Time

It's time for my annual rant observations about time. We have returned to Eastern "standard" time.  If it's standard, why not keep it all the time?

Have you noticed that "daylight savings time" doesn't actually save any daylight? In fact, the actual length of a day varies with the declension of the sun (don't ask) and the position of the earth in its annual orbit around the sun.

In an earlier (simpler?) time in the history of man, human activity was governed by the position of the sun relative to the particular place people lived. Before clocks, that position was measured by sundials. Before sundials, prehistoric man built vast public works (e.g. Stonehenge) to keep track of the seasons by solar and sometimes by lunar observations. Our time scale was slower, but no less inexorable.

Peasants went out to till the fields based on sunrise and sunset and when the sun was overhead. Before the sun crossed the local meridian was ante meridian (a.m.) and after it crossed was post meridian (p.m.). It bothered no one if the local time by sundial in Prague was different from that in Vienna.

Even at sea, where ships have no fixed location, time was reset every day at local apparent noon (when the sun crossed the meridian) and the officer of the deck received permission from the captain to "strike eight bells on time."

This perfectly satisfactory arrangement was destroyed by the railroad. Railroads wanted to run according to a fixed, printed schedule. They couldn't handle differences in local time between Prague and Vienna and every little train stop in between. Time must be made to conform to the mechanical age and become standardized.

But now we have computers. Computers can't actually think, but they can keep track of vast amounts of data, including the longitude of every town, city and metropolis on earth. It is longitude that determines local time. We could all set our timepieces to global standard time (that is, Greenwich Mean Time) and refer every time-based activity to that standard. That would satisfy the need for a time standard for any scheduled operation. It would make trains and airplanes happy. For local activities, just subtract or add a longitude-based time correction to derive local standard time. It would no longer matter to the railroads that Prague, Budweis and Vienna are on slightly different local times. Or Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington.

Oriental could have its own standard time.

Now synchronize your sundials.

Greece And The Euro

Looks like Prime Minister Papandreou has backed off of his plan to hold a referendum on the EU "rescue" [read: punishment] plan for Greece. Lots of pressure from EU members, especially France and Germany, and also from the US.

I could be wrong, but in the end I think it will make no difference. The Euro zone was a jerry-built house that is likely to collapse sooner or later, what ever happens with Greece. The Greek people could still trigger a fall of the Papandreou government and cause early elections. Even if that doesn't happen, the mood of the electorate is not likely to be any better when elections are scheduled next year. That is, I don't think another year of pain and austerity, recession, lost jobs and poverty in order to avoid displeasing German bankers who dominate the European Central Bank will improve their willingness to passively accept their fate.

What might alleviate the displeasure in Greece as well as in Italy, Spain and Portugal would be an ECB program to expand the economy. That doesn't seem to be in the cards. The beatings will continue until morale improves.

It can't help the situation that the European Commission agent in Athens to "help" the Greeks is Horst Reichenbach, a German former official of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Not surprisingly, older Greeks remember the last time that Germans came to run the affairs of Athens. They aren't fond memories.

The late historian Tony Judt, in his seminal history, Post War, revealed the extent to which young Europeans of the World War II generation received their first experiences of government planning during German occupation. They learned the techniques and were exposed to a vision of the possibilities. The European project has been, to a greater extent than most Americans realize, an outgrowth of that experience. One legacy has been a tension between a generation who view themselves as European and an overlapping generation who take a more nationalist view of self-determination as an ideal.

It isn't yet clear how the tension will be resolved in Greece. I wouldn't bet against a return of nationalism.

The Ninety-Nine Percent

The issue isn't just jobs. Even slaves had jobs. The issue is wages.

Jim Hightower

Oriental Board of Commissioners Pot-Pourri

Last night's board of commissioners meeting was the last regular meeting before residents elect a new board. The board addressed a number of loose ends, most of which will be up to the newly-elected board to unravel or to knit up, as the case may be.

I have attended town board meetings fairly regularly since January of 2006, as an interested citizen, as a member of the planning board, as a commissioner, and as a member of the Pamlico County board of elections. I also attend meetings of the Pamlico County board of commissioners fairly regularly. It's the sort of thing policy wonks do.

Some things I've noticed:
1.  Meetings take too long and are too chaotic;
2.  The board spends too much time on minutes - suggestions: add minutes to the consent agenda; confine minutes to recording what was done, not what was said; keep audio recordings as a record of the meetings in case a member of the public or press wants to listen (that's what we do at the County board of elections);
3.  Rather than having a representative of each town board present a report at every meeting, add reports to the consent agenda. If something the board does or wants to do requires Town Board action, put it on the correspondence agenda. Otherwise, don't waste time on it;
4.  If a member of the public or a commissioner wants his or her comments in the record, encourage that person to submit a written comment to be appended to the minutes;
5.  Be meticulous about following requirements for closed sessions - it generally isn't good enough to mumble the relevant paragraph of North Carolina General Statutes. Western Carolina University has prepared a very good model resolution for going into closed session. I recommend the new board consider adopting it. Here is the model resolution:

North Carolina Open Meetings Law-Model Motion For Closed Session

I move that we go into closed session to:
[Specify one or more of the following permitted reasons for closed sessions]
+prevent the disclosure of privileged information
    +under ___________________of the North Carolina General Statutes or regulations.
    +under ___________________of the regulations or laws of United States.
        {You must identify the specific law}
+prevent the premature disclosure of honorary award or scholarship.
+consult with our attorney
    +to protect the attorney-client privilege.
    + to consider and give instructions concerning a potential or actual claim, administrative procedure, or judicial action.
    + to consider and give instructions concerning a judicial action titled
    _______________ v.____________________________________.
+discuss matters relating to the location or expansion of business in the area served by this body.
+ establish or instruct the staff or agent concerning the negotiation of the price and terms of a contract concerning the acquisition of real property.
+ establish or instruct the staff or agent concerning the negotiations of the amount of compensation or other terms of an employment contract.
+ consider the qualifications, competence, performance, condition of appointment of a public officer or employee or prospective public officer or employee.
+ hear or investigate a complaint, charge, or grievance by or against a public officer or employee.
+ plan, conduct, or hear reports concerning investigations or alleged criminal conduct.
(6/24/02)

6.  It has been a frequent practice for the board to take up substantive initiatives, hold a cursory discussion and adopt resolutions during the "non-agenda" period at the end of meetings. Such actions may relate to matters of interest to citizens who attended the meeting, but when nothing came up, they left. Then the board acted. I think this is a bad practice. The Pamlico County Board of Commissioners follows a different procedure. At the beginning of each meeting, the chair asks if any member wants to add anything to the agenda. If all members agree, the item is added. If any member objects, the item is not added. No action is taken on any matter not thus added to the agenda. I have adopted a similar procedure for the county board of elections. I recommend the Oriental Town Board adopt a similar procedure;
7.  The board holds a so-called "agenda" meeting the Thursday before each regular meeting - the purpose is supposedly to agree on the agenda for the meeting (additions to the agenda should thus be very rare). In practice, the board often uses the "agenda" meeting to conduct regular business. Suggestion: If a single regular meeting each month is not sufficient to do the town's business, the board should schedule two meetings a month.

Town of Oriental Absentee and Early Voting

The Pamlico County Board of Elections met today at 2:00 pm to review and approve absentee votes cast by mail and in person at our one-stop location. As of that time, county residents had cast sixty-seven votes. Sixty of the votes were for the Oriental municipal election.

One-stop early voting will continue at the Board of Elections office in Bayboro for municipal elections in Alliance, Bayboro and Oriental until 1:00 pm Saturday, November 5. Election day at the normal municipal polling place will be held from 6:30 am until the polls close at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, November 8. Preliminary informal election result will be posted that evening.

Hatched!

Carolyn Lerner, head of, the United States Office of Special Counsel, has some bad things to say about the Hatch Act, which she must enforce. It "is broken and needs to be fixed"

She's right.

As originally conceived, the Hatch Act protected the federal civil service and military officers from being forced to take part in partisan activities. That's good. I was under that protection for thirty years and welcomed it.

But then it expanded to prevent certain local, county and state employees from running for public office because they are in some way, no matter how trivially, tied to a source of federal funds in their professional lives. The law is most frequently used to prevent deputy sheriffs from running against their bosses.

As presently enforced, the law works as an incumbent protection program. In her article in yesterday's New York Times, "A Law Misused for Political Ends," Lerner makes clear what is wrong and how to fix it. There is even bipartisan support in both houses. But Congress is paralyzed.


If you agree, write your representative (Walter B. Jones) and both US senators and ask them to get off the dime.

Drug Shortages Kill Americans

I was pleased to learn this morning that the president will issue an executive order to resolve critical shortages of drugs for treating life-threatening illnesses, including cancer.

Shortages kill. To be more precise, the illnesses do the killing, but shortages of drugs and consequent inability to treat the illnesses prevent doctors from prolonging life.

My sister was a victim of shortages. One drug (the most effective in my sister's case) was withdrawn from the market because it didn't prove effective in very many cases. Translation: not enough customers. The next drug selected by the oncologist simply couldn't be located because of shortages.

We will never know how much the shortages curtailed my sister's life. Would she have lived a day longer? A month? A year or more? We have no way of knowing.

Still, we know that shortages have increased greatly in recent years, endangering thousands of lives. This shouldn't happen in America.

It's time to do something about it. If Congress won't act, then the president must.

Humor, Censorship and Self Censorship

I try to be reasonably clear where I stand on public issues, but to speak to the substance of policy outcomes instead of relying on ad-hominem arguments. The truth is, that focusing on policy issues frequently comes out as dry as sand. Makes it hard for people to focus.

Sometimes a bit of humor makes the point clearer and also easier to swallow. Unless the humor descends into a mean sneer.

I was a bit taken aback today when a friend of the republican persuasion concluded that I have been too hard on republicans lately. I admit I've been paying attention to the republican debates and find it hard to say anything positive, especially about their economic views. Or their foreign policy views either, for that matter. Still, I don't want to descend into invective. If I oppose a particular policy, I have reasons. Problem is, the reasons may seem a bit Wonky. And I don't for a minute believe that every republican swallows every line put out by the candidates.

I have mentioned before that about sixty-five years ago I tried my hand at a bit of satire. I worked on an underground newspaper at Ole Miss that criticized the state's policy of segregation. That was a dangerous thing to do, but I thought it important enough to take the risk. I've never regretted it.

Doing satire well is a challenge. Sometimes the target of the satire believes you are on his side. Sometimes it just becomes mean. But in a repressive society it may be the only option. I'm out of practice and haven't tried it much lately.

All of this came to mind today when I read the account in the New York Times magazine section of the uses made of humor, satire, puns, visual jokes and other creative efforts by Chinese dissident cartoonists. They use the internet to pierce the efforts at thought control by Chinese authorities.

Read the article: "Where an Internet Joke Is Not Just a Joke." The article also calls to mind the successes of Czech cartoonists in using humor to satirize life in Communist Czechoslovakia. But this isn't just a problem in communist countries. Authoritarians everywhere seem to lack a sense of humor. It is often said that liberals have no sense of humor either, but that isn't accurate.