Nice win, but . . .

I haven't acknowledged here the Bruin football team's nice win over Temple (take that, Bill Cosby!) in the EagleBank Bowl Dec. 29. The defense was mostly solid and the offense finally woke up in the second half. Exciting and worth watching. However, I'm not all that happy that defensive lineman Brian Price (only the Pac 10 defensive player of the year), a huge contributor, has decided to forego his senior year and enter the NFL draft. I guess I can't blame him. He has little or nothing left to prove and he's a likely first-rounder and is almost sure to have a heckuva pro career. And he has a family situation -- two brothers killed by gang violence in South Central and the family stuck there. And he was not the onlydefensive standout. But he's a huge impact player and I wish we had him back for another year.

Well, maybe we have a team after all

The first half of the UCLA-Cal basketball game was a little dispiriting. I know it's a young team with Freshmen who could use some experience and seasoning, while the Cal team was mostly veterans -- they had a third player reach the 1,000 points in a career plateau, which means a lot of games. However, although there have been close games and losses in the past, frankly this veteran fan was not accustomed to seeing UCLA playing from behind with me trying to feel encouraged that they were "hanging around" by staying only 9 points or so behind. Too many turnovers, too many rushed shots or ill-advised shots.

But the second half was another matter entirely. The Bruins kept chipping away and finally pulled ahead. Cal drained one to force overtime. UCLA led through most of it, but Cal scored with 21 seconds left to go up by one. Then after a botched pass Michael Roll got a lucky bounce on the rebound and put it in for the game winner. Nikola Dragovic was hitting threes in the second half (as was Roll), and finally they all played together just well enough to win.

I have expected that Ben Howland would push and prod them into a team eventually, but this one tonight was sweet!

Not too bad, Obama

As this blog post suggests (more in a Register editorial tomorrow), I didn't think President Obama did too badly in his little talk on the Christmas pantybomber today. There are plenty of people who want to use this as a casus belli, urging him to greater militancy and feats of rhetoric and military punishment. But terrorists win when we overreact, Bush-style, and declare them to be Public Enemy Number One, to which we must dedicate all our efforts, compare them to Hitler and the like. The CNN commentators thought he was unusually angry -- at the U.S. security apparatus for missing the signals more than at the boxerbomber, as well he should have been -- but I thought he was more businesslike, which was appropriate.

Of course the new pat-down security, the designated countries and the talk of full-body scan machines are simply window-dressing that do little or nothing to make us safer and a good deal to make flying less convenient and Americans more sheeplike. Obama acknowledged government failure but hardly noticed the absurdity of solving a government failure with more government.

I don't expect him to do the most useful thing if we really want to defang the jihadists, which would be to withdraw the U.S. military from all Muslim countries and stop trying to make them Just Like Us. I don't even expect him to understand that part of the problem is that there are too many overgrown security bureaucracies that can't coordinate because they are too lethargic and topheavy and cautious. He is POTUS, after all, and the inheritor of the Military Industrial Complex.

Bernanke defensive but not all wrong

When I heard on the news Monday that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had given a speech in which he contended that the Fed played little role in the housing bubble that precipitated the financial crisis, I was appalled. I have been influenced by Stanford economist John Taylor's little book making the case that the Fed's departure from the "Taylor rule" on monetary policy was a big factor in the fiasco, flooding the economy with funny money from about 2002 through 2004, and I still think he has a strong case.

I found all the news stories fairly unsatisfactory, so I found a copy of Bernanke's speech (which included more than a dozen pages of charts and graphs) and read and pondered it. I finally decided he has made a case that the Fed's role was less important than is widely believed. It really was more Fannie and Freddie. Bernanke's most telling datum is a reminder that the bubble began expanding in 1999, well before the Fed's post-9/11 expansion, although the expansion accelerated in 2005 -- and Bernanke acknowledged that the Fed probably played a role in that.

I think this Register editorial, in combination with this blog post, summarizes my thoughts fairly accurately.Bernanke made a case, but still unduly downplayed the Fed's role. And his argument that better regulation would better prevent future crises is ludicrous.

Jack Herer in perilous condition

After paying fairly close attention for a while, I had lost track of hemp pioneer and author of "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" Jack Herer's medical condition. According to this story by Bonnie King in Salem-News.com, the news is not especially encouraging.

Jack Herer, recall, had a stroke or heart attack at a hemp festival in Portland, OR and was rushed to the hospital in grave condition. He was released, later admitted again, with bronchitis. With renal failure his survival was touch-and-go, but he made it and was moved to a rehabilitative clinic, where he is now. His medical condition has varied -- sometimes he seems to be making real progress, though he isn't able to speak yet, and sometimes he seems to be regressing. Some would like to see him moved to the UCSF Hospital in San Francisco, where they have more cutting-edge treatments available, and which is closer to his Clear Lake home, but it hasn't happened yet.

More bizarre and perhaps tragic is the tussle over who assumes responsibility for his care. He apparently gave Power of Attorney to his assistant Chuck Jacobs and Joy Graves, who have apparently tussled with his wife, Jeannie (I met Jeannie once when visiting Jack in Van Nuys, but I haven't been in touch since he moved to Northern California and I don't know these other people). The word is that Jack was getting ready to divorce her. She apparently put in a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) under certain conditions order with the hospital. It was then revoked but a new one reinstated. Some doubt whether that reflects Jack's true wishes, but he can't communicate those just now.

There's apparenly also discord over a forthcoming book Jack has been working on tentatively titled "The Most High: Plant Secrets of the Gods and Explorations Revealing the End of the World as You Know It." Apparently Jeannie didn't want the book published but Jack did, as did Chuck and Joy, and it was over the book, not his medical condition, that Jack gave them Power of Attorney. With all the issues, there's something of a war going on over how Jack is to be treated. Here's another version.

Sad. Pray for Jack. I was rather close to him for a while -- he talked me into writing the first article in a major "mainstream" newspaper about hemp back in 1988 -- and he's a good man.

Why the Aughts sucked

It was easier to find things to complain about during the decade just passed. In my piece for the Register wrap-up I focused on 9/11 and America's disastrous response, from the Truly Superfluous Agency TSA to limitation of civil liberties to the ill-conceived Iraq war. Moving right along, there was also the financial crisis, almost entirely -- not quite entirely but almost -- caused by government, which most Americans still blame on "unfettered" capitalism and lack of regulation of the most heavily regulated industry in the country. Trouble is the regulators were pressing banks to write unsound mortgages in the name of affordable housing. Thanks for the help!

And then there's the likely government takeover of health care. This is a strictly ideological cause -- there are problems but no crisis -- but "progressives" have been luisting after socialized medicine since the time of Teddy Roosevelt. In TR's day there was an excuse -- no outright socialist regimes had been established and it sounded good in theory. How anybody can still see anything lovely in socialism and statism after the experience of the 20th century is beyond me. But obviously, lots of people can.

Globalization: a hard sell

For the Register's decade wrap-up, we three writers didn't have much trouble picking out negative trends, but Cathy wanted each of us to find something positive to write about. I picked globalization and free trade -- despised and blamed for all kinds of troubles and maladies -- see the comment that takes it on faith that free trade means jobs shipped overseas when every reasonably competent study shows the opposite, that trade increases the amount of jobs available. But despite the fact that most companies that do international business at all are now multinationals without a real national identity, most Americans still see trade as an "us vs. them" proposition. I don't know if it will ever change. Trade and furriners are just too easy targets to be blamed for troubles mostly caused by our own government.

Countervailing Iranian narratives

Earlier I referenced Abbas Milani's article on myths the Iranian regime promulgates and perhaps still believes in about the history of the "Great Satan," especially the supposedly crucial role the U.S. played in the 1953 that toppled the democratically elected Mossadegh and brought in the Shah. Milani contended that the role of the U.S. was minor. As I noted, former British parliamentarian and my friend Eldon Griffiths agrees.

Here, thanks to a commenter, is a point-by-point rebuttal of Milani's article, c0ontending the U.S. role was key in 1953. I'll need to read them both more carefully side-by-side to have a more considered opinion, but present both for your consideration.

I'm not sure how much that history impacts the current situation. At this point, as persistent as the protesters have been -- more so than most observers expected, I warrant -- the regime still seems to have the upper hand with fairly well calibrated violence. Is the regime nonethtless vulnerable? I think so, but don't have any special insight on timing.

Back at the old stand

I suppose I could have been communing during this time away from home, mostly in Las Vegas visiting son Steve and nephew Tom, but I just didn't. I monitored work e-mail for a couple of days, but didn't have a mouse to go with my laptop so had a hard time copying things so I didn't do much on the computer. I can't say that I missed opining on the Christmas Day terrorist attempt, and I still don't have much to say, except it will no doubt facilitate government increasing the paranoia level and thus grabbing more surveillance power. Sometimes it seems as if the terrorists are working hand-in-glove with the government to keep us all as fearful as possible.

Did get a chance yesterday to spend sopm time with my sidter Nancy, whom I haven't seen face-to-face since she move to Ridgefield, WA. She and Ricjhard have moved on from there to Eureka, of all places, where Richard has an engineering job. But she was in the OC Saturday visiting various friends, including one who is gravely ill, and we got to spend a few hours together catching up.. So glad we did.

Perhaps the worst part of a trip is unpacking the car, which always seems to have much more than it could possibly hold and take forever to get into the house. We still haven't put everything away yet, but are ready for work tomorrow.

Health care ideology wins Pyrhhic victory

It seems likely now that congressional Democrats will eventually pass some kind of bill they can call health care reform, although while Senate passage seems greased, there are still some barriers to House-Senate reconciliation -- different methods of financing, the abortion issue still unresolved, lefties upset there's no public option, burgeoning costs and higher taxes, etc. Getting it this far is a triumph of ideology over reality and perhaps even smart politics. Public opinion polls still show substantial majorities against ObamaCare, and while some of those may be Dem "base" voters upset at it being "watered down," I suspect that's a sliver. Supporting health care deform will send substantial numbers of elected Dems into retirement next year, and they know it.

But those who describe themselves as "liberal" or"progressive" ion America have long coveted nationalized health care for ideological rather than practical reasons, and Obama is much more iedological than advertised or widely recognized yet. They see jamming more government control of health care down our throats as an obviously desirable and historic achievement that will eventually be recognized as beneficent and important.

Just what does it mean to "give back"?

Saw another one of those commercials that get so annoying this time of year about how good it feels to "give back." The term is incoherent. If those who have had some success were to "give back" to those responsible in some measure for their success, they would be giving back to parents, decent teachers, customers, fans, mentors, good bosses, etc. But that is of course not what is meant. They're talking about giving to help those less fortunate or talented. Giving to people in need is commendable, and we always do some of it, but it isn't "giving back" but simply giving, unless you treat the entire community/nation/world as responsible for you having something above and beyond bare necessities to use to help others. But while it might make sense, to urge, as has been done, black pro athletes to "give back" to the communities they grew up in, even that seldom really makes sense. Few successful athletes have been nurtured by entire communities; indeed, many achieved success by being careful not to be shaped by their communities. It might be commendable for them to give to help disadvantaged kids in those communities, but this is still hardly ever really giving back.

Can we retire this tired term?

Christmas is coming

Jen's cousin Frank came today to spend Christmas with us, so I'm finally believing that Christmas is really almost here. Looking forward to it very much this year for some reason. Hope you and yours have the best one yet, and if you can give a thought to the idea that if we lived in the spirit of the Jesus who appears in the Gospels we would have a lot more peace and a lot less demand for coercion and protection from bogus threats. Merry Christmas.

Bruin basketball: not too discouraging

Most of the sportswriters seemed to think that the Bruins' performance against Notre Dame last Saturday showed that this year's UCLA basketball team is in serious trouble. While I've certainly beeen disappointed by their performance so far, I watched the game and I'm not sure I agree. Of course it was disappointing that they couldn't hold their early lead, and they made a lot of mistakes and turnovers and took some ill-considered shots. But while early in the second quarter I had pretty much abandoned a realistic hope they they might win, even though I put my hat on in several different rally configurations (though my ugly old baby-blue corduroy UCLA cap, which I didn't wear, might have done the trick.

Still, they never gave up, and they kept whittling the lead down to single digits (eventually losing by 11). Notre Dame was obviously the better and more experienced team, but the Bruins didn't let them make it a complete blowout. I still think they have the potential to be a decent team this year. The proof will be in the playing and in the W-L stats, of course. But I'm holding onto hope.

I'm thinking tonight's game (not on TV so I didn't see it) helps to make my case. They came back after a sloppy performance for most of the game and beat Colorado State

Iranian regime in more trouble

In Iran the death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, known as perhaps the most erudite of Iran's Islamic scholars and a recent critic of the current regime, has sparked another round of massive protests by regime opponents, followed by another vicious crackdown by the forces of phony but brutal authority. The fact that almost any event can set off anti-regime protests suggests that the regime is at least a bit more vulnerable than it might seem, although the mullahs who rule in the name of religion are clever and pragmatic wielders of power who have so far managed t0 keep the oppositioon under control with fairly carefully calibrated violence.

Next Sunday is Ashura, the emotionally charged last day of Muharram, the commemoration of themmarftyrdom of Muhammad's grandson, whom Shia consider the rightful successor, the main thing that differentiates Shia from Sunni. It will fall 0n the seventh day after Montazeri's death and will not doubt be marked by more protests from Inran's Green M0vement, whose slogans (Montazeri is not dead, the government is dead) have become bolder.

Whether this latest protest is a precursor of eventual regime change is difficult to tell, but some of the conditions that might lead to such cvhange are clearly present. About half of Iran's population was born after the mullah's took over 30 years ago and many view the theocracy as the ancien regime, the old guard clinging to power and suppressing their various aspirations. Iran's population has long been well-educated with a tendency toward cosmopolitanism.

One hopes this article by Abbas Milani, director of Iranian Studies at Stanford and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project, wiull get some play inside Iran. It questions one of the founding myths of the labeling of the U.S. as the Great Satan. Most people believe now that the CIA was the key to the coup that toppled Mohammed Mossadegh from power in 1953. Milaniu argues that the CIA was a late entry in the game and probably had little or nothing to do with the success of the coup, which was already underway -- but Kermit Roosevelt, Teddy's grandson later wrote a self-serving memoir claiming full credit, but its claims are dubious. Interestingly, my friend former British parliamentarian with extensive personal experience in Iran and the region, Sir Eldon Griffiths, in his book, "Turbulent Iran," also raises serious doubts as to whether the U.S. was the key to the coup's success or was even a serious player. If the U.S. didn't engineer the coup, the regime's labelinmg of the U.S. as the Great Satan is suspect by Iranian and Shia lights. Yet another regime vulnerability.

This may be just the beginning. And it's been precipitated internally, not by the U.S.

The inevitability of rationing

Well, it looks as if passing some kind of health bill is closer to reality than a few days ago. Hardly anybody, however, noticed this story about kidney treatment, let alone its implications. There are apparently new post-transplant kidney drugs available and people are lobbying to get Medicare to pay for them. However, the dialysis industry, guardians of a much more costly procedure, aren't sure they want their method of reimbursement change. So the various kinds of kidney treatments will be rationed by politics, with the best lobbyists winning. Not exactly optimal if quality care is the goal.

Roy Disney's death a bittersweet milestone

The NYT obit said that with Roy Disney, Walt's nephew, dead, there is nobody named Disney working at the Disney Co. In the Register's editorial we fudged that a tiny bit to say nobody in a leadership position, which is definitely true. That strikes me as something of a shame. There was a time when the company very much reflected Walt's personality, and while it has a personality now (if a corporate entity can be said to have a personality) I don't think it's Walt's.

Over the years the Register ed board has met with most of the Disney top leadership, but we never met with Roy. While it seems he was fairly easy to underestimate, he turned out to be quite formidable, leading a couple of shareholder revolts that got CEOs booted, and heading the animation division during its rebirth ("Little Mermaid, "Lion King," Aladdin," etc.).

I know Disney can do corny stuff and "Disneyfy" or dumb down somne classice stories. But you know, they've done educational stuff they didn't have to ("Living Desert" et. al.) and have had a nice American middlebrow impulse to want to improve the world with more high-toned stuff -- classical music and all. And Disneyland is still one of the best places ever to spend a day and a night, especially with kinds, but pretty nice without kids as well.

Health care deform stalled but . . .

Well, the public option and Medicare expansion now seem to be off the table, but as I suggested a couple of days ago, getting some kind of bill passed by the senate is still not a done deal. It's hard to imagine the Obama administration, which has plenty riding on being able to sign something, will allow the bill to die completely. Too bad.

As this Register editorial explains, what's left in the bills being considered now is still plenty bad. The major reason is the individual mandate, which Obama claimed to be against during the campaign, but force is the only thing government knows (indeed, the use of force pretty much defines government), so . . . With an individual mandate, however, as the editorial explains:

An individual mandate allows the government to control what kind of insurance you can buy, how much you will pay, how insurers pay doctors, how doctors work, how doctors practice medicine, and ultimately what kind of medical care you receive. It is a giant step toward complete government control over medical care.

Could it fail ignominiously? As time passes the polls turn more and more against it, which may explain some of the trouble in Congress, and the closer Democrats in normally Republican-leaning districts get to November the more reluctant they will be to back Obama on something that is becoming increasingly controversial. Abortion continues to be a sticky issue.

Still if I were a betting man I wouldn't bet against something getting passed.

Bruin basketball righting itself?

Well that was more like it! In the game against New Mexico State the Bruins looked much more like a Ben Howland team, playing pretty good team defense and -- wonder of wonders! -- making open shots when they had them.

I know NM State might not be much of a test, but the Bruins looked like a different team than the one that was blown out by Mississippi State. And they played somewhat competitively against Kansas, now the #1 team in the country. So there's a chance that by the time the real Pac 10 season rolls around, the Bruins will competitive, especially since it's supposed to be a down year for the league. We'll have a better idea after Saturday, when they play Notre Dame at South Bend. It's still a young team full of frosh and sophs, with Michael Roll, who had been a substitute the last couple of years, expected to be the stabilizer. Having James Keefe out for a few weeks with a shoulder separaion also won't help. More mistakes and probably a few more bad games are virtually inevitable, but I have a modicum of hope now.

Banks getting out from under the federal thumb

All 9 of the major banks that took money from the federal government under the initial TARP under Bush and Paulsen -- have now either paid the money back or announced plans to do so over the next couple of months. The media have focused on the issue of CEO pay, which the government has vowed to reduce, as a main reason, but that's far from the only reason the banks (some of which never wanted to take the money but were pressured into it by Paulsen) wanted to get out from under direct federal investment and part-ownership. (It's probably unconstitutional as well, but who pays attento to that old scrap opf paper these days?) There was pesky micromanagement and the attitude on the part of government overseers that they could dictate policy in all kinds of areas.

This makes it all the more absurd -- or grandstanding -- that Obama summoned the heads of major financial intitutions Monday and urged them to get busy lending more money. Since the payback the government has little or no leverage over the banks, and bankers are by and large a fairly arrogant bunch. Besides, lending money, especiallynmortgages, to people who were'nt really qualified (under pressure from govt., of course) was one of the major causes of the financial fiasco. Government never learsn, and almost always has a short-range vision, wanting to fix every problem -- or pretend to have taken steps, however unlikely to work -- right now.

Getting all Christmas-y

I had to see the dentist yesterday -- routine cleaning, nothing unusual or especially painful -- so I had a day off work -- a day when somehow I assiduously avoided paying attention to the news (until my 11 pm fix) or commenting on the great issues of the day. Instead, I put up some Christmas lights on the front of the garage that faces the street. It is fewer than I have put up in some years past, partly because I also installed sensor/controllers on the front two lights (from one of which I pirated electricity for the strings of lights) so they would automatically go on at dusk and off at dawn.

It's not all that much -- though we do have a small artificial Christmas tree all lighted up on the front porch as well, which is new -- but it somehow makes it feel like almost Christmas. If I hadn't done it we wouldn't have been the only house in the neighborhood without lights, but one of the few. Couldn't have that!

We used the LED lights Costco has in stock -- fortunately already on sale -- which use so little electricity you could almost use them all year. Maybe we will put some in the apple tree along the front walk.