Conservative Perspective Requested

Dear Sheila Kihne and Crystal Kelley:

As fellow Eden Prairie bloggers, I imagine you've been reading TwoPuttTommy's posts on Mayor Phil Young's inaccurate billing.  And by now you've read the Star Tribune's article Eden Prairie mayor reimbursed for 26 no-shows.

How embarrassing do you think we ought to perceive Mayor Young's failings?  If you did what he did--in your place of employment--wouldn't you have been fired on the spot?

Furthermore:  Imagine for a moment you were EP's mayor.  Do you think it conceivable that you could inadvertently submit reimbursement requests for 26 meetings you didn't attend?  Does that really seem plausible to you?

Can I get a printable response?

Thanks,

Gavin

Ken Paulus Chutzpah Award

As CEO of Allina Hospitals and Clinics--the not-for-profit is Minnesota's sixth largest employer--Ken Paulus faces marketplace pressures similar to those confronted by for-profit CEOs.  He works at the pleasure of Allina's board of directors and is incented to strengthen his network's market position in the standard manner--reducing costs, increasing revenues, enhancing efficiency.

What do you think motivates a master-of-the-universe like Paulus?  Or--to state my intended question more clearly--if you wanted to hire someone of Paulus' ability, what do you think his preeminent concern would be, in evaluating your job offer?  (I pray that answer came easily.)

Under its current setup, society dangles huge rewards in front of those good at steering large business entities.  Granting that the corporate governance marketplace suffers from bottlenecks, high executive compensation still makes social sense:  Economic growth is beneficial--and greatly needed--whether driven by small or large entities.  (Were a stratospheric executive to confide she was here 'primarily for the money', I'd not feel unease--I'd feel soothed.)

What then ought we make of a CEO who tells his board he'll work without compensation?:

The chief executive of Allina Hospitals and Clinics is voluntarily working without pay until the Twin Cities' biggest hospital chain reaches an agreement with its nurses.

The reason?

After Twin Cities nurses voted overwhelmingly to authorize a one-day strike last week, Ken Paulus sent an e-mail to all Allina employees saying he had asked his board to suspend his pay as a way to "align our leadership with you."

A rather enjoyable pas de deux in the art of hypocrisy, no? 

Both sides know high executive compensation makes economic sense--and both sides assume Joe Sixpack is incapable of grasping that high executive compensation probably works to his own benefit.

Both sides assume nurses--capitalizing on the masses' presumed economic illiteracy--will grandstand successfully over the 'injustice' of CEO remuneration.  Accepting the public's economic voodoo as essentially immobile and permanent, Paulus doubles down--pretending to be that extra-nice corporate chieftain so spiritually one with his board he's willing to work for free--until the gallery goes away.

Minnesota Recessive Project

Our public interaction feels governed by unstated rules and assumptions--though when one participates in the local public discourse, one often finds others don't share one's understanding of what those rules and assumptions ought to be.

The local shoe-staring tradition occasionally leads people to avoid public conflict--and occasionally misleads people into thinking public confrontation is presumptively wrong.  But when local peewee-Chomskys hold differing viewpoints, I want to see them mix it up.  (When you click on publish, you're inviting comment.)

When people challenge each other, they will inevitably discover that their beliefs concerning what constitutes fair argumentation differ.  But if they're good public citizens, they'll share a belief in the importance of maintaining civil dialogue. They'll share a belief in the yuckiness of attacking motivations.  They'll share an understanding of how easy--and wrong--it is for either party to lob preachy accusations--or for either party to appoint himself civility sheriff. 

They'll even be aware that blowouts will happen from time to time--and mustn't be allowed to fester.  We should reach out even to those we've rejected:  The excluded need to be reintegrated into non-pariah society--both for their good and for ours; for the health of the community.

Mature disputants know that when a person has his views challenged, he will feel tempted to attack the standing of his challenger--so as to avoid having to examine his own views and come up with persuasive, evidence-based responses.  (Attacks upon others' standing are almost always dishonorable.)

It's so much easier to issue sanctimonious attacks.  Thinking is a pain in the ass!

**

Joe Bodell recently published a blogpost which asked readers to support Minnesota nurses' labor action.  Bodell essentially announced the nurses are right--and are deserving of increased pay and benefits.  Bodell's post amounted to a sentimental, dogmatic claim:  Nurses work their tails off at the forefront of medical care, and are overworked and underappreciated far too frequently.

So I asked him several very basic questions--to try to get him to buttress his post with a bit of argumentative ballast.

Bodell responded by mischaracterizing my comment, attacking my intentions, calling my position stupid--and then referring me to a website which does not answer my questions.  (Having haughtily labeled my questions beyond the pale, Bodell exited.)

MPP's Alec explained that my [gently mocking] use of the word subhuman was so offensive as to justify an end to the discussion.  (The I'm-so-offended fainting spell is--locally--an intensely cherished pop-thespian ritual, which Alec hams up with witless delight.)  Having brushed aside my substantive inquiry, Alec smugly restates his dogmatic, pro-nurses position.

It's too bad no one at MPP has the courage to confront this kind of baloney.

Dipping a Toe In

 

Chanhassen blogger Jessica Pieklo has Mother’s Day, Graveside up. 

Mother's Day, we learn, is 'one of those holidays' Hegemommy faces 'with ambivalence'--but not for the reasons you think:  Her tentativeness doesn't stem from Mother's Day's Hallmarkian artificiality, nor for its reinforcement of 'antiquated notions of gender'-- but due to Pieklo's own longtime motherlessness [both before and after her procreator's biological demise].

Pieklo's five-year-old son--out of the clear blue--suggests the May 9th visit to grandmother's gravesite.  Yuppie claptrap incoming: I just figured he’d give me the clues for when the time was right, and sure enough, he did.  We learn Annette was unstable, addicted and dissolving--though with some not-quite-redeeming positive qualities too. 

Once I found out I was pregnant I knew that eventually I’d have to confront both the story of her life and the story of her death.  (Hallmark doesn't peddle fatuity in this particular shade of sappy, does it?)  Our brutish culture simply offers no template for the absent-overachieving-cliffjumping mother.  How is Pieklo going to explain her mother's impact to her toddler?  (Surely miniGramsci will demand a discussion-ending peroration from H-Mommy, obeliskside.)
 
Surprise:  Hegemotoddler stoically hoists the globe upon his own shoulders--unbidden--initiating 'the grieving process for a person he never knew.'  (Mom was 'totally unprepared' for this unscripted expression of pre-K chivalry.)
 
Hegemommy promises readers a battle-hardened diy punk mother's perspective--a promise that is frequently followed by the very dribbling suburban narcissism its author pretends to detest.  Case in point:  Mother’s Day, Graveside.  (The post spawns the predicted smattering of you're-so-courageous comments.)
 
To the dustbin!

More Offended Than Thou

When Al Franken was seeking the DFL endorsement for Senate, a great debate raged about a supposedly offensive article he'd written for Playboy.  At the time one even encountered DFLers expressing offense at 'Porn-o-Rama'.

I tried to find someone who was offended--so as to learn why. 

The self-proclaimedly dainty turned out to be a worldly bunch indeed:  Politicos claiming to being offended crumbled at the touch when asked to describe their hurt feelings.  They admitted right away:  They themselves weren't offended. 

By claiming to be offended, they were merely expressing solidarity with imagined outstate simpletons who--they were convinced--were offended.

Had my Powerball ticket hit big that week, I'd planned to take a Greater Minnesota road trip, to try to locate those fellow Minnesotans whose innocence had been damaged by Franken's article--as the pseudo-offended assured me there would be.  (Surely there must be at least one, I thought.)

The ultimate find, of course, would be an aproned Zumbrota auntie who'd confide that--while she herself wasn't offended by Al Franken--she felt obligated to pretend to be offended so as not to crush her left-wing, urban nephew--who'd be devastated to learn how little Al Franken's Porn-o-Rama hurt her.

**

We've just learned that of Bethel U is in lockdown after some white dude appeared 'in blackface'.  Society must stop--we're all simply mortified:  A white dude masqueraded in public as an African American!

Man, am I ever offended!  You?

"Here we are in 2010, and still a ton of people don't realize why this might hurt people," said Ruben Rivera, a history professor at Bethel who has been in "constant" conversations with concerned students. Blackface, he said, "is an expression of deliberate and unconscious racism in America."

So I'd also like to meet someone who is offended.  (Not offended on behalf of imagined, ultra-delicate others--but a person who is himself offended.) 

Because when I think of the pimply Bethel senior who's the anti-racism mob's pin cushion, I'm having difficulty imagining someone capable of causing offense in my somewhat jaded breast.

An Immigration Comment

my comment, today, on flybottle:

'What's right' is contested, Will. And you overlook several reasonable restrictionist arguments:

A person might value her country's sparsely-populated expanses or might [unhatefully] oppose cultural change--or might welcome the prospect of a tightening labor market--and therefore oppose immigration.

You'd defend a landlord's right to restrict the use of her spread--even against those seeking to negotiate mutually-advantageous voluntary exchanges on it, no? Many current immigration restrictionists perceive their position to be similar to the landowner--taking action now to preserve and enhance 'their land's' long-term beauty and value, according to their own tastes.

The US is rich due to its people's goodness, to luck and to numerous grave injustices from which we today still benefit. (We're a country born in hypocrisy.)

A Congolese might aver, 'It is unjust that Americans get to decide whether I can voluntarily sell my labor within your borders. I didn't choose to be born in Odoumouna any more than you chose to be born in Prairie du Chien--so let's dispense with the God-made-me-an-American bullshit and treat each other as equals--okay?'

Libertarians fetishize the wealth, resource and opportunity distribution of the present, despite its tawdry origin--perhaps in the belief that beneficial redistribution is impossible logistically.

Congrats on 2k, player.

Sin Duda

Hello Tim Johnson:

In your latest Spiritually Speaking column, you rue Americans labeling so few things sin today. 

Can you provide some examples?  What should we be more often calling sin?  (Rather odd that your article provides no examples, isn't it?)

You say Americans have replaced sin-talk with disease-talk.  What are you talking about?  Are you unhappy with Alcoholics Anonymous and its progeny--or what?

Sin is a religious word signifying 'a breaking of god's law'.  Given America's religious diversity and secular public tradition, shouldn't we aim to keep religious instruction out of the public school classroom?   You don't really want public school educators discussing sin with pupils, do you?

If I wrong you and later seek to put matters right, as an atheist I'd try communicating with you.  I would seek to restore friendly relations by expressing awareness, remorse and a commitment to upright future conduct.  My ameliorative act simply wouldn't require the word sin.

Alternatively, if you wrong me, please don't pray to Jesus asking for forgiveness--as that entity's opinion doesn't matter to me.  If you wrong me, it'd be much more satisfying were we to sit down together--so that you can issue your dignified apology and make sure that our relationship has been restored to its former wholesomeness.  Okay?

Many people feel skepticism, when Christians claim certainty that a dead man teleported himself out of a cave 2,000 years ago, given the claim's utter lack of evidentiary basis. 

Confessor, my chillins don't complain much about getting too little advice from their old man--au contraire.  But within my always-rapid advice torrent, I don't use the word sin--as I don't believe any god exists for us to sin against.

When you and I have a disagreement, Reverend, there are upright and dishonorable ways for you to state your case.  Begging the question is a logical fallacy in which the speaker claims to prove her point simply be assuming it to be true.  (It falls squarely within the latter category, mind you.)

You say:  Sin is such an obvious reality in daily life, to explain it away is futile. 

Jesus' existence is not obvious--certainly no more obvious than that of the thousands of other deities claimed by cultures throughout the ages. 

When we meet in the public square, parson, it wouldn't be gentlemanly for me to ask you to renounce your religion.  By the same token, it is not gentlemanly of you to ask me to endorse your religious dogma.

Yours truly,

Gavin Sullivan
Eden Prairie

All Liquored Up

If you drink four or more glasses daily, you have a problem--and are almost certainly experiencing difficult-to-manage alcohol-related life issues. 

About half of all alcoholic beverages sold are sold to people who drink four servings or more, daily.  [See page 144.]

Millions get spent to shape thinking, pertaining to liquor--and about a half of the stuff that gets drunk gets drunk by addicts--whose households experience considerable anguish relating to alcohol abuse.

The liquor industry is quite aware of its need to shape, channel and develop public attitudes on their drug.  (To surmise otherwise would be to entertain a gigantic capitalist industry taking minimal interest in its own profit stream.)

A large portion of accidents and violent crime involve booze.

Society has a strong interest in inculcating responsible use of alcohol--and reducing the 50% of annual sales that's going down the throats of people who don't need it. 

So I have no objection to Eden Prairie's muni holding its monopoly on off-sale alcohol. 

Ron Wiesner taught that cetaris paribus, a monopoly will increase prices and reduce total sales--as the monopolist finds the profit-maximizing price level, given competition's pleasant absence.  And monopolizing this particular product makes sense, since it causes great--often hidden--social damage.  (Households which include at least one practicing alcoholic are at increased risk for a host of negative outcomes.)

Democratic government worthy of the name must strive for transparency:  The Department of Motor Vehicles--for example--should truthfully inform citizens what it does.  (When government misleads the public, it errs because acting thus threatens the system's legitimacy.)

Ergo, Eden Prairie's muni should state clearly--publicly--what it seeks to accomplish, vis-à-vis citizens' purchasing of alcohol. 

When you go to their website, you'll see images and writing promoting the stores' intoxicants.  When you walk into the store, you'll observe much advertising which implicitly suggests:  Eden Prairie advises citizens to consider purchasing this product.

The city's attitude toward the sale of alcohol should--at most--be neutral.  All promotional imagery and text should be removed from the EPL website.  All advertising should be removed from the store's interior--and wine- and beer-tastings should never occur on the stores' premises.

Government, in short, ought not participate in the culture's alcohol-promoting propaganda-vortex.  The pro-alcohol falsehood in which we are saturated is banal and stupid--and one often encounters even intelligent people completely steeped in its tenets.

Erik Paulsen, David Hann and Jenifer Loon need to insult thinking citizens, as required for the proper functioning of their McCarthyite reality-ownership.  But the brain-dead delusion marketed by the Eden Prairie Liquor Store seems potentially discussible, even within our community's ongoing mental slavery. 

**

I greatly enjoy reading (and viewing) Mark Kleiman; I learned tons from his When Brute Force Fails.  Just the same, he's not to be blamed if I've got anything wrong, factually or otherwise, above--and he takes no position, to my knowledge, on any current Minnesota-specific matter.

Remain in Light

IOZ sparked this discussion with 'Citizenship is slavery'; Will Wilkinson distanced himself from the phrase; we [flybottle commenters] agree:  Citizenship isn't slavery.  

I commented twice on Will's post, most recently eliciting a lengthy response from Robert Light--to whom I respond here:

In comparing citizenship to country club membership, I think Will was flagging the odd assortment of benefits and liabilities that come with a country's citizenship--a package we have often perceived as God-bundled, until Will reminded us [in my wording]: You're an atheist--stuff doesn't come God-bundled.

As a secular person who accepts the presumption of equal human worth, without regard to national origin or country of residence, Will's 'Citizenship is country-club membership' is convincing--and carries the predictable conscience-sting. 

In amplifying upon Will's formulation, I was only making the standard Bob Wright/Peter Singer plea for greater globalism in our thinking.

Our country of birth is imposed upon us; the community in which people live is most often not a conscious choice (many factors impel folks to live where they do).  If voluntary choice of community is the primary basis for the legitimacy of our social order, then our social order is hard to defend.

I did not mean to suggest that international borders are utterly arbitrary--merely that our place and station of birth (assuming our shared secular perspective) is arbitrary.

Real-world political communities rest on much other than 'shared notions of right and wrong, good and bad'.  Whether communities have, historically, asserted superiority over their neighbors is irrelevant when we ask if we should do so now.

Yes, we should gradually entertain global governance--and iron out the many difficulties which have prevented such, historically.  (Global governance might help us address a number of urgent collective-action needs, such as preventing cross-border aggression, fighting terrorism and eliminating WMDs.)

Even if our effort to build global governance fails--and does not mature prior to a city's being vaporized--our sincere effort today will allow us to convincingly blame others [for the loss of life], when that day comes.

If the goal of global governance is unthinkable in the USA now, public opinion will change quickly after the first city [anywhere] gets incinerated.