ObamaCare: Sebelius Says President Obama Was Blindsided

The federal government's website portal for PPACA (ObamaCare) has not worked very well. The federal government has not released information about how many people have been able to successfully sign up for health insurance via the federal exchange, only that millions of people have visited and that demand remains high. Well, yes I guess demand would be high once you pass a law stating that people must buy a product.

Although the rollout has so far not been very complimentary to the technical skill set or managerial know how of the people involved in overseeing the launch, I believe that over time, things will be fixed. I work in IT and have been a team lead, programmer, project manager and business analyst -- sometimes all in the same job. I've worked on projects that have proceeded quite smoothly from the first glimmer in some vice-president's mind to a low level underpaid coder (often me) migrating code to production. I've also worked on projects that were poorly designed, insufficiently tested, lacked buy-in from appropriate stakeholders, had unrealistic launch dates, lacked proper funding, had the wrong personnel, or attempted to solve problems that either didn't exist or could be fixed more cheaply and much more simply in other ways.

It's a RARE large project that meets all its target dates and deliverables and comes in on time, under budget and with no post-launch fixes. As project complexity, scope and size increase the chances of perfection or even anything close to perfection (eg. Six Sigma) decline dramatically.

I have never worked on anything approaching ObamaCare's size or scope. I have worked on legally required projects which did have (within the business world) massive national scrutiny and visibility. The general rule on any project is that EVERYONE must keep their team and their supervisor aware of issues that could impact the launch date or launch deliverables. The Company CEO may not care if you have to stay overtime for 20-30 hours over the next month to rewrite and test programs that downstream feeders use. That's your problem not his. But if you discover that not only will you need to rewrite programs but also that several databases will have to change, the project design is flawed, the chosen middleware has significant issues, the testers don't know how to test, the system lacks required data and it's impossible to meet several legal requirements by the current launch date, that's something that management at the HIGHEST level should know. God help you if you knew something like that and didn't run and tell. You don't want to see your name in the paper as the reason the stock price took a nosedive. If the Company can't do something required by federal law or the IRS, the CEO and Chairman should know ASAP.

That's why I was shocked to learn that according to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius no one told the President that the launch wasn't going to work. She's somewhat coy about whether she knew and didn't tell.

Before it even launched, red flags went up about the Obamacare website. Health insurance companies complained about it, and the site crashed during a test run. But nobody told the President of any of it, the nation's health chief told CNN. Kathleen Sebelius said President Barack Obama didn't hear that there may be problems with the sign-up portal for his signature health care law until it went live on October 1. That's when the site nosedived into a technical abyss. 

It's not like no one saw this coming. When the website crashed during a test run, just a few hundred users were on it. But the Obama administration went ahead with the launch. Waiting was not an option, Sebelius said. 

A Senate GOP leadership aide called the situation "odd." "Everyone was surprised by her statement that the President was unaware of the website's failures until a few days into it," the aide told CNN. "They had been claiming that the Obamacare rollout was his top priority and that he was receiving regular updates, which was inaccurate. And he gave remarks on October 1 about how great it was and that people should go sign up," the aide said. "Assuming that he didn't know that the website didn't work, why did they let him make that speech when they knew it had crashed in testing? Did really no one recommend a delay to the President? It just seems odd." 

Before the website's launch, Republicans made targeting the program a centerpiece of their agenda. Many insisted they wouldn't vote to fund the entire government unless Obamacare was defunded or delayed. They said that the website's woes show that the Obama administration and the federal government generally aren't capable of executing what the GOP says was an ill-advised program from the get-go.

                  

Generally speaking the powers that be don't like hearing bad news. You certainly don't rise in any organization, public or private, by constantly telling your supervisors about failure, especially if the failure is yours. Some of the people I've worked with and for have made it quite clear that they want good news from their reports. But the smarter leaders value accurate news over good news. Whether you're in IT or not, you're in a job because someone thought that you could help the organization solve problems and/or make money. If a leadership team is proceeding on inaccurate information it can't solve problems. It is embarrassing to have to delay a launch or kill it completely because of issues. But it's worse (IMO) to turn in substandard work that doesn't meet specs and indeed worsens the problems that would be addressed by successful launch instead of resolving them.  You do that and you see exactly what you see now-a lot of blamestorming, desperation moves, attempts at spin, and knee jerk reactions to criticism. If the people at the top aren't careful this can add weight to rivals' claims that there ought to be a management change, or failing that a scaling back of authority, scope and responsibility.

My mantra at work is "Let's get it right. Let's tell the truth." It strains credulity to believe that the President did not know that the primary interface of his signature program would not work properly. What the heck was Sebelius talking about in Cabinet meetings? "Yes sir Mr. President, everything is going just fine with PPACA implementation. Yes sir! You have nothing to worry about. We're doing just fine. You don't need to be concerned about the PPACA."

Someone, whether it was the President, the HHS Secretary or the tech leaders overseeing the launch, made the decision to roll the dice and see what happens. And here we are. In my work if some vice-president left the CEO/Chairman hanging out there like that they'd be fired. You might as well tell the truth because there's not much room for deceit in IT. Either the process works and does what it's supposed to do for an acceptable percentage of time or it does not. Of course a good boss often takes the hit for mistakes his employees make while good employees often cover for mistakes their boss makes. That's life. I have to believe that that is what's happening here.

LINK

QUESTIONS

Do you believe that President Obama did not know of website problems?

Should Secretary Sebelius be fired?

How long do you think it will take to get website and related code fixed?

If you have a boss, do you keep him or her in the loop on major issues?

Music Reviews-The Como Mamas, United Soul (US), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

The Como Mamas

Just as you might expect from the name, this trio of singers (Ester Mae Smith, Angela Taylor, Della Daniels) hails from Como, Mississippi. Two of them are sisters. The Como Mamas sing the kind of hardcore real gospel and spirituals that inspired and informed so much of African-American popular music. They generally do so a cappella. This isn't music that they went to school to learn how to sing. This is stuff they grew up with in their community. Smith is also a preacher while Taylor's and Daniels' grandfather Miles Pratcher was a professional musician (guitarist, fiddler) who played with many other bluesmen, including Mississippi Fred McDowell. So this music is something they've been with all of their lives. Della Daniels once had an invitation to record in Nashville as a young woman but her mother turned it down out of protectiveness. Smith is the primary "lead" singer. Obviously the three ladies were also inspired by such people as Dorothy Love Coates, Mahalia Jackson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and of course Aretha Franklin. The women have been singing together since they were children.


The album which I have by them is Get an Understanding which was recorded live in their local church. It's a pretty representative sampling of what they sound like. It is made up almost entirely of traditional gospel or gospel blues songs or works by Thomas Dorsey or James Cleveland that are so well known that they might as well be traditional. Cuts include "God is Able", "Nobody's fault but mine", "Ninety Nine and a Half Won't Do", "One More River to Cross", "I know it was the blood" and many others. There are occasionally a few flat notes or other mistakes but not very many. Their harmony is not the tightest I've ever heard but if a woman's voice may be said to have gravitas and authority, and I think it may, all three of these women's voices have those qualities. I don't know that I would get more work by them yet or not but I was certainly quite happy with what I heard. I think all three women are contraltos. Some of their music (mostly alternate versions) is included below.
Trouble in My Way   I got Jesus Count Your Blessings We're Getting Ready (For the Room Upstairs) Old Landmark






US (United Soul) 
Music with Funkadelic

United Soul was both a Funkadelic side project as well as a farm team for Funkadelic . Some United Soul members would later officially join Parliament-Funkadelic. George Clinton's stated ambition was to build an entire funky empire that could be as artistically diverse and as financially successful as Stax, Motown, or Invictus. He didn't quite reach that goal but there are a number of Detroit or New Jersey based music groups that came out of the P-Funk organization and had at least some success. US wasn't really one of them probably because this, their only official album was never released back in the day by Westbound Records. So I guess that sort of put a damper on plans of worldwide renown. 

This self-titled release is virtually indistinguishable from Funkadelic in terms of songs but the production is much much better and cleaner than early Funkadelic albums. Most of these tracks would show up in different forms in later official Funkadelic releases. P-Funk fans will recognize several of them. This is a very short album even by seventies standards and especially by Funkadelic standards. It's really more of an EP than an album. It walks that fine line between hard-core soul and funky rock-n-roll that P-Funk and other groups perfected. As mentioned the players/singers on this album include obviously George Clinton himself and a few current Funkadelic players as well as then current United Soul members guitarist Garry Shider and  bassist Cordell "Boogie" Mosson, who would each become integral parts of the P-Funk sound in later years. Shider was always a visually arresting part of the P-Funk concert experience as he would often perform wearing a diaper.

My favorite song on here is "Be What You Is" which is an ode to naturalism and honesty, a paean to staying in your own lane and virtually the 11th Commandment from God Himself, delivered in a stentorian baritone that had me believing that Isaac Hayes was appearing on the cut. But nope. I'm pretty sure that's Garry Shider singing. I've said it before but it does intrigue me that this sort of hard soul singing has mostly vanished from modern R&B. It's been replaced by male singers whose singing sounds to me as if they never went through puberty. But to each their own. 

"I Miss My Baby" is pretty generic soul that's typical of the Northern soul sound of the time. It's not bad but I don't find a whole lot that's special about it either.
"The Rat Kiss the Cat on The Navel" is a nazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzty sounding song both lyrically and sonically. As I've mentioned elsewhere this sort of stuff is updated hard core blues of the kind Elmore James and Howlin Wolf did. It wouldn't have sounded too out of place on their albums if the song were slowed down and the guitar effects and volume were removed/reduced. But if you like fuzz, this song is for you. There are alternate (more danceable) versions of later Funkadelic classics "Baby I Owe You Something Good" and "This Broken Heart". There are only seven cuts on this album/cd so don't go in expecting a huge sprawling release. There may be more out there from this group but we'll have to wait and see. AFAIK, George Clinton doesn't have the rights to this music. Those are owned by Westbound records owner and publisher Armen Boladian. So who should have this? If you're a P-Funk fanatic as I am, you should and probably do have this already. For less enthusiastic P-Funk fans this might be worth buying just for "Be What you Is". Depends on the price. If you're into stoner type music but want a little rhythm this could be up your alley. But if you don't like P-Funk or are just mildly curious about them, this probably isn't for you. There are better, cheaper and more representative releases that P-Funk newbies should check out.








Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
by Elton John

This was Elton John's most successful studio release and imo has most of his greatest hits. It was a double album that wasn't initially meant to be released as one. I was too young to remember when this first came out but a few years later at the school I was attending at the time I recall a few cuts from this album being played. Also black radio dj's weren't averse to playing "Bennie and the Jets". Elton John was invited to play that song on Soul Train. Still, it wasn't until much much later in life that I really started listening to Elton John and went back and picked up this album. It's rare that a double album only has a few clunkers on it and that happens to be the case here. There is a very high signal to noise ratio on this album. I always thought the album cover was a bit of an inside joke by Elton John to clueless fans. The album was released a few years before Elton John came out as bisexual in a Rolling Stone interview. This, strangely enough, upset and shocked some of his American fans in the seventies. There was so much camp and gender bending going on in pop music at the time that even a man dressed up like a modernized Liberace complete with red rhinestone heels and pink jacket, apparently just wasn't enough to trip any gaydar in seventies America. Go figure.

Anyway, if you have listened to any pop, rock or classic rock radio in the past forty years you've probably heard some of these songs, maybe even more than you would like or care to admit. 
This album spans a pretty wide range of genres and styles. At some of them John is more skilled, at others, not so much. No one is ever going to mistake him for a reggae artist and thus the less said about the truly execrable Jamaica Jerk Off, the better. As you probably know Elton John generally writes and arranges most of the music he records but most of the lyrics are usually written and written first by his longtime songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin. This seems to be a rather odd way to work as Elton fits the music to the lyrics rather than the other way around but obviously it's been quite successful. 

I've always been impressed with Elton John's prodigious piano playing skills but I also love the way in which the songs are written leaves a LOT open to interpretation. I think this was by design. Taupin always knew his friend and co-writer was gay and so there aren't a lot of extremely specific "MAN WANT WOMAN" type of songs in the Elton John ouevre but nevertheless the emotions that are raised are not really peculiar to any gender or sexuality. Love can sometimes hurt. People get lonely. It's good to have fun. Those are things everyone can agree on no matter the angle of their dangle or the particular glide to their stride. And songs are often more fun when they aren't so obvious anyway.

Some people have claimed that Dirty Little Girl flirts with misogyny but I don't see it. The song could also possibly be the greatest F*** you song ever recorded. Bennie and the Jets is stripped down pop/R&B that puts a lot of emphasis on the one. All the Girls Love Alice tells of the lesbian adventures of the underage title character. Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting is old school highly danceable 50s style FUN Rock-n-Roll with a modern sound. It's Little Richard meets David Bowie.  Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding is somber prog-rock that swells into bouncy rock-n-roll. Candle in the Wind is a homage to Marilyn Monroe (later retrofitted for Princess Diana). I've Seen That Movie Too is another breakup song. Sweet Painted Lady examines the prostitute's life (this is a theme that Taupin returns to frequently) while Harmony is another beautiful sad piece that can be understood any way you like. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is another masterpiece that defies easy interpretation. It could be another relationship gone wrong. It could be about getting off the road to fame and fortune. It could be about a number of things. It's up to you. That's only about half of the songs from this album. I love this release. Its hits outshine the crap. Sonically everything is crisp and clean with guitars often getting almost as much prominence as Elton's piano.

Obamacare Losers

First of all, if you've got health insurance, you like your doctor, you like your plan - you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you."
President Barack Obama
7/16/2009

President Obama's statement has been shown to be untrue. I don't ascribe ill intention to the President or PPACA supporters. PPACA may prove broadly beneficial. But those who lose their current coverage and receive no government subsidies will be worse off. The counter to the claim that they're worse off is that their new plans will have increased level of (mandatory) benefits which are better for them and society. 

I am unconvinced by this argument. It's exactly like saying that instead of driving your $12,000 compact car with minimal upgrades and a low chance of being undamaged in an accident, you MUST purchase a fully loaded $60,000 large sedan, SUV, or pickup truck with a better chance of surviving a serious collision. So the government forces auto companies to stop making the $12,000 compact that you prefer. Though you have little financial capacity and less desire to drive something large which also has voice activated commands or rear view cameras, the choice isn't yours anymore.

At least 146,000 Michiganders — and possibly thousands more — with health coverage purchased directly from insurers now are learning their polices will end Dec. 31 because they don’t meet the minimum requirements of the federal health care act. Under the law, each policy must cover essential benefits in 10 categories. Instead of beefing up these policies, insurers are opting to drop them, advising consumers to consider other policies that are now available either from the insurers directly or though the Michigan Health Insurance Marketplace, also known as the state exchange. The policies that are ending were often less expensive on the individual market because they provided limited benefits and were sold to healthier consumers.

And that was fine with consumers such as Josh Mulder. Mulder had landed a plan several years ago that cost his Wixom family of four just $291 a month. That policy will end Dec. 31, according to a letter from his insurer. The policy didn’t cover things such as maternity care or prescription drugs, but, Mulder said, his family is generally healthy and he was willing to take the risk.“I had a great rate,” he said. Rates that meet the required benefits under health reform average $762.06 a month on the Michigan Health Insurance Marketplace for his family of four..

LINK

Purchasing health care is not like purchasing an automobile but the principle is the same. The government is mandating a specific choice. Maybe this is okay because the government already requires that vehicles have certain safety features and pass certain tests. You can't purchase a new car without seat belts or air bags.  

Often people who make this argument have trouble delineating any point where the federal government can't mandate or regulate. But let's take that objection seriously. It does have some validity. A government which wants to prevent vehicular carnage can surely attempt the same in health care no? I'd say no because drivers directly impact other people. The people detailed in this article are not those fierce individualists or (in some people's minds) lazy freeriders who haven't purchased insurance. They've already purchased insurance which fits their needs and budget. 

The government is making them purchase additional insurance which they don't need and may never use in order to subsidize other people's insurance choices. If I am a sixty something worker I may no longer need to cover my child until he's twenty-six. If I am a forty something man I have little use for insurance that mandates well woman visits or contraceptive coverage. If I am a thirty something fitness guru I may not desire extra coverage which allows multiple doctor visits. If I am a woman well past her reproductive years I may skip an insurance policy that includes maternity care. And so on.

Some might argue that such people are wicked selfish folks. Perhaps. But we are all self-interested. In a marketplace people are able to pursue their own self-interest. For some, the PPACA has reduced choice and raised costs. This is not a good thing.
A utilitarian may claim that it will all be worth it if the people with increased coverage and lower costs outnumber the people with the opposite. We lack that data. But if the PPACA's goal was to give coverage to those without, it may have been wiser to do a simple transfer payment. Raise taxes on everyone and give the money to those without insurance; cut taxes on those without insurance and allow them to use the money to purchase insurance, or open up Medicare/Medicaid to anyone without insurance, regardless of age or income.

Those decisions all have their own cost-benefit analyses. But they would have been more straightforward than reducing choices and raising costs for some with insurance in order to subsidize favored groups with insurance or give insurance to those without. I have no problem paying higher income taxes to get someone else insured. I have a major problem with being forced to buy coverage I don't want and lose coverage that I like. Can you afford to pay twice as much for insurance coverage as you do now? Because I couldn't. I think a law that results in that outcome needs editing. PPACA supporters may feel differently. That's fine. I simply ask that they at least acknowledge that the PPACA does harm some people. That data is in.

What are your thoughts?

Book Reviews-Pym, The Beauty of Trees

Pym
by Mat Johnson

Just. Get. This. Book. Now. Seriously. Temporarily stop reading this review and carry yourself over to Amazon or Barnes and Noble or your local library and arrange to have this book sent to you, downloaded to your reading device, or ready for you to pick up somewhere. This is the best book I've read so far this year. It's also FUNNIER than hell.

Although some of the humor in the book may be most deeply appreciated by those who are Edgar Allan Poe experts or academics (tenured or not) or scientists, or people suffering from unrequited love or those rare birds who are all of those things I truly believe that you will find this book hilarious no matter your race, ethnicity, work experience, age, gender, sexuality, blah, blah. It's freaking funny and that's it. It's UNIVERSALLY applicable to the human condition. I am very very very happy that I crossed this book off my "to read" list. I am definitely going to find more work by Mat Johnson to enjoy. I may start with his graphic novel Incognegro which I'm pretty sure I have laying around the home somewhere.  It was a gift from my brother who is a comic book fanatic. It's amazing that entire worlds lay at your fingertips. All you have to do is reach over and pick them up. Pym is so complex and so simple at the same time that after you finish you ask yourself why didn't I think of that?

This book is both parody and satire that touches on slavery, racism, American race relations, inter and intra-racial personal interactions, academia, art, and most especially Edgar Allan Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. It had been decades since I had read this work of Poe's. I remembered nothing about it. And according to both Mat Johnson and his in-universe stand-in I didn't miss much. Poe's work was a hastily written and poorly designed pulp novel about a mysterious journey to Antarctica, a racial mutiny, encounters with savages/pseudo-humans so black their teeth were black and a final meeting with a larger than life mysterious white figure. Having reread it after reading Pym, I can say that Poe's work was internally inconsistent and somewhat racist (though that was of the times). It did however inspire similar works by Jules Verne, H.P. Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness and most fortuitously Pym. So that's a good thing.

Much like Erasure, this book very much brings to mind such writers as Vonnegut, Heller and Twain. I've rarely read satire done so well and created from such seemingly disparate elements.
So what's it about you ask? Well Chris Jaynes, professor of African American literature has just been denied tenure and thus been effectively fired from his campus teaching position. He was the only black male professor at the university. He thought that if he were denied tenure he would shoot up the place or suicide bomb the faculty cafeteria but instead he mostly got drunk and cried. His department committee recommended tenure but the University President overrode that decision. At semester's end Chris decides to confront the President and "...show him how we do where I'm from, go straight Philly on him, and I knew all about that business because although I had never actually punched someone in the face before, as a child myself I had been on the receiving end of that act several times and was a quick study".

The meeting with the President doesn't go as Chris would like. In fact it goes bad from the start. Both Chris and the President are embarrassed when Chris barges in and catches his boss, a proud Jewish man, listening to Wagner. Chris is angered more when the President explains to him that Chris was hired only to teach black literature and be on the diversity committee and NOT to examine general American literature or expound on whiteness motifs in Poe's work. The President doesn't think Chris is smart or experienced enough to branch out and even if he were, that's not what the President wants. Chris doesn't think that just being on a "cover your a$$" and ultimately powerless diversity committee makes any sense. Later, in the bar running across his triumphant and dismissive black replacement, an angry hip hop theorist, Chris catches a beatdown. Even though it was in rhythm though it should not be confused with the downbeat. That is, as Chris explains, a completely different type of beating.

Fortunately however Chris has some good luck when he discovers a narrative by Dirk Peters, the "half-breed" companion of Pym in Poe's novel. Now believing that Poe's novel might have been based on truth, Chris decides to put together an all black Antarctic expedition to see if there really is a black nation out there that escaped colonialism or if some albino giants really do exist. To join him on this quest he brings along:

• Booker Jaynes: Chris' much older cousin, a hardcore black nationalist, civil rights activist and deep sea/salvage diver. Having lost faith in most black people post 1967 or so Booker is bossy, bitter and quite paranoid. He remains "blacker than thou". He has a dog named White Folks. 
• Jeffree and Carlton Carter: Sewage department workers and engineers, conspiracy theorists, web hosters, photographers, adventurers. They are also gay. Very openly so.
• Angela and Nathaniel Lathan: Angela is Chris' former girlfriend and has remained the great lost love of his life. Upon hearing that she had divorced, Chris invited her on the journey with the hopes of the obvious. Angela said yes but neglected to mention that she had remarried. This causes some mixed emotions on Chris' part, to say the least, particularly when Angela expresses hope that Chris and her husband Nathaniel will be friends. Nathaniel is an attorney and far more financially successful than Chris.
• Garth Frierson: Chris' childhood friend and someone who helped him move. Garth is an overweight unemployed everyman bus driver from Detroit with a passion for Little Debbie snack cakes and the artwork of Thomas Karvel (an obvious parody of Thomas Kinkade). Garth is convinced that Karvel lives in Antarctica. Garth does not appreciate everyone pointing out that his devotion to Karvel's work is a bit strange considering that Karvel never puts any black people or signifier of "blackness" in his art. He also doesn't appreciate anyone trying to steal his sugary snacks, of which he has prudently brought hundreds.

These people all reach Antarctica and discover that indeed some of Poe's novel was true. They also get enslaved. How they deal with this misfortune is the source of (pardon the pun) some of the book's blackest humor. Did I mention this book was funny? Virtually everything is skewered by Johnson's wit, whether it's black people claiming they're Native American while trying to push their naps underneath a do rag, or a white person seeing Chris, who could pass for white under certain conditions, and immediately assuming that he is white and thus obviously in charge of the group. At one point a half starving delirious member of the party launches into a longwinded doctoral dissertation on the evils of racism and the cannibalistic greediness at the heart of Eurocentric culture. His companion, who's in a very bad mood and had been silently ignoring the speaker for the past three days, punctures this heartfelt soliloquy by snidely asking "Are you saying hip-hop is any better?" When the person must answer in the negative, his companion sagely nods and goes back to ignoring him.

This book can be understood and enjoyed on multiple levels, from the satirical metafiction that it is to a simple rollicking good time. What I am trying to say is again, just read this book. It's written in first person, which normally I'm not fond of but that narrative device is perfect for this story. It combines humor with some very serious, even painful investigations into reality. 





The Beauty of Trees
by Michael Jordan

No it's not by THAT Michael Jordan. Have you ever read The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion and other books by J.R.R. Tolkien? One thing that shines through very brightly is that the author had a love for flora, especially trees. In Tolkien's creations, the best people take trees very seriously. It's the reflowering of a long dead tree that signals the return of the rightful king while the destruction of trees in the Shire herald the end of innocence and the arrival of evil, industrialization and some hard adult moral choices. Tolkien was a romantic at heart so it's no surprise that trees held such a special place in his heart. I think this book would likely be Tolkien approved. I grew up with elms and apple trees around my home. Unfortunately back in the day we lost our elm tree to Dutch elm disease, that cursed plague. Detroit has a lot more greenery than you would imagine while Michigan in particular is well known for apple and cherry trees. If I ever had real money not only would I have a gothic/baroque/art deco home made of stone I would also make sure to locate it next to and around a variety of different trees. This book lists 100 of the world's best known trees and depicts them in all their magnificent full color glory. It gives their various Latin names and descriptions of their histories, quirks, range in which they are found and the role they've played in the environment or human history. Some of these trees have immense cultural significance. Unfortunately cultural significance can by definition be quite specific as we see in Zimbabwe where there is a movement to eliminate "foreign" trees, that is trees brought from Europe. Many trees which we've come to think of as native to one land actually were brought over from other places long ago.

When you think about it it's amazing that you can have a living organism that can survive for hundreds or even thousands of years. It's even more amazing that trees provide much of the air we breathe, food and shelter for animals and other plants we need, and prevent soil erosion. Yet we often seem hellbent on destroying as many trees as we can. Trees represent a bridge between past and future as some grow so slowly that the planter may never see the full growth in his or her lifetime. They are something for the benefit of the next generation and all those thereafter.

It's fall now and Michigan is undergoing its normal beautiful transformation. After buying and reading this book I find myself more curious about the trees I see in my own backyard or in the remnants of forests that still abut my subdivision. I'm right on the border between city and country and this book makes me more interested in the country. To be honest I didn't find all of these trees beautiful. I thought the baobab was just ugly and the southern live oak, while gorgeous, brings up for me too many unpleasant antebellum associations. Still, each of these trees is special in their own way. If you are at all interested in the natural world, this coffee table book with glossy photographs is something you will want to have.

Alder

Red Flowering Gum

Redwood

Southern Live Oak

Rhododendron

Chicago Woman Brutalized by Police

I've written before about how I'm somewhat distrustful of police officers in general and stories like this only add to that sense of unease. The problem I have with police is not so much that they like any other human being can lose their temper or their patience, have or show prejudice and bigotry, or resort to violence more quickly than is required. After all those are all human traits . It would be silly to single out police officers for those failings. No, as we've discussed before the problem with police, who are after all agents of the state, is that they often get away with these things and/or are rarely held accountable to the full extent of the law. After all prosecutors often work hand in hand with police departments. So of course many prosecutors aren't often necessarily looking to arrest, prosecute and convict police officers, no matter how far they get out of line. This is bad because by law, custom and the fact they tend to be both armed and larger than you, people generally give physical deference to the police. We allow them to lay hands on us, arrest us and take us into custody precisely because we accept the authority of the state. Well what if the state consistently starts to behave in such a manner that a reasonable man or (in this case) woman decides that authority is no longer valid?

A Chicago woman has sued the village of Skokie and one of its police officers, alleging she was seriously injured after being shoved headfirst into a jail cell bench after a drunken driving arrest last winter. Cassandra Feuerstein, 47, said in a federal lawsuit that the incident required facial reconstructive surgery and the insertion of a titanium plate to "replace the bones that had been shattered."

Part of the alleged incident was recorded on jail video cameras, which Feuerstein's attorney, Torreya Hamilton, released Wednesday."The video speaks for itself," Hamilton said. "She does nothing to justify what this male police officer does." In a written statement released today, Village Manager Albert Rigoni said the village has “deep concern for Ms. Cassandra Feuerstein’s injuries that occurred at the Skokie Police Station.” The statement said that an officer involved has been placed on station duty, with no contact with the public, while both the village and the state’s attorney investigate.

Feuerstein was arrested for drunken driving March 10, according to Hamilton and court documents. The video shows officers searching Feuerstein inside the jail cell, where she appears to be asked to remove her boots and bra before being removed from the cell for additional processing. An officer then takes Feuerstein by the arm and appears to push her back into the cell. Video shows Feuerstein falling forward and striking her head and face on a bench, before officers and paramedics tend to her as a pool of blood spreads on the floor.

According to Feuerstein’s lawyer, Torri Hamilton, seconds after her client asked to call her husband and children, the officer hurled the 110-pound woman back into the cell with such force that she fell and landed face first on a concrete bench.

Police brutality may be closer to home if you happen to be black but as more and more stories show, race won't protect you from running into a brutal cop who LIKES hurting people. As Angela Davis said, if they come for me in the morning they will come for you in the night. Such police are dangerous to all citizens they encounter, regardless of their race or gender. Watch the graphic video below the fold and let me know what you think. The officer involved has not been disciplined nor has he been criminally charged. Now if you got this angry at someone on your job and did what he did, what do you think would happen to you? I imagine immediate discharge followed by arrest would be most likely.


   

LINK

Detroit Ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick Sentenced to 28 Years

Back in March, former larger than life Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted of multiple federal criminal charges of racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, bribery, and mail fraud. These all grew from him and his father demanding kickbacks from city contractors or other individuals seeking to do business with the city. Many of these kickbacks went to the mayor's good friend, construction mogul Bobby Ferguson, who was also found guilty of multiple charges. Basically if you wanted to play, you had to pay. Well today was sentencing. Mr. Kilpatrick was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison. As he is 43 years old, this is close to if not akin to a life sentence. By way of comparison other noted white collar criminals received both higher and lower sentences.
Bernie Madoff got 150 years in prison. Former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio received six years in prison for insider trading, a sentence he believed was brought about from his refusal, absent a court order, to cooperate with the NSA surveillance programs. Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich received a 14 year prison sentence for soliciting bribes for political appointments. People's sentences for various white collar corruptions range all over the place. It all depends on various factors, including your criminal history, how much you stole, whether or not you had the public trust and so on. Kilpatrick not only could have been a great mayor, he indeed had the energy and charisma to become a Michigan Senator or perhaps even Governor. 

Detroit — Kwame Kilpatrick has been sentenced to serve 28 years in prison for crimes of racketeering and conspiracy committed during his six years as the mayor of Detroit. That sentence was just handed down in U.S. federal court by Judge Nancy Edmunds. 

Edmunds said she was required to issue a sentence that is “sufficient but not greater than necessary” for a criminal enterprise that ran from Kilpatrick’s time in the state House to the mayor’s office. She described the former mayor as a larger-than-life character who helped himself to a jet-setting lifestyle. A significant sentence, she said, sends the message that corruption won’t be tolerated.

After declining to testify on his own behalf during the trial, Kilpatirck spoke before Edmunds made her ruling. It was an emotional and occasionally apologetic speech that included the omission: “I really messed up.”“We’ve been stuck in this town for a very long time dealing with me,” he said. “I’m ready to go so the city can move on.”His speech touched on a variety of subjects from his time in office and beyond, including:

■His affair with his former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty: “I was mad at people for finding out.”

■His own shortcomings: “It was pride and ego that took over. I couldn’t lose.”

■His resignation from office: "I didn't realize then that I beat down the spirit and energy and vibrance of what was going on in the city."

■His father, Bernard Kilpatrick: “He’s a real good man.”

■Stealing money from the city: “I’ve never done that...”

■The City of Detroit: “I want the city to be great again,” and to have a feeling “like it had during the 2006 SuperBowl.”

■His mother Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick’s term in office: “I killed her career.”

LINK 

Kilpatrick made things worse for Detroit, there is no doubt about that. At the same time we live in a system where fathers who have assaulted their own daughters have received a fraction of that sentence and where people who have put people in the ground have received less time for their actions. Of course as they say if you can't do the time, don't do the crime. The world is not a fair place anyway. If you weren't doing wrong in the first place you wouldn't be personally concerned about equity in sentencing. And every case is indeed different. But I can't help but think that 28 years is a little over the top. I was thinking more like 15-20. This brings an end to the sordid Kilpatrick saga, although there are still co-conspirators awaiting sentence, most infamously Bobby Ferguson. And maybe it's just me and my damnable pride but if I humbled myself and told the judge how sorry I was for everything and how I had learned from my mistakes and she STILL gave me 28 years I'd want to say a few more honest and much nastier things before I was hauled away for good. My basic verdict on Kilpatrick is that he wasted his talent and hurt the city.

What say you?
Ho-hum? Who cares? Good riddance? Fair sentence?

On the oppression of male youth in Palestine and the US

Today's guest post comes to us from Temple University graduate, Michelle Zei. Michelle is a freelance journalist who recently visited the Aida Refugee Camp in Israel. Her experience gave her a unique perspective on the turmoil surrounding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. 

During the summer, most Americans probably took vague notice that peace negotiations resumed in the Middle East. “Peace in the Middle East”, a phrase often thrown around allusively with little context, and a general attitude of futility. ‘There will never be peace,’ most people might think, ‘Why even try?’

“There's war on the streets and the war in the Middle East.” Tupac said it in the 90’s and it rings true today.

But approaching any situation as an endless conflict has never helped in the past and to take it a step further seeing the ‘Israeli- Palestinian Conflict’ as continuously hopeless doesn’t garner interest from the American public. 

The conflict that is portrayed as ageless is, in fact a military occupation dating back to 1948. There are not two equal parties at war but rather an indigenous group pushed inside narrow, shrinking borders under Israel’s on-going military rule. The occupation of Palestinian land and people, like other forms of colonialism, consists of the destruction of communities and culture: crippled economies, displacement of people, separation of families, millions of refugees, and the arrest of young males without warrant. Additionally, the arrest and disenfranchisement of so many men makes families and communities struggle for unity and economic strength. Women often bare immense burdens of maintaining households and trying to raise and protect their children- to teach them pride, strength and hope in the midst of a threatening reality. 

Many young Palestinian males share rights of passage of harassment and captivity similarly to young men of color in other parts of the world, even here. The U.S. injustices rooted in displacing natives, relying on slavery for economic growth, and later administering discriminatory laws under Jim Crow have put the U.S. in a place where black men have been systemically criminalized and assumed guilty until proven innocence. 

How can these people be innocent and receive empathy in a country where they’ve been pegged as violent aggressors without historical context (that includes them being the recipients of violence for generations)? Palestinians are faced with this dilemma as well. 

Under an oppressive judicial, police or military system, these young males are presumed as a threat before they even act. Even youth are suspects; building the foundation for them to be devalued and mistreated. Legal systems set the tone for how citizens view youth and adults.

In the U.S., we have the recent examples of Kimani Gray who was shot and killed by N.Y.P.D. officers and George Zimmerman’s murder of Trayvon Martin.

Palestinian youth also receive brutality and harassment from Israeli soldiers and citizens. For example, last year Jamal Julani, a Palestinian teen was attacked by Israeli teens in Jerusalem until he was left unconscious. This year in Aida refugee camp, 13-year-old MohammedAl-Kurdi and 15-year-old Ahmed Amarin were fatally shot by Israeli soldiers in front of a community center.

The power of social media led active community members to seek justice for Trayvon Martin. A change.org petition circulated and raised an overwhelming amount of support in favor of charging Zimmerman  and finally the state responded. Even when justice wasn’t served, adults and youth continued fighting to illuminate the legacy of racism and racial profiling- to advocate for young black men and stand in unity.

However much like Kimani Gray’s death, the deaths and imprisonment of many Palestinian youth go unreported and misunderstood in the U.S. media. We must challenge ourselves to learn the names and circumstances of those, local and internationally whose deaths and suffering never make headlines.

Minors behind bars

Just as many American activists from groups like Decarcerate P.A.  and the Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project address issues of imprisonment and the charge of minors as adults, children as young as 12 are held in Israeli military detention without charge, for renewable, six-month periods. According to the UN, in 2011, 200 Palestinian youth were arrested per month.  

The double standard for how Palestinians are treated within the Israeli courts is just one facet of apartheid in Palestine-Israel, reminiscent of that in South Africa and Jim Crow south.

Respected figures in the civil rights movement like Alice Walker have long admonished the occupation and chosen to stand with the Palestinian people. Walker wrote Alicia Keys a letter to join the cultural boycott of Israel a couple months ago but her letter wasn’t understood or received by the public or perhaps Keys herself. 

In addition, Nelson Mandela’s friend Ahmed Kathrada who also was imprisoned for fighting against apartheid wrote a letter to Morgan Freeman, asking him to pull out of a fundraiser for HebrewUniversity.

Other public figures like Angela Davis and Lenny Kravitz have spoken out against the Israeli military occupation as well. These people recognize the importance of connecting local concerns and action to international solidarity and advocacy.

The fight for Palestinians to be recognized and have freedom is an ongoing struggle. Peace negotiations will inevitably resume at some point, with the U.S. playing referee. As American citizens, we often hear in political discourse that Israel is our biggest ally in the Middle East, a beacon of light and example of democracy. However as we know, young democracies built on the displacement of others are imperfect and in need of constant examination and changes so that more people can thrive and live in peace.

Many refugees and immigrants from Palestine, like other regions of the world are now American citizens, continuing life in a place with its own contradictions and injustices. Stories of pain and persecution are more often silenced than shared. Learning more about other countries, especially where the U.S. government has a large presence is a way to better understand our country, its people and influence.

I encourage you to look into the rich history and culture of the Palestinian people, learn the names of politicians, artists, and even innocent boys whose lives have been cut short by unpunished crimes.