Brief description of my bout with cancer

Cathy Taylor asked me if I would write a piece about my bout with cancer and the medical system, so I did and the Register printed it on Sunday in the Commentary section. I know some people who read this already know much more tha is in this piece, but I think it's not a bad summary. It elicited quite a few comments from readers and more e-mails to me than my articles normally get. Not surprising, I suppose. Most people tend to like that personal stuff.

Back in the drug law reform groove

I'm still somewhat disappointed that the Register chose not to take an official position on Prop. 19 this time around, and I'm not the only one, but I think I understand Terry Horne's reluctance. This was something of a first for him, being asked to have the newspaper of which he is publisher take a position he knew would be controversial on a hot-button issue. But he has done so much for the register from a business perspective -- diagnosing the problems the Internet would create for newspapers way ahead of most people in the business and devising strategies to keep us profitable (one of the few major newspapers to be so, though at a radically reduced level) -- that I'm quite ready to understand him. It also helps that I like him personally; when I came in to pick up a computer and prepare to return to work he made a point of coming in to say "welcome back." Not every publisher we've had during my tenure would have done that.

I am sorry, however, that the Register didn't run the back-and-forth memos and drafts around prop. 19 the Sunday before the election, as we considered doing. I think people would have been fascinated.

Anyway, I did get the opportunity to blog fairly extensively on various aspects of Prop. 19 and to write some editorials that came right up to the edge of endorsement, so the Register is not entirely out of the business of urging drug-law reform. I also did this piece on the prospects for marijuana legalization in the next few years and 391 people shared it with their Facebook page and friends. I don't know if that's a record, but it's more than most of our Opinion pieces get. Of course the fact that Tony Newman of the Drug Policy Alliance distributed it to the DPA e-mail list probably didn't hurt. At any rate I'm back at the old stand reporting on drug policy reform efforts and making a few of them myself and the Register does nothing but encourage me.

Back to chemo

I visited Dr. Saehgal yesterday, and we decided to start the last round of chemo. It will actually begin today with an appointment at 3:00. Last time we did chemo I had close to zero side effects beyond sometimes nodding off during the day, so I don't expect much in that area this time around. But having the treatment (it's Gemzar administered through an IV drip, I presume like last time with anti-emetic and a steroid added) on Friday will give me the weekend to recover just in case there are side effects. It's extremely important to me to be able to continue to work, both because I enjoy it and for reasons I will explain further if certain developments at the Register continue to develop.

Any hope for Haiti?

When I agreed to write this piece on Haiti for the Register's Sunday Commentary section, I thought I might be able to deliver a marginally upbeat verdict on Haiti's chances for improving its condition post-earthquake. After all, Haiti's criminally corrupt government is largely responsible for Haiti being so impoverished, and the erthquake virtually destroyed the government. Maybe, just maybe, it might be possible to start with a relatively clean slate?

The more people I talked to and the more I read, however, the less optimistic I became. There's a formula (adaptable to local conditions,and customs, of course) for poor nations becoming rich, as this book rather persuasively demonstrates, but it involves protection of private property rights and a welcoming environment for entrepreneurial activity. It turns out that Haiti's government has been ineffectual for years and that what governance Haiti has experienced recently has come from the UN, which doesn't come close to understanding what might work; indeed, it's wedded (not surprisingly) to the kind of top-down model that makes "experts" from international organizations the key players. Haiti's best chance is for the experts to get out of the way (once private property rights are secured), but the chances for such a development approach zero. Too bad. I'd love to be wrong.

Obama's bloated budget

The fascinating thing is that even as Obama unveiled the biggest budget ever (3.8 trillion -- how striking that the T-word has now become commonplace but is still a concept few people can grasp -- one billion minutes ago the Gospel of John was written and a trillion is a thousand times that -- so it becomes meaningless) with the biggest projected deficit ($1.56 trillion) ever, and use the language of fiscal restraint and responsibility. I know, this is supposed to be part of his "I get it" campaign as he tries to convince us that he really-really cares about jobs and the middle class and turning the economy around rather than dabbling with a new open-ended entitlement, but just how dim does he think we are? As this Register editorial points out, it's a bit like the prayer St. Augustine is reputed to have prayed as he was trying to come to terms with what the implications of conversion really are: Lord grant me chastity -- but not just yet. The "freeze is worse than a joke.

Job creation requires capital formation and the confidence to deploy capital in productive or at least promising ways that expand or build a business to the point that one needs more people to help out. The only jobs Obama has "saved or created" so far have been government jobs, which bear a distinctly parasitic relationship to the real economy, and are a deterrent to private job creation. Even aside from the fact that government spending, while it may stimulate a little activity in the short run, is not the key to sustainable economic recovery and growth, the fact that we're in a recession is a lame excuse for not having a plan to control long-term deficits.

Health bill still not a done deal

Events of the past few days have made it seem as if passage of the bulk of some version (no doubt hammered out in a conference committee) of ObamaCare will be passed by early next year at the latest. Joe Lieberman's concerns about a "public option" and expansion of Medicare to certain 55-year-olds has been handled -- they're out of the Senate version.

However, I talked to Mike Cannon at Cato today, and he emphasized that it is still not quite a done deal. News stories have mentioned that Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson still has concerns about abortion. If he gets what he wants abortion activists will believe they have lost -- they went apoplectic over the Stupak amendment in the House, and if there's anything ideologues are more passionate about than health care, it's abortion. In addition, there are a number of hidden potential deal-breakers lurking, and stuff senators haven't heard about yet, in part because the dealing is still going on.

Tomorrow's Register editorial details a good deal of what's wrong with what's left in the bill(s). Short version: an individual mandate essentially gives government control over almost every aspect of health care delivery.

The debt limit about to soar

As this Register editorial notes (I hadn't known this before I researched it), the practice of setting a limit on the national debt began in World War I, when the government took on serious debt with war bonds. I'm sure that if they thought they could do it without consequence the present Congress would prefer to do away with the debt limit altogether. It always gets raised enough to accommodate the latest borrowing binge, but it serves as a reminder of just how profligate the government is being. It was raised seven times during Bush's 8 years, and again when they passed the "stimulus" in January. But Obama's (and Congress's) spending binge requires that it be done again, and this time it's the Democrats who want to make sure it's done as far away from the November election as possible. So they're attaching it to a defense appropriations bill in the hope of spinning any opposition as reluctance to "support the troops," that sacred mantra in America's degraded political discourse.

Anyway, it will soon be around $14 trillion. Hope your grandchildren aren't planning to grow up to be slackers. They're on the hook for their forebears' profligacy.

Obama's sorry speech

I'll know it's almost time to retire when a situation like last night doesn't get the adrenaline flowing and stir the creative juices. Obama gave his speech at 5:00 PST, and the last train leaves at 6:50, so I had to listen to the speech, check my notes, and write this editorial by about 6:20 to have time for Cathy to read it, ask a few questions, change a few things and get it ready for the next day's paper. It went on the Web site right away, and also onto the FreedomPolitics.com site.

It wasn't that hard to write. We have been urging military disengagement in Afghanistan for at least a year, for reasons we think are sound and that haven't changed much. There is no significant al-Qaida presence in Afghanistan, so the main thing we're accomplishing by keeping troops there is fueling the Taliban insurgency and acting as a crutch for the corrupt and ineffectual Karzai regime. Obama's "surge" (greater in percentage terms than Bush's 2007 Iraq surge) is unlikely to achieve much of anything for reasons the editorial explains.

In a later posting on the Register's Orange Punch blog, I played with the idea that this might have been as shrewd a course as Obama could have charted given the bad options facing him and assuming he wasn't going to begin an Afghan pull-out or even a military de-emphasis. He's letting the military throw a Hail Mary, giving it 18 months (ior 12 after the build-up is completed) to do serious damage to the Taliban. Then he'lkl be able to say he gave it his best shot (and maybve even cite some signs of progress) and it's time to begin the pull-out. Don't know if that's his game, but if it is it just might be the least-worst of what was feasible.

Of course there's some gross cynicism involved; he's sending X number of Americans to their deaths -- surely the death toll will rise with more troops and m,ore active engagement, unless the Taliban just plays possum, and those people will have died for nothing.

Obama's dud of a trip

I suspect that if in some alternative universe I were ever elected president I would take as many foreign trips as possible, as quickly as possible, just for the experience. While some of his earlier trips seemed to have objectives, or at least events that could be spun as creating a new tone (e.g., the Cairo speech), Obama's Asia trip seemed more like a get-acquainted or even a tourist excursion. He certainly didn't break any ground; if anything he reinforced longstanding U.S. policy, which is to keep an inordinate number of troops in Japan and South Korea long past their due date. Doug Bandow wrote a piece suggesting some real changes that could be made in Asian policy, starting with withdrawing troops that have little or no function with the Cold War over, and firming up economic relations with China, with which there's little or no reason to be confrontational. I linked to it in a post I did for the Register's Orange Punch blog, and we actually got some fairly thoughtful comments back and forth. Take a look.

ObamaCare not a done deal

Most of the media are treating Senate Finance Committee passage of the Baucus bill as a sure sign that some sort of bill Obama can sign and embrace as real hopeychange will be passed by Congress this year. Naturally the Register had to beg to differ. Our editorial suggested that some of the most divisive and contentious days are yet to come.

The most prominent (or at least numerous) holders of the "Cadillac" health insurance policies Baucus wants to tax (at 40%!), for example, are union workers, though I imagine some fatcats have them as well. Will left-Democrats actually vote against a bill that doesn't include the sacred "public option," or will they grumble and vote for something they think is a half-measure they see as a giveaway to evil insurance companies? How Blue will the Blue Dogs be with an election staring them in the face in a year or less?

Pray for gridlock. Only if the gumbo that emerges from the legislative back kitchen doesn't make it to the table (or is sent back indignantly by customers) will there be a chance for real cost-cutting or even (dare we even imagine?) consumer- and patient-oriented reform.

Freedom Communications files Chapter 11

Freedom Communications, the parent company of the Orange County Register, where I've worked for the last eon or so, has formally filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11, which means reorganization, not liquidation. This stems from all the money borrowed 5 or 6 years ago during the family feud, when certain members of the company-owning Hoiles family asked to put the company up for sale or be bought out because they said they had no real say in running the company. Investment bankers Providence and Blackstone were brought in and given equity to raise the money to buy them out -- and then the Perfect Storm hit and revenues went into the crapper. Now revenues aren't close to being enough to pay the debts and the banks will take ownership.

Just got back from a company meeting with Terry Horne, our publisher. He emphasized that it is a pre-agreed bankruptcy plan (after tough negotiations with the banks) and it should take 120-180 days to work through the formalities, at which point Chase, Union Bank and some bank in Atlanta will own us. Terry thinks the only way the banks get their money back is to wait until there is a history of improved revenue and profitability and a market develops for newspapers and other media companies -- a possibility if the recession turns around. At this point nobody wants to buy newspapers, so they'll just have to ride out the storm with us. At least the Register is still profitable and never did lose money, though the profits are precipitously below what they were in the salad days.

So no substantive changes for at least 6 months, and then probably nothing that will affect me or the libertarian nature of the Register editorial pages. But it's a long way from being fun.

People used to laugh at the old man, R.C. Hoiles, for his refusal to take on any debt, but to grow the company through revenues and buy new properties only when we could pay cash. If his offspring had followed that philosophy the company would not be in this position.

Saving money with Obamacare? I don't think so

Mark Landsbuam, Steve Greenhut and I managed to plow through the entire House Education and Labor Committee version of the health care bill, all 1018 pages of it. Our preliminary thoughts were recorded here in the Register's Sunday Commentary section. Very complex filled with mandates -- and the middle section, my assignment, was almost entirely new coverage or reduced co-payments and the like for Medicare, all of which are likely to make it cost more than it does -- even as everybody knows it will go broke before too long, and the mantra is that they can squeeze $500 billion in sav8ings out of Medicare over 10 years. The insistence by politicians of adding to government -- i.e., taxpayer -- obligations when the econoomy is in the tank, the government is beyond broke, and things are falling apart, is incredible to me. Fiddling while Washington burns?

Our newspaper isn't dead yet

There's no question that the newspaper business has been taking it on the chin for the last couple of years, and the recession sometimes feels like the cherry on top (talk about mixed metaphors -- the brass in a knuckle sandwich?). But the Register, perhaps against some pretty stiff headwinds, is at least still profitable, if much less so than in palmier days. This piece from our publisher Terry Horne, who came to us from Freedom's paper in Mesa, AZ about a year ago and whom I really like, explains some of what we're doing to try to stay afloat. It still feels strange to an old dog to be thinking "Web-first," but we're getting used to it.

President Obama comes to town

Well, tomorrow is shaping up to be an interesting day. It's not every day that the President of the United States (yes, I still would like to see the office and institution diminished in power and celebrity, but it is what it is) comes to an area in which you are the dominant media outlet, and the Register looks to be positioned to make something of it. So far as we know Steve Greenhut and I will be in the room for Obama's town hall in Costa Mesa tomorrow at 4:00 PST (though confirmation of our media credentials hasn't been officially confirmed as of when I left the office tonight). Given that it's supposed to be a "citizen" town hall we still don't know if they'll let the media ask questions, and we also don't know if we'll be able to bring in laptops to blog in real time. But we will be there, prepared to do an editorial for Thursday and columns for Sunday, and some blogging along the way on Orange Punch, the Register's opinion blog. I also don't know how many newsroom people will be in the room. But we'll cover it like a blanket. So please check Orange Punch and the Register's main news page. Of course print will still be second fiddle to TV, but we hope to be able to offer the kind insight and commentary TV simply can't offer.

A fair amount has been made of the supposed boldness of Barack Obama in venturing into Orange County, which has the reputation of being one of the most Republican places on earth. That's much less true than it has been in the past -- I think Obama pulled 48% in November and the demographics have been changing for at least 20 years; we may even be a "majority minority" place now. And judging by people willing to wait overnight last night for tickets, there are a lot of Obama fans in the county.

I'll probably be home later than usual tomorrow night, but should be able to record some thoughts and impressions here in the evening.

Georgia on our . . . tab

President Bush has vowed to send $1 billion in disaster-relief and economic aid to the small country of Georgia, showing once again his tendency to conduct foreign policy by emotion and puffing up his chest (with our money; the deficits are apparently not big enough), even when it is painfully apparent that there is really not much at all that he can do to protect Georgia if Russia is truly determined to dominate it, as it has for most of the time since about 1800. Here's the Register's editorial arguing that it's not our fight, that a smart country picks fights it has a chance of winning instead of money pits. Probably the best we can hope for is is that Russia will be content to neutralize Georgia (that's why it destroyed or immobilized so much of its military equipment). The best way to get there is through quiet diplomacy, not courting confrontation.

Freedom's Dick Wallace retiring

This may seem a bit like inside baseball, but Dick Wallace, part of the family that owns the Register and Freedom Communications, its parent company, us such a good guy that he's worthy of a bit of celebration. He'll turn 70 in January and he's announced his retirement. It may be, however, that he is taking one for the team, freeing up his salary for other expenses. He'll continue to be involved in Freedom School with Tibor Machan, and is likely to be around the corporate office quite a bit as well. What has endeared him to me, however, is his consistent, persistent and sincere support of freedom principles and his influence in making sure the family continues to make supporting liberty a big part of the corporate mission. That and the fact that along with being a hard-headed manager he has a great sense of humor and a great sense of fun.

As is hardly a secret, the newspaper business is still in serious trouble. Terry Horne, the new publisher at the Register, has pretty solid plans for dealing with the situation, but a whole lot -- death of department stores, Craigslist and Monster.com taking away classified advertising, other Internet news sites, young people not buying newspapers -- is beyond our control. We're working on Web-first reporting and commentary. The strategy of zoned editions, to attract local businesses not interested in the full run of the paper, is starting to show results, but we're a long way from being out of the woods.

Quite an earthquake

It's not that I had forgotten yesterday; news media of all kinds wouldn't let one forget. That 5.4 earthquake yesterday, centered in Chino Hills, about 20 miles away, made the Register building rock'n'roll more extensively than anything in recent memory -- maybe 15 years. Our building has rollers way down deep precisely to help it survive an earthquake, which it did nicely -- a few things fell off desks, but nothing broken -- but one result is that the building rolled back and forth for some time after the initial shock, which was a sharp up-and-down jolt. Other places didn't fare so well, with any number of stores having merchandise strewn all over the floor, and some minor damage. But fortunately no injuries or major damage.

Anyway, here's the Register editorial, urging people to put together earthquake/disaster kits to be ready if and when the Big One hits. If you're interested in absurdly comprehensive coverage, here's the Register's news section. Haven't heard the final numbers, but based on traffic during the hour or so after the quake our people who track such things said they expected a million hits on the earthquake section that day. Perhaps it's an example of what a newspaper Web site can do to serve the community and itself also -- perhaps not; we'll know more after more detailed assessment.

Unfortunately, we can't count on a disaster every day to drive traffic, and word is that while Web traffic is up and the zoning strategy, which we've just begun to roll out (two of an eventual dozen or so zones) is bringing in revenue. But overall revenue is still down from last year. I think the Register is at least being proactive in responding to the readership crisis that afflicts the whole industry and is doing some smart things. But there are certainly more rough times ahead.

Obama's Grand Tour

Here's the Register's editorial on Barack Obama's world tour last week. It notes that he ran it well and didn't make any serious gaffes -- the stuff about the Landstuhl hospital is desperate reaching by the McCain campaign -- but there's still a disturbing lack of substance in what he says. If his followers think he is really saying important things, that may be disturbing. But at least he isn't McCain.

Some interesting comments too.

Register trying to survive

Here's an interview with Orange County Register publisher Terry Horne (brought in last September) about how the newspaper will try to survive during this time when all newspapers are struggling. When he came he described the "perfect storm" of increasing importance of the Internet, which no newspaper really understands yet, losing employment classified ads to Monster.com and lots of merchandise classified to Craigslist. We used to get multiple full-page ads a week from several department stores, but they've consolidated and are advertising less. Car dealers still advertise but not as heavily. None of those are coming back.

We'll be zoning to attract local advertisers who couldn't afford the full run, and will roll out several free community tabloids. Plus we're thinking Web-first, lots of blogs, lots of stuff exclusively on the Web. We'll see how it works. We had a small layoff in January and there's a lot of gallows humor. It seems as if Romanesko is announcing layoffs at some newspaper or another almost every day.

Bush's Middle East futility

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on Bush's silly trip to the Middle East. It's almost a cliche by now that an outgoing U.S. president has to take one last stab at settling the Israel-Palestine situation before leaving office. I doubt Bush even comprehends it but the trip neatly highlights how disastrously the Iraq invasion has turned out. It enhanced Iran's status as a regional power and emboldened the Ahmadinejads of this world, so now he has to try to cobble together an anti-Iran coalition of countries who have lost (if they ever had) all confidence in U.S. leadership. Pathetic.