January 2001

Have you hugged your pig today?
Nostradamus had a verse for it:

Victory cometh for late-bloomer and Sooner.
The other white meat shall live large.
But there will be no concord in fat city.

A bizarre phenomenon has surfaced in Third Millennium America: Humans are turning for solace to swine.

First, there was the United Airways passenger who got a free first-class seat for her pet porker, claiming that she was disabled (a heart condition) and needed the pig's companionship to keep her calm during the cross-country flight. Disabled airline passengers have a right to bring along a service animal -- usually a guide dog for the blind, not a comfort pig for the nervous.

Now, there's the tragic tale of Hamlet. City officials in Concord, California want to evict the 300-pound potbellied pig from his house in the suburbs, reports the Jan. 5 Mercury News. It's illegal to raise livestock in residential neighborhoods. But owner Sue Greenway says "the pig serves as a crucial comfort for her husband, who has emphysema."

What's so comforting about a pig? The Greenways can't go for walks with Hamlet, who is so obese he can barely totter. They can't cuddle a 300-pound pig.

Perhaps pigs are comforting because they're unabashedly fat. As Americans grow porkier, we seek to turn girth into a virtue. Or we're comforted by knowing that Hamlet sports a potbelly bigger than our own.

The down side of demonization
To defend John Ashcroft from charges he’d criminalize a rape victim’s abortion, Janet Ashcroft made public her own assault 35 years ago, when they were law school classmates. They’d been dating less than three months when she was raped. His supportive response showed his “caring sensitivity,” Mrs. Ashcroft told the press. "The thought that he would do something that would make a rape victim a criminal is simply not accurate."

Is that so? John Ashcroft supports a constitutional amendment to make abortion illegal, with no exceptions for rape victims. Such an amendment would make abortion a crime. A woman who hired someone to commit that crime would be a criminal.

Ashcroft believes abortion is the murder of an unborn child. Logically, he can’t exempt rape victims: It’s not OK to kill an innocent child because its father is guilty of rape.

Ashcroft’s “caring sensitivity” should be beside the point, which is: Would he uphold the law as attorney general? Would he try to impose his moral beliefs on others? He can be a nice guy and a menace to abortion rights and other personal freedoms.

But that’s not how it works these days. Borking works best when the borkee can be made to seem mean, cold, crazy, intolerant, insensitive. If his wife can establish his niceness -- at the sacrifice of her privacy -- then he’s got the job. The down side of demonizing opponents is that it sets the bar too low. Not a demon? Not a problem.

Pure Hillary
The First Lady is now a senator: Hillary! Rodham Clinton was sworn in Jan. 3 by Vice President Al Gore. Democrats' dreams of seizing control of the Senate soared when 98-year-old Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond threw himself on the celebrity senator for a vigorous, possibly lascivious, hug. However, both survived the encounter.

Mrs. Clinton's tragic flaw -- if it rises to the level of tragedy -- is self-righteousness. And it was on display shortly after she disentangled herself from South Carolina's Methuselah. Her post-swearing-in reception was "a party at the ritzy 701 restaurant sponsored by the Coca-Cola Co., health insurance company AFLAC and the law firm Long, Aldridge and Norman," the New York Daily News reported.

During her campaign, Mrs. Clinton pledged to be a leader on health care reform and campaign finance reform. But she's already taking favors from a major insurance company (the one with the quacking duck commercial). Clinton's spokesman Howard Wolfson "scoffed at the suggestion that she would be unduly influenced by the health care industry," the Daily News said.

Why? Because she's too pure to be corrupted? Or too regal to notice who's paying for the petits-four?

George W. Bush, the one who didn't invent the Internet, was the choice of most high-tech workers, says a Dec. 25 Business Week analysis. About a third of voters are in the "New Prosperity" bloc, according to the Pew Research Center. They tend to think Republican on financial issues, Democratic on most social issues. (Affirmative action is an exception.) In 1996, independent voters working in "New Prosperity" jobs favored Clinton over Dole by a small margin. In 2000, they voted for Bush over Gore by two to one.

Why? Gore's populist rhetoric turned them off. "Gore's platform was a long list of things we should spend money on...to win over certain segments of voters,'' Richard W. Lowenthal told Business Week. A former Cisco veep, Lowenthal supported Clinton-Gore in '92 and '96. However, "New Prosperity" voters also are turned off by the Religious Right and they're major-league tree-huggers. Bush's choice of the pious John Ashcroft for attorney general and pro-drilling Gale Norton for Interior could send Prosperitarians fleeing back to the Democratic candidate in 2004.

Hillary!?

Hispanic like a Fox
Linda Chavez, George W. Bush's nominee for Secretary of Labor, is under attack for her conservative beliefs. And for not being a "real" Hispanic. She's not bicultural. The Chavezes have been New Mexicans since the 1600s. They've assimilated. She's not bilingual. At some point after 1848, when Mexico lost New Mexico to the United States, the Chavezes switched to English. She's not biracial. The Chavezes came from Spain. She is not mono-ethnic. Her mother's family is Irish and English. (Mexican presidente Vicente Fox also is Spanish-Irish.) She's not a Democrat. As a columnist, she opposed affirmative action, bilingual education and identity politics. If Chavez was up for La Suprema Chicana, this would matter.

A short, happy book
Perhaps it's nasty, brutish and short-tempered of me, but I enjoyed Louis Bayard's hit piece in Salon on Anna Quindlen's vacuous "Short Guide to a Happy Life."

As a former New York Times columnist turned novelist, Quindlen was able to propel her mini-book -- small pages, large type, wide margins, lots of art --to the best-seller list. I'm a former newspaper columnist! Yet nobody wants to pay me big bucks for my warmed-over Ophrahisms.

Here's my very short guide to life, offered for free: Stop whining and get on with it.

See? I'm stopping now. I'm stopping.

Free nice speech
Religious conservatives are co-opting liberals' language, notes Cathy Young in the January issue of Reason magazine. When conservatives want public prayer in public schools, they demand "free speech." When others use their free speech to criticize religious beliefs, the conservatives demand protection from "hate speech." They don't really "want religion to be treated as just another viewpoint in the marketplace of ideas -- a viewpoint which can be defended but can also be attacked and even ridiculed, like any other idea," writes Young. "The charge of 'Christian bashing' (or 'Catholic bashing') has been directed, for instance, at the ABC show Nothing Sacred, which questioned Catholic doctrine on birth control and priestly celibacy."

Why the sun revolves around the earth
A photo of singer Linda Ronstadt graces Prentice Hall’s middle school science textbook. Why? Because she’s Hispanic and ethnic diversity is mandatory. Accuracy is not: The book identifies Ronstadt as a silicon crystal.

A new study of the 12 most popular middle school science texts found irrelevant photos, incomprehensible illustrations, undoable experiments and tons of errors. Such as: A map showing the equator passing through the United States.

``These are terrible books, and they're probably a strong component of why we do so poorly in science,'' said John Hubisz, a North Carolina State physics professors who led the study. ``They get people to check for political correctness,’’ Hubisz said. But nobody checks the science.

Often, middle-school teachers can’t correct the text’s errors, especially in physical sciences, because they don’t know enough science.

The trouble with textbooks is well-known. Last year, Project 2061 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) gave unsatisfactory ratings to all the most popular middle-school science textbooks. Project 2061 said textbooks are filled with too many disconnected facts and useless classroom activities.

And the disconnected facts aren’t even right.

Wham, bam, cram
"Teaching to the test" is a great bugaboo in education. Usually, I think the critics are off-base: If the test evaluates what students are supposed to learn, then teachers should teach to it.

But not Maryland-style. On the day the statewide test is given, teachers follow a script which directs them to teach students the background knowledge and vocabulary they'll need for the exam, writes Bill Evers in the Jan. 3 Baltimore Sun. "Official Maryland policy is thus for teachers to 'teach to the test' whatever content is needed 20 minutes prior to the test itself!" Evers, a Hoover scholar and an education advisor to our next president, says this "just-in-time" teaching lets schools off the hook for teaching academic content every other day of the year.

No columnists in the Cabinet
As a long-time columnist, I’ve given up on a top Cabinet job. True, I’ve never sheltered an illegal alien. But I’ve expressed a lot of opinions over the years. Not all of them were politically correct at the time, and some probably haven’t stood the test of time.

In Linda Chavez ‘s first post-withdrawal column, she writes about what she thought would be her problem when she was nominated for Labor secretary: “AFL-CIO staff and other interest groups began poring through my voluminous writings over two decades as an editor, columnist and commentator in search of ‘damaging’ quotes. They then distributed material taken out of context and used it to imply that I held positions or opinions that I did not, as any fair reading of my words would reveal.''

The bland shall lead us. -- 1/17

Quick healer
Faced with a National Enquirer story, the Rev. Jesse Jackson confessed to fathering a child with a staffer and said he was withdrawing from public life to reconcile with his wife of 38 years and their five children. After three days at home in Chicago, the civil rights leader announced his political resurrection.

In an inauguration day interview with The Associated Press, Jackson said he could handle the “rhythm of the family reconciling process” and his social justice agenda.

When the news broke, Jackson won praise for honesty. He admitted responsibility and apologized. A few days later, he was blaming unnamed forces for revealing the scandal during the Ashcroft hearings and praising himself for unselfishly focusing on “the people’s agenda” not his own “pain.”

Outgoing President Bill Clinton, who Jackson counseled during the Lewinsky scandal, called with healing tips, the minister said. Incoming President George W. Bush also called. Jackson said he’d monitor the policy choices -- and the morals -- of the new administration.

I guess you can’t keep a repentant sinner down.

It seems to me that Jackson’s “healing” -- whatever that means -- is beside the point. He can’t heal the damage to his credibility as a moral authority. He’s also wounded morale at Rainbow PUSH’s Washington office -- first by the affair with a staffer, then by using the nonprofit ’s budget pay her $75,000 in severance and moving expenses.

Hypocrisy isn’t a problem for San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who’s got a pregnant lady friend. Brown hasn’t lived with his wife for 20 years; he’s never pretended to be faithful to his marriage vows. His wife doesn’t mind.

Still, I was bothered by Brown’s casual dismissal of the prospect of marrying the mother of his child to be. He wouldn’t do that to the mother, he said. The message was clear: Marriage is irrelevant, even if there’s a child in the picture. Marriage is inconvenient. So why bother?

A father who ducks inconvenient commitments isn’t much of a father. There are too many men like that already. Now they’ve got the unrepentant mayor and the quick-healing minister as their role models. 1/21

Little fish swim free
Bill Clinton’s pardons weren’t just for people who’d helped him (stonewaller Susan McDougall) or were rich enough to help Sen. Hillary (fugitive financier Marc Rich). He also commuted the sentences of 36 non-violent, first-time, low-level drug offenders serving long “mandatory minimum’’ sentences.

Sentences are based on the weight of drugs involved -- not the defendant’s level of involvement in drug sales. While “kingpins” can reduce their sentences by testifying against others, the little fish don’t know enough to cut a deal.

For example, Billy Langston was freed after serving six years of a 22-year sentence. He accompanied a friend who was buying chemicals to manufacture PCP but did not buy the chemicals or make the drug. Langston’s sentence was three times longer than the combined sentences for the actual PCP makers.

Repealing the mandatory sentencing law would be an act of justice and mercy. Does George W. Bush have the courage and compassion to lead the charge? --1/24

Kids are learning but so what?
Reading and math scores are up substantially since Edison Schools, Inc. turned a San Francisco elementary school into Edison Charter Academy, But some school board members want to lift the charter anyhow. It's against their "philosophy" to let a corporation run a school, even if the net result is more learning by low-income, minority students.

Debra Saunders' biting column in the San Francisco Chronicle explodes the phony arguments of board members Mark Sanchez and Jill Wynns. For example, scores aren't up because the charter's attracted some middle-class students. The district's own numbers show "significant' improvement by students who attended the school before the charter started, Saunders writes. These are poor kids who desperately need to succeed in school if they're going to have any chance in life. --1/28

Fuzzy math on campus rape
College isn’t safe for girls, according to a federally funded survey. In 1996-97, 1.7 percent of female college students were raped and another 1.1 percent experienced an attempted rape that year, concludes the Justice Department study.

To reach these numbers, researchers relied on a telephone poll that asked about “unwanted sexual experiences.” They rejected results of their second poll, which asked women if they’d been victims of a crime. In that poll, only 0.16 percent said they’d been raped; another 0.18 percent reported an attempted rape.

It all comes down to definitions. The numbers go way up when the definition of rape includes women who had sex they didn’t really want because of a promised reward, pestering or verbal pressure. In short, they were talked into it. That's not rape.

Feminists are the chief peddlers of exaggerated rape statistics, which tell young women: Don’t trust men. Think of yourself as a victim.

Feminism was supposed to empower young women, not scare them off campus. The truth is that college women have a great deal of control over their lives. They can avoid unwanted sex by staying sober and refusing to give in to pleading, pestering or promises. The risk of encountering a violent rapist is never zero, but it is very low. -- 1/28

Volunteer
The principal warned me that I'd have to be fingerprinted before I could volunteer to tutor students. It's a state law to screen out rapists and such. "No problem," I said.
The principal picked up the necessary forms at the district office. I drove to the school to get the packet, which included a request for fingerprinting at the County Office of Education, instructions on how to find the COE, a District Volunteer Application, an Employee Emergency Form, notification of the mandatory tuberculosis test and a copy of the loyalty oath.

I'd taken a TB test years earlier when I signed up to volunteer in my daughter's kindergarten class. But her district doesn't treat volunteers like new employees, so once I was certified as infection-free I was in.

My 15-year-old TB test didn't count. After a vain attempt to persuade my doctor that my recent mammogram should count as a chest X-ray -- it showed no TB, after all -- I drove to the doctor's office, skimmed the New York Times, did the entire crossword and, finally, got the TB test. My insurance should cover most of the cost.

That afternoon was Fingerprint Day -- no appointments needed -- at the County Office of Education, so I hustled 10 miles up the freeway. The first thing I saw when entering the fingerprint room was the huge "live scan" machine capable of sending my digitized digital prints to Sacramento. The second thing I saw was a sign on the machine saying that the $12 fingerprint fee had to be paid by money order. I knew about the $12. But I hadn't read the instruction sheet I'd been given carefully enough. It specified money order (or cashier's check) and warned, "You will NOT be printed without it." The fingerprint lady consulted with a colleague. They agreed to take cash. But neither one could change a $20 bill. Neither could the woman at the receptionist desk or the guy delivering flowers.

Fingerprint Day was almost over. I got back in my car and sped through the vast office park, heading for a distant supermarket the receptionist had said was the nearest place to get change. On the way, I spotted a hotel. The desk people couldn't help -- nobody pays for a hotel room in cash anymore -- but they directed me to the gift shop, where I obtained 20 one-dollar bills. Then I drove back to the office, handed over 12 bills, saw my fingerprints electronically transferred to the Department of Justice and drove home.

In a few days, I'll drive back to the doctor's office for a reading on the TB test. Then I'll go to the school and turn in the forms, including three references of "persons who know your work." I'll swear to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic,'' etc.
Then I'll be allowed to volunteer. -- 1/30