The phony center on gun control

One thing that irks me about the American press is that it invariably likes to present all political news under one narrative: two opposing views that can never be reconciled. If anybody has a strong opinion, they are drowned out of the national debate, save only for those heroic journalists who opine about the "center."

Gun owner Gary Nutt of Kentucky proudly displays the only bullet he needs.

There are several problems with this news motif, but the most striking is that the "centrist viewpoint" put on a pedestal by the news punditocracy is either left or right, and right or wrong. Paul Krugman, for example, has all but devoted his bi-weekly New York Times column to debunking the "centrist" leanings of advocates for deficit reduction.

But that's another story. This weekend, I couldn't help but notice this New York Times story about a Waco, Texas couple who owns guns but doesn't much care for them.

"I'd love to see all guns destroyed," said Michael Kundu. "But I'm not giving mine up first."

The article goes on to explain the Kundu's ambivalence about guns, living in Waco (who wouldn't be afraid their neighbors?) and, here is the kicker: a call to moderation!

"It is these voices of ambivalence," writes Times reporter Susan Saulny, "that policy makers are say are likely to be drowned out."

Guns still poll better than Marco Rubio

To be fair, on the surface, "gun control" appears to be a contentious issue. Ask somebody if he or she believes in gun control, and there is a 50 percent chance that the response will be yes, and a 50 percent chance that the response will be no.

Ah, but one follow up question yields that most Americans do support specific measures to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and limit the deadly power that guns can inflict on innocent people, to "control" guns, if you will. 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks on gun purchases, 65 percent support a ban on high capacity magazines, and 55 percent support a comprehensive assault weapons ban.

90. 65. 55. These are all clear majorities. A presidential candidate hasn't received a popular vote total of 55 percent since Ronald Reagan in 1984. I wonder what he had to say about gun control?

"I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen for sporting, for hunting and so forth, or for home defense," said Reagan. "But I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun, is not a sporting weapon or needed for defense of a home."

I'm sure if Ronnie were still alive today, he would have much more to say on the subject, since he was, you know, shot. Things like that tend to put someone not to the "center" of some abstract debate, but in the column of those who believe in statistically proven measures to reduce gun violence. How could anybody fancy themselves a news "reporter" on the subject gun control and overlook Gabby Giffords?

And that's the bottom line. The voices of gun owners who call for restrictions on who can own a gun, and what guns should be available to the general public, are not "extremists." These are generally sensible people. Perhaps one reason why Ms. Saulny thought it would be hard to find gun owners who support these restrictions is because none other than the New York Times reported that gun ownership is in the throes of a steep, steady decline for the last four decades.

Sounds like a new rule from Bill Maher: In order to report the news, one must read it first.

The case of the New York Times and the too-hot-to-trot Tesla.

It's fast. It's beautiful. It's Motor Trend's 2013 Car of the Year.

The Model S: Fast, fun, and I'm willing to bet, reliable.

Stylish. Sexy. Pretty. And Practical. 265 Miles on a single charge. Seats Five, emits zero. If I ever feel so inclined as to buy a car again, it may be a Tesla. Nearly every person privileged to get behind the wheel of one these things is blown away by its power, it's finesse, and its practicality.

Until last week's "review" about the Tesla Model S in the New York Times. In case you missed it, in"Stalled on the E.V. Highway," John Broder writes about freezing temperatures, misleading battery information, and a car that just doesn't wan't to drive very far or very long.

In less time than it takes a Tesla Roadster to go from zero to sixty miles an hour, Tesla CEO Elon Musk cried foul. Unbeknowst to Times reporter Broder, Tesla has a little black box that records the drivers every action. Needless to say, what Broder said didn't match up with the details on the black box.

So who are we left to believe in this fiasco? Is the New York Times, a publication not known for its automotive reporting, making a fair call here? Or is Elon Musk fabricating information to save his image before his public persona bursts into flames like rear-ended Ford Pinto?

As someone who has lived along the "Electric Highway" for the better part of three decades, I feel uniquely suited to offer my own analysis into the situation.

During Broder's odyssey, he writes that he is stranded with virtually zero battery power in Groton, Connecticut. He says he had intended to drive to New York City, with a stop in Milford, Connecticut to recharge.  What was Broder to do?"

Finally! A car faster than Wayne LaPierre's mouth!

"The Tesla people found an E.V. charging facility that Norwich Public Utilities had recently installed," wrote Broder. "Norwich . . . was only 11 miles away, though in the opposite direction from Milford."

Stop right there. I know my cardinal directions, and I know my Connecticut towns. Norwich is north of Groton; Milford, to Groton's west. North and west are not opposites. That should be obvious.

And Norwich isn't exactly an inconvenient detour from Groton. Norwich is a railroad and highway hub for Southeastern Connecticut, which is probably why Tesla chose to put a charging station in that town. Once the car was recharged, I-395 conveniently allows any driver from all points south and east to "backtrack," as I-395 forms the hypotenuse of a high-speed roadway right tringle. Instead of heading south back towards Groton, the driver is headed Southwest towards Milford, linking up with I-95 in East Lyme.

Dude, why do you have so much trouble driving your car?

I can understand being confused about adapting to a car with an all-electric fuel source and drivetrain, but confusing basic directions like east and west? 

But that's just me talking. Perhaps the best question comes from another New York Times reader, who wonders why Broder didn't have any problems with the Model S after re-charging in Milford.

Broder doesn't answer, but it appears that one of three responses could accurately describe the situation:

a) The Model S got better . . . by magic!
b) Broder learned how to better drive the Model S.
c) Broder had made his a point about his preconceived distaste for the Model S, and wanted to get home as quickly as possible. 

I'm guessing C. I'm going with countless reviews from other automotive sources, Elon Musk's previous success in the electronic industry, and my own, Connecticut born-and-raised common sense. It's a great car.

What do you think?

Someone needs to tell the Grey Lady there is no Room for Debate

Arg. Deprived of one my main sources for news, I finally buckled and paid the damn subscription fee for the New York Times. In spite of how often I criticize it, The Times is still a reasonably good news source more often than not, particularly offering more depth than other news outlets. And I like Paul Krugman, and their Travel Section, and the fact that they police their own comment boards so that the discussions generated actually enhance, rather than obscure meaning.

And then I see something that makes me cringe because it is virtually no value to the reader and producer of news alike.

One of the web-exclusive features of the Times is a somewhat slapdash "Room for Debate" opinion "thing." I really don't know what to call it--other than garbage. I say this because on the subjects the Times chooses, there is absolutely no room for debate among sane, thinking individuals. Basically, some editor for the paper selects a few people of expertise and they write a few paragraphs on a given subject of "debate."

The most recent exercise in this debacle was military spending. Some nameless editor simply phrased the question as follows:

Annual military spending has risen more than 70 percent in inflation-adjusted terms since 2001. With the drive to reduce the deficit, the current $700 billion Pentagon budget is considered by budget cutters to be a good place to find savings.
Which areas of the Pentagon budget should Leon Panetta, the next defense secretary, target for savings? What kinds of spending could most easily be cut back? How big a peace dividend might be expected from withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan?

The debate should have been settled last week when an elite team of Navy Seals--not a military force of 100,000 soldiers--killed Osama bin Laden and made off with a virtual truckload of Al-Qaeda information. And for seven of the eight online "debaters," it was. One could read seven different iterations of the same theme: remove American soldiers from large commitments overseas and stop spending a literal fortune on cold-war era programs. I could read this from the perspective of a retired military colonel, A university professor of international relations, a history professor (you know, to mix it up a little bit), a "Lecturer" at Harvard University, an MIT research scientist, and even the Koch brothers funded Cato Institute research fellow. Oh, and Ronald Reagan's Assistant Secretary of Defense. When people of opposing political perspectives agree with each other, that's not debate. That's agreement. The lone outlier in this discussion was Mackenzie Eaglen of the ultra-right wing Heritage Foundation. Her proposal was Donald Rumsfeld's failed policy with her name on it: more troop presence, more money for weapons programs, coupled with pay cuts for soldiers and outsourcing tasks to civilian personnel. Yeah, like that saved money.

Maybe the New York Times can do a little cost-cutting of its own and eliminate this stupid "debate" forum and just report on the facts. The headline and sub-head might read as follows: "Experts across the political spectrum call for reduction in military spending, Heritage Foundation still mired in its own web of delusion.

Just a thought.

The mural asked for it!!

Conservatives loathe the New York Times as a bastion of Marxist doctrine. Liberals often confuse the paper's generally good reporting as a consistent source of objective reporting. On a day like today, one can easily see that both are wrong.

Times reporter Steven Greenhouse took notice of Maine Governor's Paul LePage's most recent outlandish behavior. LePage recently took exception to a mural depicting workers in the state's Department of Labor Office as being pro-union propaganda. Of course, this is absurd, as one can judge simply by reading Greenhouse's article.

If you squint, you can see Vladimir Lenin!

Pointing out that LePage acts like a cartoonish moron isn't hard to do: This tax cheat "won" election with a whopping 38.2 percent off the vote in November, and has taken his 9,000 vote margin of victory as a clear mandate ever since. But that's not the issue here.

The headline of the article is a passive sentence. It reads: "Mural of Maine's Workers Becomes Political Target." How exactly did it "become" a political target? Who, outside of the John Birch Society, would see a painting of a shoemaker, a lumberjack, Rosie the Riveter and striking paper mill workers as pro-union? Half of those professions predate workers unions! And Rosie the Riveter? Has LePage no decency? (That's a rhetorical question. Obviously, he does not).

Aside from the fact that passive sentences are grammatically incorrect, the headline gives the impression that Paul LePage is merely passive in attacking this artwork as "pro-union propaganda." Apparently, he saw a rendition of the iconic Rosie the Riveter and couldn't help but scream "Communism!"

The problem is not with artwork but with LePage himself. To say otherwise would be akin to writing: "attractive women in skirts invite themselves to sexual assault." If the Times were to run that headline, the public would rightly excoriate the editorial judgment of running such a headline--regardless as to the content of the article.

Women do not "invite" themselves to sexual assault anymore than this particular mural "invites" itself to political controversy. And I'm willing to bet that a good reporter like Greenhouse didn't write this awful headline--that was probably done by an editor for the paper. Perhaps this editor didn't want to appear biased, but let's face it, calling LePage an anti-union shmuck who will stop at nothing in his pursuit of attacking worker's rights isn't biased--it's objective reporting based on facts. And if by some reason this is spelled out in the headline, then so be it.

*Although somewhat tangential,  fans of art and/or history can't help but be reminded of Diego Rivera's lost mural, "Man at the Crossroads." Nelson Rockefeller contracted the great muralist to paint a huge mural at Radio City Music Hall, then objected because Rivera included Vladimir Lenin in the mural. Unable to reach an agreement with Rivera, the mural was destroyed. Why? Would anyone have seen the mural and said, "wow, Nelson Rockefeller is a communist? I had no idea!" Certainly no one outside the John Birch Society!