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Misc. Good News, Jan, 2003
[Commentary] ©2003 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 622, Cambridge MA 02140 USA (617) 623-8080

1/29/2003   headlines from heaven - alias glimmers of random hope -

1. [1 UPsizing]
   Home Depot will combine 2 regional divisions, Bloomberg via NYT, C6.
   ...The company also [will] open 10 stores in New England, creating 2,000 jobs.
   [and note this 'sort of' upsizing, completely unquantified -]
   Continental Airlines - Firm's regional feeder airline [Continental Express] will recall furloughed pilots, Dow Jones via WSJ, D7.

2. [and here's a glimmer of intelligence -]
   Con game - "Conservative" flim-flam, ¼-page op-ed page ad by *TomPaine.common sense, NYT, A27.
   [this is a point we've been making at irregular intervals -]
   ...Bush has laid out his agenda. Call it bold, brilliant, audacious or outrageous. But don't call it "conservative." That's what he and his party call it, of course, but it's a sad parody of real conservative values -
   • fiscal prudence,
   • accountability,
   • limited government.
   It's shaped more by what GOP donors want than by any loyalty to those values or [to] what the nation really needs.... The pResident and his party are running a con game.... They're poseurs stealing from the future, and there's nothing conservative about that.

3. [and here's an absolute beam of intelligence from the Boston Globe -]
   If leaders listened to protesters, letter to editor by Robert John of Lexington MA, BG, A14, flagged by Colleague Kate.
   Thanks be to George Will who demonstrates the courage and conviction to characterize all the war protesters, not to mention anyone on the left, as the tie-dyed-wearing, suburban, impractical idealists that they are ("Boomer nostalgia," op ed, Jan. 24).
   Surely if the government leaders back in the late '60s had been dimwitted enough to listen to the antiwar protesters of their day, the United States might have reconsidered its carefully thought out, highly popular and nationally unifying efforts in Vietnam long before that triumphant final helicopter left Saigon in 1975.
   [Norman Cousins on Charlie Rose Wed. eve opined that Bush's main motivation for warwarwar is not oil or re-election but changing America, presumably back to the 1950s (if not to the 1870s of U.S. Grant's corrupt administration). We'll stick with assuming the early 1990s to replay Poppy's 1992 campaign - successfully this time - but not with our vote! We may be inveterately 3rd party, but the damn Dems are gonna get our vote this time even if they run Alfred E. Newman or somebody from the Church of the Sub-Genius.]

4. [and heck, while we're messin' with glints of intelligence in the Globe -]
   A presidency at the brink - Bush needs to rescue his flagging credibility, and he is determined to have his war, op ed by Robert Kuttner, BG, A15, flagged by Colleague Kate.
   ...Consider: His is the worst economic performance of any newly inaugurated president since Herbert Hoover.
   [Geeez, if only he was as smart and selfless as Herbert Hoover, "the Great Engineer," who saved millions of people from starving during and after World War I with "Care packages" then called "Hoover packages" paid for out of his own personal mining fortune. Plus Hoover as Harding's Secretary of Commerce embarrassed Big Steel down from an 84- to a 48-hour workweek and saved 100,000s of jobs in 1932 by cutting the federal government's workweek to 40 hours. (He just wasn't focused or fast enough with this magic bullet to counter the Depression before the presidential election that year - plus his incomprehensible dissing of the Bonus Army - oyyy.)]
   The economy has lost 2 million jobs since January 2001. Bush's economic program promises to create only 190,000 jobs this year under the administration's own assumptions....
   [but if he's lucky, the war will kill off the other 2000000-190000= 1,810,000 jobseekers, which is the way Hoover's problem was eventually solved by the liberal Democrats in 1942, while the conservative Democrats simply wanted to take care of it by cutting the workweek to 30 hours back in 1933. Anyhoo, it does look like Dubya is gonna be playin' Hoover this Kondratieff 'cycle', tho' he's still makin' noises like he wants to fast-forward right to FDR after Pearl Harbor - without an actual Pearl Harbor from his target (Iraq), or a target as formidably militarized in terms of navy and airforce as Japan, let alone their ally, the Third Reich.]

1. 1/27   pResident Bush has declared: "you're either for us or against us." Here is our answer:, double full-page ad by *Not In Our Name, NYT, A16-17.
   Let it not be said that people in the United States did nothing when their government declared a war without limit and instituted stark new measures of repression....
   This war is not inevitable. We can stop it. Do something today. 45,000 people have signed....
   [The ad contains the names of a large number of celebrity signees, including Martin Luther King III, Roma Downey (who plays the Angel), Barbara Kingsolver, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, Wavy Gravy, Pete Seeger, Yoko Ono, Odetta, Jane Fonda, Ed Asner, Angela Davis, Gloria Steinem, Studs Terkel, Cornel West, Gore Vidal, Peter Serkin, Hazel Henderson ... and our own Juliet Schor who is apparently now Director of Harvard Women's Studies (congrats, Juliet!).]

2. [reality dawns at laaast -]
   1/27   Leaders losing faith in U.S. consumer, by Rhoads & Delaney, WSJ, A2.
   DAVOS, Switzerland - The one thing the world economy could count on these past 2 turbulent years was the U.S. consumer. As spending ground to a halt in Germany, Italy, Japan and other major economies, Americans continued buying cars and homes, keeping the global economy afloat. Now, that no longer looks certain.
   Fearing what effects war, higher oil prices and debt loads will have on U.S. consumption that already may have tapped out, international business leaders at the annual World Economic Forum say they are no longer confident the American wallet can continue to save the day....

3. 1/26   Nursing field gets shot in the arm - But boom in students can't bridge labor shortage, by Diane Lewis, Boston Globe, G1.
   [Thank God! If they bridged the shortage, their wages would fall again and it'd no longer be worthwhile to go into the field.]
   Prompted by the economic downturn and a desire for more meaningful careers,
   [Ah, wouldn't it be simpler and truer just to say they're prompted by the jobs?!]
   highschool graduates and midcareer professionals are applying to nursing schools in growing numbers....
   • At the Nursing Programs at Simmons College, enrollment of nursing students 23 and older doubled this school year, rising from 45 to 90.
   • At the...school of nursing at Boston College, 200 applications poured into the admissions dept. for a master's entry program, up from 100 last year.
   • At the college of nursing...at UMass/Boston, nursing enrollments in the entry-level baccalaureate program increased to 121 in the fall of 2002, up from 107 the year before. The nursing program received 565 applications last year compared to 408 in 2001.
   "We see a trend upward," said Robert Rosseter, spokesman for the American Assoc. of Colleges of Nursing (AACN).
   [No kidding.]
   "At a time when some people are being laid off, nursing is attractive. People see nursing as a secure field. They know the projections are showing a steady growth in the profession over the next decade."...

1. Global baby bust - Economic, social implications are profound as birthrates drop in almost every nation - The world's population could decline by nearly 500m people by 2075, by Gautam Naik et al., WSJ, B1.
   [Thank God!   Here's a bizarre article spinning as a danger what is really a great blessing = we're reversing our gross overpopulation of the planet.]

2. [1 UPsizing]
   Random House venture to print books in Japan - A foreign giant gets a toehold in a highly fragmented Asian market, by Ken Belson, NYT, C17.
   TOKYO -...The world's largest publisher of English- and German-language trade books [will] form a joint venture with Kodansha, the largest publisher in Japan, to issue original Japanese-language books and translations of international titles. The new venture, Random House Kodansha, gives Random House, owned by Bertelsmann of Germany, its first foothold in Asia....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

1. Bush's handling of economy draws high disapproval level, by John Harwood & Greg Hitt, WSJ, A4.
   [Is the dumbing down of America reversing a little?]
   ST. LOUIS - pResident Bush [our capitalization - ed.] hit the road to promote his economic plan - and a new Wall St Journal/NBC News poll shows he needs to do a much better job of it. The survey shows a 49% plurality of Americans now disapprove of Mr. Bush's handling of the economy, while fully 61% doubt the administration's economic package will do much to stimulate economic growth.
   Moreover, the pRresident's centerpiece proposal to abolish taxes on stock dividends draws the weakest public support among a series of potential steps the government could take...
   [but, more good news -]
   Top Bush economist Glenn Hubbard, architect of tax plan, to leave, by Bob Davis & Greg Ip, WSJ, A4.
   [oops, spoke too soon for this yoyo Bush administration -]
   Bush adviser is staying, for now, pointer digest (to C5), 1/24/2003 NYT, C1.

2. [and guess what - the WSJ finally admits there's no 'wealth effect']
   Boom, bust felt mainly by the rich, by Greg Ip, WSJ, D2.
   [This is another take on our bad news story today, as spun by the NY Times, 1/23/2003 #1.]
   ...The proportion of households owning stocks either directly or directly, such as through a mutual fund, rose to 52% in 2001 from 49% in 1998 and 37% in 1992, according to the report. That, combined with the surge in stock prices and home values, sharply lifted household net worth - assets minus debt - to an average of $395,500 per family in 2001, up 29% from $307,400 in 1998. The dollar figures are all inflation-adjusted and expressed in constant, 2001 dollar terms.
   [But -]
   But the report, by Fed economists Ana Aizcorbe, Arthur Kennickell and Kevin Moore, also shows that those averages are heavily skewed by the enormous stock holdings of the wealthiest 10% of the families. The typical family's net worth, as measured by the median, and half are below - rose only 10% in the same period, to $86,100 from $78,000.
   Many analysts say the rise in stock ownership to more than half of households has created a new investor class [and he accuses others of class warfare?!] whose concerns about their stock portfolios heavily influence their economic and political choices. pResident Bush's proposal to eliminate taxes on dividends in part is aimed at this group. But yesterday's report, based on an exhaustive, triennial survey of consumers and their finances, suggests that in dollar terms, the increase in stock wealth has been narrowly based.
   Among all stock-owning families, the median holding was $34,000 in 2001, up 26% from $27,000 in 1998 and more than double its 1992 figure of $13,000. But the typical homeowner had four times as much wealth tied up in his house: $122,000 in 2001, up 12% from $109,000 in 1998, the report concludes.
   [Then there's a paragraph that repeats the figures from the NYT's version. Then there's the part that drives home the point that the 'wealth effect,' the effect of a rising and falling stock market on economic prosperity is insignificant because it's too concentrated -]
   Just as the wealthiest disproportionately enjoyed the boom [dba bubble], the pain has also been concentrated among them. Fed economists, lacking survey data for 2002, estimated that the average household's net worth stood at $341,300 on Oct. 4 last year, roughly when the stock market hit a 5-year low, a 14% decline from 2001. But the household's net worth, they estimate, declined just 6% in the same period, to $80,700. "Stock ownership is still highly skewed towards upper-income households," said Dean Maki, an economist at Putnam Investments and former Fed researcher. "So the 'boom' [our quotes - ed.] and bust are also going to be highly skewed, and those affect the average more than the median. The median household isn't terribly exposed to the stock market."
   This, in turn, helps explain why the enormous loss of stock-market wealth since the peak in 2000 hasn't crushed consumer spending. Most of the stock loss has been born by the rich minority. Other Fed data suggest that they have in fact cut back on their spending as a result, whereas the vast majority of families haven't altered their spending and saving behavior significantly.
   [...EXCEPT in response to the ongoing secular, not cyclical, decline in their security due to slowly cumulating downsizing, with a greater and greater waste of the economy's potential effective demand reflected in record homeless (??m), disabled (5.4m) and incarcerated (2.1m).]
   The report also finds that minority households saw little increase in their net worth during the boom era. The median nonwhite or Hispanic household's net worth was $17,100 in 2001, down from $17,900 in 1998, though up 16% from $14,800 in 1992. By contrast, the median white household's net worth rose 17% to $120,900 in 2001 from $103,400 in 1998, up 40% from $86,200 in 1992....
   [This isn't about race. This is about the secular (= non-cyclical) overwhelming centripetal force on the national income that is starving its economic base, the consumer base, and even strangling the markets away from its own investments. The usual "solution" is war, which functions by killing off the huge surplus of manhours in the job market due to the constant infusion of worksaving technology into the economy and the common but short-sighted response of layoffs. The real solution is to cooperate with the real purpose of technology (= to make life easier for everyone) and gradually reduce the workweek, as we did for 100-150 years before we froze it at the 40-hour level in 1940. The workweek should never again be rigid and frozen and there is no permanent OK level for it. It must remain flexible, and fluctuate (slowly) against unemployment, redefined to include the whole problem of non-self-support. And overtime and overwork must be harnessed to target and trigger training and hiring. We're talking about timesizing, not downsizing.]

1. Doubling up of taxation isn't limited to dividends, by Daniel Altman, NYT, C1.
   [This responds to the incessant myth of America's radical rich (dba bogus self-styled "conservatives"), including Dubya, that taxes on stock dividends are unfair because they constitute a second tax on the same money.]
   ...Corporate dividends, however, are not the only kind of income that is taxed twice.
   [We've made this point ourselves, eg: 1/08/2003 #1, and Altman confirms that point -]
   Other taxes create a double, triple or even quintuple burden. And unlike the double taxation of dividends, which mainly affects [unearned income and] the wealthy, the burden of other forms of multiple taxation -
   • sales taxes,
   • import taxes,
   • payroll taxes,
   among others - often falls most heavily on poorer Americans....
   [and therefore help depress consumer demand and foster recession.]

2. Ontario halts sale of utility stake, pointer digest (to C8), NYT, C1.
   All but putting an end to a deregulated electricity market in Canada's industrial heartland, the government of Ontario said that it would not sell a stake in Hydro One....
   [Is this what used to be "Ontario Hydro" or is Ont. Hydro still around? At any rate, we are glad to hear that the provincial gov't 'saw the light' and learned from California's disastrous experience with deregulation and privatization before it was too late - though they were pretty late in their awakening. We panned them ourselves back on 11/13/2002 #1 and are now moost gratified to hear of their flip.]

• A stirring in the nation, editorial, NYT, A22.
  A largely missing ingredient in the nascent debate about invading Iraq showed up on the streets of major cities over the weekend as crowds of peaceable protesters marched in a demand to be heard. They represented what appears to be a large segment of the American public that remains unconvinced that the Iraqi threat warrants the use of military force at this juncture. Denouncing the war plan as an administration idee fixe that will undermine America's standing in the world, stir unrest in the Mideast and damage the American economy, the protesters in Washington massed on Saturday for what police describedd as the largest antiwar rally at the Capitol since the Vietnam era.... They gathered from near and far by the tens of thousands....
  [Compare -]
  Protests overseas - In the street, across Europe, a weekend of antiwar rallies, by Marlise Simons, NYT, A11.
  ...objecting to America's threats to use its military might against Iraq.
  • About 10,000 people...Brussels...the capital of the European Union..\..slogans..."Bush only wants oil" and "no to Bushery."...
  • Ankara, Turkey's capital...thousands....
  • Vatican....
  • Antwerp....
  • London..\..several hundred...for a second day....
  • Torrejon..\..Spain...several thousand....
  • Germany,
  • Italy,
  • Russia and
  • Sweden....
  • Paris...thousands....
  • at least a dozen other French cities..\..thousands....
  [As we've said before, if the parties were reversed, the Republicans would have been calling for Bush's impeachment for months now.]

• Israeli gadfly [Tommy Lapid] hopes to separate religion and state - A party [Shinui Party] urging an end to religious subsidies may be Israel's kingmaker [here's hopin'] - A debate over the meaning of a democratic state that is Jewish [welcome to the modern world], by James Bennet, NYT, A3.
  ...To the surprise of many, his party has emerged as a force to be reckoned with in the current Israeli election. [photo caption]
  [Thank God! And as for the religious subsidies from the government, apparently in Israel if you're Orthodox you don't have to work - you get a living subsidy from the government. Source - colleague Kate, whose Jewish-by-birth mother narrowly escaped Austria by train just before or during Anschluss.]
  [Followup -]
  An Israeli party wins supporters with secular push - Shinui is looking to curb the political power of ultra-orthodox Jews..., by Karby Leggett, 1/28/2003 WSJ, front page.

1. New wariness in Russia toward 'help' from West [our quotes - ed.], by Steven Myers, NYT, A3.
   [Hey, the Ruskies are starting to see through us again. Too bad for Argentinians that they haven't.]

2. [and we're starting to see through our top executives and 'watchdogs' -]
   Accounting rules changed to bar tactics used by Enron, by Floyd Norris, NYT, C4.

1. Survey finds slippage in ratings for Bush, AP via Boston Globe, A2.
   pResident Bush's job approval has slipped to 58% in a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll, down 5 points from 6 weeks ago and the first time it has fallen below 60% since before 9/11/01.
   • 60% said Bush is paying enough attention to the war on terrorism
     [how about "too much attention"?]
   • 55% said he's not paying enough attention to the economy
   • 56% said he favors the rich, while [only] about 25% said he favors the middle class
   Bush's job approval is...about the same as his father had 12 years ago. The poll of 1,002 adults was taken Jan. 10-12 and has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
   [So we'll still need 2% more surveyees to smarten up to get 60% above the margin of error, and 12% more to get 50% above the margin of error. Hey, there's hope - it happened for Bush Sr. Here's the start of Maureen Dowd's tapdance on the start of Bush's self-skewering -]
   Running fast into the past - A White House for Joe Six-pack or Joe Millionaire?, op ed by Maureen Dowd, NYT, A23.
   George W. Bush designed his entire political career and pResidency to make sure he would never face this moment. The moment where he would pick up USA Today one morning midway through his term and read that his stratospheric approval numbers were dropping because more and more people think he is out of touch with average Americans....
   [Here's his latest gaff -]
   Bush says Iraq is short on time for disarmament, by Phillips & Cummings & Cloud, WSJ, A8.
   [But then, it's been short of time for months and months, never mind North Korea which can actually reach us with ICBMs and never mind USSR has nuclear-armed for 5 decades. Guess his corporate masters are chickening out.]

2. [but here's the main reason -]
   Think rich, vote rich, get rich, letters to editor, NYT, A22.
   • ...By Helene Torker of Great Neck NY.
     David Brooks's Jan. 12 Op-Ed article reflects the latest PR spin to justify tax breaks for the rich.... Let's [re-]focus on common sense, real numbers and demonstrated need, instead of on the contrived philosophy and divisive labels of party-line spinning.
     [Like their constant accusations of "class warfare," when their own fist-tight consolidation of spending power is doing more to undermine their own investments than anything their employees are calling for.]
   • ...By Robert Primack of Gainesville FL.
     I think so highly of David Brooks that he is one of a very small number of conservatives who might influence any political decision I might make. But his argument explaining why middle-class Americans vote like rich people seems to me defective, considering that almost every poll we do about economic and political knowledge shows a vast ignorance among even the better educated middle classes.
     It's not the triumph of hope over self-interest; it's the triumph of not realizing the obvious negative consequences of one's own behavior.
   • ...By Keith Schmitz of Shorewood WI.
     ...The Bush administration may have its problems with running the economy or putting out a coherent foreign policy, but this government is highly skilled when it comes to using aspiration, patriotism and the American public's other admirable qualities to advance its own partisan self-interest.
   • [the one dissenter rebutted -]
     ..\..By former Census Bureau economist Paul Ryscavage of Bluffton SC.
     ...Traditionally, increasing income inequality has been associated with decreasing economic fairness. What Mr. Brooks is really saying is that in recent years a "disconnect" took place in the inequality-fairness relationship.
     [One wonders what an economist who aspires to a scientific outlook is doing using a word like squishy concept like "fairness." Ryscavage's next points indicate he has replaced the concept of "fairness" with "prosperity."]
     And [Brooks is] right; look at the facts.
     • Despite the widening income gap, the poverty rate in this country is about the same as it was 30 years ago;
       [Probably because it has not kept up with expectations or even inflation. In short, it's been carefully defined to appear about the same as it was 30 years ago, never mind that we have record disability (5.4m), record incarceration (2.1m) and homelessness (the captains of industry have seen fit to give little publicity to the quantity of homeless that was discovered in Census 2000).]
     • the yearly income range of the middle class now extends up toward $150,000;
       [Again, purely because somebody has defined it so, never mind how infinitely much higher the yearly income range of the upper class now extends. Oops, Ryscavage got that in the next one.]
     • and the wealthy (despite the bursting of the bubble) are flourishing as in no other time in history.
       ["Flourishing" when they have concentrated the nation's spending power in such astronomical black holes that they have begun suctioning the markets away from the productivity in which their own investments reside and nudged the economy, national and global, into a self-propagating downward spiral.]
     [Oops, here Ryscavage re-introduces the concept of "fairness" - without actually having offered any arguments to support it, just a cosmetic prosperity - but maybe real enough for him personally. One of the features of the wealthy in as peacetime labor surplus intensifies and market forces allow the dramatic concentration of wealth, is that their view is general though formulated in considerable isolation and insulation.]
     Ordinary Americans saw this happening and have come to realize that there is nothing wrong with being rich and getting richer - as long as it's done fairly....
     [Thus begging the question, what's "fairly"? Or maybe more like, "fairly for whom?" We refer back to the letters above that give truer answers to the mystery of why ordinary Americans have voted against their own interests - skilled GOP spindoctors and widespread ignorance. Unfortunately, Ryscavage is not that skilled and we are not that ignorant. In fact, we would add a couple of other reasons. The Democratic Party has not got beyond the ineffectual vision of the New Deal aka Keynesianism, as became painfully clear under Jimmy Carter. By "beyond" we mean, they've never accepted the New Deal's impotence at solving the Great Depression, or analyzed why World War II was successful. Thus they've never asked, How do we get the economic prosperity of war without the war, and argued themselves around to the answer, We engineer the perceived levels of labor shortage characteristic of wartime by simply trimming the workweek, as we did haphazardly for the century and a half before we set it at 44 hours in 1938, 42 hours in 1939 and then froze it at 40 hours in 1940. The other reason ordinary Americans have apparently voted with the rich is that the Democrats, failing to come up with a more robust progressive vision, began to fall back and become mere imitators of the Republicans. And Americans thought, we have no real choice, so we may as well vote for real Republicans that Republican imitators. Then maybe the Democrats will get it together and hark back to the most advanced Democrats in their history, Hugo Black and Bill Connery, who sponsored the Black-Connery 30-hour workweek bill in 1933, Black in the Senate (it passed 53-30) and Connery in the House (FDR switched from support to opposition and only switched back two years later when it was too late to do anything but let the 30-hour week come out in 1938-39-40 as 44-42-40 hours, irrelevantly high levels but if they had simply continued, even at the pace of just a one hour cut each year after the war whenever unemployment rose above 1%, they would have, in conjunction with overtime-to-training&hiring conversion, prevented all further recessions, or made it necessary to considerably ease the definition of "recession" to continue the excitement of having them.]

1. [UPsizing #1]
   Best Buy Co., NYT, C8.
   ...Eden Prairie, Minn., the US' largest electronics chain...signed leases for 40 stores it planned to open this year in 25 cities as it moves toward a goal of opening 650 stores by 2006.
   [Unspecified new low-paying jobs.]

2. [UPsizing #2]
   Teens and Vogue: Just who is leading whom?, by Amy Finnerty, WSJ, D6.
   ...Conde Nast now plans to expand..\..Vogue magazine editor, Anna Wintour['s] already hegemonic sphere of aesthetic influence...with its launch of Teen Vogue, where she will serve as editorial director.... Teen Vogue...hits the newsstands nationally on Jan. 28...with a cover price of [only] $1.50....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

• A Republican dissent on Iraq, full page ad, WSJ, A5.
  To President Bush, his advisors and the American People:
  Let's be clear: We supported the Gulf War. We supported our intervention in Afghanistan. We accept the logic of a just war.
  But Mr. President, your war on Iraq does not pass the test. It is not a just war.
  The candidate we supported in 2000 promised a more humble nation in our dealings with the world. We gave him our votes and our campaign contributions.
  That candidate was you. We feel betrayed. We want our money back. We want our country back.
  War is the most extreme action a society can take. It can only be unleashed after exploring every other road. You have not explored all the roads.
  How many young American lives will be lost in this dubious war? How many more innocent Iraqis will be killed and maimed and made homeless? Haven't they suffered enough, after two decades of terrible wars and sanctions?
  Among the one billion Muslims in the world there is now a steady trickle of recruits going to Al Qaeda. You will turn the trickle into a torrent. A billion bitter enemies will rise out of this war.
  And out of war may rise an Iraqi regime every bit as brutish as the present one. What will you do then? Our jaws drop when we read that you may decide we have to occupy Iraq for years, that the next ruler of Iraq may be...an American general! Is there anyone in this country who thinks that will work? Your odds of success are infinitesimal!
  The world wants Saddam Hussein disarmed. But you must find a better way to do it.... You are waltzing blindfolded into what may well be a catastrophe.... Show the humility and compassion that led us to elect you....
  War with Iraq is not inevitable. Now is the time to stop it....
  [There's a coupon to fill out and send in a tax-deductible donation to:]
  Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities
  PO Box 1976 Old Chelsea Station
  New York, NY 10113
  [or]
  To sign up for our online campaign, visit us at *TrueMajority.com...a partner in Win Without War.
  [The small print names 25 people who are behind this ad and starts -]
  Edward Hamm, Republican Regent, former Chairman, The Northland Co.,
  Richard Johnson, Founder & former CEO, Hotjobs.com
  Barbara Lifflander, Pres., Hastings Art Ltd....
  Affliations for identification only

• Bush signs bill to extend unemployment benefits, by Carl Hulse, NYT, A19.
  [At last.]

1. Rangel raises unwanted questions [bless 'im!], op ed by Marie Cocco, Boston Globe, A19, flagged by colleague Kate.
   ...The Harlem Democrat..\..Charlie Rangel...has dared to poke at the nation's odd ennui with the prospect of war in Iraq. He's barged into the warmth of the family room and plunked himself down with an uninvited guest. The draft. [He recommended the draft is we are really at war.]
   Everyone would be eligible for conscription save conscientious objectors and people who fail the physical. No college deferments. No National Guard duty for the politically connected or the polished offspring of the affluent.
   "We're talking about war, but we're really not discussing sacrifice," Rangel said in an interview.
   Rangel is conversant with sacrifice.   52 years ago, Corporal Charles Rangel was wounded when his infantry convoy tried to break through an enemy roadblock near Changye-ri, Korea. Limping and bleeding, Rangel tended to the wounded and led other men to safety. He won the Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.
   The pResident['s] military experience was [only] a stint in the Texas Air National Guard marked by unexplained absences, [yet he] contemplates war at all ends of the earth [Iraq, N. Korea...]. He wants to fight them with a peacetime military [of] volunteers - drawn disproportionately from minority communities like the one Rangel represents....

2. [give the devil his due -]
   How a Republican [Nixon!] desegregated the South's schools - The story behind Nixon's forgotten breakthrough, op ed by former Secy of State George Schultz, NYT, A27.
   [And he opened up with Commie China too!]

3. [and pair of devils duke it out -]
   California curbed, editorial, NYT, A26.
   The decision by Interior Secretary Gale Norton on New Year's Day to reduce water flows from the Colorado River to farmers in California's Imperial Valley and 17m urban consumers in Southern California was right on the mark. Though Ms. Norton could have found ways to delay the order, doing so would only have encouraged California to continue its undisciplined and unfair diversion of water to which a half-dozen other states also have rightful claim....
   [Can any of them infinitely grabby sandalistas in California spell s-h-a-r-i-n-g, or l-i-m-i-t-s?]
   [Followup]
   Government adds to threat of denying farmers water - Pledges to California are being rethought - Washington plays hardball with the Imperial Valley, by Dean Murphy, NYT, A12.

• An open mind amid growling ideologues, by Edward Rothstein, NYT, A15.
  In 1955, the French sociologist and historian Raymond Aron began a book with an epigraph from Karl Marx:
  "Religion is the sigh of the creature overwhelmed by misfortune, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
  [We never knew there was a context for this quote. We always assumed it was a flatly cynical remark. But the context here revealed shows Marx and a sensitive and compassionate guy.]
  For Marx, religion was a profound expression of distress and suffering, offering comfort when none could be found; but it was also a delusion, dulling awareness of the true causes of misery....
  [The functions of religion in human evolution seem to be based on its etymological meaning of "rereading" and its dependence on the invention of the writing and the emergence, among hosts of writings, of a collection of special writings such as the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Epistles, the visual hallucinations of St.John ("Revelation") and the auditory hallucinations of Mohammed. The two basic functions are the presentation of a separate reality, more familiar, secure and comforting than this one, and the motivation of universal literacy campaigns. (Note that we derive "religion" from re-legere, to reread, similar to "diligent" or "intelligent," rather than accepting the usual, strained derivation from re-ligare, to tie back {to the gods??? - bizarre}, similar to "ligature" or "league.")]
  Aron, in acidly calling his book, "The Opium of Intellectuals," meant something similar. But in his era, he believed, the opium was a secular form of religion - Marxism itself....

• [1 UPsizing.]
  Washington wire - ...Employers gripe, by Jackie Calmes, WSJ, A4.
  ...as the second major mobilization of National Guard & Reserves since 9/11/01, looms.
  [Unspecified new full-time government "jobs" of indefinite duration, and cost to taxpayers.]
  The Pentagon's Employer Support Office is getting about 350 complaints and questions a month - up from about 250 six months ago. Though supportive, "a number of employers are concerned about the potential of losing some of their people who have just returned from duty," says Col. Alan Smith.

1. [social software]
   U.S. TV shows losing potency around world, by Suzanne Kapner, NYT, front page.
   [Canadians and the rest of the world breathe a big sigh of relief.]

2. [computer software]
   For the gadget universe [radios, cellphones...], a common tongue - An innovator's son [Vanu Bose] takes on a new challenge: To make incompatibility obsolete, by Barnaby Feder, NYT, E1.