Armchairrealist.com

I live on Wall Street. I’m not saying this metaphorically. I moved to the corner of Broad & Wall (the old JP Morgan bank turned residential a few years ago. The safe, which held all the gold, is now a swimming pool) on March 9 of this year, right at the bottom of the market. Rents were dirt cheap as people were abandoning the area to go to greener pastures in Montana or Kansas. Everyone had left Wall Street for dead. Even the rats that scurried up and down the street at 2 in the morning were feeling the emptiness as the scraps of leftover chicken wings that were normally the feast of profitable traders were now gone much like the 9000 points of the Dow that went with it.

Since I’ve moved in (and I’ll take full credit) the market has gone straight up, closely followed by a largely improving economy. During the course of the past few months, several myths came to bear on the environment that will play out through 2010 to create enormous opportunities in the market and the economy.

- Myth #1: Savings is good -
One picture is worth a thousand words:

(source: US Federal Reserve)

From 1980 to 2000, the U.S. Savings rate went straight down. As we know, the economy and stock market boomed during this time. Did people go bankrupt from lack of savings? No, of course not: They became more productive, they started more businesses, they made more money and they enjoyed the fruit of those riches by spending more. A cycle which fed on itself, leading to more income across the economy. Look at when saving last spiked, in the mid-70s, during the worst recession, until now.

Right now, the savings rate is the highest its been in a decade. The economy won’t truly improve until that rate ticks down again and Americans get back to their spendthrift ways.

- Myth #2: Inflation is bad

Uncontrolled Zimbabwe-style inflation is bad. Producers that make product today need to know what they are going to charge for it tomorrow. Else production stops. But if inflation was steady and highly predictable, as it has been in our economy for largely forever (except for in the mid 70s) then here are some of the benefits of inflation (as opposed to no inflation or deflation).
A) Our goods become more attractive to foreign economies, making our exports go up.
B) Consumers wish to buy at cheaper prices today than more expensive prices tomorrow, so our spending goes up.
C) The dollar gets a little weaker so a small amount of inflation acts as a way of subtly defaulting on our debt without actually defaulting.
D) Tax revenues go up because of “A” and “B”, making it also easier to pay down our debt.
E) We feel more flush as the value of our assets (houses and stocks) and our income goes up with inflation, even if this is an artificial feeling of being flush.

- Myth #3: Debt is bad
For 4000 years, debt has fueled the growth of any capitalistic economy. Most people reading this have a high percentage of Debt / Assets since we were all able to buy our houses with debt. When interest rates are low and inflation is low (as it is now) it’s good to borrow and put the money in real assets.

Eventually inflation roars back and those assets have gained considerably in value. The thing that kills capitalism is persistent deflation, as happened in the Depression. Fortunately we have a Fed that learned from the mistakes in that period (See Bernanke’s book, “Essays on the Great Depression”).

- Myth #4: Mark to market accounting is good

The economy began to spiral down in November, 2007 with the advent of FAS 157, the accounting rule requiring banks to mark their debt to market rather than to a more subjective notion of fair value.

Admittedly, the banks had abused that subjectivity. But here is a simple example of why mark to market in illiquid asset classes could be bad: Let’s say your neighbor buys a house for $300,000 and his house is very similar to yours. Let’s say two years later he gets a divorce and now he has to sell his house in a fire sale and can only get $200,000. Did your house really just go down in value to $200,000? No, of course not. But that’s where all the banks would have to mark your house now according to FAS 157. And if enough houses get marked down like that then suddenly the banks assets are not high enough according to regulatory standards and the bank fails.

- Myth #5: Unemployment is bad

The other day I was at a restaurant and it took 20 minutes for the waiter to get me my water. That guy should be fired. Or my lawyer’s assistant forgot to give my lawyer a message from me. She should be fired. For years, because the economy was moving up, that waiter and that assistant were not fired. Companies couldn’t fire them because they were either afraid to (I’ve managed hundreds of people – it’s hard to fire people. You feel bad afterwards) or because they would be too short-handed if they did. Well, that period is over. The “Great Recession” has given employers the excuse they need to fire everyone (”sorry, it’s the recession”). Consequently, productivity has shot up considerably. This is a good thing that will have long-term positive effects on the economy. And as businesses replenish their inventories, companies will be forced to hire good people to help them create those inventories.

I’m excited. The next phase of this economic cycle is beginning and my gut tells me we’re going to be pleasantly surprised at the outcomes. What myths am I missing?

I live on Wall Street. I’m not saying this metaphorically. I moved to the corner of Broad & Wall (the old JP Morgan bank turned residential a few years ago. The safe, which held all the gold, is now a swimming pool) on March 9 of this year, right at the bottom of the market. Rents were dirt cheap as people were abandoning the area to go to greener pastures in Montana or Kansas. Everyone had left Wall Street for dead. Even the rats that scurried up and down the street at 2 in the morning were feeling the emptiness as the scraps of leftover chicken wings that were normally the feast of profitable traders were now gone much like the 9000 points of the Dow that went with it.

Since I’ve moved in (and I’ll take full credit) the market has gone straight up, closely followed by a largely improving economy. During the course of the past few months, several myths came to bear on the environment that will play out through 2010 to create enormous opportunities in the market and the economy.

- Myth #1: Savings is good -
One picture is worth a thousand words:

(source: US Federal Reserve)

From 1980 to 2000, the U.S. Savings rate went straight down. As we know, the economy and stock market boomed during this time. Did people go bankrupt from lack of savings? No, of course not: They became more productive, they started more businesses, they made more money and they enjoyed the fruit of those riches by spending more. A cycle which fed on itself, leading to more income across the economy. Look at when saving last spiked, in the mid-70s, during the worst recession, until now.

Right now, the savings rate is the highest its been in a decade. The economy won’t truly improve until that rate ticks down again and Americans get back to their spendthrift ways.

- Myth #2: Inflation is bad

Uncontrolled Zimbabwe-style inflation is bad. Producers that make product today need to know what they are going to charge for it tomorrow. Else production stops. But if inflation was steady and highly predictable, as it has been in our economy for largely forever (except for in the mid 70s) then here are some of the benefits of inflation (as opposed to no inflation or deflation).
A) Our goods become more attractive to foreign economies, making our exports go up.
B) Consumers wish to buy at cheaper prices today than more expensive prices tomorrow, so our spending goes up.
C) The dollar gets a little weaker so a small amount of inflation acts as a way of subtly defaulting on our debt without actually defaulting.
D) Tax revenues go up because of “A” and “B”, making it also easier to pay down our debt.
E) We feel more flush as the value of our assets (houses and stocks) and our income goes up with inflation, even if this is an artificial feeling of being flush.

- Myth #3: Debt is bad
For 4000 years, debt has fueled the growth of any capitalistic economy. Most people reading this have a high percentage of Debt / Assets since we were all able to buy our houses with debt. When interest rates are low and inflation is low (as it is now) it’s good to borrow and put the money in real assets.

Eventually inflation roars back and those assets have gained considerably in value. The thing that kills capitalism is persistent deflation, as happened in the Depression. Fortunately we have a Fed that learned from the mistakes in that period (See Bernanke’s book, “Essays on the Great Depression”).

- Myth #4: Mark to market accounting is good

The economy began to spiral down in November, 2007 with the advent of FAS 157, the accounting rule requiring banks to mark their debt to market rather than to a more subjective notion of fair value.

Admittedly, the banks had abused that subjectivity. But here is a simple example of why mark to market in illiquid asset classes could be bad: Let’s say your neighbor buys a house for $300,000 and his house is very similar to yours. Let’s say two years later he gets a divorce and now he has to sell his house in a fire sale and can only get $200,000. Did your house really just go down in value to $200,000? No, of course not. But that’s where all the banks would have to mark your house now according to FAS 157. And if enough houses get marked down like that then suddenly the banks assets are not high enough according to regulatory standards and the bank fails.

- Myth #5: Unemployment is bad

The other day I was at a restaurant and it took 20 minutes for the waiter to get me my water. That guy should be fired. Or my lawyer’s assistant forgot to give my lawyer a message from me. She should be fired. For years, because the economy was moving up, that waiter and that assistant were not fired. Companies couldn’t fire them because they were either afraid to (I’ve managed hundreds of people – it’s hard to fire people. You feel bad afterwards) or because they would be too short-handed if they did. Well, that period is over. The “Great Recession” has given employers the excuse they need to fire everyone (”sorry, it’s the recession”). Consequently, productivity has shot up considerably. This is a good thing that will have long-term positive effects on the economy. And as businesses replenish their inventories, companies will be forced to hire good people to help them create those inventories.

I’m excited. The next phase of this economic cycle is beginning and my gut tells me we’re going to be pleasantly surprised at the outcomes. What myths am I missing?

This week’s Impact blog posts covered a typically divergent range of topics, and as anyone who’s kept up with the American news cycle of late knows, there’s often very little time to consider one topic before the next one pops up. Our dedicated Impact bloggers have, however, given us reason to pause and think more critically on several oft-overlooked issues, both domestic and international.

Here are some of this week’s best blog posts:

Melissa Fitzgerald: Though best known for her role as Carol on The West Wing, social activist Melissa Fitzgerald has spent much of the last several years bringing attention to the humanitarian crisis in northern Uganda. She advocates for Voices of Uganda, which works to use the power of media to tell the stories of children and teenagers struggling to survive.

Mark Shriver: As the managing director of U.S. Programs for Save the Children, Mark Shriver announced a school-based art contest that encourages kids to use the image of a heart to promote unity, loyalty and responsibility. He believes these sorts of art projects can be a great force of creativity for low-income students.

Cameron Sinclair: Early in the week, Impact highlighted some good things going on in Afghanistan amidst all the bad news. One of those stories was detailed by Cameron Sinclair: Skateistan is the first co-ed skate park in Afghanistan, and helps neighborhood children develop healthy habits and civic responsibility.

Kathy Eldon: The founder of Creative Visions Foundation, Kathy Eldon interviewed Philippe Cousteau Jr., grandson of Jacques Cousteau, on his organization EarthEcho International and the Water Planet Challenge. An avid environmentalist, Cousteau urges young people to take environmental action in their communities.

Keep up with the ever-expanding group of Impact bloggers and leave your comments.

This week’s Impact blog posts covered a typically divergent range of topics, and as anyone who’s kept up with the American news cycle of late knows, there’s often very little time to consider one topic before the next one pops up. Our dedicated Impact bloggers have, however, given us reason to pause and think more critically on several oft-overlooked issues, both domestic and international.

Here are some of this week’s best blog posts:

Melissa Fitzgerald: Though best known for her role as Carol on The West Wing, social activist Melissa Fitzgerald has spent much of the last several years bringing attention to the humanitarian crisis in northern Uganda. She advocates for Voices of Uganda, which works to use the power of media to tell the stories of children and teenagers struggling to survive.

Mark Shriver: As the managing director of U.S. Programs for Save the Children, Mark Shriver announced a school-based art contest that encourages kids to use the image of a heart to promote unity, loyalty and responsibility. He believes these sorts of art projects can be a great force of creativity for low-income students.

Cameron Sinclair: Early in the week, Impact highlighted some good things going on in Afghanistan amidst all the bad news. One of those stories was detailed by Cameron Sinclair: Skateistan is the first co-ed skate park in Afghanistan, and helps neighborhood children develop healthy habits and civic responsibility.

Kathy Eldon: The founder of Creative Visions Foundation, Kathy Eldon interviewed Philippe Cousteau Jr., grandson of Jacques Cousteau, on his organization EarthEcho International and the Water Planet Challenge. An avid environmentalist, Cousteau urges young people to take environmental action in their communities.

Keep up with the ever-expanding group of Impact bloggers and leave your comments.

At Copenhagen Meeting, Adopt Plan to Oversee Human Rights Environment for Games

(New York) – The Copenhagen Olympic Congress should create a permanent mechanism to monitor human rights in host countries before, during and after Olympic Games, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch, which has submitted a proposal to the Congress, is particularly concerned about potential abuses in Russia, host for the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

The Copenhagen Congress is scheduled for October 3 to 5, 2009, as part of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session, from October 1 to 9. Human Rights Watch will present its official proposal for human rights reform within the Olympic Movement at the October 4 session on “good government and ethics.”

“The world watched as China trampled on human rights – including throwing people in jail – in the name of preparing for the Beijing Games,” said Minky Worden, media director at Human Rights Watch. “That should never happen again, and the Olympic Congress should act now to make sure it doesn’t.”

A review by the International Olympic Committee said that the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing were “an indisputable success.” But, as Human Rights Watch has documented extensively, Beijing’s preparations to host the 2008 Summer Olympics led to the worsening of human rights in China. Thousands of Beijing residents were evicted from their homes to make way for the construction of Olympic venues, with no due process – they were neither consulted nor compensated. Migrant construction workers who built the facilities were required to work under dangerous conditions.

The Chinese government silenced and suppressed rights activists and critics of the Olympics such as Hu Jia and Liu Xiaobo. Many of them remain in prison. The government also imposed stringent media and internet censorship during the games. Censorship of news that the national milk supply was poisoned with melamine may have contributed to causing nearly 300,000 Chinese children to become sick. Six infants died.

“Dozens of Chinese people remain in prison because they took the IOC at its word that bringing the Olympics to China would improve human rights,” said Worden. “Instead of celebrating, the Olympic movement needs to come to a reckoning about how it failed to anticipate how human rights abuses could tarnish the Games. And it needs to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

In February and April, Human Rights Watch conducted preliminary research on the human rights situation in Sochi connected to preparations for the 2014 Winter Games. This research identified two early problems, which if addressed now, can prevent serious human rights violations: the lack of transparency around expropriating property for Olympic sites, and the conditions for workers building Olympics-related facilities. In May, Human Rights Watch sent the International Olympic Committee a letter outlining these concerns.

Human Rights Watch recommended that in its interactions with the Sochi authorities, the International Olympic Committee insist on a transparent, effective process for property expropriation and compensation, a forum for community input and the expression of grievances, and protection of the rights of construction workers. Absent an official IOC mechanism to make sure these steps are taken to monitor the process, the risk of rights abuses in connection with Sochi’s Olympic preparations is considerable.

Human Rights Watch also has expressed its concern to the IOC about the worsening human rights climate in Russia, where several journalists and civil society activists have been murdered since the beginning of the year. They include Natalia Estemirova, a leading rights defender in Chechnya, near Sochi in Russia’s Caucasus region. As Human Rights Watch explained in its letter to the IOC on August 28, such rights abuses violate both the spirit and letter of the Olympic Charter, based, as it says, on the “respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.”

“During China’s Olympics, journalists were threatened and beaten, and human rights defenders were imprisoned,” said Allison Gill, Russia office director at Human Rights Watch. “But in Russia, journalists and human rights defenders are being kidnapped and murdered in cold blood. The IOC has both a compelling reason and the influence to tell Russia that there cannot be a successful Olympics when such deadly human rights abuses are occurring.”

To address Olympics-related human rights violations in all future host countries, including Russia, Human Rights Watch has proposed creating an IOC standing committee to monitor human rights in host countries. Such a committee would help set and apply human rights benchmarks for potential Olympic hosts, in particular with regard to media freedom, labor rights, freedom of expression and civil liberties. Most important, it would be staffed with experts and tasked with monitoring abuses before, during and after an Olympics. Human Rights Watch has also asked that future Host City Contracts be made public.

“The Olympic Congress represents a rare opportunity for leadership to establish clear and transparent human rights benchmarks for future Games,” said Worden. “Just as the 1994 Paris Congress led to vital reforms to respect the environment, we urge the Copenhagen Congress to ensure place in Olympic history with reforms to respect the human environment.”

Minky Worden, media director at Human Rights Watch

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What disease kills more children than any other? If you answered AIDS, TB or malaria, you’d be wrong but in good company.  Four years ago, when our team at Johns Hopkins asked this question of leading donors in global health, these were the most common answers we got.  Disappointingly, none of them spontaneously offered the right answer — pneumonia, which claims the lives of about 2 million children each year. 

In fact, pneumonia is so poorly recognized that New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof called it “The killer no one suspects” and UNICEF dubbed it “The forgotten killer of children”.  And so while this column is usually about new findings from research, today it’s going to be about the simple steps that every one of us can take to tackle this problem.

On November 2^nd, the first ever World Pneumonia Day, extraordinary citizens around the world are going to be hosting events, writing letters, playing dodgeball, wearing blue jeans, and speaking up.  Events are planned in New York and London, but also Bangladesh, Nigeria, Kenya and elsewhere.  We need this day because the only thing more appalling about the lack of recognition that pneumonia gets is the fact that it is perhaps the most solvable problem in global health.  Life-saving interventions are available to protect children from pneumonia, prevent the infections that cause pneumonia, and treat the infections that do occur. 

So, why does a child die every 15 seconds of pneumonia? Because the children who need these interventions the most are not yet receiving them.  Why don’t people know about pneumonia? I get this question all the time and I don’t have a great answer for it.  Maybe it’s the name.  My 6 year old, Abby, said to me the other day, “Daddy, how can pneumonia start with the letter p? Poodle starts with p.” 

She’s right.  Perhaps it’s the spelling or the fact that it’s got a long name, not a short one like TB or HIV.  But mostly I think that it is because pneumonia is no longer feared in America the way that it once was, because we have vaccines to prevent it and we give high quality care to the children who get it, and as a result, child pneumonia deaths are rare. Unfortunately, pneumonia still causes death and devastation everyday in poorer communities around the world.

Fortunately, there are ways for you to help fight pneumonia and save children’s lives.  And World Pneumonia Day provides you the opportunity to take action.  Here are five things you can do for World Pneumonia Day that will help save a child and prevent unnecessary suffering around the world.

Join the cause by taking the pledge on the World Pneumonia Day website, www.worldpnuemoniaday.org.  This takes only a few seconds but links you with a worldwide coalition of over 70 organizations and thousands of like-minded citizens from around the globe.

Wear blue jeans on November 2^nd.  This idea was the brainchild of Lance Laifer, the mastermind behind highly successful campaigns for malaria.  He and his Hedge Funds vs. Malaria & Pneumonia have already gotten the employees of New York’s hedge funds to pledge to wear blue jeans to work on November 2^nd.  If Wall Streeters wearing blue jeans in place of Armani suits on a Monday morning doesn’t turn heads, then nothing will!

Organize a local event to call attention to pneumonia and its solutions.    You can use these events to write letters to congressional reps or op-eds for local newspapers or just to have a speaker and discussion about pneumonia.  The World Pneumonia Day website has lots of details and suggestions for how to organize your local event.     

Play dodgeball.  That’s right, I said, play.  This innovative idea comes from David Rubenstein, formerly Executive Director of the Save Darfur coalition, and who has now dedicated his talents and experience to a new cause — preventing pneumonia — through his Best Shot Foundation.  His goal is to raise awareness of pneumonia through a national dodgeball tournament called Pnock Out Pneumonia.  We’re making a team here at Hopkins. Maybe we’ll meet your team in the tourney?

Make a donation.  One of the great things about pneumonia is that your financial support, no matter how small, can make a difference.  With as little as $20 the GAVI Alliance and Save the Children can vaccinate a child to prevent pneumonia or treat the cases that occur.  Best of all you would join smart co-investors like Bill and Melinda Gates, who said, “Supporting children’s immunization is undoubtedly the best investment we’ve ever made.”

A few years ago malaria was a disease no one had heard about and few were working to control.  Now Africa is rolling back malaria and preventing deaths.  The malaria movement began with everyday citizens taking notice and asking their leaders to do more.  With the first World Pneumonia Day on November 2^nd, we have the chance to do the same for pneumonia, the leading killer of children worldwide.  Be smart. Fight pneumonia, save a child by helping pneumonia get the attention it warrants, the focus it deserves, and the urgency that millions of children desperately need.

Kate Beckinsale has been named the Sexiest Woman Alive by Esquire magazine, and she celebrated by filming a steamy video with lots of lingerie, platform heels and little else. She walks up stairs, sits on the edge of a pool and writhes around on a table in fur.

The video, seen below, is set to the Jet song “Hollywood.”

WATCH:

http://www.thenewsroom.com/details/3804132/All+Categories

Any patient will tell you: it doesn’t really work in real life the way it works in medical dramas on TV.

If we were all TV patients, we’d have had “the pads” applied to revive us a la “ER.” We’d get house calls like in the days of “Marcus Welby.” Or, we’d have turned medical care over to a narcotics-addicted poor communicator, who is also an unconventional medical genius, like in “House.”

“House,” which began its sixth season last week, tackles medical mysteries unlike any other health care provider. What makes “House” such great television is that, really, the kind of medicine practiced by Dr. House and his colleagues is the kind of medicine seriously ill patients need — and crave: aggressive, no-holds-barred, and outcomes oriented. But, that would never work in the real world. House would have already been sued, lost his malpractice insurance, and had his license yanked before the first commercial break.

But the larger point of “House” is an important and often overlooked one: when patients that need answers with no time to spare, they are open to exploring all options. Those patients let their doctors get creative and focused. The challenge in applying this to medicine and research is that answers don’t always come so easily.

In the real world, medical solutions need to stem from basic research discoveries efficiently funneled into a development pipeline that leads to accessible treatment options. That sounds complicated and wonky — and it is. But, there is a system in place. No one, except maybe Dr. House, is advocating an unfettered, uncontrolled system of science run amok. But, is there something instructive in this manner of thinking? For example, something like maximizing the patient’s potential to be part of the process.

It’s just not on TV that patients are willing to undergo treatments or procedures to save their own lives that they wouldn’t necessarily make if they were healthy. Getting a diagnosis is obviously a game-changer and takes this discussion from the theoretical to real life. Many of us have seen this in ourselves and in our loved ones.

In the real world, the average patient with a deadly or debilitating disease isn’t likely to wind up in an office akin to that of Dr. House’s. Instead, these patients enter a system that has to rely on what medical research has to offer, and can often only address symptoms, but cannot fix the cause. Patients are often left to manage their care in a complex web of different specialties, and most likely, without the benefit of something like as basic as an electronic health record to help keep track of it all.

Every day, doctors diagnose patients with Parkinson’s disease, or leukemia, or restrictive cardiomyopathy. These can be diagnoses that send patients and their loved ones on a journey that we don’t want to go on. In some cases the message can be a very clear message: Get your affairs in order, because medical science has very little to offer you. In my father’s case of acute myeloid leukemia, his oncologist told him he had three to six months to live. He died six months from his diagnosis.

Why do we accept this? How can we accept this? And, what can we do about it?

We need a system that creates a seamless and continuous loop from the provision of health care to the development of health cures.

A health cures system would allow the use of data from health care practices to bolster the medical and health research.

The very culture surrounding research and practice needs to change. Currently, the National Institutes for Health (NIH) is the world’s largest funder of biomedical research. With Dr. Francis Collins at the helm, there’s much to look forward to.

Already, Collins has spoken publicly about finding a balance between basic and applied research, the need to enhance NIH’s role in comparative effectiveness (the science behind what works) as well as the importance of translational research (translating research into practical, real-life uses.)

On Wednesday, President Obama visited the NIH to talk about the great new influx of funding that NIH received as part of the stimulus bill. It is vital that this new funding be invested in effective and innovative ways that moves medical research quickly into actual health care.

At my organization, FasterCures, our name conveys our view on this. We want to work with Dr. Collins to make fundamental changes to the culture that supports medical research to accelerate progress and sustain a higher speed in the pursuit of cures.

The way we see it, progress too often stalls. In order to move forward, all the pieces of the cure puzzle need to come together to overcome obstacles. This includes academia, the commercial sector of biotech and pharmaceutical companies, and medical research foundations. We are taking a step by bringing all of these parties together to forge strategic new relationships December 1-3 for our inaugural Partnering for Cures conference in NYC. However, all of their work is for naught if we lose sight of the most important of all stakeholders in the research enterprise: patients.

Patients, their families and their advocates should be engaged and empowered to demand more from the medical establishment, on both the clinical and research ends of the spectrum. Patients need to know how they can contribute. They should be ready and eager to partake in clinical trials when appropriate and donate biospecimens (a scientific word for anything from DNA to blood) when needed. They have to be part of the loop. After all, isn’t this what our health care and health cure systems are about?

We often read and hear about medical breakthroughs. But, too often it takes nearly two decades to translate these discoveries into effective treatments for patients. Why, we must ask (and ask before we become patients) does it take so long, and how can we break this cycle? And, we need to know the role patients can play in accelerating the process of discovering cures.

When patients and families are faced with potentially life-threatening diseases and running out of appropriate options, when the consequences of inaction are measured in life or death outcomes, something primal kicks in. That instinct could possibly be the most powerful agent of change one can hope for. It’s time to explore all options — this time, off the screen. It is time for faster cures.

When he joined Team Obama, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs knew he’d be dealing with the press, but not making the news. In an interview with Politico, Gibbs said he knew his life had changed when people starting commenting on his style.

“I never would have been known for wearing ties that people commented on,” he said. “I have friends that I knew in high school, and they really can’t get over the notion that there are people that I don’t know that would know me.”

He said that he’s just getting used to being recognized whether it’s at the gas station or at Chuck E. Cheese with his son.

What was Robert wearing last season? See some of his summer suits.

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Rio de Janeiro’s selection to host the 2016 Olympics means the games will take place for the first time in South America. Meanwhile the surprise of the day was that Chicago was eliminated on the first round, perhaps due to bloc voting or anti-American sentiment.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made a powerful pitch to the International Olympic Committee, “Rio will deliver an unforgettable Games. You will see for yourselves the passion, the energy and the creativity of the Brazilian people.” He stressed that South America had never hosted an Olympics and, “Rio is ready. Give us this chance and you will not regret it.”

Chicago’s elimination on the first round elicited a huge gasp from the thousands of Chicagoans gathered downtown to watch the announcement. The Chicago team worked years preparing a thoroughly detailed and imaginative proposal. All of the Olympic venues would have been located near each other in the heart of the city, many along the spectacular lakefront. The government would back all of the costs associated with presenting the games. An outstanding array of corporate sponsors had been lined up, many of them global powerhouses. Central transportation, hotels and infrastructure were unsurpassed by the other bidders.

The Chicago delegation delivered a very strong and polished presentation. First Lady Michele Obama spoke from the heart about the city of her birth, “I never dreamed that the Olympic flame might one day light up lives in my neighborhood…But today…I am dreaming of an Olympic and Paralympic Games in Chicago that will light up lives in neighborhoods all across America and all across the world.” President Obama, whose Chicago home would have been a short walk from the games, said, “To host athletes and visitors from every corner of the globe is a high honor and a great responsibility…And America is ready and eager to assume that sacred trust.”

But apparently the Olympic judges were not eager to give their trust to the Americans. And there were signs that the American delegation may have been over confident. In the official question-and-answer session following the Chicago presentation, Syed Shahid Ali, an I.O.C. member from Pakistan, asked how smooth it would be for foreigners to enter the United States for the Olympics because doing so can sometimes, he said, be “a rather harrowing experience.”

President Obama had no choice but to travel to Copenhagen. To not do so would have opened him up to criticism as the leaders of the other contending countries made the trip to make their pitch in person. By most accounts the Obamas were well received, “There is no evidence other than a positive reaction to their presence.” said one official. But immediately following the announcement right-wing commentators and web sites in the U.S. attacked Obama. The Drudge report headline read, “THE EGO HAS LANDED, WORLD REJECTS OBAMA: CHICAGO OUT IN FIRST ROUND.”

The fact that a South American country has never hosted an Olympics was a very compelling argument. And Rio is one of the world’s most beautiful and romantic cities. There was plenty of reason for judges to be sentimental about Rio. On the other hand, no doubt many judges probably savored having the opportunity to reject America’s bid. Despite President Obama’s popularity there are strong anti-America feelings around the world based on its perceived role in the global economic collapse, its invasion of Iraq and the previous administration’s “go it alone” policies.

Ironically, the city most known for its hardball politics couldn’t overcome the internal politics of the Olympic Committee to make it past the first round. As one IOC member said, “The whole thing doesn’t make sense other than there has been a stupid bloc vote.”

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — President Barack Obama is “disappointed” Chicago missed getting the 20016 Olympic Games but doesn’t regret putting so much on the line to argue for it, his chief spokesman said Friday.

Talking to reporters aboard Air Force One as Obama and his wife Michelle flew back to Washington, Robert Gibbs said Obama “feels obviously proud of his wife for the presentation that she made.” Mrs. Obama had gone to Copenhagen ahead of her husband and had lobbied hard for the Summer Games to be brought to her hometown and his adopted hometown.

“Absolutely,” Gibbs replied, when asked whether Obama was glad he’d made such a large commitment to lobbying for the Games. He said the president “would never shy away from traveling anywhere, talking to anyone about this country.”

Gibbs said that Obama got the news while watching TV alone in his quarters on the presidential jet.

Chicago’s early exit from finalist balloting represented a personal setback for Obama and a painful defeat Chicago, America’s most prominent Midwestern city.

Many people had assumed Chicago would be a finalist. But International Olympic Committee members eliminated it only hours after Obama and his wife urged them to send the Summer Games there. Obama had put his personal prestige on the line and his political capital at risk when he decided late in the competition to go to Copenhagen and make a personal appeal.

Rio de Janeiro won the intense competition for the Games.

Chicago had seemed to pick up momentum in the last few days, with many IOC members seemingly charmed by Mrs. Obama, who came to Copenhagen ahead of her husband. But when IOC president Jacques Rogge announced the first vote’s results, while the Obamas were flying home on Air Force One, Chicago was out.

In making his pitch, the president had said that a nation shaped by the people of the world “wants a chance to inspire it once more.” Never before had a U.S. president made such an in-person appeal, and Obama’s critics will doubtlessly see the vote as a sign of his political shortcomings.

“I urge you to choose Chicago,” Obama told members of the International Olympic Committee, many of whom he later mingled with as some snapped photos of him on their cell phones.

“And if you do – if we walk this path together – then I promise you this: The city of Chicago and the United States of America will make the world proud,” the president said.

The president’s whirlwind trip put him in the Danish capital for less than five hours Friday, with Chicago-backers hoping that would be sufficient to give Obama’s adopted home town the advantage it needed to win the close, four-way race to become the host city of the 2016 Summer Games.

But the compressed time frame did not shield Obama from Republican criticism that he shouldn’t be hopscotching to Europe in Air Force One when there were so many pressing issues to deal with at home.

Asked by a reporter how he thought his pitch went, Obama gave a thumbs up – and he said the video montage of Chicago during the U.S. presentation made him miss home.

“Obviously now it’s up to the IOC members, but we are just grateful for the incredible hospitality,” Obama said.

He joked that only one part upset him: “They arranged for me to follow Michelle – that’s always bad.”

Both Obamas spoke on deeply personal terms about Chicago, the city at the center of the world’s spotlight so many times, including in November when the former Illinois senator won the White House. The president described Chicago as a city of diversity and warmth, a place where he finally found a home.

“It’s a city that works, from its first World’s Fair more than a century ago to the World Cup we hosted in the nineties,” Obama said. “We know how to put on big events.”

For all the anticipation surrounding Obama’s appearance in Copenhagen, his arrival at the IOC meeting was decidedly subdued.

The 100-plus committee members, who had already been warned not show bias during the presentations, sat silently as the Obamas walked into the Bella Center with the rest of 12-member Chicago delegation.

Mrs. Obama gave a passionate account of what the games would mean to her father, who taught her as a girl how to throw punches better than the boys. She spoke fondly of growing up on the South Side of Chicago, sitting on her father’s lap and cheering on Olympic athletes.

She noted that her late father had multiple sclerosis, so she knows something about athletes who compete against tough odds.

“Chicago’s vision for the Olympic and Paralympic movement is about so much more than what we can offer the games,” she said. “It’s about what the games can offer all of us – it’s about inspiring this generation and building a lasting legacy for the next.”

The president anchored the U.S. charm offensive.

He referenced his own election as a moment when people from around the world gathered in Chicago to see the results last November and celebrate that “our diversity could be a source of strength.”

“There is nothing I would like more than to step just a few blocks from my family’s home and with Michelle and our two girls welcome the world back to our neighborhood,” Obama said. “At the beginning of this new century, the nation that has been shaped by people from around the world wants a chance to inspire it once more.”

___

Associated Press National Writer Nancy Armour in Copenhagen contributed to this story.

By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium Blogger

It was a roller coaster week for proponents of the public option. While the Senate Finance Committee rejected two proposed public option amendments, four of the five health bills produced by congressional committees include a public option. The next stage is to put those bills together in a process called conference, that results in a final piece of legislation that the House and the Senate will vote on. In this video clip, Marcy Wheeler tells VideoNation that progressives can continue the fight for a public option by emulating a tried and true Blue Dog strategy: Focus on building a bloc of votes, not on flipping the opposition.

This strategy is working pretty well in the House where dozens of progressive members have pledged to vote against any bill that doesn’t include a public option.

In an exclusive audio interview with Tristam Korten, whose two-part series on anti-health reform crusader Rick Scott ran in Salon this week, Korten and I discuss how Scott is personally bankrolling a multimillion dollar campaign against health care reform.

Who is this man? Scott used to run the largest hospital chain in the country, until the firm was found to have defrauded Medicare out of $2 billion. Scott was never charged, but he was sent packing in the wake of the scandal. He has since founded Solantic, a Florida chain of bare-bones walk-in clinics that profit by offering the uninsured lower rates than they’d get at the ER. Why are their rates lower? Because hospitals currently jack up the price of ER visits to compensate for the fact that so many uninsured patients don’t pay their bills at all. If we had universal health insurance, everyone would pay the same price and Solantic wouldn’t seem like such a good deal.

As Korten and I discuss in our interview, Scott has been accused of discriminating against employees who don’t meet his marketing-driven image of an attractive, “clean cut,” young staff. Solantic recently settled out of court with several staffers who said they were fired for refusing to enforce the company’s biased hiring policies.

Korten’s research was supported by a grant from the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care and is free to reprint. Visit Healthcare.newsladder.net for a complete list of articles on health care affordability, health care laws, and health care controversy. For the best progressive reporting on the Economy, and Immigration, check out Economy.Newsladder.net and Immigration.Newsladder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and created by NewsLadder.

Chris Matthews appeared on “The Jay Leno Show” for its “Ten @ Ten” segment, where he revealed his past as a singing waiter, said he wouldn’t appear on the “Glenn Beck” show, recited the Declaration of Independence, and showed off his impression of Bill Clinton.

His ten answers below:

1. The oddest job he ever had was as a singing waiter at Father’s Mustache in Somers Point, NJ. He was fired because he didn’t clap right.
2. Asked if he’s ever seen a ghost, Matthews replied: “Yeah, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. These guys, you think they’re dead and they keep coming back!”
3. The last concert he went to was U2 Tuesday night in Washington.
4. The last movie to make him laugh was “The Hangover.”
5. One political show he will not appear on is Fox News’ “Glenn Beck.”
6. One guest who was so upset by his “Hardball” appearance that he never came back was Georgia Senator Zell Miller. Miller challenged Matthews to a duel while in New York for the 2004 Republican National Convention.
7. Matthews is able to recite the Declaration of Independence in 15 seconds.
8. He can do a mean impression of Bill Clinton.
9. His biggest junk-food weakness is Starbucks apple fritters.
10. Jon Stewart gave him his worst review of his career.

Watch:

Afghanistan may become the foreign policy flash point that splits Democrats. Even conservative George Will recently came out in favor of withdrawal.

Seth Jones, author of “Graveyard of Empires,” analyzes the conditions under which the American public will also turn against the war.

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

We’re coming to the close of the year in which President Obama said that immigration reform would be a priority. But to date, the Obama administration has only extended harsh immigration enforcement provisions put in place by the Clinton or second Bush administrations. These punitive pieces of legislation include E-Verify, a 100% detainment policy, the Secure Communities initiative, and the infamous 287(g) agreement. Cumulatively, they do not reflect a workable philosophy on immigrants, society, or the U.S. economy. Instead, this enforcement agenda destabilizes communities with police persecution and terror.

As Christopher W. Ortiz writes for AlterNet, “Comprehensive immigration reform is large-scale systemic reform encompassing all aspects of social, political and legal life here in the United States.” Ortiz, a police sargeant and criminal justice lecturer, presents an enforcement-heavy view of immigration reform, yet he does not agree with the current system of patchwork, or “band-aid” legislation. It is “a system of haphazard enforcement and piecemeal policies” that are “usurped” in some areas of the country and fully “ignored” in others. Ortiz calls for “a complete overhaul of the immigration system, from entry to citizenship.”

But on all fronts, the White House is rapidly backing away from anything resembling a systematic overhaul. On the same day that the E-Verify mandate went into effect, as Daphne Eviatar reports for The Washington Independent, Dora B. Schriro, the woman appointed to overhaul detention system, left the Obama administration to run New York’s jails. Shiro’s sudden departure is another stall for meaningful reform of the nation’s growing network of detention systems.

In another article, Eviatar highlights some of the issues that make E-Verify controversial. “In the middle of the toughest job market in decades, the administration has chosen to erect another roadblock to gainful employment for U.S. workers,” Eviatar writes. But is it a roadblock to economic growth or simply to justice? The cash still flows, but the stream is diverted to the growing detention industry. Productive members of our society are simply shifted into incarceration. Instead of earning money to spend in their communities, the funds are redirected to the Corrections Corporation of America, and to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The recent mass firings at American Apparel also punishes productive workers in favor of harsh immigration enforcement. M. Junaid Levesque-Alam at Wiretap tries to find the logic, and justice, in these firings. The Los Angeles-based clothing manufacturer let go of 25 per cent of its workforce due to pressure from a federal immigration probe. Levesque-Alam doesn’t find logic or justice in the Obama administration’s approach to immigration–only the hypocrisy of Obama’s use of a Cesar Chavez rallying cry–”Sí Se Puede!”–to gain Latino votes. “When a corporation can offer vulnerable people better prospects than the most respected elected officials, then something is very wrong with liberal policy–or the lack thereof,” Levesque-Alam writes.

New America Media’s Marcelo Ballvé reports on a cosmetic, if not useless, change to the detention industry. On August sixth, ICE announced “the creation of two new government offices, one to oversee ongoing reforms to the detention system, and another to monitor and inspect detention centers.” This comes in response to a flood of complaints from human rights activists who charge the detention centers overall with a substandard level of care. As the Wire reported on March 19th, the quickly growing detention industry has been soundly criticized for a lack of humane standards in reports issued by both the Human Rights Watch and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. But ICE overseeing itself hardly solves the problem.

Ballvé also points out that in the first five months of Obama’s presidency, ICE raids have spiked, and despite promises given by the President or the Department of Homeland Security, there is no greater focus on employers whatsoever.

“Despite the significant uptick in prosecutions,” Balivé writes in another piece for New America Media that “none of the May 2009 ICE cases targeted employers under the statute that makes it a criminal offense to knowingly hire undocumented immigrants.”

Finally, Sherriff Joe Arpaio, the public face of the 287(g) provision, is in the news again. Arpaio, who has anointed himself “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” is being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union, which charges that Arpaio used racial profiling in detaining a father and son who are both U.S. citizens, thus “violating the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law and prohibition on unreasonable seizures.” Arpaio is legendary for using humiliation as standard operating procedure. He’s made inmates dress in pink, parade through town in shackles, and this case is rife with it. It is repugnant and sadistic.

This country’s approach to immigration cannot rely on force, prisons, and persecution–no matter how well they self-regulate. We are not so young a race or civilization that we cannot employ a scope that doesn’t rely on prison-oriented profits and xenophobia. The White House needs to rethink its entire approach, and with originality and courage. The alternative is that this issue will become more problematic, manifesting greater chaos down the line.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration and is free to reprint. Visit Immigration.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on immigration, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy and health issues, check out Economy.NewsLadder.net and Healthcare.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.

After months of hype from writers trying to cleverly incorporate song titles into their reviews (”You’ll play eight days a week!”), the Beatles Rock Band game bit the dust today when a virtual Yoko Ono infiltrated the animation and broke up the group.

Game developers said the Ono avatar dodged Rock Band’s firewall by coming in through a bathroom window, protected by a silver spoon.

It was one of several snafus plaguing the video game. In addition to a cartoon Eric Clapton stealing George Harrison’s wife during the “White Album” sessions, virtual FBI agents began tailing the game’s John Lennon character after he boasted that Beatles Rock Band was “bigger than virtual Jesus.” Also, the original Paul McCartney avatar was reportedly killed in a car crash and replaced with a lookalike who can only write silly love songs.

Manufacturer Harmonix refused to offer refunds, saying, “We wanted to give people the full, realistic Beatles experience.”

This story originally appeared at NotTheLATimes.com. Copyright (c) 2009 by Roy Rivenburg.
Yoko photo by Roy Kerwood

It’s kind of like the organ grinder and the monkey. The guy with the music box gets the monkey to dance and act out for the people. And when huge corporations, media interests, and high-priced consultants unleash desperate distortions on public policy, they get a robust jig and a squeal from right wing reactionaries, hot heads, bigots, and people who don’t know enough to know they don’t know enough.

The problem is, the Media, and apparently some in the Obama Administration, listen to the monkey.

Van Jones has made an abrupt and indignant departure over an empty outrage, letting Obama sacrifice talent and control of the debate in one reflex. While Jones may well prove more effective on the outside of the tepid D.C. mechanisms, that his departure was prompted by Glenn Beck hysterics sends the misleading message that Glenn Beck actually matters. Regrettably, resignation signifies an acknowledgment of impropriety. The right wing parrots refer to it as a scandal, but nothing has actually happened.

This manufactured Van Jones controversy was alternately marketed as “What is this Czar title, anyway, and why is a Russian king ruling our government? That’s Communist!” Lost on the clap-traps might be that the title of czar dates back to Nixon and was popularized by Reagan. These are the embittered and disaffected looking to argue over anything, constructing justification for their displaced anger, as opposed to looking for truth.

The other non-troversy came in a speech where Jones referred to Republicans as “assholes” in the way they successfully managed to pass legislation. He also suggested he could be an asshole, i.e., effective. Though this was meant as the same observational truth as in “the assholes always get the girls,” it was seized upon like red meat by jackals. No matter if the Vice President can tell a Senator to go fuck himself on the floor of the Senate without rebuke, or the fact that overreacting and feigning outrage to try to get a guy fired really is kind of an asshole thing to do. Jones has so far failed at living up to this, and makes a lousy asshole, and will probably not be scoring with the cheerleaders, some of which he certainly could have used for the past month.

The other tacked-on outrage was that Van Jones had signed a petition supporting further investigation of 9/11. A petition demanding truth about 9/11 is hardly a controversy, and it shouldn’t be. As The Dude (Jeff Bridges) yells at Walter (John Goodman) in The Big Lebowski: “What does anything have to do with Vietnam?” The same could be said today about 9/11, to Truthers, to Freepers, to Rudy Giuliani. This point is not even debated, it’s like Van Jones knows the profile of harassment. If it’s not this, it will be something else. Is your vehicle registered? Are these headlights up to code? Is that brake light dimmer than the other one?

Of course, there is more to this abrupt umbrage about Van Jones than some petition or profanity. As Adele M. Stan details at AlterNet, Van Jones is a threat because of the entrenched industrial opposition against green jobs. Noticeably, this attack on Jones has been unrelated to Van Jones actual performance, obscuring that Jones was at the White House to create millions of jobs in the midst of recession.

Predictably, the right wing chatterbox has crowed over Van Jones’s departure, as surprised as anyone that their complaining has actually resulted in anything. This is a Pyrrhic victory, delighting trolls who get to write “HA!” and “I’m driving my low MPG truck to show Van Jones.” This Administration — at least the few progressives within it not driven to placate business interests — is trying to offer health care and environmental conservation not just for all Americans today, but for generations of Americans to come. This costly din and derision of partisan patricide is far more destructive than foreign enemies.

There is another irony lost on the harpies so quick to clamor for accountability for things real or imagined, from the past, present, or future. The very point of public office is that the public can demand accountability. Government officials are ultimately responsible to the public.

On the other hand, private companies can do whatever they want, as long as their shareholders are happy. And they can lie. They can say their product does not kill people when they know it does. And they can keep that vital information confidential under trade secret protections, endangering the public. And individual executives are almost universally unaccountable in corporate crime. Vioxx. Monsanto. Enron. Goldman Sachs. Philip Morris. Etc.

Despite considerably more attention and infamy, does Erik Prince step down from Blackwater (Xe), particularly now that he has been implicated in the murder of potential whistle-blowers? Erik Prince would tell you to go his idea of a Christian Medieval hell, he owns all of Blackwater, he inherited his millions to go play war games, and no one can figure out what court in the world to even try his crimes in. Till then, he will keep getting new contracts with the U.S. State Department.

Corporations only answer to government when government demands it. Unfortunately, the demanding is usually done by politicians who have to run for re-election and could always use some more contributors. In light of the Supreme Court mulling over corporate monies into our elections, I believe we are approaching a new debate on campaign reform that will expose more people to how beholden our elected officials are.

Thus, this is another circumstance where the ranting righties who have crusaded against any government role in anything presume that same transparency and entitlement that they would be denying themselves in every other role of society, and doing it self-righteously. That you even have a right to call for his resignation proves the main advantage to administration by elected officials.

These are the same people who get inflamed that the President of our country would offer a broadcast message to welcome students back to school. Fears were repeated and escalated that Obama would indoctrinate all children into socialism if they were exposed to even minutes of hearing him speak, like he isn’t on TV every day already. Something that could be motivating to children who do not subscribe to a two party mindset was politicized to preposterous ends by people desperate for credibility while devoid of ideas.

If you are afraid that your child will abandon all that you hold sacred after a couple minutes of a grown up explaining something about government on a TV, then you have no freaking control over your kid anyway, and probably never will.

Personally, if this is a public education that I am paying for with my tax dollars, I for one would like a celebrity cameo from the government to show some effort, a little pizazz, like a fancy in-flight video.

These people are scaring their kids with made up ideas of Obama, and they don’t know what he would say because they never even listen to him. They don’t have to listen to anything, they know they don’t trust him, because they have heard so much about what a socialist he is, and even though they don’t know what that means, it must be bad, because the white people on FOX keep yelling and crying about it. And the kids grow up thinking the same thing without questioning, and the disconnect proliferates.

This cuts to the heart of the problems we face in instituting such basic government services as health care and sustainable development. When there is so much disinformation — literally, one of the biggest industries in America is mass-producing mistruths and distortions, and it is owned by Rupert Murdoch — there will thrive a chronic disconnect in society.

Where the Obama team was the Marketer of the Year in 2008, this year they have less marketing muscle than the crude new Melrose Place. Obama mistakenly believed that upon entering the White House, people would listen to him just because he was president, or something. No matter how well Jackie Robinson played, he had to face the cruelest critics the most often. Obama is still the subject of prejudiced suspicion, both racial and cultural, but amplified to near mythic proportions of being a Marxist dictator, without having done anything (almost literally) at all.

The Big Tent is a fallacy, and there will never be any participation from a dedicated segment of society that is committed to vitriol and tearing down that tent at all costs.

This deference to disapproval, acquiescence to any angry and aimless mob, it is far more respect and legitimacy than they would return in kind at the sign of offense. These are people who for the most part hide behind screen names while demanding to personally inspect the long form documentation of our President’s birth, so that they can find other reasons to complain either way.

This is the base that Van Jones is worried about distracting from health care reform? We need to draw their fire. Van should blare the new Jay-Z on the Front Lawn of the White House while planting acorns to freak out the Ditto heads while the grown ups meet inside and stop posturing over talking points, like their lowest denominator is watching. The rabble-rousers will rabble on, regardless.

To that end, perhaps what is needed is to offer fodder to inflate the self-preoccupation of that right-wing shark-osphere.

Where the signs typically say, “Do Not Toss Items to the Monkey,” this is where to start. Feed the monkey peanuts, cotton candy, popcorn to gobble down. Throw it gossip, confusing riddles, internal strife, distraction. Give them more chew toys to tire themselves out with. Wave shiny things in front of their wide, eager eyes. Delude them with relevancy and mock them as the alienated, small-minded, insecure, intolerant sociopaths that they are. We need rope, lots of it, to let them hang themselves in their xenophobic obsessions.

Because what won’t deter them is shame. There is no shame to these hacks like Glenn Beck, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, John Boehner, Tom DeLay, and their cadre. Beyond cultural bias, this is an automatic opposition to anything that could be successful. Seeking to earn the approval or inclusion of this deluded minority is ruinous. It offers easy exploitation from predatory industries that have long proven their disregard for American citizens in the interest of profits.

Much of the news today has been shock by the outburst of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), shouting “You Lie!!!!” at the President of the United States speaking to a joint session of Congress. People across America were stunned that the Republican congressman could be so rude, so thoughtless, so disrespectful, nasty, mean-spirited, and factually incorrect.

Not me.

I just figured he thought he was at a Democratic town hall meeting.

Honestly, there he was, listening to a Democrat explain the Obama health care plan, and he saw himself in a crowded room, surrounded by people of a like-mind as him, people holding up signs of protest and angrily waving them at the Democrat, people refusing to even listen to what the Democrat was saying but instead texting their BFFs on their Blackberries, people acting as a massed group staunchly sitting arms-crossed at the Democrat. He saw guards all around him, called out on the Democratic speaker’s behalf, no doubt concerned that there would be outbursts.

He certainly knew he was a Republican and that he was supposed to ignore whatever was said by the Democrat. After all, he’s on Dick Armey’s mailing list and had gotten his regular flyers from Armey’s organization telling him how to act fake-spontaneously at town hall meetings. He’d watched all the news shows and seen his fellow conservative pals yelling at Democrats, refusing to let them speak. And it made him happy to know he was part of an grand, organized plan to use his First Amendment rights of free speech to prohibit others from using theirs.

And after being on vacation all summer, being rambunctious and having fun and not having any teacher in charge overseeing him and learning him anything, there he was back on the second day of school, still not settled in yet. Still frisky.

And there he was, too, attending this big political meeting on behalf of South Carolina, the cradle of the Confederacy, watching a black man in a suit talking some fine talk trying to learn him and his fellows something, and how dare he, who does he think he is, the President of the United States or something…??

And…and…there were cameras. And it was all so busy. And there was cheering on the other side of the room. And it was exciting. And so much was going on. And…and he knew what he was supposed to do because this was a town hall. And -

He just forgot where he was.

So, he shouted. “You lie!!!” Honestly, he probably didn’t even hear what President Barack Obama had just said. It didn’t matter. The moment got the better of him. It didn’t matter that the president had told the truth, that it’s written specifically in the bill. It didn’t matter. Bill? Who reads bills? This isn’t about reading bills or understanding. This was simply about shouting at others. He wasn’t listening very closely, he may not have been listening at all. It just didn’t matter. He just forgot where he was.

He forgot that he was sitting in the United States House of Representatives. He forgot that he was a congressman. He forgot that that person talking was the President of the United States. He forgot that the two people behind the president were the Vice President and the Speaker of the House. He forgot that the guards were Sergeant-at-Arms. He forgot that he was a joint session of Congress. He just freaking forgot.

It can happen to almost anyone. I understand. Here, let me give you a hug.

What shocks me is that anyone else is shocked. This has been going on since since the Republican presidential campaign when crowds would yell, “Traitor!!” and “Kill him!!,” about their opponents and were never rebuked for such things by either John McCain or Sarah Palin. So, if the presidential and vice-presidential candidates for the Republican Party thought it was okay to yell these things in public crowds without rebuke, it must be.

This has been going on since Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) stood up in the House, swathed in her supposedly-protective red-white-and-blue scarf and called war hero John Murtha (D-PA) a cut-and-run coward. It’s been going on since Republican Swiftboaters tried to paint three-time medal winner John Kerry as anti-American. So, if the Republican Party and its leaders thought it was okay to make such charges without rebuke, it must be.

And this has been going on at all the town hall meetings, even prodded by Republican Party leaders making jokes about lynching, passing along known-untruths to rile the crowds, and people were showing up with firearms. So, if the Republican Party is actively supporting and promoting actions just like this and thought it was okay, it must be.

And so, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) merely did what he thought he was supposed to do. Just did what all his friends did. Only did what his party was doing. And he simply got confused where he was. Not that that necessarily made any difference where he was, but still.

And people are shocked by how he acted??!

Not me. I expected it. Of course, he acted that way!

Me, I was pleased.

I was just happy he didn’t have a gun.

Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) on Wednesday backed away from an ambiguous statement he’d made last month on his 2010 election plans, saying he remains committed to not seeking the seat he was appointed to by former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D).

After his major speeches in Turkey and Egypt, President Obama established his ownership of the Arab-Israeli issue. With countries in the region testing whether he has the wherewithal to deliver the goods, his challenge is to keep the momentum going forward on an almost daily basis with practical steps and leadership.

The President needs to create a “peace process momentum plan” leading to negotiations by mid-fall, which recent reports suggest he is trying to do through his Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, who is traveling to Israel again at the end of the week.

The President should prepare his next major Middle East speech and delineate specific actions Israelis, Palestinians and Arab states must take to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

For the Israelis, the administration should not put too many eggs in the well-worn settlements basket and not enough in the basket to improve Palestinian life, where Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has signaled flexibility. The President can say to Netanyahu: a better life for Palestinians and sincere negotiations with them can reduce pressure in the United States for immediate action on the settlements issue.

The administration should also pressure the Palestinians; without Palestinian steps, progress will be blocked. Palestinian incitement against Israelis needs to be addressed as vehemently in public as it is in private. And the vital training of new and effective Palestinian security forces under U.S. General Dayton’s leadership must progress quickly.

As important as the Arab Peace Initiative is, Arab states must also take specific steps, and the administration should intensify efforts to gain Arab states’ involvement in the new process. Examples include their direct engagement in fostering negotiations; providing funds to support the process, particularly to the Palestinians; and symbolic practical measures such as eliminating visa and passport restrictions based on religion or nationality, opening lines of trade with Israel, establishing or resuming Israeli trade offices in Arab countries.

An Arab public relations program through Arab media directed toward Israel as well as Arab countries would constitute an important confidence-building measure. It would emphasize the desirability of peace and the benefits that can accrue to the entire region from an end to verbal and physical hostilities. That will gain positive Israeli and American attention.

These are important steps. But the administration has to move quickly to actual Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

The Hamas-Palestinian Authority split is a major stumbling block. The administration should explore new diplomatic possibilities regarding Hamas through secret talks, third parties or the Arab quartet. The United States may have to pursue negotiations focused only on the PA initially. But if the Palestinian split is not overcome, talks of some kind with Hamas will have to be conducted.

The three-phase road map, which offers a series of steps to advance Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, should be revived. Many of the confidence-building measures demanded of both sides in phase one – such as an end to Palestinian violence against Israelis, Palestinian reform, an end to illegal settlements in the West Bank and an Israeli settlement freeze — have either been taken or are being pursued.

The Obama administration should therefore guide the parties directly to the third phase – an international conference. Negotiations should seek to establish permanent borders, except for Jerusalem, which involves issues that go beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An outside advisory committee would ease the process of dealing with Jerusalem, which will be difficult and painful under any circumstances. The administration should reconvene the phase three conference only when the parties are ready to hammer out the rest of the issues.

Though we have stressed the Palestinian-Israeli relationship, Syria should not be ignored. Problems separating Israel and Syria are deep, involving both the Golan and Syria’s new role in the region after a peace treaty. And in the background looms the Iran factor. The Obama administration has already begun engaging Syria on the Israeli-Syrian issue, Iraq and the overall US-Syrian relationship. That process should be continued and Syria and Israel brought back into negotiations.

The new vitality in the Obama administration’s approach to the Arab-Israeli dispute is to be applauded. The momentum toward peace, stability and security must now be strengthened and serious negotiations begun by mid-fall, if not sooner. This requires that the administration actively and simultaneously implement the road map and conduct secret talks on the Palestinian front, and pursue the Syrian channel.

Samuel W. Lewis served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, and is Senior Policy Advisor to the Israel Policy Forum.

Edward S. Walker served as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, and is a member of the Israel Policy Forum American Advisory Council.

It’s not a myth. They are among us – in book stores, on movie screens, TV sets and billboards, in graphic novels and video games all across the land. The vampire genre has been with us since Dr. John Polidori’s 1819 The Vampyre, followed by Bram Stoker’s 1897 neck-biter, through the silent screen’s Nosferatu (1922), the Bela Lugosi movies from the 1930s and ’40s, Hammer Horror films (’50s and ’60s,) TV’s Dark Shadows (1966-1971), Anne Rice’s best seller Interview with a Vampire (1976), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer series (1997-2001).

While each had singular popularity, vampires’ fictional presence has never been greater than it is today. Stephanie Meyer is the current queen of vamp-lit with a reported 70 million copies of the Twilight series sold, followed by the super-hit, Twilight movie. Tanya Huff, Charlie Huston, Rosemary Laurey and Drew Silver are among many other successful writers working the genre. Tracey Bateman adds a redemptive angle with a vamp series from WaterBrook, the evangelical Christian division of Random House. HBO’s hit, True Blood, based on Charlaine Harris’ The Southern Vampire Mysteries, is back for another season and this week, The CW Network airs The Vampire Diaries, based on the young adult books of L. J. Smith. And a ‘vampire’ Google click yields almost 18 million sites.

If fiction often reflects a nation’s culture, why, oh-why-oh, do we have so many vampires, in so many places, sucking up so many entertainment dollars with such blazing success today? Feature writers tend to tie the current blood draining craze to two wars, terrorism and financial hard times.

“Times are always part of the pop culture recipe,” says Robert Thompson, professor of television and pop culture at the University of Syracuse’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, but it’s more about the modern media’s creative skill to broaden the genre. “There’s much more narrative opportunities if vampires can be evil monsters as well as romantic heroes,” he continues. Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire was the pivot point. Thompson calls it, “ground zero of the modern iteration of the vampire and expands the mythology into its modern iteration.” Before Rice, the vampire story was a costume drama with limited literary scope. Rice, followed-up by Stephanie Meyer, “…modernized and domesticated the vampire, ripping away the traditional narrative from the black-caped, thickly Euro-accented, terror guy you run from, to the handsome, seductive bad-boy next door you want to sleep with,” says Thompson. “Once you can let vampires next to us, and with us in our bedrooms, that opens up an extraordinary amount of narrative territory that we didn’t have before,” says the 50-something pop culture professor.

It didn’t take 9/11, or a bad economy for us to be attracted to bad boys, he points out. We’ve always been drawn to them – from Cagney and Coppola’s gangsters, Brando on the motorcycle, Beatty and Dunaway’s Bonnie & Clyde, Nicolas Cage’s Con Air and Colin Farrell in most anything. They’re the bad-boy archetype, so incredibly attractive, we can’t resist them even though we know they’re not good for us and will drain us – literally. They’re “mad, bad and dangerous to know,” (Lady Caroline Lamb, refering to Lord Byron following their 1812 affair) True Blood’s Bill Compton would like to drink his human love interest, Sookie, dry but he loves her so much he wont. “Doesn’t everyone at some point want to be in a relationship that’s that passionate?” asks Thompson.

While 1976’s Interview with a Vampire was the literary shift from horror to hero, there was a major, and often overlooked, turn before then that made it easier for the public to accept Anne Rice’s make-over. We’re talking about Sesame Street and General Mills.

Starting in the early 70s, a new generation of kids learned to count from the helpful, vamp-fanged Count on Sesame Street. He may have looked and sounded like Bela Lugosi but he had the heart and soul of a friendly teacher. Ca-ching! Just about the same time, General Mills put out its popular and very sweet kid’s cereal, Count Chocula, featuring a guy with chocolate and marshmallows running through his tasty veins. Ca-ching, ca-ching. Let the morphing begin. Because vampires are so domesticated and appealing now, perhaps it’s time to put True Blood’s hunky vamp, Bill Compton, on the Wheaties Breakfast of Champions box. Ca-ching-ching-ching!

Hello America,

Remember me, I’m the doctor with forty years experience in military, academic, and private medicine who offered the five-bullet point common sense solution to health care’s ailments, with no new taxes and no addition to the national debt, located here.

Well, tonight I listened to the well-thought out and well-studied bipartisan plan of Senator Max Baucus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee (the half Democrat/half Republican “gang of six”). Amazingly these plans parallel the three insurance bullets I laid out in the five-point plan one month ago in the L.A. Times Steve Lopez interview. Senator Baucus also soundly rejected the government or public option plan as unacceptable to American voters, as this would have raised our national debt 1.5 to 2 trillion dollars, as stated by no less than financial wizard than Warren Buffett himself in a New York Times op-ed piece three weeks ago. As an alternative, Senator Baucus proposed an ingenious basket of state run co-ops that could be sold across state lines. Notice no federal co-ops!

I also listened to President Obama lay out the utopian wish-list plan favored by the extremely partisan left wing of his party.

Guess who gets the nod from my perspective, for bipartisan reality and feasibility, to save and improve our unique, innovative American health care system, and not saddle our country with unsustainable structural debt?

I vote for Senator Max Baucus.

We still need bullet #4, meaningful complete national tort reform, as already established successfully in California for 34 years, and lastly bullet #5, the federal mandate to our 159 urban medical schools to take care of the hard core indigent and illegal alien populations within their shadows, as best exemplified by the extremely successful USC/Los Angeles County Medical Center model. An added plus to this plan is that our medical schools can get back to their teaching mission while providing great training for our future doctors.

So with Max Baucus’ three insurance bullets, and with the two additional common sense solutions above, we’ve arrived at real improvement and reform in our health care system, with no new taxes or debt.

Follow 5 Simple Steps:

1. Change the current 50 state patchwork of private insurance programs to a national clearinghouse of private insurance choices to increase competition.

2. Return health care insurance companies to the pre-1984 federal regulations that limited their fees to administration only.

3. Move away from employment-based care but require coverage of all working citizens.

4. Enact meaningful tort reform.

5. Get the 159 urban medical schools back to serving their local indigent populations.

Newark Mayor and frequent tweeter Cory Booker has teamed with fellow-Twitterati Ashton Kutcher in challenging web followers to pledge acts of community service in the city. They paired for a video chat asking for 300 video pledges to help the people of Newark. It’s part of a campaign for community partnership to help fight violence as we approach the final quarter of the year, when there was a significant increase in crime in 2008. The Star-Ledger today reported the story with details including that once 300 pledges are received, Booker and Kutcher will be playing a “no blood, no foul” basketball game: “If Kutcher loses, the lifelong Chicago Bears fan agreed to accompany the mayor to a Giants game wearing a Giants hat and jersey. If Booker loses, the mayor will have to wear a Bears jersey to a Chicago game.” Get the full story from The Star-Ledger on NJ.com.

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