danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

This evening concludes one of the busiest weeks at work I can remember.

Pledge drive began last Monday morning, and even in a slow news week pledge is busy. But in a week like this, with at least three major news stories, and one that knocked nearly all others from the headlines, handling the coverage proved challenging, and running a pledge drive become doubly so. Obviously, news takes priority over pledge, so we suspended pledge Monday evening and Tuesday morning. And later in the week, during memorial services for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, and during press conferences, we suspended pledge. Then this morning, when Boston was in a state of lockdown, and NPR (and all TV stations) went wall-to-wall with coverage of the manhunt, we suspended the campaign again.

My week has been a steady stream of All Things Considered run-downs, squawk-channel alerts, and lightning-fast conferences with my work colleagues about how to approach all this. Add in pitching on-air and I am very tired.

When I left work this evening I didn’t think much would happen tonight. By six o’clock it looked liked the lone surviving bombing suspect had evaded capture, and slipped past the dragnet. Miriam and I decided to have a casual dinner at Sandy’s Place, and to our surprise, the TV coverage indicated something was happening. All eyes in the restaurant were glued to the TV. I hadn’t experienced anything like it since the Bronco chase in 1994.

And now one story is over – or at least partly over. There are atill the other stories – still a dozen dead in Texas following an explosion earlier in the week. And who knows what else may happen this weekend? It reminds me of the ancient Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times.

Filed under: Current Events, Work on April 19th, 2013 | No Comments »

As you might expect, I was interested in the United States Postal Service’s announcement yesterday that Saturday delivery of letters will be suspended come August. You might expect that I am outraged, but I am not. I mean, I’d prefer that the USPS continue six-day full-service, but I recognize that this change is needed given the current state of things. What actually upsets me is that Congress has not taken action to remove the unnecessary burden the USPS faces when it comes to pre-payment of retiree benefits. Nearly everyone who looks at the issue recognizes that these pre-payments are the source of the Postal Service’s woes. Absent these unnecessary and unusual pre-payments, the USPS would be entirely solvent.

But what is most upsetting to me, and what causes genuine annoyance, is how the Postal Service is treated in electronic media. I am reading stories that suggest that this is no big deal, and who cares, because nobody sends letters anyway. Indeed, judging from what I read on the internet, mail, books, CDs, and so on are totally outdated technologies that should die already so we can live in a blissful world of tweets and tumblr. This is ridiculous.

The United States Postal Service still delivers tens of billions of pieces of first-class mail each year, and billions more periodicals and bulk-rate items like junk mail. And while dispatch first-class letters is on the decline, shipment of parcels is on the way up, as more people order items online. I personally receive several packages and letters each week. Most other Americans do, too.

I strongly feel that some subjects are poorly covered by the media precisely because those in the media are so unlike the majority of Americans. That is, reporters and bloggers are early-adopters. They are much more connected to technology than most other people, and, in fact, are more connected than most people want to be. While many of us are comfortable paying our bills online, most wouldn’t trade a handwritten birthday greeting to some cheap e-card. And while some people are content to read magazines and books on tablets, and listen to music on iPods, etc., the overwhelming majority prefer physical media. Like, it’s not even close. Now, that doesn’t mean it will always be that way, or that I am putting down people who like their Kindles and MP3s. I’m not. I’m just saying that the same people who are glued to Twitter all day aren’t the best people to write about these kinds of issues.

I believe this Postal Service matter will be resolved. And even if Saturday delivery doesn’t resume, Congress will finally reexamine the facts and address the issue of unnecessary benefit pre-payment, and the United States Postal Service will once again be in the black.

Filed under: Current Events, Technology on February 7th, 2013 | No Comments »

I feel compelled to at least make a small mention of the presidential election held last week – an election that followed a nearly two-year long campaign that appeared to obsess newspapers, radio, television, and the internet, and cost perhaps a billion dollars. That last part may not even be an exaggeration.

For the record, I am not unhappy about the outcome of this election. But for those who are, and for everyone who is troubled by the ideological divide in the United States (and I count myself in that group), I offer my take on what is needed to return us to something approaching reasonable political discourse.

1. First, all states should have open primaries. Anyone, whatever his party affiliation, can vote for the nominees for each party. This would instantly end the extremism that has taken hold in American politics. True, some “purists” would not like to see their parties nominate candidates who don’t subscribe to all of their respective movements’ positions, but if your guy ends up losing, what good has your “pure” candidate done you? Wouldn’t you prefer to have the winner be a person whom you don’t find completely repugnant? Primaries don’t always produce the most electable candidates. Republicans smarting at their latest losses ought to consider that some of their candidates were astonishingly unelectable*. Mitt Romney, who in his heart of hearts is probably a mostly moderate sort of guy, nevertheless had to run so far to the right to get his party’s nomination, that the positions he assumed during the primaries came back to haunt him, even as he clearly tried to tack back closer to the center.
2. Second, all national races should be publicly funded. The little check box on your 1040 form would be filled in for you. No candidate could solicit or accept outside money. No PACs, no “issue advertising” that supposedly doesn’t endorse specific candidates but really does. But what about free speech? The candidates are free to say whatever they like to whomever will listen. You’re free to go door-to-door and tell all your friends and neighbors. But I don’t see how some rich donor(s) with deep pockets giving unlimited money to elect a candidate does anything other than corrupt those who are elected to public office. So, whether your enemies are the Koch Brothers or the teachers unions, you could rest a little easier knowing that the candidates were not bought and paid-for by special interests.
3. Eliminate the Electoral College. I know all the arguments for it. Some are compelling, others less so. But none, I feel, offsets the truly ravaging effects of a victory going to the popular vote loser. If you were someone untroubled by George W. Bush’s election, ask yourself how you would have felt had Romney won the popular vote this time around while still losing badly in the Electoral College. I didn’t believe that would happen, but some feared it could, and had it, I suspect there would have been tremendous unrest. And the anger would be justified. It strikes most reasonable people as bizarre that the person receiving the most votes could lose to someone receiving fewer. But that isn’t even the best reason to get rid of the Electoral College (at least not for the purposes of this essay). The best reason is to get candidates to stop focusing on, at most, ten states, leaving the other forty completely left out. Now, perhaps the people of Georgia and Oregon find television much more entertaining without all the political commercials, but when fate of the country hinges on Ohio alone, there’s a problem. Candidates would have to make an effort to familiarize themselves with the issues affecting voters in vastly different parts of the country. It wouldn’t all be about Cubans in Miami, or autoworkers in Ohio.

These three changes, if enacted today, would produce a 2016 presidential election that would be unlike any we have endured in a quarter century. If we do nothing, it’s never going to get better.

*My admittedly partisan, but completely fair analysis of the election is as follows:

While it is true that most people are disappointed that the country hasn’t done better than it has over the past four years, they still preferred sticking with President Obama.

You can believe it was just better marketing on the part of Democrats, but Republicans had just as much money, and, in any event, the Romney campaign believed until election day that it had the superior marketing campaign. So you can believe people like Charles Krauthammer who will tell you that it wasn’t the Republicans’ ideas, but simply the way they presented their message that turned voters off, but Krauthammer was so profoundly wrong in his predictions that I wouldn’t trust him with any future ideas. His advice will only cost Republicans the next election.

You can listen to the people who claim that Republicans lost because they nominated a “Republican in Name Only”, instead of a genuine conservative. Well, it isn’t my place to say who is a “genuine conservative” and who isn’t, but it only stands to reason that if your guy wasn’t conservative enough, he wouldn’t lose to the “most liberal president in history” (a label that is ridiculous, by the way).

Now, some people will tell you that it was all demographic changes, and while changing demographics has something to do with it, it’s not even close to the whole story, and it ignores several important factors. Yes, blacks and Hispanics turned out in pretty big numbers, and they voted overwhelmingly for President Obama. So did homosexuals. So did single women. But blacks and Hispanics and homosexuals and single women are Americans, and like Americans of any stripe, a candidate who wants to win their votes needs to give them something to like. Hard lines on immigration and gay marriage and health care reform are not going to win you those groups. The question you have to ask yourself is, which do I value more, my socially conservative positions, or winning?

A few comments on RedState.com put it well:

It’s not just marketing; it’s much of the actual message from the right that kills us. When will you discover the courage to face the reality that social conservatism is a loser? When will you admit that social conservatism is what causes us to lose elections?

If mainstream Republicans went on TV and said, “My religious beliefs are personal; politically, I believe in separation of church and state”, we could win every election in this country. The left wants to force collectivist, backwards economics on us–and the mainstream right wants to force collectivist, backwards “social policy” on us. You’re both wrong, and for the same reasons–you want to force your goofy beliefs on others. – Libertarius

And another:

I agree that it’s not just marketing and I also agree that social conservatism is an anchor on the core GOP message of smaller government. This isn’t 2004, when gay marriage was a winning issue. Gay marriage happened, the world didn’t end, and support rises every year. It isn’t a matter of IF that plank will be removed, it’s a matter of WHEN. – GremlinJones

Bill O’Reilly can lament it all he wants, but the country is changing. I don’t know anyone my age opposed to marriage equality. I don’t know anyone my age who doesn’t believe in evolution, or that global warming is happening. I don’t know anyone my age who is more afraid of “government-run” healthcare than corporate-run healthcare. I’m not saying these people don’t exist. But I am saying that they are few in number among the younger generation – the present and future voters of America.

Democrats probably no longer need fear Republican candidates who mobilize the Evangelical vote on an anti-abortion/anti-gay/anti-science platform. What Democrats should fear is a Republican candidate who does just what Libertarius proposes. A lot of people like President Obama personally, and clearly most people preferred him to Mitt Romney. But if Mitt Romney hadn’t been so extreme, he would have handily won. Not recognizing this will make winning hard for Republicans moving forward.

Filed under: Current Events, Politics on November 16th, 2012 | No Comments »

Last week I wrote about missing UF student Christian Aguilar. Twelve days after he was last seen alive, he is still missing. No sign of him alive or dead has been found. Ominously, though, authorities have now charged Aguilar’s former friend with first-degree murder. Though police have not revealed details, it is clear that they have information they are not making public, even if that information does not include the whereabouts of Aguilar’s remains. I speculate that state attorneys are presently negotiating a plea deal with the suspect wherein he will reveal the location of the victim’s body in exchange for not seeking the death penalty.

This entire case is nothing but sad.

Filed under: Current Events, Gainesville on October 1st, 2012 | No Comments »

A week ago, an eighteen-year-old University of Florida student went missing in Gainesville and has not been seen since. Things are, alas, looking bleak. Christian Aguilar’s “friend” claims that he dropped the young man off at a parking lot on U.S. 441 following a fight, but police believe Aguilar’s cellphone made its last transmission from a wooded area near the county fairgrounds in northeast Gainesville. Search teams have yet to find any evidence at either location. Ominously, Aguilar’s “friend”—whom police are calling a “person-of-interest”—appears to have purchased duct tape and a shovel recently. Perhaps this means nothing, but it certainly isn’t encouraging. He has been questioned, but is reported to be uncooperative.

Aguilar’s parents are in Gainesville, enduring a living hell. I don’t know how this will all work out, but I fear this story will have an unhappy ending.

Filed under: Current Events, Gainesville on September 27th, 2012 | No Comments »