “grand tour” of Italy. My mother was deeply religious; we saw every famous church in Italy. Since my cousin was a Franciscan as were our parish priests, she had a special affection for everything Franciscan. Assisi had to be a highlight of the tour for her. We rose early that morning to attend the first Mass, for, after Mass, there was a special tour of the cathedral that my cousin had arranged.

The first part of the tour was, to my by now jaded sensibilities, not very exciting; we saw the typical tourist things. But, then, the tour moved to the cellar. Now, you should know that I attended Catholic school, a fairly conservative one where the devil was a constant “presence” (so the nuns told us). Plus, I had been scared out of my wits, just before we left on vacation, when I attended the play, “Pilate’s Daughter”, in which possession by the devil figures prominently.

The cellar was ill-lit, but you could see prison cells. I originally thought they were empty, but one was not. In it was a girl a few years older than I. She was on the bed. A priest was standing, praying from a missal in a fairly loud voice. At first, I thought the girl was physically ill, but it soon became clear she was not, for, as we learned from our guide, the girl was possessed by the devil. We were witnessing an exorcism. Now, it’s true that I could not see the devil, but I was an impressionable kid and was certain that he was there in that cell.

When I was older, I realized, of course, that the girl was emotionally ill. Yet, even now, fifty-six years later, I sometimes wonder whether the devil could have been in that cell and might be coming after me.

Sunday, December 05, 2004

On War

To read a powerful essay by Chris Hedges click here

Bush for Energy Independence

Tom Friedman had an interesting column in today’s New York Times. He urges Bush to set a goal of energy independence in ten years. Not an earth-shattering idea, I know, but he links it to regime change or at least regime softening by recounting the dramatic changes that occurred around the world in the late ‘80s and ‘90s.

In that period Russia gave up the ghost, Israel and Palestine seemed to be talking to each other at Oslo, Iran began its reform, economic reform was bruited about in the Arab world. And why? Oil prices collapsed. In November 1985 the price was $30 a barrel; nine months later it was down to $10. In the face of this declining oil revenue many nasty regimes started to actually relax their grip on their people. Would Saudi Arabia become a gentler, kinder nation if oil were $25, and not $50, a barrel? Would they and other nations still be able to finance the terrorists? Would Iran be less obstreperous? Would Russia let the Ukraine decide its own fate completely? If “money makes the world go round”, there is a possibility that Friedman could be right.

But, Friedman paraphrases Michael Mandelbaum of Johns Hopkins, if we became truly energy independent, there would be other significant benefits: a stronger dollar, perhaps reduced global warming and a higher regard around the world for Bush and us.

It’s important to note that Friedman is not talking only of conservation. He’s also plumping for alternative energy sources. It’s not an easy task, especially when we have heard word zero about conservation in the past four years. But, if Nixon, the a nti-communist, went to China, maybe Bush, the former oilman, can be the president known for reducing our dependence on oil.