Cash for clunkers

Somehow when I first heard of cash for clunkers I figured that few buyers would actually get the full $4500. Car dealers will give big trade in prices for bad cars any way and just take keep the purchase price high.

But it appears that the program is popular. I guess they’re going to fund it for more.

But if the thing is suppose to be a stimulus for our economy, why are we letting people use what is in theory money from our government to buy Japanese or other foreign cars?

Helping keep us safe from Holman

It seems an article of common acceptance these days that we must do whatever we can to keep ourselves “safe” these days, whether from weather, terrorism, general crime, the personal habits of others, motor vehicle traffic, or whatever else and whatever sacrifice we have to make of our personal and corporate freedoms should not bother us.

I do not understand all the rules that govern what can go near an airport, but drastic restrictions on development even as far away as the Capitol and Rivoli Bluff seem to be necessary now for our safety. Most of what is being proposed as taboo for a wide area around Holman field has already been built on at least once, but that seems to be irrelevant. Even a baseball stadium in Lowertown apparently would be too tall.

Today we learn from a DPP article that opposition to these suggested rules has brought Lorrie Louder of the Port Authority and Highwood activist [and former City Councilmember] Tom Dimond together. Anything that Port and Dimond both oppose must be truly bad.

The article quotes Rep. Sheldon Johnson as saying, “"(The Metropolitan Airports Commission) and the airport need to figure out their place in the bigger community rather than expecting the community to constantly figure out what they need to do to fit the airport,"

It seems Rep. Johnson is right.

Remembering the Mpls. Trucker Strike

Freedom is not always free. We hear that every time that somebody in our military dies.

But being killed in military service is not the only time that people die to make the rest of us free. This week marks the 75th anniversary of the massacre at the Mpls. Truckers Strike should again remind us that the things we take as givens in life were not always there.

This is a link to last year’s Minnesota Independent article on the matter.

http://www.minnpost.com/iricnathanson/2008/07/22/2643/remembering_the_truckers_strike_of_1934#62-2643

Are we richer for having Ritchie?

We have just witnessed a long election contest for our Class II seat in the United States Senate. It was the longest such contest in our state’s history. The only real problem is that it was close. We sometimes fail to remember that even actual counting is not always an exact science.

Throughout it all, we saw how open, fair, and accountable our system is. Neither of our candidates questioned that. Before the election winner was certified twelve judges of three parties either participated in or agreed with the results. No judge took the other side.

We probably should consider ourselves blessed for the cool and professional work done by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and his staff, tut state GOP leaders, perhaps funded in part by national Republican resentment, have decided to attack him. They have set up a web site attacking Mr. Ritchie as being [gasp, shock] a liberal and a Democrat, suggesting that he somehow led four learned in the law judges on the Canvassing Board, none of whom was appointed by a DFL governor, on the legalities of things.

Many of the charges are documented by articles and statements in Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. That seems as good a source for something like this as asking Capitol City Musings for impartial review of civil liberties infringed upon by smoking bans.

There may be good reason not to support Mark Ritchie in next year’s election. After all, he is a DFL person and while that party has long been good on human rights, they have been terrible on civil liberties and they are not as death on taxes as Bachmannites would like.

But taking him on for what happened in this last election seems only to diminish the accusers.

A defense of marriage

Our City Council is scheduled to vote next Wednesday on a proposal to allow domestic partners to register themselves.

I guess I have to oppose it – or at least part of it -- on my own idea of defense of marriage.

I have no problem with gays and lesbians obtaining the status of married people. Registration would seem to me to have zero value, but there was emotional and forceful testimony given to the Council from people who felt that they truly wanted some governmental way of declaring their commitment to each other.

Since Minnesota law does not allow for gays and lesbians to marry, this would at least provide them some way of making a public declaration of their relationship. If our state allowed for gay marriage, there would be no need for other registrations.

But this proposal allows not only same-sex couples to register, but different-sex couples to do so also.

Why? Since time immemorial, men and women have the option to marry each other. Allowing non-married straight couples to register in this way seems to diminish the legal status of marriage, not only for straights but for the gays and lesbians who are seeking it.

Marriage is marriage. Registration should be thought of as a very poor substitute which many are forcing themselves to seek and which seems to lose some of whatever value it might have when used by people to whom marriage is possible and if four city council members and the mayor see it as an appropriate step, that will be fine. But it should only be a substitute where necessary.

The City Council should amend this ordinance to limit it to same-sex registration. They might also wish to provide for a sunset for the time when same-sex marriage becomes legal.

And now we have two

Al Franken, escorted by his senior colleague, Amy Klobuchar and by a former holder of Minnesota’s Class II U.S. Senate seat, Walter Mondale, went to the front of the Senate chamber and was administered the oath of office [on a Bible formerly owned by another predecessor in that seat, Paul Wellstone] by that body’s president, Joseph Biden.

There were some questions one might have raised. Why Mondale? Most senators just use the state’s other. Wellstone used Mondale, but that was because he was disgusted with the ethics [or lack thereof] of his colleague, David Durenberger. And, Didn’t he have a Bible of his own?

Now we have two senators. Never mind that more than four of every seven who bothered to vote last year voted against o9ne of them, if we believe some of the muttering we have heard the last few months we are now at Nirvana.

Diversity on the Supreme Court. Really?

Sonia Sotomayor has been named to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Obama. If confirmed and sworn, she will be the third woman and second Hispanic justice. [Many sources are saying she would be the first Hispanic, but they seem to have forgotten Justice Cardozo.]

Conservative types are aghast. The have found that she might think that a Latina woman would be wiser than a white male. I doubt that she really meant that, but I cannot help but think that she would bring differing perspectives than some of the more typical nominees might.

But how much diversity will she really bring?

All of the justices are lawyers and were chosen from federal appeals courts. This seems to have become normal procedure for choosing Supreme Court nominees since the Nixon days.

I really would like a really diverse court with most of the justices being non-lawyers, people more apt to have better common sense on what is right and what is wrong.

I do not suspect that I will ever see even one such justice.

But even if we continue to have lawyers for justices, maybe we could break the stranglehold that appeals courts justices seem to have on the position. Why not somebody who has practiced law and had clients of limited means or minority heritage? Or for the wrongly imprisoned? Why not somebody who has actual legislative or administrative service as something other than a lawyer? Why not somebody from a state trial court? Or even a law school professor?

Actually, I do wish Judge Sotomayor luck in her confirmation hearings. She will indeed bring a new element to the highest court.

But it really doesn’t add much diversity.