The Alligator

It is a complete disgrace that the Roman Catholic Church has had to settle more than one hundred cases involving clergy sex abuse by paying out more than half a billion dollars in Los Angeles. The victims of these heinous crimes deserve more than the money that they will get and the Roman Catholic Church’s dirty little secret is out— at least for the moment.

But imagine if the church had not needed to settle. Imagine, if you will, a world where instead of paying out money because the Roman Catholic Church was complicit in the commission of child abuse, the church could have directed that money to charity. Imagine what $600 million would do for the sick, the poor and the elderly in Los Angeles? Covering up for priests is obviously a higher priority than caring for the most vulnerable in our society. I guess that makes sense since the pedophile priests seem to prey on the most vulnerable in our society.

In Boston Bernard Cardinal Law resigned because of the cover up in 2002. Roger Cardinal Mahony is getting out of trouble for his role in the cover up by paying more than $1.3 million per victim. The settlement effectively stopped the possibility of him having to take the witness stand and admitting his complicity in covering up child abuse.

Pope Benedict XVI’s record on sex abuse cases, including when he was Cardinal Josef Ratzinger -a Cardinal and the Prelate of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF, the successor to the Roman Inquisition)- is “interesting”- to say the least. Unlike on some issues, like violence in the “evil and inhuman” Islam where the pope has become a blunt lightening rod, the pope has remained subtle with regard to his changes in policies, if any, regarding clergy sexual abuse.

Benedict XVI wrote the infamous exhortation that allegations of clergy sexual abuse must be kept secret upon pain of excommunication, though in his defense, first, this was when he was the cardinal in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and this was a logical extension of Pope John Paul II’s extensive history of denial and secrecy, and second, the imposed secrecy only surrounds the Church’s internal investigation, and separate charges may be filed with the police by the victims.

The Catholic bishops of the United States overwhelmingly approved documents in November 2006 at a meeting of US Bishops exhorting Catholics to refrain from using artificial birth control, describing gay sex as immoral, and saying that anyone who disagrees with key church teachings should not take Communion. What about those celebrating the Communion?

“To be a Catholic is a challenge, and to be a Catholic requires a certain choice, and these are the choices that are consistent with the Gospel of Jesus,” the chairman of the bishops’ doctrine committee, Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., said during a press conference at the November 2006 meeting.

Challenging? I would say so! It must be quite a challenge to wonder if the priest consecrating the host at your sacrament molested a child that morning.

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., also speaking at the press conference, said: “As teachers, we have an obligation to teach, not just about the things people agree with, but the difficult things as well. . . . We have a responsibility to try and help our people understand things that, because of the culture being hostile, aren’t easily accessible to them.” Have you ever heard such bilge water polluted with hypocrisy?

What disturbs me the most is the free ride that most Roman Catholics are giving the Church hierarchy. During a television interview I heard a parishioner leaving a church in Los Angeles say that now the victims need to put this experience behind them. And the Boston Globe quoted another good Catholic- “I wish it would go away. Really, I do wish it would go away,” said Claire Hogan, 64, as she emerged from Sunday Mass at 136-year-old Saint Columbkille’s Church in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood.

The hypocrisy and the shame of the Catholic Church makes me sick to my stomach. What shakes my soul are the Catholics who consider being gay and birth control to be mortal sins and who would rather see millions die in Africa rather than provide condoms but just want this “icky priest thing” to go away. I am sure that $600 million will make a lot of it go away. Too bad we can’t say the same thing about taking care of poverty and disease.

Happy Bastille Day! I have to admit to being an ardent Francophile. I love French food, French wine, French philosophy, Paris, the Languedoc, and the French people. So I do not understand why folks dislike the French. France is the land of the American Revolutionary hero Lafayette and was the country to present us with a gift that has become an icon in the United States-The Statue of Liberty.

Let me be clear about my personal experience. The French like American people, they dislike and distrust the American government. Odd that we would resent the French for disliking our government when both the President and the Congress have appallingly low poll numbers among our own citizenry. 

It seems rather bizarre to me that the French can seperate their dislike of our government from their affection for Americans but conservative Americans can’t.  These Americans seem to say to the world- “If you disagree with our government we hate you.”  It seems just a tad juvenile to me…. somewhat like a bully in a schoolyard fight.

After we invaded Iraq and President Bush did not get the support he expected to get from the French, I heard more vitriol from conservatives- or what I call the radical “wrong”- about the French than ever. The French were tarred in the New York Post, among others, as the leaders of the “Axis of Weasel.” National Review’s Jonah Goldberg made “cheese-eating surrender monkeys”—a Groundskeeper Willie line from an episode of The Simpsons—the rallying cry of Francophobes.  It is interesting that after former Secretary of State Colin Powell made President Bush’s case to invade Iraq at the United Nations the French ambassador said that “military intervention in Iraq would be the worst possible solution.” It seems that he was spot on in his assessment!

It seems that the dislike of the French is related to World War II and the assumption that France just rolled over for the Nazis and hasn’t been genuflecting enough to the American government ever since the end of the war.

Let’s address the issue of France surrendering to the Nazis. It seems odd to me that Americans hate the French and like the Germans- after all weren’t the Germans the Nazis? It also seems odd to me that Poland is not accused of being a nation of weaklings. It took the Nazis about the same amount of time to take Poland as it took them to take France. Many Polish were as much if not more supportive of the Nazis as was the Vichy government in France. Both Poland and France had active resistance movements and there were French and Polish heroes for the struggle against the Nazis and the Fascists in Italy. Anti-Semitism was present in both Poland and France but it flourished in Poland making it a country that was complicit in the Holocaust.

Why do we not hate the Polish? Maybe it is because they owed their liberation to the Soviet Union and not the United States so Americans don’t see them as being beholden to us. But I don’t think that’s it. There are more Americans that are within a generation or two from Poland than from France which is why conservative Americans don’t saddle Poland with the same “surrender-monkey” moniker that they give to the French.

Quite frankly it is a little arrogant of the United States to take full credit for the liberation of France. Yes- Dwight D. Eisenhower was the Chief of Allied Forces- but those forces included not just Americans but British and Free French and were facilitated by the French Resistance.

What about the Treaty of Versailles after World War I? President Wilson brokered a peace that would have stabilized the world. Ultimately the United States Congress reneged on some of the key provisions of the Treaty and one might contend that because of this it was easier for Nazi Germany to gain power.

In 1939 the French were still reeling from a war that was mostly fought on their soil – World War I. When I was in the Languedoc a few years ago I was struck that every small village had a World War I memorial with the names of the native sons lost during that conflict. After seeing a few of these memorials it was clear that the toll that World War I had on the French was massive. After the horror of a war conculded only a little less than two decades earlier it is understandable why the French were unable and, in some cases, unwilling to engage in a bloody conflict so soon again.

After the United States reneged on various provisions of the Treaty of Versailles it would be understandable for France to assume that the United States “owed” them, but they didn’t. The French greeted the United States and the other allies as liberators. Didn’t the very conservatives that mock the French say that we were supposed to be greeted as liberators in Iraq? Ironic isn’t it.

No - there are really only three basic reasons that the American Conservatives dislike the French and they are pretty distasteful reasons in my book.

1. France is liberal. The dirty little secret is that this liberal country has a better quality of life for its people than the conservatives have provided in the United States. What an embarrassment to the conservatives in the U S of A!

2.  The French have an adamantly secular government and conservative Americans seem to have an aversion to what Bill O’Reilly disdainfully refers to as “secular progressives”.  Someone needs to tell me what the problem is with the concept of being a secular progressive- I rather like being one!  Besides aren’t we told that the government of Iran is evil- a government that is decidely conservative and religious?

3. The French dislike war.  American conservatives like to have a little swagger to their walk and have that “bring it on” attitude of President George W. Bush. Anyone that doesn’t share that macho spirit must be a wuss!

My final word on this is that conservative Americans need to realize the similarity between the tripartite motto “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and “liberté, égalité, fraternité”. Happy Bastille Day!

A year ago today- July 9, 2006 I began writing pieces for “The Alligator”. I was never quite sure why I started. I think originally it was a way for me to impart some of my views with friends and family but not force it upon them through emails. Writing a blog seemed somewhat less “in your face” since someone who might wish to read something would have to actively go to my blog rather than be confronted with my viewpoint in their in-box. It seemed good manners. 

That might have been the initial impetus, but it is not why I blog now. It is clear to me that my blog is more an internal process for me than it is an external process focused on ”talking” to others. That might sound odd since inherent to blogging is that whatever you write is accessible to everyone in the world with access to the internet and is hardly the same as a hand written diary that is latched, locked and hidden in a personal drawer.

Some of my earlier blog pieces were more snarky editorials than thoughtful policy analysis- but I think that the blog has evolved over the year.  “The Alligator” has turned into an excuse for me to research issues that have piqued my interest. There have been a few primary inspirations that get my mind going and inspire me to find out as much as I can about an issue and a few things I don’t want this blog to be. 

One thing that I don’t want to do is to spout off about things just for the sake of spouting off (admitedly -some of my earlier pieces were in the vein).  But nothing irritates me more than people who hold a political view and cannot tell you why or cannot defend it with anything but propaganda that has been doled out by some group or party (liberal or conservative). There are a couple of my family members who invariably drive me up wall in this regard. I remember having a “discussion” about Hillary Clinton with one of them (he happens to be a Republican). I mentioned to him that I have no idea who I will support for President in 2008 but Hillary Clinton interested me and she was not off my list.  His response was “She’s a disaster!” “Why do you think she is a disaster?” I asked. “She’s a disaster,” he reiterated without any further explanation.

This is the sort of politics I cannot stand. If he had said that he disagreed with her views on the war or health care or he wasn’t happy with her as a New York Senator or he hated the health initiative she developed under President Clinton’s administration- I would have respected that. But to just not like her- because-  well- she is Hillary, just seemed inane and not what I think political discourse should be.

Too often on blogs I see people spouting off about a politician or an issue where they have swallowed someone else’s language- a political party, a talk radio personality or a pundit – but they haven’t come to the conclusion based on their own research into the issue or the politician. I have no patience with this, just like I had no patience with my relative who described Senator Clinton as a “disaster” without ever being able to explain what that meant.

I won’t say that I come to an issue with a blank slate. I usually have a preconceived position on the issue but I want to see if the real facts hold up my position. I try and look for information on issues from unbiased sources and I have an internal agreement with myself that if my research doesn’t hold up my initial position, than the position needs to be re-examined.  Therefore the positions that are taken here are based, I believe, on some sound research and analysis. 

So writing these blog pieces have been an exercise in crafting my own views on policy and politics- giving me the arsenal to back up the positions that I take.  As a political junkie and an unrepentant policy wonk- research and analysis is fun and gives me joy.

I am not writing to hear the sound of my own voice nor so others listen to me drone on about my point of view. Quite frankly I hope I never get to the level of arrogance where I think people should change their view because it is different than mine.  I am writing to codify my thoughts and develop my positions based on more than just being a bloviating windbag.  Ideally if others are interested in the research and my analysis of the facts that I have found along the way- that’s wonderful. But “The Alligator” is about personal learning and growth. My blog has been a way for me to learn, to exercise my brain muscle, and to challenge the “truth” as pontificated by the punditry by teasing out the reality of the rhetoric.  

True sometimes I reflect on an issues such as hate speech or about faith in the political arena that are opinion pieces rather than academic examination of an issue like my piece on immigration. But as I write my opinion pieces I still explore the issue with academic research so the opinion is backed by some concrete historical or scientific facts.  In my piece where I posited that morality and ethics should inform politics and not faith, I went as far as exploring the etymology of the word “faith” and what that has meant in modern history in order to frame the issue cogently rather than to just add some fuel to an already incendiary issue.   I want to see the issue in that fire, not the flames around it.

For my own edification I want to get into the meat of an issue. Sometimes researching one thing will raise questions for me elsewhere.  This excites me.   I will not hold a position just because my party or my friends or my family think it is the right position. I also will not take a position just because it sounds right- I want to know that it IS right based on some facts that I can back it up.  That is really all I wish to accomplish with this blog. If others find my research and analysis useful in their own thinking- whether or not the agree with me- than that is a bonus.  Some of my writing might seem provactive- but it is meant to provoke my own brain.  Some of it can sound emotional- especially about the war and about the President- and it is,  but I try to take that emotion and harness it with some thinking.  Emotion is good in politics as a catalyst not as a finale. 

How I get to writing a piece is an interesting process but probably not any different than most writers of policy opinion pieces. I will be talking to my partner about some conversation I had or an article in the New York Times or one of the other publications I read – “The New Yorker”, “Atlantic Monthly”, “The New Republic” and occasionally my local paper “The San Francisco Chronicle”- will seep into my brain and I will think about it and eventually want to know more.

And quite often friends with differing politics will say something or write something in an email that will get me going. I have a couple of friends that I disagree with a lot about politics, but I respect them both a great deal and I think that they are good, caring and very compassionate people. Every once in a while one of them will say something that just seems incongruous with what “I assume” the position of a caring and good person “should” be. Because I love these two women like sisters they turn my own preconceived notions on their heads.  Invariably this leads me to needing to know more about the issue and why they might hold a position so contrary to my own. Admittedly, my research rarely supports their views 100% but it does often give me insight as to why these caring and compassionate people might hold a view point that is antithetical to mine and which I historicially would have dismissed as reactionary, uncaring and lacking compassion. 

I know that good people can disagree about important issues- but in this highly partisan world, we often forget that.  My two friends have reminded me about this and inspired me to really dive into an issue where I know we disagree. 

Blogging has been an interesting journey for me. It has been an intensely personal journey in a very public setting. My blogging has given me clarity on my own positions while also giving me more respect for views that are counter to my own. Moreover- I have found some of the responses to my blog pieces that have been posted here to be provocative and they  have made me think my positions and opinions even more- always further defining my own my mind.

Over the past year, I have posted tens of thousands of words in 83 articles (including this one) and have had more than 70 comments posted from various readers- some supportive of my views, others that aren’t and some that are quasi-supportive. There have been over 7,100 hits and I think that the article with the most readership has been Hate Speech and Prejudice in America: The Famous and the Media- Hypocrisy, Hype and Nothing Accomplished with well over 500 readers of that specific piece.  I have no real expectations for developiong a regular readership, but I am honored that I have developed some tiny group of folks who regularly read my writing on this site.

Occasionally I have ventured into topics that are not political- such as opera and (shocking to those who know me) World Cup Soccer! A few posts were in my area of expertise of HIV/AIDS issues and a few were personal reflections stemming from my own life. But by in large- issues that have been covered in the news media are the central focus on this blog.

I hope that The Alligator has been able to be provocative for those that visit the site. I know that for me- it has been and continues to be an exercise in developing my own viewpoints and exercising my brain and providing me the sense of grounded decision making regarding my own politics.

Is it cheesy for me to jump on the “Live Earth” bandwagon today by writing a piece about gloabal warming? Hell no. It is critical, it is essential, it is vital, it is life and death for our planet. Did my redundancy get your attention yet?

We know that the earth has become warmer over the last century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), reports that the average surface temperature of the earth has increased during the twentieth century by about 0.6° ± 0.2°C. (The ± 0.2°C means that the increase might be as small as 0.4°C or as great as 0.8°C.)

This may seem like a small shift, but although regional and short-term temperatures do fluctuate over a wide range, global temperatures are generally quite stable. In fact, the difference between today’s average global temperature and the average global temperature during the last Ice Age is only about 5 degrees C. Indeed, it’s warmer today around the world than at any time during the past 1000 years, and the warmest years of the previous century have occurred within the past decade.

We also know that human activities—primarily the burning of fossil fuels—have increased the greenhouse gas content of the earth’s atmosphere significantly over the same period. Carbon dioxide is one of the most important greenhouse gases, which trap heat near the planet’s surface.

The vast majority of climate researchers agree with these overall findings. The scientific disagreements that do still exist primarily concern detailed aspects of the processes that make up these largely accepted general themes.

Climate change is one of the most complex issues that the world will face in this century.  Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have already reached unprecedented levels, causing changes in global temperature and observable impacts throughout the world, and these changes are happening more quickly than expected.  Stabilizing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations will require a fundamental shift in our energy system, but this transition will have other benefits as well, including improved competitiveness, security, air quality, public health, and job creation. This transition will not be easy, but it is crucial to begin now.

In February 2006 The Pew Center on Climate Change issued an “Agenda for Climate Action”. The Pew Center on Global Climate Change was established by the Pew Charitable Trusts to bring a new cooperative approach and critical scientific, economic, and technological expertise to the global climate change debate. We intend to inform this debate through wide-ranging analyses that will add new facts and perspectives in four areas: policy (domestic and international), economics, environment, and solutions.

This Pew Center’s Agenda attempts to articulate a responsible course of action for addressing climate change. It identifies 15 actions that should be started now, including U.S. domestic reductions and engagement in the international negotiation process. While reductions across sectors and sources of emissions is key, the steps listed here are not likely to happen simultaneously, nor without costs. However, these recommendations have been designed to be both cost-effective and comprehensive.

I big caveat here- I am not a scientist and I have never done a lot of research on global climate change outside of news articles and visiting some of the websites on both sides of this debate and of course I saw “An Unconveniant Truth. Thanks to the internet to we all have amazing access to research and information on every side of this issue- although I really don’t think that there are many sides to this issue anymore –on one side you have science and on the other side you have— I don’t know what to call them—- NUTS?

I have done a little investigating and find that the Pew Agenda is probably the most thoughtful and sound report I could find without spending months, if not years, reading every report posted on the web with an agenda for climate change. I have Pew for other research for pieces on this blog and have found their information to be nonpartisan, based in science and most importantly upheld by many other sources.

Here is a synopsis of the Pew Report’s 15 reccomendations in its Agenda for Climate Action.

Invest in science and technology research.

1. Ensure a robust research program through the Climate Change Science Program.

2. Offer long-term, stable funds—in the form of a reverse auction—to GHG-related technology research and development.

Establish mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions and harness market mechanisms for economy-wide reductions

3. Create a mandatory GHG reporting system as a basis for an economy-wide emissions trading program.

4. Implement a large-source, economy-wide cap-and trade program for greenhouse gases.

Stimulate innovation across key economic sectors.

5. Transportation: Convert the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program into strengthened, tradable corporate average emissions standards. Support biofuels, hydrogen, and other low-GHG fuel alternatives.

6. Manufacturing: Provide outreach and incentives to manufacturers for improvements in industrial efficiency and low-GHG technologies, and support the production of low-GHG products.

7. Agriculture: Raise the priority and funding levels for Farm Bill programs and other federal initiatives on carbon sequestration.

Drive the energy system toward greater efficiency, lower-carbon fuels and carbon capture technologies.

8. Coal and Carbon Sequestration: Provide funding for tests of geologic carbon sequestration and for research, development and demonstration (RD&D) projects on separation and capture technologies, in combination with advanced generation coal plants. Establish an appropriate regulatory framework for carbon storage.

9. Natural Gas: Expand natural gas transportation infrastructure and production.

10. Renewables: Significantly “ramp up” renewables for electricity and fuels, including an extension/expansion of the production tax credit, a uniform system for tracking renewable energy credits, and increased emphasis on biomass.

11. Nuclear Power: Provide opportunities for nuclear power to play a continuing role in a future low carbon electricity sector.

12. Efficient Energy Production and Distribution: Support the development and use of combined heat and power installations, distributed generation technologies, and test beds for an upgraded electricity grid.

13. Efficient Energy Usage: Reduce energy consumption through policies that spur efficiency, including appliance/equipment standards, building R&D and codes, and consumer education.

Begin now to adapt to the inevitable consequences of climate change.

14. Develop a national adaptation strategy through the Climate Change Science Program and Climate Change Technology Program, and fund development of early-warning systems for related threats.

Engage in negotiations to strengthen the international climate effort.

15. Review options for a new or modified agreement to ensure fair and timely action by all major emitting countries, and participate in negotiations to establish binding climate commitments consistent with domestic interests.

While these fifteen recommendations are not the only means of achieving a lower carbon future, but taken together, they chart a climate-friendly path for the United States. Putting the Agenda into practice will take political will and policy action. All recommendations require government leadership and private sector commitment and time. Nonetheless, the details of specific recommendations in this Agenda are less critical than the compelling need to get started. Further delay will only make the challenge before us more daunting and costly.

If you want to know what you can do- and to make a commitment and take a pledge to do what you can do personally go to www.liveearth.org  

While some Americans think about flags and fire works on the Fourth of July, others think about what those symbols mean. I have to admit to enjoying the fireworks, the cookouts, the pies and home made ice cream that I fondly associate with this mid-summer holiday, but I also feel that it is important to reflect on what the day actually means. In this blog and elsewhere I have often expressed my distrust of patriotism that comes in the form of jingoist flag waving and bumper stickers.

To me true patriotism should lift up values held in our founding and in revering the Constitution of the United States – the most remarkable device created to govern and to ensure that those who govern do not abuse power; the efforts to erode these checks and balances by the Bush administration notwithstanding.

I fervently believe that Madison created a remarkable document and that the government formed through the articles of the constitution is one of mankind’s most crowning achievements. It deals head on with the fact that power is a corrupting influence and power- unchecked will eventually corrupt.

However there was a tragic flaw written into this remarkable document. There it is right in Article 1, Section 2 – the enumeration clause where the Constitution outlines how members of the House of Representatives will be apportioned to the states.

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

Anyone conversant with American history is aware of this clause- a Civil War was fought because of it, three amendments to the Constitution were ratified to eliminate it and a Civil Rights movement was born to expose the racism that was embedded in it.

Writing slavery into the Constitution is this nation’s tragic flaw. It reduces the nobility of the cause of our founders and compromises much of the values that the new nation held- life, liberty and the pursuit of hapiness.

Much has been written about how not dealing with the slavery issue effected this country- ensuring that racism is hard wired into the American psyche and how it has been a burden for African American advancement through today. These effects cannot be understated nor can they be ignored.  As egregious a legacy of slavery is racism,  I want to address a subtler influence that this clause in the Constitution has had on the country: the ease of compromising values in the name of economic goals.

While I am not naïve enough to think that economic health is not important to a nation and that at its nasance – it can be the difference between a successful birth or a more challenging one, it seems to me that by enshrining a compomise on the precept of liberty itelf in the name of economy was a remarkably cyncial move for a group of men that are usually associated with noble ideas.

The planters in the South relied on slavery for their economy. This again is nothing new. Some from the North- John Adams from Massachusettsin particular were adamantly anti-slavery.  Some of the finest statesmen from Virginia- Jefferson and Washington for example were conflicted about slavery.

By the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, slavery in the United States was a grim reality. In the census of 1790, there were slaves counted in nearly every state, with only Massachusetts and the “districts” of Vermont and Maine, being the only exceptions. In the entire country 3.8 million people were counted, 700,000 of them, or 18 percent, were slaves. In South Carolina, 43 percent of the population was slave. In Maryland 32 percent, and in North Carolina 26 percent. Virginia, with the largest slave population of almost 300,000, had 39 percent of its population made up of slaves.

In the Articles of Confederation, the nation’s first constitution, there is not mention of slavery. The states were represented in Congress by state, with each state picking its own representatives, so population, which became critical in the future House of Representatives, was not relevant. Also, because fugitive slaves, and the abolition movement, were almost unheard of as late as the 1780s, there is no mention of this issue in the Articles. The closest thing to be found is the Fugitive Clause in Article 4, but even that is more geared toward convicts.

There was no great movement in America to abolish slavery in the 1780’s, then the Constitutional Convention met. To be sure, there were opponents of slavery, on a philosophical level, but the abolition movement did not appear until the 1830’s, when the American Anti-Slavery Society was founded with William Lloyd Garrison writing the organization’s nascent statement of principles. Prior to the Convention in 1787, many “Founding Fathers” expressed opinions that condemned slavery.

John Jay, great supporter of the Constitution after its creation and an author of The Federalist wrote in 1786, “It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.”

Oliver Ellsworth, one of the signers of the Constitution wrote, a few months after the Convention adjourned, “All good men wish the entire abolition of slavery, as soon as it can take place with safety to the public, and for the lasting good of the present wretched race of slaves.”

Patrick Henry, the great Virginian patriot, refused to attend the Convention because he “smelt a rat,” was outspoken on the issue, despite his citizenship in a slave state. In 1773, he wrote, “I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery.”

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, which, famously, declares that “all men are created equal,” wrote, “There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him.” Alas, like many Southerners, Jefferson held slaves, as many as 223 at some points in his life. His family sold his slaves after his death, in an effort to relieve the debt he left his estate in.

In a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, George Washington wrote, “[Y]our late purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a view to emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit would diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country; but I despair of seeing it.” Washington and his wife held over 300 slaves. He wrote in his will that he’d wished to free his slaves, but that because of intermarriage between his and Martha’s slaves, he feared the break-up of families should only his slaves be freed. He directed that his slaves be freed upon her death. His will provided for the continued care of all slaves, paid for from his estate.

The great American scientist and publisher Benjamin Franklin held several slaves during his lifetime. He willed one of them be freed upon his death, but Franklin outlived him. In 1789, he said, “Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.”

Other examples of anti-slavery messages abound from the late 1700’s. They illustrate the feelings of some, but those feelings cannot be seen in the product of their works at creating a government. Despite the freedoms demanded in the Declaration and the freedoms reserved in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, slavery was not only tolerated in the Constitution, but it was codified.

The Constitution has often been called a living tribute to the art of compromise. In the slavery question, this can be seen most clearly. The Convention had representatives from every corner of the United States, including, of course, the South, where slavery was most pronounced. Slavery, in fact, was the backbone of the primary industry of the South, and it was accepted as a given that agriculture in the South without slave labor was not possible. Though slaves were not cheap by any measure, they were cheaper than hiring someone to do the same work. The cultivation of rice, cotton, and tobacco required slaves to work the fields from dawn to dusk. If the nation did not guarantee the continuation of slavery to the South, it was questioned whether they would form their own nation.

Compromise- that has become the hallmark of our government ever since the Constitution.  Government is compromise. But how far does that compromise go before the compromise itself is the problem?

While the argument often made about slavery and the Constitution is that the compromise was made was the only way to get the Southern states to buy into the whole idea of a United States at its birth, it is too simplistic.  Slavery was about economics and the new country could ill afford the South’s economy to secede nor to could it afford to wage an all out civil war on the heals of the Revolution with the massive war debt the young nation had from it’s own war of independence. But all of those concerns- pro-slavery and opposed to slavery- realized that without a strong Southern planter economy- it would be incredibly difficult to build a nation.  I cannot imagine that it would have been impossible to build a nation if we had dealt with the slavery issue at the time of the Constitution; I would imagine it would just lengthen the time of its birth pains.   It was not just about putting off  inevitable Civil War to a later date,  it was about the need for a viable economy to get the country going.

In his “Inferno” Dante wrote: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.” I won’t relegate the founders to hell- but I will say that in order to avoid the difficult moral decision posed by slavery they took a document of uncompromising brilliance, conscience, and hope – something better than man- and brought it down to the common, the political and the morally ambiguous.

Thus moral ambiguity and the culture of compromise were woven into our nation’s fabric at its very founding.  Is it al all surprising that these two problems continue to manifest themselves – often times in shockingly disturbing ways- today? Moral ambiguity and compromise dominate our political landscape and, like in the Constitution, they usually center around economics.

While the Constitution as a result of the great cherished Jeffersonian and Madisonian principles, it is  great document that holds a tragic flaw that has led to a national culture of ambiguous morality compromised by economy.  Adam Smith would have been happy with the elevation of economy over morality and Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli would have cheered at the calculated pragmatism.

But our integrity was compromised. We have been paying the price ever since.  Mostly the African Americans have been paying for this national flaw through cultrualized racism. But in actually by letting economics compromise a basic moral value- all Americans lost something precious.  The innocence of our childhood was fleeting and the cynicism of “political pragmatism” was quicly adopted.

Economy won out in 18th century politics- It still does today in the 21st century.   I admire and revere the Constitution for the brillance of the government it created.  But like loving a person you must admit both its flaw as well as its vitures.   In order to admire the basic tenents of the Constitution,  I must also admit its flaw- and its a big one. 

We have had to live with the primacy of economics over morality since our founding.  I just hope that this national birth defect will not ultimately be fatal.

When asked to reflect on her challenging life and remarkable career, in a 2005 Time interview, Beverly Sills used the oft quoted Yiddish quip “Man plans, God laughs,” to summarize some of her own feelings about her tumultuous and amazing life.

If God is laughing it is because he is so pleased with himself for creating such a fine creature as Beverly Sills. I am nearly 50 years old and truly missed most of Ms. Sills’ operatic triumphs as a coloratura. Along with Callas and Sutherland there were no better Bel Canto canaries in the post war revival of Bel Canto.

As a young opera buff in training, I got to see two of my idols in the 1970’s- Beverly Sills in a production of Rossini’s “The Siege of Corinth” at the Met and Leontyne Price in recital at Cornell University. For a budding opera queen these were cherished moments. But by the time I familiarized myself with Ms. Sills- her voice was already declining. But she never declined. She was one tenacious woman- Diva, General Manager of the New York City Opera, Chair of Lincoln Center and Chair of the Metropolitan Opera. WOW- What a career!

Her family issues make me think of Beethoven. Beethoven was a composer who became deaf and couldn’t hear some of his late compositions played by the orchestras he conducted; he could only hear the music in his head. Beverly Sills too was dealt an ironic and profoundly sad blow. Her daughter was deaf and her son profoundly retarded. When I hear recordings of Sills in her prime I cannot help but think how difficult it must be to have such an amazing gift that your children will either never hear or never comprehend. To add to the level of this tragedy was that she and her husband found out about their daughter’s deafness and their son’s disability within a 6 week time frame. I cannot imagine how that sort of thing shakes one’s universe. In that 2005 interview for Time, Ms. Sills said “I have never considered myself a happy woman. How could I, with all that’s happened to me. But I’m a cheerful woman. Work keeps me going.”

Not long ago I heard a recording of what is considered by many to be Sills’ most triumphant role as Cleopatra in Handel’s “Giulio Ceasare” and I was mesmerized; tears rolled down my face in awe of the artistry and beauty.

I was not aware, until I read a lengthy New York Times obituary yesterday how Sills got that role. She had been a handful of artists that came together to keep the New York City Opera afloat and when the role came up- she wanted it and felt that she deserved it. She had political capital and planned on using it. But- she was turned down by Julius Rundel, the New York City Opera General manager who she had been instrumental in convincing the Board of Directors to hire and who had coaxed her back into singing after the tragic news about her children. She wanted that role and told Rundel that if she did not get it that her husband Peter Greenough (a wealthy Boston Brahmin descendant of John Adams) would bankroll a concert at Carnegie Hall where she would sing five arias from the opera and said “Your going to look sick.” Now that is the personification of Diva behavior and thank God she evoked that inner Diva!

It seems fateful that Sills sang that role. The New York City Opera was considered a second tier company and was not on the radar of the international opera circuit. However at the same time Sills played Handel’s Cleopatra at New York City Opera across the brand new Lincoln Center plaza at the Metropolitan Opera Barber’s “Antony and Cleopatra” was being sung to open the new opera house. As fate would have it – critics there for the Met’s opening crossed over to the City Opera and heard a performance that was then feted throughout the world as remarkable. This is one of those amazing true legends of opera history in which opera fans like me revel.

After Sills retired from singing she became a formidable administrator in the arts for the City Opera, Lincoln Center and finally the Met. This again is another one of those opera stories that brings a grin to my face. During the tenure of the Met’s leader- the legendary Rudolf Bing – Sills never sang at the Met. Bing was a snob about the City Opera and about American singers in general. It was not until 3 years after Bing departed that Sills made her very late Met début at the age of 36.  I chuckle when I think that the house where Bing closed her out was the same house that she eventually ran!

Beverly Sills (Bubbles Sliverman) was a child star who appeared on such shows as Major Bowes and was the daughter of a consummate stage mother. I think that this background gave her tenacity and a common touch that allowed her to connect with the general public.

Face it- before Beverly Sills, opera prided itself on its inaccessibility to the general public in this country (not so true in Italy where fights break out in bars over diva allegiance). Sills had fun with opera. Her hamming it up with Carol Burnett, appearing with Kermit on the Muppets and hosting the Tonight Show were gigs that would have made most Divas faint in horror. But not Sills- her background and her being an all-American Diva (all her training was in the USA) touched audiences. She brought opera to people. Beverly Sills single handedly kept the arts afloat during difficult times and brought a new generation to opera- like me.

I often remember the collaboration between Sills and legendary opera conductor Sarah Caldwell. It was hearing about some of Caldwell’s productions that really peaked my interest in opera. Of course it didn’t hurt that I was impressed by women taking on opera in ways they never had before. Sills and Caldwell exerted their influence as business women not just as artists.

I will end by taking the quote that started this tribute and making it my way of remembering Beverly Sills. “The woman sang and God applauded”.

Pardon me boys, but is that the Libby Commuter train on track 49? Sigh - No it’s just the President of the United States switching roles from being the Decider to being the Commuter. Let’s be clear the President had the Constitutional authority to commute Mr. Libby’s sentence, but there is no moral authority in that action.

There is so much hypocrisy associated with this commutation that I can scarcely find a place to begin. But I guess- as Maria von Trapp suggested- it’s best to start at the very beginning.

After Valerie Plame’s name was leaked and an investigation began, Mr. Bush stated unequivocally on September 30,th 2003 “[that] if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of”. I think we all expected ‘being taken care of” mean that offenders would be punished. I don’t think anyone expected that this person would be “taken care of” like a child is taken care of by his mother negotiating with a principal to give a student detention rather than suspension. “Please don’t punish my boy Scooter!”

Bill Kristol and his fellow wrong wing pundits who have a rather casual relationship with history and the facts have pointed out that Mr. Libby was not the leaker but instead it was Richard Armitage who spoke to Robert Novak and therefore any case against Mr. Libby was absurd and moot. I am sure that Mr. Kristol knows that Mr. Libby (I can’t call him Scooter- any person older than 13 should not have the name Scooter) was not convicted for being a leaker but for being someone who stonewalled the investigation into the leak by committing perjury and obstructing justice.

The last time that I checked committing perjury and obstructing justice particularly related to an investigation that is wrapped around the Administration’s lies about the causus belli in Iraq is not a petty matter.

Remember this whole thing started because Ambassador Joe Wilson dared to impugn the President’s statements about “uranium in Africa”. He needed to be punished and that punishment came out in the form of outing Mr. Wilson’s wife Valerie Plame as a CIA covert operative (a very grievous crime). Independent Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was brought in by the Bush Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute anyone associated with this who committed a crime.

Quite simply Mr. Libby committed perjury and obstructed justice so the investigation would be stalled. Mr. Libby’s actions made it impossible for Mr. Fitzgerald to ascertain how far up the administration’s food chain this whole debacle went. Mr. Wilson and others have been very vocal in their assumptions that Mr. Libby was falling on his sword to protect Vice President Cheney. We do not know that for sure, and now we will never know. Maybe Mr. Libby could have removed a cloud of suspicion that surrounds the Vice President by being open and honest if there was nothing to hide- a logical person would assume that Mr. Libby would have been forthright if there was nothing sinister afoot and thus assumptions are made that the Vice President is at the vortex of this whole mess- Darth Vader at the center of the Death Star.

But I digress from my first argument of hypocrisy. The “wrong wing” pundits continue to say that Mr. Libby’s transgressions were not worthy of a conviction let alone a jail sentence. These are the same people who were screaming for President William J. Clinton to be impeached (which he was) and convicted in the Senate (which he was not) for perjury.

I will be the first person to say that President Clinton was a fool and did himself and the Presidency damage by lying under oath. But let’s be honest lying about extramarital infidelity in an investigation that was nothing more than a fishing expedition about White Water and does not even approach to lying about events surrounding a campaign of half truths, exaggerations and probably out right lies to take this country into war.

There is absolutely no comparison and I marvel at the audacity – the chutzpah- that Kristol and others have in defending Mr. Libby and the President’s decision. They say that the investigation was about the leak and Mr. Libby wasn’t the leaker and his case had nothing to do with him being the leaker. Well – Kenneth Starr was investigating White Water and there was nothing there so they went after him for lying about having sex with Monica Lewinsky and they all wanted Clinton’s blood. Isn’t there something odd about this? Am I the only one who sees that there is a double standard? Sure Clinton lied- and he was punished- he cannot practice law and he was impeached- but this was about a private marital issue. Mr. Libby lied and it had to do with National Security.

Is the message conservatives want to send? If you lie about sex you should be drawn and quartered, but if you lie about issues related to an investigation on national security- eh – it’s not so bad.

The second matter of hypocrisy is related to Mr. Bush’s statement that the sentence was too severe. CNN Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was left shaking his head at this statement. For his entire Presidency Mr. Bush has stated that he believed that federal judges should adhere to federal sentencing guidelines and he has clearly stated that judges who go beyond those parameters are wrong. In this case Judge Reggie Walton adhered to the federal sentencing guidelines but the President thought that the sentence was to excessive and intervened. Talk about hypocrisy!

The Bush administration and their pundit pals never cease to amaze me. They believe that they are accountable to no one and they have treated the Constitution like a piece of used Kleenex. If you thought that this country is less safe because of Bush’s dangerous folly in Iraq, their dismantling of the Constitution could do more long term damage than I dare myself to imagine.

Remember Katrina? Remember President Bush’s comment about the then FEMA Director Mike Brown (aka Brownie) doing a bang up job? Well I guess he was doing a bang up job if you consider not giving a damn about African Americans in a disaster as doing a “bang up” job. Well, now the Roberts Court has followed Brownie by dismantling Brown v. Board of Education and turning integration on its head- just like Katrina did.

In his opinion on behalf of himself and his right wing brethren Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito, Chief Justice John Roberts displayed a level of judicial hubris I find astounding when he decided that he decided that he could interpret the words of lawyers who argued successfully for integration in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case- an interpretation that is disputed by the very man who made the argument to the Supreme Court in that seminal case.

In the Chief justices interpretation of Brown, he quoted from the transcript of the 1952 argument in the case. “We have one fundamental contention,” a lawyer for the schoolchildren, Robert L. Carter, had told the court more than a half-century ago. “No state has any authority under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens.” Chief Justice Roberts added yesterday, “There is no ambiguity in that statement.”

According to a New York Times analysis of the decision by Adam Liptak on June 29th, the very lawyer who made that disputed the Chief Justice’s interpretation.   Robert L. Crater- the man who made that statement, now a 90-year-old senior federal judge in Manhattan, disputed the chief justice’s characterization. “All that race was used for at that point in time was to deny equal opportunity to black people,” Judge Carter said of the 1950s. “It’s to stand that argument on its head to use race the way they use is now.” Jack Greenberg, who worked on the Brown case for the plaintiffs and is now a law professor at Columbia, called the chief justice’s interpretation “preposterous.”

“The plaintiffs in Brown were concerned with the marginalization and subjugation of black people,” Professor Greenberg said. “They said you can’t consider race, but that’s how race was being used.” William T. Coleman Jr., another lawyer who worked on Brown, said, “The majority opinion is 100 percent wrong.”

Justice John Paul Stevens, in dissent, said Chief Justice Roberts’s discussion of Brown “rewrites the history of one of this court’s most important decisions.” Justice Stephen G. Breyer, also dissenting, said the opinion “undermines Brown’s promise of integrated primary and secondary education” and “threatens to substitute for present calm a disruptive round of race-related litigation.”

It seemed appalling that Justice Kennedy did not seem to mind chipping away at the essence of Brown v. Board of Education but I guess there should be some solace in the fact that he didn’t join the gang of four and totally eviscerate Brown. Kennedy’s concurring opinion was, as Liptak pointed out, at once idiosyncratic, enigmatic and decisive and was perhaps the least engaged with Brown, saying little more than that the case “should teach us that the problem before us defies” an “easy solution.” Justice Kennedy’s concurrence, which split the court 4-1-4 on a crucial point, sharply limited the role race could play in school assignments but did not forbid school districts from taking account of race entirely.

While Kennedy’s decision does not allow for the total dismantling of integration policies it allowed the court to strike at the heart of the importance of integration.

In the July 1, 2007 New York Times “Week In Review”, Jeffrey Rosen wrote a very thoughtful piece about the impact of Brown on society and what the impact of this new Supreme Court decision would play.

Rosen correctly stated that the world was not changed over night by the Court’s landmark decision in 1954. It took political will- mostly through the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson to change policies. True, but my caveat is that the stage was set by Brown. If not for Brown the police and snarling dogs at schools integrating in the south would not have horrified a nation because these actions would have been in defiance of nothing- let alone federal law. Civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers and others facilitated developing political will but without Brown their struggle would have been much more very different and likely much more difficult.

Supreme Court decisions do not change society overnight but they do act as a catalyst. It is difficult for me to see what the long range impact of this decision will be. At stake here is the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and what that amendment really means. According to Brown, segregation was inherently unequal and therefore in violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution. The Roberts decision essentially says that the purpose of Brown was that society should be colorblind and that it was not meant to protect policies that forced integration.

True Roberts is not defending segregation but the decision means that programs and policies that promote racial integration are not protected by law. My logical progression takes me to thinking that in areas where there is de facto segregation due to the ethnic and economic realities, public school children will be segregated. It is not de jure segregation but de facto segregation.

There seems to be irony in the fact that Chief Justice Roberts interprets the intent of Brown as color blindness. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States is one of the 3 post-Civil War amendments (known as the Reconstruction Amendments), intended to secure rights for former slaves. The Thirteenth Amendment proposed and ratified in 1865 abolished slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868 included the Privileges or Immunities Clause, Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses and the Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, grants voting rights regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”.  Am I the only one who finds irony in the fact that an opinion that interprets an amendment passed speficially to protect black former slaves has as its core argument color blindness?

But more disconcerting is the idea the assumption that race should not be an issue and that color blindness is part of our social fabric. Quite simply our society is not color blind and I doubt that it will be any time in my lifetime or in the lifetimes of the next few generations. It is the dream of many to see a color blind society- but there is nothing that ensures it and the facts certainly do not support our society’s ability to attain it. If it were not for policies such as those that promote integration due to Brown and the political good will that followed our society would not be nearly as “evolved” as it is now— and in my estimation, it ain’t all that evolved.

None of us is color blind and if we fool ourselved into thinking that we will have a color blind society where we are have equal opportunity (which I believe is the natural partnerof equal protection) without programs that push us into a world where there is some degreee of parity for opportuinty we are indeed a deluded people.

Mr. Rosen’s New York Times article he quotes Peter H. Schuck of the Yale Law School who hypothosizes that school districts “will feel the same pressures to reduce racial islolation and they will look for proxies for race.

If there is anything that might be salvaged from the Roberts opinion it is Mr. Schuck’s premise. If there is a proxy that could approximate race it would be one that is based on economics. Race and poverty are inexorably tied in our society but poverty does cut a larger swath than race. While our socieity is not even close to being able to assume “color blindness” as Mr. Roberts and his conservative friends would have us believe (they are either naïve or sinister), it would be interesting if an economic proxy for race was used for purpose of school integration.

Opportunity is a direct result of education and the access to a quality education is essential to realize potential . Our present educational system is dependent upon the economic health of a local school district. Until we find a way to ensure quality and parity to all children in the United States for an equal public school education, we will need to find ways to facilitate integration- racial and economic.

One of the Justices that joined Mr. Roberts in his opinion was Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Thomas seems to have forgotten that he benefited from the programs that were born from Brown. If Justice Thomas believes that society has come to a place where we are color blind- than he is either dimwitted or has no sense of history- his own or our nation’s. I cannot believe in my heart of hearts that Justices Roberts, Thomas, Scalia and Alito believe that color blind policies are possible in a society where an African American candidate for President needs early Secret Service protection. If only it were so!