Revisting: Preventing and Dealing With Bed Bugs

The plague of bed bugs continues to spread in America, even though it is not THAT hard to prevent spread of these pests. But no one seems to be paying attention to the ways that bed bugs can be kept at bay. Every day I am seeing more and more mattresses, entire beds, and other furniture thrown away because of bed bugs. But people CAN limit their risk if they put their minds to it. With information you can save time, money and stress. But very few people are doing it.

All of America is at risk of bed bug infestations. Many very fancy hotels are already infested. Many homes are infested. But your risk can be reduced and there are many things you can do to limit your chances of getting these pests.

In 2006 I wrote an article about a relatively new but spreading problem: bed bugs. Since I wrote that article the problem has gotten bad enough that it has sparked a whole industry of detection and extermination of bed bugs and has led to hundreds of articles all over the mainstream media reporting on this growing problem. But this has led to misunderstandings and some shady businesses as well. This article is designed to help you avoid bedbugs if possible, and get rid of them if you do get them. The problems continues to get worse. Every week I see sveral mattresses and couches wrapped in plastic laid out (unnecessarily!) on the street to be discarded, probably due to a bed bug scare or infestation. The last few weeks alone I saw some 20 mattresses as well as considerable amount of bedding and a couple of couches all tightly wrapped up and being needlessly thrown out. I assume most of these are due to bed bugs.

In 2010 the building I live in had a bed bug scare. It seemed at first as if several apartments were affected with possibly two separate initial infections (at opposite ends of the building). Turns out that probably only one apartment ever had them, but had the building's managing board not acted rapidly it would have spread. As it was the managing board spent tens of thousands of dollars to pinpoint possibly affected apartments and proactively treat them. During that time we became quite informed about the pests. More recently we had another scare. That turned out to be nothing. But it reinforced our knowledge of the issue. More recently an alert shareholder saw a single bed bug in their apartment. They caught it and put it in a bag so it could be identified. So far it seems like that is the only bed bug to make it in, but the building is spending hundreds of dollars to make sure.

The bad news is the problem continues to spread and a lot of what is being done about it is actually the wrong approach. For example, throwing away your mattress if it has bed bugs is unnecessary and it helps spread the problem because you have just put the bed bugs out on the street where they can get on people's shoes (including your own to re-infest your own home). The good news is there are some very simple things you can do that will prevent them from coming into your living space. Three relatively simple and inexpensive methods greatly reduce your chances of getting them: mattress covers, diatomaceous earth, and rubbing alcohol.

First, the problem...

From the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene website:

Bed bugs are small insects that feed on the blood of mammals and birds. Adult bed bugs are oval, wingless and rusty red colored, and have flat bodies, antennae and small eyes. They are visible to the naked eye, but often hide in cracks and crevices. When bed bugs feed, their bodies swell and become a brighter red. In homes, bed bugs feed primarily on the blood of humans, usually at night when people are sleeping...

Typically, the bite is painless and rarely awakens a sleeping person. However, it can produce large, itchy welts on the skin. Welts from bed bug bites do not have a red spot in the center--those welts are more characteristic of flea bites...

Although bed bugs may be a nuisance to people, they are not known to spread disease.

That is also good news. Bed bugs are not disease vectors like mosquitoes. They are just irritating in the extreme...and they can really infest an apartment if not properly addressed. But no one gets sick or dies from bed bugs.



WHY NOW?

The problem first became wide spread in NYC in 2005...after a lull of about 60 years where there were few or no reportings of bed bugs in NYC, one of the current epicenters. Since then the epidemic has taken off. Now I have heard from one professional that one out of every eleven apartment units in NYC has bed bugs. Let me emphasize that I was sounding the alarm early on this one!

Why the sudden epidemic? There are several possible reasons. Some have tried to blame it on immigrants. That is almost certainly not true since here in NYC we have a pretty constant influx of immigrants and the influx of bed bugs has never correlated with influx of immigrants. If this was going to be a major source of spread, there would not have been a 60 year lull. NYC has always been a major immigrant hub (I know my ancestors came through here) but the upswing in bed bugs seems to have only started around 2005 for NYC. But elsewhere in the country the upswing started more like 2000, according to a an article from Time Magazine back when I first looked into this. Blaming immigrants is just plain unfounded.

One aspect of the sudden rise of the bed bugs is simple evolution. I have often reported on how the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, particularly in animal feed, has led to a huge emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria. This has been a huge problem and is one reason why I now only buy meat and chicken raised without antibiotics. Well the same thing happens with insects. Overuse and misuse of pesticides in America and abroad has led to bed bugs that are resistant to most pesticides. For the record, same goes with lice. Those horribly toxic shampoos used for lice are mostly useless by now because the lice have evolved resistance against them. The proper use of a lice comb and careful removal of eggs is the only truly effective way to remove lice. And many treatments for bed bugs are ineffective for the same reason. In fact, many scientists believe that over use of insecticides is exactly why we are having our current influx of bed bugs.

Another aspect that I suspect may be going on is global warming. Simple fact is that most insects prefer warmer temperatures. I want to emphasize that this is speculation. The evolution of pesticide resistance is not speculative but pretty much established fact. But global warming HAS been shown to be the cause for the spread of many pests, and it almost certainly will eventually be shown to play a role for many more. So I am betting that rising temperatures have helped the bed bug infestation spread.

So what can you do? I'm going to work backwards, from treatment to detection to prevention. Why? Because if I give you an idea about how awful the treatment and expensive and potentially inaccurate the detection, prevention will sound much better to you. And honestly the more we all work to keep these things under control the more likely it will be we can limit them. Remember that if your neighbors get them, you will probably get them too if you aren't actively trying to prevent them (diatomaceous earth is the best way to prevent spread from a neighbor!).



TREATMENT

There seem to be three main treatments. All three are horrible to go through and hugely expensive. They are basically heating, freezing, and poisoning. I guess there is a fourth which you can use for any items that can't stand up to the other treatments: bag everything for 2 years. That is about how long it takes to kill bed bugs by starvation. I did notice that the more convinced exterminators were that we didn't actually have them, the more they backed off that number. Eventually they seemed to settle on 6 months. But there has been research that showed even after a year sealed in a bag with no food or water, the researchers could still find bed bugs not just living, but actually reproducing! They are tough SOBs. So sealing them off requires two years to be absolutely sure. One exterminator suggested adding moth balls to the bag you put things in can help speed up the process, but I have not confirmed that. Probably 6 months with mothballs in the bag is good enough, but not as certain as 2 years.

Also, I notice many homes in NYC with mattresses thrown out. I suspect this sudden increase in mattresses being thrown out is due to bed bugs. But there is no need to throw out a mattress because mattress covers will seal them in, away from you, until they die. Mattress covers are necessary anyway (see below) so just put them on and keep the mattress. It saves money and keeps them from spreading to other parts of the neighborhood. Mattress covers are cheaper than a new mattress!



Treatment usually involves bagging almost everything you own for months to years, punching 1 inch diameter holes in many of your walls, then either getting poison all over everything, including inside your walls (and it takes WEEKS to fully clean up), or raising the temperature in the whole apartment above what bed bugs can tolerate, or lowering the temperature in the whole apartment to below what they can tolerate. Only bathrooms and kitchens are largely left untouched (as long as you seal them off so the poison doesn't get in them). All of these treatments are horribly inconvenient, expensive and disruptive. Best to avoid them if you can by preventing bed bugs altogether!

DETECTION

Detection has issues as well. Usually what is first obvious is the itching from the bites. Then people will notice the bugs' very dark droppings (basically like dried up flakes of blood...yeah...your blood if you've got itching bites). By the time you are noticing them, it is likely that you have a pretty bad infestation. People won't always see them because they mostly come out at night, but a really bad infestation they will be everywhere, day and night. The earlier you catch the problem the easier it is to deal with.

There are two expert methods of identifying them: trained people and trained dogs. The dogs have been getting a lot of press these days, and they CAN be very effective. The dog's nose is an amazing thing, and they really can be trained to sniff out anything and tell you about it. There are bomb sniffing dogs, drug sniffing dogs, and now bed bug sniffing dogs. The flaws are that they are extremely expensive and, though potentially extremely accurate, they are in practice sometimes very inaccurate. Dogs basically want food and attention. They don't care about accuracy...they just want to be rewarded, so they are easily distracted. We are pretty sure that our building had many false alarms because of a dog whose handler was less than professional. I am not saying it is a scam (though that can happen if the same company offers detection and treatment!) or the dog was poorly trained. It just has a built in inaccuracy which has to be kept in mind. The dogs are VERY accurate IF AND ONLY IF they are properly trained and handled and not distracted.

When my building had a second scare I had the chance to better understand a good vs. bad use of a bed bug sniffing dog. I bet most of these dogs are almost as well trained as bomb or drug sniffing dogs, so have a lot of potential. But the handlers also have to be properly trained. The first time I personally witnessed a bed bug sniffing dog and handler team doing its thing I felt both dog and handler were performing for an audience and I felt they were giving false positive readings because of it. It seemed very unprofessional. Was the handler inexperienced? Or simply unprofessional? Or was it an outright scam to drum up business for his company? I don't know.

The second year we had an issue a different dog and different handler came (though from the same company). This time they seemed MUCH more professional and the handler limited the number of people around the dog to limit distractions. He did not detect bed bugs in our building. The difference was very clear between a handler who was showing off and one who was doing his job.

Bottom line is this: the dogs are potentially really accurate, but the handlers are variable, even from the same company. My advice is a.) get an inspection from a different company than you will hire to deal with any infestation and make that clear from the start. Otherwise the company you hire to detect a problem will be the same company that handles the problem, creating a conflict of interest. And b.) watch the dog and handler...if they seem to be playing to an audience there is a problem. If they seem to be open to one person observing but focused on keeping the dog from being distracted, then they are more trustworthy. Beware of show offs, whether dog or handler.

What about human detection? People will miss the very beginning of an infestation that a dog could catch, but they do the inspection in a smarter manner and so can be more accurate overall once an infestation has gotten going beyond the first stages. Dogs are potentially more accurate but sometimes people do the inspection in a smarter way. So it's a toss up which to hire.

But the bottom line is if either a dog or a person with training in detection tells you you have them, it is really hard not to say yes to the treatment because far, far better safe than sorry. The earlier you catch it the easier it is to stop, so if you want to wait and see if the dog or person is right, you may find yourself with an out of control infestation which will be even harder and more expensive to deal with.



PREVENTION

Oh, and is now a good time to mention bed bugs are ALL OVER THE CITY? One out of every 11 apartment units in NYC. Hotels. In the UN building. In places of work. In movie theaters. The good news is that they don't really move around so much except at night, so they aren't jumping from person to person much. Though the darkness in movie theaters is a concern...when you come back from a movie, be particularly careful about your shoes, coat and pants cuffs. Treatment with rubbing alcohol (mentioned below) will help.

The main vector is bringing into your apartment items that have already got them living inside them...furniture, books, etc. But one exterminator I talked to believed people's shoes are a major vector. So they aren't spread so much directly from one person to another (like lice) but by bringing infested things into your building.

So what can you do to prevent them from coming into your living space?

First be really, really careful scrounging anything, particularly furniture. Now I have scrounged a lot of stuff in my time...still do from time to time, but now I am highly careful. If a book has bed bugs, it is pretty easy to detect...if you look. You will see the black specs that are their droppings. Furniture can be harder, but there are treatments if you really want to bring a scrounged piece of furniture into your apartment. Heating (if you can), rubbing alcohol, or diatomaceaous earth (see below). But my wife figures the safest is to not scrounge at all.



Mattresses and pillows can be sealed up. This costs some money, but if you get good mattress and pillow covers, even if you have an infested mattress or bed you can just leave it in the cover and they will eventually die and you keep the bed from being their favorite habitat. These covers are the most recommended action you can take. When exterminators heard we already had them, they were 90% sure we couldn't have a problem. So covering your mattresses and pillows with high end versions of these covers will really protect you. This is a cost you probably don't want to skimp on. And a good cover shouldn't be uncomfortable. It also keeps you from having major dust mite problems, something almost all beds have and can make allergies worse. So the mattress and pillow covers are good all around, reducing chances of bed bug problems and reducing allergies.



But shoes are an issue as well. One exterminator said you should always take your shoes off when you come in and if possible place them in a container with diatomaceous earth (again...see below). He believes that (scrounging an infested bed aside) this would prevent almost all spread of bed bugs. Not sure if that is true, but it certainly would help. Another exterminator I and others talked to suggested buying 90% or higher rubbing alcohol (a higher percent than the usual stuff you get, which is 70%) and putting some in a spray bottle in your entryway. Spraying your shoes every time you enter your home (particularly after being in a movie theater), your luggage when traveling (inside and out, before and after traveling), and any furniture you bring in can greatly limit the chances of bringing bed bugs into your home.



Now we come to some amazing stuff that I was dubious about but have seen in action. Diatomaceous earth is one of the best treatments to protect your home from ANY crawling bug, from ant to cockroach to bed bug, from entering. Diatoms are tiny animals that live in the ocean and create a silica shell. These shells are beautiful (if you have a microscope to look at them with), elaborate, and very sharp. These animals die, fall to the bottom of the sea, and form thick beds of diatom skeletons. When plate tectonics (earthquakes and continental drift) brings these deposits up above sea level, they can be mined. These deposits of tiny silica skeletons of long dead diatoms are called diatomaceous earth. It is a white powder of very tiny sharp skeletons. To us the sharpness, at worst, will irritate our skin a bit. It can't really harm us (in fact some people eat the stuff to cure or prevent intestinal parasites, but I am not sure this is okay!). But to something small like an insect, it is like the death of a thousand cuts. The coating around an insect that helps keep in moisture gets pierced and they dry out and die.



You can get diatomaceous earth online or in a hardware store. It isn't that expensive. If you even get so-called "food grade" diatomaceous earth it can be used in a kitchen because it is considered so harmless.

We got diatomaceous earth and I basically spread it around the entire perimeter of every room in our apartment, making sure to get it into every crevice. The problem is this stuff gets everywhere. I found it irritating to my lungs at first, but once most of it settled and we vacuumed up anything not around the edges of a room (this is also good for making sure your vacuum isn't infested!) that went away. Next time I use it so liberally I will wear a face mask. For months after I spread the stuff around, the diatomaceous earth was still visible in the crevices and corners around many of the rooms but isn't a problem in any way.

And the effectiveness? Within one day of spreading it around every single crawling insect, including ants, confused flour beetles, and cockroaches, just disappeared from our apartment. And they didn't come back for about a year. We live in a basement apartment, so we get insects every year and always have a kind of on going war with them. Nothing major, but we have to be vigilant. But after spreading diatomaceous earth, all crawling insects disappeared for a full year.

This year we started seeing some ants again and I spread diatomaceous earth next to the sliding glass door and our basement windows. And again all crawling insects just disappeared. I still see plenty of ants outside, but none have come inside. And no cockroaches for a more than year now! In NYC...almost unheard of. The stuff works.

So if most of NYC put their mattresses and pillows into bed bug covers, took off their shoes and put them in containers of diatomaceous earth or sprayed them with 90% or higher rubbing alcohol when they got home, and spread diatomaceous earth around the edges of their apartment walls, I am betting they would find many pests would be greatly reduced from their apartments. Bed bugs, ants and flour beetles are hard to get rid of. Diatomaceous earth does it. And it isn't the kind of thing that is easy to evolve a resistance to so it won't lose its effectiveness over the years.

So there you go. Together we can all fight bed bugs. Hope this helps!


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Booze and Biofuels Meet: Making Whiskey and Fuel Side by Side

Now this is the kind of entrepreneural spirit of innovation that I wish we had more of in America. But it falls to Scotland to start the process. A Scottish company is setting up to use the waste products from the whiskey industry to make a biofuel that can be used in existing car engines with a far smaller carbon footprint than using petroleum based gasoline. Good for the environment, good for energy independence, good for the economy, and it creates jobs as well (see, THAT'S how it's done!). From BBC News:

A new company has been formed to commercialise a process for producing biofuel made from whisky by-products.

Edinburgh Napier University's Celtic Renewables Ltd will initially focus on Scotland's £4bn malt whisky industry to develop biobutanol and other chemicals.

The company said biobutanol could be used as a direct substitute for fossil-derived fuel...

Celtic Renewables is now working with Scottish Enterprise to produce the biofuel from sustainable resources on an industrial scale.

Its fermentation process uses the two main by-products of whisky production - 'pot ale', which is the residue left in copper stills, and 'draff', the spent grains...

Research has suggested biobutanol provides 25% more power output than the traditional bioethanol.

Hear that? Why aren't we doing this in America? You don't even have to have specially modified engines to use the stuff. It can directly substitute for the stuff OPEC and their Republican allies have addicted us to. The article does include a small dig at the rest of the world:

Mr Ewing said: "Turning our whisky industry's by-products into raw materials for sustainable biofuels which can be used to power ordinary family cars is an example of the sort of innovative thinking Scotland excels in."

Yep...I really think America, led by the anti-education, anti-science, anti-small business Republicans, has lost the innovative spirit it had through most oft he 20th century. Republicans just want us to keep on being addicted to oil and want most of the profit to go into the pockets of the 1%. And they are willing to cut education and science to do it.

But maybe Jack Daniels wants to sign up to be next in line. They can help the planet and create local jobs in Tennessee. I'd certainly drink to that!

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The Lesson South Carolina Taught Us

Newt "traditional values, nudge nudge, wink wink" Gingrich's success in the South Carolina Republican Primary taught us that Southern Republicans hate traditional marriage. I expect them to finally endorse same sex marriage very soon.

Either that or this whole Republican lip service to "traditional values" is nothing but a load of hypocritical bullshit. Then again their claims of "fiscal responsibility" are about as credible as Newt's support for "traditional values."

Why would ANYONE trust a Republican anymore?

THE Key NY Race of 2012: Lew Fidler for State Senate

Lew Fidler has finally officially announced his bid for the March 20 special election to replace the corrupt Carl Kruger. And let this be my official endorsement of Fidler and my call for my fellow reform and progressive Democrats to give him a hand.

Current City Councilmemer and candidate for State Senate Lew Fidler has intrigued me for some time. He and I are often on the opposite side of some of the divides in the Brooklyn Democratic Party, but his ability at times to bridge those divides and at times be a better spokesperson for the reform side than I am has impressed me. At two County Committee meetings in a row he was one of the strongest reform voices and the one most critical of the machine despite his machine ties. Of course it put at risk his machine ties, but he had no fear of that risk and preferred standing on principle rather than take the easy route. Not sure he ALWAYS does that, but it is clear that he has little fear and does not care too much about the easy route.

And the key thing for me was that he stood up to the machine, right in its face, several times and though this pissed off party boss Vito Lopez, Lew is too strong and too much of a fighter for Vito Lopez to take on. And I think that really is key: Lew Fidler doesn’t fear Vito Lopez and, if Vito fears anything after all he has been through, he may feel just a twinge of it when faced with Lew. I see Fidler as the only person who just might be able to bring Vito down (it would be a tough fight!) and Vito knows it, too. If nothing else, Lew has made clear to Vito’s face that Lew can and will stand up to a challenge from Vito. That is someone I want around.

Here, thanks to my friend Raul Rothblatt, is footage of Lew reaming the machine he is often allied with for going too far:



And I would love to see Lew Fidler go up against Republicans with that same lack of fear and make them feel the slight twinge that Vito may feel in Lew’s presence these days. Make no mistake, even though Fidler is far from as progressive as I would like and is certainly a moderate, Republicans do NOT want to face him in the State Senate. I’d say between Diane Savino and Lew Fidler speaking their minds with no fear, with intelligence and with no nonsense, Republicans would have many a bad day in the State Senate. Well and good and the best reason to support Lew.

But Lew Fidler has also always been open to discussing my criticisms and we have had many good discussions by email. Far more than many politicians he answers my emails and takes the time to discuss important issues. He doesn’t only listen to people who agree with him and THAT is also a quality I like.



I went to Lew Fidler’s official announcement for State Senate to replace the disgraced and disgraceful Carl Kruger, who I think should have been ousted LONG ago. In discussions with Lew long before it was clear he would run once Kruger was out, but it is good to see it official. I could have done without his opening act and some of his supporting cast, but those are people I am rather infamous for opposing sometimes quite vocally to their face. Lew is much better than some of the supporters who showed up at the announcement, and there were a few prominent folks I respect. Again, since Lew and I have often been on opposite sides of the reform-machine divide, it can be expected I may find myself nauseated by some of his creepier supporters (Marty Markowitz, disgraced judge Seddio and Dominic Recchia to name the three hardest to stand near), it is clear to me that they are there on Lew’s terms, not the other way around.

And for the record, here are my wife and me going up against disgraced judge Seddio of the Vito Lopez machine at the same meeting that Fidler did his thing in the video above:



Yeah...ain't my wife wonderful! AND she is a Karate teacher! So don't mess with me or she'll come after you!

Lew Fidler’s opponent is Soviet born Republican David Storobin, who represents some of the worst the Republican Party has to offer. Besides being typical of Republican support of the richest 1% over middle class and working class Americans (hell, name ONE Republican who isn’t??), Storobin seems frighteningly sympathetic to white supremacists, specifically the Afrikaner Independence Movement. My wife wonders why a Russian Brooklynite would wind up so tied to the Afrikaner Independence Movement (and is rather surprised there could even BE something so lame and pathetic as an Afrikaner Independence Movement), and it does suggest that Storobin has gone somewhat out of his way to forge such a link. And many white supremacist groups (e.g. Stormfront) love Storobin, so any qualms I might have of a few of Lew Fidler’s supporters pales massively in comparison to the disgust I feel at many of Storobin’s supporters.

Gatemouth has been the main person highlighting the links between Storobin and white supremacists, a sadly all too common link in the modern Republican Party (and that 100 years ago may be have more common among Democrats). See for example:

http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/gatemouth_lays_down_the_gauntlet_a_challenge_for_david_storobin.html

http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/david_stormfront_storobin_whitewashes_immigrant_bashers.html

http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/the_lost_literary_legacy_of_david_storobin.html

Many are comparing the special election to replace the disgraced and disgraceful Carl Kruger to the special election to replace the rather foolish Andrew Weiner. And the comparisons are worth looking at partly as a warning (so far unheeded!) to Democrats and to look at the key differences.

The race to replace Anthony “step away from the keyboard” Weiner pitted Democrat David "Dry White Toast" Weprin (or should that be Dry Challah toast?) against Teabagger Bob “I never met a Billionaire I didn’t like” Turner. The race was a tough one because the district was trending fairly strongly Republican. Weprin was a weak candidate and fundamentally that is why he lost. But to outline the key reasons why Weprin lost and Weiner is replaced with a Teabagger are:

1. Weprin was a weak candidate
2. Progressives and reformers did almost nothing to help beat a Teabagger
3. The Vito Lopez machine did almost nothing to actually do their job and defeat a Republican
4. Religious Jews in the district betrayed Weprin (an Orthodox Jew) because they (ignoring huge volumes of Jewish History) put their own homophobic bigotry before even their own self interest
5. Weprin was a weak candidate.

Sadly, progressives and reformers in Brooklyn (and I consider myself part of both!) all too often get stuck in their own fantasies of finding the best progressive or reformer and will only too late realize that the consequences of their inaction mean another Teabagger screwing the 99% for the benefit of billionaires. That's what happened in last year's congressional race and I fear it will be a factor this year in the NY SD27 race.

Sadly the supposedly "Democratic" (if very undemocratic) Vito Lopez machine puts its own self interest and desire for power and patronage over defeating Republicans.

And also sadly, religious Jews often know more Torah than they do history and forget that when bigotry between minority groups divides those minotity groups, both groups wind up getting screwed. To borrow a phrase my wife often uses about Democrats, the religious Jews allowed themselves to be divided and conquered by the far more bigoted Republicans. I should note the one time I got troll rated to all hell was when I referred to this foolishness by religious Jews in their betrayal of Weprin, and it was largely my fault for various reasons. But the fact remains the religious Jewish community and their bigotries and their gradual shift to the right is something Democrats have been too long ignoring and we LOST A CONGRESSIONAL SEAT LAST YEAR because we were ignoring it.

Overcoming any one, let alone all, of these requires a strong candidate. And therein is the massive difference between the race to replace Weiner and the race to replace Kruger.

Lew Fidler is far from a weak candidate. Already the machine has shown they are not sitting this one out (despite Fidler's standing up to Vito Lopez to his face), so already Democratic turnout will be higher than for Weprin. Fidler also has been better able to navigate the Byzantine relationships within the highly divided and divisive religious Jewish community in Brooklyn than Weprin was, and so looks to do very well in the main group that defeated Weprin. I wonder if the reform and progressive Democrats will learn from last year's fiasco, but already most of the reasons why Weprin lost are swept aside by Fidler.

Storobin’s main source of support (Afrikaner separatists aside) is the Russian community, which is strong. But whereas Weprin seemed either willing to cede territory to his opponent or unable to contest it whether willing or not, Fidler on day one fearlessly heads straight into enemy territory by challenging Storobin for the Russian votes. Fidler doesn’t have to WIN the Russian votes, just make it a lot harder for Storobin to lock it up and Fidler has already succeeded at least part way in doing that.

I am by no means saying Fidler WILL win. On paper Fidler has an even tougher time than Weprin. But never underestimate the value of a strong candidate or the disadvantage of a weak candidate. Democrats tend to lose even against overwhelmingly good odds when they field weak candidates. They tend to win even against overwhelmingly bad odds when they field strong candidates. So I think this will be a hard fought race and Fidler is no shoe in, but my money is on Fidler. I supported Weprin (because honestly he would have made a good Congressman) but never thought he had a strong chance. With Fidler I think we have a good shot.

And maybe I can look forward to a combined Diane Savino/Lew Fidler assault putting the fear of G_d into State Senate Republicans and maybe some backbone into the Democrats.

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2011 New York City Council Human Rights Report Card

I found this buried in an email Rock Hackshaw sent around. This score card is from the Human Rights Project. The score card (in PDF form) can be found here.

The scorecard is VERY detailed and I can't do it justice in a short post. They cover homeless issues, race issues, gender issues including LGBT issues, poverty, etc.

Among the WORST rated council members is Chirstine Quinn. She gets a miserable 12% rating. Keep in mind this is the person who wants to be Tsarina...er, I mean MAYOR of NYC. She gets zero ratings for workers' rights, criminal/juvenile justice, disabled rights and voting rights and a very low score for housing rights. Is THIS what we want for mayor? Someone who is bad for workers, justice, disabled people, housing and voting rights?

In fairness, I want to look into the past records of former city council members who are competing with Quinn for mayor. Both Bill de Blasio and John Liu moved on from the City Council in 2009, both having refused to participate in Bloomberg's Third Term Power Grab the way Lap Dog Quinn did. So de Blasio and Liu BOTH are already better than Quinn on that issue alone to me. But let's compare Quinn, de Blasio and Liu in the 2008 and 2009 score card: (ranking system presented a bit differently each year it seems)

Christine Quinn: a mediocre 45% average score in 2008 and got a "C" for 2009.

Bill de Blasio: a mediocre 58% average score in 2008 (ranked 11th highest scoring council member) and a 2009 rating of "B" (8th highest scoring council member so made the top 10 list that year).

John Liu: an 61% score in 2008 (8th highest scoring council member so on the top ten list) and a 2009 rating of "A" (4th highest scoring council member, so also on the top ten list).

So Quinn is clearly the WRONG candidate for Human Rights. John Liu does BEST with Bill de Blasio coming in second. Note that Borough Presidents would not be rated on these score cards so I can't compare them.

The top scoring City Council members in 2011 are:

Melissa Mark-Viverito. Manhattan Council District # 8 – Democrat (Score: 90%)

Helen D. Foster. Bronx Council District # 16 – Democrat (Score: 88%)

Letitia James. Brooklyn Council District # 35 – Democrat (Score: 88%)

Jumaane D. Williams. Brooklyn Council District # 45 – Democrat (Score: 86%)

Charles Barron. Brooklyn Council District # 42 – Democrat (Score: 80%)

Brad Lander. Brooklyn Council District # 39 – Democrat (Score: 74%)

Gale Brewer. Manhattan Council District # 6 – Democrat (Score: 73%)

G. Oliver Koppell. Manhattan Council District #11- Democrat (Score 65%)

Jimmy Van Bramer. Queens Council District #26- Democrat (Score 65%)

I want to note that included on this list are council members I have agreed with and ones that I have disagreed with in the past. I will say that I am happy that Tish James is among the top, and congrats to Brad Lander, who I have had many a run in with, for making the top.

Let me emphasize a few things. First, one of the best parts of the score card is its analysis of the City Council process itself. It shows that basically a bill has little shot of even having a hearing let alone being voted on if it doesn't have either the support of the mayor or the speaker. This emphasizes something I have said MANY times: NYC has one of the weakest City Councils I have seen, almost 100% dominated by the mayor and his lap dog speaker, Quinn (hat tip to the attendees of my Eating Liberally group last night who used "Bloomberg's lap dog" to discuss Quinn). NYC is possibly the least democratic of cities. Now I have only seen it under Republicans like Giuliani and Bloomberg, so a don't know if it was different under a Democratic administration, but I somehow doubt it. Certainly it is clear Quinn, a Democrat, would be just as dictatorial as Tsar Bloomberg.

Second I want to emphasize that this scorecard doesn't cover ALL important issues, so I would not use this as my only way to judge a council member, but it does cover some extremely important issues, particularly ones taken up by Occupy Wall Street, so politicians who got a low score should look to their record a bit.

In particular I found myself checking up on politicians I endorsed or who are running for other offices soon. I also checked some of the folks I generally have not liked to see how my choices fare.

Margaret Chin, who I endorsed, got a 54% rating...not as high as I would have liked to see! Daniel Dromm is another one I endorsed (and recently saw at a fundraiser for John Liu) and he also got a not bad but not great 56%. I also endorsed Diana Reyna, and she gets a mediocre 30%. Debra Rose, who I endorsed but admit I came late to that race and was only weakly involved in her race, gets a 53%. Jimmy van Bramer I believe I at least initially endorsed gets a good 65% rating. Al Vann who I have criticized gets 59%.

Mathieu Eugene, who was a mediocre, hand picked successor to Yvette Clarke best known for finding it very difficult to prove his claims to having an MD degree, gets a low 24%. Sadly, Lew Fidler, who I have gotten to know and like, got a low 26%, mainly doing poorly on Voting Rights and Workers' Rights. My own city council member Steve Levin got a mediocre 28%. Again Voting Rights was one of his weakest points but so was criminal/juvenile justice. Peter Vallone, jr. gets a miserable 12%, competing with Quinn for worst city council members on human rights.

The horribly corrupt and nasty Dominic Recchia gets a mediocre 25% rating. Particularly bad on criminal/juvenile justice, voting rights and disabled rights.

Peter Koo, a Republican who took over a previously Democratic seat in Queens, got a miserable 16% rating. He was particularly bad on disabled rights, voting rights, workers' rights and criminal/juvenile justice. In general the handful of Republicans on the City Council scored very poorly. The highest was only 22% (Halloran) and most were in the 10-15% range. To be fair, though there are no highly rated Republicans on the council, there are plenty of Democrats who score as poorly, Quinn herself being a prime example.

These ratings aren't the only way we should judge candidates, but when someone gets consistently bad ratings (like Quinn, Recchia, etc) there is no way they deserve our support. Consistently good ratings (like John Liu and Tish James) should be taken into account when choosing candidates to support.

BACKGROUND

The Human Rights Project's mission is:

The Human Rights Project (HRP) works to improve the lives of New Yorkers living in poverty with a particular focus on women and people of color. We do this by monitoring and advocating for government compliance with universal human rights standards, especially the human rights to employment, housing, health, food, education and other economic and social rights.

HRP has been at the forefront of the U.S. human rights “movement” for the past several years, demonstrating new models of applying human rights in the U.S., and in particular in New York City, to effectively advocate for the City’s most vulnerable across a range of issues. The U.S. constitution falls short in guaranteeing the right to health, housing, education, standard of living and other rights necessary to live in dignity. In combination with a legacy of structural discrimination, particularly through race and gender, and limits on rights that are protected, those most vulnerable in society have little recourse. The human rights framework and tools bring new possibilities in the face of limited remedies, and hope where there is despair.

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Silly Christian Brawls, History and the Crimean War

When my wife and I traveled through Greece, Turkey and Israel, we visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This is one of the holiest places in Christianity, supposedly the site of Golgotha where Jesus was crucified. There is even a supposed post-hole where the cross was thought to be placed.

We were told an odd story about this church. It seems that several Christian sects cooperate, if that is the right word to describe the rivalries that result, to take care of the church. We were told that these various sects actually sometimes get into physical fights over who gets to sweep what parts of the church. I always assumed this was an exaggeration, but it seems it is literal, since the exact same kind of rivalry, this time between the Greek and Armenian Orthodox churches, erupted into a very silly brawl this very Christmas season, 2011, and was caught on film. From the church where Jesus was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem:



This isn't the first time, by ANY means that this has happened. From 2007:



Let me just say that this is the kind of thing that makes me so skeptical about organized religion...is THIS what Jesus was all about? Let me emphasize that THIS kind of crap makes organized religion (and it isn't just Christianity...brawls between Mitnagdim and Hasidic Jewish groups in the old country in the 19th Century were no different!) look outright stupid.

But these stupid, broom battles between Christian clergy have at times been part of international struggles leading to outright war. Specifically, it strikes me that this kind of stupid broom battle is a distant echo of some of the issues that led to the Crimean War. The Crimean War represents an early stage to the lead up to WW I and is one of the first instances of Britain and France acting as allies rather than enemies, something that became critical for WW I and WW II. Prior to the Crimean War, France and Britain were rivals or outright enemies for centuries, with only occasional moments of cooperation. The Crimean War, partly sparked by these kinds of stupid broom battles between clergy in the "holy" land, was the moment where France and Britain became firm allies, initially against Russia, and later along with Russia against Prussia/Germany and Austria.

The Crimean War was the result of the slow, steady decline of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was one of the longest living superpower of all history, spanning roughly 600 years. But that 600 years included about 250 years of strong, dominant expansion, some 100+ years of tenuous holding on to prestige as Europe caught up and surpassed the Turks, and then another 100+ years of clear decline. During the declining years of the Ottoman Empire, they were often kept alive by the fact that the European powers, generally Britain, France, Russia, Austria and Prussia/Germany, couldn't decide how the spoils would be divided if the Ottoman Empire actually collapsed. So rather than fight it out over the spoils, the European powers, in the last 100 or so years of the Ottoman Empire, preferred to prop up that failing Empire. So although various territories (like Wallachia, Serbia, Greece, etc.) might be detached from the Ottoman Empire and made part of another empire or made an independent state, the European powers refused to allow the entire Empire to fail simply because it would lead to a world war among the dominant superpowers over the remnants of the Ottoman territories.

So at various times Austria and Russia, Germany and Russia, Britain and France, Britain and Russia, etc. discussed how the Ottoman Empire should be carved up, usually no solid agreement could be reached that would avoid war, so the Great Powers helped the Turks survive. This is not to say that the Turks themselves played no role in this diplomatic and military game. They at times were very skilled at playing the Great Powers against each other to secure their own existence. But there were times where they were unable to act effectively and were saved only by the actions of outsiders.

Russia had long had designs on Turkish territory. Russia envisioned itself the rightful ruler of the Balkans (in opposition to both Austria and the Ottomans), the rightful protector of ALL Orthodox Christian sects (many of whom hated eachother, as the broom battle video above illustrates today), AND the rightful heir of the Roman Empire and thus of Constantinople/Istanbul itself. Peter the Great and Catherine the Great particularly articulated these claims and tried to carry them out, with only limited success. The Ottoman Empire was already declining at these times, so both Peter and Catherine the Greats could enforce some of their claims. But by no means all because the Ottomans still had some fight in them and no one else wanted Russia to be so powerful.

Nicholas I was another Tsar who wanted to exert Russia's claims over the Balkans, over Orthodox Christians world wide, and over what was once the Byzantine Empire. He tried making deals with Britain (then ruled by Queen Victoria), his main ally against their mutual rival France (ruled by Napoleon III) to divide the slowly failing Ottoman Empire between them. Britain was not ready for this to happen, so no deal was made between these two Great Powers. Austria was another power that wanted to carve up the Ottoman Empire, but already at this time Russia and Austria were competing, in the name of Orthodox vs. Catholic, Slavic vs. Germanic rule, over who would dominated the Balkans. So Austria and Russia were already starting the collision course that would ultimately spark WW I. But where everyone else fell was not yet clear. France tended to side against Russia. Britain tended to side against France. Prussia tended to also side against France. So had WW I happened before the Crimean War, you might have had Britain, Russia and Prussia against France and Austria with Turkey and Italy falling where ever they had the temporary advantage. But in the 1850's this all began to change. Not that the alliances that fell into WW I were yet formed so early, but one key alliance was formed, first in opposition to Russia and in support of Turkey, that later became the key to WW I. France and Britain, whose rivalry formed the basis of most wars and diplomatic interactions up until then, started forming a firm alliance.

The rivalry between France and Britain was initially a Medieval issue, where rulers from both sides had claims on the same territories due to competing feudal claims. The British royal family were originally the Dukes of Normandy, so had claims in France. The French royals also had ties to key noble families in England who had claims to the throne. So for centuries France and Britain were at odds. It was one of the dominant themes in European politics from roughly 1066 until the 1850's. Roughly for 800 years the British-French rivalry was THE key theme in Europe and beyond. Even the American Revolution was a sideshow of this rivalry and our independence is due to the intervention of France against Britain in their long rivalry.

Tsar Nicholas I, whose main rival was France and whose main ally was Britain and whose main enemies were Austria and the Turks, tried to arrange with Britain a division of Turkey behind everyone else's backs. It was from this discussion that the famous term "Sick Man of Europe" was coined to describe the Ottoman Empire. Britain and Russia disagreed on what was needed. Russia felt that Turkey needed a surgeon to carve it up and Britain felt that it needed a physician to cure it. Russia's insistence on carving up Russia ultimately drove a wedge between it and the rest of Europe, and that wedge started to form the alliances that would lead to WW I even though those alliances evolved over the years between the Crimean War and WW I.

The Russian view was that the end of the Ottoman Empire was inevitable, so why not plan in advance and carve it up. If Russia and Britain cooperated in this, then France and Austria could be excluded and Prussia would probably go along with the winners. This really was no different from what many other European leaders had seen for decades, including Napoleon I, Metternich, and many others. The decline of the Turks had gone on for a long time and the end was seen as inevitable for at least 100 years. So Russia was not unreasonable in their views, even if they were greedy. But no more greedy than Austria, Britain or France, all of whom wanted spoils from the Sick Man of Europe. Prussia was the only country that stayed SOMEWHAT peripheral to this interest in carving up the Ottoman Empire.

But Britain was not willing to see ANYONE get the upper hand in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, not even their ally Russia, so they opted for a continuation of the Sick Man. Tsar Nicholas I was not willing to see that happen, so did everything he could to force war on Turkey on Russia's terms. Overplaying his hand, he slowly forced Britain into an alliance with their arch-rival France against Russia. That Anglo-French alliance, inconceivable in the early 1800's, has essentially persisted until today and was a key factor in the Crimean War, WW I and WW II as well as the Cold War. Tsar Nicholas I and his desire for Russia's traditional claims against Turkey established one of the enduring and dominant alliances of the 20th century.

But what was the main issue? France had traditionally claimed to protect, as a dominant Catholic force, the Christians within the Ottoman Empire. This was the basis of a long-standing alliance between the Ottoman Empire and France dating back to the expansionist days of Turkey. But Russia's very existence depended partly on its claim to be the protector of all Orthodox Christians in the world, particularly in the Ottoman domains. This claim had generally been at odds with what the Ottomans themselves thought as well as with the French claims. So when the Latin and Greek clergy in Bethlehem and Jerusalem got into a conflict over who had the right to sweep the floors and fix the facades of the Church of the Nativity and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Russia used this as a way to exert its dominance in Ottoman territories. Needless to say the Ottomans objected. France, which had kind of ignored its claims of protection over Christians in the Ottoman Empire, awoke to the Russian threat and started preparing for war. So Russia and France were ready to go to war over sweeping rights, as it were, within Christian Holy sites within the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans were desperately trying to claim sovereignty over their own territory despite their near collapse. And Britain was trying to preserve peace, prevent anyone from taking an unfair share of Ottoman territory, and so wanted to prop up the Ottoman Empire.

When Russia clearly became the most belligerent power, using its naval force against Turkey, Britain felt compelled, against tradition, to side with France to preserve Turkey. From this came the Crimean War that embarrassed Russia, preserved Turkey, and cemented an alliance between France and Britain that was to dominate politics for the next century. So far the other alliances that initiated WW I (Germany and Austria, Germany and Turkey, France and Russia, Britain and Serbia) had not formed. But the French-British alliance that was to be critical to WW I and WW II and beyond was forged in the lead up to the Crimean War, in vague support of a traditional claim of France to protect the Catholic right to sweep floors in the churches in Bethlehem and Jerusalem. So those broom wars helped forge this key alliance.

The fact that Russia's other key rival was Austria started to form the Central Powers of WW I. The Russia-Turkey and Russia-Austria rivalries, combined with the battles over who would dominate the Balkans (Austria, Turkey or Russia, with Serbia one of the main local players) set the stage for WW I. Between the Crimean War and WW I the French/Russian and the British/Serbian as well as the Prussian/Austrian alliances were yet to form. And it was only because Prussia was allying with Turkey against Russia that Austria accepted Turkey, its traditional enemy, as an ally in WWI. Russia, as a traditional supporter of the Serbs, was MORE of a threat to Austria than Turkey in its decline ever could be, so Austria sided with Germany and Turkey against Russia. The French-British alliance, forged initially AGAINST Russia in the Crimean War, sided with Serbia against Germany and Austria, formalizing the sides in WW I. Italy could have gone either way, siding with France and Britain almost last minute.

Those alliances were NOT the same as in WW II, but they did set that stage. The French-British alliance continued and strengthened its ties with Russia despite the fall of the Tsars. The German/Austrian alliance became a key event in the lead up to WW II when Germany claimed not just Austria itself, but also some of Austria's German speaking territories (e.g. Czechoslovakia) for its own Empire. British protection of former Ottoman territories led to its ties with Greece, where the first Allied victories over the Axis occurred when the Greeks, with British weapons and uniforms, soundly defeated the Italian and Albanian allies of Germany. That Albanian-Greek fighting was something that was already occurring when various Albanian and Greek warlords were fighting for dominance as Ottoman control faltered.

So the silly broom battles among rival Christian sects in churches in Bethlehem and Jerusalem were one of several conflicts (the rise of Balkan nationalism and the fights among Austria vs. Russia, Albanians vs. Greeks, Greeks vs Greeks, Russia vs. Turkey) that led directly from the lead up to the Crimean War to WW I and through WW I to WW II and the Cold War. The key alliance that linked them all turned out to be the unexpected and new alliance between once arch-rivals France and Britain.

Among the sources for this article are:







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A Sad Note!

One of my first and most brilliant readers has died and I want to honor her memory.



Margaret was a Culture Kitchen blogger for awhile and, while there, was one of our best bloggers. She moved on long ago, and I always missed her presence at CK. But she went on to what she considered bigger and better things. In her 80's she discovered her public voice and I am proud I was one of the people who encouraged and helped her find that voice.

This comes late because I mainly interacted with Margaret Bassett by email. So if I didn't hear from her, I didn't think much about it. But I knew she was over 80. She was a subscriber to my Progressive Democrat Newsletter from the beginning soon after the 2004 election. She had seen me as something of a hope for the future in messaging, something I think she overrated me on, but I was flattered and tried to live up to.

Today I sent out a message to my subscribers that my writing of the Progressive Democrat Newsletter had clearly been on hold for over a month and I wasn't sure if/when it would come back.

One email bounced. It was the first time Margaret's email bounced in all the time she read my stuff. So it caught my attention immediately. It sent a shiver down my spine. So I did a quick google search and discovered what I feared...Margaret had died, back in August, at the age of 89. I cried.

[NOTE: Damn! In the preview I realize that a lot of the old material I post has formatting problems, but it is midnight and I am sad at her passing, and I don't have the attention span to fix everything...Margaret's brilliance speaks for itself even with formatting errors!]

Margaret was an original FDR progressive just like my grandmother. She was about 20 years younger than my grandmother, but clearly they had experienced many of the same things and their political lives had been very similar. Margaret somehow connected with my blogging and for a brief period I was her connection (from where she lived in Red Tennessee) to liberal politics. She wrote me often and we had long discussions by email from which she drew inspiration and I learned a lot. I quoted her in my writing, seemingly to her surprise and pride. She forwarded my newsletter to others, to my surprise and pride.

Eventually her blogger presence developed beyond my newsletter, extending to MyLeftWing, Culture Kitchen and Political Cortex, and then to OpEdNews where she became something of a force of nature. Most of my writing that ended up at OpEdNews was thanks to her. And she sent me a lot of their stuff as well.

But my favorite material from her was on the blog Culture Kitchen. I recruited her for Culture Kitchen. She was on it for only a brief period, but she participated in some amazing discussions about race in America that blew everyone away. I am sorry I can't link to these amazing discussions because Culture Kitchen is currently in limbo because of a conflict between our wonderful publisher and the (evil?) site host, but trust me, people of ALL races were moved by Margaret's comments on the history of race in America.

She left Culture Kitchen, to our loss, when she became active with OpEdNews. From what I gather OpEdNews gained from our loss. From then on she would occasionally comment on my Progressive Democrat Newsletter, more occasionally post something from my newsletter to OpEdNEws, and also would send me info from OpEdNews. For some years if I didn't hear from her for awhile I would get worried. In fact she was one of two people I would worry about if I didn't hear from. Margaret I worried about because of her age, and another blogger I recruited for Culture Kitchen, Leo Igwe of Nigeria, I worried about because he was a Humanist activist fighting Christian and Muslim fanatics in Nigeria. Leo has been beaten, arrested, and generally attacked over the years I knew him, so I learned to check in with him from time to time. Margaret always seemed so alive and almost immortal, so I stopped worrying if I didn't hear from her.

So it didn't even register that I had lost touch with her. I guess it doesn't matter, since she seems to have been alert and emailing up to the day before her death, so it isn't like I missed that she was dying. But somehow I wish I had caught on SOME time between now and last August. But I didn't and so today I found out. It hit me like a punch in the stomach.

This is the last article Margaret shared with me in the very last email I got from her back in May: http://www.alternet.org/story/151101/how_our_government_has_merged_with_corporations

But previous to that she had particularly thanked me for the intro I did to a December 2010 issue of the Progressive Democrat. She just commented on how much she liked it. This was the intro she liked:

Last week this headline was overlooked by too many people:

Auto Industry Bailout Saved 1.4 Million Jobs

Remember, Republicans OPPOSED this! Democrats passed the Auto Industry Bailout over Republican objections and THANK GOD they did because that saved 1.4 million American jobs. Now we need a Green Energy Stimulus, because that could CREATE a large number of American jobs, but of course Republicans tend to oppose ANYTHING that creates American jobs and instead support policies that help foreign oil companies, offshore banks and multi-nationals who outsource American jobs...

We must never let the voters forget this fact.

Democracy for America recently reminded me, in our of their fundraising letters, of a VERY important fact for all Democrats to keep in mind:

Looking at Congressional races in 2010, 96% of the Progressive Caucus won re-election while only 47% of the Blue Dogs won.

I happen to like some Blue Dogs, but the basic fact is that as a caucus they have made the dismal mistake of becoming too much like Republicans and when Democrats start to look too much like Republicans they eventually lose. Democrats win by clearly differentiating themselves from Republicans. Which leads me to another reminder...

For those who have read this newsletter for some time you know that I have often plugged a book that in some ways should be required reading for ANY Democrat: Drew Westen's "The Political Brain." Simply put the book analyzes how people vote and why, and shows how Democrats too often campaign in away that does not appeal to most voters even when most voters agree with the Democrats more on issues. Republicans, even though they usually take unpopular stands that hurt middle class and working class Americans, can often win the voters over because they campaign in a way that works better at getting votes. Drew Westen then outlines how Democrats can better appeal to voters while still being true to their values. For any Democrat who wants to win, read this book...now more than ever. And pass the book on to any Democrat you know of running for office or working on a campaign.

We're going to miss this guy:



Alan Grayson was one of the VERY few Congressional Representatives who really was completely up front, honest and told it like it is. He didn't hide the truth even when it made him unpopular. As I recall Harry Truman was admired for the same quality, even though it hurt him politically. I am proud that it is usually Democrats who are willing to put truth before popularity. Popularity comes and goes. But the truth is far more valuable. We need more people like Alan Grayson in Congress!

To me this was a run of the mill, off the cuff intro to my usual newsletter of facts, links and organizations to get involved with. In retrospect it was the last time my writing inspired her. That means something to me.

But looking back through our correspondence, I want to share a key email from 2007:

Article published Aug 29, 2007

We are all in this world together

Dear Editor:

Thank you for the editorial in the Aug. 22 issue, and also for the two thought_provoking letters you printed. Perhaps it is because the weather has been very hot and I spend time indoors reading, finding news online, and watching C_Span, but it seems to me that we are all more sensitive to a wider world with many troubles. Bridges fall. Hurricanes wreak havoc. Drought or floods destroy. And there’s war.

So I’m glad you take pen to paper, so to speak, to point out that reporters track the making and selling of weapons. This is not what we think of when we proclaim that a person should have the right to bear arms.

And through it all, we are talking about America in Iraq. I personally was adamantly against a pre_emptive strike into Iraq. I watched and listened as I heard how many months it would take to get the gear all in place for the invasion. What I wondered about was how difficult it would be to get the stuff back out. Of course, some would be used up. But how about explosives? Might they not be used for destructive reasons? The editorial, based on an AP report, gives numbers which make me think that guns multiply faster than rabbits.

It’s our country, and all of us in it need to think of ways to put an end to the folly. Would impeachment help? Should we just ride it out and then let the Democrats take the heat if they win the next election? So many questions.

To me, we must recognize that we are in this together. Let’s get real and waste no time in trying to shove the blame on someone else. Let’s think of positive solutions and expect our leaders to carry them out.

So I hope you will continue to lay out facts. During these past six years it seems that the media has given us few solid facts and a lot of opinions. And I hope if you do give us the hard truth that no one will shoot the messenger.

Yours truly,

Margaret Bassett

That was one of her letters she was proud of and sent me to circulate, and I DID circulate it.

Here is an email she sent me on immigration and a global perspective:

As a school girl, I spent summer Sunday afternoons in our empty schoolhouse, wondering what the pastel countries around the old globe were like. And I would pick a country and study what I could find in the World Book. All the while, I thought that the change of colors did not mean a big wall. More confusing still was whether various colors of people were expected to stay in their designated nations. Perhaps I came to this quandary because I saw real life evidence contradicting the lines. We all were from other states. Homesteading in our part of Wyoming happened after World War I. Our neighbors were from other states–Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, mostly. I reasoned our parents pioneered because they were looking for a better place to live.

In high school, I learned enough history to understand how religious freedom and better working conditions brought people across the oceans. They were largely the working poor and willing to become scullery maids and ditch diggers until they learned English and studied the Constitution. Then they could become citizens. Except—Orientals were discouraged and could work on railroads, but could not bring their families or gain citizenship.

In college, I learned the details of the 1924 immigration law. It was necessary to make a change because women had become voters in the US. They could become citizens of another country by marrying an alien, but they would have to give up their American citizenship. As a matter of fact, it was generally believed that all persons lost their citizenship of another country when they were naturalized. One way for men (women were still not in the military) to gain citizenship was to join the army and serve honorably. There were a lot of "ifs" in common lore about US citizenship.

After college and WWII, rules changed quickly to allow for those who sought relief from being displaced from earlier homes. They were generally referred to as DP’s, displaced persons. Prelude to that was the arrival of refugees during the war, if lucky enough to reach the other side of the Atlantic. My personal experience included weekends at Scattergood, the Quaker settlement at West Branch, Iowa which is the home of Herbert Hoover. Some of us students would spend time helping the Friends who were orienting recent arrivals of Jewish families. And there went my ditch digger analogy! Many of the men were doctors or professors. To polish their English was what they craved mostly, for they saw language as necessary to regain their former positions. It seemed incomprehensible to some that they would have to take refresher courses and pass new examinations to become licensed when they were well-established in their professions.

The Cold War brought other refugees, usually referred to as dissidents. And then the tide turned when Cubans and Haitians and later Central Americans claimed refugee status. By that time we had to recall what we had learned in high school history. The Monroe Doctrine had clearly emphasized that the Americas were for the Americans. During WWII, under the Good Neighbor Policy, those south of the border were courted for the contributions they could make in fighting totalitarianism. It became more than just semantics when my Latin American friends reminded me that it was incorrect to refer to citizens of the United States of America as Americans. They were Americans, too.

Fast forward to the demonstrations of the past few months. The rhetoric was heavy during the 2004 presidential campaign, but by 2006 there was action in the streets. I guess our country had a Latino problem.

Latino has become a term to describe someone who lives in the Western Hemisphere in some place other than Canada and the United States. So those who speak Spanish, Portuguese and French have an inclusive adjective. It tells nothing about country of origin. The term Hispanic narrows citizenship to those nations where Spanish is the official language. And still there is little that the words tell about a group of people who live in America and want to come to the United States.

The question of political importance at this time is how does the United States respond to a surge of population which comes from other countries, whether by legal or illegal means. They chance to make a living in our country better than in theirs, or else they wouldn’t uproot themselves from a culture they like. Their religion is universal. They may differ on who the next Pope should be, but they recognize that the Pope has a commanding presence in all parts of the world.

But, oh, us Gringos! We don’t understand that for centuries we have sent in the Marines to do what James Monroe, Teddy Roosevelt, and others declared to be in the interest of ourselves. After all, we stole a good part of our territory from the Mexicans.

And then there are the folks in places like Tennessee. Without Tennesseans perhaps the Panama Canal would not have been built, because that is where much of the labor came from. In that regard, I have an interesting story from my days of studying Constitutional Law in Iowa. One of my fellow students had a father from Tennessee and a mother from Panama. He was born in Panama, but not in the Zone. Did he have US citizenship? Should they have taken him to the Consulate when he was 21? (Never heard the end of the story, because by then 1945 had come and things were changing.)

I’ve lived in Tennessee since 1977 and I never hear about how Tennesseans helped make the Panama Canal. We do celebrate how Sam Houston, who once taught school a few miles from here, fought in Texas. He was Tennessee governor and is a big name in history.

But I’m hearing a lot about "those," "them people" or "Latinos." Folks who have lived here all their lives, worked hard, and enjoyed some success will speak about "the ones coming in" as though there is a threat. Largely it has to do with language. Why don’t they speak English? And why do they rent an apartment and then bring a whole bunch of others to live there too? It’s classic concern for "there goes the neighborhood." But the language makes a starting point for a debate over educating their children, providing welfare, and more classic gripes that have confronted other new groups of immigrants.

For my part, I don’t worry about the language. In my young, innocent college days I was pretty good in Spanish, even to translating El Cid, not that it helps me anymore than it does others who complain about not understanding. I do have a slight ability to detect country of origin according to accent. But dialect! Those people who espeak Espanish can’t understand each other at times.

So now we have to talk about a delicate issue. Is there animosity between Hispanics and African-Americans. In Chicago there were many Puerto Ricans when I lived there, and no love lost between them and blacks. After a couple of friendly attempts, I backed off from the explanation that Borrenquenos are US citizens, too. There was the reaction I have come to recognize as "hair standing on the back of neck." At some point in discussing generally how all people have good points and some a few strange ones, there comes a superstitious fear. And that will be what will accompany many voters to the booth this fall. I feel truly baffled about what politicians should and can do to make firm commitments on their position. We may decide that there was an ironic e1oquence in the Senate’s vain attempt.

But all of this has been a digression from my first paragraph. Where my heart was in the 30's is where my moral values take me in this century. However, I long ago gave up on believing that nations solve real problems of people who decide to breach borders. Actually, it can be said that nationalism is itself the problem. At this time, the Bush administration is looking at the enemy as having no borders. Why not? We have journalists without borders. Doctors without borders. Why not banditos without borders? Manuel Noriega and Osama bin Laden are both enemies of our Nation.

I get a little facetious about Nafta. Consider: now the textile industry moves its operation to Honduras; natives can no longer make a living in those factories so they go to Mexico; Mexicans are having a harder time of finding work so they cross the Rio Grande; and the "illegals" work for peanuts and make the Anglos mad for ruining the wages on their old jobs. And the irony is politicians talk about Nafta as needing a tune-up to see that labor is paid a decent wage and enjoys healthy working conditions. Duh!

I also want to post an email she sent me in Dec. 2005 that is interesting to review given what has happened since:

Your newsletter this week was, in Christian-speak, almost an epiphany. It reminded me of how much I took Al Gore's book to heart before the 2000 campaign. To be good stewards, the three ingredients of living are sometimes referred to as giving of time, talent and treasure. When you think of it, there isn't enough money in the world to heal an injured planet. Some can get jollies by taking their excesses to the recycle bin. But really all we have is ourselves in whatever form. And for a lot of us these days it starts at the keyboard. As long as we don't buy everything on the pop-ups.

There is a stealth issue, which most don't care to address. Rampant consumerism is what is messing up the nation. Any time one-third of GDP is considered to come from production and twice that much from consumers, we are headed for a meltdown. Yet, should we all start living within our means while saving some for our old age (Money can be described as congealed energy.), it's not just WalMart's stock which will plummet. If Bernanke refuses to print money for spendthrifts, those with the least of it are hurt the most. Before they beatify Greenspan I hope I can say that he did us no favor by making a red hot housing market. My observation is that Boomers, those who worry most about their entitlements, were conned by low interest rates. They cashed in 401k money to put in real estate. From my perspective their peers are the wheelers and dealers in politics and finance. I hope someone learns how to make a soft landing. And, for those who are raising young families, they've got a lot to think about before they answer all the Christmas ads with their plastic.

Well, that's my Scrooge message of the day. Keep up the good work!

You can see she was a bright, thoughtful woman!

Here is another fascinating email she sent me in 2005 while we were, over many months, still getting to know eachother:

David: There’s more heat than light coming out of Washington these days, and I tune in c-spans and PBS and wonder where we’re headed. Then I log on to my favorite back fence sites and that doesn’t help much either. Jim Lehrer tonight featured a piece asking editors from other part of the country how their readers saw the filibuster question, to which they mostly replied only the activists cared and it hadn’t touched most of the folks. "Grassroots" came into my head and I wondered about the term. The Nashville paper (not the Tennessean) said "folks" just hadn’t got interested in it yet. And then there’s little old me!

I’m a walking time warp. When my father homesteaded in Northeastern Wyoming in 1918 he was in his mid-thirties. My mother, whom he met out there was younger, but she too was 18 when WWI ended. My three siblings and I were all born before the stock market crash. When FDR declared a bank holiday I already knew about how some people in other states had lost their farms when the banks went out of business. By the time I was through high school, many of my men teachers had left for the service to get a better commission. Times were tough on the farms still. I worked my way through college for five years at the University of Iowa and got out just as VJ Day came. In Washington on my first real job, I saw government workers re-align their assignments because all returning veterans were given extra points when they applied for jobs. After that, I spent a maturing period in the City, with a year’s timeout in Copenhagen. I met my husband in 1952 when I took a trip out West for the summer. The sour taste of Joe McCarthy’s capers shoved me away from a future in international education. But I could always work. I was a good typist, and the first thing I learned in college was to be a good waitress. My husband and I followed resort restaurants in the beginning and then moved to Chicago in 1955 where we made a stake through 1977. Then we bought a fixer-upper in Maryville, TN. We had no company pensions, and I was too young for SS and Medicare for what seemed like a long time. We made it on the proceeds of a few investments and his Social Security check. I would be in deep trouble today except that in the 90's I was able to get ahead of the curve on inflation. It nearly flattened us during the 80's when double digit increases came for material to re-model the house. Now, I manage to pay fair market rent in the elder housing where I moved six years ago. I’ve been widowed 12 years (today, as a matter of fact) and could have moved easily, but I like it here. No family in the State but lots of friends.

When I took up gardening and canning and making our everyday clothes again, just as we had done in Wyoming, I didn’t feel out of place. My neighbors were just like the people I grew up around. Many of them were a few years older than I and I learned the way to live on Social Security and to fight the Medicare rules. After my husband died, and there were new younger families with children, I became involved in the lives of the young. It was not easy for working class families in the 90s. I could supplement their scarce time by giving what I hope would be enrichment. The children had things, but little else in my view. I cancelled all but basic cable and ordered edutainment CD’s after my sister gifted me with a computer. It is what I consider to be my way of paying back for 21 years of Social Security checks.

I lived in early life what can best be described as 19th Century. After formal schooling and some jobs I jumped to the 20th. I was just about ready to believe I was ready for Bill Clinton’s bridge to the 21st, when all of a sudden it feels like I’m somewhere after WWII. I mean everyone is hellbent on acquiring whatever has just been invented. Now, with credit cards, they don’t have to wait for payday. Many in the child-nurturing period are so busy trying to keep body and soul together that they don’t remember what they learned about the three branches of government. Some are anxious to get to the welfare office for supplemental help, as others are too proud to even let their neighbors know when they need food. It’s always been that way. I’m just talking about our county, which is surely not one of the poorest in the State.

Through all these years I have only been able to become a little educated because of my husband, who grew up in San Francisco. Orphaned at 9, he knew the ways of city living and, in good paperboy fashion, was also well aware of the ways of the world. It took him a long time to realize that the depression was hard for us country people too. Actually, he didn’t really understand until we moved down here. Oh, yes, he fell out of love with the Republican party and read Howard Fast’s novels during that time. When he reached maturity he moved to LA and worked in a defense factory during WWII, the same kind of work he followed in Chicago. I became a bookkeeper there and changed over to computer programming in 1966. The greatest job I’ve ever had was teaching high school graduates to program or operate computers. The students were many of them directly from housing projects on student loans and grants. I can’t say enough for LBJ’s Great Society. It made some real changes. The problem was it was not carefully monitored. Of course, there are excesses and Clinton was right to help rein it in. I have a hunch that Bush shoots for FDR’s programs because if he mentions LBJ’s he’d lose his so-called base. John Edwards wants to talk disadvantaged, and he may just be making some traction with his poverty group. I could make a case for myself as well. But no one can outdo Johnson’s upbringing.

What brought this on? It was when I wrote you about the Earth Day celebration in the Smokies and you replied that tourism is not a good economic base. Or something about like that. And I remembered that you said you were a city kid. Then I thought about the way the media learned to morph the map in red and blue. Sure enough, those states adjacent to water are bluer. Actually, they are wealthier because of global trade. The nation mimics the old tradition of town and country, meaning the people at the county seats ran the banks and sold the merchandise and elected the officials. Those in the country produced the goods (originally mostly food, but later industrial supplies) and climbed up the social ladder by sending the children to school and getting them jobs in town. Culturally, the rural folks knew they were superior because their kids worked hard and didn’t dance or gamble–or so the story goes. But those they called city slickers knew they had better homes and nicer clothes and could travel more. I recently read several of Sinclair Lewis’ novels, which are older than me. Whenever I re-read Elmer Gantry I realize how little things change.

So here I sit, still a country bumpkin worrying over whether Section 8 housing will be cut even more, and how the children should learn to like to learn, and whether there will be any channel on TV that the tired, hard-working, underpaid parents will watch besides Fox. In my spare time I check out MSNBC’s articles about why Wal-Mart stock is down and the predictions aren’t rosy. That gets me to thinking about the many hours I’ve pounded away on the Wal-Mart predicament. Is it possible people in Peoria, or wherever, are going to have to listen to what happens in Washington? Best regards, Margaret

Now here is the first email I have a record of, though I know we must have connected before. It is from November 2004, so it was one of the first interactions we had. Again, much insight and background from someone who has been around for some time:

The first tells about previous progressive movements which supplied candidates. I realize that Vermont has an existing party, and there is some movement around Madison, Wisconsin.

The second is something with which I have little experience. It catches my eye because the working poor (hard-working poor) are certainly the forgotten man and woman as far as I can see.

In the Teddy Roosevelt age, an economic shift to heavy industry created robber barons, and thus a need to come back to a sense of fairness. In the second phase, labor was becoming organized. World War I created more jobs, but more discontent with working conditions. To avoid the revolutionary trends in Europe, especially Russia, a more benign form of organization came about here through unions.

The curious part of the aborted movement in 1948 with Henry Wallace produced the same kind of Bolshevik scare, but I believe that unanswered civil rights questions were what drove the scare to a frenzy. My experience at that time was that to be associated with rights for colored people put one in the same cubby hole as with communist and fellow-traveler groups.

About the only advantage of being old is that one can see three waves, described by Toffler. The first, agrarian, required decent shipping facilities for livestock and crops as well as reasonable prices for farm implements. (I grew up on a homestead in Northeastern Wyoming, where we battled dust storms and the depression.) The second wave was the industrial age where a combination of machine and men mass produced a never-ending supply of labor saving devices. From the end of World War II to the advent of cybernetics, more and better planes, locomotives, trucks, etc. shortened distances and made goods accessible to more people. Workers were lured into corporate loyalty with the promise of retirement benefits and medical insurance. Not until the 70's did the price of company affiliation begin to backfire for both sides. We talked about the rust belt. Lifelong union members began to question the Democratic party and Reagan welcomed them to his shining hill. The third wave, incubated during World War II, became all important as soon as computers advanced past tubes to transistors to the current microchips. (I started programming computers in 1966 and worked on three generations of IBM equipment within the spate of a few years. The Olivetti ten-key adding machine I pounded 8 hours a day had over 50 precision springs in it. My husband worked in a plant making such parts. We escaped job crises only because we retired to East Tennessee from Chicago after 22 years.)

By the last quarter of the 20th Century, the global village concept was real. And thus we come to what will have to be dealt with before a progressive movement can flourish again. Just as in the past, when Americans could not ignore people of the ghettoes and slums forever, so now no nationality can ignore the cry of other nationals for a share of the earth’s treasure. I recommend reading Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber’s The World Challenge (Simon & Schuster 1981) which tells about the Near East’s rising up to assert that technology as the price we pay for oil and other basic materials. And it’s not just oil (OPEC) but other raw materials, and it’s not just the Near East but many underdeveloped nations.

Another author who has influenced me is Lester Thurow, an economist who in 1995 wrote a book on the future of capitalism. He outlined what he considered the main changes over the ensuing twenty-five years. Changes in demography (mature countries have a high percentage of mature citizens) and communication and transportation (commerce can cross national boundaries to grow wheat in Siberia as well as North Dakota) affect voters in real time. Globalization, which is here to stay, can be criticized but there is no way to stop it. Countries can help their nationals to adjust, but recognizing how to corral unbridled world commerce takes more than tweaking the safety net. With world wide business comes the need for world wide rules governing it. On a line stretched from competition to cooperation regarding this challenge, there must be very astute negotiation. The WTO and the IMF are acting from a position of weakness, which allows laissez faire to flourish.

How a new facet of progressivism can come about is problematic. It espouses a mixture of innovation and conservatism. If the rest of the world wants to have goods, services and opportunities equal to what we Americans have learned to cherish, it goes without saying that super-consumerism should be nobody’s first goal.

Under the surface I think citizens in this country realize the truth of sharing or fighting. Wars only use more of the precious resources. The twin realities of Iraq and economic well-being were debated in this campaign as though it were an either/or proposition. George W. Bush's assertion that both must be achieved–his recognition that people having a stake in their future will not have time to fight each other--has validity. That’s all well and good, but he’s trying to convince the Iraqis his war is different. Imperialism is the ultimate outcome from the way he goes about it. If we take a look at the article in The Nation, we can see that fighting each other is a recipe for decline of leadership. http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1124-10.htm

With a long history of solving problems in the USA by going to a place farther away, it’s not surprising that Bush would like to get to the Moon and Mars.

If you and I pursue this line of reasoning, I believe we must organize small groups of individuals, preferably online, who will help to shape the real issues for 2008. My summer was spent with a yahoogroup who answered the media when members perceived that it was giving false information. With a mixture of professional backgrounds and serious interaction we, and others doing similar work, probably did have some impact on the outcome of the election. Because Kerry lost, we have not known how to proceed. I suspect this group is not the only one which is essentially inactive but still so committed that it is trying to find a new approach to carry on.

Finally, I suggest the article in the Nation about Paul Wellstone. Possibly his legacy has something to help us in progressing toward new insights.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020527&s=nichols

I will end with the obituary from her beloved OpEdNews:

The following obituary was provided to Opednews by Dr. Annabel Agee to be shared with Margaret's beloved online community:

Margaret Ems Bassett

02/14/1922 -- 8/21/2011
"Margaret Ems Bassett, age 89, quietly passed away at her residence in Maryville, TN, on Sunday, August 21, 2011. Born in Gillette, WY, on February 14, 1922, the eldest of four, Ms. Bassett is preceded in death by husband William John Bassett, parents James Edwin and Fanchon Rosenstiel Ems, sister Norma Agnes Ems Cotter, and brother Robert, and niece Roberta Ems Salley. She is survived by her brother Morris Ems, niece Janeth Cotter Hernandez, niece Connie Cotter Rasmussen, niece Colleen Ems Morrison.

Ms. Bassett graduated from Campbell County High School in Gillette, WY (1940), received a BA degree in political science from State University of Iowa (1944), studied as a graduate student until August 1945, worked in international education until 1950, spent a year in Denmark, took numerous computer science classes, and completed an MS degree from Roosevelt University (1975). Ms. Bassett worked in Chicago from 1955 to 1977, at which time she and her husband retired to Tennessee.

Her lifelong interest in political philosophy was reflected by her active role as editor for almost five years on OpEdNews (OEN), an online platform for which she wrote 68 articles and posted almost 4000 comments. Also to her credit, the content she generated for OEN was viewed over 700,000 times. Margaret's most recent OEN activity was logged on the Friday evening before her passing on Sunday. In her own biographical statement for OEN profile, she noted that her early introduction to computers (1966) has served her well in keeping up with "the requirements for modern communication." She said that she hoped to find "some good coming off her keyboard into the lives of those who come after her."

She will be missed by many of the residents of Maryville Towers, a senior housing facility where she has resided since selling her home in 1999. Many of her neighbors and friends will remember Margaret as the long-time organizer/leader of the Reminiscing Writers Group at Maryville Towers."

I would like to remember this wonderful woman. I think a fitting tribute would be a contribution to Wellstone Action or Progressive Majority. I know these were groups we both discussed and admired a lot, though I think more because they were my favorites. I am not sure what she would say was her favorite tribute, but I know these would be good enough in an imperfect world she knew and loved so well. Please join me in donated to these groups in Margaret Bassett's name.