The Human Race & Other Sports

Tales of Tommy

An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please; 
An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool—you bet that Tommy sees!
— Rudyard Kipling, Tommy

Tom Tancredo is back in the news. Tom is a man whose ego is so much larger than his intellect, that if he were a touch brighter he would be embarrassed to put either on public display.

Tom is in the news in Colorado because he demanded that both of the Republican candidates competing in the upcoming primary to be the Republican candidate for governor in Colorado withdraw from the race by high noon on July 26. Tom’s demand was triggered by revelations that one candidate, Scott McGinnis had been paid $300,000 by a foundation for articles he had written that were largely plagiarized and the other, Dan Maes, using campaign funds reimbursed himself $44,837 for mileage for one year suggesting that, at federal mileage reimbursement rates, he’d travelled 90,000 miles around the state campaigning. (Relevant authorities did not believe him and he was fined $17,500 for that and other campaign violations.) Dan and Scott failed to withdraw and Tom is running under the banner of the Constitution Party that has, as one of the planks in its platform, the retaking of the Panama Canal. Now that he is a candidate it pays to remember the Tom Tancredo of yore.

When Tom ran for Congress in 1998 he said no elected official should hold office for more than three terms since we want to introduce “people into the system who think of government service as a temporary endeavor, not as a career.” He won. In an interview with the Rocky Mountain News in May, 2001, he commented on his pledge to serve no more than 3 terms saying: “I have no plans to break the pledge. It’s my intent to serve out my three terms if I’m reelected, and that’s it. . . . . When conquering heroes were brought back to Rome after a successful campaign, there was always a large crowd yelling his [sic] name or throwing rose petals. But by Roman law, a slave had to stand behind him in the chariot while holding the laurel wreath over his head, and had to keep saying to the general: ‘All fame is fleeting.’ Term limits are like that guy standing behind you.” Less than 17 months later Mr. Tancredo said to the guy standing behind him: “Get thee behind me, Satan.” The guy complied. The Lord stepped in in his place.

On September 26, 2002, Mr. Tancredo said the Lord had absolved him of his pledge and he might serve for more than three terms. He said his career was now in “God’s hands.” Talking to the same newspaper that had printed his pledge only 16 months earlier, he said: “You can characterize it as breaking a pledge.” Explaining the Lord’s involvement in his political career he said: “I believe I’m doing the honorable thing [breaking his pledge] by telling [supporters] exactly how I feel and what has happened to me over time. I do put it in God’s hands and I say, ‘Lord, I hope I’m doing what you want.’” In mid-April he announced he was running for a fourth term.

Mr. Tancredo does not place full responsibility for breaking his promise on the Lord. The voters, he thinks, approved it. Before the 2002 election, he sent a letter to supporters telling them he was abandoning his pledge to serve no more than three terms saying he thought ” term limits were a bad idea. There are certain issues you cannot do effectively [if you observe term limits.” He said he’d stay in office as long as he felt useful. Since he was reelected in 2002 he believed his broken pledge was of no matter to voters. He equated reelection with forgiveness.

In endorsing him in 1998, the Rocky Mountain News observed that Mr. Tancredo had been a leader of the term limit movement. It said: “We don’t expect him to start backpedaling like Rep. Scott McInnis” [a Congressman from Colorado who had reneged on his promise to serve no more than three terms and is now running for governor.] Mr. Tancredo didn’t backpedal. He got off the bike and pushed it over the cliff.

If Tom ends up running against Scott McInnis, the Republican candidate with the apparent lead for the Republican Party’s nomination, he and Scott may not agree on all the issues but they will agree on at least one thing. If prior pledges impinge on future action, ignore the prior pledges. Both Tom and Scott promised to honor 3-year term limits for members of Congress. Both men ignored their pledges when they figured out that if they honored their pledges they would be forced to leave Congress. Scott served six terms and Tom served five terms. What an honor it would be for Colorado to have one of those promise-breakers serve as governor. Who knows what other promises he would find to break?

Crime and Children's Punishment

For great wrongdoing there are great punishments from the gods.
— Herodotus, The Histories of Herodotus, Bk. 1,ch.8

If you’re going to be six years old at some point in your life (and most of my readers have probably moved beyond that point) it is important to (a) carefully select where you choose to live and (b) behave. This is all brought to mind by a recent mailing from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describing a lawsuit it has filed on behalf of a 6-year old called J.W.

J.W. attends the Sarah T. Reed Elementary School in New Orleans, is four feet tall and weighs 60 pounds. He is not unfailingly polite. Indeed, on two occasions in May he was downright rude. On the first occasion he talked back to a teacher. Realizing that such activity could lead to a full-scale insurrection by 6-year olds if permitted to go unpunished, J.W. was arrested, handcuffed and shackled to a chair. (Nothing was stuffed in his mouth so he could, in theory at least, have continued talking back.) J.W. did not learn from this episode. In less than a week, he was involved in an argument with another 6-year old over who could sit in a given chair in the lunchroom. J.W. was on the losing side of that argument and was once again handcuffed and shackled to a chair.

The effect on J.W. has not been what school officials had hoped. Being trained educators they had been taught that using those techniques on six-year olds would not only help the 6-year olds see the errors of their ways but would eliminate the need for water boarding or other forms of discipline when the children were older. They were wrong. His parents say that he is now afraid of school, the police and teachers and is completely withdrawn. School officials explained that the arrest and restraints imposed were required under school rules. The educators may have help in changing the rules. The Southern Poverty Law Center, has filed a class action lawsuit alleging that the school principal and other officials had “provided a clear directive to all employees. . . that students were to be arrested and handcuffed if they failed to comply with school rules.” There’s no way of knowing how that suit will turn out but thanks to the behavior of a student and school officials in a school in Dade County, Florida, we may have a clue.

Isiah Allen got in trouble on October 20,2004. Isiah was six years old, three feet five inches tall and weighed fifty-three pounds. He allegedly behaved disruptively in class and was taken to the principal’s office for misbehaving. Instead of standing contritely he had a tantrum and consequently was locked in the principal’s office. While alone he smashed a picture frame. Upon hearing the glass break the adults re-entered the room and found Isiah standing motionless in a corner holding a piece of broken glass. When the police arrived he was still standing there. Unresponsive to the police officer’s ministrations it was finally decided the best way to handle the situation was to taser Isiah. He was, according to the complaint that was filed in the court case, tasered with 50,000 volts and handcuffed while vomiting. The taserers were sued and in due course the case got to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals that concluded that if the alleged facts were proved “the unlawfulness of the conduct was readily apparent to an official in the shoes of these officers.” (There is no report of what happened when the case went back to the trial court.) Our final example of how tough it is to be a six-year old is again brought to us courtesy of Florida. The child in this case, Haley Shalansky, was neither tasered nor shackled.

Haley was a 6-years old student at Parkway Elementary in Port St. Lucie, Florida weighing only 37 pounds. According to the sheriff’s officer Haley was asked to do something by her teacher, became upset and stormed out of the classroom. Her behavior was a ticket to the principal’s office where she had a tantrum and, according to the sheriff’s incident report: “kicked the wall, went over to the desk and threw the calculator, electric pencil sharpener, telephone, container of writing utensils and other objects across the desk.” She was handcuffed and taken away in a police car.

The next day she again had a tantrum in class but this time was taken away and committed to a mental health facility. The school says the parents have missed many scheduled meetings to discuss Haley’s behavioral problems. The lesson for the parents is obvious. If you miss enough meetings with school officials when summoned, your child may end up in a mental health facility.

Describing its reason for getting involved in J.W.’s case SPLC explains that: “All across the nation, schools have adopted draconian ‘zero-tolerance policies that treat children like criminals and turn schools into prison-like environments.” Based on the foregoing, it is hard to argue with that conclusion.

The Homeless are like Bears

And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,
And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.
—William Wordsworth, Guilt and Sorrow

Once again the homeless are in the news and, as always, the question is what to do with them. The solutions are not always obvious but the attempts can be described as nothing, if not creative and in many cases the National Park Service’s treatment of bears offers guidance.

Those with long memories will recall the town in Florida that treated the homeless by following the example of Yellowstone National Park. Rangers in Yellowstone relocate unwanted bears far from where they are picked up hoping that once relocated they will not return to the places from which they have been taken. The Florida town picked up the homeless from tourist areas and moved them to outlying areas hoping that the relocated homeless would enjoy the fruits of their relocation even though none of the fruits included a home. I have been unable to determine how successful that program was. In all events, towns today continue to follow the example set by the rangers in Yellowstone.

According to Change.org, many communities have adopted rules that not only ban begging but ban furnishing food to the homeless, a practice followed in national parks with bears where feeding them is strictly forbidden. In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, an ordinance was adopted that prohibits sharing food with the homeless in public parks. In Phoenix zoning laws were invoked to shut down a church that was serving breakfast to the homeless and others. Gainesville, Florida restricts the number of people soup kitchens can serve even though the number is less than the facility can comfortably accommodate.

Miami is considering an ordinance that would require people who distribute food to the homeless to go through formal training instructing them on how to ensure the food they are serving is safe and how to clean up the mess left behind. Those serving food would also have to provide a portable restroom and on-site sink. That will eliminate those serving food from the backs of vehicles and in parks. Although neither bears nor the homeless are going to cease being nuisances as a result of these compassionate and enlightened approaches to the problems they each pose, it is at least a way of addressing the issue that may encourage the homeless to go and find a home.

Enlightened though those approaches are, none can hold a candle to the approach favored by a town that has been described in this space and elsewhere as a perfect town. Its residents are educated and compassionate and live in beautiful houses, many of which replaced tiny houses that people lived in before they realized how much nicer it was to live in very big houses. That town is in Colorado and its name is Boulder.

Like other affluent communities, Boulder’s pristine quality and virtually perfect ambience is slightly tarnished by the presence of the homeless. Its council, in its wisdom, has devised a way of dealing with them that is far more creative than the limits on their feeding imposed by other communities. It has banned camping, something bears are permitted to do, so long as they are not in the vicinity of humans and campgrounds.

Most people think of camping as a pleasant adventure that families do with children on summer vacation. The wise rulers in Boulder, however, have come up with a definition that redefines “camping.” “Camping” in Boulder does not require pitching a tent or cooking “smores” over a campfire. All that is required is that the person lie down on city property “with shelter.” “Shelter” includes “any cover or protection from the elements other than clothing.” Thus, a homeless person who lies down and places a blanket over him or herself or climbs into a sleeping bag has taken “shelter” and violated the ordinance and the offender can be ticketed and fined or jailed.

Boulder, like many communities, lacks sufficient adequate housing for the homeless. From October 15 through December 31, 2009, 333 homeless people were turned away from the homeless shelter because of lack of space. One of those people was David Madison. The temperature, when he was denied shelter was 11 degrees. Mr. Madison took himself to a public place, lay down and crawled into a sleeping bag in order to keep from freezing. He was ticketed and convicted of violating the camping ban. He is not the first to be ticketed.

Since Boulder is such a perfect place its police have little to do. Accordingly, they have had the time to issue tickets to those who violate the no camping ban and since 2006 have issued 1,650 tickets to homeless people who violated the “no-camping” ordinance.

There is a bright side to being homeless in Boulder. It is OK for its residents to offer them food.

Errata

There are no Horses in Metamorphoses.

Blackwater Strikes Again

The Gods have their own rules.
Ovid, Metamorphoses

One of the many nice things about being a United States Senator is that you can ask just about anyone in government to explain actions being taken and anticipate a response and, in many cases, a change in conduct. Here is one example of how a United States Senator was able to influence policy. It pertains to Blackwater.

On February 25, 2010 Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee sat down and wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to investigate whether Xe Services, (formerly known as Blackwater) had made false or misleading statements when it bid for an Army contract in Afghanistan. The reason for his letter was that he had just finished conducting a hearing reviewing the results of an investigation of Blackwater. In his opening statement at the hearing Senator Levin said that: “Blackwater operated in Afghanistan without sufficient oversight or supervision and with almost no consideration of the rules it was legally obligated to follow. The means by which Blackwater acquired weapons for its contractor personnel in Afghanistan showed just how little regard company personnel had for those rules.” Senator Levin did not limit his letter writing to writing the Attorney General. He also sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

In the letter to Secretary Gates he said the Pentagon should consider deficiencies in Blackwater’s past performance before awarding it additional contracts. He said: “[W] e received evidence that Blackwater may have: used a front company for the contract; made false official statements and misled Department of Defense officials in its proposal documents; misappropriated government weapons and carried weapons without authorization; and hired unqualified personnel with backgrounds that included assault and battery, larceny and misappropriation of property, insubordinate conduct, and drug and alcohol abuse; and violated CENTCOM’s movement control policies.” He concluded saying the Department of Defense “should review the transcript of this hearing and consider the deficiencies in Blackwater’s performance . . . before a decision is made to award the police training work to Blackwater.”

The investigations Senator Levin requested may be ongoing. So is the awarding of lucrative contracts to Blackwater. Jeff Stein who writes “Spy Talk”, reported on June 21, 2010 that the State Department gave Xe Services a $120 million contract for providing “protective security services” at new U.S. consulates in Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif. Two days later he reported that the Central Intelligence Agency had hired the company to guard CIA facilities in Afghanistan and other places. Xe was not the only contractor interested in obtaining the work. In connection with both of those contracts DynCorp and Triple Canopy had bid on the jobs but lost out to Blackwater.

Senator Levin’s reaction to these awards has not been reported. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky’s have. They are hardly surprising. She was outraged. Her outrage was prompted by her familiarity with Blackwater and its performance. In November 2009 she learned that the government had given Blackwater an indefinite extension of a contract to provide “Aviation Services” in Iraq and said: “Given the company’s history of massive abuses and misconduct, I believe it is inappropriate for the United States government to continue doing business with this firm.” Upon hearing of the newest contracts in Afghanistan she said, speaking to ABC news: “I’m just mystified why any branch of the government would decide to hire Blackwater, such a repeat offender. We’re talking about murder . . . . A company with a horrible reputation that really jeopardizes our mission in so many different, different ways.”

For all we know, the Justice Department may be conducting an investigation of Blackwater’s conduct in both Afghanistan and Iraq in response to the letter it received from Senator Levin. For all we know the CIA may be investigating Blackwater’s prior conduct even though it has just agreed to pay the company $125 million for its services. For all we know, the State Department may be conducting its own independent investigation in response to Senator Levin’s letter. Here is what we know for sure, however. The mystery to which Ms. Schakowsky was referring has been unraveled by CIA Director Leon Panetta.

In a June 27 interview on ABC News Mr. Panetta said that in a war zone “we continue to have needs for security. . . . Unfortunately, there are a few companies that provide that kind of security. The State Department relies on them, we rely on them to a certain extent. So we bid out some of those contracts. They . . . . outbid everyone else by about $26 million. And a panel that we had said . . . that they have shaped up their act. So there really was not much choice to but accept that contract..” That explains it all. Sort of.