Commentary Update for December 2, 2003
1. This Week's Show: This week's Commentary features regular guest Dr. James Simmons (Chair, UW Oshkosh Department of Political Science) talking about local, state, and national politics. The interview with Simmons is the last Commentary of the Fall semester. I will be trying to get reruns played on Oshkosh Cable Access Television.
2. The 2003 TONY Awards: In my December Media Rant, I give out the 2003 TONY Awards. The winners are:
For full descriptions of the award winners read the entire column. Last year's TONY Winners can be found here.
3. CWAC Files Ethics Complaint: I had already submitted the TONY Award column when I found out that the "most principled progressive" Becky Katers was at it again, this time filing an ethics complaint against Senator Cathy Stepp alleging that Stepp stands to benefit handsomely from "job creation" legislation that came out of a committee that she (Stepp) chaired. Stepp claims that Katers' complaint borders on libel. Stepp defeated incumbent Senator Kim Plache (who many will recall won the seat in the mid 1990s in the recall election that unseated George Petak, the Republican who succumbed to Tommy Thompson's arm twisting and changed his no vote on the Brewers' stadium to a yes in the early morning hours) in the 2002 elections, with substantial assistance from builders who stand to gain from the "job creation" legislation.
4. Barry Weber Show: Commentary's favorite folk singer, UW Oshkosh alum and [sub]urban legend Barry Weber, will perform at the New Moon Cafe in Oshkosh on Wednesday, December 3rd at 7 p.m. If you're in town check Barry out--he's as serious as Phil Ochs, funny as Frank Zappa, and blonde like Jessica Simpson.
5. The Vanishing Case For War: I don't give many pieces the "must read" label, but Thomas Powers' piece on "The Vanishing Case for War" in the December 4, 2003 New York Review of Books has to get the honor. Powers, a Pulitzer prize winning journalist/author, analyzes intelligence reports and concludes that, "The administration's justification for war was not merely flawed or imperfect—it was wrong in almost every detail, and completely wrong at the heart. There was no imminent danger—indeed there was no distant danger. Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction to give to al-Qaeda or anyone else. How is it possible then that the United States Congress allowed itself to be convinced to believe in this nonexistent danger, and to authorize in advance a war for which there was no justification? . . . I blame the insistence of the President that Iraq threatened America, the willingness of the CIA to create a strong case for war out of weak evidence, and the readiness of Congress to ignore its own doubts and go along. Their faith in the case for war confirms that something has been going on deep in the American psyche since the beginning of the cold war, a progressive withering of the skeptical faculty when 'secret intelligence' is called in to buttress a president's case for whatever he wants. The vote for war on Iraq was not unprecedented; forty years ago Congress voted for war in Vietnam in the Tonkin Gulf resolution, too timid to insist on time to weigh reports of an attack on American ships at sea—reports that were either plain wrong or misleading. Again and again throughout the cold war Congress voted billions for new weapons systems to meet hypothetical, exaggerated, or even imaginary threats—routinely backed up by evidence too secret to reveal."
6. A Tale of Two Governors: Back in 1996, critics of then governor Tommy Thompson's welfare "reform" measures argued that the moment the state's economy went into recession, the "Wisconsin Works" program's lack of adequate emergency safeguards would produce a dramatic increase in homelessness. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "For the first time in nearly five years, three downtown Milwaukee churches may have to open their basements in winter as temporary shelters for the growing number of homeless men and women, emergency shelter officials say.With temperatures dropping into the low 20s and winter still ahead, directors of homeless shelters say the continuing need for refuge keeps outstripping resources." All this while our (I mean "the") legislature spends the majority of its time on bumper sticker issues like concealed weapons and gay marriage, and they even find time to take a stand on the ethnic origins of the ancient Macedonians.
Meanwhile governor Jim The New Democrat Doyle, supposedly a supporter of the rights of labor, simply refuses to show any leadership on the Tyson workers' strike in Jefferson. As a result, US Rep. Tammy Baldwin and 25 other members of congress have had to step in and try to get Tyson management to negotiate.
7. Simile of the Week: Rock singer Bono, speaking about the suffering of African AIDS victims who cannot afford treatment: "This is an obscenity . . . This is like watching the Jews being put on trains."
8. Jethro Tull Gets Dixie Chick-ed: As noted by the Cap Times' John Nichols, Jethro Tull lead singer Ian Anderson's antiwar comments have led to attempts to censor the classic rocker. Anderson felt forced to offer somewhat of an apology on his website for being critical of the flag, saying that "I now regret the tone of these statements and offer my belated apologies to those offended by any perceived slur on the Stars and Stripes. I really didn’t understand - even after 35 years of visiting the USA on a regular basis - that this symbol had such fierce resonance for so many people as is now apparent to me." In my own humble opinion, if Anderson wants to apologize for anything it should be for the quality of just about every Tull album after "Aqualung." (:-).
Best,
Tony
