Book Pick: "JFK's Last Hundred Days" by Thurston Clarke

Thurston Clarke's "JFK's Last Hundred Days" was one of the toughest history books I've ever read but not because of his subject or prose style which were fascinating and flawless, respectively. No, this one was excruciatingly painful because you spend 362 pages marching in almost real time through JFK's last hundred days before Dallas, mesmerized by the man, astounded by the major breakthroughs in public policy and personal growth, and dreading the outcome you experienced nearly fifty years ago (for those of us who lived it).

JFK's last hundred days coincided with the first expansion of the archaic 15 minute nightly news format to a still measly 30 minutes, just three weeks into the last hundred. 1963 was still a time when the momentous issues of the day were largely shielded from us ordinary folk too busy with family, work, or in my case a tough freshman year at the University of Chicago. And what a time it was. Just 45 days from Dallas, Kennedy signed his premier accomplishment, the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with bi-partisan support from two powerhouse Republicans, predecessor Ike and Illinois Senate giant Everett McKinley Dirksen. On October 28th, with 25 days left, Kennedy shepherded his signature domestic goal, civil rights legislation, through the House Judiciary Committee, again with bi-partisan support, particularly House Minority Leader Charles Halleck of Indiana. Committee passage largely assured its passage in 1964, probably after Kennedy's re-election. In the last hundred days, Kennedy put his resolute stamp on withdrawing the first thousand of the 16,300 advisors in South Vietnam with plans to have them all out by 1965. JFK's motto was "peace first", not "war first", that became the fashion of the 21st century. Other initiatives he was pushing mightily for or planning to announce after the election were the moon race, increasing immigration to Asian and other non Western European lands, addressing poverty, particularly in Appalachia, expanding governmental support of the arts, furthering détente with Russia and establishing diplomatic dialogue with Cuba to reduce hemispheric tensions.

Civility and congressional cooperation at finding real solutions to vexing problems was the norm back then. There was no slash and burn hostage taking by Congressional Republicans. Nor was there a network news organization spreading lies and distortion 24/7/365. There was, however, a strong reservoir of hate percolating in the South over Kennedy's support of civil rights and his efforts to end the Cold War. On November 22, the Dallas Morning News ran a full page ad from the right wing group "American Fact-Finding Committee" which posed this question to the doomed President: "Why have you scrapped the Monroe Doctrine in favor of the 'Spirit of Moscow'?" Many in JFK's circle warned him to skip the political hate show in Dallas since San Antonio, Houston, Ft. Worth and Austin were a sufficient Texas trip.

Alas, the ending didn't magically change and today we face a dysfunctional government that would have been inexplicable to JFK. His never knowing how low American politics could sink is about the only solace we can take from his untimely exit.

Dodging overhead slams and bullets at Cornel Square Park

I took note of the horrifying report of 13 shot, likely by a military assault weapon, at Cornel Square Park, 51st and Wood in Chicago's Back of the Yards neighborhood, first because of the unprecedented number plugged from one senseless shooting; then by the venue. Forty years ago I would meet my tennis buddy there as it was roughly equidistant from my Hyde Park digs and his Brighton Park pad. We played there many times, with nary an altercation nor even a hint of interpersonal trouble. The biggest danger was getting in the way of a 70 MPH overhead slam and occasionally I got nailed.

All things considered, I'll take facing those overhead slams back then versus trying to survive a basketball game without ending up like a piece of swiss cheese today.

Cong. Roskam's 42 vote to defund Obamacare most heartless of all

 My Congressman Peter Roskam's obsession with defunding Obamacare and dashing the hopes, solvency and lives of the 40 million Americans shut out of decent health care till thi...s law was passed three and a half years ago, is nothing if not persistent. Yesterday, the Congressman, enjoying among the most lavish health insurance policies extant, Congresscare, voted for the 42nd time to defund the Affordable Care Act. What makes his 42nd vote to abolish so mendacious, is that this one was tied to keeping the government open. You heard that right folks. House party leader Roskam ignored more sensible Senate Republicans, a dozen of which called Roskam's support of the bill designed to defund Obamacare or risk government shutdown, "foolish" and "dumb", to cast his dastardly vote. Even Republican representative Hal Rogers (Ky-05), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, cautioned Roskam and his Tea Party fanatics, "I'd like to remind my colleagues … both in the House and the other body, that a government shutdown is a political game in which everyone loses. "It shirks one of our most basic duties as members of Congress, and it puts our national security at stake. To be clear...if we embark on a government shutdown, the consequences are severe. Our brave men and women in uniform don't get paid, our recovering economy will take a huge hit. A government shutdown, even the illusion of the threat of a shutdown, says to the American people that this Congress does not have their best interests at heart."

Congressman "Defund Obamacare for the 42nd Time's" website, www.roskam.house.gov, uses the classy term "train wreck law" to justify these 42 heartless and hurtful votes. If he wants to see a train wreck while cruising at 200 MPH in his bullet healthcare train unavailable to most Americans, he should spend a few hours with the tens of millions going broke, suffering diminished health or even dying from his cavalier governance. Oh, I forgot, he wouldn't leave the gravy train he rides in for one minute, much less a few hours, to learn from the folks he pretends do not exist.

Roskam family values: "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme"

In previous posts I alluded to the possibility that my Congressman Peter Roskam's $25,653 first class trip with his wife to Taiwan in 2011, ostensibly paid for by the Chinese Culture University, may in fact have been paid for by the government of Taiwan, in violation of US law. The Chicago Tribune last week provided expansive two page coverage of the current US House Ethics Committee investigation trying to determine exactly that. The article was prompted by the House Ethics Committee decision the previous day not to dismiss the case on that day's deadline, but instead, extend its review stating it needed to "gather additional information " about the trip.

Roskam sought and got pre-approval of the October, 2011, trip from the House claiming it was sponsored (paid for) by the Chinese Culture University. However, last May 31, the Office of Congressional Ethics voted unanimously that Roskam "knew, or should have known that the Taiwanese government organized and conducted his trip". Furthermore, they concluded Roskam had no interaction with the Chinese Culture University prior to his trip, and spent just 3 hours of the 9 day trip (including travel) at the University. According to the Ethics Committee, filling the void of the Chinese Culture University in Roskam's trip was the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in the US. TECRO is an arm of the Taiwanese government and the de facto US embassy in Washington. While TECRO could sponsor a Roskam trip if authorized under the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act (MECEA), no travel money can accrue to a lawmaker's family member. In the summer of 2011, TECRO did propose a Roskam trip. The dilemma Roskam faced was that he wanted his wife, Elizabeth, to tag along, gratis, so they could both visit their daughter who was teaching in Taiwan.

What to do? The trip mysteriously went off sponsored by the Chinese Culture University instead of TECRO and Pete and Liz's excellent $25,653 adventure began with first class airfare to Taiwan. The Roskams then traveled lavishly throughout the country for six days, including those 3 measly hours at the Chinese Culture University, before Pete and Liz boarded their first class flight back to the good 'ol USA.

Search "Roskam 2011 Taiwan trip" at Roskam's House website and a big goose egg pops up. The Daily Herald, in their July 28th editorial "Roskam, ethics and an oddly funded trip to Taiwan", has these questions of the Congressman which he has yet to answer: "Please explain to us and to your suburban constituents why, legal or not, you should accept a free junket apparently engineered by a foreign government that is interested in influencing your exercise of power? In fact, why should you accept a free junket sponsored by anyone seeking to influence you? Please explain to us why, legal or not, you should accept a free trip for your wife, paid for by a private grant that apparently had been engineered by that same foreign government?
The answer, it seems obvious to us, is that you should not. Whether those favors were legal or not, vetted or not, cynically routine in Congress or not. To those of us back home, Congressman, the morality of your choices is more important than the legality. We respectfully await your explanation".

Quite frankly, the Roskam number I'm most concerned about is a lot less than the $25,653 he scored to visit Taiwan with his family. It's exactly 25,653 less to be exact. It's the number of jobs he's helped create in nearly 7 years as my Congressman: 0.

Music Pick: Johnny Mercer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPGg4USB3Hs

Johnny Mercer (1909-1975) is revered as the premier lyricist of the Great American Song Book. He was also a terrific singer, especially when recording his own compositions such as the feature, "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe", an Oscar winner (first of 4 Mercer Oscars) for best song from the 1946 flick, "The Harvey Gi...rls". Mercer's specialty were bluesy, southern inflected love songs such as "Blues in the Night", "Skylark", "One for my baby", "And the angels sing", "Too marvelous for words", "Day in, day out", "Fools rush in", "I remember you", "You were never lovelier", "Laura", "Satin Doll", "Come rain or come shine", "Days of wine and roses", "Summer wind", and the haunting "Moon river", among hundreds of others. "Santa Fe" recreates the era when passenger trains were king as the words and music conger up a virtual travelogue in your mind of the famed Santa Fe chugging across the countryside. Steve Goodman's 1971 "City of New Orleans" chronicled the death of the passenger train with the tagline, "This train's got the disappearing railroad blues", but "Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" offers not a hint of the sad fate awaiting it.

American exceptionalism epitomized by DC massacre

So called "American exceptionalism" has been much in the news lately. President Obama referenced "American exceptionalism" in his September 10th nationwide address on Syria. He invoked it in threatening to unleash cruise missiles to kill Syrian innocents in defiance of international law when he said: "America is not the world’s policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional".

That is bunk, and Russian President Vladimir Putin called Obama out over his reliance of this phony "exceptional" bunk in his response, "A plea for caution from Russia", in next day's New York Times. In it he concluded: "I careful...ly studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is 'what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.' It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal".

However, the latest mass killing Monday in American everyday life, this one in Washington DC and the 221st since 4 were killed in a January 1, 2006, Richmond, VA robbery, reminds me of what were really exceptional at: mass murder. Whether it be hundreds of thousands of innocents in senseless pre-emptive wars in the Middle East and Africa, or innocent Americans gunned down by deranged citizens with virtually unlimited access to high powered weaponry at home, America is the most exceptional proponent of senseless death in the so called civilized world. That "American exceptionalism" in nothing to crow about.

Music Pick: Madeleine Peyroux

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX_uRMWFol4

The first time I heard Madeleine Peyroux sing I thought Billie Holiday had somehow been re-incarnated into this 39 year old Georgia born jazz/blues/pop singer, as her timber and phrasing are so similar. Turns out Lady Day was one of Madeleine's influences along with Bessie Smith, Patsy Cline, Edith Piaf, Johnny Mercer, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, whose song "Dance me to the end of love" is featured. Cohen's version of his own composition is still tops for me but Peyroux's is prettier and shows how such a different style only enhances a fabulous tune and lyric.