Enjoy your day.

Gentoo penguins in Neko Harbour, Antarctica. (Frances Renaud)

 

 

Leaders digest.

Atul Gawande on letting go: What should medicine do when it can't save your life? (New Yorker)

The human costs of the animal rights movement. (New Republic) In which, finally, PETA is called out.

The case against summer vacation. (Time) Cover story argues persuasively that U.S. kids spend too little time in school.

ECONOMY

Stimulus surprise: Companies retrench when pork-barreling pols deliver. (Harvard Business Review)

 

Even Obama believed, beginning last fall, that he now "owns" the economy and can no longer blame Bush's legacy. But as the chart shows, the current, atrocious deficit is Bush's handiwork.

America's looming fiscal doom. (AndrewSullivan.com)

ProPublica's list of all U.S. financial-industry recipients of Uncle Sam rescue funds is a long read - there are 57 entries under "P" alone. A useful antidote to the Board of Trade and Tea Party hymns to the superiority of failsafe capitalism over hapless government.

Robert Dudley tours animal-rescue center on the spill-stricken Gulf coast. (AP)

Why U.S. native Bob Dudley, replacing cashiered Tony Hayward to become first non-Brit CEO of BP, is well-suited to the huge remedial task ahead. (Christian Science Monitor)

MEXICO

The horrific costs of Mexico's drug wars. (New Republic)

Climate change will boost Mexican immigration to the U.S., study says (Christian Science Monitor)

THE PRESS

Shirley Sherrod (AP)

Charles Kaiser on shame of the fourth estate in falling for the Shirley Sherrod "scandal" (The Nation)

Post biographer David Kindred on the struggles of the Washington Post. (TIme) Q&A

WaPo distinguishes itself with rare, genuine investigative report on immense national-security complex created since 9/11. (New Yorker)

LIT CRIT

On Woodrow Wilson, meddlesome do-gooder. (New Republic)

Walt Whitman

On Walt Whitman, arguably the first American to break with British verse. (New Republic)

On Frank Luntz, odious GOP pollster. (New Republic) Move over, Rove.

HISTORY 301

Lesser-known French atrocities in colonial Africa. (New Republic)

Origins of the anti-Enlightenment tradition. (New Republic) Locate the wellspring for Rush and Beck in 18th century.

An early proposal for the Washington Monument. 

The curious, furious, transformation of D.C.'s memorials. (New Republic)

ESOTERICA

Detroit clings to civic pride in, of all things, hairdresser contests. (Time) These are the true salonistas. Where the attitude is so thick you can trim it short, back and sides.

Ugly capitalist of the year. (And his board enablers.)

Sandra Hatfield and David H. Brooks, co-defendants in a U.S. government trial in which Brooks is accused of fraud, insider trading, and improper business funding of personal extravagances. Those would include the $100,000 jewel-encrusted belt buckle sported above by Brooks, and recently waved by prosecutors in front of a Long Island jury. (U.S. government evidence photo.)

Tough to beat among the contenders for this coveted distinction is David H. Brooks, 55. While CEO of DHB Industries until 2006, Brooks helped push what had been one of America's leading suppliers of body-armor for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan into bankruptcy. (The armor, like that of other body-armor suppliers, was faulted by critics with being insufficiently protective.) 

But Brooks, who had a checkered past even before his current courtoom ordeal, was able first to bilk Uncle Sam out of more than $6 million in improper billings for, among other things, plastic surgery for Brooks' wife, a burial plot for his mother, pornographic videos for his son, and prostitutes for employees and board members. 

On the latter point, spot any connection between these paragraphs in the NYT account today:

[Brooks'] lawyers also defended the hiring of prostitutes for employees and board members, arguing in court papers that it represented a legitimate business expense 'if Mr. Brooks thought such services could motivate his employees and make them more productive.'

His lawyers pointed to a board resolution that stipulated that Mr. Brooks was entitled to 10 percent of the company’s profits.

It is, of course, common practice among thriving enterprises to have used call girls to extract industry-leading productivity from their workers. For those few dynamic companies forsaking that device - Apple, Hewlett-Packard, McDonald's Corp., Wal-Mart Stores - one can only despair at the even more burgeoning profits forfeited by the investors in those firms.

And, nah, couldn't be a connection between board members who were, uh, serviced by sex-trade workers and the decision by those same directors at CEO Brooks was deserving of a staggering 10% of company profits. A blandishment of that trifling nature wouldn't cloud their judgment a bit...

Alas, there's much more, and worse, here.

  

America's muddled approach to high-speed rail.

From Time:

While $8 billion [in planned spending by the Obama Administration on a nascent U.S. high-speed passenger rail network] is more than four times the annual federal subsidy for Amtrak, it is just one-eighth of last year's federal spending on highways. And at a time when our national credit card is already maxed out, this down payment is only a tiny fraction of what's needed to establish a competitive new mode of travel. China plans to invest more than $300 billion in high-speed rail by 2020, and Spain expects to complete a more than $200 billion system the same year in a country the size of Texas.

Meanwhile, the distribution of the Obama money — $3.5 billion to start new lines for bullet trains in Florida and California, plus $4.5 billion for sundry bridge and tunnel repairs, track straightening and other upgrades to existing Amtrak lines nationwide — has sparked intense debates even among rail advocates. Why spread cash around the country like peanut butter instead of targeting a few showcase projects? Shouldn't the seed money go to game-changing new bullet routes rather than help for old Amtrak lines that bleed cash, share track with slow-moving freight and can never exceed 110 m.p.h.? Why not focus on Amtrak's popular and profitable service between Boston and Washington, where Acela trains — now with wi-fi! — already reach speeds of 150 m.p.h. but average only half that? And how exactly does Ohio's proposed 3-C corridor linking Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati at an average speed of only 39 m.p.h. and a top speed of 79 m.p.h. — first achieved by American trains 180 years ago — qualify as "high speed"?

 

 
Prototype of latest generation of renowned Japanese "bullet train," the Fastech 360S, at East Japan Railway Co.'s R&D center, Rifu, Miyaga Prefecture, Japan. (Getty Images)

 

From The Economist:

The problem with America’s plans for high-speed rail is not their modesty. It is that even this limited ambition risks messing up the successful freight railways. Their owners worry that the plans will demand expensive train-control technology that freight traffic could do without. They fear a reduction in the capacity available to freight. Most of all they fret that the spending of federal money on upgrading their tracks will lead the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the industry watchdog, to impose tough conditions on them and, in effect, to reintroduce regulation of their operations. Attempts at re-regulation have been made in Congress in recent years, in response to rising freight rates. “The freight railroads feel they are under attack,” says Don Phillips, a rail expert in Virginia.

America’s railways are the mirror image of Europe’s. Europe has an impressive and growing network of high-speed passenger links, many of them international, like the Thalys service between Paris and Brussels or the Eurostar connecting London to the French and Belgian capitals. These are successful—although once the (off-balance-sheet) costs of building the tracks are counted, they need subsidies of billions of dollars a year. But, outside Germany and Switzerland, Europe’s freight rail services are a fragmented, lossmaking mess. Repeated attempts to remove the technical and bureaucratic hurdles at national frontiers have come to nothing.

Brrr...

An Antarctica photo gallery by globetrotting ER contributor Frances Renaud, to whom many thanks:

An intrepid explorer takes in the vista from Cuerville Island, Antarctica. (Frances Renaud)

Tierra del Fuego National Park, Ushuaia, Argentina. (Frances Renaud)

Macaroni penguins at Elsehul, Antarctica. (Frances Renaud)

A colony of 500,000 King penguins at St. Andrew's Bay, Antarctica. (Frances Renaud)

 

 

 

Thanks for your patience.

I've been AWOL since late last week, when I learned we would be able to fast-track a crisis nursing-home placement for my mom, living alone with advanced ALZ in the absence of my Dad, who passed away June 24. It's very early days, so we can't tell how Mom will adjust to losing her home of 57 years. The suburban Scarborough home where I was raised was on a plot of land with 44 trees and two enormous vegetable gardens. It was Mom who financed the purchase, with her disciplined accumulation of War Bonds. 

It's not too early to thank the Ontario government-funded caregivers who provided superb home care, though, or close friends Allison Nowlan and Lynni Bronsten, without whose open-ended support of both Mom and myself would have made this traumatic transition impossible, rather than merely near-unbearable.

I wish you all such selfless friends. As for the home care-givers, my parents became fast friends with these efficient yet affectionate companions, as perhaps half a dozen CCAC contracted health professionals rotated through our lives over the past five years. Yes, your tax dollars at work. A bargain, I would say, acknowledging my bias. I've always been proud to live here. Now I feel even more grateful than usual to be a lifelong Ontarian.

  

Enjoy your day.

(AP)

QuickLinx, Wednesday, July 21.

Not a ideal time to be a Lindsey or Lindsay

Jack Shafer on a fantastic new book that debunks statistical balderdash. (Slate)

Eugene Robinson: Tea Partiers need to clean up their racist act. (WaPo) Don't hold your breath.

Anti-Obama demo by Tea Partiers. (Getty Images) 

At least the Tea Party infighting is fun to watch. (Atlantic) The "movement" now goes by at least three names, whose adherents are consumed with expelling each from the other. Time was the loony left had a lock on purism and factionalism.

The crisis in crisis public relations. Have the practitioners lost their touch, or is there simply so much of an abundance of bad business behavior to cope with? (BP, Toyota, Apple's Antennagate, drug recalls...) (The Big Money)

Felix Salmon's convincing endorsement of Elizabeth Warren to head new consumer-finance protection agency in Obama's landmark financial-reform bill. (Reuters)  

The Afghan quagmire

Brian Collier of Toronto, killed by an IED blast. Photo from his Facebook account. 

Sapper Brian Collier, 24, is 151st Canadian killed in Afghan conflict since 2002. (Toronto Star)

Call it what you want, but what the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan is nation building. (WaPo editorial)

Scrap the nation-building veneer, defeat the damned Taliban already. (Daily Telegraph editorial)

Afghanistan's treasure house of natural resources is poised to be plundered. (NYT)

Meanwhile...

Why an over-achieving Obama gets so little credit. Hint: An inherited recession and 9.5% jobless rate. (McClatchy)

Dems break filibuster, restore jobless benefits to 2.5 million Americans. Seems the GOP plans to run in November on making the lives of the unemployed even more miserable. (McClatchy)

Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. (Reuters) 

Chelsea Clinton nuptials: There will be tears. (Reuters) Says Hillary Clinton:

You should assume that if [Bill] makes it down the aisle in one piece it's a major accomplishment. He is going to be so emotional, as am I, but we're both looking forward to it and very happy about it.

Listening to sports radio while driving can be dangerously distracting. (Kansas City Star) Plus, we're all dehydrated, sleep-deprived and consume too much salt. Give up.

Freaky: At least 25 United Airlines passengers suffer injuries from turbulence, a relatively rare occurance. Possibly the pilots were tuned into 13-1 blowout of Royals by Blue Jays. (Reuters)

 

 

This is why the Dems probably will lose the House in November.

 
The median time that jobless folks have been out of work is double the previous peak some 50 years ago. Derek Thompson, economics editor at the Atlantic, who calls this "The Scariest Unemployment Graph I've Seen Yet," enumerates the many policy options for turning around the dismal jobs picture, and finds them all wanting. Why? Because the Great Recession has been uniquely horrible.

Felix Salmon, ace Reuters blogger, takes the same message from the stats. He also marvels, between the lines, that the nutty bloviator Ben Stein hasn't been captured by the men in white lab coats yet, given this classic Steinism from the current edition of the conservative American Spectator - the only roost left to Stein after he was booted by the NYT:

The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say “generally” because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work. They are people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job. Again, there are powerful exceptions and I know some, but when employers are looking to lay off, they lay off the least productive or the most negative. To assure that a worker is not one of them, he should learn how to work and how to get along -- not always easy.

Stein would be an exception to his rule, one assumes, having been abruptly retired as an NYT columnists for reasons other than the above - an assessment of the jobless being to blame for their plight I've only read in accounts of tycoons' initial reaction to the worsening conditions in the early stages of the Dirty Thirties. Amazing this view still exists, much less gains publication.

 

 

 

Don't bother to vote in the mid-terms.

The media have decided the outcome. Dems will lose big in November. Yes, yes, Harry Reid has turned things around in his Nevada re-election bid, and John McCain's in a death struggle with an obscure radio shock jock. But a Dem cave-in is the conventional wisdom, and the media are sticking with it. For now. For variety's sake, an "improbable Dem comeback" storyline will commence sometime after Labor Day, then give way to a return to the current CW. 

Gloomy Gusses: Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and Harry Reid. (AP)

Dems Start to Panic As Midterm Reality Sets In. Must be true. It's in Time, a bit of a latecomer to the Dem disaster ubiquity. I think I've seen this story now about 1,832 times in the past three weeks.

And, to be sure, there's no denying the anecdotal evidence. Pelosi has begun consulting Nancy Reagan's astrologer. In an unusual joint venture, the Dem House caucuses of '06 and '08 have formed a Wicca circle to establish contact with the spirit of the late Lee Atwater. And last Tuesday, Barney Frank, who's not even in trouble in Massachusetts, set his hair on fire.

Or so they say.

The Dems will hold the Senate and lose the House, incurring about the same number of House losses as Reagan in 1982 and Dubya in 2006. Worse things have happened. (Clinton in 1994 and Dubya in 2006.) Progressives needn't break out the cyanide spritzers just yet.