AEI, Brookings Sponsor Election Reform Conference

A veteran Congressman; local, state, and federal election officials; academic experts; legal specialists; and advocates for election system reform from around the country gathered at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington on March 9 for a wide-ranging discussion of prospects for election reform – and whether reform is actually needed.

Addressing the questions, “Is Our Election System Broken? Can We Fix It?”, the conference – part of an ongoing joint project of conservative AEI and the liberal Brookings Institution – heard very different answers from different participants, reflecting an observation of panelist Thomas Mann of Brookings, who compared the situation to Rashomon, the classic film that tells the same story from various points of view.

Mann said that people of good will and integrity can “view the world in different ways,” and gave as an example the issue of proposed legislation to require photo ID cards from voters. There is “a belief among Republicans that there is fraud” that needs to be prevented, while “Democrats believe there are accessibility problems” making it more difficult for people to exercise their right to vote.

Mann, among other speakers, noted that the question of election accuracy and integrity has become more salient in recent years because of heightened partisanship and polarization. Because close elections are becoming more common than in the past, there is greater scrutiny of election systems and a stronger demand that vote counts be precise and trustworthy. “Change will have to come through the broader political environment,” Mann cautioned, and not just through reform of election laws or systems.

In the first panel of the day, federal Election Assistance Commissioner Gracia Hillman gave an optimistic assessment of progress over the past several years. Looking back on last November’s elections, Hillman said there have been “many discussions” about what happened and what could be improved. “Every person involved in the election process,” she said, “ has learned lessons.” We are, she added, “going through a major transformation.”

A problem faced by elections professionals and officials, however, is that in our society “there is no tolerance for the time it takes to get things right,” and it has only been a few years since the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) began to be implemented in every state and locality.

Following along the same optimistic line, Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita stated flatly that he does “not believe our election system is broken.” He asserted that the United States today has the “most accurate, accessible, and fair elections our country – even the world – has ever seen.”

He bemoaned the fact, however, that “we have got to the point where elections must be ‘textbook perfect,’” an unattainable goal, since “we have never seen a perfect election.” The reason is that “in every election humans are involved,” and humans inevitably incur error.

Despite this inevitability of imperfection, Rokita assured the audience that “every state has backup procedures written into law or regulations,” which take effect when one or another component of the election system breaks down – anything from a battery on a voting machine running out of power to names missing from a voter registration database.

“Our processes these days,” he said, “are better than ever before in history.” Still, there are things we can do to make the system “more fair, more accurate, and more accessible.”

Addressing the central question on the minds of the audience as to whether there needs to be a wholesale abandonment of electronic voting machines in favor of some other system (such as paper ballots or optical-scan equipment), Rokita noted that “in Indiana, we have used electronic voting since 1986, and we have not seen any evidence that the machines have ever been manipulated” to change the results of an election. Moreover, he added, “in Indiana, there was no lack of voter confidence in the equipment” prior to the highly-publicized election problems in Florida in 2000.

With proposals in Congress to amend and update HAVA, which was implemented in stages from 2003 through 2006, Rokita said “it would be detrimental and irresponsible to make further changes until pollworkers and voters get used to the changes” that have taken place over the past several years. He emphasized: “We have got to stop being afraid of technology and using it in electoral processes.”

Rather than focus on the technology, he said, we need to “focus on the people.” Specifically, “we need more resources for pollworker training.”

Rokita concluded his opening remarks by saying, “We have got to remember that voting machines are not the election, they are a tool” to make the election happen. “It is the people in an election – the workers and the voters – who make the election.”

Offering a dissenting voice was Loyola Law School professor Rick Hasen, who offered three overarching standards for judging election success or failure: (1) meltdown, in which everything goes wrong and the trust of the electorate is lost, which is the least likely outcome of an election; (2) public confidence as manifested in opinion surveys; and (3) election administration competence.

Hasen noted there were isolated problems during the 2006 midterm elections, including a breakdown of voting centers in Denver and the 18,000 “missing” votes in Sarasota County for the election of a Member of Congress from Florida’s 13th District, a contest that is still not settled. (There were an unusual number of “undervotes” in the congressional race, leading to questions about the accuracy of the voting machines used in Sarasota.)

Hasen also brought the attention of the audience to an increase in litigation on election issues, from an average of 96 cases per year from 1996 through 1999 to an average of 254 cases per year from 2001 through 2004.

The litigation, he said, is taking place in the absence of empirical studies that prove the points of those on both sides of these issues. He cited a couple of cases regarding voter ID laws, in which the arguments are either voter ID prevents “impersonation fraud” at the polls or “deterrence of voters” who lack the necessary ID cards. Neither argument, he said, can be proven through existing empirical research.

Responding to Hasen and Rokita’s comments, EAC Commissioner Gracia Hillman said that “setting a goal of perfection sets you up for failure.” Instead, she suggested that “a goal of excellence is an achievable standard that provides results in the form of customer satisfaction.” Following up, Rokita reiterated his opinion that “fair, accurate, and accessible ought to be the standards.”

Between the first and second panels of the morning, U.S. Representative Vernon Ehlers (R-Michigan), the ranking member of the Committee on House Administration, offered some remarks. Ehlers is the only research physicist in Congress, and he has been responsible for several technological achievements on Capitol Hill, including the setting up of the web site for the House of Representatives and the establishment of THOMAS, the research tool from the Library of Congress that allows anyone with a computer and a modem to follow the legislative process. (Thomas Mann pointed out later in the discussion that, prior to THOMAS, one of the specialized services lobbyists in Washington could offer their clients was “I can get you a copy of that bill” – something far easier to secure now than then.)

Ehlers noted that “every election has errors; some are fraught with errors.”

Looking back on the 2000 election in Florida, he said, “what amused me were the attacks on punchcard voting. Because one community in Florida failed to clean out its machines before the election, the rest of the country had to get rid of” their punchcard voting machines.

In regard to proposals for a paper trail (VVPAT, or “voter verifiable paper audit trail,” in the jargon of elections), Ehlers said he believes there “should be redundancy but a paper trail is not the answer.” The paper trail could be in the form of an optical scan system that uses paper ballots, he said, but “the important thing is redundancy.” “I would also point out,” he added, “that punch card ballots are made of paper – thick paper, of course.”

Ehlers spoke at length about the situation in Sarasota and Florida’s 13th Congressional District, suggesting that the real problem was in the design of the ballot. Ehlers’ remarks were later challenged by an attorney for Christine Jennings, who (so far, at least) lost the election to Republican candidate Vern Buchanan. Once the contestants’ options are exhausted in state and federal court, the case will come before the House Administration Committee, on which Ehlers sits.

Ehlers said that based on his experience, “Secretaries of State, County Clerks, and City Clerks” charged with running elections “are extremely conscientious.” He cautioned the audience: “Do not blame election officials” when things go wrong. “They try hard,” he said, and “they know what they are doing.”

In regard to proposals to replace electronic voting with paper ballots or optical-scan ballots, Ehlers said that struck him “as being a good system, until I started looking into this.” He then gave a number of amusing examples of how large numbers of voters actually marked their ballots. For instance, in Los Angeles County in 2004, 3,616 people voting for president filled in nine out of ten ovals (instead of one out of ten) – which led to a puzzle for election officials: Were they showing their strong support for President Bush – the one oval left blank -- or were they saying “anybody but Bush”? Ehlers asked: “How do you interpret that?”

Asked whether various bills proposed to alter federal election law will progress through Congress, Ehlers answered, “I can’t say. You’ll have to address that to the new chairwoman [of the Administration Committee], Juanita Millender-McDonald. If I were still chairman,” the Republican said to laughter from the audience, “I could tell you.” He added, however, that he and the new chairwoman have “a good relationship” and he expects to work with her on any proposals that reach the committee.

The second panel of the day was moderated by AEI’s Norman Ornstein, who played an active role in the discussion. Ornstein started by saying “election reform is not rocket science” and listing a number of bills recently introduced by, for instance, Congressman Rush Holt (D-New Jersey), Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois), and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York), and one planned to be added to the hopper by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein.

Panelist Doug Chapin, director of ElectionLine.org, began by noting the large number of people in the audience (well over 100) and described himself as a long-time “election geek,” a term, he said, that “connotes a sense of loneliness.” The large audience, he mused, is a sign that being an election geek may not be so lonely anymore.

In examining the “lay of the land” on election reform, Chapin pointed out that there are twelve new Secretaries of State (who serve as chief election officers for their states), eleven of them elected and one appointed. Those who were elected ran for office on election reform platforms, bringing a “tremendous range of experience” and “hitting the ground running [and] thinking out loud” as they pursue their reform agendas.

Chapin also brought attention to the “tremendous changes in Congress,” notably the shift from Republican to Democratic control. The “Democratic majorities change the climate” for election reform on Capitol Hill. “Now that the Democrats are in charge,” he said, “they have a responsibility to lead the debate on voting technology and voter registration” issues.

He said he has also noticed that NGOs (non-governmental organizations), including advocacy groups, have become more active in recent years. There is a split among these groups developing, he added, between those who prefer a paper trail (VVPAT) and those who want to scrap electronic voting in favor of optical-scan paper ballots. This changes the dynamic of the debate by diminishing what was formerly a near-unanimous position among the advocacy groups.

Ironically, Chapin said, “Congress is coming to a consensus just as the advocacy community is becoming divided.”

Even with the activity in Congress, Chapin added, the emphasis “will be on state capitals,” where experimentation with different models of reform legislation can take place. Moreover, at the state and local level, “nitty-gritty problems will drive the debate.” He offered as examples the fact that a voting equipment vendor in Indiana went out of business, leaving the localities that use that equipment without a support system, and a county in Pennsylvania that suffered extensive water damage to its voting machines and faces a fee of $100,000 from its vendor for recalibrating all its machines.

Before moving forward with new legislation, Chapin said, “we need better access to empirical data.” But “data doesn’t end the conversation,” he added; “it gives us something different to debate about.”

Washington Post reporter Zachary Goldfarb, the second member of the panel, spoke about the challenges faced by the news media in covering issues of election reform. “Many of the issues,” he said, “seem theoretical or potential,” even though we are dealing with “theoretical questions with practical applications.”

Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution said that he urges “caution on using voter confidence as a standard to act” or not act. Voter confidence, he said, “has less to do with the quality of the system of election administration than it does on close elections. Winners will have a different level of confidence than losers.” (This view was borne out by some graphs shown by morning panelist Rick Hasen, of trends in polling data showing a Republican/Democrat divide on confidence in the system, based upon who won the previous election. The trend does not follow in lockstep, but it is very close.)

Mann asked, “How do we judge between the inevitable [minor] imperfections of the system and the [major] systemic issues that need tending to?” He argued that, “in general,” top election officials are “a little too defensive on this score,” and that “there is a legitimate question to be asked about national vs. state responsibility.” The fact is, he noted, “we are never going to go back to the era” of state-by-state choices with no overriding national guidelines or mandates.

Mann was not optimistic that legislative proposals will move through Congress. The bottom line, he said, “if you accept what I’ve argued, efforts in Congress to amend HAVA, to require VVPAT, to establish voter ID requirements … will be frustrated by partisan considerations” and perhaps even a filibuster in the Senate.

Because, on VVPAT, individual states are taking the lead, “slowing the process down may make good sense in Congress” because hasty federal action could frustrate lower-level efforts for reform based on new technology coming on board that can replace earlier technologies, while federal legislation might lock the older technology in place.

Echoing earlier remarks about partisanship and polarization, Norman Ornstein began the general discussion with the panel with the observation that, in contrast to the years in which most elections were decided by clear outcomes, “problems at the margins are now very important.”

Ornstein asked whether the decision by Florida’s governor to discard electronic voting machines “is a harbinger of things to come.”

Doug Chapin answered that “Florida is an indicator of concerns. Florida plays the same role for us that Britney Spears plays for the tabloids. Florida is the poster child for reform, both in identifying problems and in responding to them.”

Ornstein also sparked a discussion about ballot design, with several of the panelists noting efforts to improve ballot design. Chapin pointed to a “Design for Democracy” project from the American Institute for Graphic Arts, but added that design considerations often run afoul of state election laws. One example was during the California gubernatorial recall election, when graphics experts recommended that the “five top candidates” be given more prominence on the ballot while all the other candidates should recede – a solution in opposition to election laws that call for all candidates’ names to appear uniformly on a ballot page.

In response to an audience question about where this debate about election reform originated, Thomas Mann stated that “we tolerate more error (a) when we don’t know about it and (b) when the stakes are lower.” Florida in 2000 “changed things even though the overall administration of elections had not worsened” in the years leading up to that situation, and may have even been better. But “we discovered many imperfections we weren’t willing to live with.” Mann added that, if the media plays a role in all this, it is in the “breathless quality” of its reporting and its “lack of perspective.”

Zachary Goldfarb added to this point by reminding the audience of the “constant change in who covers [these issues] at most newspapers and magazines.” There is no “election law beat.” The media, he said, is “focused on what’s new and we’re dense about potential problems.” Moreover, “the media are responsive to crises,” so election officials and experts need to “provide context” to reporters, since “newspapers don’t have someone dedicated to this topic.” Goldfarb concluded: “There is no easy answer.”

The AEI-Brookings conference ended on that note, but the discussion will continue through this forum and others. On March 26, the top Mexican election official will be speaking on his country’s disputed election of 2006, which was even closer than the 2000 Bush-Gore contest. Ornstein invited the audience to attend that event, also sponsored by the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project to learn what Mexico is doing to deal with its own partisanship and polarization.

Kennedy Center Announces 2007-2008 Season

Just last month, fellow blogger Tim Hulsey and I had a wistful conversation, asking each other why nobody has yet produced the full set of August Wilson’s ten plays, set in each decade of the 20th century. Two of the plays, Jitney and Gem of the Ocean, had recent Washington productions (at Ford’s Theatre and Arena Stage). Sometimes called the “Pittsburgh Cycle” because of the setting of nine of the ten plays in the playwright's hometown, Wilson’s works as a whole offer a singular exploration and reflection of the African-American experience.

Or, as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette put it in an obituary tribute to Wilson in October 2005, “In dramatizing the glory, anger, promise, and frustration of being black in America, he created a world of the imagination – August Wilson’s Hill District – to rank with such other transformational fictional worlds as Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha, Hardy’s Wessex, or Friel’s Donegal.”

Now we have the prospect of having our wish fulfilled. At the announcement of the Kennedy Center’s 2007-2008 season on March 6, President Michael Kaiser revealed that, supported by a grant from the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation, “the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will present August Wilson’s 20th Century – the playwright’s complete ten-play cycle – as staged readings with costumes, lighting, and scenery in the Center’s Terrace Theater” from March 4 through March 29, 2008.

A distinguished cast of more than two dozen actors will appear in the plays, among them John Amos, Rocky Carroll, Keith David, and Phylicia Rashad, The directors of the plays will be Kenny Leon – also serving as the series’ artistic director – Lou Bellamy, Gordon Davidson, Todd Kreidler, and Derrick Sanders.

The Wilson cycle is only one highlight among many in the Kennedy Center’s upcoming season. In late December, a new production of My Fair Lady directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Matthew Bourne (whose ballet, Edward Scissorhands, played the Opera House last month) will arrive for a three-week run. Disney’s The Lion King will open in June 2008, and a new play commissioned by the Kennedy Center and developed by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter (written by Julie Marie Myatt), will premiere in July 2007.

Programming the 2007-2008 season was complicated by the fact that the Eisenhower Theater will be closed for renovations throughout the year. As a consequence, more productions will be mounted in the Terrace Theater (which often is empty in comparison to the larger houses).

Another highlight of the season comes in February 2008, when a multi-disciplinary festival called “Japan! culture + hyperculture” arrives. For two weeks, Kennedy Center audiences will be able to enjoy theater, dance, music, visual arts, and film. There will be exhibits of textiles, design, and technology, as well as manga (graphic novels) and anime. A special offering called “Robotopia Rising” will explore the development of robots in Japan from medieval automatons to futuristic humanoids. (In fact, a Toyota-built robot opened the announcement news conference by playing “What a Wonderful World” on the trumpet, to the delight of the audience in the Kennedy Center’s Family Theater.)

“Ballet Across America” – which will bring ballet companies from across the United States for a five-day repertory season – begins a ten-year commitment to gather America’s best performing arts troupes in Washington. Supported through a grant from the Charles E. Smith Family Foundation, in future years the Kennedy Center will bring theatrical groups, orchestras, choruses, and other performers to the Nation’s Capital to demonstrate the depth and breadth of American artistic endeavor.

The new season also includes a tribute to Leonard Slatkin, in his last year as director of the National Symphony Orchestra, extensive offerings in jazz, and a special program of a capella music, which will include performances by Bobby McFerrin and the Manhattan Transfer, among others.

The foregoing paragraphs only skim the surface of what the 2007-2008 season at the Kennedy Center will include. For more information, visit www.kennedy-center.org.

Friday Night Fish Fry

Some minor nostalgia wafted my way the other day when I came across an article in the Marquette Tribune, a student newspaper at Marquette University in Milwaukee. Written by Christopher Placek, the article (cutely headlined "Come fry with me") explains a unique Wisconsin custom, the Friday night fish fry.

When I was growing up in Milwaukee, Friday nights were precisely as Placek describes them:

Native Wisconsinites reserve Friday nights on their calendars for a special area custom, but the tradition is so ingrained in the culture they probably don't even need to write it down.

That's because the Wisconsin fish fry has become an assumed appointment with friends and family at the local watering hole, restaurant or social club. Experts say local fish fries became popular with the immigration of Europeans, especially German Catholics, to Wisconsin.

"In the old country, you used to bring whole the family into the saloons to eat, drink and be merry," said local author Jeff Hagen, who has written two books on fish fries. "It was just the way things were done, and that's the way things are done around here."

The fish fry is a generational phenomenon in Wisconsin, possibly unlike other states, said Hagen, whose first book, "Fry Me to the Moon," analyzed 125 Friday night fish fries in Wisconsin. The sequel, "Codfather 2," took Hagen to 200 fish fries throughout the Midwest, where underage bar restrictions prevent similar fish fry family traditions as in Wisconsin, he said.

The Friday fish fry is not limited to taverns, of course, though that is by far the most likely venue. I recall that on a monthly basis, there was a Friday fish fry at my elementary school, St. Agnes in Butler. It was sponsored by the Boy Scouts, I think, or perhaps the Knights of Columbus, and served in the school cafeteria, eat-in or take-out.

But the family-oriented tavern -- never "saloon," a word prohibited in Wisconsin by Prohibition-era legislation -- provided the most likely place to dig into fried fish, cole slaw, and French fries, generally served "family style" with baskets of food brought to the table and handed from one patron to another, just like in the kitchen at home.

In the 1960s and '70s, it was not uncommon to see kids as young as 4 or 5 underfoot at a tavern while their parents ordered a fish fry and a beer to accompany it. People outside Wisconsin tend to be astounded when they learn about this aspect of our state's culture. They think children and alcohol do not mix. If they had grown up as I did, however, they would not think this a strange phenomenon.

Placek reports:

Janet Gilmore, a University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor of landscape architecture and folklore, said the Friday night fish fry presents an opportunity for people to socialize and celebrate the end of the week. The tradition of the fish fry in Wisconsin developed partly in neighborhood working-class taverns, she said.

(Permit me a digression: a professor of "landscape architecture and folklore"? What kind of combination is that? It makes me curious.)

At the turn of the 20th century, there were about 8,000 drinking establishments in the state of Wisconsin, Gilmore said. With Prohibition, many taverns began serving food, she said.

The fish fry also arose out of the meatless Fridays custom of Catholicism, now restricted only to the Lenten season as a result of Vatican II. But local fryers say that Catholics aren't the only ones who indulge in fish on Fridays.

"It's a Wisconsin thing," said Dave Schmidt, general manager of American Serb Hall, 5101 W. Oklahoma Ave., which hosts one of Wisconsin's largest fish fries.

Coincidentally, Serb Hall was also the place where my parents celebrated their wedding reception -- not that I was there, but I was told later. But I digress again.

We often enjoyed fish fries that had family connections. We regularly went to a West Allis tavern owned and operated by my Uncle Clyde's in-laws, Scottie and Mitz -- not German Catholics but brogue-tongued Scots immigrants. The front of the establishment was the bar, always bustling, while in back was a bare room set up with tables covered in plain paper. Some Chinese lanterns or Christmas lights were the only real decoration. But people didn't come for atmosphere -- they came for the food.

I learn from another family member that my Aunt Mary's

mom's "recipe" is now being served at a refurbished corner burger diner in West Allis run by Aunt Mary's nephew, and her sister JoAnne is frying fish there.

So the tradition continues.

Technology Equalizes

Another example of how advances in technology equalize our capabilities and reduce the cost of living for everyone in the long run comes courtesy of this morning's Guardian:

A top paparazzo has said business for celebrity photographers is under serious threat from an army of amateurs and opportunists snapping stars on their mobile phones.

German Hans Paul, who says he once earned $120,000 for a picture of a then-pregnant Julia Roberts, said fees for paparazzi had been driven to new lows as even fans and autograph hunters now know how to market their pictures.

He said the development of camera technology on mobile phones and the internet meant that ordinary people could send quality pictures to newspapers, web portals and other media within seconds anywhere around the globe, taking business away from professional celebrity snappers.

Demonstrating that the laws of supply and demand apply even in the most sleazy nooks and crannies of the economy, Mr. Paul laments:

"There is no doubt that we paparazzi are suffering from this. There is hardly any money to be made in the everyday business."

Pull out your cellphones, and weep for the paparazzi.

'The Envelope, Please . . .'

For those of you who went to sleep Sunday night -- or was it Monday morning? -- thinking that Martin Scorcese was the big winner for his twisted crime drama, The Departed, think again.

Scorcese -- who accepted his Oscar from three of his nearest peers (Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg) -- has some catching up to do, because the weekend's biggest award winner was Michael Lucas, whose La Dolce Vita took home 14 trophies.

Who is Michael Lucas? What is La Dolce Vita? Fair questions, since I always thought La Dolce Vita was directed by Federico Fellini and released in 1960, not 2006.

According to Edge Boston,

Capping an astonishing night at the Castro Theatre, Michael Lucas’ La Dolce Vita made GAYVN history tonight with wins in 14 categories, including Best Picture, at the annual ceremony.

Though it’s not unusual for individual movies to be rich in nominations, it is extremely rare for a movie to garner double-digit wins. The previous record holder, Buckshot Productions’ BuckleRoos, won 11 awards in 2005.

Michael Lucas’ La Dolce Vita has the further distinction of winning an award in every category in which it was nominated.

That's right: Eclipsing the combined success of The Departed, Pan's Labyrinth, and Little Miss Sunshine, the inconvenient truth is that La Dolce Vita swept this years gay adult video awards.

If the San Francisco Chronicle report is accurate, the GAYVN ceremony was the place to be last Saturday night, with famously B-list comedienne Kathy Griffin hosting and local celebrities dotting the crowd:

The night honored some deserving industry pioneers with lifetime achievement awards, including San Franciscan Peter Berlin. The nominated documentary on his life, however, lost out to "Gay Sex in the 70s."

The weekend highlighted San Francisco's position as the capital of the gay porn industry. Elected officials -- including Assemblyman Mark Leno, Mayor Gavin Newsom and City Treasurer Jose Cisneros -- penned official statements honoring Colt Studios, which celebrated its 40th anniversary Friday. City Supervisor Bevan Dufty worked the crowd in the lobby of the theater before the Saturday night ceremony.

If San Francisco is the capital of the gay porn industry, what does that make the San Fernando Valley? Is Congressman Brad Sherman not delivering for his constituents in the Fightin' 27th?

Neal Boortz Coming to Charlottesville

No doubt I am not the first to note this, since it was announced Wednesday morning on WINA, but talk-show host Neal Boortz is coming to Charlottesville next month to promote his new book, Somebody's Gotta Say It, which (as of a few minutes ago) is ranked sixth on Amazon.com's top sellers.

In addition to a book-signing at the Omni, Boortz will be hosting his syndicated show from the WINA studios on March 22.

Boortz, based in Atlanta, is the co-author (with Congressman John Linder) of the New York Times bestseller, The Fair Tax Book, which lays out the case for a national sales tax to replace the income tax as the federal government's primary means to raise revenue.

Except for John Stossel, Neal Boortz is probably the most prominent libertarian in the news and opinion broadcast media. According to a Talkers magazine compilation of Arbitron ratings, Boortz is the sixth-highest-rated radio talk-show host (tied with Mike Gallagher), with a minimum weekly audience of 3.5 million. (By contrast, top-rated Rush Limbaugh gets 13.5 million and Air America's Al Franken -- now a Senate candidate in Minnesota -- had about 1.5 million listeners.) Another Talkers ranking -- based on a survey of industry insiders -- puts Boortz ninth in a list of the "250 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts in America," explaining

The TALKERS magazine editors who painstakingly compile this super-list draw upon a combination of hard and soft factors when evaluating candidates. These include (in alphabetical order): courage, effort, impact, longevity, potential, ratings, recognition, revenue, service, talent, and uniqueness. We acknowledge that it is as much art as science and that the results are arguable.

In terms of his plans to visit Charlottesville, WINA's web site explains, rather excitedly:

If you've ever wanted to see Neal in person and hear the incredible things he says while sitting a few feet from him, the opportunity has come. Thanks to our friends at the Omni Hotel, Ambassador Limousine, and your local Pepsi Cola Bottlers, Neal will appear at the Omni at 7pm on March 21st and will be signing copies of his new best selling book, "Somebody's Gotta Say It" which is number one on Amazon dot com. You CAN BE THERE, keep listening for details to find out how! Admission to the event is by ticket only!

You can hear Rob Schilling's on-air interview with Neal Boortz, discussing the upcoming trip to Virginia, here. According to a book tour schedule posted on boortz.com, the Talkmeister will also be signing books at a Barnes & Noble in Virginia Beach on March 20.

Gay Stories with Odd Angles

Tomorrow's edition of The Forward features a report on the large number of gay men and lesbians who exhibit an interest in Yiddish culture, including especially klezmer music.

The author, New York attorney Kathleen Peratis, asks:

Never heard of the Queer Yiddishkeit movement? Until last summer, neither did I.

Then, an Israeli friend told me he had learned from his (straight) daughter, a doctoral student in women’s Yiddish literature at Berkeley, that a large proportion of her colleagues are gay. Really? Interviews over the next several months of past and present YIVO staff members, klezmer performers, Yiddish scholars and others confirmed it: Gay Jews have flocked to Yiddish and klezmer.

Peratis suggests some possible explanations for this connection:

The affinities between gay people and Yiddish, and especially bundist, culture are, when you think about it, obvious: both are staunchly secular, cosmopolitan, progressive and often marginalized. “Queer Yiddishkeit gives me permission to go back to the world of my grandparents without leaving myself behind,” juggler Sara Felder said.

“It’s about alienation from the Jewish religious establishment,” said Alisa Solomon, a former staff writer for The Village Voice. “There’s a kind of analogy people make with the marginalized status of Yiddish itself. It’s an outsider stance.”

She also writes that the association is not exactly recent, pointing to articles from the 1980s and 1990s that make a similar connection. But it goes back even farther, she says:

The presence of gay people and gay themes in Yiddish culture, however, is not new. Queer Yiddishists tell us, for example, that Yiddish cinema in the 1930s contained “encrypted messages” on homosexuality — think Molly Picon in her trouser role in “Yidl Mitn Fidl,” what Eve Sicular calls “cross-dressing in the service of family values.” She refers to the “gay subtext of Yiddish cinema during its heyday, from the 1920s to the outbreak of World War II, which reveals distinctly Jewish concerns of the time” such as “conflicted identity, passing, and same-sex attachments.”

Now I know why I spent Thanksgiving weekend last year reading Michael Wex's fascinating book, Born to Kvetch.

On another topic entirely, the March issue of Details magazine -- which appears on newsstands on February 27 -- reports that

America's most desirable managers all have one thing in common: homosexuality.

In the article, correspondent Danielle Sacks cites a recent academic study:

In The G Quotient: Why Gay Executives Are Excelling as Leaders . . . and What Every Manager Needs to Know, author and USC business-school professor Kirk Snyder argues that gay bosses embody a style of personalized attention that allows high-maintenance Gen Xers and Yers to maximize their performance. "Gay executives tend to look at how each individual brings unique abilities, and they see their job as figuring out how best to take advantage of those skills," he says.

In fact, during Snyder's five-year study of American executives, he stumbled on some startling findings: Gay male bosses produce 35 to 60 percent higher levels of employee engagement, satisfaction, and morale than straight bosses. This is no small achievement: According to human-resources consulting firm Towers Perrin, only a measly 14 percent of the global corporate workforce are fully engaged by their jobs. And the Saratoga Institute, a group that measures the effectiveness of HR departments, found that in a study of 20,000 workers who had quit their jobs, the primary motivator for jumping ship was their supervisors' behavior.

So what makes gay bosses different? It may have to do with the way they survived high school. "Gay people are constantly having to dodge and weave and assess how and where they're going as they grow up," says Snyder. "And that manifests itself as three huge skills: adaptability, intuitive communications, and creative problem-solving." In other words, your boss is cool with your leaving a little early one day a week to pick up your kid from school, or happy to offer a learning experience that helps you close a crucial deal.

What could all this mean? Perhaps it means that when you mutter under your breath something about your boss being a "first-rate c**ks**ker" (this is a workplace-friendly blog), you're really expressing your admiration and envy of him.

I Read It on the Internet, So It Must Be True ...

I found this study cited on the "Terra Incognita" page of the March 2007 issue of Liberty magazine. It was originally reported by Beth Krane in UConn Advance, a faculty and staff publication at the University of Connecticut:

When researchers in the Neag School of Education asked 25 seventh-graders from middle schools across the state to review a web site devoted to a fictitious endangered species, the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, the results troubled them:

* All 25 students fell for the Internet hoax;
* All but one of the 25 rated the site as “very credible;”
* Most struggled when asked to produce proof – or even clues – that the web site was false, even after the UConn researchers told them it was; and
* Some of the students still insisted vehemently that the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus really exists.

The students – identified as their schools' most proficient online readers – are taking part in a federal research project, funded by a $1.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

The project is currently underway in six Connecticut middle schools.

“These results are cause for serious concern,” says the project's lead researcher, Don Leu, who holds the John and Maria Neag Chair in Literacy and Technology at UConn, “because anyone can publish anything on the Internet and today's students are not prepared to critically evaluate the information they find there.”

I was surprised to learn from Krane's story that

Connecticut is in the bottom one third of states when it comes to integrating Internet into classroom instruction, lagging behind such states as Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, and Oklahoma.

Those interested in finding out more about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus can look here.

Listen In

This just in:

I have been invited to be a guest on the WINA morning show tomorrow (Wednesday, February 21) during the 8:00 o'clock hour, to discuss voting machine technology and the prospects of changing the configuration of Charlottesville's voting precincts.

According to co-host Rob Schilling, I will likely be interviewed during segments beginning at 8:20 a.m. and 8:50 a.m.

Be sure to tune in. (WINA is found at 1070 on the AM dial.)

'"Doubt" Is Divine'

About two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of conducting a telephone interview with actress Caroline Stefanie Clay. Now on tour with Doubt, she was staying in the same Holiday Inn Express hotel in Hartford, Connecticut, where I spoke to Tonye Patano while she was on tour with Legends! Like Legends!, which had a short run in Washington last fall, Doubt is coming to the National Theatre for two weeks beginning March 13.

Ms. Clay was a natural subject for an interview: I asked one question, and half an hour later I said, "I think it's time to let you go." She was gracious, funny, and passionate. I very much enjoyed chatting with her.

As a result of our conversation, I wrote an article for The Metro Herald, which should appear next week (in the February 23 issue). Here is what I submitted to the newspaper:

Interview with Caroline Stefanie Clay:
Appearing in Doubt, D.C. Native Has Homecoming
Rick Sincere
Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

Actress Caroline Stefanie Clay is a Washington native and graduate of the Duke Ellington School for the Arts who is now touring in a production of John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Doubt, which will arrive at the National Theatre on March 13 for a limited, two-week run.

The original Broadway production of Doubt garnered many laurels, among them eight Tony nominations (winning four awards, including Best Play of 2005) and five Drama Desk Awards (including Outstanding New Play).

Clay plays the pivotal role of Mrs. Muller, who appears on stage for just a few minutes but who has such a dramatic impact that Clay’s predecessor in the role, Adriane Lenox, received a Tony Award for it. (Clay understudied for Lenox throughout the Broadway run of Doubt.)

In an exclusive interview with The Metro Herald, Caroline Stefanie Clay shared reflections on her life growing up in Northwest D.C., her career as an actress, and her role in Doubt.

Clay grew up near the corner of Nebraska Avenue and Military Road. Her father was a high-ranking official in the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Carter administration, and he later served a similar role, locally, under Mayor Marion Barry.

“I grew up in melting pot of a lot of embassy kids,” says Clay, noting that among the neighbors on her street were “Greeks, Ethiopians, Somalis, Chileans, Russians, Chinese.” She went to Lafayette Elementary School, which she describes as “an international community.”

“It wasn't until I went to Alice Deal Junior High,” she notes, “that I got into the African-American community.”

Even so, she says, “we grew up being very aware that ‘if you're black, you've got to work three times as hard’” – an admonition that has guided her professional ethic ever since.

Her mother, whom she describes as “a brainy oddball” was an English teacher who came from Louisville. “My brother and I still laugh at this: she would get The Canterbury Tales and read them to us in Middle English. She was determined not to raise her children by television.” Instead of TV, Clay remembers, during her formative years “we would go to museums.” Moreover, Clay’s mother would “lock the screen door to keep us outside and said, ‘Go find your friends; if you can't find them, make them.’”

During her teenage years, Clay says, “I was very, very lucky. I was a product of the Mayor's Youth Employment Program. To me, that program was one of the most progressive and forward-thinking programs. One year I worked at Smithsonian Visitors Center, I also worked at Hirshhorn museum in the slide registry, learning about 20th century modern art, learning about Picasso and Pollack. I was with D.C. Youth Orchestra one summer, and also with D.C. Street Theatre. Those were the kinds of things you could do, as long as you applied yourself.”

Ellington School co-founder Mike Malone, who passed away last December, was a mentor to Clay. “He was instrumental in giving me confidence to know that I could do what I could do. He told us the life skills you can gain from here -- if you're paying attention -- if you soak up what we have to offer, there really isn't anything you can't do.” At Ellington, “there was always a reinforcement of African-American achievement. That's what thrust me out into the world.” Clay adds, with a chuckle, that after high school, “Perhaps people thought I was arrogant -- definitely crazy.”

After high school, Clay went on to study in Philadelphia and dove into the New York theatre scene. “When I graduated college, I did not go to grad school. I got my union card and was ready to work.” Sadly, Washington was not welcoming to the newly-trained actress. ” I came home after college, auditioned, and didn't get response. I have to say it wasn't until I went to New York that I was able to work in D.C. Unfortunately, there are some places that won't give you a second look unless you've been working in New York.”

She did, however, get a second look eventually. Now a classically trained actress, she appeared at the Shakespeare Theatre with Kelly McGillis in The Duchess of Malfi. She has nothing but praise for the Shakespeare Theatre’s artistic director: “Michael Kahn is brilliant -- he is a true master teacher,” she says.

Clay admires the Washington theatre scene in general, too. “There is such a rich, talented, theatrical community in D.C., they don't need a lot of people from outside.”

“I am always happy to come back,” she says, especially since it gives her an opportunity to “figure out how to get theatre students from Duke Ellington” back together for a mini-reunion.

"The last time I was in DC,” Clay said, she was a finalist in a theatre festival, doing Lady Day from Emerson's Bar and Grille. “I said I am so very proud to be in D.C.”

Getting back to her current production, Clay says, “I play a character back in 1964, who is working very hard to protect her son, dealing with a priest who may have dealt with son in improper manner. My response to that allegation is what you can never, never imagine.”

Doubt, she says, is actually “two plays -- the play that's on stage, and the one that’s off stage, where people talk about it afterwards.”

“I love being in Doubt,” says Clay. “I think Doubt is divine in all things.”

Doubt opens at the National Theatre on Tuesday, March 13, and closes with two performances on Sunday, March 25. Ticket prices range from $38.75 to $78.75 and are available through Telecharge.com or via phone at (800) 447-7400. Tickets area also available at National Theatre Box Office. For more information, visit www.doubtthetour.com.

(Photo of Cherry Jones and Caroline Stefanie Clay from Doubt courtesy of the National Theatre. Photo credit: Craig Schwartz)

150 Years and Counting

My alma mater (one of them, that is) is featured in the cover story of Small Business Times, a weekly publication with a readership throughout southeastern Wisconsin.

Noting the 150th anniversary of the founding of Marquette University High School, the article by Elizabeth Hockerman lists some of the prominent alumni of MUHS:

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett; Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke; Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and former D.A. E. Michael McCann; multiple municipal and circuit court judges; Peter Bonerz, actor and director on “The Bob Newhart Show” and others; Terry Brennan, University of Notre Dame running back and coach; Rick Majerus, former men’s basketball coach at the University of Utah and current ESPN analyst; Spencer Tracy, Oscar winning actor (attended but did not graduate); Harry Quadracci, founder of Quad/Graphics Inc. in Sussex; James T. Barry III, president and chief executive officer of Colliers Barry, Milwaukee; John Cary, executive director of the MACC Fund, Milwaukee; Ward and Lincoln Fowler, founders of Alterra Coffee Roasters, Milwaukee; Bill Bertha, president of U.S. Bank’s Wisconsin division; John Shiely, president and chief executive officer of Briggs & Stratton Corp., Wauwatosa; Dr. Michael Dunn, senior vice president and dean of Medical College of Wisconsin, Wauwatosa; Jon Greenberg, president of the Milwaukee Admirals hockey team; Dan Meyer, publisher of Small Business Times; and Pat Dunphy, attorney at Cannon & Dunphy S.C., Milwaukee.

I wonder if the fact that the publisher of Small Business Times is an alumnus factored into this story making it to the cover of the February 2 issue? And why is Clement Zablocki, the local politician who defeated my grandfather in a 1948 congressional race and went on to become chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives, left off the list? (I am sure other prominent alumni are missing. A lot of people have graduated in 150 years!)

The article offers this thumbnail history of the school:

Marquette University High School was originally formed in 1857 as St. Aloysius Academy on what is now North Third and West Michigan streets. In 1864 a new building was constructed, and the school was renamed St. Gall’s Academy.

(I'm glad it didn't retain that name. I went to a college whose cheer was "Hoya Saxa" -- roughly translated as "what rocks!" That's bad enough, but can you imagine going to a school whose teams would be known, officially or unofficially, as the Gall Stones?)

Small Business Times continues its look back:

Marquette College was established on North 10th and West State streets, on top of a hill, in 1881, and its nickname was the Hilltoppers. Marquette College was a six-year schooling program where students entered at age 14 and graduated with a college diploma at age 20. For the next 20 years, Marquette College experienced steady growth in enrollment and split into two entities in 1907.

Education was divided into the four-year Marquette Academy, later to be named Marquette University High School, and a four-year college, later to be called Marquette University.

In 1922, the academy officially became Marquette University High School, and in 1925, the school settled into its current location at 3401 W. Wisconsin Ave. in the Merrill Park neighborhood of Milwaukee.

Guided by the Jesuits and inspired by its namesake, Fr. Jacques Marquette, the first European to travel through and map the northern portion of Mississippi River, Marquette University High School has created a tradition of community service, perseverance and discovery for its students.

In a sidebar, Hockerman reports that

Marquette High is undergoing a capital campaign to raise more than $22 million, which will cover a $17 million building project and establish a $5 million endowment for future teacher hires, training and continued education, according to Pat Dunphy of Cannon & Dunphy, S.C., Brookfield and chair of the capital campaign.

The money raised will finance a two-phased building project, as well as underwriting an endowment to attract faculty and staff to the college preparatory school:

The $5 million mission endowment will ensure for the next 150 years that Marquette High can hire new faculty and train them in Ignatian formation programs while offering professional development opportunities to existing faculty members, according to the Rev. Warren Sazama, president of Marquette University High School.

Currently, the capital campaign has raised $12.12 million of the $22 million goal.

Those interested in contributing to the capital campaign can visit this section of the MUHS web site. There is even an online giving form for those who don't like writing checks.

Marquette High is planning a huge celebration this summer, which I plan to attend:

Anniversary Celebration Day
Saturday July 21, 2007

Open House – The MUHS Mother’s Guild will be throwing out the welcome mat and hosting a special afternoon in the school. Visitors will be able to reminisce as they walk the hallways of the school while enjoying historical displays that will be throughout the building.

Special Anniversary Mass – What speaks to the mission of Marquette High more than a Eucharist celebration? This special Liturgy, following the MUHS open house, will be held at the Marquette University Al McGuire Center. Every Jesuit who has ever taught at MUHS, along with any alumnus who is a Catholic priest, has been invited to concelebrate. To date, we have approximately 50 priests scheduled to concelebrate at the Mass. The school is honored that Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan will be in attendance at this special occasion. Fr. Tom Doyle, S.J., is coordinating the Mass and has arranged to have Fr. Marquette’s own Chalice available for use at the Mass.

150th Anniversary Celebration – Immediately following the Mass, the MUHS community will gather to celebrate the school’s 150th anniversary by heading down to the newest and most talked about venue in Milwaukee, Discovery World at Pier Wisconsin! Note, the celebration has been moved from the Milwaukee County Zoo to Discovery World. The entire Pier is reserved for the MUHS party where food and beverages, provided by Bartolotta’s, will be available as guests enjoy visiting and exploring the great exhibits at this interactive museum. A “front row” view of the Festa Italiana fireworks awaits us as well with the glimmering Lake Michigan as a fitting backdrop.

Readers, will any of you be there?

Carnivals

Two blog carnivals provided links to my post called "Is 'Income Inequality' a Legitimate Worry?":

The first is the Carnival of the Capitalists, hosted by Mighty Bargain Hunter, was posted very early on Monday morning. Next week, TamsPalm will host this carnival.

The second is this week's Virginia Blog Carnival also featured the piece, with a special "Super Bowl" edition hosted by Cathouse Chat. Look next at The Right-Wing Liberal to find this carnival.

It's also worth mentioning that the Carnival of the Mundane, which I hosted here on December 22, is up this week at No Pasa Nada.

Speaking of carnivals, the Kennedy Center is about to open a new production of the musical play, Carnival!, which was originally presented by impresario David Merrick when it opened on Broadway almost fifty years ago. Here's the text of the press release from the Kennedy Center:

WASHINGTON, DC - The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts presents its new production of Carnival! in the Eisenhower Theater February 17 – March 11, 2007. With book by Michael Stewart and music and lyrics by Bob Merrill, the musical is directed and choreographed by Robert Longbottom and stars Ereni Sevasti as Lili, Jim Stanek as Paul, Sebastian La Cause as Marco and Natascia Diaz as Rosalie. Opening night will take place Saturday, February 24, 2007 at 7:30pm.

Based on a 1953 MGM motion picture Lili, Carnival! tells the story of Lili - a girl from an isolated village in France who joins the traveling Grande Imperial Cirque de Paris. Falling for the troupe's manipulative magician, she also enchants a disillusioned puppeteer, who can only show his love through his whimsical creations.

Winner of two 1962 Tony Awards®, Carnival! features music and lyrics by Bob Merrill, book by Michael Stewart based on material from Helen Deutsch and was originally directed and choreographed by Gower Champion. The musical made its Broadway debut at the Imperial Theatre on April 13, 1961 and closed January 5, 1963 after 719 performances. Carnival! starred Broadway newcomer Anna Maria Alberghetti, who won the Tony Award® for Best Actress as Lili; Jerry Orbach, who made his Broadway debut as Paul; James Mitchell as Marco and Kaye Ballard as Rosalie. Will Steven Armstrong was also awarded the Tony® for Best Scenic Design.

Five time Tony® nominee Bob Merrill (Composer and Lyricist) wrote the music and lyrics for Take Me Along, New Girl in Town, and Henry Sweet Henry and the lyrics for Sugar and Funny Girl. Merrill died in 1998.

Michael Stewart (Author) scored on Broadway the first time out when he won a Tony® for his Bye Bye Birdie libretto. Subsequently he was the librettist for Carnival!, and for Hello, Dolly!, which won two Tony Awards®. He also wrote the books for George M!, Mack & Mabel, The Grand Tour, and 42nd Street, both book and lyrics for I Love My Wife, and lyrics for Barnum. Mr. Stewart died in 1987.

Book revisions for the Kennedy Center production have are by Stewart’s sister, Francine Pascal, who created the Sweet Valley High series of books that has sold over one hundred fifty million copies worldwide. Pascal also worked on the revision of Mack & Mabel which played at the Goodspeed Opera House in 2004 and the Criterion in London in 2006.

In the tradition of casting a new find in the musical’s pivotal role, the Kennedy Center will present Ereni Sevasti as Lili. A New Jersey native, Sevasti has performed in The Sound of Music at Paper Mill Playhouse, and The Magic Flute at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. She has also appeared in various productions at McCarter Theatre, Avery Fisher Hall, George Street Playhouse and PNC Arts Center.

Jim Stanek (Paul) has been seen on Broadway in Lestat, A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, The Rivals, Little Women, and Indiscretions as well as the off-Broadway and regional productions I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, Captain’s Courageous, My Fair Lady (McCarter), Threepenny Opera (Williamstown), Three Musketeers (San Jose), and Thoroughly Modern Millie (La Jolla). Along with television roles in Adversaries and Guiding Light, Stanek also appeared in the movie Borough of Kings. Stanek was most recently seen Off Broadway in Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.

Sebastian La Cause (Marco) has been seen on Broadway as Rocky in The Rocky Horror Show and in Minnelli on Minnelli, Once Upon A Mattress, and Chicago. In addition to roles in television’s All My Children, One Life to Live, and As the World Turns, he has made appearances in such movies as Chicago, Boogie Nights, Scream II, Eraser, Showgirls, and award winning short Penny Dreadful. He made his District debut in She Loves Me at Arena Stage in November.

On Broadway, Natascia Diaz (Rosalie) has performed roles in Man of La Mancha, Seussical, The Capeman, and Carousel. Along with her Off-Broadway roles in tick, tick...BOOM!, Saturday Night, and Bright Lights, Big City, Diaz’s television credits include Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Jury, Law & Order, Oz and Leonardo da Vinci: A Dream in Flight. Diaz made her Kennedy Center debut in A Little Night Music in the Center’s Sondheim Festival in 2002 and was most recently seen Off Broadway in Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.

Michael Arnold (Jacquot) has been seen on Broadway in productions of Jumpers, 42nd Street, Kiss Me Kate, Little Me, Cabaret, Chicago, The Who’s Tommy, and Cats. He has toured with The Who’s Tommy and Martin Guerre and is the recipient of an Astaire Award for his work with 42nd Street.

Johnathan Lee Iverson (Schlegel) began his career singing with the Boys Choir of Harlem and later became the first African American ringmaster at the age of 22 when he joined the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

On Broadway, Robert Longbottom has directed and choreographed Anything Goes, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Side Show and Flower Drum Song, for which he was nominated for a 2003 Tony Award® for Best Choreography. On stage, he appeared in the original Broadway productions of 42nd Street, Me and My Girl, the revival of Little Johnny Jones, and the national and international tours of Oklahoma! and A Chorus Line. Longbottom directed the Kennedy Center production of Mister Roberts in 2005.

The new Kennedy Center production will feature an award-winning design team, including sets by Andrew Jackness, costumes by Paul Tazewell, lighting by Ken Billington, puppets by Edward Christie and magic by Joe Eddie Fairchild. David Chase is Music Director and Robert Billig is Associate Music Director and Conductor.

TICKET INFORMATION
Performances for Carnival! will run Tuesday through Sunday evenings at 7:30 PM with matinee performances on Saturday and Sunday afternoons at 1:30 PM. Tickets from $25 to $90 are on sale now and are available for purchase at the Kennedy Center box office or by calling Instant Charge at (202) 467-4600. Patrons living outside the Washington metropolitan area may dial toll-free at (800) 444-1324.

Theater at the Kennedy Center is presented with the generous support of Stephen and Christine Schwarzman.

For more information, please visit the Kennedy Center website at www.kennedy-center.org.

# # #

New Lifetime Movie?

Is it just me, or does the saga of diapered astronaut Lisa Nowak sound like the rejected plot of a Lifetime made-for-cable movie?

It has all the elements of a potboiler: love triangle, obsession, catfight, violence, and space travel.

Here's the plot in a nutshell, as reported in The Washington Post:

By early Monday, Nowak had allegedly made a nonstop dash by car to Orlando to confront -- and pepper-spray -- Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman, whom Nowak perceived as a rival for the affections of astronaut William "Billy" Oefelein.

Nowak approached Shipman in disguise in an airport parking lot around 3 a.m. and tried to get into Shipman's car while carrying a steel mallet, a buck knife and a BB gun that resembled a 9mm semiautomatic handgun, according to an affidavit filed by local police. They said the BB gun was loaded with pellets and was set to fire.

It's sort of The Right Stuff meets the Long Island Lolita.

Or perhaps, keeping in mind the title of Billy Bob Thornton's soon-to-be-released film, The Astronaut Farmer, this one could be titled "The Astronaut Felon."

The Hazards of Paper

There was a terrific letter to the editor in Tuesday's Fauquier Times-Democrat, drawing attention to the flawed and hurried nature of two bills in the General Assembly, HB 2707 and SB 840, that, if passed, would have the effect of forcing all Virginia localities to discard their current voting machines and replacing them with optical scan systems.

Written by Robin Lind, who edits the newsletter of the Virginia Electoral Board Association (of which I am a member), the letter points out:

In Virginia alone, these new machines will cost an additional $30 million, for which the legislation looks to the localities for funding. In ensuing years, the cost of printing, transporting and then storing the ballots in the Clerk of the Circuit Court's office has not even been estimated.

People who champion paper ballots and optical scan tabulating machines probably have never dealt with either.

Those of us old enough to remember paper ballots know what a nightmare it was to hand count them, and how easy it was for "short-pencil men" to spoil ballots by the simple act of adding marks from graphite under their fingernails.

Those of us who have seen optical scanners choke up on automatic feeds, or under-count the ballots processed, or reject ballots for no apparent reason, have every reason to be worried about this "dream" solution.

Mr. Lind goes on to say:

The only guarantee of the integrity of the voting system is the integrity of the people involved. These are your neighbors. People who get up at 4 a.m. to make sure your poll is open at 6 .m., then work hard for the next 13 hours until the polls close at 7 p.m.

And then they have to work another hour or two to close the polls, turn in the results and return the equipment. Across the nation, their average age is between 60 and 70.

Ask them what they think of the process. Ask them what they think of their experience with touch-screen voting machines. Ask them what they think of returning to paper ballots. Ask them what they think about the dedication of their fellow poll workers and the integrity of the system.

If legislators had taken the time to query the men and women on the front line, you may be confident the universal answer would have been: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

He concludes (as I do):

We urge citizens to contact their legislators and vigorously oppose this unfortunate legislation.

My views on this issue are well-known and I hesitate to repeat myself. I want to re-emphasize one point, touched on by Robin Lind: the vast majority of electoral fraud in this country is done with paper, either at the voter registration stage or by altering or spoiling paper ballots. There is no evidence from the past two decades of using electronic voting machines that those machines have been compromised, or tampered with, to change the outcome of an election.

Check out the label "voting machines" (below) if you would like to read more of what I have had to say about voting technology.

African History Lesson

There is an odd juxtaposition of sentences in an op-ed piece in today's Washington Post.

In "400 Years After Jamestown," Stephanie Robinson of the Jamestown Project and Cornel West of Princeton University write:

It is nothing short of remarkable that the sons and daughters of those who arrived in shackles now excel in the broad range of American life.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is poised to make a legitimate, not merely symbolic, run for the presidency.

Striving to make a legitimate point about how things have changed in our country, Robinson and West also make an error of history and biography -- and geography, as well.

How? Senator Obama is not one of "the sons and daughters of those who arrived in shackles," although he certainly does "excel" in his own American life.

Barack Obama's father was born in Kenya and met the future Senator's mother when both were studying at the University of Hawaii in the 1950s. (Senator Obama's mother was born in Kansas.)

The African slave trade that sent the ancestors of today's African-Americans to this continent took place along the Atlantic Coast of Africa. Kenya, on the Indian Ocean coast in East Africa, was also the origin of some slaves, but those were bought and sold by Arab slavetraders and taken east, not west.

One might say that Senator Barack Obama is a "modern" African-American rather than a "historical" African-American. Modern, that is, in the sense of being or being descended from recent immigrants (although the Senator's father was more of a visitor than an immigrant, since he returned to Kenya after his son was born). Historical African-Americans, then, are those who can trace their ancestry to the Atlantic slave trade.

There are tens of thousands of African-Americans like Senator Obama -- recent immigrants (and their children born here) from Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, and other countries -- who are not descended from slaves that were brought here in the 17th, 18th, or 19th centuries. They deserve, like everyone, to be fully integrated into American society and politics. But that doesn't mean that their own histories and biographies should be misrepresented by those who should know better.

Speaking of Harry Potter ...

More news from Britain, definitely not the disappointing sort:

The final Harry Potter book is slated for release on July 21. Scholastic Corp. publishes the book in the United States, while Bloomsbury Publishing handles the book in Great Britain.

The portentous title of the seventh installment in the series is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

MediaBistro's GalleyCat adds this enticing note:

Sale of the book in all time zones is embargoed until 00:01 BST (British Summer Time) on Saturday 21st July 2007.

If past experience is a guide, there will be attempts to break the embargo.

Coincidentally, the fifth movie based on the J. K. Rowling books will be in cinemas just days before the new book is released. Reports the Associated Press:

Four hit movies already have been adapted from the Potter books. The fifth film, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," is scheduled to come out July 13, eight days before the release of "Deathly Hallows."

My understanding is that the adult version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be sold without a dust jacket, in tribute to Daniel Radcliffe's fast-approaching debut on the West End stage.

Disappointment from Britain

British television viewers must be crying in their tea upon reading this news, as reported in The Guardian:

Channel 4 has postponed transmission of its "wank week" programming in a bid to avoid further controversy in the aftermath of the Celebrity Big Brother racism row.

The network's short season of three late night documentaries about masturbation was to have been broadcast next month, but has now been taken out of the schedule.

They are expected to be broadcast at a later date, but it is understood they may be broadcast separately and certainly not as part of a branded wank week season.

Correspondent Jason Deans provided this brief but wistful description of what Guardian readers might be missing due to the postponement:

Wank week included documentaries about compulsive male masturbators, female masturbation, and a wankathon event held in London last year.

The question remains, however: Which American TV network will pick up the "wank week" documentaries now that Britain's Channel 4 has got cold feet? (Your suggestions are welcome in the comments section, below.) This could be a whole new arena for office pools, once the Super Bowl is finished. Can "wank week" beat the spread?

I can only imagine what kind of traffic this post will drive my way, after the flood of visitors wanting to see "Harry Potter, Shirtless."

A Penny Saved Is a Nickel Earned

An interesting proposal circulating among economists suggests that the government should "rebase" the penny and make it worth five cents, and then eliminate the nickel.

The economists point to the fact that, because the price of the metals that go into pennies and nickels has risen so rapidly in recent years, the mint loses about $40 million each year making the coins.

Writing in the New York Times on February 1, University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee explains that initially, proclaiming that a penny is worth 5 cents "sounds impossible":

But our coins are just tokens the government gives a value to. We can say they are worth whatever we like... the United States did something similar in 1834, when it changed the gold-silver ratio and suddenly the half-eagle $5 coin was actually worth $5.625.

Pennies would then cost a little over 1 cent to make and would be worth a nickel, so the government would again be making a profit on money. We would have plenty of new Lincoln nickels so we could stop minting our current nickels at a heavy loss. The Jefferson nickels would stay in circulation, just as the old wheat pennies do now. Because metal in nickels is valuable, though, they would probably be melted down.

Rebasing pennies is printing money. But don’t get too worried about inflation. With about 140 billion pennies in circulation ($1.4 billion) — counting the ones in your couch and your kids’ piggy banks — this rebalance would make them worth $7 billion, adding about $5.6 billion to the money supply. For comparison, at the start of 2007 there was about $1.4 trillion in currency and money available for purchases, to say nothing of credit cards.

If this proposal takes shape and is eventually adopted, we may have to abandon some idiomatic expressions, though "a penny for your thoughts" might still work -- it's just that those thoughts will be worth an additional four cents.

Is 'Income Inequality' a Legitimate Worry?

In his 1996 book, Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, polymath economist David Friedman wrote:

When a psychiatrist wants to get his audience’s attention, he talks about sex. Economists talk about the income distribution. In both cases the audience’s interest is prurient (what are other people doing?), puritanical (that they shouldn’t be?), and personal (how am I doing?). In both, there is the thrill of violating taboo; although sex is gradually becoming an accepted topic of conversation, asking how much money someone makes is still beyond the pale (p. 195).

Though asking about someone’s income is still not permitted in polite conversation, it is not forbidden in political discourse. So it should come as no surprise that congressional Democrats have made income distribution the centerpiece of their legislative program in the early days of their new majority.

Both the House and the Senate have passed minimum wage legislation, which is one way to redistribute income. (It is also a way to deny employment to poor minority youth, but that is a column for another day.)

Under the leadership of Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York), the Joint Economic Committee sponsored a hearing about income inequality in which the “bad guys” are corporate executives with generous pay packages made up of salaries, bonuses, and stock options, and the “good guys” are federal legislators claiming to look out for the poor and middle class.

The Washington Post reported on February 1, referring to testimony from Princeton University economist Alan Blinder,

"The basic story is very clear," Blinder said. "Inequality was mostly falling for 30 or 35 years or so until the late 1970s and has been mostly rising since then." He offered a vivid example: In 1979, the average taxpayer in the top one-tenth of 1 percent earned about as much as 44 average taxpayers in the bottom half. In 2001, the rich taxpayer earned as much as nearly 160 less affluent people.

Is “income inequality” something that should worry us? Even President Bush seems concerned, telling a Wall Street audience on January 31 that "income inequality is real -- it's been rising for more than 25 years” – though the larger thrust of his remarks were about how strong the U.S. economy is.

George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen put the question in perspective in a recent article for the New York Times:

What matters most is how well people are doing in absolute terms. We should continue to improve opportunities for lower-income people, but inequality as a major and chronic American problem has been overstated.

Fears about income inequality stem from a pre-modern understanding of economics, in which because some people “have,” others “have not.” In the pre-industrial, pre-capitalist world, this was sometimes true. If Midas had a lot of gold, it meant he was taking it from his subjects, who had no gold. (He and other ancient rulers used force to pry the gold from the hands of people who had genuinely earned it, through slavery and confiscation.)

But the fabled Midas hoarded his gold; he neither spent it nor invested it. The “affluent people” of Alan Blinder’s illustration both spend and invest their earned incomes. They don’t hide it under their mattresses. As a consequence, they create products that fulfill our needs and wants, hire workers, and make other people wealthy in the process – or at least more wealthy than they would have been in the absence of spending and investment.

In his influential treatise, Human Action, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises wrote:

The inequality of incomes and wealth is an inherent feature of the market economy. Its elimination would entirely destroy the market economy.

What those people who ask for equality have in mind is always an increase in their own power to consume. In endorsing the principle of equality as a political postulate nobody wants to share his own income with those who have less. When the American wage earner refers to equality, he means that the dividends of the stockholders should be given to him. He does not suggest a curtailment of his own income for the benefit of those 95 per cent of the earth’s population whose income is lower than his (third revised edition, p. 840)

In other words, “more wealth for me, but not for thee” is the principle at play.

Redistributing unequally distributed wealth would require one of two things:

One option is passing laws that forbid businesses from paying their employees – including high-level management, rock stars, baseball players, and Oscar-winning actors and actresses – what they (the businesses) and the market think they are worth. That is, set legal ceilings on earnings.

The other option is to establish a system of confiscatory taxation that would take earnings from the person who earned it, in order to bring their income beneath an arbitrary ceiling, and give it to the government, which in turn will spend it on goods and services provided by other rich individuals and the companies they own. That is, rob Peter to pay Paul.

Commenting on the “economic consequences of confiscatory policies,” Mises wrote that

in the long run such policies must result not only in slowing down or totally checking the further accumulation of capital, but also in the consumption of capital accumulated in previous days. They would not only arrest further progress toward more material prosperity, but even reverse the trend and bring about a tendency toward progressing poverty (Human Action, third revised edition, p. 844).

Put more simply, by constricting the capacity of the affluent to create jobs and buy things, one ends up creating more unemployment and ultimately punishing the poor and middle classes.

In the recent PBS documentary film about his life, The Power of Choice, the late Milton Friedman said, “The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.”

That is a lesson well-learned by policymakers on Capitol Hill and at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Happy Birthday, Carol Channing!

Today is Carol Channing's 86th birthday, and by all accounts she is still -- you should pardon the expression -- "going strong."

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing Miss Channing in performance at the Gravity Lounge in Charlottesville. Well, to tell the truth, it wasn't Carol Channing herself, but rather a most remarkable facsimile in the form of a tribute by illusionist Richard Skipper.

I had an opportunity to interview Skipper after the show, and I will no doubt write about both the show and the interview before the week is out.

Seeing his loving tribute to Carol Channing, however, gives me my own opportunity to reminisce.

My romance with musical theatre dates to a night in January 1967, when I was just 7 years old, and my parents took me to see Carol Channing starring in the first national tour of Hello, Dolly! at the old Palace Theatre in Milwaukee. It was my initial experience with live theatre, and I was hooked for life.

Eleven years later, another national tour of Dolly! came through town, with Miss Channing co-starring with Eddie Bracken. Thinking it might be my last opportunity to see her in the show, I bought tickets in the nosebleed section of the Milwaukee Performing Arts Center and took my parents and a friend to the show.

My next chance to see Carol Channing live came in 1986, when she and Mary Martin brought Legends! on tour to Washington's National Theatre. "Legends" was an appropriate term to use to describe the play's stars, but the book was no better then than it is now, in the current production featuring Joan Collins and Linda Evans.

To my surprise and delight, a revival of Hello, Dolly! began in 1994, wending its way to Washington (this time at the Kennedy Center) by September 1995. It was this production that propelled me to become a theatre critic. In fact, the very first review I wrote for the Metro Herald was about that production of Hello, Dolly! (I had been writing political commentary for the newspaper for about three years at that point; I explained to the editor, P.J. Robinson, that I wanted to "spread my wings" as a writer. I also wanted an outlet for my theatre jones.)

My most recent chance to see Carol Channing in person was about two years ago, when she appeared in a panel discussion at the Kennedy Center (as part of its 1940s festival) along with Debbie Reynolds and Kitty Carlisle Hart. Moderated by Dick Cavett, the three ladies shared their memories of that tumultuous decade and also had a few choice words to say about the present. (Commenting on Judy Garland's famous abuse of drugs in her days at MGM, Miss Channing added that this explains Liza Minnelli's latter-day problems because, she said, in her inimitable way, "Liza is a crack baby!") It was a unique and unforgettable occasion: How often does one get to hear dish about Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, after all?

For the record, here is what I wrote immediately after seeing Hello, Dolly! that day more than 11 years ago, the review that launched, if not a career, then simply a wonderful avocation:

Looking Swell!
Rick Sincere

[Hello, Dolly! Kennedy Center Opera House, through October 8, 1995; Tuesday through Friday at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday at 2:00 and 8:00 p.m.; Sunday at 2:00 and 7:00 p.m.; running time, 2:45; ticket prices, $40 and up.]

How does Carol Channing react to the sustained applause and cheers that greet her when she makes her entrance in Hello, Dolly!? She beams. She positively beams. And why not? After nearly 32 years of trodding the boards as Dolly Levi, Channing still raises the level of energy in an auditorium to nuclear-reactor levels. The warmth she generates gets reflected back from each and every person in the audience.

The character of Dolly Gallagher Levi has a distinguished history, as does the play itself. Based upon two plays by Pulitzer-prize winner Thornton Wilder, The Merchant of Yonkers (1938) and The Matchmaker (1955), Hello, Dolly! brings to life downtown and suburban New York in the 1880s. To do this, many of the great ladies of the American theatre have trod the boards as Dolly Levi, an independent woman who uses her wiles to marry Horace Vandergelder, "the well-known half-a-millionaire."

Ruth Gordon created the role on Broadway, spelled by Shirley Booth in the 1957 film version (which also included Arlington native Shirley MacLaine, Anthony Perkins, and Robert Morse). Within a year of Hello, Dolly!'s Broadway debut, a second Broadway company opened, headed by Washington's own Pearl Bailey and the great Cab Calloway; the cast also featured a young Morgan Freeman. The musical role of Dolly was designed for Ethel Merman, who was the last in a long line of Broadway Dollies when the show closed in 1972 -- a line that included Dorothy Lamour, Ginger Rogers, Eve Arden, Phyllis Diller, Betty Grable, and Mary Martin. Then, of course, there was the 1969 film version, with the horribly miscast Barbra Streisand.

Despite the claims of all these great actresses, the part of Dolly Levi belongs to only one -- the true original, Carol Channing, who by the end of this run at the Kennedy Center will have performed the role almost 4,500 times in 32 years, without missing a single performance. Who has the worse job -- Carol Channing's understudy or the second-string shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles?

At 74, Miss Channing is still going strong. Her comic skills are undiminished with age. And those skills are not limited to this one character. Ten years ago at the National Theatre, she held her own with Mary Martin in Legends, as a bitchy, aging theatre diva reuniting with an old rival. Yet Dolly Levi is an American legend all her own.

This revival features vibrantly colorful costumes, a reconstruction of the original sets designed by Oliver Smith, and the most tuneful score ever created by composer/lyricist Jerry Herman. Herman writes better music for a male chorus than anyone on Broadway or Tin Pan Alley in this century, and the harmonies he creates for the men and also for the mixed chorus are simple, direct, and pure. (Compare the title songs in Hello, Dolly! and in Mame -- the same qualities shine through in both numbers.)

Director Lee Roy Reams (who had played Cornelius in the 1977 revival) has recreated much of Gower Champion's original, farcical staging. The cast is strong, although Jay Garner's Vandergelder often seems more buffoonish than pompous -- something David Burns, Paul Ford, and Walter Matthau avoided in earlier turns at the role. Florence Lacey, repeating her 1977 role as Irene Molloy, has a sweet voice with just a touch of an Irish brogue. Michael DeVries as Cornelius has a strong tenor voice that stands out in his second-act ballad, "It Only Takes a Moment," and Cory English's Barnaby Tucker is athletically elfin.

For those inclined to say, "I was there when ...," watch for Julian Brightman, a gentleman in the chorus who answers to the name "Stanley" in the big title number. He obviously has been paying attention to Miss Channing, showing amazing comedic abilities, terrific timing, and a wide smile that lasts for days. Brightman is someone to watch. He'll definitely be going places.

Speaking of that big title number, the anticipation of Dolly's entrance down the staircase at the Harmonia Gardens quite literally sends shivers down one's spine. There is no better song in theatre written for male chorus and female star than "Hello, Dolly!" (There are reports that the song was recorded more than 100 times in the year after it was released. The single by Louis Armstrong bumped the Beatles off the charts in 1964, and Lyndon Johnson adapted it as his campaign song that year!) Seldom in musical theatre does one see an audience jump to its feet in the middle of a show -- yet that is what the Opera House audience did on opening night. The wide eyes of the chorus boys showed how much they appreciated the genuine warmth -- and the fact that such warmth is so rare among audiences these days.

Let's admit that Hello, Dolly! is a light-hearted romp, a second-rate French farce. But isn't that a good reason to go to the theatre? It may not be a deeply philosophical, but the play does contain some good epigrams. For instance: "Money, you should pardon the expression, is like manure. It doesn't do any good unless you spread it around and encourage little things to grow." Hello, Dolly! celebrates life. Rush to the Kennedy Center to join the celebration -- before the parade passes by.

Forget ethanol. If the government can figure out how to clone Carol Channing, we'll never have to worry about relying on foreign sources of energy again.

(To assure that nobody is confused, the photo above is of Richard Skipper channeling Miss Channing, not the one-and-only herself. I took it last night at Gravity Lounge.)