DECEMBER 2, 2012

     Some trends burst upon us--the airplane, the atomic bomb, the Twinkie.  A note today about a smaller change, but one full of interest.   West Point's Cadet Chapel--yes, the one at the US Military Academy--has hosted a gay wedding.

     It was, the Associated Press reports, a first, or at least a first since the "don't ask, don't tell" policy ended. 

     It leaves out some things I'd like to know:  what did they--both women--wear, was there music, were there flowers, etc.  

     They've been together seventeen years. They'd have preferred to have the wedding in New Jersey, where they live, but their home state doesn't allow gay marriage.  They said West Point was fine, more than fine.  One of the brides graduated from West Point in 1980, the first class to include women.

     It turns out theirs was the second same-sex wedding at the Academy;  the other was last week at a different chapel.  This couple was told no West Point chaplains were allowed by their faiths to perform same-sex weddings.  They found an army chaplain friend.

     God (if there is a god) bless you, ladies. Truly,

 

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

        The year is almost over.  Many of us are thinking about holiday gifts. Congress, of course, is thinking about taxes.
 
     Some tax cuts are due to expire at year's end.  Congress would probably like to extend them, but the national debt really is enormous.  Tax cuts, of course, would make it worse—that's the "fiscal cliff" we keep reading about. And this Congress, like the new one we just elected, is not the best for swift, efficient decision-making.

     Such a government would have one party in charge.  We don't.  The Democrats have the White House and the Senate;  the Republicans have the House.  It will be the same when the new crowd meets.

     Still, Congress often muddles through.  I think--can't prove, just think--they'll do it again.  Stumble around very close to the edge of the fiscal cliff, just not fall over it.

 

Fwd: NOVEMBER 26, 2012

      

     The Washington Post runs an ombudsman column every week defending the paper.  This week's is about a front-page photo they ran November 15th of a man crying as he holds the shroud-wrapped body of his 11-month-old son killed by a bomb strike in Gaza.  

It is a strong picture.  It could make you cry.     The man is Palestinian, the column notes.  The bomb was Israeli.  The column says, correctly in my view, that that is almost beside the point.  But the Post says it got of criticism calling the photo biased.  Why no grieving Israelis?  

The Post notes that no such photo existed.  No Israeli civilians had been killed in Gaza, the paper says, in more than a year    

 True?  I don't know, but that's beside the point too.     The point is wars suck.  They kill people on all sides of whatever the quarrel is about.  Wars suck.  We just don't seem able to stop them.      

     






 

 

NOVEMBER 22, 2012

     When I came to Washington half a century or so ago, one of the first phrases I heard was, "good enough for government work."  It was a putdown, not kindly meant. Now a survey in the Washington Post reports that federal employees themselves are less satisfied with their jobs than they used to be, that their morale is sinking.

      The survey was posted by the government's Office of Personnel Management.  The survey had been done every two years. ThIs is the first time it's been done annually,

     Pay is part of it.  Just 22% said those who do a good job are paid accordingly.  It varies from agency to agency.  59% of employees at the National Archives were happy compared to 74% at NASA.

     And it probably won't get better.  I can't think of any Congressman who campaigned in favor of increasing government salaries, can you?

 

 

NOVEMBER 21, 2012

Many have things to be thankful for this season. President Obama can be thankful he won.  So can Vice President Biden.  So can the Democrats who won in the Senate.  The Republicans won the House, but that's one out of three.  A little thanks but an emphasis on grumpiness, maybe.

There's an interesting question about the Republicans.  They campaigned hard for the new, very conservative GOP--kill the Obama health plan, vouchers for Medicare, whatever--substiantial cuts in the size and cost of government.  But the election results didn't show much change for or against the ideas.  I don't think Americans want these changes, but maybe they just want more time to think about them.

Young people of both parties can perk up and start organizing.  Obama can't run again.  Romney surely won't be the Republican choice.   

The  Iowa caucuses--remember the tedium--are just over four years away. Go get 'em!

 

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

     Columnist Richard Cohen had the Petraeus story about right in the Washington Post last week.  "This is her matter," he writes, "and her husband's--and not ours. He betrayed her, not his country...Now get back to work."

     That can't happen, of course.  He resigned.  But should he have had to?

     A lot of things in life are personal.  If you cheat at cards at the office bridge club, that a a good reason to drop you from the club, but not to fire you. Your work is presumably unaffected.  If you lie about your work, that might justify firing.  If you complain about food at work, that wouldn't.  Not relevant again.

     Accodrng to news reports, Petraeus was a very good top spy. Cheating on his wife probably hasn't affected that.  So why fire him?  Expel him from his church, perhaps, but let him keep his job?

     Worth thinking about?

NOVEMBER 12, 2012

    
     It's over, of course.  Obama won.  Now the debate is why?

     There are several reasons, I suppose.  First, the country has gotten better lately--not wonderful, but better.  The ecomony is somewhat improved in some places but still worrisome.  Employment is up some--again, not swell, but better.  The Democrats had a better case to make in November than they would have in, say, July.

     Another reason:  the Republicans--not all, of course, but many of the more thoughtful ones--ran on a fairly coherent philosophy--the federal government is too big and must shrink, both in size and in the money it spends.  Examples:  people talked about killing the health care bill and about replacing Medicare with a voucher system.  The government would spend less;  recipients would get less.

    It wasn't a specific plan.  There were differences in degree, in detail.  We don't know how a specific plan would have fared.  But the election suggests, I think, that Americans don't want a smaller government that cuts their taxes but gives them fewer services.

     I think we said "No."  Those who disagree have four more years now to change our minds.  Start your engines, again. 

 

NOVEMBER 11, 2012

     It's called Veterans Day now, but once it had a name that was full of history--Armistice Day.  It marked, with some cerermony, the end if the longest and bloodiest war mankind had ever known back then--November 11th--the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, people used say.

     World War I was a different war, using quaint old versions of weapons--tanks and airplanes, which had greatly changed by the time the next and even bloodier war--II, not I, came along just under thirty years later.  And we're still not out of the habit--58,000 Americans died in Vietnam, a much smaller war, some thirty years after WWII.  The total number of dead Americans in the Afghan war is not yet known.  That war, the dying there has yet to end.

     "All we are saying," the Vietnam War protestors used to chant, "is give peace a chance."  Must be tough. We haven't done it yet.