American Idol, American Poverty

So tonight was the annual 'Idol Gives Back,' a kind of telethon. According to Simon Cowell, 'IGB' raised $15 million for a number of worthy causes, mainly projects sponsored by Save the Children.  


For me - and Ariadne - the show was half impressive - $15 million is a lot of cheese - but half embarrassing.  Tonight's show focused on Kenya, Congo and other third world places that lack everything.  But IGB also focused on Appalachia, the inner city, and rural parts of Mississippi and Arizona.  It was an embarrassing display of poverty and neglect in the wealthiest country the world has ever seen.   


The low point had to be the teacher in southern California - a married public school teacher with a house, mortgage and two kids - who has to depend on a local food bank.  A working American serving his community that has to rely on a hand out, on free food, to fight off hunger.  Is there anything more embarrassing - or damning - than that?


The plight of these Americans looks even more stark when compared to a glitzy show - on Fox no less - like 'American Idol.'  But at least they are giving back, buying thousands of bed nets to fight Malaria in Africa, books in Appalachia, and sponsoring mobil health clinics in rural parts of the United States.


It also makes one wonder how we as Americans can put up with so much poverty?  The tea baggers whine about being taxed too much when we have teachers - whose salary is paid by taxes - dependent on free food in order to teach our children.  


Want to complain about taxes - complain about them being so low that a teacher can't afford to feed his family.


More Idol

• One odd sight and sound was Mary J. Blige singing 'Stairway to Heaven.' She did a pretty good job with that song, as she did with 'One' by U2.  She usually oversings when performing her trademark shlocky and overproduced modern R&B but Blige shows some restraint and more range when singing rock and roll.  
• Ellen Degeneres is funny.

NBA Playoffs

Hard to get that excited about the NBA playoffs.  The Wizards demise caused me to stop paying attention to the league months ago. And unlike the NCAAs, with a one-and-done format guaranteed to produce upsets, the NBA playoffs are the opposite. Hard to hide flaws in a seven-game series, and harder to find upsets.


As usual, the east playoffs look unappealing as we wait for the inevitable match up of Vince Carter's Orlando Magic and Antawn Jamison's Cleveland Cavaliers in the conference finals. The other six teams in the east playoffs each have serious problems: Boston is too old, Atlanta very weak at the point and a few years away in terms of maturity; Milwaukee could have made some noise if Bogut was healthy but he's not and they won't; Charlotte is a less-talented version of the Hawks but with even less playoff experience and a big whole in the paint; Miami has one great player and no one else.  


The one intriguing team outside of Orlando and Cleveland is Chicago.  When healthy they feature some great young talent.  Injuries caused them to settle for the 8th spot opposite Cleveland so their trip to the playoffs will be short, this year.


The conference final will go seven, but it's hard to pick against LaBron James - especially with help from Antawn Jamison - so expect Cleveland to make the NBA Finals.


The west will be a slightly different story with at least 2 teams, Brendan Haywood's Dallas Mavericks and George Karl's Denver Nuggets, and perhaps everyone's sleeper team the Phoenix Suns, capable of giving the Lakers an honest run for their money.   


Like the east, don't expect any early upsets.  But unlike the east, the west WILL feature some compelling first round match ups such as the Spurs-Mavs and Nuggets-Jazz, and an entertaining one in the Lakers versus Kevin Durant's Oklahoma City Thunder.  


The conference semi-finals will be even more entertaining featuring a final four of the Lakers vs the Nuggets and the Mavericks taking on the Suns.  Every one of those games will be worth watching.  


I like Chauncey Billups taking down the erratic Lakers and go with Haywood and Caron Butler over the Suns.  Like all lefties I want to root for Steve Nash but the Mavs are too deep; that team features Nowitzki, Kidd, Marion, and Butler. 


I'm sticking with the Mavs to win the conference final, too, so it will be a Tar Heels AND Wizards reunion as the Cavs meet the Mavs in the Finals.


Break Up The Nats 


These are the glory days for our hometown Nationals.  At 7-6 it like 2005 again!  Except for Jason Marquis the Nats have actually gotten good starting pitching lately, especially from Livan Hernandez but also from John Lannan and tonight from Craig Stammen.  Only 83 more wins this season and it's on to the playoffs! 

Accountability

Lots of things to mull over regarding accountability in today's Sunday papers, both in Greece and here in the US.


Regarding Greece, accountability has never been a virtue at least in modern times.  Ancient Athens did hold folks accountable. Every year they would vote on among other things who they wanted to expel from the city.  Names were written on a broken piece of pottery - that's what 'ostracism' means, broken pottery - and who ever got the most votes had to leave Athens.


But in modern Greece accountability is very weak.  After the doomed invasion of central Asia Minor after World War I - Greece was given northwestern Asia Minor including Smyrna in recognition of ethnic Greek majorities there and for being on the winning side of that war, but overdid it by invading central Turkey and getting their butts kicked and expelled, with many civilians massacred - members of the military were held accountable but not the royalist rulers who ordered the invasion.


After the Nazi's withdrew from Greece at the end of World War II, the collaborators who governed the nation were never prosecuted or even fired.  The Greek resistance was led by the left, including many Communists.  The collaborators who worked with the Nazi's told the Brits and Americans who entered the newly liberated Greece that they should be kept in place to fight the Communists.  The US and UK said okay, and a civil war took place when the left (resistance) and right (collaborators) could not work out a political agreement.


I think Greece is the only country in Nazi-occupied Europe that did not prosecute or at least disqualify from running for office Greek quislings.


That legacy is alive in well in Greece, and you see it in everything from the comical way Greeks park on the side walk, knowing that they can't get towed (the streets are too narrow) and there are no consequences for not paying a ticket. 


And there are serious problems for the state when thousands if not millions of Greeks fail to pay income taxes. The low payment of income taxes - some estimate that 40 percent of Greeks do not file income tax returns - severely hurts a country famously trying to solve a serious economic crisis and pay their bills, obligations and fund their generous pensions.


That lack of accountability and the belief that not everyone is playing by the rules is one reason Greeks are so cynical about their own nation, and why Greece is in serious financial trouble.


Here in the US we face some similar issues with Wall Street. Frank Rich talked about the need for more accountability for Wall Street and the Fed today in the NY Times.  In his column Rich does not relate the problems with both to Hellenism, but he does point out that guys like Alan Greenspan sound very Greek: none of this is my fault!


One reason accountability is important is to get history right.  If no one is held accountable for their actions the bad guys will try to spin their way out of the blame, witness what Greenspan and Robert Rubin told investigators last week.


And look at Virginia declaring April 'Confederate History Month' without talking about slavery.  The apologists for the Civil War keep talking about states rights instead of slavery - or the more elemental fact that the south did not want to be part of the US, the nation of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. They chose to defend and fight for slavery and reject the two greatest documents and ideals ever put to paper, the ideals that define the United States.


But even if slavery never existed, does it make sense to celebrate taking up arms against the American flag and Constitution?  No matter what you were defending, doing that makes you one thing, a traitor.  Why does Virginia (and other states like South Carolina) want to celebrate that?


During Reconstruction the U.S. did hold ex-Confederates accountable; Jefferson Davis for instance was arrested and served two years in prison.  He and other former Confederates where prohibited from running for office or joining the US military.  After 12 years Reconstruction ended (in part to settle the deadlocked presidential election of 1876).  Once Reconstruction ended - and US troops left - the south quickly moved to enact Jim Crow laws and disenfranchise ex-slaves.  Public sentiment in the north was indifferent, so they got away with it.  The U.S. government just gave up on Reconstruction, so I guess in addition to accountability you need persistence.

Planes, Trains, but Mainly Airports

So after weeks of not blogging – too much drill baby drill work, Easter and holy week, spring break, my aunt’s funeral, college basketball, opening day, etc. – my recent odyssey in Chicago has prompted me to post again.

It was a weird 24 hours. I arrived at Washington’s National Airport – ironically our most convenient airport – at 2 pm Eastern Time to catch a 4:30 flight to Chicago on my way to the Bay Area for the Western Wilderness Conference. I will finally arrive (I’m typing this on my flight from Chicago) at the airport in San Francisco 29 hours later.

Here’s my itinerary.

I arrived at National early to do a conference call at 3 pm. But even before getting to the airport my ridiculous trip was interrupted by something serious. While waiting for a Yellow Line train at the Gallery Place Metro stop I learned that a women had been stuck by a train at Mount Vernon Square station in an apparent suicide attempt. She survived and was pulled out from under the train (last I heard) but of course trains were not moving through Gallery Place.

I decided to grab a cab to the airport, and was reminded once again how easy it is to get to National. From Gallery Place it took 11 minutes, so I had plenty of time to go through security – which was hassle free - with time to make my conference call.

The call ended at 4 and boarding for my 4:45 United flight was supposed to start at 4:15 but when I went to the gate it was a mob scene. Due to thunderstorms and winds in Chicago, United’s hub, everything was backed up. We finally boarded our flight around 6 pm, taxied onto the apron of the runway then waited another hour and a half for skies to clear in Chicago. Yadda yadda yadda, I didn’t arrive in Chicago until 9 pm central time, 10 minutes after the last flight from O’Hare had left for San Francisco. Our Sierra Club travel agent rebooked me onto a 6:40 am flight – that I changed to an 8:30 flight - and recommended the airport Hilton. 

But as I tried to change my seat assignment at 7:30 am this morning I learned that that flight was cancelled. After calling United I found out the next direct flight to SFO that had seats was at 2:00.  I was given another center seat, but after saying ‘after all I’ve been through I have to sit in the center?’ the United staffer gave me an aisle seat.

She also gave me a ticket to stand by on a noon flight, a flight I later found out was so overbooked I was 72^nd on the stand by list even though I had checked in almost 5 hours ahead of time.

But the 2 pm flight is working out great. In addition to an aisle seat I was given a ‘Premier’ boarding pass so was able to board with Zone 1 right after first class, and I got to watch ‘Crazy Heart’ as my movie.

Here are some more random musings about this trip:

• On par, O’Hare is not a bad airport to be stuck in. The one huge downside, both of the airport and the airport Hilton, is no free Wi-Fi! Having to pay for Wi-Fi in an airport or hotel is simply an injustice (speaking of injustice, Duke winning the national championship in another one.  Butler deserved to win that game and close out a storybook NCAA tournament, but instead the big, bad right-wing school killed Little Red Riding Hood).

• My iPhone made the lack of Wi-Fi doable. As for O’Hare, some of the terminals themselves are interesting; I like the neon light show in the tunnel between terminals B and C, and there is some nice public art between the United and American terminals, too. There’s also a children’s museum and a nice display about Medal of Honor winner and pilot John O’Hare, the airport’s namesake.  As you can tell, I killed time between breakfast with four works calls and a very long walk around O’Hare.

• Food wise I did okay, too.  Last night there was only a Starbucks open but I found a nice chicken-cheddar sandwich and an excellent granola-blueberry-strawberry yogurt parfait there for dinner. This morning I had an egg and cheese sandwich with hash browns from the Billy Goat Tavern in the ‘Jazz Food Court.’  The Billy Goat is the Greek-owned establishment made famous by John Belushi (cheeburger cheeburger cheeburger, no coke Pepsi), and I got to eat while listening to Miles Davis’ ‘Kind of Blue’ in the background.

• I went back to the ‘Jazz Food Court’ for lunch at the Zoot Diner. I had a decent turkey sandwich but enjoyed my desert of chocolate covered raisins from ‘Nuts on Clark’ better. I’m hoping that both Zoot and Nuts are local, Chicago businesses.

• Oddly enough, when I asked for peanuts or pretzels on the flight to San Francisco they said ‘no.’ Are you allowed to take off without those two foods? Does the FAA know that?

• It’s the midwest so it makes sense, but everyone I talked to at the airport, particularly the United employee who gave me the aisle seat but also the security people to the cashier at Zoot who happily gave me another copy of my receipt, were incredibly nice.

• This may be especially true at a large facility like O’Hare but you seem to run into every single type of human being at the airport. Every continent is represented, you hear dozens of languages, you bump into the abled and disabled, young and old, etc.  The only people I didn’t run into were assholes. 

• One thing that struck me at the ‘Jazz Food Court’ was how many ethnic Chinese were eating the Chinese food. There was a flight leaving for Beijing near by, so by Chinese I don’t mean Chinese-Americans. I kind of assumed Chinese food in the U.S. is a little dumbed down but at least today real Chinese were loving it; maybe it’s more authentic here than I thought.

• As I mentioned I had a ‘Premier’ boarding pass but I still had to board after first and business class.  First class passengers get to walk on an actual red carpet when they board, which seems a little excessive.  First class on a westbound flight seems different. On the east coast, first class is full of serious folks in suits. On this flight there are a number of fat dudes in jeans and sweat pants in first class, many sporting van dykes and sloppy hair cuts.

This trip, along with our problematic flights to and from Athens via Paris last summer, is another reminder to avoid connecting flights whenever possible (which I’m doing on my return flight). So even though National is our most convenient airport I think next time I fly to the ‘fat-guys in first class’ coast I’ll use Dulles (BTW, Alaska Airline has a non-stop to Seattle from National, the Ted Stevens Memorial flight).

Despite all the delays and hassles, I still like to travel. I also finished watching ‘Up in the Air’ on this trip.  At one point George Clooney opines that things like family and responsibility slows you down, and if you slow down you die faster.  Of course, that is completely wrong.  Family, and especially kids, speed up time. And as I found out today traveling like he does in that movie can make time stand still.