California Free Press

I Started Out as a Child

I was born July 19, 1941 in Franklin, NJ, a pre-war baby by six months. Franklin is home to some of the richest zinc ore in the world, but it is pretty much mined out by now. There is also the Franklin Mineral Museum where they have local minerals such as Franklinite and Hardystonite not found anywhere else in the world. Hardyston is the township Franklin is located in. My parents were both teachers at Franklin High School; that's where they met. One day my Dad asked a student to deliver a note to Miss Clark which asked her if she wanted to have turkey with him and his parents. If it weren't for Franklin HS and an old dead turkey, I wouldn't be here today.

Shortly after I was born, we moved to Highland Park, NJ where my Dad taught at Highland Park HS. Many of his students left directly out of high school for World War II. My Dad was voted most popular teacher at Highland Park HS and he taught Problems of American Democracy. I guess at that time the main problem was World War II.

I remember one time when I was two my parents were having an outdoor party. I remember being bored and, anxious to see what was outside the confines of my little domain, took off down the sidewalk. I guess nobody noticed I was missing for a long time because I got pretty far away. I remember crossing city streets. Finally, my mother drove up in a police car and took me back into custody. I guess she was so relieved that she couldn't even punish me. My restless nature and quest for adventure were coming out at age two. Running away from home at age two is my first memory.

I think we lived in a duplex and next door lived my first girlfriend, Betty Jane Hughes. Our parents were friends. I remember visiting Betty Jane and her family when I was 10 or 11 when they lived in Phoenixville, PA. We used to walk to a soda fountain and get cherry sundaes. Our parents kept in touch for many years.

My Dad was an amateur photographer. He took all the pictures of me when I was little. He even did his own darkroom work. Here is a picture of me in a soldier suit that was given to me by one of Dad's students. It looks like I have a gun and everything ready to defend the Stars and Stripes. I don't remember much about Highland Park except running away from home, Betty Jane Hughes and the fact that it was close to New Brunswick.

Below is a picture of me and Betty Jane.

When I was two we moved from Highland Park to Wantage Township, NJ where my Dad took his first job as principal of Wantage Consolidated School. We rented a house on a dirt road in an area known as Possum Glen. Dirt roads weren't uncommon in those days. I remember Possum Glen was pretty boring as there were no kids to play with so one day I ran away from home again. This wasn't so scary since at least there were no city streets to cross. I ended up at a neighbor's house eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches until my mother came and got me.

One winter we had such a severe snow storm that the road was impassable for a long time. My Dad had to park his car in a near-by field, and we had to walk to the house. I had a little swing my Dad made for me hanging from a tree at the edge of the yard. One day I was swinging and then got the impulse to get out of the swing and run and jump up on a soda box that was sitting by the house. When I got up there and looked down, there was a snake lying there perfectly still and staring up at me. I was afraid to get off the box so I yelled for my Dad and he came and killed the snake with a shovel. I couldn't figure why that snake would just lie there like he was guarding me and would bite me if I came down off the box.

I remember once at Possum Glen my parents had a party and they were playing softball out in the yard. I was just getting over some childhood disease like the chicken pox or something and I wanted to go outside and be with all the people. My Mom, however, wouldn't let me go out. She thought I might still be contagious and give whatever I had to one of the guests. I threw a tantrum. I felt I was well and wanted to go out and be with the people the worst way. My Mom was adamant. Maybe she thought I would run away again. I was totally distraught! My Mom didn't have too much sympathy for me, but my Grandma Lawrence did. She comforted me. I remember that. She knew my feelings had been hurt. My Grandma played a big role in my life. She was much more the nurturing, comforting type than my Mom, much as I loved her, and as my life went on, for various reasons, I found myself being emotionally much closer to my Grandma than my Mom. She played a big role in caring for me!

I was close to my cousin Peggy who lived in Hainesville where my mother grew up and was a few months older than me. Peggy was a great person who, unfortunately, died from hepatitus when she was 16. I lost a true friend. Peggy and I used to play together a lot. We went blackberrying together and our Grandma Clark used to read us stories together when we spent time with her in Newton, NJ.

When I was four we moved from Possum Glen to Lewisburg Road where my parents lived the rest of their lives. My sister, Jeanne, was born either shortly before or shortly after we moved. Now commenced several family tragedies starting with my Mom getting TB. I was 4 and my sister was only 9 months when my Mom had to go to a sanitarium. She would be gone for almost 4 years during which time my Dad was essentially a single parent, and my Grandma Lawrence took over many of the aspects of raising us. I remember the scene when my Mom left. She was very stoic and told me to be strong. She didn't like emotional scenes ever. My Grandpa Clark came to get her and drive her to Glen Gardner where the sanitarium was, and I remember standing in the living room saying our goodbyes when suddenly I grabbed her and didn't want to let her go. It was too much to bear the thought of losing my Mom.

I remember having to worry about whether or not we were going to win the Second World War, and now I had to worry about my Mom and wonder if she would ever be back. It was not a foregone conclusion in those days. Many died of TB.

The next thing that happened is that my sister didn't develop normally. She didn't learn to walk. She didn't learn to talk. I remember their trying to teach her to walk on a thing they rigged up with pipes she could hold on over in Vernon at my grandparents house. It was no use. She looked normal, but she would never learn to talk and she walked haltingly for only a few years. She had had massive brain damage at birth due, undoubtedly, to lack of oxygen. I remember hearing the story about how the doctor wasnt' there, a Dr. Scott, I believe, the same doctor who had delivered me at Franklin Hospital. The nurses kept telling my Mom to hold the baby back till the doctor got there. My Mom dutifully did as she was told with disastrous results. As a kid I remember babysitting for my sister a lot. Maybe that is where my nurturing side came from. If so, it served me well when later I found myself in the role of a single parent raising my daughter from the age of 3. I never had any of the normal sibling rivalry that most famillies with normal children experience. Instead, I was thrust into the role of caregiver.

There was a lot of sickness in our family during that period. Everyone got sick from the water which came from a cistern. Some dead animal had fallen in. Then my Dad had a well drilled. My Dad came down with rheumatic fever and almost died. It weakened his heart, and later in life he had two heart attacks, the last one fatal. It was a difficult period for my parents and me. I remember seeing my Mom only once in the 4 years she was at "the san." They were afraid of her infecting me. That time I saw her she was up on a balcony, and I was down on the lawn. It was hard; it wasn't emotional, it was sort of cold. My Mom didn't like emotional displays. I  wanted my Mom to love me. She couldn't do that in her condition. I think she gave me a wallet or something.

When I was 4, I spent the year sitting in the back of a kindergarten class. I couldn't participate. It was the only way my Dad had of babysitting me. I wasn't old enough to be in that class. It was frustrating. The next year I got to start kindergarten again with my own class. Summers we spent with Grandma and Grandpa Lawrence. Dad hired a few housekeepers from time to time whom I detested.

Finally, in second grade my Mom came home, and we got to try to have a normal family again. Shortly before, they had invented streptomycin and that was all that saved my Mom's life. It cost my Dad $180. a month for my Mom's streptomycin shots, and that was at a time when he only made $225. Dad had to declare medical indigency although he never told me about that till years later. During that era he bonded with a lot of the local townspeople who cut him a lot of slack at a time when he needed a few friends. He dedicated his life to serving those people who had been so good to him in his time of need.

The Immigration Bill: It's About the Borders, Stupid!

The current immigation bill that President Bush is trying to revive misses the point. It's not about  legitimizing the millions of illegals that are already here. They've already done that by having kids (American citizens) on our soil. They're de facto legitimized already. May it R.I.P. without being revived. The emphasis should be not on what to do with the illegals that are already here but how to prevent even more from coming! Do they think legitimizing the ones that are here in and of itself is going to prevent more from coming? That's fallacious logic. Instead of beefing up our borders, we need the equivalent  of an Apollo plan, a Marshall plan, to beef up our borders.  We  need the equivalent of a war in Iraq to beef up our borders. Why not redeploy the finances of the war  in Iraq to our borders? Instead of spending billions of dollars building permanent bases and an embassy (really an Occupation HQ) bigger than Vatican City in Iraq, why not spend the money building bases here...on our borders! Why not listen to Lou Dobbs? He's right on the money on this issue and, by the way, a resident of  Wantage Township, NJ, where  I grew up.

After 9/11 any sensible person would have transformed our military assets in such a way as to defend our borders, sea ports and airports. And I don't mean just the border with Mexico. I'm talking about the border with Canada and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as well. All avenues whether by air, land or sea leading into this country must be monitored. Instead they left the borders wide open or allocated a financial pittance to building physical walls. Instead the Bush Administration started a pre-emptive war for oil against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and was one of the few secular and under control countries in the Middle East (not to mention a former ally whom we had supplied weapons to in the war with Iran). They hustled the bin Laden relatives onto a plane and out of the country without questioning them. George H. W. Bush watched the planes fly into the twin towers on TV  while attending a meeting of  the Carlyle Group with bin Laden's brother! Then they stir up the hornet's nest in the Middle East while leaving the Homeland essentially unprotected. Are they hoping for another attack so they can rally the countrymen around them in support of their military and oil adventurism abroad? Let the  fearmongering begin because that's the only thing Republicans are really good at! They want the equivalent of another Cold War so they and their cronies can profit off the military-industrial complex. And Americans really do have something to fear since Bush and his team have practically invited another attack by not beefing up our borders, by not implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

So what needs to be done about the borders? For starters on the order of a hundred billion dollars needs to be allocated for border protection. The project should have a time scale of 3 years ... not 4 to 8 years. This hundred billlion dollars, by the way, is  less than the current appropriation bill funding the war in Iraq for 3 months! In addition to a physical fence there needs to be an electronic fence using satellite and drone surveillance. There needs to be military installations or outposts every 100 miles or so with quick response teams that can get to any breach within minutes by plane, helicopter, land or sea vehicles. Coast Guard installations along the coast need to be numerous with 24 hour surveillance and faciltiies capable of intercepting the fastest boat approaching our shores. The Air Force should be patrolling the borders (not training in the desert!) in order to intercept any unauthorized approaching air traffic. Carrier groups should be positioned in the Gulf of Mexico, off of San Diego, Miami and New York City instead of off of Iran. The military should be used to defend the US (novel idea!) instead of engaging in military adventurism abroad.

The immigration bill gives lip service to defending the borders while giving amnesty to millions of people here illegally. Do they think that's really going to prevent more from coming illegally? Sure some will take advantage of the provisions for coming under some work program. Some will take advantage of the provisions for legitimizing their existence here. But others will continue to come illegally and others will continue to "live in the shadows." Do they really think they all want to become US citizens? No, they just want to work here and send the money back to Mexico with the dream of buying a rancho and retiring there some day. This immigration bill is just so much nonsense whose main goal is to get as much cheap labor into this country as possible and destroy as many middle class jobs as possible. If there are jobs that Americans really don't want to do, let the huge prison population do them instead of sitting on their asses planning the crimes they're going to do when they get out of jail. It would probably do more in terms of rehabilitation than anything they're doing in jail. And their wages (they should get at  least  minimum wage) could go to pay for their room and board thus lowering the burden on taxpayers and to pay back their victims. If they have anything left over, they could save  for starting a business when they get out or for retirement. A prisoner with a 401K? Why not!

Do you think that illegals working for sub-minimum wages are going to jump through hoops, pay a $5000. fine, return to their country of origin and re-enter the US all in order to become American citizens? It's a joke. It's laughable. There's no urgency to legitimize these people. There's no urgency for more cheap labor. 20 million cheap laborers are already here taking jobs that used to be middle class American jobs. And by the way there's something to the notion "they're doing jobs Americans don't want to do." Why don't Americans want to do them? 1) They don't pay anything. Solution: let the price of labor be regulated by the law of supply and demand where the supply of labor is not increased by an influx of it. Ergo, the creation of higher paying jobs! 2) Americans are wasting their time running up debt attending college because they think they will be better off in the long run instead of starting their work life right out of high school. Instead they will pay dearly for buying into this mythology in the long run. Most of them (but not all) would be better off entering the work force right out of high school.

The urgency is to prevent more illegals from coming, not to legitimize the ones who are already here, and the only way to do that is to protect the borders, big time! There is no urgency to secure more cheap labor! The cheap labor is already here and performing very nicely, thank  you! It's just that Republicans can never get enough cheap labor. Translation: lower labor costs or less middle class jobs! It's all in your perspective. And Democrats are being motivated by some misguided notion of compassion toward the illegals. Hey, they're  not suffering that much. If they were worse off here than where they came from, they would go back! It's not as if they  don't have their support systems here. In some areas the only persons lacking a support system are those who don't speak Spanish. In some areas of the southwest whole communities are Hispanic with Hispanic mayors and politicians. Look at LA, for example. So don't tell me they're "living in the  shadows," afraid  to go out in public, hunkering down lest anyone see them and report them to the authorities. Hey, increasingly, they are the authorities! I would be in favor, after the borders are fully protected, of a humane solution to the illegal problem but not  until  then!

The problem is that the US doesn't want to redeploy its resources both financial and military to defending the US. Instead those resources are being used to screw around in the rest of the world while practically inviting and provoking another attack on the Homeland. They want the American people to be afraid because fearmongering is what the Republicans do best. They sell it; they eat it for breakfast. It gets them elected so they have to have an attack every so often so they can say, "See, we were right. There are people out to get us." You bet there are, but your approach to dealing with them is sick! We don't have to go it alone in the world. We still have some allies (I hope) who can share the burdens and responsibilities of dealing with terrorists on a collective basis. The whole world was our friend and willing to help us after 9/11. Instead the Bush Administration's attitude was "We don't want to work with you on a cooperative basis. We want to be the boss. Get in line behind us. We're  the leaders. Y'all shut your mouths and follow us. We're number one!" Human intelligence is the key for preventing attacks from happening before they even get off the ground. And that's relatively cheap compared to nuclear warheads, missiles and other military crap that they're spending billions on. But there's not as much profit in it! War is about profit and the current crop of politicians and their cronies are profiting from war. Whether it's Halliburton, Blackwater, the Carlyle Group or Lockheed Martin, they are all in the business not of protecting our country but of profiting from war and the fear of war.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that terrorism is a relatively cheap and low tech activity? And a rather cheap and effective response is all that is necessary. Certainly this hasn't occurred to the politicians who want to maximize the money spent on a response in order to line their own pockets when they trade their Congressional seat for a lobbyist position or a position on the Board of Directors of a military contractor. They want planes, missiles, armaments but not to protect our borders; only to stir up trouble in the rest of the world. Why aren't the other advanced countries sharing some of this burden? The US spends more on military expenditures than all other countries in the world combined! It's unnecessary and imprudent. It's the military-industrial complex run amok, out of control. They're bound and determined to bankrupt this country. We owe our soul to foreign debt. And what's more I predict that China will eventually take back Taikwan without a whimper of protest by the US. Why? Because we owe our assets lock, stock and barrel to China and in a few years they will be in a position to destroy our economy if we came to Taiwan's defense. All they would have to do is stop buying US debt, and start paying for oil in euros.

So R.I.P. immigration bill. Get control of the borders first ... all borders. As an added bonus this would eliminate the drug trade. Illegal persons and contraband can and should be stopped at the border. A trifecta is possible: stop illegal immigration, the drug trade and terrorists from entering the US! A national ID card wouldn't be a bad idea either. We have to be in the business of stopping ID theft both from the point of view of preventing illegals from stealing social security numbers and preventing real thievery out of our bank accounts. This could all be done, but instead we're wasting our resources on military adventurism in Iraq. This is so the "players," the Bushes and Cheneys of the world, can feel like big shots! Redeploy our finances!

And by the way, Native Americans have weighed in on the immigration bill. They are calling for the  immediate deportation of all Mayflower descendents. They came here illegally, without  work permits or visas, despoiled the land, spread their germs killing thousands and, worst of all, stole the Indians' identities for their sports teams, not to mention putting their images on their pennies before Lincoln. Speaking for the National Council of Indians, Chief Running Tab at Casino said, "There is some truth, however, to the statement that they came here to do jobs Native Americans would not do like managing hedge funds and investment banking."

The Qualcomm vs Broadcom Spat

By now everyone has heard about the Qualcomm Broadcom spat. Qualcomm sued Broadcom over patent infringement and Broadcom sued Qualcom over patent infringement. They are like two little boys playing in a sandbox, and one says, "You infringed on my patent." The other one says, "No you infringed on my patent. Nyaaaah." "My patent portfolio is bigger than yours." "No it's not! Mine is bigger than yours!" As they continue to hurl sand in each other's face, someone said, "Let's get an adult (in this case a judge) to decide who infringed on who's patent." Well, the adult has finally determined that Broadcom is right and Qualcomm is wrong. "Not fair," cries Qualcomm. "We'll get another adult to decide because this one is biased!" Besides Qualcomm recently had to pony up $20 million to Broadcom even before the recent ruling.

The ruling means all new devices launched after 7th June 2007 that use Qualcomm's chipsets will be banned from being imported into the U.S. The stakes, therefore, could not be higher, even though the ruling does not affect handsets that are already available. The point is it will in effect prevent operators from launching new models using Qualcomm chipsets in the U.S. market.

But Broadcom is being magnanimous in victory just as Qualcomm is crying foul in defeat. Broadcom is extending an open hand and is offering Qualcomm the opportunity of licensing its patents, the ones Qualcomm is infringing upon. Isn't that nice of Broadcom? The one kid is going to still let the other kid play in his sandbox even after the other kid threw sand in his face. C'mon Qualcomm. Be gracious in defeat, pay up to Broadcom for the use of its patents and everything will be fine. You still will be able to import all the chipsets you want into the US market. But Qualcomm says, "Waaahhh. Those are our patents, and (stamping its feet) Broadcom should pay us not the other way around." Qualcomm wants to make all this money just for letting other companies license its patents. Its fleet of corporate lawyers must justify their existence by insisting that other companies pay them, and they take it pretty hard if it's the other way around. Now Broadcom's corporate lawyers have smug smiles of satisfaction on their faces while Qualcomm's drag around with their tails between their legs. We can't have that.

"Our goal is simply to ensure fair competition and a level playing field, not just for Broadcom, but for the entire cellular industry," said Scott McGregor, CEO at Broadcom. "Qualcomm's practices prevent that. Their monopoly in CDMA technology has increased the price of cell phones in the U.S., and we are hoping that the courts will prevent the same thing from happening with the next generation '3G' cell phones. Qualcomm's monopolistic activities limit competition, stifle innovation, and ultimately harm consumers and service providers."

This sounds very reasonable, Qualcomm. Be nice. Scott McGregor is looking out for the whole industry and the American consumer, not just himself! Now don't be greedy, and (I shudder to think) monopolistic! Horrors! Out damned spot!

But wait a minute! There's a missing piece of the puzzle. Qualcomm is being forbidden from importing CDMA chips into the US market. But Qualcomm is a San Diego, CA, USA based company. Solution! Make them here. Then you won't have to import them! And it would create a few more US based jobs. Problem solved! That'll be a couple million, please. Just pay my PayPal account. Fire the corporate lawyers. Save tons of money. Jeez, I might even let you infringe on my patent. I can't afford to hire a bevy of corporate lawyers to defend it. How would I even know? Someone's infringin' Lawd, Kum Bay Ya. You know, while these high tech billionaires play their little sandbox games over millions of dollars, the rest of us peons are just scratching out a living and playing games on our cell phones. How did we ever get along without them? We're  living in different worlds.

To add insult to injury Qualcomm Stadium and the feckless San Diego Chargers are going bye-bye while Henry Samueli, co-founder and CTO of Broadcom, is cruising to victory as owner of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks (just Ducks now, thank you!) ice hockey team since his team won the much coveted Stanley Cup this year in addition to its triumphs over Qualcomm.

But if my previous suggestion doesn't work for them, here's another one: Qualcomm and Broadcom should merge! That's a true capitalistic solution to the problem. They could call themselves QualBroadcom, and for a website QualBroad.com. Pretty neat, huh? But I've got a patent on the name. So don't think about doing it without paying me first! Don't forget my expertise in the name game! If the cell phone gig starts to fade, they could always go into the escort, massage, outcall business. You know Quality Broad Company, QualBroad.com. For all the conventioneers, conference attenders and out of town CEOs, where you gonna turn when you need a little excitement or dinner companionship? Why QualBroadcom! Satisfaction guaranteed for all of your out of town human resource needs! We are discreet and professional.  Need a massage after a hard day of conventioneering? Just call QualBroadCom or  log on to QualBroad.com. Problem solved! That'll be another million, please.

Funding Our Contractors: The Appropriations Bill

The recently passed and accepted Appropriations Bill (which the Democrats wimped out on) was supposedly about supporting the troops. Guess again. It's more about supporting the war support corporations such as Halliburton and Blackwater than it's about supporting the troops. The shadow army of private military contractors (also known as a mercenary army) numbers some 120,000, almost as many as active duty US troops. These contractors, however, receive about 10 times as much as the US troops in financial remuneration.

Where does this money come from? Why, from the Appropriation Bill just recently passed by Congress, that's where. Of the $124.2 billion, $13.5 billion went to fund the troops, that is, to pay their salaries. $50.4 billion went to the profits of Halliburton, Blackwater and the like and to pay the salaries of the shadow army they hire, otherwise known as private  contractors a euphemism for mercenaries. Heck, Bush could run the entire occupation just with mercenaries regardless of whether the troops are withdrawn or not.  These mercenaries  are accountable to no one - no military justice system nor American nor Iraqi court of law. So while the Congress debates about withdrawing the troops, timelines, surging the troops, troops this and troops that, the reality is that the war and the occupation are doing just fine, thank you, because the mercenaries are providing all essential functions.

In addition, $25.6 billion goes for procurement which means to the profits of defense contractors that supply the MRAPS, helicopters and stuff like that. Also noteworthy is that the President did not request one red cent for Homeland Security or Veterans' health benefits not to mention such trifles as Low Income Home Heating Assistance or Childrens' Health Insurance! Here's a direct quote from the Appropriations Bill:

The Administration continues to try to secure the homeland on the cheap. Too often, they rely on paper security, trying to improve security by paying contractors to write reports and by setting minimal standards for improving security. The President did not request one dime in the supplemental for securing the homeland.

Why, who needs secure borders when we're fighting them over there so they can't even get over here! Sort of like the advertisement for ant control: "Kill them outside your house before they get inside your house." Our borders are like sieves, but it would be a gift of political expediency for the Bush Administration if, God forbid, the homeland were attacked again because then everybody would rally around our President and his approval ratings would soar upward from the abysmal 28% he now enjoys or maybe he doesn't enjoy those low approval ratings that much. Another attack and he could stand tall in the saddle, gaze out to the horizon and proclaim, "We're going to get those guys!" or words to that effect. There's nothing like revenge! The Bushies must be wondering why they aren't "bringing it on." After all we're practically inviting them by ignoring border and port protection not to mention nuclear facility and chemical plant protection. Oh, we'll leave it up to private corporations to do that as they see fit in their infinite wisdom.

According to the Salon article, the President can have the rent-a-guns do their own "surge" without any accountability whatsoever to the American Congress or the American people. Now we know what Dick Cheney is talking about when he says he "works in the shadows." The Congress isn't so much "supporting our troops" as they are supporting Bush's privatized army of unaccountable mercenaries!

From the beginning, these contractors have been a major hidden story of the war, almost uncovered in the mainstream media and absolutely central to maintaining the U.S. occupation of Iraq. While many of them perform logistical support activities for American troops, including the sort of laundry, fuel and mail delivery and food-preparation work that once was performed by soldiers, tens of thousands of them are directly engaged in military and combat activities. According to the Government Accountability Office, there are now some 48,000 employees of private military companies in Iraq. These not-quite GI Joes, working for Blackwater and other major U.S. firms, can clear in a month what some active-duty soldiers make in a year. "We got 126,000 contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of defense," said House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee chairman John Murtha. "How in the hell do you justify that?"

Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul are two voices crying out in the wilderness and evidently the only two who are willing to tell the American people the truth about what's really going on with this war in Iraq, the war on truth and the war on the American people.

The Vintage Streetcars of San Francisco

In addition to San Francisco's well-known cable cars, there is also a fleet of vintage streetcars plying the route known as the F-line from the Castro district through downtown on Market Street to the Embarcadero and thence to North Beach and Fisherman's Wharf.

The following are some pictures I took on a recent trip:

For the full San Francisco photo album, click here.

Tim Griffin Resigns as US Attorney!

Caging expert Tim Griffin, appointed without Senate approval by Attorney General Antonio Gonzales, has resigned as US Attorney in Arkansas. We recently reported about Griffin's illegal caging activities and his involvement in suppressing Democratic voters. Think Progress runs down all the pertinent info here. Griffin was appointed after eight US Attorneys were fired for no reason other than they were prosecuting Democrats instead of Republicans. Carol Lam, US Attorney from San Diego, was among those fired. She had previously successfully prosecuted Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham for taking bribes from defense contractors. She was continuing to probe corrupt and mendacious Republicans like Dusty Foggo at the time of her firing.

Little known is the fact that language was stealthily inserted into the Homeland Securities Act bypassing the Senate's role in confirming these candidates:

The ex-Rove aide, who also served as a Judge Advocate General in the US Army in Iraq, replaced previous US Attorney H.E. 'Bud' Cummins after the Justice Department used authority stealthily inserted into the USA PATRIOT Act that allowed the executive branch to indefinitely appoint interim US Attorneys. He has not been confirmed by the Senate, and Senator Pryor has been strongly critical of the Attorney General and told him in a recent private meeting to resign in large part due to the handling of the Griffin situation. "We've always said, this isn't the way this is supposed to be done, you shouldn't be installed as US Attorney via press release," Teague told RAW STORY in an April interview.

Griffin attracted attention after Monica Goodling recently testified that he had been involved in caging.

Greg Palast was the one responsible for running down the whole story on Tim Griffin. He said referring to Tim Griffin, "There's only one thing worse than sacking an honest prosecutor. That's replacing an honest prosecutor with a criminal."

Arrow's Take on the "Ordering of Social States"

The following quote is taken from "Social Choice and Individual Values" by Kenneth Arrow, pp. 17-18. This represents Arrow's conception of an economic system rather than a political or voting system. Please notice that Arrow requires each individual to submit his preferences regarding not only his own work and consumption preferences but also his preferences regarding everyone else's work and consumption thus making this system totally impractical and unviable. He calls ordering everyone else's work and consumption "ordering according to values" while just ordering preferences regarding one's own work and consumption "ordering according to tastes." In this economic system one could submit preferences that one's enemies should work 80 hours a week for starvation wages and one's friends and cronies should get CEO salaries for doing practically nothing! One could submit preferences that one's self and friends should get $7 - $10 million a year for attending parties as Paris Hilton does!

Any viable economic system would only require that each individual submit preferences regarding one's own preferred patterns of work and consumption, but this would depart from the model Arrow uses for proving that social choice is impossible. The part about each individual specifying preferences regarding "collective activities" is completely viable. These are such things as public parks, public libraries, public education and, in most advanced countries other than the US, public health care. The individual would also submit preferences regarding how much he personally would be willing to pay as his part for such activities. This is commonly known as taxation. While Arrow goes on and on about tastes and values, he elaborates very little about "collective activites" which could be a valid part of an individual's preference specifications.

An economic system based on amalgamating data from each individual and treating each individual equally would be a form of economic democracy. Also it may escape Arrow's proof that social choice is impossible because it departs from his model by virtue of the fact that each individual does not submit preferences about social states but only about his own personal and social consumption and willingness to work to support such consumption. Thus an analysis of the viability of this model might show that it is not impossible given a set of "rational and ethical criteria" (not necessarily the same set as Arrow uses to prove social choice impossible).

The following is the quote from Arrow:

THE ORDERING OF SOCIAL STATES In the present study the objects of choice are social states. The most precise definition of a social state would be a complete description of the amount of each type of commodity in the hands of each individual, the amount of labor to be supplied by each individual, the amount of each productive resource invested in each type of productive activity, and the amounts of various types of collective activity, such as municipal services, diplomacy and its continuation by other means, and the erection of statues to famous men. It is assumed that each individual in the community has a definite ordering of all conceivable social states, in terms of their desirability to him. It is not assumed here that an individual's attitude toward different social states is determined exclusively by the commodity bundles which accrue to his lot under each. It is simply assumed that the individual orders all social states by whatever standards he deems relevant. A member of Veblen's leisure class might order the states solely on the criterion of his relative income standing in each; a believer in the equality of man might order them in accordance with some measure of income equality. Indeed, since, as mentioned above, some of the components of the social state, considered as a vector, are collective activities, purely individualistic assumptions are useless in analyzing such problems as the division of the national income between public and private expenditure. The present notation permits perfect generality in this respect . Needless to say, this generality is not without its price. More information would be available for analysis if the generality were restricted by a prior knowledge of the nature of individual orderings of social states. This problem will be touched on again. In general, there will, then, be a difference between the ordering of social states according to the direct consumption of the individual and the ordering when the individual adds his general standards of equity (or perhaps his standards of pecuniary emulation).14 We may refer to the former ordering as reflecting the tastes of the individual and the latter as reflecting his values. The distinction between the two is by no means clear-cut. An individual with esthetic feelings certainly derives pleasure from his neighbor's having a well-tended lawn. Under the system of a free market, such feelings play no direct part in social choice; yet psychologically they differ only slightly from the pleasure in one's own lawn. Intuitively, of course, we feel that not all the possible preferences which an individual might have ought to count; his preferences for matters which are "none of his business" should be irrelevant. Without challenging this view, I should like to emphasize that the decision as to which preferences are relevant and which are not is itself a value judgment and cannot be settled on an a priori basis. From a formal point of view, one cannot distinguish between an individual's dislike for having his grounds ruined by factory smoke and his extreme distaste for the existence of heathenism in Central Africa. There are probably not a few individuals in this country who would regard the former feeling as irrelevant for social policy and the latter as relevant, though the majority would probably reverse the judgment. I merely wish to emphasize here that we must look at the entire system of values, including values about values, in seeking for a truly general theory of social welfare. It is the ordering according to values which takes into account all the desires of the individual, including the highly important socializing desires, and which is primarily relevant for the achievement of a social maximum. The market mechanism, however, takes into account only the ordering according to tastes. This distinction is the analogue, on the side of consumption, of the divergence between social and private costs in production developed by Professor Pigou.15 14. This distinction has been stressed to the author by M. Friedman, The University of Chicago. 15. A. C. Pigou, The Economics of Welfare, London: Macmillan and Co., 1920, Part II, Chapter VI. For the analogy, see Samuelson, op. cit., p. 224; Reder, op. cit., pp. 64-67; G. Tintner, "A Note on Welfare Economics," Econometrica, Vol. 14, January, 1946, pp. 69-78.