June 2010 – Page 4

Friday night videos – episode 36

Kicking back and relaxing on a warm summer night – take your time with these videos. Perhaps you’re like me and do a lot of your web surfing outside.

You know, that Joe Sestak job offer scandal is still percolating around Washington, casting a shadow on the Obama Administration.

I know the Center for Individual Freedom generally exceeds its “Freedom Minute” but it’s worth watching.

Something that probably won’t be worth watching is an upcoming Comedy Central show called “JC.” It’s a show I wrote about for Patriot Post and begs the question – is America ready for more Christian-bashing out of a network which was afraid to portray the prophet Muhammad? (Probably NSFW if you’re there.)

Yeah, that was pretty disgusting. Speaking of disgusting, let’s have the reaction of folks on the left to this guy becoming violent at a Tea Party protest in North Carolina.

Oh, I forgot, it’s the Tea Partiers who are violent. That might be the next thing Obama blames Bush for, and the background music is priceless. (I actually used the Smokin’ Gunnz version of the song a few weeks back.)

Yeah, I got that from Eric Cantor’s office. But it was good. On a more serious note (and since Obama referred to the Deepwater Horizon spill) the next two videos feature American Petroleum Institute chief economist Dr. John Felmy discussing the effects of the Gulf drilling moratorium.

Of course, some of these jobs could’ve gone to newly minted graduates – ALG talked to some recent ones about the youth job situation and 26.4% unemployment.

As always, let’s close with a song. Local artist Bryan Russo has a jazzy flavor on this song as he takes a trip to the ‘Smokey Cafe.’ Don’t think I’ve ever embedded a Vimeo before.

With that, another episode of FNV is a wrap.

New Rasmussen Poll has governor’s race as dead heat

Late yesterday afternoon Rasmussen released its latest polling of the Maryland governor’s race and the results should be encouraging to Bob Ehrlich.

After trailing in two previous polls Ehrlich has closed the gap and now sits in a virtual tie with incumbent Martin O’Malley 45 percent to 45 percent.

(continued on my Examiner.com page…)

Shorebird of the Week – June 10, 2010

Kieron Pope loosens up before stepping to the plate for the first time against Lakewood on May 28.

Kieron Pope surveys the defense against Lakewood on May 31.

At 23, Kieron Pope is at a career crossroads.

In his second tour of duty with the Shorebirds after a devastating leg injury at the tail end of 2009’s spring training cost him over a season, Kieron needs to improve on his numbers from 2008. In a full season here he batted just .232/12/45 in 107 games, numbers which would probably doom a late-round organizational player.

But Kieron is a little more highly touted as a 4th round pick back in 2005 out of East Coweta High School in Gay, Georgia. Part of the scouting report Baseball America provided on him has been his story:

He has pro makeup to go with a pro body, working as hard on his game as any prep in the state. Pope has work to do, though, because while he has good hands, he swings and misses too much and lacks much of an approach at the plate. His instincts leave something to be desired. His arm is adequate and probably better suited to left field.

He did swing and miss far too much in 2008, fanning 139 times in 383 at-bats. Given that the four players picked ahead of him by the Orioles (Brandon Snyder, Garrett Olson, Nolan Reimold, Brandon Erbe) are all legitimate prospects and Pope is in his fifth season down on the farm this may be his last opportunity to advance.

But since being activated May 23rd, Kieron has finally began to look like the player the Orioles envisioned. In the 16 games he’s played since coming off the disabled list Pope is hitting .333 (21-for-63) with 3 home runs and 10 RBI. He’s still striking out with frequency (22 times) but half of that total came in his first 25 at-bats – perhaps he’s getting adjusted to live action now after such a long time away.

His tale will be told as the season evolves, since Pope has never hit better than .257 over a season (2006, split between Bluefield and Aberdeen) and his full season numbers in 2008 were not eyepopping. But if Pope can connect enough to maintain an average around .300 and keep hammering the horsehide out of ballparks around the South Atlantic League he could still be one of those late-bloomers who toiled in the minors for the better part of a decade before becoming established in the big leagues.

Bringing in the heavy hitters (from across the Bay)

I got the most interesting invitation in my snail mail box today: a fundraiser invitation from Delegate (and wannabe Senator) Jim Mathias. Seems to me that Jim is an ambitious kind of guy and the Democrats opportunists who see a Senate seat opening up in a district which gave Mathias the highest number of votes in 2006 – a match made in heaven.

There’s no surprise that Jim is having the fundraiser at Seacrets in Ocean City, nor does it shock me that the admission price is on the steep side ($100 and up for the “Friends Reception” and a cool grand for the “VIP Reception.”) What made me scratch my head and do some digging is the “care of” address on the invitation – a company called Rice Consulting.

Based in Bel Air, Rice Consulting specializes in campaign organization and fundraising for a host of Democratic candidates, mostly from the I-95 corridor. The Mathias event is one of many on their calendar, which also includes a Smith Island cruise with Norm Conway later this summer.

Obviously Mathias must feel the decision to use a connected company to handle his fundraising and events gives him an advantage for being elected and getting a copy of the guest list for the event would be a real eyeopener, I’m sure. But it belies the typical Eastern Shore Democrat strategy of talking conservative to moderate on the home front and hoping voters don’t pay attention to the liberal voting record. Throwing in his lot with this group sure doesn’t seem like the down-home, “aw shucks” image the former Ocean City mayor has tried to show as his public face the last several years.

However, this and other invitations I’ve received have convinced me to bring back the Election Calendar – however, I’m going to base it at my Wicomico County Election 2010 Examiner site and link to it from here (as I do with other Examiner articles of mine.) So look for it beginning Sunday.

Discussing the issues with Rob Fisher, First District Congressional candidate

Rob Fisher's campaign headquarters in downtown Salisbury on the Plaza. It's a bonus picture not on the Examiner page.

Earlier this afternoon I stopped by the downtown Salisbury campaign office of First District Republican hopeful Rob Fisher and asked him a few questions. While I had some items on my agenda to ask, the 45 minute conversation with Fisher and his campaign manager Demetrios Karoutsos ranged over a broad palette of topics.

The modest facade of the building fit the low-key style of the candidate, who spoke about being a sixth-generation resident of the Eastern Shore and his family’s working class and agricultural background. Rather than being a stiffly formal q-and-a format, we worked in the information amongst a discussion of all the issues of making a run for Congress.

(continued on my Examiner.com page…)

Also, Fisher debuted his first television commercial today on various cable outlets. In speaking to them today, though, I noted that whoever does his website really needs to allow embed codes for videos!

On leadership

This will be sort of a collection of random thoughts as I prepare for the next big thing blog-wise: interviewing a candidate later this afternoon.

People are trying to tell us that being part of the status quo is poison this election cycle. To an extent, I think they’re right in that perhaps being a 20 year incumbent isn’t all that cool anymore (although, with rare exceptions, it never really was.)

It seems to me that part of the problem is getting caught up in the “we’ve always done it this way” syndrome and sometimes it takes an outsider to assess the problem and come up with a more creative solution. As an example, what if someone came into a position of power not just mouthing the ideas of “hope” and “change” but actually having a plan to create it? I don’t mean just stomping the accelerator to the floor on the direction we’ve been going for decades as a nation but actually turning the wheel and traveling down the road in the opposite direction.

“But radical change like that would take people out of their comfort zone!” the critics would say, and that would be correct. Yet comfort is a relative thing, and one man’s desired style of living certainly may not reflect their neighbor’s or their friend’s. Taking off the brain’s cruise control and instead inspiring critical thinking may be jarring at first, but it can eventually be quite liberating.

A true leader may not always have the majority behind him to start; in fact, to me the definition of a leader is someone who takes things in a direction not heretofore taken and well before the bandwagon even pulls up. Eventually the people come on board, but not until after the leader takes his or her slings and arrows along the way.

One political race which comes to mind as I write this is the race for our County Executive. Four years ago we had a choice between two people who seemed to represent where we’d always been and who would take things in the same direction. Maybe that was the way to inaugurate a new office, an office which only existed after contentious debate and a vote of the people – oddly enough, here was something of a new direction where some showed leadership in working to adopt. To many, making waves with the new office was quite enough so we eventually elected a career bureaucrat to take the reins. In essence, he was elected to do a job he had previously been appointed to do for a smaller subdivision.

Now we have another election, one which pits the old guard against someone with at least some ideas which would radically change the county. These ideas, he argues, are what he puts forth as a leader – one who will attempt to sell these items on their merits to a populace which may not be so much comfortable with the way things are as they are resigned to the top-down system as it is. Even I don’t agree with all of them but have to concede that the arguments have some merit.

The candidates who tend to appeal to me mix a willingness to shake things up, a history of involvement in local affairs, and a manner of communication which brings their philosophy to life and encourages the listener to come to the conclusion that indeed this path is the correct one. (Of course, principles matter. Barack Obama would fit into the first two categories but can’t convince me his conclusions are correct. For the most part, Ronald Reagan did all three.)

There’s no doubt I have a vision of government and its role which is somewhat different than the average voter’s. Whether that’s because I’m not part of the mainstream or people simply go along to get along is a question best answered elsewhere, but the fact remains that I’m willing to touch those third rails in my writing and attempt to convince people they should call for those sacred cows to be slaughtered. If we had more people in politics who understood what the role of the government truly should be, it’s my contention that we would be even more prosperous and free to live as we wish to.

Count me as one of those who doesn’t like the chains laying upon me.

The first of many, I’m sure

Today Sarah Kliff at Politico reports that a small Virginia-based health insurer will be closing its doors, effective December 31. The reason nHealth is shutting down?

“The uncertainties in the regulatory climate coupled with new demands imposed by national health care reforms have made it challenging to sustain the level of sales required to remain viable over the long run,” according to a letter given to company employees.

Cynics and critics of Obamacare pointed out the regulations would indeed drive private insurance companies out of business and it appears that the Richmond-based company will be the first.

What’s most sad about this particular closing is that the company, “specializes in high-deductible insurance plans, meant to cover larger medical emergencies, that are paired with health savings accounts, the tax-deductible accounts used to pay for medical expenses” – exactly the sort of plan which would be most beneficial to the large percentage of the uninsured who are relatively young and healthy.

Part of the problem with the future outlook of companies which specialize in HSAs is that the regulations (which haven’t been written yet) may leave insurers in limbo.

According to Heritage Foundation blogger Kathryn Nix,

“the worst news for those using HSAs is the provision requiring all policies to cover at least 60 percent of the actuarial value of the benefits offered. What’s the actual value? No one really knows—not until the Health and Human Services Department issues regulations on how to calculate it.”

Obviously if the saved portion is counted toward the value those who are just starting out or have little in their HSA wouldn’t qualify. It will be up to career bureaucrats and lobbyists to make this decision and chances are good Fedzilla will want to exert maximum control over consumers.

It’s areas like this where defunding may not have the desired effect and all-out repeal of Obamacare is the only solution.

The anti-tax man

While it’s not quite “one for you, nineteen for me” yet here in Maryland, one perception among business owners who remain in the state after the last four years of being battered by a sluggish economy and government less than friendly to their interests is that taxes are simply too high.

GOP frontrunner Bob Ehrlich already promised his effort to repeal the one penny per dollar increase in the state sales tax adopted in 2007 while Libertarian Susan Gaztanaga pledges to phase the sales tax out entirely over 8 years, but fellow Republican contestant Brian Murphy is going farther down the anti-tax road.

In a series of press releases this month, Murphy has challenged his two main opponents to refrain from raising taxes, vowed to cap property tax rate increases, and revealed a plan to eliminate the corporate income tax entirely. Taken at face value, one would be led to assume that Murphy would also have to make deep cuts in Maryland’s budget.

(continued on my Examiner.com page…)

Number crunching by the NTU

It’s a long report, but according to the National Taxpayers Union this Congress (or at least the Republican side) is beginning to listen to the clamor for less government.

The “BillTally” study done annually by the group shows this Congress may have slowed down a trend insofar as budget cutting bills are concerned, but we’re still nowhere near the small government prowess shown by the 104th Congress. (That was the Newt Gingrich/Contract With America class of 1994.)

Two of their findings were most intriguing given the rise of “Blue Dog” Democrats like Frank Kratovil and the schism between RINO’s and conservatives in the GOP.

Members of the Republican Study Committee and the Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, two of the self-identified “fiscally conservative” caucuses in the House, compiled lower net spending agendas than other Members of Congress in their respective parties.
Although the average House Republican was a net cutter, the typical member of the Republican Main Street Partnership, which claims to be composed of “fiscally conservative deficit hawks,” compiled an average net agenda to increase spending by $40.6 billion.

While the first bullet point is reflected in the study, this is all relative: an average Blue Dog is still much more free with other people’s money than the most moderate of Republicans. Just to give readers an idea of the mindset of the Republican Main Street Partnership: Wayne Gilchrest was a member of that group, which is the home of most of the more centrist members of the party. Frank Kratovil and Wayne Gilchrest are fairly similar ideological clones with the exception of who they’d vote for as Speaker of the House (and Gilchrest said recently he would have voted for Obamacare.)

Unfortunately, the study doesn’t specifically break down particular legislators to see just who would cut the most (yes it does – see the comment by the study author in the comments section;) then again, legislation is a complex process anyway and sponsoring a bill may or may not lead to the desired result – many a bill which began as one idea had a number of other unrelated things piggybacked onto it (such as Obamacare dealing with student loans.) But as a whole we can get some better idea of which party is the fiscally conservative one at the moment while reminding ourselves we need to keep a better eye on them should they regain power.

All talk and no action

In nearly four years as Governor, Martin O’Malley has presided over a near-doubling of Maryland’s unemployment rate. Certainly all the blame can’t be placed on his shoulders, but it is worth pondering why the state’s unemployment rate is higher than neighboring Virginia’s or 14 other states which don’t have the advantage of location near the seat of a burgeoning federal government.

As part of his response to both the issue and the attention paid to it by his three main opponents, Governor O’Malley signed an Executive Order last week to create a 26 member commission to study the issue and report back to the governor annually beginning in June 2011 – safely after both this year’s election and the 2011 General Assembly session.

(continued on my Examiner.com page…)

Weekend of local rock volume 33

It wasn’t the weekend just past but last weekend that my significant other and I made the rounds to check out our friends and a number of other bands. This all began in Crisfield thanks to a speedy Shorebirds game and a gorgeous warm night on Somers Cove.

It's not a perfect shot since I didn't have a tripod handy but doesn't that look relaxing?

That’s where we caught up with our friends in Semiblind.

Don't even ask why the picture is off-kilter - I think I was trying to take a shot from hip level. This was at the Crisfield Tiki Bar on May 28, 2010.

Little did we know that the winds of change were about to blow there, but more on that briefly. After taking a time out from the local music scene on Saturday we returned to the Concert for a Random Soldier on Sunday.

I went through some of the particulars here but didn’t talk about the bands we saw. We picked up the show about halfway through, beginning with the oldies of 33 1/3. (No, I won’t do the obvious and change the post title to reflect the group – funny that I’m on volume 33.)

The first band we saw at CRS played a dose of classic hits from the 1960's. 33 1/3 was similar to several other bands who donated time for the event.

One thing about the day and the background – bad for picture taking. That also bedeviled me for the next band.

3/4 of the band 'Nothin' But Trouble' were present, so I called them the Joey Fulkerson Trio.

The highlight of their set was a wild ride through a medley of ’60’s music from pop classics to TV themes.

Between sets, there were various combinations of acoustic players – one of those combos being Jim and Michele Hogsett from Semiblind.

Michele and Jim Hogsett doing the duo before the full band set later on.

Jim and Michele have a wide variety of songs in their acoustic playlist. They played as 8 Track Flashback got set up.

I used a wider shot in my previous post on the Concert for a Random Soldier, but 8 Track Flashback went way back with their playlist to get some of the elders moving and grooving.

These guys played stuff I hadn’t heard from a rock band – how about a cover of “Minnie the Moocher?” I think the older folks under the pavilion enjoyed it more than I did.

Semiblind was next up, but they had a personnel issue. Fortunately, Alan from Blind Willie was all ready to step in and filled in well for Semiblind’s set. And let’s just say next time I see my friends at a show there will be a different drummer once again.

It wasn't the tightest set I've ever heard from the band, but Alan from Blind Willie did a yeoman's job filling in at the last minute for Semiblind.

In fact, Blind Willie was the next band. We had to leave, though, just as they started their set.

Blind Willie was just getting started when we left the Concert for a Random Soldier.

Had we stayed until the end, we would have been treated to a much heavier sound as Destroying the Catalyst was the last band scheduled. Even their trailer says ‘metal band.’ I did notice there were a few more of the Millennial Generation arriving as we left so it’s obvious DTC put the word out on the show.

At some point I would like to catch these guys live - it just wasn't to be last Sunday.

Arriving late to the event, unfortunately we missed the sets from Blue Thunder, Hyde Park, and lower case blues. But we had another place to go and support another friend in the music business. We were off to a bonfire.

This bonfire was outside the Oasis, unfortunately the bands were inside. There's something wrong with that picture.

We arrived at the Oasis in time for the seventh band of the ten or so scheduled for the day, called Living the Dream.

The three-piece 'Living the Dream' had some help on the hard rock classics as host Skip Dixxon played the drums.

These guys bashed through a number of hard rock classics before yielding to a more modern rock cover band I’d heard about but hadn’t seen yet, Dust n’ Bones.

Dust n' Bones seems to play a lot at one of my favorite places to eat, Station 7. This gig was down the road a piece from there.

The one thing which sticks out in my mind is that they could use another guitar to bring themselves a fuller sound. It didn’t seem like the lead was very prominent in some songs.

Then things calmed down for the last two acts of the night. One of them was a reprisal of Jim and Michele playing an acoustic set; something they’ve branched into over the last month or so as a way of getting additional gigs in different places.

Jim plays guitar and Michele sings. You can't get a whole lot simpler than that for keeping it in the family.

Last but not least was the stripped down acoustic version of Crookedfinger.

A stripped down version of Crookedfinger wrapped up the show as the bonfire burned outside the Oasis in Whaleyville.

The one thing which was disappointing as far as the four bands I saw at the Oasis – no originals. Having not seen Living the Dream and Dust n’ Bones I wouldn’t have known they were (I assume) strictly cover bands, but the acoustic sets could have been a little more adventurous. Those guys all can play.

But it made for a full weekend. I wouldn’t have minded getting to one musical event I missed (Greenwoodstock) but that wasn’t to be. This is the time of year it’s a little harder to find originality because the tourists demand the same old songs in repackaged form, so I was hoping for something new and exciting out of the groups I saw. It was still entertaining, though, especially for a summery Friday evening and Sunday.

Broadening the conversation

With his win last month in Kentucky’s Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by the retiring Senator Jim Bunning, Rand Paul termed it a victory for the Tea Party movement. In the May 18 election Paul trounced “establishment” candidate Trey Grayson by a 59% – 35% count, stunning observers with his margin of victory over a candidate backed by Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, among others.

For becoming the new darling of the conservative movement, the younger Paul – son of two-time Presidential candidate and libertarian hero Rep. Ron Paul – immediately became the target of the progressives who inhabit the mainstream media. Just as Sarah Palin was bushwhacked by interviews she did with network news personalities Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson during the 2008 campaign, Paul stepped in it just days after winning the primary election with an interview on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” which led to Rachel Maddow browbeating him on her MSNBC show. The line of questioning regarded Paul’s view on civil rights and laws passed a half-century ago.

Obviously the intent of this cross-examination was to play into the media’s template of Tea Partiers as racist hicks far outside the mainstream. You wouldn’t catch those journalists asking a Democrat about his party’s historical opposition to those same civil rights advances dating back to the Civil War, but when they get the opportunity to score points against a rising star of the conservative movement they’re sure to take them.

Perhaps, though, the time has come to make civil rights an issue and ask about the progress we’ve truly made toward a colorblind society. After all, once we elected a President with a multi-racial background it was thought the issue would fade away into a post-racial era – apparently it hasn’t yet sunk in with the media who asked these questions of the Kentucky victor.

Rand Paul brings up a good point about the status of civil rights in America. While the topic of race was the shovel used to try and bury the newly-minted candidate, we could ask the question about a number of other forms of discrimination as well.

One example is the city of Kinston, North Carolina. In 2008 the voters there overwhelmingly supported a change in their municipal elections from partisan to nonpartisan, but they were overruled by the Justice Department based on the Voting Rights Act. Apparently the minority community (which is actually a majority in Kinston) wouldn’t know to vote for the proper candidates if they didn’t have a “D” by their name, according to DOJ logic.

Laws can and do outlive their usefulness. In truth, a business which didn’t provide accommodations for or cater to a portion of their potential clientele would likely find itself closing its doors in short order. As a whole, society is growing more and more tolerant so the prospect of segregated lunch counters is fading into the dustbin of history regardless of whether a law prohibiting the practice exists on the books.

It’s only those who continue to survive on the division of society by race, class, and gender who try to perpetuate the need for outmoded legislation designed to promote a particular party by presenting a facade of tolerance while denying colorblind equality in practice. He may not have made the point in the most eloquent way, but Rand Paul is correct to encourage a hard look at whether equality is better promoted without laws originally designed to keep us equal but evolving into making certain citizens more equal than others.

Michael Swartz used to practice architecture but now is a Maryland-based freelance writer and blogger whose work can be found in a number of outlets, including Liberty Features Syndicate. This cleared the LFS wire on May 26.