Doggie diaries: The story of Rosie and Sophie Remember to close the windows

We should have called these guys Hilts and Hendley, after the lead characters in The Great Escape.

Consider their escapades on Thursday. We swung by my brother's house after work -- had a new roof and new windows installed and he wanted us to see them. Rather than lock the dogs back up in their pen, where they spend the day, we threw them in the car.

We got out at Mark's, leaving the dogs in the car with the rear windows partially open. As we got out of the car, Annie asked if we should close them a bit. I said, no, it should be OK.

And then I turned and saw Rosie with her head and paws out the window. I ran back, closed the rear windows some.

That's when we noticed the dogs in the front seat. They'd snuck between the bucket seats, Sophie sitting in the passenger seat and Rosie moving around. We laughed and went inside.

A minute later -- maybe less -- it dawned on me that I'd left my window, the driver-side front window -- open, and ran out the door.

Too late. By the time I got outside, Rosie was on her way out the window and running toward the house (thankfully), or so I thought.

She bolted for the front yard where Sophie was -- she must have gotten out first and I hadn't noticed. Luckily, I was able to corral the two of them, though before I had full control they rushed the front door and into the house. I followed, slammed the door shut and Annie and I managed to grab them.

Lesson: Do not leave the car windows all the way open. Better yet, take them out when you get out of the car.

Runner's diary, Friday (and Thursday)

Too much humidity, so it was inside yesterday and today -- three miles each run for a total of 12 for the week. It's a start I guess.

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The buck stops here -- sort of

Chris Christie has denied allegations that he used his "connections" to force a "lenient plea deal" in a federal tax fraud case saying "he could not have exerted influence over the case because he did not learn of it until Tuesday, when a reporter informed him about the lawsuit."

Christie's response was reported in today's Star-Ledger.

There is no reason to doubt his comments -- the U.S. Atorney's office is a big place. But there is something in his comments that raises other questions. Here is what he said, according to the Ledger:

Christie said he did not actually sign the charging document outlining the crime, which bears his signature, saying that was common practice in the U.S. Attorney's Office.

"There were probably 12 to 14 people at any one time who had the authority to sign my name to documents," Christie said before a campaign event in Ewing. "My name's on every piece of paper that goes out of the U.S. Attorney's Office. I'm responsible for everything that goes on there, but what the allegation is, is that somehow I used influence to get some better deal, which I didn't even know about the case, so my influence wasn't used for anything because I didn't even know about the case."

So he knew and was involved in all of the corruption convictions won by his office, but not this? There were a dozen people who could sign off on charges, plea deals and the like, using his name, but he didn't necessarily have to even hear about this stuff? What else didn't he know about? This is accountability?

Will we get answers to these questions? Not likely. Why do I say this? Because the Republican candidate "blamed Corzine, who trails Christie in public opinion polls and whose campaign has criticized Christie for other dealings with Stern and Inglesino, who contributed to Christie's campaign."

"I understand the desperation of the Corzine campaign. I understand they're desperate and they're flailing away, but that doesn't make it true, and the fact of the matter is I didn't know anything about this case any of the time I was at the U.S. Attorney's Office," Christie said.

Break up the Pirates!

It's one thing to trade big-leaguers for prospects when you're out of the race, but it's another to just dump players in return for marginal minor-leaguers. This especially is so when you're one of the teams getting money from the league's revenue-sharing agreement.

If ever there was an argument for teams to be required to spend or forfeit the extra revenue, it is the Pittsburgh Pirates. They were barely a Major League club when the season started. Now they're barely double A.

Forget the tea parties, where're the pitchforks

If anyone is to blame for the public being fed up with government bailout programs, it's the guys in the banking industry who took the economy into the toilet but made more than a few pretty pennies in return.

Thousands of top traders and bankers on Wall Street were awarded huge bonuses and pay packages last year, even as their employers were battered by the financial crisis.

Nine of the financial firms that were among the largest recipients of federal bailout money paid about 5,000 of their traders and bankers bonuses of more than $1 million apiece for 2008, according to a report released Thursday by Andrew M. Cuomo, the New York attorney general.

We will continue to need significant public spending to get us out of this mess, but it's time we stop coddling the Wall Street sharks -- like the people surrounding the president -- and start helping everyone else.

The window's closing on healthcare reform

Presidents only have a small window opportunity to get their agenda through, especially when it entails major shifts in public policy. President Barack Obama, unfortunately, has allowed the healthcare debate to drag on longer than he should have and now the road is growing more rocky with each day.

And yes, the president could have done much more much earlier, using the bully pulpit and riding his Congressional allies, even if the legislation ultimately is written in Congress.

If we don't get the legislation we need, he will deserve a huge chunk of the blame.

Another crack in the facade?

There always was a danger in Chris Christie portraying himself as Mr. Clean and basing almost the entirety of his campaign on this image. Allegations like this one and the questions that still surround his hiring of his former boss at the federal Justice Department, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, to a lucrative monitoring contract -- should they stick in the public's mind -- have the potential to undercut his reputation, which is all he really has to run on.

One accusation is easily dismissed; a second becomes harder to ignore. If more of these questions are asked, well, then it becomes serious.

Let's face it, Christie's two chief virtues always have been his record as a lawman and the fact that he is not Jon Corzine at a time when it is not popular to be Jon Corzine.

He offers little on the budget -- the state's primary problem -- offering vague promises to cut taxes and make tough decisions and then waiving off the tougher questions.

Corzine has his own problems -- and not because the economy has worsened an already dire fiscal situation in the state. He's not been nearly aggressive enough in challenging the status quo in Trenton, which has undercut his own promises to right the state's fiscal ship.

Christie goes into the final three-plus months with a significant edge -- those polls -- but he's no lock. He's a Republican in a state that trends Democratic, running against a candidate with a seemingly endless supply of cash. If the squeeky clean rep gets tarnished, if he is seen as too socially conservative, and/or the public doesn't buy his budgetary prescriotions, what now appears a foregone conclusion could become an upset.

Doggie diary: The story of Rosie and Sophie Chapter in which they become mud

This is an after photo -- as in after their romp in the mud in the back yard.

A heavy, if short-in-duration, storm blew through, leaving a brown puddle about 3 inches deep near our fence. The dogs, of course, loving water, had a puddle party. They refused to come in, so I had to go out with the leashes.

They then tracked mud all over the kitchen.

If they weren't so cute, I'd probably kill them.

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Gates-gate: Race, class and status in America

Eugene Robinson's take on the Henry Louis Gates arrest -- a media firestorm that deserved far less coverage than it got -- is race-based, but not in the usual way. Most of the focus has been on the notion of profiling, which never seemed right to me.

Robinson, however, makes it clear how race functioned in this absurd little morality play:

Apparently, there was something about the power relationship involved -- uppity, jet-setting black professor vs. regular-guy, working-class white cop -- that Crowley couldn't abide. Judging by the overheated commentary that followed, that same something, whatever it might be, also makes conservatives forget that they believe in individual rights and oppose intrusive state power.

He says the confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor shared some of the same characteristics -- a white male judge with a sharp tongue would never had his temperment questioned, while "the idea of a sharp-tongued 'wise Latina' making nervous attorneys, some of them white male attorneys, fumble and squirm," sent up a red flag for the GOP.

Robinson cuts to the chase, asking the operative question and then answering it:

Is a man of Gates's station entitled to puff himself up and remind a police officer that he's dealing with someone who has juice? Is a woman of Sotomayor's accomplishment entitled to humiliate a lawyer who came to court unprepared? No more and no less entitled, surely, than all the Big Cheeses who came before them.

Yet Gates's fit of pique somehow became cause for arrest. I can't prove that if the Big Cheese in question had been a famous, brilliant Harvard professor who happened to be white -- say, presidential adviser Larry Summers, who's on leave from the university -- the outcome would have been different. I'd put money on it, though. Anybody wanna bet?

Cautious pols choke healthcare reform to death

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To paraphrase Joseph Conrad: Healthcare reform, it dead.

I know, the reform effort continues to move forward, but the goal has shifted from transforming the system to tweaking it, from expanding access and improving care to creating a bureaucratic maze that sort of looks like universal coverage but that protects the very people who have made such a mess of things in the first place.

Real reform -- otherwise known as single-payer -- was never on the table. The politics, everyone agrees, made it impossible. Of course, the politics -- otherwise know as the conventional wisdom -- is self-perpetuating.

But even without single-payer, we had a chance to make major changes in the system that would have forced the insurance companies to play ball -- a public option that would have competed for customers.

Already, the group of six has tossed aside the idea of a government-run insurance plan that would compete with private insurers, which the president supports but Republicans said was a deal-breaker.

Instead, they are proposing a network of private, nonprofit cooperatives.

The public option was no panacea -- but with requirements in place preventing the insurance companies from gaming the system as they do now (they would not be able to deny coverage for a pre-existing condition, cap payments or kick people off their rolls), it would have made a huge impact on the way the healthcare system runs.

Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and a physician, told Rachel Maddow last night that the bill that latest proposal "is insurance reform but it‘s not health reform."

It‘s not going to—what it will do, I assume there is guaranteed issue and so forth in there, and if that‘s true, if the guaranteed issue is in there and community rating, then it‘s insurance reform.

It‘s not going to do anything to curb expenses. It‘s not going to change the health care system. It‘s not going to insure anybody extra. That‘s what I call the fake public option.

He continued:

This bill is going to cost a lot of money and isn‘t going to do anything if this compromise, this so-called compromise is true. This compromise does nothing except it will reform insurance. That‘s a good thing to do, but they ought to strip the money out of it because we reformed insurance like this in Vermont 15 years ago. It‘s a fine thing to do, but it doesn‘t insure more people.

There is this sense now that it is more important to get something -- anything -- done and that it have some Republican support. That kind of thinking is similar to one of the great failed football strategies -- the late-game use of the so-called prevent defense, which is all about caution, all about playing not to lose (which is not the same thing as playing to win).

What we are witnessing is a Democratic majority more concerned about the insurance lobby and its campaign cash while also being able to share the blame in case their reforms fail to function as advertised, rather than going hard at the end zone -- which would require an aggressive reconstruction of the healthcare system in the United States.

Let the jury hear all the evidence

The judge in this case appears to have ruled correctly, but the law as it exists creates an imbalance. The defendant, Franklin Township resident John Ray Wilson, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, cannot testify about his disease -- even though doing so would show jurors that the marijuana crop at issue was not grown for sale. By preventing such testimony, as his lawyer points out, the jury "could readily speculate that he was operating an illegal commercial grow operation and must have done so for years to develop a market for the marijuana."

Omitting Wilson's disease would keep him from addressing the issue of continuous use, one of the elements of operating a production facility. He would not be able to testify this was the first and only crop he has tried to grow, Wronko said.

Barring the medical-use argument, "is basically tying our hands unfairly," Wronko said in court.

The court, however, was concerned that introducing the ailment would create a level of empathy that could lead to jury nullification -- a jury ruling in favor of the defendant despite the law because it perceived the law to be unfair.

Jury nullification, however, is not a bad thing. Juries are the people's representatives in the court, and should be given as much information as possible, allowing them to review mitigating circumstances and to not only judge the specific case at hand but whether the law itself achieves a public good.

Jury nullification in this case, rather than being a usurpation of the legislative function by the court, would act as a voice of the people, and possibly spur the Legislature to legalize so-called medical marijuana.

Instead, the judge has removed an important piece of the narrative, leaving Mr. Wilson to look like just some random drug producer, making it more difficult than it should be for him to defend himself.

Runner's diary Tuesday

The humidity today is brutal. I did my three outdoors and can only say I'm thankful for the occassional breeze because without I'm not sure I could have finished.

iPod: music mix featuring Bikini Kill, Blitzen Trapper, Frightened Rabbit, The Gaslight Anthem, The Kills, Mink DeVille and Art Brut

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Special interests about to win on health care

It looks like healthcare reform is about to crash on the rocks of special-interest preservation. Question: Who elected the insurance industry, the drugmakers and the AMA to Congress? More on this later.

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Runner's diary, Monday

After a week off -- another week off -- I did three miles on the treadmill, staying away from the humidity and the threat of rain. Three miles in 27:18 (blecch!), while listening to Adam and the Ants, Kings of the Wild Frontier.

Doggie diary: The story of Rosie and Sophie Tuckered out from the summer sun

Rosie's a bit wiped out from hitting the doggie pool.

The dogs are going to be upset Monday when we have to go to work, after a week off. They've enjoyed having us around.

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Doggie diaries: The story of Rosie and Sophie Getting pointers from TV's Dog Whisperer

Annie and I were watching The Dog Whisperer tonight -- and so were the dogs. The show stars a dog trainer -- Cesar Milan -- who takes difficult cases and rehabilitates them, taking dogs that might otherwise be put down and making them into the kind of family members we all hope our dogs will be.

Our dogs, which have run of the house, do have some behavioral issues -- we've lost a couch and numerous shoes -- but they are pretty good for nine-month-old pups.

Even so, there remains much more that we could be doing -- as our dog trainer has pointed out. We need to be more consistent, need to stay in control and show that we are in charge. None of this is easy, especially after long days at work. But we have to make the effort.

In any case, we noticed as we watched that we weren't the only ones in the house fixated on what was happening on the screen. Rosie and Sophie were engrossed in the show, as well. Maybe they'll pick up some pointers.

Consolidating power

Much of the focus of yesterday's corruption bust in New Jersey has been on the ugly behavior of the officials involved, the scope of the sting and the bizarre nature of some of the offenses.

But the governor said something yesterday that deserves more attention than it's been getting. It wasn't part of the prepared remarks; rather, it came afterward and registered little more than two paragraphs at the end of this story in The Asbury Park Press:

And he said the solution is to reduce New Jersey's sprawling government — the state and its many authorities and commissions, 21 counties, 566 municipalities, 603 school districts, fire districts and local and county utility authorities.

"We have layers upon layers upon layers of government. And you in the press corps who follow this know how difficult is it to get to consolidation and shared services," Corzine said. "If there were ever an example of a need to seek some element of consolidation in the efforts of how we deliver government, I think this is testimony. There are so many targets of opportunity for individuals who want to test somebody's credibility in this state."

This year's gubernatorial election is being waged over Corzine's record and the palpable sense that the state has run off the road and into a massive ditch. There has been a lot of talk about property taxes and the Republicans have talked about cutting government -- without much in the way of specifics.

But the ability of this state to function efficiently and ethically is severely compromised by the shear number of government entities -- about 1,400 taxing agencies. There may not be another issue as important. We know the governor thinks it's important, though he has done very little so far to change it. We know little about where Christie stands on the issue.

My questions to the candidates are:

1. Do the number of municipal governments, school boards and other taxing districts help or hurt the state?
2. How?
3. Assuming there are too many, how would you reduce them?

Their answers should be considered when everyone in the state goes into their voting booths in November.

An LG from the left

It appears that Loretta Weingberg, staunch progressive from Bergen County, will be Jon Corzine's No. 2 on the November ballot. Weinberg's "legislative record," according to The Star-Ledger,

has earned her praise as a champion of women's issues and progressive causes.

"To progressive voters all across New Jersey, Governor Corzine's selection of Loretta Weinberg is like adding a jolt of a million volts. We are electrified," Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality, New Jersey's leading gay rights group, wrote to supporters. "He named a legend. It's a selection that says volumes about his exemplary leadership and his progressive vision of our state."

In the weeks leading up to the choice, a number of names have been bandied about, the politics of the choice appearing the major point of contention. Does the governor select a black candidate to sure up the black vote for his party? Does he pick a woman? Does he go to a county he absolutely must carry? Chris Christie, the Republican, faced far fewer of these questions -- the GOP's base being somewhat more homogeneous.

But the politics -- a woman from Bergen County whose progressive credentials could solidify Corzine's left flank -- are less important than what the lieutenant governor could bring to an administration. What roles might Weinberg or Monmouth County Sheriff Kim Guadagno -- Christie's LG pick -- play after the election?

I like Weinberg. She has a great track record on the issues I believe are important -- health care, civil rights (including the rights of same-sex couples), ethics. She understands Trenton, but has not become entrenched -- she had to withstand a challenge from her own party's leadership to retain her seat two years ago.

The culture of corruption strikes New Jersey again

The culture of corruption was on full display today as federal investigators announced indictments of 44 people in New York and New Jersey on bribery and money-laundering charges -- a perp-walk that featured three New Jersey mayors and two state Assembly members.

The politicians are accused of taking bribes. And five rabbis are accused of laundering it through their non-profit religious institutions, while keeping a cut for themselves. One Brooklyn man, who was among the 44 charged today, was even accused of trying to broker a $160,000 deal for a kidney transplant.

The story hit like a lightning bolt, sending shockwaves through a state political culture one might assume had become inured to charges of corruption and malfeasance.

But the sheer size of the sting -- considered a record -- makes it difficult to fathom, especially coming in the wake of the conviction of several high-profile New Jersey pols. I would have assumed that the fate of powerbrokers like John Lynch (former New Brunswick mayor and state Senate president), Sharpe James (former Newark mayor and state senator) and Wayne Bryant (former head of the Senate Budget Committee) would have left other pols a bit gunshy when it came to bad behavior.

But I guess one should not assume anything.

The fallout so far has included the resignation of Joseph Doria, state commissioner of community affairs, and calls by members of both parties for the resignation of those now under indictment.

It's been a rare show of bipartisanship -- bipartisan revulsion? -- that I suspect will fade in the coming days as the Republicans attempt to make political hay out of the indictments and Democrats respond.

But I think FBI Special Agent in Charge Weysan Dun summed up the reality of what we face here -- the nonpartisan nature of corruption:

"The fact that we arrested a number of rabbis this morning does not make this a religiously motivated case. Nor does the fact that we arrested political figures make this a politically motivated case," Dun said. "This case is not about politics. It is certainly not about religion. It is about crime and corruption. It is about arrogance, and it is about a shocking betrayal of the public trust. It is about criminals who used politics and religion to engage in criminal activities and enrich themselves while betraying those who trusted them."

One would hope that today's arrests lead to a renewed effort to tighten ethics rules and strengthen penalties in corruption cases. With each public official under indictment, the fog of suspicion grows, trust weakens and the work of government -- the public's work -- becomes that much more difficult to accomplish.

It is over for the Mets this season

The title of this post says it all, but what else can I say? The Phillies are hot and not likely to go into a tailspin, the Mets can't get out of their own way (losing two of three to the Nationals?), the Braves seem rejuvenated and the Marlins remain in the hunt.

It wasn't supposed to go this way, but injuries, ineffective pitching (Ollie Perez' meltdown, Mike Pelfrey's inconsistency, and injuries to John Maine and JJ Putz), sleeping bats and all-around bad play have conspired to make this a lost season.

Omar Minaya says the team will be buyers as the deadline approaches, but I think Joel Sherman is right: start planning for next season. Put Brian Schneider, Gary Sheffield, Luis Castillo and Livan Hernandez on the block. Assume you're going into the season with your core of Reyes, Wright and Beltran, offer a contract to Jeff Francouer, find a No. 2 starter so you can slot Pelfrey No. 3 and Maine and Perez four and five and find out about the following players:

• Omir Santos: He appears to be good enough defensively, but can he hit longterm. After a good start with the big club, he's slumped. Let's find out what he can do.
• Jon Niese: Give him a shot in the rotation. Livan Hernandez is nothing more than a stop and could bring back a prospect or two.
• Daniel Murphy: Let him play everyday at first until Carlos Delgado gets back and them send him to left again and leave him out there. We need to know if he is an everyday hitter.
• Nick Evans: Make him the first bat off the bench and give him some time at first and in the outfield.

As for the offseason, go hard after Orlando Hudson, who is the kind of hard-nosed player and clubhouse guy this team desperately needs. And find another bat.

Jerry Manuel, Omar Minaya and Tony Bernazard -- the team's braintrust -- appear safe. But Manuel, in particular, should have the shortest of leashes and Bernazard should be cut loose. And Minaya should be put on notice that his team must produce at least a playoff berth next year or he'll be looking for work.

All in all, this has been as disappointing a season as I can remember in years -- coming on the heels of a pair of huge disappointments.

Poll positions: A GOP firm issues its own numbers

OK, so we have another poll showing us something we already know -- voters in New Jersey are not happy with the governor and, at least at the moment, ready to hand the reins off to his Republican challenger.

But the poll in question -- conducted by Strategic Vision -- may not be the best one to hang one's hat on, primarily because of two things:

1. Strategic Visions has among its clients a bevy of conservative groups, including U.S. English and is run by a former campaign operative for Bob Dole's presidential race.
2. The other issue with the poll results can be seen in this bit of info:
   

   The results of the poll also showed that 50 percent of those polled approved of President Barack Obama's overall job performance, with 40 percent disapproving; and 10 percent undecided. When asked if they approved of the President's handling of the economy, 47 percent approved and 45 percent disapproved.

   That means that Strategic Visions has Obama at about 10-12 percentage points below what other New Jersey polls have shown, and may explain why a race that most polls have at about a 7-or-so-point gap is at 15 points in this poll.

I have one other major question: Who commissioned this poll? Strategic Vision does not appear to function as the Gallup, Monmouth or Fairleigh Dickinson polls do. They seem, from their own literature, to be client-driven. So who's the client in this case?

This description of the polling firm from a 2006 Media Matters piece may shed some light:

Far from being "independent," Strategic Vision is a Republican polling firm. Johnson, the company's founder and CEO, worked on former Sen. Bob Dole's (R-KS) 1988 presidential campaign. Johnson's personal website -- which identifies Johnson at the top as a "Republican conservative" -- further notes that while working "at Associated Industries of Florida, he assisted in the development of the association's political operations department that played a pivotal role in Republicans capturing the State Senate in 1994 and State House in 1996." Johnson was also involved in Republican Florida governor Jeb Bush's first gubernatorial campaign. Most media outlets identify Strategic Vision as a "Republican polling company," such as a March 13 Philadelphia Inquirer article. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted on March 12 that Strategic Vision "has a Republican history," and the company's hometown paper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, noted in a March 13 article that the "polling firm lists to the GOP side."

No one would be foolish enough to argue that Corzine is actually leading or that the race is particularly close. But the prevalence of polling in the coverage, especially when polls like this one get the headlines, tend to create a momentum of their own, making the election results seem a forgone conclusion.

As reporters, we need to be very careful to identify those polls that are most reliable and, should we opt to use polls from places like Strategic Vision, make sure we identify who the polling firm is and take as close a look as we can at the results and how they match up with other more reliable polls.

All I'm asking for is a little respect, just a little bit

We haven't even gotten out of July and we're being subjected to this kind of nonsense. The state is facing a massive deficit, has been for ears, one created in a bipartisan manner through the use of shell games and risk avoidance, and Chris Christie wants the governor to accept responsibility for everything and to resign in shame? Please.

Can we treat voters with some respect? Jon Corzine has made little headwa toward fixing the state's fiscal disaster, but Christie has offered nothing and the voters deserve a debate over what kinds of sacrifices will need to be made -- whether it means higher taxes, an unprecedented slashing of services (many of which are popular), historic government restructuring or all of the above.

Mr. Christie has a responsibility at this point to explain what he would cut, who it would affect and why he thinks we can do without. His vague talk has been designed to avoid angering voters, but that should not be his goal. If he thinks he can do a better job governing the state of New Jersey -- and it is very possible that he can -- he needs to explain what he would do differently than Gov. Corzine and not just talk about making tough choices.

The LG question

Republican Chris Christie has made his choice for lieutenant governor -- Monmouth County Sheriff Kim Guadagno.

It was one of those highly anticipated electoral moments, and yet I have to wonder just what the choice of an LG will mean in the 2009 governor's race.

Remember, this is the first time voters will see a running mate on a gubernatorial ticket and, while there are those who expect the LG slot to have an impact similar to the choice of a vice presidential running mate, I just don't know if that is true.

There is no history of that here and it is unclear how the LG post plays in other states.

In the case of Guadagno and Christie, she comes from a county that is a Republican stronghold, but is not a household name in the state. She does vary the ticket some demographically, but not as much as she could have -- the GOP is running two candidates from Republican counties who both are prosecutors with little experience beyond that.

There are rumors that Jon Corzine will pick a former "Apprentice" winner as his running mate -- an African American from Franklin who has roots in East Windsor. Randal Pinkett

is a Rutgers University graduate and Rhodes Scholar, according to his Web site, randalpinkett.com. The Franklin Township, Somerset County, resident is described on the site as an "entrepreneur, speaker, author, scholar and community servant."

Will he help? There are some who think he will aid with turnout among minority voters, though one has to wonder if his TV ties will play well.

Then again, this election, ultimately, will boil down to a referendum on Corzine and whether people think Christie can do a better job under difficult circumstances.

Oh dem bases on balls!

My brother, Mark, and I are at the Thunder game inTrenton with my nephew Dan. It's hot and the score in the middle of the seventh is 1-0 Sea Dogs. While there's benn little scoring, it's not because of the pitching, which has featured walks, walks, more walks and wild pitches.

Not that it has taken away from the game. Live baseball is live baseball -- and Dan has enjoyed eating cotton candy and Italian ice and pizza.

Isn't that all that matters, really?

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Friday five: American poets (living edition)

There are literally dozens of American poets who've made an impact on what I write, how I write and my passion for the art. Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams, of course (for anyone who's read me), have been important influences -- but so have Denise Levertov, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley. Pound and Eliot, Charles Reznikoff, HD, Langston Hughes -- the list is seemingly endless, and changes all the time.

This week's five is Five Alive -- the five living American poets I'm most connected to today:

1. Martin Espada
2. Mark Doty
3. Adrienne Rich
4. Galway Kinnell
5. Yusef Komanyakaa

There also is -- to extend the list some -- Jimmy Santiago Baca, Charles Simic, Philip Levine, Robert Pinsky and Gary Snyder, to name a few.

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Grassroots: Energy bill a bad compromise

My Grassroots column in The Progressive Populist is available on the Web site. It's on the energy bill.

Green shoots or long shots?

The Wall Street guys in the Obama administration have what can only be described as a tin ear. Consider Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's comments today in Paris:

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Thursday that financial markets were sending “important signs of recovery,” as he also sought to play down concerns about a new wave of bonuses on Wall Street.

The comments were in part a reaction to the quick resurgence in earnings at two of the largest United States investment banks this week. JPMorgan Chase announced a $2.7 billion second-quarter profit from stellar trading and investment banking results on Thursday, while Goldman Sachs announced a $3.4 billion quarterly profit on Monday.

Goldman has earmarked $11.4 billion so far this year to compensate its workers, raising the prospect that high bonus incentives might prompt another period of excessive risk-taking.

“We are seeing some very important signs of recovery and repair in U.S. markets, which is essential for recovery,” Mr. Geithner told an online forum moderated by the French financial publication Les Echos. “The best signs of this are in the amount of new capital that has come into the U.S. financial system, the improvement in risk premia and credit spreads, and the beginnings of improvement in consumer and business confidence.”

So the banks are making money. That's great. But what about the rest of us?

Well, jobless claims are down, though the job market remains a shambles. The Economic Policy Institute crunched some of the numbers last week and found that there were 14.5 million jobless workers in May for about 2.5 million available jobs or "5.7 job seekers per available job." The June numbers, EPI says, which will come out later this month, are likely to push the ratio to more than 6 to 1.

Plus, the EPI says,

Unemployed workers are currently facing record high rates of long-term unemployment: in June 29% of the unemployed had been unemployed for more than six months. With nearly six times as many job seekers as available jobs, this number comes as no surprise.

This is why Robert Reich, the former Clinton labor secretary who should have been Obama's treasury secretary, thinks the focus on when the recovery will begin is off base.

In a recession this deep, recovery doesn't depend on investors. It depends on consumers who, after all, are 70 percent of the U.S. economy. And this time consumers got really whacked. Until consumers start spending again, you can forget any recovery, V or U shaped.

Problem is, consumers won't start spending until they have money in their pockets and feel reasonably secure. But they don't have the money, and it's hard to see where it will come from. They can't borrow. Their homes are worth a fraction of what they were before, so say goodbye to home equity loans and refinancings. One out of ten home owners is under water -- owing more on their homes than their homes are worth. Unemployment continues to rise, and number of hours at work continues to drop. Those who can are saving. Those who can't are hunkering down, as they must.

Eventually, he says, consumers will start consuming -- replacing "cars and appliances and other stuff that wears out, but a recovery can't be built on replacements."

Don't expect businesses to invest much more without lots of consumers hankering after lots of new stuff. And don't rely on exports. The global economy is contracting.

We are a long way off from a real recovery -- primarily because recovery is the wrong word to describe what is going to need to happen.

This economy can't get back on track because the track we were on for years -- featuring flat or declining median wages, mounting consumer debt, and widening insecurity, not to mention increasing carbon in the atmosphere -- simply cannot be sustained.

What we are looking at is likely to be wrenching and painful. But the status quo -- or "the centre," as Yeats wrote -- cannot hold.

The Al Franken show

I've been quite skeptical about Al Franken's arrival in the U.S. Senate, concerned about the way he entered the race and about some of the positions he had taken early in his candidacy. I also was concerned that he would not be taken seriously.

His opening statement at Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's nominee to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, already has gone a long way toward alleviating some of my concerns.

Here is the relevant passage:

First, I believe the position of Congress with respect to the Courts and the Executive is in jeopardy. Even before I aspired to represent the people of Minnesota in the United States Senate, I believed that the Framers made Congress the first branch of government for a reason. It answers most directly to the people and has the legitimacy to speak for the people in crafting laws to be carried out by the executive branch.

I am wary of judicial activism and I believe in judicial restraint. Except under the most exceptional circumstances, the judicial branch is designed to show deep deference to Congress and not make policy by itself.

Yet looking at recent decisions on voting rights, campaign finance reform, and a number of other topics, it appears that appropriate deference may not have been shown in the past few years – and there are ominous signs that judicial activism is on the rise in these areas.

I agree with Senator Feingold and Senator Whitehouse that we hear a lot about judicial activism when politicians talk about what kind of judge they want in the Supreme Court. But it seems that their definition of an activist judge is one who votes differently than they would like. Because during the Rhenquist Court, Justice Clarence Thomas voted to overturn federal laws more than Justices Stevens and Breyer combined.

Second, I am concerned that Americans are facing new barriers to defending their individual rights. The Supreme Court is the last court in the land where an individual is promised a level playing field and can seek to right a wrong:

• It is the last place an employee can go if he or she is discriminated against because of age, gender, or color.
• It is the last place a small business owner can go to ensure free and fair competition in the market.
• It is the last place an investor can go to try to recover losses from securities fraud.
• It is the last place a person can go to protect the free flow of information on the internet.
• It is the last place a citizen can go to protect his or her vote.
• It is the last place where a woman can go to protect her reproductive health and rights.

Yet from what I see, on each of those fronts, for each of those rights, the
past decade has made it a little bit harder for American citizens to defend
themselves.

As far as opening statements go, Sen. Franken's shows he plans to be serious, that his chief concern will be the people -- as opposed to the money interests -- and that places him in stark contrast with most of his colleagues.

This sense of responsibility to the constitution has been evident in his questioning, as well, and stands in stark contrast to the race-based rhetoric of a GOP that seems still to be fighting the culture wars of the early Bush administration.

Runner's diary Thursday

The breeze this morning was a saving grace, cutting through an unexpected level of humidity as I put in my three miles. I'm still feeling beat up, so I may have to rest it tomorrow, but we'll see how things go in the morning.

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The half year in music

This post demands a preface. The list that follows is in no way meant to be a comprehensive overview of the year in music. Its limitations are to be expected, guided by my own tastes and wallet. These are not necessarily the best albums of 2009, so far, the most notable or the most popular. They are just what they are: music that has been in heavy rotation on my iPod during the first almost seven months.

I'm going to list them alphabetically, to keep readers from thinking I've ranked them;

• Lily Allen, It’s Not Me, It’s You -- This is a dance record full of sly commentary and nasty asides; you have to pay attention, but make sure you've got on some kicking shoes.
• Art Brut, Art Brut v. Satan -- Album no. 3 from the British pop-punkers is as funny and sarcastic as the first, with a big guitar sound that translates well live (in fact, they are probably a better live band than studio band). These guys deserve to be stars, or as they might say, on "top of the pops"!
• Elvis Costello, Secret, Profane and Sugarcane -- Elvis goes bluegrass? This is an intriguing record, proving again that Elvis Costello is as restless as Neil Young when it comes to bending genres and providing a moving target for listeners.
• Steve Earle, Townes -- A labor of love, an album of songs written by the late, great Townes Van Zandt (Earle's mentor) that brings one of the great folk/country songwriters back to the limelight.
• Franz Ferdinand, Tonight – The band gets its disco on with its third effort (a remix/dub version called Blood is just as crazy) with great results.
• Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown -- Not as good as American Idiot, but then that would have been too much to be expected. I would have pared this back some, but it continues in AI's political/operatic vein.
  Buddy & Judy Miller, Written in Chalk -- This is what Lucinda Williams calls sh**-kicking country. Or is it rock? Or blues? That the Millers make it so difficult to categorize this album says all you need to know.
• Son Volt, American Central Dust -- The band returns to their alt-country roots with a masterful release, as good as The Search, though less eclectic.
• Bruce Springsteen, Working on a Dream -- A good, but flawed follow-up to Magic that features some great tunes and at least one clinker ("Queen of the Supermarket"). It's still Bruce, however, so it gets a guaranteed spot in the rotations.
• U2, No Line on the Horizon -- I've not made my mind up about the latest from the Irish rockers. The single, "Put on Your Boots," is great, but the album has the feel of Zooropa, a sonic misdirection in the wake of a huge predecessor. (It is far better than Zooropa or Pop, so don't misread what I'm saying.)
• Wilco, Wilco (The Album) -- Right now, this is my favorite album of 2009. Following Sky Blue Sky, a lovely, through somewhat subdued retrenching, Wilco (The Album) hits on all cylinders, bringing pieces of each of its six studio predecessors (not including various EPs or the CD included with The Wilco Book) so that the album stands as both a summary of the band's past and a step forward into the future.

Other albums worth noting, but that I have not had the chance to buy (I've either grabbed singles through the great podcasts at IndieFeed or MPR Song of the Day): Levon Helm, Electric Dirt; Low Anthem, Oh My God Charlie Darwin; Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Outer South; St. Vincent, Actor; Camera Obscura, My Maudlin Career; John Doe and the Sadies, Country Club

More stimulus is needed

David Leonhardt's column in today's business section of The New York Times should be required reading for all of those pundits who have started talking and writing about the "green shoots" or recovery that they see evident in the economic figures.

The reality is that, while some indicators have shown small glimpses of progress, the economy remains in a downward spiral -- characterized by longterm unemployment and under-employment.

Leonhardt writes of the "downturn ... moving into a new stage."

It has already been through three: the prologue, when credit markets began to quiver in 2007; the big shock, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers, in September 2008, led into almost six months of terrible economic news; and the stabilization, when the news became more mixed. Now comes Stage 4: the slog.

He defines the slog as a time when the recession can be said to officially have ended, based on increased economic output, even if the larger economy remains "weighed down by troubled credit markets and huge household debts," meaning it could "be awhile before growth is fast enough to persuade companies to hire large numbers of workers."

This would make for an odd contrast, in which the economy was getting better but feeling worse. These broad measures of unemployment and underemployment could approach a hard-to-fathom 25 percent in California, up from 12 percent a year ago. In several other states, including Florida, North Carolina and Washington, the rate could yet reach 20 percent — and, unfortunately, the stimulus bill does not do a good enough job of targeting the hardest-hit states.

After a decade in which household income barely outpaced inflation, a slow recovery could leave many people hard-pressed and frustrated. In just the last week, the Labor Department reported that the number of people filing new claims for jobless benefits dropped — but so did consumer confidence and Mr. Obama’s approval rating. Welcome to the slog.

Economists already are talking about a jobless recovery -- which raises the question of how it can be called a recovery if large numbers of people remain unemployed. Part of the reason is that the stimulus should have been larger and more focused on creating jobs -- i.e., modeled on many of the New Deal programs that put Americans to work. Basically, the government should be paying people to do jobs that need to be done.

Remember, the New Deal put people to work building roads, dams and parks and electifying regions of the south and west (the Princeton Arts Council building originally was built with New Deal money).

Instead, the Congress pared back the stimulus, reducing needed aid to cash-strapped states, and shifted much of it into tax cuts that are unlikely to do much to jump-start the economy.

At the same time, the federal government has been doling out money to private firms with few strings attached -- GM is closing plants rather than retooling for green industry -- further accelerating the decline of the manufacturing sector.

A second stimulus plan will be needed, one that targets the hardest hit areas (as Leonardt points out) and not on tax cuts. My fear, however, is that the minimal impact the current stimulus is having combined with the unwise and untransparent bailouts of the banking and investment industry will make voters suspicious of doing anything at all.

Quote of the day: Bankers with bad attitudes

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel for Troubled-Asset Relief Program Funds, offered this comment on last night's Rachel Maddow Show what Congress should be telling the banks and credit card companies and why oversight of the industry -- in the form of a consumer protection panel -- is necessary:

I‘m just saying, look, if you can‘t explain it so the person on the other side can understand it, then you shouldn‘t sell it to them.

Seems a pretty straightforward rule.

Runner's diary, Wednesday

All right, who's been hitting my legs with a tire iron? OK, I'm being facetious, but that's what they felt like this morning. They were sore and tight and unresponsive as I ran what was maybe the slowest three-miler in my life (I don't have a stop watch, but I could tell my pace was slower than usual).

I guess I should take it as a positive that I finished the three, but I need to get back to when running was fun.

iPod: Rachel Maddow's audio podcast.

The race question and the judiciary

The hearings concerning Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, are a bit anticlimactic -- as Sen. Lindsay Graham pointed out the other day -- but that hasn't stopped the Republican Party from descending into the pit of racial and ethnic bigotry.

In their attempt to hobble the nominee, painting a comment she made about how our personal histories affect our ability to respond to information, they have betrayed their own biases and the party's retrenchment into an apartheid of irrelevance.

Consider the repeated references to other Hispanic judges and nominees, especially the failed Bush appointee Miguel Estrada -- as if all Hispanic nominees are judged to be the same and support for one automatically insulates a senator from charges of racism.

The most salient commentary on the first two days of hearings came from Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post in his Tuesday column -- written before yesterday's Estrada-fest:

Republicans' outrage, both real and feigned, at Sotomayor's musings about how her identity as a "wise Latina" might affect her judicial decisions is based on a flawed assumption: that whiteness and maleness are not themselves facets of a distinct identity. Being white and male is seen instead as a neutral condition, the natural order of things. Any "identity" -- black, brown, female, gay, whatever -- has to be judged against this supposedly "objective" standard.

Thus it is irrelevant if Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. talks about the impact of his background as the son of Italian immigrants on his rulings -- as he did at his confirmation hearings -- but unforgivable for Sotomayor to mention that her Puerto Rican family history might be relevant to her work. Thus it is possible for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to say with a straight face that heritage and experience can have no bearing on a judge's work, as he posited in his opening remarks yesterday, apparently believing that the white male justices he has voted to confirm were somehow devoid of heritage and bereft of experience.

The whole point of Sotomayor's much-maligned "wise Latina" speech was that everyone has a unique personal history -- and that this history has to be acknowledged before it can be overcome. Denying the fact of identity makes us vulnerable to its most pernicious effects. This seems self-evident. I don't see how a political party that refuses to accept this basic principle of diversity can hope to prosper, given that soon there will be no racial or ethnic majority in this country.

We are one people, but we have different vantage points. That the GOP refuses to acknowledge this is something destined to condemn them to historical irrelevance.

Hey now, you're an All-Star

The 80th Major League Baseball All-Star game is in progress with the American League leading 2-0 in the top of the second and I'm watching the Rachel Maddow Show because I just can't stomach these overhyped exhibitions.

I lost interest in the game years ago, for a number of reasons and for no reason at all.

The current attempts to re-energize it and make it seem relevant have done little to change my mind. I'll probably check in with the game from time to time, but the fact remains that my baseball season is on hold until Thursday.

Replace "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," with "it's none of our business"

Memo to President Barack Obama: If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is taking this position, there is no reason for you not to. You campaigned against "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," call yourself an advocate for gay rights, and yet you've placed repeal on the backburner.

Reid, a somewhat cautious centrist, has now come out in favor of an immediate and permanent repeal of DADT. That should be your cue to force the issue sooner, rather than later.

As for former President Bill Clinton's new-found support for same-sex marriage -- professed last week and reported today in The Nation -- I have only this to say: Fantastic, but where were you when the Defense of Marriage Act passed? You remember DOMA? You signed it into law.

Maybe, now that you've had a change of heart, you can begin agitating on the issue and convince President Obama to push legislation repealing DOMA.

Runner's diary Tuesday

It is a beautiful morning -- big, open sky, with a warm breeze and bright sun, just a perfect morning for a run.

So, I took advantage, chugging out three miles while listening to the wonderful new album by Son Volt, American Central Dust.

My only regret this morning is that I'm not up to the kind of distance this kind of morning deserves, that seven- or eight-mile run that allows you to fall into an almost trance-like zone, that leaves you feeling one with all around you.

That's something to shoot for, to get back there. Yes, a goal worth pursuing.

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Offering a little help, though a lot is needed

The state Legislature has approved a bill that would create a “Community Food Pantry Fund” that would distribute money to community food pantries through the state’s food purchase program. The money would be generated by a voluntary check off on state tax returns and the money would be used to be food.

It's a decent -- if only partial -- solution, maintaining the current charity structure but simplifying both donation and distribution.

The legislators who sponsored the bill -- Democrats Gordon Johnson, Wayne DeAngelo, Elease Evans, Albert Coutinho and Herb Conaway -- said in a press release that the legislation would address hunger issues by taking advantage of New Jerseyans' generosity.

“The global economic meltdown means hunger isn’t being limited to the poor,” said Johnson (D-Bergen). “New Jersey is a generous state, and we can and should make it easier to spread that generosity and do whatever we can to ensure no one in this state goes to bed hungry.”

“The global economic crisis is hitting our state hard and may get worse,” DeAngelo (D-Mercer) said. “People who never thought they would ever visit a food pantry are now relying on them to put food on the table for their families. These are tough times, and anything we can do to make it easier for people to help those less fortunate is a good thing.”

I'm glad to see the legislation pass -- and I expect the governor to sign it shortly -- but as I said, this is just a half measure. State and federal governments -- which are the people's representatives, an extension of the citizenry -- have a responsibility to take care of those who get battered by our poorly structured economy, which is set up to favor people with money and tosses aside those deemed expendable.

As I wrote last week,

The cyclical nature of our economy in which the booms are inevitably followed by busts leaves each of us vulnerable. It has become a cliché that most of us are one misfortune — a lost job, a health-care crisis, a divorce — away from a visit to the soup kitchen.

This leaves private charitable organizations vulnerable, as well. When the money dries up donors tend not to contribute, leaving the mostly private agencies that act as our de facto safety net with less money and food to distribute at a time when more money and food is being requested.

It is the reason why government programs like Social Security and welfare, unemployment and disability insurance, food stamps and school lunch programs, Medicare and Medicaid and the other New Deal and Great Society programs we have come to rely on were created.

We dismantled much of it over the last 30 years, stigmatizing the poor and others in need and leaving it to the private, underfunded and understaffed agencies to take care of what is a very public problem.

The thing to do, if we hadn't gutted our ability to generate revenue, if we had not made taxes a bad word and turned government into a pejorative, would be to rebuild what we've deconstructed, to fix what we've broken. Government has its uses and one of its most important is to protect its citizens, and not just from crime of a terrorist attack, but from corporate greed and the vicissitudes of the irrational marketplace.

Doggie diaries: The story of Rosie and Sophie Sunning on a lazy summer day

Puppies certainly know how to take in the sun om a summer's day. I think this is what they mean by the dog's life.

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Friday five: Cleaning house at Citifield

This week's five focuses on my beloved Metropolitans and their dismal effort so far this season. I figure there are at least five players on the roster who should dispatched to the scrap heap.

Here are my choices:

1. Fernando Tatis -- the Mets got all they were going toget out of this retread, who has turned into a doubleplay machine.

2. Luis Castillo -- A slap hitter with no power, a former Gold Glover who is terrible in the field, a terrible signing that kept them from going after Orlando Hudson.

3. Brian Schneider -- A veteran with absolutely nothing to offer.

4. Tim Redding -- I was once told that, if I had nothing good to say I should say nothing. I have nothing to say.

5. Livan Hernandez -- It was a nice run that came to its inevitable and disastrous conclusion

Let's go, Mets!

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We're already paying for health care

The debate over healthcare reform is on the wrong track. Rather than working to craft a logical system that provides adequate care to all, we are worried about how we're going to pay for it. That's one reason that Congress (aside from a few members) has taken a single-payer system off the table.

Today's New York Times outlines the problem -- though, it doesn't portray it as a problem, but as an inevitable outcome of the debate. The problem with this, however, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) pointed out recently on Air America's "Ring of Fire" radio program, is that it assumes that new money needs to be raised to cover Americans.

The reality, as Sanders said, is that there is plenty of money in the current system. We pay it now in insurance premiums and copays and other out-of-pocket expenses. A single-payer system would just redirect the money from the inefficient for-profit system now in place to a government-sponsored non-profit system.

The money is there already. I think what we're dealing with here again is this mythology that people love, you know, everybody tells me, "Bernie, I just love paying 12, 13 thousand dollars a year to a private health insurance company for my family's health insurance. I just get a great joy writing out that check to Blue Cross Blue Shield or Connecticut General. That just makes me feel great, but I hate to pay taxes."

So what our Republican friends say is that your taxes are going to go up under a single-payer. True. They will. What they are forgetting? They're forgetting that you're not going to pay for private health insurance. They are forgetting that your employer is not going to have to pay a significant amount of money that should be reinvested in their business needs into health care.

They are forgetting that General Motors right now puts more money into health care per car than you do into steel.

So the answer is that health care is going to cost money. Under a single-payer, it is publicly funded, but you're not going to have to pay private health insurance. And at the end of the day, that is a much more cost-effective way of delivery quality, comprehensive care.

That, of course, should be the goal -- not just plugging the holes in the current system and driving down cost, but providing every American with affordable health care.

Too bad the big money flowing from the corporate sector is against it.

One paragraph sums up Mets' season

This has not been the season Mets' fans were hoping for, with six of their most important pieces spending significant time on the DL, plus a host of others joining them for various periods. But injuries are part of the game.

What has been so disturbing has been the lack of baseball IQ exhibited by this team. I can accept physical errors, but the mix of mental mistakes and terrible managerial moves makes this team look like the Washington Nationals or the Pittsburgh Pirates, rather than a legitimate contender for a division title.

Outfielders turn the wrong way on fly balls, turning easy plays into adventures. Luis Castillo drops an easy pop-up against the Yankees costing a game. There have been more missed cut-offs, throws to wrong bases, baserunning blunders and lost at-bats this year than any team that calls itself a contender should be allowed to make.

This paragraph from today's Mets Notes, in The New York Post, is a good example of what has helped drive this season off the rails. It focuses on veteran catcher Brian Schneider:

Manuel said he chided catcher Brian Schneider for not helping Sheffield on Wednesday when Sheffield barely scored while standing up in the third inning.

Schneider was in the on-deck circle, and it's customary for that player to stand near the plate and direct his incoming teammate. Schneider was nowhere to be found, prompting a postgame talk from Manuel.

And there you have it. A 10-year, 32-year-old veteran who allegedly is on the roster for his glove and baseball IQ (it's certainly not his bat) breaks one of those rules you learn in Little League. It may seem small, but it is typical of the way this team has sleepwalked through this season.

Runner's diary Friday

My right ankle was acting up today, evidence perhaps of age and the extra weight I've been carrying lately.

But I got my three miles in, a slow three but it makes three days in a row out there. So, it's all good.

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Where have you gone, Tom Terrific?

On the 40th anniversary of Tom Seaver's near-perfect game against the Cubs -- the most dominant pitching performance in Met history -- Livan Hernandez managed to go just four putrid innings,

Hernandez (5-5) allowed hits to his first three batters and was hammered for four innings while dropping his fourth straight start. Serving up his usual array of soft stuff, the right-hander yielded eight runs and 11 hits -- both season highs -- while walking four.

Three of the 12 outs made by the Dodgers while he was on the mound came when runners were thrown out on the bases, including a pickoff play. Another out came on a sacrifice bunt.

Three other pitchers followed, culminating by a two-inning stint from Tim Redding, who gave up six hits and three runs.

Tom Seaver these guys weren't. Hell, they weren't even Craig Swan.

Green incentives

We are in a down economy, especially on the real estate end, and there is vacant warehouse space available in the region. What to do?

The Middlesex County freeholders have a pretty decent idea: Seek out firms in the environmental field.

A new county committee has been formed to match manufacturers of energy-efficient and sustainable products with vacant warehouses, which could bring business into South Brunswick.

”Our goal is to actively pursue as many economic opportunities as we can by creating green jobs and boosting the economy,” said Freeholder H. James Polos. “Middlesex County is in position right now to take the lead and help our communities attract new business opportunities.”

The Middlesex County Green Economic Development Zone Committee was established to study the economic value in creating “green” zones, with hopes of bringing burgeoning green technology companies into the county, according to Mr. Polos.

A team of local, county and state officials and representatives from the corporate and academic sectors met in late May to lay the groundwork for attracting these companies to the area in order to boost economic growth and create jobs.

This makes sense on a number of levels. First, we need to generate jobs and green jobs are likely to have more staying power than the service-sector stuff we've focused on in the United States for the last couple of decades.

Second, we need property tax revenue. The state is unlikely -- regardless of who wins the Statehouse in November -- to make the kind of drastic changes in the tax system needed in New Jersey. So, we need businesses to occupy empty buildings and there is some demand out there for light-assembly work (solar panels) and distribution of eco-products.

Third, creation of a green zone in Middlesex County could trigger other green zones -- creating the incentives necessary to move away from our carbon-based lifestyle. The more cheaply we can produce environmentally friendly products, the cheaper they will be for consumers. And if we can lower the cost on the consumer end, we are more likely to see consumers make green choices. The Middlesex County green zone could, under this reasoning, serve as a model for other counties in the state and other regions in the country.

As the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board wrote in a draft report (quoted from Thomas Friedman's column in Sunday's Times:

“Sustainable technologies in solar, wind, electric vehicles, nuclear and other innovations will drive the future global economy. We can either invest in policies to build U.S. leadership in these new industries and jobs today, or we can continue with business as usual and buy windmills from Europe, batteries from Japan and solar panels from Asia.”

Using local food to help locals in need

This is such an obvious idea, you have to wonder why it took the state so long to do it:

Low-income families looking to eat healthier may now use their food stamp cards at more than 80 farmers' markets around the state, according to a joint announcement today from Human Services Commissioner Jennifer Velez and Agriculture Secretary Douglas Fisher.

The new program provided the farmers' market operators to the scanning equipment so people on food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, may use their Electronic Benefits Transfer cards to buy fresh produce, officials said.

The benefits of the program are myriad, including:

• Access to better quality fresh fruit and vegetables for food-stamp recipients, helping them stay healthier.
• Tax revenue generated by the farmers' added income.
• Continued farming, which keeps development at bay.

Seven Central Jersey farms are participating:

• Asprocolas Acres in Millstone.
• Farmer Al's in Monroe.
• K&S Farms in Cream Ridge.
• Naturally Grown Gardens in Hopewell.
• R&K Farm in Monroe.
• Stillwell Farms in Robbinsville.
• Von Thun's Country Farm Market in South Brunswick

Runner's diary, Thursday

Another three miles today, though it felt like someone had been beating my legs, front and back, with bicycle chains. The only goal right now is to get on the road and do my three.

iPod: Countdown podcast

Murphy's Gold Glove moment

I'm watching the Mets game -- which can be a dangerous thing, as we all know -- and things have been going well. As an example, take the seventh-inning play by first-baseman Daniel Murphy. The youngster, who the Mets view as a potentially important offensive cog, has proven himself to be a man without a position (anyone remember Gregg Jeffries?). He failed miserably as a left fielder and has looked like a deer in the headlights at first.

But tonight, he turned in one of those rare plays, one destined for the late-night highlight reel.

Mark Loretta of the Dodgers pokes the ball down the first-base line, hitting the bag and popping the ball up and toward the infield. Murphy comes racing in, grabs the ball barehanded and flicks it behind his back to pitcher Bobby Parnell who was covering. Parnell turned in a nice stretch to collect the throw and Loretta was out (the instant replay was inconclusive -- it was close, but the Mets deserve a break).

Ron Darling, I think, compared him to Jason Kidd and the Mets dugout bowed in his direction.

All I can say is "sweet" (to quote my nephews).

Act locally think globally

It is becoming increasingly clear that we must do more than talk about climate change here in the United States. We need tough rules at home and a program that shares new technologies abroad to make it clear that we are not asking the developing world to sacrifice more than we are willing to sacrifice.

Without that, the developing countries will continue to balk at any potential treaty:

In the end, people close to the talks said, the emerging powers refused to agree to the specific emissions limits because they wanted industrial countries to commit to midterm goals in 2020, and to follow through on promises of financial and technological help.

“They’re saying, ‘We just don’t trust you guys,’ ” said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group based in the United States. “It’s the same gridlock we had last year when Bush was president.”

The cap-and-trade plan, approved by Congress, is a good start for the United States, but not nearly strong enough to do what needs to be done.

Runner's diary, Wednesday

Three miles today on the quiet side streets of Plainsboro and South Brunswick. It was gorgeous out there and if I had more kick in my legs or wind in my chest, I would have gone for a lot longer.

As it is, I ran long enough to hear a good chunk of the new Wilco disc, titled (appropriately enough) Wilco (the album).

Dispatches: The economy and the shredded social safety net

Dispatches, on the shredded social safety net and the exponential growth in need in this recession, is on our site.

Sudden appearance of backbone

Good news from the Senate, according to OpenLeft:

A progressive bloc in the Senate has given the Democratic leadership a blunt choice: pursue a strong public option, or lose 10-15 left-wing votes on health care.

As Chris Bowers wrote in his OpenLeft post,

This has happened because the Progressive Block strategy is starting to manifest itself. Rather than Democratic leaders voluntarily turning legislation into a warm pile of corporate mush in order to appeal to a center-right business, media and political status quo, and then having those leaders browbeating the left into supporting said warm pile of corporate mush because that is just "political reality," now progressives are determining the limits of political reality themselves. Progressives are offering the leadership a simple choice: pass a strong public option, or you don't get a health care bill.

Let's hope they keep up the pressure.

Nuclear negotiations

It has been so long since an American president has negotiated an arms-control agreement that I am honestly not sure what to make of yesterday's announcement from Moscow.

MOSCOW — President Obama signed an agreement on Monday to cut American and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals by at least one-quarter, a first step in a broader effort intended to reduce the threat of such weapons drastically and to prevent their further spread to unstable regions.

Mr. Obama, on his first visit to Russia since taking office, and President Dmitri A. Medvedev agreed on the basic terms of a treaty to reduce the number of warheads and missiles to the lowest levels since the early years of the cold war.

The new treaty, to be finished by December, would be subject to ratification by the Senate and could then lead to talks next year on more substantial reductions.

Here are the outlines of the agreement:

Under Monday’s agreement, the Start successor treaty would reduce the ceiling on strategic warheads to somewhere between 1,500 and 1,675 warheads within seven years, down from the current ceiling of 2,200 warheads by 2012. The limit on delivery vehicles — land-based intercontinental missiles, submarines-based missiles and bombers — would be somewhere from 500 to 1,100, down from the 1,600 currently allowed.

On the surface, this is a huge change in approach -- after eight years in which President Bush angered nearly every world leader. The question is whether the plan on the table is a strong enough first step toward what must be the ultimate goal -- not just disarmament, but abolition of nuclear weapons.

Daryl G. Kimball, of the Arms Control Association, told The New York Times that the agreement was “an overdue if very modest step toward ridding each side of obsolete and expensive cold war legacy weapons.”

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, sees the announcment as positive -- a "cautious optimism" -- though she thinks a lot more need to be addressed.

In their first face-to-face meeting, Presidents Obama and Medvedev agreed they were "ready to move beyond Cold War mentalities," and launch a "fresh start" in what has been an increasingly strained relationship. There was agreement to cooperate on stabilizing Afghanistan and reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions. But the most substantive part of the meeting is the decision to develop a new arms control framework to replace the one dismantled by Bush and his team (who considered virtually any treaty a subversive document). Obama and Medvedev agreed to launch negotiations to draft a new arms control treaty that could slash US-Russian strategic nuclear arsenals by a third.

More can be done, but you have to start somewhere and this is a lot more than we've gotten in a long time.

Manuel laboring

The Mets have moved from being a scrappy, injury-depleted team to being perhaps the worst baseball team around -- a team that lacks fire and does not seem to understand the basics of the baseball.

Players constantly flub pops because they're making one-handed catches, regularly throw to the wrong base of past cut-off men, find themselves out of position and lose focus. This is not the way a team many expected to contend in the East (let alone possibly win it all) is supposed to play.

The question is, then, whose fault is it? Certainly the players bear responsibility, but the problems the team has been experiencing are ones that must be addressed by the manager. And that brings us to the point of this post: Should Jerry Manuel be fired? I'm not willing to say yes, at the moment, but we are fast approaching the time when the front office will have to answer that question.

Manuel seems well-suited to New York, has that easy-going manner and can handle the pressures of the media. But he has run this team for just over a year, presided over a season-ending collapse and is now toiling at three games below .500. The team is badly schooled and -- this may be key -- has suffered from some odd managerial decisions this year. Why pinch-hit for Daniel Murphy with Fernando Tatis? Why the attraction to Tatis at this point, given that he has become an automatic double-play?

I know you have to play the cards you've been dealt -- Alex Cora has been in the league a long time but is not an everyday shortstop -- but you still don't bet the house when you have two of a kind.

Omar Minaya will make the decision -- and also sits on the hot seat. There are some who view his tenure as a failure, his good moves marked only by the Mets having more money than most, but I disagree. He's made some interesting pickups that have panned out and others that have not, but he needs to go out and get someone that can help address the team's woeful lack of offense. It would be foolish to wait for players to return from the DL -- that didn't work last year with Pedro -- because there are no guarantees.

Minaya, however, should not be the issue -- at least not until the end of the season. The issue is Manuel and whether he can get this team to start using its head. If he can't, they need to bring in someone else who can.

Too much time on their hands

At a time when we remain mired in two unnecessary wars, when our military budget consumes enough of our resources to provide healthcare for all, when our economy is cratering and Americans are facing unemployment and economic ruin, we have a Senate committee ready to take on one of the more important issues of the day: the college bowl system.

You're kidding me, right?

Care for some tea?

I think Mark Di Ionno is overplaying the meaning of the tea-party movement -- saying the seeds of a new American revolution can be found in it -- but I do think these little protests present a challenge to government.

As with the Goldwater campaign of the early 1960s, which essentially was a fringe movement of libertarian conservatives that took over the Republican Party, the tea-partiers appear at first blush to be curiosities. Their calls to arms are taxes, government spending and a visceral dislike of socialism and their early protests have featured some rhetoric that came as close as you can get to crossing the line into xenophobia and racism.

But they are plugging into something bubbling up from the depths of the American psyche, the discontent that has been festering since the economic crash and that has not been adequately addressed by the federal government. (State governments are not equipped, because of their balanced-budget requirements, to deal with much of this mess.)

As much as we on the left like to make fun of the so-called tea-baggers, we have to acknowledge their potential power. Consider the Goldwater campaign. Barry Goldwater lost his presidential race in 1964 to Lyndon Johnson in one of the biggest landslides in American history. Within two years, Ronald Reagan would rise from the ash heaps of the Goldwater movement, using much of his rhetoric to charge into the California state house; Richard Nixon would build his 1968 presidential campaign on the same lingering resentments and the conservative movement would make steady inroads into government, eventually taking it over.

There was a political tone-deafness among liberals at the time, due in part to LBJ's success. LBJ, however, knew that the liberal moment was passing -- he famously predicted the Republican takeover of the South after he signed the Civil Rights Act.

Fast forward to today and we have to ask whether liberals already have grown comfortable with their newfound power, whether they are misreading the election of Barack Obama as something more than a complete disenchantment with the last eight years. Obama made his campaign about change, but what we've been witnessing during his first six months in office has been a timid incrementalism, one that has left much of the bankrupt power structure in place.

This is not the kind of change that was envisioned.

There always will be a fringe element on the right, a Goldwater/Reagan faction that views any government action as anti-American. Its power will wax and wane.

If liberals do not act more aggressively, if they cannot explain their approach clearly and transparently, if they do not demonstrate to the disenchanted and discontented middle that they are moving the country in the right direction, then this supposed liberal moment will be a short one and the Goldwater/Reagan trajectory of the second half of the 1960s could play out once more.

Doggie diaries: The story of Rosie and Sophie Sleepless in suburbia

This diary has less to do with the dogs than with their sleep habits -- and their effects on Annie's and mine.

I failed to post to the blog yesterday, a rarity for a weekday, because I was dead on my feet. The reason? The pups have started waking up in the middle of the night to go out. This morning it was 4, Monday it was about 3 and we're now going on about six days of this.

I'm bushed.

Annie's sister Susan suggested ignoring them so that they don't develop this as a long-term habit, and there is some logic in that. The problem is that they make it impossible to ignore -- scratching the gate we use to keep them penned in our room at night, crying and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

So, I get out of bed and let them out and walk around during the day like a zombie.

Of course, they get to lie around all day -- ah, the dogs' life.