Gagging the Fox

A friend at the Field Museum in Chicago once attributed the phrase "rotten enough to gag a maggot" to a staff taxidermist presented with a reeking and putrefying elephant hide. I can't confirm or deny it, but it's a useful concept and it came to mind when Fox News Host Brian Kilmeade dared this morning to say that Sarah Palin had gone beyond the snark limit in dismissing President Obama as a "charismatic guy with a teleprompter." Of course saying that while reading from notes written on her palm and bellowing to a snarling crowd seemingly taken right out of some medieval painting of Jesus in torment might just be expected to make even a Foxman gag at her unrestrained roguery. Was his stomach already upset at her dishonest hypocrisy evident in damning Rahm Emanuel and Excusing Rush Limbaugh for using the word "retard" as a noun?

Kilmeade evoked the Fox of the previous administration in saying

"The only thing I was uncomfortable with [was] when she said it is bigger than any guy with charisma and a teleprompter. That guy is still president. I think you got to -- you got to -- you're no longer the candidate. He's not the guy you're running against. I think you got to give that title its due even if you don't respect the policies."

Indeed, although the Fox of today isn't noted for recognizing the similarity or often the identity of Bush Vs. Obama policies, the Fox of the previous administration was fond of criticizing Bush's critics for questioning his wars, questioning his unconstitutional acts and policies, or the state of the economy or anything else for that matter. Remember when the FOX theme of the day was that the economy was robust and "Liberals" were only pretending otherwise? Well we won't get an apology for that one, but it seems at least one Foxer remembers the idea of respecting the President at some basic level, remembers their taunts that disrespecting the president was "hating America."

Can it be that Palin has become an embarrassment to Fox as well as to the human race or is this just the view of one talking head whose gag reflex has been triggered? It will be interesting to watch this develop.

HELA CELLS WHO?

Since February is Black History Month, I wanted to call attention to some of the lesser known figures in American history whose contributions have helped shape our nation or some aspect of our society.

By happy accident I found out about a book being launched this month that addresses some issues concerning the medical and research fields as well as tells a surprising story. More on this in a moment.

First, though, we need to explore the background of HeLa cells and their purpose. HeLa cells are an “immortal” line of cells used in research. They are called immortal due to their ability to divide and grow indefinitely as long as they were kept in culture medium conductive to cell growth.

In 1951 when the original cells were obtained, cancer research was in its infancy and a researcher named Dr.George Gey was having trouble finding suitable cells to work with. All that changed when a doctor a John Hopkins Hospital provided him with a tissue biopsy from a malignant cervical tumor of a rare glandular type that the physician had never seen before.

These cells proved to be faster growing and more prolific than any cell line then or since. HeLa cells have been the mainstay of cancer research as well as providing detailed studies of how cells work. They were also crucial in developing vaccines and treatments for polio, Parkinson’s, HIV and a host of other diseases.

There is a reason they are called HeLa cells; it is in honor of the young black woman from Baltimore, wife and mother of five who unknowingly provided the tissue sample. Her name was Henrietta Lacks and she would die only a few months later at the age of 31 from the very tumor that has indirectly saved the lives of millions.

Henrietta came from a little burg in Virginia called Clover that no longer exists. Neither she nor her family were aware of her valuable contribution until 20+ years after her death. For her family the notion that something of Henrietta lived on was a difficult concept and they struggled to understand the complexity of cell propagation and research.

Seems like there might be an ethical issue here, but today as back then, there is no requirement for medical personnel to get permission to use any discarded material from surgery, diagnosis or therapy. The material is deemed to belong to the physician and the medical facility.

Henrietta might have passed through history and disappeared entirely, remembered erroneously throughout the years as either Helen Lane or Helen Larsen; aliases used by the medical community to mask her true identity. But enter science journalist, Rebecca Skloot who became interested in the back story about HeLa cells. Skloot has written a book called “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” that tells the story not only of the amazing HeLa cells but also of Henrietta then and her family’s journey after her death.

Most of us probably owe her or have a loved one who owes Henrietta their life. And now, through this book,Henrietta herself will be as immortal as her cells.

Henrietta is a part of all of us; may her memory live forever.

Das Unbehagen in der Kultur

I've had enough of American TEA to be able to say with confidence that it has noting to do with any tax burden, real or imagined. What it seems to be is a collection of people searching for some rationalization for angers they don't full understand: anger about the demands of civilization, anger about the need for tolerance, being forced to live in a heterogeneous culture, a changing culture, a culture demanding more understanding and more education and more responsibility than they feel capable of. Not all of them are stupid or ignorant, but without the stupid and ignorant, they'd hardly make enough noise to be heard, even with the complicity and amplification provided by Fox News. They're much like the discontents Freud discussed, like the bomb bearing discontents abroad we tell ourselves hate us for "our freedoms."

Tom Tancredo has latched on to the Tea Party movement after being ousted from office by his constituents, in part because he needs to believe he wasn't rejected by his real constituents, but by an undesirable element who shouldn't be allowed to vote. That this disjointed movement contains many people who believe this is a Protestant white man's country and that others should feel grateful just to be allowed here and should not vote or be otherwise uppity is obvious. Hence when Tancredo told the Tea Party Thursday that President Obama was elected only because

"we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country,"

it fell on grateful ears.

Mr. Obama's educational and intellectual capabilities and achievements are an obvious irritation to the sort of people Tancredo hopes to ingratiate himself with and when Tancredo allows them to feel warmly supported in their belief that the Harvard Scholar is stupid (he's black after all) and his success due to the stupidity of voters, their inhibitions melt away. They can tell themselves that they've been right all along for opposing civil rights for anyone but true (WASP) Americans and that the success of the civil rights movement has meant disaster for America. Not of course, the disaster of insidious economic policy, corruption, contrived and unnecessary wars and upside down tax structure, but the disaster of having a black president.

Ironically, so far only the darkness of Mr. Obama's complexion and the ability to speak clearly make him stand out among the presidents of the last century, but it's progress -- the idea of progress itself that motivates the snarling in the street. The golden era of laissez faire, white man's paradise they long for exists only in that nebulous Disneyland of the Conservative mind, where we didn't have wild, whipsaw boom-bust cycles, 40% poverty levels, massive social injustice, violence and all the rest of the real world long since buried under snowdrifts of revisionist rhetoric. In that world, black men don't vote, black people can't be trusted to vote, because they're stupider than the crackers and red-necks and bigots and reactionaries who carry signs and dream about a world that is friendly to their sociopathology and acknowledges their privilege and entitlement.

Does it say anything important about Tancredo's argument that the election was swayed by a host of illiterates if in the real world, Obama was heavily favored by educated people? Does it say anything about the real agenda of the Tancredo conservatives if he isn't hooted off the stage for wanting to bring back a shameful era? Sure it does, and that's why one should be forced to flunk a civics and literacy examination if not an IQ test in order to join the party.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY - BACK FROM THE BRINK

Click on graph to enlarge.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Cited by Talking Points Memo.

A Larger View of Things

Time to put things in perspective. Literally.

Take a look at this nifty presentation, The Scale of the Universe, that takes us from the infinitesimal (the Planck length -- 0.00000000000000000000000000000000001 m -- we are told that any length shorter than that makes "no physical sense" -- sure...)

Simon Hakansson's rendition of quantum foam somewhere on the level of the Planck length.

to the unimaginably vast (the estimated size of the Universe -- 93,000,000,000 light years -- yeah, wrap your mind around that!)

Photo of the Andromeda Galaxy by Martin Mika taken in our backyard.

and everything in-between:

The Vitruvian Man by Da Vinci, ca. 1487.

Enjoy and marvel.

Crossposted from The Middle of Nowhere.

PRODUCTIVITY UP, WAGES DOWN! BYE, BYE, MISS AMERICAN PIE …

Earlier this week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its fourth quarter report on Productivity and Costs. The result: Continuing productivity gains for the business sector and continuing wage erosion for American workers.

According to the BLS quarterly report, non-farm labor productivity increased at an annual rate of 6.2 percent during the fourth quarter 2009. This gain in productivity reflects increases of 7.2 percent in output and 1.0 percent in hours worked.

Unit labor costs fell 4.4 percent during the same period, the largest decline in unit labor costs since 2002. High unemployment has shrunk the US labor market and created a surge in productivity, as businesses squeeze more output from fewer workers. The implications are not good for an economic recovery any time soon.  Rises in productivity hamper job creation as employers decide that they can run their companies with fewer workers.

These results are grim news for American workers who will work harder, longer hours while taking home less money.   Of course, higher productivity means more profit in the pockets of corporate owners and their CEOs, who serve themselves larger and larger slices of the American pie while workers get less and less. As our country slides deeper and deeper into banana republic status, I wonder when our citizens will finally wake up.

THE GREENSBORO FOUR

It is now February and in honor of Black History Month I thought I’d post on a local event that had a huge impact on civil rights in North Carolina and eventually influenced the direction of the civil rights struggle nationwide. They would come to be known as The Greensboro Four.

Most people are aware of the marches in the South involving Dr King and other well known civil rights leaders of the day, but few outside of North Carolina are aware of the courage and determination of a few local college students to bring equal rights and dignity to the black community.

On Feb 1, 1960, these four young men, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr (now known as Jibreel Khazan) and David Richmond (now deceased), all students at North Carolina A&T aka Aggies, walked into a segregated Woolworths and sat down at the lunch counter and thereby sparked a movement that would spread across the nation as others quietly sat down in nonviolent protest against the inequality of “colored” and “white” public designations.

They were scared but determined and eventually admired by many from both sides of the color line. Soon a local high school class joined them to help fill all the seats at the counter, every day. As one high school student recalled, their teacher made them bring their books with them as they were still responsible for doing their homework.

In late July, 1960 they finally won the right to be served as the manager relented and opened the counter to African-Americans. It would be great if I could now tell you “and then all the citizens of North Carolina realized how unfair and unconstitutional the laws and practices of the day were and so abolished them.”

But change comes slowly and on Nov 3, 1979 there came a clash on Greensboro streets between the KKK and a communist party rally that would end in five deaths. At the time, there were no convictions but many unanswered questions remained.

The struggle has been long and sometimes violent but this week on Feb 1, 2010, 50 years to the day that the Greensboro Four walked into that Woolworths, the International Civil Rights Center & Museum opened on that very site.

Fifteen years in the making, there were times when it looked like the project was dead, only to be revived once again. Many hands, hearts and wallets contributed to the reality of this museum. Because of the surprise snow storm that hit the area before the grand opening on Monday, city crews worked through the weekend to clear all snow from the street and sidewalks.

On Monday, the three surviving students cut the ribbon and took their rightful place in American history.

Rogue Vogue

Was the huge vogue for Going Rogue helped along by having SarahPAC purchase thousands of copies of the best seller? Campaign contributors' money and funds from right-wing publications were used to produce and promote the book by giving out free copies while she got royalty checks.

"Irregardless" as a Sarah fan might say, it did help her legally transmute PAC money into a royalty check and since she walked off the job and isn't running for another position of public trust, the conversion apparently wasn't illegal. For those of us still interested in why she quit the Governorship, perhaps the ability to pocket all that PAC cash and avoid going to jail for it might help us to understand.

Perhaps some will remember that before she donned the robes of roguery, it wasn't a particularly nice way to describe anyone. Certainly not as nice or as honorable as Maverick, the title she was forced to relinquish after threats from the descendants of the eponymous cattleman, but who can doubt that the robes fit?

Meanwhile, back at that rogues' paradise called Facebook, Sarah has been channeling the wolves she used to strafe from various aircraft and attempting to sink her teeth into the Obama administration by going after Rahm Emanuel for using the word "retarded" in an internal strategy session -- as though it had been directed at Down's syndrome children and the Special Olympics and not at the stupidity of a co-worker. No, Sarah, retarded is not like the "N word" and although you'd love it to be, and although Mr. Emanuel has already been put in the position of having to apologize to the Special Olympics organization, you haven't said much about the "witches" you've praised your beloved pastor for persecuting. There are no Witches, only innocent people who don't share your religion -- there are people whose cognitive skills fall behind the norm no matter what euphemism you prefer. There are people who are stupid and there are people who are inexcusably and viciously retarding the progress of our country toward Liberty and Justice for all.

Same old, same old

Seems "the most liberal Senator in all of American History" is even more of a hide bound conservative than I imagined, if it's true that he intends to beef up the misbegotten War on Drugs rather than admit that the 73 year old enterprise has succeeded on doing to drug use, to organized crime and public safety what the Volstead act did when it made private alcohol sales and consumption a crime.

President Barack Obama's new drug czar, former Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske told us just 8 months ago that the idiocy was over, that "We're not at war with people in this country" but action speaks louder than words.

The new budget for fiscal 2011's war on drugs is increased and the emphasis is still on "enforcement" which means more spitting on constitutional rights, more interference with private matters, more clogging up of courts, more disrupted families, more crime, more prisons training more harmless people to be criminals and more ruining the lives of innocent people. In fact it's more of George W. Bush and it's more of what has only made things worse and worse. Even so, that 15.5 billion dollar budget vastly understates the cost to the nation as much as that of our former administration because it ignores the huge cost of incarceration and due process.

From "the war on drugs is over" to

"In a time of tight budgets and fiscal restraint, these new investments are targeted at reducing Americans' drug use and the substantial costs associated with the health and social consequences of drug abuse"

took us only 8 months and a return to doing what always fails; a return to pseudomoralistic prohibitions, fraudulent medical data and a continuation of being the biggest jailer in the world makes liars out of the idiots shouting "Liberal" as much as it makes liars of our administration.

ACADEMIC POPULARITY CONTESTS: PART TWO

The Tilburg University Survey of Top Schools in Economics has one noteworthy entry (or aberration depending on viewpoint): The University of Chicago, home of Milton Friedman and the Disaster School of Supply-Side Economics … ranked #2 worldwide:

Click on image to enlarge.

The University of Chicago is the birthplace of tax cuts for the wealthy, an economy theory that results in boom and bust cycles, and the stuff that makes Banana Republics possible. To illustrate my point, this graph shows the relationship between marginal income tax rates and the income gap between rich and poor for the past 90 years (source):

Click on image to enlarge.

As the graph illustrates, the greater the gap between rich and poor, the more unstable economies will become. In 1928, the year before Black Monday triggered the Great Depression, the top 0.01 percent (the elite) averaged 892 times more income than the bottom 90 percent. From the post-war period until the Reagan era, higher marginal income tax rates for the rich meant more money in the pockets of the middle class … resulting in real economic growth. By 2006, however, middle class wages had shrunk, inflationary rises in cost of living had consumed all marginal income, and middle class savings rates turned negative. The top 0.01 percent averaged 976 times more income than the bottom 90 percent, thus reenacting the same conditions that triggered the Great Depression. Here is another view of the same data (source):

Click on image to enlarge.

Arthur Laffer is a "supply-side" economist who served on Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board from 1981 to 1989. Laffer is best known for the Laffer Curve, an illustration of tax elasticity, which claims that a decrease in tax rates will result in an increase in tax revenues. What began as a thought experiment on a paper napkin over lunch has turned into a mantra and marching orders for Banana Republicans ever since.

Click on image to enlarge.

According to theory, tax revenues would be zero if tax rates were either 0% or 100%. If the tax rate is zero, there is no tax revenue because there are no taxes. If the tax rate is 100%, there are no taxes because citizens would not want to work.  Assuming everything is taken from them, citizens would resort to barter or an off-the-books economy. As taxes increase from zero percent, revenues will rise but once taxes get too high, revenues will fall because there is a disincentive to work.

One problem with Laffer’s thought experiment is that the equilibrium point (the lowest possible tax that yields the highest possible revenue) can never be clearly established. There are always concerns about the costs of wars, federal budget deficits, and the servicing of public debt. Since the equilibrium point varies with public opinion, what matters more is the range of marginal taxation, not a fixed point to be taken literally.

In fact, historical data contradicts Laffer’s thought experiment. In the 8 years following Reagan’s tax cuts, personal income tax revenues rose from $353 million in 1982 to $516 million by 1989, an increase of 46%. During the same time interval, the federal deficit more than doubled.

In contrast, Clinton’s tax increases resulted in a personal income tax revenue increase from $586 million in 1993 to $1.137 billion by 2000, an increase of 94%. The Reagan era produced gigantic budget deficits. In contrast, the Clinton years yielded a federal budget surplus during a period of unprecedented economic growth (source).

Bottom line: The middle class is the economic engine that drives the economy. Marginal income tax policies that favor the wealthy and punish the middle class set the stage for disastrous consequences, as we have recently experienced. Thus, the Republican mantra of lower taxes, lower taxes, lower taxes, do not always achieve a desired economic outcome. As we enter into yet another public debate on tax policy and federal deficits, it is useful to keep past economic policy failures in mind.

For another perspective, please refer to my post of February 10, 2009: A Ghost of Depression Past.

H/T to Brad Delong for posting the Tilburg Ranking.