Historiann's parking space

Hee-hee.  I love it.  Finally, I’m benefiting from the nice, shiny new classroom and counseling building they built behind the SpacePod that houses most of the Liberal Arts departments at Baa Ram U.  In the process, they did away with a whole parking lot but they also converted a few of the spaces in the adjacent lot to these spaces.  So although I’ll never get to teach in shiny new building, at least I get preferred parking closer to my building with these spots reserved for smug hybrid drivers.  (And for me, the unsmug hybrid driver who has to teach in unglamorous, un-smart, unrenovated classrooms.  Unbelieveable, isn’t it?)

This is for Sisyphus, who won a postdoc (yay!) and has moved to Postdoc City, only to find that the morning commute and parking is even more difficult than it was back in the Golden State.  Good luck, Sis!  We’re all rooting for you.

Eat your heart out, Judy Jetson

I had higher hopes for what cars of the 21st century would be like, but I’ll have to settle for a new-used 2008 Prius, which satisfies my compulsive frugality completely.  It doesn’t fly, but I think I’m going to take it to a custom shop and get doors like a Delorean that at least look like wings when you open them.  (So long as it doesn’t screw with my mileage too much, that is.)

With my house built in 1951 and my 21st century car, it’s all Back to the Future, all the time at chez Historiann!

Meanwhile, Don Maes narrowly edged out Scott McPlagiarist in the Republican gubernatorial primary.  (Explanation of the plagiarism story here.)  The buzz here among the Republicans is how to push both Maes and Tommy “the Tank” Tancredo out of the race so that the Rs have a prayer of beating John Hickenlooper in November.  Yeah–good luck with that.  (You all may have heard of Maes’s tinfoil hat conspiracy theories about what the Denver B-Cycle programmeans in terms of Hickenlooper’s plan for the worldwide takeover of the United Nations.)  You thought they’d arrive in black helicopters, when apparently they’re going to arrive on little red bicycles!

Could this political season get any weirder in Colorado?  Time will tell.  One thing I don’t really understand was all of the hyperventilation over how “nasty” and “dirty” the Dem Senate primary was.  If you think that was dirty, “Senator,” wait’ll you see what the Republicans unleash!  Glass jaw, much?

Anyone but Senator Wonderbread!

Well, friends:  what are the hot races in your political neighborhoods?  We here in Colorado are looking forward to the possibility of lame-duckitude on the part of our Never Elected Wonderbread “Senator” from JP Morgan Chase, although it will be a close race either way.  Here are some other news & views from blogworld you might be interested to read all about: 

• The Bennet campaign is stamping their tiny little feet in frustration at that New York Times story about “Senator” Michael Bennet’s advocacy for taking taxpayer money to the track with him, but the Times sticks by its story.  It published a correction and an addendum this morning, but only on two minor points:  on the history of Bennet’s relationship with Tom Boasberg, and to note that one of the sources is a supporter of Bennet’s primary challenger Andrew Romanoff.  (Apparently, it’s not worth mentioning that Boasberg has been sending out talking points from him office to distract from the NYT story, and is an open supporter and maxed-out donor to his former boss Bennet.)  Sorry, “Senator” Wonderbread:  if your bet had won and you had made money for the Denver Public Schools, you’d be tooting your own horn pretty loudly.  But since you bet on the wrong horse, it’s somehow dirty or wrong to point that out?  That’s not evidence of your poor judgment, somehow?  That’s politics, friends.  Can’t take the heat?  Get the f^&k out of the kitchen, “Senator.”  Big girls don’t cry–we pull up our panties and get $hit done.
• Tenured Radical asks for some advice in dealing with sexual and romantic revelations found in the personal papers of a Famous Feminist in the 1970s.  She asks:  “What to do with past life shockers? Would anyone be shocked by them really? What, if anything, do they contribute the history of radical feminism I am working on? Do they amplify the atmosphere for my reader that will better evoke the period? Do I risk losing the trust of second-wave feminists now collaborating with me if I seem to have bad judgment? (I’m thinking the answer to this is yes.) Should you publish any document about a person of interest that you wouldn’t want published about yourself? And yet, why did these women leave these love notes in their papers if they didn’t want me to know?”  Great questions–especially that last one.
• For-profit colleges and universities are clearly fraudulent peddlers of hope to people who have been ill-served by their public secondary educations and the current U.S. economy–but will anyone do anything about them?  They’re institutions invented wholly to hoover up federally-guaranteed student loans and stick the suckers with the bill.  Free educational markets my a$$.  There’s a reason that reputable colleges and universities have admissions standards–people who have been poorly served by their K-12 schools can go to community colleges and get remedial help and make progress towards a legitimate degree.  It’s difficult and it will take some time, although considerably less money than buying a degree “online” from some fraudster for-profit fly-by-night flimflam “university.”
• Jonathan Rees at More or Less Bunk has evidence that modern agriculture fights communism!  (He’s a fellow Colorado politics junkie–he thinks Bennet will win tomorrow, and he’ll actually vote for the turd in November.)  As for your question about supermarket togs:  Adults really did dress like adults fifty years ago, Jonathan.  That man isn’t wearing a dinner jacket, just a dark suit and a bow tie.  I myself am loathe to hit the King Soopers without a hat and gloves–but you know I’m just a little eccentric for Colorado, anyway.
• Dr. Crazy is contemplating a migration to WordPress.  Come to the light!  Move toward the light, Dr. Crazy!  (Do any of you bloggers have advice for her?  I’m essentially a femme couverte here, with a brother-in-law who does all of the tech-y stuff for me, so I’ve got nuthin’ for her.)

How about you?  How will you spend the next 36 hours?  Will you vote, or just walk away?

He's a fake and he doesn't know the territory!

NOTE:   Click here only if you’re interested in the latest developments in the Colorado Democratic U.S. Senate primary race between Andrew Romanoff and the Unelected Senator Michael Bennet.  The New York Times has a story that’s superbad for Bennet–some of you easterners may have seen this today shortly after the paper hit your doorsteps.  Otherwise, please read and respond to the previous post in which I ask for advice about how to free up some shelf space.

Something just smelled rotten about Unelected Senator Michael Bennet from the get-go:  the ease with which he got top jobs in fields he didn’t train in, and his short tenure in all of them.  The fact that he was appointed to the U.S. Senate as a political neophyte was mind-blowingly ridiculous.  No one has a career like that unless he is serving powerful interests.  Throughout it all, we had to wonder–who is this guy really working for?  We at Historiann.com always suspected, but now we know–he’s the Senator from JP Morgan Chase!

In the spring of 2008, the Denver public school system needed to plug a $400 million hole in its pension fund. Bankers at JPMorgan Chase offered what seemed to be a perfect solution.

The bankers said that the school system could raise $750 million in an exotic transaction that would eliminate the pension gap and save tens of millions of dollars annually in debt costs — money that could be plowed back into Denver’s classrooms, starved in recent years for funds.

To members of the Denver Board of Education, it sounded ideal. It was complex, involving several different financial institutions and transactions. But Michael F. Bennet, now a United States senator from Colorado who was superintendent of the school system at the time, and Thomas Boasberg, then the system’s chief operating officer, persuaded the seven-person board of the deal’s advantages, according to interviews with its members.

Rather than issue a plain-vanilla bond with a fixed interest rate, Denver followed its bankers’ suggestions and issued so-called pension certificates with a derivative attached; the debt carried a lower rate but it could also fluctuate if economic conditions changed.

.       .       .       .       .

Since it struck the deal, the school system has paid $115 million in interest and other fees, at least $25 million more than it originally anticipated.

To avoid mounting expenses, the Denver schools are looking to renegotiate the deal. But to unwind it all, the schools would have to pay the banks $81 million in termination fees, or about 19 percent of its $420 million payroll.

John MacPherson, a former interim executive director of the Denver Public Schools Retirement System, predicts that the 2008 deal will generate big costs to the school system down the road. “There is no happy ending to this,” Mr. MacPherson said. “Hindsight being 20-20, the pension certificates issuance is something that should never have happened.”

To be sure, the seven-member DPS board bears the majority of responsibility for essentially taking taxpayer money to the track and betting it all on a pretty pony.  But color me unsurprised that Bennet was a pitchman for taking school money and sending it off to Wall Street.  (Memo to the DPS school board:  the house always wins!)  This is probably bigger news for the general election campaign if Bennet wins his primary next Tuesday–since it’s a nearly all-mail ballot election this year, it’s unclear that this story has broken early enough to help primary challenger Andrew Romanoff.  But you can be sure that Ken Buck will go after this, hammer and tongs. 

There may also be implications for the governor’s race, since Bennet’s original political benefactor, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, will be the Democratic nominee.  (Or, there would be repercussions if both of the Republican candidates hadn’t imploded with scandal and the crazzy, and if former Republican Tom Tancredo hadn’t decided on a third-party run.)  Promoting and supporting Bennet is something that should be wrung around the necks of Hickenlooper, Governor Bill Ritter, and yes–Barack Obama, who has promoted Bennet from the start.  Thanks, Democratic D00dz!  With Democrats like this, who needs Republicans?

Like I said on Tuesday morning, “Bennet will either lose next week, or he’ll lose in November.  He’s going to have to clean out his desk in January, in any case.”  I feel a little badly about using a photo here of the magnificent Robert Preston as Professor Harold Hill, the flim-flam salesman of boys’ bands from The Music Man.  Preston as Hill had real charm and skills–unlike the Unelected Senator.

Meanwhile–the Unelected Senator from St. Alban’s Locust Valley Wall Street Colorado Michael Bennet has loaned his struggling primary campaign $300,000!  Yes, friends:  all of that business acumen learned at the feet of right-wing union-busting billionaire Phil Anschutz has led him to run the most expensive U.S. Senate campaign in Colorado history–and all he has to show for it is a 20-point reversal in the polls in six weeks.  I’ve said it before, and you know I’ll say it again:  what a tool.

That Bennet had to give himself cash a week before ballots are counted means his campaign has burned through almost $5.8 million. That figure exceeds all previous spending records in Colorado Senate primaries.

In July alone, the campaign spent $1 million.

How does this compare with what his primary opponent, ”career politician” Andrew Romanoff, has spent so far?  “Bennet has spent $1.9 million on advertising to Romanoff’s roughly $757,000, both campaigns said. Romanoff’s total spending so far is $1.7 million, compared with Bennet’s nearly $5.8 million. ”  Romanoff isn’t taking Political Action Committee (PAC) money so he has far less money to throw around–yet he’s turned around Bennet’s 17-point lead in mid-June into a 3-point lead for him.  Maybe Romanoff has learned a thing or two about timing and running a campaign in his, you know, career in politics?  Just a thought.

My prediction:  Bennet will either lose next week, or he’ll lose in November.  He’s going to have to clean out his desk in January, in any case.

The Denver Post article has a pretty good laff line here:  “‘The fact that Bennet has Barack Obama ads on everyone’s television screens multiple times a day right now shows that he’s scrambling to win this primary,’ said Eric Sondermann, a Denver political consultant. ‘That is not an ad you’d run in the general election.’”  Well, no wonder Romanoff is pulling ahead.  If Bennet thinks running ads featuring President Obama here is a good idea even in a Democratic primary, then he’s a bigger idiot than even I would have guessed.  Obama is not popular here, not even among Democrats, and especially not among the kinds of Democrats who are inclined to mail in a vote this week.  Even many liberal Coloradoans go for the “I’m an independent thinker and I’ll represent the people of Colorado against Washington interests” blah blah blah.  This is a state that likes its mavericky Senators, left, right, or center.

Here’s a little recap as to why I think Bennet is such a supreme tool:  his  first job in Colorado was downsizing and raiding companies on behalf of right-wing, union-busting billionare Phil Anschutz and his money.  Then with zero political experience, he was named Chief of Staff for then-new Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, who happened to be a fellow alum of Wesleyan University (and Bennet’s father just happened to have been President of Wesleyan.)  Next, Hickenlooper appointed Bennet as the head of Denver Public Schools in spite of the fact that he had zero experience in education either as a teacher or as a lower-level administrator.  Bennet stayed only three years in that job as a Michelle Rhee-style downsizer and school-closer, and then was appointed to the U.S. Senate by now-lame duck Governor Bill Ritter.  As I wrote at the time of his appointment, “Bennet has learned well that career educrats rarely stick around more than three or four years–sticking around means being accountable for your decisions and ‘reforms,’ whereas there’s a lot more flash and a lot more cash in delivering the appearance of a reformer, making a big media splash, and moving on before the chips fall.”

Nice work if you can get it, eh?  Bennet is the Condoleeza Rice of the Democratic Party, serving all of his masters very well and being richly rewarded in the process.  I don’t have any illusions that Romanoff is any kind of progressive Jesus Messiah for the Front Range–but at least the dude has experience and has had the patience to build his career the old-fashioned way.  I’d love him more if he were a Latina–but being the not-Bennet in this campaign is good enough for me. 

More funny:  the two men who are to blame for foisting Bennet on the people of Colorado, Ritter and Hickenlooper, are both doomed but for different reasons.  Ritter announced in January that he wouldn’t run for re-election this fall, and Hickenlooper, who is running to succeed Ritter, looks like he’ll coast easily to victory because of the total meltdown in the Republican governor’s race.  And as I’ve written here before, being governor of any state is going to be a whole lot of no-fun for at least the next four years.

Triple suicide at fifteen paces!

Here’s your free laugh of the day, friends.  I bring you the return of Colorado’s crazziest Republican politician yet, Tom Tancredo!

Former GOP Congressman Tom Tancredo issued an ultimatum Thursday to both Republican gubernatorial candidates: Drop out of the race or I will jump in as a third-party candidate.

Tancredo’s entry as an American Constitution Party candidate likely would create a GOP implosion, splitting the vote in the general election and handing a win to Democrats.

Campaigns for Dan Maes and Scott McInnis said the Republican candidates intended to remain in the race. 

.       .       .       .       .       .      .       .       .      

Tancredo, who said neither GOP candidate could win the general election and would be a “disaster” for those running down the party ticket, gave the two until noon Monday to commit to getting out of the race the day after the primary if polling shows then that the GOP winner is trailing [Democrat John] Hickenlooper. If not, he will announce Monday that he is seeking the nomination of the Constitution Party.

Yeah, that American Constitution Party, which is “‘pro-life, pro-states’ rights, pro-Second Amendment’ and is for limited government, according to its website. It opposes illegal immigration and open borders.”  (That pretty much sounds like today’s Zombie Republican party, but just a tiny bit more up front about the crazzy.)  Tancredo is like the dumba$$ who pulls the pin on a grenade and threatens to blow himself up if he doesn’t get what he wants.  Most non-Republican non-crazzies in this state would let him turn himself into a fine, pink mist–and I have a feeling that not a few Republicans would join us after this announcement.

Forget Democratic Party circular firing squads–we’ve got High Noon at the OK Corral out here, friends.  August should be a blast.

Scott McInnis, plagiarist

Perhaps I spoke too soon about Colorado not having any political races this year worth watching.  Two days ago, we awoke to the news that a Republican candidate for Governor, Scott McInnis, whom I described here as the Snidlely Whiplash of Colorado politics, plagiarized articles he was to write as a requirement of a $300,000 fellowship by a private foundation here in Colorado.  (Where can I get that kind of fellowship?)  Then yesterday, the Denver Post reported that McInnis had plagiarized an op-ed that was originally published in the Washington Post back in the 1990s when he was a Congressman, and it called for him to drop out of the Republican primary race.  (Our primary is August 10, but most counties are holding a mail-in ballot election only, and the ballots are being sent out today, so this story breaks at an especially bad time for McInnis.) 

Last night, the octogenarian engineer whom McInnis tried to blame for the original plagiarism said not only that McInnis is lying, but that his campaign tried to force him to sign a false statement taking blame for it!  Today the Post reports that the authors of the plagiarized op-ed, lackeys of the Heritage Foundation, say that they had given McInnis permission to use their words, but most people seem to see it as confirmation of a pattern of Snidely Whiplashian corner-cutting.

Of course, the journalists on this story are outraged about the plagiarism.  I’m sure you proffies and grad students who read Historiann.com are too.  But, the fraud in this case bears attention too.  Who the h-e-double-hockey-sticks gets paid $300,000 to write a few articles on water law?  And then what kind of guy has the nerve to cheat on such a patently cushy deal?  Not the kind of guy most Coloradoans want to call their Governor, that’s for sure.  Coloradopols has been holding a death watch for the McInnis campaign since Tuesday afternoon.  You can follow events as they unfold over there, and at the Denver Post website. 

One last observation:  this scandal seems to confirm what even many GOPers thought about McInnis.  His statewide reputation is that of a guy who’s only in it for himself, and he’s not a well liked person.  I think the media and political establishment pile-on reflects this antipathy towards McInnis.  It’s notable that absolutely no Republicans have come out to defend McInnis publicly.  Their attitude seems to be, he made his bed, now let him lie in it.  (Of course, nothing would please the majority of journalists and professors in this state more than seeing McInnis go down for plagiarism.  What an object lesson for our students!)

Families unplug as many heat-generating appliances as possible. Forget clothes dryers –post-A.C. neighborhoods are crisscrossed with clotheslines. The hot stove is abandoned for the grill, and dinner is eaten on the porch.

Line drying in such a dry climate makes my clean towels look and feel like something a dog chewed up and spit back out–but I’ll make the sacrifice!  Because my house is literally a one-story ranch house with large overhanging eaves, the inside of the house stays at least 20 degrees cooler than the outside.  A strategic use of shades on the South- and West-facing windows helps a lot, too.  We have a bedroom in the basement, in which we could sleep in an emergency since it’s always cool.  But, that hasn’t happened in 8-1/2 summers, so far.  Plus, it’s only really hot one month of the year out here–in July.

At the very least, I think Cox asks a good question:  why shouldn’t we consider shutting down a city in an extreme heat wave, just as we do when snow and ice storms make travel impossible?  We’d at least avoid having to air condition most workplaces and homes, and the absence of commuting would also save fossil fuels.  We westerners should really take the lead on taking out the air conditioning, since aridity is on our side.  Plus, those of us at altitude benefit from 30- to 40-degree swings in temperature from daytime highs to nighttime lows, so opening up the house after 7 p.m. to let in the cool night air makes a big difference.

Even as I sit here smugly with my dog-chewed towels, I look back on a not-so-distant past in which I had a much smaller carbon footprint, mostly due to personal poverty.  Back in graduate school/medical school days, I took trains instead of planes for intercity travel, and I didn’t have my own washer/dryer or dishwasher.  I also didn’t own a car for most of that period–I hoofed it for everything.  When I moved in with Fratguy, we had an apartment in Baltimore–Baltimore!!!–without A/C!  I will confess that that summer, when the temperature in our apartment was 81 degrees at 7 a.m. one day in early July, I bought a window unit so that we could have a cool bedroom.  (As I recall, we used to eat dinner and even entertain in that bedroom, simply because it was our only refuge.)  When we moved to Boston the following summer, we took an apartment that didn’t have a refrigerator, so we stacked two tiny dorm fridges on top of one another and made do.  (We had a screened-in porch that year that doubled as a gigantic extra refrigerator after mid-November.)

Cox makes another point about the benefits of ditching A/C–maybe people would go outside and connect again with each other.  If you and a number of your neighbors skip the A/C, think of other benefits for your town:  movie theaters would be thrilled to have your business during hot days and evenings, and think of the spike in popularity the public libraries and swimming pools might enjoy!  To what extent is air conditioning responsible for the decline in civic spirit and civility in the past forty years?  Maybe people would be more willing to pay taxes to support their local parks, pools, and recreation centers if they were more popular.