A Remarkable Memorial Day Story

A remarkable story appeared in today's Washington Post, considering that it is Memorial Day weekend:  T. Rees Shapiro reported on the obituary page the death of 100-year-old John W. Finn, the last surviving recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor from the Battle of Pearl Harbor.

The story notes that of the 15 men who eventually received the Medal of Honor for Pearl Harbor, 14 of them were cited for rescue attempts.  Finn was the only one who was cited for combat action.  The New York Times mentions that ten of them died in that battle while four survived the war.

His actions read like something from a Hollywood screenplay:

He was in bed with his wife, Alice, that Sunday when, just before 8 a.m., he heard the rumble of low-flying aircraft and sporadic machine gun fire coming from the hangar a mile away.

Amid the confusion, he threw on a pair of dungarees and his chief hat, and started driving as calmly as possible to the nearby hangar, maintaining the base's 20-mph speed limit.

"I got around, and I heard a plane come roaring in from astern of me. As I glanced up, the guy made a wing-over and I saw that big old red meatball, the rising sun insignia, on the underside of the wing," he said in an interview with Larry Smith for the 2003 book "Beyond Glory," an oral history of Medal of Honor recipients. "Well, I threw it into second, and it was a wonder I didn't run over every sailor in the air station."

When Chief Petty Officer Finn arrived at the Kaneohe Bay station, he commandeered a heavy-caliber machine gun and set it up on a makeshift tripod of spare pipes -- out in the open, where he had a clear view to give the Japanese what he called a "warm welcome."

He fired at wave after wave of strafing Japanese Zeroes for more than 2 1/2 hours, because, as he later said, "I didn't have enough sense to come in out of the rain."

In an obituary that contains much of the same information as that in the Post, Richard Goldstein adds this tidbit in the New York Times:

On Sept. 15, 1942, Chief Finn received the Medal of Honor from Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, in a ceremony aboard the carrier Enterprise at Pearl Harbor. Admiral Nimitz cited Chief Finn for his “magnificent courage in the face of almost certain death.”

Final tributes to Lieutenant Finn will be next week. The Los Angeles Times notes:

A funeral service for Medal of Honor recipient John Finn, who died Thursday in Chula Vista at age 100, is set for 10 a.m. Thursday at El Cajon-Lakeside-Santee Mortuary and Cremation Service, 684 S. Mollison Ave. in El Cajon. A viewing is scheduled for 3 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at the same location. Burial will be in the Campo Indian Reservation cemetery.

Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!
Follow my tweets on Twitter! 
See my articles on Examiner.com!

Talking Virginia 5th District Politics on the Radio

This past Tuesday, I was invited by Coy Barefoot to be a guest on his WINA-AM radio program, "Charlottesville Right Now."  He had seen a comment I left on an article about Fifth Congressional District GOP candidate Feda Morton on The Hook's web site and had also noticed that I had conducted face-to-face interviews with Feda and her six rivals for the Republican nomination in the primary scheduled for June 8.  He asked if I would be willing to talk about the race on his show.

Despite the short notice, I accepted the invitation. 

The video (below) shows the result of our discussion, which included thoughts about Feda Morton as a "family values" candidate who has been twice divorced and who was denied custody of her children because of her anger and bitterness, about how formidable an opponent Tom Perriello will be (regardless of who the Republican nominee is) because he has learned the right lessons about constituent services and keeping his name in the news, and how Perriello will still be a weaker candidate this year because he does not have Barack Obama at the top of his ticket.  (In fact, Perriello will be the top of the ticket, as there are no other offices up for election this year.)

Here is Part I, where Coy introduces me as a "Republican blogger of note" and sets the stage for the discussion, starting with the Feda Morton article:

(Note that this interview took place before the Daily Progress reported that Morton had apparently plagiarized parts of an op-ed piece by Joseph Sobran and published his words as her own.)

Coy also threw me a softball question that allowed me to plug the excellent documentary film from the Moving Picture Institute, Do As I Say, which exposes leftwingers Michael Moore and Al Gore as hypocrites, and to to also talk about that day's resignation announcement by "family values" Congressman Mark Souder (R-Indiana), who had an extramarital affair with a staffer -- after making a video with her touting the benefits of sexual abstinence education!

In Part II, Coy returns to the "bombshell of a story" (his words) about Feda Morton and asks what impact the story might have on the outcome of the race on June 8.  I reply by noting the lack of independent polling in the race and the way that straw polls can be misleading.  I also note that Republican voters in the "low turnout primary ... are going to be voting strategically," trying to nominate the candidate "who can best beat Tom Perriello" and that "intelligent Republican voters, even if they like Feda," may vote against her because they are "hungry to take this seat back."

Here's the video:

In Part III, Coy leads off with a question about who I think can beat Tom Perriello in November. I note that statistically, with seven candidates in the race, there can be a winner with 15 percent of the vote, though I predict the ultimate victor will have 27 or 28 percent.

I also note the conventional wisdom favors state Senator Robert Hurt, who has been attacked by Morton and other candidates for various votes he has made in the General Assembly. "The slings and arrows that are being aimed at these candidates," I say, "are a bit odd and sometimes off-base."

Then I go over the list of other candidates -- Michael McPadden, Ron Ferrin, Ken Boyd, Laurence Verga -- and weigh their pluses and minuses. (Apologies to Jim McKelvey, whose name did not come up in the discussion.)

Here's the final segment of the video:

Coy also asks about the Second District, where former GOP activist Kenny Golden has entered the race as an independent against incumbent Democrat Glenn Nye.

Surprisingly, we were able to get through the whole hour without talking about either Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga.

For those interested, all of my interviews with the congressional candidates, including some from districts other than the Fifth, can be seen at my Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner page on Examiner.com.


Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!
Follow my tweets on Twitter! 
See my articles on Examiner.com!

2010 Congressional Interviews (Pre-Primary)

Over at Examiner.com, I have been conducting, transcribing, and posting a series of interviews with candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia.

My original aim was to interview each of the seven candidates seeking the Republican nomination in the Fifth Congressional District.  I was able to accomplish that over two days, April 10 (the Charlottesville GOP mass meeting) and May 1 (the Fifth District GOP convention at Hampden-Sydney College).  It took some time, however, to transcribe the interviews and put them into news article form.  (Believe it or not, some candidates require substantial editing to make their oral disquisitions readable as printed text.)

In addition, I was able to catch up with candidates from the First, Third, Seventh, and Eighth districts -- including one Democrat and one independent.

After each interview, I was able to snap a photograph of the candidates.  I think that the poses they made for the camera are sometimes as revealing as the answers they gave to my questions.

With each of the Republican candidates, I asked a version of three basic questions:

(1) Assuming you win the primary, what will be the top three issues that you'll emphasize during the general election campaign?

(2) Since you face x opponents in the primary, how will you unify the party after the primary to move forward to November?

(3) A related question:  the Republican party and conservative movement are made up of several elements, such as social conservatives, libertarians, fiscal conservatives, and Club for Growth types.  How do you bring all those elements together to work on a common project or walk along a common path?

Many of the answers I received were similar.  Some were different, distinctive, and unexpected.  None of my questions elicited a "gotcha" reply.  (No macacas here, if you're looking for them.)  I do think, however, that each candidate was able to present his or her personality and unique characteristics in just a few hundred words.

While I hope to have an opportunity to conduct a similar interview with Tom Perriello during the general election campaign (he is unopposed for his party's nomination), here, for the moment, are the interviews with the seven Republican candidates in Virginia's Fifth Congressional District:

Ken Boyd

Jim McKelvey

Laurence Verga


Mike McPadden

Robert Hurt

Ron Ferrin

Feda Morton

The candidates from other districts are these:

James Quigley (Libertarian, Third)

Matthew Berry (Republican, Eighth)

Krystal Ball (Democrat, First)

Catherine Crabill (Republican, First)

Floyd Bayne (Independent, Seventh)

All of these articles, plus others related to the 2010 election season, can be found under the general heading of "Charlottesville Elections 2010" on Examiner.com. Articles on other topics can be found on my page as "Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner."

Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!
Follow my tweets on Twitter! 
See my articles on Examiner.com!

Graduation Day at PVCC

Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC) held its 37th annual commencement exercises on Friday, May 14.  Nearly 500 students became alumni at a hilltop ceremony that ended just in time for a harsh thunderstorm to blow across the Charlottesville area; the first raindrops fell within minutes of the end of the recessional and the beginning of the punch-and-pinwheel reception under tents near the college's main academic building.

Virginia's new secretary of education, Gerard Robinson, was the featured graduation speaker.  Robinson is himself an alumnus of a community college (El Camino Community College in California) and he also has a bachelor's degree from Howard University and a master's degree in education from Harvard.  Before taking on his responsibilities as a member of Governor Bob McDonnell's cabinet, Robinson was president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), a national organization advocating family choice in education.

The student speaker at the ceremony was Joshua Robert Mlcoch of Lovingston in Nelson County, who earned two degrees from PVCC -- one in liberal arts, the other in computer science.  Acknowledging the threatening weather, Mlcoch began his remarks by saying, "I come with thunder and lightning."

The commencement ceremony began with the national anthem, sung by PVCC student James A. Tubbs:

Secretary Robinson was introduced by J. Walter Levering, chair o the Piedmont Virginia Community College Board. Robinson was an ideal graduation speaker, as his remarks lasted only about 8 minutes.

Joshua Mlcoch was introduced by Dr. John R. Donnelly, PVCC's vice president for instruction and student services. Donnelly noted how impressed he was by Mlcoch's ubiquity on the PVCC campus and remarked upon similarities between himself and the student speaker. Mlcoch also kept his speech short, a model for such addresses, regardless of whether the weather is threatening or not:

NBC29 has a short report on the PVCC commencement here. Saturday's Daily Progress report is here, and the Newsplex report, including video, is here.

UPDATE, June 2:  My interview with Virginia Secretary of Education Gerard Robinson is now available for reading on Examiner.com.




Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!
Follow my tweets on Twitter! 
See my articles on Examiner.com!

Gary Johnson on WINA's 'The Schilling Show'

As announced here on April 21, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson spoke in Charlottesville yesterday, at an event co-hosted by the Albemarle County Republican Committee, the Charlottesville Republican Committee, and the Republican Liberty Caucus of Virginia.  (Governor Johnson also addressed an RLC gathering in Arlington on Saturday.)

Governor Johnson had a full day, starting at 7:08 a.m. when he spoke by telephone on WCHV radio with morning host Joe Thomas.  I missed that interview but it must have been good:  several people showed up at the governor's speech last night because they heard about it on WCHV.

During the late afternoon, we took Governor Johnson and his son, Erik,on a tour of downtown Charlottesville, where the governor was able to write a message about "freedom" and "liberty" on the chalkboard of the First Amendment Monument near City Hall.  Shortly thereafter, Gary and Erik Johnson took a tour of Monticello.  It was their first visit to Mr. Jefferson's home and both were impressed.

In between, Governor Johnson was an in-studio guest of Rob Schilling on "The Schilling Show" on WINA-AM.  Several listeners took the time to call in with substantive questions, and the host took the opportunity to promote the speech at the Northside Library and the web site of Governor Johnson's 501(c)(4) policy advocacy group, OUR America Initiative (that's www.ouramericainitiative.com).

Here is the video I took inside the WINA studios of Rob Schilling's interview with Gary Johnson.  There are three segments:

Part I:

Part II:

Part III (Conclusion):

I have more photos and videos from Governor Johnson's visit to Charlottesville, which I will post as they are ready.

Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!
Follow my tweets on Twitter! 
See my articles on Examiner.com!

The Return of Robert Bork

In an article in Monday's Washington Post about the search for a successor to retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, Robert Barnes and Anne E. Kornblut report:

John Payton, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, said there is another way to interpret the president's remarks: that Obama is looking for someone who would show some deference to "the legislative branch's prerogative in making laws that they think are for the benefit of the country."

Am I the only one struck by this as a description of Robert Bork?

Clean Talk about Dirty Bombs

When the concept of "dirty bombs" first came to public consciousness in the months following the terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, I reached back in my memory to my years as an activist advocating civil defense preparations against nuclear attack in the 1980s and realized that a "dirty bomb" posed little or no threat.  (For several years, I was on the board of directors and a vice president of the American Civil Defense Association as well as a contributing editor to the Journal of Civil Defense.  I traveled around the country lecturing about civil defense policy and debating people who disagreed with me.)

At the time, I shared my opinion with friends in conversation but felt no need to write about it, since the idea of an explosive device used to disperse nuclear material seemed so absurd.

People took it seriously, however, because (sadly) most Americans' "knowledge" of nuclear radiation is based on B-movies of the 1950s and later fright propaganda like The China Syndrome.

I mention this because I just came across an excellent piece on this topic from STRATFOR, a respected provider of intelligence and strategic information based in Austin, Texas.  (Coincidentally, the Austin American-Statesman was the first newspaper to publish my 1996 article headlined "Not All Bombs Are Planted by Terrorists.")  STRATFOR's analysts believe, as I do, that the dirty bomb causes more fear than it should, that is more "hype" than reality.

In its analysis, titled "Dirty Bombs Revisited: Combating the Hype," STRATFOR's analysts write:

In spite of the fact that dirty bombs have been discussed widely in the press for many years now — especially since the highly publicized arrest of Jose Padilla in May 2002 — much misinformation and disinformation continues to circulate regarding dirty bombs. The misinformation stems from long-held misconceptions and ignorance, while the disinformation comes from scaremongers hyping the threat for financial or political reasons. Frankly, many people have made a lot of money by promoting fear since 9/11.

Just last week, we read a newspaper article in which a purported expert interviewed by the reporter discussed how a dirty bomb would “immediately cause hundreds or even thousands of deaths.” This is simply not true. A number of radiological accidents have demonstrated that a dirty bomb will not cause this type of death toll. Indeed, the panic generated by a dirty bomb attack could very well result in more immediate deaths than the detonation of the device itself. Unfortunately, media stories hyping the threat of these devices may foster such panic, thus increasing the death toll.

I might add, such panic could be especially troublesome in the absence of a good disaster-preparedness plan.

The STRATFOR analysis continues:

By its very nature, the RDD [radiological dispersal device] is contradictory. Maximizing the harmful effects of radiation involves maximizing the exposure of the victims to the highest possible concentration of a radioisotope. When dispersing the radioisotope, by definition and design the RDD dilutes the concentration of the radiation source, spreading smaller amounts of radiation over a larger area. Additionally, the use of an explosion to disperse the radioisotope alerts the intended victims, who can then evacuate the affected area and be decontaminated. These factors make it very difficult for an attacker to administer a deadly dose of radiation via a dirty bomb.

It is important to note that a dirty bomb is not a nuclear device, and no nuclear reaction occurs. A dirty bomb will not produce an effect like the nuclear devices dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. A dirty bomb is quite simply an RDD that uses explosives as the means to disperse a radioactive isotope, and the only blast effect will be from the explosives used to disperse the radioisotope. In a dirty bomb attack, radioactive material not only is dispersed, but the dispersal is accomplished in an obvious manner, and the explosion immediately alerts the victims and authorities that an attack has taken place. The attackers hope that notice of their attack will cause mass panic — in other words, the RDD is a weapon of fear and terror.

In a nice turn of phrase, STRATFOR says that a so-called "dirty bomb" is not a weapon of mass destruction (WMB) so much as it is a "weapon of disruption." Disruption is damaging in itself, of course, but it is not as damaging as the popular imagination has made it out to be.

I have to agree with STRATFOR's concluding paragraph:

As noted above, we believe it is possible that the panic caused by a dirty bomb attack could well kill more people than the device itself. People who understand the capabilities and limitations of dirty bombs are less likely to panic than those who do not, which is the reason for this analysis. Another important way to help avoid panic is to carefully think about such an incident in advance and to put in place a carefully crafted contingency plan for your family and business. Contingency plans are especially important for those who work in proximity to a potential dirty bomb target. But they are useful in any disaster, whether natural or man-made, and something that should be practiced by all families and businesses. Such knowledge and planning provide people with the ability to conduct an orderly and methodical evacuation of the affected area. This allows them to minimize their exposure to radioactivity while also minimizing their risk of injury or death due to mass hysteria. For while a dirty bomb attack could well be messy and disruptive, it does not have to be deadly.

I don't often make suggestions for "further reading," but this is an issue that, as STRATFOR says, requires education and solid information.

Let me first recognize a piece I wrote originally as congressional testimony that was later published by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (with a foreword by Lorne Greene) as Civil Defense:  A Moral, Political, and Strategic Approach.

I would also like to recommend a book (which I reviewed here) by George Mason University physicist Robert Ehrlich called Waging Nuclear Peace:  The Technology and Politics of Nuclear Weapons.

Given the sorts of thinking that lead to misconceptions about "dirty bombs" and other weapons of less-than-mass-destruction, it might be instructive to read The Apocalyptic Premise: Nuclear Arms Debated, edited by E. Stephen Hunt and the late Ernest W. Lefever.

Although all these books were written in the 1980s, they have unusual relevance today, not only because of the insights they might bring to bear on the possible use by terrorists of "dirty bombs," but also because of current debates about the arms treaty recently negotiated between Russia and the United States, and calls by European nations for the United States to remove tactical missiles from their territory, calls that have a remarkable similarity -- mimicry? -- to the nuclear freeze movement of more than 25 years ago.

Is it any wonder that Hollywood is remaking that iconic movie of the 1980s, Red Dawn?

Note:  Excerpts of the STRATFOR report are reprinted with permission of STRATFOR.

Happy Earth Day (Plus 40)!

What better way to celebrate Earth Day's 40th anniversary than to listen to the late, great George Carlin, who really understands the resilience of the Earth and how man is dwarfed by the planet.

Crystal Clear Conservative has also posted this video and comments:

Earth Day has taken many twists and turns over the years. Now, thanks to the advent of “An Inconvenient Truth” and a degree of hyper-environmentalism, we are faced with a new slogan “Recycle or die” or Cap and Trade legislation, which would regulate industries that produce clean energy. Earth Day is no longer about promoting conservation within reason....

George Carlin says it best time and again as evidenced in this clip.

We lost not just a wit and an entertainer when George Carlin passed away (shortly after being named the recipient of the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor), but an intelligent, plain-speaking social philosopher who was not afraid to take on the sacred cows of both left and right.



Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!
Follow my tweets on Twitter! 
See my articles on Examiner.com!

My New Gig on Examiner.com

My posts here have been sporadic lately, owing in part to my paying closer attention to a new writing gig I began about two weeks ago.

I really fell into it at random. Somehow I found myself on the page of the Charlottesville Events Examiner and I noticed a button marked "write for us." Curious, I clicked on it, and within minutes I had filled out an application to fill the vacancy for the "Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner."

The instructions indicated that it could take as long as two weeks to process the application, so I left it there expecting to hear back sometime in the future. Yet within 24 hours I had received an email saying that my application had been accepted, but in order to confirm my interest in being a writer for Examiner.com, I had to post something within a day.

I scrambled to put something together, wondering what would fit Examiner.com's rather specific guidelines for good article writing. I finally settled on repurposing a blog post I had written in February about "affordable housing." That became "Concerns about the affordability of ‘affordable housing’ in Charlottesville," the first of my (so far) 17 articles on politics and policy on Examiner.com.

In my next piece, I drew upon video I took at a Students for Individual Liberty event at the University of Virginia, at which Adam Kissel of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education answered a question I posed about the case before the U.S. Supreme Court called Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.  Both FIRE and Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty filed friend-of-the-court briefs in that case.  The Court heard oral arguments in CLS v. Martinez on Monday, April 19.  My Examiner.com piece was called "Will the U.S. Supreme Court uphold freedom of expressive association?"

Let me note, parenthetically but with some pride, that GLIL's brief was cited favorably by William McGurn in Monday's Wall Street Journal.  McGurn writes:

That public/private distinction helps explain why CLS has also found allies in the libertarian Cato Institute and Gays & Lesbians for Individual Liberty. In their own brief, this latter group stresses that it was the ability of gay Americans to form gay associations—whose membership rules they defined for themselves—that gave them a collective voice in the face of an often hostile majority.

Presumably Gays & Lesbians for Individual Liberty do not share the CLS view of human sexuality. But they understand exactly where Dean Martinez's logic is taking us.

"[U]nder Hastings' forced membership policy, only majority viewpoints (or those viewpoints too banal to interest the majority) are actually assured a voice in Hastings' forum," argues their brief. "That is a patently unreasonable way to 'promote a diversity of viewpoints.'"

Exactly. Traditionally the American contribution to diversity has been the encouragement of thriving—and competing—private institutions and associations. Unfortunately, on American campuses today we see the opposite: an expanding government role in everything from research to how schools are accredited and how student loans are administered. One unintended consequence is that our culture wars are going to escalate as our courts are forced to take up a great many more cases like Hastings.

This is a digression; I hope to write more about CLS v. Martinez before the Supreme Court issues its ruling in June.

My next Examiner.com also recycled something I had written earlier, with a local and current hook: "Is 'income inequality' a serious problem?" With this article, I first experimented with searching the AP archives and using an AP photograph, which I could never do on this blog because that would be stealing, but which I can do on Examiner.com because the parent web site has permission -- actually, pays for a license -- to use AP photos. That's why the article has a shot of Alan Greenspan testifying before Congress.

With my fourth article, "Five reasons to be a libertarian," I began another experiment: carrying with me an audio recorder and asking people to talk into it in response to questions I ask them. In this case, I asked five members of the Jefferson Area Libertarians to explain what it means to be a libertarian.

The next four Examiner.com articles were the result of my attending a Cato Institute briefing on transportation issues in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill.  I was able to speak briefly with Cato's Randal O'Toole, the Heritage Foundation's Ronald Utt, and the Reason Foundation's Robert Poole.  The articles drawn from those interviews are:

Examiner.com exclusive - Randal O'Toole on Virginia high-speed rail
Aviation policy expert Robert Poole talks about transportation privatization
Heritage Foundation's Ronald Utt discusses commercialization of highway rest areas
Meadowcreek Parkway and suggestions to improve transportation policy making

My first candidate interview, with Fifth Congressional District GOP candidate Ken Boyd, appeared on April 12. Subsequently, I published interviews with Third District Libertarian candidate James Quigley, who will be facing Bobby Scott in November, and Eighth District Republican candidate Matthew Berry, who will face Jim Moran in the fall should he win the June 8 primary.

Other articles include a truncated version of my review of Fiddler on the Roof at the National Theatre, called "Reevaluating 'Fiddler on the Roof' from an economic perspective," and a report on the Tax Day Tea Party in Charlottesville.

I also interviewed John Taylor of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy about Thomas Jefferson's birthday, historian Jennifer Burns about Ayn Rand, and the Cato Institute's Brink Lindsey about "liberaltarianism."

What comes next?  I'm not sure, but I have several interviews "in the can" that require transcribing and transforming into article format.  My aim is to have at least six Examiner.com articles a week.  (Did I mention that Examiner.com offers financial incentives for posting good articles?)  Within two weeks, I have already made the "top five" of Charlottesville Examiners, with double and triple the average page hits in the "Charlottesville" and "Politics" categories -- even based on statistics since the beginning of the year.  Somehow the Charlottesville Pet News Examiner keeps beating me out for first place.

I guess I just have to be more dogged in my approach.

Be sure to visit my CafePress store for gifts and novelty items!
Read my blog on Kindle!
Follow my tweets on Twitter! 
See my articles on Examiner.com!

Former NM Governor Gary Johnson to Speak in Charlottesville

The Charlottesville Republican Committee, along with the Albemarle County Republican Committee and the Republican Liberty Caucus of Virginia, will host an appearance by former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson at the Northside Library in Albemarle Square on Monday, May 3, at 7:00 p.m.

Governor Johnson's speech will last about 45 minutes and there will be an additional 45 minutes for questions and discussion.

A triathlete who has climbed Mount Everest, Gary Johnson was elected to two terms as New Mexico's governor after a successful career as an entrepreneur.  He is currently chairman of the OUR America Initiative.

The idea has been floated that Governor Johnson might run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, but currently he is not a candidate for any state or federal office.

According to his official biography:

As Governor of New Mexico, Johnson was known for his common-sense business approach to governing. He eliminated New Mexico’s budget deficit, cut the rate of growth in state government in half and privatized half of the state prisons.

Johnson also shifted state Medicaid to managed care (which led to better healthcare by creating a statewide healthcare network that previously did not exist and which saved money) and reduced state employees by over 1000, with no firings. During his term, New Mexico experienced the longest period without a tax increase in the state’s history.

While in office, Governor Johnson vetoed 750 bills (which was more than all the combined vetoes of the other 49 Governors in the country at the time) and thousands of line item vetoed bills.

For more information about Governor Johnson's May 3rd lecture in Charlottesville, check out the event page on Facebook.

This event is free and open to the public.

Crossposted from Charlottesville Republicans Blog.

Review of 'Fiddler on the Roof' at D.C.'s National Theatre

This review of Fiddler on the Roof is based on the performance last Wednesday evening, April 14, and is intended to appear in the next edition of The Metro Herald in Alexandria, Virginia.

Reevaluating ‘Fiddler on the Roof’

Harvey Fierstein Stars in National Tour’s D.C. Engagement

Rick Sincere

Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

It’s time to reassess one of the central claims of the classic American musical play, Fiddler on the Roof. The current engagement at Washington’s National Theatre offers a chance to look at the play with fresh eyes, adding a different sort of vitality to a work that is so familiar that we may have begun taking it and its characters for granted.

Tony®-winning Broadway actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein is the star of the latest national tour of Fiddler, playing the role of Tevye, the Dairyman, a character created a century ago by Yiddish short-story writer Sholom Aleichem and beloved by millions of readers and playgoers around the world.

Tevye sings one of Fiddler’s biggest hit songs, “If I Were a Rich Man,” in which he first complains of his own poverty and then daydreams about what it would be like to be a wealthy man.

Tevye’s life, however, belies his plaintive pleas of poverty. Digging deeper into the text reveals that, far from being a poor man, Tevye is a man with assets and means – someone we might call a working-class entrepreneur. Indeed, nearly all of Tevye’s neighbors in Anatevka are working- or middle-class and not at all poor in any objective sense.

Although Tevye’s wife, Golde, tells one of their five daughters “you’re a girl from a poor family” and although Tevye says to God, “it’s no shame to be poor, but it’s no great honor either,” the circumstances of their family are not those of poverty, especially not the sort of poverty one would expect in a pre-industrial, traditional society.

First, Tevye is a self-employed farmer. He owns at least one horse and other livestock –probably several cows. Not only that, he has sufficient cattle to meet his customers’ needs and he can every so often sell a surplus cow. (Tevye assumes that the butcher wants to buy his “new milk cow,” which implies he has old milk cows and that he has enough cash to periodically buy a new one.)

Second, Tevye is sufficiently secure economically that he is able to hire a tutor for his daughters (“food for lessons,” he says to the itinerant Perchik) at a time when girls were expected to stay uneducated. His third-eldest daughter, Chava, has enough pocket money to buy books for pleasure reading.

Third, when the Russian authorities force Tevye and his neighbors to leave Anatevka, he is given three days to sell his property. What does Tevye own? A house, a barn, and a plot of land big enough to feed his livestock. His ownership is clear enough that he has the courage – and the right – to order the constable off his land while he still owns it.

Fourth, Tevye has disposable income above the subsistence level. He husbands his assets so effectively that he can buy luxuries (candlesticks, goose pillows, and a feather bed) as gifts for his daughter on her wedding day and pay for the food and drink and musicians that make a wedding celebration, too.

To return to “If I Were a Rich Man,” Tevye is not so much asking to be a “rich man” as he is expressing his desire to be a “man of leisure” – a person who does not have to work for a living and who can enjoy a mansion, servants, and free time for prayer and contemplation.

There is no question that Tevye is not “rich” in the sense of a Rockefeller or a Rothschild. Neither is he poor. His family has enough food to eat – indeed, they have enough food that they can routinely share it with strangers and friends who visit for the Sabbath.

Tevye works hard, to be sure, and like any dairy farmer must rise before dawn to feed and milk the cows, plus toil through the rest of the day to make cheese and butter and deliver his goods to his customers. This is not a life of impoverishment. It is a life that produces something of value to trade for other things of value. It is essentially middle-class.

The other characters we meet in Fiddler on the Roof are in similar economic circumstances. Except for Nachum, the beggar, nearly everyone in the play has means and assets.

Mordcha and his wife own a tavern, where they serve anyone from the village, Jew and Gentile alike. Lazar Wolf is a self-employed butcher who could afford to buy strings of pearls for his wife. Motel Kamzoil (Tevye’s eventual son-in-law) owns his own tailor shop and has saved enough money to buy a modern sewing machine. Yussel is a hatmaker. Even the widow, Yente, is an independent woman who provides a service much in demand in a traditional society like Anatevka’s – she is a matchmaker (much like that independent woman of the Broadway season that preceded the premiere of Fiddler on the Roof, Dolly Levi).

We are told, over and over again, that Tevye’s family and the people of Anatevka are poor, but what we see contradicts what we are told.

All that said, it’s not possible to gainsay Fiddler on the Roof’s other theme: what happens when modernity intrudes upon tradition, and the topsy-turvy world that results (or, at least, that is perceived by those who have to engage the intrusion).

Fiddler on the Roof is set in 1905, the time of the first Russian revolution and, consequently, an era of turmoil and upheaval. For centuries Anatevka has been isolated from the outside world and thus, its inhabitants think, the village need not concern itself with the politics of far away. Those politics arrive with a growl and a bite that are unwelcome, and the people of Anatevka are subjected to a pogrom that eventually results in their exile.

Yet the hidden future-story offers a bittersweet life beyond the final curtain.

Through government-induced violence, Tevye and his family lose their home in Anatevka, which, though fictional, in real life would have stood in eastern Poland or western Ukraine.

By being forced to leave their ancestral home in 1905 and emigrating overseas, the people of Anatevka – including Tevye and his family – were spared the scorched-earth battles of World War I. They were spared the horrors of Stalin’s induced starvation of the 1930s. (As a landowner, Tevye would almost certainly have been executed as a capitalist exploiter along with the other kulaks.) They were spared the torture and genocide of the Nazis.

They were, in fact, the lucky ones.

The current production of Fiddler on the Roof at the National Theatre is competent, engaging, and entertaining. The music as performed is rich and robust. The sets and costumes evoke Marc Chagall’s visions of shtetl life without being slavishly imitative.

As Tevye, Harvey Fierstein brings multiple layers and three dimensions to the stage. Although he sometimes mugs a bit – one critic sitting near me complained about too much “shtick” – it is all within the boundaries he creates for Tevye. And Fierstein never goes off book or out-of-character, as his predecessor in the role, Zero Mostel, was wont to do. (Mostel was said to walk on stage, turn to the audience, break the fourth wall, and announce the scores of current sporting events: “Yankees 3, Orioles 2, at the top of the eighth.”)

Susan Cella’s Golde is stern but sufficiently affectionate that the audience can understand all the subtext of her duet with Tevye, “Do You Love Me?”

All three of the oldest daughters – Kaitlin Stilwell as Tzeitel, Jamie Davis as Hodel, and Deborah Grausman as Chava – bring sprightly maturity to their roles. Each of their characters brings an incremental step toward the modern world into Tevye’s purview, and each of them does so in a believable and (in Chava’s case especially) poignant manner.


Zal Owen, still new to this company, has a spring in his step and a youthful exuberance that fit Motel Kamzoil like a glove. Matthew Marks, as Fyedka, looks like he just stepped from a Disney Channel special on Tsarist Russia, but plays his (underwritten) part well. New York theatre stalwart Mary Stout has a lot of fun portraying the gabby Yente, the Matchmaker. She makes a stereotypical character believable.

If there is a weak link among the principals, it is Colby Foytik as Perchik, who sometimes seems to swallow his notes, especially in his big number, “Now I Have Everything.” To be fair, we might have caught him on a bad night, especially since it is a hard allergy season in Washington.

A note to those who care about these things: Although Harvey Fierstein starred on Broadway in the Tony®-nominated Big Stem revival of Fiddler on the Roof five years ago, this is a completely different production. That revival was directed by David Leveaux. This tour is directed by Sammy Dallas Bayes, who was part of the original Broadway cast and is recreating Jerome Robbins’ direction and choreography.

Other elements of this production are different from the recent revival: set design is by Steve Gilliam, costume design by Tony Ray Hicks, and lighting design is by Ken Billington and Jason Kantrowitz. (Their counterparts for the revival were, respectively, Tom Pye, Vicki Mortimer, and Brian McDevitt.)

This is not to say that one version is better than the other; just that they are different, and that some people might infer that because Harvey Fierstein was the star of both that this production is a recreation of the revival.

Fiddler on the Roof continues at the National Theatre in Washington through May 2. Performances are on Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 p.m., on Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m., Sundays at 1:00 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., and on Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. Ticket prices begin at $51.50 and are on sale at the National Theatre box office or through Telecharge at www.telecharge.com or by calling (800) 447-7400.

Photo credit:  Joan Marcus.  Courtesy of the National Theatre.

Remembering 'New Coke' 25 Years Later

Next week marks the 25th anniversary of one of history's most infamously boneheaded marketing strategems.

On April 23, 1985, Coca-Cola introduced "New Coke" to -- not acclaim, as its top executives expected --  near universal disdain.  So poorly received was the new flavor formula that within months, "Coke Classic" appeared on store shelves alongside the New Coke, eventually replacing New Coke entirely.

Within days of the product's introduction, I wrote an article decrying the decision, assuming, as did most people at the time, that the original Coke formula would disappear forever.

This article appeared originally in the New York City Tribune on Monday, May 6, 1985, about two weeks after “New Coke” was introduced.

RICHARD SINCERE
Coca-Cola, where is thy sting? Tradition, where is thy victory?

American culture has some perennial certainties. Just as sure as the sun will rise there will be firecrackers on the Fourth of July, there will be heavy beach traffic on summer weekends — and the flavor of Coke will always be the same.

The flavor of Coke? I misspeak. Tuesday on the plaza in front of the National Theatre here in Washington several thousand people were treated to free samples of the “new” Coca-Cola, a bland, wimpy version of the venerable old Coke. Lacking the snap and vigor of the original 99-year-old recipe, this “new” Coke is unworthy of the name. It does not live up to the slogan “The Real Thing?” The preferred beverage of presidents and kings is no more.

Words can barely express the deep pain I felt when I heard the Coca-Cola Company’s announcement that it is changing the formula for Coke for the first time in nearly a century. Their decision shakes the timbers of American society.

In a bold move designed to offset a creeping approach by Pepsi-Cola in the national soft drink market, Coke has used the results of the research that produced Diet Coke and has introduced a drink described by company chairman Roberto Goizueta as “smoother, rounder, yet bolder. It’s a more harmonious flavor.”

A journalist interviewed on NBC News the day of the announcement used a different description: “flat” She said, “It tastes like the can was left open in the refrigerator all night.” A bold move, indeed.

For nearly 100 years, nothing has been quite so certain in American consumer society as the basic flavor of Coca-Cola. Some have argued that there are regional variations due to different sources of water, Coke’s major ingredient, but these variations have been minimal, if indeed they have ever existed. The closest consumer good, in terms of uniformity, familiarity, and certainty has been the recognizable friendliness and responsible service at McDonald’s -- which, of course, serves Coke in all 5,500 of its restaurants nationwide.


Little old lady from Appalachia
E.J. Kahn, in his “biography” of Coca-Cola written about 2 decades ago, The Big Drink, noted that of 100 people tested for their familiarity with consumer products at the New York World’s Fair, only one — an elderly lady from Appalachia on her first trip to a city — could not recognize Coke’s logo or bottle. No other product — including Bic pens, Crest toothpaste, and, yes, Pepsi — came close to that near-universal familiarity.

Similarly, within 24 hours after Coke’s announcement of the new formula, two-thirds of all Americans knew about the change — a level of recognition most politicians spend a lifetime seeking.

Kahn also tells of the importance of Coke to “our boys overseas.” In the days before aluminum cans became the preferred vessel for soft drinks, local Coca-Cola bottlers around the country imprinted their towns’ names on the bottom of the bottle.

Like coins, Coke bottles would circulate far from their place of minting. Several bases in Europe and the Pacific during World War II would display empty Coke bottles, bottoms-up in a rack, never failing to bring nostalgic tears to the eyes of American servicemen looking through the bottles for a familiar place.

After the war, Coke became known as an agent of American imperialism, because no sooner would U.S. troops liberate Nazi- or Japanese-held territory than a Coke truck would arrive. Coca-Cola bottling plants, at least in the 1950s and ‘60s, were erected in more Third World countries than any other American industry.

To millions of people around the globe, Coke is synonymous with free enterprise and human liberty — at least to those who look upon the American flag with as much favor as they view Coke. Coca-Cola’s corporate system of decentralization, granting substantial autonomy to local bottlers while providing the secret-formula syrup from corporate headquarters in Atlanta, has been a model for multinational industrial development. Coke is a source of pride for the American spirit of enterprise — and it is thus scorned by the Kremlin and its dupes around the world.

Pepsi’s new television commercial gives us a teenage girl who asks, “Why is Coke doing this?” Indeed, why? What is Coke’s goal in changing the flavor of the world’s best-known carbonated beverage (if not the world’s favorite beverage, period)?

Coca-Cola products predominate in the U.S market — 35 percent of all soft drinks sold are made by Coke. Twenty-two percent of sales are for regular Coke, 5 percent for Diet Coke, about 1 percent each for Sprite and Tab. Basically, Diet Coke’s astounding popularity in the 2 years it has been on the market has narrowed the gap between non-diet Coca-Cola and Pepsi’s 18 percent market share.

Coca-Cola risks losing many loyal customers if they perceive its sweeter flavor as too different. Coke drinkers [drink] Coke qua Coke; if they wanted Pepsi, they would buy Pepsi. Already, the Wall Street Journal reports, loyalists are stockpiling bottles and cans from the last batch made with the secret formula, Merchandise 7X, kept in an Atlanta bank vault since 1886. (I confess to be one of the hoarders.)

Tradition, loyalty, steadfastness, pride in work, and good taste seem to matter not a whit to Coca-Cola Co. executives. Reducing American values to their most materialistic and mocking our spirit of enterprise, Coke’s President Donald Keough said: “The American way is to want more, and we want more,” meaning profits, not good will.

And so a tradition fades, like family squabbles about Milton Berle vs. Bishop Sheen, like barn-raisings, like knickers giving way to long pants, and like Saturday matinees with neighborhood pals — sharing popcorn, a Coke and a smile.


Richard Sincere writes from Washington on national affairs.