Islands Don't Tip Over

I'm under the impression that just about anyone can be a representative of Congress. Congressman, Congresswoman, doesn't matter. I'd like to test my theory that a rhesus monkey could successfully win a campaign to be said Congressprimate, but I don't have much interest in going through to whole process of acquiring a rhesus monkey. (I'm assuming there's a process. Seems like there would be. Actually, I take that back. It seems like their should be. In which case, it would be fair to assume that I could probably pay off a zookeeper somewhere and make my way home with a new little friend.) Being as how I'm sans monkey (in more ways than one), I'm going to have to rely on actual members of Congress to make my point here.

Meet Hank Johnson.

Rep. Johnson represents the US state of Georgia in Congress. He was attending a Congressional hearing where the topic of discussion was locating approximately 8,000 - 9,000 US Marines in Guam. If we take into consideration the family size of these troops, that amounts to somewhere around 25,000 people who will potentially be relocating to Guam. This is important to know, as it makes the story funnier.

Guam, if you are unfamiliar with it, is a small island. Not "relatively" small. Small small. It's about 212 square miles. See? Small. For the sake of comparison, Rhode Island is approximately 2,000 square miles. So, Guam is one tenth the size of the smallest state in our fine land. It's small. Now, the size of Guam is important because of the number of people that will be potentially living there in the near future. And if it had been me debating that information, the only thing that I could possibly see myself being concerned about with that many more people in such a small area would be the potential for over-crowding or the potential for a lack of water and/or food. Those would be my concerns if I were to have any. (In reality, I don't think I give a fat rat's ass what goes on in Guam. Sorry, Guam.) I would not be concerned that the island would, in fact, tip over. Wait. What now?

Correct. According to CBS News (and the rest of the entire Internet at this point), Rep. Johnson is concerned with all of those extra people being on the island to physically cause the island to capsize. He voiced this odd, odd concern when he was questioning Admiral Robert Willard, who heads the US Pacific fleet. It took him a while to get to it, though. He had to noodle his way through the actual size of the island first. Let's read a portion of what he said, shall we?

Rep. Johnson: This is a island that at it's widest level is, what, 12 miles from shore to shore? And at it's smallest level, uh, smallest, uh..location, it's uh, 7 miles, uh, between one shore and the other. Is that correct?

Admiral Willard: I don't have the exact dimensions as to your point. But Guam is a small island.

Rep. Johnson: Very small island. About 24 miles if I recall long. 24 miles long. About 7 miles wide at the least widest place on the island. And about 10, about 12, miles wide, uh, uh, on the widest part of the island. And, um, I don't know how many square miles that is. Do you happen to know?

Admiral Willard: I don't have that figure with me, sir. I can certainly supply it to you if you'd like.

OK, let's just stop right here for a moment. After I had sent a link to this video to a friend of mine (Oh, calm down! Calm down! The video is below! I'm not just going to make you read about something this good! You need to actually see and actually hear this one to get full enjoyment out of it.), she commented on how the guy knew what the length and the width of the island was (even though he couldn't come up with the term "width" or "wide", which would have been sufficient as well), but claimed to not know what the square footage was. He couldn't do the basic math for calculating area and multiply length times width? Huh. Interesting. But not as interesting as what comes up next!

Rep. Johnson: Yeah. My fear is that, uh, the whole island will, uh, become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize. Wait. What now?

He's afraid the island is going to tip over?! For reals?! Um, Congressman? Do you really think that the US Marine folks who would be in charge of all of the relocating would put all of the troops on the same side of the island? Because if you really thought that, wouldn't that be kind of crazy? You know. Almost as crazy as thinking that an island can tip over in the first place?! Good Lord, man. What is wrong with you? (And when you watch the video below, take note of the hand gestures. I really appreciated those. Just in case I was a little unclear on what he was trying to say, he made sure to gesture in a tipping motion just what he meant. It's awesome.)

Now, I wasn't the only one having a hard time with this line of questioning. The Admiral seemed to be working very hard at controlling any sort of laughing outburst.

Admiral Willard trying not to crack up: Uh, we don't anticipate that. Uh, the Guam population is currently about 175,000. And again, with 8,000 Marines and their families, it's an addition of about 25,000 more into the population.

Rep. Johnson taking things in a very different direction: And uh, also, uh, things like the environment, uh, the sensitive areas of the environment. The coral reefs and those things. And I know that lots of people don't like to think about that, but you know, we didn't think about GLOBAL WARMING EITHER. And, um, now we do have to think about it. So, um, I'm concerned from an environmental standpoint as to whether Guam is, uh, uh, the best place to do this relocation, but it's actually the only place, is that correct?

I'm lost. Someone help me out here. The coral reefs? And "those things"? What "things"? By "things", does he mean all of the bodies that will go tumbling into the sea when the island takes a nose dive into the watery abyss? What in the world does global warming have to do with the imbalance of an island?

Admiral Willard, still stifling laughter: Um, this is the BEST place. This is the farthest west US territory that we own. And, you know, this is part of our nation. And in readdressing the forward presence and posture importance to Pacific command, Guam is vital to this decision.

OK, then. Wow. That's a new one. The island might tip over. But wait! There's more! More from Rep. Johnson's camp! Of course, once this thing caught fire on the Innerwebs, Johnson had to explain his remarks somehow, so he issued this statement: "The subtle humor of this obviously metaphorical reference to a ship capsizing illustrated my concern about the impact of the planned military buildup on this small tropical island." Huh?

The humor wasn't subtle. It was overtly hilarious. And I know what a metaphor is and that wasn't one!

At the same CBS News link above, they provide a response to Rep. Johnson's "concerns" by Madeleine Bordallo, who is Guam's delegate in the House. She said, "I know Congressman Hank Johnson, and I'm sure that -- he's been here to Guam -- so I'm sure that it was just a joke." Hmm. Let's say that was the extremely unlikely case. Are you not a bit annoyed by someone joking around in a Congressional hearing? I think I might be. Might. I don't know, maybe I wouldn't. But considering that almost everything that Congress does these days annoys me, I'm guessing I would be.

The article continues with, "Furthermore, Bordallo added, she is not concerned about Congress being ill-informed about the island. Over 50 percent of the Armed Services Committee has been to Guam, she said." Is she not concerned about folks being ill-informed about THE island or about islands IN GENERAL?! Because I, for one, am a bit concerned about folks who think that an island can TIP OVER like it's some sort of boat or something. Those folks concern me a great deal! They concern me because if they think that, I have no choice but to assume that they're morons. And yes, I am concerned by morons in Congress. Thus, this concerns me.

CBS News even went with the headline "Guam Tipping Over Comment No Concern For Guam Officials". So does that mean that they weren't concerned about Guam itself tipping over? GOOD!! They shouldn't be! NO ONE should be!!

We Asked These Protesters....

I love the folks at New Left Media. Did I mention that I love them? I do. I love them. They always seem to be out in force at these major Tea Party gatherings/protest/Band Of Idiots Conventions that are almost inevitable these days whenever there is a major vote in Congress or some major issue brewing about (likely involving Sarah Palin). Apparently New Left Media is just two guys, a one Chase Whiteside and a one Erick Stoll, and a one camera. Their website claims that they "are currently students at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio." I hope that they stay students for a while so that they'll have more time to do stuff like this. Once you graduate and get one of those pesky job things, activities such as theirs tend to disappear. It's unfortunate. Stupid jobs.

Anyway, they've hit upon a formula that, upon first hearing of it, would seem risky. They just show up at some of these larger rallies/powwows and basically ask people "Soooo, whatcha doin'?" Their answers will shock you. (No, they won't. When you realize how many of these people are paste eating mouth breathers, you're not going to be surprised by any of it. You're just going to do what I do and that is to make the wall around your walled-off compound a foot higher and throw a few more gators into the moat. Keep those people away from me.)

Apparently, up on Capitol Hill yesterday, the Tea Party protesters were out in full swing against voting yes on the health care bill (which is so incredibly enormous right now that it can't possibly do any good). And at the same time, the circus was in town. Awesome. Simply awesome. Behold!

To give you a feel for the group as a whole, let's look at some photos, shall we? Here we have a group with some very nice signs being held up. And I will give credit where credit is due here by pointing out that nothing seems to be misspelled. That, in and of itself, lends at least a shred of credibility to the nonsense that you're shouting. But spelling is only going to get you so far. One reads "No more killing of the unborn. Stop Obamacare." Yeah, see, the "killing of the unborn" is going to continue with or without this healthcare dealio. I'm going to throw out a little thing called Roe v. Wade. Perhaps you've heard of it?

What I really like in that photo is this dude here:

He brought a book to read! Just in case that rally didn't have quite enough oomph for him, he wanted to make sure that he wasn't bored. Then there's this next guy, who I'm just going to go ahead and assume is censoring himself. Maybe he had second thoughts about bringing a large placard that read "I WANT MY COUNTRY F**K!" I appreciate the covering up of the F and the U. What? What's that? You think it says "back"? Huh. Maybe. Good point. Whatever. Moving on...

I like the artwork in the one below. (There's nothing I hate more than a hastily scrawled protest sign.) It shows President Barry in a health care bill coffin. He is wearing a tuxedo that seems to indicate that he met his demise right after attending a wedding in 1973.

And speaking of President Barry, it just wouldn't be a protest without at least one chap displaying a sign with a picture of President Barry sporting the Chaplin moustache. I have yet to figure out the connection between Barack Obama and The Little Tramp, but some folks are very adamant that there are similarities. If I figure those out, I'll let you know.

This man is saying that "...government can't run anything effectively." Oh, if they only had a lime green cyclops shirt and a fuzzy blue wizard's cap, that would make things much more effective.

This Maryland Terrapin here made it very clear what he thought about the bill. He said (and I swear to God I'm quoting verbatim), "Three words. Not. Good. For. The. Country." Good Lord, sir. I'll give you that the whole "Three words" tease sounds very dramatic and all. But when you don't actually have only three words, you're really doing yourself more harm than good. And when asked by either Chase or Erick (I don't know which one is which) "What are some of the things in it that you have problems with?" he responded (and I swear to God I'm directly quoting again), "I don't know! I don't know." Am I surprised by that? Not really. I mean, he seems to be having a bit of trouble mastering the whole counting-to-five concept. It's not wonder that he doesn't know what he's doing there.

The chick below I found to be very informative. She seems to know about things in the health care bill that I was completely unaware of! It's a good thing that they caught up with her! When asked if she has other problems with the health care bill, she tells us, "Uh, yeah. Um, that nice little...uh...um...death tax! Where they would send you...where they would rather send you a fifty dollar check for a blue pill, an end of life pill, than, uh, pay for the necessary medical expenses." They what now? They want to send us checks for Viagra? What now? What part of the bill is that in? I missed the Viagra clause.

I love this couple. The matching shirts? Priceless. And check out dude there. He's proudly wearing that G.W. Bush hat atop his head and has a very firm grip on that cigar. Awesome. I might like to live next door to those folks. They seem kooky, but kooky in a good way. I think. (Anytime a couple does the matchy-matchy thing with their wardrobe, it's always a bit troubling for me, but the cigar offsets it a little bit.)

The video of all of this blather is below. It's about nine minutes long. While I enjoyed the view from the front lines, I really could have done without the two paragraphs that they put in the last 30 seconds or so. I get it, I get it. You want the bill to pass.

Dems Proceed on HCR09 + US in Shambles + Blade Closes + Partió Blas Jiménez

I'm glad that the last two holdouts in the Democratic caucus, Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Blanche Lambert Lincoln (D-AR), have decided to vote with the rest of their caucus and allow the debate on the combined health care bill Harry Reid (D-NV) debuted earlier this week to proceed. Recalcitrants like these two, as well as Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) have repeatedly dispelled the illusion of party cohesion that the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Senate Campaign Committee love to sell; while the Senate Democrats have helped to pass some important, mostly small-bore legislation since taking power in 2006, they continue to slog along as if the GOP were still in control, failing again and again to show real leadership on any of the major issues that face the country. Instead, what the public sees is a glacially moving body, full of right-wing ranters and moderate milquetoasts, taking a scattered and often seemingly ineffective approach to everything. Above all, the needs of Congress's corporate masters come first.

Perhaps it has often, if not always, been this way, but the close-but-unfinished health care reform effort, the ongoing wars and related national security issues, and the economic crisis all throw into high relief how ineffective the United States' upper house continues to be. That said, it increasingly looks like the Democrats will pass a health care reform bill that, while not perfect, will be better than earlier indications suggested. Though the single-payer option is going, the final bill probably will have a public insurance plan; it probably will allow people to opt out of terrible current plans instead of being locked into them; it probably will provide adequate subsidies for a sizable portion of working- and lower-middle families; and it will stop insurance companies from some of their worst practices, such as dropping people because of "pre-existing" conditions, jacking up rates when people get sick, and turning the entire process of dealing with the health care system into a free-for-all lottery. The Senate bill, like the House bills, also includes horrendous anti-immigrant and anti-reproductive rights provisions, and it does not adequately address the for-profit nature of the system, which means that US consumers spend anywhere from twice to three times as much per capita per year as our industrialized peers, and it doesn't have enough in it to drive down insurance costs or drug prices, another baleful aspect of the current American healthcare landscape.

As the bill undergoes continual weakening and diminishment, it makes me wonder whether the Democrats, despite getting so far, will be able to pass it, either by majority with or without a single Republican vote, or by reconciliation, thereby taking a page from the GOP, and if they do so and President Obama in the end signs it, whether it will anything more than a mostly hollow victory. Continual public pressure on the Congress seems to be the only way ensure even minimal fidelity to the people's business, so you know what we all must do:

Call/write/fax your Representative
Call/write/fax your Senators

Urge everyone you know to do so to. Now is a very perilous period for the health care reform bill, and anything progressive.

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Things are really grim economically across the US and much of the world; this isn't news. I see and feel it in varying ways, and often have to force myself not to dwell on how it's affecting so many people I know well, as well as those I don't. Then I read an article like the ones below and I start to feel more than a little worried; things are much, much worse than they seem, and yet the people running the government, corporate heads, the mainstream media all seem so blasé, indifferent, or incapable to getting their acts together.

Alternet.org: 15 Signs the Country Is Coming Apart at the Seams

Longer piece: Amped Status: The Critical Unraveling of US Society

Despite all the grim indicators--including the 123 banks that have failed so far this year--believe the country will turn around, but given the approach of those leading the government and many corporate leaders, it's going to be a painful process, and there's no guarantee that we won't be even worse off if the main perpetrators--their enablers remain in power--behind the mess we're in somehow inveigle their way back to full power using false-populism, lies, propaganda, and anything else that works.

One issue I've thought about a lot is the Congress's inability to reform the financial industries or sector. One key issue is the "too-big-too-fail" problem. As I've mentioned before on this blog, my first post-undergrad job was in banking, when commercial and investment banks were forbidden by law from merging or sharing certain key functions, when banks could not operate across state lines, and when certain other regulatory controls dating from the period of the New Deal were still strongly in place. Even with those safeguards, in October 1987, one month after I began my very brief banking career, stock markets across the world witnessed their biggest crashes in decades. This was also during a period when the US dollar was comparatively weak, and the country was struggling with the deficits that had built up during the previous 8 years of massive tax cuts, defense spending binges, rising deregulation, and gross underinvestment in public and private infrastructure. The US had seen two recessions under Reagan, I believe, and would see an even worse one in a few years under HW Bush. And yet a little over a decade later, in the late 1990s, after the economic upswing, financial policymakers led by Robert Rubin and Larry Summers would do everything they could to gut what remained of the New Deal safeguards, working hand-in-glove with people like Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) to repeal the Glass-Steagall Acts of 1932 and 1933, which had maintained one of the last walls prevent a return to 1920s-style laissez-faire capitalism. Many of these policymakers and their adepts are in place today; we have a libertarian Republican as Fed Chair. We have a neoliberal centrist from the Rubin school, who made disastrous bets at his previous job, coordinating economic policy for the administration. We have a lackey for longtime financial megagambler Goldman Sachs as Treasury Secretary. The already big banks are considerably bigger, and several will be handing out more in bonuses--record bonuses--this year than some states' budget deficits. How it all will shake out, I don't know. But as the Alternet piece suggests, things are pretty grave and could get ugly. Very, very ugly. I hope and pray they won't.

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I recently participated in some heavy backchannel lamenting about the collapse of the Washington Blade, one of the nation's premier LGBTQ newspapers which had just celebrated its 40th birthday; its sibling newspaper, The Southern Voice in Atlanta, and of its parent company, Window Media, the owner of several other LGBTQ-focused newspapers and periodicials in the country.

The culprit, from what I can tell, is the current dismal economic environment. Several publications in New York and other cities have also fallen by the wayside over the last year. I agree with the argument that with the ongoing development of the Internet and new online media have come a range of new means for disseminating news, conducting investigations, and fostering advocacy and knowledge production around LGBTQ issues, but I also think we shouldn't underestimate the value and necessity of traditional news organizations, including the much smaller but once vital issues and identity-oriented ones, like the Blade. It and newspapers like it have played and continue to play an important role especially during a period when some certainties about how far the society has shifted on LGBTQ and other issues are being called into question. At her David R. Kessler lecture several weeks ago, Sarah Schulman noted, among her many wise points, that "we are dismantling" many of our longstanding institutions--or we are allowing them to be dismantled--at the very moment that we may need them more than ever. Perhaps these vivid manifestations of ongoing struggles remind us that we aren't yet in the post-everything (post-gay, post-race, etc.) worlds that have been proclaimed for quite some time.

Some articles suggest that the Blade may resume publication under different auspices, perhaps as an employee-owned paper or as a not-for-profit, the latter being a model I'm surprised isn't discussed even more as journalism in general takes hit after hit.

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A friend, translator, scholar and librarian Herbert R., recently sent word of the passing of one of the Dominican Republic's important poets, Blas Jiménez (at left), on November 13. One of the most stalwart expositors and champions of the DR's African heritage--90% of Dominicans have African ancestry, a higher percentage than almost every other country in the Americas except Haiti, Jamaica, and the predominantly Black Caribbean islands--Jiménez had a rich and varied career, as an award-winning journalist; essayist; professor at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra; TV producer and host of Página Abierta, radio producer and host of La Mañana en Antena; as Secretary General of the DR's national commission for the United Nations Organization for Education, Culture and Communication (UNESCO). For over a decade he worked at the International Education Resource Center, where he developed courses on Afro-Dominican and Caribbean culture and literature.

Amidst all of this great work, he was also and perhaps best known as a poet, and especially as a "poeta de negritud." His works include the volumes Aqui... Otro Español (Here...Another Spanish), Caribe Africano en Despertar (African Caribbean Waking Up), Exigencias de un Cimarrón (Exigiences of a Maroon), and El Nativo (The Native). With highly regarded scholars Silvio Torres-Saillant and Ramona Hernández, he co-edited the book Desde la Orilla: hacia una nacionalidad sin desalojos (From the Edge: Towards a Nationality Without Evictions). His death, as this very brief note makes clear, is a major loss for Dominican, Caribbean, and African Diasporic literature and culture.