No Grand, New Federal Programs

Eugene Robinson liked the President's speech on the Trayvon Martin shooting, but comments,

Most important, Obama laid out the challenge of “helping young African American men feel that they’re a full part of this society and that they’ve got pathways and avenues to succeed.”

This is the crucial, daunting challenge. Millions of at-risk boys and men need education, mentoring, employment. If this won’t come through “some grand, new federal program,” then how? And when?

Putting Friday’s words into action could be Obama’s greatest legacy. I eagerly await his next speech on the unfinished business of race.

The answer is implied by the fact that, decades into asking ourselves "what, how, when"" and experimenting in various fashions to try to end poverty and fully integrate our society, we are still asking, "what, how, when?" Even a "grand, new federal program" isn't an answer unless we know what the program will offer and how it will differ from the programs that came before it.

Our society struggles with the interaction of personal responsibility with issues of physical and mental illness, drug addiction, and apathy. We want people to hold jobs, but don't much care whether that's a realistic prospect for residents of economically depressed areas. We want people to become financially independent, but struggle with admitting that there are many people in our society who, on the best day of their lives, lack the ability to support themselves. We know that when marginal parents raise children, perhaps with one parent absent, or one or both floating in and out of jail or prison, we pay a huge economic price, but for a variety of reasons (including our own sordid history) we not only maintain that procreation is a right, we provide significant subsidies to those families that enable, perhaps encourage, them to have children and to expand their families. If you want to talk about eliminating poverty, you have to tackle some difficult issues head-on, and we as a society do not appear prepared to do that.

Meanwhile, the biggest lesson history has shared with us on the subject of poverty is that the best way to fight poverty and the cultural artifacts of poverty is through economic opportunity. Give people the opportunity to make a decent wage and support a family, and they are likely to do so and to adopt the values of the working class. Take away that opportunity, and you tend to see the same sort of deterioration of family and community, domestically and internationally, without regard to race, color or creed. Yes, you will have to find a way to address the population that is simply incapable of helping itself, but that task is made much easier when you are doing so within the framework of a healthy community.

Nothing Says "Care About My Issues" Like... Not Voting?

Edward Schumacher-Matos heads an editorial on how Hispanic voters feel neglected by the Democrats with the question, "What if the Latino vote stays home?"

If you want to be taken seriously by politicians you had best have a lot of money, or be able to reliably deliver up a significant bloc of voters.

In California, the races between Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina for the Senate and Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman for governor are essentially tied among non-Latino voters, according to a poll by the Los Angeles Times, Latino Decisions and the University of Southern California. Democrats Boxer and Brown, however, were leading overall, and the difference was almost entirely due to Hispanics. They make up 19 percent of California's electorate.

* * *

As Barreto said, "The vote is there for the Democrats, but Latinos aren't going to turn out for the Democrats just because."

About 11.2% of the population of California is over age 65. Older people are reliable voters. They don't complain, "If I don't get what I want in this election, I might stay home next time around. Or maybe even this time." They vote and boy, do they get.

With due respect given to Eugene Robinson's argument that reliable voting blocks can be taken for granted, if you're a big enough bloc to matter the best way to change that is to show up at the polls in consistently high numbers. If you want the Republicans to offer a platform that is more appealing to African American voters, demonstrate that their disinterest will cause them to lose elections.

That's The Best Evidence He Can Find?

Describing how bloggers have embraced conspiracy theories, Eugene Robinson provides only one example to back up his claim:

Almost immediately after Lay's death was reported last Wednesday, bloggers began speculating that he had somehow faked his demise, which "conveniently" came just before his sentencing for his role in what was arguably the most spectacular business fraud in American history.

"I wonder how many doctors you need to bribe to fake your own death," Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip "Dilbert," wrote in his blog. "Is one enough? Or is there some special double-checking that the police do if the guy is heading for prison? I'm sure there's a body, but I wonder if it's his. I have a bad feeling that some pizza delivery guy's last words to his co-workers were 'Hey, I have a delivery to that Enron guy's house! Wish me luck!' "

Scott Adams? Isn't this a bit like citing to The Onion as evidence that American newspapers don't fact-check? (Or is it more like citing to a Eugene Robinson column....) For some reason, Robinson doesn't mention Adams' implication in the same post that Ken Lay may actually have been Burt Lahr.

Scott Adams apparently likes to write about conspiracy theories because they provide easy fodder for what he does - making jokes.

My favorite conspiracy theory is the one that says the world is being run by a handful of ultra-rich capitalists, and that our elected governments are mere puppets. I sure hope it’s true. Otherwise my survival depends on hordes of clueless goobers electing competent leaders. That’s about as likely as a dog pissing the Mona Lisa into a snow bank.

The only way I can get to sleep at night is by imagining a secret cabal of highly competent puppetmasters who are handling the important decisions while our elected politicians debate flag burning and the definition of marriage.

It’s the only explanation for how the governments of the world could be staffed with morons and yet everything still runs okay, sort of. Granted, things aren’t perfect, but when you hear our leaders talk, you have to wonder why our energy policy doesn’t involve burning asbestos on playgrounds. There must be some competent people pulling the strings behind the curtain, adjusting the money supply, twiddling with interest rates, choosing the winners for American Idol, and that sort of thin

I know it's fashionable for editorial columnists to dump on bloggers these days, but c'mon.

Escaping

Today, Eugene Robinson takes us (for some reason) through the divorce proceedings of Terry McMillan. Perhaps I should spend more time reading the Post's gossip columns, or Us Weekly - I wasn't even aware that Ms. McMillan was getting divorced.

The gist of the column seems to be that somebody as savvy, intelligent, and well-educated as Ms. McMillan should have been able to see right through the deceptions of her much-younger husband, and recognized him as one of the "slick, predatory, no-good players" that appear in her novels. (Perhaps it is that depiction that inspires the column - the woman who was too good for the players got played, and this is her comeuppance.)

First of all, I'm thinking that an educated, accomplished, professional woman in her forties, even while joyfully regaining her groove with a Jamaican cabana boy less than half her age, would have to be thinking in the back of her mind that this probably wouldn't turn into forever.

Maybe McMillan made that calculation and decided to bring him home anyway. I hear that men have been known to bring home hot, young, empty-headed things, and she did have the foresight to make him sign that prenup. But if it were all calculated, she wouldn't be so angry. The betrayal isn't just that he's lost interest in her; it's that his new interest is in men.

Here's where I get myself in trouble (if I haven't already): In 10 years with this guy she didn't have a clue? In the bathroom cabinet, no stock of overly metrosexual hair products? No hint when the business he got her to finance turned out to be a dog-grooming salon? Terry McMillan, such a keen observer of love and war between the sexes, and nothing ever showed up on her "gaydar"?

I have a somewhat different reaction.

Terry McMillan spent her childhood in Port Huron, Michigan. I recall reading in Time Magazine, many years ago, about how she spent her years as an early teenager, spending her time volunteering in the public library. How when she got the opportunity to escape her childhood home, she took it - ultimately becoming an author, and becoming a success not because of her family and community, but in spite of it. Her success, or some shadow of it (if nothing else, escaping the family and environment, going to college, and becoming a success) is the type of vision most people reading this blog might have for themselves, had they been born into similar circumstances - the notion that, with their inherent intelligence and academic interests, they too could have escaped.

But some families are reminiscent of the trash monster from Star Wars IV - the moment they sense you might escape their misery, they wrap themselves around your ankles, pull you down as hard as they can, and try to drown you. I am not one to try to psychoanalyze Ms. McMillan, but if I were in her shoes I would be angry at her husband not, as Robinson suggests, because "he lost interest" - or even that his interest was in men. I would imagine finding somebody much younger than me, certainly, but probably also much different from anybody I ever knew before and, after ten years, being angry when he turned out to be yet another anchor - somebody whose attentions and affections now appear to be all about getting money.

In any event, I think Ms. McMillan's achievements are remarkable, and I would rather read an article that applauded her achievements rather than one which... well, I hope wasn't gloating over disappointment in what really should be her personal life.