On Being Competitive

In the SOTU, President Obama called for a spending freeze for discretionary spending.  It appears some local governments have gotten a head start.  In Camden, New Jersey as many as one half the police and one third of the firemen are being laid off.  In Detroit, some areas of the city are officially declared to be without police of fire protection.  The president stressed the need to be competitive in the world economy presumably by cutting government spending.

Frugal approaches to crime control are not new.  In 1954, the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis was built.  It was imploded in 1972.  The entire demolition of the 33 buildings took four years.  It was not possible to police the structure using the funds available for public safety.  In reality, it was not safe for the police.  Police Officer is one of the most dangerous occupations.

Thinking Outside the Box — Some Historical Data Points and Policies in Other Nations

On 1 Feb 1933, Guiseppe Zanagara fired five shots at President – Elect Roosevelt in Miami, Florida.  Roosevelt was not wounded but Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago and four other persons were.  Five days later Zangara pled guilty and was sentenced to 80 years.  Cermak died on 6 March.  Zangara was tried for murder, convicted and executed on 20 March or 14 days after the Mayor’s demise.

On 8 Jan, Jared Loughner fired multiple shots at Congressman Giffords in Tucson.  Giffords was seriously wounded and a federal judge and five others were killed and twelve wounded.  It will be of interest to tabulate the time and expenditures which will lead to a final disposition of Loughner’s criminal charges.

In California and other states, the criminal justice process is so convoluted that some death penalty advocates have thrown in the towel and now support abolition on a cost basis.  California spends over $50,000 per prisoner per year.  That is almost three times the amount spent by Texas and four times that spent by Montana.

Fiscal Responsibility for Judges

In California, ballot propositions require a fiscal impact statement.  Judges should be required to issue a fiscal impact statement accompanying their rulings.  There are no perfect societies.  Whether it is health care, justice, education, or public safety, society needs more than it can afford.  Judges cannot be immune from the permanent fiscal quandary.   Waste in one area will impact other areas of need.

One cause of prison costs in California is the notorious raises given to prison guards prior to the 2002 election by Gov. Grey Davis.  Another cause is Judges Gone Wild in granting requests for more space and medical care for prisoners.

Personal Contact with Prosecuting Attorneys – Cica 1967

As an enthusiastic relatively young conservative, I challenged some young prosecuting attorneys in my apartment to get tough on criminals.  That was the theme of the Southern California Republicans.  (There acturally were some at that time.)  The prosecutors ‘splained to me that the courts were too crowded and they feared jury nullification in some cases.  Cases were commonly pled out to a lesser charge.

At this time, California cannot afford to jail anyone.  If fact, prisoners are either released or transferred to other states for a charge that is less than the California costs.

Juries – Who Needs Them

Juries are not used in most developed nations.  There is no evidence that the quality of justice is inferior to that in the United States.  In fact, the cases of over turned homicide convictions, commonly involve juries that relied excessively on emotion and extraneous factors rather than forensic evidence.  The constitution can be amended.  Milton Friedman warned of confusing spending money with getting things done.

It would be well to compare the expenditures on a comparable case basis for criminal justice in nations such as Israel and Sweden to the United States.

Sheriff Dupnik of Pima County warned of the dangers of vitriol and bigotry in political discourse.  The Sheriff suggested that vitriolic speech and bigotry are the cause of the shootings in Tucson.  “Bigotry” is defined as a stubborn intolerance to any race or religion.  The Tea Party or established Republicans have not voiced bigotry.  Some of the liberal media have joined in warning of the dangerous conservative media.  Secretary Clinton appears to have hit the high mark for outrageous commentary.  She could not wait to get off her plane in Abu Dhabi and announce that America has extremist violence just like her host country.  She equated the attack on Gabrielle Giffords and her supporters by one apparently psychotic individual with an elaborately planned attack air attack which was cheered by thousands if not millions of foreigners.   

As far as vitriol, Democrats savaged George W. Bush for his policies on the Iraq War and other matters. Andrew Young accused “Korean, Arab, and Jewish” convenience store proprietors or exploiting African American customers.  Convenience store clerk is one of the most dangerous occupations.  Convenience store clerks are routinely shot or assaulted in Atlanta.  (Young is the former mayor.)

Vitriol is not a bad thing.  Keith Olbermann engaged in a shrill criticism of George W. Bush and the Iraq war.  Were his angry remarks heard by persons who yearned to kill the president?  Undoubtedly.  Had any of these individuals got off a shot at the president does this mean his critics should be silenced?  Of course not.  In the case of Jared Loughner, it appears he is a garden variety schizophrenic.  That is what his Internet ramblings and his friend’s comments indicate.  It may be that he does not know the Tea Party from a coffee party.  His behavior was reported to the Sheriff’s Office.  The tragedy is that he was not held for evaluation. 

Illegal aliens are a major issue in America.  The anti – illegal alien camp should present their case effectively.  If this involves vitriol, so be it.  The political discourse should be about accurate data presented with any tone.  There is nothing in the constitution that disallows rancor.

                                         A Few Data Points

                                 The Schools

Heather MacDonald has written on the Tucson public schools.  Affirmative Action has been expanded to include discipline.  There is a discipline quota.  Hispanics, African Americans, and Whites must have the disciplinary actions that correspond to their numbers.  I couldn’t make this stuff up.  That is all one needs to know to conclude as in most American cities, many of the Tucson public schools are not suitable for the middle class.

Ms. MacDonald has also argued for a immigration policy which provides for the needs of the American economy – one similar to Australia.   

                                                        Medicare

Renal failure is covered by Medicare.  Many patients with renal failure are Spanish only speakers.  It appears they are in the country on a family reunification program.  That is the sort of thing that George W. Bush failed to recognize when he opined that illegals ”do the jobs Americans won’t do”.

drfrancisstocker

The earth passed the the warmest decade on record.  Judah Cohen writing in the NYT on Dec. 26th quoted the World Meteorological Organization.  Apparently it was nip and tuck.  Other decades in the twentieth century were close. 

Most of the world wide records quoted are post 1880.  The global records tabulated are those garnered world wide since the last decades of the nineteenth century when there was an international agreement to measure and report.  Prior to that time, thermometers were not widely available.  But we have extensive historical records of the last 1300 years.  The funny thing is that those records were famously reported in books that made the New York Times Best Seller’s list in the last decade – the “warmest one”.

Brian Fagan wrote the “The Little Ice Age” in 2000.  He gave the dates as 1300 AD to 1850 AD.  He followed with “The Great Warming” in 2009.  His dates overlapped a bit – 800 to 1350.  In the first book, he described the poignant events and mortality rates in Europe as the growing seasons shortened.  Europeans struggled to develop new crops.  Some resorted to emigration to the New World.  “The Warming Period” was a happier time.  Populations expanded and subsistence agriculture was more secure.  In “The Little Ice Age”, Fagan warned of the possible onset of another such horrific period.  Nine years later, in the latter book, he remained au courant and expressed a fear of the on coming global warming.  The warmest decade of the past 1300 years was somewhere between 800 and 1430 AD.  We don’t know which one, but undoubtedly there were scores that were warmer than the most recent.

In 2003, “1421″ by Gavin Menzies was a major NYT Best Seller.  It was the story of the world wide two year exploration by a Chinese fleet bent on developing new trading partners.  Menzies described events on Greenland in 1421.  ( Fagan dated the Viking settlements from before 1000 A.D. )  As the Warming Period wond down, there were some years of respite.  Menzies wrote, “the summers of 1422 to 1428 were exceptionally warm”.  From church records, he described the wedding of the widow Sigrid Bjornsdottir in 1408.  Ms. Bjornsdottir had inherited “substantial flocks of sheep and cattle that fed on lush Greenland pastures, a scene quite unrecognizable from today’s barren ice-bond land.”

                                                     Back to the Present

Veerabhadran Ramanathan and David G. Victor wrote in the NYT  “Fight Climate Change, Clean the Air”.  Ramanathan is a professor of astrophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography – not the usual bag of hot air.  The authors insist on positing the onset of Global Warming.  Nevertheless, they admit the tiny effect of carbon dioxide.  ( For several years, the United Nations has essentially admitted that carbon dioxide is not a significant theoretical factor.)  There is no way to know if any particle is a real cause in the real world.  The iatrogenic global warming crowd simply assign values to various substances in a computer model and crank out a projected outcome.

                                                              Other Bad Stuff

It is known that a number of particles do cause damage to human lungs.  Soot very likely causes some degree of warming as well, but the warming may be localized.  Methane from farts of herbivorous animals, rotting rice, leaks from gas lines, and landfills is thought by serious scientists to be about 25 times more powerful as carbon dioxide in causing warming.  Again, the carbon dioxide effect is logrithmic – it levels off as the concentration increases – so methane may be 25 times a very small number.

The authors suggest addressing several pollutants which they regard as much more potent warming agents than carbon dioxide.

The take home message is than as a warming agent, carbon dioxide is likely not a factor.  ( Acid rain is a serious matter.)

The authors urge that we concentrate on ozone and soot.  They seek “measurable effects” in countering global warming.  It should be obvious to any student of history, that should even severe changes in climate occur, we will not be able to assign a cause with any degree of certainty.  So far there is no market for the land of the former Western or Eastern Settlement in Greenland – at least not as a cattle ranch.

                                                         George Will

George Will appraised the absurdity of America’s war on coal.  Cowlitz County in Washington recently approved the building of a coal exporting terminal from which millions of tons of American coal can be shipped to Asia annually.  Six billion tons of coal are burned annually – half by the Chinese.  To put it bluntly, the Chinese do not regard carbon dioxide as a warming agent.  Hopefully, they will work diligently to correct the awful levels of soot and other pollutants that foul their air and drift to Southeast Asia.

                                                                     Embarrassing

All this talk of carbon foot print as a cause of climate change is embarrassing.  About a decade ago, I first heard of “global warming”.  There was a headline in an foreign English language paper.  Some Hollywood producer was forming a non – profit organization to fight it.  This brought to mind one of my grade school heroes, Eirik the Red.  Vikings arrived in Newfoundland before 1000 AD.  The natives were not friendly but Greenland was an easier target.  The Inuit people were few.  In grade school we learned that the period was much warmer than the present.  Eirik the Red gave the land the name “Greenland”.  He decided it was an appealing name which would encourage settlers.  Greenland was settled as an agricultural community for over four hundred years – almost half a millennium. As Seinfeld used to say, “Where do they find these people?”

                                                                A Plan for Political Action

Whenever, persons advocating Cap and Trade or an EPA non – legislative approach to “global warming”  make a pitch, Republicans or anyone with their head screwed on straight should shout

                                          Bjornsdottir   Bjornsdottir   Bjornsdottir

On the Anniversary of her Wedding, the Lamb and Beef Lobbies who are attacked because of their animals’ farts could have a party and serve unhealthy quantities of those meats.

Under a new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care which may include Advance Directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment. 

The only thing new is the paying of physicians.  Before Republicans oppose the regulation, they should survey the practices in religious based hospitals.  Anyone who is admitted on has a simple x-ray at any hospital with which I am familiar is harangued about creating an Advanced Directive or producing a Durable Power of Attorney which allows a family member to authorize the withholding of care.  The family of severely demented patients in skilled nursing facilities run by the Catholic Church are urged to approve a Do Not Resuscitate directive.  Critical care doctors and nurses are familiar with the laws which bind them to a meaningless protocol of care for terminal patients who do no have an Advanced Directive or a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care assigned to a family member.  The care is may involve ventilation, circulatory support, nutritional support, and anti-biotics.  The later has the potential of augmenting resistant strains which may contaminate the unit.  All this is extremely wasteful.   

Catholic Hospitals are cited as representing a large group of voters.  The practices in Protestant and Jewish institutions are the same.  There really is very little controversy in this area.  There is a need to reduce the volume of futile therapy as much as possible.  As with any issue, expect “non-profit” groups to spring up in opposition.  It would be easy for Democrats to garner a group of physicians and nurses of all religious strips to support the regulation.

Writing in the WSJ, George Soros recited a history lesson on marijuana rather than presented arguments supporting its legalization.  Mr. Soros presents the issue as a matter of “racial inequalities”.  He attributes the laws criminalizing marijuana enacted between 1915 and 1933 to racial prejudice against immigrants from Mexico rather than based in science or public health.  Rather than attempt to determine the accuracy of those assertions, it is more useful to assess what really happens to many uses of “pot” regardless of ethnicity.  It is useful to put the use of marijuana in the context of the absolute necessity of persons save the very wealthy, the retired, and night club comedians having an unimpeded mind as they study, work, drive, and care for children.

Mr. Soros offers statistics on arrests.  Indeed Hispanics and African Americans are more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than whites.  African Americans are “three, five or even ten times” more likely to be arrested for position of marijuana.  But African Americans are about ten times more likely to be arrested for homicide as whites.  This is not to claim some causal relationship, but African Americans live in areas with high levels of crime.  This results in more police looking looking for criminals.

“Stoned” – That is the common expression used for “pot heads”.  The connotation clearly relates to the brain which is correctly thought of as being impaired.  The key point is that with repeated use, the impairment lasts for many hours and even days.  Winston Churchill was known to at times be affected by alcohol.  There is the vignette in which a lady accused him of being drunk.  This was in response to being called “ugly”.  Churchill correctly noted that in the morning he would be sober, but the lady would still be ugly.  Churchill understood the physiology of alcohol.  It is water soluble.  It stays in the blood stream and is metabolized rather quickly in the liver.  Marijuana is not like that.  It is fat soluble.  It leaves the blood and is sequestered in fatty tissues.  With chronic use, it enters the blood long after use.  Users have an expression – “tripping out”.  They experience the effects at odd times.

Economic Arguments

The argument for legalized marijuana which most appeals to conservatives is economic.  Firstly, we cannot afford to prosecute users.  In California, it is not clear we can afford to prosecute many crimes.  This is a sometimes unspoken blight of societies in the New World.  Secondly, we could tax it.  Save on the criminal justice system and collect taxes.  What’s not to like?  Problem is, there is much more to the economic issue.

The problem is legalized marijuana would legalize the “stoning” of Californians.  Stoned citizens are not good students, employees, and parents.  Another reason for businesses to leave California.

Some users have personality changes – not good ones.  This affected several young white professional adults I knew over forty years ago.  Besides the stoned condition, they became belligerent.  It is claimed that marijuana is not a “gateway” drug.  Marijuana by itself is a gateway to a troubled wasted life for a least some individuals.

Low birth weight babies.  This is serious matter.  It disproportionately affects African Americans.  It is related to bad behavior.  Granted, women who are in ideal circumstances and follow the science based prenatal regime may have a low birth weight infant.  Women who abuse a variety of substances including marijuana are more likely to have a low birth weight infant.  Stress which is commonly associated with having a unstable impaired partner is another circumstance which is contributory.

All this is detailed in the March of Dimes web site.  The March of Dimes supports the “science and public health” concerns that Mr. Soros claims to advocate.  The massive medical costs of low birth weight babies is detailed.  There are other costs related to impairment of the central nervous system and chronic lung disease.

Besides the advantage in registration, Jerry Brown has pitched a demographic not discussed much.  As expected, the Brown campaign seeks to appeal to the African American and Hispanic voters. 

There is another demographic which has benefited from the largess of the state government.  Jerry Brown has pitched the state workers aggressively.  And why not?  In his prior terms starting in 1979, he aggressively promoted unions for state workers.  In his Labor Day speech he referred to the wealth of California.  He did not mention the outlandish obligations incurred by pensions promised to state workers.  If a state worker retires at age 55 as some of them can, the average longevity for a person who survives to that age is over a quarter of a century. 

The appeal to state workers has been repeated despite the fact that it has ony been seven years since the recall of Gray Davis that centered on the budget deficit and the outrage at the large increase in the salaries and benefits granted to prison guards.   

The debate at California State University at Sacramento was a poor choice of venue.  Whenever Brown said ”green”, the audience cheered.  Oddly, the students cheered when Brown promised that all qualified applicants would be admitted to state colleges irregardless of their “documentation”.  One wonders if the students’ parents were as enthusiastic at the prospect of higher taxes. 

Brown has referred to “immigrants” as “children of God” without regard to documentation.  Problem is he does not sound a lot different than the 2008 version of John McCain.  When Meg Whitman was hanging out with McCain, she expressed the view that children born to illegal aliens should not suffer for the “sins” of their parents in being denied state services.      

These theological references which can be uttered so easily do not recognize the birth rate in Mexico, Central America, Haiti, and other nations close to us.  Porous borders will leave America with burdens which will spread poverty more than cure it.

Sadly, Brown is ahead in the polls.  It is hard to understand.

The party may have caught a break.  The tirade by Congressman Sanchez on a Spanish language station was picked up by the English language media.  Sanchez called Tran very anti-immigrant.  This purposeful use of “immigrant” instead of “illegal immigrant” has become a standard.  Colin Powell did the same recently.  Powell compared the U.S. to the birth dearth afflicted Japan.  Powell revealed an awareness of the fertility gap between illegal and legal residents while discretely not spelling it out.   

Tran is a member of the California state legislature.  I used to live in his district.  He sent out a lot of e-mails – a sign that he was going to run for higher office.  OC is home to more Vietnamese Americans than any other region.  I had a number of Vietnamese associates.  His wife’s maiden name, Nguyen, was the most common name of new home buyers in OC when people were buying homes.  That being said, the congressional district is highly mixed.  ( I hate the word “diverse” – something a judge might order. )  The district was represented by Bob Dornan before the Hispanic population increased and a very angry left wing Loretta Sanchez was victorious.   

The good news is that Sanchez’s disparaging remarks which identified “the Vietnamese” as her enemy may motivate non – Hispanics to vote.  Hopefully some Hispanic voters will understand that illegals are not helping their lives in OC.

                                                   Will Tran Live Up to the Activist Billing?

Despite the recent very brief flurry of remarks concerning the 14th amendment, the Republican Party has a very weak record on illegal immigration.  McCain, George W. Bush, and Meg Whitman have backgrounds that shielded them from the totality of the impact of Illegal aliens.  The “values” candidates are suspect.  Their plateform calls for “border security”.  This is not a detailed recounting of the public sector costs of illegals.  The religious affiliations claimed by the values members are universally cause for concern.  The leadership of all of them have positions on illegals which are supportive of pourous borders.  Voters who want a strong stance can only hope the values congressmen are “cafeteria” congregants.

                                                        Nicholas Kristof            

Nicholas Kristof and his wife SherlyWuDunn have authored, “Half the Sky”.  It has a lot of material on child birth in poor nations and the treatment of women.  There are calculations on what small sums would be required to reduce the number of horrific maternal deaths in primitive environs.  There is a dearth of reporting on the birth rates.  A lower birth rate would make improvements more doable and sustainable.  The unvarnished grim reality of treatment of women in a number of Muslim nations is presented.  None of this is cleared with John Brennan.  Given the dearth of Western reporters in poor Muslim nations away from the best hotels, this behavior goes unreported in the popular press.         

                                                  The World According to the CIA              

In American political commentary, birth rates do not get a lot of ink.  Not so with the CIA.

The CIA’s World Fact Book tracts not only the ethnicity of nations but the birth rates and other factors.  It records the births per woman as well as the growth rate and the age distribution of the population.  All that is viewed as important to the future American security.  Growth or decrease in population is dependant on the age of the mothers as well as the number of births per woman.  Mortality rates in newborns and children are recorded -factors which have a larger impact in poor nations.  Rates of migration are recorded.  One might question the accuracy of the latter.  Obviously, migration from Hispanic and Caribbean nations is to the United States. 

The CIA does not distinguish between legal and illegal migration.  The CIA does not record the fertility rates amongst migrants to America.  Fertility of illegal immigrants is generally higher than in their home country.  It is about double the rate for legal residents.  Legal immigrants from Asia have a higher birth rate than in their native land, but for most groups it is below replacement level.  

It is evident that Meg Whitman and a host of other candidates attempt to calibrate their campaign slogans - appealing Hispanic voters while striking a note of compassion.  In the past, Whitman has explained that she did not want to punish children of illegals for the “sins of their parents”.  She adopted a harder line in the primary, but shows signs of an awakening of the old compassion at least in Spanish spots.  Media commentators have not missed the obvious duplicity.  American Hispanics will be better off if illegals are reduced.  Legal Hispanic residents pay taxes and like other American taxpayers “pay for the sins of the illegals”.  We all pay for education/incarceration/medication for illegals.  Obviously Whitman is a preferable to Jerry Brown.

                                                            The Population Bust

Singapore and Hong Kong have birth rates barely over one.  This is obscured by the ability of both nations to attract large numbers of young talented persons.  Mainland China has a rate of 1.59.  There is a reservoir of young persons with low productivity in rural areas who continue to migrate to urban areas to work.  In a few decades, this population will exhaust.  Since the overseas Chinese prefer to stay overseas rather than move to the mainland, the only source of workers will be those born there.

European birth rates are far below replacement level.  Nations which are historically Catholic have some of the smallest rates.  Poland has a rate of 1.29.  There is a small rate of emigration – 0.5 per 1000.  The population is not only aging, it is actually declining.  Poland is the home of John Paul II who like his successor lamented the spectacular decline in fertility, but has been unable to affect any change in behavior.  There are aggressive pronatalist government programs in many European and Asia nations.  France, Great Britain, and a few Scandinavian nations show signs of improving birth rates.

Japan has a rate of 1.27 births per woman, South Korea 1.21, and Taiwan 1.14.  (Taiwan is not tracked by the CIA, WHO, or the UN since they do not recognize it as a separate nation.)  Some nations in Southern and Eastern Europe are on the verge of a collapse in the population of native Europeans.  The number of Japanese and Poles in the productive and reproductive ages has declined. 

Morgan Stanley has made the dire prediction that Japan and some European nations cannot avoid some form of default brought on by the cost of entitlements to seniors and the decline in the numbers of productive adults.  The default may take the form of an forced devaluation of the currency.  Since the Japanese debt – in the form of government bonds – is almost entirely held by Japanese, the suffering may be contained better than the default of a medium sized European nation.  None of that will be good for the American economy.                

                                                         The Population Bomb

The population bomb was proposed as a threat to the welfare of humankind by Paul Ehrlich in 1968.  More recently, Thomas Friedman warned of global warming due to a growth in population and the increased production of carbon dioxide.  Late last year Friedman made a squirmy appearance on CNBC.  He adamantly refused to discuss global warming.  In his book, he correctly named Niger as having the highest birth rate.  The CIA reported the rate at 7.6 children per woman.  The nation is 80% Muslim.  There are a lot of potential migrants. 

 The economies and the welfare of individual nations is interdependent.  This is especially true for small nations and the poorest nations.  The poorest nations are extremely dependant on world trade.  In many cases the poorest nations have very limited human resources.  There is the prejudicial term - banana republic.  Apparently President Obama does not acknowledge differences in talents.  In his address to Ghanaian politicians, he scolded them for their level of corruption which he suggested was the reason for their poor progress.  He noted that in the 1950′s, the per capita income of Ghana was comparable to South Korea.  President Obama failed to note that South Korea had suffered thirty five years of Japanese occupation and after a seven year hiatus a three year conflict with North Korea and China.  The media did not comment. 

The financial networks are the best source for meaningful reporting on poor nations.  The developed nations not only buy natural resources and agricultural products from poor nations, they supply the technology and aid which is essential to progress.  Ghana has a birth rate of 3.6 children per woman.   

Sub – Sahara Africa and some other nations receive aid from much of the developed world.  Haiti is the beneficiary of 10,000 organizations for nine million people according to Bill Clinton and Theodore Dalrymple.  The birth rate in Haiti is 3.72 children per woman.  The migration rate is 2.07 per 1000. 

Cambodia is poor and dangerous.  It is the beneficiary of directed donations from a number of NGO’s to support the children.  The birth rate is 3.0 children per woman.  The longevity at birth is 60.0 years for men and 64.27 years for women.  Thailand is more developed.  It is inhabited by different ethnicity’s.  Thailand has a birth rate of 1.67 per woman.  The longevity is 70.7 for men and 75.5 for women.  A hospital in Bangkok ( Bumrungrad) claims to treat more foreigners than any hospital in the world.   

                                                                     America

In America illegal immigrants, the poor, and the underclass including  criminals and/or dope fiends receive obstetric and infant care through government programs.  Since 1986 In any hospital emergency room, there is a sign which informs the viewer of the federal mandate requiring the hospital to provide emergency care regardless of ability to pay, ethnicity, residence status, etc.  The program was expanded to include prenatal care.  The state is on the hook for the complications of pregnancy or sick infants and it makes sense to obviate bad outcomes in a cost effective manner.  As with many federal mandates, the funding for this service is problematical.  The health care law will not make it better.   

Liberal and conservative American commentators have had very little to say concerning birth dearth.  Many European and Asian nations have pronatalist policies.  Illegal aliens have a birth rate about twice that of legal residents.  Local communities struggle with the public school demands, police, and health care.  There is no chance of Meg Whitman’s or John McCain’s children/grandchildren attending school with the children of illegals. 

                                   Barack Obama and Pope Benedict Advocate Open Borders

The pontiff would welcome the non-Muslim peoples from Africa and other impoverished regions to Europe and America.  The Catholic Church and some Protestant Churches have used their influence – minimal in Europe  but significant in America – to support open borders policies.  President Obama has similar views without the concern for the religious background of the immigrant.  These are policies which are not in the interest of the United States or Europe.

                                                          Proposals

The United States has pronatalist policies for poor and underclass persons regardless of residence status in the form of free obstetric and child care.  No such support is provided to the middle class.  This is a mistake.  This flies in the face of what is traditionally thought of as conservatism.  Building a stable society from the crib up trumps political philosophy.  At this point in history, babies trump ideas.  Legal immigrants with small children should be given preference if they meet other qualifications.     

American governmental aid to poor nations should be accompanied by contraceptive programs.  Tax deductible status for NGO’s should be dependant on accompanying woman’s health programs including contraceptive services which actually move the birth rate to near replacement levels.  The Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation does provide contraceptive services in Kenya.   

                                              African – American Churches

During the presidential campaign, the media belatedly covered the Rev. Jeremiah Wright fiasco.  The Rev. Wright and numerous cohorts had been around for decades.  Afrocentric theology was active in Los Angeles forty years ago with many Louis Farrakhan imitators.  Forty years ago a pamphlet from a pronatalist African American preacher came to rest on the emergency room floor in a Los Angeles hospital.  It pointed out the obvious.  More African American babies would increase political power. 

In his novels, John Grisham has protrayed long services, devotion, and morality in traditional African American churches.  Fox TV has presented African American ministers who disagree with the Rev. Wright and his ilk.  Journalists should provide that data regarding the numbers of what are really competing groups.  There is the matter of security for reporters, but African American reporters could collect the data.  America needs more accurate reporting from the media to go with the political doctrine of whatever kind.                

Race in America

For most commentators, race and ethnicity are treated with emotion.  Commonly in America there are only two races discussed as in Nicholas D. Kristof’s piece in the NYT Race in America.  Americans understand from the title that it is about African Americans and whites.  That piece is about a book by an African American, “The Other Wes Moore”. Without reading it, persons familiar with Mr. Kristof or the NYT know that it is about an African American doing poorly – as in murdering a cop – due to the neglect or outright malicious treatment by white folks.

In Kristof’s piece, the reader will know in advance that there will be no comparison to success or homicide rates amongst sub-Sahara Africans in Africa or other nations.  There will be no analysis of the Asian Americans to discover how the white folks have impeded their progress and increased their homicide rate.  In the case of Mr. Kristof and the NYT, ten percent of the population of NYC and Bergen County, N.J. are Asian Americans.  If they just stepped outside, they would find lots of folks to study.  Second generation Asian Americans earn more than whites.  At least for Northern Asians, the homicide rate is puny as in their home countries.

When Presidential candidate Obama gave his Philadelphia speech on race, he revealed that his grandmother confessed she feared African American men she encountered on the street.  The unfortunate reality is that the level of violence and homicide is many times greater amongst African American men.  The liberal media thought it was a great speech and the conservatives did not comment on that remark.  The media live in some fantascy world.  When I heard the speech live, I thought Obama was making a joke. 

The Homogenization of the Races in Healthcare Reporting

A typical commentary by Tara Parker-Pope in the NYT:  America lags in maternal and infant mortality.  The data referred to is of the nation as a whole.  The data is massively skewed by the presence of a large population of low birth weight infants which are much more numerous amongst African Americans.  Reference to the March of Dimes web site, will enlighten the reader as to the behaviors which greatly increase the odds of having a low birth weight infant.  In Tom Daschle’s book, Critical, he gave only one – smoking.  It appears obvious, at least to me, smoking was less accusatory and more race neutral than the other drugs and behaviors.

Among other confusions, many journalists still do not understand that live births are recorded differently in some nations.  It is not unusual to see infant mortality data quoted in major newspapers or political commentaries which give the infant mortality in Sweden as half that of any other nation including their Scandinavian neighbors!

The fact is that adjusted for birth weight, American infants have as good an outcome as anywhere else.  Neonatology is a disproportionate and costly part of health care in America.  Americans are expert in neonatal care and trauma care, no doubt aided by the presence of a wealth of clinical material.  In the ABC program, Babyland, the white folks in Memphis were faulted for not doing enough to increase the survival of African American infants.  The mothers were as young as twelve.  ( The mother’s age below seventeen is a risk factor for low birth weight babies.)   Curiously, there was no reference to the fathers save for one eighteen year old father who was shot to death a few days after his offspring was born.  The fathers were not faulted.  There was no mention of birth control.  Planned Parenthood’s web site in Memphis offers all methods including termination.

T.R. Reid, a Washington Post journalist in “The Healing of America:  A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care” had to travel to Japan to have a health care economist explain to him that the lower rates of HIV infection and trauma among other behavior related factors accounted for the longer life expectancy in Japan.

Outcomes for health care in general need to be adjusted for race.  Total longevity statistics in America are bad.  The global statistics are impacted by factors including trauma and drug abuse.  The average life expectancy of Native American men in South Dakota is 56 years.  I have not been to South Dakota, but I was stationed in Oklahoma.  The Native American men who live on the reservations have horrific levels of alcoholism.  Fox TV went to a South Dakota reservation, Rosebud.  The TV show on federal government health care was one of the worse programs.  In the last sixty seconds, alcoholism and diabetes were mentioned as prevalent.  One moderator was Judge Andrew Napolitano.  Fox has a cadre of excellent physicians as contributors.  At SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, there is one of nine offices of the Collaborative Studies on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA).

Usually Fox does better, but not always when it comes to racial commentaries.  Geraldo Rivera once had a discussion with a deranged actor, Richard Belzer.  They described Gov. Bobby Jindal as a person of color.  Vinod Khosla, a founder of Sun Microsystems is a person of Indian birth.  Since that phrase was adopted by persons wishing to feign sophistication when speaking of African Americans, I always suspected that sooner or later some media luminary would use it as a waste basket term for non-whites.  Non-whites should be  identified by their correct ethnicity.  They are not all one race.  Embarrassing.

The Asian American women of Bergen County, New Jersey live several years longer than the women in Japan.  This attests to the quality of health care in American as well as well as the life style of this mostly middle class group.  (The Asian Americans of Bergen County are a diverse group of North, South, and Southeast Asian origin.)

It is rare to see any reference to the method of controlling illegal drugs in Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, or China.  Drug dealers are executed.  For the prospective traveler, Singapore has a web site which lists the drugs and quantities which earns one the death penalty.  The list includes cannabis along with various narcotics, cocaine, and methamphetamine and the quantities needed to qualify for the death penalty.  There are signs in the Taipei airport warning that drug trafficking in punishable by death.

In America, the media sometimes treats cocaine use and other forms of depravity as opportunities for entertainment.  Stephen Cobert and Congressman Robert Wexler amused themselves by pretending to use cocaine.  There is no doubt that Congressman Wexler has constituents who have lost family members to cocaine abuse.  Cocaine and other controlled substances have devastated the lives of persons of all races, but more so with African Americans.

In America, law enforcement is mitigated by cost concerns in American cities.  This is nothing new and predates Lindsay Lohan by many decades.  Over forty years ago, I challenged young prosecuting attorneys in my apartment building to be more strict in enforcement.  They informed my of the constraints imposed by costs of court time and the risk of jury nullification.  Most criminal cases were plead out.  California is dead broke partly due to the costs of trauma and criminal justice.  Random gun shots are not investigated in certain neighborhoods in Southern California-again a decades old practice.  In 2004, the New Orleans in conjunction with a local university attempted to study the response to 700 blank gun shots in on neighborhood in one afternoon.  There was no response.  No one called.  Without a wounded citizen, the public understands, if the media does not, that there is no money for investigation, no money for trial, and no money for incarceration.  This is an ominous practice and presages worse police restraint practiced in nations such as Brazil.

The present criminal justice penalties and procedures simply are not affordable.  The extensive use of the death penalty for drug trafficking or anything else in California is too costly.

Race According to the CIA World Fact Book

There is a source for information on ethnicity and other matters:  The CIA World Fact Book.  At least as of now, the CIA recognizes a number of ethnic groups.  For Brazil, it gives data for whites, 53.7%, mulattoes – a mixture of whites and blacks 38.5%, blacks 6.2%, other including Japanese, Arabs, and Amerindians at less than one percent.  Other sources give the Japanese population at 1.4%.

The same CIA Fact Book gives the American population as white 79.9%, black 12.8%, Asian 4.4% and Amerindian and Alaska natives 0.9%, and Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders 0.18%.  Hispanics are listed at 15.1%, with the explanation that ethnicity is not specified.  Unlike Brazil, mulatto is not listed.  There is the history of slavery in the United States which encompassed mulattoes, but there was a similar history in Brazil.  Using a simple but accurate arithmetic analysis of blood groups of African American inductees in WWI, the white mixture was 22% at that time.

The CIA Fact Book for Mexico:  Mestizo – Amerindian-Spanish 60%, Amerindian or predominantly Amerindian 30%, white 9%, and other 1%.

The CIA Fact Book for Haiti:  Black 95%, mulatto and white 5%.

For Cuba:  White 65%, mulatto and mestizo 24.8%, black 10.1%.

In all the descriptions, the CIA uses “black” in place of Negro.  The use of that term has led to some sloppy discourse by members of the jabbering class.  Black is a color and not a race.  White covers a host of ethnic types, and the CIA recognizes that for some nations.  The CIA does recognize racial diversity in many nations including some in Southeast Asia.  The list for Indonesia includes groups which are apparently unique to that nation.  The economy in Indonesia has evidenced a rapid growth in the last decade. 

The Post-Racial Society

This is a concept tossed around to describe the election and era of President Obama.  As with many political slogans, it is hard to know what the slogan means.  If it means the laws will apply without regard to race or ethnicity, that is a good idea.  If it means a meritocracy, that is what is needed.  That will bring out the best in all ethnic groups.  There is a lot of overlap in talents and ambition amongst the races.

That is not what President Obama, Sonja Sotomeyer or their cohorts espouse.  They support or demand affirmative action which is sometimes defined as diversity.  Diversity exists in Southern California and other urban areas.  When I practiced, I worked with persons who were born in at least 29 other nations.  That does not include my experiences in the military outside the United States.  We did not call ourselves diverse.  We were simply legal residents who wound up working in the same hospital.  Most jobs for anesthesiology staff in Journals did not specify ethnicity.  Ominously a few academic positions mentioned affirmative action or minority candidates encouraged.  Anecdotal rants by former anesthesiology residents were generally not positive.

At present in America, a minority is either an African American or Hispanic.  Sikhs such as South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nimrata Randhawa -aka Niki- Haley are not a minority.  In a study in the City Journal, Theodore Dalrymple noted that the Sikhs of Great Britain have higher than average family net worth.  Dalrymple was reporting on a London politician who wanted to redistribute wealth.  (Sikhs like European Jews are an ethnic group as well as a religious group.) 

Homicides are almost always readily classified as such and not ignored in America at the present time.  The World Health Organization tallies homicide rates. The rates are remarkably constant amongst ethnic groups despite changes in latitude and longitude.  In some cases the rate is clearly related to alcoholism.  Russians and other persons indigenous to the Baltic States have the most robust rates amongst white folks.  Greece has a consistently very low rate as well as a low incidence of alcoholism.  One might speculate whether the selection process of legal immigration lowers the alcoholism rate in Baltic immigrants.

Its the Data Stupid

There are scholars who have studied behaviors of various races.  The prior vociferous commentators on race such as T.R. Roosevelt and persons who influenced the rise of the Nazi regime were not methodical collectors of data but angry doctrinaires.  (Roosevelt was a fan of the Japanese, but not the Chinese.  Roosevelt and certain university professors believed that only Aryans were capable of governing.  We know how that worked out.) 

Modern scholars include Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein and Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen.  The latter is the father of Matti Vanhanen, the immediate past Prime Minister of Finland.  These scholars studied I.Q. in various groups.  The latter two related intelligence to GDP.  Homicide rates appear to have some relation to intelligence.  Drug abuse including alcohol augments depraved behaviors without question. 

No one appears to study the fraction of American GDP that goes for responses to violent crime.  Sudhir Venkatesh might persuade an economist in Chicago to study the costs related to the activities of the drug dealers who have provided the subjects for his studies.  Costs include the obvious criminal justice costs and also the costs for the care of their offspring.  The Federal Reserve Board should quantitate the cost of criminal justice and trauma care as a fraction of the GDP.  Most trauma involves a crime whether an assault or a vehicular accident.  More than half of vehicular accidents serious enough to cause trauma involve at least one impaired driver. 

The Media Race and the Other “F” Word

The f word is banned by the FCC.  There is another f word – fertility which is rarely used in the American media.  This is not so in most advanced societies in Europe and Asia.  Claire Berlinski is one American who broached the subject in Menace Europe.  She detailed the stunning decline in fertility amongst ethnic Europeans in Europe as well as the governmental efforts to encourage births.  Birth Dearth in Europe and Asia is the biggest story rarely told in America.  Thomas Friedman despite having traveled the world and having lived in Israel homogenized the races of the world in Hot, Flat and Crowded.

                                              Private Business and Accommodations

Candidates for the Senate are expected to offer their views on the issues of the day.  “Lunch counters” is not one of them.  In a survey of businesses that offer public accommodations, it would be hard to find any who which to turn away paying customers. 

Affirmative Action is a current issue.  Recall Joseph Lieberman ran simultaneously for the Senate and Vice-President in 2000.  In his Senate campaign he pledged his opposition to Affirmative Action, while Al Gore was an advocate. 

There are a plethora of behaviors in the African American community which deserve attention.  Sudhir Venkatesh has made a career out of studying the life and times of African American drug dealers in Chicago.  He neglected to study the life and times of the their offspring.  Venkatesh studied the cash flow of dealers.  He neglected to assess the governmental contribution to the dealers and families or the police/criminal justice/medical/incarceration expenditures.  Dr. Paul might want to look into that. 

Talking about lunch counters makes him sound weird.