All the coverage made me start to rethink the Kennedys. I remembered my warming to Jack Kennedy way back in 1960 and then how Bobby Kennedy's run in 1968 stirred feelings that real change could occur. I'd grown up imbued with the brilliance of Adlai Stevenson--and seen how little it seemed to count for. By contrast, the Kennedys were the essence of realpolitik and it took them all some time to move away from Old Joe's quasi-fascism. Bobby had staffed the Democratic side of McCarthy's committee, which made him only slightly better than Roy Cohn. Jack's first act in office was to reappoint J. Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles. But change they did and with it they brought excitement and hope. Ted's career in the Senate was the culmination of that change.
A friend reminded me that campaign positions are inevitably tempered by the realities faced when in office. But I suppose what I admired in the Kennedys in the end is their willingness to fight. Clinton, for example, made it all too clear he could be rolled and sometimes I fret that Obama makes willingness to compromise seem an act of weakness. Ted Kennedy had the voice and the ability to make the change happen. None of the legislation he moved through was perfect but it all was a start. It's wildly clear, of course, that he didn't always make the right choices: I'm referring here to his refusal to accept Richard Nixon's health care proposal, which would have given us a far better start than any of today's plans. Was I enamoured of all of his famous compromises? Hardly--we suffered from a generation of get-tough criminal justice policy because he cut a deal with Strom Thurmond to pass the notorious S. 1 bill; even then, though, it may well have been true that had he not taken the lead, the result would have been even worse.
I got to know how capable his staff could be when I was at the prison rape commission. He was one of the key sponsors--there were four and it was truly bipartisan. His staff stayed on top of us to make sure things were moving and, in fact, I realized we needed to hire a legislative liaison to maintain the flow of information. He was one of the key people who had managed to get this statute passed during a Republican administration and Congress. Strange bedfellows in politics were plentiful here--Christian human rights crusaders, Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship, the advocacy group Stop Prisoner Rape, as it was then known.
Part of the magic of the Kennedys was the star quality. Yes, he worked hard as a legislator but there have been others equally driven. When he appeared, the murmurs--there's Ted Kennedy--began to hurtle around whatever the venue was. It seems that everyone in both Massachusetts and D.C. had a personal story to tell of his under-the-radar performance as well. Did I know that he read to a class at a public school on Capitol Hill every week or so, an activity with no political gain possible for him? No, but my daughter went to school with and was a close friend of his stepdaughter, so on the big day when we went over to one of her friend's houses to take photos of the girls in their new prom dresses, there among the other picture-taking dads was Senator Kennedy.
In the end, he was a gloriously complex man, who, in my view, managed his celebrity magnificently to produce measurable legislative accomplishments and to give a strong joyous push for progressive cause. In the old labor phrase, no matter what he did in a particular situation, you never needed to ask which side Ted Kennedy was on.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Granite State Getaway
It may seem strange that having a weekend at home--albeit in mid-August, a time when many in Washingtone traditionally go away, or pretend they have gone, to escape the steaminess--I'd choose to travel. And this year, it's often been in the 80s rather than the 90s in D.C., so all the more reason to stay pat. But last weekend I was back in Westchester for a family wedding and this weekend, or part of it, I'm in New Hampshire to take part in a surprise 75th birthday party for a colleague of whom I'm very fond.
He's definitely a young 75, since much of the time now he's off running a justice improvement project in Haiti. He's one of the few I've known in this field who's in it to do some good for people as well as himself or a corporate entity. He also has an unusual attachment to Haiti--one which may find me going there before long to help him out--that has led him to persist in trying to make a difference there despite much resistance. Much of that resistance has come from funding agencies ostensibly intended to support efforts such as his. Now, their skepticism may stem from his having exposed their incompetent and at times illegal behavior in a leadoff segment of 60 Minutes some years ago, telling his story to Mike Wallace, no less.
Not that it did any immediate good. It did help that a key aide in Congress--also present at last night's surprise party--helped delay funding until the agency in question did the right thing. I've also worked with the guest of honor in Armenia, Bangladesh, and Georgia. In each place, he used his amazing facility to establish good working relationships with working-level people in the local courts and other offices to advance the goals of any project with which he was connected. He also brings a brio and spirit of fun to what could be dry tasks that spreads to all those who retain any semblance of a sense of humor.
Sometimes his long experience--he was one of the first people in the justice field to utilize computers, based on his success in installing some of the first systems in the U.S. Justice Department--and emphasis on obtaining empirical data enables him to reach logical conclusions others miss. In Haiti, for example, another organization favored by the development agency conducted a closed-case study that produced the perfectly valid finding that in most cases, defendants spend rather short times in jail. The problem with just looking at closed cases, however, is that in Haiti, there are prisons full of defendants awaiting trial, often for long periods of time. If you only look at closed completed cases, you miss these thousands staring you in the face from the squalid places in which they are kept. The eventual conviction rate is very low, which makes the time they are held the effective sentence, a sentence that offends all logic except that of the Red Queen who kept shouting at Alice, "Sentence first, trial later!"
North Conway, up in what's known as the Mt. Washington Valley, has lots of New Hampshire charm and genuine local craft, such as that on sale at the local shop of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen. It also has sale outlets--the kind run by famous brands--out the wazoo, and traffic that ties up the sorely overstressed main road through town. Somehow I was upgraded to a room with a jacuzzi--a first for me--which made taking a bath quite delightful.
The "casual dinner" featured barbecued brisket, hitherto not the first menu selection I have associated with the Granite State. But just as with Dinosaur Barbecue in upstate and downstate New York, Yankees now are taking on the Southerners at their own game. And given their team's loss, 20-11, last night at the Fens to the hated Yankees--the ones in baseball uniform--the current Sawx rooters are a bit subdued here right now at Manchester Airport. Until the club started to fade of late, they had been behaving like Yankee fans of old.
He's definitely a young 75, since much of the time now he's off running a justice improvement project in Haiti. He's one of the few I've known in this field who's in it to do some good for people as well as himself or a corporate entity. He also has an unusual attachment to Haiti--one which may find me going there before long to help him out--that has led him to persist in trying to make a difference there despite much resistance. Much of that resistance has come from funding agencies ostensibly intended to support efforts such as his. Now, their skepticism may stem from his having exposed their incompetent and at times illegal behavior in a leadoff segment of 60 Minutes some years ago, telling his story to Mike Wallace, no less.
Not that it did any immediate good. It did help that a key aide in Congress--also present at last night's surprise party--helped delay funding until the agency in question did the right thing. I've also worked with the guest of honor in Armenia, Bangladesh, and Georgia. In each place, he used his amazing facility to establish good working relationships with working-level people in the local courts and other offices to advance the goals of any project with which he was connected. He also brings a brio and spirit of fun to what could be dry tasks that spreads to all those who retain any semblance of a sense of humor.
Sometimes his long experience--he was one of the first people in the justice field to utilize computers, based on his success in installing some of the first systems in the U.S. Justice Department--and emphasis on obtaining empirical data enables him to reach logical conclusions others miss. In Haiti, for example, another organization favored by the development agency conducted a closed-case study that produced the perfectly valid finding that in most cases, defendants spend rather short times in jail. The problem with just looking at closed cases, however, is that in Haiti, there are prisons full of defendants awaiting trial, often for long periods of time. If you only look at closed completed cases, you miss these thousands staring you in the face from the squalid places in which they are kept. The eventual conviction rate is very low, which makes the time they are held the effective sentence, a sentence that offends all logic except that of the Red Queen who kept shouting at Alice, "Sentence first, trial later!"
North Conway, up in what's known as the Mt. Washington Valley, has lots of New Hampshire charm and genuine local craft, such as that on sale at the local shop of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen. It also has sale outlets--the kind run by famous brands--out the wazoo, and traffic that ties up the sorely overstressed main road through town. Somehow I was upgraded to a room with a jacuzzi--a first for me--which made taking a bath quite delightful.
The "casual dinner" featured barbecued brisket, hitherto not the first menu selection I have associated with the Granite State. But just as with Dinosaur Barbecue in upstate and downstate New York, Yankees now are taking on the Southerners at their own game. And given their team's loss, 20-11, last night at the Fens to the hated Yankees--the ones in baseball uniform--the current Sawx rooters are a bit subdued here right now at Manchester Airport. Until the club started to fade of late, they had been behaving like Yankee fans of old.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Going Home Again
What if you drove through your home town and there was almost no one and nothing much left there you knew? It wasn't quite that extreme for me yesterday when I wended my way through Mount Vernon, New York (in our callowness we always referred to GW's place on the Potomac as "the other Mt. Vernon") but it was close.
Most of the infrastructure is still standing--all the schools I attended, most of the stores but just about all doing different kinds of business, none of which appeared to be aimed at customers like me, and the three different apartment houses where I lived from age 5 to about 22. We stopped at the pizza place near my old grade school that a classmate who lives in the area rated as the world's best and I recalled that now, just as then, it was good pizza but not world class.
The population demographics had kept on changing over the years. As I was growing up and finishing high school, the city was becoming less WASP, Irish Catholic, and Jewish, and becoming more Italian and African American. It's still heavily African American but now there's a big Brazilian contingent and some Hispanic nationalities too. Even the Italian stores in my old neighborhood, which was largely Italian, have diminished, though, with serious losses including the nameless place that ladled out sausage-and-peppers on sub rolls for us at lunch (a concoction only known as "the hot stuff"), the Italian pastry shop where I first feasted on cannoli and baba al rhum, the German delicatessen, and, of course, the candy store/lunch counter where I spent half my life.
Mt. Vernon was once the ideal leafy suburb less than a half hour on either the New York Central or the New Haven Railroad from Grand Central where E.B. White grew up in Chester Hill, a part of town with huge old houses--they are still there--and the usual run of future celebrities spent their school days. We always heard about Art Carney and Dick Clark and today the community celebrates Denzel Washington and Ken Singleton. I wouldn't say there was a ton of interracial socializing but Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee did appear in scholarship fund-raising shows.
Found one of those little paperback potted histories that are now appearing about many places in the U.S. and one might conclude from it that Mt. Vernon is moving on to greater glories. True, the main shopping streets--probably the first ones wrecked by the move to malls, since nearby Cross County Center was possibly the first big shopping center in the country when it opened in the early 50's--had relatively few vacant stores and there was a lively fair going in the large, still-green park near where I lived.
But it's the kind of place where everyone I knew or grew up with is gone, their families, their stores, their churches or synagogues (all are now black churches). I saw mention of a high school African American classmate who had been on the City Council and I've often recognized names on the obit page of the now-county newspaper--our old all-seeing Daily Argus is gone--when I've perused it. As with most of my classmates and friends who have moved up-county, or even so far as Putnam County, high school reunions happen at hotels in Tarrytown or White Plains. Not exactly light years away but culturally, yes. Probably for different reasons, Thomas Wolfe was right.
Most of the infrastructure is still standing--all the schools I attended, most of the stores but just about all doing different kinds of business, none of which appeared to be aimed at customers like me, and the three different apartment houses where I lived from age 5 to about 22. We stopped at the pizza place near my old grade school that a classmate who lives in the area rated as the world's best and I recalled that now, just as then, it was good pizza but not world class.
The population demographics had kept on changing over the years. As I was growing up and finishing high school, the city was becoming less WASP, Irish Catholic, and Jewish, and becoming more Italian and African American. It's still heavily African American but now there's a big Brazilian contingent and some Hispanic nationalities too. Even the Italian stores in my old neighborhood, which was largely Italian, have diminished, though, with serious losses including the nameless place that ladled out sausage-and-peppers on sub rolls for us at lunch (a concoction only known as "the hot stuff"), the Italian pastry shop where I first feasted on cannoli and baba al rhum, the German delicatessen, and, of course, the candy store/lunch counter where I spent half my life.
Mt. Vernon was once the ideal leafy suburb less than a half hour on either the New York Central or the New Haven Railroad from Grand Central where E.B. White grew up in Chester Hill, a part of town with huge old houses--they are still there--and the usual run of future celebrities spent their school days. We always heard about Art Carney and Dick Clark and today the community celebrates Denzel Washington and Ken Singleton. I wouldn't say there was a ton of interracial socializing but Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee did appear in scholarship fund-raising shows.
Found one of those little paperback potted histories that are now appearing about many places in the U.S. and one might conclude from it that Mt. Vernon is moving on to greater glories. True, the main shopping streets--probably the first ones wrecked by the move to malls, since nearby Cross County Center was possibly the first big shopping center in the country when it opened in the early 50's--had relatively few vacant stores and there was a lively fair going in the large, still-green park near where I lived.
But it's the kind of place where everyone I knew or grew up with is gone, their families, their stores, their churches or synagogues (all are now black churches). I saw mention of a high school African American classmate who had been on the City Council and I've often recognized names on the obit page of the now-county newspaper--our old all-seeing Daily Argus is gone--when I've perused it. As with most of my classmates and friends who have moved up-county, or even so far as Putnam County, high school reunions happen at hotels in Tarrytown or White Plains. Not exactly light years away but culturally, yes. Probably for different reasons, Thomas Wolfe was right.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Julia and Me
After I heard Meryl Streep on Conan O'Brian's first week, I knew I would go see the new movie, Julie and Julia. Suffice it to say that Streep is magnificent in totally capturing Julia Child. Stanley Tucci vaguely also gives a nice performance as Paul Child--the picture only intimates at the reality of his retiring from the Foreign Service and then switching places so he could support his wife in her new endeavors.
I cherish my old paperback editon of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I never really watched her show all that often but I began using the book in the late '70s. We were in England and although I enjoyed reading Elizabeth David's works--she was the doyenne of English cookery writers, which may not be saying much--they were more fun to read than useful in cooking. Julia Child's book also was available in paperback in Britain far earlier than in the States, where Knopf was making too much money on the hardcover to put it out right away in paper (see--you've already picked up a factoid that the movie overlooked in its worship of Knopf for publishing Child's masterwork when Houghton Mifflin punked out).
It was a terrific book because it taught you how to do things the right way. And once you managed to learn the skills, they were useful in all kinds of other cooking you might try. I still use the English edition even if I have to translate the metric measures and other English eccentricities such as setting your gas oven at Mark 3. Julia Child warns you that American butchers don't cut meat the same way French ones do. I have a feeling she would have thrown up her hands at British butchers' practices.
She also taught you not to fret about making things that sound difficult. Example: she has a great recipe for a veal roast. Right now, by the way, the hardest part about making a veal roast in D.C. is finding the roast. Last time I tried eight stores and the one that had a fancy butcher counter and filled my need (for a price, Ugarte, for a price) just closed down. This recipe is absolutely perfect and always works. Once I went farther and made the fancier spinoff recipe--Veal Sylvie, which involves inserting slices of ham and cheese into the veal roast. That worked too but it's one of the many fancier variations she gives you that are excessively ungepatch, which means excessive, I think. If you like roasted veal, forget about the ham and cheese, even if they are prosciutto and cheddar.
You learn from the movie what an amazing person Julia Child was. She didn't let the total chauvinism (against both women and Americans) of the Cordon Bleu faze her and she also recognized what a wonderland France still is for anyone who loves to cook, or eat, for that matter. Yes, they insist that you do it their way. Absolutely, because that is the right way. Similarly, everything to do with cooking and eating in Italy is about on the same level as it is in France, and everyone is just as impossible in insisting that you do it their way. Look, can you find those fantastic little purplish artichokes anywhere in this country to cook up quickly in the few weeks they are in season?
Britain is now far different from what it was like thirty years ago when I lived there. Lots of restaurants are excellent. But you don't have the same depth in terms of the culture. Press down a level or two and you may find those treacle tarts and sultana rolls and stale pastries that ordinary folks have cherished in Britannia for ever. They even have fancy fast food joints in the London rail stations that specialize in Cornish pasties--surely putting a pig in a silk dress. People just don't believe that British food culture has changed that much and they might be right. The worst change is trying to find a decent fish'n'chips shop--or any fish'n'chip shop.
I cherish my old paperback editon of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I never really watched her show all that often but I began using the book in the late '70s. We were in England and although I enjoyed reading Elizabeth David's works--she was the doyenne of English cookery writers, which may not be saying much--they were more fun to read than useful in cooking. Julia Child's book also was available in paperback in Britain far earlier than in the States, where Knopf was making too much money on the hardcover to put it out right away in paper (see--you've already picked up a factoid that the movie overlooked in its worship of Knopf for publishing Child's masterwork when Houghton Mifflin punked out).
It was a terrific book because it taught you how to do things the right way. And once you managed to learn the skills, they were useful in all kinds of other cooking you might try. I still use the English edition even if I have to translate the metric measures and other English eccentricities such as setting your gas oven at Mark 3. Julia Child warns you that American butchers don't cut meat the same way French ones do. I have a feeling she would have thrown up her hands at British butchers' practices.
She also taught you not to fret about making things that sound difficult. Example: she has a great recipe for a veal roast. Right now, by the way, the hardest part about making a veal roast in D.C. is finding the roast. Last time I tried eight stores and the one that had a fancy butcher counter and filled my need (for a price, Ugarte, for a price) just closed down. This recipe is absolutely perfect and always works. Once I went farther and made the fancier spinoff recipe--Veal Sylvie, which involves inserting slices of ham and cheese into the veal roast. That worked too but it's one of the many fancier variations she gives you that are excessively ungepatch, which means excessive, I think. If you like roasted veal, forget about the ham and cheese, even if they are prosciutto and cheddar.
You learn from the movie what an amazing person Julia Child was. She didn't let the total chauvinism (against both women and Americans) of the Cordon Bleu faze her and she also recognized what a wonderland France still is for anyone who loves to cook, or eat, for that matter. Yes, they insist that you do it their way. Absolutely, because that is the right way. Similarly, everything to do with cooking and eating in Italy is about on the same level as it is in France, and everyone is just as impossible in insisting that you do it their way. Look, can you find those fantastic little purplish artichokes anywhere in this country to cook up quickly in the few weeks they are in season?
Britain is now far different from what it was like thirty years ago when I lived there. Lots of restaurants are excellent. But you don't have the same depth in terms of the culture. Press down a level or two and you may find those treacle tarts and sultana rolls and stale pastries that ordinary folks have cherished in Britannia for ever. They even have fancy fast food joints in the London rail stations that specialize in Cornish pasties--surely putting a pig in a silk dress. People just don't believe that British food culture has changed that much and they might be right. The worst change is trying to find a decent fish'n'chips shop--or any fish'n'chip shop.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Let's Get Boring
Distant Early Warning (remember the DEW line?)--This is much grouchier than usual. Continue with caution.
I heard today that the reason we get no informed analysis of any health care issues on tv is that the network news crews regard it as boring. So by wisely letting Congress take the lead (unlike the Clinton 1993 debacle), Obama has yielded the airwaves to the GOP, scaring the daylights out of people after the Grand Old Party did zilch for eight years and now, after running up the bills, preaches about deficits.
The sad part is what won't get reformed. Neither the insurance companies nor the trial lawyers really want to do anything about the defensive medicine syndrome that has run the costs up. As a patient, I feel for the doctors who have to spend hours writing up endless justifications to satisfy the health care managers of the insurance companies who know little about the medical issues and are there merely to deny as much as possible.
If you've been in Washington more than ten seconds, you're not surprised by nasty compromises but one that galls me is giving the store away to the pharma lobby by preventing the government from negotiating drug prices. Just a total giveaway that smells.
I listen to the blather about people being concerned and the media ritual recitation of poll figures that they have created by pandering. One might wonder whether everyone's forgotten that there was a problem to be solved here. Unlike our last White House tenant, this one at least is trying to do something. One also must never forget that the Hill is essentially bought and paid for by the lobbyists.
Although I seem to be popping more pills every day, my basic health isn't half bad most of the time. Sure, I could lose some weight--yes, I'm actually showing some progress there--actually, I could stand to lose a lot of weight. And I won't use painkillers most of the time because I figure it helps to know how I feel without them. So I wish I could laugh when I hear the pharma lobby fret in its famous commercials about how we need a system where people don't get thrown out of coverage for pre-existing conditions. Maybe we'll soon hear the insurance companies preaching about letting Uncle Sam negotiate drug prices. You guys fight each other.
It strikes me that the most dangerous legacy we still are suffering from after the eight years of snarkiness is the fear factor. Scare people and you can do whatever you want, tap their phones, eliminate taxes for your rich friends, and give handouts to religious crazies and bankers. Don't get me started on bankers.
Wall Street walks off with unearned monster payoffs, everyone on the Hill rips off the public by grabbing earmarks like crazy--and defends the indefensible practice (I've seen the projects that these earmarks fund--) as an inalienable right of being elected to Congress--and then George McGovern can do no better than say that union representation elections need to be preserved. Just because management has enshrined union-busting, and the corporate types grab everything that isn't nailed down, let's not let people organize under the most adverse conditions when a fair election is totally impossible. CEOs and their hand-picked boards set their pay at ridiculous multiples of anyone else's but that's just fine. I used to think people should have been ashamed for voting for the Tricker over George 37 years ago but even that view is quickly vanishing. We sure do need that Festivus for the rest of us.
I heard today that the reason we get no informed analysis of any health care issues on tv is that the network news crews regard it as boring. So by wisely letting Congress take the lead (unlike the Clinton 1993 debacle), Obama has yielded the airwaves to the GOP, scaring the daylights out of people after the Grand Old Party did zilch for eight years and now, after running up the bills, preaches about deficits.
The sad part is what won't get reformed. Neither the insurance companies nor the trial lawyers really want to do anything about the defensive medicine syndrome that has run the costs up. As a patient, I feel for the doctors who have to spend hours writing up endless justifications to satisfy the health care managers of the insurance companies who know little about the medical issues and are there merely to deny as much as possible.
If you've been in Washington more than ten seconds, you're not surprised by nasty compromises but one that galls me is giving the store away to the pharma lobby by preventing the government from negotiating drug prices. Just a total giveaway that smells.
I listen to the blather about people being concerned and the media ritual recitation of poll figures that they have created by pandering. One might wonder whether everyone's forgotten that there was a problem to be solved here. Unlike our last White House tenant, this one at least is trying to do something. One also must never forget that the Hill is essentially bought and paid for by the lobbyists.
Although I seem to be popping more pills every day, my basic health isn't half bad most of the time. Sure, I could lose some weight--yes, I'm actually showing some progress there--actually, I could stand to lose a lot of weight. And I won't use painkillers most of the time because I figure it helps to know how I feel without them. So I wish I could laugh when I hear the pharma lobby fret in its famous commercials about how we need a system where people don't get thrown out of coverage for pre-existing conditions. Maybe we'll soon hear the insurance companies preaching about letting Uncle Sam negotiate drug prices. You guys fight each other.
It strikes me that the most dangerous legacy we still are suffering from after the eight years of snarkiness is the fear factor. Scare people and you can do whatever you want, tap their phones, eliminate taxes for your rich friends, and give handouts to religious crazies and bankers. Don't get me started on bankers.
Wall Street walks off with unearned monster payoffs, everyone on the Hill rips off the public by grabbing earmarks like crazy--and defends the indefensible practice (I've seen the projects that these earmarks fund--) as an inalienable right of being elected to Congress--and then George McGovern can do no better than say that union representation elections need to be preserved. Just because management has enshrined union-busting, and the corporate types grab everything that isn't nailed down, let's not let people organize under the most adverse conditions when a fair election is totally impossible. CEOs and their hand-picked boards set their pay at ridiculous multiples of anyone else's but that's just fine. I used to think people should have been ashamed for voting for the Tricker over George 37 years ago but even that view is quickly vanishing. We sure do need that Festivus for the rest of us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)