Tim Trott’s Blog

So there was delightfully friendly snowball fight in DC. Why not? Here we are in the midst of the Holiday Season. It snows. It’s the natural thing to do. A snowball hits a red Hummer. A man gets out brandishing a gun. That’s right. A gun. It turns out this fellow is a DC detective.  See the video at:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFC8mNdxV0c

Of course other cops showed up. Then they realized it was one of their own who pulled the gun. He got away. With a police escort.

Shame.

I have been patient. So too, I am afraid, are many people who awaited our new President’s progressive leadership. We’re still waiting.

Health care. During the campaign the President was a proponent of universal health care. Not anymore. The President offered no plan of his own, leaving it to that impotent debating society known also as Congress. The health care bill we’re about to get does nothing to reform health insurance, where the true change is needed.

The economy. Unemployment at 10%? Continued bailouts? Stimulus? Who stimulated what for whom? The same old crew who oversaw the economic collapse is still in charge. Wall Street rebounds while regular folks keep getting laid off. Again, instead of genuine economic reform, all the current leadership seems to be doing is looking to restore the status quo ante.

The war(s). Escalation in Afghanistan? Secret incursions into Pakistan (can you say Cambodia 1970?). And a Nobel Peace Prize?

John Scher, that friendly “video professor” guy on TV who implores you to, “Try my product,” for only the cost of shipping appears to have quite a scheme going. Here’s the deal. When you think you order one of his computer training CD’s for what you think is only the cost of shipping, you get three CDs. You then have 10 days to see if you like the product. What? I only ordered the free training CD. If you haven’t contacted them within that time you get a hefty charge on the credit card. Of course that’s the type of thing that no one clarifies for you. What’s worse is that when you think you are only ordering one CD lesson, you are actually signing up for what marketers call a continuity program. In other words. “Professor” Scher has 36 different programs he’d like you to buy. He’s going to send you one every month. So if you’re not careful, you could be on the hook for some serious credit card charges.

His TV commercials are very misleading. His offer is too. So, as my old Latin teacher used to say, “caveat emptor” (let the buyer beware).  And don’t try his product.

Smarter, more articulate persons than I are writing about the passing of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. They are writing and speaking about the great work he did and the personal demons he battled. So I shall leave that commentary to others. As to his legacy, historians have much to ponder as they begin to put pen to paper. Or finger to keyboard as it were.

There is something Teddy, quoting his brother Jack, said that helped me clarify my own political philosophy. It also helped me clarify my view of the world. They are words to live by. I put those words here today in the hope that they will continue to inspire me, and perhaps others.

“If by ‘Liberal’ they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”

RIP.

Whatever one may think of America’s love-hate relationship with alcoholic beverages, excessive drinking among college age people can be a problem. I see it right here in West Chester. It’s not just the fact of the drinking. It is often what results: DUI, domestic abuse, date rape, burglary, trespassing. Not to mention having to step around the projectile vomit.

Well Penn State University, the 11th member of the Big Ten, has a solution. According to the Associated Press, the Nittany Lions have promulgated new tailgate party rules. So when you head up to State College this fall you’d better be sure to pay close attention. As a public service to our readers, here is the rule in a nutshell:

If you party on the concrete parking lots, you can drink. If you party on the grass parking lots, you cannot drink.

Forewarned is forearmed.

I was sitting watching CNN tonight when I saw a fascinating statistic. In 2001, Afghanistan produced 12% of the world’s poppy crop. The poppy, as we all know, is the lovely flower that produces the key ingredient in heroin, opium. Today, our allies in the “war on terror” produce 93% of the world’s poppy crop. We complain about drugs from Mexico and other places in Latin America, yet our young men and women are dying propping up a government that encourages the production of this deadly plant. Frankly, I’m puzzled. Our politicians have turned drug policy into a political expedient with their get tough on crime slogans and mandatory minimum prison sentences for even nonviolent offenders. Yet at the same time they fund a nation that produces the very poison these politicos decry.

What does this have to do with Chester County? Up until earlier this year our county had a program in place designed to address drug policy on several fronts. Known as Recovery Court, this was a demanding program that combined punishment (including incarceration), very strict supervision and rehabilitation. Recovery Court brought together law enforcement and the health-care community. It was successful in punishing offenders while rehabilitating them and deterring drug use in our county.

So what happened? The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania stopped funding the program. Recovery Court was well regarded by citizens, the district attorney, health-care professionals, even defense lawyers. It was a model of optimum cooperation among various competing constituencies. It is, for now, extinct. We all realize that Harrisburg is not a bottomless well for funding programs like these. Recovery Court was not glamorous. It wasn’t a job creator, or a revenue generator. What it did do was address the drug problem, head-on, from all the necessary perspectives. It helped clients of mine.

What does this have to do with poppy planting in Afghanistan? Our federal government funds an Afghan government that is, effectively, the world’s largest drug dealer. American men and women die in support of that government. Meanwhile, an effective anti-drug program goes under for lack of money. I know there is a difference between federal and state funding. But couldn’t the two just get together once in a while. It just might save some American lives from the darkness of drug addiction.

Tom Ridge, former governor of Pennsylvania, and erstwhile Director of Homeland Security (oh how I hate that name) admits the technicolor threat index was politically motivated.

In a soon to be released book (doesn’t that figure), Ridge states that President Bush’s political operatives wanted the threat index raised just before the 2004 presidential election. Ridge concedes this was based on political opportunism rather than the security of our nation. How’s that for a blinding glimpse of the obvious? Of course, Ridge didn’t quit or go public. That makes this tardy admission irrelevant, immaterial and useless. He, like Colin Powell, knew the Bush administration was playing fast and loose with the truth about national security. And Ridge, like Powell, did nothing to stop it.

So, if you bother to buy this book, or borrow it from the library, remember this: Tom Ridge is no political hero.

The latest media rumblings suggest that the public option, a hallmark of the Obama Health Care Plan, is in trouble. It seems the GOP inspired screaming and yelling, born of ignorance, is scaring our elected representatives into quite possibly walking away from this essential element of the plan.

This would be most unfortunate. Anyone who has taken even a cursory glance at this lengthy piece of legislation knows that it doesn’t involve a federal government takeover of the entire American health care system. There are no death panels. No one is pulling the plug on Grandma or denying care to special needs children. If you have private insurance you can keep it. If you have a preexisting condition, you cannot be barred from getting health care insurance.

Frankly, from my point of view, the bill as written does not go far enough. I would prefer a single-payer system along the lines of the care available in Europe. But that’s me, and I learned to compromise at an early age.

Yet I cannot understand why anyone would oppose the public option. The public option is not mandatory for all. It simply provides a means for those without affordable health care coverage to get it. Have you ever seen the cost of current health care insurance plans for individuals and families where there is no employe contribution? Outrageous. What can possibly be wrong with a public option? Nothing.

However, the dysfunctional Republican party will do anything to defeat a Presidential initiative. So, the facts of the legislation notwithstanding, the fear-and-hate-mongers who lead what is left of the Republican party have frightened otherwise decent, hardworking, honest citizens into thinking that the proposed health care reform will take us on a rollicking ride on the slippery slope to socialism. Just as bad are those Democratic legislators, afraid of losing their cushy jobs at the mid-term elections, who are now backing away from the public option portion of the bill.

Failure to pass meaningful health care reform–with a public option– will emasculate the Obama presidency. The wars rage on (although they are hardly mentioned these days). Big Money, bailed out by Bush, is back on its bonus bonanza, albeit this time with our money. Mortgage foreclosures and unemployment continue to climb. If meaningful health care reform does not pass, then I am not sure we got the change we voted for last November.

A couple of weeks ago I was in New York for my nephew’s wedding. At the reception,  a cousin regaled me with a tale of his encounter with Homeland Security at the Minneapolis airport. The upshot is that the security folks seized my cousin’s toothpaste.

Fast forward to this past weekend in New York City. An airplane and a helicopter collide, killing nine people. While following this story I found out that under 1100 feet in altitude, over the Hudson river, there is no regulatory control. That’s right, that area is a free fly zone. Now this is in New York City, site of the tragedy of 9/11. As Joe Scarborough said on this morning’s edition of Morning Joe on MSNBC, all a terrorist would have to do is take a small plane at a small, local airport, fill the plane with an explosive, stay under 1100 feet, and fly it into Times Square. He would go unnoticed. Voila! A weapon of mass destruction. Another tragedy.

But watch out for that toothpaste.

The Associated Press issued this story just a few hours ago: