Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The importance of reading ...

Update: I was actually going to delete this post, because of what Joe says in the comments, but decided to leave it as an emblem of my folly. My ire got in the way of my point, I fear. The ire was caused by the overall superficiality of the "analysis" I heard on the PBS Newshour. The other day, when I was at St. Joe's, I told the students that before you set about trying to figure out or speculate about the meaning of something you have read, it is essential that you be as clear as you can be about what it says. One of the themes of this blog is the nature of discourse. What passes for public discourse in this country has lately tended to ignore this rule. Subjects are talked all around and about without any terms being defined or primary texts quoted. Below, in this post, I quote a key provision in what happens to be at the moment part of the law of the land. No one - not the President, not Congressmen, not news "analysts" - should be allowed to get away with discussing what that provision pertains to without citing said provision. As Orwell pointed out, there is a direct relation between the corruption of a society and the corruption of its language. Words need to be used with care and those of us who care about words are obligated to cry foul when we see them being used perversely. This is not a partisan issue. It is a human issue.
That said, maybe Joe is right. Maybe those of us who find politics in general noisome should confine ourselves to discourse governed by principles of truth, beauty and goodness - and let the Devil take the hindmost.

Last night Debbie was watching, as she always does, the PBS Newshour. I do not watch the PBS Newshour - or any other TV news program - and the only thing I find interesting about the PBS show is Jim Lehrer's extraordinary ability to base a career on an absence of life signs. At any rate, I was in the kitchen and could hear what was being discussed, which was the AIG bonuses. Oddly, the following never came up:

From page H1412 of the Final Stimulus Bill, “SEC. 111. EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE:

'(iii) The prohibition required under clause (i) shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009, as such valid employment contracts are determined by the Secretary or the designee of the Secretary.”


This is, you will note, an excerpt from the stimulus bill recently passed by Congress and signed by the President. At the time it was passed, no copy had been printed, so no one actually read the bill they were voting on. I am not sure if it had been printed by the time the President signed it, but I think it a safe bet that he has not read it, either. Now I don't think it is asking too much of the members of the political class to actually read bills before voting on them. I think the President should read them also before signing them. So none of these windbags should go around feigning outrage when a bill they have not bothered to read, but for some reason decided to enact into law, turns out to have a detail - or several dozen - that embarrasses them.
This amendment to the bill provides an exception for any contractually obligated bonuses agreed upon prior to Feb. 11, 2009. That includes the AIG bonuses the President and members of Congress have been condemning. Well, guess what, Mr. President? The amendment passed, along with the rest of the bill. You signed it, and it is now law.
I should also think it would be useful for people doing news shows on television to get up off their asses and do some research. That way they could provide illuminating facts to their viewers rather than another gaggle of bloviators and their expert opinions.

7 comments:

  1. Many individuals in the media, not functioning as journalists but functioning instead as apologists who believe in political correctness and loyalty to liberalism, are content to parrot politicians' diversionary claptrap about AIG bonuses. The diversion seems to be working since very few (in the media or elsewhere) are demanding that politicians focus instead on the astronomical government spending that threatens to destabilize even further an already imperiled economy and an already corrupted Constitutional republic. With the media and politicians successfully portraying AIG bonuses as immoral and scandalous, the media and politicians are able to avoid taking responsibility for their own immorality and scandals. Will their diversionary claptrap continue to prevail? Will factual, objective reporting be forever lost in the past? Time will tell.

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  2. Anonymous6:30 AM

    Noooo, Frank, nooooooo.

    “O! that way madness lies; let me shun that.”

    Please, please be careful. The insanity of the political world can't leak into here -- resist it -- for this blog isn't devoted to the nonsense that inflames anyone with a conscience.

    Please please keep this blog for all things good and Good -- and far away from the hypocrisy and insanity...

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  3. Anonymous10:58 AM

    Yo Frank,
    I take your point and I must admit I haven't been following this that closely, but I thought part of the problem was that these bonuses were "retention bonuses" which some people took and then promptly left AIG's employ (in some cases to work for AIG competitors who are ready to take advantage of AIG's compromised position of which these now ex-employees have intimate knowledge and which will presumably entitle them to more bonus dough in their new jobs).
    Anyway, I agree about Jim Lehrer and am always dumbfounded at hearing him pronounce his own name at the beginning of the show, "Good evening, I'm Jim Laiaaah." He seems to have never quite got the hang of pronouncing it correctly. There must be a listing for this in the Physicians Desk Reference.

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  4. Well, as the statute reads, if the bonus was contractually arrived at before the prescribed date, it's legal. I also don't know if the people given the bonuses necessarily had any part in AIG's troubles, Not everything went wrong. Some people may have been doing a good job and deserved bonuses. These and other questions are what should be asked and answered if we, the citizenry, are to be informed. Instead, what we get are politicians and pundits grandstanding. A little dispassionate reporting would be nice. And I still don't think we pay people to vote and sign into law bills they have not bothered to read, but you and I are obligated to obey.

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  5. Oh, and Joe, the more I think about it, the more right you seem. "They that you pitch will be defiled," as Dogberry says.

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  6. Anonymous5:37 AM

    I guess some engagement at some level is necessary in case the Devil moves up from the hindmost --- or, in my case, moves up from me…

    What is neat about your Update is at least a couple of things:

    1) You note the fact that the message can be lost through ire, or other distortions. The politicians and pundits can deliver messages well -- but they simply have no foundation in the ultimate Reality the message -- and all messages -- should be based on.

    2) The elimination of non-ire (!?) does indeed eliminate the distortion -- and your update in explaining your point makes your point.

    Interestingly Love is maybe the only delivery "distortion" that enhances a message. A message delivered in Love (and even better with Love as a foundation) is powerful -- so powerful that its exemplar is Divine.

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  7. To the extent that my comments either contributed to or exacerbated the asserted insanity of the conversation, I apologize and withdraw all comments. My excoriation of the political realities was apparently inappropriate.

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