Three Weeks' Training For Thirty Second Attack

Seventy years ago, while my father's outfit was being organized in Mobile to be shipped overseas, a smaller group was preparing at Eglin Field Florida (about a hundred miles to the east) for a different overseas movement.

Under command of LCol Jimmy Doolittle, a small group of US Army aviators was learning how to take off from an aircraft carrier. Twenty-five B-25 medium bombers, each with a crew of five, were put through their paces by a Navy lieutenant. The task: launch fully-loaded B-25's with a 2,000 lb bomb load on a 2,400 mile mission.

Details to be disclosed later.

All of the aviators were volunteers. The training began three months after Pearl Harbor.

DOT Ferry Toll Hearing Footnote

Tonight's DOT public hearing on ferry tolls is the second such public hearing in Pamlico County.

We almost didn't have any.

Until Town Dock intervened.

Melinda Penkava, who can be very insistent, called DOT to get an explanation as to why DOT was holding no public hearing in the county most directly affected.

"There's no place in Pamlico County large enough for a crowd of 200," she was told. "Oh, yes, there is," she replied.

So DOT, whose planners developed Pamlico County's Comprehensive Transportation Plan, including addressing public transportation requirements associated with Pamlico County Community College, apparently knew nothing about the college's Delamar Center.

What else don't they know about Pamlico County?

Thank Goodness for Melinda Penkava.

DOT Ferry Hearing March 19, 2012

Do you know what a "Senior Public Involvement Officer" is? I tried to find out this evening on the NC DOT web site, to no avail.

Why do I want to know? Mr. Jamille A. Robbins, who chaired tonight's DOT public hearing on "NCDOT Proposed Temporary Rules Changes for Ferry Tolling" is one.

I was unsuccessful in finding a job description or explanation of Mr. Robbins' title.

But he must be powerfully influential. When the last questioner of the evening asked Mr. Robbins what DOT had done to carry out the governor's direction to seek economies within the DOT budget to equal the legislature's directed $5 million in revenue and then directed the question to the four DOT "suits" in the front row, Mr. Robbins explained they (the "suits") were present only as "observers" and couldn't speak. The four remained silent as Mr. Robbins attempted to explain the difficulties in figuring such things out while disgruntled attendees headed for the exits.

It reminded me of a mobile that a colonel of my acquaintance hung over his desk. The mobile consisted of a collection of fingers pointing in various directions, shifting with the wind. It looked something like this:

What was the hearing for? "To solicit comments regarding the request to amend, adopt or repeal portions of the NC Administrative Code per the temporary rules process."

What next? "Following the hearing and comment period, the NCDOT must adopt the proposed temporary rule change." In other words, nothing said tonight will have any effect whatsoever on the rule.

After the temporary rules are adopted, then the Rules Review Commission (RRC) will review the proposed changes. The RRC can either approve or object (not reject). If the RRC objects, NCDOT can either rewrite or not rewrite. If they do not rewrite and resubmit the rule, it will not become effective.

More importantly, if the RRC approves the rule, people opposing the rule may file an action for declaratory judgment in Wake County Superior Court.

I hope someone has started drafting such an action. Several of tonight's public comments included observations pertinent to a request for declaratory judgment, including an interesting account by Jim Barton of the legislative history of NC 306.

Representatives of other affected counties, including Beaufort, Craven and Hyde counties, provided very powerful inputs to the hearing.

A number of speakers pointed out that this ferry tax was enacted by Republican state legislators. The consensus seemed strong that Republican legislators had thrown Eastern North Carolina under the bus. The entire region east of I-95 knows what has happened and from what was said, they intend to remember that in November.

Is It Enough To Follow The Money?

A few days ago, I suggested that following the money is a good way to determine what is really going on in the political process. The key question, I suggested is "who benefits and who pays?"

Yesterday's New York Times offered a different analysis. In his article, "Forget The Money, Follow The Sacredness," Jonathan Haidt offers an alternate explanation of the American political process. He explains politics as a "competition among coalitions of tribes."

"The key to understanding tribal behavior," Haidt explains, "is not money, it’s sacredness. The great trick that humans developed at some point in the last few hundred thousand years is the ability to circle around a tree, rock, ancestor, flag, book or god, and then treat that thing as sacred. People who worship the same idol can trust one another, work as a team and prevail over less cohesive groups. So if you want to understand politics, and especially our divisive culture wars, you must follow the sacredness."

I don't deny that Haidt has a good point regarding voter behavior. On the other hand, how does it come about that a particular person, place or thing becomes viewed as sacred?

Sacred things don't necessarily become that way by growing organically from grass roots. The idea of sacredness is usually planted, watered, fertilized and nurtured by forces with a lot of money and power.

The mechanics of how this is done are examined in today's New York Times  in an opinion piece, "The Uses Of Polarization."

The central question seems to be whether our admittedly flawed political process can be improved. I am reminded of Winston Churchill's observation that Democracy is the "worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

So what is to be done?

Once again Churchill has a suggestion: "What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?"

Preparation For Overseas Movement - Spring 1942

Here is a picture of my dad during the organization of the 27th Air Depot Group, US Army Air Corps at Mobile, Alabama, spring of 1942. This picture was framed and sat on the mantel over my grandmother's fireplace during the war.

Look closely and see the backward writing. The photographer flipped the negative when he printed the photo, so it was backward when Daddy signed it. I flipped it back in photoshop.

Of course, I had to have my own uniform, complete with rolled-up sleeves.

Just a few weeks earlier, we had moved on the base at Tallahassee. Here is a photo of me and my then six or seven month old brother, John.

This is the house we moved into in Greenwood, Mississippi, in February of 1942 before Daddy went on to Mobile. No dependents were allowed once preparation for overseas movement began. These are my grandparents, parents, me and my little brother (sitting in Mother's lap). We wouldn't see my dad again until the summer of 1945.

This was seventy years ago.

Cut And Run Strategy - History

It's a bit disconcerting to hear various leaders talk about how important it is to leave behind a stable government in Afghanistan.

Just how are we going to do that?

Our record of accomplishment in nation building (in other people's nations) isn't all that sterling. We ran the Philippines for half a century, for example, and more than six decades after we turned the government over to the Philippinos, the country has yet to become a showcase of democracy.

That wasn't President McKinley's promise when we decided to occupy the country.

Take Vietnam. We decided in 1946 to assist France in its reoccupation of French Indo-China (as Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were then called). That didn't turn out well. In 1954, at the time of Dien Bien Phu, President Eisenhower decided against direct intervention, but we provided advisers and lots of equipment. In 1961 Kennedy sent even more advisers and equipment. By 1965, we owned the war.

In 1973, President Nixon withdrew the last American troops. In 1975, North Vietnamese forces conquered the entire country.

Upshot: after thirty years of war, loss of nearly 60,000 US servicemen and millions of Vietnamese lives, we achieved the same outcome that had been available in 1946 at virtually no cost.

There are times when it is best to stop throwing good money (and lives) after bad. But deciding to do so after the nation has made a commitment is hard to do.

Still, withdrawal always has to remain an option. It was Senator Aiken of Vermont, I believe, who advised President Johnson to just "declare victory" and bring the boys (they were mostly male warriors then) home.

Good advice.

How To Hold Water

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. \

John W. Gardner

Per Capita Growth In Government Spending

Economist Mark Thoma has an interesting post today on his blog. He has done an analysis of real per capita growth in government spending under every president since Lyndon Johnson.

It turns out that the most austere was Bill Clinton and next most austere is Barack Obama. Spending growth was less under Jimmy Carter than it was under Nixon-Ford or under Reagan. Here is Thoma's graph:

http://economistsview.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b33869e2016763df2c09970b-popup