Commentary Update for November 11th, 2003
1. This Week's Show: This week's Commentary guests are Winnebago County Board Supervisors Mike Norton and Claud Thompson, two men who "courageously" (according to the Oshkosh Northwestern editorialists) voted against the $144 million County Budget. Mike and Claud are two of the most dedicated public servants I have ever met, and Jim and I enjoyed completely our discussion with them. Mike has been on the Board since 2000; among many noteworthy accomplishments, in January of 2002 he organized a critical forum on budget issues that forced state representatives to explain their positions to local officials. Claud Thompson served for 24 years on the Oshkosh Area School District Board of Education and is a professor emeritus of education at UW Oshkosh, where he taught for 28 years.
2. Veteran's Day Poppy: Every November 11th I am reminded of a classic tune by Captain Beefheart (AKA Don Van Vliet) from his 1969 cult classic record "Trout Mask Replica." The song "Veteran's Day Poppy" from that album says,
I cry but I can't buy
Your Veteran's Day poppy
It don't get me high
It can only make me cry
It can never grow another
Son like the one who warmed me my days
After rain and warmed my breath
My life's blood
Screamin' empty she crys
It don't get me high
It can only make me cry
Your Veteran's Day poppy
[Note: If you ever have a party at your house and get disgusted with the guests, throw "Trout Mask Replica" in the CD player and turn it up loud. That will get rid of at least three fourths of the visitors who will find the music beyond unbearable. The record came out in 1969, was produced by Frank Zappa, and features Beefheart singing in a voice that is somewhat of a cross between a sore throated Wolfman Jack and the Gorn, the deep voiced, seven foot reptile subdued by Captain Kirk in episode #19 of the original Star Trek. Needless to say, I love "Trout Mask Replica" (TMR) and listened to it three times when I drove to New York last May for grandma's 100th birthday. The total anxiety and depression the record induces is a good antidote to the modern highway driving experience of having to outmaneuver all kinds of obnoxious SUVs and mini-vans; listening to TMR in that context is like dealing with a toothache by dropping a bowling ball on your foot--painful, but at least you forget about the toothache for awhile.].
In all seriousness, of the veteran's memorials I have heard this year, one delivered in Alaska by US Army veteran and member of Veterans For Peace Ed Hein summarizes my own view quite eloquently. He said, "This year marks the fiftieth observance of Veterans Day. It is an occasion to honor the courage, the sacrifice, and the patriotism of those who served in our armed forces and died in our wars. It is also an occasion to remember that misguided policies and politicians have led us into some unwise or immoral wars, and have wasted the lives of a lot of good veterans. Veterans Day should be a day of mourning, honoring, reflecting, and learning from past mistakes." Hein's entire speech can be found here.
3. PATRIOT Act Forum: League of Women Voters chapters from throughout the Fox Valley area have organized a community forum and panel discussion dealing with the Patriot Act and personal rights for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 18, in the Coughlin Center, 625 E. County Trunk Y. Jeff Bollier of the Northwestern did a story announcing the forum in today's paper, which can can be found here.
Panel members include Oshkosh Public Library Director John Nichols and University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh professors Martin Gruberg, Tony Palmeri and Kam Wong. Laurel Munger, of the LWV’s Fond du Lac chapter, will moderate the discussion. I will deliver an updated version of the talk I gave at the Student Green Party forum last May. Meanwhile, Mark Fiore has some good advice for determining if you are a patriot.
4. Defining the Iraqi Resistance: Remember Scott Ritter? He's the decorated marine, former Iraq weapons inspector, and outspoken opponent of Iraqi Freedom whom the US Congress refused to call as a witness in the deliberations before the outbreak of war. Yesterday Ritter had a piece in the Christian Science Monitor on "Defining the Iraqi Resistance." I pray for our troops when I read things like this from Ritter's piece, "IEDs (improvised explosive devices) are a terrifying phenomenon to the American soldiers patrolling Iraq. The IED has transformed combat into an anonymous ambush, a nerve-racking game of highway roulette that has every American who enters a vehicle in Iraq today (whether it be the venerable, and increasingly vulnerable, Humvee, or an armored behemoth like the M-1 Abrams tank) wondering if this ride will be their last." Another view is provided by former Nation columnist Chris Hitchens (I still love Hitch's writing style even though I find myself disagreeing with him much more than used to be the case), who states the Bush Team's case much better than they; they should consider hiring him for the 2004 campaign.
5. Simmons on Sniffen: Dr. James Simmons, chair of the UW Oshkosh Department of Political Science, wrote this eulogy for Barbara Sniffen:
I still can't believe it. I was one of the first to hear about Barbara
Sniffen's death. Yet now, even after I attended her funeral and heard the eloquent
eulogies, I still can't accept this ultimate fact or react to it emotionally.
Barbara's death has hit me in ways very similar to my response to the
passing of my own mother. They were both strong, active women with a strong
sense of righteousness, a disdain for pomposity and an instant recognition for
people of bad character or dishonorable intentions. I would like to think that
my mom would have had something like Barbara's very public impact on so many
people's lives if she had only been born ten years later and had had more opportunities.
In both cases the loss means I have no security blanket of a zealous advocate
or second home if worse come to worse.
I am a big boy and have never been excessively concerned that I couldn't
handle anything in life by myself without anyone else's help. Few people in
authority intimidate me. And, I have rarely been too concerned that my public
actions or words would undermine my career. If you work hard and earn a few
modest accomplishments, you can always find another job.
However, death humbles me. I suspect that, like many of you, I have always
unconsciously wanted the kind of security that only a few select people like
Barbara provide us in our lives. We all seem to need those rare individuals
who accept us no matter what our failings and will help us without any fear,
reservation or concern for own well-being.
What should sustain all who knew her is that she would probably be telling
now us to stop whining and get on with it. There is so much injustice in the
world and so much we should be doing about it that there isn't much time to
waste sorrow. Just pick up her flag and organize.
We probably can and should do some other tangible things to memorialize
Barbara Sniffen. Scholarships, building names, gardens, essays,monuments and
many other items immediately come to mind. However, our own actions on behalf
of the right cause and taking on a good fight would express our highest, best
contribution to her legacy
6. Simile of the Week: From Maureen Dowd in last Monday's New York Times, writing about the Pentagon's goal of training more Iraqi security forces: "But some fret that the Pentagon — growing desperate as the Turks, the Indians, the Pakistanis and other allies refuse to send reinforcements — has been turning out new Iraqi police officers and guards as swiftly and sloppily as Lucy and Ethel turned out chocolates on the assembly line."
7. Justice For The Lamprey and another Water Study: For years the decline in lake trout populations has been blamed on sport fishermen and the lamprey. Now the results of a fifteen year study of Lake Ontario have been released, and the results confirm what probably was obvious for anyone not blinded by the uncritical cloud of corporate booster ideology: "The study, which appeared in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Lake Ontario, indicates that dioxins - chemical byproducts of paper mills and other manufacturing plants - are the real culprits behind the death of lake trout . . . The study - which looked at a variety of indicators, including sediment cores and lake trout tissue and egg samples from Lake Ontario - paints a picture of a lake so toxic that nearly every lake trout hatched between the 1940s and 1980s was killed . . . 'Overfishing and lampreys would have had no effect on this,' he (EPA research chemist Philip Cook) said. The dioxins were killing 100% of the lake trout." A more complete description of the study can be found in yesterday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Another soon to be released study, summarized by the Clean Water Action Council, finds some links between PCB and other Fox River chemical contaminants and breast cancer.
8. Lahey: Wisconsin Legislature Keeps Busy On Sinking Ship--This cartoon by the Green Bay News Chronicle's Lyle Lahey pegs the disgraceful Wisconsin legislature in a way more accurate and powerful than any essay I have seen.
9. Principle Hard To Find In Gun Debate--I must say I never expected to see an editorial in the Oshkosh Northwestern as critical of our local state representatives as this piece: "We have seen a severe case of political expediency. When votes count, Republicans cave in to Assembly Speaker John Gard and what he thinks, rather than the people of Oshkosh or Berlin or Fond du Lac. Why else would Underheim, Olsen and Townsend be willing to abandon their principles so readily? . . . A crime has been committed against the voters. They have been duped. They thought they elected principled legislators. They got politicians who quiver at the thought of bucking party leaders. Underheim has proved this. Olsen and Townsend still have a chance in the override vote to prove otherwise."
Peace,
-Tony